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Robert Hubbell: What Can We Do About Our Rogue Supreme Court? Expand It.

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2023 //
61

Robert Hubbell shares some interesting and informative comments about our Supreme Court, which seems determined to roll back the past century of social progress. The Court is whittling away—in some cases, hacking away—at our rights. Whereas we long believed that the High Court would always defend the rights of citizens, we can no longer count on it. The Court majority seems determined to impose a far-right “Originalist” philosophy on the entire nation. Of course, if they were really Originalists, pretending that it was 1790, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas would resign at once. The Founding Fathers never imagined that women and Blacks would vote, become lawyers and judges. Resign, Amy and Clarence.

Robert Hubbell writes:

Last week’s rulings from the Supreme Court continue to lead the news as the nation celebrates the 4th of July holiday. The Washington Post’s headline reads Biden faces renewed pressure to embrace Supreme Court overhaul. The details matter less than the fact that the notion of Supreme Court reform is the top story on a day when the Court issued no opinions. And the Supreme Court is top of mind for many readers, many of whom recommended articles and action items for other readers in yesterday’s Comment section. Chief among those recommendations was Rebecca Solnit’s exhortation in The Guardian, The US supreme court has dismantled our rights but we still believe in them. Now we must fight.

Solnit is a gifted writer who hit the mark in capturing the feelings of millions of Americans. She first addresses the feelings of anger and frustration about a Court that is out of control:

The first thing to remember about the damage done by the US supreme court this June and the June before is that each majority decision overturns a right that we had won. [¶]

Each of those victories was hard-won, often by people who began when the rights and protections they sought seemed inconceivable, then unlikely, then remote, and so goes the road of profound change almost every time. [¶]

To recognize the power of this change requires a historical memory. . . . Memory is a superpower, because memory of how these situations changed is a memory of our victories and our power. Each of these victories happened both through the specifics of campaigns to change legislation but also through changing the public imagination. The supreme court can dismantle the legislation but they cannot touch the beliefs and values.

In words that I wish I had written, Solnit urges us to action:

[H]istory shows us that when we come together with ferocious commitment to a shared goal we can be more powerful than institutions and governments. The right would like us to feel defeated and powerless. We can feel devastated and still feel powerful or find our power. This is not a time to quit. It’s a time to fight.

Other readers shared Jennifer Rubin’s op-ed in The Washington Post, Self-government is worth defending from an illegitimate Supreme Court.

On this Independence Day, we should reaffirm the twin pillars of democracy: Voters (not the mob) pick their leaders, and elected leaders (not unelected judges) make policy decisions for which they are held accountable.

On this Independence Day, we should reaffirm the twin pillars of democracy: Voters (not the mob) pick their leaders, and elected leaders (not unelected judges) make policy decisions for which they are held accountable.

Rubin identifies the many ways in which the Court has strayed from its legitimate role as a judicial body (familiar ground for readers of this newsletter) but highlights the particularly destructive role of the “Major Questions Doctrine.” That judge-made doctrine arrogates to the Court the right to overturn any decision by a federal agency with which the reactionary majority disagrees. The pseudo-rationale for the doctrine is that if Congress intends to delegate discretion to federal agencies on “major questions,” it should use a level of specificity that is to the liking of the Supreme Court.

Says who?

The doctrine was invented from whole cloth to justify judicial activism in service of an anti-government agenda. As Jennifer Rubin writes,

The mumbo-jumbo “major questions doctrine” is not the stuff of judging. No wonder the chief justice got touchy when Kagan pointed out that the court “is supposed to stick to its business — to decide only cases and controversies and to stay away from making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan relief.”

Ian Millhiser explains the Major Questions Doctrine in detail in his article in Vox, entitled, The Supreme Court’s student loan decision in Biden v. Nebraska is lawless and completely partisan. Millhiser does not mince words:

Let’s not beat around the bush. The Supreme Court’s decision in Biden v. Nebraska, the one canceling President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, is complete and utter nonsense. It rewrites a federal law which explicitly authorizes the loan forgiveness program, and it relies on a fake legal doctrine known as “major questions” which has no basis in any law or any provision of the Constitution.

