Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. has launched a physician assistant program in its School of Graduate Studies and Research, the nation’s largest private independent historically Black academic health sciences center.
The first class of 25 aspiring physician assistants began their course of study in June 2022. The students have already started down the 28-month path of course work designed to produce adjunct primary care providers.
“Physician assistants are important contributors to health care teams today,” said Dr. James E. K. Hildreth, president of Meharry Medical College.
“Their engagement in patient care can help fill critical gaps in access to care and services that exist across our nation, and that are particularly acute among Black and Brown communities.”
A physician assistant is a licensed medical professional who can diagnose, perform many medical procedures, prescribe medicines and order medical tests, under the supervision of a medical doctor.
The program’s director is Michelle Drumgold, a Meharry assistant professor.
According to her, applicants do not have to present a minimum graduate record examination score or undergraduate grade point average. “We have been intentional about asking questions on the application that align with the mission and vision of not only the program, but the institution, and based on their responses we’re able to determine if we believe if they are a mission fit and if we want to invite them for an interview,” said Drumgold.
The students will receive hands-on experience with real patients, Meharry officials said.
Meharry is one of a handful of historically Black colleges and universities to offer a physician assistant program. The others are Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in California, the University of Maryland -Eastern Shore, Xavier University in New Orleans, and Morehouse College in Atlanta.
The physician assistant profession is a new one. Drumgold said she was unaware of PA’s while she was an undergrad.
“It’s like medical school but in a little more than half the time,” she explained. “We’re training future medical professionals and 25 is the number of students that program and institutional leadership decided would be appropriate to ensure we have the resources, space, and clinical rotations sufficient to meet the accreditation standards and provide the best experience possible,”
By MARY CLARE JALONICK, ERIC TUCKER and JILL COLVIN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Destroyed documents. Suggestions of pardoning violent rioters. Quiet talks among cabinet officials about whether then-President Donald Trump should be removed from office.
Interview transcripts released by House investigators in recent days _ more than 100 so far _ give further insight into the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and the weeks leading up to it, as Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election. The nine-member committee conducted more than 1,000 interviews, and the lawmakers are gradually releasing hundreds of transcripts after issuing a final report last week. The panel will dissolve on Tuesday when the new Republican-led House is sworn in.
While some of the witnesses were more forthcoming than others, the interviews altogether tell the full story of Trump's unprecedented scheming, the bloody chaos of the attack on the Capitol and the fears of lawmakers and the Republican former president's own aides as he tried to upend democracy and the popular will.
Some highlights from the interview transcripts released so far:
WHITE HOUSE AIDE TELLS ALL
Previously little-known White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson drew national attention when she testified in a surprise hearing this summer about Trump's words and actions around the Jan. 6 attack _ his rage after security thwarted his efforts to go to the Capitol that day with his supporters and how he knew that some of his supporters were armed.
The committee has so far released four of her closed-door interviews, revealing new details about what she said she observed in her time as an aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Among other revelations, Hutchinson told the committee she had seen Meadows burning documents in his office fireplace "roughly a dozen times" after the 2020 election.
She said she didn't know what the documents were or whether they were items that legally should have been preserved. A spokesman for Meadows declined to comment.
Hutchinson also spoke at length about her moral struggles as she decided how much to disclose _ even doing research on Watergate figures who similarly testified about working in President Richard Nixon's White House.
"My character and my integrity mean more to me than anything,'' Hutchinson says she decided, returning to the committee with a new lawyer in June after three previous interviews.
PARDONS FOR EVERYONE?
After the insurrection, Trump floated the idea of a blanket pardon for all participants, but the White House counsel at the time, Pat Cipollone, discouraged the idea, according to testimony from Johnny McEntee, an aide who served as director of the presidential personnel office and was interviewed by the panel in March.
Trump then asked about limiting pardons to only those people who entered the Capitol but who did not engage in violence, but that idea was also met with some pushback, McEntee recalled. He said Trump appeared persuaded by the advice and said he was not aware that the idea ever came up again.
Separately, McEntee said that Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told him he was seeking a preemptive pardon from Trump as he faced a federal child sex trafficking investigation. Gaetz did not receive such a pardon and has not faced any charges in connection to the probe.
Hutchinson testified that Meadows' office became so inundated with pardon requests at the end of Trump's term that some turned to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to help facilitate.
THE 25TH AMENDMENT
The panel interviewed several of Trump's Cabinet secretaries about discussions of invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment _ the forceful removal of Trump from power by his own Cabinet. While some acknowledged it had been discussed, it appears that it was never a likely scenario.
Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says he spoke fleetingly with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the idea after the insurrection.
"It came up very briefly in our conversation,'' Mnuchin testified in July. "We both believed that the best outcome was a normal transition of power, which was working, and neither one of us contemplated in any serious format the 25th Amendment.''
Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the committee he witnessed a brief conversation between the two Cabinet secretaries in the White House and heard the phrase "25th Amendment.'' His transcript has not yet been released, but investigators quoted Milley's interview to both Pompeo and Mnuchin in their interviews.
Pompeo told the committee he didn't recall the conversation. "I would have viewed someone speaking about the potential of invoking the 25th Amendment as just absolutely preposterous,'' he said.
Vice President Mike Pence later dismissed the idea in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying the mechanism should be reserved for when a president is medically or mentally incapacitated.
Pence chief of staff Marc Short told the panel he thought the talk was "a political game." The process would have taken weeks to play out, he said, and Democrat Joe Biden was set to be inaugurated Jan. 20.
TRUMP FAMILY TESTIFIES
The committee interviewed two of the former president's children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, about their conversations with their father during the Jan. 6 attack and in the days before and after.
Trump Jr. did not answer many of the committee's questions, frequently saying he did not recall events or conversations. He did explain why he texted Meadows the afternoon of Jan. 6, as the attack was unfolding, to say that his father needed to "condemn this s---'' immediately and that Trump's tweets had not been strong enough. "My father doesn't text,'' Trump Jr. said.
Ivanka Trump, who was in the White House with her father on Jan. 6, was also vague in many of her answers. She spoke with the committee about working with her father to write his tweets that day, encouraging him to make a strong statement as the rioters broke into the Capitol. And she testified that she heard Trump's side of a "heated'' phone call with Pence that morning as her father tried to encourage Pence to object to the congressional certification that day. Pence refused to do so.
She also testified that she received a call and a text from Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who was in the Capitol as it was under siege. Collins told her that ``the president needs to put out a very strong tweet telling people to go home and to stop the violence now.''
'GIVE ME FIVE DEAD VOTERS'
Trump lawyer Christina Bobb testified that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a top ally of Trump, asked some of the former president's advisers for evidence of fraud so he could "champion'' it after the election. Trump falsely claimed there had been widespread fraud, despite court rulings and election officials in all 50 states who said otherwise.
