[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FREE SPEECH UNDER ATTACK
(PART II): CURRICULUM SABOTAGE
AND CLASSROOM CENSORSHIP
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 19, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-82
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-668 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Pete Sessions, Texas
Katie Porter, California Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Cori Bush, Missouri Andy Biggs, Arizona
Shontel M. Brown, Ohio Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Danny K. Davis, Illinois Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Scott Franklin, Florida
Peter Welch, Vermont Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr., Pat Fallon, Texas
Georgia Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Byron Donalds, Florida
Jackie Speier, California Vacancy
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Russ Anello, Staff Director
Devon Ombres, Subcommittee Staff Director
Amy Stratton, Deputy Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Chairman
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Nancy Mace, South Carolina,
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Ranking Minority Member
Robin Kelly, Illinois Jim Jordan, Ohio
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Andy Biggs, Arizona
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Scott Franklin, Florida
Columbia Byron Donalds, Florida
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Danny K. Davis, Illinois
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 19, 2022..................................... 1
Witnesses
Panel 1
Elle Caldon, Student, Dallas County, Texas
Oral Statement................................................... 9
Claire Mengel, Student, Hamilton County, Ohio
Oral Statement................................................... 11
Krisha Ramani, Student, Oakland County, Michigan
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Panel 2
Suzanne Nossel, Chief Executive Officer, PEN America
Oral Statement................................................... 14
Dr. James Whitfield, Former Principal, Colleyville Heritage High
School
Oral Statement................................................... 16
Willie Carver, Teacher, Montgomery County High School, Kentucky
Oral Statement................................................... 18
Virginia Gentles, Director of the Education Freedom Center,
Independent Women's Forum
Oral Statement................................................... 20
Jennifer Cousins, Parent, Orlando, Florida
Oral Statement................................................... 22
Prof. Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History, Yale
University
Oral Statement................................................... 23
Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are
available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document
Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
* CNN, article, April 22, 2022, ``Florida Releases Four
Examples from Math Textbooks It Rejected for Public Schools'';
submitted by Rep. Donalds.
* Math Book screenshot; submitted by Rep. Donalds.
* Tampa Bay Times, article, ``Florida Rejected Dozens of Math
Textbooks But Only 3 Reviewers Found CRT Violations'';
submitted by Rep. Raskin.
* New York Times, article, ``A Look Inside the Textbooks that
Florida Rejected''; submitted by Rep. Raskin.
The documents entered into the record for this hearing are
available at: docs.house.gov.
FREE SPEECH UNDER ATTACK
(PART II): CURRICULUM SABOTAGE
AND CLASSROOM CENSORSHIP
----------
Thursday, May 19, 2022
House of Representatives
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m.,
2154 Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom; the Hon. Jamie
Raskin (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Raskin, Maloney, Wasserman
Schultz, Kelly, Norton, Tlaib, Davis, Mace, Jordan, and
Donalds.
Mr. Raskin. Good morning. The committee will come to order.
Welcome to today's remote hearing.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time. And I will now recognize
myself for an opening statement, and I want to thank our
witnesses for being here for this important hearing, and we
have got some great witnesses today.
It is our second subcommittee hearing addressing the
escalating assault on free speech and free thought in
classrooms across America. Last month, our hearing was on the
thousands of books being targeted for censorship in school
libraries, in classrooms, such as George Orwell's 1984, Toni
Morrison's The Bluest Eye, Drama by Raina Telgemeier, and
Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, because they address the
historical and psychological realities of race, gender, sexual
orientation, or power in ways that are deemed politically
incorrect.
Book censorship wrecks a healthy environment for free
inquiry and learning, and I have been amazed by the widespread
response we have received across the country to our hearing
from students, parents, teachers, and authors alarmed by what
is taking place in their communities. But I am also heartened
by their expressed determination to fight for the freedom to
think, to read, to debate, to discuss, and to explore.
I want to introduce into the record a letter signed by more
than 1,300 children's and young adult authors and illustrators,
including New York Times best-selling authors and Newberry and
Seuss Award winners like Judy Blume, Rick Riordan, Jacqueline
Woodson, and Mo Willems, that is decrying book bans in
classroom censorship.
Mr. Raskin. This hearing addresses the closely related
nationwide assault on the rights of teachers and students to
engage in free speech and learning in the classroom through the
dissemination of basic facts and historical truths that are
deemed by some politically incorrect or just uncomfortable.
Authoritarianism always opposes historical memory and teachings
that record and evoke the experiences of prior victims of
authoritarianism, racism, and fascism. The historical record of
oppression and suffering is treated as an impediment to
imposing new forms of control over people's lives and people's
thoughts and people's bodies.
Of course, the replacement of education based on facts,
truths, and ideas is the spread of dangerous conspiracy
theories, big lies, and disinformation, and America has come to
know the bitter price of conspiracy theory and big lies and
disinformation--social polarization, virulent racism, and white
nationalism, proliferating hate crimes, deranged gun violence,
and racial massacre.
The people of Buffalo, New York, just paid that terrible
price on Saturday. Six days ago, an 18-year-old gunman, jacked
up on deranged conspiracy theory and white supremacy packed up
a small arsenal of firearms and drove four hours to a
neighborhood grocery store in Buffalo, New York, called Tops
Friendly Market, where he proceeded to execute 10 people and
wound three others. After months of planning, the gunman
selected this neighborhood because it was the most densely
populated African American community nearby. Inspired by prior
deadly racist massacres, from the Oklahoma bombing to
Christchurch to El Paso to the Tree of Life Synagogue to the
Mother Emanuel Church, the killer livestreamed his sickening
atrocity on the gaming platform, Twitch.
The gunman's 180-page manifesto justified what he
cheerfully called his act of terrorism by reference to white
replacement theory, the pervasive, right-wing conspiracy theory
which asserts that white people, the rightful rulers of
America, are being purposefully replaced in society with Black
and Brown minority groups by their Jewish controllers for the
purpose of destroying the white race. The killer wanted to warn
non-whites to, quote, ``Leave while you still can. As long as
the white man lives here you will never be safe.'' He openly
stated that his goal was to, quote, ``kill as many Black people
as possible.''
Significantly for our hearing today, the mass murderer
invoked the spread of critical race theory as a factor in his
crime. Critical race theory was a theory advanced in the
1980's, when I was in law school, to explain the stubborn hold
of white supremacy and racism, even after the Supreme Court's
decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. And these
scholars argued that American legal institutions and legal
doctrine must incorporate the people's lived experience of
slavery, the Dred Scott decision proclaiming that African
Americans have no rights, that the white man is bound to
respect, the Civil War and reconstruction, Plessy v. Ferguson,
in 1896, upholding Jim Crow apartheid in America, as well as
the recurring heroic struggle for civil rights and freedom in
our country.
Critical race theory has barely been taught in most law
schools recently and was never taught in America's public
schools, in elementary school or middle school. The vast
majority of public school teachers had never even heard of it
before the right wing decided to make it the name of everything
they wanted to purge from public schools in America,
specifically the actual history of race and racism in our
country as well as teachings about gender, sexual orientation,
and gender identity.
This effort began with a right-wing propagandist named
Chris Rufo, who decided to use critical race theory as the
cover in the villain for his campaign to destroy public
education in America. In November of last year, he tweeted,
``It is time to clean house in America. Remove the Attorney
General, lay siege to the universities, abolish teachers'
unions, and overturn the school boards.''
Recently he elaborated his program in a speech called
``Laying Siege to the Institutions,'' apparently a favorite
phrase of his that has an eerie ring to those of us who were
here on January 6, 2021. But in that speech he stated, ``To get
to universal school choice you really need to operate from a
premise of universal public school distrust.'' And he said,
``You fight on terms you define. Giving the game away,'' in his
attack on institutions, ``you have to create your own frame,
your own language, and you have to be ruthless and brutal in
pursuit of something good.''
When called out specifically for attempting to create a
mass campaign against public education that starts with (one)
sowing mass distrust in public schools in order to win, and
(two) universal school choice, Rufo responded, ``Hell, yes.
Thanks for sharing.''
This sinister strategy to promote paranoid distrust in the
school environment is now playing out in states around the
country. Some 17 states have passed classroom censorship laws
or adopted orders prohibiting the discussion of race-related
issues in history, literature, and current events in public
schools. These prohibitions include teaching anything that
might make a student feel guilt, anguish, or psychological
distress on account of race or sex, which imagines that our
students, millions of students, specifically white students,
are snowflakes who cannot handle the actual history of our
country, including racism, Jim Crow, or massacres like the
Tulsa race riots. These laws are designed so that if a student
hears something that might make them uncomfortable their
parents can complain, and in many states get the teacher
disciplined or fired.
This is, of course, an absurd, unworkable, and dangerous
principle upon which to base education about history and
society which is inevitably filled with material that might
make someone or everyone uncomfortable. Must we purge the
teaching of World War II, with its genocide and massacres in
high school because the students are considered too fragile to
handle the truth? Must we purge the truth of wars against
Native American Indians in the 18th and 19th centuries because
that would hurt the feelings of the descendants of whites who
were alive at the time?
A grotesque effect of these censorship laws is that
teachers cannot even discuss with students the actual self-
proclaimed motivations of the Buffalo shooter or the falsehoods
and racial animosity inherent in white replacement theory
without fear of getting fired. Under new Texas laws, not only
could classroom discussions about the shooting be prohibited
but Twitch could also be prohibited from removing the
livestream of the massacre from its servers because that would
be defined as viewpoint discrimination.
Classroom censorship has also expanded into attacking the
LGBTQ+ community by creating a moral panic about lesbian and
gay people recruiting and indoctrinating children, grooming
them for sexual exploitation. Florida passed the so-called
Don't Say Gay Act, which prohibits teaching anything related to
human sexuality or gender identity to K through 3rd-grade
students.
The truth is that grooming in this twisted parlance is not
and has never been part of a state or local curriculum or any
competent teacher's practice. No one wants to teach
kindergartners about sexual activity beyond recognizing what a
bad touch or overture from a grownup is. No. If young students
are learning about sexual orientation and gender identities it
is in the context of recognizing differences in family
structures. Yes, some kids today may have two moms or two dads,
just as a lot of kids may have a single parent at home. What is
wrong with teaching that? And the emotion-social learning
curricula that have come under attack teach you that it is OK
to be yourself, or perhaps it is part of anti-bullying
instruction. It is not OK to vilify or humiliate someone just
because they are different.
The classroom censorship laws being passed and proposed
today are the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, removing
anything from the public sphere that does not comport with a
strict party line and then demonizing it. In Russia and Belarus
today, it is a crime to disseminate so-called LGBTQ+ propaganda
or discredit the institution of the family, just as it is a
crime to describe the war against the sovereign democratic
nation of Ukraine as a war. That can get you sent to prison in
Russia today.
A proposed law in Tennessee would prohibit the use of any
classroom material addressing LGBTQ lifestyles. A proposed
Kansas bill would make it a misdemeanor to use any classroom
materials depicting gay people. These laws are not being passed
for the benefit of students and their educational progress.
They are not being passed to support parents' rights to
transparency and involvement in their children's education.
They are being passed to enforce the will of a right-wing
minority hellbent on destroying public schools against the
exhausted majority of parents who support real education and
trust teachers, principals, and elected school boards to do
right by their children. These laws are being used to undermine
public faith in public schools and destroy one of the key
pillars of our democracy, one that was precious to the founders
of our country and that is precious to the parents of America,
more than 90 percent of whom send their kids to public school.
I look forward to hearing from our excellent witnesses
today, and I now yield to our superb ranking member, the
distinguished gentlelady from South Carolina, Ms. Mace. But I
must begin by congratulating her, because I understand that she
recently got engaged over the weekend to one of the luckiest
guys in America, Mr. Patrick Bryant.
