EU votes for action over Hungary’s anti-LGBT law

2021/07/10 Leave a comment

Good. Now if Ottawa could show more political courage with respect to Quebec’s breaches of the constitution and charter:

The European Parliament has voted in favour of urgent legal action over Hungary’s new law banning the depiction of homosexuality to under-18s.

The new legislation breached “EU values, principles and law”, MEPs said.

The parliament added that the law was “another intentional and premeditated example of the gradual dismantling of fundamental rights in Hungary”.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban insists school policy is a matter for Hungary, not “Brussels bureaucrats”.

In a resolution passed on Thursday with 459 in favour, 147 against and 58 abstentions, MEPs said the latest developments in Hungary followed a broader pattern of political censorship.

The parliament urged the European Commission to use a new tool that allows the EU to reduce budget allocations to member states in breach of the rule of law, to ensure that the Hungarian government reverse the decision.

It also urged legal action against Hungary’s right-wing nationalist government at the European Court of Justice.

Critics say Hungary’s new law, which came into force on Thursday, equates homosexuality with paedophilia.

“This legislation uses the protection of children as an excuse to discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday, calling it “a disgrace”.

“Whatever they do, we will not allow [LGBT] activists into our children’s kindergartens and schools,” Prime Minister Orban responded.

What impact will the new law have?

The new rules introduced by Hungary focus on increasing punishment for convicted paedophiles, but an amendment was passed on 15 June banning the portrayal or promotion of homosexuality among under-18s.

While it could affect sex education and advertising, and even stop TV favourites such as Friends or Harry Potter being broadcast until late at night, there are also fears that vulnerable young people could be deprived of important support.

Teaching sex education in schools will be limited to people approved by the government.

It is not yet clear what the penalties for breaching the law will be.

What other rules has Hungary introduced?

Hungary has introduced a number of similar decisions since Prime Minister Orban took power in 2010.

In December 2020, parliament banned same-sex couples from adopting children.

Earlier the same year, the country passed a law preventing people from legally changing their gender.

Hungary also does not recognise gay marriage.

Mr Orban has been widely criticised in the EU, accused of curbing the rights of migrants and other minorities, politicising the courts and media, and tolerating anti-Semitism. He says he is defending Hungary’s Christian values in a Europe gripped by left-wing liberalism.

Source: EU votes for action over Hungary’s anti-LGBT law

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Palestinians start applying for citizenship under family unification laws

2021/07/10 Leave a comment

Of note. Creating ‘facts on the ground’ while the law has not been renewed:
Palestinians who are married to Israeli citizens but who have not been able to obtain Israeli citizenship or residency due to the Citizenship Law which the government failed to renew this week have begun filing requests for such standing with the Interior Ministry.
NGOs, including the Hamoked civil rights group, have begun filing requests for citizenship and residency on behalf of their clients, and are encouraging others to do so as well.
There are some 9,200 Palestinians married to Israeli Arab citizens who have the most basic “stay permits” allowing them to reside in the country but which have to be renewed every one or two years, and another 3,500 who due to special circumstances were able to obtain temporary residency visas.
They will all now be able to apply for citizenship, although since the Arab population of east Jerusalem generally shuns citizenship in favor of residency those with stay permits in the city will likely request residency visas.
Until now, the 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law prevented Palestinians who marry Israeli Arab citizens from obtaining citizenship through naturalization, as is available to other foreign national spouses of Israelis.
The law was passed on security grounds and later extended to Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis and Iranians who marry Israelis.
But the law has been criticized by human rights groups as discriminatory and on humanitarian grounds, and was opposed by coalition partners Ra’am and Meretz.
Although compromises were found, two Ra’am MKs abstained, while Yamina rebel MK Amichai Shikli voted against, and the law was toppled.
This means that those Palestinians married to Israeli citizens can now start the application process with the Interior Ministry for citizenship or residency like any other foreign national.
They will be able to apply first for a B1 visa, then an A5 temporary residency visa, and ultimately for citizenship if they do not live in east Jerusalem.
Jessica Montell, Executive Director of the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked, said that her organization represents approximately 400 families and that it has begun filing visa applications for them to the Interior Ministry.
In some families not just the spouse needs to obtain residency, the children do as well, she said.
Asked whether the ministry might hold up the processing of applications while the government ponders new steps, Montell insisted that the “Ministry doesn’t have right to drag its feet,” and that it had to “respect people’s rights.”
She said the standard response time for a request to a government authority is 45 days, and that if her clients did not receive responses in such time they would take the issue to court.
“The ministry cannot ignore these requests for a year in the hope a new law is passed,” said Montell.
“Israelis are just as safe as they were before the law expired. The authorities still have all the tools necessary to prevent dangerous people from entering the country, but without this law we will be a little bit more free and equal,” she said.
“Without this law, all Israeli citizens and residents have an equal right to fall in love and build a family, and that’s good news for these families and for everyone who cares about basic human rights.”
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has said however that she intends to bring the law back to the Knesset for a vote in the coming weeks in a fresh attempt to get it approved, meaning that the gateway to citizenship for such people may soon be closed.
Shaked has emphasized the security basis of the law, stating this week that the majority of terror attacks carried out by Arab Israeli citizens have been committed either by individuals who obtained some form of status in Israel through family reunification under the Citizenship Law, or by their offspring.
The Shin Bet said in 2018 that since 2001 some 155 individuals involved in terror activities obtained entry to Israel under family reunification laws.
But the law has also been justified to preserve Israel’s Jewish majority, something emphasized this week by Shaked, as well as  more centrist figures like Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and, a few weeks ago, Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

Source: Palestinians start applying for citizenship under family unification laws

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Ottawa plans to teach non-racialized Canadians about systemic racism in new campaign

2021/07/10 Leave a comment

Not sure it will reach the people it needs to reach but we shall see:

The federal government plans to launch a national ad campaign aimed at making more white Canadians knowledgeable about systemic racism.

Launching a public education and awareness campaign is part of the Liberal government’s anti-racism strategy.

That strategy says $3.3 million will be spent on a marketing effort.

Details of what Canadian Heritage is looking for in such a campaign, set to launch later this year, are included in documents posted on the government’s procurement website.

The department says its target audience is “non-racialized Canadian middle-aged adults”  — defined as between 30 and 44 years old — living in any rural or urban area.