Graham told lawyers he would love to support the cause.
"Don't tell me everything because it's too overwhelming,'' Bobb quotes Graham as saying. "Just give me five dead voters; give me, you know, an example of illegals voting. Just give me a very small snapshot that I can take and champion.''
He did nothing with the information he was given, Bobb said. Graham voted on Jan. 6 to certify Biden's presidential election win.
NATIONAL GUARD FRUSTRATION
The mob that stormed the Capitol would have faced a much harsher law enforcement response had it been comprised mostly of African Americans, testified retired Army Maj. Gen. William Walker, who led the D.C. National Guard at the time. Walker is now the House sergeant at arms.
"I'm African American. Child of the sixties,'' Walker testified. "I think it would have been a vastly different response if those were African Americans trying to breach the Capitol. As a career law enforcement officer, part-time soldier ... the law enforcement response would have been different.''
The National Guard didn't arrive at the Capitol for several hours, leaving overwhelmed police officers at the mercy of the violent mob as Pentagon officials said they were sorting out the necessary approvals. More than 100 officers were injured, many seriously, as Trump's supporters beat them and ran over them to get inside.
Walker expressed deep frustration with the delays and says he even considered breaking the chain of command and sending the troops with authorization. Lawyers advised him strongly not to do so, he said.
He said he didn't think the holdup was because the insurrectionists were mostly white.
"I don't think race was part of the military's decision paralysis,'' he said in his April interview, adding, "I think they just didn't want to do it.''
EXTREMIST GROUP LEADERS
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to some questions, with his attorney at times telling investigators his client did not belong to the extremist group, whose associates are now facing rare sedition charges in a federal case prosecuted by the Justice Department. But Tarrio himself told investigators he took the title of chairman.
Tarrio, who had been released from jail on the eve of the insurrection, wasn't present for the attack. But prosecutors claim he kept command over the Proud Boys who attacked Congress and cheered them on from afar. Proud Boys were some of the first rioters to break through the Capitol perimeter.
He told the panel that the first degree of membership in the Proud Boys is "that you are a Western chauvinist'' and that you "refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.''
Tarrio met Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the extremist group Oath Keepers, in a garage the night of Jan. 5, ahead of the attack. "I still don't like Stewart Rhodes,'' Tarrio said.
Rhodes, who was also interviewed by the panel, was convicted in November of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a plot for an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power. They said Rhodes rallied his followers to fight to defend Trump and discussed the prospect of a "bloody'' civil war.
In his February testimony to the panel, Rhodes spoke at length about his views of the world but declined to answer any questions about his involvement on Jan. 6 and amassing weapons. He said he feels like a political prisoner.
"I feel like a Jew in Germany, frankly," Rhodes told the committee.
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Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Farnoush Amiri, Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) _ A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the state of California from implementing a landmark new law aimed at raising wages and improving working conditions for fast food workers.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang's order came in response to a lawsuit by restaurant industry groups that are seeking a referendum on the November 2024 ballot in a bid to overturn the law.
The law establishes a 10-member council empowered to set minimum wages as well as standards for hours and working conditions for California's fast food workers.
State and county elections officials are still verifying whether the referendum proposal received enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, a determination expected by the end of January. If that happens, the law would be halted from taking effect until voters weigh in.
In the meantime, the state Department of Industrial Relations said it plans to begin implementing the law on Sunday. That could include clearing the way for appointments to the Fast Food Council. But any wage increases or other changes couldn't take effect until at least October, meaning the law would have no immediate impact on worker pay.
The International Franchise Association and the National Restaurant Association said state law requires the state to sit tight until the status of the referendum is determined. The industry groups submitted more than 1 million signatures from voters in support of the referendum, well above the roughly 620,000 required by state law.
"California bureaucrats, at the behest of special interests, are taking an unprecedented step to violate their Constitution and the will of more than one million voters who asked for the Fast Food Council to be stopped via the referendum process,'' Matt Haller, chief executive officer and president of the International Franchise Association, said in a statement.
The Service Employees International Union, which drove support for the creation of the council, blasted the lawsuit and several companies by name, including McDonald's, Chipotle and Starbucks.
"This cowardly tactic comes right out of the corporate playbook Californians have, unfortunately, come to know too well," said Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California, in a statement.
"When corporations fail to halt progressive legislation in the legislature, they pivot to bankrolling ballot measures in an attempt to circumvent democracy and the will of the people," she added.
If the signature drive doesn't qualify for a referendum and the law moves forward, fast food wages could be raised as high as $22 an hour by the end of 2023. California's minimum wage for all workers is set to rise to $15.50 an hour starting Sunday.
Chang, the judge, scheduled a hearing on the matter for Jan. 13. She also wrote that restaurant groups have failed to prove they properly served the state with the lawsuit, and she ordered them to do so.
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) _ Pro Football Hall of Famer Ed Reed has agreed to become the football coach at Bethune-Cookman and is leaving his job with the Miami Hurricanes, the schools announced Tuesday night.
Reed played at Miami and spent the last three years in an administrative role with the Hurricanes, first as chief of staff under former coach Manny Diaz for two years and this past year as a senior advisor under coach Mario Cristobal.
''We are excited to hear that Ed has been named the head football coach at Bethune-Cookman,'' Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said. "Ed is one of the best to ever wear a Miami Hurricanes uniform and he has served as a great mentor to our student-athletes the past three years. He will do a tremendous job leading the Wildcats program and the entire Miami family wishes him all the best.''
Reed will replace Terry Sims at Bethune-Cookman. Sims was fired after going 38-39 in seven seasons, and when the school made that move Wildcats athletic director Reggie Theus _ the longtime NBA player _ said he would be looking to hire someone who can "'ensure that we not only build a championship culture on the field, but also aspire to academic excellence and career achievement off the field.''
About a month later, he struck a deal with Reed.
The move will inevitably spark comparisons to the move Jackson State _ like Bethune-Cookman, a historically Black college and university _ made when it brought in Deion Sanders to lead its program. Sanders went 27-6 in three seasons at Jackson State before getting hired earlier this month to take over at Colorado.
There are no shortage of parallels: Sanders and Reed are both Super Bowl champions, both won NFL defensive player of the year awards, both were two-time consensus All-Americans in college, both are members of the College Football Hall of Fame and both have been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
And now, Reed will get his chance to lead an HBCU back to prominence. Bethune-Cookman claims three HBCU national championships, the last of those coming in 2013.
Reed was a five-time All-Pro safety, a member of the NFL 2000s All-Decade Team, the 2004 Defensive Player of the Year and made nine Pro Bowls. He had 64 career interceptions, led the league in that stat three times and scored 13 non-offense touchdowns in his career with the Baltimore Ravens.
