Blogs: Alan Jenkins

Summer School Assignment

Alan Jenkins — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:40:08 -0400

Summer vacation began this week for millions of kids across the country,. But in many communities, school board members, principals, and administrators are still hard at work. Among their tasks for the summer is designing new ways of fulfilling the promise of equal educational opportunity and preparing students for a diverse, interconnected world.

They are responding to the Supreme Court's decision last year on the constitutionality of voluntary school integration efforts. Because school assignment plans are typically charted out a year or more in advance, most schools have just begun to grapple fully with the decision's implications. Fortunately, they have a range of options for pursuing integration as an integral part of educational excellence.

The Court's decision last year struck down the voluntary integration policies of the Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington school districtrs. But, at the same time, the controlling decision of Justice Anthony Kennedy found that the goal of an integrated education is vital to our students, and to our country's future. And his decision held that that goal is constitutionally achieveable.

Kennedy represented a majority of the Justices, who flatly rejected the idea--advanced by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito--that considering race to promote integration and educational opportunity is legally or morally equivalent to considering race to segregate children based on their skin color. And of particuloar importance to communities and educators planning for the upcoming school year, Justice Kennedy's opinion identified specific ways in whch districts can constitutionally promote integration. These include, but are not limited to, drawing attendance zones with neighborhood demographics in mind and designating "magnet" schools designed to bring students together across neighborhoods and backgrounds. Race can be carefully considered to promote integration, Kennedy explained, so long as an individual student's race is not used as the basis for particularized student assignment.

In the year since the Court's decision, a number of school districts have led the way in crafting lawful and effective polciies that bring our kids together across lines of difference. They include Louisville, where the Court's decision prompted an innovative change in policy, and Berkeley, California, which is also breaking new ground while adapting to the new legal landscape. A range of educational experts, at institutions from Harvard[http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/Home.aspx], to UCLA[http://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/], to Ohio State University[http://www.kirwaninstitute.org/research/education.php], to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund[http://naacpldf.org/]--the architechts of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling--have also developed resources for communitiees committed to inclusive and successful educational strategies.

But successful models and useful resources won't be enough to prompt some school districts into action. Also crucial will be the voices of parents, students, business people, and civic leaders calling for schools that prepare our kids for an increasingly diverse society and a globalized economy. Polls show that public opinion favors voluntary integration efforts over resegregation. But those views are frequently not communicated to elected and appointed officials responsible for school policymaking. That needs to change.

As the school year comes to a close, and our kids head off for their summer break, it's time for the rest of us to go to work.

Challenge and Community in the Heartland

Alan Jenkins — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:54:33 -0400

The nation’s eyes are again on Iowa this week, as its residents struggle with the aftermath of violent storms and devastating flooding. People from Cedar Rapids to Columbus Junction to Des Moines are dealing with the tragic loss of life and the grim destruction of homes and property.

The catastrophe has understandably eclipsed recent developments in Northeast Iowa, where residents are coping with the fallout from a different kind of trauma: the biggest immigration raid in US history, made by federal officials last month at a Postville, IA, meatpacking plant. Nearly 400 workers—more than one-third of the plant’s employees and nearly 10% of the town’s population—were taken into custody.

The two phenomena are, of course, very different, especially because the flooding and tornadoes have taken precious lives. But to some Iowans in the Postville area, the immigration raids and their aftermath have felt like a catastrophic event. Postville School superintendent David Strudthoff told the Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/17/AR2008051702474.html] that the sudden incarceration of more than 10 percent of the town’s population “is like a natural disaster—only this one is manmade.”

After the Postville raid, half of the local school system’s 600 students were absent. Many businesses were shuttered and churches left empty. And many families and friends were separated. But, unlike this month’s terrible storms and twisters, the Postville raid could have happened differently, or not at all.

The rise in federal immigration raids makes for big headlines, and may placate some Americans who are understandably frustrated by our nation’s broken immigration system. But, ultimately, the raids are the wrong approach to a complex dilemma: they duck the real problems with our system while upending communities and creating mayhem. And they fail to live up to the ideals that we hold as a country.

When it comes to immigration, most Americans want workable solutions that uphold our national values and move our country forward together. Raids like the one in Postville fail that test on multiple counts. First, the raids are designed for show instead of effective problem-solving. There are some 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States today working America’s farms, factories, and small businesses. The idea that these 12 million people can be rounded up and deported or somehow driven out of the country simply defies reason.

Second, the raids have failed to uphold our national values, which include accountability, due process, public safety, and community. Recent raids conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have swept up citizens, legal permanent residents, and undocumented immigrants, often on the basis of race or ethnicity. They are chaotic and disruptive to whole communities and, as a recent study by the Urban Institute found[http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411566_immigration_raids.pdf], they have particularly harmful effects on children and the people and institutions that care for them.

Recent raids around the country have left children stranded at school or daycare, denied many parents access to telephones to communicate with their families, and moved many parents to remote detention facilities out of the states in which they were arrested. In the Iowa raid, those arrested were taken by bus to Waterloo, IA, for processing, some 75 miles away, where they were processed at the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds.

Some readers may have little sympathy for the plight of these parents, or even their kids. If they wanted to avoid this kind of disruption or separation, some will say, they should not have come here in the first place. That response, while perhaps understandable, ignores both the urgent drive of all parents to give their kids a better life, and the reality of the immigrant experience in the United States. America’s 12 million undocumented immigrants are a part of our nation’s economic engine, and part of the social fabric of many, many communities around the country. They are caregivers and mechanics, laborers and professionals, college students and soldiers. They are among the volunteers fighting Iowa’s rising flood waters. They are a part of us.

Accordingly, recent raids have unsettled not only individual workers and their families, but also entire schools, workplaces, congregations, and larger communities. In Postville, Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget's Catholic Church asked attendants to light a candle for 20 congregants arrested in the raid. "If we had 400 candles, we would have lit them all," she told the Des Moines Register[http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008806130370].

Third, by focusing on workers, the raids ignore the pervasive employer practices that negatively affect all Americans and our economy. Not one official of the company that owns the Postville plant, Agriprocessors, Inc.[ http://www.agriprocessor.com/], was hauled away or charged that day. This is true despite a string of alleged legal and ethical violations by Agriprocessors that have little to do with immigration but lots to do with unsafe and exploitative labor practices.

According to the Washington Post[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060101059.html], the Iowa Department of Labor found numerous workplace safety violations at the plant, including improper storage and handling of hazardous chemicals and inadequate training in the use of respirators. Occupational Safety and Health Administration records show workplace incidents that led to five amputations, broken bones, eye injuries, and hearing loss at the plant between 2001 and 2006. An affidavit filed by an immigration agent alleged that a supervisor blindfolded one worker and struck him with a meat hook. The state of Iowa is investigating allegations of child labor law violations at the plant, and the company recently lost a federal appellate court case over whether it could ignore a vote by workers at its Brooklyn distribution center to unionize.

A federal enforcement strategy concerned with public safety and accountability would have focused on these alleged practices which, if true, pose a real threat to economic opportunity within the state. And it would fix our broken immigration system so that immigrant workers can be realistically and fairly held accountable.

The next president should reject headline-grabbing factory raids that exacerbate problems instead of solving them. Instead, he should pursue smarter, more just solutions that serve our country’s best interests. A pathway to citizenship for immigrants willing to work, pay taxes and learn English must be combined with measures that hold employers, workers, and other institutions accountable to firm rules that are fairly applied. So long as millions of immigrants live in the shadows, their will be exploitation of the kind that happens in too many meatpacking plants, sweatshops, and corporate farms around the country. That, in turn, hurts all workers and communities.

By offering an earned pathway to citizenship and directing enforcement at employer practices that threaten all workers’ health and prosperity—sub-standard wages, dangerous conditions, exploitation, racial discrimination, child labor and fair labor violations—a new administration can promote shared prosperity along with fair, pragmatic, and legal immigration. Disruptive, arbitrary raids should give way to effective approaches that enforce our laws while upholding the fairness, accountability, and protection that are so important to our Democracy.

Time to Get Real

Alan Jenkins — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:43:34 -0400

The California Supreme Court connected human rights to reality last week when it ruled that same-sex couples have the same right to marry that heterosexual couples have. The court majority rejected the false notion that offering gay and lesbian couples a separate and unequal arrangement—civil unions—was anything less than second-classed citizenship.

It’s time for the presidential candidates to do the same. According to the New York Times, Clinton, McCain, and Obama all oppose same-sex marriage, while saying that same-sex couples should be entitled to the legal protections afforded married couples.

All three are wrong. The human right to marry has never been just about insurance coverage and tax status—though those are important. It is also about the more fundamental principle of recognizing the humanity and equality of gay and lesbian Americans; of recognizing that they are a part of the American community with equal value and equal dignity.

What’s especially troubling is that it seems likely that all three candidates would support same-sex marriage if they did not believe it was political suicide to do so. Again, they’re wrong. Although most Americans lean against same-sex marriage, most also believe that gay and lesbian Americans should enjoy basic human rights.

In a recent national poll by The Opportunity Agenda, 57% of Americans said that “equal opportunities for gays and lesbians” were human rights that should be protected. That included 71% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and 40% of Republicans. Majorities recognized this human right in the Northeast, Midwest, South Atlantic, the West, and (by a margin of 51% to 49%) in the South.

