Atif Qarni: Promoting Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in VA Schools
NEWS:
Virginia will end rental assistance programs this week, which advocates fear could lead to a, "tsunami of evictions." Faith communities and community organizers want the state government to expand subsidies to people trying to pay their rent.
Gov. Youngkin eliminated a, "societal cost," test for regulators to use that would account for the financial impacts to families and businesses when considering whether to approve a new fossil fuel infrastructure project. But it's not, "newfangled," it's a practice first implemented on the federal level by Pres. George W. Bush and standardized by Pres. Barack Obama.
Early voting for the 2022 primaries are underway, and several Republican conventions will be held on May 21. PSA: Vote early if you want to avoid incessant communications from the various campaigns.
GUEST:
Atif Qarni, former Sec. of Education under Governor Ralph Northam. He's now the Managing Director for External Affairs at the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University. He explains his efforts to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion through EdEquity VA- which is now scrapped by Gov. Youngkin. He also addresses misinformation in Loudoun County and opines on the conservative effort to ban books from the classroom.
Learn more at https://linktr.ee/JacklegMedia.
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Pod Virginia, the podcast that's so popular, we now have a spin off.
Thomas Bowman
I don't know if I'd call it a, "spin off," Michael, but we are working with Chaz Nuttycombe on a new and improved CNalysis Podcast. We dropped the pilot episode in our feed last week, and we're really excited about the first, of many, Jackleg Media podcasts that are in development, little tease.
Michael Pope
So if you're interested in state legislative elections, and we have a suspicion that you are, if you're listening to this podcast, you'll love this CNalysis Podcast. Chaz is already hard at work on the next episode, which will take a deep dive into Oklahoma politics. He'll be joined by Oklahoma political expert, Dan Williams, to look at the most competitive races in the Oklahoma House and the Oklahoma Senate.
Thomas Bowman
Check out the episode in our feed. Go ahead and subscribe to the CNalysis Podcast if you like what you hear. Well, Michael, that was last week. What are we doing in this episode?
Michael Pope
Later in the show, we're really excited. We'll be joined by former Education Secretary, Atif Qarni. He was the Education Secretary under Governor Northam, and he's going to join us to talk about a document he put together to give school divisions suggestions on how to handle equity in the classroom. We also talk about that crazy, all the craziness going on in Loudoun County Schools. Plus we also are going to ask him about the, "Beloved," bill. So stick around for that because it's going to be an excellent discussion. Okay, let's get to the news. The coming eviction crisis in the next few weeks, money to help renters struggling to make ends meet will dry up. And requirements for landlords to give renters more time to make payments, or notify renters about aid programs, well, all of that will come to an end. That's why Christie Marra at the Virginia Poverty Law Center says she's worried about what she calls, "a tsunami of evictions."
Christie Marra
We have a history of evicting 10s of 1000s of families a year, prior to the pandemic, and we look poised to go back and repeat that history. So we're not running around saying, "the sky is falling, the sky is falling," the sky fell before, and we're pretty sure it's gonna fall again, because we're taking away the support.
Michael Pope
Since the earliest days of the pandemic, those supports have worked to keep people in their homes and prevent a wave of evictions. But all that support will stop this summer.
Kim Bobo
We're going to see a lot of people in crisis.
Michael Pope
That's Kim Bobo at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
Kim Bobo
We will see that in our congregations, and we'll have to try to figure out what to do. We're going to see more people in shelters. This is a crisis that we know is coming and could be averted, right? We could stop this.