So congratulations to you, Ms. Mace, and I now recognize
you for your opening statement. And please, I think I have gone
over so you use the time you need.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, and I know Patrick
will appreciate the congratulations. We are both still on Cloud
Nine from the weekend. I appreciate our witnesses being here
today, both in person and virtually.
Our state and local government can and should make informed
decisions and choices about curriculum for our students. In
fact, the first hearing we had on this a few weeks ago we had
eyewitnesses, and when I asked them if state superintendents of
education should have a say in the curriculum of students, they
could not answer the question yes or no. When I asked if school
boards should have a say in students' education, those
witnesses could not answer yes or no. And when I asked if
parents should have a say in the education of their children,
those witnesses could not answer the question.
But, in fact, in 1982, it was the Supreme Court that
recognized state legislatures and school boards are, in fact,
empowered to establish and apply their curriculum in such a way
as to transmit community values. And that makes total sense.
Legislatures and school boards are directly accountable to
voters and to the parents of students attending local schools.
And as we often like to say up here in Washington, DC, on the
Hill, is that the government closest to the people is a
government that governs best for the people.
And I want to recognize that there is important work going
on across the country to ensure K-12 curriculum in public
schools serve our students well and prepare them for success.
And there is no time like the present to be having this
conversation because kids are still suffering from what we put
them through in COVID-19, aka virtual school, which was an
absolute abject failure for our students across the country.
At the last hearing we talked about the importance of our
freedom of speech, and it is important in our American society,
especially given the attempts to stifle free speech on college
campuses and across the country. And in the last hearing I
talked about a college in my own backyard, where a student
tried to start a nonpartisan political organization and was
banned from doing that on his college campus and had to sue to
establish that organization. And that should never happen in
this country. Whether you have a R or a D by your name, or
whether you have the most far right or far left beliefs in this
country, free speech should not be stifled. I know the chairman
will agree with me that when they say it aloud, you want to
hear them. We want to know what folks are thinking.
I am concerned this hearing may be here today to discredit
legitimate and lawful attempts to ensure our curricula are
designed to empower students to achieve their full potential.
These are the things we should be focusing on.
I have seen it in my own personal household. I am a single
working mom of two teenagers, one in high school and one in
middle school, and I cannot tell you how devastating COVID-19
and virtual school has been, not only on our family but
families across the Nation. And every one of our students, no
matter their ZIP code or the color of their skin, should have
the opportunity to reach their full personal and academic
potential. But unfortunately we have seen attempts to
indoctrinate our young students. In fact, we saw an examples of
this during the pandemic. We saw teachers' unions that
conspired with the far left, with some far-left politicians, to
keep schools closed, to keep parents of school board meetings.
Parents watched their children struggle through virtual
school, like I myself did. We saw kids that were struggling
with their mental health. We had suicides and attempted
suicides and suicidal thoughts and mental health issues with
our children increase over 25 percent during the COVID-19
pandemic, and many of these kids have not recovered.
We also witnessed lesson plans being laced with divisive
and radical ideologies. But make no mistake--we should be
teaching our children the academic skills they need to succeed
along with the complete history of our country, the good, the
bad, and the ugly.
And, in fact, I talked about this last weekend when we were
commissioning a missile destroyer named after Lieutenant
General Frank E. Petersen, Jr., who was the first African
American aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was the first
African American flag officer or general on the U.S. Marine
Corps. He served for 38 years. He flew over 350 missions,
combat missions, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross, a
Superior Service Medal, the Purple Heart, and any number of
other commendations.
I also talked about some of the rich Black history we have
in the low country, in the area that I represent, from Robert
Smalls, who commandeered a Confederate ship during the Civil
War and got it to Union soldiers in Beaufort and Hilton Head
Island in the low country area. I talked about Harriet Tubman,
who rescued over 700 slaves in one single night during the
Civil War. I talked about the history of the first Black
American to ever sit in the U.S. House of Representatives, and
his name was Joseph P. Rainey. He was a Black Republican
representing South Carolina's First congressional District.
We have so many heroes that our children, Black, white, and
other, can aspire to. These are the things that we should be
talking about celebrating and teaching our kids our history,
giving them hope for the future, giving them people and heroes,
literal heroes, to look up to, and one day become.
But make no mistake. As I stated earlier in and in the last
hearing we held on this subject, we must teach our children all
of the chapters of our history, and in K-12 classrooms there
are no places to be teaching concept like race as essentialism,
racial scapegoating, the concept of a sexual nature that is not
age appropriate for our young children. These are things that
the vast majority of Americans cannot agree to.
Our children's innocence should be protected and
prioritized along with their potential for their personal and
academic success. Our children are the most loving and
forgiving among us. Our children are the ones who can teach us
so many lessons about how to be fair, how to be equitable
amongst those that are not. Our children should not be taught
that they are oppressors or that they are victims, merely based
on the color of their skin. Instead, we should redouble down on
our efforts to ensure our children have the foundation to
achieve their best and full potential. Reading, writing,
arithmetic, where too often our schools are failing our
children.
I look at my own state of South Carolina, where we are
slated, right in the smack-dab in the middle of the amount of
money that we spend per pupil in this country. And yet we are
always last on education and the academic achievements of our
students in this country. We have so much further we have to
go, and we are not doing it. And we need to do better in terms
of the way and the amount of money is spent, and getting it to
the classrooms and to our teachers rather than to bureaucrats
that are doing a great disservice to parents and students
across the country.
Those students whose schools were closed the longest have
suffered the most, whose parents worked outside the home, whose
parents were impoverished and did not have internet or their
kids did not have computers to work on when schools were
closed. We miserably failed our students during COVID-19. This
learning loss was acute. This learning loss continues, and many
of our students I know personally have not recovered. I know
this personally because I have seen it with my own family, with
my own eyes, and I have seen it in students across the state of
South Carolina.
We have empirical data to show the losses. Studies from
both Harvard and Brown University demonstrate children in
virtual school had the greatest learning loss. Those students
are the very students who the far left claims they care the
most about. The most disadvantaged, the greatest minority
populations were the ones that we left behind. The far left are
dismissive of the greatest increase in educational inequity in
our history because it was at the hands of blue state
officials. And until we acknowledge the problem they created we
cannot fix it.
Now I am concerned that we are simply not doing enough to
get our students back on track. Our children's future, our
country's future is at stake.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today,
especially about their ideas to ensure our students can reach
their full potential and the many obstacles that we have
created, how do we overcome them to do better for our kids and
our country?
Thank you, Chairman Raskin, and I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. And thank you, Ms. Mace, for that very fine
opening statement.
I want to recognize the chair of the full Oversight
Committee for an opening statement. Ms. Maloney, you are
recognized if you wanted to speak for a few minutes.
Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much for this hearing. It
is very timely. I would also like to commend you on your
leadership and taking on this issue in your subcommittee. It is
extremely important.
I served as a teacher early in my career so I know how
challenging a job it can be and also how important it is that
educators are free to tell our children the truth--the truth
about our history, the truth about our great nation, and the
truth about themselves.
Censoring classroom discussions on race, gender, and LGBTQ
issues is an affront to the right of free speech guaranteed in
our Constitution. It can also have devastating consequences.
The horrifying, racist attack at a grocery store in my home
state this past weekend shows what happens when we ignore and
spread hatred. That attack was carried out by a man who
targeted a Black neighborhood in Buffalo and killed 10 innocent
people. He found his motivation in a racist and radical
conspiracy theory that he discovered online. On June 8, the
full committee will examine the failures that allowed guns to
get into the hands of this individual and other criminals.
But today we are talking about a more fundamental concern,
how censorship laws will facilitate the further spread of
hateful ideologies, because hiding the truth from our children,
as the state laws we are discussing today aim to do, only makes
it more likely that racism, homophobia, and other lies will
fester and spread.
Proponents of some of these new censorship laws claim they
want to protect children, but banning classroom instruction on
uncomfortable issues like slavery, Jim Crow, the Black and
LGBTQ civil rights movements does nothing to protect children,
nor do we protect children when we hide books from them that
might teach them about the beauty and humanity of people and
cultures that are different from their own.
Among the most disturbing aspect of these censorship laws
is how they seek to poison the relationship between teachers,
students, and their families, turning relationships of trust
into relationships of fear. For example, lesbian, gay, and
transgender students often see schools as safe havens where
they can learn about who they are and seek guidance. Evidence
shows that LGBTQ children who have even a single adult they can
confide in, especially when they may not have one at home, are
less likely to attempt suicide than their peers that have no
support.
But laws like the Don't Say Gay bill in Florida make it
almost impossible for teachers to talk about these issues and
could even require teachers to report a child who comes out to
them to the child's parents. This puts an already vulnerable
population of students at even greater risk. These extreme
censorship laws also put teachers in constant fear of
discipline and even legal or financial harm simply for doing
their jobs.
We have an important group of people who are here to
testify. I look forward to your testimony. I have a very long
statement. I am going to put it in the record because I want to
hear what you have to say and I know our time is limited.
Chairwoman Maloney. I thank the chairman for yielding to
me. I would like to yield back now to hear your testimony on
this very important issue.
Mr. Raskin. And thank you so much, Madam Chair. And now it
is my pleasure to introduce our first panel of witnesses who
are all high school students. They will be testifying but not
answering questions, pursuant to agreement with Ranking Member
Mace and customary practice.
First we have Elle Caldon, who is a student from Dallas
County, Texas. Then we will hear from Claire Mengel, who is a
student from Hamilton County, Ohio. And finally we hear from
Krisha Ramani, who is a student from Oakland County, Michigan.
The witnesses will please stand or be unmuted so I can
swear you in. Please raise your right hands.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Ms. Caldon. I do.
Ms. Mengel. I do.
Ms. Ramani. I do.
Mr. Raskin. Let the record show that all of the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you very much. Without
objection, your written statements are going to be made part of
the record. We give you five minutes within which to explain to
the committee your basic point.
And with that, Ms. Caldon, you are now recognized for your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF ELLE CALDON, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT, DALLAS COUNTY,
TEXAS
Ms. Caldon. My name is Elle Caldon and I am a student at
McArthur High School in Irving, Texas. I would like to thank
the House Oversight Subcommittee----
Mr. Raskin. Ms. Caldon, I am sorry. We cannot hear you. Can
you speak up or more directly into your microphone?
Ms. Caldon. My name is Elle Caldon and I am a student at
McArthur High School in Irving, Texas. I would like to thank
the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil
Liberties for providing me the opportunity to speak today about
my school where various classes and clubs have been effectively
dismantled after administrators scraped rainbow-striped ally
stickers off of teachers' doors, and students and teachers
sought an explanation. One of the teachers asking questions was
my favorite teacher, Rachel Stonecipher. She taught English,
yearbook, journalism, and newspaper. When she supported her
newspaper staff in pursuing information about the policies
behind the stickers' removal she was removed, and recently her
contract was terminated.
The trouble began over the weekend of August----
Mr. Raskin. I am sorry. You said her contract was what?
Ms. Caldon. Terminated.
Mr. Raskin. Terminated? OK.
Ms. Caldon. The trouble began over the weekend of August 27
through 29 of last year, when school administrators covertly
removed the small rainbow stickers from where they had
unobtrusively sat for over a year on allied teachers' doors and
windows. Teachers and students arrived the morning of August 30
to scratch marks on doors and residue on windows, leaving
students unsure and fearful of who may have removed them so
suddenly. It became clear that administrators had removed the
stickers without any communication with the school's large Gay-
Straight Alliance Club that has provided them to its sponsors,
of whom Ms. Stonecipher was one.
Ms. Stonecipher, responding to a newspaper student's
interest in reporting the matter shared the public information
that the district had given teachers concerning its policy
justification. Later we found out that teachers had been
directed to bring their concerns about the stickers only behind
closed doors, which ultimately revealed there was no policy
behind the stickers' removal and that all had unfolded in
closed-door conversations among administrators.
