MHS Education of Students with The Most Severe Disabilities Discussion Question Provide your own perspectives regarding the education of students with the

MHS Education of Students with The Most Severe Disabilities Discussion Question Provide your own perspectives regarding the education of students with the most severe disabilities and/or multiple disabilities. What should we be teaching them? Where should they be taught, and who should be involved? Is inclusion appropriate and, if so, how could this be accomplished? Provide specific examples to support your thinking. the rest will be uploaded YALE LAW & POLICY REVIEW
The Voting Rights Umbrella
William Jefferson Clinton*
The right to vote is b o th fundam ental to individual liberty and to the p ro p ­
er functioning o f representative dem ocracy. W hen voting rights are denied, di­
luted, or restricted, the ability o f governm ent to respond to o u r challenges and
increase o u r o p p o rtu n ities is im paired, and its legitimacy in doing so is d im in ­
ished.
A m ajor them e o f A m erican history is the steady expansion o f the right to
vote. O nce restricted to w hite m ale property owners, the franchise has been ex­
tended to include all citizens from th eir eighteenth birthday on. Fifty years ago,
the V oting Rights Act o f 1965 sought to end practices like literacy tests that
m ade it m o re difficult for African A m ericans to vote.
The V oting Rights Act was the result o f years o f struggle, paid for with the
blood, sweat, and tears o f A m ericans black and white, young and old. It was
m ade possible by people like John Lewis, who absorbed blow after blow on
Selm a’s E d m u n d P ettus Bridge, and by the elected officials led by President
Johnson willing to enact laws allowing us to live up to o u r founding principles.
T he V oting Rights Act was designed to ensure th at everyone’s right to vote
was protected in reality an d not just in theory, by elim inating the obstacles to
voting th a t existed in 1965, and by preventing future, yet to be devised m echa­
nism s to restrict the vote. T he Act sought to accom plish these objectives
th ro u g h two m ajor provisions: Section 2 p rohibited any unfair voting practice
that w ould prevent a person from exercising his o r her right to vote based on
race; an d Section 5 required certain specially covered jurisdictions w ith a history
o f d iscrim ination, determ in ed by a form ula in Section 4(b), to obtain federal
preclearance before im plem enting any voting changes.
Its effects were im m ediate. By rem oving exclusionary tactics like literacy
tests, and providing federal exam iners and observers to m o n ito r registration
and elections, the n u m b er o f African A m ericans registered to vote rose d ram ati­
cally across th e South. By 1968, the percentage o f registered African Americans
in M ississippi had increased from 6.7 to 59.8; in Alabam a from 19.3 to 51.6; and
in Louisiana from 31.6 to 58.9. The n u m b er o f African Am ericans holding office
* William Jefferson Clinton is the 42nd President of the United States.
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at the local, state, and federal levels has also increased from fewer than 1,000 to
more than 10,000 over the last fifty years.
Congress has strengthened and extended the Voting Rights Act several
times over the last five decades, always in a bipartisan fashion, and most recent­
ly in 2006 when the extension was approved 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in
the Senate. There was also an increasing nationwide effort to make it easier for
people to register and cast their votes. The National Voter Registration Act of
i993> which I signed into law, required all states to make it possible for eligible
voters to register when applying for a driver’s license. States made it easier to
vote by increasing the number of days and polling places for advanced voting,
improving access for people with disabilities, making it easier to vote by mail,
and allowing Election Day registration. In spite of these advances, there has
been no evidence of increasing voter fraud. Until recently, our nation was on a
clear path toward making our democracy more inclusive and more representa­
tive.
Unfortunately, over the last few years, for the first time since the Voting
Rights Act was passed, it is becoming harder, not easier, for people to exercise
their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.
Since 2011, nearly two dozen states have passed laws making it harder to
cast a ballot. They range from cutbacks on early voting (in eight states including
Ohio and North Carolina), to a repeal of Election Day registration (Maine), to
harsh rules requiring specific types of government-issued photo identification
to vote (in eleven states including Wisconsin and Tennessee). Florida even
cracked down on nonpartisan voter registration drives, forcing the League of
Women Voters to close down its operations. Throughout the 2012 election cy­
cle, courts both state and federal, including both conservative and progressive
judges, blocked or blunted these measures.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court moved sharply in the other direction. In
one of the most radical departures from legal precedent in my lifetime, the Su­
preme Court decided in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder that the Act had been so
effective in blocking discriminatory voting practices in the covered jurisdictions
identified by Section 4(b), that it was no longer fair to hold those places to a dif­
ferent standard. The majority found that the formulas determining these preclearance jurisdictions were outdated, even though Congress had renewed them
by overwhelming margins just seven years earlier.
Congress’ decision to extend the Voting Rights Act—including Sections 4
and 5—was based in part on the fact that more than 1,000 proposed voting
changes in covered areas were blocked as discriminatory between 1982 and
2006. Cases brought under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act were also more
than four times more likely to succeed in covered jurisdictions than in noncovered jurisdictions, suggesting that voters in these places with a history of dis­
crimination needed continued special protections.
In her dissent in Shelby County v. Holder, Justice Ginsburg warned that
weakening the Voting Rights Act because it was working was “like throwing
away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” How right
she was.
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THE VOTING RIGHTS UMBRELLA
The consequences of Shelby County v. Holder have been dramatic. The deci­
sion has enabled states to implement voting changes that had previously been
blocked by Section 5, and further emboldened others across the country that
had been moving forward with their own voting restrictions since 2010, includ­
ing passing strict photo identification laws, cutting early voting periods, and re­
quiring more stringent documentation for registration. The Brennan Center for
Justice has found that race appears to be a significant motivating factor in states
that have introduced such restrictive laws since 2010. Seven of the eleven states
with the highest African-American turnout in 2008 have implemented new re­
strictions, as have nine of the twelve states with the largest Hispanic population
growth from 2000 to 2010. North Carolina, for example, experienced a 111% in­
crease in Hispanic population growth and a twenty-one percent increase in Af­
rican American population growth between 2000 and 2010. Within months of
Shelby County v. Holder, the state legislature passed new legislation to cut the
early voting period, eliminate same-day registration and voting during the early
voting period, and set strict voter identification requirements.
Texas offers one of the most extreme examples of voter suppression in the
wake of Shelby County v. Holder. In 2011, the state passed the nation’s harshest
law requiring people to show photo identification in order to vote. The law
seemed carefully crafted to slice the electorate: it would not allow a University
of Texas ID to be used for voting, but would, however, recognize a concealed
handgun license. The law was then blocked from implementation under Section
5 of the Voting Rights Act. Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision in
Shelby County v. Holder, the state announced it would put the restrictions into
effect. The Justice Department and voting rights groups challenged the law. Af­
ter a nine-day trial, federal judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos issued a powerful 147page opinion. The law, she ruled, “creates an unconstitutional burden on the
right to vote, has an impermissible discriminatory effect against Hispanics and
African-Americans, and was imposed with an unconstitutional discriminatory
purpose. The Court further holds that [the Texas law] constitutes an unconsti­
tutional poll tax.” She found that 608,000 voters simply did not have the re­
quired form of ID. Despite this powerful factual record, the Supreme Court
emailed out an early Saturday morning decision allowing it to remain in effect
for the 2014 election in an emergency ruling.
It is worth noting that the new voting requirements coincide with aggres­
sive efforts in some states to use redistricting practices— designed to ensure that
African American voters had the opportunity to elect some officials of their
own race— to dilute the impact of their votes by concentrating them so heavily
in a few districts that as a practical matter they can influence only elections in
districts dominated by their own race. This compounds already existing prob­
lems with gerrymandering and redistricting. For example, in 2012, the total
votes for Democrats in the House of Representatives exceeded the total votes
for Republicans in North Carolina and Virginia. But North Carolina’s congres­
sional delegation had nine Republicans and four Democrats, while Virginia’s
had eight Republicans and four Democrats. In 2012, Democratic House candi­
dates won more votes in Pennsylvania, but the legislature drew electoral lines so
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Republicans won thirteen of eighteen U.S. House seats. That same year, Presi­
dent Obama won Ohio, but Republicans won twelve of sixteen House seats.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder and the restrictive
voting laws it has enabled and encouraged are a stark reversal of nearly fifty
years of progress. Congress should restore the provisions of the Voting Rights
Act struck down by the courts and resume our historic march toward expand­
ing the franchise.
Vast numbers of voters are disenfranchised— often by accident— by the na­
tion’s ramshackle voting system. Today at least 50 million eligible citizens are
not registered. Many fall off the rolls when they move, as people so frequently
do in our mobile society. To make the right to vote real today requires modern­
ization of voter registration and our election systems. Here, there is considera­
ble room for optimism. The bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election
Administration, chaired by the counsels for the Obama and Romney cam­
paigns, put forward an array of reforms that could improve voting without par­
tisan rancor. For example, the Commission recommended that states should
adopt online voter registration, audit polling places for accessibility, and create
statewide standards for training poll workers.
In February 2015, Oregon enacted a new law to automatically register any­
one who renews a driver’s license or state identification card. Hundreds of
thousands were registered in the first week. This could truly mark a paradigm
shift, with government assuming the responsibility to ensure that every eligible
citizen is able to vote. Such digital reforms also make it harder to commit the
already rare crime of voter fraud.
One more step can make a huge difference. A lasting legacy of Jim Crowera laws is felony disenfranchisement. Many of these provisions were imposed
in the 1890s, as southern states found ways to make it impossible for AfricanAmerican former slaves to vote. I believe that people who have paid their debt
to society, many of whom are working and paying taxes, should have the right
to vote. In 1977, as Attorney General of Arkansas, I sponsored one of the first
laws reforming this practice since the end of Reconstruction. Now, there is a
growing bipartisan consensus to end felony disenfranchisement. We should join
the democratic community in reforming these laws.
America’s tremendous diversity can make us the world’s leading force for
peace and prosperity for generations to come. But in order to give our children
and grandchildren the future they deserve, we must remove barriers to partici­
pation and opportunity, not erect them. As a nation, we owe it to the many he­
roes of the Civil Rights Movement who made our past progress possible, and to
all those whose future progress depends on it.
386
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A scene from Selma.
Atsushi Nishijima/Paramount Pictures
579201
research-article2015
NLFXXX10.1177/1095796015579201New Labor ForumReed
The Strange Career of the
Voting Rights Act: Selma in
Fact and Fiction
New Labor Forum
2015, Vol. 24(2) 32­–41
Copyright © 2015, The Author(s)
DOI: 10.1177/1095796015579201
nlf.sagepub.com
Adolph Reed Jr.1
Keywords
elections, Democratic Party, equality, labor, neoliberalism, racism, working class
The only thing that hasn’t changed about
black politics since 1965 is how we think
about it.
History is beside the point for this potted narrative, as is art incidentally.
The contemporary black
professional-managerial class
converges [around the] reduction
of politics to a narrative of racial
triumph that projects “positive
images” of black accomplishment.
—Willie Legette (ca. 1999)
Ava DuVernay’s film Selma has generated yet
another wave of mass-mediated debate over
cinematic representation of black Americans’
historical experience of racial injustice.1 The
controversy’s logic is at this point familiar,
nearly clichéd. DuVernay and others have
responded to complaints about the film’s historical accuracy, particularly in its portrayal of
Lyndon Johnson, with invocations of artistic
license and assertions that the film is not
intended as historical scholarship. In fact,
Selma and its recent predecessors (Django
Unchained or The Help), like other period dramas, treat the past like a props closet, a source
of images that facilitate naturalizing presentist
sensibilities by dressing them up in the garb of
bygone days. And the specific sensibilities that
carry the spate of slavery/Jim Crow–era costume dramas are those around which the contemporary black professional-managerial class
(PMC) converges: reduction of politics to a narrative of racial triumph that projects “positive
images” of black accomplishment, extols exemplary black individuals, stresses overcoming
great adversity to attain success and recognition,
and inscribes a monolithic and transhistorical
racism as the fundamental obstacle confronting, and thus uniting, all black Americans.
DuVernay threw the cat out of the bag in discussing her characterization of Johnson’s role
in the struggle for the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
The original script portrayed the president as
more centrally engaged and actively supportive
but, she says, “I wasn’t interested in making a
white-savior movie; I was interested in making
a movie centered on the people of Selma.” Of
course, her film does not follow through on that
pious declaration; she avoids the white savior
but only to replace him with a black one. Selma
is, despite her insistence that it is not, another
iteration of King idolatry.2 But the “white-savior”
comment is helpful because it makes clear that
1
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
*This essay was previously published as a longer essay in
nonsite.org and is available at http://nonsite.org/editorial/
the-real-problem-with-selma; it is reprinted here with
permission. Please contact nonsite.org with any requests
for permission for further reuse.
Corresponding Author:
Adolph Reed Jr., alreed2@earthlink.net
34
New Labor Forum 24(2)
representing history is not the point of these
films. As English literature professor Jerome
Christensen contends in a defense of the film’s
relation to history, “Selma is not education, it’s
mobilization—it’s a movie that wants to move
you. Its aim is not accuracy, but to be tragically
and poignantly clever.” He goes on to assert:
“That movie is Ferguson . . . Nothing has
changed. That’s why Johnson in some sense
can’t be the hero of the movie. He can’t be the
white savior, because nothing was saved.”3
Selma is another iteration
of King idolatry.
From that perspective Selma isn’t really about
the campaign for voting rights at all; as
Christensen says, the film is an act of mobilization and what it’s mobilization for are above all
the status claims precisely of the black PMC,
here embodied by black filmmakers and actors
and, presumably, the parasitic chatterers who bloviate about them. That helps to understand why
the ersatz political debate about the film shifted
so smoothly into arguments that its director and
actors had been “snubbed” for Oscar nominations as well as why the alleged snub is represented as an injustice against black Americans
writ large—that is, not simply the individuals
who might have been nominated. In a perverse
revision of the old norm of labor solidarity, “an
injury to one is an injury to all,” now it is the
black (haute) bourgeoisie that suffers injustice on
behalf of the black masses. It’s prominent black
individuals’ interests and aspirations that are
asserted—under the flag of positive images, role
models, equivalent vulnerability to racism, and
other such class-inflected bullshit—as crucial
concerns for the race as a whole.4
One objection to DuVernay’s depiction of
Johnson as resistant to pursuing a voting rights
law is that it is an unacceptable expression of
creative license because (1) it falsifies the history of the civil rights movement in a way that
(2) egregiously distorts a significant element of
that history and (3) in doing so, leaves an erroneous picture of how the key victories of the
civil rights movement were won that moreover
(4) can have counterproductive implications for
how we think about political strategy today. In
addition to those who defend the film on
grounds I have discussed, others have acknowledged its consequential misrepresentations but
nonetheless conclude that on balance, even
with those faults, the film makes a significant
contribution in telling even a flawed version of
the story of the Selma campaign to a popular
audience. Albert R. Hunt, after critically discussing the substance and implications of the
film’s treatment of Johnson, rejects Joseph A.
Califano’s urging not to see the film. Hunt concludes, “You should see this movie, and know
the story of Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge.
That was brought home to me by my 25-yearold apolitical daughter, Lauren: ‘Seeing it is a
lot different than reading about it.’”5
But what does Selma communicate? Does its
vision of the Selma campaign as a dramatic
event, as much an existential as a political triumph, contribute to making sense of the sources
and goals of the civil rights movement, the pursuit of voting rights enforcement, or the relation
of either to contemporary problems bearing on
race and inequality? If we are reporting on how
our children responded to it, my son, who is an
historian, commented at the beginning of the
controversy about Johnson’s role that it is only a
matter of time before students show up in his
undergraduate courses rehearsing the wrongheaded common sense understanding they would
have acquired from the movie or discussions of
it. Or, for that matter, from professors of Africana
Studies, or English or (for sure) Cultural Studies.
Under these conditions, maybe the most pertinent
response to DuVernay’s film is to lay out an historically richer and thicker account of the struggle for voting rights enforcement and the impact
of the VRA on the South, black politics, and
American politics in general over the …
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