Jeff Amy/AP

African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Reginald Jackson announces a boycott of Coca-Cola products outside the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on March 25, 2021. He says Coca-Cola and other large Georgia companies haven't done enough to oppose restrictive voting bills such as the one Georgia lawmakers were debating on that day.

Opponents of Georgia’s recently enacted election law call it a voting suppression act. They say it will make it harder for some people to vote and is aimed in particular at the Black and other minority voters who pushed the state into the Democratic column for 2020 elections.

Proponents of the law say this attack is vastly overblown. Parts of the measure actually expand ballot access, they say, while others still leave Georgia within the U.S. legal mainstream.

The reality is that the law is multifaceted, and both sides can point to provisions that back up their views. The turbulence may stem especially from the context in which the Republican-controlled state legislature passed and Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the legislation.

Lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills containing voter restrictions in almost every state in the union, as former President Donald Trump continues to insist, falsely, that the election was stolen and he was the rightful winner. Georgia, where Mr. Trump personally pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the results, and which later narrowly elected two Democratic senators in a runoff, is in many ways the epicenter of election bill controversy.

Georgia has received so much attention because it is a state on the cusp that could very easily swing Democratic or Republican, says Michael Morley, a law professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee. With national power so evenly balanced between the parties, even marginal changes in Georgia results could decide who controls the House, the Senate, and even the presidency.

“Georgia is seen as a place where it is much more worthwhile to fight for every single detail,” says Professor Morley in regards to state election law.

Provisions on cutting-room floor

In some ways the details that weren’t included in the new Georgia law may be as indicative as those that were. Several of its most controversial provisions were softened or edited out prior to passage.

Early drafts, for instance, called for a ban on Sunday early voting. Critics saw this as an attempt to end organized church trips to the polls, an important part of Black voter turnout efforts. This provision was struck prior to passage. 

As enacted, the law does not require counties to provide Sunday early voting. But it allows counties to decide whether to open for early voting on up to two Sundays prior to an election day. 

Brynn Anderson/AP

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks during a news conference at the State Capitol on April 3, 2021, in Atlanta, about Major League Baseball's decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta over the league's objection to a new Georgia voting law.

Some Georgia Republicans also pushed for a ban on no-excuse absentee voting (in which anyone may request an absentee ballot, no special reason needed). The version of the overall legislation that passed the Georgia Senate included such a ban, but some top GOP state party leaders opposed the provision, and it didn’t make it into the final version of the bill.

New restrictions

However, the bill does change mail-in absentee voting in Georgia significantly. Voters will have less time to request a mail-in ballot – 11 weeks, down from the previous 180 days. They will have to return the ballot application earlier – two Fridays prior to Election Day, instead of one. 

To obtain a mail-in ballot, voters will also need to provide ID, such as the number of a state driver’s license or Georgia identification card, or some other form of identification and the last four digits of their Social Security number.

Under the new law, the state, and other government entities such as counties, can’t just send voters unsolicited applications for mail-in ballots. (Due to the coronavirus pandemic Secretary of State Raffensperger did this in 2020.) Voters will have to request applications on their own. Drop boxes for those who don’t want to mail in ballots will be limited during the early voting period.

Other changes that critics claim could make it more difficult for minority voters include a virtual ban on mobile voting centers. During early voting in 2020, Fulton County, which includes much of Atlanta, outfitted two recreational vehicles to travel the area and effectively bring polling places to the public.

The bill makes it a misdemeanor to distribute food or water “within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place,” according to legislative language. (Self-serve water stations or fountains set up by poll workers are allowed.)

John Bazemore/AP/File

A voter submits a ballot in an official drop box during early voting in Athens, Georgia, on Oct. 19, 2020. The state's new voting law has an exception allowing people to drop off ballots on behalf of relatives. It also allows a caregiver to deliver a completed ballot on behalf of a disabled person, or a jail employee to deliver a completed ballot on behalf of someone in custody.

