Not renewing the Voting Rights Act in 2007 could severely restrict the voting rights of minority groups, Swarthmore College political science professor Richard Valelly told students yesterday.
Last year, Valelly taught "Elections and American Politics" as a visiting professor at Penn. Currently, he is teaching at Princeton University.
Valelly, an expert on elections, spoke mostly about the potential renewal of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2007. Section 5 requires certain jurisdictions to obtain approval from the Department of Justice before changing voting procedures in order ensure that there is no direct effort to disenfranchise minority groups.
He stressed the importance of questioning what would have happened if there had been no Voting Rights Act and said that America has a unique history of disenfranchisement.
Two weeks ago, Valelly traveled to Alabama to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the voting rights march, during which a group of peaceful civil right marchers were attacked by police.
Valelly mentioned that while he was there, Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., said that there are now 9,300 black officeholders in the United States.
Valelly said that although that figure might be an overstatement in the view of political scientists, this success does not mean that the Voting Rights Act is "just a temporary correction."
"It's part of a long, uncertain struggle," Valelly said. "Race relations are a matter of legislation, not attitudes."
His recently published book, The Two Reconstructions: The Struggle for Black Enfranchisement, concludes with that argument.
Valelly, who said that a reversion to disenfranchisement may occur if the act is not renewed, arrived at his present argument through historical analysis.
Later in the conversation, Valelly was asked how Penn compared to other universities at which Valelly had taught.
Valelly admires Penn because "Penn has a grounded pragmatic intelligence," adding that this is due to its urban location.
Attendees said they were pleased with the speech.
"He opened my eyes to what may happen two or three years down the line with the Voting Rights Act, an issue which may be very obscure to a lot of Penn students," Engineering sophomore Daniel Sun said.
Valelly conversed with students as part of the Fox Leadership program's ongoing Leadership Lunch program, which holds events throughout the year.
