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.
Listen to this powerful, speech by Georgie Senator and Reverend Raphael Warnock on the Senate floor yesterday, March 17, 2021.
Listen to his impassioned plea for voting rights. Voting rights ARE an issue bigger than the filibuster such that the former should not get subordinated to the latter. It is indeed a contradiction, as he states, "to say we must protect minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights in the society."
Do listen to his entire speech. He ends it so eloquently with these words:
"Democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea, the sacred worth of all human beings, The notion that we all have within us a spark of the Divine and a right to participate in the shaping of our destiny. Reinhold Niebuhr was right. 'Humanity's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but humanity's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.'"
Thanks for leading, Senator Warnock. We shall overcome this enemy from within that threatens to undermine our highest ideals as a country.
Do watch this video of Sen. Elizabeth's Warren public censure yesterday evening. This silencing of Senator Warren's voice that also of course includes the words of Coretta Scott King is precisely what the January 21, 2017 Women's March on Washington and beyond was all about. These highly public, arrogant displays of sexism and white male patriarchal privilege that also involve an unwillingness to dialogue "across the aisle" play quite well into the hands of most Americans, especially women, that are infuriated by this callous and flagrant disregard of process.
In 1986, Coretta Scott King wrote a letter
in opposition to Jeff Sessions’ nomination to become a federal judge.
It criticized Mr. Sessions’s record on civil rights and said that
elevating him to higher office would demean the record of Mrs. King’s
husband, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The
letter resurfaced last month, when BuzzFeed News reported that Senator
Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina who was then the
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had failed to enter it into the Congressional Record. On the same day as BuzzFeed’s report, The Washington Post obtained the letter and published it online.
Three decades ago, the letter was credited with helping to derail Mr. Sessions’s nomination. On Tuesday, it became a rallying cry for Democrats who are opposed to his nod to become the United States attorney general.
Photo
Coretta Scott King in 1986.Credit
Ric Feld/Associated Press
Senator Elizabeth Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, was trying to read the letter aloud in the
Senate chamber when her fellow senators, accusing her of violating a
rule that forbids one senator from demeaning another, invoked a law, forcing her to stop.
The
statement consists of two parts: a cover letter addressed to Mr.
Thurmond, which Ms. Warren did not read aloud, and the statement, part
of which Ms. Warren read on the Senate floor. She later read it in full on Facebook Live, uninterrupted. By Wednesday afternoon, her video had been viewed more than seven million times.
The introduction.
Dear Senator Thurmond:
I write to express my sincere opposition to the confirmation of
Jefferson B. Sessions as a federal district court judge for the Southern
District of Alabama. My professional and personal roots in Alabama are
deep and lasting.
Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney
to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens
should not be elevated to our courts.
Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters.
For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.
I regret that a long-standing commitment prevents me from appearing
in person to testify against this nominee. However, I have attached a
copy of my statement opposing Mr. Sessions’ confirmation and I request
that my statement as well as this letter ‘be made a part of the’ hearing
record.
I do sincerely urge you to oppose the confirmation of Mr. Sessions.
Sincerely,
Coretta Scott King
Here is the text of the statement.
Statement
of Coretta Scott King on the Nomination of Jefferson Beauregard
Sessions III for the United States District Court Southern District of
Alabama
Senate Judiciary Committee
Thursday, March 13, 1986
Mr.
Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you for allowing me this
opportunity to express my strong opposition to the nomination of
Jefferson Sessions for a federal district judgeship for the Southern
District of Alabama. My longstanding commitment which I shared with my
husband, Martin, to protect and enhance the rights of Black Americans,
rights which include equal access to the democratic process, compels me
to testify today.
Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have
fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot
box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the
free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now
seeks to serve as a federal judge. This simply cannot be allowed to
happen. Mr. Sessions’ conduct as U.S. Attorney, from his politically
motivated voting fraud prosecutions to his indifference toward criminal
violations of civil rights laws, indicates that he lacks the
temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.
The Voting Rights Act
was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the
United States. I was privileged to join Martin and many others during
the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights in 1965. Martin was
particularly impressed by the determination to get the franchise of
blacks in Selma and neighboring Perry County. As he wrote, “Certainly no
community in the history of the Negro struggle has responded with the
enthusiasm of Selma and her neighboring town of Marion. Where Birmingham
depended largely upon students and unemployed adults (to participate in
non-violent protest of the denial of the franchise), Selma has involved
fully 10 percent of the Negro population in active demonstrations, and
at least half the Negro population of Marion was arrested on one day.”
