Matthew Shepard and public life

Last night I saw a reading of “The Laramie Project, 10 years later” sponsored by, among others, Miami University’s Department of Theater. All around the country yesterday, staged readings and productions of this play were being brought to the public to commemorate the 10^th anniversary of Matthew Shephard’s death after a brutal slaying motivated by homophobia. This performance intersected with my current research about “the public” – what this space (both actual, virtual and metaphorical) represents and means today.

“The Laramie Project” was a play by the Tectonic Theater Project and later an HBO movie that was based on the interviews done with Laramie residents five weeks after Shepard’s beating. It has supposedly now been seen by more than 30 million viewers. “The Laramie Project, 10 years later” visits the town a decade after the incident to see what has changed. They interviewed many of the same people and tried to see how the community was thinking about the incident, and what has changed for the GLBTQ community in Laramie and in Wyoming. It is a difficult but wonderful presentation. I urge you to see it if you can.

I am fascinated by the way that Shepard’s death has found spaces of expression, action and movement in public life. The Laramie Project represents one artistic vein of that expression, where playwrights, actors, and audiences re-enact and witness the story of Shepherd, his murderer, family, and the people of the town in which he died. The Laramie Project has spawned on-line communities. Shepherd’s death has spawned activism for hate crime legislation, the Shepard Foundation, and a number of other organizations and groups. In Shepard's name, many people in the GLBTQ community and their supporters gather, mourn, commemorate; some of those people take this energy into the political realms of policy-making and legislation on behalf of civil rights for GLBTQ people, as is witnessed by the explosion of activism in support of these causes in recent years.

In the town of Laramie itself, at least as far as how it is represented in “The Laramie Project, 10 years later,” you see the same kinds of discussions and actions around the Shepard’s murder and it’s implications for justice and community in Laramie. But in the performance of “10 years later,” you see how the circulation of meanings around Shepard’s death reflects the divisive and sensationalist world of contemporary political and cultural life. An infamous 20/20 News Hour show in 2004 raised doubts about the motivations of Shepard’s killer despite the clear evidence, including confessions, aired during the trail of his murderers (who are serving multiple life terms). That 20/20 episode asserted that the murder was not related to homophobic hatred but a simple robbery and drug deal gone bad. People interviewed 10 years after Shepard’s death now echo the lies constructed by this 20/20 episode which intersect nicely with our own impulses to ignore and paper over unpleasant truths about ourselves. Matthew’s death wasn’t caused because he was gay, this logic goes. He was killed in a robbery. Murderer’s confessions from the trial, however, reveal he was robbed in the first 10 minutes of the encounter; he was brutally beaten and left for dead well after the robbers had his wallet, which contained all of $30.00.

There are public expressions of this general idea, as well. The conservative right wing of our political culture, through its own media outlets, argue that Shepard’s death was not motivated by hatred at all, and use the 20/20 episode and its half-truths and lies to argue against hate crime legislation. The idea that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered people do not deserve civil rights creates its own expressions, performances, and activism. It has created a strong set of public ideas and performances since Shepard’s death, passing Defense of Marriage Bills and blocking hate crime legislation in many states.

These public controversies generally are written off now as “the culture wars” in action. But they are not inevitable; they are part of the conditions of our contemporary public life. There are multiple areas of potential agreement between conservative Christians and GLBTQ civil rights activists that might be fruitfully explored and harnessed for political and cultural change that decreases homophobic violence and murder in our society, as one example. “The Laramie Project, 10 years later,” promotes the discovery of these multiple potential sites of agreement when the interview with Shepard’s murderer serves as the climax of the performance. The interviewer is urged, by a Catholic priest who served in Laramie, to get to know the murderer, and try to understand him. The play does not urge an easy excusing of Shepard’s murderer, or a forgiveness of hatred, but a kind of plea to get beyond simplistic characterizations of “us” and “them” while keeping a steady eye on justice. And that is the kind of public performance that, to me, is deserving of the name “public” in aspiration and meaning.

Stuck in Traffic

My daughter started kindergarten last month, and recently she was invited to the birthday party of a pre-school classmate. Naturally, the kids turned to playing and the adults turned to dissecting just what was going on in kindergarten. Our children are at different schools, and people were happy and unhappy about different things, but there was parental consensus that the traffic light discipline phenomenon is occupying too much of our children’s attention and interest.

In case readers aren’t familiar with the phenomenon, it’s a “behavioral management system” used frequently in elementary schools. Students who behave are “on green”. If you get into a little bit of trouble, you’re “on yellow” until you get yourself back to green again. From yellow, if you continue to commit infractions you can go down further to red. Not sure what happens there, since my daughter has been on green since day 1, and according to her the only child to get as far as yellow so far is one boy who tends to talk to the other children at his table.

