Dear Commons Community,

I was alerted to the article below by my colleague, David Bloomfield, that was published in K-12 Dive – The Dive Brief.  Dr. Bloomfield is quoted in the piece.

Tony

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Dive Brief:

• The New York City Board of Education will end appeals in Gulino v. Board of Education, a long-standing case brought against the district and the New York State Education Department by four teachers of color in 1996 on the grounds a test required for obtaining a permanent teaching certificate disparately impacted African American and Latino teachers.
• The state-mandated exam, the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, was required for all public school teachers in the city from 1993 to 2014. White test-takers passed the test at an average rate of 93%, compared to just 53% of Black applicants and 50% of Latino applicants, according to the original complaint.
• Teachers who failed were still allowed in the classroom, but the BOE paid them reduced salaries and denied them benefits, plaintiffs said. Now, the agreement filed on March 14 requires the BOE to stop appealing judgments awarding approximately $660 million in damages to former Black and Latino teachers, according to Josh Sohn, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Dive Insight:

In a 2012 decision, a federal court ruled the New York City Department of Education failed to establish that the LAST test was related to the job of teaching.

As a result, the court found, the department was also liable for requiring teachers to pass the exam to receive a teaching license and for making employment decisions based on the exam.

Estimates of the number of public school teachers impacted by the exam — through demotion, termination, and salary and other benefit losses — range from 8,000 to 15,000, according to the plaintiffs’ website.

In the decade since the decision, the New York City BOE had filed a string of appeals.

“Now, however, we can address the merits of each class member’s individual entitlement to damages; and can get class members paid the damages to which they are entitled,” said Sohn.

Through the court order ending the appeals, he added, New York abandoned any future rights of appeal in connection with hundreds of judgments that it had previously appealed.

“I wonder if the decision to not engage in further appeals aligns with new City leadership where Mayor, DOE Chancellor, and Corporation Counsel (chief lawyer for the city) are all African-American,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of educational leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College​ in New York, in an email.

New York City Public Schools did not respond to K-12 Dive’s request for comment in time for publication.

Teachers unions have long argued that required licensure tests are roadblocks for prospective teachers of color to enter the classroom.

According to a 2011 study conducted by the Educational Testing Service, which administers the Praxis Exam commonly used by states for teacher certification, first-time White test-takers were almost twice as likely than Black test-takers to pass Praxis I reading, writing and math tests.

“The score gaps in all educational assessments seem acute and Praxis is no exception,” authors of the study wrote. “Given the racial/ethnic imbalance in representation in the teaching profession, the challenge is especially troubling for teacher licensure tests.”

However, alternate forms of assessment have also faced pushback. In Texas, for example, the local union is questioning the new edTPA exam, which requires prospective teachers to submit a portfolio including lesson plans, teaching videos and reflection essays. Ovidia Molina, president of Texas State Teachers Association, told a local news outlet it will “create more burdens” for prospective teachers.

The order that requires the New York BOE to stop appealing comes as many states are scaling back licensing requirements to enter the teaching profession in response to teacher shortages exacerbated by COVID-19.

That move, however, has also been met with controversy, with some saying their removal is short-sighted and could harm the profession in the long-run.

Dear Commons Community,

A NASA astronaut returned to Earth yesterday after a U.S. record 355 days at the International Space Station.

Mark Vande Hei landed in a Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan alongside the Russian Space Agency’s Pyotr Dubrov, who also spent the past year in space, and Anton Shkaplerov.  

Vande Hei, the last one out, grinned and waved as he was carried to a reclining chair out in the open Kazakh steppes.

“Beautiful out here,” said Vande Hei, putting on a face mask and ballcap.

Despite escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine, Vande Hei’s return followed customary procedures. A small NASA team of doctors and other staff was on hand for the touchdown and planned to return immediately to Houston with the 55-year-old astronaut.

Even before Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Vande Hei said he was avoiding the subject with his two Russian crewmates. Despite getting along “fantastically … I’m not sure we really want to go there,” he said.

It was the first taste of gravity for Vande Hei and Dubrov since their Soyuz launch on April 9 last year. Shkaplerov joined them at the orbiting lab in October, escorting a Russian film crew up for a brief stay. To accommodate that visit, Vande Hei and Dubrov doubled the length of their stay.

