Tag: rights

Freedom of Speech

Vote for Democracy #46

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That is the text of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

The Attorney General, the Vice President, the President, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and everyone else in the government would do well to re-read it and observe it.

The court system has ruled over and over that “hate speech” and flag burning are protected by the First Amendment and that press report are not subject to government censorship.

Yes, here we are with the Attorney General saying the administration would target hate speech. The Justice Department tried to re-characerize the remark as meaning they would target speech that incited violence, which can be illegal, but that was not what she had said or appeared to mean.

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, the administration wants to investigate anyone critical of Kirk or his views, even though they have no legal grounds to do so because people’s right to free speech is guaranteed against government interference by the First Amendment. For those of you not familiar with the structure of the US government, Congress makes the law, the executive branch executes the law, and the judicial branch judges if the laws are in accordance with the Constitution and other statutes.

Note that the freedom of speech right is in regard to government interference. Private entities aren’t bound to allow free speech. For example, if someone makes an uncivil or inflammatory comment on my blog which I then delete, I am not violating the First Amendment because I am not the government and have the right to control what happens on my platform. (For the record, while I encourage respectful debate here at Top of JC’s Mind, I have on a rare occasion removed comments for using foul language or for spreading disinformation.) There was an instance of a copy shop employee refusing to print a flyer regarding Kirk. While the business owner could choose to sanction or fire the employee, the government has no right to investigate on free speech grounds.

The administration upped the ante a few days ago when the FCC Chair publicly pressured ABC affiliates to stop airing comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show because of a comment he had made regarding the right’s actions after Kirk’s murder, implying that not doing so would harm them in getting approvals and licenses from the FCC. This caused a couple of large media ownership groups to say they would suspend airing the show and ABC/Disney then suspending production. It’s unclear if the show will return or not. This situation does appear to violate the First Amendment because a government entity intervened to inhibit Kimmel’s free speech rights.

To make matters worse, President Trump is again threatening freedom of the press, as well as free speech, by saying that entire broadcast networks should be disbanded because they run stories that are critical of him. There is a real fear that media companies will continue to cave to pressure from Trump and his administration and stop broadcasting facts and opinions that run counter to Trump’s viewpoint.

While most Republicans have been either backing Trump or staying silent, a few were shaken enough about the concept of hate speech – or opposition speech – not being protected by free speech provisions that they are speaking out. I’m not sure if they are standing on principle or if they fear what might happen to them when Republicans are no longer in power, but it’s good to see some of them willing to oppose the Trump administration when it is acting against our Constitution.

I also appreciate that having some Republicans speaking out will reach people who only consume ultra-concservative media. Everyone needs to realize that there are threats to free speech and free press so that we can make moves to protect our First Amendment rights. Some people are boycotting companies like Disney that are curtailing free speech by bowing to pressure from the administration. Many are supporting independent journalism sources, such as PBS/NPR.

It’s important for all of us to speak up for our rights. I plan to continue doing that here and wherever I find myself. I also plan to be on the lookout for further attempts to erode our rights and silence dissenting voices. We have to be careful that the United States doesn’t have its media coopted in the way it was in Hungary.

We also need to be sure that we don’t fall into the administration’s trap of calling any opposing viewpoints “hate speech.” If I say that I think it’s wrong to deport people who are in the process of getting green cards or who have refugee or other protected status, that is protected free speech. It is not hate speech.

I do try to heed the call in my faith to love everyone.

I refuse to engage in hateful speech or behavior.

I wish everyone felt that way.

from bad to worse

Vote for Democracy #40

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

Conditions in the United States are deteriorating in terms of the legal rights of individuals and the rule of law.

The most obvious examples right now are in the state of California. As the Trump administration escalates its deportation campaign, it is arresting people as they appear for scheduled meetings regarding their immigration status, at workplaces, and, sometimes, grabbing them out of cars or on the street. The agents doing these things are often masked and not wearing identifying badges, making it look as though they are criminal kidnappers. It’s terrifying for the immigrant community and for mixed-status families where some members are US citizens and others are not. It’s also heart-breaking that Trump has rescinded the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who are refugees or who had been on temporary protected status.

