Please join us on Tuesday May 8th, from 7:00pm-8:00pm at the Waltham Public Library for a discussion about how to create a safer community for and with victims of domestic and sexual violence.  

 

Specifically, we will be discussing Bill S918 which protects the employment rights of victims of domestic violence by providing 15 days of unpaid leave to plan for their safety.

 

This event, being organized by Brandeis Senior Marla Merchut and Brandeis Junior Becca Miller is in conjunction with the Waltham Representative Thomas Stanley as well as

REACH and Jane Doe Inc. This event is an out growth of the legal studies class Advocacy for Policy Change. We believe this is an event and topic very important to the Brandeis community and we would appreciate your support and attendance.

A black man's only use is to dispense candy to white women, and when he fails to do so, he must be kicked until he works again.

This Skittles commercial blatantly promotes reliance on racist stereotypes and behaviors.

It reminds me of BlackJerry, except without the astute political commentary.

Really, Skittles?!

315 Students voted for the amendment

52 students voted against the amendment

10 students abstained

(We needed 2/3 of the votes in favor of the amendment in order for it to pass)



Thus, we now set our sights on a future election.

We have two seats open in the Student Union:

1. Midyear Senator Seat (only current 2015 Midyears are eligible to run)

2. Charles River Senator Seat (only current residents of Charles River are eligible to run)



If you are interested in running for either position, please email me at tki...@brandeis.edu



The election will be: Monday, February 13

Many have protested this narrow definition for its gender-specificity and focus on physical force over the years. Now, CNN reports, the Justice Department released a statement saying they will be updating and broadening the definition.

"The crime of rape will be defined as "penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

Change.org, an online activist site that allows users to draft petitions in order to provoke change, e-mailed out a list of changes that have taken place in the past few months, including a petition urging the FBI to update their definition, in which they have been involved. 

Read below for the full text of the e-mail and consider starting your own petition today.

This is big. For the past 80 years, the FBI has used an extremely narrow definition of rape that led to massive underreporting of rape and insufficient federal funding for police departments to fight violence against women.

But after months of sustained pressure, including 140,000 messages sent via Change.org, Director Robert Mueller announced this week that he gave final approval for the FBI to update its official definition of rape!

That means you moved the FBI. And that’s not an easy thing to do.

Director Mueller’s decision is the most recent proof that when people band together to make change, no institution is immovable.

Just in the past few months, a 22-year-old nanny named Molly Katchpole used Change.org to force both Bank of America and Verizon to roll back newly proposed fees. A Women’s Professional Soccer player got U.S. Soccer to save her league when it was in danger of disbandment. And a grad student forced the Discovery Channel to commit to airing a documentary on climate change that they’d tried to pull from their line-up.

People are using Change.org every day to make real change. You could be next.

Start your own petition by clicking here.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

- Shelby and the Change.org team

I love getting these kinds of e-mails from the Innocence Project.

They tell me about their clients, prisoners serving time, who they have helped exonerate through the use of DNA evidence.

Oh, our criminal justice system….

Read the full text of the Innocence Project's e-mail below:

What a wonderful way to start the New Year. Today in Dallas, Texas, Rickey Dale Wyatt was cleared after spending 31 years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. A Dallas County judge released Wyatt and recommended that his 1981 rape conviction be overturned based on DNA and other evidence.

Tragically, attorneys who prosecuted Wyatt 31 years ago contributed to this miscarriage of justice by concealing evidence of his innocence. The case was built on faulty eyewitness testimony, yet the victim originally described a perpetrator much taller and heavier than Wyatt. The prosecution dismissed these inconsistencies, arguing that the defendant’s appearance could have changed in the interval between the crime and his arrest.  But there were documents in the prosecutor’s file proving that his appearance had not changed.  Had this been shared with the defense as required by law, Wyatt may never have been found guilty.

The efforts of the Dallas District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit to seek the truth in this case are exemplary. The Unit helped secure DNA testing of biological evidence, which supported Wyatt’s innocence although it was somewhat degraded. This evidence, as well as the discovery of prosecutorial misconduct at trial, compelled authorities to further investigate the case and ultimately to call for Wyatt’s release.

Ten Dallas exonerees also attended today’s hearing to show support for Wyatt and to celebrate his freedom. Mr. Wyatt plans to live with his nephew Robert Smith, who testified at his trial and who now ministers to people returning from prison. Wyatt and his family will greet supporters and speak to the media at a press conference outside the Dallas County Courthouse. The Innocence Project is assisting with Wyatt’s adjustment to the outside world after three decades of wrongful imprisonment. We anticipate his full exoneration later this year.

Mr. Wyatt’s defense team includes the Innocence Project, Gary Udashen, of Sorrels, Udashen & Anton and the Innocence Project of Texas.

Thank you for your commitment to justice,

 

Maddy deLone
Executive Director
The Innocence Project

That our country has a secret prison where we 'detain' people for indefinite amounts of time without trials.

It's called Guanatanamo Bay, and it's been open for 10 years.

According to the New York Times, in January of 2009, Obama issued an executive order instructing the CIA to close down Guanatanamo within the year, calling the secret prison camp "a damaging symbol to the world."

Three years later, the New York Times reports that 171 prisoners remain there now. You can read a docket listing the prisoners' full names. Many of them have been held since 2002, when the prison opened.

Help put an end to this unfair treatment by signing Amnesty's petition to Obama, participating in Amnesty's National Day of Action Against Guantanamo on January 11th in D.C., or simply becoming better education on the situation, for instance by reading Poems from Guantanamo Bay, poems written directly by the prisoners and edited by Marc Falkoff.

The full text of Amnesty's e-mail is included below:

January 11, 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of "war on terror" detainees at Guantanamo. We're not going to let this day pass quietly.

Sign Amnesty's global petition urging President Obama to finally follow through on his promise to close Guantanamo. Help us meet our goal of 100,000 signatures worldwide — signatures we plan to deliver straight to the White House door. 

We haven't forgotten President Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo, one of his first acts as president. Nearly three years later, the President has failed to keep his end of the bargain.

Even worse, President Obama has yet again relented to extremists in Congress. On New Year's Eve, he signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, along with its appalling detention provisions.


We lost that fight, but there's reason for hope. The battle over the NDAA united activists across the ideological divide, who put differences aside and came together to oppose the NDAA. 

January 11th isn't just any anniversary. This year, it's acritical moment to rise up against a shameful decade of human rights abuses perpetrated in our name. We can't let the recent outrage against the NDAA simply ebb away — help us channel this passion into a movement rededicated to closing Guantanamo! 


Guantanamo is a costly human rights catastrophe. Military and intelligence experts have repeatedly asserted that Guantanamo and the violations it stands for are immoral, illegal and counterproductive to US national security. 


There is a simple solution to closing Guantanamo — either charge detainees and give them a fair trial in US federal court, or release them. 


Sign our petition to tell President Obama that we are tired of his excuses. Guantanamo must be closed. 

For many, the New Year holiday embodies humanity's hopes for the future. Here's to 2012 — and with your help, this could be Guantanamo's final year.

Sincerely, 
Zeke Johnson
Director, Security with Human Rights Campaign
Amnesty International USA

P.S. It's not too late to join us in Washington, DC on January 11th for a National Day of Action Against Guantanamo. Lend a hand to our human chain! 

The Chicago Innocent Project, similar to Brandeis' own Schuster Institute Brandeis Innocence Project, investigates criminal cases in which prisoners may have been wrongfully convicted. According to the nationwide Innocence Project's site, there have been 281 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States, including 17 who served time on Death Row. If ever there were a strong argument against the death penalty, there it is.

This holiday season, why not watch some movies which explore the merits and flaws of our criminal justice system? Having only watched #s 10, 9, and 3, I can't vouch for the majority of the movies on this list, but all of them raise good questions and promote awareness of the flaws in our criminal justice system, regardless of their cinematic worth.

For extended synopses and commentary, read Protess' full article.

10. Conviction

9. My Cousin Vinny

8. In the Name of the Father 

7. Murder on a Sunday Morning

6. The Fugitive 

5. The Hurricane (a movie about the life of Ruben Carter, the Vice President of the Chicago Innocence Project)

4. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

3. Shawshank Redemption 

2. The Thin Blue Line

1. The Wrong Man 

First up, the ACLU.

The ACLU, comprised of the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Foundation, has been working since 1920 to protect the rights of American citizens.

• "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" finally came to an end.
• The extreme Mississippi Personhood Amendment was defeated.
• Congressional attempts to defund Planned Parenthood failed.
• An outrageous provision that would have granted this and all future presidents a blank check to involve the U.S. in a worldwide war without end was halted.
• Free speech rights of Occupy Wall Street protestors have been defended.
• New York state passed a landmark marriage equality law.
• Illinois banned the death penalty.
• ACLU lawsuits stalled enactment of every "show me your papers" racial profiling law passed across the country.
• We blocked enactment of South Dakota's draconian anti-abortion law.
• The Obama administration decided to stop defending the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act against an ACLU legal challenge.

Thank you, ACLU.

What groups are you guys thankful for?

Sure, 1 a.m. near a college campus there are bound to be drunk people fighting. But, what do you do when you think it might be serious?

As my friend and I neared the guy and girl, I heard her yell "Why would you do this to me?" and grab his shirt and push him.

He tried to pull away and said "I'm calling the police. I'm going to call the police." 

She seemed drunk and he seemed sober.

What do you do?

I keep repeating that because I honestly don't know.

Maybe they were a couple and had just had a trivial fight. Maybe she was taking things way out of line. Maybe he was going to call the cops and it would all be fine. But how do I know?

As we walked by, I turned and said to them "Are you guys alright? Do you need help?"

The guy responded with something along the lines of "She's drunk. She won't let go of me…We're okay."

I can't remember what he said, but it sounded like he was dismissing me.

So I left.

When I entered my lobby, next door, I told the security guards that a guy and girl were yelling at each other on the sidewalk, in front of the restaurant next door. 

The security guard's response?

"If it's past the black pillar, it's not our problem."

By this, he meant the square of sidewalk directly in front of the lobby, cordoned off by two pillars supporting the awning. Never mind that my suite is above the restaurant, my building management doesn't consider that their responsibility.

I was taken aback, but can also understand why he wouldn't want to break that up. So I asked "What should I do then?"

And he said something along the lines of "It's not our job."

What do you do?

So I looked at him with disappointment and went upstairs with my friend. 

As soon as I got to my room I realized that I could still hear them yelling downstairs, since I live directly above where they were standing.

I called my mom and asked her for advice.

She said I should call the police if it keeps going on and if I'm worried.

This scared me though. Involving the police makes it serious. I've never called the police before so I wouldn't know: Will they ask for my name? Will they dismiss my call because I don't know enough about the situation? Let's say I call them and the guy and girl have already left?

These questions, plus the idea that I could get these people in trouble for being drunk on the street, when really all they were doing was having an argument, stopped me from calling. 

I've had similar experiences with friends on Brandeis' campus, especially with the debate over whether or not to call BemCo (Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps) for a drunk friend. Will my friend be grateful I called for help, or will she hate me the next morning when she finds the ambulance and hospital room bills, along with a confession she has to make to her parents? If someone says they don't need help, who am I to think I know what's best for her? 

So, I waited it out, and after about 10 minutes, I stopped hearing yelling. From my window I couldn't see if they'd left or not, but I could see other people walking by, so I assured myself that if it really had escalated, someone would have intervened. (Bystander effect)

I fell back on old stereotypes, like: If the guy were the one doing the pushing, I would step in, but what harm could she really do to him?

Another odd habit that's been hard to break is not to refer to them as a couple. Throughout this post I kept finding myself writing "the couple seemed…" But the truth is, just because a guy and a girl are together does not make them a couple.

The real danger lies in assuming that because they were a couple, they were at less risk (from each other). Couples fight like that, so I don't need to intervene. That's just their relationship. It's their business.

Phrases like these are what allow domestic violence to take place. And no, domestic violence doesn't just take place in married couples, in homes, in private. It can happen right in front of your eyes. Because as long as you don't do anything to stop it, the abuser knows s/he has the power, and s/he can keep doing it.

What I wanted to tell the security guard was "If that girl gets raped tonight, YOU are the one who is responsible."

Not that the situation would necessarily lead there. In fact, SHE looked like the aggressor in the situation. But saying THAT might have made him do something about it.  And that's all I wanted.

And, really, all of us are responsible. Not just him. Me too. And the other people that walked by and didn't say anything.

I know there are people out there who will read this and say I'm overreacting to just a little fight. And maybe that's all it was: an argument. But the fact of the matter is we don't know.

And if something about that situation bothered me enough to:

1. Ask if they were okay
2. Tell the security guard
3. Call my mom

then I think that I should have stepped up. And pursued it. And have a right not to be told that my concerns are over-blown, or none of my business.

I will have to accept that I didn't intervene. And I'll hope for the best. But maybe next time I'll do more than just hope. And I wonder, what would you do?

Now for a wonderful video from Breakthrough's "bell bajao (ring the bell)" campaign galvanizing people to stand up against domestic violence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o1h_UaPJlhY

AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps whose primary focus is "the Jewish community's fight against the causes and effects of poverty in the United States," is coming under fire for sponsoring a trip to Israel. 

"We do this by engaging participants in service and community building that inspire them to become lifelong agents for social change whose work for justice is rooted in and nourished by Jewish values."

AVODAH, which has a close relationship with Brandeis, and currently has 6 Brandeis alumni participating in work across the nation, had stayed out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until now, keeping its focus on problems in the U.S.

However, the organization's recent decision to sponsor a service-learning trip to Israel, run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, is provoking a response from many involved who view the trip as a pro-Israel, anti-Palestine statement.

People against the trip have created an open letter and petition to AVODAH asking it to alter the trip's focus to include Palestinian points of view, reject grants which would necessitate a similarly one-sided trip again, and open a public discussion on what AVODAH's stance on the issue should be.

One excerpt from the letter:

"It is grossly irresponsible for AVODAH to whitewash Israeli policies while still claiming to stand for social justice."

Although I do not have a great understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli politics at the moment, and know this is contentious ground, I agree with many of the points expressed in the letter, especially that of a call for a community discussion concerning AVODAH's stance on the topic, and mandating that trips be as objective and inclusive as possible to all interested participants.

To form your own opinion, read the full text of the letter below and sign the petition if you so choose.

An Open Letter to AVODAH from Alumni, Participants and other Community Members

Sign the letter now!

 

We, AVODAH participants, alumni, donors, and community members oppose AVODAH's recent decision to sponsor a trip to Israel through its alumni program, Pursue. In yielding to partisan pressure from wealthy funders Charles and Lynn Schusterman, AVODAH has strayed from its stated mission of focusing on domestic poverty, while also neglecting its core commitments to Jewish pluralism and social justice. 

As a domestic-focused service corps, AVODAH has thus far refrained from addressing the potentially contentious issue of the conflict in Israel-Palestine. Yet AVODAH has chosen sides by accepting a grant that requires sponsorship of an Israel trip, bringing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the forefront of our community's discourse. As a social justice organization, AVODAH is committed to addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality. This service-learning trip, run by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, lacks any engagement with the military occupation of Palestine, one of the primary causes of poverty in Israeli-controlled territory. The trip does not include visits to the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, or East Jerusalem, where ongoing human rights violations have economically and politically disenfranchised over four million Palestinian people. It is grossly irresponsible for AVODAH to whitewash Israeli policies while still claiming to stand for social justice. 

This recent decision – made without any community input – is part of a systematic marginalization of alternative voices within the institutional Jewish community. While AVODAH was previously a space where all political viewpoints on Israel-Palestine were welcome, the organization may now alienate a growing generation of Jews who see Israeli policy as inconsistent with Jewish social justice values. In sponsoring this trip, AVODAH has taken a political stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, violating its own commitment to pluralism. Many in the AVODAH community oppose Israel's occupation of Palestine, and some even support the economic and cultural boycott of the State of Israel. These participants, alumni and prospective applicants feel abandoned by the organization, which has chosen to engage in one-sided, uncritical programming. 

This decision will set a precedent by which AVODAH leadership prioritizes funders over the values of their own community. This is why we demand that AVODAH publicly commit to: 

1. Modify the trip itinerary to incorporate significant critical engagement with Israeli policy in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. This must include visits to occupied Palestine and interactions with Palestinians who live there. 

2. Never sponsor another Israel trip in this way again. 

3. Never accept money from the Schustermans, or any other group, if it necessitates AVODAH or Pursue's engagement in one-sided programming on Israel-Palestine. 

4. Begin a community-wide discussion on how AVODAH and Pursue should handle the question of Israel-Palestine as a Jewish organization committed to social justice. 

We are awaiting your reply.

 

Sign the letter now!

Here is an e-mail from Adam Ossip regarding the newest incarnation of this movement and how you can get involved!

Hello, everyone! 

I would like to announce the formation of a new Brandeis club, the Brandeis Chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance.

The Harry Potter Alliance is a national organization formed by Andrew Slack, a Brandeis alum. It's a social justice group that seeks to improve the world inspired by the lessons of love and friendship learned from the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling. Just last February, they raised $125,000 to help those hurt by the earthquake in Haiti.

We hope to soon add our efforts to the good done by this group. And we would love to have your help as well. If you would like to join our listserv, please email aos...@brandeis.edu.

Thank you.

Adam

I don't think it needs further explanation.

Tip of the Week: Top 5 tips to avoid a scary interview 1. Don't pull a Frankenstein and grunt at your interviewer – speak clearly and enunciate.   2. Like… don't answer with… like… too many ums and likes. Scary? No. Nauseating? Yes.   3. Don't mention you won the last office pool on the best way to torture your boss.   4. Don't be a mummy and get all wrapped up in yourself. Keep responses clear and concise so interviewers don't get bored to death.   5. Vampires suck; make sure your preparation and research don't.

We're in the Top 8 Round for the Most Vegan Friendly Competition! So Vote here:

http://features.peta2.com/Vegan-Colleges-2011/default.asp?defaultTab=small&c=p211vfc39

Voting ends Monday, so get us into the final four!

I never realized it before, but today when I was reading about the meaning of Sukkot, I thought something sounded a bit familiar. So I read last year’s e-mail from the Chaplains, and then 2 years’ ago, and I discovered: they are exactly the same.

The only differences I spotted were in the font of the names at the bottom, and the removal of an underline used to help people pronounce Simhat Torah.

Did other people know this?!