Education – R&R – Reachout and Rebuild

Race, Police, Education and Lies: The New Right-Wing Culture War

David Posnett — Sat, 08 May 2021 18:53:54 +0000

May 6, 2021

By Barbara Weber-Floyd reprinted from “The Resistance and Me“

This is the story of how our inability to confront our racist history is fueling a right-wing misinformation campaign against our schools, resulting in contentious, partisan school board elections in district after district around the country.

School board elections tend to be low turnout, non-partisan events. But for many districts, this year is different. On Long Island where I live, one of those races is taking place in the Smithtown Central School District. Three challengers are trying to unseat the incumbents who are up for reelection on May 18^th in a campaign unlike any school board election Smithtown has ever seen.

As in other districts, the opposition to the Smithtown school board began last year because of COVID. In some districts, parent protests were sparked by opposition to mask mandates. In Smithtown, it was opposition to a hybrid COVID modification plan of part in-classroom and part remote learning for the 2020-21 school year that set off protests. Under the slogan, “5 Days to Thrive”, meaning that all children needed to be back in school five days a week to thrive, a group of parents protested against the hybrid model. https://longisland.news12.com/smithtown-parents-continue-to-demand-their-kids-be-allowed-to-return-to-school-5-days-a-week-42529542

This was before vaccines and when the CDC was still recommending six feet between desks. The only way to achieve that was to have half the usual number of children in the classroom at any given time. The schools had moved from all remote learning at the beginning of the lockdown to the hybrid model last fall, just like the vast majority of schools in Suffolk County, but these protesting parents claimed that the board wasn’t trying hard enough to bring their children back full time. They did not view the decision as being in good faith. They claimed it was a conspiracy between the board and the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) to favor teachers over students.

This past spring, all students came back full time, with almost all teachers and staff being vaccinated and new CDC guidelines. But that did not quiet the protests or the spread of misinformation. They evolved from COVID to the right’s newest boogeyman, critical race theory (CRT). If you are not a consumer of Fox News and other right-wing media, where it has been a major focus for years, you probably never heard of CRT until recently. I know I had not.

Last month, Newsweek focused on states, such as Idaho, passing laws banning CRT from their schools. Below is an excerpt from that article:

Kendall Thomas, a law professor at Columbia University and co-editor of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, told Newsweek: “CRT maps the nature and workings of ‘institutional racism.’ CRT challenges us to see that racial injustice in America is not, and has never been, just a problem of isolated instances of individual bias and private prejudice which we can solve by enacting ‘color-blind’ laws and policies.”

He added, “The right-wing weaponization of CRT aims to shut down a difficult but necessary conversation about race, racism and the future of democracy in America. The architects of these anti-CRT laws want Americans to stop talking about institutional racism, even if it means trafficking in the reckless politics of racial division they say they oppose.”

https://www.newsweek.com/what-critical-race-theory-why-do-some-want-ban-1587389

The Washington Post published a lengthy article this week about the CRT controversy under the headline, “As schools expand racial equity work, conservatives see a new threat in critical race theory.” It opens with the following sentence: “The nation’s reckoning over race has reached thousands of U.S. schools, and so, too, has a conservative backlash.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/03/critical-race-theory-backlash/

Michelle Goldberg, in a May 3^rd column in The New York Times, entitled, “Why the Right Loves Public School Culture Wars,” wrote, “The Christian Coalition took off during Bill Clinton’s presidency, when the religious right engaged locally because it felt shut out of national power. Clearly some conservatives think that opposition to critical race theory could be the seed of something similar. Telling parents that liberals want to make their kids hate their country and feel guilty for being white might be absurd and cynical. It also looks like it might be effective.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/opinion/public-school-culture-wars.html

I read all the articles. I understood what the right hoped to gain from weaponizing the fears of their base. But I still did not understand why CRT, in and of itself, was controversial. The country was founded on protecting slavery, a Civil War was fought over it and Jim Crow was a Supreme Court sanctioned system of apartheid. Of course, we have systemic racism. Is it better than it was? No one is claiming it isn’t. But to deny that systemic racism still exists in our institutions seems, to me, to require a willful blindness.

As Charles Blow, columnist for The New York Times explained in a column this week, entitled,” Is America Racist?”, “Some will concede the historical point and insist on the progress point, arguing that was then and this is now, that racism simply doesn’t exist now as it did then. I would agree. American racism has evolved and become less blunt, but it has not become less effective. The knife has simply been sharpened. Now systems do the work that once required the overt actions of masses of individual racists.” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/02/opinion/america-racism.html

One sign of just how charged this issue has become was my inability to convince anyone I spoke to about the Smithtown school board race to go on the record. People supporting the incumbent school board members only felt comfortable speaking to me on background. They were too afraid of being targeted if their names were used. People aligned with the challengers refused to speak to me at all.

