Ep. 23 – Brown v. Board of Education: A Conversation with Chloe Latham Sikes

[0:00:07 Peniel] Welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. Welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection of race, social justice and public policy. Ah, on today’s episode, we’re pleased. Toe. Have Chloe Latham Sykes with us. Hi, Chloe. Hi. Chloe is a doctoral candidate in educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. She has formally formerly worked as a college admissions counselor, legislative advocate and policy researcher, and holds a masters in curriculum and instruction from You Tease College of Education with a focus on cultural studies and education. Her work focuses on race, social inequities in the policies and politics of educational reform. She has published in Educational Review, The Oxford Handbook of US K to 12 Education Law and the Texas Education Review, among others. Impressive. She also served as the graduate research assistant for the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy for the 18 4019 academic year. Chloe, welcome to race in democracy.

[0:01:27 Chloe] Thank you for having me, Dr Joseph.

[0:01:30 Peniel] Well, we’ll dive right in. Um, we have recently celebrated the 65th anniversary of the Brown Supreme Court desegregation decision. And I wanted to ask you about, um, in light of that watershed decision, where are we at in the state of race policy? Segregation? Because in many ways, I think the narrative is that Brown basically fixed those things.

[0:02:02 Chloe] Brown didn’t quite fix those things, Um, always. Although it was obviously a landmark case that did so much for ending, plus her pussy vs Ferguson and started jumpstarting the desegregation cases that definitely saw strides in the later fifties. And as they rolled over and District’s actually got court mandates to implement them. And after Brown to in 1955 with all deliberate speed, we saw desegregation occurring throughout the country. But then those numbers have shifted, and there’s a lot to account that put that on. One was housing segregation. Other policies that contributed to income stratification, um, are this is a contentious area, but the policies around school choice and how students and parents decide where to send their Children to school and where they’re those public monies for education go. All of those really led us to today, where a lot of the contemporary debates around race and education have to do with the so called achievement gap. Some people, like scholar Gloria Lots and buildings, calls it the education debt that students of color are owed because they’ve been deprived educational opportunities less not achievement gap.

[0:03:16 Peniel] I want to unpack these things because the U. C. L. A civil rights project just published with Gary Orfield and other scholars Um ah, really toe terrific sort of summary of where we’re at now and I want to unpack. Where exactly are we, Um, and where do Latino students fit into this? Because we think about this is a black white divide which still exists. But certainly right now Latinos are the second highest student population in U. S. Public schools, after whites, and in third is African American. So where we at now in terms of 19 2065 years after brown, are things getting better? If not perfect? Are we? Have we rolled back where we

[0:04:02 Chloe] I think there’s a few things. One is yes. Most public student bodies are Latino and black and brown students. Asian students are one of the fastest growing populations in public schools, and white public school students have been starting to be on the decline proportionally, um, and just said, in terms of segregation, just school assignment, who goes to school together? That’s one question, but then also who is in the neighborhoods and has different choices available to them is another question. How disparate funding is another question that brings together race and education and that separate and unequal part that Brown was ostensibly overturned. Um, but we know that public schools could be very unequal. And facilities, opportunities, staffing, funding. Um, if you just drive across town sometimes you know when you’re five minutes away or something like that, depending on where you’re living

[0:04:59 Peniel] now, you said two things I want to focus on what you just said, one who goes to school with each other and who lives in the same neighborhoods. Brown was supposed to, um, and we see this Little Rock Central High School crisis 1957. But you see the Norman Rockwell painting where the little girl and people are. They said a racial slur over the wall behind her. Brown was supposed to change that, and black and white kids, which were the biggest two racial groups. It’s time we’re supposed to go to school with each other. How come more likely than not right now, 65 years later, they’re still not going to school together.

[0:05:36 Chloe] That’s a great question. And people put a lot of time and money into figuring that out in answering it and figuring out policies around it. Um, but I am trained, and I subscribe to critical race theory in education and the body of critical race scholars and education that have done a lot of work on this and one tenant without getting too in the weeds. So as I’m sure you’re already familiar, is the persistence of whiteness and how whiteness and white privilege operates as property. And so white whiteness as property means that better school funding, um, higher property taxes, school district boundaries all can be perpetuated to preserve a power structure. And what we’ve seen since brown and before, but particular since Brown, is that those educational opportunities access to the best educational opportunities specific in Richmond opportunities, Um, even within a school AP tracking or honors courses, the best curriculum within a school starts to have a reproduced power structure that tends to align with hoarding opportunities. It’s called opportunity hoarding for white students and white families that disenfranchises the educational opportunities of students of color. And this has been documented in a number of ethnography ease that scholars have done where they’ve looked at, um, even 11 particular book is called, despite best intentions by Diamond and Lewis, and they looked at a Chicago area high school that was really wanting to implement better diversity programs and close their racial achievement. Collapse gaps. It was a very diverse school, and they found, through doing an in depth study in the school that even the way that discipline policies were enacted by teachers the way that administrators reached out to parents and included parents and engagement, how they perceived different families based on race, how students were tracked within the school, into different types of college ready programs or regular tracked types of educational curriculum. All of that was then highly racialized, even though despite the best intentions, the title of the book was to close the achievement gap, get everyone on the same page, graduate everybody and have ah, very diverse and functioning school. So we see these nuanced ways that power and whiteness are perpetuated. That create ongoing segregation and a lot of opportunities.

[0:07:58 Peniel] And then, when you think about residential segregation, how does reading residential segregation than impact, um, or lead to or exacerbate this public school segregation? Kids not going to the same schools because they don’t live in the same neighborhoods?

[0:08:14 Chloe] Yeah, I think this is one. The most fascinating things about education policy, because housing and education are two of the most Democratic questions about citizenship. And get into that later. If you’re interested. Public education. I think it’s still one of the most democratic institutions. We have free compulsory public education. That’s pretty amazing. And it is largely aligned with where you live. And that goes way back to the beginnings off K 12 schools and even, you know, getting funding and loving living county taxes. And all of that, Um, so housing and education are two issues about where your family resides and finds shelter and the future of your Children. Those air really high stakes questions and the tied together on the funding of schools and the assignment of students and in questions of belonging and neighborliness and society. So that’s a more in depth way to take it but I think that you have to start there to see how high stakes housing and education decisions are. But as we saw a Sfar back, you know, with Levitt Town and beginning with white flight from more urban centers of the country, we start to see white flight and suburbs that also had different school districts. So we immediately see it saw segregated school districts. And what we’ve continued to see is not only that within schools you can have segregation or within a district you have segregation between schools and Brown broke down that the black school on that side of town and the white school on this side of town. But you we now have more interdistrict segregation where because of housing patterns, you have an entire housing area and it the whole district boundaries, not just a school boundary. That district boundaries are segregated from the neighboring district. And that becomes really hard because there were court cases that ruled against Melican v. Bradley interdistrict types of remedies that could take place toe bus students out of a district or into a district to desegregate those schools.

[0:10:15 Peniel] And that leads me to a question about policy Visa vee racial integration and record Johnson’s new book, You know it’s subtitled You Know You Know How Integration, you know, works. Um, really looks at this history. Um, and I wanna ask why, If desegregation was working in the 19 seventies and eighties and when you think about District’s like Charlotte’s Charlotte Mecklenburg in Charlotte, North Carolina, um, places in Atlanta, there’s, you know, we usually think about Boston and busing and think it never work. But in the seventies and eighties, it was about two decades where there’s court enforced desegregation and all the remedies are not bussing some of the remedies Air Volunteer, um, to achieve what? Sometimes a court called racial balancing. Why, if those things were working, like in the case of Charlotte, North Carolina, a city that in the 19 eighties trumpeted its racial integration, have those things been reversed both in terms of policy but also through the courts, both the federal district and, of course, the Supreme Court?

[0:11:23 Chloe] He’s a really good questions also very contentious ones. Um, one reason would be working for who and again getting back to the power structure of how whiteness and, um, the opportunities, you know, we talk about white privilege, that means money. That means the power structure that means assumed senses of safety and power and influence on the opportunity. Who was integration working for now? I need to read that book, and I am a big believer in obviously pushing civil rights through education policy that increases racial equity and access. Absolutely. But when you think of it of a question of power structures and racialized power structures, who was it working for and who wouldn’t want it to work? And I think that when you look at a chapter did with Dr Liliana Garces, who I know has been on your programas well. We wrote about new forms of kind of colorblind, segregate racial segregation mechanisms that the court has implemented to undermine a lot of the progress of Brown V Board. And some of that was around the courts composition changing, becoming honestly quite much more conservative in the seventies and eighties and moving forward and starting to get away from just looking at the racially disparate impact off education policies and segregation and having to have plaintiffs prove racially discriminatory intent, which is very difficult to do that a policy is intentionally discriminatory because that’s a slippery. That’s a slippery way that when we called it in the chapter that race neutral or so called color blind racism can operate. Um, and we see that a lot in school choice debates, and I’m not throwing just the whole issue of school choice under the bus. But school choice is about education, which some might say is a public good and then also boiling it down to privileging the right of an individual parent to choose. And so you’re dealing with the conflict of individual school choice and a collective public democratic institution of public education and what your philosophy is on that so I think, to answer your question, getting back to it. It has depended on how the courts and how policymakers have seen public education as a collective good for democracy or as an individual right to be protected and preserved against perceived threats, perceived compromises to it, or whatever the case may be because of racial segregation and art desegregation.

