Abstract
This chapter examines the following central question: How do direct democratic ballot initiatives affect the public good? A second, related question is this: When voters collectively make policy decisions, what responsibilities do researchers have to contribute to informing public deliberation about the relevant issues? In an attempt to answer these questions, we investigate how the direct democratic ballot initiative process, increasingly—and controversially—used to allow citizens to make education policy decisions, may serve to enhance or constrain the public good. The education policies affected by ballot initiatives, such as affirmative action and bilingual education, often concern issues of race, civil rights, and equality of educational opportunity. This analysis relies on political philosophy through the lens of deliberative democratic theory, relying in particular on the work of Amy Gutmann and Iris Marion Young. The more theoretical analyses are grounded in data from a recent empirical study on whether deliberative community dialogues on race-conscious policy issues serve to inform the dialogue participants. The aims of this chapter are to provide greater understanding of the education-policy-by-ballot-initiative phenomenon, bring to light the possibilities of “tyranny of the majority” when policies having to do with civil rights are left up to popular vote, and make the case that researchers ought to use their expertise in the service of public information and deliberation and, ultimately, the public good. Although scholars have addressed concerns about majority tyranny in ballot initiative votes (see Gamble, 1997; Guinier, 1994), to our knowledge no one else has examined this concern related to education policy ballot initiatives. Because they concern education, a social institution that is centrally implicated in fostering democracy and creating citizens (Gutmann, 1987), ballot initiatives on education policy ought to be scrutinized in detail, perhaps more so than other public policy ballot measures.
Education policies that have been placed on state ballots often affect minority populations directly (Moses & Farley, 2011; Sabato, Ernst, & Larson, 2001). Yet they are being decided by a democratic process based in majority rule. And whereas in the past these policies were determined by “experts” assumed to possess deep knowledge of the issues—policymakers and political representatives—citizens now hold the power (and responsibility). This shift in policymaking responsibility from experts to citizens means that in order to promote fair and equitable policy decisions, voters should have access to meaningful information about the policy. In light of the increasing role of the public in policy decisions, which some would argue is a good thing for democracy (Bowler & Donovan, 2000; Gerber, 1999; D. A. Smith & Tolbert, 2004), there is a need for researchers (i.e., experts) to contribute information to the public.
In what follows, we first explain our methods of inquiry and analysis. Deliberative democratic theory provides the theoretical lens for our examination. After describing the theory and how we used it, we delve into the policy context, explaining how direct democracy functions in the United States and the use of state ballot initiatives in education policy. We move then to an analysis of direct democracy that includes the primary arguments for and against its use, specifically in the form of state ballot initiatives. We pay special attention to the threat of majority tyranny inherent in ballot initiative votes. This responds directly to our first research question regarding how ballot initiatives might affect the public good. Finally, we address the second research question, using an example from a study of community dialogues about affirmative action and making an argument for researchers to use their expertise in the service of public information and deliberation, and ultimately, the public good. Before outlining our methods, it is important first to outline what we mean by the “public good.”
There is no one definition of the “public good”; its meaning will depend on people’s worldviews and sociopolitical perspectives. A liberal society constrains individual liberty insofar as it “demands compliance with the principles of freedom and equality” (Kymlicka, 1995, p. 369). But, as Kymlicka pointed out, “each person has an equal claim to consideration” (p. 375). He went on to say,
Liberals . . . believe that citizens will accept the burdens of justice even in their relations with people who have very different conceptions of the good. Conflicting conceptions can be tolerated because the public recognition of principles of justice is sufficient to ensure stability even in the face of such conflicts. (p. 375)
Putting aside possible competing conceptions of the (individual) good, in this chapter we understand the notion of the public good in democratic terms, related to democratic capacities. As Macedo (2005) noted, democratic participation and civic engagement hinge on three factors: quantity, quality, and equality. It is argued that the democratic public good must be inclusive; as such, minority inclusion is crucial from the standpoint of the genuine public good. According to a democratic ideal, public policy should not hinder the public good—that is, it should not degrade citizens’ capacity for democratic deliberation or participation. It also should not hinder the ability of citizens to pursue their conception of a good and just life. The democratic ideal we have in mind is inextricably linked with deliberative democracy, which according to Gutmann (1999) has as a guiding principle:
reciprocity among free and equal individuals: citizens and their accountable representatives owe one another justifications for the laws that collectively bind them. . . . To the extent that democracy is not deliberative, it treats people as objects of legislation, as passive subjects to be ruled, rather than as citizens who take part in governance by accepting or rejecting the reasons they and their accountable representatives offer for the laws and policies that mutually bind them. (p. xii)
Gutmann (1999) encourages a robust view of political engagement in the service of the public good. It is this reciprocal and inclusive sense of the public good that we invoke in this chapter. For public policies to be compatible with this democratic notion of the public good, they ought to embody the principles of deliberation, reciprocity, and inclusion.
A Note on Methods
Our modes of inquiry for this chapter are primarily philosophical. Using the analytical tools of political philosophy, we examine dialectically the ways that direct democratic ballot initiatives affect the public good. In so doing, we evaluate the most common arguments for and against such initiatives, using justice 1 as the central evaluative concept. This philosophical method follows Gutmann’s (1999) by exploring “implications of democratic principles for educational [and political] practice” and refining “the principles in light of their practical implications” (p. 17).
We then use these theoretical principles to evaluate a case study of applied deliberative democratic theory in an education policy context. We analyze data from a study conducted in Colorado in the fall of 2008, when the state was poised to vote on an anti–affirmative action ballot initiative. The study centered on a dozen community dialogue sessions on affirmative action policy held in the Boulder–Denver area. The study had three components: (a) community dialogue sessions, which were video and/or audio recorded; (b) two questionnaires that the 80 dialogue participants filled out both before and after participating in the dialogue; and (c) follow-up interviews and questionnaires with 20 dialogue participants who prior to their dialogue session had expressed willingness to participate in a follow-up interview. These data, which we have presented in greater detail previously (Moses, Farley, & Saenz, 2010), provide a concrete touchstone for our more abstract arguments.
