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“Democracy”: The Theological Politics of Abortion

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2024 //
57

Our anonymous reader “Democracy” summarizes the legal and religious disputes over abortion, which center on the question, “When does life begin?” And a second question: “Should believers be allowed to impose their views on others?”

Democracy writes:

In Roe v. Wade (1973), Justice Harry Blackmun researched – and struggled with – the question, when does human life begin?

The majority decision in Roe noted this:

“The Constitution does not define ‘person’ in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to ‘person.’ The first, in defining ‘citizens,’ speaks of ‘persons born or naturalized in the United States’” The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. ‘Person’ is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, in the Emolument Clause, in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only POSTNATALLY. None indicates that it has any possible pre-natal application. [Emphasis mine]

In that case, the state of Texas made claim that human life begins at conception.

The Texas Court said this:

“Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

The Supreme Court decision went on:

“There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith.  It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained; organized groups that have taken a formal position on the abortion issue have generally regarded abortion as a matter for the conscience of the individual and her family.  As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable,’ that is, potentially able to live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks.”

This was where abortion rights and “the right to life” stood, until Samuel Alito and his Republican Taliban colleagues imposed their narrow religious beliefs on the rest of American in Dobbs v. Jackson (2022). 

When Alito’s Dobbs draft leaked in the media, political analyst Ron Brownstein wrote thisi n May, 2022, in describing what the Supreme Court religious zealots were about to do:

“Alito’s draft, if finalized, would place the GOP-appointed Supreme Court majority firmly on a collision course with the priorities and preferences of the racially and culturally diverse younger generations born since 1980, who now constitute a majority of all Americans and who overwhelmingly support abortion rights…That shift, which Trump hastened with his overt appeals to the racial and social grievances of the most culturally conservative white Americans, has fueled the increasing volatility and belligerence of modern politics—and it only stands to intensify…For decades, a majority of Americans have supported legalized abortion in at least some circumstances. Opposition to overturning Roe v. Wade hit 69 percent in a CNN survey earlier this year, and 61 percent in a poll released by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute on Tuesday. In the PRRI poll, 64 percent of respondents said abortion should remain legal in all (28 percent) or most (36 percent) circumstances…The biggest exception to this trend: A large majority of white evangelical Americans, a cornerstone GOP constituency, oppose legal abortion.”

NPR reported this in early May, 2022:

“6 in 10 U.S. adults (61%) say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases…While the rate of abortions increased significantly in the decade after Roe v. Wade, it has since decreased to below the 1973 level…Pregnancy and childbirth are far more dangerous than getting an abortion, according to data from the CDC…Over 90% of abortions happen in the first trimester (by 13 weeks)…Medical researchers agree a fetus is not capable of experiencing pain until the third trimester, somewhere between 29 or 30 weeks…More than 60% of abortion patients have a religious affiliation.”

The Guttmacher Institute, “a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States,” reports these data related to abortion:

“About 61% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children…The reasons women give for having an abortion underscore their understanding of the responsibilities of parenthood and family life. Three-fourths of women cite concern for or responsibility to other individuals; three-fourths say they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or the ability to care for dependents; and half say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner…Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant.”

It would appear — from the data — that the conservative Supreme Court members AND the Republican Party are at war with women, and especially POOR women.

More Guttmacher data:

“About half of American women will have an unintended pregnancy, and nearly one-third will have an abortion, by age 45.

• The overall U.S. unintended pregnancy rate remained stagnant between 1994 and 2006, but unintended pregnancy increased 50% among poor women, while decreasing 29% among higher-income women.

• Overall, the abortion rate decreased 8% between 2000 and 2008, but abortion increased 18% among poor women, while decreasing 28% among higher-income women.

• Nine in 10 abortions occur in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

• A broad cross section of U.S. women have abortions:

  • 58% are in their 20s;
  • 61% have one or more children;
  • 56% are unmarried and not cohabiting;
  • 69% are economically disadvantaged; and
  • 73% report a religious affiliation.”

Republicans are finding out that the dystopian world they have created is not popular, and represents a clear and present danger to ALL civil liberties in the American republic.

Here’s how Margaret Atwood explained it in The Atlantic (May 13, 2022):

“When does a fertilized human egg become a full human being or person?…The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is at ‘conception,’ the moment at which a cluster of cells becomes ‘ensouled.”

 “But any such judgment depends on a religious belief—namely, the belief in souls. Not everyone shares such a belief. But all, it appears, now risk being subjected to laws formulated by those who do. That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all.”

“It ought to be simple: If you believe in ‘ensoulment’ at conception, you should not get an abortion, because to do so is a sin within your religion. If you do not so believe, you should not—under the Constitution—be bound by the religious beliefs of others. But should the Alito opinion become the newly settled law, the United States looks to be well on the way to establishing a state religion…Massachusetts had an official religion in the 17th century. In adherence to it, the Puritans hanged Quakers.”

“The Alito opinion purports to be based on America’s Constitution. But it relies on English jurisprudence from the 17th century, a time when a belief in witchcraft caused the death of many innocent people. The Salem witchcraft trials were trials—they had judges and juries—but they accepted “spectral evidence,” in the belief that a witch could send her double, or specter, out into the world to do mischief. Thus, if you were sound asleep in bed, with many witnesses, but someone reported you supposedly doing sinister things to a cow several miles away, you were guilty of witchcraft. You had no way of proving otherwise.”

As Ben Franklin was to have said when asked what kind of government the Founders had created,

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

Categories Democracy, Elections, Gender, Religion

Anand G.: A University President Who Respects Student Protest Without Pandering to Students

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2024 //
17

Anand Giridharadas is a brilliant writer and thinker who blogs at The Ink. In this post, he interviews Michael Roth, the President of Wesleyan College in Connecticut, who describes how he has handled student protests without calling in the police or trampling on free speech rights. Just days ago, Roth wrote an article in The New York Times advising that the best college choice is one where you don’t fit in; go outside your comfort zone. Be a nonconformist.

Anand writes:

In recent weeks, the wave of antiwar protest that began at Columbia University spread across the country, as did the backlash against it.

Many university leaders responded by shutting down student speakers, canceling commencement ceremonies, and ultimately calling in police to clear encampments and campus building occupations with mass arrests. Thousands of students, professors, and other protestors have been arrested nationwide; meanwhile, protests are ongoing, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce continues its fishing-expedition investigation of higher education, and the domestic battle over the campus protests continues to distract attention from the ongoing war in Gaza.

What is right here? Should universities crack down on students who disrupt campus life, even if their cause is just? Are there steps student groups could take to more clearly separate their movements from elements of antisemitism? Can the rest of society muster enough historical memory and thick enough skin to remember that students are often telling us something that we need to hear, even if we don’t want to?

One university leader has been grappling with these questions in an especially thoughtful way, in part because, in addition to running a university, he is a scholar of universities and of education. That grounding shows. Under Michael Roth, Wesleyan University has cut a different path from many campuses, by clearly and calmly reiterating students’ right to protest peacefully, as Roth did in this letter:

The students there know that they are in violation of university rules and seem willing to accept the consequences. The protest has been non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations. As long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.

At the same time, Roth has been clear about the importance of keeping people’s focus on the underlying war, not elite campuses; on the very real problem of antisemitic elements in and around the protests; and about the need to sustain campuses as places where students and teachers and others expect a mix of safety and challenge.

We caught up with Roth the other day for a conversation you won’t want to miss if you’ve been following not only the war but the fight over the war and are craving, as we have been, more light and less heat.

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Your statement of Wesleyan’s position on the continuing protests is notable for its simple recognition of the rights and responsibilities of all parties. 

Can you talk about the decisions that went into your statement and why such statements have been so rare?

I am happy to talk about my statement, but I really want to emphasize that we need to turn more political energy toward demanding that the U.S. force a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, a return of the hostages, and, then, negotiations toward a sustainable peace.

As for protests at Wesleyan University: We could have immediately closed down the encampment because the protesters hadn’t gotten advance permission for tents, or because they were writing messages on the adjacent buildings in chalk. But in the context of national protest movements, it seemed wrong to me to use “time and place restrictions” other schools have cited as reasons for shutting down protests. 

Over the last week, I’ve gotten many notes from alumni, parents, and strangers chastising me for not making the protesters “pay a price” for breaking the rules.

So why haven’t I made them feel those consequences? Cops don’t always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit. Context matters, whatever Congresswoman Elise Stefanik says.

In this case, I knew the students were part of a broad protest movement, and protest movements often put a strain on an institution’s rules. They are meant to do that. The encampment was “non-violent and has not disrupted normal campus operations,” I wrote, and “as long as it continues in this way, the University will not attempt to clear the encampment.” I added that we would “not tolerate intimidation or harassment of students, staff, or faculty,” and that the protesters, as far as I could tell, were not moving in those directions. I want to emphasize that this can change and that if the protesters choose to more seriously disrupt our work as an educational institution, they will face much more significant repercussions.

Last Tuesday we saw two very different conclusions to major campus protests; at Columbia, the administration — claiming it had “no choice” — called in the NYPD, made multiple arrests and cleared the Hamilton Hall occupation and lawn encampment. (Yale, UCLA, and others did similarly.) Reportedly, Columbia has arranged for the NYPD to remain on campus through the conclusion of the term on May 17. On the other hand, student protestors at Brown finally reached an agreement with the Corporation of Brown University to dismantle their encampment in exchange for a vote on divestment from firms connected to the Israeli military campaign. Admittedly, I am asking you to speculate, but can you think through what the process behind these different decisions might have been? 

At Columbia, the combination of outside participants, intimidating antisemitic chants, and — most importantly — the destructive occupation of a building necessitated a much stronger response than has been necessary elsewhere. Administrators seemed to judge that the university couldn’t safely continue to operate. If that was the case — and I know there remain significant disputes about the facts — the protesters had to be cleared, and the penalties on offenders, I suspect, will be severe. 

At UCLA, early indications are that police allowed counter-protesters to engage in violence. At other schools, students and administrators have been able to decide to do something positive for the situation in Gaza without engaging in empty but symbolically satisfying gestures. Divestment is a distraction. There is little indication that it has the desired effects, even in the long run. Gazans need a ceasefire and massive humanitarian aid now.

I’m curious as to how your scholarly work might have informed your thinking on this. Several of your books speak pretty directly to what’s happening (I think in particular of Beyond the University, Safe Enough Spaces,and The Student: A Short History). How does your work as a theorist of liberal education figure into your response to these protests?

All my scholarship is animated by a pragmatist approach, which means that I have a general suspicion of abstract principles and a commitment to working through problems so as to be in a better position to pursue one’s most important goals. My work before these education books was heavily influenced by Hegelian and Freudian models of thinking: an expectation that conflict is necessary for any important change and that unconscious motivations are always in play in crises. To put it simply: I expect conflict, and I expect acting out. 

