Education Professionals: Take action to demand accountability for torture

The Honorable Eric H. Holder
Attorney General of the United States
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We, the undersigned education professionals, write to share our concerns that your office’s decision to conduct only a limited investigation of the torture of detainees in U.S. custody—one that appears to ignore and entirely overlook potential crimes by former senior officials—endangers our ability to teach our nation’s constitutional culture and to convince students that our criminal justice system is fair. We are encouraged by your decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate crimes related to torture, as well as by recent calls from Americans from all walks of life, including veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, for the disclosure of all evidence of torture--including photos reportedly depicting rape that remain secret.

The full investigation of potential crimes, as others have pointed out, holds profound implications for our nation’s international legitimacy and future opportunities to credibly promote human rights. It also holds immense importance for the future historical record, as well as the policy debates on detention, surveillance, and other violations of civil liberties under the Obama administration going forward.

As teachers of our nation’s future leaders, we aim to instill an appreciation of our nation’s history and founding principles. This task is challenging enough, given the unfortunate array of obstacles that our students confront every day, from pressure to meet their basic needs to unsupportive or abusive home environments, from insufficient school resources to the distractions of a popular culture that often overlooks the value of education.

The failure to prosecute potential crimes committed by former government officials makes our task even more daunting. We teach principles about our nation’s history, founding, and governance that appear simply implausible in the stark light of the flagrant violations that students themselves can see. Young people are smarter than many adults think, and the preferential treatment of senior officials who commit heinous crimes—relative to the school-to-prison pipeline that ensnares many of their peers for relatively innocuous misbehavior—does not escape their attention.

We need to encourage our students’ willingness to believe our civics narrative, not weaken it. The hypocrisy evident in this system of unequal justice not only feeds our students’ alienation, but also makes a mockery of the Fourteenth Amendment we so proudly present as a symbol of our country’s commitment to its principles.

We urge you, in your capacity as our nation's senior prosecutor, to restore the rule of law by ensuring its equal application to all.

Respectfully submitted,
The undersigned education professionals

cc: The Honorable David Ogden, Deputy Attorney General
The Honorable Lanny A. Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein, Chairperson, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Christopher S. Bond, Vice Chairman, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable John D. Rockefeller IV, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Orrin Hatch, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Ron Wyden, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Olympia J. Snowe, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Evan Bayh, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Saxby Chambliss, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Barbara A. Mikulski, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Richard Burr, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Russell D. Feingold, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Tom Coburn, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Bill Nelson, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable James Risch, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence