The Daily Signal - #483: How Racial Quotas Are Hurting Minority Kids in Connecticut

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Connecticut has put in place diversity quotas for certain magnet schools, meaning the racial breakdown of those schools has to stay relatively fixed. That policy is backfiring on the state, which is now being sued by parents—largely African-American—saying that it adversely affects their kids. I recently sat down with Gwen Samuel, the plaintiff in that case, and today we’ll share that exclusive interview. Plus: CNN’s Jim Acosta says the media is doing a great job and there’s no bias. Rachel and I will discuss.We also cover the following stories:-President Trump sparks a furor with his election interference remarks.-U.S. blames Iran for suspected attack on civilian oil tankers.-Federal budget deficit grows 39% in first eight months of the year.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, June 14th. I'm Rachel Del Judis. And I'm Daniel Davis. Connecticut has in place diversity quotas for certain magnet schools, meaning that racial breakdown in those schools has to stay relatively fixed. But that policy is now backfiring on the state, which is now being sued by parents, saying that it adversely affects their kids.

I recently sat down with Gwen Samuel, the plaintiff in that case, and today we'll share that exclusive interview. Plus, CNN's Jim Acosta says that the media is doing a great job and that there's no bias. You heard it right. Rachel and I will discuss. By the way, if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider leaving a review or a five-star rating on iTunes and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

President Donald Trump is facing criticism for saying that he would receive dirt on opponents from other governments appearing on Twitter to equate such an incident to diplomatic meetings. The president tweeted Thursday. I meet and talk to foreign governments every day. I just met with the Queen of England, the Prince of Wales, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister of Ireland, the President of France, and the President of Poland. We talked about everything. Should I immediately call the FBI about these calls and meetings?

How ridiculous. I would never be trusted again. With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the fake news media. They purposely leave out the part that matter. and quote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that, quote, there is no ethical sense that informs his comments and his thinking. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran on Thursday for an attack on two civilian oil tankers in the Sea of Oman. It is the assessment of the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Iran is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf

of Amman today. This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping, and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication. The two oil tankers were badly damaged, forcing crew members to abandon ship with the U.S. Navy and a South Korean commercial vessel offering assistance.

Earlier, an unnamed senior U.S. official told Fox News that the Navy had spotted an unexploded mine on the side of one of the tankers. That's the same kind of mine that damaged four other oil tankers last month. The U.S. blames Iran for all of those attacks. One of the two tankers hit on Thursday is Japanese. The other is chartered by Taiwan-based CPC Corporation. As for Iran, its foreign minister Javad Zarif seemed to deny any involvement,

saying, quote, Suspicious doesn't begin to describe what likely transpired this morning, end quote. The U.S. officials have warned of likely and even imminent threat, stemming from Iran in the region. The Office of the Special Council is calling for Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, to be fired from her post for violating the Hatch Act on numerous occasions, according to Fox News.

The Hatch Act curbs the political activities of federal employees. In a statement released Thursday, the Office of the Special Counsel said that, quote, Ms. Conway's violations, if left unpunished, would send a message to all federal employees that they need not a bill. by the Hatch Act's restrictions, adding that, quote, her actions thus erode the principal foundation of our democratic system, the rule of law, end quote. The White House is reportedly ignoring the

special counsel's call for Conway's removal, saying that, quote, the Office of the Special Council's unprecedented actions against Kellyanne Conway are deeply flawed and violate her constitutional rights to free speech and due process. Well, U.S. federal spending is running wild this year, with the budget deficit growing by 39% in the first eight months of the 2019 fiscal year. The Treasury says that between October and May, the government ran a deficit of $739 billion. That compares to just $532 billion at this time last year. The huge spike in debt reflects increased spending on federal retirement and health benefits, the military and interest payments on the debt,

though the Treasury says about half of the deficit surge, comes down to a simple shift in timing of certain federal payments, which are being made earlier this year. While the surge in debt comes even as federal tax revenues are rising, tax receipts have increased by 2% from last year. Stacey Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives who lost a race for governor in November and who delivered Democrats' rebuttal to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in January is telling Hollywood officials not to boycott Georgia after the state passed legislation that bans abortion once a heartbeat is detected. Abram said that it is, quote, her mission to make sure these jobs stay in Georgia, and that while

the law won't be in effect until January and is expected to be taken to the Supreme Court, she says that Hollywood should wait and see where the law goes before leaving the state, which received $2.7 billion in 2018 from the film industry. I don't disparage boycotts, Abrams said. They have their function. But this is a situation where the political realities are that a boycott won't have the intended effect. Well, dozens of cities have labeled themselves sanctuary cities refusing to cooperate with federal officials on immigration enforcement. But one city in Texas is adopting its own kind of sanctuary status, a sanctuary for the unborn.

