Journal of Educational Controversy Blog: 2021

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

A Compilation of Legislative and Administrative Actions Regarding Critical Race Theory

As we prepare for our upcoming issue on the theme, “Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment,” we came across a helpful compilation of legislative and administrative actions regarding Critical Race Theory by state legislatures, state boards of education, and local school boards, as well as some federal-level actions being considered by the 117 U.S. Congress. The compilation was summarized in the Appendix to the article, “Why are statesbanning critical race theory?”, by Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons. We wish to thank the Brookings Institution for permission to reprint the Appendix for our readers.

Appendix: Legislative and administrative actions regarding CRT

From “Why are states banning critical race theory?”

By Rashawn Ray and Alexandra Gibbons

Brookings Institution

Last updated: November 21, 2021

Successful bans by legislatures

Arizona

House Bill 2898, which was signed by Gov. Doug Ducey on 6/30/21, prohibited the use of “public monies for instruction that presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race, ethnicity or sex” in K-12 public/charter schools and establishes fines for violations. However, on 11/2/21 the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a trial court ruling that HB2898 violates the state constitution by including multiple subjects in a single bill, and it was invalidated. See the Arizona Board of Education guidance here.

Idaho

House Bill 377, which was signed by Gov. Brad Little on 4/28/21, bans teaching specified concepts about race and gender in public schools, public charter schools, and public institutions of higher education.

Iowa

House File 802, which was signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds on 6/8/21, bans incorporating specified concepts regarding race and sex into mandatory trainings for government agencies, teachers, and higher education students. Specified concepts must also not be included in curriculum in public K-12 schools.

New Hampshire

Anti-CRT section was incorporated into House Bill 2, the state budget trailer, and signed by Gov. Chris Sununu on 6/25/21. This bill prohibits teaching specified concepts in public schools and in governmental agency trainings.

North Dakota

House Bill 1508, which was signed by Gov. Doug Burgum on 11/15/21, prohibits K-12 public schools from instruction related to critical race theory, which is defined in the bill as the “that racism is systemically embedded in American society and the American legal system to facilitate racial inequality.”

Oklahoma

House Bill 1775, which was signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt on 5/7/21, prohibits public institutions of higher education from requiring students to participate in mandatory gender/sexuality diversity training, and bans teaching specified concepts about race and sex in public schools. The Oklahoma Department of Education elaborated here about how the law will operate, including reporting violations.

South Carolina

Anti-CRT section incorporated into the education section of H. 4100, the state budget bill, which was passed on 6/30/21. This bill prohibits schools receiving state funding from teaching specified concepts regarding race and sex.

Tennessee

House Bill 580, which was signed by Governor Lee on 5/25/21, bans public school districts and public charter schools from teaching certain concepts about race, sex, and the United States, withholds state funding for violations. The Tennessee State Department of Education details these rules and the complaint system here.

Texas

House Bill 3979 (signed into law on 6/15/21) was replaced with stricter legislation, Senate Bill 3 (signed into law on 9/17/21). SB3 makes significant changes to required civics education curriculum, establishes a new civics training program for teachers, requires that both sides of current controversial issues are presented, prohibits teaching certain concepts regarding race and sex and giving academic credit for advocacy work.

State legislatures that have/are considering a ban or that have pre-filed bills for next session

Alabama

Two bills have been pre=filed for the next legislative session:

· HB8 would limit the concepts about race and sex that public schools and universities can teach

· HB11 would require public schools and universities to terminate employees that teach certain concepts about race and sex

Alaska

· Rep. Thomas McKay (R) pre-filed a bill that would ban teaching certain concepts about race and sex and ban the 1619 Project

Arkansas

· Senate Bill 627 passed. It limits how most state agencies can train employees about “divisive concepts”

· Bills limiting how racism is taught in schools (HB1218) and banning the 1619 project in schools (HB1231) have failed thus far

Florida

Although the BOE already passed new rules regarding teaching about race and gender, additional legislation (HB57) has been pre-filed that would dictate how concepts related to race and gender are taught at K-12 public schools, public universities, state colleges, state agencies, local governments, and private businesses with state/local government contracts

Kentucky

Two bills have been pre-filed for the next legislative session:

· BR 60 would ban certain concepts from being taught in public K-12 schools and establish financial penalties for disobeying. It also bans mandatory diversity training at public universities.

· BR 69 would ban concepts from being taught both in public K-12 schools and in public universities; institutions that disobey would be legally liable.

