Justice Ginsburg errs, wonderfully

July 8, 2009

David Bernstein writing at the Volokh Conspiracy corrects Justice Ginsburgh.  She told a reporter for the New York Times that she thought nominee Sonia Sotomayor might be, when confirmed, the first justice who didn’t speak English as a first language at home.

Not so fast, Bernstein said.  In a wonderful and fun display of historical knowledge and research, suggests several justices from earlier appointments who spoke something other than English first.

  • Justice Louis Brandeis, German –
    “I’m not sure what language was primarily spoken in the Brandeis household, but I would guess German, based on the following information: Brandeis’s parents were German-speaking immigrants; Brandeis attended a German-language elementary school, the ‘German and English Academy;’ the school was co-founded by his father, suggesting that his father had great fondness for the German language and culture; and Brandeis spent two of his teenage years studying in Germany.”
  • Maybe Justice Arthur Goldberg, Yiddish –
    “It’s also possible that Arthur Goldberg’s parents, immigrants from a shtetl in Ukraine, spoke Yiddish at home.”
  • Justice Felix Frankfurter almost definitely, German –
    ” . . . a commenter points out that Felix Frankfurter’s family didn’t arrive in the U.S. from Vienna until Frankfurter was twelve years old.”
  • Justice Clarence Thomas, Gullah –
    ” . . . I remembered that Justice Thomas’s first language is Gullah, an Afro-English creole dialect”

Thomas spoke Gullah originally?  When we shared a wall on Senate staff (he on John Danforth’s staff, I on Orrin Hatch’s), we also shared lunch on a few occasions, and meetings on energy and environment issues.  I was struck by his great enunciation, the clear way that he used his nearly baritone voice to make English work.  I wonder whether he can still command Gullah — it’s got to be one of the most minority languages on Earth right now.  Fascinating.

Are there other Supreme Court justices who may have spoken a language other than English, first?  Historians?  Got candidates? Justice Warren Burger’s family was of German descent, and in Minnesota, when he was born, it would not have been uncommon for an entire town to have German as its primary language.  I haven’t found anything to suggest that’s the case, though. Justice William J. Brennan’s parents were Irish immigrants, so there is an outside chance they spoke some Gaelic dialect.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we could find another justice who served between 1840 and 1960 with German as a first language.

How about Cardozo, and a Sephardic dialect, or Portuguese?  Any justices of French descent?  Welsh descent?  Readers, help out!

2 Comments | History, Immigration, U.S. Supreme Court | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Texas education board turns authoritarian

May 24, 2008

Nobody can recall the ceremony, but Don McLeroy made it clear yesterday that he thinks he’s been designated Kommissar of Education, ramming through a proposal altering English standards for the next decade — without debate, without even a chance to read the proposal.

It’s probably not so bad a pig in a poke as it might be — of course, no one had the chance to review it, so no one knows, really — but the processes used, worthy of Napoleon or Kruschev on a bad day, should give cause for concern.

Gotta think about this one for a while.

15 Comments | Education, Education quality, Government, History, State school boards, TAKS, Teaching, TEKS, Texas, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Chairman McLeroy to Texas Hispanics: “Drop dead!”

March 20, 2008

With evidence mounting that the politically-motivated rewrite of English standards in Texas schools would harm the education of Spanish-speaking students, the Chairman of the Texas Education Agency told state legislators, English language experts and educators that he will not allow time to analyze the proposed changes to see if they are appropriate, let alone time for changes to the standards.

In short, McLeroy told Texas Hispanics to “drop dead.”

Board chairman Don McLeroy insisted that major changes to the proposed updates are no longer possible. Advocates say the standards need opinions from experts who have researched Hispanic children and understand their learning styles.

“There is no way that ignoring such a sizable chunk of this population from consideration of education policy will do anything but harm the opportunity of a generation,” Herrero said.

McLeroy said there had been plenty of time for experts to weigh in earlier on new curriculum standards. He said he was shocked by accusations that he and others board members are trying to shortchange Hispanic students.

“There’s no malice at all, none, zip, nada. There’s just no time to get another expert in,” McLeroy said. “None of us would do anything to hurt any group of children or any (individual) child. What we want is for them to be successful in the English language because it’s so important.”

In the latest of a string of politically charged bulldozings, McLeroy is pushing standards substituted at the last minute for standards Texas educators had worked on for three years. McLeroy hired a political consulting group to rewrite the standards and substituted the rewrite in a meeting earlier this year (you’ll see my bias when you read the story in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram). Educators, parents, legislators and community leaders criticized the action for disregarding the educational needs of Texas students.

“It’s just ignorance on their part,” said Mary Helen Berlanga, a 26-year board member from Corpus Christi.

The board is set to take a preliminary vote March 27 on the new English language arts and readings standards, which will influence new textbooks for the 2009-10 school year.

A four-member board subcommittee signaled its intent Wednesday to stick with that schedule after state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, pleaded to let Latino experts review the standards first.

McLeroy is flexing never-tried-before political muscles in a series of changes at TEA. Last year he led the SBOE to arbitrarily reject a math book by a major publisher, daring legal action, hoping he could finally win a case establishing that the board can reject books on political grounds. Biology books are due for a review in the near future, and science and biology standards will be rewritten before that process.

Moving against Hispanic students on the English standards, if successful, would tend to demonstrate that Texas educato needs to dance to the red book writings of Chairman McLeroy. While 47% of Texas public school students are Hispanic, Hispanic voters have generally packed less clout.

McLeroy appears to be counting on Obama and Clinton Democrats to demonstrate apathy again near the general election. If election numbers from the March primary hold up, McLeroy will remain chairman of the SBOE, but the legislature will be likely to shift against many of the actions he’s pushed since assuming the chair, and may turn antagonistically Democratic.

The stakes are higher for Texas students.

Critics of the process asked the subcommittee to allow an expert in Hispanic culture and language to assess the proposed new standards before a preliminary vote next week by the full education board.

The four-member subcommittee that worked on the curriculum did not include anyone of Hispanic descent, or anyone from South or West Texas, and critics said the committee did not seek advice from anyone with expertise in Hispanic language or culture.

Statewide, 47 percent of the more than 4.6 million public school students are Hispanic. Eighty-nine percent of El Paso County’s 173,000 students are Hispanic.

According to the Texas Education Agency, about 16 percent of students statewide and about 28 percent of students in El Paso County in 2006 had limited English proficiency.

Resources:

2 Comments | Books, Education, Education assessment, Education quality, Evolution, Literature, Politics, Public education, State school boards, Texas, Textbook Selection, War on Education | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell