Grading Texas

Luis Fernando Cabrera, 18, a senior at Northeast Early College High School in Austin, attended his classes, played on the school soccer team, took his nephew to daycare every morning and still had time to manage the 40-plus-hour-a week night shift at a fast food restaurant as he prepared for his approaching high school graduation.

In the words of his soccer coach, Cabrera’s potential “to be a productive member of our society was very high.”

But Cabrera is now confined to the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center about 100 miles south of Austin, another victim of a cruel, racist-driven immigration policy that is the antithesis of what this country is supposed to stand for.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, Cabrera’s nightmare began when a state trooper pulled him over for an expired vehicle registration on his way home from his night job. Following a state policy demanded by Gov. Greg Abbott, the trooper then turned him over to federal immigration agents.

Although President Trump would like Americans to think that his aggressive deportation program is all about deporting violent criminals – and many of his MAGA supporters may believe that — studies have shown that most deportees are people like Cabrera, immigrants with no criminal record, many of whom are awaiting asylum hearings and pose no danger to public safety.

Cabrera was 11 when his Honduran parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico seven years ago. The family asked for asylum, the American-Statesman reported, seeking refuge from a death threat from a Mexican legislator.

Cabrera and his older sister, with whom he was living, were awaiting a December hearing in their asylum case. They were playing by the rules, as have many other detained and deported immigrants.

Meanwhile, the perpetrator of this immigration reign of terror, the only convicted felon to be elected president of the United States, continues to pick and choose which laws and rules to obey. With his capricious, often illegal actions, President Trump poses a greater threat to the security of the United States and the well-being of Americans than most of the everyday, hard-working people he continues to try to dehumanize.

Austin high school senior detained by ICE after traffic stop rattles Northeast campus

Clay Robison

President Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter declaring a “wall of separation between Church & State” was written in response to a group of Connecticut Baptists, a religious minority in their state seeking Jefferson’s support in their fight for religious freedom. At the time, Congregationalism was the established state religion in Connecticut, a distinction that was later abolished.

Now, there is a Texas Baptist, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, working overtime to tear down that wall, declaring in a recent political email blast: “It is time to set the record straight: there is no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in the Constitution.”

One thing about Patrick. He is always adamant, even when he is wrong.

Patrick, of course, wasn’t there at the birth of our nation, but Jefferson was one of the more prominent founders. And Jefferson would have disagreed with Texas’ lieutenant governor, noting in his letter to Patrick’s Baptist ancestors that the “wall of separation” was built by the First Amendment’s language providing that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

But Jefferson is gone, the “establishment clause” is being reinterpreted by some judges, Christian nationalism is on the rise and Patrick is very much alive and politically active. Aided and abetted by Gov. Greg Abbott, the state education commissioner, the majority of the State Board of Education and most Republicans in the Legislature, he continues promoting Christianity and increasingly stamping it on our public education system, which is supposed to equally serve children of all religions or no religion, not substitute for Sunday school.

Within the past few years, we have seen the Texas Education Agency develop and the State Board of Education adopt the Bluebonnet reading curriculum with Bible stories and passages scattered throughout it. The State Board of Education also has given preliminary approval to required reading lists for grades K-12 that include biblical material.

Then there is the new law pushed by Patrick requiring copies of the Ten Commandments, the Christian version, to be displayed in public school classrooms. A closely divided 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld this law as constitutional with a majority opinion that the San Antonio Express-News, in an editorial, described as “tortured and oppressive.”

And, sad to say, many Christian schools, including some Baptist institutions, will soon begin receiving millions of dollars a year in tax funds distributed among students participating in Texas’ new private school voucher program. The schools will be allowed to continue discriminating in admissions policies, including giving preference to members of their own faiths or refusing to accept LGBTQ applicants.

Initially, the state refused to allow Islamic schools to participate in the voucher program, under an unproven, Republican claim that some of the schools could be linked to terrorists. The state relented and admitted a handful of Islamic schools only after being sued.

This is what you can call a selective view of the “religious freedom” that Patrick and his Christian nationalist allies allegedly are promoting.

“We have faith voters will one day feel moved to check a state government that has gone too far,” the Express-News wrote. “Perhaps that day will come in November.”

The problem is which November. This November would be great. Abbott, Patrick, about half the state Senate and all the Texas House will be on the ballot.

So far, teachers and other educators are more affected by these laws than most people, except for concerned parents. Educators can lead the way to change if they all make public education their top voting issue this year.

If they don’t, there is no telling what Patrick, Abbott and their allies will come up with next.

Mandatory chapel attendance in the school cafeteria? Anyone want to bet?

Appellate court: Thou shalt violate the separation of church and state, Texas

Clay Robison

The State Board of Education is sure to include a healthy dose of patriotism in the social studies curriculum standards it is revising this spring for Texas public school students. The board also should include a high school level course in how and why our democracy and freedom, after 250 years, are alarmingly eroding.

Or at the very least the board should include as a reading requirement for high schoolers the latest annual report by Freedom House, which warns that the United States is slipping dangerously into autocracy and under President Trump had one of the biggest declines in freedom of any country last year. Czechia, Croatia, Argentina, Estonia, Romania, Lithuania and many other countries scored higher on the report’s freedom scale than the U.S.

Dominated as it is by conservatives though, this board isn’t likely to take either option. Instead, it will continue praising the popular version of American and Texan exceptionalism, rather than take steps to educate young people on how to keep our state and country strong, safe and welcoming for all freedom-loving people.

Freedom House, based in Washington, is a nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization founded in 1941 to promote democratic values. It has published annual reports since 1973 assessing the health of democracy, political freedom and human rights throughout the world. In its current report, it examined 195 countries and 13 territories, based on 25 indicators of political rights and civil liberties, to determine if a country or territory is free, partly free or not free.

The United States – the traditional “land of the free” – scored 81 (a low B) out of a possible 100 points, keeping us rated “free,” but on a level with South Africa, Jamaica, Seychelles and Suriname. It was a three-point decline for the U.S. from the previous year. We have been declining since earning a high of 93 on the 2006 report.

Freedom House cites these factors as some of the reasons for our country’s decline:

• Chronic partisan gridlock and dysfunction in Congress and escalation in the power claimed by the president. This issue has intensified with President Trump’s executive orders and other actions – many legally questionable – that the Republican majority in Congress has seldom challenged.
• The Trump administration’s disregard for conflicts of interest and weakening of anti-corruption safeguards and enforcement practices. Trump has removed or replaced numerous independent inspectors general from many federal agencies.
• Gerrymandering of legislative districts to reduce the potential influence of political opponents.
• Undermining the media’s influence and freedom. Trump and Congress abolished funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year, cutting off a critical source of funding for PBS and NPR. The Trump administration also has tried to intimidate independent media organizations with lawsuits, and Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair has threatened TV stations with the loss of broadcast licenses for carrying news reports and entertainment the administration dislikes.
• A multiyear rise in threats and reprisals for political speech as well as government efforts to punish nonviolent expression by noncitizens. The worst examples of this were the killings last year by federal immigration officers of two American citizens who were peacefully demonstrating against abusive immigration enforcement tactics.

As the San Antonio Express-News noted in a recent editorial: “The United States is a nation synonymous with democracy, one that other countries have historically looked to for modeling democratic values. It should always score an A – and not just an A but an A-plus.”

Only one country, Finland, scored 100 on the freedom scale, closely followed by Norway, Sweden and New Zealand with 99. While the U.S. got 81, the average score for European Union countries was 90. Canada scored 97.

Why would Donald Trump – or anyone else – think that any freedom-loving Canadian would want to become part of our 51st state?

Freedom House: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy 

America’s rating in freedom and democracy continue to decline under Trump 

Clay Robison

Presumably, a basic understanding of the three branches of government – the executive, the legislative and the judicial — will remain in the social studies curriculum standards that the State Board of Education is revising this year. But will the board revise the standards so that Texas students also understand what can happen when the legislative branch fails to do its job of checking and balancing the powers of the executive?

Probably not, and that’s too bad because what can happen is happening.

The legislative branch of the federal government, of course, is Congress, a law-making and policy-setting body with a lot of power under the Constitution. But under Republican control during the second Trump administration, Congress has become little more than a rubberstamp for whatever illegal action Trump wants to take next, moving the U.S. closer and closer to authoritarianism.

While the Democratic minority has fumed, the Republican congressional majority has mostly watched as the Trump administration has cut or rediverted billions of dollars in funds appropriated by Congress, laid off government workers approved by Congress and started dismantling the Department of Education, an agency created by Congress. A host of other outrageous actions, of course, include efforts to stifle free speech, repeal civil rights initiatives and dictator-like immigration-enforcement policies that have terrified school children, disrupted hundreds of peaceful families and resulted so far in the shooting deaths of at least three American citizens by federal officers.

Meanwhile, the judicial branch’s record on the president’s power grab has been mixed. Many lower court federal judges have tried to shut down many illegal Trump policies, from education to immigration enforcement and the hiring and firing of federal workers. These judges often have been ignored by Trump functionaries or later reversed – at least temporarily – by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 ruling that struck down Trump’s tariffs program was the high court’s first decision blocking a major Trump policy imposed during the president’s current term. And Trump quickly tried to circumvent the court’s decision by issuing new tariffs under a different law.

Interestingly, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote a concurring opinion in the tariffs case, in which he scolded the Republican Congress’ subservience to Trump.

“Yes, legislating can be hard and take time,” Gorsuch wrote. “And yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.”

That is what the writers of the Constitution had in mind when they created the three separate, independent branches of government. At present, though (and rewriting Gorsuch a bit), the combined political will and courage (not wisdom) of the people’s elected Republican congressional representatives is just not strong enough to challenge that egomaniac in the White House.

But we won’t see that in Texas’ next set of social studies curriculum standards.

Clay Robison