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America’s long history of parents versus teachers · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, March 29th. I'm Shumita Basu.
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  Duarte Geraldino, Narrating: And I'm Duarte Geraldino. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  Basu: We are living through a particularly fiery chapter of the "school wars." Parents versus educators, clashing over what to teach our kids. Yesterday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law what critics call the "Don't Say Gay" bill. It bans teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity from kindergarten through third grade. There have also clashes about teaching race. Some states are changing curriculums to teach a more inclusive, anti-racist history. And others are restricting that kind of teaching.
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  Geraldino: "The school wars." That's a phrase we're borrowing from Jill Lepore's piece in "The New Yorker." She's a professor at Harvard who's working on a U.S. history textbook at the moment. She told us these latest battles, they aren't really new at all. This is part of a long history of parents fighting to control what teachers can cover in schools.
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  Jill Lepore: When we think about the struggle for integration of the public schools, we think about the children really, right? The Little Rock Nine or, you know, you picture Elizabeth Eckford. But the attack on teachers, I really think about the 1920s and the campaign against teaching evolution in the nation's public high schools.
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  Basu: Lepore told us one of the first big education debates that made national headlines played out about a century ago. It was over whether schools could teach evolution. And the man at the center of it was a teacher named John Scopes.
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  Lepore: He taught in Tennessee where he was really the high school coach, but he sometimes subbed for the biology teacher. And he was sort of put up to be a test case to debate the constitutionality of a law that had been passed in Tennessee early in 1925, banning the teaching of evolution.
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  Geraldino: This was the first trial ever to be broadcast on live radio. And it was such a big deal at the time that it was known as the "Trial of the Century." Scopes' defense rested mostly on the argument that Tennessee's law was a violation of free speech. But Black Americans who watched the trial saw something else in it too.
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  Lepore: What seemed to be clear to Black journalists and a lot of Black intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois who wrote about the case, was it really wasn't a case about the teaching of evolution, it was a case about the teaching of racial equality. And Black leaders thought that what was at stake here, among those who wanted to forbid the teaching of evolution, that the teaching of evolution would reveal the equality of all humans and their common descent.
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  The defense faced a political celebrity. The prosecution team included the former Secretary of State and presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
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  Lepore: One of his arguments about the teaching of evolution is it's a violation of parents' rights. Parents should decide what their children are taught about how life began.
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  After just nine minutes of deliberation, the jury found Scopes guilty.
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  Lepore: It was a quite dramatic trial. And it really marks a kind of fracture line that we inherit down to this day. It's essentially one of the first big chasms in what we think of as culture wars.
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  Basu: Lepore's piece is a good slice of history, something that might give you a fresh perspective on today's debates and what a difficult spot this puts teachers in. As she writes in her essay, "There's a rock and a hard place, and then there's a classroom."
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  Geraldino: Today, lynching, a tool used to kill Black Americans and terrorize communities, finally becomes a federal hate crime. President Biden will sign into law a bill that was a century in the making. Congress tried and failed some 200 times to pass an anti-lynching bill. For many years, Southern Democrats blocked it in the name of state's rights. More recently, it was held up because of Republican objections over the bill's language. Changes were made and the bill got unanimous approval in the Senate. It's named for Emmett Till, the teen boy whose murder in 1955 helped spark the civil rights movement.
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  Basu: Senator Cory Booker has been advocating for an anti-lynching law for years. In 2018, on the Senate floor, he pointed out these killings were about racial terror.
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  Senator Cory Booker: They weren't only vicious acts of murders against individuals, but in many cases, bodies hung trying to drive fear into communities and make them submit to second class citizenship and consistent injustice.
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  [END SENATOR CORY BOOKER ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  In "The Washington Post," Theodore Johnson of the Brennan Center for Justice argues that legislation against lynching is in large part symbolic, and that's important. He says it's similar to how we use the law to categorize other violent acts, like terrorism. We give it a name, and it carries a different weight and meaning.
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  Geraldino: But it's not just symbolism. Civil rights lawyer Damon Hewitt tells the "AP" that this does have legal teeth. It lays out consequences for people convicted of lynching. Recent killings that might have been prosecuted as lynchings under the language of this new law include the shooting of Georgia jogger Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 and the nine people who were killed in the Charleston church shooting in 2015.
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  Basu: More than 4,000 people were lynched after the Civil War, and hardly anyone was held accountable. The bill comes too late to deliver those victims justice, but it could have impact in the future.
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  Geraldino: Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are meeting today in Turkey. These talks are taking place on a day when intense fights are raging, Ukrainian troops are pushing to retake territory around the capital, there are more Russian missile strikes too. We know about the war in Ukraine from media, government, military and intelligence organizations. But there's also a growing movement of amateur spies working online. They're trying to piece together new insights about what's happening. And they're doing all this by collecting and analyzing social media posts.
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  Pranshu Verma: So, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it's exploded. There's never been more hobbyists involved in this activity than now.
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  Basu: "Washington Post" tech reporter Pranshu Verma talked to some of these amateur sleuths. Now, many of them have full-time jobs or they're in school, but they take this hobby seriously. Verma says they're often good at sniffing out fake videos.
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  Verma: When they verify that it's a propaganda attempt, that's when it's really helpful in the moment because then it helps add nuanced layers to the conversation to say, "No, hey, this is actually a video from two years ago, so this isn't happening now."
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  Geraldino: Some political leaders say this kind of work is making a difference. Ukraine's minister of digital transformation says it's important enough that the government created an app to make it easier for people to collaborate on tracking Russian troop movements.
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  Basu: There are safety concerns as more people take up this hobby. Professional intelligence officers know the importance of protecting sources. There are fears that amateurs could unintentionally put people on the ground in danger. Verma reports on a 20-year-old in America who received an image from someone in Ukraine. It was taken from a balcony, and it appeared to show Russian troops moving into a city. Now, the American verified this image and its exact coordinates. But that kind of information could also give invading forces a tip on who's watching them.
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  Verma: Now, the Russians know exactly where there's somebody sitting on a balcony, taking pictures of Russian troops. And what happens to that person who otherwise wouldn't be put out into the world with any of their information? And so, that is a really dangerous thing that can happen here.
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  In that case, the amateur spy decided to take the post down.
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  Geraldino: These digital amateur spies gained traction during the Arab Spring. And to get a sense of how successful they can be, just look at the civilian sleuthing of the U.S. Capitol attack. It helped real law enforcement professionals identify rioters. And now the war in Ukraine is drawing more people into this digital hobby, a pastime that can have real geopolitical impact.
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  Basu: Now for a segment I like to call, "Sign Me Up." Gyms are noticing the kind of classes that people want is shifting. Those boot camp sessions that promise to punish you and make you sweat and make you cry? Turns out, that doesn't sound so appealing after two years of living through a pandemic. The latest trend in gyms is all about rest and recovery. "The Wall Street Journal" has this story.
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  Geraldino: Gyms are hoping to get people to come back by focusing on not just strengthening your body, but also your mind and soul. They want you to relax and are devising all sorts of gentler classes to get you there, like meditation and classes that help you de-stress.
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  Basu: At some gyms, you can now find recovery rooms where you can get a massage. One gym-goer in this article said a recent class reminded him of preschool nap time. And, you know, he liked it.
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  Geraldino: Some see roots of the trend in the stress caused by the pandemic lockdowns. A lot of people say they're more concerned with how they feel than how they look. This article cities a recent survey where nearly 60% of Americans said they exercise to reduce stress. So if you're worried about not sweating at the gym, just ask yourself what really matters to you, those six-pack abs or serenity.
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  Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
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  Geraldino: And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners.
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  Basu: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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