Latest proof that Donald Trump lied about being for the "common man."

When President Trump takes credit for appointing Justice Gorsuch -- as he often does -- he should be held to account for the anti-worker appointment.

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, ruled that workers could be barred from bringing a class action suit to recover payments unlawfully withheld under the Fair Labor Standards Act.   The decision was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.  Justice Gorsuch’s decision was properly denounced by proponents of labor rights and in a stinging dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.   

Briefly, the majority opinion by Justice Gorsuch held that employers, as a condition of employment, may require prospective employees to agree in advance to private arbitration of disputes, on a case-by-case basis, rather than keeping the right to sue in court.  Justice Gorsuch held that the federal Arbitration Act, which generally defers to private arbitration agreements, was not superseded by the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.  In plain English, that means that employers may, as a practical matter, avoid their legal responsibility to pay workers according to law, even though the NLRA protects collective action by workers.  Justice Ginsburg clearly set forth the matter at pp. 1-2 of her dissent:

The employees in these cases complain that their employers have underpaid them in violation of the wage and hours prescriptions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U. S. C. §201 et seq., and analogous state laws. Individually, their claims are small, scarcely of a size warranting the expense of seeking redress alone. . . . But by joining together with others similarly circumstanced, employees can gain effective redress for wage underpayment commonly experienced. To block such concerted action, their employers required them to sign, as a condition of employment, arbitration agreements banning collective judicial and arbitral proceedings of any kind. The question presented: Does the Federal Arbitration Act (Arbitration Act or FAA), 9 U. S. C. §1 et seq., permit employers to insist that their employees, whenever seeking redress for commonly experienced wage loss, go it alone, never mind the right secured to employees by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U. S. C. §151 et seq., “to engage in . . . concerted activities” for their “mutual aid or protection”? §157. The answer should be a resounding “No.”

In 1978, I was the most junior lawyer on the National Labor Relations Board's Supreme Court brief in  Eastex v. National Labor Relations Board  The issue in that case was whether the NLRA, which grants to employees the right to “the right to self-organization, to form join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” included protection against employer prohibition of distribution of an employee newsletter which advocated for increase in the minimum wage (even though all of those employees made more than the minimum wage) and for repeal of the Texas “Right to Work” law. 

The employer in Eastex asserted that since the employee advocacy there did not involve actual union organizing or collective bargaining, the NLRA did not prevent it from barring the distribution. 

The Supreme Court disagreed 7-2, in a decision written by Justice Lewis Powell, who was appointed to the Court by President Nixon.   Typically, Powell, a corporate lawyer by trade, was not sympathetic to unions.  But, as a jurist who truly endeavored to call “balls and strikes” (Chief Justice Roberts’ formulation, which he often, as in Epic Systems, disregards),  Justice Powell recognized that the language of the NLRA, bolstered by everything that led up to the enactment of the NLRA, required a ruling in favor of the employees.  The linchpin of the New Deal’s National Labor Relations Act was the recognition that individual workers typically were in no position to individually challenge employers, who had infinitely greater economic power.  Only through collective action could every-day people level the playing field.  And that is why the protections provided by the NLRA went beyond direct protections of collective bargaining to include “other mutual aid or protection.”  (Having gone to work for the NLRB to help to protect worker rights, and having become steeped in the details of the origin of New Deal era labor laws, the Eastex decision holds a special place in my heart).

Justice Gorsuch ignored the truths set forth in Eastex.  And he ignored the long-standing precedent that the NLRA protects worker actions for “other mutual aid or protection” even when no union is in the picture.  See, for example, Brown & Root v. National Labor Relations Board, a 1979 case from the Fifth Circuit.   It is hard to see how a class action lawsuit by employees to secure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act in order to secure payments they should have received is not action for “mutual aid or protection.”

The Arbitration Act, which Justice Gorsuch invoked, was enacted in 1925, ten years before the NLRA was enacted in 1935.  The NLRA pretty clearly superceded the Arbitration Act’s requirements when they were in conflict with that later-enacted statute.  Why?  Because the Arbitration Act includes a “saving clause,” which allows courts to refuse to enforce arbitration agreements “upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract,” including “duress or unconscionability.”  The language and circumstances surrounding the enactment of the NLRA ten years later demonstrate that the arbitration contract at issue in Epic Systems was the sort of contractual requirement that is unconscionable – and that is why workers’ efforts to act collectively for “mutual aid and protection” are protected by the NLRA Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, which provides an excellent discussion of the origins and rationales for the worker protections enacted during the New Deal, shows the result-oriented, pro-employer bias of Justice Gorsuch’s reasoning.

