Across the country, state legislatures have passed bills to ban “age-inappropriate” books from schools, in many cases subjecting teachers and school librarians to criminal charges for possession of such books. In January, EveryLibrary, a group that tracks legislation that puts school and college librarians, higher ed faculty and museum professionals at risk of criminal prosecution, identified 44 bills in 14 states as “legislation of concern,” for the 2024 session.

This climate has teachers and librarians feeling fearful, confused and stressed. Lindsey Kimery, the coordinator of library services for Metro-Nashville Public Schools, said she has “no hidden agenda other than that reading was my favorite thing.” Having books by, about and for LGBTQ+ students, she said, “does not mean we are out there promoting it. It just means we have books for those readers, too. What I try to convey is that a library is a place for voluntary inquiry.” 

Krause’s List

It is unclear how the recent book ban fervor started. Certainly, a former Texas state representative, Matt Krause, deserves some credit. On October 25, 2021, using his power as chair of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, Krause sent a letter to the Texas Education Agency and to school districts listing some 850 books. He demanded that districts (1) identify how many copies of each title they possessed and where they were located, including which campuses and classrooms; (2) say how much the district spent to acquire the books; and (3) identify books not on his list that dealt with topics such as AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, or other subjects that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Districts had until November 12, less than a month, to respond. This alarmed librarians. At the time, Mary Woodard, president of the Texas Library Association, was also in charge of school libraries in the Mesquite Independent School District (ISD). She recalled receiving the letter. “I was actually at home. My superintendent forwarded it to me. It was in the evening,” she said. “I just felt a cold chill. I was beyond shocked that somebody from our state government was asking what books were available in our school libraries. I never thought I would see anything like that.”  Like librarians around the state, Woodard was quickly called into a meeting with her superintendent. Ultimately, they gathered the information Krause asked for, but decided not to send it unless it was specifically requested. It wasn’t.

The lack of follow-up by Krause was interesting. He has repeatedly refused to say how he compiled the list or what he was trying to accomplish. But around the time the letter gained attention, Krause was running for state attorney general. He failed to make it onto the Republican ballot in March 2022, then decided to run for district attorney in Tarrant County as a “Faithful, Conservative Fighter,” but lost. His legislative term ended on January 10, 2023. He is now running for Tarrant County Commissioner.

Related: The (mostly) Republican moms fighting to reclaim their Idaho school district from conservatives 

The list was probably the most newsworthy thing he did as state legislator — it caught fire. Suddenly, Krause’s list was a state resource and discussed in the national media. Governor Greg Abbott called on the Texas Education Agency to launch criminal investigations into the availability of “pornographic books” in school libraries. Some of writer Andrew Solomon’s books were on the list, prompting him to write an essay titled “My Book Was Censored in China. Now It’s Blacklisted — in Texas.”

Actually, Krause’s list was quite sloppy. Media outlets dove into specifics and unearthed a ridiculous assemblage. Of course, books that mention LGBTQ+ students or are about sexuality (even from the 1970s) or race were well represented. But there was a lot that was puzzling. “Almost one in five of the books listed, I have no idea why they’re included,” wrote Danika Ellis of Book Riot, a podcast and website about books and reading, who sifted through the entire list. “Probably the one that has me the most stumped is ‘Inventions and Inventors’ by Roger Smith from 2002. What’s controversial about a book on inventions??” Other outlets shared similar head-scratching reactions. The Dallas Observer named their “10 most absurd” books on the list.

Actually, Krause’s list was quite sloppy. Media outlets dove into specifics and unearthed a ridiculous assemblage.

Yet many educators treated the list like an instructional manual. Chris Tackett, a political campaign finance expert, tweeted a photo of a man in a hoodie leaving the high school library in Granbury ISD pulling a dolly of cardboard boxes labeled “Krause’s List.” Granbury ISD’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, was eager to comply, as a leaked audio recording showed. He gathered librarians in January 2022 and told them that students didn’t need access to books about sexuality or transgender people. A secret recording shared by the Texas Tribune–ProPublica Investigative Unit and NBC News revealed a stunning disregard for students’ First Amendment rights.

Yet when Glenn addressed the librarians, there was clearly no room for disagreement. He stated that school board trustees had been in touch. “I want to talk about our community,” he said in a firm but syrupy drawl. “If you do not know this, you have been probably under a rock, but Granbury is a very, very conservative community and our board is very, very conservative.” He warned, “If that’s not what you believe, you’d better hide it because it ain’t changing in Granbury. Here, in this community, we will be conservative.”

He then detailed that meant not having books about sexuality or LGBTQ+ or “information on how to become transgender.” Then, Glenn revealed his discomfort with gender-fluid individuals, saying, “I will take it one step further with you and you can disagree if you want. There are two genders. There’s male and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they are women and women that think they are men. And I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there is no place for it in our libraries.” He told librarians that he was forming a review committee of parents and educators and that they would “pull books off the shelves, especially the 850” on Krause’s list. He finished with a directive that camouflaged the seriousness of what he asked them to do: “When in doubt, pull it. Let the community sign off on it, put it back on the shelf. You’re good to go.”

Objections Reflect Times, Personal Views

Not surprisingly, the matter of what should and may be included in school libraries has long been a source of contention, often influenced by the political climate of the time. In 1950, amid the fervor of McCarthyism, the Yale Law Journal delved into a controversy between The Nation and The New York City Board of Education after the left-leaning magazine published articles critical of Roman Catholic church doctrine and dogma. The school board voted to remove The Nation from school libraries. A multi-year battle followed with The Nation offering free subscriptions, but appeals to the state department of education failed. Was it censorship, as the Yale Law Journal and The Nation defense suggested? Libraries cannot subscribe to every periodical. The schools did not remove existing materials but did not include new issues.

The example hits on a current matter. Aside from pressure to remove materials, what should be included in the first place? Nowadays, rather than face controversy, some librarians are simply choosing not to purchase some books. A survey conducted by School Library Journal in Spring 2022 received input from 720 school librarians, 90 percent from public schools (all anonymous). It found that 97 percent weighed the impact of controversial subjects when making purchases. “The presence of an LGBTQIA+ character or theme in a book led 29 percent of respondents to decline a purchase,” the survey report said. Forty-two percent admitted removing a “potentially problematic” book that had not faced challenge or review. An updated 2023 survey revealed that this has only become more common. Thirty-seven percent said they declined to select books with LGBTQIA+ subject matter; 47 percent admitted to removing a book on their own. Interestingly, one-third said they had considered leaving the profession “in reaction to the intensity over book bans” — but two-thirds said that intensity has moved them to be more active in fighting censorship.

Book banning is a chaotic and illogical business. How a book is received or understood is often subject to the historical moment — and the tastes of individuals.

Book banning is a chaotic and illogical business. How a book is received or understood is often subject to the historical moment — and the tastes of individuals. The notion of an objective measure or checklist to decide what is “appropriate” — something far-right school boards have worked to police and enforce — is slippery to define. In the late 1930s, the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand,” about a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight a matador, was interpreted as carrying a pacifist political message. But in a whirl of confusion, it was marked as both pro-Franco and anti-Franco — and also as “communist, anarchist, manic-depressive, and schizoid,” according to an analysis of children’s book censorship in the Elementary School Journal in 1970.  

Related: Florida just expanded school vouchers — again. What does that really mean?

In other words, people saw what they wanted to see. That also happened to “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble,” a children’s book by William Steig about a donkey who finds a magic pebble and, frightened by a lion, wishes himself into becoming a rock. The book contained images of police officers dressed as pigs. In 1971, the International Conference of Police Associations took offense at that portrayal of police as pigs — “pig” being a derogatory term for law enforcement officers. According to the author of the journal article, school librarians who agreed with the police association view of the drawings and “considered [the portrayal] a political statement,” pulled the books from shelves in many locales, including Lincoln, Nebraska; Palo Alto, California; Toledo, Ohio; Prince George’s County, Maryland; and several cities in Illinois.

Books often get singled out because they make someone uncomfortable. Lately, far-right activists have particularly objected to graphic images, including of intimate body parts. Which is what happened in the 1970s with Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen.” The book includes drawings that reveal the toddler hero’s penis on several pages. School and public libraries quietly devised a solution: They used white tempera to paint diapers on Mickey, the main character. At a meeting of the American Library Association in Chicago in June 1972, some 475 librarians, illustrators, authors and publishers were outraged at the practice of the painting over the penis and signed a petition denouncing it as a form of censorship.

“School libraries are for all students but not all students are the same — they have diverse interests, abilities, and maturity levels, and varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.”

Texas Library Association

Books that involve drugs, violence, sex and sexual orientation can attract fierce opposition, regardless of the intended message, literary merit or value. Sometimes these books offer windows into other worlds and experiences, which in 1971 bothered school board members and a few parents in a white middle-class section of Queens, New York City. Community School District 25 board voted to ban “Down These Mean Streets,” by Piri Thomas, in which the author shares his tough story of survival in Harlem as the dark-skinned son of Puerto Rican immigrants. The five members of the school board who voted to ban the book did not have children in any public schools governed by the district. At a meeting that drew some 500 people and lasted for six hours, 63 attendees spoke with most objecting to the ban. According to a New York Times account, “Book Ban Splits a Queens School District,” the five school board members who favored the ban were nicknamed “The Holy Five” or “The Faithful Five.” Four had run on a slate sponsored by the Home Schools Association, a support group for Catholic parents home-schooling their children. In a parallel to the present, some questioned their motives, concerned that they were reflecting personal interests and not the district’s. A few years later, in December 1975, the board, composed of different and recently elected members, voted to repeal the ban. The board president called the book banning “abhorrent” and “undemocratic.”

Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico

Thomas’s book also played a role in a case on which the Supreme Court ruled in 1982. It began in September 1975, when several board members of the Island Trees Union Free School District on Long Island, New York, attended a weekend education conference in Watkins Glen, New York, organized by a far-right group, Parents of New York United, Inc. (PONY-U. Inc. for short). Island Trees Union Free School District board members mixed with representatives from the Heritage Foundation and parents opposed to school desegregation in Boston. The keynote speaker, Genevieve Klein, a member of the New York State Board of Regents, advocated for adoption of a voucher system for education. “If you are a parent who believes that reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic are basic tools necessary for developing into a contributing member of society, then you know that parental control is an immediate necessity,” she told the group. “If there is to be any hope for saving another generation from becoming functional idiots the time to act is now.”

PONY-U. Inc. was not just a local group eager to talk about schooling. Headed by Janet Mellon, a far-right activist, the group had spent several years orchestrating opposition to sex education and human relations education in schools and to student busing across Upstate New York. Yet books were top of mind leading up to Watkins Glen. A few weeks prior, the group hosted a talk titled “Book Censorship in Our Schools” at the Central Fire Station in Ithaca, New York. The Watkins Glen conference also came on the heels of one of the most violent and divisive school textbook battles in history. For six months in 1974 and 1975, bitter conflict roiled West Virginia’s Kanawha County after a new school board member, Alice Moore, sought the removal of textbooks that she found objectionable. She had won her seat by convincing voters that schools were “destroying our children’s patriotism, trust in God, respect for authority and confidence in their parents.”

Moore mobilized other conservatives locally and nationally, including prominent education activists Mel and Norma Gabler, who sought to “excise the rot from the nation’s schoolbooks,” as Adam Laats writes in “The Other School Reformers: Conservative Activism in American Education.” That “rot” included teaching evolution; communicating a “liberated” sexuality; “graphic accounts of gang fights; raids by wild motorcyclists; violent demonstrations against authority; murders of family members; of rape” and “books that denigrated traditional patriotic stories” in favor of popular subjects at the time, including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Gertrude Ederle, Bobby Jones, Joan Baez, W. E. B. Du Bois “and many others dear to liberal hearts.”

Related: Who picks school curriculum? Idaho law hands more power to parents

As protests in Kanawha County grew, violence spread. Reverend Marvin Horand, a fundamentalist minister and former truck driver, called for school boycotts, arguing that “no education at all is 100 percent better than what’s going on in the schools now. If we don’t protect our children from evil, we’ll have to go to hell for it.” The controversy resulted in two shooting deaths and multiple bombings. Horand was charged and ultimately found guilty in connection with the dynamiting of two elementary schools. The Heritage Foundation was also on the ground, providing legal support and helping a local group hold a “series of ‘Concerned Citizen’ hearings on discontent with the public schools.” Mellon of PONY-U. was one of their “expert” speakers.

At the Watkins Glen conference — with the memory of Kanawha County still fresh — board members of the Island Trees Union Free School District received a list of 32 books described as “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy.” Then, in February 1976, the board ordered the Island Trees Union Free School superintendent to remove 11 books from the district’s junior and senior high schools, including nine from school libraries. The move stirred outrage, but the board defended the ban, claiming that the books contained “material which is offensive to Christians, Jews, blacks and Americans in general.” Two of the books — “The Fixer,” by Bernard Malamud, and “Laughing Boy,” by Oliver La Farge — had won the Pulitzer Prize. At a press conference, school board member Frank Martin read aloud from “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, citing sentences in which Jesus is called a “bum” and a “nobody.” Martin said that “even if the rest of the book was the best story in the world, I still wouldn’t want it in our library with this stuff in it.” The other books: “Down These Mean Streets,” by Piri Thomas; “The Naked Ape,” by Desmond Morris; “Soul on Ice,” by Eldridge Cleaver; “Black Boy by Richard Wright;” “Best Short Stories of Negro Writers,” edited by Langston Hughes; “Go Ask Alice,” by an anonymous author; “A Hero Ain’t Nothing but a Sandwich,” by Alice Childress; and “A Reader for Writers,” by Jerome Archer.

“We are not even allowed to order the newest ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ or the latest ‘Guinness World Records’ unless the board gives express permission for those specific titles. We can’t get any new nonfiction books about camels or squirrels or football without specific approval of the school board.”

A librarian from the Bear Creek Intermediate School, Keller Independent School District, Texas

Opposition to the ban grew. In April 1976, 500 people jammed a local school board meeting. Many juniors and seniors in high school also attended. One told a reporter, “These books are very tame. It’s nothing you can’t hear in the sixth-grade school bus.” Yet the board upheld the ban. Then, several months later, it reaffirmed the ban, saying that board members had read the books and pronounced them “educationally unsound.” By September 1976, the matter had attracted broad notice and Thomas, the author of “Down These Mean Streets,” wrote in The New York Times arguing for “the right to write and to read.”  He explained that the book “was not written to titillate but to bring forth a clarity about my growing up in El Barrio in the 1930’s and 1940’s.” He added, “Since the horrors of poverty, racism, drugs, the brutality of our prison system, the inhumanity toward children of all colors are still running rampant, let the truth written by those who lived it be read by those who didn’t.”

When the books were first removed, Steven Pico, at 16, was vice president of the junior class and a member of the school newspaper’s editorial board. The following year, as student council president and a liaison to Island Tree Union Free District Board of Education, he attended school board meetings. He decided to mount a challenge to the ban. Pico connected with lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union, and four other students joined the suit. It took years for the case to make it to the high court. Pico went off to college, earning his BA from Haverford College in 1981. Just over a year later, on June 25, 1982, the Supreme Court handed down its decision. The Court ruled that the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech limited the discretion of public school officials to remove books they considered offensive from school libraries. The New York Times ran its story on the ruling on page one. Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court, noted that Bruce Rich, general counsel to the Freedom to Read Committee of the Association of American Publishers, “called the ruling ‘marvelous’ and said it ‘sends a very important message to school boards: Act carefully.’”

The decision in Pico was taken as a victory by those opposed to book bans, but as Greenhouse’s story also stated, it was a complicated win. It was a plurality ruling, which included a four-justice majority and two concurring opinions, that recognized school officials had violated students’ rights when they removed library books they didn’t like. “Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas,” wrote Associate Justice William J. Brennan Jr. But, as Greenhouse noted, “The Court did not define the precise limits of the Constitutional right it recognized.”

In the late 1930s, the children’s book “The Story of Ferdinand,” about a bull who would rather smell flowers than fight a matador, was interpreted as carrying a pacifist political message. But in a whirl of confusion, it was marked as both pro-Franco and anti-Franco — and also as “communist, anarchist, manic-depressive, and schizoid.”

School board members in Pico wanted to remove books whose content they disapproved of. But what if books were removed as a result of a restrictive policy? Or if state legislatures or school boards passed rules that restricted library materials? Would that run afoul of the law? Or would it provide cover for de facto book bans? What if a district made a process for approving books so onerous that librarians simply stopped ordering books with certain content?

These and related questions are playing out in real time now over what should be allowed in school libraries. Keller ISD, near Fort Worth, Texas, has faced controversy. When Governor Abbott announced plans to investigate school libraries amid reports of “pornographic” books, he specifically targeted Keller ISD, putting librarians in the district on the defensive. And when the Texas Education Agency released new guidelines for how districts should prevent “obscene content” from entering school libraries — a bid for wholesale changes in how books were acquired for libraries, bypassing the graduate training that is part of being a librarian — a far-right majority Keller ISD school board, newly-election in Spring 2022 with backing from the Patriot Mobile Action PAC, was only too happy to get involved.

Related: Moms For Liberty flexes its muscles — and faces pushback

At the time, the Texas Library Association and the Texas Association of School Librarians (a division of the Texas Library Association) objected to the new state guidelines. Those guidelines included the language of the Texas Penal Code Åò43.24(a)(2), a clear political statement, and a not-so-veiled threat. In most states, after all, K–12 schools and public libraries are typically exempt from obscenity laws; it is recognized that items that may clash with the language of those standards — art, biology, literature — involve creative and educational works that seek to deepen understanding of the human experience. Removing that exemption was the goal of the failed Tennessee House Bill 1944; it is a focus of several proposed bills around the country. 

The Texas Library Association objected to the increased burden on librarians, superintendents and school boards to read and review thousands of titles, acknowledging the difficult task for people who lack training as librarians. Such a process means relying on personal views of elected officials and other untrained people, which got the Island Trees Free Union School Board in trouble. In a statement, the Texas Library Association also underscored the actual role that libraries play: “School libraries are for all students but not all students are the same — they have diverse interests, abilities, and maturity levels, and varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.” The statement also pointedly rebuffed Abbott’s charge, adding, “Furthermore, school libraries do not collect obscene content.”

Yet the new Keller ISD school board was more than eager to take up removing “obscene content” from school libraries, and on July 8, 2022 passed an updated book policy that largely mirrored the new state guidelines. They weren’t done. A month later, on August 22, the board voted 4-2 (with one abstention) to adopt new district guidelines for selecting books. Each would be judged according to how often certain items appeared in its pages. Ill-defined terms like “prevalent,” “common,” “some” or “minimal” would indicate what amount of specific flagged content — profanity, kissing, horror, violence, bullying, drug or alcohol use by minors, drug use by adults, the glorification of suicide or self-harm or mental illness, brief descriptions of nonsexual nudity, and sexually explicit conduct or sexual abuse — would be permitted at different age levels.

Veteran board member, Ruthie Keyes, who had abstained, puzzled over how to apply the guidelines. In talking about violence, she asked, “Are they talking about military combat?” She had spoken with teachers who estimated having to remove two-thirds of their classroom library books. “That’s a lot,” she said. “And none were talking about explicit sex scenes.” (In November 2022, the board added one more rule: No mention of “gender fluidity” was permitted.)

The new policy created a selection process with more layers of librarians reviewing each purchase. Books would be also placed on a list open to review and challenge by members of the community for 30 days. The board would then approve the purchase of each book. This had an almost immediate effect. At the October 24, 2022, school board meeting, a librarian from the Bear Creek Intermediate School made her way to the mic, her hair piled in a messy swirl, glasses affixed to her face, and paper in hand. She spoke calmly about the policy, which she considered an affront to the training she and her peers had undergone. The board “has shown by its actions that Keller ISD librarians are not respected at all,” she said. “We are not even allowed to order the newest ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ or the latest ‘Guinness World Records’ unless the board gives express permission for those specific titles. We can’t get any new nonfiction books about camels or squirrels or football without specific approval of the school board.”

“I just felt a cold chill. I was beyond shocked that somebody from our state government was asking what books were available in our school libraries. I never thought I would see anything like that.” 

Mary Woodard, president of the Texas Library Association

She described “a huge environment of fear” among librarians who “are not even trusted to order a new alphabet book like ABC Cats for pre-K students.” Students, she said, keep asking why there are no new books. She must constantly say that titles are coming soon and makes excuses for the lack of new books. What she doesn’t reveal is the truth: “I certainly don’t mention the role that politics is playing in our libraries and our district.”

But in a reminder that this is political, the far-right Keller ISD Family Alliance PAC used the new policy and book removals to fundraise, trumpeting that the board had “stood up against the left’s woke agenda in schools, now we MUST hold the line and protect our hard-earned victories and our children.” Then it asked, “Can we count on you today to support our school board with a donation of $25, $50, $100, $250 or even $500?” Below the text was a “donate” button.

Much as moves to ban books get cast by far-right activists as “protecting” students, they are —and long have been — baldly political. Just last week, a federal judge in Florida heard oral arguments in a case brought by PEN America, publishers, authors and parents against the Escambia County School District and Escambia County School Board. The plaintiffs charge that the board and district removed and restricted books “based on their disagreement with the ideas expressed in those books.” Further, they “have disproportionately targeted books by or about people of color and/or LGBTQ people.”