Theoretical Framework
Our analyses rely on deliberative democratic theory. According to Gutmann (1987), “democracy is a political idea—of a society whose adult members are, and continue to be, equipped by their education and authorized by political structures to share in ruling” (p. xi). Her idea of deliberative democracy is premised from the notion that contemporary democratic political life necessarily includes moral disagreements and conflicts related to values and politics. As Macedo (1999) pointed out,
[T]hese moral conflicts call upon citizens themselves to act as reason givers and reason demanders: Our institutions and practices should be arranged so as to encourage citizens to grapple with these moral conflicts, to seek reasons that can be accepted by their fellow citizens. (p. 5)
The ballot initiative introduces new challenges to democracy, as, in the case of affirmative action, relatively nonexpert citizens are asked to decide individually on a race-conscious education policy that directly affects their fellow citizens. As such, voters are weighing in on the moral disagreement about affirmative action, and there is a direct policy consequence from ballot initiative votes.
Since such moral conflicts and disagreements are seen as the most difficult challenge facing democracy, Gutmann and Thompson (1996, 2004) attempted to conceptualize a democracy that places moral discussion in political life at center in order to cope with fundamental conflicts in values and ideology. Their conception of deliberative democracy is characterized by three conditions that regulate and structure the deliberative process of politics: (a) reciprocity, by which reason giving and justification for mutually binding policies are seen as a mutual endeavor; (b) publicity, which stipulates that policymakers, researchers, officials, and members of the public in general should have to justify their decisions and actions in public; and (c) accountability, which requires those who make policy decisions to answer to those who are bound by those policies. In addition to the three conditions, Gutmann and Thompson outlined three substantive principles that serve to govern the content of policy deliberations: (a) basic liberty, which controls what government and society can demand of people and what people can demand of one another; (b) basic opportunity, which concerns the distribution of goods necessary for pursuing a good life (e.g., basic income); and (c) fair opportunity, which has to do the distribution of socially valuable goods.
Critics of the deliberative democratic approach have pointed out that its emphasis on rational argument may neglect or devalue other modes of communication and participation. Although she is sympathetic to deliberative democratic theory, Iris Marion Young (1996) argued for a “communicative democracy” (p. 120). This communicative democracy would not privilege rational argumentation in democratic deliberation; instead, it would add greeting, rhetoric, and storytelling to argument as ways of communicating within democratic deliberations that are responsive to the need to “speak across difference” (p. 129). As Young explained, greeting includes acknowledgement of others. Rhetoric includes the use of ways of speaking that appeal to people’s emotions and feelings, such as figures of speech, images, and humor. And storytelling serves to link people together through the empathy that often comes through narrative. Young (1996) suggested that to ensure the inclusion of diverse and nonmainstream viewpoints, such sociocultural practices need to be included in deliberation, both in theory and in practice. Democratic deliberation requires citizens to present their reasons and arguments in a public setting; individuals challenge one another and are challenged. In short, they come to understand and refine their own beliefs in the face of these challenges. Gutmann and Thompson (2004) maintained that the communicative practices championed by Young (1996) fit into this framework as part of the way citizens give reasons and present arguments.
Deliberative democracy, a notion developed into a comprehensive theory by Gutmann and Thompson (1996), borrows from the traditions of John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, Jürgen Habermas, and John Rawls. It endeavors “to provide the most justifiable conception for dealing with moral disagreement in politics” (Gutmann & Thompson, 2004, p. 10). To this end, deliberative democracy aims to legitimize collective decision making, encourage the public to provide public-centered perspectives, advance a respectful, mutual decision-making process, and correct the mistakes of both citizens and officials. More generally, the claim of democratic deliberative theory is that a greater understanding of others’ perspectives will lead to more productive dialogue about issues that are often sources of moral disagreement. Deliberative democracy, from Gutmann and Thompson’s (1996) perspective, is the most promising way of holding citizens accountable to one another.
As described above, Gutmann and Thompson (1996) defined three central principles of democratic deliberation—reciprocity, publicity, and accountability—that should guide the decision-making process in a democracy. These ideals are connected to the notion of “attentiveness” (Murdoch, 1970), of coming to understand others for who they are in themselves rather than who they are simply in relation to you. When followed, they provide for more accessible and honest communication among citizens and allow for a more participatory democracy. Embracing the concept of attention, through democratic deliberation, in debates about education policy will enhance the political process in ways that benefit the entire educational community. Citizens must attempt to understand others’ viewpoints if they want to participate in the dialogic process. That is, they must attend to the viewpoints of those with whom they disagree if there is to be any sort of meaningful interaction (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995).
Another critical component of effective deliberation is the notion of detachment. In defining objectivity in the social sciences, Fay (1996) coined the phrase “critical intersubjectivity.” He argues that objectivity requires one to become detached enough from one’s own commitments in order to be “sufficiently open to the possible merits of other viewpoints” (p. 213). Thus, objectivity can be thought of as a social process. It is also a “quieting” process: Once one is sufficiently detached from one’s commitments, one begins to remove the “noise” of oneself from the dialogue. Critical intersubjectivity requires that citizens and public officials examine the methods and results of their inquiry from multiple perspectives rather than assuming that their dominant perspective is simply “normal.” Thus, public dialogue and critical intersubjectivity have a reciprocal relationship—they require each other. The principal of critical intersubjectivity obliges participants in a dialogue to shed the egoistic self—it requires temporarily abandoning and critically examining one’s own perspective and working to understand alternative perspectives in order to understand from where one’s critics are coming.
Political decision making is not a private, personal matter. Our liberal democratic system relies primarily on modes of representation: Chosen or elected representatives make decisions and craft policies to govern their constituents. Hanna Pitkin (1971) conceived of representation as embodying one of two forms. The first type of representative is the delegate—the individual who acts with the support of and in the interest of his or her constituency. The second type is the trustee—a representative who, given the authority of the constituents, uses his or her own best judgment about how to best serve the public. Young (2000), following Pitkin’s (1971) argument, further suggested that representation must concurrently embody authorization and accountability. She described this dual role as follows:
The representative will inevitably be separate from the constituents, but should also be connected to them in determinate ways. Constituents should also be connected to one another. Representation systems sometimes fail to be sufficiently democratic not because the representatives fail to stand for the will of the constituents, but because they have lost connection with them. (Young, 2000, p. 128)
Direct democracy via ballot initiative, in a very real sense, connects constituents to one another. It shifts the responsibility of representation directly to the citizens; that is, it requires citizens to make decisions for (to represent) one another. Conceiving of the ballot initiative as such allows us to make normative claims about the impact of ballot initiative processes and votes on the public good. Without deliberation, it seems likely that citizens often represent only themselves, voting according to narrow self-interests. If we conceive of the voters as the representatives (rather than simply the represented), then we hold them responsible for making decisions for their fellow citizens. Deliberative democracy, or strong communicative democracy in Young’s (2000) view, requires citizens to both anticipate the will of their fellow citizens and be accountable for their individual choices.
A deliberative perspective encourages greater public participation in and understanding of public policy debates by demanding that citizens abide by the principles of reciprocity, publicity, and accountability. As such, we hold the assumption that an understanding of the content of moral disagreements is especially important in education policy. In principle, it is a good idea for citizens in a democracy to be well-informed about the policies that are in place or being considered. But there are more pressing reasons. Making uninformed judgments without engaging with the content of moral disagreements is dangerous. According to Moses (2004), this can lead to policy decisions that are simplistic, self-interested, or poorly informed, thus leading to potential “moral tragedies.” 2 Young (2000), too, noted that there is a strong normative link between deliberative democracy and justice, in contrast to aggregative or representative democracy, which can actively lead to or perpetuate injustices.
It is through the theoretical lens of deliberative democratic theory that we examine how direct democratic ballot initiatives affect the public good. In the next section, we analyze the arguments for and against ballot initiatives as fostering a better democracy and, consequently, the public good.
Direct Democratic Ballot Initiatives and the Public Good
In the United States, 24 states currently permit state ballot initiatives. Starting in the early 1900s, the initiative process was seen as a powerful tool to challenge the undue influence of money in political processes. As M. Smith (2002) made clear,
The original advocates of initiatives and referenda during the progressive era claimed that ballot measures could stimulate the public’s political knowledge. If people gained a real voice in legislation by voting directly on issues . . . they would develop greater interest in and knowledge of politics that would carry beyond the specific measures voted on. (p. 892)
Nevertheless, the use of ballot initiatives did not increase dramatically until the late 1970s. For example, in California between 1954 and 1974 there were 29 state ballot initiatives. From 1976 to 1996 there were 106. Spending on initiative campaigns has also grown significantly (Gerber, 1999; D. A. Smith & Tolbert, 2004). In addition to the more common initiatives on tax or funding policies, there have been measures on state ballots related to policies such as affirmative action, bilingual education, and school choice. These often involve amendments to state constitutions, which are very difficult to undo once they pass.
There are three types of direct democracy in elections: the initiative, referendum, and recall. 3 All allow citizens the opportunity to have a direct impact on public policy by following the process to get the initiative, referendum, or recall on the ballot. Depending on state rules, citizens need to gather a certain number of petition signatures in order to put an issue to popular vote. Herein we are concerned primarily with initiatives, also called ballot measures. Initiatives involve placing a statutory measure or constitutional amendment on the ballot (D. A. Smith & Tolbert, 2004). Such measures have covered myriad issues of public policy from domestic partnerships to stem cell research. In 2008 alone, states faced some 20 education-related ballot initiatives including those proposing to ban affirmative action in public higher education, mandate a teacher pay-for-performance system, and eliminate bilingual education (Ash, 2008).
However, some supporters of direct democracy via ballot initiative claimed that regardless of the increasing numbers of state ballot initiatives, if they manage to pass they may never get implemented fully (Gerber, Lupia, McCubbins, & Kiewiet, 2001). In his study of initiative processes related to taxes and spending, Matsusaka (2004) concluded that initiative processes overwhelmingly have supported what the majority of U.S. citizens want (rather than special interest groups or a financially powerful few). Furthermore, he characterized the larger debate over ballot initiatives as those on one side who have concerns about the sheer power of money in initiative processes and those on the other side who argue that initiatives serve to foster democracy. Based on our analyses, we disagree with these scholars. Although we understand how initiatives as direct democracy could be a good idea, this is overridden by the concern that in education, egalitarian policies on the whole, and those seen as benefiting students of color in particular, are not faring well through initiative processes (as evidenced by the elimination of programs and policies aimed at increasing educational equity).
Education Policy Ballot Initiatives
Related directly to race-conscious education policies, five states—California, Washington, Michigan, Nebraska, and Arizona—have voted to outlaw the use of affirmative action in higher education admissions and three states—California, Arizona, and Massachusetts—have voted to replace bilingual education with English immersion programs. Colorado and Oregon have had similar, ultimately unsuccessful initiatives on the ballot.
Our primary policy concern herein has to do with civil rights and equality of educational opportunity. Consider affirmative action policy as a specific example of the education-by-ballot-initiative phenomenon. The 1990s brought a significant political backlash against affirmative action, culminating in the passage of two ballot initiatives in the late 1990s banning affirmative action in California and Washington. 4 Opponents of affirmative action then sought legal support from the courts and no new anti–affirmative action ballot initiatives were proposed for 5 years. In 2003, the Supreme Court decision in Grutter v. Bollinger supported the constitutionality of using race and ethnicity as factors in university admissions, which preserved affirmative action nationally. Immediately, however, affirmative action opponents turned their attention from the legal to the political arena through state ballot initiatives. In fact, on the day that the Gratz and Grutter decisions were announced in 2003, Ward Connerly, a major sponsor of such initiatives, announced the campaign for what would become Proposal 2 in Michigan. In 2006 and 2008, Michigan and Nebraska voters, respectively, contributed to education policymaking by deciding collectively that affirmative action in public higher education admissions, employment, and contracting should be eliminated. The new laws have negative consequences for equality of educational opportunity and campus diversity. For example, the freshman enrollment of underrepresented students of color at the University of Michigan immediately declined by 2% in the first full year after the state affirmative action ban (Schultz, 2008). Most recently, as in Arizona, ballot initiative sponsors have begun to use state legislature–initiated ballot measures rather than citizen-initiated ones that require a certain number of citizen signatures for the initiative to be placed on the ballot.
Views of Democracy
Because eliminating race-conscious education policies often negatively affects equality and diversity (Contreras, 2005; Moses, Yun, & Marin, 2009; Saenz, 2008), we examine whether the simple majoritarian rule exemplified by ballot initiative processes can be considered just. This issue is part of a larger dispute between aggregative democratic theorists (including proceduralists) and deliberative democratic theorists (including epistemic and substantive theorists; Goodin, 2003; Gutmann & Thompson, 2004; Young, 2000). Briefly, aggregative conceptions of democracy consider citizens’ preferences to be givens; that is, preferences are taken at face value and justifications are viewed as irrelevant to fair democratic processes. By contrast, deliberative conceptions consider citizens’ reasons (i.e., justifications) for their sociopolitical preferences to be central to the democratic process (Gutmann & Thompson, 2004; Young, 2000). Regarding the important question that Gutmann and Thompson (2004) cite—that is, “how to make legitimate decisions for the society as a whole in the face of fundamental disagreement” (p. 14)—aggregative theories typically turn to majoritarian methods of governance (i.e., let voters or elected representatives decide). Gutmann and Thompson argue that the aggregative conception is flawed because, among other reasons, it “fundamentally accepts and may even reinforce existing distributions of power in society” (p. 16). Yet a difficulty with deliberative conceptions of democracy is that there is no clear way to resolve disagreements and make public policy decisions, so the default is to rely on a procedure such as voting, which is not necessarily a deliberative process. In addition, within deliberative democratic theory, there is disagreement over deliberation’s instrumental value (i.e., “as a means of arriving at good policies,”) and its expressive value (i.e., “as a manifestation of mutual respect among citizens”; p. 21). Deliberative theorists such as Gutmann and Thompson maintain that both fair procedures and substantive principles need to be part of the democratic process. We take this conclusion as a guiding assumption in this chapter. It is within this context that we examine how ballot initiatives processes affect the public good.
Arguments for and Against Direct Democratic Ballot Initiatives
There are three key arguments for direct democratic ballot initiatives: (a) They provide citizens an important opportunity to access the democratic process; (b) they provide an important check on legislators and policymakers; and (c) they stimulate increased voter education and participation. The first two arguments come out of a proceduralist conception of democracy. There are, in turn, three primary arguments against ballot initiatives: (a) Moneyed and powerful interests play a disproportionate role, serving to corrupt campaigns; (b) most citizens are not informed enough to play a direct role in making education policy; and (c) the majoritarian intuition inherent in direct democracy too often tramples minority concerns (Broder, 2000; Ellis, 2002; Matsusaka, 2004; Sabato et al., 2001; Schmidt, 1989). These arguments come out of a deliberative conception of democracy.
Arguments for Ballot Initiatives
Access
A strong argument in favor of direct democratic ballot initiatives is that they provide regular citizens access to the lawmaking process. As Guetzloe (2001) contended, ballot initiatives can be thought of as “weapons of the people,” that is, “tools of direct democracy” that encourage the “free flow of ideas” (p. 32). This can sometimes be straightforward and positive. Consider Oregon’s 1990 seat belt law. As described by Ellis (2002), this initiative required
all Oregonians to buckle up . . . The bill was simple, people could use their own everyday experiences to make an informed decision, the money expended to qualify and pass the measure was modest, . . . and the policy change did not produce a host of unintended consequences. (p. 2)
We will not delve into the merits of this initiative here. Suffice to say that some ballot initiatives can indeed be right-headed and straightforward. Similarly, in education policy, some citizen-initiated measures can make good sense in particular measures related to local school funding or bond issues. Proponents of direct democracy, such as Bowler and Donovan (2000), would go further. In fact, they maintained, “it is difficult for us . . . to come up with many examples of approved initiatives that participating voters did not really want” (p. xi). The problem with this justification is that participating voters may not have everyone’s best interests at heart.
A check on legislators
Perhaps the most compelling argument for citizen-initiated ballot measures is that they provide members of the public with the opportunity to keep legislators in check. There is, however, a common misunderstanding about how citizens can indeed check legislative power. Earlier we mentioned that there are three common ballot measures: the initiative, referendum, and recall. This is where the referendum and recall come into play. The popular referendum serves well the purpose of checking on the legislature—through it, citizens can gather petition signatures to call for a vote on recent state legislation (Ellis, 2002; Gerber, 1996). The recall works in much the same way as to call for a vote on a sitting elected official. With these avenues in place, there is no need for the ballot initiative to serve as a check on policymakers.
The research evidence on ballot initiatives serving to check legislators is not clear at all. For example, although Gerber (1996) found that direct democratic ballot initiative processes serve to make legislators more responsive to voters, Lascher, Hagen, and Rochlin (1996) found just the opposite. In examining the claim that the ballot initiative process makes government more responsive to public demands than would be the case under a purely representative system, their research contradicted
the claim that the presence of a direct ballot initiative process is associated with more responsive policies. Absent the initiative process, public opinion exerts a substantial and significant influence on state policies . . . in none of these policy areas, however, does the presence of the initiative process significantly enhance the connection between public opinion and policy outcomes. (p. 769)
Furthermore, the relationship between majority public opinion and policy outcomes is complex; it is not clear that policies should always reflect public opinion, especially as related to minority concerns.
Participation
Direct democracy is at its best when it stimulates active participation in the democratic process among citizens. D. A. Smith and Tolbert (2004) argued that although they understand the potential danger of direct democracy by ballot initiative, initiative processes can be very positive for democratic practices, as members of the public are provided with more education on the issues and voter turnout is higher when such initiatives are on the ballot. Similarly, Tolbert, Grummel, and Smith (2001) found that ballot initiatives increase voter turnout, although only in presidential election years in states with a high number of issues on the ballot. In addition, Bowler and Donovan (2000) found that voters are more capable than political scientists often give them credit for, that is, they are more capable of becoming informed about the issues up for vote and casting a thoughtful vote. One argument they made is that initiative campaigns actually promote voter engagement; they also argued that voters use the state ballot guides and that such a simple resource usually provides what voters need to come to an informed decision. Similarly, Donovan, Bowler, and McCuan’s (2001) research showed that voters get their information from official ballot summaries and media coverage of the ballot initiatives rather than campaign advertisements and messages. Of course, such confidence in official ballot summaries and the media may be misplaced; ballot summaries are notoriously confusing and misleading (Sabato et al., 2001), and the media rarely provide the public with substantive information about ballot issues (Moses & Saenz, 2008).
Although each of the preceding arguments can be compelling, we have seen that the research can be conflicting. In the next section, we contend that the risks to democracy and justice are more compelling, leading us to be wary of ballot initiatives on education policy—with abuses of power, a lack of substantive information, and civil rights concerns topping the list of reasons why.
Arguments Against Ballot Initiatives
Power and corruption
Several studies of ballot initiatives have concluded that the effect of initiative campaigns on the democratic process frequently can be dangerous, with one primary reason being that they are easily corrupted by the influence of money and power (Broder, 2000; Ellis, 2002; Sabato et al., 2001; Stratman, 2005). The concern is that an individual or special interest group can use personal wealth or influence to bring an issue before voters. Gerber (1999) argued that the money and power of interest groups or individual initiative sponsors have less impact on the initiative process than some believe: “Wealthy economic interest groups are severely constrained by the institutional and behavioral hurdles inherent in the direct legislation process. They cannot and do not use their financial resources to ‘buy’ legislation that is detrimental to broader citizen interests” (p. 20). Yet there are numerous cases of initiative campaigns spearheaded by very wealthy individuals or groups.
An example is relevant here. In Oregon in 2008, a perennial ballot initiative figure, Bill Sizemore, registered a proposed ballot initiative to put a 2-year cap on the amount of time that English language learners can receive bilingual instruction. Sizemore opposes bilingual education, endorsing instead an English immersion approach. Both educators and immigrant rights groups disagree with the immersion approach, arguing that it limits educational opportunities and that English language learners should be provided with native language instruction and English as a second language classes for as long as necessary before being mainstreamed into all-English classrooms. This is a classic example of a wealthy and powerful individual (Sizemore is a former candidate for governor of Oregon) putting a pet issue up for popular vote. The larger question relevant to this chapter is whether one person should be able to exercise such power over the ballot.
Similarly, the campaigns and wording of the initiatives themselves can be deceptive and misleading. Whether intentional or unintentional, the net result is that voters may think they are voting for one thing when in fact voting for something quite different. Even America’s founders anticipated the problem of deception in direct democracy. As James Madison (1788) wrote,
there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament. (para. 7)
Two education policy examples illustrate this: In 2000, when Arizona was voting on an anti–bilingual education initiative, the title was “English for the Children.” This title implied that supporters of bilingual education were not already concerned about teaching nonnative speakers English. In addition, all of the anti–affirmative action ballot initiatives have been titled “Civil Rights Initiatives,” when they actually aim to abolish a traditional civil rights policy. In Colorado, the chief spokesperson for the proposed anti–affirmative action initiative, Jessica Peck Corry, claimed that it would not eliminate affirmative action. When questioned further, she explained that it would just require that all affirmative action and equal opportunity programs include White people and men (Corry, 2008).
Ellis (2002) pointed out that the way initiatives are worded and framed makes a huge difference in whether people support them. For example, people react more negatively to “preferential treatment” than they do to “affirmative action” (p. 77). And this affects the way people vote. The wording of all of the anti–affirmative action proposals passed—in California, Washington, Michigan, and Nebraska—omitted the phrase “affirmative action.” 5 When a Houston ballot initiative proposed to end “affirmative action” in public employment and contracting, the measure was defeated. In Colorado, research on the factors that affected the vote on Amendment 46 found that even though the initiative failed by a slim margin, if the ballot language had been clear, the initiative likely would have failed by a much larger margin (Moses, Farley, Gaertner, et al., 2010).
Information
In his critique of our democratic system, Holt (2006) pointed out: “most citizens have no economic incentive to learn enough about what politicians do to vote intelligently. Nearly half of American voters acquiesce in their infantilization by not voting at all” (p. 18). We would not go as far as Holt, but we do think that it is problematic to leave some important questions related to educational opportunities in the hands of voters who may not be meaningfully informed on relevant policy issues and consequences. Magleby (1989) pointed out that initiative campaigns have a strong impact on swaying voters who are less informed about the options. He concluded that powerful policy players can and do use initiative campaigns to control information about the ballot initiatives and their consequences.
Downplaying this concern, proponents of direct democracy would point out that there is no guarantee that experts or legislators would make better, more equitable education policy than voters, citing, for example, the oft-criticized No Child Left Behind Act. But a crucial idea behind representative democracy is that legislators are accountable to the people. By contrast, voters are not in practice accountable to anyone. Nevertheless, Gerber (1996) argued that the threat of ballot initiatives prompts state legislators to listen more to their constituents. She found that in states where ballot initiatives are used, legislators actually are more likely to pass legislation that mirrors the preferences of the general population. However, as Gerber herself pointed out, her model was filled with assumptions that would probably never mirror any real-world situation of policymaking. For instance, she assumed that all actors in the process have complete information and are able to act rationally.
Even the most informed voters rely on the media for much of their ballot and political information (Chaffee & Frank, 1996; Druckman, 1995; Graber, 1994; Pew Research Center, 2004; Roberts & Klibanoff, 2006). Recent research on print media coverage of the anti–affirmative action initiative on Michigan’s 2006 ballot found that coverage most often does not provide meaningful or substantive information on ballot initiatives (Moses & Saenz, 2008). This is one reason that Ellis (2002) maintained, “When a policy has complex and far-reaching consequences for government and society, the initiative process is a particularly poor lawmaking instrument” (p. 3). We should point out that we are not trying to make the argument that U.S. citizens cannot be trusted with important democratic responsibilities, only that direct democracy is not the best way for citizens to exercise those responsibilities regarding issues of education policy and the public good. The issue of racial and ethnic minority interests is key to our position.
Minority concerns
There were important reasons that the framers of the constitution advocated for a representative democracy rather than direct democracy. Among other reasons, they believed that there would be problems with majorities trumping minorities regarding controversial issues (Sabato et al., 2001). In 1829 at Virginia’s Constitutional Convention, Madison warned, “In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority” (para. 1). A hundred and eighty years later, Madison’s concern is substantiated by the ballot initiatives we have discussed, those aimed at constraining the educational opportunities of people of color.
According to Matsusaka (2004), the primary point of disagreement about initiatives is the question of whose interests are most often served. Indeed, a breakdown of the vote on Michigan’s Proposal 2, for example, shows that minority concerns were neglected. This point—what Guinier (1994) called the “tyranny of the majority”—is perhaps the most crucial reason to be skeptical about the education-policy-by-ballot-initiative phenomenon. According to Guinier, “In a racially divided society, majority rule may be perceived as majority tyranny” (p. 3). With direct democratic ballot initiatives on education policies related to equality of educational opportunity, the problem of the tyranny of the majority is all too prevalent. As Magleby (1995) pointed out,
the most powerful people in the initiative and referendum process are the people who set the agenda for the voters to decide at the next election . . . and that agenda typically reflects the narrow goals of the proponents of initiatives and referendums. (p. 35)
This brings us back to our central question: How do direct democratic ballot initiatives affect the public good? After considering the pros and cons of ballot initiatives in light of deliberative democratic ideals, our answer is that ballot initiatives related to issues of civil rights for minority populations serve to degrade the democratic ideal and, consequently, the public good. Education policy is often concerned with the most profound issues of opportunity and justice in U.S. society. Although citizens are capable of fair thinking on these issues, the arguments outlined above regarding problems of abuses of power, corrupt campaign practices, the difficulty of obtaining substantive information, and the ease of neglecting minority interests make it too risky to leave many equity-minded education policy questions to the public at large. In any education policy ballot question, the one common crucial element is public dialogue and deliberation. Guinier (1994) put it well:
Public dialogue is critical to represent all perspectives; no one viewpoint should be permitted to monopolize, distort, caricature, or shape public debate. The tyranny of The Majority is just as much a problem of silencing minority viewpoints as it is of excluding minority representatives or preferences. (pp. 19–20)
Civil Rights, Race-Conscious Policy, and the Tyranny of the Majority
To be sure, some initiatives may be useful tools of direct democracy. For this reason, we would not advocate eliminating all ballot initiative processes wholesale. But significant reform is needed for ballot initiative processes not to erode fairness and justice, violating tenets of both aggregative and deliberative democracy (Goodin, 2003). Recall the defects of direct legislation: “congested ballots and confused voters, deceptive titles and multiple subjects, . . . rich individuals bankrolling pet initiatives, and the pervasive influence of organized special interest groups” (Ellis, 2002, p. 192), as well as the easy trampling of minority concerns as a major—if not the most significant—defect. Although ballot initiative supporters argue that detrimental effects on minorities are drastically overstated (Hajnal, Gerber, & Louch, 2002), research has shown otherwise. Examining ballot initiatives related to civil rights proposed from 1959 to 1993, Gamble (1997) found that of the 74 such initiatives, 78% resulted in outcomes that constituted a defeat for minority interests, whereas only a third of all other initiatives and referenda were approved by voters by means of direct ballot processes. Gamble concluded, “All but six of the 74 initiatives (92%) actively sought to restrict the rights of minorities . . . and only one of the six initiatives that specifically tried to extend minority Civil Rights protection has passed since 1959” (p. 254); and “citizens in the political majority have repeatedly used direct democracy to put the rights of political minorities to a popular vote” (p. 261). When it comes to education policy, ballot initiative reform is crucial, given how threats to civil rights and equality of educational opportunity adversely affect the public good.
Supporters of reform have advocated huge changes to the system, such as requiring all ballot initiatives to succeed only by supermajority (Ellis, 2002). They have also advocated more moderate reforms: increased voter information; greater transparency of campaign finance information, so voters could assess the motives of the initiative funders; some public subsidies available to ballot campaigns to mitigate the role of money in the process; more detailed voter guides with pro and con information; and independent analyses of the initiative’s likely consequences (Sabato et al., 2001).
Although we agree with these suggestions, we want to add one broader point related to democracy and the public good: Reforms of the ballot initiative process need to reflect the best democratic impulses. That is, they need to change the system so as to eliminate—or at least mitigate—the significant flaws. One way to do this in a democratic manner is to follow Gutmann’s (1999) principled limits on political authority. The principle of nonrepression in particular limits the state’s ability to use education “to restrict rational deliberation of competing conceptions of the good life” (p. 44). Ballot initiatives proposing to end civil rights policies such as affirmative action too often violate the principle of nonrepression by serving to restrict the self-determination and social contexts of choice of students of color (Moses, 2002). Consider that since the 1996 passage of Proposition 209, California has experienced sharp declines in the number of underrepresented students of color applying and admitted to state universities and a significant drop in the number of enrolled minority students at prestigious state law schools (Contreras, 2005; Espenshade & Chung, 2005; Kidder, 2005). More than a decade later, the numbers of students of color in the University of California system have rebounded somewhat, but they have not kept pace with increasing shares of students of color in the state and have decreased at the two most selective campuses (Moses et al., 2009; Saenz, 2010).
The opportunity constraints for underrepresented students of color reveal majority tyranny in action. According to Gutmann (1999),
[i]f democracies are to govern themselves, they must remain free to make mistakes in educating their children, as long as those mistakes do not discriminate against some children or prevent others from governing themselves freely in the future. The promise of the principles of nonrepression and nondiscrimination is just this: to support a strong democracy without sanctioning majority tyranny or sacrificing self-government in the future. (pp. 97–98)
The negative consequences of anti–affirmative action ballot initiatives violate Gutmann’s (1999) key democratic principle of nonrepression, exemplifying the very outcomes of which she is wary. Consequently, direct democratic education policymaking may serve to neglect minority rights, resulting in the legally sanctioned denial of equality of educational opportunity to students of color. Guinier (2008) asked, “Do more elections produce more democracy?” (p. 2). In the context of elections of politicians, she says no, they are “an insufficient instrument of democratic accountability, democratic outcomes and democratic processes” (p. 3). In fact, as in the case of ballot initiatives on race-conscious education policies, they hamper the democratic ideal and the use of democracy to serve the public good.
Researchers’ Responsibilities to Contribute to Informing Public Deliberation About Education Policy
As more and more states face the prospect of ballot initiative–determined education policies, particularly those that disproportionately affect minority rights, the need for researcher and expert input on the issue becomes more pressing. The use of the ballot initiative to determine education policy will not disappear any time soon. As such, how can researchers foster a deliberative democracy, while still working within the ballot initiative context? Researchers hold a unique place in the political landscape; they have access to complex sources of information and a nuanced understanding of issues about which citizens may be interested but are not necessarily knowledgeable. In the case of race-conscious education policy, this is certainly true. Typical citizens rarely have access to, for example, recent research on the impact of Proposal 2 in Michigan or Initiative 424 in Nebraska, nor are they likely to have a solid understanding of affirmative action’s philosophical roots or history (Moses & Saenz, 2008). Experts in the field, which include researchers, educators, and policymakers, are deeply knowledgeable about these issues and have a responsibility to make that knowledge a part of public political information.
Voter Knowledge and Information
The democratic ideal requires that citizens have access to adequate information about political issues—but is this goal achievable? What depth of knowledge is sufficient to allow voters to make informed choices on Election Day? As described earlier, lack of voter information is a primary worry among those concerned about the limits of direct democracy. However, a central strand of political communication theory posits that voters can use “information shortcuts” to behave “as if” they were truly informed about an issue (Bowler & Donovan, 2000; Lupia, 1994; Lupia & McCubbins, 1998). Thus, informed voters and “as if”–informed voters behave almost exactly the same way in the voting booth. Through the use of slogans, sound bites, imagery, statistical aggregation, and association, voters are able to simulate true political knowledge. For example, voters often infer their own feelings about electoral issues by considering the views of political figures they like or dislike (Brady & Sniderman, 1985; Conover & Feldman 1986). Lupia (1994) also found evidence of this phenomenon specifically in the context of ballot initiatives, finding that voters who use information shortcuts and voters with more substantial knowledge exhibit nearly identical voting behavior. More recent research has built on and validated this theory (e.g., Donovan & Bowler, 1998), with some research suggesting that individuals can vote competently (with correct information) if they have reliable advisors (Lupia & McCubbins, 1998).
The research referenced above suggests that voters do not need to undertake a full course of study on every issue they might see on the ballot in November in order to make informed decisions in the voting booth; they can make use of information shortcuts. They might get bits and pieces of information via the media, though as we described earlier this information is typically lacking in substance. It is this space, we argue, that researchers and experts should seek to fill.
The Role of Experts
Expert knowledge in our democracy is often specialized, compartmentalized, and private. The labor of communication is divided such that knowledge tends to be held by experts, regurgitated by the media, and received passively by the public (Bohman, 2000). Experts in many areas, including both scientific and social scientific fields, rarely engage with the public in any substantial deliberation about their fields. Yet if citizens have access to expert information, they have the capacity to evaluate it. Such knowledge sharing can lead to robust public deliberation, as citizens actively engage with the information presented to them.
Applying Deliberative Democratic Theory
One way to improve voter knowledge on political issues, in addition to traditional media outlets, is through a more grassroots approach—community dialogues. Dialogues can take many different forms including, for example, citizen juries, deliberative polling, consensus conferences, and intergroup dialogues, to name some of the common types (Gastil & Levine, 2005). Citizens’ juries bring together a group of randomly chosen citizens to deliberate on a particular issue (G. Smith & Wales, 2000). Fishkin and Luskin’s (2005) deliberative polling exposes random samples of people to balanced information and encourages them to weigh opposing arguments in discussions with people holding different views and then collects their resulting opinions. Consensus conferences are described as citizen juries plus town hall meeting and have mainly been used to evaluate science and technology questions (Einsiedel & Eastlick, 2000). Intergroup dialogue is a version of community dialogue that focuses on bringing together college students from different social identity groups to discuss issues related to difference and social justice (Schoem, Hurtado, Sevig, Chesler, & Sumida, 2001; Zúñiga, Nagda, Chesler, & Cytron-Walker, 2007). As Kincheloe and Steinberg (2001) pointed out, “[t]he neglected realm of politics, of political literacy as it relates to everyday life, the workplace and the economic domain and to race and gender, . . . [are] more important than ever” (p. 103). Deliberative dialogues of all sorts allow participants the space and opportunity to engage collectively in these important social and political issues as part of democratic participation.
Deliberative Democracy in Action
In our study of small-group dialogues in the context of anti–affirmative action ballot initiatives, we attempted to answer the following questions: (a) How does participation in community dialogues on affirmative action affect participants’ knowledge and beliefs about affirmative action? (b) How does it affect their political decision making about affirmative action policy? We drew the design for our forums from several models. Our final model borrowed components from the National Issues Forum, the Public Conversations Project, and ChoiceDialogues. We included the common elements across all three: well-trained facilitators, small-group dialogue sessions, and specific, relevant, “expert” information to which all participants had access. Participants were asked to share their experiences, question and challenge themselves and each other, and grapple meaningfully with the content, philosophies, and potential effects of affirmative action. We did not ask participants to arrive at a shared decision. Rather, we were interested primarily in improving the quality of public dialogue on affirmative action by providing citizens with substantive, meaningful information and offering them the space and tools with which to engage in democratic deliberation.
Our questionnaire data provided a set of measures we used to calculate the impact of the dialogues. These statistics included affirmative action knowledge (pre and post), change in knowledge, attitude toward affirmative action (positive/negative), and change in attitude. We also attempted to gauge the impact of the dialogues on participants’ political knowledge and decision making. Affirmative action knowledge scores were based on responses to true/false statements related to factual principles regarding the legal standing and practical outcomes of affirmative action policies (i.e., whether affirmative action law allows the use of strict quotas). Attitude scores were assessed using a set of Likert-type scale items that asked participants to rate their agreement with moral, philosophical, and practical statements about the use of affirmative action policies. What follows below is a brief description of our results (for a complete discussion of our data, methods, and results, see Moses, Farley, & Saenz, 2010)
Affirmative action knowledge
Community dialogue participants were, in general, very knowledgeable about affirmative action. This is evident in the questionnaire data and also confirmed in our interview data. Participants attended the dialogues of their own volition; many came because affirmative action was a policy about which they were particularly passionate, meaning they tended to know something about it. Among predialogue knowledge scores, women outscore men and Latinos outscore Blacks and Whites (whose scores are the lowest). These results suggest that the individuals most affected by a policy (in this case, racial minorities and women) tend to know the most about them. Participants with bachelor’s degrees outscore both those with some college and those with graduate degrees. These patterns shift a bit when we examine the “knowledge change” scores, which indicate the participants’ average growth in affirmative action knowledge over the course of the forum. The youngest age-group (18–24 years) experienced the largest average growth, whereas participants aged 35 to 44 years actually experienced decrease in their knowledge. Blacks and “others” posted the largest average gains by racial group, whereas Whites’ average knowledge change score was the smallest. 6 Interestingly, participants with “some college” had the highest average knowledge change scores, whereas participants with some graduate school and graduate degrees had the lowest.
Affirmative action beliefs and attitudes
Dialogue participants did come with varying beliefs about affirmative action. Simply summing the strength of responses on the eight Likert-type scale questions (scaled 1–5) related to participant attitudes toward affirmative action, participants were each assigned an index of attitudes toward affirmative action, ranging from 5 (the lowest possible score) to 40 (the highest possible score); in general, lower total scores are associated with more negative feelings about affirmative action. In our sample, the actual data yielded attitude scores ranging from 14 to 40 on the prequestionnaire and 19 to 40 on the postquestionnaire, meaning the individuals with the most negative feelings about affirmative action—those with the minimum score of 14—were likely moved in a much more positive direction. Furthermore, the mean change across all participants was 0.57, a small positive increase in attitudes toward affirmative action. Although this mean shift may not be practically significant, we do see some patterns of change that could represent a meaningful shift in attitudes toward affirmative action. Individuals making less than $25,000 a year, Latinos, participants aged 18 to 24 years, and those who were relatively unfamiliar with affirmative action prior to the community dialogues all experienced positive changes in their beliefs about affirmative action, meaning that their attitudes about affirmative action became more favorable.
Interestingly, when participants were asked to self-report how the forum affected their attitudes and beliefs toward affirmative action on the postquestionnaire, 48.6% reported that they felt exactly the same as they had prior to attending the forum; 45.9% reported that they felt either much more positive or slightly more positive than they had prior to attendance; and only 5.1% reported feeling slightly more negative toward affirmative action. This suggests—in conjunction with the small positive changes seen in the attitudinal index—that participants may have left with an overall improved attitude toward affirmative action programs, even if that general shift was not seen strongly in the attitudinal index.
Political participation and decision making
The dialogue participants indicated that they learned new information and perspectives because of the forums. More than half of all participants reported that their views on affirmative action changed; 16% said they were “much more positive” toward affirmative action after the dialogue session. This pattern holds regardless of how knowledge participants were about affirmative action, the extent of their knowledge growth, or the reported quality of their deliberative experience. Among the participants interviewed, although few said that the community dialogue had caused them to change their vote on Amendment 46, more than a third stated that the dialogue had influenced their vote in some way.
In interviews, participants indicated that they discussed their community dialogue experiences with others: This sharing included discussion of both the policy-related and deliberation-related aspects of the dialogue. For example, one participant described leading her extended family in a lively discussion about Amendment 46, as a result of her experience in the dialogue. Another participant mentioned her intent to initiate a series of deliberative forums in her community. These examples provide some evidence toward the claim that the impact of these dialogues do not end when the formal deliberation ends. Their impact is diffuse and spreading and, admittedly, hard to pinpoint. It is apparent, however, that the dialogue participants were not the only people affected.
Although participants on the whole rated their dialogue experiences favorably, it is not clear how likely such an experience is to promote further deliberation on policy issues. The mean agreement score for the statement “I will engage in more deliberation about policy issues in the future” was 3.89 on a scale of 1 to 5. Whites were least likely to agree with this statement (mean = 3.76). This result is somewhat curious, given that Whites were most likely to agree that they had learned new information in the forum that helped shape their views on affirmative action. In fact, among all racial groups, there is a significant positive correlation between the two questions (r = −.25, p = .03): The higher an individual rates the first question (new information), the higher they rate the second question (engage in deliberation). At least according to participant self-reports, learning new information about the policy does lead individuals to alter their stance on affirmative action.
Our deliberative dialogues, then, shifted participants’ views somewhat. This provides some evidence that public deliberation is important for communities facing votes on ballot initiatives. However, based on this weak evidence, one might ask why deliberation is so central to our argument. 7 We could have focused our recommendations instead on voting rules, as Guinier (2008) discussed. Given that reforming voting rules is often unfeasible, and education policy ballot initiatives are continuing to increase, it seems crucial to better educate and inform voters about the central, substantive issues at stake. If we are concerned about the majority tyranny we have identified, voters’ improved understanding needs to be part of the solution.
Furthermore, we also are interested in the compounding effects of deliberation; our data suggest that if individuals find deliberative opportunities worthwhile (i.e., they learn new information), they may seek out more deliberative opportunities. Recent literature has begun to document what can be considered the secondary effects of deliberative engagement: transforming public opinions and behaviors, changing public officials’ opinions and behaviors, and influencing strategic political choices (see, e.g., Burkhalter, Gastil, & Kelshaw, 2002; Chambers, 2003; Delli Carpini, Cook, & Jacobs, 2004; Gastil, 2008). More longitudinal research is needed on the long-term impacts of deliberation.
The community dialogues provide one example of how researchers can use their expertise in the community to inform voters and in the service of the public good. The policy research community—those individuals and institutions who are most knowledgeable about the issues at hand and immersed in the most recent research—ought to share their knowledge actively by disseminating the valuable, research- and theory-based information that is too often missing from public discussion.
Conclusion
As we explained above, deliberative democratic theory is a kind of political theory that is designed to respond to the marked value pluralism that characterizes contemporary democratic societies. It places special emphasis on inclusive and fair participation in the process of political decision making (Benhabib, 1996; Cohen, 1997; Gutmann & Thompson, 1996, 2004). Part of good deliberation is gaining a nuanced understanding of the nature of disagreements, the moral ideals involved, and the political commitments invoked. Gutmann and Thompson’s framework is characterized by discussions and deliberations in which people publicly provide reasons and justifications for their views and decisions in a way that is broadly accessible.
In the case of education, researchers have the important responsibility of providing credible information that helps advance public deliberation about education issues (Wachbroit, 1998). This is all the more so in light of the fact that the public’s role in deliberations over education policy has been expanding through direct democratic initiatives. Public deliberation over critical issues can function to clarify contested values, increase public understanding, foster people’s willingness to reconsider their own views, and increase communication between opposing sides on a given issue. People need to hear both data-related and values-related information about disputed policies. As Lorraine McDonnell (2004) observed, “Even when potential targets disagree with a policy’s goals and underlying values, if they at least share an understanding of it, debate and opposition can proceed in a thoughtful manner” (p. 198). This is especially important for education research and policies that appeal to values that can be divisive and misunderstood.
Making decisions about education policies about which there is deep moral disagreement is not easy. The policy’s design, goals, outcomes, and moral implications must be negotiated to determine whether it is right or wrong. Although researchers can work to expand the way their research and expertise is communicated and used, the larger question that arises from the education-policy-by-ballot-initiative phenomenon (Moses, 2010) concerns how it affects the deliberative democratic public good. Defining politics in terms of voting is not enough—we have to think in terms of democratic participation more broadly envisioned, where, as Guinier (2008) explained, “citizens and their representatives work together to change the metric of success from winning elections to building the kind of collective intelligence and collective power that provides more robust sources of democratic accountability and legitimacy” (p. 4). Without such efforts, ballot initiatives on civil rights–related education policies will too often trample the interests of students of color, which is severely detrimental for the public good.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful for the able research assistance and feedback provided by Amy Farley, Darrell Jackson, and Chad Nash, as well as the significant insights provided by Stephen Macedo. An initial version of a portion of this chapter was presented by Professor Moses at the Philosophy of Education Society in 2009.