It specifically points out that includes adults living in places such as Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Quebec, considered to be “racism hot spots” because of the high volume of police-reported hate crimes.

According to the documents, the government wants its audience to be taught about “implicit bias,” and for the campaign to “weave together an emotionally compelling narrative of contemporary Canadian identity and values as antithetical to racism.”

The department says the overall goal is to get more Canadians fighting against systemic racism by making them aware of its impacts through marketing, social media, posters and public engagement.

It notes the campaign should also look at ways to “engage relevant influencers.”

“In this COVID-19 context, Canadians are face-to-face with a unique opportunity to reimagine the social contract … in ways that place anti-racism, equity, reconciliation and human rights at the heart of the recovery process,” the documents say.

The department cites how data shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous, Black, Asian, Muslim and Jewish communities faced more discrimination and hate crimes.

The issue of systemic racism was brought to the forefront in May 2020 after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, by former police officer Derek Chauvin.

His death sparked protests and rallies across Canada calling out racism in this country too.

More recently, the country has been seized by the pain and legacy of the residential school system after First Nations, using ground-penetrating radar, started discovering hundreds of unmarked graves at former school sites where they say Indigenous children were buried.

Source: Ottawa plans to teach non-racialized Canadians about systemic racism in new campaign

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America’s White Christian Plurality Has Stopped Shrinking, A New Study Finds

2021/07/09 Leave a comment

Of interest. Looking forward to the Canadian 2021 census which includes a religious affiliation question:

Two dramatic trends that for years have defined the shifting landscape of religion in America — a shrinking white Christian majority, alongside the rise of religiously unaffiliated Americans — have stabilized, according to a new, massive survey of American religious practice.

What was once a supermajority of white Christians — more than 80% of Americans identified as such in 1976, and two-thirds in 1996 — has now plateaued at about 44%, according to the new survey, which was conducted by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute. That number first dipped below 50% in 2012.

They have largely been replaced by Americans who do not list any religious affiliation, a group that has tripled in proportion since the 1990s. Today, the unaffiliated make up roughly a quarter of Americans. Young adults are most likely to identify this way, with more than a third saying they are atheist, agnostic or otherwise secular, the study found.

“These things tend to be generational. And this really began with the millennial generation,” says Robert P. Jones, CEO and Founder of PRRI and author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.

White evangelicals began aligning politically with Republicans during the 1980s, meaning millennials were the first generation to grow up seeing the Christian right as the most public expression of religion, Jones says.

“And it was a partisan group, very conservative, and they had commitments, like anti-gay commitments, that really ran against the values of that generation,” Jones says.

The survey is called The 2020 Census of American Religion. It is not related to the official U.S. Census, which has not asked about religious affiliation since the 1950s, a policy that stems from concerns about the separation of church and state.

With that absence of large-scale Census-style data, researchers at PRRI set out to create an ambitious report on the state of religion in the U.S. Over the course of seven years, they conducted nearly 500,000 phone interviews, asking not just about religion, but also age, race and ethnicity, geography, and political preference.

“It really does help us understand some of the cultural engines that drive our politics and can really help us understand, I think, the divisions really that the country is facing today,” Jones says.

On the Republican side, the preferences of white evangelicals loom large, even as the overall number of white evangelicals in America continues to decline. Though they make up just 14% of Americans overall, they remain the largest single religious group among Republican voters with the power to sway party priorities — which this year have included anti-abortion bills and policies restricting healthcare and sports access for transgender people.

“If you look at [the white evangelical] presence in the national religious landscape, it’s actually quite diminished from what it was even 10 years ago,” says Jones. “I think it’s still surprising to many Americans because of how visible this population has been, particularly during the Trump administration.”

By contrast, Democrats are a more religiously diverse group, with significant numbers of religiously unaffiliated people and non-white Christians — including Black Protestants, Latino Protestants, and Latino Catholics — along with more Jews, Muslims, and other minority religions. White Catholics, like President Joe Biden, comprise just 13% of Democrats.

The survey also marks the most ambitious geographic mapping of religious practices in decades, its authors say, in large part because the U.S. Census has not collected wide-scale religious affiliation data since the 1950s.

The findings show that historical forces — like slavery in the South, the Civil War dividing white Protestants, and 19th century immigration patterns — continue to shape the geography of American religion, Jones says.

The country’s most religiously diverse counties are in major coastal metropolitan areas, along with Arizona’s Navajo County, which encompasses several Native American reservations, and Maui County in Hawaii. Of the ten least diverse counties with at least 10,000 people, eight are in Mississippi.

Source: America’s White Christian Plurality Has Stopped Shrinking, A New Study Finds

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Mesley: I made mistakes. But my departure wasn’t the solution to the CBC’s problem with racism

2021/07/09 Leave a comment

Context matters, as was the case of the UofOttawa professor (University of Ottawa professor at centre of controversy …https://www.theglobeandmail.com › canada › article-un…):

For almost 40 years, my name had a prefix: I was “the CBC’s Wendy Mesley.” And all that time I never wanted to be seen as an enemy of change. I’ve always tried to give voice to those who aren’t being heard; I’ve fought against the status quo my whole life. It’s why I got into journalism.

When I started out, there were few women in senior journalism roles. I was the first woman to cover the prime minister in CBC TV’s parliamentary bureau. Other women soon joined me. We fought for changes in coverage, and it happened because we saw things differently than men. It was the age of second-wave feminism, and we were told we could do anything. But women (and men) of colour did not receive the same openings, which meant many of their stories weren’t told and many of their insights weren’t considered. Today, change is happening, and I think much of it is good.

None of that matters now. I hurt people I never meant to. After a scandal last year, my prefix is now gone, the split with the CBC is official, and I have retired. The company gets a rebrand, and I go away.

But first, I’d like to do something I wish I’d been able to do long ago: Tell my side of the story, and finally talk about the two worst mistakes I made in my long and generally happy career.

After George Floyd’s murder last May, a Black CBC reporter tweeted that she had repeatedly been called the N-word. I was furious. I wanted to put her on the air to discuss that, and said so in a conference call with producers for The Weekly with Wendy Mesley.