When was the moment that the Smithtown parent protests morphed from focusing on COVID to the school board race and CRT? The earliest sign I found was a website called Save Our Schools that went online the end of last year. You might remember the Save Our Schools phrase from a movement a few years ago that supported higher pay for teachers and more equity in public education. This new SOS website had nothing to do with that movement, other than appropriating the name. It was filled with inflammatory rhetoric and accusations that sounded a lot like McCarthy-era fearmongering:

Critical Race Theory was polished in the 1950s and by the time the counterculture phenomena exploded in the 1960s with postmodernism’s entrance into the world’s philosophical framework in the 1970s, it had become a guiding manifesto for action by radical elements like the terrorists at the Black Panther Movement. Today, its contemporary offspring, Black Lives Matter (BLM) along with its symbiotic associate, Antifa, continue the “war of liberation”. https://saveourschools.me/knowledge-is-power/

It was in the downloadable newsletter on the website that I first saw this issue tied to the police. The newsletter is organized under the following section titles: “HOW DO WE SHIELD STUDENTS AGAINST CRT? PROTECTING THE BLUE SO THEY CAN PROTECT YOU. HOW BOE RACES TURNED INTO DO OR DIE ELECTIONS.” https://saveourschools.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Save-Our-Schools-April_2021_v2.pdf

I came across an earlier newsletter that was circulating on social media, but was no longer on the website. This one specifically tied the three school board challengers to the SOS website. One of the challengers, Stacy Murphy, is the parent who spoke during the 5 Days to Thrive protests. Below are screenshots of that three-page earlier newsletter.

The website and the newsletter were not the only sources online. Partisan groups started posting about it on social media, all of them spreading the same misinformation about CRT and the school district. They included: Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin, who represents Smithtown, and has announced he is running for governor of New York next year; a fringe group of the Smithtown Republican Party; and the Suffolk Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the police union.

It was highly unusual for any organization, other than NYSUT, to endorse school board candidates. It was particularly upsetting for some residents to see the police union get involved. One Suffolk PBA post went so far as to name a Smithtown teacher and labeled him anti-police because he had signed an online Black Lives Matter petition against having armed policemen, as opposed to security guards, in the school. The PBA used this one teacher as their example of the school’s war on police, which could be stopped only by voting for the three challengers.

I called up the Suffolk PBA and asked for the press office. I stated that I am a journalist with an online blog and I was working on an article about the Smithtown School Board election. I had two questions. Why was the police union getting involved and could you please take down the post that named the teacher? Given the climate, it felt dangerous to me. I was told that the teacher’s social media post was public and therefore fair game. He then said he had no comment for my article and hung up the phone.

I reached out to the three challengers’ campaign through their Facebook page and asked them for an interview. I posed the same question, asking why was the police union getting involved? They did not respond.

The Smithtown BOE tried to remain positive and stick with an upbeat campaign for the three incumbents running for reelection. I shared their virtual postcard on Facebook. The postcard features the incumbents’ accomplishments and the text that accompanied it reminded residents to vote on May 18^th for a board that had shown their support for public education.

But by this time, the anti-CRT messages were going viral on social media. In public and private Facebook groups, heated discussions were taking place for and against CRT, even though there was no evidence that critical race theory was even taught in the Smithtown schools. At the recent school board meetings, the challengers’ supporters were loud and confrontative. It seemed to take the board, which had only just come back to in-person meetings, by surprise. Recordings of the meetings are on the BOE website. http://www.smithtown.k12.ny.us/boardofeducation/board_meeting_audio.

It became clear that the board needed to address the misinformation powering the challengers’ campaign head on. They released the following letter to all Smithtown residents, in both an email and on the district’s public Facebook page.

How astonishing that a school board needed to publicly explain what they were not doing. Will the letter be enough? There is one more school board meeting, on May 11^th, for them to make their case to the public and for parents to ask more questions. The more people understand what is driving this challenge, the more they can make an informed decision. While Smithtown is a conservative-leaning community, a Republican stronghold, I highly doubt they want school board members influenced by misinformation and conspiracies making decisions about the welfare of the teachers and students in their school system.

And for the rest of us, we need to keep a close eye on this new right-wing dog whistle and how it is being employed. In 2009, the Tea Party ran a racially charged misinformation campaign against the first African American president and the passing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Then, their dog whistles were “birtherism” “death panels” and “socialism.” They successfully rode that campaign back to power, taking back the House in the 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. I have no doubt that is the intent here.

A Lesson from Kentucky

David Posnett — Thu, 07 Nov 2019 00:20:56 +0000

Francesca Rheannon <rheannon05@gmail.com> writes:

Declaring #kygov election over with a 5,000-plus margin, Gov.-elect Andy Beshear appoints transition team chair and looks forward, as Bevin questions results.

Kentucky Democrats did not win the Governors race by launching esoteric attacks on Bevin about the norms and guardrails of Democracy or lofty ideals like freedom of the press even though Bevin is probably even more hostile to the press than Trump. They did it by staying lightning focused on the way that Bevin had hurt working class families.

Being back in the state was a big reminder for me about how non DC/NYC elites talk about politics. Just listen in this piece to how Teamsters Local 783 President John Stovall describes Trump. It’s way more effective than the Ukraine/Russia/norms and guardrails handwringing that you are hit over the head with here.

Krystal Ball@krystalball

When I was in Kentucky, I asked Teamsters Local 783 President John Stovall about how his members felt about Trump. The way he talks about it is soooo much more effective than national dems/media.

Stovall says that: His members who supported Trump are “starting to see that (the rhetoric) is not true. What he’s done is he’s hurt the middle class and lower income and his tax credits and all that have benefited the rich.” Simple. Straightforward. Connected to people’s lives. Not contempt-filled, judgey or condescending.

New polls this week of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have shown that Trump is in position to win the Electoral College again. Dems shouldn’t use this Kentucky victory as an excuse to feel like everything is going fine with their impeachment strategy and national messaging, instead they should use it as an opportunity to learn from this “red state” that unexpectedly turned blue on the back of a working class populist backlash.