'It would be hard to argue that he's not the greatest safety in the history of football, right?'' Ravens coach John Harbaugh said in 2019. "He's one of the top 10 players maybe in the history of the game.''
At Miami, Reed was part of the Hurricanes' most recent national title team in 2001. He set school records for career interceptions (21) and interception return yards (369), won a Big East championship in javelin in 1999 and graduated with a degree in liberal arts.
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Anthony Brown was sworn in as Maryland’s first Black attorney general Tuesday, pledging to work to increase equity and dismantle barriers to opportunities for all of the state’s citizens.
Brown — a Democrat who is a former congressman, lieutenant governor and state legislator — noted the historic nature of his victory in November, as well as the historic election of Gov.-elect Wes Moore, a Democrat who introduced Brown after the attorney general was sworn in by Gov. Larry Hogan, a term-limited Republican. Moore is the state’s first Black candidate elected governor.
“Governor-elect Moore, your election is historic in both the state and for the nation, and I look forward to serving with you, alongside you, as we dismantle the barriers (to) opportunities presented to far too many Marylanders,” Brown said in a crowded House of Delegates chamber in the Maryland State House.
Moore’s inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 18.
Brown noted that Maryland is one of the most diverse states in the country, but still had work to do to increase equity and justice.
“Maryland reflects where America is going,” Brown said. “So, what deeply troubles me is the racial and ethnic disparities and inequities that still exist in Maryland, motivated by bias and even overt discrimination, in housing, in the marketplace, in the workplace, and in opportunities.”
Brown said he will be asking the governor and the General Assembly for the statutory authority and the necessary resources to enforce federal and state civil rights laws.
The new attorney general said he will focus on public safety. He said he would build on partnerships with state’s attorneys and the U.S. attorney, to leverage federal, state and local assets.
Brown also said he would continue police reform efforts. He noted that the General Assembly already passed legislation requiring his office to independently investigate all police-involved deaths. Under current law, the attorney general’s office forwards its findings to state’s attorneys, who decide whether to bring charges.
“The next logical step is to consider independent prosecutorial authority,” Brown said.
Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, said Maryland “is ushering in a new era — a new era of representation, a new era of justice, a new era of perspective, a new era of hope.”
Brown enters office as high-profile cases that began under his predecessor, Brian Frosh, continue. For example, a Baltimore judge has yet to rule on whether to make public a 463-page report on an investigation that identified 158 clergy members in the Archdiocese of Baltimore who have been accused of sexually and physically abusing more than 600 victims over the past 80 years. Court permission is required because the report contains information from grand jury subpoenas.
In October, Frosh also announced that the state will review about 100 autopsies of people who died in police custody involving physical restraint because of concerns about the state’s former medical examiner’s testimony in the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.
Hogan, who defeated Brown in Maryland’s 2014 governor’s race, noted how gracious Brown was after the election, when the two of them greeted members of the General Assembly together eight years ago in January of 2015.
“I think it speaks to the high character and commitment to service that has defined your career,” Hogan said. “It also reflects the spirit of bipartisanship that we have successfully upheld here in Maryland, which is in stark contrast with the toxic politics in Washington, and you are now hopefully escaping it forever.”
By AYANNA ALEXANDER and GARY FIELDS, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Black voters have been a steady foundation for Democratic candidates for decades, but that support appeared to show a few cracks in this year's elections.
Republican candidates were backed by 14% of Black voters, compared with 8% in the last midterm elections four years ago, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive national survey of the electorate.
In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp more than doubled his support among Black voters to 12% in 2022 compared with 5% four years ago, according to VoteCast. He defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams both times.
If that boost can be sustained, Democrats could face headwinds in 2024 in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where presidential and Senate races are typically decided by narrow margins and turning out Black voters is a big part of Democrats' political strategy.
It's too early to tell whether the 2022 survey data reflects the beginnings of a longer-term drift of Black voters toward the GOP or whether the modest Republican gains from an overwhelmingly Democratic group will hold during a presidential year. Former President Donald Trump, who has announced his third run for the presidency, received support from just 8% of Black voters in 2020, according to VoteCast.
The survey from this year's midterms also found that Republican candidates in some key states improved their share of Latino voters, so any sustained growth in the share of Black voters would be critical.
A variety of factors might play into the findings, including voter turnout and candidate outreach. Yet some Black voters suggest they will be sticking with Republicans because they said the party's priorities resonate with them more than those of Democrats.
Janet Piroleau poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022, at her home in Atlanta. Piroleau left the Democratic Party in 2016, during Trump’s first run for office, and now votes Republican. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
Janet Piroleau, who lives in suburban Atlanta, left the Democratic Party in 2016, during Trump's first run for office, and now votes Republican. That includes this year, when she voted for Kemp in his victory over Abrams.
Piroleau said she felt Democrats were pushing for more reliance on government programs. "That bothered me,'' she said.
"For me, it was about being accountable and responsible and making your own decisions, and not depending on the government to bail you out,'' Piroleau said.
April Chapman, who lives in metro Atlanta, is among the Black voters who favored Kemp and other Republican candidates.
Like Piroleau, Chapman cited issues such as immigration, border security and the economy as important in deciding to become a Republican a decade ago. But the 43-year-old mother said her main break with the party is over education.
She said she felt Democrats were trying to control what her children should be exposed to and how they should be educated.
"For our family, the government educational system was not the best option,'' Chapman said.
Camilla Moore, chair of the Georgia Black Republican Council, said a large percentage of the voters Kemp won in the Black community "were actually Black Democrats.'' Those voters made decisions based on Kemp's performance in addressing issues they care about, Moore said.
Her group also suggested that the Kemp campaign advertise on Black radio and ``expend a little more effort in some areas that were a little uncomfortable.''
The results in Georgia, she said, could be replicated elsewhere with the right candidates.
"It's not going to work for everybody," Moore said. "It does work for those Republicans who have demonstrated that they truly are a senator for all or a governor for all.''
Abrams' campaign office and Fair Fight Action, which was founded by Abrams, did not answer repeated phone or email messages.
The VoteCast findings underscore a dynamic that Black activists and community leaders have long sought to convey _ that Black voters are not a monolith and that the Democratic Party should not take them for granted.
Nationally, Republicans worked during the midterms cycle to try to shift a share of Black voters to their side. The GOP conducted business roundtables, prayer gatherings, food drives and school choice events to hear the kinds of priorities in Black communities that might influence their voting, said Janiyah Thomas, a communications strategist and former Black media affairs manager at the Republican National Committee.
Thomas, who recently voted Republican, added that her disagreement with the Black Lives Matter movement encouraged her switch.
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and the author of a book on the voting rights movement, said Black voters need to hear from Democrats about why their vote is important and what the party will do for them.
She said the message is particularly important for younger voters, who ``went out in the street and risked their lives for police reform'' after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. They also want voting rights protected but got neither at the federal level during President Joe Biden's first two years in office.
"Instead, we get Juneteenth, and I don't remember who asked for Juneteenth,'' Browne-Marshall said, referring to the new federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in America.
W. Franklyn Richardson, chair of the board of trustees of the Conference of National Black Churches, acknowledged that not all Black community priorities are met by Democrats but said the party is more likely to address those needs than Republicans.
"We have to pick the best of the two,'' and continue pushing, he said.
Pastor James Jackson, the lead pastor of Fervent Prayer Church, poses for a photo at the church, Friday, Dec. 23, 2022, in Indianapolis. Jackson is running for mayor of Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
For James W. Jackson, the choice was to switch to the Republican Party after he decided its values better aligned with his.
The pastor at Fervent Prayer Church in Indianapolis said he was a Democrat initially because it was the party of his father and many prominent Black leaders.
Not everyone sees a noteworthy shift of Black voters away from Democrats and toward Republicans. Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, said his question isn't about what Democrats have failed to do, but rather what they have accomplished and not been more vocal about.
The agenda Biden has pursued since taking office ``was fairly explicit about a number of key issues that relate to Black people. The problem is that because there is a hesitancy and a concern about whether or not white voters will be turned off,'' Democrats have not promoted those moves, Daniels said.
Biden, he noted, named Kamala Harris as vice president, nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court and appointed Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve. He also noted the impact of the American Rescue Plan on Black business owners.
``The fact of the matter is, they're not talking about the tangible things that happened,'' Daniels said.
The higher percentages of Black voters casting ballots for Republicans this year also may not suggest greater and more durable support for the GOP, said Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO.
He noted that African Americans are a diverse voting group with varying concerns and priorities, and are attracted to specific candidates because of that. NAACP focus groups found that inflation, student loan debt and violence prevention were among Black voters' top concerns. Candidates who speak to those concerns will be heard, he said.
``That's what democracy should be _ an opportunity to have choices among candidates,'' Johnson said. ``But that is not to suggest the national (Republican) party platform is more reflective of the needs and interests of African Americans as a whole.''
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Associated Press writer Hannah Fingerhut in Washington contributed to this report.
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Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
On Tuesday, Jan. 3, members of the Congressional Black Caucus held an inspiring swearing-in ceremony, even as Republicans were fighting over who would become the next Speaker of the House.
“In the work we do, we honor our history, like the many Black members that served before there was even a Congressional Black Caucus,” said Nevada Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford, the CBC’s new chairman.
Horsford, 49, counted among the 58 CBC members taking the oath of office, most praised the Biden-Harris administration, spoke glowingly of the CBC’s history, and kept an eye on their Republican counterparts as they tried to find the votes to select a new speaker.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is 57 and from California, continued to face strong opposition from his own party as he tried to replace outgoing speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).
At least six members of the GOP have opposed McCarthy, who needs 218 votes.
Democrats have seized upon the GOP’s inability to unite.
“The 118th Congress has yet to begin, and Americans are already seeing how dysfunctional and disastrous GOP control of the House is going to be,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington).
DelBene is the new chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“While House Republicans fight one another in unprecedented ways, and Kevin McCarthy gives in to the most extreme flanks of the Republican Party in desperate plays for their support, Democrats are clear-minded, unified, and eager to get to work for the American people,” she said.
“No matter who becomes Speaker of the House or how many votes it takes, the contrast is clear, and in two short years voters will reject this chaos and confusion.”
Further complicating McCarthy’s bid, Republicans with a small majority only occupy 222 seats in the 118th Congress, which means there’s enough opposition to block his candidacy.
He needs a majority of the present members to vote for him.
Incoming House Minority Leader, New York Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, said no Democratic party member would be absent for a vote and did not expect any to simply vote “present.”
Headed into Tuesday, there was even the belief that Jeffries, 52, could get more votes than McCarthy in a first round of voting.
But, because the GOP controls the House, he wouldn’t become speaker.
“We’re focused right now on making sure that every single Democrat is present and voting, and I hope to be able to earn everyone’s vote,” said Jefferies, the first African American to lead a party in Congress.
“It’s unfortunate that all we’re seeing is chaos, crisis, confusion, and craziness take hold of the other side of the aisle, as opposed to trying to find common ground to deliver real results for the American people,” Jefferies continued.
“Hopefully, we’ll get to a place sooner rather than later when the Congress can actually function in a way that brings Democrats and Republicans together to get things done for the American people.”
Jeffries and Horsford focused on the historic battles of African Americans.
“Our community’s journey in this country has been a turbulent one. From slavery to Jim Crow, Jim Crow to mass incarceration, and mass incarceration to a malignant narcissist in the White House,” Jeffries states.
Horsford added that “this is our opportunity to advance the mission, the vision, and the goals of those 13 founders and the 166 Black members of Congress who have served in our nation’s 246 years in both the House and the Senate.”
Little did I realize that as a boy, I was being passed an invisible baton at different stages of my life that would grow to become what I hope will one day be my legacy.
My early memories of how it was passed to me revolve around my mother. She loved education, reading, and especially the power of the written and spoken word. I recall in her hands Langston Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son.”
She read and recited it to me. As I matured, I realized that this “baton” represented the resilience that I would need to persevere when the trials and tribulations of being Black and male would appear.
My parents, family elders, concerned neighbors, fictive kin, loving teachers, and “OG’s” passed a baton regularly as I grew from boy to man in Philly. It was often initiated by the statement, “I see something in you that you don’t see in yourself.” It was the baton of belief. Knowing that others whose opinions mattered thought well of me gave me a standard to uphold.
Knowing that others whose opinions mattered thought well of me gave me a standard to uphold.
Through these individuals — and in community with those I valued and who valued me — I learned time-tested rituals and traditions that I am committed to keeping alive.
Today, I fear that such traditions have been marginalized, deemed irrelevant, disintegrated, or have been altogether forgotten.
Malidome Some, an African writer and spiritual leader powerfully stated “that where rituals are absent, the young men are restless or violent, there are no real elders and grownups are bewildered.”
The future is dim without the legacy baton of respect being passed. Without the practice of passing what is sacred from one generation to another, the prospect of having a Beloved Community, about which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visioned, cannot be realized.
When the legacy baton is passed, a collective community is actualized. The village that is required to raise children into strong adults is preserved and strengthened, and all that is needed to serve as the incubator for the positive growth and development across the youth’s lifespan — social, emotional, spiritual, and academic development — is available and sustained. The community benefits.
