Not on the same academic plane as Andrea Drusch, but important. See the details at Pharyngula, “Growing bolder in Boulder.”
More students with good ideas about improving schools
September 29, 2007
Leave a Comment » | 
Bill of Rights, Patriotism, Pledge to the flag, Separation of church and state, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Boulder, Pledge to the flag, Student walkout | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
UC Irvine works to rehire Chemerinsky; OC Republicans make trouble
September 15, 2007If you can figure some way to interpret this story in the LA Times as other than the Orange County Republicans don’t want a good, powerful dean of the UC-Irvine law school, let me know in comments. (This is a follow-up of my earlier post.)
This is one more case of Republicans working hard to keep education from being first rate, out of misplaced fear of what well-educated people can do. Uneducated peasants don’t contradict the priests, Jefferson and Madison observed. The OC Republicans know that.
Constitutional law is a good thing, they seem to be saying, so long as it never works to protect the poor, people accused or convicted of criminals, or citizens injured by corporations.
It’s an interesting barrel Chemerinsky has them over; much of the commentary, even among conservatives opposed to Chemerinsky’s views, has it that UC-Irvine will be unable to attract a first-rate dean, and a first-rate faculty, now that this ugly politics cat is out of the bag. If they cannot strike a deal with Chemerinsky to be rehired, they are in real trouble.
Let me say that I don’t put a lot of credence in the claims that pressure from outsiders is a strong motivating force in this crash. Having worked for both Democrats and Republicans, I’ve seen this too often, and it has all the symptoms of big donor demands to take back a perfectly rational decision for unholy political purposes. My experience, mostly from the Republican side, is that this is almost exclusively a Republican phenomenon, that big donors expect public institutions to which they donate to dance to their fiddlers. (There are exceptions, of course. But let me say: Ray Donovan.)
Maybe he can negotiate to require the Republican politicians who oppose his hiring to attend a 1st year Constitutional law class that Chemerinsky would teach, and they would have to do it for a grade that will be published. That would be a huge win all the way around, I think: Chemerinsky gets the job, UC-Irvine gets a the fast-track to high quality legal education, Republicans get a chance to know and understand Chemerinsky in the classroom, and some much needed education about the Constitution sinks into the Republicans.
Dream big, I always say.
Other sources:
- My previous post
- Chancellor Drake’s explanation of why he de-hired Chemerinsky
- Prof. Chemerinsky’s side of the story
- Letter from UC-Irvine students, faculty and staff, to Chancellor Drake
- Profile of Chancellor Drake, a man of high ethics and solid action
- Jurist Magazine op-ed urging Chemerinsky’s rehiring, by Prof. Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson Law School
- Gasoline on the fire opinion piece by Susan Estrich
- NPR News Blog, on the de-hiring
Leave a Comment » | Academic freedom, Bill of Rights, College, Education, Education quality, Graduate study, Teacher Pay, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Constitution Day! Monday, September 17, 2007
September 14, 2007Are you ready for it, teachers?
- My previous reminder; and last year’s
- Constitution Day website
- Bill of Rights Institute
- Howard Chandler Christy’s painting of the Convention in Philadelphia, as adapted by Dr. Gordon Lloyd (Pepperdine University) for the National Endowment for the Humanities, for interactive education.
Leave a Comment » | 1789, Curricula, Historic documents, History, Lesson plans, TEKS, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Constitution Day, September 17
September 9, 2007Get ready.
Constitution Day is September 17, 2007. It’s the anniversary of the day in 1787 when 39 men signed their names to the proposed Constitution of the United States of America, to send it off to the Continental Congress, who was asked to send it to specially convened meetings of citizens of the 13 states for ratification. When and if nine of the former colonies ratified it, it would become the document that created a federal government for those nine and any of the other four who joined.
For Texas, the requirement to commemorate the Constitution was changed to “Celebrate Freedom Week” effective 2003. This week is expected to coincide with the week that includes national Veterans Day, November 11. School trustees may change to a different week. (See § 74.33 of the Texas Education Code) Texas does require students to recite a section from the Declaration of Indpendence. (Recitation is highlighted below the fold.)
Knowledge of the Constitution is abysmal, according to most surveys. Students are eager to learn the material, I find, especially when it comes presented in interesting ways, in context of cases that interest the students. The trick is to find those things that make the Constitution interesting, and develop the lesson plans. Some classes will be entertained by Schoolhouse Rock segments; some classes will dive into Supreme Court cases or other serious issues, say the legality of torture of “enemy combatants” or warrantless domestic surveillance. Some classes will like both approaches, on the same day.
Texas teachers have two months to get ready for Celebrate Freedom Week. Constitution Day is just a week away for anyone who wants to do something on September 17.
Sources you should check out:
- My post from last year, featuring links to Gordon Lloyd’s interactive Howard Chandler Christy painting of the delegates to the convention in Philadelphia, and other sources.
- Bill of Rights Institute Constitution Day page — consistently high quality classroom materials.
- University of Texas Constitution Day 2006, interviews with Texas scholars
- Educators’ links from the Constitution Day home page
- Three video clips for intermediate to junior high students, from Richardson, Texas, Independent School District
- Free poster and teaching guide to the U.S. Constitution, for teachers
- Constitution Day 2007 website
- National Constitution Center, Philadelphia
- Charters of Freedom – The Constitution display, National Archives
- Center for Civic Education Constitution Day lesson plans and materials
4 Comments | 1787, 1789, Bill of Rights, Government, Historic documents, History, Icons of history, James Madison, Lesson plans, Supreme Court cases, TAKS, TEKS, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Alberto Gonzales resigned . . .
August 27, 2007. . . Friday, but the president didn’t tell us about it until today.
According to the the New York Times (which broke the story):
“The unfair treatment that he’s been on the receiving end of has been a distraction for the department,” the official said.
Injustice even as he leaves. It’s the fair treatment Gonzales received that should have forced him out. The U.S. Justice Department is a mess above the political appointee level, with serious mismanagement, mal-management and lack of management threatening justice and the administration of law at several levels.
Other notable coverage: The Washington Post story now includes notes to Gonzales’s terse announcement, and links to recent stories in the Post which lend perspective and a lot of information.
Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Civil Rights, History, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Politics, Presidents, Scandals, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Texas couple gets $80,000 for Bush’s anti-protestor errors
August 17, 2007Remember the two people kicked out of President Bush’s Independence Day speech in West Virginia for wearing protest t-shirts in 2004? Nicole and Jeffery Rank, now of Corpus Christi, Texas, were charged with trespassing.
But they were invited to attend the speech.
“This settlement is a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment,” said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia. “As a result of the Ranks’ courageous stand, public officials will think twice before they eject peaceful protesters from public events for exercising their right to dissent.”
In the course of the suit it was discovered that the official advance manual for the Bush White House urged removing dissenters from speech audiences, so the original claims that the action was just overzealous local officials was refuted. One wonders if the advance manual has been changed.
When asked if are glad they decided stand up for their beliefs, both answered “absolutely” without hesitation.
“We have thoroughly not enjoyed our 15 minutes [of fame]. It’s cost us personally and professionally,” Jeff Rank said. “The thing that we’re fighting for, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, is just too important to this country to lay down on something like this.”
The First Amendment may have been wounded, but it’s still alive.
Other resources:
- The original complaint in the case, from the national ACLU website (.pdf format)
- Editorial supporting the Ranks’ position, from the Bryan-College Station, Texas, Eagle (home of Texas A&M)
- Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) with longer story and more complete explanations
Tip of the old scrub brush to blueollie.
1 Comment | Civil Rights, Dissent, First Amendment, Jurisprudence, Justice, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Disturbed congressman
August 10, 2007Idaho’s Rep. Bill Sali is disturbed. But will he seek treatment?
Better, might he read the Constitution if we give him the link?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula, and to Dispatches on the Culture Wars.
Photo probably from the Spokane, Washington, Spokesman-Review
4 Comments | America's founding, First Amendment, Humor, Politics, U.S. Constitution, Voodoo history | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
August 7, 1964: Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
August 7, 2007August 7 is the 43rd anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the resolution which authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to move troops into South Vietnam to defend U.S. interests.
The resolution passed Congress after what appeared to be attacks on two U.S. Navy ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. At the time, and now, evidence is weak that such attacks took place.
Santayana’s ghost looks on in wonder.
Leave a Comment » | History, Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, Vietnam, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
When things get tough, the patriotic listen to Barbara Jordan
August 2, 2007Whose voice do you hear, really, when you read material that is supposed to be spoken by God? Morgan Freeman is a popular choice — he’s played God at least twice now, racing George Burns for the title of having played God most often in a movie. James Earl Jones?
Statue of Rep. Barbara Jordan at the Austin, Texas airport that bears her name. Photo by Meghan Lamberti, via Accenture.com
For substance as well as tone, I nominate Barbara Jordan’s as the voice you should hear.
I’m not alone. Bill Moyers famously said:
When Max Sherman called me to tell me that Barbara was dying and wanted me to speak at this service, I had been reading a story in that morning’s New York Times about the discovery of forty billion new galaxies deep in the inner sanctum of the universe. Forty billion new galaxies to go with the ten billion we already knew about. As I put the phone down, I thought: it will take an infinite cosmic vista to accommodate a soul this great. The universe has been getting ready for her.
Now, at last, she has an amplifying system equal to that voice. As we gather in her memory, I can imagine the cadences of her eloquence echoing at the speed of light past orbiting planets and pulsars, past black holes and white dwarfs and hundreds of millions of sun-like stars, until the whole cosmic spectrum stretching out to the far fringes of space towards the very origins of time resonates to her presence.
Virgotext carried a series of posts earlier in the year, commemorating what would have been Jordan’s 71st birthday on February 21. (Virgotext also pointed me to the Moyers quote, above.)
Now, when the nation seriously ponders impeachment of a president, for the third time in just over a generation, Ms. Jordan’s words have more salience, urgency, and wisdom. It’s a good time to revisit Barbara Jordan’s wisdom, in the series of posts at Virgotext.
“There is no president of the United States that can veto that decision.”
“My faith in the Constitution is whole.”
“We know the nature of Impeachment. We’ve been talking about it a while now.”
“Indignation so great as to overgrow party interests.”
And finally:
The rest of the hearing remarks are all here. It’s a longer clip than the others but honestly, there is not a good place to cut it.
This is Barbara Jordan on the killing floor.
This was a woman who understands history, who illustrates time and again that we are, with every action, with every syllable, cutting the past away from the present.
She never mentions Nixon by name. There is the Constitution. There is the office of the Presidency. But Richard Nixon the president has already ceased to exist. By the time she finishes speaking, he is history.
“A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.”
Also see, and hear:
Virgotext’s collection of Barbara Jordan stories and quotes is an excellent source for students on Watergate, impeachment, great oratory, and Barbara Jordan herself. Bookmark that site.
Rep. Barbara Jordan sitting calmly among tension, at a House Committee meeting (probably House Judiciary Committee in 1974).
Update 2019: Here is the full audio of Barbara Jordan’s speech. It is still salient, and if you listen to it you will understand better what is going on in Congress today.
Barbara Jordan, Statement on the Articles of Impeachment, at AmericanRhetori.com.
