{"id":10066,"date":"2013-10-15T22:27:49","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T02:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/?p=10066"},"modified":"2013-10-16T11:51:51","modified_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:51:51","slug":"five-minutes-that-changed-connecticut-simon-bernstein-and-the-1965-connecticut-education-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2013\/10\/15\/five-minutes-that-changed-connecticut-simon-bernstein-and-the-1965-connecticut-education-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Minutes that Changed Connecticut: Simon Bernstein and the 1965 Connecticut Education Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Simon<\/a>
Simon Bernstein circa 1965, the year of the Connecticut Constitutional Convention. SOURCE: Christopher Collier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hartford lawyer and Democratic delegate Simon Bernstein stuck out from his political peers at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention. While the Democratic and Republican chairmen of the time were entrenched in a debate over the state’s unequal political representation system, Bernstein dared to dream a little bigger (Bernstein interview by Campbell 10). As a member of the Bloomfield Board of Education, Bernstein recognized that in 1965, Connecticut was the only state that did not guarantee its citizens a constitutional right to an education and thus decided to draft a new amendment to address this problem (9, 11). After days of being ignored by his Democratic Party superiors and then finally threatening to confront the media about his concerns, Bernstein’s request was met. Delegates at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention passed Bernstein’s amendment which guarantees free public education to every child, setting the stage for a series of prominent educational lawsuits, including Horton v. Meskill <\/i>(1970), Sheff v. O’Neill <\/i>(1989), and Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) v. Rell <\/i>(2005) (Bernstein interview by Campbell 11, 1; \u201cCCJEF v. Rell Overview\u201d).<\/p>\n

The Man Behind the Amendment<\/b><\/p>\n

Bernstein was born on January 17, 1913, in Hartford, Connecticut (Bernstein interview by Campbell 13; \u201cSimon Bernstein). After graduating from Trinity College and Harvard Law School, he began his political career in Hartford as a lawyer and democratic alderman (Bernstein interview by Campbell 1, 13). During his time in Hartford, Bernstein served on the city\u2019s Finance Committee and also actively participated in the 1940s Zionist movement, a political effort that sought to encourage local lawmakers to support Israel\u2019s fight for its own state (Bernstein interview by Campbell 9; Bernstein Interview by Zaiman 3). In 1950, Bernstein moved to Bloomfield and was elected to the Bloomfield Board of Education (Bernstein interview by Campbell 1, 9).<\/p>\n

In all of his political efforts, Bernstein proved he was not afraid to confront difficult issues that others were hesitant to address. For example, in 1947, Bernstein took on a legal case involving a racially restrictive covenant, a term used to describe real estate agreements that prohibit people of a specific race from occupying a piece of land. This covenant, in particular, limited a property sale in the West Hartford area to \u201cnon-Semitic persons of the Caucasian race\u201d (Bernstein interview by Campbell 4). The Hartford Courant<\/i> published an article about Bernstein on March 28, 1947, which wrote that Bernstein felt the covenant\u2019s racially specific language was \u201cagainst public policy\u201d (\u201cBernstein Seeks End\u201d 21). Bernstein eventually managed to get this phrasing erased from the original property agreement, making him the first person in Connecticut to successfully address a legal case of this kind (Bernstein interview by Campbell 8).<\/p>\n

The Creation and Impact of the Education Amendment<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the reasons why Bernstein\u2019s peers at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention attempted to stifle his enthusiasm about an education amendment was because they were focused on only one task: revising the state\u2019s system of political representation. Connecticut\u2019s representation system needed to be fixed because of the 1964 United States Supreme Court ruling in Reynolds v. Sims <\/i>(Collier 593). The Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Equal Protection Clause requires state legislatures to apportion representatives based on each district\u2019s population to ensure that all citizens are equally represented (\u201cReynolds v. Sims\u201d). This \u201cone man, one vote\u201d law thus made Connecticut\u2019s system \u2013 two representatives for every district \u2013 unconstitutional (Collier 591).<\/p>\n

Because the sole purpose of the Convention was to align Connecticut\u2019s representation system with Reynolds v. Sims<\/i>, John Bailey, the influential and Democratic chairman, had no interest in seeing any proposals regarding schools (Collier 593). However, this did not stop Bernstein from voicing his concerns about Connecticut\u2019s lack of a constitutional guarantee to education: \u201cI was enough of a history student of law, a lawyer, to know that once a convention is called for the state or national, nothing is irrelevant,\u201d Bernstein stated in an oral interview<\/a> (Bernstein interview by Campbell 10). Rather than accept the legislature\u2019s pre-planned agenda, Bernstein chose to challenge his political superiors.<\/p>\n

In order to get the legislature\u2019s attention, Bernstein repeatedly asked Bailey to consider his proposal and also threatened to discuss his frustration with the media. In the end, it was this threat that got Bernstein what he wanted: Bailey granted Bernstein a meager five minutes to draft a proposal in an effort to quickly return to the discussion on political representation. Bernstein\u2019s amendment, which he scribbled onto a scrap of paper in order to make his five-minute deadline, is general because Bernstein believed the language of the Constitution should reflect overall principles and ideas (Bernstein interview by Campbell 11). It states that, \u201cThere shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation\u201d (Collier 591).<\/p>\n

\"Bernstein<\/a>
Bernstein was given only minutes to draft his proposal for what is known today as the 1965 Education Amendment. SOURCE: Christopher Collier.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although the world \u201cequal\u201d is not explicitly written in the amendment, its inference has been used as a foundation for nationally recognized educational inequality lawsuits such as Horton v. Meskill <\/i>(1970), Sheff v. O\u2019Neill <\/i>(1989), and Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) v. Rell <\/i>(2005) (Bernstein interview by Campbell 1; Collier 594; \u201cCCJEF v. Rell Overview\u201d). At the time of Horton v. Meskill<\/i>, Connecticut supplied school districts with $250 per child, forcing states to rely heavily on local property taxes for additional funding. The Horton <\/i>plaintiffs used Bernstein\u2019s amendment to argue that this system was unconstitutional because it meant educational quality varied considerably from poorer to wealthier towns (Eaton 90-91). Sheff v. O\u2019Neill<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>used Bernstein\u2019s amendment to prove that the extreme racial, ethnic, and economic isolation of the Hartford school district left its schoolchildren, and other suburban schoolchildren, with an insufficient education that the state was required to remedy (\u201cSheff v. O\u2019Neill\u201d). The CCJEF v. Rell<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>lawsuit used the 1965 Educational Amendment to argue that Connecticut\u2019s system for funding public schools is not only inadequate, but also disproportionately harms minority schoolchildren and their ability to participate in the democratic process, thrive in college, and reap the monetary rewards of intellectual success (\u201cCCJEF v. Rell Overview\u201d; “CCJEF v. Rell” by The Lawyers Committee<\/em>).<\/p>\n

After his years as a laywer, Bernstein served as a Connecticut Superior Court Judge for 27 years. He passed away on January 17, 2013 at his home in Sarasota, Florida at the age of 100 (\u201cSimon Bernstein\u201d). His contribution to Connecticut lives on through the 1965 educational amendment that continues to serve as a foundation for educational inequality lawsuits throughout the state.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. “Bernstein Seeks End of Restrictive Clauses.\u201d The Hartford Courant (1923-1987)<\/i>:\u00a021. Mar 28 1947. ProQuest. <\/i>Web. 5 Oct. 2013.<\/li>\n
  2. Bernstein, Simon. Interview by Jack Zaiman. Greater Hartford Jewish Historical\u00a0<\/i>Society Oral History Collection<\/i>. Greater Hartford Jewish Historical Society, 1971.\u00a0Web. 6 Oct 2013.<\/li>\n
  3. Bernstein, Simon. Interview by Katie Campbell. “Oral History Interview on\u00a0Connecticut\u00a0Civil Rights.” Trinity College Digital Repository<\/i>. Trinity College, 2011. Web.\u00a04 Oct\u00a02013.<\/li>\n
  4. “CCJEF v. Rell.”\u00a0The Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law<\/i>. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, n.d. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <www.lawyerscommittee.org\/admin\/site\/documents\/files\/CCJEF-v.-Rell-Summary.pdf>.<\/li>\n
  5. “CCJEF v. Rell Overview.” Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding<\/i>. N.p.,\u00a0n.d.\u00a0Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http:\/\/ccjef.org\/ccjef-v-rell-overview>.<\/li>\n
  6. Collier, Christopher. Connecticut\u2019s Public Schools: A History, 1650-2000. <\/i>Orange, CT:\u00a0Clearwater Press, 2009. Print.<\/li>\n
  7. Eaton, Susan E. The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial<\/i>. Chapel\u00a0Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007. Print.<\/li>\n
  8. “Reynolds v. Sims.” Legal Information Institute<\/i>. Cornell University Law School, n.d.\u00a0Web. 7 Oct 2013.\u00a0<http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/supct\/html\/historics\/USSC_CR_0377_0533_ZS.html><\/li>\n
  9. \u201cSimon Bernstein.\u201d The New Haven Register<\/i>. 30 May 2013. New Haven\u00a0<\/i>Register<\/i>. Web. 7\u00a0Oct 2013.<\/li>\n
  10. “Sheff v. O\u2019Neill\u2014Today in History.” ConnecticutHistory.org<\/i>. CThumanities, n.d.\u00a0Web. 7\u00a0Oct 2013. <http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/sheff-v-oneill-today-in-history\/>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hartford lawyer and Democratic delegate Simon Bernstein stuck out from his political peers at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention. While the Democratic and Republican chairmen of the time were entrenched in a debate over the state’s unequal political representation system, Bernstein dared to dream a little bigger (Bernstein interview by Campbell 10). As a member … Continue reading Five Minutes that Changed Connecticut: Simon Bernstein and the 1965 Connecticut Education Amendment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":605,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10066"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10163,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10066\/revisions\/10163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}