And ultimately, when the social justice and equity baton is passed and received with integrity across boundaries that now divide us, the whole of society benefits. As it stands, there are gaps along the way. When the legacy baton is dropped or not passed with sincere integrity of purpose at any stage, the impact is that we all lose, as a society, including generations of those yet unborn.
Without the practice of passing what is sacred from one generation to another, the prospect of having a Beloved Community cannot be realized.
Legacy matters. It matters as a tradition of hope in the present, and it undergirds us in stewarding a future that remains unseen. Legacy is the protective envelope that holds the stories, rites of passage, and elements for freedom dreaming. During this time of year, many of us are introspective as we evaluate where we’ve been as we embark on a new year.
I hope that I have fashioned a legacy of service, education, and determination, forged by family, friends, mentors, and others who reminded me, as did my mother, to never turn back. Moreover, I also hope that my deep faith in the Most High and in the call that was placed in my spirit from birth is evident.
Finally, it is my hope that this notion of passing a legacy baton will inspire, remind, and exhort people, especially those who are concerned about the current state of society.
Now is the time to look into the mirror and ask essential questions of our collective selves. Why does legacy matter? How can the passing of legacy batons change and alter the course that we are currently on for the better?
When legacy baton passing becomes a collective, communal act, success stories emerge. These success stories will become the narrative for the freedom-dreaming possibilities that emerge into a new generation of healers, inventors, builders, educators, etc.
We see horrific evidence of what happens when the baton is dropped, and there is no proverbial village. An absence of a sense of place and a lack of belongingness is rampant when we become indifferent, disinterested, or cynical. The African proverb “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel the warmth,” is true.
These success stories will become the narrative for the freedom-dreaming possibilities that emerge into a new generation of healers, inventors, builders, educators, etc.
When the members of the Village (city, state, nation, and world) see the evidence of authentic and sincere baton passing as an act of love, respect, tradition, and future, I envision a bold and bright future strengthened by the wisdom of the elders and the energy of the young.
There is pain before progress. So surely given the pain of the last few years, especially, progress is imminent. A conscious ritual of passing the legacy baton must take hold as an ingrained habit. As the young folks say, let’s normalize it.
Now is the time for intergenerational conversations where we listen to the wisdom of the griots among us and use the technology that can connect us more powerfully and globally than ever before so that we move swiftly from pain to the promise that is at hand.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is shutting down, having completed a whirlwind 18-month investigation of the 2021 Capitol insurrection and having sent its work to the Justice Department along with a recommendation for prosecuting former President Donald Trump.
The committee’s time officially ends Tuesday when the new Republican-led House is sworn in. With many of the committee’s staff already departed, remaining aides have spent the last two weeks releasing many of the panel’s materials, including its 814-page final report, about 200 transcripts of witness interviews, and documents used to support its conclusions.
Lawmakers said they wanted to make their work public to underscore the seriousness of the attack and Trump’s multi-pronged effort to try to overturn the election.
“Accountability is now critical to thwart any other future scheme to overturn an election,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., wrote in a departing message on Monday. “We have made a series of criminal referrals, and our system of Justice is responsible for what comes next.”
Some of the committee’s work — such as videotape of hundreds of witness interviews — will not be made public immediately. The committee is sending those videos and some other committee records to the National Archives, which by law would make them available in 50 years. Members of the committee said they didn’t release that videotape now because it would have been too difficult to edit it and redact sensitive information.
Incoming Republican leaders may try to get those materials much sooner, though. A provision in a package of proposed House rules released Sunday calls for the National Archives to transfer “any records related to the committee” back to the House no later than Jan. 17.
It is unclear whether the GOP-led House could enforce the provision and what they would do with the materials.
The committee’s conclusion comes after one of the most aggressive and wide-ranging congressional investigations in recent memory. The panel formally or informally interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, collected more than 1 million documents and held 10 well-watched hearings. The two Republicans and seven Democrats on the panel were able to conduct the investigation with little interference after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy declined to appoint minority members, angry that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rejected two of his suggested appointments.
In the end, the panel came to a unanimous conclusion that Trump coordinated a “conspiracy” on multiple levels, pressuring states, federal officials and lawmakers to try to overturn his defeat, and inspired a violent mob of supporters to attack the Capitol and interrupt the certification of President Joe Biden’s win. The panel recommended that the Justice Department prosecute Trump on four crimes, including aiding an insurrection.
While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.
“This is the most intense investigation I’ve been involved in,” said California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who has been in the House for almost three decades and served as an aide to a member on the House Judiciary Committee in the 1970s when Congress was preparing to impeach then-President Richard Nixon. Lofgren was also in the House for former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and served as an impeachment manager during Trump’s first impeachment three years ago.
“I have never been involved in anything as wide ranging and intense,” Lofgren said.
She said that at the beginning of the probe, she felt it would be a success if there was a renewed enthusiasm for protecting democracy. In the November midterm elections, 44% of voters said the future of democracy was their primary consideration at the polls, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.
Lofgren said she believes the committee made clear that Trump was responsible for the insurrection and “it was not done at the last minute.”
“I think we proved that and we sent it all to the Department of Justice,” Lofgren said. “We’ll see what they do.”
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Anita Pointer, one of four sibling singers who earned pop success and critical acclaim as The Pointer Sisters, died Saturday at the age of 74, her publicist announced.
The Grammy winner passed away while she was with family members, publicist Roger Neal said in a statement. A cause of death was not immediately revealed.
“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted in knowing she is now with her daughter Jada and her sisters June & Bonnie and at peace. She was the one that kept all of us close and together for so long,” her sister Ruth, brothers Aaron and Fritz and granddaughter Roxie McKain Pointer said in the statement.
Anita Pointer's only daughter, Jada Pointer, died in 2003.
Anita, Ruth, Bonnie and June Pointer, born the daughters of a minister, grew up singing in their father's church in Oakland, California.
The group's 1973 self-titled debut album included the breakout hit, “Yes We Can Can.” Known for hit songs including “I’m So Excited,” “Slow Hand,” “Neutron Dance” and “Jump (For My Love),” the singers gained a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.
The 1983 album “Break Out” went triple platinum and garnered two American Music Awards. The group won three Grammy Awards and had 13 U.S. top 20 hit songs between 1973 and 1985, Neal said.
The Pointer Sisters also was the first African American group to perform on the Grand Ole Opry program and the first contemporary act to perform at the San Francisco Opera House, Neal said.
Bonnie Pointer left the group in 1977, signing a solo deal with Motown Records but enjoying only modest success. “We were devastated,” Anita Pointer said of the departure in 1990. “We did a show the night she left, but after that, we just stopped. We thought it wasn’t going to work without Bonnie.”
The group, in various lineups including younger family members, continued recording through 1993.
June Pointer died of cancer at the age of 52 in 2006.
Anita Pointer announced Bonnie Pointer's death resulting from cardiac arrest at the age of 69 in 2020. “The Pointer Sisters would never have happened had it not been for Bonnie,” she said in a statement.
By Tamerra Griffin, New York Amsterdam News, Word in Black
Raven Schwam-Curtis danced along to music pumping from the speakers at a shuk one night along with about 40 other Jews also on their birthright trip to Israel. Raven, who uses they/them pronouns, said that they were feeling good about their recent decision to learn more about their Jewish heritage by going on the trip. Schwam-Curtis, who was 21 at the time, was the only Black person in their group — their mother is Black, their father Ashkenazi — and just one of two people of color; everybody else on the trip, they said, was considered white.
At one point, the song changed to the unedited version of “Gold Digger” by Kanye West, a detail Schwam-Curtis noted with profound irony, given the rap mogul’s relentless anti-Semitic tirades over the past several months. When a young woman next to them used the n-word while singing along to the song, they were so taken aback that they figured they must have misheard. But then the woman said it again.
Schwam-Curtis told the woman that she couldn’t use that word. They remember the woman shrugging them off with a half-hearted “my bad” and she continued as though nothing had happened. Schwam-Curtis left in tears.
“It shattered a glass ceiling for me,” they said of the incident. They wondered whether they would always have to combat anti-Blackness among Jews who benefitted from white privilege. “And that’s very painful when these are people you’re supposed to be in community with,” they added.
Three years later, Schwam-Curtis shares the spectrum of their experiences as a Black Jewish person with their 97,000 social media followers across Instagram and TikTok with the handle @ravenreveals, in addition to pursuing a graduate degree in African American Studies at Northwestern University. They are one of several Black Jewish creators asserting their identities and centering their stories with pride, calling their audiences in to relate and learn in the process.
Black Jewish creative Raven Schwam-Curtis shares the spectrum of their experiences as a Black Jewish person with their 97,000 social media followers across Instagram and TikTok (Courtesy of Raven Schwam-Curtis)
Black Jews are situated at the nexus of two communities that have suffered the generational trauma of state-sanctioned violence and discrimination. That systemic oppression can make it difficult for individuals from each of those groups (Jews who are not Black, and Black folks who are not Jewish) to understand how the issues they face are interconnected, a concept known as intersectionality.
Black feminist scholar and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989 in part to push back against the erasure of people who face multiple forms of oppression simultaneously that, taken together, form an entirely new set of obstacles.
In an interview, Tema Smith, the director of Jewish outreach and partnerships at the Anti-Defamation League, offered a second definition she said is linked to Crenshaw’s.
“If you start unraveling the thread ball of hate, you might have these disparate threads of anti-Semitism, transphobia, homophobia, anti-Black racism, anti-indigenous racism, Islamophobia—choose your ‘ism’ or phobia, but at the end you’re going to end up with one unifying idea that brings it all together,” said Smith, who is also Black and Jewish. “I think both of those meanings are still very accurate to [describe] how experiences of hate and oppression occur.”
That intersectionality also introduces an exhausting dichotomy many Black Jews have to contend with. The anti-Semitic rhetoric propagated by Kyrie Irving, Kanye West and Dave Chappelle has at once rendered Black Jews invisible and hypervisible. Their existence challenges those ahistorical and misguided arguments, but whenever those moments arise, they are thrust into the spotlight, asked to speak on behalf of both communities they belong to and sort out their complexities in real time.
The pendulous nature of their visibility can obscure the nuances of Black Jewish identity, but Schwam-Curtis, director and animation producer Ezra Edmond, and documentarian and comedy writer Rebecca Pierce are using their platforms to bring depth to urgent conversations around anti-Blackness and anti-Semitism that volatile news cycles often flatten.
As a Black and Jewish filmmaker, Edmond’s eye is naturally attuned to artistic representation. The 33-year-old native of San Fernando Valley in Southern California is a longtime fan of the TV show “Black-ish,” but a bittersweet reality hit him when he learned that the actors Tracee Ellis Ross (who plays Rainbow Johnson), Daveed Diggs (Johan Johnson) and Rashida Jones (Santamonica Johnson) — who play siblings on the show —are all Jewish in real life.
“‘Black-ish’ is a blended Black family show. Tracee’s character’s family is a mixed family, and Anthony Anderson’s [character Dru Johnson] is not. His is from a generational household, and hers is from a commune,” Edmond said. “But she could have just played a Black Jewish character, and her siblings could have, too.”
Edmond still loves the show, but he knew that in order to see the kind of story he could relate to on screen, he would have to create it himself. On the cusp of the pandemic in 2020, he made a short animated film titled “Blewish.” At just under four minutes, the story follows a young Black boy learning what it means to embrace his Blackness and Jewishness against the backdrop of different environments — his classroom, a family friend’s house, the public library — that call upon different groups of people to learn how to accept him, too.
Once he finished making the short film, he was nervous about how it would be received, and whether his family would watch it and express concern that he had always harbored the feelings expressed by the main character. But he was determined to tell his story, so much so that he didn’t hesitate to fund the project himself—a decision that probably wouldn’t have needed to happen had he released the film after the summer of 2020, he quipped.
“Blewish” has played in various film festivals, schools and synagogues around the country, and while Edmond knows Black non-Jewish people have enjoyed it, he said it has yet to be accepted into a Black film festival.
But the short film also granted Edmond something he had never before experienced outside of his immediate family: The opportunity to meet and build community with other Black Jewish people who watched the film.
“I want people to get more comfortable sharing those details about themselves instead of sitting in silence and assuming sameness,” he said.
Rebecca Pierce recognizes how fortunate she was to have been encouraged at a young age by her parents to speak up about issues that affected her as a young Black Jewish girl growing up in Palo Alto, Calif. Her mother, who is Black, and her father, who is white and Jewish, are both attorneys, and exposed Pierce to both the Christian church and the synagogue. “Race, politics and religion were always discussed,” said Pierce, now 32.
When she was 9 years old, she shared at a Freedom Seder (a tradition that began during the first Passover after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968) that she had been called a racial slur at school. Although her relationship to her Jewish identity was primarily cultural at the time, Pierce said the comfort she felt in talking about her experience as a Black girl drew her even closer to Judaism.
When she started college at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Pierce began to notice how eager her fellow classmates were to place her into neat categories based on who she was and what she believed. She became involved in Israeli-Palestinian politics on campus, and said that once it became known among her Jewish community that she expressed solidarity with Palestinians — Operation Cast Lead took place during her freshman year — her entire identity came under scrutiny.