As this case proceeds, as state legislatures prepare to take up bills that threaten librarians, teachers and the freedom of students to read, however, it is important to remember that this is more than some theoretical debate. There are consequences — for librarians doing their jobs, for children who want ordinary books, and for those for whom these restrictions are received as an attack.

In Keller ISD, during the five-and-half-hour school board meeting at which the board adopted restrictive book selection policies, a high school senior spoke during public comments. He said that he was gay, and in middle school had been told by peers that he was “a freak.”  I began to agree with them,” he said. Then, he recounted, “I found a book about boys that felt the same way as I did.” Reading it made him less alone; he gained confidence as he reached high school. Yet the new library and book policies made students like him “feel attacked by the school board,” he said. “This pervasive censorship is about more than politics,” he added. “It is about lives.”

This is an adapted excerpt from “School Moms: Parent Activism, Partisan Politics and the Battle for Public Education” by Laura Pappano. Copyright 2024. Excerpted with permission by Beacon Press.

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Harvard University President Claudine Gay’s resignation ends the shortest tenure in the university’s history — six months. It’s not a coincidence that the record is set by the school’s first Black woman president. We were headed for this moment since she started in July.

Some pundits are blaming antisemitism and plagiarism, ignoring the white supremacist politics at the center of her ouster: the same politics shaping higher education at schools like Harvard since the creation of higher education in the United States.

Less than a month before Gay’s resignation, these politics were on display as Ivy League early admissions decisions sparked the annual accusations of reverse racism, with non-Black students and parents blaming Black students for stealing their spots in the class of 2028.

Such accusations are perpetual fallacies in a long narrative about Black people that claims we undeservedly get jobs, opportunities and admittance to the country’s most selective colleges and universities that “should” go to white people.

Gay’s appointment was both applauded as a sign of Harvard’s racial progress and derided as a “diversity hire.”

However, in December, Gay’s controversial testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s hearing on antisemitism on college campuses and, in particular, her repeated defense of free speech on campus, opened the door to calls for her removal. Widely reported accusations of plagiarism against her led to additional scrutiny which facilitated her resignation. On closer inspection, that alleged plagiarism amounted to a relatively small number of “citation errors” in her 1997 dissertation and a few other academic papers. Similar comments on free speech also felled University of Pennsylvania President M. Elizabeth Magill, yet she managed to resign without the racialized questioning of her entire professional career that Gay has had to face.

Related: Students have reacted strongly to university presidents’ Congressional testimony about antisemitism 

After her resignation, Gay noted that she was a victim of a campaign against Black faculty, one that “recycled tired racial stereotypes about Black talent and temperament.”

It is not a coincidence that Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT were targeted for those House Committee hearing. They are representative of the cultural zeitgeist at many prestigious institutions — and a political battleground for those seeking control over American ideology.

Harvard, in particular, has been at the center of these battleground narratives — one about “unqualified” Black leadership and the other by students who believe below-average Blacks have taken their spots.

Established in 1636, Harvard is an institution that prides itself on its lack of access. Initially, Harvard, and schools fashioned after it, were institutions for upper-class white men only; it has always existed at the nexus of white supremacy in the United States.

The goalposts for Black people to display merit keep changing; seemingly no matter our credentials, we are perceived as gaming entrance where we don’t belong.

Harvard’s mission has facilitated the creation of a constant supply of wealthy white politicians and businessmen from the so-called right families and with the “right” education to lead this country. It would be over 300 years until Black people were regularly admitted — and another 70 years before a Black woman would be appointed president of the university.

This was by design. As discussed in my book, “Black Women, Ivory Tower,” Ivy League schools are meant to be exclusionary. Attending Harvard has always been a dream to strive for, a way to perpetuate race and class-based hierarchies — to effectively define who belongs at the “top” of society and who doesn’t.

 As a symbol of a well-working meritocracy, though, Harvard fails. Instead, the goalposts for Black people to display merit keep changing; seemingly, no matter our credentials, we are perceived as gaming entrance where we don’t belong.

Gay’s resignation signals the embeddedness of racism at these prestigious schools. She had to go because she didn’t belong. And the political pressure that was used to get her to resign without just cause provides another opportunity to show Black people they don’t belong, regardless of their professional achievements, and to keep schools like Harvard white. The Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban effectively ensures that they will stay that way.

All of this tells us that the presence of any Black people in prestigious institutions is still a problem for many people. Even when affirmative action was in place, Black students made up less than 7 percent of Harvard’s overall campus population. Harvard accepts less than 4 percent of all applicants.

With those numbers, it is empirically impossible to claim that Black people are inundating Harvard and schools like it; yet there’s still this clear illogic focused squarely on us to explain Harvard’s elusiveness to white people more broadly.

Without Black people to blame, the more than 96 percent of applicants who are not admitted must face the reality of higher ed in America — that schools like Harvard were never likely to admit them, because these schools are meant to perpetuate not only whiteness but also wealth and power.

Admissions offices at Harvard, Princeton and Yale were created in response to concerns about high percentages of Jewish students starting in the 1910s. New admissions policies set quotas on Jewish students in a given class and created checklists of desirable characteristics, including racial and ethnic identities, to more specifically shape the makeup of the student body.

Admissions policies became even more important in the 1940s when the potential for Black student applicants returning from war to use the GI bill to cover tuition again threatened the white wealth culture these schools had established.

Hierarchical ranking systems and the introduction of the “Ivy League” in 1954 further stratified schools by race and class.

Affirmative action policies that came later only slightly increased the percentage of Black students at these schools in any given year.

Related: COLUMN: Colleges decry Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, but most have terrible track records on diversity

A similar fate to Gay’s will likely befall the next Black woman Harvard president, should it ever appoint another, just as every year, nameless, faceless Black students are erroneously accused of taking the spot of “more deserving” white students to assuage those white students’ feelings of failure.

Ivy League schools, the most important gatekeepers of higher education, are institutionally racist. And Harvard is the blueprint.

Black people will never belong there because we weren’t meant to — not then, not now, not ever.

Jasmine Harris, is the author of “Black Women, Ivory Tower,” and an associate professor of African American Studies and coordinator of the African American Studies program at the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

This story about Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

The post OPINION: Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation and the end of affirmative action signal to Black people that they will never belong appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Elected officials are pushing university presidents to categorically silence student speech on salient political issues. This runs afoul of the values of academic freedom and free speech.

In the case of public institutions, giving in to such pressure is unconstitutional.

Free speech is a vital liberty that the American Civil Liberties Union has fought to protect at all levels of government, on campuses and across society for over 100 years.

With the rest of the world, we’ve been anxiously watching the catastrophe unfolding in Israel and Palestine. These events have caused inconceivable pain to many and will have untold effects on our collective future.

It is precisely in moments of crisis and fear like this one that free speech is most important.

While the ACLU does not take positions on international conflicts, we must take positions when the rights of Americans to speak out about these crises are endangered.

Universities are supposed to be spaces where people develop, communicate and debate ideas, including the most topical, difficult and controversial ones.

Students, professors and others on campus must have the freedom to publicly speak about and debate matters of public concern — regardless of how radical or offensive their views are.

For that to work, school leaders must resist pressure to conflate protected political speech with prohibited harassment; making that mistake today will not only impact students now but for decades to come. Yet, troublingly, we’re seeing politicians and school administrators seeking to punish and censor students rather than ensure that all students are able to safely and freely speak their mind.

Related: Students have reacted strongly to university presidents’ Congressional testimony about antisemitism 

And the leaders aren’t just taking this problematic approach about speech pertaining to the conflict in the Middle East. For many years now, school administrators have sought to censor controversial speech, whether that’s canceling a book talk by right-wing Milo Yiannopoulos or removing artwork about reproductive health care from a campus exhibit.

The consequences for students are not hypothetical. In late October, the State University System of Florida’s chancellor, Ray Rodrigues, in consultation with Gov. Ron DeSantis, ordered state universities to deactivate the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters, based on nothing more than the national SJP organization’s political advocacy — which is protected political speech. That is a clear violation of the student groups’ rights to free speech and association, which is why we, ACLU of Florida, and Palestine Legal are now representing the University of Florida chapter of SJP in its legal challenge against Florida officials.

Today, some in Congress seem to think there is, or should be, a “controversial speech” exception to the First Amendment.

Once it becomes acceptable to silence one form of political speech, the rights of everyone to speak and dissent are at risk.

But, if we learned anything from the experiences of our country’s universities during the McCarthy era and more recently in the years since 9/11, it’s that viewpoint-based efforts to police speech on campuses destroy the foundations on which academic communities are built.

Throughout U.S. history, people in power have attempted to silence students when they say things that the leaders find unpopular or offensive. During the Vietnam War, for example, universities tried to stop students on their campuses from creating chapters of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society by refusing to recognize them as a campus organization. This dispute went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which reaffirmed the group’s First Amendment rights.

That case, Healy v. James, is not an outlier. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that students have a right to associate and speak out on matters of public concern, with Chief Justice Earl Warren famously stating 60 years ago that either “teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate” or “our civilization will stagnate and die.”

Therefore, schools should not punish students, as some leaders have proposed, for chanting phrases like “From the River to the Sea,” “No Ceasefire,” “Make America Great Again” and “No Justice, No Peace,” regardless of how much they offend others.

To be clear: Antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab hate must be condemned and combatted. True threats and incitement are not protected speech. And colleges and universities have a moral and legal obligation to address harassment committed by, or directed at, members of their communities.

Related: How teachers can talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict

Nonetheless, students have a First Amendment right to use controversial slogans and to have differing opinions about what those slogans mean.

Congress cannot expect university administrators to be in the business of deciding which ideas and beliefs are acceptable for students to express and which should be silenced.

To do so would undermine the values of learning and expression on which all academic institutions are built. And while one group is at the center of such affronts today, other students, groups and speech could face similar attacks tomorrow.

Universities must defend against bad actors who conflate suppression of speech with safety, because once it becomes acceptable to silence one form of political speech, the rights of everyone to speak and dissent are at risk.

Drawing the line between protected political speech and targeted harassment isn’t always easy, but the lines our leaders draw today are the ones that will apply across issues, views and debates for years to come.

 Jenna Leventoff is senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

This story about student free speech was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

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Dear Reader, 

Saying it’s been a wild year in higher education news seems like the understatement of the century. (I think even non-education nerds would agree!) Thank you for sticking with The Hechinger Report as we tried to make sense of it all. 

The first half of the year felt like we were all collectively holding our breath, waiting for the United States Supreme Court to rule on two massive cases, one on student loan forgiveness and another on affirmative action in college admissions. As we waited, I wrote about the poster child of the anti-affirmative action movement, Jon Marcus broke down federal data that shows the gap between Black and white Americans with college degrees is widening, and Meredith Kolodner reported, as she has before, about the fact that many flagship universities don’t reflect their state’s Black or Latino high school graduates. 

