This blog on Texas education contains posts on accountability, testing, K-12 education, postsecondary educational attainment, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, environmental issues, and Ethnic Studies at the state and national levels. It addresses politics in Texas. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Under the auspices of taking down "woke curriculum," House Bill 1804, covered by Bridget Grumet in today's Austin American-Statesman, amounts to a serious whitewashing and micromanaging of a public school curriculum that is already whitewashed. This bill clearly reflects the continuing politics over CRT from the from the 2021 legislative session. The Rs are milking this for every last drop to establish, if you will, an "avoidance curriculum," that seeks to muzzle critical discourse, pedagogy, and thought.
If this were otherwise, we, in the Ethnic Studies community would not have been advocating all these years for Ethnic Studies—meaning Mexican American, African American, Asian American, and Native American Studies. What we should be doing instead is advocating for Morales' HB 45 that creates a pathway to a high school diploma via the taking of Ethnic Studies courses.
I love this meme that is so appropriate to the politics of this moment:
"Imagine, if you will, a country so ashamed of its history that it punishes people for teaching that history."
Imagine that. Legislators should consider taking an Ethnic Studies or sociocultural course so that they can see how they themselves benefit from a broadened, expansive view of the world. Anything short of a more inclusive, critical curriculum that tells it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly—reflects a deep-seated shame that they themselves have of their own history. Still, the rest of us shouldn't have to pay the price of their willful ignorance.
So on a warm March day in 1990, Maria R. Palacios joined the dozens of people who left their wheelchairs and crutches at the base of the U.S. Capitol, then crawled up the 83 stone steps toward the building where the Americans with Disabilities Act was stalled.
The next day, Palacios watched as about 100 of her fellow protesters, some of them in wheelchairs linked together in chains, were arrested for refusing to leave the Capitol Rotunda — a pressure campaign that helped push Congress to finally pass the landmark civil rights legislation for people with disabilities.
“When we talk about the importance of civil disobedience, we’re talking about survival,” Palacios, who lives in Houston, told me by phone this week. “At some point, when we have had enough, that is when we pour out into the streets, and we are willing to sacrifice, and we put our bodies on the line.”
I don’t know how you tell that story without appreciation for the activists or the righteousness of their cause. But that is what a proposed measure in the Texas House would require.
House Bill 1804, aiming to rein in what critics have called a “woke” curriculum, says textbooks “may not include selections or works that condone civil disorder, social strife, or disregard for the law.”
“Condone” is a loaded word. American history turns on moments in which protesters have stood up against some form of injustice, using civil disobedience, a decision to violate certain laws, to make a point. Is it “condoning” their tactics to note when they succeeded? Should teachers and textbooks be neutral about the discrimination that demonstrators sought to end? Is the key takeaway from their experience the trespassing arrest?
The greater concern is that some threads of history will become so politically charged (and legally fraught) that teachers might simply avoid them.
“It’s erasing history,” Palacios said, as I told her about the bill. “They don't have the right to erase history.”
(Indeed, this issue isn't solely about history. On Tuesday afternoon, troopers cleared out scores of chanting protesters from the Texas Capitol, at least one of them in handcuffs, as lawmakers considered a measure banning gender-affirming medical care for youth.)
Rep. Terri Leo-Wilson, a first-year GOP lawmaker from Galveston, did not respond to my request to discuss her bill. In a statement to the Dallas Observer last week, however, she said, “What HB 1804 requires is that when acts of civil disobedience are covered in materials it is noted when those movements have used illegal means to accomplish their purpose.”
Fears of ‘creating social justice warriors’
Though HB 1804 has a deep bench of supporters — five authors and 50 co-authors — it’s still pending in committee.
This sweeping bill touches many aspects of education. It would require science textbooks to “clearly” distinguish scientific theory from fact. It would also require any materials discussing America to “present positive aspects of the United States and its heritage.” (It’s unclear how much information about our nation’s shortcomings would be allowed.)
The committee substitute version of the bill drew attention last week for adding language that would ban content on sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual activity from any instructional materials used before high school.