Shortly after Ms. Stonecipher voiced her questions to
administrators about why and when the stickers disappeared, and
only two days after all five GSA sponsors filed a grievance
about the district requesting the stickers to be re-allowed,
she was removed right in front of me and my classmates during
my seventh-period newspaper class on September 16. Less than a
week later, GSA sponsor, history teacher, and National Honor
Society leader, Zobaria Shah was next.
In my view, administrators could only be satisfied to leave
the school without a newspaper, a yearbook, a philosophy club,
a competitive journalism team, a National Honor Society, and
great history and English teachers during a teacher shortage if
they had abandoned the belief that education matters more than
politics. The district could have simply talked with the LGBTQ
students and allies seeking answers, but somehow administrators
found their priorities in conflict with the ideals of
transparent communication and support for students.
This is becoming a national trend. Teachers are being
vilified. They are being attacked. They are taking the fall for
administrative mistakes. They took the fall when my district
removed the rainbow stickers and claimed there was a policy
supporting their actions. Since I was a part of the newspaper
staff, philosophy club, and Uil journalism team, Ms.
Stonecipher's sudden absence has seriously compromised my
academic plans, like other students. I have been verbally
demeaned by district and school officials for challenging their
motive behind terminating a teacher who, in my view,
outperformed other teachers. But I do not believe in muzzling
student inquiry or speech, and I will not be silenced.
Ms. Stonecipher's English language and composition class
taught me the power of words in our perception of the world. As
newspaper editor-in-chief, I was thrilled when she managed to
attract over 30 students in this year's staff, which the
previous year only had four students. Two weeks in we had a
brand-new design concept and 15 articles in production, but
after her disappearance her students were relocated to sit in
the gym without any lesson plans. Once a permanent substitute
arrived we got back into the classroom, but the newspaper
classes were given assignments from the English 2 course, which
most had already taken or were concurrently enrolled in.
On September 29, I met with a high-level school
administrator who told me that they had been unaware Ms.
Stonecipher even taught newspaper and promised to provide a
curriculum, but a newspaper never happened. In November, I
wrote an article about what students thought when the teachers
came down and Ms. Stonecipher left. But on November 9 I was
told not to submit my story because of, quote, ``personnel
matters,'' unquote, and
[inaudible] would bar it from publication regardless. I
wrote a complaint concerning September's events. In a meeting
between myself and a campus operations official I was told that
talking about Ms. Stonecipher made my arguments less effective
and that I should know that because I am a writer. That
official also suggested I only filed the complaint because I
want to be a lawyer.
The
[unclear] at McArthur High is more than the absence of a
sticker or even two teachers. It is the disavowal of the ethics
of education that I hope is not a signal for worse things to
come in our Nation.
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you for your excellent testimony and for
finishing within five minutes and for hanging tough for your
teacher and for freedom.
Let's see. Ms. Mengel, you are now recognized for your
testimony for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF CLAIRE MENGEL, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT, HAMILTON
COUNTY, OHIO
Ms. Mengel. Good morning. My name is Claire Mengel, my
pronouns are they/them, and I am from Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank
you for inviting me here today and for holding this hearing.
I want to tell you about an event my school hosts called
Diversity Day and how its cancellation is affecting my peers'
education and mental health. But first I want you to know two
things about me. In my whole life I have been taught by only
one teacher of color, my Mandarin teacher from China. Also, I
live in suburban Cincinnati where just under 90 percent of my
classmates are white.
Diversity Day is a one-day, optional event at Turpin High
School at which students participate in activities and
discussion to learn about and celebrate diversity. On the day
before Diversity Day this year the event was postponed. Our
school board told us that the permission slips sent to parents
were not comprehensive enough so the event had to be postponed.
Students could immediately tell that their issue was not with
the permission slips. The board members expressing concerns had
campaigned on anti-CRT policies and were using CRT as a
scapegoat to cancel open discussion of diversity.
We were determined to preserve Diversity Day so we sent new
permission slips and rescheduled the event for May 18. Then, on
Sunday, May 1, the board held a special meeting and canceled
Diversity Day. They voted 4-0 that the event could not happen
on school property, during school hours, or using any school
funds.
Students took matters into our own hands. We made a
GoFundMe to cover the cost of student shirts and raised more
than $13,000, over double our goal. We planned a shortened
version of the event, outside school hours, and not on school
property. Because we did not have a whole school day we could
only have one of our four original speakers. We had to cut many
activities and videos.
Yesterday, almost 400 students participated in a peaceful
protest during the school day, but because of sprots and other
conflicts only 140 could attend the after-school Diversity Day.
We held an event outside of school because it was the only
option. But the shortened event paled in comparison to what we
originally planned, and an extracurricular event will not be a
viable path forward for future Diversity Days.
Like many others, my district is in the middle of a mental
health crisis. Seven students have committed suicide since I
started middle school. While administrators are doing
everything they can just to keep us alive, the anti-CRT
rhetoric by the school board is causing immeasurable stress on
our students and staff. I, and other students, spent many hours
planning this replacement event instead of studying for exams
and cherishing our last weeks of high school.
The board's actions have also taken a toll on our teachers
and administrators. The superintendent announced his
resignation after the first postponement. Our teachers are
scared. I have had teachers whisper to me that they wish they
could take a sticker that says ``Protect Diversity Day'' but
they fear repercussions. Something has gone very wrong when
teachers think they will be fired for supporting the concept of
diversity.
Most critically, students of color are being told by the
highest authority in their district that their stories do not
deserve to take up school time, school grounds, or school
resources. I bring up mental health to remind you that this
issue is, in many cases and in many ways, life and death.
I ask you, shouldn't we, as students, have the freedom to
learn in school about different cultures, perspectives, and
backgrounds? Our event is not about CRT. Our event is about
diversity, learning about it and celebrating it. The school
board brought politics into our schools when they attacked our
event. Their actions have harmed our education, our mental
health, and our community.
I urge you to protect students' opportunity to learn about
diversity and I urge you to listen to student voices.
Thank you for inviting me here.
Mr. Raskin. Claire, thank you for that very powerful and
cogent testimony, and thank you for hanging tough for freedom
and the right of inquiry and organizing.
And now we come to Ms. Ramani. You are now recognized for
your five minutes of testimony.
STATEMENT OF KRISHA RAMANI, HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT, OAKLAND
COUNTY, MICHIGAN
Ms. Ramani. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I am Krisha
Ramani and I am a junior from Novi High School.
I have had the privilege of growing up in two very
different communities. From kindergarten through elementary
school I attended a school where the majority of students there
did not look like me, and I still remember this pivotal moment
in my life, sitting down at this lunch table with all my
friends around me. Still surrounded by my friends I felt
different. And I felt different because looking around the
table at everyone else's lunch, everyone had what I had come to
know was normal food--pasta, burgers, pizza. And I looked
around the table and I just felt different. And when that kind
of thing happens again and again and again, you start to doubt
yourself, and I did. I started to doubt my culture.
When I was in fifth grade my family moved to Novi where
there is a significant South Asian population, and being
surrounded by people who could connect with my experiences, who
could validate what I had gone through, discuss the things that
I felt different for helped me cherish my culture.
But so many students in this country are not afforded the
luxury of living in a community with diverse perspectives. So
many students in this country still feel different, and that is
where the power of literature comes in. Books help us connect
with people who may be going through the same difficult
experiences, but over the past year 17 states have passed
legislation prohibiting teachers from holding discussions about
race, and many states are following in Florida's lead and
introducing legislation that seeks to prohibit discussions of
gender and sexuality.
Let's put this plainly. These are targeted attempts to
infringe on minority voices, and attempting to silence
perspectives that we may not necessarily relate to or even
agree with undermines the very values that make this country
great. Our country is built upon the ability for our citizens
to share their experiences through their First Amendment
rights.
Thomas Paine's Common Sense fan the flames for the push for
freedom. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Frederick Douglass'
autobiography galvanize grassroots action for the abolition
movement. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson spurred national
efforts to protect our environment. To censor voices that bring
diverse perspectives to the mainstream is an unfettered attack
on the very ideals that have progressed our country, and by
infringing on students' rights to hear from diverse authors we
effectively sanitize our history.
But our country was powered by and founded by challenging
perspectives, and young people want to hear these voices. Gen
Z's utilize social media to transcend institutional barriers to
organizing. Rather than filter through older generation's hold
on traditional media, students have democratized the primary
source of information. And young people's proficiency in
navigating social media has enabled us to build a viable,
sustainable platform for our voices.
In fact, the most impactful movements of today has been
conceived and perpetuated by Gen Z 16-and 17-year-olds. The
Sunrise Movement, Project Exchange, YAF, March For Our Lives,
millions of young people have been mobilized at a few taps on a
glass screen. I mean, in Michigan alone, organizers like Dylan
Morris, Lukich Dorevitch
[phonetic], Rahi Shah, these students are organizing
hundreds of thousands of young people. And through the school
year my friends and I worked with lawmakers to propose
legislation that enables high school constituents to vote for
the school board members that are representing us.
We are not exceptions to the rule. Across the country young
people are educating themselves on our social landscape. Gen Z
has the capacity, and more importantly, the willingness to
learn about the issues affecting us. We want to participate in
these tough conversations. We want to read about the diverse
perspectives affecting us. And efforts to regulate what can be
taught in the classroom is an insult to young people's ability
to understand nuanced arguments.
These book bannings, which disproportionately target
authors sharing stories about communities that have never
before been heard in this manner silence voices that we want
and we deserve to hear.
Now I am sure everyone is familiar with the glass ceiling
metaphor, but what I want to talk about today is the glass
fence that surrounds Capitol Hill. But finally, through social
media, young people are melting down this glass fence. We are
melting down these barriers. We are more connected, more
educated, and more active than ever before. And as we continue
to tear down this glass fence that separates the minds on
Capitol Hill from the innovators of our time we have a duty to
stop underestimating young people's ability to understand and
connect with nuanced literature.
It is time to stop underestimating us. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Well, thank you for that marvelous
statement, and I think that nobody will underestimate this new
generation after seeing these three very powerful presentations
by these students. You have infused us with a lot of hope with
your vivid language and description of what is actually
happening, which is such a dramatic counterpoint to a lot of
the program talking points and propaganda that we get up on
Capitol Hill.
So thank you so much for participating. You are now
excused. And we welcome our second panel, so please show them
in, and I am going to introduce them as they arrive.
First we have Suzanne Nossel, who is the CEO for PEN
America. Then we are going to hear from Dr. James Whitfield,
who is the former principal for Colleyville Heritage High
School in Colleyville, Texas. Then we will hear from Willie
Carver, who was a teacher at Montgomery County High School, not
in Maryland but Montgomery County High School in Mount
Sterling, Kentucky. Next we will hear from Virginia ``Ginny''
Gentles, the Director of the Education Freedom Center at the
Independent Women's Forum. And then we will hear from Jennifer
Cousins, a parent of four, who has come to join us from
Orlando, Florida. And finally, last but not least, we will hear
from Dr. Timothy Snyder, the Richard C. Levin Professor of
History at Yale University, who will join us by Zoom.
The witnesses will please be unmuted or will rise so I can
swear them in. If you all could rise.
Please raise your right hands. Do you swear or affirm that
the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Ms. Nossel. I do.
Mr. Whitfield. I do.
Mr. Carver. I do.
Ms. Gentles. I do.
Ms. Cousins. I do.
Mr. Snyder. I do.
Mr. Raskin. Let the record show that all of the witnesses
have answered in the affirmative. Thank you very much for
joining us, and without objection your written statements will
be part of the official record of this hearing. And with that
you are going to be recognized for five minutes of oral
testimony.
Ms. Nossel, you go first, and you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE NOSSEL, CHIEF EXECUIVE OFFICER, PEN
AMERICA
Ms. Nossel. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Raskin,
Ranking Member Mace, and members of the subcommittee. I am
Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America. I applaud this committee
for examining the wave of censorship engulfing our classrooms.
