Immigrant communities respond to massive sweeps - 1,300 are arrested as Immigration Agents target immigrants in Southern California

Arnoldo Garcia of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights [see also their blog at http://www.migrantdiaries.blogspot.com/] says that massive immigration sweeps over the past week are causing terror in many immigrant communities in the Southern California area.

The LA Times reports that massive ICE sweeps are resulting in the deportation of thousands

Federal officers in Southern California over the last two weeks have arrested more than 1,300 immigrants, most of whom either have criminal records or have failed to abide by deportation orders -- part of an intensifying but controversial effort across the nation to remove such violators.Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which plans to announce the operation at a news conference in Los Angeles today, called the sweep the largest of its kind in the U.S.
Nearly 600 of those arrested at homes, workplaces and in jails have already been deported."Where these laws may not have been enforced in the past, that has changed," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for ICE...

Officers arrested 530 immigrants in their homes and workplaces and took custody of nearly 800 others from jails in Los Angeles , Orange , Ventura , Riverside and San Bernardino counties.The 1,327 arrests surpassed the 1,297 undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE agents at meat processing plants in six states last December, part of an investigation into identity theft.

The enforcement is the latest example of the how some local law enforcement agencies are cooperating with federal authorities to ensure that criminals are identified and deported, rather than simply released from jail. ..

"The arrests break up families and create an unfair and inaccurate impression of the immigrant community, which is by and large law-abiding, said Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Policy Center. Enforcement actions also cause fear in immigrant neighborhoods and families that may include U.S. citizens.
"It directs public attention away from the real need to reform the immigration system overall," she said. "This is not going to solve our problems. . . . This is just one narrow-minded, mean-spirited way of trying to fix the immigration problem."
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NNIRR has a great KNOW YOUR RIGHTS handout for immigrant communities and supporters.
Garcia and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights are planning emergency responses and a national conference for immigrant & refugee rights [Una conferencia nacional paralos derechos de inmigrantes y refugiados] for January in Houston.

More information and conference registration will be available October 15, 2007 at nnirr.org
Bringing together immigrant and refugee community leaders and organizations, activists, organizers, advocates and allies to strategize on directions and priorities for an immigrant and refugee rights movement based on justice & dignity.
Help build a shared "Immigrant Rights Platform" for the 2008 elections and beyond!

Limited travel scholarships will be available.

Tentative Workshops, Tracks & Topics:* Border and interior immigration law enforcement* Globalization and Migration* Alliance Building* Promoting the Human Rights of Im/Migrants* Addressing "Root Causes"* Immigration, Labor and Workers Rights* Immigration Policy and Legislation* Organizing Skills Development* Popular Education for Transformative Community Organizing* Immigration, Immigrant Rights and the 2008 Elections* Racism and Immigration* Open Space and Global Cafe/Caucuses

For more information email: conference08@nnirr.org

Students Rising Up in SF and East Bay to Support the Jena 6 in Louisiana

Incredible photos by Felix of the Revolutionary Worker which capture the militancy of students from Berkeley High School and San Francisco schools yesterday who joined the more than 60,000 in Jena, Louisiana and hundreds of thousands around the country to demand justice for the Jena 6. See the Teachers for Social Justice, NYCORE, and T4SJ Chicago lesson plans for teachers and students on the Jena 6 and the struggle for racial justice in the US.

See/hear/view also the independent media coverage at Indybay.org and Democracy Now.

Over 20,000 people from across the country gathered in Jena, Louisiana on Thursday, September 20th, from across the country to protest the pending charges against six African American high school students (Protest Details). The six students were charged with felonies after a fight that started after nooses were hung outside their high school. Protests were also held in cities across the United States. At UC Berkeley, over 1,000 protesters gathered in Sproul Plaza at 12pm. In San Francisco, over 200 people rallied at Powell and Market.
Last week the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of 17 year old Mychal Bell. The court ruled that he should not have been tried as an adult. Bell was supposed to have been sentenced for attempted second-degree battery this Thursday.
Mychal Bell and five other students were arrested for beating a white student during a schoolyard fight last year. The fight occurred after white students hung three nooses on a tree in the schoolyard. Bell has been jailed since January unable to meet his $90,000 bond. As of this morning he remains in prison waiting for his new bond to be posted. The District Attorney plans to appeal Bell's overturned conviction at the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Felix's photos from UC Berkeley and San Francisco protests.

Teachers Support Justice for the Jena 6 - Six young black men are headed for 20+ year prison sentences in a clear case of Jim Crow "justice"

Thursday 9/20 is a national day of action in solidarity with the Jena 6 in Louisiana.

According to http://www.colorofchange.org/, the lives of six young black men are being ruined by Jim Crow justice in Jena, Louisiana. The District Attorney has refused to protect the rights of Jena's Black population and has turned the police and courts into instruments of intimidation and oppression.

SF's Teachers for Social Justice has joined the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and Teachers for Social Justice in Chicago (TSJ) in a joint project to support the Jena 6 - REVEALING RACIST ROOTS - Jena 6 Resource Guide for Educators. NYC and Chicago put a lot of work into this. Please use the materials and help FREE THE JENA Six!

From the Guide:

The COLOR OF CHANGE site has put together a petition and letter that can be sent to Gov. Blanco and D.A. Walters. Students can craft their own letters and personal statements, sharing what they have learned. Students can investigate the use of petitions and other forms of activism in order to combat institutionalized racism. http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/

FRIENDS OF JUSTICE provides information about local activism, provides updates, and suggests possible actions.

This ZMAG report documents some of the initial grassroots work performed by the Jena community, showing a history of activism in small towns that connects students to other social movements.

THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER has joined to struggle to free the Jena 6, as this article describes.

NOLA.COM provides a description of how other communities, in this case New Orleans, are responding to the situation in Jena. This report can give educators and students a look into ways they might be able to do similar consciousness raising work in their own communities.

Fighting Lennar Development and Environmental Racism in SF Schools and Hunters Point Community

Photos from SF Bayview Newspaper

Environmental racism and health inequality for the lowest income communities of color in San Francisco are clear structural barriers to educational equality in our school district. The largely African American Hunters Point community in the Southeast region of San Francisco has been organizing for almost a year now to stop the 'ethnic cleansing' of SF's Black community there.

Over the past decade big business developers and city politicians have gradually 'pushed out' African American families from Bay View Hunters Point and other Southeast areas of the City. But the most dramatic displacement is going on right now with Lennar Corporation's Hunters Point Shipyard development that is threatening the neighborhood with some 1500-1600 new condos. The School Board has been working with neighborhood and environmental justice groups, parents, students and social justice organizations to halt the Lennar Development until a thorough independent health study can be conducted to ensure the health of the community's children and families.

Here's the resolution the San Francisco Board of Education is scheduled to vote on at our school board meeting on Tuesday 9/25 at 6pm:

---------------

San Francisco Board of Education Resolution
In Opposition to Lennar Corporation’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Development and In Support of the Community’s Demand for a Temporary Stoppage and an Independent Health and Safety Assessment to Protect Our Students and Their Families

- Commissioners Eric Mar and Kim-Shree Maufas
[will move to suspend the rules to vote on First Reading 9/25]

WHEREAS: Patterns of environmental racism, inequity and injustice exist within San Francisco, where schools in communities like Bayview Hunters Point bear the brunt of environmental health problems; and
WHEREAS: Since October 2006, when a young worker blew the whistle on Lennar Corporation’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard development, large numbers of students, teachers, educators, workers, and families of the Bayview Hunters Point area have been voicing their concerns about the construction-related dust at the Hunters Point Shipyard site and the dangerous health impact that the dust and toxics in it, including asbestos, heavy metals and other inorganics, are having on our SFUSD students, staff and members of the community; and
WHEREAS: Lennar Corporation is a Florida-based Fortune 500 company which reportedly had revenues of $16.3 billion in 2006 from development projects throughout the country like the 1500-unit condominium development planned for Hunters Point; and
WHEREAS: Lennar Bayview Hunters Point LLC was involved in large scale grading that reportedly caused untold amounts of toxic dust and Asbestos Structures to migrate over its boundary and into areas were children and families live, work and play; and
WHEREAS: In response to these health dangers and conerns, a broad grassroots coalition of Bayview Hunters Point and social justice community organizations has been demanding a temporary stoppage in Lennar Corporation’s construction so that an independent health assessment can be conducted; and
WHEREAS: There has been a history of problems with implementing the City’s dust-mitigation plan since the soil grading and disposal process began that has included: an absence of air monitoring for the first four months of the project during heavy grading; malfunctioning air monitors; a Notice of Violation from the Air Quality Management District; and when the monitors started working, routine exceedances of the agreed-upon allowance of asbestos prevalence in the air – 16,000 structures per cubic meter [SF Department of Health Regulations, Article 31] including 9 exceedances in June alone; and very poor communication of these exceedances to adjacent neighbors; and
WHEREAS: Numerous studies have documented that Bayview Hunter's Point and other communities in Southeast San Francisco are overburdened with the cumulative impacts of a multitude of environmental health threats that impact the health and well-being of children and other residents who are overwhelmingly African American and other people of color. These impacts include exposure to toxic air pollution, carcinogens, and other inorganic substances from industrial facilities, power plants, sewage treatment and solid and hazardous waste facilities and diesel particulate from trucks, trains and other vehicles. Additionally, these impacted children and residents are more vulnerable to environmental toxics due to their limited access to quality health care and healthy foods and other social and cultural factors. And, this disproportionate impact has a damaging effect on our students academic achievement and opportunities for success in school and in their lives; and

WHEREAS: San Francisco public schools such as Malcolm X Academy, George Washington Carver, Bret Harte, and Dr. Charles Drew College Prep Academy, other schools, childcare centers, and playgrounds are in the immediate vicinity of the Lennar development site; and
WHEREAS: Three African American employees of Lennar Corporation filed a whistle blower lawsuit in SF Superior Court on March 16, 2007, alleging that they suffered retaliation after reporting asbestos dust exposure and racial discrimination and that the company failed to contain asbestos dust while drilling into the Shipyard site, endangering the local community, including the school children of the neighboring Muslim University;
WHEREAS: The World Health Organization reports that there is no evidence for a threshold for the carcinogenic effect of asbestos and that increased cancer risks have been observed in populations exposed to very low levels of asbestos; However, there are tests for lead, chromium, radon, arsenic, etc., which are toxic chemicals that are present in the dirt on the affected site; and

WHEREAS: The ‘Precautionary Principle’ has been adopted by a growing number of cities, including San Francisco, as well as the Los Angeles Unified School District, as a proactive approach to promote the safest, lowest risk approach to protecting people’s health, the environment, and property; and

WHEREAS: The Precautionary Principle as adopted by the City and County of San Francisco includes the following “essential elements:” :

Anticipatory Action: There is a duty to take anticipatory action to prevent harm. Government, business, and community groups, as well as the general public, share this responsibility.
Right to Know: The community has a right to know complete and accurate information on potential human health and environmental impacts associated with the selection of products, services, operations or plans. The burden to supply this information lies with the proponent, not with the general public.
Alternatives Assessment: An obligation exists to examine a full range of alternatives and select the alternative with the least potential impact on human health and the environment including the alternative of doing nothing.
Full Cost Accounting: When evaluating potential alternatives, there is a duty to consider all the reasonably foreseeable costs, including raw materials, manufacturing, transportation, use, cleanup, eventual disposal, and health costs even if such costs are not reflected in the initial price.
Short-and long-term benefits and time thresholds should be considered when making decisions.
Participatory Decision Process: Decisions applying the Precautionary Principle must be transparent, participatory, and informed by the best available information. (City of San Francisco, Precautionary Principle Ordinance, Section 101, August 2003, http://temp.sfgov.org/sfenvironment/aboutus/innovative/pp/sfpp.htm)

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District believes that the Precautionary Principle as adopted by the City and County of San Francisco requires the Mayor Gavin Newsom, the Redevelopment Agency, Department of Public Health, Board of Supervisors, and other agencies accountable to our communities to take “anticipatory action” to prevent harm and through exploration and careful analysis of courses of action in order to present the least threat to the students, families and staff of the schools in the vicinity of the Hunters Point development; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District calls on the Mayor, Board of Supervisors, Redevelopment Agency, Department of Public Health and other relevant City agencies to require an immediate halt of Lennar Corporation’s development of Parcel A in the Hunter’s Point Shipyard until an immediate and independent health and safety assessment can be conducted in coordination with the Superintendent and the School District’s School Health Programs Office and relevant community organizations and City task forces like the SF Asthma Task Force; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Board directs the Superintendent to coordinate with City officials to ensure the health of our students and their families in the affected area and report back to the full Board with an environmental safety action plan and timelines to ensure the safety of our students and their families no later than the Board’s October 23rd meeting.

------

For more info on how you can support the Bayview Hunters Point community -

POWER

Green Action

Francisco DaCosta

Supreme Court Limits School District’s Ability to Desegregate: It’s Up to Teachers and Communities to Ensure Educational Equity

A version of this will appear in the August Newsletter of United Educators of San Francisco. http://www.uesf.org

On July 28th a 5:4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court furthered chipped away at the landmark 1954 Brown v Board of Education case by striking down the school desegregation plans in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky. Both plans had used race/ethnicity in a limited manner for student assignment and were initiated by the local school boards to combat de facto segregation.

San Francisco teacher, parent and civil rights organizations are now debating the impact of the decision on our schools. Our Board, new Superintendent Carlos Garcia and legal staff are closely analyzing the decision and its implications for our future desegregation efforts.

In the complex split decision, the Court’s most conservative four justices - Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas - argued that race cannot be used in student assignment plans or even as a factor in developing policy. Chief Justice Roberts wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

While the new swing vote on the court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion supporting the other four conservatives in striking down the Jefferson County and Seattle plans, he importantly joined the four liberal justices in recognizing educational diversity and overcoming our history of segregation to be “compelling governmental interests” – among our country’s highest priorities – that communities can pursue through careful race-conscious efforts.