Michael Pope
So lawmakers are still negotiating the state budget, and Kim Bobo says now would be a great time to add a child tax credit or invest in subsidies to help low income households pay the rent. So, Thomas, this coming eviction crisis, we've heard this before. Last year, we talked about the coming eviction crisis on our podcast. And so for our listeners, they might think, "Well, we've heard this before and we didn't have a wave of evictions." Well, the reason for that is because the money kept flowing. The federal government kept making investment after investment. There was the Cares Act, and there was a different tranches of that and there was the Infrastructure Act. And so we've had a flow, a steady stream of money, coming from the federal government, that has been distributed to renters in need. The deadline to apply for that rent relief, actually, has already passed, that was May 15. So if you haven't already applied for that money, you can't get it, the money has dried up. And then of course, the requirements on landlords will end July 1. So landlords are actually required to do things like give you 14 days to make a payment instead of five days. And they're required to notify you about aid programs. All of that stops on July 1. So, I mean, this is why people are worried, this is why Christie Marra is worried about the, "tsunami," what she calls, "the tsunami of evictions," because the money dries up, and the rules change. And so, uh, Thomas, I'm sure a lot of people across Virginia are really worried about what happens this summer.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, Michael, the eviction crisis is going to emerge as a defining issue in the COVID era. And the most successful safety net program involve direct cash payments to families. Unfortunately, those are often means tested. And here's the problem with doing that in the COVID era, when when people are losing their jobs left and right, their tax returns, may show them having made, let's say $120,000. But when they get laid off from that job, they're no longer making that money. And so, the money for unemployment insurance is lapsing, the money for housing cushions are are lapsing. And so all of a sudden, people are getting rug pulled across, not just Virginia, but the whole country. And that's going to have really severe impacts on our Health and Human Services Departments. Because keeping people in their house is the best thing you can do, as far as a single action on society. Because when people don't have a home, it leads to a lot of mental health issues, it leads to a lot of other health issues, educational problems, like the kids can't learn in school, when they don't have a roof over their head, or a reliable roof over their head. And so housing is emerging as a core function of government moving forward. And, you know, Michael, I, personally, believe that we should start exploring housing as a public utility.
Michael Pope
And, you know, it's also important to remember that before the pandemic, Virginia was singled out as one of the leading states for evictions across the country, specifically, Richmond, had a huge problem with being one of the national leaders in evictions, and it actually landed on the front page of The New York Times. You know, we might actually be returning to a situation that was one of the worst in the country.
Thomas Bowman
The damage that's about to be inflicted, is going to be far worse than the potential damage of making things inconvenient for landlords. The worse things get, the more likely it is that landlords are, eventually, going to have a very bad time in a policy making environment.
Michael Pope
All right, on to environmental news. When regulators approve a permit for a pig farm, or a landfill, what kind of information should they be looking at? Should it be something specific about the individual operation? Or should they, also, be looking at the societal cost on the environment, or maybe climate change? During the recent General Assembly session, Senator Scott Surovell had a Methane Emissions Reduction bill that added an interesting new clause allowing state regulators to look at the societal cost.
Scott Surovell
The bill added one new test called, "the societal test," which is basically a new test that- where you look at the effects of carbon pollution on health, or for example, cancer, or climate change, things like that. The Governor, Governor didn't like that test. He thought it was a little bit too newfangled and whatnot.
Michael Pope
The Governor ended up striking that newfangled part of the bill, and lawmakers approved a new version of the bill. But Tim Solinski at the Sierra Club says lawmakers should consider adding a societal cost test to future legislation.
Tim Solinski
The public has a right to know the full extent of what a project, especially ones that are polluting in nature, will have on our society, and in our communities. So getting rid of a societal cost test would be something we, generally, oppose. And that's certainly the case with this. Yes, we are opposed to this biogas bill, but the veto of the societal cost test part, made a bad bill worse.
Michael Pope
I asked the Governor's office for their reaction to all this, in a written statement a spokesman for the Governor said, "The idea of a societal cost test is subjective, and puts consumers in danger of paying higher prices." So Thomas, there's a lot to unpack here. There's the initial bill on methane, which the environmentalists hated. And, I think, this thing about societal costs test was added into the bill to make it, maybe, a better deal for the environmentalists, they still oppose the bill. And then of course, the Governor took it out.
Thomas Bowman
I do want to push back on the thought that one, societal cost test is newfangled or that it's subjective. So it's not newfangled, actually, George W. Bush, Republican President, started up the practice of, on occasion, requiring a societal cost test, or a social cost of, at first, it was carbon. And then the Obama administration standardized it to account for carbon, methane, nitrous oxide emissions, right? And so, for example, the social cost of carbon is designed to capture the costs of climate damages on families, communities, businesses, and more, like ensuring that they're factored into policy decisions by federal and state agencies. And so there are, actually, very hard numbers associated with it that makes it not subjective, right? For carbon dioxide, for example, the social cost of releasing a metric ton is $51, the metric ton of methane costs $1,500, and releasing a metric ton of nitrous oxide costs society $18,000. So those figures are already worked out, we're not having to reinvent the wheel here. Energy companies are already doing this, if they're multi state energy companies. And so it's something that they're able to do and implement in Virginia, quite easily.
Michael Pope
Another sort of complicating issue here is that the natural gas industry, and the environmentalists, kind of don't get along, and they were battling each other on other bills that were not the methane bill, that had to do with like land use, and there, I think, there might have been a lawsuit that was involved here? So plus, you know, what you hear from the environmentalists is, "Is this the best way to handle methane?" So if you go to a pig farm, or a landfill, you got all this methane going into the air. That's bad for the environment, right? So what the natural gas industry wanted to do was, say, "Let's capture that methane, and turn it into electricity. And then we can make a lot of money by charging, you know, customers for it." What you heard from the environmentalists is, "Well, we don't know that that's the best use of that methane. There could be other uses for that methane, that might be cheaper. And that might have cost controls," you know, like the worry here, from the environmentalists, was the natural gas industry would, you know, see dollar signs here, and force the consumers to pay for all the infrastructure that they wanted to build at the pig farm, and the infrastructure they wanted to build at the landfill.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, there's a lot of layers to this story. And, you know, the other thing I'd say, you know, on the merits is that like, if the methane, in the case of a pig farm, is gonna get created anyway, it might as well be captured in use, because we actually do need natural gas. And, yes, as an environmentalist, I do not believe it's the best source of use, for energy needs. But one reason you absolutely need to be using natural gas, is because one byproduct of it is ammonium nitrate. And ammonium nitrate is nitrogen fertilizer. And we have some really bad topsoil in the United States. In fact, our bumper crops that we're used to, and just our crazy yields, are only possible because we kinda replaced the topsoil with nitrogen based fertilizer, right? So there's actually a shortage of ammonium nitrate fertilizer right now. And you can get that from two sources, natural gas or urea. Well, you know, you're talking about a lot more infrastructure costs, and it's harder to get urea pellets, which is urine, by the way, and the natural gas, you know, I'm not making a moral, or a political statement here, there has to be a way to meet our needs in a responsible manner, right? So one way to do that, in my opinion, is accounting for societal impacts, right, because businesses, and families, and whatnot, need to be protected. But also, we still need to get things like food.
Michael Pope
You know, the discussion over capturing urine, and pig farts, and cow farts-
Thomas Bowman
Not where you thought we were going.
Michael Pope
...has me really eager to make some puns, but you know what, I'm going to be the better person and not do that, and instead move on to our next story, which is the election. So today is Election Day. Virginia has 45 days of early voting, that is the longest election season in the country. And that means polls are already open for congressional primaries across Virginia. Stephen Farnsworth at the University of Mary Washington says early voting is especially useful in the summertime.
Stephen Farnsworth
Because people travel, they go on vacations, they go to graduations, and weddings, and can schedule it, but it also makes it easy to procrastinate.
Michael Pope
And here's a reason to avoid procrastinating. All those calls and text messages you're about to start getting, many of those probably come from listeners to this podcast. Quentin Kidd, at Christopher Newport University, says campaigns, and campaign workers, who listen to this podcast, have very sophisticated data collection, and they already know who has voted and who hasn't.
Quentin Kidd
If you're tired of hearing from campaigns, or you don't want to hear from them, go vote now. And they'll put you on the already voted list and you'll stop hearing from them.
Thomas Bowman
That's a good PSA.
Michael Pope
News you could use, Thomas. So in the two most competitive races, Republicans will choose their candidates in a primary to go up against Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria. Those are the races where Bryce Reeves wants to run against Spanberger. And Jen Kiggans wants to run against Luria. The primary in those races is June 21. So in three congressional districts, though, Republicans will be choosing their candidate in a convention, rather than a primary, and we have three conventions coming up all on the same day, May 21. There is the 5th, where incumbent Congressman Bob Good has a challenger, Dan Moy, that's a really interesting race. Then there's the 10th Congressional District where a bunch of Republicans want to run against Jennifer Wexton. And then there's the 8th Congressional District, where five Republicans are trying to be the nominee to run against incumbent Congressman Don Beyer. Now, Thomas, I had a chance to go to a debate where all five of those Republicans were there. And I was surprised at how strident these candidates are. These these five candidates, they're saying things like, "13 million undocumented immigrants should all be deported." "Public education should be privatized." "Controversial issues should be banished from the classroom." The front runner in the race seems to be a candidate named Karina Lipsman, and she said this during that candidates forum.
Karina Lipsman
And so, personally, growing up in the Soviet Union, I never trust the government. So that's just my own thing. But we've seen this in the last few years with COVID, and what the government has been pushing out, in terms of propaganda. And so Fauci should be jailed. We all know that.
Michael Pope
"Fauci should be jailed." You know, like that line, what you know, in America, we don't jail people until we have accused them of a crime, right, and then perhaps they should be found guilty before they're incarcerated. Because in America, you're innocent until proven guilty. So it's interesting that the applause line wasn't, "We should fire Fauci," or, "We should charge him with a crime," but we should, "Jail him?" And those were Alexandria Republicans you heard applauding there. So I don't know what to make about that. "Jailing Fauci?" Thomas, what do you make that?
Thomas Bowman
It's obviously unacceptable dialogue. And it's unAmerican. We don't jail- not that Fauci is a political opponent, but we don't jail political opponents, we don't run on jailing our political opponents, is the other thing. You'll notice that Democrats did not run on throwing Donald Trump in jail. We do want to hold him accountable for his actions. And if there were crimes committed, then that is the next step. But we respect due process in this country. And so here's here's the problem. Anthony Fauci got set up by the Trump administration to become a scapegoat. And there's a couple of reasons for that. So one, Anthony Fauci, before COVID, before all of this stuff, in the 1980s, he was part of Act Up, which was a, which is an organization that advocated for the government, the Reagan administration at the time, to take the AIDS pandemic seriously. There was a misinformation, at the time, that it only affected gay people, even though they knew that was not the case, even back then. And so Fauci has associations with the LGBTQ community. He is definitely a Democrat. It was an easy scapegoat for Donald Trump, who was also putting his thumb on the scale, influencing CDC decisions, back during his administration. And what happened was it created a culture of fear of the CDC, and caused them to not issue science based guidance, or guidance accurate to the science that we had at the time, for example, like COVID was airborne. We knew very early on how like potentially deadly this thing was going to be. And Donald Trump was telling people it's like the cold or its like the flu. Take hydrochloric when all of this stuff that are crimes against humanity. And so what are they doing? They're deflecting on to Anthony Fauci, who, if anybody is a hero of this story, it is Anthony Fauci, working day and night, to try to keep Americans safe, to try to get that vaccine manufactured into market, because he was kind of the COVID-19 czar of the working group at the time. And, look, it's not acceptable. And if these, if this is the Republican Party, I have two solutions, right? One, vote Democrat, or for the Independent if there is no Democrat. The other solution, if you're in a red district, and you identify as Democrat, joining the Republican Party and change it, because the Republican elected officials are absolutely terrified of their constituents right now. They're terrified of their base. And they keep moving further and further and further on the Crazy Train, off to the far right, to where we had a January 6th insurrection. So if you're in a red area, join the Republican Party and vote against those crazy people.
Michael Pope
So I thought it was interesting. In the bluest of all the congressional districts, the 8th Congressional District actually had the widest margin of victory for Biden. So, you know, the best a Republican could do in this district is maybe 36%, if they're lucky. Normally, what happens in Alexandria, you know, in the 8th Congressional District is Republicans have to recruit a candidate to run against Beyer. That didn't happen this year, because you had five people coming out, trying to out Trump each other, essentially, saying, "Deport all the undocumented immigrants, privatize education, banish controversial issues from the classroom." So I mean, you really didn't even have a moderate voice among those five.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And in a place like Alexandria, Virginia, you're going to need to, I'll just say, make some noise in order to capture any headlines, or get attention for yourself. And so doing stuff like this as a technique that some cynical candidates and politicians will do in order to raise money, because when they can raise the money, they can pay for their cost per vote. So like not buying votes, but buying the things that it takes to run a campaign to get you some more votes. And it's also by running a campaign that you can get money, it forces Don Beyer, who would, otherwise, be raising millions of dollars for competitive districts, to spend money on himself, just to beat back a potential threat. Not that there really is one.
Michael Pope
That sounds familiar, Thomas? Where have I heard that before?
