Get Malik Out of Ad-Seg Keith "Malik" Washington is an incarcerated activist who has spoken out on conditions of confinement in Texas prison and beyond:  from issues of toxic water and extreme heat, to physical and sexual abuse of imprisoned people, to religious discrimination and more.  Malik has also been a tireless leader in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery which gained visibility during nationwide prison strikes in 2016 and 2018.  View his work at comrademalik.com or write him at: Keith H. Washington TDC# 1487958 McConnell Unit 3001 S. Emily Drive Beeville, TX 78102 Friends, it's time to get Malik out of solitary confinement. Malik has experienced intense, targeted harassment ever since he dared to start speaking against brutal conditions faced by incarcerated people in Texas and nationwide--but over the past few months, prison officials have stepped up their retaliation even more. In Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at McConnell Unit, Malik has experienced frequent humiliating strip searches, medical neglect, mail tampering and censorship, confinement 23 hours a day to a cell that often reached 100+ degrees in the summer, and other daily abuses too numerous to name.  It could not be more clear that they are trying to make an example of him because he is a committed freedom fighter.  So we have to step up. Who to contact: TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier Phone: (936)295-6371 Email:  exec.director@tdcj.texas.gov Senior Warden Philip Sinfuentes (McConnell Unit) Phone: (361) 362-2300

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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION SEX FOR LIES AND MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony. These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors. Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters. In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org. Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years Major Tillery Needs Your Help: Major Tillery and family HOW YOU CAN HELP Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom. Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false. Call: 215-686-8000 or Email: justice@phila.gov Write to: Security Processing Center Major Tillery AM 9786 268 Bricker Road Bellefonte, PA 16823 For More Information, Go To: JusticeForMajorTillery.org Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* On Monday March 4th, 2019 Leonard Peltier was advised that his request for a transfer had been unceremoniously denied by the United States Bureau of Prisons. The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appreciates and thanks the large number of his supporters who took the time to write, call, email, or fax the BOP in support of Leonard's request for a transfer. Those of us who have been supporting Leonard's freedom for a number of years are disappointed but resolute to continue pushing for his freedom and until that day, to continue to push for his transfer to be closer to his relatives and the Indigenous Nations who support him. 44 years is too damn long for an innocent man to be locked up. How can his co-defendants be innocent on the grounds of self-defense but Leonard remains in prison? The time is now for all of us to dig deep and do what we can and what we must to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier before it's too late. We need the support of all of you now, more than ever. The ILPDC plans to appeal this denial of his transfer to be closer to his family. We plan to demand he receive appropriate medical care, and to continue to uncover and utilize every legal mechanism to secure his release. To do these things we need money to support the legal work. Please call the ILPDC National office or email us for a copy of the postcard you can send to the White House. We need your help to ask President Trump for Leonard's freedom. DONATE  ©2019 ILPDC | 116 W Osborne Avenue Tampa, FL 33603  Web Version  Preferences  Forward  Unsubscribe   Powered by GoDaddy Email Marketing ® Free Leonard Peltier!

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1)  Zimbabwe's Civil Servants in Unprecedented Strike for Better Wages
Government workers say their earnings are disappearing under skyrocketing inflation.
By Jeffrey Moyo, November 6, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/world/africa/zimbabwe-strike-protest-wages.html

Government workers clashed with the police in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Wednesday.Credit...Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/Associated Press

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Civil servants stung by Zimbabwe's galloping inflation staged what they hoped would be a crippling one-day strike on Wednesday in a demand for increased wages, saying that their earnings are disappearing under skyrocketing prices.

It is the first time that government workers in Zimbabwe have been allowed to strike against their employer, and the action in the Southern African nation comes as inflation stands at approximately 300 percent, according to recent International Monetary Fund figures.

There were signs that the strike could spiral down into violence, as clashes erupted between government workers and police forces on Wednesday.

The civil servants' work stoppage comes amid another ongoing walkout, this time by Zimbabwean doctors, many of whom have been on strike for about two months to demand increased wages paid in American dollars.

On Tuesday, the government fired 77 of the striking doctors, out of the total of 1,680 doctors in the country. The 77 doctors were accused of failing to attend a disciplinary hearing that they had been summoned to attend by the country's Health Service Board.

The government workers' strike followed a walkout on Monday by nurses in local authority clinics in the capital, Harare. The nurses said that they were incapacitated and unable to work because of poor wages.

The Zimbabwean government seems acutely aware of the mounting crisis. On Tuesday, Monica Mutsvangwa, the minister of information, said at a news conference after a cabinet meeting that "medical services at most central hospitals" remained limited because "the public hospitals medical doctors' strike has now gone beyond 63 days."

The government has over the past months tried to appease its workers by providing allowances to help meet the rising cost of living. But that has not stopped the board representing civil servants in Zimbabwe, the Apex Council, from calling a strike. 

A member of the council, Takavarasha Zhou, said, "Government workers are earning an equivalent of $40 or less, and so we appeal to government to pay us better."

The country's police had approved the strike action, even though in August, with the backing of a court, the authorities banned demonstrations by members of opposition political parties and civil society organizations.

The striking workers on Wednesday sang and danced as they gathered outside the offices of the Apex Council. They waved placards with protest slogans directed at the government as armed police officers stood by. 

