JHR Spring 2017 by Journal of Human Rights at NYU

THE JOURNAL OF

HUMAN RIGHTS Spring 2017

Volume XXII

Spring 2017

THE Journal of Human RiGHTS VOLUME XXII

Thank you to all our contributors, to our executive board, to everyone who attends our meetings and to NYU for funding this journal.

team + contributors Writers

Executive Board

Samarth Chadda Charlotte Graham Emily Hockett Sabrina Illiano Sarah Marie Jackson Kristine Jordan Michael Landes Devin Lee Nieve Mooney Jean Louise Morgenstern Nikki Tabibian

President & Designer Maxwell Smith

Cover Photo Opheli Garcia Lawler

Vice-President Lavanya Hinduja Social Media Director Eva Mooney Treasurer Sueda Bolukoglu

contents Capitalism as a Human Rights Crisis

Michael Landes

A History of Silence: Ireland and Abortion

Comparing Dialectical and Discursive Modes of Development

In the Wake of 2016: Understanding the Rise in Hate Crimes

Legislation and Education: The Effects of Brown vs Board of Education

Nieve Mooney

Emily Hockett

Kristine Jordan

Nikki Tabibian

Watching A Genocide Unfold In Myanmar

Charlotte Graham

Signature Strikes Sarah Marie Jackson

Human Rights and Religious Symbols

Samarth Chadda

Human Rights Violations of NYU Abu Dhabi and the Kafala System

Sabrina Illiano

Child Marriage: Putting Women Before Tradition

Devin Lee

The Profound Danger of U.S. Escalation in Syria

Max Smith

Can You Spare Some Change? Jean Louise Morgenstern

cAPITALISM AS A HUMAN rights crisis Michael landes Socialism is experiencing a renaissance in American politics. In 2012, “socialist” and “communist” were used by the Tea Party to slander Democrats, and just four years later, the nation saw Bernie Sanders run for president, a self-identified socialist who ultimately garnered millions of votes. Since the start of 2016, the Democratic Socialists of America has seen their membership almost double, and many other groups are expanding their fundraising and membership bases (Wolford). Whether or not these organizations or candidates represent what may be called “true” socialism is unclear, but the interest in anti-capitalist economic structures is real and, hopefully, here to stay. The arguments against capitalism, from Proudhon and Marx on to Alain Badiou and Wolfgang Streeck, are legion, but hinge on some basic complaints: capitalism is unjust and unequal, limiting the freedoms of individuals to self-determine and causing vast economic inequalities in order to provide more profit for the most privileged individuals. While these arguments are compelling, they do not provide a complete picture

of the effects of capitalism. Generally, economic discourse has fallen short of referring to capitalism as a human rights crisis. Such a definition is counterintuitive; when we imagine a human rights crisis, it might last around twenty years, while capitalism has been the dominant global economic system for centuries. There are also many subcategories within capitalism, such as mercantile capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, industrialization and neo-liberalism. Could all of these systems, past and present, match the definition necessary to be labelled a human rights crisis? What distinguishes a situation from being simply unjust to constituting a violation of basic human rights, and what distinguishes an infringement of human rights from what could be called a crisis? Perhaps most importantly, the linguistic choice to call capitalism a human rights issue rather than an issue of justice may be seen as purely rhetorical. But the label used to describe the global effects of capitalism determines the solutions applied to the problem. A given situation can be more just or less just; the term implies a spectrum, capped at either end with “just” and “unjust”. Though a given human rights crisis may be more se-

vere than another, a state of affairs cannot be “more crisis-like” or “less crisis-like”. A crisis is a definition, not a property. Therefore, the way an unjust situation is solved is fundamentally different from the way a crisis is solved. An unjust situation can be incrementally improved upon until it eventually reaches a point of justice or “as just as possible”, but there is only one solution to a human rights crisis: stop the crisis. Injustice, for many, is often tolerable or even expected (so goes the adage, “Life is unfair”). A human rights crisis must be dealt with, and to ignore such a crisis is, to most individuals, completely intolerable. Can capitalism, therefore, be called a human rights crisis, demanding an immediate response? To affirm that capitalism as it exists now and has always existed does infringe on human rights is an easy job–– in all its incarnations, capitalism has generated a vast underclass of people unable to rise above their means, from slavery, to immigrants who labored in sweatshops, to overseas manufacturing today. At various points and in various ways, capitalism even caused loss of life on an enormous scale, from genocidal projects in colonial lands, to processing plants which used lead and

arsenic in ways that endangered the workers, to human-made climate disasters today. The question then becomes: is a form of capitalism imaginable which does not necessitate these disasters? If capitalism can be “perfected” in a manner that erases these injustices, then capitalism itself is not a human rights crisis, but has benefited from many crises over the centuries. If not, those who are interested in providing human rights for all must immediately regard capitalism itself as an untenable state of affairs that needs immediate dismantling. Capitalism is predicated in its purest form on wage labor. Competition between individuals for jobs at businesses that are similarly competing will create a generally just situation. People with more merit will rise in a given business, gaining more wages and improving their livelihood. Businesses with more merit will increase their profitability because they will be more frequently chosen by consumers. This is the ideal capitalist system (of course the true “perfect capitalism” changes depending on individual authors and standards), but, without any further complication, it already features irreconcilable issues. The one most relevant to a human rights based criticism of capi-

talism is that it conflates luxuries and necessities for laborers. A worker purchasing dinner must use the wages that she receives. If a worker loses her job, she is no longer able to purchase dinner and must go hungry for that night. Whether this is because her business closed, or because she was an inefficient worker, this is an unjust situation. Her survival should not be necessarily tied to her productivity; her right to life is at least threatened, if not outright taken away. Capitalism directly links survival to certain measures of productivity. No matter how diverse these measures of productivity may be, capitalism’s treatment of those who do not follow these measures is certainly unjust. But this could be imaginably solved through various reforms––most popular are things like food stamps, public housing, and the most socialist incarnation of these reforms, the UBI or universal basic income. These could work, and often do. However, there is a more basic problem with capitalism’s conflation of productivity with survival: the psychological impact on workers and the unemployed, one which has long been known but has only recently entered the national (and perhaps soon the international) conversation. Out of American laborers, the most consistently privileged have been white, cis-gendered and heterosexual males––these men have suffered as laborers in unjust systems, but more than any other American demographic, their labor opportunities have been relatively secure, they

have not experienced systemic discrimination on any scale, and when benefits to workers have resulted from government reforms or other related measures, they are regularly the first to profit. Only recently have they begun experiencing persistent job insecurity and unemployment, and unlike previous economic downturns, these jobs have permanently disappeared, either overseas or to automation within the factories where they used to work. Capitalism links productivity to survival; these men are no longer productive. And predictably, they have begun dying, leading to the first drop in life expectancy for their demographic in decades (Khazan). Their deaths are not a result of starvation––unemployment benefits and other programs prevent that––but rather from the opioid epidemic hitting rural and suburban America and from a rise in suicide. Though these causes are not isolated (heart disease, respiratory disease, and other causes contribute as well), they are the two primary drivers, and both are psychological in nature. Termed “despair deaths” by researchers, the trend seems clearly related to a sense of purpose, which, for laborers under capitalism, is defined by productivity (Boyle). Without productivity, there is no purpose in life, and so they die. In other words, capitalism does not simply neglect members of society who are not productive. Its psychological effects are such that capitalism actively kills off those who cease fitting its definition of “useful”.

Can capitalism be amended to solve this? It seems likely that the answer is no. Capitalism is an ideology which, like any other ideology, is predicated on certain definitions. It is these definitions that have led to the current mental health crisis in middle Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C;a crisis which will likely become the norm (and, in some ways, already has). The presence of a system which demands certain forms of obedience, and which psychologically breaks down those who do not directly serve this system, seems to be an unquestionable human rights crisis. It is worth noting, as well, that capitalism has not been a natural disaster causing famine or drought. It is a wholly human-made creation, and as a human invention, it can be dismantled. What can replace capitalism? This question preoccupies the global Left perhaps more than any other. But capitalism and its competing ideologies are typically theorized about from a fantastical basis, and not as material decisions directly affecting the rights of humans in the world. Capitalism, as the dominant and arguably only functioning economic ideology in the world today, requires interrogation and destruction first. But capitalism cannot be replaced by an ideology that similarly threatens human rights. One crisis cannot be replaced by another. Perhaps the best replacement for a crisis is no crisis at all; and perhaps the best replacement for a disastrous ideology would also be none at all.

works cited Boyle, Patricia A. “Having A Higher Purpose In Life Reduces Risk Of Death Among Older Adults.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 June 2009, www.sciencedaily.com/re leases/2009/06/090615144207.htm. Khazan, Olga. “Why Are So Many Middle-Aged White Americans Dying?” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, 29 January 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/ archive/2016/01/middle-aged-white-americans-left-behind-and-dying-early/433863/. Wolford, Ben. “The socialist movement is growing in the United States because of Trump.” Latterly. Latterly Magazine, 20 December 2016, https://latterly.org/the-socialist-move ment-is-growing-in-the-united-states-because-of-trump-5641328ecaef.

a history of silence: ireland and abortion nieve mooney The Eighth Amendment says that when Irish women become pregnant, they no longer are constitutionally recognized as fully autonomous individuals. Though abortion has never been legal, the right to life of the fetus has been explicitly enshrined into the Irish Constitution since 1983 with the passing of the Eighth Amendment. The decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) in the United States motivated the anti-choice movement in Ireland to make the explicit constitutional change, fearing an increase in the autonomy of women (Smyth 9). Their fear was heightened by the Irish Supreme Court’s ruling in Mcgee vs. Attorney General in 1973 that married couples had a right to privacy in having (though not necessarily obtaining) birth control; sexual liberation seemed to be on the horizon for Irish women. In the following ten years, individuals of the Irish anti-choice movement, which was funded by the American anti-choice movement, did everything in their power, to spread propaganda about abortion through the church and State. This culminated in the constitutionalization of

fetal rights in 1983 following a popular vote (Eighth Amendment). Ireland became the first country in a string of many to take the dire step to constitutionalize fetal rights (de Londras 1). The notion of a pregnant woman and fetus being equal can have devastating consequences. Not only does such a notion limit the medical options that a woman has, but it also creates a dilemma for doctors who do not know which “life” they should prioritize in medical emergencies. Before Ireland became an independent nation, abortion was illegal under the British Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 (de Londras 10). While the Republic of Ireland was creating its new constitution in 1937, any acts that were not repealed were still upheld, including this British colonial act. The absence of repeal was not an oversight, but rather an intentional decision “closely bound up in the self-identifying Catholicism of the Irish state at the time” (de Londras 11). Ireland became a place obsessed with morality; emphasizing their Catholicism became a means for the Irish to differentiate themselves from the English and English Protestantism. The Catholic Church was the foundation of this

new Irish society (Smyth 49-72). In a mission to keep womanhood pure, the Church constructed a kind of “femininity either in terms of vulnerable sexual innocence or motherhood,” both of which became symbols of “a national discourse of ‘Mother Ireland,’” and “the purity of women became the measure of the nation” (Smyth 46). The Church, complicit in the cultural and societal silencing of women whose expressions of sexuality did not represent Mother Ireland, contributed to placing legal restrictions on women’s reproductive rights. The relationship between the church and state in Ireland is not wholly responsible for the discursive power of the oppression of female sexuality in the country. We can observe the many ways in which women are silenced in Ireland through the Foucauldian lens of power that is “everywhere…because it comes from everywhere,” (Foucault 93). The silencing of women in Ireland is “reproduced in daily life by communities, families, and individual men and women” (Haughton 70). It is not the Pope who asks me in for tea and then chides me over my dating life, but my Irish grandmother. The language she uses is heavy with decades of lessons of teaching that women cannot be sexual beings. This perpetual silencing by family members is most exemplified in one of the biggest blights on Ireland’s history: Magdalene Laundries. The Laundries were labor asy-

lums or more aptly prisons for “fallen women” — those who had become pregnant out of wedlock or were themselves “illegitimate children”, prostitutes, or were otherwise “defective” in ways that might be problematic for Ireland’s vision of purity (Haughton 70). Women were most often sent by their family members—a point of self-defense for the Church in recent years as some of the grimmer practices in the Laundries have come to light (Haughton 70). The last Irish laundry did not close until 1996, and the records on membership are nonexistent, poorly kept, or made inaccessible by the Church. Despite the lack of both records and efforts by the state to preserve any historical memory of the Laundries, it is abundantly obvious from the available oral histories of survivors that the Laundries were horrific places to be kept. Some women have come forward to tell their stories. One woman, Kathleen Legg, kept her Laundry experience to herself for 60 years—not even telling her husband. “It was the shame,” she claimed, that kept her silent (“Whispering Hope: The Women Who Suffered”). The Laundries’ legacy of silencing lasted far beyond the closing of their doors. Women were in the Laundries under the pretense of labor, working long hours to make “fantastic stuff for the outside—kids clothes, first communion clothes, [and] priests vestments.” (Reilly). Any communication with the outside world was limit-

ed and under surveillance (Department of Justice and Equality). The girls were meant to receive an education, but one woman describes a letter she attempted to send to her family “saying I wasn’t getting school.” The letter was stopped by one of the nuns running the Laundry (Reilly). Women who entered pregnant had their babies unceremoniously taken away from them upon birth (Department of Justice and Equality). They were forced to do back-breaking labor, locked out in the cold, and told to eat off the floor (“Magdalene Laundries: Survivor Stories”). Individuals were often given new, Irish Catholic names in an effort to reimagine their purity, and were quite literally made to be silent—speaking amongst themselves was not allowed (“Magdalene Laundries: Survivor Stories”). As one survivor describes: “I walked up the steps that day and the nun came out and said your name is changed, you are Fidelma, I went in and I was told I had to keep my silence.” Personhood became a distant memory (“Magdalene Laundries: Survivor Stories”). In early 2017, unmarked mass graves were discovered of these women’s children (Grierson). Throughout the twenty chambers of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam were the remains of 35 week old fetuses as well as three year old children. It is estimated that 800 children died in the home, though there are burial records for

only two (Grierson). The unmarked mass graves further prove the Church and State of Ireland are interested in preserving a sense of purity rather than the dignity of the women and children whom they claimed to have helped in these Laundries (O’Carroll). While these Laundries existed in the UK, they developed differently in post-independent Ireland. In an effort to keep its Catholic identity intact and rid visible signs of prostitution or single motherhood, Ireland used the Magdalene Laundries to hide women away and to create “a form of national habitus that served its political needs at the time, and long after the closure” of the last Laundry (Killan 17-32). The sexual silencing of women and the desire to control reproduction has clearly been a prominent feature of Ireland long before the passing of the Eighth Amendment. Speaking out is a crucial necessity for any activism. However, shame has silenced women from speaking out about reproductive rights, leaving the Catholic morality upheld by the State largely unscathed. Shame is what kept Kathleen Legg silent, it is what keeps women from telling stories about their abortion experiences, and it is what prevents any accountability on the government’s part in preserving the histories of the Laundries. Silence continues, in many ways, to be the biggest barrier to repealing the Eighth Amendment.

The stripping of personhood from women in the Irish Laundries was more explicit than the insidious ways in which the Eighth Amendment works. It is a quiet fear, for many Irish women, knowing we can be full citizens exercising our rights on a daily basis until we become pregnant. Suddenly we are no longer autonomous individuals, and our rights to live are placed as equal to those of the eventual beings we are carrying. The number of women who grappled with this reality and decide to travel to the UK to terminate their pregnancy was ten a day in 2014, but the number of women seeking abortions is likely higher (“5 Facts”). This statistic is representative of women who terminate for any and all reasons, including those who decide to terminate due to a fatal fetal abnormality. Ireland would have women in this position give birth to stillborn babies without skulls or babies who would not survive through their first week. The statistic cannot account for women who self-induce abortions by illegally obtaining the pills online, though at least 1,017 pills were seized by Irish Customs in 2014 (“5 Facts”), nor does it account for women who travel elsewhere. Neither does it encompass poor women nor women with complicated citizenship statuses who may be left to attempt dangerous home methods. Undocumented women and women of lower economic status often have no hope of accessing an abortion, unless they are one of the lucky individuals who receive fund-

ing from a grassroots organization focused on aiding women on their “abortion vacations”—a term given by the anti-choice movement (“Abortion Support Network”). Nevertheless, the Irish government sees the ability of women to travel to the UK to get abortions as reason enough not to call for a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. This claim obviously ignores the lack of resources for the poor and stateless women of Ireland. Although the Irish government recently allowed doctors to give information about abortion access in the UK, it is still not legal for doctors in Ireland to give direct references to medical clinics in the UK (Regulations of Information). It is clear that the Irish government relies on silence as a mechanism for control. Even though the government understands the reality of the situation, it repeatedly fails to call for a referendum. One must wonder why—do we need more women in Irish government, or is that idea too simplistic? Women are indeed very much at the forefront of the anti-choice movement. Cora Sherlock is its most visible supporter, as the leader of the Pro-Life Campaign. Nevertheless, the record of Irish women in politics is less than ideal. In 2012, a law was passed to raise the quota of female candidates for parliamentary office to 30% by the next election, and 40% by 2019 (“Women in Politics”). Part of the struggle lies in the fact that prime

ministers have always been male, and they choose not to put the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment on the table. This was emphasized in discussions in the summer of 2014 while interning for the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), the biggest policy-based group advocating for abortion rights in Ireland, emphasizes such. There was much discussion about how the current government simply “did not want to deal with the abortion conversation.” The lives and rights of half the Irish population do not merit a conversation about abortion, because it is controversial and sexual, which means that in the tradition of Catholicism it is something to keep quiet about. While we wait for the Irish government to place the issue of women’s health on the table, there are severe consequences for women whose reproductive rights are controlled by the State under the guise of protection for fetal rights. By constitutionalizing fetal rights, Ireland has set a precedent that a pregnant woman is not necessarily the priority in a medical emergency. This became most evident with the death of Savita Halappanavar in 2013. After experiencing a miscarriage and explicitly requesting an abortion to remove the fetal tissue, Halappanavar was denied the procedure (Health Service Executive). Her doctors feared they would be held responsible under the Irish Constitution for providing an illegal abortion, as there was still a minor fetal heartbeat. The legislation at the time called for

imprisonment of doctors or patients involved with the act of abortion (The Offences against the Person Act). Such chilling circumstances caused Savita to go into sepsis, and although the fetal tissue was then removed, she died three days later (de Londras 33-35). It was only after her death that the Irish government passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, legislating a pregnant woman’s right to an abortion if it is deemed medically necessary to save her life (Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act). If not, accessing or providing an abortion in Ireland can still mean serving up to 14 years in prison (Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act). Further, the obstacles that women face to access the procedure make it next to impossible or simply too strenuous. According to internal reports at the IFPA, only 34 women availed of their right under the new legislation in 2014, when it was enacted. Some of these obstacles include: rigorous examinations performed by a panel of six doctors, hospitals that can choose to exempt themselves from performing the procedure, and the social stigma surrounding abortion in Ireland (“5 Facts). Savita’s case is a ominous example of what can happen when fetal rights are stacked against a pregnant woman’s rights. However, the case of an anonymous Irish woman in her late-20s whose body was kept physically alive after she was pronounced clin-

ically brain-dead is downright gruesome. The hospital, afraid for the condition the fetus if the woman were to be taken off of ventilation, was taken to Court by her family (McDonald). The Court finally ruled to take her off life support, only when it was deemed that the fetus’ chances of survival were slim (McDonald). It was not because this woman, an Irish citizen, had the right to dignity in death, neither that she had open wounds and fungus growing inside her brain, nor that she had been turned into a kind of incubator we might imagine in a horror film (McDonald). It was, again, only because the rights of the fetus had been prioritized and then considered moot (de Londras 28-31). These scenarios are extreme realities, but they are constant realities for Irish women. There is no guarantee that a doctor will act in the best interest of the pregnant woman if doing so might interfere with the right of the fetus. While the Irish government might pass legislation like the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, there can be no real reform until there is a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment. As long as fetal rights are recognized as equal to pregnant women’s rights, no Irish woman can become pregnant and know for certain that she has the full support of the medical and legal communities of Ireland. Ireland betrays itself and its new-found reputation for progressiveness with the

Eighth Amendment. It’s increasing progressiveness is demonstrated most notably in the legalization of gay marriage in 2015. Irish grandmothers galvanized the nation to become the first to decide that all people have a right to marry, through popular vote. These grandmothers listened to their grandchildren, who found their voices and explained what it was like to love someone, despite the dismay of their bishops. Organizations like the IFPA or the more grassroots Abortion Rights Campaign are working to normalize the national conversation on abortion in Ireland. The hope is that young women can tell their grandmothers what they went through travelling to the UK, and that those grandmothers in turn will admit to the memories they buried of back alleys and long ferry rides. That kind of discussion induces change, but as long as Irish people continue to uphold the government’s regime of silence on abortion, change will not come. The Irish National Anthem, which was written in the spirit of the rebels rising up against English rule, goes: “Soldiers are we / whose lives are pledged to Ireland / Some have come from a land beyond the wave / sworn to be free.” Freedom is the pretense under which the Irish soldiers fought England, in the name of independence. The right to procure an abortion, to practice bodily autonomy, to gain access to a medical procedure in Ireland, should be recognized by the Irish people and the government as

an act of choice—a fundamental necessity to freedom. Looking to our past, we remember the horrific Magdalene Laundries. Yet, we have recently seen the revolutionary passing of gay marriage by popular vote: by the people. This is proof that we, the people, are capable of tremendous change. A future filled with choices made by us feels right within our grasps. Until then, women will return to the “land beyond the wave,” from which Ireland so desperately fought to escape, and they will write songs about it. The women of the Abortion Rights Campaign and the Repeal Project in Ireland will speak out about their abortions in an effort to raise awareness. But those are the women trained as activists, who have a kind of privilege many women do not have. Women without such privilege will travel quietly, often with money they do not have, but always under the judging and watchful eyes of Mother Ireland.

works cited “5 Facts About Abortion in Ireland.” Abortion Rights Campaign Ireland. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. “Abortion Support Network.” National Network of Abortion Funds. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Statute Law of England and Ireland Relating to Offences Against the Person. (The Offences against the Person Act, 1961) 6th August 1861. Ireland. de Londras, Fiona. “Constitutionalizing Fetal Rights: A Salutary Tale from Ireland.” 22 Mich. J. Gender & L. 22.2 (2015): 243 (1). Department of Justice and Equality. “Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries.” 2013. Ireland. Eighth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1983. Amendment of Article 40 of the Constitution. Ireland. Foucault, Michel. “Method.” The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. London: Penguin, 1990. Print. Grierson, Jamie. “Mass Grave of Babies and Children Found at Tuam Care Home in Ireland.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 03 Mar. 2017. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. Haughton, Miriam. “From Laundries to Labour Camps: Staging Ireland’s ‘Rule of Silence’ in Anu Productions’ Laundry.” Modern Drama 57.1 (2014): 65 (70). Health Service Executive. “Investigation of Incident 50278 from Time of Patient’s Self-Referral to Hospital on the 21st of October 2012 to the Patient’s Death on the 28th of October, 2012.” 2013. Ireland. Killian, Sheila. ““For Lack of Accountability”: The Logic of the Price in Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries.” Accounting, Organizations and Society. 43 (2015): 17-32. “Magdalene Laundries: Survivor Stories.” BBC News. BBC, 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 01 May 2016. McDonald, Dearbhail, and Shane Phelan. “Brain Dead Woman Kept on Life Support for 20

Days to Protect Unborn Child - Court.” Independent.ie. Independent, 22 Dec. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2017. O’Carroll, Sinead. “Remains of Young Children and Babies Found in Sewage Chambers at Tuam Mother and Baby Home.” TheJournal.ie. The Journal, 3 Mar. 2017. Web. 05 Apr. 2017. Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, 2013. Ireland. Regulations of Information (Services Outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act, 1995. Ireland. Reilly, Gavan. “In Their Own Words: Survivors’ Accounts of Life inside a Magdalene Laundry.” TheJournal.ie. The Journal, 5 Feb. 2013. Web. 01 May 2016. Smyth, Lisa. Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2005. Print. “Whispering Hope: The Women Who Suffered.” The ITV Hub. ITV, 26 May 2015. Web. 01 May 2016. “Women in Politics.” Gender Equality. Gender Equality in Ireland, n.d. Web. 01 May 2016.

comparing dialectical and discursive modes of development emily hockett Karl Marx is distinct from his fellow enlightenment thinkers for, among other things, the dialectical approach he takes to analyzing capitalism. Marx is a dialectician in that he sees historical processes as complex and often contradictory. A century or so later, Stuart Hall discusses a discourse he terms “The West and the Rest,” in an essay by that name. In reading about the dialectic and the discursive, I noticed that the two methods of analysis seem to build upon each other. I began to see the dialectic as a precursor to the discursive. Both imagine development as a non-linear process, existing above the artificial separations between political, civil, and economic society. These kinds of analyses transcend a state-centric approach to development. In their chapter “Marxism, Socialism, and Development” in the book Nonconventional Critical Theories, Richard Peet and Elaine Hartwick write: “For the dialectician, ‘equilibrium’ is a fiction of the economist’s imagination” (153). Dialectics reject many of the central concepts of modern economics; it challenges the notion of a linear supply and demand curve.

Marx acknowledges an individual’s role in recording and interpreting what becomes a shared knowledge of the past—history—but he does not, in my view, take a dialectical approach to his study of development. Instead, Marx imagines development as teleological. Global capitalism is a (perhaps dangerous and violent) means to a socialist end. Describing how Marx characterizes the necessity of capitalism, Hall writes: Asiatic-type societies, [Marx] argues, cannot develop into modern ones because they lack certain pre-conditions. Therefore, ‘only the introduction of dynamic elements of western capitalism’ can trigger development. This makes ‘capitalist colonialism’ a (regrettable) historical necessity for these societies, since it alone can ‘destroy the pre-capitalist modes which prevent them from entering a progressive historical path’ (Hall, 57). Hall writes that Marx’s discussion of “Asiatic-type societies” may “contain traces of, or have been deeply penetrated by ‘Orientalist’ assumptions” (56). Rhetorically, Hall is placing Marx within the discourse of the West and the Rest. While the dialectic constitutes a mode inter-

preting history, the discourse places each individual within her own history. As Hall writes, “One important point about this notion of discourse is that it is not based on the conventional distinction between thought and action, language and practice” (32). While the dialectic challenges the idea that the social, political, and economic realms are distinct, the discursive applies this to the internal realm, noting that individuals do not operate within such salient categories. Examining development as a historical process via Marx as dialectician, we call into question classical economic ideas like supply and demand, or rational choice. But as Hall notes, Marx does not embrace the dialectic mode when talking about development. This is where Marx adopts a teleological mode, or as Hall argues, where he participates in an Orientalist discourse. He takes a deterministic view of development, based on an understanding of the homogeneous interests of both the “West” and the “Rest.”

that Europe used to justify its colonial conquests; “The Spanish, for example, wanted to: (a) get their hands on gold and silver, (b) claim the land for their Catholic Majesties, and (c) convert the heathen to Christianity” (35). As Hall points out, these interests contradict each other. But Hall cautions against supposing “that what Europeans said about the New World was simply a cynical mask for their own self-interest...motives and interests are almost never wholly conscious or rational” (35). Europe was not the puppet master of the colonial project. It was a subject of the discourse it created. The storied history of development is often told through notions of fixed interest. We refer to groups with a shared, politicized affinity as “special interest groups,” assuming a set of homogenous values. Without neat categories that constitute a particular interest, we are challenged to think of development as a historical process—or discourse—that is irrational, non-linear, contradictory, and perspectival.

Instead of prophesying the interests of the homogenous proletariat and bourgeoisie as Marx does, Hall outlines the “interests”

works cited Hall, Stuart. 1992. “The West and the Rest.” In Stuart Hall, Formations of Modernity. Polity Press. Pp 276-320. Marx, Karl & Frederick Engels. 1848. The Communist Manifesto. Peet, Richard and Hartwick, Elaine. 2009. “Marxism, Socialism, and Development.” Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives. (2nd Edition). New York: The Guilford Press. Chapter 5: 143-166. Turner, Bryan S. Marx and the End of Orientalism (Routledge Revivals). Routledge, 2014. Print.

in the wake of 2016: understanding the rise in hate crimes kristine jordan Since the 2016 national election, most mainstream media platforms have covered stories citing reports from government and private agencies pointing to a surge of hate crimes — crimes motivated by bias against the victim’s racial, ethnic, national, religious or gender identity. If hatred of another’s identity is a social construct, then hate crimes represent an intersection of social science with criminal justice. The proliferation of hate crimes following the 2016 presidential election stimulated my interest, as a social scientist, in how bigoted campaign speech contributes to discriminatory behavior.

mosques (Healy and Barbaro A1). Trump’s comments reported by several news outlets, included the uncorroborated claim that thousands of Muslim American celebrated in New Jersey following 9/11 (Kessler).

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a civil rights organization created in 1913 to fight defamation of Jewish people and defend civil rights, established a task force in June 2016 to study and respond to increasingly wide spread anti-Semitic social media harassment, especially toward reporters during the presidential campaign (ADL Task Force).The majority of the perpetrators self-identified as Trump supporters; substantiating the ADL’s There was a steady stream of prejudiced connection between the anti-Semitic attacks statements throughout Donald Trump’s on journalists and Trump’s campaign rhetopresidential campaign, directed implicit- ric (ADL Task Force). ly and explicitly, toward minority ethnic and religious groups. Muslim Ameri- The ADL has also protested against Trump’s cans, often bore the brunt of his vitriolic, anti-Semitic campaign slogans and adverfear-mongering campaign talk. Trump’s tisements (Anti-Defamation League, NPR). statements included proposed travel bans These included an image of Hillary Clinton that would temporarily prohibit Muslims, with a star in the shape of the the Star of David including green card holders, from entry describing her as “the most corrupt candidate into the United States, a national database ever,” and a final TV advertisement featurfor tracking Muslims, and surveillance of ing prominent Jewish Americans accompa-

nied by the statement, “that don’t have your good in mind” (Foley). The ADL even called on Trump to relinquish his ‘America First’ slogan in April, 2016, associating the term with the pre-Pearl Harbor America First Committee, a group that relied on anti-Semitic propaganda to discourage American involvement in WWII. (“ADL Urges Trump”). More recently, the ADL has criticized Trump’s apparent reluctance to speak out against the rise in anti-Semitic hate incidents; he made his first public condemnation of anti-Semitic threats and attacks in February 2017, following weeks of complaints from leaders of Jewish organizations about this neglect (Hirschfeld-Davis A13). The First Amendment’s protection of the freedom of speech extends to hate speech. However, hate speech translated into criminal behavior is subject to legal sanctions. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI),

our foremost national security organization, defines a hate crime as, “a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in part or whole by the offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity” (US FBI 2017). Research on hate crimes, such as the report presented by the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2012 Presidential Task Force (PTF), documents their unique nature and corrosive impact. A hate crime is, by its very nature, an attack on one’s identity. Victims are vulnerable to experiencing trauma in the form of interpersonal alienation, physical stress symptoms, and a persistent recoil from reminders of the crime (APA PTF). According to the APA, acts motivated by hate damage the entire community, inflame racial disputes, engender a sense of powerlessness, and stir up resentment for perceived unjust

Table 1: SPLC reports of hateful harassment incidents in the week following the 2016 election Date of Report November 09 2016 November 10 2016 November 11 2016

No. of Incidents 202 166 138

November 12 2016 November 13 2016 November 14 2016 November 15 2016

77 53 90 57

Source: Cassie Miller and Alexandra Werner-Winslow. “Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election.” Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, AL, 29 November 2016.

treatment (APA Public Interest). The U.S. Department of Justice acknowledges that when legal remedies are deemed deficient, relations between targeted communities and government authorities suffer (Wagner). Information from both private and public agencies, including the ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the New York City Police Department’s Reports and Information, and Shaun King Crime Mapping figures, indicate that there has been a surge of malfeasance directed toward people for their religion and ethnicity since the 2016 U.S. Election. FBI sources, based on uniform crime reporting tools, reveal that crimes against Muslim Americans were up 70% in 2015, despite a downward trend for

violent crimes in general (US FBI 2017). The estimated total of 257 hate crimes directed toward Muslim Americans in 2015 is the highest upswing since 9/11 (Lichtblau A13). This points to the relationship between the invidious campaign rhetoric, notably candidate Donald Trump’s statements about attacking “Islamic extremism,” and criminal acts against Muslim Americans, documented by The New York Times and CNN (Ansari; Lichtblau A13). Civil rights organizations are monitoring the trend between Trump’s discriminatory rhetoric and the rise in hate crimes following the 2016 election. According to the SPLC, a nonprofit organization established in 1971 to fight bigotry and litigate discrimination, racist campaign speech pro-

Table 2: SPLC reports of harassment by group in the week following the 2016 election Type of Report Anti-Immigration Anti-Black Anti-LGBT Trump White Nationalist Anti-Muslim Anti-Woman Anti-Trump Anti-Semitic Other

No. of Incidents 280 187 95 43 32 49 40 23 100 18

Source: Cassie Miller and Alexandra Werner-Winslow. “Ten Days After: Harassment & Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election.” Southern Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, AL, 29 November 2016.

vokes acts of violence in both supporters and detractors (Miller; Morlin; Potok). Tables 1-2, covering the week following the election, show a correlation between malicious campaign dialogue and incidents of hateful harassment. Table 1 reveals the highest number of hate incidents occurring on November 9, the day after the Presidential election. The number of hate incidents progressively declined during the following 9 days, reflecting a clear relationship between the high number of such incidents and the election (Potok). The largest overall post-election increase in hate crimes appears to be along religious and ethnic lines. Table 2 indicates a substantial increase in recorded hate incidents toward Muslim Americans in the week after the 2016 election, as compared to previous time periods, bolstering assertions that campaign “hate speech” provoked Islamophobic behavior (Potok; Miller). In the month following the election, 37 percent of the hate occurrences documented by the SPLC “referenced either President Trump [or] his campaign slogans” (Potok). These incidents included letters to 15 Mosques, between November 23 and December 3, describing Muslims as, “children of Satan” (Potok). These reports are consistent with FBI statistics pointing to anti-Muslim hate crime as the main class of crime that rose in 2015 (US FBI 2017). The SPLC draws a direct connection be-

tween Trump’s hate speech and the immediate, dramatic post-election spike in hate crimes of November 9, 2016, asserting that hate groups were emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric (Potok). In addition to stirring up crowds with racist campaign speech, Trump directly encouraged racist violence in his followers. At one of his campaign rally’s Trump offered to pay the legal fees of a supporter for beating up a Black protester (Potok). As noted previously, it is not merely Trump’s public statements, but his reticence to speak out against crime targeted toward specific religious and ethnic groups that feeds into a bias mentality (Reilly). The most conclusive evidence for the link between Trump’s rhetoric and the surge in hate crimes in the wake of the 2016 election — the “Trump Effect” — is arguably the “real time” documentation of these acts (Potok). The ADL, which has collected hate crime statistics since 1979, reported bomb threats directed at 134 Jewish community centers and other Jewish organizations in January 2017 (“Sixth Wave of Bomb Threats”). Since then 148 bomb threats have targeted Jewish institutions across the United States, including Jewish Community Centers, synagogues and ADL offices. On March 12, 2017, five NYC Jewish Community Centers faced threats. At the time of the report, authorities had made one arrest related to the incidents (“Sixth Wave of Bomb Threats”).

Closer to home, contentious campaign debate has been a catalyst for the unleashing of incidents targeting Muslims and Jews on New York campuses. Local newspapers, such as Fort Greene and DUMBO, as well as international newspapers, including the The Independent, reported on this increase in hate incidents against Muslims on campuses following the 2016 election. For example, school administrators implemented additional security in November 2016, after Pro-Trump graffiti defaced a Muslim prayer room at New York University’s School of Engineering (Garcia; Leon). Anti-Semitic graffiti has also been reported on New York campuses since October, including incidents of swastikas defacing the Nassau Community College buildings (Costello). This local crime trend against religious and ethnic minorities has not gone unnoticed by New York City law authorities. According to the New York Police Department, a 55 percent rise in hate crimes in New York City, as of March 2017, compared to this same time period in 2016, is partially accounted for by a shocking 94 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes (NYPD). This year, between January 1st and February 12th alone, there were 28 hate crimes specifically classified as anti-Semitic in nature (Tuttle). This is double the number from the same time period in January 2016, according to the NYPD (NYPD). Suggesting a long term trend of increased religious and ethnic hate crime, NYPD statistics revealed

a 50 percent increase in anti-Muslim crime in December 2016 compared to the same time the previous year (Huseman). These reports may speak to our local government’s determination to make the identification of hate crimes a law enforcement priority. NYC Mayor, Bill De Blasio, and NYC Police Commissioner, James O’Neill, have not been shy about placing responsibility for the hate crime surge on the presidential election. November 20, 2016, in acknowledging the rise of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hate crime, New York Commissioner O’Neill observed, “The [campaign] rhetoric has increased and I think that [the election] has something to do with it” (Huseman). December 5, 2016, Mayor De Blasio blamed Trump directly for the increase: “You can’t have a candidate for president single out groups of Americans, negatively, and not have some ramifications for that. It’s obviously connected to the election” (Paybarah). Projecting anxiety and frustration onto minorities is not a new phenomenon. One may certainly interpret campaign speech through preexisting perceptions of and prejudice against specific groups, including Middle Eastern Americans, Jews and Muslims, who hold not only religious, but national and ethnic minority status. During the 2016 election Trump encouraged the public to blame these ethnic and religious groups, most overtly Muslims, for social

problems, predominantly threats of terrorism and reduced economic opportunities. Hate speech gained political viability as Trump “mainstreamed islamophobia” and fear of immigrants (Lichtblau 13A). Preexisting prejudicial attitudes, simmering resentment of economic circumstances, and divisive election rhetoric coalesced into support for nationalistic policies (Shiller BU3).

from a manufacturing to a service economy, has resulted in sufficiently extensive social changes to fit these conditions. Clearly, not all citizens facing economic downturn turn to crime. However, violent incidents triggered by the 2016 discriminatory campaign rhetoric may often be driven by or at least rationalized based on nationalist principles (Shiller BU3).

The current surge in nationalistic rhetoric espouses the argument that individuals and groups with values and beliefs outside of the mainstream imperil the dominant group’s value system (Shiller BU3). Schiller argues that the scapegoat theory partially accounts for nationalist bigotry. This theory affirms that when people are threatened by circumstances they cannot control, especially economic uncertainty, they will seek a vulnerable group to blame for their frustration (Shiller BU3). During the 2016 presidential race Trump acquired power by embracing nationalism, directing blame for social problems onto “outsiders,” exploiting fear of global terrorism, and indicting minorities and immigrants for economic challenges.

Hate crimes have become frighteningly more common since the 2016 election. Prejudiced campaign speech and political doctrines against ethnic and religious groups encourage individuals to blame these groups for social challenges beyond their control, such as economic downturn, and support policies discounting their rights and liberties. Research is needed to understand the specific ways in which nationalistic campaign propaganda has fueled the documented escalation in post-election hate crimes.

From a sociocultural perspective, prejudice that is rationalized within a nationalistic context is more likely to occur in a society enduring swift social changes (Allport 232). Although the term “swift” is relative, it could be argued that the transformation of the American economy in recent decades,

Addressing the post-election surge in hate crimes will require the coordination of private agencies, government organizations, and universities for the research, identification, and reporting of hate incidence. This category of crime presents a myriad of challenges, including encouraging the victim to report hate crimes to the appropriate sources, ensuring victim safety from retaliation, and assuring victims that reports will be investigated vigorously by authorities. Instead of stirring up conflict against ethnic

and religious minorities, politicians who attract media attention can do their part to encourage citizens to work toward eliminating hate crimes.

works cited “ADL Urges Donald Trump to Reconsider ‘America First’ in Foreign Policy Approach.” Anti Semitism in the US. New York, NY: Anti-Defamation League, April 28, 2016. Allport, Gordon W. The Nature of Prejudice, Unabridged, 25th Anniversary Edition. New York: Basic Books, 1979. Ansari, Azadeh. "Hate Crimes Spiking Most Sharply Against Muslims." CNN, n.d. Web. November 15, 2016. “ADL Task Force Issues Report Detailing Widespread Anti-Semitic Harassment of Journalists on Twitter During 2016 Campaign.” New York, NY: Anti-Defamation League, October 19, 2016. “Anti-Defamation League Chief Finds Trump Campaign Rhetoric Problematic.” Morning Edition, Washington, DC: NPR, December 26, 2016. APA Presidential Task Force on Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity. “Race, Prejudice, and Stereotypes: APA Report on Preventing Discrimination and Promoting Diversity.” Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, April 2012. APA Public Interest Government Relations Office. “The Psychology of Hate Crimes.” Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2017. Costello, Alex. “Swastikas Found all over Nassau Community College Campus.” Garden City, NY: Garden City Patch, December 8, 2016. Foley, Elise. “Anti-Hate Group Condemns Donald Trump’s Closing Ad.” Huffington Post, November 6, 2016. Garcia, Feliks. “NYU Muslim Student Prayer Room Vandalized as Pro-Trump Islamophobia is on the Rise.” New York, NY: Independent, November 1, 2016. Healy, Patrick, and Michael Barbara. “Donald Trump Calls for Barring Muslims from Entering the US.” New York Times, December 7, 2015, pp. A1.

Hirschfeld-Davis, Julie. “In First, Trump Condemns Rise in Anti-Semitism, Calling it Horrible.” New York Times, February 21, 2017, pp. A13. Huseman, Jessica. “Rare Track Record: NYPD's History Chronically Hate Crimes.” Pro-Publica: Journalism in the Public Interest, New York, NY: December 21, 2016. Kessler, Glenn. “Trump’s Outrageous Claim that ‘Thousands of New Jersey Muslim Celebrated the 9/11 Attacks.” The Washington Post, November 22, 2015. King, Shaun. “Hate Crime Mapping Project.” New York Daily News, November 22, 2016. Leon, Alexandra. “Pro Trump Graffiti Found in Muslim Prayer Room at NYU’s Brooklyn Campus.” New York, NY: Fort Greene and DUMBO, November 10, 2016. Lichtblau, Eric. “Hate Crimes Against American Muslims Most Since Post-9/11 Era.” New York Times. September 17, 2016, pp. A13. Miller, Cassie and Alexandra Werner-Winslow. “Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election.” Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, November 29, 2016. Morlin, Bill. “SPLC Hatewatch.” Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, December 12, 2017. New York City Police Department, City Wide Crime Statistics. Reports and Information. March 13, 2017. Paybarah, Azi. “DeBlasio Links Trump to Hate Crime Spike in New York City.” Politico, New York, December 5, 2016. Pells, Rachael. “Hate Crimes Rise by More Than Half in NYC due to Surge in Anti-Semitism.” Independent. Saturday, March 4, 2017. Potok, Mark. “Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes Surged Last Year, Fueled by Hateful Campaign.” Hatewatch. Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, November, 14 2016. Potok, Mark. “The Trump Effect.” Hatewatch. Southern Poverty Law Center, February 15,

Reilly, Katie. “Racist Incidents are up Since Donald Trump’s Election.” New York: Time Magazine, November 13, 2016. Rosenbaum, Sophia. “Trump’s Claim that New Jersey Muslims Celebrated on 911.” New York Post, December 21, 2015. Shiller, Robert J. “What’s Behind a Rise in Ethnic Nationalism? Maybe the Economy.” The New York Times, October 14, 2016, pp. BU3. “Sixth Wave of Bomb Threats Targeting the Jewish Community.” News. New York, NY: Anti-Defamation League, 2017. Tuttle, Ian. “What’s’ Behind the Rash of Anti-Semitic Incidents?” National Review, February 23, 2017. U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations. “Crime in the US 2016.” Washington, GPO: Criminal Justice Information Services Division, 2017. Wagner, Benjamin B. “Unique Approaches for a Unique Type of Crime: Prosecuting Hate Crimes.” Washington: GPO, U.S. Department of Justice, Updated March 15, 2017.

legislation and education: effects of brown vs. board of education nikki tabibian As the PBS documentary Eyes on the Prize notes, “the fight for civil rights was fought in the classrooms”, and began with the landmark ruling of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). The case addressed racial segregation within the American Public School system and ultimately overturned the decision of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), a case that declared “separate, but equal” facilities constitutional (“Brown v. Board of Education”; “Plessy”). The plaintiffs of Brown were parents of twenty students in Topeka, Kansas who argued that segregated educational facilities were inherently unequal because African American students received inferior accommodations and services due to their racial background (Anderson). Segregation within public schools was ultimately annulled and proven unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which promises that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property”. Though the landmark ruling of Brown paved the way for subsequent educational reforms, the issue of equal access to education persists in public schools, particularly in those

that resisted integration in the Civil Rights era. While Brown v. Board of Education did eliminate segregation in American classrooms by law, the ruling and the subsequent cases failed to ensure equal access to education for black students, leading to persisting inequity today. In the years following Brown’s ruling, segregationist retaliation undermined the law, leaving black students to overcome continuous discrimination to succeed academically. This is demonstrated by the mistreatment of the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine black students who were selected to integrate into Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. On their first day, Governor Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to stand outside the school and prohibit the students’ entry into their classrooms. While the ruling of Brown safeguarded integration, state officials physically restricted black students’ equal access to education. The segregationists’ racist beliefs prompted them to violate the law, physically prohibiting black students from entering white classrooms. Though the National Guard was ultimately removed, the Little Rock Nine continued to face protest-

ers on their walk to school who chanted profanities and slogans such as, “2-4-6-8 we don’t want to integrate!” (Eyes on the Prize). Though the students had permission to attend classes, their access was inherently unequal due to the emotional barriers they had to cross on a daily basis. These protests clearly demonstrated that the students were unwanted at white schools, making their presence a fight for survival, as opposed to an academic conquest. Years later, one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals recalled that after the school year: “I was past feeling, I was in a numb pain... I wondered whether I would go back, but not wanting to go back” (Eyes on the Prize). The emotional scars of segregationist retaliation not only restricted Beal’s equal access to education, but also left lasting emotional damage. Beals’ ultimately finished her senior year at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa California, demonstrating that while Brown granted her access to Central High School, the prevalent racism created a mental roadblock to success. In the years following the Brown ruling, legislation pushed further for integration in segregationist states and in higher education. Although this did eventually change the system, the slow progress of the law limited its effectiveness, for the generation of students in need did not become the beneficiaries of the law. Brown III, a case that reopened the 1954 ruling of Brown to address the issue of “open enrollment” exem-

plifies this phenomenon (“Brown Case”). The plaintiffs feared that Topeka’s open enrollment policy would lead to re-segregation, as white parents chose to relocate their children to privately funded schools. After a twenty year appeal to have the case reopened by the Supreme Court, the case was ultimately denied a hearing, forcing Topeka county school boards to address the issue themselves. In response, the school board established additional elementary magnet schools to balance racial inequity in the district’s public schools. As the case took two decades to resolve, a generation of black students did not benefit from the specialized courses and curriculums of the magnet schools. Furthermore, these students continued to endure unequal access as “white flight” re-enacted educational segregation (“Brown Case”). Though Brown and Brown III established a precedent against segregation in schools, there are still divides keeping black students behind in the classroom. The term achievement gap refers to the persistent disparity of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity. In the United States an achievement gap remains between black and white students, posing the question of the effectiveness of desegregation bills of the Civil Rights Era. In 2015, the National Center for Educational Statistics found that the black–white achievement gap was

larger in schools with a higher or predominantly black student body (“School Composition”). A year later, a Stanford Research study found average test scores of black students are, roughly two grade levels lower than those of white students in the same district (Rabinovitz). As the PBS documentary Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise reveals, “when you walk inside many racially mixed schools, you see a real mix of students in the hallways. But, when you step inside classrooms, you see a classroom that is mostly black and brown, and classrooms that are Asian and white” (Beyond Brown). While Brown eliminated laws requiring the physical segregation of black students in American classrooms, it did not address the mental or emotional divides that keep classrooms separated today. Although Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971) established bussing as the solution to racially segregated schools, present day hierarchies within public schools provide a different means of systematically dividing students by race. “Gifted” programs systematically divide students by race, prompting students of color to feel intellectually inferior (Beyond Brown). As school psychologist Dr. German Velasco asserts, placement exams dividing students as “gifted, not gifted, and retarded” are inherently unequal because “there is a difference between innate abilities and the cultural aspects that a particular test may be tapping” (Beyond Brown). As parents of higher so-

cio-economic backgrounds, the majority of whom are white, have the resources to pay for psychological exams that place their children into “gifted” programs, these tests inevitably divide students by race. The above situation projects the narrative that, “Everything shows that the white people are smarter”, leaving colored students academically marginalized (Beyond Brown). The documentary Little Rock Central: 50 Years Later highlights how Advanced Placement courses coupled with biased attitudes towards African Americans create unequal barriers for black students. Advanced Placement courses are designed to prepare students for college and as illustrated by the documentary, when these classes are predominantly white, black students believe they lack the intellect to succeed in them and beyond. As Angelica, one of the only African Americans in Advanced Placement classes at Little Rock Central High, remarks, “Most African American students don’t want to try. They think that because there are so many white kids in their class they won’t be able to try hard… so they stay in regular classes where they know they’ll be successful” (Little Rock Central High). This response indicates that the black student achievement gap can also be attributed to the administration’s inability to encourage their black student body to push themselves toward higher achievement. When administrators, such as the principal at Angelica’s school, say that “African American students

‘lack advocacy’ and ‘blow-off’ academic opportunities” the students in question come to believe that they are incompetent and undeserving of higher achievement programs (Little Rock Central High). The aforesaid approach to students of color coupled with arbitrary labels such as “gifted” leads to racial divides in classrooms that inevitably perpetuate the education gap. Many educators do not understand the needs of their disenfranchised students, making them inept in creating lasting change (Little Rock Central High). As Caucasian Central High teacher Shannah Ellender’s comments demonstrate, the lack of understanding and sympathy for African American students from lower socio-economic backgrounds leads to the perpetuation of ugly stereotypes. In an attempt to explain why her struggling African American student Antron Peterson was failing, Ellender said, “it’s because [African Americans are] lazy” (Little Rock Central High). These biased attitudes of academic administrators restrict black students from receiving the support they need to overcome hurdles, such as the ones Ta-Nehisi Coates describes in Between the World and Me. Coates writes, “one third of my brain was concerned with who I was walking to school with, our precise number, the manner of our walk, the number of times I smiled, who or what I smiled at, who offered a pound and who did not…” (Coates 60, 2016). Here, the author explains how the classroom becomes

secondary to disenfranchised students, for when one’s physical and emotional existence is perpetually jeopardized, the rules and regulations of academia become trivial (Coates 60, 2016). Integration requires explicit and enduring commitment and cannot persist with the law alone. Thus, the purpose of analyzing the issues at hand is to produce viable solutions that help end racial marginalization in classrooms. One model for solving the issue of segregation is Geoffrey Canada’s non-profit, The Harlem Children’s Zone . Canada is a Harvard Graduate originally from the south Bronx who went back to disenfranchised communities with the goal of “breaking the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves” (Harlem Children’s Zone). With social services such as foster-care prevention services, college admissions and retention support, The Baby College (a series of workshops for parents of children ages 0–3) and extended-day charter schools, Canada fulfilled his commitment to “[saving] my own kids in Harlem” (Kaffer). By supporting children’s education from birth, the non-profit ensures that they develop the cognitive skills they need through higher education. Furthermore, by supporting students through their college admissions, The Harlem Children’s Zone ensures the individualized attention that these children would not receive at their underfunded and overstaffed district school. One can attri-

bute the success of Canada’s non-profit to his personal background, for through his upbringing in the South Bronx he understood the mental, emotional, as well as socio-economic struggle of growing up in his community. In explaining why he created Harlem Children’s Zone, Canada stated, “It was simply being very aware of how unjust the world was for poor children” (“Geoffrey Canada”). Canada demonstrates that when one understands the struggle first hand, one is most equipped to change the system from within. The Harvard Civil Rights Project conducted a 40 page study indicating the trends in integration since the Brown case; based on the statistics, the authors offer nine solutions that would revive the promise of equal access ensued by Brown (Orfield). One of these solutions is to revitalize federal aid programs of the Nixon and Carter administration that aided multiracial schools address issues of race relations through multicultural curricula and more effective classroom operations. During his presidency, Nixon addressed the issue of Indian self-governance, particularly in the realm of education, by enacting the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act. These respective laws aimed at giving “all Native American students equal educational opportunity” by authorizing bilingual and bicultural educational material and provided grants on per-pupil basis

(U.S. Department of Education). By providing relevant course material to Indian American students, the programs effectively raised student academic achievement, as they equaled or surpassed that of students in schools with conventional English-only curricula (Meza; U.S. Department of Education). Psychological studies have demonstrated that multicultural education makes school more relevant, decreases racial stereotyping within schools and an increases a sense of belonging and self-confidence, particularly for students of color (“Reporting on Race” 32). Thus, applying the infrastructure of Nixon’s Indian American acts to black students, educators and legislators could work together to bridge the education gap. By designing curriculums that highlight black empowerment through a study of figures like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, students would be provided with role models that speak to their struggles and will therefore, feel more inclined to push through the system. As Coates articulates in his memoir, the leaders he was presented in elementary school courses were not as relatable as Malcolm X who he says “never lied, unlike the schools and their façade of morality… Malcolm was the first political pragmatist I knew, the first honest man I’d ever heard” (Coates, 2016). Incorporating figures like Malcolm X, who embody black truths, into federally mandated education curriculums could prevent disengaged and marginalized

students from slipping through the cracks of the education system. Brown v. Board of Education is a landmark case, however I chose to explore the shortcomings in the exercise of upholding it. While the law is capable of igniting change, the citizens of the law are responsible for keeping that flame alive. Through addressing persisting racial inequalities in the public schooling system and reassessing the intentions of legal legislation, we can effectively close the education gap. Although Coates states, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Securing the equal protection of the law proved hard; securing reparations proved impossible,â&#x20AC;? it is up to my generation of social and political advocates to ensure racial equality by law, and secure lasting change (Coates, 2015).

works cited Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise. Dir. Carol Bash. PBS, 2004. DVD. “Brown Case - Brown v. Board.” Brown Foundation, n.d. Accessed. April 4, 2017. http://brownvboard.org/content/brown-case-brown-v-board “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka 347 U.S. 483 (1954).” Justia Law. Justia, n.d. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/case.html#490. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2016. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “The Case for Reparations.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 15 Sept. 2015. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/ the-case-for-reparations/361631/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017. Eyes on the Prize. Dir. Henry Hampton. PBS, 1987. DVD. “Geoffrey Canada.” Tufts Now, n.d. http://now.tufts.edu/commencement-2011/geoffrey-canada Kaffer, Nancy. “Geoffrey Canada’s takeaway on education reform: If kids have no future, then business has no future.” Crains Detroit Business 2 June. 2011. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110602/free/110609963/geoffrey-canadas- takeaway-on-education-reform-if-kids-have-no Accessed 4 April, 2017. Little Rock Central High: 50 Years Later. Dir. Brent Renaud. HBO, 2007. DVD. Meza, Nizhone. “Indian Education: Maintaining Tribal Sovereignty Through Native American Culture and Language Preservation.” Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal 1 no.12 (2015). Orfield, Gary and Chungmei Lee. “Brown At 50: King’s Dream or Plessy’s Nightmare?” The Civil Rights Project - Harvard University, https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/ research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/brown-at-50-king2019s-dream-or- plessy2019s-nightmare/orfield-brown-50-2004.pdf Accessed 4 Apr. 2017.

“Plessy v. Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 (1896).” Justia Law. Justia, n.d. https://supreme.justia.com/ cases/federal/us/163/537/case.html. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017. Rabinovitz, Jonathan. “Local education inequities across U.S. revealed in new Stanford data set.” Stanford News 29 Apr. 2016. Accessed 4 April, 2017. http://news.stanford. edu/2016/04/29/local-education-inequities-across-u-s-revealed-new-stanford-data-set/ “Reporting on Race, Education & No Child Left Behind: a guide for journalists.” Race and Public Policy Program. Applied Research Center, 2013. www.raceforward.org/ sites/default/files/pdf/199c.pdf. Accessed 4 Apr. 2017. “School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap.” The National Assessment of Education Progress Studies. National Center for Education Statistics. 24 September, 2015. Accessed. 01 Mar. 2017. “The Beginnings of the Children’s Zone.” Harlem Children’s Zone, 2015. Accessed 4 April, 2017. http://hcz.org/about-us/history/ U.S. Department of Education. (1980). The Indian Education Act of 1972: Answers to Your Questions (Publication No. E-80-19000). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

watching a genocide unfold in myanmar charlotte graham In a recent BBC interview, Aung San Suu Kyi denied the ethnic cleansing being undertaken in Rakhine state in Myanmar (“Aung San Suu Kyi”). “I don’t think there’s ethnic cleansing going on, I think ‘ethnic cleansing’ is too strong an expression to use for what’s happening,” said the State Counsellor of Myanmar. As the de facto head of government in a nation that denies citizenship and other basic rights to the Rohingya Muslims, Suu Kyi has significant control over the narrative being pushed about the human rights abuses (or, as she maintains, the lack thereof ) occurring in northern Myanmar. Suu Kyi admitted to a degree of violence occurring in Rakhine, stating, “I think there’s a lot of hostility there.” However, she affirmed that it could not be defined as ethnic cleansing, since “...It’s Muslims killing Muslims, as well,” (Hussain; “Aung San Suu Kyi”). Apologists of police brutality against African Americans in the United States similarly say, “But what about black-on-black crime?”, in an attempt to deflect evidence of violence motivated by racial prejudice. Apparently, we are not to see the ongoing genocide in Myanmar

as human rights abuses aimed at a particular group of people. Suu Kyi would rather the world see this as the typical violence that would accompany a violent group, with no clear perpetrator in sight. The facts say otherwise. This is no muddled situation of mutual violence; Rohingya Muslims are the clear victims. Indigenous to Rakhine state in northern Myanmar, Rohingya Muslims live in an ethnically polarized area, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists making up the majority. Rohingyas has been denied citizenship since the 1982 Burma Citizenship Law. Basic rights such as freedom of movement, property ownership, and procreation are limited for the Rohingya — each Rohingya is permitted to have only two children, official permission must be given to travel within Myanmar, and the group is barred from owning any land (Human Rights Watch). The Rohingya have been fleeing their native state for years. In 2015, a Rohingya refugee crisis emerged when an estimated 100,000 Rohingya left Myanmar by boat, embarking on perilous journeys away from dangerous land (Head). It was estimated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

that 25,000 of the persons fleeing Myanmar by boat were taken by human traffickers (Head). Those that survived the journey may have ended up in detention camps abroad, or in ramshackle refugee camps (Bento). This history of persecution has been heightened recently by a military crackdown on the remaining Rohingya community. Security forces in Myanmar have caused more than 75,000 Rohingya to leave the country since October of 2016, with most fleeing to overcrowded camps in southeastern Bangladesh (Bento). According to a UN report, those that have remained have faced “crimes against humanity”, including mass killings, gang rapes, summary executions, arbitrary arrests, forced detention, torture, and even forced labor (“UN”). The perpetrators appear to be nationalist Buddhists as well as Myanmar’s own military forces (“UN”). This crackdown is apparently in response to attacks by the persecuted Rohingya on police camps in the region (“The Halo Slips”). Whether this justification for the crackdown is true or not, any violence by the Rohingya against police in Rakhine state is the result of years of oppression and marginalization. The Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar since the 1970s, but it appears as though the government is finally trying to enact a deadly, permanent solution to their Muslim minority problem. The state of affairs is particularly distressing

because Suu Kyi has been an internationally-celebrated activist and political symbol. A champion of democracy in Myanmar throughout the nation’s years of dictatorship, Suu Kyi received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, as well as a great deal of international acclaim. She is an honorary member of Nelson Mandela’s Elders, and she has been seen as a hero both in her own country and abroad for her time spent as a political prisoner under house arrest for 15 years in her own nation. Suu Kyi has kept a purposefully ambiguous tone about the violence against Rohingyas in Myanmar. In October of 2013, when asked about violence against Rohingyas, Suu Kyi stated: “I think the problem is due to the fear felt by both sides. Muslims have been targeted but Buddhists have also been subjected to violence. This fear is what is leading to all this trouble.” (“Suu Kyi Blames”) Suu Kyi’s denial of ethnic cleansing in her recent BBC interview in April is a continuation of the leader’s message, that there is no genocidal intent against Rohingyas within her country (“Aung San Suu Kyi”). Using the correct terms is important when considering major human rights abuses. A hesitance to use terms such as “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing” stems from a desire to stay out of complex conflicts, a desire to shirk responsibility. At the beginning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Hutu extremists who committed the atrocities against the Tutsis, the ethnic minority, waited to see if the in-

ternational community would respond to the first wave of killings. Extremists from the Hutu ethnic majority in Rwanda embarked on a genocidal campaign against the Tutsis, as well as Hutu moderates, as a result of a history of Hutu disenfranchisement and years of Tutsis being in power. The lack of reaction to violence waged against Tutsis encouraged the Hutus to carry on with the genocide. Apparent confusion around whether the genocide was truly a genocide, or merely a muddied civil war, as well as reluctance to enter another conflict in Africa after the disaster of attempted aid missions in Somalia, contributed to international powers letting the genocide in Rwanda happen before their own eyes. The international community has shown time and again that it would rather sit and debate the usage of terms than take action. In the current state of affairs, who now will stand up for the Rohingyas of Myanmar?

works cited “Aung San Suu Kyi: No Ethnic Cleansing of Myanmar Muslim Minority.” BBC News. BBC, 05 April. 2017. Web. 08 April. 2017. Bento, Lucas and Guled Yusuf. “The Rohingya: Unwanted at Home, Unwelcome Abroad.” The Diplomat. The Diplomat, 09 Oct. 2012. Web. 08 April. 2017. Head, Jonathan. “What Drives the Rohingya to Sea?” BBC News. BBC, 05 Feb. 2009. Web. 08 Apr. 2017. Human Rights Watch. “III. Discrimination in Arakan.” Burmese Refugees In Bangladesh: Still No Durable Solution N.p., Web. May 1, 2000. Accessed 08 April. 2017. Hussain, Misha. “Rohingya Refugees Leave Burma to Seek Help in Bangladesh – Video.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 22 June 2012. Web. 08 April. 2017. “Suu Kyi Blames Burma Violence on ‘climate of Fear’.” BBC News. BBC, 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 08 April. 2017. “The Halo Slips.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 15 June 2013. Web. 08 April. 2017. “UN: Rohingya May Be Victims of Crimes against Humanity.” News from Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, n.d. Web. 08 April. 2017.

signature strikes sarah marie jackson Signatures can be memorabilia or part of a legacy. At other times—in legal documents, for example—signatures embody permission. In the case of America’s drone war on suspected terrorists, in which civilians are often accidentally or intentionally killed, America’s distinctive signature—made impersonal through the use of drones—gives unauthorized consent to conduct remote control warfare, leaving behind a legacy of othering and dehumanizing people who are unfamiliar or possibly dissimilar to us. In light of the accidental killing of American al-Qaeda hostage Warren Weinstein via drone strike in 2015, many Americans expressed outrage at their government’s apparent lack of information and discretion used in carrying out drone strikes. Spencer Ackerman’s article, “Obama Claims U.S. Drone Strikes Have Killed up to 116 Civilians,” condemns not only the issue of ignorance but, more importantly, the issue of aggressive action in spite of ignorance. Ackerman vilifies the US government’s tendency to make and act upon sweeping generalizations of foreigners:“the U.S. has killed people whose identities it does

not know, for fitting into what it considers patterns of life associated with terrorism, an anonymous method of killing known as signature strikes.” The killing of unknown individuals on the basis of broad stereotyping calls into question the ways in which Americans conceive identities of themselves and others. Indeed, the pan-ethnic xenophobia that justifies “Signature” strikes operates from the creation of the American self-identity as separate from “the other,” in reference to the foreigners we deem unfamiliar or unlike us. However, the drones arguably do themselves are experienced and identified as “others.” In this way, our discrimination against other people’s lifestyles gives way to our indiscriminate military plans, in much the same way as our struggle to avoid the imagined and ostracized “other” has bred an even less relatable “other”: the drone. Steve Coll, in his article “Warren Weinstein and the Long Drone War,” focuses on a specific accident of American drone warfare: the incident in which “C.I.A. drone strikes in Pakistan [in January 2015] killed two hostages being held by Al Qaeda—Warren Weinstein, an American, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an

Italian” (Coll 1). Weinstein, a humanitarian aid worker for U.S.A.I.D., was kidnapped from his Lahore home in 2011, just days before he was supposed to return to the United States. Citing the fact that rescue attempts were not made for Weinstein while other American al-Qaeda hostages, such as Bowe Bergdahl, were negotiated for release, Coll dubs Weinstein “the forgotten man of the war against Al Qaeda” (Coll 3). In contrast to Weinstein, Waziristan tribal elder Malik Jalal was deliberately targeted by American drone strikes after being deemed a terror threat. His 2016 article, “I’m on the Kill List. This is What It Feels Like to be Hunted by Drones” examines the violence of drone strikes on supposed “terrorists.” He provides firsthand accounts of four attempts to claim his life with drone strikes, in the hope of urging his audience to more peacefully and productively resolve international tensions. These personal anecdotes compel us to consider the high ratio of accidental civilian casualties to intentional target deaths. His recollections underscore his implication that the ill-informed planning and mechanical execution of drone attacks is a reckless infringement of privacy and basic rights to self-preservation. Jalal attributes the instability of his private life to its forcible and inextricable connection to his political status as a member of the ostensibly dangerous North Waziristan Peace Committee. Jalal reflects, “My friends began to decline my invitations, afraid that

dinner might be interrupted by a missile,” (Jalal 977). The fusion of the political and the personal extends beyond drone strikes alone. In matters of gathering intelligence domestically, the United States’ National Security Agency threatens privacy than self-preservation, but nonetheless contributes to the politicization of people’s personal lives. As the authors of “Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border,” explain, “The Justice Department allows the agency [NSA] to monitor only addresses and ‘cyber-signatures’ — patterns associated with computer intrusions — that it could tie to foreign governments” (Savage 1). The government not only fails to distinguish individuals in a community as people, but also forgoes making distinctions about these people’s technological data. The prevalence of the cyber-signature as a human characteristic is still more reductive of people’s identities, thus marking one way in which technology facilitates othering. Between the preliminary filter of our government’s lack of information about its drone strike targets and the subsequent filter of our government’s incomplete disclosure of the limited information it does have, the American public receives a diluted version of the truth about its government’s drone strikes.The incomplete picture produced by these intelligence and communication filters strengthens the public misconception that drones are safe. Our consequent

underestimation of drones’ fatal potential minimizes our perception of their apparent risk. In Cora Currier’s article, “Drone Makers Gather to Defend Their Much-Maligned Machines,” one drone creator explained, “There’s a reason we make the Phantom white, and not black. It’s not creepy. Look how cute it is!” This near-infantilization of the drone—even taken out of the context of an inventor praising his brainchild— counterintuitively serves to humanize the murderous machine, while ignoring the humanity of the lives it will take. Steve Coll extrapolates from the imprecision of the drone which killed Warren Weinstein, “the heavy reliance—in time, dollars, and bureaucratic priorities—on a technological panacea for the problem of terrorism can cause a government to lose sight of the people on the ground” (Coll 4). Our often absent-minded confidence in technology also operates on a smaller scale, affecting us personally in our daily lives. In “Generation Why,” Zadie Smith challenges the merits and popularity of Facebook. Half-resisting the clichéd argument that social media reduces users’ experience of their surroundings, Smith adds that such technology also compromises the user’s self-awareness. Indeed, one feature of her argument against the streamlining effects of technology is that “500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore...[is] a cruel portrait of us” (Smith 657). Echo-

ing Jalal’s attempt to put a face to the obscure individuals targeted by drones, Smith stresses the complexity of the individuals confronted by a much less obvious threat: the homogenizing oversimplifications of social media. Much like our military identifies certain “patterns of life” as flags of potential terrorist activity, the mathematical rigidity of social media’s algorithms similarly loses the individual in a sea of patterns and aggregate data. In the article, “Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum”, Om Malik laments, “People become numbers, algorithms become the rules, and reality becomes what the data says” (Malik 3). Our loss of perceived individuality, at the hands of human and technological indifference, thus occurs in political and personal affairs, increasingly blurring the line between the two. Malik derides “algorithms that keep us connected to the people we feel comfortable with and the world we want to see” (Malik 3). In both signature strikes and social media, “othering” results partly from perceptions of similarity, or a lack thereof. Othering also occurs because of uneven distributions of information. By restricting our online milieu to familiar people and interests, our use of social media can withhold from us information which would foster cross-cultural communication, and limit “othering.” In this way, technology’s formulaic manipulation of the world helps create the disparate personalized microcosms from which

we can justify and practice othering. Yet, this means of othering, drawing distinctions based on access to information, also occurs on a larger scale, between the American government and its citizens. In the case of the National Security Agency’s digital monitoring, average American citizens see the government as one entity—a formidably powerful “other”—because we do not have all of the facts surrounding this invasive surveillance.At the same time, our government regards us as a homogenous mass—a collective uninformed“other”— because of our limited access to such information about the extent of surveillance. “Othering” affirms our sense of belonging to our community, while denying others this acceptance. In so doing, othering minimizes the fluidity between communities and the identities they represent, both political and personal, making it increasingly difficult to recognize and respect the humanity of these seemingly distant people. With regards to signature strikes, America’s “signature” is one of ignorance and indifference, concealed behind unreliable technologies.

works cited Ackerman, Spencer. “Obama Claims U.S. Drone Strikes Have Killed up to 116 Civilians.” The Guardian, 1 July 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/01/ obama-drones-strikes-civilian-deaths. Accessed 1 December 2016. Coll, Steve. “Warren Weinstein and the Long Drone War.” The New Yorker, 23 April 2015, http:// www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/warren-weinstein-obama-drone-war. Accessed 5 December 2016. Currier, Cora. “Drone Makers Gather to Defend Their Much-Maligned Machines.” ProPublica, 18 October 2013, https://www.propublica.org/article/drone-makers- gather-to-defend- their-much-maligned-machines. Accessed 1 December 2016. Jalal, Malik. “I’m on the Kill List. This is What It Feels Like to be Hunted by Drones.” The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose: 3rd Edition, edited by Buzzard, et al., Broadview Press, 2016, pp. 975-8. Malik, Om. “Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum.” The New Yorker, 28 November 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empa thy-vacuum. Accessed 1 December 2016. Savage, Charlie, Julie Angwin, et. al. “Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border.” The New York Times, 4 June 2015, http://www. nytimes.com/2015/06/05/us/hunting-for-hackers-nsa-secretly-expands-internet-spy ing-at-us-border.html?_r=0. Accessed 1 December 2016. Smith, Zadie. “Generation Why.” The Broadview Anthology of Expository Prose: 3rd Edition, edited by Buzzard, et al., Broadview Press, 2016, pp. 645-57.

human rights and religious symbols samarth chadda This paper is an attempt to delve into the debate regarding human rights and religious symbols by looking at major decisions of international courts. Together, these components raise interpretations that have effects on the way people lives’ are run, and how policies are designed in schools, universities, the public sector and through places of identification. We are left with questions and a possible direction we can take. In SAS v. France (695), the Grand Chamber of ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) has held that the French law (Law No. 2010-1192) prohibiting the concealment of one’s face in public places does not violate Article 8 (respect for private and family life) or Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion). There was no violation of Article 14 ECHR (prohibition of discrimination) nor was there violation of Articles 8 and 9. The court was of the opinion that the face plays an important role in social interaction (ECHR 695). The ban was necessary for the safety of the persons and property; whether the applicant wore the veil to be at peace with herself was disregarded. The

Court imposed a new requirement, of “living together,” that legitimized the ban. Although the court insisted the ban was not due to religious connotation but due to the covering of the face,, it remained clear that the French authorities would not ever tolerate a particular interpretation of Political Islam. In trying to protect followers of one interpretation of Islam (women who do not wear the burqa) and ensuring their inclusion, authorities may have justified the “disproportionate effects” of the ban on the other interpretation of Islam (women who do wear the burqa) (Mancini). “Living together” is one of the weakest of the legitimate aims of the Court (Vickers) instead of trying to ensure tolerance between the majority and the minority, the Court just removes the source of tension altogether, thus undermining substantive equality for burqa-clad Muslim women. The adherence to “living together” keeps the standard very broad, as bans of conspicuous religious dress can now be allowed under this standard in any public place (Movesesian). In fact, a French Muslim student was banned from school for wearing a long black skirt because it “conspicuously” showed religious affiliation (“French Muslim Student Banned from

School for Wearing Long Skirt”). This concept of “living together” has not been expressed in ECHR jurisprudence and thus creates the risk that minorities will be forced to ‘assimilate’ in order to live together instead of pursuing the more integrationist aims of pluralism, tolerance, and broadmindedness (Barry). Respect for a common minimum set of values of an “open and democratic society” does not correspond with any of the permissible limitations on Article 8 and Article 9 of ECHR (Barry). To be fair to the court, it did acknowledge that a State party could not invoke gender equality to ban a practice defended by women (ECHR). Even though the court claims such, judges are suffering from a Dahlab (Dahlab v. Switzerland) interpretation that states the hijab has been imposed on women by a precept laid down in the Koran, making it hard to square with the principle of gender equality. It seems the latter part has been addressed, while the court’s viewpoint on applicants is still being appraised in a general and abstract way, determining why people wear what they have to (Judge Tulkens dissent in Leyla Sahin v. Turkey). The court wants burqa-clad women to “ac-

cept” French standards of societal behavior and“help them” become citizens some day (“Unveiling France’s Burqa Ban”), whilst ignoring the fact that many are actually already French citizens that do not see an inconsistency between being a pious Muslim and a committed citizen to French values.1 This “selective pluralism” and “restricted tolerance” ignore that it is still the Court’s task to protect small minorities against disproportionate interferences.2 What about scarves, beards, and hats that can be just as bad for security purposes (Roug)? The burqa ban crosses a “red line”3 in undermining the intergenerational aspect of the continu1 French Values of Liberty, Equality & Brotherhood - French Muslim women that wear the burqa are just as French, in terms of their commitment to these values, supporting France when it performs in the Olympics, as well as bringing their children up as if they are French. 2 Dissenting Opinions of Judges Nussberger in (2014) ECHR 695: While its perfectly legitimate to take into account the specific situation in France, especially the strong and unifying tradition of “values of French Revolution” - still remains the task of the Court to protect small minorities against disproportionate interferences. 3 Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the chief rabbi of Moscow, puts forward this hypothetical question and says the decision crossed a red line.

ity of a religious tradition (Danchin). The court used less-restrictive means’ reasoning in reverse by making people feel grateful that worse interferences did not happen–a ban on face veils does not extend to covering one’s hair, legs, nor décolleté (SAS v. France). Such a tactic is a clever way to reduce the weight of any human rights interference, which is further justified by referring to the quantum4 of punishment (SAS v. France). But, if the interference by the state is illegitimate, the mention of the penalty of money charged is a red herring and therefore illegitimized (Cranmer). It ignores that what is criminalized is women’s daily behavior (Brems). It is stereotypical to assume that anyone who wears a religious symbol is “coerced” to do so, and no one’s fundamental rights should be taken away on such a crude generalization (Cranmer). Even with the principle of sexual equality and in the absence of proof, women must be taken to adopt hijabs freely; courts must avoid being paternalistic (Ringelheim). Another problematic distinction, and one that may influence judges, is that between passive symbols (such as the crucifix) (McClean) and other powerful external symbols (such as the hijab and burqa) that are believed to have a “proselytizing effect” on people (Sahin) or are ostentatious, demonstrative, and constitute exercising pressure 4 150 euros as the rate applied to second-class petty offences.

(Chamblee). The crucifix is also seen as a symbol of “tradition” and an expression of the State’s identity, whilst the hijab is not seen as something to be preserved (Puppinck). There is no evidence that wearing a headscarf has any effect (ECHR): courts should limit the justifiability of such bans to situations in which there is evidence of concrete risks for neutrality or the rights of others (Brems). Article 9(2) of the ECHR (‘European Convention on Human Rights’) dictates that “necessity” (a much higher threshold than what the Court has used) is what should justify the limit on religious freedom. Previous case law has also held that attempting to convince others of the truth of your religion should be protected as a manifestation of religious freedom (Kokkinakis v. Greece). 5 It is not clear in Dahlab what coercive effect the teacher would have on students just by wearing the headscarf (Evans). Would it not be a stretch to say that students would want to become Muslim like their teacher, even when Dahlab did not tell her students that she was Muslim (Evans)? All Dahlab was doing was being true to her religion; she wasn’t giving out religious instruction, nor was she requiring students to participate 5 A Jehovah’s witness couple who were charged with a criminal offence after knocking on the door of the Greek Orthodox Church (and trying unsuccessfully) to convince them to convert. It was held to be a breach of Article 9 of ECHR as attempting to convince others to change their religion is not in itself a breach of religious freedom.

in activities such as praying (Evans). Can’t we say that wearing religious attire on the premises of a public university (Peroni) is also part of the “public space” and therefore worthy of protection and free from disproportionate restrictions (Ahmet Arsalan v Turkey)?6 Heiner Bielefeld is of the opinion that it is difficult to reconcile the compulsory display of a religious symbol like a cross with the State’s duty to uphold confessional neutrality in public education (Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief ). If it becomes compulsory to display the cross in schools, then there is nothing “passive” about the crucifix (Romero). However, freedom to manifest one’s religion encompasses the right to wear clothes or attire in public that is in conformity with one’s faith or religion; to prevent a person from wearing religious clothing in public or private may constitute a violation (Raihon Hudoyberganova v. Uzbekistan). Also, by banning students who wear headscarves from schools and universities, the governments of Uzbekistan, Turkey, and France are violating the students’ duty to respect, as gaps in education are created–something that is not consistent with the duty to respect as per General Comment 13’s right to education (General Comment 13 on Right 6 2010 says that the reasoning used in the Dahlab and Leyla Sahin case does not apply to cases involving restrictions on the wearing of religious attire in the public space.

to Education). The ICCPR permits a limitation to the right to religious freedom to protect the “fundamental rights and freedom of others” (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A.). However, how this limitation extends to banning to protect professionalism (ECLI Ghams Case) or neutrality in public service (Ebrahimian v. France) is baffling. The Dutch court didn’t see the company’s ban on ornaments as disproportionate (Ebrahimian v. France).7 Wearing an ornament with a cross should have nothing to do with professionalism, and the thought process here is that wearing an external symbol says something negative about the persons’ personality and capabilities (Chaib). In Belgium, the Constitutional Court accepted the ban on the face-veil as required for the State to anticipate potential risks (Belgian Constitutional Court). There are burqa/hijab debates all over the world, and many seem to have internalized Sarkozy’s words of seeing the burqa as a sign of “subservience” (“Minister Donner as Mufti: New developments in the Dutch burqa debates”). Kapur argues that the very term “equality” is equated to the rule of the majority, to deny women agency (Kapur). The interventions by the state have put into crisis the redemptive capacity of human rights, and as a result, Muslim women have end7 The ECHR upheld the non-renewal of a contract in a public hospital on the ground of the applicant’s refusal to take off the headscarf.

ed up as less empowered (Kapur). Setting Islam to be in opposition to liberal rights and assuming that Muslim women will welcome the ban, “misses the point” (Islam) of the deeper relationship of the practice to the constitution of gender identity within a minority that feels under siege in contemporary society (Stephens). Perhaps’ Danchin’s “value-pluralism” that calls for the exaltation of individual autonomy is the answer in mediating the demand for substantive equality in terms of the treatment of the minority of the autonomy of a group’s own members (Danchin). However, Danchin equates those women that wear the hijab with those “that take their religious obligations seriously” (Danchin). It is precisely this kind of view which justifies the ban and has lead some feminists of Muslim origin to argue that the wearing of the headscarf in schools can have a negative impact on the human rights of other girls (Response to Peter Danchin’s “Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom in International Law”). It is unclear whether Danchin’s theory of value-pluralism applies to women asked to give up their human rights to the particular and the communal (Response to Peter Danchin’s “Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom in International Law”). Men can take the autonomy for granted, but women behind the veil or hijab cannot always do so (Response to Peter Danchin’s “Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom

in International Law”). It is not to say that only women with veils and headscarves are impacted. Even turban wearing Sikhs are subject to humiliation in having to remove their turbans each time they are asked for identification. In Ranjit Singh v. France, the UN HRC (United Nations Human Rights Committee) dealt with a Sikh man having to appear bareheaded on photographs for resident permits. It ruled that there was a violation of the freedom of religion, and questioned whether wearing a turban on an ID document would make the identification of a person more difficult (United Nations Human Rights Committee). Thus, the question to be asked is not whether a security check is essential to guarantee public safety, (Like it was in Phull v. France) but rather that compelling an individual to remove the turban was necessary for public safety. This case at the HRC was very similar to the one at the ECHR, called Mann Singh v. France (UNHRC), where the ECHR ruled that the requirement to appear bareheaded was necessary for safeguarding public order because the authorities needed to be in a position to “control the identity” of the driver, especially since there is a higher risk of fraud or falsification. But the HRC disagreed with this logic, and said that wearing a turban was an essential part of the Sikh identity, and had very little room for suspicion or fraud. In some way, the HRC asked the questions the ECHR should have,

by mentioning how the one-time requirement of removing headgear could translate into a successive cycle of embarrassment (Chaib). Interestingly, as per a Belgian judge, a lot of other situations can exist where individuals are not identifiable like in the case of individuals protecting themselves against the cold, or if they are dressed up for a carnival (“Local burqa ban violates human rights”). The decision of the HRC and ECHR leave one with many questions. Is a blanket ban the best way to improve the integration of burqa-clad women in society (Peroni, Ouald-Chaib, Smet)? Is purging religious expression from public universities the best idea (Peroni)? Using the logic of the HRC, do we need to ask the question if wearing the hijab or burqa definitely makes one not subscribe to liberal values? Then do all religious symbols have nothing to do with fraud or suspicion; are only non-Islamic ones not suspicious? Could the subjective intent of veil-wearers be of some use (McCrea)? Or is it that the arguments against religious symbols would only make sense from the subjective perspective of those who do not wear them (Chaib and Brems)? Baer is of the opinion that while it may be understandable to prohibit a face-covering veil because it inhibits communication, it is a violation of human rights to prohibit a headscarf, turban, or yarmulke since there is no violation of additional concern (Baer) Yet, “unease” when encountering the

“other” can seldom be a good stand-alone ground for restricting the minority’s cultural practices (Raday). Blanket bans are not just violations of human rights but also create intersectional discrimination against impacted communities (Raday). More courts must follow the example of the US Supreme Court that ruled in the favour of a woman who was denied a job because she wore a hijab (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc). Such decisions are needed in today’s growing Islamophobia, which undermines religious freedom (“US Muslim wins hijab case against Abercrombie & Fitch”).

works cited “After the Ban: The Experiences of 35 Women of the Full-Face Veil in France.” Open Society Justice Initiative, September 2013. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/ default/files/after-the-ban-experience-full-face-veil-france-20140210.pdf. Accessed 4th May, 2016. Arsalan, Ahmet. http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{“dmdocnumber”:[“863294”],”item id”:[“001-97380”]}. Accessed 4 May, 2016. Baer, Stephanie. “A Closer Look at Law: Human Rights as Multi-Level Sites of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality.” University of Michigan Law School, Scholarship Repository, 2010. Barry, Stephanie. “Does Anything Remain of the Right to Manifest Religion?” European Journal of International Law, 2 July 2014. http://www.ejiltalk.org/sas-v-france-does- anything-remain-of-the-right-to-manifest-religion/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Belgian Constitutional Court, 6 December 2012, No. 145/2012, B 20.2. Bennoune, Karima. “Response to Peter Danchin’s ‘Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom in International Law’.” Opinio Juris, 9 June 2008. http://opiniojuris.org/2008/06/09/response-to-peter-danchin’s-“suspect-symbols-val ue-pluralism-as-a-theory-of-religious-freedom-in-international-law/. Accessed 4 May 2016.

Brems, Eva. “SAS v. France as a problematic precedent,” Strasbourg Observers, https://strasbourgobservers.com/2014/07/09/s-a-s-v-france-as-a-problematic-prece dent/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Brems, Eva. “Ebrahimian v France: Headscarf Ban upheld for entire private sector.” Strasbourg Observers, 9 July 2014. https://strasbourgobservers.com/2015/11/27/ebrahimian-v- france-headscarf-ban-upheld-for-entire-public- sector/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Chamblee, Elizabeth L. “Rhetoric or Rights? When Culture and Religion Bar Girls’ Right to Education,” Virginia Journal of International Law 44 1073, 1111, 2004. Cranmer, Frank. “Ban on covering face in public not a breach of 44: SAS v. France.” Law and Religion UK, 1 July 2014.http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2014/07/01/ban-on-cov

ering-face-in-public-not-a-breach-of-echr- sas-v-france/. Accessed 4 May 2016.

Cranmer, Frank. “SAS v. France and the face-veil ban: some reactions”. Law and Religion UK, 5 July 2014. http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/2014/07/05/sas-v-france-and-the-face- veil-ban-some-initial- reactions/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Dahlab v. Switzerland, (2001) ECHR 899. Danchin, Peter. “Suspect Symbols: Value Pluralism as a Theory of Religious Freedom in International Law.” Yale Journal of International Law, Volume 33:1, 2008. Ebrahimian v. France, (2015) ECHR 1041. ECLI Ghams Case, http://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/#snelzoeken/?zoekterm=kruisbeeld. Accessed 4 May 2016. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc, 575 U.S. (2015). Evans, Carolyn. “‘The Islamic Scarf ’ in the European Court of Human Rights,” Melbourne Journal of International Law, Vol. 7, 2006. “French Muslim Student Banned from School for Wearing Long Skirt,” The Guardian, 28 April 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/28/french-muslim-stu dent-banned- from-school-for-wearing-long-skirt. Accessed 4 May 2016.

General Comment 13 on Right to Education, E/C.12/1999/10, 8 December 1999. http://www.right-to-education.org/sites/right-to-education.org/files/resource-attach ments/CESCR_General_Comment_13_en.pdf. Accessed 4 May 2016. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res 2200A, U.N. GAOR, 21st Sess., U.N. Doc. A/RES/2200 (Dec. 16, 1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171 (entered into force Mar. 23, 1976) Article 18(3). Islam, Shada. “Headscarf Ban Misses the Point.” YaleGlobal Online, 30 January 2004. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/headscarf-ban-misses-point. Accessed 4 May 2016. Journeyman Pictures, “Unveiling France’s Burqa Ban,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt 0dGPviJhU. Accessed 1 May 2016. Kapur, Ratna. “Un-Veiling Equality: Disciplining the ‘Other’ Woman Through Human Rights Discourse.” Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law, edited by

Emon, Ellis and Glahn, Oxford University Press, 2012.

Kokkinakis v. Greece (1993) 260 Eur Court HR (ser A) 6, 8; 17 EHRR 397, 399. Lautsi v. Italy, (2011) ECHR 2412. Leyla Sahin v. Turkey (2004) 44 EHRR 99. Mancini, Susanna. “Power of Symbols and Symbols of Power: Secularism and Religion as Guarantors of Cultural Convergence.” Cardoso Law Review, Vol. 30:6, 11 April 2011.

McCrea, Ronan. “The French ban on public face-veiling: enlarging the margin of appreciation.” EU Law Analysis, 2 July 2014. http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.in/2014/07/the-french-ban-on-public-face-veiling.htm l?m=1. Accessed 4 May 2016. McLean, David. “A Critical Reflection on the Lautsi Case,” Member of the European Consortium for Church and State Research, https://www.ekd.de/download/ 2013-02-21_McClean_A_critical_reflection_on_the_Lautsi_case.pdf. Accessed 2 May 2016. Moors, Annelies. “Minister Donner as Mufti: New developments in the Dutch burqa debates.” CLOSER, 21 September 2011. http://religionresearch.org/closer/2011/09/21/ minister-donner-as-mufti-new-developments-in-the-dutch-burqa-debates/. Accessd 4 May 2016.

Movesesian, Mark. “European Human Rights Court To France: Do Whatever You Want.” The Institute on Religion and Public Life, 3 July 2014. https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/07/european-human-rights- court-to-france-do-whatever-you-want. Accessed 29 April 2016.

Ouald-Chaib, Saïla. “About Crucifixes and headscarves in Dutch jurisprudence, Is there a difference in both?” Strasbourg Observers, 17 June 2010. https://strasbourgobservers.com/2010/06/17/about-crucifixes-and-headscarves-in- dutch-jurisprudence-is-there-a-difference-between-both/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Ouald-Chaib, Saïla and Eva Brems. “Doing Minority Justice through Procedural Fairness: Face Veil Bans in Europe.” Journal of Muslims in Europe, Vol. 2:1, 2013, 1-26.

Ouald-Chaib, Saïla. “Local ‘burqa ban’ violates human rights (according to Belgian judge).” Strasbourg Observers, 16 February 2011. https://strasbourgobservers.com/2011/02/16/ local-“burqa-ban”-violates human-rights-according-to-belgian-judge/. Accessed 4 May 2016.

Ouald-Chaib, Saïla. “Ranjit Singh v. France: The UN Committee asks the questions the Strasbourg Court didn’t ask in the turban case.” Strasbourg Observers, 6 March 2012. https://strasbourgobservers.com/2012/03/06/ranjit-singh-v-france-the-un-committee- asks-the-questions-the-strasbourg-court-didnt-ask-in-turban-case/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Peroni, Lourdes. “Religion and the Public Space.” Strasbourg Observers, 13 April 2010. https://strasbourgobser vers.com/2010/04/13/religion-and-the-public-space/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Peroni, Lourdes, Saïla Ouald-Chaib and Stijn Smet. “Would a Niqab and Burqa ban pass the Strasbourg test?” Strasbourg Observers, 4 May 2010. https://strasbourgobservers. com/2010/05/04/burqa-and-niqab-ban/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Phull v. France, http://echr.ketse.com/doc/35753.03-en-20050111/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Puppinck, Gregor. “The Case of Lautsi v. Italy: A Synthesis.” BYU Law Review, Vol. 12, Issue 3, 9 May 2012. http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?arti cle=2670&context=lawreview Accessed 4 May 2016. Raday, Frances. “Professor Frances Raday Comments on SAS v. France.” Oxford Human Rights Hub, 19 July 2014. http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/professor-frances-raday comments-on-sas-v-france/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Raihon Hudoyberganova v. Uzbekistan, Communication No. 931/2000, U.N. GAOR, Hum. Rts. Comm., 82d Sess., 6.2 U.N.Doc CCPR/C/82/D/931/2000 (2004). Ranjit Singh v. France, CCPR/C/102/D/1876/2009. https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/un docs/1876-2000.html. Accessed 4 May 2016. Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, 15 December 2010, A/HRC/16/53, para 44.

Ringelheim, Julie. “The art of dissenting: A few words on Judge Tulkens’ legacy.” Strasbourg Observers, 22 August 2012. https://strasbourgobservers.com/2012/08/22/the- art-of- dissenting-a-few-words-on-judge-tulkens-legacy/. Accessed 4 May 2016. Romero, Alicia Cebada. “The European Court of Human Rights and Religion: Between Christian Neutrality and the Fear of Islam,” New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law, Bill of rights anniversary special issue, v. 11, n.1, Nov. 2013, pp. 75-102. Roug, Louise. “Why France’s Ban on Face-Veils is Bad News for Women.” Mashable, 1 July 2014. http://mashable.com/2014/07/01/french-ban-veils-op-ed/#xcapixwuZ kqK. Accessed 3 May 2016. SAS v. France, (2014) ECHR 695. Sherwood, Harriet. “Europe’s top rabbi calls for solidarity with Muslims.” The Guardian, 8 April 2017. Shingara Mann Singh v. France, Merits, UN Doc CCPR/C/108/D/1928/2010, IHRL 3811 (UNHRC 2013), 19th July 2013, United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). Stephens, Bret. “To Ban the Burqa or Not,” The Wall Street Journal, 18 September 2010. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703904304575497881913005068#: Jmt64Fw8s_elOA. Accessed 3 May 2016. Tomasevski, Katerina. Education Denied: Costs and Remedies 168 (2003). “US Muslim wins hijab case against Abercrombie & Fitch.” Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera, 2 June 2015, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/rules-clothing-label discrimination-case-150601141831931.html. Accessed May 4 2016. Vickers, Lucy. “Conform or be Confined.” Oxford Human Rights Hub, 8 July 2014. http://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/conform-or-be-confined-s-a-s-v-france/. Accessed 1 May 2016.

human rights violations of nyu abu dhabi and the kafala system sabrina illiano In 2014, the NYU Abu Dhabi campus was completed as part of former NYU president John Sexton’s global expansion initiative. The university will soon be joined on Saadiyat Island - ‘Happiness Island’ in English - by outposts of the Louvre and the Guggenheim museums, in keeping with the island’s intention of becoming a cultural center of Abu Dhabi. Supporters of Sexton’s initiative praise the move, noting the significance of an American university providing a full liberal-arts education in a monarchical country with a history of violating fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression. However, behind the shiny veneer of NYU Abu Dhabi’s impressive new campus lie the deeply troubling circumstances of its construction. Although the contractors hired by NYU were supposedly obligated by the university to adhere to certain standards regarding the treatment of their workers, reports from migrant workers involved in the project suggest that these obligations were not met. Numerous migrant workers, most of whom were from Southeast Asia, reported receiving

significantly lower wages than they were promised, being housed in accommodation that was overcrowded and poorly maintained, having their passports confiscated, and being denied reimbursement for recruitment fees that left them in debt. When employees of BK Gulf went on strike in October of 2013 to protest their mistreatment, many of them were detained and deported by the UAE government. According to the NYU Abu Dhabi website, “NYU and its Abu Dhabi partners also established a set of labor standards, built upon UAE law and market-leading practices, designed to ensure that the institution’s commitment would extend to those who were building and maintaining the University’s facilities.” A report on migrant worker’s rights on Saadiyat Island released by Human Rights Watch suggested that the university and museum foundations were actually turning a blind eye to abuses perpetuated by the contracting companies. Following the October strike, NYU weakly asserted that it could not control the labor laws of another country but that it would initiate measures to make financial reparations to workers

who had been wronged. Critics of the university’s response have argued that the reparative efforts were inadequate and that steps should have been taken to more strictly enforce the labor standards supposedly set forth at the beginning of the project. NYU Professor Dr. Allen Keller, who teaches in the fields of bioethics, health, and human rights and directs the Bellevue/ NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, spoke about the controversy. He noted that in evaluating the situation in hindsight, emphasis should be placed on the university’s responses to the issue of worker’s rights and labor regulation in the UAE; “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me,” he said of the university’s future relationship with the government of Abu Dhabi. The question remains though, to what extent can the university claim ignorance to the potential for labor violations when it initiated the NYU Abu Dhabi project? In the majority of Middle Eastern countries, migrant labor is regulated by a sponsorship system known as “kafala.” Kafala confers a set of legal responsibilities onto the employer regarding their foreign employees, and has long been the subject of human rights criticism for its exploitative nature. Under kafala systems, workers are denied the ability to change employers or quit their jobs without the permission of their current employer; if they do so without this permission, their residency status may be

revoked and they can be deported. Many employers also take the passports of their employees and hold them for the duration of the contract, a coercive technique which binds workers to the company and gives employers a significant degree of leverage. Though several states, including the UAE, have taken small steps towards reforming the kafala system, these reforms have thus far proved largely superficial, as exploitative practices remain the norm. Because of the large degree of control that kafala gives the employer, these systems produce a harmful relationship between the employer and employee in which the employee has essentially no power to demand the enforcement of their rights. Foreign migrant workers make up a large proportion of the population in the Middle East; millions of men and women travel every year from their home countries to work as construction or agricultural laborers, domestic workers, and as professionals. While all are vulnerable to the kafala systems, domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are women, are a particularly at-risk group. These women are frequently sequestered into the private homes of their employers, where the law may feel like a remote, untouchable force. Their passports are confiscated, they are denied their wages, and they often do not speak the dominant language of the country; coupled with the fact that their work is confined to the home, this context often renders them

largely invisible to the regulations that are supposed to protect them and enforce their rights. Even as domestic workers attempt to speak out against their abuses, there are very few resources available to help support their efforts. Unique in the Middle East is Jordan, the only country in the region where laws were implemented in 2008 specifically regarding the labor of domestic workers. Though these laws have yet to promote substantive change within the country, as told by a Human Rights Watch report in 2011, their presence has empowered non-profit organizations to take more direct action to enforce the rights of migrant domestic workers. Human rights groups like the Adaleh Center offer legal advice to domestic workers, encouraging them to speak out against their abuse and informing them on how to claim the rights and protections provided by Jordanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s formal laws. The center has also been responsible for a Domestic Workerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Solidarity Network, which brings together migrant domestic workers to discuss their situations and offers a respite from the isolation of domestic work. While it remains to be seen whether or not these efforts will promote a long-term culture of labor rights in Jordan, there is certainly the potential for progress as migrant domestic workers become an increasingly agential force.

enforcement of labor rights for migrant workers, the situation remains critical. The labor rights of migrants is a global concern, although the unique nature of kafala and the regional lack of available resources for seeking protection and redress requires particular attention. Formal reforms to the widely-used kafala systems are not sufficient to produce substantive change, as exploitative employer practices are still rampant in all industries which contract foreign migrant labor. Looking forward, NYUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relationship with Abu Dhabi should strongly consider whether the UAE government can demonstrate significant progress in enforcing adequate labor regulations for migrant workers; excuses of ignorance tend not to be effective the second time around.

Though countries in the Middle East may be making strides towards stronger

child marriage: putting women before tradition devin lee Earlier this year, news outlets and human rights organizations around the world rallied to criticize a controversial law passed by the parliament of Bangladesh, which allows for children under the age of 18 to marry under “special circumstances” with the permission of a local court and the bride’s or groom’s parents, though such situations are not clearly defined and there is no mention of a minimum age or of the child’s consent. This is expected to most severely impact the young women of Bangladesh, 52% of whom are married by the age of 18, and 18% married by the age of 15, despite existing age restrictions. Now, with a law passed that allows such marriages to become legally valid, many fear that the problem will only get worse. Activist Soumya Guha of Plan International wrote in an article for Al Jazeera that “this special provision is not only a step backwards for the eradication of child marriage in the country, but also demonstrates a harmful violation of a child’s right to be heard, informed and involved in decisions that impact on her life.”

Stories like these are surely not unique to countries like Bangladesh. Though they may cause controversy, such laws exist in many countries around the world, including the United States. In fact, the state of New York actually allows for children as young as 14 to marry with parental and judicial approval. Alhough Governor Cuomo and several members of the state legislature have recently called for a repeal of the law that sets the minimum age for marriage at 17, there has been some pushback from the state’s religious and cultural communities that have a tradition of marrying young. This is common in discussions of such marriage laws, as one must consider that such policies may derive from a biased Western perspective, and might be interpreted as prejudiced or oppressive to minority groups. Ultimately, this gives rise to serious questions regarding the right of communities to practice cultural and religious expression, especially when it seems that such expression may come into conflict with the individual rights of women. It would be irresponsible and frankly arrogant to simply disregard the context in which many child marriages occur throughout

the world. There are many communities, some encompassing single neighborhoods and others entire countries, that have a long-standing tradition of getting married at a young age. Such traditions are often rooted in the religious demographics of the community, so it is only natural that these traditions should be deeply ingrained in the system of values and expectations that these people uphold. Despite the common Western narrative that highly religious, and specifically non-Christian, communities are oppressive to their members, many men and women within these communities often engage in their traditions willingly and happily. One cannot disregard all marriages of people under 18 as the product of forceful coercion, because to do so would also mean disregarding the cultures that encourage or allow such relationships. However, protecting and promoting the status of women is still necessary in every society. Women are, in one way or another, considered inferior in essentially every culture on the planet. Women are always vulnerable to the established gender roles of their cultures. Young people are also almost inherently dependent on their families and their communities for emotional, financial, and educational support. Inevitably, this means that young women are placed in an especially compromising position when it comes to deviating from the cultural systems that place expectations on them, leaving little room for personal autonomy.

Beyond that, The New York Times has reported, in regards to the current law in New York, that “The young women are far more likely than those who delay marriage to stop their educations, suffer economically, and become victims of domestic violence”. Even if there are girls who gladly make the choice to marry young, the external factors which may affect their situation are simply too powerful and the possible outcomes too dangerous to ignore. There is no doubt that religious and cultural communities have a right to practice their traditions. But that right only stands when all members of the community are conscientiously and willingly participating in those traditions. Laws permitting underage marriage necessarily violate that principle, whether it’s in Bangladesh or New York. The pressures that young women face offer far too many opportunities for coercion and force, and it is therefore irresponsible to allow for legal validation of any relationship that has the power to bind them to serious lifelong obligations, such as marriage.

the profound danger of U.S. escalation in syria max smith

The US cruise missile strikes on Syria have led to further rhetorical escalation from major US diplomatic figures. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Sunday April 9th that the Trump administration will “not stop here. If he needs to do more, he will do more.” She also indicated that US policy regarding Syria has made an abrupt about-turn, asserting that “there is no political solution with Assad at the lead. That’s not something the United States has decided, it’s something the international community has decided.”

Haley’s assertion that Assad must be ousted suggests that the US is now seeking regime change within Syria. Such a policy would be deeply dangerous and would undoubtedly destabilize an already shattered region even further, leading to countless more deaths, an escalation of an unimaginably brutal civil war, as well as an escalation of the proxy war being waged across the region between major regional and global powers, especially Saudi Arabia, Iran, the US, and Russia. The parallels between these signals and actions by the Trump administration and the escalations in Vietnam and Iraq are clear and unnerving.

As with any deployment of the hugely vague term ‘international community’, it is worth being deeply suspicious of the use of it here. It is unclear exactly which community Haley is referring to, or which judgment that community has allegedly made. Assad’s rule has been unspeakably violent and callous, but there is a vast and crucial difference between a consensus that a government is vicious and a consensus that the same government cannot play a role in a political solution to an incredibly complex and brutal civil war.

Trump’s airstrike in Syria did not need to be followed by this apparent policy shift. The strikes themselves were essentially useless: a puerile, impulsive reaction to an undeniably outrageous chemical attack, his reaction did so little significant damage to the targeted airfield that the airfield was in use by the Syrian government a few hours later. Such a criticism does not carry with it the implicit argument that an actually damaging strike would have made the decision to intervene militarily a good one; any kind of military intervention would have been unnecessary

and a mistake, but the fact that Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intervention was also verifiably ineffective compounds the sense that the decision was entirely without merit.If the strikes do produce in further escalation in Syria, that escalation will bring with it more deaths, more atrocities, more uncertainty and a further destabilisation of the entire region. If the strikes do not result in further escalation in Syria, then they were a pointless, callous, expensive and profoundly dangerous decision. Whichever outcome ends up being true, the strikes display a deep disregard for the overwhelming complexities of the civil war in Syria and for the lives placed at risk by further intervention. Trumpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s assertion that the strikes were born out of a sudden flourishing of compassion within himself is entirely inconsistent with the unchanged policy of his administration to oppose refugees from the region. The rhetoric of the administration, whether from representatives like Nikki Haley or from the president himself, belies the fundamental irresponsibility, impulsiveness, and lack of compassion which this military intervention has lain bare.

can you spare some change? jean louise morgenstern We walk and are cool On the streets of New York City, Even on the hottest day of the year, When our backs are wet and tongues dry. On the coldest day, when we have icicles piercing our guts and thick scarves encircling our throats, attempting to keep our head hinged onto our body, We are still the hottest people in this world. The confidence of the New Yorker is unmatched. See it on the subway: We do not like to look at maps. See it though the common Jay-walk: We do not like to look when we cross the street. We do not like to look at people either, And when we smell the scent of Dirty feet, tapering into nails that reminded Me of teeth When I was younger, We avert our eyes. The nails curl Underneath a large, pale sac of a belly that is More flesh than cultured eyes care to see. We run away with controlled, pointedly indirect steps While they ask for some change.

We do not stop and give what We all need in a capitalistic society such as this, Letting it rattle and collect in our pocket to be later dropped Onto the same floor they sleep on, Accidentally oozing out of our jackets as we run to catch the train For a brief respite from this city. Someone will find it later that night as they are about to close their eyes, Ready to make a floor We don’t dare place anything more than the base of our fashionably scuffed boots into a bed. They ask again, “Can you spare some change?” And we hear something sordid and threatening, flying away like a flock of pigeons. The New Yorker, often playing the role of victim, more often the perpetrator, is terrified of poverty and the tragedies of the world: The blood stains that collect where people don’t have proper menstrual products, The cloudy look That arises from hunger and disbelief, and the anger that is the result of exploitation. We speed-walk away with the New Yorker stride, Not looking back Until the distance is comfortable And we can turn around and look at this city that we fell into conditional love with, We can tell ourselves “next time”, Hoping that by then, Someone else will have emptied their Pockets for the human that is not welcomed By New York.

THE JOURNAL OF

HUMAN RIGHTS Spring 2017

Volume XXII