RVA Mag

Richmond, VA Culture & Politics Since 2005

Menu

New Virginia Laws Seek to Close ‘School-to-Prison Pipeline’

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , ,

When Virginia’s schoolchildren return to in-person schooling after the pandemic, they’ll return to a school system in which criminal punishments for unruly in-school behavior have largely been taken off the table.

The near future of in-person schooling is uncertain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Virginia students will return to a system where several penalties for misbehavior have been taken off the table. 

Two new laws seek to stop criminal punishments in elementary, middle, and secondary schools. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, sponsored two measures that passed the Virginia General Assembly earlier this year. The bills went into effect in July but have not yet been widely implemented due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Senate Bill 3 prevents students from being charged with disorderly conduct during school, on buses, or at school-sponsored events. SB 729 removes a requirement that school principals report student acts that constitute a misdemeanor to law enforcement. These are acts that may be considered misdemeanors, such as assault on school property, including on a bus or at a school-sponsored event. 

McClellan’s bills are a victory, said Valerie Slater, executive director of RISE For Youth, a group that seeks to end youth incarceration in Virginia. 

“It gives the control back to principals in their own schools about what actions have to be taken further,” versus which actions can be handled within the school, Slater said.

Virginia state Senator Jennifer McClellan. Photo by Susan Shibut.

Suspension and expulsion are used disproportionately against Black students, other students of color, and those with disabilities, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Those punishments, along with arrests at school, often lead to students having a criminal record, according to the NAACP. The trend is known as the school-to-prison pipeline.

McClellan said she was compelled to introduce these bills after looking at data released by the Center for Public Integrity in 2015 and seeing that Virginia led the nation in nearly three times the rate of referral of students to law enforcement. She then worked with the Legal Aid Justice Center to find trends in what kind of behaviors were being punished and whether there were discrepancies involving which students were being charged. 

“When we started sort of digging into some of the cases that they had had, one of the biggest things kids were referred for was disorderly conduct,” McClellan said. “It was things like a kid on a bus in Henrico County was charged for singing a rap song and a kid in Lynchburg was sent to the principal’s office and kicked this trash can on the way out of class.”

McClellan was the co-patron of bills in 2016 which addressed these issues, including a failed bill which would prevent students from being found guilty of disorderly conduct if the action occurred on school property, school bus, or at a school-sponsored activity.

Lawmakers also passed McClellan’s measure that relieved school resource officers from the obligation to enforce school board rules and codes of student conduct as a condition of their employment. Now that the Virginia General Assembly has a Democratic majority, House Democrats felt that they could pass other legislation to curb the school-to-prison pipeline, according to McClellan.

“The thing that happened in between is we had started making progress on the discipline side, with things like suspensions and expulsions,” McClellan said. “And once you saw we could make progress on that, that gave us the confidence to try again with a new Democratic majority.”

Photo by Bima Rahmanda on Unsplash

A statewide analysis by Virginia Commonwealth University Capital News Service found that Norfolk City Public Schools in the Tidewater district had the most out-of-school suspensions in the state over the past five school years. This includes short-term and long-term suspensions. The data is from the Virginia Department of Education. A student is not allowed to attend school for up to 10 days during a short-term suspension, according to Virginia law. Long-term suspensions last 11 to 45 school days. Virginia students suspended from school are more likely to fail academically, drop out of school, and become involved in the justice system, said a 2018 Legal Aid Justice Center report. 

Norfolk’s school district issued 21,223 out-of-school suspensions in the past five years. Norfolk school officials did not respond to a request for a statement by the time of publication. Richmond City Public Schools was the second-highest district with the most out-of-school suspensions (19,768). Virginia Beach, Newport News, and Fairfax County public schools were also in the top five. The majority of students in Norfolk, Richmond, and Newport News public schools are Black, according to VDOE 2020 fall enrollment data. Almost half of students in Virginia Beach are white and about a quarter are Black. Nearly 40 percent of students in Fairfax County Public Schools are white and almost 30 percent are Hispanic.

Black students face out-of-school suspension at higher rates at a higher rate than white students in schools throughout the Central Virginia region. Even in districts such as Henrico and New Kent, counties that have a majority white student population, often Black students were issued suspensions at a higher rate. Black students in Henrico faced out-of-school suspension almost five times the rate of white students in the 2015-2016 school year. Such racial disparity was presented to the Henrico County School Board as far back as 2012, in a published report analyzing the disproportionate suspension rate. 

Aside from incidents involving weapons, Slater said that instances of misbehavior in school should not be handled by law enforcement.

 “We should not be so quick to involve children in the justice system,” Slater said. “We know that after that first contact, the likelihood that there will be continued engagement exponentially goes up. Once a child has been engaged with the juvenile justice system, they’re more likely to be involved with the adult justice system.”

Slater praised McClellan’s legislation for taking away schools’ ability to charge students with disorderly conduct, saying that the criteria for being charged with that crime is too vague. 

“It basically says that ‘you have caused a disruption.’” Slater said. “Is wiggling in my seat causing a disruption? Is asking to go to the restroom, repeatedly, causing a disruption? Is clicking my pen a disruption? It’s so vague that it’s become a catchall for whatever a particular officer wants to say a student has done.”

David Coogan, a Virginia Commonwealth University English professor and author of the book Writing Our Way Out, teaches a writing workshop at the Richmond City Justice Center He said he has worked closely with incarcerated people whose criminal records stemmed from childhood. 

“Most broadly, it starts in the structure of society, before you even get to school,” Coogan said. 

Coogan said that he sees a pattern in the people he works with at the jail. Children who grow up with few resources and who experience trauma and violence in the school setting later develop addictions or become incarcerated — often both. 

“We all do stupid things as kids, as teenagers,” Coogan said. “When you’re Black and traumatized and living in poverty, the stupid thing you do, to fight back at a school resource officer, is going to land you in a juvenile detention center, and it’s not fair.”

“Handcuffs with black background” by JobsForFelonsHub is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

Though Coogan says McClellan’s bills are steps in the right direction, he believes that more still needs to be done. 

“If you think about all the money and time spent on school resource officers — who are like cops — we need to stop thinking about having cops in school,” Coogan said. “What if we had five times as many guidance counselors — people with training to intervene? What if we had five times as many programs to keep kids engaged after school?”

McClellan agreed with Coogan, and said it starts with how adults in school treat kids. She pointed to cases in which kids with autism or other disabilities are treated unfairly or disciplined by adults who have no idea how to interact with them. 

“Everyone in the school building that interacts with kids, but especially school resource officers and school board members who ultimately make decisions about the code of conduct and discipline, need to have basic training on child brain development,” McClellan said. 

Written by Brandon Shillingford and Anya Sczerzenie, Capital News Service. Top Image: “Prison Bars Jail Cell” by JobsForFelonsHub is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

The Million Dollar Question: An Exclusive Q&A With Jennifer Carroll Foy

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , , , ,

RVA Magazine spoke to state Senator and candidate for governor Jennifer Carroll Foy about career politicians, the relationship between police and the military, and making real progress in Virginia.

Last month, as the Virginia General Assembly debated a variety of police reform bills, RVA Magazine sat down with Jennifer Carroll Foy, a member of the House of Delegates, representing Virginia’s 2nd House of Delegates district in NoVA. A public defender and former magistrate, Carroll Foy was also one of the first women to graduate from Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Carroll Foy is a 2021 candidate for Governor of Virginia, and hopes to be the first Black woman elected governor in the United States. 

DD: Good afternoon, Delegate Carroll Foy, and thank you for sitting with us. You’ve been quoted saying, “The politics of the past are not the change we need, and the politicians of the past won’t save us.” Were you referring to your opponents in the 2021 gubernatorial race?

JCF: If we want real change, we need a new leader with a clear vision on how to move us forward. There are career politicians running in this gubernatorial race, and with this movement, people want change. [2021] will be a consequential election: trying to keep the majority, defeat this invisible enemy called COVID-19, and jump start our economy here in Virginia. It takes creative solutions, and the status quo isn’t working any longer.

DD: To voters who look at Terry McAuliffe and might imagine a potentially stabilizing force with the experience to help Virginia through a challenging time, what would you say?

JCF: Now’s the time for new leadership, because we’ve never had a governor who has governed during a racial reckoning such as the one we have now. No one has ever governed during a recession more akin to the Great Depression. No one has ever governed in addressing the global pandemic that we have currently. So experience matters — and you have to have the right type of experience. As a former foster mom, public defender, magistrate judge, community organizer, I am here for the people, and I’ve always been on the side of fighting for the people. Do you want someone who has real world experience and who’s in this for them, or someone who may be in this for themselves?

DD: Could you point to anything during McAuliffe’s governorship where you felt he was not on the right side of people’s interests?

JCF: The Mountain Valley Pipeline is something that should’ve never happened when we’re addressing climate change here in the Commonwealth. We’re talking about racial equity here in the Commonwealth, knowing that it was going to go through a historically Black community in Union Hill. There’s a number of things I can point to say, hey we can do better, right? 

Photo via Jennifer Carroll Foy/Facebook

DD: You mentioned “career politicians” earlier. Would you consider Senator [Jennifer] McClellan a career politician?

JCF: Yeah, she’s been in the General Assembly for almost two decades. [When I] say career politician, I mean people who are entrenched in politics. People are looking for a woman of the people, someone who understands a Virginian’s everyday struggle.

DD: Senator McClellan has supported progressive police reform bills during special session. For those on the left looking for legislative and policy contrasts between two gubernatorial candidates, how would you differentiate your record and platforms from McClellan’s?

JCF: While I’ve been in the General Assembly, I have been one of the most impactful and accomplished legislators, fighting for workers and women and families since day one. I’ve never taken a dime from Dominion, knowing they are a regulative monopoly here in Virginia. I’m for robust transformational policy, such as legalizing marijuana, reforming our criminal justice system. As the first public defender ever elected to the General Assembly, I have been championing cash bail reform and other policies to make our criminal justice system more fair and more equitable. Not because these are sexy, trending topics, but because I’ve always been in this fight, and I’ve kept all my promises made since I ran in 2017, whether it is cleaning up coal ash throughout Virginia [or] helping to expand Medicaid and give teacher salary increases.

DD: Increasingly, progressives are showing skepticism about the Virginia Democratic Party. Are you confident you can build a coalition to push through progressive policy?

JCF: Absolutely. I take it back to my training at Virginia Military Institute. Being one of the first women to ever graduate from one of the top military colleges in this country taught me how to work alongside any and everyone, because I am focused on the mission. 

If you are throwing around divisive rhetoric and are known for partisan politics, you won’t get anything done. How I’ve been able to be effective is leaning on that military training I’ve had and continuing, even in the majority, to reach across the aisle and pass a lot of my bills in a bipartisan fashion.

DD: Let’s talk a little bit about the military. 43 percent of the American military is made up of people of color. Many families of color see the military as their best hope for socioeconomic advancement. What are your thoughts on our American model, which leverages the promise of economic advancement to entice communities with fewer resources into the military and potentially into combat?

JCF: Going into the Armed Forces is an honorable task. Many people do it for many different reasons, whether it’s financial stability and security for themselves and their family. You go through a maturation process which I think is equivalent to nothing else, and it teaches life skills and politics. I think it teaches honor and integrity and public service in way that I don’t think you can get really anywhere else. I think it’s great and I would like to see more people, especially in this current climate, understand and acknowledge and respect the sacrifices that these individuals who enter the military are facing, especially with the recent attacks from Trump and some other cohorts, of questioning military leaders’ motives and calling people who are prisoners of war and died on the battlefield “losers” and things of that nature. This is a toxic climate right now, and I think we have to work vigorously to counter that with the truth. And the truth is the men and women in uniform are to be respected and honored above all else.

Carroll Foy during her time at VMI. Photo via Jennifer Carroll Foy/Facebook

DD: In my view, we have to differentiate between institutions and individuals. Observers have drawn direct links between US domestic policing and US international military actions, explicitly connecting regimes like Israel to US police training. Our government, via the CIA, also fought to uphold South African apartheid, by helping to criminalize and locate Nelson Mandela before his imprisonment. Given that you’ve participated in the US military establishment, do you have a critique of the US military’s connection to structures of inequality worldwide, and how it may also connect to our domestic policing issues?

JCF: I think that’s a really good question, and so to answer your question: have I really sat and thought about those connections? I haven’t. What I can say is that when you think of the military, you have to think of individuals who are taking orders. Right? We have a Commander-in-Chief you have to listen to, and so if a soldier is thinking about questioning or debating orders, you’re talking about people’s lives at risk. You’re talking about missions being compromised, and so the problem is when people who are nefarious use the military as an extension or arm or tool or weapon to strike against their enemies or people they don’t deem desirable.

DD: What about the mode of intervention of the US Military, where we essentially occupy sovereign countries and install governments via various modes of persuasion, violence, and politics — are you critical of that mode of operation?

JCF: Yes, so it’s a hard question to answer, and here’s why: when we insert ourselves into foreign countries’ policies and we bomb these countries or we do things that is to their detriment, then do I think we oftentimes have an obligation to assist and help in their recovery and to build them back up? Yes I do. 

I am not critical of the US military for taking orders, and doing something they’re required to do. I would be more critical of the legislators and the Commander-in-Chief who have ordered them to do so, and so it’s about questioning their motives and their logic for jeopardizing the lives of Americans, of citizens, of soldiers. So it depends on what country you’re talking about. It depends on why we’re there, how long we’re going to be there, why we’re occupying. That’s why it’s hard for me to give a specific answer because it’s just different, country by country, situation by situation. 

But for the most part, I understand what it means to be ordered to do something, and you have to obey that order. If we have an issue with it, then we need to take it up with the people who are making decisions and not the people who are executing and doing what they’ve been charged and sworn to do.

DD: Are you critical of our relationship with Israel?

JCF: So that is something that I have to say that I’ve been thinking about. I can follow up with you on that.

Carroll Foy and her son Alex at the General Assembly on the day Virginia ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Photo via Jennifer Carroll Foy/Facebook

DD: Would you commit to completely ridding the Virginia State Police of its inventory of military equipment that was provided by the United States military?

JCF: There’s nothing that I can think of right now that I would have exception to, so I’m going to say yes.

DD: Do you support a complete banning of no-knock warrants in Virginia? 

JCF: Yes, I do support banning no-knock warrants here in Virginia.

DD: There’s a split among some of the leading activists: some believe that civilian review boards should be mandatory and legislated down in detail in the bill, and others believe they should be optional and that municipalities should each decide the way these boards look. Where do you stand? 

JCF: Yes, I initially favored mandating because I felt like that is the direction we need to go, and some communities or localities may be reluctant because this is change and change can be scary. 

However, I’ve been hearing from a lot of the same activists that you are referring to, and they’re talking to me about why they don’t want it mandatory and that they don’t want these localities feeling it’s being pushed upon them then it’s going to be a lot of hostility. I’m still debating how I’m gonna fall on that, but I can tell you initially I was definitely for mandating civilian review boards because I think that’s one of the only ways you’re definitely going to get it in the localities who, let’s be honest, need it the most.

DD: At the moment, we have a conservative Democratic establishment standing in the way of the most aggressive police reforms in Virginia. If you agree we need to move the needle as far as the priorities and agenda of the establishment, how would you do so?

JCF:  That has been the million-dollar question. Democrats aren’t monolithic; you have people who represent different areas. Sometimes we’re not able to be as bold and transformational as we want because we may be outnumbered by centrists or moderates, people who don’t believe in complete bold change. 

The way that you alter that is to continue to elect leaders who will be bold and transformational until they are the majority. Then you can push this type of legislation through. Until that happens, there will always be a wall there, or a siphoning off of bills or parts of a bill that we really need in order to make change. That’s what at the end of the day has to happen. 