Roberts’s opinion in Nebraska effectively overrules the decision of both elected branches of government. It overrides Congress’s unambiguous decision to give this power to the secretary of Education. And it overrules the executive branch’s judgment about how to exercise the authority that Congress gave it. As Kagan writes in dissent, “the Secretary did only what Congress had told him he could.”

Like Rebecca Solnit, Jennifer Rubin ends her op-ed on a note of optimism and determination to right the wrongs of the Court:

On this Independence Day, which celebrates rebellion against a monarch lacking consent of the governed, it behooves us to dedicate ourselves to robust and authentic democracy: government of the people, by the people, for the people — not by arrogant right-wing justices….

Without regard to any of the present controversies surrounding the Court, substantially increasing the Court’s size is a reasonable proposition. But considering the Court’s descent into illegitimacy and usurpation of legislative power, increasing its size substantially is an easy call: We must do it to overcome the reactionary majority. We have no other choice.

Enlarging the Court requires only a majority vote in both chambers of Congress, while virtually every other structural reform would require a constitutional amendment—a 2/3rds approval in both chambers of Congress and ratification by 3/4ths of the states. That will never happen. (If you propose imposing 18-year term limits, I urge you to read the plain words of the Constitution: Article III Section 1 | U.S. Constitution.)

Urgency is required. As reader John C. posted in response to my 4th of July newsletter,

I agree that the long term looks promising, but many people cannot wait for the long term. Women who want abortions, victims of gun violence, refugees, same-sex couples who want goods or services, students who are barred from colleges, and so forth are suffering now and lack the luxury of waiting.

We can work our way out of this daunting situation in the short term at the ballot box—by retaking the House and defending the Senate in 2024. And then demand boldness from our leaders. While they have temporized and appointed commissions and fretted about the “legitimacy” of an enlarged Court, tens of millions of Americans have been injured by a rogue Court that abandoned the rule of law and adopted the agenda of religious nationalism. The solution is staring us in the face and is within our grasp. Let’s take it!

In the words of Rebecca Solnit, “This is not a time to quit. It’s a time to fight.”

And if you are looking for guidance on where and how to direct your fighting spirit, there is no better place to look than Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood Carry Water on Substack. Her post on the 4th of July is filled with action steps you can take, including word scripts for calling your elected officials in Washington, D.C., and important organizing / fundraising events, such as:

  • An event on Wednesday, July 5th at 5:30 PM Eastern with Senator Sherrod Brown and Ohio Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Walters about how you can help get out the “NO” vote in the Ohio special election set for August 8th. Register here.
  • A Force Multiplier event with Senators John Tester and Raphael Warnock on Monday, July 10, 7:00 PM Eastern. The event will help build grass roots support for Senator Tester in what is expected to be a hard-fought campaign. Register and donate here.

While you are at it, sign up for Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water for the latest on daily actions you can take to help defend democracy!

Please open the link to read Robert Hubbell’s concluding thoughts.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Corruption, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Justice

Florida: Orange County Removes Classics from Schools

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2023 //
116

Leslie Postal of the Orlando Sentinel reports that the Orange County school district has removed classic literature in its efforts to comply with state laws.

She writes:

The classic novels “A Room With a View” and “Madame Bovary” and the epic poem “Paradise Lost” — published in England more than 350 years ago — have been at least temporarily rejected by Orange County Public Schools for sexual content that educators fear runs afoul of a new Florida law.

Novels that in past years were frequently taught in OCPS high school classes, such as “The Color Purple,” “Catch-22,” “Brave New World,” and “The Kite Runner” have been put on the rejected lists, too, as have novels by Toni Morrison and Ayn Rand and popular, turned-into-movies books like “Into the Wild,” and “The Fault in Our Stars.”

The lists of books rejected and approved for OCPS classrooms are not finalized yet as district media specialists continue their summer work of reviewing all books in classroom libraries, said several people familiar with the process.

Some books rejected earlier this summer, among them “The Scarlet Letter” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” have since been approved, according to the lists shared with the Orlando Sentinel by a district teacher and by an advocacy group that obtained a rejection list through a public records request. Other books have been approved but only for certain grades.

