The State of American Women

Originally published in The Washington Monthly on October 10, 2013.
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The Center for American Progress recently published an important study on the well-being of women in the United States. Entitled, “The State of Women in America: A 50-State Analysis of How Women are Faring Across the Nation, the research evaluated each state by three categories deemed to be most critical to enabling female success: economic security, health and leadership. CAP’s study also broke down the findings by race and ethnicity.

“We really wanted to take a holistic look, a broad survey, of some of the different factors that impact women’s lives,” said one of the lead researchers, Anna Chu. “We wanted to think about what’s important to women and their ability to reach a healthy and secure life.”

In conjunction with the report, CAP also launched what they’re calling the “Fair Shot Campaign” in order to raise public awareness, and to push for policy solutions aimed at improving the chances for female success in America. The campaign, which mirrors the three categories of the research report, is going to highlight issues such as reproductive health care access, gender wage gap disparities, a higher minimum wage, paid-family leave, and increasing the number of women in leadership positions in both the public and private sector. Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Service Employees International Union and American Women (the 501(c)(4) branch of Emily’s List) will be partners in leading the campaign.

Organizing For Action, the nonprofit advocacy organization that grew out of the 2012 Obama campaign, has also already hosted over 140 house parties across the country to discuss CAP’s new research findings and how to move the research into policy.

Neera Tanden, CAP’s president, told Politico, that despite the historic 20-point gender gap in the 2012 election, the concrete policy changes that should theoretically follow such a dramatic shift, like paid sick leave, have yet to become a reality.

“The goal is to affect conversations in 2014, 2016 and going forward. It’s not something we do for a week and drop.”

“With the pay equity issue in particular, women across the spectrum, regardless of socioeconomic status really feel, see and understand that it’s inherently happening,” said CAP Senior Fellow, Buffy Wicks, in an interview.

According to the data, women on average earn 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, but for African-American women that number is only 64 cents, and for Hispanic women, it’s a mere 53 cents.

“Women deserve to make 100% on the dollar for what men make,” said Chu.

Economic issues, beyond wage inequality also persist. More than 21 million women still lack health insurance and CAP reported that in 2012, 16.3 percent of women lived in poverty compared to 13.6 percent of men. Even more staggering, 29 percent of African American women, and 28 percent of Hispanic-American women lived in poverty.

Today’s minimum wage, which stands at $7.25, is reportedly 31 percent lower than the value of the minimum wage in 1968. CAP reports that if the minimum wage were raised to $10.10 per hour, an equivalent value to 1968’s, more than half of the beneficiaries, close to 17 million, would be women.

“Nearly two thirds of individuals earning minimum wage are women,” said Wicks.

Employing progressive political behemoths like CAP, OFA, and Emily’s List, among others, signals a real power push to prioritize issues that affect women—issues that often remain on the backburner of the progressive agenda. And with exit polls from the 2012 election revealing that 53 percent of voters were women, with 55 percent of those casting votes for President Obama, the political impetus from the citizenry seems there, too.

The worry, of course, is to make sure that the policy progress amounts to more than just “trickling down” or “leaning in.” But CAP’s vision, to see economic security, health access and leadership opportunities as all inextricably linked indicates that what they’re organizing around is a much deeper political change.

A Debt Ceiling Ace in the Hole?

Originally published in The Washington Monthly on October 8th, 2013.
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With tensions over the government shutdown rising and the markets beginning to burn, The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky wrote yesterday that the Democrats just might have a workable plan- an unlikely solution from the unlikeliest source.

In 2011, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell proposed granting the president the authority to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling. Rather than requiring Congressional approval, Congress would have a chance only to veto it.

Two years later, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is now considering reviving the bill in order to effectively destroy the Republicans’ weapon of choice in this era of dangerous and irresponsible fiscal brinksmanship. Why would McConnell have made such a proposed in the first place? According to Tomasky:

Not because he wanted to do something nice for [Obama]. Rather, it was to spare Congress the trouble of having to cast a difficult vote, and to make the president take all the political heat for increasing the debt limit, a move that never polls well. So in 2011, this would have given Republicans and Mitt Romney another arrow—the profligate Obama irresponsibly raising our debt, etc etc.

So an idea that was once conceived of to make Obama appear reckless compared to Mitt Romney on the campaign trail is now being thrown back in the Republicans’ faces. And even better? The proposal could be a win-win for the Democrats—whether or not it actually passes.

After all, if Reid proposes the bill and it goes to a vote, the Senate Dems would pass it handily, making Reid and his colleagues look like heroes. Alternatively, if Reid proposes the bill and McConnell & Co. counter with a filibuster, a likely possibility, then the Republicans are left looking surly and obstructionist—blocking a bill that was originally proposed by McConnell himself. (Oh, the political theater!)

If Reid proposes the bill and it’s passed by the Senate (with, presumably, at least a few Republican votes), and then goes to the House, John Boehner and friends would be under a huge amount of pressure to pass it, too—especially since it’s likely to be widely popular among a public panicked about the prospect of default. But as the pressure mounts and heels are dug in on all sides, what happens next is anyone’s guess.

