Emily Provenzano on Spoutible

1/13

I started writing spouts about the horrid decisions by SCOTUS yesterday several times, and deleted them all. What could I say that added to the conversation? I still haven't figured that out, but it feels important to say that I vehemently oppose the discrimination the conservative "justices"

07:48 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

2/13

Codified into law. The fact that the web designer didn't even have LGBTQ+ clients and just wanted clearance to discriminate is absolutely terrifying. I'm bisexual in a het marriage, so I can pass for now. Phew! Relief, right? Not at all, because I'm a student of history, and I know where

07:55 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

3/13

Codified discrimination leads. My mother came out in 1980 and I grew up in the Reagan years. The hate and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people leads to violence, systemically, physically, and emotionally. So that particular decision yesterday hit hard.

07:59 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

4/13

The decision that ended affirmative action hit me just as hard, but in a different way. I am an educator, a reformed Latin teacher, as I say in my bio. I taught for over a decade in a magnet school in a Title 1 district. Our school was created as part of a CT SCOTUS decision called Scheff v. O'Neill

08:01 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

5/13

The Scheff case was brought by families in Hartford, CT who claimed their children were not receiving an equal education to their white peers in the suburbs because of the racial and socioeconomic isolation of students living in Hartford. Hartford schools receive less funding than suburban schools

08:03 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

6/13

And test scores typically are lower than those in the suburbs. Students living in Hartford also faced several systemic barriers that their suburban peers do not. So the Scheff council has been trying for decades to address the problem, and one solution was magnet schools such as mine.

08:06 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

7/13

The thought was that if schools had a student population that was more diverse in race and socioeconomic status (which was reduced to "urban or suburban" in practice), and had additional funding and programming, the test scores would improve for all students. A rising tide lifts all boats, right?

08:08 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

8/13

And it pretty much worked! For the students who could get into the magnet programs, that is. Kids who still attended their neighborhood schools still faced the same challenges as before, with the same results. I still have mixed feelings about my time teaching at the magnet school - we helped a lot

08:10 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

9/13

Of kids get into colleges, many of them the first in their families to do so. Some kids got into Ivy League schools and went on to amazing careers. They could have done it without the magnet program, but it would have been harder. My mixed feelings were that so many of our conversations came down to

08:13 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

10/13

"We need to recruit more white suburban kids" as if that would save the school. In a way, it was true - white students brought in suburban education funding, which we turned into arts, sports, field trips, and enrichment programs. But all of our students deserved that level of funding and programs

08:15 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

11/13

No matter what neighborhood they lived in. So what does this all have to do with the decision eliminating affirmative action? SCOTUS just made it harder for students who do not come from advantaged families and neighborhoods to access the educational programs they deserve. All I can think of is the

08:19 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

12/13

Students I taught and their families having one more huge barrier thrown in their way. And the reasoning behind the decision was so perverse and twisted.

08:22 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Emily Provenzano

@EmilyProvo

13/13

So what I have to say after yesterday is this. The Robert's Supreme Court is disgusting. It is bigoted and it is un-American. I hope that we now see the scope of the fight ahead of us. Conservatives have spent 50 years getting to this point, and it will take at least that long to undo the damage.

08:24 AM - Jul 01, 2023

Send reset password code via:

Enter the code to update your password.

Reset Your Password

Sign In