DD: Do you have a message that you want to send to Ralph Northam, Terry McAuliffe, Dick Saslaw, Creigh Deeds, Scott Surovell — Democrats who have been active in diluting and stifling the more progressive versions of the bills?

JCF: I work with many of these people, and I’ve gone toe to toe with a lot of them on a lot of good bills. I just have to continue to advocate and lobby and hope they see the light. But I’m confident because I know Virginia is trending to be bluer, and there won’t be a place for people who want incremental change, or who want to teeter on the fence. I think the change we need is going to happen on its own, and I’m excited to be in the Governor’s seat to help lead that change.

Photo via Jennifer Carroll Foy/Facebook

DD:  The previous Commonwealth’s Attorney declined to bring charges in Marcus-David Peters’ case. Colette McEachin, the current Commonwealth’s Attorney, has said repeatedly that she’s looking at it. Richmond City Councilman Mike Jones has openly advocated for reopening that case. Do you have a position as to whether CA McEachin should reopen that case?

JCF: I do believe that the Commonwealth’s Attorney Office should reopen the case. It should be thoroughly investigated. He was having a mental health emergency, he was nude, there was no threat of harm or danger at that time — you can clearly see he didn’t have a weapon, given the fact that he had no clothes on.

Again, it goes to the lack of experience, the lack of training I believe these officers have, [the] crisis intervention training and de-escalation skills that they needed. They could have readily identified that this man is having a mental health emergency and called community services board and dispatched them out — come calm him down, and hopefully get him emergency custody orders so he can be treated. Oftentimes people are going undiagnosed, or they’re off their medications for whatever reason, and this is what happens. I have many clients like this, and I greatly empathize. I think the case should have another look at and should be thoroughly and independently investigated.

DD: What’s your position on marijuana legalization?

JCF: I support it so much that I am carrying the legalization of marijuana bill, even though some Republicans and Democrats have asked me not to. While I think that decriminalization will have a place in helping to reduce mass incarceration, it does absolutely nothing, according to a 2017 Virginia Crime Commission study, to address the racial disparities that Black and brown people suffer from our possession of marijuana laws. 

It’s time for Virginia to lead, and one of the things we can do is legalize the simple possession of marijuana for personal use. After that, we can tax and regulate it, and use that money for projects we haven’t had the revenue stream to be able to do.

I look forward to passing that bill next session. Statistics and polling show that the overwhelming majority of Virginians want the legalization of marijuana. It’s time for us to listen to the people we represent and get this done.

DD: Are you worried at all about the possibility of a third party on the left disrupting the Democratic gubernatorial race in 2021? 

JCF: It does not concern me. I’m not running against anyone else, I am running for the people of Virginia. At the end of the day, I know that I am the right leader for this moment, and that’s exactly why I’m running for Governor of Virginia.

DD: Are you confident your leadership is best positioned within the Democratic Party structure?

JCF: I’m a tried and true Democrat. People call me progressive, and that’s fine. I’m a strong Christian and I adhere to my Christian principles of housing the homeless and feeding the hungry and helping to make sure that everyone can work one job, put food on the table, have access to healthcare, and go to safe school. If that’s progressive, that’s great, but it’s just who I was raised to be.

Top Photo via Jennifer Carroll Foy/Facebook

Dominion, Decriminalization, and Demilitarizing the Police: An Exclusive Q&A With Jennifer McClellan

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

RVA Mag spoke with Virginia State Senator and candidate for governor Jennifer McClellan about her plan for Virginia, from renewable energy and Citizen Review Boards to marijuana legalization and the Green New Deal.

Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia State Senator representing the Richmond-based 9th District, has declared her candidacy in the 2021 race for governor.  If successful, she would be the first Black woman elected governor in United States history, and the second woman elected to statewide office in Virginia. An attorney by trade, McClellan was also the first member of the Virginia House of Delegates to participate in a legislative session while pregnant. After Donald McEachin’s election to the House of the Representatives, McClellan won her current seat in the state senate in a special election.

A former vice chair of the Virginia DNC, McClellan has moved to the left of other prominent Virginia Democrats who have facilitated widely criticized energy contracts and pipelines in collaboration with energy giants such as Dominion. Below, McClellan presents a platform that includes fighting Dominion, demilitarizing the Virginia State police, and decriminalizing all drugs.

RVA Mag: Senator McClellan, thank you for taking the time to sit with us. Let’s start with the main thing on everyone’s mind right now: policing. As a candidate for Governor, how do you view police reform on a state-wide level? 

Jennifer McClellan: Starting with special session, it’s shifting a couple of different ways. There’s accountability, transparency, and consequences around police misconduct — whether it’s use of force, corruption, the whole nine yards. We need independent investigations from either a Civilian Review Board (CRB) or, at the state level, just a separate entity outside the police. They need to have subpoena power, to be able to recommend, if they find a wrongdoing, that there are consequences and that that is transparent. And that you don’t have a system where a police officer can be found to have done something wrong in one place, and just get transferred and go on as if nothing happened. 

Police have been used as the first responder for too many issues that are not crime issues. It’s not just mental health, but mental health is a big part of it. I’m carrying a bill to allow localities to do Marcus Alerts and have the Department of Criminal Justice Services and the Department of Behavioral Health to provide guidelines around that. Ghazala Hashmi and I are working together on the CRB, but we’ll also have broad police reform [legislation] – no chokeholds, no no-knock warrants. 