We saw during Justice Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings that, in labor disputes, he will find a way to find against workers – the very people Donald Trump asserted he would protect if elected President.  Just take a few minutes to read about the TransAm Trucking case or listen to former Senator Franken’s description of then-Judge Gorsuch’s dissent.  See, here.  Justice Gorsuch is reflexively pro-business.  And in both TransAm and Epic Systems,  we see what that means for everyday working people.

So next time President Trump brags about having put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, call him out.  Trump asserted he would be the President for the “common man.”  But there was no mystery concerning Neil Gorsuch's approach to deciding cases.  Trump knew exactly what he was doing.  Trump lied about wanting to help the "common man."  And Neil Gorsuch’s judicial approach is a classic example proving that Trump lied.  Donald Trump is a parody of the greedy businessman.

When Non-Fiction Mirrors Fiction: The Road to Unfreedom and The Plot Against America

The New York Times review of Timothy Snyder’s new book, The Road to Unfreedom, is instructive.  The book describes the impact of Russian fascism on the West.  Indeed, although the review does not mention it, the spread of fascism Europe in the 1920s and ‘30s has troubling parallels to what has been happening in recent years.

What the review also does not address are the following questions:  Why is the American Right Wing, which was so opposed to the Soviet Union, seem amenable to former KGB officer Vladimir Putin’s Russia?  And why is the American Right Wing so undisturbed about evidence of Trump personal corruption and his collusion with Putin’s Russia?

It seems to me that both questions have the same answer:  What upset the Right Wing during the Cold War was not so much the Soviet Union’s suppression of dissent generally or its anti-democratic one-party dictatorship, but rather the fact that Soviet Union was officially atheist and ideologically opposed to Capitalism.  The American Right Wing has always been perfectly happy to impose conformity,  to use vile tactics to undermine political opposition, and to ignore basic human rights.  So now that Russia poses as a fundamentalist Christian State (particularly in its hostility to LGBTQ people and its determination to suppress Muslims who live within its borders) and has become a corrupt Capitalist state, the Right Wing embraces Putin.  This should not surprise anyone, because Putin embodies nothing they hated about the Soviet Union, and everything they themselves hold dear.  So since the Right Wing does not really have a problem with Putin, it should be no surprise that it has no problem with Trump.

The Right Wing is so besotted with its cultural “conservatism,” its un-Christ-like Christian triumphalism, and its elements of White Supremacism that it is perfectly willing to turn a blind eye to Putin’s anti-democratic and anti-American approach in both his domestic and foreign policy.  So anyone seeing Putin’s Russia as acting inimicable to American interest should not be surprised to see the Right Wing becoming something akin to the Fifth Column posited in Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, a book I read more than a decade ago.  The Plot Against America is an imagining of how the anti-Semitic Charles Lindbergh could have become President in 1940 and put us on the road to fascism. See here and here and here and here.

Roth, in his fictional story of what could have happened, ends the story with events that fortuitously turned things around.  But a novelist’s rendering will not save American democracy now.  We have to do that ourselves.

Praising the Boss: Rod Rosenstein's Dilemma

On May 6, the Washington Jewish Week reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, speaking at an Anti-Defamation League event, praised President Donald Trump for “recogniz[ing] last August that no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws, we all salute the same great flag and we are all made by the same almighty God.”  The online headline for the article read “Rosenstein praises ‘Lincolnesque’ Trump”, and the print edition headline read “Rosenstein likes boss to Lincoln.”

I posted a comment on the article, which the WJW published as a Letter to the Editor last Thursday. 

The WJW published two letters, actually.   The first, from John Glaser of Alexandria, simply lambasted Rosenstein, fairly asserting that Trump had demonstrated himself to be part of the problem of bigotry, not part of the solution.   The Glaser letter ended saying "Shame on you, Rod Rosenstein."   

My letter took a slightly different approach, pointing out the absurdity of Rosenstein's comparison of Trump to Lincoln, but also noting Rosenstein's difficult situation.  Here is my letter (headline provided by the WJW).

