The New York Times reported that a cartoon about Trump by Art Spiegelmaan was removed by the executive producer of the PBS show “American Masters.”
Trump has proposed defunding both PBS and NPR.
The Times wrote:
The executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning “American Masters” series insisted on removing a scene critical of President Trump from a documentary about the comic artist Art Spiegelman two weeks before it was set to air nationwide on public television stations.
The filmmakers say it is another example of public media organizations bowing to pressure as the Trump administration tries to defund the sector, while the programmers say their decision was a matter of taste.
Alicia Sams, a producer of “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse,” said in an interview that approximately two weeks before the movie’s April 15 airdate, she received a call from Michael Kantor, the executive producer of “American Masters,” informing her that roughly 90 seconds featuring a cartoon critical of Trump would need to be excised from the film. The series is produced by the WNET Group, the parent company of several New York public television channels.
Stephen Segaller, the vice president of programming for WNET, confirmed in an interview that the station had informed the filmmakers that it needed to make the change. Segaller said WNET felt the scatological imagery in the comic, which Spiegelman drew shortly after the 2016 election — it portrays what appears to be fly-infested feces on Trump’s head — was a “breach of taste” that might prove unpalatable to some of the hundreds of stations that air the series.
Note that the four panels are divided by a swastika.
Art Spiegelman drew a graphic novel called Maus, which received the PulitzerPrize in 1992. The book is about his parents’ experiences during the Holocaust.
I have been following the case of Kseniia Petrova, a cancer researcher at Harvard, with a sense of outrage and helplessness. She attended a conference in France and returned last February with samples of frog embryos for her laboratory. She was detained by Customs for failing to declare them and has been incarcerated ever since. The other day, the charge of bringing in an undeclared item was upgraded to a felony, and this young woman faces a possible 20 years in prison.
Is she the kind of dangerous, violent criminal that Trump promised to deport? No.
Jay Kuo is both a lawyer and a playwright, whose blog is called The Status Kuo. He writes about the case today in hopes of rallying support for her. Petrova left Russia to protest the invasion of Ukraine. If she is deported there, she will be immediately jailed.
He writes:
We need to pay close attention to the case of Kseniia Petrova. She’s a Russian-born researcher who was detained by Customs and Border Protection back in February when traveling back from a conference in France.
Like others caught up in the “immigration crackdown” by the Trump administration, Petrova has been held in ICE detention ever since. In her case, a custom agent alleged she had failed to declare frog embryo samples that she’d picked up from a colleague to bring back to the U.S.
For this, the government canceled Petrova’s visa and threatened to deport her. But her case is about far more than frog embryos.
For starters, her home country is Russia, where she was outspoken against the war in Ukraine and was part of the exodus of Russians opposed to Putin’s invasion. She now faces persecution or worse for her anti-war activism should she be sent home, even while the Trump administration bends over backwards for Putin and the Kremlin.
She’s also a researcher and valued member of the Harvard medical sciences community, which has been the constant target of the Trump White House. Being deliberately cruel to Petrova means Trump gets to traumatize Harvard in yet another way.
Petrova has been languishing in a detention facility in Louisiana, but things had begun to move her way. This week, Judge Christina Reiss, a federal judge in Vermont hearing Petrova’s habeas petition, questioned government lawyers over whether Customs and Border Protection actually had the authority to cancel Petrova’s visa. Judge Reiss had set a bail hearing for next Friday, and many viewed it as a hopeful signal that she was set to release Petrova from custody.
Not so fast, said the government. What they did next was frankly shocking, even in this corrosive and highly politicized environment.
The government charges Petrova criminally
Apparently out of sheer spite, and faced with the prospect of losing another case where they had egregiously overreached and overreacted, the government charged Petrova with felony smuggling. That’s a charge that carries up to 20 years in prison.
Felony smuggling laws are intended to deter profiteers from deliberately carrying in endangered species, not to punish researchers who fail to declare frog embryo samples.
Normally when you fail to declare something that should have been itemized at customs, you could face a fine. It’s considered a minor infraction. And in this case, it isn’t even clear that frog embryos count. According to Petrova’s lawyer, customs experts conveyed that that she “did not need a permit to bring in her non-living scientific samples that are not considered biological material under U.S. Customs law.”
The criminal complaint itself is a just single page attaching an affidavit from a Homeland Security agent. In that affidavit, the agent makes much of the fact that, after checking her text messages on her phone (!!), he learned that Petrova apparently had been told by a colleague that she should declare the samples. But she had joked about not having a plan to carry them in, saying, “I won’t be able to swallow them.”
When asked, Petrova told the agent that she was not sure she needed to declare anything. (I should add here that advice from a colleague is not the same as legal advice from a customs lawyer.) Per the Customs and Border Protection website, U.S. government agencies “regulate the importation of biological materials that can pose a threat to agriculture, public health, and natural resources” (emphasis added). But frog embryo samples don’t pose any threat. So it’s hardly clear that Petrova knew these had to be declared.
“Yesterday’s hearing in federal district court in Vermont confirmed that Customs and Border [Protection] officials had no legal basis for cancelling Kseniia’s visa and detaining her,” wrote Petrova’s attorney. The judge in Vermont seemed prepared to agree and to rule that canceling her visa over this was excessive.
Filing criminal charges now? Really?!
When someone is taken into custody by immigration officials, it is customary to charge them first with any crimes they have committed. This makes sense because criminal charges, which are far more serious, should always take priority over any immigration violations, which are normally just civil violations.
Once the individual has been prosecuted, explained Ingrid Eagly, co-director of the Criminal Justice Program at the UCLA School of Law, to the New York Times, the authorities can begin the process of removing them from the country. In Petrova’s case, “they put her in removal proceedings, and now are saying it is a criminal case.” Dr. Eagly explained that this was a “ratcheting up of the charges,” an atypical move that “seems retaliatory, designed for a particular end.”
Prof. Marisol Orihuela of Yale Law School told the Times that this was the first time she had seen a case where criminal charges were brought against someone who had already been in removal proceedings for so long. “The question it raises in my mind is why would it take three months” to decide to charge Petrova, remarked Prof. Orihuela. “It doesn’t really quite add up,” she added, wondering why the government would “need this amount of time if you thought this was a crime worth charging.”
Nor does it make any sense that after three whole months, there is still no further evidence beyond what one lone agent said Petrova did and said under questioning just before she was taken in. There are no interviews of Petrova’s colleagues. There is no showing, beyond a text thread with a colleague, that Petrova knew such samples must be declared. They’ve had three months, but the case has not advanced beyond what was known at the time.
On top of this, the timing of the charge is highly suspicious. Judge Reiss had only this week questioned whether Petrova’s visa revocation was proper, and from all accounts she would have likely ordered Petrova’s release on bail next Friday.
Here’s what I want to know. Who in the administration ordered Petrova to be criminally charged? Was there coordination between an overzealous Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Justice? When was the charging decision made? Did anyone object to it? Why was there apparently no investigation to obtain further evidence to support the charge?
Playing dangerous politics, holding political prisoners
Petrova’s case has been prominent in the headlines. She has received support from all across the country and the world. A feature on her plight was published in the New York Times. Her work as a scientist studying images for cancer diagnostics has been widely lauded, while her detention has been condemned as a pointless harm, not just to her but for medical science and the world.
It would not surprise me if orders to do everything possible to continue to punish and hold Petrova came from the very top of the Trump administration. After all, moving to criminally charge Petrova, three months after she was first detained, makes zero sense unless your point is to make an example of her and thumb your nose at customary prosecutorial practices.
The administration has basically said, “Oh, so you think you can get her out? We’ll stop you, just to show that we can. To hell with your ‘due process’ and ‘civil rights.’ We’re in charge, and she’s not going anywhere.”
This is of course the same position the government has taken with Kilmar Abrego García and all the other political prisoners in El Salvador’s CECOT facility.
I say “political prisoners” because that is precisely what they’ve now become. Petrova, Abrego García, and others are being held for purely political reasons, by or at the request of the U.S. government. It’s not because they’ve committed any actual crimes or are in any way deserving of the treatment they are receiving. Rather, it’s because the administration wants to telegraph strength and cruelty, just like any other fascist regime.
It’s also why the White House is so desperate to cast them as “criminals” and stretch the laws and the truth, even to absurd degrees, to fit its narrative. That makes this fight not just about achieving justice for those wrongly arrested and held, but also about rejecting the raw politicization of their cases and of our immigration and criminal justice systems.
Indeed, fighting for justice for Petrova and others now means no less than fighting for the rule of law, democracy and the very soul of our nation, now put at serious risk by the tyranny of the Trump regime.