The city council of Wascombe in East Texas voted unanimously this week to prohibit abortion. The city council modeled the legislation after a measure passed. earlier this year in Roswell, New Mexico, which established itself as a sanctuary city for fetal wife. Up next, an exclusive interview with Gwen Samuel, who's suing the state of Connecticut over racial quotas in school. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org.

It's been 65 years since the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark ruling that declared school segregation to be unconstitutional. But 65 years later, in the state of Connecticut, kids are routinely denied a spot in school simply because of the color of their skin. The state has a group of magnet schools intended to help minority kids escape poor quality schools. But the catch is that these schools have. racial quotas. State law caps the percentage of black and Hispanic students at 75%, leaving 25% for white and Asian students. The problem is there aren't enough white and Asian kids attending,

and in order to keep the proportions right, black and Hispanic students are being denied enrollment, leaving seats wide open. Minority parents in the community decided to take action, and one of them is Gwen Samuel. She started a parent group that's now suing the state of Connecticut, and she's the plaintiff. I sat down with her recently to discuss. Here's the interview. I'm joined now by Gwen Samuel. She is from Meriden, Connecticut, and she's the founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, which is involved in a court case against the state of Connecticut in school education. Gwen, thanks for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you, young man, for having me. So, Gwen, tell me about the case and how your organization became the plaintiff against the state of

Connecticut? Well, I think it's important for your listeners to know that Connecticut is known as the Constitution State, but yet we are violating children's constitutional rights like it didn't exist. And right now we are suing the state of Connecticut because in our public magnet schools, we have racial quotas. That means we are turning children away from quality public schools because of the color of their skin, which is a constitutional violation, period. Now, tell me about that. How is that specifically happening? Because most people would say that's ancient history. So 30 years ago, it looks like I'm from Maryland, Connecticut, and Harford is our state

capital. It's a majority urban community. 30 years ago, a black mom said that the surrounding suburban towns were getting more resources. So they sued. Mind you, 30 years ago. So they sued the judge ruled in their favor and said that you need to provide equitable resources.

Again, this is just for Hartford. The judge never told them to violate anyone's constitutional rights. The judge never said treat children differently. It just said all deserve equal access to opportunity. So what does the great state of Connecticut do? They implement racial quotas. That means you have to have so many black and Hispanic children, so many white children, and so many Asian children. And what's happening in a majority urban town, to me it's not segregation.

If it's the majority urban town, that means your school's going to be majority of color. But what is happening is if the white and Asian children don't attend, they keep the seats empty and leave kids on the wait list at the door. Just to keep the percentages. Just to keep the percentages. And so when did the Constitution stop at the schoolhouse door? It doesn't. And so in Harvard, black and Hispanic parents sued. And who is opposing us?

the NAACP. The NAACP supports forced integration. The oldest civil rights, and I'm an African-American mom. And imagine how distraught I knew that we are being, that racial discrimination is being supported by an entity that was in place to protect the rights of all children. So fast forward, we thought it was just a Hartford issue. Connecticut Parish,

know this was happening until we found out that these black and Hispanic parents were being attacked by their own communities. Unions were attacking them. Lawmakers were speaking favorable. So they called us and they let us know about Pacific Legal Foundation, which is a conservative lawyer foundation who took the case. If people were attacking us, you're with conservatives, this is about freedom for all. Period. We're not going to get stuck in all this ideologies and rhetoric that harmed children. So then when I met Pacific Legal, I told them who we were, the Connecticut Parents Union, and I told them we were concerned that the state doubled down on unconstitutional laws

and applied this racial quota to the whole state. First, it was just Harvard, and you're going to apply racial quotes to the whole state. We're not having it. So we reached out to Pacific Legal Foundation, and we asked them, would they represent our organization? to protect the rights of parents across the whole state. And we just filed this year. So last year, Robinson v. Wenzel filed in Supreme Court. And the judge just ruled that the court, the case can proceed, which is a huge victory.

And so now we're just waiting to hear if our case moves forward because we had to prove that we had standing. And I thought that was very interesting. Here are parents who have the right, the natural right, to the upbringing of their children have to prove standing. How does that work? So, but anyway, so we submitted the documents, and again, they're doing this all pro bono, and we're just so grateful to Pacific Legal Foundation

who believe in liberty and justice for all, not some. Now, how did the state legislators respond to you're getting involved in this? They called me, and they were like, Gwen, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? as lawmakers you take an oath to uphold the constitution of the united states of america and in that constitution there are 14th amendment protections children deserve to be treated fairly regardless of their race and yet you chose to pass an unconstitutional law in a state that is known as the

constitution state how does all those oxymorons work and how all this is you you know, this total opposite of everything the Constitution and what freedom stand for. What about the teachers' unions? How are they involved in this case? When I learned that they were part of the plaintiffs, so we're the plaintiffs, the defendants team. I went to their website before they took it now. I just screenshot it. Oh, good.

And I'm like, wait a minute. The teachers' union fingerprints are all over this because they benefit from forced integration. because they'll say, oh, we need more money. You know, black children are just poor or they can't learn. So we need more money to guarantee our jobs versus ensuring every school in the state of Connecticut is a quality school. So if you believe all children deserve to be justly educated, why would you have racial quotas that leave the very children

that these schools were designed for in Hartford, Connecticut, one of those top five poorest districts in this country, then why would you support something that discriminates against them unless you had the agenda? The agenda is forcing those kids out of the quality schools so they're being indoctrinated, not encouraged to be free thinking, to be self-governed. And then you're forcing those children

that you won't allow in these schools back into the unsafe many of our traditional public schools. Wow. So they have a self-interest. It's a guaranteed job. because there's money and failure. And they're failing over the things they're creating. So imagine that.

And so the lawmakers who want the campaign donations, who don't want the unions upset, cater to them at the expense of their constituents. And if you're willing to sell your constituents to the highest bidder, you shouldn't be in office, period. And that's why I take this leadership program of the Rockies class so that we can inform, and engage citizens, don't just pull the lever because you think they're a nice guy.

Right. Will they uphold the freedoms that so many of our military and troops fought for throughout American history? And we shouldn't be compromising that sacrifice for a special interest like a teacher's union. Well, that's an amazing case and one that deserves national attention, frankly. That's why we're on your podcast. So we will start with that. That's right.

That's exactly right. Well, Gwyn Samuel, thanks for sharing about your case and for leading the charge and creating this parents union. And thanks for joining me here. And thank you for giving us a voice to be able to make this a national conversation because we'll be sharing your podcast everywhere we can. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share?

Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at dailysignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. Jim Acosta, CNN's White House correspondent, known for getting into periodic spats with the president, rendered his verdict on the media this week. He thinks they're doing just great. Publishers Weekly Magazine asked him whether he thought there was any grain of truth in the president's accusations of media bias. His answer?

Quote, I have never witnessed a concerted effort by any news organization to take a stand one way or the other on a political. issue to damage one particular party or help another. We've been far more honest and straightforward with the American people than President Trump has. Are there times where we fall short? Sure. But the press issues corrections. When was the last time you saw the president issue a correction or a clarification? It's a rare thing for Donald J. Trump, end quote. But what about when the media doesn't portray both sides of an issue? Acosta said, quote, there aren't two sides to the story when it's a matter of right and wrong, end quote.

Well, Jim Acosta's view contradicts the verdict of most Americans who say the media is in fact biased. According to a Gallup poll released last year, 45% say that there's a great deal of political bias in news coverage, and a majority say they can't name a single news source that reports news objectively. So, Rachel, what do you make of Acosta's verdict on today's media? Okay, well, first of all, I have to jump on his remarks saying that there aren't two sides to the story when it's a matter of right and wrong.

This is why people have lawyers, why criminals have lawyers. I mean, there's always two sides to a story. So just pointing that out, that's like very deeply, I just think, untrue and ingenuous. And also, all people have to do to recognize and even explore his point that there's, you know, no news outlets that are trying to damage one particular party or another. All I have to do is open up Twitter or go, like, open Google and search any news, just like today's headlines. And they'll see it.

I mean, for example, we saw headlines yesterday that said, quote, the hill at a piece on this, Trump administration to send migrant children to former Japanese internment camp. And while this particular story did mention that this particular camp was used in 2014 by the Obama administration, it's, I think, kind of like misleading for these news outlets to write these headlines essentially misleading the public. And I know when I saw that headline first, I was like, oh, that's harsh. Like that sounds like a terrible thing. But then when you actually click on the story and read it, there are two sides to do a story. And by just, you know, them saying, oh, we're sending these children to this former internment camp. Like, it's disingenuous. And it makes the whole Trump administration in anyone that is trying to push for any sort of border reform look like terrible people that don't care about children.

So another thing we can look at the whole situation with the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, and the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, Northam had his whole blackface. issue with photos of him that appeared to be of him, wearing blackface in his college yearbook, and then the lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, having an investigation on sexual charges. And looking at that whole story, it was reported by the media, but by and large, like, after like a week or so of that story, the media fell silent. And I know, yeah, a lot of people were like, hey, what's going on here? Are they going to pursue any kind of like resignation? How are they being held accountable?

What kind of investigations are going on? And so I think a lot of these things, too, it's more of like, you know, reporting omission where news outlets because they want to protect a particular party or a person, they just choose not to report. Yeah. And I don't think we should claim, you know, it's not as though we're saying that news organizations are just squarely like endorsing a political party. No, exactly. Like, they're certainly not endorsing. And they're not even maybe self-consciously doing it. But during the Obama years, it was just so clear that he was getting a pass in so many ways that President. Bush wasn't before him. I mean, the lack of serious critical questioning of the president, you know, it just

stuck out. You know, I was thinking, you know, journalists, I think part of the problem here is that mainstream journalists, legacy news organization journalists, don't think of themselves as reporting from a perspective or for it people with a certain perspective. And so they think, okay, maybe there's these fringe outlets on the right and on the left, but we're just middle of the road and we're objective. And I think that ends up becoming just a huge veneer for their bias that they don't even recognize. Oh, it definitely is.

And the bias shows up in very minor subtle ways, like in the topics that you choose to report on, because you know every news organization has finite resources, the angle that you choose to report on, the framing, the questions you ask, the questions you don't ask, the pressure points on a certain story. All of that is, I think, shaped by your own inclination. Because a reporter, you know this, a reporter is a human being. You're not like a machine who's just going to interpret everything neutrally. You know who your audience is and you have your own sense of what's important.

And so you go after what you think is important. And I just think that's missing from a lot of mainstream journalists. It definitely is. And to your point about the spy showing up in the questions reporters, ask the topics they choose to cover their framing and angles. All anyone has to do is watch a press briefing with Sarah Huckabee Sanders or any kind of press conference. And a lot of times the questions, I mean, sometimes they're policy oriented, but a lot of times it's about, you know, random questions about what the president is doing or something he said or something he tweeted.

And it's not focused on actual policy. And I think that's another way the American people see and are frustrated by this double standard. the media is, you know, supposed to be reporting on the facts and they're actually, you know, it's more of just a, I mean, to use President Trump's words, a witch hunt sometimes to not actually look at the true facts of a situation. One of the things that gets me is there are certain standards. The Associated Press has a style book that journalists that we follow with exceptions, clear exceptions. But one of the things that they say is you have to call pro-choice people pro-choice and, pro-life people anti-abortion. And there are several examples of that where even the so-called neutral language that everyone is

supposed to use is actually tilted toward the left view. And so, like, pro-lifers call themselves pro-life, but if you're writing for a mainstream news organization, you have to use the term anti-abortion, which I think is just like, why can't just call them what they call themselves? Exactly. And, I mean, the pro-abortion, like, we would use the term pro-abortion, as you mentioned, but you know if they want to be called pro-choice they don't want to be called pro-abortion because that sounds bad because it is bad but they don't want to be you know they don't want to go by the

labels that they purport to support yeah the other thing I wanted to point out where where Jim Acosta said there are no two sides when it's a matter of right and wrong like if it's a matter of morality then well there's only one side when it comes to morality so we're going to report that side like that completely misses the fact that there is all kinds of disagreement on There's always disagreement. They'll never not be disagreement. Right. I mean, there are very seriously contested issues over what is right and wrong in this country. And the role of the media should be, at least if you're claiming to be neutral and claiming to be objective, should be to give voice to both sides. Always. And I think, as I said earlier, it's completely disingenuous for him to say that there aren't two sides to the story when it's a matter of right and wrong.

Because, again, that's why criminals have lawyers because they have a side. to it might be incorrect and it might be wrong, but they still have a side. Well, Jim Acosta, looking forward to his next ambush with the president, which, you know, he hasn't had one in a while, so. It's bound to happen soon. It's bound to happen soon. Well, a good place for us to leave it today. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio

Studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud, and please leave us a review or rating on iTunes to give us any feedback. Robin Virginia will be with you on Monday. You've been listening to the Daily Signal podcast, executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad. For more information, visitdailySignal.com.