Monthly Archives: January 2021

Now that the UK and the EU have finally signed up to a trade agreement, it would be amiss of us not to mark the occasion with a short article covering the key Brexit issues which we believe will be of most interest to employers and HR professionals.

There has been much debate around how employment laws may change in the future given the UKs new found freedom but it comes as no real surprise to learn that the trade agreement will limit those freedoms to some extent, in view of the level playing field commitments. Also in this article, Jonathan Chaimovic gives a brief summary of the new immigration regime to help employers understand what they need to do in order to recruit EU/EEA nationals in the UK. And finally, for employers who need to transfer employee information into and out of the UK, Mark Williamson looks at the practical steps organisations should take to ensure there is no breach of data protection laws.

Employment law

The UK/EU trade agreement

The trade and co-operation agreement reached by the UK and EU covering the post transition period arrangements was finally signed on 30 December 2020. The level playing field commitments in the agreement have been designed to ensure that neither party obtains a competitive edge in various regulatory areas. In relation to employment law, it was agreed that neither party will weaken or reduce their labour and social standards below the levels in place at the end of the transition period in a manner that would affect trade or investment, including by a failure to enforce those standards. This applies to fundamental rights at work, health and safety standards, fair working conditions, employment standards, information and consultation rights, and restructuring of undertakings. Separate commitments in the section on road transport require both parties to comply with working time rules (including rest periods and breaks) for drivers transporting goods between the UK and EU.

The trade agreement also includes rebalancing measures to address future divergence of laws which have a material impact on trade or investment. Such divergence of laws will need to be significant and supported by reliable evidence of the impact, not mere conjecture or remote possibility. Importantly for the UK government, any disputes will not come under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice but will be referred to a panel of experts following a 90-day discussion period. The rebalancing mechanism set out in the agreement allows the parties to apply tariffs where there are significant divergences in the level playing field. There is also a provision allowing for the review and suspension of trade in certain circumstances.

The UK government will therefore have to avoid any weakening of employment rights that has a significant impact on trade or investment, since this could lead to a major dispute and a risk of tariffs or suspension of trade. This is unlikely to preclude minor changes to legislation, even where employee protections are reduced, providing there is no impact on trade and investment. It does, however, mean that the UK government will not have complete freedom to change employment laws in the future, despite having left the EU.

So what, if anything, is likely to change in UK employment law?

There has been much speculation as to which aspects of employment law future UK governments might change. In particular, its been suggested by some commentators that the Agency Workers Regulations, which give equal rights to agency workers after 12 weeks, could be abolished. This is now less likely, as abolition of these rights could give the UK a clear competitive advantage which would affect trade. Other laws susceptible to change are aspects of the Working Time Regulations (such as abolishing the 48 hour week) and a re-setting of the long line of holiday pay cases which have caused much confusion over the past 10 years, since the momentous ECJ decision of Williams v British Airways. Whereas a wholesale repeal of the Working Time Regulations is now highly unlikely, some minor amendments, for example the abolition of the 48 hour maximum working week may be possible as that is unlikely to have much impact on trade (particularly given the UKs opt-out). Arguably, a resetting of the holiday pay rights so that commission and overtime are not included in the calculation of holiday pay might also be acceptable. In the main, other EU derived rights such as TUPE and collective redundancy consultation may see some amendments in time, but we are unlikely to see a full scale abolition. Finally, discrimination laws and family friendly rights are highly unlikely to be weakened, although a future government may be tempted to introduce a cap on maximum tribunal awards.

For more information on any employment or workplace related issue, please contact James Major or your usual contact at Clyde & Co.

Immigration

The new immigration framework means that many organisations will have to revise some of their recruitment processes. The changes to the Immigration Rules were mostly agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement in 2020 and were therefore independent of, and largely unaffected by the Trade Agreement. Nevertheless, we set out a brief summary of the new framework below.

What are the implications of Brexit for EU, EEA and Swiss (EES) nationals?

Free movement of EES nationals to the UK ended at 11pm on 31 December 2020. EES nationals residing in the UK before 1 January 2021 may apply for immigration status under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) allowing them to remain in the UK, depending on eligibility, for Pre-Settled or Settled Status. Applications under the EUSS must be submitted by 30 June 2021. Post 31 December 2020, EES nationals entering the UK for employment/self-employment purposes must meet the same requirements to work in the UK as non-EES nationals. In many cases, this will require sponsorship by their prospective employer to work in the UK under the new Points Based System (PBS) framework. Irish nationals are unaffected by the changes and will continue to enjoy the unfettered right to work and reside in the UK.

