Category Archives: Freedom

Michigan State University will hold its first-ever university-wide celebration of Juneteenth in person on June 19 at Munn Field from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, acknowledges the ending of slavery in the U.S.On June 19, 1865, nearly three years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, over 250,000 African American slaves in Texas were freed from slavery.

I am pleased to announce MSUs inaugural recognition and celebration of Juneteenth, Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Jabbar R. Bennett said in a press release on June 15.

It is based on the theme From Freedom to Liberation to acknowledge that the struggle for racial equality is not over.

Since the event is less than a month after the one-year anniversary of George Floyds death due to police brutality, leaders like Vice President of Public Safety and MSU Chief of Police Marlon Lynch will acknowledge the event.

This is a momentous occasion to bring the campus and local communities together to celebrate African American culture, while recognizing the ongoing challenges to achieve true liberation, Bennett said.

Black Student Alliance Public Relations Chair Ania Potts said this would be a good excuse to bring people together since MSU has never had a celebration for Juneteenth.

Its wonderful that the timing of this years event coincided with COVID-19 restrictions being lifted across the state, so that everyone can gather safely outdoors, Bennett said.

The commemoration will also be the first in-person gathering since the COVID-19 pandemic reached Michigan over a year ago.

People who want to attend the event will be asked to complete MSUs Health Screening Form.The celebration will have live performances, food, discussion, giveaways, music and art.

We really just wanted something wholesome for people to come out and enjoy and have a safe space, Potts said.

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'From Freedom to Liberation': The first university-wide celebration of Juneteenth - The State News

Every American knows we celebrate freedom on the Fourth of July, but very few people know what Juneteenth celebrates, or even recognize the date. A Harris Pollconducted last June found 22% of Americans said they were "very aware" of the date, while 33% said they were "not at all aware."

On Saturday, June 19, people from all walks of life will mark Juneteenth. Short for "June nineteenth," the holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in theU.S. It was first celebrated in Texas on June 19, 1866, exactly one year after Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and declared that enslaved people had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation that became effective in 1863.

UC Merced Professor Kevin Dawson, chair of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Graduate Group, teaches classes on African American history, African diaspora, gender, race and slavery in the U.S. and Atlantic world. He explained that Juneteenth initially stayed within Texas for some time, and it wasn't until about the 1980s and '90s more than 100 years later that the holiday became much more widely celebrated across the country.

On June 17, President Joe Bidensigned a bill into law to establishJuneteenth as a federal holiday after both the House and Senate had passed the resolution earlier in the week. This is now the 12th federal holiday and the first new onesince Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established in 1983.

"I think it's important to commemorate Juneteenth because it forces us to think about these issues of freedom and race in America and who was actually free," saidDawson. "It's not a rejection of America. I think we should recognize the inequalities and injustices as part of the healing process.

"It's important to say that no we were not created as equal," he added. "This is something that we're striving for; that we're imperfect. But out of that imperfection, hopefully, we can create a society that truly embraces freedom, liberty, democracy and equality for all people."

Because it took time for Juneteenth to spread to other states, some people may only be somewhat familiar with it. However, Dawson said there might also be a willful neglect.

"In order to celebrate Juneteenth, you have to recognize slavery," he said. "It's a celebration of freedom exactly what we say we are; a freedom-loving country but it's not the kind of freedom that we want to celebrate. We want to celebrate freedom from English tyranny or religious oppression, but we don't want to celebrate the freedom of our own tyranny."

As decades have passed, the meaning of Juneteenth has evolved, especially recently with the Black Lives Matter movement. In the past year, people have taken to the streets and social media to express their frustration with racial and social inequalities. Dawson stresses that the movement is not anti-anything, but instead is a recognition of Black freedom and what that can mean in the U.S.

After former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, the meaning of Juneteenth could be experiencing a transition again.

"I think what it might mean now, at least for African Americans, it might be more hopeful than in the past," said Dawson. "I think with how police violence and racial injustice are being taken more seriously and not just dismissed, that it is more hopeful. It's becoming more of a celebration of freedom and for hope for the future than for commemorating an end to slavery."

Dawson hopes that freedomwill not be curtailed when it comes to expressing thoughts and making decisions, including voting in future elections. According to theBrennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, states have passed more than 20 laws this year that will make it "harder for Americans to vote." Other bills now making their way through multiple state legislatures include changes to mail-in voting and imposing voter ID requirements, among other changes manysee as restricting people's ability to vote.

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Juneteenth: Celebrating Freedom and Hope for the Future | Newsroom - UC Merced University News

Religions win streak at the Supreme Court continued on Thursday when a unanimous court sided with a Catholic foster care agency in a case pitting religious freedom law against LGBTQ rights.

Justices said the government must offer religious exemptions when its willing to offer them for other purposes and can achieve its policy goals through other means.

Officials in Philadelphia violated this precedent by refusing to respect a faith-based objection to same-sex marriage, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.

Catholic Social Services seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else, he wrote.

Five justices joined Roberts majority opinion, including the courts three liberals. Three justices filed concurring opinions. There was no dissenting opinion in the case.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, who did not join the majority opinion, described the case as a missed opportunity to overhaul and strengthen the courts approach to the First Amendment.

This case presents an important constitutional question that urgently calls out for review: whether this courts governing interpretation of a bedrock constitutional right, the right to the free exercise of religion, is fundamentally wrong and should be corrected, wrote Alito in his concurring opinion.

The Philadelphia case, which originated in 2018, centered on the religious exercise protections offered by the First Amendment.

Catholic Social Services and two of its foster moms, Sharonell Fulton and Toni Simms-Busch, claimed Philadelphia officials violated their religious freedom by refusing to partner with agencies that, for religious reasons, wouldnt assess whether same-sex couples were suitable to adopt.

Philadelphia asserted that offering religious exemptions to its nondiscrimination rules would work against its goal of recruiting as many foster parents as possible.

Lower courts ruled in favor of the city, deciding its exclusion of some faith-based agencies did not violate the First Amendment. These rulings cited a 1990 Supreme Court ruling called Employment Division v. Smith, which said limits on religious rights are permissible if they stem from a neutral, generally applicable law.

The Supreme Court overturned these lower court rulings, stating that Philadelphias policy was not generally applicable since the city was willing to offer exemptions to nonreligious agencies. The ruling does not, as legal experts speculated it might, dramatically redefine how the Supreme Court applies the First Amendment.

Still, many conservative religious organizations and advocacy groups described the courts decision as a major victory, praising the justices for protecting Catholic Social Services deeply held religious beliefs.

This ruling means that people of diverse convictions can still serve side by side for the good of vulnerable children in our communities. We can ensure a clear, dignified path for all who wish to foster or adopt, including LGBT+ individuals, while also ensuring that faith-inspired agencies and families can continue to serve without being forced to violate their religious beliefs, said Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans.

Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, a law firm focused on religious freedom issues, called the ruling a tremendous victory for religious liberty.

Punishing religious organizations for acting consistently with their sincerely held religious beliefs is wrong. The court ensured that religious adoption providers can continue their centuries-old work serving families and children without suffering government discrimination, he said in a statement.

Archbishop Nelson Perez, who leads the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said the decision ensures that religious foster parents can continue partnership with the agencies best suited to serve their unique needs.

Todays ruling allows our ministries to continue serving those in need (and) foster families to find an agency that shares and reflects their faith, he said during a press call hosted by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Catholic Social Services and the moms in the case.

Leaders from more liberal faith groups and LGBTQ rights advocates had a dimmer view of how the courts decision could impact foster care services.

By ruling in favor of Catholic Social Services, the justices will make it harder for the thousands of children stuck in the church of the foster care system to find homes, said Katy Joseph, director of policy and advocacy for Interfaith Alliance, in a statement.

The constitutional right to religious freedom protects the sanctity of personal belief. However, that freedom ends when the exercise of ones faith would harm the rights or well-being of another. This decision vastly distorts our first freedom by allowing faith-based providers to needlessly restrict the pool of prospective foster and adoptive parents, she said.

The Rev. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, similarly decried the decision, but said she was relieved the court did not issue a broader decision that could have weakened LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws across the country.

Let me be clear: God loves LGBTQ people. Anyone that says otherwise is fundamentally misunderstanding and warping our scripture, she said.

Like Jones, leaders from the ACLU celebrated that the impact of the courts ruling will be more limited than it could have been.

We are relieved that the court did not recognize a license to discriminate based on religious beliefs, said Leslie Cooper, deputy director of the organizations LGTBQ & HIV Project, in a statement.

Catholic Social Services, as well as many of the organizations that filed Supreme Court briefs supporting its case, had asked the court to overturn Smith and make it harder for any government official to place limits on religious activities.

In the majority opinion, Roberts said the case did not call for such a sweeping resolution, since the city of Philadelphia clearly violated the legal test laid out in previous religious freedom rulings.

The city has burdened the religious exercise of (Catholic Social Services) through policies that do not meet the requirement of being neutral and generally applicable, he wrote.

Philadelphias anti-discrimination law is not generally applicable since it offers foster care agencies the option of requesting individual exemptions, Roberts added.

The creation of a formal mechanism for granting exceptions renders a policy not generally applicable, regardless whether any exceptions have been given, he said.

The Supreme Courts decision brings needed clarity to the world of First Amendment litigation, said Lori Windham, senior counsel for Becket, during the Thursday press call.

The court made it clear that when the government is going to cut corners and make exceptions for other people it cant crack down on religious freedom, she said.

Luke Goodrich, who is also senior counsel for Becket, took to Twitter to push back against claims that Thursdays decision was narrow. He and other religious freedom advocates believe its now clear that Smith is not long for this world.

There are at least five votes, likely six, to overrule it. Its only a matter of time before the court restores even stronger protections for religious freedom, Goodrich said.

If Smith were overturned, it would be easier for faith groups to win exemptions to LGBTQ anti-discrimination laws, as well as other policies, as the Deseret News reported earlier this month.

Thursdays decision is the latest in a string of Supreme Court victories for religious groups. In the past year, justices repeatedly ruled for churches challenging state-level COVID-19 gathering restrictions. Before that, they sided with religious schools facing lawsuits from former employees and religious families seeking access to public scholarship funds.

In part because of concerns about the Supreme Courts conservative majority and the justices approach to religious freedom, LGBTQ rights advocates on Thursday reiterated their calls for Congress to pass the Equality Act, which would broaden the scope of anti-discrimination law.

Congress must now listen to an overwhelming majority of voters and pass the Equality Act to update our civil rights laws to ensure explicit protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including in federally-funded programs, said James Esseks, director of the ACLUs LGBTQ & HIV Project, in a statement.

