Tag: Congressional

  • King Misrepresented in Anti-DEI Congressional Hearing

    King Misrepresented in Anti-DEI Congressional Hearing

    In January 2024, I wrote a Forbes article titled, “How Martin Luther King Would Respond to Today’s Attacks on DEI.” I declared therein that King would be outraged and disgusted by the catastrophic assault on values for which he fought, was arrested 29 times and ultimately died. Were he still alive today, I know for sure that King would call on leaders to demonstrate more courage and integrity as DEI is being recklessly torn down in our nation’s K-12 schools, higher education institutions, government agencies and businesses. He would insist on brave truth telling, nonviolent resistance, larger and more audacious multiracial coalitions, and strategically pulling every possible lever in defense of racial justice. King would not have been okay with colleges and universities closing culture centers and multicultural affairs offices, scrubbing their websites of language pertaining to antiracism and equity, and firing innocent DEI practitioners who broke no laws and did nothing wrong.

    Regarding his dream, I insisted the following in the aforementioned Forbes article about King: “Paradoxically, many people who know little about the greatest American civil rights leader of all time at least know he famously spoke these words: ‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.’ The part about not judging people by skin color gets weaponized to justify colorblindness.”

    Unsurprisingly, this very thing happened this week in a U.S. House of Representatives hearing titled “Restoring Excellence: The Case Against DEI.” I was the lone expert witness for the Democrats, a role I had played twice before on Capitol Hill.

    Robert Onder, a Republican congressman representing Missouri, prefaced a question to me by reciting the go-to line from King’s speech. “Let me read to you a quote you may have heard of, maybe you haven’t, it goes something like this …”

    Two things ran through my mind at the time. First was “Oh, here we go with the tired, predictable misrepresentation of Martin Luther King’s stance on colorblindness.” Secondly, I thought, “Of course I have heard these words—I have been a Black man in America for nearly 50 years; I am a proud graduate of a historically Black university; I spent a decade as a member of the Africana studies faculty at the University of Pennsylvania; I have delivered numerous Martin Luther King Day keynote addresses for universities and companies across the country (including this one in 2016 at Duke University in which I critiqued the twisting of King’s Dream speech); and I have read dozens of MLK sermons, speeches and letters, including but not limited to those published in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches—how absurd to even suggest that I may be hearing these words for the first time.” It was the most disgusting moment of the hearing for me, yet I somehow maintained my composure.

    I have said it many times before, but it is worth repeating during these dangerous times in higher education and our democracy: King was not a proponent of colorblindness. He hated racism against African Americans and other people of color. He called white supremacy by its name. He called Black people by their names as he fearlessly demanded equity, opportunity and justice for them. The remedies he advocated were extraordinarily race-forward and color-conscious. Any policy or practice in higher education or elsewhere that insists on colorblindness is a misrepresentation of King’s stance.

    There is at least one other noteworthy thing about the annoying evocation of King in the congressional hearing: The civil rights icon said judged “by the content of their character,” but Onder and other Republicans kept insisting on narrowly judging applicants by standardized college entrance exams that tell admission professionals more about those prospective students’ ZIP codes, socioeconomic statuses, the ability of their families to pay for expensive test prep courses and tutors, and the abundance of resources in the K-12 schools they attended.

    Ironically, DEI opponents often fail to recognize and appreciate the incredibly valuable proxies for character, leadership, creativity and other strong indicators of undeniable potential for greatness in holistic admissions practices.

    Those of us who love King and truly value the race-consciousness of the unrealized American dream for which he fought, was repeatedly jailed and died must continue to help our family members, neighbors, colleagues, presidents and governing board members, students, and elected officials understand why wholesale, decontextualized advocacy for colorblindness is wrong, unfair and bad for our democracy.

    If we really want to honor King, especially during this time, more of us would demonstrate brave resistance to the enormously consequential dismantling of DEI in educational institutions and our broader society. The civil rights hero is widely known for peace, love and nonviolence—what Cornel West calls the “Santa Clausification” of King.

    But to be sure, King would have hated the weaponization of government to dismantle DEI broadly and racial equity efforts specifically right now. He would have put up the biggest fight and demanded that leaders, including those in higher education, stop cowardly surrendering to white supremacy and hate. More of us should do that, too.

    Shaun Harper is University Professor and Provost Professor of education, business and public policy at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership.

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  • Whole, Skim, or Soy? The Congressional Battle Over Milk in School Lunches – The 74

    Whole, Skim, or Soy? The Congressional Battle Over Milk in School Lunches – The 74


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    This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

    In 2010, United States lawmakers passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which aimed to tackle both childhood obesity and hunger by making school meals more nutritious. Two years later, the Department of Agriculture updated its guidance for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, in accordance with the law. Whereas schools could previously serve fat-free, 1 percent, 2 percent, or whole milk and be eligible for federal reimbursement, now they could only recoup meal costs if they ditched 2 percent and whole milk, which were thought to be too high in saturated fat for kids.

    Representative Glenn “G.T.” Thompson has been on a mission to change that. The Republican legislator representing Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district believes the 2010 law sparked a decline in students drinking milk across the board. “We have lost a generation of milk drinkers since whole milk was demonized and removed from schools,” he told a local agribusiness group in 2021.

    Between 2019 and 2023, Thompson introduced the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act — a bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk again under the NSLP — three times without success.

    In January of this year, he reintroduced the bill once again — and inspired a group of animal welfare, environmental, and public health organizations to push for a vegan countermeasure. This month, a bipartisan group of legislators put forward the Freedom in School Cafeterias and Lunches, or FISCAL, Act, which would expand the definition of milk under the NSLP to include plant-based options. Currently, schools participating in the NSLP can offer milk substitutions to students with a note from a parent or doctor — but the FISCAL Act is promoting a world where vegan milks are offered freely, alongside cow’s milk.

    If students end up replacing their daily cow’s milk with a plant-based alternative, this has the potential to bring down food-related greenhouse gas emissions. But you won’t hear supporters of the FISCAL Act talking up the climate benefits of plant-based milk in the halls of Congress. Instead, they’re focusing on the health benefits of soy, oat, and other vegan drinks for students who can’t digest or simply don’t want cow’s milk.

    “Most of this nation’s children of color are lactose intolerant, and yet our school lunch program policy makes it difficult for these kids to access a nutritious fluid beverage that doesn’t make them sick,” said Senator Cory Booker, a Democratic co-sponsor of the bill. This focus on student health — and the absence of any environmental talking points — reflect the eternally tricky politics around milk in U.S. schools, which have become even more complicated in President Donald Trump’s second term.

    Milk has a relatively low carbon footprint compared to other animal proteins, like beef, pork, poultry, and cheese. But dairy production still comes with considerable climate impacts — mainly from the food grown to feed cows, as well as methane emitted via cow burps and manure. In 2020, researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that a dairy cow can release 350 pounds of methane every year through their burps — meaning, all told, dairy cows are responsible for 2.7 percent of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gases.

    Nondairy milks — fortified drinks like soy, almond, oat, and rice milk — have varying impacts on the environment and climate, but all of these plant-based alternatives use less land and water than cow’s milk to produce, and result in fewer emissions.

    Under the NSLP, schools cannot be reimbursed for the cost of meals unless they offer students milk. The Center for a Humane Economy, an animal welfare and environmental group backing the FISCAL Act, calls this America’s “milk mandate.” In 2023, student Marielle Williamson sued her Los Angeles high school for not allowing her to set up an informational table about plant-based milk unless she also promoted dairy. Subsidized school lunches have been described as “a guaranteed market” for farmers’ products; this is all but acknowledged when legislators like Thompson blame school lunch for the decline of the dairy industry. Indeed, in a recent Senate agricultural committee hearing over the whole milk bill, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said, “Not only do school meal programs reduce hunger and promote learning, they also support our local farmers and ranchers at a time when it’s probably the very worst time I’ve seen in decades” for farmers.

    The animal welfare groups backing the FISCAL Act argue schools need more flexibility to meet the needs of students with lactose intolerance. Consumption of milk has fallen consistently since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. That change is thought to be the result of shifting diets, as well as perhaps a reflection of America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity. It is estimated that half of American adults have difficulty digesting lactose, the protein found in milk and many other dairy products. These rates are higher in Black, Asian American, Hispanic, Native American, and Jewish communities.

    “We’ve had so much marketing to tell us that the milk of a cow is, you know, nature’s perfect food, and it clearly is not,” said Wayne Pacelle, the head of Animal Wellness Action, an advocacy group that opposes animal cruelty and supports the FISCAL Act.

    Pacelle acknowledged the climate impact of the dairy industry: “It’s just a truth that cows are big contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.” But he noted that arguments related to the climate are unlikely to sway the debate over school lunch beverages. “The Republican Congress is not really so attuned to that,” he said.

    As a result, his group and the others pushing for the FISCAL Act aren’t talking much about the environmental considerations of drinking cow’s milk. This aligns with a shift happening in the broader food industry under the second Trump administration, as producers and manufacturers figure out which talking points are most appealing to leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has called for schools to start offering whole milk again.

    The Republicans pushing for whole milk in schools are talking up the health and economic benefits of whole milk, an argument that came into sharp relief during a Senate agricultural committee hearing in early April. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who drank from a tall glass of milk before addressing the committee, referenced the term “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, when making his case. The movement, popularized by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., taps into wellness, environmental, and food safety concerns in the general public and offers solutions based in pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Marshall, a co-sponsor of the whole milk bill in the Senate, said MAHA is “about whole foods, and I think we could categorize whole milk as part of” that framework.

    While Republicans and Democrats alike may be sidestepping the dairy industry’s environmental impact and spending more time talking about student health, there is one environmental consideration that’s caught the attention of advocates of both whole milk and plant-based milk. That’s food waste, a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. Forty-five percent of the milk cartons offered at breakfast in schools are thrown out annually because students don’t take them. When students do grab milk at breakfast, a fourth of those cartons still wind up unopened in the trash.

    Krista Byler, a food service director for the Union City Area School District in northwestern Pennsylvania, spoke at the Senate agricultural committee hearing and said serving whole milk in her schools helped milk consumption go up, ultimately reducing the amount of milk wasted.

    “I hated seeing such an exorbitant amount of milk wasted daily in our small district and was hearing stories of even bigger waste ratios in larger districts,” Byler said in her written testimony.

    A similar case has been made by Pacelle and other supporters of the FISCAL Act, who argue students will be more likely to drink — and finish — their beverage at school if they have the option to go plant-based.

    Recently, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids bill passed a House agriculture committee vote. If it passes a full House vote, it could then move on to the Senate. Meanwhile, the FISCAL Act is still in committee in both houses of Congress.

    Pacelle said the best chance the FISCAL Act has of passing is if its provisions are included as an amendment to the whole milk bill — framing it not as a rival measure, but as a complementary effort to create more choice for students. “Moving it independently is unlikely because of the power of the dairy lobby,” said Pacelle, “and the G.T. Thompsons of the world.”

    This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/milk-school-lunch-plant-based-vegan-whole-dairy-lobby-congress/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org.


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