Petrova is not a dangerous criminal. She has not raped or murdered anyone. She is a researcher trying to find a cure for cancer.
Stephen Miller is the evil genius of the Trump administration. He has built his reputation as the person with the least heart or soul. He has been the loudest advocate for kicking out immigrants, as many and as quickly as possible. Miller recently proposed that the Trump administration might need to suspend habeas corpus so as to speed up the expulsion of millions of undocumented immigrants.
Habeas corpus means literally “you should have the body.” It means that a prisoner must be brought before a court so a judge can decide if the detention is lawful.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to habeas corpus in Article I, Section 9,states that the right to habeas corpus, which is a legal procedure to ensure a person isn’t unjustly imprisoned, “shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it“
Miller said: “The writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So I would say that’s an option we’re actively looking at.”
Legal scholar Steve Vladeck wrote that “Miller made some of the most remarkable (and remarkably scary) comments about federal courts that I think we’ve ever heard from a senior White House official.” In this post, he explains why Miller is wrong.
He begins with Miller’s words:
Well, the Constitution is clear. And that, of course, is the supreme law of the land, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion. So … that’s an option we’re actively looking at. Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. At the end of the day, Congress passed a body of law known as the Immigration Nationality Act which stripped Article III courts, that’s the judicial branch, of jurisdiction over immigration cases. So Congress actually passed what’s called jurisdiction stripping legislation. It passed a number of laws that say that the Article III courts aren’t even allowed to be involved in immigration cases.
Vladeck writes that Miller’s view is just plain wrong:
I know there’s a lot going on, and that Miller says lots of incendiary (and blatantly false) stuff. But this strikes me as raising the temperature to a whole new level—and thus meriting a brief explanation of all of the ways in which this statement is both (1) wrong; and (2) profoundly dangerous. Specifically, it seems worth making five basic points:
First, the Suspension Clause of the Constitution, which is in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 is meant to limit the circumstances in which habeas can be foreclosed (Article I, Section 9 includes limits on Congress’s powers)—thereby ensuring that judicial review of detentions are otherwise available. (Note that it’s in the original Constitution—adopted before even the Bill of Rights.) I spent a good chunk of the first half of my career writing about habeas and its history, but the short version is that the Founders were hell-bent on limiting, to the most egregious emergencies, the circumstances in which courts could be cut out of the loop. To casually suggest that habeas might be suspended because courts have ruled against the executive branch in a handful of immigration cases is to turn the Suspension Clause entirely on its head.
Second, Miller is being slippery about the actual text of the Constitution (notwithstanding his claim that it is “clear”). The Suspension Clause does not say habeas can be suspended during any invasion; it says “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” This last part, with my emphasis, is not just window-dressing; again, the whole point is that the default is for judicial review except when there is a specific national security emergency in which judicial review could itself exacerbate the emergency. The emergency itself isn’t enough. Releasing someone like Rümeysa Öztürk from immigration detention poses no threat to public safety—all the more so when the release is predicated on a judicial determination that Öztürk … poses no threat to public safety.
Third, even if the textual triggers for suspending habeas corpus were satisfied, Miller also doesn’t deign to mention that the near-universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus—and that unilateral suspensions by the President are per se unconstitutional. I’ve written before about the Merryman case at the outset of the Civil War, which provides perhaps the strongest possible counterexample: that the President might be able to claim a unilateral suspension power if Congress is out of session (as it was from the outset of the Civil War in 1861 until July 4). Whatever the merits of that argument, it clearly has no applicability at this moment.
Fourth, Miller is wrong, as a matter of fact,about the relationship between Article III courts (our usual federal courts) and immigration cases. It’s true that the Immigration and Nationality Act (especially as amended in 1996 and 2005) includes a series of “jurisdiction-stripping” provisions. But most of those provisions simply channel judicial review in immigration cases into immigration courts (which are part of the executive branch) in the first instance, with appeals to Article III courts. And as the district courts (and Second Circuit) have explained in cases like Khalil and Öztürk, even those provisions don’t categorically preclude any review by Article III courts prior to those appeals.
I don’t mean to overstate things; some of the questions raised by the INA’s (notoriously unclear) jurisdiction-stripping provisions can get very messy. But there’s a big difference, in my view, between reasonable disagreements over the language of complex jurisdictional statutes and Miller’s insinuation that Congress has categorically precluded judicial review in these cases. It just hasn’t.