It’s not just the action of police and the community; it’s also what happens once you’re in the criminal justice system. Making sure that we provide more of what I’ll call “prosecutor mercy” — getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences so that if there is a crime, the penalty for it is proportionate to the injury, and allowing prosecutors to do deferred disposition for certain things. 

RVA Mag: Would you be interested in the CRB being a full-time, paid job for citizens? How do you conceive of the makeup of that board, and how do we give people enough training, confidence, and support to do that job, and do it seriously? 

JMC: From the state’s level, we are [structuring] broad guidelines that localities could use to tailor-fit their areas. Having said that, I do think having, if not full-time, at least members who are fully trained so that they fully understand the nature of what law enforcement does on a day-to-day basis, so that they understand the training that law enforcement has.

RVA Mag: If we only put in place broad legislative guidance that municipalities need to have a CRB, aren’t we leaving undue leeway for racially-biased municipalities to not take it seriously? Aren’t we allowing them to make it toothless?

JMC: I’m not ready to share the full details of [Senator Hashmi’s] bill, but we are talking with Princess Blanding and a lot of the advocates here. We are including their feedback in the draft we have.

We want to make sure that if a locality has a CRB, it has teeth and it’s independent: that it is not beholden to the police that they’re investigating. Boards of Supervisors or City Councils could have bias, and we’re trying to account for all of that. We’re focusing on enabling legislation, because it’s probably going to take more time to figure out all the best practices that we can put in place going forward. 

RVA Mag: Let’s talk about defense contracts and the Navy. Previous governors have seemed somewhat uncritically beholden to these contracts. It’s been said implicitly, and perhaps explicitly, that the economy of Virginia hinges on these contracts. How do you feel about the critical centrality of defense contracts to Virginia’s economy?

JMC: If you’re dependent on mechanisms of war, that’s just wrong. We shouldn’t be dependent on war for people to eat. Our number one business is Agribusiness. Our number two industry is Forestry. We should be working to strengthen those, and working to strengthen small businesses to not be as dependent on defense contracting, because then how well our economy does is dependent on if we’re in a state of war, or a state of [war] readiness, or not. That’s contradictory to the view of a beloved community.

Sen. McClellan with the late John Lewis. (Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook)

RVA Mag: For the past two months, we have witnessed firsthand the intersection of the police and military in the streets of Richmond. That extends to the Virginia State Police, which you as governor would have control of. State police have arrived in the streets of Richmond with military vehicles and artillery. What is going on, and how are we going to address that?

JMC: I do not think police should be militarized. They do not need militarized weapons, and I think we should begin to demilitarize them. A lot of equipment is paid for through grant programs. Rather than using funding to buy military grade equipment, we should be using funding to address the root causes of crime, like mental health issues, and, to a certain extent, poverty: lack of access to economic opportunity. I don’t think you need military grade equipment.

RVA Mag: We already have the military grade equipment. Would you commit to selling off the stock of military equipment?

JMC: I would be open to that.

RVA Mag: And what about the formerly-known-as Robert E. Lee Monument, now known as Marcus-David Peters Circle? Are you for VSP fully standing down and staying out of that circle?

JMC: Unless someone is actively threatening someone else, I don’t know why they’d be there.

RVA Mag: Kim Gray has taken issue with the Black, community-based security that has been there ostensibly to protect black protesters from white supremacists. Do you agree with Kim Gray that we should disallow the carrying of AR-15s by these security personnel who have the legal right to carry them?

JMC: Right now open carry is legal for anybody, and you can’t pick and choose who can carry and who cannot. There are a lot of people who want to have a conversation about whether anybody can open carry in a public park space, and I think that’s a conversation worth having. But I don’t think you can pick and choose: these people can, and these people can’t.

RVA Mag: Let’s discuss marijuana policy. Why, under the new state law, are police still being given enforcement discretion over a petty issue such as possessing a small amount of marijuana, an issue that disproportionately criminalizes Black and brown people? Why decriminalization and not full legalization?

JMC: It needs to be full legalization for both possession and distribution. Unfortunately, the reason it’s just decriminalization now is that we couldn’t get the votes to go farther than that this year, but we’re pushing to go farther as soon as possible. I would have preferred full legalization of possession now. We’re doing a study on how to do distribution in a way so that the new market is not just the folks who have medical cannabis licenses now who are mostly white, upper middle class, and have a leg up. I have the resolution to have JLARC study how we do that distribution piece equitably, while also dealing with expungements and unraveling the War on Drugs, and giving people who have been arrested for what is going to be legal a path forward. We need to do both as quickly as possible. You’ll see, come January, we’re going to have legislation to do both.

RVA Mag: What about harder drugs? For example: heroin, cocaine, crack, crystal meth. We are incarcerating people for a health issue, and it does the opposite of providing rehabilitative care. Do you think it’s possible that sending someone to jail for substance abuse is ever a rehabilitative gesture by the government?

JMC: I don’t think we should send somebody to jail just for using drugs, let me be clear on that. Whether it’s drugs or anything that is a crime, how we deal with it should be proportionate to the injury caused. There are a lot of crimes where the punishment is too harsh, and we should change that.

For example, there are no gradations of assault on a police officer. If you throw an onion ring at a police officer and it hits him, you can get the same sentence as if you beat him over the head with a sledgehammer. That doesn’t make sense. 

