A New York Daily News article reported that the Obama administration has made plans to ease travel restrictions on the Communist state. Under the Bush administration, travel restrictions to Cuba were tightened successively, and the current administration only plans to return back to Clinton-era travel guidelines, which enabled religious, humanitarian, and academic groups to visit the country much more freely than current rules allow.

Although as yet it’s a political long-shot, the idea of completely lifting the embargo on Cuba is perfectly sensible on various fronts. For one, Americans really want to visit Cuba. According to an Orbitz poll conducted last year, 67% of those surveyed said they favor all Americans having permission to travel to Cuba, and 72% of respondents agreed that allowing free travel would positively impact the lives of the Cuban people.

The whole idea behind the embargo in the first place is to ostensibly punish the Castro regime such that it is forced to move to a more democratic system of governing. Interestingly enough, this Cold War era goal is not anywhere near to coming to fruition. If anything, the embargo has only further isolated Cuba from the outside world. How can a democracy proliferate when the free flow of information is being squelched?

Moreover, it isn’t simply information that Cubans are being denied through the embargo; it’s also food and much-needed medical supplies. General health in Cuba is poor; the rationing system leaves many malnourished, especially men since women and children are given first priority.

Even if we discount humanitarian goals as being too idealistic, lifting the embargo on Cuba would be in everyone’s best interests. Cuba is a resource-rich country, and by allowing free trade with our Caribbean neighbor, the United States stands to benefit substantially.

While the embargo may have made more sense decades ago, now it is simply incomprehensible. There is no denying that the embargo remains a sensitive topic, considering the Cuban-American vote in Florida is a key group to which politicians must often kowtow and appease. In any event, let’s stop fighting fire with fire. In order to be consistent with our country’s democratic, free-market ideals, it’s time that the Obama administration considers further easing sanctions. The recent announcement to ease travel restrictions is a heartening first step in the right direction.

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This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who writes on the topics of online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99@gmail.com.

Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for families who lost loved ones on 9-11. It was a great tragedy for our entire nation, but especially New York City. However, I think one of the most important things we can do as New Yorkers – and as Americans – is to clearly state that there is a difference between being a Muslim and being a terrorist. To forget that is to do exactly what the extremists want us to do, as it helps them gain credibility. Also, we can’t forget that Muslim-Americans were also killed on 9-11. What the terrorists were attacking wasn’t Jewish or Christian New Yorkers, but rather the values that New Yorkers of any creed hold dear: our commitment to pluralism and diversity. We can’t give that up.

Imam Rauf, the man behind the plan, so to speak, is Osama’s worst nightmare. The Imam is a moderate muslim and has been involved in the community for decades. He owns a bookstore in the neighborhood where the community center will be built. Rauf shows that you can be a devout muslim and be successfully integrated into a non-muslim, western nation. And breaking news: He’s worked with the FBI on counterterrorism efforts! Madeleine Albright looks up to him! He was welcomed into Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

He is the poster child extremists don’t want other muslims finding out about! The community center he’s building won’t be just for muslims: just like the JCC, it will be for people of all stripes, and help revitalize lower Manhattan.

Imam Rauf on the Cordoba House

And of course, those opposed to the Cordoba house will trot out all sorts of polls about how the majority of Americans doesn’t support building it. But really, that doesn’t matter. Just like I would’ve vote on whether to built a YMCA in Wichita, Kansas, neither should Americans who’ve likely never met a muslim before in their life be deciding whether a community center gets built in a city they’ve probably never visited. The only poll that matters is how Manhattan residents feel, and more Manhattan residents support than oppose the community center, not to mention that this community center will bring over 150 jobs to lower Manhattan at a time when unemployment is still high.

Maybe I’d be more open to hearing the other side if this wasn’t the first time in recent years when there’s been an uproar over a seemingly harmless muslim project. When I was a junior in high school, not too long ago, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a dual-language English/Arabic public school, was in the middle of such a controversy. It was labeled a madrassa and founding Principal Debbie Almontaser (another moderate muslim and interfaith activist) had her reputation ruined. The highlight of the controversy to me was when she was forced to step down shortly before the school opened, and was replaced by an orthodox Jewish woman who didn’t speak Arabic. That’s the background I’m coming from: it’s hard for me to believe that this is anything but plain old islamophobia.

As a New Yorker, there are some values I remember being taught before I learned the times tables. I remember the potluck lunches in the first grade in my very multicultural school, the different units for different ethnicities in the third, learning Spanish in the fourth and singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” – the black national anthem – for my fifth grade graduation. To me, it’s unfathomable to oppose the Cordoba house simply on the basis of it containing a mosque. Bring me some real reasons, some real links to evil, not cloaked in lies in fears. Then we’ll talk.

(And of course, I also completely support the building of Bar Van Gogh-Gogh for those muslims who like to bend over outside the mosque as well.)

photo by Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press

California’s Proposition 8 was overturned yesterday by US Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker on the basis of it violating the due process and equal protection clauses of the US Constitution. The opinion is a blast to read – a truly feminist piece of legal writing. Here is one of my favorite excerpts:

The marital bargain in California (along with other states) traditionally required that a woman’s legal and economic identity be subsumed by her husband’s upon marriage under the doctrine of coverture; this once-unquestioned aspect of marriage now is regarded as antithetical to the notion of marriage as a union of equals. FF 26-27, 32. As states moved to recognize the equality of the sexes, they eliminated laws and practices like coverture that had made gender a proxy for a spouse’s role within a marriage. FF 26-27, 32. Marriage was thus transformed from a male-dominated institution into an institution recognizing men and women as equals. Id. Yet, individuals retained the right to marry; that right did not become different simply because the institution of marriage became compatible with gender equality.

WHAT!?!? The meaning of marriage has changed over time? Women are no longer property? They aren’t even required to stay in the home? Radical.

All jokes aside though, it was a great ruling and a great opinion – along with a great record of the facts for when the decision is appealed, which it surely will be. Ironically, Judge Walker was appointed to the bench by Bush 41 (after a failed nomination by Reagan, blocked in part by Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy, who were concerned with Walker being anti-gay). I’m not one of those people advocating for Judge Walker to be appointed to the next available Supreme Court Seat – I’m not too familiar with his approach to judging, law and economics – but I do have another prediction about the Supreme Court. I think that when it comes down to it, the Court – the Chief Justice included – will be on the right side of history. After all, as Judge Walker’s clerks painstakingly laid out in the opinion, legal precedent is on our side. An explanation of legal terms after the jump.

Thanks to Erika Rickard HLS ’10 for this explanation of the different levels of scrutiny used by our court systems.

There are three levels of scrutiny that the courts apply to different types of cases:

• Strict Scrutiny – the highest level of scrutiny, which means that the burden is on the government to prove that they really need to be doing what they’re doing, consequences be damned.
  • The court only applies strict scrutiny in two situations:
    • 1) where the government is somehow constraining a fundamental right (like marriage, voting, or interstate travel), or
    • 2) where the government is discriminating against what they call a suspect class – a weird term for a group that has been systematically discriminated against in the past, and therefore any action that a government does that discriminates against them is automatically suspect. Under the federal constitution, the only two groups that have ever been considered a “suspect classification” are race and nationality.
  • The standard is technically like this: the government must prove that whatever they’re doing is NECESSARY to achieve a COMPELLING government interest. That’s a two-part test: the interest that the government is supporting must be a compelling one, and the action that they’re taking must be necessary to achieve that interest.
• Intermediate Scrutiny / Mid-level Scrutiny – a vague, ambiguous no-man’s land that isn’t as harsh on the government as strict scrutiny, but also isn’t as protective as rational basis review.
  • Intermediate scrutiny pretty much has been applied to gender discrimination, in situations like men trying to get into state university women’s nursing programs
  • The government in an intermediate scrutiny case must prove that whatever they’re doing is SUBSTANTIALLY related to an IMPORTANT government interest. See how ambiguous that is? The same two-part test, just a little watered down.
• Rational Basis – the most common level of scrutiny, the way that government actions are most often looked at.
  • To get a law overturned under rational basis review (which is what the judge applies throughout the case, just to be safe), the person who was discriminated against has to prove that the government’s actions are not RATIONALLY related to a LEGITIMATE government interest. The burden is on the plaintiff here, not the government, so it’s usually really hard to get a government action (law / policy) thrown out on this basis.

The first part of the opinion (p. 109, the “due process” part) is about marriage, which as been considered a fundamental right per the Constitution.

The second part (the longer, “equal protection” part) is the part that focuses on discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation, and whether the government interest is worth the discrimination that results.

Photo from the New York Times

Kagan was confirmed by a 63 to 37 Senate vote, with 1 Democrat voting against her and 5 Republicans and two Independents voting in favor. A full breakdown of the vote can be found here.

Congratulations, Elena!

http://www.thestate.com/2010/06/08/1323259/scs-demint-cruises-to-gop-senate.html

More on this as I find out more.  (And no, I don’t know why that’s the url either.)

Earlier this month, the Kansas Senate – Doctor Tiller’s home state – came just one vote short of overriding the Governor’s veto of a rabidly anti-abortion bill. And of course, everyone remembers the bitter war waged over the Stupak amendment amidst health care reform. It’s reasons like that why this November is especially key to protecting choice. Here are two things you can do to remember Doctor Tiller and continue to trust women:

First, send a letter of support to Dr. LeRoy Carhart. NARAL says that since Tiller’s murder, Carhard has become the next target of anti-choice extremists. They’ve set up a handy webpage with a form letter here.

Second, come campaign with the Harvard College Democrats this November. NARAL has made a number of endorsements for the November elections, including Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, a longtime friend of the Harvard Dems. Here’s a full list of the endorsed candidates. If you’re still looking for something to do this summer, these folks might be just the thing. Or at the very least, set aside a weekend to go up to New Hampshire with us in the fall.

Americans are encouraged to submit their ideas in 5 areas: American Prosperity, Fiscal Accountability, American Values, National Security, and “Open Mic.” (Although URLs reveal that National Security was originally called “Terrorism Abroad”, American Values was called “Life”, American Prosperity “Job Creation”, etc.) Lets see what Americans have to say.

My favorite, by far, was the American Values section. I didn’t even have to pick and choose which ones to post here. I wonder which party isn’t listening to Americans?

American Values

American Prosperity

Fiscal Accountability

National Security

Open Mic

Oh, wait, we’re not opposed to those.  (To debunk another popular misconception, we also don’t engage in weekly baby-eating rituals.  They’re once-monthly.)

Then why did she even bother writing the editorial?  Well, you see, in it she seems to be arguing – or perhaps just assuming – that such attributes are specific and inherent to men.

Now, men and women do have some natural distinctions.  Each of my cells have one Y-chromosome; all of your cells do not.  I have certain parts; you have certain other parts.  I am more likely to be attracted to people with your parts; you are more likely to be attracted to people with my parts.  And beyond that, I find it hard to believe that men and women do not carry some average genetic difference in disposition, albeit one that is generally amplified and in some ways twisted by culture and society.  But with both of these dispositions come strengths and weaknesses; it is by the cultivation of these strengths and the tempering of these weaknesses in all of us (a process that I should think might lead to the fading of such differences), not by the promotion of the differences themselves, that we should seek to improve our engendered world.

Which is essentially what Michael Kimmel, the Harvard Men Against Rape speaker and pro-feminist writer against whom Wagley writes most of her op-ed, has spent most of his academic career arguing: that, while women have been casting aside the weaknesses traditionally assigned to them by society, men should be re-examining their own stereotypes and expectations, as Kimmel repeatedly summarizes in the following “rules” of masculinity compiled by Robert Brannon:

(1) “No Sissy Stuff’ – masculinity is based on the relentless repudiation of the feminine. Masculinity is never being a sissy.

(2) “Be a Big Wheel” – we measure masculinity by the size of your paycheck. Wealth, power, status are all markers of masculinity. As a U.S. bumper sticker put it: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

(3) “Be a Sturdy Oak” – what makes a man a man is that he is reliable in a crisis. And what makes him reliable in a crisis is that he resembles an inanimate object. A rock, a pillar, a tree,

(4) “Give ‘em Hell” – also exude an aura of daring and aggression. Take risks; live life on the edge. Go for it.

Number 1, while it rejects stereotypically feminine weaknesses such as fear and emotional fragility, at the same time discards caution and empathy.  (2) promotes success itself, but its promotion as a masculine ideal can conspire to keep women away from work and men away from home.  While (3) seeks reliability, it can just as often yield stubbornness and emotional unavailability.  And (4) is perhaps the most dangerous: the bravery it represents will often lead to violence, hostility, and Darwin Awards.

Not only does this idea of a man-code often take masculinity to extremes that endanger men themselves, but it also excludes women from being able (or, more aptly, culturally permitted) to practice the positive ideals it may contain.  And that’s what Kimmel is combating when, in Wagley’s editorial, he contends that “there are no good distinctively manly qualities”: not that men cannot or should not be noble or chivalrous, but that nobility and chivalry are not distinctly and exclusively masculine; that they are traits that women can, should, and do seek and possess.

Which is one of the foremost reasons that male-only organizations should yet offend us: their exclusively masculine nature is one of the final vestiges of the idea that there are some activities in which men can and will participate but women cannot or should not.  However, in all honesty, a few such activities do exist, and therein lies a perhaps more sinister problem with all-male social clubs.  For the one such activity in which they probably participate the most, the one such activity for which they are perhaps best known, is the pursuit of heterosexual sex, which not only seems to go directly against Wagley’s principles as the president of TLR, but which can produce a certain sense of entitlement, a feeling that one has the right to have sex, the denial of which, as Kimmel describes about two-thirds of the way through this speech to the European Parliament, is precisely what leads to rape.

While there may be more noble ways to halt or, better yet, prevent this chain of attitudes that will occasionally lead from masculine exclusivity to rape, a simple request for consent is, rather than as Wagley asserts “a miserable substitute for nobility, a legalistic detour around an incredibly personal situation,” a way to ask, Am I really entitled to this?  Should I really be seeking this?  Is this right? – and if her answer is no, then your answer to those questions will be much more obvious than it would were they never asked.  Yet Wagley seems to believe that discussions of consent “lower the bar” from nobility, from an ideal where men will not seek sexual intercourse with a woman with whom they are not in a committed relationship.  But setting the “bar” there may be dangerous.  It seems to me that she is living in a fantasy world where everyone agrees with her, where everyone is capable of agreeing with her that an extended relationship should always precede sexual encounters.  I’m not saying she’s necessarily wrong; nor is Kimmel.  I’m merely saying that we must face the fact that a great number of people of our age do, always have, and probably always will seek more immediate sexual gratification; it is only once we admit that that we can recognize the importance of reminding ourselves that it is not a right.  And only with that recognition can chivalry be reborn.

But in order for men to find chivalry again, we must reject the notion of pure manliness, of the kind that our own Professor Harvey C. Mansfield promotes in his book Manliness.  I haven’t read that book, nor have I done significant research on it; I can only relate this New York Times review of it.  I’ll make the error that the casual reader of Wagley’s article makes with regard to Kimmel’s speech and suppose that the author of this review (who, after all, is a New York Times writer) understands the work he’s writing about: an entirely  outdated viewpoint in which men are dominant and masculinity is fully and entirely separate from femininity.  From this perspective arises the “confidence in the face of risk” that Wagley cites, a confidence that can give rise to stubbornness, incredibly dumb acts of thrill-seeking, and a determination to have one’s way with, subvert, take advantage of another person.  Chivalry and honor only arise from that confidence when mixed with the “patience, passivity, and committed endurance” that Wagley describes as inherently female characteristics.  Men do not need to embrace pure masculinity and eschew femininity in order to achieve a chivalrous state; nor can they.  At the same time, by the same mixture of traditionally masculine and feminine traits, women can and do become chivalrous themselves.

Rachel Wagley concludes by saying, “To Harvard men: You are worthy of honor and respect.”  To which I respond, to Harvard men and women alike: let’s earn it.

While the three are accused of kidnapping and attempting to murder openly gay teenager Cheyenne Williams, the case is not being investigated as a hate crime. The police say that they have evidence that points to the incidence being a prank, which occurred on April 16 on the national Day of Silence, an event meant to raise awareness about bullying on the basis of sexual orientation. Video taken on a cell phone might clear up to police the fact that “friends” pushing another friend off a cliff isn’t exactly good ‘ol harmless fun.

This comes after a fight at an LGBT organization at Miami University on the 17th. Junior Ben Collins says that the fight broke out after he went to the bathroom and heard others who said “Faggots do not belong in society.” Oxford, Ohio police say that it was Collins who started the fight, and that the assault was not a hate crime.

Even though the FBI includes sexual orientation as a motivator of hate crimes, only 24 states have hate crime laws that protect sexual orientation. It’s more than a little bit appalling that a country in which everyone is supposed to have the same rights, that people are allowed to terrorize a group in society for such a personal issue. It still baffles me that sexual choices between consenting people are subject to such public scrutiny and threats. Until that changes, we should at least be protecting the people who are in harm’s way for doing nothing wrong.

Sources:

Miami Student: ‘I’m A Hate Crime Victim’