Spring is Looking Up. March 15 #FridaysForFuture, April 4-23 #DrawdownEcoChallenge

David Posnett — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:46:40 +0000

Climate March, Washington DC, April 2017

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Students at the Climate March in Washington, DC, April 2017

March 15th. The Ides of March, notable to the ancient Romans for settling debts, as a holy day when sheep were sacrificed, and of course, a day to beware, as a seer warned Julius Cesar.

What is this year’s prophecy?

Does it appear in hastags? #FridaysForFuture, #ClimateStrike, #SchoolStrike4Climate, #WhateverItTakes.

Or on twitter? “The youth are rising and they want their future back” wrote a GreenPeace campaigner. Or in the forecasting of 16 year old Greta Thunberg, “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.”

Read all about it, and listen to some very articulate kids, all ages, talk about why they are protesting by skipping school in Playing hooky to save the climate: why students are going on strike, Greta Thunberg’s #FridaysforFuture movement has inspired kids in dozens of countries to demand action on climate change by Umair Irfan of VOX. https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18233206/greta-thunberg-student-school-strike-climate-change

I am pleased, thrilled really, that students are transforming into climate activists, organizing with social media, putting skin in the game, so to speak, demonstrating their commitment and facing possible school (and parental?) punishment — spotlighting the urgent need for us to all act now.

I hope to encourage parents of school children to say what Greta’s mom and dad said to her a year ago when she started waving her protest sign in front of the Swedish parliament on Fridays: as your parents we don’t approve of your skipping school to protest, it is illegal, and against school rules, but we won’t stop you. (They, in fact, as a family, have made healthy carbon-free changes in their food, land-use, energy and transportation choices.)

The school strike has been debated in our Drawdown East End meetings, causing near arguments. As of now our Friday workshops at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton have ended. But we continue to organize around ways we can use Paul Hawken’s Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming as a framework to promote the most effective, suitable, and economically beneficial opportunities for our communities and our families.

I admit, I’m a bit nervous thinking that the first public thing we do, what we might become known for, is advocating school strikes, rather than our in-the-works mission statement: igniting, inspiring and assisting our communities in taking action on climate change, with its cascading economic, health, and security benefits.

So I asked “shouldn’t we get some parents on board if we’re going to go public and advocate this?” “We can’t wait! The whole point is no one is listening, but they will listen to the kids” came the cry back at me.

I’m thinking of Greta who gave a TED-talk last year recounting when she was 11: she stopped eating, lost weight, sunk into depression, was unable to attend school, after she learned about irreversible global warming and saw nothing being done, only denial. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, she now only speaks about critical issues, climate is #1, and in black-and-white terms. Thus “we can’t change the world by playing by the rules, the rules have to be changed.” Could this be a foretelling?

What I love about the discussions we’ve been having at Drawdown East End is they are so positive, impact-driven and can-do. We are learning through Drawdown about the best practices and technologies that are already working to substitute, conserve and even sequester CO2 emissions. The 100 top solutions are offered as an invitation to build, innovate and effect our change to a renewable energy future with cleaner air, better health, more involved communities, and a humming economy.

For Greta and her #SchoolStrike4Climate I’ll be positive and impact-driven, too. I will enthusiastically support #FridaysForFuture. And I will also ask:

Why not march to change your school into a climate-ready school through culture and curriculum?

Why not pledge to do something every day, personally, with your family, friends, school, community to reverse global warming?

Why not petition your school to implement a Drawdown curriculum? drawdown.org

Here are some great resources:

1) Climate Change Connection What Your School Can Do https://climatechangeconnection.org/resources/climate-friendly-schools/what-to-do/

2) The EPA’s What You Can Do at School https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange/what-you-can-do-school_.html

3) UNESCO’s Getting climate-ready: a guide for schools on climate action https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000246740

Maybe you have a resource or best practice you’d like to share?

And, finally, April 4th-23rd. A free, fun, friendly challenge to join — individually, with friends, as a family, as a class, as a school.

The 21-day international Drawdown EcoChallenge is a free competition and educational program focusing on carbon reduction actions we can all take. It starts April 4 and already over 2,000 people on 400+ teams have signed up.

We invite you to join our local team, Drawdown East End.

To register: https://drawdown.ecochallenge.org/teams/drawdown-east-end

For more information on Drawdown East End contact: DrawdownEastEnd@gmail.com

Being Drilled for Armed Killer Opening Kindergarten Door

David Posnett — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 20:36:00 +0000

By Charline Spektor (with permission). She was the owner of Bookhampton stores and is now a Grandma.

My grandson began public school kindergarten a few weeks ago. He is so excited, and he comes home to tell “the best thing that happened today.” The other night at dinner he began: “Today in school we had a drill. It’s called lockdown. I thought it was lockup but it’s lockdown.”

None of us moved. And he continued. “We’re getting ready for a bad person who can come in and want to hurt us. The drill is you have to listen. That’s the drill. Listen. Don’t talk. Go into the closet. You have to go into the closet. If you don’t fit in the closet you have to go into your cubby. And you can’t say anything. And there can be a lot of noise. Close your eyes. Don’t say anything. Even if you have to pee. That’s okay. The drill is you don’t move, you don’t talk. Until someone comes to say you’re safe.”

My grandson just turned five. He is the most beautiful, wondrous gift on earth, as are all of our children, precious to us beyond words. As he told us about the lockup, lockdown drill, my daughter pressed her fingers into my hand: Don’t speak, don’t cry. And my daughter-in-law said, “Angel baby, you are such a good listener, I am so proud of the way you know how to listen. Did you go into the closet?” My grandson nodded. And then he said, “Ahma, did you ever have a drill like that? The kind where you had to be ready for someone bad to come in? Talk about it.”

Talk about it? Talk about what it means that we have created a gun-loaded society where sociopaths can be armed and murder children in school? Talk about what it means that children in kindergarten are being prepared for murder? Talk about the teachers who are teaching how to hide from bad people with guns, preparing children to be assaulted by people who have guns. Murderers with murderous intent who have guns.

I want to ask every single person I know: is this what you want for our children? Do you want our children having lockdown drills? Why didn’t we have lockdown drills? Because gun money was not controlling our country and our politics. Our childhood was not awash in the nightmare of gun-holding murderers. And yes, it is political. And yes, we have been sold and played, and our children’s lives have been put at risk.

We cannot afford to be silent for one more minute. I sat silent as my grandson told me the truth: This is what we have allowed our country to become, a freak show of random violence.

Talk about it? I wanted to say please forgive me. Forgive us.

The cash-and-carry politics of this country corrupted our moral intelligence. Our communities of silence have failed our children. We are facing a midterm election, and one of the remaining opportunities to speak up. Lee Zeldin co-sponsored a bill that permits concealed weapons to be carried in New York. When Zeldin sold out to the gun lobbies, he kicked open the door to the assault of our children.

Who the hell is responsible for my small grandchild being drilled for the day that an armed killer opens his kindergarten door? It’s political. I am voting against Lee Zeldin. I am voting for Perry Gershon.

Courage. Vote for our children. VOTE GERSHON. Please share.

Thank you,

Charline

William Floyd’s Top Two Students

David Posnett — Mon, 21 May 2018 16:43:34 +0000

Found this great story from 5/17/2018, by RANDALL WASZYNSKI, in the Long Island Advance – thanks for tip, Marc Rauch.

A Latina and a Pakistani get the honors at Lee Zeldin’s old high school. I am still waiting to see a congratulatory note from LZ!

Congressman Lee Zeldin grew up in Suffolk County, New York, where he graduated from William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach.

Here is what you can do: post a comment on one of his Facebook pages with a link to the article in the Long Island Advance. Something like this:

https://www.facebook.com/LeeMZeldin

https://www.facebook.com/RepLeeZeldin/

Story By: RANDALL WASZYNSKI
5/17/2018

The William Floyd School District is pleased to announce its 2018 valedictorian and salutatorian, who anticipate graduation in June. Both are heavily involved in the National Honor Society. Valedictorian Asma Asghar serves as a co-president of NHS and saluatorian Michelle Lara is vice president.

Valedictorian: Asma Asghar

Finishing at the top of her class, Asghar has secured a 102.36 weighted grade point average as a first-generation American, moving from Pakistan to Shirley in fifth grade. She has an older brother studying engineering, who graduated from William Floyd, and a second younger brother in the district.

Asghar will be studying neuroscience at Barnard College and aspires to continue that discipline or other options within the medical field. She has been conducting research as an advanced research student at William Floyd High School and is president of Stony Brook Science and Technology Entry Program, which is dedicated to encouraging and preparing more underrepresented minority and low-income high-school students for entry into scientific, technical, health and health-related careers.

“Just like with the research and with Stony Brook STEP, [William Floyd has] been very supportive in providing a lot of opportunities, where we can go to Brookhaven National Lab and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory,” Asghar said.

After completing school, Asghar aspires to volunteer in countries in need of medical camps and would like to be a part of setting up those camps.

“Over here, we have affordable healthcare compared to other developing countries,” she said. “So I would like to use that knowledge to help other places in the world and other people.”

Asghar has served the William Floyd community along several avenues of community service, including Relay for Life for Breast Cancer Awareness, Thanksgiving food drives, and tutoring.

She sees her tutoring of students learning English as their second or third language as most notable, since she was an ENL student herself. Asghar is fluent in four languages, including English, Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi.

Salutatorian: Michelle Lara

Lara has earned a 101.20 weighted grade point average and has been named the salutatorian of her graduating class. She is also a first-generation American and, along with six other William Floyd students, was honored by the Town of Brookhaven Hispanic Advisory Board in November.

Lara says her greatest achievement is receiving acceptance to Harvard University, where she plans to study biology. She said that the application process was tough in that she had to teach herself.

“I don’t really have any family with the experience of going to college,” Lara said. “It was great to have that hard work and a bunch of research that went into it pay off.”

Lara aspires to become a neurosurgeon though is not ruling out other medical-field ventures.

She has been heavily involved in the music community through her time at William Floyd, serving as vice president of both the symphonic orchestra and jazz band. Playing piano, violin and percussion, Lara also took part in chamber orchestra, pit orchestra and wind symphony. She also participated in NYSCAME All-County Band and NYSBDA High School Honor Concert Band. Lara plans to continue being in orchestras and jazz bands in the future.

“Music has always been somewhere I can call home,” she said. “The music faculty [at William Floyd] is so supportive, and I’ve always found it to be a welcoming and enriching community.”

Lara also participated in girls varsity cross country and girls track and field for three years.

Sonic Sea

David Posnett — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:18:24 +0000

On Long Island we are witness to a series of beached whales and dolphins (same family as whales). This is not new. I have previously blogged about it.

There are some newer reports and many older reports. This week there was a report in the East Hampton Star: Four Dolphins Dead in 10 Days.

More often than not, the cause is unknown.

