2024 & Beyond: Creating Our Shred Future Town Hall Series - Project 2025 and Public Education

Intro [Music] Abeni Bloodworth hi uh good evening everyone and welcome to the 2024 and Beyond creating our shared future um our public education Town Hall uh my name is abini Bloodworth and I am a co-founder and uh the CEO of chromatic black we are narrative Architects working at the intersection of art activism health and Equity our mission is to disrupt the master narrative with good storytelling and we do that in uh collaboration with creatives across the spectrum of disciplines as we approach our critical election season the stakes for our nation's educational future have never been higher yesterday we witnessed the Republican nominee vice president JD Vance come under Fire for his inflammatory remarks about the president of the American Federation of teachers Randy Warden this controversy isn't just a headline it's a stark reminder of the increasing tensions and attacks on public education teachers and the Very principles of Justice inclusion and belonging that said I'm excited to bring you today's session on Project 202's impact on public education in partnership with organizations and movement leaders including the center for popular democracy American Federation of teachers the center for policing Equity mom's Rising for strong public schools and uncock my campus tonight we're going to dive deep into how project 2025 could reshape our education system particularly in ways that might harm our most vulnerable students and communities I have the honor of welcoming today's moderator Nicole Carr um an award-winning investigative jour journalist professor and speaker based here in Atlanta Georgia her recent work for prua explored the intersection of race politics and democracy and public education she has been honored with multiple Awards including four Southeast enemies and a Sydney award her reporting has been featured in major Outlets like the New York Times CNN CBS the Grio and the Philadelphia Inquirer Carr also serves as an Adjunct professor of Journalism at Morehouse College and is an active member of several journalism organizations please join me in welcoming Nicole Carr I popped up there I know stop believe stage um what people don't know is that this is one of my favorite people in the world um and she she doesn't I hope she doesn't mind but she's just finishing her book and um so one from chromatic black and all the folks thank you for taking time out um uh you're one of the folks that we've been talking to about the implications of project 2025 and what the person that we thought was the best person to be able to to moderate um this crucial conversation for our community um so thank you so much uh and and and let me let me grab my popcorn and and and listen to all these big brains in the room okay thank you thank you so much for Nicole Carr that introduction and beanie and thank you to everyone who has joined us uh chromatic black the center for popular democracy all of the partners for this series um our great speakers that we're going to hear from this evening uh for this critical conversation about project 20125 and its impact on issues like public education um in many other areas of the nation that we've talked about in this series so as it being said my name is Nicole Carr happy to join you all for this uh conversation as a journalist um as an educator but most importantly as a citizen concerned about the state of our democracy uh tonight we are going to hear about how the rights uh to equality education are under attack through this plan not just for vulnerable and marginalized individuals and families but for anyone who doesn't align with a narrow exclusionary agenda um we are in a critical battle to safeguard basic human rights including the right to pursue an unbiased well-rounded education uh that's free from book bands curriculum discrimination and financial barriers uh the stakes couldn't be higher as we Face a concerted effort to reshape public education in ways that could undermine the very foundations of democracy and Equity um I'm sure by now we we've all heard by about project 2025 that's why we're here tonight um but you know it's been out in the open for a couple of years uh the better part of the past two years but it was just getting to gain steam in mainstream media and um very much because of the the presidential election and the way that it's shown up and campaign ads but this Playbook has been wide open for us uh for a long time and it's just now getting a lot of attention um experts have described it as the very real and present threat or danger um filled with ideas policies and strategies that threaten to obliterate our democracy undermine this education system and jeopardize the future of our nation um the implications of project 2025 stretch across many critical areas including Environmental Protection civil rights health care and economic Justice and again aims to roll back Decades of progress and silence the voices of those who have fought for more uh more just and Equitable Society um so tonight we're going to get into what this agenda really stands for and particularly what it means for public education so in recent weeks uh former president Donald Trump has claimed that he has no and he has attempted to distance himself from the now very exposed far-right agenda uh we know that is a lie uh Trump's agenda 47 and heritage foundation's project 2025 share striking similarities in their vision for the future of the American governance aiming to reshape our country in ways that again we can't emphasize this enough we've said it a couple of times undermine democracy and equity um the authors of project 2025 have played key roles in the former president's Administration and stand to do so should there be a second Trump presidency Trump has a long-standing relationship with the Heritage Foundation he has spoken at their meetings and benefited from their influence and this was the part that really caught my attention with the project the the database that it's created um to list more than 10,000 Trump loyalists who are job candidates they'd be ready to step into Federal roles federal government roles on day one again should there be a second Trump presidency moreover the Heritage Foundation has financially supported groups like moms for Liberty a conservative advocacy group that has been instrumental in pushing for book bands curriculum control in the suppression of truthful American history education in our schools the connections are clear the agendas are aligned and their goal is to fundamental changed the fabric of our society by restricting access to knowledge and erasing critical parts of our history uh still given the recent infusion of energy with kamla vice president kamla Harris as the official Democratic Presidential nominee and the project 2025 director Paul Dan stepping down you might wonder why are we still talking about project 2025 um we're going to talk about that right now but first i'm going to introduce our l lineup of speakers want to kick it off by um asking them a round Robbin question but for our audience uh let me introduce you to Dr khila M Harris the Executive Vice President of program strategy at the center uh for policing Equity nah Perez the national campaign director for Mom's Rising dearis Allen executive director of families for strong Public Schools Michelle Ringette like a bagette I'm not hry right now she is the the assistant uh to the president of the American Federation of teachers um Jasmine banks executive direct director for UNC my campus and Haven Rosen a rising senior Avid scholar and youth activists we can't have this conversation without including uh those who sit in the seats of our classroom so thank you all for joining us this evening um and looking forward to engaging with you to kick this off I'll call on each of you with this question about why we care about this today given um the climate the energy behind a particular campaign this distance from um that some of the GOP have tried to set between themselves in Project 2025 Architects and I will um begin I'm just looking around my screen here the first person I see is Dr Harris um could you talk about why you you care about this today AB absolutely and I want to say thank you to Chromatic black for having me thank you uh Nicole for Khalilah Harris already being an amazing moderator appreciate you and all of the uh other amazing guests that we have here we have a Powerhouse panel of women which I would not go without saying I also want to um give a land acknowledgement I sit on um lape land here in the state of Maryland um and I always pay homage to those who are steing the land our country was built on uh gen side and enslavement and I keep it keep that at the Forefront in the work that I do and that kind of springboards into this the challenges and why it's so important for us to continue these conversations about project 2025 listen the fact of the matter is that uh parts of this plan have already begun being implemented across the US um it is not just about this 2024 presidential election it is about uh the many Schoolboard elections that have been hijacked in the past couple of years it is about um this concept of parental rights um and when you push back and ask people which parents are you referring to it typically does not include parents who look like me um it does not include parents who uh have the same background that I have being uh the child of immigrants Costa Ricans and Jamaicans and so you know it it doesn't include those first gen students who require um a a chance at a fair start to be able to have access to curriculum that reflects their Heritage in this country and being a part of those who built this country and so when we think about you know why this is so important and why it is that people are trying to distance themselves from it it is frankly because people are trying to be The Man Behind the Green curtain and I'm insistent on pulling that curtain back that people should be voting up and down their ballot and being really thoughtful Beyond this election what's happening in their own communities where facets project 2025 regardless of the name of it right sometimes we latch on to the names of things project 2025 agenda 47 whatever the case may be um and it is still the same bad policy trying to roll back provisions and equal protections under the Constitution and not only as someone who is an educator and ran a school I am also an attorney and I love the law um and I want to make sure that people don't have gatekeeping of information so they can't really decide and understand what exactly the problem is the problem is in front of us and it has been a decades long um drum beat right uh we have the Heritage Foundation involved here they helped to draft policy for President Reagan they're not new to the game and so if people think this came out of nowhere they're mistaken and they need to be paying attention for the long term and not just in November thanks wonderful thank you for that and I'm moving down my screen now to Jasmine Banks um what what is the urgency for you in this moment as it pertains to project 2025 yeah thank you so much and second Jasmine Banks everything that Dr Harris said um you know first before I even jump into my answer I have to say out loud I am from Tulsa Oklahoma born in Enid Oklahoma and I am a proud graduate of Kerr and Taft and Charles Page High School I was raised by um all of my public school teachers I was child of a single mama and we spent some time home and had some economic struggles and it was my teachers that took me to my extracurricular activities it was my teachers that made sure I was eating it was my teachers who gave me safe space to get mental health support and so this is not just a career this um investigation of those who are trying to undermine public education but it's also my vocation it's a love ethic so thank you for having me here um you know I started in in this work tracking the coch network in 2017 and I've had the unfortunate position um in leading on coke my campus always be that tiny little David in the story of Goliath Goliath being like hey y'all this is happening and often times I got the tinfoil hat response um but you know un Coke along with some of our partners were on the front lines in 2020 in 2021 because we saw these trends that were happening um I wrote a piece in the nation talking about the moral Panic behind the critical race Theory and this moment of 2025 this policy this Manifesto It's Already Done what it's intended to do one of it's intended jobs right it has signaled to parts of their three-pillar ecosystem the vision of the future that Heritage and all of their co-conspirators have been organizing toward especially accelerating post Reagan while they say that they move in ideas and public policy and government accountability what actually happens is this grassroot multi-point strategy that bment moral Panic it incentivizes belonging to these race class and gender-based coalitions that coales around grievances around unfinished business that we have to do as a community and as people who have to do the group project of democracy um and it really is just one of the layers of this vast co-funded manufactured crisis that serves to both mean test and then provide a body of proof that allows us to get stuck in these technocratic Solutions get stuck in following the leaders of the ecosystem and where all the money trails in in and end and where they end up and ultimately it serves the means of privatizing Education advancing those technocratic Solutions all the while the ultra wealthy are already advancing and moving ahead to their next project while we're stuck in this Rat Race that we have been forced into and so it's really critical um as Kila said that we do not get lost in the title in the taglines but we start understanding there are real material impacts not just on the policy level and the economic level but on the interpersonal social level um of the outcomes of project 2025 and their new and their new projects that they'll be launching inevitably right you know Jasmine you you've made me think that Michelle is the the next natural step here because of the emphasis you put on your teachers your public school teachers and the role that they played um in your upbringing and so I'm going to bring Michelle in from the American Federation of teachers um we see you all all the time is kind of this target of the everything the rhetoric and so I want to ask you what stands out to you in in terms of this urgency so I think for first I want to Michelle Ringuette say it's great to be with you all and I come bearing Tidings from Randy we Garten you might know her not just as the president of aft but also JD Vance is like latest female figure that he is hammering away at every single day um and I just want to be clear in our policy we believe that good teachers make good teachers and uh you don't have to actually have your own children in order to be able to teach um but this is I I I joke but this is seriously what we are looking at with these guys and the frightening thing about project 2025 is exactly what Dr Harris said like this is not new right and Nicole in your intro I wanted every one of our 1.8 million members to hear it because when you hear the scope and the vision of what they're trying to do and you realize that it is not just a blueprint it is something that is backed up by trainings they've been doing it is a feeder system they are screening they are ready they want to implement something called schedule F which will allow them to fire at will a number of federal employees who currently have protection and what we are seeing is a road map to autocracy and it's intentional we've seen it in other countries and we see some of the elements of it in States so it's critical that we understand that this is not a wish list which is sometimes called right they it is so detailed and precise that it is looking at ways from womb to tomb I say ways to contribute to the wholesale transfer of wealth and our public goods to a class that are already winners in the economic system and at the same time they're stealing our opportunities so I think we're going to get in a little bit deeper um later on on some of the substance of it um and I don't want to like hijack the entire conversation I get really fired up about this but I think there is a critical piece for people to keep in mind as they're looking at it which is to understand that this is already being implemented they'll move it no matter what kind of like public resigning no matter what they are willing to say in public to disavow what's in it they will simultaneously disavow what's in it say Trump will say it's not his plan he's not involved after introducing a guy the night before they are untethered by ethics and facts and it makes them dangerous but here's what we really need to walk away and understand they are not afraid of us they have put it out there because they do not fear us that is how confident they got and we are right now in a surge of something they never expected so this becomes Our Moment to use information that they thought we could never come together and use artfully to make people understand who they are what they're about and what they're willing to do to take what they want and we now have a chance to outrun them and definitely make a big dent in their plans thank you you know piggy backing off of what you said just to emphasize again that the Playbook has been wide open for us like online for two years and so that when you talk about not expecting the moment it's because it it it has gone on for so long without anybody really um ra raising the alarm to the level of what we see today so and if I could just jump on that point I want to say a word of praise for the incredible researchers and policy walks out there who dug in who ra raised a flag multiple times and other people are like yeah 922 page document excellent I'll like read that on the beach but these are folks who unpacked it and who mapped like the names behind it where it's already in beta formation and they have there are people who need our thanks and appreciation because these are jobs sometimes people toil without a lot of recognition and this is the direct result of their diligence and attention to defending our flanks thank you thank you for adding that um dearis I'm going to move down to you what is what is the urgency of now for you I would absolutely Echo everything Damaris Allen that was just said um I too was saved by teachers my kids were saved by teachers and partnering with them has been one of the greatest Joys uh for me as a parent and seeing and and seeing them help my kids grow and and really just wanting that for all kids and I think that's the great tragedy of this is that there are going to be tons of kids that are going to be left out and are going to lose critical opportunities and we should care about every kid as much as we care about our own kids and if it's not good for my kid it couldn't it shouldn't be good for for for their for other peoples um the other thing that I think is really I think it's really important to recognize the points that have been brought up that this has been happening this isn't something that just started I live in Florida I see it every day I see it every year in the legislature I see the same people who who contribute to this come to the committee meetings to Lobby in Tallahassee and we are experiencing The Fallout that the entire country could experience if this is enacted we're seeing school closures we're seeing um students having to travel far from schools which makes it difficult for families to be involved and the and the huge impacts that it's having on parents on students and communities and we really need to take that seriously we really need to realize that some of the rights that we've have in our public education system aren't that old um and and we need to protect them and I think we learned a really valuable lesson um in the recent row decision you know in in the overturning of row and I think we need to take that seriously and recognize that all of our rights aren't guaranteed that we all have to engage we all have to stay engaged in this fight for democracy thank you thank you for that and I do want to get into some historical points to tonight as we go through the conversation um Nina I'm going to toss to you now in the urgency of now Nina Perez I just want to add my thanks for being here it's such an honor being here with everybody and with some of my fellow Florida friends I'm I'm also based out of Florida you know I I think one of the critical things here is that just because Republicans and the Heritage Foundation and and people have touched on this already regret people actually paying attention to their policy priorities doesn't mean that they don't have the full intent to move them forward and in fact they already are it's like the little kid taking the cookie out of the cookie jar and regretting that Mom saw them but not actually regretting eating the cookie you know and I I think this is essentially what we're seeing now and now they're trying to like figure out oh how do I show people I didn't eat the cookie right and they're so proud of these priorities right like they publish them with a list of for right organizations including moms for Liberty who's meeting in DC this week right and to actively push forward these priorities in places like my home state in Florida particularly around education and I believe one of the panels um this week that moms for Liberty considering is how do you get teachers out to leave Public Schools like it's it's actively working to try and dismantle um public schools and you know I think one of the things is that we really you know we just can't ignore the reality that project 2025 is an all assault on the well-being of families you know I I I it's one of the reasons I mentioned moms for Liberty is it's hard to believe that any mom would support something that is eliminating the Head Start program for example and that attempts to weaken even the Fair Housing Act Right which you know and the importance I'll talk more about Head Start in a bit but the importance of the Head Start program can't be understated it's been the most important social and education investment in children and families and communities that the United States has ever undertaken um and was launched in 1965 this is a pillar of Education of Early Education in particular that has served nearly four million children and we're talking about this taking it away and you know and I think one of the things that I've been looking at a lot that that that affects education is you know this this ending of the use of dispar impact um which is a key tool for enforcing the fair housing act and for for other civil liberties um ensuring that families aren't discriminated against based on race ability sex for basic housing right so you know when we think about that public schools by the way are a pillar and and uh Jasmine touched on this in for uh for a bit and my own daughter's public school does this our pillars of the community is serving um unhoused children and serving them in and making sure that they have um stability and safety so what you're talking about essentially is a plan that wants to dismantle start one of the primary Early Education programs for lowincome children and and uh and and um children who are financially insecure and then you're talking about eliminating housing security being able to discriminate you know creating a a situation where potentially women mothers could be discriminated against for housing simply because they have children right the Fair Housing Act protects from that in this moment and then also dismantling Public Schools what will be left for our children like what is going to be for our children if they enact these things and so we just can't look away there's no way that we cannot move forward and continue to take them for their for their face value because they're showing us who they are they've already started implementing these things they've already started um doing this across the country so why wouldn't we just believe them when they show us who they are yes yes thank you thank you for that and listen Haven your last but certainly not least talk about um from your Vantage Point talk about the urgency of now okay so first of all good evening Haven Rowson everyone um um I'm very honored to be here and also quite frankly very nervous so please forgive me don't be don't be um but yeah okay so I want to start off by saying this like all of my fellow panelists I've said before the pro the excuse me the plans of project 2025 have already began to be implemented all throughout the country in States like Florida Maryland Virginia everywhere I personally have experienced those effects firsthand in my school district I had to address the school board because they felt as though African-American study shouldn't be taught at the AP level so me and a few of my fellow students along with some of our teachers went before the school board um basically really stressing the importance of the course and why it was important um yeah and I think that's just like really it was I was really like taken back by it because I didn't realize that these issues were still so prevalent and yeah there's just there's there's so much I feel that goes into it but also just the fact that former president Trump has shown on multiple occasions that he is aware of project 2025 but he also has this attitude of indifference towards it which is also which is somehow worse you know um it it kind of shows well I don't care if it happens or not or it doesn't affect me so why does it matter and that's really worse that's that's that's so much worse because in the words of Dr King and Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere so I think that that really needs to be like addressed headon I guess and we really just cannot shy away from the the importance of working against this extreme Manifesto you know Haven one don't be nervous because you're among people who support you but I just really want to thank you for showing up and for adding uh this voice to this conversation because so often we're having it and we're talking around students and young people who um you know stand to lose the most um immediately as these things are enacted so thank you for being here um so I I remember a couple of years ago um when I started reporting on the school board and saying I never considered myself an education reporter but really clearly saw this as democracy reporting like not a typical Ed beat but looking at public education and Public Schools is like the one institution most of us will pass through you you know most of us will go to public school and also seeing like School voucher conversations that sound reminiscent of of um what what led to segregationist acmy and all of these things so really seeing this for a a a bigger impact than this typical Ed coverage um I guess with the I I do I want to start with Michelle because we were talking about something back stage earlier which was that in this document and it can be overwhelming because 900 pages but when you get into the details of this you realize that one point can be making two or three points that the the policy suggestion or the plans are layered in ways can you think of like what example comes to mind when you think of hey I'm reading a sentence but I'm reading a lot more in this single sentence absolutely and I will say this is like the moment for intersectionality because they are going after as Nina said before Head Start they would by getting rid of the Department of Education what they're really talking about that's title one which which serves low-income communities and they want to get rid of idea which is uh children with learning disabilities and who need additional assistance if you pull that money out of the public school what you end up doing is you lose teachers you have overstuff classrooms and since we know that more than 50% of the students served by public schools are children of color that it has a disproportionate impact on these communities additionally they have all sorts of like cherries buried throughout their parfait so um one thing they would do is they want to federalize student loans which by doing that it's not just that they don't want you to be able to negotiate and cancel student debt they don't want the federal government to be in the student loan business and that might sound good until you think about Donald Trump and Trump University and what happens when we a like kids who maybe don't have parents who can write a check to college have to go and deal with the most rep pacious actors out there the banks and try to navigate for-profit loans so that again hits a whole number of kids in terms of their opportunity and chance to be educated they also buried in there um have found a way to write dreamers out of eligibility for instate tuition expenses so if you're a dreamer despite all the work and the gains that we have made trying to make sure that kids who came to this country when they were very young and worked hard and succeeded and served the country in various ways are no longer eligible for instate tuition rates because this is a larger strategy of who's going to be a have and who will be determined to be a have notot and then when you get into questions around vouchers and everything else you know that vouchers completely cut off uh schools in rural areas and you know there might be a kid or two who benefits but then the schools where people are targeted for vouchers end up losing three or four teachers again leading to overcrowded classrooms fewer opportunities getting rid of music and art it's we have seen it again and again but never in such a comprehensive way where it is designed from the beginning of like prek early childhood all the way through college and then just to top it off they've got buried in there the criminalization of Educators teachers Librarians AIDS if they are to have a book or share information that someone would determine to be pornographic and I will tell you right now there's a lot of stuff that I would say that Donald Trump and JD Vance and the whole magga movement is doing that I would determine as pornographic but I'm really terrified about what they would say that we talk about and what our kids need that they would determine is a criminal offense you know I this is a perfect segue into this question that I'm going to ask Nina remember reporting in Arkansas a couple of years ago about the chaos at the school board but saying the story is not about the viral moment at the school board it's about the sum of the chaos and that story ended with school board level policy um quickly enacted and signed in by the governor as state policy but the criminalization of librarians P not school librarians but our public libraries so we had morphed from we had left the schoolyard into this overarching hey if you're at the public library and you check out something I think is inappropriate to this lender then we can charge you with a felony and so we quickly see the morphing of all of this um Nina what I was going to ask you is you know being in Florida and I know we have two Floridians on on the call here we talk about this test ground and a lot of times we're focused on Texas Florida um sometimes Georgia but talk about the ways in which you'd seen uh these policies ramp up on the ground maybe ahead of everyone else but really recognizing this and uh what the long game was yeah and I love the framing for that question and I I something I'll start is we actually did a training with the Florida Freedom to read project around book bands and one of the things that we found is there has been a lot of focus in some of these key States like Florida and Texas but actually when we've done conversations with parents and local community this is everywhere like we're hearing from parents in Washington state Alabama this is not an isol ated incident I do think that Florida is the canary and the coal mine of what we can see coming but that the reason we know it's happening in Florida is because of amazing organizers on the ground who are doing the work of making sure everyone particularly during um Governor desantis's presidential failed presidential campaign to make sure that the information is getting out to people of what's happening in Florida but this is by no means isolated in Florida and I just I want to name that because we've been seeing that a lot just in our conversations with families at a local level and they don't they're not always called moms for Liberty there's all these nefarious names for these groups at the local level one Alabama mom was telling us about an organization that was um families for public schools actually something similar to like de but not exactly like dem's group and it was innocuous you know but actually was a farri fringe group and so the you know this is one of those moments where you know there is a lot happening in Florida but I want to name that yeah we can't get complacent and believe it's only happening in States like Florida you know this is really wide reaching and we're just seeing it directly the women studies program that I that I went to at the University of Central Florida no longer exists it's been closed I mean the we are seeing the end of diversity equity and inclusion offices and closures and and attempts to to reinvigorate them and figure out other ways to keep them in community but we are already seeing that and I won't talk too much about politic schools because I want to Demaris is is much better on that piece than I am and I want to give her the space for that but you know this that women's studies program that I went through is is the reason that I exist in the work that I do today it gave me practical application I got my first job out of college because of the young women's leadership program at the University of Central Florida that was housed in the University of Central Florida's um women's studies and gender studies program now called then later called gender studies and that no longer exists and that was my first point of Engagement I came from a workingclass family and and public education and that was my first point of Engagement with any of these conversations that helped me grow and think more critically about these things and so what happens to students who like me would have never been engaged with those things who now don't have that space right and I think some of the things that we've also just seen is is this is the attack of programs and and folks already touched on this a little bit within within education right so Michelle you touched on this a little bit right like Ida like breaking down the components to take away the whole and the in and by the sum of its parts and even just here I'm in to doall County we we became national news because we had all the empty shelves from books being taken off of our bookshelves I lived that in full and you know but they also did uh we also had moms for Liberty and other fire far R groups trying to attack um the Hazel health program which is an opt-in program that provides quality lowcost um no cost health care services to about 11,000 families in the county you know they and it's an opt-in program and they were trying to make it opt out they were doing all these different but it's such a popular program that even their own mom for Liberty candy on the school board said wait wait wait this is this is okay what what are we doing and um and we were able to beat that back and I say that because some of the things that even they're fighting for the community that they have been speaking to is like wait a minute what is this right and and imagine the impact of those 11,000 um Children and Families Lo losing Healthcare in our community um and no and if people hadn't been paying attention like amazing groups locally here like um uh uh public School Defenders and families for strong Public Schools if we hadn't been paying attention and folks hadn't been paying attention locally uh they would could have passed that and then we would have had all those um Children and Families missing out on Healthcare so we're already seeing the impacts here it's already happening and and but folks I want to say and and we we'll touch on this more later I'm sure is are finding really creative and beautiful ways of protecting community and fighting back and um and we shouldn't have to be doing that uh but just a lot of appreciation for all the fla organizers that are creating the situation where we can know the true impacts of project 2025 so I'm glad you all are doing something that um is really important I'm glad you're calling out uh the folks who have been doing the work to keep us informed in these ways I think my my gripe in in coming from media and really trying to enter a story in a different way is that a lot of times we're adopting language and not defining the thing we're talking about I'm like okay so Dei if you're talking Equity but one of the best um examples I was given early on was we have a second grade field trip right every student gets to go on this field trip but this year um we have a wheelchair bound student and our field trip partner is not accessible for so that child can't go here so our Equity officer would do one of two things figure figure out how to partner with someone else or work with that partner to ensure that all the second graders get to go on that field trip and it got caught up Dei got caught up in this critical race Theory thing and this black and white thing and I'm like you're not even defining what this does that leads right so we're not we're not language is important right in definition so Dr Harris oh well well go ahead yeah I was coming to you I was coming to you on this because one of the questions was you know how could efforts to censor