Still marching after all these years
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I learned nonviolent civil disobedience from my parents, growing up in Brooklyn. They were activists even before Vietnam. During the civil rights movement, in 1964, driving through St. Augustine, Fla., they attended a demonstration. When protesters refused to leave a sit-in attempting to integrate the Ponce de Leon Motor Lodge restaurant, some were arrested and jailed. My parents were not arrested, but they were present, in solidarity, as lifelong believers in human rights, in including Black Americans in the American Dream. What we now call DEI was already a good goal.
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And me? Young as I was, my good-girl head was down, finishing my master's thesis on Proust, in graduate school far away. I was merely an educated girl, not political yet, not focused on the common good as they were.
Both of them had been radicals in the 1930s, when Jewish leftists and others hoped that a popular front could remake US labor relations, control capitalist greed, and bring America closer to equality for women and people of color. Paul Robeson was one of their idols, along with Eleanor Roosevelt.
Later, they opposed the Vietnam War, just as my husband and I did. In 1968, running against feckless Hubert Humphrey, treacherous Richard Nixon promised to end the war, and then prolonged it until more than 50,000 men my age died, as well as countless Vietnamese and Cambodians. In 1972 my father worked to elect Elizabeth Holtzman, also of Brooklyn, to Congress. So she was in the House of Representatives in time to vote to impeach the corrupt Nixon in the summer of 1974.
My father, with ALS sapping his body, had followed the investigation and trial avidly from the green couch in the living room. But he missed out on the ending. By August he was in a coma; he died two days short of Nixon's ignominious exit. The night Nixon left, making his awkward, hypocritical peace signs, my mother and I were dining in the dim kitchen with my cousin Sherry, grieving and rejoicing. In that painful, complex mood, we poured some wine and drank to him: 'Marty should have been here to see this day.' 'Daddy should have been here.'
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I know my parents would be out with me on the streets now. They
were
there, in a sense — at a #HandsOff rally on April 5 in Newton, at an April 19 event to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution in Waltham, and then at the 'No Kings' rally.
The signs were clever and scathing at all these events; drivers going by were honking in approval, shouting, applauding. My laconic father's sign would have said, very big, in block letters, 'NO!' Once when my mother was in her 90s and had lost many memories, I asked her, 'What is wisdom?' She answered unhesitatingly: 'The greatest part of wisdom is kindness.' Her sign, which I saw an older woman hold at the Waltham rally, would have read 'Make America kind again.'
'Nothing is stranger than the position of the dead among the living,' Virginia Woolf wrote in her first, unpublished novel, 'Melymbrosia.' I find it marvelous that my parents can still stand by my side.
The rest of our family is in the streets, too: our son and his children in New York City. That solidarity is so welcome to us — just as it must have been to my parents when we opposed the Vietnam War early on, when they felt alone and scorned, when so few Americans had yet come to their senses.
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Intergenerational solidarity is precious. That preciousness includes not only the next generations, but the oldest, too. To all of us lucky enough to have older people in our lives, they comfort us by their presence. Repositories of family lore and legend, they dole out secrets and, for better or worse, guide us by their experiences. And sometimes by the energy of their activism, right now!
I see my parents' faces vividly. I summon them and their will to do good, which survives them, in this national emergency. Their memory is a blessing in the here and now and the strife to come.
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San Francisco Chronicle
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Harvard is hoping court rules Trump administration's $2.6B research cuts were illegal
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Hamilton Spectator
28 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Harvard is hoping court rules Trump administration's $2.6B research cuts were illegal
BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University will appear in federal court Monday to make the case that the Trump administration illegally cut $2.6 billion from the storied college — a pivotal moment in its battle against the federal government . If U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs decides in the university's favor, the ruling would reverse a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation's oldest and wealthiest university. Such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard's sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money. 'This case involves the Government's efforts to use the withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard,' the university said in its complaint. 'All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution's ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions.' A second lawsuit over the cuts filed by the American Association of University Professors and its Harvard faculty chapter has been consolidated with the university's. Harvard's lawsuit accuses President Donald Trump's administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism task force. The letter demanded sweeping changes related to campus protests, academics and admissions. For example, the letter told Harvard to audit the viewpoints of students and faculty and admit more students or hire new professors if the campus was found to lack diverse points of view. The letter was meant to address government accusations that the university had become a hotbed of liberalism and tolerated anti-Jewish harassment on campus. Harvard President Alan Garber pledged to fight antisemitism but said no government 'should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.' The same day Harvard rejected the demands, Trump officials moved to freeze $2.2 billion in research grants. Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in May that Harvard would no longer be eligible for new grants , and weeks later the administration began canceling contracts with Harvard. As Harvard fought the funding freeze in court, individual agencies began sending letters announcing that the frozen research grants were being terminated . They cited a clause that allows grants to be scrapped if they no longer align with government policies. Harvard, which has the nation's largest endowment at $53 billion, has moved to self-fund some of its research, but warned it can't absorb the full cost of the federal cuts. In court filings, the school said the government 'fails to explain how the termination of funding for research to treat cancer, support veterans, and improve national security addresses antisemitism.' The Trump administration denies the cuts were made in retaliation, saying the grants were under review even before the April demand letter was sent. It argues the government has wide discretion to cancel contracts for policy reasons. 'It is the policy of the United States under the Trump Administration not to fund institutions that fail to adequately address antisemitism in their programs,' it said in court documents. The research funding is only one front in Harvard's fight with the federal government. The Trump administration also has sought to prevent the school from hosting foreign students , and Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status . Finally, last month, the Trump administration formally issued a finding that the school tolerated antisemitism — a step that eventually could jeopardize all of Harvard's federal funding, including federal student loans or grants. The penalty is typically referred to as a 'death sentence.'