PEN America's mission is to be both celebrate and defend
free speech. We have championed rightist-facing Nazis, Gulags,
fatwas, and life sentences. We work on free speech worldwide,
including China, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Myanmar, and here in
the U.S.
I am the mother of two public high school students and a
lawyer by training. I have proudly served in government twice,
implementing the Helms-Biden agreement on U.S. arrears to the
United Nations, and advancing U.S. interests at the U.N. Human
Rights Council.
Beginning in 2015, PEN America grew alarmed by rising
censoriousness at college campuses, speaker dis-invitations,
trigger warnings, and calls for safe spaces. We launched work
on free speech in education, aiming to convince young people of
the value of free speech and to enshrine it firmly in the
future.
In the last year, our concerns about free speech and
education have widened and intensified. Since 2021, we have
tracked the introduction of 185 bills, which we call
educational gag orders, in 41 states. Nineteen have become law
in 15 states that are home to an estimated 122 million
Americans.
Tennessee teachers have banned from discussing 14 distinct
ideas, anything that promotes resentment of a class of people
or questions whether individual rights are endowed by a
creator. In Florida, from July, it will be legally risky for
teachers to reference LGBTQ families before fourth grade. State
legislation has led to written guidance for Iowa faculty on how
to alter their teaching to avoid ``drawing scrutiny'' from the
state. It has led to a trainer telling Texas teachers to
balance books on the Holocaust with ``opposing views.''
Over the last 10 months we have also documented more than
1,500 book bans in 26 states, 350 new books slated to be
destroyed in Rapid City, South Dakota, 110 books removed from
shelves in Texas. Books targeted include Toni Morrison's The
Bluest Eye, Art Spiegelman's Maus, and biographies of Ruby
Bridges, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
We are tracking proposals to surveil teachers, screen and
censor public library holdings, mandate loyalty oaths, and
encourage calling a hotline to report on educators for
perceived acts of defiance.
As an advocate who has championed stalwart U.S. leadership
on free speech issues worldwide, I barely recognize my own
country. The Supreme Court is clear that the discretion
afforded to school boards is bounded by the First Amendment.
The state cannot ``cast a pall of orthodoxy'' over the
classroom nor ``contract a spectrum of available knowledge.''
The current wave of bans and gag orders do just that,
particularly because they are disturbingly vague. Current bill
bar ``divisive concepts,'' stereotyping, and ``race and sex
scapegoating,'' offering no definitions of these sometimes
novel terms.
Courts have held that speech bans must be narrowly tailored
because they silence not just what is expressly prohibited but
a wider band of what may be close to the line. Vague
prohibitions risk rendering entire subject areas off limits.
They could foreclose studies of the fugitive slave clause,
Plessy v. Ferguson, or even the Civil War. At PEN America we
think of our current moment as an ed scare, a time when
manufactured fear is overtaking reason.
Look, we are in a time of social transformation, addressing
the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement. The drive
for social change may sometimes take forms that feel heavy-
handed or even counterproductive. I have seen diversity
training materials that seem to replace one set of pernicious
racial stereotypes with another.
The test for our democracy is how we respond. Of course
parents must be deeply involved in our schools. That is why we
have PTAs, parent-teacher conferences, and school boards. As a
parent, if I have a concern I connect with those in charge, I
attend a meeting, make a proposal about what could be done
differently. I do not make threats or try to get people fired,
because laws banning curriculum and books are not actually
about giving parents a stronger say in schools. They are an
orchestrated effort to polarize, intimidate, and restrict the
flow of ideas.
We also have to recognize that not all hazards to open
discourse are equal. Topping any hierarchy of threats to free
speech are those that the Constitution's framers most
abhorred--viewpoint-specific, government prohibitions. So the
idea that poorly thought-out training materials or tendentious
classroom discussions can properly be met with government bans
replaces one open debate with another that is far more potent
and permanent.
Our schools teach children not just math and reading but
citizenship. Do we want them to think that the right response
to these objectionable books or ideas is a government ban? If
you are afraid of how this country is changing, what could be
more frightening than seeing the First Amendment itself shunted
aside to score points and sow division?
In this time of widening fissures, schools help soldier us
together as a Nation, yet these bills and laws are turning them
into a raw, shredded battleground. Our public schools are the
bedrock of American democracy. These attacks on open discourse
and education risk cracking that foundation irreparably, an
outcome that no defender of free speech and no American should
allow.
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Ms. Nossel, for your superb
testimony.
Dr. Whitfield, you are now recognized for your testimony.
I just want to tell the members that votes have been
called. We are monitoring it and we may have to recess, just to
alert everybody.
Dr. Whitfield, you are now recognized. Thank you for
coming.
STATEMENT OF JAMES WHITFIELD, FORMER PRINCIPAL, COLLEYVILLE
HERITAGE HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEYVILLE, TEXAS
Mr. Whitfield. Good morning and thank you, Chairman Raskin,
Ranking Member Mace, and members of the subcommittee, for
having me here today.
My name is James Whitfield. I am a husband and father of
three amazing children. Most recently I served as a high
principal in northeast Tarrant County, Texas, a suburb just
outside of Dallas.
I am here to tell you today there is reason for concern. I
chose a career in education because of my school experience.
Above all, I want school to be a place where students feel like
they belong and they are excited to be each day, where staff
are empowered, inspired, and equipped to serve each day, and
where families feel connected and have the highest levels of
trust as they send their young people into our buildings each
day. I have witnessed what can happen when that environment
exists. It is such a beautiful thing.
But I have also witnessed how toxic things can get when
people with nefarious agendas come to town--the lies, the
bigotry, the intolerance, the racism. Never mind the fact that
they do not know you or even care to know you. They have an
agenda, and your mere existence threatens that, so they come
after you.
If not for public school educators filling some deep holes
in my life I do not know where I would be. From Ms. Duffy, my
junior high science teacher, who made me truly feel seen at
school for the first time, to Coach Carmona, who was the first
Black male educator I remember during my school experience,
when I got to seventh grade, he was a representation for me of
what could be. To Coach Stevenson, my high school basketball
coach, who helped guide me through two pivotal points in my
young life, my mother's diagnosis with leukemia when I was a
sophomore in high school, and then in the spring of my senior
year I became a father at the age of 17. Coach Stevenson
wrapped his arms around me. He did not allow me to wallow in
self-pity. He loved me and he continued to encourage me.
When I sit before you today and tell you that education,
specifically public education, saved my life I say that from
the deepest parts of my soul. I serve as a public school
educator with a deep sense of purpose and conviction like so
many who have chosen this most noble profession. Teaching is
one of the most complex and multifaceted professions on the
planet. Every kid deserves a Ms. Duffy, a Coach Carmona, a
Coach Stevenson in their lives. Someone who believes in them,
inspires them, empowers them, holds them accountable, and above
all, loves them.
But here is what keeps me up at night. We are losing Ms.
Duffys and Coach Carmonas and Coach Stevensons left and right
as educators continue to be asked to do more with less, all
while navigating the complexities of their role and enduring
baseless attacks by individuals with political agendas.
Processes for addressing concerns through procedural means have
been overwritten by the loudest, most fanatical factions in our
communities.
Teachers are met with interpreting vague legislation which
speaks to not making people feel guilt or anguish. Educators
who pour their heart and soul into the growth and development
of young people have been placed squarely in the crosshairs of
political groups who are determined to destroy public
education. They face bullying. They face calling for their
jobs. They face death threats and hate mail. They have reached
points of frustration and exhaustion that I have not seen in my
near two decades in the profession.
To be crystal clear, this is about disrupting and
destroying public schools. When you say ``parents' rights,'' it
is not what it seems. You see, parents have rights. To say they
do not is a blatant lie to the public. As educators, we do not
build walls between families in our schools. We build bridges.
We understand the critical importance of a strong school-family
partnership. We must simply call this what it is, a ploy to
divert public school dollars to subsidize private education in
the name of choice.
This cannot be the way forward. We simply cannot afford to
lose true public education. It is the key to upward mobility in
our society. Every student, regardless of faith, race,
socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or any other factor
deserves to be seen, heard, valued, celebrated, engaged,
inspired, empowered, and loved each day.
The past several months have been traumatic for my family
and I, to say the least. I have witnessed firsthand what an
environment can become when the most extreme, vile, hate-filled
elements take grip of a community. But I have also witnessed
large groups of students, like we have seen in here today, gain
a voice and stand in the face of this hatred. I am so proud of
our young people, and standing with you. They give me great
hope.
And far too often when mentioning parents we have left out
the vast majority of parents and families who adamantly stand
against these hateful efforts, as witnessed in my journey.
Those people stood with me and stood in the gap for my family
during such a chaotic time, and we are eternally grateful for
their love, compassion, encouragement, and support.
These concerns are real and have lasting impact on
educators, students, and families, and I beg you to take these
threats seriously and do all you can to support us.
I appreciate the time to speak with you all this morning.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Raskin. Dr. Whitfield, thank you. Your love and your
commitment to education is moving beyond words, and I know the
committee is going to be interested in hearing more about
specifically what happened to you, how your contract was
terminated just for speaking out about diversity in the school
and you were accused of participating in critical race theory,
as I understand it. But we will come to you. Thank you for your
testimony.
Mr. Carver, you are now recognized for your five minutes.
STATEMENT OF WILLIE CARVER, FORMER TEACHER, MONTGOMERY COUNTY
HIGH SCHOOL, MOUNT STERLING, KENTUCKY
Mr. Carver. Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Mace, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
come before you and offer my testimony on this issue.
My name is Willie Carver. I am a 17-year teaching veteran.
I sponsor multiple school groups and am published in dozens of
professional organizations. I am the 2021 Teacher Who Made A
Difference, and was chosen among 42,000 teachers as the 2022
Kentucky Teacher of the year.
I was born to teach, and I am good at it. I transform
students' thinking, abilities, and lives. I have always faced
discrimination as a gay teacher, and I have weathered the storm
because my presence saves lives. Forty percent of trans people
attempt suicide, nearly all before they are 25, but one
affirming adult reduces suicide attempts by half.
But that was before. Few LGBTQ teachers will survive this
current storm. Politicizing our existence has darkened schools.
I am made invisible. We lost our textbooks during lockdown so I
co-wrote and found free printing for two textbooks, and I was
not allowed to share them. Other schools celebrate similar work
but my name is a liability. I am from Mount Sterling, Kentucky,
and met the President of the United States. My school did not
even mention it in an email.
This invisibility extends to all newly politicized
identities. Our administrator's new directive is ``nothing
racial.'' Parents now demand alternative work when authors are
Black or LGBTQ, and we are told to accommodate them, but I will
not ethically erase Black or queer voices. We ban materials by
marginalized authors, ignoring official processes. One parent
complaint removes all students' books overnight. Students now
use anti-LGBTQ or racial slurs without consequence. Hatred is
politically protected now.
My Gay-Straight Alliance, or GSA, a campus group dedicated
to LGBTQ issues and safety, could not share an optional campus
survey with classmates. I was told it might make straight
students uncomfortable. When posters were torn from walls my
principal responded that people think LGBTQ advocacy is ``being
shoved down their throats.''
Inclusive teachers are being thrown under the bus by the
people driving it. During a teacher shortage crisis, gay
educators with perfect records are being terminated. A Kentucky
teacher's message of ``You are free to be yourself with me. You
matter,'' with pride flags, resulted in wild accusations and
violent threats. During this madness, his superintendent wrote
to a parent, ``This incident is unacceptable and will not be
tolerated.'' The situation became unimaginably unsafe. The
teacher resigned.
Last month, one parent's dangerous false allegations that
my GSA was grooming students was shared 65 times on Facebook. I
felt my students and I were unsafe. Multiple parents and I
asked the school to defend us. One father wrote, simply,
``Please do something.'' The school refused to support us.