Texas needs to “instruct students in math, science (and) other subjects in an objective manner, and not spend a high amount of time and resources on creating social justice warriors,” Jonathan Covey, policy director for Texas Values, told the House Public Education Committee last month.
I agree that it’s not the job of schools to create activists (and I haven’t seen any evidence they are). But textbooks should not tiptoe around the role that civil disobedience played in our history, either.
Touchstones like the Boston Tea Party and the civil rights movement would remain in some form, I’d imagine. But what about other movements, such as those for disabled access?
“Rosa Parks was asked to move to the back of the bus,” Palacios said. “Disabled people, even to this day, continue to fight for the chance to get on the bus.”
On basic rights, there’s no counterpoint
The Coalition of Texans with Disabilities has raised concerns that HB 1804 “would block the factual teaching of the disability rights movement in public schools,” alongside other civil rights movements.
J Canciglia, an advocate with the coalition, pointed to a long history of protests: Disabled activists shutting down New York City traffic on Madison Avenue in 1972. Protesters holding sit-ins at government buildings in 1977. And, of course, the demonstrations culminating in the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
At the same time, HB 1804 says instructional materials must “present contrasting points of view regarding significant political or social movements in history in a balanced and factual manner.”
One would hope we’re not still debating whether people deserve basic human rights. The cost of accommodations for those who are disabled is hardly a counterpoint.
“Students with disabilities deserve access to the works of these key historical figures within the movement,” Canciglia told the House Public Education Committee. “They also deserve to be free of ‘contrasting views’ regarding the acquisition of their rights.”
A fair presentation of history shouldn’t strip out the advocacy and even civil disobedience that led to change. The next generation of Texans should be able to find their origin stories in our history books, and that includes people who have struggled in numerous ways to be recognized and treated with respect.
And what about those who are fortunate enough to live without the sting of discrimination? They need to learn the history, too.
“It’s because of the other people who have been on the frontlines of activism, it's because of the people who put their bodies on the line and whose lives have been risked — it’s because of those people that you’re able to say, ‘Well, I have not been oppressed,’” Palacios said. “I say to them, ‘You’re welcome.’”
Grumet is the Statesman’s Metro columnist. Her column, ATX in Context, contains her opinions. Share yours via email at bgrumet@statesman.com or via Twitter at @bgrumet. Find her previous work at statesman.com/news/columns.
Beginning at 1:38 on the meter of this youtube video, MSNBC host Alex Wagner addresses Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' book banning, policing curriculum, morphed into his banning of AP African American Studies.
Listen to civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump and Frederick Ingram, Secretary Treasure of the American Federation of Teachers, speak powerfully against this. Note that DeSantis' decision fell flagrantly on the the eve of Black History Month that begins tomorrow on February 1st and on the heels of the commemoration of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.
So incredibly offensive and enraging. According to Ingram, these actions have led to many Florida teachers leaving the classroom as a consequence. How can teachers not be discouraged when they fear teaching the truths of history like slavery, reconstruction, civil rights history, and the like—all that "dangerous knowledge" about which we know well.
We have our own fish to fry here in Texas. Everyone should reach out to whoever represents them and express support for Rep. Christina Morales' House Bill 45 that will create a pathway to high school graduation that includes African American Studies, Mexican American Studies, and Ethnic Studies, generally.
Go to this link to find out who represents you here in Texas if you don't already know. This is winnable, but we need everybody involved.
This piece provides evidence on how racism and anti-semitism are on the rise in Texas schools. It's interesting, if not predictable, to note that this is happening at the same time that books and materials, including those designed to challenge racial, sexist, and homophobic hatred are limiting what can get taught in the schools. This creates a vacuum in knowledge and information that risks getting filled by other readily accessible online communities that promote hatred and violence.
This vitriol then manifests at school board meetings where parents refer to race and gender justice texts as "porn," when what is really obscene is the racial hatred that plays out in school environments as youth take cues from adults, including from government leaders and members of the legislature who are happy to perpetuate fallacies, most especially, an ethnically-cleansed curriculum that's non-inclusive and thusly, narrow and harmful.