3 Comments | Barbara Jordan, Democracy, Ethics, Famous quotes, Free press, Good Quotes, Heroes, History, History audio sources, Justice, Leadership, Patriotism, Presentations, Presidents, Quotes, Reason, Scandals, Texas, Texas history, Texas Lege, U.S. Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives, Watergate scandal | Tagged: Barbara Jordan, Democracy, Ethics, Famous quotes, Heroes, History, Texas | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Immigrants win Pennsylvania case: Hazleton’s anti-immigrant law struck down
July 26, 2007News from the Pennsylvania ACLU (watch the right wing blogs explode, especially in Texas when they figure out the Farmers Branch ordinance is based on Hazleton’s ordinance, and that the judge in Pennsylvania used language similar to the TRO language used by the judge in Texas looking at the Farmers Branch ordinance) (text of press release and background from Pennsylvania ACLU):
Judge’s Decision Upholds Fair Treatment for All
“The genius of our Constitution is that it provides rights even to those who evoke the least sympathy from the general public. In that way, all in this nation can be confident of equal justice under its laws.” – Judge Munley’s Lozano v. Hazleton decision, pp. 188-189
In the first trial decision of its kind, a federal court has declared unconstitutional a local ordinance that sought to punish landlords and employers for doing business with undocumented immigrants. The landmark decision in the closely-watched challenge to Hazleton’s anti-immigrant ordinance held that the ordinance cannot be enforced.
“We are grateful the court recognized that municipal laws like those in Hazleton are unconstitutional. The trial record showed that these ordinances are based on propaganda and deception,” said Vic Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania and a lead attorney in the case. “Hazleton-type laws are designed to make life miserable for millions of immigrants. They promote distrust of all foreigners, including those here legally, and fuel xenophobia and discrimination, especially against Latinos.”
Leave a Comment » | Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Civil Rights, Economics, Human Rights, Immigration, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
They come in threes: Stooges, branches of government
July 25, 2007Is it true that a survey shows more teenagers know the names of the Three Stooges than know the three branches of government?
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor warned the National Governors Association that lack of education — ignorance — threatens justice in the U.S. According to the Detroit News:
O’Connor said growing disrespect for judges and erosion of independence of the judicial branch are partly due to students not learning much about American government in school.
“The key to maintaining our system lies in the education of our citizens,” O’Connor told the 19 governors who stuck around for the final day of the summer meeting.
She added in her 12-minute speech that surveys have shown fewer teenagers can identify the three branches of government than can name the Three Stooges.
“Now I enjoy Larry, Moe and Curly, but” it’s distressing that students don’t know the most basic concepts of government, said O’Connor, a Reagan appointee who retired last year after 24 years on the high court.
But, the Three Stooges? That’s almost too perfect a quote. It seems even more fantastic when one considers that the Three Stooges are not broadcast nearly so much as they were in the 1960s, 1970s and even 1980s. Where did O’Connor get that factoid?
- Photo: Justice Sandra Day O’Connor by Matt York, Associated Press
4 Comments | 1789, Bell Ringers, Education, Education quality, Education reform, Harry Wong, History, Quotes, U.S. Constitution, Warm-up exercises | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Constitutional limitations on regal fantasies of presidents
July 24, 2007Some people still defend the Madisonian view of the Constitution and its limits on the powers of the president (Adam Cohen in the New York Times):
The Constitution cannot enforce itself. It is, as the constitutional scholar Edwin Corwin famously observed, an “invitation to struggle” among the branches, but the founders wisely bequeathed to Congress some powerful tools for engaging in the struggle. It is no surprise that the current debate over a deeply unpopular war is arising in the context of a Congressional spending bill. That is precisely what the founders intended.
Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.
2 Comments | Historic documents, History, Iraq, Presidents, U.S. Constitution, War | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Even more on Odessa Bible class case
July 20, 2007Oh, and, there’s more.
Also see Ed Brayton’s posts here:
- New Developments in Odessa Case
- Historical Ignorance on NCBCPS Website
- Liberty Legal Institute to Defend Odessa Suit
- Jewish Teacher in Odessa Speaks Out
- The Adoption of the NCBCPS Curriculum in Odessa
- NCBCPS Curriculum Challenged in Court
Here’s the press release from the Liberty Legal Institute:
The ACLU put their initial complaint on-line, and may follow with more documents as the case progresses:
The Texas Freedom Network has sponsored high-level criticism of Bible study class curricula; their critiques forced changes in the curriculum used in Odessa, but the modified curriculum does not pass Constitutional, academic or Bible study muster, according to a careful report from Southern Methodist University (in Dallas) Bible study professor Mark Chancey. TFN has several reports and press releases on the general issue:
And from the local newspaper, the daily Odessa American:
- “Free Bible Defense” (On Liberty Legal Institute’s defending the district at no cost)
- “ECISD fights lawsuit” (ECISD is Ector County Independent School District)
- “ACLU, parents sue ECISD”
- “Closed-door Bible class”
Leave a Comment » | Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Curricula, Education, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Historic documents, History, Jurisprudence, Law, Lesson plans, Literature, Plagiarism, Public education, Religion, Religious Freedom, Texas Freedom Network, Textbooks, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Odessa Bible class case
July 20, 2007In the continuing religious freedom/education drama in Texas, the school district in Odessa, Texas, approved a Bible study course using a curriculum indicted by the Texas Freedom Network’s expert-in-Bible-studies advisors as religious indoctrination rather than academically rigorous study. Citizens in Odessa sued the district to have that action declared unconstitutional.
