1. Identify the Social Justice Issues in Baltimore. Explain the Impact of Mayor Pugh’S Decision on Social Justice

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS & PUBLIC POLICY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC POLICY & ADMINISTRATION MPA COMPREHENSIVE EXAM – JANUARY 8, 2021

1. Identify the social justice issues in Baltimore. Explain the impact of Mayor Pugh’s decision on social justice.

2. What does this case tell us about dealing with controversial issues? More specifically, how should public administrators handle the responsibilities of transparent decision- making while balancing concerns about cost to the city, public safety, health, and well- being of the population served?

3. Other than the inconclusive public opinion poll data cited in the case, what could a research perspective have contributed to Mayor Pugh’s or her predecessors’ decision- making processes? What kind of data could have justified Pugh’s decision to take such swift action? Formulate a potential research question and describe the methods you would use to answer it. Discuss how this research might inform policy debates on this topic in Baltimore and in other cities.

Administrative decision-making amid competing public sector values: Confederate statue removal in Baltimore, Maryland Nicole M. Eliasa, Sean McCandlessb, and Rashmi Chordiyac aCUNY; bUniversity of Illinois; cSeattle University

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Confederate monuments conjure competing public sector Diversity; inclusion; local values. Like many cities in the USA, Baltimore, Maryland had government; social justice; monuments honoring the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy”. values Such monuments, usually constructed during periods of racial strife, typically feature prominent figures of the Confederacy, such as generals. Proponents of such monuments argue these monuments honor historical figures that shaped US history. Opponents assert monuments symbolize racist ideals and rein- force inequality, particularly for African Americans. Baltimore had four monuments until 2017. In the aftermath of two racially charged incidents following decades of social injustices, the Mayor of Baltimore, Catherine Pugh, ordered the monuments’ removal in August 2017. This case examines the details and rationale surrounding Pugh’s decision in the context of competing public sector values. The knowledge and skills gained from this case study can be applied to a range of public administration and policy issues involving social justice, administrative competencies, and leadership.

Divisiveness surrounding the confederate legacy The history and current context of Baltimore are entrenched in social and racial justice controversies. From the post-Civil War Era, to the Civil Rights Movement, and to numerous contemporary demonstrations, Baltimore has been a deeply divided city. In 2017, several stories highlighted issues of race in Baltimore and Maryland. For instance, a Baltimore Klansman was accused of shooting an African American man at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville; some members of the Baltimore Ravens professional football team knelt during the national anthem on September 24, 2017 to protest racial injustice; some white attendees and graduates of Baltimore private schools wore costumes consisting of orange prison jumpsuits with the name Freddy Gray on the back (Marbella, 2017). These issues are embedded in Baltimore’s historic issues with systemic racism, including segregation, racial oppression and violence, and more (Arnold-Garza & Gadsby, 2017).

In 2017, Baltimore experienced another dimension of these issues in the form of the debate over whether to remove its four Confederate monuments. Baltimore’s Mayor, Catherine Pugh, faced a significant challenge: How to weigh competing public values and decide on whether to remove the monuments or not. The Confederate monument removal in Baltimore became a focusing event, capturing the public’sattention,bothin Baltimore and across the USA (Bidgood, Bloch, McCarthy, Stack, & Andrews, 2017). Such monuments have been built in many cities across the USA, and many feature famous Confederate generals, such as Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson. Others represent the common soldier or, occasionally, women who serve as symbols of the Confederate legacy. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (2018), spikes in building these monuments coincide with periods of racial tension and conflict, namely when whites attempted to promote and reassert racial supremacy. Many monuments were created in the late 19th century during the Jim Crow era, which launched extensive systems of racial segregation (Upton, 2017). Other periods of construction include the early 20th century, especially up to the 1920s. The lead-up to the Centennial of the Civil War, namely in the late 1950s and 1960s, saw more monuments being built (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2018). Opinions are divided on why the monuments were built. Supporters of the monuments cast them as celebrating the past, honoring ancestors, and pre- serving history. Organizations like the United Daughters of the Confederacy see them as public art and public history. Opponents to the monuments argue that they are built to promote white supremacy by romanticizing the Lost Cause, which casts the causes of the Civil War not in terms of a fight over slavery but as a struggle for freedom and preservation of culture. In the Lost Cause perspective, slavery is hardly discussed as the motivating factor behind the Civil War. Some proponents go as far as denying slavery as a cause, while some Lost Cause believers opine that slavery was a benign institution (Wilson, 2009). Academic arguments have focused on how the constructions of these monuments were attempts to promote the legitimacy of the Jim Crow era and to enshrine the value and preference of whiteness in America (Brown, 2017; Upton, 2017). The question for public administrators becomes: What to do with Confederate monuments fraught with controversy? Debates over whether to preserve or remove such monuments have occurred for decades. Opponents of removal typically argue that removing monuments is tanta- mount to destroying something that makes people uncomfortable. They further contend that removal ignores portions of history and diminishes the lives of their ancestors who fought on the side of the Confederacy. Proponents of removal believe the monuments send messages to African Americans that they occupy a subordinate status, are excluded from public 414 N. M. ELIAS ET AL.

decision-making, and that the statues belittle oppressed populations while celebrating those who promoted and protected slavery. While some polls have found that roughly half of Americans would like Confederate monuments to remain on public view, results are very often divided along racial lines (Kahn, 2017). Several states have passed laws to impede or prohibit monuments’ removal (Subberwal, 2017). These include those passed in the early 20th century in Georgia and Virginia with others passed much later, such as in the early 2000s. The titles of these laws cast preservation in terms of honoring history; for example, the “North Carolinian Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act” (SL 2015–170) or “Tennessee’s Heritage Protection Act” (Tenn. Code Ann. Section 4–1–412).

Racial tensions leading to August 15, 2017 Mayor Pugh felt urgency to act amid racial tensions and nationwide discussions of monument removal, which increased in the aftermath of two racially motivated killings (Bidgood et al., 2017). The first was the June 17, 2015 Charleston church shooting committed by a white supremacist man who killed nine attendees of the Emanuel African Methodist EpiscopalChurchduringaprayerservice.AnotherwastheUnite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which took place on August 11–12, 2017. This rally resulted in three deaths – two state troopers killed in a helicopter crash and one counter-protester, Heather Heyer, who was killed when a white supremacist rammed his vehicle into those counter-protesting the Unite the Right rally. After the 2015 shooting and up to the present, many Confederate monuments have been removed. These looming national tensions and racial issues were felt in Baltimore in 2017, and Mayor Pugh recognized these issues as detrimental to the city’s common good and public safety. The city is majority African American, and numerous African Americans from Baltimore served in the Civil War (Hopkinson, 2017). Further, Baltimore has economic, political, and social environments that affect administrative decision-making. For instance, recent Baltimore riots have drawn attention to segregation and inequities faced by the African American community, as well as improper treatment of the African American populations by the police. Some argue that children in Baltimore may find it difficult to escape poverty (Chetty & Hendren, 2015), and when considering issues of racial justice, “[e]conomic disparities, never adequately addressed due to systemic racism, continue to this day through the uneven allocation of resources to segregated neighborhoods, redistricted schools, and increased disinvestment in the city” (Arnold-Garza & Gadsby, 2017, para. 5). Numerous Baltimore residents have noted how Confederate 415 monuments were stark reminders for African Americans of their historically subordinate status in Baltimore (Marbella, 2018). As of early August 2017, Baltimore had four such monuments on public grounds. The first was the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, which in 2015 was defaced with yellow paint saying Black Lives Matter and later defaced with red paint on August 13, 2017. The others include: the Confederate Women’s Monument, the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument, and the Roger B. Taney sculpture. This last statue is a representation of the US Supreme Court Chief Justice who authored the Dred Scott decision, which held that persons of African descent cannot be and were not intended to be citizens of the USA. In the ruling, Taney wrote that African Americans were:

regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it. (Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 1857)

For years, Baltimore government officials debated what to do with these statues. Former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake appointed a commission to study their removal, and the commission recommended removal of at least two (Nirrapil, 2017). Before leaving office, Rawlings-Blake had signs placed in front of the monuments, noting that they were “part of a propaganda campaign of national pro-Confederate organizations to perpetuate the beliefs of white supremacy, falsify history and support segregation and racial inti- midation” (Broadwater, 2017a, para. 10). In Mayor Pugh’s estimation, the previous administration did not act swiftly enough or complete the task of full removal of the monuments (Broadwater, 2017c). Mayor Pugh took office at the end of 2016 after winning the mayoral campaign with 57% of the popular vote. Pugh is the third African American female mayor of Baltimore, with Sheila Dixon and Stephanie Rawlings-Blake preceding her. Mayor Pugh campaigned on promises to address issues of police brutality and improving schools. Educated at Morgan State University and earning a Master’s in Business Administration, Pugh was involved in Baltimore and Maryland politics for years, holding positions on the Baltimore City Council and the Maryland General Assembly, among many others (Maryland State Archives, 2018). Soon after taking office, Mayor Pugh aimed to fulfill her campaign promises by focusing the city government’s attention on issues with social justice implications. She aimed to reduce crime, especially the high homicide rate, devote significant attention to the investigation of the Baltimore Police Department in the aftermath of the killing of Freddie Gray, and promote 416 N. M. ELIAS ET AL. housing equity (Broadwater, 2016; Wenger, 2017; Wenger & Broadwater, 2016). However, in 2017, Pugh was also concerned with attracting business to the city and vetoed a bill that would have raised Baltimore’s minimum wage to $15 by 2022, fearing that it would discourage business investments (Wenger, 2017), which are decisions that have prompted skepticism (Yoes, 2017). With her own personal goals for the city as well as the status of Confederate monuments becoming more pressing, Pugh focused her attention on the issue of removal. She read reports on the negative impacts of these monuments on communities in Baltimore and thought extensively on potential courses of action (Marbella, 2018). In addition to criticizing past inaction, she consulted with New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, who oversaw removals along with an independent company whose employees received death threats. Pugh knew the stakes were high, and gathering more information or involving additional parties was no longer a viable strategy (Broadwater, 2017a, 2017c). The time to make a decision came to a head after the Unite the Right rally when activists and officials were prompted to take action. After this rally, some anti-racism activists targeted Baltimore’s Confederate monuments, and some threatened to take them down themselves. Shortly after the rally, over 1,000 people marched in Baltimore to protest (Campbell, 2017). Protesters placed a counter-statue, that of a pregnant African American woman, in front of the Jackson-Lee monument. After this display was erected, Pugh’s spokesperson, Anthony McCarthy, noted that Pugh “wants to do what serves the best interests of the citizens of Baltimore” and that “[a] decision will be made at an appropriate time” (Campbell, 2017, para. 10). At the same time, City Council Member Eric Costello wrote to David Ralph, acting city soli- citor, for legal opinions on removing, relocating, or reinterpreting the monuments (Campbell, 2017). On August 15, 2017, Baltimore’s newspapers posted the story: the Mayor had pledged to remove Confederate monuments, had asked contractors about costs, and was going to speak with the Maryland Historical Trust to receive permission to remove the monuments (Campbell & Broadwater, 2017). Also on August 15, city council member Brandon Scott forwarded a resolution to destroy the monuments. Council members debated the plan, with council member Eric T. Costello asserting that while he supported removing the monuments, he criticized their destruction. Leon Pinkett, another council member, pointed to issues beyond the statues, such as streets and sites throughout Baltimore named after persons known to have held racist views. Another council member, Ryan Dorsey, supported destroying the statues. Mayor Pugh noted that destroying the statues was not an option since doing so might entice racist groups to perpetrate violence in Baltimore, and she instead supported the removal of all Confederate statues. The city 417

council unanimously voted to approve the removal plan (Broadwater, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c; Nirrapil, 2017). Pugh would not name a specific date for removal in hopes of avoiding violence like that in Charlottesville (Broadwater, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c). Still, she noted that the violence in Charlottesville concerned her a great deal and that public safety was a top priority (Marbella, 2018). Once Pugh decided that the four monuments would be removed, the questions of exactly how and when needed to be answered. The removals began on August 15, 2017 around 11:30 pm, three days after the rally. Citing the State Charter, Pugh noted that the mayor has the responsibility for the health and well-being of the city. Pugh argued that removing the statues at night would lead to less visibility and keep violence from breaking out. She emphasized that she did not have any feelings on ordering the removal and underscored being task-oriented and wanting to get the statues down as efficiently and peacefully as possible (Lam, 2019; Marbella, 2018). When questioned about the late night timing of the removal, Pugh emphasized that the removal plan was designed to be the least impactful on people’s daily lives and to promote public safety. Pugh learned from other cities where Confederate monuments were very publically removed – dates announced in advanced and removal occurring during normal business hours. The outcome of other cities taking a more public approach was overwhelmingly negative, often resulting in violence and impeding the basic functions of the city. Pugh notes that she recognized that the late-night removal of the statues would receive lowered media attention and cause less disruption to the city. Also, the cost savings of Pugh’s removal plan was significant – Baltimore paid less than $20,000 for removal whereas other cities have spent millions. Pugh cited reducing cost as a priority and explained that she discussed strategies with contractors beforehand (Marbella, 2018; Nirrapil, 2017).

Evaluating the monument removal process After the dust settled and the monuments were removed, the assessment of Mayor Pugh’s removal plan began. Pugh was widely praised for both her decision and the means of removal. She emphasized that Baltimore became a model for other cities wrestling with the same issues of collective identity and competing public values, as well as practical benefits of increased public safety and reducing public expenditures related to removal of statues, main- tenance, and costs associated with protests and vandalism. She noted in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that the removal “probably kept us from a whole lot of protesters, people walking through cities as they did, creating unnecessary damage to cities. We didn’t have that in Baltimore” (Marbella, 2018, para. 12). Yet, some Baltimore residents did not see Pugh’s decision- 418 N. M. ELIAS ET AL. making in such a positive light. They claim that Pugh overstepped her authority, that the removals were affronts to history, and that the process was biased and secretive (Nirrapil, 2017). For example, the Maryland Historical Trust, a state agency, has pointed to a 1984 contract with the city that gives the Trust final say on any monument changes and the right to restore any monuments. Prior to the removal, Pugh said that she would seek the Trust’s approval, but she pressed ahead without receiving approval, emphasizing that she needed to take immediate action to promote public safety and that there was not sufficient time to estimate removal costs (Nirrapil, 2017). Despite the Confederate monuments not being on display in public spaces, challenges surrounding the monuments and legacies they represent remain. Conversations continue about what to do with the monuments, which are currently stored in a secure location. The Trust is working with the Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation to find new locations for the monuments. Pugh notes that officials are having conversations with museums, which may or may not be interested in them, as well as with interested private citizens. She cautions that she does not want any monument to end up in the hands of people who will do more harm than good (Lam, 2019; Marbella, 2018). Many cities have followed suit and removed their monuments in ways similar to Baltimore. However, shortly after the removal, other memorials in Baltimore, such as the Christopher Columbus monument, were vandalized (Wood, 2017). President Trump on Twitter noted it was “sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.” Pugh countered by explaining that removing monuments with racialized legacies does not prevent learning about history, and that there are numerous resources to learn history. In a video interview, Pugh highlighted the positive impact Baltimore’s removal process had throughout the USA: “I think we became a model for the country on how to take down statues without causing a bunch of distraction” (Lam, 2019, 2:28). The debate on the long-term impacts has largely centered on what the monuments represent and why these identities may or may not be something the collective public should celebrate. Mayor Pugh recognized the impor- tance of her decision for improving race relations and furthering positive public values:

I don’t think we ever stop talking about the issues of race. I mean I don’t think that the statues have as much to do with that as conversations taking place. I think people have conservations around race for various reasons. Certainly not just because of the statues, because when you talk about equity, inclusion, diversity, and all of those things, those conversations are being had every day. (Lam, 2019, 2:43) Notes on contributors

Nicole M. Elias is an assistant professor in the department of public management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. Sean McCandless is an assistant professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Rashmi Chordiya is an assistant professor in the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University.

References

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