Frederick M. Hess's Blog
Fascists in Flip-Flops: Musings from the 2010 AERA Conference
by Frederick M. Hess • May 5, 2010 at 9:47 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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Props to sly Mike Johanek, director of UPenn's midcareer Ph.D. program and Race to the Top reviewer extraordinaire, for this post's title. Only question for you, readers, is the identity of the fascist. I will say that I may have been the only conference attendee in chilly Denver wearing flip-flops. Result: I did a panel with University of Wisconsin's Michael Apple and he probably looked more like the D.C. policy wonk, while I probably bore more than a passing resemblance to the stereotypical critical race theory prof. Keep reading, and I welcome comments on who you think Johanek's fascists are.
Anyway, last Friday, while I was in another room trying to be a good team player and do my duty on the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting policy committee, the AERA governing council voted to wade into the impassioned debate over Arizona's controversial new immigration statute.
The near-unanimous resolution (one council member abstained) said the law "is so broad in its reach and enforcement powers that it can have an adverse impact on the freedom to travel or assemble" and announced that AERA "will no longer hold meetings or conferences in the state of Arizona." Well, okay.
I had a much more adverse reaction, though, to the Saturday news conference held to announce the resolution.