Four plays by William Shakespeare, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” are currently listed as approved for grades 10 through 12 only, as is Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” and Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the lists show.

For many of the books, the reason for at least a temporary rejection is sex. “Depicts or describes sexual conduct (not allowed per HB 1069-2023,” reads the explanation, referencing a new state law passed by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The new law makes book challenges easier and, if the concern is sexual content, requires the books to be removed from the shelves within five days and remain inaccessible to students while being reviewed. Republican lawmakers said they passed it to make sure pornography and books that depict sexual activity are kept from children.

But critics say the effort has wrongly labeled many books pornographic, when state law says, in part, that books with sexual content or nudity are considered pornography only if they are “without serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”

This could be a clever plot to entice teens to read forbidden books. (“Come over to my house, I have ‘Paradise Lost!’”) But Florida’s legislators and state education officials are not clever. They are narrow minded bigots.

Categories Academic Freedom, Censorship, Corruption, Democracy, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom to Read, Gender, Libraries, Literature

Greg Olear: Leonard Leo, the Man Who Stacked the Supreme Court

By dianeravitch
July 5, 2023 //
31

Greg Olear is a novelist and journalist who writes a blog called PREVAIL. The following post appeared there. I post only part of it. If you want to see his complete list of Leonard Leo’s claque, open the link and continue reading. This is part one of a two-part report.

Greg Olear writes:

He’s one of the most powerful individuals in the country. His spiderweb of connections is extensive. But most Americans, including many working in Washington, have never heard of him.

Occupying the center of an intricate web of political, legal, religious, and business connections, Leonard Leo is the quintessential Man in the Middle, a veritable dark-money spider. Like a spider, he is patient, painstaking, relentless, and much more powerful that he appears. And like a spider, he prefers to stay hidden.

I first wrote about him in February 2021, in a piece called “Leo the Cancer.” Leo, who I described as “a dandier George Constanza, or if The Penguin worked at Jones Day,” has, I explained,

made himself one of the most powerful figures in the United States. He’s put five—count ‘em, five!—justices on the Supreme Court: Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Sam Alito, and John Roberts. A sixth, Clarence Thomas, is one of his closest friends. And, perhaps most impressively, he quietly led the 2016 crusade to deny Merrick Garland a hearing, when Barack Obama nominated the highly-regarded jurist to replace the late Antonin Scalia (another of Leo’s pals). In the lower courts, he’s been even busier. He’s installed so many judges on so many courts, it makes you wonder if he really is the instrument of God’s will he believes himself to be. I mean, there are only three branches of government. One of those three—arguably the most important one—is Leonard Leo’s domain.

When I began researching that piece, I didn’t know much about the guy beyond his silly, comic-book-villain name. I was surprised to discover that he was, like me, a middle-class product of Catholic upbringing and Italian descent who graduated from a public high school in New Jersey—not at all the well-heeled, oenophilic Master of the Universe he has become. He’s also much younger than I expected; born in 1965, he’s solidly Gen X—only seven years older than Yours Truly.

Yet Leonard Leo, somehow, is the individual most responsible for stripping away federal abortion rights. (The anniversary of the odious Dobbs decision was this past weekend.) As his admiring chum Ed Wheelan presciently wrote in 2016, “No one has been more dedicated to the enterprise of building a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade than the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo.”

As Politico reported—and as I outlined on these pages three months ago—Leo has been rewarded handsomely for his troubles. “I personally don’t believe that Leonard is motivated by greed,” Steven Calabresi, who founded the Federalist Society with Leo and still runs the organization, told Politico. “I think Leonard is motivated by ideology and ideas. I do think he likes to live a high-rolling lifestyle, but I don’t think he’s in the business because of the money.”

To be fair, Leo does spread that money around. He endows more organizations than I can succinctly list here. Friends like Ginni Thomas get a taste. He brings his SCOTUS cronies on lavish fishing trips with his billionaire backers. And yet Payoff Lenny—as I call him—has amassed a fortune for himself, and spends that fortune lavishly: on tailored suits, palatial vacation homes in Maine, and bottles of wine that cost more that what most Americans pay for a month’s rent.

