the
POLITIK PRESS
4/14/14
APRIL 14th, 2014
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POLITIK PRESS
Volume XV, Issue IX
Volume XV, Issue IX
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POLITIK PRESS VOLUME XV, ISSUE IX
Volume XV, Issue IX
the
the
APRIL 14th, 2014
April 14th 2014
POLITIK PRESS A publication of
JHU POLITIK jhupolitik.org
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Rachel Cohen MANAGING EDITOR Colette Andrei ASSISTANT EDITORS Katie Botto Sarallah Salehi Christine Server CREATIVE DIRECTOR Victoria Scordato COPY EDITOR Peter Lee MARKETING & PUBLICITY Rebecca Grenham Audrey Moss WEBMASTER Sihao Lu FACULTY ADVISOR Steven R. David
HEAD WRITER Julia Allen MARYLAND EDITOR Adam Roberts POLICY DESK EDITOR Michael Bodner STAFF WRITERS Eliza Schultz Dylan Etzel Abigail Sia Adrian Carney Geordan Williams Chris Winer Akshai Bhatnagar Rosellen Grant Preston Ge Corey Payne Mira Haqqani Arpan Ghosh 2
Volume XV, Issue IX
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE Referendum? Check. Treaty? Check. Successful Integration? To be seen ... Page 4 Michael Bodner ’14
HOW WILL OBAMA FIX OVERTIME PAY? ......................................
Page 5
Rachel Cohen ’14
REFORMING THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE POLICY: Signing on for a New Campus Culture .........................................
Page 6
Juliana Vigorito ’16
EUROPE’S AWKWARD PARTNER ............................................
Page 7
Mira Haqqani ’17
THE PURCHASE OF DEMOCRACY: McCutcheon v. FEC .............. Page 8 Adrian Carney ’14
REBELS OR TERRORIST? RIGHTS OR NO RIGHTS? ................... Page 9 Corey Payne ’17
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POLICY DESK by Michael Bodner ’14, Policy Desk Editor
Referendum? Check. Treaty? Check. Successful Integration? To be seen. A parliamentary vote does not make a successful annexation. Moscow will experience this fact firsthand in the coming months, as it confronts the myriad of issues that accompany their move to incorporate Ukraine into the Russian Federation. Many of these problems stem from the fact that Crimea, while it has long possessed some degree of autonomy from Ukraine, is totally integrated with the Ukrainian infrastructure and banking system. Before its annexation, Crimea received 80% of its electricity and 65% of its gas from mainland Ukraine. Granted, Russia possesses the energy resources to supply its newly acquired province. That being said, the logistical problems associated with such a venture would be daunting. For example, there are no underwater electricity cables between Russia and Crimea, and Ukraine may be understandably reluctant to let Russia use overland transport. Aside from energy, 70% of Crimea’s fiscal budget came from Kiev. Once again, Russia can pick up this cost. Yet, Russia will not see such funding reciprocated by Crimea’s economic production. Tourism was a main part of the Crimean economy, but that industry will certainly take a hit in the wake of annexation. Furthermore, Russia must go through the arduous tasks of replacing the Ukrainian hryvnia with the ruble, as well as integrating Crimea into the Russian banking system. While these tasks in themselves are not particularly expensive, mismanagement may prove extremely costly in the long run. What are the potential consequences of a Russian failure to properly annex Ukraine? There may already be two examples for the world two look at. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are two breakaway republics who declared independence from Georgia in 1990 and 1999, respectively. Both are recognized only by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru, and both rely largely on Russia for economic security and economic protection. Yet the two are plagued by corruption and economic inefficiency, much of which is the result of a sloppy transition from one government to another. Like South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Crimea may be vulnerable to a future of economic troubles and dependence on Moscow. Russia has been able to convince
a total of three countries to recognize the former two republics. (South Ossetia was once recognized by Tuvalu, and Abkhazia by Tuvalu and Vanuatu, but these countries have since rescinded their recognition.) As of this article’s publishing date, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and Syria support Crimea’s accession to Russia. These countries, even in addition to Russian support, would not provide Crimea with the trade it needs in order to thrive economically. Chinese support would be helpful for the Crimean economy, yet Russia’s most powerful ally has stayed pointedly neutral on the issue of accession. Should Moscow be unable to effectively integrate Crimea into the Russian Federation, it is inconceivable to see it forfeit the peninsula back to Ukraine. Russia holds a great stake in Crimea’s future. Contrary to what the Russian government may say, the annexation was not a move made purely to protect ethnic Russians. It was also not a move made strictly in accordance with the much-cited “Kosovo precedent” (True, the West allowed Kosovo to separate from Serbia, yet no Western country then took possession of the country). When Vladimir Putin chose to annex Crimea, he was trying to bring Ukraine back to Russia’s sphere of influence and increase the worldwide prestige of his country. Letting go of Crimea, which was taken with such a global outcry, would cause a significant diminishing of Russia’s standing on the world stage. This could have left a struggling Crimea in a diplomatic and economic netherworld, suffering economically yet unable to receive assistance from international governments. The referendum to separate from Ukraine and the subsequent treaty to join Russia were both drafted and passed extremely quickly. Yet what now lies ahead for Crimea is an arduous period of economic and logistical restructuring that may leave the region worse off than it was under Ukraine. Whether the West likes it or not, Crimea now belongs to Russia. It is possible that with time and proper management, Crimea can flourish as part of Russia, providing economic diversification for its new country while experiencing the benefits of Russia’s oil wealth and international influence. Yet equally likely, if not more probable, is a future in which Russia will feel the strain of supporting its new province, while Crimea itself will stagnate under its new government. PP
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Volume XV, Issue IX
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HOW WILL OBAMA FIX OVERTIME PAY? by Rachel Cohen ’14, Editor-in-Chief
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he Obama administration recently announced plans to revise overtime pay regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the law, employees who work more than 40 hours per week are entitled to time-and-a-half in overtime pay, but many categories of employees— notably “executive” and “administrative”—are exempt under FLSA. Unfortunately, within the last decade many employers have found ways to misclassify their workers as executives, managers and administrators in order to avoid paying them overtime. Now the Department of Labor wants to update the regulations by both tightening the duties that employees would have to perform in order to be recognized as managers and by raising the minimum salary threshold above $455 per week.
However, there remain enough ambiguities that employers have found ways to still misclassify their workers and avoid paying overtime. Notably, one regulation codified in 2004 states that the law will henceforth recognize employers working “concurrent duties” of “exempt and non-exempt work” on a “case-by-case basis”—meaning that one could still be considered a manager or executive even if they are not doing managerial or executive work.
The Obama administration isn’t the first to amend the 1938 regulations. Back in 2004, Bush administration officials raised the minimum weekly salary threshold from $250 to $455 (or yearly salaries of slightly under $24,000 per year). They also relaxed the description of duties, effectively weakening the exemption standards for managers. This meant that fewer workers were now entitled to overtime pay than before. (Some economists argued that this regulation effectively barred more than six million workers from receiving overtime.)
Since 2004, the Consumer Price Index has increased by about 23.3%. So had the minimum salary threshold kept up with inflation, it would now be around $560 per week. All things considered, that’s still pretty low. The Washington Post reported that officials are considering raising the threshold to somewhere between $550 and $970 a week, or $28,600 and $50,440 a year.
At an International Association of Fire Fighters legislative conference in March, U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez said in a speech, “As a result of a loophole that was written into the regulation in 2004 by the Bush administration, quite literally somebody can work 1 percent of their time on management issues, 99 percent stacking the shelves and doing other work that has nothing to do with management, and you’re considered a manager, and you are no longer entitled to overtime.” The original law purports to prevent employers from misclassifying their workers as managers. Indeed, regulation 29 CFR 541.2 states, “A job title alone is insufficient to establish the exempt status of an employee. The exempt or nonexempt status of any particular employee must be determined on the basis of whether the employee’s salary and duties meet the requirements of the regulations.”
The White House is also talking about raising the minimum salary threshold. According to Betsey Stevenson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, there are 3.1 million people who would have been automatically covered by overtime provisions had the threshold kept up with inflation.