The case is being readied for trial, with motions from plaintiffs and defendants flying back and forth. I should be watching it carefully, and I probably should be offering close coverage here for teachers, parents and administrators in Texas.
But I haven’t been able to dig into the stuff yet. In the interim, Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has been following the case closely, and providing timely blog updates. He’s made connections with the legal teams on both sides and has access to the legal documents filed so far.
Don’t wait: Get on over to Dispatches from the Culture Wars and get updated on the case.
This would be a good topic for a civics class project, too, it seems to me. You may want to capture documents as they come out for DBQ exercises in the coming school year.
Leave a Comment » | Bill of Rights, Capturing history, Citizenship, DBQ sources, Education, First Amendment, Freedom - Political, Historic documents, History, History blogs, Jurisprudence, Justice, Law, Public education, Religious Freedom, Texas, Texas Freedom Network, U.S. Constitution | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Japanese-American internment: Statesman-Journal web special
June 29, 2007Looking for good sources on Japanese internment?
Editor & Publisher highlights the web version of a special series on Japanese internment during World War II, put together by the Statesman-Journal in Salem, Oregon. The series is featured in “Pauline’s Picks,” a feature by Pauline Millard showing off the best use of the web by old-line print publications.
The Statesman-Journal’s web piece is “Beyond Barbed Wire,” featuring timelines, maps of the Tule Lake internment facility (closest to Oregon), stories about Japanese Americans in Oregon, especially in Salem, photos, video interviews, and a significant collection of original documents perfectly suited for document-based studies.
Texas kids test particularly badly in this part of U.S. history. Several districts ask U.S. history teachers and other social studies groups to shore up student knowledge in the area to overcome gaps pointed out in testing in the past three years, on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). In teacher training, I’ve noted a lot of Texas social studies teachers are a bit shaky on the history.
The Korematsu decision was drummed into my conscious working on civil rights issues at the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and complemented by Constitutional Law (thank you, Mary Cheh) and other courses I was taking at the same time at George Washington University. It helped that Utah has a significant Japanese population and had “hosted” one of the internment camps; one of my tasks was to be sure committee Chairman Orrin Hatch was up on issues and concerns when he met with Japanese descendants in his constituencies in Utah. Hatch was a cosponsor of the bills to study the internment, and then to apologize to Japanese Americans affected, and pay reparations.
The internment was also a sore spot with my father, G. Paul Darrell, who witnessed the rounding up of American citizens in California. Many of those arrested were his friends, business associates and acquaintances. Those events formed a standard against which he measured almost all other claims of civil rights violations.
Because children were imprisoned with their parents, because a lot of teenagers were imprisoned, this chunk of American history strikes particular sympathetic chords with students of any conscience. Dorothea Lange’s having photographed some of the events and places, as well as Ansel Adams and others, also leaves a rich pictorial history.
(I found this thanks to the RSS feed of headlines from Editor & Publisher at the Scholars & Rogues site.)
4 Comments | Bill of Rights, Citizenship, Civil Rights, DBQ sources, Education, Freedom - Political, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, Historic documents, History video sources, Japanese American internment, Justice, Newspapers, Supreme Court cases, TAKS, Teaching, Technology in the classroom, TEKS, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 