BPR Spring 2021 Issue 2

SPRING 2021

ISSUE 02

SPECIAL FEATURE

HEALING

The highlights of BPR's coverage of policy and political affairs, wherever you get your podcasts.

The Healing Issue

Issue 02, Spring 2021

Editors’ Note Since Covid-19 was declared a global health emergency in January of 2020, the pandemic and its repercussions have upended everyone’s lives. Many have holed up in their homes, far away from schools, workplaces, family, and friends. Even still, not everyone has a home to speak of or a job that can be done from the comfort of a couch. But Covid-19 is not 2020’s only crisis: The United States has dealt with a profound racial reckoning with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes; the economic downturn has set women’s progress in the workplace back decades; and inequality around the world has become alarmingly acute. In response, the world’s attention has turned dramatically towards healing—from the life-threatening virus, of course, but also from extensive economic devastation, long-term social isolation, and widening social inequalities.

Healing is not a linear process—it can fluctuate, and sometimes, it involves two steps backwards for every three steps forwards. But oftentimes, we emerge stronger than we were before the healing process took place. Healing may not be preferable—we would all likely agree that life would have been better if the coronavirus had never emerged at all—but it can teach us about ourselves, our communities, and the kind of world we want to build in the wake of disaster.

Our special feature authors take on the concept of healing from a number of different perspectives: cultural healing, medical healing, and even infrastructural healing. Steven Long explores the ways in

which Dagestan’s population channels anger rooted in ethnic violence into wrestling programs for young boys, facilitating the region’s ability to heal from its past traumas. Ryan Simpson tackles the effect of restrictive scope of practice laws and explains how nurse practitioners can help mend the United States's broken health care system. Matthew Walsh delves into ways to heal the deteriorating Providence punk scene, encouraging its patrons to mobilize for its restoration. Noah Belsky dissects the public health threats posed by zoonotic diseases and the imminent need for the international community to take steps to prevent them. And Ray Huang turns our attention to a National Infrastructure Bank, discussing the ways in which investments in infrastructure are stimulative and essential to our nation’s economy.

Just as healing is not a linear process, it’s not a swift one either. Rather, healing takes time. It also requires concerted and collective efforts to move forward. Whether we are trying to heal from a devastating pandemic, an economic downturn, or centuries of persistent racial and gender inequality, we must all do our part not only to piece back together what is broken but to move towards building a better world.

— Zander, Emma, Hannah

Brown Political Review EXECUTIVE BOARD

CONTENT BOARD

EDITORS IN CHIEF Emma Blake Zander Blitzer

SENIOR MANAGING WEB EDITORS Ellie Papapanou Tarana Sable

CHIEFS OF STAFF Kate Dario Gabe Merkel CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS Xiaoyu Huang Jackson Segal SENIOR MANAGING WEB EDITORS Ellie Papapanou Tarana Sable MANAGING WEB EDITOR Matthew Walsh SENIOR MANAGING MAGAZINE EDITOR Hannah Severyns CHIEF COPY EDITORS Gabriela Tenorio Peter Zubiago INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR Amelia Spalter DATA DIRECTOR Erika Bussmann

MANAGING WEB EDITOR Matthew Walsh

ECONOMY EDITORS Milo Douglas Clare Lonergan Noah Pirani STAFF WRITERS Simon Giordano Ariana Haji Annabelle Hutchinson Garrett Johnson Jackson Kelley Matthew Lichtblau Chloe Perel Nicholas Sawicki Akhil Saxena Mathilda Silbiger Sally Zhang WORLD SENIOR EDITOR Meghan Murphy WORLD EDITORS Daniel Halpert Morgan McCordick

Masthead CREATIVE STAFF WRITERS Gabriel Blanc Erik Brown Nealie Deol Natalie Fredman Indigo Funk Deepak Gupta Daniel Halpert Charlie Key Morgan McCordick Sarah McGrath Thomas O’Neill UNITED STATES EDITORS Matthew Bailey Molly Cook Cartie Werthman STAFF WRITERS Natalia Ibarra Chaelin Jung Jeanine Kim Jillian Lederman Jack Malamud Kevin Moclair Amanda Page Max Pushkin Gabby Smith Jack Tajmajer Shane Tomaino Jack Wolfsohn Ricky Zhong

BUSINESS DIRECTORS Xiaoyu Huang Jackson Segal CREATIVE DIRECTORS Stephanie Wu Nina Yuchi MEDIA DIRECTORS Griffin McLaughlin Anson Shyu PODCAST DIRECTOR Auria Zhang LEAD WEB DEVELOPER Raymond Cao

EDITORIAL BOARD SENIOR MANAGING MAGAZINE EDITOR Hannah Severyns MANAGING EDITORS Eunice Chong Ben Singer Rachel Yan ASSOCIATE EDITORS Carmen Bebbington Dalia Bresnick Hyun Choi Claire Hodges Justen Joffe Chris Kobel Annabelle Liu Steven Long Felipe Félix Méndez Sarah Roberts Maia Vasaturo-Kolodner Matthew Walsh

CREATIVE DIRECTORS Stephanie Wu Nina Yuchi CREATIVE DIRECTORS IN TRAINING Christine Wang Iris Xie ART DIRECTORS Georgina Bronheim Jesse Hogan Kern Lee GRAPHIC DESIGN DIRECTORS Madi Ko Daniel Navratil GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Jiahua Chen Sharlene Deng Jingyu Feng Amy Lim Mehek Vohra COVER ARTIST Brenda Rodriguez

DATA BOARD DATA DIRECTOR Erika Bussmann

COPY EDITORIAL BOARD

INTERVIEWS BOARD

CO-CHIEF COPY EDITORS Gabriela Tenorio Peter Zubiago

INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR Amelia Spalter

COPY EDITORS Rachel Blumenstein Ben Cunningham Meehir Dixit Elizabeth Duchan Olivia Falkenrath Patrick Gilfillan Bridget Griswold Eric Guo Zeke Hertz Claire Hodges Elias Kaul Jeanine Kim Connor Kraska Caleb Lazar Gene Lu Catherine McClenahan Jessa Mellea Malini Naidu Cynthia Ng Anna Park Eleanor Peters Kelly Raymond Annabel Roth Namsai Sethpornpong Riley Thompson Claire Zeller

DEPUTY INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS Haley Joyce Sam Kolitch MANAGING INTERVIEWS ASSOCIATES Alexander Fasseas Neil Sehgal Zach Stern INTERVIEWS ASSOCIATES Justin Barlas Augustus Bayard Omri Bergner-Phillips Alica Caira Alexander Fasseas Emerson Goodrich Alice Jo Charlie Key Izzy Lazenby Felix Seungje Lee Shinyoung Lee Alex Lehman Adriana Lorenzini Neha Mukherjee Miles Munkacy Hai Ning Ng Pelumi Omotosho Luke Redden Noah Rosenberg Shilpa Sajja Neil Sehgal Sana Sinha Zach Stern Sam Trachtenberg Alexandra Vitkin Tucker Wilke Anik Willig

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS Hannah Chang Naya Lee Chang Sichen Grace Chen Jinghong Chen Nicholas Edwards Sophia G Foulkes Joanne Han Joanne Kim Lucia Li Rosalia Mejia Joseph Ni Felipe Ortiz Brenda Rodriguez Jocelyn Salim Joshua Sun Evelyn Tan Madison Tom Christine Wang Kelly Wu Stephanie Wu Jenny Zhang

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Ryan Simpson DATA ASSOCIATES Ashley Cai Gaya Gupta Zeke Hertz Filip Kierzenka

MEDIA BOARD MEDIA DIRECTORS Griffin McLaughlin Anson Shyu MEDIA ASSOCIATES Mary Bibbey Mira Gupta Mina Kao Autumn-Jade Stoner Irene Sung

BUSINESS BOARD BUSINESS DIRECTORS Xiaoyu Huang Jackson Segal ASSOCIATE BUSINESS DIRECTORS Patrick Gilfillan Steven Long BUSINESS ASSOCIATES Neel Dhavale Tyler Lu Meghan Murphy Lucca Z. Paris Christopher Pool

PODCAST BOARD EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Auria Zhang PODCAST HOSTS Kate Dario Ethan Drake Michael Seoane PODCAST ASSOCIATES Miriam Arden Casey Chan Tevah Gevelber Skylar Iosepovici Lisa Li Gene Lu Alexandra Ali Martinez Lara Mikhail Margaret Nesi Katharine Orchard Geireann Lindfield Roberts Ben Rosenn Emery Shelley Ellie Thomson

TECH DEVELOPMENT BOARD LEAD WEB DEVELOPER Raymond Cao WEB DEVELOPERS Ashley Cai Parker Simon Nick Young

Lunar New Year smelled like the lingering scent of oil and sounded like the manufactured applause during pre-recorded spring gala performances. In my dream on February 13, it looked like red paper decorations, and the large Buddha statue on a chain that sat around my mother’s neck. I remember the warmth that radiated from the festive scene—a sharp contrast to the secluded beach behind me, chilled by the windy gray skies. I walked along the shores looking for pearls but could only find a handful to gift to my mother. As I resumed my search I stumbled across a dusty Buddha statue identical to hers.

Unsurprisingly, this dream appeared the night before I moved back to RISD after almost a full year of living at home with my parents. Having kept a consistent dream log since early 2020, it became easy for me to distinguish when my dreams were straightforward, manifesting my anxieties. More commonly, though, they just seemed like delusions where I could watch children transform into weasels through a magic bouncy ball. I’ve never been too interested in dream interpretations so instead I turn to Google, clicking through links until my brain decomposes into the rotting orange from my dream on January 2, 2021.

According to the first result on Google, seeing a Buddha statue in your dreams means “your problems will be managed” and “you may need the support of a close family member.” Truthfully, I haven’t been calling home as often as I should be. Instead, I’ve been chopping off my hair with $2 scissors, enjoying my renewed independence, and thinking to myself, “I’m finally in the space that lets me create meaningful work.”

During my year at home, I often thought I was hiding my true self from my conservative family and could only express my identity in the safe haven of school. No matter how I try to reframe my thoughts, they inevitably fuel the everfamiliar narrative of the rebellious Asian American child rejecting the traditional values of their immigrant parents. But I am tired of the incessant one-dimensional portrayal of the Asian American identity.

Asian American culture is often portrayed as an embrace of Western nationality and political identity while retaining the “desirable” parts of our cultural background—often in the form of commodities. Communities bound by commercial brands can only form a solidarity as fragile as Pocky sticks that snaps instantly when marginalized Asians in the United States face violence and materialized discrimination. When six Asian women are murdered by a white supremacist, these communities have nothing to offer besides reposted Instagram stories and empty words. Meanwhile, fundraisers and organizing are spearheaded by community-based political coalitions and mutual aid groups. Even though now it’s being appropriated as a racial identifier, being Asian American is, and always has been, inherently and deeply political.

Gifting Pearls

For the past few months, I’ve been trying to lucid dream so I can alter the worlds of my subconscious in any way I’d like. Every few weeks, I’ll graze lucidity. But when I finally mold the world in my hands, I will shape a world founded on the liberation of Asians and all oppressed peoples from white supremacy.

by Nina Jun Yuchi Graphic Design ’21

Brown Political Review

Table of Contents 16 Interview with Bobby Henline

8 A Dose of Diplomacy

World

12

by Nealie Deol 11 Interview with James Forman Jr.

Transitioning Reforms and Reforming Transitioning

by Amelia Spalter

by Madeline Noh

by Zach Stern 30

Special Feature: Healing

Rebuilding Providence Punk by Matthew Walsh

33 The Good Fight by Steven Long

44

United States 42 A Golden Ticket by Andrew Steinberg

Interview with Jeremy Fogel by Samuel Trachtenberg

45 The Beef With Big Meat by Rachel Yan

48 Safe From Whom? by Eunice Chong

Issue 02, Spring 2021

The Healing Issue 21 Redefining the Flag

18 Closed Until Further Notice

24 Bucking Convention

by Charlie Key

by Emma Blake

22

by Felipe Félix Méndez

27 Interview with Dawn King by Izzy Lazenby

Interview with Sal Khan by Neil Sehgal

34 Nursing the US Primary Care System by Ryan Simpson

39 36 Banking on Our Future by Ray Huang

Zoonosis Neurosis by Noah Belsky

55

52 From Abuse to Arrest by Claire Hodges

51 Interview with Mark Blyth by Noah Pirani

You're Fired by Jack Malamud

58 Interview with Judy Heumann by Sam Kolitch

WORLD

A DOSE OF DIPLOMACY How Cuba's vaccine generosity is a symbol of its altruistic medical internationalism

by Nealie Deol ’24, an intended Economics or History concentrator illustration by Christine Wang ’24

Cuban patriot leader José Martí declared during Cuba’s final War of Independence (1895-1898) that the battle was “the revolution of the doctors.” Indeed, Cuban physicians were ideal conspirators in the effort to overthrow Spanish colonial rule, as the widespread community trust they enjoyed allowed them to discreetly relay communications and smuggle arms and medical supplies for rebels. Some served on the front lines of battle, while others formed organizations in exile to provide the insurgency with material support. Beyond illuminating Cuban doctors’ practical roles in the war, Martí’s words evoke deep connections between biomedical science and Cuban nationhood that crystallized during its independence period. These connections have come into even sharper focus today.

To see this phenomenon in action, look no further than the four Covid-19 vaccines currently being engineered in Cuba: two dubbed Soberana, Spanish for “sovereign,” and the others named Abdala, the name of a poem by Martí, and Mambisa, a reference to the guerrillas who fought for freedom against Spain. In March,

Soberana 02 and Abdala began their Phase 3 trials after both exhibited a “potent immunological response” without serious side effects in Phases 1 and 2. Furthermore, Dr. Vincente Vérez Bencomo of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines expected Cuba to have “in the order of 100 million doses” of the Soberana 02 vaccine in 2021, which requires three doses administered at twoweek intervals without the need for deep-freeze storage. Once Cuba inoculates its 11 million residents, its sights would turn to the several countries lining up for its vaccines, including Vietnam, Iran, and Venezuela.

For Candace Johnson, who worked closely with Cuban scientists to bring their lung cancer immunotherapy shot to the United States for trials, it was “no surprise” to see Cuba “on the forefront of a [Covid-19] vaccine.” But for those who primarily associate Cuba with classic cars, cigars, and authoritarian communism, news of late-stage Cuban Covid-19 vaccine trials might come as a shock. In actuality, Cuba’s Covid19 vaccines are the latest examples of medical innovations on the island that reflect an enduring prioritization of citizen well-being that took

“Such a gesture points to Cuba’s strategy of bolstering countries’ longterm medical capabilities in addition to contributing shortterm support.”

root during the country’s birth. Cuba’s strong healthcare, biotechnology, and medical education systems, coupled with its long-standing tradition of assisting countries in times of medical crisis, have made it a paragon of medical humanitarianism. Situated in the context of the country’s poverty, these institutions highlight the fact that political will and human capital are more important than wealth in achieving positive health outcomes.

The prospect of Cuba distributing its Covid19 vaccines throughout the world has brought to the forefront its decades-long doctrine of medical internationalism. The practice is an apparent extension of the Cuban vision of health as a fundamental human right codified in its 1940 constitution. Essentially, it aims to provide immediate disaster relief and medical capacity-building services predominantly to marginalized communities of the Global South at minimal cost to the host country. Since its first team was dispatched to Chile following an earthquake in 1960, Cuba’s medical internationalism program has served 158 countries, where Cuban medical professionals have performed

WORLD

“Once Cuba inoculates its 11 million residents, its sights would turn to the several countries lining up for its vaccines, including Vietnam, Iran, and Venezuela.”

1.2 billion medical consultations, attended 2.2 million births, and conducted more than 8 million surgeries to date. Recent missions include rapid responses to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the March 2020 Covid-19 outbreak in Italy. When Central America was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, not only were 1,300 Cuban medical volunteers on the ground within 24 hours, but the Cuban government also granted free medical education to students from affected areas at the newly founded Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in 10

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

Havana. Such a gesture points to Cuba’s strategy of bolstering countries’ long-term medical capabilities in addition to contributing shortterm support.

Cynics might explain Cuba’s medical internationalism in terms of economic strategy and notions of soft power. Certainly, the Cuban government accrues significant revenue from medical exports, Cuban doctors are paid higher salaries, and the country itself gains a degree of influence in the Global South because of its altruism. Still, such justifications alone do not square with Cuba’s pattern of offering scarce resources to ideological opponents. This tendency suggests that the country's motives center around humanitarianism and global solidarity. That Cuba eschews the paternalistic term “aid” in favor of “medical cooperation” is also especially revelatory. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, for example, Cuba proposed cooperation with the US by sending 1,586 medical personnel and 36 tons of emergency supplies to the country at no cost. The United States declined, being “apparently more concerned with saving face than with saving lives.”

Cuba, however, does not just thrive in the medical field internationally. By conventional measures, Cuba is a poor country, but its approach to healthcare on the domestic level is strong. The fall of the Soviet Union, a primary trading partner, devastated Cuba’s centrally-planned economy in 1991, and material conditions have only worsened due to an ongoing US embargo, sanctions, and Covid19’s effect on tourism. Despite all these factors,

Cuba has consistently had a nearly identical life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate relative to the United States. Such success is largely due to its efficient universal healthcare system. In fact, the system, which focuses on prevention and primary care, has allowed the island to spend just $813 per person annually on healthcare, compared with the US’s $9,403 for comparable results. Cuba’s robust medical education system enables the intensive, personal process of annual in-home check-ups by local family doctors and nurses from neighborhood polyclinics. To make Cuba self-sufficient in the face of trade restrictions impeding the procurement of foreign drugs, the Cuban government invested heavily in biotechnology in the 1980s and spurred the creation of dozens of medical research centers. Consequently, Cuba now holds 1,200 international patents and exports its homegrown biopharmaceutical products to more than 50 countries.

Cuba’s approach to public health on both the domestic and international levels illustrates crucial lessons for improving citizen welfare. As rich countries race to buy Covid-19 vaccines for their inhabitants, Cuban medical internationalism stands out as an exercise in international cohesion and a recognition of our common humanity. In the context of Cuba’s economic woes and its healthcare successes, this tendency indicates that a “political will…to put human beings at the center of the project” is above all the key to promoting the health of a nation and the world at large.

focusing on violence versus nonviolence oversimplifies the distinctions within what we classify as violent crime. When most people hear violence, they assume rape and murder, but the way our statutes define violence is much broader. So talking [in terms of] violent versus nonviolent scares people and hides an immense amount of variation, individuality, and humanity.

You also talk about how The New Jim Crow obscures the effects of mass incarceration on other demographics like whites and Latinos. What do you see as the value in centering on the experience of Black Americans? What do you see as the danger in obscuring the effect of mass incarceration on these other demographics?

INTERVIEW WITH

James Forman Jr.

We need to have a way of talking about the issue that simultaneously helps us see the racial disparity in mass incarceration but also allows room for us to see how broad this issue has become and how many people have been caught up in this system. There’s a very rich literature out there now that has documented the racism present in our criminal system, and it’s crucial that we never lose sight of that.

At the same time, prison populations can

James Forman Jr. is a professor at Yale Law School. A Brown graduate, he teaches and writes about criminal law policy, constitutional law, juvenile justice, incarceration, policing, and education policy, with a particular focus on racial and socioeconomic inequality in America’s education and criminal justice systems. Forman Jr. is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America and a co-founder of the Maya Angelou Academy, a charter school based in Washington, DC.

interview by Zach Stern ’22 illustration by Madison Tom ’23 Zach Stern I know that you’ve raised a number of concerns with Michelle Alexander’s discussion of mass incarceration in The New Jim Crow and that one of your critiques revolves around the analogy’s relatively limited focus on drug crimes as opposed to violent crimes.

What do you see as the danger in ignoring the issue of violence when discussing the causes and effects of mass incarceration?

James Forman Jr. The first point is just about the numbers. Now, the number of people that are in state prison in this country for marijuana cases is 1 percent and the percentage of people that are in there for drug offenses is 15 percent. These cases make a difference and nobody should be in prison for those offenses in my view, but if we just focus on drug offenses, we’re not talking about the majority of people in prison. Number two,

be disproportionately Black and Latino and still be plenty white. The New Jim Crow is so important because it’s allowed communities of incarcerated Black people to have a way of describing what happened to them other than just “you should shut up and be sorry for the bad choices you’ve made.” But for white prisoners and their families, that’s still how they feel. That’s not Michelle Alexander’s fault—somebody else now needs to try to help us develop that language.

Do you think class has any potential to create that language for poorer white prisoners?

I think that’s the pathway. The statistics certainly back it up, but it’s challenging because it’s been very hard in this country to develop a robust class-based analysis for any social problem, including mass incarceration. We don’t have great data on the class background of people who are incarcerated, but the best number we have is about educational attainment rate, and for both Black and white prisoners, the prison population is

overwhelmingly concentrated among people that dropped out of high school.

I know you’ve done a lot of work on education, both in prisons and for released juvenile offenders. How do you think your work in the Maya Angelou Academy reflects the impact of education as both a preventative measure and a response to crime?

The research here is overwhelming. For every dollar that we invest in education for people behind bars, as a society, we get five dollars in return because the recidivism rates go down and employment rates go up. There have been lots of similar studies at the juvenile level, which is where the Maya Angelou Academy work has been. What we see is that overwhelmingly, the kids that we work with have not had access to an adequate education. That’s one of the things that has caused them to give up hope, but education can be very liberatory. It allows people to see a future that’s different from their past and their present. At the juvenile level, there’s a legal requirement to provide an education, but the problem is that in most places, that requirement is met in the most minimal way.

The question is: How do we take that obligation and make it robust? How do we take that education and make it quality? How do we make it the kind of education that you would want for your loved one? That’s the challenge.

Do you see culture shift in addition to policy as an important element of that reform?

We have a series of narratives that we use to try to justify our prison system: the idea that the people in it are “other,” that they’ve given up any claim to society’s caring about them, and that prison works. The last narrative is the idea that there is no other way. That’s a really hard one to displace, but that’s what schools like the Maya Angelou Academy are trying to do. Every time we bring visitors in, they say “I can’t believe you’re teaching Shakespeare in a prison,” but kids love it and it helps them imagine themselves as intellectuals. Kids know when you're giving them something that’s to a high standard. They might not necessarily know who Shakespeare is, but they know this is what kids in good schools are getting. That’s the change that has to be made—the idea that we can do it differently, that it doesn’t have to be this way.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WORLD

Transitioning Reforms and Reforming Transitioning How Germany is reckoning with its past transphobic sterilization practices

by Madeline Noh ’22, an Anthropology and Public Health concentrator illustrations by Felipe Ortiz ’22

Angela Merkel’s Germany usually espouses ideals of acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion.

However, for transgender individuals, the struggle to ensure that Germany’s laws recognize their gender identity has been ongoing and painful. As recently as 2011, the transitioning process for transgender individuals in Germany was fraught with even more legal and institutional barriers than exist today. In fact, sterilization was once a requirement to legally change one’s gender and had been forced upon approximately 10,000 German transgender individuals.

Though this process was reformed in 2011 so that sterilization prior to sex reassignment surgery was no longer mandatory, the process of transitioning in Germany remains extremely challenging. In order for Germany to meaning12

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

fully reform its legal systems to allow for greater inclusion of the transgender community, the nation must reckon with its damaging history.

While an official apology and reparations must be issued to those who suffered involuntary sterilization, the government must take additional steps to remedy its history of harmful policies.

Going forward, then, the government must provide transgender individuals with autonomy by instituting self-determination policies and removing the required role of medical professionals in the legal process of gender change.

Germany’s current discrimination against transgender individuals, as well its their attitude towards gender diversity, can partially be seen as an archaic remnants of Nazi-era eugenics. In 1934, government officials expanded

the country’s Criminal Code by adding Paragraph 175, which classified homosexuality as a criminal offense. For more than a decade, more than 50,000 men were prosecuted for homosexual activity and punished through forced labor. Beyond these punishments for homosexuality, the Nazis were infamous for their forced sterilizations of non-Aryan individuals, particularly those who strayed from the “ideal” racial background or deviated from “ideal” health. LGBTQ+ Germans were considered deviant and, if not murdered, were often arrested, imprisoned in concentration camps, and forced into sterilization.

Since World War II, anti-LGBTQ+ ideologies and laws have been gradually challenged and dismissed. In 1969, an adjustment to Paragraph 175 decriminalized sexual activity between men over the age of 21. More recently, in 2017, the German Parliament approved the issuance of reparations to gay men who were once convicted of homosexuality. An estimated 5,000 of these men were identified to receive a base compensation of €3,000, with an additional €1,500 added for each year that they were incarcerated. In 2019, this policy was extended to include €500 in compensation for gay men who were investigated under anti-LGBTQ+ laws

“Medicine will continue to be a barrier for those who want to transition until self-determination is seen as valid.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

13

WORLD

but not convicted, adding €1,500 for each year in pre-trial custody and €1,500 for other hardships and burdens experienced due to these discriminatory practices.

The transgender community, however, continues to suffer disproportionately, even as much of the LGBTQ+ community has made significant strides forward. Gaining recognition as a transgender person has been and continues to be extremely difficult due to the passage of anti-transgender legislation. For example, the 1980 Transsexuals Act required individuals to be diagnosed with a mental disorder in order to be recognized as transgender. This legislation harmfully conflated transgender identities with mental illness and stigmatized transgender individuals. The repercussions of this law continue to prevent the self-determination of gender for many.

Although the World Health Organization finally struck down the classification of “transgender” as a mental disorder in 2019, Germany still requires individuals to meet with two different state-appointed psychotherapists to gain “approval” for their choice before their gender can be legally recognized. These policies establish medical professionals as gatekeepers who regulate and monitor the “validity” of one’s identity. This system diminishes patients’ ability to advocate for themselves, especially given the inherently unequal power dynamics in physician-patient relationships and the state’s entanglement with the process. Medicine can be weaponized by politicians as a tool to control and regulate bodies. Legislation that undermines transgender individuals’ ability to self-identify and self-advocate are remnants of such a system, in which medicine is too often used as an instrument of oppression.

Medicine will continue to be a barrier for those who want to transition until self-determination is seen as valid. It is essential that transgender individuals are able to receive government IDs and documents with their rightful gender and name without having to undergo bureaucratic medical appointments and diagnoses. German activists are fighting to implement this change through a statutory self-declaration system, in which an individual’s oath is the primary evidence necessary to make a legal change. This system may be key to finally placing agency in the hands of transgender individuals.

Importantly, Germany is not the only country that must grapple with a history of antiLGBTQ+ legislation. Sweden, like Germany, has a past stained by the forced sterilizations of transgender individuals. Unlike Germany, Sweden has made considerable efforts to repair its relationship with its transgender community.

14

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

“The transgender community, however, continues to suffer disproportionately, even as much of the LGBTQ+ community has made significant strides forward.”

These actions can serve as a promising roadmap for change. In 2017, just four years after Sweden abolished its 1972 law requiring transgender citizens to be sterilized in order to be granted a legal gender change, the country became the first in the world to issue compensation to victims of forced sterilization. In the end, this resulted in the provision of 225,000 Krona each to an estimated 800 transgender individuals. While monetary compensation is obviously a meager replacement for forced sterilization, the focus on remedying this past injustice by Sweden’s government represents encouraging progress. Still, an official apology by the Swedish government remains to be issued, which trans activists have called for in order to complement the positive strides made by compensation. Trans activists in Germany have called for similar governmental interventions. An apology might include an intentional ceremony and the issuance of formal statements in recognition of harm done.

Though Germany’s 2011 repeal and ban of forced sterilization signals positive progress towards transgender equity and acceptance, it is not enough. Germany should look to Sweden as

a model. It should also consider potential reparations for those affected by the sterilization policy prior to its abolition. Moreover, it would be valuable for the German parliament to issue an official apology in recognition of these crimes committed against transgender individuals and the trans community at large. It is also crucial that Germany re-evaluate the current process for legal gender change by adopting self-identification policies, as this process remains extremely distressing and bureaucratic. Individuals should be able to self-determine their gender and name on documents through simpler processes without the influence of outside authority—a statutory self-declaration system is one example of how this might be achieved.

Repealing the mandatory sterilization policy was necessary, but it was the bare minimum.

A long road still lies ahead in creating a more accepting Germany, one in which reparations, government acknowledgement, reforms to current anti-trans laws, and self-identification policies come together to create a path where legal recognition of their identity is accessible to all transgender Germans who seek it.

“German activists are fighting to implement this change through a statutory self-declaration system, in which an individual's oath is the primary evidence necessary to make a legal change. This system may be the key to finally placing agency in the hands of transgender individuals.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

15

INTERVIEW WITH

Bobby Henline Bobby Henline is a stand-up comedian and retired US Army staff sergeant who served four tours in Iraq. In 2007, Henline's Humvee was struck by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which burned him and killed the other service members inside.

He was flown back to the United States in a coma and was not expected to survive. Two weeks later, he emerged from the coma. Two years after that, he took the stage for the first time as a stand-up comedian. Henline's comedy has since been the subject of documentaries such as Comedy Warriors, co-starring Bob Saget and Zach Galifinakis, Larry Charles’ Dangerous World of Comedy, and Time Magazine’s Healing Bobby. When not speaking or performing, he devotes himself to his non-profit organization, The Bobby Henline Foundation: Forging Forward.

interview by Amelia Spalter ’21 illustration by Madison Tom ’23

Amelia Spalter What was the timeline of your recovery from “flown out of Iraq in a coma” to “flying back to Iraq to tell jokes about it?”

Bobby Henline Eighteen months after I was injured, I began to get my independence back.

That’s when it started to hit me: “Wow. I’m still here.” Before that, I had just prayed every night to die. I felt like a burden. I didn’t know why I’d survived. [I was blind] for the first 14 months.

When I started to see again, I thought, “Wait, I get to watch my children grow up and see my grandchildren someday.” And here we are already. I have three granddaughters.

It was three years before I really got comfortable with the way I looked and accepted my face. Shoot, I see old pictures of me, and I’m better looking now. That helps with that confidence, like, “Oh my God. At least I don’t look like that guy anymore.” Comedy was in between those two milestones; it was two years after. I had just had my hand amputated when I got into comedy. They tried to get my hand to work for those first two years, so it took three to start really grooving back into life.

How do you handle audiences who are hesitant to laugh at a wounded veteran?

The first time I did stand-up, no one laughed at all. I do get why people are scared to laugh.

With those types of events, I’ve learned to start with the story of how I got into comedy. It makes it easier for them, going, “Okay he wants us to laugh at him.” But when I have someone that can’t laugh at it, it’s kind of weird. There was a lady in Vegas one time, sitting right in the

front row, who felt so bad that she had to turn to people next to her, who she didn’t even know, and explain, “I can’t laugh at that, I just can’t.”

But I could totally hear her. So I’m like, “Really ma’am? I went through all this, now I’ve got to hold your hand?” I get a lot of people who come up afterward going, “Oh my god, I felt bad for laughing, but that shit was funny.” I’m like, “Good, thank you for laughing. We’d have all felt worse if no one laughed.”

What about offstage? You’ve spoken in the past about getting blunt commentary from children regarding your appearance. How should the adults accompanying them respond in such situations?

If there are kids involved, especially if the kids are pointing or asking, then I definitely think you should approach the person. Most likely we’re going to want to explain why we look the way we do. It helps us, and it helps other people, because that kid may eventually be in school with someone who’s different, and he’ll include, or even protect that person, because he understands it now. He wasn’t just told it’s something to ignore and not talk about or not even look at. Most bullying comes from lack of understanding or feeling uncomfortable. If the setting is appropriate, definitely ask the person directly.

Kids will point at me and say, “Look Mommy, a monster.” But you can’t blame the kid. This is what a monster looks like. This is how they are depicted in the media, as disfigured. The hero is never burned or disfigured, only bad guys like Freddy Krueger are burned. So, when your child is saying something along those lines, it isn’t the time to run away from me. It’s actually the perfect time to educate that child, because otherwise they’re just going to grow up even more scared around us creatures.

What was the process of rediscovering your physicality like? Once you had regained basic functions, did your other skills adapt naturally, or was each new activity a challenge?

It was hard. Hard, hard. You start out thinking you can no longer do the things you love to do. But I just had to. Not relearning it would have been harder than relearning it was. I used to race BMX. I was always that kind of crazy adrenaline junkie. I’ve been back to Iraq three times since the injury to do comedy for the troops… Yeah, I’m a slow learner.

The physical part of it is easier to figure out than the mental part of it. For example, the first time I went fishing again, it was like, okay throw the pole here, turn around backwards, there we go. Figuring out the mechanics of what I could do was the easy part. Realizing [that] there were things I couldn’t do anymore, like bait the hook, was the hard part. I said to myself, “Alright, part of losing a hand is that I have to be okay with letting people help me sometimes.”

But then I see this professional bass fish-

“You can laugh about anything. I get that some topics will always feel a little too soon for some people, but you can’t change what happened, and if you could see something funny in a bad thing that’s happened, it sheds light on the situation.”

erman that doesn’t have any arms. He ties knots in the fishing line in his mouth! So I had to look at it as “I can’t do this the way I used to do it. That doesn’t mean I can’t do it.” With all these things, I found a different way to do it.

But sometimes that did include asking for help, which was one of the hardest parts.

Like with skydiving. I jumped out of planes in the Army, so I knew there were a lot of different ways it could be done. So I went tandem skydiving with a big group of amputees and found a way to make it work.