The court ultimately ruled against student loan forgiveness and against the consideration of race in college admissions. 

Shortly thereafter, led by Jon Marcus and Fazil Khan, our team began working on The College Welcome Guide, a tool that helps students and families go beyond the rankings and understand what their life might be like on any four-year college campus in America. Jon’s reporting made it  clear that the culture wars are beginning to affect where students go to college, and we wanted to help ensure people had the many types of information they needed to make the best choice, regardless of who they are or what their political orientation is. 

All the while, we continued covering the country’s community colleges. Jill Barshay wrote about how much it costs to produce a community college graduate, and why some community colleges are choosing to drop remedial math. Jon covered the continuing enrollment struggles at these institutions. I reported on a new initiative to target job training for students at rural community colleges, as well as a guide to help community colleges make this kind of training more effective. 

We also examined some of the many routes people choose to take instead of going to college. I reported on what happens when universities get into unregulated partnerships with for-profit tech boot camps, and Meredith and Sarah Butrymowicz reported on risky, short-term career training programs that exist in a “no man’s land of accountability.” Tara García Mathewson exposed the tricky system that formerly incarcerated people have to navigate if they want to get job training and professional licenses once they’re out of prison. 

And though we love to dig deep into subjects and understand exactly how these big issues affect the lives of regular people, we also zoomed out this year. Meredith, working alongside Matthew Haag from The New York Times, discovered that Columbia University and New York University benefit massively from property tax breaks allowed for nonprofits (they saved $327 million last year alone). After their story was published, New York state legislators proposed a bill that would require these two institutions to pay those taxes and  funnel that money to the City University of New York system, the largest urban public university system in the country.

In 2024, we will continue to cover equity and innovation in higher education with nuance, care and a critical eye. Is there a story you think we should cover? Reply to this email to let us know.

For now, we hope you have a warm and restful break. See you in the new year. 

Olivia

P.S. As a nonprofit news outlet, The Hechinger Report relies on readers like you to support our journalism. If you want to ensure our coverage in 2024 is as extensive and deeply reported as possible, please consider donating.

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Everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion on the three college presidents who testified before Congress last week on the topic of antisemitism on campus. Yes, I’m talking about the hearing that resulted in one university president losing her job and investigations into three elite universities.

Did the university leaders speak out strongly enough? Where is the line between free speech and hate speech, and at what point should someone be disciplined?

Congressmembers, faculty, alumni and donors have all weighed in. But how do the students feel? Based on reports in their student newspapers and statements from different campus groups, they seem to be just as divided as everyone else. 

During the hearing, Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay of Harvard University and Sally A. Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they opposed antisemitism and supported the existence of Israel, but when asked whether calls for the genocide of Jews constitute harassment and bullying, they said it depended on the context. Since then, Gay and Magill have issued apologies and Magill has resigned.

Many students see this as a free speech issue, raising the question of whether calling for a genocide is free speech or hate speech.  Others say that such questions are quibbling compared to the hatred and fear created by both antisemitic and anti-Islamic rhetoric. 

Harvard Hillel students wrote that “President Gay’s failure to properly condemn this speech calls into question her ability to protect Jewish students on Harvard’s campus,” adding that they would like to work with the university administration on ways to educate the community on “the history of the Jewish people and the evolution of antisemitism.” At Penn, students and community members rallied in support of the protection of Jewish students. And Jewish MIT students told ABC News that they felt there was institutional support for students who support Palestine but not for Jewish students, and that they felt Jewish and Muslim students had been pitted against each other.

Here are some excerpts of students’ thoughts. 

Harvard University

The editorial board of The Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper, published an editorial in which they strongly opposed both antisemitism and calls for President Gay to resign. They wrote that antisemitism has “been treated as a prop in political theater.” 

“Recent rhetoric has portrayed non-Jewish Harvard students — and Harvard more broadly — as deeply antisemitic. We reject this careless characterization. We believe the vast majority of our peers do not harbor hate toward Jewish people.

“This perspective has been obscured as Congress has portrayed Jewish and pro-Palestinian students as diametrically opposed monoliths with uniform sets of beliefs and emotions. In reality, our campus is home to Jewish students who advocate for a free Palestine, Arab students who endorse a Jewish right to self-determination, and many more individuals whose experiences have shaped complex, well-reasoned beliefs.”

“Recent rhetoric has portrayed non-Jewish Harvard students — and Harvard more broadly — as deeply antisemitic. We reject this careless characterization.” 

The Harvard Crimson

The editorial board urged students not to let snippets of the Congressional hearing define what is happening at Harvard. Having witnessed the vitriol of the past few months, the students said, they wanted to set the record straight. 

“Gay’s response about context dependence may seem unsatisfying, but there is — equally unsatisfyingly — no University policy that unequivocally answers Stefanik’s question. These policies do warrant more robust discussion and clarification, but a truthful answer about their ambiguity does not merit such opprobrium.”

Read more about Harvard student perspectives in Harvard’s student newspaper, The Crimson.

The University of Pennsylvania

The Daily Pennsylvanian’s editorial board opted not to weigh in on Magill’s resignation. Instead, it published an editorial urging students to speak for themselves about their experiences at Penn. 

“As global and local events continue to converge on this campus now and into the future, we should not let voices that are prominent, but distant, speak for us,” the editorial board wrote. “The path forward for Penn must be paved with more, not less, speech. As members of the Penn community, we have a special opportunity, and some may even say responsibility, to speak up about our experiences here.”

The publication has published a series of opinion pieces on Magill’s resignation from a range of viewpoints.

One student writer, Mritika Senthil, wrote that pressure from media attention and donor demands could lead to performative changes, rather than substantive ones. 

“The path forward for Penn must be paved with more, not less, speech. As members of the Penn community, we have a special opportunity, and some may even say responsibility, to speak up about our experiences here.”

The Daily Pennsylvanian

Senthil wrote that there are administrators and faculty making decisions every day that do not involve the president. She questioned how much difference the president’s departure could make without a “comprehensive restructuring of campus standards.”

“Our leadership needs to recognize that their speech can contribute to student discomfort and fear of open dialogue. I’m sure that most of Penn’s community not only accepts but actively seeks the exploration and debate of differing ideas. But when students and faculty cease to maintain mutual respect, the ethics of the academic community are ironically ignored,” Senthil wrote. 

Mia Vesely, an opinion writer for the Daily Pennsylvanian, expressed fear that Magill’s resignation could lead to censorship for faculty and students. 

“I ask you: what is next? If university presidents can be bullied into stepping down for allegations that serve as a contrast for actual policies they’re implementing, where do we go from here? Do we censor free speech and punish students for saying political statements that don’t align with major donors? Do we cast aside the First Amendment and live on a campus that doesn’t allow free expression?” Vesely wrote. 

Read more student perspectives in Penn’s student publication, The Daily Pennsylvanian. 

M.I.T. 

The Tech, M.I.T.’s student newspaper, hasn’t published any news story or opinion piece since the university leaders testified before Congress. But the student body appears to have been divided on these issues before the hearing. 

On Nov. 1, The Tech published an opinion column by Avi Balsam, who detailed the distress he experienced hearing chants of “intifada,” on campus during a demonstration outside M.I.T.’s Hillel. He wrote, “Words gain meaning from the historical context in which they are used. In this case, the historical context is violence and terrorism in the name of resistance. Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or dishonest.”

Balsam, a sophomore who serves as vice president of the student board of M.I.T.’s Hillel, called on Kornbluth to condemn calls for “intifada.” 

On Nov. 30, The Tech published an opinion column by a group of graduate students requesting several things from the university administration, including that it “make clear what students’ legal and institutional rights are in demonstrating on and off campus, and how to seek protection if needed.”

“We ask the MIT administration to support all students whose safety and well-being are adversely impacted by the decades-long violence in Israel and Palestine and who are expressing their views on campus,” the students wrote.

“Above all, we ask that MIT be an institution true to its values as a place where rights to freedom of expression are upheld, and where commitments toward making a better world are driven by the desire for human flourishing—not the interests of donors, the net gain of financial holdings, or US foreign policy agendas.”

This story about antisemitism on campus was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Check out our College Welcome Guide.

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WILMINGTON, Del. — Striding into a packed community center filled with high school seniors, Atnre Alleyne has a few words of advice for the crowd, members of the first class of college applicants to be shaped by June’s Supreme Court ruling striking down race-conscious admissions.

“You have to get good grades, you have to find a way to do the academics, but also become leaders,” said Alleyne, the energetic co-founder and CEO of TeenSHARP, a nonprofit that prepares students from underrepresented backgrounds for higher education. “In your schools, do something! Fight for social justice.”

Many of the TeenSHARP participants gathered here, who are predominantly Black or Hispanic, worry that their chances of getting into top-tier schools have diminished with the court’s decision. They wonder what to say in their admissions essays and how comfortable they’ll feel on campuses that could become increasingly less diverse.

On this autumn night, Alleyne and his team are fielding questions from the dozens of students they advise, on everything from early decision deadlines to which schools are most likely to give generous financial aid and scholarships. The changed admissions landscape has only increased the team’s determination to develop a new generation of leaders, students who will fight to have their voices represented on campuses and later on in the workplace.

“I want them to kick the door open to these places, so they will go back and open more doors,” Alleyne said.

That goal is shared by successful alumni of the program Alleyne and his wife, Tatiana Poladko, started in a church basement 14 years ago. Several are on hand tonight recounting their own educational journeys, culminating in full scholarships to schools such as the University of Chicago and Wesleyan University, where annual estimated costs approach $90,000.

Before the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, highly selective colleges served as a beacon of hope and economic mobility for students like those TeenSHARP advise. Many are first in their families to attend college and lack legacy connections or access to the private counselors who’ve long given a boost to wealthier students.

Related: Colleges decry Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, but most have terrible records on diversity

But even before the high court ruling, Black and Latino students were poorly represented at these institutions, while the college degree gap between Black and white Americans was getting worse. For some students, the court decision sends a message that they do not belong, and if they get in, they worry they’ll stand out even more.

“I felt really upset about it,” Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, said about the affirmative action ruling. “This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”

While the full impact of the ruling on student demographics remains unknown, representatives of 33 colleges wrote in an amicus brief filed in the case that the share of Black students on their campuses would drop from roughly 7.1 percent to 2.1 percent if affirmative action were banned.

The uncertainty of what the decision means is taking a toll on students and school counselors nationally, said Mandy Savitz-Romer, a senior lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. As colleges sort through how they can meet commitments to diversity while complying with the law, students wonder if mentioning race in their essays will help or hurt them.

In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that race could be invoked only within the context of the applicant’s life story, making essays the one opportunity for students to discuss their race and ethnicity. But since then, Edward Blum, the conservative activist who helped bring the case before the court, has threatened more lawsuits, promising to challenge any essay topic that is “nothing more than a back-channel subterfuge for divulging a student’s race.”

