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msclaritea · 4 years ago

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“There have been prosecutors that refused to seat Black jurors, refused to prosecute lynching, disproportionately condemned young Black men to death row and looked the other way in the face of police brutality,” Politico reported.

“It matters who is in those rooms. I knew I had to be in those rooms. We have to be in those rooms even when there aren’t many like us there.” Kamala Harris makes history

What Kamala Harris Did In Those Rooms: Or 50 Criminal Justice Reforms & Accomplishments (link includes corresponding articles)

1. Deputy DA- Kamala Harris Opposed Prop 21 (passed with 62%) which increased criminal penalties for crimes committed by youth and incorporated many youth offenders into the adult criminal justice system.

2. Deputy DA- Kamala Harris co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids, to provide legal and health services to sexually exploited children, including teenage “prostitutes”

3. As member of the board of trustees of SF MOMA, Kamala Harris created the 1st of its kind in the US “Matches” program, which pairs at-risk youth with mentors to expose them to art and broaden their horizons.

4.DA- Kamala Harris created Back on Track program to help drug offenders re-enter society. Provided vocational training, counseling, parenting services, etc. Substantially reduced recidivism for participants

5.DA- Kamala Harris refused to seek the death penalty even when pressured by members of her own party due to racial disparities in how it is applied 6.DA- Created LGBT Hate Crime Unit

7.DA- Kamala Harris worked to get the first safe house in San Francisco for girls who wanted out of the sex trade 8.DA- Changed underage women/men from being treated as prostitutes to being treated as victims

9.DA/AG- Kamala Harris helped found the Center for Youth Wellness which works to improve the health of children exposed to childhood trauma

10.AG- Kamala Harris created the Bureau of Children’s Justice (BCJ) to streamline enforcement of laws that uphold children’s rights & pursue policies that improve the lives of children Unroll available on Thread Reader

11.AG- BCJ partnered w/USC to link data from the DOJ & Social Services’ case mgmt systems to enable researchers for the 1st time to better determine the overlap b/w CA’s child welfare &juvenile justice populations

12.AG- Kamala Harris’ BCJ worked to diagnose challenges in California’s juvenile justice data systems, in partnership with the Governance Lab at New York University

13.AG- BCJ worked to deliver previously unavailable juvenile justice data (from the Juvenile Court Probation Statistical Sys) to researchers at the Public Policy Institute of CA, Harvard U of Chicago,& UC Berkeley 14.AG-BCJ collaborate with the Judicial Council to develop dashboards for judges to make better decisions about adjudicated juveniles. 15.AG-Awarded Second Chance Grant to expand Back on Track to LA as AG

16.AG- As Attorney General CREATED the Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-Entry (DR3) to reduce the number of repeat offenders

17.AG- DR3 partnered on the Court of College (C2C). The program is designed to divert young offenders from future criminal behavior through cognitive behavioral intervention & exposure to higher education

18.AG- Kamala Harris’ DR3 partnered on the Career Pathways program. It’s an out-of-custody, recidivism-reduction program that provides resources to a probation-supervised population.

19.AG- Kamala Harris’ CA DOJ was accepted into the natl Defending Childhood State Policy Initiative; a cross-sector team of state leaders to develop shared priorities to prevent/address children’s exposure to violence.

20.AG- Created the Truancy Intervention Panel to implement best practices for truancy prevention.

21.AG- BCJ in partnership w/the Ad Council & CA Endowment, conducted a study/designed a public education toolkit to help educators/community leaders communicate w/parents on the importance of kids being in school

22.AG- Created SmartJustice, a new database and analytical tool to track repeat offenders and offense trends to provide counties with more effective options in developing anti-recidivism initiatives.

23.AG- Kamala Harris issued guidance to CA law enforcement agencies outlining new responsibilities to track/report citizen complaints against peace officers, including complaints alleging racial/identity profiling

24.AG- Supported AB71 (which became law) requiring all CA law enforcement agencies to collect data on shootings & use of force by a civilian/police against the other that result in serious bodily injury or death.

25.AG- Created the first Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (“POST”) certified law enforcement training on both procedural justice and implicit bias, the first of its kind in the country.

26.AG- Instituted a body camera policy for all DOJ special agent personnel conducting field operations.

27.AG- Convened community members, incl. roundtables w/HS students from South/East LA. The topics were experiences with police and ideas on how to improve the relationship between youth & law enforcement.

28.AG-Created the 21st Century Policing Working Group to foster discussion regarding implicit bias and building community trust.

29.AG- Kamala Harris created OpenJustice, a 1st of-its-kind criminal justice open data initiative providing unprecedented data. Provides key criminal justice indicators and transparency Unroll available on Thread Reader

30.AG- Kamala Harris opened a civil pattern or practice investigations into the Kern County Sheriff’s Office 31.AG-Kamala Harris opened a civil pattern or practice investigations into Bakersfield Police Department

32.AG-Kamala Harris Created the Racial Profiling Advisory Board Unroll available on Thread Reader

33.AG- Kamala Harris issued guidance outlining the law enforcement agencies responsibilities to assist immigrant crime victims in applying for U-visas.

34.AG- Kamala Harris enlisted major law firms to provide pro-bono legal services to for unaccompanied children entering the US. She supported legislation to provide $3M to qualified CA nonprofits to provide legal aid.

35.AG-Kamala Harris sponsored Bill that allows human trafficking victims to petition court to set aside a conviction of solicitation/prostitution.

36.AG- Kamala Harris eliminated longstanding rape kit backlog of over 1,300 untested kits and significantly reduced processing times. Received the US DOJ’s Award for Professional Innovation in Victim Services

37.AG- Kamala Harris sponsored AB1644 to establish 4yr pilot to assist elementary schools in providing mental health services to students, prioritizing schools in communities with high levels of childhood trauma/ adversity

50 Times #Kamala Accomplished/Advocated for #CriminalJusticeReform 38.AG- #KamalaHarris supported Senate Bill 1143 to significantly limit the practice of isolating juveniles in room confinement. The bill was signed into law and took effect in 2018.

39.AG- Kamala Harris supported AB 1840 to require that state agencies give preference to homeless youth and formerly incarcerated youth when hiring interns and student assistants

40.AG- Kamala Harris supported AB2390 to provide a legislative fix to 2010 legislation that inadvertently removed a mechanism for juvenile offenders with good records on supervised probation to obtain honorable discharge status

41.AG- Kamala Harris supported AB1843 to ensure that juvenile records are protected from unfair and undue inquiry during employer background checks.

42.SEN- Kamala Harris reintroduced (along with colleagues) the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. Creates a National Criminal Justice Commission to review & propose reforms to address the most pressing issues facing the Criminal Justice system.

43.SEN- Kamala Harris sponsored bill that would legalize marijuana; expunge prior convictions, require re-sentencing hearings for those still under supervision;& invest money in communities adversely impacted by the War on Drugs

44.SEN- Kamala Harris sponsored the Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act of 2017 — to encourage states to reform or replace the practice of money bail.

45.SEN- Kamala Harris sponsored legislation to increase funding for public defenders, reduce their workload, and provide pay parity between prosecutors and public defenders

46.SEN- Kamala Harris introduced legislation to limit the use of solitary confinement. Also pressed Bureau of Prisons to take measures to address the significant increase in the use of restricted housing.

47.SEN- Kamala Harris sponsored legislation to end discrimination in public housing for offenders released from prison

48.SEN- Kamala Harris sponsored legislation to reform the treatment of incarcerated women in order to reduce the negative impact incarceration has on the family of women behind bars, especially their children

49.SEN-Kamala Harris sponsored legislation to establish the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men & Boys. The Commission will investigate/provide recommendations to improve the disparities Black men experience.

50.SEN- Kamala Harris worked with civil rights groups (like the NAACP LDF) to strengthen the First Step.

MY QUESTION TO HER CRITICS: CAN YOU DO BETTER?

#Kamala Harris #Accomplishments #Those Rooms=The Lion's Den #LGBTQ Rights #Black Lives Matter #California #Georgia #nevada #Arizona #Black Men #Black Women #Recidivism #Civil Rights #Financial Rights

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pornnutchajivasakapimaspreaw · 5 years ago

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Credit-By-Examination Tests Can Help You Finish College Faster

Written by Porrnutcha Jivasakapimas Published Jul 7, 2020 10:02 pm

Many people may be concerned about how I can finish my bachelor’s degree faster for many reasons — “I’m a reapplying student.”, I’d like to lighten my family’s load earlier.”, “I’d like to share my family’s work sooner.”, etc.—. But only taking the exceeding maximum of credits per semester/trimester might not be the right solution since you’ll have to work double hard and have decent time management to stuff many subjects in your class schedule. Here is another alternative that will help you gain credits for certain college subjects without needing to study such subjects for the whole semester/trimester. We Will Explore College Equivalency Exam ~ ~ ~

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Advanced Placement examinations (AP exams)

(Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, 2019)

Advanced Placement examinations (AP exams) are exams created by College Board, the same organization that produces SAT which is international university entrance exam. Betting all MUIC students who did not take direct exam must have taken SAT, so you guys might know about College Board. However, not many people know about AP exams since they do not arrange the tests frequently as SAT (7 times for U.S. and 4 times for international). AP exams only available annually which is around May. It can substitute many subjects we’re studying in college and is acceptable broadly (Even our university, MUIC, has accepted AP exam as well). AP exams often comes the format of multiple choices mostly with some short/long answers, depending on subjects. I recommend you take AP were you an MUIC student since MUIC receives AP and IB exams as a credit transfer, which can help accelerating your graduation.