Now there is an award winning documentary about the impact of industrial and military ocean noise on whales and other marine life! A must see.

It tells the story of a former U.S. Navy officer who solved a tragic mystery and changed the way we understand our impact on the ocean. The film is narrated by Rachel McAdams and features Sting, in addition to the renowned ocean experts Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr. Paul Spong, Dr. Christopher Clark, and Jean-Michel Cousteau.

Sonic Sea was produced by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Imaginary Forces in association with International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Diamond Docs.

Help bring awareness of the issue to classrooms across the country. Email allie@rocofilms.com to gift the film and its study guide to your alma mater or your children’s school.

I’m thrilled to tell you that NRDC’s (Natural Resource Defense Council) Sonic Sea just won Emmy awards for Outstanding Nature Documentary and Outstanding Music and Sound.

What a thrill — especially because these wins will help drive even more attention to the urgent plight of whales and other marine life that depend on sound for their survival.

I hope you feel as proud as I do of this groundbreaking film that simply couldn’t have been created without the support of NRDC leadership supporters like you. And I hope you’ll join us in celebrating by watching the film for free by creating a Vimeo account and applying the promo code SONICSEE.

You can learn more about the film in the message below. Thank you!

Daniel Hinerfeld

DeVos to revamp Obama-era schools sexual assault policy

David Posnett — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 21:10:02 +0000

POLITICO

By BENJAMIN WERMUND 09/07/2017 12:20 PM EDT

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the Trump administration will revamp the guidance through a rule-making process that likely will take months. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said Thursday that she will replace an Obama-era schools directive on sexual assault in an attempt to balance the rights of victims and the accused.

“The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students,” she said during a half-hour speech at George Mason University, after which she took no questions. “Survivors, victims of a lack of due process and campus administrators have all told me that the current approach does a disservice to everyone involved.”

But the announcement drew howls of protest from womens’ groups and victims advocates, who said DeVos was making a false equivalence between victims and the accused.

“Schools are not getting it right sometimes — both for accused students and survivors,” said Neena Chaudhry, director of education at the National Women’s Law Center. “But the answer is not to change the law, but to help schools comply with it. Title IX already requires a fair process for both sides.”

The 2011 Obama guidance for the first time pushed school district, college and university leaders to combat sexual harassment, including sexual violence, saying the institutions were required to do so under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination. Women’s groups hailed that as a crucial step in cracking down on sexual violence on campuses. But critics said it trampled the rights of the accused.

The Trump administration will revamp the guidance through a rulemaking process that likely will take months, DeVos said during her speech, in which she blasted the guidance for having “weaponized the Office of Civil Rights to work against schools and against students.” She said the administration will give all sides a chance to offer opinions on how it should move forward.

“We will seek public feedback and combine institutional knowledge, professional expertise and the experiences of students to replace the current approach with a workable, effective and fair system,” DeVos said.

“This is not about letting institutions off the hook. They still have important work to do. ”

The far-reaching 2011 Obama-era guidance, issued in the form of a Dear Colleague Letter, was controversial from the start. It threatened a loss of funding to schools that failed to do enough to make students safe from sexual harassment, assault and rape. Critics said it pushed colleges to trample the rights of the accused. Among other things, the guidance pushed a lower standard of proof in campus disciplinary hearings than is used in criminal trials.

Many of those critics hailed DeVos’ announcement as “a really positive development.”

“I think it was a strong signal from the department that the current approach is unworkable and needs to be changed,” said Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil rights group that brought a court challenge to the 2011 guidance.

Chris Perry, deputy executive director of the group, Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, which represents people accused of sexual assault, said DeVos’ remarks show “the secretary is listening to folks.”

As an interim measure, the Education Department will issue temporary Title IX guidelines for school districts, colleges and universities as it works on a permanent replacement for Obama-era guidelines, agency spokeswoman Liz Hill said.

“The 2011 guidance will be replaced, and in the interim, the department will make clear to schools how to fulfill their current obligations under Title IX,” Hill said. “OCR (the Office for Civil Rights) will work directly with schools to provide support and technical assistance.”

Asked whether the department plans to rescind the 2011 letter before it writes a permanent policy, Hill said “we will not rescind the letter without interim guidelines in place for schools.”

The decision to launch a notice-and-comment process was long expected. DeVos said in July — after a series of meetings with sexual assault survivors, students accused of assault and college officials — that she would overhaul the policy. She told reporters at the time that “it’s clear that there are failings in this process. A system without due process protections ultimately serves no one in the end.”

Advocacy groups — including those representing both sexual assault survivors and students accused of assault — were not invited to attend Thursday’s announcement in person, despite meeting with DeVos on the subject in July.
Instead, DeVos delivered the announcement during a tightly controlled half-hour event at the university’s Arlington, Va., campus, sponsored by the university law school chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative group. Shouts from protesters outside could be heard as she spoke.

Advocates for survivors of sexual assault said they felt they were given short shrift and noted that research has shown false claims of rape are rare. They said DeVos had indicated she would hold similar listening sessions in other parts of the country before making a decision.

Giving them just one meeting with the secretary “feels a little bit like paying lip service to the importance of having survivors in the room,” said Jess Davidson, managing director of End Rape on Campus.

“I think there’s been a really concerning false equivalence of the concerns of survivors and the accused throughout this entire process with the Department of Education,” Davidson said.

Sexual assault survivors rallied outside the university ahead of the announcement, urging DeVos to keep what they see as crucial protections in place.

