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Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Ancy Morse, who died May 3, relied on resilence, humility to carve a ground-breaking legal career
May 31—ROCHESTER — In the early stages of Ancy Morse's legal career, people had a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of a woman attorney. On her first job, Morse walked into a conference room to meet with a client, who thought she was there to bring him coffee. When Morse explained to the elderly man that she was his attorney, the man was incredulous. "By God, now I've seen everything!" he said. Disbelief was the price Morse paid in forging a legal career that had few antecedents. In the early 1960s, Morse became the first female attorney to practice law in Olmsted County. In 1983, she became the first female district judge outside the Twin Cities area when she was appointed by then-Gov. Rudy Perpich. Morse died May 3, 2025, at the Homestead Senior Living Facility in Rochester after a battle with cancer, according to her obituary. During her 16-year tenure as judge, Morse presided over thousands of cases involving child custody battles, divorces, sex abuse cases and civil disputes. But the case with which she became inextricably linked was the 1989 trial involving David Brom, a 16-year-old Lourdes High School student who killed his parents, a younger brother and sister with an ax while they slept in their rural Rochester home. Morse sentenced the teen to three consecutive life prison terms, acknowledging to a packed courtroom the emotional agony and difficulty in overseeing such a fraught case. Calling the case "inexplicable and unfathomable," Morse struck an undercurrent of sympathy in her ruling, calling Brom a "seriously mentally ill boy, driven to despair by a pathetically sick and depressed mind." She felt the law had failed to keep pace with advances in psychiatry and later joined the defense in vainly seeking changes to the state standard governing mental illness defenses. In charting her way in a male-dominated field, Morse had to get used to the many double-takes she triggered in people who had never seen a woman attorney before. In law school at the University of Minnesota, Morse was one of six women, according to a July 16, 1973, Rochester Post Bulletin article. Her classes were populated with returning veterans from World War II on the GI bill. It could be a tough crowd. It was made all the more formidable and intimidating when the professor closed the door at the start of class and declared the day "Ladies Day," meaning only women would be allowed to answer questions "She told me there was never time for pettiness, just perseverance," said her son Mark Morse said. When she was admitted to the bar, it was Morse and 166 men who took the oath. A woman attorney just didn't compute for many at the time. Early in her career, Morse represented a woman in a divorce proceeding, but the judge mistook Morse as the woman seeking the divorce. When trying to serve legal papers on a party in the jail, the guards suspected her of being a girlfriend of one of the inmates and called her office to check, according to the book "Taking The Lead: Rochester Women in Public Policy," which devotes a chapter on Morse. Morse's dream of practicing law had taken root as a young girl growing up in International Falls. Her grandfather, Aad Tone, had been a pioneer lawyer in Koochiching County whom she would accompany on trips to the courthouse. Being raised in a small town, Morse was taught to fish and hunt. In school, she had free reign to participate in a wide variety of activities and pursuits. "...and a woman will lead them," yearbook staff from International Falls High School prophetically inscribed next to her name. Her mother, Esther Olson Tone, had aspired to be a lawyer, but those dreams were dashed when Esther's Scandinavian parents' savings were looted by a banker. So those ambitions were transferred to Morse. "Maybe, I just got tired of people saying, 'You'll never do it,'" Morse told one reporter. A profoundly formative chapter in her life was her selection as one of four senior Girl Scouts to represent the U.S. at an international conference. Morse joined the Girl Scouts in the third grade and remained active for decades. The conference she attended was held in Switzerland and changed her life. She no longer felt like she was from a small town. She felt that she belonged anywhere. "It emboldened her. It gave her a community of women to support and reassure and advocate for," said a daughter, Kelly Nowicki. As she pursued her legal education, Morse often found support in a small network of men, including her uncles and her future husband, Bob Morse. Both had attended grade school together. Bob Morse would stay after class to wash down the blackboards. But beyond earning some brownie points, Bob hoped to catch the eye of the teacher's blonde-haired daughter, Ancy. Bob attended the University of Minnesota along with Ancy, becoming a psychiatrist at Mayo Clinic. After working as a lawyer for many years, Morse was encouraged by her legal peers to apply for a judge vacancy. Mark Morse said his mom didn't expect to get the appointment, but thought it would be an opportunity to let Olmsted County know that "there is a female attorney in town." To her surprise, Perpich picked her. "She was often encouraged by others to do things that she didn't necessarily think she was ready for — or good enough for," Mark Morse said. "She was very humble that way." A lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan, Morse and her family were season ticket holders for many years. A favorite story Mark Morse likes to tell is how Mark and his wife attended a Vikings game and were seated behind his mom and dad. Morse didn't like the arrangement and proceeded to convince the 30 or so other attendees in her section to scoot two seats over, including two people at the end of the row to move back one row, so Mark and his wife could sit down next to her. "She was very confident in what she felt needed to happen and very capable of making it happen," Mark Morse said. Mark Morse said he never saw his mom betray any umbrage or resentment at the slights she encountered in her legal career. As she advanced in her career, she became a role model and support to other women professionals. "You hear a lot of people demand respect. She never did," Mark Morse said at her funeral. "Her approach was the Nike of women's rights; she just did it. And that humility, tied with performance, was an amazing message to others."
