For the children who walk the halls of Bruce, Gordon, Rozelle and
Springdale elementary schools, few know they follow in the footsteps of
13 of the smallest pioneers of Memphis civil rights history.
On Oct. 3, 1961, 13 African-American first-graders entered these four
schools as the first students to desegregate Memphis City Schools.
Today, historical markers will be placed at the four schools
commemorating the steps of these children and the courage of their
families to enroll them.
It is an important acknowledgment of these contributions to our community.
Unlike school desegregation in Little Rock four years earlier, the
event in Memphis was orderly and did not make national headlines.
Perhaps as a result, the Memphis 13 do not hold the same place in the
national consciousness as do the Little Rock Nine. The Memphis 13 have
not been honored at the White House or appeared with Oprah; rather, they
have been recognized periodically, but have lived in relative anonymity
in our community.
View the full article here....
Showing posts with label Published. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Published. Show all posts
October 02, 2015
September 24, 2015
"Rhodes Must Fall" and Memphis's Confederate Monuments
Cecil John Rhodes is both famous and infamous in South Africa. He is
famous as an arch-imperialist, involved in the colonial expansion in
Southern Africa in the late 19th century that generated much of the
economic infrastructure that still underlies South Africa today. He is
infamous also as an arch-imperialist, involved in the subjugation of
native Africans to help drive economic expansion, generating much of the
social division that has plagued this country.
When I arrived in South Africa two months ago, I didn't anticipate thinking much about Cecil John Rhodes, who died more than a century ago. Yet the local news was abuzz with coverage of a movement called Rhodes Must Fall.
Furious over a campus display of a symbol of a colonial and oppressive past, black students at the University of Cape Town organized to demand the removal of a Rhodes statue. After a month of protest, the statue was removed by the university. The Rhodes Must Fall movement has spread to other campuses and communities in South Africa and beyond, targeting not only Rhodes but also other figures from complicated pasts.
All of this resonated with a Memphian abroad because of our own experience with a statue of a long-deceased famous and infamous man. There was some comfort in seeing a society 8,000 miles from home grapple with the same difficult issues. Particularly in places with deep histories of division, a universal part of confronting that past is struggling with persistent symbols of it. Freed from my identity as a Memphian, I am able to follow the Rhodes story without my own local baggage and preconceptions.
Read the full article here...
When I arrived in South Africa two months ago, I didn't anticipate thinking much about Cecil John Rhodes, who died more than a century ago. Yet the local news was abuzz with coverage of a movement called Rhodes Must Fall.
Furious over a campus display of a symbol of a colonial and oppressive past, black students at the University of Cape Town organized to demand the removal of a Rhodes statue. After a month of protest, the statue was removed by the university. The Rhodes Must Fall movement has spread to other campuses and communities in South Africa and beyond, targeting not only Rhodes but also other figures from complicated pasts.
All of this resonated with a Memphian abroad because of our own experience with a statue of a long-deceased famous and infamous man. There was some comfort in seeing a society 8,000 miles from home grapple with the same difficult issues. Particularly in places with deep histories of division, a universal part of confronting that past is struggling with persistent symbols of it. Freed from my identity as a Memphian, I am able to follow the Rhodes story without my own local baggage and preconceptions.
Read the full article here...
May 16, 2015
No Caste Here? Toward a Structural Critique of American Education
In his
famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice John Marshall Harlan
argued that in the United States, there was “no caste here.” Justice
Harlan was rejecting the idea that American society operated to assign
preordained outcomes to individuals based upon classifications,
including racial classifications. This Article questions whether Justice
Harlan’s aspirational assertion accurately reflects contemporary
American education. Identifying: (1) multiple classification mechanisms,
all of which have disproportionate racial effects, and (2) structural
legal, political, and practical impediments to reform, the Article
argues that the American education system does more to maintain the
nation’s historical racial hierarchy than to disrupt it. This is so, the
Article suggests, despite popular agreement with the casteless ideal
and popular belief that education can provide the opportunity to
transcend social class. By building the framework for a broad structural
critique, the Article suggests that a failure to acknowledge and
address structural flaws will preclude successful comprehensive reform
with more equitable outcomes.
This article appeared in the Penn State Law Review. The full article is available here.
This article appeared in the Penn State Law Review. The full article is available here.
December 16, 2014
New Yorker Letter: Thinking Fast and Slow in Ferguson
I recently had a letter published in The New Yorker (here it is). Here's the story of how I came to write the letter (which, in my opinion, is more interesting than the letter itself)....
I have been reading Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which is about the way our minds work - specifically, biases in how we consider things. As the recent events in Ferguson unfolded, I was struck by the ways in which the book connected with the conversations about race that Ferguson was triggering - and how unproductive those conversations seemed to be. I wrote the following essay with some of those thoughts...
--> One thing observers of the ongoing drama in Ferguson seem to agree on is that there is a need for frank conversations about race and criminal justice. However, discussions about the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson and the resulting riots in Ferguson have been largely unproductive. It seems at times that people are not even talking about the same event. The disconnect between the various perspectives – and the impact that disconnect has on our ability to honestly address the situation with the seriousness it deserves – reminded me of an experiment from the Nobel economist Daniel Kahneman’s book about our minds, Thinking Fast and Slow.
Try the experiment yourself. Begin at the top of a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line without using a ruler down to the point you think is 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page. Next, without looking at the line you’ve already drawn, start at the bottom of the page and draw a line going up 2 ½ inches - you are aiming for the same point on the page, just starting from the opposite direction. If you are like most people, you did not stop at the same place in these two attempts. Most likely, you stopped too early in both cases, leaving a gap between your two lines. That gap can be called the zone of uncertainty. You have a general sense of where 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page would be, but your tendency is to go no further once you get the feeling you are in the ballpark. When you are coming from two different directions, the lines do not meet.
What does the zone of uncertainty have to do with Ferguson? Think of the top and bottom of the page as stereotypes that may be at play in a situation where a police officer interacts with a black male: racist police officers and dangerous black males. Stereotypes like these are certainly not pretty, but they are part of how our minds work – pretending they do not exist or wishing them away only muddles an already difficult dialogue. How you evaluate any particular interaction between a police officer and a black male depends in large part on which stereotype you begin from.
Saying that you begin from a “racist police officer” stereotype does not mean that you actually think police officers are racist – rather, it means that if you are given no facts other than that a police officer interacted with a black male, your initial reaction (your bias) would be to take the side of the black male. You would have no facts upon which to make such an initial judgment, but you would make the judgment regardless. Fortunately, as new facts are provided, you would be able to move off of your initial reaction to evaluate a particular case more fairly. However, where the “true” answer is unable to be definitively ascertained, your movement is likely to stop at the edge of the zone of uncertainty closest to the side you began from. The same thing is happening for those who begin from the dangerous black male stereotype. The two types of people are thus stopping at opposite edges of the zone of uncertainty and their lines never meet.
Unfortunately, from what may be a small zone of uncertainty, a much larger chasm opens up as we grow increasingly frustrated that others aren’t seeing things as we do. Feeling that we have reached our own conclusion absent bias cleanses our own perspective and sullies disagreement as prejudiced. Rather than accept the zone of uncertainty, we instead form a negative opinion of those with whom we disagree and begin to harden our own beliefs – asserting them even more strongly than we initially felt them.
This, of course, is not a path to a constructive conversation about race. A first step toward a productive Ferguson conversation is acknowledging that there may be a zone of uncertainty between how this story is being experienced by different people. By accepting that we come to the conversation with some bias, we can unlock useful discussions about the undercurrents making a situation like Ferguson possible – and so explosive. We can even address how troublesome stereotypes like racist police officers and dangerous black males are formed. Those undercurrents run deep into our national history and have been persistent trouble spots in our evolution into a more perfect union.
Engaging with these topics – getting to that point 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page – requires an open mind, an honest assessment of one’s own biases, and a willingness to accept that others may see things differently. Even though such conversations seem to be what many of us want, our fast thinking might be making that engagement slow to come by.
I submitted that essay to various places, but received no responses. Then, I saw the cover of the December 8, 2014, issue of the New Yorker. I was struck by how much it reflected the idea of the zone of uncertainty described in my essay...
...so I wrote a condensed version of the essay and sent it along. The relevant portion of the letter, as published is:
Perhaps the break in Staake’s arch is not a break at all but a reflection of the fact that people approach these discussions from different perspectives. As we move toward meaningful engagement, we are likely to stop at the edge of our own uncertainty. Connecting the arch requires an open mind, an honest assessment of one’s biases, and a willingness to accept that others may see things differently.
I have been reading Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which is about the way our minds work - specifically, biases in how we consider things. As the recent events in Ferguson unfolded, I was struck by the ways in which the book connected with the conversations about race that Ferguson was triggering - and how unproductive those conversations seemed to be. I wrote the following essay with some of those thoughts...
--> One thing observers of the ongoing drama in Ferguson seem to agree on is that there is a need for frank conversations about race and criminal justice. However, discussions about the decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson and the resulting riots in Ferguson have been largely unproductive. It seems at times that people are not even talking about the same event. The disconnect between the various perspectives – and the impact that disconnect has on our ability to honestly address the situation with the seriousness it deserves – reminded me of an experiment from the Nobel economist Daniel Kahneman’s book about our minds, Thinking Fast and Slow.
Try the experiment yourself. Begin at the top of a sheet of paper and draw a vertical line without using a ruler down to the point you think is 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page. Next, without looking at the line you’ve already drawn, start at the bottom of the page and draw a line going up 2 ½ inches - you are aiming for the same point on the page, just starting from the opposite direction. If you are like most people, you did not stop at the same place in these two attempts. Most likely, you stopped too early in both cases, leaving a gap between your two lines. That gap can be called the zone of uncertainty. You have a general sense of where 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page would be, but your tendency is to go no further once you get the feeling you are in the ballpark. When you are coming from two different directions, the lines do not meet.
What does the zone of uncertainty have to do with Ferguson? Think of the top and bottom of the page as stereotypes that may be at play in a situation where a police officer interacts with a black male: racist police officers and dangerous black males. Stereotypes like these are certainly not pretty, but they are part of how our minds work – pretending they do not exist or wishing them away only muddles an already difficult dialogue. How you evaluate any particular interaction between a police officer and a black male depends in large part on which stereotype you begin from.
