{"id":11155,"date":"2014-01-30T12:09:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T17:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/?p=11155"},"modified":"2014-05-15T12:30:28","modified_gmt":"2014-05-15T16:30:28","slug":"simon-bernstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2014\/01\/30\/simon-bernstein\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Minutes that Changed Connecticut: Simon Bernstein and the 1965 Connecticut Education Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This essay was developed in the Cities Suburbs &amp; Schools seminar in Fall 2013 and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/five-minutes-that-changed-connecticut-simon-bernstein-and-the-1965-connecticut-education-amendment\/\" target=\"_blank\">published\u00a0in Jan 2014<\/a> by ConnecticutHistory.org.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/trinity-college-students-call-attention-to-histories-of-inequality\/\" target=\"_blank\">See other Trinity student essays<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Five Minutes that Changed Connecticut: Simon Bernstein and the 1965 Connecticut Education Amendment\" href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/HartfordClassroom1957.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Hartford classroom, 1957\" src=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/HartfordClassroom1957.jpg\" width=\"595\" height=\"478\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>Hartford classroom, 1957 &#8211; Hartford Times Collection, Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cthistoryonline.org\/cdm\/ref\/collection\/cho\/id\/16104\">Connecticut History Online<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s unequal political representation system, Bernstein dared to dream a little bigger. As a member of the\u00a0<a title=\"Bloomfield\" href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/towns-page\/bloomfield\/\">Bloomfield<\/a>\u00a0Board of Education, Bernstein recognized that Connecticut was the only state that did not guarantee its citizens a constitutional right to an education. Bernstein thus decided to draft a new amendment to address this problem. After days of being ignored by his Democratic Party superiors and, finally, threatening to confront the media about his concerns, Bernstein\u2019s request was met. Delegates at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention passed Bernstein\u2019s amendment which guarantees free public education to every child. This set the stage for a series of prominent educational lawsuits, including\u00a0<em>Horton v. Meskill<\/em>\u00a0(1970),<em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/sheff-v-oneill-settlements-target-educational-segregation-in-hartford\/\">Sheff v. O\u2019Neill<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1989), and\u00a0<em>Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) v. Rell<\/em>\u00a0(2005).<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Man Behind the Amendment<\/strong><br \/>\nBernstein was born on January 17, 1913, in\u00a0<a title=\"Hartford\" href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/towns-page\/hartford\/\">Hartford<\/a>, Connecticut. After graduating from Trinity College and Harvard Law School, he began his political career in Hartford as a lawyer and Democratic alderman. During his time in Hartford, Bernstein served on the city\u2019s Finance Committee and also actively participated in the 1940\u2032s Zionist movement, a political effort that sought to encourage local lawmakers to support Israel\u2019s fight for its own state. In 1950, Bernstein moved to Bloomfield and was elected to the Bloomfield Board of Education.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/27263147\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"frameborder=\"0\" title=\"Simon Bernstein, August 1, 2011\" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>Simon Bernstein&#8217;s 2011 interview with the Cities Suburbs and Schools Project<\/em><\/p>\n<p>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\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/race-restrictive-covenants-in-property-deeds\/\">racially restrictive covenant<\/a>, a term used to describe real estate agreements that prohibit people of a specific race from occupying a property. This covenant, in particular, limited a property sale in the West Hartford area to \u201cnon-Semitic persons of the Caucasian race.\u201d\u00a0<em>The Hartford Courant<\/em>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 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Creation and Impact of the Education Amendment<\/strong><br \/>\nOne reason why Bernstein\u2019s peers at the 1965 Connecticut Constitutional Convention attempted to stifle his enthusiasm for including an education amendment was that they were focused on only one task: revising the state\u2019s system of political representation. Connecticut\u2019s representation system needed to be fixed as a consequence of the 1964 United States Supreme Court ruling in\u00a0<em>Reynolds v. Sims<\/em>. The Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s Equal Protection Clause required state legislatures to apportion representatives based on each district\u2019s population to ensure that all citizens are equally represented. This \u201cone man, one vote\u201d law thus made Connecticut\u2019s system\u2014two representatives for every district regardless of population\u2014unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>Because the sole purpose of the Convention was to align Connecticut\u2019s representation system with\u00a0<em>Reynolds v. Sims<\/em>, John Bailey, the influential Democratic chairman, had little interest in seeing any proposals regarding schools. 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 interview. Rather than accept the legislature\u2019s preplanned agenda, Bernstein chose to challenge his political superiors.<\/p>\n<p>In order to gain 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 worked. Bailey granted Bernstein a meager 5 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 5-minute deadline, is general because Bernstein believed the language of the Constitution should reflect overall principles and ideas. 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<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BernsteinEducation.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[38057]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"1965 Education Amendment draft\" src=\"http:\/\/connecticuthistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/BernsteinEducation.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"336\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Bernstein was given only minutes to draft his proposal for what is known today as the 1965 Education Amendment. The above image is a facsimile of the document. The actual draft of the Article is held at the Connecticut State Library.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>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\u00a0<em>Horton v. Meskill\u00a0<\/em>(1970),\u00a0<em>Sheff v. O\u2019Neill<\/em>\u00a0(1989), and\u00a0<em>Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding (CCJEF) v. Rell\u00a0<\/em>(2005). At the time of\u00a0<em>Horton v. Meskill<\/em>, Connecticut supplied school districts with $250 per child, forcing towns to rely heavily on local property taxes for additional funding. The Horton plaintiffs used Bernstein\u2019s amendment to argue that this system was unconstitutional because it meant educational quality varied considerably from poorer to wealthier towns.\u00a0<em>Sheff v. O\u2019Neill<\/em>\u00a0used Bernstein\u2019s amendment to prove that the extreme racial, ethnic, and economic isolation of the Hartford school district left its schoolchildren, and suburban schoolchildren, with an insufficient education that the state was required to remedy. The\u00a0<em>CCJEF v. Rell<\/em>\u00a0lawsuit used the 1965 Educational Amendment to argue that Connecticut\u2019s system for funding public schools was not only inadequate but also disproportionately harmed minority schoolchildren by diminishing their ability to participate in the democratic process, thrive in college, and reap the monetary rewards of intellectual success.<\/p>\n<p>After his years as a lawyer, Bernstein served as a Connecticut Superior Court Judge for 27 years. He passed away on May 27, 2013, at his home in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 100. His contribution to Connecticut lives on through the 1965 education amendment that continues to serve as a foundation for educational inequality lawsuits throughout the state.<\/p>\n<p><em>Elaina Rollins, a sophomore at Trinity College in Hartford during the 2013-2014 academic year, is an Educational Studies major and a resident of Columbus, Ohio.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>learn more<\/strong><br \/>\nWebsites<br \/>\n\u201cCCJEF V. Rell Overview.\u201d\u00a0<i>Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding<\/i>, 2013.<a href=\"http:\/\/ccjef.org\/ccjef-v-rell-overview\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Video<br \/>\nOral History Collection A-Z: Simon Bernstein. Interview by Jack Zaiman. Video, December 22, 1971. Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jhsgh.org\/template\/findingaid.php?src=oral%20history%20alph.xml#ref190\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bernstein, Simon. Oral History Interview on Connecticut Civil Rights (with video) &#8211; Cities, Suburbs, and Schools Project. Interview by Katie Campbell. Pdf file, video, jpeg, August 1, 2011. Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/digitalrepository.trincoll.edu\/cssp_ohistory\/19\/\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Documents<br \/>\n\u201cPDF: CCJEF (Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding) V. Rell.\u201d The Lawyers\u2019 Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, n.d.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lawyerscommittee.org\/admin\/site\/documents\/files\/CCJEF-v.-Rell-Summary.pdf\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Books<br \/>\nCollier, Christopher.\u00a0<i>Connecticut\u2019s Public Schools: A History, 1650-2000<\/i>. Orange, CT: Clearwater Press, 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Dougherty, Jack, and colleagues.\u00a0<i>On the Line: How Schooling, Housing, and Civil Rights Shaped Hartford and Its Suburbs<\/i>. Hartford, CT: Trinity College, 2011.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/ontheline.trincoll.edu\/\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Eaton, Susan E.\u00a0<i>The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial<\/i>. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007.<\/p>\n<p>Articles<br \/>\n\u201cBernstein Seeks End of Restrictive Clauses.\u201d\u00a0<i>The Hartford Courant<\/i>. March 28, 1947, sec. ProQuest &#8211; Hartford Courant Historical Newspaper database &#8211; Available through iCONN.org.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iconn.org\/\">Link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSimon Bernstein.\u201d\u00a0<i>The New Haven Register<\/i>. May 30, 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This essay was developed in the Cities Suburbs &amp; Schools seminar in Fall 2013 and\u00a0published\u00a0in Jan 2014 by ConnecticutHistory.org.\u00a0See other Trinity student essays. Hartford classroom, 1957 &#8211; Hartford Times Collection, Hartford History Center, Hartford Public Library and\u00a0Connecticut History Online Hartford lawyer and Democratic delegate Simon Bernstein stuck out from his political peers at the 1965 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/2014\/01\/30\/simon-bernstein\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">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":[75],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155"}],"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=11155"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11157,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11155\/revisions\/11157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/cssp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}