What are the key features of the UKs new post Brexit Points Based System (PBS) framework?

How should employers assess and record the right to work from 2021?

For more information please see the Home Office guidance on the right to work checks.

If you have any queries on this or any other immigration topic please contact Jonathan Chaimovic or any member of the immigration team.

Data Protection

Multinational companies seeking to transfer personal data relating to their staff across borders, whether to or from the UK must ensure that they comply with data protection laws.

What is the effect of Brexit on the application of the GDPR to the UK?

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) lies at the core of Europes digital privacy legislation, setting out guidelines for the collection and processing of personal data of individuals. As a European Regulation, it has direct effect. This meant it automatically came into effect in the UK in May 2018, and applied in the UK until 31 December 2020 (the end of the transition period). The Data Protection Act 2018 sets out the framework for data protection law in the UK. In addition to the 2018 Act, which is still in force, the GDPR will continue to apply post Brexit because it was directly incorporated into UK law by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 on 31 December 2020. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO), which publishes data protection guidance on its website, now distinguishes this from the EUs GDPR by referring to it as the UK GDPR.

Post 1 January 2021, can employers still transfer employee personal data between the UK and EU countries?

Up until 31 December 2020 UK employers could transfer personal data freely between the UK and the EEA under the EU Withdrawal Agreement. From 1 January 2021, the UK became a third country and two sets of rules apply in relation to data transfers. In essence these rules mean that UK organisations do not need any new arrangements for transfers from the UK, but will need to put in place safeguards to maintain data flows from the EEA to the UK:

The ICO advises that usually the simplest way to provide an appropriate safeguard for a restricted transfer from the EEA to the UK is to enter into standard contractual clauses with the sender of the personal data. Some organisations may have in place binding corporate rules covering a UK based entity which are authorised under the EU process. These will continue to provide an appropriate safeguard for restricted transfers but will need to be updated to recognise the UK as a third country. A different safeguard, such as provisions inserted into an administrative arrangement, will be appropriate for transfers from an EEA public body to a UK public body where one of the parties is unable to enter into a contract. The ICO has published guidance for businesses to help with this.

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Brexit: The key implications for Employers and HR Professionals - Lexology

The federal death penalty will almost certainly be suspended under President Biden, and great strides have been made to reduce the use of the death penalty at the state level. But the work of putting an end to capital punishment is far from done, and recent events have pointed to the need for a conversion of U.S. culture from death and vengeance.

These were some of the themes that surfaced during a panel discussion on Jan. 8 sponsored by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown. The panel, Killing In Our Name: Federal Executions and Pro-life Witness, hosted by Initiative director John Carr, took the federal executions in the final days of the Trump presidency as its point of departure.

The Trump administration executed 10 people in 2020, the first federal executions in 17 years. Federal inmate Lisa Montgomery became the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953 when she was killed by lethal injection in the early morning hours on Jan. 13. Two more federal executions are scheduled for 2021.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network, described this rush of federal executions as an aberration, as it does not reflect the great successes of the death penalty abolition movement in recent years: 22 states have abolished the death penalty, and 12 others have imposed moratoria or have not carried out an execution over the last 10 years.

As Kevin Clarke reported for America, Only seven statesArizona, California, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texasimposed death sentences [in 2020] and just threeCalifornia, Florida and Texasimposed more than one.

Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy told America, There is already signifcant momentum at the state level to move away from the practice of capital punishment. During the discussion at Georgetown, Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy urged online participants to make the fight to end the death penalty their own, a point that the Most Rev. Daniel Flores, bishop of Brownsville, Tex., and chair-elect of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops doctrine committee, echoed in noting that advocacy against the death penalty has to be integrated into parish life.

Indeed, such opportunities were as much part of the reason for the panel as the Trump executions. The participants at the Georgetown discussion evinced a measured optimism about what could be done under the Biden administration.

[Want to discuss politics with other America readers? Join our Facebook discussion group, moderated by Americas writers and editors.]

Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy laid out some of those possibilities for America:

The Challenge of ConversionThe recent progress toward ending the death penalty is owed in no small part to the life and mission of Helen Prejean, C.S.J., one of the most famous anti-death penalty advocates in the United States, who spoke at Georgetown of the challenge of changing public opinion on capital punishment, calling it a journey of conversion. She spoke of the difficulties many have in seeing not only the dignity of innocent life, but also the dignity of those guilty of crimesalthough she also noted that many on death row have been exonerated of crimes.

Sister Prejean suggested that this conversion has to be preached to and undertaken by the entire people of God, not just priests and other faith leaders. She thus implicitly raised the question: How does the church reach members who are no longer regularly in the pews or parish halls?

This challenge of conversion was also addressed by Bishop Flores, who called for a change in how Americans understand the human condition. Bishop Flores said that the one time in his public ministry Jesus had a chance to say yes, the death penalty is justified, is when they brought the woman caught in adultery, and they said, The Law of Moses says. And he didnt deny the law, but he addressed himself to the condition of the ones who were condemning.

The bishop drew this question from Scripture: How can we presume to be the ones who execute this judgment about who deserves to live and who deserves to die?

The Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr., the executive director of the Ohio Council of Churches, noted the close connection between death penalty, race and poverty. He noted that in his early work he was discouraged from linking death penalty abolishment to racial justice because no one would be willing to take the message seriously.

But he refused to ignore the connection, instead seeing it as key to changing hearts and minds: Anybody who espouses our faith must find himself interested in addressing the evils of racism and white supremacy. As Dr. Sullivan told America, If we Christians were to articulate and authenticate a vision of love for all of humanity in the public policy arena, we could see a plethora of unjust policiesfrom executions to the seemingly acceptable extrajudicial executions of unarmed Black peoplecoming to an end.

Dr. Sullivans witness on the panel underlined that anti-death-penalty work is ecumenical, as has been all of his work. Challenges would have occurred if we elected to allow our theological and cultural differences to discount and trivialize our areas of agreement, he told America. Fortunately, I experienced no challenges, just an appreciation for our willingness to work together and thus project a stronger anti-death-penalty witness together than any of us could have projected if restricted to our own groups.

Changing CatechismDespite whatever opportunities the Biden administration might offer for opposing the death penalty, Catholics continue to be divided by the issue, including in their reaction to Pope Francis changes to the Catechism in 2018. The Georgetown panel did not shy away from this challenge.

This controversy, Bishop Flores wrote recently in America, centers around the historical fact that Scripture and tradition acknowledge the authority of the civil authority to administer [capital punishment]. How, then, can the church say it cannot justly be administered today by the public authority?

On the panel, Bishop Flores offered an answer to that question. He noted that John Paul II focused on the question What good does the death penalty serve in terms of protecting the wider community? and concluded that in most cases, the good can be served without the extreme measure of taking a human life.

Pope Francis, he said, prudentially judged that not only does it not serve a good, but you can protect society in other ways without going to the extreme measure of taking someones life.

Bishop Flores emphasized that the church has always seen the death penalty as an extreme measure, even if the sense of the dignity of the condemned person has slowly unfolded, as Sister Prejean noted later, comparing the changing understanding of the death penalty to a similar process addressing slavery.

Returning to the discussion of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, Bishop Flores reminded the audience that Pope Francis has said that we are in a throwaway culture and we have a way of justifying heinous things because it is the law.

Mr. Carr noted that St. John Paul II called upon the United States to end the death penalty in 1999 during his visit to Saint Louis. The pope made that plea in a homily that focused on the need for the churchs new evangelization to be unconditionally pro-life: The dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

A Culture of Death

The panel sought to offer a broader vision of human dignity to challenge those who support the death penalty. Given Bishop Floress description of Pope Francis and Christ as addressing themselves to the condition of the ones who were condemning, one might think the mixed reception in the United States to Pope Francis on the death penalty reflects more than just a love of scriptural tradition narrowly construed, for it arises in a culture with a strong affinity for violence. Indeed, the panel happened only two days after the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In a widely-circulated piece in The New York Times on Dec. 20, Elizabeth Bruenig reflected on the challenge of changing public opinion on the death penalty:

Ultimately, the Georgetown panelists urged a similarly visceral approach, with Sister Prejean noting the importance of stories and sharing experiences, and Bishop Floress call to humanize those subject to execution. Dr. Sullivan attributed his work to personal experiences of the murder of his sister, and Ms. Vaillancourt Murphy to the witness of advocates like Sister Prejean.