While these things are happening throughout the country, there had been a concentration of workplace raids in Los Angeles, resulting in demonstrations at a facility where it seems that arrested migrants were being held without the ability to contact their families. A small number of protesters clashed with police, resulting in some arrests. Even though, the protests were confined to a small area of the city and were being handled by the Los Angeles police, Trump signed an order saying he could take over control of the National Guard, even though governors are in charge of National Guard deployments in their states, and could use federal troops within the United States, which is forbidden except in circumstances such as armed insurrection.

Trump ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to Los Angeles, adding almost 3,000 National Guard troops a few days later. Governor Gavin Newsom sued to return the National Guard to his control, and, last night, Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer ruled that Trump’s move was illegal. Unfortunately, the Trump Justice Department immediately appealed and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has put a stay on the order until they can hear the case on Tuesday.

This is scary for several reasons. While the Trump administration is using this first in California, the executive order applies everywhere in the country, so Trump could call out the military anywhere in the US in the meantime. While these federalized National Guard or other troops are supposed to only act in a support role to protect federal property and personnel, they have already been shown to detain people while waiting for police to arrive to make arrests. On Saturday, Trump has scheduled a large military parade in Washington, DC, ostensibly to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the formation of the Army although June 14th is also his 79th birthday (and Flag Day). In reaction to this show of force by the President, there are about 2,000 protests being organized throughout the country – and even in a few international locations – as No Kings Day, also termed as No Tyrants Day in places that do have a monarch. The flagship protest is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; there is no event planned for Washington, DC in order to steer clear of Trump’s military parade. The No Kings Day events are peaceful marches and rallies, but I am afraid that Trump will send troops or federalized National Guard after protesters, especially in big, majority-Democratic cities.

Tensions are ratcheted even higher because, yesterday, California Senator Alex Padilla was detained while trying to ask a question at a press conference that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was giving at a federal building in Los Angeles. Sen. Padilla was forced from the room onto the floor and handcuffed, even though he announced that he was a senator and was accompanied by an FBI agent and security guard. If that can happen to a United States senator, what could happen to someone who is an immigrant or vulnerable or a member of a minority group?

While my health prevents me from attending in person, I offer my support to all those who will be at the No Kings protests tomorrow. I’m praying for their safety and hoping that police and other authorities have the good sense to honor the attendees as they exercise their First Amendment rights of free speech, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to petition the government.

I hope that the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court will uphold Judge Breyer’s ruling in the coming days and that the Trump administration will abide by it. We must not militarize the country and disregard our Constitutional rights. The Republicans in Congress need to wake up and honor their oaths and demand resignations or impeach any officials who are breaking the law and undermining our democracy.

In less than a month, we will observe the 249th anniversary of the United States. We must do it as a free people with our full rights intact.

One-Liner Wednesday: Cory Booker

In gratitude for the witness, intelligence, fortitude, and patriotism of Senator Cory Booker (Democrat of New Jersey), who set a record for longest floor speech in the United States Senate yesterday evening at 25 hours, 4 minutes, during which he spoke against the immoral, damaging budget that the Republicans plan to ram through the Congress; the previous record had been held by Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 spoke against the Civil Rights Act, making it all the more fitting that Sen. Booker, a Black man who Thurmond would have wanted to keep segregated and poorly educated, was the one to so eloquently speak out on behalf of the American people, especially those most vulnerable.

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/02/one-liner-wednesday-what-the-heck/

Vote for Democracy #22

how being a Catholic woman serves as preparation for the incoming administration

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

I’ve written before about the intersection of how the conservatives in the Catholic Church treat women and issues such as abortion. I’ve also posted more specifically how Leonard Leo and Opus Dei have impacted the Supreme Court and broader governance issues.

