CONTENTS THIS MONTH’S ISSUE A FEW WORDS FROM THE 11TH BOARD When covid-19 ravaged the country, pushing school online, the most common complaint heard across the (virtual) campus was the excessive homework and the lack of meaningful relationships. Though meaningful, the fact that those complains were at the top of the list points to the immense privilege the Lawrenceville community has. Across the country, the virus has severely impacted different groups of people in different ways. For some, the pay check that would have supplied for housing, food, and other basic necessities never materialized, forcing them into a confusing system of unemployment protection that offered only a misleading sense of hope. This theme of privilege is also at the heart of the Floyd protests, as the recent injustices forced onto the African American community spurred thousands across the nation to demonstrate. Regrettably, the publishing timeframe made it impossible to sufficiently cover this topic in this issue of The First Amendment. However, this issue features ample discussion of the other major issue that’s incited protests: On the streets of Michigan, Massacheusettes, and many other states across the nation, anti-lockdown protests have popped up, drawing support from the president but disgusting many others. Regardless, we thoroughly encourage and invite the balanced and informed discussion of the current movements and conflicts. These recent occurrences have challenged us to reexamine the rights this nation was founded upon, forcing us to find the balance between individual rights and community wellbeing. In a time where the immense diversity of circumstances has created many different perspectives, a balanced discussion that represents these different viewpoints becomes increasingly important. New information should shift, prod at and remold one’s viewpoint rather than simply hardening one’s original beliefs. After all, that’s the very point of Harkness, the point of learning. When looking at the protests and other facets of the crisis unfold, we should put aside our judgment and consider the different motivations with an open mind. This issue of The First Amendment hopes to offer the wide variety of information that can push all of us to wrestle with the unique positions different communities are in and understand their viewpoints. As you read through the page of this issue, please take time to consider and engage with the different perspectives while reflecting on our rights and responsibilities as citizens. - The 11th Board
COMMENCEMENT MASS INCARCERATION AND COVID-19 Isabel Paine ’20 and Grayson Miller ’21 address mass incarceration in the U.S. and treatment of prisoners during covid-19. 03-04
STATE VS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT The United States has a wide range of severity of covid-19 cases based on geographic location. Rory Connor ’22 suggests varying responses across the U.S. amidst reopening. 05-06
HONG KONG PROTESTS
Sam Tang ’22 explains how covid-19 led to a sudden spike in democracy and a drop of support of the Hong Kong protests in China. 07-08
INTERNATIONAL RIGHT TO ASSEMBLY Ashley Wang ’23 summarizes how five countries’ existing policies on Right to Assembly had an effect on political uprisings and protests in the past. 09-10
PANTECT: A STUDENT RESPONSE Philip Han ’21 gives a discription of his atempt to make a positive impact and relates this to the rights and responsibilities of a citizen. 11
POLITICANS’ RESPONSE TO COVID-19 Each state continues to practice different law on containing covid-19, making it difficult to follow nationwide policy updates. Olivia Werts ’22 describes those policies. 12
CONSTITUTIONALISM OF S.A.H. ORDERS As protests ensue over the constitutionality of the U.S. government’s stay-at-home orders, Gian Beritela ’22 discusses precedent and their effects on the current global situation, plus Americans’ Freedom to Assemble. 13-14
ANTI-LOCKDOWN PROTESTS Autri Basu ’23 examines how political parties are using anti-lockdown protests for their personal gain. 15
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2020 COVID-19 IMPACT ON ELECTIONS
As covid-19 continues to spread, many begin to wonder how it could play a role in the upcoming 2020 U.S. presidential election. Chris Delaney ’20 describes the effects of the pandemic and what is now required to win 16
VOTING VIA MAIL As the covid-19 pandemic continues, the traditional method of in-person voting presents health concerns. Roma Kale ’23 discusses the benefits of voting by mail both in and out of a pandemic. 17-18
POST BREXIT NEGOTIATIONS Lucia Wetherill ’21 addresses how covid-19 might affect Britain’s lengthy Brexit negotiations while investigating the varying economic and political repcussions of Brexit. 19-20
EXAMINING THE RISE OF ZOOM
Two writers discuss the ramifications of Zoom’s sudden ubiquity 21-22
COMMUNITY AND SCHOOLS
Covid-19 has lead to school closures across the country, raising concerns about the impact on students. Daniel Zhu ’23 examines the benefits and harms of closing schools amid a pandemic. 23-24
INTERVIEW WITH JAMI FLOYD Ben Polaski ’21 & Nico Torres ’22 sat down with recent Capstone lecturer and legal media analyst for WNYC Radio, Jami Floyd. The interview covers topics mentioned during the lecture and perspectives regarding political media. 25-26
PRIVACY AMIDST CONTACT TRACING Victoria Gong ’21 discusses the ethics of contact tracing apps during the covid-19 pandemic. 27-28
MASTHEAD Editors-in-Chief Jasper Zhu ’21 Cherie Fernandes ’21 Executive Editors Avigna Ramachandran ’21 Mac Dilatush ’21 Domestic Editors Ben Polaski ’21 Nico Torres ’22 Features Editor Mel Josephson ’22 International Editors Kylan Tatum ’21 Jupiter Huang ’21 Senior Columnists Victoria Gong ’21 Chris Pandapas ’21 Lucia Wetherill ’21 Associate Editors Ethan Leung ’23 Ashley Wang Ameilia Wickham Carina Li Daniel Zhu Faculty Advisor Anne Louise Smit P’10 ’13 Cover Art by Min Kim ’21 Contact Us: Like us on Facebook at: facebook.com/firstamendmentlville Follow us on Instagram: lville_thefirstamendment
BOOK LIST
The 11th board shares a list of book recommendations compiled from Lawrenceville’s History Department. Read during quarantine! 29-30
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Mass Incarceration & Covid-19 Isabel Paine ’20 & Grayson Miller ’21
Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on the United States, prohibiting ordinary people from attending school, working, and going about normal life. Most fail to realize, however, that some of the biggest hotbeds for the covid-19 outbreaks exist in prisons and jails. Annette ChambersSmith, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, described the penal system’s battle against covid-19, stating, “We felt like we were fighting a ghost.” The simple anatomy of incarceration facilities impedes convicts’ ability to remain socially distant from others, allowing covid-19 to infect prison communities more intensely than anywhere else in the nation. Covid-19 has shed light on extraordinary weaknesses present in the U.S. penal system, affecting the lives of prisoners’ and their wellbeing. Due to the predisposition of marginalized groups to suffer from health issues that worsen the effects of covid-19, as well as inadequate healthcare in the penal system, U.S. prisoners are more susceptible than others to the virus. Prison populations predominantly consist of individuals from minority communities, due to various factors including racial biases, systemic oppression of urban communities, and racially charged laws in the U.S. When convicts hand over their right to freedom and autonomy, the responsibility lies within the govern-
ment to provide adequate healthcare. The Eighth Amendment declares that prisoners have a unique right to decent healthcare. Unfortunately, this mandate rarely plays out in reality. The lack of access to healthcare already leaves minority groups in urban settings more sus-
“While the city of New York’s infection rate is 2.14 percent, Rikers Island has an infection rate of 9.54 percent.” ceptible to covid-19, but this issue is even worse in prisons. More than 80 percent of incarcerated people enter the system with a history or current problem of drug use, and diseases such as AIDS and HIV
run rampant in the system. More often than not, individuals with these medical issues do not receive proper treatment, as delayed access to healthcare, inadequate evaluations by officials, and restricted access to medications plague the penal system. U.S. prisons are severely understaffed, so those infected with covid-19 often remain untreated. In addition, prisons typically expect convicts to pay a $2.00 to $5.00 co-pay for physician visits, medications, and testing. Usually, convicts earn $0.14 to $0.63 per hour, so charging them $2.00 to $5.00 is similar to charging $200 or $500 outside of incarceration facilities. Some states have eliminated the co-pay, but prisoners with covid-19 remain largely untreated. Inadequate healthcare services in and out of the prison system, in conjunction with overcrowding issues, create a breeding ground for covid-19 in U.S. prisons. There are more than 3,000 jails in the U.S, housing over 731,000 prisoners on any given day. Plaintiffs have taken legal action regarding overpopulated prisons, such as the 2011 Supreme Court Case Brown v. Plata, which found California state prisons had operated at around 200 percent of design capacity for at least 11 years and required a depopulation of the prisons. However, the issue persists today. Lacking resources to test inmates, many prisons only test those who are symptomatic, and they fail to share test results with guards and other staff. By leaving workers out of the loop, they cannot adequately isolate infected inmates and adhere to social distancing
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Illustration by Jeffery Tao ’20 guidelines. Even if guards knew which inmates to separate, they would not have the space to do so, as a typical prison cell is only 6x8 feet. Anywhere in a shared cell, an inmate risks infecting their cellmate. Overcrowding results in disparities between prisoner and civilian infection rates, as illustrated by Rikers Island statistics. While the city of New York’s infection rate is 2.14 percent, Rikers Island has an infection rate of 9.54 percent. Additionally, in the Marion Correctional Institution, a low-to-medium security prison, 2,000 prisoners and 160 staffers, around 80 percent of the prison’s population, have been diagnosed with covid-19. The prison’s widespread testing explains
itive test results on individuals who otherwise would have never been tested because they were asymptomatic,” an Ohio state official explained. While the rate of infection in that prison is still high, the effects of adequate health care service have prevented prisoners from suffering more than they already are, unlike most other incarceration facilities. Given prisons’ inability to handle the spread of the virus, many states have begun to release inmates that do not pose a risk to society. However, in the U.S., there are still about 576,000 people, about 40 percent of the prison population, who are behind bars despite posing no immediate risk to public safety. This massive prison population only aggravates the spread of the virus, putting more individuals at risk when they could be safely following government regulations if they were free, a notion that the justice system recognizes. A judge in Los Angeles County, California, ordered the release of inmates in county jails, following a
“The virus has shed light on acute weaknesses in the justice system regarding healthcare and overcrowding.” the numbers: “Because we are testing everyone—including those who are not showing symptoms—we are getting pos-
California state ruling that set bail at $0.00 for many misdemeanors and some felonies. While the effort to set bail at $0.00 is not going unnoticed and combats the history of abuse of bail prices to discriminate against lower socioeconomic classes, it calls into question why the release of these prisoners hadn’t come earlier. Ultimately, ordinary U.S. citizens should concern themselves with covid-19 hotbeds in prisons, for the more infection spreads inside incarceration facilities, the more covid-19 spreads in the areas around them. Arrested individuals go in and out of jails daily, and prison staff constantly travel from outside communities to and from facilities. Unfortunately, covid-19 affects predominantly urban areas where people of color reside and low-income communities the most, a notion exacerbated by covid-19’s spread in prisons. People of color are disproportionately represented in prisons due to inequities in our penal system, as U.S. criminal justice policies are both overtly and covertly discriminatory. Additionally, immigrants residing in detention centers remain just as susceptible to infection as those in regular prisons. Covid-19 infection does not discriminate based on race or socioeconomic class, but minorities and marginalized groups are bearing the worst of it, especially in prisons. The virus has shed light on acute weaknesses in the justice system regarding healthcare and overcrowding, while also demonstrating that incarceration rates are much higher than necessary. The government should use these exposed flaws as motivation to jumpstart policies that improve prison life because now more than ever, convicts possess the right to humane treatment.
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State vs. Federal Government Calling the Shots Rory Connor ’22 Virtually everyone has heard the message about covid-19 that “staying home saves lives.” Although one can see this in many different forms, from the World Health Organization’s “Stay home. Save lives.” to the White House’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread,” the same basic idea is that the act of staying home will cause the number of covid-19 cases to drop. The people are in control of the most important factor in determining covid-19 infection rates; if people followed quarantine orders more seriously, the virus’s spread would be mitigated. The roles in terms of cause and effect between the number of covid-19 cases and the strictness of social distancing is the reverse of this. Social distancing certainly has a non-negligible effect on the spread of covid-19. However, the number of cases of covid-19 has a bigger effect on government policy than government policy has on the number of cases of covid-19. This relationship is why countries and localities around the world with more cases of covid-19 have been instituting more strict quarantine and social distance policies, as they should, to respond to the more significant problem that these cases pose. Although it might be tempting to demand the federal government to demand blanket solutions for the whole country, states should have the power to control
their own restrictions to the covid-19 sponse. Park Neung-hoo, Korea’s pandemic, allowing them to tailor Minister of Health and Welfare, extheir response to their own unique plained in an interview with Time situation. Magazine that because of the severTo demonstrate the different re- ity of the 2012 outbreak of Middle sponses that covid-19 will require, East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), two examples of foreign countries, the Korean Health and Welfare MinSweden and South Korea (Korea), istry was highly alert to any novel should be looked at. While Korea virus in the country. When covid-19 has a population significantly high- first started to spread, the ministry er than that of California in an area pushed the strong, clear message about a quarter of California’s, Swe- that “It is critical that the infected den has an area slightly larger than patient is identified and isolated as that of California while housing a quickly as possible.” Korea’s ability population about a quarter of Cali- to quickly identify the problem and a fornia’s. Korea’s high population den- proportionate solution is ultimately sity, as well as its geographical and why the country is in a much better political closeness to China, made place today. In almost every metric Korea the second country to reach relating to covid-19, Sweden is basi500, 1000, and 5000 cases. Throughout most “The truth is that the rest of February and the of the country is treating a first week of March, the Sweden-level problem with a number of people in Korea with covid-19 nearly Korea-level response.” doubled every two days. Then, something changed. While it took Korea only cally the opposite of Korea. While five days for Korea’s total covid-19 cas- Korea reacted strongly to the virus, es to jump from 100 to 1,000, it took 37 Sweden’s government has yet to take more days to reach 10,000 cases. Ko- many basic measures. Public parks, rea has yet to reach 11,000 cases as of schools, and restaurants remain now, over four months since Korea’s open. Nevertheless, the number of first case. This major success against new cases in Sweden has plateaued covid-19 virus is almost entirely due at 3,000-4,000 since the beginning to Korea’s appropriately strong re- of March, and weekly death reports
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have already begun falling. If the situation in Sweden changes unexpectedly, Anders Tagnell, Sweden’s lead epidemiologist, is still ready to have a “big discussion on what other measures [they] can take,” but makes it clear that Sweden will only take such an action if the local severity of covid-19 merits it. Despite having responses with almost nothing in common, both countries have succeeded in preventing excess deaths and allowing the public to return to work. This is because of their ability to properly assess what response the disease calls for, and implement that very response. Almost half of all covid-19 cases in the U.S. happened in three states: New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. The remaining 47 states have a population of about 290 million people, 550,000 of which are infected at a rate of 189 cases per 100,000 people, slightly lower than that of Germany or Sweden, and slightly higher than Ecuador or Panama. The economy and society of the entire nation is being shut down because of three states, all of which are in the same geographical location. This isn’t about blaming the minority of Americans who live in highly infected areas, but the truth is that the rest of the coun-
tancing is a justified response, and is successfully achieving its goal of flattening the curve below the capacity of the healthcare system. In fact, this measure was so effective that, according to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, not a “The rest of the country is now single person in New York in a position where it is neceshas died because “[New York] couldn’t provide sary to start reconsidering the [them with] care.” In New current strategy.” York City and surrounding areas, the current aptana just doesn’t make any sense. The proach of keeping people distanced purpose of quarantine was to “flatfrom each other effectively keeps the ten the curve.” The logic behind this healthcare system from being overcurve flattening claims that the best whelmed while buying more time way to get through the disease is to for better treatment and testing opwait until enough of the population tions. However, the rest of the counis either recovered or dead so that try is now in a position where it is the average infected person infects necessary to start reconsidering the less than one new person. As long current strategy. Strict quarantine as these people are infected slowly in places like Atlanta can be likened enough that the healthcare system to reducing the speed limit to five isn’t overwhelmed, most deaths will miles per hour on the freeway; sure be prevented. This slow infection of it might save some lives somewhere, an entire population is the goal of but the problems it causes to society quarantine. In very dense urban aroutweigh the benefits. eas of the east coast, self-isolating is the only good option we have, but in the rest of the country, the premise that the majority, or maybe a large minority of the population will become infected is far from a given. This is why, in New York City, socially distry is treating a Sweden-level problem with a Korea-level response. Our country has limited resources, and right now, sending stimulus checks to quarantined people in rural Mon-
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Hong Kong Protests Debilitated By Covid-19 Samuel Tang ’21 After months of unrest and turmoil, the pro-democratic protests in Hong Kong ceased due to the threat of covid-19. For months, the outbreak has disrupted, and to a large extent, debilitated the movement, as strict quarantine measures limited people from participating in public gatherings. But recently, the protest movement has shown signs of a revival as the number of new cases in Hong Kong has decreased, and normal life slowly returns to the port city. Moreover, the government recently arrested some prominent demonstrators on the grounds of their lawbreaking actions during protests prior to the pandemic. As a result, a couple of protests have already occurred in the past week with more groups announcing their plans to return to the streets. It is now evident that the covid-19 outbreak merely put a pause on the protests, but this does not mean Hong Kong will return to the chaotic, tumultuous state that it was in before. The demonstrations will continue, but not with the same magnitude and support given how covid-19 has taken a toll on the city. The priorities of the Hong Kong people have since changed; after weeks of inactivity, a genuine desire for a return to stability and prosperity should resonate more than inciting conflict, and in truth, the success of the government in dealing with the covid-19 crisis as
nomic reasons. The minor protests that continued amidst the outbreak have turned dangerous. Recently, protestors have adopted much more violent and radical tactics, such as “an ongoing bombing campaign … that has been both violent and indiscriminate.” In March 2020 alone, Hong Kong police have found large amounts of homemade bombs and detained more than a dozen people due to raids across the city. On May 1, protesters spread the news once again about planning to plant bombs in various MTR (Hong Kong Metro) stations, prompting widespread fear and strict police response. Like the covid-19 outbreak, these radical actions prevent people from safely going outside, while also diminishing the trust between the citizens themselves. Having already challenged the stability of the city, leaders of the protest risked causing a public health crisis when they “vowed to press ahead with their march in defiance of a police warning to cancel it because of the coronavirus epidemic.” By insisting on going ahead with their march and actively working against quarantine measures, the protestors demonstrate that their loyalties lie more with the movement than with the safety and wellbeing of the public. They were later met with the harsh truth that sympathy for the protest movement is declining, as the “expected return to anti-government protest chaos on the streets of Hong Kong failed to materialize on Labour Day,” with “riot police easily [out-
well as sweeping changes to its legislative structure should serve to promote far more solidarity in this city. The protests have already shaken Hong Kong’s economy to its core, reducing the city’s ability to tolerate continued instability. While the protests had previously gained support from many residents, Hong Kong suffered severe economic impacts and social unrest. Since November 2019, “Hong Kong’s retail sector overall saw sales figures fall 23.6 percent” and analysts predicted that “Hong Kong’s economy will shrink by 1.3 percent in 2020”. The tourism business was especially hurt, as 77 percent of hotel staff who said they had been asked to take between one and three days of unpaid leave, costing up to HK$3,000 in wages, a drop of 10 percent in pay.” The protests may have been directed against the government, but in the process, the livelihoods of ordinary citizens were hurt. This, “The protests may have been dicombined with the posrected against the government, but sibility that Hong Kong’s in the process, the livelihoods of economy could deordinary citizens were hurt.” crease by more than 10 percent in second-quarter due to covid-19, citizens of Hong numbering] small bands of anti-govKong risk putting their economic in- ernment protesters.” This contrasts terests in severe jeopardy should the greatly with the massive marches protests continue. It would be self- many months ago, which had hundestructive for protestors to resume dreds of thousands of participants. their activities and not just for eco- Clearly, after all Hong Kong has been
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through, the general public has lost much of its tolerance for conflict and radical change. The pro-democratic protests will likely lose even more steam after covid-19 due to growing satisfaction with the Hong Kong government itself, given the landslide Democratic victory in district elections and the overall competence of the city’s coronavirus response. Though Hong Kong has a population of 7.5 million, by April 30, 2020, the total number of confirmed cases in Hong Kong was 1,038 with only four deaths. As a comparison, New York City has 8.5 million people, yet, the metropolis has seen 186,000 cases of covid-19 and 20,000 deaths. More importantly, unlike New York City, people in Hong Kong did not have to stop working due to covid-19. There was no citywide lockdown in Hong Kong, yet the spread of the virus remained low. Evidently, the Hong Kong government has been efficient and effective in managing the city, curbing the infection rates and minimizing the economic and physical damage done to the populous. According to a survey from the University of Hong Kong, after several months of lows, the highly unpopular Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s “rating rose from 23.4 percent in January to 26.8 percent in April, and the percentage of satisfaction of government performance also rose from 11.4 percent in January to 17.7 percent in April”. Although the rise in satisfaction might seem insignificant, it
shows that people were at least appreciative of what the government did to curb infections. Furthermore, many already consider the movement victorious, as Hong Kong’s Democrats have gained control of 17 out of the city’s 18 district councils in an election that saw a record high 71.2 percent turnout rate with around 2.94 million people casting their ballot. It marks a landslide when compared to the last election in 2015, when the opposition camp failed to win any district council. Given that a major goal of the protests was to secure a significantly more favorable political climate for pro-democracy activists, this victory represented hope to people, and could even justify an end to the protests themselves, since the people now have a peaceful outlet for their motives. The pandemic hasn’t gone away yet, and neither will the protests, since there will always be individuals who express discontent with the government and have an appetite for conflict. But the protests should not return at the same level as before, given the waning moral support and new priorities in recovering from the economic toll of the pandemic. The government, through its efficient and effective pandemic response, has partially mended its relationship with the people, and the shift in legislative councils towards a greater amount of pro-democracy representation proves a decidedly hopeful step toward preserving the demo-
cratic systems that govern Hong Kong in the near future. At the end of the day, Hong Kong may not be able to stop its eventual merger with the mainland in 2047, but their citizens have made it clear they wish to make the most out of the remaining 37 years of relative autonomy. This pandemic has heightened the fact that Hong Kong, for all its political woes, is first and foremost a global economic powerhouse, and its citizens will wish for little else than a return to economic prosperity first, before continuing to discuss the ever shifting role of democracy in the governance of this city. Peace and prosperity may yet return to Hong Kong, as long as the Chinese government refrains from making drastic, sweeping changes again.
Update as of May 29, 2020 China has since expressed desire to pass a National Security Bill in Hong Kong that could potentially allow the Central Government to field their own police force in the semi-autonomous region. Beijing has defended this action by asserting that the proposed bill would only impact a narrow group of crimes, maintaining Hong Kong’s freedom. The Hong Kong Parliament also debated passing a National Anthem Law that would prevent showing disrespect to the National Anthem. These actions have caused a second wave of protests. The Trump administration has also expressed that Hong Kong is no longer sufficiently autonous to justify special treatment.
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International Right to Assembly Ashley Wang ’23
France Although the French Constitution does not explicitly protect the freedom of assembly, it is a valued freedom that has worked to shape modern legislation. For any demonstration to take place, organizers must notify the local town hall or police station at least 48 hours in advance. While most demonstrations are approved, authorities may ban gatherings deemed a threat to public order. According to France’s 2013 Internal Security Code, the use of force during assemblies by law enforcement agencies is only acceptable if it is “necessary and in a manner that is proportionate to that purpose.” After the terrorist attacks on Paris in 2015, the French government imposed a national state of emergency that included a ban on demonstrations, which many claimed was simply a guise of restricting the freedom of assembly. Recent protests have caused the government to amend its legislation on assembly. The new law calls for more severe punishments for those breaking the law while protesting, sparking fear of the whole right’s viability.
Venezuela Under Article 52 of its constitution, Venezuela guarantees the freedom of assembly, provided that local civil authorities are given notice 24 hours in advance. Additionally, the 2012 Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits excessive force during arrest. However, these rights are not protected in practice. In 2019, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that security forces in Venezuela habitually used excessive force to instill fear and deter demonstrations. In particular, the Bolivarian National Police used tear gas and water cannons without warning, causing hundreds of deaths. In 2019, police illegally raided and arbitrarily detained demonstrators who backed Juan Guaidó’s presidential proclamation, arresting 770 protestors in a single day. The government condemned none of these issues, repeatedly denying the involvement of security forces in these incidents. The government justified this violence through Resolution 008610, which the Ministry of Defence issued in 2015. This resolution allows armed forces to be deployed during public protests and authorises the use of firearms during those operations. Since it did not clearly establish or define the circumstances in which firearms could be used, the resolution drew a considerable amount of concern from human rights advocates.
FEATURES
Azerbaijan
Article 49 in Azerbaijan’s consti peaceful assembly, with a requi least five days in advance. Organ legal authorization receive 60 d constitutional amendments imp dom of assembly so that the gov order and morals.” Additionally the use of force by the national tries, it does not call for minimu Azerbaijan deters individuals fr blies through preventive detent The government has stopped is typically confines demonstratio it can track participants through nition software. The police also cessive force to disperse protest were detained following rallies nov, and more than 200 were in
Across the globe, different countries often have different interpretation of freedom and the value of free assembly. Many countries have a disparity between de jure freedoms and de facto freedoms. This features examines a few countries and what freedom of assembly looks like there especially in current times where social distancing measures have limited mass gatherings. According to chapter two of the Swedish constitution, every citizen is granted the freedom of assembly. Sweden has also adopted the European Convention on Human Rights, further binding it to uphold one’s right to peaceful assembly. Under its constitution, limits on the right of assembly can only be imposed for traffic, national security, or public health reasons. Groups that “persecute another group based on its ethnic origin, skin color, or other similar circumstance” are limited as well. In order to have an assembly, organizers must obtain authorization or give notice a week in advance, including “information on the organizers, the time and place of the assembly, the type of assembly and its main design.” To deal with appeals of decisions relating to authorization, administrative courts and the Parliamentary Ombudsmen issue critiques against police handling of authorization. This keeps the police accountable for the authorizations they make. Freedom of assembly is generally respected in Sweden, but violence has erupted between far-right demonstrators and counter-protestors.
itution provides the right of irement for a notification at nizers of assemblies without days of detention. However, pose tight restrictions on freevernment can protect “public y, the Police Act of 1999 governs police, but unlike other counum force in response to threats. rom joining peaceful assemtion and intimidating activists. ssuing permits for rallies, and ons to remote locations, where h phone data and facial recogo have a record of employing exts. In January 2019, 40 activists in support of Mehman Huseynterrogated at police stations.
Sweden China Although Article 35 of China’s Constitution ensures its citizens the freedom of assembly, the Chinese government has been infamous for cracking down on political uprisings. Constitutional limitations delineated in Article 51 only allow gatherings that are “[in] the interest of the state,” claiming that the freedom of assembly is only allowed if “other people’s fundamental interests are being protected and developed.” This position has allowed the Chinese government to deny the right to assembly based on a subjective evaluation of the organizers’ “intent” and “purpose,” resulting in arbitrary restrictions of assemblies. Therefore, obtaining approval for protests is nearly impossible, pushing citizens to organize without the consent and protection of law enforcement. To quell dissent, Chinese authorities have employed a variety of strategies to punish activists and discourage future uprisings. Often, demonstrators are met with police violence, with organizers facing imprisonment or “re-education.” Notable protests in the past include the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, as well as the July 2009 Ürümqi riots.
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Pantect: A Student Response to Covid-19 Philip Han ’21 I heard school would be shut down for the rest of the term back in midMarch. Like many other students, I made my way back home. The first thing I noticed upon returning to Seoul was that everyone was wearing masks. Perhaps this was how Korea successfully contained the virus. It is still disputed as to what extent masks can effectively prevent the transmission of viral droplets. Yet, the lack of compelling scientific evidence did not stop Koreans from wearing masks. In Korea, masks have become a symbol of communal effort, generosity, and conviction to overcome the pandemic. I felt the urge to share this sentiment back to those in America. For a good week, I looked for ways to donate masks. Would I make them with some old T-shirts? Who could help me? How would I ship these overseas in time? Should I be doing something more than simply donating masks? It was also during this process that I came up with the name “Pantect.” Short for Pandemic
Protect, Pantect literally means “all cover” derived from its Greek and Latin roots. I leaped to organizing my first donation when my mom was able to find a man who has a mask factory. The government regulations prohibited us from sending single-use, medical-grade masks. And thankfully, our supplier produced reusable cloth masks recommended for the general public by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With the help of two friends, we successfully delivered our first shipment. Now, Pantect is a community of 32 students and two alumni — guided by faculty advisor Mr. Kooistra — dedicated to containing the virus by donating masks to those most in need and spreading awareness of mask usage and its benefits. We have acquired a total of 10,000 masks so far. For our first shipment, we donated 1,000 to the Trenton Office of Emergency Operations in New Jersey, 500 each to the com-
Kylan Tatum ’21 delivering masks to the Mercer County community.
munities of Concord, Massachusetts and Lakeville, Connecticut. For the second shipment, we donated 4,000 to the Princeton Area Community Foundation, a philanthropic community foundation based in Central New Jersey. For our third shipment, we are planning to send 2,000 masks to the JBJ Soul Kitchen, a nonprofit kitchen founded by Jon Bon Jovi, and another 1,000 to Franklin County, Massachusetts. We are currently communicating with a couple of organizations to donate our remaining 1,000 masks. Communal dedication is, by nature, an essential aspect to overcome any crisis. According to a May 12 CDC report, one carrier spread the virus to 53 fellow choir members, hospitalizing three and killing two. Similar incidents coupled with the growing body of data that suggest asymptomatic carriers are the Achilles’ heel of our current pandemic control strategies, indicate that just one person can cause significant detriment. On the flip side, a single person also has a profound capability to save lives. Thus, each of us need to wear masks and properly educate ourselves about key information surrounding the virus. The change starts with one person. We are given the impression that the solution is to sit back and wait for others to solve our problems. Stock up. Hunker down. Quarantine. But that is barely enough, especially when the government and its institutions struggle to adequately inform and protect everyone. We each, then, have a civic duty to extend ourselves to our communities. We all carry a responsibility to practice proper social distancing, mask-wearing, and hygiene. Further, we must stay informed of the latest developments around our communities and apply professional advice to help those around us. You have the power to alleviate the devastating effects of covid-19 for you, your neighbors, classmates, and many more.
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Politician’s Response to Covid-19 Olivia Werts ’22 When covid-19 struck the United States, politicians across the country, especially those governing hot-spot areas, took multiple steps to protect public health and safety, but the effectiveness and timeliness of such measures remains a topic of debate. San Francisco- Mayor London Breed
New Jersey- Governor Phil Murphy
According to the California Department of Public Health, as of the writing of this article, San Francisco has 2,320 confirmed cases of covid-19. This relatively low number can be accredited to Mayor London Breed’s proactivity. Breed ordered a citywide shelterin-place on March 17 , established emergency child care centers throughout the city, and regulated deliveriy charges to help protect people’s financial wellbeing. The mayor’s early action initially received criticism because of its negative economic impact on the city, particularly harming the revenue of basketball team, the Golden State Warriors; but, her proactivity prevented a surge in cases, as San Francisco has seen only 40 covid-19 related deaths so far.
Second to New York, New Jersey has 153,104 confirmed covid-19 cases. Governor Phil Murphy issued a state of emergency on March 9 and a stay at home order on March 21, when the state haas d 1,327 cases. He has employed aggressive social distancing strategies, but under pressure from businesses looking to reopen recently allowed some non-essential workplaces to begin opening for employees. But at the forefront of the nation’s reopening, Murphy stands firm that “public health creates economic health. And if we begin to see a backslide in public health, we will have to also pull back on the reigns of our restart”. His measures have significantly decreased the infection rate in New Jersey and allowed the curve to plateau. In addition, Murphy has talked of lifting some restrictions, however, given that N.J.’s death toll has passed 11,000, the state reports that current measures will be enforced and businesses will remain limited to delivery and takeout options until further notice.
New York- Governor Andrew Cuomo
Although New York is epicenter of covid-19 cases in the United States, Governor Andrew Cuomo has been recognized for his effective leadership and implementation of safety measures. Once the state had surpassed 7,000 confirmed cases, Cuomo announced the closing of all non-essential businesses, which went into effect on March 22. With the help of the federal government, Cuomo employed a naval ship, the USNS Comfort, to relieve hospitals of non-coronavirus cases from April 6 to April 29. While the ship’s effectiveness in flattening the curve is unknown, this extra resource has aided New York City’s healthcare system nonetheless. With almost 30,000 deaths and 365,000 cases, it will be a while before New York returns to complete normalcy.
Florida- Governor Ron Desantis The state of Florida has been under major scrutiny for its lack of early preventative measures. Governor Desantis’s delayed action on closing popular spring break destinations, which attract large crowds to the Florida shoreline, has been the main source of criticism. Desantis finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 2 after 13 members of the U.S. Congress urged him to take action. The official order only allows essential facilities to stay open, but Desantis deemed discretionary business such as the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) necessary. DeSantis’s mandate ended on April 30, and schools are set to open soon, despite Florida’s current standing of near 50,000 cases and his actions having produced no sign of slowing the virus. 12
United States- President Donald Trump President Donald Trump has been criticized for his slow response to the covid-19 outbreak. He first addressed the threat on January 22 by saying that his administration was “not at all” worried about the outbreak becoming a pandemic in the United States. Despite this, he enacted a Chinese travel ban to preemptively protect the U.S. On March 13, when the U.S. had 1,678 confirmed cases and 41 related deaths, President Trump declare a state of national emergency. Since then, he enacted national social distancing measures and a multitude of international travel bans to help combat the spread. He has left specific restrictions to the states to enforce as each has been affected in different ways. Despite these actions, the U.S. now makes up about the majority of cases worldwide and has now suffered more than 100,000 deaths.
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Constitutionality of S.A.H Orders Gian Beritela ’22 Dozens of pneumonia cases from an unknown source were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019; the WHO later deemed the cause to be covid-19. On May 3, 2020, the state of Maryland was sued over Governor Larry Hogan’s stay-at-home orders, which began on March 30 in order to combat covid-19. The lawsuit was filed on the basis that the plaintiffs’ “right to travel, free speech, and assembly have been violated, and that businesses have sustained deep losses because of what they consider to be unconstitutional orders.” Whether or not the prosecution succeeds in their lawsuit is unknown at the moment, yet it brings questioning of the stay-at-home orders and their legality from a constitutional standpoint. The implementation of mandatory guidelines, such as those in Maryland, may have infringed on the rights outlined by the Bill of Rights, specifically, the right to assemble, on face value, but did not contradict the spirit of the right given new advancements in technology. Even the surface level infringements were done out of necessity, and precedent has shown that they will be reverted once the situation no longer demands them to exist. At first glance, it might have appeared evident that the government is no longer protecting one’s rights;
order parameters that are currently in place. Civil liberties are the most important thing defended by the Constitution, and they are what the U.S. stands for. However, there comes a point where one’s individual rights begin to infringe on collective rights. For example, one’s right to leave their home, despite an ongoing pandemic which has an unknown infection fatality rate and transmission rate, affected everyone else’s health and safety. In this situation, the government should have the power to intervene and protect the rights of all citizens. In a normal situation, the government, in general, should not have the power to make the decisions for a citizen, as this is inherently authoritarian. This situation stood apart, however, seeing as there is currently a global pandemic, and action must therefore be taken. With that said, whenever the government made a decision to increase their power, the constitutionality of their actions should be evaluated. Often, times of crisis are taken advantage of in order to push a more authoritarian government. For example, after China started loosening its restrictions, it instituted a QR code tracking system through the popular communication app Wechat. This application allowed the government to track the whereabouts of every single user an any given time, alarming critics that saw this as a test run for a future where the virus no longer existed but the tracking remained. An
in fact, they made it illegal to peacefully assemble in public. The government’s policies stated that violating the stay-at-home order, which does not allow for leaving one’s home except for necessary purposes, possibly resulting in a fine up to $5,000 USD, a prison sentence up to one year, or both penalties. Due to this temporary law, citizens were no longer allowed to assemble in large groups. However, the physical barriers to gathering does not mean that the right to freedom of speech no longer exists as technological advancements have made possible to gather online. When the Bill of Rights was written, no way existed to engage in political discourse or to protest without meeting in person. In order for political parties to discuss or for protests to occur, it was necessary for the government to protect the right to assemble. However, due to the technology available today, groups of citizens “However, there comes a point are easily able to comwhere one’s individual rights municate with one another. Zoom and other begin to infringe on collective applications provided rights.” a service that can help people converse and discuss their example closer to home is the Patriot freedom. While this does not mean Act, adopted following the attacks the right is not being infringed upon, of September 11, 2001. This act easit does mean that everything includ- ily passed because of the period of ed under this specific right deems panic and uncertainty experienced still possible with the stay-at-home by the U.S. gave the government the
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power to access anyone’s personal information for any reason and said information does not have to be destroyed. This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, designed to counteract Britain’s Writs of Assistance, which allowed for search without reason. Even more relevant is the relatively unknown Earn It Act, which was passed in March of this year. Under the guise of a bill meant to attack child pornography, much like how the Patriot Act was meant to attack terrorism, the Earn It Act effectively allows government offcials to force online service providers to break encryption of any kind and perform even more searches that would violate the 4th amendment. They were both passed because they would theoretically be for the greater good. These acts are absolutely unacceptable, and while there should be concern for the procuring of more influence, they are not the same as what the government is doing in response to covid-19. Although the government seized more power temporarily, there is precedent within the U.S. government in the past for similar procedures, all of which ended with the government rescinding the power they had seized, meaning that there should not be much concern for the permanent loss of these rights in the future. The U.S. was not setting
precedent for anything new through what actions they take; very similar procedures have set the precedent for what the people are seeing now. For example, during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918, public gatherings were banned and schools were closed, much like what U.S. citizens are experiencing today. Americans more easily accepted those measures since “the great war provided the rhetoric of nationalism necessary to usher in these authoritative responses and losses of liberty.” Much like how Stalin pushed his regime using nationalistic sentiments, the authoritarian measures taken by the U.S. government were accepted due to similar feelings of nationalism. The government’s actions are merely following what the U.S. government did 100 years ago. Following the pandemic,
the government eventually permitted public gatherings and ceded that part of their extra power. Even today, there are already states lifting their stay-at-home laws, including Alaska and Alabama. It is important to note that both sets of actions are in response to global pandemics. The government is exercising more power given the threat the covid-19 pandemic poses. Though it indeed limited the ability for people to meet up and protest, the philosophy behind that right remained due to technological advancements that allowed the continuation of meetings and gatherings. With this said, the government is not challenging the law of the land, the Constitution; its only desire is to combat the current crisis and impose the necessary restrictions to allow life to get back to normal as soon as possible. Through minor limitations on individual rights, leaders are attempting to protect the greater collective. At the end of the day, historical precedence has shown that these rights, though temporarily restricted, will revert to normal once the crisis has subsided. Ultimately, the rules posed by governors are merely a temporary necessity to save American lives and not a challenge to the freedoms that inspired the founding of this nation.
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Anti-Lockdown Protests Autri Basu ’23 On April 15, 2020, cars swarmed guidelines and held up signs reading the Michigan State Capitol during an “Lock [Whitmer] Up.” Through orgaevent dubbed “Operation Gridlock.” nizing and promoting these events, A week earlier, Governor Gretchen the right-wing has successfully engiWhitmer of Michigan signed one of neered a mass movement—and there the strictest quarantine orders in the are important motivations behind it. nation, outraging many and drivOne of the key selling points of ing nearly 5,000 people to protest in Trump’s re-election campaign is the public. Michigan’s protests kicked off significant growth exhibited by the a wave of dissent that engulfed many U.S. economy under his administraregions in the country, taking place in tion. However, due to the strict social over a dozen states, including Ohio, distancing orders, nearly all of the North Carolina, and Virginia, and growth has been undone, with ungarnering massive media coverage. employment claims skyrocketing and Due to President Trump’s platform, markets regressing. Because of this, he has often chosen to support the groups supporting the Trump adminprotestors, adding to the political am- istration are organizing protests in the munition of his rivals nationwide. hopes that if the economy reopens Officials soon discovered that the early enough, the rebound will be Michigan Freedom Fund and the enough to compensate for the previMichigan Conservative Coalition, ous crisis. The most notable endorsetwo conservative groups, organized ment of the protests was by Trump the protest. From there, more right- himself, who, on April 17, sent out a set wing ties were found, such as the of tweets calling to “liberate” Michidiscovery that the DeVos family, “The covid-19 crisis has upended a member of which is currently in the presidential cabinet, conmuch of daily life in the U.S., with tributes to much of the Michinearly 90 percent of the populagan Freedom Fund. Additionally, tion under lockdown orders at one two Confederate flags were spotpoint.” ted at the Lansing protest, along with numerous pieces of Trump gan, Minnesota, and Virginia, all of campaign memorabilia. Freedom- which were under strict lockdown Works, another conservative group, orders imposed by Democratic goveven created a document outlining ernors. Similarly, one of Trump’s top the most effective way to engineer an economic advisors, Stephen Moore, anti-lockdown rally, which a citizen was found assisting the organization in Oklahoma used to organize a dem- of a protest in Wisconsin. The Trump onstration that attracted hundreds of campaign knows that it must resolve people. In Michigan, one of the most the economic crisis in some way, but intense protests occurred when the the aforementioned reopenings could group Michigan United for Liberty spell disaster for Trump’s re-election instructed armed protestors to storm chances if bungled. According to a the Michigan State House. At the May 8 survey by FiveThirtyEight, same time, demonstrators outside the 83.5 percent of Republicans and 39 building violated social distancing percent of Independents approved of
Trump’s response to the pandemic. However, if early reopenings cause a second wave of the virus, resulting in social distancing again after restrictions are lifted, Trump’s approval ratings could plummet due to voters potentially blaming him for the uptick in infections. These protests, and the crisis overall, have also served as an opportunity for Democratic politicians to expand their appeal. For example, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has emerged as an authoritative voice amongst the American left-wing by holding the federal government accountable when it mishandled its response and giving clear, informative daily addresses regarding the crisis, making him one of the main faces of the Democratic Party. One poll even showed that 46 percent of people trust Cuomo’s statements on the crisis, in sharp contrast to Trump’s 36 percent. Cuomo’s pushback on the protests has been strong; when one journalist told him that New Yorkers wanted to return to work, he responded that the journalist should go “take the job as an essential worker.” It is this attitude, which, while somewhat brash, has allowed Cuomo to emerge as one of the most prominent public figures within the Democratic Party. Support for Cuomo could establish a base for a future presidential run, or at least affirm his presence in the Democratic Party. The covid-19 crisis has upended much of daily life in the U.S., with nearly 90 percent of the population under lockdown orders at one point. Being this widespread, it was inevitable that there would be a segment of the populace dissatisfied with the orders, and resulting protests continue to grow. However, in encouraging protests and attempting to reopen the nation prematurely, the conservative movement in the U.S. risks instigating a second wave of the pandemic. Their stance also draws criticism towards the governmental epidemic response, allowing the Democratic party to attempt to reap support from those that oppose said actions in hopes of propelling the popularity of figures such as Governor Cuomo.
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The covid-19 pandemic will most definitely be a significant issue influencing the 2020 presidential election, specifically in the unique circumstances of the campaign and the quality of the United States’ response. Recent campaigning from candidates has gone completely virtual through news interviews and videos on social media. This environment could potentially favor either candidate if they take advantage of it. For President Trump, the constant spotlight of his daily press briefings on the U.S.’s response to the covid-19 pandemic will aid his campaign, especially if the nation succeeds in reopening and deaths begin to decrease. On the other side, Biden’s stage presence has been weak, to say the least—he called one of his supporters a “dog-faced pony soldier” and even forgot the state in which he was campaigning. If the majority of speeches and debates include the use of a teleprompter or take place on video, Biden will have an easier time expressing his ideas while mitigating criticism of his unreliable memory. Finally, Trump’s response to the pandemic has been heavily criticized by the media, for both his lackadaisical efforts to take action and his spread of misinformation. Despite increasing testing availability, passing a record-setting covid-19 stimulus package, and authorizing countless supply-side economic relief programs for businesses, Trump continues to be slammed by progressive media. Therefore, as the U.S. has become the epicenter of the pandemic, Biden is able to produce his own plan for covid-19 relief, which includes many of the same goals, but proposes a nationalized response using demand-side economics to aid the sick and prevent further economic collapse. Whether a more federally unified response would work better than Trump’s current response is nearly impossible to discern, but Biden can use the current gridlock and high death rate to his advantage by advertising an alternative solution. Regardless of who benefits from the national lockdown, navigat-
Covid-19 Impact on Elections Chris Delaney ’20 ing the unique circumstances of the campaign trail and the perception of Trump’s response to the pandemic will have significant influence on the outcome of this year’s election. In today’s world of political polarization and economic crisis, party unity and a smart campaign will be especially key to winning the presidential election. Regarding policy, the positions of each party base will most likely remain the same. Due to the polarization of the media and tribalist party sentiments, the key to winning an election no longer lies in unifying the nation and winning as many American voters as possible, but rather in strategically rallying specific groups of voters in certain areas. In a tight election in the wake of a national emergency, the outcome will hang in the balance of how each candidate spins the circumstances to their own base. The political cul-
“The key to winning an election no longer lies in unifying the nation and winning as many American voters as possible” ture in the U.S. throughout the 2020 campaign is like never before, and in order to come out on top, the candidates must follow suit. The second issue that will play a key role in the 2020 presidential election is the state of the economy in November. As of late April 2020, the covid-19 pandemic has caused the GDP of the U.S. to plummet—a 4.8 percent decrease in the first quarter. The price of oil even became negative—one had to pay a buyer in order to “sell” crude oil, revealing
how much one of America’s largest industries has struggled. Additionally, working-class Americans have been hit particularly hard by the economic downturn. Over 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment since March, setting records for job loss in many states. In this case, President Trump seems to face a lose-lose situation if he does not plan the nation’s rebuild perfectly. If he reopens industries too early and deaths in the U.S. increase, then he will face the blame of lost American lives. On the other hand, if he waits too long to reopen industry, many more will lose their jobs and savings, causing a permanent economic collapse and, in turn, a viable reason for greater government intervention under Biden. Although the future of the economy remains uncertain, it will play a major role on the debate stage and in the voting booths come November. Under the new circumstances imposed by covid-19, an innovative campaign strategy will be crucial to winning the presidential election. With the election being complicated by this national emergency, the outcome will hang in the balance of how capably each candidate spins the circumstances to their own base. Economic and medical policy will also be heavily debated leading up to November, as the U.S. attempts to decide what philosophy is best for the country. The political culture in the U.S. throughout the 2020 campaign is unprecedented, and in order to come out on top, the candidates must adapt.
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Protecting Democracy: The Benefits of Voting By Mail Roma Kale ’23 As covid-19 steals the international spotlight, the global pandemic has called a sacred American right into question: voting. Specifically, methods of voting. Ahead of the November elections, Democrats and Republicans are arguing over whether or not voting by mail (VBM) is a viable option. Most Democrats assert that VBM is a necessary response to the pandemic, while Republicans tend to claim that it will increase voter fraud. Unfortunately, this debate has become a partisan issue even though it should be approached objectively without the influence of political bias in order to come to a fair decision. Ultimately, VBM is an essential concept that must be implemented quickly in order to protect this fundamental aspect of democracy. A switch to VBM is needed now more than ever given social distancing and the advantages it provides voters. With the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calling on people to “stay out of crowded places and avoid mass gatherings,” going to polling stations and standing in lines with large groups poses a significant threat to one’s health. Social distancing is a practice meant to isolate people in order to limit the spread of the virus. By setting up in-person voting booths, the government forces the public to choose between engaging in participatory democracy or prioritizing their health. Outside of the current pandemic, VBM offers other benefits. This form of voting increases voter turnout, especially
because it eliminates the need for polling stations and workers. Though covid-19 acts as the current impetus for the possible shift to VBM, the method has demonstrated many benefits which may apply beyond the context of social-distancing. In Natalia Ibarra ‘20 and Cate Levy’s ‘20 final Honors Government project, the pair designed a program that could register and encourage as many people to vote as possible. The mission behind this program was to register all eligible voters and have them apply for an absentee ballot and vote through mail. Since VBM is going to be vital for the upcoming election, the pair researched the history of VBM and its impact. The pair found that increasing VBM is supported by a majority of Americans, according to a survey conducted by Center of Public Affairs Research. In addition, they found that VBM increased turnout for local and state elections which are just as important as national elections. In their project, Ibarra and Levy realized that the content of their message was much more important than the number of people they contacted. Professor Robert Putnam, in his book Bowling Alone, notes that calling or texting more people does not actually yield higher voter turnout. In fact, in Levy’s own experience with text banking for the Georgia Democratic Party and the Legislative Victory Fund (LVF), too many texts can actually annoy potential voters. Some of them have even threatened to not vote if LVF kept contacting them. Putnam emphasizes the importance of creating
among younger, older, poorer, and minority demographics, allowing a more representative portion of the population to choose its leaders. As political scientist Kristina C. Miller recognizes, elected officials do not always listen to or see their entire constituency, and therefore, their public policy agendas are not always informed by their complete constituency. In turn, many citizens in a community can suffer due to their representative’s inability to communicate with them and respond to their needs. VBM has and will continue to increase voter turnout, hopefully forcing candidates to consider more points of view during their campaigns and infuse more of their policy agenda with the opinions of their constituents, many of which have largely been ignored. Washington, a state with all-mail elections, boasts one of the highest voter turnouts in the nation because of the convenience VBM provides. The state’s government sends each citizen a ballot, facilitating the voting process. With mail-in “A switch to VBM is needed now ballots, people are not more than ever given social disrequired to vote at a spetancing and the advantages it procific time of day, which is especially beneficial to vides voters.” some workers who are unable to spend a significant amount genuine relationships and networks of time standing in long lines. Since between people, so going door to door VBM does not require citizens to vote and asking people to vote is much more in person, this method also limits the powerful than canvassing via technolpossibility of voter suppression. VBM ogy. Unfortunately, due to the current is also cheaper than in-person voting pandemic, technology is going to have
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to be an effective tool if candidates hope to increase voter turnout. While there are advantages to VBM, at the same time, there are challenges. Ibarra and Levy discovered that a significant challenge to VBM is the amount of resources needed. The current infrastructure for VBM might not be prepared to handle the amount of ballots requested. However, there are still a few months until the election which gives the government time to improve VBM’s infrastructure, hopefully, in time for voters to cast their ballots. The challenges to VBM are known, now they just need to
rience with VBM. Switching to a mail voting system run by the federal government could be logistically impractical, as voting is a decentralized institution. Some Republicans also see the United States Postal Service (USPS) as a reason for concern. They claim voting by mail could disenfranchise people because of the slowness of USPS in some rural areas. Furthermore, many Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to gain power by using the coronavirus relief bills as a way to provide vote by mail options. However, the most widespread opposition to VBM still stems from concern
of mail voting during the covid-19 pandemic. Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland decided to switch to a VBM system for a congressional election. The safety of the American people should always be the government’s top priority, and with physical distance measures in place, forcing people to vote in person at polls is absurd. Even as the U.S. moves forward from the current pandemic, VBM should be utilized and normalized in all states because it increases voter turnout, makes it more convenient for workers to vote, and is oftentimes cheaper. Putnam emphasiz-
be addressed. Ibarra and Levy remain optimistic that solutions will be proposed and implemented to VBM. Critics of VBM, including President Trump, cite impracticality and greater susceptibility to fraud with mail ballots than with in-person voting. Republicans are not alone in this concern; Douglas Kellner, a Democrat from New York, opposes VBM, pointing to “the potential for fraud and the lack of verifiability.” At voting booths, poll workers can ensure that there is no misconduct, but this extra layer of security is gone with mail ballots. Additionally, local and state governments conduct elections, so some officials argue that a sudden shift to mail ballots will have unforeseen negative consequences for states that lack expe-
about voter fraud. Overall, the benefits outweigh the possible risks of VBM. While fraud is a valid concern, preventative measures keep the odds of widespread voter fraud low. Voter fraud is very uncommon; in Oregon, which has had 100 million mail votes since 2000, only about a dozen cases of voter fraud have been proven. As a preventative measure, Washington avoids fraud by cross-checking the signatures of voters when they register to vote with the signature on the security envelopes of the ballot. Furthermore, some critics of VBM have used it themselves. President Trump calls mail ballots “corrupt” but used a mail ballot to vote in Florida. Across party lines, some Conservatives realized the importance
es the importance of civic engagement and voting. Putnam, through extensive research, has found that people who vote are more likely to be involved in their communities, helping out in a plethora of organizations and enriching the lives of others. The reverse is also true. The more engaged you are in your community, the more likely you are to vote. Increasing voter turnout will hopefully amend the steady erosion of social capital and bring more Americans into the political conversation. All of these benefits help ensure that leaders hear every citizen’s voice in elections, which is an essential part of American democracy. On the whole, VBM is an effective and necessary way to protect the sacred American institution of voting.
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even more difficulties to this alreadycomplex process. Under the divorce agreement, “Britain can request a one-time extension of the transition period for one or two years, provided it makes the request by the start of July.” Amidst the chaos of the covid-19 pandemic, many wonder whether it is possible to continue effective negotiations or if the U.K. will have to extend the transition period. While keeping post-Brexit talks on schedule will be logistically challenging, the U.K. will likely continue with the December 31 deadline. Lucia Wetherill ’21 Both postponing and proceeding with Brexit will adversely affect the U.K.’s economy, and the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this issue. The U.K. is one of the countries hardest hit by covid-19. As of April 2020, On January 31, 2020, the United post-Brexit policies and regulations, the International Monetary Fund Kingdom finally exited the European such as border procedures, immigra- predicts a 6.5 percent drop in Britain’s Union, an organization founded not tion regulation, financial services, gross domestic product this year, and the independent Office of Budget even thirty years ago in Responsibility reports 1993, after nearly four that the economy could years of deliberation, “Amidst the chaos of the covid-19 shrink by 35 percent in having been a member pandemic, many wonder whether it the second quarter and since its founding in by 13 percent for 2020. If is possible to continue effective ne1993. The U.K. is curthe U.K. were to extend rently operating within gotiations or if the U.K. will have to the transition period, it an 11-month transition extend the transition period.” would struggle to conperiod in which it still tribute financially to the has full access to the EuE.U. while simultaneropean single market and other ben- trade agreements, and data sharing ously recovering from the economic efits of E.U. membership. During this regulations. Experts predicted the impact of covid-19. Yet if the U.K. retransition period, the U.K. and the transition period to be challenging mains on track to fully separate from E.U. are meant to negotiate several for the U.K., and covid-19 has added the E.U. by December 31, lawmakers would be subjecting citizens to increased costs of travel and communication, new tariffs and import costs, a slowing of economic growth, and a loss of jobs found through the E.U. in addition to the economic effects of covid-19. The post-Brexit blow to the economy is minimal compared to the damage done by covid-19; however, it would further damage an alreadysuffering economy. While the U.K. will eventually fully separate from the E.U., this period of economic turmoil is not the best time logistically. The covid-19 pandemic has forced all jobs, meetings, and activities to
Post-Brexit Negotiations
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be held virtually, presenting several problems for Brexit negotiations. Despite technological advances, virtual negotiations have their limits—it is more challenging to remain unified during virtual meetings and they will be less efficient as a result. Agreeing on issues such as trade or immigration by the December 31 deadline will prove more challenging. Furthermore, confidential information is relayed during these meetings, and with a virtual format, it is harder to keep that information from leaking. Politicians will also be focused on dealing with the pandemic and other necessary reforms, potentially rendering post-Brexit talks a second priority. The U.K. will struggle to balance mitigating the spread
U.K. stood at roughly 26,771, rising by 674 deaths in only one day. The U.K. currently suffers from a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and covid-19 testing, making it more difficult to get a handle on the disease. As lawmakers scramble to control the spread of the virus, they too risk infection. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was notably absent for a period of time after contracting covid-19 and narrowly surviving his hospitalization. While the logistics of post-Brexit negotiations will be incredibly difficult, from the U.K. government’s perspective, there may be no better time for a successful Brexit. Between February and April of 2020, Johnson’s approval rating shot up by 18 percentage points. He currently has an “While the logistics of post“unassailable” parBrexit negotiations will be liamentary majorincredibly difficult, from the ity. The economic effects of Brexit pale U.K. government’s perspective, in comparison to there may be no better time for those of covid-19, allowing the covid-19 a successful Brexit.” economic downturn of covid-19 with effectively continu- to effectively conceal any blow to ing Brexit negotiations. As of May 1, the economy that Brexit may cause. 2020, the covid-19 death toll in the If plans go awry, the pandemic pro-
vides the government with an easy scapegoat. Thus, if there were ever a time to attempt the complex and often controversial post-Brexit negotiations, it is now. As Johnson built most of his platform on Brexit, it is unlikely that he and his government will not take advantage of this opportunity. However, as the U.K. moves forward, its strategy will likely be determined by public opinion. If controlling the pandemic continues to be the public’s central focus and Johnson’s approval rating remains high, the U.K. will remain on schedule. If there is an overwhelming movement to extend the deadline, the government will do so, not wanting to alienate its citizens during a crisis. As of right now, while there may be some strategy changes, the government has resolved to continue negotiations and hold fast to the December 31 deadline.
Update as of May 29, 2020 Since the writing of this article, the European Union and the United Kingdom have meat meant on May 15 to discuss fish, competition rules, and the potential of a trade deal. Despite meetings, negotiations still remain in a stalemate, with Britain’s chief negotiator ruling out any deal that consisted of giving European boats access to British waters. Despite this stalemate, the British still maintain the stance of completing negotiations by the end of the year. Some progress has been made, however. Both sides have shown desire to cooperate on basic issues of free trade, energy, and transport.
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The Rise and Risks of Zoom Chris Pandapas ’21 Lawrenceville has been using the video conferencing service Zoom for essentially all communication, from classes to club meetings during the covid-19 crisis, and we are not remotely alone. Zoom has become the most popular communications service during this pandemic by far, seemingly overnight rising to global prominence and market domination, even being the second most downloaded app on Apple’s store (second only to the recent popular video creation and sharing platform TikTok), garnering over two million downloads in a single day. However, if you are anything like me this situation raises a lot of questions, including how and why this service in particular became the standard over previously more popular services like Skype, what kind of financial situation this entails, and especially what kind of security risks this service poses. Surprisingly, Zoom Video Communications Inc (Zoom Inc), the company behind the service, has existed since 2011, launching the Zoom software in 2013. It was not until recently that the company saw major success, and it was on April 18, 2020 that Zoom Inc went public as ZM and on it’s opening day soared, being valued at just under sixteen billion USD at closing, going on to join Nasdaq on April 30. Exactly how Zoom became the standard in its indus-
less a direct result of the insecurities inherent in the service itself, but is a far more serious privacy and security risk. These recording are leaked to the open web and include intensely personal and private information, such as therapy sessions and recordings of people’s homes and confidential conversations. Zoom is aware of the issue and has been working to fix it since the Washington Post’s articles, but the fact remains that Zoom is not an inherently secure service by any means. Any technology or internet service that has become as ubiquitous as Zoom, and especially as quickly as Zoom, must be closely scrutinized. The fact is that any web or technology product is vulnerable, and one which is as widespread as this one and contains as sensitive of information is dangerous and should be treated as such. Zoom Inc and its product deserve to be analyzed closely and held to an extremely high standard. As for us, we should be very careful how and for what we use Zoom. Sensitive information such as therapy sessions and confidential meetings should be well secured behind passwords and it should be ensured that they are not recorded, if Zoom is used for them at all. Refrain from sharing any private information via Zoom when possible. This is good advice for essentially any online service, as they are all vulnerable and full details as to their activity is never knowable. Zoom is an excellent ex-
try, capitalizing on the pandemic so quickly and effectively, is something of a mystery, considering the many other applications that offer similar services. Many, including Zoom Inc, simply cite a very accessible product with free features and easy-to-use tools that include full cross platform support as the reason for its success over significantly more well-established tools. Everything up to and including financial conspiracy has been suggested regarding the rapid and extraordinary success of this once little-known service, but all that we can be sure of is that Zoom is a phenomenon, and a profitable one. The story does not end there, however, because Zoom’s ubiquitous quality has not come without its share of risks. Questions of security and privacy have been raised with good reason, most conspicuously in the face of “Zoom bombing”, the practice of breaking into and raiding insecure Zoom calls, “The story does not end there, which can come with a however, because Zoom’s ubiquihost of problems ranging from mundane intous quality has not come without terruption to considerits share of risks.” able privacy violation. Less well known but more worrying- ample of the mysteries, dangers, and ly is the abundant leaking of record- precautions surrounding popular ed Zoom calls onto the web, report- technology, and if there is anything ed in early April by the Washington to be learned from this tale it is the Post, likely the result of insecure on- importance of scrutiny even in the line storage of call recordings. Unlike face of crisis. “Zoom bombing” this issue is much
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Looking back to before break, the majority of us Lawrentians had never heard of Zoom. Despite the program being around for about eight years, Zoom did not have widespread popularity and had only been used by a few businesses. During the pandemic, everything changed. According to CNN Business, “On March 23, Zoom was downloaded 2.13 million times worldwide, up from 2.04 million the day before, according to app tracking firm Apptopia”, an exponential increase from about 56,000 downloads in the months leading up to the pandemic. Zoom went from virtually unknown to the app that Lawrentians and people around the world have relied on to keep connected. Although Zoom has become a staple of pandemic life, the app has many challenges that we must learn to navigate to preserve our mental health. A huge part of Zoom’s popularity is its convenience. Users can participate in meetings of up to 100 people and up to 40 minutes, entirely for free. As long as you have an internet connection, you can meet friends, classmates, and co-workers through the platform, equipped with video and audio. Zoom has proved a lifeline for us to continue many aspects of Lawrenceville at home. However, the necessity of this platform can have its drawbacks. Zoom is a heavy psychological burden in comparison to normal life. It’s common knowledge that Zoom calls are draining, to the point that we have the term “Zoomed out” to describe the phenomenon. There are so many otherwise nonexistent facts that we’re forced to be cognizant of with Zoom. For one, in virtual calls we struggle to simultaneously listen to the speaker and decipher non verbal cues such as “facial expressions, the tone and pitch of the voice, gestures, posture, and the distance between the communicators.” Non verbal cues are crucial to communication because they add context and understanding to conversation; without them we cannot interpret
Feeling “Zoomed Out”? Ndeye Thiobou ’21 the true intention or meaning behind someone’s words. Zoom connects our minds, but we are still not physically united, and that puts a tremendous amount of energy solely on the brain to figure out how the people in the call are feeling. Particularly for the educational experience, Zoom leaves students and teachers alike incredibly tired and results in lower energy and less intellectually-rich conversations than would have typically taken place in person. Teachers struggle to engage their classes without clear feedback, which brings down their teaching ability and as a result the energy of the classroom environment. While Lawrenceville has implemented synchronous meetings throughout the week to preserve some elements of the Harkness classroom, Zoom classes are far less efficient and productive than classes around a Harkness table. Additionally, some have to worry about how much of their lives they want to show through the camera. The majority of us unmute after speaking to ensure background noise does not spill into a professional environment, and none of us want private aspects of our lives or family to show up on video. In a neutral environment like the classroom, this never was a concern. Particularly in crowded home environments, it can be difficult to focus on Zoom because home has become an educational environment, which
it was never meant to be. The stress only heightens when we experience anxiety about our internet connection being unstable, worry about how we appear on screen, and deal with the fatigue that comes with staring at a computer screen emitting blue light for hours at a time. Despite all of Zoom’s limitations, it appears that the platform will define life in the months ahead, so it is only practical to develop ways to minimize these drawbacks. One way to reduce the frequency that we get “Zoomed out” is to use our judgement or discretion in determining whether a Zoom meeting should take place. Information and tasks can be relayed through an email or phone call to offer a respite from sometimes invasive and draining video calls. Alternatively, as has been the case for some Lawrenceville school meetings, YouTube videos can be sent out so people can absorb information at the time best for them. We can also take initiative in monitoring our screen time, because after nearly 3 hours of class time spent on screen most weekdays, we should not stay on devices more than necessary. Breaks can include exercise, playing with pets, or relaxing with family. Zoom will likely never feel natural, but we can take steps to make the platform a less stressful and more enjoyable environment.
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Closing of Schools and its Impact on Communities Daniel Zhu ’23 “This is not something in a million years I could have imagined having to do.” These were the shocking words of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on March 15, regarding his decision to close New York City’s public school system. With the closure of one of the nation’s largest public education systems, consisting of almost 1,800 schools, over a million New York City parents were left uncertain about what the future would hold for their children, resulting in many feeling left in a twilight zone. As of May 1, 2020, 44 states, four U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia have either ordered or advocated for the closure of schools for the remaining school year. Furthermore, 98,000 public schools and 34,000 private schools have been closed, affecting over 55.1 million students. The recent outbreak of the highly contagious virus presented many
numbers of people are in proximity to one another and respiratory infections can easily spread among young people and adults alike.” Many are also citing similar pandemics in the past where schools were shut down. During the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, studies showed that cities that closed schools, along with prohibiting public gatherings, saw a significant decrease in deaths. Similarly, a study conducted on Japan’s response to the H1N1 flu outbreak in 2009 and the school closures during the influenza outbreak in 2013 both provide evidence affirming the effectiveness of school closure. Even with the increasing pressure that many governments are facing to close schools, many argue that it is an exaggerated response. First off, most of what we know about the benefits of school closures due to
governors, mayors, and school boards with the difficult decision of whether or not to close schools across the United States. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the disease spread mainly through person-to-person inter“Many children will miss out on action, school closures months of schooling, and disrupbecame a topic of discussion, but many were tions in education can profoundly still debating whether if impact the growth of youth learnthis course of action was ing and development.” necessary. The primary motivation behind shutting down schools transmissible diseases are related to nationwide was to prevent the spread the influenza outbreak. In the case of covid-19, potentially changing the of influenza, children, in general, shape of the pandemic curve and are exceptionally vulnerable. Since saving many lives. Howard Marklel, children were the ones at risk, had director of the Center for the His- more day-to-day interactions in comtory of Medicine at the University of parison to adults, and were more susMichigan, stated, “Schools are com- ceptible to spreading the virus, closmunity gathering places where large ing schools was a logical decision. However, influenza and covid-19 are very different diseases. The current data we have surrounding covid-19 suggests that children are at a much lower risk of contracting the disease than adults. Children usually have less severe symptoms and don’t contribute as much to the spread of covid-19. Some are even going as far as to say that children do not transmit the virus at all, though no clear evidence supports this claim. Since there truly is no evidence to support these the-
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ories, it’s best to err on the side of caution rather than pay a large price later on. Though kids may seem less vulnerable, they are engage in dayto-day contact with their parents, grandparents, and other adults, to whom they can transmit the virus. With the closure of schools across the nation, a big concern is the quality of education that students will receive. Many children will miss out on months of schooling, and disruptions in education can profoundly impact the growth of youth learning and development. At the same time, school closures could also possibly enlarge the disparity in higher-educational achievement between low and high-income families. While online school is a possible solution, many families simply do not have the technology or resources needed to support this approach, and the quality of education will not be consistent. Research on long school closures caused by week-long teacher strikes in Canada and Belgium found an immediate decline in student test scores. However, we still don’t know the full detriment remote learning will cause and whether this approach will adequately compensate for the lost in-person schooltime. Many suggest that a virtual learning environment was bound to happen with the evolving technology around
us and that now is the best time to start. To put it simply, too many lives are at risk to value such concerns about education, something that can be regained later on. While education is the most conspicuous concern, many also voice concerns about the inadvertent impact that school closures will have on their surrounding communities. The closure of schools will likely mean the same for child care programs that provide supervision to children with working parents. As a result, numerous essential workers and single parents will face the tough task of deciding how to take care of their children. On top of that, closing schools will also mean an interruption of social services, including programs that provide lunch and breakfast to more than 30 million students. For some children, the closure of school means a lack of access to the support they need and the services they rely on for basic necessities such as food and clean clothes. Despite these difficult circumstances, communities and food banks are coming together to help one another. While under a state of emergency, a Michigan food bank donated over 500,000 pounds of food, just one example of the many ways communities have been
coming together during the covid-19 pandemic. Even though closings will certainly mean a struggle for some families that is not meant to be overlooked, the greater concern must be prioritized and charitable groups and organizations can be counted on to address the negative impacts. Looking at the situation holistically, it’s evident that there is no easy solution to this dilemma. However, the benefits of keeping schools closed for the time being outweigh the harms, with public health being the most critical issue. Though evidence suggests that children are less vulnerable to covid-19, there are still dozens of adults that help run each school on a daily basis. On top of that, doing anything to help flatten the curve, slow transmission, and keep the number of cases at a manageable rate will save lives. Rising issues such as education and the impact closing schools will have on the community are problems that can be combated through other means during this pandemic. However, as of now, there is no cure for covid-19, and the American lives lost are something we can never get back.
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American Journalism: Interview with Jami Floyd Ben Polaski ’21 & Nico Torres ’22 Lawrenceville’s senior Capstone class was recently treated to a lecture by NPR host Jami Floyd, who discussed her work in journalism and the impact of major current events—namely, covid-19—will likely have on national news coverage leading into the 2020 election. TFA contacted her for an interview further discussing the role of American journalism at this time, some key content of which is included here. Q: Do you see an increased responsibility on journalists to publish the views of scientists during the covid-19 pandemic, given how much we’re only hearing from politicians on the topic? A: Yes, absolutely. If you go back and study the 1918 flu pandemic and the role of journalists then, who were largely in cahoots with the Wilson administration and the various governors around the state, though there were some exceptions to this, the journalists failed terribly. There was a sedition act, and you faced 20 years in prison if you wrote or spoke about the truth of what was then called the Spanish flu—at the time, the origin of the disease was also misreported. Journalists really have an obligation, in this moment, to the extent that we can accurately report on the science of the story, to do so, and if we don’t know the facts, to find people who do know the science. We have been trying to do that at our outlet, and so have so many others. But as I said at the beginning of this conversation, the volume of information is astounding. The facts change not daily, but hourly, in terms of what we know about the disease, how it travels, where it originates… I think what we need to do as journalists is simply give the public the information it needs to be healthy, to be informed, and to move forward as best as we possibly can in the middle of the biggest health challenge in our generation. We’re doing well, but as a professional, I think we could do better. You know, a lot of it’s about the cutbacks—the local newsrooms across the country have been cut back, and a lot of them have been shuttered altogether. That’s really debilitating if you live in a city that no longer has a local newsroom and you’re no longer getting information about local healthcare, local death rates, local hospitalisation rates—you start to realise the importance of local journalism. So a lot of it is resource based. Fact-based journalism is what is important right now. Q: How do you see Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak influencing the upcoming election, and how will the resulting economic uncertainty affect his “silent majority” audience? A: Trump borrowed the term “silent majority” from President Nixon, and we can look back at history and see how “silent majority” was a powerful term in the ’60s, but I cannot predict how the economy or coronavirus will impact the election; I lived long enough to know that there is no way to predict what is going to happen just a few weeks or months from now. But I will say, having worked in one White House administration and covered several others during crises like 9/11, a good leader knows when to lean in and when to step back. We’re in the middle of this crisis, so it’s really hard to gain clarity. I think a good journalist and a good citizen knows when they don’t have clarity and can really only see the facts day by day. We’re currently in a situation that requires the benefit of time to fully understand and have a perspective on, but I do know this: this is a science crisis, not a political or economic crisis... Of course, it is also going to be a hugely important economic crisis for us, and it’s also a political crisis for our leaders, but first and foremost, this is about science. So in this moment, I feel that we have to
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hear from the scientists, instead of just from the White House, the state house, or city halls. But what I see, while covering [the pandemic], is we’re hearing from politicians more than we’re hearing from scientists. Yes, we’ve heard some from [Anthony] Fauci. But generally, these politicians—and it’s not just president Trump, though he is the most profound at it—they want to pound the table, be heard, and reopen the country. They first badly decided when to close, and decided how and when to ramp up testing and contact tracing, and now they want to to decide when to open. They don’t know anything about that. We really need to be hearing from the scientists; they should be leading the way, or I believe this is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Q: In your career in journalism you understand President Donald Trump is finding ways to distract the press and it could be assumed many other journalists understand and witness this as well. With that said how is the media continuously puppeted to report on subject matters that shift the media’s attention away from other things? A: The people who are in the White House press briefing room…have a very specific role. And it is a very difficult role and changes with each administration. But what I hear from my various colleagues and from people who work there this is the most challenging administration ever to have to serve. And some people who are in that press briefing room go back to… I think Reagan, so the ‘80s. That is because they shut down the press corps, they don’t have press briefings and truth is Rudy Giuliani quote—“it’s a completely different experience than even covering an administration that might of been somewhat hostile to the press but still felt the press had a right to be in the building.” Until Teddy Roosevelt, there were no white house briefings, and the televised briefing is more modern still, so we do have to keep this in context, but the right to information from the White House is something we expect going back to the founding. This White House seems not to understand that, but that role of the white house press is very different than any other journalistic role in the country. When you ask the question of how does the press responds to the distraction of this administration, it depends on the role you are in, as people in the White House briefing room do try and challenge the president depending on who it is. But they are limited to how much access they are given. Now they are almost by invitation only to that briefing room. So it is very restrictive and is what we see most of the time. Different news sources have many different roles and approaches to journalism, and we are talking about rights and responsibilities in covering the president and covering presidents going forward, so we [journalists] are not a monolith. Q: Is it still possible for advocacy journalism like MSNBC and FOX to be fair? A: The three models that I see are the purely objective approach to journalism—the 1950-60s model of journalism where were going just the facts kind of journalism—, the flip side of it, which is the sort of Frederick Douglass abolitionist, even Thomas Paine and Ben Franklin, [who say] “we’re journalists for a reason, we are trying to advocate for revolution, so we are writing opinion pieces and fighting the good fight of the pages of our journals.” Ida B. Wells is one of my heroes and she of course was an advocacy journalist. And finally sometimes [journalists] prioritize fairness. A lot of science journalists like Ira Glass, one of my colleagues, believes in global warming, but I think he tries and be very fair in coverage of politicians or scientists or whoever he might be talking to [in order to represent the issue from multiple angles]. I think in advocacy journalism, if you are not fair, you lose the respect of your listeners or readers or viewers. If you are on the air, you have to retain some degree of legitimacy and if you go too far into conspiracy theories and attack mode and a lack of fairness, your audience might be loyal but it will be slim, [what you might call] the “Alex Jones mode.” [Regarding] Alex Jones, I would not call him a journalist; I do not want to think about him as a member of our profession. There are always been conspiracy theorist who call themselves journalists and advocaist that maybe go a bit too far from fairness and still have some following. Overall, I think advocacy journalism is valid and legitimate and a journalist has to decide what type of journalist he/she wants to be be. I personally have decided that pure objectivity is not achievable, and that our listeners, readers, and viewers know it, so that also means you lose legitimacy when you try and pretend you can be entirely objective. [On the flip side,] people who are too much on the side of advocacy and don’t try and be fair lose the consumers of news as they can smell the lack of legitimacy. I think fairness is what news consumers want and they’ll choose whether they want a more traditional media outlet or more advocacy outlet, and most news consumers want a little bit of both.
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Privacy Amidst Contact Tracing Victoria Gong ’21
As covid-19 developed across the world, different countries pursued different paths to curb the spread of the virus. On one end of the spectrum the United States, prioritizing security, held out on contact tracing. Since the passage of the Privacy Act in 1974, the United States has consistently defined individual privacy as a right not to be tampered with by government agencies or private corporations. In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress for the Cambridge Analytical scandal in which Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie exposed the company for using Facebook users’ private data for political purposes in the 2016 United States presidential election. According to The New York Times and The Guardian, 50 million Facebook users’ data was leaked, with an actual value
freely in public. One of the greatest advantages of this system is the platform’s reach. According to The New York Times, WeChat has 1.16 billion monthly active users across China and Alipay has around 900 million. The sheer quantity of data in the system allows individuals to feel safer; there is a much lower probability of not receiving a notification if one comes into contact with an infected person. However, there is still the question of how much information the government can collect about its citizens. The WeChat app is extremely versatile, with a “range of services [that] give it the functionality of a whole suite of apps for its huge user base,” from online shopping to hailing taxis to personal communication. However, many users have since grown skeptical of the accuracy of their “color” label and even theorized that the “red” label might be abused to “target marginalized groups.” These suspicions are driven by the app’s ambiguous classification system and color codes changing seemingly “without explanation.” Moreover, local government officials control the color system, and classification procedures are not standardized across provinces, resulting in unnecessary confusion and quarantines. Meanwhile, places like Hong Kong and South Korea have utilized tracking bracelets for those in quarantine to ensure that they do not leave their residence. South Korea has since implemented a much stricter and
closer to 87 million users, sparking significant backlash from the American public. In 2020, concerns around digital privacy violations remain prevalent, causing the current negative perception on contact tracing. Yet, gradually, the benefits of contact tracing have become more pronouced as countries adopting those measures began experiencing a decline in the spread of the virus. Looking at the cases of China and South Korea, mass data collection has proven successful in mitigating the spread of the virus and paving the road to quicker nationwide recovery. Ultimately, an appropriate balance between the use of technology and respecting privacy when combating the virus must be struck, and companies’ ability to reassure individuals that their private information is secure needs to be developed. In China, the “contact tracing app” is a “There is still the question program attached to of how much information the popular social media platform WeChat the government can collect.” (Weixin) and the virtual wallet Alipay. Each user takes a questionnaire that col- in-depth data collection process that lects data about their health and re- has enabled some to track down incent travel history before receiving fected individuals and shun them on a QR code with the color red, yel- social media. Though contact traclow, or green. Only individuals with ing has provided immediate benefits a green code are allowed to travel during the pandemic, governments
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and development companies must continue to clarify the distinction between productive information collection and abuse of personal data. European countries are also growing increasingly cautious about privacy infringements. Apple’s new policy requiring apps to decentralize data collection has delayed the release of many tracing apps in Europe. Germany recently backed out of creating a new app, and the National Health Service of the United Kingdom mentioned that these new policies would cause a contract tracing app to face “severe limitations on its operation.” But for the most part, Europe has been accepting of these regulations, acknowledging the importance of online individual privacy and searching for improved solutions. Even so, the members of the European Parliament admit that there is a “potential risk of abuse” if centralized databases store user data. Although protecting individual privacy primarily appeals to the public, if governments and companies cannot implement clear policies that will obtain the trust and consent of citizens, they will compromise the efficiency of a contact tracing system. According to The Wall Street Journal, as of April 1, only about 12 percent of the population used Singapore’s contact tracing app, TraceTogether. However, in order for a contact track-
ing app to be effective, at least 50 to 80 percent of the population must use it. Therefore, the app was unsuccessful in preventing a second wave of covid-19 cases in the country. Given the relationship between citizens and individual privacy in the U.S., there will likely be a similar reluctance towards contact tracing apps. In Singapore, using a contact tracing app was only a small part of the country’s response to covid-19, while the majority of efforts focused on preventing large gatherings, restricting travel from China, and instituting manual contact tracers. Likewise, contact tracing apps will not be as significant a factor in the U.S. as they were in South Korea and China. On April 10, Apple and Google announced a joint effort to release an app that uses Bluetooth technology and application programming interfaces (APIs) to track whether or not an individual has come in contact with an infected person. While the app uses decentralized data collection, many have expressed concern over how the data may be repurposed once the pandemic has ended. Privacy scandals in the pact have garnered mistrust in the US Government’s capacity to handle information. A series of digital privacy scandals beyond that of Cambridge Analytica are at the root of this lack of trust. In 2017, Deep Root Analyt-
ics accidentally leaked the personal data of nearly 200 million U.S. voters, and Uber failed to cover up a privacy breach affecting nearly 57 million users. Individuals are justified in not trusting companies with their information. The Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program from the Council on Foreign Relations argues that public distrust stems from a lack of centralized federal regulation from the government, who opt for a “piecemeal” approach to privacy and security by regulating “certain sectors and types of sensitive information (e.g., health and financial), [which] create overlapping and contradictory protections.” Take personal health information, for example. Both the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) provide general protections under “entities,” yet HIPAA fails to cover primary and secondary schools. Additionally, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) only protects the data of children under the age of 13. These convoluted policies generate mistrust between citizens and their government and leave loopholes for scandals to occur. Without a clarified federal policy, companies will continue to struggle to gain their users’ trust and permission to use data for productive purposes. This new app will face challenges getting off the ground if the Trump administration cannot implement a series of stricter, clearer privacy regulations before its release. While technology can help mitigate the adverse effects of the pandemic, it is only one of the tools that governments can use to improve the current situation. To avoid dealing with unnecessary backlash from the public on top of the pandemic, governments should focus on restricting interpersonal interactions instead of relying on technology to resolve the issue of transmission.
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Summer Reading Suggestions Ms. Schulte In this book, Robert Putnam examines the growing inequality gap and how generational poverty and other social factors have contributed to increasingly limited opportunities for upward mobility. From the personal perspective of kids of all social classes and living environments, he describes the increasingly difficult future prospects and the diminishing opportunities.
Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert D. Putnam
The Color of Law: A Forgotten Hisotry of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
In this book, Rothstein examines the federal, state, and local government’s role in creating a racially divided America. Rothstein dives in specifically on how federal housing policies resulted in systematically segregated neighborhoods and racially-correlated generational poverty. Instead of preventing discrimination, these policies actively encouraged it. He also further links the segregation to current social strife seen in urban environments.
Mr. Figueroa Brazil, being the largest country in South America in terms of economy, population, and geographic size, is posed to be a prominent global power by the year 1930. However, this rising country faces heavy corruption, crime, and political divide. What and how will Brazil have to overcome to turn into an influential nation on a global scale?
Brazil: The Troubled Rise of a Global Power by Michael Reid
Father of the Poor? by Robert M. Levine
This book is an examination into the precedence of Getúlio Vargas, a Brazilain dictator and president from the 30’s until his suicide in 1954. Vargas is well known for being the father of democratic and rather socialiast ideals in Brazil. Levine analyses the actual impact this father figure had on the country and the extent in which the social policies enacted actually helped the citizens.
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Mrs. Kosoff A 16th century political treatise, The Prince is an in-depth analysis of how to acquire and maintain political power through the lens of Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian diplomatic and political theorist. Often considered one of the first works of modern philosophy, Machiavelli treats truth as something tangible rather than an abstract idea. He attempted in vain to secure an advisorial position with this book.
The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Published in 1840, this novel documents the story of Alexis Tocqueville, a French diplomat, who travels to America where he is awe-stricken by the country’s equality of conditions: democracy. Orinally sent to the United States to study the prison system, Tocqueville instead uses this opportunity to study American society alongside of Gustave de Beaumont. Upon returning, Tocqueville crafts and analysis on the democratic revolution that that has been occuring for the past several hundred years, cumulating in what is now considered to be a classic french text.
Dr. Chaput Zelizer and Kruse explore the events since 1974 that have caused the increased polarization in the current political and social scene. Exploring events like the Watergate crisis, the OPEC oil embargo, desegregation busing riots in Boston, and the wind-down of the Vietnam War, the two historians tell the story of the widening social, racial, and gender gaps while detailing the role the media and political systems played.
Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974 by Julian E. Zelizer and Kevin M. Kruse
The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle Over American History by Jill Lepore
Lepore take on the perspective the alt right to analyse the founding of the United States and subsequent signifcant events. From archival research, she attempts to uncover the origins of the far right’s version of the hisory of the nation, debunking claims that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. She comes to the ultimate conclusion that extreme right has chosen to believe a version of the story that is antihistorical and anti plurist.
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Endnotes
Mass Incarceration and Covid-19 (3-4) Pfleger, Paige. “COVID-19 Is Sweeping Through Ohio Prisons.” NPR.org. Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843310088/covid-19-is-sweeping-through-ohio-prisons Drucker, Ernest M. A Plague of Prisons: The Epidemiology of Mass Incarceration in America. Pbk. ed. New York, N.Y.: new Press, 2013. Prison Policy Initiative. “Criminal Justice Responses to the Coronavirus Pandemic.” Accessed May 7, 2020. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/virus/virusresponse.html Subramanian, Ram, Ruth Delaney, Stephen Roberts, Nancy Fishman, and Peggy McGarry. “Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America.” New York: Vera Institute of Justice, February 2015. Newman, William J., and Charles L. Scott. “Brown v. Plata: Prison Overcrowding in California.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online 40, no. 4 (December 1, 2012): 547–52. Press, Danny Johnston/Associated. “These Prisons Are Doing Mass Testing For COVID-19—And Finding Mass Infections.” The Marshall Project, April 24, 2020. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/24/these-prisons-are-doingmass-testing-for-covid-19-and-finding-mass-infections. The Legal Aid Society. “COVID-19 Infection Tracking in NYC Jails.” Accessed May 9, 2020. https://www.legalaidnyc.org/covid-19-infection-tracking-in-nyc-jails/. Eisen, Lauren-Brooke, James Austin Ph.D., James Cullen, Jonathan Frank, and Inimai M. Chettiar. “How Many Americans Are Unnecessarily Incarcerated?” Brennan Center for Justice, December 9, 2016. https://www.brennancenter.org/ our-work/research-reports/how-many-americans-are-unnecessarily-incarcerated. Major American Protests (5-6) “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, April 30, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom. History.com Editors. “Jim Crow Laws.” History.com. 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Kilgore, Ed. “The Joy of Voting by Mail.” Intelligencer, May 26, 2018. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/05/voting-by-mail-is-growing-and-should-grow-more.html. Weiser, Wendy, and Harold Ekeh. “The False Narrative of Vote-by-Mail Fraud.” Brennan Center for Justice. Accessed April 27, 2020. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/false-narrative-vote-mail-fraud. The Future of Post-Brexit Negotiations (21-22) Raphael, Therese. “Brexit Is Back. Even Covid-19 Can’t Stop It.” Bloomberg. Last modified April 15, 2020. Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-15/brexit-is-back-even-the-coronavirus-can-tstop-it. Amadeo, Kimberly. “Brexit Consequences for the U.K., the EU, and the United States.” Edited by Janet Berry-Johnson. The Balance. Last modified March 14, 2020. Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.thebalance.com/brexit-consequences-4062999. Shirbon, Estelle. “UK coronavirus death toll rises by 674 to 26,771.” Edited by Step-hen Addison. Reuters. Last modified April 30, 2020. Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-deathsidUSKBN22C3F4 Harding, Luke, Dan Sabbagh, and Rowena Mason. “Boris Johnson is back. But has he changed?” The Guardian. Last modified May 1, 2020. Accessed May 1, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/01/boris-johnsonis-back-but-has-he-changed-coronavirus. Microsoft News. “The Coronavirus Crisis and Leader Approval Ratings Statista 4/21/2020.” MSN. Last modified April 21, 2020. Accessed May 2, 2020. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-coronavirus-crisis-and-leaderapproval-ratings/ar-BB12Y5YQ. Zoom (23-24) Kelly, Samantha Murphy. “Zoom’s Massive ‘Overnight Success’ Actually Took 9 Years.” cnn.com. Last modified March 27, 2020. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/27/tech/zoom-app-coronavirus/index.html. Garcia, Ahiza, Sarah O’Brien, and Jordan Valinsky. “Zoom Nearly Reaches $16 Billion in Value after Its First Day of Trading.” cnn.com. Last modified April 18, 2020. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/tech/ zoom-ipo-video-conference/index.html. NASDAQ. “Zoom Video Communications, Inc. to Join the NASDAQ-100 Index Beginning April 30, 2020.” nasdaq.com. Last modified April 23, 2020. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/zoom-videocommunications-inc.-to-join-the-nasdaq-100-index-beginning-april-30-2020. O’Flaherty, Kate. “Zoom Security Tip: Avoid the App and Do This Instead, Here’s Why.” forbes.com. Last modified April 29, 2020. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/04/29/zoom-security-tipavoid-the-app-and-do-this-instead-heres-why/#24cf964448d9. Harwell, Drew. “Thousands of Zoom Video Calls Left Exposed on Open Web.” washingtonpost.com. Last modified April 3, 2020. Accessed May 26, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/03/thousands-zoomvideo-calls-left-exposed-open-web/. Community and Schools (25-26) Barnum, Matt. “To Close or Not to Close: As Schools Weigh Tradeoffs in Light of Coronavirus, Here’s What Research Says.” Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat, March 9, 2020. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/3/9/21178727/to-close-or-not-to-closeas-schools-weigh-tradeoffs-in-light-of-coronavirus-here-s-what-research-say. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Frequently Asked Questions.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 22, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html#COVID-19-andChildren. Daugherty, Kayla. “Livingston County Food Banks, Pantries Come Together to Meet Needs during Coronavirus Pandemic.” Daily Press & Argus, livingstondaily.com. Livingston Daily, May 4, 2020. https://www.livingstondaily.com/ story/news/local/2020/05/04/livingston-county-food-banks-pantries-coronavirus/3041229001/. “How to Protect Yourself & Others.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, April 24, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html. “Map: Coronavirus and School Closures.” Education Week, May 1, 2020. https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-coronavirus-and-school-closures.html. Shapiro, Eliza. “New York City Public Schools to Close to Slow Spread of Coronavirus.” The New York Times. The New York Times, March 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/nyregion/nyc-schools-closed.html. Ward, Alex. “Can children spread the coronavirus? It’s complicated.” Vox. Last modified May 2, 2020. Accessed May 9, 2020. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/2/21241636/coronavirus-children-kids-spread-transmit-switzerland. Floyd Interview (27-28) Privacy Amidst Contact Tracing (29-30) Aydin, Rebecca. “The Biggest Scandals That Rocked Facebook over the Past 15 Years, from Mark Zuckerberg’s Infamous Leaked Harvard IMs to a $5 Billion Fine.” Business Insider, July 26, 2019. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www. businessinsider.com/biggest-facebook-scandals-list-mark-zuckerberg-leaked-harvard-messages-2019-7#2017-a-facebook-content-moderator-dies-of-a-heart-attack-on-the-job-6. O’Connor, Nuala. “Reforming the U.S. Approach to Data Protection and Privacy.” Council on Foreign Relations, January 30, 2018. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.cfr.org/report/reforming-us-approach-data-protection. Ankel, Sophia. “As China Lifts Its Coronavirus Lockdowns, Authorities Are Using a Color-Coded Health System to Dictate Where Citizens Can Go. Here’s How It Works.” Business Insider, April 7, 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-china-health-software-color-coded-how-it-works-2020-4#people-are-constantly-reminded-that-in-order-to-get-around-they-must-show-their-codes-here-a-staff-member-on-a-wuhan-subway-is-holding-a-sign-that-reads-always-wear-a-face-mask-avoid-gatherings-scan-code-when-getting-off-the-train-9. Iqbal, Mansoor. “WeChat Revenue and Usage Statistics (2020).” Business of Apps, April 24, 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/wechat-statistics/. Nectar Gan and David Culver. “China Is Fighting the Coronavirus with a Digital QR Code. Here’s How It Works.” CNN, April 16, 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/asia/china-coronavirus-qr-code-intl-hnk/ index.html. Hern, Alex. “NHS in Standoff with Apple and Google over Coronavirus Tracing.” The Guardian, April 16, 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/16/nhs-in-standoff-with-apple-and-googleover-coronavirus-tracing. Schwartz, Matthew S. “Germany Backs Away From Compiling Coronavirus Contacts In A Central Database.” NPR, April 27, 2020. Accessed May 6, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/27/846046185/ germany-backs-away-from-compiling-coronavirus-contacts-in-a-central-database. Ghaffary, Shirin. “What the US Can Learn from Other Countries Using Phones to Track Covid-19.” Vox, April 22, 2020. Accessed May 6, 2020. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/18/21224178/covid-19-tech-tracking-phones-chinasingapore-taiwan-korea-google-apple-contact-tracing-digital. Newton, Casey. “Why Bluetooth Apps Are Bad at Discovering New Cases of COVID-19,” The Verge, 2020. Accessed May 6, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/interface/2020/4/10/21215267/covid-19-contact-tracing-apps-bluetoothcoronavirus-flaws-public-health. Apple Newsroom (blog). “Apple and Google Partner on COVID-19 Contact Tracing Technology.” April 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracingtechnology/. Book List (31-32)
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The First Amendment A Student Publication of The Lawrenceville School • Founded in the Bicentennial Year, 2010