Saying that you begin from a “racist police officer” stereotype does not mean that you actually think police officers are racist – rather, it means that if you are given no facts other than that a police officer interacted with a black male, your initial reaction (your bias) would be to take the side of the black male. You would have no facts upon which to make such an initial judgment, but you would make the judgment regardless. Fortunately, as new facts are provided, you would be able to move off of your initial reaction to evaluate a particular case more fairly. However, where the “true” answer is unable to be definitively ascertained, your movement is likely to stop at the edge of the zone of uncertainty closest to the side you began from. The same thing is happening for those who begin from the dangerous black male stereotype. The two types of people are thus stopping at opposite edges of the zone of uncertainty and their lines never meet.
Unfortunately, from what may be a small zone of uncertainty, a much larger chasm opens up as we grow increasingly frustrated that others aren’t seeing things as we do. Feeling that we have reached our own conclusion absent bias cleanses our own perspective and sullies disagreement as prejudiced. Rather than accept the zone of uncertainty, we instead form a negative opinion of those with whom we disagree and begin to harden our own beliefs – asserting them even more strongly than we initially felt them.
This, of course, is not a path to a constructive conversation about race. A first step toward a productive Ferguson conversation is acknowledging that there may be a zone of uncertainty between how this story is being experienced by different people. By accepting that we come to the conversation with some bias, we can unlock useful discussions about the undercurrents making a situation like Ferguson possible – and so explosive. We can even address how troublesome stereotypes like racist police officers and dangerous black males are formed. Those undercurrents run deep into our national history and have been persistent trouble spots in our evolution into a more perfect union.
Engaging with these topics – getting to that point 2 ½ inches from the bottom of the page – requires an open mind, an honest assessment of one’s own biases, and a willingness to accept that others may see things differently. Even though such conversations seem to be what many of us want, our fast thinking might be making that engagement slow to come by.
I submitted that essay to various places, but received no responses. Then, I saw the cover of the December 8, 2014, issue of the New Yorker. I was struck by how much it reflected the idea of the zone of uncertainty described in my essay...
...so I wrote a condensed version of the essay and sent it along. The relevant portion of the letter, as published is:
Perhaps the break in Staake’s arch is not a break at all but a reflection of the fact that people approach these discussions from different perspectives. As we move toward meaningful engagement, we are likely to stop at the edge of our own uncertainty. Connecting the arch requires an open mind, an honest assessment of one’s biases, and a willingness to accept that others may see things differently.
February 16, 2014
Lessons from the Memphis 13
Lessons from the Memphis 13: What 13 First Graders Have to Teach About Law, Life, and the Legacy of Brown
Abstract: Fifty years after desegregating schools in Memphis as first graders, the pioneering students shared their stories for the first time. The resulting film, The Memphis 13 (2011), brought a largely overlooked episode in the civil rights movement into the broader movement narrative. In this essay, the film’s director – who also happens to be a law professor – combines a first-person account of the intellectual journey involved in meeting the pioneering students and their families with a scholarly analysis of the implications of the students’ stories. Specifically, the essay describes the intense isolation the students experienced both during their experience desegregating schools and in the decades that followed and questions the responsibility that lawyers and movement leaders have to foot soldiers who are participating in a social movement through no choice of their own. Looking back, the students took widely divergent lessons from their experience, demonstrating the complexity of crafting a meaningful remedy even for individuals in the post-Brown era. The essay thus utilizes these personal narratives to critique the choices made during the desegregation effort. This real world testimony provides a fresh perspective on longstanding debates that too often discount the experiences of those most directly affected.
This article appeared in the Thurgood Marshall Law Review of Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law. The full article is available here.
Abstract: Fifty years after desegregating schools in Memphis as first graders, the pioneering students shared their stories for the first time. The resulting film, The Memphis 13 (2011), brought a largely overlooked episode in the civil rights movement into the broader movement narrative. In this essay, the film’s director – who also happens to be a law professor – combines a first-person account of the intellectual journey involved in meeting the pioneering students and their families with a scholarly analysis of the implications of the students’ stories. Specifically, the essay describes the intense isolation the students experienced both during their experience desegregating schools and in the decades that followed and questions the responsibility that lawyers and movement leaders have to foot soldiers who are participating in a social movement through no choice of their own. Looking back, the students took widely divergent lessons from their experience, demonstrating the complexity of crafting a meaningful remedy even for individuals in the post-Brown era. The essay thus utilizes these personal narratives to critique the choices made during the desegregation effort. This real world testimony provides a fresh perspective on longstanding debates that too often discount the experiences of those most directly affected.
This article appeared in the Thurgood Marshall Law Review of Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law. The full article is available here.
August 01, 2013
The Enduring Power of Milliken's Fences
Abstract: Using the experience of one community that has undergone a district line
altering transformation as a case study, this article argues that
endorsement from the state is an essential element for success in
efforts to mitigate the educational inequities caused by district
boundaries and then offers specific steps states can take to support
such changes even without altering district boundaries. Part I will
introduce the ways in which school district lines can serve as barriers
to educational opportunities, and Part II will summarize several current
educational reform proposals and trends that either have the intent or
effect of weakening the power of district lines. Part III examines the
rationale for the largely successful suburban resistance to
district-weakening proposals, filling out the context in which
conversations on these topics take place. The case study of the merger
of urban and suburban school districts in Memphis and Shelby County,
Tennessee will be introduced in Part IV. Utilizing the experience in
Memphis and Shelby County, Part V will identify lessons learned from
Memphis, focusing on the role of the state in assisting or obstructing
elimination of interdistrict disparities, and Part VI will offer
practical and politically viable suggestions that states can take to
address these issues. Although the legal context was quite different,
the practical landscape facing the merger process in Memphis was not
unlike what Judge Roth found in Detroit four decades earlier. At issue
remained questions about whether education should be considered a common
undertaking for the entire metropolitan area it affects, or whether
local control should be limited conceptually by existing district lines.
If anything, the fences between urban and suburban districts have grown
even stronger since the Supreme Court embraced them in Milliken. The
lessons from this contemporary attempt to break down school district
boundaries demonstrate just how strong those fences have become.
This article appeared in The Urban Lawyer. The full article is available here.
This article appeared in The Urban Lawyer. The full article is available here.
June 06, 2013
The Endangered School District
The Endangered School District: The Promise and Challenge of Redistributing Control of Public Education
Abstract: One constant in American public education reform has been the existence of a single local entity – the school district – with operational responsibility. In some places, that is changing. Fueled by undercurrents in education reform such as the embrace of broader school choice and an increase in state involvement in local education, as well as federal political alignment supporting these undercurrents, some communities are embracing a radical structural reform that redistributes operational control across a series – or portfolio – of autonomous entities.
In such communities – typically large, urban school systems serving a student population that is largely poor and made up of minority students – the term “district” no longer applies. The broad, district-wide authority of a school board and superintendent is being dispersed to a variety of operators, including state education departments, private (i.e., charter school) operators, and the preexisting district itself. Each operator enjoys substantial or even total independence from other operators, generating an autonomy that has not existed within the traditional district structure.
The Endangered School District describes the causes and ramifications of such a substantial departure from the traditional district model and offers case studies from two communities – New Orleans, LA, and Memphis/Shelby County, TN – at the epicenter of urban education reform. Building on scholarship evaluating the theory of expanded school choice and operational autonomy, these case studies help demonstrate the practical challenges of applying these theories beyond isolated schools to entire educational communities.
There is great disagreement about the wisdom of transitioning toward a portfolio model for public education. The Endangered School District simply accepts the development as the emerging trend that it is and offers insight from two communities for making the most of such a radical structural change.
First, the article describes the undercurrents that are enabling the portfolio strategy and the ramifications – administrative, legal and philosophical – of moving away from the traditional district model. After introducing the case studies, the article next examines the respective new models in depth in order to evaluate whether either can deliver as a strategy to increase educational opportunities for students. Specifically, the article identifies the dangers that these structural reforms may simply reorganize the stratified educational systems they seek to eliminate or that they may not be financially, legally, or politically sustainable over time and on such a large scale. Rather than merely identifying these challenges, the article then goes on to identify legal structures – such as state laws or bilateral agreements between public school authorizers and public school operators or even among operators themselves – that can help minimize these risks.
This article appeared in the Boston University Public Interest Law Journal. The full article is available here.
Abstract: One constant in American public education reform has been the existence of a single local entity – the school district – with operational responsibility. In some places, that is changing. Fueled by undercurrents in education reform such as the embrace of broader school choice and an increase in state involvement in local education, as well as federal political alignment supporting these undercurrents, some communities are embracing a radical structural reform that redistributes operational control across a series – or portfolio – of autonomous entities.
In such communities – typically large, urban school systems serving a student population that is largely poor and made up of minority students – the term “district” no longer applies. The broad, district-wide authority of a school board and superintendent is being dispersed to a variety of operators, including state education departments, private (i.e., charter school) operators, and the preexisting district itself. Each operator enjoys substantial or even total independence from other operators, generating an autonomy that has not existed within the traditional district structure.
The Endangered School District describes the causes and ramifications of such a substantial departure from the traditional district model and offers case studies from two communities – New Orleans, LA, and Memphis/Shelby County, TN – at the epicenter of urban education reform. Building on scholarship evaluating the theory of expanded school choice and operational autonomy, these case studies help demonstrate the practical challenges of applying these theories beyond isolated schools to entire educational communities.
There is great disagreement about the wisdom of transitioning toward a portfolio model for public education. The Endangered School District simply accepts the development as the emerging trend that it is and offers insight from two communities for making the most of such a radical structural change.
First, the article describes the undercurrents that are enabling the portfolio strategy and the ramifications – administrative, legal and philosophical – of moving away from the traditional district model. After introducing the case studies, the article next examines the respective new models in depth in order to evaluate whether either can deliver as a strategy to increase educational opportunities for students. Specifically, the article identifies the dangers that these structural reforms may simply reorganize the stratified educational systems they seek to eliminate or that they may not be financially, legally, or politically sustainable over time and on such a large scale. Rather than merely identifying these challenges, the article then goes on to identify legal structures – such as state laws or bilateral agreements between public school authorizers and public school operators or even among operators themselves – that can help minimize these risks.