Fifth, and finally, Miller gives away the game when he says “a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.” It’s not just the mafia-esque threat implicit in this statement (“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”); it’s that he’s telling on himself: He’s suggesting that the administration would (unlawfully) suspend habeas corpus if (but apparently only if) it disagrees with how courts rule in these cases. In other words, it’s not the judicial review itself that’s imperiling national security; it’s the possibility that the government might lose. That’s not, and has never been, a viable argument for suspending habeas corpus. Were it otherwise, there’d be no point to having the writ in the first place—let alone to enshrining it in the Constitution.
If the goal is just to try to bully and intimidate federal judges into acquiescing in more unlawful activity by the Trump administration, that’s shameful enough. But suggesting that the President can unilaterally cut courts out of the loop solely because they’re disagreeing with him is suggesting that judicial review—indeed, that the Constitution itself—is just a convenience. Something tells me that even federal judges and justices who might otherwise be sympathetic to the government’s arguments on the merits in some of these cases will be troubled by the implication that their authority depends entirely upon the President’s beneficence.
***
It’s certainly possible that this doesn’t go anywhere. Indeed, I hope that turns out to be true. But Miller’s comments strike me as a rather serious ratcheting up of the anti-court rhetoric coming out of this administration—and an ill-conceived one at that.
My time on the high school football field was spent with a snare drum strapped around my chest. As a student who was easily distracted in the academic classroom and struggled to apply myself, band class was a welcome reprieve during the day.
Playing the drums was my niche, it was how I stood out. I carried my drumsticks around the way football players wore their varsity jackets.
During my school years, I was fortunate that the district I attended recognized the importance of arts education. In elementary school, there were classrooms devoted to art and music staffed by full-time teachers. There was also an orchestra teacher. My middle school had two full-time band teachers, and an art class was included in the curriculum. High school offered a full range of band and choir classes in addition to the chance to participate in the jazz band and marching band in after-school programs.
Even back then, it was clear that future students would not have these same opportunities. The program that allowed interested sixth-grade students to participate in a stage production disappeared while I was in school, a victim of budget cuts as the baby boom turned into a bust. During my time in high school, there were constant rumors of plans to reduce the number of band teachers.
This reduction in the availability of arts education was part of a nationwide trend that accelerated as the second Bush administration and then Obama’s placed an increasing focus on test scores. Ignoring evidence that music and art help increase academic performance, teachers were forced to spend more time teaching to standardized tests. Arts funding was seen as extravagant in a system that values data over a full educational experience.
When I visited my old elementary school in 2015, the band room did not even exist anymore. I grieved for the school’s students who no longer had the opportunity to find the joy of mastering an instrument.
California voters understood the magnitude of this loss when 64.4% of voters opted to approve Proposition 28 in 2022. This measure provided an additional source of funding for arts and music education for K-12 public schools with rules to ensure that districts used this money to supplement, not supplant, existing funding.
This included a requirement that schools with 500 or more students use 80% of the funding for employing teachers and 20% for training and materials.
Complaints grew as parents in Los Angeles noticed that their children were not seeing improved access to art and music funding as the Proposition 28 money started to flow into the district. As the author of the proposition, Austin Beuttner was well acquainted with the rules it set in place and agreed that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) was not following the spirit or the letter of the law.
After months of trying to get the district to do the right thing, Beuttner joined parents, students,and teachers in filing a lawsuit against the district and current Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho.
The suit could have served as a wake-up call to LAUSD’s leadership that their actions were being watched, but they did not use it as an opportunity to ensure the Proposition 28 money was being spent properly. Carvalho saw the suit as a public relations problem, and instead of fixing the compliance issues, he tried to spin the narrative. As noted by the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Jeff Chemerinsky, he “has already decided to double down on explanations not grounded in fact.”
To resolve this issue, the plaintiffs are demanding that LAUSD:
Publicly acknowledge that it misspent the Proposition 28 funds in the 2023–24 and 2024–25 school years.
Fully restore the misspent and misallocated funding to schools.
Be fully transparent about how the funding is used in future years.
In a letter to the LAUSD’s general counsel, Chemerinsky reminds the district that, if it is found that the funds were not used properly, it will have to return the money to the state. Combined with possible penalties for “violating the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of Black and Latino students,” LAUSD could be facing a hit to its budget of over $100 million.
This is not a slip-and-fall lawsuit designed to squeeze scarce education funding from our children’s classrooms. Rather, it is intended to improve the educational experience of our students.
The suit would not have been brought if Carvahlo and the district had engaged with the community instead of ignoring their concerns. As Chermerinsky notes, “families, labor partners and concerned citizens spent months seeking answers. Regrettably, LAUSD refused to meaningfully respond.”
The lawsuit has also attracted the attention of California Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, who has asked the state auditor to look into how the funds were spent.
If the audit proceeds, Bryan says, “The district is going to have to produce the necessary documents to show that they are in compliance.” Based on statements from Carvalho saying the author of the proposition has a “misunderstanding of the law,” LAUSD should be concerned that its creative budgeting will not pass muster when held up to scrutiny.
The LAUSD board must make it clear to Carvahlo that the concerns of their constituents can no longer be ignored by an increasingly detached bureaucracy. A good place to start would be by settling this lawsuit.
•••
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, and serves as the education chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. Read more opinion pieces by Petersen.
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Jason Garcia is an investigative reporter in Florida who has had plenty to investigate during the regime of Ron DeSantis. His blog is called “Seeking Rents.” This is a post you should not miss.
The governor acts like a dictator, and the Republican-dominated legislature doesn’t stop him. Remember the takeover of New College? It was the only innovative, free-thinking public institution of higher education in the state. It was tiny, only 700 students. But DeSantis took control of the college’s board, hired a new president (a crony) and set about destroying everything that made it unique. He issued one executive order after another for the entire state to crush DEI and assure the only permissible thought mirrored his own. He attacked drag queens and threatened to punish bars and hotels that allowed them to perform. He created a private army, subject only to his control. He selected politicians to run major universities. He imposed thought control on the state. Fascism thrives in Florida.
Thus far, he has gotten away with his gambits. But Garcia doesn’t think he will get away with this one.
He writes:
A simmering scandal erupted Friday afternoon when the Tampa Bay Times, Miami Herald and Politico Florida revealed that the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated a $10 million payment last fall to a charity founded by the governor’s wife — which then turned around and gave the money to groups that helped finance the governor’s campaign against a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana in Florida.
In a nutshell: The DeSantis administration pressured a major state contractor to make a $10 million donation to the Hope Florida Foundation, the controversial charity spearheaded by First Lady Casey DeSantis. It was part of a settlement negotiated with Centene Corp., after the state’s largest Medicaid contractor overbilled the state by at least $67 million.
Days later, Hope Florida transferred that $10 million to a pair of dark-money nonprofits. The state-backed charity gave $5 million each to “Save Our Society From Drugs,” an anti-marijuana group founded by a late Republican megadonor, and “Secure Florida’s Future,” a political vehicle controlled by executives at the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Big Business lobbying group.
And days after that, Save Our Society From Drugs and Secure Florida’s Future gave a combined $8.5 million to “Keep Florida Clean,” a political committee — chaired by Ron DeSantis’ then-chief of staff — created to oppose Amendment 3, the amendment on last year’s ballot that would have allowed Floridians to use marijuana recreationally rather than solely for medicinal reasons.
It’s a daisy chain that may have transformed $10 million of public money — money meant to pay for health insurance for poor, elderly and disabled Floridians — into funding for anti-marijuana campaign ads.
But at least one prominent GOP lawmaker — Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola Republican who has been presiding over hearings into Hope Florida — told the Times and Herald that the transaction chain “looks like criminal fraud by some of those involved.”
Clearly, this looks very bad. But it is also by no means an isolated incident.
In fact, this is part of a larger pattern of potential abuses that Ron DeSantis committed last fall when he chose to turn the power of state government against two citizen-led constitutional amendments that appeared on the November ballot: Amendment 3 and Amendment 4, which would have ended Florida’s statewide abortion ban.
Consider what we already know about how DeSantis financed his campaigns against the two amendments using public money taken from taxpayers — and private money taken from donors who got public favors from the governor.
Five state agencies directly funded television commercials meant to weaken support for the marijuana and abortion-rights ballot measures. We still don’t know the full extent of their spending, although Seeking Rents has estimated the total taxpayer tab at nearly $20 million. We also know that the DeSantis administration commandeered money for anti-marijuana advertising from Florida’s share of a nationwide legal settlement with the opioid industry — money that was supposed to be spent combatting the opioid addiction crisis.