Rosenstein in an enigmatic position 

Unless Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has walled himself off from all of President Donald Trump’s divisive, demagogic rhetoric of the past years, he cannot possibly believe that this president is like Abraham Lincoln, who urged us to follow “the better angels of our nature” (“Rosenstein likens boss to Lincoln,” May 10). On the other hand, Rosenstein’s presence at the Department of Justice is likely the only thing standing between Trump and the firing of special prosecutor Robert Mueller, an action that would hasten our potential slippery slide into fascism.

So Rosenstein must keep Trump at bay. This is an age-old dilemma, which is particularly familiar to those who recall the painful “choices” presented some Jews during the Holocaust: When should people of good will sidle up to propagators of evil in the hope that they may be able to limit the harm?

DAVID S. FISHBACK
Silver Spring [NOTE, the WJW mistakenly listed my home as Silver Spring.  I have not lived there since 1986]

If this is the calculation Rosenstein is making, we will see in the coming months whether he calculated correctly. 

Temple Emanuel, Jan. 17, 2014: KING, GANDHI, MANDELA: GIANTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY, BEACONS FOR THE 21ST

TEMPLE EMANUEL OF MARYLAND

January 17, 2014

KING, GANDHI, MANDELA: 

GIANTS OF THE 20^TH CENTURY, BEACONS FOR THE 21^ST

David S. Fishback

Sadly, the history of the human race has most often been stories of one tribe dominating another, with cycles of violent retribution and oppression.

The 20^th Century was a time of both unspeakable horror and hope for a better way for us to live on this planet.  In the United States, we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to remind ourselves of that better way.  As we all know, his determined use of creative non-violent action seared the nation’s conscience and enabled us to abandon American Apartheid without a second Civil War.

With the passing last month of Nelson Mandela, it is worthwhile to pause for a moment to consider Mandela’s life and achievements in the context of the two other non-violent giants of the 20^th Century:  Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi. 

Gandhi, from 1893 until 1914, lived in British-ruled South Africa, where he was the leader of efforts to secure rights for the Indian immigrant population.  Gandhi’s concerns were not limited to Indians, and he advised and assisted in the formation of the African National Congress in 1912. http://www.anc.org.za/docs/arts/2012/GANDHIANDTHEBIRTHOFTHEANCq.pdf   Gandhi began to develop his theory of creative non-violence in South Africa and, upon his return to India in 1915, employed it over decades to eventually secure India’s independence from Britain.  http://www.polity.org.za/article/mbeki-mahatma-gandhi-satyagraha-100th-anniversary-01102006-2006-10-01

As Jewish South African writer Nadine Gordimer observed, Gandhi’s

years in South Africa, his creation there of the political pressure of non-violence … influenced the non-violent protest tactics that the African National Congress practiced until the ferocity of state oppression refused any hope of reform and led to the creation of [the ANC armed wing].

Gordimer recognized that “the voice calling upon the conscience of the 20th century to be roused against colonization, whether manifest as the British possession of India or the whites in apartheid South Africa, came from” Gandhi and Mandela. http://novelrights.com/2011/07/12/nadine-gordimers-key-note-speech-amnesty-international-ambassador-of-conscience-award-nelson-mandela/  See also http://www.tolstoyfarm.com/mandela_on_gandhi.htm and http://www.anc.org.za/show.php?id=4089 and https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/content/33968/mandela_commentary_120613

In 1959, Dr. King, only 30 years old and fresh off the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his early attempts to expand the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, traveled to India for the express purpose of learning tactics of creative non-violence from Gandhi’s disciples.  King learned those lessons well, and became the major organizer and spokesperson for the Movement that secured the end of legal segregation.

To be sure, Mandela was different from King and Gandhi:  As Gordimer noted, by the early 1960s, Mandela despaired of non-violence and advocated selective violent actions against the oppressive, racist South African regime which gave no hope of budging an inch, and which provided no legal mechanism for democratic change.  While King and Gandhi were able to use creative non-violence to appeal to the conscience of oppressors whose own self-image included a sense of fairness, Mandela was faced with a different foe:  A minority tribe understandably fearing for its own survival after decades of the minority’s oppression of the majority.