Kennedy’s opinion further defined new limits on just how race may be used in school districts with defacto segregation like ours. “This Nation has a moral and ethical obligation to fulfill its historic commitment to creating an integrated society that ensures equal opportunity to all its children.”

The ruling seems to allow the following to achieve a more integrated educational environment for districts: recruitment of school teachers and staff of diverse backgrounds; collection of data on student performance using race; and the use race as a general factor to guide decisions for new school construction and in determining attendance boundaries for a school.

Despite the striking down of the Seattle and Louisville desegregation plans, Kennedy’s 5th vote IN FAVOR OF the limited use of race in desegregation plans was at least a shred of a silver lining in an otherwise devastating decision that many civil rights advocates say has dramatically turned back the clock of civil rights and educational equity efforts many decades.

The ruling will have an impact on our desegregation and educational equity efforts in San Francisco and on hundreds of school districts throughout the country. We filed a friend of the court brief in support of both the Seattle and Jefferson County desegregation plans. Our Consent Decree monitor Stuart Biegel and many community groups have decried the rapid re-segregation and growing inequality in our district over the past 6 years and urged the San Francisco Board to reintroduce race into the student assignment system.

Our Board has been in intense discussions with our lawyers since the end or our own 1983 SFUSD Consent Decree in late 2005 – a federal court order which required SFUSD to desegregate our schools. We are now studying our existing race-neutral ‘diversity index’ and our now outdated ‘Excellence for All’ [2001] desegregation plan and are likely to decide on a new approach in the coming months after we have heard from teachers, staff, parents and other stakeholder groups.

It seems to me that the 2007 Seattle/Louisville schools decision will be remembered historically as a dark day in civil rights history. But, I agree with SF Freedom School founder and author Kathy Emery that “legal decisions in and of themselves do not create change.” The law though can contribute to fundamental social change when teachers, parents, and students use such landmarks as Brown or the Seattle decision as leverage in our organizing and fighting for broader changes like adequate funding for all schools and educational equity and equality for all of our students. Ultimately, it’s up to us – teachers, parents and communities united - to ensure equality of opportunity to all San Francisco students.

Repressive ICE Raids create fear in immigrant communities; civil and human rights violations growing

The repressive ICE Raids are creating fear in immigrant communities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Even though the immigrant rights, faith-based, and youth organizations in San Francisco have forced the Mayor, Board of Supervisors and School Board to support our Sanctuary Ordinance and uphold the rights of undocumented immigrants, the federal ICE raids are leading to growing civil and human rights violations. And, as the SF Chronicle reporter Tyche Hendricks documents below, families are being torn apart and children are being traumatized by the raids or 'Operation Return to Sender' throughout our region. A broad coalition or organizations, including grassroots groups to labor unions, youth and student groups and faith-based congregations are rallying and marching on May Day - International Workers Day here in the SF Bay Area:
From the SF Chronicle:
The human face of immigration raids in Bay Area: Arrests of parents can deeply traumatize children caught in the fray, experts argue:
...Victor and Elvira Mendoza were detained for weeks after agents arrived at their San Pablo home in January to serve a warrant for someone who didn't live there. The brother and sister had come to the Bay Area from Mexico in 2003 to be reunited with their parents, legal U.S. residents, whom they had last seen when Victor was 13 and Elvira 9. In a crackdown begun last May against illegal immigrants who ignored deportation orders, including convicted criminals, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 18,149 people by Feb. 23.

Immigration agents arrested siblings Victor and Elvira Mendoza, 21 and 17, when it turned out the fugitive they were looking for no longer lived at the Mendozas' home. Officers detained 6-year-old U.S. citizen Kebin Reyes for 12 hours when they arrested his father as an illegal immigrant.

These and many other families across the Bay Area and the nation were turned upside down this year by Operation Return to Sender, a federal immigration crackdown begun last May. The raids focus on illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders, but 37 percent of the 18,149 people arrested nationwide through Feb. 23 were not wanted fugitives.

Mental health experts say the raids are traumatizing children. Legal scholars and public officials are raising constitutional questions about the way the raids are carried out and about their impact on communities as a whole. And immigrant advocates say changes in immigration law -- including tougher provisions enacted in 1996 -- leave little room for illegal immigrants to correct their status.
...The American Civil Liberties Union and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights sued federal authorities in San Francisco on Thursday on behalf of Kebin Reyes, now 7, saying agents violated the child's civil rights when they took him into custody. Attorneys charge that the federal government violated Kebin's Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to liberty and to being secure in his own home.

When agents arrested his father, Guatemalan-born Noe Reyes, on March 6, they would not allow him to call relatives who could take charge of Kebin and instead held the boy until an alarmed uncle heard about the arrest from neighbors, Noe Reyes and his lawyers said Thursday. "He went with his dad so he wouldn't be left home alone," said immigration agency spokeswoman Lori Haley. "We work with the families to find someone to take care of the child."

Noe Reyes, the boy's sole parent in the United States, who was released April 18, said Kebin has been fearful and withdrawn since the arrest and suffers recurring nightmares....

"Just because someone is Latino or has an accent doesn't mean an officer has reasonable suspicion they are undocumented," said Lawyer's Committee staff attorney Philip Hwang. "Even being in the household where one occupant is undocumented doesn't create reasonable suspicion, because there are legion mixed-status households."

...Bay Area residents have said farewell to devoted parent volunteers, talented soccer coaches and close friends. Scores of Berkeley residents mourned the departure of Felipe and Norma Espinoza, who lived undocumented in the United States for two decades and built a much richer life for their three boys than they would have had in their hamlet in Michoacan, Mexico.

The Espinozas were placed in deportation proceedings before the current federal campaign. They hired a lawyer to try to gain legal residency, but the lawyer -- later disbarred -- didn't show up for court appearances after he took their money. In February, the couple told their sons to say goodbye to their classmates and pack their bags. The court had ordered them deported and the family returned to the two-room house where Felipe was born.

Felipe, a former steelworker, said in a phone interview that he hasn't yet found work, even as a field hand. Felipe Jr., 14, said he is studying math two years behind the geometry class he left at Berkeley High School and wishes he could return to the Bay Area, even without his parents.

Child psychology experts say children suffer most from the disruption of armed agents coming into their homes and taking away their parents -- and sometimes themselves. Children can experience stress, depression and anxiety disorders, said Amana Ayoub, a psychologist at the Center for Survivors of Torture, located in San Jose, who is familiar with Kebin Reyes' experience.

Psychiatrist Dr. Alicia Lieberman, director of the Child Trauma Research Project at UCSF, said children who witness their parents being taken into custody lose trust in their parents' ability to keep them safe and begin to see danger everywhere.