The protesters had wanted to march to the offices of the Ministry of Finance, where they had intended to hand over a petition outlining their grievances. But heavily armed police officers blocked their movement.

"It's like police gave us the right to march with their right hand, but quickly snatched it away with their left hand," said Cecilia Alexander, the president of the Apex Council.

In the petition, the council appealed to the minister of finance, Mthuli Ncube, to "take our concerns seriously, without which the situation will lead to serious unrest." 

Charles Mubwandarikwa, chairman of the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe, which joined the strike in solidarity with other government workers, said, "Today we have come to send a clear message to the government."

"We need increased salaries to be able to keep coming to work," he added.

In the past, teachers' unions have demonstrated against the government for better wages and improved working conditions with or without the assent of the authorities.

Since coming to power, President Emerson Mnangagwa's government has resorted to using force to quell any antigovernment protests.

In August 2018, after demonstrators in Zimbabwe's capital called the country's peaceful elections a sham and demanded the immediate release of the results in the July presidential poll, Mr. Mnangagwa's government unleashed the army on protesters.

At least six people were shot and killed in the clashes.

In January this year, Mr. Mnangagwa's government again deployed the military when antigovernment protests broke out against a rise in fuel prices, leaving 17 people fatally shot in Harare and nearby towns.

Mr. Mnangagwa's government has struggled to sell its open-for-business mantra to the developed world, but it has received the support of the South African Development Community to lift sanctions imposed by the United States on Zimbabwean government officials.

In October, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced sanctions against the minister of state security, Owen Ncube, and denied him entry to the United States for "a gross violation of human rights in Zimbabwe."

Thousands were called to march on the same day against American and European sanctions in Zimbabwe, with Mr. Mnangagwa telling the crowds that the impact of sanctions "on our daily lives is immeasurable and the consequences are dire."

Even as Zimbabwe has tried to re-engage Washington, a diplomatic fallout between Zimbabwe and the United States has complicated matters. 

The foreign affairs minister, Sibusiso Moyo, accused the United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nicholson, of acting like a member of the country's opposition. Mr. Moyo this month threatened to cut off diplomatic ties after Mr. Nicholson apparently suggested that corruption, not sanctions, were behind the country's economic malaise.

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12) Italy's Students Will Get a Lesson in Climate Change. Many Lessons, in Fact.
Public schools will require children in every grade to study sustainability. That could put Italy at the forefront of environmental education.
By Jason Horowitz, November 5, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/world/europe/italy-schools-climate-change.html

A student demonstration in September in Rome demanding action on climate change.Credit...Massimo Percossi/ANSA, via Associated Press

ROME — Yes, children, climate change will be on the test.

Italy's education minister said Tuesday that its public schools would soon require students in every grade to study climate change and sustainability, a step he said would put Italy at the forefront of environmental education worldwide. 

The lessons, at first taught as part of the students' civics education, will eventually become integrated throughout a variety of subjects — a sort of "Trojan horse" that will "infiltrate" all courses, the education minister, Lorenzo Fioramonti, said.

Environmental advocates welcomed the new subject matter, with some caveats.

Teaching children about sustainability is "certainly very important" said Edoardo Zanchini, vice president of Legambiente, Italy's leading environmental group. But he warned that responsibility should not simply be passed on to children.

"Science tells us the next 10 years are crucial," he said. "We cannot wait for the next generation."

Mr. Fioramonti is a member of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which has long put environmental concerns at the heart of its identity. He has already become a target of conservatives for backing taxes on sugar and plastics, and for encouraging students to take part in climate protests last September instead of attending class.

Starting in September 2020, he said, teachers in every grade will lead lessons in climate change and environmental sustainability.That 33-hour-a-year lesson, he said, will be used as a pilot program to ultimately fold the climate agenda of the United Nations into the entire curriculum.

So merely studying place names and locations in geography class? "Forget that," Mr. Fioramonti said. Geography courses will soon study the impact of human actions on different parts of the planet, too, he said. 

In an interview, Mr. Fioramonti said that a group of experts — including Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, and Kate Raworth of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute — will act as "peer reviewers" for ministry staff preparing the curriculum. By January, he said, the ministry will be ready to train teachers.

For children age 6 to 11, he said, "we are thinking of using the fairy-tale model," in which stories from different cultures would emphasize a connection to the environment. Middle schoolers would be expected to learn more technical information, and high school students would explore the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in depth.

Until August, Five Star had governed Italy for more than a year with the nationalist League party, led by Matteo Salvini, who is still the country's most popular politician, and who has a skeptical view of climate change.

One cold spring day in Milan, Mr. Salvini, then the interior minister, appeared to trivialize climate change.

"Talking about global warming — we are in the middle of May and call upon global warming, because we haven't had a cold like this in Italy in recent years," he said. "We are turning on our heaters."

Mr. Fioramonti suggested that Mr. Salvini needed to be educated.

"That's the kind of nonsense we want to avoid by educating children that this is the most important challenge humanity has ever faced," he said. "And I want to secure this before there is any change in government that can imperil that kind of process."

But Mr. Salvini still looms over the wobbly Five-Star-led government, and Italy's many government collapses in recent years have cut short other educational programs. An attempt by a left-leaning government to teach children how to spot disinformation, for example, was discontinued after it lost power.

Mr. Fioramonti said a law passed last year, when Five Star was still aligned with the League, gave him the authority to introduce lessons on climate change. He said that the conditions had not been right to go forward with the new curriculum then, but that they were now.

Still, many Italians are concerned that Five Star's emphasis on environmental issues — or, perhaps, its failure to pursue such goals competently — is destroying the country's economy. 

This month, Italy faced a new economic emergency when the foreign operator of a southern Italian steel plant, Ilva, said it would pull out because the Five Star-led government had decided to end criminal immunity for environmental breaches even as the company sought to clean up the polluted facilities. Such a move could cost Italy more than 8,000 jobs.

One environmental activist expressed reservations that Mr. Fioramonti's plan may be too dogmatic.

Chicco Testa, president of the environmental group Assombiente, urged officials to make sure children were exposed to varied views, including those who claim that climate change is not primarily caused by man. "To listen to people who say different things is good," he said. "What the U.N. says is not gospel."

But as President Trump began pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris Agreement this week, Mr. Fioramonti said that every country needed to do its part to stop the "Trumps of the world" and that his ambition was to show children there was another way. 

"The 21st century citizen," he said, "must be a sustainable citizen."

Anna Momigliano contributed reporting.

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3) What We Know About Rodney Reed's Death Row Case in Texas
Celebrities including Kim Kardashian West have taken up his cause after new evidence cast doubt on his guilt.
By Nicholas Borgel-Burroughs, November 6, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/rodney-reed-death-row-texas.html

Texas is scheduled to execute Rodney Reed on Nov. 20. He was convicted of killing a woman in 1996.Credit...Ralph Barrera/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press

The case of a man who is set to be put to death in Texas later this month has drawn high-profile attention from celebrities, after several people came forward with new testimony throwing his conviction into doubt.

Rodney Reed, 51, is scheduled for execution on Nov. 20 for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Tex. In recent weeks, celebrities including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian West and Meek Mill have called on Gov. Greg Abbott to intervene. Texas executes far more people than any other state, including seven so far this year.

Ms. Stites, who was 19, was raped and strangled, and her body was dumped alongside a rural road. Mr. Reed was arrested based mostly on DNA tests. He said he and Ms. Stites had been having an affair in secret, which would explain his DNA being recovered from her body. His lawyers say witnesses have since corroborated the existence of the affair. 

Here's what else you need to know about the case.

What's the new evidence?

Mr. Reed's lawyers have argued previously that the state's forensic investigators made critical errors regarding the timeline of the killing, which some investigators later admitted in affidavits. The lawyers have also pushed for the murder weapon — Ms. Stites' belt — to be tested for DNA evidence, which has yet to happen.

The lawyers work for the Innocence Project, which seeks to exonerate people who might have been wrongly convicted. Along with their forensic argument, they have objected to a Texas judge scheduling Mr. Reed's execution before his federal appeals had been exhausted.

Most recently, at least three people have come forward with new testimony regarding Ms. Stites' fiancé, Jimmy Fennell. Mr. Fennell is a former police officer who was released from prison in 2018; he pleaded guilty in 2008 to kidnapping a woman he had encountered while on duty. The woman said he had also raped her.

Arthur J. Snow Jr., who served time in prison with Mr. Fennell, said last month in a sworn affidavit that he heard Mr. Fennell confess to the murder of Ms. Stites. Mr. Snow, a former member of a white-only prison gang called the Aryan Brotherhood, said Mr. Fennell, who is white, had bragged about killing his fiancée because she had cheated on him with a black man. Mr. Reed is black.

Mr. Snow said he believed that Mr. Fennell had bragged about killing Ms. Stites to try to impress him and other members of the Aryan Brotherhood, whom Mr. Fennell had sought out for protection. Mr. Snow said he came forward after reading about the Reed case in a newspaper.

Other witnesses have also described statements by Mr. Fennell that the Innocence Project lawyers say warrant further investigation. A former insurance sales representative said he had heard Mr. Fennell say he would kill Ms. Stites if he caught her "messing around." Charles W. Fletcher, a former friend of the couple, said Mr. Fennell had complained that Ms. Stites was cheating on him. And Jim Clampit, a former sheriff's deputy, said that at Ms. Stites' funeral, Mr. Fennell looked at her body and said, "You got what you deserved."

Mr. Fennell's lawyer, Robert M. Phillips, said that Mr. Fennell denies killing Ms. Stites, and that the Innocence Project was merely recycling claims that were made at trial. It was inconceivable, he said, that the people now coming forward would have stayed silent for so long if their accounts were true.

Mr. Phillips said Mr. Fennell had converted to Christianity, had found a job and a girlfriend, and was "living a law-abiding life." He said he did not know whether Mr. Fennell supports the death penalty for Mr. Reed. 

Could the governor stop the execution?

Mr. Reed's lawyers and his supporters have pleaded with Governor Abbott to delay the execution by 30 days and to order the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to investigate the possibility of commuting Mr. Reed's sentence.

Mr. Abbott's office did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. The governor has stopped just one execution in nearly five years in office, while allowing 47 to go forward, according to The Texas Tribune. 

