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Report shows link between slave trade, University of Maryland College Park

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University of Maryland’s roots with slavery 

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University of Maryland’s roots with slavery 

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Library and campus of the University of Maryland located in College Park, MD. (sframephoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A new report shows that the slave economy was deeply entrenched in the origins of the University of Maryland, College Park, including enslaved people living and working on land that forms a large section of the current campus.

The three-year analysis found that 52 people were owned by Charles Benedict Calvert, the founder of the Maryland Agricultural College, which eventually became the current university. One of the earliest trustees of Maryland Agricultural College, William Tilghman Goldsborough, enslaved 55 known people, the report found. Goldsborough alsoheldseveral statewide political offices, and his family was "highly connected." He married the daughter of the man who enslaved Frederick Douglass, the researchers found.

Although the university was the "genesis of innovative ideas," it still was problematic in that "it was birthed with deep ties to the system of African bondage in the colonies, as can be witnessed through the very lives of the institution's earliest presidents," researchers wrote.

A group of researchers and staff members at the state's flagship university, working on what is known as the 1856 Project, outlined how the university benefitted from slavery in a 52-page analysis, "Reconstructing the Truth," with $900,000 in funding from the university's first Black president, Darryl Pines.

"The 1856 Project is the latest effort to acknowledge where the university has fallen short in the past while also mapping a course fearlessly forward together for our future," Pines said in a video made for the project.

Inspired by former graduate student Herbert Brewer and Professor Ira Berlin, who developed and taught a history course on the subject in 2006, the committee now wants to continue to educate the public about the findings and also repair damage done to the descendants of enslaved people associated with the university and Black communities near the university. Further work is needed to determine how that would be done.

"In all honesty, some of this information has been out in the ether," said the project's co-chair, Lae'l Hughes-Watkins, an associate director of engagement, inclusion and reparative archiving at the university. "It was this project that pulled those threads together. That provided a broader understanding. We didn't have the mechanism to pull this information to understand what our university's history has been."

On the heels of the national racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd in police custody, the University of Maryland College Park is the latest university across the country to acknowledge its ties to the slave economy. And many of these acknowledgements have occurred at schools in the Mid-Atlantic region, once a center for the transatlantic slave trade.

In January, a 12-person task force at Loyola University Maryland released a 27-page report looking into how the Jesuit college benefited from the sale of enslaved Black people in 1838. In 2019, The Reconciliation Fund, which was inspired by a student referendum, was launched at Georgetown University. The fund, whichreceives $27.20 from each student in fees, awards $400,000 annually to community-based projects that have "direct impact on Descendant communities whose ancestors were once enslaved on the Maryland Jesuit plantations," according to Georgetown University. And in 2020, the Johns Hopkins University acknowledged that its founder and benefactor, Johns Hopkins, owned slaves until the mid-1800s.

The discussions surrounding race after Floyd's death opened some of the universities up for addressing and reckoning, said Dr. Raymond Winbush, research professor and director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University.

"I think white America is just awakening to the complicities of many of its institutions," he said. "But Black scholars have known this for years."

But Winbush said these institutions need to atone for past research that helped to justify slavery and paint Black people with the broad strokes of inferiority.

"I think many of these universities need to liberate" this "negative" and "racist" work, he said.

As these histories are uprooted it is raising questions about whether and how Black Americans should be compensated for slavery and the centuries of discriminatory practices that followed - from segregation and Jim Crow to urban renewal and inequitable laws.

"It is time to wrestle with the ghosts of the past. Universities no longer have the space or ability to deny the past," said Karsonya "Kaye" Wise Whitehead, a professor of communication and African and African American studies at Loyola.

Whitehead, who was part of Loyola's effort, doesn't want the conversation to stop with research and will host an event Tuesday evening at Loyola focused on reading slave narratives, reflecting on the actions of the university, Johns Hopkins and University of Maryland.

"An apology is only the beginning," she said. "It's almost baby steps in this process. Now it is time for them run like adults. We need to look at what reparation, restoration and repair look like - and not just to the descendants, but the Black communities that are in and around your institution."

Even though its first president, Benjamin Hallowell, opposed using slave labor at the college - going as far as making that a condition of his employment - following presidents at the University of Maryland did not. During the first 20 years of the existence of the college, several of its presidents were ranking officers with the Confederate States or sympathetic to and supported Confederates, according to the report.

Other findings include:

The site of the current Xfinity Center, where tens of thousands come to watch the the Terps basketball team play each year,was once a plantation established in 1820 by John Eversfield, a British ordained priest affiliated with the university. His plantation was adjacent to the Riversdale plantation of Charles Benedict Calvert, part of which later became the Maryland Agriculture College in 1856. Both of these plantation owners were enslavers.

Using Prince George's County Slave Statistics of 1870, the researchers found that more than 500 enslaved Black people lived on land that became Maryland Agricultural College.

Lae'l Hughes-Watkins, an associate director of engagement, inclusion and reparative archiving at the University of Maryland, College Park. (Courtesy of Jared Soares)

The land that comprises the campus of theuniversitywas "an important Underground Railroad route in the 1840s and 1850s," the report said. "Historical evidence and narratives confirm that Black freedom seekers regularly used nearby roads and found refuge in local wooded areas, often relying on kin and friends to abscond through the countryside."

To further educate the public, 1856 members said, the committeewill publish two more annual research reports, planned for each February, and a book on their findings.

In preparation for the United States celebrating its semiquincentennial in 2026, The 1856 Project plans to spend the next two years further telling truths about its origins, including researching the identification of all enslaved people who lived on the land that now comprises the university, according to Hughes-Watkins.

Also, in 2026, the University of Maryland will host the Universities Studying Slavery Conference, a three-day event of historians, scholars, archivists and students, according to the report.

The 1856 Project is also awaiting word back from the Mellon Foundation on a possible $200,000 research grant to partner with local community organizations and historically Black communities.

Carl Snowden, the former civil rights director for the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, said he was "absolutely delighted that they are acknowledging that many of these institutions were built off the backs of slaves."