“I approach solidarity with Palestinians from both a Jewish and a Black experience and a Black lens, and that’s very different from other Jewish students who are white,” Pierce said. “If you have experience with racial discrimination and you see it happen to someone else, you’re not going to pretend that’s not what you see.”
Even after graduating, Pierce continued meeting with college students engaged in Israeli and Palestinian discourse, which eventually led to producing documentaries about issues affecting Black people, Jews and other marginalized groups. In addition to creating short films about Ethiopian Jewish activists protesting in Israel and police brutality in San Francisco, where she currently lives, Pierce is wrapping up a feature-length documentary about African asylum seekers in Israel.
But Pierce directs her gift for storytelling toward other genres, too. She’s also a comedy writer, and views humor as a bridge between the two cultures she belongs to.
“A lot of relief comes in comedy,” she said. “I think it comes from both [groups] having these very deep experiences of oppression and trauma.” Pierce added that Black people have historically steered popular culture, and referenced collaborations between Black and Jewish artists during the vaudeville era in the U.S. as evidence of the two communities working well together creatively.
“There’s a big joy in this comedy work of getting to bring my Black and Jewish perspectives to the room and deal with the discomfort of being ‘other,’” she said.
We need to be in coalition and conversation and build trust. Relatedly, we also need to listen to the people who span communities, who can talk about issues of their own on both sides and issues that unite our communities right now.
TEMA SMITH, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
Schwam-Curtis worried that they didn’t know enough about Judaism but would be perceived as claiming authority on it by becoming a content creator. But over time, Schwam-Curtis realized that their transparency encouraged others to learn, too.
“There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t know, there’s a lot of stuff that I might get wrong, but I think that’s okay,” they said. “It’s okay for me to be in the process of learning, in the process of becoming, and letting me show you what that looks like.”
Tema Smith of the Anti-Defamation League believes these voices are critical to helping people understand that there are layers to the discrimination and violence threatening them and their communities — and embrace the multiple fronts on which the battle for justice can be fought.
“At this moment in time, the threats that face us all in this country are too large to say, ‘Well you need to fix your house before we can come together,’” she said. “We need to be in coalition and conversation and build trust. Relatedly, we also need to listen to the people who span communities, who can talk about issues of their own on both sides and issues that unite our communities right now.”
This article was made possible by a grant from Shine A Light, a national initiative dedicated to raising awareness of modern-day anti-Semitism and encouraging societal change through a shared sense of communal allyship.
The post Black Jewish creatives focus on celebrating their narratives and building community appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.
By By Shirley L. Smith, New York Amsterdam News, Word in Black
The COVID-19 pandemic and America’s continuing struggle with gun violence have shined a long overdue spotlight on the impact of grief on children. Child advocates are hoping this heightened awareness will spark a culture shift in American schools so that grief training and counseling will become as commonplace as active-shooter drills and recreational sports.
“What people need to remember is that active shooters are most often students. They are not strangers, which means that we have to think about how to create schools where we are connected to students, and create within schools a welcoming, supportive community that supports both academic achievement and student health and well-being,” said Kristen Harper, vice president for public policy and engagement for Child Trends, a nonpartisan research organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, in an interview. “If we narrow our conversation to what to do when the active shooter is at the door, it’s far too late.”
Since COVID-19 began its deadly assault on U.S. soil in 2020, researchers estimate that as of September, more than 300,000 children have lost one or both parents or a grandparent caregiver to the disease. Black and Indigenous children have the highest rates of parental and caregiver loss to COVID compared to their share of the population, followed by Hispanic children.
Many of these children were already drowning in grief and living in fear due to poverty related issues and gun violence, said Kevin Carter, a bereavement consultant and former clinical director for the Uplift Center for Grieving Children in Philadelphia, in an interview. The center provides free grief support services to children, families and schools. Most of its clientele are people of color experiencing grief, trauma and violence.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that Black and Indigenous families also have the greatest burden of death losses from gun violence and drug overdoses, both of which soared to levels not seen in years during the pandemic. In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death among children.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained in a Webinar on Oct. 4 that Black and brown communities have borne the brunt of COVID and other life-threatening diseases because of health care disparities. It will take “a decades-long commitment in neutralizing those health disparities, which are a result of social determinants of health that I believe are deeply rooted in the original sin of racism,” he said. “We’ve got to get over that and make sure that there is equity in our ability to get care to people.”
Social determinants of health, such as structural racism and poverty, have also been cited by the CDC as contributing factors to the disproportionate impact that gun violence is having on minority communities.
The CDC data shows that Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, has the highest rate of gun deaths. A recent examination of FBI statistics by Empower Mississippi, a nonprofit advocacy organization, uncovered that more than half of the state’s homicides in 2020 occurred in the capital of Jackson, a predominantly Black community with poor infrastructure that EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement is due to “years of neglect.” Mississippi also has the second highest rate of Black children who have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID. The homicide rate in Philadelphia, which also has high concentrations of poverty in minority communities, “escalated dramatically” since 2016, and 2021 was proclaimed by the city controller’s office as the “deadliest year in Philadelphia’s recorded history.”
“We certainly weren’t prepared enough for this increasing tsunami of grief,” Carter said. “We were in a crisis of neglect before the pandemic, because if we had better health care, better education, and if we were seen more as humans, I don’t think we would have had this disproportionate effect from COVID.” COVID exacerbated racial disparities that may have generational consequences if bereaved children do not get the support they need to help them through their long-term healing journey, he said.
Carter and other experts say schools cannot continue to expect the growing number of bereft children to carry on as normal when many of them are emotionally wounded from unresolved grief and trauma.
“Grief and loss training needs to be normative. More normative than football,” Carter said. “There has to be some recognition that this is a public health and a safety issue.” Overwhelming feelings of loss and fear can lead to rage, he said, and “that rage turns into sometimes consciously hurting other people or hurting yourself.”
Yet most educators are more prepared to deal with an active shooter than the multitudes of students who are going to school grief-stricken or traumatized from witnessing or experiencing the death of a loved one at home or in their community. Many educators are also unprepared to deal with the possible emotional fallout of active-shooter drills.
The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety reported that almost all K-12 schools in America conduct active-shooter drills, and at least 40 states require schools to do these drills, which vary from locking students in a room with the lights off to realistic simulations of gunfire and masked gunmen. Schools in Florida are required to do active-shooter drills every month.
School shootings, though tragic, are “relatively rare—accounting for less than 1% of the more than 40,000 annual U.S. gun deaths,” according to a study by Everytown for Gun Safety and the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Social Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab. The study “unveiled alarming impacts of active-shooter drills on the mental health of the students, teachers and parents,” but “limited proof of the effectiveness of these drills.”