[0:13:58 Peniel] Well, that leaves me Teoh talk about voting and voting rights because we think about education policy. So much of it is connected to this idea of citizenship, which you raised earlier and really sort of one of the, um, most powerful weapons that citizens have in any democracy, especially in American democracy, is the vote. And ah, you wrote, um, this basic policy brief methods of voter suppression in the 21st century for the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. And it’s really a fascinating document on I want you to talk about it and break it down because in the 21st century, you you show and illustrate here and use some census data. Use some qualitative and quantitative methods. Um, sort of how sometimes people call it second or third generation. Um, efforts at voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression are actually working. And you specifically look at Texas to as a case study. Um, and I know you’ve worked in the Texas lead, so I want you to talk about this and talk about because I absolutely believe our education policy and inequities are related to voting and not just who votes and why. But who doesn’t and why? Why not?

[0:15:17 Chloe] Yes, absolutely. I fully agree. And, um so yeah. In that brief, which is published on the Cesar de website that we launched. Um, I broke down some contemporary methods of voter suppression into three general categories and certainly not a comprehensive brief. But these are some of the issues we see hit the news a lot. So one was around representation, according to Jerry Man Mitt Gerrymandered districts. And then we see a lot of issues of voter suppression come up through restrictions to registration, such as voter i. D Laws of in Texas was an early, um, adopter of some voter I D laws.

[0:15:54 Peniel] And let’s let’s break these down, Khloe, Talk about Jerry Mander. What is gerrymandering?

[0:15:58 Chloe] Yes. So gerrymandering actually comes from former Senator Elbridge Gerry, who proposed these salamander shaped district’s to kind of cordoned off the voter block essentially cordoned off. Constituents were gonna be favorable for a particular candidate particular party.

[0:16:17 Peniel] So does this start off as partisanship in less racial disfranchised mint? Or was it always both?

[0:16:23 Chloe] So I didn’t dig into the history of gerrymandering particularly, but I think that we could definitely discuss how voting rights has always been racial and partisan, and the preservation of who gets to vote the voting rights who has given voting rights for whom is it? Protected is always an inherently racialized question in America. Yeah.

[0:16:46 Peniel] So Jerry Mandir ing is one way voter I d laws And I know this is taken real shape after the Supreme Court 2013 Shelby v. Holder case, which really basically nullified large or the strongest portion of the of the Voting Rights Act,

[0:17:04 Chloe] right? Right. So that the Shelby V. Holder decision took away the the teeth of the Voting Rights Act of pre clearance. And states having to submit pre clearing Teoh get pre clearance for changing their voter loss.

[0:17:19 Peniel] And why did states need to do the pre clearance? Because I know, um, it was about 16 states, parts of all of 16 states. Why did they need pre clearance?

[0:17:28 Chloe] Pre clearance was a way to address the historical inequities that we saw and as we were talking about contemporary issues, that slipperiness of racism in foreclosing educational opportunities, housing opportunities, the preclearance law was a way to get beyond just Oh, this is just a different type of policy for ease or for resource is or financial efficiency, and to actually get at who does this disenfranchise and what is its impact and Is this actually going to infringe upon the voting rights off? You’re voting populace and specifically your voters of color. So it was. It was the bite in the Voting Rights Act, which made it very effective at first.

[0:18:07 Peniel] And how does voter I d laws Now that there’s no pre clearance? How does that negatively or doesn’t negatively impact African American and other voters of color in the state of Texas? And nationally,

[0:18:20 Chloe] it does tend to so nationally we know that voter I D laws are a restrictive statute because it is. It’s hard to get an I D that requires transportation. It requires time off of work to procure an I. D. It requires fees and financial barriers. Ah, and

[0:18:38 Peniel] most states require voter i d.