“It’s really telling us that we don’t matter, that our pain is not relevant to people in power,” said Chessy Prout, 18. Prout said she was assaulted as a high school freshman and subsequently had to change schools.

Advocates slammed the speech afterward. “Don’t be duped by today’s announcement,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. “What seems procedural is a blunt attack on survivors of sexual assault. It will discourage schools from taking steps to comply with the law — just at the moment when they are finally working to get it right. And it sends a frightening message to all students: Your government does not have your back if your rights are violated. This misguided approach signals a green light to sweep sexual assault further under the rug.”

Complicating the issue for DeVos are comments made by her civil rights chief, Candice Jackson, who told The New York Times this summer that 90 percent of sexual assault claims stem from drunken and regretted sex. Another complication is President Donald Trump’s boast about groping women in the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

“Secretary DeVos decided today to continue a pattern of undermining survivors’ rights, once again showing a clear lack of understanding or empathy for the millions of students who have experienced sexual violence on campus,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and ranking member of the Senate education committee, said in a statement.

But her announcement drew praise from at least one Republican lawmaker.

“The Department of Education is taking a positive first step in soliciting comments from stakeholders to get a better understanding of ways to better address the problem,” Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said. “However, this is an issue where Congress must give the Department of Education clear statutory authority to properly regulate.”

Despite the administration’s plan to rewrite rules on Title IX, it’s unlikely that schools will immediately change policies that they spent the last six years writing — and sometimes rewriting — to remain in compliance with federal law.

“No school is going to go back to doing what they were doing before the 2011 guidance,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education.

Trump Just Got Slapped In The Face; Landslide Win For Democrats In Fairfax County Tonight

David Posnett — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 16:16:28 +0000

Posted on Daily Kos

By ursulafaw

Tuesday Aug 29, 2017

“WTF?! The KKK guy didn’t win and the black woman did?”

I wrote a few days ago that Fairfax County Virginia is ground zero in the fight against racism and hate. The invisible line that was drawn there in the wake of nearby Charlottesville was crossed tonight and in not only the Democrats favor but in favor of upstanding and right thinking people everywhere. The polls closed a little over two hours ago on the east coast and Karen Keys-Gamarra, an “arrogant” black woman has officially wiped the floor with her Republican-KKK-endorsed opponent Chris Grisafe, in a race for a school board seat which is about so much more than just a school board seat.

Despite all Republican efforts to win this election by underhanded means, such as having a special election where voter turnout was expected to be extremely low, the usual Republican ploys did not prevail. Four percent turnout was anticipated and the Democrats rallied and raised that figure to ten percent. 62,000 votes were cast, in excess of the 50,000 max figure that was anticipated. Of those votes cast, 41,000 were for Keys-Gamarra and 21,000 for Grisafe. That’s a comfortable margin to win by.

This victory is so sweet for so many reasons. First and foremost, the Democratic candidate is wildly more qualified than the Republican candidate, earning her the endorsement of the Washington Post. The kids now have a real advocate who has pledged to address bullying and other issues of paramount importance in schools today. If that was all this election meant, we would have plenty of cause for celebration on those facts alone.

But this election means so much more. This was the first election in the country post Charlottesville and the fact that the electorate was galvanized to get out the vote and put a fine Democrat in office is not to be taken lightly. A message has been sent to Washington and not via Western Union. If Donald Trump and the GOP don’t get it, then we’ll just have to keep winning elections until they do get it and “it” is this: America is not going backwards. The blacks are not going back to the ghetto, nor the gays to the closets, nor the disabled to hiding in the shadows, nor all the plans that Donald Trump, David Duke, Richard Spencer and their ilk were rubbing their small hands together about in eager anticipation. It’s not going to happen.

Let’s see if we can keep this ball rolling. The next election in Virginia is November 7 and it is crucial to hold the line, and take back as many as possible of 66 House Delegate seats currently held by Republicans. We can do this if Ralph Northam can be successful in his quest for Governor, along with Justin Fairfax as Lt. Governor and Mark Herring (the incumbent Attorney General, running for re-election.)

It’s only appropriate to give a shout out to two key Democrats who made this happen, Karen Keys-Gamarra’s campaign manager Peter Dougherty, and 90 for 90’s Dr. Fergie Reid, Senior. These good people, along with hard working Democrats all over the country made this happen. We did this.

This is democracy in action, folks. This is what it is all about. The Republicans literally were running a white supremacist candidate, endorsed by the local Klan and the Democrats said, “Uh uh,” and did a thumbs down. This is the first of many races which are going to go thumbs down for the Republicans. It won’t take many thumbs down in the coliseum before Republicans look to abandon Emperor Trump altogether for their own survival.

Now is when the fun begins. Let’s see if Kellyanne Conway mentions this. She was so quick to jump on the marginal victory of Karen Handel over Jon Ossoff in Georgia and proclaim that that election “proved” that the people wanted Donald Trump and, by extension, his dysfunctional administration. Let’s see if she can spin something positive out of a resounding defeat like this one.

And never, ever underestimate the position of school board member. The school boards are the first line of defense against encroaching tyranny. Televangelist Franklin Graham has been advocating a Republican takeover of all the school boards in the country. Betsy DeVos and her brother Erik Prince have wanted for years now to sow the seeds of a dominionist takeover by taking over the schools and changing curricula to reflect distrust of science, homophobia, and other attitudes which match their agenda. The school boards are the first place where the line must be held. Tonight’s victory certainly shored up the school board in Fairfax County Virginia, at least for the next two and a half years, and this is just the beginning.