It sounds fairly sensible as a means of maintaining order, and I am certainly sympathetic to classroom teachers’ need to do so. What’s alarming is that in the minds of so many kindergarteners, one’s primary purpose in school seems to be staying out of trouble.

I’m juxtaposing this with my discovery last week that 75% of the undergraduate students in one of my classes could tell me nothing about Karl Marx. Not even that he was one of the Marx brothers, which I almost would have settled for, as some indication of cultural literacy. It’s hardly news that our schools put a lot of energy into behavioral management and not enough into intellectual content, but it’s worth paying attention to again and again. Programs like KIPP and other successful charter schools have drawn our attention to the importance of teaching pro-school behavior. As Arne Duncan and the Department of Education address the problems of failing schools, they would do well to remember that behavior is only part of what matters.

I suspect kindergarteners may in part be enthralled with the traffic light system because they’ve figured out that it’s the key to what school is all about. She who controls the traffic lights holds the power, and kids are savvy enough to see, by the fourth week of kindergarten, that power, norms, and regulation are as much the point as learning to read. When my daughter and a neighborhood friend played school, they gleefully moved my younger daughter from green to yellow when she played with blocks at “storytime” instead of listening. Traffic lights, and the control of social nuisances they made possible, were (and are) the very heart of the game. In a recent article in Ed Week, Alfie Kohn suggests that alternative educators may be inspired by the traditional classrooms they grow up in – inspired to be different and do better. The insights of kindergarteners (which of course still need to turn into critical analysis, rather than tools for oppressing one’s little sister) are reason to think he might be right.

Think you can't trust the President?? At least trust the kids!

I was greeted early yesterday morning by a local newspaper article noting that some folks (specifically, "conservatives,"  but it's hard to know who that refers to) are angry that President Obama plans to give a speech at a public school urging young people to stay in school and take advantage of the education being offered them. Throughout the day yesterday -- and this morning -- I encountered this "developing story" ... on CNN, in The New York Times, and elsewhere.  

What are we to make of this?

The Obama folks clearly made one mistake in the run-up to the event.   They posted lesson plans that teachers could use in preparation for and after listening to the President's speech (offered live in one school but available for broadcast in any school).   One part of that included a question to be posed to the students:  "What can you do to help the President?"    In context, the question was clearly about supporting the good of the nation, but I can (if I really stretch Peter Elbow's "methodological belief") see why those who do not agree with the "President's ideology" would be concerned.  And it seems the President's folks were listening and focused on making this a non-partisan event. That question in the lesson plan was changed to ask how a student could achieve his or her educational goals.

I am struck by the concern with the "President's ideology," because the complaint incorporates the assumption that ONLY the President has an ideology, that the one complaining is speaking the non-biased truth.   Of course, the President has views on how to deal with the issues of our time, as do we all.    And we don't all agree with each other.   But it seems we have lost even the notion that we share one common goal:  a desire to educate children to be good Americans (even when we are not in agreement about what that means.)  Each of us -- especially the duly elected President of the country -- deserves that benefit of the doubt no matter how hard we fight in the arena of ideas and policies.

We have apparently moved into an era when even the clear election winner, a father of two young daughters, will not be trusted to speak to school children.  Have we so little confidence in our children's ability to listen critically and form and frame their own minds that we fear the influence of Barack Obama?   If that's so, then I fear no education is possible, certainly not the real education that requires openness to people who don't look and think like we do.  

Children who would become democratic citizens need to experience the play of democratic functioning.  I remember well my 6th grade Catholic school playground days during the Nixon/Kennedy elections.   My teachers and most of my classmates were Kennedy supporters (the result of religioius "ideology"? )   My parents -- and I -- were Nixon supporters (the result of my business executive father's socio-economic status?)  I and the few other Nixon supports held our ground when everybody else challenged us;   for the most part, we enjoyed it.  Whether or not we can trust our President in this case (and I obviously think we can),  I am quite certain we can trust our children.   Bring the President into every classroom;  it will do us good.

Where are the Voices from the Grass Roots?

(Cross-posted from the Journal of Educational Controversy blog)

In reading much that is printed in the mainstream media like today's editorial in the New York Times - "Accountability in Public Education," one constantly hears accounts and perspectives from the voices of those who are in power. Where are the voices from the grass roots about their concerns, frustrations, hopes, and challenges to what passes as educational reform in this country. I recently came across a website and a listserv that provides readers with this alternative perspective. For readers interested in educating themselves on other perspectives, check out the following website and join the listserv of the Education for Liberation Network.