Martin was referring of course to a group that included the defendants
recently prosecuted for assisting elderly and illiterate blacks to
exercise that franchise. ln fact, Martin anticipated from the depth of
their commitment twenty years ago, that a united political organization
would remain in Perry County long after the other marchers had left.
This organization, the Perry County Civic League, started by Mr. Turner,
Mr. Hogue, and others as Martin predicted, continued “to direct the
drive for votes and other rights.” In the years since the Voting Rights
Act was passed, Black Americans in Marion, Selma and elsewhere have made
important strides in their struggle to participate actively in the
electoral process. The number of Blacks registered to vote in key
Southern states has doubled since 1965. This would not have been
possible without the Voting Rights Act.
However, Blacks still fall far short of having equal participation in
the electoral process. Particularly in the South, efforts continue to
be made to deny Blacks access to the polls, even where Blacks constitute
the majority of the voters. It has been a long up-hill struggle to keep
alive the vital legislation that protects the most fundamental right to
vote. A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the enforcement
of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those rights by Black people
should not be elevated to the federal bench.
The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will
be given life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local
sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods.
Twenty years ago, when we marched from Selma to Montgomery, the fear of
voting was real, as the broken bones and bloody heads in Selma and
Marion bore witness. As my husband wrote at the time, “it was not just a
sick imagination that conjured up the vision of a public official,
sworn to uphold the law, who forced an inhuman march upon hundreds of
Negro children; who ordered the Rev. James Bevel to be chained to his
sickbed; who clubbed a Negro woman registrant, and who callously
inflicted repeated brutalities and indignities upon nonviolent Negroes
peacefully petitioning for their constitutional right to vote.”
Free exercise of voting rights is so fundamental to American
democracy that we can not tolerate any form of infringement of those
rights. Of all the groups who have been disenfranchised in our nation’s
history, none has struggled longer or suffered more in the attempt to
win the vote than Black citizens. No group has had access to the ballot
box denied so persistently and intently. Over the past century, a broad
array of schemes have been used in attempts to block the Black vote. The
range of techniques developed with the purpose of repressing black
voting rights run the gamut from the — straightforward application of
brutality against black citizens who tried to vote to such legalized
frauds as “grandfather clause” exclusions and rigged literacy tests.
The actions taken by Mr. Sessions in regard to the 1984 voting fraud
prosecutions represent just one more technique used to intimidate Black
voters and thus deny them this most precious franchise. The
investigations into the absentee voting process were conducted only in
the Black Belt counties where blacks had finally achieved political
power in the local government. Whites had been using the absentee
process to their advantage for years, without incident. Then, when
Blacks realizing its strength, began to use it with success, criminal
investigations were begun.
In these investigations, Mr. Sessions, as U.S. Attorney, exhibited an
eagerness to bring to trial and convict three leaders of the Perry
County Civic League including Albert Turner despite evidence clearly
demonstrating their innocence of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, in
initiating the case, Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar
behavior by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the
franchise by blacks by his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr.
Sessions sought to punish older black civil rights activists, advisors
and colleagues of my husband, who had been key figures in the civil
rights movement in the 1960’s. These were persons who, realizing the
potential of the absentee vote among Blacks, had learned to use the
process within the bounds of legality and had taught others to do the
same. The only sin they committed was being too successful in gaining
votes.
The scope and character of the investigations conducted by Mr.
Sessions also warrant grave concern. Witnesses were selectively chosen
in accordance with the favorability of their testimony to the
government’s case. Also, the prosecution illegally withheld from the
defense critical statements made by witnesses. Witnesses who did testify
were pressured and intimidated into submitting the “correct” testimony.
Many elderly blacks were visited multiple times by the FBI who then
hauled them over 180 miles by bus to a grand jury in Mobile when they
could more easily have testified at a grand jury twenty miles away in
Selma. These voters, and others, have announced they are now never going
to vote again.
I urge you to consider carefully Mr. Sessions’ conduct in these
matters. Such a review, I believe, raises serious questions about his
commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American
citizens and consequently his fair and unbiased judgment regarding this
fundamental right. When the circumstances and facts surrounding the
indictments of Al Turner, his wife, Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue are
analyzed, it becomes clear that the motivation was political, and the
result frightening — the wide-scale chill of the exercise of the ballot
for blacks, who suffered so much to receive that right in the first
place. Therefore, it is my strongly-held view that the appointment of
Jefferson Sessions to the federal bench would irreparably damage the
work of my husband, Al Turner, and countless others who risked their
lives and freedom over the past twenty years to ensure equal
participation in our democratic system.
The exercise of the franchise is an essential means by which our
citizens ensure that those who are governing will be responsible. My
husband called it the number one civil right. The denial of access to
the ballot box ultimately results in the denial of other fundamental
rights. For, it ‘ is only when the poor and disadvantaged are empowered
that they are able to participate actively in the solutions to their own
problems.
We still have a long way to go before we can say that minorities no
longer need be concerned about discrimination at the polls. Blacks,
Hispanics, Native Americans and Asian Americans are grossly
underrepresented at every level of government in America. If we are
going to make our timeless dream of justice through democracy a reality,
we must take every possible step to ensure that the spirit and intent
of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fifteenth Amendment of the
Constitution is honored.
The federal courts hold a unique position in our constitutional
system, ensuring that minorities and other citizens without political
power have a forum in which to vindicate their rights. Because of his
unique role, it is essential that the people selected to be federal
judges respect the basic tenets of our legal system: respect for
individual rights and a commitment to equal justice for all. The
integrity of the Courts, and thus the rights they protect, can only be
maintained if citizens feel confident that those selected as federal
judges will be able to judge with fairness others holding differing
views.
I do not believe Jefferson Sessions possesses the requisite judgment,
competence, and sensitivity to the rights guaranteed by the federal
civil rights laws to qualify for appointment to the federal district
court. Based on his record, I believe his confirmation would have a
devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also
on the progress we have made everywhere toward fulfilling my husband’s
dream that he envisioned over twenty years ago. I therefore urge the
Senate Judiciary Committee to deny his confirmation.
I thank you for allowing me to share my views.
Short, but important, piece. Here's an updated link to the U.S. Senate Report mentioned within. For profit institutions receive billions of dollars in student aid from the U.S. government. We should consider that the growth of such institutions is correlated with a lack of financial support for public institutions that have educated the very students that these for-profit institutions are targeting, e.g., non-traditional, frequently older students, low-income minorities, and the like. -Angela
Why do Americans mistrust for-profit universities?
A RECENTLY announced tie-up
between the Thunderbird School of Global Management, a business school
based in Arizona, and Laureate, a privately owned higher-education firm,
has antagonised students. A petition, signed by around 2,000
Thunderbird students and alumni, claims that their degrees will be
cheapened by the association with a for-profit organisation. Why do
Americans mistrust firms that make a profit from educating students?
America
has a long history of for-profit colleges. They once fulfilled an
important role in the country’s education system. Traditionally, they
were small and tended to offer vocational qualifications or part-time
programmes to cater to working adults. But over the past three decades,
for-profit higher education has grown quickly. In 1980, just 1% of
American students were enrolled at a for-profit college; by 2008, 8%
were. Among black and Hispanic students, who are under-represented at
traditional universities, the proportion is far higher. Much of this
increase is due to the rise of mega-institutions that offer huge online
programmes. The largest is the University of Phoenix, which is owned by
the Apollo Group, a publicly traded company. In 2010, nearly half a
million students were enrolled on its degree programmes.
As the sector has grown, so has the criticism. This culminated in a report published by a Senate committee last year.
It found that for-profit colleges received $32 billion from the US
government in student aid in the 2009-10 academic year. They also charge
far higher tuition fees than comparable state universities. Yet they
spend much less per student on instruction. Indeed, they typically spend
a lot more on marketing their courses than they do on teaching them.
This may explain why the majority of students on their degree programmes
drop out long before they graduate. In 2008-09 the median length of
study for a student at a for-profit university was just four months. The
inference is that for-profit universities recruit anyone who is
eligible for Federal funds but care little about what happens to them
afterwards.
Such a business model is not sustainable. As their
image has deteriorated, enrolments have started to fall. In 2011, the
number of students attending such institutions fell by 2.8%, compared
with a drop of 0.2% across the whole university system, according to the
National Center for Education Statistics. Some think their decline will
be exacerbated as more prestigious universities move into online
education and offer more flexible degree programmes. The government,
too, is likely to become more picky about which colleges it doles out
money to. So for-profits may have to change tack. Many traditional
American universities are strapped for cash. So higher-education
businesses might try to partner with them. In return for a cut of the
profits, firms can offer their expertise of running big online courses
and opening lucrative foreign campuses. In return, they get to use the
universities' good names. Indeed, this is the thinking behind the
Thunderbird-Laureate deal. It seems the perfect solution. But only if
they can keep the revolting students in check.