But there were enough flickers of conscience among white people in South Africa, notably among South African Jews, to begin to undermine the edifice of Apartheid.  Just as in the United States, where the Jewish community provided so much support to the Civil Rights Movement, Jews were a key part of the struggle.  In the second half of the 20^th Century, Jews in both the United States and in South Africa, having achieved equality and even influence while also remembering the pain of our own earlier oppression, served as a bridge to justice.  Indeed, for many years the only member of the South African Parliament to oppose Apartheid was Jewish member Helen Suzman, who became an ally of Mandela.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Suzman 

A turning point in the South African struggle was the 1964 treason trial of the leadership of the African National Congress.  Of the 15 defendants in the Rivonia Trial, five were white – all South African Jews. The defense legal team included prominent Jewish attorneys. And Nadine Gordimer, at Mandela’s request, assisted in crafting Mandela’s now-famous speech at the trial.  http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/rivonia-trial-fifty-years-later  Mandela told the court, and the world that:

During my lifetime I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. . . .   It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/nelson-mandela-rivonia-trial-speech/

 

When Mandela was elected the first president of the new South Africa, one of his first acts was to appoint Arthur Chasklason, one of his Jewish attorneys from the treason trial thirty years earlier, as head of the Constitutional Court. http://washingtonjewishweek.com/mandela-had-complex-ties-to-jews-israel/

These Jewish connections should surprise no one.  Tikkun Olam – repairing the world – is a central part of our Jewish identity.

When governments around the world applied sanctions to the Apartheid regime, the oppressors began to rethink their situation.  Still, they understandably feared that if they ended the monstrous system they had created, they, in turn, would become the victims. Mandela’s insistence, from his jail cell, that the oppressed not turn to violence gave the Afrikaner leadership the courage to back away from the abyss that Apartheid had created.  And what most people believed would be an inevitable bloodbath became a peaceful transition.

The readings we had earlier this evening showed that Dr. King recognized that racial segregation had to end to heal both the segregated and the segregators.  Mandela, too, recognized this wisdom.  At the end of his memoir, A Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela wrote that “When I walked out of prison, . . . my mission [was] to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both.”  He further explained that

The truth is that we are not yet free. . . . .  We have not yet taken the

final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road.  For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/nelson-mandela-ex-president-of-south-africa-dies-at-95/2013/12/05/33558832-5df7-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html

Dr. King understood that civil and political equality is necessary, but not sufficient, to create just societies.  That is why the 1963 March on Washington was the March for Jobs and Freedom, and why Dr. King’s last great effort was the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968.  Likewise, Nelson Mandela declared that

While poverty exists, there is no true freedom.  And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.

 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/feb/03/internationalaidanddevelopment.hearafrica05  These truths are universal.  And Mandela’s formulation echoes our own word Tzedakah – which means both justice and charity, for they are one in the same.

Strength in the face of oppression is central to the struggle for human dignity.  Gandhi influenced both Mandela and King, who in turn, influenced those in Eastern Europe who peacefully stood up to oppressors’ tanks to bring down the Soviet Empire.  And when Dr. King’s Civil Rights Movement opened opportunities, a young African American student named Barack Obama attending college in 1980 was first inspired to work for social justice by Nelson Mandela’s Anti-Apartheid movement.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mandelas-cause-shaped-obamas-political-awakening/2013/12/05/ed570bf4-5dff-11e3-95c2-13623eb2b0e1_story.html 

So when President Obama spoke at the Mandela memorial service last month, his words had great resonance:

We, too, must act on behalf of justice. We, too, must act on behalf of peace. There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people. And there are too many of us on the sidelines, comfortable in complacency or cynicism when our voices must be heard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/obamas-speech-at-mandela-memorial-mandela-taught-us-the-power-of-action-but-also-ideas/2013/12/10/a22c8a92-618c-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html

In the readings earlier, we noted Dr. King’s vision of a World House – the real Real World – in which people of different religions and ethnicities need to learn to live and work together.  Gandhi, in addition to his work for Indian Independence, sought, and to a great degree achieved, peace between the Hindu and Muslim communities.  Mandela and King sought, and achieved, peace between the White and Black communities.  Such peace is grounded in efforts to develop fairer societies, in which everyone’s rights are secure and respected, and in which economic justice is essential. 