Before departing the space station, Shkaplerov embraced his fellow astronauts as “my space brothers and space sister.”

“People have problem on Earth. On orbit … we are one crew,” Shkaplerov said in a live NASA TV broadcast Tuesday. The space station is a symbol of “friendship and cooperation and … future of exploration of space.”

The war tensions bubbled over in other areas of space with the suspension of European satellite launches on Russian rockets and the Europe-Russia Mars rover stuck on Earth for another two years.

Vande Hei surpassed NASA’s previous record for the longest single spaceflight by 15 days. Dubrov moved into Russia’s top five, well short of the 437-day, 17-hour marathon by a cosmonaut-physician aboard the 1990s Mir space station that remains the world record.

“Broken records mean we’re making progress,” said NASA’s previous space endurance champ, retired astronaut Scott Kelly, whose 340-day mission ended in 2016.

Like Kelly, Vande Hei underwent medical testing during his long stay to further NASA’s quest to get astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. He said daily meditation helped him cope during the mission, twice as long as his first station stint four years earlier.

“I’ve had an indoor job 24-7 for almost a year so I am looking forward to being outside no matter what kind of weather,” Vande Hei said in a recent series of NASA videos. As for food, he’s looking forward to making a cup of coffee for himself and wife Julie, and digging into guacamole and chips.

Remaining on board: Three Russians who arrived two weeks ago and three Americans and one German, who have been aboard since November. Their replacements are due in three weeks via SpaceX. Next week, SpaceX will fly three rich businessmen and their ex-astronaut escort to the station for a weeklong visit arranged by the private Axiom Space.

The space station is indeed a symbol of “friendship and cooperation”.  If only……

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Donald Trump’s Truthsocial.com app has plummeted in sign-ups and traffic since its  launch last month, The Wrap reported on Tuesday.

The former president’s social media network for MAGA disciples has sunk to about 60,000 new users a week.

“This is down 93% from its launch week, when it saw 872,000 installs during the week of Feb. 21,” Stephanie Chan of the analytics site Sensor Tower told The Wrap. “We estimate that Truth Social has so far reached approximately 1.2 million installs since its launch.”

Truthsocial.com reportedly has fallen to 1.9 million weekly visits from a high of 6 million in the debut week for the Twitter-like platform, according to Similarweb stats cited by the news website.

Team Trump led by Devin Nunez (above) created Truth Social after he was banned from Twitter for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The digital opinion site has struggled in a conservative space already occupied by right-leaning ventures such as Gettr.

Truth Social also caught the attention of talk show hosts like Jimmy Kimmel.

“Truth Social has been such a disappointment so far, Trump may have to rename it to ‘Don Jr.,’” Kimmel commented  last month.

Trump has been so perturbed by the stumbling rollout that he was heard asking, “What the f*** is going on?” on the phone, The Daily Beast reported.

It might be that fewer and fewer people are just not interested in what he has to say!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said yesterday in a CNN interview that if former President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the NATO alliance would be significantly damaged. Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, said NATO members would wonder whether they could continue to count on the United States.

“If he were to come back as the U.S. president, I think it would represent a pretty dramatic departure for the world, and they would rethink whether they can count on the United States to lead NATO to lead other nations as they push back against China and against Russia,” Romney said

During his presidency, Trump downplayed the U.S. commitment to NATO and publicly criticized the alliance, primarily over the perception that member states were not contributing enough financial support. He also flirted with the idea of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO, according to former national security adviser John Bolton.

“In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton told the Washington Post in early March. “And I think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin was waiting for that.”

Trump’s critics often argue that Putin’s top strategic priority was to weaken the NATO alliance, and Trump was seen as an ally in attaining that goal.

As Putin massed troops along Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus earlier this year and summarily declared two eastern regions of Ukraine as independent states, Trump lavished praise on Putin.

“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” Trump said on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “He used the word ‘independent,’ and ‘We’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”

As global opinion of Putin plummeted following the start of the Russian invasion, however, Trump sought to portray himself as NATO’s savior.

“I hope everyone is able to remember that it was me, as President of the United States, that got delinquent NATO members to start paying their dues, which amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars,” the former president said in a written statement. “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly.”

There is no evidence to back up Trump’s claim that NATO was in any danger of disbanding over the issue of dues.

In the run-up to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, NATO members banded together in their opposition to a Russian attack, and have acted largely in unison with regard to sanctions on the Russian government.

Asked whether Trump had permanently damaged NATO during his presidency, Romney responded, “Well, I think what’s happened to NATO is that they have said, ‘Can we rely on the U.S.?’ And is this America First idea, which is the president saying to everybody, ‘Hey, go off and do your own thing,’ I think that approach is one that frightens other members of NATO, and they wonder, are we committed to NATO and to our mutual defense, or are we all going to go off on our own?”

A Trump reelection would not just be bad for NATO!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

U.S. regulators yesterday authorized another COVID-19 booster for people age 50 and older, a step to offer extra protection for the most vulnerable in case the coronavirus rebounds.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision opens a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to those people at least four months after their previous booster.

Until now, the FDA had cleared fourth doses only for people 12 and older who have severely weakened immune systems. The agency said this especially fragile group also can get an additional booster, a fifth shot. As reported by the Associated Press.

The latest expansion, regardless of people’s health, allows an extra shot to millions more Americans — and the question is whether everyone who’s eligible should rush out and get it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to weigh in.

The move comes at a time of great uncertainty. COVID-19 cases have dropped to low levels after the winter surge of the super-contagious omicron variant. Two vaccine doses plus a booster still provide strong protection against severe disease and death, CDC data show.

But an omicron sibling is causing causing a worrisome jump in infections in Europe — and spreading in the U.S. — even as vaccination has stalled. About two-thirds of Americans are fully vaccinated, and half of those eligible for a first booster haven’t gotten one.

Pfizer had asked the FDA to clear a fourth shot for people 65 and older, while Moderna requested another dose for all adults “to provide flexibility” for the government to decide who really needs one.

There’s limited evidence to tell how much benefit another booster could offer right now. FDA made the decision without input from its independent panel of experts that has wrestled with how much data is required to expand shots.

“There might be a reason to top off the tanks a little bit” for older people and those with other health conditions, said University of Pennsylvania immunologist E. John Wherry, who wasn’t involved in the government’s decision.

But while he encourages older friends and relatives to follow the advice, the 50-year-old Wherry — who is healthy, vaccinated and boosted — doesn’t plan on getting a fourth shot right away. With protection against severe illness still strong, “I’m going to wait until it seems like there’s a need.”

None of the COVID-19 vaccines are as strong against the omicron mutant as they were against earlier versions of the virus. Also, protection against milder infections naturally wanes over time. But the immune system builds multiple layers of defense and the type that prevents severe illness and death is holding up.

During the U.S. omicron wave, two doses were nearly 80% effective against needing a ventilator or death — and a booster pushed that protection to 94%, the CDC recently reported. Vaccine effectiveness was lowest — 74% — in immune-compromised people, the vast majority of whom hadn’t gotten a third dose.

U.S. health officials also looked to Israel, which during the omicron surge opened a fourth dose to people 60 and older at least four months after their last shot. Preliminary data posted online last week suggested some benefit: Israeli researchers counted 92 deaths among more than 328,000 people who got the extra shot, compared to 232 deaths among 234,000 people who skipped the fourth dose.

What’s far from clear is how long any extra benefit from another booster would last, and thus when to get it.

“The ‘when’ is a really difficult part. Ideally we would time booster doses right before surges but we don’t always know when that’s going to be,” said Dr. William Moss of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Plus, a longer interval between shots helps the immune system mount a stronger, more cross-reactive defense.

“If you get a booster too close together, it’s not doing any harm — you’re just not going to get much benefit from it,” said Wherry.

I am getting the fourth booster as soon as it is available.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Higher education had little to celebrate last November when the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its employment estimates for the sector. The academy  had added basically zero jobs during the third quarter of 2021, and the sector’s sputtering job recovery lagged more than six months behind the rebound that was then underway throughout the broader economy.

