(NEW YORK) — The Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to greenlight booster shots for immune-compromised individuals this week, after mounting evidence reveals they may not reach full protection with their original vaccinations.
But this expanded authorization only will apply to this very narrow group. For the rest of Americans, currently available data suggests all three authorized vaccines are offering good protection at least six months after initial vaccination — likely even longer.
“We believe sooner or later you will need a booster for durability of protection,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking at Thursday’s White House press briefing. “We do not believe that others, elderly or non-elderly, who are not immunocompromised, need a vaccine [booster] right at this moment.”
“We are evaluating this on a day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month basis,” Fauci added. “So, if the data shows us that, in fact, we do need to do that, we’ll be very ready to do it and do it expeditiously.”
Vaccine experts have said protection from current COVID-19 vaccines is expected to wane slightly over time. Meanwhile, the delta variant is expected to chip away slightly at overall vaccine effectiveness. Executives from both Moderna and Pfizer have said booster doses eventually will be needed.
But so far, vaccines are still holding up well, experts said. Some studies have indicated a slight dip in efficacy, but mostly when it comes to protection from symptomatic and mild illness. Data thus far indicates that vaccines are still extremely effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.
Moderna and Pfizer both reported positive data from their ongoing phase 3 trials, which have continued to monitor volunteers at least six months after their initial shots. Moderna has said its vaccine remains more 93% effective against symptomatic illness after six months, while Pfizer reported a dip in efficacy to 84%, though both studies were conducted with slightly different criteria and prior to the emergence of the delta variant.
Although an independent study from the Mayo Clinic hinted that Pfizer immunity might wane faster than Moderna immunity, experts said it’s likely too soon to say that for sure.
Johnson & Johnson, meanwhile, has yet to report six-month data for its single-shot vaccine. The company, however, has released promising laboratory data showing a strong immune system response up to eight months later. And a real-world study from South Africa showed good protection against delta.
That said, some Americans aren’t waiting for a formal recommendation to get an additional shot. According to an internal CDC briefing reported by ABC News, approximately 1.1 million already have taken booster shots.
Many doctors have cautioned against this. Booster doses are still being studied formally, and there could be still-unknown risks associated with getting them. Researchers are still evaluating side effects, proper dosages and the right time to get one.
“The main thing I really want to stress to everyone,” said Dr. Simone Wildes, an infectious disease specialist at South Shore Health and an ABC News contributor, “is that, right now, we are not recommending booster shots. However, that could change.”
Other doctors and public health specialists also said they’re also not rushing to recommend boosters for the general public. Not only are current vaccines proving to be overwhelmingly effective, but doctors are also still collecting data on the potential impacts of an additional shot. And vaccine producers are still researching whether lower dosages will suffice as potential boosters.
“Everyone wants to know — when is the timeline?” Wildes said.
Experts still aren’t sure.
“We don’t know how long immunity lasts,” said John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “We don’t know what ‘waning’ means. We will clearly see that in the fall as we see a surge, and we’ll understand what delta or any future variant means for cases in the population.”
(NEW YORK) — The United States is facing a COVID-19 surge this summer as the more contagious delta variant spreads.
More than 618,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 and over 4.3 million people have died worldwide, according to real-time data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Just 58.9% of Americans ages 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing Friday. All times Eastern:
Aug 13, 5:27 am
Alabama children’s hospital sees rise in patients
Children’s of Alabama reported a significant increase in the number of COVID-19 positive patients being treated at the hospital in recent weeks.
As of Thursday, the hospital said it is treating 22 COVID-19 positive patients, five of whom are on ventilators.
The hospital said in January, at the height of the last surge, their highest number of patients was 13.
“There are three proven ways to slow the spread of this highly transmissible strain of the virus: Vaccination for everyone 12 and up, masking, especially when indoors, and social distancing,” the hospital wrote in a Facebook statement.
Aug 12, 11:48 pm
FDA authorizes booster shot for immunocompromised
Immunocompromised Americans will be able to get a third shot of either of the mRNA vaccines, Pfizer or Moderna, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced late Thursday.
The booster will be targeted specifically for people who did not have an ideal immune response to their initial vaccines, which has proven to be the case for many cancer patients, transplant recipients, people with HIV and people on immunosuppressant drugs.
“The country has entered yet another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the FDA is especially cognizant that immunocompromised people are particularly at risk for severe disease,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna Vaccines.”
(LAS VEGAS) — As many Americans hesitate to get vaccinated against COVID-19, NBA legend Spencer Haywood is teaming up with a medical school in Las Vegas to tackle the mistrust of the health care system prevalent in some communities of color.
The Basketball Hall of Famer and Olympic gold medalist has joined the dean’s advisory committee at Roseman University College of Medicine to work on programs increasing diversity in medicine to tackle this issue.
In an interview with ABC News Live on Thursday, Haywood said that his daughter Shaakira, who is a doctor, inspired him to lend his voice to this cause.
“This crisis that we are facing in the African American community, in particular, in the Hispanic community — we are not being vaccinated because of the fear. There’s misinformation that’s going out, you know, about the vaccine,” Haywood said.
Experts share best masking tips to protect against COVID-19 delta variant
According to Haywood, a lack of diversity in medicine is one of the factors that leads communities of color to mistrust the system and one that he hopes to tackle through his partnership with Roseman.
“It helps when you have a person of your own ilk and your color to come to you and say, ‘Hey, you know, it’s OK to get the vaccine,'” Haywood said, adding that it’s important to train more doctors of color who can serve their own communities.
Dr. Pedro “Joe” Greer Jr., founding dean of Roseman University’s College of Medicine, told ABC News in a statement that the college is grateful to partner with Haywood in “increasing diversity in medicine through programs that inspire youth to pursue medical education and serve their community.”
As delta variant surges, COVID hospitalizations rise 30% over previous week
“As far as the African American community, we have so much fear about getting health care,” said Haywood, who played in the ABA and NBA from 1969 to 1983 and averaged more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game for his career.
“We need to get out and get vaccinated. It’s so important,” he added. “Otherwise we’re not going to pull out of this as fast as we should here in America.”
The NBA Summer League kicked off in Las Vegas this week after Nevada reinstated an indoor mask mandate.
Clark County, where Vegas is located, has experienced a 26% increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the past 14 days, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, the Southern Nevada Health District reports that as of Aug. 6 in Clark County, approximately 55.26% of adults age 18 and older are fully vaccinated. That is just shy of the national figure of 61.3%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And as the more transmissible delta variant surges, COVID-19 cases and deaths are up nationwide by more than 20% compared to last week’s seven-day average, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday, and hospitalizations are up over 30% over the previous week.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan is urging Washington to evacuate Afghans who are under threat because of their work with the U.S. government — warning they cannot get out on their own and are in desperate need, according to an internal cable obtained by ABC News.
In an urgent and emotional appeal to State Department leadership, Ambassador Ross Wilson called for help for the thousands of Afghans who served the U.S., but will not be evacuated in the coming weeks by the administration.
President Joe Biden has said he is committed to helping Afghans who helped the U.S. But his plans only call for relocating Afghans who have received approval for a special immigrant visa — a program created by Congress for interpreters, guides and other contractors who worked for the U.S. military and diplomatic missions for two years.
With nearly one third of Afghanistan’s provincial capitals now captured by Taliban fighters, Afghans, U.S. lawmakers and advocacy groups are urging the administration to increase the tempo of evacuation flights and the scope of who qualifies for a coveted seat on one.
“They fear being watched walking in and out of the Embassy and lay awake at night fearing the Taliban will knock on their doors,” Wilson wrote of two Afghan staffers who spoke with U.S. officials.
Last week, the State Department announced that Afghans who did not qualify for the special immigrant visa program could instead apply for refugee status under a new initiative. That includes Afghans who didn’t meet the two-year employment requirement, who worked for a U.S.-funded program or a contractor instead of directly for the government, or who worked for a U.S.-based media outlet.
But that new program requires that these Afghans flee the country first — a barrier too high for the vast majority of them, according to Wilson.
“Any assumption that Afghan refugees can make their way to safety on foot does not reflect the new reality,” Wilson wrote — noting Taliban forces exercise control of more than half of the country’s border crossings, neighboring countries Iran and Pakistan are closing their borders to more refugees and other countries around the world are not offering Afghans visas to enter.
Instead, these Afghans embassy employees and close contacts are “under threat because of their work with the U.S. government … but cannot get out,” he added.
That group includes prominent women’s rights activists that the U.S. itself “raised as examples of progress toward gender equality” and are now threatened because of it, according to Wilson.
There are 2,000 Afghan embassy employees and their families, along with thousands more with U.S. ties who are seeking this new refugee status, according to the cable.
The administration, however, has already said it is not planning to help evacuate these Afghans.
“At this point in time, unfortunately, we do not anticipate relocating them, but we will continue to examine all the options to protect those who have served with or for us, and we will review the situation on the ground,” a senior State Department official told reporters last week.
Instead, it may struggle to evacuate all those special immigrant visa applicants, along with their families, that it has already committed to helping.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Thursday that despite the evacuation of a significant number of U.S. diplomats, the embassy will continue to process visas in Afghanistan.
The administration also announced Thursday that is is moving 1,000 U.S. troops to Qatar shortly to help process evacuated Afghans there, as it increases the number of flights of Afghans directly to the U.S., too.
Some 4,000 Afghans — 1,000 interpreters and their family members — are being evacuated to Fort Lee, a U.S. Army post in central Virginia, and those flights will become daily in the coming days, Price said. These applicants have been approved for U.S. visas by the embassy and cleared security vetting, according to U.S. officials.
“We have a solemn, a sincere responsibility to these brave Afghans,” Price told reporters Thursday. “We’re going to honor that responsibility and increase the pace of those relocation flights.”
In total now, 1,200 Afghans have been relocated to Fort Lee, according to Price. Roughly 90% of them have been processed and cleared to depart the installation, moving to their new homes across the U.S., a State Department spokesperson told ABC News on Wednesday.
In addition, the administration has said it plans to evacuate 4,000 more interpreters, plus their family members, who have been approved by the embassy, but not yet vetted.
This group — estimated to be approximately 20,000 Afghans in total — will be relocated to safe third locations, such as Qatar, Kuwait or the U.S. territory Guam, but it’s unclear whether the administration has any agreements to host them yet.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said the 1,000 service members — medical personnel, military police and engineers, among others — will support processing applicants, who could spend months at U.S. military installations in Qatar as they await their applications to be adjudicated. But a State Department spokesperson later told ABC News they have no announcements yet on third-country relocation sites.
(NEW YORK) — As universities prepare to welcome droves of students back to campus, some have announced additional fees for those who are not vaccinated — to help foot the bill for their supplementary COVID-19 testing — in a move that has courted controversy among the vocal faction of Americans resisting the shot.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, are imploring Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine to protect themselves and those around them from the virus that has left more than 600,000 dead in the U.S.
“COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective,” the CDC states on its website. “Millions of people in the United States have received COVID-19 vaccines under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history.”
Still, vaccine requirements or penalties for refusing the jab have emerged as a hot button issue in a nation that has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases.
West Virginia Wesleyan College, a private liberal arts college with about 1,500 students in Buckhannon, West Virginia, made national headlines when it announced it was charging a “non-refundable $750 Covid fee” for students who do not provide proof of vaccination by Sept. 7.
The college said it was not mandating the vaccine, but would as soon as the Food and Drug Administration formally approves it for use beyond the current emergency-use status.
“Students who do not submit a proof of vaccination status or who are not vaccinated will be required to undergo weekly surveillance testing,” the university stated on its website. “This testing will be conducted by WVWC officials. The cost will be covered by the Covid Fee charged to all unvaccinated students.”
Some 42.94% of the population of West Virginia is fully vaccinated, compared to the national benchmark of 50.3%, according to the CDC.
Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, similarly announced a $500 charge for students who are unvaccinated. The college cited the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant, and implored students to get vaccinated to protect community members.
“Due to the lack of federal funds for pandemic precautions this term, all students will initially be charged $500 for the fall term to offset continual weekly antigen testing and quarantining,” the university stated on its website. “Students who are fully vaccinated prior to the beginning of the fall term will receive an immediate $500 rebate.”
Despite being a campus of just 1,283 students, the local backlash to the update was swift and aggressive in the state that CDC data indicates has the lowest vaccination rate. Just 35% of the population in Alabama is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
The College Republican Federation of Alabama called the small campus’ decision a “blatant attack meant to shame students who are not vaccinated,” in a statement on Twitter. The group called vaccines a “vital tool” in the fight against COVID-19, but added, “We are still a free society where one should not be held at ransom to the tune of $500 if they do not feel the vaccine is the best course of action for them.”
Alabama lawmakers have been especially resistant to vaccines, and had already implemented a law prohibiting vaccine requirements at universities.
Shortly after the university’s website update was posted, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office issued a “Public Notice.” The notice did not name Birmingham-Southern College, but stated that the burden of paying a fee essentially rises to the level of requiring proof of vaccination and violates the state law.
The university did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the notice.
At Indiana University, a group of students sued to block the school’s vaccine mandate. On Thursday, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied the plea, the first case pertaining to vaccine mandates to come before the Supreme Court, without comment.
“IU students are adults entitled to make medical treatment decisions for themselves, unless IU can prove in court that their COVID vaccine mandate is justified, which they have not done and that the courts have not required them to do,” attorney James Bopp Jr., who is representing the students who sued, said in a statement. He vowed to continue to fight the mandate.
More than 700 college campuses in the U.S. are requiring vaccines of at least some students or employees, according to data compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education. A handful have separately announced vaccine incentives programs. Alabama’s Auburn University, which also isn’t able to mandate the shot, is offering prizes ranging from an unlimited meal plan upgrade to a $1,000 scholarship through its COVID-19 Vaccination Incentive Program.
In the private sector, a growing number of employers from Google to Disney have announced vaccine requirements. Late last month, President Joe Biden announced a vaccine requirement for all federal government employees, and said anyone not fully vaccinated will be required to wear a mask, social distance and get tested once or twice a week.
(HOUSTON) — The largest school district in Texas is among those poised to defy the governor’s ban on school mask mandates as students prepare to head back to school this month amid a surge in COVID-19 cases.
The Houston Independent School District board is set to vote on a mask mandate Thursday evening, though approval isn’t required for the policy to go into effect, the district confirmed to ABC News.
Superintendent Millard House expects the board to support his mandate, according to local reports, ahead of the first day of school on Aug. 23.
The mandate — which would require all students, staff and visitors to wear masks while in school and on district buses except while eating — goes against Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order barring government entities in Texas, including school districts, from requiring the use of masks.
“The last thing I want as a brand new superintendent in the largest school district in the state is any smoke or heat with the governor,” House, who officially became the superintendent of the school district in June, told Houston ABC station KTRK this week. “That’s not my intent here. My intent was solely focused on what we felt was best in Harris County and HISD.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo have voiced support for leaders instituting mask mandates despite the governor’s order.
“I commend everyone — school superintendents, and elected judges alike who are taking whatever steps are needed to protect the lives of the people they serve,” Hidalgo said on Twitter this week while announcing that the Harris County attorney was authorized to file a lawsuit challenging the governor’s order. “Protecting the community during an emergency is a duty, not an option for government leaders.”
Houston joins other school districts in Texas, including those in Austin, Dallas and Spring, in issuing mask mandates.
On Wednesday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins signed an order requiring masks indoors in certain public spaces, including public schools.
In response, Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said they will fight the county mask mandate in court.
“Under Executive Order GA-38, no governmental entity can require or mandate the wearing of masks,” Abbott said in a statement. “The path forward relies on personal responsibility — not government mandates. The State of Texas will continue to vigorously fight the temporary restraining order to protect the rights and freedoms of all Texans.”
Statewide, the seven-day average of daily COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have reached their highest points since January, when Texas was emerging from its winter surge. COVID-19 hospitalizations rose by nearly 3,000 in the last week, the state health department said on Twitter Wednesday, warning that “risk of infection is very high.”
Pediatric cases have been surging in particular, with 94,000 reported in the last week, or 15% of all reported new infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. Also, pediatric COVID-19-related hospital admissions are at their highest level since the beginning of the pandemic.
On Thursday, President Joe Biden said he stood with officials defying state mandates barring masks in schools.
“To the mayors, school superintendents, educators, local leaders, who are standing up to the governors politicizing mask protection for our kids, thank you,” he told reporters. “Thank God that we have heroes like you. And I stand with you all, and America should as well.”
(LONDON) — Multiple people were killed and a number of others were injured in a shooting in Plymouth, England, Thursday night.
Police responded to a “serious firearms incident” in the Keyham section of the city in southwest England at about 6:10 p.m. local time, according to Devon and Cornwall police.
“There have been a number of fatalities at the scene and several other casualties are receiving treatment,” police said in a statement. “A critical incident has been declared. The area has been cordoned off and police believe the situation is contained.”
Johnny Mercer, a member of Parliament representing the region, said the shooting was not believed to be terror-related.
Police said no suspect is on the loose.
It is not clear how many people were killed or injured and police have not speculated on a motive.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
(LONDON) — Six people are dead, including the suspect, following a shooting in Plymouth, England, Thursday night.
Police responded to a “serious firearms incident” in the Keyham section of the city in southwest England at about 6:10 p.m. local time, according to Devon and Cornwall police.
When they arrived, they found two men and two women dead from gunshot wounds, police said. They also found a man who is believed to be the shooter dead at the scene. All five were pronounced dead from gunshot wounds.
A third woman was taken to a local hospital, where she later died, police said.
Police said the next of kin for all of the deceased have been notified. Police did not say how the suspect died, but he was dead prior to police arriving.
Names and ages of the victims have not been released.
“There have been a number of fatalities at the scene and several other casualties are receiving treatment,” police said in a statement earlier in the evening. “A critical incident has been declared. The area has been cordoned off and police believe the situation is contained.”
Johnny Mercer, a member of Parliament representing the region, said the shooting was not believed to be terror-related.
Devon and Cornwall police reiterated in a statement announcing the deaths that the case was not related to terrorism.
Police said they are not searching for any further suspects related to the shooting.
There was no speculation about a motive and no information on how the victims were connected to the shooter, if at all.
Priti Patel, the country’s home secretary, tweeted, “The incident in Plymouth is shocking and my thoughts are with those affected. I have spoken to the Chief Constable and offered my full support.”
Devon and Cornwall police said an investigation of the incident is ongoing.
(ABC News) Luke Amphlett, a high school teacher in Burbank, Texas, speaks during a group discussion about Texas’ education legislation.
(DALLAS) — For former U.S. Army Capt. Diane Birdwell, teaching world history has always been a personal journey into her family’s heritage.
The 60-year-old teacher often invokes her own family’s history when she teaches her 10th-grade students at a local Dallas public high school. In her maternal ancestry, she says she had family members who served in the Confederate Army. On her father’s side, her ancestors served as part of the Nazi German military.
“I don’t shy away from it because I accept the fact that it’s part of my family’s past,” Birdwell told ABC News. “I deal with the fact that there are relatives in my family history who did things I would not have done and I accept that. I can acknowledge what they did.”
Every school year, when Birdwell teaches her students about WWII, she shows them her uncle’s Ahnenpass book, which he was required to keep under Hitler’s rule as a record proving that he was not of Jewish heritage.