That visceral approach would seem to resonate with the Biden administrations focus on reconciliation and compassion, but it will be challenged by all of the obstacles raised by the panelists: fear, anxiety, suspicion and the culture of violence evidenced by the Capitol Hill insurrection.

And thinking more generally about protecting human life, what can the movement to end the death penalty illuminate for the possibilities of resisting and converting the culture of death? How can the broader pro-life movement benefit from that work? These will be questions that anti-death-penalty efforts in the Biden years might help to answer.

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What will it take to end to the death penalty? Catholic activists say a more visceral approach is needed. - America Magazine

Beside the long path to the Wappoo Creek stand symmetrical rows of Southern live oaks, arranged like the pillars of a temple. Down the dirt road below, shaded by the leaves and long beards of Spanish moss, Toby Smith leads her first tour of the morning to the Wappoos marshy banks. Then she asks them to look right.

Miles away, past mud flats, fishing boats, and the Ashley River, sits Charleston, South Carolina. If they drifted on the water for about an hour, theyd hit the city harbor. If they floated past for another three months, she says, theyd arrive on the West Coast of Africa.

Thats how Ms. Smith says she starts her tours of McLeod Plantation Historic Site, where shes worked as a guide for the past two years. Her trip to the milky green waters of the Wappoo Creek is a regular pilgrimage, designed to help visitors imagine the journey of enslaved Africans who once stood on the same land. Starting near the water, she says, lets the tour walk in their footsteps.

For the next hour, Ms. Smith explains in a phone interview, she guides her group through the plantation grounds and lets them ask questions about its 37 acres. They pass the cramped slave quarters and palatial manor house. They pause at the slave cemetery and walk into the fields of sea island cotton, still growing. Inside the cotton gin house, they gaze at small dimples in the walls. Some days, Ms. Smith lets the group know that those are fingerprints left by enslaved children who hand-molded the bricks.

We are walking on the blood, sweat, and tears of real human beings, she often tells visitors. That has a very profound impact on people. ... Sometimes you dont have to say anything. Its just the presence.

McLeod is among a growing number of sites that recognize the power of that presence. Its vision is to interpret the legacy of slavery, where slavery took place. Behind that, the focus is a recognition that the history of American slavery has been insufficiently and inaccurately told, often privileging the enslavers over the enslaved. Gradually, thats changing as historians acknowledge that every life on plantations like McLeod mattered.

Reconstructing the lives of enslaved people is difficult, but from Wallace, Louisiana, to Medford, Massachusetts, many sites on the ground zero of slavery are accepting their role in that effort. Recent calls for racial justice have demanded a reckoning with wrongs that date back centuries. Places like McLeod harbor that history and with it hope for catharsis.

We are the stewards of spaces that can offer answers, says Michelle Lanier, director of the North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites and Properties. Theres a grand healing that I think is attempting to emerge through our nations greatest wound.

Courtesy of Charleston County Parks

The main house at McLeod Plantation is empty, and the tour does not take visitors inside. Interpreters teach about the plantations owner, but they focus on the 100 or so people who were enslaved there.

For many Americans, that wound has grown more painful with the way it has historically been taught, says Derrick Aldridge, a professor at the University of Virginias Curry School of Education and Human Development.

Dr. Aldridge recently chaired Virginias Commission on African American History Education, charged with auditing the states efforts to teach Black history. Released last August, its 80-page report identifies faults endemic to curricula across the country.

Long dominant have been so-called master narratives, which teach American history through the lives of U.S. presidents or other great men. People of color and especially African Americans are often segregated into sections that cover only messianic figures, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Regular Black Americans, including enslaved people, are rarely given space.

You cant erase history. You can ignore it, which is something weve done for centuries, says Jody Allen, an assistant professor of history at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Theres a real understanding that basically weve been miseducated in this country.

Understanding the legacy of slavery, says Professor Aldridge, is crucial to addressing its impacts today. Connecting historical dots from the Black Lives Matter movement to the civil rights movement to abolition puts the present in context and makes history real, he says.