At the same time, another nonprofit funded by Florida taxpayers poured at least $5 million into television ads attempting to soften Florida’s image on women’s healthcare at a time when Florida’s near-total abortion was under intense attack. It was the Florida Pregnancy Care Networks’ first-ever TV ad campaign. And its commercials, which were overseen by DeSantis administration staffers, complemented the state agency ads against the abortion-rights amendment — right down to using the same slogan.
Last June, after DeSantis vetoed legislation that would have strictly regulated the state’s hemp industry, CBS News Miami revealedthat industry executives and lobbyists promised to raise $5 million in exchange for the veto for the governor to spend on his campaign against Amendment 3. “Our lobby team made promises to rally some serious funding to stand with him on this,” a hemp industry representative wrote in one message that included a bank routing number for the Republican Party of Florida. “We have to pay $5 million to keep our end of the veto,” a hemp executive wrote in another message.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, records show that the Big Tobacco giant Philip Morris International gave $500,000 to DeSantis’ personal political committee — which was also chaired by the governor’s then-chief of staff and which DeSantis was using to campaign against both Amendment 3 and Amendment 4. Shortly after the election, the DeSantis administration handed Philip Morris a lucrative tax break, ruling that the company could sell a new line of electronically heated tobacco sticks free of state tobacco taxes.
There’s a reason why the DeSantis administration made sure to extract a promise of legal immunityfrom the organization that sponsored Amendment 4 as part of a legal settlement negotiated after the election.
DeSantis’ tactics worked. Though Amendments 3 and 4 each won majority support from Florida voters — 55.9 percent for recreational marijuana, 57.2 percent for abortion rights — both fell short of the 60 percent support needed to amend the state constitution.
But, suddenly, it looks like this may not be over — at least not for Ron DeSantis.
What’s more, the House also unveiled a sweeping ethics reform package last week that would, among other things, explicitly expose senior government officials to criminal penalties if they interfere with elections.
That particular legislation would also prohibit state employees from soliciting money for political campaigns — an idea that emerged after DeSantis aides got caught squeezing lobbyistsfor more donations to their boss’ political committee ahead of a possible Casey DeSantis campaign for governor….
Ron DeSantis bet his political future on beating the marijuana and abortion-rights amendments. And he won both of those battles.
But it may turn out that he ultimately lost the war.
Wishful thinking? I hope not.
To give you an idea of how far/right the legislature is, Garcia lists some of the bills that are currently moving through the legislative process:
House Bill 549: Requires all new public school textbooks to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Passed the Senate by a 28-9 vote. (See votes) Previously passed the House of Representatives by a 78-29 vote. (See votes) Goes to the governor.
House Bill 575: Replaces Gulf of Mexico with “Gulf of America” in state law. Passed the Senate by a 28-9 vote. (See votes) Previously passed the House of Representatives by a 78-27 vote. (See votes) Goes to the governor….
House Bill 1517: Allows someone to file a wrongful death lawsuit seeking lost wages on behalf of an embryo or fetus. Passed the House of Representatives by a 79-32 vote. (See votes)…
House Bill 7031: Cuts the state sales tax rate from 6 percent to 5.25 percent. Passed the House of Representatives by a 112-0 vote. (See votes)
House Bill 123: Allows a traditional public school to be converted into a charter school without the consent of the teachers who work at the school. Passed the House Education & Employment Committee by an 11-4 vote. (See votes)
San Diego Unified teachers protest pink slips before a school board meeting last year. The district plans to issue 30 preliminary layoff notices this year.
California school districts are again turning to layoffs to shore up budgets shrunk by declining enrollment, expiring federal Covid relief funds and a leveling off of state funding. So far, more than 2,300 school employees have received preliminary layoff notices, and the number is expected to grow.
More than 2,000 of the pink slips have gone to credentialed school staff — primarily teachers, school nurses and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which represents 300,000 school employees.
State law requires that districts send pink slips by March 15 each year to any employee who could be laid off by the end of the school year. Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers — the annual practice is criticized by many for demoralizing school staff and causing disruption to school systems.
“Layoffs are devastating and chaotic to our school communities and harm student learning conditions,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “This is even happening in communities like Pasadena, where educators and students lost their homes in wildfires. Our union will not stand by. We will demand that every single one of these notices is rescinded in the coming weeks.”