Louisiana

House Bill 564 would ban “divisive concepts” from being taught in public schools and public postsecondary institutions, but it has been deferred for now

Maine

HP 395 would ban certain subjects/concepts regarding race and gender from being taught in public schools

Michigan

· Senate Bill 460 would ban (and withhold 5% of state funding to districts who do not cooperate) the teaching of the 1619 Project and specified concepts regarding race and gender in K-12 public and charter schools

· House Bill 5097, which passed the House in November 2021, would ban specified concepts regarding race and gender from being included in the core curriculum standards set by the State Board of Education and local school districts

Mississippi

· House Resolution 62 and Senate Resolution 56 condemn critical race theory but do not address schools specifically

· In the FY23 Executive Budget Recommendation, Governor Reeves urges legislators to pass an anti-CRT bill and proposes a “$3 million investment in a Patriotic Education Fund”

Missouri

House Bill 952 would ban certain concepts from being taught in state agencies, school districts, public postsecondary institutions, and state-funded charter schools, including specified curriculum (1619 Project, Learning for Justice Curriculum by SPLC, We Stories, programs by Educational Equity Consultants, BLM at School, Teaching for Change, Zinn Education Project). State funding would be withheld from entities who violate these rules.

New Jersey

S-4166 would prohibit specified concepts from being taught in public schools, mandate teachers to present “materials supporting both sides of a controversial issue [an issue that is part of an electoral party platform]”and require the State Board of Education to introduce rules prohibiting political advocacy in the classroom

New York

A8253 would ban Regents and school districts in New York from establishing curriculum that teaches specified concepts related to race and from teaching the 1619 Project

North Carolina

House Bill 324 would ban certain concepts from being taught in public schools and charter schools; it passed the state House and Senate but was vetoed in September by Gov. Cooper

Ohio

· House Bill 322 states that teachers who discuss current events must introduce multiple perspectives, bans extra credit for political advocacy work, bans private funding for curriculum deemed unacceptable by bill, bans state agencies and school districts from teaching certain concepts

· House Bill 327 would ban school districts and state agencies from teaching various “divisive concepts,” would withhold state funding to districts that disobeyed

Pennsylvania

House Bill 1532 would ban public postsecondary institutions, state and local governments, and school districts from teaching certain concepts, a violation would result in a loss of state funding

Rhode Island

H 6070 would prohibit teaching of “divisive concepts” in schools, state and municipal contracts and training programs

West Virginia

· House Bill 2595 would ban state employees or contractors, as well as schools, from teaching “divisive concepts” and would withhold state funding for violations

· Senate Bill 618 would ban the State Board of Education from implementing curriculum that promotes “divisive concepts” and “critical race theory” and allows for the firing of teachers who teach certain concepts related to race and gender

Wisconsin

· Senate Bill 411 would prohibit certain concepts from being taught in public schools and charter schools, with violations resulting in a loss of 10% of state funding. Also requires curricula used to be posted online.

· Senate Bill 410 would restrict the types of racism/sexism training that state agencies can conduct

· Senate Bill 409 would ban certain concepts from being taught in University of Wisconsin System and the Technical College System and restricts permissible employee training, with violations resulting in funding cuts

Wyoming

State Senators plan to introduce the “Civics Transparency Act” would require school districts to post learning materials and activities used in the preceding year

Federal-level action being considered

· The “Saving History Act of 2021” would withhold federal funding, with some exceptions, from schools that teach the 1619 Project.

· The “Ending Critical Race Theory in D.C. Public Schools Act,” introduced by a representative from Wisconsin, would ban certain concepts from being taught in D.C. public and charter schools.

· The “Stop CRT Act” would withhold federal funding from schools and universities that promote “race-based theories.”

· The Senate passed an amendment to the budget resolution with Manchin’s support blocking federal funding from being used to teach CRT in pre-K and K-12 schools.

· The “PEACE Act” would prohibit federal American History and civics education programming funds from being used to teach “divisive concepts.”

· The “Protecting Students from Racial Hostility Act” would amend Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make the teaching of “divisive concepts” discriminatory, establishes a system for reporting related complaints.

Actions taken by state boards of education

Alabama

Alabama’s State Board of Education passed this resolution in August 2021, and voted to permanently incorporate it into the BOE administrative code in October 2021

Florida

Rule amendment here

Georgia

Resolution here

Utah

New rules here, prompted by resolutions passed by the Utah Legislature instructing the board to address CRT in new rules

Actions taken by other state actors

Montana

State Attorney General ruled that teaching CRT is discriminatory and unlawful, schools or public workplaces that offer CRT training could lose state funding or be liable to lawsuits

South Dakota

· The state Appropriations Committee sent a letter to the state Department of Education encouraging them to reject federal grants for teaching history and civics, noting that they expect to address CRT next legislative session

· Gov Noem signed “1776 Pledge”

Actions taken by local school boards

Cobb County, Georgia

Cobb County “will not implement Critical Race Theory, also called CRT, in our schools – not under that name nor any other name; nor will we be using the 1619 Project in our schools – not under that name nor under any other name.”

Cherokee County, Georgia

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by vote of the members of the Cherokee County Board of Education at a duly called meeting held on May 20, 2021, the Cherokee County School Board and Cherokee County School District in pursuit of the aforementioned goals and objectives will NOT implement “Critical Race Theory,” also called CRT, in our schools – not under that name nor by any other name, nor will we be using The 1619 Project in our schools – not under that name nor by any other name.”

Brunswick County, North Carolina

“This policy shall ensure that social theories of any kind (i.e. Holocaust Denial Theory, 9/11 Theory, Critical Race Theory) are not presented to students unless approved by the Brunswick County Board of Education. It is the responsibility of the Board to ensure that curricular standards are taught using well documented, factual resources and not opinion or conjecture.”

Gallatin County, Kentucky

Superintendent stated that the board believes “no individual is ‘inherently racist, sexist or oppressive’ due to their race or sex, ‘whether consciously or unconsciously.’ Agenda item VI.I. from the June 15 BOE meeting “Discussion/Action to Ban Critical Race Theory in Gallatin County School District” was a statement to affirm the belief and commitment to ensure every child’s needs will be met. Furthermore, the effort was to not create greater divisions among students and staff through the promotion of CRT.”

Chesterfield County, Virginia

School board chairman said that “critical race theory is not supported by members of the board. In Chesterfield, our goal is unity, not division.”

Sullivan County, Tennessee

High school teacher Matthew Hawn was recently fired for assigning “The First White President” by Ta-Nehisi Coates and for showing a video of a spoken word poem called “White Privilege” by Kyla Lacey in his Contemporary Issues class.

Paso Robles Joint Unified School District, California

Resolution passed by the school board explicitly denounces CRT and bans certain concepts from being taught, such as that “racism is racial prejudice plus power,” that individuals are “either a member of the oppressor class or the oppressed class because of race or sex,” and that the concept of meritocracy was created as a tool of oppression.

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

New Call for Reviewers

The Journal of Educational Controversy is expanding its pool of reviewers. If you are interested in being considered as a reviewer, e-mail us a letter of interest with a list of areas of expertise and interest along with a vita.

E-mail us at: CEP-ejournal@wwu.edu

Please put "potential reviewer" in the subject area.

Tuesday, October 5, 2021

The Journal of Educational Controversy Announces a New Call for Papers: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

The Journal of Educational Controversy announces a new call for papers for Volume 15.

Theme: Teaching for Social Justice in a Highly Politicized Historical Moment

Controversy Addressed:

As the nation begins to reckon with its racial past, it is now experiencing a backlash by some states implementing laws and policies that will target how civics education, controversial topics, and divisive issues will be discussed from kindergarten through higher education. From restrictions on the teaching of academic theories that analyze systemic racism to limiting other race-related discussions in the classroom, actions by these states pose not only a challenge and a danger to traditional academic freedom but also to the very definition of the role of education in a democratic society.

This issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy asks authors to contribute their thoughts on issues such as:

1. How should racism be appropriately addressed at different age levels and the college classroom? What social, historical, political, and cultural understandings should be brought to bear on the conversation? How do we defend the educational significance for the choices we make? How do we act in proactive ways to engage in such work so that we are not forced to be reactive?

2. How are we to understand the political nature of the attacks against theories like Critical Race Theory and other current political actions by states to restrict and censor discussions on race in order for us to counter them more effectively? What political dynamics and historical precedents are at play? Can incidents from the past illuminate a response today?

3. How should university professors prepare the next generation of teachers in confronting these issues?

4. What would it look like if a college of education took on the work of dismantling structural racism?

Deadline for manuscripts: February 15, 2022

Journal of Educational Controversy Website: https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/

For questions, contact Lorraine.Kasprisin@wwu.edu

Tuesday, September 7, 2021

Message from Editorial Board Member on New Book about South Asian Americans

JEC editorial board member, Paul Englesberg, has announced a new book that we think our readers will find helpful in expanding the cultural understanding of their high school and college students on South Asian Americans. Paul points out that the book covers both individual stories and a wide range of topics that includes civil rights, immigration, religion, identity, labor, family, and popular culture. He writes that it is quite up-to-date and also includes a brief inset about Pramila Jayapal. Here is Paul’s description of the book that he hopes will “ensure a future where young South Asian Americans see themselves reflected in the American story.”

