Letter to the editor: Don't create a government file on our schoolchildren

Editor’s note: The Portager publishes letters to the editor from the community. The opinions expressed are published not because they necessarily reflect those of the publication but because we feel they contribute meaningfully to the local discourse on matters of public interest.

Kent’s board of education is considering an issue that should alarm district residents as well as good people across Ohio. Board members are studying whether to oppose a benign-sounding but actually pernicious piece of legislation in Columbus: Ohio House Bill 42.

HB 42, co-sponsored by Rep. Heidi Workman, R-Rootstown, would require the state education department, among many governmental agencies, to collect the citizenship or immigration status of those they serve. For school districts, it means reporting annually the number of students who are citizens by birth or naturalization, the number in the U.S. legally along with their documented immigration status, and the number “who are not lawfully” here. Sounds reasonable, right?

Trouble is, it likely won’t stop there. We all are witnessing the overreaching (even murderous) anti-immigration campaign being coordinated by the Trump administration. HB 42’s provisions could easily be warped to disclose private data currently protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA). More than that, the bill underscores the rising toxicity of intimidating all immigrants — whether documented or not, whether law-abiding or not, and whether newly arrived on our shores or having lived peacefully here for years. The indiscriminate demonizing of “others” by self-righteous “Americans” flies in the face of the best of this nation’s founding principles.

There are plenty of tools to enforce sensible immigration laws if used effectively. Sweeping actions, such as dragnets and “surges” by ICE and CBP, and as possibly aided by HB 42, are not among them. Schoolchildren should not become weapons in a fear-mongering crusade against anyone not born here — and, for the most part, not of Western European white heritage.

Finally, despite Rep. Workman’s self-professed advocacy for less government regulation, HB 42 would add yet another bureaucratic burden to an already overworked reporting regimen for Ohio’s school.

— Robert Springer, Kent