While many in the contemporary Catholic church have come to embrace the radical inclusiveness of Jesus, especially for those who are oppressed, others cling to the misogyny, racism, and bigotry that held for centuries when the Church engaged in empire and building of worldly rather than spiritual power. Even into modern times, this has resulted in women not being treated as equals in the Church and in society, along with discrimination against people due to their race, religion, sexual identity, place of origin, and economic status.

While I am blessed to know many in the Catholic church who do recognize my dignity and gifts, there are a number of powerful bishops and laity who do not. These, including an out-sized number of Supreme Court justices, governors such as Texas’s Abbott and Florida’s DeSantis, and the incoming vice-president, JD Vance, are loudly proclaiming and taking action that restrict the rights and freedoms of women and girls. Besides restrictions on abortion that have resulted in permanent injury or death to women, there are also moves to restrict contraception and recognize any fertilized egg as a person, all the while denying personhood rights to any pregnant person.

We are even hearing calls for women, especially mothers, to give up paid employment in order to be at home full-time. Shockingly, some are even calling for the repeal of the 19h Amendment of 1920 which recognized women’s right to vote everywhere in the United States.

While I am sadly accustomed to being recognized as less than a full and equal person in the Catholic church, it is frightening to see these same calls in the context of the United States’ government.

I commit to continuing to fight for equal rights for women and girls, as well as for those of all faith traditions or none, those of all races, ethnicities, and places of origin, all genders and sexual orientations, and all ages and health circumstances, to be treated with equal dignity and protection in the United States. This is also in keeping with Catholic social justice doctrine.

I know millions of others are already at work and will never back down on these human right issues. That we will have to fight for these rights that had been considered settled is disconcerting but I know we will prevail in the long run.

I mourn, though, for those who have been harmed and who will be harmed in the meantime.

Vote for Democracy ’24 #9

On the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

I’ve written several posts dealing with abortion – after the leak of the Dobbs decision, about the aftermath of the first month after it was handed down, and about a year later in a post about the out-sized influence of the Catholic Church with conservative members of the Supreme Court and some governors.

Today is the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, which overturned the national right to abortion recognized by the decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Some of the worst fears of the public have already occurred. With many states imposing total or near-total bans, people with a problem pregnancy have been forced to flee to distant states to receive care. This has even happened when the mother’s life, health, and/or future fertility are under threat or when the fetus has a problem that is so severe it is “incompatible with life.” Women have even been refused treatment when they are clearly in the process of suffering a miscarriage, the commonly used term to describe a spontaneous abortion. Unfortunately, some of these women will go on to develop sepsis or life-threatening hemorrhage which could have been avoided by performing a timely D&C.

Remember also that abortion is safer than pregnancy and childbirth. This is especially true for girls and for women of color, who face higher risks of life-altering complications and death. Mifepristone, one of the most-used drugs for medication abortions, has a lower rate of complications than acetaminophen (Tylenol).

It has become clear that some state and national level elected officials want to make all or nearly all abortions illegal in the United States. Additionally, there are threats against the legality of contraceptives. Fertility clinics that offer IVF face uncertainty in states that want to recognize that life begins at conception, bestowing personhood rights on fertilized eggs.

I find this argument particularly unconvincing, given that, in the course of a woman’s life, a substantial number of fertilized eggs don’t even implant and cause a pregnancy. Conception seems to be much too early a marker of life. A common rejoinder if one is unconvinced of personhood beginning at conception is to ask when does life begin. I think that life begins when one can breathe, which is already part of our legal definition. If a baby is born but never takes a breath, it is recorded as a stillbirth, not a birth and a death. People die after they take their last breath. Interestingly, the legal framework for abortion under Roe v. Wade relied on viability; given that the lungs are the last major organ to develop fully, the ability to breathe is inherent in the definition of viability.

The person who is definitely breathing and alive and a person through all this is the person who is pregnant. Their life and their rights should be clearly recognized and respected. No government official should be able to dictate their medical care. Period.