Book Announcement

I am writing to you about something very important to me personally. I am helping to share the word about Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America, a new book for high school and college-aged readers. South Asian Americans have been a presence in the United States for more than 130 years, and the community today includes more than 5.4 million individuals. Yet South Asian American stories are still not taught in classrooms, found in textbooks, or reflected in popular media. I am joining SAADA in working to change that, and today I am asking you for your help. Please get a copy of Our Stories for yourself, share with your loved ones, and purchase a copy for your local schools and libraries.

With stories spanning from the 1780s to the present day and bringing together the voices of sixty-four authors, this book demonstrates the diversity, vibrancy, and power of the South Asian American community. Our Stories is a nearly 500-page testament to our community's belonging.

I contributed a short chapter about the Bellingham riot of 1907 with some individuals highlighted. As part of my contribution we included the story of Nabhi Ram Joshi, who studied at the State Normal School, (Western Washington University’s predecessor) and A.K. Mozumdar, the first international student at the Normal School and one of the first South Asians to gain US citizenship, only to have it revoked following the 1923 Thind Supreme Court decision.

--Paul Englesberg

Get your copy today: https://www.saada.org/ourstories

Friday, August 6, 2021

Congressman John Lewis’ Last Email to Citizens with His List of Resources for Students, Teachers and Parents

Congressman John Lewis used to send out emails informing citizens of the latest updates from Congress. I just came across the final email he sent out on July 11, 2020 just before his death on July 17th from my inbox’s archive. In his email, Congressman Lewis didn’t forget the next generation in its search for understanding and included a list of resources for students, parents and teachers. I thought I would make his list available for our readers. Congressman Lewis’s fight for voting rights continues with the next generation.

Library of Congress and Additional Learning Resources

The Library of Congress (LOC) is offering a variety of online resources for learning and entertainment of people of all ages and backgrounds. You may access these resources here:

· LOC Engage

· LOC Resources for Families

· LOC Resources for Teachers

· Read.gov

· LOC Crowds

· Labs LOC

· LOC Digital Collection

· LOC Veterans History Project

· LOC Exhibits

In addition to the resources provided by the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian is also offering online courses on a variety of subjects. Finally, the National Archives also offer e-books and other informative material for your consumption.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Are the “Right to … Anti-Vaccinators” Aligning Themselves with the Right to Choose Abortions Movement and the Right to Die with Dignity Movement

Categories are strange things. They tell us what is included and what is excluded. They allow certain kinds of questions and render other kinds invisible. They organize our thought and blind it at the same time. Here is a thought experiment. Those who refuse to be vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus in the United States have many different motives and maybe even different reasons if they explored their motives. One group seems to be politically motivated and likes to adopt the language of rights---one has a right to make a decision about getting a vaccination or not for oneself. We see such “rights” language used in other contexts. It sounds familiarly like those who argue for the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. Perhaps, politically motivated anti-vaccinators are aligning themselves with that movement. Or it also sounds like those who argue for the right to die with dignity, a movement for the right of the terminally ill to decide when the end of life should come. Could they be seeing their life and death decision in comparable terms. I suspect that the anti-vaccinators do not necessarily align with either of these two movements. And they might even start to offer reasons why they do not both fall in the same category. Maybe, they would even think about what they are actually arguing for. I only bring this up to raise the question about the ways our minds get locked into the categories we impose and ways to shake our minds to begin to look beneath and around our automatic responses. What might be the implications for the teaching of our youth?

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Breaking the Silence: A U.S. President Acknowledges the Greenwood Race Massacre on this Day of Remembrance

One hundred years after the Greenwood Race Massacre in Tulsa, an event buried in history and schoolbooks, President Biden gave an impassioned and graphic speech acknowledging the event. Below is the proclamation issued from the White House.

A Proclamation on Day Of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

MAY 31, 2021 • PRESIDENTIAL ACTIONS

One hundred years ago, a violent white supremacist mob raided, firebombed, and destroyed approximately 35 square blocks of the thriving Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Families and children were murdered in cold blood. Homes, businesses, and churches were burned. In all, as many as 300 Black Americans were killed, and nearly 10,000 were left destitute and homeless. Today, on this solemn centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, I call on the American people to reflect on the deep roots of racial terror in our Nation and recommit to the work of rooting out systemic racism across our country.

Before the Tulsa Race Massacre, Greenwood was a thriving Black community that had grown into a proud economic and cultural hub. At its center was Greenwood Avenue, commonly known as Black Wall Street. Many of Greenwood’s 10,000 residents were Black sharecroppers who fled racial violence after the Civil War.