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - The true value of veterans benefits to America
On March 5, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting a department-wide review of its organization, operations and structure. Central to these efforts, the secretary said, is a pragmatic and disciplined approach to eliminating waste and bureaucracy at VA, increasing efficiency, and improving health care benefits and services to veterans. As part of his review, he hopes to reduce the department's work force by 15 percent and look at the 90,000 contracts VA administers to cancel those that are duplicative and not critical to the department's mission of caring for veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors. As a former secretary of Veterans Affairs, I agree changes are very much needed. The rising costs of health care; the changing face of health care delivery from inpatient to outpatient; the large number of unneeded facilities VA maintains throughout the nation; the failure to build stronger bonds between the VA and Department of Defense health care systems, the need to insure the compensation system for disabled veterans is focused on today's economic and health care realities, and other issues should all be looked at. Decisions to reduce inefficiencies in the nation's second largest Cabinet department should be made so they do not impact the scope of the vital services provided by the VA. I am sure the secretary's review will be carefully conducted so as to not negatively affect the care and services we provide America's veterans and their families, but also the health and well-being of all Americans. Our nation's taxpayers have received a superb return for their unwavering support of those who have served us while in uniform. As we think about changes to VA's workforce and services, we must keep those returns in mind. One purpose of benefits for veterans is to ensure those who have served in our wars are treated equitably, so they will be satisfied citizens in peacetime. History is littered with governments destabilized by masses of veterans who believe they were taken for fools by a society that grew rich at the expense of their hardship and suffering. A second purpose is to make the distribution of sacrifice and prosperity between those who serve and those who remain behind 'fairer' — and to mitigate the actual wounds of war. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, known as the original GI bill, was in part a response to the Bonus March of the Great Depression, when America learned those who had served in World War I could become a source of active unrest, even revolution. Instead, the GI bill, combined with the talent of the 16 million Americans who served in the war, initiated a revolution of a different sort. Much of what we now think of as normal in middle class America is rooted in those servicemen and women, and the benefits they used to transform our nation. Before World War II, a college education was available to relatively few Americans. The first GI bill ensured that every veteran, rich or poor, could attend the best school to which they could be admitted. The promise of higher education, limited only by ability and ambition, shaped who we are today, and who we will be tomorrow. A generation of leaders were born in industry, unions, agriculture, academia and government who propelled America to greatness in the 20th century. Before the war, it was difficult to finance a home purchase on credit. A long-term, low down-payment home loan was unknown. For most Americans, homeownership was nothing but a dream. The GI bill's loan guarantee provisions changed all that, and in doing so created suburban America. And to properly care for those who returned with illnesses and injuries because of the war, VA's health care system entered into a partnership with our nation's medical schools. The fruits of that partnership revolutionized medical education and research. VA estimates that more than 70 percent of all physicians receive at least part of their training at its facilities. VA medical research led the way to the first successful treatments for tuberculosis; established the lifesaving value of treating hypertension and the relationship between smoking and lung cancer; developed the first prototype of the CT scan and showed how a practical, implantable cardiac pacemaker could be built. Today, there is concern over these programs, and for a health care system that provides care to 9.3 million veterans and was shown in two prestigious medical journals in 2023 to provide care consistently as good as, or better than, non-VA care in the areas of quality, safety, access, patient experience and comparisons of cost versus efficiency. And at a time when there is significant anxiety over rising pharmaceutical costs, VA's pharmaceutical benefits management program is the gold standard in every aspect of this area: in clinical pharmacy practice; drug