I believe that liberal education in America is always connected to civic engagement. We want our students to learn how to be better citizens while they come to understand the ideas and the contexts of whatever field they study. In Safe Enough Spaces, I argue that civic preparedness (to use Danielle Allen’s term) develops when students value free speech and political participation in contexts that prohibit violence and intimidation. Students don’t need to be protected from offensiveness, but they do need to be educated in situations in which they learn to think for themselves in the company of others. That’s what I call “practicing freedom.”

That’s why ideally we can make crisis moments like ours educational for the students. This does not mean we pander to them. On the contrary, they learn from teachers who resist their popular but dumb ideas, and who help students understand better how to pursue meaningful objectives over time.

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The House Education Committee has now called three more university presidents — for the first time, three men, and two of them leading public universities: Peter Salovey, president of Yale University; Gene Block, chancellor of the University of California at Los Angeles; and Santa Ono, president of the University of Michigan.

It seems quite clear that the committee’s animus towards the elite universities isn’t actually about the threat of antisemitism, protecting free-speech rights, or even ensuring student safety. What do you think the goal actually is for Foxx, Stefanik, and the other Republican members?

Despite my many years working on Freud and psychoanalysis, I don’t understand the deep motivations behind people who on some days cozy up to Replacement Theory and Christian Nationalism and on other days paint themselves as anti-antisemites.

For over a century, one has said that antisemitism is the socialism of fools. Today, anti-antisemitism has become the conservatism of knaves.

The political motivations of extreme right politicians are clear: they are riding the anti-elites train, the wave of rejecting people with expertise and credentials. By attacking so-called cultural elites, the extreme right avoids talking about economic elites. It distracts people with real grievances from the profound issues of inequality that plague this country. Rather than deal with child poverty, the so-called conservatives attack Ivy Leaguers; rather than force billionaires to pay their fair share of taxes, they turn our attention to protesters on campus.

Some news coverage has described university actions against protesters as driven by these Congressional hearings. Is that the case? What about donors or boards? Are you feeling any such pressure? 

No.

What do you make of the charge that the protesters are antisemitic? Do you have a sense that there are actual connections among opposition to Israeli military action, anti-Zionism, and antisemitism? Or are we seeing a toxic mixture of bad-faith political entrepreneurship and angry, less-than-fully-informed student groups?

Of course, one can be anti-Zionist and not be antisemitic. It is clear that many Jewish students have joined the protests and that one can be very much opposed to the politics of Israel’s government (I am) and not be antisemitic (I am not).

I also think it’s pretty obvious that some of the protesters use antisemitic tropes, and that some of them don’t consider it possible for a Jew to be an innocent civilian. Hamas, which some protesters applaud, is viciously antisemitic. It considers the rape of Jewish women and the killing of Jewish babies not just tactics of war but an occasion for ecstatic rejoicing. It doesn’t get more antisemitic than that. 

I remain appalled (but, alas, no longer shocked) that many protesters don’t seem to be concerned about their association with this terrorist organization. They don’t care. Although only a small minority of protesters might be overtly antisemitic, it is far too easy for many to accept Jewish deaths as the price for someone to be free.

This doesn’t have to be explicit for it to be hateful, especially from people who not long ago were concerned with microaggressions against other groups. Antisemitism enables far too many to accept the cheapening of Jewish life; it’s classic scapegoating. This is a very old story on the right, and also for more than fifty years among people who want to be thought of as progressive. If Israel changed its ways, would these people still be antisemitic? Yes. The thrill of being part of a movement trumps their basic moral sense.

Speaking of Trump, of course this will help him. If his people were smart enough to instigate the protests to divide the left and to whip up anger at kids on campus, they couldn’t have done a better job. My hope is that the civic preparedness that may be enhanced by young folks’ involvement in this movement will energize them to protect democracy in the fall.

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What are the protesters’ specific demands at Wesleyan? What’s your sense of their actual overall motivations?

Also, what do you make of the common media framing of the protesters as “pro-Palestinian” versus counterprotestors who are “pro-Israel?” If we’re making the 1968 comparison, why not “antiwar” instead, since in a practical context they are mainly pushing for a ceasefire at this point?

The demands at Wesleyan resemble the BDS demands of some years ago. Very little to do with Gaza in particular; the demands have to do with isolating Israel economically and culturally. I would hope that students will turn their attention to having an impact on U.S. foreign policy and not the “cancellation” of a complicated country with a complex history.

As for being antiwar, I wish there was more of that idealism across the country. I prefer that good old naivete to what one hears from many in today’s movement. Many in today’s movement seem to think war (violence) is justified as long as you are “on the right side of history,” which today for them means the “anti-colonial” side. This is insipid, lazy thinking, and it leads to some of the self-righteous, close-minded rhetoric of people who in other moods might be defending free speech, democracy, and the development of the rule of law. It also leads to the same vicious moral callousness that the U.S. displayed in, say, Iraq and that Israel displays today in Gaza. People who had “God on their side” have done lots of damage, as will people who think they have “history on their side” today.

One thing I’ve been wondering is whether everyone is making a mistake by thinking of this movement in light of 1968. Is there built-in hyperbole here — on the left, seeing a protest movement as a looming problem for the Democratic convention, as a threat to a second Biden term; on the right, the useful specter of 60s-style counterculture opposition — that works against peaceful resolution of the conflict, regardless of how the students might see themselves? I don’t see as much media comparison to the actions against apartheid of the 1980s, which seems more useful (and in many cases then, university administrators either ignored or came to terms with the student movement).