Jesus liked wine, yes, and Jesus hung out with fishermen, sure, but I’m not sure the Son of God would approve of Leo’s stockpile of dirty loot—although his fellow Knights of Malta don’t seem to mind. Money washes away a lot of sins, as anyone familiar with the history of the Catholic Churchwell knows.

And so the rich and powerful Leonard Leo presides spider-like over Washington, moving chess pieces across the great board, raising unfathomably vast sums of money, and cultivating his extensive network, which I have attempted to map out here.

Note: Leo has so many connections that it became unwieldy to confine them to a single dispatch. In today’s installment, I will cover the judges, non-profiteers, lawyers, media members, and titled Europeans. Part Two will focus on the billionaire donors, the politicians, and the religious contacts.

Judges

Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), Clarence Thomas (b. 1948), John Roberts (b. 1955), Sam Alito (b. 1950)
Supreme Court justices

Leonard Leo worshiped at the altar of Scalia, has been close with Thomas for decades and regards him as a sort of godfather, and worked maniacally to secure the confirmations of Roberts and Alito. Thomas and Alito, in particular, he remains tight with, as recent reporting by ProPublica has made clear.

Regarding Alito, the author of the dreadful Dobbs decision: in his 2018 Daily Beast piece on Leo, Jay Michelson points out that “few people had heard of [Alito] before Leo first promoted him.” Alas, we’ve all heard of that sneeringly arrogant dickhead now.

To learn more about Leonard Leo’s circle, open the link and keep reading.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Corruption, Dark Money, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Fraud, Freedom, Gender, History, Injustice, Justice, Republicans

Gavin Newsom: Where Freedom Reigns in the USA

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2023 //
48

Gavin Newsom sent out July 4 greetings with a question: Where do people have true freedom?

Newsom writes:

Happy 4th of July from the Freedom State of California.

Freedom.

While Republicans cry freedom, they dictate the choices that people are allowed to make. Fanning the flames of these exhausting culture wars. Banning abortion, banning books and banning free speech in the classroom and in the boardroom.

But the truth is, true freedom means being able to love the person you love without fear or discrimination.

True freedom means you can afford to get the health care you need without going bankrupt.

True freedom means you can go to a movie, a parade, a church or an elementary school without fear of getting shot.

True freedom is a woman and her doctor making the health care decisions she needs.

True freedom means you don’t have to choose between covering the cost of your utilities or the medicine you need to live.

True freedom means living life without fear that large portions of the planet will be uninhabitable for future generations.

More than any people, in any place, California has bridged the historic expanse between freedom for some, and freedom for all.

Freedom is our essence, our brand name – the abiding idea that right here, anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything.

So with that, I want to wish you and your family a safe, happy and healthy 4th of July from the Freedom State of California.

Thank you,

Gavin Newsom

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, California, Censorship, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Read, Gender

Reader: The Founding Fathers Did Not Want a Christian Nation

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2023 //
153

A reader called Quickwrit posted this comment about the clear intent of the Founding Fathers. Based on the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and their own writings, the Founding Fathers left no doubt about the role of religion in the new nation. They wanted the government neither to support it or to regulate it, and they wanted everyone to practice their religion without hindrance. They most certainly did not want a “Christian nation” or government subsidy of religion. These are the conditions required for freedom of religion.

Quickwrit wrote:

Freedom from religion

Right in the very First Amendment of our Constitution, our Founding Fathers outlawed religion in American government at any level. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, primary author of our Declaration of Independence, explained that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was written to create “a wall of separation” between our government and any religion. The U.S. Supreme Court holds that the Establishment Clause means that “Neither a state nor the federal government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion or all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force…a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.”

Our Founding Fathers also wrote in Article VI of our Constitution that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

In short, our Constitution was written to remove all religion from our government at any level, while also allowing citizens to practice any religion they want. ANY religion.

Our Founding Fathers refused to even include any mention of God in our Constitution.

Why did our Founding Fathers do this?

