U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill Speaks At Fairleigh Dickinson University
September 7, 2024
[Photo of Representative Mikie Sherrill]. (n.d.). https://sherrill.house.gov/about. The UPLJ does not, in any way, own the rights to this photo.
By: Tracy Osawe (Ed.)
On Tuesday August 27, 2024, the School of Public & Global Affairs at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Florham) had the pleasure of hosting a community discussion with U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ). That discussion, which was led by FDU Professor Peter J. Woolley, Ph.D. – the Founding Director of the School of Public and Global Affairs at FDU – was attended by students, faculty and various members of the FDU community. Throughout the duration of the discussion, Professor Woolley and Representative Sherrill focused on important issues which included, but were not limited to, the shortage of affordable housing in the State of New Jersey, long and short term methods to address the current segregation in New Jersey public schools and further transparency between the people of New Jersey and its state government.
The UPLJ’s Editor-In-Chief (Tracy Osawe) also had the opportunity to conduct a brief interview regarding the shortage of affordable housing units in New Jersey as well as the persistence of segregation in New Jersey public schools.
In this interview, Representative Sherrill references a video regarding the desegregation efforts in Montclair, NJ public schools. Unfortunately, the UPLJ has not been able to obtain that video. If and when it is available, the UPLJ will share the video with its readers.
Tracy Osawe: Earlier you mentioned affordable housing. Having done some work in that field myself, I know that New Jersey is struggling to provide affordable housing units for its residents. And that’s driving up homelessness... Kamala Harris plans to establish 3 million affordable housing units when she becomes president... Would you consider something similar for New Jersey?
Representative Sherill: Yes, we need more housing. I mean the supply is just not where it needs to be and we also have so many different things that we need to address. Part of the problem with the supply is that its driving up rental prices. So, when I was young the motto was often you would rent but you wouldn’t put your whole pay check into the rent right? You would rent and you would put money aside each month until you have that nest egg and you can start to afford your starter home. Now with rental prices a lot of people just, every pay check its all out the door for the rent. So [people] don’t have any extra to start to put aside for a downpayment [on a house]. [And] even if they could, often now the downpayments are so high that its been a problem. We have some, not as much in New Jersey, but across the coun[try] we have some venture capital firms buying up housing which is driving up costs. And then of course we have mortgage rates and interest rates which are making it difficult. Although hopefully we’re starting to see those come down. We’ve had some signaling that we’ll see those coming down in September. So hopefully that will lead to at least the price of loans and stuff going down. However, again, as you said the root cause really is that we need more supply, we need more housing in this country.
Tracy Osawe: And just one more question... I did some work on a project with both Dr. Woolley and Professor Ferrans about the segregation in New Jersey public schools, and one of the things that I noticed is that... as far as the desegregation process goes, a lot of the push back is coming from the parents. I understand that some parents may like the way things are right now. You know they enjoy their district schools... And again they should have that freedom to decide where their kids go to school. But there are bigger problems at hand, you know. So at what point does parental push back start to hinder our progress as a society? What can we do to limit that push back?
Representative Sherrill: Right... Well, which is why we may get to the point where we have to start to take some... some steps so that we have more long terms benefits. But I think in the near term if we can think of ways to get communities to buy in as we did years ago in Montclair, that is the way this moves forward most quickly and with [the] least disruption to our families. So you know, you have your little – look my kids went to Watchung Elementary School... All four of my kids went there. I knew all of the teachers. I knew a lot of the families there. And its really comforting as you’re sending your kid off to school every day. And then when you know... you have an emergency with New Jersey Transit you can call some of the moms who you know – ‘hey can you just grab [my kid]’? So you see how parents get attached to that community that they’ve built in these schools. So if you can come up with a way for like... maybe a magnet school where parents from both Newark and Montclair and Millburn – like an Essex County based magnet school – where everyone wants to send their children. And [then] we have that buy in from families. I think that is the way that we can most quickly and somewhat painlessly desegregate our schools. So that would be just – I think – a good way to at least begin. And if that doesn’t work we may have to take other steps. But I will just tell you from the history of Montclair in particular, um... they tried quiet a few different things so without the parents buy[ing] in people kept undermining it and pushing back. And when they finally cracked the code of like ‘hey what do you want’? ‘Ok we’re gonna give you what you want’ but its gonna you know... the schools rapidly desegregate. You might wanna get from the Montclair public library for your project, just [this video], its not very long... But like I said everyone who starts at the Montclair school system is given this video and its really kind of interesting. They chart the different ways they tried to do this, that didn’t work, and then the way they finally did it. In within like a year they desegregated the town. So its kind of interesting if we can find that fit so parents and families feel confident and comfortable in it and buy into it I think we could get the best results. So that’s what I hope we can do. But I’ll be interested in what you guys come up with. As well as what the people negotiating the court case are coming up with. I’m really fascinated by what the ideas are.
Tracy Osawe: It’s a very interesting project.
Representative Sherril: Yes it is.
Tracy Osawe: Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time.
Representative Sherrill: Of course.
Left to right: Tracy Osawe (Editor-In-Chief, The UPLJ) and U.S. Representative Mikie Sherrill.
Consultant: Mark Wolf, Esq.