In West Virginia, Republican insists Jews are not a race

In West Virginia, a ‘critical race theory’ bill leads to a statehouse debate over Jews and race.

Andrew Lapin, JTA
11.03.22

State Capitol in West Virginia

When West Virginia lawmakers opened a discussion about proposed “critical race theory” legislation on Monday, it didn’t take long before the topic of conversation turned to Jews.

West Virginia’s House of Delegates was debating legislation along the lines of laws considered or passed in a slew of other states, to prohibit classroom instruction that could make students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress because of the individual’s race, ethnicity or biological sex.”

A retired public school teacher took the floor to argue against the bill and described a hypothetical objection to a hypothetical lesson to show how the law could backfire.

“What if I am teaching about the Holocaust and a parent takes issue because [the parent believes] only 6,000 Jews were killed, not 6 million?” Jenny Santilli, an adjunct professor at Fairmont State University and retired public school Spanish teacher in the state, asked the House Education Committee.

“But that’s not race,” replied the committee’s chair, Republican Joe Ellington, in audio of the session. “That has nothing to do with race. That’s not race.”

Santilli pushed back. “Jews are considered — they are classified as a race, though,” she said.

Ellington replied, “I believe you’re incorrect there.”

“Well, see, here’s a perfect example,” Santilli said, before Ellington cut her off to move the conversation on.

Ellington’s voice was identified on the audio by West Virginia journalist Kyle Vass, who was present at the session. Ellington, who did not author the legislation, did not return a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment.

The exchange centered on the Republican-backed “Creating Anti-Racism Act of 2022,” which would bar teachers in the state from teaching that “one race, ethnic group, or biological sex is inherently, morally, or intellectually superior to another race, ethnic group, or biological sex.” It creates a reporting system to discipline teachers who are found to have done so.

The West Virginia bill is nearly identical in wording and scope to more than a dozen other so-called anti-”Critical Race Theory” bills that have been debated and sometimes passed in statehouses over the last few months. Their proponents have chiefly focused their attention on race and gender theory. In a speech promoting an earlier version of the bill, West Virginia state Senator Mike Azinger, a Republican who attended a rally outside the U.S. Capitol shortly before the Jan. 6, 2021, violent insurrection, said its main goal was to defeat “Marxism” and “Communism,” which he contended were the true backers of “critical theory.”

These debates have also directly involved Jews and Holocaust education. A Jewish lawmaker in Wyoming recently spoke out against a similar bill by saying he “cannot accept a neutral, judgement-free approach” on the Holocaust, and the subject of how to teach the Holocaust in the presence of such laws has also emerged as a debate point in Indiana, New Hampshire and other states.

“I don’t think this particular piece of legislation directly impacts us as Jews (though it may be argued as I would that such legislation being proposed could have a chilling effect on teaching the Holocaust),” Rabbi Victor Urecki, one of just six rabbis in West Virginia, told JTA via email. He said legislation like S.B. 498 “is more a sad reflection of the kind of politics our state is witnessing. And for people like myself, it is not good.”

Urecki, who leads B’nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston, had tweeted about the statehouse debate, calling the question of Jews and race “complicated” — and saying that complexity offered a strong argument against the bill.

“The fact that there is confusion means we probably need to expand education, not limit it like our legislators in West Virginia are trying to do,” he wrote.

The conversation about Jews represented only a small portion of lawmakers’ debate over the bill, which advanced after the education committee passed an amended version nearly along party lines (one Republican voted with Democrats against it). On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee amended the bill yet again — to remove the provision prohibiting instruction that causes “discomfort” as well as to remove the bill’s definition of “race.”

The West Virginia Commission on Holocaust Education, first established in 1998 to promote Holocaust education and awareness in the state, has spoken out about similarly worded bills on social media before. In a 2021 Facebook post, referencing a story about a Texas school administrator who had advised his staff that their state’s new CRT law meant they would have to teach “opposing” views on the Holocaust, the commission said, “This incident proves the importance of our work and exemplifies the ongoing need for education in our schools and community.”

The commission has not issued any statements on S.B. 498 or on Ellington’s contention that Jews are not a race. A JTA request for comment to chair Marc Slotnick returned an out-of-office email.