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and other Founding Fathers and colonists everywhere hated the fact that they had been forced to join the official Christian religion of the British government, the Anglican Church. The penalty for not joining was that the church-controlled British colonial governments would tax their property to the point that would bankrupt them. Our Founding Fathers knew first-hand that a religion-based government led to persecution of anyone who did not share the beliefs of the official government religion. So, they constitutionally banned religion of any kind from every corner of our federal and state governments.

America’s key Founding Fathers — such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin — were NOT CHRISTIANS. They were DEISTS who had been forced to become members of a Christian church. They almost never even used the word “God” but instead used words like “Creator” or “Providence” to refer to what Deists consider to be the Supreme Being.

Thomas Jefferson, whom we honor as the author of our Declaration of Independence, was so greatly angered by the Christian claim that Jesus was God that Benjamin Franklin had to reel him in from publishing a scathing attack on Christianity. So, instead, Jefferson — who admired the social teachings of Jesus — sat down with a New Testament and cut out all references in it to Jesus being God. Then, he published the result as his Bible and it became popular throughout America. The Jefferson non-Christian social Bible also became the official Bible of Congress and for decades was given to each newly-elected member of Congress.

Categories Democracy, Freedom, History, Religion, Separation of church and state

“Democracy”: The GOP War on the Founding Fathers’ Vision

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2023 //
19

A blog reader who identifies as “Democracy” argues that today’s Republican Party, which prizes individualism over the common good has abandoned the vision of the Founding Fathers.

It appears that Ron DeSantis and the entirety of the Republican Party is in direct opposition to American history and the United States Constitution.

The Founders envisioned a democratic society “in which the common good was the chief end of government.” They agreed with John Locke’s view that the main purpose of government –– the main reason people create government –– is to protect their persons through –– as historian R. Freeman Butts put it –– a social contract that placed “the public good above private desires.” The goal was “a commonwealth, a democratic corporate society in which the common good was the chief end of government.”

The Preamble – the stated purposes – of the Constitution, reads

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

In Article I, Section 8 of that document, the legislative branch is given broad, specific powers (among them taxing, borrowing money, regulating commerce, coining money and regulating its value, etc.). Indeed, Article I, Clause 1 gives Congress the power to tax for “the common defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Clause 18 of Section 8 stipulates that Congress had the power “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.”

Two Supreme Court decisions early in the republic’s history –– both unanimous –– supported and cemented a broad – liberal – interpretation of the implied powers of Congress.

Republicans call them “socialism.”

In 1819 (McCullough v. Maryland) the Supreme Court reaffirmed that the U.S. government was “a Government of the people. In form and in substance, it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.”

The Court explicitly reaffirmed that one of the critical purposes of government under the U.S. Constitution is to promote the general welfare “of the people.”

In that case, Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the necessary and proper clause:

“the clause is placed among the powers of Congress, not among the limitations on those powers.” And he added this: “Its terms purport to enlarge, not to diminish, the powers vested in the Government. It purports to be an additional power, not a restriction.”

In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) Chief Justice Marshall wrote this about the Congressional commerce power:

“This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations other than are prescribed in the Constitution.”

The history of the United States, and the Constitution, over time, reflect progressive changes. The American Revolution was a progressive movement inspired by the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers; conservatives opposed it. The early expansion of voting rights to those who didn’t own land was progressive, and conservatives of the day fought
against it. The purchase of the Louisiana Territory, a purchase that doubled the size of the fledgling United States, rested on a liberal interpretation of constitutional authority. U.S. government funding of roads and canals relied on a liberal perspective of Congressional commerce power. Those roads and canals were instrumental to economic growth and prosperity, not unlike federal funding of interstate highways, the Internet, medical research, and health care.

And yet, the Republican Party is filled with people who basically reject all of this in favor of sedition.

As David Blight, Yale professor of American history put it,

“Changing demographics and 15 million new voters drawn into the electorate by Obama in 2008 have scared Republicans—now largely the white people’s party—into fearing for their existence. With voter ID laws, reduced polling places and days, voter roll purges, restrictions on mail-in voting, an evisceration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a constant rant about ‘voter fraud’ without evidence, Republicans have soiled our electoral system with undemocratic skullduggery…The Republican Party has become a new kind of Confederacy.