In the decades following the Civil War and Reconstruction, Greenwood became a place where Black Americans were able to make a new start and secure economic progress despite the continued pain of institutional and overt racism. The community was home to a growing number of prominent Black entrepreneurs as well as working-class Black families who shared a commitment to social activism and economic opportunity. As Greenwood grew, Greenwood Avenue teemed with successful Black-owned businesses, including restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and offices for doctors, lawyers, and dentists. The community also maintained its own school system, post office, a savings and loan institution, hospital, and bus and taxi service.

Despite rising Jim Crow systems and the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan, Greenwood’s economic prosperity grew, as did its citizens’ demands for equal rights. This made the community a source of pride for many Black Americans. It also made the neighborhood and its families a target of white supremacists. In 2 days, a violent mob tore down the hard-fought success of Black Wall Street that had taken more than a decade to build.

In the years that followed, the destruction caused by the mob was followed by laws and policies that made recovery nearly impossible. In the aftermath of the attack, local ordinances were passed requiring new construction standards that were prohibitively expensive, meaning many Black families could not rebuild. Later, Greenwood was redlined by mortgage companies and deemed “hazardous” by the Federal Government so that Black homeowners could not access home loans or credit on equal terms. And in later decades, Federal investment, including Federal highway construction, tore down and cut off parts of the community. The attack on Black families and Black wealth in Greenwood persisted across generations.

The Federal Government must reckon with and acknowledge the role that it has played in stripping wealth and opportunity from Black communities. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to acknowledging the role Federal policy played in Greenwood and other Black communities and addressing longstanding racial inequities through historic investments in the economic security of children and families, programs to provide capital for small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, including minority-owned businesses, and ensuring that infrastructure projects increase opportunity, advance racial equity and environmental justice, and promote affordable access.

A century later, the fear and pain from the devastation of Greenwood is still felt. As Viola Fletcher, a 107-year-old survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre courageously testified before the Congress recently, “I will never forget the violence of the white mob when we left our home. I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire. I still see Black businesses being burned. I still hear airplanes flying overhead. I hear the screams. I have lived through the massacre every day. Our country may forget this history, but I cannot.”

With this proclamation, I commit to the survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, including Viola Fletcher, Hughes Van Ellis, and Lessie Benningfield Randle, the descendants of victims, and to this Nation that we will never forget. We honor the legacy of the Greenwood community, and of Black Wall Street, by reaffirming our commitment to advance racial justice through the whole of our government, and working to root out systemic racism from our laws, our policies, and our hearts.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 31, 2021, a Day of Remembrance: 100 Years After The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. I call upon the people of the United States to commemorate the tremendous loss of life and security that occurred over those 2 days in 1921, to celebrate the bravery and resilience of those who survived and sought to rebuild their lives again, and commit together to eradicate systemic racism and help to rebuild communities and lives that have been destroyed by it.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

1921 Survivors of the Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre Testify Before Today’s Congressional Hearing

Survivors of the 1921 Tulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre, including 107-year-old Viola Fletcher, 100-year-old Hughes Van Ellis and 106-year-old Lessie Benningfield Randle, testified before a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties today. Their painful testimony of the atrocities committed at that time and its erasure from historical memory brought to light the importance of our current issue on the “Ethics of Memory.”

Here is a link to a video of the testimony given at the congressional committee hearing: Continuing Injustice: The Centennial of theTulsa-Greenwood Race Massacre

Monday, May 17, 2021

House panel advances bill HR 40 to form a reparations commission

As we continue to publish articles for our most recent issue of the Journal of Educational Controversy on “The Ethics of Memory: What Does it Mean to Apologize for Historical Wrongs,” we wanted to alert our readers to another attempt by the Congress to advance a bill to form a reparations commission to study the lingering effects of slavery and the social and economic injustices that followed. The bill that was voted on by the House Judiciary Committee also proposes a national apology for the harm that was done. Readers will remember our earlier posts where we reported on earlier attempts to pass such a bill. We will continue to follow this more recent attempt in later posts.

See “In a historic vote, a House panel advances a bill to form a reparations commission” in the New York Times, April 14, 2021.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

From Facing History and Ourselves: Helping students reflect on the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s trial

Here are some lessons from Facing History and Ourselves to help your students address today’s event:

The jury in the Derek Chauvin trial has returned a verdict; the former police officer was found guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd. Floyd’s murder and Chauvin’s trial amplified the demands for justice in response to racial bias in policing, the disproportionate use of excessive force against Black Americans, and more broadly, the history of racial injustice in the United States.