At a place like McLeod, where that history is as real as it can get, the stakes for getting it right are high.

Just as the historical narrative has traditionally focused on the owning class, plantation museums have orbited the big house, says Shawn Halifax, cultural history interpretation coordinator for the Charleston County Park & Recreation Commission, which runs McLeod.

Typically, visitors marvel at the opulent homes of slave owners, he says, while enslaved people are treated as footnotes.The furnishing of these former dwellings oftentimes tends to create a type of nostalgia, which is the very thing that through our interpretation were trying to move beyond, says Mr. Halifax.

At McLeod, the big house is empty, and the tour does not take visitors inside. Interpreters teach about William Wallace McLeod the plantations owner and a Confederate soldier but they focus on the 100 or so people enslaved on the site, telling their stories and saying their names.

More than 800 miles southwest, Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, takes the same approach. Before the pandemic, the former sugar cane plantation attracted around 100,000 visitors each year, says Ashley Rogers, director of museum operations.

It, like McLeod, teaches slavery from the perspective of enslaved people and will soon empty its big house.Were trying to use this plantation as a vehicle to get people to understand the system of slavery more broadly, says Ms. Rogers.

One way they do that is by making sure Whitneys history speaks to today. Only two of the original 22 slave quarters are still standing, but they arent relics. After the Civil War, many of Whitneys enslaved people had little choice but to keep farming sugar cane and living in their same quarters. Some of their descendants stayed until 1975.

Our entire point of what were trying to do is to teach people about the past so that they understand the present, says Ms. Rogers. If history doesnt have an impact that you can still feel, then its just an interesting story.

Sometimes the past and the present collide.

Jennifer Stacy grew up near Charlottesville, Virginia, about 10 miles from Highland, the plantation of President James Monroe. Her family used to drive past the site on their way into town, and she would read the sign: Home of James Monroe. She knew about slavery, and she knew her grandfather was also a Monroe. Even as a girl, she sensed the two were somehow connected.

Decades later, Ms. Stacy learned that shes a descendant of Ned Monroe, an enslaved man at Highland who helped build the University of Virginia. Three years ago, she joined the estates newly formed Council of Descendant Advisors, a group of 10 descendants who advise the site on its efforts to tell a fuller story.

Its now shared authority, where the goal is to reinterpret the history there and to get it right, Ms. Stacy says. The true, deep-down hope is that this could be a roadmap to something bigger that our whole country can get behind and start doing, because it is who we are.

Highland, like other plantation sites across the country, is researching the lives of those enslaved on its land constructing genealogies, reviewing oral histories, and panning streams of centuries-old documents. The task, though, requires swimming against the currents of history. Researchers engaged in this work often face a dearth of primary sources, low funds, and small staffs.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Kyera Singleton, director of Royall House and Slave Quarters, poses by the slave quarters, in Medford, Massachusetts, on Jan. 13, 2021. Ms. Singleton is working to expand the sites role in present-day social justice movements.

This is especially true in the North.

Records show slavery is central to Northern states histories. Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, andother influential figuresin the North who supported abolition owned slaves,and New England colonies played a critical role in the transatlantic slave trade. There were enslaved people in every Rhode Island township, historians say, and local merchants bankrolled more than 500 voyages to West Africa during the Colonial period. All the other colonies combined sent 189.

But Americans postbellum memory associates slavery almost exclusively with former Confederate states. Research on slavery outside the South is thin, and long-held notions of Northern heroism can chill attempts to learn more.

There is this great desire for people to want us to have made greater strides, but we are working against 50-plus years of Americas educational system, says Lavada Nahon, interpreter of African American history for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

While many sites in the North are adopting an approach similar to Whitneys or McLeods, rediscovering an entire states role in slavery is a massive effort in historical forensics.

Artifacts have been mislabeled and misinterpreted, and important history has been lost in translation. In New York, this could mean translating early documents from Dutch to English or interpreting confusing terminology a recent paper published by the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany argues that the servants listed in Alexander Hamiltons cash book were actually enslaved people. Even cursive handwriting can challenge the newer generation of historians.

It is not as if we are choosing not to honor our ancestors, Ms. Nahon says. It is time-consuming work.

Its also work that evolves. Heidi Hill, historic site manager at Schuyler Mansion, says the site has been compiling research on free and enslaved Africans since the 1980s. Theyve long incorporated names, numbers, and the type of work enslaved people did into their tours and other events.

But now were asking different questions, says Ms. Hill.Who were these people? Where did they come from? Who were their family members? How did they connect?

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The manor house and slave quarters (right) at Royall House and Slave Quarters, in Medford, Massachusetts, are pictured on Jan. 13, 2021. These are the only surviving slave quarters in the Northern United States.

When communicating with a largely miseducated public, making the historical narrative more inclusive requires a powerful commitment.

Kyera Singleton heard about the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts, at a conference in 2019. Shed grown up in the Northeast, studied slavery, and still had no idea there were freestanding slave quarters in the North. But while the scholar in her wanted to visit, Ms. Singleton had a familiar fear: that the history would be whitewashed and the trip would be more painful than illuminating.

Still, she decided to go and soon learned that the site had undergone a dramatic rebranding in 2005, bringing enslaved people into focus.

Every room that we went in, we talked about the enslaved people, she says. It shows that their names matter, their lives matter, their history matters.

Ms. Singleton was so impressed that she applied to work at the museum, and since April of last year, she has served as executive director. In her new role, Ms. Singleton is eager to uncover how the enslaved people who lived at the site experienced slavery, resisted it, and advocated for their freedom a challenging mission that includes archaeological and archival research, partnering with universities, and a lot of guesswork.

You might not find all of the information that you want, she admits. And thats a part of the cruelty of history in many ways whose lives were deemed important enough to document versus those whose lives were deemed unimportant.

The paucity of first-person accounts of slavery has long been an excuse to avoid difficult conversations, says Cordell Reaves, historic preservation programs analyst for New Yorks Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

That is a terrible disservice to the general public, he says. [Visitors] can be engaged in having a conversation around ongoing research, even if we are not absolutely certain about the outcome.

Lately, Ms. Singleton has been working to increase the visibility of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, hoping to expand the sites role in present-day social justice movements by helping communities understand that last years assaults against Black people, including by the police, were not unique.

This history of injustice has been happening long before 2020, says Ms. Singleton. It will keep happening if we dont actually confront systemic inequalities and racism in this country.

Courtesy of Charleston County Parks

Toby Smith ends her tours of McLeod Plantation at the Wisdom Oak. She asks visitors to imagine what memories are caught in the branches of the tree, which is thought to be at least 200 years old.

The country has chosen not to confront the history before, and the history repeats. Generations come; generations go. The next sometimes forgets the last.

But places like McLeod remember, says Ms. Smith, the interpreter near Charleston.

Her tour ends, she says, at the Wisdom Oak, thought to be at least 200 years old. Ms. Smith asks her group to imagine what memories are caught in its branches.

Ms. Smith tells her group that she is a direct descendant of slaves, some of whom may have lived just 20 miles from McLeod. Her great-great-grandmother Idella was taken from modern-day Ghana in the 1840s, after the slave trade was illegal in America. Ms. Smith is alive today because Idella survived that voyage at the age of 8, mourned her losses alone, and started a family, living until 1941.

This work is a way for me to keep them alive, share their memories, and also to give them a measure of honor and dignity that they never had in life, says Ms. Smith.

Then, at the roots of the Wisdom Oak, she tells her group about a visitor to McLeod six years ago. A month before Dylann Roof killed nine members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he visited McLeod and took pictures of himself there.

People physically recoil at the fact that he was on the property, says Ms. Smith. But it gives us an opportunity to talk about hatred and why we cannot let hate end the conversation.

Theres no agenda, no judgment, no attempt to sanitize what went on then or now, she says. Its just a moment to pause, to acknowledge the pain, and to ask what theyll do about it.

Maybe listen to each other, or the ancient oak above them.

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Ultimately, we hope that it could be a place always of conversation and healing, says Ms. Smith, and people will leave better than when they came.

Walter Houston Robinson contributed to this report.

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Plantation tours bypass the big house to focus on the enslaved - The Christian Science Monitor

In December it was revealed that the San Diego Unified School District had hired Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, two brazen race hustlers posing as trainers to jam their radical racial separatist agenda down the throats of the citys public school teachers. As reported by Christopher Rufo inCity Journal,The training begins with a land acknowledgement, in which the teachers are asked to accept that they are colonizers living on stolen Native American land. Then they are told they will experience guilt, anger, apathy, [and] closed-mindedness because of their white fragility.