Obviously, public education has a central – critical – role to play here. Here’s how Will and Ariel Durant explained it in ‘The Lessons of History’ (1968):

“Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again.”

Republicans: The New Confederacy
Categories Democracy, Democrats, DeSantis, Elections, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, History, Lies, Republicans, Trump

July 4: A Day to Recommit to Our Founding Ideals

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2023 //
52

I learned to love the USA from a very young age. I was 7 when World War 2 ended, and I remember very well how patriotic everyone was. From my earliest years, I learned to love America because it provided a safe haven for my family at a time when the Jews of Europe were targeted for mass extinction.

I was brought up in the 1940s and 1950s when our public schools taught only about our goodness and greatness, while leaving out the shameful chapters of our history.

Today, we are challenged to believe that one can study those shameful chapters and still love your country. Today, too many politicians—notably Republicans—are censoring textbooks and banning library books, anything that students may read, to ensure that they never encounter the ugly parts of our history or anything that includes references to sex or gender identity. Our schools confront a multi-pronged assault built on racism, bigotry, prudishness, and fear of the Other.

Too many Republicans practice the politics of hate and division. Instead of talking about their plans to improve the economy, they use their time in the public eye to demonize the powerless.

My wish is that we could strive again towards the Founding Fathers’ ideals of freedom, reason, equality, justice, and respect for the right of others to dissent, to practice their own religion, to live as they wish within a context of laws. The Founders enunciated these ideals but did not live up to them. It’s up to us to reclaim their vision.

Our Founding Fathers did not want to create a Christian nation. There are several clauses in the Constitution assuring that no one would have to conform to a state-sponsored religion, no one would have to pass a religious test to qualify for office. Whatever your religion or if you practice no religion, the Constitution protects you.

And yet, today religious zealots speak as if the nation belongs to them. It doesn’t. It belongs to all of us.

The greatest threat to our democracy at this moment is the Supreme Court, which seems intent on reversing every precedent and returning the USA to a time before the New Deal, when the government did not actively protect anyone’s rights. It is beyond my understanding that this Court ruled that one’s sincere religious views—no matter how hateful—gives you license to be a bigot.

Our ability to thrive as a nation depends on our ability to work with and value people who are not the same as us. We may be the most diverse people in the world. We cannot succeed unless everyone believes that this is their nation too and that they too can have a fulfilling life regardless of where they came from and when they arrived.

Whether we can keep our democracy rests on our shoulders. Trump and his passionate base have done their best to undermine the pillars of our democracy by questioning the legitimacy of any election they lose, by insulting the rule of law, and by assailing the free press.

The strength of our democracy depends on all of us to get involved. Join an organization that defends our rights and freedoms. Encourage others to do the same. Run for office. Democracy is not a spectator sport. 2024 may be an election that determines our future. Take action.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Injustice, Justice, Religion, Republicans

Tom Ultican: Chartered to Indoctrinate

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2023 //
15

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas likes to say that he supports vouchers because he wants “education, not indoctrination.” This is hilarious because most vouchers are used for religious schools, whose purpose is indoctrination. They certainly do not teach students to think critically, as that might refute their mission.

Tom Ultican read the recent report by the Network for Public Education about the growth of faith-infused charter schools. The report is called “A Sharp Right Turn.” If you want your child to learn critical thinking, these schools would be the wrong choice. Critical thinking means that you are encouraged to question what you are taught.

Ultican writes:

Carol Burris and team at Network for Public Education (NPE) just published, “A Sharp Turn Right” (STR). NPE President Diane Ravitch noted there are several problems associated with charter schools’ profiteering, high closure rates, no accountability…

“This new report, A Sharp Turn Right, exposes yet one more problem — the creation of a new breed of charter schools that are imbued with the ideas of right-wing Christian nationalism. These charter schools have become weapons of the Right as they seek to destroy democratically governed public schools while turning back the clock of education and social progress by a century.” (STR Pages 3 and 4)

