How elected official opts out of a win unclear to officials and staff after decision by Dexter
Emily Dexter stops by the Baldwin School polls on Nov. 5. She won reelection to the School Committee with 3,003 top votes. (Photo: Marc Levy)
There is uncertainty among city staff about how Emily Dexter will depart the School Committee, after she announced Sunday she would not be sitting for the third term she won in November elections.
It is unclear who or which department will accept her resignation and determine who fills her seat. She opted out of the third term after months of controversy and increasing community pressure to resign.
Dexter said Monday afternoon that she hadn’t been contacted by the Election Commission or city or school district staff or lawyers.
Tuesday is the final scheduled committee meeting of 2019. An all-day organizational meeting for the new committee is on the committee calendar for Jan. 6, with a regular meeting planned for 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 7.
Cambridge in this case does not operate under state law, said Debra O’Malley, communications director in Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office, but uses the city charter as the guiding document.
The effective date of the resignation may also affect the procedures.
“Have they declined to take the oath or have they resigned from the current term?” O’Malley said. The oath would be administered in January. “The charter would dictate how the position is filled.”
Mayor Marc McGovern said the Election Commission is working with the city solicitor to determine which department can accept Dexter’s act.
It is likely that when her resignation is accepted, the ballots from November’s election will be counted, Dexter’s votes will be redistributed and her successor under the city’s proportional representation voting system will be notified of the outcome. According to data posted on the Cambridge Civics Journal website of local politics watcher Robert Winters, she will be replaced on the committee by candidate David Weinstein. The Election Commission will have to run Dexter’s No. 1 votes again to confirm – a process that last took place in 2009, when Brian Murphy quit the City Council to work for the state and Larry Ward, a challenger in the past election, took his place for the remainder of the term.
Weinstein said Sunday that he had no comment.
At this time the Election Commission is waiting to for the solicitor’s office to confirm the resignation procedure and ballot count process, officials said.
Dexter was elected to a third term Nov. 5 with fellow incumbents Manikka Bowman and Fred Fantini after committee member Patty Nolan opted for a run for City Council and members Kathleen Kelly and Laurance Kimbrough opted not to run again. She won back her seat with 3,003 top votes, second only to Bowman’s 3,109 and far above the 2,776 “quota” needed for instant reelection.
Though McGovern was reelected to the City Council, it is not certain councillors will reelect him mayor and to return to leadership of the committee – meaning that that while the leaders of the school district were already getting three new members, now that will be a likely record four new members.
Was the context seriously considered? How many people know Dexter in her previous terms? She did not say the word out of the blue or with malice. She was part of the panel for an honors class talking about “controversial issues” and in a class called “Reclaiming: {N-word} vs. Cracker: Educating Racial Context in/for Cambridge”.
The teacher, Mr. Dua – who is black – used the racial term several times in full in an academic context. unfortunately, a naive committee member followed suit.
The policy which “provides that when a visitor from outside the classroom presents, they should be guided on standards of language usage that prevail in the classroom,” was not enacted and the teacher said he does not believe that the project … is controversial but understands that ‘some may think it is, but I don’t.” they were looking at “research (ing) certain words for historical context”.
Instead of having a re-elected city councilor tweeting “this is to make up for 200 yrs of suppression”, or a controversial (person of color) school committee member in her own right calling for an investigation, how does one school committee member who has proven herself fighting for better education, become the ‘scape goat for the entire Caucasian race?
And how do we better use these events as “teachable moments” for all involved? Conflating blatant racism, personal experiences outside of school, pent up anger and injustices does not help separate the issues for better understanding and investigation. It is irresponsible to make all this one big fat stew.
I suggest the principals and school committee members fear of backlash are sadly not looking at the bigger picture. When does forgiveness start or are we forever looking for ‘scape goats? I am not discounting the valid feelings of the protesters. the question is how far to seize power by the powerless by ousting someone who is on your side? Are we trying to feel powerful by ousting a person who could help facilitate a discussion? And what happened to the teacher who had to know this may blow up because of the inherent mine fields. I think that the fact that Dexter was willing to be on the panel of such a loaded seminar suggests that she was sincere at trying to get involved.
This is so sad. And what have we learned?
I hope mcgovern will not return as mayor or school committee. He is not a “big” enough person to know how to handle these things.
There was a reason that Dexter got more votes than Bowman.
May I suggest people try to find Obama’s speech discussing Reverend Wright. It was the most educational, spiritual and uplifting oratory I have ever heard.
It’s really sad when you look at Emily’s academic background and even sadder when you look at her position of adding more teachers to the classroom. Adding more teachers is a big part of the answer to helping. Thanks for everything you contributed to Emily!
Mob rule pushed Emily out. There is a real lack of leadership in Cambridge. Now, all we (Cambridge residents) have to show for this debacle is a school committee with a serious lack of experience. So much so, by the time the new school committee gets up to speed, the term will be over.
The children/students of Cambridge will be the folks paying for this, not the adults manipulating this unfortunate incident for their own political benefit/ambition.
She was panelist on a panel about censorship. Censorship of words including the word n****r on the school network. She said “in a textbook you won’t find the word n****r in the index.” For that the mob rose up because of the terrible pain she inflicted on the children. The teacher wanted those same children to look up the full uncensored word when doing their research. He wanted white children to type the word in to their computers and to find uncensored results with the full word. Appalling.
You are exactly correct. And to boot it looks like Emily will be replaced with David W a white male…ok – what is going to change?
So the mob took away the voter’s choice (Emily Dexter) and all the knowledge/experience she has. Its really a sad display of the gotcha moment.
No one is perfect – everyone makes mistakes. But it goes right in line with the “Call-Out Culture” Obama warned us about:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html