This is a happy night, Democrats.

Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government

David Posnett — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 21:45:13 +0000

Previously unannounced directives will limit the Department of Justice’s use of a storied civil rights enforcement tool, and loosen the Department of Education’s requirements on investigations.

by Jessica Huseman and Annie Waldman
ProPublica, June 15, 2017, 8 a.m.

An American flag outside the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. (Cliff Owen/AP Photo)

For decades, the Department of Justice has used court-enforced agreements to protect civil rights, successfully desegregating school systems, reforming police departments, ensuring access for the disabled and defending the religious.

Now, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the DOJ appears to be turning away from this storied tool, called consent decrees. Top officials in the DOJ civil rights division have issued verbal instructions through the ranks to seek settlements without consent decrees — which would result in no continuing court oversight.

The move is just one part of a move by the Trump administration to limit federal civil rights enforcement. Other departments have scaled back the power of their internal divisions that monitor such abuses. In a previously unreported development, the Education Department last week reversed an Obama-era reform that broadened the agency’s approach to protecting rights of students. The Labor Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have also announced sweeping cuts to their enforcement.

“At best, this administration believes that civil rights enforcement is superfluous and can be easily cut. At worst, it really is part of a systematic agenda to roll back civil rights,” said Vanita Gupta, the former acting head of the DOJ’s civil rights division under President Barack Obama.

Consent decrees have not been abandoned entirely by the DOJ, a person with knowledge of the instructions said. Instead, there is a presumption against their use — attorneys should default to using settlements without court oversight unless there is an unavoidable reason for a consent decree. The instructions came from the civil rights division’s office of acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler and Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Gore. There is no written policy guidance.

Devin O’Malley, a spokesperson for the DOJ, declined to comment for this story.

Consent decrees can be a powerful tool, and spell out specific steps that must be taken to remedy the harm. These are agreed to by both parties and signed off on by a judge, whom the parties can appear before again if the terms are not being met. Though critics say the DOJ sometimes does not enforce consent decrees well enough, they are more powerful than settlements that aren’t overseen by a judge and have no built-in enforcement mechanism.

Such settlements have “far fewer teeth to ensure adequate enforcement,” Gupta said.

Consent decrees often require agencies or municipalities to take expensive steps toward reform. Local leaders and agency heads then can point to the binding court authority when requesting budget increases to ensure reforms. Without consent decrees, many localities or government departments would simply never make such comprehensive changes, said William Yeomans, who spent 26 years at the DOJ, mostly in the civil rights division.

“They are key to civil rights enforcement,” he said. “That’s why Sessions and his ilk don’t like them.”

Some, however, believe the Obama administration relied on consent decrees too often and sometimes took advantage of vulnerable cities unable to effectively defend themselves against a well-resourced DOJ.

“I think a recalibration would be welcome,” said Richard Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law and a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, adding that consent decrees should be used in cases where clear, systemic issues of discrimination exist.

Though it’s too early to see how widespread the effect of the changes will be, the Justice Department appears to be adhering to the directive already.

On May 30, the DOJ announced Bernards Township in New Jersey had agreed to pay $3.25 million to settle an accusation it denied zoning approval for a local Islamic group to build a mosque. Staff attorneys at the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey initially sought to resolve the case with a consent decree, according to a spokesperson for Bernards Township. But because of the DOJ’s new stance, the terms were changed after the township protested, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. attorney’s office declined comment.

Sessions has long been a public critic of consent decrees. As a senator, he wrote they “constitute an end run around the democratic process.” He lambasted local agencies that seek them out as a way to inflate their budgets, a “particularly offensive” use of consent decrees that took decision-making power from legislatures.

On March 31, Sessions ordered a sweeping review of all consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide to ensure they were in line with the Trump administration’s law-and-order goals. Days before, the DOJ had asked a judge to postpone a hearing on a consent decree with the Baltimore Police Department that had been arranged during the last days of the Obama administration. The judge denied that request, and the consent decree has moved forward.

The DOJ has already come under fire from critics for altering its approach to voting rights cases. After nearly six years of litigation over Texas’ voter ID law — which Obama DOJ attorneys said was written to intentionally discriminate against minority voters and had such a discriminatory effect — the Trump DOJ abruptly withdrew its intent claims in late February.

Attorneys who worked on the case for years were barely consulted about the change — many weren’t consulted at all, according to two former DOJ officials with knowledge of the matter. Gore wrote the filing changing the DOJ’s position largely by himself and asked the attorneys who’d been involved in the case for years to sign it to show continuity. Not all of the attorneys fell in line. Avner Shapiro — who has been a prosecutor in the civil rights division for more than 20 years — left his name off the filings written by Gore. Shapiro was particularly involved in developing the DOJ’s argument that Texas had intentionally discriminated against minorities in crafting its voter ID legislation.

“That’s the ultimate act of rebellion,” Yeomans, the former civil rights division prosecutor, said. A rare act, removing one’s name from a legal filing is one of the few ways career attorneys can express public disagreement with an administration.

Gore has no history of bringing civil rights cases. A former partner at the law firm Jones Day, he has instead defended states against claims of racial gerrymandering and represented North Carolina when the state was sued over its controversial “bathroom bill,” which requires transgender people to use the facility that matched their birth gender.

All of the internal changes at the DOJ have left attorneys and staff with “a great deal of fear and uncertainty,” said Yeomans. While he says the lawyers there would like to stay at the department, they fear Sessions’ priorities will have devastating impact on their work.

