The Youth Shall Set you Free: Generational Gerrymandering and the Suppression of the Youth Vote

As national attention turns its focus towards Maryland, in anticipation of the primary and on the anniversary of the Baltimore Unrest, I feel a civic obligation to draw attention to an unfolding political drama with youth voice and vote at the center. I do not speak of the run for the White House, nor the crowded field running for the Mayor of Charm City.

The race to watch is the student member of the board of education in Anne Arundel County, a position affectionately referred to as the “SMOB”.

We know that all educational spaces can become politically charged, but in Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) this is especially true because it is the seat of Annapolis, the state capital. This is further complicated by the unique structure of AACPS Board of Education (BOE).

Not a single adult member of the BOE is elected. They are instead selected by a nominating commission and then appointed by Governor.

There is however one glimmer of democratic due process.

The only member of the Board of Education that is elected by their peers…is the STUDENT member of the board. What’s more, Anne Arundel County has the only elected student member of the board in the country with full voting rights. They serve as an equal member of the Board of Education for their year long term.

If you haven’t been paying attention to Maryland politics in the last two years, you will not perhaps realize this blue leaning state has elected a very popular Republican Governor, Larry Hogan. This governor has since appointed four members to the BOE in Anne Arundel. Four members were previously appointed by Martin O’Malley, the former Democratic Governor (and recent candidate for President).

Let’s review the math. 4 blue. 4 red. One adolescent in the middle.

The adults adding this up have begun to sweat.

If you are an optimist who is hoping this hasn’t already caused a tectonic shift that is affecting the schools, here is an abundance of articles you might read about the county executive’s interaction with students and educators, the lack of diversity on the BOE, a tug of war over the nominating process, teacher protests of frozen pay, and contentious budget negotiations.

Further evidence of this came during the short Maryland General Assembly Session that runs from January to April. It is a reoccurring theme for elected officials and skittish adults to question the capacity of 17 and 18 year olds to understand and vote upon important educational policies.

How can we trust them to understand the magnitude of their decision making? How can we trust them not to be swayed by the lobbying of special interests and foreign powers…like, I don’t know, the nefarious Anime club? How do we know what they will do?!

In an irony that I hope our adults can see, they are questioning the loyalties of the ONLY member of the board of education who was ACTUALLY elected by their constituents.

To quote a generation: LOL.

On two weeks ago, students from all over Anne Arundel County converged at South River High School to hear the stump speeches of the three student candidates, watch them debate, and ultimately vote on who would represent their voice as the primary stakeholders in the education system.

They selected Carolyn Williams from Glen Burnie High School.

I was there. I watched the students all over the auditorium erupt in celebration when the announcement was made. I watched her tearful acceptance of the nomination. I heard the reflections of the students from my own school who seemed (in my informal exit polling) to have overwhelmingly voted for Ms. Williams.

They posted selfies grinning with their “I voted” stickers.

This moment was all the more poignant because the students had done what their adult counterparts would not or could not do:

They had selected a woman of color from a school with one of the highest poverty rates in the county and entrusted her to speak for them.

But like most political dramas, this one was due for a reversal. It came last week in an article entitled:

Maryland Governor Hogan Should Veto the Anne Arundel Student Nomination

That’s right. This Op-Ed calls on the governor to REJECT the nomination of Ms. Williams despite her election by her constituents. (And despite the fact that no previous Governor has ever done so).

Now, we need to pause here and note the source of this article. Mr. Snider has become somewhat infamous in our county for his political blogging (Sorry. I mean citizenship journalism). And as is noted in the comment section, he was NOT forthcoming about a particular conflict of interest in his reporting. Mr. Snider has had not one but TWO daughters appointed as the SMOB.

The article is worth reading for many unfortunate reasons, but the one I found most compelling was that Mr. Snider’s MOST salient argument about why the Governor should veto the student member of the board nomination is that adults surrounding the process are corrupt.

I feel like this may represent the tendency to say things like “Everybody steals” NOT because “everybody” does, but because YOU do. Is his “Adults will manipulate the process” a Freudian slip? Does he suspect this because he himself is guilty of it? Otherwise, what would explain this reversal from allowing his own children to benefit from a selection process and only now question its legitimacy? To claim the title of journalist and then fail disclose your own lack of objectivity and conflict of interest is hypocrisy.

Teenagers call that faking. So do I.

So what was MY role in all of this, you might ask. Why am I so impassioned about this? What is my bias?

Oh I have one. But it is not political. It is generational. I believe in millennials and will vote from them every time. If you want to search my history and find some tidbit that will reveal my own political leanings, don’t bother. I’ll do it for you. Go here, here, here, here, here, here, here or here…I forgot here.

What I hope you see is not only evidence of my youth advocacy over time and across the world, but also understand why I, unlike too many other adults, trust young people so deeply.

I have seen youth bravely plunge into spaces of conflict singing for peace. I have marveled at their truth telling and truth seeking. I have witnessed their divergent solutions that would never have occurred to an established adult.

I am not naïve. I know they can suck on occasion. But the consequences and impact of their mistakes and missteps will only grow as they age. They need political spaces to practice their power. Refine it. Unite it.

I knew the stakes of this SMOB election. I’d done the math. I know what happens when the powers that be feel threatened by powers that WILL be.

I went to the election as an informal election monitor with a fierce interest in protecting the rights of our emerging civic actors.

Yes YOUth can. They deserve voice. They deserve vote.

Everyone knows that humans most likely to buck authority, most likely to follow their own instincts, most likely recognize and reject manipulation are teenagers.

If our interest is truly transparency and authenticity, we don’t need less student voice. We need more.

What a tragedy it would be if adults projected their distrust and cynicism about the political culture their own generation has fostered onto a new one.

But, adults, if you really want to give it a go, I can’t stop you. See what happens when you reject the only African American, the ONLY elected member of the board, the ONLY millennial and THEN try to justify your gerrymandering to the world. The WORLD. Because it won’t just reflect a state issue. It will reflect a global one.

Do it. I can’t stop you, but THEY can. I can’t wait to watch these powerful teenagers the world over show us just how incorruptible and unstoppable they are as they slowly dismantle your suppression.

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