To the editor:
The Alexandria Times’ June 25 story, “Kickstarting a conversation,” on Jaqueline Tucker’s brief tenure as city hall’s equity officer presented a one-sided view. This sort of story should have at least devoted a few paragraphs to views such as Paul Taylor’s succinctly stated opposition to the philosophy Tucker brings to the job, particularly since Taylor’s letter credibly implies the philosophy reflects an illegal interpretation of civil rights law.
The “millennial moment” occasioned by minority and white millennials side-by-side in the streets does not change the basic underlying legal framework which calls into question the concepts on which city hall is training staff.
Under pressure from immigration advocates, President Barack Obama repeatedly insisted that he could not legally or constitutionally do what they wanted, according to politifact.com. Only when his administration concluded that no one had legal standing to sue if he did, did his ad- ministration move forward with the immigration policies Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, DAPA.
DACA was the Obama Administration’s moment of perdition where it went from being lawful and unifying to being lawless and divisive. Our city hall has now done the same, implementing a potentially unconstitutional training scheme which no one has legal standing to challenge. Journalistic responsibility insists that, in more than 48 column inches, a few paragraphs at least should have addressed this aspect.
Where the minority and white millennials side-by-side in the streets do not seem to understand that civil rights is a complex subject, newspapers have a responsibility to parse that complexity.
-Dino Drudi, Alexandria