I’m open to looking into all crimes to say, “What’s the social benefit of making this a crime? Does it still exist? If it does, is the punishment proportionate?” That’s the direction we should be moving in. They shouldn’t just punish you because you did something wrong and then warehouse you, throw away the key, and assume you’re never getting out. It should be: what is going to be a deterrent and a proportionate punishment, and how do we focus on rehabilitation and reentry?

Sen. McClellan with her daughter, Samantha, at the House of Delegates. (Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook)

RVA Mag: One of the ways people approach drug abuse as a health issue is talking about harm reduction during drug use, since people can’t necessarily just stop using drugs because the state says so. Do you think it would be a good idea to help facilitate safer drug use practices as we treat people for their drug addiction, like providing access to safe supplies of needles?

JMC: Yes, I do. We should be looking at the underlying reasons of what made you turn to drugs in the first place. If it’s a mental health issue that’s gone untreated, let’s get you into the treatment you need so that you won’t turn back to drugs. That has to be part of the process.

RVA Mag: How do you feel about energy exploration off the coast of Virginia? How do you see Virginia’s energy independence moving forward, and how do you feel about Dominion colonizing that area?

JMC: Broadly, electric generation needs to shift away from fossil fuels to renewables. We are going to need more solar and more wind, regardless of who provides it. It would be better to have more wind provided by a third party, separate companies from Dominion. I don’t see how we get to 100 percent carbon-free without wind. We can’t get there with solar only. Wind is much better for the climate than natural gas or coal.

We did not have the votes in the General Assembly to get the full Green New Deal. The Clean Economy Act, which we did pass, does make a huge shift away from carbon into renewable, but it’s a first step. We need to push to try to get there faster.

RVA Mag: Do you take money from Dominion?

JMC: I do not.

RVA Mag: How do you feel about the Mountain Valley Pipeline?

JMC: I oppose it.

RVA Mag: Can you commit for the people of Virginia to make going against Dominion, and speaking out against the Mountain Valley Pipeline and offshore colonization, a central platform in your campaign for Governor?

JMC: Yes. I am focused on addressing climate change and shifting our energy policy so that it is less harmful to the environment, reducing energy demand through energy efficiency projects in a way that does not cause rate shock and allows the lights to stay on. I am fighting for the policy, and whoever stands in the way, I will fight against them.

RVA Mag: So…Big T [Terry McAuliffe] is running again. Is he the right person?

JMC: I can’t explain what he does either. I’m running because Virginia is ready for a new generation of leadership who will build a recovery in a way that addresses 400 years of inequity, and I’m ready to do that. I’m not running against anybody else. I’m just running for the future of Virginia that I want to see, that comes to terms with our past. I’m focused on talking to the community and talking to voters directly, and not on what other candidates are doing.

Top Photo via Jennifer McClellan/Facebook

Stonewall Rising: Showing Support With Pride

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last weekend’s Stonewall Rising march was an act of solidarity by Richmond’s LGBTQ community, which took this opportunity during Pride Month to march in support of Black lives.

On Saturday, June 27, Richmond’s LGBTQ community commemorated the last weekend of Pride Month with a march demonstrating solidarity with the Black community of Richmond and beyond. Stonewall Rising: LGBTQ March For Black Lives was organized by a variety of Richmond LGBTQ advocacy and support groups, including Diversity Richmond, the Richmond LGBTQ Chamber, Nationz Foundation, Black Pride RVA, VA Pride, Equality Virginia, Virginia Anti-Violence Project, Southerners On New Ground, Health Brigade, Minority Veterans of America, Richmond Triangle Players, Richmond Lesbian Feminists, and Stonewall Sports.

The march began with a gathering at Diversity Richmond on Sherwood Ave, where local LGBTQ activist Rebecca Keel rallied the crowd with a speech about how the LGBTQ rights movement began 51 years earlier — almost to the day — at Stonewall Inn with a riot against police oppression. After a few other speeches, the crowd formed up and began marching toward the Richmond Police Training Academy on Graham Rd, just over a mile away from Diversity Richmond.

Jennifer McClellan speaks at Richmond Police Training Academy.

The crowd, which numbered at least 1000 at the peak of the protest according to local LGBTQ activist Joseph Papa, carried signs featuring slogans like “Black Trans Lives Matter” and “Pride For Black Lives,” as well as posters depicting Breonna Taylor and Marcus-David Peters. The protest was greeted at the Police Training Academy by a line of police in riot gear, but things remained peaceful. Several leaders spoke to the assembled crowd, including Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McClellan. Alexsis Rodgers, who is currently running for mayor of Richmond, was also in attendance. The evening ended with a march back to Diversity Richmond.

Here are some photos of the evening’s events, captured by Richmond photographer David Kenedy.

Rebecca Keel.

The Truth About Abortion, and Why It Matters

|

Topics: , , , , , , , ,

Protecting reproductive rights requires accurate knowledge, and shows like Shrill help shed light on facts about abortion and contraception that are largely absent from political debates around the issue.

In the first episode of the Hulu comedy series Shrill, writer Annie Easton learns that the morning after contraceptive she took didn’t work, and now she has to decide whether to have an abortion. Ultimately she does, and is seen walking into the clinic freely, with her best friend and roommate by her side as her emotional support.

Shrill, which stars Saturday Night Live’s Aidy Bryant, has been applauded not only for its accurate depiction of abortion but for bringing to light little-known facts about contraceptives and the abortion procedure itself. As it seems like every morning these days starts with news about more restrictive laws being placed on the bodies of women, these little beacons of light in media are like a warm blanket in the cold.