During our discussion, I was so upset over what our colleague experienced that I stupidly filled in the N-word. Why? I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times, and I have no good answer. I was mad that she faced this kind of abuse. I can be very blunt. And I didn’t understand how any use of that word could hurt, regardless of its context. It was thoughtless and wrong.

One of the producers of the show was Black; another was of Asian descent. They went silent on the call. I was horrified I had hurt them and apologized, but the damage was done. I was told that bosses would be informed, and that there would be an investigation.

That would unearth an incident from months before while preparing another show on racism focusing on Quebec’s controversial Bill 21, which banned head coverings. After reflecting on the years I spent as a reporter in Montreal and Quebec City, I tried to make the point in an editorial meeting that many francophone Quebeckers feel like an endangered minority within Canada, and that they are victims of prejudice. I argued that this left less room for them to understand others, particularly people who weren’t like them. To make my point, I referenced the seminal 1968 book Nègres blancs d’Amérique, a Marxist analysis by the Francophone writer Pierre Vallières.

Again, I filled in the blank by saying the English title. To be honest, it didn’t occur to me to say “White N-words of America,” which is how the title appears in the translated English publication, except with the second word in the title fully explicit and uncensored.

All of this was leaked to the press. A storyteller became the story – even worse, I became a scandal.

The CBC suspended me. At one point, I thought I was going to be fired. Instead, I was punished and also ordered to take sensitivity training. The details of the investigation, I was told, were to be kept confidential. Eventually, I would be allowed to make a statement that would be vetted by my employers. It was made clear to me that the CBC would look after the story – and me.

Trusting them was my second big mistake.

The CBC did not offer me any public support. And I did not defend myself because I just wanted to return to work. In the midst of last year’s racial reckoning, I also felt it would have been wrong for me to play the victim card.

But my silence backfired as players on all sides used me as a cudgel to advance political interests. While some journalists offered public support, my most vocal defenders were free-speech warriors who wanted to make me a cautionary tale about the dangers of cancel culture. That distinction horrified me, because I’ve fought to cancel injustice my whole life. I resented being made a poster child of a movement I wasn’t part of.

I also believed my punishment would be proportionate, because people would come to understand there’s a difference between a reporter repeating a hateful remark with colleagues while in pursuit of a story, and a gleeful racist trying to draw blood.

I was wrong about that too.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and narratives can be filled in on blank slates. People assumed I’d been let go or retired in shame, and that because I had disappeared and not defended myself, the situation must have been even worse than it was.

And I believe the CBC had an agenda too: using me to distract or absolve themselves from their own underlying problems. A month after the murder of Mr. Floyd, as protests by Black Lives Matter activists swept across Canada, almost 500 current and former employees sent a letter to management “urging them to take action to dismantle systemic racism in the corporation.”

“The journalistic failures in the CBC’s coverage of this historic moment are the direct result of whose voices and experiences drive decision-making at the CBC,” the letter read. “The problem lies with white editors who dismiss pitches from non-white journalists as ‘biased’ or ‘unimportant’ because they might not appeal to a white audience.”

When the CBC’s licence came up for renewal at the CRTC that June, president Catherine Tait told the hearings: “We recognize that systemic racism exists in Canada and within many of its institutions, including its national public broadcaster. We are committed to combatting racism in all its forms.”

But I soon learned there had been at least three other cases at the network involving shows in which the N-word was allegedly used in meetings. While one was reported, the other cases seem to have disappeared internally – the broader questions of systemic racism swept under the rug – until I became a convenient device for cleaning up their brand. Even the corporation’s own ombudsperson concluded that it was “disappointing” that the network’s ensuing coverage of my actions “did not offer a wider variety of perspectives.”

After the cancellation of my show, I was offered another role that I saw as unreasonable. I asked whether we could find a mutually agreeable departure and was told that any such arrangement would require that I not discuss events of the last year. As a journalist who put a lot of people on the spot, and who hated being told “no comment,” that was never gonna happen.

I remain angry. I’m angry at myself for hurting people. I’m angry at the CBC for abandoning me because of two moments, instead of judging me by my whole career. I understand the mistake I made was serious and invited repercussions, but I also submit that using a particular situation to advance broader agendas is divisive and wrong.

I know it’s easier to say this as a white person, but I have long argued for journalistic objectivity, which is seen by some, reasonably, as reinforcing the status quo. But it doesn’t have to. Journalism should just be a search for the truth – all truths.

In 2005, when I had cancer, I saw a story I thought needed telling. I did a documentary about how I thought “big pharma” and cancer agencies weren’t doing enough to stop the spread of the disease. You could argue I was opinionated and not objective. I faced some criticism, but I was never accused of bias by my bosses. I think we need to listen to the accounts of Black and Indigenous journalists and other journalists of colour when they report being accused of bias for challenging the status quo.

I’m sad about how this has all played out. It’s certainly not how I’d hoped to bring down the curtain on my CBC career. But after a year of reflection and a whole range of emotions, I’m left feeling mostly disappointed, because this could have been handled so differently. It could have been a more productive process, in which the CBC used the moment to help foster greater dialogue about a difficult topic. Instead, it was all about blame, shame and regret. Had things gone differently, maybe my last story at the CBC could have been as meaningful as all the stories I’d told in the past 38 years.

Source: I made mistakes. But my departure wasn’t the solution to the CBC’s problem with racism

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Bill S-230: It’s Time to Restore Citizenship to “Lost” Canadians. Limited numbers although rhetoric continues

2021/07/09 Leave a comment

This issue continues to attract more political support than is warranted given that the major issues were dealt with in citizenship legislation in 2009 and 2014.

The Bill concerns a small cohort of second-generation Canadians born inside a 50-month window, from February 15, 1977, through April 16, 1981, so those who had already turned 28 when that age 28 rule was repealed through Bill C-37. 

Despite all the earlier and current rhetoric regarding the large numbers affected, IRCC officials advised SOCI of the numbers:

  • Following the 2009 changes, about 17,500 applied and were granted citizenship;
  • Following the 2015 changes, about 600 applied and were granted citizenship;
  • Since 2014, there were 109 persons who applied for a discretionary grant to address particular hardship situations. 105 have been granted with four still under review;
  • Estimates of remaining cases are in the order of a few hundred.

Substantively, given the small number remaining in the window, discretionary grants are the appropriate response. What is clear from the numbers, is that the actual number of “Lost Canadians” who wish to claim Canadian citizenship is small, contrary to earlier and current claims.

