This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Geez, what a week here in San Juan Puerto Rico! Our ancestors were surely crying out from their graves that LULAC is neither a partisan organization, nor is it up for sale.
What a terrible idea to seek to submit our organization to the rancorous politics over statehood in Puerto Rico.
Do read yesterday's post by journalist Suzanne Gamboa and the entirety of this message to gain a fuller understanding. The first is the message, including the Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), that we all received this morning putting us on notice that the election had been stopped and the second is a more elaborate statement by LULAC President Domingo Garcia from this evening in both English and Spanish.
The short of it is that yesterday evening's issuance of the TRO brought the election to a screeching halt and that election fraud will get investigated.
Today is a proud day for National LULAC.
Thanks to President Garcia and our LULAC leaders for their competent leadership and loyalty to our constitution in these troubled times.
For now, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
-Angela Valenzuela
Dear LULAC Members in Puerto Rico,
LULAC was served tonight with a temporary restraining order (TRO)that enjoins or prevents us from having a national election in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Saturday, July 30, 2022. The members of the national board are named as defendants in the matter, and as such, any actions by them or anyone else that violates the TRO can and will haveserious consequences up to and including monetary fines and jail time.
In light of this legal action, I am informing you thatthe national assembly meeting scheduled for Saturday, July 30, 2022, is in recessuntil the matter has been heard in court,as mandated by the TRO.You are advised not to go to the assembly hall as no lawful meeting is allowed. Please continue your visit and other travel plans while in San Juan, and I will keep you informed on the next steps in this matter.
Here at the National LULAC Convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where this will get decided. Just being here on the island and talking to regular folks, this is a very emotional issue. It cuts hard three ways. Some want statehood; others independence, and others, the status quo which is commonwealth status with sizeable numbers in each category.
It's not looking good for President Domingo Garcia. If he loses the election, this will definitely be a game changer. We'll see what happens at Saturday's business meeting. Whatever happens, I sense that this dynamic will be playing out for a long time, not just within LULAC, but for folks on island, as well. More to come.
Puerto Rican members of the country’s oldest Latino civil rights organization are rapidly growing their ranks to potentially tilt the group’s coming elections and escalate its lobbying for statehood.
The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, founded in 1929 by Mexican Americans in Texas, is scheduled to hold its elections this summer at its national convention in San Juan, Puerto Rico — its first conference since 2019 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
LULAC’s president, Domingo García, faces a challenge from Juan Carlos Lizardi, president of a LULAC council in New York and the son of one of LULAC’s board members, Elsie Valdés, who is Puerto Rican and a statehood activist.
The contest is pushing LULAC further into the fight over Puerto Rico’s status, worrying some members that if Lizardi wins, the issue will dominate over others for which LULAC advocates.
It also stands to shift the leadership of the organization, which has always been Mexican American. LULAC was formed Feb. 17, 1929, in Corpus Christi, Texas, by Mexican Americans in the state, some of them business leaders and professionals.
As the election plays out, the divisive issue of Puerto Rico’s status is also creating some fractures within LULAC.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. Although all Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, those who live on the island cannot vote in U.S. congressional or presidential elections. The territory’s representative in Congress — called a resident commissioner — cannot vote on legislation on the floor.
Puerto Ricans are divided among those who want statehood and those who prefer the current territorial status; a smaller percentage want Puerto Rico to be independent. Previous votes on the issue in Puerto Rico have been rife with controversy.
Although LULAC's CEO recently said the organization is taking a stand in support of statehood, based on a 2018 resolution, its president said otherwise.
“I support Puerto Ricans’ right to self-determination and a fair election,” García told NBC News. “But LULAC is bigger than that. We’re dealing with immigration and education and funding for that. I just met with the chief of police in Los Angeles regarding criminal justice reform.”
Lizardi and his supporters hold an advantage in the election because LULAC’s constitution allows only those who show up at the conference to vote.
Some LULAC members are forgoing the trip to Puerto Rico for the July conference because of cost concerns. In a close vote, the LULAC board rejected proposals to cancel this year’s conference.
Meanwhile, members on the island are rapidly escalating the number of “councils” — LULAC’s local entities — in Puerto Rico and New York. Most have been formed in the past three months.
Last year, Puerto Rico had 54 councils. As of this month it has 170 — having added 116 in the last two months. Texas, because it is where LULAC was founded and because of its size, has tended to have the most councils; it had 206 last year.
Lizardi did not respond to email or phone messages requesting comment.
In a phone interview, Valdés said councils are often created at election time when there is more interest in the leadership races, which motivates involvement. Other candidates have formed councils in Puerto Rico, more than this year, to increase their votes, she said.
"All presidents elected since Belen Robles up to Domingo Garcia have been elected thanks to Puerto Ricans’ votes," said Valdés, a 32-year LULAC member and the organization's national VP of the Women's Commission.
Hilda Duarte, the president of a Dallas LULAC council, said she may not be able to afford to attend the convention unless other members help pay her costs.
She said she is concerned about the sudden growth in LULAC councils in Puerto Rico and how it might shift LULAC's priorities.
“The Puerto Ricans want statehood. That’s something they have to decide. They are the ones who have to vote and get excited and once and for all settle their future. … We’ll support whatever they do,” Duarte said.
This month, LULAC CEO Sindy Benavides refocused attention on LULAC's 2018 resolution supporting statehood, resurfacing it in a recent interview in The Hill.
Until the interview, the nearly four-year-old resolution has gotten little attention since its passage by LULAC members who attended its 2018 Phoenix convention.
When your brother-in-law texts you an article on inequities going on on your own campus, you know that word's gotten around. Glad to see NBC's Suzanne Gamboa write a really good review of the work by the Independent Equity Committee (IEC), all full professors, at UT-Austin. The disparities are systemic and glaring—and our numbers are dropping.
This means that important research isn't getting done and that we're increasingly irrelevant despite our massive demographic growth. This is not a good situation for our state to be in. In fact, this is a crisis that must get remedied.
AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas, one of the state’s
flagship universities, pays its Hispanic professors tens of thousands dollars
less than white professors and rarely hires them as deans or for other
leadership jobs, a group of Latino professors has found.
While the pay gap the professors uncovered has gotten the most
attention, the few Hispanics serving as deans, associate deans or assistant
deans exposes a deeper problem of institutional racism, according to Alberto
Martinez, a history professor at the university and chair of the committee that
produced the “Hispanic Equity Report.”
In January, the university located in Austin, Texas, had 130
deans, vice deans, associate deans and assistant deans. Of those, 10 are
Latino. None are Latina.
“This is what we live in as Hispanics, as Latinos, and we are
trying to bring it to the forefront. We need real inclusion in how university
departments are run," Martinez said. "We have the same merits as
other people in the university."
The committee analyzed thousands of pages of faculty résumés and
found many Hispanic professors “eminently qualified” for the leadership
positions, some with better résumés than faculty in the leadership jobs,
Martinez said.
The salary difference demonstrates disparity, “but the bigger
problem is the lack of inclusion,” Martinez said.
The Independent Equity Committee at the University of Texas at
Austin, made up of the eight Latino professors, presented its Oct. 8 report to
legislators and their staffs at the state Capitol on Friday.
The professors want state lawmakers' to help make policy changes
and order equity reviews of the university and the University of Texas System,
Martinez said. The UT system includes 14 higher education,
research and health care institutions.
Texas already is a majority minority state and according to
projections, Hispanics will be the largest population group in the state by
2022. The state’s white population is projected to drop from 41.8 percent in
2018 to 28.6 percent in 2050, according to Texas Demographic Center data
assembled by Rogelio Sáenz, dean of the College of Public Policy at
the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“I am a full professor in the history department. I am No. 13 in
productivity, articles and books and 34th in pay,” history professor Emilio
Zamora said in video posted by KEYE-TV, the CBS affiliate in Austin. (The
number one measure of faculty members' productivity is what they publish, and
often they publish in peer-reviewed scholarly publications.)
Virtually all of the history department's 11 leadership
positions have been held by non-Latino white faculty, with the exception of two
that were held by Asian faculty members, according to Martinez.
Since publication of their report, the professors have heard
from other Latino faculty at University of Texas at El Paso and University of
Texas at San Antonio on issues on their campuses, Martinez said.
The communications office of Maurie McInnis, the university’s
executive vice president and provost, said in a statement emailed to NBC News
that the university is working to address many issues of faculty equity “echoed
by this independent report” and to understand the source of the disparities.
The statement also said McInnis has asked deans to review their
leadership selection and report on them to improve transparency on how the
leaders are selected.
In an Oct. 18 email to the committee, McInnis told the
professors: “You are right. Action is needed, and I’m committed to working with
the campus to do so.” She added" “We are aware of the impact on Hispanic
faculty and have begun work to address some of the concerns. Much work remains
to be done.”
“As your report notes, the feeling of invisibility shared by
some Hispanic faculty is not of their making,” the email states. “Rather, it
is, at least in part, the result of a context that may fail to see them and
validate their experiences.”
According to the committee’s study, the median compensation —
salary and monetary supplements — for Latino full professors is $25,342 less
than white full professors. Hispanic associate professors make about $10,647
less than their white counterparts, and assistant professors earn $19,636 less.
Latinas had the worst salary among all faculty, despite
UT-Austin’s 2008 gender equity review to address pay for its female faculty.
They also held the fewest leadership positions, according to the report.
There were 1,706 tenured and tenured track faculty at UT Austin
in the fall of 2017 — the year the group used for its analysis. Only 119, or 7
percent, were Latino. Eight schools or colleges at the university had two or
fewer Latino faculty members.
Nearly 85 percent of white and Asian faculty become tenured,
compared to 62.5 percent of Hispanic faculty who apply and 76.3 percent of
black faculty. The retention rate of Hispanic professors with tenure was 40
percent.
The university also rarely honors Hispanic faculty. Awards and
endowments often include money and are part of the compensation for faculty. In
2018, at least 912 faculty or administrators received university funds from
endowments, but just 5 percent were Hispanic, the report states.
The group analyzed chairs and professorships, which are the two
types of endowments that have the highest prestige and the “largest accounts.”
Of 541 chairs and professorships, 18, or 3.3 percent ,were held
by Hispanic faculty. In the past 62 years, the University of Texas System has
given 929 campus-wide awards to its faculty. Thirty, or 3.2 percent, went to
Hispanics.
