(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Caribbean Matters: Puerto Ricans raise outcry over disgraced education secretary's new mainland gig [1] [] Date: 2023-08-10 This week brings an update to several Puerto Rico stories I’ve written (that predate “Caribbean Matters”) concerning Julia Keleher, the formerly incarcerated ex-secretary of education for Puerto Rico. I’m going to call this as I see it: The disgraced Keleher—convicted of and jailed for fraud—has just been awarded a plum job in Delaware with nonprofit First State Educate and the First State Action Fund. Puerto Rican organizations, who know her history well, have been calling out her new appointment on social media. Their objections to her selection, which was applauded by the ACLU Delaware (the organization made her a “Smart Justice Ambassador” after her release from prison), aren’t being answered; after all the negative feedback, the ACLU Delaware removed both its tweet and article lauding her appointment. The latter can be found on the Wayback Machine. From my perspective, and I am not alone in this assessment, she is a key example of white privilege. RELATED STORY: Republican charter school privatization plague infects Puerto Rico. #JuliaGoHome Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean. Keleher has been the beneficiary of kindness from mainland media, like this story in The Philadelphia Inquirer, published in November after her release from prison. As the most powerful education official in Puerto Rico, Julia Keleher closed hundreds of schools. Then she pleaded guilty to corruption. Now back from prison, at home in Delco, she talks about reform. ‘The responsible adult in the room’ At the kitchen table, with her parents sitting within earshot but out of sight, Keleher explains how she believes she got screwed. The teachers’ unions were so powerful. Her Spanish wasn’t quite good enough, so sometimes she’d offend people by mistake. And because of the island’s more than a century-long colonial relationship with the U.S., Puerto Ricans did not take kindly to a white lady from the mainland coming in and telling them she knew best. That, she says, was a hard sell. The way she tells it, she was doing the difficult, necessary work of change — “Somebody had to be the responsible adult in the room,” she once said — and Puerto Ricans thanked her by screaming, “Julia, go home!” Oh, poor Julia. She’s a victim of those mean teachers unions who were fighting to keep schools on the island open, and for better teacher pay. To understand some of the history here, take a look at this very short video posted in 2018 by Enrique A. Baloyra. Baloyra, the former asssociate dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami, documents the early critique of both Betsy DeVos and Keleher’s roles in Puerto Rico’s school system. x YouTube Video Patricia Mazzei, Miami bureau chief for The New York Times, covered Keleher’s sentencing in 2021. Ms. Keleher, who resigned in April 2019, pleaded guilty to a charge that she knew that a politically connected consultant would be paid to do work as part of a federal contract that did not allow for subcontractors. She also pleaded guilty to signing a letter endorsing a road-widening project that removed an obstacle to development of land adjacent to a public school. The project required giving up a strip of land — 1,034 square feet — from a school in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan, the capital. (The road widening project had been approved by the government in 2003.) In return for the letter, the developer rented her an apartment in an adjacent building named Ciudadela from May to July of 2018 for $1. She was later given a $12,000 incentive bonus, funded by the developer, that helped her buy the two-bedroom unit for $297,500. Now, onto some of the current pushback. From Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa: x We @fuhinvestigates are doing a story about housing and displacement in Puerto Rico. Julia Keleher who ran education on the island, but is from the mainland, was found guilty of fraud while in that position. And yet? @ACLUDelaware How do you explain THIS?? pic.twitter.com/SIKgaQB7Cn — Maria Hinojosa 🥑 (@Maria_Hinojosa) August 4, 2023 x Hace un poco más de 4 años, Julia Keleher entraba al Tribunal Federal de EE.UU. en Puerto Rico acusada por fraude (luego convicta). 4 años más tarde comienza a trabajar como directora ejecutiva de @1stStateEducate. #WhiteSupremacy #WhitePrivilege 🎥🎤 @JuanCineDoc pic.twitter.com/d2NuonKe8Y — Simulacros de Liberación Film 🎬 (@SDLdocumental) August 3, 2023 Translation: “A little over 4 years ago, Julia Keleher entered the U.S, Federal Court in Puerto Rico accused of fraud (later convicted). 4 years later, she began working as the executive director of @1stStateEducate. #WhiteSupremacy #WhitePrivilege” And from NYU doctoral fellow Andrew J. Padilla: x Now @1stStateEducate is blocking all negative comments from their Facebook posts to hide anger over them hiring Julia Keleher of @SmartJusticeDE Why ignore/hide voices of Puerto Ricans harmed by her tenure as PR education Sec ? Don’t want Delaware kids & parents to find out?🤔 — Andrew J. Padilla 🇵🇷 (@apadillafilm6) August 2, 2023 From Power4PuertoRico, a coalition of diaspora leaders: x Former #PuertoRico Secretary of Education Julia Keleher, who was sent to prison for corruption, is appointed as executive director of education nonprofits in #Delaware, according to report 👇 https://t.co/5RvELnCrBm — Power4PuertoRico (@Pwr4PuertoRico) August 1, 2023 And from Power4PuertoRico’s executive director: x .@ACLU, why would one of your chapters celebrate someone convicted of corruption and who showed utter contempt for Puerto Ricans? https://t.co/CEeFvHBcF5 — Erica G. for Class President (@EG10029) August 2, 2023 From the island’s main news outlet, El Nuevo Día: x Lo más visto de la semana | La exsecretaria de Educación, convicta por cargos federales de corrupción, fue designada como directora ejecutiva de la entidad First State Educate. https://t.co/n6swUFdjgS — El Nuevo Día (@ElNuevoDia) August 6, 2023 Translation: “The most viewed of the week | The former Secretary of Education, convicted on federal corruption charges, was appointed as executive director of the First State Educate entity.” It’s clear that objections from Puerto Ricans—both those on the island who were subject to her school closures and corruption, as well as the nearly 30,000 members of the diaspora living in Delaware—weren’t taken into consideration when Keleher was rewarded with this major new employment opportunity. Instead, it seems that stepping on Puerto Rican people got her rewarded with a second chance that few of us can dream of. What will she do to education in the First State? Only time will tell. Join me in the comments to discuss, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/10/2185739/-Caribbean-Matters-Puerto-Ricans-raise-outcry-over-disgraced-education-secretary-s-new-mainland-gig Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/