This article appeared in the Boston University Public Interest Law Journal. The full article is available here.
August 01, 2011
A Memphis Dilemma
A Memphis Dilemma: A Half-Century of Education in Memphis and Shelby County from Desegregation to Consolidation
Abstract: On May 17, 1954, the day that the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, essentially four separate school systems existed within the borders of Shelby County, Tennessee. Memphis City Schools (MCS) served students within the city limits, and Shelby County Schools (SCS) served the balance of students in the county; within each system were white schools and black schools. The next several decades saw the two districts grapple with implementation of the Supreme Court mandate to remove the vestiges of segregation from public education.
By 2010, both districts had achieved unitary status, freeing them from court supervision and adherence to judicially approved desegregation plans. However, there remained a sense in the community that public education remained very much separate - and that there was a continued racial component to that separation. Indeed, the demographics of the two districts supported this perception. Of the 100,000 students in MCS, nearly 90% were African American. Meanwhile, the majority of the county’s white students were learning in SCS. Coupling these demographic differences with the fact that the county schools performed better educationally, on average, by state accountability standards and the claims of separate, unequal schooling no different than what was confronted in Brown seemed even more legitimate.
This article appeared in the University of Memphis Law Review. The full article is available here.
Abstract: On May 17, 1954, the day that the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, essentially four separate school systems existed within the borders of Shelby County, Tennessee. Memphis City Schools (MCS) served students within the city limits, and Shelby County Schools (SCS) served the balance of students in the county; within each system were white schools and black schools. The next several decades saw the two districts grapple with implementation of the Supreme Court mandate to remove the vestiges of segregation from public education.
By 2010, both districts had achieved unitary status, freeing them from court supervision and adherence to judicially approved desegregation plans. However, there remained a sense in the community that public education remained very much separate - and that there was a continued racial component to that separation. Indeed, the demographics of the two districts supported this perception. Of the 100,000 students in MCS, nearly 90% were African American. Meanwhile, the majority of the county’s white students were learning in SCS. Coupling these demographic differences with the fact that the county schools performed better educationally, on average, by state accountability standards and the claims of separate, unequal schooling no different than what was confronted in Brown seemed even more legitimate.
This article appeared in the University of Memphis Law Review. The full article is available here.
July 06, 2011
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure:
Abstract: Written as an invited response to Prof. Richard Sander’s “Class in American Legal Education,” this piece argues that the debate about affirmative action in higher education has overemphasized the admissions process without focusing a sufficient amount of energy on addressing longer-term strategies that would make controversial admissions interventions unnecessary.
This essay appeared in the Denver Law Review. The full article is available here. Links to the other articles in the volume are available here.
Abstract: Written as an invited response to Prof. Richard Sander’s “Class in American Legal Education,” this piece argues that the debate about affirmative action in higher education has overemphasized the admissions process without focusing a sufficient amount of energy on addressing longer-term strategies that would make controversial admissions interventions unnecessary.
This essay appeared in the Denver Law Review. The full article is available here. Links to the other articles in the volume are available here.
May 01, 2010
It Takes a Hurricane
It Takes a Hurricane: Might Hurricane Katrina Provide for New Orleans Students What Brown Once Promised?
Abstract: Presented as part of a program for the AALS Education Law section entitled “Five Years After Katrina: Access to Education,” this article places post-Katrina education in New Orleans directly in the line of education reform triggered by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The article agues that post-Katrina New Orleans represents the pursuit of the same goal pursued by the Brown plaintiffs: improved access to educational opportunities for students, most of whom are African American, not being equitably served by the status quo. The article then frames these two moments – the Brown decision and Hurricane Katrina – as inertia-jarring events in the history of New Orleans public education and compares the responses to these two hurricanes (one figurative, one literal).
Connecting the post-Brown and post-Katrina eras, the article focuses on themes common to both – state intervention in New Orleans schools and an increase in choice for students – and details the ways in which the response to one has shaped the response to the other. Looking at ways the city has learned from the Brown era and the ways in which the city seems on a path to repeating some of that era’s mistakes, the article argues that success or failure in post-Katrina public education will be impacted by the city’s post-Brown experience. Specifically, although the motivation behind state intervention is clearly different than it was during the Brown era, there remains skepticism about the role of the state in providing for New Orleans public schools.
Further, despite having made choice far more widely available after Katrina than it had been before, the potential for a return to a stratified system of schools – and the class - and race-based resentment such stratification engenders – could threaten the public support New Orleans public schools currently enjoy.
The progress of public education in New Orleans is important beyond the boundaries of Orleans Parish. Post-Katrina New Orleans serves as the pivotal proving ground for the use of increased choice and charter schools to provide more equitable access to quality education. With 61% of New Orleans public school students enrolled in 51 charter schools (both numbers by far the highest in the nation), post-Katrina New Orleans represents an opportunity for the choice movement to demonstrate success on a large scale. Success in New Orleans will lead to broader choice in struggling urban districts across the country. Conversely, failure to deliver improved access to quality education will reverse the current upward trajectory of the choice movement.
Given the stakes, the New Orleans public schools are likely to be among the most scrupulously evaluated in the coming years. However, as scholars and advocates begin evaluating this reform effort and continuing to shape the future of public education in New Orleans, it is imperative to recognize the ways in which the story that precedes the hurricane shapes and impacts the story unfolding in its wake. This article serves will help ensure that happens.
If reformers in New Orleans are able to focus on the goal of increasing access to quality educational opportunities, then the chance created out of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will not be wasted. It would be beautifully ironic if, thanks in part to a hurricane, the schools in the city whose segregated railcars gave us Plessy v. Ferguson could finally deliver on that elusive promise of Brown to provide more equitable access to quality educational opportunities.
This article appeared in the Journal of Law and Education. The full article is available here.
Abstract: Presented as part of a program for the AALS Education Law section entitled “Five Years After Katrina: Access to Education,” this article places post-Katrina education in New Orleans directly in the line of education reform triggered by the decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The article agues that post-Katrina New Orleans represents the pursuit of the same goal pursued by the Brown plaintiffs: improved access to educational opportunities for students, most of whom are African American, not being equitably served by the status quo. The article then frames these two moments – the Brown decision and Hurricane Katrina – as inertia-jarring events in the history of New Orleans public education and compares the responses to these two hurricanes (one figurative, one literal).
Connecting the post-Brown and post-Katrina eras, the article focuses on themes common to both – state intervention in New Orleans schools and an increase in choice for students – and details the ways in which the response to one has shaped the response to the other. Looking at ways the city has learned from the Brown era and the ways in which the city seems on a path to repeating some of that era’s mistakes, the article argues that success or failure in post-Katrina public education will be impacted by the city’s post-Brown experience. Specifically, although the motivation behind state intervention is clearly different than it was during the Brown era, there remains skepticism about the role of the state in providing for New Orleans public schools.
Further, despite having made choice far more widely available after Katrina than it had been before, the potential for a return to a stratified system of schools – and the class - and race-based resentment such stratification engenders – could threaten the public support New Orleans public schools currently enjoy.
The progress of public education in New Orleans is important beyond the boundaries of Orleans Parish. Post-Katrina New Orleans serves as the pivotal proving ground for the use of increased choice and charter schools to provide more equitable access to quality education. With 61% of New Orleans public school students enrolled in 51 charter schools (both numbers by far the highest in the nation), post-Katrina New Orleans represents an opportunity for the choice movement to demonstrate success on a large scale. Success in New Orleans will lead to broader choice in struggling urban districts across the country. Conversely, failure to deliver improved access to quality education will reverse the current upward trajectory of the choice movement.
Given the stakes, the New Orleans public schools are likely to be among the most scrupulously evaluated in the coming years. However, as scholars and advocates begin evaluating this reform effort and continuing to shape the future of public education in New Orleans, it is imperative to recognize the ways in which the story that precedes the hurricane shapes and impacts the story unfolding in its wake. This article serves will help ensure that happens.
If reformers in New Orleans are able to focus on the goal of increasing access to quality educational opportunities, then the chance created out of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will not be wasted. It would be beautifully ironic if, thanks in part to a hurricane, the schools in the city whose segregated railcars gave us Plessy v. Ferguson could finally deliver on that elusive promise of Brown to provide more equitable access to quality educational opportunities.
This article appeared in the Journal of Law and Education. The full article is available here.
June 01, 2009
Accepting Justice Kennedy's Dare
Accepting Justice Kennedy's Dare: The Future of Integration in a Post-PICS World
Abstract: In the wake of the most important public schools case in decades, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), the future of diversity in public schools is in doubt. This period of uncertainty comes at a moment when parents, educators, and employers are demanding high quality schools that prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his PICS concurrence, recognized this and challenged districts to continue the important work of bringing different students together without resorting to unconstitutional means. Filling the void between what is essential to public education and what is constitutionally permissible after PICS, the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky, one of the districts rebuked in PICS, have accepted Justice Kennedy’s dare by crafting a nuanced and race-conscious student assignment plan aimed at promoting broadly-defined diversity and increasing the quality of education across the district.
The article argues two distinct points. First, it argues that the new plan is a constitutionally permissible response to PICS. Second, it argues that the new plan’s broadening of both the definition of diversity and the mission of a school district represents the beginning of a new post-Brown era that is responsive to the realities of public education in the 21st century. By tethering its analysis of PICS - and specifically of Justice Kennedy’s concurrence - to a specific response to that decision, the article provides a detailed analysis of the new constitutional framework in this area. Ultimately, the article argues that because it is both constitutional and educationally-relevant, the new plan represents the future of integration for any district willing to make the commitment to providing the educational benefits of diverse public schools to its students.
This article appeared in the Fordham Law Review. The full article is available here.