It is unclear why Senators wish to pursue this when there are many more substantive citizenship issues that warrant attention.

The contrast between these small numbers and the inflammatory, often fact-free and exaggerated rhetoric of long-term advocate Don Chapman in his opening statement and subsequent comments is striking. Opening statement below gives the flavour (highlights some of the more egregious assertions):

Don Chapman, Head, Lost Canadians: Thank you, honourable senators. I’m honoured to be in the presence of all of you. I admire your social and moral engagement in serving Canada to make it a better and more inclusive country. We’re on common ground.

Bill S-230 is a continuation of recommendations the Senate made 13 years ago.

Senators, Lost Canadians is the Canadian version of the British Windrush scandal, except ours is mostly off the radar, far larger, affects way more people and is one of the biggest scandals in Canada’s history. Now, that probably sounds presumptuous, especially after the horrific discovery of the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children. To explain why I make the comparison, those children, including all Indigenous people, are part of the Lost Canadian narrative. There are at least 15 categories of Lost Canadians, and Indigenous and First Nations are just one. But their story is our story and our story is their story. It’s about a country that has and continues to turn against its own people. Since Confederation, Canada has not always embraced Brown or Jewish people or other subgroups. Canadian history was written to conveniently include a colossal fabrication, which has produced heinous results. To know the truth, you must understand the history of citizenship.

Senators, you and the MPs are the guardians and caretakers of our collective identity called citizenship. You’re our parents, we’re your children and the family’s dysfunctional. Picture a neighbour befriending kids from all around but then secretly abusing their own children. That’s how it is for Lost Canadians. Canada welcomes people from around the world, but not us, your own children. To be clear, we’re pro-immigration; Canada needs people. But why are long-standing Canadian families rejected while immigrants are welcome? Why can’t there be room for everyone?

In 2003, in my first House of Commons Citizenship and Immigration Committee testimony, I described myself as a Canadian in exile. Years later and after numerous rejections, I actually considered declaring refugee status in my own country, and I wasn’t the only Lost Canadian so desperate. Regrettably, this horror show is ongoing. It’s about identity, belonging and culture.

Indigenous Canadians are proud of who they are. I’m proud of who they are and admire their perseverance in standing up for what is right. Canada wrongly tried to strip them of their identity, with deadly consequences. Be forewarned: They are not the only category of Lost Canadians who died due to the neglect.

Now think of citizenship as being a member of a family. It’s the fibre of your being. How would you feel if your parents booted you out? Picture a six-year-old, born in Canada and extremely proud of being Canadian. Psychologically, how is that child affected when they discover that their own country or family doesn’t want them anymore? That child was me. How deplorable that this is still happening to other children, with the obvious devastating results. Their hurt lasts a lifetime.

Now flip the coin. How does it feel being the Canadian parent of a minor child being rejected? I know this too because, as an adult, after 47 years, Canada finally said I could go home with citizenship, but on condition I leave behind my minor-aged daughters. Today, some Canadian citizen parents are in the same boat, forced to explain to their kids why Canada doesn’t want them.

Lost Canadians is not about immigration. It’s about citizenship and rights. Please make the distinction.

Also, senators and MPs are appointed or elected to represent Canadian citizens. The problem is you don’t really know who is or is not a citizen, yet citizens are your constituents. So who exactly do you represent? The legislation remains a Rubik’s cube of confusion. Maybe it’s you, a family member, a grandchild or someone you know that’s a Lost Canadian. Roméo Dallaire lost his citizenship, as have other parliamentarians.

Question: If you’ve been aware of ongoing Lost Canadian abuses, why were you silent? Personally, I don’t think you were fully aware, but it wasn’t for my lack of trying to tell you. Going forward, no excuses, you now know. As for citizenship, Canada, the country you represent, is violating three United Nations human rights conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it’s already broken promises made on gender equality at the recent G7 summit. Maybe that’s because citizenship is not and has not been Canada’s priority. Take the name, IRCC. Immigration and refugees come before citizenship, the latter being the bastard child. For Lost Canadians, Canada’s outcasts, that’s exactly how it feels.

Bill S-230 is a much-needed fix. Thank you to my good friend Senator Martin and to Senator Omidvar. But for importance, the age 28 rule is third in priority of the five remaining Lost Canadian deficiencies. For the complete fix, Bill S-230 would need amendments that I’ve included, and the fixes are relatively simple. But absent that, tiered citizenship and unequal rights remain. Are you okay with that? It’s certainly against the Charter. That said, if amendments would delay the passage of this bill, then please pass it as is. Just don’t ignore other desperate Lost Canadians still in limbo, like children. As an airline pilot, I’d never ditch in the Hudson River and knowingly leave people behind. As overseers and protectors of Canadians and their identity and citizenship, please don’t you leave anyone behind either.

With urgency, put forward another Lost Canadians bill so that women have equal rights; that all Canadians are able to prove their substantial connection; that naturalized Canadians don’t have more rights than other Canadian citizens. Make it so that every naturalized Canadian, not just 99% of them, be deemed to have been born in Canada so that they too can confer citizenship to their children. Canada’s war dead must be recognized as having been the Canadian citizens they were.

After that, together, let’s work on introducing a mint-fresh, inclusive and Charter-compliant Citizenship Act. That’s what this committee recommended 13 years ago in your report on Lost Canadians, and then you promptly forgot about it, just like Canada did with the age 28 rule.

Now there are MPs and Canadians who believe the Senate is irrelevant. They’re wrong. For me and the hundreds of thousands of other Lost Canadians, we regained or qualified for citizenship because of wonderful and compassionate senators like yourselves, from all sides of the aisle. You were our saviours as Bill S-2 was our first parliamentary victory, and it was unanimous. Now let’s do it again, in the Senate today, with Bill S-230. Make it the first bill to correct these egregious wrongs, and then introduce a brand new, Charter-compliant national identity, making Canada the beacon of light to the world for its vision, its inclusiveness, its values and for its positive actions on human rights and equality.

Honourable senators, citizenship could be one of your greatest legacies. I look forward to working with you, and thank you.

Source: https://sencanada.ca/en/Content/Sen/Committee/432/SOCI/55289-e

And the earlier statement in the Senate by Senator Omidvar

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-230, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (granting citizenship to certain Canadians), introduced by our colleague Senator Martin.