Thomas Bowman
You know what, I pioneered that with the Competitive Commonwealth Fund, currently. Currently chaired by superfan Jess Brown, shout out to you, Jess Brown, thanks for keeping that running in my absence. And anyway, this is something where data backs. When you're in a safe district, and you get an opponent, even though you might raise more money, proportionally, generally speaking, the incumbent is going to spend money on themselves, that they otherwise would not be spending, right? So this is true if it's Congress, this is true if it's state delegate. What this does is force Beyer's attention to stay home. And the reason you might be going off the deep end is to, you know, grift and get money. So, yeah, it's a pretty cynical ploy. Okay, let's take a break. When we come back, former Secretary of Education Atif Qarni is taking us to school. We're going to talk about equity in those schools, misinformation in Loudoun, and we'll also ask him his thoughts on the Beloved Bill. We'll be right back.
Michael Pope
And we're back on Pod Virginia. We're joined by the former Secretary of Education for Virginia under Governor Northam. He's now the Managing Director for External Affairs at the Hope Center for College Community and Justice at Temple University. Atif Qarni, thanks for joining us.
Atif Qarni
Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Thomas. It's good to be here with the both of you today.
Thomas Bowman
It's great to talk to you again, Secretary Qarni. Let's start with EdEquity Virginia. That's a document that you put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into, and the Youngkin administration decided to scrap it. What exactly is this document and why did the Northam administration work so hard on it?
Atif Qarni
Thank you so much. So the EdEquity document is specifically applies to our K-12 public schools, across Virginia. We signed a new MOU with the U.S. Department of Education. And this is how our Standards of Accreditation, how public schools across the country, are certified. So based on that, building on that process, we realize that there was a significant amount of data that showed that there was a lot of inequities in multiple areas. So we launched this initiative called EdEquity VA, which a lot of people were involved in, educators, families, students, a lot of external partners and different stakeholders.
Michael Pope
I know that in your research, you uncovered some disproportionality, in terms of discipline. Explain what you found there?
Atif Qarni
Sure. So the General Assembly, even before Governor Northam took office, had directed the Department Education to do a study on student discipline. And what Virginia Tech found is that Black students across the state, regardless of where they were in the state, were about three times more likely to get a student disciplinary referral, or get suspended, or expelled from school, compared to their peers. So that was quite alarming. And this is regardless of economic status, or the diversity of the school division. So that was that that was a significant finding from this specific Virginia Tech study.
Michael Pope
So what can be done about that? In other words, what does the document say school divisions should do to counter that?
Atif Qarni
The Virginia Tech findings didn't specifically offer recommendations. I met with them, and I met with other agencies, and based on a more granular assessment, we came up with some policy items. So there were some pieces of legislation that were that were passed during the time that Governor Northam was in office to address student discipline issues, and we put some guardrails about how many days a student could be suspended for, or we put guardrails around expulsions. We also invested a lot of resources in school counselors. We made record investments to provide behavioral intervention supports earlier, rather than later. There's also a component of special education, we found that there was an intersection of lack of professional development that adults working with students had in really working with students with special needs, or students who might have suffered trauma and had an adverse experience in their childhood and that might be surfacing.
Thomas Bowman
This is actually my wife's area of research for the PhD she's pursuing at VCU in special ed policy. She found a couple of things of note that are really interesting, and to how to resolve that problem. And she could probably explain this far better than I can, but one of them is, in order to resolve some of these disciplinary challenges, it would be really helpful to recruit minority educators ,who understand the culture, you know, of minority students. So if you think about some of the disciplinary actions, well, in the Black community, a Black teacher might say, "Okay, well go sit down," and be done with it. Whereas often a white teacher will say, "Go to the principal's office." And that really matters, from like, the peer mentorship level, having teachers that look like the students and can identify with the students culture.
Michael Pope
So EdEquity VA looked at equity and discipline, and looked at equity and special education, and looked at equity in nutrition, one of the areas that the document focused in on is policies on transgender students. Mr. Secretary, are Virginia schools doing enough here to create equity and what should they be doing, in terms of pronouns and bathrooms?
Atif Qarni
EdEquity VA was a first step to really address things. I don't believe that we're we're there yet. I don't believe that we're doing enough to make sure that our schools are a full and welcoming environment. Now, having said that, schools are, research does show, that schools are, generally speaking, the safest place for students, compared to other external situations. However, you know, there's still a significant amount of bullying. There's a significant amount of misunderstandings, where it does have an adverse impact on children. Now, specifically, for LGBTQ plus students and trans students, yes, there was a model policy which we looked at what's happening across the country. There was a there was a piece of legislation that General Assembly passed. It was a legislation that was championed by Governor Northam, that directed the Department of Education to come up with a model policy and a form of a guidance and roll it out to school divisions to look at how we can better accommodate trans students. Some can argue that we didn't go far enough, right, but I think we came up with a policy that where we discussed this across the state, and it was specific to addressing accommodations and facilities.
Thomas Bowman
So, Secretary Qarni, on that issue of transgender students, let's talk about Loudoun County. If you follow right wing media, you've heard a lot about a transgender student who sexually assaulted a female student in a school bathroom. That plays into the worst fears of many conservatives. But was that actually accurate?
Atif Qarni
What was communicated to me, and I believe this is public now, if you look at the recent reporting is, is that the student who did the assault was actually not a trans student. In the media, in Fox News, and others were saying that this is a trans student who sneaked into a girl's bathroom and assaulted another child. That, I was clearly told, is inaccurate. That's, that's a lie in the right wing media. Now, the other things about whether the student was dressed up as a, as a female student, pretending to be a female and sneaking in, that is speculative, that I cannot verify. There's a lot of hearsay there. But on that note, I do want to emphasize that there's a bigger problem here, right? We, it's a really unfortunate event where the school division did drop the ball and that a student got assaulted, whether there's a trans student or not, one student assaulted another student is a significant problem. And unfortunately, I hate to say this, but it happens in other school divisions as well across Virginia and across America. And we have to make sure that we have to prioritize safety of our children. And it's unacceptable that this occurred.
Michael Pope
So the issue here is that these two students had like an existing relationship, and had routinely met each other in restrooms in this school. So this is actually more about, like, this school having oversight over the students, and you know, making sure they weren't doing things that they shouldn't be doing, as opposed to a transgender issue in bathrooms. Is that right?
Atif Qarni
That is correct, Michael. And that's the that's what bothers me the most is that, how is it that, at multiple instances, what the investigation revealed is that these two students had a relationship? And how is it that they were allowed to leave the classroom for so long, and carry on with this relationship? And unfortunately, it resulted in a significant assault. But why was that happening in the first place is a big problem. The another and another problem is that because, unfortunately, this was simultaneously being done with the elections for the gubernatorial race, and then it was simultaneously, we were implementing, or the process of implementing, the policy, the model policies, related specifically to trans students. Everything was happening simultaneously. And I do feel that the right wing media exploited the situation, and exploited the the, the hurt of the specific student who was assaulted, and manipulated and manufactured a false narrative, which is really unfortunate.
Michael Pope
Well, let's talk about, on that topic, let's talk about Critical Race Theory. We know it's not taught in public schools, although that has not stopped people from wanting to ban it from the classroom. Now, if you listen to people who want to ban it, they'll say things like, "The tenants of Critical Race Theory are present in Virginia classrooms," or that, "Critical Race Theory is part of teacher training materials." Mr. Secretary, what role does Critical Race Theory play in Virginia schools?
Atif Qarni
So specifically, the concept of Critical Race Theory is not in our curriculum, however, the folks will argue that tenants of Critical Race Theory, that's what educators believe, and I can't speak for every single educator, but I want to backup here just for one minute. Critical Theory, in general, has been around and has been a concept for a while, which basically states that, you know, there are there's groups or group in power, and there are marginalized groups who do not have power. And this can be applicable globally, specifically than the United States. Obviously, it's based on a lot of the racial dynamics and gender dynamics. There's Critical Gender Theory, there's Critical Queer Theory, there's Critical Race Theory. So what, unfortunately, has happened in this manufacturing of Critical Race Theory crisis, is that everything has been lumped some in. It's about race, because, for example, in Virginia or across the country, we're doing a lot of different initiatives to address inequities, whether it's student discipline, whether it's advanced academic programs, whether it's looking at our history curriculum. And then on top of that, we're also trying to address the need of LGBTQ plus students, for example, in the case with transgender students, accommodations that were making, so everything was lumped into one by the right wing media to really manufacture this crisis. In my personal observation, talking to numerous educators across the state and across nationally, I think there is a broad understanding that we have significant systemic inequities. and systemic racism is real. I'm not saying that everybody agrees that on that. And I'm not saying that everybody believes that Critical Race Theory is the only lens we should look at everything through, or I'm not saying that every single educator believes that, inherently, our nation is racist. That thing framed in the right wing media, but I can tell you is that educators are concerned. They have conversations because they cannot avoid the evidence, right? Even predominately white educators in Virginia, a lot of them, if I talk to them, they recognize that we have significant issues with student discipline, we have significant issues with how monies are allocated, and there is an intersection of race. So are they having those conversations? Yes, because those conversations led to the General Assembly directing the Department Education to look further into it. And that led to people like me, and the Governor Northam, paying more attention, and then launching this EdEquity initiative. So, clearly, a problem does exist.
Thomas Bowman
Secretary Qarni, I want to follow up on that. So before you were Secretary of Education, you were once, in another life, a candidate for office, specifically, for the Senate of Virginia. And because Democratic candidates were getting beat up left and right on Critical Race Theory in the campaign, I'm curious, how would you like to hear candidates respond on the issue of Critical Race Theory, as far as political messaging goes?
Atif Qarni
I think we do need to be very clear and say, "Look, there are patterns in history that repeat." And I wrote an op ed about, specifically about this, I do feel that this manufactured crisis of Critical Race Theory is just like the Massive Resistance Movement that which started in Virginia. And I think the Democrat candidates, politically, need to realize that, and they need to understand our history, and understand what worked in the past to counter this vitriol and hateful rhetoric, and be very, very proactive and addressing this, because right now, I just feel like there isn't a really thorough understanding, amongst even Democrats, to really how to counter the negative rhetoric.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, and on what happened in the past, actually, when Virginia went into its policies of Massive Resistance, at the time, he was former governor and current President of UVA, Colgate Darden, he hated the term, "Massive Resistance," because he thought it made Virginia sound like Alabama, or Mississippi. You know, unfortunately, he didn't really disagree with the principles behind it, but didn't like the term. And I think there's, potentially, a lesson there in framing and messaging, he ultimately was right. Virginia did not like being seen as akin to the Deep South. And there's a good chance that the Republicans and Governor Youngkin with this push to ban Critical Race Theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion, are going to overstep, because Virginians don't want to be seen as a state in the Deep South.
Atif Qarni
Right, Thomas. I think they have already have overstepped. And I think you're- I'm very optimistic about Virginia. I think Virginians are sensible, and the pendulum will shift back again. Unfortunately, it's just sometimes it takes these kinds of instances for people to wake up and realize they might have made a mistake.
Thomas Bowman
And speaking of these kinds of instances, so I'm curious about your thoughts on Executive Order Number One. Usually, new governors use their first executive order to protect rights, but Youngkin chose to use this symbolic first executive order to ban Critical Race Theory from the classroom, even though it isn't in the classroom. Was this a meaningless gesture? What's the outcome of this executive order?
Atif Qarni
It's hard to for us to kind of read- I can't read Governor Youngkin's mind. We can speculate that it is theatrics, it's his intent to use this to further his political career. It could be. It's all speculative, right? Or is it like a true intention to- he truly believes that this is a significant issue that he wants to tackle? Or it could be to appease people who got him elected, or people who work on his campaign, and and donate it to his campaign? It could be multiple reasons, or it could be just one reason or none of the above? We just don't know. The second part of your question is the most important part, I think, is that what impact it has on Virginia, and, especially, on our children and on our schools. I do feel that because of this, and this, coupled with the the snitch line that the Governor launched, it has created a suffocating environment. There are numerous educators, especially who teach social studies and history, who have reached out to me, expressing their frustration, that they really are worried on how they teach, because they feel like they have to constantly watch what they say, and that they will be reported, and then their jobs will be- will come in jeopardy and they'll get in trouble. So this definitely has had a significant negative impact on our teachers.
Thomas Bowman
All right, well, that's all the time we've got for today. Secretary Qarni, thank you for joining us.
Atif Qarni
Thank you both.
Michael Pope
Pod Virginia is a production of Jackleg Media. Our Producer is Aaryan Balu, our Social Media Manager is Emily Cottrell, and our Advertising Sales Manager is David O'Connell.
Thomas Bowman
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Michael Pope
We'll be back next week with another episode of Pod Virginia.