The Department of Education has published guidelines saying that while schools cannot put a thumb on the scale for students based on their race, they “remain free” to consider characteristics tied to individual students’ life experiences, including race. The National Association of College Admission Counseling issued similar guidance, while the Common App introduced new essay prompts that include one about students’ “identity” and “background.”

Because of the uncertainty,school counselors need specific training on crafting essays and how or whether to talk about race, Savitz-Romer said during a Harvard webinar last month on college admissions after affirmative action. “We need counselors and teachers to make students understand that college is still for them,” she said.

It’s a tall order: On average, public school counselors serve more than 400 students each, which offers little time for one-on-one advising.

Related: Why aren’t more school counselors trained in helping students apply to college?

That reality is why nonprofit advising groups like TeenSHARP toil alongside students, guiding them through an increasingly confounding admissions system. TeenSHARP’s team of three advisers works intensively with roughly 140 students at a time, including 50 seniors who often apply to as many as 20 colleges to maximize their chances.

That’s a fraction of those who need help, another reason why the group’s leaders rely on their network of more than 500 “Sharpies,” as alums are known.

Emily Rodriguez, a TeenSHARP senior who attends Conrad Schools of Science in Wilmington, decided to address race head on in her college essays: She wrote about her determination that she would not “play the role of the poor submissive Mexican woman.”

“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed. But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”

Tatiana Poladko, co-founder, TeenSHARP

Hamza Parker, a senior at Delaware’s Smyrna High School who moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia as a sixth grader, said he was against writing about his identity at first. “I feel like it puts you in a position where you have to have a sob story for your essay instead of talking about something good, like, that happened in your life,” he told Alleyne and Poladko during a counseling session over Zoom.

But in the session Alleyne and Poladko encouraged him to draw from his own story, one they know something about from working with his older sister Hasana, now a junior at Pomona College. The family had a difficult move from Saudi Arabia to New York City and later Delaware, where Hamza joined the Delaware Black Student Coalition.

Hamza decided to revise his essay from one focused on linguistics to describe experiencing racism and then embracing his Muslim heritage.

“I am my normal social self and my Muslim faith and garb are widely known and respected at my school,” he wrote. “My school even now has a dedicated space for prayer during Ramadan.”

Related: The newest benefit at top companies: Private college admissions counseling

Alleyne and Poladko typically work with students who are beginning their first year of high school, so the pair can guide the entire college application process, much as some pricey private counselors do — although TeenSHARP’s services are free; as a nonprofit it relies on an array of donors for support.

Neither Poladko nor Alleyne attended elite schools. They met as graduate students at Rutgers University and became committed to starting TeenSHARP after helping Alleyne’s niece apply to colleges from a large New York City public high school.

Astonished by how complicated and inaccessible college admissions could be, the two decided to make it their life’s work, writing grants and getting donations from local banks and foundations so they could serve more students.

“I felt really upset about it. This system has helped many underrepresented minorities get into these Ivy League schools and excel.”

Jamel Powell, a high school junior from Belle Mead, New Jersey, who participates in TeenSHARP, about the affirmative action ruling.

Their work is now largely remote: During the pandemic, the couple relocated from Wilmington to Poladko’s native Ukraine to be closer to her family, leading to a dramatic escape to Poland with their three young children when war broke out. Poladko is taking a sabbatical from TeenSHARP this year, although she still helps some students via Zoom. Alleyne flies from Warsaw to Wilmington to meet with students in person, often at the community center downtown that once housed their offices.

They also rely on relationships they’ve built over the years with college presidents and admissions officers at schools like Boston College, Pomona College and Wesleyan, along with both Carleton and Macalester Colleges in Minnesota, many of whom have welcomed TeenSHARP applicants.

“We need more ‘Sharpies’ on our campus,” said Suzanne Rivera, president of Macalester College, in Minnesota, and a member of TeenSHARP’s advisory board. “Their questions are always so smart and so insightful.”

Sharpies also tend to become campus leaders, in part because TeenSHARP requires that its students develop leadership skills. That’s something William Garcia, who graduated from the University of Chicago last spring, told seniors in Wilmington.

“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll even if they are offered admission.”

Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta

At first, he felt isolated in Chicago, reticent to talk about his experiences as a Hispanic man. “I was in your shoes five years ago,” Garcia said. He later realized his background could be an asset, and drew on it to turn an ingredient for one of Mexico’s most popular liquors into a business venture for his own agave beverage company.

“Embrace your story; tell your story,” Garcia said. “I would tell my story and people would be really interested and would start to help me.”

Alphina Kamara, a 2022 graduate of Wesleyan University, urged seniors to aim high and look beyond state schools and local community colleges that have lower graduation rates and fewer resources — campuses she might have ended up at it not for TeenSHARP.

“I would have never have known that schools like Wesleyan existed, and that I, as a first-generation Black woman, had a place in them,” said Kamara, the child of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone.

Related: Beyond the Rankings: College Welcome Guide

Still, there will always be some TeenSHARP students who don’t want to be on campuses that had terrible track records for diversity, even before the court’s decision.

Tariah Hyland, who in high school co-founded the Delaware Black Student Coalition, knew she’d be more comfortable at one of the country’s more than 100 historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. She told the Delaware audience that she’s thriving in her junior year at Howard University, where she is studying political science.

Powell, the New Jersey junior, is eyeing both Howard and Atlanta’s Morehouse College and said he’ll likely only apply to HBCUs.

“When I was in public school, I was the only Black boy in my classes,” said Powell, who now attends Acelus Academy, an online school. “I was always the minority, and so by going to an HBCU, I would likely see more people who look like me.” 

That’s no surprise to Chelsea Holley, director of admissions at Spelman College in Atlanta, who said she’s expecting “more interest from Black and Brown students, now that the Supreme Court has made what I believe to be a regressive political decision.”

HBCUs like Spelman — whose graduates include Children’s Defense Fund founder Marian Wright Edelman and author Alice Walker — are already seeing more applications and are becoming even more competitive.

“If Black high school seniors no longer feel like they are welcomed on predominantly white campuses, they are less likely to apply and even less likely to enroll, even if they are offered admission,” Holley said, adding that students may be worried about further assaults on diversity and inclusion on college campuses and believe they will be more comfortable at an HBCU.

Still, not everyone predicts the court ruling will precipitate a permanent drop in Black and Hispanic students at predominantly white, selective colleges. Richard Kahlenberg, an author and scholar at Georgetown University predicts the drop will be temporary, and that the affirmative action ban will eventually lead to a fairer landscape for low-income students of all races.

Kahlenberg, who served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, said he wants to see an end to legacy preferences as well as athletic recruiting, so that colleges can give “a meaningful boost” to “disadvantaged students of all races” and “you can get racial diversity without racial preferences.” Challenges to legacy admissions are mounting: The Education Department has opened an investigation into Harvard’s use of the practice, and a recent bipartisan bill calls for colleges to end it.

As mid-December approaches, Alleyne and Poladko are anxiously waiting to see how the handful of TeenSHARP students who applied for early decision will fare.

“Admissions officers assure us that their commitment to diversity hasn’t changed,” Poladko said. “But we will have to see. We’ve explained to families and students that this year is a learning year.”

Until that time, both Poladko and Alleyne will continue pushing students to help those who come after them.

“Our goal is to figure out the game of admissions and give our students an advantage,” Alleyne said. “And our job is to teach them how to play the game.”

This story about TeenSHARP is the first in a series of articles, produced by The Hechinger Report in partnership with Soledad O’Brien Productions, about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling on race-based affirmative action. Stay tuned for an upcoming documentary and part II. Hechinger is a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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SALISBURY, Md. — Three times a week, on average, a police car pulls up to a school in Wicomico County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A student is brought out, handcuffed and placed inside for transport to a hospital emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation.

Over the past eight years, the process has been used more than 750 times on children. Some are as young as 5 years old.

The state law that allows for these removals, which are known as emergency petitions, intended their use to be limited to people with severe mental illness, those who are endangering their own lives or safety or someone else’s. The removals are supposed to be the first step in getting someone involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital.

But advocates say schools across the country are sending children to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluations in response to behaviors prompted by bullying or frustration over assignments. The ER trips, they say, often follow months, and sometimes years, of the students’ needs not being met.

In most places, information about how often this happens is hidden from the public, but in districts where data has been made available, it’s clear that Black students are more frequently subjected to these removals than their peers. Advocates for students with disabilities say that they, too, are being removed at higher rates.

“Schools focus on keeping kids out rather than on keeping kids in,” said Dan Stewart, managing attorney at the National Disability Rights Network. “I think that’s the fundamental crux of things.”

In 2017, as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice intended to address widespread racial disparities in how students were disciplined, schools in Wicomico County agreed not to misuse emergency petitions. But while the number of suspensions and expulsions declined, mandated trips to the emergency room ticked up.

Last year, children were handcuffed and sent to the emergency room from Wicomico schools at least 117 times — about once per every 100 students — according to data obtained from public records requests to the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office.

At least 40 percent of those children were age 12 or younger. More than half were Black children, even though only a little more than a third of Wicomico public school children are Black.

In interviews, dozens of students, parents, educators, lawyers and advocates for students with disabilities in Wicomico County said that a lack of resources and trained staff, combined with a punitive culture in some of the schools, are behind the misuse of emergency petitions.

One Wicomico mom, who asked for anonymity because she feared retaliation from the school, recalled the terror she felt when she got the phone call saying that her son’s school was going to have him assessed for a forced psychiatric hospitalization. When she arrived at the school, she said, her son was already in handcuffs. He was put in the back of a police car and taken to the hospital.

“He said his wrists hurt from the handcuffs,” the boy’s mom said. “He was just really quiet, just sitting there, and he didn’t understand why he was in the hospital.”

The use of psychiatric evaluations to remove children from school isn’t just happening in Wicomico. Recent data shows that New York City schools still call police to take children in emotional distress to the emergency room despite a 2014 legal settlement in which they agreed to stop the practice.

A Kentucky school district was found to have used a forced psychiatric assessment on kids more than a thousand times in a year.

In Florida, thousands of school-aged children are subjected to the Baker Act, the state’s involuntary commitment statute.

In a settlement with the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, , the Stockton Unified School District in California agreed to protocols that require other interventions before referring students with disabilities for psychiatric evaluation.

In Maryland, Wicomico uses emergency petitions more often per capita than almost every other Maryland district where data is available. Baltimore City, for example, last year had 271 emergency petitions from schools, compared with Wicomico’s 117, according to data obtained from law enforcement agencies through public records requests. But Baltimore City’s student population is five times as large.

‘Trying to get him out of school’

Wicomico parents describe struggling to get support from the schools when their children fall behind on basics like reading and math in early grades. These gaps in learning can lead to frustration and behaviors that are challenging for teachers to manage.