Here is the full list of AP tests available. Take a look and if see if any subjects here match with subjects in you major, and considering taking it. You can register for AP as same as when you register for SAT. There are 38 exams in total:

AP Research

AP Seminar

Art History

Biology

Calculus AB

Calculus BC

Chemistry

Chinese Language and Culture

Computer Science A

Computer Science Principles

English Language and Composition

English Literature and Composition

Environmental Science

European History

French Language and Culture

German Language and Culture

Government and Politics (Comparative)

Government and Politics (US)

Human Geography

Italian Language and Culture

Japanese Language and Culture

Latin

Macroeconomics

Microeconomics

Music Theory

Physics 1: Algebra-Based

Physics 2: Algebra-Based

Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism

Physics C: Mechanics

Psychology

Spanish Language and Culture

Spanish Literature and Culture

Statistics

Studio Art Drawing

Studio Art 2-D Design

Studio Art 3-D Design

US History

World History (Modern)

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College Level Examination Program (CLEP)

(Action Economics, 2014)

CLEP stands for College Level Examination Program. It’s more like GED tests, the testes where you take only 4 subjects, if passed, then you’d get a high school diplomat without having to go to the school for 3 year, doing any projects, or take midterms&finals. Sound convenient right? But CLEP isn’t exactly the same with GED. You cannot escape four years in a college even though you took CLEP. However, you can take some subjects that you hate (to go to the college to study it), and if you passed the CLEP exam of that subject you hate, that’s all. You don’t need to register to study such subject for the whole trimester. You can just transfer you score result and get the credits for that subject. No need to register for the course or enter any classes. This type of exams has both merit and pitfall when compared to its alternative, AP exams.

CLEP is better than AP that it is available year round. Just like GED, the exam is computer-based. So, you can appoint the test date in advanced and walk in to take the exams any day, anytime within the office hour that you’ve appointed. Since it’s internet-based exam, the score is calculated and reported immediately right after you finished. Nonetheless, CLEP isn’t as popular and broadly accepted as AP exams, and it’s testing centers are available only in foreign countries. Were you to take it, the nearest test center is at Dalat International School, Malasia. Apart from Webster University Thailand - Bangkok, I’ve never seen any other university in Thailand receives CLEP before, but talking about abroad universities, 2,900 colleges already granted/received CLEP.

Here are the sets of CLEP exams available via computer-based platform. It is arranged by 5 subject branches which are further divided into sub-subjects

Composition and Literature

These exams cover topics related to American and British literature and composition.

American Literature

Analyzing and Interpreting Literature

College Composition

College Composition Modular

English Literature

Humanities

World Languages

These exams assess comprehension of French, German, and Spanish.

Read more about Business

Financial Accounting

Information Systems

Introductory Business Law

Principles of Management

Principles of Marketing

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DANTES Subject Standardized Tests (DSST)

(DSST Credit by Exam Program, 2014)

DSST (formerly DANTES Subject Standardized Tests) are credit-by-examination tests originated by the United States Department of Defense's Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) program. The program is an extensive series of 33 examinations in college subject areas that are comparable to the final or end-of-course examinations in undergraduate college courses. These tests are frequently used in conjunction with CLEP (College Level Examination Program) tests by students pursuing college degrees in non-traditional formats. Whereas CLEP tests are almost exclusively used for lower level credit at regionally accredited institutions, DSST's are available for both upper and lower level credit.

Prometric administers Internet-based versions of DSSTs under contract with the Defense Department (for military personnel) or on a fee basis (for civilians).

Business

Business Ethics and Society Business Mathematics Human Resource Management Introduction to Business Management Information Systems Organizational Behavior Money and Banking Personal Finance Principles of Finance Principles of Supervision

Humanities

Ethics in America Introduction to World Religions Principles of Public Speaking Principles of Advanced English Composition Math

Fundamentals of College Algebra Principles of Statistics Math for Liberal Arts Physical Science

Astronomy Environmental Science Health and Development Principles of Physical Science I Introduction to Geology Social Sciences

A History of the Vietnam War Art of the Western World Criminal Justice Foundations of Education Fundamentals of Counseling General Anthropology Introduction to Geography (formerly Human/Cultural Geography) Introduction to Law Enforcement Lifespan Developmental Psychology History of the Soviet Union (formerly Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union) Substance Abuse The Civil War and Reconstruction

Technology

Fundamentals of Cybersecurity Technical Writing Ethics in Technology

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Excelsior College Examinations (ECE)

(UExcel, 2013)

Excelsior College Examinations (or ECE) are a series of eight, three-credit nursing theory tests offered by Excelsior College in Albany, New York. The exams are supported by corresponding online courses. Excelsior also offers the Clinical Performance in Nursing Exam, a two-day practical skills exam, as a capstone to the associate degree in nursing.

Excelsior also offers over 50 UExcel exams in liberal arts, business, education, and science. Many colleges and universities will grant college credit for each test, although UExcel credit is not as widely accepted as CLEP and DSST.

The exam administration period is typically 3 hours and the tests currently cost between $110 and $335. Each exam usually corresponds to a one or two semester introductory or secondary course on the topic, and many exams provide upper-division credit. Most ECE exams are considered equivalent to 3 credits in the semester system.

ECE exams are offered through Excelsior College and are administered at Pearson VUE test centers.

International Students: UExcel exams are administered at select international Pearson VUE Test Centers.

Abnormal Psychology

Adult Nursing

Anatomy & Physiology

Anatomy and Physiology I

Anatomy and Physiology II

Basic Genetics

Bioethics: Philosophical Issues

Business Ethics

Business Information Systems

Business Law

Calculus

College Writing

Contemporary Mathematics

Cultural Diversity

Earth Science

English Composition

Ethics: Theory & Practice

Financial Accounting

Foundations of Gerontology

Fundamentals of Nursing

General Chemistry I

Human Resource Management

Interpersonal Communication

Introduction to Computer Programming Using Java

Introduction to Macroeconomics

Introduction to Microeconomics

Introduction to Music

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Psychology

Introduction to Sociology

Juvenile Delinquency

Labor Relations

Life Span Developmental Psychology

Literacy Instruction in the Elementary School

Managerial Accounting

Maternal and Child Nursing (Baccalaureate) *

Microbiology

Operations Management

Organizational Behavior

Pathophysiology

Physics

Political Science

Precalculus Algebra

Principles of Finance

Principles of Management

Principles of Marketing

Psychiatric / Mental Health Nursing *

Psychology of Adulthood & Aging

Quantitative Analysis

Research Methods in Psychology

Science of Nutrition

Social Psychology

Spanish Language

Statistics

Weather and Climate

Workplace Communication With Computers

World Conflicts Since 1900

World Population

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References

Advanced Placement exams. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Placement_exams

Choose Your Exam. (n.d.). Excelsior College. Retrieved from

https://www.excelsior.edu/exams/choose-your-exam/

CLEP Exams. (n.d.). College Board. Retrieved from

https://clep.collegeboard.org/exams

College Level Examination Program. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Level_Examination_Program

DSST (standardized test). (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSST_(standardized_test)

Edwards, H. (2020, Mar 21). Complete List of AP Courses and Tests.

PrepScholar. Retrieved from https://blog.prepscholar.com/list-of-ap-exams

Excelsior College Examinations. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excelsior_College_Examinations

[Image of AP exmas logo]. (2019, November 1)

https://ghs.gcisd.net/news/what_s_new/a_p_testing

[Image of CLEP logo]. (2014, June 26)

https://actionecon.com/use-clep-exams-save-10000-college-costs/

[Image of DSST logo]. (2014, February 19)

https://www.facebook.com/DSSTgetcollegecredit/photos/a.429281599830/10152188095469831/?type=1&theater

[Image of Uexcel logo]. (2013, June 29)

https://www.facebook.com/UExcel/photos/a.430030276477/10151462609561478/?type=1&theater

Images - Writing and Citing: APA 7th Edition. (2020, Jul 10). LibGuides.

Retrieved from https://libguides.scf.edu/c.php?g=847004&p=6077102

Schinder, S. (n.d.). DSST Exam List. Study.com. Retrieved from

https://study.com/academy/popular/dsst-exam-list.html

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rapeculturerealities · 7 years ago

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Since the launch of the National Bail Out campaign last Mother’s Day, the process for freeing trans and gender nonconforming (TGNC) Black individuals awaiting trial has been a continued challenge. U.S. jails generally place people according to their sex assigned at birth and don’t collect data on gender identity, making incarcerated TGNC people difficult to locate. Nevertheless, organizers remain steadfast in their resolve to bail out these “pillars of our communities” and reunite them with their loved ones, organizer Micky Bradford told Rewire.News.

“We are really intentional about naming this as ‘Black Mama’s [Bail Out],’ and really intentional about Black mamas including transgender parents and caregivers who are nonbinary or gender nonconforming,” said Bradford, a regional organizer with TLC@SONG, a collaboration between Southerners on New Ground (SONG) and the Transgender Law Center (TLC).

The effort to raise awareness and free TGNC people from jail is imperative because, as Bradford explained, “We often just hear about trans people dying—from police brutality, street harassment, or intimate partners—but we rarely hear about how bail affects trans folks and tears chosen families apart.”

On any given day, around 450,000 people languish in jails across the country simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. When judges assign bail to defendants awaiting trial, they force individuals who have not yet been tried or convicted of any crime to remain behind bars solely due to poverty. Like every facet of the U.S. criminal justice system, cash bail disproportionately subjugates Black people. Judges are more likely to charge Black defendants bail and to assign them higher bail amounts for the same charges compared to white defendants.

Because there are no official incarceration records on gender identity, there is a data vacuum regarding how TGNC people are affected by mass incarceration and cash bail. But the information that advocacy groups have gathered demonstrates the hyper surveillance and criminalization of Black trans people across the country.

The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, which disaggregated data by race, found that nearly half of Black trans people have experienced incarceration. Sixty-one percent of Black respondents reported mistreatment in interactions with the police. One of the most prevalent ways trans people are over-policed is through the criminalization of sex work, for which Black trans women are disproportionately targeted by police. Trans people are also targeted through selectively enforced laws criminalizing HIV, which trans people, particularly women of color, are more likely to contract than the general U.S. population. Bathroom discrimination bills not only criminalize TGNC people for using the restroom of their choice, but also normalize the policing of individuals based on nonbinary gender presentation.

Black trans people are also unlikely to be able to afford bail. Due to transphobia in education and employment, 38 percent of Black trans people live in poverty, compared to 12 percent of the general population and 24 percent of Black people. Forty-two percent of Black trans people have experienced homelessness, and 28 percent have had to work in the underground (illicit) economy to survive. Because nearly half of Black trans people have experienced family rejection, they may also be less likely to have a support network that can afford to bail them out. When they are incarcerated, trans people face staggering rates of sexual and physical assault, harassment, and lack of critical health-care services.

