Category Archives: rights

School Choice and Unions

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There’s a contradiction in terms.

In January parents filed a petition to convert Palm Lane Elementary in Anaheim into a charter under California’s 2010 parent-trigger law, which allows a majority of parents in any failing school to force changes.

Naturally, the school’s district officials and teachers union demurred. Never mind that

Palm Lane had made the state Department of Education’s list of underperforming schools since 2003. Fewer than 40% of students scored proficient in English in 2013. About 85% are Hispanic, and most are low-income.

(Where is the Obama DoJ and disparate impact? Oh, wait…).

The officials and the unions went so far as to disregard California law as they dragged their feet and openly obstructed the conversion—and loss of union jobs and of income for the district officials’ use.

[U]nion even complained that signature gatherers were bribing parents with free iPads, a false allegation that the district superintendent repeated in a cautionary letter to parents.

Though more than 60% of parents signed the petition, the district threw out dozens of signatures that could not be “verified.” That is, the parents could not be reached between the hours of 8:30 am and 4:30 pm to confirm that they signed the petition. Maybe that’s because they were working.

Fortunately, and once again, a judge got one right.

Last Thursday Orange County Superior Court Judge Andrew Banks ruled in favor of the parents on all counts and rebuked the district’s conduct as “unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious and unfair.” He also scored district officials for violating their obligation under the trigger law to work in good faith with parents….

Judge Banks has ordered the district to accept the petition and allow parents to immediately begin soliciting charter school proposals.

Been all right, too, if the Judge also had ordered the district officials and the union to compensate the petitioners for their time wasted fighting these frivolous delays. Such an order might have given these officials pause as they plan their inevitable, time-wasting, delaying tactic of appeals.

Still, it’s a good ruling.

Freedom to Dissent

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Four men already had been convicted of murder in southeastern China when a fifth person confessed to the crime. But when lawyers demanded to review case documents to clear the men’s names, the court stonewalled. So the lawyers unfurled banners outside the venue.

They protested for days, alongside social activists who insulted the top judge, and uploaded pictures online.
…
Authorities say these lawyers have strayed far beyond their professional role into illegal activism aimed at sabotaging the country’s legal system. …

Since late May, police across China have detained and called in at least 215 rights lawyers and social activists, most of them during the past week or so. State propaganda has kicked into high gear to denounce them as rabble-rousers, criminal gangs, profit-seeking opportunists.

Wisconsin’s John Doe persecutions have been struck by that state’s Supreme Court. We’ll see how long that lasts before our own Left starts up again.

In the meantime, our own national Left’s loudly protected IRS continues to persecute Americans: those who dare to speak contrary to the Left’s approved speech—all those exposures of personal and personal tax information, all those stonewalls of tax status applications for particular groups who would dare speak contrary to the Left’s approvals. The same IRS continues to refuse to return seized funds to those from whom the money was…confiscated…under patently false pretenses, even after this IRS said they would stop the confiscations.

Disparate Impact

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Disparate impact is the racist theory that if practices result in an imbalance (as defined by disparate impact aficionados) in racial representation in this or that arena (see housing, for instance), than the practices must stop until—based solely on race—sufficient races are brought into the arena to achieve an acceptable balance of races. Notice that none of disparate impact has anything to do with the wishes of members of this or that race, already present or absent from the arena. By design, it has nothing to do, also, with the intent of the managers of the arena.

Consider, now, a case brought by

64 organizations alleging that Harvard uses de facto quotas to limit Asian-Americans on campus.

The case was brought to the Civil Rights division of the Department of Education—who promptly dismissed the case, ostensibly because of “pending litigation.” There is a case pending, but as DoE knows full well it’s unlikely to be finally adjudicated for another two or three—or more—years.

Never mind that

Asian-Americans need to score 140 points higher on the SAT than white students to be considered equal applicants on paper, and 450 points higher than African-Americans

and that they’re still underrepresented in Harvard admissions.

Never mind, either, how insulting that 450 point handicap is for blacks–the very group Harvard pretends to be wanting to help.  Or the insult of those 140 points for whites.  But that’s OK, whites have too much privilege; they need to be insulted every now and then.

Apparently, disparate impact is applicable only to certain government-favored groups of Americans. But then, such special treatment is at the very hearts of racism and of bigotry in general.

The Encryption Divide

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Silicon Valley and Washington have spent the past year arguing over whether technology companies should enable users to encrypt their digital lives in such a way that not even the Federal Bureau of Investigation could unscramble the information.

And

In private conversations, administration officials have said they don’t want Congress to pass a new law or to dictate to how tech companies should write code, said people briefed on the conversations.

That much is appropriate.

There’s no divide here, except in the minds of an overreaching government. The Constitution is quite clear. Get a warrant. That’s often inconvenient to Government. That’s part of the point.

Another VA Failure

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An ex-Army scout and Iraq War veteran tried at two separate Veterans Administration clinics to get treatment for his PTSD. Does he actually have PTSD? I’m spring-loaded to believe so, but I don’t know. And neither does this veteran, unless he’s been previously diagnosed. The problem is that he can’t get that treatment, or even a diagnosis and so effective treatment for what medical problem he might really have.

“The VA isn’t taking new patients.” He got that at both of the Georgia clinics he tried. If you follow the link to the video he recorded, the relevant action starts at around 6:45.

The VA isn’t taking new patients. How does that work? It doesn’t work.

VA spokesman James Hutton gave out the usual VA nonsense:

VA staff should have established a full understanding of Mr Dorsey’s medical situation and determined if an appointment was available for him at another location or if he was eligible for the Choice Program and could be seen outside of VA. The message Mr Dorsey was given, as seen on the video, is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Of course the message Dorsey was given is entirely acceptable and fully tolerated by the VA. It’s still going on. Years after the VA’s mistreatment of our veterans was first exposed. Dorsey has indicated that VA Chief of Staff Rob Nabors has “reached out to him and is trying to help resolve his issue.” Great. We’ll see if Nabors, or anyone at the VA delivers. But that’s small potatoes. This sort of thing is far too widespread to be effectively handled by onesies and twosies.

It’s time to disband the VA altogether and use the VA budget as vouchers to our veterans so they can go to the doctors, clinics, and hospitals of their choice—doctors, clinics, and hospitals that actually do, you know, medical work for, umm, patients.