Website: http://www.edliberation.org/

To join the listserv: go to www.edliberation.org/join-us

Description and Purpose: The Education for Liberation Network is a national coalition of teachers, community activists, youth, researchers and parents who believe a good education should teach people - particularly low-income youth and youth of color - to understand and challenge the injustices their communities face.

Teachers may also be interested in their recent publication of a new kind of plan book that is called: Planning to Change the World: A Plan Book for Social Justice Teachers 2009-2010. You can find it at: http://www.justiceplanbook.com/. I am told that the first printing is already sold out, but more are being printed.

New Alberta law may chill classroom speech

In June, the Alberta legislature passed a bill that will require teachers to notify parents whenever sexual or religious topics will be addressed. Under the terms of the bill, the parents, once notified, could elect to pull their children out of any classes that concerned these topics.

Not surprisingly, this legislation has provoked opposition from a number of corners, perhaps most significantly from teachers, who feel that it will have a chilling effect on their speech. For some teachers, it may be easier to avoid a topic than to take the trouble of sending formal notification home. Yet even if the topic is a required element of the curriculum (e.g. sex education), a new bureaucratic hurdle has been created.

Teachers have also noted that this law may require notification whenever evolution is discussed in science classrooms. Lindsay Blackett, Alberta's Minister of Culture and Community Spirit, has indicated that this is not the case--he claimed that it is only when religion is explicitly addressed that notification would be required. However, the Premier of Alberta, Frank Stelmach, cast doubt on this, suggesting that parents would be notified and given the opportunity to remove their children from classes which dealt with the topic of evolution.

Gay rights activists are also unhappy with this legislation. One gay parent asked, "What happens at Father's Day art projects when my son makes two? How does the teacher explain that without talking about my family?" Yet even if parental notification is not actually required in this case, it seems likely that the law will lead teachers to avoid topics like this. What teacher will want to talk about a subject that has, in essence, been designated officially as dangerous?

The bill occasioned a great deal of heated rhetoric in the Alberta legislature, which is currently controlled by the Progressive Conservative (PC) party. Government members claimed that they were respecting the rights of parents. Rob Anderson, the PC member for Airdrie-Chestermere, offered the following comment on the bill:

...there are thousands and thousands of parents, the silent majority, severely
normal Albertans that are extremely happy with this legislation, that
believe it’s right to affirm the right of parents as being the primary
educators of their children in these subjects. I think that it’s a credit
to this government that it has stood up for what is right on this
matter...

Opposition Liberal and NDP members, however, maintained that the government had caved to religious interests. Harry Chase, the Liberal member for Calgary-Varsity, remarked:

By enshrining prejudice in the name of religious tolerance, this
government has taken Alberta back to the controversy of the Scopes
monkey trial of 1925 in Tennessee. To divert Albertans’ attention
from their prejudicial proposal, they have played and replayed the
racial discrimination defence card, that due to their caucus’s ethnic
diversity they are shocked that anyone would dare to accuse them of
promoting intolerance. However, that is exactly what Bill 44, which
does not apply to private schools, will do to previously inclusive,
open-minded, secular-based public schools by enshrining in law the
right to discriminate on the basis of human sexuality, religion, or
sexual orientation.

Opposition members also noted that Alberta already provides generous public funding for private schools. Any citizen who wishes to send their child to private school can receive a voucher for 70% of the public school subsidy. Not surprisingly, the parental notification bill does not apply to Alberta private schools, many of which are faith-based.

Since the Conservatives have a 72-11 majority in the Alberta legislature, the opposition had no chance of stopping the passage of the bill. However, the law has yet to be implemented in schools, and it remains to be seen what effect it will have. How rigorously will teachers comply with the law? Will many parents elect to pull their children from classes?

At any rate, the question remains as to how parents' rights to control their children's learning should be balanced against teachers' rights and state interests. In Alberta, at least, it would seem as though the balance has shifted decisively towards parents.

Call for Reviewers

The Journal of Educational Controversy is in the process of building a pool of reviewers to assist in evaluating future manuscripts. If you would like to be considered as a reviewer, please e-mail a vita indicating your discipline and areas of interest to: CEP-eJournal@wwu.edu Please include "Potential Reviewer" on the subject line.

The Richness of Experiences

During her confirmation hearings last week, Sonia Sotomayor repudiated her now-famous earlier statement that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”. Of course, political pressure makes confirmation hearings no place to stick to a nuanced point, but I’m still sorry that Sotomayor had to back away from that point rather than explaining some things about experience, perspective, and education.