The Temple Emanuel community has sought to be true to these values.  In 2012, we worked with Jews United for Justice as part of the faith community’s successful efforts in supporting Civil Marriage Equality and the Dream Act.  And last year and this year, the Temple has been part of that same coalition to support a just increase in the minimum wage in Montgomery County and statewide in Maryland.

So at this Brotherhood Service, at the time of the celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we should be mindful of the possibilities that Dr. King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela offered to us.  May we be bold enough and strong enough to follow their examples.

Metro DC PFLAG Montgomery County At-Large BOE Candidate Questionnaire Answers

In recent years, the Montgomery County Public Schools system (MCPS) has made great progress with respect to  LGBTQ matters.  MCPS policy, of course, is set by the Montgomery County Board of Education.  Below is the Questionnaire that the Metro DC Chapter of  PFLAG sent to all 2018 candidates for the Board of Education.  Scroll down for the answers provided by the At-Large Candidates.  For those seeking more context, I suggest checking out the links provided in the Questionnaire itself.  NOTE:  In the June 26 primary election, the top two voter-getters move on to the general election in November.  (Answers from the District candidates may be found at http://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2018/05/metro-dc-pflag-montgomery-county.html)

Dear __________:

For many years, the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG has worked cooperatively with MCPS and the Board of Education to work foster a positive environment for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, and Gender Non-Conforming students.

In order to inform our members and supporters of the viewpoints of the many candidates running to serve on the Board of Education, we respectfully request that you answer two questions (pasted below), one on Curriculum and one on Anti-Discrimination policies.  In order to provide a context, we include background materials.  As a 501(c)(3) organization, we will not be endorsing candidates for office, but we will pass along your answers, and anything else you would like to let us know, to our members and supporters.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

We would appreciate your response no later than May 1, 2018.  Typing in your responses in a Reply email would be appreciated.

Thank you,

David S. Fishback, Maryland Advocacy Chair

Metro DC PFLAG

fishbackpflag@gmail.com

1.  CURRICULUM

Background

On May 13, 2014, the MCPS superintendent recommended changes in the secondary school Family Life and Human Sexuality curriculum.  See pp. 5-6 of the Superintendent’s recommendation at https://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/9JVRVT6D30ED/$file/6%201%20Sec%20Health%20Ed%20Curr%20Framework.pdf  With respect to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity were no longer to be tightly scripted and, “[i]nstead of the scripted lessons, instructional planning resources will be developed similar to all other content areas, including sample learning tasks, suggested instructional resources, and teacher guidance (e.g., the American Psychological Association’s Answers to Your Questions for a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality, available at http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/orientation.pdf[which references http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.pdf] This shift will permit teachers to plan instruction based on the specific needs of their students, as they do in all other content areas. 

On June 17, 2014, these recommendations were adopted by the Board of Education.  See, also, BOE Public Comments testimony from the Metro DC PFLAG Advocacy Chair at https://www.boarddocs.com/mabe/mcpsmd/Board.nsf/files/9L7HZB4AA1F7/$file/Fishback%2C%20David%20S.-Testimony.pdf

Question

What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

2.  ANTI-DISCRIMINATION

Background

MCPS guidelines and regulations make it very clear that the Board of Education “expects all students and staff to conduct themselves in a manner that demonstrates mutual respect without regard to an individual’s actual or perceived personal characteristics, such as . . . gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, [and] family/parental status.”

See, for example, A Student’s Guide to Rights and Responsibilities, 2017-18

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/students/rights/2017_StudentRightsAndResponsibilities_Web.pdf (pp. 6-7, 15) 

and

Employee Code of Conduct, 2017-18

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/staff/Refresh_2013_Content_Pieces/0042.18_EmployeeCodeofConduct_BOOKLET_ENG_web.pdf (pp. 5-6, 14)

With respect to gender identity and expression, MCPS provides specific Guidelines.  See Guidelines Regarding Student Gender Identity Matters 

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/uploadedFiles/departments/studentservices/gender-identity-matters.pdf

Question  

What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

3.  IF THERE IS ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH US, PLEASE DO SO HERE.

Ryan Arbuckle

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

I believe that our education system should adapt to how we educate children about health education. I would say though that the conversation and education about these topics should extend into the home and that perhaps MCPS should work with parents and the students to help ensure that the students' needs are adequately met. MCPS schools should be a place where students feel invigorated to learn and are provided the support they need. Earlier this year students expressed how they felt their mental health was not adequately being provided for and while the topic of health education is slightly different, both areas show that MCPS needs to improve the way we provide support for our students. This is a delicate subject, not because of its political or social stigmas but rather because MCPS should provide support for the students but at the same time needs to do so in such a manner that the student doesn't feel ostracized or singled out. This is why I believe that the support should be a collaboration between the teachers, parents and students so that we are providing the education and support needed. I believe that this could be accomplished by establishing a small "working group" of parents, teachers, the Board of Education and potentially students, to discuss issues and ways we can better provide support.  