There are 10,000 people in my town. The fringe group
attacking us does not represent most parents who trust us.
School is traumatic. LGBTQ students are trying to survive it.
They often do not. Year after year, I receive suicidal goodbye
texts from students at night. We have always struggled to save
those students but now I panic when my phone goes off after 10.
Merrill, a gentle trans girl from Owen County High School,
recently took her life. She always wanted a GSA. Her friends
tried to establish one but the teachers who wanted to help were
afraid to sponsor it. Merrill's mother, Rochelle, runs an
unofficial group, Prism, from the local library.
Forty-five percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered
suicide this year. We chip away at their dignity and spaces to
exist. The systems meant to protect them will not even
acknowledge them.
I recently attended Becky Oglesby's TED talk. She described
surviving a tornado with first-graders, how they huddled, her
arms around them, as school walls lifted into the darkness. I
sobbed uncontrollably. I realized that for 15 years I have
huddled around students, protecting them from the winds, and
now the tornado is here. As the walls rip away I feel I am
abandoning them, but I am tired. I have fought for so long for
kids to feel human, to be safe, to have hope. I do not know how
much longer I can do it.
I need you--we need you--to be brave, to face the storm
with us. Strong public schools are an issue of national
security and moral urgency. Political attacks are exacerbating
teacher shortages, harming our democracy, and above all,
hurting our children. We need you to pass the Equality Act to
make discrimination against LGBTQ people illegal. We need you
to pass the Safe Schools Improvement Act to protect all
students from harassment.
We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for
fundamental human decency, dignity, freedom from fear, and the
same opportunity to thrive as everyone else.
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Carver, for your service and for
that eloquent presentation.
Now, Ms. Gentles, you are now recognized for your five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF VIRGINIA GENTLES, DIRECTOR OF THE EDUCATION
FREEDOM CENTER, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM;
Ms. Gentles. Chairman Raskin, Ranking Member Mace, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to
appear today.
My name is Virginia Gentles and I am the Director of the
Education Freedom Center at Independent Women's Forum. IWF is a
nonprofit organization that advances policies that enhance
people's freedom, opportunities, and well-being. My work there
focuses on empowering parents by expanding educational freedom.
Like you, Ranking Member Mace, I am a single parent of two
school-aged children, and I also wanted to mention that I am
the product of Orange County public schools in Orlando,
Florida.
The nearly universal public school closures that began in
March 2020 temporarily granted parents access to classroom
content. Before the pandemic began, many parents complacently
trusted their neighborhood schools to provide a robust academic
experience for their children.
However, as parents logged on to access their children's
online assignments and library books and peered over their
children's shoulders into Zoom classrooms, they discovered
materials focused on activism rather than academics. These
materials repeatedly warned children of a looming climate
catastrophe, instructed them that our country is irredeemably
racist, and pressured them to define themselves by their
racial, sexual, and gender identity.
Parents realized two things during the school closures,
which were lengthy in too many areas of the country. No. 1,
limiting parental access to instructional materials had allowed
schools to hide these weak and often politicized instruction
that children receive. And No. 2, the combination of weak
instruction and lengthy school closures left children
struggling academically and falling further behind, resulting
in widespread learning loss.
The primary purpose of the education system is to educate
students, so how have schools been doing with this primary
responsibility? An avalanche of research suggests that our
education system is failing to deliver on this most basic
promise of developing an informed citizenry equipped with basic
skills, knowledge, and prepared for the work force.
It appears that today's hearing has been called in response
to a wave of parental objections to school materials that
promote an obvious political and ideological agenda. But the
bigger crisis we need to focus on for our Nation's students is
that of learning loss.
Negligent school district leaders endanger children
academically, emotionally, and physically but closing and
refusing to open schools, decisions that led to devastating
learning loss and significant mental health issues. As The New
York Times has reported, children fell far behind in school
during the first year of the pandemic and have not caught up.
Unfortunately, vulnerable students were hit particularly
hard, with the youngest students, students with special needs,
and students from low-income households experiencing the most
learning loss. Students in states and school districts that
kept schools closed longer have suffered the most. A recent
study from Harvard University found that schools with large
numbers of low-income and minority students remained closed the
longest, and remote instruction was a primary driver of
widening achievement gaps. According to an author of the
Harvard study, this will probably be the largest increase in
educational inequity in a generation.
Assessment provider Renaissance Learning discovered that
students reading and math scores are worse this school year
than last school year, suggesting that the pandemic is having a
compounding effect on student achievement. And we see specific
state results that are disturbing. California math scores have
been described as a five-alarm fire, with eighth-grade students
testing, on average, at the fifth-grade level in math. Maryland
state assessment results marked the greatest single-year
decline in any state test given in at least the past two
decades.
Sadly, children who had not yet learned to read before
schools closed are still struggling to read. In Virginia, where
I live, early reading skills are at a 20-year low.
Unfortunately, most school district leaders are not taking
this learning loss crisis that they created seriously.
Districts are awash in Federal funding but they have not been
strategically spending the $190 billion in supplemental funding
that Washington showered upon them across three COVID-era
emergency spending bills. Districts have only allocated a tiny
portion of the funds to student-centered strategies like
tutoring, and according to the U.S. Department of Education,
most of the Federal funding remains unspent.
Private schools reopened quickly and stayed open during the
pandemic, protecting enrolled students from learning loss and
driving support for education freedom to all-time highs.
Policymakers should empower parents to leave public schools
that do not prioritize academic instruction and enroll their
children in options committed to educating students. State and
local leaders should fund students directly by creating
flexible education savings accounts. Allowing parents to access
funding directly through such accounts enables them to escape
the chaos of COVID-era education systems and swiftly address
their children's educational needs.
The majority of American students entered COVID with weak
academic skills. School closures, atrocious remote instruction,
and the prioritization of activism over academics compounded a
pre-existing condition. Parents and policymakers must hold
school districts accountable for the massive infusion of
Federal funds and ensure that the resources are directed to
proven student-centered strategies that will effectively
address the Nation's learning loss crisis.
Mr. Raskin. Ms. Cousins, thank you for your very thoughtful
testimony.
And now Professor Snyder, you are recognized for your five
minutes.
I am sorry. That was Ms. Gentles. Thank you for your
thoughtful testimony.
Ms. Cousins, your turn, and I will come to you, Dr. Snyder,
in a moment.
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER COUSINS, PARENT, ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Ms. Cousins. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Raskin,
Ranking Member Mace, and the rest of the subcommittee.
I am a mom of four empathetic, beautiful, and intelligent
kids, who my world revolves around. My kids are 6, 8, 12, and
14, and I have two boys, one girl, and one gender nonbinary
child. I am a fierce advocate for my children, all of whom have
only ever attended public school, an institution I hold sacred.
When I saw the bills that were going through Tallahassee
earlier this year I felt the need to travel up there with other
concerned parents, students, and advocates to share my concerns
about House bills 1557, 1467, and 7. These new laws whitewash
history, ban books, and more importantly, erase the
acknowledgement of students, parents, and school staff that
belong to the LGBTQIA+ community.
H.B. 1557, also known as Don't Say Gay, as written forbids
the instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity in
grades K-3, and then only where age appropriate thereafter. The
bill's sponsors did not bother to define in the law what was
meant by ``sexual orientation,'' ``gender identity,''
``classroom instruction,'' or ``age appropriate,'' but we, and
that includes school policymakers, know its intent is to target
LGBTQIA+ inclusive learning.
Supporters of the law have argued gender identity inclusion
in middle and high school is not age appropriate and sexual
orientation is only included in the voluntary state standard of
HIV prevention curriculum. So now our local leadership is
desperately waiting for clarity from the Florida DOE.
If gender identity is commonly defined as a personal sense
of one's own gender, a book or instructional material that
depicts a girl proudly wearing a frilly, pink dress is just as
much about gender identity as a material with a transgender
character in it. A book featuring a Mommy and Daddy is just as
much about sexual orientation as a book that features two
Mommies.
K-3 classroom materials are usually filled with pictures
that are designed to engage early learners. Please take a
moment and imagine what classroom materials would look like if
they could not include families or relatable boys and girls.
Teaching about the existence of LGBTQIA+ people in K-3
prevents bullying, builds empathy, and ensures that every child
feels included in the classroom. H.B. 1557 will impact my
family. It will make my rising first-and third-graders second-
guess whether it is safe to speak proudly about our family and
their sibling for fear of getting themselves or their teachers
and school in trouble. It will increase the likelihood that my
non-binary child will be bullied for simply existing, and it
will make it harder for them to seek out support from school
staff, knowing that this law incentivizes avoiding
conversations about sexual orientation and gender identity.
In a recent survey by the Trevor Project, it was shown that
1 in 5 trans and non-binary youth have attempted suicide in the
past year. Now that Florida is seeking to hide their existence
and silence their voices, I fear for what those numbers will
look like next year.
In addition to the censorship, these laws allow for legal
action to be taken and add a new barrier to building a positive
parent-teacher relationship. Teachers are leaving the
profession in droves, particularly in Florida, where pay,
morale, and district support is low. This year, my honors
English sixth-grader has been bounced between three different
teachers, with their last one being a math teacher, and it is
looking worse for next year. Laws such as these leave our
educators weary of remaining in a profession where politicians
are breeding distrust and removing their ability to make
adjustments that best serve the unique makeup of their
classrooms.
Public schools always have and always will continue to
serve the largest and most diverse group of students. Teachers
are trained to discuss many controversial topics in the
classroom in a way that will challenge our students to think
critically about their own beliefs and perspectives. For most
parents across the U.S. exposure to a diverse set of people and
beliefs is a major attribute, not a risk.
Why should our teaching professionals question their own
expertise to cater to the most conservative voices in the
community? LGBTQIA+ people are our family, our friends, our
neighbors, our educators, and have been a part of our community
since the beginning of time. Laws like Florida's, officially
named Parental Rights in Education, seek to erase their
existence for our youngest of children who, by nature, are
already more open to learning about diversity and accepting one
another despite their differences, and definitely deny parents
like me a safe learning environment for my children.
Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Ms. Cousins, for your excellent
testimony.
Dr. Snyder, we come to you for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY SNYDER, RICHARD C. LEVIN PROFESSOR OF
HISTORY, YALE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Snyder. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am very
glad to be here as a historian who has studied the worst
aspects of totalitarianism, which include violations of free
speech, as a proud product of Ohio public schools. I am also
very glad to be here with the students and the teachers who
make my own career as a university historian possible. I am
glad to be here with my fellow parents.
I have been asked to make general remarks about the
significance of free speech in history. I will do that and then
draw from another contemporary example.
The purpose of free speech in history, as has been
discussed for more than 2,000 years, is to allow contestation.
The purpose of free speech as, for example, the Greek
playwright, Euripides, instructed us, is to create situations
that are uncomfortable for power. Free speech allows much else,
but that is its central purpose.
The purpose of history in free speech is to allow all of us
to see the errors of those in power. History is not a source of
comfort. It is not a source of political homogeneity. History
is a source of self-correction, which is why history works
together so well with democracy. So in these fundamental ways,
democracy requires history and free speech, and in particular,
it requires free speech about history.
Representative Mace, I quite agree with your point that
history involves the good, the bad, and the ugly. As Ms. Ramani
quite importantly reminded us, we do not know what the good and
the bad and the ugly are unless we allow unrestrained and
continued research and instruction.
I am historian of Eastern Europe, and so the contemporary
example which is very much on my mind is the example of Russia,
which is another country where the idea that divisive concepts
should be kept out of political discourse has held sway.
Indeed, it is a country where this idea has gone much further
and, therefore, it is a country from which, unfortunately, we
can learn.
In Russia, the divisive concepts are things like the famine
in Ukraine of the 1930's, or the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
in which the Soviet Union was, in fact, an ally of Nazi
Germany, as the war began.
