PHOTO: FUZZY GERDES Photo: alissa zhu
Contents same-sex adoption ...... 02 antonio davis ...... 04 the press in costa rica ...... 08 protest 15th anniversary ...... 11 environmental racism in martelo ...... 17 how to get a greencard 101 ...... 22 affirmative action ...... 24
Staff Magazine Editor-in-Chief Yoona Ha Executive Editor Alissa Zhu Senior Editors James Bien, Charles Rollet ghost Editor Cameron Albert-Dietch Design Editor Christine Nguyen Photo Editor Alissa Zhu Designers Susan Chen Cameron Albert-Dietch Olivia Marcus Tanner Maxwell Jen White Photographers Leah Varjacques Jennifer Ball
COVER ILLUSTRATION: SARAH SHERMAN
SAME-SEX ADOPTION BY THE NUMBERS 16
Illinois moved to become the 16th state to allow gay marriage in June
LEGAL STATUS OF ADOPTION BY SAME-SEX COUPLES AROUND THE WORLD JOINT ADOPTION STEP-CHILD ADOPTION LGBT INDIVIDUALS EXPLICITLY ALLOWED
INFOGRAPHIC: CHRISTINE NGUYEN
Obstacles still challenge samesex adoptions by YOONA HA/courtesy of the chicago bureau When Demyan Martyushev and Mikhail Shishko exchanged gold engagement rings in late December, they were optimistic of adopting a child who would grow up in their Lakeview home. Amid the pro-LGBTQ legislation sweeping across the country and Chicago being one of the few cities receiving a perfect score on the LGBTQ acceptance rate, the soon-to-be-married couple thought, “Why not try and adopt?” Despite an uneven legal landscape across the
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country, Illinois moved to becoming the 16th state to allow gay marriage in June and has expanded its adoption policies to allow gay or lesbian individuals and couples not only to petition for adoption but also to jointly petition to adopt. In addition, about 19 percent of same-sex couples have reportedly adopted a child, which reflects an 11 percent increase in nine years, according to Census data from 2009. But Martyushev and Shishko faced significant legal hurdles when they looked into adopting internationally, especially from Russia. The couple’s decision to adopt a child from Russia came naturally. Martyushev grew up in Kiev,Ukraine them moved to the U.S. when he was 15 and Shishko grew up in what he calls a “traditional but openminded Russian household,” here. They met in 2002 at Ann’s Bakery and Deli, a Ukrainian and Russian bakery in Ukrainian Village. “But we were quickly let down when we discovered that there was no way we could legally reach an adoption agency that could allow
us adopt a child from Russia,” said Shishko, a 36-year-old retail store manager in Wicker Park. Two years ago, President Vladimir V. Putin signed a bill that bans the adoption of Russian children by American citizens. Last December, the bill was signed into law therefore, eliminating any prospects that any new couple, same-sex or opposite-sex could adopt children from Russia in the near future. “It’s really a mixed bag when it comes to international adoption,” said Rick Garcia, policy director for the Civil Rights Agenda, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization based in Chicago. Currently there are 15 countries that allow for same-sex couples to file for joint adoption, just as married couples can. While legal challenges exist for couples that want to adopt from specific countries like Russia, Garcia said Illinois has been moving in the right direction when it comes to recognizing gay and lesbian parental rights. It’s been Martyushev and Shishko’s second year of looking for alternative methods to adopt
% OF SAME-SEX UNMARRIED PARTNER COUPLES WITH CHILDREN UNDER 18 IN THE HOME 18.3%
90.5%
18.8%
17.5%
18.3% 17.2% 16.2%
OPPOSITE SEX
12.5%
1990
75.7% MALE-MALE
2000
2005 2006 2007 2008
2009
100%
HOUSEHOLDS WITH EITHER ADOPTED OR STEP-ONLY CHILDREN
90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40%
69%
FEMALE-FEMALE
30% 20% 10% 0%
MARRIED COUPLES WITH ONLY BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN
BOTH BA+ MARRIED OPPOSITE SEX
% BOTH EMPLOYED
% OWNS HOME
% BOTH LIVED IN SAME PLACE LAST YEAR
UNMARRIED OPPOSITE SEX
SAME-SEX
SOURCES: U.S. CENSUS, NATIONAL COUNCIL ON FAMILY RELATIONS
a Russian child, but now the couple is looking to adopt domestically after the marriage equality law passes in June. Children’s Home & Aid, an Illinois adoption agency is one of the three adoption agencies that has received a seal of recognition from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for being fully welcoming of LGBTQ individuals and families willing to adopt. “We don’t discriminate against individuals and couples willing to adopt from our agency no matter what their sexual orientation is,” said Peggy Franklin program director of adoption and child and family counseling services at Children’s Home & Aid. A majority of the adoption agency’s successful adoptions were what Franklin refers as “adoption conversions” in which the foster family adopts the child placed in the foster family’s home. But there are several other options that include domestic adoption, international adoption and private adoption, in which the adopting parent finds a child to adopt without the help of the sponsor-
ing adoption agency. Adoption is known to be arduous process that can take from months at least and even years, but census data has shown that a growing number of same-sex couples are adopting. “There are big and little roadblocks that still await gay and lesbian couples,” said Garcia. Traveling while being a same-sex parent can be a difficult and intimidating task, especially since some states like Missouri do not recognize a gay or lesbian couple’s civil union or marriage status. Even if a couple had all the appropriate documents pertaining to their legal relationship status and their child, crossing the wrong state boundary can cause panic among same-sex couples who travel. Garcia recalled an incident where a lesbian couple who traveled to Florida for a Disney trip with their adopted child faced a drastic situation when one of the mothers fell unconscious due to a brain aneurism. “She had to die alone because Florida law didn’t recognize the other partner or child as
someone who could legally come in to assist her,” said Garcia. Emergency incidents like this still strike fear into traveling same-sex couples. “It’s another thing to worry about besides dealing with the prejudice that’s against you,” said Martyushev. “People have this skewed perception that it’s unholy or morally wrong for a child to have two dads or two moms.” But several recent studies have dispelled this popular misconception that surrounds LGBTQ parents. In a study released by researchers from East Carolina University in 2009, the results showed that gay or straight, the sexual orientation of adoptive parents shows no impact on the emotional development of their children. Martyushev and Shishko are still waiting for the day they finally have a child in their family. “Even if it’s not possible that we can adopt from Russia we will still be grateful of being introduced to a new child into our lives no matter what his or her background is,” said Martyushev.
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OVERCOMING ADVERSITY THROUGH ART: A Q&A WITH CHICAGO MOUTH PAINTER ANTONIO DAVIS by Yoona Ha
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hen Antonio Davis was shot by a friend in 1994, he did not lose his fascination for painting, even though he lost use of his legs and hands. Davis, a quadriplegic, never lost hope that he could continue painting. After years of practice and perseverance, he has become a prolific and successful painter. With a brush in his mouth, the Chicago native paints forms of life and continues to inspire those with similar disabilities to this day. I met Mr. Davis for a discussion on his projects and his inspiring story on how he never gave up. The following is a completed transcript of our conversation. Antonio Davis: In 1994 I was shot. As a result of a gunshot wound I
was paralyzed, leaving me as a quadriplegic with limited use of my hands and no use of my legs. My name is Antonio Davis. I’m 38 years old, and I’m a mouth painter. I paint by holding a brush in between my teeth. I currently am a student member of the MFPA. That’s the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists organization.
YH: How did you get started? AD: Well, as a youth I loved to draw and paint and always had a fascina-
tion with oil paints, but I never took classes. When I was young I used to always go out and look at the paintings, and when my mom and I used to visit downtown we used to look at the Art Institute but I never was able to go into it. As I became a teenager, I started studying at Prosser Vocational high school, in which I specialized in graphic arts, oil painting and also multimedia. From that point on my education in art started.
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PHOTO: YOONA HA
Antonio Davis says painting is a part of a daily ritual that keeps him sane and confident that he can overcome any adversity that comes his way.
TP: How would you describe your art to someone who is not familiar with it? AD: My art now is actually art therapy for me. I will call it my sanity. It keeps me serene and peaceful. I like to paint realism. I like to paint life. When you look at my art I want you to say that looks realistic, you can reach out and touch it. I like it to pop off the canvas. 3-D, that’s my hope for my art. I try to put that across in my art. TP: Did you ever see yourself taking a departure from realism in your artistic method? AD: That was always what I wanted to translate across in my art was realism. All the time it didn’t look that way. Actually my wife used to say your work looks cartoony. She was a critic of mine, so my goals are to make her say that looks real. She’s my biggest critic. So when I hear her say that looks real, like a picture, like a photograph, then I know I have accomplished my goal. But as far as me branching off into different styles in art, I can do that but that’s not my love. My passion is to
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translate realism. YH: You said that as a kid, you used to go to the Art Institute a lot. Did you find yourself inspired by the great masters? AD: I was inspired by Van Gough and Da Vinci and Renoir. All the painters. Even when I go now I can sit for hours and look at their styles, techniques and in a sense mimic it when I do paint. I just look at how they layer some of the classic oil styles as far as the colors in the backgrounds. I can spend hours looking at one painting. If I’m with somebody like my wife she can spend hours on shopping, I can spend hours at the Art Institute. I just love it, it’s a great place and I’m blessed to live in Chicago. YH: So what inspires you to paint? AD: Painting. It’s my sanity. I can escape from everyday life; you know the hustle and bustle of the stress. It relieves my stress. I can go and sit in my studio and just paint away thinking about all
the troubles of the day you know anything that’s going on inside or outside of my world. I let it go when I paint. I can just create. I love to sit back and look and say I achieved that goal. That was a goal of mine to finish this painting within three months, and it looks the way I want it to look. YH: What’s MFPA? How did you get involved? AD: I found the organization visiting disability expo where an existing mouth and foot painter was there doing a demonstration, speaking about the organization how they help young artists get scholarships and help develop them as artists. He inspired me and he actually saw a little bit of my work when I first started. He encouraged me to send in my bio and send in my work and see if I would get accepted as a student member. From that point on I sent in my work, and I waited a little while. They came out and interviewed me and eventually I got accepted as a student member.
YH: Where have you shown you work? AD: I have shown my work at the 20th ADA anniversary at the Illinois state building here in Chicago. I have shown my work at the Highland Park high school in Winnetka that was during Art Night that was for three days I showed my work. Right now I have work actually abroad in different countries on exhibition. I don’t know exactly what countries but my work travels. I have a lot of different work in different places. YH: Do you sell your work? AD: This year coming up I’m doing a fundraiser for the Art in Motion for RIC. This will be my first time ever selling any of my original work. I’m doing it for a good cause; it’s to support the RIC, the art therapy. That’s the only reason why I’m selling but this is a one-time event where I’m selling eight pieces of my original work. After that everything else is going to be reproductions and greeting cards for the MFPA. YH: So what made you become a mouth painter? AD: What happened was me and my cousin, we
were hanging out with some friends of ours, well we thought were friends. An argument ensued we were jouncing and an argument ensued. One of the guys pulled a gun out. I don’t know what happened he fired off, and before I knew it my cousin was hit and he was struck. He passed away and actually when I was hit I fell to the ground and I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed, I didn’t know what was taken place after that and that left me paralyzed from that point on. YH: From there how did you become a successful mouth painter? AD: From that point on I went to the hospital. It was in Rockford, Illinois to the hospital and my mother, they came, they visited me, and then actually flew me to Chicago- Northwestern and I went to RIC. So I was at RIC where I never got down on myself about the situation. I was very hurt but I never got down on myself. I always stayed positive. I knew I would get better and I still believe that I will walk. I still believe that but at that time I knew I had to work very hard and RIC help put me back together with their regimens. From that point
I went home where I stayed with my mother for about a year to a year and a half and it was kind of rough on her trying to help take care of me. I couldn’t feed myself I couldn’t put on my clothes so I was totally dependent. From that point on I started thinking about art again and art therapy. There I was learning to draw again, searching to draw and then they introduced me to trying to use my hand again which I was getting better at it but I heard about mouth art too. I started visiting the expos, that’s when I met Robert Thorne a full member of the MFPA, and then he showed me what I can do as far as oil paint with the brushes and the technique. When I met Robert he also explained to me that by joining the MFPA, it would help you become financially independent and that way you can be able to take care of yourself and your family and get off of government assistance which most disable people are bound to be government assisted for the rest of their life and by me joining that organization it definitely help me become financially independent.
JUANITA BUTLER, ANTONIO DAVIS’ WIFE, HELPS HIM GET PREPARED FOR HIS EVERYDAY RITUAL.
PHOTO: YOONA HA
ILLUSTRATION: LIV MARCUS
WHO IS THE
COSTA RICAN
DEEPTHROAT? We may never know, but the “memo of fear” set a new precedent for freedom of speech in the nation. By Jennifer Ball
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uring a visit to Costa Rica in December, I had the opportunity to investigate the resignation of former Vice President Kevin Casas in 2007. The national scandal happened as a direct result of journalists reporting on a memo he wrote to former President Oscar Arias. During Arias’ presidency, the division between the pro-CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) and the anti-CAFTA factions was especially strong. Kevin Casas was adamant that Costa Rica, the last country to approve the treaty, should enter into a free trade agreement with the United States. He stood so firmly on the issue that he and President of the Electoral Commission Fernando Sánchez wrote a memorandum to the President of Costa Rica “urging a campaign of fear and deception” among the people to secure
the “yes” vote in the CAFTA referendum. The “Memorandum del Medio” (“Memorandum of Fear”) that Kevin Casas and Fernando Sánchez sent to the President said the government should plant fear in the minds of people, including fear of economic disaster, loss of democracy, and negative foreign influences if the people did not approve the free trade agreement with the United States. The memo attempted to create a message to the public that would link the “no” vote to the dictatorships of Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. When one reads the actual words of the memo, it is not difficult to develop a picture of the private activities and attitude of the Arias administration in Costa Rica. The memo also suggested the government financially punish the mayors
who do not win their cantons, the administrative subdivisions of Costa Rica that have their own mayors. “The Mayor that doesn’t win his canton will not get a penny from the government in the next 3 years,” the memo said. Lorna Chacón was the reporter who worked with her colleague, Vinicio Chacón, to expose the government’s attempt to manipulate public opinion. “That document is a very strong document because it was a way to incite fear,” Lorna Chacón said. “It was a real document. We demonstrated the veracity of the document.” The memo was leaked anonymously to the press. Somebody tipped off the Costa Rican newspaper Semanario Universidad, which then provided copies of the memo to its journalists.
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“One must remember the fundamental difference in this case was that they did not steal the memorandum. The memorandum was handed in to them,” said Alejandro Delgado Faith, president of the Institute of Press and Freedom of Expression (IPLEX) in Costa Rica. “And there is a huge difference. I did not document any crime in the obtaining of the information. It is a fundamental aspect in this situation.” When the director of the newspaper at that time, Laura Martínez, anonymously received the document, she brought it to the reporters. Vinicio interviewed representative Sánchez first, and, four days later, Lorna interviewed Casas. “They tried to deceive the citizens by abusing the freedom of expression,” Faith says. “From the point of view of the media, I think the system allowed it so the facts could be known. And it’s good. It is a positive.” Up until the moments before the national referendum on CAFTA, the country was sharply divided, with a majority favoring the “no” vote. According to a poll published in La Nación, a mainstream Costa Rican newspaper, on Oct. 4, 2007, three days before the referendum took place, 55 percent supported the “no” vote, while 43 percent were in support of the “yes” vote. The reporters felt a journalistic responsibility to publish the memo, despite governmental pressures to withhold the information. Lorna Chacón said Casas maintained the memo was a private document and not to be published. “It is a delicate issue if it is a private or a public document,” Lorna Chacón says. “It (Semanario Universidad) was a very small media outlet without a lot of power and without the economic power like the big media outlets. Thus we felt a great deal of pressure not to publish.” However, this issue was resolved in the Supreme Court of Elections in Costa Rica. The Supreme Court of Elections ruled that the memo was in fact a public document and could be published. Martínez simply stated, “We won the battle.”
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Despite the publication of the memo, Costa Rica approved CAFTA in the referendum by a very narrow margin: 51.5 percent supported the agreement. And even though former Vice President Casas followed advice from both sides to resign, his political career in the long run was apparently salvageable; he is now Secretary for Political Affairs at the Organization of American States (OAS). His mini-bio on the OAS website does not mention that he was involved in this scandal, but does not fail to mention he attended the University of Oxford for his Ph.D. in Political Science. It’s clear the publication of the memo in Costa Rica was a turning point for freedom of expression in Costa Rica. The situation was akin to that of the Pentagon Papers in the United States, where the public had the right to know the presidential administration was lying about key national policies. “But they had to be cautious”, Martínez warned. “Be careful with your lives because the government will be watching your movements,” she said to Vinicio and Lorna before they published. Semanario Universidad, the newspaper that published the article, was “not a friend of power” at the time of the memo’s publication; it did not totally agree with the ideas of the government. After Vinicio’s interview with representative Sánchez, he went to a restaurant with the recorder that had the interview verifying Sánchez had written the “memo of fear” in his bag. But during his meal, somebody stole the recorder - presumably, government intelligence had attempted to intervene. Fortunately, Vinicio had saved the recording on a computer. In the wake of the court’s ruling that the document was public, the journalists could move forward with a sense of calm. In the United States, the seminal Zenger Trial set the precedent that truth could be used as a defense in a defamation case, which was perceived as a victory for liberty in general. In Costa Rica at this time, officials had less room to make moves to prevent publication in light of the Costa Rican decision stating correspondence between public officials was considered public information. Yet Casas was still trying
Photo: Jennifer ball
THE JOURNALIST: Lorna Chacón interviewed Kevin Casas, one of the authors of the “memo of fear.” She won a journalism award as a result of the article she published with her colleague. to figure out who the anonymous source was that leaked the memo to the press one year later, according to Martínez. “In Costa Rica and at the level of human rights, a convention exists that permits us to not reveal a source to protect the people who give us the information because he or she then could have problems with his or her jobs and have danger with his or her lives,” Martínez said. The memo of fear turned out to be a victory for freedom of speech in Costa Rica - the right to publish prevailed. And you can quote Lorna and Vinicio Chacón on that. The study resulting in this publication was assisted by a grant from the Undergraduate Research Grant Program which is administered by Northwestern University’s Office of the Provost. However, the conclusions, opinions, and other statements in this publication are the author’s and not necessarily those of the sponsoring institution.
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Why I am going to hell From the Fall 2002 issue: What’s worse than hell? One artist argues hell might not be that bad in the face of religious bigotry. by KYLE SCHAFER
Religion in general can be an amazing thing. It gives people something to believe in, something to hold on to. It saves people in the most literal sense - it brought someone I know out of a suicidal depression that nearly killed him. It inspires people to help others, to try make a positive difference in the world. It gives meaning, focus, drive. It is powerful in these important ways, but its very power can make it dangerous as well. This danger is worth considering. So let’s, for a hopefully non-offensive moment, step away from our particular religious convictions and assume, however uncertainly, that some higher Christian power is indeed out there, creating, destroying, and watching us all. Many people view this god as a great benefactor, but only to an inner circle of friends, to those that worship him. (I will stick to the human, male pronoun for ease of use.) In this view, it seems that god is pursuing a cult-like following of himself, offering flashy incentives to join such as eternal existence in heaven, with eternal damnation as the only alternative. If such a god was truly all knowing, though, he would have to understand that humans have limitations and cannot be divided neatly. Many people throughout history, in times before Christ or in places such as pre-colonial Africa, simply were not exposed to the ideas of Christianity and therefore could not worship the Christian god. Did they all go to hell? If so, I would not want to believe in the unjust god that sent them there. Not only is it unappealing, it is also dangerous to trap ourselves in a belief that god is egotistical and unaccepting. I don’t think that the being/ force that we believe in, and are supposedly a part, should be akin to a schoolyard bully or a world military hegemon, marching forcefully around with a club of damnation and a “with us or against us” attitude; it is this attitude that can breed war, division, hatred, and other dangerous by-products of self-righteousness. Many who have this attitude would probably have a hard time seeing it this way, though, and the reasons are not surprising.
To some of these people, they are right, and everyone else is wrong. Whether part of religious doctrine or individually conceived, with with-usor-against-us model is a means to justify one thing against everything else. It is self-protecting and it makes sense-everyone believes in his or her own beliefs. Not everything in this scheme is based on the self, though, and many who share a dangerous self-righteous attitude are out to help people. And they really believe that spreading their religion does this. They believe that god is willing to let everyone into his inner circle, and that once you’re in, you can be saved. And so here we are, in a situation where the idea of god’s inner circle is accepted, but is portrayed as a method of salvation, not as a way of bullying. It is seen by its followers as a great, accepting institution, something to live for, something to die for, and something that everyone is welcome to all you have to do is believe. It is an amazing and powerful thing , but what happens if you don’t believe , or if you believe something different, as so many people in this world do? How can we know who is right? My answer is that we can’t. How can we say that those of one religion or even of one denomination are ultimately correct when we have no way of proving such an absolute truth? We do not have a foolproof way of determining the true path to a true religion- if we did, we could all agree. The fact that such a diversity of religions exists, that so many people believe so deeply in such a wide range of spiritual paths, may suggest that either everyone is on the wrong path or, more likely, that there is not one path at all, but instead that there are many. So what does this all mean? It means that people should try to realize that their religion and way of life may not be the only way to find salvation with whatever higher being may exist. It means that people should try to plow against the force that tells them that they are the only ones that are spiritually correct. It means that everyone has the freedom of individual belief, and that this
“ If I ever were to
believe in something supernatural, it could not be in something that divides people and creates tension.
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freedom should be recognized on a personal and spiritual level. It means tolerance. It follows, then, that it also means the breakdown of forces that help to divide the world. Religion, and especially fundamentalism, currently helps foster a feeling of supremacy in people. It also fosters a certain fear, a belief that people with different views are a threat to some defined “truth.” On a small scale, this feeling has caused friends of mine to look down upon me, to try to convince me that my views are entirely incorrect; such an attitude has caused tension that has been sadly impossible to overcome. The same principle acts on a larger scale and in a more dangerous way. The self-righteousness and fear religion and fundamentalism sometimes create can push people to violence, to force their beliefs on others through whatever means necessary. The result has been a world history too often full of bigotry-based war. Religious tolerance helps to destroy these feelings of supremacy and fear, though. It takes way the parts of religion that act to divide the world rather than bring it together. Thus, I see tolerance as a reasonable lens through which to view higher power. Only if we can all accept that it’s okay for everyone to hold differing beliefs will we be in a state of harmony, a state of peace, a state of spiritual accord with something greater than ourselves and our group of friends. I know it’s hard. I know as well as anyone how difficult it can be to accept someone else’s disagreeing beliefs, and on an individual level, I don’t expect that to immediately change. But at some point, I would like to see greater acceptance of the idea that symbiosis with a higher power can manifest itself in different ways for different people and that all these people can benefit, even if they disagree on the details. These are pretty big words coming from me, but I believe in them. If I ever were to believe in something supernatural, it could not be in something that divides people and creates tension. In my mind, that defeats the purpose of something supernatural. Something supernatural such as a god should transcend the human tendency of dividing us versus them, of “I am right and you are wrong.” And therefore if we want to be a part of that higher existence, I think that we should spiritually try to transcend those things too. Of course, I accept the fact that you may not agree with me. In fact, I don’t even expect you to - I know that I don’t have everything figured out. I just hope that you take the time to consider my belief, or more importantly, that you respect my right to hold it.
Fast facts from years past quips from the archives
There have been a total of 44 issues of The Protest since its inception in 1999
Many alumni, including awardwinning journalist Johnathan Katz once wrote for The Protest
The Protest has been the premiere and only social justicefocused publication at Northwestern since its existence.
The Protest is the official publication of the Peace Project, which also has been around since 1999.
Dateline Bolivia: All the patriarchy of home From the Spring 2002 issue: Our writer describes his experience studying abroad in Cochabomba, Bolivia after his host mom found an unexpected surprise. by pete micek
After studying abroad in Bolivia for the past six weeks, I’ve learned a lot about the world. Before I came to live in Cochabamba, a pleasant city of 400,000 people, I never would have thought that a whorehouse could be the nicest house in the neighborhood. Before visiting the Amazon, I never would have believed that the ashes of a slashed-andburned rainforest would be so beautiful to local farmers. Before studying the Mujeres Creando, I never would have thought that a women’s group would need to throw dynamite at police. Yes, it’s rather easy to find poverty, sex, and violence in Bolivia. Bolivia is a country in South America without any beaches. That means there aren’t many Americans here. Actually, the only Americans I’ve seen are fellow students, a history professor, and some muscular, crew-cut dudes with US army duffel bags in the airport. I went up to the youngest one, who had a crucifix on his baseball hat, and asked, “Which way to the war?” He didn’t reply. Bolivians aren’t supposed to see U.S. government agents anymore, especially not the ones from the Drug Enforcement Agency. A few years ago they got into the newspapers a lot or breaking Bolivian laws while fighting the country’s evil coca farmers, unemployed miners who survive by growing plants that look like tobacco plants in North Carolina. The reason the DEA isn’t killing Carolinians is that the evil Bolivians help make a drug that destroys the lives of millions of addicted US citizens. Christ.
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A paradox like that can only be solved by Tom Kruse. He’s our history professor. Tom Kruse spent the 1980s in Central America. He is bearded and skinny, skinny in that special way vegans know so well. In the best class he taught to the 15 American students in our program , he gave an amazing clear lecture on international politics post-WW2 in the context of first world “development” of underdeveloped” nations. Me and some other guys asked a bunch of questions. The girls in our group didn’t say much. They never do. Then Tom Kruse read us poetry. After a couple of poems, he figured out the guys in our group, the ones that talk a lot in class, didn’t know much about poetry. “You have been in college too long,” he said. ‘You need to start reading poetry.” But I couldn’t pay attention to the poetry. My mind was wandering and I remembered the night of 11 September, as I do a lot. The night I rode a nus through the crowded streets of Cochabamba. It seemed like everyone was reading a special edition of the city’s main newspaper. I bought one. When I got home I laid the paper down flat on the carpet so it wouldn’t get creased. I thought it would look good framed on a wall when I got back to the US. I am a bit disconnected from all the WTC/ war stuff. It’s not just because I’m in Bolivia or because I haven’t been affected personally. My brother works close to the buildings; but he’s had many opportunities to see the connection between us interests and the killing of poor civilians. He now works for Goldman Sachs, a big financial firm in downtown New York, and cheats on his girlfriend. He knows what he’s doing. Everyone close to me understands why the U.S. is hated, so I’m not worried about any of them. Right now I’m worried about Bolivia. Here’s why. The special edition Sept. 11 paper lay on my floor for weeks. Then the mother of the family I’m staying with decided to vacuum my room while I was away for the weekend. She picked up the paper, folded it lightly and put it on a shelf. I found it there the morning when I got back from my trip. I’m trying to forget about the rest of the stuff my house mom did in my room while I was gone, so instead I’ll tell you about my trip. I went with my fellow students to some old Bolivians mining towns, one was Potosi. A hundred years ago it was the third biggest city in the world. Now it’s really cold and poor but kind of charming. In Potosi we visited the old silver mines
located within the big mountain near the town. The mountain is called Cerro Rico or Rich Mountain. The miners told us it was a pile of shit left by the Spaniards. Before arriving we all bought stuff to give to the poor old miners. I purchased a little plastic baggie containing stick o’ dynamite and a shiny metal detector. I gave the first to the first miner I saw. I think he was drunk, He lit the wick, stuck the dynamite down his shirt and called himself a terrorist, laughing the whole time. Then he threw the stick down the mountain and it blew up, creating a cloud of smoke. We entered the mountain. Our whole way down there was a hissing pipe of air above our heads. Other than that, the miners told us the conditions had not changed a single bit since the Spaniards arrived a few hundred years ago. I found out later that one thing had changed recently. Women were allowed to enter the mountain a couple of years ago. As we walked around and down a bit, we felt sorry for the miners and gave them some coca leaves to ease their pain. They chew huge wads and it helps them forget things. They have a lot to forget, like all the slaves and drunken miners who’ve died in Cerro Rico. The fact that the government privatized the mines in 1985, putting most minors out of work, ending the once-power miners’ union, and starting the coca farming industry doesn’t help the medicine, go down either. We all stopped to chew some coca leaves with the miner. I guess we wanted to forget too. After squeezing through some tight holes, going deeper and deeper into Cerro Rico, we found ourselves in the presence of the miner’s god. God lives in a room blown up by dynamite. He has snakes rising from his head and a giant stone cock rising from his crotch. The floor of His sanctuary is covered in piles of chewed up coca leaves that look like a pile of shit. The Spaniards conjured him up from hell in an effort to scare the savages into working harder. Nowadays He smokes away the workers’ paychecks each Tuesday and Friday when they offer Him rolled cigarettes and burning alcohol. Once our tour group was all accounted for, our hot-ass our guide lit the fucker on fire. I sat a couple of feet from His huge flaming cock , hundreds of feet below the entrance of the raped mountain I invented a Devil on the spot and prayed that He would kill this horrid beast. And I felt bad. The horny laming bastard was still dancing on my retinas when I got back to my room in Cocha-
bamba. I just wanted to sleep but my bed was in the wrong place. So was all my stuff. It seems like the while I was gone my house mother took it upon herself to make my bed, rearrange my room, wash all my dirty clothes , take out the trash, go through the drawers of my night stand, resole and stitch up my shoes, vacuum my room , and arrange the spare change on my night stand. I can reconstruct her actions but not her motives. Here it goes. House mom entered my room with the intent to vacuum. The task was prohibited by the mass of dirty clothes strewn throughout the room. Once the clothes had been collected, washed, ironed and folded she noticed one lonely sock in need of a match. She re-entered my room with the intent to match socks. Not seeing a solitary sock, she proceeded to investigate the closed drawers of my night stand. But before she could open a single drawer, the mass of spare change on the top of the night stand caught her attention. She stacked the change, neatly and went on with her work. As she inspected by lower drawer, she happened upon my Brazilian porno mag. Interested, she removed the mag from the drawer Bad fucking move. The crusty week old cum catching sock beneath the Brazilian porno awoke up with a musty breath of disgust, I can only pray to my new devil that her happiness at fining my missing sock overcame her dismay a finding out that her dismay at finding out that her new son is a masturbator, She washed, dried and neatly folded the cum catcher together with its match on the shelf of the portable, plastic closet that sits in the corner of my room. And she needed to vacuum. The only obstacle left in her way was my pair of dukes, my old skate shoes that looked like they’d been on tour for a few times in a punk band. Passed down to me from several friends, those fuckers were the punkest pair of shoes I’d ever wore. Not anymore. The morning when I got back from my trip and found my clean room, my switched, cleaned and resoled Dukes, my pile of change, and the matching pair of socks, I told my house mom that I’m just too darn lucky, that she didn’t need to do all that housework. “Don’t worry,” she said laughing, “That’s all I ever do.” I felt bad. And that’s why I’m going to hang out with that radical women’s group next month.
The inner workings of the penis From the Winter 2001 issue: How feminism lost its footing after 9/11, and what that means for patriarchy by blaine bookey and jenny abrahamian
Cover from the May 2001 issue of The Protest
How ironic that the United States waited six years to recognize that the Taliban government of Afghanistan was practicing gender apartheid. Several womens’ organizations including the Feminist majority in the United States, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, and countless others across the world have been attempting to expose the Taliban and their human rights violations since 1996. The feminist majority documented that prior to the Civil War and Taliban control, especially in Kabul, the capital, women in Afghanistan were educated and employed: 50% of the students and 60% of the teachers at Kabul University were women, and 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilian government workers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul were women.” After the takeover in 1996 women were no longer allowed to leave their homes unless they wore burqa clothing and were accompanied by a male relative. The burqa covers the entire body, leaving only a small mesh opening for the eyes. Woemn are no longer given the right to education, and they are not allowed to become doctors or be seen by male doctors,essentially denying them medical care. Apparently, “saving” the women of Afghanistan only became a priority after the U.S. government could use their oppression to support retaliatory propaganda. Uncle Sam vs. Uncle Osama The leaders of the United States claim that this country is the pillar of democracy
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“
Cover from the Dec. 2003 issue of The Protest
If I ever were to believe in something supernatural, it could not be in something that divides people and creates tension. logical end. For lack of energy or confidence in our own convictions. Patriarchy should be recognized for what it is , as it affects all of us. Common social interactions as well as high-level government decisions must be dismantled on a regular basis to expose these hidden hypocrisies.
from HI
the
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estingly enough, 44 of all of the columns were characterized as strictly supporting a military response while only two favored “non-military solutions” Implicit gender dichotomies extend even throughout college campus and within the peace activist community. The Northwestern Chronicle, Daily Northwestern and yes, even the Protest seems to be commandeered by male voices when the issue of 11 September is mentioned. It is striking that even in our own conversations about war and peace we resign ourselves to the male opinion as the
AR C
and freedom. They have assumed the role of knight in shining armor swooping down to save the “helpless” Afghan women. In reality it works out to be one patriarchy against another. George W. Bush and his testosterone team claim to be the good forces of the west “smoking out” the evil terrorists in the east (those devilish dark bearded men). So how exactly do carpet bombs stop oppression of women A quick answer: they kill them. Free society is suffering when militarism is seen as the only strategy to bring justice to the victim of 11 September. A country is not a pillar of freedom and democracy when its foreign policy is based in patriarchal values. Bombs, the penile extensions of patriarchal government- look no further than the renaming of ‘carpet bombing” to “long-stick bombing”-are nothing more than tools of destruction and domination. One particularly insightful analysis of this gendered militarism was published in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Essays in 1994 by Colleen Burke: In a hierarchical structure of domination and submission, there must be someone on the bottom, in a patriarchal system that is delegated to women… Thus, patriarchy (and the military) has to define feminine traits in opposition to masculine ones. If soldiers (and by extension all ‘real’ men) are strong an brave and aggressive, then “real” women must be the opposite: weak, passive and in need of protection. This reinforces the strength and potency of the masculine soldier. The very essence of militarism relies on the creation and domination of the other. When it is adopted as a strategy of justice, the civilian victims of the oppressive regime become feminized as the other, because they are in need of fatherly protection. Bombs become righteous and penises become glorified. Where the media are most lacking is the under representation of women’s opinions about the 11 September. The media watchdog organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting recently analyzed the op/ed columns in the New York Times and The Washington Post and found that women wrote a mere 15 out of 186 opinion pieces related to 11 September. Inter-
VES
There is no sand on the northern corner of Ilha de Maré – the Island of the Tide – in Salvador, Bahia; only seashells, mud and emptied crabs. The township of Martelo is small and everyone is somehow related. Nonetheless, people still found a way to divide the Brazilian town into four communities along the main road: Ponta Grossa, Passa Cavalo, La Invasão and Martelo.
Nothing really differentiates the communities. Everyone fishes, collecting seashells and crabs in the mangrove hugging the island shore at low tide and going out to sea on wooden canoes to catch fish at high tide. Life is caught between chicken screeches, lunchtime and caprices of the tide. Although Ilha de Maré technically belongs to Salvador, time works in an entirely distinct dimension. The concepts of urgency and punctuality do not exist. The tide and the sun are the ultimate masters. People spend their days gossiping, cooking lunch, taking bucket baths, repairing fishnets, collecting firewood, fishing, cleaning fish and emptying crabs. They sell their goods every week at different market fairs in the peripheries of Salvador. Some say it’s paradise here – they
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fish on their own time and live off their craft. Their entire family is nearby, surrounded by all types of lush fruit trees that belong to everyone. Others say they have merely gotten used to their poverty, their violated rights and the neglect that they withstand. The citizens of Martelo have grown complacent about the ubiquitous teenage pregnancies, single mothers, alcoholism and violence against women. They have grown complacent about the absent high school, the hour-long walk to the island’s health post, and the lack of opportunity and choice. “I like to fish, but it was an obligation,” Josemar, my 30-year-old host father, said. “That is to say, it is necessity itself that obligates a fisherman. Even if I wanted to be somebody else, there is no way to be.” When I asked Josemar’s wife Veronica about what age girls have babies here, she said
it is common for 13-year-olds to be pregnant. Upon seeing my raised eyebrows, she replied, in the same tone as her answer to my complaint about the multitude of mosquitoes, “Aqui é assim, a gente ja se acostumou.” That’s the way it is here. We’ve grown accustomed. Things are changing in sleepy Martelo, however. In the spirit of resistance of its founding, the community is putting up a fight to claim its rights. While Martelo obtained recognition as a Quilombo-descendant community in 2005, it is still going through the legal processes to get the land title. Quilombos were communities of runaway slaves and continue today as spaces of resistance for Afro-Brazilians. The word comes from Kimbundu, a Bantu language spoken in Angola, and referred to warrior societies from
PHOTO: LEAH VARJACQUES
Lourdes Ferrera de jesus, josemar’s mother and my host grandmother, makes dende, or red african palm oil, a staple in bahian cooking. this artisanal production is one of the many identifiers of quilombola identity.
what is today Angola. The Brazilian Black Movement’s activism and organization in the 1960s and 70s, largely inspired from the U.S. Civil Rights movement, brought recognition to Quilombos, politicizing these rural black communities around concepts of identity, traditional peoples’ rights, and historical systematic oppression. The people of Martelo know their ancestors lived in Quilombos. The fallen ruins of the sugar mill and Master house are still topping the high hill at the end of the main road. They tower imperial palms, the only visible testament from below to a history of violent exploitation and ruthless oppression on this quiet island. The Black Movement dug up this history and activists from Salvador came in to teach the com-
munity about the significance of Quilombola ancestry, the concept of rights and the necessity of redressing the legacy of systematic inequity. But how do you get a fisherman to suddenly develop a political consciousness and identity with which he can claim his human rights, a concept that may be foreign to him? How do you get a village to embrace the idea of self-determination, when, by virtue of the fact that a stranger is educating the village on all of this, it is by nature not self-determined? Elivandro, the only university-educated member of the community, explains to me that to begin changing history one must understand that “we are moving a history we did not write, and for this we must change it.” People did not change the future because they did not know their past, so they could not alter their present, he says.
The black movement, with the promotion of Brazil’s new constitution in 1988, successfully criminalized racism and recognized Quilombola identity and land. The Ministry of Culture created the Palmares Cultural Foundation (PCF) in 1988 to “promote the preservation of cultural, social and economic values deriving from African influence in the formation of Brazilian society.” PCF is in charge of recognizing Quilombola communities, an extensive process that requires anthropologists to vet community history, identity and practices as they match the definition of “traditional peoples” and possess the agreed-upon characteristics of Quilombo life. Such characteristics include the presence of traditions such as artisanal fishing, hunting and cooking. There are 2,007 officially recognized Quilombola communities in Brazil according
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PHOTO: LEAH VARJACQUES
caption title: As the day’s end nears, a lone boat sails the vast waters around Salvador, Brazil.
to PCF. Of those, only 207 have the official land titles and property rights to their territory. “The title holds fundamental importance for the [racial and Quilombo-specific] policies to be better guaranteed, rights that we still don’t have with certification but will have with a title,” says Eliete, the community’s main leader. “This requires more time, more investment and money. An entire bureaucracy the state institutes to inconvenience, or delay our rights.” A community must present documented proof and apply with more than five signatures to the Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), which approves the land titles, and it can take years to get all the documentation processed. Martelo has gotten official recognition but is still waiting for the title to its territory, even though the community applied for both at the same time. Getting the title will be key for the community’s fight against Petrobras – one of the world’s largest companies and Brazil’s prided gem as one of the most successful and respect-
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ed oil companies. Petrobras drilled its first oil well in Martelo in 1957 and today has 14 wells around the island. Nine are in Martelo. Besides seafood and beer, the other pervasive presence in the community is the oil piping slithering along the roadside. The pipes sink underground and emerge up again, bending in archways above houses and spiraling downward, plunging into the mangrove mud, invisibly headed to the other side of the thin channel that separates the island from the continent, toward the state’s only oil refinery across the water. The Landulfo Alves refinery belongs to Petrobras and looks like a small city at night, when its permanent combustive flare stock lights up the darkness with an eerie rust-like color. The refinery is one of 17 Petrobras operates nationally. It is the company’s second largest in capacity and complexity, with a potential to process 323, 000 barrels of oil a day. Petrobras is the world’s 7th largest energy company and the majority stockholder is the Govern-
ment of Brazil. In Martelo, kids play soccer and ride their bikes in the oil well areas, delineated by barbed wire and “toxic zone” signs. People who live feet away from the toxic zone complain about the smell of chemicals, unnaturally high rates of respiratory illnesses and pneumonia, and disturbed sleep due to the loud sound of chemicals and oil pumping through the pipes. Eliete’s experience with the government shows it has clear-cut priorities. “This development model is perverse,” she says. “It’s a model that doesn’t respect, that has a way of saying this Black People need not exist…With this model in place, health and the environment are destined for destruction.” “We’re fighting to continue existing,” says Marizelha Lopez, a leader from another island township and an activist with the powerful national Fishermen’s Movement. “In Brazil’s history, blacks fled, reacted and resisted to this system of slavery, and what was left for us when they no longer had control over us were the
rivers and oceans. And it is exactly these areas now that all are looking to exploit.” Martelo first took Petrobras to court in 2009, after the largest oil spill in the area. The spill killed thousands of fish and seafood and eradicated entire species. It destroyed the mangrove swamp the people of Martelo have sourced most of their livelihood from for generations, which is only now beginning to restore itself back to normal, as the tide’s drift has over time cleaned up the petrol. “There is still oil in the swamp mud, and there are fewer species of fish and only some siri [crab],” Josemar said. “When there are oil spills, we end up unable to do what we always do, and we need to find other work in order to live.” What my host grandmother used to collect in three days, she collects in 15 to 20 days today. Petrobras never compensated Martelo for the incurred environmental destruction and their case is still being processed in Salvador’s Public Ministry. This past September, the community mobilized and blockaded Petrobras workers from leaving the community until they paved a stretch of the main road. The workers ended up graveling the stretch of the road between Petrobras’s unloading dock and the furthermost well. The community is demanding other compensation from Petrobras, such as light along the road and a new dock, which the company says is the municipality’s responsibility. But since people on the island feel completely abandoned by the municipality, there is little hope. As the current landowners of the land where Martelo sits, atop dwindling supplies of black gold, the government profits three times over from the Petrobras wells. The Law on Oil of 1997 obligates Petrobras to pay landowners an amount equivalent to one percent of the production of oil or natural gas extracted from their land every month. In terms of royalties, Petrobras must pay the municipality and state and federal governments the equivalent to 10 percent of the production of each oil or natural gas field per month. As the owners of Petrobras, recipients of oil royalties and the landowners of Martelo, the government of Brazil profits immensely from each well. Its incentive to protect the rights of this quilombo township is at odds with its economic interests. “The law needs to give the support it is supposed to provide,” Eliete says. “Because this law should prohibit the current development model established in our commu-
nities but it is constantly making compromises. Negotiating means we lose our spaces, and we have nothing left to lose. The only thing that we have left to lose is life. Because our land is our life.” One Petrobras manager’s coral satin pumps shuffle uncomfortably down Martelo’s gravel road better fit for plastic sandals. She is impeccably dressed; her shoes match her belt and her printed crepe blouse’s trimming, her white capris and auburn coiffure ablaze under the mid-afternoon sun. She is just one of many Petrobras managers who have come to the community for a meeting for the first time. The community demanded they come to Martelo to confront them with the reality Petrobras is responsible for. The village has come together in the makeshift church, a structure made of tarp and bamboo poles, waiting for the Petrobras managers in skeptical anticipation. The meeting goes on for three hours, and the community’s emotions rise and subside, sourly, to resigned anger. Petrobras managers coat their frustrations in phony patience and empty words. The company agrees to recuperate the dock, makes other promises, and provides feedback on last year’s meeting; they’ve brought the results of the environmental impact report Petrobras sponsored – a jumble of initials and numbers they don’t take the time to explain. Perhaps the most unsettling part of this exercise is the truth reflected in their weary eyes, revealing the irresolvable clash between realms in which satin pumps and plastic sandals distinctly operate: the impossibility of empathy in a world where Petrobras’s satin pumps are predicated upon Martelo’s destruction and abandonment. But in this unoriginal power differential, the tenacity of human resilience defines the community. “What we want is to be a rock in Petrobras’s shoe,” Eliete says determinedly. “They are a giant monster, but that doesn’t scare us. If anything, it strengthens our defiance.” The people of Martelo at least have themselves to fight, and the tide for the rest.
WATCH OUR
DOCUMENTARY!
Paradise Lost: Faced with the encroaching threat of big oil, the people of the island of Martelo must fight to preserve the prosperity they once knew.
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HOW TO GET A GREEN CARD 101 Four women. Four overstayed visas. Four stories about fighting to stay in the United States. by Katarina Kosmina
L
ike a Picasso painting, most of the facts presented here are scrambled, blurred, mismatched and repainted. Identities are given aliases, hidden, and generalized. Although everything written in the following paragraphs is a pastiche of different truths, the stories are real, and, at least for now, that is the only thing that should matter. What is asked of you, reader, is a lack of judgment.
Illustrations: Sarah Sherman
an
Selma, age 28 from Bosnia and Herzegovinia
S
elma came on a tourist visa a couple of years ago. The visa expired a long time ago, but she wants to stay where she is, where she sees her future. The option she chose a year ago was green card marriage. Before we jump to a romantic comedy scenario resembling that of the Oscar-nominated film “Green Card,” this is a story which currently does not come with an ending, particularly not a happy one. Selma found an American citizen of the same race and age willing to be married with her for the next 5-6 years until she gets a Green card and a U.S. passport. They directed their bills to the same address. They got married. They staged birthdays, a New Year’s celebration, Valentine’s, family dinners, a picnic, movie nights and other couplefriendly events that are a must when you bring your photo album to the immigration officer so she or he can verify that your marriage is real and grant a Green card. They learned each other’s information by heart: birthday dates, names of parents, phone numbers, tattoo placements, and their favorite color just in case. This process lasted around a year and amounted to around $10,000 cost for Selma. It would have cost around $20,000 if she had gotten the Green card. But after the immigration interview and months of waiting, the conclusion made was that their marriage was not credible due to both her husband and her being officially unemployed, with no legal revenue and him supporting three children. So Selma and her Green card husband got a divorce. She presently lives as one of the most law-abiding individuals, not citizens, in U.S. She is afraid of being stopped by the police and asked for documentation because deportation is an always present possibility.
A
Jovana, age 25 from Serbia
Ana, age 24 from Macedonia
na came through one of many workstudy programs available to students outside of U.S. She made the same decision as Selma and found herself a Green card husband. Born to Mexican parents and in his mid-twenties, she chose to marry him despite being warned by other immigrants that a couple from different racial backgrounds face more issues in such a process. Apart from that, until the day of the interview, Ana had arranged everything according to the unwritten book orally preached by formerly illegal immigrants. They agreed to hold hands during their conversation with the immigration officer in order to appear more convincing. The plan was not set into motion because they were immediately separated and interviewed individually. Five months after the interview, Ana is still waiting for a response. Her expenses up until now have surpassed $15,000.
F
aced with the same wish to remain in United States and the same excruciatingly narrow set of options as Selma and Ana, Jovana found a Serbian guy who grew up in Illinois and has citizenship. Ignoring the costs of the Green card project this time, they went into the interview together. He has a job, but he also has two kids and a recently ended marriage. Some questions were asked about the marriage by the immigration officer. Additional questions went along the lines of where and how they had met, their feelings about each other and their marriage, and the proposal. Jovana got her Green card a few days after the interview.
Ivana, age 29 from Macedonia
I
n the copy-pasted situation as Jovana, Ivana had more luck in finding a Marine willing to marry for a Green card. They’re of the same age group and same racial background. They went through the same staging and planning as did the previous couples. They were asked the same questions and filled the same forms. Ivana got her Green card during the interview.
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NU reacts to affirmative action
BY THE NUMBERS
by matthew gates
T
he 2014-2015 Northwestern admission rate will probably be lower than it has ever been. Tens of thousands of students from across the country and world, all with different backgrounds and life experiences, applied for the same 2,000 seats. Admission to elite universities is tough - and among a host of factors, race can play a role. Affirmative action has long been a widely-debated issue, and it gained more notoriety in 2013 by way of Abigail Fischer, a white student denied from the University of Texas at Austin. Fischer sued the university, and eventually, her case made it to the Supreme Court. The court did not outlaw consideration of race in college admissions, but sent the case back to lower courts for further proceedings. Racial equality remains far from achieved - at least, in the economic sense. According to a 2011 Pew Research Poll, the net worth of the average white household is 20 times that of the average black household and 18 times that of the average Hispanic household. Proponents of affirmative action justify the practice by citing the toll taken by social discrimination on the success of minority racial groups. Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, of UChicago and MIT respectively, did a study in which they sent out 5,000 fake resumes for a range of positions. They found that applicants with “white-sounding names” were 50 percent more likely to receive an interview than applicants with “black sounding names,” despite the resumes being otherwise equally competitive. In a 2013 Gallup Poll, 67 percent of American adults believed that students should be admitted to college “solely based on merit, even if that results in few minorities being admitted” while 28 percent believed race should be considered even if that means “admitting some minority students that otherwise would not be admitted.” California voters went so far as to ban affirmative action in 1996, causing a large enough decrease in the number of black and Hispanic students that in 2006, only 98 in 5000 students in its freshman class identified as African-American. Instituting a “holistic” review process that
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67 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SAY STUDENTS SHOULD BE ADMITTED SOLELY BASED ON MERIT 28 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SAY RACE SHOULD BE A FACTOR IN ADMISSIONS
71% (1987)
AGREE DISAGREE
65% (2007)
31%
62% (2012) 33%
24%
WE SHOULD MAKE EVERY EFFORT TO IMPROVE THE POSITION OF MINORITIES EVEN IF IT MEANS PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT
310 IN CONSIDERING RACE AND SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS IN COLLEGE ADMISSIONS, THE EQUIVALENT OF 310 ON THE SAT IS PROVIDED TO BLACK STUDENTS, BUT ALMOST NONE TO ECONOMICALLY DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS
SOURCES: PEW RESEARCH CENTER, GALLUP
included family income and first-generation student status helped raise the number of minorities on campus again, but controversy surrounding equity in admissions remains prevalent in the state. Not all who belong to racial minorities believe in affirmative action. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has stated his belief, apparently due to personal experience, that affirmative action stigmatizes minority students who succeed educationally because potential employers inaccurately attribute their success to affirmative action rather than skill. The 80-20 National Asian American Foundation also opposes affirmative action and filed a brief in support of Fischer, stating that using “race as a ‘plus factor’ for can apply race as a ‘minus factor’” to others. According to the brief, Asian American students “who demonstrate academic excellence at disproportionately high rates but often find the value of their work discounted on account of either their race, or nebulous criteria alluding to it” suffer unjustly due to affirmative action. Northwestern Director of Asian American Studies Carolyn Chen supports affirmative action. It “actually benefits Asian American groups, as it has all minorities, in creating more diversity overall,” she said, adding that “Asian Americans would be better off making common cause with other minorities who also face obstacles entering elite institutions.” One popular suggestion is affirmative action on the basis of socioeconomic status rather than race. A study by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose of Georgetown found that affirmative action in college admissions provided the equivalent of 310 SAT points to black students but almost none to economically disadvantaged students. Northwestern students hold a variety of perspectives. Weinberg freshman Sharon Fan believes affirmative action should remain because it “is a good system to reduce the disparity of opportunity between different races.” But she notes that “like any system it has flaws” and some students may “misrepresent their racial identity to try to trick the system.” Medill freshman Isabella Alvarenga says that “it is important to have diversity of all kinds on campus. I think race should be a factor in admission but affirmative action should focus primarily on socioeconomic status because the poor are the most disadvantaged group in America today.” Affirmative action remains a contested issue, and may well for years to come. In a 2003 ruling in favor of affirmative action, Supreme Court Justice Sandra De O’Connor predicted that, “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
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