Month: March 2008

Terry Pratchett, outstanding author, has early-onset dementia.

That sucks. Our hearts go out to him.

I went to see Harvey Silverglate today. I’ll have a complete writeup later.

Some quotes:

“American college campuses, especially liberal arts campuses, are the least free places in American society”
“One can not say in Harvard Yard what one may say in Harvard Square”
“Humor has taken more of a beating on campuses than political debate”
“If [college administrators] are afraid to say to the outside world what they say to the campus” (aka if his organization publicizes what they are doing and colleges back down) “they must know, deep down, that what they are doing is wrong”
“Restrictions are unconscionable because they enforce a particular viewpoint or ideology”

The basic story he told went something like this:
The mid-1980’s had a lot of “diverse” (read- non-white or non-male) students. College administrators decided that different types of students couldn’t get along without heavy-handed censorship. This was sparked by an ideology spread by a misreading of Herbert Marcuse’s “Repressive Tolerance“. [Interesting note – Herbert Marcuse wrote this essay while he was teaching at Brandeis. He even dedicated it to his students] Administrators got the idea that since some groups have been historically disadvaned, they deserved more freedom of speech than others (thus it’s OK to restrict speech hateful to minorities especially). Soon enough, they started restricting all sorts of speech. We then witnessed the growth of the number of “Mid-level administrators” micromanaging speech. Those in charge of Universities rationalized this by saying that “If we don’t make campus welcoming to potential students, they won’t come”. In a coup of PR, they rebranded their “speech codes” as “harassment codes” and that’s how we got into a situation when students can get expelled from Universities for saying/writing things that are “100% protected by the constitution”

Most shocking moment of the night? David Emer, an officer of the Brandeis Democrats (one of the groups who invited Mr. Silverglate on campus) demanding not only that Mr. Silverglate apologize for using the words “Nigger” and “wetback” in his examples.

I heard something very disturbing tonight from one of my sources inside the Student Union Senate relating to their session on Sunday. The Senate supposedly spent two hours debating a resolution on wishing Israel a happy 60th birthday. I realize that many students at Brandeis feel very passionate about Israel, but this was a true waste of time. The priorities within the Student Union Senate must be reordered. Last semester I appeared at one of their sessions to speak for a resolution disapproving of the process by which the decision was made to arm the campus police and calling for more student input in future decisions. Debate went on for hours and in the end the Senate decided to take no action.

United States Senator Joe Biden once said, “My dad used to say, don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget. I will tell you what you value.” Let’s take a look at the recently-proposed Student Union budget, which can be found in their minutes:

Student Union Government

a. Newspaper Program: $3,000 (9.76%)

b. Office Resources: $3,500 (11.39%)

c. Election System: $2,464 (8.02%)

d. Course Evaluation Guide: $700 (2.28%)

Union Executive Office

a. Outreach: $2,500 (8.14%)

b. Project Support Fund: $1,000 (3.25%)

c. Social Fund: $3,700 (12.04%)

d. Officer Development: $500 (1.63%)

e. Total Union Executive Office: $7,700 (25.06%)

Union Senate

a. Communiversity: $550 (1.79%)

b. Diversity: $1,500 (4.88%)

c. Services: $7,000 (22.78%)

d. Social Justice: $1,000 (3.25%)

e. University Spirit: $850 (2.77%)

f. Senate Discretionary: $2,462.23 (8.01%)

g. Total Union Senate: $13,362.23 (43.49%)

Total Student Union Government: $30,726.23 (100%)

 

The largest item on the budget besides services to keep the Union running is social life. Combined with school spirit, it equals about 15% of the total budget.  Diversity is worth less than half as much as social life at 4.88%.  Social Justice is worth only a quarter of social life at 3.25% of allocated funds.  I came to Brandeis because Justice Louis D. Brandeis’ vision and commitment to social justice appealed to me.  I knew that social life at college would be great no matter what the events were just because I was at college, with so many interesting people to get to know and spend time with, many of whom share my values.  So fellow Brandeisians, pay close attention to the debates and budgets of the Student Union Senate–do they reflect our values?

It is no secret that America is addicted to oil. We all know that our country needs energy independence. Being from Massachusetts, it’s sometimes difficult to face the fact that my power comes mostly from coal. I feel very strongly that we need to support clean, sustainable energy solutions as not only sound environmental policy, but also national security policy. Fortunately there is a project in development in my home state called Cape Wind which can provide for 75% of the energy needs of Cape Cod and the Islands. That’s the equivalent of taking 175,000 cars off the road each year. And unlike oil and natural gas, the cost of energy from Cape Wind will remain constant.

This Thursday the Minerals Management Service, one of the agencies involved in the permitting process, is holding a hearing on Cape Wind this Thursday at UMass-Boston. Opposition groups have instructed their members to show up early, but we’re going to show them that supporters of Cape Wind won’t be shut out. Come to Rabb Steps at 3:30pm on Thursday and we’ll stand up for clean energy in Massachusetts.

For more info go to: http://www.capewind.org/mms

Today, we host the previously-discussed Harvey Silverglate.

What other speakers and events can we look forward to over the coming week?

Well, first off, there will be a very important pre-March 15th organizing session in the Romper Room at 11am this Sunday. There, people will make signs, create arts and crafts, and delegate duties for the
March 19th anti-Iraq War/ 5 year anniversary of Iraq vigil/rally at the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium at 5:15.

Well, there will be events throughout the day, but the main action happens at 5:15.

This anti-Iraq rally has been in the works for a while. Let’s make it happen. For more information contact our very own Ben Serby or Lev Hirschhorn

What else is on the agenda this week?

• WATCH, a local organization promoting good low-income housing, is having a fundraising gala this April 15th. They want us to call local businesses to fundraise. Contact Justin Backal-Balik
  People are calling wednesday, thursday, and friday.
• Jamie Eldridge, a wonderful progressive and nearby assembly member, is running for Massachusetts State Senate. Help him out by canvassing over the weekend. Contact Innermost Parts contributor Phil Lacombe for more detals.
• Cape Wind is a great idea to have a wind farm in Eastern Mass. There will be a public hearing on whether to build it in Boston this Thursday. Drive down to Boston with Phil to speak in favor of clean energy.
• The Waltham City Democratic Committee is having it’s first meeting of the 2008-2010 session 7pm this Thursday at in the Auditorium at Government Center, 119 School Street. This is your last chance (for the next 2 years) to become a Committeemember. The BranVan will take the Brandeis delegation there at 6:30. Questions? Email me at sahar <~at~> innermostparts *dot* org or use facebook.
• Dr. Peter C. Frumhoff* will be giving a talk entitled: “Confronting Climate Change in the United States: Science, Political Will and Public Policy” this Friday from 12:15-1:45 pm at the Zinner Forum in the Heller School. Sources tell me there will be free food.

*Director of Science and Policy and Chief Scientist, Climate Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists
I’m sure there are many other activists events going down this week. If you are a member of an activist club and want us to include updates on what you guys have been up to, email us at czar *at* innermostparts d0t org

Stay tuned for a special announcement later today…

Harvey Silverglate, noted civil liberties attorney, is giving a free lecture on free speech, academic freedom, political correctness, etc. tomorrow. We previously covered this event here.

Date:Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Time: 8:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: Shapiro Campus Center, Multipurpose Room

Facebook event page here.

You should definitely go. I know I will.

Bumped. –Sahar
Brandeis is trying to rebrand itself. But what will be its new image?
This:

Or this?

Related links:
– Marketers analyze the “Smart from the Start” campaign: here here and here.
– The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education sounds the red alert on academic freedom at Brandeis:

Today, Brandeis University joins FIRE’s Red Alert list, a distinction afforded to colleges and universities that act with severe and ongoing disregard for the fundamental rights of their students or faculty members. In the case of Brandeis, the university’s mistreatment of Professor Donald Hindley and subsequent shameless attempt to sweep the incident under the rug earn it a spot on the list.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Brandeis. I love the people here, the professors, and the fact that I cite Justice Louis Brandeis quotes and use them to great effect. I love sitting by the Justice Brandeis statue and basking in the fact that Earl Warren wrote the statue’s dedication. Our mascot is named after Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr! How much more awesome can you get? (I’ll tell you how – if we had named Ollie’s Eatery Thurgood’s, that’s how). Many times, however, I’m upset by how this University – dedicated to perhaps the most fair and famous advocate of civil liberties, honest government, protecting the powerless, and other great progressive causes- seems to forget it’s commitment to both Brandeis’ name and his ideals.

Which of Brandeis’ sophisticated marketing campaigns will win? Einstein holding a bagel spread, or a University steadfastly refusing to admit it was unacceptably curbing academic freedom?

Hey I’m at Shapiro Atrium liveblogging my impressions of the State of the Student Union Address. They have free falafel here, so get on down; the actual address didn’t start yet.

Note – all quotes are quick drafts and could be easily be misquotes. This is more about the general gist of her sentences than what she actually said.

Update 1: 6:57
Still no speaches. Many well0dressed members of hte student union are walking around. There is also a table of adults right next to me. Let’s see who they are. Jean Eddy, Ed Callahan, Joe Dupont other people who’se names I forget. They are all sitting right next to me. Interestingly enough, they’re talking about Eliot Spitzer and the whole “being caught with a prostitute” thing.

Update 2: 7:03
Ed Paternoso is talking. Talking about how he’s tight with Shreeya.
Now Shreeya is taking the se

Update 3: 7:04
Moment of silence for Bernard Herman. Who is he?
“I set up this year was to set up a culture of activism”
“Global Students for Global Change”
Dude she’s blasting Goldman. Then Jean Eddy/ Student Activities. She talks about facing media ignorance in October. What was this?

Update 4: 7:06
“The state of the union is strong” – Obligatory.
Talking about the Brandeis Citizenship campaign.
Shoutouts to some clubs she’s inspired by –
Student Peace Alliance: Hosting the SPA convention.
SEA: For working with administration & recycling
Vocal
Student Crossing Boundaries – brandeis students going to the west bank
Clinton -> PF.

Update 5 – 7:08
Shout outs to Jason Gray / Itsmystudentunion.com , “stall street journal” , outreach dream team
Shout out to Mara Cullen
It seems that Shreeya is taking an optimistic tone, etc. She said that the union overcame the challenges of Student Activities fee, etc. Yet the Student Union backed down: the student events fee will still be diverted

Update 6 – 7:11
She’s been talking about sundry quality of life issues now. Shout outs to specific senators.

Update 7 – 7:14
Enough shout outs to specific senators. Now she’s talking about the accomplishments of committees. Examples of some things she’s talking about: zip cars, ridge wood, ollies eatery, midnight buffet.

Update 8 – 7:17
Kaamilah and Tamar Ariel are apparently switching us to recycled paper and sweatshop free clothing. Cool!
This speech is very much like a laundry list of things going on. Which is warranted up to a point.
Talking about Hiatt reform. Apparently it’s a-happening.
Shout-out to Rebecca Wilkof for setting up Communiversity. I agree with Shreeya. Communiversity is awesome.

Update 9 – 7:20
Diversity at Brandeis is different: “It’s not the way we look, but the ability to freely associate … It’s not an initiative. … not a reaction”
Talking about how the validity of the Senator for Minority Students. There will be a committee report. Bah.

Update 10 – 7:21
Talking about Virgina Tech and other shootings. Decision to arm Public Safety.
“Discourse and lobbying led to creation of the Firearms Implementation Committee”.
“One of the more serious concerns raised involves the sensitivity training policemembers get” Damn Straight that’s right.
She’s going to create a propoganda arm to quiet people’s fears? Maybe she should instead pay attention to the concerns raised?

Update 11 – 7:23
Talking about Jean Eddy and Student Activities Fee.
Jean Eddy is a few feet away from me. I can’t see her expression but she seems to be paying attention attentively.
“Whether it was a good decision or not, students should have decided whether students should have gotten a say”
Talking about the Bernstein Marcus protest. Called it “inspiring”. “We will not shy away from [this issue] in the coming months” I wonder if that’ll happen.

Update 12 – 7:25
Talking about Extasy.
“Currently Brandeis is lacking in accommodation capacity. we simply do not have enough large spaces for large events”

Update 13 – 7:29
Talking about Club Collaboration
Talking about F-Board reform. It all sounds very worthy but I can’t copy it down fast enough. Wants a more centralized and transparent F-board structure.
Talking about funding rollover. Blames clubs for not spening money they ask for. I’m not sure how true this is.
Challening club leaders – “we want you to think big. Then think bigger”

Update 14 – 7:31
Student Union wants a cap on its funding for one year – the student activities fee keeps growing since tuition keeps increasing. <-News?
She missed a chance to potshot the upward-spiraling tuition fee.
Talking about CapX. What is this?
News – in the Spring we will ask you to amend the constitution
Thanking Jean Eddy now for working with them. Is this in return for talking about the Student Events thing?

Update 15 – 7:34
Jason Gra will start an executive committee to create a student bill of rights.
[ed – this could end up badly. The conservative or “Let’s not challenge the university on anything” voting blocks in the union senate could end up crippling such an attempt. This could end up with us having less rights than before]

Update 16 – 7:36
“To the Union. Take responsibility for your government.”
She lauded the progressiv / activist community on campus. Pretty words.

It’s over

For those who are interested, Shreeya Sinha, President of the Brandeis Student Union, is giving her State of the Union address at 6:30 pm tonight in the Shapiro Campus Center Atrium. According to an inside source (the Facebook event page), we can expect that:

The speech will be about the Union’s accomplishments and future plans, including the current rollover situation, our finances, collaboration with the Administration, the protest, the implementation of firearms, the Student Bill of Rights, and other large issues currently facing our campus.

I can’t promise that I’ll be able to make it, but I’ll try. For those who can’t be there, the Student Union website hosts some old State of the Union speeches; their coverage seems to be pretty sporadic though, so I wouldn’t expect this one to be up in a timely fashion. If you can make it, feel free to use this as an open thread to discuss any initial reactions, disagreements, whatever.

Gen Ed, a really cool new club that tries to bring smart/cool/famous people to Brandeis, has sent an email updating us on their efforts and asking people to help. Out of their six(!) current projects, here are two I think you really should pay attention to:

We are currently working on an environmental and sustainability week entitled Green Week ’08 from April 9th to April 16th. This is a collaborative effort with organizations ranging from Students for Environmental Action to the International Business School to the Office of Communications. This week will include an address by Congressmen Edward Markey and a panel of NGO and business leaders discussing business opportunities in the Green Revolution on Sunday, April 13th in Rapaporte Treasure Hall. Other events during the week include the launch of SEA’s green fund to significantly reduce the campus carbon footprint, and a cleanup of the Charles River. There are many more events for this week.

This sounds great. Ed Markey is a good congressman who is a leader in the House on Internet freedom issues. I’m looking forward to this week.

We are co-sponsoring a talk by Harvey Silverglate, the attorney for Donald Hindley in his case of accused of racial insensitivity:’

<Link to Article>

Mr. Silverglate’s lecture will be entitled: The Death of Free Speech, Parody, and Vigorous Debate on Campus: Why has it Happened, and What is to be Done? The event, co-sponsored with Brandeis Republicans, Brandeis Democrats, and Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society will take place Wednesday, March 12th at 8:00 P.M. in the Shapiro Multipurpose room.

Like we’ve said before, the Hindley case is very important. Teachers got tenure in a reaction to the McCarthy era. Tenure was instituted to provide protection from the University or Government from punishing you for critiquing the status quo. As far as I know, Professor Hindley is an outspoken voice on campus in challenging the administration. When the administration broke its own rules in its haste to attack him, that creates a clear perception of wrongdoing.

All of the Brandeis community should lend Mr. Silverglate our ears. If the Brandeis Republicans and Brandeis Democrats can both unite around academic freedom, so should we.

What’s up with the Activist Resource Center?

I know they do good things (Sundays at 8pm in the Castle Commons), but their website, calendar, and blog seem to be abandoned. That kinda sucks.

I’ve got it. How do you deal with your outrage fatigue?

First off, please welcome our two newest contributors, Phil and Adam. It’s a pleasure having such talent onboard.

I’ve been thinking. One not-so-secret conventional wisdom of campaigning (though most of the media seems to have missed it entirely) is the concept of firing up your base. What do I mean by this? The American political system is structured so that there are often greater returns to activating and exciting your base than to chasing the elusive middle. For example, one reason people cite Karl Rove’s supposed genious is that he realized, in time for the 2004 election, that Bush should not swing leftward/more moderately in the General Election, but instead hold steady in his reactionary politics/ swing rightwards.

Why does this work? Conventional wisdom has it that an undecided vote is worth two normal votes, since you both gain a vote and deny your opponent one. The new electoral calculus, however, has a different way of seeing things: the swing voter can be trumped by the swing activist. A “centrist” candidate (a la Harold Ford in 2006) who sticks to polls, is politically cautious, etc, may have the same issue positions as much of the electorate, but doesn’t neccessarily inspire. This candidate may give off the impression that they aren’t too committed to their cause. Their subconscious antipathy to their public positions may show off in their body language, etc. Perhaps most importantly, these candidates don’t do much to excite their core constituency. A hardcore party member may vote for a Milquetoast nominee, but they likely won’t volunteer for them, or show as much enthusiasm if they do. A committed volunteer in a well-run campaign can easily be worth 10 votes.

Similar to swing activists, there are (in the context of Democratic politics) “swing liberals”, who may usually sit out elections because “both parties are the same” or “I’m tired of voting for the lesser evil”, etc. This well of untapped votes can be substantial. In 2006, for example, Democrats famously gained more votes from self-identified Democrats – 2.41% , than from Independents – 2.08%.

For more on swing voters and swing activists, there is much good discussion at the Democratic Strategist and at Open Left.

So. Long story short, the comparatively low turnout in the American political system is such that you can get more votes from persuading your base to vote than by persuading independents/undecided voters to vote for you. Also, it’s probably easier.

In the recent French Presidential Elections of 2007, however, we see a different dynamic. The French system is characterized by multi-party runoff voting. There are various political parties, all with their own candidate. If no one candidate gets 50%+1 votes, then the top two vote-getters square off in Round Two. 2007 was characterized by many interesting deviations from the historical French norm. First of all, the voter participation rate was very high – 84.6%. Secondly, this election was a very polarizing one, such that many voters decided to forgo the minor-party candidates and to “vote utile” for one of the mainstream candidates – Ségolène Royal, Nicolas Sarkozy, or, interestingly, François Bayrou. That brings us to the third deviation: Bayrou, a “centrist” candidate, picked up a great deal of the vote (18.57%, compared to Sarkozy’s 31.18% or Royal’s 25.87%), almost tripling 6.8% in the previous 2002 election.

For the second round, however, of the 2007 election, Royal and Sarkozy could not utilize the base-voter mobilization strategy: almost 90% of the electorate had voted in the 1st round. There were dimished returns to trying to squeeze votes from the remaining 10% (assuming that the voters of the “fringe parties” would automatically vote for whichever candidate was most ideologically aligned to their first choice. I.e. the number of people switching from Communist to Sarkozy is assumed to be negligible). Thus, both candidates were forced to pander to the center – Bayrou’s voters.

The voter participation rate and structure of the American politcal process, then, can perhaps be said to be a facilitator* to the horrible, 2002-2006 reign of the Repuiblican Trifecta (House, Senate, Pres). Knowing that appeasing their far-right base was more important than responding to the will of the majority of voters, Republicans felt free to ransack the country. Soon enough, however, they went too far. Let’s hope they keep marginalizing themselves.

I’m pleased to be writing my first piece for Innermost Parts. My name is Phil LaCombe, and I’m involved with many activist causes on campus. last semester, I formed a group with other students, Students Opposing the Decision to Arm.

I have been displeased by our university’s decision to arm the campus police since the day the decision was made. I felt that adding more guns to campus would only disrupt our sense of mutual trust within the community, and still do. Unfortunately, in the wake of the Virginia Tech strategy, many campuses feel that their only choice to making their campuses safe and healthy environments is to arm the campus safety officers.

I read this article on The Arizona Republic today that the administrators of Arizona State University have gone a step further to “protect” their campus–they will arm their public safety officers with military-style assault rifles. What I see developing across this country is a profound sense of fear. No one feels safe from violence any more, even on our college campuses, where environments are supposedly well controlled to keep students healthy and happy. Another thing I see is a coming arms race between campuses and campus shooters. The assault rifles ban expired in 2004, and with that expiration we opened up our country to greater, more severe violence. The campus police do not have a monopoly on military-grade weaponry. Campus shooters will likely respond to the escalations made by the police, and arm themselves with more dangerous weapons. In my opinion, it comes down to a simple fact: more guns do not equal more safety.

In order to protect our campus communities from violence, we need to go to the root causes. What causes a young person to feel so abandoned and so conflicted with his peers that he chooses to take their lives? Pistols and assault rifles will do nothing to heal the wounds of a young person in distress. We can continue to arm in hopes of protecting our community in the event of an attack, but that is only accepting the idea that attacks must happen. We need to heal the whole community.

Hello everybody! My name is Adam Hughes, and I am happy to say that I have joined Innermost Parts as a contributor. I’m really impressed with what Sahar and Loki have done with this site in the few short months it has been active, and I’m very excited to become a part of this great progressive forum at Brandeis University. My political activities and passions are very much in line with theirs, but I also hope to bring a fresh perspective on some important campus issues.

I hope to cover a broad range of topics in my posts, but there will be several areas to which I will devote the most attention. First, as an E-Board member of the Mixed Herie Club and a representative to the Brandeis Intercultural Center, I am very interested in diversity issues, particularly in the campus’s often laughable attempts to promote tolerance (the Hindley situation comes to mind). In addition, I am a fledgling columnist with the Brandeis Hoot, and I will try to discuss some of the more controversial articles that appear in it (like Jordan Rothman’s).

I will not, however, post much content dealing with national politics; I already have a site of this nature, Upon the Gears, which I co-founded and administer with Bret Matthew and Alex Norris (and which I naturally recommend you visit regularly). I look forward to writing here at Innermost Parts, and I hope you appreciate what I have to say.

If Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter failed to sweep you off your feet, take notice: Noted European sixties radical and Green Party politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit will be speaking in the Rapaporte Treasure Hall on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 18th. It promises to be a very exciting event, and you all should be there. 

For information on the event: http://www.brandeis.edu/departments/cges/ 

Who is this guy? 

Click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_the_Red