However, the Bureau has revised its estimates and instead of a cumulative deficit of 300,000 higher-ed jobs lost since February 2020, that shortfall now sits at less than 40,000. And preliminary estimates suggest public colleges and universities have recovered the number of jobs lost over the course of the last two years, and then some.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Bureau’s revised estimates suggest Covid-era job losses were not as extensive as previously reported. Instead of an all-time cumulative, seasonally adjusted low point in December 2020 of over 610,000 jobs lost since the pandemic’s start, revised estimates peg the total fallout that month closer to 430,000 employees shed. To be sure, even with the revised totals, higher ed’s labor force still experienced historic job losses. America’s colleges and universities can’t point to another period since the 1960s when the sector shed so many employees so fast.

So what happened? The Bureau of Labor Statistics regularly makes revisions to its original and updated estimates of employment in order to capture the most accurate picture of work in America. Consider the Bureau’s estimate released earlier this month of the number of workers employed in February 2020 by state governments to provide education services. That data is preliminary. As the Bureau collects additional job data over the course of the next two months, the agency will in turn release updated estimates in April and May, respectively.

After collecting a year’s worth of monthly industry-level employment estimates, the Bureau will update the formulas used to calculate seasonal adjustments and revise, which means these numbers may come in for further adjustment.

Large revisions to recession-era industry-level employment estimates are nothing new. For example, between 2008 and 2013, the Bureau estimate of employment within the retail sector during March 2008 would be revised upward by more than 100,000 jobs. Now, higher education is witnessing a similar revision to estimates about its work force.

“The changes reflect improved seasonal adjustment models,” wrote Karen Kosanovich, a Bureau economist, when The Chronicle inquired about the revisions to the higher-education data. “Now that there are more monthly observations related to the historically large job losses and gains seen in the pandemic-driven recession and recovery, the models can better distinguish normal seasonal movements from underlying trends.”

Good news!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Joe Biden stood by his belief that Vladimir Putin should not be president of Russia, telling reporters that he made “no apologies” for his unscripted remarks.

“I’m not walking anything back,” the president said yesterday.

“I was expressing moral outrage, and I make no apologies,” he added.

Speaking in Poland at the end of his four-day trip to Europe on Sunday, Biden said of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The line came at the end of a 27-minute speech and was ad-libbed by a president famous for doing so.

Biden’s prepared remarks in the State Dining Room, his first public appearance since the speech in Warsaw Saturday, were about his budget proposal he is sending lawmakers for the fiscal year that starts in October, but most of the questions from the two dozen reporters assembled before him were about his ad-libbed comment.

White House officials on Saturday almost immediately afterward sent out a clarification that the sentence did not reflect a change in U.S. policy, and that Biden was not advocating “regime change” in Russia: “The president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change.”

Biden, though, on Monday insisted that and similar explanations did not constitute a “walk back,” and that he was reacting as anyone would after meeting with the victims of Putin’s assault on civilians, including children, in Ukraine.

“This is just stating a simple fact that this kind of behavior is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable,” he said.

“I wasn’t articulating a policy change,” he added. “I think that he continues on this course that he is on, he is going to become a pariah worldwide, and who knows what he becomes at home, in terms of support.”

Biden said he had no interest in escalating a conflict with a nuclear armed power, but was expressing a view shared by many. “People like this shouldn’t be ruling countries, but they do,” he said.

He also said he was not at all worried that what he said would escalate the conflict or weaken NATO.

“NATO has never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever been as strong as it is today,” he said. “Never.”

Good for Biden for standing by his words.  Putin is a disgraceful thug who has killed thousands of innocent civilians in Ukraine.  He should not remain in power.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

As expected, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill yesterday that forbids instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade, a policy that has drawn intense national scrutiny from critics who argue it marginalizes LGBTQ people.

The legislation has pushed Florida and DeSantis, an aspiring 2024 presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars, with LGBTQ advocates, students, Democrats, the entertainment industry and the White House denouncing what critics have called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

DeSantis and Republicans have repeatedly said the measure is reasonable and that parents, not teachers, should be broaching subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity with their children.

“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” DeSantis said before he signed the bill into law. He and other speakers stood at a podium affixed with a placard reading Protect Children/Support Parents.

Critics say the bill is so vaguely worded that speech could be muzzled throughout public schools.

The bill states: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations.

DeSantis signed the bill after a news conference held at the Classical Preparatory School in Spring Hill, about 46 miles (74 kilometers) north of Tampa.

Sad day for Florida!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Reporters said the size of the crowd at the Trump rally on Saturday night in Commerce, Georgia, was underwhelming to say the least as the former president showed his support for several Republican primary candidates in the state.

“I’ve covered more than two dozen Trump rallies around the nation,” tweeted Greg Bluestein, a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This is the smallest crowd I’ve seen at a rally of his in Georgia since he won the 2016 election — significantly smaller than the crowd in Perry [Georgia last] September.”

Stephen Fowler, a political reporter for Georgia Public Broadcasting, made a similar observation.

“It’s almost time for Trump to speak here in Georgia and there’s probably no more than 5,000 people here, the smallest Trump rally I’ve ever covered here. Way less than the Perry rally in 2021 (closer to 10k),” Fowler noted Saturday in a tweet that included photos.

Fowler wrote a story about the rally under a headline saying Trump’s “revenge tour faltered.”

Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington told Newsweek that Fowler’s crowd estimate was “totally false,” and claimed “official estimates are between 25,000 and 35,000 people.” It wasn’t immediately clear what “official” crowd estimates she was referring to, as there didn’t appear to be any from the city of Commerce or its police department.

Bluestein said he didn’t believe Harrington’s numbers could be correct, and pointed to an earlier tweet showing how sparse the crowd was shortly after Trump claimed there were people “as far as the eye can see.”

Fowler noted the weather was cold and windy, and said that likely didn’t help attendance.

Fowler tweeted that the turnout “matches what I’ve seen at GOP events across the state.”

Trump has a long history of exaggeration and self-aggrandizement — and using crowd size as a measure of his popularity.

“For Donald Trump and his supporters, crowd size is more than just a bragging point. It’s proof that they are part of the American majority,” Elaine Godfrey wrote in The Atlantic in January.

It appears Trump gave a party and hardly anyone came!

Tony

Ketanji Brown Jackson and Ginni Thomas

Dear Commons Community.

In her New York Times column yesterday, Maureen Dowd analyzed the Senate hearings of Ketanji Brown Jackson and relates them to Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

She opens by describing the Senate hearings as:

“A snarling pack of white male Republicans ripping apart a poised, brainy Black woman at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, using sordid innuendos and baseless claims about race and porn to smear her, as her pained family sits behind her.

It has been 31 years since I watched this scene, disgusted, when Anita Hill was questioned during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. Now Ketanji Brown Jackson has been cast into the same medieval torture chamber on Capitol Hill, with Democrats once more struggling to shield their witness from being mauled.

This time, the male Torquemadas were joined by a female inquisitor, Marsha Blackburn. The Tennessee Republican is all magnolia Southern charm — until she spits venom.”

Dowd pivots to the Thomases:

“Perhaps Joe Biden sees his selection of Judge Jackson as a sort of expiation for his dismal performance as committee chairman for the Hill-Thomas hearings. Biden allowed the Republicans to run wild, and then he shut down the hearings before Hill’s backup witnesses testified. He cleared the path for Clarence Thomas, a liar and sexual harasser, to ascend to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court and impose his far-right views on the country. In a speech at Notre Dame last year, Clarence Thomas lamented, “We have lost the capacity, even I think as leaders, to not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcomes we like.”

And yet manipulating institutions is exactly what his wife, Ginni, tried to do. As Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in a Washington Post–CBS News bombshell, the conservative activist worked frantically to overturn the results of the 2020 election, calling it an “obvious fraud,” as Donald Trump and his allies were vowing to go to her husband’s court to nullify Biden’s win.

Ginni Thomas has had a chip on her shoulder since the Hill-Thomas hearings — she shamelessly left Hill a voice message in 2010 asking for an apology — and no doubt she thought if she could help claw back the presidency from Biden, that would be sweet revenge.”

Her conclusion:

Thomas should never have been on the court. Now that we know his wife was plotting the overthrow of the government, he should get off or be thrown off. You can’t administer justice when your spouse is running around strategizing for a coup.

The entire column is below.

