Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 223

In other news: What else happened while Michael Flynn flipped?

Donald Trump; Michael Flynn (Credit: Getty/Joe Raedle/Alex Wong/Salon)

While everyone was busy with the blockbuster news early Friday that former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn had reached a plea deal with Russian interference special counsel Robert Mueller, there were a lot of other notable things that flew under the radar. Here’s a look at a few:

Republicans who used taxpayer-funded harassment slush fund revealed

Rep. Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican, was revealed to have utilized a little-known fund established by Congress to pay out sexual harassment settlement fees using taxpayer money.

According to NBC, Farenthold obtained money from the fund to pay off his former communications director, Lauren Greene, who had sued him in 2014 for multiple instances of sexual harassment and for wrongful termination after she alleged that the congressman had fired her for not yielding to his advances.

Some of Farenthold’s efforts, according to Politico, involved telling Greene that he had “sexual fantasies” about her and claiming that he had not had sex with his wife for years.

It was also confirmed on Friday that Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., paid $150,000 in taxpayer dollars to a former aide on the House Select Committee who alleged he was fired for an inadequate focus on Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post reported that the fired aide, Bradley Podliska, was also a member of the armed services:

Podliska, in addition to claiming he was fired for his refusal to focus on Clinton, alleged retaliation by his supervisors because he took leave to fulfill his obligations as an Air Force reservist.

Twitter lets Trump off the hook again

Twitter and other social media companies have made it a policy to delete the accounts and content that terrorist groups and their sympathizers post online, including the execution videos that have been the staple of Islamic extremists for decades.

But what is Twitter supposed to do when President Donald Trump decides to start retweeting snuff films? Unquestionably, Trump is the platform’s most important user. Untold thousands of users likely use the company’s mobile alerts system to get Trump’s messages instantly sent to their phones. God knows everyone in the news business has to.

As he is wont to do, Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey and his staff took to their social network and began tweeting in corporatespeak about the situation.

To clarify: these videos are not being kept up because they are newsworthy or for public interest. Rather, these videos are permitted on Twitter based on our current media policy. https://t.co/RqEQy3skgc

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) December 1, 2017

Less than an hour later, Dorsey himself walked the tweet back in a strange formulation about “shipping dates” and some sort of “safety calendar” without providing any links for readers to see what he was referencing.

We mistakenly pointed to the wrong reason we didn’t take action on the videos from earlier this week. We’re still looking critically at all of our current policies, and appreciate all the feedback. See our safety calendar for our plans and ship dates. https://t.co/yGytH3eskM

— jack (@jack) December 1, 2017

He was soon called out by a number of Twitter users, particularly Joshua Topolsky, the editor of The Outline. Dorsey retreated swiftly after being questioned.

No, I don’t

— jack (@jack) December 1, 2017

He declined to post a response to this tweet:

So you'll remove the offensive content based on your policies?

— Joshua Topolsky (@joshuatopolsky) December 1, 2017

One would think that deleting the tweets of the racist British political party that Trump had promoted would be something Twitter could easily agree on, saving the thorny problem of what to do about the president for another time. But thus far, the company has made no announcements.

Richard Spencer fails to file paperwork to operate in Virginia 

It’s true that a number of big technology firms (not so much Twitter and Facebook, however) have decided not to do business with white nationalist groups. This has clearly harmed their ability to spread their beliefs and coordinate their efforts. But oftentimes when various “alt-right” groups face negative consequences from bureaucrats bearing red notices, it’s their own fault.

According to the Los Angeles Times, white nationalist Richard Spencer’s National Policy Institute has failed to file documents with the state of Virginia to allow it to conduct fundraising campaigns. The group had actually been operating under an extension from regulators after it had previously failed to file the required forms. NPI failed to complete its documentation by Virginia’s Nov. 15 deadline. Asked for comment about the situation by the Times, Spencer actually tried to hire reporter Matt Pearce to resolve the registration situation for him.

Is Jared Kushner next in Robert Mueller’s crosshairs?

Now that Mueller has indicted or reached plea agreements with Flynn, former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s assistant, there’s a real possibility that the special prosecutor may be going after presidential son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner next.

According to Bloomberg, Kushner is the “very senior” official who Mueller’s team says had directed Flynn to make contacts with various ambassadors and embassies during the two months following Trump’s election and his swearing-in ceremony.

In Flynn’s plea deal, the “very senior” staffer was said to have instructed Flynn to discuss a United Nations resolution critical of Israel’s practice of illegally building housing in territory owned by Palestine. Former President Barack Obama had declined to stop the resolution from passing but Kushner, apparently at the request of Israel’s government, had sought Russia’s help in using its Security Council veto to delay the resolution until Trump had taken office.

As Bloomberg notes, if the “collusion” theory only amounts to Flynn talking about a symbolic U.N. resolution with Russia then it is unlikely to be damaging to Trump. It might be enough to take down Kushner, however.

On World AIDS Day, HIV patients offer a reminder: “We are not a threat to you”

“Most people in terms of the general public have an understanding of HIV from 20 years ago,” said Alex Garner who tested positive in 1996.

He’s right. While science and treatment have made significant strides in ensuring that an HIV-positive diagnosis is no longer a death sentence, much of the stigma still remains.

World AIDS Day, which falls on Dec. 1 each year, serves as a reminder of those advances, but of the stigma as well. More than that, the annual tradition, which stretches back to 1988, underscores the importance of standing in solidarity with the 37 million people still living with HIV and AIDS worldwide, according to U.N. AIDS statistics.

Last year, Salon interviewed nine people who are living with or affected by HIV. One man contracted the disease when he was in sixth grade through contaminated blood products used to treat his hemophilia. Another was told he’d be dead in three years, but has been living with the virus for three decades. One woman kept her status quiet for 10 years before becoming an active voice in the movement to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Their stories point to the urgent need to stop stigmatizing those living with  HIV and AIDS, to rid society of ill-informed and sweeping generalizations about the virus or the lifestyles of those who contract it. Just as important, their testimonies remind us that coming forward, that speaking out about one’s status, can be an important, positive part of living with HIV.

“Until, as a population, we can stand up united and say out-loud ‘we are HIV-positive’ we’re not going to shift the conversation,” Richard Cordova, who credits the virus with turning his life around, said.

Gwenn Barringer, Richard Cordova, Shawn Decker, Frank Fraioli, Alex Garner, Mark S. King, Jack Mackenroth, Maria “HIV” Mejia and Adam Sank were interviewed for this video.

 

This Matt Lauer pants-dropping sketch from 2014 may make you cringe until you explode

Matt Lauer (Credit: AP/Charles Sykes)

Years before former NBC anchor Matt Lauer was fired for alleged sexual misconduct, he pantomimed some of the offenses he’s now accused of in a “Today” show comedy sketch.

In 2014’s “Today: The Musical” — a musical-comedy production on the show — Lauer takes off his pants for a fresh press and waits in his boxers. Four women colleagues walk in. He turns to them. “Drink it in, ladies,” he says. “Get it while it lasts.” Host Natalie Morales responds, “Again, Matt, really?”

Cringe as you watch this ‘Today’ show skit in which Matt Lauer takes off his pants, exposes himself to four female colleagues and says “Drink it in ladies! Get it while it lasts.” pic.twitter.com/FKP213H59n

— Rosa Hwang (@journorosa) November 29, 2017

Aside from the fact that the scene just isn’t funny, it’s now disturbing given some of the accusations made against Lauer.

As reported in Variety, Lauer is alleged to have dropped his pants in front of a female colleague, exposed his penis to her and then “reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.” There are suggestions that he dropped his pants in front of other staffers as well.

Further, Morales saying “Again, Matt” seems doubly problematic given that reports say many “Today” and NBC staffers were aware of Lauer’s behavior. It’s easy to suspect that some of the on or off-camera crew working on that very sketch had been victimized by Lauer or least known those who had been.

The Daily Show resurfaced another comedy sketch from 2012 that showed Lauer and others seemingly making light of sexual harassment.

Throwback to 2012 when Matt Lauer was the “real victim” of sexual harassment on the Today show pic.twitter.com/mYdnhEV2wv

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) November 29, 2017

Lauer was fired Tuesday night after NBC received a complaint of “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack wrote in a memo to NBC employees.

Thursday, Lauer released a public apology, which was read live on “Today”. “Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized,” it read, “but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly.”

As of Friday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Lauer has scrubbed his social media accounts and appears to have deactivated them as well.

With the ouster of Lauer, NBC News management has come under intense scrutiny. Friday, Lack announced an internal review of the situation in a memo to staff, as a way for NBC to “build a culture of greater transparency, openness and respect for each other,” Lack wrote. “At the conclusion of the review we will share what we’ve learned, no matter how painful, and act on it.”

How websites spy on you and ignore privacy settings

(Credit: Denys Prykhodov, Twin Design via Shutterstock//magnez2 via iStock/Salon)

Hundreds of the world’s top websites routinely track a user’s every keystroke, mouse movement and input into a web form – even before it’s submitted or later abandoned, according to the results of a study from researchers at Princeton University.

And there’s a nasty side-effect: personal identifiable data, such as medical information, passwords and credit card details, could be revealed when users surf the web – without them knowing that companies are monitoring their browsing behavior. It’s a situation that should alarm anyone who cares about their privacy.

The Princeton researchers found it was difficult to redact personally identifiable information from browsing behavior records – even, in some instances, when users have switched on privacy settings such as Do Not Track.

The research found that third party tracking services are used by hundreds of businesses to monitor how users navigate their websites. This is proving to be increasingly challenging as more and more companies beef-up security and shift their sites over to encrypted HTTPS pages.

To work around this, session-replay scripts are deployed to monitor user interface behavior on websites as a sequence of time-stamped events, such as keyboard and mouse movements. Each of these events record additional parameters – indicating the keystrokes (for keyboard events) and screen coordinates (for mouse movement events) – at the time of interaction. When associated with the content of a website and web address, this recorded sequence of events can be exactly replayed by another browser that triggers the functions defined by the website.

What this means is that a third person is able to see, for example, a user entering a password into an online form – which is a clear privacy breach. Websites that employ third party analytics firms to record and replay such behavior is, they argue, in the name of “enhancing user experience”. The more they know what their users are after, the easier it is to provide them with targeted information.

While it’s not news that companies are monitoring our behavior as we surf the web, the fact that scripts are quietly being deployed to record individual browser sessions in this way has concerned the study’s co-author, Steven Englehardt, who is a PhD candidate at Princeton.

A website user replay demo in action.

“Collection of page content by third-party replay scripts may cause sensitive information, such as medical conditions, credit card details, and other personal information displayed on a page, to leak to the third-party as part of the recording,” he wrote. “This may expose users to identity theft, online scams and other unwanted behavior. The same is true for the collection of user inputs during checkout and registration processes.”

Websites logging keystrokes has been an issue known for a while to cybersecurity experts. And Princeton’s empirical study raises valid concerns about users having little or no control over their surfing behaviour being recorded in this way.

So it’s important to help users control how their information is shared online. But there are increasing signs of usability trumping security measures that are designed to keep our data safe online.

Usability vs security

Password managers are used by millions of people to help them easily keep a record of different passwords for different sites. The user of such a service only needs to memorize one key password.

Recently, a group of researchers at the University of Derby and the Open University discovered that the offline clients of password manager services were at risk of exposing the main key password when stored as plain text in memory that could be sniffed or dumped by whole system attacks.

User experience is not an excuse for tolerating security flaws.

Yijun Yu, Senior Lecturer, Department of Computing and Communications, The Open University

Confidentiality clauses shouldn’t muzzle sexual abuse victims

Harvey Weinstein (Credit: AP/Chris Pizzello)

Harassment and abuse accusations against Harvey Weinstein and other prominent men, like Bill O’Reilly, have revealed a trail of settlement agreements in their wake, many of which contained language that prevented victims from speaking publicly.

These agreements have not been made public, although reporters have in some cases described their terms. Rose McGowan – who settled a claim against Weinstein in the 1990s without agreeing to confidentiality – recently refused an additional offer of US$1 million in exchange for secrecy.

States such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York are working on legislation that would ban nondisclosure provisions in harassment settlements.

While nondisclosure agreements are currently getting a bad rap, they can serve a legitimate business purpose. It’s a mistake to think of them as a monolith; they come in a variety of forms and serve different functions. Understanding them can help reveal when they’re used appropriately – and when their real purpose is to conceal and perpetuate misconduct.

Settlements vs. standard confidentiality

When I worked as an employment lawyer, we dealt primarily with two different kinds of contracts containing nondisclosure provisions: that most employees sign at the start of their employment and settlement agreements used to resolve a lawsuit or a threat of one.

Confidentiality agreements are very common. They serve primarily to protect a company’s business information. They might prohibit disclosing research and development, trade secrets or other nonpublic information about the company’s business.

Depending on how it is worded, a standard confidentiality agreement might not even cover an employee’s disclosure about harassment she experienced. And even if it did, other legal principles likely protect an employee’s right to speak out.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects an employee’s right to “oppose” harassment protects employees for opposing harassment and other forms of discrimination in the workplace, and there is some case law supporting the idea that public opposition to harassment such as writing letters or picketing are protected.

In addition, the National Labor Relations Act protects a worker’s right to engage in “concerted activity” – “acting together to improve wages or working conditions” – which arguably includes discussions on social media about a workplace rife with harassment.

In other words, an employee who suffers from harassment has many options for bringing attention to the problem. She is largely free to discuss it with co-workers, file a lawsuit or even discuss it publicly.

That’s where settlement agreements come in.

Well, almost no one.

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

Settlement agreements are different

A harassment victim would typically enter into a settlement agreement after a lawyer threatens to bring a lawsuit or actually files a lawsuit on the victim’s behalf. Through the agreement, the victim waives the right to pursue the lawsuit, usually in exchange for money. For example, former Fox News host O’Reilly reportedly settled a harassment claim for $32 million.

In settlement agreements, provisions intended to keep the terms secret or to prevent the victim from saying anything publicly about the harasser may be an important part of the deal.

Their purpose, however, is not always nefarious. Lawsuits are invasive, exhausting and expensive. Both victims and companies may have a legitimate interest in ending a protracted dispute. Secrecy-related provisions can serve to keep the peace once a settlement is finalized.

Common contract terms

Of course, these agreements are, by their nature, secret, which prevents those of us on the outside from knowing exactly how they were drafted.

However, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website offers a glimpse into standard contract language, through posted agreements between companies and executives. (Such agreements with executives are commonplace, even without threatened litigation or suspected wrongdoing.)

Some contract provisions attempt to ensure secrecy by designating the contract terms as confidential.

But that covers only the contract, not the underlying allegations themselves. To prevent public statements, employers use what is known as a “nondisparagement” clause. These come in different forms. Narrower provisions prohibit only “defamation, libel or slander” – which would allow a victim to speak out, provided the statements are true.

A broader provision might prohibit disparaging any employees or prohibit “any action which could reasonably be expected to adversely affect the personal or professional reputation of [the company] or any of its … employees.”

In some cases, a victim’s obligations extend beyond mere silence and force them to speak in support of the harasser. New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey described a provision in one of Weinstein’s agreements that required the victim to say “positive things” if the press ever inquired about Weinstein. Lauren O’Connor, an employee of Weinstein’s company, was apparently required to write a letter stating that she had a “good experience” at the company as part of her settlement.

The bad ones settle early

As the Weinstein example demonstrates, settlement agreements can be used to obscure wrongdoing and enable continued misconduct.

Alleged abusers like Harvey Weinstein use settlement agreements to ensure no one ever knows.

Michael Germana/STAR MAX/IPx

This can be especially true of lawsuits settled before a case is even filed, which can skew toward the more serious ones – and involve the most serious abusers. As law professor Jennifer Shinall observed, “[E]mployers have a financial incentive to settle the most egregious discrimination claims before a lawsuit is filed” to avoid “high damages at trial and … negative publicity.”

Or, in the words of labor scholars Zev Eigen and David Sherwyn, “employers settle cases with bad facts at early stages,” meaning the worst cases will never see the light of day.

Particularly when a company decides to keep a documented harasser on the payroll, these provisions can provide cover for continued harassment. Later victims may never learn of the pattern of misconduct, or only after they have initiated their own lawsuit.

Nondisparagement provisions: The real problem

Thus far, most of the public debate around these contracts relate to the secrecy of settlements. But it is the broad nondisparagement clauses, and those requiring affirmative statements, that perform most of the work in concealing misconduct.

Proposed legislation should take this into account. The proposed New York law does so by invalidating agreements with the “purpose or effect of concealing the details relating to a claim of … harassment,” which would include a broad nondisparagement provision.

Legislators should also consider an exception for the legitimate use of such clauses, such as in settlement of previously filed lawsuits. Narrow nondisparagement clauses – which prohibit only defamation, slander or libel – are also defensible because they protect against false statements.

Likewise, courts should approach these provisions in a balanced way, as they do with noncompete agreements, and consider whether they are unreasonable, overly broad or supported by a legitimate business purpose.

Ultimately, employers would do well to reconsider why they demand broad nondisparagement provisions in the first place. Silencing the victim is a short-term fix. Their long-term interests may be better served by dealing with the harasser.

Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Oregon

The Republican tax bill is a disaster for public schools

Students from several Phoenix high schools staged a walkout to protest Donald Trump's presidential victory, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016. (Credit: AP Photo/Bob Christie)

A great deal of ink has been spilled on how the Republican tax bill working through Congress would impact higher education for the worse.  The highest profile item is the plan in the House bill to tax graduate student tuition waivers as income, effectively making the young people who are helping the nation move forward with critical research pay taxes on “incomes” that are tens of thousands of dollars higher than they actually get paid.  However, higher education takes multiple hits in the House bill such as taxing endowment earnings that go towards school advancement, reducing incentives for charitable giving, and eliminating student loan interest deductions that benefited 12 million borrowers in 2014.

For a bill that the G.O.P. is trying to market as a “boon” to the middle class, the House bill does not just tax graduate student tuition waivers, but also it takes aim at tuition benefits for higher education employees and their children.  The New York Times portrayed a 64 year old night custodian at Boston College who managed to send all five of his children to college using such a benefit and who would never have been able to do so under the House bill.  Assurances from House leaders that their bill would grant most Americans so much tax relief that they would not need those benefits ring hollow as analyses show that various provisions in the bills could result in $1.6 trillion dollars of tax INCREASES on middle class earners over the next decade.

So while the House and Senate bills are not friendly to higher education (the Senate bill somewhat less so), there has been little talk about the potential impact on K-12 education if the Senate bill passes, is reconciled with the House bill, and sent to the Oval Office for splashy signing ceremony.  There are several provisions in both pieces of legislation that would take serious aim at K-12 education at the state and local funding levels.  Reporters and editorials have stressed that eliminating the deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) including property taxes, as in the Senate bill, will heavily impact Democratic leaning states with higher tax burdens, but the Governmental Finance Officers Association (GFOA) reports that eliminating SALT deductions from the tax code will have a broadly negative impact on tax payers in all states.  According to the GFOA findings:

30% of tax units use the SALT deduction.
60% of deductions for earners under $50,000 a year come from property taxes and the loss of the deduction would negatively impact home ownership and price stability.
30% of earners between $50,000 and $75,000 a year use the SALT deduction. 53% of earners between $75,000 and $100,000 a year use it.
Income earners at all levels would see their taxes go up if the SALT deduction is eliminated.

More importantly from a public school perspective: the loss of the SALT deduction would apply significant pressure on states and municipalities to reduce taxes in order to offset the increases in federal taxes paid by their constituents.  Using the 8th Congressional District in Texas north of Houston as a model, the GFOA estimates that the district would see an increase in federal taxes of $306 million dollars.  Offsetting that with state and local tax decreases could impact $125 million in school funding.  Simply put: education funding is an enormous local and state expenditure, and it would have to be cut in order to provide any relief to tax payers who lost SALT.

There is something incredibly perverse about putting pressure on states and municipalities to cut taxes in order to make up for a federal tax bill that overwhelmingly favors the rich and corporations. It is even more perverse to label that as “middle class tax relief” when the outcome will be potentially disastrous for local schools.  The vast majority of K-12 school funding in this country still comes from state and local revenues which would no longer be deductible from federal tax burdens.

It is true that upper income communities benefit significantly from SALT, but it is also true that states with even vaguely progressive school funding systems depend upon those communities being able to foot their own school bills so that state aid can get to needier communities.  It was that principle that made New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s proposal to “flatten” state aid so that all schools got exactly the same amount of aid per pupil so outrageous and – eventually – a non-starter with legislators.  The elimination of the SALT deduction would create enormous pressure for additional tax relief from wealthier communities and shrink the revenue available for their own schools via property taxes and for less wealthy communities via state aid packages.

The pain for school budgets would not end with the loss of SALT.  The Congressional Budget Office recently scored the tax plan and estimates that it will expand on budget deficits by $1.4 trillion dollars over the next decade.  In the short term, current “pay as you go” requirements might cause immediate cuts to Medicare, but as deficits pile up over the next decade, Congress would have to slash as much as $150 billion a year.  Federal education spending could look very appealing to future Congresses trying to offset lost revenue unless the trickle down theory suddenly works for the first time ever.  Analysts have already identified $2 billion in student loan administration that might go as well as $62 billion in “all other programs.”  While the federal contribution to the $634 billionspent in the U.S. on public K-12 schools is only about 8%, that will be a tempting target for future deficit hawks and legislators boxed in by spending rules.

Federal spending K-12, while limited, has a long reach:  $14.9 billion in local Title I grants, $11.9 billion in special education grants, $9.1 billion in Head Start for pre-K children.  Most of this money is targeted to help states meet the needs of the most vulnerable children in the country – whose communities cannot raise enough revenue through property values.  Under this tax bill, states could easily be strangled on both sides of their education budgets with calls to lower state tax rates in response to the loss of SALT deductions and with fewer federal dollars coming in to help the needy.

The tax bill could further hurt education spending by reducing property values, restricting local and state revenue even further.  In addition to eliminating (or capping) SALT, the bill reduces the mortgage interest deduction from $1 million to $500,000.  Although this more heavily impacts very expensive housing markets, combined with the loss of the SALT deduction, the tax bill would make home ownership significantly more expensive in numerous housing markets, creating a disincentive for buyers across a large range of prices, and potentially depressing housing prices.  Although experts differ about the full impact of these factors on the market, the National Association of Realtors warns that home prices could fall as much as 10%.  That translates into more lost local revenue in an environment where state school funding still has not recovered fully from the impacts of the Great Recession – when we learned that municipalities were not well positioned to make up for lost state funds.  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ analysis found that since the end of the recession, local revenue growth has only averaged 1.5% above inflation, not remotely enough to make up for lost state funds and increasing student populations.  If local revenues take another hit through the new tax bill, even that incredibly modest growth is at risk.

The Republican tax bill is a looming threat to K-12 education spending on numerous fronts:

Blowing a hole in the Federal budget will force Congress to look for savings in future budgets’ discretionary spending, putting money sent to help our neediest students at risk.
Capping or eliminating the SALT deduction will put intense pressure on state and local governments to cut their own taxes in the face of constituents with higher federal tax bills.
If those taxes are cut, municipalities won’t be able to generate more money for school budgets, and states won’t be able to generate more money for state aid funding – even as federal sources shrink.
Disincentives for home ownership in the form of increased costs will put downward pressure on home prices which will further impact local school budgets.

Put together, the threat to public education is evident.  This bill threatens federal aid for needy students by exploding the budget deficit, puts pressure on municipalities via decreased home values and loss of property tax deductions, and puts pressure on states via loss of income tax deductions.  School budgets HAVE to rise just to keep up with growing student populations and other fixed costs even if there is no concerted effort at school improvement.  Flat or decreased funding for any significant length of time threatens numerous factors that impact school quality such as class sizes, the length of the school year, and capital improvements.  We saw this play out across the country during the Great Recession and, more recently, with Kansas which plunged deep into a supply side experiment under Governor Brownback – and which precipitated a long term public education crisis.

If the Republicans in Congress pass this tax bill, there’s a good chance that we will all be Kansans next year.

What it’s like to be assaulted on the London Underground

(Credit: Pressmaster/Shutterstock)

Sexual harassment is rife in public spaces, and as an integral part of daily life, public transport is no exception. As global as it is endemic, women are forced to negotiate the risk and reality of sexual harassment as they get from A to B on a daily basis.

On the London Underground, the extent of the issue became apparent in 2013 after a Transport for London (TfL) survey revealed that 15% of Londoners had experienced some form of unwanted sexual attention on public transport in the city. A large proportion of these incidents happened on the Underground.

In my research, I spoke to women who had experienced sexual harassment on the tube. The unique nature of the space of the underground and the way people interact with each other when they’re using it mean that the abuse manifests itself in particular ways.

As Eliza, who has lived in London and used the tube her whole life said:

On the tube you’re simultaneously in close proximity with so many people and yet you’re completely anonymous. Everyone is in their own world … and I think some people take advantage of that.

Groping or “frotterring” are the most common offenses, and generally happen in the morning and evening rush hours. Masturbation and indecent exposures are more likely on quieter, off-peak trains.

The women I spoke to also described being “up skirted” – having someone take a photo up their skirt – and having indecent images randomly sent to them via the airdrop function on their phone. They said they had been followed, ejaculated on, had to deflect drunken come-ons, and put up with verbal and physical aggression.

The daily crush provides useful cover for perpetrators.

Axel Drainville, CC BY-NC-SA

Taylor, a 33-year old project manager in Canary Wharf, east London, called her experience “insidious”. On a late evening tube, she described how a man came and sat next to her:

He just pulled my hand in to his lap and held it there … I just froze … I was looking around trying to make eye contact with someone to say, ‘Get this guy off me’. The longer I left it, the more I felt like I couldn’t move … it lasted 15 minutes. Afterwards … I was so ashamed and confused by my own reaction.

When I asked her if she had reported the incident, she shook her head and said:

I had a hard time even explaining it to my boyfriend. How would I go about talking to the police? There’s no way they’d take that seriously.

The TfL survey showed that only one in ten people made reports after experiencing a sexual offence on the Underground. Due to the nature of the environment and the type of incidents that occur, reporting and policing sexual harassment on the tube comes with its own set of difficulties.

Unlike most acts of sexual violence, offenses on the underground are committed by strangers. The police therefore have to rely on CCTV, Oyster card data, and, most importantly, information from victims when looking into a case. In a fast paced, densely packed, transitory environment, that can be extremely challenging.

Anonymity

Ruth, who commuted on the Waterloo and City line, described how she wasn’t even sure who assaulted her:

I felt someone’s hand touch me … between my legs … The carriage was packed full of men in suits, I couldn’t tell where the hand was coming from and no one looked suspicious. So at first I thought maybe I was imagining it, or it was an accident. Then the fingers moved from side to side … What was I going to do? If I’d said who’s touching me, no one would admit it. It would be so embarrassing. The tube arrived, the doors opened and everybody got off.

That kind of uncertainty and ambiguity often affects women’s reactions – both while an incident is happening and afterwards – making them reluctant to come forward. They also report a fear of being victim blamed, and thinking the incident was not serious enough to bother the police with, demonstrating the pervasive normalization of sexual harassment. Furthermore, some women said they didn’t report simply because they wanted to avoid their day being further disrupted, which, considering the energy that often already goes into avoiding and negotiating sexual assault, is as valid a reason as any.

However as Rach stated, perhaps the onus should not be on women to report in the first place:

Everyone said to me, report it, you should report it. But I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to have to relive it again … It’s not my responsibility and I shouldn’t be made to feel guilty.

Loughborough University.

In an attempt to overcome some of these barriers and to put less pressure on victims, British Transport Police have taken various measures. There is now a number you can text to report incidents and undercover officers who are specially trained to spot this kind of behavior are patrolling the Underground network.

The recent proliferation in reporting and public story sharing has led to an increased awareness that women are forced to negotiate this behavior on a regular, often daily, basis in all kinds of places. Perhaps we should use this momentum to transfer the pressure and obligation to combat sexually invasive behavior away from those who have already been victimized and instead collectively challenge issues of normalization and bystander apathy that allow these incidents to occur on such a pervasive level.

Sian Lewis, Doctoral Researcher. Feminist Urban Sociologist, Loughborough University

Alt-right catches knight fever — but medieval scholars strike back

(Credit: Getty/joegolby)

A classroom is not neutral territory. It is a space where values are taught, cultural norms are reinforced and politics are omnipresent. The inherently political nature of the classroom is amplified and made even more important during times of cultural and political crisis.

At present, the United States is struggling to reconcile how the threat of fascism, in the form of Donald Trump’s presidency, could be birthed in a country with supposedly strong democratic political and cultural institutions. To make this paradigm shift even more challenging, Trump’s ascendancy has been accompanied by a record increase in hate crimes, a resurgent white supremacist movement, and a full-on rejection of such modern values as cosmopolitanism and equality by many American conservatives.

On university and college campuses these trends have manifested themselves in controversies over free speech. Across the United States, right-wing activists have also engaged in a systemic campaign of harassment against those “liberal” and “left-wing” faculty members whom they view as being “un-American” and a threat to the anti-intellectual ideology that typifies today’s American conservative movement. In effect, the radical right wants to silence its foes wherever it finds them. Notions of academic and intellectual freedom are seen as obstacles in this war on critical thinking and empirical reality.

Ultimately, the myth of “liberal higher education” is being exposed as such by risk-averse university administrators who are more interested in protecting endowments and high tuitions than in standing up against the right-wing media and activists – -as well as influential donors and sponsors — who are waging war against teachers who dare to speak truth to power.

Some educators have dared to speak out against this new type of McCarthyism. Writing in response to the white supremacist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Dorothy Kim, a professor of English at Vassar College, made the following demand of her colleagues in the field of medieval studies:

Today, medievalists have to understand that the public and our students will see us as potential white supremacists or white supremacist sympathizers because we are medievalists. The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/Nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students. Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.

Kim continued:

As Catherine Cox recently presented at [a meeting of the Modern Language Association], ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in fact, ideological arms dealers. So, are you going to be apathetic weapons dealers not caring how your material and tools will be used? Do you care who your buyers are in the classroom? Choose a side. Doing nothing is choosing a side. Denial is choosing a side. Using the racist dog whistle of “we must listen to both sides” is choosing a side. I am particularly struck by this last choice, since I want to know: would you also say this about ISIS/ISIL?

In response to these comments, Kim was subjected to a coordinated campaign of harassment by right-wing activists and their supporters. She was also criticized by scholars of medieval history who felt that their field of study should remain outside contemporary politics.

How should colleges and universities respond to the increasingly bold and aggressive white supremacist movement inspired by Donald Trump? Are some academic disciplines politically neutral? What is the obligation of the teacher-scholar to stand up against fascism and other illiberal values and beliefs? Why are white supremacists obsessed with medieval and ancient Europe? How are they trying to use their distorted version of Europe’s past to advance their agenda in the present?

I recently spoke to Dorothy Kim to address these questions and others. A longer version of this conversation can be heard on my podcast, which is available on Salon’s Featured Audio page.

What is the source of the controversy about what seem to be basic observations about the political nature of teaching and the classroom, as well as about the presence of nonwhites in medieval Europe? 

I think the source of the controversy is twofold. First is the fact that we are even discussing why and how white supremacists love the Middle Ages. This then means that the faculty who teach the subject can’t be imagined as neutral or innocent anymore. In addition, I think it’s also about a deep discomfort in regards to thinking about one’s scholarly field as somehow connected to white supremacy.

What was the inspirational moment for your deciding to write your essay, “Teaching Medieval Studies in a Time of White Supremacy”?

In my essay I specifically argued that we couldn’t go into the classroom after Charlottesville and just teach medieval studies in the way we’ve always taught it. The Middle Ages is being weaponized by various extreme right-wing groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis and the broader white supremacist so-called alt-right. This has to do with other extreme hate groups as well.  I have colleagues who also analyze the materials that ISIS and ISIL actually use to recruit young men and they use some sense of a pure Islamic history and path in the same way.

How are your critics imagining the study of medieval Europe to somehow be apolitical and apart from the concerns of the “real world?” 

In the field of medieval studies there might be a discussion of, “Well, these topics are not really applicable because we’re pre-racial or pre-colonial or pre-immigrant or pre-migrant.” In fact, of course that’s incorrect . These concepts and ideas may function and look differently, but they are being worked through as well in the past.

Why are white supremacists and other members of the right wing so obsessed with and fascinated by ancient and medieval Europe? How are they using those historical periods to create a “usable past” to fuel their political agenda?

White supremacists and other “alt-right” types imagine medieval Europe as the last cultural space of pure white history that they can basically hook themselves into and argue that there were no people of color present. They’re very interested in how Western Europe becomes this kind of idealized white beginning and origin myth. It’s not a surprise, for instance, that in Charlottesville the white supremacists were carrying torches and circling around Jefferson’s statue.

He wanted Virginia to be Anglo-Saxon England. We know from medievalists and scholars that, for instance, after their defeat, the former Confederate states became very interested in thinking of themselves as the defeated Anglo-Saxons after the Norman foreigners basically took over. We also know the Ku Klux Klan is obsessed with white knights. This has had a long history in American culture and history. White supremacists have really grabbed onto the Middle Ages because they do feel like it’s their small heritage. This is why they get so angry and frustrated when  academics and others point out that people of color were present in the medieval past.

If you were to offer some basic facts regarding how white supremacists and others lie to themselves about medieval Europe, what would you highlight?

No. 1, that people of color were present in medieval Europe.

No. 2, that it was not entirely all Christian. It was multi-faith, multiracial, multicultural and multilingual. I would also include the fact that Africa is not a country and that there were actually African medieval civilizations and cultures. This is important, because that often gets used as a discussion point in burnishing this idea of medieval Europe. You can talk about medieval Mali and Timbuktu. You can talk about medieval Ethiopia. You can talk about medieval Nubian culture.

I would also tell them that they have to understand that medieval Western Europe was really considered the hinterlands, the proverbial outskirts or boonies. Actual innovation in the medieval world was coming out of the medieval Mediterranean, and was coming through via medieval Islamic culture. Medicine and science and so many other things were basically being circulated to medieval Europe.

I would also say that race existed in medieval Europe. For white supremacists and others to imagine that medieval Europe was empty of anyone of color, and also that these structures weren’t necessarily present, is incorrect. Talking about race in the medieval past is not anachronistic.

Much of the white right’s obsession with medieval Europe is a type of political theater. Who are the players?

The “alt-right” is a conglomeration with multiple nodes. You have the “men’s rights” types. There are white nationalists and white supremacists. There is of course the Ku Klux Klan.  And there are people who call themselves Odinists. There is lots of overlap there with a racist,  antifeminist, anti-Semitic idea of a pure white culture and related concepts.

For the angry white men attracted to the “alt-right,” what is the appeal of medieval Europe?

I think they imagine that it somehow allows them to do and say these things that they feel like they can’t say and do right now. As with ISIS/ISIL, for example, the gateway drug to those groups is anti-feminism. In this imagined past, white men and others can imagine a time when they did not have to deal with gender equity and these ideas that women should have access to work, fair pay and equal rights. It is very interesting to note that both extremist groups are using the same kinds of strategy to radicalize their members.

How would you characterize the hostile and hateful response to your essay on medieval studies in the wake of Charlottesville?

It’s played out in pretty intense ways. Obviously there have been racial attacks. Of course, there are also threats of sexualized violence. I think you can see what the patterns are. In their distorted view of the past and obsession with TV shows like “Game of Thrones,” I am also some kind of  non-Christian infidel.

How do you locate this experience within the larger political and social trends in this country and elsewhere?

It is an example of what has happened to those people who have been organizing online against white supremacy and the broader right wing for social justice and human dignity. It is an example of what happened to my female colleagues when they were discussing inclusiveness and gender in video games and digital culture. Yes, there are white supremacists. But there are also a lot of black and brown people who are fans of medieval fantasy and history who are fighting back and doing more than traditional academic experts to engage with politics and the public sphere on these issues.

Netflix’s “Easy” is simple and a little too uneven

Zazie Beetz and Dave Franco in "Easy" (Credit: Netflix)

A longstanding joke about Chicago’s weather also applies to Joe Swanberg’s Netflix series “Easy,” debuting its eight-episode second season on Friday: If you don’t like what you’re seeing, just wait for a few minutes. Thirty should do it.

Swanberg’s anthology approach to stories of relationships and romance in the Windy City cultivates a breezy unpredictably that works better in some chapters than others and is largely dependent on how much a viewer embraces the freewheeling nature of mumblecore. Improvised dialogue bridges each way station of each episode’s arc, and because of this, the greater point of each story in “Easy” can be elusive.

That’s fine for viewers who appreciate atmosphere over structure, since “Easy” operates on surfeit of the former. But each tale’s success also heavily depends on how much the viewer connects intimately with the characters presented in the series, a number of whose stories were introduced in the first season and pick up once again in season two.

And the truth is, some of these folks and what they do simply aren’t all that interesting.

“Easy” works best as a specific homage to a certain kind of person in Chicago, a large city built on a patchwork of neighborhoods informed by entrenched cultures and economic statuses. Most of the characters are upper middle class or at least artsy enough to be interesting to a Hollywood filmmaker who wants to pay tribute to a bustling urban mecca that isn’t New York.

Swanberg professed in recent interviews that he has a desire to show diversity in his films and in terms of ethnicity, he’s true to his word; the second season cast introduces Vogue sex and relationship columnist Karley Sciortino and up-and-coming comedian Odinaka Ezeokoli, along with Aubrey Plaza, to a mix that already includes Aya Cash, Michael Chernus, Marc Maron, Elizabeth Reaser, Zazie Beetz, Dave Franco and Jane Adams.

Also appearing this season, despite being under investigation for multiple sexual assaults, is Danny Masterson. Netflix may have felt obligated to toss “House of Cards” after the fall of Kevin Spacey, but I guess Masterson’s role in “Easy” is fleeting enough for viewers to, you know, avert our eyes until he goes away.

So yes, that’s a concern. Another – and admittedly, this may bug native Chicagoans more than most — is that “Easy” infers that the only sex and relationships worth exploring are those had by people of means or living in the right neighborhood. Swanberg goes to the South Side of Chicago for one of his episodes, the piece featuring Aubrey and Joe Lo Truglio. But the setting is Beverly, one of the wealthier neighborhoods on that side of town and a place, I suppose, where neighbors feel safe enough to have a block party with their model minority neighbors, i.e. those who can also afford fancy brick homes.

Again, you’d have to know the city to notice this. But even if you don’t, the smug, navel-gazing characters in “Easy” are enough of annoyance all on their own.

To Swanberg’s credit, he appears to have learned a few things from the missteps of season 1. For one, he leaned too heavily on the stories of a pair of brothers who decide to open an underground brewery in a garage. It’s fairly obvious that Matt (Evan Jonigkeit) and Jeff (Dave Franco) are stand-ins for the creator himself, since he gives their thoroughly uninteresting dynamic two episodes out of the first season’s eight.

Swanberg adds another chapter in this new round, but wisely trains more of the focus on their partners, Sherri (Cash) and Noelle (Beetz), to explore the wear and tear of family pressure and look at the bond created by commerce as opposed to the ones we’re born into.

And that’s all fine and dandy, especially if you like Cash and Beetz and can stomach Franco’s bursts of unreasonable defiance in the face of reality. Another potential pitfall of “Easy” is that a person’s enjoyment of a story directly correlates to the viewer’s affection for the actors featured in it. That can be a blessing or a downfall, since it takes the viewer out of the story at times . . . this was especially true in an episode featuring Maron and Michaela Watkins, who have terrific onscreen chemistry together and yet, especially in Maron’s case, seem to be playing slightly different versions of themselves as opposed to inhabiting another persona entirely.

On the other hand, when “Easy” rests a story’s fortune on the right characters, it can feel downright magical as is the way of the work’s ethereally intersecting and gently intertwined stories. Sciortino and Ezeokoli’s episode, for example, leaves its point of connection until the last scene, and while Ezeokoli is charming and funny, he isn’t given a whole lot of meaningful story to work with.

Sciortino, on the other hand, spends much of the episode in and out of an assortment of lingerie to delight various sex partners. “Easy” isn’t porn, but viewers accustomed to fast forwarding through the dialogue of such films are going to miss the comic’s performance. Even those who don’t may not quite absorb where he fits in this mix; it’s hard to compete with stockings, garters and spankings.

Her story, as well as the continuation of Chase (Kiersey Clemons) and Jo (Jacqueline Toboni)’s relationship evolution, don’t feel entirely genuine either. Sciortino spouts dialogue about sex-positive feminism while playing out a very male version of what that means, while Chase flirts with a new exhibitionist hobby that leads to tensions with Jo that’s not entirely effective as an exploration of queer relationships and body pride. Tip of the hat to Swanberg for leading “Easy” into such territory, but it still reveals the limitations most men face when it comes to portraying desire in a way that evenly acknowledges the perspectives of men and women, gay and straight.

At around 30 minutes per episode, “Easy” is digestible as a graze, if not a wholehearted binge. It may not have enough for everyone but, like one of the city’s famous and beloved street fairs, just stroll past what leaves you wanting. A simple enough proposal, don’t you think?

From Katrina to Harvey: The difference a dozen years makes

People evacuate a neighborhood inundated by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, in Houston, Texas. (Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel)

As the city of Houston slowly gets back to normal after category three Hurricane Harvey, for some of its citizens, the recovery has been a reminder of the kind of relentless devastation these storms can bring. For Janeen Coble of the northwest Houston area, the flooding and displacement of those affected hits particularly close to home.

Twelve years ago, Coble lived with her husband and two older daughters in a spacious home in Violet, Louisiana.

“We kept hearing that the hurricane — not so much from the news in New Orleans, but [from] a bunch of relatives that lived in Florida — who kept calling me saying, ‘This hurricane is going to be terrible! You all need to leave!’” said Coble. “I went and told [my husband], ‘We’ve got to pack, we’ve got to get out now.’”

Reluctantly, Coble’s husband and her family got in the car, packing no baggage since they assumed they “would be back in a few days.” Leaving their packed bags piled in the living room and their daughters’ brand new cars parked in the driveway, the family divided between Coble’s car and her husband’s welding truck and fled.

As night fell on the evening before the storm hit, water was already high enough to lap at the doors of their vehicles as they drove north without a destination. With family scattered from Texas to Georgia, and nothing but the clothes on their back, the family could not even cash a check for food.

“They’d say ‘Oh no, no way, you all are evacuees,’” said Coble. “They couldn’t tell if we really had money or not. They would not [cash] it!”

Sitting in a hotel in Mississippi, the family watched along with other evacuees the destruction that had fallen upon their home.

“Once they saw the devastation, they lost it,” said Coble. “I’m telling you, it was like they lost their minds, they all started screaming. I was just thinking it would have been better if we hadn’t even seen this.”

Now, as the people of Texas begin to rebuild, Coble compares her experiences from a decade ago to the victims of Harvey.

“I was in my house for around five days — I didn’t get to leave,” said Coble. “There was damage up on the roof and water started coming in. I thought it was just the two bedrooms, but then it started coming in at the front of the house. I worked all night running back and forth with towels trying to keep it all dry!”

But ultimately, Coble said, the two crises were completely different in caliber.

“Just being in that hotel . . . There were people [in Louisiana] just losing their minds after three or say days of not being able to eat,” said Coble. “It was like an animal was inside of them.”

She continued, “I find that this one wasn’t as much of a disaster. I mean, it was a disaster because a lot of people’s homes were damaged, but not one person that I know of had flooding over their roof. What I liked about here is that everyone from all over jumped in ready to help.”

Despite the controversy surrounding his trip, Coble felt President Trump’s post-Harvey visit and handling of the storm was on point, and thanked him for his aid.

“People from Louisiana came over, people from all over the United States are still bringing truckloads of food, and this and that,” said Coble. “Then the President came immediately and brought the FEMA people and got them all set up and engaged. . . . It’s running so much smoother today than it did back then.”

When it comes to advice for families who may be displaced, Coble’s offered this: “Don’t give up, don’t give up hope, and please apply for [aid]. I know it sounds discouraging. At least apply and see what happens.”