The broader question of whether Jews should be considered a race is a weighty topic, both inside and outside of such legislation. Last month Whoopi Goldberg ignited a firestorm of controversy, and was briefly suspended from “The View,” after asserting on-air that the Holocaust wasn’t about race. Hitler frequently wrote and spoke of the Jewish people as a race, and characterized his genocide of the Jewish people as a race extermination project.

Ukraine: the world’s defense giants are quietly making billions from the war

Friday, March 11th 2022 - 

EU announced it would buy and deliver 450 million Euros of arms to Ukraine, while the US has pledged US$ 350 million in military aid

By Peter Bloom, Professor of Management, University of Essex – The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned for its unjustified aggression. There are legitimate fears of a revived Russian empire and even a new world war. Less discussed is the almost half-trillion dollars (£381 billion) defense industry supplying the weapons to both sides, and the substantial profits it will make as a result.

The conflict has already seen massive growth in defense spending. The EU announced it would buy and deliver 450 million Euros of arms to the Ukraine, while the US has pledged US$ 350 million in military aid in addition to the over 90 tons of military supplies and US$650 million in the past year alone.

Put together, this has seen the US and NATO sending 17,000 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, for instance. An international coalition of nations is also willingly arming the Ukrainian resistance, including the UK, Australia, Turkey and Canada.

This is a major boon for the world’s largest defense contractors. To give just a couple of examples, Raytheon makes the Stinger missiles, and jointly with Lockheed Martin makes the Javelin anti-tank missiles being supplied by the likes of the US and Estonia. Both US groups, Lockheed and Raytheon shares are up by around 16% and 3% respectively since the invasion, against a 1% drop in the S&P 500, as you can see in the chart below.

BAE Systems, the largest player in the UK and Europe, is up 26%. Of the world’s top five contractors by revenue, only Boeing has dropped, due to its exposure to airlines among other reasons.

Opportunity knocks

Ahead of the conflict, top western arms companies were briefing investors about a likely boost to their profits. Gregory J. Hayes, the chief executive of US defense giant Raytheon, stated on a January 25 earnings call:

“We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE … And of course, the tensions in eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defense spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”

Even at that time, the global defense industry had been forecast to rise 7% in 2022. The biggest risk to investors, as explained by Richard Aboulafia, managing director of US defense consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, is that “the whole thing is revealed to be a Russian house of cards and the threat dissipates”.

With no signs of that happening, defense companies are benefiting in several ways. As well as directly selling arms to the warring sides and supplying other countries that are donating arms to Ukraine, they are going to see extra demand from nations such as Germany and Denmark who have said they will raise their defense spending.

The overall industry is global scope. The US is easily the world leader, with 37% of all arms sales from 2016-20. Next comes Russia with 20%, followed by France (8%), Germany (6%) and China (5%).

Beyond the top five exporters are also many other potential beneficiaries in this war. Turkey defied Russian warnings and insisted on supplying Ukraine with weapons including hi-tech drones - a major boon to its own defense industry, which supplies nearly 1% of the world market.

And with Israel enjoying around 3% of global sales, one of its newspapers recently ran an article that proclaimed: “An Early Winner of Russia’s Invasion: Israel’s Defense Industry.”

As for Russia, it has been building up its own industry as a response to western sanctions dating back to 2014. The government instituted a massive import substitution program to reduce its reliance on foreign weaponry and expertise, as well as to increase foreign sales. There have been some instances of continued licensing of arms, such as from the UK to Russia worth an estimated 3,7 million sterling, but this ended in 2021.

As the second biggest arms exporter, Russia has targeted a range of international clients. Its arms exports did fall 22% between 2016-2020, but this was mainly due to a 53% reduction in sales to India. At the same time, it dramatically enhanced its sales to countries such as China, Algeria and Egypt.

According to a US a US congressional budget report: “Russian weaponry may be less expensive and easier to operate and maintain relative to western systems.” The largest Russian defense firms are the missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey (sales volume US$6.6 billion), United Aircraft Corp (US$4.6 billion) and United Shipbuilding Corp (US$4.5 billion).

What should be done

In the face of Putin’s imperialism, there are limits to what can be achieved. There appears little credible possibility for Ukraine to demilitarize in the face of Russia’s continued threat.

There have nevertheless been some efforts to de-escalate the situation, with Nato, for example, very publicly rejecting the request of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to establish a no fly zone. But these efforts are undermined by the huge financial incentives on both sides for increasing the level of weaponry.

