The Washington Post National Weekly - March 24, 2019

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

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2 2019 MARCH 24, SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

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THE FIX THE FIX

Coming Coming to McCain’s to McCain’s defense defense A ARON B LAKE

A ARON B LAKE

most decorated senator mostindecorated history who senator is in history who is dead, it just sets the worst dead,tone it just possible.” sets the worst tone possible.”

Bingo. This is exactly Bingo. the point.

ThisPeople is exactly can the point. People can f all the political and fsocietal all the political norms and societal norms take issue with McCain take forissue his politics. with McCain They for his politics. They President Trump has President bulldozed,Trump our has bulldozed, our can forever begrudge can his style forever and, begrudge as Trump his style and, as Trump reverence for war heroes reverence may befor one war heroes may be one does, his decisive vote does,against his decisive the GOP’s vote against the GOP’s of the most significant. of Our the most national significant. Our national Obamacare repeal bill.

Obamacare But whenrepeal you take bill. But when you take defense is built upon defense a special is built regard upon for a special regard for that a step further and that say a step he’llfurther never be and say he’ll never be people who have risked people theirwho liveshave in battle. risked their lives in battle. worthy of your regard, worthyyou’re of your implicitly regard, you’re implicitly When we as a society When step we outside as a society that — step outside that — opting out of the bargain opting I described out of theatbargain the I described at the such as when people such disrespected as whenreturning people disrespected returning top. And it does send top. a signal Andto it everyone, does send as a signal to everyone, as Vietnam veterans —Vietnam a correction veterans has — fol-a correction has folin the time of Vietnam, in the thattime military of Vietnam, service that military service lowed. lowed. isn’t something that inherently isn’t something definesthat youinherently as defines you as That correction hasThat beencorrection slow-coming has been slow-coming a person worthy of respect. a person It worthy also degrades of respect. It also degrades when it comes to President when itTrump comesand to President John Trump and John the attractiveness ofthe service attractiveness for would-be of service for would-be McCain, because Republicans McCain, are because terrified Republicans of are terrified of recruits. recruits.

Trump and his sway with Trump theand GOPhis base. sway They with the GOP base. They Isakson said in his comments Isakson said Wednesday in his comments Wednesday almost uniformly denounced almost uniformly Trump back denounced in Trump back in afternoon that he hoped afternoon his decision that he to speak hoped his decision to speak 2015 when he first suggested 2015 whenthe he valorous first suggested the valorous AL DRAGO/BLOOMBERG DRAGO/BLOOMBERG outALwould tempt otherout Republicans would tempt to do other theRepublicans to do the former prisoner of warformer wasn’tprisoner actuallyof a hero. war wasn’t actually a hero.

“I’mgood not a big word-user, same. “I’m but not Ia am big on word-user, but I am on But today, seven months Butafter today, McCain’s seven months death after McCain’s death (R-Ga.) Sen. Johnny Isakson Sen. Johnny has made Isakson good(R-Ga.)same. has made this,” he said. this,” he said. and with Trump re-upping and with his attacks, Trump re-upping they’re his attacks, they’re on his promise to defend on his John promise McCain. to defend John McCain.

Thus far, Senate Majority Thus far, Leader Senate Mitch Majority Leader Mitch pained to uphold this pained very basic to uphold American this very basic American McConnell McConnell Arizona Sen. (R-Ky.) Martha and Arizona Sen. Martha New York, or is building Newthe York, greatest or is building immi- the greatest (R-Ky.) immi- and ideal. ideal.

McSally have issued McSallytweets (R) have praising issued tweets praising in the gration world. Nothing system in is the more world.

Nothing(R) is more At least one of them At is least nowone stepping of them gration is nowsystem stepping McCain, without McCain, addressing butTrump without like addressing Trump like important than the integrity important of than the country the integrity of thebut country forward. forward. did. lives Sen. Mitt Isakson Romney did. (R-Utah) Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and those who foughtand andthose risked who their fought livesandIsakson risked their Sen. Johnny IsaksonSen. (R-Ga.) Johnny promised Isakson (R-Ga.) promised joined Trump Isakson to knock in urging it Trump to knock it all of us,” Isakson for all of us,” Isakson said. joined Isakson in urging when McCain died that when he McCain would deliver died that a heforwould deliver a said. off, tweeting: off, tweeting: What Isakson important.

Isakson In says many is important.

In many “whipping” to anybody “whipping” — including to Trump anybody —— including Trump —says is What “I reverence can’t understand “Iwhy can’t theunderstand President why the President ways, he makes the case ways, about he makes reverence the case for about for who impugned McCain’s whogood impugned name McCain’s moving good name moving once have again, would, disparage oncea again, man asdisparage a man as military that other military Republicans service that have other would, Republicans forward. And now he’s forward. made And goodnow on that he’s made goodservice on that as my friend exemplary John McCain: as myheroic, friend John McCain: heroic, declined to make in recent declined days. to make in recent exemplary days. promise. promise. courageous, patriotic,courageous, honorable, patriotic, self-effac-honorable, self-effacHe Isakson goes on:told He goes on: “It’s deplorable what he “It’ssaid,” deplorable Isaksonwhat told he said,” ing,the self-sacrificing, ing, self-sacrificing, and driven empathetic, and driven deserves better, “America the people deservesde-better, people de- empathetic, Georgia Public Broadcasting Georgia in Public an interview Broadcasting “America in an interview duty to family, by duty andtoGod.” family, country, and God.” serve better, and nobody serve — regardless better, andof nobody their — by regardless of theircountry, Wednesday afternoon.Wednesday afternoon.

The combination Theand combination what Isakson of that and what Isakson position — is his above position common—decency is above and common decency and of that Before the appearance, Before he previewed the appearance, his he previewed saying the already is saying tepid make reaction the already of tepid reaction of respect people thatrespect risk their for people life for that yourriskistheir life make for your comments in an interview comments with the in an Bulwark’s interview with thefor Bulwark’s Sen. Lindsey O. he Graham Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey seem O. Graham signifi- (R-S.C.) seem signifilife. When the president life.isWhen sayingthe that president that he is saying that that A.B. Stoddard.

A.B. Stoddard. cantly halfhearted. cantly And more it makes halfhearted. every And it makes every John doesn’t McCain respect and he’sJohn never McCain andmore he’s never “I just want to lay it “I onjust the want line, that to laythe it ondoesn’t the line,respect that the otherand Republican praises Republican McCain withwho praises McCain withgoing to respect McCain to respect and all John theseMcCain all these whoother country deserves better, country the McCain deservesfamily better, the McCain familyJohngoing out out mentioning look like they’re Trump look like they’re kids are out there listening kids are to the outpresident there listening of to thementioning president of Trump deserves better, I don’t deserves care if better, he’s president I don’t care if he’s president taking half-measure. taking a half-measure. n States thethat United way States about talk the that way aabout the of United States, owns of all United the real States, estate owns in all the the United real estate in talk n BY

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CONTENTS

This publication was prepared This publication by editorswas at The prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing Washington and distribution Post for printing by our and distribution by our partner publications across partner thepublications country. All articles across the andcountry. All articles and columns have previously columns appeared have in The previously Post orappeared on in The POLITICS Post or on washingtonpost.com andwashingtonpost.com have been edited toand fit this have been editedTHE to fitNATION this format. For questions orformat. comments For questions regardingor content, comments regarding THEcontent, WORLD please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. please e-mail Ifweekly@washpost.com. you have a If youCOVER have aSTORY question about printingquestion quality, wish about to printing subscribe, quality, or wish to subscribe, SCIENCEor would like to place a hold would on delivery, like to place please a hold contact on delivery, your please contact your BOOKS local newspaper’s circulation local newspaper’s department.circulation department.OPINION © 2019 The Washington Post© / Year 20195,The No.Washington 24 Post / Year 5, No. 24 FIVE MYTHS

WEEKLY WEEKLY

CONTENTS 4 8 10 12 17 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Graphic shows the ON THE COVER Graphic shows the POLITICS 4 difference deaths by in number of deaths by THE NATION in number 8 ofdifference synthetic synthetic between 2013 opioids between 2013 THE WORLD opioids10 and 2017. and 2017.

COVER STORY 12 SCIENCE 17 BOOKS 18 OPINION 20 FIVE MYTHS 23

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OPINIONS

We need to take tech addiction seriously DOREEN DODGENMAGEE is a psychologist in Portland, Ore. She is the author of “Deviced!: Balancing Life and Technology in a Digital World.”

Last summer, the World Health Organization recognized Internet gaming as a diagnosable addiction. This was an important step in aligning practice with research, but we need to go further. Psychologists and other mental­health professionals must begin to acknowledge that technology use has the potential to become addictive and impact individuals and communities — sometimes with dire consequences. ¶ The research is clear: Americans spend most of their waking hours interacting with screens.

Studies from the nonprofit group Common Sense Media show that U.S. teens average approximately nine hours per day with digital media, tweens spend six hours, and even our youngest — ages zero to 8 — are spending 2.5 hours daily in front of a screen. The average adult in the United States spends more than 11 hours a day in the digital world, according to research by the Nielsen Company. When people invest this kind of time in any activity, we must at least start to ask what it means for their mental health.

Both a correlational and causal relationship between tech use and various mentalhealth conditions has been established. Research from the University of Pittsburgh found higher rates of depression and anxiety among young adults who engage many social media platforms than in those who engage only two. Author and psychologist Jean Twenge found that the psychological development of adolescents is slowing down and depression, anxiety and loneliness, which she attributes to tech engagement, are on the rise.

Multitasking, a behavior that technology encourages and reinforces, is consistently correlated with poor cognitive and mental-health outcomes.

Finally, the University of Pennsylvania recently published

the first experimental data linking decreased well-being to Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram use in young adults.

Clearly, our technology use is affecting our psychological functioning.

As a psychologist and researcher, I have been examining this interplay between technology and mental health for nearly two decades.

While technology can do incredible things for us in nearly every area of life, it is neither all good nor benign.

When the mental-health community resists fully exploring the costs associated with constant tech interaction, it leaves those struggling with compulsive or potentially harmful use of their devices few places to turn. Recently, a woman scheduled a

SIMON DAWSON/BLOOMBERG

consultation with me because she was concerned about her inability to focus. A selfdescribed Type A personality, she found herself simultaneously interacting with three or four screens at a time for nearly 20 hours a day, determined to instantly stay on top of every demand. When it came time for her biannual revision of an important procedural manual, she found that she couldn’t focus on the single task for the time required to do it effectively. She is far from alone.

Technology now reaches deep into our psyches and our lives.

Our constant interaction with the digital domain shapes the way we learn, the way we form relationships with others and ourselves, the way in which we offload our own bodily “message indicators” onto things such as fitness trackers, and the way in which we are rewarded for focus and regulation or lack thereof.

Our attention spans are short.

Our ability to focus on one task at a time is impaired. And our boredom tolerance is nil. We now rely on the same devices that drive so much of our anxiety and alienation for both stimulation and soothing.

While, for many of us, these changes will never roam into the domain of addiction, for others

they have. In fact, in a recent Common Sense Media poll, 50 percent of adolescents reported already feeling that their use had become addictive, and 27 percent of parents reported the same.

If Americans were interacting with anything else for 11-plus hours a day, I feel confident we’d be talking more about how that interaction shapes us. Mentalhealth professionals must begin to educate themselves about the digital pools in which their clients swim and learn about the impact of excessive technology use on human development and functioning. It is too easy for therapists to assume that everyone’s engagement with the digital domain looks just like their own and to go merrily from there. We would serve our clients well by understanding the unique way in which many platforms encourage addictive patterns and behaviors. We should also create non-shaming environments in which they can candidly explore how their tech use impacts them.

It’s time to put our phones down and begin an informed conversation about how technology is impacting our mental health. Our clients’ health and the well-being of our communities may depend on it. n

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OPINIONS

OPINIONS

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TOM TOLES

BY MARGULIES

The It’s not obstructionist another Arab in chief Spring — yet ELIJAH JACKSON E. CUMMINGS DIEHL ais Democrat, deputy editorial represents Maryland’s page editor 7th for The Congressional Washington Post.

District in the House, where he is the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

In The November, images ofthe mass American protests people in Arab voted capitals, overwhelmingly where to put Democrats demonstrators in charge are demanding of the Housethat of Representatives corrupt and aging to start rulers serving step as down, a truly may independent look anachronistic. check and Wasn’t balancethe on the Arab executive Spring branch. a few years Since ago? And then,didn’t President it end Trump withand coups his and alliescivil havewars complained that restored of the “Presidential old autocratic Harassment,” status quo?decrying Democrats for having the audacity to request documents and witnesses to fulfill our of generals, bureaucrats and constitutional responsibilities.

Well, yes and no. Yes, Abdel business executives The al-Sissi problemisisinthat White House is engaged in an that Fatah thethe process propped Bouteflika is still in unprecedented level ofasstonewalling, delay andup obstruction. of installing himself dictatorcontrol. Many who joined the for-life in Egypt; Bashar alrevolutions of any 2011information are dead, not entitled to Assad I serve reigns as chairman over theof ruins the of imprisoned or demoralized. about individual employees, Oversight Syria; andand theReform monarchies of Still, theformer new wave of unrest including national Committee, the Persian the Gulf, primary led by Saudi points toadviser a couple of conclusions security Michael Flynn, investigative Arabia, are more bodybrutally in the House that pleaded run counter toto the who guilty lying about of repressive Representatives. than they I have havesent ever conventional wisdomwith in the his communications 12 been. letters Buttointhe Algeria, White popular House on a Washington — especially Russians; current nationalinside half-dozen demonstrations topicshave — some justroutine the Trump administration. security adviser John Bolton,First, and forced some President relatingAbdelaziz to our core as Dunne puts it, “The tinder who worked directly with the Bouteflika to withdraw hisInbid national security interests. again is quite dryfounded in the region, gun rights group by response, for yet another the White term.

House And has in and sparks are Russian beginning now-convicted spyto fly.”

Sudan, daily protests are refused to hand over any And, second, authoritarian Maria Butina;the or the president’s documents persisting despite or produce bothany restorationJared that was supposed son-in-law, Kushner, who to witnesses concessions forand interviews. violent return politicalgiven stability to the was reportedly access to repression Let me underscore by the regime that point: of Arabnation’s Middlemost Eastsensitive and open the our Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The White House has not In turned way to economic modernization secrets over the objections of over Jordan, a single people piece marched of paperacross to our has failed. House Chief of Staff then-White the countryorlast month to committee made a single Sissi and Saudi Arabia’s John F. Kelly and others. official protestavailable corruption. for testimony In Morocco, Mohammed bin Salman imagine Instead, the White House during a big rally the 116th for teachers Congress. a few they cantopursue the model of offered let us read — but not weeks One ago of the ended mostwith important chants to capitalist autocracy keep — a few pages ofmodeled policy “end the dictatorship.” investigations we are conducting and promoted China and to documents thatby have nothing is not, at least yet, a is aThis review of White House Russia. unlike Xi do with But the officials weJinping, are second Arab Spring.The NoWhite regime security clearances. they’ve been unable to deliver investigating, along with a has fallen.

In that Algeria, the clique House argues Congress is

BY OHMAN FOR THE SACRAMENTO BEE

the economic goods.

Corruption, general briefing on those policies heavy-handed statewill capitalism during which they answer no and sheer about incompetence questions specific are driving away desperately needed employees. foreign investment.

The two We are also examining the regimes are“hush wasting tens of president’s money” billions ofto dollars onwomen payments silence megaprojects as the new cities. alleging affairssuch before In Algeria, similarly, election, as well as the an ossified regime hastobeen at a president’s failure divulge loss topayments make up on forhis declining oil these financial and gas revenue.

Foreign disclosure forms, as required by reserveslaw. have fallenTrump by half federal Former since 2013, and Cohen unemployment lawyer Michael provided has risen to 11 percent. It’s twice copies of reimbursement checks that forlong young people, is signed after Trumpwhich became not surprising since president during our two-thirds hearing of Algeria’s 42the million with him, but Whitepeople House are under age ofover 30.any of has refusedthe to turn of the we region is theMuch documents requested. sufferingofficials from the toxic Instead, letsame us read 30 mix of about mismanagement and pages, half of which were corruption.

Farorfrom flourishing already public entirely blacked along Chinese or even Russian out. lines, societies are also once TheArab White House has again depressed and frustrated. refused to produce any To be sure, the unrestin documents or witnesses extends to response tocountries our other with more liberal politicalincluding systems.White investigations, Tunisia, the only country House officials’ alleged useto of emerge from Arab Spring personal emailthe in violation of as a democracy, is plaguedthat with federal law; allegations the strikes and demonstrations. president may have violated the Iraq sufferedRecords from riots last Presidential Act by summer over shortagesand of destroying documents; electricity and water. Violent reports from whistleblowers that protests in the West Bank the administration allegedly forced the resignation of the rushed to transfer sensitive Palestinian Authority’s prime nuclear technology to Saudi

minister January.

Arabia in in violation of the Atomic Yet, as Campbell pointed out, Energy Act. these “room for As acountries reminderhave of what used to debate, someprevious freedom of speech, be “normal,” and politicaladministrations institutions that — presidential while far from perfect — can of turned over tens of thousands absorbofand react to in some of the pages documents response demands forCommittee change.” The to Oversight unrest in Iraq under was followed by a investigations both parties peaceful democratic change just a fewand years ago. The George of government, and the new W. Bush White House gave us primethan minister and president more 20,000 pages relating areHurricane moderates committed to to Katrina; numerous rooting out and corruption and documents witnesses improving services. relating to the leak ofIraq covert CIA remains a far-from-stable agent Valerie Plame’s identity; country; it 1,500 is stillpages threatened by and nearly of emails the Sunnisenior extremists the between Whiteof House Islamic State militias officials aboutand the Shiite death of Pat loyal to Iran.

But itthe looks good Tillman.

Similarly, Obama compared with Egypt and Saudi White House produced many Arabia, where onlyrelating response documents andthe emails to to unrest, or even peaceful the Solyndra controversy, as well dissent, is brutal repression. as witnesses and documents The Trump administration regarding the Benghazi, Libya, foundedincluding its Middle Eastern attacks, strategy on the autocracies. communication between topIt bet that Sissi’sofficials Egypt and White House Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi National Security Council staff.

Arabia would anchoractions a regional President Trump’s strategyour aimed at countering violate Constitution’s Iran. The assumption fundamental principleisofthat checks theirbalances. regimes If offer For and ourstability. committee that reason, the administration must resort to issuing subpoenas, has made no be attempt to restrain there should no doubt about theirThis repression.

It follows why. has nothing to do that, with if there is another Arab Spring, presidential harassment and President Trump will be one of everything to do with the losers. n unprecedented obstruction. n

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The migration ‘conveyor Thebelt’ migration ‘co

them tapped by presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, are responsible for 45 decisions. Republican appointees dating back to President Ronald Reagan issued the other rulings. Magistrate judges, who are not appointed by presidents, made B Y N ICK M IROFF three of the decisions.

On major issues on which multiriminal in ple judges haveorganizations ruled, there has Mexico have mounted a been little disagreement among lucrative new smuggling them, no matter where the judges operation that usesthem. exare located or who appointed press buses to deliver GuatemaFour judges, for instance, have lan migrant familiestotorescind the U.S. rejected the decision the border in a matter of days, makDeferred Action for Childhood Aring theprogram, journey which faster, has easier and rivals protectsafer, according to nearly U.S. law ened from deportation 700,000 forcement reports U.S.States and people brought to theand United Guatemalan as children. officials.

All four judges said The smugglers entice essentially the same thing:families that the with promises their journey will government’s stated reason for endbe of the perils usually assoingfree DACA — that it was unlawful — ciated with travel to theasU.S. was “virtually unexplained,” U.S. border, with D. assurances District along Judge John Bates, an that by turning themselves in to appointee of President George W. U.S. they will Bushauthorities, in Washington, said be in rean leased into theA country within April opinion. second explanadays. tion — that DACA creates a “litigaPaying $7,000 perbyadult tion risk”up — to was derided U.S. with child, are transDistrict Judgefamilies William Alsup in Calported staging areas at ranchifornia to as mere “spin.” es and hotels in southern Mexico, Three judges have invalidated where they toare into the attempt addorganized a question about bus groups and rushed north citizenship to the 2020 Census, the along highways, latest Mexican being U.S. District “stopJudge ping only for food, and Richard Seeborg in Sanfuel Francisco bathroom according to on March 6.breaks,” All rejected as unbelievthe law enforcement docuableU.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur ments.

Ross’s explanation that the move Theintended modeltoparticularly apwas improve enforcepeals to the families minimizing ment of Voting by Rights Act. some the more intimidating Theofmatter is pending before the and unsavory of tradiSupreme Court. aspects The Commerce Detional Mexican smuggling operapartment declined to comment. tions, known for cramming miIn the cases challenging terminagrants squalid stash houses, tion ofinto temporary protected status, where Central Americans areSecuregthe Department of Homeland ularly abuseditand for rity claimed was extorted not actually additional payments.

Thetherefore busing changing policy and was system hasfrom skirted thoseunder dangers, immune review the generating few reports of vioAPA. But internal documents conlence or mistreatment, offitradicted that claim, andU.S. Chen, an cials say.appointee, blocked the shift Obama hours of leaving the inWithin an Oct. 372decision.

Everyareas, administration cases staging the busesloses arrive at because of APA violations. predetermined drop-off Obama’s points most notable defeat came in within walking distance of 2015, the when a TexasMigrant judge blocked his plan U.S. border. families are to protectinto from deportation illegal clustered groups that have at immigrants whose are times exceeded 300 children adults and Americansand or they lawful permanent children, walk directly residents. across the border, in some cases Still, administrations both stepping over barriers inof long, parties have most orderly lines.historically They thenwon surrenof these cases, in partPatrol because judgder to U.S. Border agents es tend to defer to the federal govand initiate asylum claims. ernment, legalundisclosed experts said — makPreviously details ing Trump’s recordsystem of failure of the smuggling arevirtuout-

C

ally unprecedented.

The Trump administration’s style of policymaking has led to some awkward moments in court.

Take the many cases challenging the Department of Health and Human Services over its decision to end some $200 million in grants to 81 programs on preventing teen pregnancy.

The decision was taken — abruptly and without explanation — soon after the June 2017 appointment of Valerie Huber to serve as senior adviser to then-HHS Secretary Tom Price. Huber, a leader of the abstinence-only sex education movement — which she prefers to call “sexual risk avoidance” — had lobbied to eliminate funding for the programs, which in her view “normalized teen sex.”

The decision threatened to devastate the budgets of scores of teenpregnancy programs across the nation, many of which quickly filed suit. In its defense, HHS argued that ending the grants did not represent a policy change and therefore required no explanation under the APA. During a hearing in Washington last April, U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed incredulity about the manner in which the agency had acted. Can an agency “suddenly say ‘too bad, so sad,’ ” Jackson asked a lawyer for the government, and cut off money without cause? When the lawyer answered yes, the judge called the lined in “weird” U.S. law situation andenforcement ordered the reports reviewed by The Washgrants restored. ington Post.

The the official who In her ruling following shared didsaid so “HHS’s on the unmiscondimonth,them Jackson tion of and anonymity tosilence” disclose takable inexplicable in internal operations details. cutting the money made her They decidepict an upstart, highly profitsion “quite easy.” able entrepreneurial “This much is clear: operation A federal that is that designed tocourse exploit dysagency changes abruptfunction the Americanexplanaimmily withoutin a well-reasoned gration and orU.S. tion for system its decision thatcourt acts rulings mandate families be contrarythat to its own regulations is released from custody while court their subject to having a federal asylum claims vacate its actionare as processed. ‘arbitrary [and] The success the in operation is capricious,’ ” sheofsaid her ruling, quoting APA’s example most recognizthe mostthe extreme yet of able incantation. smugglers’ ability to capitalize on inunauthorized Maryland, New York, theJudges shift in migraOregon andUnited Washington artion to the States state characrived at similar conclusions in relatterized by soaring numbers of ed cases. adults traveling with children.

By using the direct-bus methA slowed agenda od, smugglers can eliminate the Failure to thealong APA the has need for stashfollow houses dramatically adminisborder whereslowed they the would nortration’s agenda on other fronts, mally keep migrants under the particularly the push to roll back watch of armed guards before environmental sneaking themregulations. across the border.

Courts nationwide have ruled against the Trump administration

“This administration was different than any I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

environmental policy who installed inexperienced officials and moved rapidly to roll back Obama-era regulations.

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, a Republican lawyer who headed the EPA’s 9th Circuit, 29 rulings Office of Air and Radiation from Alaska, Arizona, 1.6 million in 2000 and began to to 2005, said he sensed a poB Y N ICK2001 M IROFF California, Guam, Hawaii, decline, falling to 303,000 in tential problem at the agency soon Idaho, Montana, Nevada, 2017, the lowest point in half a after Trump’s election, during the Oregon, Washington riminal organizations in century.

But Homeland Security transition before he tookaoffice.

Mexico have mounted officials say they are on pace to “This new administration differlucrative smugglingwas encounter nearly 1 million unauJeffrey R. Holmstead, ent than any seen my lifeoperation that I’ve uses ex-in thorized border crossers D.C. Circuit, 15 head of the EPA’sduring Office time,” Holmstead said, noting that press buses to deliver Guatemathe current fiscal year, as arrests of Air and Radiation Trump “didn’t have anybody who lan migrant families to the U.S. reach their highest level in more from 2001 to 2005 any kind meaningful experiborder inhad a matter of of days, mak- than a decade. ence with the EPA.” ing the journey faster, easier and Tailored to the new, booming Compounding the enproblem was safer, according to U.S. law 4th Circuit, 8 aspect of unauthorized U.S. mithe Trump team’s “complete disforcement reports and U.S. and gration — parents bringing chiltrust of the career staff” at the EPA, Guatemalan officials. dren — the new express-bus sysMaryland, North Carolina, Holmstead said — a professional 2nd Circuit, 7 The smugglers entice families tem’s success would not have South Virginia,gives corpsCarolina, that “always good 7th Circuit, 2 with promises their journey will you been possible in previous eras, West Virginia advice, whether or not they agree” 3rd Circuit, 1 be free of the perils usually asso- when the vast majority of miwithtravel the president’s ciated with to the politics.

U.S. 1st Circuit, 1 Pruitt resigned last grants summerwere single adults from border, along with assurances Mexico Source: Washington Post analysis of amid a host of allegations of unethi-whose goal was to avoid that by turning themselves in to getting court records cal conduct.

He has since been re-caught.

U.S. authorities, they will be reBRITTANY RENEE MAYES/THE WASHINGTON POST Instead, recruiters are selling placed as EPA administrator by Anleased into the country within clients in Guatemala on the jourdrew Wheeler, who “has taken steps days. ney with .up . . totoensure agency in presentations akin to Last February, for example, Paying the $7,000theper adultengages the benign well-reasoned, transparent and de- pitch of a travel agenEnvironmental Protection Agency with child, families are trans- cy.

They fensible decision-making,” said EPA offer a range of price and the Army Corps of Engineers ported to staging areas at ranch- points at different levels of passpokesman John Mexico, Konkus. suspended an important clean-waes and VAN hotels in southern CAROLYN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST senger comfort, according to U.S. added that “only a ter rule without soliciting where public they Konkus are organized into and Guatemalan officials who handful” cases against agencomment or formally considering bus groups and of rushed north the on the condition of anocy havehighways, reached the endspoke of the the implications, both requirealong Mexican “stopnymity to share sensitive details judicial review process. ments of the APA. When conservaping only for food, fuel and about smuggling networks’ operAs with according the travel ban, the adtionists sued, the government arbathroom breaks,” to ations. ministration is pinning its gued that it was only delaying the the U.S. law enforcement docu- hopes Customers paying as little as rule, not eliminating it. ments. on the Supreme Court to overturn $2,500 are usually made to ride lower-court rulings and preserve U.S. District Judge David C. NorThe model particularly ap- in trucks or stand in cattle cars, The routesan“minimize A Border its policy Patrol changes. Trump has apton ofexpress South Carolina, appointee peals to families by minimizing while lined in U.S. lawpackages enforcement others buying for agent uses overhead and maximize capacpointed twoinfrared of the nine justices, of President George H.W. Bush, of the more intimidating reports reviewed by The Wash$7,000 binoculars look ity,” the U.S. some docushifting the to high court to the right.or more get premium bus gave according the Trumptoadministration a and unsavory aspects and of tradi- service. ingtonChildren Post. The official who generally travel for“Hopefully, smugglers ments, allowing smugglers to rewe will get a fair tongue lashing, calling its approach smuggling operashared them did so onarrive the condibecause those who at groups of duce “operational costs to ational mini- Mexican shake” in migrants the Supremefree Court, “evasive,” in addition to being “arbitions, known for cramming mi- thetion of anonymity to disclose U.S. in Antelope mum.”

Trump said Wells, in February when heborder with a minor need trary and capricious.” grants into squalid internal operations They only totobe guided to thedetails. edge, not N.M., on Feb. 20.houses, Since October, border declared astash state of emergency “Certainly, differentU.S. administrawhere Central Americans are regdepict an upstart, highly profitagents have encountered at least build a wall along the smuggled nation’s across it. tions may implement different regularly andborder. extorted for able entrepreneurial operation The express journey is typical70 largepriorities,” groups of 100 or more southern ulatory Norton wrote in abused additional payments.

The busing that is designed to exploit dysly financed by migrants’ relatives migrants, from such groups With a few exceptions, however, August. Butupthe law13 “ ‘requires that system has skirted those dangers, function in the American immialready working in the United during fiscal 2018.

Approximatethe high court has shown no inclithe pivot from one administration’s generating few toreports of vio- aid. gration system and U.S. that court States microloans ly 12,000 toparents nation rush to Trump’s Mostor with priorities those ofand the children next be lence or mistreatment, U.S. offirulings that mandate families leverage homes and property asbe have arrived in the groups, genercases never reach the Supreme accomplished with at least some cials. in released custody while their collateral, in some cases with ating of millions dollars Court. And while Trump has filled from fidelitytens to law and legalof process.’ .say. .

Withinnumerous 72 hours of leaving the asylum are processed. notarized documents that allow smuggling fees. countenance such vacancies in the lower claims The court cannot staging areas, theappointees buses arrive at the smuggling The successorganizations of the operation to is U.S.ofofficials call the system courts, of Democratic a state affairs,” he wrote. predetermined drop-off points the most extreme example yet collect moreunpaid debts. In an espe- of “If your goal is belt” to change “the conveyor andpolicy, have presidents still account for within of active the cially smugglers’ abilitysign to capitalize than 55distance percent of federal the littleMexican extra time” to explain “is worrisome for U.S.on asked authorities to walking U.S. border.

Migrant families are the shift in unauthorized migrajudges, said John D. Graham, dean the price of the journey worthstop it,” said Adler, a officials, help it. Jonathan But the H. conveyor clustered into have atand to the United States characthegroups Schoolthat of Public EnviCase Western University hastion been dropping in recent pattern has Reserve continued for of times exceeded 300Affairs adultsatand terized numbers ronmental Indiana Uni- asby law professor himself months thesoaring rapid-bus routes of months, partwho of aregards record-breakchildren, and they walk directly allow adults travelingtowith children. versity. as a surge regulatory skeptic. “Various adsmugglers cut costs and ing in crossings by families across some administration cases boostBy using the direct-bus meth“If the in Trump ministrations don’tHouse always like that volume. that the White has de- the border, stepping over barriers long, cases,” od, smugglers cantoeliminate to winin future lesson,”ahe said, “this administra“With no change U.S. policythe clared “humanitarian and bor- wants orderly lines.

Theysaid, then“they surrenstashsuch houses along the Graham must do afor tion more thancrisis.” most.” Last month, or need other factors, as increasder security der to U.S. Border Patrol agents border where they would normuch better job of persuading Some observers attributed the ing smuggling fees, Central 40,325 arrived in family groups, and initiate asylum claims. by Democratic mally keep judges appointed EPA’s to itsfrom former administraAmericans willmigrants arrive at under increas-the up 67woes percent January.

Previously undisclosed details ingwatch of armed guardsn before tor,Border Scott Pruitt, a skeptic of federal n rate,” one report warns. arrests peaked at presidents.” of the smuggling system are outsneaking them across the border.

C

U.S. officials say smuggling effort uses express buses to speed Guatemalan families to border

U.S. officials say smu buses to speed Guat

Th ove ity,” me duc mu S age 70 mig dur ly hav atin sm U “th ask hel pat mo ing tha cla der 40, up B

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POLITICS

Trump’s agenda hits wall in courts

BY F RED B ARBASH AND D EANNA P AUL

F

ederal judges have ruled against the Trump administration at least 63 times over the past two years, an extraordinary record of legal defeat that has stymied large parts of the president’s agenda on the environment, immigration and other matters.

In case after case, judges have rebuked Trump officials for failing to follow the most basic rules of governance for shifting policy, including providing legitimate explanations supported by facts and, where required, public input.

Many of the cases are in early stages and subject to reversal. For example, the Supreme Court permitted a version of President Trump’s ban on travelers from certain predominantly Muslim nations to take effect after lowercourt judges blocked the travel ban as discriminatory.

But regardless of whether the administration ultimately prevails, the rulings so far paint a remarkable portrait of a government rushing to implement farreaching changes in policy without regard for long-standing rules against arbitrary and capricious behavior.

“What they have consistently been doing is short-circuiting the process,” said Georgetown Law School’s William W. Buzbee, an expert on administrative law who has studied Trump’s record. In the regulatory cases, Buzbee said, “they don’t even come close” to explaining their actions, “making it very easy for the courts to reject them because they’re not doing their homework.”

Two-thirds of the cases accuse the Trump administration of violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), a nearly 73-year-old law that forms the primary bulwark against arbitrary rule. The normal “win rate” for the government in such cases is about 70 percent, according to analysts and studies. But as of mid-January, a database maintained by the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law shows Trump’s

JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

Policy overhauls run into law against arbitrary, capricious behavior win rate at about 6 percent.

Seth Jaffe, a Boston-based environmental lawyer who represents corporations and had been looking forward to deregulation, said the administration has failed to deliver.

“I’ve spent 30 years in the private sector complaining about the excesses of environmental regulation,” Jaffe said, but “this administration has given regulatory reform a bad name.”

Some errors are so basic that Jaffe said he has to wonder whether agency officials are more interested in announcing policy shifts than in actually implementing them. “It’s not just that they’re losing. But they’re being so nuts about it,” he said, adding that the losses in court have “set regulatory reform back for

a period of time.”

Contributing to the losing record has been Trump himself. His reported comments about “shithole countries,” for example, helped convince U.S. District Judge Edward M. Chen in San Francisco that the administration’s decision to end “temporary protected status” for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Central America, Haiti and Sudan was motivated by racial and ethnic bias.

At least a dozen decisions have involved Trump’s tweets or comments.

The Justice Department, which defends federal agencies in court, declined to comment. The White House also declined to comment.

Matthew Collette, who served as

The Trump administration has won about 6 percent of cases accusing it of violating the Administrative Procedure Act. The normal “win rate” for the government is about 70 percent.

the deputy director of the Justice Department’s Civil Division appellate staff until his departure in October, said that in his 30 years at the department, he had not seen so many losses for a presidential administration in such a short time. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said.

‘Virtually unexplained’ Trump has blamed his losses on “Obama judges” in the West Coast states that make up the 9th Circuit.

While 29 setbacks have come from 9th Circuit judges, the trend is national, with 34 originating elsewhere, particularly in the District of Columbia Circuit, according to a count by The Washington Post.

Democratic appointees, many of

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POLITICS them tapped by presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, are responsible for 45 decisions. Republican appointees dating back to President Ronald Reagan issued the other rulings. Magistrate judges, who are not appointed by presidents, made three of the decisions.

On major issues on which multiple judges have ruled, there has been little disagreement among them, no matter where the judges are located or who appointed them.

Four judges, for instance, have rejected the decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected from deportation nearly 700,000 people brought to the United States as children. All four judges said essentially the same thing: that the government’s stated reason for ending DACA — that it was unlawful — was “virtually unexplained,” as U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, an appointee of President George W. Bush in Washington, said in an April opinion. A second explanation — that DACA creates a “litigation risk” — was derided by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in California as mere “spin.”

Three judges have invalidated the attempt to add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census, the latest being U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco on March 6. All rejected as unbelievable Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s explanation that the move was intended to improve enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court. The Commerce Department declined to comment.

In the cases challenging termination of temporary protected status, the Department of Homeland Security claimed it was not actually changing policy and was therefore immune from review under the APA. But internal documents contradicted that claim, and Chen, an Obama appointee, blocked the shift in an Oct. 3 decision.

Every administration loses cases because of APA violations. Obama’s most notable defeat came in 2015, when a Texas judge blocked his plan to protect from deportation illegal immigrants whose children are Americans or lawful permanent residents.

Still, administrations of both parties have historically won most of these cases, in part because judges tend to defer to the federal government, legal experts said — making Trump’s record of failure virtu-

ally unprecedented.

The Trump administration’s style of policymaking has led to some awkward moments in court.

Take the many cases challenging the Department of Health and Human Services over its decision to end some $200 million in grants to 81 programs on preventing teen pregnancy.

The decision was taken — abruptly and without explanation — soon after the June 2017 appointment of Valerie Huber to serve as senior adviser to then-HHS Secretary Tom Price. Huber, a leader of the abstinence-only sex education movement — which she prefers to call “sexual risk avoidance” — had lobbied to eliminate funding for the programs, which in her view “normalized teen sex.”

The decision threatened to devastate the budgets of scores of teenpregnancy programs across the nation, many of which quickly filed suit. In its defense, HHS argued that ending the grants did not represent a policy change and therefore required no explanation under the APA. During a hearing in Washington last April, U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed incredulity about the manner in which the agency had acted. Can an agency “suddenly say ‘too bad, so sad,’ ” Jackson asked a lawyer for the government, and cut off money without cause? When the lawyer answered yes, the judge called the situation “weird” and ordered the grants restored.

In her ruling the following month, Jackson said “HHS’s unmistakable and inexplicable silence” in cutting the money made her decision “quite easy.”

“This much is clear: A federal agency that changes course abruptly without a well-reasoned explanation for its decision or that acts contrary to its own regulations is subject to having a federal court vacate its action as ‘arbitrary [and] capricious,’ ” she said in her ruling, quoting the APA’s most recognizable incantation.

Judges in Maryland, New York, Oregon and Washington state arrived at similar conclusions in related cases.

A slowed agenda Failure to follow the APA has dramatically slowed the administration’s agenda on other fronts, particularly the push to roll back environmental regulations.

Courts nationwide have ruled against the Trump administration 9th Circuit, 29 rulings Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington

D.C. Circuit, 15

4th Circuit, 8 2nd Circuit, 7 7th Circuit, 2 3rd Circuit, 1 1st Circuit, 1 Source: Washington Post analysis of court records BRITTANY RENEE MAYES/THE WASHINGTON POST

Last February, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers suspended an important clean-water rule without soliciting public comment or formally considering the implications, both requirements of the APA. When conservationists sued, the government argued that it was only delaying the rule, not eliminating it.

U.S. District Judge David C. Norton of South Carolina, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, gave the Trump administration a tongue lashing, calling its approach “evasive,” in addition to being “arbitrary and capricious.”

“Certainly, different administrations may implement different regulatory priorities,” Norton wrote in August. But the law “ ‘requires that the pivot from one administration’s priorities to those of the next be accomplished with at least some fidelity to law and legal process.’ . . .

The court cannot countenance such a state of affairs,” he wrote.

“If your goal is to change policy, the little extra time” to explain “is worth it,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor who regards himself as a regulatory skeptic. “Various administrations don’t always like that lesson,” he said, “this administration more than most.”

Some observers attributed the EPA’s woes to its former administrator, Scott Pruitt, a skeptic of federal

environmental policy who installed inexperienced officials and moved rapidly to roll back Obama-era regulations.

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, a Republican lawyer who headed the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation from 2001 to 2005, said he sensed a potential problem at the agency soon after Trump’s election, during the transition before he took office.

“This administration was different than any I’ve seen in my lifetime,” Holmstead said, noting that Trump “didn’t have anybody who had any kind of meaningful experience with the EPA.” Compounding the problem was the Trump team’s “complete distrust of the career staff” at the EPA, Maryland, North Carolina, Holmstead said — a professional South Virginia,gives you good corpsCarolina, that “always West Virginia advice, whether or not they agree” with the president’s politics.

Pruitt resigned last summer amid a host of allegations of unethical conduct. He has since been replaced as EPA administrator by Andrew Wheeler, who “has taken steps . . . to ensure the agency engages in well-reasoned, transparent and defensible decision-making,” said EPA spokesman John Konkus.

Konkus added that “only a handful” of cases against the agency have reached the end of the judicial review process.

As with the travel ban, the administration is pinning its hopes on the Supreme Court to overturn lower-court rulings and preserve its policy changes. Trump has appointed two of the nine justices, shifting the high court to the right.

“Hopefully, we will get a fair shake” in the Supreme Court, Trump said in February when he declared a state of emergency to build a wall along the nation’s southern border.

With a few exceptions, however, the high court has shown no inclination to rush to Trump’s aid. Most cases never reach the Supreme Court. And while Trump has filled numerous vacancies in the lower courts, appointees of Democratic presidents still account for more than 55 percent of active federal judges, said John D. Graham, dean of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

“If the Trump administration wants to win future cases,” Graham said, “they must do a much better job of persuading judges appointed by Democratic presidents.” n

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“This administration was different than any I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, head of the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation from 2001 to 2005

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POLITICS

Ticket to debates: 65,000 donors BY

M ICHAEL S CHERER

T

he latest turn in the Democratic presidential race looks a bit like an infomercial for a food dehydrator or Ginsu knives. Former congressman John Delaney stands in front of a whiteboard in a video, pitching voters on a new way to double their money.

“It’s really simple, and it’s actually a pretty good deal,” the Marylander says. “ . . . You give one, I give two to a charity of your choice.”

You heard right. A candidate for president wants your donation so badly that he is willing to pay twice as much out of pocket.

The reason has little to do with traditional campaign fundraising and a lot to do with the new criteria the Democratic Party has laid out for qualifying for the first debates — either earn at least 1 percent support in a series of public polls of Democratic voters or attract 65,000 individual donors.

Hitting 65,000 has become a magic ticket for many of the party’s presidential candidates, who are struggling to rank in public polls given a field that already has 15 contenders, with several more waiting in the wings. The new criteria have proved to be a boon to lesser-known candidates seeking a national stage this summer and could create challenges for more-established politicians seeking to break away from the pack — with unpredictable repercussions for the party.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg reached his 65,000 goal last week after a successful CNN town hall brought him a new wave of donors. Businessman Andrew Yang put a counter on his homepage to drive the online energy past 65,000 donors for his candidacy, which is based around the idea of giving every American adult $1,000 every month. (Buttigieg and Yang are the only two candidates who do not regularly register with clear support in national polls to claim that they’ve reached that mark.)

Aides to Marianne Williamson,

PAUL SANCYA/ASSOCIATED PRESS

With 15 contenders already in the 2020 field, Democrats lay out criteria for inclusion in forums a self-help guru, and former housing secretary Julián Castro say their campaigns are also on track.

“We need 65,000 individual contributions,” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) pleaded after her own CNN town hall, in a hotel hallway video that now tops her Twitter page. She asked each of her donors to find at least 10 other people to chip in a dollar as well.

The pitches, more focused on growing the number of donors than on raising money, mark a new step in the evolution of presidential campaign fundraising away from high-dollar donations from the wealthy and toward online grass-roots fundraising.

The rules were set by the Democratic Party less as a way to tap new funding sources than to ease frictions created in 2016 when supporters of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her campaign had an outsize role in setting the structure and timing of debates. Democratic Party Chair

Tom Perez has said he wants an “open and transparent” process that gives a “bigger voice” to lowdollar donors.

The party also set the fundraising threshold with the goal of expanding the early debate stage to include as many as 20 candidates, who will be randomly divided to appear on consecutive nights in a two-day June debate hosted by NBC and a two-day July meeting hosted by CNN. Using polling alone to filter the field, especially this early in the process, would almost certainly have meant a far smaller group onstage. Recent polls have shown no more than a dozen candidates with 1 percent support, the criteria used to qualify for the first Democratic debate in 2015.

Party leaders have described the incentive for small-dollar donations as a win-win for the party and the candidates, building enthusiasm and adding to voter data that will come in handy during

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) is among the Democratic presidential candidates who have adjusted their fundraising appeals to try to garner 65,000 donors before the first debates this summer.

the general election. It is also a more merit-based approach than past criteria, which have looked beyond polling at factors like whether a campaign has opened offices in the early-voting states.

But the new rules have also transformed the tactics and focus of the campaign, and could eventually shape the outcome.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee have refocused their online fundraising appeals to try to meet the 65,000 goal. “The number everyone’s talking about,” ran the headline of a recent Inslee email seeking individual donations to elevate the issue of climate change.

Other potential candidates who have drawn out their decision-making, including Sen. Michael F. Bennet (Colo.) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, could struggle if they enter late, giving themselves less time to corral donors. Candidates will be required to certify their numbers a couple of weeks before the first debate.

Campaigns have been split on the merits of the party plan, even as everyone seems to have accepted the new rules.

“When you have a goal, it galvanizes people,” said Yang, who is focused on getting 200,000 donors in anticipation of the qualifications tightening for the Democratic debates this fall. “We need to keep the momentum going.”

He said the number of donors giving just a single dollar increased after the debate qualifications were announced.

Other candidates have been less enthusiastic. “We are about 40 percent there, so we are getting there,” said Patricia Ewing, a spokeswoman for Williamson, a self-described spiritual teacher who gained fame for her work with Oprah Winfrey.

But Ewing also played down the 65,000 number as “arbitrary,” and she was critical of Delaney’s gambit, which depends on having deep enough pockets to make major donations to charity in the heat of a presidential campaign.

“That’s a very transactional way to try to get onto the debate,” Ewing said. n

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KLMNO WEEKLY

Inside this Trojan horse: Money

BY M ORIAH B ALINGIT, S USAN S VRLUGA AND N ICK A NDERSON in Los Angeles

T

o Kwaku Rogers, son of Ghanaian immigrants, the University of Southern California offers a ticket to get ahead in life. The 19-year-old sophomore prizes the network of Trojan alumni and the abundant academic and social opportunities available to students like him, who are among the first in their families to go to college.

But that vision — shared by many here who see a private university with a striking commitment to access for the disadvantaged — has been eclipsed in the past week by another narrative that thrust USC into the center of a stunning college admissions scandal.

Far too often, students and faculty lament, access is still all about money.

That is their conclusion from a federal investigation that uncovered an alleged scheme to get children of celebrities and other wealthy parents into prominent universities via cheating and bribery. Prosecutors say checks from 33 parents funded fakery on SAT and ACT admissions tests and sophisticated ruses to designate applicants with minimal or no intercollegiate sports potential as recruited athletes. That label would boost their chances of admission.

The most frequent target in the alleged admissions fraud scam: USC, the current or former employer of six of the 50 alleged perpetrators, including a renowned water polo coach, a senior athletics official and even a professor seeking to help his collegebound daughter.

The chair of USC’s board, Rick Caruso, said in an interview Tuesday that the school will do whatever it takes to find out what happened in the scandal and prevent a repeat.

Frederick J. Ryan Jr., publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, is also a member of the board. He declined to comment.

REED SAXON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

In wake of college admissions scandal, USC students, faculty lament easy access for wealthy USC interim president Wanda M. Austin pledged aggressive action to uphold the integrity of admissions after prosecutors announced charges March 12 in Boston. USC has denied admission to the upcoming freshman class for applicants with ties to the alleged scam, launched a review of current students and graduates who may be linked, fired two employees and placed another on leave as a step toward termination. Austin said USC also would consider revoking degrees of those who fraudulently secured admission.

Over the past several years, federal investigators alleged, the scam facilitated admission to USC for more than two dozen students as recruited athletes, even though many had fabricated credentials in water polo, soccer and track and field.

Austin acknowledged the breadth of USC’s exposure to the scandal poses many questions.

Chief among them: Why weren’t alarms raised internally years ago about the phenomenon of purported student-athletes who failed to join or play for the teams that recruited them?

USC is not the only school facing questions. Others with current and former athletic coaches charged in the scam include Georgetown, Yale, Stanford and Wake Forest universities, as well as the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California at Los Angeles.

A lawyer familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss potential strategies, said that parents could argue they were duped by an unscrupulous admissions consultant: William “Rick” Singer, the alleged mastermind of the scam.

Singer, of Newport Beach, Calif., has pleaded guilty to racketeering and other charges and is cooperating with investigators.

A campus visitor poses for a photograph in front of the “Tommy Trojan” statue at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

“Rick Singer’s a sales guy and a con guy,” the lawyer said, suggesting that parents were unaware their money would be put to illegal use. “They didn’t know what the scheme was. They knew that they were giving money to help their kid get into the school.”

Over and over, the investigation found, the school that many of the accused parents sought for their children was USC. Court documents allege that one father conspired with Singer to create a fake profile of his son as a football player.

Several alleged transactions involved Donna Heinel, who was senior associate athletic director at USC. She has been charged with racketeering conspiracy and is scheduled to appear in federal court in Boston next week. USC fired her last week. Telephone and email messages to Heinel were not returned.

The case is a setback in USC’s years-long effort to shake the stereotype that it is a playground for the rich.

There is, to be sure, plenty of privilege. Federal data shows that about 40 percent of the university’s 19,000 undergraduates pay full price. That exceeds $70,000 a year for tuition, fees, room and board.

But 21 percent have enough financial need to qualify for federal Pell Grants — a higher share than what is found at many prominent private research universities. USC also has built an unusually wide pipeline of transfer students from community colleges.

USC has climbed steadily in prestige over the past two decades. In 1996, it ranked 44th on the U.S. News & World Report list of top national universities. By 2011, it had cracked the top 25.

This year it ranks 22nd, tied with Georgetown and UC-Berkeley, and just ahead of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Virginia.

“It was a school for rich kids and over the past few years it turned into a powerhouse,” said Jacob Soll, a USC professor of philosophy, history and accounting. n

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COVER STORY

THE FENTANYL FAILURE

DESPITE MOUNTING DEATHS AND WARNINGS, THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DID NOT TAKE EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES TO CONFRONT AN EXTRAORDINARY CRISIS, EXPERTS SAY

BY SCOTT HIGHAM , SARI HORWITZ AND KATIE ZEZIMA

In May 2016, a group of national health experts issued

an urgent plea in a private letter to high-level officials in the Obama administration. Thousands of people were dying from overdoses of fentanyl — the deadliest drug to ever hit U.S. streets — and the administration needed to take immediate action. The epidemic had been escalating for three years.

The 11 experts pressed the officials to declare fentanyl a national “public health emergency” that would put a laserlike focus on combating the emerging epidemic and warn the country about the threat, according to a copy of the letter.

“The fentanyl crisis represents an extraordinary public health challenge — and requires an extraordinary public health response,” the experts wrote to six administration officials, including the nation’s “drug czar” and the chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The administration considered the request but did not act on it.

The decision was one in a series of missed opportunities, oversights and half-measures by federal officials who failed to grasp how quickly fentanyl was creating another — and far more fatal — wave of the opioid epidemic.

In the span of a few short years, fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 50 times more powerful than heroin, became the drug scourge of our time. Fentanyl has played a key role in reducing the overall life expectancy for Americans.

Between 2013 and 2017, more than 67,000 people died of synthetic-opioid-related overdoses — exceeding the number of

U.S. military personnel killed during the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. The number of deaths, the vast majority from fentanyl, has risen sharply each year. In 2017, synthetic opioids were to blame for 28,869 out of the overall 47,600 opioid overdoses, a 46.4 percent increase over the previous year, when fentanyl became the leading cause of overdose deaths in America for the first time.

Federal officials saw fentanyl as an appendage to the overall opioid crisis rather than a unique threat that required its own targeted strategy. As law enforcement began cracking down in 2005 on prescription opioids such as OxyContin and Vicodin, addicts turned to heroin, which was cheaper and more available.

Then, in 2013, fentanyl arrived, and overdoses and deaths soared.

“Fentanyl was killing people like we’d never seen before,” said Derek Maltz, the former agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Special Operations Division in Washington. “A red light was going off, ding, ding, ding. This is something brand new. What the hell is going on? We needed a serious sense of urgency.”

But for years, Congress didn’t provide significant funding to combat fentanyl or the larger opioid epidemic. U.S. Customs and Border Protection didn’t have enough officers, properly trained dogs or sophisticated equipment to curb illegal fentanyl shipments entering the country from China and Mexico. The U.S. Postal Service didn’t require electronic monitoring of international packages, making it difficult to detect parcels containing

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KLMNO WEEKLY

COVER STORY

fentanyl ordered over the Internet from China.

CDC data documenting fentanyl overdoses lagged behind events on the ground by as much as a year, obscuring the real-time picture of what was happening.

Facing hotly contested midterm elections in 2018, Congress finally passed legislation aimed at addressing the increasingly politicized opioid crisis, including a measure to force the Postal Service to start tracking international packages.

“How many people had to die before Congress stood up and did the right thing with regard to telling our own Post Office you have to provide better screening?” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), sponsor of the legislation, asked on the Senate floor last fall.

Local and state leaders in hard-hit communities say the federal government wasted too much time at a cost of far too many lives.

“Everybody was slow to recognize the severity of the problem, even though a lot of the warning signs were there,” said New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R), whose state has one of the highest fentanyl overdose rates in the United States.

In Sununu’s state, Narcan, which delivers an opioid-overdose antidote, has become standard issue for some school districts. Addicts overdose on the sidewalks and in public parks of Manchester and are found slumped over the steering wheels of cars in traffic. Firefighters and paramedics are called nearly every day to fentanyl overdoses and have opened their station houses to addicts seeking treatment.

“In the city of Manchester, we saw 20 overdoses to 80 overdoses a month. We were like, ‘What the heck is happening with these overdoses?’ ” said Manchester Fire Chief Dan Goonan.

Ground zero The first wave of the opioid epidemic began in 1996 after drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma introduced what it claimed to be a wonder drug for pain — OxyContin, a powerful opioid that was aggressively marketed to physicians as less addictive than other prescription narcotics. As the medical community embraced the new drug, it became a blockbuster for Purdue, generating billions in sales.

Over the next decade, doctors and corrupt pain management clinics prescribed massive amounts of opioids. To meet the demand, drug manufacturers and distributors flooded communities across the country with opioid pills, including oxycodone and hydrocodone. Drug users and dealers diverted hundreds of millions of doses to the streets.

The DEA started to crack down on the illegal trade in 2005. Two years later, Purdue paid $600 million in fines and its executives pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for claiming the product was less addictive than other painkillers. The company agreed to make its marketing conform to federal rules and has launched programs to combat opioid abuse.

already reeling from a crippling prescription pill and heroin problem.

The first signs were detected in the spring of 2013 when overdose deaths spiked at the state morgue in Providence. Then-Rhode Island Health Director Michael Fine wondered: What was killing so many so quickly?

Fine was surprised to learn when the toxicology reports came back that 12 people who overdosed between March and May had died from fentanyl. They ranged in age from 19 to 57, and most were from the northern part of the state.

Fine notified the CDC about the cluster. On Aug. 30, 2013, the CDC in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report highlighted the unusual spike in Rhode Island. It didn’t attract much national attention.

Eighteen days before the CDC issued its “Notes from the Field,” then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. traveled to the other side of the country to issue one of the biggest policy proclamations of his career.

Standing before hundreds of lawyers gathered for the American Bar Association’s annual conference in San Francisco, Holder announced that he was rolling back the aggressive prosecution strategy that had been launched to target the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

Calling the new policy “Smart on Crime,” Holder said he was directing federal prosecutors to stop bringing low-level, nonviolent drug charges that would trigger mandatoryminimum sentences. The charges had resulted in harsh sentences for first-time offenders, many of them young black men. Holder told his prosecutors to focus on large drug-trafficking organizations.

The federal government also fined the largest drug distributors and pharmacies tens of millions of dollars over allegations that they failed to report suspicious orders of pain pills.

As the supply of prescription opioids began to tighten, America’s pill addicts became desperate. Street prices soared. Mexican drug cartels saw an opening to sell more heroin, a cheaper, more potent way to get high. That set off the second wave of the epidemic by 2010 and a rise in overdose deaths.

Then fentanyl hit the streets. A synthetic opioid developed in 1960 by a Belgian physician, fentanyl is normally reserved for surgery and cancer patients. It is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, its chemical cousin.

For traffickers, illicit fentanyl produced in labs was the most lucrative opportunity yet, a chance to bypass the unpredictability of the poppy fields that produced their heroin. The traffickers could order one of the cheapest and most powerful opioids on the planet directly from Chinese labs over the Internet.

The third wave of the opioid epidemic was about to begin. Ground zero was Rhode Island,

From top: Downtown Manchester, N.H., is seen from Rock Rimmon Park in the fall of 2018. The city is at the center of the fentanyl crisis.

Manchester firefighter Tim Aramini helps Christopher Abbott, 32, as he checks in to the Safe Station program at the city’s Central Fire Station on Feb. 9.

‘This huge spike’ Tim Pifer and his team at the state crime lab in Concord, N.H., started to see the same pattern in 2014 that Fine had noticed in Rhode Island the previous year.

“We were thinking, why would anyone inject something that’s so potentially deadly?”

Pifer, the veteran chief of the lab, said in a recent interview. “We saw this huge spike in drug deaths.”

To get the word out, state health and law enforcement officials in New Hampshire and Rhode Island joined with the DEA, which had been seeing the same pattern across New England.

In January 2014, the DEA issued a bulletin warning local authorities nationwide about “killer heroin” cut with fentanyl. First responders needed to “exercise extreme caution” because fentanyl could be absorbed through the skin. The bulletin resulted in a few local news stories. But, once again, there was little national attention.

In March, a month after actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s heroin overdose generated national headlines, Holder released a video to notify the public of the rising number of heroin deaths across the country.

12 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

SUNDAY, March, 24, 2019 15

COVER STORY He called heroin an “urgent and growing public health crisis.” Between 2006 and 2010, heroin overdose deaths had increased by 45 percent.

“Confronting this crisis will require a combination of enforcement and treatment,” Holder said in the video. “The Justice Department is committed to both.”

Holder made no mention of fentanyl; top officials in Washington were still focused on heroin and prescription pain pills.

Former DEA agents said they provided Holder with a personal briefing that included a 30-slide PowerPoint presentation about the dangers of fentanyl in June 2014, three months after Holder’s video. Several DEA officials were present, including then-DEA administrator Michele Leonhart.

The PowerPoint, which The Washington Post reviewed, warned that heroin was being laced with fentanyl and there had been an “outbreak” of fentanyl overdoses in the Northeast. It also noted that the drug was being ordered over the Internet. The agency had traced the source to Chinese drug-trafficking organizations.

While raising red flags, the PowerPoint presentation itself did not request any particular action.

“We were hoping and expecting a briefing to the nation’s number one law enforcement official would not only raise the level of awareness, but would cause him to take action within the department to direct people to make this matter a high priority since people were dying,” Maltz, the DEA’s former agent in charge of the Special Operations Division, later told The Post.

Maltz’s division prepared and delivered the PowerPoint. He said he and his agents believed that a national problem like fentanyl was “way bigger than the DEA,” and the attorney general could have taken a leadership role, urging other agencies to focus on the emerging threat.

Leonhart did not respond to requests for comment. Holder declined an interview request. His former spokesman said it was up to the DEA to ask the attorney general for specific action.

Ten months after the briefing, Holder left the administration.

By then, fentanyl was spreading across the country. Large increases in fentanyl seizures were being reported in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia.

At the same time, in the wake of Holder’s memo, federal drug cases were dropping. In a year, the number of people charged with federal drug crimes fell by more than 4,700 — from 27,106 in 2013 to 22,387 in 2014.

Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates said in 2016 that U.S. Sentencing Commission data showed that the number of serious drug prosecutions — such as those involving firearms — increased.

But a report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz found that

Fentanyl-related overdoses lead opioid crisis The recent rise in synthetic opioid deaths has been fueled almost entirely by fentanyl. It can be mixed into other drugs like heroin, counterfeit pain pills and cocaine.

Sythentic opioids 28,869 Prescription painkillers 17,029

20,000 U.S. overdose deaths

Heroin 15,690 10,000

00

1999

2017

2013

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

AARON WILLIAMS/THE WASHINGTON POST

Overdoses from synthetic opioids in the United States Deaths per 100,000 from 2013 to 2017 STATE 2013

2017

17.3 to 34.9 5.9 to 17.2 Fewer than 5.9

ME NH

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VT

WA

ID

MT

ND

MN

IL

MI

OR

NV

WY

SD

IA

IN

OH

CA

UT

CO

NE

MO

KY

WV

AZ

NM

KS

AR

TN

NC

SC

OK

LA

MS

AL

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HI

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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AARON WILLIAMS/THE WASHINGTON POST

the sentencing data Yates used had “significant limitations” because it did not count the number of cases from drug agents that assistant U.S. attorneys turned down for prosecution. Horowitz concluded that there was no way to gauge the precise impact Holder’s memo had on drug prosecutions.

Utah U.S. Attorney John W. Huber, an Obama appointee who was renamed to the position by the Trump administration, said in a recent interview that the change in policy “took the edge off ” drug prosecutions.

The message, he said: “This isn’t so important anymore.”

KLMNO WEEKLY

‘It hits you in the heart’ On March 18, 2015, nine months after its presentation to Holder, the DEA put out its strongest warning yet to law enforcement agencies and the public about the mounting threat, issuing a “Nationwide Alert on Fentanyl.”

The alert was a distillation of what the agency had learned about the drug in the previous two years. It was intended to sound the alarm, not only to the agency’s field offices, but also to federal and state officials, and to the public. The DEA warned that fentanyl was increasingly showing up in heroin.

DEA agents said fentanyl was being ordered by traffickers and users over the Internet and the dark Web. They paid for the drug with bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency.

The agency noted that Mexican cartels were smuggling fentanyl through ports of entry along the southwest border, hiding it in wheel wells and secret compartments in cars and trucks.

State and local labs reported that seizures had risen from 942 in 2013 to 3,344 in 2014.

The rise in deaths was disturbing: 80 fentanyl deaths in the first six months of 2014 in New Jersey and 200 deaths in Pennsylvania over 15 months.

The same month that the DEA issued its alert, Congress directed the Justice Department and the White House drug czar to convene a National Heroin Task Force to develop strategies to confront the “heroin problem” and “curtail the escalating overdose epidemic and death rates.”

This was meant to be the administration’s big effort, bringing together 25 agencies to develop a “comprehensive” national response to the crisis.

The focus was still on heroin and prescription pills.

The task force’s 23-page report was delivered to Congress by the new attorney general, Loretta E. Lynch. Five sentences were devoted to fentanyl.

The report said the surge in opioid deaths “may be related” to a rise in heroin being laced with fentanyl. It called for the creation of response teams to warn police and the public about overdoses, some of which may involve fentanyl, and said there should be more research into “opioid use disorder,” including the use of fentanyl.

No mention was made of the role of China and orders of fentanyl over the Internet, the smuggling of fentanyl through the U.S. mail, or the lack of resources devoted to fighting fentanyl trafficking at the border and ports of entry.

“In retrospect, it should have been a focus of the report,” Michael Botticelli, the White House drug czar at the time, said in a recent interview.

At the same time, the state of Rhode Island launched its own task force after newly elected Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) declared opioid overdoses to be a “public health crisis” in 2015.

Two experts advising the task force visited

13 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

SUNDAY, March, 24, 2019 16

KLMNO WEEKLY

COVER STORY

the state morgue in Providence. Josiah Rich and Traci Green, epidemiologists from Brown University, pored over the autopsy reports that had so alarmed Michael Fine two years earlier.

“There’s a fentanyl, there’s another fentanyl,” Rich recalled in a recent interview.

As they sifted through the reports and the photographs of the dead, one stood out: a pregnant woman, slumped over, surrounded by the presents she had recently received for her baby shower.

“It hits you in the heart,” Rich said. “You read through a two-foot stack of those and you’re a different person.”

In October 2015, the CDC issued a nationwide health advisory about the increasing dangers of fentanyl. It was up to the various agencies to take action, he said.

That November — eight months after the DEA issued its national fentanyl alert — the Obama administration sent its annual National Drug Control Strategy to Congress. The 107-page report devoted one sentence to fentanyl, noting that it was showing up in heroin.

“It caught a lot of people by surprise,” said Jon DeLena, the associate special agent in charge of the DEA’s New England Field Division. “People didn’t understand until it was really put in their face. People weren’t paying attention to how rapidly this evolved, and they weren’t prepared for it.”

‘Like a light switch’ On March 29, 2016, Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) joined President Barack Obama on Air Force One for a trip to Atlanta, where both were scheduled to speak at the National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit.

The senator used the rare one-on-one time to tell the president about fentanyl.

During Obama’s hour-long appearance as part of a panel, the president discussed pills, heroin and efforts to provide treatment to opioid addicts. He made an oblique reference to fentanyl without mentioning the drug by name.

The situation had become so desperate that health experts from around the country banded together to make an impassioned plea to the highest levels of the Obama administration.

On May 4, 2016, a month after Obama’s Atlanta appearance, the 11 public health experts wrote to the six administration officials, requesting the emergency declaration. Among the experts were Rich and Green, the two Rhode Island epidemiologists who had seen the devastation firsthand.

In their 14-page letter, the experts pointed out that the fentanyl epidemic appeared “to be intensifying after two years.”

It was far more dangerous than an earlier fentanyl outbreak in several states between 2005 and 2007, when nearly 1,000 people died.

In that case, quick action had saved lives: The DEA had traced the fentanyl to a clandestine lab in Toluca, Mexico, and shut it down immediately.

Now, fentanyl deaths were spreading across

the nation. In Maryland, the toll had jumped by more than 800 percent from 2013 to 2015.

“Like a light switch turning on,” they wrote, referring to Maryland.

The experts asked the administration to take several steps to immediately address the crisis.

To start, they requested an emergency public health declaration from the Department of Health and Human Services that would sound the alarm. “An emergency declaration would clarify the public health nature of the crisis and bring needed focus to a new threat that is claiming thousands of lives,” the experts wrote.

But an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter dismissed the idea of a declaration, saying it would have been “largely symbolic” and required emergency funds from Congress.

Sylvia Mathews Burwell was then the HHS secretary who would have had to approve the declaration. She declined an interview request.

Two months after the emergency request, Burwell spoke at the National Governors Association’s summer meeting on opioid addiction in Des Moines. She said she had put together a “working group” at HHS and asked the audience for help.

“I’m sure you all know better than I do, fentanyl is the problem on steroids,” she said.

“If you’re seeing things that are working in your states, please let us know.”

Botticelli, the drug czar and another recipient of the request, said the Obama administration’s priority was getting more money from Congress for treatment.

“Quite honestly, I think our focus at that point was not just to declare a public health emergency, but really to get additional resources out to states,” he said.

But many leading voices in the field feel an emergency declaration could have saved lives by shining a bright spotlight that would have galvanized the administration, awakened the public and warned users of the danger they faced.

Manchester Fire District Chief Hank Martineau runs up the stairs of a building to respond to an overdose call on Oct. 16 in New Hampshire.

In the summer of 2016, a few months after the fentanyl letter, the Obama administration declared the Zika virus to be a public health emergency and had already requested $1.9 billion from Congress to address it. Two people in the United States died of Zika-related illnesses.

At the same time, the DEA warned, counterfeit pain pills laced with fentanyl were posing a “global threat.”

That fall, with the presidential campaign in full swing, the White House proclaimed “Prescription Opioid and Heroin Epidemic Awareness Week.” It had been three years since the CDC issued the first fentanyl warning in its morbidity report.

The administration announced several fentanyl initiatives. It would continue to work with China and Mexico to stem the flow into the United States, make the anti-overdose medication naloxone more widely available and give additional money to drug task forces.

The administration said it was adding money to accelerate data collection on overdoses.

Finally, it planned to hold a “roundtable” with grieving parents.

After the 2016 election, at the urging of Obama, Congress approved nearly $1 billion for opioid treatment programs. Drug policy experts called that figure “a drop in the bucket.”

On Nov. 17, the surgeon general released the opioid report Markey and McConnell had requested the previous year. “As the nation struggles with an unprecedented opioid epidemic, this report is a missed opportunity,” Markey said in a statement at the time. “The deaths caused by prescription drug, heroin and fentanyl overdoses are growing exponentially every year, yet this report fails to provide any detailed roadmap for how best to curb opioid addiction.”

On Jan. 11, 2017, in the waning days of the administration, Obama delivered his annual National Drug Control Strategy to Congress.

Four years after the epidemic began in Rhode Island, the White House called fentanyl a national crisis.

The report said fentanyl overdoses and seizures were soaring. Members of the outgoing administration said they had been meeting with Chinese and Mexican officials to stop the flow.

On page 73 of the 76-page report, the drug czar’s office issued one of its strongest statements yet: “The dramatic increase in the availability and use of heroin and fentanyl is a national security, law enforcement, and public health issue, and it has become the highest priority illicit drug threat to the Nation.”

There were no news conferences or releases to announce the report’s findings. No one in Congress issued public statements or calls for action. Nine days later, Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president and Obama officials stepped down from their posts, leaving the next administration to confront the deadliest drug crisis in American history. n

14 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

SUNDAY, March, 24, 2019 17

SCIENCE

KLMNO WEEKLY

Does birth order affect personality?

Studies challenge idea that first-borns have different traits than younger siblings

BY

B EN G UARINO

B

irth order, according to conventional wisdom, molds personality: Firstborn children, secure with their place in the family and expected to be the mature ones, grow up to be intellectual, responsible and conformist. Younger siblings work harder to get their parents’ attention, take more risks and become creative rebels.

That’s the central idea in psychologist Frank J. Sulloway’s “Born to Rebel,” an influential book on birth order that burst, like a water balloon lobbed by an attention-seeking third-born, onto the pop psychology scene two decades ago. Sulloway’s account of the nuclear family claimed that firstborn children command their parents’ attention and resources, so later-borns must struggle to carve out their niche. Sibling behaviors then crystallize into adult personalities.

“I thought — and I still think — it’s very plausible and intuitive,” said Ralph Hertwig, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, who published a study on unequal

parental investment with Sulloway in 2002.

The trouble is the growing pile of evidence, Hertwig’s included, that’s tilted against it.

Birth order does not appear to influence personality in adults, according to several ambitious studies published in the past few years. This new wave of research relied on larger data sets and more robust statistical methods than earlier reports that claimed to find a relationship between birth order and personality. Hertwig, for his part, predicted he would find evidence that later-borns are daredevils when he embarked on a recent study of risky behaviors.

He did not.

“Our results indicate that birth order does not influence the propensity to take risks in adults,” Hertwig’s collaborator Tomás Lejarraga, director of the Decision Science Laboratory at Spain’s University of the Balearic Islands, said of their study on birth order published this past week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “There seems to be a growing consensus that birth order does not influence personality in a way that can be measured in adulthood.”

The latest study had three prongs: biographical data of explorers and revolutionaries; a survey of 11,000 German households; and an elaborate assessment, called the Basel-Berlin Risk Study, which measured risky behavior of

1,500 people through interviews and experiments.

The Basel-Berlin Risk Study, a day’s worth of about 40 psychological tests, “is one of the most exhaustive attempts to measure risk preference,” Lejarraga said.

Researchers asked participants about driving too fast, unprotected sex and other dicey behaviors.

The participants also performed simple experiments. Hertwig gave the example of a game in which subjects had two options: receiving $10 (the safe choice) or gambling on a 10 percent chance to win $100.

“None of these behavioral measures showed any credible relationship between being a laterborn and taking more risks,” the study authors wrote. The household survey didn’t find a relationship between self-reports of riskiness and birth order. Neither did examining the birth orders of almost 200 people who made the “risky life decision” to become revolutionaries or explorers, such as mountaineer Edmund Hillary, guerrilla fighter Che Guevara and socialist activist Rosa Luxemburg.

“This paper is very clear and it convincingly shows that there are no birth order effects on risk-taking,” said Stefan Schmukle, a psychologist at University of Leipzig in Germany who was not involved with this study.

Schmukle and his colleagues, in a study published in 2015, assessed birth order for about 20,000 people in the United States, Germany and Great Britain. The team found that birth order did not alter any of five broad personality traits. Those traits, what psychologists call the “Big Five,” were openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. A follow-up study on more specific characteristics, published by Schmukle two years later, did not find any effect of birth order, either.

Rodica Damian, a social psy-

SERJIOLE/ GETTY IMAGES/ ISTOCK

chologist at the University of Houston, studied more than 370,000 high school students and also concluded, in 2015, that birth order does not influence the Big Five. This sample size, Damian said, was “larger than all of the previous samples from the past hundred years put together.”

The studies by Schmukle and Damian found evidence that birth order does slightly influence intelligence. Firstborns, on average, had an advantage of an IQ point or two. Other birth order studies have found this, too. One hypothesis suggests that parents provide more mental stimulation to firstborns, especially before the parents’ energy and attention are divided among their other children.

It may seem strange that effects of experiences in very early childhood persist into adulthood. But well-designed, long-term studies such as the Abecedarian Project, which began in the 1970s, show the importance of enriched experience. Compared with a control group, infants and toddlers in the Abecedarian Project, who received high-quality child care and played educational games, performed better on reading and math tests in their 20s and were more likely to go to college.

But before all you firstborns lord your enhanced brains over your siblings, beware: The typical intelligence bonus from birth order is so small that “at an individual level it’ll never make a difference in your life,” Damian said.

One reason it has taken so long to challenge the idea that birth order influences personality is that, before 2011, social scientists struggled to publish “null effects,” Damian said. Null effects are results that show no statistically significant relationships among variables in a study. The social science community began to embrace null effects, she said, after it repeatedly failed to reproduce the results of classic experiments.

With that came studies like Damian’s, Schmukle’s and this past week’s report. These, she said, represent the standard against which birth order effects should be judged. n

15 19

SUNDAY, March, 24, 2019 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

BOOKS

KLMNO WEEKLY

A woman’s prison of domesticity

Inspiration in a Civil War hospital

F ICTION

N ONFICTION

l

W

REVIEWED BY

D IANA A BU- J ABER

hat is a woman’s life worth? This question echoes across countries and generations through Etaf Rum’s intense debut novel, “A Woman Is No Man.” In 1990 Birzeit, a town in the West Bank, 17-year-old Isra prepares for some special guests: They’re seeking a bride for their son Adam. Dutiful and soft-spoken, Isra has wisps of longing; she dreams of romance and adventure. But her mother warns her: “There is nothing out there for a woman but her bayt wa dar, her house and home. Marriage, motherhood — that is a woman’s only worth.”

Isra’s parents are excited because Adam and his family now live in America, which could be their daughter’s ticket out of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Driven from his home by the Israeli invasion, Isra’s father was reduced to a poor plot of land on the outskirts of Birzeit. Their lives there are harsh and austere.

The narrative draws links between economic desperation and discord in the home, driving apart parents and children, men and women. These men come and go as they please, but the women are virtual prisoners of the home — they don’t even eat dinner with their husbands. While many of these characters believe that it’s immoral for a woman to walk freely in public, the novel points out that such beliefs are not, in fact, consistent with Islam. At one point, an Islamic studies scholar recites a Koranic verse: “Heaven lies under a mother’s feet.” He explains, “When we accept that heaven lies underneath the feet of a woman, we are more respectful of women everywhere.” Sadly, this is not the reality of these characters’ lives.

Isra and Adam’s marriage is arranged, and within a matter of weeks, she’s whisked from her quiet home to the wilderness of New York City. Her dreams of love and freedom are crushed as she’s

shown to the space she and Adam will share: a room in her in-laws’ basement.

The novel shifts among character perspectives, including that of her overbearing mother-in-law, Fareeda. The older woman makes it clear that Isra’s most essential duty is to produce babies — male babies. Isra’s failure to produce a male heir becomes an ongoing crisis that sucks the joy from their lives.

Some of the most moving moments in the book take place when Isra looks at her young daughters and realizes with horror that they are destined to live out the same patterns of servitude and confinement that she has. Beyond the books that her sister-in-law smuggles home, Isra has little sense of hope. Her days are spent under her mother-in-law’s thumb, cooking and cleaning for Adam, a man who seems to be disinterested at best and outright dangerous at worst.

One of the challenges that Rum tackles is speaking openly about the brutal treatment of these women. Rum was herself in an arranged marriage, and this personal experience imbues her narrative voice with authority and authenticity. Still, a potential concern for Arab authors writing for an American audience is how to portray Arab patriarchy within a Western milieu of Islamophobic and anti-Arab stereotypes.

The book also touches on the legacy of violence passed down from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and its lingering echoes in America: This is a brave move. Her female characters are doubly victimized, by both the occupation and a patriarchal culture. Isra is passive and fatalistic through much of the story. But her suffering sets the stage for a breakthrough when the next generation of women begins to speak up: With independence come the first rays of hope. n Abu-Jaber is the author of “Birds of Paradise” and “Origin.”

L A WOMAN IS NO MAN

By Etaf Rum Harper. 352 pp. $26.99

LOUISA ON THE FRONT LINES Louisa May Alcott in the Civil War

By Samantha Seiple Seal Press.

243 pp. $27

l

REVIEWED BY

L UCINDA R OBB

ouisa May Alcott was a runner. Of the many fascinating details that come to life in Samantha Seiple’s new book, “Louisa on the Front Lines,” this one is particularly telling. Just think about it. More than 100 years before running became a popular sport, Alcott ran for the sheer joy of it. It is a revealing insight that lets us know there is nothing old-fashioned about the author of “Little Women.” Alcott was way ahead of her time.

Somewhat fittingly, “Louisa on the Front Lines” isn’t a traditional biography, checking the boxes of the events and dates, although it does cover much of her life. Instead it focuses primarily on the pivotal six weeks when Alcott worked as a nurse in Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, an experience that sparked her literary coming of age.

The first chapters fill in the backstory to Alcott’s fateful decision — as she would later describe it — to go to war. Despite constantly living on the edge of poverty, Lu (as Alcott was commonly known) crossed paths with some of the most famous literary and philosophical figures of her day. Her father, Bronson Alcott, was an important Transcendentalist thinker and educator whose strict moral principles were easier to admire from afar than to actually live with. He would not accept wages, only donations, and founded a vegan utopian commune called Fruitlands that failed miserably after six months. When the family’s financial straits became so dire that Lu considered selling her beautiful long hair, Ralph Waldo Emerson stepped in to give the family a loan. Nathaniel Hawthorne was their neighbor, and Harriet Tubman used their house as a station on the Underground Railroad. Surrounded by people who were changing the world, when war finally came, Alcott was desperate to do more than make bandages. Using her connections to Dorothea Dix, a family friend

and prominent 19th-century reformer, she managed to secure a position as a nurse during the Civil War. Seeing the conflict through Lu’s eyes gives it an immediacy that sweeps you up so completely, you sometimes forget who won the war. Alcott’s concern for her patients is palpable, as is her dismay at the corruption and the wretched conditions the wounded and dying endured.

The second half of the book follows Alcott’s growing success as an author. A terrible illness cut short her time at the hospital and sent her home before the end of war. While recovering she wrote “Hospital Sketches,” which was a hit with a public desperate for news from the front. This marked the start of her success as an author. She eventually won over the editor of the Atlantic. He published her poem “Thoreau’s Flute” and was so impressed with “Hospital Sketches” that he commissioned an original story. More books followed, including a story “for girls” that she wrote at her publisher’s request.

Toward the very end Seiple seems to run out of steam, repeating several points almost verbatim and dropping hints that the future is bleak for Alcott. Suddenly the book jumps ahead 10 years with a brief chapter on Alcott’s commitment to women’s suffrage, and then that’s all, the story is done.

Even though it ends too soon, “Louisa on the Front Lines” is a rich, enlightening tale. Seiple wisely lets her subject narrate as often as possible, and Alcott’s voice shines through in her fresh, clean prose. Drawing from multiple letters, diaries and other sources, many of them previously unmined, the portrait that comes through is of a fearless, hardworking, fun young woman devoted to her family and friends and unafraid to challenge conventions. n Robb is a director for the National Archives Foundation.

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