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MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2022
VOLUME 116 ISSUE 30 Not officially associated with the University of Florida
Published by Campus Communications, Inc. of Gainesville, Florida
Alachua County Public School’s racial achievement gap persists BLACK STUDENTS CONTINUE TO UNDERPERFORM IN ACPS
By Emma Behrmann Alligator Staff Writer
Ashleigh Lucas // Alligator Staff
UF and Santa Fe students bow their heads at a candlelight vigil held in solidarity with those who have lost their lives in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Lake Alice on Thursday, April 7. Over 4.5 millions Ukrainians have fled and the death toll is estimated to be 7,600.
Alachua County Public Schools has the state’s widest achievement gap between white and Black students in both English language arts and mathematics. Segregation met its end in 1970 for Alachua County Public Schools, but disparities between Black student and white student performance afflict the district today. The district serves more than 30,000 students — 33% of which are Black and 41% of which are white. ACPS officials acknowledged this gap and crafted an equity plan in 2018, promising to eliminate the disparity by 2028, but the plan failed to narrow the difference in student performance. It outlined goals like
raising the performance of Black students in reading and math by three percentage points each year, but the gap widened as the district failed to implement any policy changes to meet its goal, said Tina Certain, school board member. The district can’t task its teachers with overcoming the achievement gap. Every district in the state has a gap, and factors outside the classroom are at play. The Alachua County Education Association’s service unit director Crystal Tessmann said years of systemic poverty and racism entrenched in society have aided the gap’s formation. The achievement gap is the difference between the percentage of white students who received a passing score — a level three — on the Florida Standards Assessment and the percentage of
SEE ACPS, PAGE 4
Law students, attorneys reflect on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation
Jackson was confirmed as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court Thursday By Carissa Allen Alligator Staff Writer
Seven seconds. The amount of time it takes to tie a shoe, swipe on mascara, solve a riddle or make a good first impression. The length of a pause from Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman confirmed as U.S. Supreme Court Justice — when Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked if she believed babies could be racist. “Senator,” she paused. “I do not believe that any child should be made to feel as though they are racist, or though they are not valued, or though they are less than, that they are victims, that they are oppressors.” This was just one of many antagonizing moments in the barrage of questions Jackson faced throughout her four-day confirmation hearing in late March. The Senate confirmed Jackson Thursday in a historic 53-47 vote. Three GOP senators —
SPORTS/SPECIAL/CUTOUT New-look Gators to showcase
Story description finish with comma, pg# development at Orange and Blue game Florida’s annual spring game is set for Thursday night in the Swamp. Read more on pg. 12
Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska, and Mitt Romney, R-Utah — crossed party lines to secure the simple majority vote required. Cheers cried out from the Senate chamber and across America. But for many Black law students and attorneys, the interrogations she faced leading up to this moment reflected their everyday struggles in and out of the legal arena. Some Black women like Janelle Rolle, a first-year student at UF Levin College of Law, believed the questioning highlighted the scrutiny that Black women endure despite their outstanding merit and qualifications. “For Black women to be these people who are so highly educated, and who are so worthy and capable, we're constantly being questioned and deemed as ‘less than,’ even though there's nothing that indicates that perspective should be held,” she said. Since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, 115 justices have served. Of those on
the bench, 108 have been white men. Jackson is the third Black justice to serve on the court. The American Bar Association’s 2021 Profile of the Legal Profession says that nearly all people of color are underrepresented in the legal profession compared with their makeup in the U.S. population. In 2021, 4.7% of all lawyers were Black compared to the U.S. population, which is 13.4% Black. UF Levin College of Law touts its “commitment to excellence and diversity,” but only 7.4% of its students are Black or African American as of 2022. Rolle perceived the hearing as a reflection of select GOP senators’ implicit bias. Their questions concerning critical race theory and her stance on pedophilia were targeted and inappropriate, she said. “It's very apparent that their issue is the fact that it's a Black woman because she's coming from the second highest court in the nation: the D.C. Court,” she said. “There should be no reason for the questions that are
Pivotal architecture showcase returns to campus After two years of digital PIN UPs, architecture students physically present their work, pg. 2
being asked.” Before being confirmed for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, she was a public defender, representing defendants who could not pay for a lawyer. She’s the first former federal public defender to serve on the highest court. The diversity that Jackson will bring to the court is extremely important to Rolle, who has lived for 23 years without a justice who looks like her serving on the bench. “To have all these laws that have been passed, and the Constitution read by all these eyes for all these years, and never, not once, has someone who has lived my experience even remotely … made any statements on what they feel the Constitution says or stands for is pretty astonishing,” she said. The Supreme Court is the court of last resort for legal issues that affect Americans'
SEE JAKCSON, PAGE 4
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Conference room named after historic UF professor
Students orchestrated the naming ceremony of Enoch Marvin Banks conference room, pg. 6
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