"Over and above the sense of terror about, 'What will happen to my mommy and daddy and what will happen to me?' the common thread is, 'We cannot trust the authorities,' " Lieberman said.

Many adults have responded the same way, said Evelyn Sanchez, advocacy coordinator with the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition.

"We've been in touch with a lot of families that have been affected by the raids, and understandably they are scared," Sanchez said. "Being undocumented is no light matter anymore, and they are really taking cover."

...Rocío Avila, a lawyer for La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco, said an adult client of hers was detained during a raid even though he is a U.S. citizen.

"He attempted to let them know he was a U.S. citizen, and they didn't initially believe him," she said. "He asked, 'Who are you here to see? Do you have a warrant?' They handcuffed him immediately and put him on the floor."

The man, fearful of publicizing his name, is considering legal action.

Elizabeth Larose Dunn, who leads Marin Montessori School, said a sixth-grade student whose parents were arrested in immigration raids in March and did not want to be identified by name is a high achiever and "beloved in the school."

"This is America, a place we'd like to think all of our children are safe," she said. "I'm so sad about this on a personal level."

Full Article
See the BAIRC Platform for Immigrant Rights

Bravo to Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey - De-fund the War

Bravo to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and 2 of our local SF/Oakland Bay Area reps Barbara Lee and Lynn Wolsey for introducing HR 508, the Bring the Troop Home Act along with LA's Maxine Waters - More from the Oakland Tribune

The war in Iraq became a war of dueling legislation Wednesday on Capitol Hill, as two Bay Area lawmakers introduced a bill to choke off the war's funding even while Republicans introduced one to ensure that can't happen. ...
Their bill — which has 13 other original co-sponsors — would repeal the president's authorization to use force in Iraq and fully fund a six-month withdrawal of troops and military contractors, cutting off money after that. It also would prohibit permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, provide economic and political aid to the Iraqi government, fully fund the VA health care system, bar U.S. access to Iraqi oil production at least until the Iraqi government sets clear rules for foreign ownership and participation, and create a bipartisan joint committee to probe whether the United States was led into this war under false pretenses.
More

Down with Tyranny has a good rundown from BobGeiger.com with what's going on in the US Senate as well.

Asian American parent & youth organizations support School Desegregation and Equity in Supreme Court's Seattle/Louisville Cases; Boston's CAPAY

As I and other San Francisco School board members work towards improving our future equity and desegregation plans for our 57,000 public school students, a number of community groups are starting to build support nationwide for our work here and in other urban centers.

Last month Asian American organizations from San Francisco to New York filed a 'friends of the court' [amici curiae] brief to weigh in on the US Supreme Court's arguments in the Seattle and Louisville school desegregation cases.

Besides SF's Chinese for Affirmative Action and NY's AALDEF [Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund], other 'amici' include - Asian Americans United, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, Asian Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership, Boston Asian Youth Essential Service, Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families,
Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth, Detroit Asian Youth Project, Filipinos for Affirmative Action, Japanese Community Youth Council, One Lowell, Providence Youth Student Movement South Asian Youth Action!, and United Chinese Association of Brooklyn.

Lead attorney for the Asian American organizations, is former SF Asian Law Caucus attorney Khin Mai Aung, now with AALDEF. From AALDEF's December press release:

Civil rights groups Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) and CAA Chinese for Affirmative Action/Center for Asian American Advocacy asserted a compelling interest for the nation’s public schools to actively ensure equal access to quality education and a diverse learning environment. In both cases, locally elected school boards in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky had voluntarily adopted measures to reverse racial segregation in their public schools, and considered race in their cities’ kindergarten to 12th-grade school assignments. Similarly, in San Francisco, where more than 50% of public school students are Asian American, School Board Commissioners would also like to propose a race-conscious student assignment plan that would include considerations of race in a narrowly tailored manner.

CAA, which joined AALDEF in filing an amicus brief with the High Court, represents Chinese American parents and children who favor such an approach.

AALDEF Staff Attorney Khin Mai Aung said, “Asian American students in particular rely on the invaluable benefits of racially integrated public schools, which more accurately reflect their communities and greater U.S. society. If the Court were to bar school districts from desegregating their schools, the quality of education for Asian American children would be significantly harmed. AALDEF supports efforts by districts nationwide to consider race and other factors in order to fulfill the promise of educational equity embodied by the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, more than 50 years ago.”

CAA Policy Advocate Christina Wong said, “In many of San Francisco’s schools, racial isolation has increased in the absence of race considerations in student assignment plans. Our current school assignment process has failed to provide our children with a racially integrated environment. CAA supports the voluntary use of race and ethnicity as a factor in the school assignment process to ensure that thousands of our city’s students receive a well-rounded education.”

Cindy Choy, a parent leader with the Visitacion Valley Parents Association, said: “As a parent and resident of one of San Francisco’s most diverse neighborhoods, I’ve witnessed firsthand how important it is for children to learn in a racially diverse environment. It would be easy to have my only daughter go to a school with a majority of Chinese students like herself but that would not allow her to learn and benefit from other groups of people. ...

AALDEF/CAA amicus brief: www.aaldef.org/docs/amicus-K-12_deseg-2006.pdf.

More info - www.caasf.org or www.aaldef.org - AALDEF's Educational Equity work

Boston's Youth Organizing with CAPAY

Last year I visited various Boston social justice organizations, including the Asian American Resource Workshop, Chinese Progressive Association, U Mass Boston's Ethnic Studies programs, and a progressive Asian American youth organizing group recommended by UMass's Peter Kiang called CAPAY -Coalition for Asian Pacific American Youth. CAPAY is one of the organizations that support the AALDEF/CAA brief in favor of civil rights and desegregation.

I attended one of CAPAY's workshops and a summer picnic with activist supporters Sophia Kim and Gee Quach and was impressed with the dynamic organization and the young folks that make it strong. One of my former TA's Anjela Wong, now finishing her EdD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was a former CAPAY leader.

Check out Miwa Tanabe's great feature on the work of Boston's CAPAY!

More info on CAPAY

Brown v. Board of Education - RIP?

(Photo by MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP from Detroit Free Press)
Excellent analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court's school desegregation cases by Warren Richey in the Christian Science Monitor. Yet, most of the mainstream media seemed to downplay the thousands of folks who marched on the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday.

"This is about what is left, if anything, of Brown v. Board of Education," Theodore Shaw, president of the NAACP Legal Defense & Ed Fund

In my San Francisco State Ethnic Studies classes, I am using this current teaching moment to dialogue in class about the political nature of the US Supreme Court and what Santa Clara Law School Professor Angelo Ancheta calls the 'conservatism of the legal system'. I am also trying provide my students with the historical context of civil rights, school reform, and educational justice movements. Video documentaries like 'Eyes on the Prize' and 'Chicano!' have been generally useful in helping students draw connections with what's happening today vs. during the civil rights, and Black and Brown power movements of the past, including the work of multiracial alliances like the Anti-Bakke Decision Coalition [ABDC] and the National Committee to Overturn the Bakke Decision [NCOBD] of the late 70's, and the 10 year old Californians for Justice [CFJ] which formed to resist Proposition 209 in the mid-90's. CFJ is celebrating its 10th anniversary this friday in Oakland. More info:
Eyes on the Prize on the Bakke Case
On the life of Richie Perez, ABDC activist, Young Lords leader and longtime organizer
See also Max Elbaum's historical timeline of the Bakke Era and the work of the NCOBD

SF Bay Area Students, Communities Fight for Civil Rights and Educational Justice - Challenge the US Supreme Court

Photo from BAMN - March Dec. 4, 2006.
Students and community activists from San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and all over the United States joined civil rights groups, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow/PUSH and many others to demand Educational Justice and Civil Rights at the steps of the US Supreme Court today.

“If the Supreme Court rules against affirmative action, it would be a ruling against the American Dream, and it would make the consideration of race, gender, or ethnicity illegal” said the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson.

For the transcript of the Court's oral arguments from this morning - click here. Despite NY Times reporter Linda Greenhouse's prediction of the US Supreme Court's likely ruling in favor of conservative forces and the end of the Seattle and Louisville desegregation plans, students and activists are continuing their organizing for educational justice and civil rights.

By the time the Supreme Court finished hearing arguments on Monday on the student-assignment plans that two urban school systems use to maintain racial integration, the only question was how far the court would go in ruling such plans unconstitutional.
There seemed little prospect that either the Louisville, Ky., or Seattle plans would survive the hostile scrutiny of the court’s new majority.

Progressive UCLA Education and Law Professor Stuart Biegel, on the other hand, refuses to be pessimistic. Biegel was San Francisco's court appointed consent decree monitor who tracked the racial and economic justice progress of SF Schools over the years of the Consent Decree from 1983-99, and then the rapid resegregation following the court's barring the use of race/ethnicity in our desegregation plan from 1999 to the present. Biegel pointed me towards a fascinating article by Slate Legal Commentator Dahlia Lithwick on the Supreme Court case which concludes with the following on Sacramento-born swingman Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Kennedy, in short, looks poised to do that thing he does—close the constitutional door to everyone but Elijah. He looks like he is about to write an opinion that says there is a compelling state interest in desegregating schools but that the systems in Louisville and Seattle give him the heebie-jeebies. ...He is officially waiting for the perfect facts before he decides environmental cases, racial gerrymandering cases, and possibly voluntary desegregation cases... He'll agree with the liberals in theory, agree with the conservatives in specifics, and nobody will know what to do about anything.

So, perhaps in the Springtime of 2007 when the court eventually publishes their legal opinion, there may be some political wiggle room for districts like San Francisco which is considering a new stronger desegregation plan which includes the limited use of race as one of a number of factors in our revised student assignment plan in the new year.

For more info on San Francisco's proposed desegregation plan and our Board's stance on educational justice - see
san-francisco-schools-desegregation.html
unfinished-business-for-sf-board-of.html
sfusd-resegregation-10-unresolved.html
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/130709/index.php

Be afraid, be very afraid...US Supreme Court Hears Seattle/Louisville School Desegregation Cases; SF School Board's New Leadership

San Francisco Unified School district student Eli williams [left] poses with the Governor to announce success in the 2004 Williams Case settlement, a modern day Brown v. Board of Education in CA schools which addresses ongoing unequal conditions and opportunities to learn in CA. Photo by ACLU.
- Bob Egelko's front page analysis of the upcoming Supreme Course case on school desegregation in the Louisville and Seattle school districts in the Sunday SF Chronicle worries me. The justices will hear arguments tomorrow. While Prof. Goodwin Liu of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law calls this perhaps the final chapter of Brown vs. Board of Education, many student and community activists from around the US are fired up to demand racial and economic justice in our schools despite what the Supreme Court rules.

The Supreme Court's agreement to review the Seattle and Louisville cases, after lower courts upheld the districts' integration plans, was a likely signal that Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues are preparing to ban racial considerations in public school enrollment, said Pepperdine University law Professor Douglas Kmiec, a Justice Department official under Reagan and President George H.W. Bush.
"Racial balancing is patently unconstitutional, and the Roberts court should -- and will likely -- say so,'' Kmiec said.

Educational Justice activists march on the US Supreme Court Monday - Louisville activists will be joining thousands from the San Francisco/Berkeley/Oakland Bay area and around the country at a D.C. rally speak out for education justice. From Chris Kenning of the Courier-Journal

Dozens of Louisville activists, parents, teachers and college students will demonstrate Monday outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments in two
challenges to voluntary school desegregation.
At a press conference yesterday, members of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said they will travel by bus to join other groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to urge the
challenges be rejected.

See the useful articles on Desegregation and Equity below.

New Leadership in San Francisco Unified School District -
In our first meeting in January, the SF Board of Education will be joined by 3 new members - all women of color - including the first Korean American board member Jane Kim, the first Filipino American woman Hydra Mendoza, and the first African American Woman in some 20 years Kimshree Maufus.
Former Board of Education member Mary Hernandez also reminded me this weekend that the additions of Kim and Mendoza make the board a majority Asian American with 4/7 members. Some are also predicting that the new progressive board will elect Mark Sanchez as the first ever Teacher elected as the Board President in San Francisco Unified at our first meeting on January 9th. Longtime parent and community activist Kim Shree Maufus may be elected as Vice President as well. She currently works for the Commission on the Status of Women in the City.

More Public Engagement in SF -
In San Francisco parents are participating in an ongoinng public engagement process organized by the San Francisco Education Fund [under the leadership of Hugh Vasquez], and a number of parent and community groups including Coleman Advocates for Children, Youth and their Families, Chinese for Affirmative Action and Parents for Public Schools and our own SFUSD Parent Advisory Council. The project will help our district's search for a new superintendent and flush out parents and non-parents' ideas for a new vision for our district.

Useful articles on Desegregation/Equity and the fight for Educational Justice -
Supreme Court to Revisit Brown v. Board of Education (Equal Justice Society)
Schools More Separate - Rethinking Schools on Brown [Rethinking Schools, Milwaukee]
D.C. rally to support JCPS desegregation policy (The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY)
Justices to Hear Cases of Race-Conscious School Placements (The Washington Post)
Let Schools 'Look Like America,' Too (The Los Angeles Times - Editorial)
Pending Supreme Court Cases could Undermine Desegregation (The Louisiana Weekly)
Race is still part of equation for equal education (USA Today - June 18, 2006)
High court to examine race-balancing schools (The Christian Science Monitor)
Understanding the desegregation case Louisville's plan (The Louisville Courier-Journal)
Perhaps Not All Affirmative Action Is Created Equal (The New York Times)
Race's enduring impact on public education (The Seattle Times - Editorial)
Court asked to deny race factor in schools - (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Court to Revisit Race in Schools - Integration plans (The Los Angeles Times)
Bush Administration Opposes Integration Plans (The Los Angeles Times)
Considering Race School officials should be ...'stir the melting pot.' (The Wash Post)
Seattle schools case could change national scene (The Seattle Times)
Asian American Advocates, Youth Education Groups File Amicus Briefs (US Newswire)
Wells Argues on Behalf of Contested Voluntary School Integration Plans (Teachers College)
Diverse Views Offered on Supreme Court Race Cases (Education Week)
The Supreme Court Grants Review in Two Cases (FindLaw.com)
Supreme Court grants review in a pair of cases (National School Boards Association News)