The Wicomico mother whose son was handcuffed said she fought for years with administrators to obtain accommodations for her child, who is autistic, an experience echoed by other parents. Her son, who also has ADHD, was several years behind in reading by the time he got to middle school. The mother said he was sent to the hospital after an outburst rooted in frustration, not mental illness.

She recalled school officials telling her, “‘He doesn’t have special needs, he just has anger issues.’ They were trying to get him out of the school.”

Her son had grown increasingly discouraged and agitated over an assignment he was unable to complete, she said. The situation escalated, she said, when the teacher argued with him. The student swiped at his desk and knocked a laptop to the floor, and the school called for an emergency petition. After being taken to the hospital in handcuffs, he was examined and released.

“After that, he went from angry to terrified,” she said. “Every time he saw the police, he would start panicking.”

A spokeswoman from the Wicomico County Public Schools said that emergency petitions “are used in the most extreme, emergency situations where the life and safety of the student or others are at risk.”

“[Emergency petitions] are not used for disciplinary purposes and frequently do not result from a student’s behaviors,” Tracy Sahler, the spokeswoman, said in an email. “In fact, a majority of EPs are related to when a student exhibits suicidal ideation or plans self-harm.”

Schools did not respond to questions about why the rate of emergency petitions was so much higher in Wicomico than in other counties in Maryland. The Sheriff’s Department declined to share records that would show the reasons for the removals.

Educators stretched thin

By law, certain classroom removals must be recorded. Schools are required to publicly report suspensions, expulsions and arrests — and the data reveals racial disparities in discipline. Those statistics are what state and federal oversight agencies typically use to judge a school, and they often serve as triggers for oversight and investigations.

But with the notable exceptions of Florida and New York City, most places do not routinely collect data on removals from schools for psychiatric assessments. That means oversight agencies don’t have access to the information.

Without insight into how often schools are using psychiatric removals on children, there is no way to hold them accountable, said Daniel Losen, senior director for the education team at the National Center for Youth Law.

“The civil rights of children is at stake, because it’s more likely it’s going to be Black kids and kids with disabilities who are subjected to all kinds of biases that deny them an educational opportunity,” he said.

Families who have experienced emergency petitions say that the educators who can best communicate with their child are stretched thin, and measures that could de-escalate a situation are not always taken. The day that her son was sent to the hospital, the Wicomico mother who requested anonymity recalled, the administrator who had consistently advocated for him was out of the building.

In another instance, a middle schooler said that the required accommodations for his learning and behavioral disabilities included being allowed to take a walk with an educator he trusted. The day he was involuntarily sent to the hospital, that staff member was unavailable. When he tried to leave the building to take a walk on his own, an administrator blocked him from leaving. The student began yelling and spat at the staffer. He said that by the time police arrived, he was calm and sitting in the principal’s office. Still, he was handcuffed and taken to the hospital where he was examined and released a few hours later.

Because emergency petitions happen outside the standard discipline process, missed school days are not recorded as suspensions. For students with disabilities, that has special consequences — they are not supposed to be removed from class for more than 10 days without an evaluation on whether they are receiving the support they need.

“If you use the discipline process, and you’re a student with a disability, your rights kick in,” said Selene Almazan, legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates. With emergency petitions, the same rules do not apply.

In many places around the county, the resources needed to support students with disabilities are scarce.

“‘He doesn’t have special needs, he just has anger issues.’ They were trying to get him out of the school.”

Wicomico, Maryland, mother whose autistic son was sent to hospital in handcuffs

On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, lawyers and advocates for families said the spectrum of alternatives for students is limited by both money and geography. Those can include private, out-of-district placements and specialized classrooms for specific needs like dyslexia, for example. 

“If it’s a resource-rich school system, you can provide services and supports,” said Maureen van Stone, director of the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities at Kennedy Krieger Institute. “If you need a walk, if you need a sensory work break, if you need to go see the school counselor, those kinds of things can prevent some of this escalation of getting to the point that you’re … emergency petitioning.”

When children need targeted services that are unavailable in the local district, the district must allow them to be educated outside the school system — and pay for it.

“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because you’re like, ‘This kid needs more services,’ but you can’t get the school to agree,” said Angela Ford, clinical director at Maple Shade Youth and Family Services, which serves children with emotional and behavioral disabilities in Wicomico.

Last year, only one student was placed in a private day school, according to data from the Maryland State Department of Education.

ER trips increased after settlement

The 2017 settlement with the Justice Department required the Wicomico district to reduce the significant racial and disability-related disparities in suspensions, placements in alternative schools and other discipline measures.

The district agreed not to use emergency petitions when “less intrusive interventions … can be implemented to address the behavioral concern,” and not to use them “to discipline or punish or to address lack of compliance with directions.”

But since the settlement, many parents, teachers and community leaders said the district has seemed more concerned with keeping suspension numbers down than providing support for teachers to help prevent disruptive behavior.

“If we know how to handle and deal with behaviors, then we will have less EPs,” said Anthony Mann, who was an instructional aide at Wicomico County High School last year and is a Wicomico public school parent.

“The civil rights of children is at stake, because it’s more likely it’s going to be Black kids and kids with disabilities who are subjected to all kinds of biases that deny them an educational opportunity.”

Daniel Losen, senior director for the education team at the National Center for Youth Law

Tatiyana Jackson, who has a son with a disability at Wicomico Middle School, agrees teachers need more training. “I don’t think they have a lot of patience or tolerance for children with differences. It’s like they give up on them.”

Wicomico school officials said ongoing professional development for staff includes the appropriate use of emergency petitions.

“Each school has a well-trained team that includes a social worker and school counselor, with the support of school psychologists,” said Sahler. “All supports that may be beneficial to assist the student are utilized. However, the safety of the student is paramount, and the determining factor is ensuring that there is no unnecessary delay in obtaining aid for the student.”

But Denise Gregorius, who taught in Wicomico schools for over a decade and left in 2019, questioned the feasibility of the discipline and behavior strategies taught during professional development.

“The teachers, when they said they wanted more discipline, really what they’re saying is they want more support,” she said.

“You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place because you’re like, ‘This kid needs more services,’ but you can’t get the school to agree.”

Angela Ford, clinical director at Maple Shade Youth and Family Services

Under the terms of the settlement, Wicomico was under federal monitoring for two years. Since then, the number of suspensions and expulsions has declined markedly — for both Black and white students.

But the number of emergency petitions, which don’t appear in state statistics and are often only revealed through FOIA requests, has edged up. And other measures of exclusionary discipline remained high, including school arrests. In 2021-22, Wicomico had 210 school-based arrests — the second-highest number in the state, while they were 15th in student enrollment. More than three-quarters of the children arrested were Black, and 80 percent were students with disabilities; 37 percent of Wicomico students are Black, and 10 percent of Wicomico students have disabilities.

“Monitoring the numbers doesn’t bring you the solution,” said Losen, from the National Center for Youth Law. “If you’re going to a district where they’re resistant, and they have sort of draconian policies that they can’t justify educationally and there are large racial disparities, the problem is more than what they’re doing with discipline.”

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

Black parents point to culture problem

Some Wicomico parents and educators point to an insular culture in the school district where problems are hidden rather than resolved.

They are frustrated, for example, that there is no relationship with the county’s mobile crisis unit, which is often relied on in other counties to help de-escalate issues instead of calling the police.

Many Black parents say they believe their children are more often viewed as threats than as children who need support.

Jermichael Mitchell, a community organizer who is an alum and parent in Wicomico County Schools, said that teachers and school staff often do not know how to empathize with and respond to the trauma and unmet needs that may lead to children’s behavior. 

Last year, among children sent to the hospital on emergency petitions by Wicomico schools, at least 40 percent were age 12 or younger and more than half were Black children..

“A Black kid that’s truly going through something, that truly needs support, is always looked at as a threat,” he said. “You don’t know how those kids have been taught to cry out for help. You don’t know the trauma that they’ve been through.”

Studies have found that Black and Latino children who have a teacher of the same race have fewer suspensions and higher test scores. Such educator diversity is lacking in Wicomico County: Its schools have the largest gap in the state between the percentages of students of color and teachers of color .

Wicomico school officials said they do not discriminate against any of their students.

A Wicomico teenager described a years-long process of becoming alienated from school, with an emergency petition as the ultimate break. He said he was bullied in middle school over a series of months until one day he snapped and hit the student who had been taunting him.

The school called the police. He told the officers not to touch him, that he needed to calm down. Instead, the officers grabbed him and shoved him onto the ground, he said. He was handcuffed and transported to the emergency room. But when he returned to school, he said the only thing that was different was how he felt about the adults in the building.

“I got used to not trusting people, not talking to people at school,” he said. “Nothing else really changed.”

This story about emergency petitions was produced by The Associated Press and The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

The post The school district where kids are sent to psychiatric emergency rooms more than three times a week — some as young as 5 appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — El año escolar de la escuela primaria Washington concluyó a las 2:35 pm de un caluroso martes de mayo. Aun así, Malaysia Robertson, de 9 años, permaneció afuera del plantel.

Ella había pasado la mayor parte de su vida en la pequeña escuela pública de este suburbio de Nuevo Orleans, donde vive con su abuela. Su escuela no volvería a abrir sus puertas al comienzo del nuevo año escolar en septiembre. Al igual que miles de otros estudiantes del distrito escolar más grande de Luisiana, a ella se le asignó a un nuevo colegio como parte de un plan de consolidación que afecta a casi uno de cada 10 estudiantes afroamericanos como Malaysia. Esta es una cifra desproporcionada.

En ese último día de clases, ella no quería despedirse. 

“Íbamos corriendo por los pasillos llorando y todo eso”, dijo Malaysia, recordando su último día en tercer grado. El estacionamiento seguía lleno de estudiantes, familias y maestros mucho después de la 4 p.m., todos abrazándose antes de salir de la escuela por última vez.

La decisión de la junta escolar de cerrar 6 escuelas permanentemente ha estremecido a Jefferson Parish, donde la inscripción de estudiantes en escuelas públicas disminuyó casi un 10% desde el inicio de la pandemia.

Esta disminución empeoró casi una década de avances en el distrito, en la que se buscó revitalizar la inscripción escolar después del huracán Katrina. Los funcionarios del distrito han dicho que los cierres de escuelas son una respuesta necesaria a la disminución de la población estudiantil. Datos del distrito muestran que aproximadamente 1 de 3 cupos permanecieron vacantes el año escolar pasado y varios edificios albergaron a menos de la mitad de los estudiantes para los cuales fueron diseñados.

“Tenemos escuelas poco utilizadas — eso es un hecho”, explicó el vicepresidente de la junta escolar Derrick Shepherd durante una votación en abril. “Las cifras no se pueden cambiar”.

 El distrito volvió a dibujar su mapa para distribuir a los alumnos en una manera que requiere que muchos estudiantes deban viajar fuera de sus vecindarios y más lejos de casa. Los oficiales explicaron que los nuevos mapas hacen que las rutas de transporte por autobús sean más estables y que ninguno de sus maestros se quedará sin empleo. Pero la decisión ha enfurecido a los líderes comunitarios y abogados de derechos civiles, quienes dicen que los cierres no son solo dañinos para familias como la de Malasia, sino además son discriminatorios.

A pesar de que los estudiantes blancos representan casi un cuarto de los estudiantes del distrito, según los datos estatales de inscripción escolar estos solo representan al 12% de los estudiantes afectados por los cierres de escuelas. El plan que la junta escolar aprobó, el cual se diseñó teniendo en cuenta cuáles instalaciones escolares tenían más espacio sin usar y su estado, cerró dos escuelas secundarias con alto rendimiento escolar en las cuales la mayoría de los estudiantes eran hispanos y afroamericanos.

Como resultado cientos de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos serán asignados a escuelas de rendimiento más bajo el próximo año escolar, repitiendo para algunas familias el pasado de racismo y segregación del distrito.

“¿Quién se va beneficiar de todo este proceso? No serán los niños afromericanos y latinos”, dijo Debra Houston Edwards, de 77 años, quien se graduó de Washington hace más de sesenta años y comenzó a trabajar para el distrito en la década de los ochenta y fue una de las pocas administradoras afroamericanas en aquel entonces. “No hay equidad en lo que está pasando.”

Shepherd y el presidente de la junta escolar, Ralph Brandt, no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentario para esta nota. En un correo electrónico, la persona encargada de comunicaciones del distrito señaló a una página en línea sobre los cierres pero no respondió a preguntas.

La organización sin ánimo de lucro, El Southern Poverty Law Center SPLC (por sus siglas en inglés), presentó una denuncia por incumplimiento a los derechos civiles al departamento de educación, donde alegan que los cierres discriminan a los estudiantes basados en su raza y que el distrito falló en compartir información sobre los cierres con familias que tienen un dominio limitado de inglés. En una segunda denuncia, SPLC alega que los cierres son parte de una tendencia de discriminación racial generalizada, y de otros tipos , contra algunos estudiantes.

El departamento no ha anunciado una investigación a raíz de estas denuncias.

Mientras tanto, a los expertos les preocupa que los distritos escolares en todo el país pronto enfrenten problemas parecidos. A nivel nacional, más de un millón de alumnos no regresaron a escuelas públicas después de la pandemia. Algunos se matricularon en colegios privados, otros comenzaron a recibir educación en su hogar y otros simplemente desaparecieron, dijo Thomas S. Dee, profesor en la escuela de posgrado en educación de la Universidad Standford. Dado la  disminución de tasas de nacimiento, el departamento de educación estima que la inscripción a nivel nacional en escuelas públicas va a bajar un 5% o más para el 2031. Este es un descenso drástico después de décadas en las que la matrícula ha sido creciente.

“Va a haber un ajuste de cuentas para muchos distritos escolares que no han reconocido su nueva realidad”, agrega Dee, quien estudia el éxodo de las escuelas públicas. Él anticipa que muchos distritos se verán obligados a considerar el cierre de escuelas.

Este debate sobre el cierre de escuelas y cómo hacerlo, también es sobre para identificar cuáles cuáles estudiantes tendrán que asumir las cargas. Hasta ahora los estudiantes hispanos y afroamercanos se han visto afectados de forma desproporcionada. Investigadores académicos y defensores les preocupa que la decreciente inscripción en las escuelas públicas, y los cierres que probablemente seguirán, intensifican la desigualdad académica  en la educación pública.

“Los siguientes 10 años van a estar repletos de este tipo de historias”, dijo Douglas N. Harris, presidente del departamento de economía en la Universidad Tulane y director del Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre Acceso y Elección en Educación. Al analizar cierres de escuelas y tendencias de reestructuración en todo el país durante los últimos 30 años, Harris encontró que escuelas con altos porcentajes de estudiantes de color tenian una probablidad mas alta de cerrarr que las que tienen una mayoría de estudiantes blancos.

Harris explicó que esto a veces ocurre por desigualdades históricas, como cuando colegios donde asisten más estudiantes de color reciben menos inversión a largo plazo y terminan con resultados bajos en los exámenes y edificios deteriorados. Eso puede empeorar la baja inscripción, y al considerar el rendimiento escolar y el panorama financiero, puede hacer parecer que cerrar la escuela es una opción sensata.

Pero incluso cuando Harris y sus co-investigadores compararon escuelas con niveles de inscripción y rendimiento parecido, las de mayor cantidad de estudiantes de color y de bajos ingresos seguían siendo las más propensas a cerrar. Investigaciones previamente realizadas por el Centro de Investigación sobre Resultados en la Educación de Stanford revelaron hallazgos similares al observar que de entre las escuelas con bajo rendimiento académico, las que tienen una mayor proporción de estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos tienen mayor probabilidad de cerrar cuando se las compara con las que tienen más alumnos blancos, aunque tengan una clasificación similar.

Para la tía de Malaysia, Cheryl Earl, la decisión de la junta ha sido devastadora. Su hija mayor se mudó a Washington hace dos años y su hija menor comenzó el primer grado en esa escuela el año pasado. Igual que Malaysia, sus niñas prosperaron en la escuela comunitaria de 240 estudiantes.

Antes de transferirse a Washington para el cuarto grado, la niña mayor de Earl, Ce’Vanne Ursin, le había dicho a su mamá que odiaba la escuela. “No podía esperar llegar al doceavo grado para abandonar la escuela”, recordó Earl. Pero Ce’Vanne cambió de opinión en Washington. Para el quinto grado fue seleccionada para el programa de estudiantes dotados y talentosos. Al finalizar el año escolar, fue nombrada maestra de ceremonias para la graduación final, un puesto codiciado entre los estudiantes.

“Antes pensaba que era tonta, pero realmente no lo soy”, dijo Ce’Vanne, de 12 años. “Washington me hizo sentir cómoda. Me hizo sentir que todos en la escuela eran mis amigos y familiares”.

Ce’Vanne dijo sentirse afortunada de formar parte de la última generación que se graduará en Washington. Pero el cierre significa que su hermana de ocho años, Canyon Sunday, no tendrá la misma experiencia. En cambio, el distrito asignó a Canyon a cursos el segundo grado en el  mismo colegio donde Ce’Vanne tuvo malas experiencias, antes de ir a Washington. Su madre dijo que está demasiado cicatrizada  por el tiempo de Ce’Vanne en esa escuela como para enviar a su hermana menor allí, por lo cual decidió inscribir a ambas niñas en una escuela privada católica cercana.

Cuando las escuelas cierran, el efecto dominó dura años, explica Molly F. Gordon, quien fue científica investigadora del Consorcio de Investigación Escolar en la Universidad de Chicago. El rendimiento académico de los estudiantes sufre, algunas familias optan por mudarse a medida que sus vecindarios se vuelven menos deseables, y como consecuencia se borran historias importantes.

Después de que Chicago cerró casi 50 escuelas públicas en el 2013, Gordon y su equipo siguieron los resultados de los estudiantes afectados. Incluso antes de que ocurrieran los cierres, durante el año que se anunciaron, la lectura y matemáticas de los estudiantes afectados sufrieron y los estudiantes quedaron retrasados por meses comparados con los estudiantes de escuelas que permanecieron abiertas.

“Los estudiantes que venían de las escuelas cerradas sentían que habían perdido algo, porque lo perdieron”, dijo Gordon, ahora científica investigadora senior en el Centro Nacional de Investigación de Opinión en la Universidad de Chicago. “Ellos estaban viviendo un duelo”.

Los cierres en Chicago tenían el objetivo de ahorrarle dinero al distrito y cerrar escuelas con bajo rendimiento, donde casi exclusivamente asistían estudiantes hispanos y afromericanos. Los funcionarios prometieron que el cambio resultaría en colocar a esos estudiantes en escuelas con mejor rendimiento académico. Una investigación del periódico The Chicago Sun Times y la estación local de radio WBEZ descubrió que una década después muchos de los beneficios anunciados con el cierre masivo, hasta la fecha, nunca se materializaron.

Los estudiantes de las escuelas cerradas no mostraron mejor rendimiento académico que los alumnos de escuelas parecidas que permanecieron abiertas, y su índice de graduación era ligeramente más bajo que el de estudiantes de las escuelas comparadas, por debajo del promedio del distrito escolar. Y, a pesar de que el cambio recortó costos, los ahorros probablemente fueron mucho menores de lo que originalmente habían calculado los funcionarios. 

La pregunta que permanece es una que le plantean frecuentemente a Marguerite Roza, directora del Edunomics Lab en la Universidad de Georgetown: ¿Con pocos recursos y la disminución cifras de inscripción, que deben hacer los distritos escolares?

Roza enfatiza dos factores esenciales para limitar la interrupción: planear con anticipación y darle prioridad al rendimiento. Esencialmente, al cerrar escuelas se debe beneficiar a todos los estudiantes del distrito; y liberar recursos para usarlos en personal y programas. Pero para asegurarse de eso, los distritos deben prestar atención especial a los estudiantes a los que reubican, cambiándolos a escuelas de mejor rendimiento y siendo transparentes al explicarle a las familias el razonamiento tras el cambio.

Pero en Jefferson Parish, los datos estatales del rendimiento muestran que este no ha sido el caso. Mientras los estudiantes de primaria serán incorporados a escuelas de alta clasificación, los de secundaria enfrentan una realidad distinta. El nuevo plan cerrará las escuelas secundarias que ocupaban el segundo y tercer lugar de rendimiento en el distrito -un paso que “desafía la lógica” dijo Roza. .

Una de esas escuelas es la secundaria Grace King, donde los dos nietos de Lillie Magee, residente por largo tiempo de Jefferson Parish, completaron el décimo y undécimo grado en mayo. La escuela estaba compuesta en su mayoría por estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos, como los nietos de Magee, y todos parecían llevarse bien, dijo ella.

Magee siente que sus nietos, a quienes cuidaba, estaban seguros dentro de las paredes de la escuela. Ella conocía a sus profesores y entrenadores y había asistido a juegos de fútbol americano, llena de pasión y orgullo escolar. Ahora, ella se preocupa de que al reasignar a muchos estudiantes de Grace King a su antigua escuela secundaria rival resulte en violencia y peleas. Sus chicos han perdido la escuela que conocían, y ella ha perdido la comunidad en la que confiaba para mantenerlos a salvo.

“La forma en que nos trataron, fue simplemente muy injusta”, dijo Magee. La escuela a la que asistirá su nieto mayor el próximo año está clasificada como la segunda peor del distrito en términos de rendimiento.