Being held on bail also wreaks havoc in individuals’ lives and tears families apart—whether they are biological or chosen. It can lead to losing a job, apartment, or income needed to put food on the table.

Despite their commitment to centering those most harshly impacted by incarceration, organizers have faced significant logistical challenges with locating TGNC individuals to bail out. Last Mother’s Day, SONG was only able to bail out three TGNC people; an additional two were denied bail.

U.S. jails imprison individuals according to a binary definition of gender, and usually place people according to their genitals or sex assigned at birth. On top of this, jails often isolate trans people in solitary confinement or mental health wards, making it much more difficult for organizations offering support services to reach them.

“There is no system for tracking if someone is transgender, and jails are not culturally competent,” said Flor Bermudez, legal director at the TLC. “There is no way to find transgender people in jail unless they self-identify to their friends and family, their friends and family know that they are there, and they tell an organizer that the person is inside. It is extremely difficult to find them because all of the data that’s trackable public information will have their sex assigned at birth and no gender identity.”

Community networks and safe spaces for queer and trans people have been key to finding more trans mamas to bail out. This year, SONG created a hotline that individuals in or outside of jail in Atlanta can call to inform them about someone who needs to be bailed out. TLC is also partnering with SONG to provide legal consultation and technical assistance to organizers conducting bailouts across the South.

“Last year’s bailout really taught us so much,” said Mary Hooks, co-executive director of SONG, which has been a leader in the bailout campaign. “One thing we saw that was most effective in trying to identify trans and gender nonconforming people was community building and outreach. Some of our people are hitting the streets where we know are safe spaces for TGNC people so folks know what we’re doing. If they know somebody that gets picked up during this time, or if they know someone who’s currently in there, they have our hotline.”

SONG hopes that the organizing strategies it is developing in partnership with TLC will provide guidance to other organizations in the bailout coalition that are also facing difficulties finding TGNC folks to bail out. Over the past year, racial justice organizations across the country have bailed out around 200 people, with donations totaling nearly $1 million from more than 14,000 individuals. Last Mother’s Day alone, the National Bail Out campaign paid bail for more than 100 Black mamas and shined a spotlight on theinjustices of the cash bail system.

Just this week, in a landmark victory for the bail out movement, Google banned bail bond advertisements from its platforms on May 7, following advocacy from the Essie Justice Group, Civil Rights Corps, Color of Change, Upturn, and the Vera Institute of Justice.

The bailout campaign forms part of the Movement for Black Lives’ broader agenda to combat the criminalization of Black trans and queer people. SONG is also developing more Black LGBTQ organizers, who can play a leadership role in advocating for the rights of those in their communities. TLC brings class action lawsuits across the country in order to change laws that discriminate against TGNC people. In a landmark victory in 2015, TLC represented Shiloh Quine in a case that forced California to offer gender-affirming health care, including surgery, to incarcerated individuals, and to allow trans prisoners access to clothing and commissary items consistent with their gender identity.

Other groups around the country have also been offering support to trans women taken into custody. The Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) has pioneered a model for aiding trans women during and after incarceration. The organization goes into Bay Area jails and prisons weekly to conduct political education and monitor the well-being of trans prisoners. It also has a re-entry program offering employment opportunities to trans individuals coming out of jails and prisons to work at their organization. “Hopefully one day we’ll have an organization full of formerly incarcerated trans women on this side of the fence,” said Janetta Johnson, executive director of TGIJP, which has also been offering support to bailouts in the Bay Area.

The efforts to include trans caregivers in the Black Mamas Bail Out reflect a commitment to center those most marginalized by the United States’ oppressive societal structures within the movement for Black liberation. “We actually cannot separate our race, our gender, or our class. We can’t separate those into bite-sized issues that we then rally around,” said Bradford, who identifies as a Black transfemme. “The systems that are oppressing trans people are the systems that are oppressing immigrants, are the systems that are oppressing Black folks, are the systems that are oppressing poor and working folks. It goes on and on. These are intersectional issues and so we have to treat them that way.”

#trans #transgender #Black women #National Bail Out #Black Mamas Bail Out #carcerality #bail #prison #civil rights

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96thdayofrage · 4 years ago

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What slavery reparations from the federal government could look like

May 12, 2021, 5:00 AM CDT / Updated May 13, 2021, 2:10 PM CDT

By P.R. Lockhart

After decades of work from activists pushing the issue, presidential candidates, Congress members, local governments and private institutions have debated whether and how the federal government should issue reparations for Black Americans who are descendants of slaves.

As the Biden administration promises to confront structural racism and inequality, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers have given their support to H.R. 40, a decades-old bill first introduced by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., in 1989. The bill would create a commission to study slavery and discrimination in the United States and potential reparations proposals for restitution.

In April, H.R. 40 moved out of committee for the first time, potentially setting up a floor vote on the legislation.

Meanwhile, the ongoing reckoning with racial injustice and the health disparities exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic have called further attention to the ways Black people have faced generations of systemic discrimination.

But with an issue so large and complex, proponents suggest a range of ways the U.S. could engage in reparations while opponents say the time for redress for slavery and the discrimination that followed has passed.

Demands for reparations have endured for more than a century

Calls for reparations for enslaved men and women — and later, their descendants — have been made in various forms since the end of the Civil War. But these demands have never been met by the federal government.

In 1865, Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman ordered that land confiscated from Confederate landowners be divided up into 40-acre portions and distributed to newly emancipated Black families. Following President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, however, the order granting “40 acres and a mule” was swiftly rescinded by new President Andrew Johnson. The majority of the land was returned to white landowners.

After the Civil War, formerly enslaved men and women also argued that their unpaid labor while in bondage entitled them to pensions. Their demands received resistance from the federal government, which accused prominent pension supporters of fraud and ignored pension bills brought up in Congress.

But as the federal government denied land and resources to formerly enslaved people, it created new pathways for land ownership for white Americans. For instance, the federal government passed the Homestead Act in 1862, granting 160-acre plots to applicants.

“Black families received no assets from the federal government while large numbers of white families received substantial assets as a starting point for building wealth in the United States” under the act, said William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University. Darity recently co-authored a book on reparations with folklorist Kirsten Mullen titled “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century.”

Darity added that calls for reparations are a “specific claim that is connected to the failure to provide the ancestors of today's living descendants who were deprived of the 40-acre land grants that they were promised.”

After the war and during the Reconstruction era, Black Southerners made political, social and economic progress, but these gains were quickly overturned. Discrimination was further entrenched through laws regulating every facet of Black life, including housing restrictions, legal segregation and racially motivated terrorism and lynchings.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Black Americans also continued to be denied opportunities to build wealth under federal programs that benefited white families and communities.

Under the GI Bill, for example, “mortgage and school tuition benefits extended to black soldiers were devalued due to state endorsed and enforced segregation,” law professor Adrienne Davis argued in a pro-reparations human rights brief published in 2000.

"There were far fewer places they could attend school or purchase housing," Davis wrote. "The schools they were able to attend and houses they were able to buy were less valuable because they were black institutions and neighborhoods, respectively, in an economy that valued whiteness."

Excluding domestic and farm workers from Social Security legislation effectively shut out 60 percent of Black people “across the U.S. and 75 percent in southern states who worked in these occupations,” according to policy think tank the Brookings Institution.

Experts argue that such omissions from federal policy have not been fully corrected and have been magnified by widening health, education, employment and housing disparities, as well as a lack of access to capital.

Collectively, these historical and current disadvantages have led reparations proponents to argue that while slavery is where denials of wealth and equal rights began, the cumulative effects of both slavery and systematic federal denials of opportunity that followed continue to impact the descendants of enslaved people in the present.

Experts disagree on what reparations should look like

In recent years, reparations have often been discussed alongside the racial wealth gap, or the difference between wealth held by white Americans compared to that of other races.

Research has found that the gap between white and Black Americans has not narrowed in recent decades. White households hold roughly 10 times more wealth than Black ones, similar to the gap in 1968. While Black Americans account for roughly 13 percent of the American population, they hold about 4 percent of America’s wealth. Experts note the gap is not due to a lack of education or effort but rather is due to a lack of capital and resources that have left Black individuals more vulnerable to economic shocks and made it difficult for Black families to build inheritable wealth over generations.

Darity and Mullen say closing this wealth gap should be a fundamental goal of a reparations program and should guide how such a program is structured. In their book, Darity and Mullen call for a system of reparations that primarily consists of direct financial payments made by the federal government to eligible Black Americans who had at least one ancestor enslaved in the United States.

Proposals for reparations programs have also been raised by reparations advocacy groups in recent decades. The National African American Reparations Commission, for example, has a 10-point reparations plan that includes calls for a national apology for slavery and subsequent discrimination; a repatriation program that would allow interested people to receive assistance when exercising their “right to return” to an African nation of their choice; affordable housing and education programs; and the preservation of Black monuments and sacred sites, with the proposals benefiting any person of African descent living in the US.

Other proposals, like one proposed by Andre Perry and Rashawn Ray for the Brookings Institution, would also specifically provide restitution to descendants with at least one ancestor enslaved in the U.S., coupling direct financial payment with plans for free college tuition, student loan forgiveness, grants for down payments and housing revitalization and grants for Black-owned businesses.

“Making the American Dream an equitable reality demands the same U.S. government that denied wealth to Blacks restore that deferred wealth through reparations to their descendants,” they wrote last year.

The variety of proposals show that even among supporters of reparations, there is some disagreement about what a full program should look like and what exactly should be described as “true reparations.”

“I think we would be doing ourselves a huge disservice if we were just talking about financial compensation alone,” said Dreisen Heath, a racial justice researcher with Human Rights Watch.

While Heath said she did support and see the value in direct financial payments, she added that money alone “is not going to fix if you were wrongly convicted in a racist legal system. That’s not going to fix your access to preventative health care. All of these other harms are connected to the racial wealth gap but are not exclusively defined by or can be relieved by financial compensation.”

Some local governments — most notably Evanston, Illinois, and Asheville, North Carolina — are also attempting to issue reparations for historical discrimination Black residents of these areas faced. These attempts have been praised by some proponents, who say the wide-ranging harms of slavery and subsequent discrimination requires a multipronged solution.

The intersection of Valley St and Eagle St. in Asheville, N.C. in 1968. City officials voted last year to issue a formal apology for slavery and give a commission discretion over how to provide new investments in black businesses and homeownership. Andrea Clark / North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, N.C.

“Reparations efforts at multiple levels are necessary because the harms were on multiple levels — the institutional, at the state level and at the federal level,” Heath said. “Specific harms were committed and need to be remedied in a very specific way. There’s no blanket reparations program for a specific community.”

Still, critics of such programs, like Darity and Mullen, say municipal efforts are not significant enough in scale because of sheer municipal budget restrictions. They also say localized programs simply miss the point.

“We are seeing racial equity initiatives that are being touted as reparations programs,” Mullen said. “For us, a reparations program must center on eliminating the racial wealth gap, and putting people on committees and panels is not going to do that.”

H.R. 40 has also sparked debate among reparations proponents

Discussion of how to best conceptualize reparations has spilled over into debates over H.R. 40, which languished in a House subcommittee for more than three decades before being voted out of committee this year. While supporters of the legislation argue it is the best vehicle for better understanding the need for and possible avenues of providing reparations, Darity and Mullen say in its current form, the measure could ultimately do more harm than good.

“One of the problems with H.R. 40 is that it is not at all clear that it provides us with a direction towards eliminating the racial wealth gap,” Darity said. He added that the bill’s impacts are limited because it creates a commission rather than directly approving a reparations program.

Supporters of the bill, including members of pro-reparations advocacy groups like the National African American Reparations Commission and the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America counter that the bill would do more than simply study the evidence supporting reparations and is a crucial step toward providing reparative justice.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, the bill's main sponsor, and other congressional Democratic leaders have said they hope to move forward with a House floor vote on the bill this summer.

Still, reaction to the legislation not only reveals fundamental differences between reparations proponents but also shows there continues to be a vocal contingent of reparations critics who argue that a federal effort to provide redress for the harms of slavery and the decades of discrimination that followed is unnecessary. Critics say slavery happened too long ago and thus the harms are too old to be repaired. Others say the mere idea of reparations frames Black Americans as helpless.

“Reparation is divisive. It speaks to the fact that we are a hapless, hopeless race that never did anything but wait for white people to show up and help us — and it’s a falsehood,” Utah Rep. Burgess Owens, one of two Black Republicans in the House, said during debate on H.R. 40 in April. “It’s demeaning to my parents’ generation.”

Experts argue the focus shouldn’t be on whether reparations are divisive but if they are necessary, saying Black American descendants of enslaved people have a valid claim for redress and restitution.

“There hasn’t been this amount of stalling for reparations for Japanese Americans, or around the appropriation for restitution for 9/11 victims, or continued support for Holocaust survivors in the U.S.,” Heath said. “Reparation is only seen as a bad word when we’re talking about repair and restitution for Black people.”

Ultimately, supporters argue the need for reparations should not be judged based on how popular the issue is publicly but instead should be looked at as a necessary correction for the moral, political and economic failures that have been created by federal policy at the expense of Black Americans.

Darity argued that even if detailed reparations measures are not politically feasible in Congress now, it is important that “the footprints must be put in place” for future efforts.

“If you think about the generational relationship to enslavement, you find that it doesn’t really feel all that long ago,” Darity said of efforts to frame reparations as solely focused on the past. “But what’s more important is that the effects of the period of enslavement are still felt and still embodied in the kinds of consequences for Black lives today.”

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vinayv224 · 5 years ago

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Rep. John Lewis’s voting rights legacy is in danger

Rep. John Lewis advocates for expanded voting rights protections in 2019. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Lewis was unable to see the Voting Rights Act restored before his death.

Rep. John Lewis, who died Friday at age 80, spent decades fighting for civil rights. But he specifically made voting rights a key part of his advocacy — so much so that he risked his life to enfranchise voters time and again, including when he had his skull cracked by law enforcement during a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

Other voting rights advocates were beaten that day as well. Lewis testified about that march — which became known as Bloody Sunday — one week later. Images of the beatings, including a photograph of Lewis being hit on the head by an officer, were seen around the world; video of it was broadcast on television. And public pressure created by the brutality led to the federal government enacting the Voting Rights Act, a measure that empowered Black voters, and helped bring Lewis into government.

“I have said this before, and I will say it again,” Lewis said in June 2019, “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy.”

Six months after making that statement, Democrats in the House of Representatives passed the Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill intended restore the vote to Americans — mostly Black, Latinx, and Native Americans — disenfranchised by the US Supreme Court in the 2013 case Shelby County v. Holder, which overturned a key part of the Voting Rights Act Lewis and so many others were beaten to bring about. But the legislation has gone nowhere — the Republican controlled Senate has ignored it.

Because of this delay, and because of Shelby County v. Holder, Lewis’s work to ensure all Americans are able to vote is in jeopardy. This feels especially meaningful in an election year in which Americans are faced with a particularly stark choice in presidential candidates — and in which parties will be able to redistrict a given state in an advantageous way if they are in control of that state’s government.

In the final years of his life, Lewis saw repeated erosion of voting rights, including in his state of Georgia, and asked his fellow lawmakers to ensure the fact “some gave a little blood, and others gave their very lives” for voting rights not be in vain. However, little has been done — particularly by the Senate — to protect the value of the sacrifices he made for voting rights.

The voting rights problems of the ’60s and ’70s are the same as today’s

Much of recent voter disenfranchisement — from voter ID laws to poll taxes — can be traced back to Shelby County v. Holder, as Vox’s Ella Nilsen has explained:

The Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder invalidated a portion of the Voting Rights Act relating to a “coverage formula,” which identified certain towns, counties, or states with a history of voter discrimination.

Essentially, if those places wanted to pass new voting laws, they had to undergo extra scrutiny from the federal government — an additional measure to protect voters from discriminatory laws being passed. In its decision, the Supreme Court asked Congress to come up with the standard for a coverage formula, something Congress hasn’t done.

Areas with histories of voter discrimination that the Voting Rights Act covered included some places in the North — like parts of New York — but largely focused on nine states with a history of segregation and racial terror, including: Virginia, Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama, Alaska, and Arizona.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts argued the coverage formula was no longer needed because there were lots of lawmakers of color from those states, and because it was “based on 40-year-old facts having no logical relationship to the present day.”

“Things have changed in the South,” Roberts wrote. “Our country has changed.”

The argument was a familiar one for Lewis, who said in House testimony — in 1971 — “We have to look beyond the glowing reports of a new South. We have to recognize the fallacies of those who would tell us that Federal registrars and observers are no longer needed. We cannot allow ourselves to be duped into believing that, in these so-called new and changing times, the Voting Rights Act is no longer needed.”

Lewis went on to argue, “There are fewer violent tactics, but the subtle and more sophisticated forms of intimidation are still being devised and are quite prevalent.”

Those words are sadly just as relevant 50 years later — new forms of intimidation and disenfranchisement sprung up immediately after Shelby County v. Holder.

As P.R. Lockhart has explained for Vox, lawmakers in Texas immediately rolled out a voter ID law following the 2013 decision, and engaged in redistricting that diluted the power of minority voters. Other states formerly governed by the Voting Rights Act made similar changes, with states like Georgia and Virginia also enacting voter ID laws, which some studies have found lead to minorities being excluded from voting.

While a few of those studies are debated, the intent is clear — for instance, in a 2016 lawsuit, a federal court found North Carolina implemented voter ID laws to disenfranchise black voters with “almost surgical precision.”

Georgia in particular has been criticized in 2018 for purging voters from voter rolls. Current Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp supervised the removal of 1.5 million voters from the state registry from 2012 to 2016 while serving as secretary of state, according to an analysis by New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. Ahead of the 2018 gubernatorial election, which Kemp won amid accusations of voter suppression — particularly in majority Black areas of the state — the secretary of state’s office removed an additional 500,000 voters.

Purges like these weaken the political power of communities of color, Lockhart noted, in part because they lead to closure of polling places, making it harder to vote. And an analysis by Vice’s Rob Arthur and Allison McCann found that polling place closures that followed voter roll purges — throughout the country — disproportionately affected voters of color, particularly Black voters. In 61 percent of the counties the authors studied, polling place closures forced minority voters to travel further to vote than white voters.

Those voters able to make the trip were often faced with longer lines — and during Georgia’s 2018 election, broken machines.

And there have been a number of other measures created to disenfranchise minority voters as well, like drawing congressional districts in ways that carefully ensure voters of color do not make up too large a percentage of the district’s residents. Such redistricting was tacitly approved by the Supreme Court in 2018, and a more recent ruling allowed Florida to enact a poll tax for the formerly incarcerated, which means approximately 85,000 people will not be able to vote in November’s election, unless they pay what are in many cases unspecified fines. And, if any of these people decides to vote without paying, they could face prosecution. An analysis by University of Florida political scientist Daniel Smith found that in many Florida counties, two times as many Black people would be disenfranchised by this rule as white people.

Lewis described similar issues in his 1971 congressional testimony, lamenting that Black voters were turned away from polling places for not having identification to show their age, that some were unable to cast ballots because they arrived at the polls only to find they were not registered as they thought they were — and that those who were able to vote had to face “crowded lines” meant to “discourage Black political participation.”

Lewis gave that testimony while serving as the head of of the Voter Education Project, which sought to register Black Southerners to vote. All the problems he cited remain ahead of November’s elections — and with only months to go before voters begin casting ballots, there is little indication lawmakers have any intention of ensuring Black Americans won’t remain disenfranchised.

The problems are the same because Congress won’t act

Voting problems remain because Congress has repeatedly failed to act. Beyond Shelby County v. Holder, voting policy has been shaped in recent years by the courts. As Lockhart noted, lost protections have been restored by cases like a 2016 lawsuit that amended North Carolina voter ID laws after a federal court found the state had worked to disenfranchise black voters “almost surgical precision.”

For every voting rights victory won in court, however, there are a number of losses, from a North Dakota voter ID law that discriminated against Native Americans being upheld to voters rights advocates dropping a redistricting lawsuit in Georgia after it became clear the long gestating process would stretch past 2021 — when new districts will be drawn.