The DOJ’s civil rights office is not alone in fearing rollbacks in enforcement. Across federal departments, the Trump administration has made moves to diminish the power of civil rights divisions.

The Department of Education has laid out plans to loosen requirements on investigations into civil rights complaints, according to an internal memo sent to staff on June 8 and obtained by ProPublica.

Under the Obama administration, the department’s office for civil rights applied an expansive approach to investigations. Individual complaints related to complex issues such as school discipline, sexual violence and harassment, equal access to educational resources, or racism at a single school might have prompted broader probes to determine whether the allegations were part of a pattern of discrimination or harassment.

The new memo, sent by Candice Jackson, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, to regional directors at the department’s civil rights office, trims this approach. Jackson was appointed deputy assistant secretary for the office in April and will remain as the acting head of the office until the Senate confirms a full-time assistant secretary. Trump has not publicly nominated anyone for the role yet.

The office will apply the broader approach “only” if the original allegations raise systemic concerns or the investigative team argues for it, Jackson wrote in the memo.

As part of the new approach, the Education Department will no longer require civil rights investigators to obtain three years of complaint data from a specific school or district to assess compliance with civil rights law.

Critics contend the Obama administration’s probes were onerous. The office “did such a thorough review of everything that the investigations were demanding and very expensive” for schools, said Boston College American politics professor R. Shep Melnick, adding that the new approach could take some regulatory pressure off schools and districts.

But some civil rights leaders believe the change could undermine the office’s mission. This narrowing of the department’s investigations “is stunning to me and dangerous,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s civil rights office from August 2013 until January 2017 and currently chairs the United States Commission on Civil Rights. “It’s important to take an expansive view of the potential for harm because if you look only at the most recent year, you won’t necessarily see the pattern,” said Lhamon.

The department’s new directive also gives more autonomy to regional offices, no longer requiring oversight or review of some cases by department headquarters, according to the memo.

The Education Department did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also proposed cutting over 40 positions from the civil rights office. With reduced staff, the office will have to “make difficult choices, including cutting back on initiating proactive investigations,” according to the department’s proposed budget.

Elsewhere, Trump administration appointees have launched similar initiatives. In its 2018 fiscal plan, the Labor Department has proposed dissolving the office that handles discrimination complaints. Similarly, new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed entirely eliminating the environmental justice program, which addresses concerns that almost exclusively impact minority communities. The Washington Post reports the plan transfers all environmental justice work to the Office of Policy, which provides policy and regulatory guidance across the agency.

Mustafa Ali, a former EPA senior adviser and assistant associate administrator for environmental justice who served more than 20 years, quit the agency in protest days before the plan was announced. In his resignation letter, widely circulated in the media, Ali suggested the new leadership was abandoning “those who need our help most.”

Ryan Gabrielson contributed to this report.

Sweet Home Alabama?

David Posnett — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 17:51:15 +0000

Alabama counties cut 85% of their food stamp participants with no work in sight

By Walter Einenkel

Tuesday Jun 06, 2017 · 2:45 PM EDT

Maybe he can find a job at that abandoned building?

While former Governor Robert Bentley was using Alabama taxpayer funds to fly helicopters to find his wallet and nearly getting himself impeached for misusing campaign funds (amongst other things), he was standing out front with his baton in the Republican hypocrite-parade. Since the beginning of the year, Alabama has cut away the “work requirement” exemption that was in place during the economic crash for people receiving food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Since January 1, thousands have been purged and now the remaining counties that still had the exemption have also seen thousands of people going hungry.

During the economic downturn of 2011-2013, several states – including Alabama – waived the SNAP work requirements in response to high unemployment. It was reinstituted for 54 counties on Jan. 1, 2016 and for the remaining 13 on Jan. 1, 2017. As of April 2017, the highest jobless rate among the 13 previously excluded counties was in Wilcox County, which reported a state-high unemployment rate of 11.7 percent, down more than 11 percentage points from the county’s jobless rate for the same month of 2011.

[…]

As of Jan. 1, 2017, there were 13,663 able-bodied adults without dependents receiving food stamps statewide. That number dropped to 7,483 by May 1, 2017. Among the 13 counties, there were 5,538 adults ages 18-50 without dependents receiving food stamps as of Jan. 1, 2017. That number dropped to 831 – a decline of about 85 percent – by May 1, 2017.

The good news is that Alabama is saving a few dollars. The bad news is that this bullshit form of bootstrap-pulling isn’t going to motivate people any more than they already are. Those areas don’t have an abundance of jobs, nor meaningful public transportation for people to get even volunteer work to meet these magic requirements.

Robert Gain volunteers in the kitchen at First Stop, Inc. and said he is trying to meet the requirements.

“Most of the people around here, their food stamps are canceled, and this is the only meal they’re going to get today,” Gain said.

[…]

Gain’s food stamps ran out on April 1. It’s because of changes to the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which limit people to receive three months of benefits within a three-year time frame unless they are working or volunteer training for at least 20 hours a week.

Gain is lucky as there aren’t enough positions, even in the volunteer world, to get the required hours needed. The good news is that Gov. Bentley was hoping to find a nice place for everyone to live.

Gov. Robert Bentley said a plan to borrow $800 million to build four new state prisons will be his most important goal during the 2017 legislative session, which is two weeks away.

You don’t have to wear a tinfoil hat to know that the Republican Party is driven by a racist and classist prison state ideology.