STR focuses on two types of charter schools. One characterizes themselves as “classical academies” and the other touts “back to basics,”without noting they also employ the same “classical” curriculum. Both provide right-wing clues on their web-sites, alerting parents of alignment with Christian nationalism. Marketing is often red, white and blue, with pictures of the American founding fathers, and discussions on patriotism and virtue. Some schools include direct references to religion like Advantage Academy’s claim of educating students in a “faith-friendly environment…”

Using keyword searches, NPE identified 273 active charter schools fitting this description and noted they surely missed more. Nearly 30% of them were for-profit; about double the rate for the charter sector in general. Almost 50% of them have opened since Donald Trump was inaugurated president in 2017… (STR Page 7)

It identifies the largest charter school systems indoctrinating students with Christian nationalist ideology and discloses where they are operating. Discussing, in some depth, Hillsdale College with its Barney charter schools and the large number of new charter affiliates, the report asserts:

“What they all have in common is teaching Hillsdale’s prescriptive 1776 curriculum, which disparages the New Deal and affirmative action while downplaying the effects of slavery. Climate change is not mentioned in the science curriculum; sixth-grade studies include a single reference to global warming.” (STR Page 15)

The reality is today’s taxpayers are forced to pay for schools teaching a form of Christianity associated with white superiority; politically indoctrinating students with specific rightist orthodoxy. What happened to the principal of separation of church and state? This charter schools for indoctrination movement must be stopped before American democracy is sundered.

Ultican reviews the long-held belief in separation of church and state, and the Supreme Court’s decisions that balanced the Constitution’s protection of freedom of religion and its prohibition of any establishment of religion.

This balancing act was disrupted by Reagan’s appointment of Justice Antonin Scalia, who saw no reason to separate church and state. The appointment of Justice Clarence Thomas gave Scalia an ally. Scalia and Thomas believed that all religious activity is religious speech and therefore protected. We saw the most recent example of this reasoning in the Court’s decision holding that discrimination against gay people was acceptable if their very existence offended the religious beliefs of the service provider, since in this case she feared she might be expected to give he assent to their wedding. The Court called its license to discriminate a vindication of free speech rights.

Ultican concludes:

Time to wake up and smell the coffee; the modern Supreme Court is corrupt and needs reformation. Instead of deciding issues based on law and precedence, they create theories designed to support a political philosophy rather than showing fidelity to the constitution. This reflects a complete degradation of jurisprudence. The poorly formed decisions regularly undermine the rights and protections the founders bestowed on citizens; all while some Justices appear to be ethically compromised.

For the first time in American history, billions of taxpayer dollars are flowing to private religious schools. The STR report shines a light on charter schools with religious agendas. Even more disturbing, these new taxpayer funded privatized schools are literally indoctrination centers, teaching a depraved political ideology.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Curriculum, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Extremism, Privatization, Religion, Separation of church and state

Florida: DeSantis’ War Against LGBT Rights Falters in Courts

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2023 //
39

The Miami Herald points out that Governor Desantis’ efforts to eliminate the rights of LGBT people have not fared well in the courts. However, he will appeal all the decisions he has lost to higher courts in hopes of finding bigoted judges who agree with him. He is s petty, vengeful man who has pledged to control the courts and the Justice Departnent if elected President and make them instruments of his war on WOKE

Multiple federal court decisions have frozen key portions of Ron DeSantis’ campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in recent weeks, complicating the Florida governor’s efforts to present himself as a conservative champion with a track record of winning cultural battles over LGBTQ causes.

In the last week alone, the DeSantis administration faced setbacks in three legal battles over LGBTQ rights. Judges rejected state efforts to block transgender adults’ access to gender-affirming care under Medicaid, bar transgender children from accessing puberty blockers, and ban minors from certain types of live entertainment at restaurants – legislation widely interpreted as a proposal to target drag shows.

DeSantis’ agenda has hit other roadblocks, with judges blocking portions of his plans to control teaching and training on gender identity in schools and workplaces. The governor also faces ongoing litigation over his efforts t0 ban transgender athletes from competing on sports teams of their declared gender and to restrict access to school books, including those with LGBTQ themes.