“When we’re talking about … the Nuremberg laws that Hitler put in place to separate Jews from German citizens that were Christian, you have a situation where you had to prove your ancestry,” she explained. “With this, you have these factual stamps and information on your family’s ancestry, and you had to carry these with you wherever you went.”
“I inherited this and I show it in class to make sure they understand that this all really happened. The Holocaust was real, and don’t think for a second it didn’t happen,” she added. “Hopefully, our country can move and improve when you personalize history and that’s what I’m trying to get them to do.”
Although these discussions are sometimes uncomfortable, the Dallas-based teacher said that talking about past injustices is necessary to prevent history from repeating itself.
However, she may soon have to change her candid teaching style if a GOP-led bill in Texas is voted into law. The current version of the state’s Senate Bill 3 would remove a mandate for educators to teach historic moments of slavery, as well as the Chicano movements, women’s suffrage and civil rights.
One of the most controversial pieces of the proposal would remove a requirement to teach students that the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacy is morally wrong.
Critics of SB 3 say the bill attempts to legislate education policy to ban teaching anti-racism in K-12 schools. They say the educational efforts in these grades have been politicized and conflated as critical race theory, a higher education academic framework created over 40 years ago to explore how a history of racism and white supremacy may still be embedded in U.S. institutions, including the legal system.
“What legal scholars and their students did was they turned to the law, they turned to institutions, they turned to policies to understand how discrimination was perpetuated by these institutions, by these structures, by these policies, in order to make sense of continuing inequality,” Leah Wright Rigueur, an associate professor of American history at Brandeis University, told ABC News.
While Republican state lawmakers are working to pass prohibitions, critical race theory is not currently a part of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills requirements, which sets the requirements for the K-12 curriculums as mandated by the state Board of Education.
Texas is now one of 26 states that have proposed or passed laws restricting or banning classroom discussions on concepts relating to race and racism, which many Republican lawmakers say are divisive.
While many had come to accept critical race theory as a new way to understand the impacts of racism, former President Donald Trump helped spark debate over its legitimacy during his reelection campaign, and Republicans have lobbied against it ever since.
During a speech announcing his 1776 Commission in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 17, 2020, Trump said that “students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation.”
Trump went on to sign an executive order titled “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” which banned anti-racist, racial and sexual sensitivity trainings for federal employees. He also denounced the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project by New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, which focused on the lasting impact of slavery in the U.S.
President Joe Biden has since reversed the executive order, saying he will prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion within his administration.
School boards across the country are holding meetings to debate critical race theory, with some parents accusing teachers of having a political agenda in the classroom. Politicians, parents and students are all weighing in on the debate over what children should learn and who gets to make that decision.
The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) is traditionally responsible for creating the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills — also known as TEKS — which is a basic curriculum for K-12 public education. Marisa Perez-Diaz has been a member of the SBOE since 2013, representing District 3, which includes the San Antonio region.
“This is the first time I’ve experienced this where the legislature is directly impacting the work that the State Board of Education is responsible for doing and dictating what needs to be taught and what needs to be included in schools. That’s never happened and that should never happen,” Perez-Diaz said.
This week, she facilitated a meeting with students and educators across Texas to discuss recent education bills proposed or passed in the state. Burbank High School teacher Luke Amphlett was one of the participants.
“It’s not accidental that this is happening at the moment of the largest multiracial uprising against police brutality in history,” he said. “This is happening in a moment where we’re seeing the demographics of Texas shifting and a majority of students of color now in Texas schools.”
Alejo Pena Soto, a recent graduate of Jefferson High School in the San Antonio Independent School District, says SB 3 is “just ignorant in the sense that it’s forgetting a lot of the history of where education comes from.”
That sentiment is one Perez-Diaz identifies with. She said she wants her four children to grow up knowing how their ancestors contributed to the fabric of this country.