“I used to have to put kindergarteners during a drill in the bathroom for 20 minutes with the lights off. That’s horrific,” said Amy Christopoulos, a former teacher and administrator with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, in an interview. She now works as the district’s homeless liaison. “Simulated drills can be scary for a 5-year-old. It’s very traumatic. Children were so scared that some of them peed in their pants.”
Although Christopoulos said she believes Miami-Dade is “ahead of the trend” in educating teachers on how to deal with mental health, she said “we spend so much time doing active-shooter drills, but we do not spend enough time on grief training and how to connect bereaved students to mental health professionals.”
Experts say children with unresolved grief and trauma also tend to act out, which can have serious consequences, particularly for Black students and students with disabilities, because they are more likely to be suspended, expelled and arrested.
“In my experience children of color are often perceived as more threatening and people respond to that perceived threat with control and punishment,” said Carter, who has 30 years of experience as a social worker.
“There have been cases where schools are calling Emergency Management Services and calling ambulances for children that act out, because they do not know what to do,” Harper said.
Maria Collins, vice president of New York Life Foundation, one of the largest funders of childhood bereavement in the U.S., said in an interview that only 15% of educators surveyed in 2020 stated that they had received training in childhood bereavement. However, 95% of educators indicated they “would like to do more to help grieving students.”
The foundation created the Grief-Sensitive Schools Initiative (GSSI) in 2018 “to better equip educators and other school personnel to support grieving students.” Schools that join the initiative are eligible for a $500 grant and opportunities for free grief training conducted by Dr. David Schonfeld, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Collins said more than 3,900 schools have joined the initiative.
“I think grief training should be part of the core curriculum for educators, because kids come to school upset every single day and educators can’t just say they’re not ready to learn. They have to try and build the culture and climate in the classroom to make them more capable,” Schonfeld said in an interview.
He said they are not asking educators, who are faced with unprecedented challenges, to become grief counselors, just to become more informed about how grief can impact children so they can create a more conducive learning environment.
Losing a parent or loved one at an early age can significantly affect children’s emotional, social and behavioral development and overall health, Schonfeld added. “But I don’t want people to think that they’re destined to be damaged or lesser people as a result of it.” Unlike a mental illness, bereaved children generally do not need medical intervention, but Schonfeld stressed they need support and if they get adequate support in a nurturing environment to help them develop healthy coping skills, they can thrive.
Frank Zenere, school psychologist for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, saidthat the district joined GSSI about four years ago (following the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida) to increase educators’ empathy toward bereaved children. However, he acknowledged that there is still a lot of work to do.
There is a growing movement to make schools grief-sensitive environments. Frank Zenere, school psychologist for Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the district coordinator for the Student Services/Crisis Program, describes what a grief-sensitive school environment looks like. (Video produced by Shirley L. Smith)
While grief is a universal experience, it is one of the most uncomfortable things to talk about, Collins said, GSSI gives educators guidance on how to engage with bereaved students and furthers their understanding on how grief can affect children’s ability to learn.
Micki Burns, a psychologist and the chief clinical officer for Judi’s House, a comprehensive grief care facility in Colorado, cautioned in an interview that grief can mimic the symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), because bereaved children may have difficulty concentrating as well. “They may not be able to sit and focus for a 30-minute lesson and take in what’s being said by the teacher.”
On the other hand, bereaved children may get “so focused and so concentrated that they become a perfectionist, and they start to present as someone who is unable to fail, like I cannot fail,” Burns added. “Psychologically, that’s where we see the possibility of increased depression, increased anxiety and increased suicidal thinking.”
Despite evidence that school-based mental health personnel improve school climate and reduce violence, an analysis of the 2015-2016 school year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed severe staff shortages of school-based mental health providers and glaring disparities in school discipline in more than 96,000 public schools, which researchers say persist today.
ACLU analysts found that, “14 million students are in schools with police but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker.” These individuals are frequently the first to see children who are sick, stressed, traumatized, acting out, or who may hurt themselves or others, the report said.
School counselors have been saddled with heavy caseloads for over three decades. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor, but the average national ratio for 2020-2021 was 415 students per counselor.
Vittoria Cianciulli, trust counselor for the largely Hispanic Miami Lakes Middle School in Florida, said in an interview that she serves 1,000 students. Her duties include assisting students with emotional and mental health issues and providing substance abuse and bullying prevention programs.
Cianciulli said she loves her job, but admits she gets frustrated because she cannot attend to the needs of every student, and she worries about students falling through the cracks. “It gets to be a lot, especially the responsibility. I just want to make sure I’m helping a child that is in crisis, that there is no one that leaves school and God forbid something happens to them.”
School psychologists are also stretched thin. The national ratio for school psychologists for 2020-2021 was 1,162 students to one school psychologist. This is well above the National Association of School Psychologists recommended ratio of 500 students per psychologist. Alabama has the highest documented ratio with an astounding 376,280 students to one psychologist.
The alarming increase in mental illness among children during the pandemic and the rise in gun violence prompted Congress to pass the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in June, which includes significant investment in school-based mental health services and staff. “It’s a huge step in the right direction,” Kristen Harper of Child Trends said. “Schools need consistent funding to build a sustainable infrastructure, but it is only part of the equation. Consistent funding does not alleviate the broader health and education inequities that put students in harm’s way.”
Harper added, “The conversation about school safety and student health tends to fall off the radar until a tragedy happens, which leads to reactionary policies that give the appearance of safety but have been proven to be ineffective like punitive disciplinary practices and ill-conceived active-shooter drills and school-based policing.” Educators need to develop “evidence-based” preventative strategies, she said.
“There needs to be a culture shift from an authoritarian, punitive culture to a culture of support,” Harper continued. At the heart of this shift is making sure schools have sufficient counselors and mental health professionals and building strong relationships between students and the adults in the schools, she said. “If children feel like they can trust a teacher or another adult within the school, they will tell them when something is wrong.” Schools should also make sure students’ basic needs are met, “so children aren’t coming to school hungry, and when they do, there’s food available for them.”
Harper insists this approach will create a safer school environment and ensure students struggling with emotional, mental or behavioral issues get appropriate care before they spiral out of control. “Students who feel supported at school are less likely to engage in risky behaviors like drug abuse and violence, or experience emotional distress.”
Kevin Carter echoed Harper’s sentiments for a less punitive system. “This doesn’t mean you should not give boundaries, but if adults are calm and understanding, then it’s probably less likely for a situation to escalate, and even if it escalates, maybe no one gets hurt, and that child will get the care that he or she needs.”
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