The key point to understand is that just doing one of these measures is not enough to eliminate the perverse incentives in FLSA. Raising the salary threshold without tightening the duties test to be considered a manager might raise the salary of some workers but it would still allow employers to misclassify their employees as managers, and thereby skirt overtime pay. There are also macroeconomic arguments for fixing the regulation. “By discouraging the use of overtime, we will be encouraging companies to hire more workers. This is simple logic,” wrote co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Dean Baker in an email. “If a company needs extra labor, but now has to pay a premium for working people overtime, it is more likely to fill this demand by hiring new workers. This is what we want.” While the process of revising FLSA could extend until 2015, the administration’s initiative is good news. If the Department of Labor does this revision right, then employers will have to either pay more workers overtime, or hire additional employees. Both are desirable outcomes. PP
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REFORMING THE SEXUAL VIOLENCE POLICY: SIGNING ON FOR A NEW CAMPUS CULTURE by Juliana Vigorito ’16, Contributing Writer
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n Sunday, April 6th, The Politik published an article by Eliza Schultz scrutinizing the Johns Hopkins University Sexual Violence Policy. In Eliza’s view, the policy is inadequately designed to deal with perpetrators of sexual assault here on campus. I am inclined to agree with her, and to take up arms for a conversation between students and the administration so that we can revise this policy to a version that will better empower survivors of sexual violence. A petition, inspired by the article was launched by Eliza and her peer Carlene Partow. Only two days after its launch, the online petition garnered nearly 800 signatures from University affiliates. The call to action is direct, concise, and supremely ambitious. It is also a work in progress, with the call for a larger discussion on sexual assault that extends beyond the particular demands of this petition. The proposed changes in the petition seem well-suited to follow Title IX, the federal civil rights statute which prohibits sex discrimination. For example, the current policy notes that an accuser may request a change in their housing or class schedule. This places the onus of uprooting one’s lifestyle on the presumptive survivor. The word “presumptive” is apt here, as false accusations of sexual violence are only as common asfalse reports of any other violent crime nationally--that is to say, such instances hover around 2%. Given the fact that roughly 85% of all campus sexual assaults go unreported, the socalled false reporting is a myth. When a victim comes forward, statistically speaking, we ought to believe them. So it seems appropriate that, rather than obligating a survivor to rearrange their life after trauma, our University should instead apply housing or curricular changes to the accused perpetrator. Forcing a student to choose between changing classes mid-semester and feeling unsafe neither sufficiently provides support nor promotes academic success at a competitive institution like ours. It is the final stipulation of the petition’s proposed
changes that is decisively the most radical: calling for a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault and making expulsion the sole option for perpetrators found guilty. I would feel safer if rapists and abusers were removed from my campus after one offense, certainly, but such a world is unforeseeable and may be unpalatable to prospective petition signers and addressees alike. Zero-tolerance is not the norm anywhere; questions of liability coupled with the absence of recommended penalties for sexually violent acts means that minor punishments are most prevalent. Even so, our University policy as it stands notes the option of expulsion or employee termination, which is promising in an otherwise blasé document. The stated goals of the petition are imperfect, to be sure, but each signature represents yet another individual paying attention to an issue that is typically overlooked on this campus. The national conversation about campus sexual assault has gotten louder with President Obama’s release of a report and formation of a campus sexual assault task force. But while federal headlines are encouraging, they are not enough to make this campus safe. What I want is a commitment from authority figures closer to Johns Hopkins than the White House. President Daniels, Vice Provost Shollenberger, Vice Provost Laguerre-Brown, Director Boyle, I want to hear you acknowledge this issue and affirm your commitment to change our sexual assault policy. Moreover, I want to hear your commitment to reform our campus culture. The goal of the petition is to give teeth to a trembling document clearly drafted with libel lawsuits in mind, but focusing on punitive measures alone will not suffice. More than the ability to change housing or classes, we need dorms and classrooms that are safe spaces from the beginning, and to get there we need to be holding regular frank conversations about ways to motivate and incentivize students and staff to intervene in precarious situations, report instances of sexual assault, and support victims. I sincerely hope these are goals we can all agree on, and that Hopkins will lead by example on sexual assault policy as we do in so many other arenas. PP
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EUROPE’S AWKWARD PARTNER by Mira Haqqani ’17, Staff Writer
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ince its admission into the European community in 1973, the United Kingdom has been referred to as an “awkward partner” of the European Union. In the run up to the parliamentary elections next year, the country is becoming increasingly Eurosceptic, especially as the Tories promise to hold a referendum on British membership of the EU. Even though catastrophic events such as the Eurozone crisis have left Britons disillusioned with the EU, the economic, political and social consequences of a decision to exit the European Union will be one that the UK will inevitably regret, and should therefore avoid.
of British workers to work and live in other European countries, hence creating an unprecedented crisis for the British government in terms of accommodating displaced citizens socially and economically. In addition to the social concerns that emerge from this debate, it is obvious that the UK’s international influence will be tarnished as a result of losing its role as the mediatory link between the United States and Europe. By distancing itself from Brussels, it is likely that the UK will become a bystander and isolated in international debates such as those over cross border security, environmental concerns and economic integration.
The UK was admitted into the EU at a time of severe economic decline. Since 1973, the British economy has benefitted greatly from being tied with Europe. Britain has made significant gains as a result of its membership of the European Union, some of which include access to the Single Market, free movement of citizens, international employment opportunities and greater worker protection as well as a more influential voice on the international stage.
The UK is known for its complicated attitude toward the European Union and has been accused of exploiting its opt-outs from certain EU legislation by several countries such as France and Germany. Despite being a fully participating member of the European Union, the British have opted out of significant EU policies such as the single currency and the Schengen Agreement. This has repeatedly created doubts among other European countries about the commitment of the British to the European cause of creating a deeply integrated economic and political union. However, the British have always defended their actions to further their own case of preserving national sovereignty, particularly in areas such as immigration and national security. The UK is also increasingly Eurosceptic because it believes that is not receiving the benefits it should as a net contributor to the union and because it is concerned about the ever growing and somewhat unsustainable size of the EU.
An exit from the European Union will prove to be of colossal damage to the British economy. The EU is the UK’s largest trading partner and trade in goods and services with European countries constitutes more than half of the UK’s international trade. In addition, the UK continues to reap the benefits of being a member of the Single Market that boasts the four freedoms: free movement of people, goods, services and capital between all EU countries. Leaving the Single Market would not only restrict the movement of people across European borders, but also have an adverse effect on the British Balance of Payments as export revenue would most likely dwindle as a result of export tariffs. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union is likely to create not only economic difficulties for the country, but social and political ones too. A possible social consequence of a withdrawal would be the loss of millions of jobs as transnational companies may choose to relocate their production units to European countries where costs of production are cheaper. Moreover, an exit may also put into question the right
If given a referendum on Europe, the rapidly growing Eurosceptic British population will vote to quit the EU, without being aware of the consequences of doing so. It is therefore important to educate the general public about the interdependent relationship the UK shares with the EU so that the socio-political and economic difficulties that arise from an exit from the European Union can be avoided. PP
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THE PURCHASE OF DEMOCRACY: MCCUTCHEON V. FEC by Adrian Carney ’14, Staff Writer
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n April 2nd, the Supreme Court released its decision on McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, addressing the role of campaign finance in future elections. The most pertinent sections of law were portions of the finance reform law, FECA, amended in 1974 after the contentious 1972 election and the Watergate scandal. The court’s 5-4 decision struck down parts of law determining the aggregate limit of donations by individuals to campaign committees and national party organizations. Now, a single individual can now donate over $3 million to a political party or $800,000 to a single campaign. Even more money can be contributed on a national scale, through a system of various loopholes similar to those now governing super-PACs. This ruling is not a surprise. The same balance of the court – five Republican appointees and four Democratic ones – which passed the Citizens United case in favor of campaign finance deregulation hinted at a possible outcome. But it still sets a dangerous precedent for American democracy.We only need to consider the implications of Citizens United case to see what deregulating the flow of money does to American politics. Both Governor Romney and President Obama took in over a record $1 billion during their presidential campaigns in 2012. Yet, while Obama took in almost equal amounts from smaller donations and wealthier backers, Romney’s campaign was sustained largely through rich donors, which he hoped to appease through promises of lower taxes and denigrating remarks about the lower classes. In effect, the new status quo grants that moneyed elite a further degree of influence over the future of national elections. In the most extreme cases, a single person can fund an entire campaign on the national scale. For example, Sheldon Adelson’s donated $15 million to Newt Gingrich in the 2012 election, followed by over $20 million to Mitt Romney. Earlier this month, Adelson announced that he wanted to back another candidate for the 2016 presidential election, and met with four separate candidates.
In his opening statement, Chief Justice John Roberts said “there is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.” I think many of us would agree. But Roberts’ actions suggest otherwise. Take, for example, his blunt denial of voting protections for poor minorities by striking down major portions of the Voting Rights Act, causing southern states to impose more restrictive voting procedures with alarming speed. The basis of this contradiction is Roberts’ view that money is the equivalent of speech and that racism is no longer a problem in America. This cloistered ignorance hurts those with the greatest burdens, and emboldens the wealthy. What is even more absurd is the majority’s stunning view that large cash donations do not lead to corruption or compliance with the donor’s interests. If we consider the already top-heavy state of income inequality in America today, where 400 people own more wealth than the bottom 150,000,000, they are granted an even further share of influence in the political process. Thomas Jefferson once prophesied that “the end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” It is a dark time, but it is not the end. The United States emerged from the Gilded Age of the 19th century and from the 1920s’ wild speculation; it can defeat its internal failings as it can defeat opponents abroad. To quote Thomas Piketty in his new study on Capital in the 21st Century: “If democracy is someday to regain control of capitalism, it must start by recognizing that the concrete institutions in which democracy are embodied need to be reinvented again and again.” In our case, we will need to continue to reinvent the ways money and politics interact, to see that it does not favor the interests of a very small group at the expense of the many, while ensuring a broad basis for an improved quality of life for all. PP
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REBELS OR TERRORISTS? RIGHTS OR NO RIGHTS? by Corey Payne ’17, Staff Writer
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ociety has created a new niche when it comes to defining undesirable persons. Criminals, enemy combatants, and foreign nationals all had a place in our system of laws. They had rights and privileges established under international agreements and intrastate legislation. So when the West declared a war against an idea (“terror”), a new class of people needed to be created without established legal rights and privileges. Hence, the distinction “terrorist” came to fruition. This created problems, not only in the moral and legal regard, but in the classification of persons as well. Our governments and international bodies have all been struggling to create a solid definition of “terrorism” that distinguishes it from other forms of violence, the most notable being Lockean rebellion. But the nature of this debate, and the definition, has inherent flaws. It was not until the later part of the twentieth century that terrorism became a seriously recognized threat to the governments of established states. Not until the United States declared war on terrorism in 2001 did terror finally become a distinct entity that could be vied with by normal means. The largest problem with the current western war on terrorism is that they have decided to declare war on an idea. As an idea spreads, it changes history, and ideas spread faster than ever before. With this rapidly changing demographic of terrorists who embody these ideas, it is believed that the international community should establish a working definition for terrorism, and more importantly, a way to distinguish those who use terrorism to accomplish their ends from those who are protesting a legitimate cause. This distinction is crucial to the way the international community views a dissenting group. All current definitions of terrorism remain within a deviation of the central direction which all explanations are pointing: terrorism is an attack on a government or a society. For example, the United Nations General Assembly in 1994 set forth Resolution 49/60 defining terrorism as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes…” This creates the issue of discovering how to determine
whether a particular person or group intended to disrupt order for purely destructive purposes or for reconstructive ones. Society should be moving forward under the notion that the current definition of terrorism is tainted with bias: all definitions of terror created by governments carefully exclude governments themselves from the parameters. For example, under the current international definitions, the use of drones by the United States while seeking and destroying state targets in the Middle East and Northern Africa could qualify as terrorism, yet seems to be excluded from the discussion of terror. Defining terrorism creates a problem of generalizations. Are rebels terrorists? Are terrorists rebels? Can states be classified as terrorists? What does this mean for the rights of these individuals? As with any situation, there cannot possibly be an allencompassing definition that will irrefutably distinguish all terrorists from non-terrorists, and so each should be taken on a case-by-case basis. Terrorists and Freedom Fighters, when combating with the same methods and often the same motivations, have few distinctions. It is not the job of any international body to determine which motives are righteous and which are not, but rather, which are warranted and which are not. As with any topic, there are disagreements, depending upon the missions and beliefs of the nations involved. It is clear that a governing body does not need, nor should it try, to create an absolute definition separating the two. As individual actions, quality of convictions, and severity of methods of these instances cannot be anticipated, we should instead continue condemning acts of terror as they appear, as the international community deems fit, on a case by case basis. However, those deemed “terrorists” need to be provided the same rights and privileges as any criminal or rebel would have in the realm of international law. If distinctions are needed, let them come individually. But no government should have the authority to split people and organizations into “those who have rights” and “those who don’t.” PP
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Volume XV, Issue IX
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Universities and the NSA: Time to stop collaborating?
For years the U.S. National Security Agency has been building a massive surveillance apparatus to intercept a vast range of telephone and electronic communications inside and outside the United States. Secretive units of Johns Hopkins University have been complicit in this effort.
Panel Discussion
Matt Green Assistant Research Professor, JHU Information Security Institute Author of the (briefly censored) “A Few Thoughts on Cryptographic Engineering” blog
Christopher Soghoian Principal Technologist, American Civil Liberties Union
Shahid Buttar Executive Director, Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Tuesday April 15, 7pm Mergenthaler 111 Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus Sponsored by
JHU Human Rights Working Group http://hrwgjhu.wordpress.com JHU New Political Society http://jhunps.com
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WRITE FOR thePOLITIK PRESS
Photo Courtesy: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division
The Politik Press, originally founded in 2008 as JHU Politik, is a weekly publication of political opinion pieces. We proudly seek to provide the Johns Hopkins campus with student voices and perspectives about important issues of our time. Rather than hide within a cloistered academic bubble, we know we must critically engage with the world that surrounds us. That, we believe, is at the heart of what it means to be learning. We’re lucky to be situated in the city of Baltimore, a city with a rich history and an ever-changing politics. We aim to look at the politics of the Homewood campus, of the city of Baltimore, of the domestic landscape of the United States, and then of the international community as well. While we publish the Politik Press weekly, we work simultaneously on our special issues which come out once per semester. These magazines confront a single topic from multiple angles. We have run issues covering topics like the political nature of research, the Arab Spring, and our city Baltimore.
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