What the west and Russia share is a profound military industrial complex. They both rely on, enable and are influenced by their massive weapons industries. This has been reinforced by newer hi-tech offensive capabilities from drones to sophisticated AI-guided autonomous weapons system.

If the ultimate goal is de-escalation and sustainable peace, there is a need for a serious process of attacking the economic root causes of this military aggression. I welcomed the recent announcement by President Joe Biden that the US will directly sanction the Russian defense industry, making it harder for them to obtain raw materials and sell their wares internationally to reinvest in more military equipment.

Having said that, this may create a commercial opportunity for western contractors. It could leave a temporary vacuum for US and European companies to gain a further competitive advantage, resulting in an expansion of the global arms race and creating an even greater business incentive for new conflicts.

In the aftermath of this war, we should explore ways of limiting the power and influence of this industry. This could include international agreements to limit the sale of specific weapons, multilateral support for countries that commit to reducing their defense industry, and sanctioning arms companies that appear to be lobbying for increased military spending. More fundamentally, it would involve supporting movements that challenge the further development of military capabilities.

Clearly there is no easy answer and it will not happen overnight, but it is imperative for us to recognize as an international community that long-lasting peace is impossible without eliminating as much as possible the making and selling of weapons as a lucrative economic industry.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

 

One Year After an External Review into Sexual Harassment at Harvard, Three Recommendations Remain Unfulfilled

Harvard's Knafel building, which houses the Center for Government and International Studies, is located on Cambridge St. By Julian J. Giordano

By Cara J. Chang and Isabella B. Cho, Crimson Staff Writers

an hour ago

Three months after an external review found that a “permissive culture regarding sexual harassment” at Harvard allowed a former Government professor to rise through the school’s ranks despite repeatedly sexually harassing students and colleagues, University President Lawrence S. Bacow said he was confident in procedural changes made in the wake of the report.

The report, released in February 2021, detailed how former Government Professor Jorge I. Domínguez sexually harassed women over three decades — all while being promoted to several high-profile University positions. Domínguez was barred from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences campus and stripped of his emeritus status in 2019, following his retirement.

“The same issue, were it to arise now, might be a little bit cumbersome, but we would still avoid the unfortunate outcome that occurred previously,” Bacow said in May 2021.

The report said Harvard’s processes had improved in the years since allegations were first made against Domínguez in the 1980s, finding that “if the University confronted the same situation today, it has the processes and structures in place to handle it differently.” But the three-person external panel also offered nine specific recommendations for Harvard to improve sexual harassment reporting processes, as well as a broader call for the University to “accelerate progress toward a culture intolerant of sexual and gender-based harassment.”

Just over a year after the report was released, as Harvard grapples with another high-profile sexual harassment scandal, the school has not fulfilled three of the external review’s recommendations.

Despite reforming its sexual misconduct training curriculum and revamping online resources, Harvard has not established a standardized procedure to vet faculty and staff for misconduct during hiring and appointment processes — a key recommendation of the external review. And more than a year after Bacow pledged the school would create a centralized personnel database to better track misconduct reports, school officials could not point to completed reforms in the management of personnel data.

The external review also called on the University to hold units — such as academic departments — accountable for instances of misconduct by having deans and the University provost conduct internal reviews at least once every three years. But the school has not announced any such review cycle.

The lobby of Harvard's Center for Government and International Studies lobby was covered with printed copies of a Chronicle of Higher Education detailing harassment allegations against Government professor Jorge I. Domínguez. The posters accompanied a protest calling for an independent review of the allegations against him. By Awnit Singh Marta

School officials say further updates are coming this semester — including regarding efforts to establish processes for vetting candidates and a centralized personnel repository. University Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote in a statement this week that Harvard is working on all 10 recommendations.

“When he accepted the recommendations from the external review committee, President Bacow made clear that the University must continue to build on our progress and accelerate our work in assuring Harvard is free from harassment, discrimination, and bullying,” Garber wrote. “In the year since these recommendations were made, University leaders have prioritized efforts to move them forward including addressing our policies and structures.”

Domínguez was first accused of harassment in 1983 by Terry L. Karl, then an assistant professor in the Government Department. In a statement when the external report was released last year, Bacow apologized to Karl, writing that “Harvard failed her.”

Today, Karl says she would not recommend any Harvard affiliate seek recourse through Harvard’s Title IX processes.