“The work of understanding our histories is also very personal to me, because as a Latina, as a Mexican-American in Texas, I wasn’t exposed to my history,” she said. “All I had to learn was what was passed down in oral history from my family.”
Perez-Diaz is a fourth-generation Mexican American and the youngest person to be a member of the SBOE. She’s also the first in her family to graduate college and an alumnus of Texas’ public school education.
“I am proud to be a Texan. I’m not proud of the policy and the laws that come out of Texas,” she said.
Texas has one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. and more than half of the state’s student population is Hispanic.
Perez-Diaz says critical race theory has become the new catchphrase for conversations about race and diversity not just inside the classrooms but outside them, too. She says much of the fear surrounding it is baseless.
“No, critical race theory is not being taught in K-12 education,” she said. “It is a higher education framework that is engaged typically at the graduate level.”
“There are foundational issues in U.S. history that are very much connected to racial inequity, segregation, redlining, [and] all of those issues are not critical race theory,” she added. “That’s history. That’s our country’s history.”
Texas State Rep. Steve Toth believes that history is important for students to learn, but he says the methods for teaching it should remain traditional.
“I think it’s very simple: you teach [that] the past is the past,” he said. “I was taught in school about the Civil War. I was taught about slavery. I was taught about Jim Crow. But I wasn’t blamed for it. Slavery was a sin of our past. Jim Crow is a sin of our past.”
Toth and other Republican lawmakers are pushing to ban critical race theory in K-12 public and charter schools, and threatening to take funding away if teachers are caught teaching it. He is the author of Texas House Bill 3979, one of the first of Texas’ bills that aimed to stop critical race theory from being used in classrooms. It was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June and will take effect in September.
“We have had dozens and dozens of teachers [who] called saying that they do not want to teach critical race theory in Texas classrooms, and this is [a] response to that,” he said.
One of the controversial pieces of Toth’s bill requires teachers to abstain from conversations that might lead to someone feeling “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s race or sex.”
“If you want to say that the United States is still a systemic racist nation, that’s a lie. If you want to say that there is racism in our land, that’s the truth. Absolutely true,” Toth said.
Another section of his bill prohibits teachers from feeling compelled to discuss current events with students, saying that if it comes up, they must explore the news from “diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective.”
“I honestly don’t know how we responsibly teach social studies or civics education without engaging in conversations about current events,” Perez-Diaz said. “Our students, our scholars across the country, leave the classroom and experience the world as it is, right. So then, how do we come into the classroom and we expect them to ignore all of that noise outside when they have a lot of questions?”
For students like 14-year-old Chris Johnson of Aledo, Texas, our nation’s racist past is still a reality that haunts his daily life. Earlier this year, Chris and a fellow Black student were targeted by classmates who set up a “slave auction” on Snapchat.
That virtual post was initially called “n—– auction,” he said, adding that his classmates pretended to sell them: one for $100 and the other for $1.
Chris’ mom, Mioshi Johnson, said she reported the incident to the school administrators immediately. The school disciplined the students involved and outlined multiple steps to address the problem in the community. But she said they called the incident “cyber bullying,” not “racism.”
“It made it so that people didn’t know what really happened. So there was no conversation about how egregious it was,” Johnson said. “There was no conversation about the direct racism that it was.”
Susan K. Bohn, Ed.D., the superintendent of Aledo Independent School District, said in a statement to parents, “I am deeply sorry that a few of our students engaged in racial harassment of two of our students of color. … It was totally unacceptable to all of us, and it should not have happened.”
Chris shared his painful story at a local school board meeting on April 19.
“I spoke up to stand up for myself and every other kid in Aledo to just show them that’s not OK and we shouldn’t be treated different,” he said.
“They weren’t listening to what people were saying, so they needed to hear firsthand from the people that were affected by it,” he said. “If the government, politicians and even the school board would just listen to us, they would understand that we have every right to be a part of the solution.”
Chris says he wants his school district to take action and to make sure an incident like the one he went through never happens again.