Our new Teaching Idea, Accountability, Justice, and Healing After Derek Chauvin's Trial is designed to help educators guide an initial class discussion on the verdict. The activities prompt students to process the news of the verdict and then explore the complicated concepts of justice, accountability, and healing.

Facing History and Ourselves also invites you to a timely conversation Wednesday evening between Roger Brooks, President and CEO of Facing History, and Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr., the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Princeton University. This, our final event in the FacingHistory Now: Conversations on Equity and Justice series, will be an exploration of the crucial work of becoming a multiracial democracy. I look forward to hearing these two scholars engage in a dialogue at this pivotal moment in our nation's history. I hope you will join us.

Friday, April 2, 2021

In the News: A ‘HISTORY OF EXCLUSION, OF ERASURE, OF INVISIBILITY.’ WHY THE ASIAN-AMERICAN STORY IS MISSING FROM MANY U.S. CLASSROOMS

To continue our conversation started in our earlier blog post below, we are providing references to articles that appear in the News. Here is a link to an article that just appeared in Time Magazine:

A ‘HISTORY OF EXCLUSION, OF ERASURE, OF INVISIBILITY.’ WHY THE ASIAN-AMERICAN STORY IS MISSING FROM MANY U.S. CLASSROOMS

Friday, March 19, 2021

In Light of Recent anti-Asian Violence and Hate, has our Educational System Failed Us? What does this Moment Demand of Us?

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have long played an important role in the social fabric of our society. But they have also witnessed a long history of violence, discrimination, and bigotry as well. This journal decries the increasing anti-Asian violence directed against our fellow Americans and joins others who call for our educational system to step up and face our history in all its complexity and to reflect on how knowledge can affect our beliefs and actions.

These concerns were also reflected recently on the Facing History and Ourselves website, a website that this journal has often shared on our site. Facing History and Ourselves “uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate” and came to recognize their lack of a deep understanding of the experiences of the Asian American population in their curriculum. Writing about recent events, they call for a shared rethinking. They write:

And yet, our education system — and our own curriculum at Facing History and Ourselves — does not do enough to address both recent and historic violence directed against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In truth, we do not fully know and have failed to face the complexities of the histories of API peoples, their countries of origin, the richness of all they have contributed to the fabric of North America and the United Kingdom. This omission from our learning and teaching contributes daily to the erasure and oppression of our API neighbors, colleagues, friends, and students. This is a moment of reckoning where we are being called to account. All of us within education must work together to place focus on the proud history and traditions of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, and to understand how that history is entwined with the histories of other communities too often held on the margins of our society.

To begin this task in deepening our understanding, we are reprinting an article below by Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, entitled, “United States Immigration Laws and the Exclusion of Asian Pacific Islanders.” Readers may also be interested in reading one of the articles published in the current issue of our journal entitled, “How Historical Context Matters for Fourth andFifth Generation Japanese Americans,” by L. Erika Saito.

United States Immigration Laws & the Exclusion of Asian Pacific Islanders

By Warren J. Blumenfeld

Since the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic and former President Trump’s insistence on calling it the so-called “China virus,” anti-Asian Pacific Island hate crimes in the U.S. have spiked sharply. Within the past year, approximately 3800 crimes have been reported, with the majority perpetrated against Asian Pacific Island women.

Though investigators have not released the motive of the Georgia man who went on a murder spree killing eight women, six of whom were Asian, these incidents bring to the public’s attention in stark detail the fear felt within the Asian Pacific Island community over the past year.

It also calls on us to reflect on how the United States has not held out its collective hand of welcome to members of Asian Pacific Island communities.

Immigration as Official U.S. “Racial” Policy

Beginning the first day Europeans stepped foot on what has come to be known as “the Americas” up until this very day, decisions over who can enter the United States and who can eventually gain citizenship status has generally depended on issues of “race.” U.S. immigration systems have reflected and have served as this country’s official ‘racial’ policies at any given point in time.

Europeans on the North and South American continents established their domination based on a program of exploitation, violence, kidnapping, and genocide against native populations.

For example, the ‘Puritans’ left England to the Americas to practice a ‘purer’ form of Protestant Christianity. They believed they were divinely chosen to form ‘a biblical commonwealth’ with no separation between religion and government. They tolerated no other faiths or interpretations of divine precepts. In fact, they murdered and expelled Quakers, Catholics, and others.

The “American” colonies followed European perceptions of “race.” A 1705 Virginia statute, the “Act Concerning Servants and Slaves,” read:

[N]o negroes, mulattos or Indians, Jew, Moor, Mahometan [Muslims], or other infidel, or such as are declared slaves by this act, shall, notwithstanding, purchase any christian (sic) white servant.