Los Angeles Times
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Summer school for migrant students takes a double hit from Trump. Fewer kids go to the zoo
The 8-year-old girl is a migrant student whose family moves frequently in search of seasonal work. But for five weeks this summer, she found stability, fun and academic nurturing in a program for children like her that included visits to the L.A. Zoo twice a week. But like the axolotl, the salamander she studied, this program is critically endangered. Because migrant students may have family members who are living in the country illegally — or may themselves lack legal status — the Trump administration wants to end federal funding for it, saying the program wastes money and violates his policy directives. And in a more immediate blow to the program, amid fears over immigration-enforcement raids, fewer children went to the zoo and virtually no parents attended concurrent education workshops on how to support their children's learning. 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Unified about $1.4 million for extra help for migrant students throughout the school year, part of some $400 million in federal migrant education grants available nationwide. The annual distribution of this funding was supposed to begin July 1, but the Trump administration held it back, even though it was approved by Congress earlier this year. Nationwide, this withheld funding for various education programs surpassed an estimated $6 billion, although some was released last week. Last week California joined other states in suing the Trump administration for holding back the money, much of which the administration wants to eliminate entirely in future years, including the migrant education funding. Those who applaud the federal cutbacks say that state and local governments should pay for these programs if they are valuable. Others believe the federal government retains an important role in helping children with special needs. Without federal involvement, 'some students are going to lose, and historically, it had been students of color, it had been migrant students, it had been low-income students,' said Mayra Lara, director of Southern California partnerships and engagement for the advocacy group EdTrust-West. RR — a rising third-grader whom the The Times agreed to identify by her initials to protect her and her family's privacy — has attended the zoo program for two consecutive years. 'I was kind of excited because I had the same teacher, because I really wanted the same teacher because she was nice and kind,' said RR, who wears glasses and has a dark ponytail. The number of participants who study at the zoo program is relatively small — because many families leave the area for summer work. In a typical year, 45 students, mostly in elementary school, take part. This summer, however, the number plummeted to 25, even though L.A. Unified provided buses to take students to the zoo and to Malabar Elementary in Boyle Heights, the home base for classroom work. What happened is no mystery to Ruth Navarro, the program's lead teacher for L.A. Unified. Concerned about immigration raids, four families asked if the district could pick their kids up from home. The district figured out a way to do this, but the families eventually declined to participate regardless, Navarro said. 'Even though we were willing to go to their home to pick them up, they didn't want to let their child out the door because of fear of what might happen to them,' Navarro said. Normally, the school system needs three buses to pick up participating students. This year, one of the buses was canceled. In addition, virtually no parents took advantage of a program for them that coincided with the hours their children were in class, Navarro said. This effort included workshops on such topics as social emotional learning and how to help children improve their reading skills. There also was advice on how to access help with immigration issues, Navarro said. In response to fears, parents were provided with an online simulcast for the workshops — in which about 15 parents participated, Navarro said. Los Angeles Unified also expanded an online version of the Malabar elementary classes, in which about 40 students participated to varying degrees — far more than usual. But the online students missed out on the heart of the program — seven trips to the zoo and in-person classroom interaction. RR took full advantage of summer learning — and became expert on the axolotl. At first, 'I thought it was just like a normal fish, but until I noticed the legs. I was like, 'Wait, a fish doesn't have legs,' ' she recounted. RR, like other students, created art projects of her animal and also served as a docent for parents and visitors. 'They have gills that help them breathe underwater,' she explained, holding a microphone next to the tank, adding that the axolotl can change colors to hide. 'There's one camouflaging over there,' she said, pointing. RR thinks it would be fun to be an axolotl and breathe underwater. She's never been to a pool or an ocean. The students are typically extremely shy at the start of the summer, said Coral Barreiro, community programs manager for the L.A. Zoo. 'They learn interpretation skills, which is amazing for building up confidence and public speaking in the future,' Barreiro said. 'They meet with the zookeepers, and they basically, at the end, mimic everything that we've done and make it their own.' L.A. Unified is continuing its migrant student program for now by using reserves that were designated for other purposes. During the school year, the migrant program pays for services such as tutoring and an extended instructional time after school and on Saturdays. Some argue that migrant programs — and many other examples of federal education spending — are not the responsibility of the federal government, including Neal P. McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute. 'The federal government doesn't have constitutional authority to fund programs like that, not to mention we have a $37-trillion national debt,' said McCluskey, who was not taking a position on the value of the effort. 'If government is going to provide such a program, it should be state or locally funded.' The Trump administration, in its budget proposal for next year, echoes this argument, but also classifies the migrant effort as an outright negative. 'This program is extremely expensive' per student, according to budget documents. 'This program has not been proven effective and encourages ineligible noncitizens to access taxpayer dollars stripping resources from American students.' Critics of the administration's approach say that the federal government has long stepped in to support the students who need it most — when a state is unwilling or unable to do so. Without federal regulation and funding, state and local governments have not 'done right by all students,' said Lara, of EdTrust-West. The pending cuts and withheld funds, she said, will result in 'denying opportunity to students. State and local governments are going to have to make really tough decisions.'