Pasadena Unified has issued 117 preliminary layoff notices, including 115 to credentialed staff.
Districts tried to avoid large layoffs
Some districts tried to avoid large-scale layoffs by considering other options, including early retirement incentives. San Francisco gave buyouts to 300 veteran teachers and other staff, and Santa Ana Unified gave that option to 166 teachers, but ultimately both districts are still laying off staff.
In fact, the two districts have issued the largest number of pink slips in the state so far, according to CTA data. San Francisco Unified notified 395 teachers of potential layoffs and Santa Ana Unified sent pink slips to 351 teachers, according to the CTA. Santa Ana Unified Chief Business Officer Ron Hacker says that number has since been reduced to 280.
San Francisco Unified, the state’s sixth-largest school district, has been struggling to close a $113 million deficit that helped put it on the list of the state’s most financially strapped districts. The district has also sent preliminary layoff notices to 164 teachers’ aides, and to 278 administrators and other staff.
Santa Ana Unified is attempting to reduce a $180 million structural deficit, but it also needs to reduce staff, Hacker said. In 2018, the school board decided not to pursue layoffs despite overstaffing and a structural deficit. The overstaffing problem continued through Covid when funding was tied to a state stipulation that districts can’t lay off employees, he said.
“The Covid relief grant funds are no longer flowing, and they’re expired, so we’re at the point now where we can’t sustain the counseling ratios and the class sizes that we have,” Hacker said.
The district also plans to make cuts to supplies, services and capital outlay to help balance the budget, Hacker said in an interview last month.
“That being said, 80% of our budget is salary and benefits, so the only way to tackle that entire structural deficit is to include positions too,” he said.
Most districts overstaffed
Some school districts avoided making staffing cuts despite declining enrollment, said Michael Fine, chief executive director of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
“I think if you were to look at some statewide data on staffing versus enrollment, you’d see that almost everybody’s overstaffed in some fashion, at least on the certificated side, which is where we see that data,” Fine said.
Data on support staff, also known as classified staff, is not being collected by the state, he said.
District offered early warning bonuses
Santa Rosa Elementary School District and San Ramon Unified issued more than 100 pink slips to teachers and other credentialed staff in recent months, with the districts sending out 151 and 129 pink slips respectively, according to the CTA list.
Santa Rosa City Schools is trying to trim its budget by $30 million to reduce a structural deficit. The district, which operates 24 schools, has lost 3,000 students over the last decade.
Instead of offering an early retirement incentive, which wouldn’t save money for the district, Santa Rosa Unified gave employees bonuses if they gave advance notice that they wouldn’t be working at the district next school year, said Lisa August, associate superintendent of business services. Employees who gave notice by Jan. 31 received a $1,000 bonus, $750 if they gave notice by Feb. 15, and $500 if by Feb. 28.
The CTA list does not include many districts still in the process of issuing layoff notices, or whose unions did not report their numbers. Among them is Berkeley Unified, whose school board voted last week to notify 180 employees, 10 of whom are teachers, that they could lose their jobs, according to Berkeleyside.
Oakland Unified, which is on the state’s list of most financially strapped districts, also plans to issue 97 pink slips to teachers and central office staff, according to district information. And, Oxnard Union School district projects it will issue 91 pink slips to school staff, including 41 teachers and counselors, according to the Ventura County Star.
Layoffs can make recruitment harder
Layoffs can hurt teacher recruitment and make it more difficult to find teachers for hard-to-fill positions teaching special education, science, math, special education and English learners.
Teacher layoffs during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009, are widely considered to be one of the causes of the current teacher shortage because they discouraged people from entering teacher preparation programs. In recent years, enrollment in teacher preparation programs in the state has declined.
It’s unclear how many teachers will actually be laid off before next school year, as many pink slips are rescinded after district officials review credentials, expected retirements and projected enrollment numbers at school sites, and hearings with an administrative law judge are held to determine who stays and who goes.
The annual process can be nerve-wracking for teachers, especially those at the bottom of the seniority list, who could be issued pink slips in consecutive years.
“More than 2,000 educators have received a notice that they may not have a job next year, and tragically, that number increases each day,” Goldberg said. “These are the people who show up every day to teach and care for students in public schools across California — teachers, school counselors, social workers, instructional aides, custodians, and more.
“At a time when our students deserve a stable learning environment, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support, it is unconscionable to even think about laying off public school educators,” Goldberg said.