In one of its most notable changes, the legislation would remove the secretary of state from control over the state Election Board, replacing them with a nonpartisan chairman appointed by a majority of the Georgia House and Senate. The Election Board, in turn, would have more power to intervene with county election boards it deems “underperforming.”

“Whenever there are partisan ideals that take precedence over the franchise is when democracy starts to fail,” said the Rev. James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP, at a press conference April 5, adding that in his view the voting changes amount to “surgical racism.”

More Saturday voting

On the other hand, the bill’s proponents say such criticism is over the top. They point to provisions they say would actually make voting easier. 

While there is a ceiling on the maximum number of ballot drop boxes a county can have, the bill also contains a floor on the minimum number of such boxes. That could be a help in rural counties that have not used the technique before. 

The bill requires at least two Saturdays of early voting in primary and general elections, up from one. It also calls for more resources to keep lines short – it requires the state to monitor lines to see if any become longer than an hour. If they do state officials are supposed to either open additional precincts or provide more help to ease the strain.

Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Alpharetta, Georgia, argues that Georgia’s election laws remain, on the whole, more voter-friendly than many Northern states. Voter participation has gone up steadily under 20 years of Republican leadership in the state, he says, reaching record levels in the last few elections.

“In my opinion it’s racist to say that a nonwhite voter is incapable of getting a voter ID or incapable of bringing their own bottle of water to the polls,” says Mr. Williams.

As for the new voter ID requirement for absentee voting, “we have 16 or 17 pieces of identification that you can provide. Show me where this makes a Black person or a minority unable to vote. You can’t,” Mr. Williams adds.

The whole voting controversy is about national politics as much as Georgia per se, the GOP strategist argues. He says Democrats are trying to portray the state as racist so they can push through HR 1, a sweeping Democratic-backed bill now in Congress that would establish federal standards for many aspects of elections, such as mandating no-excuse mail voting in all 50 states as well as at least 15 days of early voting and automatic voter registration.

Georgia versus Colorado

Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina noted on Tuesday that Georgia already has 17 days of early voting – two more than Colorado, where Major League Baseball has moved the All-Star Game after pulling it from Atlanta due to the passage of the Georgia voting bill. Both states have voter ID requirements, Senator Scott noted in a tweet.

But Senator Scott left out an important difference, as many critics noted: Colorado is a vote-by-mail state, where every registered voter is automatically sent a ballot. The vast majority of Coloradans use the mail-in option.

And why? Why did Georgia feel a need to change its voting laws at all? Former President Trump charged for months that mail-in votes would be rife with fraud and cheat him of victory. He has targeted Mr. Raffensperger and other Republican officials in the state, including Governor Kemp, for not helping. Critics say that, combined with the many other states where similar efforts are underway, it is as if the Republican Party is reacting to Mr. Trump’s baseless election fraud charges.

“When you try to change the rules after you lose an election, that’s a serious threat to democracy,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Georgia-based Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group formed by former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, at the April 5 press conference.

Correction: Voters will have to return the ballot application earlier – two Fridays prior to Election Day, instead of one.

Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Supporters of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, who was arrested following sexual assault accusations, attend a demonstration in front of the court in Dakar, Senegal, March 8, 2021.

When Salimata Faye watched young Senegalese pour into the streets of the country’s capital Dakar last month to protest the government, she was pulled in two directions.

On the one hand, the protesters’ anger was hers, too. She was fed up with being led by a government of men twice her age, who seemed tone-deaf to the hardships of being young and unemployed during a pandemic. When a popular politician named Ousmane Sonko was arrested in early March, those deep-seated frustrations burst into protest. Like others, she worried the charge had been made up to silence the opposition.

On the other hand, Mr. Sonko had been accused of rape, and Ms. Faye watched in horror as the woman who accused him, a young masseuse named Adji Sarr, was roundly dismissed as a liar. She was nothing but an opportunist, Mr. Sonko’s supporters said, who’d only made the charge to take a powerful man down.