or restrict teaching on Dei impact teachers ability to provide a comprehensive education to their students and that's not just the history book or the the it's the whole child in everything you do when you step on the schoolyard that's right and what I was going to jump in and add is a little bit more um seasoning if you will this question around the the I love the hidden charries in the parf Michelle uh but you know when you think about disperate impact that alone is a textbook just the sentence saying that we don't want to use desperate impacts I'm going to put my lawyer hat on um in many ways it is this it is this Consciousness or ethos where um being called a racist is worse than experiencing racism and so if you cannot prove that I as an individual did something to you there are no problems here nothing to see here even if we could look at the data that we're responsible for collecting whether it's through um the Civil Rights data collection um uh looking at the ways that students are disciplined and seeing the vast differences um for every black boy or Latino boy you have um them being suspended three times as much as um their white counterpart but also for black girls six times as frequently as their counterpart and we have that data because of the Civil Rights data collection which project 2025 would seek to eliminate and if you're saying you have to show me how an individual intentionally treated you poorly um that would take us back decades right that was the point of the Brown versus Board decision to eliminate the disperate impact on communities that we know have inequitable access to resources um have had governmental programs and strategies intended to not provide access like our um uh uh veterans coming home and not being able to use the GI bill when we talk about education like those are things that the government did so when we talk about desperate impact to say that we no longer are using title one we no Title Nine title six wiped out what people need to understand is uh they're asking for folk to prove that they've been harmed by someone and not that the system itself is set up to um even if it looks fair or neutral that the way the system is implemented takes away from particular groups and that not only includes um children from the global majority or uh children who have disabilities it also includes our rural communities living in Appalachia without access to broadband um you know often times people want to talk about uh uh just children from the global majority which public schools in the next 10 years will be primarily popul populated by children from the global majority and you may notice my use of language which I'm intentional about I am not a minority my three daughters are not minorities um and um they are in the global majority but the ways in which things are spoken about um would have you think that everything is fair you just pull yourself up by the bootstraps whether or not you have boots um and you know when we think about Dei when we think about critical race theory for years and I I published a little bit on this I was actually pushing for people to stop responding uh on on CRT stop elevating CRT as a real debate because it never was um we knew um according to all the student loans I'd like to have forgiven for myself um Decades of working in public education um you know we knew that CRT is not something that's even exposed in in K12 spaces yet there are always it's just the same thing as welfare moms CRT is code for something else Dei is code for something else in my networks and my circles I have said I don't use Dei anymore and that's been for two or three years because on one hand you have people who are having it mean every and anything and not being precise on the other hand you have people who would throw it up in your face like I am not going to say I'm a Dei hire I am I am well prepared well educated work hard and work hard even some more so you know I understand how people want to do that play but you don't you you some people will say you take the enemies to the Master's tools to bring down the Master's house and I believe that there are other tools we are Innovative that we can not play the dance with them because that means that we're constantly following their lead and uh love what you said that that we we we can accelerate and push against some of these Provisions but the fact of the matter is um and I think Jasmine you may have said this they're already on to the next provision and and a challenge that we've had in public education for people who are either Center or Center left is that you know we would engage as if the playing field is level or fair right we we're working around the edges to say how can we update the elementary secondary Education Act or oh we might not get this little thing through Congress oh we can't tweak title one because it's too big and it's not the appetite of Congress um as opposed to being clear there were challenges with title one way too many schools had access to it and the money was not being targeted in proper ways for communities that are um under resource and have historically been um discriminated against right that had highways built through them that were impacted by redlining all government programs right um but it is important for us to be more bold to not start our negotiations and our advocacy at what we think we can get but our advocacy needs to start with what the children deserve and unfortunately for the last 101 15 years even a little more it's been you know what can we get out of this Congress what can we get out of this session and that has set set us back because most of us know who are doing advocacy work our student Advocates our parent uh and family advocates knew we needed to drive a lot harder because the the um uh the difference in differences and achievement were expanding right um and so yes people are thinking of ways accountability uh Frameworks or Charter Schools or whatever the case may be to to try to attack one part of the issue when we needed to be bold for our children um whether or not we have children I'm a I'm a great auntie I do have three children of my own but if they did not exist this I am I am of aunties and godmothers um and so for the children who have come through my schools that are now 30 something that's crazy um you know their children some of them some of their children are my godchildren so it is not just about birthing children you know when children come into our schoolhouses I always say they they deserve love at first sight they show up they are deserving they should not have to earn it from us and we've not been doing policy in that way Dei CRT again just like project 2025 agenda 47 we can dance around language the question is what are we trying to do are we brave enough to name it and how do we build coalitions to make sure we don't buy into this perspective of a scarcity mindset right and that's what capitalism and class Wars do it is you know there's not enough for everybody so those people are taking something from you I don't see how a dreamer who might invent the the cure for cancer is taking anything from me or my family right they are not in fact we're leaving money on the table if there's a child in our school system who has achieved and graduated that we don't make sure they get to college and that they're not then excluded as a pariah or not a part of our national fabric so I'll stop there language is really important that CI Dei CRT Dei thing I have been planting seeds for a few years now even from within the Obama Administration that we are we are the is wagging the dog we are talking about things in a way that they have framed and not affirmatively saying are you saying we should not talk about the Civil War should we not talk about land stolen from um indigenous people should we not talk about the things that made our country great and that we persevered through how that could make anyone feel bad or responsible I don't know because we're stronger together for having pushed through that and move forward so that's my take on it I mean one thing uh that you're saying about language you know it kind of lends itself to the chaos um in the moment and like chaos causes distraction and so then we were all over the place and not really focused on keeping the main thing the main thing so a little later on I want to talk about this tool of um fear and kind of embedding that into things to and it's speaking I think to a question that we have in the Q&A that I promised to get to before um once we get through a one question for all the panelists um I'm going to move on to to Jasmine and and dearis and the same um in the same topic area which is this uh idea of dismantling the Department of Education and implications um there and what you see um as as the point of that and the trickle down effects of dismantling the actual Department there's one um there's one line in there that says something to the effect of the State Department of educations are basically the feds too and so you need to break that down wherever you are because they're the same enemy just in your backyard and so what happens when you start talking about breaking down the governing body and this could be to each of each of you at the same time or whoever want want to jump in there well we're definitely seeing the impacts of this in Florida right so um we have a Department of Education that isn't hiring it isn't fully staffed it isn't adequately you know um staffed so when you put in a public records request to see how our voucher money is being spent to make sure that there's some accountability in there you don't get a response or you get a very delayed response and so they this the schools don't have the support they need need and and that's Inc incredibly problematic in addition to that most people don't realize so you know as you look at the ranking of funding Florida's consistently pretty consistently in the bottom five recently with with State uh State funding for public education but we're consistently at the top with national funding and so the amount the sheer amount of money that will be taken away from our students is is going to be devastating you know when you look at it and it's Title One funding it's for students with this students with learning disability you know all of these things that are so vital to our kids and they're going to lose that and we know that money makes a difference you know when we're looking at students living in poverty money investment over time makes a difference in their achievement their their not only their earning power but their family's earning power their their their overall Life as a whole is improved uh there's a 2020 education Law Center report that speaks to this and it's a small amount of money over time it's you know makes a huge a huge difference and so taking that away would be in incredibly devastating in addition to that one of the things I found fascinating in the education piece is there's really this when they're talking about idea they're talking about oh we need to encourage students to take vouchers well thanks to some great Partners in Florida in our language in our bill for our Universal voucher it's very clear to parents in the bill language that when you have a student you are waving your federal protections the second you take that voucher so these students who are going to these voucher schools aren't guaranteed any Services they're waving their Federal protections they don't have their right to sue you know and so that's also huge in addition to that it talks about sending money down without strings well when we received our Esser dollars in Florida Florida decided they wanted to hang on to it for a very very long time in fact it took parents teachers families students working with members of Congress and the Department of Education to get that funding pushed down to our districts so at a time when we had such a great need when our students our teachers had such a great need we were being forced to go back to school no matter what because remember we didn't stay home um we didn't have the resources to do that and our state was holding on to it and so what happens when all of these things all these fundings are given down to us without strings is there any guarantee that it's ever going to come to the people who need it the most and so I think we learned a great lesson and we should take that seriously just like we do with you know the overturning of real we need to trust trust who they are we need to watch what they're doing and not what they're saying and they're showing us that they're going to keep the money from the people who need it they're going to keep the resources from the people who need it J Jasmine yep I I see you unmuting yeah happy to jump in you know part of what we've observed over and over in these constellations with uncook my campus's work is seeing how they've been very unashamed to use the word abolition and abolishment um they are interested in abolishing the um Department of education and so many of us have been talking about how do we revive trust in democracy um but part of of understanding how we revive trust in democracy or we actually finish the work of building you know toward a true multi-racial democracy means understanding how the opposition to these kind of visions and ideals how they're moving and what they're doing so ultimately like we this whole this whole attack on the Department of Education and these institution it advances a narrative that these champions you know that we need in civil society and the ability to demonstrate beloved governance and what it can look like um when it when it's under resourced whenever it's constantly under attack what it does is it makes it look illegitimate it delegitimizes its Effectiveness and it erose political will in everyday people like myself and continues to advance this vision of no there's no possible way that governance can work in this way um it should all be individual and the state's power right this crisis of belief that becomes so real and working people like I'm a mama four I have multiple jobs that I do my wife does multiple jobs like we are exhausted and what we need more than ever to believe in the possibilities of Promise of democracy is effective departments like the Department of Education that is well resourced that it's functioning and it's working to address the needs of people and Educators we entrust our children to instead of the corporate lobbyists and all the private interests right and this work will inform unfortunately the work of project 2025 and all of their co-c conspirers it informs and inspires future movements that want to disrupt and reject well-educated people being put in positions of leadership and informing our communities on things around economics or public health or history and climate and so much more um just a quick example of this that we saw is during the reopen protest we saw how this dark money apparatus was able to throw a little bit of money at Grassroots reopen protests in Michigan and Wisconsin when we were all supposed to be so staying home and stopping the spread and suddenly we had these popup movements and little places I'm saying no we are you not you can't tread on our Liberty and what happened was that was that crisis of belief that happened right they stopped folks stopped trusting the um CDC they stopped trusting Public Health officials it created this polarizing narrative and then ultimately the material outcome was folks in Michigan and Wisconsin and Arkansas where I lived at the time getting sick and and and and this spread happening so again from the idea all the way down to it materializing um and coalescing entrenching itself it has real real impacts for sure right you know you just we talking or dropping bits of our identity into the conversation right you say I'm a mom of of four you know my wife and I do this and that I think in the beginning of this I said we're we're adopting this language about a concerned parent and I'm sitting here saying I'm a mom of three I'm concerned I'm whatever PTA card caring soccer mom van driving whatever but the only difference that I see here is um what we look like you know so this P so this this is going to lead me um to Haven um when you're talking about care for children and protecting children because that's a lot of the L anguage that's used to push these ideas um did you ever see yourself in some of of of these ideas that were pushed on your school board or what did you ever feel like anyone was speaking to you as the student as the individual how did you how did you receive chaos in your school district did you ever think it was about you or centering your needs um to that I would say it was just more so of being aware of my environment I'm in a predominantly white County so I have to really be conscious of what the mindset is so I part of it I think was well part of it was ignorance um part of it was just not understanding that students definitely needed a class students that look like me needed a class to work with other students um build community build relationships build bonds that all while learning that there are people who have come before you that have done all of these wonderful things and that have just made all of these great strides to not only help us but to help our country so I think that that's really important um yeah and it's just there's so much bonding that it goes into I think really I'm trying to emphasize that like the relationships that are built um I personally have Ben it from them greatly so I think that that's really what we need to focus on thank you thank you I do want to hop into the Q&A because we have a question here that um is probably a natural question when we're hearing all of the what feels like Doom and Gloom and this this stuff is way ahead of us and we're just catch C ing up we have a question about what do you think can be done to prepare parents for more homeschooling given all these radical changes school closures reducing Early Education supports um like headsart and I see Dr Harris I think you dropped in or who dropped in the um responsible homeschooling Nina got Nina Nina did um dropped in that that resource I I guess I want to pose with this question should could this Manifesto or these plans um push us away from public education um or what what is the balance here not saying that's the right choice for for everyone but do you all see these conversations as um the fear tactic that I want to get into a little later as really detrimental to the schools by by pushing people out or in in any part of this question that you want to address too about homeschooling here really quickly and then I want to allow for other people um particularly dearis to to to pitch in because um you know it's her her advocacy that she's doing every day I love to ask people particularly on this question about vouchers and coming out of the public education system would it be okay for us to have vouchers for police for fire for trash pickup for filling our potholes there is a slippery slope of the idea that um the fabric of this nation can be sustained by our our government not protecting the public good and um I have deep empathy for people who would consider homeschooling um their children for a variety of reasons but I think at the point that people opt out of public education that doesn't mean that their responsibilities as a resident a Community member goes away you may want your children to go to the Yeshiva support you but to say that you can then take your money out of the system that keeps our whole social fabric together does not make sense I've chosen for for my children to go to private school at different times my youngest is in public school they started in public school you know it's the range of what's right for your child and I'm never going to allow anyone to question that judgment for me but I am a staunch Fighter for public education and I do not get to say even though I made these other choices that are not found in public education for my children from time to time that I then to get to take money away from people who have been impacted by disperate treatment and and by not having resources affordable afforded to them by living in communities that were intentionally meant to keep them subjugated to others and eliminate people's ability to practice self-determination so I just want to put that out there when people start saying things like yeah give me the voucher you spoke um uh about uh segregation acmy and how in in the Civil Rights Movement people were taking money schools were closed in Virginia for five years refused to have their children in schools with others and were pulling them out into privatized institutions that also were not necessarily serving their own children we look at those things and we think about the concept of stepping out we need to have that balance between steing out and give me my money versus I'm making a choice for my family right and if these public schools are going to be subjected to racism rational Behavior white supremacy yes I don't want my children there nor should you be required or or there should not be a morality question about you pulling your child out of Harm's Way but I do want to make sure we make this point around money tax dollars being pulled out of public schools and that that is a beginning for other tax dollars to be pulled out and for your lives to be controlled if by nothing more than there are no resources some people have the resources elsewhere and then what do you do so I just wanted to lift that point by the way the language in those segregationist Academy move groups they were actually talking to parental rights and while that's like oh yeah we all have parental rights it really means a specific thing yes we do but the language is important here dearis I'm sorry no I I think we don't say that enough I don't I don't think we link that language to its history enough and I think it's really important that we consistently do that when we're talking about that so people understand its Origins um but also I would say I would really encourage you not to make any educational decisions for your children out of fear and I say that a parent who sits with a lot of fear and anxiety because I'm deep in this um but it's really important to make the best decision for your child based on the needs of your child the second thing I'll say is do not ever please underestimate the power of your ability to make a difference because I can tell you that when I went to sign my kid how I got into this work is when I went to sign my kid up for for my local public school all my friends were choicing out they were sending their kids to private schools they were because they didn't like the families that were there they were worried their kid wouldn't have access to all these resources and I sat down and said and great I had the luxury of sitting down I think that's an important important piece but I had the luxury of sitting down and saying I want to make a difference and now that school is one of the best schools in our County because it wasn't just me it was the teachers it was the administrators it was the bus driver it was the school lunch people it was the other parents it was the students and so I this this battle is not lost and while I hate to use that language it really is a fight for public schools and if we all sit down and say what what is a small thing it can be small what is this small thing that I can do to make a difference for all of the kids to come because public education really is a public good and it is worth fighting for and it is worth all of us sinking in and that is the beauty of what I've seen in Florida is there's there it's just a bunch of I mean really honestly there's a lot of just moms that are just sick of it are sick of being afraid are sick of fighting for silly things like classroom libraries that should be a given and they're saying enough I'm taking this back and students are coming along and teachers are coming along and it's people with two and three jobs that are doing it in the middle of the night and you can make a difference but we have to commit to doing this together um so so while I fully support your ability your your choice to make that choice just please don't do it out of fear because that's what they want they want us to be afraid and they want us to flee and they want us to give up and we just can't do that Michelle earlier um you you had touched on this idea of fear and saying in in another way and saying oh these folks are not afraid of us like they they're not afraid to put this this out in in this way a lot of my early coverage had to do with like these real we know the threats we we've read the stories about um school board members with private security at their front doors I've written a story about folks having to be escorted rushed out and put into back closets rushed out to their cars and complete chaos stocked um you were talking about teacher shortages and who would want to do this under this threat my mom is a retired educator and had mentioned going to take a job at the middle school up the street saying I think I'll go back in just for you know because I'm not I don't want to be retired I'm gonna go do eighth grade social studies and I discouraged her I did that