Mientras tanto, en la primaria Washington, los edificios están oscuros y vacíos, el césped exterior está descuidado y lleno de basura. Un mes después del cierre, un incendio arrasó el edificio que albergaba el gimnasio y la cafetería, dejando escombros esparcidos sobre las largas mesas donde los maestros habían organizado un desayuno de graduación semanas antes. Ahora, las ventanas siguen cubiertas con madera y las puertas exteriores están cerradas con llave.

El momento del incendio, que la policía dijo que parecía haberse originado como un incendio eléctrico, dejó a muchos miembros de la comunidad con sospechas. El distrito ahora planea vender el terreno, permitiendo que el futuro comprador restaure o derribe la escuela.

Debra Houston Edwards, la anterior administradora del distrito, espera que al menos los edificios puedan ser salvados, dado su importancia histórica y para que puedan seguir sirviendo como centro para la comunidad.

A principios de la década de 1930, el abuelo de Edwards y otros cinco hombres del condado que vivían en la ribera Este del río Mississippi pidieron a la junta escolar que abriera una escuela secundaria para estudiantes afroamericanos en la zona. Pero la junta les dijo que era su responsabilidad: tendrían que comprar el terreno y cubrir parte de los costos de construcción. En respuesta, la comunidad recaudó fondos de puerta en puerta. En 1936, se convirtió en la primera escuela en la ribera este donde los niños afroamericanos podían recibir una educación superior al octavo grado.

“Nadie más tuvo que hacerlo excepto nosotros”, dijo Edwards, quien ha conservado la historia de la escuela en recortes de periódico antiguos y fotografías que se desvanecen. “Y aquí estamos de nuevo, pasando por el mismo proceso”.

A principios del mes pasado, Edwards y un grupo de miembros de la comunidad ofrecieron comprar la escuela por un dólar, esencialmente solicitando a la junta escolar donara el terreno, un sitio “por el que nuestros antepasados ya han pagado”, escribió el grupo en una carta a Brandt, el presidente de la junta.

Pero el grupo dijo que no ha recibido una respuesta formal. En una declaración a los medios de comunicación locales  Brandt dijo que la junta está “legalmente obligada a buscar el valor justo de mercado” por cualquier propiedad que tenga la intención de vender.

Cuando Malaysia se imagina el nuevo año escolar ella dice que siente esperanza. Varios de sus profesores se van a mudar con ella al nuevo colegio y ella espera que varios de sus compañeros de clase la acompañen en el nuevo edificio desconocido.

Pero para su abuela, Angie Robertson, es un mundo diferente – un vecindario en el cual no viven y una comunidad a la cual no pertenecen.

“Tenía profesores allá,” en Washington, “que era como parte de la familia”, dijo Robertson, quien también va a enseñar en el programa de aprendizaje temprano del Head Strart de la escuela. “Para mí, yo siento que ese era el hogar fuera del hogar de los niños”.

Ahora, ese hogar ha desaparecido.

Este artículo acerca del cierre de escuelas en Louisiana fue producido por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente sin fines de lucro enfocada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Lea sus otros artículos en español.

The post Se acerca un precipicio de cierres de escuelas. Los estudiantes hispanos y afroamericanos son los más propensos a sufrir las consecuencias. appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

In the heart of the Deep South, Mississippi has wrestled with enduring educational disparities, a profoundly rooted challenge passed down through generations.

The pandemic exacerbated preexisting funding inequities for high-need, under-resourced school districts, a longstanding challenge for the Magnolia State. Evidence of this persistent struggle is the distressing fact that 32 school districts remain under federal desegregation orders.

To delve deeper into how chronically under-resourced schools fared during the pandemic, the Mississippi Center for Justice (MCJ) spent over a year conducting parent focus groups and examining educational testing data in 12 predominantly Black and economically disadvantaged communities in the rural Delta, the northwestern section of the state, one of the poorest regions in the U.S.

Sadly, what we discovered was not surprising. Mississippi’s past, marked by a legacy of racial segregation and educational inequality, continues to cast a long shadow on its present and future.

Our extensive work at MCJ culminated in a report that showcased an unsettling reality: Affordability and availability are formidable barriers to internet access, while reading and math proficiency rates are significantly below the state averages in grades 3-8. In addition, special education programs and staff remain woefully under-resourced, while access to mental health professionals and support is often limited or, in some cases, entirely nonexistent. Past excuses by the state to avoid addressing these disparities are no longer acceptable.

It is past time for lawmakers to make education in Mississippi a priority for all students.

These issues, among others, further widen the chasm between the haves and have-nots in Mississippi and are creating a new generation of students failed by the system. The evidence of this gap is glaring according to the School Finance Indicators Database.

Spending in Mississippi’s highest-poverty districts is 55 percent below the estimated “adequate” level and 18 percent below adequate in the state’s wealthiest districts, according to the Database.

A significant challenge for Delta communities is the ever-growing digital divide. During the pandemic, students in better-resourced school districts had greater access to high-speed internet connections for a relatively seamless transition to remote learning, while students throughout the Delta struggled with internet accessibility, which contributed to significant learning loss.

While most students across the state received devices for virtual learning, many couldn’t use them due to poor, limited or no internet access. Our report found that this left them at a severe disadvantage.

Related: Homework in a McDonald’s parking lot: Inside one mother’s fight to help her kids get an education during coronavirus

Mississippi has one of the largest populations of K-12 students who lack broadband access; its sparsely populated rural communities are often redlined by internet service providers, leaving them grossly unserved or underserved. But it’s not just a Mississippi trend. According to a national study of the Black Rural South, nearly three-quarters, or 72.6 percent, of households in the Black Rural South do not have broadband of at least 25 Mbps — the minimum standard for broadband internet.

Compounding these challenges is the stark lack of access to mental health care, a formidable barrier for Mississippi students. According to our report, while parents described the immense toll the pandemic had on their family’s mental health, few of them sought help or had access to mental health professionals. Over 70 percent of children in Mississippi with major depression disorder do not receive treatment, surpassing the national average of 60 percent.

Unfortunately, the pandemic exacerbated this issue, with many students grappling with losing loved ones, economic instability and the social isolation imposed by remote learning. The student-to-counselor ratio in Mississippi is 398 to 1, almost 60 percent higher than the American School Counselor Association recommendation of 250 to 1, according to an analysis done by Charlie Health.

Our report also found that students with disabilities were acutely affected during the pandemic. Although Covid guidelines mandated compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, many districts consistently failed to support students and their parents.

Mississippi now confronts a moral imperative to fortify its historically underserved school districts, especially those most severely impacted by the pandemic. With a $3.9 billion surplus of state revenue in 2023, legislators finally have the means to fully fund the Mississippi Adequate Education Program (MAEP) for the first time since 2008. Yet they have chosen not to do so during a time when schools need investment and support the most.

Related: OPINION: Lessons from Mississippi: Is there really a miracle here we can all learn from?

It is past time for lawmakers to make education in Mississippi a priority for all students, especially those in historically under-resourced districts. The state must begin investing in education to overcome historical inequities and post-pandemic challenges. This is the only viable path toward dismantling the systemic barriers that have perpetuated disparities for far too long.

Until then, Mississippi’s commitment to the well-being and success of all its residents, regardless of their ZIP code, will remain in question.

The time for unwavering action is now.

Kim L. Wiley is a former educator who serves as the Education Analyst & Project Coordinator for the Mississippi Center for Justice, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm committed to advancing racial and economic justice.

This story about Mississippi education inequality was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

The post OPINION: Historically underserved school districts in Mississippi were hit hard in the pandemic and need immediate help   appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

In the last few years, the American education system has been bludgeoned by changes that have upended decades of progress toward better academic, economic and social outcomes for all.

Politicians around the country have been aiming to demolish progressive policies by targeting teaching about race and ethnicity, the LGBTQIA+ community and women’s reproductive rights. Calls for book banning and censorship have become common. These dangerous culture wars will wreak havoc on education and education policy for years to come.

As a teacher and school-based leader, I always understood the necessity of advocating for students and helping them navigate life, and I tried to help other teachers change the trajectory of many lives.

I taught my students to respect the power of civic engagement and social activism. Recent politics has made it hard to extend that work. The rollout of Florida’s House Bill 1557, popularly known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, was the start of a radical transformation that threatens to undo decades of social change. Other states, including Indiana, Alabama, Ohio and Tennessee have followed Florida’s lead with legislation that is discriminatory against the LGBTQIA+ community. It must be resisted.

Teaching is inherently activist.

Politicians are also attacking the Black population. When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis challenged the College Board’s AP African American Studies course, he inspired others to follow suit with flagrant concessions to institutional racism. Calls to be “anti-woke” and “anti-indoctrination” have become increasingly popular battle cries. Earlier, the complete misrepresentation and misunderstanding of critical race theory signaled a disregard for the Black community and contempt for the importance of students learning about all people and cultures. Since then, states such as Arkansas and Texas have also opposed the true teaching of the history of Black people in this country by dropping African American history courses and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The states’ actions provide a smoke screen for efforts to limit discussion of race and racism and disenfranchise the Black community.

As teachers worry about losing their jobs for violating the often-vague language of these new laws, school boards have succumbed to the demands of the few over the best interests of the majority. Who suffers the most? The students.

Related: Teachers, deputized to fight the culture wars, are often reluctant to serve

There is a critical need to prepare teachers to be intentional voices calling out the oppression that continues to plague our education system. We must do this through teaching, learning and advocacy — as well as social activism and civic engagement.

I have trained in, taught and led educator preparation programs. In past years, these programs met societal and student needs through instruction on culturally responsive teaching, trauma-informed education, conscious leadership and many other progressive approaches. Our goals were not far-fetched or new.

Teacher preparation programs have traditionally served as catalysts for shaping the future of the American education system and the ways in which we collectively work as a society to improve outcomes for all students. Teaching is inherently activist. Colleges, schools of education and alternative teacher preparation programs prepare people to engage in activism through teaching and learning. This is not what some politicians would call “indoctrination”; instead, these efforts embrace the potential for educators to be true change agents and justice warriors.

Related: OPINION: You can’t teach psychology without covering gender and sexuality, and you can’t teach history without covering racism

Today, during this 21st century version of the civil rights struggle, it is more important than ever to remember the lessons of the past and the role of educator preparation in training teachers and other education professionals to confront lies, dismantle oppressive systems and be advocates for students’ causes.

We must be deliberate in the ways in which we prepare teachers to serve the community. So many rights and freedoms are currently under attack in this country. That makes it even more important to fight for justice within the American K-12 educational system and ensure that our students learn the truth. This is dire.

Eugene Pringle Jr. is a senior professorial lecturer at the American University School of Education.

This story about teacher activism was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

The post OPINION: Educators must be on the frontline of social activism appeared first on The Hechinger Report.