The point is not that most Americans can be convinced to support same-sex marriage between now and Election Day 2008. It’s that most Americans, and most voters, simultaneously hold both inclusive and exclusionary values when it comes to gay and lesbian Americans. And, just as important, most will be willing to vote for a candidate who supports same-sex marriage as a matter of principle, even if they themselves disagree.

Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were each elected despite their opposition to Roe v. Wade, which most Americans support. Indeed, Americans cast votes every Election Day for candidates with whom they disagree on a single issue, and they respect candidates who stand by their convictions on tough issues.

In talking about same sex marriage, this season’s candidates can learn a lot from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s statements of support for the California Supreme Court’s decision. Newsom has astutely focused on opportunity, community, and human rights. Newsom told CNN’s American Morning, “this is so much bigger than the gay/lesbian, and bisexual community. This is about families coming together. This is about what we represent as Americans and what the constitution represents in terms of its principles and protections.”

Newsom told CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

“The reality is, take a look around. The people that are serving you gas, the people that are in your restaurants serving you, the firefighters, and police officers [are] members of the gay and lesbian community. They're members of our broader community. And the fact is, we're all affirmed when their rights and their opportunity to live their life out loud is affirmed. And, so, I think, eventually, people will come to grips with this, and then they will move on to things that matter more in their lives, health care, education, all of those things that the presidential candidates should be focused on, not this issue yet again.”

Newsom is right on the issue, and his message is one that will resonate far beyond California.

Brave New Laws

Alan Jenkins — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:28:11 -0400

By an overwhelming bipartisan margin, Congress has passed what sponsors are calling the first civil rights act of the 21st century: the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. The Act, which President Bush is expected to sign, prohibits employers and insurance companies from denying people jobs, benefits, or health coverage because of their genetic make-up.

Past attempts to prohibit genetic discrimination failed after employers and insurance companies opposed them. But the Human Genome Project has given more and more Americans access to their genetic profile, and raised ever-greater concerns that DNA information will be used to limit opportunity and human rights in employment, health care, criminal justice, and other aspects of life. While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce still opposed the bill, it passed the Senate by a 95-to-0 vote and the House by a vote of 414-to-1.

The Act represents a welcome acknowledgement of how technological advances can both advance and threaten our national values and basic rights. DNA testing can help identify and prevent or ameliorate a range of debilitating diseases. Yet it can also feed societal biases—even lead to new ones—and stoke cynical and exclusionary business practices. The legislation is timely and important.
Two other issues at the confluence of science, equality, and human rights warrant quick attention from policymakers: subconscious bias and segregation from opportunity.

A growing body of research shows that, while old fashioned bigotry has declined, subconscious stereotypes and implicit biases continue to pose daunting barriers to equal treatment in health care, education, and the criminal justice system, among other sectors. Particularly compelling is the work of Harvard’s Project Implicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/), which shows that we all carry around subconscious biases based on race, gender, religion, and other human characteristics that often influence our decisionmaking. The Institute of Medicine at the National Academies, among others, has found that such biases can influence health care and other decisions, including by professionals who have no conscious intention to discriminate.

Despite this established research, the courts have interpreted the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which bars racial discrimination in federally funded programs), to address only intentional efforts to harm people of a particular group. Because that reading fails to respond to the realities of modern exclusion, Congress should amend Title VI, and the next Administration should advocate a reading of the Constitution that embodies the Framers’ intention to eradicate discrimination, in its evolving forms, from our nation’s institutions.

A different technology, Global Information Systems (GIS) mapping, provides a powerful new way of understanding unequal opportunity, and addressing it. These maps, including interactive versions that use Google’s open source technology, can illustrate how some communities—predominantly low-income and minority ones—are physically disconnected from the steppingstones to opportunity like good jobs, quality schools, and health care services. A map developed by The Opportunity Agenda – http://www.healthcarethatworks.org -- shows, for instance, how New York City neighborhoods like Southeast Queens have few or no hospitals, despite high levels of asthma, diabetes, low-birth-weight babies, and other health needs. John Powell of the Kirwan Institute on Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University has pioneered the use of static GIS maps to measure access to opportunity in a number of cities.

Government, private industry, and community leaders should use these maps to redevelop neighborhoods and regions with access to opportunity in mind. Relevant agencies should collect and analyze the data necessary to make smart and equitable decisions, communities should have access to that information, and developers—especially those receiving government contracts or subsidies—should be required to make choices that expand opportunity rather than deepening inequality.

Like genetic information, our growing knowledge about bias and geography presents both challenges and opportunities. Used in the right way, each can help our communities and nation to rise together.