Before I comment on this bill, I would like to mark June 1 as a transformational day in the Senate. We have passed Bill S-4. We have held on to tradition where we have needed to, but we have also gone with confidence into the future. I want to thank our colleague, Senator Marc Gold, for his dedication to bringing this to our chamber.

I am the official critic for Bill S-230. I always think of a critic as someone who has something to object to. In truth, there is very little to object to in this bill, so I stand very much as a supporter of this long overdue piece of legislation.

When I became a senator in 2016, I started to get emails from Canadians who knew of my interest in citizenship. I heard the term Lost Canadians for the first time. I have to be honest, I was, frankly, lost when I heard that terminology because those of us who have found Canada know what a privilege it is to be Canadian. To have inadvertently lost your citizenship — because of what I can best describe as bureaucratic missteps and fumbling and lost opportunities — is unimaginable to me.

In June 2016, I rose in the chamber as the sponsor of the citizenship bill, Bill C-6, and I drew a picture of Canada and its citizenship as a house with a strong roof, a strong door, a lot of windows to let the sunshine in, but also to keep danger out. I believe that metaphor still stands today, but the foundations of this house are grounded in a few principles.

First and most important is equality amongst citizens. Equality sees all Canadians — by birth or naturalization, mono-citizens or dual citizens, whether citizens of 50 years, 10 years or 1 month — treated equally under the law. Equal rights, equal responsibility and, when necessary, equal punishment. These are not aspirational goals. This is the floor; the absolute foundation of how equality is expressed in Canada.

Second is the principle of facilitating citizenship, making it accessible for those who qualify. I think of this again as the main family room of the house: a big fire blazing to keep out the wretched cold and a big, welcoming door. However, for a few Canadians, the fire has lost its warmth, and they were inadvertently expelled, banished, so to say, from this house.

Many have lived in Canada for years, as Senator Martin has pointed out, without even realizing they may not have Canadian citizenship any longer. Although legislative fixes have tried to bring citizenship back in different ways, it has never captured everyone. This is a true example of the unintended, negative impact of legislation that we deal with in so many different ways.

When I rose to speak on Bill C-6, which was an omnibus citizenship act, former senator Willie Moore, who was with us, asked me whether or not Lost Canadians would be brought back into the fold. Sadly, I had to say to him, no, that was out of the scope of the bill.

After Bill C-6 was passed, former Senator Eggleton took it on and was almost ready to table the bill when his resignation date approached. Again, the bill was left orphaned, in a way. Since that time, Don Chapman and others have been talking to Senator Martin, Senator Jaffer and all of us to try to bring this back to our attention. I am incredibly grateful to Senator Martin for taking this bull by the horns and bringing our attention to it.

As we know, and as Senator Martin has explained, our immigration system is incredibly complex. Immigration law is complex. Within immigration law, there is citizenship law that is incredibly complex. It sometimes catches people in a net from which it is hard to escape.

As Senator Martin has explained, it’s a narrow bill. In 1977, the government introduced a new Citizenship Act. Under that act, children born abroad on or after February 14, 1977, received their Canadian citizenship if one of their parents was a Canadian citizen, regardless of their marital status.

However, if that Canadian parent was born outside Canada and, therefore, the child was what we would call second generation, the child had to apply for citizenship by the age of 28. If they did not put an application by age 28, their citizenship was taken away from them, often without them ever realizing it.

Later, in April 2009 — many years later, still trying to catch up on the problem — Bill C-37 changed the Citizenship Act again and repealed the age 28 rule. However, the bill didn’t completely deal with Canadians who were born abroad between that narrow window of 1977 and 1981, and who turned 28 before Bill C-37 became the law. Some of these individuals were well informed enough and applied for their citizenship. Others simply fell in between the cracks.

Senator Dalphond asked the question, how many are these? I’m also curious. My information is that there are definitely not thousands. There may even be just a few hundred. But I hope we all recognize, even for just a few hundred, how important it is to be able to be franchised as Canadians.

Many who were born overseas but raised in Canada had an entrenched life in Canada. They went to school here; they have jobs and families here. Their roots are firmly here. They have paid income taxes. But they were unaware of the issue — just as I’m often unaware of when my driver’s licence expires, and then I have to really struggle to regain it — which certainly happens to people. We are talking, as I said, about a few hundred people, at most.

The government relies, as Senator Martin has stated, on ministerial appointments. Every time I’ve spoken to every successive immigration minister, they have said, “It’s not a problem. I can deal with it. Send me the file.” But, colleagues, that is not a systemic way of dealing with an injustice of this kind. We need a law. Even though Byrdie Funk — someone whom I admire a great deal — and Anneliese Demos — the same — even though they had the agency, the voice, the capacity to advocate for themselves, I worry about those who do not, who cannot get the minister’s attention or that of his department. I think it is time for us to fix this in a systemic manner.

There are severe consequences for having to wait to get formal recognition back. While waiting to get your citizenship, you can’t have a social insurance number. You may not be able to get a job. You may not be able to travel. Likely you’re not able to travel because you don’t have a passport. You have limited access to health care. All this at the same time when there is always the threat of deportation hanging over you.

In the case of Byrdie Funk, it is not clear whether all her years of contribution to the Canada Pension Plan will be honoured when she gets her pension.

Bill S-230 will allow citizens who were born abroad and have built a life here to prove that they are Canadian and that they have the right to pass citizenship onto their children. It will not lead to a perpetual passage of Canadian citizenship to generations who may never live in Canada. This does nothing for third-generation Canadians.

Honourable senators, I urge you, in short, to support this bill and send it to committee for further study. Lost Canadians have already waited too long. Let’s bring them back into the Canadian fold sooner than rather later. Thank you.

Source: https://www.ratnaomidvar.ca/speech-on-bill-s230-its-time-to-restore-citizenship-to-lost-canadians-2/


Filed under Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

Racism harms workplace relationships in Canada, CEOs expected to take action: Survey

2021/07/08 Leave a comment

Interesting survey by Edelman, even if online:

Racism is harming workplace dynamics in Canada, with nearly 80 per cent of Black Canadians saying racism has damaged their relationship with their employer, according to new research released Tuesday.

That’s nearly double the reported response from the general population and is followed closely by South Asian employees, with nearly two-thirds also reporting that workplace racism has damaged their employer relationship.

The findings, included in the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Business and Racial Justice in Canada, are based on an online survey of more than 2,000 Canadians.

The research found racism is a growing concern in Canada, but only one in three people surveyed said the country has made progress tackling racism in the past year.

More than 60 per cent of people said the biggest challenge in solving racial injustice is changing the attitudes of people who are racist, while nearly 40 per cent said the biggest challenge is changing systems that are racist.

Meanwhile, the research found the vast majority of Canadians expect CEOs to take some form of action to address racism and racial injustice.

It also found that brands and corporations that take a stand against racism are far more likely to gain consumer trust than lose it.

Still, over half the people surveyed said brands and companies that issue a statement in support of racial equality need to follow it up with concrete action to avoid being seen by consumers as exploitative or as opportunistic.

Actions that improved a company’s reputation included replacing a racist logo, jingle or product name with one that is non-racist and creating a nationwide campaign to raise awareness regarding systemic racism.

Nearly a third of Canadians said they have started or stopped using a brand in the past year because of its response to protests against systemic racism and calls for racial justice.

Edelman said the survey includes an oversample of racialized people, with a special focus on Indigenous Peoples.

According to the polling industry’s generally accepted standards, online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

Source: Racism harms workplace relationships in Canada, CEOs expected to take action: Survey

Filed under Multiculturalism, Racism Tagged with , ,

Cancellation puts spotlight on Malaysia’s cultural conservatism

2021/07/08 Leave a comment

Of interest:

When his online talk on how multicultural performing arts should transcend race was cancelled in early June by the Islamic centre of a prominent Malaysian university, Ramli Ibrahim, was both puzzled and angered.

An official statement by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), one of the country’s most highly regarded public universities, said that “the organisers have been instructed by the university’s Islamic centre to cancel the programme over undisclosed reasons.”

Ramli, the celebrated artistic director of the Kuala Lumpur-based Sutra Dance Theatre, who is a Malay Muslim and globally renowned for his choreography of Indian classical dance, notably the Odissi style, went online to call UTM’s Islamic centre “narrow-minded” and “bigoted”. The centre did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about the cancellation.

“We have sanctioned extreme religious indoctrination to infiltrate our education system,” Ramli told Al Jazeera in an interview. “The latter is the axis mundi of cultivating the kind of citizenry we will eventually produce.”

Ramli’s case is the latest episode in a long-running national debate on the state of the arts in Malaysia and underlines the continuing role of Islamic conservatism in policing and shaping the nation’s cultural identity and practices. Most of Malaysia’s population is ethnic Malay Muslim, but there are also large communities of ethnic Chinese and Indians, as well as Indigenous peoples, especially in the states of Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Borneo.

“We have produced a generation with a rather skewed and narrow world view. Unfortunately, these are the same people who run the country,” Ramli said.

Going against the grain

Ramli’s experience is a reminder that in Malaysia it is not just political artists like Fahmi Reza and Zunar, or the budaya kuning (“yellow culture”, meaning Western culture) of banned foreign films and censored international pop and rock acts that come onto the authorities’ radar. Even traditional, but non-Islamic, art forms like Ramli’s Odissi Indian dance are at risk of being sanctioned by conservatives.

The current state of affairs has roots going back several decades.

In 1970, the government unveiled a National Culture Policy following a violent and racialised political crisis the previous year, which aimed to establish what was claimed to be a new basis for “national unity” in the multiethnic and multireligious nation.

The result was a national culture based largely on the traditions of the Malay majority, with Islam as an important component.

By the 1990s, the identity focus of the NCP started to wane as the country faced new and more pressing challenges in keeping up with globalisation. But as Ramli’s recent case illustrates, the core of the policy continues to inform mainstream cultural decisions.

“Cultural elements of the Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Westerners and others, which are considered suitable and acceptable are included in the national culture,” read a 2019 document explaining the National Culture Policy on the website of the Prime Minister’s Office.

It noted that “acceptance” depended not only on provisions within the Constitution, but other issues including “national interest, moral value and the position of Islam as the official religion of the country”.

Experts said the approach is stifling Malaysia’s cultural traditions.“The attempts to control and manipulate the arts have not only stifled the creativity of all arts practitioners but will lead to the demise of our local traditions,” said Tan Sooi Beng, a professor of ethnomusicology at Universiti Sains Malaysia’s School of Arts in Penang, and an advocate of the sustainability of local traditions through community-engaged research.

Tan points to laws like the Printing Presses and Publications Act, which allows the government to ban cassettes, videos and books that are not approved by the official censors; and the Police Act, under which applications for police permits have to be made to hold public gatherings, including performances of theatre, music and dance.

Ramli, who founded the Sutra dance company in 1983 after returning from Australia, has seen Islam in Malaysia grow more conservative in the years since he returned home.

While his company’s productions have been popular with local and international audiences and achieved considerable critical acclaim, his artistic ethos, drawing on a rich tapestry of cultural elements, has faced a constant struggle with the religious censors.

“There had been initial official opposition to my performances up to the mid-1990s, even before the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia (Jakim) was formed. And there was an unstated understanding among organisers that my performances would be considered ‘controversial’ due to the reference of a Muslim performing Hindu ‘temple dance’,” he said. Jakim is part of the Prime Minister’s Office and responsible for Islamic affairs.

Concerns seemed to have settled in the past decade when Ramli started receiving considerable support in India and stopped being seen as, in his own words, “an aberration”, among Malay cultural gatekeepers. But he also notes that getting major government sponsorship for taking his dynamic and innovative Indian classical dance company abroad remains difficult.

Cultural desertification

The cultural traditions of Malaysia’s Malay majority have also come under pressure from government regulation.

Age-old dance-drama performances such as mak yong, main puteri and kuda kepang, and the shadow puppet theatre, wayang kulit – the foremost examples of traditional Malay culture – were officially banned in 1998 for being “un-Islamic” under the entertainment laws passed in the northeastern state of Kelantan, which has been controlled by Malaysia’s Islamic Party for 30 years. Kuda kepang, with its trance elements and mysticism, has also been the subject of a religious decree in southern Johor state since 2009.