That tension put Ms. Faye, who works as a tutor, and other Senegalese women in a bind. Call for due process, and they risked being seen as standing in the way of progress for young Senegalese critical of President Macky Sall. But ignore the accusations, and they were sending an equally powerful message to victims of rape: We don’t believe you.

“Women are being asked to put aside their rights in order to fight for our democracy, as though women’s rights are somehow outside of that fight,” says Marame Gueye, an associate professor of African literatures at East Carolina University. 

The protests began after Mr. Sonko was arrested on March 3 for disrupting public order en route to court for questioning over the rape accusations, which he has denied. He was charged with rape, and released.

For young Senegalese, the arrest touched a nerve: They were already facing high unemployment and heavy coronavirus restrictions, and the president had been accused twice before of arresting powerful challengers. They poured into the streets of the country’s major cities and torched dozens of businesses. Most were French-owned, symbols for what many in Senegal see as the government’s cozy relationship with its former colonizer at the expense of local businesses and local people. At least 11 people have died in the protests, according to Amnesty International, and 590 have been wounded.

Sylvain Cherkaoui/AP

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko addresses journalists following his release from police custody in Dakar, Senegal, March 8, 2021. Protests broke out in several of Senegal's cities following Mr. Sonko's arrest early last month.

Mr. Sonko’s accuser, meanwhile, became the target of widespread vitriol. His supporters questioned why Ms. Sarr had “not once … been heard calling for help or struggling” when she was allegedly attacked at her workplace; talk shows buzzed with discussion of women who use rape accusations to “get back” at men they didn’t like.

“What was especially unsettling about Adji’s case was that her alleged rapist was touted as a public hero, so loved and respected that people died chanting his name,” says Haddy Gassama, a Gambian lawyer and writer living in Washington, D.C. “It’s the age-old story of the powerful man who tells the women that no one will believe them.”

For women’s rights activists in Senegal, the conversation was especially troubling because it came on the heels of the country’s biggest legal victory for victims of sexual assault. In January 2020, after years of campaigning, the country passed a law making rape a serious offense for the first time, punishable by a minimum of 10 years in prison.

“This is a kind of test case for that law,” says Dr. Gueye, author of a recent Washington Post op-ed “In Senegal, Women’s Bodies Have Become a Political Battleground.” She adds, “It isn’t the place of the public to judge whether she’s right or not. A court will do that. But it is our responsibility to support and hear her in the meantime.”  

For now, Mr. Sonko and Ms. Sarr’s case remains open. Protests have died down, though some suspect further court appearances by Mr. Sonko could reinflame them. For Ms. Faye, the tutor, that is part of the problem. Ms. Sarr has been set up by Mr. Sonko’s supporters as an enemy of democracy, instead of a citizen of it.

“To me, this shouldn’t be two separate fights,” she says. Since the protests began, she has both participated in them and called for Ms. Sarr to be given a fair hearing, and says she sees no contradiction between the two. “I want to live in Senegal where victims of sexual assault feel free to speak up, and the best kind of country for that is a democratic one that respects its citizens.”

The numbers caused concern: 6,000 students who’d registered for fall and winter classes weren’t signed up for spring. It was January, and Los Angeles City College hoped to teach more than twice that number of students starting the following month.

So the school recruited more than 100 volunteers – half faculty – to call them. Not just about registration, but for a check-in.

“Once they realize somebody from LA City College is calling them, they’re actually very thankful and relieved,” says Armineh Dereghishian, acting dean of outreach and student life.

A similar effort last March saw staff following up with each student over a call, text, and email when the college turned remote. Both campaigns paid off: She says the concerted outreach “directly contributed” to retaining nearly all of last year’s student head count.

Community college enrollment saw the steepest decline in higher ed overall during the pandemic, though these schools serve as pipelines to pandemic-essential jobs. Administrators cite an array of strategies for keeping their mission afloat, including heightened communication, expanded affordability, and digital improvements. They say their desire to keep students committed is rooted in a spirit of solidarity.

“It’s reminded us of why we’re really here,” says Dr. Dereghishian of the team effort. “We’re here for the students and to help them succeed.”

A hit to higher ed

Community colleges are called the “nation’s best-kept secret” by Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. They offer affordable paths to careers like health care, manufacturing, and information technology, as well as transfer opportunities to other degrees. Enrollment typically refers to credit-enrolled students, though community colleges also serve many noncredit students. 

“If you think about the role of community colleges in particular, so much of what they train people for are really essential jobs for the functioning of our communities,” says Thomas Brock, director of the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is also a research professor.

Though enrollment at these schools swelled following the 2008 recession, that’s so far not the case for the latest economic downturn. 

Community college enrollment fell by 10% in fall 2020 compared with fall 2019 – four times as steep as the rate for higher ed overall, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Native American and Black student enrollment at two-year public colleges dropped more than other race or ethnic groups’ enrollment. Spring 2021 data, though preliminary, shows similar declines. 

If students skip postsecondary education, they’re at a “long-term disadvantage” in terms of their economic prospects, says Dr. Brock.

An analysis of fall census data he co-wrote surveyed households with at least one member with higher ed plans. A third of community college households cited virus-related concerns as the reason their plans changed, and nearly the same share (31%) said affordability or changes to financial aid influenced their decision. Both shares were higher than that of four-year college households.

Federal support may be in store. The American Jobs Plan announced by the White House March 31 proposes $12 billion for infrastructure upgrades at community colleges and for addressing access to these schools in “education deserts.”

An additional proposal this spring could include free community college, The New York Times reports.

“We’re very excited about that conversation, because we could see how important it was to our students this year,” says President Sandra Kurtinitis of Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland (CCBC).

Scholarship incentives 

It’s difficult to determine what caused certain community colleges to maintain – or even increase – student head counts this fall. Dr. Kurtinitis credits enrollment retention at her school in part due to expanded affordability.

CCBC, primarily serving white and Black students, pooled around $35 million in federal, state, and college funds to offset the cost of attendance through merit and need-based scholarships. That helped attract students like Shannon Hughes.

Following a layoff last spring, she relied on unemployment checks that didn’t always arrive. Job loss forced the master electrician to reflect on how to progress in the trade she loves, which she entered in 2007 after a few years in the military and warehouse work.

She’d long wanted to attend college, but says the cost and self-doubt helped hold her back. Without her scholarship at CCBC, Mrs. Hughes says she likely wouldn’t have enrolled. She loves the school – especially English 101.

“With every class that I take and everything that I learn, I’m just grateful,” she says. 

During fall last year, 81% of credit-enrolled CCBC students received full or partial scholarships – nearly double the normal share. The extra assistance meant more low-income students benefited this year, says Dr. Kurtinitis, and incoming federal aid will help keep financial aid high. 

While fall 2020 saw a 2% dip in enrollment compared with fall 2019, the 17,598 head count exceeded projections this school year, says the president. And it left budget room for staff bonuses. 

A fifth of fall instruction remained on-site for students, an option that Dr. Kurtinitis says also gave CCBC “an edge” over campuses that remained remote. 

“We just kept saying: Online, in the seat – whichever you need – you come to us, and we’re going to help you make sure you can pay for it,” she says. 

Courtesy of Louisiana State University Eunice

Fall enrollment increased 5% compared with fall 2019 at Louisiana State University Eunice, a public community college pictured here in August 2020. While the college marketed its affordability and ability to offer some classes in person, it also created a virtual orientation that streamlined the onboarding process for students.

Communication key

Community colleges can improve information-sharing during the pandemic, an analysis of roughly 5,000 students enrolled last fall found. When asked if their schools offered support services to help with pandemic-related stress, 57% said they didn’t know. 

Schools should be “tapping into all channels to communicate and connect to these students” to rectify such information gaps, says Linda García, executive director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, which published the report.

The president of Los Angeles City College, Mary Gallagher, attributes her school’s 98% head count retention – comparing fall 2019 with last autumn – to heightened communication.

Since last spring, says Dr. Gallagher, “I needed to communicate a lot so that people had confidence in being able to get information,” even when information was limited.