However, with so much inaccurate information about abortion spread around our society, I was curious about how accurate Shrill’s depiction of abortion access really was. Who better to call than the experts themselves?

“I think in the media … we are getting to a place where more shows are wanting to destigmatize abortion and lift it up as it is, which is a normal procedure. One in four women within their lifetimes will have [this procedure],” said Michelle Woods, Communications Director for NARAL Virginia. “We hope that people in the media will portray it as a normal healthcare procedure, that it’s a necessity, and how common it is… I think it’s a slow process in terms of lifting up something we don’t talk about, but it’s a conversation that we need to have.”

The biggest battle that those fighting in the healthcare arena are going to face is at its core the simplest — not just for abortion to be legal, but for it to be seen as a normal, routine procedure. However, if abortion and other forms of contraception are to be seen as normal in our society, we’re going to need to have a more accurate understanding of how they actually work.

Photo by Allyson Riggs/Hulu

An alarming moment in that first episode of Shrill is when Annie’s pharmacist points out to her that one of the reasons why the morning after pill did not work is because she exceeds the recommended weight limit for the medication. Apparently this limitation is very real, despite the fact that it is not taught in sexual education courses. Who knew.

“In Annie’s case, despite her readily accessible access to emergency contraception — in this case the brand Plan B — it was ineffective due to a lack of critically necessary medical information,” said Galina Varchena, Policy and Communications Director of NARAL Virginia. “[It was] not presented to her. Annie purchases emergency contraception multiple times, and at no point does the pharmacist mention that emergency contraception is only effective for women of a certain weight, under 175 pounds. Plan B and its generic counterparts are the most readily available form of emergency contraception in the country, but they are also the least effective for women with a high body mass index.”

Varchena notes that there should be an increased responsibility amongst pharmacists and drug companies to clearly explain the product’s effectiveness for different users. At this time, there are effective contraceptives available for women with high BMI; however, they are only available with a prescription.

“A common one is called Ella,” said Woods. “It works up to five days after unprotected sex. It works for women with high BMIs, so women who would not necessarily be protected in that event, but it requires a prescription. At Planned Parenthood, if you get a prescription you can go back at any point in the next calendar year and get it from Planned Parenthood, but you cannot get it over the counter at a pharmacy.”

Media absolutely affects the way we not only view the world but how we interpret and think about laws in our area and across the country. Portrayals through film and television create conversations and in some cases offer the only education many people have about certain issues. Conservative media certainly understands this, and has often pushed anti-abortion talking points regardless of whether or not the information presented is entirely accurate.

“Media coverage helps how people think about certain issues so if media coverage is inaccurate you’re going to have a medically inaccurate understanding of an abortion procedure,” said Katie Buie of NARAL Virginia. “I think we’re seeing that far and wide — people covering and speaking about realities of abortion, and spreading misinformation. It’s definitely an intentional campaign to mislead people on abortion, and I think that’s where we see representation of abortion in less than accurate ways [having] a negative effect on policy.”

In 2019, a variety of legislation was proposed with the intent of heavily restricting abortion rights, and some of it passed, including several “heartbeat” bills, which prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected — generally about six weeks after conception.

“I think the louder we are as a movement, and the louder we are speaking out while amplifying the voices of education and doctors to break ground on culture changing projects the better off we are,” said Buie. “We all need to do a much better job in expressing how severely detrimental these bills are, especially the six-week bans in different states. We need to make sure we are listing off the realities of how these bills are harming women.”

Sen. Jennifer McClellan (Photo via jennifermcclellan.com)

In 2019, Virginia voted a record number of women into the General Assembly, and this is already having positive results for abortion rights in the Commonwealth. Bills currently working their way through the state legislature are intended to roll back a variety of restrictions on abortion in Virginia.

“These laws have been about shaming women, stigmatizing abortion, shutting off access, discouraging doctors from providing this care. And we say, we’ve had enough, the voters in Virginia have had enough, and now we’re going to act on it,” NARAL Virginia Executive Director Tarina Keene said at a press conference last week. For Keene, the current moment offers Virginia a chance to become a “safe haven” for women in surrounding states who face more restrictive laws around abortion.

Reacting to the fact that in March, the US Supreme Court will hear its first major abortion case since President Donald Trump appointed two conservative justices to the court, Sen. Jennifer McClellan said, “If ever there is a time to protect a woman’s bodily autonomy, that time is now.” McClellan is the sponsor of the state Senate bill that would roll back several of Virginia’s restrictions on abortion, including a 24-hour waiting period and an ultrasound requirement.

Earlier this month, Virginia also became the 38th state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which puts that amendment over the number of individual states that need to ratify it for it to become part of the Constitution. Since there was a deadline placed on its ratification originally, one that has long passed, the fight to add the ERA to the Constitution will continue. Still, it’s an important step, for Virginia and the United States as a whole.

Meanwhile, coincidentally enough, the second season of Shrill was released Friday, January 24 on Hulu. It’s a reminder that we must continue to tell our stories, because despite positive progress, the battle for women’s rights is far from over.

Top Image via Broadway Video/Hulu

Virginia LGBTQ Advocates Hoping For Big Gains in General Assembly This Year

|

Topics: , , , , , , , , , ,

For the first time in over a generation, Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly, and advocates are working to ensure that this has positive results for Virginia’s LGBTQ community.