He also said that the report does "not go far enough."

"Once you acknowledge the problem, then you have to be proactive and propose solutions to those problems," he said. "These institutions were created to help the descendants of the slave masters. What will these institutions do to acknowledge and help the descendants of the oppressed beyond acknowledging the role that these enslaved people played in the building of these institutions?"

Snowden, based in Annapolis and actively fighting for reparations in Maryland, recommends forming anothercommission to better address and implement next steps that he said should range from reparations through academic scholarships to better teaching accurate Black history.

Hughes-Watkins understands the frustrations of Snowden and others who may think that the research is not enough.

"We are just getting out the gate," she said. "To do thoughtful work, we'll need more financial support. This work cannot happen overnight. We ask that people are patient with us."

Hughes-Watkins welcomes community members to participate in future work with the project.

"These voices need to be brought to the table as well so that we can begin healing and repair and so that we can do restorative justice," she said.

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Report shows link between slave trade, University of Maryland College Park

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The 1856 Project has released a report that shows the slave economy was deeply entrenched in the origins of Maryland Agricultural College, which eventually became the University of Maryland College Park.

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Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries

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James Baldwin (1924-1987) was at once a major twentieth century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, Black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy. This movie captures the passionate intellect and courageous writing of a man who was born black, impoverished, gay and gifted.


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James Baldwin (1924-1987) was at once a major twentieth century American author, a Civil Rights activist and, for two crucial decades, a prophetic voice calling Americans, Black and white, to confront their shared racial tragedy. This movie captures the passionate intellect and courageous writing of a man who was born black, impoverished, gay and gifted.


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James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket

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Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries

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Alessia Cara - Scars To Your Beautiful (Official Video)

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Cara sings of Beauty

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Alessia Cara - Scars To Your Beautiful (Official Video)

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Book Bans Rising Rapidly in the U.S., Free Speech Groups Find

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Censorship is on the rise

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Book Bans Rising Rapidly in the U.S., Free Speech Groups Find

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A new report from PEN America, the free speech organization, details a new rise of censorship efforts across the United States.

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TED talk notes

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers

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Implications for Teachers

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Editor's note: This blog was republished with permission from Robert Kim. You can view the original post on Heinemann.com. Watch Robert Kim, Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor talk about anti-CRT legislation as part of Heinemann's ForwardEd series on Tuesday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Educators around the nation are grappling with so-called "anti-critical race theory" laws that are cropping up around the nation. What's going on here, and how should educators respond to this development? Civil rights law and policy expert and Heinemann author Bob Kim breaks it down for us here:

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory (or "CRT") is a school of thought that explores and critiques American history, society, and institutions of power (including government and legal systems) from a race-based perspective. An intellectual outcropping of the critical legal studies and feminist legal theory movements of the 1970s, the CRT movement has contributed to a deeper understanding of how race has been constructed in and impacted the United States. It also poses key questions, such as: Has the American legal system and traditional civil rights litigation been effective at achieving racial justice? And if not, what should be done about that?

What are "anti-CRT" laws?

As of July 2021, 26 states have proposed legislation or executive actions banning or limiting the teaching of principles attributed to CRT in public schools. (To be clear: these proposals don't have all that much to do with actual critical race theory.) So far, those bills have been signed into law in six states (Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas), and four other states (Georgia, Florida, Montana and Utah) have issued executive rules or memos with a similar purpose.

While the proposals vary in scope and content, one common goal is to discourage or prohibit staff training and/or curriculum and instruction in public K-12 and/or postsecondary schools that "stereotypes," "scapegoats" or causes "discomfort or guilt" among members of a particular race or sex (or the government) by suggesting they are responsible for racism/sexism or are "inherently" racist, sexist or oppressive. Some proposals prohibit additional actions, such as "promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government"; "promoting division between, or resentment of" people of different races or classes; or even suggesting that "the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States" (a direct response to the 1619 Project).

Where did this "anti-CRT" movement come from?

Many state "anti-CRT" bills contain provisions similar to those found in documents issued by the former Trump Administration. In September 2020, the Trump Administration issued a memo to federal agencies directing them to identify and cancel any staff training programs that focus on "critical race theory" or "'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil." Weeks later, President Trump issued an executive order that purported "to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating" by restricting the federal government and its contractors from conducting diversity training that examined systemic racism, white privilege and other issues involving race and gender bias. This executive order was revoked by President Biden on his first day in office, but its contents have since been replicated by state legislatures.

Can I still discuss and teach issues pertaining to racism or sexism in schools or staff trainings?

Yes. However, depending on whether an anti-CRT law is in effect where you teach or work or not, there may be a few restrictions on how you teach or provide training on these concepts. Check with your school administrator-and take a moment to look up your state to get clear on the rules of the road.

A scan of the provisions in states where anti-CRT legislation has passed reveals that educators and school training facilitators still enjoy wide latitude. For example, in Texas, educators can (and may be required) to teach topics related to the "history and importance of the civil rights movement" and "the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong." In Idaho, any curriculum that was allowed before is still okay as long as no student is "compelled" to adhere to certain tenets ascribed to critical race theory. In Iowa, any otherwise prohibited content is allowable in staff diversity trainings if those trainings are voluntary-and even in mandatory trainings, trainers are allowed to respond to questions related to critical race theory (as described in the statute). And Iowa and New Hampshire educators or diversity trainers can still teach or train about "the historical existence of ideas and subjects" related to race and gender; "the inherent humanity and equality of all persons"; "sexism, slavery, racial oppression, or racial segregation"; "promote racial, cultural, ethnic, or intellectual diversity or inclusiveness"; or teach any topic otherwise prohibited in the legislation "as part of a larger course of academic instruction." (In fact, many of these "anti-CRT" bills contain similar provisions that allow educators to continue teaching topics related to racism, sexism, history, the civil rights movement and anything that is prescribed under state academic content standards.)

Are the anti-CRT laws legal?

That's a good question. States do have the broad discretion to control the content of classroom instruction or school employee trainings. But they can't enact laws with a discriminatory purpose (for example, if they are directed harmfully at specific racial or ethnic populations). Laws can't be so vague that it's impossible for educators or state-funded contractors or trainers to decipher what's allowable or what's not. And laws that unduly restrict academic freedom or the ability of students to receive a diverse range of information and ideas may violate the First Amendment.

Remember also: Public school educators enjoy free speech protections when they choose to speak out on issues of racism, sexism and other matters of public concern in their personal capacities (i.e., on your own time). That said, in our highly connected world, even personal speech may impact the school community; in general, for public school educators, the more unconnected to work your speech is (as indicated by what, where, when, to whom and how you communicate), the greater your right to speak freely. Government employees do have a right to speak out at work, but this right is more limited than when they are speaking in their personal capacities.

What can I do to address anti-CRT laws?

These "anti-CRT" laws are creatures of state legislatures and/or governors. If you are experiencing a problem or unnecessary restriction related to your job, report it your local or state elected representative (or your union representative, if you have one). That's your right. You may also wish to pay a visit to civil rights advocacy organization defending free speech or educators' rights. (As a former ACLU attorney, I always appreciated calls from educators; they helped me to understand how laws or policies impact practitioners on the ground-whether or not I later represented them in court.)

At the school and community level, you may wish to raise the topic of "anti-CRT" laws at a staff or supervisory meeting. Your goal is to understand clearly what's prohibited and what isn't. (See above: there are a LOT of loopholes in these laws!) School trainers may wish to have a dialogue with school administrators prior to conducting professional development sessions to clarify permissible versus prohibited content. Get this in writing! And remember to keep the language of the anti-CRT provision front and center in these conversations.

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers

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Editor's note: This blog was republished with permission from Robert Kim. You can view the original post on Heinemann.com. Watch Robert Kim, Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor talk about anti-CRT legislation as part of Heinemann's ForwardEd series on Tuesday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. ET.

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Discussion topics on 2/27, 2/29 include:

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Discussion topics on 2/27, 2/29 include:

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TED talks, LGTBQ topics, defining Intersectionality,
Statues, Critical Race Theory & Appearance

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Texas Court Halts Investigation of Parents Over Care for Transgender Youth

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The family members, Judge Meachum wrote, "face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation." She blocked the state from taking any adverse employment action against Ms. Doe.

And in the case of Dr. Mooney, the judge wrote that, if she followed the governor's directive, she would have been forced to choose between criminal prosecution for not reporting abuse, or potential civil liability for not treating patients "in accordance with professional standards and loss of licensure for failing to follow her professional ethics."

Though the ruling was limited, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that the message had been clear: The state's investigation had "put the Doe family at incredible harm," said Karen Loewy, senior counsel for Lambda Legal. "It would be pretty unconscionable for the agency to continue investigations when that's the assessment," she added.

Ms. Loewy said she thought the state was unlikely to appeal the temporary restraining order given its limited scope. "It would be extraordinary, and incredibly punitive for the state to appeal when at the moment the only relief is to the parties," she said in an interview on Wednesday evening.

Soon after, the state, represented by the attorney general's office, appealed the ruling.

A spokeswoman for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But in a call with reporters earlier on Wednesday, the top strategist for Mr. Abbott's re-election campaign, David Carney, said that being against medical treatment for transgender children, and treating it as child abuse, was a "winning issue" for the governor. Mr. Abbott is running for a third term in November.

"That is a 75 to 80 percent winner," Mr. Carney said. "This is why the Democrats across the country are out of touch."

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Texas Court Halts Investigation of Parents Over Care for Transgender Youth

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The family members, Judge Meachum wrote, "face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation." She blocked the state from taking any adverse employment action against Ms. Doe.

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For Ukraine's Refugees, Europe Opens Doors That Were Shut to Others

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Thousands of Ukrainians will end up in countries led by nationalist governments that have been reluctant to welcome refugees in the past.

Olha Zapotochna and her 3-year-old son, Arthur, after crossing the border from Ukraine into Poland on Friday. Credit... Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed tens of thousands of people out of their homes and fleeing across borders to escape violence. But unlike the refugees who have flooded Europe in crises over the past decade, they are being welcomed.

Countries that have for years resisted taking in refugees from wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are now opening their doors to Ukrainians as Russian forces carry out a nationwide military assault. Perhaps 100,000 Ukrainians already have left their homes, according to United Nations estimates, and at least half of them have crowded onto trains, jammed highways or walked to get across their country's borders in what officials warn could become the world's next refugee crisis.

U.N. and American officials described their concerted diplomatic push for Ukraine's neighbors and other European nations to respond to the outpouring of need. President Biden "is certainly prepared" to accept refugees from Ukraine, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday, but she noted that the majority of them would probably choose to remain in Europe so they could more easily return home once the fighting ended.

"Heartfelt thanks to the governments and people of countries keeping their borders open and welcoming refugees," said Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N. refugee agency. He warned that "many more" Ukrainians were moving toward the borders.

That means thousands will end up in countries led by nationalist governments that in past crises have been reluctant to welcome refugees or even blocked them.

Refugees were welcomed with food as they waited on Friday for transportation upon their arrival in Medyka, a Polish village just across the border from Ukraine. Credit... Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

In Poland, government officials assisted by American soldiers and diplomats have set up processing centers for Ukrainians. "Anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state," the Polish interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, told reporters on Thursday. His government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a border wall, a project it began after refugees and migrants from the Middle East tried to reach the country last year but ended up marooned in neighboring Belarus.

The military in Hungary is allowing in Ukrainians through sections of the border that had been closed. Hungary's hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, has previously called refugees a threat to his country, and his government has been accused of caging and starving them.

Farther West, Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria said that "of course we will take in refugees if necessary" in light of the crisis in Ukraine. As recently as last fall, when he was serving as interior minister, Mr. Nehammer sought to block some Afghans seeking refuge after the Taliban overthrew the government in Kabul.