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

I agree that MCPS schools (and the world should follow suit) should be a place where students don't fear being discriminated against. I believe in a zero tolerance policy that protects the individual being discriminated as well as educates the other party as to how their discrimination is hurtful. Again, I believe that in order for our policies that focus on mutual respect we need to involve the parents and the community. We need to engage the community and provide training about respect and acknowledge that there is beauty in our differences. Discrimination against a student or even the potential for discrimination can affect the educational experience of the student. Students should not have to worry about being discriminated against because of who they are and MCPS needs to ensure that all students have the most productive educational experience possible as well as helps to foster an understanding of differences that will make our students better world citizens.  

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts on your questions and would invite everyone who would like to discuss any other issues pertaining to MCPS to reach out to me. I don't have all the answers but I believe in public service and understand what it means to serve. I am running for the Board of Education because I am passionate about education in this country and believe we have an obligation to provide our students with the best education possible. This not only includes preparing them academically but also developing our students to be better, more informed citizens. Thank you for your time and if there is any other information that I can provide I would be more than happy to. Thank you.

Timur Edib

Thank you for your email. I will consider responding to your questions prior to your deadline, but at this point I am not in a position to give educated responses to policy questions.  I am an attorney and policy analyst, and any response would be a truly political answer.  I can tell you my daughter attends St. Mary's College of Maryland, and is an active member of the LGBTQ+ community, and is earning her psychology degree to become an advocate.  I can also tell you that many years ago I was a student radical (ERA, Anti-Apartheid, Planned Parenthood, LGBT rights), and my advocacy for human rights hasn't changed.  

I am running for 2 primary reasons: 20 years since Columbine and we still have an environment of bullying. It must end!!; Every student must be given the resources they need to be their best, whatever or however each student defines that goal. I have spent my life advocating for education, and I can promise you I will be a very vocal advocate for your platform of equality and equity.  I am not LGBTQ+, but at my core I will fight for your right to be human, and be treated as a full member of the community.  

Thank you for your time and advocacy! Godspeed to you. 

best, 

Tim


Marwa Ibrahim

No response provided.

Julie Reiley

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

They are very important steps, and I support the change in the health education curriculum.  When teaching our health education curriculum on sexual orientation and gender identity and related topics, it is very important to be accurate, honest, open, respectful, inclusive, and caring.  My only concern, and I say this less as a candidate and more as the mother of an LGBTQ+ teen and MCPS student, is that because there is more discretion in terms of materials used to teach sexual orientation and gender identity, it is important for the LGBTQ+ community and stakeholders, such as Metro-DC PFLAG, to monitor this curriculum as best they can to ensure the materials and lessons used are and remain, across the county, accurate, honest, open, respectful, inclusive, and caring.  While I commit to ensuring this if elected, as you know from your experience working on the curriculum changes, board members and superintendents will come and go; thus, it is important for the LGBTQ+ community to remain watchful (which I know you know).  

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

I agree 100% with the polices articulated.  I have no tolerance for discrimination, bigotry, bullying, harassment, or intimidation of any kind, including on account of sexual orientation or gender identity. If elected, I commit to honoring and enforcing with fidelity all MCPS antidiscrimination polices, including those pertaining to sexual orientation and gender identity.

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I would like to thank DC-PFLAG for your advocacy, and to assure the LGBTQ+ community that I am a supporter and an ally, with a history of advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community.  In the 1990’s I was a legal consultant for the legal department of Whitman Walker Clinic in DC, providing approximately 1,5000 hours of pro bono legal services.  I helped clients with AIDS obtain critical disability benefits, co-wrote/edited chapters of the AIDS Advocacy Manual, and successfully testified before the DC Council in support of a bill that would allow DC residents to execute advanced directives designating whomever they chose to arrange for funeral and related services.  This was a very important law, because before Marriage Equality, there were many heartbreaking stories of men who cared for their partners of years, who had AIDS, and when their partner passed away, family who had turned their backs on their sons, because they were gay or had AIDs, would swoop back in, take over, and not even let the surviving partner attend the funeral.   I was honored to be commended for my work for Whitman-Walker Clinic. Over the course of my legal, teaching, and advocacy work, my work for Whitman-Walker Clinic, along with my special education advocacy over the last several years (my son has Asperger’s), remains personally very meaningful. I am honored to have been endorsed by the LGBTQ Democrats of Montgomery County.

I would like to share a few words about my background and my prioriities. 

I am an MCPS parent committed to working with all stakeholders to provide a high quality public school education for all MCPS students.  Because All Means All, this includes our students with learning differences or special needs, our highly gifted students, our English language learners, our LGBTQ+ students, our students of color, and our students impacted by poverty, as well as traditional learners and students who do not fall into any of these groups.

My priorities include:

1.     Making significant progress in closing the achievement gap, including expanding programs that are working, collaborating with experts and stakeholders to better understand what needs to be done differently, and funding to achieve equity. 

2.     Working toward public Pre-K for all students, including expanding existing early childhood education programs. 

3.     Increasing meaningful and effective educational opportunities and access for students with learning differences and/or special needs; this includes increasing access to appropriate settings, supports, accommodations, and differentiated instruction, and utilizing a continuum of delivery models.

4.     Working to ensure that “every student will have the academic, creative problem solving, and social emotional skills to be successful” – the MCPS mission.   

5.     Working with the County Council and our Delegation in Annapolis to provide MCPS the funding it needs to meet the needs of a growing and increasingly diverse enrollment.

6.     Increasing career and technical education (CTE) opportunities. 

7.     Recruiting, training, and retaining highly skilled teachers, and providing them with the supports and environment they need to be successful, including smaller class sizes.

As an MCPS parent, I have been an education advocate in Montgomery County, and Annapolis, for many years, serving as a co-chair on the Montgomery County Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC), a vice-chair and a member of the MCCPTA Special Education Committee, and on the board of the Walter Johnson HS PTSA.  I have served on multiple work groups, teams, and panels, as well as on the boards of the Westbrook ES PTA and the Westland MS PTA.  I have been awarded the Maryland PTA Lifetime Achievement Award, the MCCPTA Special Education Committee Outstanding Parent Award, and the President’s Volunteer Service Award. 

The granddaughter of immigrants, I am a Latina who is proud of my diverse heritage. I am a public school graduate and the first person in my family to graduate from college.  A former attorney and Professorial Lecturer in Law at the George Washington University Law School, I hold a B.A. in Economics from Pomona College, a J.D. from Yale Law, and an M.A. from The Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University (DC).

Brandon Rippeon

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

I support the 2014 adopted revisions to the Health Education Framework.

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

I support MCPS anti-discrimination policies.

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I am deeply troubled over the numerous suicides of MCPS students. No student should ever feel there is no hope for a better tomorrow or a problem cannot be overcome. Mental health and well-being are critical issues and I believe stronger outreach and counseling programs should be available. I believe students are too dependent on social media and I encourage students to develop real world communication skills and participate in real world activities.

John Robertson

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

I fully support the shift to allow teachers to plan instruction based on the specific needs of their students. We need to look at health education as being just as important as all other content areas. The purpose of health education in school is to educate ​all​ students on their health. Educators need the time, resources, and freedom to adapt sample learning tasks in order to provide the most comprehensive learning opportunities for their students no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

I think that MCPS anti-discrimination policies are necessary. I want all students to feel welcomed and accepted no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. These policies help promote a healthy and safe learning environment for students. I decided to leave education for a year in order to finish my Masters in Social Work, so that I could better support the needs of my students. I wanted to make sure that I was a resource for students to ensure that they were mentally and physically safe at school. So many students feel pressures both at home and at school because of the discrimination that happens to them, along with several other factors. It is imperative that we make sure we meet Maslow’s basic needs in order to meet Bloom’s taxonomy. As an educator, I strive on a daily basis to promote student engagement and active participation in the school community. Anti-discrimination policies like these allow students to feel open to participating and sharing their personal opinions and feelings without the fear of repercussion or judgement.

