Get A City Job, Lose Your Rights?

(Opinion) While a soldier in the United States Army, I was reminded more than once, that we served to defend democracy, not to practice it. A particularly influential chaplain, unbeknownst to him, almost influenced me to return to the Army as a chaplain after divinity school. The thing that stopped me from taking or even giving serious consideration to this path was my learning that Army chaplains were prohibited, like everyone else in the military, from criticizing the government, the president, or other elected officials. 

In this way, military chaplains are more military than they are proclaimers of their faith, I thought then and still do now. I could not abide a position in my chosen profession that effectively muted me on important issues concerning our national politics and politicians.

Well, everyone knows that there are politics in public school systems all across America. What is not clear, however, is who gets to participate. The Chicago Tribune reported that a popular principal for the city’s school system was fired when he publically disagreed with the oft-combative mayor there, Rham Emanuel. Where do they do that? Apparently everywhere.

In too many municipalities and counties in America, public employees work under the threat of losing their jobs if they dare exercise their First Amendment rights. In the end, this means that some of our fellow-citizens who are closest to the challenges facings our schools and school systems are silenced out of some anachronistic loyalty that the teachers are expected to embrace for their elected bosses and under the threat of unemployment. 

If teacher loyalty is stronger for a potentially job snatching mayor than it is for the student, vulnerable students will always get the short end of the stick and the worst possible outcome from the system. 

Over the last few months, New Haven’s Board of Education has been in talks about bringing more African-American teachers to the city. The plan, as I understand it, is to go ​“down South” to certain Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), those that have teacher certification programs, to recruit graduates.

This is not the first time New Haven has used this approach to secure African-American teachers for a growing African-American student population. In fact, among the Black factory workers that already resided in this city, New Haven’s middle class was created by the school system with an influx of Black teachers from the South. 

The stated reason for bringing African-American teachers from the teacher producing HBCUs is to provide African-American students with teachers with whom they can ​“identify”, thus increasing the students’ chances of progressing and succeeding in school. It is believed by some, in fact, by many, that students do better in school if the teachers and students are of a shared culturally and racial background. The strategy seems like a good one to pursue. 

My concern in all of this is not what will happen to the students in the strategy, but what will happen to the teachers. 

I was informed some years ago, by an insightful educator here, that the first time New Haven employed this strategy there were restrictions placed on the northbound teachers from the South, that significantly limited their political involvement to the point that they were virtually prohibited from speaking out on issues that concerned them here in New Haven. Under the threats of demotion (lack of promotion) and social rejection both within and without the school system, teachers were effectively stripped of their First Amendment rights. 

The dust-up between former Mayor John DeStefeno, Jr., and Kermit Carolina, then the principal of Hillhouse High School, seemed to be a remnant of that system of ​“stay in your place” politics, when Carolina accused the mayor of a subtle and surreptitious attack on him for not supporting the mayor in one of his many re-election bids. A note from the mayor to the principal simply stating ​“you were not there” sparked in Carolina what seemed to be a threat for his perceived lack of support of the political system that had made him a principal with a six-figure salary. While allegations of test altering and such were leveled against Carolina, the note from the mayor and Carolina’s response to it caught my attention the most.

Anecdotal though it was to the overall scheme of things, it seemed quite consist with what the educator revealed to me, but also with what I had witnessed among middle-class African-Americans in this city, particularly those connected, directly or indirectly, to the school system, and consist with my experience as a clergyman here. 

Any criticism of the mayor or the former (and present) superintendent of schools, Dr. Reginald Mayo, was regarded as deeply suspicious and in some ways downright treasonous. While it was true that Dr. Mayo was (and might be again in his interim role) responsible for the employment of a number of African-American educators and administrators, it seemed then, and still does now, quite odd that any person is considered above reproach, criticism, or critique.

The very basis of our government is the freedom to criticize it. When disallowed to do so, we have forfeited our rights as free citizens in a land of ​“freedom and justice for all.”

Teachers are government employees, to be sure, but that fact should never be used as a weapon, subtle as it may be, to disenfranchise them, slowly but surely, or to make of them political eunuchs who voices are muted except in the service of the political officials who hired them. 

Military servicewomen and men selflessly agree to relinquish certain rights while they serve. It could not be otherwise with the defense of the nation at stake. But, the defense of some politician’s elected position is not reason enough to disempower teachers or other government workers simply for the sake of a job. 

I pray that such a thing does not happen to the new teachers arriving here from the South to help our students secure a better education.

Reverend Samuel T. Ross-Lee is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Missionary Church in New Haven. This article originally eppared in the Inner-City News.