“We’re not just going to sit back. … We need to actually see them take initiative and change,” he said.
Both he and his mother agree that having honest dialogues about racism is crucial to becoming anti-racist.
“The division comes from not knowing, not being aware, not having someone to tell you or teach you,” she said. “When you take that away, you have instances of teenage boys saying slave trade, slave auction, slave farm because no one has taught them.”
Johnson said she believes that incorporating ideas of critical race theory into a curriculum gives students a fuller picture of their history.
“I don’t see critical race theory as being something terrible. I don’t see it being a blame game — ‘shame-you’ — type of theory. I believe that it’s telling the whole entire story; parts of the story that people aren’t learning anymore [and] will probably never hear about if people aren’t teaching it.” she said. “When you know the whole story from the history to the present, it kind of brings it full circle to you.”
Athena Tseng, a 15-year-old high school junior in Frisco, Texas is a member of Diversify Your Narrative, an organization that works to incorporate the voices of Black, indigenous and other people of color into classroom curriculums. She was born in Arizona but her family is originally from Taiwan.
“I barely ever see history about my heritage, or anything in my classes, even in the books we read,” Tseng said. “To have diverse representation in our history and literature classes, or just overall, really helps with even just people of color being more comfortable in their skin.”
“I think if you’re not exposed to … other cultures … then I don’t think people are going to go out of their way to do that and learn and grow,” she added.
As state lawmakers, parents and school board officials battle over how to teach American history, Birdwell says that opponents of critical race theory should consider how prohibitions in history education could impact students’ critical thinking development.
“These opponents of critical race theory or diversity education, what they’re saying is they don’t trust their children,” Birdwell said. “I think they really fear that their kids might pick up that their ancestors did some bad things. They might pick up that there is still a legacy in this country of racism and that we need to do something about it.”
On Aug. 3, Rep. James White, the only Black Republican State House member, submitted a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asking him to review the constitutionality of critical race theory education and anti-racism teaching.
Regardless of whether the latest bill, Texas SB 3, passes, Paxton’s opinion could set a precedent for future legislation that could potentially impact diversity, equity and inclusivity training efforts in education as well as in other public agencies.
In the meantime, Birdwell says she will continue to follow her lesson plans as usual. She says history needs to come with context: facts alone are not enough.
“If you have to confront that racism of the past, then white citizens are going to have to confront that their families were alive when it happened,” she said. “That doesn’t make [them] themselves bad people. It just means: accept that in the past, some of our stuff is not pleasant to learn or talk about.”
Forget about industry pundits: Lorde will be the first to tell you that her highly anticipated new album Solar Power, due out August 20, won’t be as successful as her previous records, the Grammy-winning Pure Heroine and the Grammy-nominated Melodrama.
Speaking to The New York Times, she laughs, “There’s definitely not a smash [on the album]. It makes sense that there wouldn’t be a smash, because I don’t even know really what the smashes are now.”
In the past, “Royals” was certainly a smash, but Lorde swore she’d never try to approach that level of success again. “What a lost cause,” she tells the NYT. “Can you imagine? I’m under no illusion. That was a moonshot.”
Like Melodrama, Lorde made Solar Power with producer and Bleachers front man Jack Antonoff, but she resents any attempt to lump her in with the other female artists he’s worked with, like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and St. Vincent.
“I haven’t made a Jack Antonoff record,” the singer said. “I’ve made a Lorde record and he’s helped me make it and very much deferred to me on production and arrangement. Jack would agree with this. To give him that amount of credit is frankly insulting.”
She calls that narrative “retro” and “sexist,” adding, “No one who’s in a job that isn’t my job has a relationship like the one I have with Jack. He’s like a partner to me. We’re in a relationship.”
“It’s not a romantic relationship, but we’ve been in it for seven years, and it’s a really unique thing,” she adds. “And so I don’t begrudge people maybe not being able to understand it.”
Lorde feels the same way about the album, apparently; of Solar Power, she says, “I would almost value people not understanding it at first.”
