In 2016, students at five public schools in Detroit sued the state government for failing to provide them with even the most basic public education. Their teachers were overworked, their school buildings were falling apart, and students frequently lacked the resources to achieve reading and writing proficiency. Their complaint asserted that they were being denied a basic right: the right to literacy.
In this episode, we introduce the concept of a right to literacy. Our guests discuss why literacy ought to be considered the foundation upon which other rights rest. The ability to read and write is a necessary precondition not only for personal success in the American economy, but full civic participation in American society. Without a literate population, we cannot have democracy.
The episode then widens the definition of literacy to discuss the intersection of literacy, education, and incarceration. The carceral system funnels those who cannot read and write into prisons, and denies them educational opportunities once they get there. Our guests discuss their educational experiences while incarcerated, and frame education as an essential pathway to personal fulfillment and development rather than only a tool to gain employment and participate in democracy. Meanwhile, they discuss how knowledge and skills that do not align with traditional notions of literacy are overlooked and undervalued.
Finally, we circle back to the future of a right to literacy. After the lawsuit asserting the right to literacy ended in settlement, the legal path forward for a national constitutional right to literacy remains unclear. Nevertheless, the concept of a right to literacy has changed the conversation about what every child needs and deserves, and it continues to be a powerful guiding light for advocates and organizers.
Featuring
Jamarria Hall
Social Entrepreneur , Philanthropist , Philosopher for Quality Education, and lead plaintiff in Gary B. v. Whitmer
“I think oftentimes we think that we inherit the land from our ancestors. But we often forget that we’re borrowing it from our children.”
Mark Rosenbaum
Director for Strategic Litigation at Public Counsel and lead plaintiffs’ attorney in Gary B. v. Whitmer.
“The legal theory wasn’t complicated. It went to the basic definition of liberty and what an ordered system of liberty demanded. That was that children be able to have the opportunity to learn to read and write.”
Judith Clark
Community Justice Advocate at Hour Children
“If you really want to talk about how to begin to create safer communities, the safest communities are well-resourced communities.”
Selina Fulford
Special Consultant for the City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene & Member of the College and Community Fellowship
“The right to literacy while incarcerated is perfect because it gives people in prison the opportunity to earn degrees. And people with degrees don’t recidivate.”
Dr. Mika’il DeVeaux
Lecturer at Nassau Community College (SUNY), Co-Founder & Executive Director of Citizens Against Recidivism, Inc., & Director of the Citizens’ Muslim Re-Entry Initiative
“[N]o matter how dire a situation might be, you need to give people hope.”
Lillian Mitchell
Retired Teacher and Adjunct Professor
“[I]t takes a village to teach a child and we have to keep enforcing that children learn to read, and learn how to communicate in different environments.”
Reading Literacy in the United States
Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.
-Frederick Douglass
Gary B. was not the first time that activists argued that the neglect of Black and Brown students by the public education system was a violation of those students’ constitutional rights. The clip above shows Robert Carr, Executive Director of the National Bar Association, asserting that the ongoing gap in educational outcomes between children of different races is unconstitutional at a congressional hearing in 2009. Source: C-SPAN
“[T]here has been a river of this long lasting struggle for liberation in education equity going on for a while now. [T]he masses of the world, the masses of citizens, have never been fully literate. We’ve never had the access to an opportunity to be fully literate to our maximized potential.”
–Jamarria Hall
The struggle for liberation through literacy has a long history in the United States. Literacy was a threat to the institution of slavery, so many states passed laws forbidding teaching Black people (both free and enslaved) to read during the 19th century. Black Americans educated themselves and each other nonetheless through a variety of creative means. For example, Reverend John Berry Meachum, a formerly enslaved person, transformed a steamship into the “Floating Freedom School.” The school was anchored in the middle of the Mississippi River, in federal waters outside of the jurisdiction of Missouri’s anti-literacy laws. Sources: Colette Coleman, How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery; Sydney Stallworth, Black History: The ‘Freedom School’ that floated on the Mississippi River in the 1800s.
Gary B. v. Whitmer
“Literacy is, and always has been, uniquely significant to American civic life because it is essential to the maintenance of a robust and well-functioning democracy and plays a determinative role in the economic participation, wellbeing, and life chances of individuals.”
-Complaint in Gary B. v. Whitmer
While education in reading literacy is insufficient throughout the country, it was especially bad for students in Detroit’s public school system. Detroit public schools, especially those serving low-income students from Black and Brown neighborhoods, suffered from state mismanagement, underfunding, and overcrowding. Appalling conditions made it difficult, if not impossible, for students to learn even the most basic skills that public education is meant to teach, like reading.
Students at five Detroit public schools sued the state, stating that they were being denied the most basic education they needed to function in society, in Gary B. v. Snyder (later changed to Gary B. v. Whitmer). The students argued for a constitutional “right to literacy” — asserting that a free democracy requires citizens to be able to read. The court agreed, calling access to literacy a “fundamental right.” Listen to the oral arguments in the case below:
Despite this legal victory, the right to literacy would have almost certainly been struck down by conservative-dominated higher courts on appeal. The plaintiffs and their lawyers decided to settle the case for $94.4 million. While that money will certainly make a difference for Detroit students, Hall and Rosenbaum both agreed that it was not enough to give Detroit students the education they deserve.
Literacy in Prison
“I had a sentence of 75 years to life. And I had to struggle–as everyone does, with any amount of time, but certainly those of us who come in with long time– to have a way of believing that I could make a meaningful life for myself. And one of the first things that I did was sign up to go to college.”
-Judith Clark
The failure of the education system to teach children basic reading literacy has a strong relationship with incarceration. Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up incarcerated or on welfare. 70% of all incarcerated adults cannot read at a fourth-grade level.
Educating people who are incarcerated is, according to Selina Fulford and Dr. Mika’il DeVeaux, one of the best ways to prevent recidivism and help incarcerated people reintegrate into society.
Incarcerated people are overwhelmingly motivated to pursue education — 70% want to pursue a postsecondary education, but there are few opportunities to move beyond an associate degree. As a result, less than 1% of incarcerated people complete a bachelor’s degree while incarcerated. Higher education in prison used to be more accessible, but the federal government cut funding for educating incarcerated people in 1994, making higher education practically impossible for most incarcerated people. Now, almost three decades later, there are still far fewer educational opportunities available for incarcerated people than there were in the 1990s. Even prison libraries are being gutted, denying incarcerated people the opportunity to educate themselves.
Resources
Heather Andrea Williams, “Clothing Themselves in Intelligence”: The Freedpeople, Schooling, and Northern Teachers, 1861-1871, 87 New Perspectives on African American Educational History 372-389 (Autumn 2002).
The complaint in Gary B. v. Whitmer (formerly Gary B. v. Snyder)
The opinion in Gary B. v. Whitmer
Transcript
Credits
Production
Written, edited, and produced by Helena Brittain, Robert Kreklau, and Noah Howard.
References
Adult Literacy in the United States, National Center for Education Statistics (July 2019), https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp.
Colette Coleman, How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery, History (June 17, 2020), https://www.history.com/news/nat-turner-rebellion-literacy-slavery.
Early Literacy Connection to Incarceration, Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation, https://governorsfoundation.org/gelf-articles/early-literacy-connection-to-incarceration/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20National%20Assessment,system%20are%20functionally%20low%20literate.
Governor Whitmer and Plaintiffs Announce Settlement in Landmark Gary B. Literacy Case, Governor Gretchen Whitmer (May 14, 2020), https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/news/press-releases/2020/05/14/governor-whitmer-and-plaintiffs-announce-settlement-in-landmark-gary-b–literacy-case.
Heidi Rivera, What to know about attending college in prison, Bankrate (Dec. 11, 2023), https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/attending-college-while-incarcerated/.
Juan Martinez-Hill, Incarcerated Students Will Have Access to Pell Grants Again. What Happens Now?, Vera (Mar. 4, 2021), https://www.vera.org/news/incarcerated-students-will-have-access-to-pell-grants-again-what-happens-now#:~:text=The%201994%20crime%20bill%20stripped,a%20college%20education%20practically%20unattainable.
Kirsten Weir, Inequality at School, American Psychological Association (November 2016), https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school#:~:text=For%20decades%2C%20black%20students%20in,the%20rate%20was%2073%20percent.
Moira Marquis, Reading isn’t a crime, but the state of prison libraries is a punishment, Hill (Nov. 7, 2023), https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/4295762-reading-isnt-a-crime-but-the-state-of-prison-libraries-is-a-punishment/.
Monique Ositelu, Equipping Individuals for Life Beyond Bars: Results, New America Foundation (Nov. 4, 2019), https://www.newamerica.org/education-policy/reports/equipping-individuals-life-beyond-bars/results/.
Nicola Miranda, The Impact of Illiteracy and the Importance of Early Intervention, World Literacy Foundation (July 23, 2021), https://worldliteracyfoundation.org/early-intervention-reduces-illiteracy/.
The Relationship Between Incarceration and Low Literacy, Literacy Mid-South (Mar. 16), https://www.literacymidsouth.org/news/the-relationship-between-incarceration-and-low-literacy.
Sydney Stallworth, Black History: The ‘Freedom School’ that floated on the Mississippi River in the 1800s, KSDK (Feb. 27, 2023), https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/black-history/freedom-school-mississippi-river-black-history-month/63-654ae54b-f47e-4ead-bf57-4503deca8c51.
Wendy Sawyer, Since You Asked: How did the 1994 crime bill affect prison college programs?, Prison Policy (Aug. 22, 2019), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/08/22/college-in-prison/.
Music & Sound
Oral arguments in Gary B. v. Whitmer: Court Listener (Oct. 24, 2019), https://www.courtlistener.com/audio/66049/gary-b-v-gretchen-whitmer/.
Sound effects courtesy of https://freesound.org/.
Images
Data on reading proficiency by race — graphic generated using: NAEP Data Explorer, The Nation’s Report Card, https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ndecore/xplore/NDE.
John Berry Meachum portrait: State Historical Society of Missouri, UMSL Black History Project Photograph Collection (S0336), photo no. 336.638
Judith Clark headshot: Judith Clark. Photo by Nan Goldin. https://judithclark.org/.
Mark Rosenbaum headshot: Mark Rosenbaum, Public Counsel, https://publiccounsel.org/staff/mark-rosenbaum/.
Mika’il DeVeaux headshot: Mika’il DeVeaux, Ph.D., https://www.mdeveaux.org/index.html.
Osborn High School: By Pverdonk – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76030152.
Photograph of graduates: Alaa Elassar, A group of California inmates just earned bachelor’s degrees while behind bars, CNN (Oct. 10, 2021), https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/10/us/california-prison-graduation-bachelors-degrees/index.html.
Photograph of protestors in Detroit: Detroit students demand right to literacy in education, Fighting Words (Oct. 23, 2019), https://fighting-words.net/2019/10/23/detroit-students-demand-right-to-literacy-in-education/.
Reading literacy map: Annie Waldman et al., A Fifth of American Adults Struggle to Read. Why Are We Failing to Teach Them?, ProPublica (Dec. 14, 2022), https://www.propublica.org/article/literacy-adult-education-united-states.
Robert Carr testimony: Education Achievement Gap: forum hosted by Representative Bobby Scott, C-SPAN (Dec. 14, 2009), https://www.c-span.org/video/?290657-1/education-achievement-gap.