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I am underdog in this election. But, that is OK!! I was born an underdog. I was born to a teenage mother in South Central, Los Angeles. I was not supposed to matriculate or graduate from an Ivy-League school, yet I did. My cousin Jeffrey did not. Unfortunately, the quality of our educations placed us on different paths, and he lost his life during my senior year of college due to gun violence. Therefore, being an educator is an act of social justice. My life was saved because of education. I have economic mobility because of education. It is my my mission to save the futures of our students with a quality education. So, for the last 26 years, I have gone above and beyond for students. When Algebra was not offered at the first school in which I taught, because the department chair felt students could not handle it, I provided the access and opportunity for students to engage in Algebra curriculum after school. I was hired as a math teacher the next year. When I recognized that schools have not figured out how to address the social emotional needs of students, I took a year without a salary to complete a Masters in Social Work degree. I am, now, a Licensed Social Worker. As the next At-Large Member of the Board of Education, I am committed to continuing to go above and beyond for all of the children and families of Montgomery County.

Karla Silvestre

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

I am pleased that the previous Board of Education approved the aforementioned changes so that middle schools student could study sexual orientation at an earlier grade.  We can all agree that the middle school years are difficult for all children and in particular students that are exploring their sexual identity.  By covering this topic in school at an earlier grade, we hope that it will minimize the bullying that is prevalent in middle schools. for this student population.  My younger daughter was fortunate to have classmates who had two dads since Kindergarten, and so this is normal for her in terms of the family structure. This, along with what is taught in the classroom, can help students of different sexual orientation or gender identity feel accepted, respected, and welcomed in our schools.

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

Anti-discrimination policies.  I believe the policies as written are solid.  As a board member, I would request regular updates to ensure that the policies are being implemented as intended.  It is important to have student voices in this process since they have first-hand knowledge of what is really going on in the schools. 

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I truly believe that bringing diverse perspectives together is the way to come up with solutions to some of our biggest challenges.  I would welcome and encourage on-going dialogue to see how our school system can improve our practices toward LGBTQ+ students and their families.  We have come a long way but we still have ways to go.

Thank you for your hard work and dedication to our students.

Steven Sugg

Question 1: What is your position on these steps regarding the MCPS health education curriculum?

I believe that our education system should adapt to how we educate children about health education. I would say though that the conversation and education about these topics should extend into the home and that perhaps MCPS should work with parents and the students to help ensure that the students' needs are adequately met. MCPS schools should be a place where students feel invigorated to learn and are provided the support they need. Earlier this year students expressed how they felt their mental health was not adequately being provided for and while the topic of health education is slightly different, both areas show that MCPS needs to improve the way we provide support for our students. This is a delicate subject, not because of its political or social stigmas but rather because MCPS should provide support for the students but at the same time needs to do so in such a manner that the student doesn't feel ostracized or singled out. This is why I believe that the support should be a collaboration between the teachers, parents and students so that we are providing the education and support needed. I believe that this could be accomplished by establishing a small "working group" of parents, teachers, the Board of Education and potentially students, to discuss issues and ways we can better provide support.  

Question 2: What is your view of MCPS anti-discrimination policies?

I agree that MCPS schools (and the world should follow suit) should be a place where students don't fear being discriminated against. I believe in a zero tolerance policy that protects the individual being discriminated as well as educates the other party as to how their discrimination is hurtful. Again, I believe that in order for our policies that focus on mutual respect we need to involve the parents and the community. We need to engage the community and provide training about respect and acknowledge that there is beauty in our differences. Discrimination against a student or even the potential for discrimination can affect the educational experience of the student. Students should not have to worry about being discriminated against because of who they are and MCPS needs to ensure that all students have the most productive educational experience possible as well as helps to foster an understanding of differences that will make our students better world citizens.  

Question 3: If there is anything else you would like to share with us, please do so here.

I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts on your questions and would invite everyone who would like to discuss any other issues pertaining to MCPS to reach out to me. I don't have all the answers but I believe in public service and understand what it means to serve. I am running for the Board of Education because I am passionate about education in this country and believe we have an obligation to provide our students with the best education possible. This not only includes preparing them academically but also developing our students to be better, more informed citizens. Thank you for your time and if there is any other information that I can provide I would be more than happy to. Thank you.