His pressure on private industry has faced challenges, as well, with Disney — one of the state’s largest employers — suing the governorclaiming he overstepped his power in taking punitive action against the company over its opposition to policies the company viewed as hostile to the LGBTQ community. DeSantis is pushing for the federal trial to start after the 2024 presidential election. In the meantime, Disney will host a major LGBTQ conferencein Florida this September that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Democracy, DeSantis, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fascism, Florida, Gender

Jeannie Suk Gersen: Overturning Affirmative Action

By dianeravitch
July 2, 2023 //
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Writing in The New Yorker, where she is a contributing columnist, Jeannie Suk Gersen analyzes the SCOTUS decision that ended affirmative action. Gersen is a Harvard Law School professor.

Gersen writes that the High Court forbade explicit consideration of race in evaluating candidates for admission, but it left a small opening:

Since universities can no longer consider applicants’ race in deciding whether to offer them admission, the immediate practical question is what information they can consider about applicants. In a key sentence, toward the end of his ruling, Roberts said, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” (Harvard cited the sentence in a message to its community after the Court’s decision.) Roberts’s point was that “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”

It remains to be seen whether colleges will find “race-neutral” ways of identifying students of color so they can maintain a diverse enrollment. One way is to de-emphasize standardized testing, which enlarges the pool of Black candidates.

Colleges and universities have long contended that demographic diversity is an important goal. The learning experience is enriched, they argued, when students come from different backgrounds and bring different perspectives.

But the goal of diversity was thrown out by the Roberts’ court. The six-justice majority ruled that diversity is no longer to be considered by courts to be “a compelling interest.”

She writes:

But even the liberal dissenters, in their strong defense of the need for race-conscious affirmative action, seemed not quite willing to tether their support of the policy to the goal of student-body diversity. That is because the dissenters, in two opinions, penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, were focussed on the continuing need to remedy the devastating, ongoing effects of the historical subjugation of Black Americans.

Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of the affirmative-action precedents is that since 1978, in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Court has said that the goal of remedying past societal discrimination and injustice is not a compelling interest for schools to pursue in admissions. The dissents in the S.F.F.A. cases underscored not only that the sins that the United States has visited on Black people did not end after slavery and Jim Crow but also that the original justification for affirmative action which the Court approved five decades ago—diversity—was entirely incommensurate to the profound problem to be addressed and was doomed to fail. ♦

Suppose the goal of affirmative action was to fast track large numbers of students from historically disadvantaged groups into the professions and the upper ranks of the business and corporate world. On that ground, it’s clear that affirmative action has been a remarkable success. It has propelled many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of men and women into medicine, law, education, social work, and every other field.

But the problem that affirmative action was created to solve is very far from solved. Despite the strides that have been made, Blacks, Hispanics, people from Indigenous groups are still very far from equality. They continue to suffer from the historic injuries of the past.

I wonder: if the lawyers for the universities had justified affirmative action not on the value of diversity but on the basis of righting historic wrongs, would the Court have ruled differently? I don’t think so. The six hard-right Justices are on a mission to roll back civil rights law, to curb the power of government to right wrongs, and you encourage the emergence of a society in which people pull themselves up by their bootstraps without relying on government.

We know the problems with the bootstrap theory of progress. In a world where there is so much inequality, some people don’t need to pull themselves up. They are already on top. Others, those on the bottom, may not have any bootstraps at all. Rugged individualism will not reduce social and economic inequality.

Sadly, we can no longer look to the Supreme Court to protect either precedents or rights. Instead, we must tremble for our future whenever they announce a new decision.

The only hope for our democracy is an electoral sweep that makes possible an FDR or an LBJ.

It’s not likely to happen in 2024, given Trump’s loyal base, but I believe our survival as a democracy depends on re-electing Biden. Neither Trump nor DeSantis is qualified for the Presidency. The American renaissance is likely to happen when enough citizens realize that the Republican Party is no longer interested in protecting the Constitution and the rule of law. Will that be after Trump leaves politics? Will it be 2028? 2032?

Liz Cheney said recently that the biggest problem in our politics is that the people keep electing “idiots.” We will have our Renaissance when voters realize that governing requires reason and intelligence. That would mean a blue wave to sweep the idiots out of office.

Categories Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Higher Education, Justice, Race, Racism
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