The virtual campus launched frequent remote town halls, a centralized hotline, and counselor outreach that spanned multiple platforms. The welcome center, which triages calls from both prospective and current students, connects callers to resources as varied as free food and learning devices. Over half of the 14,000-plus, credit-student population is Hispanic/Latino, and most qualify for reduced fees.

Though the head count declined by a few hundred students this term since last fall, this is typical for schools in normal school years, too, says Dr. Brock.

Digital development

In Texas, San Antonio College, which is around two-thirds Hispanic, saw a 1% enrollment decline this school year, down to 19,231 students. An expanded tuition-free program that recruits from local high schools, handing out laptops and hot spots, and expanded student services helped, says President Robert Vela.

“One of the things that we want to ensure is that students are safer and better off with us than not enrolled,” he says.

The college, nearly all remote, also invested in professional development for faculty aimed at keeping students engaged online. The training transforms them into “not just online instructors, but effective online instructors,” says Dr. Vela.

As part of a “new normal,” the community college will likely offer a blend of in-person and online education in the future.

Courtesy of Louisiana State University Eunice

Students at Louisiana State University Eunice were able to attend class in person – but socially distanced – in August 2020. Administrators consider this one reason enrollment increased from the previous fall.

A smaller, predominantly white community college also credits multiple measures for its retention success. At Louisiana State University Eunice, enrollment shot up 5% compared with the prior fall to 3,143 students, says Kyle Smith, vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students.

While the college marketed its affordability and ability to offer some classes in person, it also streamlined the onboarding process. Until last spring, students had to complete an in-person orientation before registering for classes.

“We had been talking about developing an online orientation for years,” says Dr. Smith, but the pandemic forced them to commit.

Exploring new solutions to old systems took a team effort. On campus, he says, there’s a sense that everyone is “all in this together, and we’re going to get through it.”

Longtime readers of The Home Forum section (now in the Monitor Weekly) may recall the poetry of Paul O. Williams, whose first poem appeared in 1965. Some 240 followed over the next four decades. Dr. Williams, a professor at Duke University and Principia College, wrote poetry almost daily, publishing six volumes of verse. He was president of The Thoreau Society and the Haiku Society of America. In 1983 he won a national award for two science fiction novels. His poetry came to our attention again recently when his daughter, Anne, contacted us about a collection she is curating. As the United States celebrates National Poetry Month, here are five of his poems, reprinted with Anne’s permission.

Some deeper source

In this aging California summer
the grass is brown and dry.
The spent blooms of red clover
have crumbled to powder.
But not all has withered.
The dill, the fuller’s teasel, lotus,
a few other plants are green
and blooming. They have 
some deeper water source,
reaching down the fingertips of
their root tendrils to some
remote dampness into which
they tap and sip and flourish.
That is one of the arts of living,
isn’t it, to have that deeper source
and persist when the outer world
has gone dry on its surfaces.
These plants have mastered it well.

– Published on The Home Forum, Aug. 2, 1995

Every good gift

We don’t put sunrise in a purse or coat,
yet it is given us, a sinecure.
With symphonies, we can’t possess a note
or phrase, yet they are also given, as sure
as swallows in the bank, if we can look
or listen, furnish time and liberal thought.
We don’t cram roses in a pocketbook.
They return the fragrance we have brought,
according our attention to their flowers.
While some demur and say that these are things
that being casually provides, that dirt is also ours,
I note the stash of pumpkins that the soil upflings.
Rain fills the lake. Carnelians in the sand
glow red with sun spread in my cupping hand.

– Nov. 23, 1993

Untitled

I buy a poem
from an insistent French girl
on the street,
take it home, translate it.
It is on smiling. I smile.