"It's different in Ukraine than in countries like Afghanistan," he was quoted as saying during an interview on a national TV program. "We're talking about neighborhood help."

Mr. Nehammer also said the number of Ukrainians seeking help was expected to be relatively small. At least 1.3 million people - mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - applied for asylum in Europe in 2015 during what was widely regarded as the worst refugee crisis since World War II, stretching national budgets and creating a backlash of political nativism in countries across the continent.

Evelina Veber, with her daughter Karina, and nephew, Vitalii, at a makeshift reception center in Przemysl, Poland. They plan to go to Italy, where they have family. Credit... Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times

Some estimates project that at least one million refugees will flee Ukraine because of the Russian invasion. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said this past week that the fighting could uproot as many as five million people, "putting pressure on Ukraine's neighbors."

Diplomats and experts said European states that are willing to take in Ukrainians might be trying, in part, to highlight Russian aggressions against civilians by offering a humanitarian response. "If you think of causing the refugee crisis as one of Putin's tools to destabilize the West, then a calm, efficient, orderly response is a really good rebuke to that," said Serena Parekh, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and the director of its politics, philosophy and economics program.

"On the other hand," said Ms. Parekh, who has written extensively about refugees, "it's hard not to see that Ukrainians are white, mostly Christian and Europeans. And so in a sense, the xenophobia that's really arisen in the last 10 years, particularly after 2015, is not at play in this crisis in the way that it has been for refugees coming from the Middle East and from Africa."

The Biden administration is also facing calls to take in Ukrainian refugees, much in the way it gave residency or humanitarian parole to more than 75,000 Afghans when the Taliban seized power in August.

It is unlikely, at the moment at least, that the United States would offer a humanitarian parole program for Ukrainians that goes above what is currently allowed for the total number of refugee admissions for the current fiscal year. That number is capped at 125,000 this year - including 10,000 refugees from Europe and Central Asia. The guidelines set aside another 10,000 slots for refugees from any part of the world, as regional emergencies warrant.

Ukrainians being taken on Friday from the Ukrainian-Polish border to Przemysl. Credit... Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York Times

Ms. Psaki did not comment when asked by a reporter whether the administration would offer temporary residency protections, a program known as T.P.S., to Ukrainian students, workers and others who are in the United States to ensure they are not deported when their legal visas expire.

Understand Russia's Attack on Ukraine

Card 1 of 7

"The war in Ukraine is exactly the type of crisis T.P.S. was created for - to allow people to live and work in the United States when they are unable to return home safely," Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Thursday night.

Ms. Psaki said the United States had sent an estimated $52 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine over the last year to help people, mostly in the eastern Donbas region, where the current war began as a slow-burn conflict between Ukraine's military and Russian-backed separatists in 2014. Nearly 1.5 million people had been forced from their homes by the fighting even before the invasion this past week.

Additionally, the U.S. Agency for International Development sent a team of disaster experts to Poland in the past week to assess demand for aid to the region - including water, food, shelter, medicine and other supplies - and to coordinate its delivery. Hours after the invasion began, the United Nations announced it would divert $20 million in emergency funds for humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians, mostly to the Donbas region.

A European diplomat who is closely watching the refugee flow from Ukraine said neighboring nations might also feel the pull of history in welcoming people in danger as a direct result of Russia's aggressions. A Soviet crackdown on a Hungarian uprising in 1956, for example, resulted in 200,000 refugees, most of whom fled to Austria before they were settled in dozens of countries across Europe. Between 80,000 and 100,000 people - and perhaps even more than that - left what was then Czechoslovakia to escape a Soviet invasion in 1968 that was launched to silence pro-democracy Prague Spring protests.

In both cases, the United States sent aid to help European countries settle refugees and, in the Hungarian crisis, "in a matter of months, there were no more refugees - they had been found a permanent home," Ms. Parekh said.

That was largely the result of the United States working with European states to resettle the Hungarians, she said, calling the effort "an exception, historically."

"It was a similar thing - people fleeing our Russian enemy - that motivated us," she said.

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For Ukraine's Refugees, Europe Opens Doors That Were Shut to Others

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Thousands of Ukrainians will end up in countries led by nationalist governments that have been reluctant to welcome refugees in the past. WASHINGTON - Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed tens of thousands of people out of their homes and fleeing across borders to escape violence.

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Biden selects Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court

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It was there on the district court that Jackson sentenced more than 100 people and penned some of her best-known opinions.

In 2017, she presided over the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy case, delivering a four-year prison sentence for a man who fired his gun in a D.C. pizza shop, wrongly believing it was home to a child sex ring.

And, in 2019 she ordered that former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn comply with a congressional subpoena during the Russia investigation. Siding against the Trump administration, she plainly wrote: "Presidents are not kings."

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Biden selects Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court

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President Biden on Friday delivered on his promise to nominate the first Black woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. After a month-long search to fill the seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, Biden selected a former Breyer clerk and sitting federal judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

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School librarians speak out against recent upsurge in attempts to ban books

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School librarians speak out against recent upsurge in attempts to ban books

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Around the country, school librarians are reporting an increasing number of requests from parents and politicians to ban or censor books available to children. Nadra Nittle, a reporter for The 19th, a non-profit newsroom covering politics, gender and policy, documented these complaints – and how lib…

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Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols: This is what LGBT life is like around the world

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Geography of gay progress -used in 1 group

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

By subscribing, you understand and agree that we will store, process and manage your personal information according to our Privacy Policy

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Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols: This is what LGBT life is like around the world

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As a gay couple in San Francisco, Jenni Chang and Lisa Dazols had a relatively easy time living the way they wanted. But outside the bubble of the Bay Area, what was life like for people still lacking basic rights?

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In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read

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What should be Taught & Read in Schools 

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What should be Taught & Read in Schools 

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A new state law constricts teachers when it comes to race and history. And a politician is questioning why 850 titles are on library shelves. The result: "A lot of our teachers are petrified."

The 850 school library books that State Representative Matt Krause of Texas has questioned include a book about gay teenagers as well as a study of quinceañera, the Latina coming-of-age ritual. Credit... Eric Gay/Associated Press

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
SAN ANTONIO - In late September, Carrie Damon, a middle school librarian, celebrated "Banned Books Week," an annual free-speech event, with her working-class Latino students by talking of literature's beauty and subversive power.

A few weeks later, State Representative Matt Krause, a Republican, emailed a list of 850 books to superintendents, a mix of half-century-old novels - "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by William Styron - and works by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Margaret Atwood, as well as edgy young adult books touching on sexual identity. Are these works, he asked, on your library shelves?

Mr. Krause's motive was unclear, but the next night, at a school board meeting in San Antonio, parents accused a librarian of poisoning young minds.

Days later, a secretary sidled up to Ms. Damon and asked if district libraries held pornography.

"'No, no, honey, we don't buy porno,'" Ms. Damon replied.

She sighed. "I don't need my blood pressure going crazy worrying about ending up on a politician's radar."

Carrie Damon, a middle school librarian, celebrated national "Banned Books Week" with her students by talking about literature's beauty and subversive power. Credit... Christopher Lee for The New York Times

Texas is afire with fierce battles over education, race and gender. What began as a debate over social studies curriculum and critical race studies - an academic theory about how systemic racism enters the pores of society - has become something broader and more profound, not least an effort to curtail and even ban books, including classics of American literature.

In June, and again in recent weeks, Texas legislators passed a law shaping how teachers approach instruction touching on race and gender. And Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican with presidential ambitions, took aim at school library shelves, directing education officials to investigate "criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography."

"Parents are rightfully angry," he wrote in a separate letter. They "have the right to shield their children from obscene content."

Such upheaval surprises few. Public schools are where a society transmits values and beliefs, and this fraught and deeply divided time has again made a cauldron of public education.

"Education is not above the fray; it is the fray," said Robert Pondiscio, a former teacher and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy group. "It's naïve to think otherwise."

In Texas, conservative slates have claimed majorities on school boards in large suburban districts, including Southlake, near Dallas, and Cypress-Fairbanks, near Houston.

In Colleyville, a tony suburb near Dallas, a Black principal resigned, accused of sanctioning the teaching of critical race theory. Elsewhere, books have been pulled from library shelves and talks by award-winning writers canceled.

How this ends is unclear.

To talk with a dozen teachers and librarians is to hear annoyance and frustration and bewilderment, as much with the sheer ambiguity of the new law and the list of books as with the practical effect.

"Critical race theory is a convenient boogeyman, but what are the limits you want to put on teachers?" said Joe Cohn, legislative director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil liberties organization. "Do you really want to give them no breathing room? Do you want to shut down a curious student? Legislatures would be wise to be modest."

From debates over evolution to the Red Scare to the Vietnam War, America's public schools are a much-trodden battleground.

In the 1990s, the New York City chancellor, after much controversy, was forced to remove mention of the book "Heather Has Two Mommies" from the curriculum; more recently, a liberal California school district ruled that "Of Mice and Men" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" were racially insensitive and no longer mandatory reading.

In Texas, such battles recur. In 2018, an education committee proposed striking a reference to "heroic" defenders of the Alamo, describing it as a "value-laden word." A roar of resistance arose and the board of education rejected the proposal. The Republican lieutenant governor this year pressured a museum to cancel a panel to discuss a revisionist book - "Forget the Alamo" - examining its slaveholding combatants.

In 2018, a state education committee proposed striking a reference to the "heroic" defenders at the Alamo. Credit... Matthew Busch for The New York Times

The last year was particularly contentious.

"One minute they're talking critical race theory," Ms. Damon, the librarian, said. "Suddenly I'm hearing librarians are indoctrinating students."

Mr. Krause, who compiled the list of 850 books that might "make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish" because of race or sex, did not respond to interview requests. Nor did his aides explain why he drew up the list, which includes a book on gay teenagers and book banning, "The Year They Burned the Books" by Nancy Garden; "Quinceañera," a study of the Latina coming-of-age ritual by the Mexican Jewish academic Ilan Stavans; and a particularly puzzling choice, "Cynical Theories" by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, which is deeply critical of leftist academic theorizing, including critical race theory.

But his hazily defined list of troublesome books seems to have sent a chill through school boards. Absent any state law, some librarians have been told to pre-emptively pull down books. This week, a San Antonio district ordered 400 books taken off its shelves for a review.

As for the state's attempt to ban critical race theory, for all the Republicans' talk, the Texas law makes no mention of the term. Aspects of critical race theory are influential in some teacher colleges, and shape how some administrators and teachers approach race and ideas of white privilege. Yet no one has identified a Texas high school class that teaches the theory.

Perhaps as a result, the statute's language can be ambiguous to the point of vagueness. In its central thrust, the law sounds a seemingly unobjectionable note, ruling no particular subject - slavery, Reconstruction, the treatment of Native Americans - out of bounds and stating that teachers should "explore" contentious subjects "in a manner free from political bias."

Sarah Spurrier, a teacher in Arlington, is not enamored of the law but neither is she intimidated. "I've taught A.P. social studies and geography for 21 years so there's not much that makes me uncomfortable," she said. "This law is so vague that it strikes me as much ado about nothing."

Others see peril, particularly in conservative districts where teachers step lightly for fear of giving offense.

Emerson Sykes, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, has helped challenge an Oklahoma law that is similar to Texas'. That federal suit argues that the law is so vague that it fails to provide reasonable legal guidance to teachers and could put jobs in danger.

He also spoke to another motivation. "For generations we had a whitewashed history," Mr. Sykes said. "We view these as bans on inclusive history."

The Texas law does state that teachers should not inculcate a sense of guilt or discomfort in students because of their race or sex.

On the question of slavery, for instance, the Texas law prohibits teachers from portraying slavery and racism as "anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States." This conflicts with the views of many scholars who note that from America's founding, slavery was woven into the structure of the nation and the Constitution.

The law singles out one text as forbidden: The New York Times's 1619 Project. Now a book, the special magazine issue attempted to place Black Americans and the consequences of slavery at the center of America's narrative. The project - for which Nikole Hannah-Jones, its creator, won a Pulitzer Prize - is hotly debated among historians and became an ideological piñata for conservative critics.

Understand the Debate Over Critical Race Theory

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State Representative Steve Toth, who sponsored the bill against critical race theory, declined an interview. But several critics of the 1619 Project strongly opposed banning it.

"It's just enormously problematic to rule out particular works," said Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, who has written favorably of the battles against critical race theory. "I happen to think '1619' is a shoddy work, but so what? Let kids read critiques and wrestle with it."

Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, crafted the model that led to the Texas statute. He declined an interview, but in The National Review, he opposed blocking teaching of the 1619 Project. "We should not be barring the discussion or understanding of concepts, only the teaching of them as truths to be embraced," he wrote.

What are schools and teachers to make of these crosscurrents?

Southlake, a wealthy suburb near Dallas, offers a petri dish. Racist incidents led previous trustees to embrace racial diversity teachings. The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 gave birth to a more insistent movement of young alumni who demanded students address white privilege and have every teacher and school trustee examined for implicit bias.

The school trustees did not endorse such demands. But a movement of parents who described themselves as "unapologetically rooted in Judeo-Christian values" rose up and in May elected a like-minded majority. That board recently reprimanded a fourth-grade teacher - a former teacher of the year - after parents complained that their child brought home a classroom book about racism that troubled them.

A curriculum official went so far as to suggest teachers should seek "opposing" perspectives if students read a book on the Holocaust, according to a recording acquired by NBC News. The superintendent apologized. "We recognize," he stated, "there are not two sides to the Holocaust."

Sheri Mills, a Southlake school trustee, heard herself denounced as a Marxist and heckled at her teenage daughter's athletic events.

"A lot of our teachers are petrified," Ms. Mills said. "The really good teachers, if they are near retirement, they are leaving."

In Alief, a diverse district on the western edge of Houston, three English teachers at Kerr High School sat together and spoke of this uncertain world.

Safraz Ali, who spent his early boyhood in Guyana and had taught for 17 years, said he had grown weary of the uncertainty. He called the state education department and asked officials to define critical race theory. He received no answer.

"It's like you're walking into a dark room," he said.

The teachers pointed in particular to the clause that says a teacher must not inculcate the idea that students should feel "responsibility, blame or guilt" because of their race or sex. Mr. Krause, the state representative, had gone a step further, suggesting that a teacher might overstep simply by assigning a book that troubles a student.

These teachers all but slapped foreheads in frustration. To teach Shakespeare and Toni Morrison, to read Gabriel García Márquez or Frederick Douglass, is to elicit swells of emotions, they said, out of which can arise introspection and self-recognition, sorrow and joy. The challenge is no different for a social studies teacher talking of Cherokee dying along the Trail of Tears or white gangs lynching Black and Mexican people.

"I have had kids triggered by difficult texts," noted Ayn Nys, one of the English teachers. "It's our responsibility to prepare students emotionally and intellectually with a diversity of voices."

How does this end?

"OK, you ban a book - does that ban the topic?" Kathleen Harrison, another teacher, said while shaking her head. "At what point do I practice subversion?"

"Truthfully, I have not changed a single thing about my teaching," said Adrian Reyna, a teacher at Longfellow Middle School in San Antonio. Credit... Christopher Lee for The New York Times

Adrian Reyna, a social studies teacher at Longfellow Middle School in San Antonio, did not fear that, not yet.

"Truthfully, I have not changed a single thing about my teaching," he said.

His school feeds into Thomas Jefferson High School. His students know Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Reyna helped them to understand that the third president kept slaves and had children with an enslaved woman, Sally Hemings. "Jefferson did some really great things and some ugly, and we don't throw that away," he said. "We know human beings are complex, and that is the story of America."

Mr. Pondiscio, the American Enterprise Institute education analyst, is critical of aspects of the liberal educational project. He sees antiracist education, such as grouping students in racial affinity groups, as lapsing into parody. Teachers may bridle, he says, but free speech is curtailed in a public school classroom.

Yet he sees futility woven into efforts to dictate curriculum. He once taught in an impoverished corner of the South Bronx in New York, and although his politics differ from those of Mr. Reyna, each knows what it is like for a teacher to try to fire the minds of teenagers. Both spoke of the hope a teacher can provoke without placing a thumb heavily on the ideological scales.

"Every day, teachers call audibles at the line of scrimmage, figuring out what materials and words will work," Mr. Pondiscio said. "It betrays arrogance to think you're going to solve all the problems of schools and race by passing a curriculum law."

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In Texas, a Battle Over What Can Be Taught, and What Books Can Be Read

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A new state law constricts teachers when it comes to race and history. And a politician is questioning why 850 titles are on library shelves. The result: "A lot of our teachers are petrified." To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android .

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Topics related to the assignment-
Required elements
Due March 7, first 2.

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Do we need to have this song at the Preakness

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In a year of change for the Preakness Stakes, the Maryland Jockey Club has reiterated that it will not play the pro-secessionist state song "Maryland, My Maryland" before its biggest event on Oct. 3.

The Jockey Club announced it would "start a new tradition for Preakness 145" in a June 25 statement expressing support for Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones' call to change the state song.

Jones, a Baltimore County Democrat, has described "Maryland, My Maryland" as "extremely offensive."

Jockey Club spokesman Dave Joseph confirmed plans to remove the song but offered no further comment.

Since the Jockey Club made its initial statement, anti-racism protests have swept American sports, with the NBA briefly suspending its playoffs, the Orioles and other Major League Baseball teams declining to play games and the Ravens releasing a statement calling for seven specific measures to enhance social justice.

In Louisville, Churchill Downs officials faced calls to end the playing of the state song "My Old Kentucky Home" before the Sept. 5 Kentucky Derby. They opted to have a bugler play the tune, preceded by a moment of silence, in lieu of the traditional sing-along.

The tradition of playing "Maryland, My Maryland" at the Preakness dates back to 1909, three decades before it became the state song.

Elected leaders and activists have long decried the Civil War-era ballad as a representation of the state's racist past.

"Maryland, My Maryland" is set to the tune that most people know as "O Christmas Tree." It features lyrics drawn from an 1861 poem by James Ryder Randall, who was distraught about a friend who was shot during a melee when Union troops marched through Baltimore en route to Washington.

The poem's opening line is "The despot's heel is on thy shore," a reference to President Abraham Lincoln. Randall encourages Marylanders to "avenge the patriotic gore/that flecked the streets of Baltimore."

State Senate President Bill Ferguson has said he supports Jones' effort to do away with the song, and a spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan said he will "carefully review" the issue if the legislature sends a bill his way.

The absence of "Maryland, My Maryland" will be one of many differences at the Preakness this year. The coronavirus pandemic pushed the race from its usual date on the third Saturday in May, and the Jockey Club recently announced no spectators will be allowed at Pimlico Race Course. In another change to tradition, the Preakness will be the third leg of the Triple Crown series instead of the second.

Recommended on Baltimore Sun

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Maryland Jockey Club will not play 'Maryland, My Maryland' before Oct. 3 Preakness

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In a year of change for the Preakness Stakes, the Maryland Jockey Club has reiterated that it will not play the pro-secessionist state song "Maryland, My Maryland" before its biggest event on Oct. 3. The Jockey Club announced it would "start a new tradition for Preakness 145" in a June 25 statement expressing support for Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A.

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Should we honor founding fathers A debate topic
A very unique way to think about the future of monuments

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In 2016, artist Ada Pinkston started asking people to share their thoughts on what monuments should look like in the future

To survey the public, she used a micro-grant of $700 to facilitate two workshops near the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore to start. Since starting her project " Landmarked," she's received more than 300 responses from people in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Dallas.

"It's kind of something that people pass by and ignore and don't really look at that often," says Pinkston, a professor at Towson University and 2020 fellow with the Philadelphia-based public art studio Monument Lab.

Now, as Confederate statues come down across the southern U.S., Pinkston is reimagining the spaces where these monuments once stood.

Many people who responded to her project say future monuments should include a technology element, which aligns with the historical desire for cutting-edge architecture, she says.

In Richmond, Virginia, last week on Monument Avenue, a hologram of George Floyd was transposed over a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee as part of a project called "A Monumental Change: The George Floyd Hologram Memorial Project."

While some people think technology should play a role in new monuments, others want to take a more familiar approach. With so many figurative statues of white men standing throughout the U.S., some folks want to see more figurative statues of women and people of color, she says.

"But I think you can't dismantle the master's house with the master's tools," she says. "So when we're thinking about the concept of creating counter-narratives, I don't think it makes sense to think about another static object in the place of [Confederate monuments]."

Monuments help people think about the past in a meaningful way and "meditate on a moment in time," she says.

When four Confederate monuments were removed in Baltimore in 2017, the city formed task forces and held meetings to decide what public art should fill the space. But no one could come to an agreement, she says.

A monument for everyone will always exclude some people. Society changes over time, she says, but monuments historically don't.

So Pinkston developed a sketch for a changing, crowdsourced monument. Though it would take a lot of funding and complex engineering, she dreams of a 3D-printed monument that the public interacts with.

The public would vote on the concept and design of the monument, made of filament that could melt each year. Anyone could submit a design, she says.

Pinkston also does performance art in spaces where Confederate statues once stood.

In one, Pinkston plays audio of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer describing getting asked to pick cotton as a child. She stands on an outdoor pedestal in an Antebellum hoop skirt with a veil on her head, moving like a statue coming to life.

Monuments exist within us - the stories of our grandmothers and great, great, great grandmothers that live in griot traditions - and people need to consider how to keep these narratives alive, she says.

"All of these public performances and interventions are an example of embodied monuments," she says. "And I literally am thinking about the ritual of connecting the past and the present."

Seeing a performer dance in place of a statue intervenes in a person's normal experience in a public space, she says, which creates a moment of reflection to reconsider its possibilities.

Many may think of Pinkston's work as performance art, but it's also in the tradition of Black people: sharing living, moving stories, unlike monuments that stay in one place. Her work encourages people to reimagine the idea of monuments by thinking about the ways people live and pass down history, whether it's orally or through performance art.

Before she started her monument project, Pinkston spent a month in Mississippi because her grandmother was sick. Visiting the state as an adult, she recognized that the architecture of the Confederate monuments was "pristine," while the infrastructure of the surrounding city wasn't as well-kept.

"I don't really think we can remember the past through recreating this static understanding of history because there is no way," she says. "It's impossible."
Lynn Menegon produced this interview and edited it for broadcast with Tinku Ray. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.

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Artist Ada Pinkston Asks 'What Would A Monument To All People Look Like?'

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In 2016, artist Ada Pinkston started asking people to share their thoughts on what monuments should look like in the future To survey the public, she used a micro-grant of $700 to facilitate two workshops near the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore to start.

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We will watch on 2/28:
James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro &
Perhaps- the Times of Harvey Milk

Then discuss or post comments

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An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing...

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san francisco international film festival

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An Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism. In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing...

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Group Discussion info due on 2/23, 27 & 29 replaces Dimensions post

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Details about her career from NY Times & Washington Post

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The worst moments in life- how is life in schools for those who are different?

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Andrew Solomon: How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are

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Writer Andrew Solomon has spent his career telling stories of the hardships of others. Now he turns inward, bringing us into a childhood of adversity, while also spinning tales of the courageous people he's met in the years since.

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

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2020 news Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Died

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2020 news Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Died

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Worked on gender, employment & other equity Issues

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women's rights champion who became the court's second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.

Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.

Her death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said late Friday that the Senate will vote on Trump's pick to replace Ginsburg, even though it's an election year.

Trump called Ginsburg an "amazing woman" and did not mention filling her vacant Supreme Court seat when he spoke to reporters following a rally in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Chief Justice John Roberts mourned Ginsburg's passing. "Our Nation has lost a jurist of historic stature. We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her - a tireless and resolute champion of justice," Roberts said in a statement.

Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.

Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court's liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace the court's Jewish grandmother, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defense of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.

Those health issues included five bouts with cancer beginning in 1999, falls that resulted in broken ribs, insertion of a stent to clear a blocked artery and assorted other hospitalizations after she turned 75.

She resisted calls by liberals to retire during Barack Obama's presidency at a time when Democrats held the Senate and a replacement with similar views could have been confirmed. Instead, Trump will almost certainly try to push Ginsburg's successor through the Republican-controlled Senate - and move the conservative court even more to the right.

Ginsburg antagonized Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign in a series of media interviews, including calling him a faker. She soon apologized.

Her appointment by President Bill Clinton in 1993 was the first by a Democrat in 26 years. She initially found a comfortable ideological home somewhere left of center on a conservative court dominated by Republican appointees. Her liberal voice grew stronger the longer she served.

Ginsburg was a mother of two, an opera lover and an intellectual who watched arguments behind oversized glasses for many years, though she ditched them for more fashionable frames in her later years. At argument sessions in the ornate courtroom, she was known for digging deep into case records and for being a stickler for following the rules.

She argued six key cases before the court in the 1970s when she was an architect of the women's rights movement. She won five.

"Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not need a seat on the Supreme Court to earn her place in the American history books," Clinton said at the time of her appointment. "She has already done that."

On the court, where she was known as a facile writer, her most significant majority opinions were the 1996 ruling that ordered the Virginia Military Institute to accept women or give up its state funding, and the 2015 decision that upheld independent commissions some states use to draw congressional districts.

Besides civil rights, Ginsburg took an interest in capital punishment, voting repeatedly to limit its use. During her tenure, the court declared it unconstitutional for states to execute the intellectually disabled and killers younger than 18.

In addition, she questioned the quality of lawyers for poor accused murderers. In the most divisive of cases, including the Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, she was often at odds with the court's more conservative members - initially Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

The division remained the same after John Roberts replaced Rehnquist as chief justice, Samuel Alito took O'Connor's seat, and, under Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court, in seats that had been held by Scalia and Kennedy, respectively.

Ginsburg would say later that the 5-4 decision that settled the 2000 presidential election for Republican George W. Bush was a "breathtaking episode" at the court.

She was perhaps personally closest on the court to Scalia, her ideological opposite. Ginsburg once explained that she took Scalia's sometimes biting dissents as a challenge to be met. "How am I going to answer this in a way that's a real putdown?" she said.

When Scalia died in 2016, also an election year, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to act on Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the opening. The seat remained vacant until after Trump's surprising presidential victory. McConnell has said he would move to confirm a Trump nominee if there were a vacancy this year.

Reached by phone late Friday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, declined to disclose any plans. He called Ginsburg a "trailblazer" and said, "While I had many differences with her on legal philosophy, I appreciate her service to our nation."

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer tweeted: "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president."

Ginsburg authored powerful dissents of her own in cases involving abortion, voting rights and pay discrimination against women. She said some were aimed at swaying the opinions of her fellow judges while others were "an appeal to the intelligence of another day" in the hopes that they would provide guidance to future courts.

"Hope springs eternal," she said in 2007, "and when I am writing a dissent, I'm always hoping for that fifth or sixth vote - even though I'm disappointed more often than not."

She wrote memorably in 2013 that the court's decision to cut out a key part of the federal law that had ensured the voting rights of Black people, Hispanics and other minorities was "like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."

Change on the court hit Ginsburg especially hard. She dissented forcefully from the court's decision in 2007 to uphold a nationwide ban on an abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. The court, with O'Connor still on it, had struck down a similar state ban seven years earlier. The "alarming" ruling, Ginsburg said, "cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court - and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

In 1999, Ginsburg had surgery for colon cancer and received radiation and chemotherapy. She had surgery again in 2009 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in December 2018 for cancerous growths on her left lung. Following the last surgery, she missed court sessions for the first time in more than 25 years on the bench.

Ginsburg also was treated with radiation for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. She maintained an active schedule even during the three weeks of radiation. When she revealed a recurrence of her cancer in July 2020, Ginsburg said she remained "fully able" to continue as a justice.

Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1933, the second daughter in a middle-class family. Her older sister, who gave her the lifelong nickname "Kiki," died at age 6, so Ginsburg grew up in Brooklyn's Flatbush section as an only child. Her dream, she has said, was to be an opera singer.

Ginsburg graduated at the top of her Columbia University law school class in 1959 but could not find a law firm willing to hire her. She had "three strikes against her" - for being Jewish, female and a mother, as she put it in 2007.

She had married her husband, Martin, in 1954, the year she graduated from Cornell University. She attended Harvard University's law school but transferred to Columbia when her husband took a law job there. Martin Ginsburg went on to become a prominent tax attorney and law professor. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. She is survived by two children, Jane and James, and several grandchildren.

Ginsburg once said that she had not entered the law as an equal-rights champion. "I thought I could do a lawyer's job better than any other," she wrote. "I have no talent in the arts, but I do write fairly well and analyze problems clearly."

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women's rights champion who became the court's second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87. Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.

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1 Should politicians make laws limiting gender affirming operations for kids (who should inform this decision, when)

2 Should we have laws for anti-discrimination related to sexual orientation: Should Maryland have such a law? (Done in Bb.)

3 What are your beliefs about talking about LGTBQ issues with students in schools (taking into account parental concerns)

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Coordinator: Trans Advocacy Network & Transgender Law Center

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Helpful solutions for teachers

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How are you affirming nonbinary students in your classroom?

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A few key points from the textbook & online resources