Traditional Malay arts have been around for well more than a millennium, originating in the pre-Islamic era, during the time of the regional Srivijaya Empire. And as with similar traditions in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos or the Indonesian island of Java, the Malaysian versions are at their heart local adaptations of stories and characters from the Hindu epic Ramayana.

Mak yong – performed in Kelantan for centuries – has been particularly targeted by Islamic conservatives for having female performers who also interpret male roles. According to their interpretations of Islam, female performers, and cross-dressing especially, are shunned.

“The rituals, the costumes for the women, the content and stories that contain the key to understanding the female energy in Malay traditional healing practices have all been affected for a long time, since we gave up the power of the art itself to the control of men,” said Aida Redza, a Malay choreographer and performer whose original and modern productions are lauded abroad yet struggle to find spaces at home.

Declared a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005, mak yong’s ban was finally lifted in late 2019 thanks to pressure from the UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Karima Bennoune, who campaigned against the deliberate stifling of the tradition. Even so, mak yong performances can only proceed if they adhere to Islamic law-compliant requirements that experts said fundamentally alter their original style and symbolic significance.

“The ban on mak yong was cosmetically lifted, but it makes the form unrecognisable from its origins – only men are permitted to perform roles that are ritually and traditionally performed by women. You cannot get further from the roots of mak yong than that,” said Eddin Khoo, a writer and founder of PUSAKA, a Kuala Lumpur-based cultural organisation involved in the ritual arts of Malaysia.

Khoo also emphasises that, regardless of bans, mak yong has survived among traditional grassroots communities as a form of resistance to “cultural cleansing”.

“Mak yong is a Muslim art form,” emphasised Khoo, who pointed out that many pre-Islamic art forms have developed with Islam across the centuries. “That process is part of the evolution of the Islamic faith itself in Malaysia and throughout much of Southeast Asia. This struggle is not about art or culture or religion – it is a struggle about power: who has the power to condition the minds, attitudes and behaviours of a particular community.”

Navigating restrictions

Bans and restrictions translate into a gridlocked system in which government-run arts agencies also act as filters and censors, reminding the artists of what is permitted – and what is not – in order to issue licences to perform.

“There is a strong subtext of strict religious values in the procurement of permits which lean more towards austere Sunni Islam,” Ramli told Al Jazeera. “The ‘thou shall not’ dictums censor and shackle most institutions, not just in education, but also literature, film, music, food and beverage, attire, and so on.”

One recent example is the film, The Story of Southern Islet, by Chong Keat Aun, which was nominated for four awards at Taipei’s high-profile Golden Horse Awards last November nominations and won for Best New Director. Set in Kedah state near the Thai border and based on the filmmaker’s childhood memories, the film tells of a woman’s dream-like spiritual journey to heal her husband, who has fallen mysteriously ill to what he believes is a supernatural curse.

Regardless of international acclaim, the film was subjected to a dozen cuts by the Malaysian censorship board, all related to elements of ancient pre-Islamic rituals, including wayang kulit gedet – a form of shadow play typical of the northern state which was very popular in the 1980s. Today, only two wayang kulit troupes remain.

Wayang kulit – perhaps the most popular form of traditional entertainment in both Malaysia and parts of Indonesia and once used as way to share news and gossip among villagers – was also banned in 1998 because its origins hark back to pre-Islamic traditions. Before COVID-19 halted performances altogether, wayang kulit had already been reduced to a shell of its former self, staged only in selected locations and during weddings and opening ceremonies.

“The cancellation of a high-profile artist like Ramli Ibrahim is very unwise: if the organisers thought he’d be unsuitable, then don’t invite him in the first place,” said Tintoy Chuo, the founder and primary concept creator for Fusion Wayang Kulit, a Kuala Lumpur-based group that has helped revive Kelantanese wayang kulit by fusing it with modern elements.Their Peperangan BintangWayang Kulit updated the tradition using characters from the Star Wars saga and DC Comics’ superheroes like Batman and Wonder Woman. This made the art form more appealing to today’s multiethnic urban audiences – some of whom might never have bothered with a traditional performance – while side-stepping the thematic restrictions.

“Whatever happened to this land before Islam is history, and everything should be accepted as a historical background we cannot change,” Chuo said. “Look at our neighbouring countries and wonder how they are doing arts so well? Because they understand the separation between religion and art, and they respect that.”

For Ramli, the challenge is to transform Malaysia’s majority cultural identity – Malay Muslim, or Melayu in the Malay language – into a more encompassing, updated worldview.

“I wouldn’t dare to define what a ‘sustainable Melayu’ should be, but suffice to say that I prefer my Melayu not to wear his religion like an albatross around his neck,” he said.

Ramli was introduced to Bharatanatyam classical Indian dance while studying in Melbourne in the 1970s.

He joined the newly formed Sydney Dance Company in 1977, and was then introduced to the Odissi style, which he perfected under the guidance of Guru Debaprasad Das in Odisha, continuing to visit the late master until his death in 1986.

“He doesn’t have to justify himself all his life that he is a Melayu … my Melayu doesn’t have to be so ‘pure’ in his pedigree and is confident that he is Melayu regardless of what he does and importantly, proud to be a Malaysian first.”

Source: Cancellation puts spotlight on Malaysia’s cultural conservatism

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with ,

#COVID-19: Comparing provinces with other countries 6 July Update, Economist Normality Index

2021/07/08 Leave a comment

The latest charts, compiled 6 July as overall rates in Canada continue to decline along with increased vaccinations (still largely first dose, Canadians fully vaccinated 36.6 percent, comparable to or higher than most EU countries). Steep upward trend as per Globe chart below suggests gap between USA and UK fully-vaccinated will continue to narrow.

Vaccinations: All Canadian provinces ahead of USA, China now ahead of Germany and other EU countries.

Trendline charts

Infections: No significant change

Deaths: No significant change.

Vaccinations: Captured above.

Weekly

Infections: No relative change.

Deaths per million: No significant change.

Interesting integration of various data sources to develop a normality index (Canada is 63.4, slightly below the number for all countries, ranking 35, just ahead of UK):

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 many have wondered when the world will return to “normal”. But whether things will ever go back to the way they were is unclear: remote working looks set to continue, for example, and going to the movies may never be as popular as it used to be. 