because I didn't want my mom as the Titan I know how she teaches I didn't want her at 67 with a Target on her back doing what she loves and I don't think that was the right advice but my alarm Bells went off this was just last week and I said no I think you like should do something else how does Fe how do you regain your power when we've watched these things happen you all know that Randy knows that she's the earliest example of that what do you say about this idea of fear and how we move forward amid that so I mean it's a fascinating sort of prism to look at what's happening right like we know it's intentional on the other side they're going to stoke Division and fear they're going to like politicize the classroom and you know our kids are the ones who suffer and like sometimes it's referred to as the culture wars I don't like to call it that because it sort of creates a both sideris which is so not what's happening but I will say like again and again both from the perspective of our teachers union which also represents professionals and everyone in the school Community but also the parents groups we work with like people want schools to be welcoming safe places where kids can Thrive right where they can find their passion where they can learn to get along with people perhaps who don't think or exactly the way that they do right this is a fundamental underpinning of a Democratic Society right to learn how to get along with others and every single day around the country extraordinary things are happening in our schools right like more than 90% of kidss in the United States go to public school tremendous work happening and you know what there are a lot of crappy teachers right don't quote me on saying that but it's true like sometimes people are just not the best teacher for the for this child and we all had it happen we also had the most Innovative exciting teacher who captivated our imagination and gave us a path that like probably led to where we are today right and it's a weird alchemy that happen happens in our schooling we're like it it kind of works right it's not perfect it's a sector and not a system and there are lots of tensions there's also a lot of money in the public funds which is why the worst actors out there Circle it right because like if you if you can break the public trust and there's a guy Chris ruo all of you have probably heard of him or know him because he's determined to be famous but he is so insistent another guy who goes right out and says whatever he means whether it's about CRT whether about it's lgbtq kids whether or not it's going right out and saying our job is to break public trust in public education they are open about what they're trying to do and they are trying to do it for power and for money right and so the question becomes like so what's the good and the good becomes one like some of us fight it I fight bad guys that's what I do but the Educators who go into the rooms with the kids who work and meet kids where they're at who build programs like Career Tech Ed programs where there's Hands-On learning experiential learning where you find a pathway to college or career right that you get life skills in school and you get that ability to kind of figure out who you are you can make mistakes recover from mistakes and learn about music learn about art learn about sports it is those people every single day that if we sort of get rid of the fixation on testing which is a whole other subject which is also empowering and enriching a certain group but if we are figuring out how to fully fund schools and create more Community Schools instead bring resources out of schools so that schools can be the Hub of community so that it's not just our students our kids who are welcome there but their families are going there they go there to vote they go there to get English as a second language houses they go there to get driver's ed like they go there for eye exams and well child like checkups like there are things that are happening in Pockets around the country that are a model for where we can go and so I try to keep that at the four thinking about like this is what we're fighting for we're not just fighting the bad guys we are fighting for something that's in the service of giving all of our kids a better opportunity for themselves and with one another I'm I'm I'm glad you spoke to that and I'm going to read a couple of the comments to everyone out loud um as this as folks are dealing with these very real situations and need support and and need Community um to sustain and have the bandwidth to fight Cheryl Binkley says LOL I'm being sued for $1.3 Million by an ultraconservative candidate one of the accusations is that I'm an associate of Randy wearden make sure you've got insurance carry sprayer or a whistle and do something anyway and if you're a member reach out to me okay see you see you see what these forums can turn into like um J.R says oh heck yes I can relate Nicole I'm a retired nurse and I fear for new nurses especially now with covid one young nurse I know left after six months at the height of the pandemic from burnout but there's also the politization of Public Health where we are um with health officials fac facing death threats um just for suggesting masking let know let alone vaccinating and social distance I I understand that too and in the election uh being on the ground reporting we got those threats for pointing out the big lie you know and having to be assigned um security and everyone is saying do something anyway sending solidarity Cheryl absolutely um and using each other as a resource like we are in this conversation Haven I kind of want to know how you you find your voice in this all you know you said you were nervous around us but we're not the crowd to be nervous around but how you do you step up because you understand the the power of your voice obviously that's why you show up and you you talk about these things um how do you do that for yourself and encourage um other youth to do the same to show up in spite of um honestly it really does come from the teachers and I'm not even just saying that to be to fit with what's going on right now it gen genuinely comes from my teachers they help me not only educationally but like with really finding helping me realize the importance of why would I say matters the fact that I'm a young person speaking amongst this panel right now is like a prime example um yeah my teachers they really they definitely push me outside of my comfort zone I will say that um yeah like they really just I don't yeah they really push and like pull I it's very uncomfortable but I'm really glad that they do because it helps me it helps my the young people around me so I think that that is really helpful so that's why we have to show up right because we can't right leave Haven out there and Jasmine doesn't have the experience she has and we don't either and Jasmine I want to go back to you on this idea of safety but with civil rights protections and what the rle back of those um would mean for lgbtq plus students in terms of their well-being and their safety in school yeah um well gosh I'm gonna give you another personal anecdote of story and be a little vulnerable because I was taught by all of my black southern Freedom Movement folks is our authenticity and vulnerability is actually our armor but Dr har made it plain earlier right the disperate treatment and impact um my story is such that my wife and I we um my my wife is in uh does comms for Andrew Goodman Foundation I've been doing un Coke work um and when the trans Healthcare bands came to Arkansas um because of Alliance defending freedom and the Heritage Foundation we were able to draw a straight line of that impact and just like Michelle was saying the great phrase from womb to tomb right like they're not just attacking education they're attacking the social fabric of the quality of life of so many of us and that includes lgbtq young people particularly trans children um and so whenever those bands came down in Arkansas we were able to see that this was a multi-state legislation based us all to keep transgender children from accessing health care or create such strenuous conditions that we would have to migrate across state borders to access affirming and competent care right um my personal story comes into this because my daughter is a black Trans girl who was in public schools in Arkansas and it became so untenable for us to navigate all of the challenges that my wife and I had to call on our community had to take out credit card debt and were forced to relocate to DC in order to secure my child's safety I will share the New York Times article featuring my daughter on the front page but essentially me as a a descendant of Jim Crow lynching and enslavement you know all Native genocide and all of the things my my mother's people came over from Belgium to work on the railroad like me a person who is as American of the you know the social Faber of the United States can possibly be was forced to leave my indigenous native home the only home my children have ever known Oklahoma and Arkansas in the Northwest Corridor to relocate to DC only so we can secure access to resources to care for her health now that it sounds like a story of defeat and that we had to run but here's what I know because I learned from reconstruction and I learned from all of the Great Migration is that I come from a line of so many of us the people in Appalachia the immigrants whose mam came from the West Indies and Guyana and had to work seven eight nine jobs what it does there's going to be percentages of our desendants who are just going to want to go along to get along but there's going to be a good percentage of our descendants who are going to learn by the African-American proverb which is like I ain't got time but I'll make time and people will come for those future Generations not with violence but with love and an ethic to say oh you awakened something in me and no one should ever have to give up their home no one should have to choose between having a baby or paying off their student loan debt no one should have to choose from grappling for ideas and and creating new underground railroads to get access to books or whatever it is and so while it looks bleak um in moments what I know is the sum of all of us is so much greater um and so yes there are some threats yes we have to think about my family and other families who can't make it out of these conditions and and figure out how the schools can be sites of security and care for those people um but ultimately I'm in this work because of people like Zara that's her that's her portrait behind me and and so many of you here on this panel so I hate to get in my like Reverend energy but I hope I answered your question no you did and you you took me back to another story because every time you all speak I'm seeing like this this reporting on the ground and with one of our chapters in this series um started in Conway Arkansas yeah where you had college students who were protesting the anti-trans policies at the school board meeting and I kind of want to talk about trickle down effect here they we created a database of all people that we could find arrested at school board meetings in the country over an 18-month period see what happened to them most prosecutors dropped charges people disappeared nothing happened to them Conway are only place where people these protesters protr rights protesters were arrest um and then jailed for the protest we had not seen jail sentences for people who actually assaulted I mean they had a man in town who pushed um a woman into the car she was a same-sex couple they were leaving the school board meeting and he assaults her no jail time there's a bullet hole through a a retired teacher window after the school board meeting nobody can find who fired the bullet no no jail time but the protesters got it and so it was s send in a message and kind of working through different systems where it didn't just end at the school board that was saying hey gonna make your life really hard as you as you fight back so yeah you could see that as defeat or resistance and and moving on but I Arkansas there a lot going listen I'm gonna get I have a I have a 17 14 13 and sixy old and whenever my babies are have have their their me Mama available to them and they are in launching in their own lives I'm going to make my way back to Arkansas and you might have um you you not going to see the L of me Arkansas okay well call me because I want to know what's going on umco can I add something to this question yes so um I know folk have probably heard of of maybe not his name Pastor nealer um who talked about first they came for the Communist so I'll paraphrase know first they came for this group and I and I did not assist first they then they came for this group and I did not assist then they came for me and there was no one there to help me and so we think about all the ways the the policies in Project 2025 seeks to attack our trans children and families who are lgbtq Educators who are lgbtq Educators who are allies and just believe they they love their children as they show up at the front door um you know this is where intersectionality comes in you know some of the Poli IES and some of the provisions also talk about tracking mental cycles of our children and of women and you know when we think about Reproductive Rights and you have people saying you know I may be conservative but they should not have eliminated row um then let's talk about other people's rights as well because those things are inextricably linked even if you're not supporting your trans child these same Pro Provisions are attacking your daughters your your nieces um you know your sisters your mothers and when we talk about the ways in which we um uh band together a lot better to see the issues of other people not play oppression Olympics and certainly there are are uh uh occurrences in this country that are unique to certain populations however we need to be clear that when you hear things like they don't want to provide gender care for Trans youth there it's not a mile away from when it comes to your front door it's next week when it comes to your front door when you turn a blind eye and you don't support pushing back against this autocracy and against this pulling us to a place where you know people say the good old days and I'm you know good for who because V I could not read I could not you know and so we we can't just listen to uh you know Jasmine and her family story and not equated to all of our households right so it's important for us to not uh turn a blind eye when they come for the Communists and when they come for the Jews such that when they come for me there is no one there to stand with me or to help me survive so let's let's not do that to one another let's let's let's do the reverse you know that's GNA lead me over to Mom's Rising Nina because I I want to ask so the face of the movement has has largely been um you know white women who say they're Mama bears who have shown up to the Schoolboard meet at least what you're shown and so when you're getting a a a group together and you're talking about moms and moms banding together how do you kind of like take back the power in the idea of the mom coming front and center when we've had one like clear definition or picture of the the concerned Mom that's come forward that we see all over our TV screens all over the papers whatever what made you want to say mom's Rising well Mom's Rising was founded in 2006 so uh we're the original mom group uh much older than moms for Liberty and much more history so uh so there's that and you know I I I find that when I go at least to my Duval County public school meetings and we are this is a a hot bed for moms for Liberty is that it's very few moms actually moms for Liberties members has many men um and I see very few moms that are moms for Liberty out there um it is very much a mom washing group in in my in my professional opinion it's as if they've taken the moniker of mom and and wash over and whitewash essentially um policies with this idea of but from mom washing and white mom washing we can even take it a St a step further right um I I believe that they're asterid offering I don't believe that they're actually a Grassroots group and so the real power is parents that are actually concerned about their communities it's parents like Jasmine it's parents like um like everyone everyone here who has spoken right um it's and we really do you know and and earlier we were talking about how you know we make these decisions for our children do I send them to a public school do I send them to home school do I do I send them to our private school it's because we know we do know our children best but it's about how is it that you get to decide what is right for all children because every every child is going to be unique and so how is it that we look at the needs of children broadly right um and my experience is that when we talk to moms about the issues that are actually impacting their day-to-day is that the moms for Liberty policies are not popular you know no one wants to be uh de said this earlier too uh I I personally don't want to be signing 20 million optout forms to make sure that my child isn't getting a racist education of prageru videos claiming that slavery benefit Comm like even at a basic level even if I didn't work in the work that I that I do like who wants that like as a busy parent who wants that who wants to be um having to to have that level of minutia it's because we want to trust Educators because most of us do we actually most parents trust Educators they trust their schools and they want to be involved but they want to they want to be involved at the level that they already have been involved in by the way PT already exist my friends right school activities councils already exist parents were already involved in public schools and had beautiful Partnerships with with Educators and of course it's not perfect there's always room for you know there's so much work still to be done but it doesn't mean that those structures weren't there and so you know I don't need from from my perspective mom's Rising doesn't need to reclaim mom power mom power is already there and it's just not mom's for Liberty and we we are here and we want paid family medical leave we want high quality affordable child care we want our children to be able to feel safe in their environments no matter who they are or who they love um no matter their race gender and so those are the things that moms want and so let's fight for the things that moms want healthare Affordable Health Care your child to be able to be fed housing you know I mean these affordable housing and so these care can't wait that's right that's right J my can't wa uh you know we know we and we've been in this for a long time I've been at Mom's Rising alone for 11 years I can tell you that never in the 11 years that I worked at Mom's Rising did a mom talk to me about wanting to ban books did they never talk to me about wanting to have their teachers t uh fired or to have teachers move or to have less funding never in all my years have I and I've done listening tours across Florida even more recently just two years ago and never did I have a parent who came in some who never even heard of Mom's Rising tell me that what they wanted was less funding for public schools what they wanted was free and reduced school lunches it was one of the top things that came out of our list tour in Florida they wanted again affordable child care it's always one of the top things that comes out for us so they are not speaking for moms and so there's nothing to take back because they are just they are not speaking for the broad majority of moms and on that note I want to do a final round robin for us before well let me check the Q&A one more time okay so we didn't have anything else from the audience right now but um Michelle again when we were backstage brought up a good point like how are we going to end this um what are we what are we gonna leave with besides this great conversation that's been amazing but so can we end with one um one thing you would tell people going from here between now and November or even Beyond November right just in in paying attention to this area like what's the one um action item or piece of advice that you want the audience to walk away with and anybody can go at at anytime um is anybody Michelle I'll jump in and I will say this as a mother of a 17-year-old I'm definitely on team adult um and whenever sort of talking about looking at Mom's for Liberty I like the grass AstroTurf aspect of it is awful we've seen it before it's the tea party it's their strategy it's what they do and I also try to remind myself that it's my job to listen and to figure because I'm a mom for Liberty I'm also a mom for decency I'm me a mom for like figuring out like how you learn and get along with other people and raise good people like to live in society and I'm I'm trying to really understand like a lot of the tension discomfort fear people have around school and what it is and it comes from we have gone through very traumatic stretch of time not the first in our nation's history right we are going to continue going through some stuff and the best way I know to go through stuff right is to lock arms with my sisters my sisters and brothers I'm in the labor movement but to also like to make sure that I am listening for the things that aren't getting said for the people who have brought so much to the table but don't always have a chance to have their voice heard and that I am thinking about my responsibility to create spaces for their concerns and their experience to be part of the reality that we're working on together so my call to action off of all of this is instead of allowing these right-wing white nationalist forces to redefine society and take over government in order to institutionalize power for themselves for as long as the country can operate until they crash it you know off of a cliff that how are we instead going to use that time not just to fight them and point out the negative and what's wrong to think about how we connect people in and build a society that is more reflective of our diverse needs and the experiences that our kids are having and how we can support one another on that path well thank you so much any takers for the next the next take Jasmine yeah you know I I was laughing because I was reading months ago when they were revamping the Heritage website they had like a little quote from Kevin that said that the Heritage leadership was the LA less B best hope of Earth um which I found you know first of all I was like okay Star Wars and second of all I was like that's so interesting because what I was taught and what I know based on what my community has taught me is that the best hope of Earth is working across different to address you know our needs around climate crisis to actually build that multi-racial democracy and to transform institutions of common good like education to serve the interests of the people like we the people and the planet because that's a part of our relatives as well the last thing that I'll say is that like I've spent a lot of time in deep conversation with people who identify themselves as tea party um loyalists whenever I lived in fville in Northwest Arkansas we lived in a community where our neighbor had his yellow flag with the snake on it and I would sit on his porch and drink a beer and he be like so what is appealing to you and so what's really important when we are in these conversations not get too entrenched in this polarizing conversation of US versus them and understand that like our siblings across difference whether it's race class and gender who are in Appalachia who are in Ozark in Northwest Arkansas heck who are just in you know Silver Spring Maryland who find these things appealing find them appealing because it is a sophisticated multi-layer strategy that has been going on for a very long time and some of their concerns and their needs are legitimate but are being fomented and it's our work as movement Builders as organizers as lawyers as teachers of whoever we are in our community to make what the vision of our world that we're trying to work towards so irresistible that it breaks those Echo chambers of that disinformation of incentivizing all of the social cohesion based on their Grievances and invite them in and say you don't have have the right words you don't have to be perfect you don't have to the ideological whatever we just there's room for you in this movement there's room for you in democracy it's a group project and we can all figure out how to do it together but that is that is the message that is the work that's a good word that's a good um dearis did you or N I just wanna Jasmine said something that resonated so much to me because I live in I myself live in a neighborhood with like the don't try on me flags and and you know I love my neighbors like I these are people that I'm in community with that when a tree 100-year-old tree fell in my yard and almost like killed my husband that's another like they were here for me and they came and they're also the people that I sit and have these conversations with in ways that that I think most people probably would would think that we don't right and so my neighbor who's a marine nurse who also has his don't t on me flag also is incredibly supportive of his trans child and really and that is who people people think does not is not supportive of their trans child right we have our own biases that we need to kind of get past in our conversations with our neighbors and how is it that we Bridge those because it's going to be that neighbor to neighbor conversation that humano human connection those relational organizing pieces right as well that are really going to shift the narrative and shift the conversation because the Jasmine's point this is a really sophisticated effort I mean my parents are older and they're often telling me about the like the strange things that are being advertised to them on YouTube that is clearly misinformation right and if I didn't have that relationship with my own parents right like they they would believe this right and so I I really really just want to underscore and just B adding the seasoning there as well and saying like yes like that I think is one of the biggest things that we can do is having that trusted conversation between each other and not not feeling like we just shut those people out of our lives and sometimes we'll do that as well and and people will keep themselves safe in doing that um but that where you can and where you feel safe to do that that might that often I think will make the best the biggest difference dearis did you I'm sorry Haven you can doing a good job Haven you go um okay I guess I would just say really um Express the importance of voting to young people like those under the age of like 25 I personally know a few young people who really don't see the importance of voting and I just really think that it's crucial that we educate them on why they should vote um who to vote for um yeah I just think that this also goes into like teaching them that their voice matters and that oh you're not just another Vote or oh I'm the idea that oh my one vote isn't going to make a difference I think that that really needs to be like executed and just really pushed to the side because it is really so so important and my thing is vote for those of us who can't I'm 16 I'm not able to vote yet so please please please just vote that that's really all I have to say thank you um I wasn't gonna get in there this time I wasn't sure um so I would say I first I'd Echo everything that has just been said especially the young people voting like I they they you know I have a I have a 17year old and a 20y old and so my 17y old is going to turn 18 to vote in this election and they they feel so they they have lived through such a a rough time right in their memories and so they they there's a tendency to feel Despair and disengagement and we need to fight back on that but we also need to listen to their dis their reasons for despair and disengagement and and affirm that and understand that right and so I think to to your point that was so that's such an important piece that we need to do and it's hard for me as a parent excuse me because I want to be like just go you know how important this is I've been taking you you know like there there's some of it that's just baked in that it's really easy to be like oh you've got to just do that but if we don't listen we don't understand this whole generation's you know our our issue with it and then we can never address it and so listening is so important but in addition to that I'd say this is really overwhelming for us all of us and it can feel like there's too much to do and so I just really want to encourage us to stay with it that it that if it takes seven years to walk into the woods it's going to take seven years to walk out like this is not going to be fixed overnight but it is getting fixed right there are people coming together and changing things I look at victories take Universal vouchers for example the victory in Texas the victory in uh in Tennessee the victory in Georgia right and and that's people coming together to make that happen not only in those States States but outside those States and so we can collectively make a difference but we have to stick in it for the long hul um and not be overwhelmed by what's in front of us and if we need to take a day we need to take a day but we need to come back and lean on the people around us to help come back so I'll I'll try to make this brief and I appreciate everything that's been said so far I want to um dovetail with what both Haven and dearis just said and um Haven completely appreciate if you if you vote for nothing else vote for those of us who cannot and that is so poignant Public Schools save my youngest life um and um their ability to be at this school and express themselves and find their Clan and have Educators who care about them and immerse them in the in the Arts that they love so much has been critical for them and you know it it can feel overwhelming but I would encourage people and charge people to find the one thing that they are fighting for and not get mired in what we're fighting against um and I think that is something that the other side kind of has a a leg up on like they declare what they're going to do and are Unapologetic and then we're like fighting against it fighting against it fighting against it but typically people who have been marginalized get into the policymaking and advocacy space at the protest phase nothing wrong with that but protest is at the tail end what do you want and you have every right to ask your elected officials to go to advocacy organizations and say how do we get this bill written into law what do I need to do you know sometimes we take for granted and we'll uh pull out boxes of t-shirts and let's get our t-shirts on let's go on the hill let's go to our state capital or a city council and people are not necessarily they have an issue and they want to fight against thing and they get it and they'll roll with you but when people when policies are Community informed which means it starts with them even if it's something you might disagree with people will fight tooth and nail for a policy they created so just think about what is the one thing that you want what is the one thing that you want if you want to maintain the Civil Rights data collection push in and talk about how we make sure that it is collected at a regular rate and that it is not up to whomever's in uh the department of Education if you want to make sure that um Public Schools uh are Community Schools and that resources are wrapped around and that our children are in schools that aren't making them sick and killing them and that they have the ability to have new materials have access to the best teachers in the world um have access to school leaders who understand the depths of their Community push in for that run for school board um uh you know it is not so far a feel that you can't push in and be an alderman be in your city council run for mayor or County Executive but find the one thing that you believe in and you want and push to have that policy created that way you don't have to get overwhelmed by 900 plus Pages you know what you want and when um Law of Attraction you want it the other people who want it too will find you and we'll get this done vote up and down the ballot as well you Haven when people ask you know I'm not voting for The Ops or I'm not voting for the orange guy whatever it is whichever wherever they land what's going to happen tomorrow in your community after the election why didn't you vote for city council why didn't you vote vote for the ballot amendment to make sure our Reproductive Rights are protected why didn't you vote to either uh remove police from schools so the school to prison pipeline doesn't proliferate or at least restrict the ways that they engage with children whatever it is there is something at the local level worth your vote because in Baltimore let me tell you things win or lose by tens of votes not thousands of votes tens of votes hundreds of votes so your one vote is critical in your community you may not see it in the Electoral College for president but you can see it on who becomes the mayor so vote up and down the ballot and pick your one issue that's right that's right gu the only thing I I always throw this out there is what I tell like social Justice journalism students because we're covering matters of social justice how we do this and I'll would say facts are non-negotiable but framing is a choice and the way we choose to frame issues um impacts the way we reckon with them dissect them understand them and then ultimately move forward and so we can't let chaos reframe something I like what you said Nina about Mom's Rising actually we around here first like but the framing of this Narrative of moms begins with something that is actually really minimal but very chaotic and distracting and so framing is is a choice and I I like the way we framed this conversation tonight um I want to thank each of you as we bring a be back um in the in the fold here on the the main stage thank you for your time your passion um Haven I know you you felt we've given you your flowers tonight but we can't um we can't say enough how important it was to have your your voice here um and and for everyone who made a point about uh how we are stronger together and when we communicate with one another our neighbors and get beyond our differences um how we're actually fighting for ourselves so I'll I'll cut it there and thank you to the audience I've been reading the um comments in the chat um a deep gratitude to to you all too but thank you um and I'll cut it theirs a beanie coming in with some final thoughts you know a couple of months ago I was in deep deep uh distress and despair and um I just want to say that uh the Brilliance and um tenacity and courage um Precision um that you all mirror you know back is [Music] um is is inspiring and and great hope and that world is in in like really solid capable hands um and uh it's so one I don't know if people tell you thank you um often I just want to say thank you um for all of the incredible uh diligent work that you all are doing um across the country there's so many nuggets um I I just I just learned so much um uh you know Kia I'm like I want to hear about this North Star for public education that's worthy a system that's worthy of all of us and um and so I'm like we need to we need a convening on let's begin to Vision let's get together I'm like I would love to hear like so we if we have the will and the might and the resources um what what you all would come up with as we begin to architect the new world um so deep deep gratitude uh Haven I think that you are being um uh uh humble so I want to say thank you for your courage because it wasn't just aspirational you actually pulled it off uh I don't know if we we've actually stated out loud that you you uh you knew what you wanted you win in and you know what you won like you won I cannot wait to be a witness to what else you win in this world um and dearis oh my goodness I just wish I could give you just a big hug um Nina um uh Michelle oh my goodness you just I was like I'm sitting here going I don't have to work actually I can rest tonight I don't have to fret um Jasmine I can see all your ancestors just all of them are just standing there um and I actually can you know I see them um what what I I know that they're just having a good time I I see that Mulan uh uh film and they're just they're having a good time so um guys thank you so much for supporting this town hall um I think you've done a great job of laying out what the existential threat is but what is most beautiful about what you all have um collectively brought together is is the way forward is the way forward um uh so I hope Michelle that you feel good about this call to action because you all have been very clear um to our partners uh if I did say thank you to stop the coup thank you so much to the Center for popular democracy um thank you so much um mom's Rising um I'm looking for my notes Here Nicole help me out or memory put me on the spot here of so many so many my notes I did not have um well you a beanie and chromatic black oh yeah this is um okay okay here I have it here how about this oh of course the American Federation of teachers the center for policing Equity families for strong public schools and un Coke my campus thank you so much um and and and I mean blessings um one day just like we call the names of ID Wells and S Jour of Truth and Tony Morrison and Bell hook um what I think I witness tonight is that that I know that folks will be calling your names um so thank you so much [Music] [Music]