I think that most Texas students, their parents, and Texans, generally, find this to be both reprehensible and unacceptable, but those perpetrating these harms are often the loudest voices. I'm glad to see the federal government stepping in on behalf of these aggrieved students. Read for yourselves the IDRA statement here that expresses the following:
"The complaints list a number of demands for resolution, including revised district anti-harassment, anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies; training of school and district staff on Title VI and appropriate school discipline practices; effective and age-appropriate prevention programs for students; systems for student and family input; alternatives to exclusionary discipline placement, such as restorative practices; an external evaluator to regularly assess the educational climate and effectiveness of policies; and annual reports posted online summarizing the reports of racial bullying and harassment."
These corrosive and toxic dynamics have to change if we are to prevent racial, religious, and other forms of harassment and violence in our schools. Anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy together with policies like Ethnic Studies that support their teaching, are also steps in the right direction. There is a bill this session, House Bill 45, an Ethnic Studies bill authored by Rep. Christina Morales, is what merits specific support. And now is the time to rally for it as a way to move positively forward.
LUBBOCK — Parents, full of anger and disbelief, have confronted school leaders in the Lubbock area over a series of racist and antisemitic incidents in several schools.
In total, four separate incidents have come to light in recent weeks.
Two episodes — both involving Black students targeted in constant bullying by their peers and inaction by school officials, parents say — have led to separate federal civil rights lawsuits.
At the heart of the two lawsuits is the pain parents say their children have endured as a result of months of constant and violent bullying — including an Instagram account that posted photos of Black students from a Lubbock middle school with racist captions, and racial discrimination by school officials against students at the high school in Slaton, about 17 miles south of Lubbock.
A third South Plains school district — Roosevelt ISD — had a parent file a federal complaint against them for racial discrimination by school officials. There, a mother took her daughter out of school after she claims school officials targeted her child for undue disciplinary actions.
Meanwhile, a threatening antisemitic petition was passed around by a student at another Lubbock middle school. Parents say they are disappointed the school hasn’t had a strong response.
On their own, these might seem like isolated incidents of school-age angst. However, racially driven and antisemitic incidents are on the rise in Texas. And now four different school districts in the South Plains are facing tensions emblematic of the widespread problem. Instead of addressing it directly, parents say school officials try to sweep the issues under the rug.
Lubbock-Cooper ISD — which includes Laura Bush Middle School, where the Instagram account was based — declined to comment on the federal lawsuit.
“Racism has no place at any school within Lubbock-Cooper ISD,” the district added in a statement. “It is not a reflection of our beliefs as a school and it completely contradicts the virtues we wish to instill in our students.”
Black students at the Laura Bush Middle School in Lubbock-Cooper ISD were allegedly bullied over months, including with an Instagram account that posted photos of them with racist captions. Credit: Mark Rogers for The Texas Tribune
This is one of the better, in-depth pieces on Critical Race Theory I just came across written by Isabella Zou for the Texas Tribune back in June 22, 2021.
Question: What is our community's response to all this anti-CRT hating and backlash?
Answer: A positive legislative agenda for Ethnic Studies for the State of Texas!
I am pleased to say that this past week, Representative Christina Morales, joined by Sen. Carol Alvarado, Rep. Gene Wu and Ethnic Studies leader, Tony Diaz held a press conference last Monday that you can view here on the filing of House Bill 45, renewing the effort to pass Ethnic Studies in the upcoming 88th Session of the Texas State Legislature. Glad to see that LULAC in Houston sponsored this event.
Dr. Valerie Martinez and I got a chance to speak virtually at the press conference, too. You can check out what we say here, as well. Too much fun!
As expressed by Rep. Gene Wu, it's time for all of us who helped build this country to get recognized and featured in our state's public school curriculum. The potential of legislation, meaning "having a bill," is that should it become law, it becomes a priority of the Texas State Board of Education to formally approve, countering the current delay of aligning Native American and Asian American Studies for getting aligned to state standards. Note: African American Studies and Mexican American Studies are already aligned and getting taught in Texas schools as elective courses.