The Economist has devised a “normalcy index” to track how behaviour has changed, and continues to change, because of the pandemic. Our index comprises eight indicators, split into three domains. The first grouping is transport and travel: public transport in big cities; the amount of traffic congestion in those same cities; and the number of international and domestic flights. The second looks at recreation and entertainment: how much time is spent outside the home; cinema box-office revenues (a proxy measure for cinema attendance); and attendance at professional sports events. The third is retailing and work: footfall in shops; and occupancy of offices (measured by workplace footfall in big cities). 

Our index covers 50 of the world’s largest economies that together account for 90% of global GDP and 76% of the world’s population. Our aggregate measure is the population-weighted average of each country’s score. The pre-pandemic level of activity is set at 100 for ease of comparison. The tracker is updated with new data once a week. 

Overall activity

The global normalcy index plummeted in March 2020 as many countries imposed draconian restrictions on their citizens. It fell to just 35 in April 2020, before improving gradually over the following months. Today it stands at 66, suggesting that the world has travelled roughly half of the way back to pre-pandemic life. Some indicators, such as traffic congestion and time spent outside, have recovered faster than others, particularly sports attendance and flights. The global average masks a lot of variation across countries. Click on the drop-down box to explore how behaviour has changed in each one.

Source:

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , , ,

Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws Are Un-American

2021/07/07 Leave a comment

Good joint commentary from a variety of perspectives:

What is the purpose of a liberal education? This is the question at the heart of a bitter debate that has been roiling the nation for months.

Schools, particularly at the kindergarten-to-12th-grade level, are responsible for helping turn students into well-informed and discerning citizens. At their best, our nation’s schools equip young minds to grapple with complexity and navigate our differences. At their worst, they resemble indoctrination factories.

In recent weeks, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Iowa, Idaho and Texas have all passed legislation that places significant restrictions on what can be taught in public school classrooms, and in some cases, public universities, too.

Tennessee House Bill SB 0623, for example, bans any teaching that could lead an individual to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.” In addition to this vague proscription, it restricts teaching that leads to “division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class or class of people.”

Texas House Bill 3979 goes further, forbidding teaching that “slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States.” It also bars any classroom from requiring “an understanding of the 1619 Project” — The New York Times Magazine’s special issue devoted to a reframing of the nation’s founding — and hence prohibits assigning any part of it as required reading.

These initiatives have been marketed as “anti-critical race theory” laws. We, the authors of this essay, have wide ideological divergences on the explicit targets of this legislation. Some of us are deeply influenced by the academic discipline of critical race theory and its critique of racist structures and admire the 1619 Project. Some of us are skeptical of structural racist explanations and racial identity itself, and disagree with the mission and methodology of the 1619 Project. We span the ideological spectrum: a progressive, a moderate, a libertarian and a conservative.

It is because of these differences that we here join together, as we are united in one overarching concern: the danger posed by these laws to liberal education.

The laws differ in some respects but generally agree on blocking any teaching that would lead students to feel “discomfort, guilt or anguish” because of one’s race or ancestry, as well as restricting teaching that subsequent generations have any kind of historical responsibility for actions of previous generations. They attempt various carve outs for the “impartial teaching” of the history of oppression of groups. But it’s hard to see how these attempts are at all consistent with demands to avoid discomfort. These measures would, by way of comparison, make Germany’s uncompromising and successful approach to teaching about the Holocaust illegal, as part of its goal is to infuse them with some sense of the weight of the past, and (famously) lead many German students to feel “anguish” about their ancestry.

Indeed, the very act of learning history in a free and multiethnic society is inescapably fraught. Any accurate teaching of any country’s history could make some of its citizens feel uncomfortable (or even guilty) about the past. To deny this necessary consequence of education is, to quote W.E.B. Du Bois, to transform “history into propaganda.”

What’s more, these laws even make it difficult to teach U.S. history in a way that would reveal well-documented ways in which past policy decisions, like redlining, have contributed to present-day racial wealth gaps. An education of this sort would be negligent, creating ignorant citizens who are unable to understand, for instance, the case for reparations — or the case against them.

Because these laws often aim to protecting the feelings of hypothetical children, they are dangerously imprecise. State governments exercise a high degree of lawful control over K-12 curriculum. But broad, vague laws violate due process and fundamental fairness because they don’t give the teachers fair warning of what’s prohibited. For example, the Tennessee statute prohibits a public school from including in a course of instruction any “concept” that promotes “division between, or resentment of” a “creed.” Would a teacher be violating the law if they express the opinion that the creeds of Stalinism or Nazism were evil?

Other laws appear to potentially ban even expression as benign as support for affirmative action, but it’s far from clear. In fact, shortly after Texas passed its purported ban on critical race theory, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a list of words and concepts that help “identify critical race theory in the classroom.” The list included terms such as “social justice,” “colonialism” and “identity.” Applying these same standards to colleges or private institutions would be flatly unconstitutional.

These laws threaten the basic purpose of a historical education in a liberal democracy. But censorship is the wrong approach even to the concepts that are the intended targets of these laws.

Though some of us share the antipathy of the legislation’s authors toward some of these targets, and object to overreaches that leave many parents understandably anxious about the stewardship of their children’s education, we all reject the means by which these measures encode that antipathy into legislation.

A wiser response to problematic elements of what is being labeled critical race theory would be twofold: propose better curriculums and enforce existing civil rights laws. Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act both prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, and they are rooted in a considerable body of case law that provides administrators with far more concrete guidance on how to proceed. In fact, there is already an Education Department Office of Civil Rights complaint and federal lawsuit aimed at programs that allegedly attempt to place students or teachers into racial “affinity groups.”

The task of defending the fundamentally liberal democratic nature of the American project ultimately requires the confidence to meet challenges to that vision. Censoring such challenges is a concession to their power, not a defense.

Let’s not mince words about these laws. They are speech codes. They seek to change public education by banning the expression of ideas. Even if this censorship is legal in the narrow context of public primary and secondary education, it is antithetical to educating students in the culture of American free expression.

There will always be disagreement about any nation’s history. The United States is no exception. If history is to judge the United States as exceptional, it is because we welcome such contestation in our public spaces as part of our unfolding national ethos. It is a violation of this commonly shared vision of America as a nation of free, vigorous and open debate to resort to the apparatus of the government to shut it down.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/opinion/anti-critical-race-theory-laws-are-un-american.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

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