In 1790, the newly constituted United States Congress passed the Naturalization Act, which excluded all nonwhites from citizenship, including Asians, enslaved Africans, and Native Americans, the later whom they defined in oxymoronic terms as “domestic foreigners,” even though they had inhabited this land for thousands of years.

The Congress did not grant Native Americans rights of citizenship until 1924 with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, though Asians continued to be denied naturalized citizenship status.

Central to the European-American conquest of territory was the concept of “Manifest Destiny”: Providence destined U.S. expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific (“from sea to shining sea”) by the so-called “Anglo-Saxon race.” This justified in the mind of the European the theft of Indigenous people’s territories and a war with Mexico.

In reaction to increasing numbers of European immigrants into the country in the 1850s, a movement calling itself “The American Party” (also known as “The Know-Nothings”) formed to “purify” the country by limiting or ending Irish Catholic immigrants and others, and also ending the naturalization of those already here.

The American Party established itself as a “Nativist” anti-Irish Catholic movement by instigating fear among the larger population that the U.S. will soon be dominated by Irish and German Catholics unless their immigration was ended.

The movement perpetuated the illusion that the Pope had been plotting to control and dominate the U.S. While a small movement in relative numbers, its primary supporters were European-heritage Protestant men.

In 1875, Congress passed the Page Law, which specifically reduced immigration of women from Asia.

The editor of a newspaper in Butte, Montana wrote: “The Chinaman’s life is not our life, his religion is not our religion.” He belongs not in Butte?

The U.S. Congress passed the first law specifically restricting or excluding immigrants based on “race” and nationality in 1882. In their attempts to eliminate entry of Chinese and other Asian workers who often competed for jobs with U.S. citizens, especially in the western United States, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act to restrict their entry into the U.S. for a 10-year period, while denying citizenship to Chinese people already on these shores.

The Act also made it illegal for Chinese people to marry white or black U.S.-Americans. In addition, the 1882 act excluded categories deemed “undesirable.” It prohibited entry of “any convict, lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.”

The so-called “Gentleman’s Agreement” between the U.S. and the Emperor of Japan of 1907 was signed to reduce tensions between the two countries. It was passed expressly to decrease immigration of Japanese workers into the U.S.

The Immigration Act of 1917 further prohibited immigration from Asian countries, in the terms of the law, the “barred zone,” including parts of China, India, Siam, Burma, Asiatic Russia, the Polynesian Islands, and parts of Afghanistan.

Between 1880 and 1920, in the range of 30-40 million immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe migrated to the United States, more than doubling the population.

Fearing a continued influx of immigrants, legislators in the United States Congress in 1924 enacted the Johnson-Reed [anti-] Immigration Act (“Origins Quota Act,” or “National Origins Act”) setting restrictive quotas of immigrants from Asia, and Eastern and Southern Europe, including those of the so-called “Hebrew race” (the law placed restrictive quotes on Jews, Poles, Italians, Greeks, and Slaves (the acronym J-PIGS). The law, however, increased immigration from Great Britain and Germany.

Jews continued to be, even in the United States during the 1920s, constructed as nonwhite. The law, on the other hand, permitted large allotments of immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. This law, in addition to previous statutes (1882 against the Chinese, 1907 against the Japanese) halted further immigration from Asia and excluded blacks of African descent from entering the United States.

It is interesting to note that during this time, Jewish ethno-racial assignment was constructed as “Asian.” According to historian Sander Gilman: “Jews were called Asiatic and Mongoloid, as well as primitive, tribal, Oriental.” Immigration laws were changed in 1924 in response to the influx of these undesirable “Asiatic elements.”

The National Origins Act of 1924 established quota percentages based on the census population in 1890. The number of immigrants to be admitted annually was limited to 2% of the foreign-born individuals of each nationality living in the U.S. in 1890.

This severely restricted immigration rights almost exclusively to northwestern Europeans to “protect our values [as] a Western Christian civilization.” It functioned to prevent Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and other non-Protestant groups from immigrating to the United States.

In the Supreme Court case, Takao Ozawa v. United States, a Japanese man, Takao Ozawa filed for citizenship under the Naturalization Act of 1906, which allowed white persons and persons of African descent or African nativity to achieve naturalization status.

Asians, however, were classified as an “unassimilateable race” and, therefore, not entitled to U.S. citizenship. Ozawa attempted to have Japanese people classified as “white” since he claimed he had the requisite white skin. The Supreme Court, in 1922, however, denied his claim and, therefore, his U.S. citizenship.

Following U.S. entry into World War II, at the end of 1942 and reflecting the tenuous status of Japanese Americans, some born in the United States, military officials uprooted and transported approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans to Internment (Concentration) Camps within several interior states far from the shores.

In Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), the landmark United States Supreme Court decision ruled 6-3 constitutional, Executive Order 9066 “as a matter of military urgency,” ordering Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II “regardless” of citizenship.

Not until Ronald Reagan’s administration did the U.S. officially apologize to Japanese Americans and paid reparations amounting to $20,000 to each survivor as part of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act.

Though the Magnuson Act of 1943 gave Chinese immigrants a path toward citizenship and the right to vote, until 1952, federal policy disqualified immigrants from most other Asian countries citizenship status and voting rights.

Finally, in 1952, the McCarran-Walters Act (Sen. Pat McCarran and Rep. Francis Walters) overturned the “racially” discriminatory quotas of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. It passed despite President Truman’s veto.

Framed as an amendment to the McCarran-Walters Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 removed “natural origins” as the basis of U.S. immigration legislation.

The 1965 law increased immigration from Asian and Latin American countries and religious backgrounds, permitted 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere (20,000 per each country), 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere, and accepted a total of 300,000 visas for entry into the country.

Ruthless Americanization

Immigrants who enter the United States are pressured to assimilate into a monocultural Anglo-centric culture (thinly disguised as “the melting pot”), and to give up their native cultural identities. Referring to the newcomers at the beginning of the 20th century CE, one New York City teacher remarked: “[They] must be made to realize that in forsaking the land of their birth, they were also forsaking the customs and traditions of that land.”

An “Americanist” (assimilationist) movement was in full force with the concept of the so-called “melting pot” in which everyone was expected to conform to an Anglo-centric cultural standard with an obliteration of other cultural identities. President Theodore Roosevelt (1907) was an outspoken proponent of this concept:

If the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself (sic) to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else....But this [equality] is predicated on the man’s (sic) becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American....There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American but something else also, isn’t an American at all....We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we want to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house.

Many members of immigrant groups oppose assimilation and embrace the concept of “pluralism’: the philosophy whereby one adheres to a prevailing monocultural norm in public while recognizing, retaining, and celebrating one’s distinctive and unique cultural traditions and practices in the private realm.

The Jewish immigrant and sociologist of Polish and Latvian heritage, Horace Kallen (1915), coined the term “cultural pluralism” to challenge the image of the so-called “melting pot,” which he considered inherently undemocratic.

Kallen envisioned a United States in the image of a great symphony orchestra, not sounding in unison (the “melting pot”), but rather, one in which all the disparate cultures play in harmony and retain their unique and distinctive tones and timbres.

Social theorist Gunnar Myrdal traveled throughout the United States during the late 1940s examining U.S. society following World War II, and he discovered a grave contradiction or inconsistency, which he termed “an American dilemma.”

He found a country founded on an overriding commitment to democracy, liberty, freedom, human dignity, and egalitarian values, coexisting alongside deep-seated patterns of racial discrimination, privileging white people, while subordinating peoples of color.

The human rights organization, Amnesty International, states that “Racial profiling occurs when race is used by law enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations.”

Racial profiling constitutes a form of discrimination, based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and other identities, which, Amnesty International declares “undermines the basic human rights and freedoms to which every person is entitled.”

If we learn anything from our immigration legislative history, we can view the current debates as providing a great opportunity to pass comprehensive federal reform based not on “race,” nationality, ethnicity, religion, or other social identity categories, but rather, on humane principles of fairness, compassion, and equity.

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld is author of The What, The So What, and The Now What of Social Justice Education (Peter Lang Publishers), Warren’s Words: Smart Commentary on Social Justice (Purple Press); editor of Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price (Beacon Press), co-author with Diane Raymond of Looking at Gay and Lesbian Life (Beacon Press), and co-editor of Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (Routledge) and Investigating Christian Privilege and Religious Oppression in the United States (Sense).

Dr. Warren Blumenfeld: Permission granted to forward, post, or publish this commentary

*I acknowledge that my home & university stand on stolen Nonotuck land & other Indigenous nations: Nipmuc, Wampanoag, Mohegan, Pequot, Mohican, **Abenaki.

Monday, February 1, 2021

A Resource from the Journal of Educational Controversy for Black History Month

For educators looking for resources for Black History Month, I’d like to call your attention to a special issue that was published in Volume 12 of the Journal of Educational Controversy. The theme of the issue was: “Black Lives Matter and the Education Industrial Complex.”

A list of the articles is below: