Wisconsin Holds a Hearing Over Race and Sex Discrimination Education
A legislative hearing last week on a bill banning aspects of race and sex discrimination education in Wisconsin public schools started and ended with quotes — one from each side — by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
In between, through nearly eight hours of arguing, eye-rolling and cringing, it was hard to find a single point on which everyone agreed.
Sen. André Jaque, R-DePere, quoted a line from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, saying Bill 411, would ensure people were judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Angela Harris, a first grade teacher and president of Milwaukee’s Black Educators Caucus, read from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that the greatest threat to Black Americans is not outright racists, but “the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