[0:18:41 Chloe] Right now I’d have to check out the exact number, but a number of states passed it. I believe it was almost 1/2 dozen states after 22,006. Excuse me after 2006 and some passed voter I D laws illegally, and then they started to wise up and adjust their voter I D laws. Texas voter I D Law at first was wrapped up in the courts and stymied for a bit. But then, going forward after it came out of the courts, they they ruled on a different type of voter I. D law that was cleaned up a tiny bit. But that pass legal muster and is in effect currently, where students lining up the polls in 2018 at the midterms must have a an idea. Photo I D. And a student I d does not count to be able to cast about it.

[0:19:24 Peniel] And why does it a student I d count? Because it seems like that doesn’t make any sense. What’s the purpose of that?

[0:19:32 Chloe] The purpose, arguably would be that younger voters tend to vote democratic and and historically younger voters also are seen is not voting as much, not turning out as much now. They turned out in 2008 in 2012 during the Rock, the vote for Barack Obama’s for selection in 2008. But they’re seen as voting more progressive and and certainly more along the Democratic ticket at times, and also there. One might say that you could tie that into a larger, and my higher ed colleagues might say this a larger attack on higher education, where higher education is seen as being elite elite liberals and higher education that come, You know, students coming to universities, and they might only be in that jurisdiction that municipality for 2 to 4 to six years, depending on their tenure as a student. There has been pushback from a lot of municipalities that don’t want their representation guided by the higher education enrolled students that are that are there. And this is the the crux of a court case currently, that the Inability CP has brought against Waller County because Waller County is a very predominately white county and outside of Houston, Texas, and it also is the home of Purview A and M University, a historically black college. And the Preview and um students did not have access to an early voting site in the 2018 midterms. And Waller County has been the case that has been the subject of multiple other cases litigating voter restriction racialized voter restriction because for the university and the student body is largely a student body of color as a historically black university, and some of that early legislation to believe it was from the mid two thousands. But there are older cases specifically in Waller County, Um, actually litigated how higher education students enrolling in the university can or cannot be counted as residents to cast a ballot in that jurisdiction. And so a lot of that has been at the center of Waller County. And we see this case coming up again because it’s a really sticky issue for when you get around to partisan divides but also rural urban divides. And, ah, a lot of positions you see with universities. Tell me

[0:21:41 Peniel] about this whole notion of registered, uh, voter purges, because I know in the 2018 midterm, we saw aspects of that in the gubernatorial race that Stacey Abrams ran but really all around tightly contested races where there are allegations, I’m usually allegations by Democrats and people of color that Republicans and Republicans in charge sometimes Secretary of States and others were purging voter rolls in an effort to suppress the vote and basically influence or steal elections. What’s going on with this voting purges?

[0:22:20 Chloe] Yeah, this is a remarkable, um, and horrifying trend that’s occurring across the country. A number of states have enacted voter purges, I believe I pulled a lot from the Brennan Center for Justice is reports they have a report just called voter purchase that I highly recommend because they do a really thorough job of going through and looking at the actual impact. That taking people registered on the on the rolls off of those roles has on voter turnout on elections overall, Um, and heartbreaking stories that you hear of people being turned away, you know, old veterans who have voted every election of their lives that they were able being turned away because they’ve realized that they’ve been perched. Um, I think in Wisconsin, over well over 17,000 people were purged prior to the 2016 election in Tennessee and Virginia, there was at least a 2 to 3% impact on voter turnout from purges alone that for the Brennan Center calculated. And in Texas we experienced this ourselves that right now the Secretary of State, David Whitley, who has not been confirmed he was appointed by the governor, and he one of his first orders of business in January was to put out a notice to counties to purge almost 100,000 names from the Texas voter registration rolls, and a lot of people came forward and launched lawsuits and said, I am a citizen. I’m a naturalized citizen And it came out as the investigation continued, that the secretary of state’s office was using outdated data that they knew was probably faulty from the Department of Motor Vehicles. So when someone has is, for example, a legal permanent resident have a green card, they could get a legal driver’s license. They go and they have to declare if they have citizenship or not. But then those people often natural natural eyes, you know, a few years later, there they are not required by law to update their state driver’s license. And so by using that data, you had a lot of outdated data, and it was tens of thousands of people off of that 100,000 person list that were incorrectly ordered to be purged. The counties were incredibly ordered to purge those people from their voter rolls, and right now Secretary Whitley has not been confirmed by the Texas Senate. If he’s not confirmed by the end of the session, which takes place and ruin about the we’re pulling up on the last week of session, then Governor Abbott will have to appoint someone else because this has really become a major issue. And, I believe a major bipartisan issue that, um, it’s been taken very seriously by Texas senators of these accusations of voter purges and really damning evidence that that was an intent of Secretary of State’s office.

[0:25:00 Peniel] And what were some of the effects of these voter purges in terms of the population that’s registered to vote in Texas over time?

[0:25:11 Chloe] Well, it was, since we haven’t had an election since those purges that that order kind of came down, I believe it was issued in January 2 counties, because counties really handle our our elections and, um, counties. We’re told you need to purchase people. And there was not very much instruction, and they were very much encouraged to go ahead with that. So some counties did. Some counties said, Wait a minute, this doesn’t look quite right. We’re gonna hold off until further instruction. But they were very clearly instructed to do it, and then it got tied up in the courts. And a number of lawsuits have been brought against the secretary of state’s office. So the impact isn’t quite known, But we do know over well over 10,000 people were incorrectly noted as being non citizen voters. And what that it’s not just a matter of people being disenfranchised, though that’s incredibly important. It’s also a matter of spreading fear about voter fraud that is untrue, that it’s false. Um, because a lot of these numbers have been, one could argue, drummed up in order to say, Hey, look at this voter fraud, these hundreds of thousands of voters that are fraudulent registrants in Texas And that’s just not true. That was outdated data, and it was pushed upon the county’s. And it’s intended. I would say, I would argue to carry forth a myth that voter fraud is rampant when really what we’re seeing is state sponsored suppression.

[0:26:36 Peniel] Is this one of reasons why when you look at some of the data from your report, Ah, the percentage of Texas voting age population registered to vote hit a peak in 2000 and 85%. It dipped to 71% in 2010? It dipped back. It went back up, ticked back up to 79% in 2018. Um ah and you talk about, you know, restrictions for even people who cast the successful ballot. Uh, and Texas is very restrictive in terms of even people casting the successful about. So explain that to me when you say restrictions. What what are some of these restrictions? And what is Texas done for somebody who does vote But for some reason is that vote not counted.

[0:27:23 Chloe] So in the brief, my section on restrictions was looking at largely the technical and mechanical issues that can come up as well as the political rhetoric like voter fraud and spreading fear of Oh, my gosh, what if I have actually been purged and it’s a felony to try to go vote? So that’s one way that you have restrictive, Um, influence is from the myth of voter fraud and perpetuating fear that is highly punitive. But also, most states have incredibly outdated voter machines, voting machines that do not offer a paper ballot in order to have a paper trail, a paper audit. And these are called Dre’s direct recording, um, direct recording devices for getting the exact acronym. But these air the voting missions. We mostly use most states in the country are using. A lot of voting machines that are no longer manufactured are outdated, cannot be serviced properly. And if they are these Dre’s direct recording types of machines, they do not have that paper trail toe audit the actual votes cast. So if there is, for instance, a cyber hacking attack, as we know happened in 2016 where our votes were being influenced, or if there is just the system goes down and there’s a wonky machine, um, thes that would restrict someone’s ballot even though they’re properly registered, they legally cast a ballot, but it won’t be counted because of those types of restrictions.

[0:28:47 Peniel] I want to talk optimistically. It now shall see wise. What can we do because you really do list? Um, important policy recommendations vote in Texas and nationally that would really strengthen the voting process, which ultimately strengthen strengthens our democracy.

[0:29:04 Chloe] Yes, so when I when I think about what we can do and thinking from as a social science researcher, as I am, I think about not only how do you have higher voter turnout greater registration, but also what is the purpose of voting in our society? And what are the politics around voting. So one recommendation, for example, and no author Ari Berman includes this in his book, Give Us the Ballot is automatic voter registration, which means any time that a person interacts with a state agency public institution of some kind, for instance, renewing their driver’s license, they’re automatically updated organs an organ doesn’t have. Texas does not. Now, I actually an interesting conversation with someone because one issue that could come up with this and the politics of this is if someone, for instance, a legal permanent resident, is updating their information and their automatically registered to vote. But they’re not legally registered to vote, and they didn’t choose to do so, they did not choose to fraudulently do that. Um, there can be issues and concerns from some civil rights groups about entrapping people. So wholesale automatic voter registration. Some civil rights groups say. We don’t necessarily want that because we don’t want people to get wrapped up in something where they’re not actually eligible voter. So that type of legislation is really powerful, but would need some checks to make sure, um, that it is eligible. Citizens were deciding they’re able to be enrolled and no one gets entrapped in any type of system, but automatic voter registration is really important. Same day Voter registration, which Texas does not have, would also be great, where you can register to vote and turn around and cast a ballot right there at the same spot on the on election day or during a day of early voting. Texas also has a lower than average early voting span time span. The average number of days for early voting nationally is about 19 days. Texas offers 17 generally that can vary by municipality, but 17 generally. But some states have higher than 40 days of early voting. You know, imagine if you had more than a month to go vote, Um, and it wasn’t crammed into a two week span that also has time restrictions, and you’re racing home in rush hour traffic or whatever the case may be. So these are some ways that can lift not only create new statute that enhances voter access and equity, but also that lifts and prevents restrictions on voting.

[0:31:29 Peniel] I like the whole idea of making Election Day federal holiday.

[0:31:32 Chloe] Yes, that’s another one.

[0:31:34 Peniel] Yeah, and I’m sure you have to include some child care and some baby sitting care there to let people go out and vote, especially when your Children are too young to perhaps just go to the polls and wait outside with with you and Elder cares as well. Absolutely. Where people are confirmed. Um, all right, But my final question this has been a great discussion is I wanna connect education and voting. You know, when you think about education policy, the Brown decision is in 1954. May 17th 1954. The Voting Rights Act is August 6 1965 and in Shelby V. Holder is 48 years later after the Voting Rights Act. Um, I wanna ask you, you know, to wrap up what’s the connection between really this assault on voting rights for people of color? Um, poor people. Ah, the elderly, um, and the Brown decision these were these were the brown decision of the Voting Rights Act, were supposed to make the country more democratic and expansively sort of reimagine citizenship. And it seems that 50 years later, 65 years later, instead of being able to tell our kids and our grandkids, man, things have gotten so much better. It seems like we’re in a holding pattern. In some cases, some cases we’ve seen incremental progress in some cases were heading back. So what is that connection between that? That brown decision education policy, segregation, voting rights, voting, suppression that we’re seeing in the milieu right now?

[0:33:10 Chloe] Yes. So for me, I’ll go back. I I think it’s an issue of citizenship, and I know that in your own writing, you talk about citizenship formally, such as eligibility to vote or something like that, but also the informal facets of citizenship belonging, social acceptance, legal protections. Um, those types of components Is your language valued? Do you have access to basic resource? Is are you able to navigate the public sphere thes air, all questions off, citizenship who belongs in society? And what are the measures of inclusion and exclusion and how do they operate? And I think with education and with voting, I mean, certainly you have the education towards civic engagement where people become more educated, are more likely to turn out to vote, have a better sense of how to navigate our political systems and our social institutions. But also just the question of what is the purpose of a free, compulsory K through 12 education system? That is a remarkable system that I believe we need to preserve and strengthen with everything that we do, Which is why I’ve decided to base my career on trying to preserve and strengthen that institution because it’s fundamental to cultivating and educated Democratic citizenry. And voting is then a mechanism within that right. That’s the way that one is able to then leverage their knowledge and their opinion and their preference is a private citizen and make that into public representation of some kind. Um, but education is a core institution that guides us in that, and so they are inherently and fundamentally linked. And really, I do believe the fabric of at least the best ideals of the American Democratic society.

[0:34:55 Peniel] Well, we’ll leave it at that. This powerful voting rights and an educational access really self. Uh, they’re they’re they’re reinforcing, um, ideals in this society and the further away we get from each, um, really, the more and more our democracy receipts and deteriorates, this has been a great conversation. Thank you, Chloe Latham Sykes, who was a doctoral candidate in educational leadership on policy at U. T. And she’s been the Center for the Study of Race and Democracies, graduate research assistant for the 2018 2019 academic year. And she’s also the author of a great policy brief that’s available on our website CS rd dot LBJ. Um, dia E D U um, methods of voter suppression in the 21st century. Chloe, thank you for joining us.

[0:35:47 Chloe] Thank you.

[0:35:48 Peniel] Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P-e-n-i-e-l  J-o-s-e-p-h and our Web site, CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you.