In the upcoming state and federal elections, when looking at candidates’ positions on issues, evaluate their stance on abortion and contraception. Do they allow each person to make medical choices regarding these issues, relying on their own judgement after consulting medical practitioners, family members, faith leaders, etc., or do they favor laws that substitute their preferences and beliefs over yours?

On the presidential side, it is clear that the Biden/Harris ticket advocates for the right of the individual to make personal medical decisions unencumbered by government. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has been bragging about his Supreme Court appointees overturning Roe. Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump administration, reveals ways it would impose abortion restrictions throughout the US.

Also consider how candidates regard women’s rights. For some candidates, attacking abortion and reproductive rights goes along with the idea that women should go back to “traditional” roles where they didn’t work outside the home. A few have even suggested that women should not be allowed to vote!

So, vote like your rights – and the rights of your family, friends, and neighbors – depend on it.

That may very well be literally true.

One-Liner Wednesday: Speak up for democracy!

As Heather Cox Richardson explains, now is the time for people in the United States and other democracies to speak up against illiberal democracy, Christian Nationalism, Project 2025, authoritarianism, plutocracy, and all other assaults on human dignity, rights, and freedoms.

This sobering message is part of One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! (For the record, most of the one-liners are fun, pretty, or inspirational. I’m just a serious sort.) Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/07/19/one-liner-wednesday-new-book-next-week/

Supreme Court reform?

Back in October 2020, I posted some ideas about possible changes to procedures for the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

There has been much more public debate about this these past few years, particularly since the Supreme Court majority has been tossing precedents and inventing new doctrine on a regular basis of late.

One idea that makes sense to me is to raise the number of Supreme Court justices to thirteen to match the number of federal appellate courts. When the number of justices was changed to nine, there were nine appellate courts, so it makes sense to update the number to match because a Supreme Court justice is assigned for each appellate court. As it is now, some justices are responsible for more than one circuit. Doing this now would also help to redress some of the shenanigans that Mitch McConnell pulled in not allowing consideration of President Obama’s nominee while rushing through one of President Trump’s.

As I wrote in my October 2020 post, I think there should be rules for voting on judicial nominees in a timely manner, committee votes within sixty days and floor votes within ninety. The exception would be a Supreme Court vacancy that occurs after July first in a presidential election year which would be kept open for appointment by the winner of the election.

Because lifetime appointments are not stipulated in the Constitution, there has been a lot of discussion of making the term of Supreme Court justices eighteen years, after which they would serve on an appellate court if they were not ready to retire. I don’t know what that would mean for people who have already served longer than that or that were appointed expecting to serve for a lifetime. There is nothing in the Constitution that says Supreme Court nominations are for life, so no amendment is necessary to effect this change.

There have been a number of issues that have come to the fore more recently. One of them is the urgent need for ethics reform for the Supreme Court. Unlike other levels of the courts, there is no written code of conduct with guidance for recusals, conflicts of interest, etc. In other courts, judges are supposed to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. Given that both Justices Thomas and Alito are known to have accepted lavish gifts from prominent, rich Republicans, it would be helpful to have explicit rules to follow. It also upsets me that two members of the Court have been credibly accused of sexual harassment. There are serious questions about the spouses of two members of the Court earning money from work for/with people who might be seeking to influence the Court. I think there should be ethics reform and ways to enforce violations. As it is now, the Supreme Court justices are accountable to no one, which leaves them outside the usual system of checks and balances. (While it is true that provisions for impeachment and trial through Congress are in place, political forces are so prominent there that votes tend to be on partisan concerns rather than the evidence presented, so the threat of that doesn’t function as a deterrent to judicial misconduct.)

The Republican-appointed justices of the majority have undertaken what seems to be a concerted effort to overturn long-standing precedents. The most obvious is the Heller decision overturning national abortion rights but there are other instances, such as the recent decision against using race as a factor in college admissions which had been upheld numerous times since the 1978 Bakke decision, most recently in 2016. It’s not that precedents should never be overturned, for example, the Dred Scott decision, but those decisions usually advanced people’s rights; this Court seems to be taking away rights that had been previously recognized by the Court and the public. During their confirmation hearings in the Senate, these justices had all proclaimed their intent to respect precedent and “settled law” but they seem to have abandoned this principle.

The Republican-appointed majority are also inventing or embracing new legal constructs, such as the “major questions” doctrine, insisting that Congress must explicitly state the actions that they intend the executive branch department to implement. The Court used this to prevent rules regarding carbon pollution from the power industry. However, the justices overlooked explicit language from Congress giving authority to the Secretary of Education to waive student loans in time of national emergency in the recent case against the Biden administration’s targeted student loan forgiveness program. So, these justices appear to want Congress to be specific about things they don’t favor while ignoring the legislative language when they are specific. That’s not how our legal system is supposed to work.

There have also been major problems with the Court accepting cases without standing. In order to bring a case in federal court, a plaintiff has to show that they were harmed. The most obvious example of this is the 303 Creative case, in which a prospective web designer did not want to design sites for gay marriages but was afraid she would be violating a Colorado law barring discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. She said that a man had approached her to create such a site, giving the man’s name and contact information as part of her case. There are a number of problems, though. She had not started the business and so hadn’t had any legal challenges that caused harm. When a reporter contacted the man that had been named as the prospective gay client, they found out that he had no idea he was named in the suit, had never contacted the web designer for wedding services, is not gay, has been married for fifteen years, and is a web designer himself who wouldn’t need her services. The case should have been thrown out of court but the Republican-appointed justices still ruled in her favor on free speech grounds, saying that she shouldn’t be forced to use her words to support gay marriage, which she opposes on religious grounds. [As a creative who uses words as her medium, I have trouble thinking of a web designer for wedding sites as using “her words” when it’s usually the clients’ words/content/story that goes into a wedding website. It seems more like being a reporter. Whether or not you agree with what is being said, it is your job to report it accurately.]

All of this has led to a lack of public confidence in Supreme Court. Many of their recent decisions are opposed by a majority of citizens. What bothers me more, though, is that the courts are supposed to uphold our rights and freedoms, whether those are popular or not. If a person has the right to make their own medical decisions in conjunction with their health care provider, it should not matter what state the person is in, what their gender is, whether or not they follow a religious practice, or what their skin color is. A parent has a right to object to a book being taught in their child’s school and request an alternate assignment; that parent does not have the right to make that decision for anyone else’s child.

In the United States, every citizen is supposed to enjoy “equal protection of the laws” under the Fourteenth Amendment. It’s an ideal we should be working toward continually but sometimes it seems we are in the Orwellian situation of some being “more equal than others.” We need to get back on track and court reform can help to do that.

learning civics and history

Earlier this week, I was listening to a discussion around Richard Haass’ new book, The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.

The discussion centered around the dearth of knowledge among many in the United States on the basics of civics and history. The root of this lies seems to lie in our educational system.

Unlike most countries, the United States does not have a national educational system. Schools are controlled by local school boards with a greater or lesser role played by state education boards, depending on the state. This leads to a wide range of what students learn in school and the depth of that learning.

I went to public schools in western Massachusetts in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Civics and history were an important part of our schooling. I remember in the later grades of grammar school reading the US Constitution and summaries of landmark Supreme Court cases. We were expected to apply what we had learned from history to current events, such as deciding for whom we would vote for president in a mock election. This being small-town New England, we would attend town meeting day with our families, showing democracy in action.

Having already learned the basics of US and world history in our younger years, in high school, our coursework was designed to delve more deeply into particular areas of social studies. One of the best courses I took was one on minorities in America. I learned about such important historical events as the Chinese Exclusion Act and the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. We studied the Black experience in the US, from enslavement and Jim Crow through the civil rights movement, which was, of course, ongoing. I learned for the first time about the discrimination that had affected my own Italian grandparents and Irish great-grandparents. By the time I turned 18 and could register to vote, I had a good understanding of the complexities of our past and of how to evaluate issues of the present and future.

My daughters went to school in New York, where the State Board of Regents is the main driver of curriculum. The Regents set the required courses and use statewide exams in high school to ensure that the students are fulfilling the goals of the curriculum. While the State is fond of survey courses, they do expect students to do much more than memorize historical facts. A major component of history exams is a document-based essay, where the student is given primary source material, such as political cartoons, government documents, and newspaper articles, and asked to use them to write an essay expressing support or opposition to a given proposition. It demonstrates the kind of decision-making that voters need to do to evaluate candidates or stances on current issues. High school students, usually in their final year, also take a semester course on participation in government, which is considered the capstone of their civics education. This New York State framework, which my daughters used in the 1990s-early 2000s, remains in place today.

Some other states and localities do a poor job of educating their students in history and civics. Some even boast about the limitations they place on what is taught in their schools. A current egregious example of this is the state of Florida, which passed a law last year severely limiting teaching about race and identity. This led Florida to reject a pilot of the new Advanced Placement African American Studies course because it includes materials about current topics such as intersectionality, the reparations movement, and Black feminist literary critique. They also objected to students reading works by such well-known Black scholars and writers as bell hooks, Angela Davis, and Kimberlé Crenshaw. Florida officials claimed the course was more indoctrination than education, failing to realize that one needs to learn deeply through the full spectrum of a field of study to be truly educated and able to make judgments. Perhaps, their own education was too limited for them to appreciate the complexities we all now face.

At this point, we have a lot of catching up to do, with adults needing more education in civics, as well as many younger students. Part of this effort must be to emphasize our responsibilities to each other as citizens, or, as Richard Haass calls them, our “obligations.” (I haven’t had the opportunity to read his book, which was just released this week, so the following thoughts are mine and not from his work.)

For example, the First Amendment states that the federal government cannot establish a religion or prevent anyone from practicing their religion. I have the right to practice a religion or not, as I choose. However, I have a responsibility to not impose my religious tenets on anyone else. The First Amendment also says that laws can’t be made to abridge freedom of speech, but I am responsible for what I say and should take care that it is truthful and appropriate.

There is some tendency in the US for people to be hyper-individualistic, crowing about their individual rights, viewpoints, possessions, etc. while ignoring that we all exist in community and relationships, with people who are similar to us and those who are different in some way. Part of the reason that education in civics is so important is to increase the realization that we are responsible to each other as members of the community and the nation.

We are responsible for finding out the facts on an issue, forming a reasoned opinion, and taking action. We need to be respectful of others and set a good example. We need to keep listening and keep learning, as new information and discoveries come to light every day.

We need to be civil.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/26/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-26th-2023/

US education

In the United States, some school districts have already started the new school year and the rest will follow over the next couple of weeks.

In many places, the situation is fraught.

First, an organizational primer for those outside the US. The United States, unlike many countries, does not have a national education system. The various states exercise control over the curriculum and policies to greater or lesser degrees, depending on the state. The greatest degree of control usually rests with local school boards.

It’s a mixed blessing.

In some districts, the local school boards have bought into the notion that something as simple as having a book that includes a gay character in the library is akin to “grooming” students to be gay. Or that it isn’t permissible to discuss racism because it might make white students feel bad or guilty. This puts teachers in the uncomfortable position of being afraid to teach history, civics, literature, science, etc. in the way that they were trained to do as educators.

Some of these issues are even more pronounced when they become a state policy. The most prominent example of this at the moment is Florida. This school year marks the beginning of enforcement of the Parental Rights in Education Act, informally known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. The most prominent provision of the law is that there must be no classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. The reasoning is that these topics should be totally controlled by (heterosexual) parents.

But, here’s the thing. We use gendered language ALL THE TIME. Some of the first sight words that children learn – mother, father, boy, girl, man, woman, he, she – are all gendered terms. Are teachers supposed to use gender-neutral words at all times, referring to students, parents, and siblings rather than using such common terms as boys and girls, moms and dads, and brothers and sisters? What if a student asks why the family picture a classmate drew has two moms or two dads? Will the teacher be sued if they say anything beyond “ask your parents”?

Florida is also facing what has been termed a “critical teacher shortage.” It’s hard to say how much is due to curriculum concerns versus low pay, lack of administrative support, large class sizes, contract provisions, etc. Teacher shortages are fairly common in the United States, especially in math and science. To fill gaps, some states allow people to teach subjects in which they are not certified or even allow people to teach who are not certified at all.

Meanwhile, teachers and schools are under COVID-related pressures. Although almost all students, teachers, and staff are eligible, many remain unvaccinated, raising the risk of illness. During the pandemic, some students fell far behind academically during the period of remote instruction and need highly qualified teachers and extra tutoring to help them catch up to grade level. Teachers are also struggling with the mental health and developmental needs of students who faced fear, uncertainty, and isolation for months and now struggle with inattention, misbehavior, and lack of age-appropriate social skills. Some teachers are opting to retire as soon as they are eligible rather than continue under these stresses.

In some areas, schools are dealing with church/state issues, as well. Because of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the government may not establish a religion. However, a couple of recent decisions by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court have poked holes in what had been termed the wall of separation between church and state. Both cases benefit the expression of Christianity; I wonder if the decisions would have been the same if they had been about public prayer by Muslims, for example. In some localities or states, there are even instances of (white) Christian nationalism creeping into school curricula, such as teaching that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, which it was not, and downplaying the role of enslavement and indigenous land theft/genocide in our national history.

A lot of this is supposedly done in the name of parental rights, that is, that parents are the ones who should determine what their children learn in public school. I don’t agree with that. I look upon public education as a public good. I want free, high-quality education for every student so they can grow into responsible, mature members of our communities. They need to learn wide-ranging skills in communication, quantitative and scientific skills, technology, social studies and civics, and the arts. Having a broad base helps to develop critical and creative thinking and to identify where a student’s interests lie. Learning in community teaches how to work together and solve problems in a civil way. That was my expectation when I chose to send my children to public school. If my priority had been to control what they were exposed to, I would have opted to home school them. If I wanted them to have learn through a faith-based approach, I would have sent them to a religious school.

I don’t believe that a subgroup of parents should be able to dictate the learning environment of all children in our public schools. If a parent thinks that a certain assignment is inappropriate for their child, the vast majority of schools have a mechanism to assign an alternative. However, that parent should not have the power to say that the other students can’t undertake the original assignment. If those parents don’t understand that in terms of community values, they should at least understand that the parents of the other students have the same right to direct their child’s education as they do. If a parent thinks that all/most of the assignments are inappropriate for their child, it’s time to either homeschool or send their child to a private or religious school that meets their needs.

With my daughters in their thirties and my grandchildren abroad, I admit that I am grateful to have been spared the personal pressures of education during the pandemic. There is a lot of ground to make up for students in the US. Let’s concentrate on that for the good of their future and our country.

voting in the US

I’m tired of politicians in Republican-led states that are restricting voting practices boasting that their policies still make voting easier than in “liberal” New York.

I live in New York state and here’s the deal. New York has long had very cumbersome voting rules. Registration and changes in party affiliation had to be completed months in advance of election day. Absentee voting by mail was only for medical issues with a doctor’s letter or being out of the county on election day. Until the pandemic, there were no early voting days. When we did have some early voting for the November 2020 election due to the pandemic, I waited in line for three hours to cast my ballot. Fear of COVID was allowed as a medical exemption so voting by mail was easier in 2020 but those ballots were not counted for over a week.

I envied family and friends in other states where most of the voting was done by mail, often with ballots mailed routinely to registered voters. States with open primaries, same-day registration, weeks of early voting days. States where it was not as cumbersome to fulfill the fundamental responsibility of being a citizen.