Lack of Dragnet Surveillance Isn’t Why Intelligence Agencies Missed 9/11

Originally published in The Washington Monthly on October 4th, 2013.
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Senate Intelligence Chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in an effort to protect the National Security Agency from a major reduction of its surveillance capabilities, is arguing that the U.S. could have prevented the 9/11 terror attacks had we had modern NSA powers back in 2000.

Feinstein declared in a Senate Judiciary hearing on Wednesday that before 9/11 “our intelligence was inadequate and we couldn’t collect enough data.” She argues that “absent these kinds of technological programs, we do not have an opportunity to pick [the information] up.” Her implication was that such reductions would render the U.S. government incapable of preventing future attacks.

How far the government, (and by extension, the public) pushes to reform / reduce / restructure the NSA will crystallize in the coming weeks as the national debate cranks up. But one thing is clear. Dianne Feinstein, who served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence when the Congressional Joint Inquiry into September 11was created, knows that there was quite a bit of ignored intelligence prior to the 9/11 attacks.

As co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Amy Zegart outlines in her book, Spying Blind, the problem before 9/11 was not really about a dearth of useful intelligence. To the contrary, there actually was much of that. Failures were more rooted in an inability to react to intelligence signals. This failure was, as Zegart argues, because of institutional resistance from intelligence agencies themselves, “whose structures, habits, cultures and procedures had grown impervious to change after decades of fighting the Cold War.” We had the capability to investigate pertinent intelligence prior to 9/11, but we didn’t.

Zegart argues that President Bush and Congress initially passed the PATRIOT Act, which reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies’ ability to search individuals’ records and communications, eased restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering, and broadened the scope of detaining and deporting suspected terrorists, because it was “a lower cost approach to intelligence reform.” Bush saw he could use his unilateral powers more easily than “getting embroiled with the Defense Department.” Rather than engage in a politically costly intelligence reform fight, Bush opted for more minor changes through executive orders and announcements. From a political perspective, the PATRIOT Act was an ideal government response, but from a national security perspective, Zegart argues it was a real “squandered opportunity.”

Today Zegart says the near-term challenge is to “stop Congress from doing something stupid, such as the wholesale cancelling of NSA programs and capabilities.” However that appears to be a bit of a straw man fear, given it’s not really a seriously debated proposal. Zegart also argues in her book that U.S. intelligence agencies haven’t made much progress since 9/11 in terms of truly reforming their longstanding organizational cultures. Wide-scale metadata is probably not the panacea to these much-needed structural adaptations.

While we can’t ever know with full certainty what would have happened if we had modern NSA capabilities in 2000, we can surely make an educated guess. We do know what we didn’t do with the information and capabilities we possessed at the time. Feinstein says we couldn’t collect enough data, but as the Congressional Joint Inquiry showed, collecting data wasn’t really the issue.

All of this, coupled with Deputy Director of the NSA, John Inglis admitting in a Senate hearing that there is little evidence that the Section 215 phone record collection has helped to thwart terrorist attacks, and that evaluating the effectiveness of the practice is “a very difficult question to answer,” raises further questions about Senator Feinstein’s 9/11 assertions.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Senate Judiciary Chairman, Patrick Leahy (D-VT) discussed the prospect of a major reduction of the NSA’s powers. He supports curtailment that would go well beyond the NSA legislation Senator Feinstein is preparing; hers would focus primarily on transparency and oversight.

“Additional transparency and oversight are important,” Leahy said. “But I believe we have to do more.

Yet Leahy’s vision of “doing more” doesn’t really translate to the deep organizational changes Zegart advocates, either. Leahy pointed to things like the NSA’s secret interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which allows the FBI to obtain all sorts of records so long as they’re ‘relevant’ to fighting international terrorism, andSection 702 of FISA, which the NSA has used to justify searching communication databases of U.S. citizens, as evidence for more serious governmental reform.

As such, Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced a bipartisan bill that would, among other things, prevent the NSA from bulk-collecting Americans’ phone records under Section 215, and eliminate the NSA’s authority to install “backdoors” to monitor Americans’ internet communication.

Whether these proposals will provide sufficient reform to the intelligence community, both in terms of improving its effectiveness and restoring the public’s trust, remains to be seen.

Western Maryland, The 51st State? Don’t Laugh Yet

Originally published in the JHU Politik on September 29th, 2013.
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49-year-old Carroll County resident, Scott Strzelczyk, is leading a grassroots movement to secede from the state of Maryland. Dubbed “The Western Maryland Initiative,” individuals in the five western counties of Garret, Allegany, Washington, Frederick and Carroll, are working to rally political support for what is certain to be an unattainable goal.

Demographically, the five counties are populated with more than 653,000 people, greater than both the populations of Vermont and Wyoming. And geographically, the western Maryland region is larger than both Rhode Island and Delaware. Consequently, Strzelczyk insists that his plan is not wholly unrealistic and that secession would not be from the Union itself, but from the “oppressive and abusive treatment from Annapolis.”

Unsurprisingly, Western Maryland’s push for secession has been met largely with ridicule. One writer in The Baltimore Sun suggested that “a simpler solution for everyone involved” would be for the aggrieved to just move across the state line to West Virginia. Another Sun writer pointed out that western Maryland counties contain about 11 percent of the state’s population, yet account for only 10 percent of Maryland’s tax base and receive more than 13 percent of Maryland’s total unemployment benefits. It’s clear that secession would entail major, likely untenable, economic consequences.

Across the country, several other secession movements have cropped up in upstate New York, the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, Northern California and various northern Colorado counties. These radical movements consist of primarily white, conservative voters, living in predominantly rural regions. Their outrage stems largely from legislation around gun control, energy use and increased taxes.

The Western Maryland Initiative shares some characteristics with these other secession movements, but it is distinct in its primary grievance: gerrymandering, the process of deliberate redistricting in order to influence an election’s outcome.

Gerrymandering is one of those terms we are taught in high school government class. Perhaps we shrug when we hear it today and say, “well yeah it’s bad, but everyone does it.”

It’s certainly true both parties are guilty of redistricting. However, Maryland’s record is particularly disappointing. An independent geospatial analysis firm ranked Maryland as the most gerrymandered state in the entire country. Take a look at a map of the 2012 congressional voting districts for yourself. There are reasons whyThe Washington Post described District 3 as resembling “blood spatter from a crime scene.”

Federal law dictates that legislators use new Census data to redraw congressional districts every ten years. However, when the Maryland legislators proposed their newly drawn districts, Common Cause of Maryland, the League of Women Voters, civil rights groups, and a supermajority of the Montgomery County Council met them with outrage. In response, Republicans managed to place “Question 5,” a redistricting repeal referendum, on the 2012 ballot. But redistricting never stood a chance of eliciting the type of political attention that some of the other Maryland referendum items could, like marriage equality and the Dream Act. Ultimately redistricting passed with a pretty high margin, even though many on both sides agreed that it went too far.

I sympathize with these alienated conservative voters. Particularly as liberals and Democrats rally against the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and as they band together to fight duplicitous voter identification laws, I find their silence on this matter suspicious at best.

Some will say Maryland’s redistricting is just “tit for tat.” Republicans are gerrymandering Texas! Look at North Carolina! Democrats have no choice but to play dirty.

But this is false. Gerrymandering is just another form of disenfranchisement. It’s a political maneuver to make some votes count more than others, and some to not count at all. If liberals are going to be up in arms about voter suppression legislation, (which we should be) then we should also be concerned and sympathetic to the deep frustrations voters feel in Western Maryland due to gerrymandering. Mocking these feelings is cruel and antidemocratic.

Maryland redistricting should model states like Arizona that have created an Independent Redistricting Commission, responsible for drawing new district boundaries independently of their state legislature.

Who knows how long Scott Strzelczyk’s campaign will last, though don’t expect to see a 51st state anytime soon. But in the meantime, at the very least, hold off with the snark.

Does Classified Research Corrupt an Institution?

Originally published in The Washington Monthly on September 12, 2013.

This week Johns Hopkins University received quite a bit of bad press for asking one of their faculty members, Matthew D. Green, to take down a blog post he wrote regarding recent encryption revelations associated with the National Security Agency (NSA). The incident raised major concerns about academic freedom and the role of classified government and military research on campus.

As an undergraduate enrolled at Hopkins, I followed the story closely, beginning with Green’s initial tweets midday Monday, to eventually much larger national news coverage in places like ProPublica, The Atlantic, and The Huffington Post by Monday evening. By Tuesday afternoon, the Interim Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering, Andrew Douglas had sent Green an apology for his behavior on behalf of the university, stating that he is “keenly aware” of academic freedom’s “centrality to our enterprise,” and apologizing for, “act[ing] too quickly, on the basis of inadequate and – as it turns out – incorrect information.”

While Douglas’ apology was enough to resolve this particular incident , it raises a host of questions. How does the Department of Defense and the NSA, organizations with whom Hopkins shares long-standing ties, affect the decisions of the university? What kind of top-secret government research is going down at JHU — and is it a good thing for students and academia?

These questions require taking a closer look at the nature of an elite research university that is both publicly committed to the free and open exchange of ideas while simultaneously conducting classified research unbeknownst to the larger academic community.

Hopkins Professor Stuart Leslie, who has done extensive research on the history of the “Military-Industrial-Academic Complex” at the university, says the epicenter is Hopkins’ Applied Physics Lab (APL), one of the earliest classified military research laboratories joined to an academic institution. He says the marriage was forged in part because when the government wanted to recruit Hopkins’ top scientists and engineers, many were not willing to work directly for the government and military arsenals, but felt more comfortable in a quasi-academic setting. Today, the APL employs roughly 5,000 people and receives more federal contract dollars than almost any other institution, Leslie said.

But over the years the tension between academia—known for its openness and collegiality—and classified government projects has repeatedly surfaced. “During wartime it’s a little easier to imagine why you’d do it because everyone wants to contribute to the war effort in whatever way they can,” said Leslie. “After [WWII], the Navy decided [APL] was the kind of expertise they would also need during the Cold War—and it continues on today.”

Beginning in 2012, when Johns Hopkins University President Ronald Daniels began the “Identity Initiative” with the goal “to begin telling a more cohesive and powerful story” that unites the entire university, the disparities between academia and classified research began to arise. An organization called The Johns Hopkins Human Rights Working Group began organizing a petition and campaign against the classified APL research that focuses on drone development. The group released a statement that said, “We are asking for a moratorium on Pentagon-funded drone research at Hopkins until the university community and general public has an opportunity to fully discuss this research and its ethical, military, social, and environmental implications.”

Derek Denman, a political science graduate student and one of the leaders of the campaign against APL research, said in an interview last November, “APL does all sorts of research into software, sensors, and guidance systems used on drones.” Denman pointed to Hopkins engineers, who built, in 1998, a system that would enable Special Forces to control drones from submarines, and then later began to develop swarming technology that would enable drones to function more autonomously.

“I only have access to what APL reports in the APL Technical Digest – their quarterly publication,” said Denman. “It’s not possible for the wider university community to know the full extent of the research going on at APL.”

Hopkins Political Science Professor Renee Marlin-Bennett argued that the academic mission to spread knowledge and the APL mission to sequester knowledge are “fundamentally incompatible goals.” “[But] I do not believe that classified research is necessarily tainted or evil,” said Marlin-Bennett. “I also do not believe that research for military purposes is necessarily evil. I do believe that such research canbe evil, and I also believe that non-classified research can be evil.”

This isn’t the first time students and professors have protested classified military or government research on campus. In the ‘60s, Hopkins became one of the first universities with military research laboratories to draft policy regulating the separation of classified research from that of its other research. The policy was last updated in 2005. Other institutions with incorporated military research laboratories, like Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), ultimately decided to make the laboratories independent through divestment.

“In the 1960s students at MIT protested strongly against having a classified research laboratory on the campus and MIT said we will divest it, so it won’t be part of MIT anymore,” said Leslie. “It still exists in Cambridge, but it’s not officially connected.” Leslie also points to Stanford, where they made the decision for their Stanford Research Institute to disaffiliate and become an independent non-profit.

Johns Hopkins alternatively made the opposite decision. “The university holds a belief that this kind of [classified] research requires responsibility—it’s important to have some oversight—and that we think there might also be some academic benefits to be gained from it,” said Leslie. Ultimately, Hopkins’s policy is that no classified research may take place directly on the Homewood campus. In addition to the APL, which is about a half-hour drive away, classified research also occurs a fifteen-minute walk from campus at the Steiff Silver Building near the Jones Fall Expressway.

Edward Scheinerman, who serves as the Vice Dean for Education at the Whiting School of Engineering said the university was walking a fine line. “We wanted to create a situation where students don’t feel uncomfortable with all the security, and it’s kind of awkward because there are a lot of international students who wouldn’t be able to enter the buildings,” said Scheinerman. “On the other hand, we want to do the research.”

Things may become more complicated with a new engineering building, Malone Hall, set to open on the Homewood campus in 2014. A statement released in May 2012 said that Malone Hall would be “the Homewood campus hub for the university’s individualized health initiative, an effort that brings together researchers from the schools of Engineering, Medicine, Nursing and Public Health to develop the most effective medical treatments for individual patients.” But in asubsequent press release the following September, Hopkins said that unclassified military research, led by The Center of Excellence on Integrated Material Modeling (CEIMM) will also be conducted in Malone Hall. The statement confirms that much of this research will be funded by the U.S. Air Force and states, “The long-term goal is to produce lightweight, yet durable, components for future military aircraft, from fighter jets to surveillance drones.”

“While no classified research currently occurs on the Homewood campus, the influx of military contracts and joint APL-Homewood programs make it an important time to reaffirm the commitment to the open exchange of ideas and information on this campus,” said Denman.

Which brings us back to this week’s incident with computer science professor Matthew D. Green. Despite its stated policy separating classified research from traditional academic research, Hopkins’s relationship to the APL and the NSA remains murky. For one thing, Hopkins is still avoiding answering the public’s questions about who first raised the blog post concern, and why. Furthermore, most students have no idea about what sort of ethical oversights, if any, exist for classified military research. All research at APL and other Hopkins must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) if it involves human subjects, but most APL research doesn’t, so it’s not subject to such review. “We don’t have to first call home and ask permission. For the most part we just do it,” said Scheinerman.

According to Marlin-Bennett, research conducted under contract with U.S. government agencies is subject to the ethical evaluation by legislators who have a responsibility to conduct oversight. She also said that to the extent that citizens become aware of classified research subject matter, “[those] who want to peacefully protest…can do so.”

Public trust, in addition to academic freedom, is vital to a university’s ethos. With the ethics of drone warfare still being debated across the country, and with increasing ethical concerns surrounding the NSA’s expanding surveillance capabilities, it is time for Hopkins to start talking more openly with its students and staff about what sorts of responsibility we share for the research we do at our university.

We Shouldn’t Go to War Based on Gut Feeling Alone

Originally published in The Washington Monthly on September 10th, 2013.
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In an interview with NBC last night, President Obama urged the nation to watch YouTube videos from Syria showing disturbing images of dead men, women and children, as well as survivors writhing in agony on the ground. The White House says that’s the gruesome aftermath of a chemical weapons attack on August 21st , in which Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad killed well over 1,400 of his own people.

Earlier yesterday afternoon at an event at the New America Foundation, Ambassador Susan Rice echoed the sentiment. “We have the technology — on our computers and our smart phones — to see the full horrors unfold in real time,” she said. “Every adult American, every Member of Congress, should watch those videos for themselves. See that suffering. Look at the eyes of those men and women, those babies — and dare to turn away and forsake them.”

Rice said that while she “understands the public skepticism” regarding military action, particularly in the Middle East, she believes that diplomatic and political measures alone are insufficient. The U.S. does “not assess [that] limited military strikes will unleash a spiral of unintended escalating consequences,” she said.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who also spoke publicly on Monday, attempted to quell fears, too, arguing that any attack launched by the U.S. would be “unbelievably small.” Hours later, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie pressed Obama on Kerry’s military description. “What does that mean?” asked Guthrie. “I mean, are we talking a pinprick? A knockout blow? A punch in the gut?” Obama replied that “the U.S. does not do pinpricks” and that even a small military attack would be sufficient to seriously degrade Assad’s capabilities and deter future threats.

In an interview that aired Monday night with Charlie Rose, Assad warned that even a small military attack could unleash a disproportionate response. Should the U.S. strike Syria, it “should expect every action” in retaliation, he said, alluding to the attacks on September 11, 2001 and that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups could stand to benefit in unpredictable ways.

As the House and Senate gear up to vote on the Syrian issue beginning tomorrow, Obama’s odds of getting approval for his proposed military engagement are slim, particularly as alternatives to direct military action have begun to emerge—including the Senate’s proposal to give Syria 45 days to sign an international chemical weapons ban, and Russia’s proposal that would wrest control of chemical weapons from Syria.

Public opinion remains strongly opposed to military action. The latest CNN poll found that more than seven in 10 Americans say the proposed strike would not achieve significant goals for the United States. A similar amount believe it’s not in the national interest for the country to get involved in Syria’s civil war.

Obama and Rice’s pleas yesterday for “every adult American” to watch those videos is perhaps correct. We should watch those gruesome videos. We should be aware of the unfathomable horrors that Syrians are facing on the ground. We should witness, as best we can first-hand, the effects of Assad’s actions against his own people. But we should also watch many other kinds of videos too—testimony from journalists on the ground in Syria, policy-makers, academics and activists. In the era of 21st century warfare, where information abounds, we should be well-informed, but can’t afford to be undiscerning.

Higher Education’s New Caste System

Originally published in the Washington Monthly on September 5, 2013. 
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Yesterday, the Washington Monthly, in collaboration with the New America Foundation, hosted a panel discussion exploring, among other things, the White House’s recently proposed plan to develop alternative college ratings. 

James Kvaal, the Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, who spoke at the event, explained that the new ratings, expected to be released by 2015, will focus on how accessible, affordable and successful a college is at helping students to graduate, achieve a degree or transfer to another institution. 

Kvaal emphasized that these ratings would not be rankings. They would not be designed to punish schools but rather as an impetus to help institutions improve. “We want to give people a broad sense of which institutions are providing value,” said Kvaal.

Washington Monthly Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris asked a follow-up question: is it even possible to devise a rating system that won’t be ultimately “gamed by the system”? Kvaal answered that while it’s essentially unclear at this point, the idea would be for the rating system to consist of broad categories, therefore making it difficult for institutions to simply tweak something small and expect a rating boost. The design, in theory, would encourage colleges to enact more fundamental changes to their mentality and culture if they wish to see their ratings improve.

Diana Natalicio, the President of the University of Texas at El Paso (which theWashington Monthly ranks #7, right ahead of Harvard) said that she and her colleagues had to change the culture at UTEP. She said that in the early ‘90s, her colleagues at UTEP looked at their minority and low-income student body as “a liability,” rather than an asset. Since then, Natalicio has worked closely with the K-12 system in El Paso, all but eliminating remedial education at the college level. “Data was essential in transforming our institution,” said Natalicio who asserts that facts, rather than biases and assumptions drive their new decisions. 

The other panelists, including New America’s Director of Education Policy, Kevin Carey and Columbia Journalism School’s Spencer Education Fellow, Jamaal Abdul Alim spoke of their experiences working in the higher education sphere. 

For more, see The Chronicle of Higher Education’s coverage of the event.

Watch the video here.

Jewish Fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi Marks 100 Years Amid Sweeping Culture Changes

Originally published in The Forward on September 1st, 2013. 

Many kegs have been tapped since the night of November 7, 1913, when 11 Jewish students gathered at New York University to found the first official chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. Over the next 100 years, the organization, most commonly known as AEPi, would grow — from a small sanctuary for ostracized Jews into an influential international fraternity encompassing 177 active chapters in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Israel.

“The story of AEPi is the story of extreme upward mobility,” said Marianne Sanua, an American Jewish historian at Florida Atlantic University and the author of “Going Greek: Jewish College Fraternities in the United States, 1895–1945.”

“AEPi is absolutely unique. They are the only historically Jewish fraternity to still hold on to their Jewish identity. They don’t hesitate to call themselves a Jewish fraternity, and they don’t hesitate to say they prefer most of their members to be Jewish.”

AEPi reaches more than 9,000 undergraduates worldwide, and boasts an alumni network of more than 80,000 men. Their challenges reflect many of the same struggles of the larger Jewish Diaspora: its relationship to Israel, the increasingly pluralistic society in which it exists and the extent to which young people outwardly identify with Jewish institutional culture.

In August, more than 1,400 students, alumni and Jewish institutional leaders gathered at Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to commemorate AEPi’s centennial anniversary.

“The audience heard a very unequivocal message about what AEPi is and the values we uphold,” said Elan Carr, AEPi’s international president and supreme master. “And those values are Jewish continuity, tikkun olam, Jewish leadership and support for Israel.”

One attendee, Barry Magen, who owns a Jewish art company in Elkins Park, Pa., reflected: “The conference gave me hope. I really believe that their leadership development is unparalleled.”

AEPi’s rise to such prominence was always an unlikely story.

In the early 20th century, fraternities across the United States were powerful presences on college campuses — and they unabashedly shut their doors to Jewish students. This exclusion, according to Sanua, was accomplished through restrictive clauses in fraternity constitutions and gentlemen’s agreements. In response, Jews formed their own Greek organizations; by the 1920s, at least 17 national Jewish sororities and fraternities existed in the United States, including Alpha Epsilon Phi and Zeta Beta Tau.

“This was their peak,” Sanua said. “Many of them went out of business during the Depression, or merged with one another.”

Additional attrition ensued in the 1960s and ’70s. Prompted by new civil rights legislation, colleges cracked down on such discriminatory practices as restrictive clauses in the constitutions of both non-Jewish and Jewish fraternities. The Vietnam War also contributed to the shifting milieu; liberal college students rebelled against authority as a whole and the Greek system — which they perceived as a conservative, hidebound institution.

“In America there was a general mood that fraternities were undemocratic, socially exclusive and destructive,” Sanua said.

The 1980s, however, brought a return to tradition, as well as Greek life’s revival as a vaunted campus symbol. “AEPi reaffirmed their commitment to Jewish identity while other historically Jewish fraternities were heading in the opposite direction,” Sanua said. “They also recognized that they likely could not compete with historically gentile fraternities.”

“We’re very proud that we stood our ground [in the ’80s] as a Jewish fraternity,” Carr said. He believes that committing to AEPi’s core values and history was the right decision not only “with regards to assimilation and loss of connection to Israel,” but also because staying true to what he calls “their brand” helped to ensure long-term success.

Today, AEPi’s challenges look very different.

“While our students don’t have to deal with anti-Semitism in nearly the same way as our founders did, they do face threats in terms of delegitimization of Israel — a place that is very special to our organization,” said Adam Maslia, AEPi’s Howard M. Lorber Director of Jewish and Philanthropy Programming.

It was after the second intifada that AEPi really began to tackle Israel advocacy from an institutional level. “We knew then that if being the last remaining Jewish fraternity means anything at all, it must mean that we are going to stand and support the Jewish people, which is the Jewish state,” Carr said.

But while AEPi’s leaders frame Israel activism as a fraternal mission, the extent to which individual chapters see themselves as pro-Israel advocates varies considerably.

“AEPi at Berkeley is pretty much the hub of the mainstream pro-Israel community,” said recent college grad Isaiah Kirshner-Breen, who now lives in Washington. “They’ve been always very active at organizing people against [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions], both in 2010 and this past spring.”

“Israel programming isn’t a huge thing for us, although every AEPi brother did show up for Israel Day,” said Jacob Plitman, an AEPi brother at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We’re rather culturally Jewish. We do a Seder, we all end up going to services. We’re Yom Kippur Jews.”

“Our school doesn’t really have an active Jewish community. We don’t do much with Israel,” said Michael Zysman, an AEPi brother at Bentley University, Mass. “We have a lot of non-Jews in our chapter.”

Certainly, non-Jews still pose a challenge for AEPi. While the group’s mission statement defines it as a nondiscriminatory fraternity, it also calls for efforts to “develop leadership for the North American Jewish community.”

Several students who asked for anonymity said that the recruitment goals of AEPi national versus those of local chapters are often divided.

“Nationals doesn’t really encourage you to recruit non-Jewish members, but we will actively recruit them if we think they will fit in with us,” said one student from a university on the East Coast.

Another college student in the Northeast admitted, “I think we tell Nationals we’re 75% to 80% Jewish but we’re probably more like 60%.”

Virgil Doyle, a non-Jewish student who served as president of Johns Hopkins’s AEPi chapter, embodies how much the fraternity has evolved over the years.

“I came to college with a pretty good idea I wanted to join a fraternity as a social thing, and AEPi just happened to be the group of guys I most identified with. There are enough people in the fraternity who are very involved in Jewish life around campus that me not being a part of that directly wasn’t something that I really worried about.”

The rise of AEPi has also begotten the rise of what is known as “APES,” an off-campus and unofficial AEPi spinoff. “When AEPi gets kicked off campus [for violating rules], they automatically [lose AEPi status] and have to become APES,” explained Ryan Erfer, an AEPi brother at Emory.

For some, the APES designation is seen as a punishment, since they are no longer recognized as an official chapter. Yet other chapters opt for APES status voluntarily. Two years ago, when the AEPi chapter at the University of Pennsylvania faced a two-year probation for violating pledging rules or disaffiliating altogether, they chose to “go APES.” Some argued it carried a “cooler” appeal, particularly since the Interfraternity Council is powerless to regulate them.

“APES tends to have a reputation for throwing parties that don’t adhere to the rules,” Erfer said, referring to the fraternity’s national reputation.

“‘Jewish bros’ is a real thing, those people exist,” Plitman said, referring to a contemporary pop-culture category of young men. “APES are the Jewish bros.”

Despite all this, AEPi continues to grow. Although it’s impossible to predict the future contours of the American Jewish community, the men of Alpha Epsilon Pi will quite likely play a role in shaping them. As Doyle sees it, “We probably have more discussions about the Middle East and Israel than the average Hopkins Greek male.”

Far-Right Pro-Israel Group Rallies Against Vaunted New York Jewish Institution

Originally published in The Daily Beast on August 12, 2013.

The 92nd Street Y bills itself as a “proudly Jewish organization,” one that “enthusiastically welcomes people of all backgrounds and perspectives.” That seems to be exactly what’s got the American Jewish far-right so upset.

On Thursday evening, around fifteen people gathered outside the Upper East Side institution, under umbrellas, to stage a protest against the cultural center. Despite the small crowd, the energy and frustration were palpable. Led by Richard Allen and Helen Freedman, the mostly middle-aged demonstrators were joined by a few elderly people, and two or three young children who came with their parents. The rain and humidity would not deter their plans.

A collective known as JCCWatch, a volunteer group that protests allegedly anti-Israel activity enabled by local Jewish community centers, organized the protest—the latest in a series against 92Y. In this case, the protests were against the 92Y’s “financially and morally corrupt” leadership, arguing that the guest speakers they invite are anti-Israel and many are actually leaders within the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel. JCCWatch advertised the Thursday protest by posting a message on their website: “Enough! STOP HOSTING ISRAEL-HATERS WORKING TO DESTROY THE JEWISH STATE!”

Allen founded JCCWatch a few years back when he noticed that the The Other Israel Film Festival, a project through the JCC in Manhattan, partnered with groups like the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and the liberal umbrella group The New Israel Fund. JCCWatch’s website argued that these groups “actively partner with or link to groups that, in addition to their stated missions, support, fund, or closely work with” BDS groups. Since the JCC in Manhattan and the 92Y are beneficiary agencies of the UJA-Federation, a funder of Jewish communal causes, JCCWatch argues that under no circumstances should they “partner with, link, or in any way support any of these despicable BDS groups.”

The other protest leader, Helen Freedman, serves as the Executive Director of a group known as Americans For A Safe Israel, which was founded in 1970 as the American counterpart to the Greater Israel movement. The Greater Israel movement pushes for Jewish settlement and control throughout all of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Shouting into a megaphone at the protest, Freedman yelled, “The declaration that Israel is occupied is absurd. The declaration that settlements are an obstacle to peace is absurd. 92nd Street Y is an obstacle to peace!”  

The 92Y and UJA-Federation of New York seem intent on ignoring the protests. Neither returned requests to comment for this article. No one from the 92Y was willing to comment during Thursday’s protest either. I asked a protester on the street, who identified herself as Peggy, if there had been any response from the 92Y since the first protest and she said no.

While I watched these agitated people pass out flyers and attempt to talk to passersby, I couldn’t help but notice the way they were being ignored. “When we try to talk to them about it, they don’t get back to us!” cried Freedman into the megaphone. “Why are groups like my organization never invited to speak at the 92nd Street Y? We’re a national pro-Israel organization.” 

An elderly woman I spoke to named Charlotte told me, “We are objecting to the Y having so many entertainers and speakers against Israel and who are also for the boycott of Israel. We don’t want the Jewish charity money to be given to anti-Israel people.” Specifically she was referring to guests invited to speak like literary icon Alice Walker and former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, both harsh critics of Israel and backers of BDS. 

But JCCWatch’s objections weren’t limited to advocates of BDS gaining a platform at the 92Y: protesters railed against the decision to invite Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder of the pro-Israel lobby J Street, to speak this coming fall too. “Groups like J Street, The New Israel Fund, and B’Tselem do not care about Israel,” Allen shouted into the megaphone.

Because JCCWatch often professes views that fall outside the political mainstream, Jewish leaders and communal members tend to dismiss them. Yet whereas groups like J Street have repeatedly advocated for a “wider tent” and “a seat at the table” when they encounter opposition, JCCWatch takes a more hostile approach to the American Jewish Establishment’s efforts to marginalize them. 

“Nineteen U.S. embassies are closed right now,” Freedman said into the megaphone, referring to the mass-closure of American diplomatic outposts in the Middle East and North Africa on grounds of a security threat. “Americans are on the run because institutions like the 92nd Street Y fail in their responsibility to their donors and to their members. This is a disgrace.”

JCCWatch’s mission is to staunch donations to Jewish institutions like the UJA-Federation until they start inviting sufficiently pro-Israel speakers. “Please pay attention!” Allen said at the protest. “Know where your dollars are going. Close your wallets!”

On a civic level, their actions were wholly democratic. These were constituents with a grievance—local New York Jews, who were staging a non-violent protest to voice their concerns. Six NYPD officers were dispatched to supervise the event, and as one officer said to me, “This is their First Amendment right.” 

Yet notably, these individuals who hold oft-dismissed political views do not seem to care that Pro-Palestinian perspectives are also frequently ignored within the Jewish community. Suffice to say that marginalization and McCarthyite attacks occur from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. 

Whether or not the 92Y chooses to engage or respond to JCCWatch is unclear, but either way, their next protest will take place, as scheduled, on Thursday, September 12th.

How Tim Kaine Can Boost the Peace Process

Originally published in The Daily Beast on July 31, 2013.

Freshman Senator Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) rise to the chairmanship of the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East panel could represent a boon to a nascent peace-process. Though subtle, the shift might best be encapsulated by comparing Kaine to his predecessor: he’ll succeed outgoing chair Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA). Casey, for example, frequently declares that Jerusalem must forever remain the eternal, undivided capital of the state of Israel—a non-starter for the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state.

The subcommittee that Kaine will lead handles matters involving U.S. relations with the countries of the Middle East and Arab North Africa. But how important is a Senate committee in a policy area where the White House sets policy and the House of Representatives controls the purse strings? “The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a limited legislative role,” said Norman Ornstein, an expert on Congress with the American Enterprise Institute. “But it has a long and historic and prestigious role overseeing U.S. foreign policy.” Ornstein expounded on that role: “A subcommittee can hold hearings, call witnesses, spotlight issues and controversies, meet with foreign leaders, and influence public opinion and at times an administration. So this is, especially now, a key subcommittee and a real spotlight for Kaine.”

Kaine comes with a strong background in U.S. politics: he served as the mayor of Richmond from 1998 to 2001; as the Governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010; and as the Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.  When he won his senate seat in 2012, it was one of the tightest races in the country. 

Notably, Kaine is now a J Street PAC endorsed candidate. According to J Street’s website, “Kaine speaks of himself as a Truman Democrat,” with a commitment to making Israel a long lasting, safe and secure home for the Jewish people, and one that exists at peace with its Palestinian neighbors. J Street released a statement Monday congratulating Kaine for his appointment, reaffirming the “grand tradition of Truman Democrats.” 

New Republic senior editor John Judis, whose forthcoming book “Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict” explores the role the U.S. played in the repeated failed attempts at negotiating peace, explained that being a “Truman Democrat” might not quite describe what people today believe it does. Despite the “popular perception” of Truman as the man who first recognized the state of Israel and the immense praise he garnered after leaving the presidency, Judis noted, Truman’s relationship with Israel was actually much more complicated at the time. Judis continued:

During the first years of [Truman’s] presidency, and even after he had granted recognition to the new state, Truman was ambivalent about supporting a Jewish state, which he identified at one point with a theocracy, and would have preferred some kind of arrangement that would have accommodated Jews and Arabs within one state or a federated state.  

However, Judis remarked that he’s sure this is not the Truman that Kaine self-identifies with.

Kaine could be boosted by his subcommittee, a bastion of support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This past March 27 senators signed a letter authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) calling for a sustained U.S. diplomatic initiative to help forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution; Casey didn’t sign it, but Kaine did. Moreover, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jean Shaheen (D-NH) and Chris Coons (D-DE), three other senators on the Middle East subcommittee also signed on.  About a quarter of the Senate added their names to support a strong U.S. leadership in negotiating a two-state solution, but forty percent of the Senate subcommittee on the Middle East now has. That’s substantial.

Kaine’s also proven himself a friend of Israel—during his governorship he oversaw an initiative promoting bilateral cooperation and increased commercial ties between Virginia and Israel. But, unlike Casey, that record doesn’t include support for every “pro-Israel” initiative making its way through Congress. In March, the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act picked up 50 cosponsors—Kaine not among them. The controversial bill included provisions such as inviting Israel into the visa waiver program without requiring them to provide reciprocal travel privileges for U.S. citizens due to “security concerns.” Critics of the bill contended that it would codify discrimination against U.S. citizens of Arab, Muslim and especially Palestinian descent.

The peace process, which formally resumed after an Iftar dinner on Monday night in Washington, will require sustained political support in Congress over the coming months. John Kerry and his team’s future efforts will largely be impacted by the extent to which they’re taken seriously by Israelis and Palestinians during negotiations. Haaretz’s Barak Ravid, in describing Kerry’s diplomacy in Israel, said Kerry “embraced and supported, but knew how to pressure and to threaten.” Building support in positions of Congressional leadership for this tack will prove important in sending a message that the United States is serious about these negotiations.

Kaine could be just the man to take up that campaign on the Hill.