An Injury to One is an Injury to All
Rhode Island Pride at Work Condemns Rep. Patricia Morgan’s Three Education Bills
ANTI GAY, ANTI BLACK/BROWN AND ANTI UNION
In the past year, Rhode Island has borne witness to the strange political circus, featuring Republican Rep. Patricia Morgan, pertaining to the odd proposition that public schools are “indoctrinating” students with an obscure graduate-level legal framework called “Critical Race Theory” and “sexualizing” students by teaching about same sex love and gender identity being at variance with sex assigned at birth. Elected officials and public-school teachers have been beset by threats to their safety, otherwise-mundane school board meetings have been transformed into sites of theatrical delirium, and the most revanchist elements of the GOP constituency have monopolized the debate.
We at Pride at Work believe in the old labor slogan that An Injury to One is an Injury to All. We are an AFL-CIO constituency group of LGBTQQIA+ unionists and unorganized workers that organizes mutual support between the organized Labor Movement and the LGBTQQIA+ Community to further social and economic justice. We urge you to do the following:
Contact and urge your legislators to oppose these bills while affirming their support for public education.
Share this information among members of our community and our allies, including at civic organizations and houses of worship;
Sign our Collective Statement opposing these bills, either as individuals or as an organization;
Rep. Morgan has introduced three bills, two of which should be blatantly obvious attacks on the youths of our community, freedom of speech, academic freedom, and labor union rights.
H7138 and its parallel in the Senate, S2516, uses the verbiage of a “Parents Bill of Rights” to justify severely limiting the ability of schools and teachers to provide LGBTQIIA+ affirming education and supports for students. Modeled on the repulsive “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, it targets youths and unionists with some of the most shameless homo-/trans-phobia imaginable. Likewise, S2501 seeks to ban trans girls from school sports, promoting nothing but disproved stereotypes and bigotry.
H7539, seeking to ban “critical race theory,” is equally dangerous for our youths but requires further explanation. The racist dog-whistle of “Critical Race Theory” stigmatizes teaching about the painful realities of American history. But lost in the discussion of this bill is a debate over Rep. Morgan’s ultimate goal, one that our community should be deeply concerned about and oppose: the introduction of school vouchers into mainstream state policy debates.
Vouchers are a serious threat to the most vulnerable youths in our community and cannot be allowed to further advance within the public square.
School vouchers seek to use public monies to finance private religious schools.
These religious schools are not beholden to any regulations or mandate from the public regarding gender-affirmative student support or even promotion of non-heterosexist norms.
Those of us who remember the ostracism and marginalization of Catholic schools know very well how vouchers would be a calamity for LGBTQQIA+ youths who are coming out in family settings that do not support them.
In this day and age, public schools can now function as the one Safe Space for our youths, a factor we know is sometimes the difference between literal life and death.
Vouchers are an attempt to bail out the most reactionary element of our society while surrendering billions of public infrastructure over to private capital.
“The impact of vouchers upon our community should be obvious,” says Andrew Stewart, a member of Pride at Work and the Providence Teachers Union.
“These schools are not beholden to the mandate of universal free-at-point-of-delivery education, the major gain of the Brown v. Board Supreme Court decision.
We absolutely must oppose this stunt by Patricia Morgan with all the power and ferocity that we utilized for marriage equality, civil liberty protections in the workplace, and other victories our community has won.
The challenge is that the Ocean State has fertile ground for the pro-voucher argument to take root in because of the long-standing role of parochial education, which has resulted in Rhode Island having one of the historically lowest public school enrollment rates in America.
We cannot neglect our obligation to emphasize how this endangers our youths while attacking Freedom of Speech and efforts to promote equity in public education and the larger society.”
We call upon all members of the Rhode Island LGBTQQIA+ community to actively participate in the campaign against these racist, cis/heterosexist bills so to defend our youths and our public schools. An injury to one is an injury to all!
The views expressed herein are solely those of the Rhode Island chapter of Pride at Work.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRUE NATURE OF THE DEBATE ABOUT “CRITICAL RACE THEORY” IN PUBLIC EDUCATION, WE SUGGEST:
Coverage of the Debate in Rhode Island https://washingtonbabylon.com/tag/critical-race-theory/
AND
(https://upriseri.com/tag/critical-race-theory
Nancy MacLean, author of the bestselling Democracy in Chains, about the historical connection between school vouchers and segregationists https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-milton-friedman-aided-and-abetted-segregationists-in-his-quest-to-privatize-public-education
MacLean and Prof. Diane Ravitch, educational scholar and Founder/President of the Network for Public Education, discussing these matters further https://youtu.be/-dHmwQ2ahwQ