If you asked me what not to do to a wounded veteran, the first thing on my list would have been “laugh at them.” How do you distinguish between what you’ll joke about and what remains sacrosanct?

You can laugh about anything. I get that some topics will always feel a little too soon for some people, but you can’t change what happened, and if you could see something funny in a bad thing that’s happened, it sheds light on the situation. Me making fun of myself is bringing light to burn survivors.

Specifically, I remember one veteran burn survivor saying people would ask him, “Are you

that comedian?” And he told them he wasn’t, but he could tell that because the person who approached him had seen me, they felt comfortable talking to him rather than just staring.

So the more we can laugh at this stuff, the more we can help each other. It doesn’t demean the cause, it helps it, it brings attention to it. And it’s crazy that it’s getting harder for people to laugh at stuff now. You’d think as life goes on and the generations are more open, it would get easier and easier to laugh at stuff like this.

Sometimes it takes it coming from someone like me, someone who’s actually been through it, to make the joke seem okay. If you don’t want to laugh at something, fine, but don’t tell others what they should or should not find funny. Sometimes people need to laugh.

People can need help no matter what, even if they haven’t been through what I’ve been through physically or been to war. We have to laugh at stuff, we’ll go crazy if we don’t. We’d all be angry all the time.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WORLD

Closed Until Further Notice

18

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

How Covid-19 has left Panamanian children especially vulnerable

by Felipe Félix Méndez ’22, an International and Public Affairs concentrator and an Associate Editor for BPR illustrations by Evelyn Tan ’23

With 211 days of full school closure between March 2020 and February 2021, Panamanian schools have had a longer break from classroom learning in the Covid-19 pandemic than any other nation in the world. Even worse, a UNICEF survey conducted in November 2020 found that 41 percent of Panamanian households with children (excluding households in Indigenous comarcas, or semi-autonomous Indigenous regions) currently have less food to eat than they had prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With in-person education on pause and food insecurity on the rise, Panamanian children in lower income households have been particularly disadvantaged. Given this disproportionate harm, the Panamanian government must act immediately to increase access to distance learning and nutrition for at-risk children. Furthermore, it must simultaneously prioritize the safe reopening of schools. In this vein, Panama must not only build stronger water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure in schools to prevent the spread of diseases including Covid19, but it must also pursue an ambitious school feeding program to address food insecurity on a national level.

Despite being over one year into the Covid19 crisis, efforts to mitigate the burdens of distance learning and increase access to nutrition remain insufficient. In December 2020, the Panamanian Ministry of Education reported that 47,000 public school students—or about 6.5 percent of the total population of public school students in Panama—completely missed the school year because their schools were unable to contact them. Moreover, there are important quality and equity concerns, even for those students who managed to access some form of distance learning. In November 2020, a UNICEF poll revealed that only 52 percent of Panamanian public school students surveyed received their education using online plat-

“In November 2020, a UNICEF poll revealed that only 52 percent of Panamanian public school students surveyed received their education using online platforms that allowed for interaction with teachers, compared to 84 percent of the surveyed private school students.”

“Among families that have reported food shortages due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 63 percent declared that the type of food they now serve their children has been affected.” forms that allowed for interaction with teachers, compared to 84 percent of the surveyed private school students. 60 percent of public school students also recall relying on instruction broadcast on the radio or TV at some point during the pandemic. Stuck between complete educational exclusion and poor quality distance learning, Panama’s most vulnerable children are at risk of being left behind.

In addition, the Vale Digital, a monthly transfer program offering financial support to Panamanian households, has fallen short of providing adequate economic relief. The monthly price of a basic family food basket— the minimum amount of food necessary to satisfy nutritional requirements in a household—hovers around $250 USD in most Panamanian provinces. However, these transfers, which began at $80 USD per month and rose to $120 USD in February, leave families bearing the brunt of food costs. Furthermore, among families that have reported food shortages due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 63 percent declared that the type of food they now serve their children has been affected. Thus, the Panamanian government must act swiftly to protect the country’s children from malnutrition and to restore access to quality education. Committing to a timeline for reopening schools is crucial to accomplishing both of these goals. In the meantime, however, the government must expand its current economic relief package to, at the very least, make it commensurate with the price of the basic food basket.

Schools could serve as a powerful nexus between education and nutrition for Panamanian children. This potential, however, remains largely untapped. School feeding programs can yield a return on investment as high as $9 USD for every $1 USD invested, with positive externalities affecting education, health, nutrition, and social protection. Nutrition is especially critical during the first five years of life, after which the damage to a malnourished child’s development may be irreversible. The child stunting indicaTHE HEALING ISSUE

19

WORLD

tor, which measures the percentage of children whose height is at least two standard deviations below the world average for their age, exemplifies this tragic reality. Stunted children end up earning 20 percent less on average than adults who were not stunted as children. In addition to its impact on income, stunted growth is associated with direct losses in productivity due to poor health caused by malnutrition, as well as increased healthcare costs for chronic and infectious diseases. Stunting affects 15.9 percent of Panamanian first grade students, but this figure is far higher in Indigenous comarcas, standing at 61.4 percent and 53.4 percent in Guna Yala and Ngäbe-Buglé, respectively. These rates will only climb without government intervention.

Not only are school feeding programs an impactful solution to combat malnutrition during pre-primary school years, but they can play a fundamental role in addressing the rising threat of obesity among older children.

Paired with nutrition education, school feeding programs are uniquely positioned to influence children’s diets and consumption patterns at a pivotal time in their lives. No less important, school feeding programs incentivize parents to keep their children in schools as they come of age rather than send them to work full-time. Lastly, school feeding programs have been found to have positive spillovers on local agriculture and employment, directly creating about 1,668 jobs for every 100,000 students fed.

These impacts could make a powerful dent in the massive rise in unemployment brought on by the pandemic.

Despite the growing body of research undermining concerns that children and schools would be major spreaders of Covid-19, opening schools remains notably absent from the Panamanian government’s timeline for resuming in-person activities. Controversially, leisure industries, including shopping malls and casinos, were assigned concrete dates for reopening months ago. In contrast, the timeline for resuming education has been strikingly vague. In January, the Ministry of Education announced that the school year’s first trimester (March-June) would run online, with schools reopening only for small-group tutoring. The Executive Decree governing the 2021 Academic Year cryptically states that “the epidemiological conditions of each educational region will be evaluated periodically along with the Ministry of Public Health with the goal of appraising the transition to other modes of learning, in the second and third trimesters, according to the biosecurity conditions in each region.”

20

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

The Panamanian government has a responsibility to commit to a timeline that addresses the alarming educational, sanitation, and food insecurity problems faced by children in the country. Above all, it must first focus on increasing access to distance learning and adequate nutrition. But Panama must then work to safely return children to schools, which will require improved WASH infrastructure. One in three Panamanian public schools lack a safe, 24-hour water supply, posing a significant sanitation problem that is especially urgent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, as schools reopen, the Panamanian government should implement a comprehensive school feeding program in order to continually tackle the issue of childhood malnutrition at the national level. Prior to the pandemic, the current government sought to address this issue through a school feeding pilot program, which was approved only weeks before national school closures began in March 2020 and has yet to be meaningfully implemented. It is imperative that such efforts be resumed and expanded in this time of great need.

Redefining the Flag Why Britain's Labour party must embrace patriotism

by Charlie Key ’24, an intended International and Public Affairs concentrator and a Staff Writer and Interviews Associate for BPR illustrations by Nicholas Edwards ’23

As Britain’s Labour Party attempts to reassemble an electoral coalition following its devastating 2019 defeat to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, internal debate has arisen over new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s use of the British flag. With Labour’s traditional stronghold in the north of England defecting to vote in favor of Brexit in 2016 and the Conservatives in 2019, the largely socialist Labour Party is setting out to win back these crucial seats before the next general election.

According to a leaked internal report, Starmer intends to embrace patriotism in order to court these former Labour voters.

This decision has exposed deep internal divisions. More left-wing members of the Labour Party view Starmer’s use of the flag as dangerous pandering to right-wing nationalism. Incorporating the flag into Labour’s messaging is just one element of Starmer’s strategy. However, the strongly negative reaction from Labour’s left illustrates a common problem for center-left parties around the world: Namely, how to appeal to a younger, metropolitan membership that views patriotism as a harmful display

“If Labour neglects this dilemma, it will lose out electorally and more dangerous forces will define the spaces that Labour vacates.”

of right-wing nationalism, while also recovering a de-industrialized working-class constituency that embraces a love of country. To unify these groups, Labour must work to build its own form of patriotism, founded on pride in an inclusive country. If Labour neglects this dilemma, it will lose out electorally and more dangerous forces will define the spaces that Labour vacates.

Polls conducted around the 2019 general election highlighted a lack of patriotism as a key reason behind Labour’s electoral defeat, demonstrating the necessity for leadership to publicly embrace patriotic ideals. Evidence repeatedly illustrates the wide gap between the public and Labour on this issue. Polling by YouGov showed 61 percent of people identified as “fairly patriotic” or “very patriotic,” whereas only 35 percent thought of Labour as such.

While many fear that Labour risks submitting to right-wing nationalism by attempting to move closer to public opinion on this issue, this view ignores a century-old tradition within Labour of using patriotism as a unifier. This strategy was embraced by two of Labour’s stand-out leaders: Clement Attlee and Tony Blair, both of whom harnessed patriotism as a positive force during their tenures as prime minister.

While Britain was still dealing with the fallout of the Second World War, Clement Attlee was able to guide Labour to a surprise win in the 1945 election, triumphing over the now-idolized Winston Churchill. The consequences of this win were immense and define the United Kingdom to this day: Attlee brought about the National Health Service, the contemporary welfare state, widespread nationalization, and huge house-building programs.

Beyond these policy changes, Attlee himself was a distinctly British and patriotic figure.

When war first broke out, he put aside party differences and joined the wartime coalition government, serving Churchill loyally. Attlee framed his desires for a planned economy in the words of William Blake’s quintessentially English verse, hoping to build “Jerusalem / In England’s green and pleasant land.” Attlee implemented socialist-style policy changes in Britain because he believed that patriotism necessitated universal investment.

Fifty years later, a new resurgence of patriotism would come to dominate Britain: Cool Britannia. During this era, the Spice Girls

performed in Union Jack dresses, Oasis sang Wonderwall wrapped in the flag, and Alexander McQueen designed pieces inspired by the British symbol. Into this renewal of British pride stepped Tony Blair, who embodied this youthful optimism. As he walked into 10 Downing Street after his landslide victory in 1997, Blair was greeted by crowds waving British flags. He formed a coalition he called New Labour, boosted into power by a generation tired of nearly two decades of Conservative rule and eager to redefine a nation they could take pride in. In 2021, the rose-tinted nostalgia for the 1990s must be avoided in light of the myriad health and economic crises that Covid-19 has inflicted upon the United Kingdom. If Blair and Cool Britannia can teach us one key lesson, it is that patriotism and pride in the flag do not have to be synonymous with regressive right-wing politics. The flag did— and still can—embody pride in an optimistic, forward-looking country.

While giving up on over half the population who identify as “fairly” or “very patriotic” may allow Labour to stay comfortably in their own ideological bubble, it would condemn them to eternal opposition. Not only that, but if this 61 percent of the population are shunned by Labour, this demographic’s only home will become right-wing parties who embrace a darker, more isolationist form of patriotism.

Labour has to fight against this instinct; they must embrace the flag, own it, and incorporate it within a message of positivity and inclusivity.

This is a path well-trodden for Labour, and one it must walk again.

THE HEALING ISSUE

21

INTERVIEW WITH

Sal Khan Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a not-for-profit educational platform with 120 million registered users that offers free lessons in math, science, and the humanities in 50 languages, as well as tools for parents, teachers, and districts to track student progress. He is also the founder of Khan Lab School, a laboratory school in Mountain View, and schoolhouse.world, a nonprofit that offers math tutoring.

interview by Neil Sehgal ’21 illustration by Madison Tom ’23

Neil Sehgal What is the single most important lasting effect you see in education as a result of Covid-19, positive or negative?

Sal Khan If I were to say one, it's that people are taking schooling a lot more seriously and a lot less for granted than they have in the past.

The whole world now realizes what a crucial piece schooling has in the functioning of our economy, and Covid-19 has renewed interest in making sure that it's working well for all kids.

Many politicians have started to get behind the idea of extending the school year into the summer to make up for some of the learning lost due to remote school. Reactions from students, parents, and educators seem to be mixed. Is this something you would like to see?

I'm a big believer that learning should be happening all the time. In my book The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined, I argued that the notion of summer vacation is outdated. It developed from an agrarian culture when people had to work on farms in the summers, including the teachers. Obviously, we’re no longer an agrarian culture.

So, I'm a big fan of full-year, full-day schooling. In 2014, I started a lab school here in California that has year-round schooling.

“I’m a big believer that learning should be happening all the time.”

Now, if we're going to extend the school year, don't just stretch out what's already there.

Leverage the summer or the places where we extend the school day using other models that don't have as much inertia so it can also be a space for innovation.

Khan Academy has been criticized for its focus on STEM subjects at the expense of the humanities. Do you still see a value in the humanities?

There’s a huge value. Some of the core humanities skills—reading and writing—are more important than ever. If you go back 50 years, not many people had to write, speak, or represent themselves for a living.

But in this age where everyone is on social media, writing emails, and representing themselves in different ways, these capabilities are critical.

Some people say that the goal of education is just about getting a job. And then others argue [that] no, it's about becoming a fully actualized human being who can have a rich and interesting life. I say it’s both. If you don't have a reasonable level of financial safety in whatever economy you're in, it’s very hard to engage in the journey that we all would like to partake in.

Educational topics are increasingly being politicized, both domestically and abroad.

What are the conversations like within Khan Academy as you expand further into the humanities both domestically and abroad?

There’s a US conversation and an international conversation, and it's a hard one. We have a lot of content already on Khan Academy in American history. And it's important to have both narratives. There's the narrative that I was taught in school. It wasn’t “wrong,” and there were threads of truth to it, but it should be complemented with the narrative we have now that recognizes there’s more nuance and gray areas. Unfortunately, in the public sphere, it’s turned into this debate of “our history is all bad” versus “our history is all wonderful.” And the reality is, it was both.

What do you make of the recent controversy over the SF Board of Education initiative to rename 44 of San Francisco’s public schools including Abraham Lincoln High School?

I don't live in San Francisco, but I read about it. I think people were upset because we’re in the middle of a health crisis, and the kids we're trying to serve are suffering because they are not getting the services they need.

Names matter, but my view is that it’s a prioritization question. When we are dealing with Covid-19, and we’re in the middle of an education crisis, do we worry about the names or the substance of what these students are getting?

“First, in the next five or 10 years, can we take all of the stuff that you need to know to be an actualized human being and make it as accessible as possible to anyone on the planet? Second, how do you make that as engaging as possible? ”

One of Khan Academy’s biggest boosters has been the tech community. Are you wary of or encouraged by big tech’s increasing involvement in education?

I don’t know. If you asked me 10 years ago if I was worried about social media’s influence on politics and national discourse, I would say, "No, what does social media have to do with that?" And now, I’m very worried about social media’s impact not just on political discourse, but also on mental health. But the things that the Googles and Microsofts are creating are primarily tools. They’re facilitating communication, reducing frictions and overhead, and helping coordinate logistics.

Those seem like all positive things. Teachers can spend more time serving their students and less time doing administrative tasks. It seems like a win. I don’t see Big Tech being able to exert a lens on what education has to look like.

Some critics seem to think that private philanthropy and education are at odds and that philanthropy, specifically in public education, is inherently anti-democratic. Is the net gain from philanthropy positive?

I think so. Private funds aren’t going to do everything, and it’s possible they create distortions—I don’t know that it has, but it’s possible. But on balance, they’re able to run experiments and move faster than what might happen in the purely public sphere. And at the end of the day, for something to be truly scaled, government has to buy in. And government can get bogged down; it isn’t always the most efficient and can be especially slow with leveraging new innovations. So the not-forprofit, philanthropic sector has a role there.

Would you want to see big federal reforms that plug up the gaps that Khan Academy is currently helping to fill?

I mean, I’ll give it to the government if they’ll run it well and keep the innovation. For a mission-driven organization like ours, it’s all about how we best drive the mission forward.

If the government, a for-profit, or another notfor-profit came up tomorrow with a solution that did everything that Khan Academy does but better, I would love that. But we know the reality: Collectively we all have a long way to go to make sure that all kids are able to tap into their potential. There’s so much to be done, and frankly, there's not enough resources being put into the space.

What are you most excited about in the next five years, either for Khan Academy, Khan Lab School, or schoolhouse.world?

First, in the next five or 10 years, can we take all of the stuff that you need to know to be an actualized human being and make it as accessible as possible to anyone on the planet?

Second, how do you make that as engaging as possible? Part of that is the content, exercises, and game mechanics, but it’s also how you support these students with tutoring and communities, and that’s where schoolhouse. world comes into it.

My dream is that anyone of any age can say, “You know what? I really want to go into X, Y, or Z career,” and they have a pathway and a community to do that. They’re able to develop the capabilities that they need and it’s frictionless.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

WORLD

by Emma Blake ’22, an International Relations concentrator and Editor in Chief for BPR illustration by Sichen Grace Chen ’22

Sarita Skagnes was born in a small village in Northern India as the third daughter in her family. Based on the perceived lack of honor and value that she brought to her family due to her gender, Skagnes’s parents exchanged her for a male cousin and left her to live with her aunt.

Skagnes’s story, while appalling in its own right, is a common one for women and girls in India.

In fact, a 2018 Thomson Reuters study deemed India the “most dangerous country for women” based on sexual violence, economic opportunity, and cultural attitudes that devalue female life.

BUCKING CONVENTION How Indian courts have internalized CEDAW

24

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

Standing in stark contrast to this reality is India’s promise to protect and promote gender equality through its 1994 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). By ratifying CEDAW, India made a written, legally binding pledge to uphold the Convention’s stipulations. This commitment includes responsibilities to pass domestic legislation ensuring women’s legal rights and to adjust social norms to promote gender equality.

The country, however, has a long way to go until the lived reality of its citizens reflects its laws.

While CEDAW has not been entirely effective at fostering profound improvements in gender security in India, it still has the potential to be a powerful force that champions women’s rights.

States that ratify CEDAW not only publicly commit to advancing gender equality but are also legally bound to put its provisions into practice. To prove continued progress, parties to the Convention must submit reports to the UN every four years outlining the steps they have taken to achieve CEDAW’s goals. India has submitted a few rounds of reports since ratifying CEDAW, but the country’s “policy of non-interference in the personal affairs” of its citizens has consistently been used to undermine its commitments to gender equality. This policy severely restricts progress. In fact, it enables Indian states to prioritize cultural customs that facilitate practices like child marriage, son

THE HEALING ISSUE

25

WORLD

preference, and female genital mutilation over India’s international responsibilities.

These limitations have become clear in a variety of Indian court cases over the past few decades. For example, in Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group and Others v. Union of India (1997), several groups brought forth a lawsuit arguing that discriminatory family laws were inconsistent with India’s commitments to protecting women’s rights. India’s Supreme Court, however, refused to engage.

Additionally, in its most recent review of India, the CEDAW Committee highlighted sexism in certain regional legal systems that prevents the government from interfering in cases of child marriage. During this same review, the Committee drew attention to the ways in which India’s narrow definition of rape—which does not classify marital rape as a criminal offense—facilitates gender-based violence and leaves women without legal avenues to pursue justice. These realities are deeply concerning, especially given the prevalence of the cultural devaluation of female life in the country. India clearly has a long way to go to fulfill its commitments to CEDAW. Despite its limitations, CEDAW has demonstrable effectiveness: Its ratification is consistently correlated with improvements in women’s rights and has even driven progress in a few select cases in India. In Vishaka v.

State of Rajasthan (1997), the Supreme Court of India referred to Article 11 of CEDAW, which calls on states to eliminate discrimination in the workplace, to support its decision that “the need for safe working environments for women [is] an extension of non-discrimination.” This citation was used in tandem with certain articles of the Indian Constitution to bolster the Court’s final decision. Beyond demonstrating that CEDAW can be an effective legal tool to protect women’s physical and economic security, this case shows how the Convention can complement national legislation to strengthen a courtroom decision.

CEDAW has also been cited in cases of family law to affirm women’s property rights.

In C. Masilmani Mudaliar v. Idol of Shri Swaminathaswami Thirukoil and Others (1996), the Supreme Court ultimately held that a woman has the complete authority to own and sell a property bequeathed to her. In this case, the Court used CEDAW to emphasize the importance of gender equality and to conclude that India’s obligations under CEDAW nullified its policy of cultural non-interference. To bolster its decision, the Court decided that the Hindu Succession Act, which was used to argue that 26

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

“...CEDAW can be adaptive; it can simultaneously exert a degree of supremacy and work around existing laws.”

women do not have absolute property rights, was not applicable. Though CEDAW did not actively supersede Indian law, it rendered certain anti-feminist provisions irrelevant. This case is important because it upheld the spirit of the Convention and helped the country take legal steps toward gender equality without negating national legislation.

Moving forward, the two aforementioned legal cases must provide a framework for how Indian courts and policymakers can employ CEDAW in creative ways. The Vishaka case, which ensured protections against sex discrimination in the workplace, demonstrates how courts can depend on CEDAW to strengthen the legitimacy of national legislation promoting women’s rights. Furthermore, the Masilmani Mudaliar case regarding property rights shows that CEDAW can be adaptive; it can simultaneously exert a degree of supremacy and work around existing laws. Although this kind of innovative and flexible application of the Convention must take place on a wider scale, these foundations for decisions that protect women’s security do exist. Indian courts and policymakers should commit to relying on these precedent cases in future legal battles pertaining to women’s rights.

A radical and comprehensive overhaul of existing policies and practices would obviously provoke the most profound change for women in India. That being said, this kind of approach is unfortunately unrealistic. Employing CEDAW in legal settings, then, is a small but critical step toward enhancing gender security in a country that values women’s lives less than men’s. Doing so would account for gaps in national legislation while helping India fulfill its commitments to international human rights law. Perhaps most importantly, Indian leadership would begin to set a powerful example for the Global South. It may even set the stage for other non-Western democracies to follow suit.

the local economy, but it's also very environmentally sustainable.

they are confusing people, and that it is all seemingly too hard to understand.

It’s eye-opening to see oysters as an environmental boon. What other nuances should people know about sustainability?

How can we combat this sort of disinformation?

Another example is regenerative agriculture.

Cattle are the number one carbon emitters in agriculture worldwide, but one of the best carbon absorbers in the world is native grasslands, because they’re perennial.

The idea is that if we could reduce the amount of red meat we consume by 75 percent, and [the cows] were [raised] on regenerative agriculture, it could store more carbon than it emits. There are proposed bills now asking, “How do we reward farmers for raising regenerative beef instead of X?” INTERVIEW WITH

Dawn King

The new law allowing wholesale seafood distribution in Rhode Island shows that policies can be enacted quickly. What obstacles do sustainable food and agriculture policy initiatives typically face?

The fossil fuel lobby, period. Dirty money.

Misinformation. IBES’s weekly speaker panel series next fall will be all about climate misinformation.

Dawn King, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Environment and Society at the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) and is currently co-chair of the environmental working group for the Rhode Island Food Policy Council. Dr. King holds a BA, MA, and PhD in Political Science from Colorado State University.

interview by Izzy Lazenby ’22 illustration by Madison Tom ’23 Izzy Lazenby How has Covid-19 affected Rhode Island’s seafood industry?

Dawn King The seafood industry was crippled.

Rhode Island is known for its seafood: clam chowder, scallops, oysters—we have some of the best oysters. But nobody orders oysters from the grocery store, right? If people are eating raw oysters, it’s always at a restaurant.

Dockside sales of seafood were illegal in Rhode Island for years. When Covid-19 hit and [the government] observed its crippling effect on the seafood industry, the policy changed quickly. Fisherpeople needed to do wholesale, or else they would have no outlet, and there were lines around the block once dockside sites opened.

There are studies that say it's as environmentally friendly as a vegan diet to eat bivalve mollusks, because you don’t have to feed them anything. The oyster is a natural water filter: it sucks in water, gets what it wants, and spits out clean water. So it’s a wonderful thing for

Maine Representative Chellie Pingree’s Agriculture Resilience Act is a proposal about regenerative agriculture and why it is important to focus on food systems with climate change, which we’ve ignored. We’ve focused on Big Oil, but then there's the Big Farm lobby in the Midwest, who say, “Not us, not us. We don't want to be regulated.”

Where does the climate misinformation which hinders sustainability initiatives originate?

People have been [told] since the 1970s that climate change isn’t real. Brown professors Timmons Roberts and Bob Brulle have started targeting the PR firms that work with Exxon and British Petroleum, because their commercials [show] them “creating biofuels from algae,” or whatever. There will inevitably be a woman of color in a white coat, acting as one of their “scientists” talking about how much they're doing for the environment, [with] solar fields in the background. It's like 0.0001 percent of what they’re working on, but 100 percent of their advertising.

There are rich, powerful people who have made sure that there is disinformation, that

You can talk to a climate change denier utilizing as many facts as you want, but it’s not going to change their mind. Rather than listing facts, it’s [examples set by] children that can sometimes genuinely convince parents or grandparents about the real science. One of the worst things you could do is throw facts at deniers. It is scientifically proven to not change their mind.

Okay, then what is the best way for individuals to make a difference?

The answer is policy. And it's local. Boring, local policy is where movement happens, where you or I can walk into a city and testify.

I've done that at the State House. I felt confident doing it, because I'm a professor at Brown that studies this, but anybody can. If there is a meeting being held on heart disease, and your dad died of heart disease, you could go testify and actually become a partner in [the] decision-making.

I always stop people who say, “I can’t believe so-and-so doesn’t recycle their plastic.” First of all, those plastics aren't being recycled. Those little numbers on recyclable plastic were made up by the plastics industry to make dopes like me and you think that if we put a no. 3, no. 4, no. 5 plastic into a bin, it’s going to be recycled.

And now due to myriad factors, including that China has mostly stopped agreeing to process our plastics, these items you’re upset about were never recyclable in the first place.

So I say, “Why isn’t your anger focused on the plastic industry that made the system to fool people into thinking their items were actually recyclable?”

Systemic changes need to happen. If it’s ever easy, it's not saving anything. You turning off the lights isn’t really doing anything.

Darn it.

But you advocating for policy in the City of Providence is a big deal. Providence is trying to require buildings over 10,000 square feet to report how much energy they use every year.

That seems boring, but you can’t get people to be more efficient and reduce energy consumption unless you know the baseline. There are all sorts of committees and individual people with a seemingly teeny, tiny little policy that can make a huge difference on Providence reaching its climate neutral goal.

How do you make an impact? How do you get involved? Find a good local issue that you care about, then fight for the structural changes.

Fight for policy and regulatory changes.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Special Feature

Healing

30 Rebuilding Providence Punk Matthew Walsh 33 The Good Fight Steven Long 34 Nursing the US Primary Care System Ryan Simpson 36 Banking on Our Future Ray Huang 39 Zoonosis Neurosis Noah Belsky

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING

REBUILDING PROVIDENCE PUNK The punk scene in Providence has degraded—but collective mobilization can bring it back

by Matthew Walsh ’23, a Political Science concentrator and a Managing Web Editor and an Associate Editor for BPR illustrations by Stephanie Wu '21

30

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

“The punk scene, the hardcore scene, was smoking,” Umberto Crenca proclaimed, referencing Providence in the 1980s. Crenca is well-positioned to opine on the city’s music scene as the founder of AS220, a community nonprofit in downtown Providence that has been hosting independent music performances for decades. Providence punk is past its heyday now, but many disagree on the reason for its decline. Regardless, any effort to revitalize the city’s punk scene will require a turn toward Do-It-Yourself (DIY) spaces and the collective and strategic mobilization of punks. Show attendees must also become patrons of the scene—that is, they need to offer financial support so that venues can remain solvent after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The “smoking” scene of the 1980s was saturated with downtown clubs that hosted punk acts. The most famous was The Living Room on Westminster Street (and later on Promenade Street), which boasted an almost unjuried performance policy, meaning nearly any artist could perform. Other venues that hosted punk acts, such as Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, Safari Lounge, and Club Babyhead, were all nearby. In addition to a supply of venues, there was high demand for punk. Dave Chabot, a guitarist for Providence punk legend Neutral Nation—and a chef at Brown’s Sharpe Refectory—argues that social bonds between bands helped form the scene. Chabot also touted the “farm system”—where wellknown bands opened for smaller ones—recalling that the now-seminal indie rock band Pixies used to open for local Providence bands in the 1980s. Crenca added that, given the economic malaise in the

“Supporters of the scene will also need to be extra committed to preserving venues’ secrecy, lest the police raid a show and shut it down.”

downtown area in the 1980s, the punk scene served as a “lifeline” for many people. This enthusiasm for punk helped “put [the city] on the map” by encouraging rock bands to include Providence on their tours.

Chabot observed that rising rents downtown shifted punk to Olneyville, a poorer neighborhood populated with cheap lofts in defunct mill buildings. Olneyville became a new artistic hub as creators converted these edifices into punk venues and art studios. The most notable was Fort Thunder on Oak Street, where the only rule was that “you can make as much noise as you want, any time of day and [no one can] object to that.” It thrived under a disinterested landlord for six years until fire marshals evicted the tenants in 2001. Though not everyone agrees that gentrification ruined the punk scene, the fall of Fort Thunder perpetuated a trend in Olneyville that could not be ignored. A leasing agent from Struever Brothers, Eccles and Rouse (SBER), the real estate developer chiefly responsible for gentrifying Olneyville, was even quoted stating that SBER buyouts of mill buildings could transform the neighborhood from “the ghetto” to “a really cool neighborhood to live in.” Olneyville was becoming hip, and this new direction meant kicking out punks.

To Crenca, however, the narrative of “declining” Providence punk can be attributed to misplaced nostalgia rather than gentrification, given that many of the clubs reopened after shutting down. In his view, punk has simply left the cultural zeitgeist, giving way to other genres and forms of artistic expression. Slam poetry, for example, is the "spoken word of punk" in Crenca’s eyes. Downtown venues also needed to appeal to more than just the alternative crowd.

Coming to this realization in the mid-1990s, Club Babyhead began to book more mainstream musical acts in order to pay the bills.

“Unlicensed venues run the risk of noise complaints, police crackdowns, and fedup landlords. The Funky Jungle, a DIY venue in the Elmhurst neighborhood that hosted raucous shows for over a decade, met this fate a few years ago when its landlord kicked out the tenants.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

31

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING While there is disagreement on the root cause, most acknowledge that the Providence punk scene has declined. So how might it be revived?

For the Providence punk scene to rebuild, DIY venues must be cultivated across the city.

The key advantage of this type of venue is that they can pop up much quicker than clubs or bars. However, running them is often difficult, particularly because rising rents complicate the operation of these spaces. Marc Moreno, a Providence local who books shows, fronts a punk band, and produces zines, declares that as rents have risen and warehouses have transformed into residential spaces, it has become difficult to “maintain and create new standalone, fully licensed, all-ages DIY venues.” Even non-licensed venues are precarious, notes Carlos, who runs a house venue in Olneyville called Al Dios.

In their lifetime, they’ve observed a decline in these kinds of spaces as tenants’ leases expire and renters can no longer afford skyrocketing monthly payments.

Offsetting the effects of gentrification will be difficult, but it is not impossible. Carlos does not think the scene is dying anytime soon, proclaiming that “even with a lack of resources, people end up fighting and making do with what they can.” They also stressed the importance of financial collectivization after the pandemic, insisting that “so long as people decide they want to collectivize with each other…pretty much anything is possible.” Not only does this require punks to pool resources when starting venues, but it also means that fans of the scene cannot free ride on the hard work of DIY venue operators. Show attendees will need to go the extra mile and contribute financially to ensure that house venues remain solvent after the Covid-19 pandemic.

32

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

The specter of Fort Thunder also looms over DIY venues. Unlicensed venues run the risk of noise complaints, police crackdowns, and fed-up landlords. The Funky Jungle, a DIY venue in the Elmhurst neighborhood that hosted raucous shows for over a decade, met this fate a few years ago when its landlord kicked out the tenants. The building soon became a Providence College fraternity house. Evidence from New York City suggests that gentrifying neighborhoods has led to a rapid increase in noise complaints, most likely due to more affluent transplants making 311 calls on their neighbors. As its neighborhoods continue to gentrify, Providence could suffer the same fate.

To be clear, the “smoking” club scene of the 1980s downtown will never return. In expensive, 21st century Providence, it would be unimaginable for a large concentration of clubs to reopen downtown. Nostalgia for this bygone era will not reinvigorate the scene. But countering the Fort Thunder problem is not impossible—Al

Dios provides a good model for the future. Since Carlos’ neighborhood is tolerant of noise, loud shows tend not to faze their neighbors. Creating long-lasting DIY venues, therefore, will require punks to be strategic about the spaces they choose to rent. Supporters of the scene will also need to be extra committed to preserving venues’ secrecy, lest the police raid a show and shut it down. Boston serves as a cautionary tale: A few years ago, multiple DIY venues closed down when cops masqueraded as punks online, asked for addresses, and raided venues.

Providence punk is a shell of its former self, and the Covid-19 pandemic has only facilitated the scene’s decline. While demand for experiences like punk shows will inevitably increase when the pandemic ends, the economic reality of gentrification will remain. Thus, rebuilding the scene will require intentionality. Just as punks in the 1980s and 1990s upheld Club Babyhead by treating it as their “lifeline,” punks these days need to do the same.

“Regardless, any effort to revitalize the city’s punk scene will require a turn toward Do-It-Yourself (DIY) spaces and collective, strategic mobilization of punks.”

The Good Fight

Khabib Nurmagomedov has wrestled and defeated his fair share of bears since his first ursine tussle at age nine. It’s not particularly shocking, then, that he’s also an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight Champion and one of the greatest fighters of his generation. Nurmagomedov comes from a rich martial arts tradition in Russia, where even President Vladimir Putin claims to be a judo expert. But zoom into the vastness of the largest country in the world, and a more interesting trend emerges.

Nurmagomedov hails from the Russian Republic of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim territory nestled between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea. Dagestan is known for its stunning natural beauty and, until very recently, for violent religious and ethnic conflict. The recent de-escalation of conflict can be attributed to the adoption of a novel exercise-based strategy that stresses discipline, recreation, and Dagestani pride. This strategy, which seeks to divert aggression into productive wrestling training, is used to prevent young men from entering “the Forest,” as the Islamic insurgency is known in Dagestan. Today, it has

The same motivations that drive war are bringing peace to Dagestan

by Steven Long ’24, an intended Classics concentrator and an Associate Business Director and an Associate Editor for BPR illustration by Joseph Ni ’23

proven effective: Dagestan leads the Caucasus region in driving down religious violence.

Before diving into the implications of such a strategy, it is important to understand how it relates to the region’s historical context. While Dagestan is known for the strength of its UFC fighters, neighboring Chechnya gained international notoriety in the late 1990s for its brutal Islamist terrorist cells. In 1991, Chechen insurgents declared independence from Russia and invaded Dagestan with broad support from the Muslim populations of both Republics, kickstarting the Second Chechen War between the separatists and pro-Russian forces. This conflict was an especially brutal one in the region’s history, taking the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, insurgents, and civilians.

For Chechnya and Dagestan, the roots of this war trace back all the way to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Chechen and Dagestani separatists were fighting for their very way of life, an identity independent from the interests of Moscow and Putin. Both territories sought recognition and visibility in a world in which they felt smothered by Eastern Orthodox Russia. Yet when Russian forces finally quelled

the fighting and the separatist movement in 2009, these similarities between Chechnya and Dagestan faded. In fact, to safeguard Russia’s control over Chechnya, Putin installed Ramzan Kadyrov as its president. Since then, Kadyrov has been accused of a variety of human rights abuses associated with the implementation of his ultra-conservative agenda. The imprisonments, assassinations, and oppressive measures that define his brand are not expected to end anytime soon.

In Dagestan, however, the government and society at large have followed a completely different route. Perhaps due to its status as a more peripheral region in the war, Dagestan was spared from most of the purges and mass arrests that became the norm in Chechnya.

Instead, the Republic transformed what it did best—wrestling and fighting—from recreation into an outlet for its young men. A quick walk in the capital city of Makhachkala reveals a huge number of open-air training grounds painted with slogans recommending “the Olympic gold instead of terrorism” or “discipline in the face of extremism.” But these words aren’t just for show. The boys begin and end each school day by grappling and exercising, occupying every square inch of these outdoor gyms.

All that’s required for boys to succeed in the sport is discipline so, naturally, all boys in Dagestan grow up with the dream of becoming like Nurmagomedov. This yearning for recognition was also a key driver of the war. Before the hostilities, Dagestan’s only heroes were the rebellious Cossacks of ages long past, who ultimately became the inspiration for many insurgents, the bulk of whom were poor and rural young men.

Now, Dagestani wrestlers and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters regularly grace the screens of international television. Having collectively accrued more than ten Olympic gold medals, they serve as heroes to the same young men who might have otherwise idolized combat fighters.

Thus, martial arts have enabled Dagestanis to strive toward recognition and acceptance—the two desires that precipitated the violence of the past—without going to war.

Strikingly, beyond a few isolated incidents of violence in the past few years, ethnic and religious conflict in Dagestan is conspicuously low. Boys are increasingly choosing the singlet instead of the Kalashnikov. As far as strategies for dissuading boys from engaging in dangerous violence go, this one is particularly constructive. Instead of the secret prisons in Chechnya, maybe adopting a seemingly simple strategy like sports for children could help to redirect anger over ethnic and religious tensions. And what’s the downside? At the very least, they’re getting a good workout.

THE HEALING ISSUE

33

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING

Deregulating SOP laws for nurse practitioners

by Ryan Simpson '23, a Computer Science concentrator and an Associate Data Director for BPR infographic by Jingyu Feng ’23

“White believes that trust is what has made her experience as a provider in Massachusetts different than in Texas. Operating with virtually no oversight, she no longer feels like a physician is always behind her and looking at what she is doing.”

34

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

Nursing the US Primary Care System After earning her Master of Science in Nursing at Vanderbilt University in 2016, Caitlyn White began her career as a nurse practitioner (NP) in Fort Worth, Texas. There, she worked with a group of nine pediatricians and neonatologists to oversee the care of newborns from their birth until their discharge home. While practicing in Texas, White was subject to some of the strictest scope of practice (SOP) laws in the country, which govern how physicians oversee midlevel providers.

For White, these laws meant that almost all of the medical charts and diagnoses she completed had to be reviewed by her supervising physician. She also legally could not practice unless her supervising physician was either on-site or less than 15 minutes away. In her view, these regulations were never beneficial. Rather, they were simply burdensome for both her and her supervising physician.

Now practicing in Massachusetts, where there are much less stringent SOP laws, White is often the only professional at her practice on weekends. Until recently, she needed to have an on-call physician available, but now even that is not required. In January of this year, the governor of Massachusetts issued an emergency executive order in response to Covid-19 to grant NPs Full Practice Authority (FPA), giving NPs the ability to operate with complete independence and care for their own patients. Massachusetts became only the 23rd state in the United States to grant FPA. The evidence suggests that if the United States is going to fix its primary care system, other states should follow suit.

White believes that trust is what has made her experience as a provider in Massachusetts different than in Texas. Operating with virtually no oversight, she no longer feels like a physician is always behind her and looking at what she is doing. According to White, “it’s like having two different careers.”

Given how much the designated responsibilities of a nurse practitioner can vary by state, it is worth noting what NPs are actually trained to do. NPs are advanced practice nurses that

prescribe medications, examine patients, order tests, diagnose illnesses, and provide treatment.

Before practicing, NPs must earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, become a certified registered nurse, complete a Master of Science in Nursing, pass a national exam, and gain state licensure. Together, this totals between six and eight years of education and training, in comparison to the 10 to 14 years needed for Doctors of Medicine (MDs).

This difference in training is a commonly cited reason in support of NP oversight by supervising physicians, though study after study shows that care provided by independent NPs is on par with care provided by MDs, especially in primary care settings. In a 2019 study on patient satisfaction, survey results from more than 50,000 patients showed that patient satisfaction may even be higher for patients who see NPs when compared to MDs in primary care provider (PCP) roles. Specifically, the communication skills of NPs were rated slightly higher than those of MDs, perhaps due to longer consultations or better listening.

The ability of NPs to take on the role of autonomous PCPs is highly relevant to the future of healthcare in the United States.

Trained as generalists, PCPs are a patient’s first point of contact for any medical concern. They are the providers with whom patients generally have the strongest and longest relationships.

It is no surprise that a higher ratio of PCPs to population size is significantly associated with lower mortality. Currently, there are only about 200,000 PCPs practicing in the United States, and the average wait time in large cities to see a PCP is already steep at 29.3 days. However, with an aging population and a PCP workforce that graduating MDs are failing to replenish, the United States will be short 50,000 PCPs in the next decade if nothing changes.

Despite this impending shortage of PCPs, the NP workforce in the United States is growing rapidly, having more than doubled since 2013. Contributing to this growth is the fact that the number of graduating NPs each year

is now about equal to that of graduating MDs. While less than a third of physicians practice in primary care, 84 percent of NPs are trained in primary care and 78 percent of all NPs currently deliver primary care. Importantly, a far higher percentage of NPs also choose to practice in rural or underserved communities.

The growing NP workforce will be an important part of the solution. As NPs remain subject to physician oversight, the impact of their care is greatly restricted. Primary physicians have an extensive set of responsibilities: Not only do they spend 33 hours each week in direct contact with their patients, but they also must review all charts and diagnoses made by NPs, who usually see three or more patients per hour. As such, physicians are limited by these burdens and often must spend less time with patients in order to buy themselves time to review work done by NPs. This effort is largely duplicative and reduces access to care.

Required on-site supervision or set distance limits reduce organizational capacity, too. Evidence has shown that in states with the least restrictive SOP laws, patients are 2.5 times more

likely to receive care from an NP than in states with the most restrictive SOP laws. With ample data demonstrating the quality of NP primary care, existing regulations are simply outdated.

Still, some physicians cling to SOP laws. As White notes, there are “a lot of fight[s] between NPs and MDs” over SOP laws, leading to largescale lobbying in support of physician oversight from organizations such as the American Medical Association. NPs are a growing workforce and demand lower salaries. Physicians fear displacement and argue that NPs are not adequately trained to be fully independent decision makers, even though that is not necessarily the goal of deregulation. However, White insists that “you’d be hard-pressed to find a midlevel who doesn’t appreciate collaboration.” She also does not see NPs as attempting to isolate themselves from other providers, as this would not reflect the general trends in primary care. In fact, across the board, team-based care models are gaining popularity.

Since the start of the pandemic, governors from Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania have all temporarily deregulated

restrictive SOP laws to increase providers’ capacity to handle an influx of patients. However, access to healthcare in the United States is not just a problem because of Covid-19. Compared to other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, the United States spends the most on healthcare and has the highest rate of avoidable deaths. Nearly twothirds of bankruptcies in the country are due to medical expenses; meanwhile, medical bankruptcies are practically nonexistent in all other developed countries.

Given their utility, these temporary orders to deregulate SOP laws should undoubtedly be made permanent. Returning to past oversight mandates and regulations would blatantly ignore the quality of care provided by NPs and willfully limit their patients’ access to care. At the end of the day, the US population needs better access to healthcare. While removing SOP laws is not a cure-all, it is a cost-effective and low-risk measure to substantially raise the care capacity of the current primary care system.

MS 3022 NV 2607

UT 2557 ID 2418

OK 2462

TX 2462

WY 2418

KY 2375 AL 2333 GA 2333

AZ 2333 AR 2254 NE 2180 SD 2180 IA 2180 KS 2145 ND 2078 MT 1985

NM 1985

OR 1621

AK 1602

CO 1797

MO 2180

WI 1927

CA 1847 WA 1773

LA 2254

MN 1773

HI 1621

IN 2254

SC 2293

TN 2145

NC 2145

FL 2046 OH 1985 VA 1955 MI 1927 WV 1927 IL 1900 PA 1873 CT 1847 NJ 1821 NY 1797

NH 1727

MD 1683

DE 1750

RI 1564 ME 1414

MA 1461

VT 1357

PCPs per 100,000 < 70

70—80 >80

Full

SOP

Reduced

Restricted

State xxxx

(Number = Hours per PCP)

THE HEALING ISSUE

35

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING

by Ray Huang ’23, an Economics concentrator illustration by Lucia Li ’23

While physical infrastructure may not be the most riveting topic for a presidential debate or the campaign trail, the integrity of a nation’s bridges, roads, rails, electrical grids, dams, and canals is essential to any modern economy.

Without these critical infrastructure foundations, the US economy simply would not function. Infrastructure spending is also stimulative: The Congressional Budget Office estimates that every dollar spent on infrastructure results in an economic gain of $2.20. Furthermore, the US Council of Economic Advisors claims that a one-billion-dollar investment in infrastructure would support up to 13,000 jobs for a year.

Yet for all its value and importance, US infrastructure is currently in a state of disrepair. In a 2017 report, the American Society of Civil Engi-

neers graded the condition of US infrastructure at an embarrassing D+, and the US Government Accountability Office found that nearly 25 percent of bridges nation-wide are deficient. Water and energy systems are also under severe stress, as evidenced by the recent failure of Texas’s power grid during a winter storm, and “increasing power outages are costing the economy billions of dollars.” Experts estimate that an investment of $1 to $4.5 trillion is needed by 2025 to bring the current system into a state of good repair. Trying to save money by neglecting aging infrastructure is costing the United States billions of dollars in lost economic productivity.

The US government’s current approach to infrastructure is fundamentally flawed. The federal government currently entrusts most infrastructure-related projects to state and municipal governments; only 25 percent of infrastructure investment originates from the national level.

Delegating so much responsibility to local lead-

Banking on Our Future

36

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

ers is problematic. Budgets are smaller, political favors may be more commonplace, and incentive to cooperate and invest in infrastructure across state lines is minimal. Politicians from both sides of the aisle agree that increased investment in infrastructure is needed. Thus, the question is not whether we should invest, but how. As the United States continues to battle Covid-19 and considers methods of rebuilding the economy, Congress should prioritize creating a National Infrastructure Bank (NIB). An NIB has the potential to bring the quality of US infrastructure up to the level of its peer nations while combating the unemployment crisis and paving the way for decades of increased economic prosperity.

The creation of an NIB is not a novel idea; in fact, it was backed by the Obama administration in 2009. With $10 billion in initial seed funding from Congress, Obama’s NIB would have given loans to support transportation, energy, and

Bankrolling our crumbling infrastructure through a National Infrastructure Bank

water infrastructure projects that often lack funding but offer a clear benefit to taxpayers.

Such loans would be matched by investments from the private sector or local governments, and many projects would generate their own revenue to ensure repayment of the loan. The board of the bank would also examine potential projects through a rigorous cost-benefit analysis and evaluate the distributional impact of each project. This federalized approach has worked well in the past: The Hoover Dam and the Federal Highway Act, for example, were both successful largely due to federal backing.

Additionally, most infrastructure involves economies of scale and generates positive externalities that often go unaccounted for by state or municipal governments. An NIB’s centralized decision-making process would address the fragmented state-municipal approach to infrastructure investment, ensuring that taxpayer dollars are utilized efficiently.

Beyond allowing for private co-investment and improving the efficiency of capital allocation, a National Infrastructure Bank’s impact on job creation would pay dividends for decades to come. A 2014 study at the University of Maryland found that an $80 billion investment in infrastructure would create 1.7 million jobs within three years, 90 percent of which the Treasury Department estimates would be filled by middle-class individuals. Further inspection reveals that the jobs created would disproportionately

benefit those affected by previous economic downturns, as “the average unemployment rate among those who would be put to work by additional investment in infrastructure is over 15 percent, more than one and one-half times the national unemployment rate.”

Such gains in job creation would have a significant long-term impact on poverty alleviation and income equality, especially in rural areas.

Improved transportation infrastructure would also reduce the fixed costs of employment, further reducing the barriers to work. Currently, the average American family spends more than $8,600 on transportation every year, and “for the 90 percent of Americans who are not among the top decile in income, transportation costs absorb one out of every six dollars of income.”

An NIB is a fantastic way to raise the spending power of lower and middle class Americans, while also expanding the workforce.

Given the bipartisan nature of infrastructure investment, one might assume the proposal to create an NIB would pass with minimal resistance. However, former president Obama’s efforts to create an NIB were derailed by a myriad of factors, particularly his administration’s hyper-focus on the Affordable Care Act. Now, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, President Biden is in an advantageous political position to create an NIB as the labor market is in turmoil and businesses are shuttering. The employment-population ratio, the number of

people employed over the total working-age population, fell dramatically in the beginning of the pandemic by approximately 10 percentage points. While employment has recovered somewhat, it is still far below pre-pandemic levels. Many businesses have also shut their doors: In New York City, recent estimates place the share of small businesses permanently closed at as many as a third. The mass closure of businesses and the subsequent loss of jobs may yield what economists call an “L-shaped” recovery, which involves persistent unemployment and stagnant economic growth. While the federal government has provided some assistance, continued hardship shows that relief isn’t functioning as intended and that many Americans desperately need an additional economic boost.

With the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, President Biden can leverage the national enthusiasm for increased stimulus to finally implement an NIB. While an NIB is not a silver bullet, it can play a serious role in reviving the US economy. Its modest start-up fees pale in comparison to the trillions currently being spent on stimulus, and its multiplier effect would generate surplus economic benefit for every dollar spent. These benefits would then be distributed across society, impacting everyone from low-income families to C-suite executives. By creating and supporting millions of jobs, an NIB would help pave the way for post-pandemic economic growth.

THE HEALING ISSUE

37

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING

38

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

ZOONOSIS NEUROSIS How deforestation and land use change could cause the next pandemic

by Noah Belsky ’23, an intended Modern Culture and Media concentrator illustrations by Hannah Chang ’23

Imagine an elephant walking down 5th Avenue in New York City, crushing cabs under its enormous hooves as “hardened” New Yorkers run for their lives. A rather unusual image, is it not? With the exception of a mass breakout from the Bronx Zoo, this will never happen. Yet, unnatural and frightening interactions between humans and displaced animals occur regularly, and their incidence is increasing as a result of deforestation and the wild animal trade.