Some of the opposition to the students is based on procedures. They are in the wrong space at the wrong time. Other opposition is based on the clear indications from many protesters that Israel should not exist as a state. These protesters have yet to opine as far as I know about the legitimacy of other states in the region.

Yes, I think the protests are a problem for politics in the fall unless young people take the political energies they’ve experienced and turn those energies toward building coalitions at home to win the next round of elections and to pass legislation that might facilitate the creation of a more just and peaceful world. 

But at a time when we should be putting our full attention on getting a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, we are instead talking about fancy college campuses. At some schools, protesters seem more interested in investment policies or in campus disruption than in doing anything meaningful for Gazans. The media finds it easier to cover Columbia than Rafah. Let’s instead pay attention to the right things: We need a ceasefire and a return of the hostages now, and we need to get aid to Gaza.

Categories Courage, Creativity, Democracy, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education

Georgia: GOP Former Lt. Gov. Endorses Biden

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2024 //
5

Geoff Duncan, a former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia and a lifelong Republican, explained in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution why he could not vote for Donald Trump:

It’s disappointing to watch an increasing number of Republicans fall in line behind former president Donald Trump. This includes some of his fiercest detractors, such as U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who raised eyebrows during a recent interview by vowing to support the “Republican ticket.”

This mentality is dead wrong.

Yes, elections are a binary choice. Yes, serious questions linger about President Biden’s ability to serve until the age of 86. His progressive policies aren’t to conservatives’ liking.

But the GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance.

The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star.

Most important, Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one….

The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country). A forthcoming Time magazine cover story lays out in stark terms “the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.”

Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.

Categories Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Georgia, Republicans, Trump

Dana Milbank: Gaza Protestors Are Helping to Elect Trump, Who Won’t Tolerate Them

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2024 //
9

Dana Milbank wrote recently about the latest foibles of Trump: his endless verbal gaffes; his inability to stay awake at his trial in New York City; his endless lies about everything.

But the main point of his article is that the students protesting against Israel and calling Biden “Genocide Joe” are helping to elect Trump.

Trump will be far harsher towards student protestors than Biden and far closer to Netanyahu. Trump promises to use the National Guard to crack down on student protestors and to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.

He wrote that Trump:

….said he would change the law to reverse “a bias against White” people: “I think there is a definite anti-White feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed.” He walked away from his previous support for a Palestinian state, saying “I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is going to work.” And he said he wouldn’t hesitate to use the National Guard against pro-Palestinian protesters while also leaving open the possibility of using the broader U.S. military against them.

Those last Trump positions — the restoration of white power, the rejection of a Palestinian homeland, the willingness to mobilize troops against peaceful demonstrators — show how deeply misguided those on the far left are as they protest Biden’s policies on Gaza. Their frustration with the president’s support for Israel is understandable. But in making Biden the enemy, including with chants of “Genocide Joe,” the plans to trash the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the proliferation of vows of the “uncommitted” never to vote for Biden, they are in effect working to elect Trump. This isn’t principled protest; it’s nihilism.

They are working to help return to office an authoritarian who just last week said the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville was “like a peanut compared to the riots and the anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our country.” In recent months, Trump said Israel should be allowed to “finish the job” in Gaza and boasted about cutting off aid to Palestinians. And he has vowed, if elected, to reimpose his travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries and “expand it even further.”

For those student protesters too young to remember, this is the guy who led the anti-Muslim “birther” campaign against President Barack Obama; who claimed thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks; who said “Islam hates us” and employed several anti-Muslim bigots in his administration; who wanted to have police surveillance of U.S. mosques; who called for a “complete and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”; who retweeted anti-Muslim propaganda videos by a white supremacist; and who told figures such as Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to “go back” to the “totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

So it’s entirely consistent that, in Wisconsin on Wednesday, he said that he’s “restoring the travel ban, suspending refugee admissions and keeping terrorists the hell out of our country.” He went on: “We’ve seen what happened when Europe opened their doors to jihad. Look at Paris, Look at London. They’re no longer recognizable.”
Trump, on Hannity’s show this week, called the demonstrators at Columbia “paid agitators” and “brainwashed.” At his Wisconsin rally, he condemned the “raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers at Columbia and other colleges.” He called for authorities to “vanquish the radicals,” many of whom “come from foreign countries.”

None of this should be surprising, either, for this is the same guy who called thousands of National Guard troops to Washington and federal police to Oregon to combat racial-justice demonstrators after the George Floyd killing; who held a Bible-wielding photo op in Lafayette Square after authorities cleared a peaceful demonstration with tear gas; who, according to his own former defense secretary, suggested to military leaders that they shoot demonstrators; who calls the free press the “enemy of the American people”; who defended the “very fine people” among the Nazis in Charlottesville and who called those convicted of attacking the Capitol “hostages.”

Yet the pro-Palestinian activists, through their actions, would return the author of this ugliness to the White House. They must have been doing for the last eight years what Trump has been doing in court the last three weeks: napping.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education, Trump

Michael Tomasky: Does Joe Biden Have “Absolute Immunity?” If He Does…

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2024 //
19

Michael Tomasky came up with an interesting thought. Writing in The New Republic, he speculated on what Joe Biden could accomplish if the Supreme Court rules that Presidents have absolute immunity for anything they do in their official capacity. Time for Dark Brandon!

During last week’s oral arguments in United States v. Trump, it sure sounded like there might be five Supreme Court justices willing to conclude that a president should indeed have lifetime immunity from legal reprisal for official acts committed as president. This prospect is terrifying because it would hand a President Trump a nearly blank check to do anything he wants—to the Constitution, to his political opponents, to the executive branch—and there will be no way to stop him unless 67 votes emerge in the Senate to convict him of high crimes and misdemeanors and remove him from office, which seems a near impossibility, given Republicans’ excessive fealty to and fear of the man and his movement.

But then it occurred to me over the weekend: Well, wait a second. Donald Trump isn’t president. Joe Biden is. And if presidential immunity for official acts were to apply to a future President Trump, would it not also apply to current President Biden?

Of course it would. And I hope that fact has them doing some thinking in the Biden White House. Democrats should drive the point home to Republicans and the nation that two can play this game.

What “official acts” might Biden undertake once Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Bret Kavanaugh, and possibly John Roberts declare him to be above the law? Well, let’s have some fun here.

Let’s start with the Supreme Court itself. Biden could wake up one day and announce that the court should have 13 members, or 15, and he could set about appointing the new associate justices and doing his best to ram them through the Senate, offering Joe Manchin trillions in economic development for West Virginia to secure the retiring senator’s support, between now and Election Day.

Politically risky? Sure. But maybe not as politically risky as most pundits would assume—and not nearly as costly to the republic as the things Trump is contemplating doing. Remember, the Constitution calls for no set number of justices. Biden would be within even his pre-immunity rights to try to change it. Two polls came out last fall asking respondents whether they’d favor court expansion, and the affirmative view prevailed in both: It was 54-46 in one, and 44-35 (with 22 percent having no opinion) in the other. That looks like a winnable political fight to me.

Biden would need only to make two arguments. Number one, this court delegitimized itself when it took away a half-century-old right, the right to a safe and legal abortion, in the Dobbs ruling. Every one of the justices who voted to strip that right away from women vowed in his or her confirmation hearing about their deep respect for precedent. They all lied. Number two, this very court gave me the power to do this! I’m only doing what this very Supreme Court just ruled a president was within his rights to do.

Okay. We all know Biden is not going to do that. He’s too respectful of tradition, and Democrats are too fearful of the right-wing noise machine, which would kick into an unprecedented outrage gear if Biden actually tried to make use of the tools the Supreme Court just handed him.

But here’s my point. If this court were to give presidents a grant of immunity for official acts, Biden should most certainly use the occasion to play some hardball. Make some threats about what he might do with this power. Get the American public thinking about some things they just don’t think about enough, leading public opinion in the direction of reforming aspects of our democratic system that badly need reform.

Take the Electoral College. Democrats have won seven of the last eight presidential elections, in popular vote terms, but this archaic and reactionary system that was put into place to give presidential candidates from slaveholding states an advantage has helped elect two Republicans who lost the popular vote.

I don’t think Biden should just unilaterally end the Electoral College—although, if he had immunity for all official acts, he could certainly give it a whirl, let conservatives bring a civil lawsuit, and see what his new 13-member Supreme Court thinks of the idea.

Less audaciously, he could certainly find some legal way to put an end to all these MAGA-driven attempts to seat alternate electors in states whose outcomes they dispute, which they did in seven states in 2020 and by all accounts are preparing to do again this year. Yes, the GOP-led House would impeach him, but so what? There’d never be 67 votes in the Senate to convict. And as with court expansion, if it were clear that he had really won the disputed states, public opinion would be on Biden’s side, and he’d have pushed the Overton window dramatically in the direction of eventual abolition of the Electoral College.

Okay, this, too, is a little out there for Biden. More seriously, he could use an immunity grant to issue a series of rulings and orders that would be aimed toward two ends: one, shoring up some of his policy decisions against the inevitable Trump reversals should Trump be elected, and two, preemptively making it harder for Trump to do some of the things that the infamous Project 2025 pledges he will do.

On the former, for example, the Biden administration could undertake a number of administrative moves on the civil rights and labor fronts to make it harder for Trump to undo what Team Biden has done. And on the latter, Biden can find a way to make it basically impossible for Trump to implement his so-called Schedule F plans, under which Trump would give himself the authority to fire more federal workers and replace them with lackeys. And that’s just for starters. With immunity for official acts, Biden could preemptively defang a lot of what promises to be undemocratic and authoritarian about a Trump second term.

Of course, the Supreme Court might not even issue a ruling on immunity. It might just remand it back to the Washington, D.C., appeals court that ruled in February that Citizen Trump was not immune from prosecution—that is, the high court’s real intent may just have been to delay the prosecution of Trump on January 6 insurrection charges, not to shield him from prosecution.

But I hope we’ve all learned by now never to underestimate the cynical perfidy of this court majority. They may well limit presidential immunity, thinking they’re helping Trump remake the country in his fascist fashion. They’ll calculate that the old institutionalist Biden would never use his new powers in the closing months and weeks of his term. It would be delicious to see him prove them wrong.

Categories Accountability, Biden, Civil Rights, Democracy, Elections, Trump

Jan Resseger: How Book Bans and Censorship Are Hurting Children

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2024 //
7

Jan Resseger explains how young people are injured when adults censor what they read and teach them inaccurate history.

She writes:

Public schools, which serve more than 50 million of our nation’s children and adolescents are perhaps our society’s most important public institution. Unlike private schools, public schools guarantee acceptance for all children everywhere in the United States, and they protect the rights of all children by law. And unlike their private school counterparts, public schools are also required to provide services to meet each child’s educational needs, even children who are disabled or who are learning the English language.