The key phrase is “with the richness of her experiences”. Experience is educational; judges who have had richer experiences are better educated and may therefore reach better, decisions than judges with less understanding of the way the world and people are. Hardly problematic, it seems to me. Whether the experiences of Latinas are indeed richer than those of White men would then become the question. Not always, I’d guess, but given the dynamics of race and social class probably true of most Latinas and White men who become judges.

I hear Sotomayor echoing Dewey’s argument about growth and burglars. Cliques of all sorts, including the company of elite lawyers, and the educational situations in which many law-school bound students grow up, are inimical to education that reaches beyond the limitations of school. Rather than criticize Sotomayor for this point, we might all want to think again about what factors enable White men to lose touch with the wider experiences of humanity. And not only White men, of course, or all White men -- there's no need to slide into an essentialism that I don't read in Sotomayor's original comment. Richness of experience matters. That's the main idea.

Betting the University Endowment on the Market

A small Canadian university, St. Francis Xavier, made the headlines last week when it revealed that it lost a staggering 43% of its $100 million endowment in the past year. Unlike most universities, which use a mix of assets in their investment portfolios, St. F.X. placed 90% of the endowment in Canadian stocks, and the rest in "U.S. equities."

It sounds like a housecleaning is in order on one particular university committee. The Globe and Mail article notes:

St. FX also is on the hunt for new members for the volunteer committee that oversees the university's investments. “A number of them are in their 70s,” Mr. Duff said, and the school needs to do some succession planning.

One interesting thing about this whole case is that St. F.X., like most Canadian universities, is a public institution. Granted, the endowment money doubtlessly came from private donors, but the university still relies largely on public funding. Perhaps, given this reliance, some light government regulation is in order in terms of how public universities manage their endowment.

I find it difficult to believe that a university could pursue such a risky strategy. However, as we've been finding out steadily over the course of the past year, there are many aspects about the whole financial meltdown that have beggared belief. It may be that St. F.X. is an isolated case, but as the financial crisis continues to unfold, we may yet see some more "interesting" financial news coming from higher education. Let's just hope that no one decided to invest their endowment in derivatives...

Supreme Court Decides Student Strip Search Case

(Cross-posted from the Journal of Educational Controversy blog)


The U.S. Supreme Court decision on the student strip search case was announced today. The ACLU , who represented April Redding, the mother of the Arizona student, Savana Redding, calls it the first victory for student rights in the last twenty years. The High Court ruled that the search that took place when honors student Savana was 13 years old was an unconstitutional violation of her rights. The search was done by school officials on the basis of an uncollaborated accusation by another student that Savanna had ibuprofen in her prosession. Now nineteen years old, Savanna wrote about her experience and her court victory on the ACLU blog today.


Savana's own words about her court victory from the ACLU blog:


Civics 101
by Savana Redding

"People of all ages expect to have the right to privacy in their homes, belongings, and most importantly, their persons. But for far too long, students have been losing these rights the moment they step foot onto public school property -- a lesson I learned firsthand when I was strip-searched by school officials just because another student who was in trouble pointed the finger at me. I do not believe that school officials should be allowed to strip-search kids in school, ever. And though the U.S. Supreme Court did not go quite so far, it did rule that my constitutional rights were violated when I was strip-searched based on nothing more than a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that I had given her ibuprofen. I'm happy for the decision and hope it helps make sure that no other kids will have to experience what I went through.

"Strip searches are a traumatic intrusion of privacy. Forcing children to remove their clothes for bodily inspection is not a tool that school officials should have at their disposal. Yet, until today, the law was apparently unclear, potentially allowing for the most invasive of searches based on the least of suspicions. Every day, parents caution their children about the importance of not talking to strangers, looking both ways before crossing the street, and following directions at school. But I imagine they never think to warn them that a school official, acting on a hunch, may force them to take their clothes off in the name of safety. And now, thankfully, they won't have to.

"Our fundamental rights are only as strong as the next generation believes them to be, and I am humbled to have had a part in preserving and promoting the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights."

Readers can read the U.S. Supreme Court decision here.

Editor: The journal recently published some articles on another student rights case, Morse v. Frederick, decided by the U.S Supreme Court in 2007.

Readers can read two articles on that case in our journal's Winter 2008 issue on "Schooling as if Democracy Matters.

"Visions of Public Education In Morse v. Frederick by Aaron H. Caplan

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus”: Have students’ First Amendment rights to free speech been changed after Morse v. Frederick? by Nathan M. Roberts

Announcing the New Educational Institute for Democratic Renewal

We have just put up a post on the Journal of Educational Controversy Blog about our newly formed Educational Institute for Democratic Renewal. We are anxious to get ideas and feedback. Check it out.