In Russia, these things are subject to official taboos as
well as memory laws. So, a memory law is something in which
people are punished for saying the wrong thing about the
history of their country. Memory laws are a widespread
international phenomenon, a phenomenon which the United States
has been joining, unfortunately, these last few months and
years.
What we see from the Russian example is that memory laws
make democracy impossible because they prevent reflection about
basic issues of public interest. What we see in Russia, as
well, is that memory laws make war much easier because they
prevent the kind of reflection about one's own past that would
be necessary. And so, therefore, Russia can launch an invasion
on Ukraine making very much the same kinds of arguments that
Soviet leaders made back in 1939. Russia can steal Ukrainian
foodstuffs, threatening a famine, very much as like happened in
1933, but no one is able to make these points because the
history is not known, and even if it were known it would be
illegal to discuss it.
Once Russia invaded Ukraine, teachers in Russia were
instructed to avoid divisive concepts which might lead the
children to discuss the war, and of course, there as here, what
a divisive concept in practice might be is going to be
determined by government officials in practice. Not
surprisingly, when the war began there was also a purge of
textbooks in Russia, which is now ongoing, the purpose of which
is to remove all mentions of Ukraine and the city of Kyiv from
Russian schools.
So, in conclusion, very briefly, I would like to echo what
Mr. Carver said about courage. Freedom of speech requires a
certain amount of courage. Confronting history requires a
certain amount of courage. One of the purposes of history
education is to inculcate that moral virtue of courage to
accustom students to an environment where they can be
challenged and where they can also challenge those in power.
I make comparisons and I invoke history because we, as a
country, are only exceptional insofar as we make ourselves so.
When we confront memory laws ourselves, we are making a choice
between what is courageous and what is cowardly.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much for that superb testimony.
We will now go to questioning and I am going to invite--oh,
OK. All right. So Congressman Mace and I are going to excuse
ourselves to go vote. Representative Norton, who is still
disenfranchised as the delegate for the District of Columbia,
will stay and chair the proceeding for us, and she can begin
with her questioning, and we will come back as quickly as
possible. Thanks.
Ms. Norton.[Presiding.] All right. I am going to indicate
the first question.
I would like to preface my questions by noting that if
Republicans take the House in the next Congress we could see
them abusing Congress' undemocratic power over the District of
Columbia to try to ban books and regulate the curriculum in
D.C. public schools. This is not mere speculation. A Republican
on this committee has introduced a bill this Congress that
would regulate the teaching of race and gender in D.C. schools.
This is one of the many reasons D.C. needs Statehood to prevent
such meddling in local D.C. affairs.
I now turn to my questions.
Most of the classroom censorship bills being passed across
the country seem to be intentionally vague. Teachers do not
know what they can and cannot say anymore, and have to try to
do their jobs in constant fear of being fired, fined, or having
angry parents turn on them.
To give you one example, a school district in Texas was so
confused by the wording of a recent Texas law that they
informed teachers that they needed to provide students opposing
perspectives about the Holocaust.
Ms. Nossel, what effect do intentionally vague laws such as
these have on the individuals they are intended to regulate, in
this case students and teachers?
Ms. Nossel. Thank you very much. The Supreme Court's
jurisprudence on the First Amendment is very clear that
restrictions on free speech must be narrowly tailored, and that
is out of a recognition that when there is a law interfering
with free speech, and the scope of such a law under the First
Amendment is allowed in very limited circumstances, but even
where there may be a compelling government reason for such a
prohibition, it must be narrowly tailored because it casts what
courts have recognized as a chilling effect. It affects not
just the speech specifically delineated but anything that might
be seen as close to a line, because people recognize that who
interprets the scope of the law, the terminology in the law,
may vary. It could be a judge who sees things your way. It
could be a school administrator who looks at things very
different.
And so, where you have these vaguely worded prohibitions,
things like ``scapegoating,'' ``race,'' and ``gender,'' or
vague terms like ``divisive concepts'' or ``gender identity,''
the risk for teachers is that all sorts of things that they may
put forward could fall under that ambit if it is being
interpreted broadly. And so, they have to be very cautious. We
have seen, just in the last few days, teachers who are afraid
to talk about what happened in Buffalo for fear that they may
run afoul of a prohibition on discussions of race or racial
supremacy in the classroom, which are now banned by law in some
states.
And so, there is a wide, chilling effect that is descending
on our schools where all sorts of subject matter suddenly are
put off limits. Teachers are intimidated. They are forced to be
cautious. Administrators are telling them not to take any
risks, to not discuss these topics at all for fear of running
afoul of these laws. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. These types of censorship laws bear an alarming
similarity to those found in authoritarian regimes. Professor
Snyder, as a historian and expert on the development of
authoritarian states, does the enactment of a censorship and
anti-LGBT laws sweeping the country concern you?
Mr. Snyder. Yes. Thank you very much for that fundamental
question. It concerns me very much as a historian for two
different reasons. The first is that if we simply look at
historical cases of authoritarianism or totalitarianism, we
cannot help but be struck by the fact that the banning of books
and the attempt to limit classroom discussion to some kind of
homogenized set of topics is a hallmark of the early stages of
the end of democracy. That is simply a fundamental part of the
historical record. Authoritarians and totalitarians are aware
that in order to master the present and the future they first
have to master the past.
And that leads me to the second way that I am concerned as
a historian. As a historian, I understand that the process of
democracy involves reflection about the past, such that we can
make decisions about the present, which then affect the future.
In other words, democracy itself requires us to have a broad
and rich sense of time, which is full of factuality, full of
interpretations, full of different viewpoints. When we shrink
the past with censorship, with fear, with intimidation, we are
also shrinking the possibility for discussions in the present
and also thereby narrowing the possibilities for the future.
So, in that way there is nothing more undemocratic than to
limit the possibility of discussion about the past, because
it's precisely discussions about the past that allow us to see
different viewpoints, to correct our own mistakes, and to make
better policy. Without the possibility of historical knowledge
that kind of discussion and self-correction is impossible, and,
of course, discussion and self-correct is what democracy is all
about. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Professor Snyder.
I call on Mr. Donalds of Florida next.
Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, real
quick, for the record I would like to introduce an article by
CNN from April 22, 2022, titled ``Florida Releases Four
Examples from Math Textbooks It Rejected for Public Schools.''
I would like to enter that into the record. And I would also
like to enter into the record a screenshot of one of the bar
graphs from the math book that was rejected by the State Board
of Education in Florida.
Ms. Norton. So ordered.
Mr. Donalds. Thank you.
Witnesses, actually what you are getting is handouts of the
stuff, the items that I just placed into the record. First
thing, witnesses, I would like to draw your attention to is the
large bar graph that is being placed in front of you. This bar
graph is actually from one of the math textbooks that was going
to be for Florida adoption. The bar graph that is slated
basically states here, it shows the differences among age
groups on the implicit association test that measures levels of
racial prejudice. Higher scores indicate stronger biases. This
is a measuring of racial prejudice by age.
This is an example of a math--this is math, now--this is an
example of a bar graph being used in a math textbook that was
slated for adoption in the state of Florida. The State Board of
Education, under the law that was passed by the legislature
dealing with critical race theory in curriculum--in classroom
materials, excuse me, that actually rejected those materials
being in classrooms. This is one of the examples that the State
Board of Education actually cited for why this math book was
rejected.
There is another one. In the article set that you see the
image at the beginning of the CNN article is, ``What me?
Racist?'' More than two million people have tested their racial
prejudice using the online version of the implicit association
test. Most groups' average scores all between slight and
moderate bias, but the difference among groups by age and by
political identifications are intriguing.
This was in a math textbook that was actually solicited to
the state of Florida to be adopted by Florida public schools.
So, if we are going to talk about curriculum and what should be
adopted should we not actually get to the facts and talk
specifically about what is in textbooks?
So my question for all the panelists, and everybody can go
one at a time, should material like this be in a mathematics
textbook that would go before students, who might be taking
math lessons somewhere in middle school, fifth grade, or even
ninth grade? Should this bar graph, talking about implicit bias
or racial bias, be included in a mathematics textbook, not just
in the state of Florida but in any state in the union?
Panelists, what is your answer? Not all at once, you all.
Come on. Who is going first?
Mr. Whitfield. I do not mind going first. Thank you for the
question----
Mr. Donalds. Sure.
Mr. Whitfield [continuing]. and I look forward to hearing
the responses from the rest of the panel.
You have given us a little bar graph here. This is out of a
textbook?
Mr. Donalds. This is out of a textbook. This is an example
of what Florida released about why they did not adopt a math
textbook.
Mr. Whitfield. Yes. So do we agree that racial prejudice
exists?
Mr. Donalds. Dr. Whitfield, the question is should this be
in a mathematics textbook?
Mr. Whitfield. Is there math in this textbook? Is
disseminating a bar graph part of a student learning math?
Mr. Donalds. Dr. Whitfield, we are talking about--should--
--
Mr. Whitfield. It so happens----
Mr. Donalds [continuing]. we be talking about implicit bias
in a mathematics textbook----
Mr. Whitfield [continuing]. sir----
Mr. Donalds [continuing]. or should we be talking about
actual math skills?
Mr. Whitfield. I would daresay they are learning math
skills. It just so happens that, again, this may be something
that certain people view as uncomfortable. But racial prejudice
is a real thing, and I daresay our students get that. They
understand that. So, to say that just because something says
something about bias or racial prejudice, as the professor has
said, like we can't just remove that because we are trying to
talk about something that can make some people feel
uncomfortable. And I daresay if people feel uncomfortable,
oftentimes there is a reason for that, and maybe that is what
is needed to move forward.
Mr. Donalds. Dr. Whitfield, I have got go to some of the
other people because I have 28 seconds left. That is how
congressional hearings work. I would love to have this extended
conversation.
Mr. Whitfield. Absolutely.
Mr. Donalds. Ms. Nossel?
Ms. Nossel. I saw this graph and I found it surprising, and
frankly, inappropriate for a math textbook. I thought there was
a risk that this was going to stoke division, detract from the
lesson. You know, whether the entire panoply of math books, you
know, should have been rejected for this one chart I think is a
different question. Could this chart have been modified or
changed? I think that is what we should focus on. Were the
processes followed? Were educators consulted?
But, you know, I understand what you are saying. I think,
you know, we are all concerned about a polarized environment.
We are concerned about how to keep our kids focused on learning
and achievement. And something that risks detracting from that
I do not think belongs there.
Mr. Donalds. Well, I mean, look. I know I am out of time,
Madam Chair. I appreciate the indulgence because we are over.
The last thing I will say is I, for one, you know, I have young
sons. My 14-year-old is sitting behind me now. I have got a 10-
year-old son. I do not want children having their attention
distracted from actual learning. If we are going to talk about
history, let's talk about history. But if we are going to bring
in subjective material into the classroom, that is the problem
that has some parents upset in the United States, and that is
the concern that we need to think about. That is not a free
speech issue, because students are a captive audience. They do
not get to leave. Adults, we can walk out any time we want to.
The kids cannot. That is why this is such an important
discussion to be had.
Madam Chair, thank you so much for the indulgence. I yield
back.
Ms. Norton. The gentleman yields back.
I want to declare a brief recess at this time while we wait
for members to come back from voting, so that we can have more
questions for our panel.
The committee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Raskin. All right. Thank you for your patience and your
indulgence, everybody. Welcome to our lives on Capitol Hill,
and thank you for waiting for us.
Let's see. I would actually invite the ranking member, if
she would like to go now, if you want to take your five minutes
for questioning?
OK. Well, I will go first then. And I do not know if
Professor Snyder is still out there. I am very curious about
what you said about memory laws as being a hallmark of
authoritarian regimes attempting to rewrite the past, which I
suppose is one of George Orwell's insights in 1984. How do you
connect what has been going on with these laws, against
teaching critical race theory, to the memory laws that are
taking place in Europe today, and did take place in Europe in
the 1930's?