Tony

———————————————————————

The New York Times

Real Justice: Justice Jackson

March 26, 2022

By Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON — A snarling pack of white male Republicans ripping apart a poised, brainy Black woman at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, using sordid innuendos and baseless claims about race and porn to smear her, as her pained family sits behind her.

It has been 31 years since I watched this scene, disgusted, when Anita Hill was questioned during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. Now Ketanji Brown Jackson has been cast into the same medieval torture chamber on Capitol Hill, with Democrats once more struggling to shield their witness from being mauled.

This time, the male Torquemadas were joined by a female inquisitor, Marsha Blackburn. The Tennessee Republican is all magnolia Southern charm — until she spits venom.

“Can you provide a definition for the word woman?” Blackburn asked Judge Jackson, invoking the controversy over a transgender swimmer from the University of Pennsylvania. Blackburn’s question inspired Tucker Carlson to later hold up a graphic of a woman’s reproductive system, along with a silhouette of a woman so shapely that Roger Ailes would have approved.

What is a woman? Jackson shows that a woman is someone who stays cool in the face of calumny and is headed for the Supreme Court. And that will be justice for Justice Jackson.

A better question might be: What is a senator?

Is it a dolt who cares more about boosting unrealistic presidential ambitions with distorted information than making the Senate, for once, look like a dignified body?

Feral Republicans took an exemplary record and twisted it to make Jackson look like an enabler of pedophiles. Tom Cotton all but accused her of lying, just as Arlen Specter accused Hill of perjury — based on nothing.

Less than a year ago, Lindsey Graham voted to confirm Jackson for the D.C. Court of Appeals, calling her “qualified.” Now he berates her with odd questions and seems to blame her for Brett Kavanaugh’s grilling. If only John McCain could appear to him like Hamlet’s father’s ghost and slap him into shape.

Perhaps Joe Biden sees his selection of Judge Jackson as a sort of expiation for his dismal performance as committee chairman for the Hill-Thomas hearings. Biden allowed the Republicans to run wild, and then he shut down the hearings before Hill’s backup witnesses testified. He cleared the path for Clarence Thomas, a liar and sexual harasser, to ascend to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court and impose his far-right views on the country.

As Jill Abramson wrote in the Times Opinion section, the court’s 6-3 majority now “seems to be reshaping itself in Justice Thomas’s image.”

In a speech at Notre Dame last year, Thomas lamented, “We have lost the capacity, even I think as leaders, to not allow others to manipulate our institutions when we don’t get the outcomes we like.”

And yet manipulating institutions is exactly what his wife, Ginni, tried to do. As Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in a Washington Post–CBS News bombshell, the conservative activist worked frantically to overturn the results of the 2020 election, calling it an “obvious fraud,” as Donald Trump and his allies were vowing to go to her husband’s court to nullify Biden’s win.

Ginni Thomas has had a chip on her shoulder since the Hill-Thomas hearings — she shamelessly left Hill a voice message in 2010 asking for an apology — and no doubt she thought if she could help claw back the presidency from Biden, that would be sweet revenge.

In a cascade of text messages, she urged Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to get Trump back into the Oval. “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” she pleaded, adding, “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.” Ginni — who attended the Jan. 6 rally before the raid on the Capitol started — urged Meadows to “Release the Kraken.”

The Republicans badgering Judge Jackson aren’t asking a single question about the explosive revelations regarding Ginni Thomas — and nor are the rest of their party. Did the justice know what his wife was doing? Was he OK with it? Does he accept that he must recuse himself from cases dealing with Jan. 6 and the election?

Apparently not. “Justice Thomas has already participated in two cases related to the 2020 election and its aftermath, despite his wife’s direct involvement in the so-called Stop the Steal efforts,” Jane Mayer reported in The New Yorker.

When the court rejected Trump’s request to prevent the Jan. 6 committee from getting his records relating to the attempt to overturn the election results, Thomas was the sole dissenter. Do the records implicate Ginni?

Stephen Gillers, a judicial ethicist, told Mayer that it was Clarence Thomas’s duty to know about Ginni’s crusade: “‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ is not an acceptable strategy for the Thomases’ marriage.”

Thomas should never have been on the court. Now that we know his wife was plotting the overthrow of the government, he should get off or be thrown off. You can’t administer justice when your spouse is running around strategizing for a coup.