The one case came in February 2018, when the governor granted clemency to Thomas Whitaker, who had been sentenced to death for killing his brother and mother. Mr. Whitaker's father, a survivor of the murders, had asked the governor to spare his son's life, and Mr. Whitaker had agreed to waive his right to seek parole, meaning he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Mr. Abbott commuted Mr. Whitaker's sentence after a unanimous recommendation from the state parole board, the same panel that Mr. Reed's lawyers want to investigate his sentence. Bryce Benjet, one of Mr. Reed's lawyers, said the Whitaker case gave him and his client hope.

"Anybody will tell you that the death penalty is a very serious matter in Texas," Mr. Benjet said. "But I think the Whitaker case does show that where there is compelling evidence, people are willing to take action."

Which celebrities are getting involved?

Ms. Kardashian West, who has lobbied President Trump on criminal justice issues and persuaded him to release a woman serving life in prison, has urged Mr. Abbott to keep the state from killing Mr. Reed.

"How can you execute a man when, since his trial, substantial evidence that would exonerate Rodney Reed has come forward and even implicates the other person of interest," Ms. Kardashian West wrote on Twitter.

Dr. Phil McGraw, the television host, has been posting frequently about the case online. On his show, he said that Mr. Reed had not been able to present all of the evidence in the case to the courts.

"I don't think it's a question of whether he's guilty or not guilty," Mr. McGraw said, according to The Austin American-Statesman. "I think the question is whether he had a full trial, with a full airing of all the evidence. I think the answer to that question, in my opinion, is not just no, but hell, no."

Other celebrities who have drawn attention to Mr. Reed's case include Pusha T, the rapper; Eric Andre, the comedian; and Cyntoia Brown, who was released from prison this year after serving time for killing a man who had picked her up when she was a victim of teenage sex trafficking.

Mr. Reed's team of lawyers has been digging hard for new evidence and witnesses, but Mr. Benjet said the rise in public attention might also have encouraged some to speak up. 

"Basically, every case I've worked on, the more attention that comes to the case, the more people hear about it and come forward," he said. "It just takes a lot of time for innocence cases to get proven."

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14) I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike
Mary Cain's male coaches were convinced she had to get "thinner, and thinner, and thinner." Then her body started breaking down.
By Mary Cain, November 7, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/opinion/nike-running-mary-cain.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Mary Cain

At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike's Oregon Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar.

Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video Op-Ed above.

Instead of becoming a symbol of girls' unlimited potential in sports, Cain became yet another standout young athlete who got beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to them. We move on.

The problem is so common it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, like Cain, Gold was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a systemwhere she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. Gold developed disordered eating to the point of imagining taking her life.

Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike's chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of Cain's claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)

The culture that created Salazar remains.

Kara Goucher, an Olympic distance runner who trained with the same program under Salazar until 2011, said she experienced a similar environment, with teammates weighed in front of one another.

"When you're training in a program like this, you're constantly reminded how lucky you are to be there, how anyone would want to be there, and it's this weird feeling of, 'Well, then, I can't leave it. Who am I without it?'" Goucher said. "When someone proposes something you don't want to do, whether it's weight loss or drugs, you wonder, 'Is this what it takes? Maybe it is, and I don't want to have regrets.' Your careers are so short. You are desperate. You want to capitalize on your career, but you're not sure at what cost."

She said that after being cooked meager meals by an assistant coach, she often had to eat more in the privacy of her condo room, nervous he would hear her open the wrappers of the energy bars she had there.

A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy's development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what happened to Cain.

After months of dieting and frustration, Cain found herself choosing between training with the best team in the world, or potentially developing osteoporosis or even infertility. She lost her period for three years and broke five bones. She went from being a once-in-a-generation Olympic hopeful to having suicidal thoughts.

"America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls," said Lauren Fleshman, who ran for Nike until 2012. "When you have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following directions to the point of excelling, you'll find a system that's happy to take them. And it's rife with abuse."

We don't typically hear from the casualties of these systems — the girls who tried to make their way in this system until their bodies broke down and they left the sport. It's easier to focus on bright new stars, while forgetting about those who faded away. We fetishize the rising athletes, but we don't protect them. And if they fail to pull off what we expect them to, we abandon them.

Mary Cain is 23, and her story certainly isn't over. By speaking out, she's making sure of that.

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5) Flint's Children Suffer in Class After Years of Drinking the Lead-Poisoned Water
The city's schools, stretched even before the lead crisis, are struggling with demands for individualized education programs and behavioral interventions for children with high lead exposure.
By Erica L. Green, November 7, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/us/politics/flint-michigan-schools.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Nakiya Wakes and her son, Jaylon, in Flint, Mich.Credit...Brittany Greeson for The New York Times

FLINT, Mich. — Nakiya Wakes could not understand how her wiry, toothy-grinned 6-year-old had gone from hyperactive one school year to what teachers described as hysterical the next. Then, in 2015, the state of Michigan delivered a diagnosis of sorts: Ms. Wakes's neighborhood's water — which her son, Jaylon, had been drinking and bathing in for more than a year — was saturated with lead, at some of the highest levels in the city. 

Jaylon would cycle through two schools, receive 30 suspensions and rack up 70 unexcused absences. In one of Ms. Wakes's clashes with Flint Community Schools, she delivered administrators a warning: "You can't keep suspending him because soon, you're going to have to suspend the whole school system."

Five years after Michigan switched Flint's water supply to the contaminated Flint River from Lake Huron, the city's lead crisis has migrated from its homes to its schools, where neurological and behavioral problems — real or feared — among students are threatening to overwhelm the education system. 

The contamination of this long-struggling city's water exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children's developing brains and nervous systems. Requests for special education or behavioral interventions began rising four years ago, when the water contamination became public, bolstering a class-action lawsuit that demanded more resources for Flint's children.

That lawsuit forced the state to establish the $3 million Neurodevelopmental Center of Excellence, which began screening students. The screenings then confirmed a range of disabilities, which have prompted still more requests for intervention.

The percentage of the city's students who qualify for special education services has nearly doubled, to 28 percent, from 15 percent the year the lead crisis began, and the city's screening center has received more than 1,300 referrals since December 2018. The results: About 70 percent of the students evaluated have required school accommodations for issues like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, also known as A.D.H.D.; dyslexia; or mild intellectual impairment, said Katherine Burrell, the associate director of the center. 

"We have a school district where all that's left are damaged kids who are being exposed to other damaged kids, and it's causing more damage," said Stephanie Pascal, who has taught in Flint for 23 years.

Medical experts say there is no way to prove that the lead has caused new disabilities. Pediatricians here caution against overdiagnosing children as irreparably brain damaged, if only to avoid stigmatizing an entire city. The State Department of Education, in battling the class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and the New Jersey-based Education Law Center, enlisted an expert who testified that the real public health crisis was not the lead-contaminated water but the paranoia of parents, students and teachers exposed to it. 

But Dr. Burrell said that proving the cause of the students' problems was not the point. Many of the problems uncovered by the lead testing could certainly have existed before.

"We're not here to prove causation," she said. "We're here to provide answers."

And school officials said the problems would almost certainly get worse because there was no safe level of lead exposure. 

"What the research says is that as they get older, and the cognitive demands get harder, we will start to see the demands get higher, and the resources aren't going to be there," said Lisa A. Hagel, the superintendent of the Genesee Intermediate School District, the county that includes Flint.

A school system begins falling further behind.

Long before Flint's water system was contaminated, its schools exemplified the struggles of urban districts — as its tax base shrank, its student population drifted to charter schools and its core public schools were left with a small but troubled and impoverished student body.

In the 1960s, the city enrolled nearly 50,000 students in more than 50 buildings. Today, it educates 4,500 students on 11 campuses. A 2017 report found that 55 percent of Flint's students attended charter schools — the second-highest charter enrollment in the country. 

When the lead crisis began unfolding in 2014, the tiny school district had a $21 million budget deficit that required it to cut more than 200 staff members, including special education teachers. It was transferring millions of dollars from its operating budget to pay for special education, and in violation of federal law, it was segregating special education students from their peers for most of the school day. Flint's teachers were and are among the lowest paid in Genesee County, though a new contract has pushed starting salaries to $35,339 a year, from $32,000 in 2014.

In the 2013-2014 school year, 15.5 percent of the district's special education students dropped out of high school, compared with 8.63 percent statewide. In 2014-2015, 13 percent of special education students in the school system were suspended or expelled for more than 10 days — more than five times the statewide rate.

Then came the lead crisis. The class-action lawsuit, filed in 2016, accused the city, the county and the Michigan Department of Education of ignoring dismal outcomes that have worsened after Flint's children were exposed to lead. 

The partial settlement that established the neurodevelopmental center was a "critical first step," said Kristin Totten, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U., but the lawsuit is demanding that every Flint student be assessed and get needed intervention. 

"This was an unprecedented crisis that warrants an unprecedented response," she said.

The suit accuses the school systems of violating federal and state laws, including the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, by failing to identify students who could qualify for special education services, by failing to provide the mandated instructional services to those who do qualify and by punishing children for disability-related behavior.

Students were denied assessments for education plans or behavioral intervention plans, and then were segregated from their peers, secluded and restrained, repeatedly sent home from school, expelled or arrested, the lawsuit said.

"The blame for this crisis lies on the state, and instead what we've seen is that the children are shouldering the blame," said Lindsay Heck, a lawyer at White & Case, a New York-based law firm that has worked on the case pro bono.

Flint Community Schools said in a statement that it was "deeply committed to the well-being and success of all students, and continues to add staff and enhance special education services, and to work with the Michigan Department of Education to seek ways to improve the district's finances long term."

The Michigan Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment.

The Genesee school district maintains it has done all it can to help identify and serve students affected by the crisis in Flint. Under the state's education system, that district acts as an intermediary between the state and the 21 school districts in the county, including Flint, providing administrative services and dispensing special education funding from the federal government. It also operates early childhood centers and schools attended by Flint students. 

School officials say that funding is disbursed equitably, but they acknowledge it is not enough. Congress promised to cover 40 percent of the cost of special education, but Washington funds only 14 to 17 percent.

"It'd be safe to say there's not enough allocation, much less when you have a situation like this," said Steven Tunnicliff, the associate superintendent of the Genesee Intermediate School District, referring to the lead crisis.

Ms. Wakes believes she lost four babies — she miscarried two sets of twins, in 2015 and in 2017 — to the water crisis, and said she is determined not to lose another. She pulled her son out of Flint Community Schools in 2017 after she said the district ignored her pleas to accommodate his A.D.H.D., which his pediatrician said was exacerbated by elevated lead levels. 