Mr. Snyder. OK. Thank you. I am still here and glad to be
here.
It is really a very simple connection to make. As I was
trying to stress in my earlier remarks, history is inherently
discomforting. History is inherently divisive. If you read a
good history book it is always going to leave you slightly
unsettled. It is going to leave you not where you thought you
were going to be. And this is very important to the possibility
of democracy, precisely because good history books and good
history teachers leave people unsettled and then bring them to
a new place. They enable the kinds of conversations which allow
us to recognize one another as citizens, to learn from one
another, and to make good policy, which heads toward the
future.
The way to prevent that sort of thing, as dictators and
aspiring dictators know, is to fasten on the subject in history
which is hardest to handle and put it entirely off limits. If
you are able to do that, in a general way, then you end up with
a citizenry which falls back onto its own assumptions about who
is innocent and who is guilty. You end up with a citizenry that
is unable to talk to one another, which makes it, of course,
much easier for you to rule, and also you end up with a
citizenry which is much easier to polarize, when necessary,
because they just do not have the practice of recognizing that
history is complicated and that those complications in history
mean that other people have other points of view.
So, the things that I have said are grasped by
authoritarians and aspiring authoritarians who just apply it in
the negative way.
In Russia, as I think I might have said, the divisive
issues have to do with Stalinism. They have to do with the
Stalinist terror of the 1930's, the famine in Ukraine, the mass
killings of 1937, 1938. They also have to do with Stalin's
choice to become a de facto ally with Hitler in 1939.
These are the single most divisive issues for an aspiring
dictator like Putin, or a real dictator like Putin, because, of
course, remember, the word ``divisive'' is ultimately going to
be defined by the government itself, not by the people. The way
that Putin presents these laws is to say that these kinds of
things are uncomfortable for Russians. Therefore, it is the
government's responsibility to get out in front and censor and
make sure the correct view is put across.
During the extreme situation of the Russian invasion of
Ukraine we see just how far this can go with there being
essentially no independent media, no possible discussion of any
of these issues. But the central commonality in all these
memory law situations is that you find the issue which people
would really have to understand to be a democracy, put that off
limits.
In the United States that issue is obviously the Civil War,
the history of racism, the history of reconstruction, the
history of voter suppression. That is the issue, the issue of
relations between Black people and white people, the issue of
full citizenry. That is the issue which makes it easier or
harder for Americans to understand one another. That is the
issue which a lot of folks find it difficult to confront. So it
is the issue----
Mr. Raskin. Well, and I appreciate----
Mr. Snyder--and therefore the one that has to be central.
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. I appreciate that very much, and
it is a perfect entry point for me to go back to Dr. Whitfield.
If you would describe, if you don't mind, some of your personal
experience and how your contract ended up being terminated,
because I think it was about something related to what
Professor Snyder just said. It dealt with this discussion of
race. Is that right?
Mr. Whitfield. Well, thank you, Chairman Raskin. So
essentially my contract was not terminated. There is a
settlement agreement between the district and myself, and so I
am prevented from discussing events pertaining to what happened
with the district. But what initiated against me was much
larger than that.
It was a group of people, a small group of people, that
were not parents of my students, that were not--a large number
of them, not community members, that raised concerns that I
sent out a letter in the wake of George Floyd's murder. They
raised concerns that we created a diversity advisory committee.
They raised concerns that I would even mention the word
``systemic racism,'' because as the gentleman who alleged that
I am promoting critical race theory said at the July 26 board
meeting, I am promoting the conspiracy of critical race theory
because of my views and, you know, what I had to say in that
letter.
Mr. Raskin. I see. OK. Well, I will be interested to follow
what happens with your case.
Let me just ask one final question and I will turn it over
to you, Ms. Mace. Ms. Nossel, so we have talked about the
dangers of this great white replacement theory, that the
Buffalo mass murderer was jacked up on when he went on his
killing spree. What is the best approach to dealing with
something like the white replacement theory? Is it to try to
censor it and say people cannot mention it, or is it to talk
about it and to educate people about what is in there and
refute its claims? I mean, what is your sense of that?
Ms. Nossel. No, I absolutely do not think it should be
censored. I think it has got to be dealt with in a sensitive
way, depending on the age of the students, you know, what the
setting is. Is this a history class where it can be explored
and examined? You know, we have heard people talk today about
the teachers who helped them make sense of all this, and for me
that was essential, making sense of horrible chapters in our
own history, in international history, understanding
motivations, recognizing dangerous, bigoted ties and what their
manifestations may be, the different faces that they show.
And so, you know, the idea that we are cabining off
discussions of race or even racial superiority, you know,
whatever the motivation is that is counterproductive. We need,
in our schools, for kids to be able to explore these things,
talk about them, recognize them when they see them, to be able
to persuade others and engage in these very difficult topics.
So, censorship is not the answer.
Mr. Raskin. That means a striking irony, of course, that
critical race theory is being banned all over the country by
these states but white replacement theory is not being banned.
But in any event, neither of them should be banned. It is
within the realm of ideas and that means it is within the realm
of debate, discussion, inquiry, and empiricism, factual
evidence, which ultimately is going to be the antidote to lies.
So, I appreciate that.
Ms. Mace, you are now recognized for your five minutes,
liberally speaking.
Ms. Mace. Thank you, Chairman Raskin, and I want to thank
the witnesses for their testimony today. We appreciate your
time and effort in sharing your stories of courage, especially
to the students who were here today. You guys are remarkable.
This issue is really personal to me. I am a single working
mom, like Ms. Gentles, and COVID-19 really hurt my kids.
Virtual school really decimated our household with regards to
learning. So I have a few questions today, Mr. Carver, and I
will start with you.
Since the start of COVID do you know what the percent of
increase in mental health issues has been with our students
nationwide?
Mr. Carver. I am not aware of specific numbers but I know
that mental health issues are a problem across the board.
Ms. Mace. About 37 percent of students admitted that they
had an increase in mental health issues. Forty-four percent
said that they are persistently sad, had feelings of sadness
and hopelessness.
Mr. Carver, do you know, roughly, the percentage increase
in suicides from COVID-19 when kids were out of school mostly?
Mr. Carver. I do not. I do know the percentage of suicides
for trans students and LGBTQ students, which are very high.
Ms. Mace. What was the percentage of that?
Mr. Carver. Seventy-five percent of LGBTQ students say that
they are consistently miserable throughout the day.
Ms. Mace. So the rate of suicides during COVID-19 increased
22 percent the summer of 2020 over 2019, and the winter of 2020
it was a huge increase of 39 percent, on average. Do you know
the percent increase in online bullying during COVID-19?
Mr. Carver. Not off the top of my head.
Ms. Mace. Seventy percent, a 70 percent increase, which
coincides with the rate of suicide, as you mentioned earlier.
Do you know the percent of decrease with regards to reading
levels during COVID-19, when a lot of kids were home? Do you
how bad it was, how bad it decreased?
Mr. Carver. I am a teacher so I am aware of the losses we
have had and the work that we have had to do to make up for it.
Ms. Mace. About 30 percent. And then the decreases in
learning math, particularly for those students who were in
virtual school, was down 50 percent during COVID-19.
My next question, Mr. Carver, do you believe that learning
pronouns or learning to read is more important to kids in
school?
Mr. Carver. Pronouns are a part of reading.
Ms. Mace. Which one is more important, pronouns or learning
to read?
Mr. Carver. Reading is more important.
Ms. Mace. I was just curious. Do you believe that students
should be suspended from school if they do not use the correct
pronouns when they are in school?
Mr. Carver. I need more context for a given situation.
Ms. Mace. Some students recently, I think it was last week,
were suspended from school, middle school students, for not
using the correct pronouns.
Should teachers' unions decide, in your opinion, whether
schools should close, or should it be up to states and school
boards?
Mr. Carver. I think they should have a voice, but I do not
think they should or do decide.
Ms. Mace. So teachers' unions, actually, during COVID-19
directed and guided the CDC on school closures rather than
giving that grace to states and to school boards. They were
trying to twist the arms of the CDC to make those decisions for
parents, for teachers, for school boards, et cetera.
Do you believe that parents have First Amendment rights? I
guess, Ms. Nossel, you mentioned First Amendment in your
comments earlier. Do you believe that parents have a right to
the First Amendment?
Ms. Nossel. All Americans have a right to the First
Amendment.
Ms. Mace. So do you believe it OK if parents show up to
school board meetings to have their voices heard, especially
when they disagree with school boards?
Ms. Nossel. Absolutely. People have a right to have their
say. If they are making threats or they are harassing people
that is something different. But expressing your opinion
vociferously, absolutely.
Ms. Mace. I wholeheartedly agree. I was reading a story, it
was last year where a parent showed up at a Loudoun County
school board meeting because his daughter was sexually
assaulted at school, and that father was arrested. I tell this
story often. When I was 16, I was raped by a classmate of mine
in high school, and when I was 17, shortly thereafter, I
dropped out of school, because oftentimes women who are raped
are victimized and re-victimized when they come forward. In
this case it was a parent, and we want to make sure that we
protect the rights of all parents to have a say in kids'
schools.
I want to thank you all for your time this afternoon, and I
yield back.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back.
And I yield now to Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her five
minutes of questioning.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I have some questions for my fellow
Floridian, Ms. Cousins, but I would be remiss if I did not use
this opportunity to engage with Professor Snyder, who I
understand is participating virtually.
Professor Snyder, my office loves your book on tyranny, and
I firmly believe that it has succinctly and effectively helped
veer America away from its recent turn toward authoritarianism.
So thank you for that.
But I want to tap into that talent for concision and ask
you some very quick yes-or-no questions, and then get your
larger take on my home state of Florida.
Do oppressive governments censor unpleasant history in
their schools?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do tyrannical governments muzzle
teachers from telling the truth?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do authoritarian leaders regularly
demonize the free press?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do tyrants criminalize protesters?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do despots make it harder to vote?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do they abandon facts, science, and
reason?
Mr. Snyder. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Do autocrats target marginalized
communities like gays or communities of color?
Mr. Snyder. Very much so.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Governor Ron DeSantis, the Governor of my home state,
deploys every one of these authoritarian tools in Florida. Some
are now law. One of them became law just this week. Yet these
are the same oppressive tactics that thousands of my
constituents fled from in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua. That
is why they came to Florida. And now Governor DeSantis is
bringing a brand of authoritarianism to Florida that Putin,
Maduro, or Castro would applaud.
Mr. Snyder, should residents in Florida be resisting this
rising authoritarianism of Governor DeSantis, and are we seeing
the creeping anticipatory obedience that you talk about toward
his repressive policies that you warned about?
Mr. Snyder. So, No. 1, I think you are very right to make
these comparisons, and Cubans of an older generation can
actually remember school policies from their homeland which are
similar to the ones that are being implemented in Florida now.
No. 2, I think you are also quite right to talk about
anticipatory obedience. It is very important not to see changes
like this as normal and then to allow them to come creeping in
so that they become the new normal.
And No. 3, should people be resisting, absolutely. I mean,
the way that democracies are overcome in the 21st century is
generally from within, and it is generally by clever leaders
who find ways around the rules and find ways to use minority
positions which polarize in order to move----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
Mr. Snyder--toward the top. Thanks.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Snyder. It is not
enough to just describe Ron DeSantis as a culture warrior. We
should call him what he is, a tyrant who is using his position
and power to install repressive and hateful policies in
Florida.
I want to turn next to Ms. Cousins, because as a Floridian
you can give a first-hand account of how these policies impact
children and families. Despite conservatives' assertions that
anti-LGBTQ+ laws like Florida's Don't Say Gay Act are meant to
protect younger students, the truth is they directly harm those
students.
For example, these laws would prevent children with same-
sex parents or LGBTQ+ siblings from being able to discuss their
families in school, and it would also require teachers to out
LGBTQ+ students to their parents without the student's
permission if the parent requests the information, and allows
parents to sue schools should they fail to do so.