It gets worse. Much worse.

A whistleblower secretly took notes and recorded screen shots of another teacher training session in San Diego. This one was held by Bettina Love, a race-obsessed college professor, who claims that American schools are guilty of the spirit murdering of Black children. She also insists that Whiteness reproduces poverty, failing schools, high unemployment, school closings, and trauma for people of color, and stealing a page from George Orwells1984, that white educators must undergo antiracist therapy. As if the above were not despicable enough, because too many black students are failing in San Diego schools, the district will no longer letlate work or bad behavioraffect a childs grade.

Seattle is no better. At a recent training in the Emerald City, lowly Caucasians were told that they possess lizard-brains, which makes them afraid that [they] will have to talk about sensitive issues such as race, racism, classism, sexism, or any kind of ism. The trainers also instructed educators that they should work toward the abolition of whiteness. Lest you think this conference was a one-off, a visit to theSeattle Public Schools websitewill disabuse you of that notion.

Like Covid, the indoctrination pandemic is not location-specific. In New Jersey,S2781, a bill which passed 26-13 in the State Senate, ensures that students will examine the impact that unconscious bias and economic disparities have at both an individual level and on society as a whole.

In Minnesota, St. Paul public schools are on their way to making an ethnic studies class mandatory for graduation. But at the same time, as reported by the Center of the American Experiment, a draft of the new state social studies standards shows the standards arevery light on World War I, World War II, the Holocaust, the American Revolution, the Civil War, etc.

In California, the latestEthnic Studies Model Curriculumdraft, which will make taking an ethnic studies class a requirement to graduate high school, has been released for public comment. Though not as vile as earlier versions, there is still plenty here to be concerned about. Critical race theory, which maintains that racism is pervasive and permanent, and divides students into oppressor and oppressed factions, is omnipresent.

The question becomes, what can be done to stop the careening indoctrination train?

In California, parents and the general public can weigh in andtell the California State Board of Education(by January 21) to oppose using critical race theory in our schools.

Also, the Family Policy Alliance has released a new book available for free online, Back to Schoolfor Parents, which takes a journey through each part of the school system where student andparental rights violations are trending, and explains how to fight back against the radical agenda that is running rampant in our schools.

And on a most interesting note, a Nevada mother has filed a lawsuit against her sons charter school for refusing to let him opt out of a mandatory class that promotes hostility toward whites as a race. In the federal lawsuit, Gabrielle Clark claims that the schools teachers and administrators coerced her son William to accept and affirm politicized and discriminatory principles and statements that he cannot in good conscience affirm. The litigation also alleges several constitutional violations including compelled speech, viewpoint discrimination, retaliation, etc.

Its worth noting that the student, who has a black mother and a (deceased) white father, is very light-skinned. His whiteness and refusal to lick the indoctrinators boots earned him a D-minus in the class, and he was subsequently suspended for committing racism according to the lawsuit. Ironically, the mother only learned about the indoctrination attempt by attending a distance learning class with her son.

Too much of our education system has turned into1984-style brainwashing, and will continue unabated until parents the schools customers stand up and learn their rights, run for school board, litigate, and best of all, homeschool if possible. Your children, taxpayers and the country are depending on you.

[Originally posted on California Policy Center]

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Spirit Murder, Lizard Brains and the Abolition of Whiteness - The Heartland Institute

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Statements by the Spokesperson

The European Union deeply regrets the execution at a federal level in the United States of the first woman in almost seven decades. The EU had called for clemency to be granted to Lisa Montgomery taking into consideration international law and internationally accepted minimum standards that should be respected regarding people with mental disorders.

Since the resumption of the federal death penalty in July 2020, after a 17-year hiatus, we have witnessed a high number of executions. The EU stands firmly and unequivocally by the victims of crime and their families and effectively prosecutes criminals in its territory. But capital punishment is incompatible with human dignity and the right to life, constitutes an inhuman and degrading treatment, and does not have any proven deterrent effect. Miscarriages of justice, inevitable in any judicial system, are irreversible. The EU calls on the US administration to reverse its decision to carry out the remaining federal-level executions during the last days of the current administration.

These executions contradict the growing momentum towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, as reflected by the recent adoption of the 8th Resolution calling for a "Moratorium on the use of death penalty" at the UN General Assembly on 16 December. The high number of federal executions also contradict the trend among individual States within the US, which performed the fewest executions in 37 years in 2020.

The European Union is strongly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and will spare no effort to work towards its abolition worldwide in line with the new EU Action Plan for Human Rights and Democracy for 2020-2024.

See the release online here.

Infographic: Why and How the EU Opposes the Death Penalty

SOURCE Delegation of the European Union to the United States

eeas.europa.eu

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Statement by the Spokesperson on the first federal-level execution in the United States of a woman in decades - PRNewswire

Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley will again seek to end the legacy of a clause long used as a 'tool of control' over people of color.

America was founded on beautiful principles of equality and justice. And our nation was also founded on horrific realities of slavery and white supremacy. If we are ever going to fully deliver on our founding principles, we have to directly confront those gruesome realities.

One deeply disturbing reality is that when our nation ratified the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, it included an exception. In the second clause, often referred to as the "Punishment Clause," are the words that allowed thousands of Black Americans to be re-enslaved during and after reconstruction, and set off a chain reaction that has destroyed the lives of generations of Black Americans: "except as a punishment for crime "

Within weeks of the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, Southern jurisdictions used the Punishment Clause to arrest Black Americans based on phony crimes, codified in so-called "Black Codes." The Black Codes only applied to Black Americans made it illegal for farmworkers to walk beside railroads; to speak loudly in the company of white women; to sell products from their farms after dark; and so many more absurd rules. Once people were arrested, the Punishment Clause was used by sheriffs to lease out imprisoned individuals to work landowners' fields, which in some cases included the very same plantations where they had been enslaved. The practice grew in prevalence and scope to the point that, by 1898, 73 percent of Alabama's state revenue came from renting out the forced labor of Black Americans.

This was no accident. John T. Morgan, a former Confederate General, spelled it out when he said in 1866, "[A]s the Constitution of the United States [gives] the power to inflict involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime, suitable law should be framed by the state jurists [to] enable them to sell into bondage once more those Negroes found guilty of certain crimes."

Re-enslavement through the Black Codes had the same elements that made slavery so evil: it tore parents away from their children; it destroyed the economic power of Black Americans; it dehumanized people, adding to the prejudiced myth that Black Americans were second-class citizens. And, imprisoned workers were treated just as cruelly as they were during slavery.

This is not a history lesson; we are still living with that legacy today. The Punishment Clause has facilitated and incentivized convictions for minor crimes, driving the mass incarceration of Black Americans for the last century and a half.

The Black Codes over time morphed into contemporary policies the War on Drugs, "three strikes" laws, harsh mandatory minimum policies that drove mass incarceration in America for generations, with a disproportionate impact on people of color. Now, the rate of American incarceration is nothing short of a crisis, with 2.3 million prisoners 20 percent of the world's incarcerated population residing in the United States.

In short: As intended, the exception to the 13th Amendment's ban on slavery corrupted criminal justice into a tool of racist control of Black Americans and other people of color. Since Confederate General John T. Morgan's time, we've seen that legacy in police encounters courtrooms, and prisons throughout our country.

Permitting slavery or involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime" is not compatible with justice, especially given our nation's history and the origins of the Punishment Clause. At the end of 2020 I introduced, with U.S. Representative William Lacy Clay (D-MO-1), the Abolition Amendment, which would finish the job started by the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, and finally end the stain of slavery within our Constitution. I'll be introducing it again in the new 117th Congress. It would send a clear message: in this country, no person will be stripped of their basic humanity and forced to toil for someone else's profit.

Last year saw a reckoning across America about systemic racism, especially in our criminal justice system. It's past time that we as a nation take action to make the beautiful principles on which we were founded equality and justice our reality. Slavery is incompatible with justice. No slavery, no exceptions. Let's pass the Abolition Amendment.

Jeff Merkley, a Portland Democrat, is Oregon's junior U.S. senator. He can be reached via his website at merkley.senate.gov/contact.

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OPINION: It's time to strip 'Black Codes' from the U.S. Constitution - Pamplin Media Group