The onus of creating fair voting laws is on Congress — something Roberts explicitly noted in his Shelby County v. Holder decision, and something Lewis acknowledged as well, arguing in 2019, “The way votes were not counted and purged in states like Georgia and Florida and other states changed the outcome of the last election. That must never happen again in our country. We will make it illegal.”

But many of those who praised Lewis following his death have blocked making voter suppression illegal.

In Lewis’s own state, Gov. Kemp — who again, has been accused of using his powers as secretary of state to push Black voters off voter rolls and to sway a gubernatorial election in his favor — said he is “praying” for the Lewis family and called the lawmaker “a Civil Rights hero, freedom fighter, devoted public servant, and beloved Georgian.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put out a long statement praising Lewis as an “American hero” who “endured hatred and violence” to “bring our nation into greater alignment with its founding principles.”

But that praise, many Democrats noted, came as McConnell has blocked all effort to repair the damage the Supreme Court has done to the Voting Rights Act. A version of the Voting Rights Advancement Act was included in HR 1, the first legislation the House of Representatives passed in its current term, and McConnell refused to allow it to come to the Senate floor, calling it “offensive to average voters” and saying, “What is the problem we’re trying to solve here People are flooding to the polls.”

Similarly, the majority leader has refused to hear the standalone version. And he is not alone in his congressional colleagues in lauded Lewis, but participating in the dismantling of his legacy.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Lewis “a friend” and a man who “suffered for this nation, enduring what would have easily broken other men, so that future generations could enjoy the full blessings of freedom.”

But McCarthy — like many other House Republicans celebrating Lewis’s life — voted against the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

All this has many of Lewis’s Democratic allies, like Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Ilhan Omar, demanding Republicans honor the late lawmaker by finally passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

There is still time in this legislative session for the Senate to take up the bill. If it fails to do so, lawmakers will have another two years to do so starting next year. Until Congress passes the legislation Lewis spent his final year advocating for, voting rights will remain at risk.

Because as Lewis said in 2019, “There are forces in this country that want to keep American citizens from having a rightful say in the future of our nation.”

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negahc · 5 years ago

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June 23rd, 2020

We're very happy to announce that the Northeast Georgia History Center is re-opening to the public beginning Wednesday, June 24th with health and safety guidelines in place. We also have new hours to accommodate more local visitors and regional tourism! Visit us Wednesday - Saturday 10 AM - 5 PM and Sunday 1 - 5 PM.

Before you visit, please review our health guidelines at www.negahc.org/reopen

Historian Glen Kyle presented our first livestream trivia game about the American Revolution! Glen had a great time, and we hope you all did too. A special congratulations to our winners, Brendan and Olivia! They received a Digital Membership to the History Center.

If you are interested in Digital Memberships, they are as low as $3/month or $35/year. Become a Digital Member at www.negahc.org/member. Once you become a Member, you will receive invites to Members-Only events.

Members Livestream: The History of Vaudeville

Historians Marie Walker and Glen Kyle presented a livestream program on the history of American Vaudeville to our Digital Members! They discussed the types of performances you would find in a vaudeville show, successful vaudeville performers, the transition from stage to screen, the cultural impact of vaudeville theatre, and so much more!

by Marie Walker, Director of Education

“The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there for elsewhere”—General Orders, Number 3; Headquarters District of Texas, Galveston, June 19, 1865

Juneteenth is short for June Nineteenth, the day that approximately 1,800 Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved people there were now free. Granger was acting under General Orders, Number 3, and was also enforcing the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery in Texas did not end overnight after June 19th, yet the atmosphere in the state and in the south shifted dramatically after Granger’s declaration. Today, Juneteenth is a regional holiday commemorating the effective end of slavery in the United States of America.

President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had become official January 1, 1863, had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” But Lincoln did not actually free any of the approximately 4 million men, women and children held in slavery in the United States when he signed the formal Emancipation Proclamation. The document applied only to enslaved people in the Confederacy, who were in rebellion and therefor were not following the instructions of the Federal Government. The Emancipation Proclamation also failed to free those enslaved in the border states that remained loyal to the Union.

When General Orders Number 3 freed the people who up until that point in their lives had been enslaved, the reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. It was reported that some of the newly freed men and women took to the streets, singing spirituals to rejoice together. Many of the formerly enslaved people lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, but many left immediately decrying the conditions of the plantation and wanting to fully realize their freedom.Even with nowhere to go, with no or very little money, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom.

The celebration to commemorate of Juneteenth began in 1866, the year after the order was given. This holiday was a time for reassuring each other of progress, praying for the future, and gathering remaining family members. A range of activities were provided to entertain those who were celebrating, many of which continue in tradition today.Some of those activities included rodeos,fishing,barbecuing and baseball. Food is often abundant because everyone is encouraged to prepare a special dish to share. Juneteenth almost always focuses on education and self-improvement as well. Therefore, guest speakers are generally brought in and the elders of the community are called upon to recount the events of the past.Prayer services are also a major part of these celebrations. Dress was also an important element in early Juneteenth customs and is often still taken seriously, particularly by the direct descendants who can make the connection to this tradition's roots.During slavery there were laws on the books in many areas that prohibited or limited the dressing of the enslaved. Early Juneteenth celebrations involved gatherings dedicated to prayer and spirituals. People came dressed in new clothes, worn to represent their new freedom. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date.

In the early years, this celebration created little interest existed outside the African American community. In some cases, there was outwardly exhibited resistance by barring the use of public property for the festivities. In the early 1900’s economic and cultural forces provided for a decline in Juneteenth activities and participants. Classroom and textbook education in lieu of traditional home and family-taught practices stifled the interest of the youth due to less emphasis and detail on the activities of those who were formerly enslaved.Classroom textbooks proclaimed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 as the date signaling the ending of slavery, and little or nothing on the impact of General Granger’s arrival on June 19th.

It was not until the middle of the 20th century that Juneteenth really began its resurgence and made its way across the United States. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, his followers continued his plans for a Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. The campaign culminated in a “Solidarity Day” rally on June 19th, nearly 100 years since the first Juneteenth celebration. Participants returned home and brought the festivities with them, and Juneteenth became popular in an increasing number of states. Alongside the civil rights movement, the massive migration of African Americans in the 20th century, know in history as the Great Migration, spread numerous aspects of Southern black culture.

On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became an official state holiday through the efforts of Al Edwards, an African American legislator in Texas. The successful passage of this bill marked Juneteenth as the first emancipation celebration granted official state recognition.Today, Juneteenth is enjoying a phenomenal growth rate within communities and organizations throughout the country all with the mission to promote and cultivate knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture.

Sources: https://www.juneteenth.com/history.htm

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/what-is-juneteenth/

https://www.history.com/news/what-is-juneteenth

https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/emancipation-proclamation

https://www.archives.gov/historical-docs/13th-amendment#:~:text=Passed%20by%20Congress%20on%20January,within%20the%20United%20States%2C%20or

https://www.britannica.com/story/juneteenth-celebrating-the-end-of-slavery

Everyone please give a warm welcome our new Museum Services Manager, MaryTess Syfan! MaryTess is a Gainesville native and UNG Communications graduate (but you can call her “Tess”!) She has a passion for animals and demonstrates that through volunteering at TLC Humane Society where she also serves as a board member. When she’s not loving on animals, you can probably find her traveling the globe and indulging in new cultures. Food, art and history are just some of her favorite things to experience while traveling. When she’s back home, you can usually find her curled up with a good book. Tess is excited to be joining a team that shares in her passions!

By Lesley Jones, Archives Manager

This week From the Archives is a 100 year old panorama photo of the Baptist Young People's Union convention that was held in Gainesville, Georgia in June of 1920. This event drew quite a crowd! About 800 people attended the event. The Gainesville News wrote about the convention saying, "The Georgia B. Y. P. U. convention is one of the greatest inspirational meetings held in the South. It is eagerly sought for each year and was awarded to Gainesville only after a very warm contest. Augusta and Savannah and other places invited the convention and vigorously pressed their claims. Gainesville won out over all others, so the Convention is ours this year."

Historians Glen Kyle and Marie Walker will present a livestream program on Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts to our Members on Friday, June 26th. They will discuss the interesting history of the manuscripts and some of the beautiful works that were illuminated.

This is a Members-Only program by the Northeast Georgia History Center. Digital Memberships are as low as $3/month or $35/year. Become a Digital Member at www.negahc.org/member. Once you become a Member, you will receive an invite to this event and future Members-Only events.

This program is made possible by the Ada Mae Ivester Education Center and the Cottrell Digital Studio.

June 24th, 2020 - 2 PM EST - American LGBTQ Civil Rights Movements

Historian Glen Kyle and Libba Beaucham will present a livestream program on the American Civil Rights Movements for LGBTQIA+! They will be focusing on the movements of the 60s-80s, and look forward to answering any questions you might have.

Facebook Live Link:

www.facebook.com/negahc

YouTube Live Link:

https://bit.ly/negahc

This program is made possible by the Ada Mae Ivester Education Center and the Cottrell Digital Studio.

June 29th, 2020 - 5 PM EST - Virtual Book Launch: Newest Born of Nations

Join historians Dr. Ann L. Tucker and Glen Kyle as they discuss the subject matter of Dr. Tucker's book NEWEST BORN OF NATIONS, which explores the origins of the Confederacy and the international aspects of the American Civil War. There will be a live discussion and Q&A during the program. Facebook Live Link

:www.facebook.com/negahc

YouTube Live Link:

https://bit.ly/negahc Pre-order a copy of the book at https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5042 at 30% off through June 30 with the code 10READ.

June 30th, 2020 - 4 PM EST - LoFi History

The History Center is now on Twitch! LoFi History is a special Twitch stream with historian Glen Kyle and musician Libbaloops. Glen will take your questions from the chat about all things history as Libbaloops creates live electronic music.

This program is only available on Twitch, a livestreaming website. You do not need a Twitch account to watch, but you do need a Twitch account to ask a question in the chat.

Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/lofi_history

This program is made possible by the Ada Mae Ivester Education Center and the Cottrell Digital Studio.

We are incredibly fortunate to have SEVEN interns this summer! Each week we will be giving a spotlight to a few of our amazing interns. We are incredibly lucky to have them, so please give them a warm welcome!

Carmen Villicana, Archives Intern

Hi everyone! My name is Carmen! I was an educational programming intern last semester and now I’m an archive’s intern working under the direction of the amazing Lesley Jones! I am studying History Education (secondary grades) at the University of North Georgia! I’m excited to help catalog our cool artifacts this summer and am hoping to learn as much about local history as possible. Some of my hobbies include watching Asian soap operas and spending time with my dogs!! Pictured is me and my pup Freddie who was also pictured last semester!

Shannon DI Virgilio, Research Intern

I'm Shannon DI Virgilio, and I attend the University of North Georgia. I am pursuing a bachelor's in political science with an intelligence minor. I am hopefully graduating this fall (fingers cross). I am planning on going to graduate school to get get a master's in public policy. I want to work at the state-level of government doing research. What I hope to get out of this internship are professional research skills that I can use as building blocks.

This newsletter is made possible by the Ada Mae Ivester Education Center and the Cottrell Digital Studio.

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Charles H. Houston

Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895 – April 22, 1950) was a prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel, or Litigation Director. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, Houston played a significant role in dismantling Jim Crow laws, especially attacking segregation in schools and racial housing covenants. He earned the title "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow".

Houston is also well known for having trained and mentored a generation of black attorneys, including Thurgood Marshall, future founder and director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the first Black Supreme Court Justice. He recruited young lawyers to work on the NAACP's litigation campaigns, building connections between Howard's and Harvard's university law schools.

Biography

Early years

Houston was born in Washington, D.C., to a middle-class family who lived in the Striver section. His father William Le Pré Houston, the son of a former slave, had become an attorney and practiced in the capital for more than four decades. Charles' mother, Mary (née Hamilton) Houston, worked as a seamstress. Houston attended segregated local schools, graduating from the academic (college preparatory) Dunbar High School. He studied at Amherst College beginning in 1911, was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, and graduated as valedictorian in 1915, the only black student in his class. He returned to D.C. and taught English at Howard University, a historically black college.

As the U.S. entered World War I, Houston joined the U.S. Army as an officer. The military was racially segregated. From 1917 to 1919, he served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Infantry, based in Fort Meade, Maryland, with service in France. Houston wrote later:

The hate and scorn showered on us Negro officers by our fellow Americans convinced me that there was no sense in my dying for a world ruled by them. I made up my mind that if I got through this war I would study law and use my time fighting for men who could not strike back.

After his return to the U.S. in 1919, he entered Harvard Law School. He was the first black student elected to the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review and graduated cum laude. Houston was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He earned a bachelor's of law in 1922 and a JD from Harvard in 1923. That same year he was awarded a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship to study at the University of Madrid. After his return, he was admitted to the Washington, DC bar in 1924 and joined his father's practice.

In 1924 Houston married Gladys Moran. They divorced in 1937. He next married Henrietta Williams. They had Houston's only child in 1940, Charles Hamilton Houston, Jr.

Career

When several black lawyers were refused admission to the American Bar Association in 1925, they founded the National Bar Association. Houston was a founding member of the affiliated Washington Bar Association.

He was recruited to Howard University by the first African-American president, Mordecai Johnson. From 1929 to 1935, Houston served as Vice-Dean and Dean of the Howard University School of Law. He developed the school, beginning its years as a major national center for training black lawyers. He extended its part-time program to a full-time curriculum and gained accreditation by the Association of American Law Schools and the American Bar Association. Bringing prominent attorneys to the school as speakers and to build a law network for his students, Houston served as a mentor to a generation. He influenced nearly one-quarter of all the black lawyers in the United States at the time, including former student Thurgood Marshall, who became a United States Supreme Court justice. Houston believed that the law could be used to fight racial discrimination and encouraged his students to work for such social purpose.

Houston left Howard in 1935 to serve as the first special counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving in this role until 1940. In this capacity he created litigation strategies to attack racial housing covenants and segregated schools, arguing several important civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Through his work at the NAACP, Houston played a role in nearly every civil rights case that reached the US Supreme Court between 1930 and Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Houston worked to bring an end to the exclusion of African Americans from juries across the South. He defended African-American George Crawford on charges of murder in Loudoun County, Virginia, in 1933, and saved him from the electric chair.

In the related Hollins v. State of Oklahoma (1935), Houston led an all-black legal team before the US Supreme Court to appeal another murder case in which the defendant was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. The defense team had challenged the all-white jury during the trial, but the conviction was upheld by the appeals court. Hearing the case a certiorari, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court's decision and ordered a new trial. Hollins was tried a third time, again before an all-white jury, and was convicted in 1936. He was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1950. "It is now widely believed that he was innocent." At the time, Oklahoma and southern states systematically excluded blacks from juries, in part because they were not on the voter rolls, having been disenfranchised across the South since the turn of the century by state barriers to voter registration. In the 21st century, attorneys continue to have to challenge prosecutorial strategies that exclude blacks from juries.

Houston's strategy on public education was to attack segregation by demonstrating the inequality resulting from the "separate but equal" doctrine dating from the Supreme Court's Plessy v. Ferguson (1897). He orchestrated a campaign to force southern districts to build facilities for blacks equal to those for whites, or to integrate their facilities. He focused on law schools because, at the time, mostly males attended them. He believed this would obviate the fears whites expressed that integrated schools would lead to interracial dating and marriage. In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1939), Houston argued that it was unconstitutional for Missouri to exclude blacks from the state's university law school when, under the "separate but equal" provision, no comparable facility for blacks existed within the state.

In the documentary "The Road to Brown", Hon. Juanita Kidd Stout described Houston's strategy related to segregated schools:

When he attacked the "separate but equal" theory his real thought behind it was that "All right, if you want it separate but equal, I will make it so expensive for it to be separate that you will have to abandon your separateness." And so that was the reason he started demanding equalization of salaries for teachers, equal facilities in the schools and all of that.

Houston founded a law firm, Houston & Gardner, with Wendell P. Gardner, Sr. It later included, as name partners, William H. Hastie, William B. Bryant, Emmet G. Sullivan, and Joseph C. Waddy, each of whom were later appointed as federal judges. The firm was prestigious but their work not well-compensated. Ten members of the firm advanced to become judges, including Theodore Newman, Wendell Gardner, Jr., the son of Wendell Gardner; and Emmet Sullivan.

Houston's efforts to dismantle the legal theory of "separate but equal" were completed after his death in 1950 with the historic Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruling, which prohibited segregation in public schools. At one point Houston had carried a movie camera as he traveled across South Carolina, in order to document the inequalities of facilities, materials and teachers' salaries between African-American and white education. As Special Counsel to the NAACP, Houston dispatched Thurgood Marshall, Oliver Hill and other young attorneys to work a litigation campaign of court challenges to equalize teachers' salaries.

Houston also directed the NAACP's campaign to end restrictive housing covenants. In the early 20th century, the organization had won a United States Supreme Court case, Buchanan v. Warley (1917), which prohibited state and local jurisdictions from establishing restrictive housing. Real estate developers and agents developed restrictive covenants and deeds. The Court ruled in Corrigan v. Buckley (1926) that such restrictions were the acts of individuals and beyond the reach of the constitutional protections. As the NAACP continued with its campaign in the 1940s, Houston drew from contemporary sociological and other studies to demonstrate that such covenants and resulting segregation produced conditions of overcrowding, poor health, and increased crime that adversely affected African-American communities. Following Corrigan, Houston contributed to what was a 22-year campaign, in concert with lawyers he had trained, in order to overturn the constitutionality of restrictive covenants. This was achieved in the US Supreme Court ruling in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948). The court ruled that "judicial enforcement of private right constitutes state action for the purpose of the fourteenth amendment." Houston's use of sociological materials in these cases lay the groundwork for the approach and ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

Death

Houston died from a heart attack on April 22, 1950, at the age of 54.

Legacy and honors

In 1950, Houston was posthumously awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal.

In 1958, the main building of the Howard University School of Law was dedicated as Charles Hamilton Houston Hall.

The Charles Houston Bar Association and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, established at Harvard Law School in 2005, were named for him. Elena Kagan, formerly the Dean of Harvard Law School, was also the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law there; she is now an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The Washington Bar Association annually awards the Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion of Merit to an individual who has advanced the cause of Houstonian jurisprudence.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Charles Hamilton Houston on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

#09/03 #04/22

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neptunecreek · 5 years ago

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The Foilies 2020

Recognizing the year’s worst in government transparency

“The Ringer,” the first track on Eminem’s 2018 album, Kamikaze, includes a line that piqued Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold’s curiosity: the rapper claimed the Secret Service visited him due to some controversial lyrics about Ivanka Trump. To find out if it was true, Leopold filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the federal law that allows anyone to demand access to government records.

After a year of delays, the Secret Service provided Leopold 40 pages about the interview with the real Slim Shady, including a note that he was “exhibiting inappropriate behavior.”

This wasn’t the first time government transparency has intersected with hip-hop. Type “Freedom of Information” into Genius.com (the site formerly known as Rap Genius) and you’ll turn up tracks by Sage Francis and Scroobius Pip using FOIA as lyrical inspiration. The hip-hop duo Emanon sampled Joanna Newsom for “Shine Your Light,” in which they declare that due to redactions of FOIA documents, we’re “never gonna see the true history of this nation.” Even George Clinton, whom many rappers cite as inspiration, chanted about “getting funky” with the freedom of information on the track “Maximumisness.”

There’s nothing quite like an envelope of freshly photocopied documents to make a journalist or open-government advocate break into song. But there’s also nothing that brings the melody to a record-scratching halt than the government withholding information without due cause.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international nonprofit based in San Francisco that fights to uphold civil liberties in the digital age —work that includes filing hundreds of public records requests each year with a variety of government agencies. In collaboration with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, we also compile “The Foilies,” a list of anti-awards that name-and-shame government officials and corporations that stymie the public’s right to know.

Now in its sixth year, The Foilies are part of the annual Sunshine Week festivities, when news and advocacy organizations celebrate and bring attention to state and federal open-records laws that allow us to hold the powerful to account.

And the winners are….

The Twitter-Assist Award: President Donald Trump

The Space Opera Award: New Mexico Spaceport Authority

The Catalog Is Out of the Bag Award: Special Services Group

The Smokescreen Award: Texas Elementary Schools

The Uncontrolled Burn Award: Federal Aviation Administration

The Queen of all FOIA Denials: Egyptian Museum of Berlin

The Busiest Government Office Award: U.S. Department of Justice

The Pointless Redaction Award: Mueller Report

The Repeat Winner Award: Atlanta Mayor’s Office

The Unnecessary Fee Award: Horry County, South Carolina

The Surveillance for You, Privacy for Us Award: Ring Inc.

The About Face on Face Recognition Award: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The Hardest Department to FOIA Award: Chicago Police Department

The Choose-Your-Own Exemption Award: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

The Anything Can Be Confidential Award: U.S. Supreme Court

The Resigned to Secrecy Award: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown

The Enemy of the Press Award: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra

The Stupid, Dumb, F**king Idiot Award for Political Interference: U.S. Department of the Interior

The Twitter-Assist Award: President Donald Trump

It’s not often that prying documents out of the CIA comes with a little bit of help from the commander in chief. But Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold (yeah, he turns up a lot in The Foilies) stumbled into just that kind of luck when Trump tweeted an acknowledgement that he had ended “massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad.”

Leopold requested information on the payments from the CIA. Despite the president’s confirmation that these payments existed, the CIA still refused to confirm or deny the records existed, a move known in the legal world as a “Glomar response.” Leopold went to court and a judge found that because Trump had acknowledged the payments publicly, the CIA had to stop playing secrecy games and hand over the documents.

The Space Opera Award: New Mexico Spaceport Authority

In space, no one can hear you scream about thwarted public records requests, but down on Earth, you can take the government to court and make them listen.

That’s what Heath Haussamen, editor and publisher of NMPolitics.net, did after the New Mexico Spaceport Authority in 2017 refused to hand over basic public records related to the private companies that lease real estate at Spaceport America, the much-publicized commercial launchpad just outside Truth or Consequences, N.M.

With a New Mexico Attorney General’s Office opinion in hand that determined the Spaceport Authority had violated the state’s open records law, Haussamen filed a lawsuit. After following the wormhole of the justice system, Haussamen finally received the records in 2019, along with a $60,000 settlement for his trouble—but not before the New Mexico Legislature stepped in and passed a new law granting the Spaceport even more secrecy over its operations.

The Catalog Is Out of the Bag Award: Special Services Group

In response to a California Public Records Act request for information about surveillance technology, the Irvine Police Department in California provided researchers at MuckRock and Open the Government with a catalog called the “Black Book” from a secretive company called Special Services Group. The catalog advertised a range of spy devices that would make Q drool, including cameras that can be concealed in gravestones, vacuum cleaners and baby car seats.

But, as Vice’s Motherboard prepared to publish a story on the documents, Special Services Group stepped out of the shadows to issue sweeping legal threats, arguing that by publishing the documents, researchers were violating everything from federal copyright law to arms control regulations. Vice, MuckRock and Open the Government rightfully resisted the censorship threat, since that’s not how it works. Special Services should have taken its beef to the city's law firm, which reviewed and then released the documents.

The Smokescreen Award: Texas Elementary Schools

Across the country, parents, educators and lawmakers are fuming about nicotine “vaping” among underage students. Considering that this is branded as a public health crisis, one would assume schools would be forthcoming with data about vaping incidents on campuses to help inform policymakers.

That’s not what Sarah Rafique, a reporter with ABC 13 Investigates in Houston, found when she filed records requests with more than 1,000 schools across Texas. About 10% of agencies missed the 10-day deadline to respond. One school demanded an (illegal) flat fee of $150 for all requests, while another agency demanded to know the reason for the request before they’d hand over the documents. “It was weird, too, that some districts said they didn't have any data/information but when I explained I was reaching out to 1,000 districts (and they wouldn't be singled out, per se) all of a sudden they had numbers to share,” Rafique said in a Twitter thread outlining the most troubling responses to her requests.

The Uncontrolled Burn Award: Federal Aviation Administration

Courtesy of Mike Katz-Lacabe

Someone at the Federal Aviation Administration has an unhealthy relationship with their CD burner.

Last year, Mike Katz-Lacabe of the Center for Human Rights and Privacy filed a FOIA request with the FAA to get records about helicopters and airplanes operated by 19 different police agencies in California. The FAA turned up 120 MB of files. They could have put them on a single CD-ROM, which can hold about 700 MB of information. Instead, the FOIA officer burned the records to 19 separate discs and sent them to Katz-Lacabe in the mail.

The Queen of all FOIA Denials: Egyptian Museum of Berlin

For three years, Cosmo Wenman battled with the German-government-funded Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection (aka, the Egyption Museum of Berlin) over a freedom of information campaign to release the 3D scan of a bust of Queen Nefertiti. The museum denied the request for the high-quality scan of the over 3,000-year-old statue, arguing that it would threaten its commercial interests—namely by creating competition in the sale of images or reproductions.

“The organization was treating its scan of Nefertiti like a state secret,” Wenman wrote in Reason.

After a prolonged battle, and temporary access to a very slow computer containing the scan, Wenman was finally given a USB drive with the full 3D image. No word on whether museum visits have declined precipitously.

The Busiest Government Office Award: U.S. Department of Justice

In response to yet another FOIA request from Buzzfeed reporter Jason Leopold, this time for documents relating to the Mueller investigation, the Justice Department claimed it has as many as 19-billion responsive documents. This would mean the investigation had generated or collected more than 28-million documents each day, weekends included.

Although Mueller’s investigation lasted 22 months, the DOJ told Leopold it would take 2,300 years for it to review and produce the requested records for public disclosure. Leopold tweeted that he is exploring cryogenics as a way to review the records in the 4320s.

The Pointless Redaction Award: Mueller Report

Courtesy of the National Security Archive

Among the many blacked-out sections of the Mueller Report, a few redactions particularly stood out. The National Security Archive reported that the Justice Department redacted sections of public news stories that the Mueller Report quotes or cites. For example, the report cites a CNN headline as: “[Redacted] Says He Won’t Agree to Plea Deal”—but the CNN story is freely available online, and a quick Google search shows that the redacted words are “Roger Stone Associate.”

The Repeat Winner Award: Atlanta Mayor’s Office

Back in 2018, then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed earned a Foilie when he responded to a corruption probe by releasing 1.476 million documents, which he displayed in a six-foot wall of boxes at a press conference, even though it turned out that many of the documents were entirely blank or fully redacted.

Mayor Reed is no longer in office, but his legacy lives on in Atlanta, where his former press secretary, Jenna Garland, was convicted this year for violating Georgia’s Open Records Act. The New York Times reported that she sought to frustrate journalists’ requests for records by directing city spokespeople to be “as unhelpful as possible,” “drag this out as long as possible” and “provide information in the most confusing format available.”

This is the first time that a public official has been charged or convicted under Georgia’s open records laws—and if recent history is a guide, it may not be the last.

The Unnecessary Fee Award: Horry County, South Carolina

Horry County, South Carolina, is the home of Myrtle Beach and its many dedicated beach-goers—and home to this year’s most unnecessary FOIA fee. The Myrtle Beach Sun News sent out requests to a number of local towns and public entities inquiring about payments made on behalf of public agencies to settle lawsuits in the last five years. Many of the towns in Horry County emailed the responsive documents back for free; some charged less than $50, but the county itself asked for $75,500.

When asked why the records cost so much, the county was unable to provide an exact accounting. Although its $75,500 demand is not the most outrageous total to grace the Foilies, Horry County’s response is award-worthy in light of how disproportionate it was compared to other agencies.

The Surveillance for You, Privacy for Us Award: Ring Inc.

EFF has written a lot about Amazon Ring surveillance doorbells, mostly aided by a torrent of great investigative reporting done by journalists using public records requests. The doorbells may be capturing the movements and conversations of neighbors and pedestrians in neighborhoods all across the United States, but Ring employees really value their privacy.

One researcher, Shreyas Gandlur, turned up an email from Ring to the Joliet City Police Department, asking them to redact the names and email addresses of any Ring employees that may show up in emails released through FOIA. “Ring employees have strong personal privacy interests,” wrote one Ring employee (whose name was redacted).

The About Face on Face Recognition Award: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

How hard is it to unmask records on face recognition? The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) discovered the many faces of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when it filed a request for information on the agency’s acquisition and use of face recognition technology.

ICE initially said it had only three redacted records—while failing to search one of its largest directorates, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). After POGO successfully appealed, ICE responded that a query of ERO had been conducted and was being reviewed. Two months later, ICE said the request had been closed. After POGO reached out to the agency, ICE then contradicted itself, stating that the appeal was assigned and ERO would be queried. A follow-up request seeking updated information was met with silence. Accordingly, POGO has decided to face off with ICE in a different venue—the courtroom—after filing a lawsuit for the records.

The Hardest Department to FOIA Award: Chicago Police Department

In 2019, the Chicago Police Department was in the news multiple times for its inability to respond to even the most straightforward public records requests.

After members of CPD raided the wrong home and traumatized a family, the family sought to get the body camera footage of the raid. The family believed that, in addition to showing the mistaken raid, it would also show police misconduct. Unfortunately, the CPD refused to turn over the footage.

In July, the CPD was forced to turn over documents after 14 months of stalling over a FOIA request for files on officers. After a legal opinion from the Illinois Attorney General, the CPD turned over a spreadsheet with more than 33,000 names dating back to the 1940s.

Does the Chicago Police Department use search warrants? Of course it does, but you wouldn’t know it by its FOIA responses. Also in July, the CPD told Lucy Parsons Labs that it did not have any responsive documents for a request for all executed search warrants. After several months of fighting, the department finally released records about 11,000 search warrants issued over a five-year period.

The Choose-Your-Own Exemption Award: Immigration and Customs Enforcement

What’s an agency to do when it can’t identify a FOIA exemption to justify withholding records? In ICE’s case, it created its own.

As is common practice in immigration court, where there is no discovery process, attorney Jennifer Smith sought the immigration file of a client by filing a FOIA request with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). USCIS told Smith that it had identified 18 records, but instead of producing those records, it mysteriously instructed Smith to request them from ICE.