Because of the election interference problems of 2016, there had been a lot of preparations done to make the 2020 election more secure. The pandemic added another layer of complexity but the election was very successful with high turnout and accurate results reported. There were only scattered instances of voter fraud. Despite the vociferous and continuing lies from the former president and other Republicans, the election was free and fair. Dozens of recounts, audits, and court cases have upheld the results.

That is not to say that there were no problems. In my Congressional district, New York 22, the vote count was so close that it had not been certified when the new Congress first met in early January. During the January 6 attack, there was no representative from my district huddled in the House chamber and then evacuated to a safer location. The contested election results wound up in court. One of the main issues was that one of the counties did not process new voter registrations even though they arrived before the deadline. When those people appeared to vote, they were not allowed to cast ballots, which was significant in a district where only a few dozen votes separated the candidates. The court allowed the vote count to stand, seating the Republican candidate who had won in 2016 in place of the Democratic incumbent who had beaten her in 2018.

In a way, this foreshadows some of the efforts underway in various states to make registering and voting more difficult for people who are deemed likely to vote for Democrats. This has variously been applied to people of color, urban dwellers, elders, college students, and Latinx populations, depending on the state. For example, in Texas, a handgun license is accepted as identification for voting but a student ID is not. There have also been moves to close polling locations in certain areas, for example, to create long lines to vote in majority black neighborhoods while white neighborhoods have more polling places with only a few minutes’ wait. We also see increased amounts of gerrymandering, whereby districts are drawn in convoluted ways to dilute the voting power of a group, whether that is regarding political party, race, or ethnicity.

These kinds of voter suppression tactics and interference in representation have been around for a long time but are worse now than in recent US history due to Supreme Court decisions in 2013 and 2021 which made much of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unenforceable.

What is even more unsettling are the new laws in some states that are empowering partisans to determine which of the votes cast get counted and which get thrown out. The counting of valid votes should be totally straightforward and non-partisan. It’s math. Inserting politics means that it’s possible for electoral college votes to be awarded to the candidate who lost the popular vote in the state, perhaps overseen by the state legislature. We have seen a frightening example of this already with several states sending fraudulent slates of electors for Trump in states where Biden won the popular vote. We have just learned that these cases are being investigated by the Department of Justice.

There have been several bills in Congress to try to address these problems. They have passed the House but not the Senate where they have been impeded by the filibuster that would need ten Republicans to join with the Democratic caucus to advance the bills for a vote.

It’s shameful that Republicans are not standing up for democracy and the right of all citizens to participate in free and fair elections. They are apparently afraid that, if everyone votes and all the votes are counted accurately in fairly drawn districts, they will lose elections and power.

They should, though, be prioritizing our democratic principles and highest ideals. The last time the Voting Rights Act was re-authorized in 2006 it passed in the Senate 98-0 with 17 currently serving Republican senators supporting it. The Voting Rights Act originally targeted black voter suppression in certain jurisdictions with known discriminatory practices and the Supreme Court considered these formulae outdated. The current legislation under consideration goes further in securing voting rights for all in that it addresses a wider range of problems over the country that have appeared or been threatened over time. It would help voters in Democrat-led states like New York as well as Republican-led states like Florida.

Some have argued that the courts will prevent injustice but that does not always happen, as we found in the case in NY-22 where voters were disenfranchised without redress. We are also seeing, unfortunately, cases where judges are acting in a partisan way rather than an impartial, merits-of-the-case way.

Our Constitution begins, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union”. Over our history, voting has been restricted by race, age, gender, and wealth. As we strive to “form a more perfect Union,” we must ensure that all adult American citizens have equal access to voting, whatever their race, age, gender, ethnicity, religion, political opinions, education, place of residence, or health status. We need just and enforceable laws to make that possible. I call on all members of Congress to support their fellow citizens in order to make our union stronger and “more perfect”.
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Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2022/01/27/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-27th-2022/