formulary management; contracting; medication safety; supply chain management; automation; post-graduate pharmacist education; and patient satisfaction. VA's budget also provides for the maintenance of 155 national cemeteries throughout the nation as national shrines, providing honored rest to 150,000 veterans a year — nearly twice the number buried in VA cemeteries in 2001. And every month, more than 6 million disabled veterans receive a compensation check for their service-related disabilities from VA. Nearly 4 million veterans participate in the VA Home Loan program; more than 900,000 veterans attend school on the current GI bill and more than 144,000 disabled veterans receive vocational rehabilitation training to prepare them for civilian careers. All Americans have an interest in ensuring that the men and women whom we depend on in peace, and will rely on in future wars, see that our nation truly values their service. Our veterans have truly earned the benefits they receive. Tomorrow's servicemembers will know whether or not they have the means to create a civilian career when they put aside their uniforms. They must rest assured they and their families will be taken care of should their commitment to put their bodies and their lives on the line on our behalf result in their injury or death. We should certainly ensure waste, fraud and abuse are eliminated from the funding VA receives — and must always look for ways to provide the benefits and services the department provides in a more economical and efficient manner. As President George W. Bush reminded me when I assumed office: 'Every dollar you receive is a dollar an American took out of their pocket to send to you. Use those dollars wisely.' We must also honor President Abraham Lincoln's commitment to care for those who have borne the battle and their families, and take whatever steps are necessary to welcome servicemembers back to civilian life when they exchange their uniforms for civilian clothes and assume the honored title of 'veteran.' I am confident and support Secretary Collins when he says this review is going to make the department work better for the veterans, families, caregivers and survivors VA is charged with serving. Anthony J. Principi was secretary of Veterans Affairs 2001-2005. He served as chairman of the Congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition Assistance and chairman of the 2005 military Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
16-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
The true value of veterans benefits to America
On March 5, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting a department-wide review of its organization, operations and structure. Central to these efforts, the secretary said, is a pragmatic and disciplined approach to eliminating waste and bureaucracy at VA, increasing efficiency, and improving health care benefits and services to veterans. As part of his review, he hopes to reduce the department's work force by 15 percent and look at the 90,000 contracts VA administers to cancel those that are duplicative and not critical to the department's mission of caring for veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors. As a former secretary of Veterans Affairs, I agree changes are very much needed. The rising costs of health care; the changing face of health care delivery from inpatient to outpatient; the large number of unneeded facilities VA maintains throughout the nation; the failure to build stronger bonds between the VA and Department of Defense health care systems, the need to insure the compensation system for disabled veterans is focused on today's economic and health care realities, and other issues should all be looked at. Decisions to reduce inefficiencies in the nation's second largest Cabinet department should be made so they do not impact the scope of the vital services provided by the VA. I am sure the secretary's review will be carefully conducted so as to not negatively affect the care and services we provide America's veterans and their families, but also the health and well-being of all Americans. Our nation's taxpayers have received a superb return for their unwavering support of those who have served us while in uniform. As we think about changes to VA's workforce and services, we must keep those returns in mind. One purpose of benefits for veterans is to ensure those who have served in our wars are treated equitably, so they will be satisfied citizens in peacetime. History is littered with governments destabilized by masses of veterans who believe they were taken for fools by a society that grew rich at the expense of their hardship and suffering. A second purpose is to make the distribution of sacrifice and prosperity between those who serve and those who remain behind 'fairer' — and to mitigate the actual wounds of war. The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, known as the original GI bill, was in part a response to the Bonus March of the Great Depression, when America learned those who had served in World War I could become a source of active unrest, even revolution. Instead, the GI bill, combined with the talent of the 16 million Americans who served in the war, initiated a revolution of a different sort. Much of what we now think of as normal in middle class America is rooted in those servicemen and women, and the benefits they used to transform our nation. Before World War II, a college education was available to relatively few Americans. The first GI bill ensured that every veteran, rich or poor, could attend the best school to which they could be admitted. The promise of higher education, limited only by ability and ambition, shaped who we are today, and who we will be tomorrow. A generation of leaders were born in industry, unions, agriculture, academia and government who propelled America to greatness in the 20th century. Before the war, it was difficult to finance a home purchase on credit. A long-term, low down-payment home loan was unknown. For most Americans, homeownership was nothing but a dream. The GI bill's loan guarantee provisions changed all that, and in doing so created suburban America. And to properly care for those who returned with illnesses and injuries because of the war, VA's health care system entered into a partnership with our nation's medical schools. The fruits of that partnership revolutionized medical education and research. VA estimates that more than 70 percent of all physicians receive at least part of their training at its facilities. VA medical research led the way to the first successful treatments for tuberculosis; established the lifesaving value of treating hypertension and the relationship between smoking and lung cancer; developed the first prototype of the CT scan and showed how a practical, implantable cardiac pacemaker could be built. Today, there is concern over these programs, and for a health care system that provides care to 9.3 million veterans and was shown in two prestigious medical journals in 2023 to provide care consistently as good as, or better than, non-VA care in the areas of quality, safety, access, patient experience and comparisons of cost versus efficiency. And at a time when there is significant anxiety over rising pharmaceutical costs, VA's pharmaceutical benefits management program is the gold standard in every aspect of this area: in clinical pharmacy practice; drug formulary management; contracting; medication safety; supply chain management; automation; post-graduate pharmacist education; and patient satisfaction. VA's budget also provides for the maintenance of 155 national cemeteries throughout the nation as national shrines, providing honored rest to 150,000 veterans a year — nearly twice the number buried in VA cemeteries in 2001. And every month, more than 6 million disabled veterans receive a compensation check for their service-related disabilities from VA. Nearly 4 million veterans participate in the VA Home Loan program; more than 900,000 veterans attend school on the current GI bill and more than 144,000 disabled veterans receive vocational rehabilitation training to prepare them for civilian careers. All Americans have an interest in ensuring that the men and women whom we depend on in peace, and will rely on in future wars, see that our nation truly values their service. Our veterans have truly earned the benefits they receive. Tomorrow's servicemembers will know whether or not they have the means to create a civilian career when they put aside their uniforms. They must rest assured they and their families will be taken care of should their commitment to put their bodies and their lives on the line on our behalf result in their injury or death. We should certainly ensure waste, fraud and abuse are eliminated from the funding VA receives — and must always look for ways to provide the benefits and services the department provides in a more economical and efficient manner. As President George W. Bush reminded me when I assumed office: 'Every dollar you receive is a dollar an American took out of their pocket to send to you. Use those dollars wisely.' We must also honor President Abraham Lincoln's commitment to care for those who have borne the battle and their families, and take whatever steps are necessary to welcome servicemembers back to civilian life when they exchange their uniforms for civilian clothes and assume the honored title of 'veteran.' I am confident and support Secretary Collins when he says this review is going to make the department work better for the veterans, families, caregivers and survivors VA is charged with serving. Anthony J. Principi was secretary of Veterans Affairs 2001-2005. He served as chairman of the Congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition Assistance and chairman of the 2005 military Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission.
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘A huge cudgel': alarm as Trump's war on universities could target accreditors
Advocates for academic freedom are bracing for what they expect to be the next phase of the government's effort to reshape higher education: an overhaul of the system accrediting institutions of higher learning. Donald Trump has made no secret of such plans. During the campaign, he boasted that accreditation would be his 'secret weapon' against colleges and universities the right has long viewed as too progressive. 'I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist maniacs and lunatics,' Trump said last summer. 'We will then accept applications for new accreditors who will impose real standards on colleges once again and once for all.' In recent weeks, the government has taken aggressive actions against US universities in the form of funding cuts, a ban on diversity initiatives, and the targeting of international students. Dismantling the accreditation system would be a powerful tool to further erode the separation between the government's political ideology and what US students are taught. While it's unlikely that Trump can delist currently recognized accreditation agencies, which are controlled by a bipartisan body enshrined in federal law, there are several ways in which the administration could weaken their authority to enforce schools' compliance with a series of standards. Project 2025 and efforts to curtail accreditors' power in some conservative states offer a blueprint for what several education professionals who spoke to the Guardian, along with officials at the department of education, fear may be an impending executive action on the issue. Targeting accreditation – the peer-review system guaranteeing quality assurance on learning institutions – is part the right's broader strategy to undermine higher education as a whole, advocates warn. Because accreditation by a recognized agency is required for students to be eligible for federal financial aid, the government has massive financial sway over how the system works. 'The Trump administration unfortunately doesn't care about quality assurance in higher education,' said Tariq Habash, a former education department official. 'If colleges and universities do not align with this administration on diversity policies, on immigrants' or trans rights, or on speech supporting Palestinian rights, Donald Trump wants them to suffer the consequences, by illegally cutting off access to federal funds.' Accreditation has been in place for centuries, but the government tied it to federal funding in the aftermath of the GI bill of 1944, when countless veterans were essentially defrauded by sham schools. Since the 1960s, degree-granting institutions have been overseen by a so-called 'triad' regulatory mechanism involving federal and state authorities and independent accrediting agencies. Today, there are dozens accreditors recognized by the Department of Education, including many specialised in technical subjects and six major regional accreditation agencies. One way in which Trump may seek to undermine the current system – and one of several proposed by Project 2025 – would give states the authority to approve institutions for federal aid purposes, bypassing accreditors altogether. That's a troubling prospect for the ability of universities to remain independent of political pressure. 'If a state wanted to force institutions to act in certain ways to achieve accreditation, this would be a huge cudgel that could be used to make really fine-level changes in colleges and universities across the state,' said Timothy Cain, a professor of higher education at the University of Georgia who has researched accreditation practices. 'At the core of it, it's a real problem for American democracy.' Project 2025 also outlines how the government could prohibit accreditors from requiring universities to adopt diversity policies, from 'intruding' upon the governance of state schools, and from enforcing standards that 'undermine religious beliefs'. Such prohibitions would severely weaken accreditors' authority to ensure quality and serve as guardrails for education institutions' autonomy from government. Trump is also expected to expand long-existing conservative attacks on the accreditation apparatus, which rightwing activists and legislators have often referred to as a 'cartel'. In 2023, Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis argued in a lawsuit against the Biden administration that the government had 'ceded unchecked power' to accrediting agencies. Florida and North Carolina have passed legislation seeking to weaken accreditation standards. And during Trump's first term, then secretary of education Betsy DeVos, loosened accreditation regulation in the name of free-market competition, introducing policies that critics said would give schools an option to 'shop' for more friendly accreditors. Some Republican senators, including Marco Rubio before Trump appointed him secretary of state, also introduced legislation at the federal level seeking to prevent accreditors from requiring universities to adopt what Rubio called 'woke standards'. 'The endgame is always about controlling the curriculum, and controlling what takes place within the classroom,' said Isaac Kamola, a political science professor at Trinity College, whose research focuses on conservative efforts to undermine higher education. 'In order to remake the institution, you need to get rid of the guardrails that would prevent you from exerting that much external interference.' But there is an additional risk in Trump's suggestion that he would pave the way for 'new accreditors' more aligned with the administration, Kamola noted. 'You're going to see a bunch of fly-by-night, grifty, Trump-University style colleges that are going to appear,' he said. 'And without accreditation, and federal funding being tied to accreditation, you're going to see a massive exodus of federal funds into the hands of a higher education mass grift economy. Student loan money will be spent in institutions that under the current regime would never be accredited.'