The difference between this bill and what's already in state SBOE code is that it establishes a pathway to a high school diploma that is inclusive of Ethnic Studies courses.
Some folks say that this is about fostering division. That's not a sustainable view when I see nothing but unity across so many groups and communities coming out of this ongoing effort. In fact, outside of this movement, I have not seen or experienced so much interracial or interethnic unity together with white allies in Texas. This is positive, hopeful, and super exciting!
I will be saying more about HB 45 in the coming weeks and months.
Building on the legislative achievements of this legislation (HB 1504) from last session, our Ethnic Studies Coalition is not at all deterred considering that House Bill 45 is in able hands with Rep. Morales and her enthusiastically supportive colleagues.
Those who study the discipline say attacks on it are targeting any teachings that challenge and complicate dominant narratives about the country’s history and identity.
Teacher Melissa Perry reads to her fifth grade class at Jacob’s Well Elementary School in Wimberley on
Jordan Vonderhaar for The Texas Tribune | September 4, 2020. Credit: Tribune
Gov. Greg Abbottsigned into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America’s history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. It’s been commonly referred to as the “critical race theory” bill, though the term “critical race theory” never appears in it.
But in signing the bill, Abbott said “more must be done” to “abolish critical race theory in Texas,” and announced that he would ask the Legislature to address the issue during a special session this summer.
Meanwhile, the debate has taken hold across the nation. Last year, conservative activist Christopher Rufo began using the term “critical race theory” publicly to denounce anti-racist education efforts. Since then, conservative lawmakers, commentators and parents have raised alarm that critical race theory is being used to teach children that they are racist, and that the U.S. is a racist country with irredeemable roots. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and others have called the theory racist itself for centering the nation’s story on racial conflict. In addition, conservative commentator Gerard Baker has argued that critical race theory bans critical thought in favor of what resembles religious instruction.
Those who study the discipline say that the attacks have nothing to do with critical race theory, but instead are targeting any teachings that challenge and complicate dominant narratives about the country’s history and identity.
They say that critical race theory itself actually shifts emphasis away from accusing individuals — in history or in the classroom — of being racist, which tends to dominate liberal discussions of racism. Instead, it offers tools for shifting public policy to create equity and freedom for all.
So what is critical race theory, and why is it relevant to Texans? And why is there an effort against it in Texas — and around the nation?
What is critical race theory?
Critical race theory is a discipline, analytical tool and approach that emerged in the 1970s and ‘80s. Scholars took up the ways racial inequity persisted even after “a whole set of landmark civil rights laws and anti-discrimination laws passed” during the civil right movement, Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, said.
“These scholars and writers are asking, 'why is it that racial inequality endures and persists, even decades after these laws have passed?'” HoSang said. “Why is racism still enduring? And how do we contribute to abolishing it?”
HoSang described critical race theory not as “content,” or a “set of beliefs,” but rather an approach that “encourage[s] us to move past the superficial explanations that are given about equality and suffering, and to ask for new kinds of explanations.”
In the introduction of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, a seminal collection of the foundational essays of the movement edited by principal founders and scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Neil Gotanda, the editors write that critical race theory is about transforming social structures to create freedom for all, and it’s grounded in an “ethical commitment to human liberation.”
Key concepts
Racial Formation: One key concept in critical race theory is racial formation. Developed by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory rejects the idea that race — Black, white, Asian — is a fixed category that has always meant the same thing. Instead, it traces the way that race has been defined, understood and constructed in different ways throughout history. Omi and Winant define race as an “unstable and ‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle.”
For example, they write that in the U.S., the racial category of "Black" was created as slavery was established and evolved. Africans whose specific identity was Ibo, Yoruba or Fulani in Africa were grouped into the category "Black” as they were enslaved in America. Part of the meaning of being “Black” in America was being less than human and therefore enslavable. James Baldwin wrote in “On Being White and Other Lies” that Europeans who moved to America became “white” through a process of “denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation.”
Omi and Winant describe racial formation as the “process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings” — a process that has continued throughout history.
Monica Martinez, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in Latinx history, described how racial formation has played out in Texas in the racialization of Mexicans and the history of anti-Mexican violence.
“Before this region became Texas, there were debates about the character of Mexicans as a group of people,” she said. Figures like Stephen F. Austin and John Calhoun cast them as “treacherous people, thieves and murderers.”
From 1910 to 1920, she explained, hundreds of ethnic Mexicans were victims of lynchings, as well as violence at the hands of police and the Texas Rangers. Many of them were American citizens, and they included labor organizers and journalists who were writing about race and injustice. This amounted to an effort to “remove Mexicans from having economic or political or cultural influence,” she said.
“Oppression was enacted through violence, and it was sanctioned by governors, Texas legislators and local courts,” she said.
Oppression was furthered by “Juan Crow” segregation laws that racially segregated communities, relegated Mexican American children to poorly developed schools and intimidated Mexicans from voting. This system of laws and policies had lasting effects on Mexican Americans and how they’re conceived of today.
Rhetoric has played a role in racial formation as well, continually loading the term “Mexican” with racial meaning.
“100 years ago, people talked about Mexicans as bandits, as thieves, and as a threat,” she said. “Today, they talk about them as potential cartel members and gang members.”
This language contributes to racial profiling and violence today. “In communities in south Texas, anybody who looks 'Mexican,' or looks like an 'immigrant,' can be targeted—not just with policing, but also by [general] hostility,” she said.
Racism is structural: The mainstream understanding is that racism is an individual prejudice and choice. The default is to be free of bias and racism, so racism is an exception from the norm. It can be addressed by individual measures, such as humiliating and punishing the person who messes up, and enforcing moral codes on an individual level.
On the other hand, critical race theory says that racism is inherent in our institutions and structures of governance. It’s ordinary, and it’s baked into all our consciousnesses in complex ways through our education, government, the media, and our participation in systems. Racism must be addressed not just by punishing individuals, but by shifting structures and policies.
HoSang, the Yale professor, explained that critical race theory isn’t focused on “the stock characters of a racist,” such as Bull Connor, who directed police to use fire hoses on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama. HoSang said that a focus on denouncing individuals is “not a good use of our energy.” Instead, he said, the question is, “Even in places where civil rights and anti-discrimination laws passed, why do these forms of inequality persist?”
“So [critical race theory] actually says, no, we shouldn't be preoccupied with trying to discern ‘who is the racist here,’ because that moves the attention away from the structures,” he said.
One example of this is in housing segregation — how “many, many complex layers” of “policies around zoning, lending and redlining, around private realtors and developers” have reproduced unequal access to housing, which in turn furthers gaps in generational wealth and stability, HoSang said.
In his article for the Austin American-Statesman, Dan Zehr traces how this process has played out in Austin, which has one of the highest levels of income segregation in the nation. In 1928, city plans created a “negro district” east of Interstate 35 and denied public services and utilities to Black people outside of it, pushing Black residents to the eastern part of the city. When the government began offering loans to promote homeownership and help citizens rebuild wealth as part of the New Deal after the Great Depression, neighborhoods for people of color were excluded through a practice called “redlining.” Austin’s “negro district” was the largest redlined zone in the city, Zehr writes.
“As most Americans gained equity in new homes or upgraded the value of their existing houses, the black population saw a racial wedge driven deeper between Anglo affluence and African-American poverty,” he explains.
All these processes are systemic. “You can’t explain [this] through any one person's biases and prejudices.” HoSang said.
Is critical race theory being taught in K-12 classrooms?
Experts and teachers put it plainly.
“Nobody in K-12 is teaching critical race theory,” Andrew Robinson, an 8th grade U.S. history teacher at Uplift Luna Preparatory in Dallas, said. “If I tried to walk in and teach critical race theory, my kids would just have a blank stare on their face.”
“Critical race theory is not being taught in schools,” Martinez said.
Keffrelyn Brown, a professor of cultural studies in education at UT-Austin and a teacher-educator, agreed.
“A vast majority of teachers in K-12 schools don't know critical race theory,” she said. “They are not coming into the classroom and saying, ‘I'm going to teach critical race theory.’”
HoSang pointed out that to begin with, critical race theory is not “a body of content that can be taught.”
Given that, Abbott’s calls to “abolish critical race theory in Texas” make no sense, those who study it said.
“I don't think you can ‘abolish’ a theory,” Brown said.
How does Texas' new law and surrounding debate discuss critical race theory?
While it has gained the ire of national Republicans on Fox News and elsewhere for months, critical race theory was thrust in the political spotlight in Texas this spring because of the progress of HB 3979. Lawmakers claimed that it combats the theory.
The wording of the bill is vague — for example, it bans discussion of current events unless a teacher “strive[s] to explore those topics from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective,” and teachers can’t teach that “with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”
In an early statement supporting the legislation, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that critical race theory is a “woke philosoph[y]” that “maintain[s] that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex or that any individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive.”
The phrase “critical race theory” does not appear in the bill once, however.
Brown described the way the term “critical race theory” has been mobilized as a label that has nothing to do with critical race theory itself.
“It has become the catch-all phrase for any kind of perspective, or any kind of framework, or any kind of knowledge that shows the roots of racism and how deeply they are embedded in our society,” she said.
Experts pointed out several key mischaracterizations of critical race theory.
Political discourse has claimed that critical race theory unfairly assigns guilt and blame to individuals based on their race. In one section that lists concepts teachers can’t teach, the bill prohibits teaching that “an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's race or sex.”
“[Critical race theory] has nothing to do with sentiment, guilt or shame,” HoSang said. “In fact, one of its premises is that those are not actually helpful places to examine. It's taking us out of racism as a psychological and emotional question, and is focusing much more on the structures, the policies that people create that govern our lives.”
Martinez said the worry comes out of “false claims that when you teach histories of slavery, or race, or racism, that you make some white students feel guilty or shame for being white.”
To focus on directly instilling racial guilt would be taking a liberal, individualistic approach that critical race theory actually critiques.
The bill also prohibits teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” or that “an individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”
If anything, Martinez said, the current, longstanding way of teaching Texas history already teaches that one race is superior. “Look at how it teaches the history of the Texas revolution — that people like Stephen F. Austin are racially superior to the treacherous Mexican, like Santa Anna,” she said. “Texas history has been taught in a way that celebrates people who were fighting for the institution of slavery, that were espousing publicly that Mexicans were an inferior race.”
HoSang agreed. "There’s so much of the dominant curriculum that does just what the bills claim they're objecting to, in terms of constructing a moral ideology," he said. “One could argue the current curriculum promotes intolerance and animosity against Indigenous people, and that it does the same for immigrants.”
Future impact
Brown, the UT-Austin cultural studies professor, described the new Texas law as an effort to “try to stop the momentum over the last year and a half of families and communities saying we need to know more about racism.”
“We need to understand [our history of racism] so that we actually can get to a place where we are operating with justice, with equity, with fairness,” she said.
Instead, she said, the bill may “create enough confusion and possible concern that teachers or districts would just simply not talk about issues of race, or racism, for fear that it's going to create some conflict.”
Abbott’s press office did not comment on what he additionally wants the legislature to do about “critical race theory” during this summer’s special session. But many teachers worry about the “chilling effect” that the new law will already have on their attempts to teach history well — which includes nurturing students’ critical thinking skills by bringing in multiple perspectives on historical events, and showing how the past has impacted present day issues.
“What they're trying to say with this is that the actions of the past aren't affecting the present,” said Robinson, the 8th grade history teacher in Dallas. “They want us to act like slavery and Jim Crow have no bearing on the issues in our society right now. And if that's the case, then they should cancel my class.”
Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
Bridget Grumet