Abstract: In the wake of the most important public schools case in decades, Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS), the future of diversity in public schools is in doubt. This period of uncertainty comes at a moment when parents, educators, and employers are demanding high quality schools that prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his PICS concurrence, recognized this and challenged districts to continue the important work of bringing different students together without resorting to unconstitutional means. Filling the void between what is essential to public education and what is constitutionally permissible after PICS, the public schools of Jefferson County (Louisville), Kentucky, one of the districts rebuked in PICS, have accepted Justice Kennedy’s dare by crafting a nuanced and race-conscious student assignment plan aimed at promoting broadly-defined diversity and increasing the quality of education across the district.
The article argues two distinct points. First, it argues that the new plan is a constitutionally permissible response to PICS. Second, it argues that the new plan’s broadening of both the definition of diversity and the mission of a school district represents the beginning of a new post-Brown era that is responsive to the realities of public education in the 21st century. By tethering its analysis of PICS - and specifically of Justice Kennedy’s concurrence - to a specific response to that decision, the article provides a detailed analysis of the new constitutional framework in this area. Ultimately, the article argues that because it is both constitutional and educationally-relevant, the new plan represents the future of integration for any district willing to make the commitment to providing the educational benefits of diverse public schools to its students.
This article appeared in the Fordham Law Review. The full article is available here.
September 28, 2008
Wash Post OpEd: Obama's Subtle Hurdle
Just 46 years ago, riots erupted at the prospect of an African American
man enrolling at the University of Mississippi. The progress our country
has made on race was brought into focus Friday night when Barack Obama,
the first African American presidential nominee, arrived at Ole Miss,
where James Meredith's matriculation sparked clashes in 1962.
Unfortunately, instead of frank considerations of the racial issues that
persist in America, the discussions that have accompanied Obama's
candidacy have frequently unfolded in ways unlikely to foster progress
on interracial dialogue.
Undoubtedly, Obama's race is playing a role in this election. It has helped him generate enthusiasm among African American and white voters. Conversely, some people simply will not vote for him because he is black. Precise numbers will be known only within the voting booth, but social science research on racial attitudes in job candidate evaluations sheds some light on how race may be affecting our collective judgment.
Selecting a candidate to vote for, after all, is like making a hiring decision for the country's top job. Studies of " aversive racism" have shown that when reviewers compare identical résumés of black and white job applicants, white candidates are rated more highly than black candidates. Paradoxically, this discrepancy becomes more significant the more qualified the candidates are. While modestly qualified candidates of different races may be evaluated relatively equally, higher-qualified African American candidates are, on average, subjectively judged to be inferior to white candidates whose credentials are objectively identical. The discrepancy is exaggerated when the job to be filled is superior to the job held by the evaluator. Part of the reason is that while white candidates were considered "highly skilled," black candidates were considered "fortunate," the implication being that results based on skill are likely to be repeated, whereas those based on luck are not.
Commentators have not shied from citing the influence of race on Obama's prospects. Recently, some have argued that only racism is to blame when trying to explain why the Democratic nominee had not pulled further ahead in national polls. Others have called cries of racism an excuse for Obama's inability to assuage voters' genuine questions about his readiness for the job. But ignoring or minimizing the effect of race -- pretending that criticisms of Obama's readiness or elitism or good fortune are entirely independent of the color of his skin -- is to minimize the lasting impact of our nation's history of race relations.
The effect that race has on Obama's campaign is far more subtle, and powerful, than the ballots of those who reveal their closeted bigotries only inside the voting booth. Millions of Americans have been breathing the smog of racial stereotyping their entire lives; their decisions, like those of the evaluators in the studies, are unsurprisingly affected.
In Oxford, we could see how much progress our country has made. Rather than continuing accusatory conversations on race that only serve to thicken the smog, let's move forward recognizing both how far we've come and how far we have yet to go toward perfecting our union.
See the Washington Post version here.
Undoubtedly, Obama's race is playing a role in this election. It has helped him generate enthusiasm among African American and white voters. Conversely, some people simply will not vote for him because he is black. Precise numbers will be known only within the voting booth, but social science research on racial attitudes in job candidate evaluations sheds some light on how race may be affecting our collective judgment.
Selecting a candidate to vote for, after all, is like making a hiring decision for the country's top job. Studies of " aversive racism" have shown that when reviewers compare identical résumés of black and white job applicants, white candidates are rated more highly than black candidates. Paradoxically, this discrepancy becomes more significant the more qualified the candidates are. While modestly qualified candidates of different races may be evaluated relatively equally, higher-qualified African American candidates are, on average, subjectively judged to be inferior to white candidates whose credentials are objectively identical. The discrepancy is exaggerated when the job to be filled is superior to the job held by the evaluator. Part of the reason is that while white candidates were considered "highly skilled," black candidates were considered "fortunate," the implication being that results based on skill are likely to be repeated, whereas those based on luck are not.
In the majority of these evaluations, individual racism or racial
prejudice is not driving the evaluators -- each evaluator is earnestly
attempting to select the best applicant. Yet, the research pioneered by Jack Dovidio and Sam Gaertner,
among others, suggests that African American job candidates must be
objectively more qualified than white applicants to be subjectively
perceived as the best candidate. It seems reasonable, then, that the
same type of earnest but biased evaluation could be affecting Obama's
campaign.
Commentators have not shied from citing the influence of race on Obama's prospects. Recently, some have argued that only racism is to blame when trying to explain why the Democratic nominee had not pulled further ahead in national polls. Others have called cries of racism an excuse for Obama's inability to assuage voters' genuine questions about his readiness for the job. But ignoring or minimizing the effect of race -- pretending that criticisms of Obama's readiness or elitism or good fortune are entirely independent of the color of his skin -- is to minimize the lasting impact of our nation's history of race relations.
The effect that race has on Obama's campaign is far more subtle, and powerful, than the ballots of those who reveal their closeted bigotries only inside the voting booth. Millions of Americans have been breathing the smog of racial stereotyping their entire lives; their decisions, like those of the evaluators in the studies, are unsurprisingly affected.
In Oxford, we could see how much progress our country has made. Rather than continuing accusatory conversations on race that only serve to thicken the smog, let's move forward recognizing both how far we've come and how far we have yet to go toward perfecting our union.
See the Washington Post version here.
August 01, 2008
Exploded Dream: Desegregation in the Memphis City Schools
Abstract: This
article is a comprehensive look at the story of school desegregation in
the Memphis City Schools. Beginning with the Brown v. Board of Education
decision that ended segregation in schooling, the article traces the
steps taken in Memphis to put the Brown decision into practice.
Following a period of inaction and delay, the Memphis City Schools
experienced a relatively peaceful transition as token desegregation took
place in the early part of the 1960s. However, after the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis in 1968, the community's
polarization was globally exposed and further progress on school
desegregation was limited. After federal courts ordered busing to
implement the Brown mandate, a quarter of the district's white students
departed for the nearby Shelby County Schools or for a growing, and
uniquely successful, system of private schools. Since the busing order,
the white population in the Memphis City Schools has steadily declined
so that by the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, a district that
had been 58% white and 42% black in 1954 was 86% black and 9% white in
2004. Using the Northcross v. Board of Education of the Memphis City
Schools litigation as a guide, this article traces that history, putting
Memphis in the context of the larger desegregation story.
This article appears in the journal Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, published at the University of Minnesota School of Law.
The full article is available here.
This article appears in the journal Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, published at the University of Minnesota School of Law.
The full article is available here.
June 20, 2008
Message to City School Students: Buzz Off
Dear Students of the Memphis City Schools:
I hope you have not been watching too much of the news these days. Your collective future is being used as a pawn in a shortsighted game of "pass the buck," with new developments by the day. I am writing this letter to you because you and your interests have been wholly absent from this conversation. It is imperative that we, the adults of Memphis, remember that what is happening right now is happening to you.
As the mayor and City Council and school board and state argue over who is responsible for your education, the fact remains: We are all responsible. We, the parents. We, the teachers. We, the principals and administrators. And we, the elected officials. We are all responsible because it is not just your future that is at stake, but ours as well. Unfortunately, many of us refuse to acknowledge this.
Take our City Council's decision earlier this month to cut funding to your schools. Now, we could have had an adult discussion about how best to address mismanagement and inefficiency in the district while also making absolutely certain that your education would not be affected. But we never had that discussion. Instead, the City Council made the unilateral decision to drastically reduce your funding.
The damage done by the City Council's action is not limited to the short-term budgetary mess that has been created or the lawsuit the school board filed this week in an attempt to rescind the budget cuts -- though both of those will be huge distractions from the district's primary mission of education. The most significant damage comes from the signal the action sends: The Memphis City Schools are not worth supporting. While the technical substance of the council's action may have been fiscal, there can be no mistaking the message that supporting the city schools is not a high priority.
That signal was sent to you, with likely consequences for your engagement in school. It was sent to your parents, who have entrusted your future to public education and now know precisely where public education sits on the city leadership's priority list. And it was sent to the larger community, upon whom you depend for support, and ultimately, funding.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time you have been pawns while the adults argue. In the 1970s, the City Council threatened to withhold funds to the district and actually sued the Board of Education for complying with a federal order to institute busing. In that instance, as here, the students' future was second to political gain as adults chose shortsighted confrontation over collaborative discussion about students' best interests. After all, it is the best interests of students such as you that ought to be foremost in our minds when deciding these issues.
The most significant lasting impact from that era in civic history was the erosion of public support for the Memphis City Schools, a district that educates the vast majority of the Mid-South's future work force. That erosion can be directly linked to the recent City Council cuts. There is apparently no more political consequence for condemning the city schools.
That does not mean that your future does not matter. Indeed, we all have a stake in your future whether we know you or not. If you are not prepared to work in a 21st century economy, then our community will be stuck economically, or will move backwards. All of the problems that plague us today -- crime, poverty, stagnant development -- become more intractable with every single dip in public support for the Memphis City Schools, whether individual (a Memphian who disparages the schools with glee) or institutional (a City Council that cuts funding because there is no legal obligation to support the schools financially).
Missing during the community confrontations over busing were honest and credible adults with the courage to push students' interests to the fore of the conversation, regardless of the political or social consequences. Those adults remain few and far between today.