– May 13, 2002

Reflections in the brass

Reflections in the brass base
of the lamp bulge out, convex,
contorted, unlike real objects
below. I too reflect,
and trust my own reflections
lie square and true.
And yet with all I know
of education, self-interest, drowsiness,
neglect, preoccupation, despair,
who is to say I’m not another
brass lamp base, perhaps with a dent,
a ding or two, to complicate
the images that race around inside,
that crowd, rush forward, speak together,
that express what I claim to think
I think? Give us, then
the objectivity of clear reflection, plain,
straight on, and let us give back,
face to face, what’s given us,
without diminishment.

– Aug. 28, 1995 

Workers in blue

Workers in blue lounge by their truck,
slowly eating sandwiches and apples,
each fingernail end a new moon of dirt,
each bare head sweaty with summer.
Safety helmets laid down gleam
like a clutch of gold eggs.
A small girl in a white dress comes by,
regards them from behind her popsicle,
her face orange with it. She offers a bit
to one man, who takes it carefully,
clipping it off with his wiped jackknife.
Another man rises slowly, ceremoniously,
places on her head a wreath he has made
of cottonwood leaves pinned together
by their stems. She smiles. 
They smile. They salute her with upraised
sandwiches. They choir approval,
watch her, with the eyes of fathers,
diminish down the sidewalk,
hair bouncing under her green crown.
In the silence a summer locust sings
its harsh, passionate song to the heat.

– May 1, 1991

REUTERS

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo at a press briefing in March.

Toward the end of his testimony in the trial of a Minneapolis police officer charged with killing a man during an arrest last May, Chief Medaria Arradondo offered his take on the encounter. The officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on the neck and back of George Floyd, who was already handcuffed and prone on the pavement, for 9 1/2 minutes. “Once Mr. Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that, that should have stopped,” the chief said. “That in no way, shape, or form is anything that is set by policy, is part of our training, and is certainly not part of our ethics or values.”

It is highly unusual for a police chief to rebuke an officer so explicitly. Prosecutors hope that his assessment will seal their case. For members of the public who were outraged by the incident, it confirmed their sense of injustice. It may well help obtain a conviction.

But it may not be the most important thing the soft-spoken police chief said on the witness stand. Mr. Arradondo began by characterizing law enforcement as “a service of love”:

“We are oftentimes the first face of government that our communities will see. And we will oftentimes meet them at their worst moments. ... To serve with compassion, to me, means to understand and authentically accept that we see our neighbor as ourselves. We value one another.”

For a society wrestling deeply with myriad manifestations of racism and disquieted by viral incidents of police brutality against Black people in recent years, those words may ring hollow. But they echo a vigorous impulse unfolding in public and private spaces to make amends and heal divides. In other words, to value one another.

In Illinois, for example, Evanston has become the first U.S. city to administer a type of reparation to its Black citizens. Having established a $10 million fund two years ago, it is now starting to provide grants of up to $25,000 for down payments on houses, mortgage relief, or home remodeling. To be eligible, residents must show that their families were harmed by discriminatory policies between 1919 and 1969.

A similar effort is underway in Manhattan Beach, a community of Los Angeles County that is striving to address the legacies of its segregated past. A century ago, the area had a thriving Black community anchored by a Black-owned resort that hosted a vibrant interracial social scene. Spurred on by white neighbors and racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan, the city invoked eminent domain to scatter the Black residents and confiscate their land for meager compensation to build a public park. That action deprived Black families of land that is now worth millions of dollars. The City Council is now debating how to redress that injustice.

Meanwhile, Black surfers have returned to Manhattan Beach – and a notoriously territorial local surf community has become the setting for racial reconciliation. Last summer, after the killings of Mr. Floyd and other African Americans, surfers organized “paddle-outs” to gather past the break and show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. It happened again recently. After two Black surfers faced aggression and racist taunts in the water, they organized a “peace paddle” on social media. More than 200 surfers showed up.

“There was so much peace and love at that paddle,” said Justin Howze, one of the two organizers, told Sunset. “‘Localism’ and ‘locals only’ are terms that are really just saying no black people or people that don’t live here. We proved it’s sharable.”

Prosecution and punishment of racist violence are necessary to heal society. But step by step, the ugliness of racism is being replaced by a commitment to shared humanity, and the "service of love."