Trump Administration Decision to “Slow Walk” Obama Housing Regulations Rooted in Racist Redlining
I was appalled to read Glenn Thrush’s article in today’s NYTimes describing President Trump’s decision to “attack” fair housing regulations put in place by the Obama administration. The headline described it as a “Play for White Votes” but the subhead got it right: the flagging of his decision to “attack” fair housing is racist… period… end of report:
Proponents of the policy saw the move as an attempt to shore up the president’s sagging support among white suburban voters by stoking racial division.
The article describes the roots of the POTUS’ racist tendencies to his early adulthood when he and his father “vehemently fought a federal fair housing lawsuit accusing his father Fred Trump’s rental developments in boroughs outside Manhattan of discriminating against Black applicants.” The article also inferred that his “attack” was wholly unnecessary since the administration’s policy from the outset was to block any enforcement of the regulations Obama administration put in place. Mr. Thrush writes:
By 2018, Mr. Carson (HUD Secretary), a free-market conservative and the only Black person in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, delayed enactment of the regulation and signaled his intention to eliminate it altogether, part of a larger strategy of slow-walking fair housing investigations and marginalizing department officials who aggressively pursued cases.
Anyone who thought Mr. Trump was truthful has been disabused of that notion over the past three years as the number of outright lies has increased daily. Anyone who thought Mr. Trump was NOT a racist must surely be disabused of that notion by now. In Mr. Trump’s worldview, “Making America Great” means keeping blacks out of the suburbs. That is not greatness in my view. I hope it is a definition of “greatness” that voters will reject now that it is clear what it means.
‘Attacking the Very Foundations’ of Church-State Separation, SCOTUS Delivers ‘Seismic Shock’ Ruling on Religious Schools
As most followers of education policy realize, on Monday the Supreme ruled in favor of parochial school parents seeking public funds to underwrite their children’s tuitions. The Montana parents were denied funds set aside in a so called “scholarship program” that is designed to shield affluent taxpayers from paying taxes by allowing them to donate to a state scholarship funds that parents can access to attend the school of their choice. As noted in previous posts, these kinds of laws were crafted by ALEC and adopted in states across the country as a means of instituting backdoor vouchers… and they were successfully passed in many states across the country including my home state of New Hampshire. The laws’ intention’s sound very high minded: they offer a means for philanthropic minded individuals to donate to a tax-deductible scholarship fund that affords a way for disenchanted parents to afford to send their child to a private school that meets the unique needs of their child. The effect, though, is insidious. The funds siphoned off to the scholarships are lost revenue to the state and when the pool is substantially large the legislature can use them to offset the funding THEY should be raising for public education. Worse, not only can the PRIVATE schools can teach religion on the public’s dime, they can exclude children with special needs and their sexual identity. Oh… and not that long ago they could use race as a the basis for discrimination.
Assuming the GOP remains in control of the majority of State legislatures I expect the door to be pushed wide open in the coming legislative sessions as they pass new and improved scholarship legislation pre-written by USDOE and ALEC. Of everything challenging the existence of public education, this decision is among the scariest because even after the COVID 19 challenges are a bad memory this will still be in place and more and more states will have a mechanism in place to provide more “choice” for parents— and who could possibly oppose more “choice”?
UFT Shoots Itself and NYPost Gladly Points it Out… BUT Cherry Picks “Science”
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Unsurprisingly the NYPost has managed to get the narrative of school reopening back to familiar ground: the union is bad, the administration is incompetent, and children and taxpayers suffer. And, as is often the case in complicated issues like the reopening of schools, the Post has cherry-picked a report to prove its point. In this case the Post is using the union’s cry to “let science decide” when and how schools should reopen as the basis for calling them out for hypocrisy. Why? Because as noted in an earlier blog the American Pediatric Society has declared the reopening of schools to be an urgent need… and the members of that group are clearly “science”! But, as noted in my recent post, the APS recommendations for reopening are costly and, for the most part, impractical. If the union was smart they would agree to reopen IF AND ONLY IF all the conditions set forth by the APS were met. That would end their “hypocrisy” and force the POST to either advocate for the funds needed to meet the APS standards or find another way to get the narrative back to the well trod path they want to walk down.
Vote even if you think it doesn’t matter…. and be grateful you still can!