Today’s culture war attacks on public education drive fear of “the other” and attempt to frighten parents about exposing their children to others who may come from other countries, from other cultures, from a different race or ethnicity, from a different religion, or from a gay or lesbian family.

The idea of insulating children is, however, counter to the whole philosophical tradition that is the foundation for our system of public schooling.

More than a century ago, education philosopher John Dewey declared: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children… Only by being true to the full growth of all the individuals who make it up, can society by any chance be true to itself,” (The School and Society, p. 5)

For Dewey, however, educating all children together without insulating them was important as more than an abstract principle. Dewey believed that the experience of school was itself a way of learning to live in a broader community: “I believe that the school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life… I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects… the school as a form of community life… I believe that… the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought.” (My Pedagogic Creed, January 1897)

A hundred years later, in 1998, the political philosopher Benjamin Barber defended the idea of public schools as a microcosm of the community: “America is not a private club defined by one group’s historical hegemony. Consequently, multicultural education is not discretionary; it defines demographic and pedagogical necessity.  If we want youngsters from Los Angeles whose families speak more than 160 languages to be ‘Americans,’ we must first acknowledge their diversity and honor their distinctiveness.”( “Education for Democracy,” in A Passion for Democracy: American Essays, p.231).

And in the same year, another philosopher of education, Walter Feinberg explained that in public school classrooms students should learn to tell their own stories, to listen and respect the stories of others, and through that process prepare for democratic citizenship: “That there is an ‘American story’ means not that there is one official understanding of the American experience but, rather, that those who are telling their versions of the story are doing so in order to contribute to better decision making on the part of the American nation and that they understand that they are part of those decisions. The concept is really ‘Americans’ stories.’” (Common Schools: Uncommon Identities, p. 232) (emphasis in the original)

Today, of course, the culture wars attacks on public education seek to reshape the curriculum, silence controversial discussion, and ban books.

Massachusetts political science professor Maurice Cunningham explains that well-funded advocates for reshaping school curricula—including the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Council for National Policy and a number of dark money groups—are spending millions of dollars to fan the fears of parents by supporting local advocates in organizations like Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education. The goal is to agitate against overly “woke” public school curricula and to frighten parents by telling them that teachers are frightening children by including the nation’s sins as well as our society’s virtues as part of the American history curriculum, and by encouraging children to listen to the voices of people who have traditionally been marginalized.  There is, however, no evidence that our children have been personally or collectively frightened when they learn about slavery as the cause of the Civil War or when they learn about gender identity as part of a high school human sexuality curriculum. Accurate and inclusive curricula and open class discussion where all voices are heard and considered are essential for truly public education.

Robert Samuels’ When Your Own Book Gets Caught Up in the Culture Wars profoundly explains the damage wrought by book banning, Samuels, a Washington Post reporter and his colleague Toluse Olorunnipa, had just won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction last fall when they were invited to a Memphis high school to discuss their new book, His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.  Samuels describes why he wanted to share his book with the Memphis high school students: “I had once been told that the answer to anything could be found in a book… One day, during my senior year, I was browsing an airport bookstore when I saw Stokely Carmichael’s autobiography, “Ready for Revolution.” A whole chapter was devoted to Bronx (High School of) Science, which he had also attended. I was riveted. It started with an officer hassling him on the street, only to be stunned when Carmichael shows him a book with the school’s logo. Although our time there was separated by four decades, we both had the same confusion upon discovering that white classmates had grown up reading an entirely different set of material….  We were both surprised by how little dancing there was at white classmates’ parties. ‘It was at first a mild culture shock, but I adapted,’ he wrote. I, too, had to learn to adapt, to not be so self-conscious about getting stereotyped because of my speech, my clothes, my interests. It was the first time I had ever truly felt seen in a book that was not made for children.”

Samuels and Olorunnipa received a call just before their Memphis visit warning them they could not read from the book and that the school could not distribute copies to students. And during their visit, it became evident that students’ questions had even been carefully edited by their teachers.  Then, in the weeks after the visit, the Memphis-Shelby County school staff and event sponsoring organization stepped all over themselves trying to apologize to Samuels and Olorunnipa.  It became evident that school staff had been frightened and intimidated by school district regulations; the penalties were severe while the rules themselves remained unclear.

Samuels describes what happened: “(T)he spokesperson for the school district e-mailed… to apologize for the miscommunication and misinformation ‘surrounding your recent visit’… (She) defended prohibiting the book itself, on the ground that it was not appropriate for people under the age of eighteen… (She) then admitted that no one involved in the decision had actually read it. The district’s academic department didn’t have time… A staff person in the office searched for it in a library database, noting that the American Library Association had classified it as adult literature.” There was one positive result of the whole fiasco:  with a donation from Viking Books, the publisher, a Memphis community development group, promised any student from Whitehaven High School a free copy of His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

Philosophers of education, academic researchers, educational psychologists, and the students in America’s classrooms all tell us that young people are hurt when the school is forced to remove the books that tell students’ own stories.

Young people are made invisible when state laws suppress accurate teaching about all the strands of the American story including slavery, and what happened during the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. Children who are gay or lesbian learn that they should withdraw and hide when the words that describe them are banned. Experts also tell us that the other children in the classroom are not frightened when, for example, a classmate shares the challenges his or her family faced as immigrants trying to find a place to feel welcome.

Please open the link and finish reading this important article.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Education Reform, Libraries, Literacy, Literature, Racism

Rick Perlstein: Texas is a Fascist State

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2024 //
7

Rick Perlstein writes in The American Prospect about a conversation with a friend who is a journalist in Texas. His friend describes how his native state is run by men who are determined to stamp out every last vestige of democracy in Texas. The Republican Party keeps moving to the extreme and crushing reasonableness and sanity. The result is a fascist state where all power is concentrated in the hands of Gregg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and far-right fascists.

Perlstein writes:

I made a friend a few years back, a young journalist at a newspaper in a smaller Texas city, bored with his work and seeking out conversation on the kind of things I write about. As time went on, however, he just wanted to talk about escape. “A local city I cover, as a matter of habit, appeals every single public records request,” went a typical plaint. “In a state that hasn’t completely lost its mind, maybe the solution is to reach out to the AG’s office. Except in Texas, you’re trying to get an indicted man who might have helped with January 6 to act on behalf of the public.”

At the end of that year, he approached me on the horns of a dilemma: take a job offer as a beat reporter at a daily in a big Texas city, or quit journalism and find some job at a do-gooder nonprofit. The guy’s dog was named “Molly Ivins.” I told him I didn’t think he had much choice. Alas, he took this graybeard’s advice. Things since have been hardly more rewarding.

One day: “Working on a deep dive into how the state of Texas fails to protect intellectually disabled people from predatory guardians. Depressing stuff.”

Another day: “A thing that really irks me about covering conservative dustups is how profoundly dishonest the whole thing is … When it comes time to write, you have two options. Either cut through the BS and call it what it is; then they’ll tell you you’re just biased. Or you can try to finesse it and sound insane.”

Another: “I also just finished a story about how domestic violence homicides are through the roof in Texas (even as overall homicide rates have declined), but we don’t have the infrastructure to really know how bad conditions have become. It turns out when you turn women into second-class citizens and make guns easily accessible, that doesn’t go well.”

A couple of weeks back, he shared with me a dark epiphany: He no longer felt hope. Thought it might be high time to get the hell out of his native state forever. He asked if there was anything out there that gave me hope. Having reached the “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown” stage of my relationship with the United States (in part thanks to his testimony from the front lines), I had no comfort to offer.

I did, however, have a suggestion. He could tell me about what all this was like. I could let you listen in. Forthwith, an edited and annotated transcript of my conversation with a man I’ll call Lonely Star. Though it’s not so much that he’s lonely; he has manyanguished compatriots who feel the same way. It’s just that they feel like there’s less they can do about it with every passing day.

Please open the link and read their conversation. It’s enlightening and frightening.

Categories Accountability, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Texas, Vouchers

Robert Hubbell: Trump Tells TIME What He Will Do if He Wins

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2024 //
18

Robert Hubbell summarizes Trump’s goals, as he explained them to TIME magazine in an interview. They sound remarkably fascistic. All power to the imperial President. No checks or balances. Remember and ask yourself: is this the country we want to live in? I suppose we should be glad that Trump is turning 80 this year. With any luck, he won’t have time to abolish the Constitution and make himself President-for-life.

Hubbell writes:

On a day of many important stories, the most important news came from Donald Trump’s interview with Time Magazine. See Donald Trump on What His Second Term Would Look Like | TIME. In the interview, Trump confirmed that he will attempt to exercise dictatorial powers in a second term.

We have been warned.

We ignore Trump’s threats at our peril and the peril of our democracy.

In describing his fever dream of autocratic powers, Trump said he would take (or allow) the following actions:

  • Allow states to monitor the pregnancies of women to ensure they comply with abortion bans (a grotesque violation of liberty, privacy, and dignity).
  • Fire US attorneys who refuse to prosecute defendants targeted by Trump (a violation of US norms dating to the creation of the Department of Justice).
  • Initiate mass deportations of alleged illegal immigrants using the US military and local law enforcement (neither of which are authorized to enforce US immigration law).
  • Pardon insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6.
  • Prosecute President Biden (for unspecified and non-existent crimes).
  • Deploy the National Guard to cities and states across America—likely those with predominately Democratic populations (presumably under the Insurrection Act, a deployment would violate the terms of the Act and implementing regulations).
  • Withhold funds from states in the exercise of his personal discretion (a violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974).
  • Abandon NATO and South Asian allies if he feels the countries are not paying enough for their own defense.
  • Shutter the White House pandemic-preparedness office.
  • Fire tens (hundreds?) of thousands of civil servants and replace them with Trump acolytes with dubious qualifications (other than loyalty to Trump).

Most readers of this newsletter understand the seriousness of Trump’s threats and are working tirelessly to prevent a second Trump term. But tens of millions of Americans seem oblivious or apathetic in the face of an imminent and dire threat.

If elected, will Trump succeed in achieving any of his stated goals? No—not if Democrats continue their resistance in the courts, in Congress, in state legislatures, and in the hearts and minds of most Americans.

However, whether Trump succeeds in achieving his stated objectives is beside the point. He will attempt to do so—and his attempts will tear at the fabric of democracy and destroy legal norms that have served as the bedrock of our republic since its founding.

To be clear, I am not attempting to frighten readers of this newsletter. To the contrary, I believe that we can and will defeat Trump—or outlast him, whatever it takes. But the interview confirms that we are not frantic alarmists exaggerating the threat posed by Trump.

No, far from it.

When we challenge the milquetoast, both-siderism reporting of the media or the normalization of Trump by spineless politicians, we are not overreacting. We are sounding the alarm in a responsible, necessary way. For reasons that defy comprehension, our warnings have been unheeded—often dismissed, minimized, or patronized.

We must redouble our efforts. Commit the above list to memory. Copy the URL so you can forward this newsletter or the Time Magazine article to friends, colleagues, and complete strangers who doubt that Trump is a danger to democracy. Pick two or three issues and be prepared to discuss them when the moment arises. We have been warned—and we must act accordingly. 

Categories Bigotry, Civil Rights, Corruption, Cruelty, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Immigration, Trump

My Conversation about the State Takeover of Houston Public Schools on KPFT-Pacifica

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2024 //
6

I was invited by KPFT, a Pacifica station in Houston, to discuss the state takeover of the Houston Independent School District.

This is a better link.

The host of the show is Paul Castro, who has taught in HISD and in an open enrollment charter school.

It was a good exchange. We talked about The state-appointed superintendent Mike Miles, about charter schools, and about Governor Abbott’s determination to get a voucher bill passed by the next legislature. I explained what a voucher program would mean and what has been learned from the experience of other states.

You have to search the website to find the program. It aired April 26 at 9 am.

“Amplified Houston” Friday

Host:Paul Castro

Guest:Diane Ravitch 

Topic

Public school reform and HISD Takeover

Amplified Houston for Fri., April 26, 2024, focuses on public school reform and the HISD takeover. Dr Diane Ravitch, Founder and President of the Network for Public Education (NPE) will guest. NPE is the single largest organization of parents and teachers and other citizens working to stop the privatization of public education and the misuse of standardized testing.Diane Ravitch’s Blog is dianeravitch.net. Her two most recent books are EdSpeak and DoubleTalk:A Glossary to Decipher Hypocrisy and Save Public Schooling and The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Friday, April 26, 2024 9:00 am30:07

Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, Houston, State Takeover, Texas, Vouchers

ACLU: How to Protect Free Speech on Campus

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2024 //
27

The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement to advise college and university presidents about responding to student protests.

We write in response to the recent protests that have spread across our nation’s university and college campuses, and the disturbing arrests that have followed. We understand that as leaders of your campus communities, it can be extraordinarily difficult to navigate the pressures you face from politicians, donors, and faculty and students alike. You also have legal obligations to combat discrimination and a responsibility to maintain order. But as you fashion responses to the activism of your students (and faculty and staff), it is essential that you not sacrifice principles of academic freedom and free speech that are core to the educational mission of your respected institution…The American Civil Liberties Union released a statement describing how universities should react to demonstrations on campus.

The statement begins:

Schools must not single out particular viewpoints for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment

These protections extend to both students and faculty, and to speech that supports either side of the conflict. Outside the classroom, including on social media, students and professors must be free to express even the most controversial political opinions without fear of discipline or censure. Inside the classroom, speech can be and always has been subject to more restrictive rules to ensure civil dialogue and a robust learning environment. But such rules have no place in a public forum like a campus green. Preserving physical safety on campuses is paramount; but “safety” from ideas or views that one finds offensive is anathema to the very enterprise of the university.

First, university administrators must not single out particular viewpoints — however offensive they may be to some members of the community — for censorship, discipline, or disproportionate punishment. Viewpoint neutrality is essential. Harassment directed at individuals because of their race, ethnicity, or religion is not, of course, permissible. But general calls for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea,” or defenses of Israel’s assault on Gaza, even if many listeners find these messages deeply offensive, cannot be prohibited or punished by a university that respects free speech principles.

Schools must protect students from discriminatory harassment and violence

Second, both public and private universities are bound by civil rights laws that guarantee all students equal access to education, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. This means that schools can, and indeed must, protect students from discriminatory harassment on the basis of race or national origin, which has been interpreted to include discrimination on the basis of “shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” or “citizenship or residency in a country with a dominant religion or distinct religious identity.”

So, while offensive and even racist speech is constitutionally protected, shouting an epithet at a particular student or pinning an offensive sign to their dorm room door can constitute impermissible harassment, not free speech. Antisemitic or anti-Palestinian speech targeted at individuals because of their ethnicity or national origin constitutes invidious discrimination, and cannot be tolerated. Physically intimidating students by blocking their movements or pursuing them aggressively is unprotected conduct, not protected speech. It should go without saying that violence is never an acceptable protest tactic.

Speech that is not targeted at an individual or individuals because of their ethnicity or national origin but merely expresses impassioned views about Israel or Palestine is not discrimination and should be protected. The only exception for such untargeted speech is where it is so severe or pervasive that it denies students equal access to an education — an extremely demanding standard that has almost never been met by pure speech. One can criticize Israel’s actions, even in vituperative terms, without being antisemitic. And by the same token, one can support Israel’s actions in Gaza and condemn Hamas without being anti-Muslim. Administrators must resist the tendency to equate criticism with discrimination. Speech condoning violence can be condemned, to be sure. But it cannot be the basis for punishment, without more.

Schools can announce and enforce reasonable content-neutral protest policies but they must leave ample room for students to express themselves

Third, universities can announce and enforce reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on protest activity to ensure that essential college functions can continue. Such restrictions must be content neutral, meaning that they do not depend on the substance of what is being communicated, but rather where, when, or how it is being communicated. Protests can be limited to certain areas of campus and certain times of the day, for example. These policies must, however, leave ample room for students to speak to and to be heard by other members of the community. And the rules must not only be content neutral on their face; they must also be applied in a content-neutral manner. If a university has routinely tolerated violations of its rules, and suddenly enforces them harshly in a specific context, singling out particular views for punishment, the fact that the policy is formally neutral on its face does not make viewpoint-based enforcement permissible.

Open the link to finish reading the statement.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Freedom of Speech, Higher Education
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