MORE INFO -
SF Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Equal Justice Society

SF Today - Senator Jackie Speier exits public office, CA School Board Members shmooze in a Chilly San Francisco

The blogging life of a school board member in San Francisco is never dull. 5000 or so school board members from all over the state [there are some 1000 school districts represented] are meeting here for the 75th Annual California School Boards Association conference.
After patting my sleeping daughter on the head at 7am and kissing my elementary school teacher wife goodbye I headed out for the CSBA delegate assembly meeting. We are the 200 or so person policy setting body for CSBA. One of our veteran board members Jill Wynns is our region's representative to the CSBA Board of Directors and I serve on the CSBA delegate assembly.

FAREWELL TO SENATOR JACKIE SPEIER
We voted on our new CSBA officers and heard from Senator Jackie Speier on her last day of her 25-year service in public office. Speier had just lost a close race on Nov 7th for Lt. Governor and is now termed out of office.

"Leadership is tough," she said.
"You are not there to rubber stamp. Work to craft new opportunities for the children. If you are not standing on the edge, then you're taking up too much room," she said to a standing ovation of school board delegates.

WORKSHOPS; CHALLENGING ENGLISH ONLY TESTING
Afterwards I went to uesful workshops on parcel tax campaigns [Larry Tramutola and Associates], reflections on governance team: the superintendent's perspective, superintendent searches, and an informal 'table talk' on the do's and don'ts of blogging.
During lunch I had the pleasure of chatting with Pajaro Valley Unified school board members who are part of a 10-district Californians Together lawsuit filed last year against the state of California challenging the state's English-Only testing system and NCLB.
Coachella Valley Unified School District, et al v. State Of California, et al,
I will be having dinner with one of the lawyers in the case this evening to hear an update as well. The conference continues through Saturday afternoon.

San Francisco Board of Education's New Policy to Phase out the JROTC and replace with Non-Military, Non-Discriminatory Alternative Programs

I am posting the full language here of the San Francisco Board of Education's resolution which will phase out the JROTC [Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps] in SF Schools over a 2 year period and set up a task force that will build non-military and non-discriminatory programs to replace the phased out programs at 7 of our high schools. I have already begun dialogue with JROTC alumni, current students and instructors, community agencies and leaders to work together to create better opportunities for the many young people who are served by the program, but we are trying to create concrete educational alternatives for our high school students that are non-discriminatory and non-military oriented. Thanks to the many students, parents and community members who spoke out from different perspectives on this important issue, and especially to Sandra Schwartz of the American Friends Service Committee for her hard work in supporting the resolution.
Eric Mar, SF Board of Education

-------
Click here for the PDF file of this resolution
Adopted by the Board of Education at its Regular Meeting of November 14, 2006.
Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A1
PHASING OUT THE JROTC PROGRAM
- Mark Sanchez and Dan Kelly
WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has banned educational partnerships with outside organizations that discriminate against any group based upon sexual orientation; and
WHEREAS: Civilian control of the military, and restriction of military involvement in civilian affairs is a fundamental characteristic of a healthy democracy; and
WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has restricted the activities of military recruiters on our campuses; and
WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has adopted violence prevention and conflict resolution strategies that promote non-violent behavior; and
WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District requires that teachers of all academic courses be fully credentialed; and
WHEREAS: JROTC is a program wholly created and administrated by the United States Department of Defense, whose documents and memoranda clearly identify JROTC as an important recruiting arm; and
WHEREAS: No other potential employer or recruiter is given such a high profile, nor such extensive contact with students; and
WHEREAS: JROTC instructors are not certificated teachers, and may not even possess a college degree of any kind; and
WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District share of JROTC salaries is provided from central budget, while regular PE teachers are charged against each school’s site-based budget; and
WHEREAS: JROTC manifests the military’s discrimination against LGBT people by offering non-LGBT students preferential enlistment options; and
WHEREAS: JROTC is one of the largest after school activities at some High Schools; and
WHEREAS: The Board of Education has received extensive testimony that JROTC promotes self-esteem, community service, and academic and leadership skills; and
WHEREAS: Many other student extra-curricular activities also develop self-esteem, academic and leadership skills, and a commitment to service; and
WHEREAS: The California Education Code permits, and some SFUSD schools allow, students to receive PE credit for sports participation, independent study, or other classes deemed equivalent.

Therefore Be It Resolved: The Board of Education finds that credentialing requirements for academic instructors and courses are not met by the JROTC, except where specifically allowable as a substitute for Physical Education; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that JROTC programs on campus constitute a form of military recruitment and are in violation of our policy governing fair access for recruiters on campuses; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the JROTC program violates our anti discrimination policies with regard to LGBT students and adults; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the funding mechanism of the JROTC creates inequities between High Schools in SFUSD; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the JROTC is an inappropriate extension of the nation’s military into the civilian sphere; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education hereby begins a two-year phase out of all JROTC programs in the SFUSD resulting in no JROTC classes in the 2008-2009 school year and beyond; and

Be it Further Resolved: No new JROTC units or programs may be initiated at any SFUSD schools, effective immediately; and

Be it Further Resolved: That SFUSD staff shall not direct or require that students enroll in JROTC as an alternative to PE, or for any other reason; and

Be it Further Resolved: That the Board of Education directs that the current JROTC subsidies be re-distributed, as the program is drawn down, to SFUSD high schools on an equitable basis through the weighted student formula, to support and expand opportunities for all students.

Be It Further Resolved: That the Board of Education calls for the creation of a special task force to develop alternative, creative, career driven programs with the elements of the existing JROTC program that students have indicated important to them, which then will provide students with a greater sense of purpose and respect for self and humankind; and

Be It Further Resolved: That any new programs being implemented beginning academic year 2007-08 are evaluated before the end of the school year to test student satisfaction.
11/14/06

Please Note: Click here for the PDF file.
The original resolution was introduced in May 2006 and discussed in committee in June 2006 before being heard again with a substitute motion in August.
Taken up by the Curriculum and Program Committee on August 23, 2006. Substitute motion accepted by general consent of the Committee. Substitute Motion forwarded to the Board with a positive recommendation from Committee, and to be taken up for action at the September 12, 2006 Regular Board Meeting by a vote of 2 ayes (Mar and Kelly), and 1 nay (Lipson).
Taken up by the Budget and Business Services Committee on 10/18/06. Substitute motion, as amended, forwarded to the Board with a positive recommendation (2 ayes, l nay (Wynns) ). The Budget and Business Services Committee recommends to the Board that the intention of the original motion to develop an alternative program be addressed.
Substitute motion amended and adopted on 11/14/06.

Fighting for Small School Reform in San Francisco - advocates push for a new policy

The San Francisco Organizing Project [SFOP], June Jordan High School for Equity, and others this month are working with San Francisco Unified School District officials to develop a clear small schools policy which incorporates much stronger autonomies and support for the reform efforts. Despite tremendous challenges, the small schools movement here, has continued to work with the district to establish new rules for small schools in our City.

SFOP is organizing an accountability session for district officials on Wednesday November 8th at 6pm at the San Francisco Community School [125 Excelsior, SF]. Parent, student and community leaders from many of our small schools in SF will address district officials and Board of Education members at the session.

I am off to Washington, DC area this evening on a red-eye flight to serve as a judge for the American School Board Journal's Magna Awards which for the last 12 years has honored innovative school district projects involving school boards and districts in raising student achievement and closing achievement and opportunity gaps.
Thanks to the multi-talented dad/music-lover/Editor-in-chief Glen Cook and the great folks at the American School Boards Journal for sponsoring the awards!

Welcome to Lewis Cohen, the new director of the Oakland-based Coalition of Essential Schools.
CES is working on a new small high school for San Francisco's predominantly African American, and now also Asian immigrant Bayview District. Cohen brings tremendous experience from his small schools and policy work as an Assistant Superintendent across the Bay in Oakland Unified School District.
The Coalition is holding its annual Fall Forum in Chicago at the beginning of November. Our friend Mike Klonsky is on a panel addressing:
Dilemmas of Urban School Reform

Several large urban school districts across the U.S. – including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia – have embraced large school re-design and the development of small schools as part of their overall reform efforts.
Despite significant resources from foundations and attention and support from city leaders, questions persist about taking small schools to scale in large urban systems.
How should urban districts go about implementing systemic reform through a small schools strategy? What are the struggles and competing pressures of doing small schools work in urban communities?
A panel of Chicago educational leaders - including Pat Ford from the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative, Michael Klonsky from the Small Schools Workshop, Don Moore from Designs for Change, and Margaret Small of Young Women's Leadership Charter School – will address these questions and other dilemmas faced by urban
districts working to restructure schools.

The lessons shared by the panel should be useful for San Francisco as we search for a new and hopefully :-) small school friendly superintendent and develop a much stronger small schools policy for our district in the coming months.
More from Lewis and CES - http://www.essentialblog.org/

SF schools refusing cooperation with ICE immigration police - Support 10 Principles for Change!

The US Senate will likely crank out their version of 'comprehensive immigration reform' by tomorrow. How is the national debate impacting our schools here? In San Francisco we have had ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] visits to our schools. But our staff are not turning anyone over to the immigration police and we are doing everything possible to protect the human and civil rights of our students.
For more see Lyanne Melendez's report from KGO TV earlier this month - Immigration Officials Fail To Follow Policy

School officials in San Francisco are outraged after immigration agents tried to verify the identity of two students whose mom was held on illegal immigration charges. The school refused to cooperate with the agents.
On May 5, an immigration agent made an early phone call to the principal of Presidio Middle School. The school refused to cooperate saying that information was confidential. Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement then made a formal request through a letter faxed to the school.

Our legal counsel David Campos and his staff are drafting school district policies that will protect the privacy rights of immigrant students and families in our district. A proposal will likely be brought to the board in our next Board meeting on June 13th.

Illegal employer retaliation against undocumented workers - Young Workers United, UNITE-HERE and others are reporting raids and employers who are making calls to the immigration authorities to have folks deported.
The Immigrant Solidarity Network has some great links to the progressive side of the immigration debate -

Latest Immigrant News
5/24: UPDATE ON AMENDMENTS TO THE COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION AND REFORM ACT OF 2006
By National Immigration Law Center
Amendment that adds anti-discrimination, privacy and due process protections to the employment verification system passes; Kennedy amendment to strengthen labor law defeated.
5/24 San Francisco, CA: Action against restaurant owners who called la Migra/ICE
By Young Workers United
STOP ILLEGAL EMPLOYER RETALIATION AGAINST IMMIGRANT WORKERS!
5/23: San Francisco Labor Council Vote to Support Immigrant Rights
By Open World Conference of Workers
On May 22, the San Francisco Labor Council voted unanimously to endorse the national statement by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights(NNIRR).
5/2: U.S. Immigration Law Inhumane to Same-Sex Couples
By Immigration Equality
New Immigration Reforms Must End Discrimination Against Lesbians, Gays!
5/19: WHAT'S NEXT IN THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE? TEN PRINCIPLES FOR CHANGE
By AALDEF, FOF, ICA, & MRW
We need to change the course of the debate, but how do we do that?
5/24 Conference Call: Immigrant Communities Nationwide Say NO To Senate Immigration Compromise Bill
By Arnoldo Garcia (NNIRR), Christian Ramirez (AFSC)
The National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR) with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), in collaboration with local partners, will hold a telephonic press conference to highlight nationwide community opposition to the Senate "Compromise" immigration bill now under consideration.
5/24: National Youth Call-In Day for Immigrant & Human Rights!
By Maricela Donahue - Center for Community Change
On May 24 join thousands of youth from across the United States in a national call-in day for immigrant rights. This will be our last and best chance to impact the immigration debate in the Senate. That afternoon, a smaller group of youth from across the country will be at the Capitol in Washington, DC sharing personal testimony at a national press event.
5/22: Update on Senate Debate and Action Alert
By National Immigration Forum

Lastly, I support the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Families for Freedom, Immigrant Communities in Action and other groups' call for 'No Deal!' to Hagel-Martinez, the leading legislation currently being considered in the Senate, and any other bill like it, because it does not meet our demands for fair and just comprehensive immigration reform. AALDEF and others have taken the lead in developing a serious platform for comprehensive immigration reform - with ten principles:
1. Adjustment to legal status for undocumented immigrants.
2. Clearing of the immigration backlog.
3. Expansion of legal immigration opportunities to account for both family-based immigration and the needs of our economy.
4. Provisions that keep families together.
5. Stronger protections for workers, including repeal of employer sanctions and path to citizenship for future workers.
6. Ending of all detention for mere civil immigration violations and repeal of mandatory deportation.
7. Stronger civil rights standards for enforcement efforts, including ending of racial and ethnic profiling and selective targeting of communities.
8. Full due process rights and judicial review for individuals in removal proceedings.
9. No state and local enforcement of immigration laws.
10. Reasonable, just, and humane enforcement and border policies.

Fighting the English-Only Steamroller in the US Senate and in our local communities

Just as we were distracted by the US Senate's approval of the 700 mile border wall, the assault on the Constitutional right to birthright citizenship, and other wacky efforts to demonize immigrants and undocumented folks, the Senate passed this other ZINGER. Daily KOS reported on the Senate's Vote To Make English The Official Language of America while also comparing the idiotic vote to the real need for educational justice and adequate funding for our schools :-(

The vote was 63-34:

After an emotional debate fraught with symbolism, the Senate yesterday voted to make English the "national language" of the United States, declaring that no one has a right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those already guaranteed by law. The measure, approved 63 to 34, directs the government to "preserve and enhance" the role of English, without altering current laws that require some government documents and services be provided in other languages. Opponents, however, said it could negate executive orders, regulations, civil service guidances and other multilingual ordinances not officially sanctioned by acts of Congress.

Here's a bright idea. Instead of wasting time on "symbolic" measures, why doesn't Congress do something about the millions of illiterate Americans who can't read or speak English (and no, Rep. Tancredo, I'm not talking about Mexican immigrants).
Last year, the National Assessment of Adult Literacy found that 11 million adults were nonliterate in English. Another thirty million adults were literate only at the most basic level, meaning they had only the most simple and concrete literacy skills. What's the point of a law mandating all government papers be in English when millions of Americans still can't read or comprehend the document anyway? Oh yeah, I know the point. It's call midterm elections.
If Congress cares so damn much about the English language and having Americans learn English, maybe they should drop "symbolic" measures and start giving our educational system the attention it deserves so that we may finally rid ourselves of this scourge of illiteracy that is plaguing our nation.
Permalink ::

As one of the many immigrant rights activists that fought CA's Proposition 63 way back in 1986 with Californians United Against English Only [Prop 63] [which passed with 73% vote in CA], I worry that the backlash against immigrant communities which in the 80's had started as a fringe racist and xenophobic cult around self-hating US Senators like S.I. Hayakawa [the former president of my university SF State] and population control eugenicists like John Tanton has now grown some pretty hairy legs that stretch now to the highest levels of power in Washington.
For more on the rise of US English, FAIR and other groups in the English Only movement see Jim Crawford's amazing website and Chapter 6 from his Hold Your Tongue book on the English Only Movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Political Research Associates also have great background on the radical right wing and reactionary forces behind English Only and anti-immigrant forces in the US. See my Boston colleague Doug Brugge's excellent piece - The Anti-Immigrant Right - from 1995 for the PRA's newsletter The Public Eye.
Despite the backlash, language rights and immigrant rights activists must continue to fight the attacks and push for a proactive agenda in Washington, Sacramento and at the local level as well.
Over 10 years ago, my organization the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights organized a proactive day of celebration, resistance and building power in Sacramento. Next week we continue in that tradition with the 10th Annual Immigrant Day on May 22nd 2006 in honor of California’s immigrants, whose presence and work continue to strengthen our communities and our state. Mobilization at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

Join hundreds of immigrants and advocates in raising our voices on behalf of immigrant families throughout the state. This year the Governor’s budget proposal once again targets immigrant seniors and disabled on CAPI and SSI, families who participate in CalWORKs, child-care workers, and critical health care and human services for low-income families. Immigrant Day 2006 will bring a unified voice to Sacramento in support of immigrant communities and working families. Join us May 22nd in Sacramento!

On a similar note, on Tuesday May 23rd I am introduing a pro-bilingual education/language immersion programs resolution for our San Francisco Unified School District which if passed will expand our dozens of bilingual language immersion programs to include Cantonese, Spanish, Korean, Filipino enrichment, Japanese enrichment, to add new Russian and Mandarin programs as well. My pro-language equality school board resolution was drafted in the same spirit as another document I helped draft some 10 years ago, during our fight against the attacks on Bilingual Education in California and Proposition 227 [1998]. See the 1998 proactive policy statement on Multilingualism and Bilingual Education for the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant Rights. In 1997 we declared:

We see the anti-bilingual Unz Initiative [Prop 227] as an opportunity to increase our political participation as immigrants, to build cross-community alliances, and to bring together all people who believe in the rights and dignity of immigrants and educational equality for all.

While the NCCIR no longer exists, other alliances and coalitions have formed to continue the fight for immigrant rights and language equality in our region. Despite the Senate's English- Only Vote this week, we must continue to seek out the opportunities to increase grassroots political participation, build and strengthen progressive labor/community alliances and advance a relevant proactive agenda for human rights and dignity for all immigrants and all peoples.

CA High School Exit Exam Struck Down? Judge Says CA Exit Exam is Unfair

Education reporter Nanette Asimov reports this morning that the CA High School Exit Exam has tentatively been "Struck Down. " For more on the Valenzuela lawsuit and the Californians for Justice/Public Advocates suit - CFJ case Valenzuela case

JUDGE SAYS CALIFORNIA EXIT EXAM IS UNFAIR
Final ruling today could halt plans to deny diplomas

Though the article doesn't acknowledge the tens of thousands of students who have dropped out or been 'pushed out' because of the high stakes testing in our state, Asimov points out that of the 47,000 students who have not passed the exam, well over 60% are Latino or "economically disadvantaged", while 44% who have not passed are English learners. view chart

Judge Robert Freedman of Alameda County Superior Court said he based his ruling on the concept of "equal protection" and is expected to make a final ruling at a 2 p.m. hearing today.
His ruling comes just weeks before graduation ceremonies begin at 1,129 California high schools and just days after state schools Superintendent Jack O'Connell announced that 46,768 seniors -- 10.7 percent of the class of 2006 -- had not yet passed the exit exam. Of those students, 61 percent are poor, and 44 percent are English learners.

Some parent, teacher, student activists like those in LA's Coalition for Educational Justice have stressed the Racism and Class Bias of the exam itself. But the CFJ/Public Advocates suit and the Valenzuela case both focus on the educational injustice faced by most African Americans, Chicano/Latinos, English learners, and low income students who still do not have an equal opportunity to learn in California's public schools from San Francisco to LA.

But attorney Arturo Gonzalez of the San Francisco law firm Morrison & Foerster, who brought the lawsuit challenging the exam, said he was thrilled with the judge's tentative ruling.
"I felt strongly that the state should not deprive a student of a diploma unless the state can say that every student has been fairly and properly prepared for that test," Gonzalez said. "There is overwhelming evidence that students throughout the state have not been taught the material on the test. And many students have been taught by teachers not credentialed in math and English."
Gonzalez said he filed the suit after reading news reports last fall that about 100,000 seniors were poised to be denied a diploma.
The suit, Valenzuela vs. California, was named for its lead plaintiff, Liliana Valenzuela, who, like Iris Padilla, is a Richmond High senior. According to the suit, Liliana maintains a 3.84 grade-point average and is 12th in her senior class of 413 students. She has passed the math portion of the exam, but not the English portion. Her first language is Spanish. The suit said that students who have repeatedly failed the test -- especially English learners -- have not had a fair opportunity to learn the material because they are more likely to attend overcrowded schools and have teachers without proper credentials.

full SF Chronicle article; also see Joel Rubin in the Los Angeles Times; Laurel Rosenhall and Cameron Jahn in the Sacramento Bee; Luis Zaragoza and Connie Skipitares in the San Jose Mercury ;Cassandra Braun in the Contra Costa Times; JULIET WILLIAMS AP ...