These interactions are dangerous because of their correlation with zoonotic diseases, or infectious diseases caused by pathogens that animals pass to humans. As the amount of unsafe contact between wildlife and humans increases, so too does the spread of zoonotic diseases. As demonstrated through the Covid19 pandemic, any zoonotic disease carries the threat of widespread outbreak, making it urgent and essential that measures be taken to prevent them. These measures include funding organizations dedicated to keeping track of high-risk areas where humans are in contact with wildlife, enacting policy reforms that decrease deforesta-

tion, and instituting a trade ban on high risk animals like bats, pangolins, or other rodents.

While Covid-19 has been in the spotlight for the past 16 months, it is far from the only zoonotic disease in recent history. From MERS to SARS to H1N1, there is a plethora of examples for why immediate action is so necessary.

Some zoonotic diseases can kill 60 to 70 percent of the humans they come into contact with; if one of these deadly diseases were to become the next pandemic, it could very well be the last.

Currently, new zoonotic diseases continue to be introduced into society at a rate of about two per year, and not nearly enough has been done to address their primary causes.

Land use change (LUC), and more specifically deforestation, is the single largest cause of new zoonotic diseases. Deforestation rose by 3 percent in 2019, and although this statistic may seem insignificant, the current rate of deforestation is equivalent to “the planet losing a soccer-field sized chunk of tropical forest every six seconds.” The leading study on this issue suggests that deforestation leads to a higher probability of pathogen spread because it forces humans and animals into closer contact.

Deforestation also leads to huge losses in biodiversity, and the species of animals that remain are often those with the highest likelihood of hosting dangerous pathogens. Through deforestation, then, animals and humans are likely to swap pathogens—including deadly ones— with one another.

A notable example that demonstrates the dangers of deforestation is the spread of Lyme disease in Lyme, Connecticut during the 1970s.

LUC drove out predators in the area that used to

“As demonstrated through the Covid-19 pandemic, any zoonotic disease carries the threat of widespread outbreak, making it urgent and essential that measures be taken to prevent them.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

39

SPECIAL FEATURE | HEALING keep the white-footed mouse population at bay, allowing the rodent population to more rapidly reproduce. White-footed mice are carriers of Lyme disease, and can pass the disease onto any organisms that choose to feed on them. A tick’s chance of contracting the Lyme disease infection when it feeds on a white-footed mouse is about 90 percent, which causes the disease to quickly spread, and not just between ticks.

Infected ticks can then pass the disease onto the humans they feed on, which is exactly what occurred in Lyme, a town enmeshed in nature.

If deforestation continues at its current rate and continues to bring humans and animals in closer contact, introduction of new diseases, like Lyme disease in the 1970s, and spread of existing ones will only grow.

Governments all over the world have the ability to mitigate this issue, primarily by ceasing subsidies that promote deforestation, a strategy that has proven successful in the past.

For example, international contributions and funds enabled Brazil to remove deforestation subsidies and restrict private land clearing between 2005 and 2012, leading to a 70 percent decrease in Amazon deforestation at a price tag of about $1 billion annually. These efforts should be concentrated on high risk areas— only 10 percent of the world’s tropical forests,

most of them in South America and Asia, house over 50 percent of all zoonotic disease “spillover” risk from high-danger animals.

If governments around the world cooperate to implement anti-deforestation reforms, the world would see a 40 percent decrease in virus spillover in the highest risk areas. On the other hand, if they fail to take action, it would cost about $9.6 billion annually to fund forest protection agencies to outcompete private ventures. Though it’s not an especially high-risk area, the United States must advocate for and implement anti-deforestation policies. Not only was the United States hit incredibly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but it also holds enormous sway in the United Nations, lending it the power necessary to actually effect change. Altogether, then, it is only logical that the US government lead the way domestically and abroad.

Along with deforestation, another dangerous practice that must be addressed for its contributions to zoonoses is the wild animal trade. High demand for exotic animals pushes individuals in countries like China, Mexico, and Indonesia to venture into forests and come into contact with various wild species, increasing the risk of pathogen spread. The hazard is exacerbated by the physical markets themselves, where dozens of diverse animals are sold while

“Some zoonotic diseases can kill 60 to 70 percent of the humans they come into contact with; if one of these deadly diseases were to become the next pandemic, it could very well be the last.”

40

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

“Though their implementation will be costly—with estimates ranging from $22 to $31 billion annually— this amount pales in comparison to the millions of lives lost to Covid-19 and its $20 trillion toll.” in extremely close proximity to each other. This practice leads to a dramatic increase in the risk for viral spillover, as animals can easily exchange pathogens. Though dangerous, wildlife markets are a $20 billion industry, employing around 15 million people in China alone. As a result, solutions to the problem must be sure to not completely destroy the industry or the livelihoods of the people involved in it.

However, to address this nuanced issue, certain high-risk animals, such as bats, pangolins,

primates, and rodents, must be banned from the animal trade. Experts estimate $500 million must be invested annually into programs and technology to monitor the wildlife trade in a safe and effective manner. Although there is much debate on the extent to which an ending of wild meat trade in China is necessary, a de-escalation undoubtedly must occur. Some groups, like certain Indigenous and remote communities, rely on wild animals for food and protein.

In such contexts, education on disease trans-

mission, instruction on the sanitary handling of wildlife, and development of alternative food options are critical. With regulation, marketing of wildlife that meets nutritional and sanitation standards can continue. Although many of these solutions are complicated and costly, the right funding and leadership would make possible a world with a safe wildlife market that continues contributing to the economy without causing another pandemic.

However, these policies and initiatives will only be effective if accountability measures are established and upheld. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) “One Health” initiative is an extremely promising commitment of further communication and teamwork between WHO, the World Organization for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the UN Environment Programming division. This initiative will likely help to create better governance structures and provide countries with advice on UN action plans. WHO has also promised to scale up its investment in disease programs. In fact, the WHO director-general recently stated that, “we are at a critical juncture. We must build on this momentum to strengthen the One Health approach, with public health and disease prevention as its central pillar.”

New methods for mollifying the risk created by deforestation and the animal trade are sure to arise as pandemic-related research continues. That said, the solutions listed above are imminently necessary to protect ourselves and our planet for the future, but also to aid in the rehabilitation of the present. Though their implementation will be costly—with estimates ranging from $22 to $31 billion annually—this amount pales in comparison to the millions of lives lost to Covid-19 and its $20 trillion toll.

Only by truly targeting the roots of the issues that led to the current pandemic will we be able to heal and move forward with our lives.

THE HEALING ISSUE

41

UNITED STATES

MORE THAN A BORDERLINE ISSUE Indigenous passports and the politics of recognition

In 2010, the United Kingdom barred the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team from travelling to the World Lacrosse Championships. As they were one of the most competitive teams in the world—and the only Indigenous one authorized to play abroad—the decision caused widespread outrage. After all, the Iroquois Nationals team had been competing internationally for nearly 30 years as representatives of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which comprises six nations spanning the United States and Canada. Even worse, the decision insulted the group’s Indigenous identity: The Iroquois not only invented the sport, but it is also considered a "medicine game” gifted from the Creator for personal and community healing.

Although a decade has passed, the issue sparking the 2010 fiasco—the lack of recognition of Indigenous passports—persists to this day. As representatives of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the lacrosse players wanted to use documents from their tribal nation. However, since the United Kingdom would not accept them in lieu of their American or Canadian passports, the team faced a difficult ultimatum: sacrifice their tribal identity or miss the tournament. Despite the offer of temporary waivers from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the team ultimately chose the latter. A similar injustice occurred again in 2018 when the team faced delays leaving Canada for a tournament in Israel.

Over the centuries, the United States has consistently treated Indigenous nations as “domestic dependent nation[s],” granting some autonomy while preserving its dominant position. Resisting this unbalanced dynamic, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy issues its own passports as “expression[s] of sovereignty.”

However, US law and the persistence of colonial legacies prevent these documents from being 42

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

by Andrew Steinberg ’22, an International and Public Affairs concentrator and a Staff Writer for BPR illustration by Rosalia Mejia ’23

recognized. US policy on Indigenous passports reflects the country’s colonial past and present and requires legal and diplomatic remedies.

Freedom of movement has been integral to Haudenosaunee identity and sovereignty for centuries. In fact, since the Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain, American law has recognized the group's sovereign status. Article III of the agreement postulates that Native Americans on both sides of the border could freely “pass by land or inland navigation, into the respective territories and countries of the two parties.” While American courts have grappled with the treaty’s scope and intent, Haudenosaunee leaders and American policymakers have invoked it to treat the Confederacy as a “cohesive cultural and societal [unit], unhindered by the international border.”

The first Haudenosaunee passport was used in 1923, when a Cayuga statesman traveled to the League of Nations to promote Indigenous sovereignty. However, these documents became more common in the 1970s, facilitating the travel of ambassadors to 16 countries. Still, most countries would not accept the legitimacy of the passport because the Haudenosaunee were not an internationally recognized state. After centuries of attacks on its sovereignty from the Canadian and American governments, the Confederacy viewed their passport not only as a manifestation of its distinct identity, but also as an assertion of its legitimate political autonomy.

The minimal recognition of Haudenosaunee passports crumbled after 9/11 when President George Bush signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act into law. Citing national security concerns, the law forced US citizens and nonimmigrant aliens to present a passport approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) when entering or leaving the country. In 2008, the DHS rolled out the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) to meet these new rules. WHTI placed several new burdens on Indigenous groups to appease American security standards, such as mandat-

“With this long-standing culture of Indigenous subordination, the United States disincentivizes other countries from recognizing Native passports like the Haudenosaunee’s.”

ing that Nations “provide customs agents with access to tribal enrollment records.” Although the WHTI was supposed to work with Indigenous groups to ensure that tribal documents met American travel rules, the program proved unsuccessful. This oversight prevented the 2010 Haudenosaunee lacrosse team from leaving the country with their own passports. WHTI’s coercive changes not only invalidated a symbol of Indigenous independence, but they also forced the Haudenosaunee to spend $1.5 million on passport upgrades.

While the WHTI framework could help to restore Indigenous sovereignty, it still positions the United States as the dominant power. With this long-standing culture of Indigenous subordination, the United States disincentivizes other countries from recognizing Native passports like the Haudenosaunee’s. The attitude perpetuates the belief that Indigenous rights are at best inferior and at worst nonexistent. For example, the European Union views Native travel documents as “fantasy passports,” a dismissive stance that is surely informed by the US's position. Not only is

this insulting to Indigenous populations, but the greater rejection of their passports and distinct status has justified travel delays or bans, and by extension, exclusion from international tournaments.

The implications of these actions are powerful, preventing Indigenous groups like the Haudenosaunee from asserting their independence. While working with Indigenous leaders to satisfy national security concerns is productive, the United States should use its political clout to undo its own transgressions and compel more countries to recognize these documents.

At the very least, the United States should reimburse Indigenous groups for the costs incurred while meeting its requirements. In this way, the country can move towards affirming sovereignty and treating Indigenous nations with the respect they deserve.

“US policy on Indigenous passports reflects the country’s colonial past and present and requires legal and diplomatic remedies.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

43

It’s one of those things that really resonates with people.

Why did you decide to get involved with mental health work?

INTERVIEW WITH

Jeremy Fogel

I had always had an interest in mental health.

I had studied mental health, both from the legal and medical perspective, when I was in law school. I had an opportunity to get a grant from the American Bar Association to basically help sensitize lawyers to working with people with chronic mental illnesses. The question was: How do you work with those folks as clients? In addition to trying to help other lawyers do that, I thought that it would be really good if we had some direct services.

We started a legal services program that was specifically geared towards representing people who had chronic mental illnesses and other kinds of emotional challenges that made it really difficult for regular lawyers to represent them.

If in 10 years you're reading an article about BJI's accomplishments, what would you hope it includes?

Well, there’s been all of this study among psychologists about different kinds of intelligence: cognitive intelligence, emotional

Judge Jeremy Fogel is the first Executive Director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute (BJI) at Berkeley Law School. He was formerly the Director of the Federal Judicial Center and a United States District Judge. Judge Fogel was also the founding Directing Attorney of the Mental Health Advocacy Project.

interview by Samuel Trachtenberg ’24 illustration by Madison Tom ’23 Samuel Trachtenberg Can you tell me about your work with mindfulness?

Jeremy Fogel I’ve invested a lot of time in encouraging people to develop mindfulness. Some people do that through meditating, some people do that through gratitude practices.

There are lots of ways to become mindful, but the point of it is to not be so quick to judge.

That seems like such a paradox because I'm talking about judges, but mindfulness is a way of helping you be reflective and deliberative instead of reactive.

If people go to court and they encounter a judge who’s patient and mindful and caring, who doesn’t disrespect them, it just makes all the difference in the world. People want to be heard, they want to be valued. I would get letters from people who had lost cases before me, people who I’d sent to prison for a long time saying, “Thank you for treating me well.”

intelligence, physical intelligence. I think that work is very important. Judging as a profession, going back for a long time in the Anglo-Saxon world at least, is really focused on cognitive intelligence. It’s this very linear process of asking what are the facts? What’s the law? How do the legal principles apply to these facts? And that’s actually essential, but it’s not everything.

If you go back farther, if you go back into the origins of civilization, there have always been judges. This is true in the East and it’s true in the West. There [have] always been judges or people like judges. Some societies have their elders or they have other titles.

The idea is that there’s somebody you go to when you have a problem, and you go to this person to try to get some guidance based on the cultural and ethical values of the society.

and to really be a really good listener are a part of the archetypal understanding of judging, and it’s kind of fallen out. The way it’s evolved in our society, I don’t think a lot of judges are good listeners. They’re very good at listening for the facts that are relevant to the legal decision. They’re very good at that, but that is selective listening. They’re not hearing the other dimensions of the communication.

Take compassion, for example. We can have these big arguments about whether judges should be compassionate. Compassion doesn’t mean that you don’t follow the law or that you let somebody go who just did something terrible. It certainly doesn’t mean that you’re a softie. It just means that you really try to understand what happened and then think about how to deal with that in a way that achieves justice. Compassion is a kind of intelligence and it’s one that judges need to cultivate.

That’s where I would like to see judging evolve so that judges have more tools in their toolkit. Compassion means they’re better listeners, they’re better able to reflect human kindness back toward the people who appear before them, people who are often in crisis situations when they come to court.

I’d like to see judges have more social intelligence. I mean, you’re never gonna know everything about everybody, but be curious about people. Just being able to recognize that this person is different from me and ask myself, what is the significance of that? What can I learn about them?

How have meditation and mindfulness helped you in your own life?

One of the biggest gifts meditation has given me is that when I get triggered, I know that it’s happened and I stop and I don't do anything until I’ve had a chance to reflect.

That just has made all the difference for me. It has made my relationships better with my family and friends. When I have challenges in my life I can think and be intentional in how I deal with them.

I’m a huge fan of mindfulness. Whatever it is you can do to create space between your reactivity and your reflective capacity, that’s the goal.

So, what values do you believe are needed in the judiciary currently?

If you go back far enough, what you find out is that things like compassion and the ability to see things from a lot of different perspectives

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

THE BEEF WITH BIG MEAT The barriers to expanding the meatalternative market

by Rachel Yan ’22, a Computer Science and International and Public Affairs concentrator and a Managing Editor for BPR infographic by Gaya Gupta ’23 and Jiahua Chen ’24

Within the span of a month in the spring of 2019, Impossible Foods made a historic deal with Burger King to launch the Impossible Whopper, and its biggest competitor, Beyond Meat, went public in one of the splashiest rollouts in modern history. The plant-based meat industry has experienced a stunning rise: In the past few years, meatless meat has infiltrated our local restaurant chains and grocery stores, offering a taste of the future of plant - based food. What sets these groundbreaking products apart from previous iterations of veggie burgers is their deliberate imitation of the texture and taste of meat, down to the Impossible Burger’s beef-like “bleeding.” These companies target traditional meat eaters rather than vegetarians or vegans, hoping to replace some of their meat purchases by offering tasty, affordable, and sustainable alternatives.

Now, Big Meat is getting in on this lucrative market too. Some of the biggest food companies in the world—including the major American meat manufacturers Tyson, Smithfield, and Per-

due—have recently announced major commitments to roll out their own meat alternatives and to drastically increase plant-based sales in the coming years. Some plant-based diet advocates celebrate the addition of new meat alternatives into the market, presuming that more competition will satiate demand and drive down prices. However, while these moves may be savvy business ventures, they do not represent a fundamental shift in Big Meat’s attitudes toward sustainability. Instead, these investments in plant - based meat may serve as just a veneer for the meat industry’s environmental offenses and thus should not be lauded by environmental activists.

Major meat producers’ hasty attempts to capitalize on the plant-based meat trend indicate a recognition that meatless meat is gaining popularity. Consumer demand is high, especially given customers’ concerns about Covid19 in meatpacking facilities and supply-chain issues in the early months of the pandemic.

Moreover, health fanatics and environmental activists are extremely effective advertisers of plant-based meat products. People may not be clamoring to go vegetarian or vegan, but they are nonetheless trying out habits such as Meatless Mondays or flexitarianism, a diet centered on plant - based foods with the occasional inclusion of meat. In fact, a Generation Lab poll conducted for the Brown Political Review found that 47 percent of 803 college students had already tried plant - based meat; of the remainder who had not, 27 percent were curious to try it.

Yet while pioneers of the plant-based meat market underwent years of innovation and

rigorous testing, Big Meat companies have responded to the rise in demand for plant-based options by hastily producing baffling products in an attempt to protect their consumer base and increase profits. Tyson’s Raised & Rooted brand sells burgers made with 90 percent lean Angus beef blended with pea protein, and Perdue’s Chicken Plus products contain chicken blended with cauliflower, chickpeas, and other plant proteins. Not only are hybrid meat options less environmentally friendly than meat alternatives, as they typically still contain a high ratio of meat to plant-based protein, but a flood of mostly-meat products risks confusing customers and disincentivizing future purchases of meat alternatives. These subpar products can also negatively impact a first-time customer’s experience of plant-based meat, becoming a serious obstacle to long-term adoption of a meatless diet. This problem is especially salient given that a majority of Americans have yet to try plant-based meats. “I haven’t ever heard a

“Alternative meats have the power to transform society by allowing us to adopt a food system that does not exploit the environment.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

45

consumer tell me they want a blended product,” said Ethan Brown, the CEO of Beyond Meat.

As Big Meat crowds out the plant-based meat market with undesirable alternatives that fail to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it is also standing in the way of critical climate change mitigation efforts. Meat production accounts for 14.5 percent of GHG emissions, and food emissions alone could put the Paris Climate targets out of reach and have devastating effects on biodiversity. A 2018 study published in Science Magazine found that meat, dairy, eggs, and aquaculture account for around 56 percent of food-related greenhouse gases while only providing 37 percent of protein and 18 percent of calories. Yet US meat producers like Tyson and Smithfield have done practically nothing to actively combat climate change. In fact, despite a target to reduce GHG emissions by 30 percent by 2030, Tyson’s direct GHG emissions actually increased from 2018 to 2019. Smithfield, for its part, has lofty goals of becoming carbon negative by 2030, yet its sustainability reports overwhelmingly focus on converting methane into biogas. Methane, however, is not a natural byproduct of hog manure, but rather a direct result of meat companies’ irresponsible practice of creating waste lagoons. Thus, Smithfield’s sustainability pro-

“Given Big Meat’s track record of corporate greenwashing, their plantbased ventures could simply be their next publicity stunt, once again exploiting a sustainability initiative to disguise their lack of real action to reduce GHG emissions.”

grams focus on addressing a problem that is entirely of their own design. Given Big Meat’s track record of corporate greenwashing, their plant-based ventures could simply be their next publicity stunt, exploiting a sustainability initiative to disguise their lack of real action to reduce GHG emissions.

The benefits of the increased demand for plant-based products, however, do not have to be lost to Big Meat. Plant-based meat options that have gone through rigorous research and design, such as those of Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger, offer a promising alternative to the environmental degradation of meat production. A plant-based burger’s carbon footprint is about only about one-tenth of its meat counterpart. In fact, widespread adoption of a plant-rich diet has been found to be the most effective intervention to reduce food emissions.

Alternative meats have the power to transform society by allowing us to adopt a food system that does not exploit the environment. Yet while they might be trending, plant-based products still represent less than one percent of the meat industry’s product volume. Unfortunately, then, it’s too small a market share to have a substantial environmental impact. Plant-based meat may never reach its true market potential without swift government action to rein in the political influence of Big Meat that allows companies to continue their polluting practices.

Furthermore, major meat manufacturers have a long history of anti-competitive practices.

They have been regularly accused of restraining competition, fixing prices, and manipulating price indices. Without intervention, similar tactics could become commonplace in the plant-based meat sector, with the sinister goal of squeezing out plant-based meat startups before their products become regular purchases for most Americans. Considering the massive amounts of capital Big Meat could invest to drive down the prices of their own meat alternatives, there is no way startups would be able to compete. Through marketing cheap and subpar meat alternatives, Big Meat could destroy the plant-based meat market well before it reaches its full potential.

To compound the problem, meat companies shell out millions to political campaigns each year, which has provided them with unprecedented amounts of political influence. The only way to ensure that Big Meat does not destroy plant-based meat is to address the industry consolidation that enables its misleading advertising campaigns and deleterious polluting practices. Rather than championing the environmentally friendly plant-based meat industry, unregulated Big Meat only stands in the way.

THE HEALING ISSUE

47

UNITED STATES

Safe From Whom?

Imagining police-free schools in the BLM age

by Eunice Chong ’22, an International Relations concentrator and a Managing Editor for BPR illustrations by Stephanie Wu ’21

“Research shows that schools with adequate mental health services—defined as a minimum of one counselor and one social worker for every 250 students—improves students’ attendance rates, academic achievement, and graduation rates.”

48

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

Nearly a decade after the Oakland school police killing of Raheim Brown in 2011, the Oakland school board voted to abolish its school police force and use some of the $6 million in savings to hire counselors, social workers, and restorative justice coordinators. The elimination of law enforcement in Oakland schools was a breakthrough for the nationwide Counselors Not Cops movement, led by students and community activists.

Oakland Unified School District joined the public schools of Minneapolis, Seattle, Denver, Portland, and Los Angeles as one of the few sites of major change in policing since the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. All of these districts voted to reduce or eliminate police presence in their schools, with some pledging to reinvest in mental health support for students.

Their efforts, however, only put a tiny dent in the roughly 46,000 police officers, known as student resource officers (SROs), who patrol the hallways of US schools.

More than two-thirds of high school students attend a school with a police officer.

Moreover, high schools with substantial Black or Latinx enrollment employ police officers at higher rates than schools with few Black and Latinx students. In other words, students of color suffer disproportionately from unnecessary encounters with police. More broadly, all students suffer from an overinvestment in school police and an underinvestment in counselors and other mechanisms of mental health support. Given these implications, school policing as it currently stands is anti-

thetical to the goals of education as well as to those of a just society.

Defenders of SRO programs often claim that school policing improves school safety and students’ academic outcomes. Such a claim belies the fact that school policing has failed on both counts. There is little evidence that the presence of police in schools improves student behavior or keeps schools free of weapons or drugs.

Rather, a heightened police presence in schools is associated with an increase in arrests for disorderly conduct. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, students in schools with an SRO are five times more likely to be arrested than students in schools without SROs. A study by the Washington University Law Review indicates that a student who has committed a low-level offense—usually, breaking a school rule—is between 1.38 and 1.83 times more likely to be referred to law enforcement when they attend a school with an SRO presence. This suggests, then, that the disparity in arrests has more to do with an SRO presence than with the types of infractions committed by students as students are being punished differently for engaging in the same behaviors.

Police intervention should be a teacher’s last resort when dealing with a misbehaving student. But when SROs are so readily available, police are called in not to enforce criminal laws but to enforce school disciplinary policies.

Consequently the presence of an SRO can determine whether a student receives school detention or juvenile detainment for something as trivial as disrupting class. In practice, school policing creates a school-to-prison pipeline by criminalizing student behaviors that, in most cases, can and should be dealt with by teachers and administrators.

Furthermore, student experiences with school police vary by race. SROs are far more prevalent in schools with substantial shares of Black and Latinx students. But even in school districts in which students of color are a minority, they are often more likely to be referred to police. This was the case in Seattle Public Schools, where Black students made up just 14 percent of the district’s student population in 2019 but nearly 50 percent of students referred to police. In a survey of New Orleans students by the Education Research Alliance, 69 percent of white students reported feeling safer in the presence of cops. Only 40 percent of Black students agreed. Clearly, the presence of school police disproportionately targets students of color, denying them the opportunity to learn safely and effectively.

School police also pose a direct threat to students’ physical safety. Brian Burney, a junior in a Philadelphia high school in 2016, had an argument with a school police officer about using

the restroom without a hall pass. When Burney threw an orange at the wall in frustration, the officer punched him in the face and threw him to the ground in a chokehold. In Birmingham, Alabama, an SRO punched and kicked a Black high school student as punishment for wearing a hat indoors. An SRO in Columbia, South Carolina yanked a Black high school student out of her chair and threw her across the classroom floor after she refused to put away her phone and was “verbally disrespectful” toward her teacher. The student was then charged with a misdemeanor for resisting. In each of these

“There is little evidence that the presence of police in schools improves student behavior or keeps schools free of weapons or drugs. Rather, a heightened police presence in schools is associated with an increase in arrests for disorderly conduct.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

49

UNITED STATES

“More than twothirds of high school students attend a school with a police officer.”

50

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

instances, the presence of an SRO transformed a simple classroom disruption into an entry point to the criminal justice system. The Alliance for Educational Justice notes that responding to student misbehavior with excessive force can initiate rather than mitigate disorder, due to heightened student anxiety. Fundamentally, school policing does not equate to school safety, especially for students of color.

The surplus of school police and deficit of mental health support in schools is a dangerous combination. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 72 percent of chil-

dren in the United States will have experienced at least one major stressful event—such as a school shooting—before the age of 18. Many school districts, however, have responded to the uptick in these events over the past decade by installing more police officers in their schools.

But addressing these crises requires investment in counselors, not cops. Research shows that schools with adequate mental health services—defined as a minimum of one counselor and one social worker for every 250 students— improves students’ attendance rates, academic achievement, and graduation rates. The presence of counselors is also associated with lower rates of suspension, expulsion, and other disciplinary incidents. Counselors, then, accomplish the exact work that defenders of school police attribute to SROs. Yet 14 million students in the United States attend schools with a police officer but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker.

SROs do far more harm than good in schools. They do little to improve student behavior, school safety, or academic outcomes, while exposing students to new violence in their own hallways. But the political climate is finally ripe for change. The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests have led to more concrete achievements in the fight for Counselors Not Cops than a decade of local organizing that resulted in only piecemeal reforms and stagnated results. Prior to the murder of George Floyd, the facts regarding the efficacy of school police were the same as they are today, but parents and teachers surveyed by districts generally viewed school police positively.

After George Floyd’s death, however, the facts and attitudes are increasingly in alignment.

In just one example, the Minneapolis school board, which had voted unanimously to extend its contract with the city’s police force only the year before, voted unanimously to terminate that contract in June 2020. In order to achieve educational justice, activists and policymakers throughout the country must mobilize around the momentum created by these individual incidents to finally enact institutional change.

In normal times, when they do normal things, those tools are normally enough. But we haven’t been living in normal times since the 2008 financial crisis when the Fed basically abandoned its official mandate—which is to maintain price stability—and actually engineered massive price instability in order to incentivize market actors to buy and hold assets that they normally wouldn’t.

Quantitative easing (QE) is a bit like trying to fill a kettle by grabbing a giant fire hose, sticking it through the letterbox, and turning it on full blast until some of it gets into the kettle. It’s not effective, it’s incredibly expensive, and it tends to increase inequality in an already unequal society by insuring the returns to asset owners.

INTERVIEW WITH

Mark Blyth

In 2021, 20 percent of the largest American corporations are zombie companies that haven’t earned enough profit in any of the past three years to cover their annual interest expense. 40 years ago, it was just two percent. Is the Fed, by distorting the price of corporate borrowing, preventing the process of creative destruction that legitimates markets?

The short answer is quite probably. The real question is whether this is a structural or cyclical phenomenon. If it’s cyclical we’re

Described by GQ as a “sharp-tongued, no-nonsense Scotsman,” Mark Blyth is an economist for the people. The Rhodes Professor of International Political Economy at Brown University, Professor Blyth’s research focuses on how uncertainty and randomness impact complex financial systems, and why people continue to believe “stupid” economic ideas despite significant evidence to the contrary. He is the author of many books, including Austerity: The History of a Bad Idea, which was selected by The Financial Times as a Best Book of 2013.

His most recent book is Angrynomics, which explores why citizens across the democratic West appear so angry despite their politicians telling them that they’ve never had it better.

interview by Noah Pirani ’23 illustration by Madison Tom ’23 Noah Pirani Why are the tools currently at the disposal of central banks so inadequate or inappropriate for responding to the economic crises in the 21st century?

Mark Blyth The Fed really only has two tools: buy and sell assets or raise and lower the price of money via short-term interest rates.

Should it have other tools? Probably. But the Fed is absolutely terrified of anyone in Congress revisiting the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, which created its mandate in the first place, because that would mean politicizing the Federal Reserve System in a series of Congressional audits that the Fed wants nothing to do with. So, they’ve got two tools, and they’re not going to ask for more.

okay, but if it’s a structural issue, we’ve got a problem. Lending to corporations at zero real interest rates encourages them to issue debt that they can park on their balance sheet.

If that balance sheet gets big enough, then they don’t need to worry too much about making profits because they’ll either be too big or too indebted to fail. And you can’t have capitalism without failure. We seem to have created a system whereby we don’t just insure individuals against labor market vagaries through unemployment insurance, but we’re now willing to protect firms that can’t turn a profit because of their structural importance to certain industries or to the labor market.

You’ve been writing for a while about “QE for the people”—that is, empowering central banks to make payments directly to households during economic downturns.

Why would this be more effective than our current monetary tools?

It costs less, it’s way more effective as insurance, and it seems to bottom out recessions faster than any of the alternatives. Also, it doesn’t have the inequality skew that QE does.

It’s a lot easier to stimulate an economy when you put cash directly into people’s pockets instead of bailing out the top 10 percent of asset owners and praying some of the wealth trickles down to the bottom 90 percent. It never does.

Why are you so bullish on the US dollar remaining the key currency of the international monetary system?

What are you going to buy instead? Bitcoin?

Really? There’s a structural bias in the world economy that makes it such that persistent demand for US debt places a ceiling on the rate at which the US can finance its borrowing.

Why? There’s a structural bias in the world economy toward becoming an export-oriented nation with low consumption and high savings rates (think Germany or China, for instance).

Their growth models depend on countries with low savings rates—the US being the biggest by far—consuming their exports. As a result, they end up with a pile of dollars in their banking system that they can’t spend at home or else they’ll increase their domestic price level and lose their international competitiveness. So, they do two things. They buy US debt, which lowers our cost of borrowing and allows us to consume even more of their exports, and they lend out dollars to other countries. This is why non-US banks generate about 80 percent of all offshore dollar lending.

Eighty percent of global reserves and 70 percent of world trade is in US dollars. It’s not going anywhere. I think the only alternative that could really threaten this is if you had a fully convertible Chinese digital currency that everybody was willing to hold, which is exactly what China is trying to develop. But most investors like to hold assets in a country where rule of law is guaranteed and, if you’re Jack Ma, you don’t disappear for four months.

Your co-author Eric Lonergan calls money a hedge against future uncertainty. If that’s the case, what do you call Bitcoin?

A gambler’s fear index for rich people. About 95 percent of Bitcoin is owned by the top 2.5 percent of wallets on the blockchain. Just $90 million in inflows or outflows can change its price by 1 percent. The notion that Bitcoin is a harbinger of the democratization of finance is complete horseshit.

What advice would you give to the 20-year-old version of yourself?

Nothing you can print in this magazine.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

UNITED STATES

From Abuse to Arrest How America's legal system harms victims of domestic violence

by Claire Hodges ’22, a Public Policy concentrator and an Associate Editor for BPR infographics by Zeke Hertz ’23 and Mehek Vohra ’24

Just nine days after surviving domestic abuse so severe that she went into premature labor, Marissa Alexander was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her offense? Firing a single warning shot into the ceiling during a confrontation with her abusive husband, against whom Alexander had an active restraining order. No one was injured by her shot, and Alexander herself had no criminal record. Despite her claim that she was in compliance with Florida’s “StandYour-Ground” laws, which allow for the use of lethal force in cases of self-defense, it took only minutes for a jury to convict her of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Alexander, like 7 percent of all domestic violence survivors, was the target of a dual arrest,

a deleterious practice in which both the victim and the abuser are arrested. Dual arrests force women to choose between personal safety and a potential arrest, a major problem given the severity of the domestic violence epidemic. To put Alexander’s story into perspective, one in four American women will be the victim of domestic violence during her life. On any given day, more than 20,000 calls are made to domestic violence hotlines. Yet, only around 54 percent of domestic violence cases are reported. Although the reasons for choosing not to report domestic violence vary, dual arrest laws have a deterrent effect on women reporting domestic abuse. While laws that mandate the arrest of the primary abuser serve as an important and effective stopgap measure to address the prevalence of dual arrests, greater institutional reforms are needed to ensure that women can safely report domestic violence without personal repercussions.

The practice of arresting domestic violence victims is the direct result of 1970s-era manda-

Percent of Dual Arrests by Relationship Type 3.80%

3.37%

3.44%

2.29%

Intimate Partner

Other Domestics

Acquaintances

Relationship between Victim and Offender

52

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

Strangers

tory arrest laws, which require police officers to arrest anyone suspected of perpetrating physical violence. These laws gave rise to dual arrests, as police officers were granted a legal basis to arrest women for physically defending themselves against intimate partner violence. By requiring that domestic violence cases be adjudicated in a legal system that has systematically disadvantaged poor and minority women, mandatory arrest laws, which purported to increase female safety, ultimately reinforced a system that disempowers many of society’s most vulnerable.

In the United States, BIPOC women often do not receive the same treatment as white women when they report domestic violence. Racist tropes that conflate skin color with aggression reinforce biases among police officers, causing Black women to be arrested alongside their abuser far more frequently than white women.

Once arrested, Black women are also convicted at much higher rates than white women, often by juries that lack adequate racial representation.

Dual arrests must be considered both a gender and racial justice issue, given their disproportionate impact on minority women.

Moreover, dual arrests often lead to financial penalties, eviction, and loss of parental custody, which have profound impacts on women and their families. These problems are even more dire for undocumented residents of the United States, for whom a family violence arrest record can lead to immediate deportation. These consequences only exacerbate the heartbreaking phys-

“While laws that mandate the arrest of the primary abuser serve as an important and effective stopgap measure to address the prevalence of dual arrests, greater institutional reforms are needed to ensure that women can safely report domestic violence without personal repercussions.”

Dual Arrests and Race A couple's odds of facing a dual arrest relative to a Black offender-White victim couple

Racial Makeup of Couple

Black offender + White victim White offender + Black victim

1.81x more likely

Other race combination

1.95x more likely

Black offender + Black victim

2.42x more likely

White offender + White victim

ical and mental health outcomes domestic abuse victims already face, including increased rates of HIV, depression, and suicide. Enduring domestic violence also increases the likelihood that a victim will face a host of chronic diseases, infertility, and drug and alcohol addiction, all of which in turn increase the likelihood of a future arrest.

Dominant aggressor laws have served as one effective solution to decrease rates of dual arrests.

Also known as primary aggressor laws, these policies require responding officers to arrest the person who is deemed to pose the most serious threat in a violent encounter. Currently, 27 states have dominant aggressor laws. Considering the fact that dual arrests are twice as likely to occur in states without dominant aggressor laws, all states must move to adopt these policies. After Connecticut adopted dominant aggressor laws in 2019, the state’s dual arrest rate fell by between 7 and 11 percentage points from a staggering rate of over 20 percent. Yet, despite the efficacy of these laws in preventing dual arrests, they must be seen as a temporary measure in the struggle to prevent domestic violence. Many additional reforms, ranging from more stringent gun control laws to funding for emergency shelters and crisis hotlines, are also necessary to protect women from domestic violence and to promote reporting when abuse does occur.

The deep connection between police officers themselves and the perpetration of intimate partner violence only further complicates the fight

2.55x more likely

“Policymakers must prioritize putting an end to the practice of arresting domestic violence victims alongside their abusers. Dual arrests threaten women’s safety by discouraging reporting and placing marginalized groups at a heightened risk of interacting with a racist criminal justice system.”

to end domestic violence. Although data on officer-involved domestic violence is hard to acquire, studies have found that 40 percent of police families have dealt with domestic violence. This number stands in stark contrast to the 10 percent of non-police families that report domestic violence. Although national campaigns to send social workers and mental health professionals— rather than police—to domestic abuse calls seem promising, the solution is not nearly that simple.

Domestic violence reports are the single most lethal call to which a police officer responds, due to the prevalence of armed and indiscriminately aggressive abusers. Until the United States reckons with the scourge of gun violence, replacing

police officers with social workers will undoubtedly lead to civilian deaths.

Domestic violence is an extremely complex and personal issue that requires tactful and victim-centered policy solutions. Policymakers must prioritize putting an end to the practice of arresting domestic violence victims alongside their abusers. Dual arrests threaten women’s safety by discouraging reporting and placing marginalized groups at a heightened risk of interacting with a racist criminal justice system. While dominant aggressor laws serve as a critical stopgap measure for preventing dual arrests, larger institutional reforms are needed to increase reporting and promote women’s health, safety, and security.

THE HEALING ISSUE

53

You’re Fired Strategies for removing a president beyond impeachment

by Jack Malamud ’22, a Political Science and Latin concentrator and a Staff Writer for BPR illustrations by Jo Kim ’23

In the United States, removing a sitting president is difficult by design. The Constitution provides only two mechanisms for this process: impeachment and the 25th Amendment. Given that the latter option requires cabinet officials to strip power from the president who appointed them, the most practical way to remove a president for misconduct is impeachment by Congress. While the two impeachments and subsequent acquittals of Donald Trump have incited arguments that the process has become too political to be effective, this isn’t quite true.

Impeachment has always been political and has never been effective. In order to establish a real check on the executive branch, the American people should be given a direct say in whether or not to remove their president from office.

The Constitution entrusts the “sole Power of Impeachment” to the House of Representatives.

If the House decides to impeach the president by a majority vote, the Senate must conduct a

trial followed by a vote to “convict,” or remove from office. What constitutes an impeachable offense, however, has remained vague and controversial. According to the Constitution, presidents may be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” While treason and bribery have analogues in the US Criminal Code, the Constitution provides no specific examples of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Constitutional scholar Charles Black argues that the Framers included the examples of treason and bribery to illuminate the type of presidential malfeasance that warrants impeachment. According to Black, high crimes or misdemeanors must be ejusdem generis, or “of the same kind,” as treason or bribery. This standard clearly includes some, but not all, criminal offenses, as well as abuses of power that are not technically crimes. In order to accommodate this nuance, the standards for impeachment must not be strictly legalistic.

Only three presidents have ever been impeached and none have been convicted, largely due to intense partisanship. Andrew

“Presidents realistically only face the threat of conviction if the Senate is controlled by the opposing party, but this is still a far cry from an impartial jury.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

55

UNITED STATES Johnson was impeached on technical violations of the now-defunct Tenure of Office Act. Some senators, however, saw the trial as a chance to discharge a rabid white supremacist who had aggressively vetoed civil rights legislation, levied vicious attacks against members of Congress, and suggested hanging a member of the House of Representatives. Donald Trump, on the other hand, was impeached twice: first for soliciting election interference from the government of Ukraine and then for inciting an attack on the US Capitol. The impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump both serve as examples of a partisan Congress failing to discipline a president for egregious misconduct.

Even the case of Richard Nixon, in which the President resigned while facing impeachment for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal, hardly demonstrates the efficacy of impeachment. At first glance, Nixon’s resignation seems to prove the power of impeachment, with the mere threat of a Senate trial compelling a president to resign. However, the former president only stepped down after the release of tapes in which he implicated himself in the Watergate break-in. But incontrovertible self-incrimination is rare and is not a reasonable bar to meet for the impeachment of a president.

Nixon’s resignation is not so much a testament to the power of impeachment as it is an indication of the depth of his corruption.

Impeachment is and has always been a deeply partisan process. It should be no surprise, then, that impeachment has been ineffective in imposing consequences on presidents who abuse their office. When conducting an impeachment trial, senators vow to “do impartial justice,” but they have a strong incentive to protect their political interests. Senators of the same party as the president usually only vote for conviction if they believe that popular opinion is so against the Commander-in-Chief that voting to acquit would be politically risky.

This tendency has led senators to flagrantly disregard their oath, with some Republican senators even meeting with Trump’s legal team during his latest impeachment trial. Presidents realistically only face the threat of conviction if the Senate is controlled by the opposing party, but this is still a far cry from an impartial jury.

As long as the Senate serves as the final adjudicating body in cases of impeachment, political incentives will remain the determining factor, and impeachment will remain a partisan congressional referendum.

A tempting solution would be to depoliticize the process. One option would be to bestow the Senate’s power to convict on a governmental body less susceptible to direct political incentives, such as the Supreme Court. Another would be to amend the Constitution so that 56

SPRING 2021 | ISSUE 02

presidents are removed from office in the event of a criminal conviction. These changes would hold presidents accused of serious crimes to a more objective standard of criminality than a Senate vote, which is often influenced by senators’ own self-preservational instincts.

This last proposal, however, fails to account for the nuance between criminal actions and impeachable offenses. Not all crimes are impeachable offenses, and some actions are legal but clearly impeachable. No president should be removed from office for a speeding ticket but, to borrow a hypothetical from Black, a president issuing a preemptive pardon to any law enforcement officer charged with killing someone would clearly warrant impeachment, despite not strictly constituting criminal behavior. The only way to account for this nuance would be by allowing prosecutors discretion in deciding which cases to bring against a sitting president or by allowing judges to acquit a president of a crime that does not warrant their removal. In either case, the decision to impeach a president would remain a political question, though now answered by usually unelected officials. A trial in the Senate may be flawed, but compared to the aforementioned alternative, it may be preferable because it grants power to a democratically elected body.

The problem with any attempt to depoliticize impeachment is that doing so requires impeachable offenses to be determined by a

codified system, which contradicts the spirit of the Constitution’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” clause. The Founders’ inability to provide a strict framework was not negligent; this choice was a deliberate accommodation for the nuance required in deciding which offenses are impeachable. Aside from the most egregious examples, determining whether presidential misconduct justifies removing the executive from office is a judgement call, and thus requires legal flexibility.

Impeachment must remain a political question, but that does not mean it must be ineffective. Currently, 20 states allow for a gubernatorial recall, a process by which voters can remove a sitting governor from office before their term expires. Recalls force executive officials to be directly accountable to their constituents without the structure of an election cycle.

Unfortunately, this process also has drawbacks.

In California, 55 gubernatorial recall campaigns have been attempted; only one was successful.

If voters can mount a recall effort at any time, the executive is constantly at risk of being thrust into a campaign to prevent their own removal from office. A no-grounds recall on the presidential level would lock the executive in a perpetual political campaign, incentivizing them to spend more time holding rallies than governing.

Some states, however, allow recalls only under specific circumstances. This kind of system could be implemented on a national level, with a constitutional amendment allowing a presidential recall only after a failed impeachment. If the recall were to be successful, the vice president would replace the president, just as if the president had been convicted in the Senate. This practice would preclude any other political candidates from entering the race and distracting from the question of the president’s alleged misconduct. Similarly, the recall could be held within a short timeframe, allowing voters to make their decision based on the information and arguments presented during the Senate trial, rather than allowing a president’s allies and enemies to launch sophisticated political campaigns.

This solution does not reduce the political nature of impeachment, but it does democratize it. Moreover, requiring that recalls follow a failed impeachment at least evades the intense politicization that a no-grounds recall would bring about. None of these solutions are perfect and they all carry risks. The fact remains, however, that impeachment in its current form is an ineffective method of removing a president from office for misconduct. Presidents must be accountable to their constituents, and the American people must be able to remove presidents who disgrace the office. The process may always be political, but it need not be so ineffective.

“The problem with any attempt to depoliticize impeachment is that doing so requires impeachable offenses to be determined by a codified system, which contradicts the spirit of the Constitution’s ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ clause.”

THE HEALING ISSUE

57

INTERVIEW WITH

Judy Heumann Judy Heumann is an internationally renowned, lifelong disability rights activist. Her tireless efforts on behalf of the disabled community have led to positions in the Departments of Education and State within the Clinton and Obama administrations. She has also served as the World Bank Group’s first Adviser on Disability and Development and she was a Senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation. Her memoir, Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist, details everything from her contraction of polio as a baby to the invaluable role her activism played in ensuring the passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. She is featured in the Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary, Crip Camp, which follows the lives of disabled campers at Camp Jened—many of whom went on to shape the disability rights movement in the United States.

interview by Sam Kolitch ’23 illustration by Madison Tom ’23

Sam Kolitch: You essentially bookend your memoir with the line: “I never wished I didn’t have a disability.” What does that line mean to you and why is it so important?

Judy Heumann: Since disability is a normal part of life, it’s not only a part of who I am, but it’s really enabled me to become who I am. My opportunities to meet other people, to learn to communicate with other people, to identify the personal experiences that we have, and to be able to speak up about change that needs to happen is all something I’ve grown up learning to do.

You write about how Hollywood has peddled a narrative filled with tragedy when it portrays disabled individuals. How does this type of media representation affect your work as a disability rights activist?

You know, it’s very interesting. As things begin to change, you feel some degree of acknowledgement. But the reality is that the change is so marginal. When I watch television, while I am seeing a little more representation happening, it’s still so empty. There are a few television programs in which disabled people are starring, like Speechless, and there are some disabled characters in films, which I think is good. It’s just still so limited, and I think it is important for children, as well as for adults and seniors, to see ourselves in a positive light more often.

This is what I think is the problem: We are not seeing ourselves. We are not seeing people with different types of disabilities, different racial backgrounds, so on and so forth. We are not seeing disabled people nor the reflection of the diversity within the disability community— anywhere. I look at the issue of advertising, for example. I’m 72 years old. The racial diversity in advertising today, and sexual orientation diver-

sity, is so much better than when I was growing up—which is all very positive. But you don’t see disabled Asians, or African-Americans, or Latinos, or white people, or gay people, or whichever identity, reflected in that. If disabled people were regularly reflected, there would be some image you could be drawn to.

A focal point of Crip Camp is Camp Jened and the inclusive space it provided for disabled campers. How did Camp Jened play a formative role in your life?

For me, Camp Jened was an opportunity to have fun—an opportunity to begin to experience life in a different way. For myself, needing personal assistance, I basically depended on my parents to help me get dressed and go to the bathroom before I went to camp. The camp allowed me to be self-directing. There was something really good about being able to recognize that I could express how I wanted something to be done and that there was a certain liberty that I had.

I would say that Camp Jened, in addition to being an environment where we felt by and large comfortable with each other, was an opportunity for campers to maintain friendships.

Camp really helped nurture our views of ourselves and we valued people who had various forms of disabilities—it was this that enabled us to look at the “whole person.” This gets back to the issue of “never thought of not having a disability.” Camp allowed us to look at a problem and not say “I’m never going to be able to do this because I can’t.” I began to think like Obama: “I can.”

There’s a harrowing part of Crip Camp where the conditions at Willowbrook State School are shown. How much did the institutionalization of disabled individuals motivate your advocacy work?

When I got to Willowbrook, they were not going to let me on the premises because I was in a wheelchair. They made me sign a paper that said if anything happened, they would not be responsible. They did not make the nun or the reporter I was with sign that. So, you know, we could see the inherent biases. Going to Willowbrook also allowed us all to think about how we were so close to being there. For me, it was eye-opening. It allowed people to see these terrible atrocities and conditions. When people looked at what was going on in Willowbrook, it was shocking. I really presumed many people thought, “What would I do if I had a child like that?”

What we still don’t see enough of is people who have intellectual disabilities and multiple disabilities who are living in a community and being a part of life. Most of the people at Willowbrook would not be there if they had on-

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

going support services, if they were in school, and if they had various other opportunities.

We wanted others to be able to see what life should look like and can look like and does look like for people. But when you look at the scene of people being fed and the lack of staff at Willowbrook, you could just see the negativity—positive images are very limited.

You write about the violence that disabled people, particularly disabled women, continually face. Why do you think that this does not get enough attention?

I think it’s a great point. Again, the absence of stories means that people will continue their biased thinking—which is probably not thinking about it at all. When you think about violence against women, you don’t think about violence against disabled people. Maybe [you think] “Because they’re protected by God?” or “Nobody would do something like that to somebody who couldn’t…?” or whatever. Even organizations that are dealing with this issue don’t necessarily think about disabled women, nor

do they think about women who have experienced violence and then acquired a disability.

The sum of it is that when we look at disability as a part of any issue, it requires that we talk to people. So in the case of violence against women, or men, people should be asking, “What do we know and how are we reaching out to and serving people who have a disability? What are we doing to be a support?”

My last question is about hope— Hope, to me, is a little wishy-washy [laughs]. I can hope for something to happen, but it needs to be proactive. In the end, I feel like hope results in something changing only when change agents make things happen. When I see a problem, I won’t necessarily be the one who fully understands the problem or the solution, but I hope to be able to give input and raise the issue in order to work toward change. “I hope that the buses are going to become accessible” is not going to cut it because hope is not going to make them accessible. Only our work will be able to do something about it.

“The absence of stories means that people will continue their biased thinking—which is probably not thinking about it at all.”

Support student journalism.

Your subscription allows our staff of over 180 Brown and RISD students to deliver on our mission to bring high-quality journalism on regional, national, and international politics to Brown, the Providence community, and beyond.

To have the magazine delivered to your mailbox, visit brownpoliticalreview.org/subscribe