The Alliance for Lasting Liberty, a coalition of religious freedom and LGBTQ rights advocates that includes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is also calling on Congress to take action on anti-discrimination law in the months ahead.

However, theyd like to see policymakers pass the Fairness for All Act rather than the Equality Act, since they believe the former bill strengthens both religious and gay rights.

We continue to call on Congress to pass comprehensive federal legislation that protects LGBT people and the free exercise of religion, the alliances statement said.

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LGBTQ rights v. religious freedom: What the Supreme Court said in Fulton - Deseret News

In the legal battle between religious rights and gay rights, religious freedom gained a victory today. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the First Amendments religious-freedom protections prevent the city of Philadelphia from refusing to contract with a Catholic foster-care agency that, based on its religious beliefs, does not place foster children with same-sex couples. The decision, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, is a victory for conservative Christians who have been arguing that the Constitutions guarantees of religious freedom protect religious organizations and individuals who wish to deny certain services to LGBTQ people.

The Fulton decision is substantial, but it is not the blockbuster outcome that some had expected. In a narrow ruling, the Court determined that Philadelphias policies were not neutral toward religion and thus violated the First Amendments free-exercise clause. Fulton is in line with the Courts shift toward a broader interpretation of First Amendment protections, but the Court was divided about the bigger question, specifically whether to expand religious-liberty rights by replacing a 1990 legal precedent, Employment Division v. Smith.

The Smith decision was written by Antonin Scalia, the late conservative justice, and it limited the rights of a religious minorityNative Americansstating that free-exercise rights could not exempt them from neutral laws (in this case drug laws) that did not target their religion. Smiths circumscribed view of religious liberty has been the prevailing legal precedent ever since, but it has become controversial, especially among conservatives. Although the Court did not overturn Smith today, several justices signaled a willingness to do so. Justice Samuel Alito wrote a lengthy concurring opinion arguing that Smith should be reexamined. In her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the arguments against Smith are compelling, but that Fulton did not require the Court to abandon it.

Thirty years ago, a potential reversal of Smith would have been celebrated, especially by liberals. Today, conservatives are leading the charge to expand religious freedom and overturn Smith. Understanding why reveals the contours of a major transformation that American society has undergone over the past three decades.

Zalman Rothschild: Religious equality is transforming American law

Two conversations about religious freedom are happening simultaneously, one legal and one political. The majority opinion in Fulton, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, emphasized the legal conversation, detailing how Philadelphia was not neutral toward religion. Alitos concurring opinion, calling for the replacement of Smith, similarly emphasized the legal conversation. He argued that repealing Smith would protect religious freedom for everyone, including Orthodox Jews, Sikh men, and Muslim women. Such an approach is common among religious-freedom advocates, but it misses the political context that has developed alongside expansive religious-freedom claims. In politics, the way the religious-freedom cause is deployed drives a perception that conservative Christians, who are tightly linked to Republican politics, will be the beneficiaries of its expansion. This promotes division.

Not long ago, religious freedom used to cut across groups and cross partisan lines. The religious divide between the parties was less starkevangelical Democrats such as Jimmy Carter were commonand liberal advocacy groups such as the ACLU defended the free exercise of religion before courts. Religious minorities, such as the Amish, Seventh Day Adventists, and Jehovahs Witnesses, were frequent beneficiaries. After the Supreme Court limited religious-freedom rights with the Smith decision, opposition was nearly universaland certainly bipartisanthough led by Democrats and progressive groups. Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 nearly unanimously to weaken Smith and restore broad religious-liberty protections. Bipartisan supermajorities in several states followed suit by enhancing their religious-freedom protections.

Within a decade, these bipartisan currents were changing. Republicans leveraged religious-liberty arguments to advance their position on cultural issues. They argued that Christians religious freedom was under threat, and emphasized cultural conflict. In doing so, Republicans adopted the cultural arguments for religious freedom that were championed by white evangelicals. Evangelicals had become a core part of the partys activist base and electoral coalition, mobilized by a mixture of opposition to civil rights and abortion rights, as well as support for religious nationalism. Evangelicals had been emphasizing religious-freedom arguments for decades to push back against secularism and the sexual revolution, and to promote cultural conservatism, such as prayer in schools. When conservative Christians became integrated into the Republican Party, their religious-freedom messages gained broader appeal.

As conservative Christians were losing cultural and political ground, particularly in the area of gay rights, they turned to constitutional rights to advance their claims, making these appeals to courts and in public life. In the years following Smith and the RFRA legislation, advocates leaned on religious liberty to oppose nondiscrimination policies that protected the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Conservative Christian groups sought to weaken, if not overturn, Smith in order to maximize religious-liberty protections for private Christian actors who might run afoul of generally applicable laws.

Civil-rights groups objected and mobilized the broader Democratic coalition, and religious freedom became a culture-wars flashpoint. The ACLU opposed religious liberty being used to deny gays and lesbians access to housing. LGBTQ groups, after being silent about religious freedom for most of the 1990s, started warning that religious-liberty claims could be used to discriminate. As the conflict expanded and consolidated around the two poles of party politics, support for religious freedom on the left dwindled. Democrats and their allied groups withdrew their sponsorship of a sweeping religious-freedom bill in 1999, and hopes for a continued bipartisan religious-freedom coalition were dashed.

Netta Barak-Corren: How one Supreme Court decision increased discrimination against LGBTQ couples

Over the next two decades, Republicans mobilized around religious freedom, particularly emphasizing the threats to conservative Christians. Republicans sponsored legislation in Congress and in state Houses, championed executive activity defending religious rights, and urged the Court to expand First Amendment protections. In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Courts Hobby Lobby decision sided with conservative Christians and used the bipartisan RFRA legislation to limit a key piece of the Affordable Care Actthe contraception mandate. When the Court legalized same-sex marriage, in 2015s Obergefell v. Hodges, dissenters and conservative advocates warned about the decisions impact on religious believers. Conservative Christians, once the junior partner in the conservative legal movement and the Republican Party, made religious freedom a central cause of the partys cultural agenda.

Democrats resisted this mobilization. Throughout the 2000s, Democratic sponsorship of religious-freedom legislation diminished. In 2014, religious-freedom bills in five states garnered only four votes from Democrats. The ACLU, once a proud supporter of RFRA, announced that it could no longer back the legislation, and actively campaigned to modify it to prevent discrimination. The Equality Act, which has become a priority of the current Democratic Congress, would do just that. As Republicans rallied around religious freedom for Christians, Democrats changed their outlook as well.

As religious freedom has become polarized, surveys frequently show partisan divides over related policies. My research suggests that the divide is not merely about the actual details of any one policy, but about who is perceived to benefit.

In a survey conducted in October, I showed people a general statement supporting religious freedom, but randomized whether the statement was attributed to Joe Biden or Donald Trump. When it was attached to Trump, respondents support declined more than when it was said to come from Biden, and the responses were especially polarizing across party lines. If people believed that the statement was Trumps, they were also more likely to assume that white Christians would benefit from the religious freedom in question.

Similarly, people seem to alter their opinions when religious freedom is linked to non-Christian groups. In other surveys I conducted, when people were exposed to non-Christian groups advocating for religious freedomsuch as Muslim truck drivers arguing for a religious accommodation not to deliver alcoholpolarization of the issue decreases. The perception of who benefits from religious freedom matters for political support.

The Fulton decision, while securing a win for religious-liberty advocates, left open the potential to reverse the Smith precedent. A reversal of Smith has roots in historically bipartisan efforts to defend the rights of religious minorities, and many such groups would benefit from it. In the three decades since Smith, however, conservative Christians have mobilized the Republican Party to promote their religious-freedom interests while often refusing to grant religious-liberty rights to minorities, such as Muslims. Although these Christians have succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to grant them their religious-freedom rights, as with todays Fulton decision, fusing religious freedom to their interest alone has come at the cost of bipartisan support. These alliances are not easily unwound.

Ultimately, politicizing religious freedom will hurt true civil-liberties claims. Conservative Christians are correct that religious freedom is under threat, but the threat comes as much from partisan politics as it does from legal precedents.

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The Fight for Religious Freedom Isnt What It Used to Be - The Atlantic

According to Newtons Third Law of Motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If societal struggles are subject to laws similar to the world of physics, here is a reaction to the nationwide restrictions on voting revive Freedom Summer 1964.

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s, America experienced a revolution in the legal rights of Black citizens, sometimes through the power of non-violent protests, too often in response to horrific state-sanctioned violence. In most of the momentous events that constituted the modern civil rights revolution, students and young people led the way.

In 1960, four courageous Greensboro, North Carolina, Black college students sat down at a segregated Woolworths lunch counter. As required by law at the time, they were denied service because of their race. Their plan was to not leave until they were served, despite the expectation of white supremacist physical assault. Somehow the brave pioneers survived, and the sit-in movement spread throughout the South.

In May 1961, the first two buses of Freedom Riders arrived in Alabama in a daring effort initiated by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to test compliance with U.S. Supreme Court decisions mandating desegregation of interstate transit. Nearly half of the original CORE Freedom Riders were college students. The first bus was fire-bombed outside Anniston; the second was met at the Birmingham Trailways terminal where several Riders were beaten by a mob of Klansmen, under the watchful and approving eyes of local police.

The battered Freedom Riders were forced to abandon their planned bus ride to New Orleans. But students at Fisk University and other historically Black schools in Nashville under the leadership of a young student named Diane Nash refused to permit failure. Training more than 400 volunteers from around the country, scores of freedom buses were dispatched, primarily to Mississippi, where young activists filled the states jails and prisons.

The following year, 1963, John Lewis and Bernard La Fayette, leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and former college roommates, organized a voting rights campaign around Selma. In the heart of Alabamas Black Belt, they and a band of foot soldiers created so much good trouble that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) eventually built a voting rights campaign that led to the march from Selma to Montgomery that set the stage for the Voting Rights Act signed by President Lyndon Johnson in August 1965.

The triumph of voting rights legislation would not have been possible without the example set by the student volunteers of the Freedom Summer campaign a year earlier. In 1964, nearly a thousand students from across the country devoted their summer to the difficult and dangerous work of registering Black voters in Mississippi.

Freedom Summer volunteers came to Mississippi risking life and limb. One of them, Queens College student Andrew Goodman, along with James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, was murdered by local police on his first day in the state. Now, more than a half century later, we face a coordinated assault on voting rights every bit as anti-democratic as that faced by the Freedom Summer volunteers. Young Americans who will inherit whatever form of democracy can be sustained, can come to the aid of a democracy in grave danger of dissolving into autocracy.

The assault on democracy and voting rights is so widespread, taking place in so many states, young volunteers can devote a summer, or perhaps even a full year, working for democracy in their home state or temporarily relocating to other states where voting rights are under attack. Florida, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Arkansas, Montana, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio the list of states goes on, and will continue unless the call to action is answered with determination to save our democracy. Students can apprentice themselves to community groups and church groups in states that have been targeted for voter suppression.

Groups on the ground can recruit people to host and provide housing for visiting voting rights defenders. They can organize volunteers to staff offices, register voters, assist with the application process to vote by mail, staff phone banks, and drive people to the polls on early voting days or Election Day. Everyone can be involved in resisting the metastasizing of undemocratic voting laws.

But this call for a new Freedom Summer is directed primarily toward to a new generation of high school and college-age Americans, urging them to accept the challenge of assuming the mantel of their courageous activist predecessors. What could be more fulfilling, or more important, than sustaining the legacy of Freedom Summer and voting rights campaigns of earlier generations by dedicating time to the defense of American democracy? What an opportunity to serve, to learn, to expand horizons. What an opportunity for young people, once again, to do great things for their country.

Raymond O. Arsenault was the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg until his retirement in December 2020. One of the nations leading civil rights historians, he is the author of several acclaimed books, including Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. He is currently writing a biography of the legendary voting rights activist John Lewis.

Howard L. Simon was the longest-serving state affiliate executive director of the America Civil Liberties Union, serving as Michigan director from 1974 to 1997 and Florida director from 1997-2018. He is an author of Floridas 2018 constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to those who have completed their sentence for a prior felony conviction.

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We need another Freedom Summer | Column - Tampa Bay Times

Juneteenth is a holiday that dates back to 1865, when the last enslaved people were set free in this country. Theres a national debate underway over how racism and slavery should be remembered.

This story originally aired on North Country Public Radio. You can find the original piece, here.

But Black activists in Vermont and northern New York say the celebration has been re-energized in recent years and hope Juneteenth spurs a better understanding of Black history in America.

More from NPR: Slavery Didn't End On Juneteenth. Here's What You Should Know About This Important Day

Ferene Paris Meyer didn't even hear about Juneteenth until she was in her 30s. It was 2018. She and a few other Black women were organizing an event in Burlington, where Paris Meyer lives. One of them suggested having the event on Juneteenth.

I was like, hold on. Come again? What is this Black holiday? I didnt know, I had no idea, Meyer said.

"I really think that Juneteenth is an opportunity for America to heal, to start the healing process from this history that it just doesn't admit to." - Bianca Ellis

Once she learned more about Juneteenth, Paris Meyer says she wanted something this year for the Black Community to just get away. Paris Meyer had recently discovered sailing on Lake Champlain and wanted to share that experience with other Black people.

I was in awe of how beautiful it was to be on the water, how healing it was to be on the water and I just want them to come out and all they have to do is show up and we got them.

Homegoings: DonnCherie On The Art Of Authenticity

From 20 local sponsors, Paris Meyer raised about $16,000 for the sailing event and for an urban farm and retreat for BIPOC people in Winooski. There are seven sailing trips throughout the Juneteenth weekend for 58 people.

The focus on healing is something that Bianca Ellis thinks about around Juneteenth, and not just for Black people. Ellis is a former Fort Drum Army officer. Shes been organizing Juneteenth events in Watertown for the last eight years. This years event all virtual.

I really think that Juneteenth is an opportunity for America to heal, to start the healing process from this history that it just doesnt admit to.

For Ellis, thats the true history of slavery the brutality of it, how many people fought to preserve it, and how slowly it was abolished.

For Benita Law-Diao, it also means the history of Black people who weren't enslaved.

Blacks were ship captains, they were in commerce. Everybody wasnt a slave, even during slavery. There were free Blacks. What did we do? What were we doing? How did we contribute?

Law-Diao has family members who were slaves and later sharecroppers in Alabama. She lives in Albany and is helping organize Saturdays Juneteenth event at the John Brown Farm in Lake Placid.

There will be a dance performance, African drumming, and storytelling about the underground railroad. Law-Diao says she has deep respect for the abolitionist- the farm is named after.

He stood up and said, This is wrong, this is wrong. Im a man of God and this is wrong and I cant let this happen. He gave his life and for that, I am truly grateful, but it hurts when I think about how he had to lose his life in order for us to be free.

More from VPR: (Un)fractured: Covering Race And Racial Injustice In Our Communities

There are Juneteenth events and celebrations across the North Country this weekend, including ones in Potsdam and Plattsburgh, Saratoga Springs, Watertown and Lake Placid.

Paris Meyer from Burlington says there is a lot about whats being honored on Juneteenth that is painful. She says the day is also a celebration of joy and freedom.

"Juneteenth actually should be the most bumping day in the summer for us here because of what it honors, what it teaches." - Ferene Paris Meyer

Juneteenth actually should be the most bumping day in the summer for us here because of what it honors, what it teaches, she said.

By honoring Black voices and Black experiences, Meyer says, the day teaches a more accurate version of American history and highlights a day when all Americans were finally free.

Have questions, comments or tips?Send us a messageor tweet us@vprnet.

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Juneteenth In The North Country: Celebrating Freedom, Promoting Healing - Vermont Public Radio

Freedom Riders will board the bus in Phoenix on Friday and stop at different cities where prominent events of the Civil Rights era happened.(Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Growing up as a Black man in the 1960s, Aubrey Barnwell still feels the sting of Jim Crow laws and remembers the lasting impact they had on him and his parents.

My parents drove from North Dakota to Florida when I was a baby, Barnwell recalls. On their way, they stopped at a store to get some milk. The people at the store would not allow them to go in the store. They handed the milk (to them)out the door.

"My mother and father poured the milk out because they were not sure what the individuals who had given them the milk had done to it.

That was just one of many childhood experiences Barnwell cites as inspiring him to board a bus from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., this Friday to rally lawmakers in support of the For the People Act, a bill aimed at expanding voting rights across the country.

The bus will leave Phoenix the day before Juneteenth the annual holiday commemorating the end of enslavementin the United States.

Barnwell, a 60-year-old pastor from Peoria, is on the board of Case Action, a progressive social justice group that is co-organizing the rides along with Unite Here Local 11, a labor union.

He and other Freedom Riders, as they are called, will board the bus on Friday and stop at cities where prominent events of the Civil Rights era happened, including Tulsa, Okla.;Little Rock, Ark.;and Greensboro, N.C. Their journey will end June 26in Washington, D.C., where they hope to meet with lawmakers to show support of the voting-rights bill.

The rides are named after the original 1960s Freedom Rides, in which civil rights activists rode interstate buses into the Southto challenge racial segregation.

Some people were remarking that they feel actually somewhat upset that people who really died for the right to vote in the '60s now are having to do something 60 years later on the same issue, said Susan Minato, Unite Here Local 11 co-president. It does not seem like it should be this way. And so it's a continuation of a movement that is constantly refining the Constitution and the democracy of our country."

Marisela Mares, a 23-year-old labor organizer and former food service worker from south Phoenix, says participatingin the Freedom Rideis especially poignant for her as a transgender woman of color.

We already go through enough hardships in life and so to add on top of that, making it even harder for me to vote, Mares said. There's a lot of trans folks that have disabilities that don't really have the time or energy or the capacity to go and wait in line at a polling place. We need to protect access to the early ballot.

The bill would reform redistricting and election security laws in addition to expanding early voting and requiring states to set up automatic voter registration for eligible voters in federal elections.

Some of the bills features and goals already exist in the status quo in Arizona, such as widespread early voting, but others are new, said David Gartner, a professor of law and associate dean of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

The things that don't yet exist in Arizona, which exist in every neighboring state, (include)things like automatic voter registration: when people, for example, get a driver's license, it would automatically enroll those who are eligible, said Gartner, who specializes in election law.

He added that there's a whole other section of the bill that addresses ethics and campaign finance.

This system, slightly different than Arizona's elections, would create a matching system for donations that are $200 or less, he said. The idea, and theres some evidence for this, is more people will participate both in funding elections and also in running themselves. So those pieces arent directly related to who gets to vote, but may influence who shapes the elections.

But the fate of the For the People Act itself is unknown. While it passed in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in a near party-line vote in March, its future is uncertain in the divided Senate, where Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., called it partisan voting legislation and said he will vote against it in its current form.

It's probably fair to say that the things that (Manchin)doesn't like are unlikely to make it into any final legislation, but the harder question is,'Is any of it going to make it into law,' Gartner said.

That will depend on the filibuster, a Senate rule that requires a 60-vote majority for legislation to move forward.

BothManchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., are opposed to eliminating the filibuster, which have made them the targets of criticism from many Democrats. However, Sinema has co-sponsored the For the People Act, calling it critical voting-rights legislation."

For subscribers:Sinema's calls for bipartisanship tested as she helps lead infrastructure talks

Given the filibuster, it will turn on those same two people, the senator from West Virginia and the senator from Arizona, Gartner said of the bill's viability in the Senate. And I don't know that anybody knows that answer.

Minato says that Unite Here Local 11 helped elect Sinema to the Senate in 2018, and hopes she will hear their concerns. We want her to know that the people of Arizona, the people in the country, really care about this issue so that's why we're starting in Arizona.

Sinemas office said that shewelcomes the support of UNITE HERE 11 and other Arizonans for the For the People Act and believes the right to vote, faith in the integrity of our electoral process, and trust in elected officials are critical to the health and vitality of our democracy.

She is a cosponsor and supporter of both the For The People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act because she supports legislation restoring critical safeguards that protect every American's right to vote, and she supports reforms that reduce the influence of money in politics, secure our elections from foreign interference, and hold government officials to the highest ethical standards, Sinemaspokesperson Hannah Hurley wrote in a statement.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., also supports the bill.

Mares, one of the Freedom Riders, said the rides represent an ongoing fight against the filibuster in order to secure the passage of the bill in the Senate.

Fifty or sixty years ago we risked our lives to end segregation and to win civil rights and voting rights, and we're still fighting, said Mares, the labor organizer who will participate in the rides. The filibuster is still there, there are still people that don't see this as an urgent issue and I think that's even more reason why we have to go in and put that pressure and inspire the leaders to really take action.

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Arizonans to participate in 'Freedom Rides' to DC in support of voting-rights bill - The Arizona Republic

Recent red-state bans or restrictions on the use of critical race theory (CRT) in public schools and universities have been denounced by mainstream media. While most of the bans primarily target CRTs racial essentialismprohibitions on assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex, according to a bill signed into law in Iowa last weekthe new legislation is regularly described as an attack on diversity or racial sensitivity training. According to New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, the reforms amount to outright government censorship; for Atlantic staff writer Adam Harris, they show the GOPs cynical desire to spark another battle in the culture wars. A recent MSNBC headline goes further still: GOP Pushing Bill to Ban Teaching History of Slavery.

Beyond the hyperbole, substantive critiques of the new legislation usually allege that curricular restrictions violate academic freedom. Insofar as this contention originates on the left, one could regard it as a cynical manipulation of language. After all, progressives have had little to say about free speech in education for at least a generation; that they have suddenly rediscovered the virtue of an open marketplace of ideas now is convenient.

At the same time, however, a significant number of genuine defenders of academic freedom, on the left and right, have also voiced opposition to the bans on CRT-based curricula in taxpayer-funded schools. Their views deserve to be taken seriously. These critics object to the anti-CRT laws on first principles, contending that a ban on teaching a particular ideology or doctrine in public schools undermines free speech and related constitutional rights. The federal courts should reflexively invalidate anti-CRT laws on First Amendment grounds, writes First Amendment law professor Ronald Krotoszynski in the Washington Post. Educators cannot do their job if state governments attempt to ban the teaching of ideas they fear.

But the dogmatic insistence that political neutralitya fuzzy idea, by any measurebe strictly adhered to in all government policy, in lieu of legislators ever promoting a substantive vision of the good, represents a fundamental misinterpretation of academic freedom in a publicly funded setting. This argument is particularly perplexing in the context of taxpayer-funded grade schools. The idea that banning specific topics in these schools curricula is government overreach misses the fact that public K-12 programs are monopolistic, government-run institutions; a change in their curricular requirements does not expand state power in any substantive way.

This misunderstanding is clearly visible in the writings of figures like Acadia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, a self-described mainstream liberal who care[s] deeply about classic liberal norms like free speech and academic freedom. Sachs argues that the recent anti-CRT laws are condemnable for their use of state power to suppress woke speech and viewpoints. And yet, the debate over legislative interventions in woke K-12 curricula does not actually consider the use of state power to suppress private speech rights; it deals with the question of whether state employees should be allowed to teach woke doctrine on the taxpayers dollar. Are policymakers proscribed from ensuring that tax dollars are not used in ways that harm the taxpaying polity? For Sachs, such intervention is tantamount to using the blunt instrument of the state to infringe on the rights of public educators. But if crafting public education policy and overseeing its implementation is not the role of the state, then whose is it?

Krotoszynski suggests an answer in his Washington Post editorial, where he approvingly quotes Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurters characterization of teachers as priests of our democracy, who cannot carry out their noble task if the conditions of a responsible and critical mind are denied to them. Leaving aside whether CRT actually promotes or detracts from critical thinking, do teachers purported positions as priests of democracy elevate them above democracy itself, as conducted through democratically elected state legislative bodies, tasked with overseeing public education? The idea that it is unconstitutional and a violation of academic freedom, in Sachss words, to restrict public K-12 schools from teaching something like the New York Timess 1619 Projectthe revisionist reinterpretation of the American Founding specifically targeted by bans enacted in Arkansas and Iowawould suggest that public educators should be insulated from accountability and democratic oversight, operating instead as private citizens outside the purview of the very state legislatures that pay them.

This is the final problem with the idea of political neutrality in public school curricula. Public school teachers are not private actors, and a public school curriculum is not a neutral or free marketplace of ideas. What one teaches and does not teach in this setting is an unavoidably political decision, using public funds to favor certain concepts and theories at the necessary exclusion of others. A public educator teaching the 1619 Project is not a private voice in a free marketplace of ideas, but a specificand taxpayer-endorsedstate employee, acting as an extension of the state itself. To assert that a curriculum is somehow less political in the hands of a teacher rather than a legislator is to accept the notion that teachers are not servants of the public good, but masters of it.

One could object to the CRT bans on pragmatic grounds, such as the concerns that some have raised about the use of overly broad language in some versions of the legislation, but the legitimacy of the new laws on principle depends not on whether the government should ban or suppress certain viewpoints in the public square but on whether CRT serves a genuine pedagogical purpose in public schools. Why does the 1619 Projectdebunked by historians for a number of blatantly ahistorical claimshave an inviolable claim to publicly funded classrooms? Does its demonstrably false assertion that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery have a place in a U.S. history class any more than creationism has a place in biology courses?

Sachs argues that his interest isnt defending Critical Race Theory, its defending free speech and academic freedom. David French, a prominent conservative critic of the bans, tweets that defending the right of free speech is [not] the same as defending the content of that speech. But teaching a specific ideology in a taxpayer-funded curriculum is not a mere exercise of neutral free speech or academic freedom. To defend it in this context is, in fact, a defense of its content, or at least a defense of the idea that its content is legitimate enough to be backed by state funds and taught to our children. And to make that argument is to defend government-run classrooms teaching a doctrine that explicitly undermines the American constitutional order.

Nate Hochman is a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute and a recent graduate of Colorado College.

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Critical Race Theory and Academic Freedom - City Journal

Royal Caribbean has released the health protocols for Freedom of the Seas departures out of Miami, Florida, starting from July 2, 2021. It is important to know that the protocols are for July sailings only.

Freedom of the Seas will be the first ship in the fleet to resume cruise operations from the U.S. She will be the first of many vessels that are returning to service this summer.

Now that Royal Caribbean has released the health protocols for Freedom for the Seas, guests can decide if they should still go ahead with a long-awaited cruise vacation. The detailed protocols were released on June 17, and guests booked on the July sailings out of Miami will still receive full details before departure.

Royal Caribbean says it strongly recommends passengers 16 and older to be fully vaccinated, and during check-in, guests will be asked to show proof of full vaccination such as the CDC record card. Those guests who are not fully vaccinated will have to undergo additional testing at their own expense and follow different protocols to those fully vaccinated.

Those over the age of 16 and not fully vaccinated will have to undergo a PCR test which will cost $135 per guest which will be added to the onboard account. Those guests of two years old to five years old will have a free PCR test.

The Royal Caribbean App will be an important part of the cruise to make sure guests remain safe. Before even stepping onboard, a health questionnaire must be completed on the app and an allocated arrival time to the terminal chosen.

Even though most guests are expected to be fully vaccinated, there will be different rules for those not fully vaccinated. This covers a wide range of experiences during the cruise. The onboard SeaPass will be required to access lounges, show, and dining venues, and this will let the crew keeps things organized.

Also Read: Royal Caribbean Clarifies Vaccine Policy Including Florida Cruises

There will be venues and events that will only be available for vaccinated guests on Freedom of the Seas. In the main dining room, the areas will be split up in addition to spaced seating. There will be more times allocated for showtimes, and select shows will only be for vaccinated passengers. There will be shows that will allow all guests too.

All guests have to wear a face mask indoors unless seated and actively eating or drinking. Outdoors, the rules are more relaxed including at Perfect Day at CocoCay. Vaccinated guests dont have to wear a mask in any of the venues. Royal Caribbean has said that the CDC is to releases further updated guidance on mask policies for vaccinated passengers so these details could change further.

When it comes to shore excursions, it depends on the local authorities, and Royal Caribbean will provide further details during the voyages. To access many venues and dining, guests will have to make a reservation using the Royal Caribbean App. You can read all the details on the health protocols for Freedom of the Seas here.

Following a simulated sailing to stress test protocols departing June 20 out of Miami, the Royal Caribbean cruise ship will begin paid sailings on July 2, 2021. The ship will sail 3- and 4-night cruises, including calls to the Bahamas and the cruise lines private island destination of Perfect Day at CocoCay out of PortMiami.

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Royal Caribbean Releases Health Protocols for Freedom of the Seas July Cruises - Cruise Hive

June 16, 2021

Juneteenth, a commemoration of the end of slavery in the U.S., is a day to celebrate freedom and a time to dream, says one Georgia Southern University professor.

On June 19, 1865, Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that the Civil War had ended and enslaved Black Americans were free by executive decree.

More than 155 years later, the annual remembrance still resonates, explained Maxine Bryant, Ph.D., assistant professor of criminal justice and director of Georgia Southerns Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center. Its vitally important not to forget history, she said, however the day represents more than past triumphs.

We want to honor the dream, said Bryant. When we think about freedom, we have to recognize that enslaved Blacks dreamt of freedom and they didnt see it for themselves, but they dreamt of it for generations to come. And then generations later when were dealing with the civil rights issues, those people dreamt of freedom. They dreamt it for the generation that lives now. So as we celebrate Juneteenth it is not just a recognition or celebration of when the people in Galveston, Texas, found out about freedom. Its about all that freedom represents.

Across the country, organized efforts, like the one on Georgia Southerns Armstrong Campus, which will feature Gullah Geechee master storytellers and drummers, an African dance troupe, and traditional quilt lessons, are some of the many ways communities will celebrate Juneteenth on Saturday, June 19.

Recognizing and celebrating Juneteenth in the communities we serve is an honor and privilege and in direct alignment with our institutional value of Inclusive Excellence, said TaJuan R. Wilson, Ed.D., associate vice president of Inclusive Excellence and chief diversity officer. It is my hope that campus education and programming will continue to expand in the years to come and that every member of our learning community understands and celebrates the historical significance of that day in 1865, while making connections to our ongoing, comprehensive work in diversity, equity and inclusion.

Juneteenth Live on the Armstrong Campus is free and open to the public.

The event will take place at the following:

Saturday, June 193:30-5:30 p.m.International Gardens (between Solms Hall and Hawes Hall)

Hear the drum, the song, the stories told by the Saltwata Players

Listen to poems of freedom

Learn the powers of the quilt

Taste the flavors of Gullah Geechee cuisine

See the movements of the Sankofa African Dance Troupe

Experience the African spirit

*Sponsored by The Center for Africana Studies and The Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Center

Georgia Southern University, a public Carnegie Doctoral/R2 institution founded in 1906, offers approximately 140 different degree programs serving almost 27,000 students through 10 colleges on three campuses in Statesboro, Savannah, Hinesville and online instruction. A leader in higher education in southeast Georgia, the University provides a diverse student population with expert faculty, world-class scholarship and hands-on learning opportunities. Georgia Southern creates lifelong learners who serve as responsible scholars, leaders and stewards in their communities. Visit GeorgiaSouthern.edu.

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Juneteenth: A celebration of freedom and a continued dream | Newsroom - Georgia Southern University Newsroom