Now 10, he attends the Michigan Virtual Charter Academy, an online school, in his living room. On a recent day, he fired up his computer and made a few clicks before the screen flashed a celebratory "Assignment Complete," then shut down abruptly. The assignments meet the requirements of a 10-year-old boy who is repeating fourth grade: They contain three- or four-letter words that he can read and they pose no more than eight questions, and then he can take a break to run outside or play his video game Fortnite.

"I'm just keeping him online until we can move the hell out of Flint," his mother said.

Flint's teachers struggle to cope.

In 2016, months after the water contamination was made public, the Flint superintendent at the time, Bilal Tawwab, told Congressthat schools were bracing for an "evolving, educational emergency."

"We need resources to measure the intellectual and emotional damage done to each and possibly every child," he said.

Instead, as the district's special education rate rose by a third, the Michigan Education Department demanded more budget cuts and a salary freeze. Last school year, when one in five students qualified for special education services, one in every four special education teaching positions was unfilled.

Bethany Dumanois, who has taught in Flint for 25 years, works two jobs to keep teaching because she said she cannot abandon children whose discolored, rash-covered skin and chunks of exposed scalp haunt her. In the earlier days of the crisis, she spent class time addressing questions from her students about whether they would die from the water like their class lizard, a bearded dragon, did.

"There was very minimal training in dealing with the signs and symptoms of lead poisoning," she said. "They gave us a couple of brochures and called it a day."

Teachers refer students for special education assessments, knowing the schools lack psychologists to conduct them. In small acts of defiance, they withhold their signatures from bureaucratic documents rejecting students from special education services. 

Ms. Dumanois said her first graders were having "extreme" reactions to insignificant issues, knocking over desks and throwing chairs. Recently, she said, three-quarters of her class could not recall five words they had gone over every day for two weeks. 

Instead of investing in more teachers, social workers and special education aides, she said the district had pushed laptop computers and iPads, "just jumping on any bandwagon, trying to sugarcoat what's happening with these kids."

On a recent night at a local restaurant, Ms. Pascal, the 23-year Flint teaching veteran, vented over the "injustices everywhere." The district adopted a new reading program with no money to buy the instructional materials. She had been asked to identify a handful of her students for a new behavior support program, but wants to include all 21. 

She thinks about quitting, but said she refuses to leave another vacancy for the district to fill. 

"If you were driving down the road and saw a kid walking from a car injured and bloody, do you ignore it?" she said. "That's what I'm seeing."

The district's new superintendent, Derrick Lopez, said in a recent interview with a local television station that the district was in desperate need of help, pointing out that the 28 percent of students who have special education plans was double the state average. He also expressed the need to "actually pay our teachers a living wage."

The Michigan Legislature's recently passed budget provides a modest increase in education spending, but lawmakers rejected a proposal by the state's new Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to give additional funding to schools with high concentrations of special education students, like Flint.

State Representative Sheldon Neeley, Democrat of Flint, said the one-time infusion of extra money would be spread across schools in Genesee County.

"Instead of being delivered to us," he said, "it's going to be delivered around us."

As families flee Flint's schools, money drains away.

Flint's schools are now in a downward spiral. The district is funded on a per-pupil basis, but it is hemorrhaging students, about 1,000 since 2014, when the crisis began. Two-thirds of children living in Flint are in charter schools or schools run by the Genesee Intermediate School District.

Angy Keelin wanted to stay in Flint Community Schools, where her blind son, Averey, was progressing in a program for visually impaired students, but then it ended abruptly. She said she was forced to follow the program 10 miles from her home to a Genesee County school. 

It has not gone smoothly. Last year, she requested an aide after watching her son walk into buildings and almost fall down a flight of stairs. This year, Averey, now in third grade, has been taught by a long-term substitute who cannot teach him to read Braille, as required by his federal education plan, Ms. Keelin said. 

The year after Averey was exposed to lead, he had to repeat kindergarten, and Ms. Keelin fears a Michigan law that calls for students to repeat third grade if they are more than one grade level behind in reading. "I don't want him to be continuously held back," she said.

Jeree Brown left the Flint district in 2017, but said she still sees the effect of her son Jabari's time at Eisenhower Elementary School. She learned Jabari had autism six months after Flint's lead-tainted water began to flow. 

His exposure was confirmed, along with his autism, but the school denied him an individualized education program, or I.E.P., three times, then told her that such a plan would require him to be placed in an "autism room" apart from his peers, Ms. Brown said. The plan called for him to receive speech and occupational therapy services three or four times a week, but he got them once or twice a month.

Now 8, Jabari has transferred to a charter school and receives a wealth of autism services. He said his favorite teacher "takes me for breaks to see if you're happy or sad."

Some families see no way out. In Michigan, students are granted broad access to school choice, but schools can reject a student for being suspended.

Heather Reynolds's 12-year-old son, Ethan, had a mood disorder and A.D.H.D. that required him to have an aide, but his short-staffed school did not supply one last spring on a day that Ethan encountered a bully in a bathroom and agreed to trade his dinosaur for the other boy's pocketknife. The other student then reported Ethan for having the knife, and he was nearly expelled.

Ethan, who had also tested positive for lead, told his mother he made the exchange because he "didn't want to be punched again," she said. This summer, after an evaluation by the neurodevelopmental center, he was given a diagnosis of autism. 

The expulsion was reversed, but the suspension went on his record.

"Once they get a suspension, the good schools don't want them," Ms. Reynolds said. "Then there's only one school choice, which is the worst school."

"The science of trauma and resilience."

Tucked away in one of the neighborhoods hit hardest by the lead crisis is a 36,000-square-foot early childhood center that many look to for hope. 

Educare Flint, funded largely by private money in response to the crisis, opened in December 2017 to serve 220 students ages 0 to 5 with lead exposures among the highest detected. The school is part of a national network that uses research into early childhood education, brain development and the achievement gap between rich and poor to shape its approach. The $15 million facility includes mindfulness rooms and a generous playground. 

For parents, the opportunity to send their children to Educare is some consolation for the outrages in their lives — like paying $100 to $200 a month for water they do not believe is safe.

Lydia Willis said her 9-month-old son was "getting so much here, including filtered water, that may not be possible at home."

These children keep the pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha optimistic. Though her research discovered the lead in their blood in 2015, she is looking on the bright side. The crisis has forced a hard conversation about Flint — "toxicity" existed here long before the water crisis, she said. 

Since the crisis, partnerships have drawn in millions of dollars to expand early childhood education and health care services, and the fallout has created a road map for other cities — like Newark — that are on the brink of a similar crises.

"We're leaning on the science of trauma and resilience," she said, "because kids across this country are waking up to the same nightmare."

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6) ‘Hostile Architecture’: How Public Spaces Keep the Public Out
Hostile design has flourished in New York as a way to maintain order and ensure public safety. But critics say it is inhumane and targets the homeless.
By Winnie Hu, November 8, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/nyregion/hostile-architecture-nyc.html

Credit...George Etheredge for The New York Times

Strips of sharp metal teeth run alongside a low garden wall on East 96th Street.

Metal bars divide a public bench on East 47th Street.

Ugly bolts line the ledges at a public plaza on East 56th Street.

These are all ways of saying “don’t make yourself at home” in public. This so-called hostile architecture has flourished in New York, even as the city has significantly added more public space in the last decade, including new plazas and parkland, pedestrian areas once used for cars and reclaimed industrial waterfront.

Proponents say this type of urban design is necessary to help maintain order, ensure safety and curb unwanted behavior such as loitering, sleeping or skateboarding.

But hostile architecture, in New York and other cities, has increasingly drawn a backlash from critics who say that such measures are unnecessary and disproportionately target vulnerable populations. They have assailed what they call “anti-homeless spikes” for targeting those who have nowhere else to go at a time when many cities are grappling with a homelessness crisis.

In New York, about 79,000 people are homeless, of which about 5 percent are believed to live on the street, according to federal estimates.

Hostile architecture can be as subtle as simply not providing a place to sit, as obvious as a wall or fence to keep people or animals out or as aggressive as metal studs embedded in pavement. These designs often go unnoticed in the busy cityscape.

“We’re building barriers and walls around apartment buildings and public spaces to keep out the diversity of people and uses that comprise urban life,” said Jon Ritter, an architectural historian and a clinical associate professor at New York University.

Cities have long built walls and other defensive fortifications for protection. Even today, metal and concrete barriers are strategically placed around public buildings and plazas in Lower Manhattan and elsewhere to deter stray vehicles and guard against possible terror attacks. “What is hostile to some is defensive to others,” Mr. Ritter said.

Hostile architecture has also been an issue in some of New York’s more than 550 privately owned public spaces, which are required to be open to the public by their owners in return for the right to build larger towers.

The city has specifically prohibited “devices that inhibit seating” in privately owned public spaces since 2007, though armrests are allowed. But a 2017 audit by Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, found that more than half of the spaces at that time had violated various city requirements and failed to provide mandated amenities that could encourage public use.

Since then, the city has required regular inspections of privately owned public spaces to ensure more public access. They have visited 333 properties, of which, 193 were cited for violations, including spikes in seating areas, missing signs and other amenities.

Jerold S. Kayden, a Harvard University professor of urban planning and design who co-authored a 2000 book, “Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience,” has documented an array of spikes, bars, railings and other obstructions on benches and ledges in these spaces on a website.

He has also found issues such as doormen who shooed people away and public spaces that are sealed off behind fences and gates, some of which are kept locked.

In a public atrium in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, a required marble bench had been removed and replaced with a kiosk selling Trump memorabilia. Mr. Kayden led the effort to get the bench returned.

“The irony that some public spaces actively discourage public use should not be lost on anyone,” Mr. Kayden said. 

One lush public space with fountains, lawns and benches can be glimpsed behind a metal fence with a gate on East 70th Street. The Rudin Management Company, which owns the property, said the fence and gate, which is kept unlocked, were intended to keep playing children in so they do not run out in front of cars.

“The park is loved and appreciated by the community, and we have through the years made many improvements to make it even more accessible and welcoming,” said William C. Rudin, the chief executive and co-chairman of the company.

One especially ironic example can be found at a sprawling public plaza on East 56th Street and Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. Not a single table or chair was in sight (seating is not required at most privately owned public spaces created before 1975). Office workers had to lean against a wall for a quick break.

“The message is ‘Don’t hang out here,’” said Sean Orlando, 44, who sat on the steps with his lunch. “It definitely doesn’t feel like a public space. It seems like they’re trying to keep people from using it.”

SL Green, which owns the plaza, declined to comment.

A couple blocks away, at East 47th Street, another plaza offered seating on gleaming wooden benches. But until recently, “no loitering” signs were prominently displayed on them. Mia Wagner, an actress, paused when she saw the sign.

“At what point am I loitering?” she said. “It makes me think twice about whether or not to sit, how long can I sit, and do I have to buy something so that I’m a valid squatter?”

Sage Realty, which manages the plaza, said it removed the “no loitering” signs in late September as soon as it learned there were concerns. “We never thought of them as hostile,” said Jonathan Kaufman Iger, Sage’s chief executive. “That’s not what we’re trying to convey to the community.”

Mr. Iger added that metal bars are used on some benches to deter skateboarding, which would damage the wood.

In an effort to create awareness about privately owned public spaces, a design competition was held this year to select a new logothat will be posted at every one of them.

Hostile designs in New York and elsewhere are also increasingly being called out on social media by those who believe that it goes too far. 

As evidenced by the spikes along the UPS logo at a store on East 34th Street, even the pigeons are not safe.

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7) I Never Expected to Protest the Vietnam War While on Active Duty
By David Cortright, November 8, 2019
"One day I saw an article about soldiers who opposed the war and decided I would join the growing G.I. peace movement. I was looking for a way to express my moral objection, and I felt that if soldiers were demanding peace, political leaders would take notice."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/magazine/vietnam-war-protest-1969.html

Protesters of the Vietnam War marching in Washington on Nov. 15, 1969.Credit...Associated Press

I never expected that I would be a soldier, or that I would protest the Vietnam War while on active duty, or that I would sue the Army in federal court for violating my First Amendment rights. But it all happened, and it shaped my life in ways I never could have imagined.

I was drafted in 1968 and reluctantly volunteered for the 26th United States Army Band at Fort Wadsworth, N.Y. Veterans returning from the war told harrowing tales of what they experienced. Doubts swirled in my mind, and I began to read about Vietnam. Questions turned to shock as I realized the cruel injustices of the war. I desperately wanted to escape, but it was too late. I was stuck in the Army, part of the green machine, forced to serve a cause I could not accept.

One day I saw an article about soldiers who opposed the war and decided I would join the growing G.I. peace movement. I was looking for a way to express my moral objection, and I felt that if soldiers were demanding peace, political leaders would take notice. My activism began in April 1969 when I joined a contingent of active-duty troops at an antiwar rally in New York’s Central Park.

Afterward, an organizer of the April rally asked if I would pose for an antiwar poster. I agreed, and the following week I arrived at the Manhattan studio of the great fashion and portrait photographer Richard Avedon. I had no idea who he was, so I wasn’t nervous in his presence. He gently placed a live dove on my wrist and asked me to move my arm slowly up and down, capturing a striking image. The resulting poster that he created was not a photo of me personally but of the antiwar soldier as archetype.

That summer we learned about a G.I. antiwar petition organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The plan was to collect more than a thousand signatures from service members across the military and release the names before a protest scheduled for Nov. 15 in Washington. The ad appeared on Nov. 9, 1969, two days before Veterans Day, in The New York Times. It read: “We are 1,365 active-duty servicemen. We are opposed to American involvement in the war in Vietnam.” Among the names were more than 30 from the band at Fort Wadsworth. The following Saturday, a dozen of us were among the nearly quarter to half a -million people to march on Washington.

The advertisement in The New York Times.Credit...The New York Times Archive

Back at the base, news of the petition and rally cheered fellow soldiers, but it brought a stern rebuke from the command. We were told to keep our opinions about the war to ourselves. We refused to be silent and circulated another petition in spring the next year, but we were forced to withdraw it under escalating threats of collective punishment.

The ax fell in July 1970 when Fort Hamilton Command imposed punitive reassignments, duty restrictions and make-work details. Musical performances ceased. I, a specialist at the time, was branded a “troublemaker” and ordered to report to the Army band at Fort Bliss, Tex.

My bandmates and I decided to fight back by filing a lawsuit against the Army. Civilian lawyers represented us, and later I appeared in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York seeking an injunction to prevent the Army from transferring me.

The court refused to block the order, but it took jurisdiction of the case and convened a trial. Our attorneys proved that I was transferred not for military necessity but to suppress my antiwar dissent. The court ruled in our favor and ordered that I be sent back to New York, but the Army appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which ruled against us. I ended up staying in Fort Bliss — where I continued participating in antiwar activities.

The court case had ambiguous results legally, but it was great theater. The spectacle of soldiers suing the Army made headlines and helped the antiwar cause, which was what we wanted.

I guess I should be grateful to the Army. My experience in the military taught me about war and protest and persuaded me to study, teach and work for peace. I have not strayed from that path in all the years since.

David Cortright is a guest contributor to the At War newsletter. He is a professor of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and is co-editor of “Waging Peace in Vietnam: U.S. Soldiers and Veterans Who Opposed the War” (New Village Press, 2019). 

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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations!  Charity for the Wealthy!