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      Kim Janey Becomes Boston's First Black Mayor

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      At 11, Kim Janey was bused into a neighborhood where Black students were pelted with rocks. As acting mayor, she hopes to help Boston step out of the shadow of that era.BOSTON — On a September morning in 1976, an 11-year-old Black girl climbed onto a yellow school bus, one of tens of thousands of children sent crisscrossing the city by court order and deposited in the insular neighborhoods of Boston in an effort to force them to integrate.As her bus swung uphill into the heart of the Irish-American enclave of Charlestown, she could see police officers taking protective positions around the bus. After that, the mob: white teenagers and adults, shouting and throwing rocks, telling them to go back to Africa.That girl, Kim Janey, became acting mayor of Boston on Monday, making her the first Black person to occupy the position, at a moment of uncommon opportunity for people of color in this city.With the confirmation of her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh, as U.S. labor secretary, the 91-year succession of Irish-American and Italian-American mayors appears to be ending, creating an opening for communities long shut out of the city’s power politics.It isn’t clear what role Ms. Janey, 55, will play in this moment. As the president of Boston’s City Council, she automatically takes the position for seven months before the November election, and she has not said whether she plans to run. But the five candidates already in the race are all people of color, and racial justice is certain to be a central theme of the campaign.Students arrived by school bus at South Boston High School in Boston on Sept. 8, 1976. An initiative to desegregate Boston Public Schools, put in effect in the fall of 1974, was met with strong resistance from many residents of Boston.Ed Jenner/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesNearly 50 years after court-ordered desegregation, Boston, the home of abolitionism, remains profoundly unequal. In 2015, the median net worth for white families in the city was nearly $250,000 compared with just $8 for Black families, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.Boston’s police force remains disproportionately white. And a recent review of city contracts found that during the first term of Mr. Walsh’s administration, Black-owned firms landed roughly half of 1 percent of the $2.1 billion in prime contracts.None of this comes as a surprise to Bostonians who, like Ms. Janey, came of age in the 1970s — the “kids on the bus,” as one of them put it. Now in their 50s, they are a group without illusions about what it will take to close those gaps.Denella J. Clark, 53, president of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, carries a scar on her left leg from a broken bottle that was thrown at her by a white woman when she was a 9-year-old being bused into a South Boston elementary school.“I still think we have those people that are throwing bottles, they’re just not doing it overtly,” she said. “When you see some of this change, it’s because people were forced to make those changes, just like in the court case” that led to busing in Boston.Michael Curry, who was 7 when he was first bused into Charlestown, described a similar conclusion: In a city with a limited pool of jobs and contracts, “the people who have taken advantage of those things are being asked to share that pie.”“Boston will not go without a fight,” he said.‘Where Are They Now?’Mr. Curry, now 52, recently realized something: More than four decades after he was bused to the Warren-Prescott elementary school, he has rarely returned to Charlestown.He is middle-aged now, a father of three and a lawyer. But he can still close his eyes and replay the path of that bus as it slid past the Museum of Science, then turned right and crossed into Charlestown, where crowds were waiting, armed with rocks or bricks.“It boggles my mind to this day,” he said. “How much hate and frustration and anger would you have to have to do that to children?”He wonders sometimes about those white parents. “Where are they now?” he said. “Do they look back and say ‘I was there that day’?”This month, Mr. Curry, a former president of Boston’s N.A.A.C.P. branch, reached out to his social media networks, asking friends for their own memories. The responses came back fast — and raw. “Absolutely no interest in recollecting memories from that era,” one said. “It was a nightmare.”One person who has struggled to put that time behind her is Rachel Twymon, 59, whose family’s story was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 book, “Common Ground,” which later became a television mini-series. Ms. Twymon still seethes at her mother, one of the book’s protagonists, for sending her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.“For adults to think their decision was going to change the world, that was crazy,” said Ms. Twymon, an occupational therapist who lives in New Bedford, Mass. “How dare you put children in harm’s way? How dare you? I have never been able to come to grips with that.”Rachel Twymon outside her home in New Bedford, Mass. She says that she still seethes over her mother’s decision to send her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey’s recollections of busing are tempered, by comparison.“I had no idea what would be in store,” she said. “When I finally sat on the school bus and faced angry mobs of people, had rocks thrown at our bus, racial slurs hurled at us, I was not expecting that. And there’s nothing that can prepare you for that.”She quickly added, though, that the environment changed as soon as she stepped inside Edwards Middle School, where her closest friend was Cathy, a white girl from an Irish-American family.“The other thing that I would share, and I think this gets lost when we talk about this painful part of our history, is that inside that school building, I was a kid,” she said. “We were children. We cared about who we would play with, and who’s going to play jump rope, and who wants to play hopscotch.”Lost and GainedThe city Ms. Janey will lead as mayor is radically changed, in part because of what happened after busing: The working-class, Irish-American neighborhoods that fiercely resisted integration began to wane under pressure from white flight and gentrification.They had been poor neighborhoods. Patricia Kelly, 69, a Black teacher from New Jersey who was assigned to a Charlestown elementary school in 1974, recalled her shock at the deprivation she encountered there; once, she gingerly approached a boy’s mother about the stench of urine on his clothes and was told that they had no hot water.After busing began, Boston’s public schools lost almost a third of their white students in 18 months, as white families enrolled their children in parochial schools or boycotted schools in protest.For David Arbuckle, 58, who is white, it meant that most of his old friends were gone. He recalled walking to school through crowds of white residents who bellowed at him for violating the antibusing boycott, a daily gantlet that gave him stomachaches.A crowd of antibusing demonstrators storming up East Sixth Street in South Boston armed with rocks and clubs on Feb. 15, 1976. Ulrike Welsch/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesFor decades, some of those childhood friends blamed desegregation for ruining their chances in life, Mr. Arbuckle said.“They would tell you, ‘I didn’t get an education because Black people came to my school and took my seat,’” he said. The 1980s only deepened their grievances, he said; factory jobs were drying up, and court-ordered affirmative action policies, many complained, made it more difficult to be hired by the Police or Fire Departments.“It almost feels like a lost generation, to some extent,” said Mr. Arbuckle, who now works in management for the commuter rail system in Boston. Returning to Charlestown as an adult, shuttling his sons to hockey practice, he sometimes wore a suit, straight from the office, and people from the neighborhood “would turn on me because I was a yuppie.”He said it was hard to imagine members of the older generation softening their views, even as the city surrounding them became wealthier and more diverse.“I don’t know if people have to die off,” he said. “I know it sounds awful.”‘A Hundred-Year Fight’Ms. Janey — whose ancestors escaped to Canada through the Underground Railroad and began settling in Boston in the second half of the 19th century — does not dwell on busing when she tells the story of her life, except to say that it was a setback.“It was the first time that I didn’t feel safe in school,” she said. “It was the first time that I was not confident about how teachers felt about me as a little Black girl, the way I felt in elementary school.”Her parents withdrew her as soon as they could, sending her to the middle-class suburb of Reading through a voluntary busing program, starting in the eighth grade. She would go on to work as a community activist, serving at Massachusetts Advocates for Children for almost two decades before running for a seat on the Boston City Council in 2017.She described her work in education, in a talk to students last year, as an extension of the civil rights movement that swept up her parents.“The fight for quality education for Black families in this city dates to the beginning of this country,” she said. “It’s a hundred-year fight.”The fury unleashed by busing reshaped Boston in many ways, including by setting back the ambitions of Black candidates. White anger made it difficult for them to build the multiracial coalitions that were necessary to win citywide office in Boston, said Jason Sokol, a historian and author of “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn.”“You can’t overlook how powerful the legacy of the battles over school desegregation were,” he said. “The white resistance was so vicious that it didn’t seem like a political system a lot of African-Americans wanted to be part of. It was just very poisoned for a long time.”Michael Curry, former president of the Boston branch of the N.A.A.C.P., outside the Warren-Prescott elementary school. Mr. Curry said he could still close his eyes and remember the school bus crossing into Charlestown, where armed crowds were waiting with rocks and bricks.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey, who became mayor when Mr. Walsh stepped down on Monday, will officially take the oath of office on Wednesday, acutely conscious of her place in history.The city will be watching to see if she makes a mark between now and November: The powers of an acting mayor in Boston are limited, and she may have difficulty making key appointments. Ms. Clark of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, who serves on Ms. Janey’s transition committee, warned against expecting swift change in the city’s politics.“I worry they’re going to block her at every instance,” she said. “We all know what Frederick Douglass said: ‘Power concedes nothing.’ This is Boston. This is a big boys’ game.”Still, Thomas M. Menino, one of Ms. Janey’s predecessors, became acting mayor under similar circumstances, when the city’s mayor was appointed as a U.S. ambassador. Mr. Menino used the platform to build a powerful political base and was elected mayor four months later, becoming the city’s first Italian-American mayor. He went on to be re-elected four times, serving for more than 20 years.Ms. Janey, by all appearances, would like to follow a similar path. Her swearing-in, she said last week, is a moment full of hope, a measure of how far Boston has come.“I’m at a loss for words, because, at 11 years old, I saw firsthand some of the darkest days of our city,” she said. “And here I am.” More

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      $325,000 Settlement for Teacher Over Trump References Removed From Yearbook

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      A New Jersey teacher was suspended in 2017 after, she says, the school administration told her to remove a reference to Mr. Trump from a student’s shirt in a photo.For years, Susan Parsons said she was told by administrators to remove “controversial” content from the high school yearbook in Wall Township, N.J.Ms. Parsons, a teacher and the yearbook adviser, said in court papers that she had to erase from a photo a feminist bumper sticker on a student’s laptop, Photoshop “fake” clothing onto shirtless students on a school trip to Bermuda and take out questionable hand gestures.But it wasn’t until 2017 that one particular edit thrust Ms. Parsons and the district into a national firestorm over free expression and political opinion.Ms. Parsons was suspended after removing a reference to Donald J. Trump on a student’s shirt, an action that led to widespread news media attention and death threats, according to a lawsuit she filed against the school district.Ms. Parsons said she had been told by the principal’s secretary to remove Mr. Trump’s name and his slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Ms. Parsons was then publicly scapegoated and muzzled by the district, the suit said.On Tuesday, the district’s board agreed to a $325,000 settlement to resolve her claims. About $204,000 will be paid to Ms. Parsons, and the rest will cover her legal fees and expenses, according to the settlement, which says the district’s insurers will cover the costs.“We are happy that Susan was able to achieve the justice she deserves,” Christopher J. Eibeler, her lawyer, said on Saturday. Under the agreement, previously reported by NJ.com, the district denied any wrongdoing.The district and its lawyer did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday. Cheryl Dyer, who was the superintendent at the time of the photo alteration, said she had retired from the district and could no longer speak for it.In her lawsuit, Ms. Parsons said she felt it was unethical to heavily edit yearbook photos and had complained to the administration that the “yearbook should reflect reality.”She was told to remove the reference to Mr. Trump on the student’s shirt in December 2016 after she went to the administration office to pick up drafts of the yearbook pages, the lawsuit said.Ms. Parsons said she had agreed to alter the photo but was confronted by the student after the yearbooks were handed out in June 2017. “Why did you edit the word Trump off of my shirt?” the student asked. She told him to talk to the principal.Later that day, one of the student’s parents emailed Ms. Parsons, saying the student’s picture had been “edited without his/our permission.”“I would like to understand who made that decision,” the email said, according to the lawsuit. “We felt the shirt he wore was appropriate.”Two other students then complained that a Trump logo and a quote attributed to Mr. Trump had been removed from the yearbook.Ms. Parsons said in her suit that the logo had been cropped out by a photo vendor and a student who worked on the yearbook had left the quote out by mistake. Nevertheless, outrage was already exploding in Wall, a township of about 25,000 near the Jersey Shore that voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and in 2020.Ms. Parsons said the school administration had begun a public campaign to shield itself from responsibility by creating a “false narrative” that she was responsible for the changes.For example, Ms. Dyer sent a letter to parents on June 9, 2017, that stated, falsely, according to court papers, that “the high school administration was not aware of and does not condone any censorship of political views on the part of our students.”On June 12, 2017, the student whose logo had been removed appeared on one of Mr. Trump’s favorite programs, “Fox & Friends,” and said, “The people or person who did this should be held responsible because it is a violation of mine and other people’s First Amendment rights.”That same day, Ms. Parsons said, she was summoned to a meeting with Ms. Dyer and was suspended. Days later, Mr. Trump drew more attention to the issue, decrying “yearbook censorship” at the high school in a Facebook post.Susan Parsonsvia Susan ParsonsMs. Dyer said at the time that the yearbook alterations had amounted to “censorship and the possible violation of First Amendment rights.”“This allegation is being taken very seriously and a thorough investigation of what happened is being vigorously pursued,” she said in a statement in 2017. The student dress code did not prevent students from expressing their political views or support for a political figure, she said.Ms. Parsons told The New York Post, “We have never made any action against any political party.” That prompted Ms. Dyer to send an email to Ms. Parsons’s union representative to remind her that she did not have permission to speak to the newspaper, the lawsuit said.Ms. Parsons said the superintendent had cited a district media policy that was like a “gag order” that prevented her from defending herself.Ms. Parsons said she had been told to “white out” a sticker on the back of a student’s computer that read, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”New Jersey Superior CourtMs. Parsons, who said in court papers that she had voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, said she was soon inundated with hate mail and harassing phone messages that called her a Nazi, a communist, anti-American and a “treasonous traitor liberal.”She said she had been afraid to use her name when ordering takeout food and feared that drivers might try to hit her when she went for bike rides.When she returned to school in September 2017, she said, she was “disrespected and ridiculed” by students and others who blamed her for removing the Trump references from the yearbook.She sued the district in May 2019 and retired in February 2020. 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      The Unlikely Issue Upending France: Meatless School Lunches

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      The Green party mayor of Lyon, a gastronomic capital, introduced no-meat menus in schools. Let the anguish begin.LYON — Grégory Doucet, the mild-mannered Green party mayor of Lyon, hardly seems a revolutionary. But he has upended France by announcing last month that elementary school lunch menus for 29,000 Lyonnais children would no longer include meat.An outrage! An ecological diktat that could signal the end of French gastronomy, even French culture! Ministers in President Emmanuel Macron’s government clashed. If Lyon, the city of beef snouts and pigs’ ears, of saucisson and kidneys, could do such a thing, the apocalypse was surely imminent.“The reaction has been quite astonishing,” Mr. Doucet, 47, said.He is a slight man whose mischievous mien and goatee gives him the air of one of Dumas’s three musketeers. A political neophyte elected last year, he clearly finds it a little ludicrous that he, an apostle of less, should end up with more, sitting beneath a 25-foot ceiling in a cavernous mayor’s office adorned with brocade and busts of his forbears. That tweaking a local school menu has split the nation leaves him incredulous.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” he insisted, eyes twinkling — a means to speed up lunches in socially distanced times by offering a single menu rather than the traditional choice of two dishes.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” said the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNot so, thundered Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister. He tweeted that dropping meat was an “unacceptable insult to French farmers and butchers” that betrays “an elitist and moralist” attitude. Julien Denormandie, the agriculture minister, called the mayor’s embrace of the meatless lunch “shameful from a social point of view” and “aberrational from a nutritional point of view.”All of which prompted Barbara Pompili, the minister of ecological transition, to speak of the “prehistoric” views, full of “hackneyed clichés,” of these men, in effect calling two of her cabinet colleagues Neanderthals.This heated exchange over little illustrated several things. Mr. Macron’s government and party, La République en Marche, remain an uneasy marriage of right and left. The rising popularity of the Greens, who run not only Lyon but also Bordeaux and Grenoble, has sharpened a cultural clash between urban environmental crusaders and the defenders of French tradition in the countryside.Not least, nothing gets the French quite as dyspeptic as disagreement over food.The mayor, it must be said, made his move in a city with an intense gastronomic tradition. At the Boucherie François on the banks of the Rhône, a centennial establishment, Lyon’s culture of meat is on ample display. The veal liver and kidneys glistened; cuts of roast beef wrapped in pork fat abounded; the heads of yellow and white chickens lolled on a counter; the saucissons, some with pistachio, took every cylindrical form; the pastry-wrapped pâté showed off a core of foie gras; and pigs’ trotters and ears betrayed this city’s carnivorous inclinations.“The mayor made a mistake,” said François Teixeira, a butcher who has worked at François for 19 years. “This is not good for Lyon’s image.”François Teixeira at his butcher shop in Lyon. “The mayor made a mistake,” he said.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesCertainly, the mayor’s decision came at a sensitive moment. The right in France has expressed indignation that the country is being force-marched, through politically correct environmental dogmatism, toward a future of bicycles, electric cars, veganism, locavores, negative planet-saving growth and general joylessness — something at a very far cry from stuffing goose livers for personal delectation.Last year, Pierre Hurmic, the Green party mayor of Bordeaux, touched a nerve when he rejected the city’s traditional Christmas tree because it’s “a dead tree.” Mr. Doucet’s culinary move was part of “an ideological agenda,” the right-wing weekly Valeurs Actuelles proclaimed in a cover story. “The canteens of Lyon were just a pretext.”Mr. Doucet, who describes himself as a “flexitarian,” or someone who favors vegetables but also eats a little meat, argues that the Education Ministry forced his hand. By doubling social distancing at schools to two meters, or more than six feet, it obliged the mayor to accelerate lunch by offering just one dish.“There’s a mathematical equation,” he said. “You have the same number of tables, but you have to put fewer children at them, and you can’t start the lunch break at 10 a.m.”But why nix meat? The mayor, who has a 7-year-old in elementary school, rolled his eyes. “We have not gone to a vegetarian menu! Every day, the children can eat fish or eggs.” Because a significant number of students already did not eat meat, he said, “we just took the lowest common denominator.”It was not, Mr. Doucet said, an ideological decision, even if he aims over his six-year term to adjust school menus toward “a greater share of vegetable proteins.”The mayor continued: “Most of the time these days there’s not much choice. You don’t have the choice to go to a museum, or to the theater, or to the cinema. It’s indecent for the right-wing opposition to say that I am trampling on our liberties in the context of a state of emergency.”A portrait of Paul Bocuse, one of France’s most celebrated chefs, in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron has adopted a balancing act between his embrace of a Green future and, as he put it last year, his rejection of “the Amish model” for France. The president tries to differentiate rational from punitive or extreme environmentalism.The president, casting his net wide as usual ahead of regional elections in June, wants to appeal to conservative farmers while attracting some of the Green vote. During a recent visit to a farm, he attacked attempts to forge a new agriculture based on “invective, bans and demagoguery.” In an apparent allusion to the Lyon fiasco, he has said “good sense” should prevail in balanced children’s diets and noted that, “We lose a lot of time in idiotic divisions.”His government has proposed a Constitutional amendment, the first since 2008, that, if approved in a referendum, would add a sentence to the effect that France “guarantees the preservation of the environment and biological diversity and fights against climate change.”The right has expressed opposition to the change. It still has to be reviewed by the right-leaning Senate. Another bill sets out possible reforms for a greener future that include banning advertisements for fossil fuels and eliminating some short-haul domestic flights.Mr. Doucet is unimpressed. “Macron is not an ecologist. He is a modern conservative. He knows there’s a problem, so he is ready to make some changes, but he does not measure the size of the problem. Can you tell me one strong step he has taken?”For now, the meatless Lyon school lunches are still being served. Children seem just fine. Last week, a Lyon administrative court rejected an attempt by some parents, agricultural unions and local conservative politicians to overturn the mayor’s decision, ruling that the “temporary simplification” of school menus did not pose a health risk to children.Mr. Doucet says that when the health crisis eases, but not before, he will be able to offer a choice of school menus again, including meat. Meanwhile, Mr. Denormandie, the agriculture minister, has asked the prefect in the Lyon area to look into the legality of dropping meat.Eggs and fish are still being served in school canteens in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Mr. Denormandie’s accusation that we are antisocial is a lie,” Mr. Doucet told me. “He said we were denying meat to the poorest people with the most precarious existences, which is false. He should have been fired at once.”Boris Charetiers, a member of a parents’ association, said the mayor was being closely watched. “We are vigilant,” he said. “We don’t want this to be a definitive decision. Our children cannot be hostages to ecological political conviction.”As for Mr. Teixeira, the butcher, he cast his eye appreciatively over the vast selection of meat. “We have canine teeth for a reason,” he said.Gaëlle Fournier contributed reporting from Paris. More

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      Francia está dispuesta a salvar el planeta. Pero no a costa de la carne

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      El alcalde de Lyon, una capital del mundo gastronómico, decidió introducir un menú sin carne en las escuelas. Y así empezó un debate acalorado en el país.LYON, Francia — Grégory Doucet, el afable alcalde de Lyon y miembro del Partido Verde, no parece un revolucionario. Pero ha puesto patas arriba a Francia al anunciar el mes pasado que los menús de las escuelas primarias para 29.000 niños lioneses ya no incluirán carne.¡Un escándalo! Un decreto ecológico que podría marcar el fin de la gastronomía francesa, ¡incluso de la cultura francesa! Los ministros del gobierno del presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, se enfrentaron. Si Lyon, la ciudad del hocico de ternera y las orejas de cerdo, del saucisson y los riñones, podía hacer algo así, el apocalipsis era sin duda inminente.“La reacción ha sido bastante sorprendente”, dijo Doucet, de 47 años.Es un hombre delgado, con un aire pícaro y una barba de chivo que le da el aspecto de uno de los tres mosqueteros de Dumas. Como neófito político elegido el año pasado, está claro que le parece un poco ridículo que él, un apóstol de lo menos, acabe teniendo más, sentado bajo un techo de siete metros en una cavernosa oficina de alcalde adornada con brocados y bustos de sus predecesores. El hecho de que la modificación de un menú escolar local haya dividido a la nación lo deja incrédulo.“Mi decisión fue puramente pragmática”, insistió, con los ojos brillantes: un medio para agilizar los almuerzos en tiempos de distanciamiento social ofreciendo un único menú en lugar de la tradicional elección de dos platillos.“Mi decisión fue puramente pragmática”, dijo el alcalde de Lyon, Grégory Doucet.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesNo es así, bramó Gérald Darmanin, el ministro del Interior. Tuiteó que la eliminación de la carne era un “insulto inaceptable a los agricultores y carniceros franceses” que delata una actitud “elitista y moralista”. Julien Denormandie, el ministro de Agricultura, calificó de “vergonzoso desde el punto de vista social” y “aberrante desde el punto de vista nutricional” la adopción del alcalde del almuerzo sin carne.Todo ello llevó a Barbara Pompili, ministra de Transición Ecológica, a hablar de los puntos de vista “prehistóricos”, llenos de “clichés trillados”, de estos hombres, llamando neandertales a dos de sus colegas de gabinete.Esta discusión acalorada por poco ilustra varias cosas. El gobierno y el partido de Macron, La République en Marche, siguen siendo un matrimonio incómodo de derecha e izquierda. La creciente popularidad de los Verdes, que dirigen no solo Lyon sino también Burdeos y Grenoble, ha agudizado un choque cultural entre los cruzados ecologistas urbanos y los defensores de la tradición francesa en el campo.Y no hay nada que ponga a los franceses tan malhumorados como el desacuerdo sobre la comida.Hay que decir que el alcalde hizo su jugada en una ciudad con una intensa tradición gastronómica. En la Boucherie François, a orillas del Ródano, un establecimiento centenario, la cultura lionesa de la carne está muy presente. El hígado y los riñones de ternera brillan; abundan los cortes de ternera asada envueltos en grasa de cerdo; las cabezas de pollos amarillos y blancos reposan sobre un mostrador; los saucissons, algunos con pistacho, adoptan todas las formas cilíndricas; el paté envuelto en hojaldre luce un núcleo de foie gras; y las manitas y orejas de cerdo delatan las inclinaciones carnívoras de esta ciudad.“El alcalde se equivocó”, afirma François Teixeira, carnicero que trabaja en François desde hace 19 años. “Esto no es bueno para la imagen de Lyon”.François Teixeira en su carnicería en Lyon. “El alcalde se equivocó”; dijo.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesCiertamente, la decisión del alcalde llega en un momento delicado. La derecha francesa ha expresado su indignación por el hecho de que el país esté siendo conducido a la fuerza, a través de un dogmatismo medioambiental políticamente correcto, hacia un futuro de bicicletas, autos eléctricos, veganismo, localívoros, crecimiento negativo para salvar al planeta y falta de alegría en general, algo que está muy lejos de rellenar hígados de ganso para deleite personal.El año pasado, Pierre Hurmic, alcalde de Burdeos por el Partido Verde, tocó una fibra sensible cuando rechazó el tradicional árbol de Navidad de la ciudad porque es “un árbol muerto”. La medida culinaria de Doucet formaba parte de “una agenda ideológica”, proclamaba el semanario de derecha Valeurs Actuelles en un artículo de portada. “Los comedores escolares de Lyon eran solo un pretexto”.Doucet, quien se describe a sí mismo como “flexitariano”, es decir, alguien que prefiere las verduras, pero que también come un poco de carne, sostiene que el Ministerio de Educación lo obligó a hacerlo. Al duplicar el distanciamiento social en las escuelas a dos metros, o más de dos metros, obligó al alcalde a acelerar el almuerzo ofreciendo un solo plato.“Es una ecuación matemática”, dijo. “Tienes el mismo número de mesas, pero tienes que poner menos niños en ellas, y no puedes empezar la pausa del almuerzo a las 10 a. m.”.Pero ¿por qué suprimir la carne? El alcalde, que tiene un hijo de siete años en la escuela primaria, puso los ojos en blanco. “¡No hemos pasado a un menú vegetariano! Todos los días, los niños pueden comer pescado o huevos”. Como un número importante de alumnos ya no comía carne, dijo, “simplemente tomamos el mínimo común denominador”.No fue, dijo Doucet, una decisión ideológica, aunque su objetivo a lo largo de su mandato sea ajustar los menús escolares hacia “una mayor proporción de proteínas vegetales”.El alcalde continuó: “Hoy en día, la mayoría de las veces no hay muchas opciones. No tienes la opción de ir a un museo, o al teatro, o al cine. Es indecente que la oposición de derecha diga que estoy pisoteando nuestras libertades en el contexto de un estado de emergencia”.Un retrato en Lyon de Paul Bocuse, uno de los chefs más reconocidos de Francia.Andrea Mantovani para The New York TimesMacron ha adoptado un acto de equilibrio entre su abrazo a un futuro verde y, como dijo el año pasado, su rechazo al “modelo Amish” para Francia. El presidente trata de diferenciar el ecologismo racional del punitivo o extremo.El presidente, que como es habitual tiende una red muy amplia de cara a las elecciones regionales de junio, quiere atraer a los agricultores conservadores y a la vez a una parte del voto verde. Durante una reciente visita a una granja, atacó los intentos de forjar una nueva agricultura basada en “invectivas, prohibiciones y demagogia”. En una aparente alusión al fiasco de Lyon, dijo que el “sentido común” debe prevalecer en las dietas equilibradas de los niños y señaló que “perdemos mucho tiempo en divisiones idiotas”.Su gobierno propuso una enmienda constitucional, la primera desde 2008, que, de ser aprobada en referéndum, añadiría una frase en la que Francia “garantiza la preservación del medioambiente y la diversidad biológica y lucha contra el cambio climático”.La derecha expresó su oposición al cambio. Todavía tiene que ser revisado por el Senado, de tendencia derechista. Otro proyecto de ley establece posibles reformas para un futuro más ecológico que incluyen la prohibición de los anuncios de combustibles fósiles y la eliminación de algunos vuelos nacionales de corta distancia.Doucet no está impresionado. “Macron no es un ecologista. Es un conservador moderno. Sabe que hay un problema, así que está dispuesto a hacer algunos cambios, pero no mide el tamaño del problema. ¿Puedes decirme una medida fuerte que haya tomado?”.Por ahora, los almuerzos escolares de Lyon sin carne se siguen sirviendo. Los niños parecen estar bien. El viernes, un tribunal administrativo de Lyon rechazó un intento de algunos padres, sindicatos agrícolas y políticos conservadores locales de anular la decisión del alcalde, dictaminando que la “simplificación temporal” de los menús escolares no suponía un riesgo para la salud de los niños.Doucet afirma que cuando la crisis sanitaria remita, pero no antes, podrá volver a ofrecer una selección de menús escolares que incluya carne. Mientras tanto, Denormandie, el ministro de Agricultura, pidió al prefecto de la zona de Lyon que investigue la legalidad del abandono de la carne.En los comedores escolares de Lyon todavía se sirven huevos y pescado.Andrea Mantovani para The New York Times“La acusación de Denormandie de que somos antisociales es una mentira”, me dijo Doucet. “Dijo que negábamos la carne a las personas más pobres y con vidas más precarias, lo cual es falso. Debería haber sido despedido de inmediato”.Boris Charetiers, miembro de una asociación de padres, dijo que el alcalde estaba siendo observado atentamente. “Estamos vigilantes”, dijo. “No queremos que esta sea una decisión definitiva. Nuestros hijos no pueden ser rehenes de una convicción política ecológica”.En cuanto a Teixeira, el carnicero, dirigió la mirada con aprecio a la amplia selección de carne. “Por algo tenemos dientes caninos”, dijo.Gaëlle Fournier colaboró con el reportaje desde París.Roger Cohen es el jefe de la oficina de París del Times. Fue columnista de Opinión de 2009 a 2020. Ha trabajado para el Times durante más de 30 años y se ha sido corresponsal extranjero y editor extranjero. Criado en Sudáfrica y Gran Bretaña, es un estadounidense naturalizado. @NYTimesCohen More

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      Florida Finds Election Fraud in High School Homecoming Votes

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      A student and her mother were arrested after the authorities found more than 100 votes suspiciously cast from a single school login.MIAMI — The report about vote tampering reached the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in early November: Someone had gained access to electronic accounts without authorization. At least 117 votes had been suspiciously cast — in J.M. Tate High School’s election for homecoming court.It was a case reminiscent of the 1999 dark comedy film “Election.”Department agents arrested Laura Carroll, 50, and her daughter, Emily Grover, 17, on Monday and charged them with conspiracy to use Ms. Carroll’s school district login to help Ms. Grover get elected homecoming queen.Laura Rose Carroll was arrested on Monday in Escambia County, Fla.The Escambia County Department of CorrectionsA five-month investigation found that the login for Ms. Carroll, an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary School near Pensacola, was used to gain access to the internal accounts of 372 Tate High students since August. The accounts include personal information such as students’ grades, medical history and disciplinary records.Students use the same accounts with an application to cast votes for homecoming.Ms. Grover often spoke about obtaining students’ information using her mother’s login, eight students and one teacher said in witness statements.“She looks up all of our group of friends’ grades and makes comments about how she can find our test scores all of the time,” one of the witnesses said, according to the arrest affidavits.Escambia County School District employees are supposed to change their password to log in to the internal system every 45 days.One witness told the agents that Ms. Grover had said she knew using her mother’s login would result in a “ping” that showed that Ms. Carroll had logged on at Tate High. Agents interviewed Ms. Carroll in November and knocked on her door last month to talk further, but she referred them to her lawyer, according to her arrest affidavit.Ms. Grover was expelled, according to police records, a decision that the family contested, but the expulsion was upheld. Ms. Carroll was suspended from her job, Tim Smith, the superintendent of the Escambia public schools, said in an email. He declined to comment further.Ms. Carroll was taken into custody on Monday and released on $8,500 bail. Ms. Grover was sent to juvenile detention for an evaluation, according to the Department of Law Enforcement.Through her lawyer, Ms. Carroll declined to comment. “She’d love to give out her side of the story, but it would probably be after we resolve the case,” the lawyer, Randall J. Etheridge, said.The school district’s elections contractor contacted school administrators in October after flagging more than 100 votes that were cast in a short period of time, all from the same unique IP address. The student council coordinator also heard reports that Ms. Grover had boasted about using her mother’s login to get into students’ accounts during the election, according to witness statements.Investigators later determined through IP addresses that 124 votes had been cast from Ms. Carroll’s phone, and 122 from Ms. Carroll’s and Ms. Grover’s residence.On Oct. 30, Ms. Grover was elected homecoming queen.Jack Begg contributed research. More

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      Trump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyThe conversationTrump 2.0 Looks an Awful Lot Like Trump 2020Are we really going to do this again?Gail Collins and Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are opinion columnists. They converse every week.March 1, 2021Credit…Mark Peterson for The New York TimesBret Stephens: I don’t know about you, Gail, but watching Donald Trump’s speech at the CPAC conference in Orlando brought to mind that Michael Corleone line: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Here we were, barely a month into the Biden presidency, thinking we could finally put one American disaster behind us and have normal arguments about normal subjects, and now we may be staring at the worst sequel of all time.The idea of another Trump presidential run is worse than “The Godfather Part III.” It’s “Dumb and Dumberer” meets “Friday the 13th Part VIII.”Gail Collins: Well, he made it very clear he’s planning on a “triumphant return to the White House.” If you folks want to save the Republican Party, you’re going to have to take him on.Bret: I’ve always wanted to write a musical called “The Mitt and I.”Gail: Seeing Trump so clearly gearing up for another presidential run brought me back to an ongoing argument we’ve been having. Third parties. Am I to understand you’re a fan?Bret: I’m not a fan of third parties that have no hope of winning elections and mainly serve as vanity projects for the likes of Ross Perot or Ralph Nader. And I’m obviously not a fan of extremist parties, whether they are of the George Wallace or Henry Wallace varieties.On the other hand, I’d be a fan of a right-of-center party that can replace the current Republican Party, one that believes in the virtues of small government and personal responsibility without being nativist and nasty.Gail: A lovely idea, but it’s not going to work. Nobody’s ever made it work. We’ve already seen an exodus of moderates and sane conservatives from the Republican Party, leaving it even loopier. And Trump is threatening to start a third party of his own, or at least he was, which would split things even more.Feel free to daydream about the perfect, sane, moderate alternative Republican Party, Bret, but no chance.Bret: Well, Abe Lincoln made it work by building a party on the wreckage of the Whigs.Gail: Not going to interject that it took a civil war …Bret: And there’s a political moment here. Gallup released a poll two weeks ago showing that 62 percent of Americans believe that “parties do such a poor job representing the American people that a third party is needed.” Among self-identified Republicans, the number was a notch higher: 63 percent. I think you are underestimating the number of people who feel they’ve been abandoned by a Republican Party that became a whacked-out cult of personality under Trump. What’s missing isn’t an agenda; it’s a galvanizing personality to lead a new movement.Gail: Which galvanizing personality do you have in mind — Mitt Romney?Bret: Given what happened to the G.O.P., I bet you sometimes wish he’d won back in 2012.Gail: Um, no. But let’s look at now. Reforming the current Republican Party would mean a million grass-roots battles to retake the base. Understandable that people would just prefer to start a new movement — much less nasty infighting. Just sincere get-togethers of like-minded people, holding barbecues and giving interviews to folks like us who are desperate to think this could work.But you could never create a massive 50-state party structure, with enough voters willing to make the very large decision of abandoning the party they’ve identified with forever. More

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      A Letter to My Liberal Friends

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyA Letter to My Liberal FriendsIf you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 1, 2021, 8:08 p.m. ETCredit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressLast Wednesday, Nick Kristof addressed his column to his conservative hometown friends in Yamhill, Ore., urging them to hold liberals accountable while doing the same for right-wing extremists, kooks and charlatans. In that spirit — and with Nick’s cheerful acquiescence — I offer a rejoinder in the form of a letter to my liberal friends.Dear Friends,No, I can’t relax! And no, I’m not worried that the Biden administration is going to send Trump voters to “re-education camps,” impose Cuban-style socialism or put out the welcome mat for MS-13. I’m just afraid that today’s Democratic leaders might look to the very Democratic state of California as a model for America’s future.You remember California: People used to want to move there, start businesses, raise families, live their American dream.These days, not so much. Between July 2019 and July 2020, more people — 135,400 to be precise — left the state than moved in, one of only a dozen times in over a century when that’s happened. The website exitcalifornia.org helps keep track of where these Golden State exiles go. No. 1 destination: Texas, followed by Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Three of those states have no state income tax, while Arizona’s is capped at 4.5 percent for married couples making over $318,000.In California, by contrast, married couples pay more than twice that rate on income above $116,000. (And rates go even higher for higher earners.) Californians also pay some of the nation’s highest sales tax rates (8.66 percent) and corporate tax rates (8.84 percent), as well as the highest taxes on gasoline (63 cents on a gallon as of January, as compared with 20 cents in Texas).Some of my liberal friends tell me that tax rates basically don’t matter in terms of the way people work and economies perform. Uh-huh. Still, I’d have an easier time accepting the argument if all those taxes went toward high-quality government services: good schools, safe streets, solid infrastructure or fiscal health.How does California fare on these fronts? The state ranks 21st in the country in terms of spending per public school pupil, but 37th in its K-12 educational outcomes. It ties Oregon for third place among states in terms of its per capita homeless rate. Infrastructure? As of 2019, the state had an estimated $70 billion in deferred maintenance backlog. Debt? The state’s unfunded pension liabilities in 2019 ran north of $1.1 trillion, according to an analysis by Stanford professor Joe Nation, or $81,300 per household.And then there’s liberal governance in the cities. In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin has championed the calls for decriminalizing prostitution, public urination, public camping, blocking sidewalks and open-air drug use. Click this link and take a brief stroll through a local train station to see how these sorts of policies work out.Predictably, a result of decriminalization has been more actual criminality. Recent trends include an estimated 51 percent jump in San Francisco burglaries and a 41 percent jump in arsons. For the Bay Area as a whole, there has been a 35 percent spike in homicides.Yes, homicides have been rising in cities around the country. But those trends themselves owe much to liberal governance in like-minded jurisdictions like Seattle and New York, with their recent emphasis on depolicing, decarceration, defunding, decriminalization and other deluded attempts at criminal-justice reform.Funny, you don’t hear this about the places Californians are fleeing to. Austin, the preferred destination of San Francisco exiles, remains one of the safest big cities in America (and it’s run by a Democrat). Another thing you don’t hear from Texas: a board of education voting — as San Francisco’s just did — to strip the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Paul Revere from their respective schools, on grounds of sinning against the more recent commandments of progressive dogma. Not that it really matters, since all these schools remain closed for in-person learning thanks to the resistance of teachers unions.And then there is California’s political class. Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats, 42 of its 53 seats in the House, have lopsided majorities in the State Assembly and Senate, run nearly every big city and have controlled the governor’s mansion for a decade. If ever there was a perfect laboratory for liberal governance, this is it. So how do you explain these results?For four years, liberals have had a hard time understanding how any American could even think of voting for Republicans, given the party’s fealty to the former president. I’ve shared some of that bewilderment myself. But — to adapt a line from another notorious Californian — Democrats won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, meaning the consequences of liberal misrule will be harder to disguise or disavow. If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur.My unsolicited advice: Like Republicans, Democrats do best when they govern from the center. Forget California, think Colorado. A purple country needs a purple president — and a political opposition with the credibility to keep him honest.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      New York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?By deferring decisions on desegregating schools, Mayor Bill de Blasio has pushed those choices onto his successor — and into the race to replace him.The admissions process for elite schools like Stuyvesant High School has become one of the most fraught political issues in New York City.Credit…Christopher Lee for The New York TimesJan. 29, 2021Updated 8:12 a.m. ETDuring a recent forum on education, a moderator asked the crowded field of Democrats running to be New York City’s next mayor a question they may not have wanted to answer: How would they approach the fraught issue of admissions into the city’s selective schools, where Black and Latino students are starkly underrepresented? A few of the candidates’ eyes widened when they heard the prompt, and some avoided furnishing a direct answer, resorting instead to vague language.“There are a lot of things we need to do in this direction,” said Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate. Raymond J. McGuire, a Wall Street executive, noted that the issue had “historic significance.” Those halting responses illustrate just how incendiary school integration still is in this proudly liberal city. But with the Democratic primary just five months away, the candidates have little choice but to confront school segregation, which has divided New Yorkers for a half-century. An influential activist movement led by city students is accelerating pressure on the candidates to make clear how integration would fit into their plans to reshape New York’s public school system, the nation’s largest. And a national reckoning over racism has forced the candidates to square the city’s self-image as a progressive bastion with its unequal school system. During the last few weeks alone, the candidates have been asked about their positions on radio and television interviews, in multiple forums, and in a series of New York Times interviews. Together, their responses revealed sharp differences in how they are approaching some of the most contentious integration policies.New York City is home to one of the most segregated school systems in America, in part because of the city’s labyrinth admissions process for selective schools. Housing segregation and school zone lines have produced a divided school system that has been compounded by competitive admissions that separate students by race and class as early as kindergarten.Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a sweeping set of changes to how hundreds of racially segregated selective schools admit their students — but left most of the details up to the next administration.Some of the mayoral hopefuls are in favor of addressing the extreme underrepresentation of Black and Latino students in selective schools by overhauling gifted and talented programs and changing admissions for competitive middle schools and elite high schools. Others are offering less sweeping approaches. And several candidates declined to say anything definitive about those proposals, or said they would mostly maintain the existing system.Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, with his son Max. Mr. Stringer had previously avoided integration debates, but has recently moved to the left along with his party.Credit…Kholood Eid for The New York TimesThe most progressive candidates, including Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, are hoping to differentiate themselves from the pack by declaring their intentions to push potentially disruptive change that could spur integration.There are subtle differences even within that lane: Maya Wiley, a former de Blasio administration official who has been a leading figure in the pro-integration movement, sometimes gave conspicuously broad answers to direct questions about the policies she would implement as mayor. Mr. Stringer, who had assiduously avoided integration debates even in his own neighborhood, has recently moved to the left along with his party. Shaun Donovan, the former secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, has released the most detailed education policy plan so far, saying he would eliminate most academic prerequisites for middle school admissions and add weighted lotteries to further integrate those schools.More centrist hopefuls like Mr. McGuire, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, all promised to expand selective programs and schools, rather than fundamentally change them. That position is shared by Mr. Yang, the former head of a test preparation company, who declined an interview. Some education experts believe that desegregation is one of the few remaining levers available for improving academic outcomes for the city’s vulnerable students, many of whom have had little choice but to enroll in low-performing schools.“The plainest way to think of integration is that it is a proven and effective school improvement strategy,” said Matt Gonzales, the director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at New York University’s Metro Center. Decades of research supports that view — not because there is alchemy found in diverse classrooms, but because integration redistributes resources, funding and power across schools. Mr. Gonzales said the candidates’ positions on this issue are not merely a signal of their progressive bona fides, but an essential way of understanding their approach to education. Mr. de Blasio’s education agenda has largely not included desegregation measures, and he has left major decisions related to integration to the next mayor. Dianne Morales, who is running to be the first Afro-Latina mayor, has among the strongest pro-integration positions of any of the candidates.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesHe has largely ignored a recommendation, made by a school integration group he convened, that the city should replace gifted and talented programs with magnet schools and enrichment programs. The next administration will likely have to respond. Mr. de Blasio said this month that he would soon scrap the current gifted exam given to 4-year-olds against the advice of many experts, though the city’s educational panel may force him to end the test immediately. But most of the candidates had already committed to changing that test, and will now have to determine whether to alter the program itself. And last month, Mr. de Blasio paused the use of academic prerequisites for middle school admissions for at least a year because of the pandemic. That will leave it up to the next mayor to decide whether to make that policy permanent — or end it. Ms. Wiley, who helped craft that proposal as a leader of the mayor’s integration group, said she would end middle school screening, as did Ms. Morales. Some candidates tried to find a middle ground: Mr. Stringer and Mr. McGuire said they would consider this year a pilot program, and make a permanent decision next year. Ms. Garcia said she would look at changes on a district-by-district basis, and Mr. Yang expressed skepticism about eliminating middle school screening during a recent forum.Gifted education is a third-rail issue because the programs have long been seen as a way to keep white families in public schools, and have been embraced by some middle-class families of color as alternatives to low-performing neighborhood schools. But some experts have argued that gifted schools have created a two-tiered system that caters to families with the resources to navigate it. Roughly 75 percent of students in gifted classes are white or Asian-American. Mr. Stringer said that his own children, who are in gifted programs, had benefited from a flawed system because of their parents’ privilege. “I recognize as a parent, I’m going to do everything I can to do the best for my kid,” he said. “But as mayor, I have to do what’s best for every child.” Mr. Yang offered a starkly different message in a recent forum, arguing that some parents would flee the city without gifted classes. “Families are looking up and saying, ‘Is New York where my kids are going to flourish?’” Mr. Adams and Ms. Garcia said they would create more gifted classes in low-income neighborhoods, the favored policy position of many supporters of gifted programs. Activists have said that expanding gifted would only contribute to an inherently unfair system. Mr. McGuire said he would not “dismantle the programs, but I’d take a close look to make sure it’s fair and achieving its purpose.” Some candidates seemed eager to please all sides on the contentious if narrow issue of the entry exam for eight elite high schools, which is partially controlled by the State Legislature. In 2018, Mr. de Blasio started a campaign to eliminate the test. His effort failed after many low-income Asian-American families, whose children are overrepresented in the schools, mounted a massive effort to oppose the city’s plan. “I support efforts to desegregate the schools,” Raymond McGuire said in an interview. “This is basic equity, and it needs to happen.”Credit…Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesMr. Adams’ record on the issue demonstrates why so many politicians have tried to avoid staking out a position on the test. The borough president had long opposed the exam, and compared the specialized schools to “a Jim Crow school system.” But just a few weeks after he appeared at a news conference to trumpet the mayor’s plan, Mr. Adams reversed course following an outcry from some parents, particularly Asian Americans. Ms. Wiley has been a consistent critic of the exam, which she called discriminatory, but did not say exactly how she would approach the issue as mayor. Ms. Morales, Mr. Stringer and Brooklyn City Councilman Carlos Menchaca said that they would eliminate the exam.Ms. Morales graduated from Stuyvesant High School in the 1980s, and has watched with despair as the number of Black and Latino students at the school has dwindled. She said that going through the admissions process with her own children felt like an “obstacle course of barriers, targeted toward the people who are best positioned to overcome them.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. McGuire, Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have said they would keep the exam in place, but promised to build additional specialized schools. That strategy was already tried by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but has not led to greater diversity. The candidates have mostly not provided specifics for how their approach would differ.That came as no surprise to Christina Greer, a professor of political science at Fordham University, who expects the candidates to remain vague to avoid offending voters. “A lot of liberals like integration in theory, as long as it doesn’t touch their children at all,” she said. “For a lot of politicians, integration is a no-win.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More