In Racially Charged Political Climate, Fairfax County’s Light Touch on Hate Crimes

Vandals caused $60,000 worth of damage to a mosque under construction in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Chantilly, VA but the Fairfax County Police Department doesn’t think it was a hate crime.

They can’t be serious. Amid all the vitriolic speech occurring in the media and on the campaign trail, how could FCPD officials have possibly thought this was a sound conclusion? 

The Fairfax County website defines bias crimes as “Any unlawful action committed against a person or their property because of his or her race, religious conviction, ethnic or national origin, disability, or sexual orientation.” The website further states that “locations of events (i.e.: cultural/religious centers)” are an indicator that a “crime is bias motivated.”

Did I miss something?

If this is an indication of how Fairfax County is going to handle hate crimes during the 2012 election cycle, Fairfax County residents are in real trouble. It is practically guaranteed that this election will stoke unprecedented levels of hate crimes from people who see the re-election of a black man as president as an assault on their core values. But law enforcement officials who look the other way when hate crimes are committed are assaulting the core values of most Americans.

The racially-charged atmosphere can’t be denied. We have all been privy to both explicit and “coded” hate speech and vitriol in our national media and from elected officials, candidates and broadcasters. There have been many examples of blatant hate speech. In October of 2010 Rush Limbaugh said, “But there is no equality. You cannot guarantee that any two people will end up the same and you can’t legislate it, and you can’t make it happen … [S]ome people are born victims, some people are just born to be slaves.” In an article in The Hill this past Monday, Fox News’ contributor Juan Williams noted:

Race is always a trigger in politics, but now a third of the nation are people of color — and their numbers are growing. With those minorities solidly in the Democratic camp and behind the first black president, the scene is set for a bonanza of racial politics.

The language of GOP racial politics is heavy on euphemisms that allow the speaker to deny any responsibility for the racial content of his message. The code words in this game are “entitlement society” — as used by Mitt Romney — and “poor work ethic” and “food stamp president” — as used by Newt Gingrich. References to a lack of respect for the “Founding Fathers” and the “Constitution” also make certain ears perk up by demonizing anyone supposedly threatening core “old-fashioned American values.”

The code also extends to attacks on legal immigrants, always carefully lumped in with illegal immigrants, as people seeking “amnesty” and taking jobs from Americans.

Just as advertisers rely on spots and endorsements to drive sales, hate speech promotes real world effects, including hate crimes. Advertisers are so confident their advertisements will generate sales, they are willing to pay $3.5 million for a 30-second spot in the Super Bowl. Speech, especially nationally-disseminated speech by syndicated talk show hosts with high ratings and politicians on the campaign trail, can be expected to have the same effect on human behavior. In fact, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 1,002 hate groups including neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separates, border vigilantes and others have cropped up around the nation. Forty-one such hate groups have established themselves in Virginia and the District of Columbia.

It’s up to local officials to take hate crimes seriously. This recent episode in Fairfax County is a poor example of responsible governance. 

Can Community Colleges Change the Way We Think About Talent?

Believe it or not, some high school graduates not bound for four-year colleges still want to pursue higher education.  But our system of higher education has other plans in mind for these students.  In the United States, if you don’t attend a four-year college immediately after high school, you essentially become red meat for employers seeking low-wage workers (if you’re fortunate enough to find a job at all) or for-profit colleges whose duty is to the bottom line, whether or not they meet the unique needs of each student.   In too many cases, community colleges have become either a choice of last resort or a choice that has lost so much credibility that many students no longer consider it an option.  Why attend community college for two years, if you can “get the training you need for a job with a future in as little a nine months,” as Everest College heralds on its website?

Raising the standards of community colleges would raise standards across-the-board by forcing for-profits to compete by providing student-centered learning, providing four-year colleges with a more diverse pool of quality applicants seeking additional education beyond the Associates degree, and raising the standards of the American workforce.  In a nation in which people of color are expected to make up more than 50% of the population by 2050, it is critically important to reform higher education in a way that teaches students of varying learning styles the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills they will need to compete in a global economy. 

This will require us to shift the way we think about the potential of workers beyond the age of seventeen. By some accounts, age eighty is the new sixty-five for retirement.  Paradoxically, American workers internalize the message that their abilities are written in stone and what they have accomplished from age 0 to 17 will irreversibly determine the next 63 years of their working lives.  This myth provides justification to plutocrats, but is holding the rest of the country back.  It also flies in the face of a growing body of research suggesting that IQs are not fixed at birth, but can be improved with education.

On December 16, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies convened a roundtable discussion among education policy stakeholders for a results-driven dialogue to improve community colleges’ ability to educate the next generation of American innovators.  In the keynote, Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Mignon Clyburn urged participants to empathize with individuals who have the potential to excel but not the opportunities. Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, stressed President Obama’s goal to move America from the middle to the top of the pack of the world’s most innovative countries.   To do this, the White House has partnered with Change the Equation, the National Academy Foundation, and Skills for America’s Future to improve high schools and community colleges and strengthen ties between community colleges and employers.  The White House has also produced an inventory of STEM programs nationwide through the post-doctoral level.  According to Kalil, over $1 billion of federal investments in STEM are allocated to broaden participation by underrepresented groups.  Kalil acknowledged the critical importance of improving STEM education in early grades, but also said that retaining STEM students by reducing class sizes is important to keep students interested and engaged in STEM. A book entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” summarizes other efforts to improve American competitiveness.

The nation’s challenge to improve STEM education is multifaceted and will not be overcome without significant effort from a variety of stakeholders.  Living conditions play a major role in academic achievement. Thus, any approach to reducing achievement gaps must address the circumstances of poverty and the circumstances of working while attending school.  Several roundtable participants raised other important issues that must not be overlooked.  Ajenai Clemmons, Policy Director of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and a roundtable participant, urged policy makers to include local elected officials in the discussion. Quentin Lawson, Executive Director of the National Alliance of Black School Educators, another roundtable participant, expressed the need to develop better ways to develop STEM instructors, especially STEM instructors from underrepresented backgrounds.  Linda Rosen of Change the Equation raised the issue that many elementary school teachers think of themselves as generalists, rather than science and mathematics teachers.  John Horrigan, Vice President of Policy Research at TechNet, said that data needs to be made available to the research community in order to understand where the “outliers” are that have been successful and develop initiatives to apply what works.

These issues only skim the surface of the many problems that need to be addressed before we accomplish true STEM reform.  It is only through a persistent and interdisciplinary effort that it will be achieved.  Accordingly, the Joint Center announced the formation of a task force to make specific recommendations to improve STEM education.  This effort must be results-oriented rather than simply another Washington discussion in which people drink coffee, eat cookies and go home.  The future of American innovation depends on creating a culture of lifelong learning that makes fewer reductionist assumptions about students’ intrinsic abilities.