Two years later, ICE finally responded that it was withholding the records to “deny fugitive alien FOIA requesters access to the FOIA process when the records could assist the alien in continuing to evade immigration enforcement efforts.” While admittedly creative, there is no “fugitive disentitlement” exemption under FOIA. Moreover, this fake exemption countered exactly what immigration attorneys are trying to do: ensure that their clients won’t be considered fugitives.

The ACLU of Colorado sued on Smith’s behalf, and in 2019, won the case.

The Anything Can Be Confidential Award: U.S. Supreme Court

With the rise of outsourcing, no-bid contracts and elected officials seeking to reduce government spending, private businesses and government have never been more intertwined. Whether it be facial recognition technology or algorithms used to determine whether people receive public-assistance benefits, private companies and the technology they build are embedded in government’s daily work.

Yet in June, the U.S. Supreme Court made it much harder for the public to access records that involve private companies. In the case Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader, the court interpreted a FOIA exemption broadly to allow the government to withhold records that a company considers confidential. Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, private information could not be withheld from a FOIA requester unless the government or the business could show that making the information public would harm the business. But under the court’s June decision, the government can withhold any information a business deems private.

Confidential business information under FOIA is thus in the eye of the beholder, a result that will frustrate the public’s ability to understand how the government uses private companies’ products and technologies as part of its duties.

The Resigned to Secrecy Award: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown came into office with a stated goal of restoring trust after public records showed that her predecessor had ordered officials to delete thousands of his emails from state servers. One concrete step Brown took to improve transparency: creating a state public records advocate to push for more openness.

The abrupt resignation of Oregon’s newly minted public records advocate, Ginger McCall, in September significantly undercut Brown’s stated commitment to transparency. In her resignation letter to Brown, McCall said that she received “meaningful pressure” from Brown’s office to advocate for the governor’s interest, rather than the public’s interest in having a transparent state government. Brown’s office at first denied McCall’s characterization and later chalked it up to a difference in views on McCall’s position.

McCall released notes of her meetings with Brown’s staffers that reflected an effort to make McCall’s position report directly to the governor’s staff, rather than being an independent advocate for the public. If there is any doubt, we believe McCall. She has long been a conscientious and honest advocate for the public’s right to know.

The Enemy of the Press Award: California Attorney General Xavier Becerra

Obtaining data about police misconduct under California’s public records law can be a crime, according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. That was the upshot of legal threats Becerra’s office made to two investigative reporters in March after they received data on police officer arrests and convictions in the past 10 years in response to a public records request filed with the Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training.

According to a letter from Becerra’s office, the spreadsheet, which detailed officers’ criminal histories, was off-limits to the public and its mere possession by the reporters was a misdemeanor. The reporters didn’t back down and instead “formed an unprecedented collaboration to investigate the list, involving three dozen news outlets across the state.”

Becerra’s legal threats backfired spectacularly, leading to statewide comprehensive reporting about criminal investigations into police officers, including a searchable database. But Becerra should never have threatened the journalists in the first place, an authoritarian move that conflicts with his efforts these past years to position himself as the counterweight to President Donald Trump.

The Stupid, Dumb, F**king Idiot Award for Political Interference: U.S. Department of the Interior

In 2019, reporters at Roll Call broke the news that the Interior Department had been allowing political officials to intervene in the processing of FOIA requests, either by stalling or potentially blocking the agency from fulfilling the request.

The reporting on this so-called “awareness review process” was based on FOIA documents obtained by Aaron Weiss of the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental organization based in Colorado. Among the scores of examples Weiss obtained was a stalled FOIA request from Buzzfeed’s Jason Leopold for all emails in which Interior press secretary Heather Swift used the terms “fucking," "idiot," "stupid" and "dumb.” (Swift had already been caught calling CNN’s René Marsh a “fucking idiot” in an email.)

“If political appointees get to decide what the public gets to see, it completely undermines the letter and spirit of FOIA,” Weiss says.

Want to read more FOIA horror stories? Check out The Foilies archives.

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douglasacogan · 5 years ago

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Two modern takes on the modern politics of criminal justice reform

I have recently seen these new commentaries that both speak to the interest state of modern criminal justice reform politics:

From The Conversation by Jody Armour, "How being ‘tough on crime’ became a political liability." Excerpts:

Kamala Harris recently dropped out of the presidential race after months of attacks from the left for her “tough-on-crime” record as San Francisco’s district attorney and as California’s attorney general. A few years ago, the idea that being tough on crime would be a liability — not an asset — was unthinkable for both Democrats and Republicans.

Bill Clinton, during the 1992 presidential race, interrupted his campaign so he could return to Arkansas to witness the execution of a mentally disabled man. During Harris’ 2014 reelection campaign for attorney general, she actively sought — and won — the endorsements of more than 50 law enforcement groups en route to a landslide victory.

But something has changed in recent years. Harris’ failure to gain traction as a presidential candidate has coincided with a growing number of “progressive prosecutors.” In the past, I would have scoffed at the notion of a progressive prosecutor. It would have seemed like a ridiculous oxymoron.

But in one of the most stunning shifts in American politics in recent memory, a wave of elected prosecutors have bucked a decades-long tough-on-crime approach adopted by both major parties. These prosecutors are refusing to send low-level, non-violent offenders to prison, diverting defendants into treatment programs, working to eradicate the death penalty and reversing wrongful convictions....

Michelle Alexander’s 2010 book, “The New Jim Crow,” deserves some credit for changing the way activists thought about crime and punishment. Alexander cast mass incarceration as a civil rights crisis by showing that people didn’t simply end up in jail because they were bad people who made poor choices. Nor did prison populations explode simply because there were more crimes being committed. Instead, mass incarceration was closely intertwined with race, poverty and government policy.

Among civil rights activists, issues like affirmative action in higher education had been consuming a lot of time, energy and resources. Alexander’s book helped redirect attention to racialized mass incarceration as a main battlefront in U.S. race relations. Since its formation in 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement has made criminal justice reform a centerpiece of their activism.

From The Hill by Paul Samuels and Gabrielle de la Gueronniere, "Candidates take note: Strong bipartisan consensus on criminal justice reform." Excerpts:

From the headlines these days, you might think that there is little that Republicans and Democrats agree on — but that is simply not true. After decades of failed policies and devastating consequences, Americans on both ends of the political spectrum strongly agree about the need for bold action to reform the nation’s drug and criminal justice policies. The question is: Will policymakers hear their unified voices urging action?

Polling recently conducted on behalf of Legal Action Center (LAC) found most Americans (71 percent) believe that treatment for addiction to opioids and other drugs should be readily available and affordable for all who need it, including 80 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans. Most Americans (67 percent) also believe we should treat addiction to opioids and other drugs more as a health problem than a criminal problem, including 78 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of Republicans. And there is strong support (61 percent) for expanding programs that send people arrested for drug use to treatment instead of prison.

As the polling makes clear, Americans recognize this essential truth: Addiction treatment is less expensive, more effective and simply more sensible than the current law enforcement approach, which has not worked, is racially biased and has devastated communities.

Americans also recognize that only by helping formerly incarcerated people and others with criminal records be more successful in their reentry will we ensure they are able to access the employment, education, housing and public benefits necessary to become contributing members of their communities.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (62 percent) believe that we should provide legal protections that help individuals leaving prison reenter society and find employment, housing and educational opportunities, including 71 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of Republicans. A majority of Americans (56 percent) also support sealing non-violent criminal records after people complete their sentences to facilitate their successful reentry into society.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8247011 https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2019/12/two-modern-takes-on-the-modern-politics-of-criminal-justice-reform.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

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gaymensfashion · 6 years ago

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Levi Strauss Foundation Pledges Additional $1 Million To Aid Marginalized Communities

A year ago, the Levi Strauss Foundation was concerned the rapidly changing political landscape was deeply impacting communities we have long supported. In response, we provided $1 million in grants to organizations protecting the civil liberties of highly vulnerable communities – including immigrants, refugees, the transgender community and ethnic and religious minorities – across the United States and abroad.

The willingness to take a stand and stay the course are hallmarks of the Levi Strauss Foundation’s commitment to the hard work of social justice. That’s why the foundation is providing another $1.0 million in grants to protect the rights of people and communities that we’ve long cared about.

In recent months, legal and policy changes have moved at a breakneck speed, rolling back many hard-fought gains in the areas of diversity and inclusion. So, like last year, funding will go toward advocacy, legal support and community mobilization efforts to protect the rights of vulnerable people and communities.

The Foundation recognizes that meaningful philanthropy requires outstanding partners. We are proud to support the outstanding organizations selected for this year’s $1 million fund. They recognize that strong democracies are built upon inclusion and protection of the rights of the most marginalized and vulnerable. They represent the freedom to dare to do what’s right. They reflect the institutional values that Levi Strauss & Co. holds dear – courage, empathy, integrity and originality.

San Francisco Bay Area

Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus: Provides legal defense, rights education and community mobilization for Muslims, South Asians and immigrant youth in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Council for American-Islamic Relations: Offers legal defense and rights education among Muslims in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Pangea Legal Services: Provides legal defense and community mobilization for the benefit of vulnerable immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area.

National

Transgender Law Center: Extends legal services nationwide to meet the needs of the transgender community and mobilizes advocates against discriminatory legislation at local and state levels.

United We Dream: Offers legal support, rights education and community mobilization to protect the rights of immigrant students across the U.S.

Live Free: Organizes faith-based leaders and trains law enforcement to protect the rights of vulnerable communities in cities across the U.S.

Define American: Mobilizes the power of media and culture to shift the conversation about immigrants, identity and citizenship in the U.S.

Undocublack: Is a multigenerational network of currently and formerly undocumented Black people that fosters community and facilitates access to resources.

National Immigration Law Center: Is one of the leading organizations in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of immigrants with low income.

Asylum Seeker Assistance Project: Protects the rights of asylum-seekers and their families and prevents wrongful deportations at the southern U.S. border.

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights: Advocates for the well-being and rights of unaccompanied children and families at the southern U.S. border.

International

International Refugee Assistance Project: Protect the human rights of refugees globally through legal services and advocacy.

International Rescue Committee: Addresses the urgent needs of refugees in the Middle East and Europe.

Marie Stopes International: Supports community health clinics serving women apparel makers in Cambodia and Vietnam.

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vinayv224 · 5 years ago

Link