Ms. Cousins, you are a Florida parent and you have a non-
binary child in middle school as well as two younger elementary
school students. How will your children be directly impacted by
the Don't Say Gay law?
Ms. Cousins. So my two youngest are rising first-and third-
graders, so the way that this is going to impact us is if they
should be discussing the makeup of our family or their older
sibling whilst in the classroom, some kid over here goes home
and says, ``Hey, guess what? So-and-So's sibling identifies
this way.'' If the parent does like the makeup of our family,
they are now fully within the rights of the law to go and sue
the school, and not only sue the school but the school will now
be responsible for paying for that lawsuit, and that is money
that we desperately know in Florida could be better spent on
teacher salaries and student funding itself.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Can I zero in with you on that,
because you have clearly been supportive of your non-binary
child. I want to ask you specifically about forcing teachers to
out their LGBTQ+ students to their parents. I mean, schools are
supposed to be safe havens, and they very often are for these
kids. You have clearly been supportive of your child, but how
do you think outing students to their parents could affect
them?
Ms. Cousins. It is going to be devastating. It is going to
lead to higher rates of depression and definitely higher rates
of suicide. You cannot out a fragile child like that without
them being ready for it. And the reason that they can be safe
in school is because they do not come from supportive families.
You know, my child has several friends in school that are
trans. They can only live their trans self while they are in
school because their families are not supportive. And I fear so
much for kids that come from families like that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. This is not about
enhancing parental authorities. It is a direct attack on the
LGBTQ+ community that will adversely affect the health and
well-being of thousands of Florida students. And from one mom
to another I thank you for being supportive of your child. That
is so important.
Ms. Cousins. Thank you.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Raskin. All right. I think we are going to give the
other members a few more minutes just to get back. I think
there is a press conference going on about Buffalo. In the
meantime I am going to take another round of questions and
invite Ms. Mace, if she wants to, to take another round.
I am also struck by the way in which the autocrats and
authoritarians feel it necessary to attack the LGBTQ community.
All over the world we see that with Orban in Hungary. We see it
with Putin in Russia. We see it with Duterte in the
Philippines. Of course, the homicidal Crown Prince of Saudi
Arabia, and on and on.
I wonder why that has become such a hallmark of the
authoritarian regimes around the world? You know, I thought I
would get thoughts from anybody who wanted to, but perhaps,
Professor Snyder, we could start with you.
Mr. Snyder. Yes. Thank you for the question. So, No. 1,
just to make a very simple observation, there is a lot of
copying going on right now. So, it is not a coincidence when
different right-wing regime around the world use these tools.
There is a great deal of copying, and in particular, there is
also a fair amount of contact between the American far right
and the Russian regime on the issue of gays.
No. 2, far right-wing regimes tend to identify children as
an anxious place, and so they use the rhetoric of the
exploitation of children as a way to seem to be on the right
side of families. This is a way of destabilizing other
conversations in a polarizing society and preventing actual
democratic conversations of what policies should be like.
Mr. Raskin. Very good. Yes, Mr. Carver, I will come to you,
and then Ms. Gentles, I will come to you.
Mr. Carver. I think it also plays on absolute primal fears.
I am a teacher. I worry about my students. I worry about their
safety. When kids are trying to commit suicide, we are the ones
calling the police. We are the ones literally showing up at
their houses to prevent them. We are the ones making sure that
they get access to counseling. We are the ones fighting for it.
I am very proud of the unions in Kentucky for fighting very
hard when our students were threatened with the loss of mental
health access in schools.
I can understand and even sympathize with parents who, if
they are told by extreme right-wing advocates, ``Your students
are in danger,'' that they might feel worried. And we are in a
time period in which lots of people feel stressed. So, I think
advancing that narrative that their kids are in danger is an
easy way to win people over at a most primal level that does
not require them really to ask more questions other than how
can I help my kid or protect my child.
Mr. Raskin. I appreciate that. Ms. Gentles.
Ms. Gentles. Yes. So, it was just mentioned that there is a
lot of copying going on, and so I just wanted to mention that
there is a lot of copying going on among middle school girls,
in particular, right now. There is a bit of social contagion
happening, where girls who feel like they don't fit in, girls
who might have lagging social skills, girls with underlying
issues--anxiety, depression, ADHD, often autism spectrum--they
find relief in an identity, like a transgender identity, non-
binary, gender fluid. This is something that is happening very
much in my community. I know of many girls who have embraced
this identity when they hit puberty, when they hit middle
school age.
And so parents are seeing that happening. They are seeing
the social contagion. They are seeing this spread among middle
school girls. And they are wondering what is happening, and
they are asking questions.
So I would say we just need to be mindful of the fact
that--I spoke with a child psychiatrist recently who said in
the first 15 years of his practice he had never seen a trans-
identified child, but now most, many of his clients, the kids
he works with, are embracing this identity.
So I think it is appropriate for parents and for caring
community leaders to probe, question, look at what is going on,
and then ask why schools are creating these gender support
plans, where these middle school girls come to the teachers, to
the schools, say they want a new name, a new identity, and new
pronouns, and then the school develops a plan to then hide it
from parents. Why are they doing that, particularly when these
are kids who have underlying issues. They have anxiety,
depression, ADHD, autism spectrum. And as we have been hearing
repeatedly, they might be more inclined to consider suicide,
particularly when it is told to them, over and over and over,
``You are more likely to commit suicide.''
Those gender support plans are dangerous and they are
cutting parents out of a really important conversation.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you for that. Ms. Cousins, did you want
to opine, either on my original question or on that point that
Ms. Gentles just made?
Ms. Cousins. So my child knew that it was completely safe
to come out to me first, so we never had an issue in school
with having to create specific plans for them. And my wish is
that every child came from a safe family like my own, where
they are free to be themselves, they will not be judged, and
they can live their authentic lives.
You know, if the child does not feel safe to come out at
home but they do feel safe with a particular teacher or
guidance counselor in their school, then absolutely, it is
important for the child to be able to confide in that safe
adult. Because there are far too many trans and non-binary
children lately who their families are not supportive and they
will go home, they will be beaten, they will be bullied, they
will not be accepted. And that is what is leading to the higher
rates of depression, in my opinion.
Mr. Raskin. So Mr. Carver, it seems like it is a
complicated time to be a teacher these days, you know, with the
rise in mental and emotional health problems. The Surgeon
General has declared it a nationwide emergency. COVID-19 has
been a nightmare for young people. It has been profoundly
isolating and demoralizing. As Ms. Mace said, it has meant a
setback in terms of kids learning, you know, almost across the
board.
And, you know, what is the best spirit within which a
school can try to address all of these different problems in a
meaningful and supportive way without ever imposing some kind
of bar of political and ideological correctness of any
perspective on families and on kids?
Mr. Carver. For me, inclusion is the one word that matters.
I know that students, for example, who come from families that
try to change their gender identity, who disagree with them,
are 300 percent more likely to attempt suicide.
If a student, for example, comes into my classroom and
says, ``I am a Democrat,'' ``I am a Republican,'' ``I am
trans,'' whatever, it is not my job to say, ``Well, here is
what you should be'' or ``Let's put you on a path to be
something else.'' My job is to say, ``Great. You are welcome
here. You are always welcome here.'' And I think if we
politicize inclusion and say welcoming a student, making sure
that this student feels safe, making sure that this student
feels heard, if we somehow suggest that this in itself is a
political act then it becomes impossible to make every single
child feel safe.
Mr. Raskin. OK. I am going to turn to Ms. Mace. Thank you
very much for that, Mr. Carver. And Ms. Mace, and then I think
we are going to close it out.
Ms. Mace. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a
few more questions for Ms. Gentles this afternoon.
In your opinion, is it school closures or is it classroom
content that has hurt students the most over the last two
years?
Ms. Gentles. Well to be clear, students entered into the
COVID era in a bad position. They were already possessing weak
math and reading skills, and those have only gotten worse
because of school closures. Obviously, a child cannot learn how
to read--a kindergartener, a first-grader cannot learn how to
read on Zoom, and that has really impacted their ability to
read, and that has really impacted their future. The school
closures have had a huge impact.
Ms. Mace. And then who do you believe is responsible, at
the end of the day, for school closures that happened all
across the country?
Ms. Gentles. Well, I think it is part of the popular
narrative to put the blame straight on Randi Weingarten, who is
the head of the American Federation for Teachers, and I worry
about that a little bit. She is absolutely a driving force, and
the teachers' unions are a driving force in school closures,
but there are a lot of people with responsibilities. The local
leaders, the school boards, the superintendents had the
responsibility to step up and recognize that children were not
doing well with their mental health and with their academic
achievement and that schools needed to be open.
Ms. Mace. And then in your opinion, interventions now, what
can we do now? What evidence-based interventions can we be
advocating for, that Congress should be addressing learning
loss and getting students back up? There are millions of kids
that are going to be lost and we are not going to be able to
get them back to where they need to be. But what, in your
opinion, are some of the interventions that we should or could
be doing now to make the environment better for learning for
students who have been so negatively impacted by COVID-19 and
being out of school?
Ms. Gentles. Well, I think that is where the good news is.
I mean, this hearing has been grim in a lot of ways. The school
closures have been dreadful, and clearly there is a mental
health crisis as well as an academic crisis in our country.
But the good news is that student-centered interventions
like high-dosage tutoring, where you have small groups or one-
on-one interacting with a tutor, a teacher, who is really
focused on that student's individual needs and getting them
caught up, that is a proven strategy to help students. And
states and districts have $190 billion to spend, of Federal
supplemental funding, on top of what they have already, and
they are having a lot of trouble spending it. So go ahead and
spend it on high-dosage tutoring.
A state like Tennessee is doing that. They have a statewide
tutoring corps, and I would love to see that happening in more
states and districts.
The problem is that some of the districts are having
trouble with their contracting. The Wall Street Journal
reported this week that the LA school district has not spent a
penny of its ARP funding. That was the biggest amount of
funding that was pushed out from Washington. Not one penny of
ARP funding that they have received, and some of that was
contracting issues. They had promised to do a tutoring program
and they have not even lined up the contracts yet.
Ms. Mace. Wow. Thank you. And I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. All right. Well, I think that no other members
have made it back in time. I understand that Mr. Donalds, while
we were gone noted some examples of the reasoning behind
banning of textbooks in Florida, and I just want to add a
little context to some of the documents he introduced in the
record.
A full 41 percent of Florida math textbooks were banned
because they contained critical race theory, which is
surprising, but only 3 of 125 textbook reviewers had actually
found poor alignment with even the critical race theory
guidelines. One of the reviewers was a college sophomore at
Hillsdale College, a conservative university in Michigan.
Another was a member of Moms For Liberty, which has been
driving the book bans across America.
So I want to introduce an article from the Tampa Bay Times,
``Florida Rejected Dozens of Math Textbooks But Only 3
Reviewers Found CRT Violations.'' I also want to introduce an
article from The New York Times, ``A Look Inside the Textbooks
that Florida Rejected.'' The book that was referenced was an
11th-grade pre-calculus elective textbook that is not the core
curriculum.
Mr. Raskin. Let's see. With that I want to thank all of our
witnesses for the day, for really superb testimony--Ms. Caldon,
Ms. Mengel, Ms. Ramani, Ms. Nossel, Dr. Whitfield, Mr. Carver,
Ms. Gentles, Ms. Cousins, and Professor Tim Snyder from Yale. I
want to thank all of you for really tremendous participation.
All of the members will have five days within which to
revise and edit their remarks and also to seek further
questions of the members. So if there are other questions that
are advanced I will forward them to you, and please get them
back to us as soon as you can.
And with that I want to thank you again for your excellent
participation, and our hearing is now adjourned, and I bid you
a good weekend.
[Whereupon, at 12:42 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]