It hasn’t been all that many years since the dawn of a new General Assembly session meant just as many proposed bills designed to diminish LGBTQ rights and further discrimination against us as bills designed to improve the lives of LGBTQ Virginians. That’s changed in recent years, notably with the ending of Bob Marshall’s term in the House Of Delegates, but continued Republican control of both houses of the General Assembly meant that the many pro-LGBTQ bills that were proposed never made it out of committee.

This week, everything changes. The Democrats are in control not only of the Governor’s Office but both houses of the General Assembly. This is the first time that’s been true since 1993, before many of our readers were born, and it has the potential to make a lot of improvements in the civil rights and legal status of LGBTQ Virginians.

State Senator Jennifer McClellan agrees, and called the Democratic electoral victory a “huge deal” in a recent conversation with Virginia Mercury. McClellan has sponsored SB 66, which would amend the Virginia Fair Housing Deal make it illegal for landlords to refuse to rent to someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“I think that is an area where we would have been able to make some progress had it not been for Republicans in the House who wouldn’t even hear legislation,” McClellan told Virginia Mercury.

Indeed, many of these measures passed in the state Senate in previous sessions, even when it was under Republican control. However, Republican leadership in the House Of Delegates often refused to even hear discussion of pro-LGBTQ bills, either in committees or full sessions of the House. Now, with Democrats in the driver’s seat, LGBTQ advocates see hope on the horizon.

James Parrish. Photo courtesy Equality Virginia.

“There is an opportunity to pass legislation that supports Virginia’s LGBTQ community more broadly than just nondiscrimination protection,” James Parrish told the Virginia Mercury. Parrish, until recently the executive director of Equality Virginia, stepped down on January 1 in order to lead the Virginia Values Coalition, a newly formed pro-LGBTQ advocacy organization bringing together groups like Virginia’s ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, and the National Center for Transgender Equality under a single banner.

Indeed, many issues are on the table for this upcoming session. Currently, only employees for the government and state contractors are protected from firing based on sexual orientation or gender identity — and those employees are only protected in a temporary fashion. One of Ralph Northam’s first acts as governor was to sign an executive order replicating one previously signed by Terry McAuliffe during his gubernatorial administration, protecting LGBTQ state employees from firing. However, if a less LGBTQ-friendly governor were elected in 2021 and decided not to sign a similar executive order, that protection would disappear.

The new Democratic leadership of the General Assembly are certainly in a position to create a more permanent law protecting public employees against discrimination; indeed, SB 159, introduced by Senator Jennifer Boysko, does exactly that. But advocates see an opportunity to protect more than public employees; Parrish told the Virginia Mercury that advocates are hoping for the passage of a bill that protects all LGBTQ employees, public and private. “We anticipate getting a lot of corporate support for it,” Parrish told the Mercury.

SB 23, introduced by Senator Adam Ebbin, would enact exactly this sort of employment protection. Ebbin, one of five LGBTQ members of the General Assembly, says that a positive change like this has been a long time coming.

“It’s a big deal to know that you can’t just be swept aside as a second-class citizen,” he told the Virginia Mercury. “And it’ll matter. There’s a lot of people older than me who thought this kind of environment would never come.”

Senator Adam Ebbin. Photo By EbbinForVirginia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia

Another big push from advocates is to ban conversion therapy in Virginia. While the Virginia Board of Psychology and multiple other state agencies within the Department of Health Professions have released guidance stating that conversion therapy is considered a violation of standard practice, it is still technically legal within the state. Both Richmond and Virginia Beach’s City Councils have passed resolutions asking the General Assembly to ban the practice, and Senator Scott Surovell, who has been attempting to pass a ban for multiple previous sessions, has introduced SB 245 in hopes of doing exactly that. A similar bill in the House Of Delegates, HB 386, has been proposed by Delegate Patrick Hope.

There are other issues on the table as well; bills in both the House and Senate would require the Department of Education to create a statewide policy determining how Virginia’s schools would interact with transgender students. Both bills mandate “a safe and supportive learning environment free from discrimination and harassment for all students.” Bills introduced in the House and Senate also add sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as disability, to the list of classes protected by hate crime legislation.

Multiple bills and resolutions in the Senate attempt to remove the Marshall-Newman Amendment, the 2006 amendment to Virginia’s Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman, from the constitution. While this may seem strictly symbolic now, the Supreme Court’s more conservative shift in recent years, with the addition of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, leave some concerned that federal protections for marriage equality, currently protected only by Supreme Court precedent, may be challenged in the near future.

If the Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges case, Virginia’s Constitution might once again become the top legal authority on marriage within the Commonwealth. If the Marshall-Newman Amendment remained on the books in such an event, all same-sex marriages within Virginia would immediately lose government recognition. This isn’t an outcome anyone wants, and therefore the passage of bills like Senator John Edwards’ SB 39, which repeals the Marshall-Newman Amendment, are more important than some might think at first.

While not all of the pro-LGBTQ bills currently facing the General Assembly will necessarily pass, it seems likely that the overall legal picture for LGBTQ Virginians will be considerably brighter by the end of the 2020 General Assembly session. And that’s a wonderful thing.

“We’ve come forward. We’re not going back,” Ebbin told the Virginia Mercury. “And I think there’s momentum to bring us to where we should and need to be.”

Top Photo By Varmin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia