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1 -1AC – Title IX
2 -Framework
3 -The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that presents the best policy option – key to out of round advocacy skills.
4 -Nixon 2K (Themba-Nixon, Makani. Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice, “Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing” Colorlines 3.2, 2000) WW JA 1/15/16
5 -“This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.
6 -
7 -The standard is combatting structural violence – epistemologically precedes normative ethics.
8 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
9 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
10 -
11 -Prefer consequence-based frameworks:
12 -1 Intent and means-based frameworks reflect privilege and decenter oppressed voices
13 -Utt ’13. Jamie Utt is a writer and a diversity and inclusion consultant and sexual violence prevention educator, “Intent vs. Impact: Why Your Intentions Don’t Really Matter,” July 30, 2013
14 -Imagine for a moment that you’re standing with your friends in a park, enjoying a nice summer day. You don’t know me, but I walk right up to you holding a Frisbee. I wind up – and throw the disc right into your face. Understandably, you are indignant. Through a bloody nose, you use a few choice words to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing. And my response? “Oh, I didn’t mean to hit you! That was never my intent! I was simply trying to throw the Frisbee to my friend over there!” Visibly upset, you demand an apology. But I refuse. Or worse, I offer an apology that sounds like “I’m sorry your face got in the way of my Frisbee! I never intended to hit you.” Sound absurd? Sound infuriating enough to give me a well-deserved Frisbee upside the head? Yeah. So why is this same thing happening all of the time when it comes to the intersection of our identities and oppressions or privileges? Intent v. Impact From Paula Deen to Alec Baldwin to your annoying, bigoted uncle or friend, we hear it over and over again: “I never meant any harm…” “It was never my intent…” “I am not a racist…” “I am not a homophobe…” “I’m not a sexist…” I cannot tell you how often I’ve seen people attempt to deflect criticism about their oppressive language or actions by making the conversation about their intent. At what point does the “intent” conversation stop mattering so that we can step back and look at impact? After all, in the end, what does the intent of our action really matter if our actions have the impact of furthering the marginalization or oppression of those around us? In some ways, this is a simple lesson of relationships. If I say something that hurts my partner, it doesn’t much matter whether I intended the statement to mean something else – because my partner is hurting. I need to listen to how my language hurt my partner. I need to apologize. And then I need to reflect and empathize to the best of my ability so I don’t do it again. But when we’re dealing with the ways in which our identities intersect with those around us – and, in turn, the ways our privileges and our experiences of marginalization and oppression intersect – this lesson becomes something much larger and more profound. This becomes a lesson of justice. What we need to realize is that when it comes to people’s lives and identities, the impact of our actions can be profound and wide-reaching. And that’s far more important than the question of our intent. We need to ask ourselves what might be or might have been the impact of our actions or words. And we need to step back and listen when we are being told that the impact of our actions is out of step with our intents or our perceptions of self. Identity Privilege and Intent For people of identity privilege, this is where listening becomes vitally important, for our privilege can often shield us from understanding the impact of our actions. After all, as a person of privilege, I can never fully understand the ways in which oppressive acts or language impact those around me. What I surely can do is listen with every intent to understand, and I can work to change my behavior. Because what we need to understand is that making the conversation about intent is inherently a privileged action. The reason? It ensures that you and your identity (and intent) stay at the center of any conversation and action while the impact of your action or words on those around you is marginalized. So, if someone ever tells you to “check your privilege,” what they may very well mean is: “Stop centering your experience and identity in the conversation by making this about the intent of your actions instead of their impact.” That is: Not everything is about you. “What They Did” vs. “What They Are” The incredible Ill Doctrine puts it well when he explains the difference between the “What They Did” conversation and the “What They Are” conversation, which you can watch here. In essence, the “intent” conversation is one about “what they are.” Because if someone intended their action to be hurtful and racist/sexist/transphobic/pickyourpoison, then they must inherently be racist/sexist/transphobic/pickyourpoison. On the other hand, the “impact” conversation is one about “what they did.” For you, it takes the person who said or did the hurtful thing out of the center and places the person who was hurt in the center. It ensures that the conversation is about how “what they did” hurts other people and further marginalizes or oppresses people. And it’s important for people to understand the difference. Just because you did something sexist doesn’t mean that you are sexist. Just because you said something racist doesn’t mean that you are racist. When your actions are called into question, it’s important to recognize that that’s all that is being called into question – your actions, not your overall character. Listen. Reflect. Apologize. Do Better. It doesn’t matter whether we, deep down, believe ourselves to be -ist or whether we intended our actions to be hurtful or _-ist. It. Doesn’t. Matter. If the impact of our actions is the furthering of oppression, then that’s all that matters. So we need to listen, reflect, apologize, and work to do better in the future. What does that look like? Well, to start, we can actually apologize. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of hearing the ““I am sorry your face got in the way of my Frisbee! I never intended to hit you” apologies. Whether it’s Paula Deen weeping on TV or Alec Baldwin asking us to simply trust that he’s not a “homophobe,” those are not apologies. That’s why I was incredibly inspired and relieved to see a major organization do it well when Kickstarter apologized and took full responsibility for their role in funding a creepy, rapey seduction guide. They apologized earnestly and accepted the role they played in something really terrible. hey pledged to never allow projects like this one to be funded in the future. And then they donated $25,000 to RAINN. At the interpersonal level, we can take a cue from Kickstarter. When we are told that the impact of our action, inaction, or words is hurtful and furthers oppression, we can start by apologizing without any caveats. From there, we can spend the time to reflect in hopes of gaining at least some understanding (however marginal) of the harmful impact. And we can do our best to move forward by acting more accountably.
15 -
16 -2 Experience is epistemic – it is how we empirically ground our existence. Pain is universally bad and pleasure is universally good.
17 -Nagel 86 (Thomas “The View From Nowhere”, 1986)
18 -I shall defend the unsurprising claim that sensory pleasure is good and pain bad, no matter who’s they are. The point of the exercise is to see how the pressures of objectification operate in a simple case. Physical pleasure and pain do not usually depend on activities or desires which themselves raise questions of justification and value. They are just is a sensory experiences in relation to which we are fairly passive, but toward which we feel involuntary desire or aversion. Almost everyone takes the avoidance of his own pain and the promotion of his own pleasure as subjective reasons for action in a fairly simple way; they are not back up by any further reasons. On the other hand if someone pursues pain or avoids pleasure, either it as a means to some end or it is backed up by dark reasons like guilt or sexual masochism. What sort of general value, if any, ought to be assigned to pleasure and pain when we consider these facts from an objective standpoint? What kind of judgment can we reasonably make about these things when we view them in abstraction from who we are? We can begin by asking why there is no plausibility in the zero position, that pleasure and pain have no value of any kind that can be objectively recognized. That would mean that I have no reason to take aspirin for a severe headache, however I may in fact be motivated; and that looking at it from outside, you couldn't even say that someone had a reason not to put his hand on a hot stove, just because of the pain… Without some positive reason to think there is nothing in itself good or bad about having an experience you intensely like or dislike, we can't seriously regard the common impression to the contrary as a collective illusion. Such things are at least good or bad for us, if anything is. What seems to be going on here is that we cannot from an objective standpoint withhold a certain kind of endorsement of the most direct and immediate subjective value judgments we make concerning the contents of our own consciousness. We regard ourselves as too close to those things to be mistaken in our immediate, nonideological evaluative impressions. No objective view we can attain could possibly overrule our subjective authority in such cases. There can be no reason to reject the appearances here.
19 -
20 -3 Intentions and states of being are non-falsifiable and can only be informed by hypothetical consequences
21 -
22 -4 Discussions of free speech and the constitution mandate a consequentialist approach
23 -Goldberg 15 (Erica Goldberg is a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law for the Harvard Law School and Assistant Professor for the Ohio Northern Law School. “FREE SPEECH CONSEQUENTIALISM,” Columbia Law Review Vol. 116:687. August 17, 2015. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2645869) WW JA 1/5/16
24 -Even scholars who favor what they deem nonconsequentialist theories of free speech, and who believe, for example, that free speech has inherent value and is a right of autonomous moral agents,16 will in some circumstances balance these values against the harms speech causes. This balancing would occur for so-called nonconsequentialists either in defining what constitutes speech, in determining which categories of speech are protected, or in evaluating whether speech that is protected can nonetheless be prohibited because its harms greatly outweigh its virtues.17 Some scholars would argue that free speech rights are balanced not against harms but against other rights, such as the right to privacy, property, or reputation. However, unless one of the rights at issue is defined absolutely, resolving this conflict would also require consideration of the harms at issue and the value of the speech. Thus, the question becomes not whether free speech consequentialism is appropriate, but how harms caused by speech should be accounted for in First Amendment jurisprudence. The allure of free speech consequentialism is also reflected in the courts. Describing the Supreme Court’s approach to content-based restrictions on speech is superficially simple. Laws that suppress speech on the basis of content are subject to the strictest constitutional scrutiny, which is often outcome determinative.18 Strict scrutiny is a demanding standard.19 But in operation, the doctrine is much more complex—it incorporates considerations of harm in multiple ways. In a variety of cases, different groups of concurring and dissenting Justices have shown willingness to relax the strict scrutiny applied to content-based restrictions in order to account for the harm from depictions of animal cruelty,20 violent video games,21 and lies about military honors.22 The Supreme Court is not even clear on at what point in its First Amendment analysis, or at what level of abstraction, this balancing should be performed, if at all, when free speech doctrine intersects with both criminal and tort law.23
25 -
26 -Plan
27 -Plan Text: Public colleges and universities in the United States should derestrict constitutionally protected speech by amending Title IX policies to redefine sexual harassment.
28 -AAUP 16. (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) WW JA 1/5/16
29 -The 2014 AAUP report proposes a policy for colleges and universities desiring a separate statement of policy on sexual harassment. The proposal distinguishes conduct or speech defined as sexual harassment from protected speech: It is the policy of this institution that no member of the academic community may sexually harass another. Sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when: 1. such advances or requests are made under circumstances implying that one’s response might affect educational or personnel decisions that are subject to the influence of the person making the proposal; or 2. such speech or conduct is directed against another and is either abusive or severely humiliating, or persists despite the objection of the person targeted by the speech or conduct; or 3. such speech or conduct is reasonably regarded as offensive and substantially impairs the academic or work opportunity of students, colleagues, or co-workers. If it takes place in the teaching context, it must also be persistent, pervasive, and not germane to the subject matter. The academic setting is distinct from the workplace in that wide latitude is required for professional judgment in determining the appropriate content and presentation of academic material.91
30 -They continue:
31 -AAUP statements and reports should be amended, as needed, to further clarify the distinctions between sexual assault and harassment and between speech and conduct, and to strengthen academic freedom protections. The 2012 statement on Campus Sexual Assault uses the term “sexual violence…as a blanket term for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape, stalking, domestic violence, and other forms of sexual misconduct.” Using the term “sexual violence” so broadly does not adequately distinguish sexual harassment – particularly where it involves only speech – from other types of sexual misconduct. The 2014 report on Sexual Harassment proposes a policy that distinguishes protected speech from conduct or speech constituting sexual harassment. Further, the policy includes protection of conduct in the teaching context. This could include expressive conduct such as gestures, dance, or other types of actions. To further clarify the protection of speech and expressive conduct, the AAUP proposed policy could be amended to include specific references to academic freedom. The proposed policy could also be amended to clarify that teaching, research, and extramural speech protected by academic freedom are excluded from definitions of sexual harassment.
32 -
33 -The Advantage is Sexual Assault
34 -Status quo sexual harassment laws fail – they’re driven by education consumerism– Title IX prioritizes minimizing administrative liability rather than effectively challenging assault.
35 -Bolotnikova 16 (Marina N. Bolotnikova, Marina Bolotnikova is a recent graduate of Harvard College and an editorial writer for The Toledo Blade and a writer for Harvard Magazine and Harvard Crimson. "Title IX and the Critique of the Neoliberal University", Harvard Magazine, 4-5-2016. http://harvardmagazine.com/2016/04/title-ix-and-the-critique-of-the-neoliberal-university)//DM Accessed 1-5-2017
36 -The AAUP touches on a broader theme on the edges of contemporary discourse about higher education: the idea of the neoliberal university, which links the ideology of neoliberalism—free markets, privatization, competition—to the policies of modern universities. “The merits of Title IX as a principal instrument in the fight to end sex discrimination on campus must be evaluated in light of the increasing ‘corporatization of the university,’” the report continues. The shift “promotes a commercial model of universities, in which student satisfaction as ‘education consumers’ is paramount.” Such a model encourages university administrators to set policies unilaterally in response to market forces, undermining the faculty’s role in shared governance. Universities’ sexual-assault policies, in this model, are driven by the demands of education consumers (in this case, student activists) rather than by their efficacy in reducing sexual assault or attention to justice. The threat of losing federal funding for noncompliance with Title IX, too, factors into this calculus. In fact, the report argues, the efficacy of administrative responses like those embraced by Harvard is unproven. Citing the example of Harvard’s “single-purpose” Title IX office, it argues that universities’ responses to sexual assault prioritize complying with the letter of Title IX law and minimizing liability, rather than challenging the climate that contributes to sexual assault in a meaningful way. Royall professor of law Janet Halley, a feminist legal scholar who has been sharply critical of Harvard’s sexual-assault procedures, said universities’ systems of mandatory reporting, which require administrators and staff to report incidents of sexual harassment that are shared with them by students, undermine the interests of victims. “The appointment of us all as mandatory reporters is about liability,” she said. “They’re trying to routinize their exposure to liability, and that’s at the expense of the autonomy of victims—showing who’s in charge and whose interests are being served.” (HLS faculty voted to break from Harvard’s central sexual assault policy last year.) This critique of the neoliberal university puts the AAUP in strange company: with both social conservatives who oppose what they view as illiberal sexual-assault policies, and social-justice activists who invoke critiques of corporatization as they advocate those very policies. The neoliberal university model can also be used to suggest, for example, that universities are not interested in disciplining sexual assailants—because doing so would increase reported sexual-assault incidents, damaging an institution’s market cachet. The same analysis has been applied to demands, primarily from student activists, that universities change what’s taught in history, literature, and philosophy curricula to reflect the diversity of their students. Such calls have gained currency particularly during the current academic year: Yale announced a new center for the study of race and ethnicity, for example, following demands from protesters—drawing criticism that such programs are motivated by consumer demand rather than academic merit. Activists at HLS last semester began advocating for a program in critical race theory (a demand that so far has not been answered). Interpreting the neoliberal critique depends on how one might conceive of the role of faculty in governing their universities—and more broadly on how much influence the public should have over policies of universities, public and private. Challenging administrative control and the influence of market forces undoubtedly is in the interest of the AAUP, a strong advocate of faculty governance. But colleges increasingly serve a larger and more diverse share of Americans—one that still doesn’t resemble university professors, and whose needs may not always align with those of faculty. An obvious response to the narrative critiquing the corporatizing university might then suggest that it’s invoked to protect the interests of the faculty over those of students and other university affiliates. All this has made the question of student influence over their universities, and the proper role of the faculty, an open debate. In their recent book Locus of Authority, Princeton president emeritus William Bowen and Hamilton College president emeritus Eugene Tobin argue that the model of faculty governance isn’t suited to dealing with the challenges—legal, technological, economic—that universities face today. “We must ask,” they write, “whether it is reasonable to expect a century-old structure of faculty governance to enable colleges and universities of all kinds to respond to new demands for more cost-effective student learning.” Choosing her words carefully, Halley agreed that the influence of market forces on universities’ priorities has been worrying. “The AAUP report rightly notices the trend toward seeing students as consumers of educational services,” she said. “Title IX is just one example, where colleges and universities all over the country have very expensive bureaucracies to handle these cases in an isolated, bureaucratic way, cut off from every other value of the institution—cut off from academic freedom and freedom of speech concerns.”
37 -
38 -Scenario 1 – Rape Law
39 -Title IX dissuades teachers from teaching rape law.
40 -Fisher 16 (Anthony L. Fisher, Dec 13, 2016, “Opposition to “offensive” speech on campuses will ultimately burn dissidents”, http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/12/13/13931524/free-speech-pen-america-campus-censorship)
41 -PEN America, the literary and human rights association that lists as one of its core principles a commitment to "protect open expression in the United States and worldwide," set out to explore the state of free speech on the nation’s campuses — re-examining several high-profile incidents and controversies. While not comprehensive, the report, published this fall, is impressively thorough, treating much of its content as teachable case studies, rather than a set of self-affirming anecdotes. Some press coverage, however, suggested that the PEN America report — titled “And Campus For All: Diversity, Inclusion, and Freedom of Speech at U.S. Universities" — had exonerated campuses from the charge that they insufficiently protect free speech, and that it sided with students who think "cries of ‘free speech’ are too often used as a cudgel against them,” as the New York Times put it. The report itself contributes in a small way to this confused take, largely due to a single line in its conclusion which (improbably) asserts that there is no “pervasive ‘crisis’ for free speech on campus.” But that same report exhaustively details dozens of cases where certain speech was inappropriately muted on campus. More examples: Skidmore College’s Bias Response Group determined that the posting of Donald Trump's official campaign motto "Make America Great Again" in classrooms where women and people of color worked constituted "racialized, targeted attacks." A tenured associate professor at Louisiana State University, Teresa Buchanan, was dismissed for the offenses of using off-color language (including "fuck no”) in class, and off campus (where she said “pussy” in a conversation with another teacher). Like the University of Colorado’s Adler, Buchanan was deemed to have created a "hostile learning environment." The authors write of the "chilling effect" such administrative actions have on professors who fear reprisals for unintentional offense, and as a result, will avoid certain subjects, including rape law and even some aspects of Greek mythology, out of an abundance of caution.
42 -
43 -Lack of rape law education hurts survivors of sexual assault – they won’t win court cases
44 -Soave 14 (Robby Soave, Dec. 16, 2014, “Profs Have Stopped Teaching Rape Law Now That Everything 'Triggers' Students”, http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/16/profs-have-stopped-teaching-rape-law-now)
45 -Students seem more anxious about classroom discussion, and about approaching the law of sexual violence in particular, than they have ever been in my eight years as a law professor. Student organizations representing women’s interests now routinely advise students that they should not feel pressured to attend or participate in class sessions that focus on the law of sexual violence, and which might therefore be traumatic. These organizations also ask criminal-law teachers to warn their classes that the rape-law unit might “trigger” traumatic memories. Individual students often ask teachers not to include the law of rape on exams for fear that the material would cause them to perform less well. One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress. Suk—who is one of the signatories on this statement of opposition to Harvard's illiberal sexual assault policy—goes on to note that the very real, terrible consequence of not teaching rape law will be the proliferation of lawyers ill-equipped to deal with such matters. Victims Survivors of sexual assault deserve competent legal representation; the legal system needs prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges who have vigorously studied the nuances of rape adjudication. Social progress on all these fronts will be rolled back if law professors stop educating students about rape. That would be a travesty of justice.
46 -
47 -Scenario 2 – Student Journalism
48 -
49 -Broad definitions of Title IX have a chilling effect on student journalists who release information regarding sexual assault because college administrators police free speech to avoid funding losses.
50 -Dewulf 10-7-16 (Kaitlin Dewulf, Dewulf is double-majoring in Political science and Journalism and Mass Communication on the pre-law track. "An unintended consequence of Title IX", Student Press Law Center, 10-7-2016, page numbers here, http://www.splc.org/article/2016/10/an-unintended-consequence-of-title-ix)//DM Accessed 1-16-2017
51 -The intent of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was pure: end sex discrimination in academia. But an unintended and unexpected outcome of broad interpretation of the law may be a chilling effect on student press.
52 -Passed more than 40 years ago, Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — which can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, battery and coercion — in education programs and activities. All public and private schools receiving any federal funding must comply with Title IX. Before Title IX, women faced discrimination in academics, admissions, athletics and hiring. Though the effects of Title IX have increased gender equality in higher education, an unforeseen consequence of the law, as it is currently being interpreted, may be the restriction of college media. In an effort to rid college campuses of sex discrimination in compliance with Title IX — and avoid the potential loss of funding that comes with noncompliance — some college administrators have panicked, and have taken the law too far, some First Amendment advocates say. Just last year, the Daily Bull, a student comedy publication at Michigan Technological University, was slapped with disciplinary measures after satirizing issues of sexual harassment and assault. The publication’s editor, Rico Bastian, wrote an article, “Sexually Harassed Man Pretty Okay with Situation,” that describes a male student receiving “unwelcomed sexual contact from members of the opposite sex, all of which he later looked back on with feelings of complacency.” The satirical article — published alongside a satirical list of “Signs that she wants the D,” including reasons like she “only screams a little” — was an attempt to comically address how many people don’t take male sexual assault seriously, managing editor Mike Jarasz told the Student Press Law Center. Jarasz also said it may be “considered more acceptable” for an attractive person to sexually harass someone, as the article ends with the male student saying he felt violated after receiving a sexual look from a “kinda ugly” woman. Still, MTU Vice President for Student Affairs Les Cook did not find the article humorous. Cook sent out a campus-wide email denouncing the article for “advocating criminal activity on campus.” The university’s office of academic and community conduct placed the Daily Bull on probation for two years — which meant if the publication put out another problematic article, it could be removed as a student publication altogether — and issued staffers to take a cultural sensitivity course. The Daily Bull’s adviser stepped down, and the publication issued a retraction and apology. And although student governments are legally not permitted to withdraw funding in retaliation for content, student legislators at MTU voted to freeze the Daily Bull’s funding until its staffers attended a Title IX training course. The staff underwent a three-hour training, covering both Title IX and cultural competency, but “didn’t really learn much,” Bastian said. Cook also told the Daily Mining Gazette that the university was legally required by Title IX statutes to act in cases of sexual discrimination or harassment. “(The Constitution) doesn’t supersede Title IX,” he said. “Title IX is a federal compliance policy. Those policies supersede anything else.” That interpretation of the Constitution, however, is inherently wrong, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Let’s be clear about one thing: The Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment, is ‘the supreme Law of the Land,’ and does in fact supersede any federal regulation that violates it,” FIRE said in a statement following the discipline. Mark Wilcox, a spokesman for MTU, said conflicting regulatory mandates regarding Title IX affect the university’s compliance efforts. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has repeatedly blamed censor-happy administrators on the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights — the department that enforces federal civil rights laws — which he said has significantly confused administrators and students on Title IX compliance. “For the overwhelming majority of my career what I’ve been fighting is administration overreach,” Lukianoff said in an interview with Reason.com. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERREACH In April, several free speech, academic freedom and education groups argued that interpreting Title IX to include speech that some students find offensive could not only threaten students’ speech rights, but also undermine their education and efforts to promote equality on campus in a letter to OCR. The letter — authored by the SPLC, FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Association of University Professors — argues that the office’s definition of harassment, set forth in “Dear Colleague” guidance letters to universities, poses profound threats to free expression. While the letter was written in response to a situation at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, where members of a campus group called Feminists United filed several complaints alleging that online harassment of female students over social media violates Title IX, it urged the department to provide more guidance in general. “We take the allegations of discrimination at UMW very seriously, and we urge OCR to adopt an approach that will target unlawful conduct without casting a net so wide that it scoops up innocent students and constitutionally protected speech,” the letter read. NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin said that since people who post on Yik Yak — the social-networking app targeted at Mary Washington — are spreading news and opinion, much like student journalists, any guidance related to online communication apps issued by OCR could ultimately affect student journalists. “Student speech and peer-to-peer activity is of much interest to OCR,” Bertin said. “They are plainly prepared to issue citations or to start investigations if they hear things that they don’t think universities are responding to appropriately.” She said if one student ”who is really pissed off about a gender-based article published in the student newspaper” files a complaint, the department could begin an investigation and “set the stage” against student journalists. It could only be a matter of time, Bertin said, before Title IX requires administrators to regulate college media, and some officials are already practicing this form of censorship. She said university administrators are highly risk-averse, so if the choice is between being the object of a Title IX investigation or disciplining a student newspaper, she doesn’t think there is any question of which option administrators will choose. “There is a very well-founded concern that college administrators are overreaching into student media,” Bertin said. “They are acting preemptively, and are very aggressively policing speech with sexual content to avoid being on OCR’s hit list.” The OCR maintains that its efforts to combat sexual harassment and discrimination in schools is met with equal respect for the First Amendment. “OCR has made it clear that the laws and regulations it enforces protect students from prohibited discrimination and are not intended to restrict the exercise of any expressive activities or speech protected under the U.S. Constitution,” an OCR spokesperson said in an email. “When schools work to prevent and redress discrimination, they must respect the free speech rights of students, faculty, and other speakers.” CONFLICTING GUIDANCE Under Title IX, no person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. While short, the statute has been given a broad scope through U.S. Supreme Court decisions and DOE guidance to cover sexual harassment and sexual violence. Though schools must respond to and remedy all sexual harassment, they can only impose discipline for harassment if it creates a “hostile environment” — when it is so “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit” — and failure to do so puts schools at risk of losing federal funding. Since its implementation, vital definitions for compliance with Title IX have expanded drastically, despite rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that have drawn distinctions between constitutionally protected offensive speech versus unlawful harassment. Though sexual harassment is not mentioned in the Title IX legislation itself, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1992 court case Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools that monetary damages could be awarded to individual victims of sexual harassment under Title IX. In separate cases in 1998 and 1999, the Supreme Court made clear that Title IX requires schools to take action to prevent and stop the harassment of students by faculty and staff, as well as other students. The decisions in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education and Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District established liability of the school, which occurs when the school knows about on- campus harassment that is creating a hostile environment and responds with “deliberate indifference.” But some First Amendment experts say this narrow definition has been absent from guidance given to college administrators through recent pronouncements by OCR. For example, a “Dear Colleague” letter by the department from 2010 defined “sexual harassment prohibited by Title IX” to extend to “making sexual comments, jokes or gestures; writing graffiti or displaying or distributing sexually explicit draws, pictures, or written materials; calling students sexually charged names; spreading sexual rumors; rating students on sexual activity or performance; or circulating, showing, or creating e-mails or Websites of a sexual nature.” Directed by this broad definition, rather than the one given in Davis, what is considered a Title IX violation can be unclear — which could lead college administrators to unnecessarily restrict what student journalists publish, experts said. AAUP recently published a report concluding that OCR’s broadened description of sexual harassment and heightened scrutiny of speech that includes sexual references of any kind has resulted in “a frenzy of cases in which administrators’ apparent fears of being targeted by OCR have overridden faculty academic freedom and student free speech rights.” In one recent episode, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks newspaper was the subject of a year-long university investigation — ultimately resulting in no punitive action — after a university employee filed a sexual harassment complaint after being offended by a joke about genitalia in an April Fool’s Day humor edition. College Media Association President Kelley Callaway said while Title IX once was used to ensure women had the same opportunities as men, she has seen its scope expand to include “almost anything that may offend someone.” “I think we’re living in a world where if anything could possibly offend, there is this idea to eliminate it,” Callaway said. “That is surely not the best environment for student journalists.” She said the vagueness of harassment definitions in “Dear Colleague” letters creates a lack of understanding that pushes college administrators to err on the side of caution when evaluating what is punishable under Title IX. “The fear that “Dear Colleague” letters put colleges under can cause it to be used in ways that could stifle various forms of free expression,” Callaway said. But Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, said OCR is not to blame for the confusion among college administrators about how and when to enforce Title IX. Though the OCR could be more clear on its distinction between sexual harassment and hostile environment, he said, schools still have to remedy all harassment, whether they can impose discipline or not. Sokolow said some college administrators misinterpret OCR guidance, or misapply it as the result of malfeasance, but the lack of clarity “is not the culprit.” He said coherence is available for administrators willing to seek it out. If colleges or universities are violating anyone’s free speech rights, Sokolow said that’s “on them.” He said it is an administrator’s job to know when something is in violation of Title IX, and whether the school should impose discipline. “If an administrator doesn’t know, he or she isn’t doing their job,” Sokolow said. Still, Callaway said this confusion could cause student journalists to self-censor in an effort to avoid being disciplined through Title IX by administrators. “I think student journalists have a responsibility to serve their community, and if they are avoiding reporting on certain issues because of potential Title IX violations, they are not serving their community,” Callaway said. “To not talk about sexual assault on campus, that isn’t serving anyone.” But at Central Michigan University,that is exactly what student journalists are being told. Sydney Smith, managing editor of Central Michigan Life, said while attempting to publish the locations where sexual assault has occurred on campus, she was blocked several times by administrators and campus police. Smith said she thought it was vital to the safety of students on campus to know where sexual assault was most likely to occur, but was unable to obtain this information. She said she has attempted for months get this information through the Clery Act — which requires all colleges receiving federal funding to keep and disclose information about crime on campus and its efforts to improve it — but was unsuccessful. Smith tried several times to utilize the Freedom of Information Act — which allows the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased government documents — but administrators denied her requests. “Each time my requests were denied for the exact same reasons: invasion of privacy for those named in the report — even though I asked that the names be redacted — in violation of Title IX,” she said. “CMU administrators said that even though I wanted no names, someone could still ascertain and connect the dots to the person through the locations in the report.” She said the university police told her that CMU would not allow the releasing of the locations of sexual assault under Title IX, and that publishing those locations may “re-traumatize the victim.” “Leaving out information, especially regarding sexual assault on campus, does a tremendous disservice to the campus community,” Smith said. “As a woman, I feel it is my right to know where sexual assaults have occurred. What if there is a pattern?” Smith said publishing this information is crucial to the community because readers should know where sexual assaults have occurred because there could be clear indications of problem areas on campus. She said Title IX has a place, but universities need to follow the law more clearly when it comes to journalists. “I was told that obtaining police reports of assault was a ‘gray area’ of the law and Title IX required the university to be less transparent,” Smith said. “I highly doubt that is what lawmakers intended.” Steve Smith, a spokesperson for CMU, said redacting a name does not make it impossible to identify the survivor of sexual assault based on the location of the crime. He said location information, such as a dorm room, might lead to the identification of a victim, and would violate the student’s privacy. “Moreover, incident descriptions of an alleged sexual assault also may identify potential survivors and witnesses,” he said. “Imagine the massive chilling effect this would have on the reporting of rapes and other forms of sexual assault.” ‘A RECIPE FOR CENSORSHIP’ Despite a newspaper’s role to disseminate vital information to its readers, some administrators are treating student publications as an arm of the university by demanding compliance with Title IX and dictating what student journalists report on, First Amendment lawyers say. SPLC Executive Director Frank LoMonte said Title IX was built for severe, pervasive harassment directed at specific individuals that makes them unable to continue their education, and no one will ever be able to show that a newspaper article came close to reaching that point. Instead, he said, requiring student newspapers to comply with Title IX restricts free speech on campus and prevents student journalists from reporting key information regarding sexual assault that occurs on campus. “I think, whether accidentally or on purpose, a growing number of institutions are treating the campus publication like an extension of the college itself and claiming that a news story will breach the confidentiality of Title IX,” LoMonte said. “That just makes no sense.” A newspaper, just by definition, he said, cannot be harassment because it is “something you voluntarily pick up and can voluntarily put down.” He said there are constitutional boundaries that administrators can’t cross, and guidance by OCR has created confusion in the minds of administrators about where their authority begins and ends. This confusion, some say, creates a welcoming environment for censorship. Will Creeley, vice president of legal and public advocacy for FIRE, said there is an incredible chilling effect of overly broad, impermissibly vague interpretations of sexual harassment on free student press. “Any speech that has to do with sex or gender that rubs someone the wrong way — anything someone, somewhere doesn’t want to hear could be considered sexual harassment under OCR’s definition,” he said. He said the threat to student media posed by unclear Title IX compliance requirements is perhaps as great as the threat to any campus speech. “Student journalists are tasked with asking tough questions of those in power, like the student government or even administrators,” Creeley said. “People in power do not like being asked how they are exercising that power.” He said the OCR has opened the door for extremely broad restrictions on student speech, and it is “only a matter of time before some administrator decides to wield them.” He said unclear guidance from OCR and what he sees as the oversensitivity of today’s college students creates a “recipe for censorship.” Students and administrators alike, Creeley said, will censor student publications in order to avoid a Title IX investigation, if that becomes the norm.
53 -
54 -Underview
55 -Interpretation: The Affirmative may defend a specification of constitutionally protected speech to be unrestricted by public colleges or universities in the United States, if the affirmative has an author or a governmental source that is cited through a card, grounded in topic literature advocating for the entirety of the plan.
56 -
57 -Violation: Any is defined as some of not all.
58 -Cambridge Dictionary (Cambridge Dictionary. “Definition of “any” - English Dictionary”. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/any) TruLe
59 -(used in negative statements and questions) some, or even the smallest amount (of):
60 -Outweighs – the resolution is negatively worded – this is the intended meaning of any -
61 -
62 -Net benefits:
63 -A Real world applicability –
64 -
65 -B Topic lit –
66 -
67 -Abstract questioning is useless - debate should seek to design concrete alternatives.
68 -Bryant 12 (EDITED FOR GENDERED LANGUAGE – the author said “she” and it was replaced with the word “to” – Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, “Critique of the Academic Left”, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
69 -I must be in a mood today– half irritated, half amused –because I find myself ranting. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual. So this afternoon I came across a post by a friend quoting something discussing the environmental movement that pushed all the right button. As the post read, For mainstream environmentalism– conservationism, green consumerism, and resource management –humans are conceptually separated out of nature and mythically placed in privileged positions of authority and control over ecological communities and their nonhuman constituents. What emerges is the fiction of a marketplace of ‘raw materials’ and ‘resources’ through which human-centered wants, constructed as needs, might be satisfied. The mainstream narratives are replete with such metaphors carbon trading!. Natural complexity, mutuality, and diversity are rendered virtually meaningless given discursive parameters that reduce nature to discrete units of exchange measuring extractive capacities. Jeff Shantz, “Green Syndicalism” While finding elements this description perplexing– I can’t say that I see many environmentalists treating nature and culture as distinct or suggesting that we’re sovereigns of nature –I do agree that we conceive much of our relationship to the natural world in economic terms (not a surprise that capitalism is today a universal). This, however, is not what bothers me about this passage. What I wonder is just what we’re supposed to do even if all of this is true? What, given existing conditions, are we to do if all of this is right? At least green consumerism, conservation, resource management, and things like carbon trading are engaging in activities that are making real differences. From this passage– and maybe the entire text would disabuse me of this conclusion –it sounds like we are to reject all of these interventions because they remain tied to a capitalist model of production that the author (and myself) find abhorrent. The idea seems to be that if we endorse these things we are tainting our hands and would therefore do well to reject them altogether. The problem as I see it is that this is the worst sort of abstraction (in the Marxist sense) and wishful thinking. Within a Marxo-Hegelian context, a thought is abstract when it ignores all of the mediations in which a thing is embedded. For example, I understand a robust tree abstractly when I attribute its robustness, say, to its genetics alone, ignoring the complex relations to its soil, the air, sunshine, rainfall, etc., that also allowed it to grow robustly in this way. This is the sort of critique we’re always leveling against the neoliberals. They are abstract thinkers. In their doxa that individuals are entirely responsible for themselves and that they completely make themselves by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, neoliberals ignore all the mediations belonging to the social and material context in which human beings develop that play a role in determining the vectors of their life. They ignore, for example, that George W. Bush grew up in a family that was highly connected to the world of business and government and that this gave him opportunities that someone living in a remote region of Alaska in a very different material infrastructure and set of family relations does not have. To think concretely is to engage in a cartography of these mediations, a mapping of these networks, from circumstance to circumstance (what I call an “onto-cartography”). It is to map assemblages, networks, or ecologies in the constitution of entities. Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. It’s good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here I’m reminded by the “underpants gnomes” depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: Ultra-Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhD’s in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that don’t have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they don’t embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?). This type of “revolutionary” is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isn’t where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
EntryDate
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1 -2017-02-04 20:04:05.0
Judge
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1 -Southlake Carroll PD
Opponent
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1 -Preston Stolte
ParentRound
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1 -10
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -5
Team
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -JANFEB - 1AC - Title IX
Tournament
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1 -Colleyville
Caselist.CitesClass[10]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,45 +1,0 @@
1 -Framework
2 -The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that presents the best policy option – key to out of round advocacy skills.
3 -Nixon 2K (Themba-Nixon, Makani. Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice, “Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing” Colorlines 3.2, 2000) //WW JA 1/15/16
4 -“This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.
5 -
6 -The standard is combatting structural violence – epistemologically precedes normative ethics.
7 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
8 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
9 -Plan
10 -Plan Text: Public colleges and universities in the United States should derestrict constitutionally protected speech by amending Title IX policies to redefine sexual harassment.
11 -AAUP 16. (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) //WW JA 1/5/16
12 -The 2014 AAUP report proposes a policy for colleges and universities desiring a separate statement of policy on sexual harassment. The proposal distinguishes conduct or speech defined as sexual harassment from protected speech: It is the policy of this institution that no member of the academic community may sexually harass another. Sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when: 1. such advances or requests are made under circumstances implying that one’s response might affect educational or personnel decisions that are subject to the influence of the person making the proposal; or 2. such speech or conduct is directed against another and is either abusive or severely humiliating, or persists despite the objection of the person targeted by the speech or conduct; or 3. such speech or conduct is reasonably regarded as offensive and substantially impairs the academic or work opportunity of students, colleagues, or co-workers. If it takes place in the teaching context, it must also be persistent, pervasive, and not germane to the subject matter. The academic setting is distinct from the workplace in that wide latitude is required for professional judgment in determining the appropriate content and presentation of academic material.91
13 -They continue:
14 -AAUP statements and reports should be amended, as needed, to further clarify the distinctions between sexual assault and harassment and between speech and conduct, and to strengthen academic freedom protections. The 2012 statement on Campus Sexual Assault uses the term “sexual violence…as a blanket term for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape, stalking, domestic violence, and other forms of sexual misconduct.” Using the term “sexual violence” so broadly does not adequately distinguish sexual harassment – particularly where it involves only speech – from other types of sexual misconduct. The 2014 report on Sexual Harassment proposes a policy that distinguishes protected speech from conduct or speech constituting sexual harassment. Further, the policy includes protection of conduct in the teaching context. This could include expressive conduct such as gestures, dance, or other types of actions. To further clarify the protection of speech and expressive conduct, the AAUP proposed policy could be amended to include specific references to academic freedom. The proposed policy could also be amended to clarify that teaching, research, and extramural speech protected by academic freedom are excluded from definitions of sexual harassment.
15 -The Advantage is Sexual Assault
16 -Scenario 1 – Education Consumerism
17 -Status quo sexual harassment laws fail – they’re driven by education consumerism – Title IX prioritizes minimizing administrative liability rather than effectively challenging assault.
18 -deBoer 15 (Fredrik deBoer is an academic and writer. He has a Ph.D. in English and graduated from Purdue University. “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.” NY Times. September 9, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html?_r=0) //WW JA 2/17/17
19 -The Kipnis affair was extreme, but it demonstrates the double-edged sword that is Title IX. The law, designed to enforce gender equality on campus, grants members of campus communities broad latitude in charging gender discrimination and mandates formal response from universities. The law can be a powerful tool for justice, but like all tools, it can be misused — especially as it ends up wielded by administrative and governmental functionaries. In this way, it becomes an instrument of power, not of the powerless. And because the law compels the self-protective, legalistic wings of universities to grind into gear, for fear of liability and bad publicity, invocations of Title IX frequently wrest control of the process and the narrative from student activists themselves, handing it to bureaucrats, whether governmental or institutional. Rather than painting student activists as censors — trying to dictate who has the right to say what and when — we should instead see them as trapped in a corporate architecture of managing offense. Have you ever been to corporate sexual harassment training? If you have, you may have been struck by how little such events have to do with preventing sexual harassment as a matter of moral necessity and how much they have to do with protecting whatever institution is mandating it. Of course, sexual harassment is a real and vexing problem, not merely on campus but in all kinds of organizations, and the urge to oppose it through policy is a noble one. But corporate entities serve corporate interests, not those of the individuals within them, and so these efforts are often designed to spare the institutions from legal liability rather than protect the individuals who would be harmed by sexual harassment. Indeed, this is the very lifeblood of corporatism: creating systems and procedures that sacrifice the needs of humans to the needs of institutions. If students have adopted a litigious approach to regulating campus life, they are only working within the culture that colleges have built for them. When your environment so deeply resembles a Fortune 500 company, it makes sense to take every complaint straight to H.R. I don’t excuse students who so zealously pursue their vision of campus life that they file Title IX complaints against people whose opinions they don’t like. But I recognize their behavior as a rational response within a bureaucracy. It’s hard to blame people within a system — particularly people so young — who take advantage of structures they’ve been told exist to help them. The problem is that these structures exist for the institutions themselves, and thus the erosion of political freedom is ultimately a consequence of the institutions. When we identify students as the real threat to intellectual freedom on campus, we’re almost always looking in the wrong place. Current conditions result in neither the muscular and effective student activism favored by the defenders of current campus politics nor the emboldened, challenging professors that critics prefer. Instead, both sides seem to be gradually marginalized in favor of the growing managerial class that dominates so many campuses. Yes, students get to dictate increasingly elaborate and punitive speech codes that some of them prefer. But what could be more corporate or bureaucratic than the increasingly tight control on language and culture in the workplace? Those efforts both divert attention from the material politics that the administration often strenuously opposes (like divestment campaigns) and contribute to a deepening cultural disrespect for student activism. Professors, meanwhile, cling for dear life, trying merely to preserve whatever tenure track they can, prevented by academic culture, a lack of coordination and interdepartmental resentments from rallying together as labor activists. That the contemporary campus quiets the voices of both students and teachers — the two indispensable actors in the educational exchange — speaks to the funhouse-mirror quality of today’s academy. I wish that committed student activists would recognize that the administrators who run their universities, no matter how convenient a recipient of their appeals, are not their friends. I want these bright, passionate students to remember that the best legacy of student activism lies in shaking up administrators, not in making appeals to them. At its worst, this tendency results in something like collusion between activists and administrators.
20 -
21 -The corporate university stifles gender progress to limit liability and enables rich white males to buy out of rape accusations.
22 -AAUP 2 (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) //WW JA 2/16/17
23 -While the original aims of Title IX and the legal meaning of “sex discrimination” encompass more than sexual violations, today the claims most readily associated with Title IX involve sexual violence or sexual harassment, whether actual conduct or speech. This is largely a result of the efforts of a national student movement against sexual violence on campus, often in the name of enforcing Title IX. While students’ wide-ranging commitment to combating sexual violence across a number of fronts is admirable and necessary, institutional engagement with such activism in the context of the corporate university can result in disturbing outcomes. First, administrative efforts to address sexual harassment and violence have adopted bureaucratic and legalistic methods that reward the narrowest forms of activism, student or otherwise, on campus. In this context, invocations of Title IX—and in particular calls by some activists to adhere to OCR and US Department of Justice criteria—have effectively narrowed the popular meaning of sex discrimination to sexual speech and sexual violence, often conflating the two. This singular focus on sexual harassment has overshadowed issues of unequal pay, access, and representation throughout the university system. Additionally, the treatment of students as “clients” in the corporate university has obscured the question of how to deal with prohibited behavior on campus. The client-service model allows administrations to try to have it both ways. For example, the University of Colorado at Boulder recently settled a lawsuit, for $15,000, from a former student who said the university violated Title IX when it suspended him for nonconsensual sexual intercourse. The university’s behavior in this case satisfied the law, and it satisfied the accuser by finding the accused responsible, but it mitigated any fallout by settling the accused individual’s resulting lawsuit.81 This bureaucratic and legal resolution does not address the question of whether sex-based inequality is being remedied. Finally, investigations of claims of sexual harassment and violence do not necessarily understand those claims as embedded within the broader social dynamics on and off campus. As Janet Halley points out, this segmented approach to sex discrimination promotes partial and legalistic analyses of the nature and scope of the problem, obscuring how biases or discrimination on the basis of race, sexual orientation, or gender identity may be ignored or even perpetuated by a narrow view of gender equality.82 This approach fails to respond to the overarching question: What vision of justice, educational access, and public accountability should the enforcement of Title IX seek to facilitate? The answer depends in part on what counts as sex discrimination—particularly what conduct or speech (and in what amounts) can support a charge of sexual harassment. While financial cuts and program eliminations have threatened entire disciplines and methods of producing knowledge, struggles over the importance and scope of academic freedom in the context of sex discrimination have also surged across campuses nationwide. From trigger warnings to tweets, the AAUP has documented an increase in potential threats to the academic freedom that protects teaching, research, and extramural speech and that fosters shared governance by administrations, students, and faculty members. When Title IX concerns play out as sexual-harassment panics within the corporate university, academic freedom is threatened across several fronts.83 Under such interpretations of Title IX, faculty members who teach, research, and otherwise study sexuality are left especially vulnerable to sexual-harassment charges. Further, those who seek to bring material related to sex or sexuality into courses not specifically devoted to those topics are also reluctant to do so for fear of being accused of violating Title IX. In responding to the OCR’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter, the AAUP warned of this danger, emphasizing that “any training for faculty, staff, and students” about how to identify and report sexual harassment “should explain the differences between educational content, harassment, and ‘hostile environments,’ and a faculty member’s professional judgment must be protected. Women’s studies and gender studies programs have long worked to improve campus culture by teaching about issues of systemic gender inequity, sex, and sexuality. The OCR should encourage discussion of topics like sexual harassment both in and outside of the curriculum, but acknowledge that what might be offensive or uncomfortable to some students may also be necessary for their education.”
24 -Scenario 2 – Rape Law
25 -Title IX results in silencing classes that discuss controversial subjects like rape law
26 -AAUP 3 (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) //WW JA 2/16/17 ***BRACKETS IN ORIGINAL***
27 -At USC–Upstate, the controversy about Fun Home coincided with the closure of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. The transfer of funds underscores the fact that the serious study of sex and sexuality is becoming increasingly vulnerable, leading to selfcensorship by faculty members. This state of affairs extends to areas such as creative writing, where some instructors are wary of assignments that may raise the specter of sex, and criminal law, where some faculty members have chosen to omit from their courses units on rape and sexual-assault law out of fear that students may claim that the content is too emotionally distressing. Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk contends that, ironically, after long feminist campaigns to include rape law in the law school curriculum, the topic has once again become difficult to teach. Not only is discussion of rape sometimes thought to be “triggering,” but discussions of how consent or nonconsent may be communicated in a sexual encounter or how social inequalities (tied to class, race, or sexual preferences) might bias the assessment of whether an incident is labeled as a crime risk being perceived as disrespectful of victims. As a result, some students view such necessary debates about the law and sexual violence as fostering a hostile environment.49
28 -
29 -The legal classroom should be the focal point of rape law discussions – the 1AC cultivates an open environment to challenge oppressive ideologies about rape, race and stereotypes. We change dominant perspectives by creating a counter-culture which addresses pedagogies of supremacy.
30 -Denbow 14 (Jennifer M. Denbow is Assistant Professor at University of New England. “The Pedagogy of Rape Law: Objectivity, Identity and Emotion,” Journal of Legal Education, Volume 64, Number 1. August 2014. http://www.swlaw.edu/pdfs/jle/jle641denbow.pdf) //WW JA 2/17/17
31 -Since the law school classroom is one place where future legal professionals, many of whom will have substantial power, form their ideas about rape, discussion is crucial. Precisely because people have such different and charged views of rape, it is important that future lawyers at least have the opportunity to discuss it. Furthermore, the reluctance to teach rape law and the politics of the pedagogy of rape law cannot be divorced from the historic tendency of prosecutors and judges to presume that women are the sole victims survivors of sexual assault and in many instances trivialize rape accusations. Crenshaw argues, for example, that the reluctance of legal actors, including prosecutors, to address the rape of black women is rooted in stereotypes of black women’s licentiousness.43 The law school classroom could serve as a site where such stereotypes are confronted. A critical approach to the pedagogy of rape law would take the confrontation between different ways of understanding rape seriously and would be selfreflective about knowledge and its production. I would call not just for getting more instructors to teach rape law—and for a related push to reveal that the decision not to teach rape law is just as political as the decision to do so—but also for an effort to reveal the space of the classroom, as well as the claims to knowledge made therein, as political.44 The difficulty will be in developing a pedagogy that allows for exploration of one’s position and an inquiry into how that affects one’s understanding of the crime of rape. Rather than taking the objective as that which has no point of view, it must be acknowledged that there is no way not to have a point of view. As Crenshaw notes, not calling “into question the objectivity of the dominant perspective . . . fails to challenge majority students’ beliefs that the minority perspective is self-interested and biased, while the doctrinal framework and their own perspectives are not.”45 The exploration of experience and identity can thus destabilize the appearance of legal objectivity and requires those with the dominant view to account for their perspective. As hooks explains: . . . a critique of essentialism that challenges only marginalized groups to interrogate their use of identity politics or an essentialist standpoint as a means to exerting coercive power leaves unquestioned the critical practices of other groups who employ the same strategies in different ways and whose exclusionary behavior may be firmly buttressed by institutionalized structures of domination that do not critique or check it.46
32 -
33 -Scenario 3 – Student Journalism
34 -Broad definitions of Title IX have a chilling effect on student journalists who release information regarding sexual assault because college administrators police free speech to avoid funding losses.
35 -Dewulf 10-7-16 (Kaitlin Dewulf, Dewulf is double-majoring in Political science and Journalism and Mass Communication on the pre-law track. "An unintended consequence of Title IX", Student Press Law Center, 10-7-2016, page numbers here, http://www.splc.org/article/2016/10/an-unintended-consequence-of-title-ix)//DM Accessed 1-16-2017
36 -Passed more than 40 years ago, Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — which can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, battery and coercion — in education programs and activities. All public and private schools receiving any federal funding must comply with Title IX. Before Title IX, women faced discrimination in academics, admissions, athletics and hiring. Though the effects of Title IX have increased gender equality in higher education, an unforeseen consequence of the law, as it is currently being interpreted, may be the restriction of college media. In an effort to rid college campuses of sex discrimination in compliance with Title IX — and avoid the potential loss of funding that comes with noncompliance — some college administrators have panicked, and have taken the law too far, some First Amendment advocates say. Just last year, the Daily Bull, a student comedy publication at Michigan Technological University, was slapped with disciplinary measures after satirizing issues of sexual harassment and assault. The publication’s editor, Rico Bastian, wrote an article, “Sexually Harassed Man Pretty Okay with Situation,” that describes a male student receiving “unwelcomed sexual contact from members of the opposite sex, all of which he later looked back on with feelings of complacency.” The satirical article — published alongside a satirical list of “Signs that she wants the D,” including reasons like she “only screams a little” — was an attempt to comically address how many people don’t take male sexual assault seriously, managing editor Mike Jarasz told the Student Press Law Center. Jarasz also said it may be “considered more acceptable” for an attractive person to sexually harass someone, as the article ends with the male student saying he felt violated after receiving a sexual look from a “kinda ugly” woman. Still, MTU Vice President for Student Affairs Les Cook did not find the article humorous. Cook sent out a campus-wide email denouncing the article for “advocating criminal activity on campus.” The university’s office of academic and community conduct placed the Daily Bull on probation for two years — which meant if the publication put out another problematic article, it could be removed as a student publication altogether — and issued staffers to take a cultural sensitivity course. The Daily Bull’s adviser stepped down, and the publication issued a retraction and apology. And although student governments are legally not permitted to withdraw funding in retaliation for content, student legislators at MTU voted to freeze the Daily Bull’s funding until its staffers attended a Title IX training course. The staff underwent a three-hour training, covering both Title IX and cultural competency, but “didn’t really learn much,” Bastian said. Cook also told the Daily Mining Gazette that the university was legally required by Title IX statutes to act in cases of sexual discrimination or harassment. “(The Constitution) doesn’t supersede Title IX,” he said. “Title IX is a federal compliance policy. Those policies supersede anything else.” That interpretation of the Constitution, however, is inherently wrong, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Let’s be clear about one thing: The Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment, is ‘the supreme Law of the Land,’ and does in fact supersede any federal regulation that violates it,” FIRE said in a statement following the discipline. Mark Wilcox, a spokesman for MTU, said conflicting regulatory mandates regarding Title IX affect the university’s compliance efforts. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has repeatedly blamed censor-happy administrators on the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights — the department that enforces federal civil rights laws — which he said has significantly confused administrators and students on Title IX compliance. “For the overwhelming majority of my career what I’ve been fighting is administration overreach,” Lukianoff said in an interview with Reason.com. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERREACH In April, several free speech, academic freedom and education groups argued that interpreting Title IX to include speech that some students find offensive could not only threaten students’ speech rights, but also undermine their education and efforts to promote equality on campus in a letter to OCR. The letter — authored by the SPLC, FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Association of University Professors — argues that the office’s definition of harassment, set forth in “Dear Colleague” guidance letters to universities, poses profound threats to free expression. While the letter was written in response to a situation at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, where members of a campus group called Feminists United filed several complaints alleging that online harassment of female students over social media violates Title IX, it urged the department to provide more guidance in general. “We take the allegations of discrimination at UMW very seriously, and we urge OCR to adopt an approach that will target unlawful conduct without casting a net so wide that it scoops up innocent students and constitutionally protected speech,” the letter read. NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin said that since people who post on Yik Yak — the social-networking app targeted at Mary Washington — are spreading news and opinion, much like student journalists, any guidance related to online communication apps issued by OCR could ultimately affect student journalists. “Student speech and peer-to-peer activity is of much interest to OCR,” Bertin said. “They are plainly prepared to issue citations or to start investigations if they hear things that they don’t think universities are responding to appropriately.” She said if one student ”who is really pissed off about a gender-based article published in the student newspaper” files a complaint, the department could begin an investigation and “set the stage” against student journalists. It could only be a matter of time, Bertin said, before Title IX requires administrators to regulate college media, and some officials are already practicing this form of censorship. She said university administrators are highly risk-averse, so if the choice is between being the object of a Title IX investigation or disciplining a student newspaper, she doesn’t think there is any question of which option administrators will choose. “There is a very well-founded concern that college administrators are overreaching into student media,” Bertin said. “They are acting preemptively, and are very aggressively policing speech with sexual content to avoid being on OCR’s hit list.” The OCR maintains that its efforts to combat sexual harassment and discrimination in schools is met with equal respect for the First Amendment. “OCR has made it clear that the laws and regulations it enforces protect students from prohibited discrimination and are not intended to restrict the exercise of any expressive activities or speech protected under the U.S. Constitution,” an OCR spokesperson said in an email. “When schools work to prevent and redress discrimination, they must respect the free speech rights of students, faculty, and other speakers.” CONFLICTING GUIDANCE Under Title IX, no person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. While short, the statute has been given a broad scope through U.S. Supreme Court decisions and DOE guidance to cover sexual harassment and sexual violence. Though schools must respond to and remedy all sexual harassment, they can only impose discipline for harassment if it creates a “hostile environment” — when it is so “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit” — and failure to do so puts schools at risk of losing federal funding. Since its implementation, vital definitions for compliance with Title IX have expanded drastically, despite rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that have drawn distinctions between constitutionally protected offensive speech versus unlawful harassment. Though sexual harassment is not mentioned in the Title IX legislation itself, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1992 court case Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools that monetary damages could be awarded to individual victims of sexual harassment under Title IX. In separate cases in 1998 and 1999, the Supreme Court made clear that Title IX requires schools to take action to prevent and stop the harassment of students by faculty and staff, as well as other students. The decisions in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education and Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District established liability of the school, which occurs when the school knows about on- campus harassment that is creating a hostile environment and responds with “deliberate indifference.” But some First Amendment experts say this narrow definition has been absent from guidance given to college administrators through recent pronouncements by OCR. For example, a “Dear Colleague” letter by the department from 2010 defined “sexual harassment prohibited by Title IX” to extend to “making sexual comments, jokes or gestures; writing graffiti or displaying or distributing sexually explicit draws, pictures, or written materials; calling students sexually charged names; spreading sexual rumors; rating students on sexual activity or performance; or circulating, showing, or creating e-mails or Websites of a sexual nature.” Directed by this broad definition, rather than the one given in Davis, what is considered a Title IX violation can be unclear — which could lead college administrators to unnecessarily restrict what student journalists publish, experts said. AAUP recently published a report concluding that OCR’s broadened description of sexual harassment and heightened scrutiny of speech that includes sexual references of any kind has resulted in “a frenzy of cases in which administrators’ apparent fears of being targeted by OCR have overridden faculty academic freedom and student free speech rights.” In one recent episode, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks newspaper was the subject of a year-long university investigation — ultimately resulting in no punitive action — after a university employee filed a sexual harassment complaint after being offended by a joke about genitalia in an April Fool’s Day humor edition. College Media Association President Kelley Callaway said while Title IX once was used to ensure women had the same opportunities as men, she has seen its scope expand to include “almost anything that may offend someone.” “I think we’re living in a world where if anything could possibly offend, there is this idea to eliminate it,” Callaway said. “That is surely not the best environment for student journalists.” She said the vagueness of harassment definitions in “Dear Colleague” letters creates a lack of understanding that pushes college administrators to err on the side of caution when evaluating what is punishable under Title IX. “The fear that “Dear Colleague” letters put colleges under can cause it to be used in ways that could stifle various forms of free expression,” Callaway said. But Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, said OCR is not to blame for the confusion among college administrators about how and when to enforce Title IX. Though the OCR could be more clear on its distinction between sexual harassment and hostile environment, he said, schools still have to remedy all harassment, whether they can impose discipline or not. Sokolow said some college administrators misinterpret OCR guidance, or misapply it as the result of malfeasance, but the lack of clarity “is not the culprit.” He said coherence is available for administrators willing to seek it out. If colleges or universities are violating anyone’s free speech rights, Sokolow said that’s “on them.” He said it is an administrator’s job to know when something is in violation of Title IX, and whether the school should impose discipline. “If an administrator doesn’t know, he or she isn’t doing their job,” Sokolow said. Still, Callaway said this confusion could cause student journalists to self-censor in an effort to avoid being disciplined through Title IX by administrators. “I think student journalists have a responsibility to serve their community, and if they are avoiding reporting on certain issues because of potential Title IX violations, they are not serving their community,” Callaway said. “To not talk about sexual assault on campus, that isn’t serving anyone.” But at Central Michigan University,that is exactly what student journalists are being told. Sydney Smith, managing editor of Central Michigan Life, said while attempting to publish the locations where sexual assault has occurred on campus, she was blocked several times by administrators and campus police. Smith said she thought it was vital to the safety of students on campus to know where sexual assault was most likely to occur, but was unable to obtain this information. She said she has attempted for months get this information through the Clery Act — which requires all colleges receiving federal funding to keep and disclose information about crime on campus and its efforts to improve it — but was unsuccessful. Smith tried several times to utilize the Freedom of Information Act — which allows the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased government documents — but administrators denied her requests. “Each time my requests were denied for the exact same reasons: invasion of privacy for those named in the report — even though I asked that the names be redacted — in violation of Title IX,” she said. “CMU administrators said that even though I wanted no names, someone could still ascertain and connect the dots to the person through the locations in the report.” She said the university police told her that CMU would not allow the releasing of the locations of sexual assault under Title IX, and that publishing those locations may “re-traumatize the victim.” “Leaving out information, especially regarding sexual assault on campus, does a tremendous disservice to the campus community,” Smith said. “As a woman, I feel it is my right to know where sexual assaults have occurred. What if there is a pattern?” Smith said publishing this information is crucial to the community because readers should know where sexual assaults have occurred because there could be clear indications of problem areas on campus. She said Title IX has a place, but universities need to follow the law more clearly when it comes to journalists. “I was told that obtaining police reports of assault was a ‘gray area’ of the law and Title IX required the university to be less transparent,” Smith said. “I highly doubt that is what lawmakers intended.” Steve Smith, a spokesperson for CMU, said redacting a name does not make it impossible to identify the survivor of sexual assault based on the location of the crime. He said location information, such as a dorm room, might lead to the identification of a victim, and would violate the student’s privacy. “Moreover, incident descriptions of an alleged sexual assault also may identify potential survivors and witnesses,” he said. “Imagine the massive chilling effect this would have on the reporting of rapes and other forms of sexual assault.” ‘A RECIPE FOR CENSORSHIP’ Despite a newspaper’s role to disseminate vital information to its readers, some administrators are treating student publications as an arm of the university by demanding compliance with Title IX and dictating what student journalists report on, First Amendment lawyers say. SPLC Executive Director Frank LoMonte said Title IX was built for severe, pervasive harassment directed at specific individuals that makes them unable to continue their education, and no one will ever be able to show that a newspaper article came close to reaching that point. Instead, he said, requiring student newspapers to comply with Title IX restricts free speech on campus and prevents student journalists from reporting key information regarding sexual assault that occurs on campus. “I think, whether accidentally or on purpose, a growing number of institutions are treating the campus publication like an extension of the college itself and claiming that a news story will breach the confidentiality of Title IX,” LoMonte said. “That just makes no sense.” A newspaper, just by definition, he said, cannot be harassment because it is “something you voluntarily pick up and can voluntarily put down.” He said there are constitutional boundaries that administrators can’t cross, and guidance by OCR has created confusion in the minds of administrators about where their authority begins and ends. This confusion, some say, creates a welcoming environment for censorship. Will Creeley, vice president of legal and public advocacy for FIRE, said there is an incredible chilling effect of overly broad, impermissibly vague interpretations of sexual harassment on free student press. “Any speech that has to do with sex or gender that rubs someone the wrong way — anything someone, somewhere doesn’t want to hear could be considered sexual harassment under OCR’s definition,” he said. He said the threat to student media posed by unclear Title IX compliance requirements is perhaps as great as the threat to any campus speech. “Student journalists are tasked with asking tough questions of those in power, like the student government or even administrators,” Creeley said. “People in power do not like being asked how they are exercising that power.” He said the OCR has opened the door for extremely broad restrictions on student speech, and it is “only a matter of time before some administrator decides to wield them.” He said unclear guidance from OCR and what he sees as the oversensitivity of today’s college students creates a “recipe for censorship.” Students and administrators alike, Creeley said, will censor student publications in order to avoid a Title IX investigation, if that becomes the norm.
37 -Underview
38 -1. Any is defined as some of not all.
39 -Cambridge Dictionary (Cambridge Dictionary. “Definition of “any” - English Dictionary”. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/any) //TruLe
40 -(used in negative statements and questions) some, or even the smallest amount (of):
41 -Outweighs – the resolution is negatively worded – this is the intended meaning of any -
42 -
43 -2. Abstract questioning is useless - debate should seek to design concrete alternatives.
44 -Bryant 12 (EDITED FOR GENDERED LANGUAGE – the author said “she” and it was replaced with the word “to” – Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, “Critique of the Academic Left”, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
45 -I must be in a mood today– half irritated, half amused –because I find myself ranting. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual. So this afternoon I came across a post by a friend quoting something discussing the environmental movement that pushed all the right button. As the post read, For mainstream environmentalism– conservationism, green consumerism, and resource management –humans are conceptually separated out of nature and mythically placed in privileged positions of authority and control over ecological communities and their nonhuman constituents. What emerges is the fiction of a marketplace of ‘raw materials’ and ‘resources’ through which human-centered wants, constructed as needs, might be satisfied. The mainstream narratives are replete with such metaphors carbon trading!. Natural complexity, mutuality, and diversity are rendered virtually meaningless given discursive parameters that reduce nature to discrete units of exchange measuring extractive capacities. Jeff Shantz, “Green Syndicalism” While finding elements this description perplexing– I can’t say that I see many environmentalists treating nature and culture as distinct or suggesting that we’re sovereigns of nature –I do agree that we conceive much of our relationship to the natural world in economic terms (not a surprise that capitalism is today a universal). This, however, is not what bothers me about this passage. What I wonder is just what we’re supposed to do even if all of this is true? What, given existing conditions, are we to do if all of this is right? At least green consumerism, conservation, resource management, and things like carbon trading are engaging in activities that are making real differences. From this passage– and maybe the entire text would disabuse me of this conclusion –it sounds like we are to reject all of these interventions because they remain tied to a capitalist model of production that the author (and myself) find abhorrent. The idea seems to be that if we endorse these things we are tainting our hands and would therefore do well to reject them altogether. The problem as I see it is that this is the worst sort of abstraction (in the Marxist sense) and wishful thinking. Within a Marxo-Hegelian context, a thought is abstract when it ignores all of the mediations in which a thing is embedded. For example, I understand a robust tree abstractly when I attribute its robustness, say, to its genetics alone, ignoring the complex relations to its soil, the air, sunshine, rainfall, etc., that also allowed it to grow robustly in this way. This is the sort of critique we’re always leveling against the neoliberals. They are abstract thinkers. In their doxa that individuals are entirely responsible for themselves and that they completely make themselves by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, neoliberals ignore all the mediations belonging to the social and material context in which human beings develop that play a role in determining the vectors of their life. They ignore, for example, that George W. Bush grew up in a family that was highly connected to the world of business and government and that this gave him opportunities that someone living in a remote region of Alaska in a very different material infrastructure and set of family relations does not have. To think concretely is to engage in a cartography of these mediations, a mapping of these networks, from circumstance to circumstance (what I call an “onto-cartography”). It is to map assemblages, networks, or ecologies in the constitution of entities. Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. It’s good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here I’m reminded by the “underpants gnomes” depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: Ultra-Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhD’s in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that don’t have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they don’t embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?). This type of “revolutionary” is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isn’t where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
EntryDate
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1 -2017-02-18 23:04:41.0
Judge
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1 -Neel Yerneni
Opponent
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1 -Loyola John Choi
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1 -11
Round
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1 -2
Team
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -JANFEB - 1AC - Title IX V2
Tournament
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1 -Berkeley
Caselist.CitesClass[11]
Cites
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1 -1AC – The Flood - Koshak
2 -Framework
3 -The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that presents the best policy option – we use the state to kill the state – only our form of coalition building can create effective strategies.
4 -Nixon 2K (Themba-Nixon, Makani. Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice, “Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing” Colorlines 3.2, 2000) //WW JA 1/15/16
5 -“This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.
6 -
7 -The standard is combatting structural violence – epistemologically precedes normative ethics.
8 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
9 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
10 -
11 -Prefer consequence-based frameworks:
12 -1 Intent and means-based frameworks reflect privilege and decenter oppressed voices
13 -Utt ’13. Jamie Utt is a writer and a diversity and inclusion consultant and sexual violence prevention educator, “Intent vs. Impact: Why Your Intentions Don’t Really Matter,” July 30, 2013
14 -Imagine for a moment that you’re standing with your friends in a park, enjoying a nice summer day. You don’t know me, but I walk right up to you holding a Frisbee. I wind up – and throw the disc right into your face. Understandably, you are indignant. Through a bloody nose, you use a few choice words to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing. And my response? “Oh, I didn’t mean to hit you! That was never my intent! I was simply trying to throw the Frisbee to my friend over there!” Visibly upset, you demand an apology. But I refuse. Or worse, I offer an apology that sounds like “I’m sorry your face got in the way of my Frisbee! I never intended to hit you.” Sound absurd? Sound infuriating enough to give me a well-deserved Frisbee upside the head? Yeah. So why is this same thing happening all of the time when it comes to the intersection of our identities and oppressions or privileges? Intent v. Impact From Paula Deen to Alec Baldwin to your annoying, bigoted uncle or friend, we hear it over and over again: “I never meant any harm…” “It was never my intent…” “I am not a racist…” “I am not a homophobe…” “I’m not a sexist…” I cannot tell you how often I’ve seen people attempt to deflect criticism about their oppressive language or actions by making the conversation about their intent. At what point does the “intent” conversation stop mattering so that we can step back and look at impact? After all, in the end, what does the intent of our action really matter if our actions have the impact of furthering the marginalization or oppression of those around us? In some ways, this is a simple lesson of relationships. If I say something that hurts my partner, it doesn’t much matter whether I intended the statement to mean something else – because my partner is hurting. I need to listen to how my language hurt my partner. I need to apologize. And then I need to reflect and empathize to the best of my ability so I don’t do it again. But when we’re dealing with the ways in which our identities intersect with those around us – and, in turn, the ways our privileges and our experiences of marginalization and oppression intersect – this lesson becomes something much larger and more profound. This becomes a lesson of justice. What we need to realize is that when it comes to people’s lives and identities, the impact of our actions can be profound and wide-reaching. And that’s far more important than the question of our intent. We need to ask ourselves what might be or might have been the impact of our actions or words. And we need to step back and listen when we are being told that the impact of our actions is out of step with our intents or our perceptions of self. Identity Privilege and Intent For people of identity privilege, this is where listening becomes vitally important, for our privilege can often shield us from understanding the impact of our actions. After all, as a person of privilege, I can never fully understand the ways in which oppressive acts or language impact those around me. What I surely can do is listen with every intent to understand, and I can work to change my behavior. Because what we need to understand is that making the conversation about intent is inherently a privileged action. The reason? It ensures that you and your identity (and intent) stay at the center of any conversation and action while the impact of your action or words on those around you is marginalized. So, if someone ever tells you to “check your privilege,” what they may very well mean is: “Stop centering your experience and identity in the conversation by making this about the intent of your actions instead of their impact.” That is: Not everything is about you. “What They Did” vs. “What They Are” The incredible Ill Doctrine puts it well when he explains the difference between the “What They Did” conversation and the “What They Are” conversation, which you can watch here. In essence, the “intent” conversation is one about “what they are.” Because if someone intended their action to be hurtful and racist/sexist/transphobic/pickyourpoison, then they must inherently be racist/sexist/transphobic/pickyourpoison. On the other hand, the “impact” conversation is one about “what they did.” For you, it takes the person who said or did the hurtful thing out of the center and places the person who was hurt in the center. It ensures that the conversation is about how “what they did” hurts other people and further marginalizes or oppresses people. And it’s important for people to understand the difference. Just because you did something sexist doesn’t mean that you are sexist. Just because you said something racist doesn’t mean that you are racist. When your actions are called into question, it’s important to recognize that that’s all that is being called into question – your actions, not your overall character. Listen. Reflect. Apologize. Do Better. It doesn’t matter whether we, deep down, believe ourselves to be __________-ist or whether we intended our actions to be hurtful or _________-ist. It. Doesn’t. Matter. If the impact of our actions is the furthering of oppression, then that’s all that matters. So we need to listen, reflect, apologize, and work to do better in the future. What does that look like? Well, to start, we can actually apologize. I don’t know about you, but I am sick of hearing the ““I am sorry your face got in the way of my Frisbee! I never intended to hit you” apologies. Whether it’s Paula Deen weeping on TV or Alec Baldwin asking us to simply trust that he’s not a “homophobe,” those are not apologies. That’s why I was incredibly inspired and relieved to see a major organization do it well when Kickstarter apologized and took full responsibility for their role in funding a creepy, rapey seduction guide. They apologized earnestly and accepted the role they played in something really terrible. hey pledged to never allow projects like this one to be funded in the future. And then they donated $25,000 to RAINN. At the interpersonal level, we can take a cue from Kickstarter. When we are told that the impact of our action, inaction, or words is hurtful and furthers oppression, we can start by apologizing without any caveats. From there, we can spend the time to reflect in hopes of gaining at least some understanding (however marginal) of the harmful impact. And we can do our best to move forward by acting more accountably.
15 -2 Experience is epistemic – it is how we empirically ground our existence. Pain is universally bad and pleasure is universally good.
16 -Nagel 86 (Thomas “The View From Nowhere”, 1986)
17 -I shall defend the unsurprising claim that sensory pleasure is good and pain bad, no matter who’s they are. The point of the exercise is to see how the pressures of objectification operate in a simple case. Physical pleasure and pain do not usually depend on activities or desires which themselves raise questions of justification and value. They are just is a sensory experiences in relation to which we are fairly passive, but toward which we feel involuntary desire or aversion. Almost everyone takes the avoidance of his own pain and the promotion of his own pleasure as subjective reasons for action in a fairly simple way; they are not back up by any further reasons. On the other hand if someone pursues pain or avoids pleasure, either it as a means to some end or it is backed up by dark reasons like guilt or sexual masochism. What sort of general value, if any, ought to be assigned to pleasure and pain when we consider these facts from an objective standpoint? What kind of judgment can we reasonably make about these things when we view them in abstraction from who we are? We can begin by asking why there is no plausibility in the zero position, that pleasure and pain have no value of any kind that can be objectively recognized. That would mean that I have no reason to take aspirin for a severe headache, however I may in fact be motivated; and that looking at it from outside, you couldn't even say that someone had a reason not to put his hand on a hot stove, just because of the pain… Without some positive reason to think there is nothing in itself good or bad about having an experience you intensely like or dislike, we can't seriously regard the common impression to the contrary as a collective illusion. Such things are at least good or bad for us, if anything is. What seems to be going on here is that we cannot from an objective standpoint withhold a certain kind of endorsement of the most direct and immediate subjective value judgments we make concerning the contents of our own consciousness. We regard ourselves as too close to those things to be mistaken in our immediate, nonideological evaluative impressions. No objective view we can attain could possibly overrule our subjective authority in such cases. There can be no reason to reject the appearances here.
18 -Advantage 1 – Resiliency
19 -Climate change is here – sea level rise and superstorms threaten coastal cities across the US. It’s too late to mitigate.
20 -Gillis 16 (Justin Gillis covers the science of global climate change and the policy implications of that science. He grew up in Georgia, graduated from the University of Georgia, and joined The Times after an award-winning career as a reporter and editor at The Miami Herald and The Washington Post. “Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun,” The New York Times. September 3, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html) //WW JA 3/7/17
21 -For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes. Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too. These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water. In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions. “Once impacts become noticeable, they’re going to be upon you quickly,” said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. “It’s not a hundred years off — it’s now.” Local governments, under pressure from annoyed citizens, are beginning to act. Elections are being won on promises to invest money to protect against flooding. Miami Beach is leading the way, increasing local fees to finance a $400 million plan that includes raising streets, installing pumps and elevating sea walls. In many of the worst-hit cities, mayors of both parties are sounding an alarm. “I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island, one of the first Georgia communities to adopt a detailed climate plan. But the local leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. They are pleading with state and federal governments for guidance and help, including billions to pay for flood walls, pumps and road improvements that would buy them time.
22 -
23 -Minority are flooded out of politics – coastal disasters wreak havoc on minority communities because they cannot afford recovery efforts and are doomed to a life of inaccessibility and suffering.
24 -Worth 15 (Pamela Worth is a journalist for the Huffington Post and writer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She specializes writing on climate change, sustainable agriculture and transportation, nuclear weaponry and power, and public health and safety. “Where Climate Change Hits First and Worst,” Union of Concerned Scientists. Fall 2015. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa15-where-climate-change-hits-first-and-worst) //WW JA 3/7/17
25 -Turcios describes Opa-locka as a residential community whose population is largely African-American and Latino, with a few small businesses, a lot of families, and homes for low-income seniors. It is also a community changing because of climate change. These days, he says, it’s hotter, more humid, and it rains more. “Flooding is happening more often, there’s more floodwater than usual, and there’s more damage to houses than ever before.” Turcios knows a lot could be done to help prevent flooding damage to homes like his. But even with his job as a bank security guard, he’s not sure he can afford those measures—such as elevating his home by putting it on stilts. He doesn’t know what Opa-locka is doing to prepare for climate-related impacts, but he does know this: while South Florida has experienced relatively few storms over the last 10 years, it is only a matter of time before the next big one hits. In Florida, like the rest of the United States, poor populations often bear the brunt of climate impacts, living on the front lines of rising seas, catastrophic storms, and drought. These frontline communities are disproportionally communities of color: according to 2011 data, wealth inequality along racial lines has burgeoned dramatically in the United States in recent years. The typical black household has just 6 percent of the wealth of the typical white household; the typical Latino household has 8 percent. Low-income communities cope with chronically low investment in their neighborhoods, poorly built and maintained infrastructure, and the legacy of housing policies that have effectively segregated towns and cities—in some cases, forcing poorer populations to live closer to power plants, airports, waste sites, and otherwise undesirable land that is often affected “first and worst” by natural disasters. And when those natural disasters strike, efforts to help communities recover often fail those most in need—as when the promise to rebuild Opa-locka’s roofs only resulted in the distribution of blue tarps. Studies show that low-income and communities of color in the New York-New Jersey area were among the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, and continue to struggle to find housing. One study of an African-American community in Maryland affected by Sandy found that residents there experienced flooding in their streets for days longer than other communities, and had more difficulty accessing food and housing. In New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failure and flood killed hundreds, the majority of people who were trapped in the city and left waiting for rescue and aid were overwhelmingly African-American and poor. Poor populations, and elderly nursing home residents, are more likely to lack transportation during disasters. And the fact that these populations may also have a high prevalence of chronic health problems increases their vulnerability to other storm-related hazards. In Opa-locka during Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, for example, Turcios says the news and other media kept locals informed about evacuation locations and procedures, but people without cars and/or driver’s licenses—predominantly the poor and elderly—had little choice but to stay home and weather the storms.
26 -Advantage 2 – Housing market
27 -Coastal flooding results in billions of dollars of damage and will collapse the housing market – adaptation is key now.
28 -Urbina 16 (Ian Urbina s an investigative reporter for The New York Times based in the Washington Bureau. His investigations most often focus on worker safety and the environment. He has received a Pulitzer, a Polk, and various other journalism awards. “Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate,” New York Times. November 24, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/science/global-warming-coastal-real-estate.html) //WW JA 3/6/17
29 -Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A warming planet has already forced a number of industries — coal, oil, agriculture and utilities among them — to account for potential future costs of a changed climate. The real estate industry, particularly along the vulnerable coastlines, is slowly awakening to the need to factor in the risks of catastrophic damage from climate change, including that wrought by rising seas and storm-driven flooding. But many economists say that this reckoning needs to happen much faster and that home buyers urgently need to be better informed. Some analysts say the economic impact of a collapse in the waterfront property market could surpass that of the bursting dot-com and real estate bubbles of 2000 and 2008. The fallout would be felt by property owners, developers, real estate lenders and the financial institutions that bundle and resell mortgages. Over the past five years, home sales in flood-prone areas grew about 25 percent less quickly than in counties that do not typically flood, according to county-by-county data from Attom Data Solutions, the parent company of RealtyTrac. Many coastal residents are rethinking their investments and heading for safer ground. “I don’t see how this town is going to defeat the water,” said Brent Dixon, a resident of Miami Beach who plans to move north and away from the coast in anticipation of worsening king tides, the highest predicted tide of the year. “The water always wins.” These concerns have taken on a new urgency since the presidential election of Donald J. Trump, who has long been a skeptic of global warming, claiming in 2012 that it was a concept “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” A real estate developer, Mr. Trump is also the owner of several South Florida properties, including Mar-a-Lago, a 20-acre site that stretches between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway in Palm Beach. Mr. Trump’s recent selection of Myron Ebell to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team intensified these worries in Florida and among many climate scientists. Mr. Ebell has helped lead the charge against the scientific consensus that global warming exists and is caused by people. State lawmakers in Massachusetts and New Jersey are pushing to impose new rules on real estate agents and others, obligating them to disclose climate-related damage like previous flooding. Banks and insurers need to protect their collateral and investors more by improving their methods for estimating climate-change risks and creating more standardized rules for reporting them publicly, economists warn. In April, Sean Becketti, the chief economist for Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giant, issued a dire prediction. It is only a matter of time, he wrote, before sea level rise and storm surges become so unbearable along the coast that people will leave, ditching their mortgages and potentially triggering another housing meltdown — except this time, it would be unlikely that these housing prices would ever recover.
30 -
31 -The coastal housing bubble will pop in the next decade – inclusionary political tactics and manipulation of the state are key survival strategies for watered-down refugees.
32 -Baptiste 16 (Nathalie Baptiste is a journalist based in Washington, DC, who writes about criminal justice, policing reform, and politics. Her work has appeared in The American Prospect and Mother Jones. “That Sinking Feeling,” American Prospect. February 19, 2016. http://prospect.org/article/sinking-feeling-politics-sea-level-rise-and-miamis-building-boom) //WW JA 3/7/17
33 -Stoddard’s goal is to explain to people what’s happening so that instead of a market crash, there’s a slow slide. “A lot of people ask me, ‘How much time do I have?’” he says. He tells them they don’t have to sell this year, but if it’s their intention to sell, they shouldn’t wait ten more. He also considers the homeowner’s financial situation. “It depends on if your financial well-being is dependent on your home equity. If so, your time horizon should be short—I would suggest you sell.” “As the reality of seawater rise sinks in, mortgage companies may conclude that 30 years is too long of a time to gamble on,” says Stoddard. “Maybe they’ll only issue 15-year mortgages.” If that were to cause people planning to sell later to change their minds and try to sell now, the result would be a run on the market. Stoddard offers a scenario in which an event leads to an overnight crash. “If you owe $250,000 on your house, but you can only get $50,000, what do you do then?” When properties lose value, underwater homeowners end up with no resources to relocate, essentially becoming refugees. “After a storm,” Stoddard explains, “it’s harder to sell your house.” If a devastating storm comes through and decimates South Florida and people move out, the city ends up with a lot of vacancies. A drop in the property taxes would erode city and county coffers. The first thing to go would be municipal services, Stoddard adds. With limited sanitation and maintenance services, cities and towns begin falling apart. Despite this threat looming on the horizon, there doesn’t seem to be enough planning for how to handle the impending crash. “We know it’s coming—but nobody is taking preparations,” says Stoddard. “The federal government hasn’t developed a legal framework on how to help people deal with it.” Stoddard’s goal is to try to explain to people that the crash is coming. “My goal is to make it a slow slide, rather than a crash. … The slower the change happens, the more people are able to adapt to it. It can be bad or it can be really, really, really bad—take your choice.”
34 -
35 -Minorities invest equity in their houses, but when flooded, lose everything. They are too poor to effectively prevent catastrophic damage, and when it does happen millions are damned into a life of poverty.
36 -Street 11.(Paul L. Street, Paul Street (www.paulstreet.org) is the author of many books and studies, including Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Paradigm, 2004), The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010), Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy and the State of Black Chicago (Chicago, IL: Chicago Urban League, 2005), and (co-authored with Anthony DiMaggio) Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics (Paradigm, 2011)., “Public Health Concerns? Urban Neoliberal Racism, Mass Poverty, and the Repression of Occupy”, The Official Website of Paul L. Street, 02-12-11, http://www.paulstreet.org/?p=560) //AD
37 -Nothing is more consistently and positively correlated with poor health, crime, illness, educational failure – with threats to public health and safety – than poverty, a great destroyer of lives and opportunity. At the same time, poverty’s negative impact on its most immediate victims and the broader society is magnified and intensified by the extreme spatial concentration of the poor in high poverty neighborhoods. As the Brookings researchers note in their report The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s: “Rather than spread evenly, the poor tend to cluster and concentrate in certain neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods within a community. Very poor neighborhoods face a whole host of challenges that come from concentrated disadvantage—from higher crime rates and poorer health outcomes to lower-quality educational opportunities and weaker job networks. A poor person or family in a very poor neighborhood must then deal not only with the challenges of individual poverty, but also with the added burdens that stem from the place in which they live.” 9 Enduring poverty in a very poor neighborhood subjects poor residents to obstacles and difficulties reaching beyond the costs of individual poverty. It is one thing to be technically poor but live in a safe “middle class” neighborhood with well-maintained homes, good schools, green space, thriving shops, accessible quality health care, regular public transportation, full-service grocery stores, and other amenities. It is another thing to be poor in a dangerous, crime-ridden, high-poverty neighborhood with boarded up and dilapidated homes, where: the schools feel like jails; intact families are rare; nutrition is purchased under bullet-proofed plastic windows at inflated prices from combination food-liquor stores that lack fresh vegetables and specialize in starchy high sugar and salt items; gangs are prevalent; diabetes, hepatitis, and HIV are near epidemic; prison histories are more common than jobs; more than 40 percent of the men have been saddled with the lifelong mark of a criminal record; incarceration is an almost routine experience for young males; parks are scarce and/or too precarious to visit; doctors and dentists are absent and small shops are rare; taxies never go and public transit is irregular and hard to reach.10 As sociologist Douglas Massey noted in 1994, “housing markets…distribute much more than a place to live; they also distribute any good or resource that is correlated with where one lives. Housing markets don’t just distribute dwellings, they also distribute education, employment, safety, insurance rates, services, and wealth in the form of home equity; they also determine the level of exposure to crime and drugs, and the peer groups that one’s children experience.”11 Massey’s observation notwithstanding, U.S poverty remains highly and (by the Brookings researchers’ finding) increasingly concentrated. After declining somewhat during the long economic boom of the 1990s, Brookings reports, the number of Americans living in “extreme poverty neighborhoods” – where 40 percent of the residents live below the poverty line – rose by one third between 2000 and 2009. Currently in the U.S., 10.5 percent of poor people live in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in 2000. New York City, where the financial titan turned Mayor recently spent $7 million repressing and finally evicting Occupy from the city’s affluent financial district, is home to 1,575, 032 officially poor people and to 174 extreme poverty census tracts that house 697,375 people, including 375,876 poor. Chicago, where the rugged hippie-punching corporate mayor Rahm Emmanuel (Barack Obama’s former White House chief-of-staff) has consistently denied Occupiers a campsite, is home to 593,000 poor people and to 124 extreme poverty tracts that together house 304,139 people including 140,574 poor. Los Angeles, where Antonio Villaraigosa recently evicted his city’s Occupy Movement over mass public protest, is home to 844,712 poor people and to 65 extreme poverty tracts that house more than a quarter million (264,888) residents. Philadelphia, where Occupy was recently evicted, is home to 352,265 poor people and 58 extreme poverty census tracts that house 222,434 people.12 The recently increased concentration of poverty reflects among other things the disastrous impact of two recessions (the most recent one constituting the biggest economic downturn since the 1930s). Unfolding due to the capitalist profits addiction 13 of the Occupation Movement’s official enemy the One Percent, the crises have taken a terrible toll on the employment prospects, net worth, and geographic mobility opportunities for the nation’s disproportionately nonwhite poverty population. Racial oppression is critical here, beneath the movement’s sometimes simplistic division between the super-rich and “the rest of us” (the 1 Percent and the 99 Percent). The Brookings study’s online version includes a link to maps showing the location of the extreme poverty tracts dozens of American cities.14 As is obvious to anyone familiar with the racialized geography of these highly segregated metropolises, the maps demonstrate that America’s zones of concentrated urban misery are very disproportionately black and Latino. And indeed, while blacks make up 12.6 percent of overall U.S. population, the Brookings reports that blacks comprise 45 percent of the population (by far and away the largest share) that lives in the nation’s extreme poverty neighborhoods. 15 The mortgage crisis created by the financial elite and the collapse of the housing market has been particularly devastating in Black and Latino neighborhoods. This is because those households’ net worth is more proportionately tied up in home equity, thanks to the broad absence of financial wealth in the Black and Latino communities. As the leading wealth and power analyst G. William Domhoff explains on his Web site Who Rules America?: “In 2007, the average white household had 15 times as much total wealth as the average African-American or Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are in the neighborhood of 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 70 of white families’ wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are 95 and 96, respectively.”16 To make matters worse, the predatory home lending practices (carried out by the leading financial institutions owned and run by the One Percent) that did do much to precipitate the mortgage and financial collapse of 2007 and 2008 particularly targeted people of color. As David McNally notes: “By 1998…subprime mortgages composed one-third of all home loans made to African-Americans and a fifth of those made to Latinos. And the numbers just kept rising. By 2005, 70 percent of all subprime loans made in Washington, D.C. went to African-Americans. A year later, African-Americans received 41 percent of all sub-prime mortgages in New York, while 29 percent went to Latinos. Women of color were especially vulnerable to subprime extortion Inevitably, as the mortgage rates kicked higher it became increasingly difficult for the borrowers to make payments, especially as job loss soared, especially among workers of color, reducing peoples’ capacity to pay.”17 Incredibly enough but consistent with longstanding racial patterns in U.S. labor markets, four of every ten black Americans experienced unemployment during the 2008-09 Great Recession. As McNally elaborates: “Throughout the first half of 2010, official unemployment among blacks was over 16 percent, while among Latinos, it hovered around 13 percent. In thirty-five of America’s largest cities, official jobless rates for blacks were between 30 and 35 percent- levels equal to the worst days of the Great Depression emphasis added….Not surprisingly, blacks and Latinos are almost three times more likely to live in poverty than whites.”18 In today’s New York Times (I am writing on the morning of Thursday, December 1, 2011), liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof reflects on the recollections of former Chase Home Finance regional vice president James Theckston, who told Kristof how he won company accolades for high sales in 2006 and 2007. Theckston “says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans…These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up,” Kristof writes. “If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction,” Kristof comments, “it helps to listen to a former banker like Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.”19
38 -Plan
39 -Plan Text: The United States should guarantee a right to housing for coastal communities at risk of natural disasters.
40 -A right to housing is SPECIFICALLY key – the plan ensures equitable disaster relief by conducting pre-disaster research and streamlining disaster response and recovery efforts.
41 -IHRC 16 (Written by International Human Rights Committee members: E. Michelle Andrews, Cristine Delaney Goldman, Katherine Hughes, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Jean McCarroll, Matthew Putorti, and Laura Steven. The report was overseen by past chairs Elisabeth Wickeri and Stephen Kass. “ADVANCING THE RIGHT TO HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES: Using International Law as a Foundation,” THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE OF THE NEW YORK CITY BAR ASSOCIATION. February 2016. http://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/20072632-AdvancingtheRighttoHousingIHR2122016final.pdf) //WW JA 3/6/17
42 -The United States’ failure to recognize a right to adequate housing further complicates its response to an increasing number of devastating natural disasters.187 A response to such disasters based on international human rights law would require an assessment of both the extent of the disaster and the ongoing implementation of the right to adequate housing.188 Were the federal government to recognize such a right, a number of key items to be assessed could be incorporated into its disaster recovery plans, including (i) the ratio of housing damage to overall damage, (ii) damage to rental units versus owner-occupied units, (iii) degree of habitability, (iv) cost to rebuild, (v) measurement of damage concentration, and (vi) pre-disaster local conditions such as housing costs and other social and economic data. During post-disaster recovery periods, authorities could then measure annually, for example, the number of houses rebuilt, the profile of the returned population, and community participation, all as marked against this pre-disaster and pre-recovery information.190 As a result, these measurements could be used to ensure access to affordable, decent housing by all populations impacted during the disaster by streamlining disaster relief efforts, exposing discriminatory practices, appropriately allocating federal, state, and local relief funds, and otherwise. Hurricane Katrina looms large in recent memory with respect to concerns about a lack of adequate housing in a post-disaster context. In the third year following the storm, 72 of New Orleans’s population had returned to the city; however, approximately 70 of affordable rental housing was decommissioned or demolished due to the storm.191 As a result, rents skyrocketed.192 Furthermore, in the post-disaster period, HUD opted to demolish 4,500 severely damaged rental units and declined to renovate others, thus further exacerbating the situation.193 In fact, although New Orleans’s rate of returning residents is impressive, there is a disparity in the rates of return between those who were able to rebuild with their own funds and those who were reliant on government aid.194 As has been well documented, the Lower Ninth Ward, home to a substantial low-income African-American population, has experienced “minimal levels of return,” while the Lakeview district, home to a white, middle-class population, has experienced “significant” recovery.195 Recognition of a right to adequate housing, as defined under international human rights law, would go a long way toward curing the shortfalls in housing that were experienced by the most vulnerable populations in post-Katrina New Orleans. The criticisms and shortcomings of the response to Hurricane Katrina have certainly informed federal, state, and local governments’ response to the housing crisis that arose in New York and New Jersey following Superstorm Sandy.196 Moreover, the scale of the housing shortage in post-Sandy New York and New Jersey is far eclipsed by that experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.197 However, a human rights-based housing framework, which recognizes the right to adequate housing and incorporates clearly-defined measurements of achievement, would be indispensable in crafting both preparation and post-disaster response plans that ensure that (i) the needs of the most vulnerable are met and (ii) housing-related discrimination— whether intentional or inadvertent—does not come into play.198 Undoubtedly, government officials have gained valuable experience in dealing with these issues during recent disasters, but a human rights approach would ensure ongoing monitoring in the weeks, months, and years following the initial response.
43 -
44 -The inevitable impacts of climate change mandate an adaptational strategy to ensure even human rights applications – the plan is key.
45 -Stillings 14 (Zackary L. Stillings is a graduate from the University of Michigan Law School and B.A., French Language and Literature and International Studies, University of Alabama. “Human Rights and the New Reality of Climate Change: Adaptation's Limitations in Achieving Climate Justice,” Michigan Journal of International Law. Vol. 35 Issue 3. 2014. http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066andcontext=mjil) //WW JA 3/4/17
46 -The UNHRC’s Resolution concerned itself with several specific rights.19 In particular, it found that climate change could impact the right to food, the right to health, the right to housing, and, by implication, the right to self-determination.20 It is these rights, as well as the right to life mentioned in the Inuit petition, that the majority of scholars have focused on during subsequent discussions regarding climate change and human rights.21 Specifically, in the months following the UNHRC’s Resolution, scholars largely focused on human rights law as it related to climate change mitigation—that is, how to hold large emitting nations for human rights violations arising from failures to mitigate climate harms.22 In many ways, this was a logical starting point: why not attempt to hold those actually responsible for climate change accountable for their past emissions, or for failing to curb future emissions? Due in large part to the weakness of the international human rights regime,23 however, scholars soon realized that holding large emitters responsible for extraterritorial harms due to climate change would be nearly impossible.24 Accordingly, scholars began to turn their attention elsewhere, with several more recent papers specifically examining the applicability of the human rights regime to climate change adaptation. 25 In some ways, this approach has proven more successful. In certain situations, for instance, it might well be possible to use human rights law to hold nations responsible for failing to adequately adapt to climate change.26 Specifically, a nation might—by improperly adapting to future climate change-related disasters—be held responsible for failing to guard its citizens’ human rights. This Note uses the unique lens of environmental justice, a theory largely concerned with basic fairness for all communities, to examine this adaptation-focused body of scholarship and to evaluate its likely implications for the world’s most vulnerable nations. Environmental justice is a particularly salient means of evaluating the efficacy of the adaptation-focused approach to climate change, because the theory’s central premise is that environmental benefits and burdens should be distributed evenly across communities and populations. Using the principles of environmental justice on an international level, then, is a way to elucidate the differences in environmental benefits and burdens across national boundaries.
47 -
48 -The plan works from the bottom up to develop effective policies to provide essential housing needed to adapt.
49 -Worth 2 (Pamela Worth is a journalist for the Huffington Post and writer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She specializes writing on climate change, sustainable agriculture and transportation, nuclear weaponry and power, and public health and safety. “Where Climate Change Hits First and Worst,” Union of Concerned Scientists. Fall 2015. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa15-where-climate-change-hits-first-and-worst) //WW JA 3/7/17
50 -“Our priority is working to help ensure that our nation’s transition to cleaner energy and more resilient communities is equitable,” says Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate policy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “These changes have to include opportunities, especially jobs and infrastructure investments, for underrepresented communities.” (See our related interview with Van Jones) The first step in building equitable climate resilience, Cleetus says, is to identify particularly vulnerable communities. Efforts to cut emissions nationwide will benefit people everywhere, but resilience to climate impacts must be built up in specific locations. The disproportionate burden of climate change faced by African-Americans, Latinos, and other people of color requires greater policy attention and resources. To aid in this effort, Cleetus and her team have developed a screening tool to help identify “hot spot” communities in the United States by measuring both socioeconomic factors and vulnerability to sea level rise. Drawing attention to these communities’ special planning needs can inform decisions about the resources required to adequately protect their residents. For example, the UCS tool identified Orleans Parish in Louisiana as a high-risk area when taking into consideration both climate impacts and socioeconomic factors such as poverty rates and per capita income. Within 15 years, the parish faces a projected sea level rise of 6 to 10 inches and a threefold increase in tidal flooding events, but many parish residents cannot afford to adequately prepare for these events, and are already struggling with storm surge flooding and land loss today. UCS is recommending the creation of a National Climate Resilience Fund to help protect the residents of Orleans Parish and similar communities with federal funds targeted specifically to such hot spots (see “How to Make Climate Resilience Effective and Fair,” below). Although UCS is calling on national leaders to work toward climate equity, it is just as important to listen to the residents of communities who are learning to cope with climate change about what their towns and cities need, and how they have managed to keep their neighborhoods together through worsening conditions. Members of these communities are keenly aware of the gaps in current resources and policies that need to be closed, and they must have a voice in the process of building community resilience. “Any successful effort has to start by including local leaders in the decision-making process and listening to their needs and concerns,” Cleetus points out.
51 -
52 -The plan works – empirically proven
53 -Chaplin 16 (Tracey S. Chaplin is a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies. “The U.S. Strategy for Flood Resilience Is Underwater,” NextCity. August 24, 2016. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/us-strategy-flood-resilience-coastal-cities-competitions) //WW JA 3/6/17
54 -Intense storms produced over 20 inches of rain in the Baton Rouge area. The resulting flood crisis claimed the lives of 13 people, and over 20,000 people had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and other first responders. Over 40,000 homes are damaged, many irreparably. President Barack Obama’s administration has granted an emergency disaster declaration expected to apply to more than 30 parishes — nearly half of all parishes in the state. As the impacts of climate change continue to accelerate, water is projected to be one of the most impacted resources, increasingly experienced in extremes: rising sea levels, superstorms and drought. This is not the first time that Louisiana has experienced these extremes. Hurricane Katrina is still a painful wound in New Orleans, both in local memory and in the physical destruction left in her wake. On the Louisiana coast, indigenous communities have been losing a hard-fought battle against rising sea levels as the Gulf of Mexico swallows their homes, contaminating drinking water and bleaching agricultural lands. Unfortunately, experts predict that this flood crisis will not be the last. Rising sea levels associated with impacts of climate change are predicted to ravage the Louisiana coastline, where 1.29 million people are at risk. Facing rising waters, residents in one Alaska town voted in August to move their entire village. National displacement as a result of sea level rise is projected to reach 13 million people by the end of this century. Researchers at MIT and Princeton University have found that the types of superstorms that used to make landfall once a century could now arrive every three to 20 years, and that so-called “500-year floods” might arrive as often as every 25 years, according to findings published in Nature Climate Change. These impacts of climate change wreak havoc on infrastructure, livelihoods and access to potable water. How is the government responding? To be sure, federal disaster relief, such as that issued for the flood crisis of southern Louisiana, is an appropriate short-term response. However, long-term solutions are imperative. And because the United States does not recognize the human right to water, proposed solutions must, unfortunately, strike a delicate balance between providing access and denying that access is due to citizens.
55 -
56 -Underview
57 -1. Ask if I will meet your interp in cx; this avoids unnecessary theory- we can work something out; this allows for greater substantive debate which is the only form of education which is unique to debate. Grant me an auto I meet on T/theory if the interp isn’t checked to discourage nonchecking.
58 -2. Abstract questioning is useless - debate should seek to design concrete alternatives.
59 -Bryant 12 (EDITED FOR GENDERED LANGUAGE – the author said “she” and it was replaced with the word “to” – Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, “Critique of the Academic Left”, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
60 -I must be in a mood today– half irritated, half amused –because I find myself ranting. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual. So this afternoon I came across a post by a friend quoting something discussing the environmental movement that pushed all the right button. As the post read, For mainstream environmentalism– conservationism, green consumerism, and resource management –humans are conceptually separated out of nature and mythically placed in privileged positions of authority and control over ecological communities and their nonhuman constituents. What emerges is the fiction of a marketplace of ‘raw materials’ and ‘resources’ through which human-centered wants, constructed as needs, might be satisfied. The mainstream narratives are replete with such metaphors carbon trading!. Natural complexity, mutuality, and diversity are rendered virtually meaningless given discursive parameters that reduce nature to discrete units of exchange measuring extractive capacities. Jeff Shantz, “Green Syndicalism” While finding elements this description perplexing– I can’t say that I see many environmentalists treating nature and culture as distinct or suggesting that we’re sovereigns of nature –I do agree that we conceive much of our relationship to the natural world in economic terms (not a surprise that capitalism is today a universal). This, however, is not what bothers me about this passage. What I wonder is just what we’re supposed to do even if all of this is true? What, given existing conditions, are we to do if all of this is right? At least green consumerism, conservation, resource management, and things like carbon trading are engaging in activities that are making real differences. From this passage– and maybe the entire text would disabuse me of this conclusion –it sounds like we are to reject all of these interventions because they remain tied to a capitalist model of production that the author (and myself) find abhorrent. The idea seems to be that if we endorse these things we are tainting our hands and would therefore do well to reject them altogether. The problem as I see it is that this is the worst sort of abstraction (in the Marxist sense) and wishful thinking. Within a Marxo-Hegelian context, a thought is abstract when it ignores all of the mediations in which a thing is embedded. For example, I understand a robust tree abstractly when I attribute its robustness, say, to its genetics alone, ignoring the complex relations to its soil, the air, sunshine, rainfall, etc., that also allowed it to grow robustly in this way. This is the sort of critique we’re always leveling against the neoliberals. They are abstract thinkers. In their doxa that individuals are entirely responsible for themselves and that they completely make themselves by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, neoliberals ignore all the mediations belonging to the social and material context in which human beings develop that play a role in determining the vectors of their life. They ignore, for example, that George W. Bush grew up in a family that was highly connected to the world of business and government and that this gave him opportunities that someone living in a remote region of Alaska in a very different material infrastructure and set of family relations does not have. To think concretely is to engage in a cartography of these mediations, a mapping of these networks, from circumstance to circumstance (what I call an “onto-cartography”). It is to map assemblages, networks, or ecologies in the constitution of entities. Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. It’s good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here I’m reminded by the “underpants gnomes” depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: Ultra-Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhD’s in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that don’t have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they don’t embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?). This type of “revolutionary” is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isn’t where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
61 -3. Particularism is good—root cause claims and focus on overarching structures ignore application to material injustice.
62 -Gregory Fernando Pappas 16 Texas AandM University “The Pragmatists’ Approach to Injustice”, The Pluralist Volume 11, Number 1, Spring 2016, BE
63 -The pragmatists’ approach should be distinguished from nonideal theories whose starting point seems to be the injustices of society at large that have a history and persist through time, where the task of political philosophy is to detect and diagnose the presence of these historical injustices in particular situations of injustice. For example, critical theory today has inherited an approach to social philosophy characteristic of the European tradition that goes back to Rousseau, Marx, Weber, Freud, Marcuse, and others. Accord- ing to Roberto Frega, this tradition takes society to be “intrinsically sick” with a malaise that requires adopting a critical historical stance in order to understand how the systematic sickness affects present social situations. In other words, this approach assumes that¶ a philosophical critique of specific social situations can be accomplished only under the assumption of a broader and full blown critique of soci- ety in its entirety: as a critique of capitalism, of modernity, of western civilization, of rationality itself. The idea of social pathology becomes intelligible only against the background of a philosophy of history or of an anthropology of decline, according to which the distortions of actual social life are but the inevitable consequence of longstanding historical processes. (“Between Pragmatism and Critical Theory” 63)¶ However, this particular approach to injustice is not limited to critical theory. It is present in those Latin American and African American political philosophies that have used and transformed the critical intellectual tools of ¶ critical theory to deal with the problems of injustice in the Americas. For instance, Charles W. Mills claims that the starting point and alternative to the abstractions of ideal theory that masked injustices is to diagnose and rectify a history of an illness—the legacy of white supremacy in our actual society.11 The critical task of revealing this illness is achieved by adopting a historical perspective where the injustices of today are part of a larger historical narrative about the development of modern societies that goes back to how Europeans have progressively dehumanized or subordinated others. Similary, radical feminists as well as Third World scholars, as reaction to the hege- monic Eurocentric paradigms that disguise injustices under the assumption of a universal or objective point of view, have stressed how our knowledge is always situated. This may seem congenial with pragmatism except the locus of the knower and of injustices is often described as power structures located in “global hierarchies” and a “world-system” and not situations.12¶ Pragmatism only questions that we live in History or a “World-System” (as a totality or abstract context) but not that we are in history (lowercase): in a present situation continuous with others where the past weighs heavily in our memories, bodies, habits, structures, and communities. It also does not deny the importance of power structures and seeing the connections be- tween injustices through time, but there is a difference between (a) inquiring into present situations of injustice in order to detect, diagnose, and cure an injustice (a social pathology) across history, and (b) inquiring into the his- tory of a systematic injustice in order to facilitate inquiry into the present unique, context-bound injustice. To capture the legacy of the past on present injustices,
64 - we must study history but also seek present evidence of the weight of the past on the present injustice.¶ If injustice is an illness, then the pragmatists’ approach takes as its main focus diagnosing and treating the particular present illness, that is, the particular situation-bound injustice and not a global “social pathology” or some single transhistorical source of injustice. The diagnosis of a particular injustice is not always dependent on adopting a broader critical standpoint of society in its entirety, but even when it is, we must be careful to not forget that such standpoints are useful only for understanding the present evil. The concepts and categories “white supremacy” and “colonialism” can be great tools that can be of planetary significance. One could even argue that they pick out much larger areas of people’s lives and injustices than the categories of class and gender, but in spite of their reach and explanatory theoretical value, they are nothing more than tools to make reference to and ameliorate particular injustices experienced (suffered) in the midst of a particular and unique re- lationship in a situation. No doubt many, but not all, problems of injustice are a consequence of being a member of a group in history, but even in these cases, we cannot a priori assume that injustices are homogeneously equal for all members of that group. Why is this important? The possible pluralism and therefore complexity of a problem of injustice does not always stop at the level of being a member of a historical group or even a member of many groups, as insisted on by intersectional analysis. There may be unique cir- cumstances to particular countries, towns, neighborhoods, institutions, and ultimately situations that we must be open to in a context-sensitive inquiry. If an empirical inquiry is committed to capturing and ameliorating all of the harms in situations of injustice in their raw pretheoretical complexity, then this requires that we try to begin with and return to the concrete, particular, and unique experiences of injustice.¶ Pragmatism agrees with Sally Haslanger’s concern about Charles Mills’s view. She writes: “The goal is not just a theory that is historical (v. ahistori- cal), but is sensitive to historical particularity, i.e., that resists grand causal narratives purporting to give an account of how domination has come about and is perpetuated everywhere and at all times” (1). For “the forces that cause and sustain domination vary tremendously context by context, and there isn’t necessarily a single causal explanation; a theoretical framework that is useful as a basis for political intervention must be highly sensitive to the details of the particular social context” (1).13¶ Although each situation is unique, there are commonalities among the cases that permit inquiry about common causes. We can “formulate tentative general principles from investigation of similar individual cases, and then . . . check the generalizations by applying them to still further cases” (Dewey, Lectures in China 53). But Dewey insists that the focus should be on the indi- vidual case, and was critical of how so many sociopolitical theories are prone to starting and remaining at the level of “sweeping generalizations.” He states that they “fail to focus on the concrete problems which arise in experience, allowing such problems to be buried under their sweeping generalizations” (Lectures in China 53).¶ The lesson pragmatism provides for nonideal theory today is that it must be careful to not reify any injustice as some single historical force for which particular injustice problems are its manifestation or evidence for its exis- tence. Pragmatism welcomes the wisdom and resources of nonideal theories that are historically grounded on actual injustices, but it issues a warning about how they should be understood and implemented. It is, for example, sympathetic to the critical resources found in critical race theory, but with an important qualification. It understands Derrick Bell’s valuable criticism as context-specific to patterns in the practice of American law. Through his inquiry into particular cases and civil rights policies at a particular time and place, Bell learned and proposed certain general principles such as the one of “interest convergence,” that is, “whites will promote racial advantages for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest.”14 But, for pragma- tism, these principles are nothing more than historically grounded tools to use in present problematic situations that call for our analysis, such as deliberation in establishing public policies or making sense of some concrete injustice. The principles are falsifiable and open to revision as we face situation-specific injustices. In testing their adequacy, we need to consider their function in making us see aspects of injustices we would not otherwise appreciate.15
65 -YOU JUST CREATE NEW FORMS OF OPPRESSION AND CONTROL. You need the specific praxis of the affirmative to be grounded within an actual form of political action that creates change.
66 -Khan 2K8 Gulshan Ara, School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, Pluralisation: An Alternative to Hegemony, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations Volume 10, Issue 2, pages 194–209, May 2008
67 -Laclau’s notion of hegemony was formulated in the context of the growing signifi- cance of the politics of the new social movements in the latter part of the 20th century (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 3). He says the idea was to ‘outline a new politics for the left’ that would accommodate the multicultural and plural nature of diverse ‘contemporary social struggles’, such as the feminist movement, the environmen- talist movement and the anti-racist movement (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 3). The horizontal logic of the chain of equivalence is no doubt valuable for explaining how different struggles can be linked together. Unfortunately, however, the idea of the part standing in for the whole goes against the grain of egalitarian forms of organisation typical of many contemporary movements. Indeed, the emergence of contemporary anti-capitalist movements and the alternative globalisation move- ments offers a glimpse of hope for the future because they appear to coalesce and mobilise in non-hegemonic ways. They are steering towards a politics of rhizomatic assemblages without leaders. For example, there does not appear to be a part standing in to represent the whole at the summit protests (against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Economic Forum (WEF)) or in the new forms of group formations associated with the World Social Forum (Starr 2005). The assem- blages that emerge at these meetings and events are not hierarchical or centralised and there is no claim to represent the universal interests of the movement. In fact, contemporary radical movements tend to be autonomous, grass-roots based, civil and social movements that rhizomatically and spontaneously cohere together against the common enemy of ‘corporate capitalism’ or ‘neo-liberalism’. They do not (necessarily) seek to seize power but rather create autonomous political spaces and zones outside of hegemonic power structures.12 Laclau’s theory of hegemony seems to have little relevance for these contemporary forms of politics. In fact, it is difficult to see the relevance of his theory for politics more generally in advanced industrial societies because of the complexity of social and political relations characteristic of them. In these societies we rarely find the articulation of ‘fragmented’ and ‘dislocated demands around a new core’ and forms of antagonism that lead to the replacement of the existing regime by an entirely new hegemony. Indeed, Laclau’s theory of hegemony only becomes a useful strat- egy in transforming society when an entire regime is perceived as oppressive and it is not a coincidence that his examples tend to be taken from circumstances such as the Russian revolution. Furthermore, advanced capitalism is sustained and repro- duced through non-hegemonic forms of control and therefore requires different forms of resistance (and a more nuanced conception of power or relations) to combat it.
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1 -Interpretation – if the negative reads arguments linking to fairness or education as reasons to drop the affirmative and also a pre-fiat criticism of the affirmative that links to a role of the ballot, then they must specify which layer comes first either in their speech or when asked in CX.
2 -
3 -Violation – they don’t have any spec in the speech doc, and CX is binding, and they don’t say
4 -
5 -Strategy Skew
6 -
7 -Impacts
8 - 1. Education – I incoherently read irrelevant arguments to both positions.
9 -Cross apply other framing issues
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1 -*Notes*
2 -We object to the use of the words “human rights” due to the neocolonial paternalism it propagates
3 -Instances of “women/an” have been replaced with “womxn”
4 -Framework
5 -I value morality as per the evaluative term “ought” in the resolution, which is defined as “used to express duty or moral obligation”. By Merriam-Webster.
6 -
7 -To evaluate ethical judgements we must first discard our pre-disposed ontologies via inclusion of the subject at hand.
8 -Butler 09. Judith Butler, “Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?” Jan 1st 2009, Pg.138, http://books.google.com/books/about/Frames_of_War.html?id=ga7hAAAAMAAJ
9 -We ask such normative questions as if we know what we mean by the subjects even as we do not always know how best to represent or recognize various subjects. Indeed, the “we” who asks such questions for the most part assumes that the problem is a normative one, namely, how best to arrange political life so that recognition and representation can take place. And though surely this is a crucial, if not the most crucial, normative question to ask, we cannot possibly approach an answer if we do not consider the ontology of the subject whose recognition and representation is at issue. Moreover, any inquiry into that ontology requires that we consider another level at which the normative operates, namely, through norms that produce the idea of the human who is worthy of recognition and representation at all. That is to say, we cannot ask and answer the most commonly understood normative questions, regarding how best to represent or recognize such subjects, if we fail to understand the differential of power at work that distinguishes between those subjects who will be eligible for recognition and those who will not.
10 -
11 -This inclusion mandates the expression of all voices which necessarily prohibits structural oppression.
12 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
13 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual ¶ and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In ¶ Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation ¶ because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, ¶ experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have ¶ regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
14 -Thus the standard is combatting structural oppression.
15 -
16 -Additionally:
17 -1. Only naturalism is epistemically accessible
18 -Papinaeu 11 David Papineau, “Naturalism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007
19 -Moore took this argument to show that moral facts comprise a distinct species of non-natural fact. However, any such non-naturalist view of morality faces immediate difficulties, deriving ultimately from the kind of causal closure thesis discussed above. If all physical effects are due to a limited range of natural causes, and if moral facts lie outside this range, then it follow that moral facts can never make any difference to what happens in the physical world (Harman, 1986). At first sight this may seem tolerable (perhaps moral facts indeed don't have any physical effects). But it has very awkward epistemological consequences. For beings like us, knowledge of the spatiotemporal world is mediated by physical processes involving our sense organs and cognitive systems. If moral facts cannot influence the physical world, then it is hard to see how we can have any knowledge of them.
20 -2. Intentions and states of being are non-falsifiable and can only be informed by hypothetical consequences
21 -3. Life is a pre-requisite to agency and freedom – that justifies exceptions to hyper-individualist ethics
22 -
23 -
24 -Plan
25 -Text: The United States federal government should guarantee the Right to Housing by banning forced evictions and promoting legal security of tenure for all persons.
26 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
27 -In some cases its recommendations, have been very specific. During its review of The Philippines, the Committee, after affirming the general principles, urged the Government to extend indefinitely the moratorium on summary and illegal forced evictions and demolitions, promote greater security of tenure, take the necessary measures, including prosecutions wherever appropriate, to stop violations of laws such as R.A. 7279. 45 It also urged that certain laws criminalising trespass - PD 772 and PD 1818 – be repealed that all existing legislation relevant to the practice of forced evictions should be reviewed so as to ensure its compatibility with the provisions of the Covenant. The Committee also noted that when ‘relocating evicted or homeless persons or families, attention should be paid to the availability of job opportunities, schools, hospitals or health centres, and transport facilities in the areas selected.’ This position was also reflected in the Committee’s General Comment No.4 on Right to Adequate Housing of 1991, which states that: ‘instances of forced eviction are prima facie incompatible with the requirements of the Covenant and can only be justified in the most exceptional circumstances, and in accordance with the relevant principles of international law.’46 This General Comment, an authoritative interpretation of Article 11 of ICESCR, further provided that States are obliged to take immediate measures to confer legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection. In the same year, the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights, also an expert body, passed a resolution in similar terms and continued to do so until 1998.47 The political arm of the United Nations human rights machinery quickly affirmed these conclusions. The Commission on Human Rights resolved in 1993 that ‘the practice of forced evictions constitutes a gross violation of human rights, in particular the right to adequate housing’.48 The resolution went on to urge governments to eliminate the practice and confer legal security of tenure to all persons and recommend that they provide remedies to those who had been forcibly evicted. The Commission issued a comparable resolution in 2004. Worryingly, the later resolution appears to place more emphasis on states eliminating evictions that are inconsistent with national law. It is clear, nonetheless, from the language of the resolution that states must ensure that national law conforms to international standards.
28 -AND, laws are uniquely key.
29 -http://www.jstor.org/stable/20072726
30 -The biased and male-oriented interpretation of the right to housing is likewise visible in the definition of the seven constituent elements of the right to housing that should be fulfilled in any given context in order to establish adequate housing.21 These features include legal security of tenure; the availability of services, material facilities, and infrastructures; the affordability of housing; its habitability, accessibility, location, and cultural adequacy. These standards theoretically support a broad and interdepen dent interpretation of the right to housing. According to the standards, a shelter turns into a home only if it provides access to basic natural resources and social services, only if the way that housing is constructed is in line with the cultural identity of its inhabitants, and only if it is accessible to disadvantaged groups.22 Further, only safety standards regarding the material structure and the location of the home are addressed, whereas the conditions inside the home are yet again neglected. Here I will analyze the standards of legal security and habitability, which are most infringed upon through domestic violence. The Committee describes the legal security of tenure in the following way: Notwithstanding the type of tenure, all persons should possess a degree of security of tenure which guarantees legal protection against forced eviction, harassment and other threats. States parties should consequently take immedi ate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups.23 This standard is correctly considered the cornerstone of the right to adequate housing. The preliminary requirement for the exercise of the right to housing is the actual possibility for an individual to claim a legally recognized right over tenure, i.e., a right to own and dispose of it.
The CESCR Committee explains that legal security should protect the individual from "forced eviction, harassment and other threats."24 Despite the theoretically broad formulation of "other threats," this standard has been consistently interpreted as limited to the protection from "forced evictions, harassment and other threats" carried out by individuals external to the family, as in the case of government officials carrying out forced evictions.25 The legal security of tenure is usually considered a legal document that protects the inhabitants as a cohesive group from any external threat against their possession. However, a more detailed analysis of the most typical family structures, and an examination of who actually enjoys this legal security on paper, demonstrates that throughout the world, security of tenure is most often granted to men, at the expense of womxn, because men are presumed to be the heads of the households.26 In many regions of the world, womxn are de jure or de facto prevented from buying, inheriting, or owning their homes as a result of discriminatory laws and customs regulating matrimonial and inheritance laws, as well as access to property and housing.27 In these situations womxn are clearly denied the main rinciple of the right to housing. The standard of legal security of tenure is of fundamental importance to womxn, and it acquires an essential role for battered womxn. As the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing under lined in his 2003 report, Womxn and Adequate Housing: The attainment of legal security of tenure is of critical importance to womxn; without it they are disproportionately affected by forced evictions, . . . domestic violence, . . . discriminatory inheritance laws, development projects and globalization policies that circumscribe access to productive land and natural resources.28 When battered womxn are prevented by laws, policies, customs or culture from attaining a legally secured tenure, the possibility of leaving an abusive husband is very limited. Shelters for battered womxn are not always available, and womxn who decide to abandon violent households often find no alternative to homelessness, ending up in urban slums.29 This implies that an abused womxn without real access to a legally secured tenure is indirectly forced to stay in an abusive relationship and endure physical and psychological violence. She is forced by the state's laws, or by society's practice, to remain prisoner in her own home or, alternatively, to accept homelessness and its connected risks. The Special Rapporteur drew attention to this phenomenon in the same report, stating: In most countries, whether developed or developing, domestic violence is a key cause of womxn's homelessness and presents a real threat to womxn's security of person and security of tenure. Many womxn continue to live in violent situations because they face homelessness if they resist domestic violence.30 A state's failure to ensure womxn substantial access to property and housing violates womxn's basic human right to adequate housing and indirectly contributes to the persistence of domestic violence. States are therefore required to grant womxn the legal security of tenure as an integral part of their obligation to eradicate domestic violence.31 We should recall the CESCR Committee's recommendation: "States parties should . . . take immediate measures aimed at conferring legal security of tenure upon those persons and households currently lacking such protection, in genuine consultation with affected persons and groups."32
31 -
32 -
33 -
34 -Advantage 1: Forced Evictions
35 -Forced evictions destroy value to life – 4 reasons.
36 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
37 -The link between the right to adequate housing and other human rights Human rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated. In other words, the violation of the right to adequate housing may affect the enjoyment of a wide range of other human rights and vice versa. Access to adequate housing can be a precondition for the enjoyment of several human rights, including the rights to work, health, social security, vote, privacy or education. The possibility of earning a living can be seriously impaired when a person has been relocated following a forced eviction to a place removed from employment opportunities. Without proof of residency, homeless persons may not be able to vote, enjoy social services or receive health care. Schools may refuse to register slum children because their settlements have no official status. Inadequate housing can have repercussions on the right to health; for instance, if houses and settlements have limited or no safe drinking water and sanitation, their residents may fall seriously ill. Forced evictions can have implications for the enjoyment of several human rights, including the right to education and the right to personal security. Forced evictions often result in children’s schooling being interrupted or completely stopped. The trauma experienced following a forced eviction can also impair a child’s capacity to attend classes. During forced evictions, people are frequently harassed or beaten and occasionally even subjected to inhumane treatment or killed. Womxn and girls are particularly vulnerable to violence, including sexual violence, before, during and after an eviction. At the same time, the right to adequate housing can be affected by the extent to which other human rights are guaranteed. Access to housing is most at risk for those denied the right to education, work or social security. Improving housing conditions and protecting against forced evictions are often dependent on claims made by those affected. Where the rights to freedom of expression, assembly or association are not respected, the possibility for individuals and communities to advocate better living conditions is significantly reduced. Human rights defenders working to protect the right of individuals and communities to adequate housing have been subjected to violence, arbitrary arrest, and arbitrary and prolonged detention.
38 -Value to life outweighs because there’s no reason to live if life is repressive and results in continuous suffering
39 -
40 -These evictions operate on discriminatory justifications, targeting marginalized individuals who have been rendered invisible by political calculations and spills over into violations of human rights at large.
41 -UN 14 (UN Habitat for a better urban future and United Nations Human Rights office of the High Commissioner) “Forced Evictions” Fact Sheet No. 25/Rev 1 2014 http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS25.Rev.1.pdf //AG
42 -Forced evictions are generally discriminatory or lead to discrimination. In many instances, the victims of forced evictions are those belonging to specific groups of the population: the poorest, communities facing discrimination, the marginalized and those who do not have the clout to change the decisions and designs of the project leading to their displacement. It is often their very poverty that subjects the poor to displacement and resettlement and being perceived as targets of least resistance. According to the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, “forced evictions intensify inequality, social conflict, segregation and ‘ghettoization’, and invariably affect the poorest most socially and economically vulnerable and marginalized sectors of society, especially womxn, children, minorities and indigenous peoples.”3 Discrimination is frequently a factor in forced evictions. Discrimination means any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of various grounds which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights. It is linked to the marginalization of specific population groups and is generally at the root of fundamental structural inequalities in society. Prohibited discrimination can exist in either the public or the private sphere. Rights can be violated through the direct or indirect action or omission by States, including through their institutions or agencies at the national and local level, as well as in their international cooperation and assistance. Those at heightened risk of forced eviction are often placed in such situations on account of discrimination. For instance, those in informal settlements or otherwise lacking security of tenure are often marginalized groups. Additionally, racial or ethnic groups could be targets of forced eviction specifically because of their race, ethnicity or religion.
43 -
44 -Lack of security of tenure leads to neighborhood purifications emptying out racial minorities and womxn, structurally favoring white male America.
45 -Hartman and Robinson 3 (Chester Hartman is President/Executive Director of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council and David Robinson is Senior Staff Attorney for Housing and Special Projects at the Legal Services for New York City Legal Support Unit) “Evictions: The Hidden Housing Problem” Housing Policy Debate Volume 14, Issue 4 Fannie Mae Foundation 2003
46 -First, renters, who have far less security of tenure than homeowners, are disproportionately represented among involuntary movers.7 And since, compared with homeowners, renters tend to be disproportionately minority and to have lower incomes, the problem of involuntary moves disproportionately affects the more vulnerable households in our society. Numerous studies have shown that those who are evicted are typically poor, womxn, and minorities. 1. In New York City, a 1993 study found that close to half of the tenants facing eviction in Housing Court had incomes below $10,000; 86 percent were African American or Latino (Community Training and Resource Center et al. 1993). 2. In Chicago, 72 percent of those appearing in court were African American, 62 percent were womxn (Chadha 1996). 3. A study of rent court in Baltimore found that the vast majority of tenants facing eviction were “poor black womxn” and in “marginal economic circumstances” (Bezdek 1992, 535 and 558). 4. In Philadelphia, a researcher found that 83 percent of the tenants facing eviction were nonwhite and that 70 percent were nonwhite womxn (Eldridge 2001). 5. A Los Angeles study concluded: The analysis of unlawful detainer cases filed in the Municipal Court of the City of Los Angeles in the first six months of 1991... points to one overwhelming finding: the higher the percentage of African American persons and children (persons under 18years of age) belonging to female headed households, the higher the eviction rate….Self-help, extra-legal evictions where the landlord forces the tenant out, may be more common in immigrant communities where new arrivals are less aware of their rights and more susceptible to intimidation. Therefore, the results may understate the eviction rate for immigrant groups. (Heskin and Davidson 1993, i) 6. In Oakland, “Four out of five ‘30-day No Cause’ evictions (78) are minority households” (East Bay Housing Organizations 2002). 7. Another New York City study (Rubel 2001) found that a disproportionate number of evictions take place in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough, which has the highest proportion of low-income tenants. The various market forces that produce evictions are more likely to impact these subpopulations as well.
47 -
48 -The process of eviction itself increases the likelihood of physical abuse and sexual violence
49 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
50 -While forced evictions have an impact on both men and womxn, womxn tend to be disproportionately affected. Womxn are often exposed to violence and intense emotional stress before, during and after an eviction, because of their close ties to the home and their role as caregivers for the entire family.11 During evictions, verbal abuse, beatings and rape may take place. Following an eviction, womxn are often more vulnerable to abuse, particularly if they have been forced to move to inadequate housing, often in informal settlements. The lack of shelter and privacy in such settlements can lead to increased exposure to sexual and other forms of violence. When housing conditions are inadequate, womxn are often disproportionately affected. For instance, womxn are usually responsible for collecting water if water and sanitation services are inadequate, and often spend up to 4 hours a day walking, queuing and carrying water. Domestic violence has been identified as a major cause of womxn and children becoming homeless, especially when there is insufficient protection by law enforcement officials or by the legal system itself. Conversely, fear of homelessness might compel womxn to remain in abusive relationships.
51 -
52 -Evictions are the leading cause of homelessness; this prevents the realization of every other right.
53 -Desmond 2. (Matthew Desmond, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at Harvard University. He is an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty., “Unaffordable America: Poverty, housing, and eviction”, No. 22, Institute for Research on Poverty: University of Wisconsin – Madison, March 2015, http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mdesmond/files/fastfocus2015.pdf) //AD
54 -The consequences of eviction are many and multidimensional. Eviction is a leading cause of homelessness, especially for families with children.15 It also is directly linked to high rates of residential mobility among low-income households—so much so, in fact, that after accounting for forced moves, poor renters do not exhibit higher mobility rates than other renters. Residential instability often brings about other forms of instability—in families, schools, communities— compromising the life chances of adults and children.16 An effective way to decrease residential instability among poor families would be to lower the incidence of eviction. Additionally, involuntary displacement is linked to substandard housing conditions. An analysis of the Milwaukee Area Renters Study data revealed that renters whose previous move was involuntary were almost 25 percent more likely to experience long-term housing problems than matched renters who did not experience a recent forced move.17 One explanation for why some poor families live in substandard housing conditions—which among other things harms children’s health—is that they are compelled to do so in the aftermath of an eviction. Another study found that even after conditioning on a host of important factors, experiencing an eviction is associated with over a third of a standard deviation increase in neighborhood poverty and crime rates, relative to voluntary moves.18 Families involuntarily displaced from their homes often end up in worse neighborhoods. Tenants evicted through the court system carry the judgment on their record. Owing to open record laws, in many states this information is easily accessible and free online. An eviction judgment makes it difficult to secure decent housing in a safe neighborhood, as many landlords reject anyone with a recent eviction.19 Many people think that job loss leads to eviction, but eviction can also lead to job loss. An eviction not only can consume renters’ time, causing them to miss work, it also can consume their thoughts and cause them to make mistakes on the job, and also result in their relocating farther away from their worksite, increasing their likelihood of tardiness and absenteeism. Results from the Milwaukee Area Renters Study found that workers who involuntarily lost their housing were roughly 20 percent more likely subsequently lose their jobs, compared to similar workers who did not.20 These results imply that initiatives promoting housing stability could promote employment stability. Eviction is also negatively associated with mental health. Drawing on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study—a national, longitudinal survey that follows a birth cohort of about 4,900 new parents and their children living in 20 large cities—one study found that the year following an eviction, mothers are 20 percent more likely to report depression than their peers. Moreover, at least two years after their eviction, mothers still experienced significantly higher rates of depression than their peers.21 The same study also documented a large and robust relationship between a recent eviction and increased material hardship.22 Mothers who experienced an eviction in the last year report around one standard deviation higher rates of material hardship than mothers who were matched along many other characteristics but had not experienced eviction. As with depression, mothers’ material hardship may also be affected in the long-term, as significant differences were detected at least two years after the event.23 If material hardship is a measure of the lived experience of scarcity— assessing, say, hunger or sickness because food or medical care was financially out of reach—then these findings suggest that eviction is a driver of poverty
55 -
56 -The psychological impact of homelessness on children is equivalent to that of armed conflict
57 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
58 -Children’s health, educational advancement and overall well-being are deeply influenced by the quality of housing in which they live. Lack of adequate housing, forced evictions or homelessness tend to have a profound impact on children due to their specific needs, affecting their growth, development and enjoyment of a whole range of human rights, including the right to education, health and personal security. In its State of the World’s Children 2005 report, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed that more than one out of every three children in the developing world—over 640 million children—does not live in adequate housing. Given the pervasiveness and the impact of homelessness and inadequate housing on children, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has emphasized the universal character of the right to adequate housing, stressing that it applies to every child without distinction or restriction of any kind. While the existence of millions of street children is often the most visible sign of children’s lack of shelter, other situations also have specific ramifications for their enjoyment of the right to adequate housing. Cramped, crowded, noisy or run-down housing conditions seriously undermine children’s development and health, as well as their capacity to learn or play. Studies have highlighted that the lack of adequate housing increases mortality rates for children under five, while the most significant form of chemical pollutant affecting children’s health in low- and middle-income countries is indoor pollution resulting notably from poor-quality stoves and inadequate ventilation.12 Access to basic services attached to the home, such as safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, is fundamental to ensuring children’s health. Diarrhoeal diseases claim the lives of nearly two million children every year; 80 to 90 per cent of these cases are the result of contaminated water and inadequate sanitation. Particularly for girls, lack of safe drinking water within or close to the home can mean long journeys to collect water at remote water points, often to the detriment of their education, along with the risk of being subjected to harassment and other threats along the way. The location of housing is also crucial to ensuring children’s access to childcare, schools, health care and other services. If settlements are far away from schools, or if transport is either non-existent or too expensive, it is hard for children to get an education or health care. Homelessness has particular effects on children, compromising their growth, development and security. Homeless children can be vulnerable to a range of emotional problems, including anxiety, sleeplessness, aggression and withdrawal. Their access to basic services, such as health care and education, can also be seriously impaired if they have no fixed address. Children living and working in the street are particularly vulnerable to threats, harassment and violence by private individuals and the police. Forced evictions tend to affect the entire family but have a particular impact on children. Following forced evictions, family stability is often jeopardized and livelihoods threatened. The impact of forced evictions on children’s development is considered to be similar to that of armed conflict.13
59 -
60 -Systemic micro-violence structurally primes macro conflict
61 -Scheper-Hughes, Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkely, and Bourgois Professors of Anthropology @ UPenn, ‘4
62 - (Nancy and Philippe, Introduction: Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War and Peace, pg. 19-22)
63 -This large and at first sight “messy” Part VII is central to this anthology’s thesis. It encompasses everything from the routinized, bureaucratized, and utterly banal violence of children dying of hunger and maternal despair in Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33) to elderly African Americans dying of heat stroke in Mayor Daly’s version of US apartheid in Chicago’s South Side (Klinenberg, Chapter 38) to the racialized class hatred expressed by British Victorians in their olfactory disgust of the “smelly” working classes (Orwell, Chapter 36). In these readings violence is located in the symbolic and social structures that overdetermine and allow the criminalized drug addictions, interpersonal bloodshed, and racially patterned incarcerations that characterize the US “inner city” to be normalized (Bourgois, Chapter 37 and Wacquant, Chapter 39). Violence also takes the form of class, racial, political self-hatred and adolescent self-destruction (Quesada, Chapter 35), as well as of useless (i.e. preventable), rawly embodied physical suffering, and death (Farmer, Chapter 34). Absolutely central to our approach is a blurring of categories and distinctions between wartime and peacetime violence. Close attention to the “little” violences produced in the structures, habituses, and mentalites of everyday life shifts our attention to pathologies of class, race, and gender inequalities. More important, it interrupts the voyeuristic tendencies of “violence studies” that risk publicly humiliating the powerless who are often forced into complicity with social and individual pathologies of power because suffering is often a solvent of human integrity and dignity. Thus, in this anthology we are positing a violence continuum comprised of a multitude of “small wars and invisible genocides” (see also Scheper- Hughes 1996; 1997; 2000b) conducted in the normative social spaces of public schools, clinics, emergency rooms, hospital wards, nursing homes, courtrooms, public registry offices, prisons, detention centers, and public morgues. The violence continuum also refers to the ease with which humans are capable of reducing the socially vulnerable into expendable nonpersons and assuming the license - even the duty - to kill, maim, or soul-murder. We realize that in referring to a violence and a genocide continuum we are flying in the face of a tradition of genocide studies that argues for the absolute uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust and for vigilance with respect to restricted purist use of the term genocide itself (see Kuper 1985; Chaulk 1999; Fein 1990; Chorbajian 1999). But we hold an opposing and alternative view that, to the contrary, it is absolutely necessary to make just such existential leaps in purposefully linking violent acts in normal times to those of abnormal times. Hence the title of our volume: Violence in War and in Peace. If (as we concede) there is a moral risk in overextending the concept of “genocide” into spaces and corners of everyday life where we might not ordinarily think to find it (and there is), an even greater risk lies in failing to sensitize ourselves, in misrecognizing protogenocidal practices and sentiments daily enacted as normative behavior by “ordinary” good-enough citizens. Peacetime crimes, such as prison construction sold as economic development to impoverished communities in the mountains and deserts of California, or the evolution of the criminal industrial complex into the latest peculiar institution for managing race relations in the United States (Waquant, Chapter 39), constitute the “small wars and invisible genocides” to which we refer. This applies to African American and Latino youth mortality statistics in Oakland, California, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York City. These are “invisible” genocides not because they are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the opposite. As Wittgenstein observed, the things that are hardest to perceive are those which are right before our eyes and therefore taken for granted. In this regard, Bourdieu’s partial and unfinished theory of violence (see Chapters 32 and 42) as well as his concept of misrecognition is crucial to our task. By including the normative everyday forms of violence hidden in the minutiae of “normal” social practices - in the architecture of homes, in gender relations, in communal work, in the exchange of gifts, and so forth - Bourdieu forces us to reconsider the broader meanings and status of violence, especially the links between the violence of everyday life and explicit political terror and state repression, Similarly, Basaglia’s notion of “peacetime crimes” - crimini di pace - imagines a direct relationship between wartime and peacetime violence. Peacetime crimes suggests the possibility that war crimes are merely ordinary, everyday crimes of public consent applied systematically and dramatically in the extreme context of war. Consider the parallel uses of rape during peacetime and wartime, or the family resemblances between the legalized violence of US immigration and naturalization border raids on “illegal aliens” versus the US government- engineered genocide in 1938, known as the Cherokee “Trail of Tears.” Peacetime crimes suggests that everyday forms of state violence make a certain kind of domestic peace possible. Internal “stability” is purchased with the currency of peacetime crimes, many of which take the form of professionally applied “strangle-holds.” Everyday forms of state violence during peacetime make a certain kind of domestic “peace” possible. It is an easy-to-identify peacetime crime that is usually maintained as a public secret by the government and by a scared or apathetic populace. Most subtly, but no less politically or structurally, the phenomenal growth in the United States of a new military, postindustrial prison industrial complex has taken place in the absence of broad-based opposition, let alone collective acts of civil disobedience. The public consensus is based primarily on a new mobilization of an old fear of the mob, the mugger, the rapist, the Black man, the undeserving poor. How many public executions of mentally deficient prisoners in the United States are needed to make life feel more secure for the affluent? What can it possibly mean when incarceration becomes the “normative” socializing experience for ethnic minority youth in a society, i.e., over 33 percent of young African American men (Prison Watch 2002). In the end it is essential that we recognize the existence of a genocidal capacity among otherwise good-enough humans and that we need to exercise a defensive hypervigilance to the less dramatic, permitted, and even rewarded everyday acts of violence that render participation in genocidal acts and policies possible (under adverse political or economic conditions), perhaps more easily than we would like to recognize. Under the violence continuum we include, therefore, all expressions of radical social exclusion, dehumanization, depersonal- ization, pseudospeciation, and reification which normalize atrocious behavior and violence toward others. A constant self-mobilization for alarm, a state of constant hyperarousal is, perhaps, a reasonable response to Benjamin’s view of late modern history as a chronic “state of emergency” (Taussig, Chapter 31). We are trying to recover here the classic anagogic thinking that enabled Erving Goffman, Jules Henry, C. Wright Mills, and Franco Basaglia among other mid-twentieth-century radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and structural relations, i.e., between inmates and patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other “total institutions.” Making that decisive move to recognize the continuum of violence allows us to see the capacity and the willingness - if not enthusiasm - of ordinary people, the practical technicians of the social consensus, to enforce genocidal-like crimes against categories of rubbish people. There is no primary impulse out of which mass violence and genocide are born, it is ingrained in the common sense of everyday social life. The mad, the differently abled, the mentally vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy living, as have the very old and infirm, the sick-poor, and, of course, the despised racial, religious, sexual, and ethnic groups of the moment. Erik Erikson referred to “pseudo- speciation” as the human tendency to classify some individuals or social groups as less than fully human - a prerequisite to genocide and one that is carefully honed during the unremark- able peacetimes that precede the sudden, “seemingly unintelligible” outbreaks of mass violence. Collective denial and misrecognition are prerequisites for mass violence and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and professional roles. The practical technicians of everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast Brazil (Scheper-Hughes, Chapter 33), for example, include the clinic doctors who prescribe powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the Catholic priests who celebrate the death of “angel-babies,” and the municipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby coffins but no food to hungry families. Everyday violence encompasses the implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic, and political formations. It is close to what Bourdieu (1977, 1996) means by “symbolic violence,” the violence that is often “nus-recognized” for something else, usually something good. Everyday violence is similar to what Taussig (1989) calls “terror as usual.” All these terms are meant to reveal a public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and between war crimes and “peace-time crimes.” Bourdieu (1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and marriage, in the exchange of gifts, in systems of classification, in style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in social practice. It is misrecognized because its very everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies “rneconnaissance” as the prerequisite of the social. The exploitation of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the structures of family farming in the European countryside that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter 42; see also Scheper-Hughes, 2000b; Favret-Saada, 1989). Following Gramsci, Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other modern theorists of power-vio- lence, Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical violence as a crude, uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate. While power and symbolic domination are not to be equated with violence - and Arendt argues persuasively that violence is to be understood as a failure of power - violence, as we are presenting it here, is more than simply the expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or group of persons. Rather, we need to understand violence as encompassing all forms of “controlling processes” (Nader 1997b) that assault basic human freedoms and individual or collective survival. Our task is to recognize these gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not obvious. Once again, the point of bringing into the discourses on genocide everyday, normative experiences of reification, depersonalization, institutional confinement, and acceptable death is to help answer the question: What makes mass violence and genocide possible? In this volume we are suggesting that mass violence is part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental and often experienced by perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders - and even by victims themselves - as expected, routine, even justified. The preparations for mass killing can be found in social sentiments and institutions from the family, to schools, churches, hospitals, and the military. They harbor the early “warning signs” (Charney 1991), the “priming” (as Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the “genocidal continuum” (as we call it) that push social consensus toward devaluing certain forms of human life and lifeways from the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable “social parasites” (the nursing home elderly, “welfare queens,” undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the militarization of everyday life (super-maximum-security prisons, capital punishment; the technologies of heightened personal security, including the house gun and gated communities; and reversed feelings of victimization)
64 -
65 -The impact is even larger – eviction data is underreported because of a lack of policies like the RTH
66 -Hartman and Robinson 3 (Chester Hartman is President/Executive Director of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council and David Robinson is Senior Staff Attorney for Housing and Special Projects at the Legal Services for New York City Legal Support Unit) “Evictions: The Hidden Housing Problem” Housing Policy Debate Volume 14, Issue 4 Fannie Mae Foundation 2003 https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/10950.pdf //AG
67 -Each year, an untold number of Americans are evicted or otherwise forced to leave their homes1 involuntarily. The number is likely in the many millions, but we have no way of gauging even a modestly precise figure for renters, because such data are simply not collected on a national basis or in any systematic way in most localities where evictions take place. (By contrast, reliable data on the number of mortgage foreclosures, which presage the eviction of homeowners—although little beyond sheer numbers—are systematically collected and published by the Mortgage Bankers Association of America.) The problem’s lack of visibility, as well as the lack of attention given to solutions, especially compared with the attention paid to homeowners’ problems, can be partially understood by the lesser favor shown toward renters as opposed to homeowners in American culture and policy. Having good data on this vast, hidden housing problem would seem an essential ingredient for developing housing policies and programs that might decrease the incidence and negative impact of what, for most of those affected, must be a profoundly traumatic experience, both as it occurs and in its later consequences.2 Beyond gross numbers, it is critical to know the demographic characteristics of those being evicted, the reasons for the evictions, and what happens to those who are evicted after forced displacement. (Homeowners experiencing mortgage foreclosure are, as noted, essentially evicted. While we make occasional passing reference to homeowners, their problems and characteristics are somewhat different from those of tenants. A separate article dealing with their issues, another inadequately recognized housing problem, would be a useful complement to our treatment of the tenant displacement problem.)3
68 -
69 -
70 -Advantage 2: Ableism
71 -People with disabilities are often denied access to adequate housing due to lack of security of tenure – leads to homelessness
72 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
73 -Accessibility remains a key issue. Housing, housing-related facilities and neighbourhoods are traditionally designed for people without disabilities. The frequent exclusion and marginalization of persons with disabilities often mean that they are rarely consulted when new housing structures or neighbourhoods are developed or slums upgraded. They are also vulnerable to associated violations of their rights. For instance, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities in informal settlements can pose severe challenges to them. Security of tenure is another challenge for persons with disabilities, in particular those with an intellectual or psychosocial disability. The frequent lack of recognition of their legal capacity, often coupled with requirements for applications in person, means that persons with such disabilities are rarely able to enter into any type of formal housing contract (lease, ownership, etc.) and, therefore, have to rely on less formal avenues to secure housing. Those arrangements, in turn, make them more vulnerable to forced evictions. In general, where stigmatization remains unaddressed and social or community services are unavailable—including social housing—persons with disabilities continue to face discrimination when seeking housing, or more general challenges in securing the resources necessary for obtaining adequate housing. Such challenges inevitably make them more vulnerable to forced evictions, homelessness and inadequate housing conditions. General comment No. 4 provides that persons with disabilities must be accorded full and sustainable access to adequate housing resources, and that housing law and policy should take into account their special needs. In its general comment No. 5 (1994), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reaffirmed that the right to adequate housing includes accessibility for persons with disabilities. The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has also underlined not only that housing should be physically and economically accessible to persons with disabilities, but that they should be able to effectively participate in the life of the community where they live.
74 -Ableism outweighs – categorization based on normative biological standards justifies every form of discrimination and violence.
75 -Siebers 9. Tobin Siebers; Professor of Literary and Cultural Criticism at University of Michigan; October 28; “The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification”; http://disabilities.temple.edu/media/ds/lecture20091028siebersAesthetics_FULL.doc
76 -Oppression is the systematic victimization of one group by another. It is a form of intergroup violence. That oppression involves “groups,” and not “individuals,” means that it concerns identities, and this means, furthermore, that oppression always focuses on how the body appears, both on how it appears as a public and physical presence and on its specific and various appearances. Oppression is justified most often by the attribution of natural inferiority—what some call “in-built” or “biological” inferiority. Natural inferiority is always somatic, focusing on the mental and physical features of the group, and it figures as disability. The prototype of biological inferiority is disability. The representation of inferiority always comes back to the appearance of the body and the way the body makes other bodies feel. This is why the study of oppression requires an understanding of aesthetics—not only because oppression uses aesthetic judgments for its violence but also because the signposts of how oppression works are visible in the history of art, where aesthetic judgments about the creation and appreciation of bodies are openly discussed. One additional thought must be noted before I treat some analytic examples from the historical record. First, despite my statement that disability now serves as the master trope of human disqualification, it is not a matter of reducing other minority identities to disability identity. Rather, it is a matter of understanding the work done by disability in oppressive systems. In disability oppression, the physical and mental properties of the body are socially constructed as disqualifying defects, but this specific type of social construction happens to be integral at the present moment to the symbolic requirements of oppression in general. In every oppressive system of our day, I want to claim, the oppressed identity is represented in some way as disabled, and although it is hard to understand, the same process obtains when disability is the oppressed identity. “Racism” disqualifies on the basis of race, providing justification for the inferiority of certain skin colors, bloodlines, and physical features. “Sexism” disqualifies on the basis of sex/gender as a direct representation of mental and physical inferiority. “Classism” disqualifies on the basis of family lineage and socioeconomic power as proof of inferior genealogical status. “Ableism” disqualifies on the basis of mental and physical differences, first selecting and then stigmatizing them as disabilities. The oppressive system occults in each case the fact that the disqualified identity is socially constructed, a mere convention, representing signs of incompetence, weakness, or inferiority as undeniable facts of nature. As racism, sexism, and classism fall away slowly as justifications for human inferiority—and the critiques of these prejudices prove powerful examples of how to fight oppression—the prejudice against disability remains in full force, providing seemingly credible reasons for the belief in human inferiority and the oppressive systems built upon it. This usage will continue, I expect, until we reach a historical moment when we know as much about the social construction of disability as we now know about the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Disability represents at this moment in time the final frontier of justifiable human inferiority.
77 -Advantage 3: IPV
78 -IPV Survivors are being evicted and are the people who need housing most
79 -http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/law/files/2013/03/IWHR-Gendered-Housing-Perspective.pdf
80 -A. Domestic Violence and Homelessness Homeless Womxn All of these problems unique to womxn are exacerbated by the leading cause of homelessness for womxn, gender-based violence.277 A 2007 survey of twenty-three United 269 UNCESCR, General Comment 4, supra note 70 at ¶ 13. 270 Id. at ¶¶ 12, 13. 271 UDHR, supra note 188 at art. 3,; ICCPR, supra note 170 at art. 9,; Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), art. 16., Dec. 10, 1984. 1465 U.N.T.S. 85, 272 See CEDAW, supra note 112; CRC, supra note 73 at art. 19,; CRPD, supra note 72 at art. 16; Convention Against Torture, General Comment 2,.¶ 22. CAT/C/GC (2008). 273 CEDAW, General Recommendation No. 19, supra note 112 at ¶ 4. 274 Id. at ¶ 9; Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR), General Comment No. 16, ¶ 27. E/C.12/2005/4 (2005). 275 CEDAW, General Recommendation No. 19, supra note 112 at ¶ 1; UNCESCR General Comment No. 16, supra note 274 at ¶ 27. 276 CEDAW, General Recommendation No. 19, supra note 112 at ¶ 23; Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR), General Comment No. 14, ¶ 12. E/C.12/2000/4 (2000). 277 See Homelessness and United States Compliance with Human Rights Obligations, supra note 244. 44 States’ cities found that thirty-nine percent identified domestic violence as the primary cause of local homelessness for womxn.278 Around the country, twenty-two to fifty-seven percent of homeless womxn report that domestic violence was the immediate cause of their homelessness.279 Chicago: • In 2003, 56 of homeless womxn reported being victims of domestic violence • In 2003, 36 of homeless womxn reported experiencing physical or sexual abuse as children • In 2003, 23 of homeless womxn reported that domestic violence was the immediate cause of their homelessness Los Angeles: • In 2007, 70 of homeless womxn reported experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault and/or child abuse in their lifetime • In 2004, 58 of homeless womxn who had experienced domestic violence in the past year reported becoming homeless as a direct result of fleeing New York City: • In 2002, Almost 50 of all homeless heads of households experienced domestic violence • In 2005, 25 of all homeless heads of households cited domestic violence as the direct cause of their homelessness Washington D.C.: • In 2002, 50 of family members in shelters were estimated to have experienced domestic violence National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, Some Facts on Homelessness, Housing, and Violence Against Womxn, p. 1-2. The estimated 1.3 million victims of domestic violence per year often must make the difficult decision to remain in the abusive relationship or risk homelessness for themselves and their children.280 As a result of either having to quickly flee the situation or years of isolation caused by the abuser, domestic violence victims have barriers to securing alternative housing. These individuals have limited, poor, or no financial resources, employment or rental histories, credit records, or social supports.281 Combined with a lack of affordable housing and long waiting lists for assisted housing, it is no wonder that sixty-three percent of homeless womxn have been victims of intimate partner violence as adults and twenty-eight percent of families are homeless as a result of domestic violence.282 Even when a domestic violence victim manages to leave an abusive relationship and gather the resources necessary to obtain housing, landlords often discriminate against those with orders of protection or other signs of domestic violence.283 278 National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty,. Some Facts on Homelessness, Housing, and Violence Against Womxn,. p. 2. http://www.nlchp.org/content/pubs/Some20Facts20on20Homeless20and20DV.pdf (last visited October 10, 2009). 279 Homelessness and United States Compliance with Human Rights Obligations, supra note 244 at pp. 9-10. 280 National Coalition Against Domestic Violence,. Domestic Violence and Housing, p.1. http://www.ncadv.org/files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf (last visited Oct. 5, 2009). 281 The Characteristics and Needs of Families Experiencing Homelessness, supra note 91, at 3. 282 Domestic Violence and Homelessness, supra note 95, at 1. 283 Id. at 2. 45 The UN has recognized domestic violence as both a form of gender discrimination284 and a can be in certain circumstances a type of torture unique to womxn.285 Under CEDAW, states are required to “pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating discrimination against womxn.”286 Furthermore, states must take measures to modify social and cultural patterns that create a system of inferiority of womxn to men.287 A number of policies in the United States are aimed at ending discrimination against womxn, beginning with constitutional protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. Further protections come from the Violence Against Womxn Act of 2005 and the Fair Housing Act, both of which prohibit housing discrimination against domestic violence victims.288 While all of these measures are positive steps in the right direction, the United States government still has not fully complied with international human right. On a single day in 2007, emergency shelters in the United States had over 25,000 requests for emergency assistance from domestic violence victims. On that same day, 7,707 requests for domestic violence services, sixty-one percent of which were for housing, went unmet.289 Though the number and conditions of domestic violence shelters has improved, most shelters do not allow victims to stay more than ninety days despite the fact that the average amount of time it takes for a family to secure alternative housing is six to ten months.290 In fact, in a 2004 survey, twenty-seven cities reported a thirty-five month average wait time for Section 8 housing and a twenty month wait time for public housing. Clearly, the United States must take additional measures to end gender-based violence so that womxn are not only guaranteed their right to security but also so they may fully realize other human rights. Homeless Children The following chart illustrates that domestic violence not only affects womxn, but also plays a large role in the lives of homeless children. 284 CEDAW, General Recommendation No. 19, supra note 112 at ¶¶ 1, 6. 285 CAT, General Comment No. 2, supra note 272 at ¶ 18. 286 CEDAW, supra note 112, at art. 2. 287 Id. at art. 5(a). 288 The Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County: The Fair Housing Project,. Fair Housing Protections for Domestic Violence Victims, pp. 2-3. http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/PIRC/DocumentsAbstracts/Legal-Aid- Society-of-Palm-Beach-County-Inc-R4/LASPBC-Domestic-Violence/FH-Domestic-Violence-Pub.pdf (last visited October 25, 2009). 289 Some Facts on Homelessness, Housing, and Violence Against Womxn, supra note 278, at 4. 290 Domestic Violence and Housing, supra note 228, at 1. 46 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Violence Experienced by Homeless Children 35 24 15 11 8 4 8 3 Physically Abused Sexually Abused Subject of Child Protection Investigation Witnessed Violent Acts w ithin Their Family Saw Father Hit Mother Saw Mother Abused by a Male Partner Homeless Children Housed Children Homeless Children: America’s New Outcasts, The National Center on Family Homelessness Violence committed against children is specifically addressed in Article 19 of the Convention the Rights of the Child. States are obligated to protect children from “all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, and maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse.” Both homeless and housed children in the United States are at risk of experiencing violence as a child. As the chart above demonstrates, homeless children are at least twice as likely to be victims of physical or sexual abuse. The United States must take additional measures to protect all children from violence.
81 -AND, federal managers of subsidized housing often discriminate against womxn because their names appear in police reports.
82 -Lapidus
83 -http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1398andcontext=jgspl
84 -III. OTHER FORMS OF HOUSING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE In addition to evictions, battered womxn face housing discrimination in a variety of other ways and at various stages of the housing process.42 They may face discrimination at the time they apply for housing. Often, landlords, particularly managers of subsidized housing, conduct criminal record checks of individuals who apply to rent an apartment. These record checks generally indicate the names of both the individual convicted of the crime and the complaining victim. Advocates have discovered that housing authority managers frequently reject rental applications from womxn who have been victims of domestic violence as indicated by the complaining victim’s name appearing in the criminal record checks. In addition, as a result of mandatory arrest policies and courts issuing mutual orders of protection, battered womxn may actually show up on these record checks as the perpetrator of the violence.43 A second problem that battered womxn face at the admissions stage is that as a result of the domestic violence, they may not have solid work histories, credit, or references because the batterer has prevented them from holding a steady job, from maintaining a bank account, or from developing relationships with others, each of which may be a strike against them in the application process and may lead landlords to decline their applications.44 Those battered womxn who are able to obtain apartments may face difficulties maintaining them.45 Problems of continued occupancy include discrimination in the terms and conditions of the tenancy, such as a requirement that no violence occur in the future, a condition that is not imposed on other tenants.46 Further, in many cases only the husband’s name is listed on the lease, leading the housing authority to assert that it cannot evict the abuser and allow the victim to continue her occupancy.47 Finally, the victim is often held accountable for the acts of the abuser and is required to pay for property damage that he caused.48 Obtaining a transfer from one public housing complex to another also poses problems for victims of domestic violence.49 Public housing authorities do not have policies that accommodate the needs of residents fleeing domestic violence and lack flexible rules that would allow a battered womxn to leave the district in which she is residing and obtain public housing elsewhere.50 To address these various housing problems, landlords and housing authorities must give more attention to the circumstances of battered womxn and adopt policies that do not punish them for the acts of their abusers. Feminist lawyers and advocates are working to bring these circumstances to light and to develop strategies to alter current practices by housing authorities.51
85 -
86 -1 Only Aff RVIs on T/Theory. A) Strat skew- NC theory is a priori - renders the 1AC useless. They get 6 minutes to respond to a 4 minute 1AR. B) Discourages bad theory because debaters won’t run it frivolously if they know they can lose on it. C) No-risk issues hurt education because they provide competitive incentive to kick the shell instead of clashing.
87 -2 Ask if I will meet your interp in CX; this avoids unnecessary theory- we can work something out; this allows for greater substantive debate which is the only form of education which is unique to debate. Grant me an auto I meet on theory if the interp isn’t explicitly checked in cross-ex to discourage nonchecking.
88 -3 Presume aff; 4-7 3-6 time skew gives neg larger blocks of response time, so if it’s a tie ive done the better job debating. Look to presumption in cases where the resolution is rendered non-sensical (such as skep) or when the round is muddled
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1 -I value happiness. It's the ultimate ethical good.
2 -Darwish 9 Rethinking Utilitarianism," Bahaa Darwish (Qatar University). Teaching Ethics 10 (1):87-109 (2009). http://www.uvu.edu/ethics/seac/Darwish20-20Rethinking20Utilitarianism.pdf
3 -Let's start with knowledge. It is clear that those who value knowledge for its
4 -AND
5 -though these values have intrinsic worth, they bring or constitute our pleasure.
6 -This outweighs other ethical theories because they're all instrumental to the end of happiness and not intrinsically valuable in their own right.
7 -The standard is Singers Principle of Beneficence. Singer's principle states that if we can't prevent something bad from happening with significant sacrifice, we are obligated to do so.
8 -Peter Singer '72 ~"Famine, Affluence, and Morality", Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 229-243 ~revised edition~~ AG
9 -My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something
10 -AND
11 -while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.
12 -
13 -Prefer the standard:
14 -Only naturalism is epistemically accessible
15 -Papinaeu 11 ~David Papineau, "Naturalism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2007~
16 -Moore took this argument to show that moral facts comprise a distinct species of non
17 -AND
18 -it is hard to see how we can have any knowledge of them.
19 -
20 -Even if other frameworks are true, they only apply if rational beings exist which makes life a pre-requisite to other ethical theories
21 -Advantage 1: Housing Bubbles
22 -
23 -Housing bubble inevitable in 2017 – Trump administration and inaccessible housing.
24 -Bruno 17 Alessandro Bruno BA, MA International Relations all at the University of Toronto. Alessandro has been published extensively and is a frequent guest on television news programs including the BBC, CBC, and CTV. Analyst in the global investment banking sector for a leading international advisory group responsible for putting sustainability and corporate responsibility on the finance map "U.S Housing Bubble 2017 Is No Black Swan because It's Predictable" March 2nd, 2017 https://www.lombardiletter.com/u-s-housing-bubble-2017/8112/
25 -Ignoring the Past is leading to the Bursting of the U.S. Housing
26 -AND
27 -the prospect of higher mortgage interest beckons is a crisis waiting to happen.
28 -
29 -Increase in affordable housing solves housing bubbles.
30 -Dougherty 2/10 Conor Dougherty "Popping the Housing Bubbles in the American Mind" Friday, 10 Feb 2017 | 4:05 PM ET http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/10/popping-the-housing-bubbles-in-the-american-mind.html
31 -Finally, if housing were plentiful and cheap, we would probably stop having big
32 -AND
33 -and using the levers of local government to keep neighborhoods as they are.
34 -
35 -Housing bubble cause massive poverty, income inequality, and global economic collapse.
36 -Rickards 14 JAMES RICKARDS Attorney, commentator on Finance and prolific writer. "The Death of Money, THE COMING COLLAPSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM" 2014
37 -Asset Bubbles∂ America is today witnessing its third stock bubble, and its second
38 -AND
39 -∂ higher inflation, as one force rapidly and unexpectedly overwhelms the other.
40 -
41 -Advantage 2: Neoliberalism
42 -
43 -Market view of housing is the single largest internal link to global neoliberalism – historically creates the justification for universal market takeover
44 -Rolnick 13, UN Special Rapporteur, 2013 ~International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,View issue TOC , Volume 37, Issue 3, May 2013 ,Pages 1058–1066∂ Debates and Developments, Late Neoliberalism: The Financialization of Homeownership and Housing Rights, Authors Raquel Rolnik, First published: 24 April 2013Full publication history∂ DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427. This essay is a revised, updated and edited version of a thematic report on the financial crisis and the right to adequate housing presented by myself (as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing) to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2009. The report was written with the assistance of Bahram Ghazi, then assistant to the housing mandate in the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
45 -Over the last few decades we have witnessed a global U-turn in prevailing
46 -AND
47 -contexts and times, discussing in conclusion the present crisis and its perspectives.
48 -
49 -Neoliberalism makes financial and economic meltdown inevitable – it promotes fascism and outweighs every other impact.
50 -Monbiot, 2016 ~George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books Feral: rewilding the land, sea and human life, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. His latest book is How Did We Get into This Mess? Politics, Equality, Nature. His latest project is Breaking the Spell of Loneliness, a concept album written with the musician Ewan McLennan https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot~~
51 -Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The
52 -AND
53 -only. Phone orders min pandp of £1.99.
54 -
55 -Advantage 3: Homelessness
56 -
57 -Every night, two hundred thousand people sleep without a roof. It doesn't have to be this way – solutions exist and RTH is key
58 -Covert 14, Economic Editor at ThinkProgress, 2014 ~https://thinkprogress.org/it-would-actually-be-very-simple-to-end-homelessness-forever-d6f15852b2ec~~#.u4n1xuvvm, Go to the profile of Bryce Covert
59 -Bryce CovertFollow, Economic Editor at ThinkProgress. Contact me: bcovert@thinkprogress.org, Oct 9, 2014, It Would Actually Be Very Simple To End Homelessness Forever~∂ Someone like Kirk likely wouldn't have experienced such a long bout of homelessness in the decades leading up to the 1980s. But since then, thanks to a series of events but most notably the gutting of affordable housing, the country has experienced mass homelessness not seen since the Great Depression. More than 600,000 Americans don't have a home to sleep in on any given night, with over 100,000 chronically dealing with the problem.∂ Even with the size and scope of today's homeless population, though, it's not an unsolvable problem. The United States does actually know how to end homelessness. So why is Kirk still sleeping in a park?∂ *∂ The 1980s "was when contemporary homelessness really began," said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. "It's really critical to remember that we didn't always have mass homelessness in this country."∂ After the widespread homelessness caused by the Great Depression, it became a limited and short-term problem for decades. Homelessness will always exist among people experiencing unexpected poverty, struggling with mental illness or substance abuse, or coping with other unexpected events. But it used to be that getting back on your feet didn't take months or years. And homelessness used to mostly impact a narrow slice of society: white, urban, older men, many dealing with alcoholism.∂ "In the 70s, there was an adequate supply of affordable housing, even a surplus," said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "If people lost their housing, you could get them back into some place right away."∂ It's really critical to remember that we didn't always have mass homelessness in this country.∂ In 1970, there was a surplus of 300,000 affordable housing units in the U.S. But then, in the 1980s, affordable housing began to evaporate. The Reagan administration slashed funding. Federal spending on housing assistance fell by 50 percent between 1976 and 2002. At the same time, gentrification sped up, with cities getting rid of cheap housing like single room occupancy units and replacing them with more expensive stock, and units being built were more often for co-ops and condos for ownership instead of rent. Federal incentives to build affordable housing dried up. Add to that the AIDs crisis, the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, cutbacks to the social safety net, and the rise in incarceration and subsequent hurdles for reentry, and you have today's crisis.∂ By 1985, there were 8.9 million poor renters in need of housing but just 5.6 million units, a 3.2 million shortage. By 2009, there was a 5.5 million shortage. Today, just one in four eligible households gets federal rental assistance while rents keep rising, income stagnates, and a record number of families are paying more than what they can afford.∂ Other changes since the 1980s have been for the better. When mass homelessness emerged, we weren't ready for it. "There was a process of learning, because we did a lot of things in the beginning that I think were intuitive, but we've learned a lot," Roman said.∂ The original focus was on creating a plan to help someone with mental illness or substance abuse before getting her in housing, as well as a reliance on the shelter system, explained Jerry Jones, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. "If you go back a few years, it was an emphasis on creating a consensus plan on the local level," he said. "If you went back 10 or probably 15 years, there was more of an emphasis on transitional housing."∂ By now, if there's one thing that nearly everyone working to end homelessness agrees, it's that we know how to do it. It's just a matter of making it reality. The focus is singular, as Rachel Myers, executive director of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance explains. "People are homeless for different reasons and have different kinds of needs," she said. "But one thing that everyone who's homeless needs is a home."∂ There are three ways advocates are going about pursuing this. The first is by changing the mentality around homelessness to focus on housing first. Previously, advocates thought it best to try to address issues dogging the chronically homeless such as mental health and substance abuse before getting someone into housing. Now they've flipped that on its head so that the focus is simply getting someone in a stable housing situation before addressing other issues. Laura Zeilinger, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the federal agency dedicated to homelessness, explained, "The communities really implementing housing first are having the most progress."∂ One thing that everyone who's homeless needs is a home.∂ For some people, however, there aren't necessarily long-term issues — just the inability to afford rent. Rapid rehousing is another new and effective approach that's replaced an emphasis on putting people in the shelter system. It can be expensive to get back into housing once someone has lost it: first month's rent, a security deposit, and moving costs all add up. Rapid rehousing covers those costs and puts people in in real housing. "We're finding that getting people back into housing and linking them with services is more effective than spending the same amount of time in a shelter or transitional housing," Roman said.∂ And for those facing the highest hurdles, permanent supportive housing, or a place to live that comes with services like health care and job training, might be the right fit. "For veterans and single individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness, either on the streets or in a shelter system for a long time, permanent supportive housing works best," said Jones.∂ "The evidence pretty much indicates that if you provide people with a housing subsidy, their homelessness ends and they don't become homeless again," Roman said.∂ That's what Kirk thinks would happen for him if he could just get into an apartment. "If I got housing I'm sure I'd keep it. I know I'm mature enough to keep care of an apartment, I did it for years," he said. "I know I could be successful for any housing program, but I don't get in."∂ It's a simple, yet still radical idea, that for a person who's homeless, the solution is a home.∂ *∂ The government is putting that idea to the test. In 2010, it launched Opening Doors, what it says is "the nation's first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness." The goal is to end homelessness among veterans by 2015, chronic homelessness by 2016, and to end it for children, youth, and families by 2020. Progress is already visible on the first goal, although it's not clear if it will be met. Since the beginning of Opening Doors, veteran homelessness has fallen 33 percent and the number of veterans sleeping on the street has fallen by nearly 40 percent.∂ Some cities that are participating in the program have made even more progress. Last year, Phoenix and Salt Lake City both announced they had ended chronic homelessness among veterans. Both focused on a housing first approach, coupled with resources like job training and health care. Zeilinger said that New Orleans will end veteran homelessness before the federal deadline and is also on track to end chronic homelessness soon after that.∂ The point is supposed to be to create a "proof positive" by showing that when there's a will, there's a way to solve homelessness. End veteran homelessness, the logic goes, and you have concrete proof that you know what works and what it takes to end homelessness for other groups. That should in turn draw the necessary resources to the cause. "There's a bipartisan acknowledgment that people who have risked their lives for our freedom should not come home to sleep on the streets," Zeilinger explained. "The work we've done with ending veteran homelessness and the progress we're making is showing we have the right plan and when we invest in the solution and put the appropriations behind it, we can drive change."∂ I'm sleeping on the street right now, but my company doesn't know it.∂ But the danger is that while some groups have bipartisan support and will meet their goals, the progress will end there. "I think some folks actually do feel like if the main goal is to end chronic homelessness or end veteran homelessness, the campaign is over" after those milestones are achieved, Jones said.∂ That could mean Kirk would continue to slip through the cracks as someone who isn't a veteran. He meets the definition of someone who is experiencing chronic homelessness because it's been going on for more than a year, but if he were to once again obtain shelter only to lose it, he no longer would because he doesn't have a disability. That last point has really been getting in his way. "It's not just about having a housing problem," he said. To get into most programs, "You have to have a mental condition as well or they have no help for you." He also just got a new full-time job, which he says is "ironically" for a nonprofit providing mental health case management to the chronically homeless who struggle with mental illness.∂ "I'm sleeping on the street right now, but my company doesn't know it," he said. "I need to find housing for someone who does work." But those needs aren't on the agenda for quick solutions right now.∂ Zeilinger herself acknowledged this potential problem. Chronic homelessness hasn't had the same kind of political support as veteran homelessness. In fact, the goal was originally to end it in 2015, but it had to be shifted back a year "because we haven't been willing to invest $300 million to create the affordable housing that's needed," she said. "We're hoping we can present that data ~on ending veteran homelessness~ and illuminate it to help folks understand the importance."∂ There are other changes that need to be made to make this all work. Right now, the nonprofits that give out homelessness assistance in one way or another all get their own funding to run their own programs without speaking to each other. "If you're a homeless person you have to wander around and figure out where you fit," Roman said. There's a push to bring everything into one system, so that a homeless person could go to one place, get assessed, and be connected with what he needed.∂ I've always felt that I fell through the cracks.∂ Kirk has experienced this challenge firsthand. "It's really difficult to navigate this system when you're homeless," he said. "The bureaucracy seems too big and everything seems disjointed, none of the organizations seem to work together at all." For some of them, he doesn't have a severe enough mental illness to qualify. For another rapid rehousing-style program that helps the employed with the costs of moving into a new apartment, he can't qualify because of his past, incorrect mental health assessments. "It seems like a 50-year-old black man who's been homeless for the last year should be able to go to one place, and if they can't house you they should say, 'We know this place over here,'" he said. "None of the organizations here do that."∂ "I've always felt that I fell through the cracks," he added.∂ *∂ So if we have the solutions, why are there about 200,000 people going unsheltered on a typical night?
60 -
61 -Homelessness and housing is a prerequisite to all other rights.
62 -Andrews et al 16 E. Michelle Andrews, Cristine Delaney Goldman, Katherine Hughes, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Jean McCarroll, Matthew Putorti, and Laura Steven. The report was overseen by past chairs Elisabeth Wickeri and Stephen Kass. "REPORT BY THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE1 OF THE NEW YORK CITY BAR ASSOCIATION ADVANCING THE RIGHT TO HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES: Using International Law as a Foundation" February 2016
63 -Without full realization of the right to adequate housing, other rights become difficult to realize.38 At a base level, the right to housing affects the right to life, liberty, and security of person.39 For example, domestic violence victims especially need secure housing to ensure their safety.40 The lack of adequate housing also inhibits the realization of the rights to health and well-being,41 education,42 and clean water and sanitation.43 Furthermore, where the exercise of a right requires proof of residency—as is sometimes seen with the rights to vote,44 secure employment,45 or make decisions about the family46—the right to housing becomes paramount.
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1 -1AC – Chronically Homeless
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3 -Framework
4 -Mitigating structural violence precludes all other ethics – it has seeped in and structured educational spaces to exclude marginalized bodies.
5 -Trifonas 3. Peter Trifonas, 01-23-2003, " Pedagogies of Difference: Rethinking Education for Social Change ," RoutledgeFarmer, https://books.google.com/books?hl=enandlr=andid=ti_IDPOjC10Candoi=fndandpg=PP9anddq=Pedagogies+of+Difference+Rethinking+Education+for+Social+Change+Trifonasandots=9B1s4XCdafandsig=ArUOV8y7EQ-lEkUgTSe77eYPvRY#v=onepageandq=Pedagogies20of20Difference20Rethinking20Education20for20Social20Change20Trifonasandf=false //RS
6 -Domination and subordination, I imply that they are relations of power. In an educational context, the exercise of power is accomplished in interactions (i.e., in a social organization), manifesting itself as acts of exclusion, marginalization, silencing, and so forth. Thus, paying attention to how power operates along axes of gender, race, class, and ability (that is, recognizing that social differences are not given, but are accomplished in and through educational settings) is a step toward educational equity. What does the above discussion mean in the educational context? It means that in the interactions of teachers with students in the classroom, or in other contexts, attention needs to be directed toward how dominant and subordinate relations (be they based on race, gender, class, or ability) permeate these contexts and intersect in complicated ways to produce inequality and marginalization. The frequently used and well-meaning phrase, “I treat everyone the same, ” often used by teachers and administrators to indicate their lack of bias in a diverse educational setting, in fact masks unequal power relations. Similarly, educational policies that assume that people are the same or equal may serve to entrench existing inequality precisely because people enter into the educational process with different and unequal experiences. These attempts, well meaning though they may be, tend to render inequality invisible, and thus work against equity in education. In her exploration of white privilege in higher education in the United States, Frances Rains (1998), an aboriginal-Japanese American woman, states emphatically that these benign acts are disempowering for the minority person because they erase his or her racial identity. The denial of racism in this case is in fact a form of racism. Thus, in moving toward equity in education that allows us to address multiple and intersecting axes of difference and inequality, I recommend that we try to think and act “against the grain” in developing educational policies and handling various kinds of pedagogical situations. 5 To work against the grain is to recognize that education is not neutral; it is contested. Mohanty puts it as such: … Education represents both a struggle for meaning and a struggle over power relations. It is a central terrain where power and politics operate out of the lived culture of individuals and groups situated in asymmetrical social and political positions. (Mohanty 1990:184) We need to develop a critical awareness of the power dynamics operative in institutional relations-and of the fact that people participate in institutions as unequal subjects. Working against the grain is to take a proactive approach to understanding and acting upon institutional relations, whether in the classroom, in other interactions with students, or in policy development. Rather than overlooking the embeddedness of gender, race, class, ability, and other forms of inequality that shape our interactions, working against the grain makes explicit the political nature of education and how power operates to privilege, silence, and marginalize individuals who are differently located in the educational process. In her exploration of feminist pedagogy, Linda Briskin (1990) makes a clear distinction between nonsexist and antisexist education critical to our understanding here. She asserts that nonsexism is an approach that attempts to neutralize sexual inequality by pretending that gender can be made irrelevant in the classroom. Thus, for instance, merely asserting that male and female students should have equal time to speak-and indeed giving them equal time-cannot adequately rectify the endemic problem of sexism in the classroom. One of Briskin's students reported that in her political science tutorials that when the male students spoke, everyone paid attention. When a female student spoke, however, the class acted as if no one was speaking (13). Neutrality is an attempt to conceal the unequal distribution of power. An against the grain approach would acknowledge explicitly that we are all gendered, racialized, and differently constructed subjects who do not participate in interactional relations as equals. This goes beyond formulating sexism, racism, abilism, and class privilege in individualist terms and treating them as if they were personal attitudes. Terry Wolverton (1983) discovered the difference between nonracism and antiracism in her consciousness-raising attempt: I had confused the act of trying to appear not to be racist with actively working to eliminate racism. Trying to appear not racist had made me deny my racism, and therefore exclude the possibility of change. (191) Being against the grain means seeing inequality as systemic and interpersonal (rather than individual), and combatting oppression as a collective responsibility, not just as a personal attribute (so that somehow a person can cleanse herself or himself of sexism, racism, abilism, or class bias). It is to pay attention to oppression as an interactional property that can be altered (see Manners 1998). Roger Simon (1993) suggests, in his development of a philosophical basis for teaching against the grain, which shares many commonalities in how I think about an integrative approach to equity in education, that teaching against the grain is fundamentally a moral practice. By this he does not mean that teachers simply fulfill the mandate and guidelines of school authorities. He believes that teachers must expose the partial and imperfect nature of existing knowledge, which is constructed on the basis of asymmetrical power relations (for instance, who has the power to speak and whose voices are suppressed?). It is the responsibility of the teacher or educator to show how dominant forms of knowledge and ways of knowing constrict human capacities. In exposing the power relations integral to the knowledge construction process, the educator, by extension, must treat teaching and learning as a mutual and collaborative act between teachers and students. What may this ideal look like in practice? Marilyn Cochran-Smith (1991) also explores the notion of teaching against the grain in her research on how teachers and students worked together in a preservice program in the Philadelphia area. Borrowing from Gramsci's formulation that action is everyone's responsibility, she asserts that teaching is fundamentally a political activity. In practical terms, she outlines what it may mean to teach against the grain in an actual teaching and learning situation. Her succinct articulation is worth quoting at length: To teach against the grain, teachers have to understand and work both within and around the culture of teaching and the politics of schooling at their particular schools and within their larger school system and communities. They cannot simply announce better ways of doing things, as outsiders are likely to do. They have to teach differently without judging the ways other teach or dismissing the ideas others espouse…. They are not at liberty to publicly announce brilliant but excoriating critiques of their colleagues and the bureaucracies in which they labor. Their ultimate commitment is to the school lives and futures of the children with whom they live and work. Without condescension or defensiveness, they have to work with parents and other teachers on different ways of seeing and measuring development, connecting and dividing knowledge, and knowing about teaching and schooling. They have to be astute observers of individual learners with the ability to pose and explore questions that transcend cultural attribution, institutional habit, and the alleged certainty of outside experts. They have to see beyond and through the conventional labels and practices that sustain the status quo by raising unanswerable and often uncomfortable questions. Perhaps most importantly, teachers who work against the grain must name and wrestle with their own doubts, must fend off the fatigue of reform and depend on the strength of their individual and collaborative convictions that their work ultimately makes a difference in the fabric of social responsibility. (Cochran-Smith 1991:284-85) For me, to be against the grain is therefore to recognize that the routinized courses of action and interactions in all educational contexts are imbued with unequal distribution of power that produce and reinforce various forms of marginalization and exclusion. Thus, a commitment to redress these power relations (i.e., equity in education) involves interventions and actions that may appear “counter-intuitive.” 6 Undoing inequality and achieving equity in education is a risky and uncomfortable act because we need to disrupt the ways things are “normally” done. This involves a serious (and frequently threatening) effort to interrogate our privilege as well as our powerlessness. It obliges us to examine our own privilege relative though it may be, to move out of our internalized positions as victims, to take control over our lives, and to take responsibilities for change. It requires us to question what we take for granted, and a commitment to a vision of society built on reflection, reform, mutuality, and respect in theory and in practice. Teaching and learning against the grain is not easy, comfortable, or safe. It is protracted, difficult, uncomfortable, painful, and risky. It involves struggles with our colleagues, our students, as well as struggles within ourselves against our internalized beliefs and normalized behaviors. In other words, it is a lifelong challenge. However, as Simon (1993) puts it, teaching against the grain is also a project of hope. We engage in it with the knowledge and conviction that we are in a long-term collaborative project with like-minded people whose goal is to make the world a better place for us and for our children.
7 -The Role of Ballot is to resist institutional ableism. The specter of the disabled body permeates our cultural imaginary and foundationally informs our epistemology, makes the aff a prior question
8 -Snyder and Mitchell 1 (Sharon L. Snyder (assistant professor in the Department of Disability and Human Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago), and David T. Mitchell (associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Ph.D. in Disability Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago), “Re-engaging the Body: Disability Studies and the Resistance to Embodiment”, Public Culture 13(3): 367–389, 2001, http://publicculture.dukejournals.org/content/13/3/367.full.pdf
9 -Consequently, disability studies has formulated the problem of the medicalized body in a manner similar to that undertaken earlier in body studies, taking up medical institutions (and the ancillary administering of diagnosis, sequestration, and case study) as the primary locus of its critique. The pathologization of human differences is theorized as an imposition on the body—a regulatory effort to standardize inherent dynamism. But while body studies provided a foundation for a more general model of critique around the categories of illness, health, pathology, and even bioethics, disability studies moves beneath these terms to encounter disability directly in the experiences of human populations which were merely referenced euphemistically by those more general terms. Disability studies narrows the focus of its investigation to the social implications for bodies deemed excessively aberrant. In doing so, scholars have expanded the domain of cultural understandings about disability beyond the walls of its scientific management. For disability studies, the disabled body is neither a matter of individual malfunction—as cast by medicine—nor an effect of the abstraction of the body within the health professions. Instead, disability translates into a common denominator of cultural fascination (if not downright obsession)—one that infiltrates thinking across discursive registers as a shared reference point in deciding matters of human value and communal belonging. In this emergent field, the able body is no longer characterized as merely a false quantitative ideal, as it had been in body studies, but rather as an aesthetic product of cultural forces that oppress those categorized as disabled. This subtle shift in emphasis allows humanities scholars in disability studies to extend the discussion of bodily deviance from the context of rehabilitative institutions to that of wider ranging cultural locations. For instance, Lennard J. Davis (1995) analyzes the role of institutions for the Deaf in the historical development of disability activism and community in eighteenth-century Europe. Martin Pernick (1996) analyzes the influential role of public health films in the promotion of eugenics in Chicago prior to World War II. Through readings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. literary texts and cultural spectacles such as the freak show, Rosemarie Garland Thomson (1997) argues that disabled people’s bodies have been represented as unassimilable within a normalizing biological ideology that marks the disabled body as the inferior contrast to an able-bodied, white, masculine citizenry. Paul K. Longmore (1997) assesses television genres, such as disease-of-the-week movies and telethons, to dissect mainstream representations of disability as tragedies in need of eradication or overcoming. In our own Narrative Prosthesis (Mitchell and Snyder 2000), we theorize the pervasive utility of disability to literature in Europe and the United States by discussing the longstanding artistic recourse to disability as a staple feature of characterization. Disability studies scholars have also analyzed the opportunistic use of corporeal metaphors to emblematize societal weaknesses in literary and philosophical figurations of disability. Ultimately, these analyses of the pervasive dependency upon textual and visual representations of disability in various cultural media have forced a reformulation of a theory of marginality itself within disability studies. This is one site at which disability studies diverges from the approach established by other civil rights–based programs. While many minority movements have argued that their social devaluation occurs as a result of their marginal presence in representational media, disability studies has formulated an analysis of social depreciation targeting the perpetual recourse to images of disability in narrative and visual mediums. As a result, disability studies follows a figuration of marginality as the expression of an “overheated symbolic organism” that conveys potent meanings as a result of its palimpsest-like discursive history (cf. Stewart 1993). Theaters of Repression The work of disability studies scholars consolidated the argument that bodily and cognitive differences were integral to various registers of meaning-making within culture. While the earliest research in the field kept returning to a denunciation of three prominent literary figures—Shakespeare’s Richard III, Melville’s Captain Ahab, and Dickens’s Tiny Tim—the growing body of historical research called for wider ranging methodologies. As with later developments in race and gender studies, disability studies outgrew its denunciations of stereotypes; instead, theorists began to argue that disability represented a deep-seated, yet uninterrogated, cultural conflict. If the able body proved a utopian fiction of abstract bodily norms, disabled bodies occupied the phantasmic recesses of the cultural imaginary. The different body was more than a site for public scapegoating—cognitive and physical aberrancies acted as reminders of Others in our midst who challenged beliefs in a homogeneous bodily order. Out of these efforts to elucidate the constructed nature of disabled bodies in history, disability studies set out to diagnose the investments of an ableist society in disability’s various incarnations. Cultural efforts to medicalize or domesticate disability effectively repressed the power of aberrancy to unmoor notions of the body as a matter of norms, averages, and deviations. Locating disabled bodies as rare examples of extraordinary deviance essentially cordoned off disability from the differences that characterize typical biological diversity. For disability studies, the impersonal was the political. Such a sequestration evidenced the mainstream desire to reduce the different body’s (or mind’s) ability to destabilize normative models of health.
10 -
11 -Advantage – Ableism
12 -The current US housing system is grossly inefficient
13 -Foscarinis et al 04 (Maria Foscarinis, Executive Director, National Law Center on Homelessness and Policy, “The Human Right to Housing: Making the Case in U.S. Advocacy,” Clearing- house Review Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, July-August 2004.)//JA
14 -Legislation, policies, and programs related to development of adequate housing to ensure universal housing access is a significant concern of the draft Bangkok guidelines. This area addresses planning, the regulation of building construction, the housing finance system, and freedom of movement to choose one’s residence. In the United States, on both the federal and state levels, governmental commitment to financing and subsidizing affordable housing for low-income people has declined precipitously in recent years. Between 1976 and 2002 budget authority for federal housing assistance dropped by $28.1 billion. In January 1977 the Ford administration submitted to Congress a budget request for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that would have funded 506,000 additional low-income housing units. Subsidized housing commitments dropped to 60,590 in 1982, to 33,491 in 1995, and to 8,493 in 1996. HUD has been increasing funding for housing units since 1996 but to nowhere near the level of the late 1970s. Average time on waiting lists for public housing has grown steeply.28 While the commitment to create new subsidized units has tapered off to nearly zero, the stock of federally subsidized housing is being rapidly depleted as owners of privately owned but publicly subsidized housing stock prepay government-insured mortgages or opt out of government contracts. Since 1996, an estimated 120,000 affordable units have been lost in this manner, and 1.4 million HUD-subsidized units are in jeopardy.29 This retreat from government commitment to develop affordable housing has led to a precipitous decrease in the availability of affordable housing. In central cities almost five very-low-income households are vying for every three unsubsidized units that they can afford; in the suburbs two very-low-income households are vying for every afford- able unit on the market.30 Even amidst the prosperity of the 1990s the stock of housing available to the poorest decreased. Units affordable to renters of very low income (below 50 percent of area median income) fell by almost 900,000 from 1993 to 1995, and over 300,000 affordable units were lost for low income (below 80 percent of area median) renters between 1997 and 1999.
15 -
16 -People with disabilities are often denied access to adequate housing and more likely to be forcibly evicted
17 -UHCHR 09 (UHCHR, November 2009, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The Right to Adequate Housing”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/FS21_rev_1_Housing_en.pdf) //SN
18 -Accessibility remains a key issue. Housing, housing-related facilities and neighbourhoods are traditionally designed for people without disabilities. The frequent exclusion and marginalization of persons with disabilities often mean that they are rarely consulted when new housing structures or neighbourhoods are developed or slums upgraded. They are also vulnerable to associated violations of their rights. For instance, the lack of adequate sanitation facilities in informal settlements can pose severe challenges to them. Security of tenure is another challenge for persons with disabilities, in particular those with an intellectual or psychosocial disability. The frequent lack of recognition of their legal capacity, often coupled with requirements for applications in person, means that persons with such disabilities are rarely able to enter into any type of formal housing contract (lease, ownership, etc.) and, therefore, have to rely on less formal avenues to secure housing. Those arrangements, in turn, make them more vulnerable to forced evictions. In general, where stigmatization remains unaddressed and social or community services are unavailable—including social housing—persons with disabilities continue to face discrimination when seeking housing, or more general challenges in securing the resources necessary for obtaining adequate housing. Such challenges inevitably make them more vulnerable to forced evictions, homelessness and inadequate housing conditions. General comment No. 4 provides that persons with disabilities must be accorded full and sustainable access to adequate housing resources, and that housing law and policy should take into account their special needs. In its general comment No. 5 (1994), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reaffirmed that the right to adequate housing includes accessibility for persons with disabilities. The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has also underlined not only that housing should be physically and economically accessible to persons with disabilities, but that they should be able to effectively participate in the life of the community where they live.
19 -
20 -Ableism operates as the fundamental tactic of oppression—the naturalization of social inferiority as a biological difference
21 -Siebers 9 (Siebers, University of Michigan, Professor of Literary and Cultural Criticism, Tobin, “The Aesthetics of Human Disqualification”, Oct 28, 2009, Lecture, Google Books.)
22 -
23 -Oppression is the systematic victimization of one group by another. It is a form of intergroup violence. That oppression involves “groups,” and not “individuals,” means that it concerns identities, and this means, furthermore, that oppression always focuses on how the body appears, both on how it appears as a public and physical presence and on its specific and various appearances. Oppression is justified most often by the attribution of natural inferiority—what some call “in-built” or “biological” inferiority. Natural inferiority is always somatic, focusing on the mental and physical features of the group, and it figures as disability. The prototype of biological inferiority is disability. The representation of inferiority always comes back to the appearance of the body and the way the body makes other bodies feel. This is why the study of oppression requires an understanding of aesthetics—not only because oppression uses aesthetic judgments for its violence but also because the signposts of how oppression works are visible in the history of art, where aesthetic judgments about the creation and appreciation of bodies are openly discussed. One additional thought must be noted before I treat some analytic examples from the historical record. First, despite my statement that disability now serves as the master trope of human disqualification, it is not a matter of reducing other minority identities to disability identity. Rather, it is a matter of understanding the work done by disability in oppressive systems. In disability oppression, the physical and mental properties of the body are socially constructed as disqualifying defects, but this specific type of social construction happens to be integral at the present moment to the symbolic requirements of oppression in general. In every oppressive system of our day, I want to claim, the oppressed identity is represented in some way as disabled, and although it is hard to understand, the same process obtains when disability is the oppressed identity. “Racism” disqualifies on the basis of race, providing justification for the inferiority of certain skin colors, bloodlines, and physical features. “Sexism” disqualifies on the basis of sex/gender as a direct representation of mental and physical inferiority. “Classism” disqualifies on the basis of family lineage and socioeconomic power as proof of inferior genealogical status. “Ableism” disqualifies on the basis of mental and physical differences, first selecting and then stigmatizing them as disabilities. The oppressive system occults in each case the fact that the disqualified identity is socially constructed, a mere convention, representing signs of incompetence, weakness, or inferiority as undeniable facts of nature. As racism, sexism, and classism fall away slowly as justifications for human inferiority—and the critiques of these prejudices prove powerful examples of how to fight oppression—the prejudice against disability remains in full force, providing seemingly credible reasons for the belief in human inferiority and the oppressive systems built upon it. This usage will continue, I expect, until we reach a historical moment when we know as much about the social construction of disability as we now know about the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Disability represents at this moment in time the final frontier of justifiable human inferiority
24 -
25 -Plan
26 -
27 -Plan Text: The United States federal government should ensure the right to housing for the chronically homeless via the Housing First model
28 -Semuels 16 (Alana Semuels is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She was previously a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. April 25, 2016. How can the US End Homelessness? https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/end-homelessness-us/479115/)//JA
29 -
30 -On any given night in the United States, half a million people are homeless. Some of them sleep in shelters, others on the streets; roughly one-quarter are children. About 15 percent are so-called chronically homeless, which means they haven’t had a permanent home in years, and often cycle through jails, hospitals and homeless shelters in search of a place to lay their heads. The government has tried to tackle the problem of homelessness on nearly every level, but comprehensive solutions have proven elusive, despite billions spent over time. The federal government has set a series of goals of ending homelessness for veterans by 2015, chronic homelessness by 2017, and homelessness for families with children and youth by 2020. But reaching these benchmarks appears to be much further off. Can we count on that as a long-term solution? Shelters are certainly useful in that they provide beds and roofs to people who don’t have them, especially on cold and rainy nights where sleeping outside could be fatal for some. But shelters are incredibly expensive to operate. Nationally, the average monthly cost of serving a family in an emergency shelter is $4,819. Providing them with a voucher for housing, on the other hand, is just $1,162. Shelters might be good for emergencies, but does having a bed to sleep in mean that someone has a home? And quality can be an issue for these shelters: Many homeless people have told advocates trying to get them off the streets that they avoid shelters if they possibly can. They’ve heard about bad experiences there, or have themselves suffered through violence, theft, or other trauma in these ostensibly safer spaces. There were 826 “violent incidents” in New York City homeless shelters last year, including sexual assault and domestic violence, according to the New York Daily News. People often have to leave food and other belongings behind when they check into a shelter, making it hard to accumulate anything of sentimental or material value. Plus, shelters don’t allow residents to develop a sense of permanency—and it’s permanency that helps people get a job or stay sober, as numerous studies have indicated. Affordable housing would be a longer-term solution. Let’s just increase the number of these units overall. If more people can afford housing, they won’t be homeless. If it were that easy to add more affordable housing, cities like New York and San Francisco would be very different than they are now, and far less expensive. It’s costly to build new apartments and homes in cities where land is pricey, and developers want to recoup their investment as soon as possible, which means they have to charge a lot for rent. That’s not to say cities, states, and the federal government haven’t tried out a few strategies for hastening the construction of affordable housing. Have any of them been effective? There are federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits that help certain developers build 100 percent affordable housing. But developers compete for those tax credits, and there aren’t enough to held build affordable housing for all the people who need it, much less for those who don’t have homes in the first place. Inclusionary zoning policies can help create more affordable housing; in places such as Montgomery County, Maryland, for instance, all new apartment buildings with more than a certain number of units have to set aside a few of them to be designated as affordable housing, priced much lower than market rent. But then developers usually have to pass the costs of that lost rent onto the other tenants, which increases market-rate rent. In most municipalities, inclusionary zoning is voluntary, which means that developers who include affordable units can skirt some regulations, allowing them to build higher, for instance, or make their buildings denser. Making this kind of zoning mandatory can be tricky, though, because developers argue that they can’t charge enough for market-rate units in low- and middle-income neighborhoods to subsidize the affordable units. In March, New York City made inclusionary zoning mandatory in some neighborhoods, and developers are already complaining that it’s become harder to build affordable housing in the city. Okay, so if we can’t rely on affordable housing units alone, it sounds like we should find other methods to give homeless people special access to permanent homes. That would be better in terms of lasting success, boosting their chances of landing and keeping a job, and maybe helping those who struggle with addiction to stay sober. This is what’s called a housing-first approach, and numerous studies have found it’s much more effective than relying on shelters. Housing-first places homeless people in long-term housing without asking them to get sober or hang onto a job first. After they’re settled in a stable home, they gain access to services such as drug and alcohol treatment, an assigned social worker, or job training. They don’t have to take advantage of those services, but most people chose to do so. Through housing-first, Utah reduced its chronically-homeless population 72 percent between 2005 and 2014. And housing-first isn’t cheap—though tenants pay a small portion of their rent, the state or city usually picks up much of the tab. A voucher for a housing program, like Section 8, can cost $1,162 a month, and spending that money means fewer people get rental assistance overall. When long-term housing is hard to come by, people desperate for help often get abused. As The New York Times pointed out in a heartbreaking story last year, cities such as New York with a large homeless population have seen the growth of three-quarters houses, which cram multiple people into one bedroom while purporting to help them. Often, they’re just collecting these peoples’ money without giving them any services or even a clean place to live. Not every homeless person will thrive just because they have a place to live. Some have mental or physical problems that make it difficult for them to stay off the streets after getting a home. Others may never be able to support themselves completely without a community to keep them afloat. Jeffrey Nemetsky, who runs Brooklyn Community Housing and Services, says having a social worker knock on the door once a day to say hello can mean the difference between a tenant staying or heading back out onto the streets. So that’s the answer: provide the homeless with permanent, affordable housing, and wraparound services. Permanent supportive housing might solve this for us. True, permanent supportive housing can be very effective at helping the chronically homeless get off the streets and stay stable. But is it legal? Many people who need permanent supportive housing are battling mental problems or drug and alcohol abuse, and would have once ended up in institutions. But since the deinstitutionalization movement began in the 1960s and ’70s, the number of in-patient beds at state or county mental health facilities has declined from more than 400,000 to fewer than 100,000. Though some institutions still exist, the practice of putting the mentally ill into segregated buildings falls into a gray area. In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of people with disabilities violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Though the case was about people on Medicaid, homeless advocates interpreted it to apply to some chronically homeless with disabilities. Isolating those homeless people from the rest of society is akin to institutionalizing them, advocates say, and it violates the law. That’s why some housing developments provide both permanent supportive housing and low-income housing, so that homes can be made available to a larger swath of the population. This kind of mixed-use housing helps create communities; in one building in Harlem, single moms living in affordable housing helped out the ex-cons living in supportive housing, and vice versa. Though the building’s developers worried that low-income moms wouldn’t want to live with the mentally ill, some 2,000 people applied for just a few dozen units when the building opened. This and other experiences suggest that integrating supportive and low-income housing can be successful. But still, agencies and advocates all over the country are struggling to serve the homeless people with mental illness and addiction. It often takes years for case workers to get people to try out permanent supportive housing and abandon the lives they’ve known on the streets. Some cities and states have started allowing judges to order people who cycle through the system to receive treatment for their illnesses, an approach that’s controversial. Across the country, experts on homelessness have solutions they think will work best. The problem is, housing in many cities is getting more expensive every month, and as prices rise, so do the costs of programs to combat homelessness. Meanwhile, federal funds for affordable housing have stayed at the same levels for years. So as housing costs go up, those funds are spread more thinly and help fewer people. But if homelessness is really a problem the country wants to solve by 2020, why not increase the amount of money overall that the government spends on programs to help the homeless? Where could that money come from? Why not stimulate the creation of affordable housing so to assist both the chronically homeless and those who are homeless temporarily? Such housing could be available to people below certain income levels, and they could qualify whether they are on the streets or are in an apartment they can’t afford. For some, it’s hard to imagine carving out more money from the country’s budget to address these issues. But solving homelessness can help fix a lot of other problems too, including truancy from schools, food insecurity, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment. Is it possible that directing more resources toward solving homelessness could actually save society money by helping to fix its other ills at the same time?
31 -
32 -Multiple studies confirm – Housing First model reduces municipal costs
33 -Snyder 15 (Kaitlyn Snyder. Study Data Shows that Housing Chronically Homeless Saves Money, Lives. June 30, 2015. http://www.endhomelessness.org/blog/entry/study-data-show-that-housing-chronically-homeless-people-saves-money-lives)//JA
34 -Homelessness costs taxpayers a lot of money. Take, for example, the infamous case of Murray Barr, aka “Million Dollar Murray,” a chronically homeless man in Reno, Nevada who accrued more than a million dollars in emergency room, substance abuse treatment, police, jail, ambulance, shelter and other costs. Despite all these costly interventions, Barr ultimately died homeless on the streets. His tragic case highlights the need for a cost-effective solution to chronic homelessness. Cost studies demonstrate that Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) is that solution. Based on the Housing First philosophy, PSH reduces the need for costly public services by providing chronically homeless people with permanent housing at a subsided rate, along with supportive services to help them maintain their housing. Research has shown that it’s more effective than shelters and transitional housing systems at housing the ‘hardest to serve’ individuals, who often struggle with complex and overlapping health, mental health, and substance abuse disorders. In Denver, PSH saved $15,733 per year, per person in public costs for shelter, criminal justice, health care, emergency room, and behavioral health costs. The savings were enough to completely offset the cost of housing ($13,400) and still save taxpayers $2,373. Researchers have already conducted cost studies like this one in communities across the country. The map below shows the PSH cost studies that we at the Alliance are currently aware of. The majority of these studies show significant savings that completely or nearly offset the cost of housing. Has your community conducted a cost study? If so, the Alliance wants to hear from you. We advocate for increased investment in PSH, because we know it ends chronic homelessness. By demonstrating how this intervention saves taxpayers money, we can convince lawmakers that such investment will benefit their communities and constituencies. Spending millions of dollars on emergency costs does little, if anything, to solve the problem of homelessness. Instead, we could be using those same millions to fund PSH and prevent premature deaths, like those of Murray Barr and countless others.
35 -
36 -Housing first paradigm specifically key to solving chronic homelessness
37 -Kunkle 15 (Frederick Kunkle runs the Tripping blog, writing about the experience of travel. Freddy's also covered politics, courts, police, and local government. Before coming to The Washington Post, he worked for the Star-Ledger and The Bergen Record. “Housing first” approach works for homeless, study says. March 4, 2015)//JA
38 -A new Canadian study lends backing for a commonsense approach to moving people off the street that has been used in the District and other U.S. cities since the 1990s: Ensure that the homeless receive permanent shelter first, and their chances of achieving stability will increase. Known as the “housing first” approach, the program offers social support as well. But it emphasizes finding secure shelter in the community first, in contrast to homeless programs that insist on preconditions such as sobriety or psychiatric care and moving through transitional housing. The study, carried out by researchers at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, found that giving mentally ill homeless people financial help to secure free-market rental housing and mental health support services enhanced their chances of achieving stability. Over a 24-month period, those with both supports had stable housing nearly 63 to 77 percent of the time, compared with about 24 to 39 percent of those who received “usual care” or even “housing first” programs that also require more assertive social service help. “Housing first is not housing only. It is housing with support,” lead author Vicky Stergiopoulos, who is psychiatrist in chief at St. Michael’s, said in a telephone interview late Tuesday. “And a lot of the individuals, or most of them, would not be able to keep their housing without support.” The study appeared Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
39 -Methodology: The study involved about 2,000 people enrolled in a program called At Home/Chez Soi, a research program that takes a “housing first” approach in five Canadian cities. (The study drew data involving people recruited to the program between October 2009 and July 2011 in four cities: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal.) Participants were randomly assigned to one group where they received independent rental housing that cost up to 30 percent of their income. A rental supplement of up to $600 was also provided. The participants had some choice over the neighborhood and type of housing they desired. Participants also were required to meet once a week or more with a case manager. The case managers could help them locate employment, mend family relationships, seek medical care or plan for other goals. Those in the group who received “usual care” were not without assistance, but it was less intensive, Stergiopoulos said. They received no financial help to find adequate housing in the community, and their housing and social services care were not coordinated. “They didn’t have rent supplements. They couldn’t access housing in the community,” she said, adding that as a result they had fewer housing options. Other studies have demonstrated the benefit of the “housing first” approach, she said. But this study also shows that the program is effective even when the social services offered are less intense than those in similar programs. Those more intensive programs – what the authors call Assertive Community Treatment – involve an interdisciplinary team that includes a psychiatrist and others, and small caseloads. The approach taken by Chez Soi is also less expensive than the more intensive approach, costing about $14,177 per participant per year, compared with $22,257. “Our findings thus highlight that scattered-site housing with intensive case management is effective in reducing homelessness among a broader spectrum of the homeless population who may have a severe mental illness but do not require Assertive Community Treatment support, best reserved for a smaller group of homeless adults with high needs for mental health and other support services,” the study says. There are about 150,000 homeless people in Canada and about 1.5 million in the United States.
40 -
41 -Increased construction is unnecessary; oversufficiency of units in the status quo
42 -Olsen 16 (Edgar Olsen. We Don’t Need More Housing Projects. Edgar Olsen is a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Virginia. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/10/11/we-dont-need-more-housing-projects/?utm_term=.ed94bd2ed348)//JA
43 -Many poor households are not offered low-income housing assistance in the form of a voucher or a spot in a housing project, and many of these households spend high portions of their modest incomes on housing because they value more desirable neighborhoods, convenient locations and higher-quality homes more than other goods that must be sacrificed to live where they choose. These households already have housing. We don’t need to build new housing for them. If we think that their housing is unaffordable, the cheapest solution is for the government to pay a part of the rent, and the housing voucher program — the system’s most cost-effective tool — does that. This program also ensures that its participants live in units that meet minimum standards. Building new units is a much more expensive solution to the affordability problem. The best study of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s largest program subsidizing the construction of privately owned housing projects indicated an excess taxpayer cost of at least 72 percent compared with housing vouchers that provide equally good housing at the same cost to tenants. Publicly owned housing projects have an even larger excess cost. Furthermore, it is not necessary or desirable to construct new units to house the homeless. In the entire country, there are only about 600,000 homeless people on a single night and more than 3 million vacant units available for rent. All homeless people could be easily accommodated in vacant existing units, which would be much less expensive than building new units for them. The reason that people are homeless is not a shortage of units but lack of money to pay the rent for existing units. A housing voucher would solve that problem. A major HUD-funded random assignment experiment called the Family Options Study compared the cost and effectiveness of housing vouchers and subsidized housing projects for serving the homeless. Subsidized housing projects were far less effective and more than twice as expensive. People who want to provide housing assistance to more of the poorest households should support expansion of the housing voucher program rather than subsidizing the construction of additional housing projects.
44 -
45 -Pre-Fiat
46 -
47 -
48 -Underview
49 -1. Ask if I will meet your interp in cx; this avoids unnecessary theory- we can work something out; this allows for greater substantive debate which is the only form of education which is unique to debate. Grant me an auto I meet on T/theory if the interp isn’t checked to discourage nonchecking.
50 -2. Fairness isn’t a voter – portable education is the only impact
51 -Branson 07 Josh, NDT/TOC winner from Northwestern and St. Marks, Harvard Law school Graduate, Current lawyer; http://osdir.com/ml/education.region.usa.edebate/2007-11/msg00295.html
52 -There is no such thing as unfairness. If you respond to this and don’t make an argument about the terminal value of debate, then you have not thought about this enough. Overlooking the issue of big/small school and coaching resources (another topic for another time), I think all teams start at the same point. Everyone has access to the resolution, everyone has access to the same literature base, and everyone has the same speech time to fill. Whenever one side makes a move, it closes some doors strategically and opens others. Your job is to find it. I think whining about unfairness is almost always lame and untruthful. Think about the classic unfairness arguments: insert K team is unfair because they don’t have a plan we’re ready for. You know, it?s funny, but thinking back over my college debate career, I spent more time agonizing about and arguing with coaches over these far-left teams than I did the other top-5 quality teams. And, while I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again: I think that exact process is one of the main benefits of debate. Forcing yourself to adapt to circumstances in which you’re not comfortable, being made to alter your thinking on the run when you don’t have your same old stale blocks, when you have to make new cognitive connections and investigate literature bases which you are not familiar? I think THAT is the value-added of debate. I’ve written about this extensively before, but debate does not train people to be policy experts. Hell, if I’d wanted to have a sweet career in the policy world, I would have been better served quitting debate and learning Chinese. I’m not going to repeat everything I’ve said previously, but, at least for me, debate taught me to be more intellectually versatile and flexible than almost anyone outside of debate that I know. That is something I think is extremely valuable both intellectually (to the debater) and socially.And, you see, it’s things that are 'unfair' that encourage this type of adaptation. Take yourselves off your theory clitche-ridden blocks for a while, and actually think about it: how many things make it IMPOSSIBLE to win. None. How many things make it harder? A lot. But again, almost any time someone makes a good argument, it becomes harder for the other side to win. That’s what debate is. It’s about making things hard on the other side and not letting them make it hard for you. That’s what learning is. Fairness claims are bad because they contravene the idea of debate. If I’m right that fairness impacts really just conceal an assumption about what the value of debate is, then I think just directly making counter-arguments about the role of debate and cutting out the rhetoric of fairness is profoundly beneficial. I barely even need to point out that life isn’t fair. I think it's way more helpful to conceive of theory arguments in terms of routing debate towards productive ends than it is to maintain some pedantic obsession with fairness. I think the rhetorical message kids should be getting is that they should react to what they perceive of as ‘unfair’ practices by adapting, not whining. Because, when we are honest with ourselves and take ourselves off our oft-repeated theory cliches, is anything really THAT unfair I can’t really think of a single time in debate that would meet that test. I will tell you something though; right along with the shitty quality of evidence, theory arguments are at the top of the list of things that marginalize debate as a good training device. It's something that people outside debate don't really understand, and it's by far the most boring thing to judge, and, just as a matter of empirical observation, the people that do it a lot tend to be the laziest ones.
53 -
54 -
55 -3. The state is inevitable – their departure from the state cedes hegemony to the Right.
56 -Mouffe 9 (Chantal Mouffe, Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, “The Importance of Engaging the State”, What is Radical Politics Today?, Edited by Jonathan Pugh, pp. 233-7)
57 -In both Hardt and Negri, and Virno, there is therefore emphasis upon ‘critique as withdrawal’. They all call for the development of a non-state public sphere. They call for self-organisation, experimentation, non-representative and extra-parliamentary politics. They see forms of traditional representative politics as inherently oppressive. So they do not seek to engage with them, in order to challenge them. They seek to get rid of them altogether. This disengagement is, for such influential personalities in radical politics today, the key to every political position in the world. The Multitude must recognise imperial sovereignty itself as the enemy and discover adequate means of subverting its power. Whereas in the disciplinary era I spoke about earlier, sabotage was the fundamental form of political resistance, these authors claim that, today, it should be desertion. It is indeed through desertion, through the evacuation of the places of power, that they think that battles against Empire might be won. Desertion and exodus are, for these important thinkers, a powerful form of class struggle against imperial postmodernity. According to Hardt and Negri, and Virno, radical politics in the past was dominated by the notion of ‘the people’. This was, according to them, a unity, acting with one will. And this unity is linked to the existence of the state. The Multitude, on the contrary, shuns political unity. It is not representable because it is an active self-organising agent that can never achieve the status of a juridical personage. It can never converge in a general will, because the present globalisation of capital and workers’ struggles will not permit this. It is anti-state and anti-popular. Hardt and Negri claim that the Multitude cannot be conceived any more in terms of a sovereign authority that is representative of the people. They therefore argue that new forms of politics, which are non-representative, are needed. They advocate a withdrawal from existing institutions. This is something which characterises much of radical politics today. The emphasis is not upon challenging the state. Radical politics today is often characterised by a mood, a sense and a feeling, that the state itself is inherently the problem. Critique as engagement I will now turn to presenting the way I envisage the form of social criticism best suited to radical politics today. I agree with Hardt and Negri that it is important to understand the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. But I consider that the dynamics of this transition is better apprehended within the framework of the approach outlined in the book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001). What I want to stress is that many factors have contributed to this transition from Fordism to post-Fordism, and that it is necessary to recognise its complex nature. My problem with Hardt and Negri’s view is that, by putting so much emphasis on the workers’ struggles, they tend to see this transition as if it was driven by one single logic: the workers’ resistance to the forces of capitalism in the post-Fordist era. They put too much emphasis upon immaterial labour. In their view, capitalism can only be reactive and they refuse to accept the creative role played both by capital and by labour. To put it another way, they deny the positive role of political struggle. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics we use the word ‘hegemony’ to describe the way in which meaning is given to institutions or practices: for example, the way in which a given institution or practice is defined as ‘oppressive to women’, ‘racist’ or ‘environmentally destructive’. We also point out that every hegemonic order is therefore susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic practices – feminist, anti-racist, environmentalist, for example. This is illustrated by the plethora of new social movements which presently exist in radical politics today (Christian, anti-war, counter-globalisation, Muslim, and so on). Clearly not all of these are workers’ struggles. In their various ways they have nevertheless attempted to influence and have influenced a new hegemonic order. This means that when we talk about ‘the political’, we do not lose sight of the ever present possibility of heterogeneity and antagonism within society. There are many different ways of being antagonistic to a dominant order in a heterogeneous society – it need not only refer to the workers’ struggles. I submit that it is necessary to introduce this hegemonic dimension when one envisages the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. This means abandoning the view that a single logic (workers’ struggles) is at work in the evolution of the work process; as well as acknowledging the pro-active role played by capital. In order to do this we can find interesting insights in the work of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello who, in their book The New Spirit of Capitalism (2005), bring to light the way in which capitalists manage to use the demands for autonomy of the new movements that developed in the 1960s, harnessing them in the development of the post-Fordist networked economy and transforming them into new forms of control. They use the term ‘artistic critique’ to refer to how the strategies of the counter-culture (the search for authenticity, the ideal of selfmanagement and the anti-hierarchical exigency) were used to promote the conditions required by the new mode of capitalist regulation, replacing the disciplinary framework characteristic of the Fordist period. From my point of view, what is interesting in this approach is that it shows how an important dimension of the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism involves rearticulating existing discourses and practices in new ways. It allows us to visualise the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism in terms of a hegemonic intervention. To be sure, Boltanski and Chiapello never use this vocabulary, but their analysis is a clear example of what Gramsci called ‘hegemony through neutralisation’ or ‘passive revolution’. This refers to a situation where demands which challenge the hegemonic order are recuperated by the existing system, which is achieved by satisfying them in a way that neutralises their subversive potential. When we apprehend the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism within such a framework, we can understand it as a hegemonic move by capital to re-establish its leading role and restore its challenged legitimacy. We did not witness a revolution, in Marx’s sense of the term. Rather, there have been many different interventions, challenging dominant hegemonic practices. It is clear that, once we envisage social reality in terms of ‘hegemonic’ and ‘counter-hegemonic’ practices, radical politics is not about withdrawing completely from existing institutions. Rather, we have no other choice but to engage with hegemonic practices, in order to challenge them. This is crucial; otherwise we will be faced with a chaotic situation. Moreover, if we do not engage with and challenge the existing order, if we instead choose to simply escape the state completely, we leave the door open for others to take control of systems of authority and regulation. Indeed there are many historical (and not so historical) examples of this. When the Left shows little interest, Right-wing and authoritarian groups are only too happy to take over the state. The strategy of exodus could be seen as the reformulation of the idea of communism, as it was found in Marx. There are many points in common between the two perspectives. To be sure, for Hardt and Negri it is no longer the proletariat, but the Multitude which is the privileged political subject. But in both cases the state is seen as a monolithic apparatus of domination that cannot be transformed. It has to ‘wither away’ in order to leave room for a reconciled society beyond law, power and sovereignty. In reality, as I’ve already noted, others are often perfectly willing to take control. If my approach – supporting new social movements and counterhegemonic practices – has been called ‘post-Marxist’ by many, it is precisely because I have challenged the very possibility of such a reconciled society. To acknowledge the ever present possibility of antagonism to the existing order implies recognising that heterogeneity cannot be eliminated. As far as politics is concerned, this means the need to envisage it in terms of a hegemonic struggle between conflicting hegemonic projects attempting to incarnate the universal and to define the symbolic parameters of social life. A successful hegemony fixes the meaning of institutions and social practices and defines the ‘common sense’ through which a given conception of reality is established. However, such a result is always contingent, precarious and susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic interventions. Politics always takes place in a field criss-crossed by antagonisms. A properly political intervention is always one that engages with a certain aspect of the existing hegemony. It can never be merely oppositional or conceived as desertion, because it aims to challenge the existing order, so that it may reidentify and feel more comfortable with that order. Another important aspect of a hegemonic politics lies in establishing linkages between various demands (such as environmentalists, feminists, anti-racist groups), so as to transform them into claims that will challenge the existing structure of power relations. This is a further reason why critique involves engagement, rather than disengagement. It is clear that the different demands that exist in our societies are often in conflict with each other. This is why they need to be articulated politically, which obviously involves the creation of a collective will, a ‘we’. This, in turn, requires the determination of a ‘them’. This obvious and simple point is missed by the various advocates of the Multitude. For they seem to believe that the Multitude possesses a natural unity which does not need political articulation. Hardt and Negri see ‘the People’ as homogeneous and expressed in a unitary general will, rather than divided by different political conflicts. Counter-hegemonic practices, by contrast, do not eliminate differences. Rather, they are what could be called an ‘ensemble of differences’, all coming together, only at a given moment, against a common adversary. Such as when different groups from many backgrounds come together to protest against a war perpetuated by a state, or when environmentalists, feminists, anti-racists and others come together to challenge dominant models of development and progress. In these cases, the adversary cannot be defined in broad general terms like ‘Empire’, or for that matter ‘Capitalism’. It is instead contingent upon the particular circumstances in question – the specific states, international institutions or governmental practices that are to be challenged. Put another way, the construction of political demands is dependent upon the specific relations of power that need to be targeted and transformed, in order to create the conditions for a new hegemony. This is clearly not an exodus from politics. It is not ‘critique as withdrawal’, but ‘critique as engagement’. It is a ‘war of position’ that needs to be launched, often across a range of sites, involving the coming together of a range of interests. This can only be done by establishing links between social movements, political parties and trade unions, for example. The aim is to create a common bond and collective will, engaging with a wide range of sites, and often institutions, with the aim of transforming them. This, in my view, is how we should conceive the nature of radical politics.
EntryDate
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1 -2017-03-10 00:37:35.0
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1 -Any
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1 -Any
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1 -15
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1 -1
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -MARAPR - 1AC - Homelessness
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1 -TFA State
Caselist.CitesClass[16]
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1 -Interpretation: The negative debater should defend an alternative with a mechanism that can be implemented in the real world.
2 -To clarify, you must defend a policy option as your alternative.
3 -Violation:
4 -Standards:
5 -1. Real World Education –
6 -2. Ground –
7 -3. Clash –
8 -
9 -T first –
10 -
11 -D Voter
12 -Education
13 -1. Education is prerequisite- the advocacy and critical thinking skills we generate from education are key to being able to create and spread fair rules in the first place.
14 -
15 - Drop the debater:
16 -1 Time skew puts me at a disadvantage on substance.
17 -2 Sets a precedent that debaters can’t run unfair arguments.
18 -
19 -
20 -No RVIs:
21 -1 It’s reciprocal—they could run theory and generate offense on the same layer of debate.
22 -2 RVI’s kill substance because it incentivizes both debaters to go all in on theory because it’s the highest layer of the debate—outweighs because the topic only lasts two months.
23 -3 Chilling effect—discourages checking abuse because cheap debaters will prep out common interps.
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1 -2017-03-10 22:11:58.0
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1 -Jennifer Melin
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1 -Whitley Perryman
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1 -16
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1 -5
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
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1 -1 - Theory - Alternatives must be Policy
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1 -TFA State
Caselist.CitesClass[17]
Cites
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1 -1AC - Borderlands
2 -Jhumpa Lahiri in 2016 writes Jhumpa. In Other Words. American author - pulitzer prize winner and professor of creative writing at Princeton University. Alfred A. Knopf: New York. Pp. 147-53.//roman
3 -I would like to pause for a moment on the three languages I know. At this point a summary of my relationship with each one, and of the links between them, would be helpful. My very first language was Bengali, handed down to me by my parents. For four years, until I went to school in America, it was my main language, and I felt comfortable in it, even though I was born and grew up in countries where I was surrounded by another language: English. My first encounter with English was harsh and unpleasant: when I was sent to nursery school I was traumatized. It was hard for me to trust the teachers and make friends, because I had to express myself in a language that I didn’t speak, that I barely knew, that seemed to me foreign. I just wanted to go home, to the language in which I was known, and loved. A few years later, however, Bengali took a step backwards, when I began to read. I was six or seven. From then on my mother tongue was no longer capable, by itself, of rearing me. In a certain sense it died. English arrived, a stepmother. I became a passionate reader by getting to know my stepmother, deciphering her, satisfying her. And yet my mother tongue remained a demanding phantom, still present. My parents wanted me to speak only Bengali with them and all their friends. If I spoke English at home they scolded me. The part of me that spoke English, that went to school, that read and wrote, was another person. I couldn’t identify with either. One was always concealed behind the other, but never completely, just as the full moon can hide almost all night behind a mass of clouds and then suddenly emerge, dazzling. Even though I spoke only Bengali with my family, there was always English in the air, on the street, in the pages of books. On the other hand, after speaking English for hours in the classroom, I came home every day to a place where there was no English. I realized that I had to speak both languages extremely well: the one to please my parents, the other to survive in America. I remained suspended, torn between the two. The linguistic coming and going confused me; it seemed a contradiction that I couldn’t resolve. Those two languages of mine didn’t get along. They were incompatible adversaries, intolerant of each other. I thought they had nothing in common except me, so that I felt like a contradiction in terms myself. For my family English represented a foreign culture that they didn’t want to give in to. Bengali represented the part of me that belonged to my parents, that didn’t belong to America. None of my teachers, none of my friends were ever curious about the fact that I spoke another language. They attached no importance to it, didn’t ask about it. It didn’t interest them, as if that part of me, that capacity, weren’t there. Just as English did for my parents, Bengali represented for the Americans I knew as a child a remote culture, unknown, suspect. Or maybe in reality it represented nothing. Unlike my parents, who knew English well, the Americans were completely oblivious of the language that we spoke at home. Bengali was something they could easily ignore. The more I read and learned in English, the more, as a girl, I identified with it. I tried to be like my friends, who didn’t speak any other language. Who, in my opinion, had a normal life. I was ashamed to have to speak Bengali in front of my American friends. I hated hearing my mother on the telephone if I happened to be at a friend’s house. I wanted to hide, as far as possible, my relationship with the language. I wanted to deny it. I was ashamed of speaking Bengali and at the same time I was ashamed of feeling ashamed. It was impossible to speak English without feeling detached from my parents, without an unsettling sense of separation. Speaking English, I found myself in a space where I felt isolated, where I was no longer under their protection. I saw the consequences of not speaking English perfectly, of speaking with a foreign accent. I saw the wall that my parents faced in America almost every day. It was a persistent insecurity for them. Sometimes I had to explain the meaning of certain terms, as if I were the parent. Sometimes I spoke for them. In shops the salespeople tended to address me, simply because my English didn’t have a foreign accent. As if my father and mother, with their accent, couldn’t understand. I hated the attitude of these salespeople towards my parents. I wanted to defend them. I would have liked to protest: ‘They understand everything you say, while you can’t understand even a word of Bengali or any other language in the world.’ And yet it annoyed me as well when my parents mispronounced an English word. I corrected them, impertinently. I didn’t want them to be vulnerable. I didn’t like my advantage, their disadvantage. I would have liked them to speak English as I did.
4 -The right to housing is inextricable from a racial and sexual politics premised on the denial of home space - from NYC’s Tompkins Square Park to the I-Hotel’s evicted Asian immigrants, there has never been a right to housing in the United States, a tough truth to accept but one we must reckon with if we hope for a more inclusive future.
5 -
6 -This affirmative is a call for a new political order, a cry for help that begins with the way we conceptualize of one another - for too long I have internalized white ways of being in the world and judged myself against a European yardstick - for the next five minutes I plead for an audience that is willing to say no to that process of world-building. Colonialism has not yet ended, it has transmuted - sign the ballot affirmative as a first step against the colonization of psychic space.
7 -Oliver 2k4 Kelly. W. Alton Jones Chair in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression pg. 55-57//roman
8 -The literary critics Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks and Juliet Flower MacCannell in different ways address the relationship between race, affect, and colo¬nization using the vocabulary of Lacanian theory. Following Fanon, both theorists describe the racialization of colonization as the result of phobia and a cruel superego. Seshadri-Crooks (2000, 45) argues that “the paradox is that Whiteness attempts to signify the unsignifiable, i.e. humanness, in order to preserve our subjective investment in race.” In this Lacanian train of thought, whiteness attempts to signify the unsignifiable intersection of being and meaning in human beings. For Lacan, there is always a fun¬damental split between being and meaning. How can we signify our being as beings who mean? On Lacan’s analysis, either we signify and—to use Sartre’s phrase—make ourselves a lack of being, or we simply are (being), in which case we do not mean. As Seshadri-Crooks explains, “Whiteness is merely a signifier that masquerades as being and thereby blocks access to lack” (45). On her analysis, whiteness operates as a transcendental signi¬fier, itself outside the realm of signification. Whiteness poses as nature or being, or more precisely as the essence of human being. The paradox is that whiteness both signifies nature or being—the lack of lack—and the lack of being that makes meaning, that is, human existence, possible. As Seshadri-Crooks describes it, this encounter with the lack of lack or being produces anxiety in the raced subject, and this anxiety in turn produces a phobic object, namely, the surface of the body, the skin, and other surface traits (45-46). On her analysis, all of us are raced subjects trying to live up to the impossible ideal of whiteness. Within the colonial logic, whiteness becomes an ethical good impossible to attain; and the phobic object must be excluded to sustain the good or clean and proper body image (37).¶ For MacCannell, like Seshadri-Crooks, whiteness is related to the real beyond signification. But, whereas for Seshadri-Crooks, whiteness or race is not in the real but poses as nature as a defense against the anxiety of confronting the contingency, even arbitrariness, of our own nature, for MacCannell race is the result of the white man’s real, which infects the colonized. Like Fanon, MacCannell is concerned to diagnose how it is that colonization affects the psyches as well as the material conditions of those colonized. Reading Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, MacCannell (2000, 65) maintains that colonization is effective because it infects the colonized with what she calls the “White Man’s Thing”: “The colonized body is one that has been exposed or invaded by drives other than its own. The coloni¬zation of the subject arrives through the White Man’s Thing. The signifier that had granted one person his humanity is displaced by a dehumanizing Thing not his own. The signifier white carried its own traumatic Thing in its wake and invaded the colonized with it.” MacCannell argues that the dehumanization of colonization takes place through a kind of advertising campaign that infects the colonized with the white man’s desire ultimately fueled by the death drive, a death drive that does not properly belong to the colonized. Resonant with my analysis so far, MacCannell maintains that the colonized are infected with the colonizer’s sadistic superego, a superego that protects its own humanity by dehumanizing the other as foreclosed phobic “object.”¶ MacCannell says that “the proper name of the White Man’s Thing is ‘the Good’” (66). The white man’s fantasy of the good displaces the colo¬nized’s own fantasies; and the white man’s unconscious invades the uncon¬scious of the colonized. Colonization is not just an invasion of physical space but also an invasion of psychic space. The ideology of colonization centers on the notion that the civilizing mission is driven by an ethical imperative to bring the good to the “barbarians.” As MacCannell describes this operation, it turns on the contradictory function of the good in the psyche of the white man. The white man is caught between the social pres¬sure to sacrifice pleasure for the common good and the perverse demand of the superego to enjoy without regard for others. She argues that “colo¬nialism provided the perfect outlet for both the guilt of enjoyment and the imperative to enjoy the colonizer’s own superego imposed” (72). The bad good (enjoyment, bodily pleasure, affect) is projected onto the colonized, who are seen to laugh and dance without regard for the common good, while the good (civilized restraint over pleasure and affect) is reserved for the white man.¶ Resonant with Seshadri-Crooks’s notion that the surface of the body is the most immediate place where the anxiety produced by the transcen¬dental signifier whiteness attaches its phobia, MacCannell claims that “race was the weak point or lesion where the alien’s Good was inserted” (73). Because the body seems to inhabit the realm of nature or the real, it is supremely susceptible to a good that divides the world into nature versus culture, barbaric versus civilized, animal versus human. Within the logic of this civilized good, the body always falls to the other side. And inso¬far as this good must insist that it is universal, all differences, including different notions of good, become nothing more than justification for the civilizing mission and evidence of the need for colonization; all other goods become lesser goods in need of the lesson of the universal good. Nothing short of an alternative universal good can compete; anything “less" is at a disadvantage when faced with the white man’s claim to the truth and the good. The construction and maintenance of this universal good is further complicated by the operations of the Western civilizing mission to cover over its abjection and exclusion of the black body as bad or evil. As Lewis Gordon (2000, 4) points out, “Fanon realized that the more he asserted his membership in Western civilization the more he was pathol- ogized, for the system’s affirmation depends on its denial of ever having illegitimately excluded him; he is, as in theodicy, a reminder of injustice in a system that is supposed to have been wholly good.”
9 -
10 -On February 1st the resolution reached out to us and begged for affirmation, an affirmation that would excise american failure in housing policy and bury it under calls for new legislation, affirmatives that would ignore the ways we govern housing for refugees - you get three months and after that you’re out of luck, fortunate if you’re not labeled Aatankavaadee or batan sir by your new neighbors.
11 -
12 -What is missing in those affirmatives, what necessitates this 1ac is an accounting of the ways that american society denies the paar the ability to make meaning - maatrbhaasha ko jhukana ya bakavaas band karo. How am I supposed to engage with a community that refuses to acknowledge the ways that signification is denied me? Left alone, reckoning with my inability to communicate the beauty of my brown-ness because no one is ever fucking listening, I find myself silenced. This is the manifestation of whiteness within my psyche that spurs the need to idealize, to sublimate, processes possible only through the social support of the third willing to accept this 1ac as an iteration of my intimate revolt. Here, I dissent against tradition and structure and seek to reverse the inculcation of a negative self-image that is all-consuming and cannibalistic - bahut ho gaya!
13 -
14 -Oliver 2k4 Kelly. W. Alton Jones Chair in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression pg.147-50//roman
15 -It is compelling to note that Frantz Fanon (1967, 231-32) also makes the connection between the body and questioning when at the end of Black Skin, White Masks, his “final prayer” is “O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” Fanon’s suggestion that questioning has its source in the body resonates with Kristeva’s analysis of questioning as a manifestation of bodily drive force and semiotic negativity. Fanon insists on the intimate connection between soma and psyche, and for this reason, he can say that the body questions. His analysis shows that colonization affects both the body and the psyche in ways that are inherently connected and that the colonization of psychic space operates through denying the colonized the social space for meaning making; the meaning of their bodies is given as unable to make meaning. For Kristeva, questioning is essential to psychic life because it transforms negativity from a differentiating or possibly even destructive force into the positive force of sublimation through revolt. Questioning or revolt against authority is crucial for psychic life. As psychoanalysis teaches us, this questioning has its source in the body and not some sovereign subject. The effect of sovereignty is created through revolt, and not vice versa. Both Fanon and Kristeva insist on accounting for the unconscious in its role in creating the sovereignty effect. Once we take into account the unconscious, we can never claim to be fully sovereign subjects. One thread in Fanon’s writings suggests that the illusion of sovereignty is a symptom of the pathology of colonization. The new humanity that he envisions will be beyond property, ownership, and sovereignty.¶ Just as Fanon maintains that the debilitating alienation experienced by the colonized is different from, perhaps even the opposite of, the alienation that Hegel describes in his famous master-slave dialectic, Kristeva’s intimate revolt is not the Hegelian revolt of slave against master or the fight (almost) to the death that ensues. Psychic revolt, while inherently related to others and the Other of social meaning, is not intersubjective. It is not the battle between two subjects or fledgling subjects for recognition. Rather, the transformation and revolution take place on the level of the unconscious. So, while for Hegel only reason can resolve the conflict that engenders self-conscious subjectivity, for Kristeva only the imagination operating at the level of the unconscious can engender self-conscious, but always only provisional, subjectivity.¶ The inability to revolt signals not only the inability to be creative or imaginative but also the inability to make or find meaning, and ultimately results in the collapse of psychic space. This revolt is associated with the ability to sublimate, the very mechanism that enables thought and language by translating and directing bodily drives. The ability to sublimate is the result of the accepting support of this imaginary third: “This primary tiredness allows a space between the mother and the child; perhaps it prevents osmosis as well as the merciless war where self-destruction alternates with destruction of the other” (Kristeva 2000b, 54). The accepting third allows us to break out of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic in which we must choose between annihilating either the other or the self and acts as a counterbalance, “thanks to which the subject is not mired in perversion but finds the resources (imaginary, strictly speaking) to continue the revolt integral to his autonomy and to his creative freedom” (54). This integral revolt is essential to creativity and psychic functioning and is supported by the loving third or accepting social meaning that is necessary for identification, idealization, and sublimation, all of which are necessary for love and meaning.¶ Through intimate revolt, the subject-in-process displaces the authority of the law, which it takes to be outside itself, onto its own individual authority, which it takes to be inside itself. In this way, the individual belongs to the social in a way that supports its own sense of agency as well as its relations to others. This revolt depends on an accepting imaginary third, who beyond the punishing father of the law accepts the individual/ infant into the social through forgiveness. The individual’s revolt against the father of the law requires the prior guarantee, so to speak, of the accepting ¶ third’s forgiveness and support. Intimate revolt requires a sense that love is the other side of the law and that the individual can belong to the social. This sense of belonging is crucial for a sense of well-being insofar as it enables sublimation. Saying no to the (maternal) body requires the support of an accepting third that will forgive this negation and accept the individual back into the community.¶ In sum, without social support and positive self-images available in culture, girls, women, and those othered will suffer from the colonization of psychic space, which can result in the inability to sublimate, create, love, act, and, ultimately, to find or create meaning in their lives. Without that accepting social support, psychic space can become atrophied and impassable. Drives and affects, one’s bodily experience itself, devalued in culture, become locked in some unnamable crypt, which makes of the psyche a prison that either flattens psychic space or confines or immobilizes affects and experience. In either case, drives and affects—the very passions that give meaning to life and love—become cut off from words and representations. One necessary antidote, if not the cure, for depressed women and other oppressed peoples, then, is having, finding, or creating the social space within which to articulate their drives and affects as positive, lovable, and loved and thereby supporting an open psychic space. Making meaning for oneself is the seat of subjectivity and agency; and this is what oppression attempts to take away from those oppressed. Exclusion operates most effectively by preventing the assimilation of authority that legitimates the individual and authorizes its agency. This authorization is a prerequisite for the capacity to sublimate through which an individual makes meaning its own (if always only provisionally) and thereby gains a sense of belonging to the community. Yet, despite oppression, empowered subjectivity and agency are possible for those othered within mainstream culture by virtue of their own resistance and revolt against oppression, which reauthorize agency and restore the capacity to sublimate and make meaning one’s own. This resistance not only brings people together to create meaning for themselves but also begins to provide the social space necessary for open psychic space and empowered agency. As I show in the following chapters, creating the social space for resistance to racism and sexism provides the social support necessary to reverse and deter the internalization or epidermalization of oppressive values. As we create free and open social spaces, we begin to create free and open psychic spaces. Social revolt and psychic revolt go hand in hand; one is not possible without the other.¶ The identification with the accepting third becomes an identification with the agency of meaning itself. This identification is possible only if the ¶ fledgling subject finds itself within that meaning such that it can belong to the realm of meaning and signification. If there is no accepting third, if there is only the law or prohibition, then the affective transfer from drives to words is short-circuited, and the result is, at best, a depressive subjectivity whose agency is impaired. Likewise, if the social doesn’t at some level sanction the psychic revolt necessary for creativity and sublimation by particular individuals, those subjects cannot inherit social authority and therefore are never quite legitimated as autonomous agents.
16 -
17 -This moment is crucial - when the president defines our inner cities as hellscapes where “You can't walk out the street, you buy a loaf of bread and you end up getting shot,” it is at this moment that we can no longer pretend that gentrification is benevolent, here that we must, like the citizens of Tenderloin, refuse to be evicted and have our homes rendered acceptable, unhomed by the colonizing mission.
18 -
19 -In opposition to a political moment defined by the order that we be American or get the hell out, the promise that we would all have jobs if my immigrant mother would just leave the country, that if we “bombed the shit out of” the foreign we would be alright in the days to come, ham vidroh.
20 -
21 -This revolt, this intimate affirmation begins in the interstices of a new theoretical approach to the sites of housing, homes, dwelling itself: from and as the borderlands that Gloria Anzaldúa speaks of and that structure every goddamn day of our existence:
22 -Anzaldua 2007 Gloria. Chicana theorist/poet/author/scholar until her death in 2004 - ph.d. From uc sc awarded in 2005. Borderlands/la frontera 3rd ed. Aunt lute books, 2007. Pp. 19.
23 -The actual physical borderland that I’m dealing with in this book is the Texas-U.S. Southwest/Mexican border. The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are physically present whenever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. I am a border woman. I grew up between two cultures, the Mexican (with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a member of a colonized people in our own territory. I have been straddling that tejas-Mexican border, and others, all my life. It’s not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape. However, there have been compensations for this mestiza, and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element. There is an exhilaration in being a participant in the further evolution of humankind, in being “worked” on. I have the sense that certain “faculties” - not just in me but in every border resident, colored or non-colored- and dormant areas of consciousness are being activated, awakened. Strange, huh? And yes, the “alien” element has become familiar- never comfortable, not with society’s clamor to uphold the old, to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, not comfortable, but home.
24 -It is from here, remaining multiple and oppositional that I offer my response to the resolution and the community that demands I make myself legible:
25 -
26 -The United States ought to guarantee the right to housing in the Borderlands: seema.
27 -
28 -Our affirmation is part and parcel of what Chela Sandoval has termed the methodology of the oppressed - born from the differential, oppositional and coalitional modes, only this politics, formed of a variety of tactics, can resist its co-option by a colonizing order. Yet, this order is inescapable - we do not choose the languages we are born into or the symbols that inundate us, but we must learn to navigate them - these processes of questioning, signifying, and idealizing are necessary for liberation, a prior question for material change.
29 -
30 -Social spaces are defined by the relationship between the subject and the social order. Debate provides the activist, the student, the oppressed with a unique iteration of this larger macro-system; the judges, detached from matt and I are presented with a choice – was the reading of the 1ac valuable – thus, the role of the judges is to embody the positionality that Kelly Oliver terms the imaginary third - she explains:
31 -Oliver 2k4 Kelly. W. Alton Jones Chair in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression pg.140-142
32 -The imaginary third is none other than the meaning of social signification. As we learn language—as we become beings who mean—we necessarily idealize forms of meaning in order to belong to a community of meaning: the concepts and symbols that make up signification are ideal forms of the things that they represent. When corrupted by colonization,, oppression, or domination, this process of idealization can become the internalization of a cruel and punishing superego, even the superego of another culture in the case of colonization and occupation. But this process can also provide social support for the development of subjectivity with a sense of agency and belonging. This process of idealization does not punish but rather forgives (or fore-gives meaning). This is not the internalization of a harsh, judgmental superego but rather a metaphorical transfer to the place of meaning, an archaic identification with meaning that begins in bodily rhythms in tune with drive energy. But as 1 show in the chapters that follow, from the somatic source of meaning comes the possibility of form and for-governess that does not punish through guilt and shame but rather forgives and thereby supports the singularity of each being who means.¶ Sublimation and idealization are necessary for robust psychic life because without them the subject becomes trapped within its own psyche and ultimately gives up on meaning, which leads to silence and depression. Without the possibility of sublimation and idealization, the borders between reality and fiction or imagination become blurred to the point where the subject lacks the distance necessary for an open psychic space through which drives and affects can make their way into signification.1’ Without the transfer of drives and affects into meaningful forms of signification, the individual stays at the level of the body, of reality, where drives and affects can be expressed only as somatic symptoms and pain. The distance or gap between imagination and reality is crucial for sublimation. Sublimation requires idealization, which gives birth to imagination. Through imagination and sublimation, we transfer inarticulate drives and affects into signification and thereby learn to live with and to love ourselves and others. Imagination and sublimation, which depend on supportive social meanings, sustain psychic space, while the lack of supportive social meanings undermines the ability to sublimate and impairs the imagination. In this sense, the colonization of psychic space is also an attack on the imagination and the ability to imagine oneself and one’s social context otherwise. It is only by imagining the world otherwise that we are inspired ¶ to resist oppression and work for the decolonization of both our own and others’ social and psychic space.¶ In sum, the connection between sublimation and the imaginary third supports my social theory of sublimation rather than traditional psychoanalytic theory’s anatomical or psychological explanation for why and how it could be that women aren’t allowed to sublimate as well as men can. Meaningful speech and a sense of meaning in one’s own life depend on the connection between affects and words, drives and symbols. When affects and drives become disconnected from words and symbols, then there is a loss of the sense of meaningfulness. Only when bodily drives make their way into language supported by the accepting third will language have any real meaning for life. Social support allows one to make meaning one’s own, not by possessing it but rather by belonging to language, to the world of social meaning. The metaphorical transfer operative in the function of this accepting third is a transfer to the place of meaning, which enables the subject to belong to meaning. But belonging is possible only if there is social support for what it means to be that individual, for the meaning of its very existence.¶ The loving third operates as a conduit between drives/affects and words/ symbols and is crucial for one’s sense of belonging in the world of meaning. Meaningful speech and a sense of meaning in one’s life depend on the connection between affects and words, drives and symbols. Sublimation guarantees the ability to idealize and imagine. It redirects bodily drives into language and signification. This requires that the negativity of drive force be redoubled to create the negativity of signification, which in turn allows creative representation and the recovery of the (maternal) thing lost to the negation of signification. The accepting third is necessary for the transition from the dependence on the maternal body through the negativity of drive force and then the entrance into signification or language. In this sense, the primary sublimation that is foundational for language acquisition, more particularly for the connection between words and affects that makes language meaningful, depends on the accepting third. Retroactively, this primary sublimation is the foundation for all subsequent sublimation, that is, primary identification with the accepting third is retroactively implied in all secondary identification, and all secondary identification is based at least retroactively on primary identification.¶ Sublimation is facilitated by social supports that provide language and symbols with which individuals find and create the meaning of their own experience. We are all born into a world where meaning already exists. We do not choose the meaning of our language and cultural symbols. Rather, individuals must negotiate the language and cultural symbols that ¶ life presents in order to find themselves there. In other words, individuals find their own value and the value of their lives by virtue of negotiating the various meanings available in their culture. The ability to put drives and affects into language depends not only on the availability of words and symbols to discharge those affects but also, and more important, on the ability of society to authorize them. While in principle, according to psychoanalytic theory any word can discharge any affect or any affect can become attached to any word, the meanings available to us in our culture make some affects easier to manifest than others. Some affects are encouraged while others are refused. Some individual’s or group’s experiences are valued while other individual’s or group’s experiences are not. So the ability to sublimate—to manifest affects in words or representations—has everything to do with finding socially available meanings
EntryDate
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1 -2017-03-11 21:02:14.0
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1 -Kris Wright, Jennifer Melin, John Sims
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1 -Strake Jesuit Matthew Chen
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1 -17
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1 -Octas
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -MARAPR - 1AC - Borderlands
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1 -TFA State
Caselist.CitesClass[18]
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1 -Interpretation: Kritik alternatives must not fiat an action that would directly change the mindset of people.
2 -To clarify, alts must not be a “starting point” in which we change the mindset of all people.
3 -
4 -Violation: CX
5 -
6 -Standards:
7 -
8 -Shifting advocacies – Negative debaters can extend the alternative in whatever fashion they want – moots all of 1AC offense and makes all alternatives unpredictable. Also, prevents any 1AR turns because you can just say it’s not applicable to the mindset shift because we don’t know what exactly that is. Multiple implications.
9 -1. Strategy skew – Aff will never get offense on the Kritik if you get to pick what it is in the 2N. Key to education because we cant engage with the alternative. Also forces aff to go only for the link and impact debate – kills 1AR strat.
10 -
11 -Utopian fiat – You shouldn’t be able it just fiat that everyone does something – explodes negative ground because you can just say the alternative has solvency when glossing over the real world.
12 -
13 -Voter – Advocacy skills
14 -1. Key to responding to social problems because we will have the skills to propose solutions
15 -2. Prerequisite to aff solvency – you cant test aff in real world if we cant talk about it
16 -
17 -Competing interps
18 -1. Reasonability causes a race to the bottom because debaters keep being barely reasonable
19 -2. No briteline to reasonability
20 -Drop the debater:
21 -1. Sets a precedent that debaters can’t run unfair arguments,
22 -2. Dropping them and their advocacy are functionally the same.
23 -RVIs bad
24 -1. RVIs discourage checking abuse because debaters will be afraid to lose on theory
25 -2. RVIs center the debate on theory instead of substance because it’s the only place the round can be decided. substance clash is important—it’s the only education unique to debate and outweighs on time frame; we only get 3 weeks to talk about the topic.
26 -3. Debaters running abusive positions will always be prepared for theory because they know what’s coming.
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1 -2017-03-11 21:07:31.0
Judge
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1 -Dino De LaO, Josh Aguilar, Miguel Harvey
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1 -Monsignor Kelly Colin Cormier
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1 -18
Round
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1 -Doubles
Team
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -1 - Theory - Mindset Shift Fiat
Tournament
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1 -TFA State
Caselist.CitesClass[19]
Cites
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1 -1AC – The Flood
2 -Framework
3 -The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that presents the best policy option – key to out of round advocacy skills.
4 -Nixon 2K (Themba-Nixon, Makani. Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice, “Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing” Colorlines 3.2, 2000) //WW JA 1/15/16
5 -“This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.
6 -
7 -The standard is combatting structural violence – epistemologically precedes normative ethics.
8 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
9 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
10 -Advantage 1 – Resiliency
11 -Climate change is here – sea level rise and superstorms threaten coastal cities across the US. It’s too late to mitigate.
12 -Gillis 16 (Justin Gillis covers the science of global climate change and the policy implications of that science. He grew up in Georgia, graduated from the University of Georgia, and joined The Times after an award-winning career as a reporter and editor at The Miami Herald and The Washington Post. “Flooding of Coast, Caused by Global Warming, Has Already Begun,” The New York Times. September 3, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/science/flooding-of-coast-caused-by-global-warming-has-already-begun.html) //WW JA 3/7/17
13 -For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States’ coastline. Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes. Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding — often called “sunny-day flooding” — along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too. These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water. In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions. “Once impacts become noticeable, they’re going to be upon you quickly,” said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. “It’s not a hundred years off — it’s now.” Local governments, under pressure from annoyed citizens, are beginning to act. Elections are being won on promises to invest money to protect against flooding. Miami Beach is leading the way, increasing local fees to finance a $400 million plan that includes raising streets, installing pumps and elevating sea walls. In many of the worst-hit cities, mayors of both parties are sounding an alarm. “I’m a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,” said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island, one of the first Georgia communities to adopt a detailed climate plan. But the local leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. They are pleading with state and federal governments for guidance and help, including billions to pay for flood walls, pumps and road improvements that would buy them time.
14 -
15 -Coastal disasters hurt minority communities the hardest – they can’t afford to relocate or rebuild.
16 -Worth 15 (Pamela Worth is a journalist for the Huffington Post and writer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She specializes writing on climate change, sustainable agriculture and transportation, nuclear weaponry and power, and public health and safety. “Where Climate Change Hits First and Worst,” Union of Concerned Scientists. Fall 2015. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa15-where-climate-change-hits-first-and-worst) //WW JA 3/7/17
17 -Turcios describes Opa-locka as a residential community whose population is largely African-American and Latino, with a few small businesses, a lot of families, and homes for low-income seniors. It is also a community changing because of climate change. These days, he says, it’s hotter, more humid, and it rains more. “Flooding is happening more often, there’s more floodwater than usual, and there’s more damage to houses than ever before.” Turcios knows a lot could be done to help prevent flooding damage to homes like his. But even with his job as a bank security guard, he’s not sure he can afford those measures—such as elevating his home by putting it on stilts. He doesn’t know what Opa-locka is doing to prepare for climate-related impacts, but he does know this: while South Florida has experienced relatively few storms over the last 10 years, it is only a matter of time before the next big one hits. In Florida, like the rest of the United States, poor populations often bear the brunt of climate impacts, living on the front lines of rising seas, catastrophic storms, and drought. These frontline communities are disproportionally communities of color: according to 2011 data, wealth inequality along racial lines has burgeoned dramatically in the United States in recent years. The typical black household has just 6 percent of the wealth of the typical white household; the typical Latino household has 8 percent. Low-income communities cope with chronically low investment in their neighborhoods, poorly built and maintained infrastructure, and the legacy of housing policies that have effectively segregated towns and cities—in some cases, forcing poorer populations to live closer to power plants, airports, waste sites, and otherwise undesirable land that is often affected “first and worst” by natural disasters. And when those natural disasters strike, efforts to help communities recover often fail those most in need—as when the promise to rebuild Opa-locka’s roofs only resulted in the distribution of blue tarps. Studies show that low-income and communities of color in the New York-New Jersey area were among the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy, and continue to struggle to find housing. One study of an African-American community in Maryland affected by Sandy found that residents there experienced flooding in their streets for days longer than other communities, and had more difficulty accessing food and housing. In New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failure and flood killed hundreds, the majority of people who were trapped in the city and left waiting for rescue and aid were overwhelmingly African-American and poor. Poor populations, and elderly nursing home residents, are more likely to lack transportation during disasters. And the fact that these populations may also have a high prevalence of chronic health problems increases their vulnerability to other storm-related hazards. In Opa-locka during Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, for example, Turcios says the news and other media kept locals informed about evacuation locations and procedures, but people without cars and/or driver’s licenses—predominantly the poor and elderly—had little choice but to stay home and weather the storms.
18 -Advantage 2 – Housing market
19 -Coastal flooding results in billions of dollars of damage and will collapse the housing market – adaptation is key now.
20 -Urbina 16 (Ian Urbina s an investigative reporter for The New York Times based in the Washington Bureau. His investigations most often focus on worker safety and the environment. He has received a Pulitzer, a Polk, and various other journalism awards. “Perils of Climate Change Could Swamp Coastal Real Estate,” New York Times. November 24, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/science/global-warming-coastal-real-estate.html) //WW JA 3/6/17
21 -Rising sea levels are changing the way people think about waterfront real estate. Though demand remains strong and developers continue to build near the water in many coastal cities, homeowners across the nation are slowly growing wary of buying property in areas most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. A warming planet has already forced a number of industries — coal, oil, agriculture and utilities among them — to account for potential future costs of a changed climate. The real estate industry, particularly along the vulnerable coastlines, is slowly awakening to the need to factor in the risks of catastrophic damage from climate change, including that wrought by rising seas and storm-driven flooding. But many economists say that this reckoning needs to happen much faster and that home buyers urgently need to be better informed. Some analysts say the economic impact of a collapse in the waterfront property market could surpass that of the bursting dot-com and real estate bubbles of 2000 and 2008. The fallout would be felt by property owners, developers, real estate lenders and the financial institutions that bundle and resell mortgages. Over the past five years, home sales in flood-prone areas grew about 25 percent less quickly than in counties that do not typically flood, according to county-by-county data from Attom Data Solutions, the parent company of RealtyTrac. Many coastal residents are rethinking their investments and heading for safer ground. “I don’t see how this town is going to defeat the water,” said Brent Dixon, a resident of Miami Beach who plans to move north and away from the coast in anticipation of worsening king tides, the highest predicted tide of the year. “The water always wins.” These concerns have taken on a new urgency since the presidential election of Donald J. Trump, who has long been a skeptic of global warming, claiming in 2012 that it was a concept “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.” A real estate developer, Mr. Trump is also the owner of several South Florida properties, including Mar-a-Lago, a 20-acre site that stretches between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway in Palm Beach. Mr. Trump’s recent selection of Myron Ebell to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team intensified these worries in Florida and among many climate scientists. Mr. Ebell has helped lead the charge against the scientific consensus that global warming exists and is caused by people. State lawmakers in Massachusetts and New Jersey are pushing to impose new rules on real estate agents and others, obligating them to disclose climate-related damage like previous flooding. Banks and insurers need to protect their collateral and investors more by improving their methods for estimating climate-change risks and creating more standardized rules for reporting them publicly, economists warn. In April, Sean Becketti, the chief economist for Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giant, issued a dire prediction. It is only a matter of time, he wrote, before sea level rise and storm surges become so unbearable along the coast that people will leave, ditching their mortgages and potentially triggering another housing meltdown — except this time, it would be unlikely that these housing prices would ever recover.
22 -
23 -The coastal housing bubble will pop in the next decade – federal legal frameworks are key to avoid the crash.
24 -Baptiste 16 (Nathalie Baptiste is a journalist based in Washington, DC, who writes about criminal justice, policing reform, and politics. Her work has appeared in The American Prospect and Mother Jones. “That Sinking Feeling,” American Prospect. February 19, 2016. http://prospect.org/article/sinking-feeling-politics-sea-level-rise-and-miamis-building-boom) //WW JA 3/7/17
25 -Stoddard’s goal is to explain to people what’s happening so that instead of a market crash, there’s a slow slide. “A lot of people ask me, ‘How much time do I have?’” he says. He tells them they don’t have to sell this year, but if it’s their intention to sell, they shouldn’t wait ten more. He also considers the homeowner’s financial situation. “It depends on if your financial well-being is dependent on your home equity. If so, your time horizon should be short—I would suggest you sell.” “As the reality of seawater rise sinks in, mortgage companies may conclude that 30 years is too long of a time to gamble on,” says Stoddard. “Maybe they’ll only issue 15-year mortgages.” If that were to cause people planning to sell later to change their minds and try to sell now, the result would be a run on the market. Stoddard offers a scenario in which an event leads to an overnight crash. “If you owe $250,000 on your house, but you can only get $50,000, what do you do then?” When properties lose value, underwater homeowners end up with no resources to relocate, essentially becoming refugees. “After a storm,” Stoddard explains, “it’s harder to sell your house.” If a devastating storm comes through and decimates South Florida and people move out, the city ends up with a lot of vacancies. A drop in the property taxes would erode city and county coffers. The first thing to go would be municipal services, Stoddard adds. With limited sanitation and maintenance services, cities and towns begin falling apart. Despite this threat looming on the horizon, there doesn’t seem to be enough planning for how to handle the impending crash. “We know it’s coming—but nobody is taking preparations,” says Stoddard. “The federal government hasn’t developed a legal framework on how to help people deal with it.” Stoddard’s goal is to try to explain to people that the crash is coming. “My goal is to make it a slow slide, rather than a crash. … The slower the change happens, the more people are able to adapt to it. It can be bad or it can be really, really, really bad—take your choice.”
26 -
27 -The collapse of the housing market would initiate a recession worse than ever before – damning millions into a life of poverty.
28 -Street 11.(Paul L. Street, Paul Street (www.paulstreet.org) is the author of many books and studies, including Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Paradigm, 2004), The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010), Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy and the State of Black Chicago (Chicago, IL: Chicago Urban League, 2005), and (co-authored with Anthony DiMaggio) Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics (Paradigm, 2011)., “Public Health Concerns? Urban Neoliberal Racism, Mass Poverty, and the Repression of Occupy”, The Official Website of Paul L. Street, 02-12-11, http://www.paulstreet.org/?p=560) //AD
29 -Nothing is more consistently and positively correlated with poor health, crime, illness, educational failure – with threats to public health and safety – than poverty, a great destroyer of lives and opportunity. At the same time, poverty’s negative impact on its most immediate victims and the broader society is magnified and intensified by the extreme spatial concentration of the poor in high poverty neighborhoods. As the Brookings researchers note in their report The Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty: Metropolitan Trends in the 2000s: “Rather than spread evenly, the poor tend to cluster and concentrate in certain neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods within a community. Very poor neighborhoods face a whole host of challenges that come from concentrated disadvantage—from higher crime rates and poorer health outcomes to lower-quality educational opportunities and weaker job networks. A poor person or family in a very poor neighborhood must then deal not only with the challenges of individual poverty, but also with the added burdens that stem from the place in which they live.” 9 Enduring poverty in a very poor neighborhood subjects poor residents to obstacles and difficulties reaching beyond the costs of individual poverty. It is one thing to be technically poor but live in a safe “middle class” neighborhood with well-maintained homes, good schools, green space, thriving shops, accessible quality health care, regular public transportation, full-service grocery stores, and other amenities. It is another thing to be poor in a dangerous, crime-ridden, high-poverty neighborhood with boarded up and dilapidated homes, where: the schools feel like jails; intact families are rare; nutrition is purchased under bullet-proofed plastic windows at inflated prices from combination food-liquor stores that lack fresh vegetables and specialize in starchy high sugar and salt items; gangs are prevalent; diabetes, hepatitis, and HIV are near epidemic; prison histories are more common than jobs; more than 40 percent of the men have been saddled with the lifelong mark of a criminal record; incarceration is an almost routine experience for young males; parks are scarce and/or too precarious to visit; doctors and dentists are absent and small shops are rare; taxies never go and public transit is irregular and hard to reach.10 As sociologist Douglas Massey noted in 1994, “housing markets…distribute much more than a place to live; they also distribute any good or resource that is correlated with where one lives. Housing markets don’t just distribute dwellings, they also distribute education, employment, safety, insurance rates, services, and wealth in the form of home equity; they also determine the level of exposure to crime and drugs, and the peer groups that one’s children experience.”11 Massey’s observation notwithstanding, U.S poverty remains highly and (by the Brookings researchers’ finding) increasingly concentrated. After declining somewhat during the long economic boom of the 1990s, Brookings reports, the number of Americans living in “extreme poverty neighborhoods” – where 40 percent of the residents live below the poverty line – rose by one third between 2000 and 2009. Currently in the U.S., 10.5 percent of poor people live in such neighborhoods, up from 9.1 percent in 2000. New York City, where the financial titan turned Mayor recently spent $7 million repressing and finally evicting Occupy from the city’s affluent financial district, is home to 1,575, 032 officially poor people and to 174 extreme poverty census tracts that house 697,375 people, including 375,876 poor. Chicago, where the rugged hippie-punching corporate mayor Rahm Emmanuel (Barack Obama’s former White House chief-of-staff) has consistently denied Occupiers a campsite, is home to 593,000 poor people and to 124 extreme poverty tracts that together house 304,139 people including 140,574 poor. Los Angeles, where Antonio Villaraigosa recently evicted his city’s Occupy Movement over mass public protest, is home to 844,712 poor people and to 65 extreme poverty tracts that house more than a quarter million (264,888) residents. Philadelphia, where Occupy was recently evicted, is home to 352,265 poor people and 58 extreme poverty census tracts that house 222,434 people.12 The recently increased concentration of poverty reflects among other things the disastrous impact of two recessions (the most recent one constituting the biggest economic downturn since the 1930s). Unfolding due to the capitalist profits addiction 13 of the Occupation Movement’s official enemy the One Percent, the crises have taken a terrible toll on the employment prospects, net worth, and geographic mobility opportunities for the nation’s disproportionately nonwhite poverty population. Racial oppression is critical here, beneath the movement’s sometimes simplistic division between the super-rich and “the rest of us” (the 1 Percent and the 99 Percent). The Brookings study’s online version includes a link to maps showing the location of the extreme poverty tracts dozens of American cities.14 As is obvious to anyone familiar with the racialized geography of these highly segregated metropolises, the maps demonstrate that America’s zones of concentrated urban misery are very disproportionately black and Latino. And indeed, while blacks make up 12.6 percent of overall U.S. population, the Brookings reports that blacks comprise 45 percent of the population (by far and away the largest share) that lives in the nation’s extreme poverty neighborhoods. 15 The mortgage crisis created by the financial elite and the collapse of the housing market has been particularly devastating in Black and Latino neighborhoods. This is because those households’ net worth is more proportionately tied up in home equity, thanks to the broad absence of financial wealth in the Black and Latino communities. As the leading wealth and power analyst G. William Domhoff explains on his Web site Who Rules America?: “In 2007, the average white household had 15 times as much total wealth as the average African-American or Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are in the neighborhood of 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 70 of white families’ wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are 95 and 96, respectively.”16 To make matters worse, the predatory home lending practices (carried out by the leading financial institutions owned and run by the One Percent) that did do much to precipitate the mortgage and financial collapse of 2007 and 2008 particularly targeted people of color. As David McNally notes: “By 1998…subprime mortgages composed one-third of all home loans made to African-Americans and a fifth of those made to Latinos. And the numbers just kept rising. By 2005, 70 percent of all subprime loans made in Washington, D.C. went to African-Americans. A year later, African-Americans received 41 percent of all sub-prime mortgages in New York, while 29 percent went to Latinos. Women of color were especially vulnerable to subprime extortion Inevitably, as the mortgage rates kicked higher it became increasingly difficult for the borrowers to make payments, especially as job loss soared, especially among workers of color, reducing peoples’ capacity to pay.”17 Incredibly enough but consistent with longstanding racial patterns in U.S. labor markets, four of every ten black Americans experienced unemployment during the 2008-09 Great Recession. As McNally elaborates: “Throughout the first half of 2010, official unemployment among blacks was over 16 percent, while among Latinos, it hovered around 13 percent. In thirty-five of America’s largest cities, official jobless rates for blacks were between 30 and 35 percent- levels equal to the worst days of the Great Depression emphasis added….Not surprisingly, blacks and Latinos are almost three times more likely to live in poverty than whites.”18 In today’s New York Times (I am writing on the morning of Thursday, December 1, 2011), liberal columnist Nicholas Kristof reflects on the recollections of former Chase Home Finance regional vice president James Theckston, who told Kristof how he won company accolades for high sales in 2006 and 2007. Theckston “says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers — those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English — and nudged them toward subprime loans…These less savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up,” Kristof writes. “If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction,” Kristof comments, “it helps to listen to a former banker like Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.”19
30 -Plan
31 -Plan Text: The United States should guarantee a right to housing for coastal communities at risk of natural disasters.
32 -A right to housing is SPECIFICALLY key – the plan ensures equitable disaster relief by streamlining disaster response and recovery efforts.
33 -IHRC 16 (Written by International Human Rights Committee members: E. Michelle Andrews, Cristine Delaney Goldman, Katherine Hughes, Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Jean McCarroll, Matthew Putorti, and Laura Steven. The report was overseen by past chairs Elisabeth Wickeri and Stephen Kass. “ADVANCING THE RIGHT TO HOUSING IN THE UNITED STATES: Using International Law as a Foundation,” THE INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE OF THE NEW YORK CITY BAR ASSOCIATION. February 2016. http://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/20072632-AdvancingtheRighttoHousingIHR2122016final.pdf) //WW JA 3/6/17
34 -The United States’ failure to recognize a right to adequate housing further complicates its response to an increasing number of devastating natural disasters.187 A response to such disasters based on international human rights law would require an assessment of both the extent of the disaster and the ongoing implementation of the right to adequate housing.188 Were the federal government to recognize such a right, a number of key items to be assessed could be incorporated into its disaster recovery plans, including (i) the ratio of housing damage to overall damage, (ii) damage to rental units versus owner-occupied units, (iii) degree of habitability, (iv) cost to rebuild, (v) measurement of damage concentration, and (vi) pre-disaster local conditions such as housing costs and other social and economic data. During post-disaster recovery periods, authorities could then measure annually, for example, the number of houses rebuilt, the profile of the returned population, and community participation, all as marked against this pre-disaster and pre-recovery information.190 As a result, these measurements could be used to ensure access to affordable, decent housing by all populations impacted during the disaster by streamlining disaster relief efforts, exposing discriminatory practices, appropriately allocating federal, state, and local relief funds, and otherwise. Hurricane Katrina looms large in recent memory with respect to concerns about a lack of adequate housing in a post-disaster context. In the third year following the storm, 72 of New Orleans’s population had returned to the city; however, approximately 70 of affordable rental housing was decommissioned or demolished due to the storm.191 As a result, rents skyrocketed.192 Furthermore, in the post-disaster period, HUD opted to demolish 4,500 severely damaged rental units and declined to renovate others, thus further exacerbating the situation.193 In fact, although New Orleans’s rate of returning residents is impressive, there is a disparity in the rates of return between those who were able to rebuild with their own funds and those who were reliant on government aid.194 As has been well documented, the Lower Ninth Ward, home to a substantial low-income African-American population, has experienced “minimal levels of return,” while the Lakeview district, home to a white, middle-class population, has experienced “significant” recovery.195 Recognition of a right to adequate housing, as defined under international human rights law, would go a long way toward curing the shortfalls in housing that were experienced by the most vulnerable populations in post-Katrina New Orleans. The criticisms and shortcomings of the response to Hurricane Katrina have certainly informed federal, state, and local governments’ response to the housing crisis that arose in New York and New Jersey following Superstorm Sandy.196 Moreover, the scale of the housing shortage in post-Sandy New York and New Jersey is far eclipsed by that experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.197 However, a human rights-based housing framework, which recognizes the right to adequate housing and incorporates clearly-defined measurements of achievement, would be indispensable in crafting both preparation and post-disaster response plans that ensure that (i) the needs of the most vulnerable are met and (ii) housing-related discrimination— whether intentional or inadvertent—does not come into play.198 Undoubtedly, government officials have gained valuable experience in dealing with these issues during recent disasters, but a human rights approach would ensure ongoing monitoring in the weeks, months, and years following the initial response.
35 -
36 -The inevitable impacts of climate change mandate an adaptational strategy to ensure even human rights applications – the plan is key.
37 -Stillings 14 (Zackary L. Stillings is a graduate from the University of Michigan Law School and B.A., French Language and Literature and International Studies, University of Alabama. “Human Rights and the New Reality of Climate Change: Adaptation's Limitations in Achieving Climate Justice,” Michigan Journal of International Law. Vol. 35 Issue 3. 2014. http://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1066andcontext=mjil) //WW JA 3/4/17
38 -The UNHRC’s Resolution concerned itself with several specific rights.19 In particular, it found that climate change could impact the right to food, the right to health, the right to housing, and, by implication, the right to self-determination.20 It is these rights, as well as the right to life mentioned in the Inuit petition, that the majority of scholars have focused on during subsequent discussions regarding climate change and human rights.21 Specifically, in the months following the UNHRC’s Resolution, scholars largely focused on human rights law as it related to climate change mitigation—that is, how to hold large emitting nations for human rights violations arising from failures to mitigate climate harms.22 In many ways, this was a logical starting point: why not attempt to hold those actually responsible for climate change accountable for their past emissions, or for failing to curb future emissions? Due in large part to the weakness of the international human rights regime,23 however, scholars soon realized that holding large emitters responsible for extraterritorial harms due to climate change would be nearly impossible.24 Accordingly, scholars began to turn their attention elsewhere, with several more recent papers specifically examining the applicability of the human rights regime to climate change adaptation. 25 In some ways, this approach has proven more successful. In certain situations, for instance, it might well be possible to use human rights law to hold nations responsible for failing to adequately adapt to climate change.26 Specifically, a nation might—by improperly adapting to future climate change-related disasters—be held responsible for failing to guard its citizens’ human rights. This Note uses the unique lens of environmental justice, a theory largely concerned with basic fairness for all communities, to examine this adaptation-focused body of scholarship and to evaluate its likely implications for the world’s most vulnerable nations. Environmental justice is a particularly salient means of evaluating the efficacy of the adaptation-focused approach to climate change, because the theory’s central premise is that environmental benefits and burdens should be distributed evenly across communities and populations. Using the principles of environmental justice on an international level, then, is a way to elucidate the differences in environmental benefits and burdens across national boundaries.
39 -
40 -The plan works from the bottom up to develop effective policies to provide essential housing needed to adapt.
41 -Worth 2 (Pamela Worth is a journalist for the Huffington Post and writer for the Union of Concerned Scientists. She specializes writing on climate change, sustainable agriculture and transportation, nuclear weaponry and power, and public health and safety. “Where Climate Change Hits First and Worst,” Union of Concerned Scientists. Fall 2015. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/catalyst/fa15-where-climate-change-hits-first-and-worst) //WW JA 3/7/17
42 -“Our priority is working to help ensure that our nation’s transition to cleaner energy and more resilient communities is equitable,” says Rachel Cleetus, lead economist and climate policy manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “These changes have to include opportunities, especially jobs and infrastructure investments, for underrepresented communities.” (See our related interview with Van Jones) The first step in building equitable climate resilience, Cleetus says, is to identify particularly vulnerable communities. Efforts to cut emissions nationwide will benefit people everywhere, but resilience to climate impacts must be built up in specific locations. The disproportionate burden of climate change faced by African-Americans, Latinos, and other people of color requires greater policy attention and resources. To aid in this effort, Cleetus and her team have developed a screening tool to help identify “hot spot” communities in the United States by measuring both socioeconomic factors and vulnerability to sea level rise. Drawing attention to these communities’ special planning needs can inform decisions about the resources required to adequately protect their residents. For example, the UCS tool identified Orleans Parish in Louisiana as a high-risk area when taking into consideration both climate impacts and socioeconomic factors such as poverty rates and per capita income. Within 15 years, the parish faces a projected sea level rise of 6 to 10 inches and a threefold increase in tidal flooding events, but many parish residents cannot afford to adequately prepare for these events, and are already struggling with storm surge flooding and land loss today. UCS is recommending the creation of a National Climate Resilience Fund to help protect the residents of Orleans Parish and similar communities with federal funds targeted specifically to such hot spots (see “How to Make Climate Resilience Effective and Fair,” below). Although UCS is calling on national leaders to work toward climate equity, it is just as important to listen to the residents of communities who are learning to cope with climate change about what their towns and cities need, and how they have managed to keep their neighborhoods together through worsening conditions. Members of these communities are keenly aware of the gaps in current resources and policies that need to be closed, and they must have a voice in the process of building community resilience. “Any successful effort has to start by including local leaders in the decision-making process and listening to their needs and concerns,” Cleetus points out.
43 -
44 -The plan works – empirically proven
45 -Chaplin 16 (Tracey S. Chaplin is a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies. “The U.S. Strategy for Flood Resilience Is Underwater,” NextCity. August 24, 2016. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/us-strategy-flood-resilience-coastal-cities-competitions) //WW JA 3/6/17
46 -Intense storms produced over 20 inches of rain in the Baton Rouge area. The resulting flood crisis claimed the lives of 13 people, and over 20,000 people had to be rescued by the Coast Guard and other first responders. Over 40,000 homes are damaged, many irreparably. President Barack Obama’s administration has granted an emergency disaster declaration expected to apply to more than 30 parishes — nearly half of all parishes in the state. As the impacts of climate change continue to accelerate, water is projected to be one of the most impacted resources, increasingly experienced in extremes: rising sea levels, superstorms and drought. This is not the first time that Louisiana has experienced these extremes. Hurricane Katrina is still a painful wound in New Orleans, both in local memory and in the physical destruction left in her wake. On the Louisiana coast, indigenous communities have been losing a hard-fought battle against rising sea levels as the Gulf of Mexico swallows their homes, contaminating drinking water and bleaching agricultural lands. Unfortunately, experts predict that this flood crisis will not be the last. Rising sea levels associated with impacts of climate change are predicted to ravage the Louisiana coastline, where 1.29 million people are at risk. Facing rising waters, residents in one Alaska town voted in August to move their entire village. National displacement as a result of sea level rise is projected to reach 13 million people by the end of this century. Researchers at MIT and Princeton University have found that the types of superstorms that used to make landfall once a century could now arrive every three to 20 years, and that so-called “500-year floods” might arrive as often as every 25 years, according to findings published in Nature Climate Change. These impacts of climate change wreak havoc on infrastructure, livelihoods and access to potable water. How is the government responding? To be sure, federal disaster relief, such as that issued for the flood crisis of southern Louisiana, is an appropriate short-term response. However, long-term solutions are imperative. And because the United States does not recognize the human right to water, proposed solutions must, unfortunately, strike a delicate balance between providing access and denying that access is due to citizens.
47 -Underview
48 -1. Ask if I will meet your interp in cx; this avoids unnecessary theory- we can work something out; this allows for greater substantive debate which is the only form of education which is unique to debate. Grant me an auto I meet on T/theory if the interp isn’t checked to discourage nonchecking.
49 -2. Abstract questioning is useless - debate should seek to design concrete alternatives.
50 -Bryant 12 (EDITED FOR GENDERED LANGUAGE – the author said “she” and it was replaced with the word “to” – Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, “Critique of the Academic Left”, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
51 -I must be in a mood today– half irritated, half amused –because I find myself ranting. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual. So this afternoon I came across a post by a friend quoting something discussing the environmental movement that pushed all the right button. As the post read, For mainstream environmentalism– conservationism, green consumerism, and resource management –humans are conceptually separated out of nature and mythically placed in privileged positions of authority and control over ecological communities and their nonhuman constituents. What emerges is the fiction of a marketplace of ‘raw materials’ and ‘resources’ through which human-centered wants, constructed as needs, might be satisfied. The mainstream narratives are replete with such metaphors carbon trading!. Natural complexity, mutuality, and diversity are rendered virtually meaningless given discursive parameters that reduce nature to discrete units of exchange measuring extractive capacities. Jeff Shantz, “Green Syndicalism” While finding elements this description perplexing– I can’t say that I see many environmentalists treating nature and culture as distinct or suggesting that we’re sovereigns of nature –I do agree that we conceive much of our relationship to the natural world in economic terms (not a surprise that capitalism is today a universal). This, however, is not what bothers me about this passage. What I wonder is just what we’re supposed to do even if all of this is true? What, given existing conditions, are we to do if all of this is right? At least green consumerism, conservation, resource management, and things like carbon trading are engaging in activities that are making real differences. From this passage– and maybe the entire text would disabuse me of this conclusion –it sounds like we are to reject all of these interventions because they remain tied to a capitalist model of production that the author (and myself) find abhorrent. The idea seems to be that if we endorse these things we are tainting our hands and would therefore do well to reject them altogether. The problem as I see it is that this is the worst sort of abstraction (in the Marxist sense) and wishful thinking. Within a Marxo-Hegelian context, a thought is abstract when it ignores all of the mediations in which a thing is embedded. For example, I understand a robust tree abstractly when I attribute its robustness, say, to its genetics alone, ignoring the complex relations to its soil, the air, sunshine, rainfall, etc., that also allowed it to grow robustly in this way. This is the sort of critique we’re always leveling against the neoliberals. They are abstract thinkers. In their doxa that individuals are entirely responsible for themselves and that they completely make themselves by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, neoliberals ignore all the mediations belonging to the social and material context in which human beings develop that play a role in determining the vectors of their life. They ignore, for example, that George W. Bush grew up in a family that was highly connected to the world of business and government and that this gave him opportunities that someone living in a remote region of Alaska in a very different material infrastructure and set of family relations does not have. To think concretely is to engage in a cartography of these mediations, a mapping of these networks, from circumstance to circumstance (what I call an “onto-cartography”). It is to map assemblages, networks, or ecologies in the constitution of entities. Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. It’s good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here I’m reminded by the “underpants gnomes” depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: Ultra-Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhD’s in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that don’t have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they don’t embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?). This type of “revolutionary” is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isn’t where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
52 -3. The state is inevitable—learning to speak the language of power creates the only possibility of social change debate can offer. This is best served by imagining the consequences of policy.
53 -Mouffe 9 (Chantal Mouffe, Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster, “The Importance of Engaging the State”, What is Radical Politics Today?, Edited by Jonathan Pugh, pp. 233-7)
54 -In both Hardt and Negri, and Virno, there is therefore emphasis upon ‘critique as withdrawal’. They all call for the development of a non-state public sphere. They call for self-organisation, experimentation, non-representative and extra-parliamentary politics. They see forms of traditional representative politics as inherently oppressive. So they do not seek to engage with them, in order to challenge them. They seek to get rid of them altogether. This disengagement is, for such influential personalities in radical politics today, the key to every political position in the world. The Multitude must recognise imperial sovereignty itself as the enemy and discover adequate means of subverting its power. Whereas in the disciplinary era I spoke about earlier, sabotage was the fundamental form of political resistance, these authors claim that, today, it should be desertion. It is indeed through desertion, through the evacuation of the places of power, that they think that battles against Empire might be won. Desertion and exodus are, for these important thinkers, a powerful form of class struggle against imperial postmodernity. According to Hardt and Negri, and Virno, radical politics in the past was dominated by the notion of ‘the people’. This was, according to them, a unity, acting with one will. And this unity is linked to the existence of the state. The Multitude, on the contrary, shuns political unity. It is not representable because it is an active self-organising agent that can never achieve the status of a juridical personage. It can never converge in a general will, because the present globalisation of capital and workers’ struggles will not permit this. It is anti-state and anti-popular. Hardt and Negri claim that the Multitude cannot be conceived any more in terms of a sovereign authority that is representative of the people. They therefore argue that new forms of politics, which are non-representative, are needed. They advocate a withdrawal from existing institutions. This is something which characterises much of radical politics today. The emphasis is not upon challenging the state. Radical politics today is often characterised by a mood, a sense and a feeling, that the state itself is inherently the problem. Critique as engagement I will now turn to presenting the way I envisage the form of social criticism best suited to radical politics today. I agree with Hardt and Negri that it is important to understand the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. But I consider that the dynamics of this transition is better apprehended within the framework of the approach outlined in the book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Laclau and Mouffe, 2001). What I want to stress is that many factors have contributed to this transition from Fordism to post-Fordism, and that it is necessary to recognise its complex nature. My problem with Hardt and Negri’s view is that, by putting so much emphasis on the workers’ struggles, they tend to see this transition as if it was driven by one single logic: the workers’ resistance to the forces of capitalism in the post-Fordist era. They put too much emphasis upon immaterial labour. In their view, capitalism can only be reactive and they refuse to accept the creative role played both by capital and by labour. To put it another way, they deny the positive role of political struggle. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics we use the word ‘hegemony’ to describe the way in which meaning is given to institutions or practices: for example, the way in which a given institution or practice is defined as ‘oppressive to women’, ‘racist’ or ‘environmentally destructive’. We also point out that every hegemonic order is therefore susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic practices – feminist, anti-racist, environmentalist, for example. This is illustrated by the plethora of new social movements which presently exist in radical politics today (Christian, anti-war, counter-globalisation, Muslim, and so on). Clearly not all of these are workers’ struggles. In their various ways they have nevertheless attempted to influence and have influenced a new hegemonic order. This means that when we talk about ‘the political’, we do not lose sight of the ever present possibility of heterogeneity and antagonism within society. There are many different ways of being antagonistic to a dominant order in a heterogeneous society – it need not only refer to the workers’ struggles. I submit that it is necessary to introduce this hegemonic dimension when one envisages the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. This means abandoning the view that a single logic (workers’ struggles) is at work in the evolution of the work process; as well as acknowledging the pro-active role played by capital. In order to do this we can find interesting insights in the work of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello who, in their book The New Spirit of Capitalism (2005), bring to light the way in which capitalists manage to use the demands for autonomy of the new movements that developed in the 1960s, harnessing them in the development of the post-Fordist networked economy and transforming them into new forms of control. They use the term ‘artistic critique’ to refer to how the strategies of the counter-culture (the search for authenticity, the ideal of selfmanagement and the anti-hierarchical exigency) were used to promote the conditions required by the new mode of capitalist regulation, replacing the disciplinary framework characteristic of the Fordist period. From my point of view, what is interesting in this approach is that it shows how an important dimension of the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism involves rearticulating existing discourses and practices in new ways. It allows us to visualise the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism in terms of a hegemonic intervention. To be sure, Boltanski and Chiapello never use this vocabulary, but their analysis is a clear example of what Gramsci called ‘hegemony through neutralisation’ or ‘passive revolution’. This refers to a situation where demands which challenge the hegemonic order are recuperated by the existing system, which is achieved by satisfying them in a way that neutralises their subversive potential. When we apprehend the transition from Fordism to post- Fordism within such a framework, we can understand it as a hegemonic move by capital to re-establish its leading role and restore its challenged legitimacy. We did not witness a revolution, in Marx’s sense of the term. Rather, there have been many different interventions, challenging dominant hegemonic practices. It is clear that, once we envisage social reality in terms of ‘hegemonic’ and ‘counter-hegemonic’ practices, radical politics is not about withdrawing completely from existing institutions. Rather, we have no other choice but to engage with hegemonic practices, in order to challenge them. This is crucial; otherwise we will be faced with a chaotic situation. Moreover, if we do not engage with and challenge the existing order, if we instead choose to simply escape the state completely, we leave the door open for others to take control of systems of authority and regulation. Indeed there are many historical (and not so historical) examples of this. When the Left shows little interest, Right-wing and authoritarian groups are only too happy to take over the state. The strategy of exodus could be seen as the reformulation of the idea of communism, as it was found in Marx. There are many points in common between the two perspectives. To be sure, for Hardt and Negri it is no longer the proletariat, but the Multitude which is the privileged political subject. But in both cases the state is seen as a monolithic apparatus of domination that cannot be transformed. It has to ‘wither away’ in order to leave room for a reconciled society beyond law, power and sovereignty. In reality, as I’ve already noted, others are often perfectly willing to take control. If my approach – supporting new social movements and counterhegemonic practices – has been called ‘post-Marxist’ by many, it is precisely because I have challenged the very possibility of such a reconciled society. To acknowledge the ever present possibility of antagonism to the existing order implies recognising that heterogeneity cannot be eliminated. As far as politics is concerned, this means the need to envisage it in terms of a hegemonic struggle between conflicting hegemonic projects attempting to incarnate the universal and to define the symbolic parameters of social life. A successful hegemony fixes the meaning of institutions and social practices and defines the ‘common sense’ through which a given conception of reality is established. However, such a result is always contingent, precarious and susceptible to being challenged by counter-hegemonic interventions. Politics always takes place in a field criss-crossed by antagonisms. A properly political intervention is always one that engages with a certain aspect of the existing hegemony. It can never be merely oppositional or conceived as desertion, because it aims to challenge the existing order, so that it may reidentify and feel more comfortable with that order. Another important aspect of a hegemonic politics lies in establishing linkages between various demands (such as environmentalists, feminists, anti-racist groups), so as to transform them into claims that will challenge the existing structure of power relations. This is a further reason why critique involves engagement, rather than disengagement. It is clear that the different demands that exist in our societies are often in conflict with each other. This is why they need to be articulated politically, which obviously involves the creation of a collective will, a ‘we’. This, in turn, requires the determination of a ‘them’. This obvious and simple point is missed by the various advocates of the Multitude. For they seem to believe that the Multitude possesses a natural unity which does not need political articulation. Hardt and Negri see ‘the People’ as homogeneous and expressed in a unitary general will, rather than divided by different political conflicts. Counter-hegemonic practices, by contrast, do not eliminate differences. Rather, they are what could be called an ‘ensemble of differences’, all coming together, only at a given moment, against a common adversary. Such as when different groups from many backgrounds come together to protest against a war perpetuated by a state, or when environmentalists, feminists, anti-racists and others come together to challenge dominant models of development and progress. In these cases, the adversary cannot be defined in broad general terms like ‘Empire’, or for that matter ‘Capitalism’. It is instead contingent upon the particular circumstances in question – the specific states, international institutions or governmental practices that are to be challenged. Put another way, the construction of political demands is dependent upon the specific relations of power that need to be targeted and transformed, in order to create the conditions for a new hegemony. This is clearly not an exodus from politics. It is not ‘critique as withdrawal’, but ‘critique as engagement’. It is a ‘war of position’ that needs to be launched, often across a range of sites, involving the coming together of a range of interests. This can only be done by establishing links between social movements, political parties and trade unions, for example. The aim is to create a common bond and collective will, engaging with a wide range of sites, and often institutions, with the aim of transforming them. This, in my view, is how we should conceive the nature of radical politics.
55 -4. We need to embrace the state as a heuristic – our argument is not that the state is good but that learning the levers of power is key to confronting it.
56 -Zanotti ’14: (Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include critical political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World” – Alternatives: Global, Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 – The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb 20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013. Obtained via Sage Database//FT)
57 -By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power and subjects’ relational character and the contingent processes of their (trans)formation in the context of agonic relations. Options for resistance to governmental scripts are not limited to ‘‘rejection,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ or ‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an immanent ideal social order. It is found instead in multifarious and contingent struggles that are constituted within the scripts of governmental rationalities and at the same time exceed and transform them. This approach questions oversimplifications of the complexities of liberal political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal political players and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally good or bad actors or abstract solutions to political problems. International power interacts in complex ways with diverse political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with. Governmentality as a heuristic focuses on performing complex diagnostics of events. It invites historically situated explorations and careful differentiations rather than overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’ romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the local.’’ More broadly, theoretical formulations that conceive the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on hybridization as the terrain for political transformation, open ways for reconsidering political agency beyond the dichotomy of oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics of political engagement, to be continuously taken up through plural and uncertain practices, that demand continuous attention to ‘‘what happens’’ instead of fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such ethics of engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a pristine ‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it would constantly attempt to twist the working of power by playing with whatever cards are available and would require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of political choices. To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.’’84
58 -5. We do not affirm the state as is ~-~-- our demands highlight the inconsistency of the state and that we should constantly keep it in check with radical democracy
59 -Newman 10: Saul Newman 10, Reader in Political Theory at Goldsmiths, U of London, Theory and Event Volume 13, Issue 2
60 -There are two aspects that I would like to address here. Firstly, the notion of demand: making certain demands on the state – say for higher wages, equal rights for excluded groups, to not go to war, or an end to draconian policing – is one of the basic strategies of social movements and radical groups. Making such demands does not necessarily mean working within the state or reaffirming its legitimacy. On the contrary, demands are made from a position outside the political order, and they often exceed the question of the implementation of this or that specific measure. They implicitly call into question the legitimacy and even the sovereignty of the state by highlighting fundamental inconsistencies between, for instance, a formal constitutional order which guarantees certain rights and equalities, and state practices which in reality violate and deny them.
61 -The affirmative rejection of binaries normalizes capitalist relationships of ownership – we must affirm binaries to understand that all social structures are determined by a fundamental division between those that sell their labor power and those that purchase it. The affirmatives alternative results in a class pluralism that makes it impossible to understand these divisions.
62 -Ebert and Zavarzadeh in 2008(Teresa L., English, State University of New York, Albany, Mas’ud, prolific writer and expert on class ideology, “Class in Culture”, p. 15-18)
63 -In materialist theory, class is constructed at the point of production which, among other things, means it is based on labor relations in history. With the rise of private property, ownership of the means of producing commodities-which embody surplus labor-enables some to exploit the labor of others. The materialist theory of class is, therefore, a binary theory: it argues that people in class societies are divided between those who sell (or are forced to give free) their labor power to live, and those who purchase (or appropriate by force) the labor Power of others and profit from it. In their Multitude, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call the classical materialist theory a "unity" theory and place it in opposition to "plurality" theories of class that "insist on the ineluctable multiplicity of social classes" (103). In their usual manner, they take an eclectic path out of the binary .and write "that both of these seemingly contradictory positions are true should indicate that the alternative itself may be false" (104). In the end they, like Derrida, formally concede that class is indispensable for understanding the social (Derrida, "Marx and Sons"), but at the same time they undermine its very materialist possibility, which is the only possibility that actually matters. Hardt and Negri demolish class, in other words, not by giving up class~-~-in fact they say that the "multitude" is a class concept (l03}-but by the inversion of class from an economic category to a political concept: "Class is determined by class struggle"(l04). It is not the materialism of the relations of property that produce classes, which in turn start class struggle; instead the subjectivity of people lead them to struggle and through that struggle form classes (103-104). Hardt and Negri actually find that "the old distinction between economic and political" is an obstacle to understanding class relations (105). Their dismissal of the binary, here and in their class theory, is in part based on Negri's call for a "post-deconstructive" ontology ("The Specter's Smile" 12), which implies that the binaries are undone by a capitalism that travels on the Internet. Thus, they can no longer account for its singularities which constitute not only its cultural practices but also its class formations. There are as many singular classes as there 'are class struggles, and there are as many class struggles as there are subjectivities. Class, for Hardt and Negri, is an effect of the multitude which is "an irreducible multiplicity; the singular social differences that constitute the multitude must always be expressed and can never be flattened into' sameness, unity, identity, or indifference" (105). Class in the new capitalism is another name for singularity which is the undoing of the collective. Using different languages, the contemporary discourses on class repeat this narrative in which the classical materialist binary theory of class is represented as essentialist and in need of deconstruction. One of the most influential critiques of binary class theory, as we have already indicated, is by Jacques Derrida, whose general theory of class and specifically his deconstruction of binary class theory we will discuss and critique at several points in this book. Here, however, we would like to outline what is often called the "class-as-process" theory and point to its underlying logic and class politics, The class-as-process theory is the work of Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff who, in their groundbreaking book Knowledge and Class, critique the "dichotomous theory of class" (112) for its determinism and foundationalism (109-163) and propose an anti-essentialist and "overdeterminate" (I 14, 116) class theory situated in the multiple processes involved in the extraction and distribution of surplus labor. Their views are reinterpreted under the strong influence of poststructuralist social theory by J. K. Gibson-Graham in The End of Capitalism (as we knew it) (49-56), who repeat their argument for a theory of class "without an essence" (55). We leave aside here how their version of antiessentialism, like all other versions, collapses and becomes a new essentialism in which a trans-historical notion of surplus labor becomes the foundation of a new pro-capital social theory. Since class-as-process theory views class as an effect of "producing and appropriating surplus labor" (52), and because in all societies surplus labor is produced and appropriated, class-as-process theory makes class the immanent feature of all societies throughout history (58), Even in such societies as early communism and post-capitalist socialism, in which the social surplus labor produced is appropriated not by private owners but by society as a collective, there is class according to this view. There is no outside to class~-~- ever, anywhere. Class-as-process is a rather crude translation of Althusser's post-class theory of ideology into class theory. For Althusser ideology is not a "false consciousness" by which the exchange of labor power for wages is seen as being a fair exchange. Instead, he writes that ideology is "the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" (Lenin and Philosophy 162). Ideology for Althusser, who draws on Lacan and Freud for his main concepts, is basically a theory of subjectivity (170-177). This is another way of saying that, for Althusser, "ideology has no history" (159) because "human societies secrete ideology as the very element and atmosphere indispensable to their historical respiration and life" (For Marx 232). Similarly, for Gibson-Graham, class is an organic part of all societies and not a specific historical stage in them (The End of Capitalism 58-59). All societies, they contend, secrete class. Given their affirmation that capitalism is here to stay (263), it would be "unrealistic," to use Gibson-Graham's word, to struggle to end class rule. The practical thing to do is to learn to live with it. Consequently, the mark of an activist agency in the class-as-process theory is not a militancy to overthrow class because that requires a revolutionary act, which they claim is "outmoded" (The End of Capitalism 263). Instead, they call for an intervention in the homogeneity of class to make it heterogeneous and plural (52, 58). Class stays; its modalities and forms multiply (52, 58). This view of class, which is represented as cutting edge (Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics 1-21,66-68,90-92), is interesting not because of its arguments but mostly for what it says about the way the Left in the global North has accommodated and normalized the class interests of capital. The goal of class-as-process, for example, as Gibson-Graham state, is not to "eradicate all or even specifically capitalist forms of exploitation" but to contribute to "self-transformative class subjectivity"-and change the emotional components of exploitation (53). As always, there is more. Class-as-process is a discursive device for dis- Solving what Marx calls "the antithesis between lack of property and property." He argues that this antithesis "so long as it is not comprehended as the antithesis of labour and capital, still remains an indifferent antithesis, not grasped in its active connection, in its internal relation, not yet grasped as a contradiction" (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,293-94). Grasping this contradiction is grasping the binary theory of class and realizing that class is a relation of owning: the owning of labor by capital. As such, it is the other of human freedom because it is grounded in the exploitation of humans by humans-private property is the congealed alienated labor of the other. Using the epistemological alibi of anti-essentialism, class-as-process obscures the constitutive role of private property (ownership of the means of production) In the construction of class divisions. Thus, in the name of opposing economism, It actually protects the economic interests of capital: "class in our conception is overdetermined, rather than defined by property ownership and other sorts of social relations" (Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism 179). Private property, they contend, is only one of many factors that make class (55, 179), and it is no more significant in this construction than, for example, "affects and emotions" (A Postcapitalist Politics 1-21). But private property is the sensuous "expression of estranged human life," and class is its concrete effect in the every day. "The positive transcendence of private property as the appropriation of human life is therefore the positive transcendence of all estrangement-that is to say the return of man from religion, family, state, etc. to his human, i.e. social, existence" (Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of J 844, 297). Ending the contradiction of the binary of property and propertyless is the end of class and the end of alienation: it is the beginning of human freedom from necessity. Class-as-process naturalizes private property and the estrangement of humans- from their work, from others and from themselves-by making class the plural effect of "the intersection of all social dimensions or processes-economic, political cultural, natural" (Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism 55). By pluralizing class, the class-as-process theorists undermine the importance of private property in constructing class relations and thus absolve capital- whose history is a history of accumulation of private property and is "dripping from head to toe, from every pore, with blood and dirt" (Marx, Capital I, 926). Other critics, who argue class has become irrelevant to contemporary society, claim that, owing to changes in technology and structural transformations in . capitalism, the differences within classes have so proliferated they have exceeded the differences between classes, thereby making the binary labor theory of class obsolete. These views go even further and state that the very premise of hinary theories of class-namely, private ownership as determining class relations- has lost its significance in shaping class relations. We live, they argue, in post-property times in which property has been displaced by access (Rifkin, The Age of Access). The increasing differences within classes, however, do not demolish the binary class structures under capital. The "differences that flourish within classes," as John O'Neill argues, "do not challenge but even confirm the differences between classes. Poverty is colorless and genderless however much it marks women and racial minorities" ("Oh, My Others, There Is No Other!" 81).
64 -1. State inevitable – it controls thought and action within society, any attempt to break it down without the state fails.
65 -Jarvis 2k. Jarvis Darryl Jarvis (Director of the Research Institute for International Risk and Lecturer in International Relations, The University of Sydney) 2000 “International relations and the challenge of postmodernism” p. 128-9
66 -More is the pity that such irrational and obviously abstruse debate should so occupy us at a time of great global turmoil. That it does and continues to do so reflects our lack of judicious criteria for evaluating theory and, more importantly, the lack of attachment theorist have to the real world. Certainly it is right and proper that we ponder what we ponder the depth of our theoretical imagination, engage in epistemological and ontological debate, and analyze the sociology of our knowledge. But to suppose that this is the only talk on international theory, let alone the most important one, smacks of intellectual elitism and displays a certain contempt for those who search for guidance in their daily struggle as actors in international politics. What does Ashley’s project, his deconstructive efforts, or valiant fight against positivism say to the truly marginalized, oppressed, and destitute? How does it help solve the plight of the poor, the displaced refugees, the casualties of war, or the emigres of death squads? Does it in any way speak to those actions and thoughts comprise the policy and practice of international relations? On all these questions one must answer no. That is not to say, of course, that all theory should be judged by its technical rationality and problem solving capacity as Ashley forcefully argues. But to suppose that problem solving technical theory is not necessary – or is in some way bad – is a contemptuous position that abrogates any hope of solving some of the nightmarish realities that millions confront daily. As Holsti argues, we need ask of these theorists and their theories the ultimate question, “So What?” To what purpose do they construct, problematize, destabilize, undermine, ridicule, and belittle modernist and rationalist approaches? Does this get us any further, make the world any better, or enhance the human condition? In what sense can this “debate towards bottomless pit of epistemology and metaphysics” be judged pertinent, relevant, helpful, or cogent to anyone other than those foolish enough to be scholastically excited by abstract and recondite debate?
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1 -Dino De LaO, Josh Aguilar, Miguel Harvey
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1 -Monsignor Kelly Colin Cormier
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1 -18
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
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1 -MARAPR - 1AC - The Flood V2
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1 -TFA State
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1 -Framework
2 -The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater that presents the best policy option. To clarify, we don’t defend that the state is good, but rather that defending the state teaches us vital advocacy skills.
3 -Nixon 2K (Themba-Nixon, Makani. Executive Director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice, “Changing the Rules: What Public Policy Means for Organizing” Colorlines 3.2, 2000) //WW JA 1/15/16
4 -“This is all about policy," a woman complained to me in a recent conversation. "I'm an organizer." The flourish and passion with which she made the distinction said everything. Policy is for wonks, sell-out politicians, and ivory-tower eggheads. Organizing is what real, grassroots people do. Common as it may be, this distinction doesn't bear out in the real world. Policy is more than law. It is any written agreement (formal or informal) that specifies how an institution, governing body, or community will address shared problems or attain shared goals. It spells out the terms and the consequences of these agreements and is the codification of the body's values-as represented by those present in the policymaking process. Given who's usually present, most policies reflect the political agenda of powerful elites. Yet, policy can be a force for change-especially when we bring our base and community organizing into the process. In essence, policies are the codification of power relationships and resource allocation. Policies are the rules of the world we live in. Changing the world means changing the rules. So, if organizing is about changing the rules and building power, how can organizing be separated from policies? Can we really speak truth to power, fight the right, stop corporate abuses, or win racial justice without contesting the rules and the rulers, the policies and the policymakers? The answer is no-and double no for people of color. Today, racism subtly dominates nearly every aspect of policymaking. From ballot propositions to city funding priorities, policy is increasingly about the control, de-funding, and disfranchisement of communities of color. Take the public conversation about welfare reform, for example. Most of us know it isn't really about putting people to work. The right's message was framed around racial stereotypes of lazy, cheating "welfare queens" whose poverty was "cultural." But the new welfare policy was about moving billions of dollars in individual cash payments and direct services from welfare recipients to other, more powerful, social actors. Many of us were too busy to tune into the welfare policy drama in Washington, only to find it washed up right on our doorsteps. Our members are suffering from workfare policies, new regulations, and cutoffs. Families who were barely getting by under the old rules are being pushed over the edge by the new policies. Policy doesn't get more relevant than this. And so we got involved in policy-as defense. Yet we have to do more than block their punches. We have to start the fight with initiatives of our own. Those who do are finding offense a bit more fun than defense alone. Living wage ordinances, youth development initiatives, even gun control and alcohol and tobacco policies are finding their way onto the public agenda, thanks to focused community organizing that leverages power for community-driven initiatives. - Over 600 local policies have been passed to regulate the tobacco industry. Local coalitions have taken the lead by writing ordinances that address local problems and organizing broad support for them. - Nearly 100 gun control and violence prevention policies have been enacted since 1991. - Milwaukee, Boston, and Oakland are among the cities that have passed living wage ordinances: local laws that guarantee higher than minimum wages for workers, usually set as the minimum needed to keep a family of four above poverty. These are just a few of the examples that demonstrate how organizing for local policy advocacy has made inroads in areas where positive national policy had been stalled by conservatives. Increasingly, the local policy arena is where the action is and where activists are finding success. Of course, corporate interests-which are usually the target of these policies-are gearing up in defense. Tactics include front groups, economic pressure, and the tried and true: cold, hard cash. Despite these barriers, grassroots organizing can be very effective at the smaller scale of local politics. At the local level, we have greater access to elected officials and officials have a greater reliance on their constituents for reelection. For example, getting 400 people to show up at city hall in just about any city in the U.S. is quite impressive. On the other hand, 400 people at the state house or the Congress would have a less significant impact. Add to that the fact that all 400 people at city hall are usually constituents, and the impact is even greater. Recent trends in government underscore the importance of local policy. Congress has enacted a series of measures devolving significant power to state and local government. Welfare, health care, and the regulation of food and drinking water safety are among the areas where states and localities now have greater rule. Devolution has some negative consequences to be sure. History has taught us that, for social services and civil rights in particular, the lack of clear federal standards and mechanisms for accountability lead to uneven enforcement and even discriminatory implementation of policies. Still, there are real opportunities for advancing progressive initiatives in this more localized environment. Greater local control can mean greater community power to shape and implement important social policies that were heretofore out of reach. To do so will require careful attention to the mechanics of local policymaking and a clear blueprint of what we stand for. Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands Getting It in Writing Much of the work of framing what we stand for takes place in the shaping of demands. By getting into the policy arena in a proactive manner, we can take our demands to the next level. Our demands can become law, with real consequences if the agreement is broken. After all the organizing, press work, and effort, a group should leave a decisionmaker with more than a handshake and his or her word. Of course, this work requires a certain amount of interaction with "the suits," as well as struggles with the bureaucracy, the technical language, and the all-too-common resistance by decisionmakers. Still, if it's worth demanding, it's worth having in writing-whether as law, regulation, or internal policy. From ballot initiatives on rent control to laws requiring worker protections, organizers are leveraging their power into written policies that are making a real difference in their communities. Of course, policy work is just one tool in our organizing arsenal, but it is a tool we simply can't afford to ignore. Making policy work an integral part of organizing will require a certain amount of retrofitting. We will need to develop the capacity to translate our information, data, stories that are designed to affect the public conversation. Perhaps most important, we will need to move beyond fighting problems and on to framing solutions that bring us closer to our vision of how things should be. And then we must be committed to making it so.
5 -The standard is combatting structural violence – epistemologically precedes normative ethics.
6 -Young 74. Iris Marion Young, Professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago since 2000, masters and doctorate in philosophy in 1974 from Pennsylvania State University. “Justice and the Politics of Difference”. Princeton University Press, 1990, Digital Copy.
7 -Group representation, third, encourages the expression of individual and group needs and interests in terms that appeal to justice, that transform an "I want" into an "I am entitled to," in Hannah Pitkin's words. In Chapter 4 I argued that publicity itself encourages this transformation because a condition of the public is that people call one another to account. Group representation adds to such accountability because it serves as an antidote to self-deceiving self-interest masked as an impartial or general interest. Unless confronted with different perspectives on social relations and events, different values and language, most people tend to assert their perspective as universal. When social privilege allows some group perspectives to dominate a public while others are silent, such universalizing of the particular will be reaffirmed by many others. Thus the test of whether a claim upon the public is just or merely an expression of self interest is best made when those making it must confront the opinion of others who have explicitly with different, though not necessarily conflicting, experiences, priorities, and needs (cf. Sunstein, 1988, p. 1588). As a person of social privilege, I am more likely to go outside myself and have regard for social justice when I must listen to the voice of those my privilege otherwise tends to silence.
8 -Plan
9 -Status quo sexual harassment laws fail – they’re driven by education consumerism – Title IX prioritizes minimizing administrative liability rather than effectively challenging assault.
10 -deBoer 15 (Fredrik deBoer is an academic and writer. He has a Ph.D. in English and graduated from Purdue University. “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.” NY Times. September 9, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/magazine/why-we-should-fear-university-inc.html?_r=0) //WW JA 2/17/17
11 -The Kipnis affair was extreme, but it demonstrates the double-edged sword that is Title IX. The law, designed to enforce gender equality on campus, grants members of campus communities broad latitude in charging gender discrimination and mandates formal response from universities. The law can be a powerful tool for justice, but like all tools, it can be misused — especially as it ends up wielded by administrative and governmental functionaries. In this way, it becomes an instrument of power, not of the powerless. And because the law compels the self-protective, legalistic wings of universities to grind into gear, for fear of liability and bad publicity, invocations of Title IX frequently wrest control of the process and the narrative from student activists themselves, handing it to bureaucrats, whether governmental or institutional. Rather than painting student activists as censors — trying to dictate who has the right to say what and when — we should instead see them as trapped in a corporate architecture of managing offense. Have you ever been to corporate sexual harassment training? If you have, you may have been struck by how little such events have to do with preventing sexual harassment as a matter of moral necessity and how much they have to do with protecting whatever institution is mandating it. Of course, sexual harassment is a real and vexing problem, not merely on campus but in all kinds of organizations, and the urge to oppose it through policy is a noble one. But corporate entities serve corporate interests, not those of the individuals within them, and so these efforts are often designed to spare the institutions from legal liability rather than protect the individuals who would be harmed by sexual harassment. Indeed, this is the very lifeblood of corporatism: creating systems and procedures that sacrifice the needs of humans to the needs of institutions. If students have adopted a litigious approach to regulating campus life, they are only working within the culture that colleges have built for them. When your environment so deeply resembles a Fortune 500 company, it makes sense to take every complaint straight to H.R. I don’t excuse students who so zealously pursue their vision of campus life that they file Title IX complaints against people whose opinions they don’t like. But I recognize their behavior as a rational response within a bureaucracy. It’s hard to blame people within a system — particularly people so young — who take advantage of structures they’ve been told exist to help them. The problem is that these structures exist for the institutions themselves, and thus the erosion of political freedom is ultimately a consequence of the institutions. When we identify students as the real threat to intellectual freedom on campus, we’re almost always looking in the wrong place. Current conditions result in neither the muscular and effective student activism favored by the defenders of current campus politics nor the emboldened, challenging professors that critics prefer. Instead, both sides seem to be gradually marginalized in favor of the growing managerial class that dominates so many campuses. Yes, students get to dictate increasingly elaborate and punitive speech codes that some of them prefer. But what could be more corporate or bureaucratic than the increasingly tight control on language and culture in the workplace? Those efforts both divert attention from the material politics that the administration often strenuously opposes (like divestment campaigns) and contribute to a deepening cultural disrespect for student activism. Professors, meanwhile, cling for dear life, trying merely to preserve whatever tenre track they can, prevented by academic culture, a lack of coordination and interdepartmental resentments from rallying together as labor activists. That the contemporary campus quiets the voices of both students and teachers — the two indispensable actors in the educational exchange — speaks to the funhouse-mirror quality of today’s academy. I wish that committed student activists would recognize that the administrators who run their universities, no matter how convenient a recipient of their appeals, are not their friends. I want these bright, passionate students to remember that the best legacy of student activism lies in shaking up administrators, not in making appeals to them. At its worst, this tendency results in something like collusion between activists and administrators.
12 -Thus, the plan: Public colleges and universities in the United States should derestrict constitutionally protected speech by amending Title IX policies to redefine sexual harassment.
13 -AAUP 16. (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) //WW JA 1/5/16
14 -The 2014 AAUP report proposes a policy for colleges and universities desiring a separate statement of policy on sexual harassment. The proposal distinguishes conduct or speech defined as sexual harassment from protected speech: It is the policy of this institution that no member of the academic community may sexually harass another. Sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when: 1. such advances or requests are made under circumstances implying that one’s response might affect educational or personnel decisions that are subject to the influence of the person making the proposal; or 2. such speech or conduct is directed against another and is either abusive or severely humiliating, or persists despite the objection of the person targeted by the speech or conduct; or 3. such speech or conduct is reasonably regarded as offensive and substantially impairs the academic or work opportunity of students, colleagues, or co-workers. If it takes place in the teaching context, it must also be persistent, pervasive, and not germane to the subject matter. The academic setting is distinct from the workplace in that wide latitude is required for professional judgment in determining the appropriate content and presentation of academic material.91
15 -They continue:
16 -AAUP statements and reports should be amended, as needed, to further clarify the distinctions between sexual assault and harassment and between speech and conduct, and to strengthen academic freedom protections. The 2012 statement on Campus Sexual Assault uses the term “sexual violence…as a blanket term for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual assault, rape, stalking, domestic violence, and other forms of sexual misconduct.” Using the term “sexual violence” so broadly does not adequately distinguish sexual harassment – particularly where it involves only speech – from other types of sexual misconduct. The 2014 report on Sexual Harassment proposes a policy that distinguishes protected speech from conduct or speech constituting sexual harassment. Further, the policy includes protection of conduct in the teaching context. This could include expressive conduct such as gestures, dance, or other types of actions. To further clarify the protection of speech and expressive conduct, the AAUP proposed policy could be amended to include specific references to academic freedom. The proposed policy could also be amended to clarify that teaching, research, and extramural speech protected by academic freedom are excluded from definitions of sexual harassment.
17 -The Advantage is Sexual Assault
18 -Scenario 1 – Rape Law
19 -Title IX results in silencing classes that discuss controversial subjects like rape law
20 -AAUP 3 (American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals. Since 1915, the AAUP has helped to shape American higher education by developing the standards and procedures that maintain quality in education and academic freedom in this country's colleges and universities. “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX,” AAUP Kennesaw. March 24, 2016. http://aaup.kennesaw.edu/AAUP_TitleIX.pdf) //WW JA 2/16/17 ***BRACKETS IN ORIGINAL***
21 -At USC–Upstate, the controversy about Fun Home coincided with the closure of the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. The transfer of funds underscores the fact that the serious study of sex and sexuality is becoming increasingly vulnerable, leading to selfcensorship by faculty members. This state of affairs extends to areas such as creative writing, where some instructors are wary of assignments that may raise the specter of sex, and criminal law, where some faculty members have chosen to omit from their courses units on rape and sexual-assault law out of fear that students may claim that the content is too emotionally distressing. Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk contends that, ironically, after long feminist campaigns to include rape law in the law school curriculum, the topic has once again become difficult to teach. Not only is discussion of rape sometimes thought to be “triggering,” but discussions of how consent or nonconsent may be communicated in a sexual encounter or how social inequalities (tied to class, race, or sexual preferences) might bias the assessment of whether an incident is labeled as a crime risk being perceived as disrespectful of victims. As a result, some students view such necessary debates about the law and sexual violence as fostering a hostile environment.49
22 -The 1AC challenges oppressive ideologies about rape, race, and stereotypes through creating addressing the root of pedagogies of supremacy.
23 -Denbow 14 (Jennifer M. Denbow is Assistant Professor at University of New England. “The Pedagogy of Rape Law: Objectivity, Identity and Emotion,” Journal of Legal Education, Volume 64, Number 1. August 2014. http://www.swlaw.edu/pdfs/jle/jle641denbow.pdf) //WW JA 2/17/17
24 -Since the law school classroom is one place where future legal professionals, many of whom will have substantial power, form their ideas about rape, discussion is crucial. Precisely because people have such different and charged views of rape, it is important that future lawyers at least have the opportunity to discuss it. Furthermore, the reluctance to teach rape law and the politics of the pedagogy of rape law cannot be divorced from the historic tendency of prosecutors and judges to presume that women are the sole victims survivors of sexual assault and in many instances trivialize rape accusations. Crenshaw argues, for example, that the reluctance of legal actors, including prosecutors, to address the rape of black women is rooted in stereotypes of black women’s licentiousness.43 The law school classroom could serve as a site where such stereotypes are confronted. A critical approach to the pedagogy of rape law would take the confrontation between different ways of understanding rape seriously and would be selfreflective about knowledge and its production. I would call not just for getting more instructors to teach rape law—and for a related push to reveal that the decision not to teach rape law is just as political as the decision to do so—but also for an effort to reveal the space of the classroom, as well as the claims to knowledge made therein, as political.44 The difficulty will be in developing a pedagogy that allows for exploration of one’s position and an inquiry into how that affects one’s understanding of the crime of rape. Rather than taking the objective as that which has no point of view, it must be acknowledged that there is no way not to have a point of view. As Crenshaw notes, not calling “into question the objectivity of the dominant perspective . . . fails to challenge majority students’ beliefs that the minority perspective is self-interested and biased, while the doctrinal framework and their own perspectives are not.”45 The exploration of experience and identity can thus destabilize the appearance of legal objectivity and requires those with the dominant view to account for their perspective. As hooks explains: . . . a critique of essentialism that challenges only marginalized groups to interrogate their use of identity politics or an essentialist standpoint as a means to exerting coercive power leaves unquestioned the critical practices of other groups who employ the same strategies in different ways and whose exclusionary behavior may be firmly buttressed by institutionalized structures of domination that do not critique or check it.46
25 -Scenario 2 – Student Journalism
26 -Current vague Title IX definitions are used to silence student journalists who expose sexual assault perpetrators.
27 -Dewulf 10-7-16 (Kaitlin Dewulf, Dewulf is double-majoring in Political science and Journalism and Mass Communication on the pre-law track. "An unintended consequence of Title IX", Student Press Law Center, 10-7-2016, page numbers here, http://www.splc.org/article/2016/10/an-unintended-consequence-of-title-ix)//DM Accessed 1-16-2017
28 -Passed more than 40 years ago, Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — which can include sexual harassment or sexual violence, such as rape, sexual assault, battery and coercion — in education programs and activities. All public and private schools receiving any federal funding must comply with Title IX. Before Title IX, women faced discrimination in academics, admissions, athletics and hiring. Though the effects of Title IX have increased gender equality in higher education, an unforeseen consequence of the law, as it is currently being interpreted, may be the restriction of college media. In an effort to rid college campuses of sex discrimination in compliance with Title IX — and avoid the potential loss of funding that comes with noncompliance — some college administrators have panicked, and have taken the law too far, some First Amendment advocates say. Just last year, the Daily Bull, a student comedy publication at Michigan Technological University, was slapped with disciplinary measures after satirizing issues of sexual harassment and assault. The publication’s editor, Rico Bastian, wrote an article, “Sexually Harassed Man Pretty Okay with Situation,” that describes a male student receiving “unwelcomed sexual contact from members of the opposite sex, all of which he later looked back on with feelings of complacency.” The satirical article — published alongside a satirical list of “Signs that she wants the D,” including reasons like she “only screams a little” — was an attempt to comically address how many people don’t take male sexual assault seriously, managing editor Mike Jarasz told the Student Press Law Center. Jarasz also said it may be “considered more acceptable” for an attractive person to sexually harass someone, as the article ends with the male student saying he felt violated after receiving a sexual look from a “kinda ugly” woman. Still, MTU Vice President for Student Affairs Les Cook did not find the article humorous. Cook sent out a campus-wide email denouncing the article for “advocating criminal activity on campus.” The university’s office of academic and community conduct placed the Daily Bull on probation for two years — which meant if the publication put out another problematic article, it could be removed as a student publication altogether — and issued staffers to take a cultural sensitivity course. The Daily Bull’s adviser stepped down, and the publication issued a retraction and apology. And although student governments are legally not permitted to withdraw funding in retaliation for content, student legislators at MTU voted to freeze the Daily Bull’s funding until its staffers attended a Title IX training course. The staff underwent a three-hour training, covering both Title IX and cultural competency, but “didn’t really learn much,” Bastian said. Cook also told the Daily Mining Gazette that the university was legally required by Title IX statutes to act in cases of sexual discrimination or harassment. “(The Constitution) doesn’t supersede Title IX,” he said. “Title IX is a federal compliance policy. Those policies supersede anything else.” That interpretation of the Constitution, however, is inherently wrong, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Let’s be clear about one thing: The Constitution of the United States, including the First Amendment, is ‘the supreme Law of the Land,’ and does in fact supersede any federal regulation that violates it,” FIRE said in a statement following the discipline. Mark Wilcox, a spokesman for MTU, said conflicting regulatory mandates regarding Title IX affect the university’s compliance efforts. FIRE President Greg Lukianoff has repeatedly blamed censor-happy administrators on the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights — the department that enforces federal civil rights laws — which he said has significantly confused administrators and students on Title IX compliance. “For the overwhelming majority of my career what I’ve been fighting is administration overreach,” Lukianoff said in an interview with Reason.com. ADMINISTRATIVE OVERREACH In April, several free speech, academic freedom and education groups argued that interpreting Title IX to include speech that some students find offensive could not only threaten students’ speech rights, but also undermine their education and efforts to promote equality on campus in a letter to OCR. The letter — authored by the SPLC, FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Association of University Professors — argues that the office’s definition of harassment, set forth in “Dear Colleague” guidance letters to universities, poses profound threats to free expression. While the letter was written in response to a situation at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia, where members of a campus group called Feminists United filed several complaints alleging that online harassment of female students over social media violates Title IX, it urged the department to provide more guidance in general. “We take the allegations of discrimination at UMW very seriously, and we urge OCR to adopt an approach that will target unlawful conduct without casting a net so wide that it scoops up innocent students and constitutionally protected speech,” the letter read. NCAC Executive Director Joan Bertin said that since people who post on Yik Yak — the social-networking app targeted at Mary Washington — are spreading news and opinion, much like student journalists, any guidance related to online communication apps issued by OCR could ultimately affect student journalists. “Student speech and peer-to-peer activity is of much interest to OCR,” Bertin said. “They are plainly prepared to issue citations or to start investigations if they hear things that they don’t think universities are responding to appropriately.” She said if one student ”who is really pissed off about a gender-based article published in the student newspaper” files a complaint, the department could begin an investigation and “set the stage” against student journalists. It could only be a matter of time, Bertin said, before Title IX requires administrators to regulate college media, and some officials are already practicing this form of censorship. She said university administrators are highly risk-averse, so if the choice is between being the object of a Title IX investigation or disciplining a student newspaper, she doesn’t think there is any question of which option administrators will choose. “There is a very well-founded concern that college administrators are overreaching into student media,” Bertin said. “They are acting preemptively, and are very aggressively policing speech with sexual content to avoid being on OCR’s hit list.” The OCR maintains that its efforts to combat sexual harassment and discrimination in schools is met with equal respect for the First Amendment. “OCR has made it clear that the laws and regulations it enforces protect students from prohibited discrimination and are not intended to restrict the exercise of any expressive activities or speech protected under the U.S. Constitution,” an OCR spokesperson said in an email. “When schools work to prevent and redress discrimination, they must respect the free speech rights of students, faculty, and other speakers.” CONFLICTING GUIDANCE Under Title IX, no person in the U.S. shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. While short, the statute has been given a broad scope through U.S. Supreme Court decisions and DOE guidance to cover sexual harassment and sexual violence. Though schools must respond to and remedy all sexual harassment, they can only impose discipline for harassment if it creates a “hostile environment” — when it is so “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim’s access to an educational opportunity or benefit” — and failure to do so puts schools at risk of losing federal funding. Since its implementation, vital definitions for compliance with Title IX have expanded drastically, despite rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that have drawn distinctions between constitutionally protected offensive speech versus unlawful harassment. Though sexual harassment is not mentioned in the Title IX legislation itself, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1992 court case Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools that monetary damages could be awarded to individual victims of sexual harassment under Title IX. In separate cases in 1998 and 1999, the Supreme Court made clear that Title IX requires schools to take action to prevent and stop the harassment of students by faculty and staff, as well as other students. The decisions in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education and Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District established liability of the school, which occurs when the school knows about on- campus harassment that is creating a hostile environment and responds with “deliberate indifference.” But some First Amendment experts say this narrow definition has been absent from guidance given to college administrators through recent pronouncements by OCR. For example, a “Dear Colleague” letter by the department from 2010 defined “sexual harassment prohibited by Title IX” to extend to “making sexual comments, jokes or gestures; writing graffiti or displaying or distributing sexually explicit draws, pictures, or written materials; calling students sexually charged names; spreading sexual rumors; rating students on sexual activity or performance; or circulating, showing, or creating e-mails or Websites of a sexual nature.” Directed by this broad definition, rather than the one given in Davis, what is considered a Title IX violation can be unclear — which could lead college administrators to unnecessarily restrict what student journalists publish, experts said. AAUP recently published a report concluding that OCR’s broadened description of sexual harassment and heightened scrutiny of speech that includes sexual references of any kind has resulted in “a frenzy of cases in which administrators’ apparent fears of being targeted by OCR have overridden faculty academic freedom and student free speech rights.” In one recent episode, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks newspaper was the subject of a year-long university investigation — ultimately resulting in no punitive action — after a university employee filed a sexual harassment complaint after being offended by a joke about genitalia in an April Fool’s Day humor edition. College Media Association President Kelley Callaway said while Title IX once was used to ensure women had the same opportunities as men, she has seen its scope expand to include “almost anything that may offend someone.” “I think we’re living in a world where if anything could possibly offend, there is this idea to eliminate it,” Callaway said. “That is surely not the best environment for student journalists.” She said the vagueness of harassment definitions in “Dear Colleague” letters creates a lack of understanding that pushes college administrators to err on the side of caution when evaluating what is punishable under Title IX. “The fear that “Dear Colleague” letters put colleges under can cause it to be used in ways that could stifle various forms of free expression,” Callaway said. But Brett Sokolow, executive director of the Association of Title IX Administrators, said OCR is not to blame for the confusion among college administrators about how and when to enforce Title IX. Though the OCR could be more clear on its distinction between sexual harassment and hostile environment, he said, schools still have to remedy all harassment, whether they can impose discipline or not. Sokolow said some college administrators misinterpret OCR guidance, or misapply it as the result of malfeasance, but the lack of clarity “is not the culprit.” He said coherence is available for administrators willing to seek it out. If colleges or universities are violating anyone’s free speech rights, Sokolow said that’s “on them.” He said it is an administrator’s job to know when something is in violation of Title IX, and whether the school should impose discipline. “If an administrator doesn’t know, he or she isn’t doing their job,” Sokolow said. Still, Callaway said this confusion could cause student journalists to self-censor in an effort to avoid being disciplined through Title IX by administrators. “I think student journalists have a responsibility to serve their community, and if they are avoiding reporting on certain issues because of potential Title IX violations, they are not serving their community,” Callaway said. “To not talk about sexual assault on campus, that isn’t serving anyone.” But at Central Michigan University,that is exactly what student journalists are being told. Sydney Smith, managing editor of Central Michigan Life, said while attempting to publish the locations where sexual assault has occurred on campus, she was blocked several times by administrators and campus police. Smith said she thought it was vital to the safety of students on campus to know where sexual assault was most likely to occur, but was unable to obtain this information. She said she has attempted for months get this information through the Clery Act — which requires all colleges receiving federal funding to keep and disclose information about crime on campus and its efforts to improve it — but was unsuccessful. Smith tried several times to utilize the Freedom of Information Act — which allows the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased government documents — but administrators denied her requests. “Each time my requests were denied for the exact same reasons: invasion of privacy for those named in the report — even though I asked that the names be redacted — in violation of Title IX,” she said. “CMU administrators said that even though I wanted no names, someone could still ascertain and connect the dots to the person through the locations in the report.” She said the university police told her that CMU would not allow the releasing of the locations of sexual assault under Title IX, and that publishing those locations may “re-traumatize the victim.” “Leaving out information, especially regarding sexual assault on campus, does a tremendous disservice to the campus community,” Smith said. “As a woman, I feel it is my right to know where sexual assaults have occurred. What if there is a pattern?” Smith said publishing this information is crucial to the community because readers should know where sexual assaults have occurred because there could be clear indications of problem areas on campus. She said Title IX has a place, but universities need to follow the law more clearly when it comes to journalists. “I was told that obtaining police reports of assault was a ‘gray area’ of the law and Title IX required the university to be less transparent,” Smith said. “I highly doubt that is what lawmakers intended.” Steve Smith, a spokesperson for CMU, said redacting a name does not make it impossible to identify the survivor of sexual assault based on the location of the crime. He said location information, such as a dorm room, might lead to the identification of a victim, and would violate the student’s privacy. “Moreover, incident descriptions of an alleged sexual assault also may identify potential survivors and witnesses,” he said. “Imagine the massive chilling effect this would have on the reporting of rapes and other forms of sexual assault.” ‘A RECIPE FOR CENSORSHIP’ Despite a newspaper’s role to disseminate vital information to its readers, some administrators are treating student publications as an arm of the university by demanding compliance with Title IX and dictating what student journalists report on, First Amendment lawyers say. SPLC Executive Director Frank LoMonte said Title IX was built for severe, pervasive harassment directed at specific individuals that makes them unable to continue their education, and no one will ever be able to show that a newspaper article came close to reaching that point. Instead, he said, requiring student newspapers to comply with Title IX restricts free speech on campus and prevents student journalists from reporting key information regarding sexual assault that occurs on campus. “I think, whether accidentally or on purpose, a growing number of institutions are treating the campus publication like an extension of the college itself and claiming that a news story will breach the confidentiality of Title IX,” LoMonte said. “That just makes no sense.” A newspaper, just by definition, he said, cannot be harassment because it is “something you voluntarily pick up and can voluntarily put down.” He said there are constitutional boundaries that administrators can’t cross, and guidance by OCR has created confusion in the minds of administrators about where their authority begins and ends. This confusion, some say, creates a welcoming environment for censorship. Will Creeley, vice president of legal and public advocacy for FIRE, said there is an incredible chilling effect of overly broad, impermissibly vague interpretations of sexual harassment on free student press. “Any speech that has to do with sex or gender that rubs someone the wrong way — anything someone, somewhere doesn’t want to hear could be considered sexual harassment under OCR’s definition,” he said. He said the threat to student media posed by unclear Title IX compliance requirements is perhaps as great as the threat to any campus speech. “Student journalists are tasked with asking tough questions of those in power, like the student government or even administrators,” Creeley said. “People in power do not like being asked how they are exercising that power.” He said the OCR has opened the door for extremely broad restrictions on student speech, and it is “only a matter of time before some administrator decides to wield them.” He said unclear guidance from OCR and what he sees as the oversensitivity of today’s college students creates a “recipe for censorship.” Students and administrators alike, Creeley said, will censor student publications in order to avoid a Title IX investigation, if that becomes the norm.
29 -Underview
30 -1. Any is defined as some of not all.
31 -Cambridge Dictionary (Cambridge Dictionary. “Definition of “any” - English Dictionary”. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/any) //TruLe
32 -(used in negative statements and questions) some, or even the smallest amount (of):
33 -Theory is an RVI
34 -1. No risk issues bad- they provide incentive to not engage responses because they can kick the shell;
35 -2. irreciprocal - debaters initiating theory can win the shell or substance while, the debater against has to win both. Reciprocity is a side constraint on your offense because they presume I can engage.
36 -3. RVIs check bad theory- If debaters know they’ll lose, they’ll only read theory when actual abuse is occurring
37 -
38 -SCOTUS ruled that “any” implies limitations on the object they refer to. Von Eintel 11
39 -Kai Von Fintel, 7-6-2011, "Justice Breyer, Professor Austin, and the Meaning of 'Any'," Language Log, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3248 MG
40 -In a recent interview, Supreme Court Justice Breyer lists the five books that have influenced his thinking the most. Among them: J.L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words. Breyer says: JL Austin was an ordinary language philosopher. When I studied in Oxford, I went to one of his classes and I read his books. How to Do Things with Words teaches us a lot about how ordinary language works. It is useful to me as a judge, because it helps me avoid the traps that linguistic imprecision can set. If I had to pick a single thing that I draw from Austin's work it would be that context matters. It enables us to understand, when someone makes a statement, what that statement refers to and what that person meant. When I see the word "any" in a statute, I immediately know it's unlikely to mean "anything" in the universe. "Any" will have a limitation on it, depending on the context. When my wife says, "there isn't any butter," I understand that she's talking about what is in our refrigerator, not worldwide. We look at context over and over, in life and in law. Austin suggests that there is good reason to look beyond text to context. Context is very important when you examine a statement or law. A statement made by Congress, under certain formal conditions, becomes a law. Context helps us interpret language, including the language of a statute. Purpose is often an important part of context. So Austin probably encourages me to put more weight on purpose. It is very interesting that Breyer should choose the word "any" as an example of why context matters. A few years back, there was in fact a Supreme Court decision (Small v. United States) that hinged on the meaning of "any" (pdf of the decision here). And as it turns out, Justice Breyer wrote the decision for the majority (made up of Breyer, Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg; ah the good old days). The background: Petitioner Small was convicted in a Japanese Court of trying to smuggle firearms and ammunition into that country. He served five years in prison and then returned to the United States, where he bought a gun. Federal authorities subsequently charged Small under 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1), which forbids "any person … convicted in any court … of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year … to … possess … any firearm." Small subsequently argued that any court was not meant to encompass foreign courts, only domestic ones. The Supreme Court agreed. The arguments in the decision are a good case study of semantics/pragmatics in the real (well, legal) world. Here are some excerpts: The question before us is whether the statutory reference "convicted in any court" includes a conviction entered in a foreign court. The word "any" considered alone cannot answer this question. In ordinary life, a speaker who says, "I'll see any film," may or may not mean to include films shown in another city. In law, a legislature that uses the statutory phrase " 'any person' " may or may not mean to include " 'persons' " outside "the jurisdiction of the state." See, e.g., United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610, 631 (1818) (Marshall, C. J.) ("General words," such as the word "'any,' " must "be limited" in their application "to those objects to which the legislature intended to apply them"); Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League, 541 U. S. 125, 132 (2004) (" 'any' " means "different things depending upon the setting"); United States v. Alvarez-Sanchez, 511 U. S. 350, 357 (1994) ("Respondent errs in placing dispositive weight on the broad statutory reference to 'any' law enforcement officer or agency without considering the rest of the statute"); Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1981) (it is doubtful that the phrase " 'any statute' " includes the very statute in which the words appear); Flora v. United States, 362 U. S. 145, 149 (1960) ("Any sum," while a "catchall" phase, does not "define what it catches"). Thus, even though the word "any" demands a broad interpretation, see, e.g., United States v. Gonzales, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997), we must look beyond that word itself.
41 -Outweighs
42 -1. Legal Precision – Supreme court definitions are the interpretation of the constitution – best link to the res.
43 -
44 -Embracing the state as a heuristic is key to confronting it.
45 -Zanotti ’14: (Dr. Laura Zanotti is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech. Her research and teaching include critical political theory as well as international organizations, UN peacekeeping, democratization and the role of NGOs in post-conflict governance.“Governmentality, Ontology, Methodology: Re-thinking Political Agency in the Global World” – Alternatives: Global, Local, Political – vol 38(4):p. 288-304,. A little unclear if this is late 2013 or early 2014 – The Stated “Version of Record” is Feb 20, 2014, but was originally published online on December 30th, 2013. Obtained via Sage Database//FT)
46 -By questioning substantialist representations of power and subjects, inquiries on the possibilities of political agency are reframed in a way that focuses on power and subjects’ relational character and the contingent processes of their (trans)formation in the context of agonic relations. Options for resistance to governmental scripts are not limited to ‘‘rejection,’’ ‘‘revolution,’’ or ‘‘dispossession’’ to regain a pristine ‘‘freedom from all constraints’’ or an immanent ideal social order. It is found instead in multifarious and contingent struggles that are constituted within the scripts of governmental rationalities and at the same time exceed and transform them. This approach questions oversimplifications of the complexities of liberal political rationalities and of their interactions with non-liberal political players and nurtures a radical skepticism about identifying universally good or bad actors or abstract solutions to political problems. International power interacts in complex ways with diverse political spaces and within these spaces it is appropriated, hybridized, redescribed, hijacked, and tinkered with. Governmentality as a heuristic focuses on performing complex diagnostics of events. It invites historically situated explorations and careful differentiations rather than overarching demonizations of ‘‘power,’’ romanticizations of the ‘‘rebel’’ or the ‘‘the local.’’ More broadly, theoretical formulations that conceive the subject in non-substantialist terms and focus on processes of subjectification, on the ambiguity of power discourses, and on hybridization as the terrain for political transformation, open ways for reconsidering political agency beyond the dichotomy of oppression/rebellion. These alternative formulations also foster an ethics of political engagement, to be continuously taken up through plural and uncertain practices, that demand continuous attention to ‘‘what happens’’ instead of fixations on ‘‘what ought to be.’’83 Such ethics of engagement would not await the revolution to come or hope for a pristine ‘‘freedom’’ to be regained. Instead, it would constantly attempt to twist the working of power by playing with whatever cards are available and would require intense processes of reflexivity on the consequences of political choices. To conclude with a famous phrase by Michel Foucault ‘‘my point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads not to apathy but to hyper- and pessimistic activism.’’84
47 -Role playing as public actors shatters apathy and political alienation which is critical to check oppression – embracing of individual identities controls the direction of the K impacts.
48 -Mitchell 2000. Gordon Mitchell, Associate Professor of Communication at University of Pittsburgh, Winter 2000, “Stimulated Public Argument As Pedagogical Play on Worlds”, Argumentation and Advocacy, vol 36, no 3, pq
49 -When we assume the posture of the other in dramatic performance, we tap into who we are as persons, since our interpretation of others is deeply colored by our own senses of selfhood. By encouraging experimentation in identity construction, role-play "helps students discover divergent viewpoints and overcome stereotypes as they examine subjects from multiple perspectives..." (Moore, p. 190). Kincheloe points to the importance of this sort of reflexive critical awareness as an essential feature of educational practice in postmodern times. "Applying the notion of the postmodern analysis of the self, we come to see that hyperreality invites a heteroglossia of being," Kincheloe explains; "Drawing upon a multiplicity of voices, individuals live out a variety of possibilities, refusing to suppress particular voices. As men and women appropriate the various forms of expression, they are empowered to uncover new dimensions of existence that were previously hidden" (1993, p. 96). This process is particularly crucial in the public argument context, since a key guarantor of inequality and exploitation in contemporary society is the widespread and uncritical acceptance by citizens of politically inert self-identities. The problems of political alienation, apathy and withdrawal have received lavish treatment as perennial topics of scholarly analysis (see e.g. Fishkin 1997; Grossberg 1992; Hart 1998; Loeb 1994). Unfortunately, comparatively less energy has been devoted to the development of pedagogical strategies for countering this alarming political trend. However, some scholars have taken up the task of theorizing emancipatory and critical pedagogies, and argumentation scholars interested in expanding the learning potential of debate would do well to note their work (see e.g. Apple 1995, 1988, 1979; Britzman 1991; Giroux 1997, 1988, 1987; Greene 1978; McLaren 1993, 1989; Simon 1992; Weis and Fine 1993). In this area of educational scholarship, the curriculum theory of currere, a method of teaching pioneered by Pinar and Grumet (1976), speaks directly to many of the issues already discussed in this essay. As the Latin root of the word "curriculum," currere translates roughly as the investigation of public life (see Kincheloe 1993, p. 146). According to Pinar, "the method of currere is one way to work to liberate one from the web of political, cultural, and economic influences that are perhaps buried from conscious view but nonetheless comprise the living web that is a person's biographic situation" (Pinar 1994, p. 108). The objectives of role-play pedagogy resonate with the currere method. By opening discursive spaces for students to explore their identities as public actors, simulated public arguments provide occasions for students to survey and appraise submerged aspects of their political identities. Since many aspects of cultural and political life work currently to reinforce political passivity, critical argumentation pedagogies that highlight this component of students' self-identities carry significant emancipatory potential.
50 -
51 -2. Abstract questioning is useless - debate should seek to design concrete alternatives.
52 -Bryant 12 (EDITED FOR GENDERED LANGUAGE – the author said “she” and it was replaced with the word “to” – Levi Bryant is currently a Professor of Philosophy at Collin College. In addition to working as a professor, Bryant has also served as a Lacanian psychoanalyst. He received his Ph.D. from Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he originally studied 'disclosedness' with the Heidegger scholar Thomas Sheehan. Bryant later changed his dissertation topic to the transcendental empiricism of Gilles Deleuze, “Critique of the Academic Left”, http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/)
53 -I must be in a mood today– half irritated, half amused –because I find myself ranting. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual. So this afternoon I came across a post by a friend quoting something discussing the environmental movement that pushed all the right button. As the post read, For mainstream environmentalism– conservationism, green consumerism, and resource management –humans are conceptually separated out of nature and mythically placed in privileged positions of authority and control over ecological communities and their nonhuman constituents. What emerges is the fiction of a marketplace of ‘raw materials’ and ‘resources’ through which human-centered wants, constructed as needs, might be satisfied. The mainstream narratives are replete with such metaphors carbon trading!. Natural complexity, mutuality, and diversity are rendered virtually meaningless given discursive parameters that reduce nature to discrete units of exchange measuring extractive capacities. Jeff Shantz, “Green Syndicalism” While finding elements this description perplexing– I can’t say that I see many environmentalists treating nature and culture as distinct or suggesting that we’re sovereigns of nature –I do agree that we conceive much of our relationship to the natural world in economic terms (not a surprise that capitalism is today a universal). This, however, is not what bothers me about this passage. What I wonder is just what we’re supposed to do even if all of this is true? What, given existing conditions, are we to do if all of this is right? At least green consumerism, conservation, resource management, and things like carbon trading are engaging in activities that are making real differences. From this passage– and maybe the entire text would disabuse me of this conclusion –it sounds like we are to reject all of these interventions because they remain tied to a capitalist model of production that the author (and myself) find abhorrent. The idea seems to be that if we endorse these things we are tainting our hands and would therefore do well to reject them altogether. The problem as I see it is that this is the worst sort of abstraction (in the Marxist sense) and wishful thinking. Within a Marxo-Hegelian context, a thought is abstract when it ignores all of the mediations in which a thing is embedded. For example, I understand a robust tree abstractly when I attribute its robustness, say, to its genetics alone, ignoring the complex relations to its soil, the air, sunshine, rainfall, etc., that also allowed it to grow robustly in this way. This is the sort of critique we’re always leveling against the neoliberals. They are abstract thinkers. In their doxa that individuals are entirely responsible for themselves and that they completely make themselves by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, neoliberals ignore all the mediations belonging to the social and material context in which human beings develop that play a role in determining the vectors of their life. They ignore, for example, that George W. Bush grew up in a family that was highly connected to the world of business and government and that this gave him opportunities that someone living in a remote region of Alaska in a very different material infrastructure and set of family relations does not have. To think concretely is to engage in a cartography of these mediations, a mapping of these networks, from circumstance to circumstance (what I call an “onto-cartography”). It is to map assemblages, networks, or ecologies in the constitution of entities. Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction. It’s good at carrying out critiques that denounce various social formations, yet very poor at proposing any sort of realistic constructions of alternatives. This because it thinks abstractly in its own way, ignoring how networks, assemblages, structures, or regimes of attraction would have to be remade to create a workable alternative. Here I’m reminded by the “underpants gnomes” depicted in South Park: The underpants gnomes have a plan for achieving profit that goes like this: Phase 1: Collect Underpants Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit! They even have a catchy song to go with their work: Well this is sadly how it often is with the academic left. Our plan seems to be as follows: Phase 1: Ultra-Radical Critique Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Revolution and complete social transformation! Our problem is that we seem perpetually stuck at phase 1 without ever explaining what is to be done at phase 2. Often the critiques articulated at phase 1 are right, but there are nonetheless all sorts of problems with those critiques nonetheless. In order to reach phase 3, we have to produce new collectives. In order for new collectives to be produced, people need to be able to hear and understand the critiques developed at phase 1. Yet this is where everything begins to fall apart. Even though these critiques are often right, we express them in ways that only an academic with a PhD in critical theory and post-structural theory can understand. How exactly is Adorno to produce an effect in the world if only PhD’s in the humanities can understand him? Who are these things for? We seem to always ignore these things and then look down our noses with disdain at the Naomi Kleins and David Graebers of the world. To make matters worse, we publish our work in expensive academic journals that only universities can afford, with presses that don’t have a wide distribution, and give our talks at expensive hotels at academic conferences attended only by other academics. Again, who are these things for? Is it an accident that so many activists look away from these things with contempt, thinking their more about an academic industry and tenure, than producing change in the world? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound! Seriously dudes and dudettes, what are you doing? But finally, and worst of all, us Marxists and anarchists all too often act like assholes. We denounce others, we condemn them, we berate them for not engaging with the questions we want to engage with, and we vilify them when they don’t embrace every bit of the doxa that we endorse. We are every bit as off-putting and unpleasant as the fundamentalist minister or the priest of the inquisition (have people yet understood that Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus was a critique of the French communist party system and the Stalinist party system, and the horrific passions that arise out of parties and identifications in general?). This type of “revolutionary” is the greatest friend of the reactionary and capitalist because they do more to drive people into the embrace of reigning ideology than to undermine reigning ideology. These are the people that keep Rush Limbaugh in business. Well done! But this isn’t where our most serious shortcomings lie. Our most serious shortcomings are to be found at phase 2. We almost never make concrete proposals for how things ought to be restructured, for what new material infrastructures and semiotic fields need to be produced, and when we do, our critique-intoxicated cynics and skeptics immediately jump in with an analysis of all the ways in which these things contain dirty secrets, ugly motives, and are doomed to fail.
EntryDate
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1 -2017-03-25 04:39:34.0
Judge
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1 -Chetan Hertzig, Jacob Koshak
Opponent
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1 -Shruthi Krishnan
ParentRound
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1 -19
Round
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1 -1
Team
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1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
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1 -JANFEB - 1AC - Title IX V3
Tournament
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1 -Kandi King
Caselist.CitesClass[21]
Cites
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1 -Framework
2 -First, ideal moral theories can’t guide action because they don’t account for oppression or injustice that occurs in the real world.
3 -Mills writes C. W. (2009), Rawls on Race/Race in Rawls. The Southern Journal of Philosophy. Charles W. Mills is John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University
4 -Now how can this ideal ideal—a society not merely without a past history of racism but without races themselves—serve to adjudicate the merits of competing policies aimed at correcting for a long history of white supremacy manifest in Native American expropriation, African slavery, residential and educational segregation, large differentials in income and huge differentials in wealth, nonwhite underrepresentation in high-prestige occupations and overrepresentation in the prison system, contested national narratives and cultural representations, widespread white evasion and bad faith on issues of their racial privilege, and a corresponding hostile white backlash against (what remains of) those mild corrective measures already implemented? Obviously, it cannot. As Thomas Nagel concedes: “Ideal theory enables you to say when a society is unjust, because it falls short of the ideal. But it does not tell you what to do if, as is almost always the case, you find yourself in an unjust society, and want to correct that injustice” (2003a, 82). Ideal theory represents an unattainable target that would require us to roll back the clock and start over. So in a sense it is an ideal with little or no practical worth. What is required is the nonideal (rectificatory) ideal that starts from the reality of these injustices and then seeks some fair means of correcting for them, recognizing that in most cases the original prediscrimination situation (even if it can be intelligibly characterized and stipulated) cannot be restored. Trying to rectify systemic black disadvantage through affirmative action is not the equivalent of not discriminating against blacks, especially when there are no blacks to be discriminated against. Far from being indispensable to the elaboration of non- ideal theory, ideal theory would have been revealed to be largely useless for it. But the situation is worse than that. As the example just given illustrates, it is not merely a matter of an ideal with problems of operationalization and relevance, but of an ideal likely to lend itself more readily to retrograde political agendas. If the ideal ideal rather than the rectificatory ideal is to guide us, then a world without races and any kind of distinction- drawing by race may seem to be an attractive goal. One takes the ideal to be colorblind nondiscrimination, as appropriate for a society beginning from the state of nature, and then—completely ignoring the nonideal history that has given whites a systemic illicit advantage over people of color—conflates together as “discrimination” all attempts to draw racial distinctions for public policy goals, no matter what their motivation, on the grounds that this perpetuates race and invidious differential treatment by race. In the magisterial judgment of Chief Justice John Roberts in the June 2007 Supreme Court decision on the Seattle and Louisville cases where schools were using race as a factor to maintain diversity, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” 6 a statement achieving the remarkable feat of depicting not merely as true, but as tautologically true, the equating of Jim Crow segregation and the attempt to remedy Jim Crow segregation! What is ideally called for under ideal circumstances is not, or at least is not necessarily, what is ideally called for under nonideal circumstances. Claiming that all we need to do is to cease (what is here characterized as) discrimination ignores the differential advantages and privileges that have accumulated in the white population because of the past history of discrimination. So the defense in terms of ideal theory is doubly problematic. In the first place, ideal theory was never supposed to be an end in itself, but a means to improving our handling of nonideal matters, and the fact that Rawls and his disciples and commentators have for the most part stayed in the realm of the ideal represents an evasion of the imperative of dealing with what were supposed to be the really pressing issues. And in the second place, it is questionable in any case how useful the ideal ideal in the Rawlsian sense is or ever would have been in assisting this task. So it is not merely that ideal theory has not come to the aid of those dealing with nonideal injustice but that it was unlikely to have been of much help when and if it ever did arrive.
5 -And, attempting to reach ethical conclusions from the standpoint of the oppressor results in ethics that exclude oppressed groups and serve to justify that actions of the oppressors. Starting with the oppressed is only way we can legitimize our actions, or else we will never know if we are reinforcing oppression.
6 -Kellner writes Douglas Kellner is the George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Critical Theory, Poststructuralism, and the Philosophy of Liberation” Undated
7 -“This passage strikes me as providing a useful opening to discuss the relationship between modern Western philosophy and the new Philosophy of Liberation which has emerged above all from Latin America. One of the insights of the Philosophy of Liberation is that Western Philosophy is the philosophy of the center, of the metropoles, of white European males. Its concepts, problems, and problematics are identified with philosophy itself and other perspectives, other positions, are condemned to the margins (Dussel, pp. ). On this view, Western Philosophy is the philosophy of the masters of the world, of the dominant countries, cultures, and class. Is the Philosophy of Liberation, then, ~-~- pursuing Hegel's master-slave metaphor ~-~-the philosophy of slaves, of the dominated, of the oppressed and if so what particular insights does this perspective reveal that is lost to western philosophy? Perspectivialism itself emerges as one particular insight open to the oppressed, to the Philosophy of Liberation. The oppressed have at least the possibility of coming to know that the views of the masters rationalize and serve their interests of domination, that dominant philosophical positions are those of a particular class with its interests, specific perspectives, and limitations. In short, the oppressed know that dominant ideas, the ideas of the ruling class, the dominant ideas of a culture, Western Philosophy, are ideology. In this way, the oppressed and the Philosophy of Liberation gain critical perspectives on the thought of the center, on the master discourses of the West, that may not be accessible to those of the center ~-~- or which are accessible only with great difficulty (i.e. Marx came to formulate the concept of ideology and Nietzsche developed a perspectival philosophy). Secondly, the Philosophy of Liberation argues that Western Philosophy is idealist and subjectivist, is the articulation of a region and a class which wants to idealize its system of domination, which wants to denigrate and occlude material needs, suffering, oppression, and is thus not sufficiently or correctly materialist. The Philosophy of Liberation suggests that Western Philosophy is the philosophy of a dominating subjectivity, of a subjectivity that wants to dominate nature, other people, and in its more extreme versions the totality of being itself. Once again, the situational perspectives of the PL allows them to gain powerful insights into the idealism and subjectivism of WP. When one experiences oppression and material deprivation one more easily grasps the importance of material needs, of the material dimension, and can more easily detect the rationalizing, idealizing, and ideological functions of idealist discourse. When one is reduced to an object of DD one can more easily grasp the dialectics of subjectification and perceive the dynamics of dominating subjectivity which might help produce critical opposition to the PP of subjectivity itself as an imperialist attempt of the subject to dominate the world.”
8 -The debate space is a representation of the Master and Mousetraps that must be discursively broken down via analysis and criticism, therefor
9 -The ROTB is to endorse the debater who best deconstructs hegemonic hypermasculinity within knowledge production and perspectivity
10 -Spaulding 13 (Christina is a graduate from Berkeley with a focus on gender and justice) “Anti-Pornography Laws as a Claim for Equal Respect: Feminism, Leberalism” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law and Justice Volume 4 Issue 1 September 2013 http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024andcontext=bglj //AG
11 -MacKinnon argues that the invisibility of male dominance is itself a function of power, because power is the ability to define reality-to present one particular point of view as the objective viewpoint-the point of view from "nowhere in particular": Power to create the world from one's own point of view is power in its male form. The male epistemological stance, which corresponds to the world it creates, is objectivity: the ostensibly noninvolved stance, the view from a distance and from no particular perspective, apparently transparent to its reality. It does not comprehend its own perspectivity .... 68 MacKinnon's epistemological argument is similar to Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony-"the control of the intellectual life of society by purely cultural means."69 Gramsci recognized that political power is exercised not only by coercion, but also by shaping the "opinions, values, and standards acknowledged by the bulk of society."7 Hegemony obtains the "consent" of the oppressed to the present economic, social, and political order by defining the very terms of political discourse.71 Male dominance is hegemonic because its very pervasiveness obscures its "perspectivity" and thus defines the status quo as "natural and correct"-the only way that things can be.72 A useful illustration of MacKinnon's view is the issue of rape. Its relative invisibility can be explained in terms of a number of related social constructs: First, aggressive sexual behavior was and is considered "normal" in men; second, women are thought to "provoke" rape by seductive dress or conduct,73 are widely assumed to mean "yes" when they say "no," and are considered to fabricate charges of rape, or even to unconsciously desire rape.74 Given these social constructs and the fact that the legal definition of rape turns on whether a man has perceived the woman as consenting, consider the likely effect of these factors on a jury's determination of the issue."
12 -Inherency
13 -Sexual assault is increasingly prominent on college campuses and is linked to violent porn use
14 -FTND 16 (Fight the New Drug is an organization formed to promote awareness on the harms of porn to the brain, relationships and society) “How Porn is Fueling Rape on College Campuses” January 20th, 2016 http://fightthenewdrug.org/how-porn-is-fueling-sexual-assault-on-college-campuses/ //AG
15 -It’s no secret that sexual assault on college campuses has become a very serious issue as of late. In September of 2015, the New York Times reported that a survey commissioned by the Association of American Universities showed more than 1/4 of female college undergrads at leading universities reported being sexually assaulted by force or when they were incapacitated. This included everything from unwanted touching to rape. In 2014, a study showed that the number of reported rapes at four-year universities increased 49 between 2008 and 2012. It’s very clear that something very malicious is happening on our college campuses. At the very place where students are supposed to be free to learn, discover themselves, and make lifelong friends, they’re instead being faced with life-changing violence and degradation. With more and more victims/survivors coming into the spotlight, universities are being forced to acknowledge the problem and work to combat it. In order to do so, many universities have made attempts to better educate their students on consent, yet they seem to be ignoring a poisonous every day activity which is undoubtedly playing a huge role in sexual assault: pornography. A few years ago, researchers did a study of the most popular porn videos at the time. Their findings? Of the 304 scenes examined, 88 contained physical violence and 49 contained verbal aggression. 95 of the victims/survivors responded neutrally or with pleasure, and 94 of the victims/survivors were women. The message that comes from porn is that women enjoy getting beat up and forced into sexual acts. Many studies have shown that both non-violent and violent porn make users more likely to support violence against women and to believe that women enjoy being raped,1 and those beliefs have been found across several research studies to be predictive of a person being sexually aggressive in real life.2 When it comes to violent and rape porn, the correlations become particularly strong.3 One study even found that individuals who reported higher previous exposure to violent porn were six times more likely to report having raped someone than those who reported lower previous exposure.4 Multiple studies have shown that even watching non-violent porn is correlated with the user being more likely to use verbal coercion, drugs, and alcohol to push women into sex.5 How does watching something on a screen influence our beliefs and what we do? While a person watches porn, their brain is rewiring to learn what is arousing and also how to treat others in a sexual situation. Porn easily changes the brain because of the flood of dopamine that is released during viewing. With our generation being raised on porn and with at least 64 of college-age men watching pornography weekly,6 is it any surprise that sexual assaults are increasing? A person who rewires their brain’s arousal template with the message that violence is sexy and women enjoy being raped will obviously act the same when it comes to real-life sexual encounters. We will never solve the problem of sexual assault as a society until we start educating ourselves on a major catalyst of this violence: porn. Violence and abuse are not sexy. Love between two real people is sexy. Let’s fight for love.
16 -Porn fosters the ideal masculine and feminine—it is vital recognize how the porn culture perpetuates the rape culture
17 -Hawkins 16 (Dawn is an executive director for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation NCOSE) “Pornography: The Missing Piece in the Movement Against Sexual Violence” The Huffington Post June 21, 2016 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pornography-the-missing-piece-in-the-movement-against_us_57696ccfe4b06cb7dd543b4c //AG
18 -Pornography makes women “rape-ready” in the mind of its users by portraying the conquering and using of female bodies as the ideal display of masculinity. When I mentioned the role pornography plays in fostering sexual violence to notable attendees at the White House Summit, I could see the flashes of understanding and recognition in their eyes. Several of the advocates commented to me that the link between pornography and sexual violence makes common sense. Yet, nobody is considering this connection in attempts to curb sexual violence. It is always vital to assert that the cause of any rape is always the rapist’s decision to violate another for their own pleasure. There is no way to shift the blame for that decision away from the individual. However, in an effort to prevent future cases of sexual violence, it is vital to recognize that porn culture is feeding the rape culture on college campuses, in our communities, and in our homes. I hope that the diverse mosaic of advocates working to end sexual violence will begin to acknowledge and address pornography as the missing piece of the national dialogue on how to prevent sexual violence. From the White House to our individual homes, it’s time to take a stand for the safety and dignity of women, and to denounce pornography as the cornerstone on which the hideous edifice of rape culture stands.
19 -
20 -Internal Link
21 -
22 -Pornography is used as a guise of liberation that only exists when freedom is used to consent
23 -McGlynn 1 (Aidan is a lecturer in the philosophy department at the University of Edinburg. He received his PhD at the University of Texas, focusing on issues of epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind) Theoria “Propaganda and the Authority of Pornography” 05/07/2016 File:///C:/Users/Abby/OneDrive/Documents/Propaganda20and20the20Authority20of20Pornography.pdf //AG
24 -What about the more surprising aspect of the claim, namely that some pornography is presented as embodying the ideals of equality and autonomy? Given that by definition pornography involves the sexually graphic depiction of the subordination of women, and granting that it causes further subordination, how might it be presented as an embodiment of the ideals of equality and autonomy? Let’s focus on equality first. A major theme in MacKinnon’s writings is that with the move from written pornography to pictures and videos, this depiction typically involves real women, and these women are depicted as enjoying acts we would otherwise usually recognize as subordinating.9 It’s in this way that pornography often represents itself as em- bodying the ideal of equality; women’s desires are realized just as men’s are, since these are complementary: Pornography constructs what a woman is in terms of its view of what men want sexually, such that acts of rape, battery, sexual harassment, prostitution, and sexual abuse of children become acts of sexual equality. Pornography’s world of equality is a harmonious and balanced place. Men and women are perfectly complementary and perfectly bipolar. Women’s desire to be fucked by men is equal to men’s desire to fuck women. All the ways men love to take and violate women, women love to be taken and violated. The women who most love this are most men’s equals, the most liberated… Their consent merely expresses or ratifies these preexisting facts. (1987: 171-2, endnote omitted) Inequality is its central dynamic; the illusion of freedom coming together with the reality of force is central to its working. Perhaps because this is a bourgeois culture, the victim must look free, appear to be freely acting. Choice is how she got there. Willing is what she is when she is being equal. (1987: 172) MacKinnon’s usual example is that of Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat, who was depicted by Linda Boreman as enjoying throat sex, though Boreman later went on to reveal the extent of the cruelty and threats to her and her family that were involved in getting her to perform in the film. Not only was subordination involved in the making of the film, Deep Throat has been claimed to caused other acts of subordination, some of it intentionally or unintentionally violent (see e.g. MacKinnon 1987: 286 n65). And yet the film was explicitly presented and received as embodying the ideal of equality and autonomy; as Langton writes: The pornographic film Deep Throat was hailed for representing women as sexually autonomous, its heroine described as “Liberated Woman in her most extreme form – taking life and sex on her own terms”. (2005: 225). Put in Stanley’s terminology, MacKinnon’s suggestion is that the equality-undermining tendency of pornography is masked by the way it presents women as enjoying and choosing to be subjected to acts most people would likely otherwise recognise as subordinating (and often harmful), and so by the way it presents itself as embodying the ideal of equality. Likewise, Langton draws on MacKinnon’s discussion of Deep Throat to argue that pornography sometimes affirms women’s autonomy in a way that is ultimately autonomy-undermining: Linda is not just a woman, but woman, ‘Liberated Woman in her most extreme for, taking life and sex on her own terms’: there is autonomy attribution here, a vision of what autonomy is, not just for Linda, but for women in the wider world. But it can be argued that this autonomy-affirmation serves autonomy-denial, a false vision of autonomy being, after all, among the most potent enemies of autonomy. According to MacKinnon, and to testimony at the Minneapolis Hear I suggest we take MacKinnon and Langton to be making the case that some pornography is undermining propaganda, at least in our attenuated sense. Though this is an empirical matter, it seems plausible that much (though certainly not all) of pornography presents itself as an embodiment of the ideals of equality and autonomy in the way just described; MacKinnon herself goes much further, describing pornography as ‘a whole industry in buying and selling captive smiling women, acting as if they like it’ (1994: 4). Moreover, the mechanism by which this pornography manages to undermine the ideals of equality and autonomy while presenting itself as embodying those ideals is potentially helpful for those who wish to defend the silencing argument against pornography—or so I’ll suggest in the next section.
25 -
26 -Pornography directly infringes upon womxn’s free speech and equality
27 -Langton 1 (Rae Helen is an Australian and British professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and taught previously at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, and Monash University) “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” 1993 MIT http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/SpeechActs.pdf //AG
28 -Pornography is not always done with words. Yet Easterbrook’s description exemplifies the tendency of which Austin complained. Pornography depicts subordination and causes it. That—in Austin’s terms—is to describe its locutionary and peroluctionary dimensions. What is missing is a description of the actions constituted by pornographic utterances. In Austin’s terms, pornography’s illocutionary force. MacKinnon supplies such a description when she says that pornography is an act of subordination. Like Austin, MacKinnon wants to undermine the dichotomy between word and action. “Which is saying ‘kill’ to a trained guard dog, a word or an act?” she asks, in a passage that echoes Austin’s example. MacKinnon has accordingly been interpreted as saying that pornography is unprotected conduct rather than protected speech, and one might image that Austin’s approach gives this idea some support. If pornography is a kind of act, and action is conduct, then one might think, pornography is unprotected by the First Amendment. But that interpretation of MacKinnon is wrong. “To state the obvious,” she says, “I do not argue that pornography is ‘conduct’ in the First Amendment doctrinal sense” In any case Austin’s approach would give it no support, for it does not help us to distinguish conduct from speech. If there is a line that divides speech from conduct in the law, it does not divide speech from action in Austin’s philosophy . On his view, all speech acts are actions. To say that pornography is conduct, and anything that I say will turn on that claim. The important point is that actions, whether speech or conduct, can be protected or unprotected by law. Whether they are protected should depend, in general, on the effects they have, and the actions they are. On MacKinnon’s view pornography is speech, not conduct, but is speech that should be left unprotected for the same kinds of reasons that other actions are sometimes left unprotected because of the effects they have, and because of the actions they are. Austin and MacKinnon are emerging as close, if unlikely, cousins. In this article I exploit the of the former to illuminate the latter. I shall be concerned with two central claims. First is the claim already encountered, that pornography subordinates women. If Austin is right, the accusations of trickery and conceptual confusion leveled at this claim may be misguided. Second is the claim that pornography silences women. This idea is sometimes offered in reply to the traditional “free speech” defense of pornography. “The free speech of men silences the free speech of women. It is the same social goal, just other people.” MacKinnon, arguing that feminist antipornography legislation is motivated by the very values enshrined in the First Amendment. This claim too has been regarded as problematic: its detractors describe it as “dangerous confusion,” while even sympathizers have reservations, conceding that the silence is question is “figurative,” ”metaphorical”. Drawing on Austin, we can show that the silence is not metaphorical. But literal, and the second feminist claim is as defensible as the first. The claim that pornography subordinates women, however interpreted, is a claim that pornography determines women’s inferior civil status. Viewed thus, the ordinance poses an apparent conflict between liberty and equality: the liberty of men to produce and consume pornography, and the rights of women to equal civil status. That is how the case was viewed by the courts. It posed a conflict between the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, and the right to equality guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The claim that pornography silences women expressed a different conflict, one within liberty itself. Viewed thus, the ordinances poses an apparent conflict between the liberty of men to produce and some pornography, and for the liberty of women to speak.
29 -It constructs the groundwork for speech that can exist—it is the constraint that renders “no” “yes” and understanding it is a prerequisite to any form of speech
30 -Langton 2 (Rae Helen is an Australian and British professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and taught previously at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, and Monash University) “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” 1993 MIT http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/SpeechActs.pdf //AG
31 -But we have seen that there is the possibility of a different kind of silence: the silence not just of frustration but of illocutionary disablement, manifested by the would-be warnings, marriages, votes, and divorces of examples (1)-(4). And this silencing is manifested in examples (5) and (6): the illocutionary disablement of the second rape victim/survivor, whose attempted refusal is not even recognized as a refusal; the disablement of an author whose attempted protest is not recognized as protest. These misfires betray the presence of structural constraints on women’s speech. If Austin is right, the explanation for the unhappiness here is that the felicity conditions for refusal, for protest, are not being met. Something is robbing the speech of its intended force. Whatever the conventions governing sexual interactions may be, they can mean that intending to refuse, intending to protest, is not enough. The rules fixing possible moves in the language games of sex are such that saying “no” can fall to count as making a refusal move, and telling the story of one’s own subordination can fail to count as a move of protest. These are illocutions whose felicity conditions, it seems, cannot be satisfied by women, at least in these contexts. What, if anything, has pornography to do with this third kind of silence, this disablement of women’s speech that can make rape so hard to prevent and hard to protest about? If the felicity conditions for such illocutions constrain women in these contexts, we need to ask how those conditions came into being. This question was asked about the conditions that constrain illocutions of marriage, divorce, and the like, and the answer was that they were set by the speech of the legislator. How then are these other felicity conditions set? We know that felicity conditions for illocutions in general can be set by other speech acts. MacKinnon’s claim that pornography silences women can be interpreted in just this way. The felicity conditions for omen’s speech acts are set by the speech acts of pornography. The words of the pornographer, like the words of the legislator, are “words that set conditions.” They are words that constrain, that make certain actions—refusal, protest—unspeakable for women in some contexts. This is speech that determines the kind of speech there can be.
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33 -Specifically, representation of pornography in the public domain create propaganda of authority that systematically subordinates and silences womxn.
34 -McGlynn 2 (Aidan is a lecturer in the philosophy department at the University of Edinburg. He received his PhD at the University of Texas, focusing on issues of epistemology, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind) Theoria “Propaganda and the Authority of Pornography” 05/07/2016 File:///C:/Users/Abby/OneDrive/Documents/Propaganda20and20the20Authority20of20Pornography.pdf //AG
35 -In particular, I’ll suggest that Stanley’s work on propaganda gives us a new framework in which to understand and assess some well-known views and arguments due to Catharine MacKinnon and her philosophical defenders. I’ll proceed by outlining a heavily MacKinnon-inspired way in which some pornography can be seen to meet Stanley’s characterization of undermining propaganda: it can be presented as embodying the ideals of equality and autonomy while systematically subordinating, or tending to lead to the subordination of, women. A second task of the paper is to begin to assess the implications of the claim that some pornography is a kind of undermining propaganda for issues concerning silencing. The entrenched, orthodox liberal position on pornography is that it ought to be protected as free speech. There are (at least) two ways that a defense of the claim that pornography is propaganda might contribute to unsettling that protected status. First, Stanley has suggested that quite generally undermining propaganda should be subject to some restrictions, given its democratically problematic nature. Second, the claim that some pornography is undermining propaganda might help to advance challenges specifically to pornography’s status as protected speech. This paper focuses on the second strategy rather than the first. Stanley’s proposal that undermining propaganda may need to be restricted is general, turning on the democratically-problematic nature of undermining propaganda as such, rather than on the nature of pornography in particular, and I want to remain more narrowly focused here. Moreover, the particular argument against the protected status of pornography that I will focus on, the so-called silencing argument, has been thought to enjoy unique strengths. In rough outline, the argument tries to show that pornography silences women in ways that are incompatible with their right to freedom of speech. Ronald Dworkin goes as far as to claim that this is the only kind of argument against the protected status of pornography that has any prospects at all (1991: 198). This claim is overstated (see e.g. Langton 1993: 30 and 1990), but the more modest claim that an argument of this kind might be particularly powerful is plausible, since it suggests that even if one regards freedom of speech as trumping other ideals, it’s still not clear that pornography should be protected.12 My proposal will be that conceiving of some pornography as misogynistic undermining propaganda helps with what’s sometimes called the authority problem for the silencing argument. In essentials, the problem is that Langton’s account of how pornography silences women requires the premise that pornography is authoritative, in a sense that explains how it can set the rules for which speech acts can be performed by women in sexual language games. However, a number of Langton’s critics (e.g. Green 1998 and Bauer 2006) have contended that it’s not clear what kind of authority this could be, nor that pornography possesses it. Philosophers sympathetic to the silencing argument have adopted various different responses to the authority problem, some of which take the problem head on and try to show that pornography does possess the relevant kind of authority, and others which try to advance the argument while rejecting Langton’s claim that it rests on the premise that pornography is authoritative. My proposal here will be of the first kind; I’ll suggest that MacKinnon is fruitfully read as describing a propagandic mechanism operative in much pornography which points to a novel account of the kind of authority that such pornography possesses.
36 -
37 -
38 -Solvency/impact
39 -Thus I advocate public colleges and universities should ban the public exhibition of pornography.
40 -Gilkerson (Luke is a Covenant Eye’s Educational Resource Manager and has a BA in Philosophy and Religious Studies and an MA in Religion) “Porn 101: College Campuses Using Porn in the Classroom” Covenant Eyes October 31 2008 http://www.covenanteyes.com/2008/10/31/porn-101-college-campuses-using-porn-in-the-classroom/ //AG
41 -“So you Want to Teach Porn” Some professors and educators feel that in order to really teach about pornography, it needs to be seen and studied in the classroom. In 1998, Professor Hope Weissman at Wesleyan University offered a course simply called, “Pornography.” The primary focus was on pornography as “radical representations of sexuality,” with the purpose of extending knowledge of sexuality and aggression—two extreme human passions depicted by pornography. Students were asked to “reveal their understanding of pornography” as a final project. Students submitted projects which included videos, some fiction writing, and photography: essentially making their own works of pornography. “I push people over the line, whatever their line is,” Weissman said, “but only when I think they can go there and come back.” Constance Penley, Professor and Chair of Film Studies at the University of California-Santa Barbara, has shown her own classes pornography “as another genre of film, like Westerns or science fiction,” since 1993. Penley has spoken at several conferences about teaching pornography in the classroom (such as the Conference on Censorship and Silencing, Society for Cinema Studies, and the Symposium on American Media Communities). Henry Jenkins, professor at MIT, has had his classes analyze photos from Hustler and clips from X-rated movies. Jenkins also contributed to the book, More Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography and Power. His chapter, “So You Want to Teach Porn,” is all about a contextual approach to teaching about pornography and erotica in the classroom. Porn University One might argue that putting porn in an academic setting will really help college students to look at it critically rather than just experience it for pleasure. Unlikely. Rather, these types of courses only put a university’s rubber stamp of approval on an already common use of porn among students. A study conducted in 2007 by researchers at Brigham Young University found that 21 of male college students view pornography “every day or almost every day” and another 27 view pornography “1 or 2 days a week.” We are seeing a major cultural shift in attitudes about porn on the college campus. James Weaver III, a professor in the Department of Communications at Virginia Tech, taught a course on pornography for years. Professor Weaver explains: “Young men in my classroom today don’t even understand why we should be talking about it. They see it as harmless entertainment. Their attitude is, ‘It’s a free country and I’ve been watching porn since middle school on the Internet and there’s nothing wrong with it.’ Most recently, students have become radical supporters of pornography. I didn’t used to see that at all from young men. It’s a huge shift in attitude” (quoted in Pamela Paul’s Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, p.181-82). Michael Leahy, author of Porn Nation, states, “Porn is now the norm in our culture, and no one understands that better than today’s college students. From the rapid rise of cyber porn addiction among male and female college students to its role in influencing the high incidence of rapes and prevalence of eating disorders among college co-eds, the growing influence of porn in the midst of an already sexually charged campus culture is taking a very real toll on students’ lives.” Leahy has traveled to over 200 college campuses and shared his personal porn addiction story to over 100,000 students. In that time he has heard from many students, receiving much praise and criticism. For example, when Leahy visited McMaster University to discuss his devastating pornography addiction and offer a message of hope to the students, one student started his own pro-porn campaign. He set up his own booth in the student centre with a sign that read, “Porn is Fun” and handed out candy to students passing by. This student said, “The Porn Nation campaign heavily insinuates that pornography is a sign of a sick society. My belief is that a society without pornography is a sick society.” Nearly 30,000 students took Leahy’s sexual addiction survey. He will be publishing the findings from this survey in his upcoming book, Porn University. He promises to give his readers some eye-opening insights into the sexual attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of today’s college student. Porn University will be released in May of 2009. Should We Study Porn Richard Burt, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts, was accused of melding his personal interests in porn with his role as an educator. Burt commented, “It’s not that you should study porn, but why shouldn’t you? Sometimes the argument is that porn is bad, therefore it shouldn’t be studied. That’s like saying Nazism was bad, so we shouldn’t study it.” So should we study porn at the university? Of course. The question is not whether we should, but how we should. The problem with Burt’s argument is that while both the Nazis and pornography should be studied, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to study them. I may be required to read Mein Kampf or listen to testimonies of Holocaust survivors, but I’m not going to build a gas chamber and get into it so I can experience it firsthand. Similarly, when studying porn I may read biographies of Hugh Hefner and interview sexual addiction counselors, but I’m not going to lock myself in a room to watch porn for a week and see how it affects me. How Porn Effects Our Sexuality According to a study of first-year college students published in The Journal Adolescent Health, there are many risks associated with frequent exposure to pornography. Students who watch porn often can develop a tolerance toward explicit sexual material, thereby requiring more novel or bizarre material later on to achieve the same level of sexual arousal. Porn really sets men and women up for sexual and relational failure. Therapist Douglas Weiss says that porn gives them a “very strong chemical hit,” and alters ways of thinking about sex, somewhat like the classic “ring the bell, feed the dog” stimulus-response mechanism. Addicts thus learn to become sexually attached to objects and have trouble getting the same kind of satisfaction from sex in a relationship. Researchers have seen noticeable attitude changes associated with frequent porn use: developing cynical attitudes about love; a diminished trust between intimate partners; belief that marriage is sexually confining; belief that raising children and having a family is as an unattractive prospect; and exaggerated expectations of sexuality. When pixels and well-placed camera angles and sculpted bodies become a guy’s standard of a good sexual experience, it is no wonder when real relationships can’t measure up. Feminist author and speaker Naomi Wolf travels to college campuses all over the country. Her observations are noteworthy: Here is what young women tell me on college campuses when the subject comes up: They can’t compete, and they know it. For how can a real woman—with pores and her own breasts and even sexual needs of her own . . . possibly compete with a cybervision of perfection, downloadable and extinguishable at will, who comes, so to speak, utterly submissive and tailored to the consumer’s least specification? For most of human history, erotic images have been reflections of, or celebrations of, or substitutes for, real naked women. For the first time in human history, the images’ power and allure have supplanted that of real naked women. Today, real naked women are just bad porn. . . . The young women who talk to me on campuses about the effect of pornography on their intimate lives speak of feeling that they can never measure up, that they can never ask for what they want; and that if they do not offer what porn offers, they cannot expect to hold a guy. The young men talk about what it is like to grow up learning about sex from porn, and how it is not helpful to them in trying to figure out how to be with a real woman. Mostly, when I ask about loneliness, a deep, sad silence descends on audiences of young men and young women alike. They know they are lonely together, even when conjoined, and that this imagery is a big part of that loneliness.
42 -I reserve the right to clarify in CX, also CX checks abuse—ask if I can meet your interp and we can work something out. This allows for greater substance engagement unique to education. Grant me an auto I meet if the interp isn’t checked to discourage non-checking
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44 -College is the backbone of the porn industry, supported and maintained by administration
45 -Leaky 9 (Michael Leahy is the author of Porn Nation and is a writer for Spero, a global news organization) “Academia promoting Hard-Core Porn on Campus” April 15, 2009 Spero News http://www.speroforum.com/a/18892/Academia-promoting-HardCore-Porn-on-campus#.WFMTudUrK9g //AG
46 -College students across the U.S. have been watching porn. More specifically, they have been watching hard-core porn in campus lecture halls, assembly rooms and theaters…with universities’ approval. Free on-campus screenings of the pornographic film Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge, the most expensive hard-core porn film ever made, have been taking place at various colleges and universities across the nation. The distributor of the film, Digital Playground, recently began offering screenings to student unions, and universities have been showing the movie for “entertainment and educational purposes.” "It's no surprise that Digital Playground is organizing these screenings on university campuses,” says Michael Leahy, author of the newly-released Porn University: What College Students Are Really Saying About Sex on Campus. “It’s the latest effort by the U.S. porn industry to get broader, mainstream acceptance of their newest ‘product.’” Many universities, such as Northwestern University and Carnegie Mellon, have shown the film without much controversy or retaliation. The University of Maryland, on the other hand, has become the center of a political debate over government interference with freedom of speech rights on college campuses (see related story in The Washington Post). “The porn industry is trying a new approach by taking their same old, tired product and packaging it in a shiny new wrapper that mimics certain aspects of a big budget Hollywood movie,” continues Leahy. “It's their latest effort at mainstreaming hard-core porn, this at a time when they feel like public scrutiny and objection to pornographic content is at an all-time low.” Digital Playground says the film, released last fall, cost $10 million to produce. Considering the 2006 revenues of the U.S. porn industry were $13.3 billion (larger than the revenues of the NFL, NBA and MLB combined), $10 million is a small price to pay for this “blockbuster adult movie.” The two-and-a-half hour flick has fight sequences and over 600 special effects. But Leahy warns not to be fooled. “It’s still hard-core porn. Objectifying, sexualizing, and wholly degrading to both women and men. Yet some passive university administrators and faculty still want to see it as an acceptable part of the educational process. Mind-boggling! Is anyone telling these kids that once they graduate, viewing material like this during their lunch break on their work computer would get them fired on the spot for opening their employer up to multi-million dollar litigation risks? I fail to see how endorsing students’ viewing of porn on campus is somehow preparing them to enter the workforce.” Michael’s new book also focuses on the minds of college students although in a different way. Porn University revolves around the results of an online sex survey taken by more than 26,000 college and university students over the past three years. Leahy analyzes the findings and offers eye-opening insights into the sexual behaviors, beliefs and attitudes of today’s college student. "The findings discussed in my book show pretty clearly why the porn industry loves catering to a younger college audience, especially since most university administrations don't have the backbone to resist popular pro-porn sentiment that exists on most university campuses in the U.S.,” Leahy says. “This is yet another reason why we need to start thinking seriously about putting a new kind of 'warning label' on the industry and their products. The negative impact viewing porn can have on how we view ourselves and act toward others in relationships is undeniable."
47 -Stripping porn of its authority is a necessary starting place~-~--the affirmative instigates a change that opens up space for conflicting voices
48 -Langton 3 (Rae Helen is an Australian and British professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and taught previously at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, and Monash University) “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” 1993 MIT http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/SpeechActs.pdf //AG
49 -What we have not yet considered, however, is whether speech that subordinates should be restricted by law. As we noted at the outset, it does not immediately follow from the claim that pornography subordinates women that censorship is the best answer. What follows is that there is a conflict between liberty and equality, just as the courts declared. One possible response to this conflict might be to fight for equality in ways compatible with respecting the liberty of pornographers. What I have said leaves open that possibility. IF pornography subordinates women, then it is not in virtue of its content but of its authority that does so. It need not have that authority. There are imaginable circumstances where material just like pornography in other respects would have no authority and in such circumstances such speech would not subordinate. MacKinnon’s claim is that those circumstances are not our, though one can hope that someday they will be. This way of understanding the subordination claim thus has implications for policy. There may be ways of undermining pornography’s authority that fall short of outright censorship, ways that would eventually relegate pornographers to the status of mere bystanders to the game, whose speech does not count. Perhaps pornographic speech could be fought with more speech: the speech of education to counter pornography’s falsehoods, where women tell the world what women are really like, or with the speech of competition to counter pornography’s monopoly, where women themselves become authors of erotica that is arousing and explicitly but does not subordinate. All this may be possible if women can indeed fight speech with more speech. But if pornography not only subordinates but silences women, it is not easy to see how there can be any such fight. At this point the second feminist claim demands our attention. Whether women can fight speech with more speech depends on whether, and to what extent women can speak.
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51 -The affirmative is the best starting place because a) free speech must first be granted before it can be infringed upon 2) free speech is a prerequisite to ideological and social change which means the affirmative will always be a better liberation strategy
52 -Langton 4 (Rae Helen is an Australian and British professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and taught previously at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Edinburgh, and Monash University) “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” 1993 MIT http://web.mit.edu/langton/www/pubs/SpeechActs.pdf //AG
53 -Refusal, here, is a kind of prohibition, and it is an executive illocution, in Austin’s terms. To satisfy its felicity conditions, the speaker must have authority in a relevant domain. A government that prohibits has authority over a large domain; a parent who prohibits has authority within the smaller domain of the family; a patient who prohibits treatment has authority within the local domain of his own life, his own body. A woman who prohibits sexual advances also has authority within the local domain of her own life, her own body. If she cannot prohibit, cannot refuse, the authority is absent. If she is disabled from speaking refusal, it is a sign that her body is, in a sense, not her own. If pornography prevents her from refusing, then pornography destroys her authority as it twists her words. Part of the concern about whether pornography silences women is a concern that pornography may prevent women from fighting speech with more speech. In considering the feminist ordinance, the courts has to consider whether pornographic speech “operates self-entrancingly, disabling its natural enemies—its victims/survivor—from countering it with effective speech of their own.” “Effective” is ambiguous. One way your speech can be effective is when you can perform just the illocutionary acts you want to perform: when you intend to warn, marry, or refuse, you really do warn, marry, or refuse. Another way your speech can be effective is when you perform just the perlocutionary acts you want to perform: you warn, aiming to alert your hearers; you refuse, aiming to prevent unwanted sex: and you fulfill your goals. Both kinds of effective speaking are important, and both are needed to counter the speech of pornography. The claim that pornography silences women, like the claim about subordination, has been taken to be philosophically problematic. It is at best “metaphorical,” and at worse a “dangerous confusion.” I have tried to show that is neither. The claim that pornography silences is one that can be taken literally. One might object that the silencing I have described is not literal silencing because pornography does not—except in rare circumstances when it is used to threaten—literally prevent omen from uttering words. It does not—in Austin’s terms—usually prevent women from perfoming locutionary acts. But to think that way is it exhibit just the tendency of which Austin complained, to be preoccupied with the content of what is said, at the expense of the action performed. One way of being silent is to make no noise. Another way of being silent—literally silent—is it to perform no speech act. On Austin’s view, locutions on their own are nothing. Locutions are there to be used. Words are tools. Words are for doing things with. There is little point in giving someone tools if they cannot do things with them. And there is little point in allowing women words if we cannot do things with them. That, at any rate, is not free speech. The claim is not metaphor; it is not confusion either. Dworking says that is a confusion to suppose that pornography silences women, because it sia confusion to “characterize certain ideas as silencing ideas.” Dworkin misconstrues the argument. The feminist claim is not that ideas are silencing ideas, but that acts can be silencing acts. That, as we have seen, is no confusion. People do all kinds of things with words besides advising, warning, and hurting one another, they also silence one another. They silence by preventing speakers from doing things with words. They can silence simply, by ordering or by threatening; they can silence by frustrating a speaker’s perlocutionary acts; the can silence by disabling a speaker’s illocutionary acts. We have seen that pornography can silence in all three ways. The silencing claim is not really about ideas at all, but about people and what they do. It is not uncommon, in discussions about free speech, to cast ideas as the heroes of the story. Free speech is a good thing, because it proved a free marketplace for ideas where the best and truest ideas can win out in the end. To say that some speech silences is to describe a kind of shopping problem: some ideas that could be on the market are not. Censorship may or may not be needed as a means of improving the marketplace, a little local regulation to improve things overall. Perhaps some ideas must be censored so that others can find space on the shelves. Here again we have the tendency of which Austin complained: a focus on content, while ignoring the speech act performed. The claim that pornography silences women is not about ideas, but about people. Free speech is a good things because it enables people to act, enables people to do thigns with words: argue, protest, question, answer. Speech that silences is bad, not just because it restricts the ideas available on the shelves, but because it constrains people’s actions. It is true that women have problems developing and expressing new ideas about themselves, about sexuality, about life, when pornography has a market monopoly. The marketplace is certainly missing out on some valuable ideas. But that is not the point. The point is that woman’s liberty to speak the actions she wants to speak has been curtailed: her liberty to protest against pornography and rape, to refuse sex when she wants to, to argue about violence in court, or to celebrate and promote new ways of thinking about sexuality. The point is that women cannot do things with words, even when we think we know how.
54 -Porn represents the material exploitation of vulnerability
55 -Evans (Mary Evans is a writer for The World University Rankings ) “Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification” June 4th, 2009 The World University Ranking https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/sexual-solipsism-philosophical-essays-on-pornography-and-objectification/406821.article //AG
56 -For philosophers, arguments about pornography involve questions about human and civil rights and in the presentation of these arguments Langton offers a rich resource. But one of the many interesting issues Langton's essays raise is the place of other disciplines in the discussion of this subject. For example, sociology and cultural studies may suggest that we cannot separate the consideration of pornography from the recognition of the sexualisation of the contemporary Western world; selling disco clothes to four-year-olds raises questions about the boundaries (and the definition) of pornography. Anyone concerned with the operation of Western military power may raise the case of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, which involved the de-personalisation (and emasculation) of male prisoners. In all these cases, from the high street to the battleground, what is apparent is the insecurity of human sexuality and our endless attempts to secure and/or attack it. In that light, pornography becomes a form of the real and deliberate material exploitation of vulnerability, in which the exercise of power and the making of profits become motives for pornographic commerce. At the same time, although most pornography is empirically organised around male viewers/women objects (and undeniably greater material profit goes to men than to women) the underlying dynamic is perhaps not one related to sexual inequality but to the various tyrannies (be they of convention or the marketplace) through which we currently order our sexuality.
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58 -Masculine lenses make extinction inevitable
59 -Clark 4—French Cumbie Professor of Conflict Resolution at George Mason University (Mary E, Rhetoric, Patriarchy and War: Explaining the Dangers of "Leadership" in Mass Culture, Womxn and Language. Urbana: Fall 2004. Vol. 27, Iss. 2; pg. 21, 8 pgs, ProQuest, AMiles)
60 -
61 -Today's Western patriarchal world view now dominates globalwide dialogue among the "leaders" of Earth's nearly two hundred nation-states. Its Machiavellian/Realpolitik assumptions about the necessity of' military power to preserve order within and between groups of humans trumps~-~-and stifles~-~-other potential viewpoints. Founded on the belief that "evil" is innate, it dictates that human conflict must be "controlled": global "law" backed by coercive force. This view, when cross-culturally imposed, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, thus "legitimating" an escalating use of force. Western leaders (male and female) use a rhetoric couched in a "hegemonic masculinity" to justify their ready use of military force to coerce "those who are against us" into compliance. This translates globally as "national leaders must never lose facet!" Changing this dominant paradigm requires dismantling the hierarchic hegemony of masculine militarism and its related economic institutions, through global cross-cultural dialogues, thus replacing a hegemonic world view and institutions with new, more adaptive visions, woven out of the most useful remnants of multiple past cultural stories. The paper concludes with a few examples where people around the worm are doing just this~-~-using their own small voices to insert their local "sacred social story" into the global dialogue. This global process~-~-free from a hegemonic militaristic rhetoric~-~-has the potential to initiate a planetary dialogue where "boundaries" are no longer borders to be defended, but sites of social ferment and creative adaptation. When the call came for papers on War, Language, and Gender, referring us to Carol Cohn's seminal paper "Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals," (1) I at first felt that little more could be added on the subject. But events in Washington in the ensuing weeks stimulated me to a broader "take" on this topic. Defense intellectuals, after all, are embedded in a whole culture, and the interaction is two-way. Not only does their strategic framework with its euphemistic language about war and killing have the outcome of forcing society to think in their terms; their framework and language developed in response to our deeply embedded, Western cultural image of a Machiavellian / neo-Darwinian universe. In other words, militarism and the necessity for organized physical force (2) emerge out of culturewide assumptions about human nature. Throughout historical times these assumptions have repeatedly proved to be self-fulfilling prophecies. The pervasive perception of enemy-competitors has generated violent conflicts that flared up and died back, only to flare up again through our failure to achieve deep resolution and, especially, to alter our basic beliefs about human nature and our consequent social institutions. Today our species, politically, comprises some 180190 "nations" of varying cultural homogeneity and moral legitimacy, not to mention size and physical power. Regardless of their indigenous, internal cultural preferences, their cross-national interactions are institutionalized to fit a framework long established by former Western colonial powers among themselves. In other words, the global "reality" constructed by Western patriarchies-a Realpolitik, ultimately grounded in military power-has come to define day-to-day cross-national politics. During the era of the Cold War, this resulted in small, powerless nations seeking alliances with one or other superpower, which offered not only development aid but military protection, and, for locally unpopular, but "cooperating" leaders, small arms to maintain order at home. The "end" of the Cold War brought little change in this pervasive global militarism (though it did strengthen the role of economic hegemony by the remaining superpower (3)). The enormous technological "improvements"-i.e. efficiency in killing power-in weaponry of all types over the past few decades has now resulted in a dangerously over-armed planet that simultaneously faces a desperate shortage of resources available for providing the world's people with water, energy, health care, education, and the infrastructure for distributing them. While our environmental and social overheads continue to mount, our species seems immobilized, trapped in an institutionalized militarism-an evolutionary cul-de-sac! We need new insights-as Cohn said, a new language, a new set of metaphors, a new mental framework-for thinking, dialoguing and visioning new patterns of intersocietal interaction.
62 -
63 -
64 -
65 -Underview
66 -1) The affirmative is always in a double bind – its impossible to affirm without restricting someone’s constitutional rights. Either a) Universities don’t restrict porn and would thereby restrict the rights of women or b) Universities DO restrict pornography and therefor restrict the rights of pornographers. Therefore, allow me to defend an advocacy that minimizes harms to freedom. If I win that the violations of womens’ rights as a result of pornography outweighs freedom violations to pornographers as a result of banning it, vote aff.
67 -2) Only Aff RVIs on T/Theory. A) Strat skew- NC theory renders the 1ac useless. They get 6 minutes to respond to a 4 minute 1ar. The neg doesn’t need an RVI because they have twice the rebuttal time. B) Discourages bad theory because debaters won’t run it frivolously if they know they can lose on it. C) No-risk issues hurt education because they provide competitive incentive to kick the shell instead of clashing. D) RVIs are key to good norms creation
68 -3) Procedural requirements are a tool to stave of criticism—you should reject them
69 -Prosise, Theodore O., Greg R. Miller, and Jordan P. Mills. "Argument fields as arenas of discursive struggle." Argumentation and Advocacy 32.3 (1996): 111.
70 -A central aspect of argument field theory left unexamined has been the role of power in the establishment of argumentative author- ity in fields. The importance of the discursive struggles over the standards that distinguish legitimate and illegitimate forms of expression has also eluded thorough analysis. Critical theorists must recognize the practical discursive struggles of social agents.26 The actual symbolic practices of agents must be understood if we are to analyze how logical types become invested with authority. The establishment of authority may preclude participation in the field and marginalize those who could or should have a say. Field theory is better conceptualized by considering argument fields as social arenas of struggle, accounting for the key elements and factors that make fields dynamic. Toulmin, while recognizing the role of argumentative conflict in the establishment of authority, originally employed an evolutionary model in his explanation of the development of disciplinary fields. In Human Understanding, he argues that forums of competition allow the best warrants of a field to become accepted. The dominant warrants, he believes, did not develop from an "arbitrary authority or contest for power."27 His evolutionary perspective embraces the metaphor of change as progress. Condensing this, Robert Rowland explains, "The theories which best meet a discipline's needs will survive."28 The work of Thomas Kuhn, however, amply demonstrates the limits of such an evolutionary perspective of epistemic development.29 And although Toulmin now would not embrace the container model of knowledge accumulation, the original discussion of fields lacked an emphasis on the dynamics of social struggles for symbolic legitimacy, which may explain the current limitations in understanding how authority is produced and articulated in social space.The shared purposes of social agents also has been offered as a useful descriptor of argument fields. Rowland argues a conception of fields based on the shared purpose of the agents operating within the field.30 Zarefsky summarizes this notion, indicating that "two arguers are in the same field if they share a common purpose, and . . . the arguments they produce will differ in important ways from arguments which derive from a different purpose."31 In short, participants argue over what constitute the "best way" to engage in activities within the area of inquiry.:;2 This conception of fields begins to define a social arena based on an agent's participation in a struggle over the instrumental means and terminal states of a social field. It should be recognized that participants also share in the struggle for scarce resources-be they economic, cultural, political or symbolic.These agents argue over the legitimate perspective on what should constitute a claim to know, so they share in a struggle for epistemic legitimacy. The resolution of this struggle determines what types of argumentative proof are legitimated in the field. Extending from Toulmin's work, many scholars recognize that the symbolic negotiation of authority within social fields is ongoing. Such negotiation requires a discursive struggle in which arguments are presented and then accepted or rejected by the community of participants. 33 Charles Kneupper notes that "social fields are strongly influenced by rhetorical practice in both their continuation and change."34 Furthermore, James Klumpp suggests that "when a community encounters an experience there are normally multiple understandings of it. Through communication the community works out its choice of ways to respond (that is, its definition of the situation) and then sanctions ... appropriate action."35 Social actors categorize events in order to respond to those events in appropriate ways. This categorization is based, primarily, on the language practices of the social field. 36 For example, welfare policies frame cultural myths of an "underclass" and may exacerbate the problems of social members of lower economic status. The connotations associated with the term "underclass," such as chronic laziness, stigmatize members of the group. The policies that are formulated, therefore, are based on the perceived "character" of the members of the underclass, rather than the larger social, historical, and economic causes of their economic status. The implication is that action is often based on the successful symbolic struggles which categorize events, rather than on "good reasons."37 Since new ideas are filtered through taken-for-granted social assumptions, there is a general conservative social orientation toward argument. This helps explain how argument fields are maintained. Craig Dudczak, while recognizing that struggles take place within disciplines, claims that overall participants "maintain general disciplinary assumptions."38 Wenzel writes that "argument fields exhibit a persistence over time"39 and for Charles Willard "fields exist … through the ongoing defining activities" and the "recurring themes in a group's practices." In other words, certain symbolic forms of authority are reproduced and others are limited socially. Certain forms of argumentative support are celebrated and other forms are dismissed, based on the social forms of authority previously established by the agents participating in the field. But fields are not always stable. Postmodern scholars remind us that diversity and differences are the norm. Hence, attention must be paid to the diversity of discursive struggles that challenge traditional forms of social authority. Communities of memory, necessary for social negotiation, are partially established through discursive practices. But within the community, conflict is ever-present. So, what is the relationship between the community and the conflict within the field? Furthermore, what are the implications of the struggle? Hanson argues that the forums of field disputes can serve to "exclude" an individual "from further discussions. " 42 He is certainly correct; however, it is more than just a forum that excludes discourse. The successful symbolic struggle to define social authority excludes individuals and perspectives from participation and consideration in social fields. Despite these contributions, there has been insufficient discussion of the pragmatic struggles in which agents are engaged. The community of argument scholars will be served by a general theory of social fields in order to evaluate particular examples. Over a decade ago, Zarefsky contended that "we need an account of the growth and demise of fields against which we can check individual claims."4:1 What the current discussion lacks, specifically, is a consideration of the role that symbolic struggles of categorization of "appropriate" and "inappropriate" forms of authority plays in the stability and change of a social field's assumptions, which serve as the basis for the subsequent social structuring of practices. Current field theory fails to account adequately for social power and the conflict over scarce symbolic resources at the base of that social power. The study of such struggle is important because it relates to the stability and legitimacy of the dominant forms of discourse. Subsequently, there has been little attention to the real world implications of marginalizing alternative arguments within fields. For example, Nancy Fraser argues that the conceptual framing of social welfare policies excludes meaningful interpretation of social needs from a feminist perspective.44 The social forms of authority surrounding the welfare debate are defined by political "professionals." Consequently, the interpretation of a welfare recipient's "needs" and "interests" are considered primarily from the dominant political perspective. Excluded from the political debate are alternative voices and arguments. Lack of attention to the symbolic means of exclusion, such as this, is troubling. Rhetorical scholars need a theory which can help explain how and why certain arbitrary expressions are celebrated, while others are excluded altogether due to discursive struggles within dynamic social fields. Furthermore, scholars should be encouraged to explore the symbolic means agents employ to challenge traditionally dominant forms of argumentative authority.
71 -4) Presume aff to overcome 7-4 time skew. I debated better if the flow comes out even. Second, the neg is reactive so they can adapt while I have to read in the dark.
72 -5) The aff comes first in this debate—its key to an education debate and should be a prereq to theory. Don’t moot my AC in this debate—I actually want to talk about hegemonic masculinity
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1 -Garcetti AFF
2 -Part 1 is the Silence
3 -In Columbus, a gay teacher was fired when her partner’s name was printed in her mother’s obituary. In Carunna, a public high school teacher who advised a diversity group was fired when the group displayed pictures of influential gay and lesbian people in the school’s hallway. University administrators use free speech restrictions to terminate public employees, arbitrarily discriminating against those who express a non-traditional sexuality.
4 -
5 -The “No-Promo homo” culture university administrators create silence and dismiss the sexual identities of gay students. Gay students are denied role models, left vulnerable to hate speech, and internalize a culture of homophobia. Courts in Minnesota have begun to shift the culture but it is not enough – the plan is key to a national action that challenges institutionalized homophobia
6 -Elkind and Kauffman 13 Stephen J. Elkind (Contact Author), Peter Kauffman both work for the New York University School of law. Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech for Public School Teachers by Stephen J. Elkind, Peter Kauffman :: SSRN, 7-21-2013, No Publication, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2292809, Accessed: 4-17-2017//roman
7 -Over the course of a two-year period, eight teenagers committed suicide in Anoka- Hennepin School District in Minnesota.13 Those closest to the students say that at least four of them were gay or bisexual.14 In July of 2011, six students in the district brought a civil rights lawsuit challenging a school board policy requiring teachers to remain silent on issues of sexual orientation in the classroom.15 The “Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy” stated in relevant part: “Teaching about sexual orientation is not a part of the District adopted curriculum; rather, such matters are best addressed within individual family homes, churches, or community organizations. Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.”16 This “no promo homo” policy led teachers and administrators to encourage gay students to “lay low,” “ignore” any harassment they faced, “try to stay out of people’s way,” and otherwise “minimize, dismiss, or in some instances, to blame the victim for the other students’ abusive behavior.”17 All this while bullies used slurs like “‘dyke,’ ‘homo,’ ‘fag,’ ‘faggot,’ and ‘queer,’” calling students perceived as gay “sinners,” saying “‘you're going to hell’ . . . ‘kill yourself.’”18 A father of one of the plaintiffs explained: “The opponents say we want to teach about gay sex in the classroom, but that’s the last thing we want . . . . We’re not asking them to promote anything, . . . But if a kid has gay parents, or is gay or lesbian, why can’t the school say, ‘You’re O.K.’?”19 When teachers are unable to discuss homosexuality in the classroom, they cannot effectively protect their students from bullying or anti-gay speech. Moreover, they cannot reveal their own gay identities in order to serve as role models to students who are facing increased stress as a result of their minority status or engage in discussion with gay or questioning students about the struggles they encounter. No promo homo classroom policies make teachers less effective for students with minority sexual orientations by chilling speech that could support and guide such students. This can lead to young gay students taking their own lives, like in Anoka- Hennepin, which unfortunately is not an isolated incident. The lawsuit brought by the Anoka-Hennepin students was a success, leading to a settlement. Now, the no promo homo policy has been rescinded21 and replaced with a “Respectful Learning Environment—Curriculum Policy.”22 Now, instead of “remaining neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation,”23 teachers and staff “shall affirm the dignity and selfworth of all students, regardless of their . . . sexual orientation . . . .”24 However, this new policy also states that “teachers and educational support staff shall not attempt in the course of their professional duties to persuade students to adopt or reject any particular viewpoint with respect to” “political, religious, social, or economic issues.”25 Presumably, under the new policy, teachers could tell a gay student that it’s “okay to be gay,” (affirming their dignity and selfworth), but could not tell a classroom of students that gay marriage ought to be legal (attempting to persuade students on a political issue).
8 -
9 -Educational spaces are microcosms of burgeoning national trends – absent efforts like the affirmative, gay individuals in schools are plagued by social alienation, internalized self-hatred and heightened rates of depression and suicide– while heteronormative students thrive, gay students are cast out and forgotten.
10 -Elkind and Kauffman 2 Stephen J. Elkind (Contact Author), Peter Kauffman both work for the New York University School of law. Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech for Public School Teachers by Stephen J. Elkind, Peter Kauffman :: SSRN, 7-21-2013, No Publication, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2292809, Accessed: 4-17-2017//roman
11 -Anoka-Hennepin school district’s lawsuit and ensuing policy change demonstrate the importance of providing a school environment where all students feel welcome and affirmed. When students in a minority group are stigmatized because of their nonconformity, they experience increased levels of stress, leading to greater likelihood for mental health issues.26 Ilan Meyer’s theory of minority stress “describes stress processes, including the experience of prejudice events, expectations of rejection, hiding and concealing, internalized homophobia, and ameliorative coping processes” experienced by members of a stigmatized minority. When the dominant values of a community are in conflict with the existence or practice of a stigmatized minority group, members of that group are likely to experience stress.27 Meyer’s results indicate that effects of minority stress—“internalized homophobia, expectations of rejection and discrimination (stigma), and actual events of discrimination and violence (prejudice)”—lead to mental health problems,28 including higher rates of depression, suicide, substance abuse, and even cancer.29 Minority stress assumes there is a majority value system that opposes the traits, actions, and culture of a particular minority group.30 In this case, the majority view involves homophobia or general anti-gay sentiment. This view has evolved over the last few decades. William Eskridge argues that the evolution of anti-gay rhetoric has occurred in a sedimentary way— newer anti-gay justifications are deposited on top of old ones, allowing “modern tropes to mingle with ancient ones.”31 He identifies the progression as beginning with justifications based in religious tradition (being gay is a sin), continuing with medical utilitarian justifications (being gay is a disease), and ending with modern social republican arguments (being gay threatens families and children).32 Eskridge argues that this progression of anti-gay sediment “wanes in persuasive power in an environment where the subordinated group is politically active and can associate its demands with tropes appealing to mainstream culture.”33 The modern formulation of the social republican argument focuses on the protection of children, and the politically active pro-gay groups are repurposing this argument to “appeal to mainstream culture.” No promo homo advocates have placed this modern social republican argument in the literature accompanying Proposition 8 in California.34 Voters were instructed that: Proposition 8 protects our children from being taught in public schools that ‘same-sex marriage’ is the same as traditional marriage and that the best situation for a child is to be raised by a married mother and father. . . . We should not accept a court decision that may result in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay.35 The “protect our children” arguments made by anti-gay-rights advocates represent the modern form of social republican arguments: gay rights harm children.36 As public support of gay rights has grown, gay rights opponents have had to abandon their most vitriolic arguments (that being gay is either sinful or a disease) for the more tempered “protect the children” point, though they may soon need to abandon that rhetoric as well.37 Over the course of the gay marriage debate, the “protect our children” slogan has changed political sides.38 This is a process that James Balkin calls ideological drift.39 From former Miss Oklahoma winner Anita Bryant’s pledge to stop homosexuals from converting and molesting children40 to Justice Kennedy’s concerns for the 40,000 children in California who are being raised by gay parents at recent Supreme Court oral arguments,41 the rhetoric surrounding children has shifted. Gay rights advocates now argue that advancing their cause is necessary to protect our children, especially the children of gay couples and children who are themselves gay or questioning.42 This paper argues that the interests of children in public schools who are perceived as gay, identify as gay, or are being raised by gay parents is of paramount importance. No promo homo policies in public education—such as those which led to the eight suicides in Anoka-Hennepin district in Minnesota—cause egregious harms.43 This paper argues that teachers in public schools should be able to protect the children in their classrooms by speaking, in particular circumstances, in order to avoid the harms outlined above. Part I.A explains the legal standard (the Connick- Pickering two-part test) that governs the First Amendment rights of teachers to speak on the topic of homosexuality before the Supreme Court decided Garcetti. Part I.B explains the effect of Garcetti on the Connick-Pickering framework.
12 -
13 -
14 -Part 2 is the Advocacy
15 -Thus the plan: Public colleges and Universities should adopt policies compliant with the 9th Circuit Appellate Court’s 2014 decision in Demers V. Austin. To clarify, university administrators should use the Connick-Pickering test when determining if university professor’s speech is constitutionally protected.
16 -Elkind and Kauffman 3 Stephen J. Elkind (Contact Author), Peter Kauffman both work for the New York University School of law. Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech for Public School Teachers by Stephen J. Elkind, Peter Kauffman :: SSRN, 7-21-2013, No Publication, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2292809, Accessed: 4-17-2017//roman
17 -To present controversial subjects such as homosexuality to their students, teachers need First Amendment protection against adverse employment action their schools might take. 10 Yet, in Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court diminished the free speech rights of teachers by excluding from First Amendment protection speech that public employees make "pursuant to their official duties." Recognizing the restrictions its decision might place on academic freedom and classroom discussion, the court explicitly kept open whether their decision applied in the context of education. Due to the harm free speech restrictions on teachers can cause students, not to mention community members and teachers themselves, this paper argues that when the Supreme Court revisits the question it left open in Garcetti, it should create an exception for both university professors and public school teachers. An educator exception to Garcetti would mean that teachers' speech to students about homosexuality has First Amendment protection if it satisfies the two-step Connick-Pickering test, which governed public employees' speech before Under the Connick-Pickering framework, the Court asks first whether the speech is on a matter of public concern. If so, the court proceeds to balance the interests of the school board against those of the teacher. If the latter outweighs the former the teacher is entitled to First Amendment protection. To analyze how the balancing test applies to discussions about homosexuality, this paper proposes four representative scenarios. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but to represent four relatively common situations where sexuality might arise in a teacher's discussion with children 11 They are when: (1) teachers discuss homosexuality m regulating students' behavior, the paradigmatic example being when students use "gay" pejoratively; (2) gay teachers "come out" to their students, either explicitly or through Implication; (3) teachers are approached by a gay or questioning student about his or her sexuality; and (4) teachers promote homosexuality m the which involves both including homo-nonnative examples and promoting acceptance and tolerance of homosexuality through classroom instruction. At the heart of this paper is the idea that Garcetti's broad effect will prohibit discussions on controversial—yet Important—matters from taking place in the public school classroom. That is not to say that an exception to Garcetti means that a teacher's interests will always prevail over a school' s Interests, but as this paper demonstrates through analysis of the four scenarios, sometimes they will. Therefore Garcettl's exclusion of First Amendment protection for speech made pursuant to public school teachers' official duties is too blunt an Instrument. It is a hammer when the tool needed is a chisel. Part I of this paper describes the harms created by school board policies that prohibit teachers from promoting or discussing homosexuality. Then, it discusses the governing legal framework: the Connick-Pickering two-part test and Garcetti' s subsequent modification. Part Il describes how Garcetti diminishes the free speech rights of teachers and surveys how the circuit courts of appeal have consistently applied Garcetti to deny First Amendment protection to teachers who discuss controversial subjects with students. Part Ill argues that an educator exception to Garcetti is appropriate not only for universities, but also for public schools. It then applies the Connick-Pickering two-part test to speech on homosexuality in public school classrooms. This paper argues that discussions of homosexuality are always on "matters of public concern," thereby satisfying the threshold Inquiry of the two-part test. The second part of the Connick-Pickering test, balancing the school board's interests against those of the teacher proves more complicated. This paper shows how four scenarios where teachers discuss homosexuality with students could satisfy the balancing requirement. Although not all discussion of homosexuality would warrant First Amendment protection under the balancing test, some would. Therefore, Garcetti' s categorical exclusion of First Amendment protection when teachers speak "pursuant to their official duties" is unnecessarily broad.
18 -
19 -The affirmative uses a status quo definition established by the ninth circuit appellate court and upheld by the seventh circuit which is consistent with scotus precedent – garcetti decision left this question open and the supreme court has yet to return to it – means the only way we can interpret free speech for public employees is the aff.
20 -
21 -Using the Connick - Pickering tests allows teachers to act when they have been empirically restrained the university. Rather than risking termination for advancing personal opinions, the plan encourages teacher intervention and engagement.
22 -Elkind and Kauffman 4 Stephen J. Elkind (Contact Author), Peter Kauffman both work for the New York University School of law. Gay Talk: Protecting Free Speech for Public School Teachers by Stephen J. Elkind, Peter Kauffman :: SSRN, 7-21-2013, No Publication, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2292809, Accessed: 4-17-2017//roman
23 -According to the first category, teachers can also discuss controversial subjects like homosexuality at work, as long as their speech is not “pursuant to their official duties.” The Court explained that its Garcetti holding still allows for First Amendment protection for “some expressions related to the speaker’s job,” particularly because public employees are the ones most likely to have valuable information about government mismanagement.74 For example, teachers retain the right post-Garcetti to complain about their school’s noncompliance with legislative mandates as long as ensuring compliance is not part of their job description.75 Therefore teachers could issue a complaint against violations of legislation devoted to protecting LGBT youth, such as an anti-gay bullying statute, as long as they are not the ones tasked with ensuring compliance.76 Additionally, portions of teachers’ grievances, such as those raising issues with “teacher salaries” and “the resignations of other teachers,” are entitled to First Amendment protection.77 Accordingly, Garcetti would not block teachers from filing grievances to complain about a principal’s unfair treatment of homosexual teachers, unless the teacher also holds a relevant human resources position.78 Though this category gives teachers some freedom to discuss homosexuality at work, it is not relevant to the focus of this paper because teachers’ in-school discussions of homosexuality with students almost invariably will be “pursuant to teachers’ official duties,”79 and thus made under the third category and subject to Garcetti. B. How Garcetti’s “Pursuant To” Standard Consistently Thwarts Teachers Under the third category of speech, which was introduced in the preceding section and is the primary focus of this paper, Garcetti excludes from First Amendment protections speech which is made “pursuant to public employees’ official duties.”80 Some circuits have declined to resolve whether Garcetti applies to teachers’ speech that is directed to students, choosing to wait until the Supreme Court speaks further on the matter.81 Others have applied Garcetti to limit teachers’ free speech rights, but not in a manner relevant to this paper.82 In the circuits which have applied Garcetti to situations where teachers directed speech at students, every court has held that Garcetti denies free speech protections to those teachers.83 They have found that Garcetti excludes teachers’s speech from First Amendment protection when teachers seek to advocate their own personal viewpoints in the classroom;84 post controversial subjects on school bulletin boards;85 and attempt to select books and methods of instruction.86 All of these decisions diminish teachers’ ability to discuss homosexuality with their students. Amongst the circuit courts and legal scholars, there is no consensus as to whether Garcetti adds a separate inquiry from, or is incorporated into, the Connick-Pickering test. Some courts have found that Garcetti adds a preliminary inquiry where, if the speech is made “pursuant to the teachers’ official duties,” the speech is not entitled to First Amendment protection and thus there is no need to proceed to the two-part Connick-Pickering test.87 Other courts, in various ways, have interpreted Garcetti as modifying one of the Connick-Pickering steps.88 Generally, these “differences may be semantic rather than substantive.”89 For the purposes of this paper, how the Supreme Court resolves that split is irrelevant because the end result is the same. If teachers’ speech is made “pursuant to their official duties,” they are denied First Amendment protection due to Garcetti, regardless of whether their speech would have satisfied the pre-Garcetti, two-part Connick-Pickering test. The Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits have all denied First Amendment protections to teachers who discussed controversial subjects with their students. In Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation, the first post-Garcetti case to deal with a teacher’s ability to discuss controversial subjects with her students, Deborah Mayer told her elementary school class during a current-events session that she honked her horn in support of anti-war protests. Mayer maintained that her First Amendment rights were violated when she was terminated after doing so. The Seventh Circuit explained that, “if Garcetti supplies the rule of decision, then the school district prevails without further ado.”90 It found that “Mayer’s current-events lesson was part of her assigned tasks in the classroom” such that “Garcetti applies directly.”91 Therefore the court held that “the First Amendment does not entitle primary and secondary school teachers . . . to cover topics, or advocate viewpoints, that depart from the curriculum adopted by the school system.”92 One rationale for the decision is that school systems do more than just “‘regulate’ teachers speech;” they in fact “hire that speech.”93 “Expression,” the court writes, “is a teachers’ stock in trade, the commodity she sells to her employer in exchange for a salary.”94 This means that teachers must not only stick to the topics dictated by the school system, but also the school’s perspective on those topics.95 In the context of sexuality, this would categorically bar teachers from promoting tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality if their school system either requires teachers not discuss homosexuality or that teachers explain how homosexuality is immoral.96 In Johnson v. Poway Unified School District, the Ninth Circuit found that Bradley Johnson did not have First Amendment protection when the school required him to take down several seven-feet by two-feet banners, which contained quotes with the terms “God” and the “Creator” in large block type, from his calculus classroom. To determine whether Johnson spoke “pursuant to his official duties,” the court explained that it must determine the extent of his duties, without “relying mechanically on formal or written job descriptions, which ‘often bear little resemblance to the duties an employee actually is expected to perform.’”97 The court contrasted Johnson’s case from hypothetical situations where his actions would not fit “squarely within the scope of his position” such as “running errands for the school in a car adorned with sectarian bumper stickers or praying with people sheltering the school after an earthquake.” To the contrary, Johnson posted the banners according to a longstanding tradition by the school district of “permitting teachers to decorate their classrooms subject to specific limitations and the satisfaction of an administrator.” Citing Mayer, the court reiterated the claim that “expression is a teacher’s stock in trade, the commodity he sells to her employee in exchange for a salary.”98 Therefore, the court held that “because the speech at issue owes its existence to Johnson’s position as a teacher, the school acted well within constitutional limits in ordering Johnson not to speak in a manner it did not desire.”99 Satisfying Garcetti’s “pursuant to” requirement thus lets the court proceed no further into the Connick-Pickering analysis.100 The Sixth Circuit in Evans-Marshall dealt with a set of facts most on point to the issue at the heart of this paper—the ability of teachers to discuss homosexuality with students—and lucidly presented the most worrisome impact of Garcetti’s alteration of the Pickering-Connick test. In the case, Shelley Evans-Marshall assigned Fahrenheit 451 to her high school English class as a way of explaining school censorship.101 When she asked the students to write a report on the list of 100 books the American Library Association identified as the most frequently challenged, two groups picked Heather Has Two Mommies. After several rancorous parent meetings, Evans-Marshall discussed with students how they were in the middle of a real-life censorship situation. When the school later terminated her, she brought a free-speech retaliation claim.102 The Sixth Circuit held that, even though Evans-Marshall’s speech was on a matter of public concern and that her in-class speech outweighed the school board’s interest in efficient operation, she still was not entitled to First Amendment protections due to Garcetti. First, the court found that the “content of her speech ‘related to . . . matterss of political, social, or other concern,’”103 noting that a “teacher’s curricular speech . . . ordinarily covers those matters.”104 Then, the court found that she “satisfies Pickering balancing and has shown that her teaching choices caused the school board to fire her.”105 In other words, Evans-Marshall’s speech satisfied both prongs of the Connick-Pickering test. Yet even so, the court found that it “cannot overcome Garcetti.” “Any dispute over . . . Pickering balancing or the ‘public concerns’ of the teacher’s speech under Connick is beside the point,” the court explained, if the teacher’s speech is “in connection with her official duties as a teacher.”106 This means that Garcetti creates a categorical exemption from First Amendment protection for teacher’s speech, even if they are discussing subjects of interest to the public—like sexuality—in a way that does not overly disrupt their school’s efficient operation.
24 -
25 -University professors controversially speak on issues of race relations within the classroom; however, are scared to publicly expose their ideologies due to potential backlash by the university. The plan provides teachers the support to start discussions.
26 -Ducharme 15 Jamie Ducharme is the health editor at Boston, after serving as an intern, contributor, and digital editorial assistant., White Power Group Takes Aim at BU Professor, 7-2-2015, Boston Magazine, http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/07/02/hate-group-bu-saida-grundy/, Accessed: 4-22-2017//roman
27 -Previously: A white supremacist group known as the National Youth Front has launched a campaign aimed at Boston University Assistant Professor Saida Grundy. The group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a recent offshoot of the American Freedom Party and specifically targets college campuses. A July 1 post on the National Youth Front’s website details the so-called #FIREGRUNDY campaign and shows several pictures of flyers posted throughout the campus, both indoors and outdoors. The flyers state “Black Privilege Means Not Being Fired After Saying That White College Males Are A Problem Population.” Previously, Professor Grundy, who is part of the university’s sociology department, has come under fire for controversial remarks on social media. The American Freedom Party, the parent group of the National Youth Front, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “is a political party initially established by racist Southern California skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule. The group is now led by a coterie of prominent white nationalists, including corporate lawyer William D. Johnson, virulent anti-Semite Kevin MacDonald and white nationalist radio host James Edwards. David Duke’s former right-hand man, Jamie Kelso, helps with organizing. The party has big plans to run candidates nationwide.” In an article from earlier this year, the SPLC reports that the National Youth Front is intended to boost recruitment efforts for the American Freedom Party by focusing on colleges. Previous stunts include hanging posters on Arizona State University’s campus that called for a war on immigration. “Using the most recent covers of Charlie Hebdo as a backdrop, the flier was intended to be a call to action and an ominous warning: ‘America is ours, and we are tomorrow,’” the SPLC writes. With regard to Boston University, the National Youth Front writes on its website: It seems like every day anti-White hate is being spewed from some hate filled professor without consequence. The trend of terrifying defamation has become unfathomable and intolerable. National Youth Front has already made a stand at ASU over their anti-White hate course entitled “The Problem With Whiteness.” Today we have continued to take a stand. Operation Grumpy Grundy was completed earlier this morning, calling on Boston University to fire Saida Grundy over her anti-White hate filled remarks about the entire White male student body on social media.
28 -
29 -The plan is a first step towards changing campus culture and challenging heteronormativity. Reform in the classroom is key to ridding educational spaces of homophobia and psychic violence.
30 -Motz-Altman 16 Stacey Motz-Altman is a professor at the university of Indiana. "Institutional Homonegativity Against the Invisible Population: LGBTQ Youth." New Views on Gender 17 (2016): 112-129. https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/iusbgender/article/viewFile/21425/27392//roman
31 -Institutions have a powerful impact on the way individuals understand sexuality although it may seem routine or unremarkable (Puri, 2006). Institutions such as media, family, religion, peer groups, and school have a profound effect on the individual’s sexuality and identity. Everyday subtle messages from institutions reinforce cultural hierarchy norms, in which, discrimination and devaluing messages indicate the individual’s self-worth. When messages from institutions and the inner identity of an individual does not replicate itself, the individual may believe that they are “different” than others and attempt to adjust their inner self in order to comply with societal expectations. Religion and the scientific medicine institutions have classified homosexuals as individuals that are “sinners” and individuals with a “…abnormal sick personality” (Seidman, 2010). Furthermore, public school systems chose to ignore or allow a harassing environment for individuals with a non-heteronormative identity. Sexual education in public secondary schools in the United States is heavily focused on heterosexual relationships, and furthermore, fail to educate students that are not heteronormative. In 2009 the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) conducted a National School Climate Survey in which only 17.9 out of 7,000 LGBTQ student respondents received any curricula containing non-heteronormative sexual education. In addition, 3.8 of the respondents educational school system recognized their sexual identity and sexual orientation (Kosciw, Greytalk, Diaz, and Bartkiewicz, 2010; Gowen, and Winges-Yanez, 2014). Commonly, most sexual education in public schools is composed of heterosexual topics including: contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, abstinence doctrine, reproductive anatomy, puberty, and abortion leaving LGBTQ youth to navigate their sexuality on their own. Exclusion of sexual education to LGBTQ students contributes to alienation and harm. It also encourages youth to adopt heterosexist definitions of relationships and marriage as indicators of a healthy sexuality (Fine and McClelland, 2006; Gowen and Winges-Yanez, 2014). State and federal policies such as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1791) do not intentionally protect LGBTQ students from harassment, violence, and alienating academic climates (Murray 2011). According to “no homo policies” at public high schools; teachers often instruct LGBTQ students to “ignore” and “lay low” when they receive harassment from other students. Teachers also encourage LGBTQ students to “try to stay out of people’s way,” to dismiss other students obtrusive comments, and at times blame the LGBTQ student for the other student’s detrimental behavior (Elkind and Kauffman, 2014). Research indicates 13.7 of students responded that school faculty intervene “most of the time” whereas 3.4 of faculty “always” intervene when homophobic discrimination has occurred (Kosciw 2004). Public high school’s academic climate is reflected with the enforcement or un-enforcement of curriculum policies and homophobic instructors. Religious fundamentalism has been widely known for creating homonegative prejudice towards the LGBTQ population. The world’s major religious affiliates have constructed homonegative campaigns, political agendas, and refusal of personal autonomy towards the LGBTQ population. Homonegativity is any negative disposition towards homosexuality, or any degrading language or behavior of an LGBTQ individual (Sowe, Brown, and Taylor, 2014). Furthermore, internalized homonegativity is the negative attitude of their sexual identity within the LGBTQ individual, in which, he or she comes to adopt about themselves. Internalized homonegativity results from an inner conflict of strict religious homophobic sanctions and the biological attraction to the same sex. Research conducted in Australia compares religious and non-religious LGBTQ respondents indicates that “…religious homonegativity places LGB Christians at additional psychological risk, with particular regard to internalized homonegativity and religion-sexuality identity conflict, and that both personal and interpersonal characteristics may exacerbate this risk” (Sowe, Brown, and Taylor, 2014, p530). Religious environments that are not accepting of LGBTQ identities further exuberate poor self-esteem, depression, sexual risky behavior, psychological distress, poor sexual health, rejection sensitivity, and difficulties with interpersonal relationships (Sowe, Brown, and Taylor, 2014). Religious prejudice can reside in institutional settings in which religion is not a primary focus. Often Americans whom are religious and non-religious facilitate homophobic language and behaviors pertaining to the LGBTQ population. Students and in some instances teachers in secondary public school systems use name calling such as “homo,” “fag,” “queer,” and “dyke” when bulling LGBTQ and heterosexual students. A common phrase that is heard and repeated in the hallways is “that’s so gay.” Many students and teachers disregard phrases that are similar in context because they do not see any harm or prejudice towards the LGBTQ student. Degrading religious phrases such as “sinner” and “you’re going to hell” are biblical representations of homosexuality that students and teachers alike engage in mistreatment of the LGBTQ youth. Often students that partake in homophobic name calling and religious phrases are not punished, thus, continues the cycle of discrimination, harassing, and unsafe academic culture. Mental health facilities have focused on sexual re-orientation therapy known as Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) for minors and affectional reorientation therapy. Mental health providers once classified homosexuality as a mental illness, and therefore, sought to alter an individual’s sexual desire towards another individual. SOCE therapy for minors consisted of talk psychotherapy and behavioral therapy. Examples of behavioral therapy consists of encounters with prostitutes, excessive bicycle riding, masturbating to heterosexual pictures to reassign sexual urges, and physical abuse (Cella, 2014). These harmful therapies further debilitated their homosexual patients to a higher degree of internal shame and anxiety into adulthood (Cella, 2014). In 2012 and 2013 states such as California, New Jersey, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, District of Columbia, Maryland, Washington, and Wisconsin have current state laws and bills to prohibit SOCE therapy to minors (Cella, 2014). Affectional reorientation therapy is form of SOCE in which focuses on religious fundamentalism, to convert or repair an adolescents homosexual identity into heterosexual identity. Affectional reorientation therapy consisted of electric shock therapy on the genitalia, legs, and hands and consumption of chemicals or nausea-inducing drugs in conjunction with nude photographs of same-sex individuals (Walker, 2013). Additional types of therapy include constant electric shock to produce convulsions or grand ma seizures, testicle implantation and castration in males, brain lobotomies, and given hormones such as testosterone and androgen (Murphy, 1997). Religious motivation from parents or internal homonegativity of LGBTQ individuals attempted to ride themselves of same sexual attraction underwent affectional reorientation therapy in which most commonly harm was caused and treatment was not proven effective (Walker, 2013). Domains of Support Public secondary school systems can positively enhance LGBTQ youth in subtle ways that can change academic culture. When students are learning about anatomy and biological functions, sexuality can be addressed and the various biological mechanisms that determine sexual attraction and desire. Other enhancements include employing a teacher that is an open LGBTQ adult that can represent student’s needs and advocate for their well-being. Additional areas include continued training for practitioners that provide a commitment to all forms of student diversity. Topics include appropriate language and terminology that encourage neutrality relating to sexual orientation and partner choice that promotes positive self-acceptance to all individuals. Mental health counselors in public school systems can furthermore create a positive environment that consists of small groups to discuss LGBTQ related issues, internalized homophobia, and provide positive unconditional support (DePaul, Walsh, Sexual education received in public secondary schools systems can be modified to include all sexual orientations. Modifications include topics such as disclosure of sexual orientation or “coming out,” societal pressure to remain heterosexual, accepting oneself as an LGBTQ identity, harmful myths, risk factors, depression, and stereotypes that elude this invisible population. Public school systems can be very powerful to students, therefore, teaching and directing students to receive messages that are discriminating compared to scientifically-based regarding LGBTQ issues can impact teachers and students understanding and acceptance. In addition, LGBTQ historical figures can be researched and discussed to draw examples of positive role models for all students. Whole school prevention can be administered through GayStraight Alliances in educational settings. Gay-Straight Alliance organizations focus on reducing discrimination and harassment of LGBTQ youth and advocacy to promote positive environmental factors in which at risk students encounter on a daily basis (DePaul, Walsh, and Dam, 2009). GayStraight Alliances can provide visibility, protection, sense of community, and acceptance to all students in which sexual orientation is promoted instead of devalued. GSAs began in the mid 1980’s and continue to flourish in the United States. Currently over 3,000 networks are in existence across the country. GSA’s are primarily lead and organized by students that desire to create awareness of LGBTQ issues and identity’s in the public school climate. Homophobic names, phrases, and bullying can be decreased when secondary school systems implement campaigns against homophobic and transphobic bullying. When students use homophobic language, those students can receive a mandated punishment that is administered by the principle and school polices to decrease future incidents. Religious fundamentalism can be avoided when students and adults focus on the positive aspects of religion that can be uplifting instead of the theology that homosexuality, transsexuality, and bisexuality is immoral. Recently, more religious sectors are becoming allies and welcome individuals that identify as non-heteronormative. Religion and sexuality can harmoniously co-exist with an individual, community, institution, and society. Religions that partake in homophobic doctrine can be redirected to those that welcome LGBTQ youth. When an LBGTQ has a strong tie and community involvement, the harassing academic climate they encounter can be detracted and the youth can better navigate their way through such circumstances that could otherwise be highly detrimental.
32 -Part 3 is Framing
33 -The role of the ballot is to promote policies that “queer” academia. The affirmative model seeks to promote social engagement between teachers and sexual minorities in the classroom, allowing for broader discussions of identity.
34 -Conrad and Crawford 98 Kathryn Conrad am currently Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Kansas. She specializes in 20th-century British, Irish, and Northern Irish literature and culture; gender and sexuality; visual culture; public sphere; epistemology; technology; surveillance. B.A. McGill University (1990); Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania (1999). Julie Crawford works on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature and culture. She has written on Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Margaret Cavendish, the Sidneys, Anne Clifford, Margaret Hoby, and Mary Wroth, as well as on post-Reformation religious culture, the history of reading, and the history of sexuality. “Passing/Out: The Politics of Disclosure in Queer-Positive Pedagogy”. Source: Modern Language Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3/4 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 153-162 Published by: Modern Language Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3195469 Accessed: 26-08-2015 03:43 UTC//roman
35 -One of our main points about non-homophobic education is that it is not achieved simply by creating a classroom in which a plurality of identities are welcome; such a plurality is a nebulous political construct that is often liberal rather than progressive. Dealing with sexuality in the classroom needs to be part of a larger discussion of power. If we agree that race, class, and gender trouble the notion of the unmarked universal subject, sexuality does as well. Certainly, sexuality is part of multiculturalism; but a simple multiplication of voices does not suffice. Our discussion of sexuality does not treat homosexuality only as a minority discourse but rather as a term which complicates and constructs heterosexuality and sexuality itself. We have to imbricate sexualities, not on a continuum, but as interdependencies, at the same time as we realize they are set up in oppositional and societally unequal ways. In her essay "Pedagogy in the Context of an AntiHomophobic Project," Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick notes that an important contribution of feminism and deconstruction is that they do not just break down binaries, but point out that one element is always subordinate, that "ontological validity depends on the subsumption and exclusion" of others, and that the very status of central/marginal is unstable (141). She points out, for example, that as a deviant category, homosexuality actually antedates the supposedly normative heterosexuality.1 Sedgwick applies an important lesson of feminism to gay studies: just as we need still to ask about gender, even when the culturally 'marked' gender (female) is not present as either author or thematic (141), so too do we need to discuss sexuality even when homosexuality is not explicitly an issue. As she says, all definitional contests occur only "in the context of an entire cultural network of normative definitions" (147). Sedgwick's own distinction between minoritizing discourse-asserting that a percentage of people are gay- and universalizing discourse-asserting that there is a little bit of homo in all of us-are useful, but it seems that she points in the direction of a more interdependent discourse of sexualities, one we believe is essential for antihomophobic pedagogy and to which we will return shortly. In any discussion of sexuality, identity, and disclosure, it is important to avoid a simple liberal agenda, adding "different perspectives" as if they were separate, independent entities. Mary L. Mittler and Amy Blumenthal's "On Being a Change Agent," a dialogue between a lesbian teacher and an administrator who does not identify her sexual orientation, manifests some of the political problems with a simple pluralist liberalism. The teacher suggests that the split between being out outside the classroom and closeted within it is bad for her teaching. Her rationale for this is predicated on a liberal humanist idea of teacher as coherent subject. As she says, "I teach best when I am whole, when I don't have to think about censoring myself" (4). We argue that coherent 'wholeness' is a chimera, and that to be conscious of self-presentation is at the heart of the anti-homophobic pedagogical enterprise. The teacher's comment that "This is not a question of what I do, but of who I am" (5) seems a dangerous one. To add something to the basic feminist tenet, the personal is not only the political, it is also the pedagogical. In other words, who we are is a question of what we do. The administrator's rather homophobic insistence that coming out could create a "hostile environment" or that the teacher might make her homosexuality the subject of her class are also the legacy of liberal humanism which afforded certain rights to blacks and gays, for example, but in doing so pre- cluded further discussion of identity categories themselves, instead fixing them as discreet and immutable categories. The administrator's final caution that "coming out must be clearly tied to content" (6) is heterosexist, not only because it assumes that the contents of the class, if not explicitly homosexual, must therefore be heterosexual, but because it assumes that the (presumed) heterosexuality of material means it has nothing to do with homosexuality, that heterosexism is not always an issue No matter how absolute we feel about our own identity and the need for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people to have their identities recognized, and as members of minority groups, to be given basic legal rights and social equality, we must point out that positions and identities as well as relationships are often dynamic and unstable. As Adams and Emery point out, while we do not want queer issues to be seen as "too personal, too foreign, or simply too controversial, and unavailable to productive discussion" (32), identity cannot be considered so absolute that it is not a possible topic for discussion. This reinforcement of the fixity of identity is a major potential pitfall of simple disclosure, and reinforces our need to continue the theoretical discussion of identity beyond the moment of coming out. If a teacher chooses to come out and say "my lesbianism shouldn't be an issue for anyone" or "my lesbianism is an important issue" and yet never talks about it again, she reinforces the notion that while we can theorize about identity in the classroom, and talk about the social forces and relationships which forge identities, 'true' identity-especially the identity of the professor herself-is seamless and stable.2 At the same time as role models are essential to gay and lesbian visibility, we need to interrogate the very idea of 'models.' And while we want to avoid claiming simple acceptance for The Gay American, we also do not want to present a rambling postmodernist disquisition on the fluidity and instability of identity. Productive ideological action can take place between simple liberal humanism and radical postmodemism. While foregrounding minority identities is important for minority concerns, it is also important to point out that identity does not only exist, nor does it have to exist, in a binary. A self-conscious role-modeling that points to theoretical ways in which identity categories are historically contingent and culturally specific points to the constructedness of identity without denigrating the political and social necessity and efficacy of those constructs and identifications. Itseems, in short, that we need a role model who plays. And this model is an interrelational one that interpellates students and teacher and text at once. The role model who plays is the first step toward 'queering' the classroom-a practicable strategy for any lesbigay-positive teacher. Queerness-what it means or might mean-has been a topic of discussion and debate in activist and academic circles for some time. We are using 'queer' not as a way of levelling differences but rather as anti-homophobic strategizing; not as a replacement for identity categories like 'gay' and 'lesbian', but as a space in which non-normative identities can be discussed. In Making Things Perfectly Queer, Alexander Doty discusses queerness as a somewhat paradoxical term which not only umbrellas gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered concerns together, often for political efficacy and social solidarity, but one that also problematizes absolute identifications ofall kinds. As Doty points out, "queerness has been set up to challenge and break apart conventional categories, not to become one itself" (xv). Queerness is more an open and flexible space than a political agenda. For Doty, queerness is not "blandly democratic" but ultimately complicates "the cultural demarcations between the queer and the straight (made by both queers and straights) by pointing out the queerness of and in straights and straight cultures" (xv). Queerness, in short, should challenge and confuse our understanding and uses of sexual and gender categories. In the introduction to Queering the Renaissance, Jonathan Goldberg points out the importance of not letting a discussion of sexuality operate "within the syntax of normative heterosexuality"(3). Just as the goal of queer history is not only to 'find' gays in history, so the goal of a queer-positive pedagogical model should not only be to 'find' gays in the classroom, but rather to discuss societal organizations of sexuality and everyone's implication in them. Goldberg discusses how homosexual relations cannot be studied outside questions of gender, "or aside from the understanding of the pow- erful interests that are served by the social organizations that shape sexual difference: reproduction, familial structures, and the like" (7). It is impor- tant to focus not only on identity and history, but also on theoretical and epistemological questions. By "queering the classroom," then, we do not mean that we should tell students either that they are queer or 'queerish'; rather, queering the classroom involves discussion of how sexualities are historically contingent, mutually constructing, and mutually dependent Michel Foucault writes that "we must be aware ... of the tendency to reduce being gay to the questions 'Who am I? and 'What is the secret of my desire?' Might it not be better if we asked ourselves what sort of relationships can we set up, invent, multiply or modify through our homosexuality? The problem is not trying to find out the truth of one's sexuality within oneself, but rather, nowadays, trying to use our sexuality to achieve a variety of different types of relationships" (95). Our selective reading of Foucault, in dialogue with Sedgwick's important insights about the interdependence of homo- and hetero-sexuality, leads us to suggest a new way of thinking about the queer-positive classroom. Just as Sedgwick argues that homosexuality helps to define heterosexuality, so too does the queer or queer-positive teacher help define the student and the very nature of pedagogy. The teacher is never simply a passive object to be read; she is text that talks back, that changes her readers through the process of their reading of and interaction with her. To return to Foucault, queering the classroom means modifying relationships, but perhaps more importantly, how we talk about and position them: engaging students in discussions about identity, making the classroom a place in which the mutual interdependencies of homo- and heterosexuality, queer and straight culture, are audible and visible. These pedagogical strategies not only destabilize simple heterosexism, but model the dynamic relationship that is queering. The politics of disclosure, then, require us as teachers not simply to pass-as straight or queer~-~-or to be out, but to prevent queerness from passing out of the realm of the classroom and productive ideological work.
36 -Reasonability
37 -
38 -A Clash— proving I’m reasonable refocuses the debate on substance. Topical clash is important—it’s the foundation for all debate and outweighs on time frame; we only get two months to talk about the topic.
39 -
40 -B Encourages judges to intervene against BS theory—solves for frivolous theory which is counterproductive to norm setting.
41 -
42 -C The round is substantively skewed but not structurally skewed so there’s no impact to fairness. Substantive skews are inevitable; one side of the resolution will be harder to defend, schools will have different access to resources. This also establishes a briteline—I’m being reasonable by not structurally skewing the round.
43 -
44 -D In the real world we don’t establish a rule for everything; we evaluate them based on if they’re reasonable—court cases prove
45 -
46 -Role playing as public actors shatters apathy and political alienation which is critical to check oppression – embracing of individual identities controls the direction of the K impacts.
47 -Mitchell 2000. Gordon Mitchell, Associate Professor of Communication at University of Pittsburgh, Winter 2000, “Stimulated Public Argument As Pedagogical Play on Worlds”, Argumentation and Advocacy, vol 36, no 3, pq
48 -When we assume the posture of the other in dramatic performance, we tap into who we are as persons, since our interpretation of others is deeply colored by our own senses of selfhood. By encouraging experimentation in identity construction, role-play "helps students discover divergent viewpoints and overcome stereotypes as they examine subjects from multiple perspectives..." (Moore, p. 190). Kincheloe points to the importance of this sort of reflexive critical awareness as an essential feature of educational practice in postmodern times. "Applying the notion of the postmodern analysis of the self, we come to see that hyperreality invites a heteroglossia of being," Kincheloe explains; "Drawing upon a multiplicity of voices, individuals live out a variety of possibilities, refusing to suppress particular voices. As men and women appropriate the various forms of expression, they are empowered to uncover new dimensions of existence that were previously hidden" (1993, p. 96). This process is particularly crucial in the public argument context, since a key guarantor of inequality and exploitation in contemporary society is the widespread and uncritical acceptance by citizens of politically inert self-identities. The problems of political alienation, apathy and withdrawal have received lavish treatment as perennial topics of scholarly analysis (see e.g. Fishkin 1997; Grossberg 1992; Hart 1998; Loeb 1994). Unfortunately, comparatively less energy has been devoted to the development of pedagogical strategies for countering this alarming political trend. However, some scholars have taken up the task of theorizing emancipatory and critical pedagogies, and argumentation scholars interested in expanding the learning potential of debate would do well to note their work (see e.g. Apple 1995, 1988, 1979; Britzman 1991; Giroux 1997, 1988, 1987; Greene 1978; McLaren 1993, 1989; Simon 1992; Weis and Fine 1993). In this area of educational scholarship, the curriculum theory of currere, a method of teaching pioneered by Pinar and Grumet (1976), speaks directly to many of the issues already discussed in this essay. As the Latin root of the word "curriculum," currere translates roughly as the investigation of public life (see Kincheloe 1993, p. 146). According to Pinar, "the method of currere is one way to work to liberate one from the web of political, cultural, and economic influences that are perhaps buried from conscious view but nonetheless comprise the living web that is a person's biographic situation" (Pinar 1994, p. 108). The objectives of role-play pedagogy resonate with the currere method. By opening discursive spaces for students to explore their identities as public actors, simulated public arguments provide occasions for students to survey and appraise submerged aspects of their political identities. Since many aspects of cultural and political life work currently to reinforce political passivity, critical argumentation pedagogies that highlight this component of students' self-identities carry significant emancipatory potential.
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-04-30 11:10:11.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Sunhee Simon
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Cypress Woods LC
ParentRound
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -21
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -4
Team
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Westwood Mandavilli Aff
Title
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -JANFEB - 1AC - Garcetti
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TOC
Caselist.RoundClass[10]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -9
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-02-04 20:04:02.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Southlake Carroll PD
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Preston Stolte
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -5
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,5 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - title IX
2 -1NC - Hate Speech
3 -1AR - ALL
4 -2NR - ALL
5 -2AR - ALL
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Colleyville
Caselist.RoundClass[11]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -10
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-02-18 23:04:39.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Neel Yerneni
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Loyola John Choi
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,5 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Title IX V2
2 -1NC - Cap
3 -1AR - ALL
4 -2NR - Cap
5 -2AR - ALL
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Berkeley
Caselist.RoundClass[12]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -11,12
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-09 21:03:20.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Jacob Koshak
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Prosper AA
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,12 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - The Flood
2 -1NC -
3 -Theory - must defend HUD
4 -Heidegger K
5 -HUD DA
6 -1AR -
7 -Must spec if T or K comes first
8 -ALL
9 -2NR - ALL
10 -2AR -
11 -1AR theory
12 -RVI on original interp
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[13]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -13
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-09 21:06:25.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Finals
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,2 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Evictions
2 -1NC - you choose
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[14]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -14
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-10 00:35:24.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Semis
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,2 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Stock aff
2 -1NC - you decide
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[15]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -15
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-10 00:37:33.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -1
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,2 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Homelessness
2 -1NC - You decide
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[16]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -16
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-10 22:11:57.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Jennifer Melin
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Whitley Perryman
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -5
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,11 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - The Flood
2 -1NC -
3 -Nomadism
4 -Case
5 -1AR -
6 -Alternatives must be policy
7 -ALL
8 -2NR - ALL
9 -2AR -
10 -Case
11 -K
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[17]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -17
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-11 21:02:12.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Kris Wright, Jennifer Melin, John Sims
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Strake Jesuit Matthew Chen
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Octas
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,10 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Borderlands
2 -1NC -
3 -T
4 -Sovereignty NC
5 -Case
6 -1AR - ALL
7 -2NR - T
8 -2AR -
9 -Case
10 -T
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[18]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -18,19
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-11 21:07:28.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Dino De LaO, Josh Aguilar, Miguel Harvey
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Monsignor Kelly Colin Cormier
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Doubles
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,10 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - The Flood V2
2 -1NC -
3 -DNG
4 -Case
5 -1AR -
6 -DNG
7 -Case
8 -New off - mindset shifts bad
9 -2NR - ALL
10 -2AR - ALL
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TFA State
Caselist.RoundClass[19]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -20
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-03-25 04:39:31.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Chetan Hertzig, Jacob Koshak
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Shruthi Krishnan
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -1
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,10 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Title IX V3
2 -1NC -
3 -Cap K
4 -T
5 -Case
6 -1AR - ALL
7 -2NR - K
8 -2AR -
9 -Case
10 -K
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Kandi King
Caselist.RoundClass[20]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -21
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-04-29 20:55:32.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Finals
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Any
Caselist.RoundClass[21]
Cites
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -22
EntryDate
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -2017-04-30 11:10:07.0
Judge
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Sunhee Simon
Opponent
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -Cypress Woods LC
Round
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -4
RoundReport
... ... @@ -1,5 +1,0 @@
1 -1AC - Garcetti
2 -1NC - Any T 2 ks
3 -1AR - ALL
4 -2NR - T
5 -2AR - T case
Tournament
... ... @@ -1,1 +1,0 @@
1 -TOC

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