To protect your future and ours, those of us who are discouraged when your education is deemed unworthy of our support (and dollars) should do our part. We must hold leaders who contribute to the erosion of public support for your schools accountable by filling their in-boxes and mailboxes with letters of dissatisfaction, and when necessary, using our power at ballot boxes. We must confront our friends who seem to take pride in disparaging the city schools with the fact that our future as a city rests on your shoulders. We must push those friends and ourselves to contribute to solutions rather than to the problem. If we are parents, we must push you to your potential and hold both you and your teachers accountable for taking education seriously.
There already was much to be done to provide you the tools you need to make our city maximize its capabilities. Now, there is the added burden of undoing the damage done over the last several months. But if we are to move forward as a community, we'd better be up to the task.
[NOTE: Originally published in Commercial Appeal, June 20, 2008. I had nothing to do with the title and might have chosen something a bit less sensational, like "Interests of Students Lost Amidst Funding Debate" - oh well!]
I hope you have not been watching too much of the news these days. Your collective future is being used as a pawn in a shortsighted game of "pass the buck," with new developments by the day. I am writing this letter to you because you and your interests have been wholly absent from this conversation. It is imperative that we, the adults of Memphis, remember that what is happening right now is happening to you.
As the mayor and City Council and school board and state argue over who is responsible for your education, the fact remains: We are all responsible. We, the parents. We, the teachers. We, the principals and administrators. And we, the elected officials. We are all responsible because it is not just your future that is at stake, but ours as well. Unfortunately, many of us refuse to acknowledge this.
Take our City Council's decision earlier this month to cut funding to your schools. Now, we could have had an adult discussion about how best to address mismanagement and inefficiency in the district while also making absolutely certain that your education would not be affected. But we never had that discussion. Instead, the City Council made the unilateral decision to drastically reduce your funding.
The damage done by the City Council's action is not limited to the short-term budgetary mess that has been created or the lawsuit the school board filed this week in an attempt to rescind the budget cuts -- though both of those will be huge distractions from the district's primary mission of education. The most significant damage comes from the signal the action sends: The Memphis City Schools are not worth supporting. While the technical substance of the council's action may have been fiscal, there can be no mistaking the message that supporting the city schools is not a high priority.
That signal was sent to you, with likely consequences for your engagement in school. It was sent to your parents, who have entrusted your future to public education and now know precisely where public education sits on the city leadership's priority list. And it was sent to the larger community, upon whom you depend for support, and ultimately, funding.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time you have been pawns while the adults argue. In the 1970s, the City Council threatened to withhold funds to the district and actually sued the Board of Education for complying with a federal order to institute busing. In that instance, as here, the students' future was second to political gain as adults chose shortsighted confrontation over collaborative discussion about students' best interests. After all, it is the best interests of students such as you that ought to be foremost in our minds when deciding these issues.
The most significant lasting impact from that era in civic history was the erosion of public support for the Memphis City Schools, a district that educates the vast majority of the Mid-South's future work force. That erosion can be directly linked to the recent City Council cuts. There is apparently no more political consequence for condemning the city schools.
That does not mean that your future does not matter. Indeed, we all have a stake in your future whether we know you or not. If you are not prepared to work in a 21st century economy, then our community will be stuck economically, or will move backwards. All of the problems that plague us today -- crime, poverty, stagnant development -- become more intractable with every single dip in public support for the Memphis City Schools, whether individual (a Memphian who disparages the schools with glee) or institutional (a City Council that cuts funding because there is no legal obligation to support the schools financially).
Missing during the community confrontations over busing were honest and credible adults with the courage to push students' interests to the fore of the conversation, regardless of the political or social consequences. Those adults remain few and far between today.
To protect your future and ours, those of us who are discouraged when your education is deemed unworthy of our support (and dollars) should do our part. We must hold leaders who contribute to the erosion of public support for your schools accountable by filling their in-boxes and mailboxes with letters of dissatisfaction, and when necessary, using our power at ballot boxes. We must confront our friends who seem to take pride in disparaging the city schools with the fact that our future as a city rests on your shoulders. We must push those friends and ourselves to contribute to solutions rather than to the problem. If we are parents, we must push you to your potential and hold both you and your teachers accountable for taking education seriously.
There already was much to be done to provide you the tools you need to make our city maximize its capabilities. Now, there is the added burden of undoing the damage done over the last several months. But if we are to move forward as a community, we'd better be up to the task.
[NOTE: Originally published in Commercial Appeal, June 20, 2008. I had nothing to do with the title and might have chosen something a bit less sensational, like "Interests of Students Lost Amidst Funding Debate" - oh well!]
September 17, 2007
Unity Strategy Requires Persuasion
The first time I came across a bumper sticker with the campaign slogan for mayoral candidate Herman Morris, I was impressed at the simple yet meaningful message: Together. For a change. There are two potential meanings, both appropriate for this moment in Memphis history: "We will do things together for a change," or "We will work for a change, together."
Fellow contender Carol Chumney is also sloganeering for change. Her campaign mantra (For the People, For a Change) seeks to tap into the same appetite for a new direction in city leadership, while the slogan on Mayor Willie Herenton's billboards and Web site (Continuing Progress) promises to build on the accomplishments of his previous terms. This election season, it has been the mayor's unofficial slogan (Shake the Haters Off) that has gotten the most attention, but it is Morris' theme of togetherness that I find most intriguing.
This column is not meant as an endorsement or rejection of any candidate -- there is far more to judge all three of these hopefuls on than their slogans. Instead, with the election just over two weeks away, I wonder whether a campaign based on togetherness, as Morris' campaign is, can succeed in Memphis.
Memphis has a history of electing candidates whose campaigns divide, rather than unite, the community, and much of that dividing occurs along racial lines. In 1967, Henry Loeb was elected with virtually no African-American support, a strategy that did not serve him well as the city encountered the sanitation workers' strike of 1968. More recently, Herenton was first elected in 1991 with little white support over incumbent Dick Hackett by a mere 142 votes.
In a book studying the 1991 election, "Racial Politics at the Crossroads," Rhodes College professors Marcus Pohlmann and Michael Kirby wrote that Memphis had reached a "point of racial reflexivity," where any crossover support for one candidate would dampen enthusiasm (and with it, potential voter turnout) in the candidate's own racial community. For candidate Herenton, therefore, any impression of white support was likely to diminish the crusade-like enthusiasm in the African-American community that ultimately made it possible for Memphis to elect its first black mayor. Indeed, Herenton received approximately 3 percent of the white vote, while Hackett received only 1 percent of the African-American vote in 1991.
Based on his slogan, Herman Morris is betting that Memphis has pulled back from the 1991 level of racial reflexivity and that an interracial coalition can sweep him into the mayor's office. His co-campaign manager John Ryder recently stated that Morris can win by getting 40 percent of the white vote along with 40 percent of the African-American vote. Whether Morris can garner that percentage in either community remains to be seen, but 16 years removed from the incredibly divided 1991 election, there is some evidence that a unifying candidate can succeed, regardless of that candidate's race.
Most significantly, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, former U.S. representative Harold Ford Jr. and Ford's successor, Rep. Steve Cohen, have enjoyed significant crossover voting, although in Cohen's case, his support in the African-American community was hard won and appears to be even harder kept. For his part, even Herenton has previously enjoyed substantial white support in rolling to his landslide elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003.
If Morris, or any candidate, is going to follow these examples of interracial coalitions, he will have to convince voters in diverse segments of the community that togetherness can and must work for Memphis to thrive going forward. As Herenton himself said after his historic first election in 1991: "As your new mayor, not just for a few, but for all Memphians, I envision a great and vital metropolis rushing excitedly towards the 21st century, a century which will feature a Memphis that proudly boasts equal opportunity and access, racial justice and peace, cultural unity and harmony -- for all."
That kind of interracial togetherness would be some progress worth continuing.
Fellow contender Carol Chumney is also sloganeering for change. Her campaign mantra (For the People, For a Change) seeks to tap into the same appetite for a new direction in city leadership, while the slogan on Mayor Willie Herenton's billboards and Web site (Continuing Progress) promises to build on the accomplishments of his previous terms. This election season, it has been the mayor's unofficial slogan (Shake the Haters Off) that has gotten the most attention, but it is Morris' theme of togetherness that I find most intriguing.
This column is not meant as an endorsement or rejection of any candidate -- there is far more to judge all three of these hopefuls on than their slogans. Instead, with the election just over two weeks away, I wonder whether a campaign based on togetherness, as Morris' campaign is, can succeed in Memphis.
Memphis has a history of electing candidates whose campaigns divide, rather than unite, the community, and much of that dividing occurs along racial lines. In 1967, Henry Loeb was elected with virtually no African-American support, a strategy that did not serve him well as the city encountered the sanitation workers' strike of 1968. More recently, Herenton was first elected in 1991 with little white support over incumbent Dick Hackett by a mere 142 votes.
In a book studying the 1991 election, "Racial Politics at the Crossroads," Rhodes College professors Marcus Pohlmann and Michael Kirby wrote that Memphis had reached a "point of racial reflexivity," where any crossover support for one candidate would dampen enthusiasm (and with it, potential voter turnout) in the candidate's own racial community. For candidate Herenton, therefore, any impression of white support was likely to diminish the crusade-like enthusiasm in the African-American community that ultimately made it possible for Memphis to elect its first black mayor. Indeed, Herenton received approximately 3 percent of the white vote, while Hackett received only 1 percent of the African-American vote in 1991.
If Herenton is to win a fifth term on Oct. 4, it appears that it will be won, just as his first election was, without substantial white support. In a July poll commissioned by The Commercial Appeal, only 4 percent of white respondents thought the mayor should be re-elected. In that sense, 2007 looks a lot like 1991.
Most significantly, Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton, former U.S. representative Harold Ford Jr. and Ford's successor, Rep. Steve Cohen, have enjoyed significant crossover voting, although in Cohen's case, his support in the African-American community was hard won and appears to be even harder kept. For his part, even Herenton has previously enjoyed substantial white support in rolling to his landslide elections in 1995, 1999 and 2003.
If Morris, or any candidate, is going to follow these examples of interracial coalitions, he will have to convince voters in diverse segments of the community that togetherness can and must work for Memphis to thrive going forward. As Herenton himself said after his historic first election in 1991: "As your new mayor, not just for a few, but for all Memphians, I envision a great and vital metropolis rushing excitedly towards the 21st century, a century which will feature a Memphis that proudly boasts equal opportunity and access, racial justice and peace, cultural unity and harmony -- for all."
That kind of interracial togetherness would be some progress worth continuing.
August 13, 2007
Ruling Can Light Way to Better Schools
When U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald concluded last month that the Shelby County Schools district has not yet overcome the relics of segregation, the stunned reaction from school officials was unequivocal.
"Certainly we are disappointed by the ruling," said school board chairman David Pickler.
"It could have some very dramatic negative effects on the children of Shelby County," school attorney Rick Winchester added. Winchester went on to suggest that Donald's ruling could mean that education dollars would be diverted to busing and moving children to schools farther from their neighborhoods.
This practice of crying "bus" is a disservice to those the county schools serve and a distraction from what ought to be the goal of all parties involved -- providing the highest quality education to all Shelby County students. Compliance with Donald's ruling is -- forgive me -- not so black and white as the school officials seem to suggest.
Busing is not the only way for a school district to become unitary, and among the potential solutions, busing is probably the least appealing. Rather than frightening parents by alluding to the possibility of busing, school officials would do well to think outside of the busing box for creative ways to increase both the diversity and the educational quality in the Shelby County Schools. Where Winchester sees in the ruling the possibility of "dramatic negative effects," I see an unprecedented opportunity for Shelby County Schools to become a national model for equity and excellence in education.
Donald wrote that the true goal of any school desegregation plan is to provide equal educational opportunity to all students by eliminating racial isolation. For decades, as districts across the country were forced to comply with the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education, the focus was on the elimination of racial isolation. Educational considerations were too often only secondary considerations.
In the 1960s and '70s, eliminating legally sanctioned racial separation was very important. But in 2007, with the benefit of a half-century of hindsight, districts like Shelby County have the opportunity to move beyond simplistic solutions such as busing and implement desegregation plans that embrace both the educational and the social ideals of Brown.
Using a combination of neighborhood schools with carefully drawn attendance zones, magnet schools that provide a variety of educational choices for parents, and lenient transfer policies combined with racial targets similar to those in Donald's ruling, districts across the country have achieved increased diversity by lifting the quality of all schools. In some instances, transportation is necessary, but it is far easier to convince a parent to accept busing when his or her child will be bused voluntarily to an exceptional school than when the child will be bused across town to a school no better, or worse, than the neighborhood school.
There is no reason to think the county schools cannot come up with a similar plan tailored to Shelby County in response to Donald's ruling. Devising such a plan is far more difficult than simply imposing busing, but county school officials need look no further than the Memphis City Schools to see the devastating effects busing can have on a district. The challenge is for school officials to resist the temptation to defensively use the threat of busing to criticize Donald's ruling and instead to develop a thoughtful, multifaceted desegregation plan that creates a world-class school district.
"In those instances where the Board adopted the Court's goal as its own," Donald wrote, "it has progressed with remarkable speed." The district should not miss this opportunity to adopt the goal of improving education across the system while eliminating instances of racial isolation. The initial signs of such adoption are not positive -- the board has already said it will appeal Donald's ruling -- but if the district does embrace the spirit of the ruling, there is no reason it should not progress with remarkable speed.
"Certainly we are disappointed by the ruling," said school board chairman David Pickler.
"It could have some very dramatic negative effects on the children of Shelby County," school attorney Rick Winchester added. Winchester went on to suggest that Donald's ruling could mean that education dollars would be diverted to busing and moving children to schools farther from their neighborhoods.
This practice of crying "bus" is a disservice to those the county schools serve and a distraction from what ought to be the goal of all parties involved -- providing the highest quality education to all Shelby County students. Compliance with Donald's ruling is -- forgive me -- not so black and white as the school officials seem to suggest.
Busing is not the only way for a school district to become unitary, and among the potential solutions, busing is probably the least appealing. Rather than frightening parents by alluding to the possibility of busing, school officials would do well to think outside of the busing box for creative ways to increase both the diversity and the educational quality in the Shelby County Schools. Where Winchester sees in the ruling the possibility of "dramatic negative effects," I see an unprecedented opportunity for Shelby County Schools to become a national model for equity and excellence in education.
Donald wrote that the true goal of any school desegregation plan is to provide equal educational opportunity to all students by eliminating racial isolation. For decades, as districts across the country were forced to comply with the mandate of Brown v. Board of Education, the focus was on the elimination of racial isolation. Educational considerations were too often only secondary considerations.
In the 1960s and '70s, eliminating legally sanctioned racial separation was very important. But in 2007, with the benefit of a half-century of hindsight, districts like Shelby County have the opportunity to move beyond simplistic solutions such as busing and implement desegregation plans that embrace both the educational and the social ideals of Brown.
Using a combination of neighborhood schools with carefully drawn attendance zones, magnet schools that provide a variety of educational choices for parents, and lenient transfer policies combined with racial targets similar to those in Donald's ruling, districts across the country have achieved increased diversity by lifting the quality of all schools. In some instances, transportation is necessary, but it is far easier to convince a parent to accept busing when his or her child will be bused voluntarily to an exceptional school than when the child will be bused across town to a school no better, or worse, than the neighborhood school.
There is no reason to think the county schools cannot come up with a similar plan tailored to Shelby County in response to Donald's ruling. Devising such a plan is far more difficult than simply imposing busing, but county school officials need look no further than the Memphis City Schools to see the devastating effects busing can have on a district. The challenge is for school officials to resist the temptation to defensively use the threat of busing to criticize Donald's ruling and instead to develop a thoughtful, multifaceted desegregation plan that creates a world-class school district.
"In those instances where the Board adopted the Court's goal as its own," Donald wrote, "it has progressed with remarkable speed." The district should not miss this opportunity to adopt the goal of improving education across the system while eliminating instances of racial isolation. The initial signs of such adoption are not positive -- the board has already said it will appeal Donald's ruling -- but if the district does embrace the spirit of the ruling, there is no reason it should not progress with remarkable speed.
June 03, 2007
Voting for Present and Future Memphis
(NOTE: This column appeared in the Commercial Appeal)
City government plays two distinct roles in the life of a city. First, it must deal with the issues of today, delivering services and providing a safe environment in which citizens can pursue their day-to-day business. Performing this role requires competence in management and administration as well as a commitment to serving a city's residents.
Second, government must dream of what a city will look like tomorrow. Elected leaders set priorities and policies that can affect the direction of a city well beyond the term of any elected official. Such dreaming requires both vision for the future and the ability to enact policies that point the city toward that vision.
With four months until the most important city election since 1991, it is time for Memphians to start thinking about which candidates provide the right combination of competence and vision to steer Memphis into the next decade and beyond. Too often, coverage of the elections focuses on the issues of today with little attention paid to the candidates' vision for tomorrow. Although the short-term tasks of government -- including, most importantly, confronting crime -- are what keep a city's wheels spinning, it is the forward-thinking vision that gets a city moving ahead.
So what are the issues Memphians ought to be quizzing the City Council and mayoral candidates about to get a sense of what they see in tomorrow's Memphis?
At the top of the list is education. If Memphis is to move forward, it will have to be on the shoulders of a new generation of citizens with the skills and learning abilities to support the 21st-century economy. Too often, this newspaper reports a story about a business that was considering a move to Memphis, but decided not to relocate here due in part to the "education level" of the workforce. Raising that level for Memphis students -- whether they attend city, county or private schools -- must be a priority.
Another top priority is how each candidate sees Memphis thriving economically in the future, as a vibrant business community can provide the jobs that will allow thousands of Memphians to flourish. The city government has several tasks in the area of economic development, beginning with support for existing businesses to help them prosper. In addition, leaders can sell the city's benefits to businesses considering a move to or growth in Memphis. Finally, and perhaps most critically, city government can strategically revitalize areas of the city best placed to attract the type of business growth that can lift an entire city.
Memphis is already well placed to become the nation's 21st century distribution hub if it can intelligently develop its "aerotropolis," or the distribution center built around the multibillion-dollar global air shipping industry. Candidates should present ideas to keep Memphis ahead of this curve and seek other areas in which the city can push ahead of the competition.
Finally, in this election, coming as it does during what feels like a turning point in local politics, the candidates should step forward to change the tone of pessimism and divisiveness that afflicts Memphis. For too long, Memphis has divided itself into factions -- racially, geographically, economically, politically -- that have stunted city prosperity. As factions grapple amongst themselves over municipal power, the larger community is left with the status quo.
For Memphis to truly move forward, city leaders must search for common ground, take risks that do not serve only the interests of their own political group, and be willing to consider opposing viewpoints with respect. Changing the self-identity of Memphis is not a task that can be accomplished in one term in office, but it is a challenge candidates must be willing to confront if Memphis is to reach its potential over the next decade.
It is up to all Memphis voters to ask the questions that push this year's candidates to present their ideas and priorities for the future. Only then will voters be able to reward those candidates who are thinking seriously about where our city could be in 2017 while still addressing the problems of 2007.
City government plays two distinct roles in the life of a city. First, it must deal with the issues of today, delivering services and providing a safe environment in which citizens can pursue their day-to-day business. Performing this role requires competence in management and administration as well as a commitment to serving a city's residents.
Second, government must dream of what a city will look like tomorrow. Elected leaders set priorities and policies that can affect the direction of a city well beyond the term of any elected official. Such dreaming requires both vision for the future and the ability to enact policies that point the city toward that vision.
With four months until the most important city election since 1991, it is time for Memphians to start thinking about which candidates provide the right combination of competence and vision to steer Memphis into the next decade and beyond. Too often, coverage of the elections focuses on the issues of today with little attention paid to the candidates' vision for tomorrow. Although the short-term tasks of government -- including, most importantly, confronting crime -- are what keep a city's wheels spinning, it is the forward-thinking vision that gets a city moving ahead.
So what are the issues Memphians ought to be quizzing the City Council and mayoral candidates about to get a sense of what they see in tomorrow's Memphis?
At the top of the list is education. If Memphis is to move forward, it will have to be on the shoulders of a new generation of citizens with the skills and learning abilities to support the 21st-century economy. Too often, this newspaper reports a story about a business that was considering a move to Memphis, but decided not to relocate here due in part to the "education level" of the workforce. Raising that level for Memphis students -- whether they attend city, county or private schools -- must be a priority.
Another top priority is how each candidate sees Memphis thriving economically in the future, as a vibrant business community can provide the jobs that will allow thousands of Memphians to flourish. The city government has several tasks in the area of economic development, beginning with support for existing businesses to help them prosper. In addition, leaders can sell the city's benefits to businesses considering a move to or growth in Memphis. Finally, and perhaps most critically, city government can strategically revitalize areas of the city best placed to attract the type of business growth that can lift an entire city.
Memphis is already well placed to become the nation's 21st century distribution hub if it can intelligently develop its "aerotropolis," or the distribution center built around the multibillion-dollar global air shipping industry. Candidates should present ideas to keep Memphis ahead of this curve and seek other areas in which the city can push ahead of the competition.
Finally, in this election, coming as it does during what feels like a turning point in local politics, the candidates should step forward to change the tone of pessimism and divisiveness that afflicts Memphis. For too long, Memphis has divided itself into factions -- racially, geographically, economically, politically -- that have stunted city prosperity. As factions grapple amongst themselves over municipal power, the larger community is left with the status quo.
For Memphis to truly move forward, city leaders must search for common ground, take risks that do not serve only the interests of their own political group, and be willing to consider opposing viewpoints with respect. Changing the self-identity of Memphis is not a task that can be accomplished in one term in office, but it is a challenge candidates must be willing to confront if Memphis is to reach its potential over the next decade.
It is up to all Memphis voters to ask the questions that push this year's candidates to present their ideas and priorities for the future. Only then will voters be able to reward those candidates who are thinking seriously about where our city could be in 2017 while still addressing the problems of 2007.
May 07, 2007
Pulling Together for Equal Education
(NOTE: This article appeared in the Commercial Appeal on May 6, 2007)
In a New York town best known for hosting the Sing Sing state prison, school leaders have made it their mission to eradicate the achievement gap that separates white and black students. Since 2005, the school district in Ossining, New York, a small suburban district with approximately 4,000 students, has initiated a variety of programs specifically targeting black males, a group whose grades and test scores consistently lagged behind those of other students.
The Ossining programs read like a dream list of ways to raise the achievement of at-risk students. The voluntary programs begin in kindergarten and continue through high school graduation. High school students may receive one-on-one guidance from black mentor teachers, while elementary school students' progress can be tracked by a team of teachers. Parents of students as young as sixth grade are able to attend college planning workshops that explain the practical obstacles college can present to families while at the same time putting college on a student's radar at an early age. These multipronged efforts seek to deliver academic support, shift the norm of what is achievable for black male students and build a community environment that helps push students to succeed.
Although in a district vastly different from the Memphis City Schools, the Ossining programs are exactly the type of comprehensive efforts that would complement the Memphis City Schools' mission of "Every Child. Every Day. College Bound." That campaign seeks to elevate the expectations and outcomes of all Memphis City Schools students, 85 percent of whom are black, and Supt. Carol Johnson is committed to ensuring that "College Bound" is more than just a slogan.
In Ossining, although it is too early to see any impact on test scores, school officials report that behavioral incidents are down and enrollment in college-level courses is up for black students. With such trends, it seems that those who champion equal educational opportunities would hail Ossining's efforts as a welcomed attempt to tackle the black-white achievement gap. Although some have offered such praise, other would-be allies are highly critical of the district's singling out black male students for special attention.
"I think this is a form of racial profiling in the public school system," Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, a group that plans to file a formal complaint regarding Ossining with the state education department, said in a New York Times article last month. Kati Haycock, president of Education Trust, a group that advocates for disadvantaged children, told the Times, "You do have to worry whether you're creating a stereotype that is as damaging as the one you're trying to replace."
The goal of these civil rights advocates is presumably the same as the goal professed by the Ossining school district: to educate all black males to the highest of high standards. Yet these critics would halt extra attention being provided on a voluntary basis for fear of creating new stereotypes, or as Meyers put it in the Times article, "making (students) feel inferior or different simply because of their race and gender." Although there is a fundamental difference between assigning students to inferior schools based on their race and offering extra attention to students in a racial group that lags statistically in educational outcomes, there is validity to the critics' concern. In a perfect world, black students would not need any more attention to reach the same outcomes as other students. In fact, even in our own imperfect world, many black students excel without such attention. However, the reality -- especially in our own community -- is that many black students, particularly black males, are not achieving equal educational outcomes. For these students, the system is not working and it is incumbent on those who desire to solve this problem to offer creative solutions that work.
There are already enough challenges to elevating the educational opportunities of at-risk students, regardless of race. It is discouraging when those who seem to share the goal of eradicating the racial achievement gap construct additional roadblocks in the way of that goal. Students will be better served when racial politics, such as those surfacing in Ossining, do not derail programs that effectively tackle what some have dubbed the civil rights issue of our generation.
In a New York town best known for hosting the Sing Sing state prison, school leaders have made it their mission to eradicate the achievement gap that separates white and black students. Since 2005, the school district in Ossining, New York, a small suburban district with approximately 4,000 students, has initiated a variety of programs specifically targeting black males, a group whose grades and test scores consistently lagged behind those of other students.
The Ossining programs read like a dream list of ways to raise the achievement of at-risk students. The voluntary programs begin in kindergarten and continue through high school graduation. High school students may receive one-on-one guidance from black mentor teachers, while elementary school students' progress can be tracked by a team of teachers. Parents of students as young as sixth grade are able to attend college planning workshops that explain the practical obstacles college can present to families while at the same time putting college on a student's radar at an early age. These multipronged efforts seek to deliver academic support, shift the norm of what is achievable for black male students and build a community environment that helps push students to succeed.
Although in a district vastly different from the Memphis City Schools, the Ossining programs are exactly the type of comprehensive efforts that would complement the Memphis City Schools' mission of "Every Child. Every Day. College Bound." That campaign seeks to elevate the expectations and outcomes of all Memphis City Schools students, 85 percent of whom are black, and Supt. Carol Johnson is committed to ensuring that "College Bound" is more than just a slogan.
In Ossining, although it is too early to see any impact on test scores, school officials report that behavioral incidents are down and enrollment in college-level courses is up for black students. With such trends, it seems that those who champion equal educational opportunities would hail Ossining's efforts as a welcomed attempt to tackle the black-white achievement gap. Although some have offered such praise, other would-be allies are highly critical of the district's singling out black male students for special attention.
"I think this is a form of racial profiling in the public school system," Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, a group that plans to file a formal complaint regarding Ossining with the state education department, said in a New York Times article last month. Kati Haycock, president of Education Trust, a group that advocates for disadvantaged children, told the Times, "You do have to worry whether you're creating a stereotype that is as damaging as the one you're trying to replace."
The goal of these civil rights advocates is presumably the same as the goal professed by the Ossining school district: to educate all black males to the highest of high standards. Yet these critics would halt extra attention being provided on a voluntary basis for fear of creating new stereotypes, or as Meyers put it in the Times article, "making (students) feel inferior or different simply because of their race and gender." Although there is a fundamental difference between assigning students to inferior schools based on their race and offering extra attention to students in a racial group that lags statistically in educational outcomes, there is validity to the critics' concern. In a perfect world, black students would not need any more attention to reach the same outcomes as other students. In fact, even in our own imperfect world, many black students excel without such attention. However, the reality -- especially in our own community -- is that many black students, particularly black males, are not achieving equal educational outcomes. For these students, the system is not working and it is incumbent on those who desire to solve this problem to offer creative solutions that work.
There are already enough challenges to elevating the educational opportunities of at-risk students, regardless of race. It is discouraging when those who seem to share the goal of eradicating the racial achievement gap construct additional roadblocks in the way of that goal. Students will be better served when racial politics, such as those surfacing in Ossining, do not derail programs that effectively tackle what some have dubbed the civil rights issue of our generation.
September 14, 2006
Facing Horrors of Rwanda Offers Crucial History Lesson
(published in Memphis Commercial Appeal - September 14, 2006)
Twelve years after the Rwandan genocide, Romeo Dallaire is still on a mission, and tonight he will bring that mission to Memphis.
Rather than allowing himself and his traumatic experience as military head of the United Nations mission in Rwanda to fade into history, Dallaire insists on reminding us of the fastest genocide in human history, a three-month period in which 800,000 Rwandans were murdered. By refusing to let go of his horrific memories from Rwanda, Dallaire has embarked on a new mission: to force the global community to confront the reasons for and consequences of inaction in the face of unfolding genocide.
In 1993, Lt. Gen. Dallaire, a Canadian officer, was deployed as head of a multi-national United Nations force charged with enforcing a fragile peace in Rwanda, an obscure African country he could not locate on a map. In early 1994, Dallaire began to understand that rather than working to sustain that peace, some elements within Rwanda were instead plotting the "extermination" of the country's Tutsi population. Dallaire pleaded with his superiors for the authority to act early to impede this genocidal plot, only to be told that such action was beyond the scope of his mandate.
Several months later, as extremists ruthlessly executed the very plot of which Dallaire had been warned, Dallaire was constrained by limited supplies, manpower and authority to effectively confront the perpetrators. Despite the limitations imposed upon him by others, the result, 800,000 murdered Rwandans, weighs heavily on Dallaire's conscience.
After leaving Rwanda, Dallaire attempted to return to a normal life, but how could he return to the world he knew before, knowing that it was the global community who forced him to sit with his hands behind his back as 800,000 human beings were slaughtered in front of him?
The immediate effect upon Dallaire was a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder that ultimately led to a medical discharge from the Canadian military and even a desperate suicide attempt. Fortunately, Dallaire has emerged from this dark period with the energy to face the history of genocide in Rwanda and apply its lessons to crises of today.
When Dallaire speaks, it is not simply to recap the history of the Rwandan genocide, although he certainly has a unique perspective and unflinching willingness to discuss the horrors he witnessed there. Instead, Dallaire tells his stories from Rwanda to expose the flaws in the global response (or lack thereof) to urge his audience to act to address those flaws and prevent their repetition elsewhere, such as in Darfur, Sudan.
In this way, Dallaire is an embodiment of the mission of Facing History and Ourselves, an organization aimed at using events of history as a lens to examine problems confronting students and communities today. Through teacher training, student symposia and community events, such as the visit by Dallaire, Facing History encourages individuals to understand how human behavior and individual choice play a critical role in shaping history.
Facing History has even reached Rwanda itself, having been part of an effort to create a curriculum for teaching Rwandan history despite a moratorium on teaching that history imposed in the aftermath of the genocide. Facing History is now charged with training Rwandan teachers to instruct students on this most sensitive topic in a way that lays a foundation for a future generation that will not have to endure such crimes. Thus far, Facing History has trained an ethnically and geographically diverse group of more than 150 Rwandan teachers, demonstrating its understanding that while the world can learn a great deal from the genocide in Rwanda, it is Rwandans themselves that must most directly confront their own history.
In the case of Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire is at once the history we must face, having played a critical role in the Rwanda narrative, and a powerful, moral voice on how that history applies to today's world.
His continued refusal to fade away serves as a living, breathing testament to what can happen when the world sits idly by in the face of crimes against humanity. This is Dallaire's current mission and the world is fortunate that he remains strong enough to accept it.
Twelve years after the Rwandan genocide, Romeo Dallaire is still on a mission, and tonight he will bring that mission to Memphis.
Rather than allowing himself and his traumatic experience as military head of the United Nations mission in Rwanda to fade into history, Dallaire insists on reminding us of the fastest genocide in human history, a three-month period in which 800,000 Rwandans were murdered. By refusing to let go of his horrific memories from Rwanda, Dallaire has embarked on a new mission: to force the global community to confront the reasons for and consequences of inaction in the face of unfolding genocide.
In 1993, Lt. Gen. Dallaire, a Canadian officer, was deployed as head of a multi-national United Nations force charged with enforcing a fragile peace in Rwanda, an obscure African country he could not locate on a map. In early 1994, Dallaire began to understand that rather than working to sustain that peace, some elements within Rwanda were instead plotting the "extermination" of the country's Tutsi population. Dallaire pleaded with his superiors for the authority to act early to impede this genocidal plot, only to be told that such action was beyond the scope of his mandate.
Several months later, as extremists ruthlessly executed the very plot of which Dallaire had been warned, Dallaire was constrained by limited supplies, manpower and authority to effectively confront the perpetrators. Despite the limitations imposed upon him by others, the result, 800,000 murdered Rwandans, weighs heavily on Dallaire's conscience.
After leaving Rwanda, Dallaire attempted to return to a normal life, but how could he return to the world he knew before, knowing that it was the global community who forced him to sit with his hands behind his back as 800,000 human beings were slaughtered in front of him?
The immediate effect upon Dallaire was a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder that ultimately led to a medical discharge from the Canadian military and even a desperate suicide attempt. Fortunately, Dallaire has emerged from this dark period with the energy to face the history of genocide in Rwanda and apply its lessons to crises of today.
When Dallaire speaks, it is not simply to recap the history of the Rwandan genocide, although he certainly has a unique perspective and unflinching willingness to discuss the horrors he witnessed there. Instead, Dallaire tells his stories from Rwanda to expose the flaws in the global response (or lack thereof) to urge his audience to act to address those flaws and prevent their repetition elsewhere, such as in Darfur, Sudan.
In this way, Dallaire is an embodiment of the mission of Facing History and Ourselves, an organization aimed at using events of history as a lens to examine problems confronting students and communities today. Through teacher training, student symposia and community events, such as the visit by Dallaire, Facing History encourages individuals to understand how human behavior and individual choice play a critical role in shaping history.
Facing History has even reached Rwanda itself, having been part of an effort to create a curriculum for teaching Rwandan history despite a moratorium on teaching that history imposed in the aftermath of the genocide. Facing History is now charged with training Rwandan teachers to instruct students on this most sensitive topic in a way that lays a foundation for a future generation that will not have to endure such crimes. Thus far, Facing History has trained an ethnically and geographically diverse group of more than 150 Rwandan teachers, demonstrating its understanding that while the world can learn a great deal from the genocide in Rwanda, it is Rwandans themselves that must most directly confront their own history.
In the case of Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire is at once the history we must face, having played a critical role in the Rwanda narrative, and a powerful, moral voice on how that history applies to today's world.
His continued refusal to fade away serves as a living, breathing testament to what can happen when the world sits idly by in the face of crimes against humanity. This is Dallaire's current mission and the world is fortunate that he remains strong enough to accept it.
March 21, 2006
USA Today: Cinderella Nation
This column was published in USA Today on March 21, 2006.
In this country, our sports reveal a lot about our national DNA. The Super Bowl celebrates our excesses in both advertising spending and chip-and-dip eating. Baseball reminds us of our history, basketball of our ability to create. NASCAR, the latest darling of sport, illustrates our obsession with speed and plays to our affinity for individualism. Even the sport we famously do not care for – soccer – reveals our character. What full-blooded American would voluntarily pursue a goal for an hour and a half with the possibility that either nothing happens or it all ends in a tie? We much prefer the measurable yard-by-yard progress of the gridiron.
All other sports have their allure, but it is the NCAA tournament – three weeks of college basketball madness – that goes to the very heart of what it means to be Americans. The rules are simple – win and move on, lose and go home. There are no home-court advantages. There are no byes. All teams are equal, and on this level playing field, each team controls its own destiny.
In this way, the tournament mimics the American dream of upward social mobility. The quintessential American tale is one of the underdog overcoming obstacles to capture glory – the immigrant striking it rich in the big city, the unknown boxer defeating the unbeatable champion, the maidservant ending up with the prince. And this is the very story the NCAA tournament gives us year after year. We are a Cinderella Nation.
The teams making it to the next round of games are representative of the American dream: that hard work and a little luck can lift anyone to success. Just ask long shot Northwestern State, which broke the heart of highly rated Iowa with a three-pointer at the buzzer, only to have its own dream dashed in the next game by West Virginia. Or George Mason, which toppled the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels, winner of last year’s tournament, to earn a spot in the Sweet 16.
Of course, the tournament, like the dream, is not as fair as it at first seems. While there are no actual home-court advantages, it would be naïve to think that having the University of Texas play its first two games in Dallas was not an advantage. And while every team, regardless of seed, can theoretically win the whole tournament, history has shown that it is the top seeds that usually do. Still, some of the most memorable tournaments were those won by huge underdogs, such as NC State in 1983 or Villanova in 1985, but the norm is for a top-seed such as Duke to cut down the nets. No 16-seed has ever won a game, but be assured that when it happens, it will be the greatest Cinderella tale of all.
The chances of a low-seeded team winning the championship are miniscule – in fact, one odds-maker set Oral Roberts’ odds at 5-sextillion-to-1 before their first round defeat by top-seed Memphis. The chances of such teams even surviving the first weekend are slim. In fact, of the 16 teams remaining, only four are seeded worse than 6th.
So it is with American life. Cinderella is the exception rather than the rule. Even so, overcoming odds and refusing to allow history to dictate destiny is what dreams are all about. For whatever the likely outcome, the truth is that as of this moment, 13th-seed Bradley must win as many games as top-seed Connecticut to lift the trophy as champion on April 3.
It is this dream that makes the tournament what it is. It is this dream that makes us who we are.
In this country, our sports reveal a lot about our national DNA. The Super Bowl celebrates our excesses in both advertising spending and chip-and-dip eating. Baseball reminds us of our history, basketball of our ability to create. NASCAR, the latest darling of sport, illustrates our obsession with speed and plays to our affinity for individualism. Even the sport we famously do not care for – soccer – reveals our character. What full-blooded American would voluntarily pursue a goal for an hour and a half with the possibility that either nothing happens or it all ends in a tie? We much prefer the measurable yard-by-yard progress of the gridiron.
All other sports have their allure, but it is the NCAA tournament – three weeks of college basketball madness – that goes to the very heart of what it means to be Americans. The rules are simple – win and move on, lose and go home. There are no home-court advantages. There are no byes. All teams are equal, and on this level playing field, each team controls its own destiny.
In this way, the tournament mimics the American dream of upward social mobility. The quintessential American tale is one of the underdog overcoming obstacles to capture glory – the immigrant striking it rich in the big city, the unknown boxer defeating the unbeatable champion, the maidservant ending up with the prince. And this is the very story the NCAA tournament gives us year after year. We are a Cinderella Nation.
The teams making it to the next round of games are representative of the American dream: that hard work and a little luck can lift anyone to success. Just ask long shot Northwestern State, which broke the heart of highly rated Iowa with a three-pointer at the buzzer, only to have its own dream dashed in the next game by West Virginia. Or George Mason, which toppled the mighty North Carolina Tar Heels, winner of last year’s tournament, to earn a spot in the Sweet 16.
Of course, the tournament, like the dream, is not as fair as it at first seems. While there are no actual home-court advantages, it would be naïve to think that having the University of Texas play its first two games in Dallas was not an advantage. And while every team, regardless of seed, can theoretically win the whole tournament, history has shown that it is the top seeds that usually do. Still, some of the most memorable tournaments were those won by huge underdogs, such as NC State in 1983 or Villanova in 1985, but the norm is for a top-seed such as Duke to cut down the nets. No 16-seed has ever won a game, but be assured that when it happens, it will be the greatest Cinderella tale of all.
The chances of a low-seeded team winning the championship are miniscule – in fact, one odds-maker set Oral Roberts’ odds at 5-sextillion-to-1 before their first round defeat by top-seed Memphis. The chances of such teams even surviving the first weekend are slim. In fact, of the 16 teams remaining, only four are seeded worse than 6th.
So it is with American life. Cinderella is the exception rather than the rule. Even so, overcoming odds and refusing to allow history to dictate destiny is what dreams are all about. For whatever the likely outcome, the truth is that as of this moment, 13th-seed Bradley must win as many games as top-seed Connecticut to lift the trophy as champion on April 3.
It is this dream that makes the tournament what it is. It is this dream that makes us who we are.
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