Though she acknowledged recent strides, Karl said more reforms are needed in the school’s processes for handling gender-based harassment, citing a federal lawsuit filed last month by three Harvard graduate students that accused the school of ignoring a decade of complaints against professor John L. Comaroff.

“I wish [Harvard] would design their procedures not to meet the minimal Title IX, but to bring in some of us who have experienced these issues and can design better policies so they won’t make victims feel that it takes too long, that they’re not being listened to, that their rights are being violated — all of which led to a lawsuit, and a very understandable one,” Karl said.

The report recommended that Harvard increase transparency around investigations and sanctions. In recent years, the FAS has publicized sanctions it levied against professors — including Comaroff.

Harvard has also revamped its gender-based and sexual misconduct trainings and its online resources, per three of the external review’s recommendations to improve climate and increase the accessibility and transparency of reporting processes. Many reforms have come from the University’s newly-formed Office of Gender Equity, which was established last March after Harvard combined its Title IX Office with the Office for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response.

The OGE, which runs mandatory trainings for all Harvard employees, updated its required e-learning courses to focus on improving the school’s culture, according to University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain. The OGE’s website, which launched last summer, also includes a new electronic complaint filing process and a data hub with current statistics about complaints and disclosures.

Harvard also says OGE is expanding. The office has hired three new staff members for its Sexual Harassment/Assault Resources & Education team and hopes to bring on two more staffers later this year, according to Swain.

Starting in 2017, before the external review recommended that Harvard monitor employees with past infractions, the school instituted policies intended to track patterns of misconduct disclosures. OGE is notified when someone is accused of misconduct multiple times, according to Swain.

The report also recommended that the Government Department improve the gender balance of its faculty. A 2019 department review found that only two women went up for tenure in the last quarter-century — and only one was promoted. In contrast, 14 men went up for tenure and 12 were promoted over the same period. The review noted the department has disproportionately failed to retain female junior faculty members compared to their male colleagues.

In the faculty overall, the total number of tenured female professors at Harvard has increased from 226 to 305 since 2012 — but women still make up fewer than 30 percent of tenured faculty.

Nicole M. Merhill, Harvard’s Title IX coordinator, who heads the OGE, wrote that the school’s work is an “evolving process.”

“It would really be a mistake if we looked at these recommendations as a checklist or bulleted list of actions,” Merhill wrote in a statement. “Culture change, as you know, is an ongoing and evolving process and it requires three pieces to work in tandem – individual actions, structural actions, and cultural change.”

Still, Karl said the lawsuit against Harvard over its handling of the Comaroff complaints is evidence that the University must continue to improve its processes.

“I’ve never known anybody who chose the legal route unless they felt that that was all that was left for them,” she said. “It’s a failure of a procedural system when people choose the law — that’s how it must be understood.”

—Staff writer Cara J. Chang can be reached at cara.chang@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @CaraChang20.

—Staff writer Isabella B. Cho can be reached at isabella.cho@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @izbcho.

Ocado Wins U.S. Trade Case Brought by AutoStore Over Robots

Susan Decker and Matthew Bultman, Bloomberg News

At Ocado’s warehouse near London, each robot travels up to 35 miles per day. , Source: Ocado

(Bloomberg) -- Ocado Group Plc won a trade case lodged by AutoStore Holdings Ltd. that threatened its plans to expand its robotic warehouses into the U.S.

AutoStore said it plans to appeal the International Trade Commission’s decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Ocado shares rose as much as 11% in London Friday, while AutoStore dropped as much as 8.6% in Oslo.

The ITC affirmed with modifications a judge’s findings that three AutoStore patents are invalid and that Ocado doesn’t infringe a fourth. AutoStore asked the full commission to review the findings “to correct multiple legal mistakes.”

The two companies are seen as having the best chances for growth in the fast-developing market for automated warehouse robots. It’s led to a global battle over who has the rights to the underlying technology, with cases in Germany, the U.K. and the European Patent Office.

While the trade case isn’t the only dispute between the two in the U.S., it’s the one that has the greatest potential to disrupt Ocado’s plans in the world’s largest market. A London court is expected to rule on another legal dispute between the companies in coming weeks, Ocado said.

Ocado said it welcomed the ITC’s decision and that it expects to be awarded damages from AutoStore for allegedly infringing its patents. 

“All 33 of the patent claims asserted against Ocado have now been confirmed for a second time to be either invalid or not infringed, demonstrating again how misguided AutoStore’s complaint has been,” Ocado said.

AutoStore in a statement said it “believes strongly in its litigation positions and will continue to pursue them.”

Ocado said in its annual results that it’s spent 29 million pounds ($39 million) on legal fees so far relating to its dispute with AutoStore.

Kroger Co., the biggest U.S. grocery chain, said in a Jan. 14 filing with the agency that it has customer fulfillment centers with Ocado machinery in three states with plans for seven more in the next six months.

An order banning Ocado’s robots “would prevent Kroger from delivering groceries from these facilities, result in the loss of thousands of current and future employees, and negatively impact many American citizens and communities,” Kroger said in the filing.

The three AutoStore patents found to be invalid relate to the robot body with an internal cavity to transport a storage bin. ITC Judge Charles Bullock found that, while Ocado used the technology, those claims failed to fulfill requirements of clearly describing the invention in a way that others can understand.

AutoStore argued that Bullock’s findings rested on him “disregarding clear evidence” and ignoring findings of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s review board.

The Oslo-based AutoStore says its technology forms the basis of Ocado’s Smart Platform. Ocado contends that AutoStore’s Red Line system wasn’t good enough for the fast turnover of groceries, so it developed its own machines.

Autostore’s arguments to the trade agency “contort the facts and law in an attempt to manufacture ‘clear errors,’ for review, but they fail to identify any issue that warrants review,” Ocado said in a filing with the agency. It asked, however, that if the commission takes a second look at validity it also review the judge’s findings that Ocado infringed the patents.

The case is In the Matter of Certain Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems, Robots, and Components Thereof, USITC, No. 337-1228, 3/10/22.

--With assistance from Deirdre Hipwell and Katie Linsell.

To contact the reporters on this story: Susan Decker in Washington at sudecker1@bloomberg.net; Matthew Bultman in New York at mbultman@correspondent.bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net ; Renee Schoof at rschoof@bloombergindustry.com

(Updates with Ocado shares in second paragraph)

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Mike Pence flies to Israel on Miriam Adelson’s private jet

The media reporting on the former vice president’s trip didn’t ask the key question: Why?

MARCH 10, 2022

Written by  Eli Clifton

Former Vice President Mike Pence appears to be courting the financial backing of the wealthiest Israeli, Miriam Adelson, who previously used her wealth to back the Republican Party’s support for abrogating from the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, declaring the Golan Heights to be Israeli territory, “purged the sewer that was a so-called peace process,” according to Adelson, and pushed for former President Trump’s eventual clemency for convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a move long opposed by the FBI, Naval Intelligence, and the Pentagon.

Pence reportedly flew to Israel on a private plane owned by the Adelsons, the same means of transportation the family provided to Pollard following his clemency, an immediate departure for Israel with a hero’s welcome on the tarmac in Tel Aviv.

But the connection between Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon Adelson’s foreign policy motivations and their bankrolling of GOP candidates continues to be largely ignored or erased from reporting on Pence’s trip and Miriam’s reemergence, after her husband’s death, as the likely biggest Republican funder of the upcoming election cycles.

Yesterday, Axios reported that Pence traveled to Israel this week on one of the family’s planes. In a lengthy write-up, the online publication highlights that Miriam and her late husband Sheldon contributed nearly $220 million to Republican Party, emphasizing that “Pence broke news in the Israeli press by declaring the next Republican administration — which he predicted would take office in 2025 — would tear up any resurrected nuclear deal President Biden strikes with Iran.” Axios omitted the relevant information that opposing diplomatic efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear program is a top agenda item for the Adelsons and other major GOP funders.

Jewish Insider reported that Miriam Adelson “upped her political involvement in recent months and intends to spend heavily in the forthcoming cycles” and quoted a Pence confidante conveying that the former vice president “paid his respects at Sheldon Adelson’s gravesite on the Mount of Olives.”

The Adelson-owned Israel Hayom scored an interview with Pence in Israel in which he argued that the Russian invasion of Ukraine made it “unconscionable that the American administration is at the same time negotiating at the side of the Russians to restart the Iranian nuclear deal.” The piece also  described Pence as “known to be a strong supporter of Israel.” The paper did not disclose Miriam Adelson’s role in bringing Pence to Israel or that the paper’s owner was the top funder of Trump and Pence’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns.

And Haaretz highlighted that Pence threw his lot in with Israel’s far-right, “draw[ing] public attention after touring the West Bank city of Hebron with two of Israel’s most notorious right-wing extremists, MK Itamar Ben-Gvir and far-right activist Baruch Marzel” and mentioned Pence “dined with Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson.”

All except Israel Hayom made explicit mention of Miriam Adelson’s role in the trip and her status as a Republican megadonor, but none linked her explicit, and often extreme, foreign policy vision with the courtship undertaken by Trump’s former vice president.

Miriam, for her part, has never hidden her foreign policy motivations for engaging in U.S. politics as a dual-U.S.-Israeli citizen and her contempt for Jewish Americans who increasingly reject the far-right positions taken by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and current Prime Minister Naftali Bennet.

“By rights, Trump should enjoy sweeping support among U.S. Jews, just as he does among Israelis,” wrote Adelson in a 2019 op-ed. “That this has not been the case (so far — the 2020 election still beckons) is an oddity that will long be pondered by historians. Scholars of the Bible will no doubt note the heroes, sages and prophets of antiquity who were similarly spurned by the very people they came to raise up.”

In an era in which money in politics is a core component of political news and coverage, the courtship of Miriam Adelson is a closely followed component of the political horse race, with pundits and journalists reporting on the outsized role she is likely to play in the 2022 and 2024 elections.

But unlike most reporting on money in politics that suggests a quid-pro-quo between megadonors and their recipients, the media, at least thus-far, continues to largely ignore the Adelsons’ actual influence and motivations for political engagement.

If one listens to Miriam Adelson, it’s clear what motivates her outsized political giving: pursuit of a hawkish U.S. foreign policy in lockstep with Israel’s far-right and largely in opposition to any Israeli concessions as part of a peace process with Palestinians and Republican opposition to any nuclear deal with Iran.

But news coverage of the Republican Party’s biggest donor is superficial, at best, and negligent journalism at worst.

Put another way, the “Five Ws” of journalism are “who,” what,” “when,” “where,” and “why.”

As the richest Israeli, with outspoken foreign policy views, stands ready to become the biggest standalone funder of one of the two U.S. political parties, journalists seem to be avoiding the question of “why?”

UAE’s victory over Houthis at the UN is a grave loss for Yemen

What does Abu Dhabi get out of designating their enemies ‘terrorists’? The ability to prolong the war and the suffering indefinitely.

MARCH 4, 2022

Written by

Daniel Larison

The UN Security Council passed a new Yemen resolution this week that renewed and broadened the arms embargo on the Houthis and described them as a terrorist group.

The resolution was a partial success for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which had been agitating for even stricter measures against their enemies in the war that they and the Saudis have been waging for the last seven years. It is unusual for the UN Security Council to refer to one of the parties to an ongoing conflict as terrorists. Using this language is bound to make a diplomatic solution to the war in Yemen even more difficult than it was.

The Security Council vote on Monday is a reminder of the UAE’s ongoing involvement in Yemen, the UN’s biased approach to the war, and Washington’s support for both.

The latest resolution reinforced the provisions of the outdated UNSCR 2216 that has defined the UN approach to Yemen since 2015. There has been a desperate need for the Security Council to update the terms of the resolution, but once again they were content to maintain the failed status quo. UNSCR 2216 has long been seen as an obstacle to peace in Yemen, because it gives all parties to the conflict strong incentives to continue fighting.

The Houthis are never going to accept terms that require them to give up all power and disarm before there is a political settlement, and the Saudi coalition and the Hadi government can hide behind the resolution’s unrealistic requirements to keep the war going. As Bruce Riedel concluded last year, “As long as UNSCR 2216 remains the basis for negotiations, the Houthis will refuse to engage.” 

The one-sided condemnations contained in the latest resolution compound the errors of the original. While the resolution condemns “heinous terrorist attacks” on the UAE and Saudi Arabia, there is predictably no mention of the many attacks on civilians carried out by Saudi coalition aircraft. The Houthis have engaged in attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, as the resolution says, but the Saudi coalition has been doing the same thing for the duration of the war. There is an annex to the new resolution that describes the Houthis’ crimes, but it doesn’t include any references to the thousands of civilians killed by Saudi coalition airstrikes using weapons provided by the U.S. and other Western governments.

There is unlikely to be any diplomatic progress towards ending the war when the Security Council refuses to hold Saudi coalition governments responsible for their atrocities against Yemeni civilians. The Human Rights Council’s decision last year to shut down the Group of Eminent Experts that had been investigating war crimes committed by all sides was a prelude to this week’s failure.

Broadening the arms embargo will have little effect on the Houthis’ ability to wage war, since the embargo was already applied to the entire group in practice, but it could make it more difficult to alleviate the suffering of the Yemeni people. The embargo is the Saudi coalition’s fig leaf for maintaining its killing blockade that allows them to strangle Yemen’s civilian population under the color of international authority. The people of Yemen continue to endure terrible deprivation as a result of the war and blockade. The World Food Program’s David Beasley was warning just last week that 13 million Yemenis are headed for starvation. This resolution will do nothing to help them, and it could very well make things worse. 

The language referring to the Houthis as a terrorist group is apparently not binding on member states, but it was a symbolic win for the lobbying efforts of the UAE, whose government has likewise been pressing the Biden administration to redesignate the Houthis as a foreign terrorist designation in the wake of drone and missile attacks on Abu Dhabi. There is a danger that the UAE could use the language of the new resolution to press the U.S. to designate the group and sanction them accordingly. 

The administration is still debating a full designation of the group as a foreign terrorist organization, which it had removed early on in 2021 because of the severe harm that the designation was already doing to the civilian population. As Peter Salisbury and Michael Hanna recently explained, “While it would likely do little to change the Houthis’ posture, an FTO designation would almost certainly greatly compound the humanitarian catastrophe that has been unfolding in Yemen. This is because it would make conducting any kind of business in Houthi-controlled areas, indeed across the entire country, extremely risky for international firms.” The Trump administration already ran this experiment with its last-minute designation of the group in its final days, and during the short time it was in place it was having severe effects on Yemen’s economy. 

Describing the Houthis this way caused four members on the council to abstain on the resolution. The Norwegian representative said that they were “worried about unintended humanitarian consequences of this new language and that it could negatively affect UN efforts to address large-scale humanitarian needs throughout Yemen.” Ireland’s deputy U.N. ambassador Jim Kelly took the same position: “We remain concerned that the use of this term in a Security Council resolution dealing with sanctions in Yemen may have unintended negative consequences for the millions of Yemeni people living under Houthi control.”

Russia had previously been reluctant to apply the terrorist label to the Houthis, but the UAE gained Russian support for the new language about the Houthis by abstaining on the resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. The UAE later voted against Russia on Wednesday’s General Assembly resolution “deploring” Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Despite the Biden administration’s decision to rush additional U.S. forces to the UAE to protect against further Houthi attacks, the UAE incredibly claims to have felt “abandoned” by Washington after the strikes on Abu Dhabi. Even though the invasion of Ukraine was a much more significant event that required a swift response at the UN, the UAE thinks that the much smaller attacks on their territory that came as a result of their intervention in Yemen deserved comparable treatment. The remarkable thing here is that the UAE imagines that they are in the same position in Ukraine instead of being the aggressor against Yemen that they are.

This should be a lesson to the Biden administration that the UAE, like other regional clients, will never be satisfied with any level of U.S. support and protection. No matter how many weapons the U.S. sells them and no matter how many of our own forces Washington puts in harm’s way on their behalf, these clients will always claim that they are being neglected so that they can squeeze more gifts out of the relationship. This is what comes from constantly indulging and catering to the preferences of these states.

The Biden administration would be wise to ignore the UAE’s demands to designate the Houthis, and it should realize that the UAE takes U.S. backing too much for granted. The recent deployment of jets and ships to the UAE is a misuse of limited resources, and it puts U.S. personnel at risk in support of an indefensible war. The U.S. should withdraw those forces as soon as possible and let the UAE contemplate what real abandonment might look like.

‘What We Value’
Lynn Pasquerella discusses her new book on “public health, social justice and educating for democracy.”

By Scott Jaschik
March 11, 2022


Lynn Pasquerella groups together a series of challenging subjects in her new book, What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice and Educating for Democracy (University of Virginia Press). Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, looks at public health and questions of life and death, along with issues of campus controversy and the things that higher education must do to rebuild public trust.

Pasquerella, formerly president of Mount Holyoke College and for many years a philosophy professor at the University of Rhode Island, draws on her wide experiences in higher education for this book. She responded to questions via email.

Q: You note the discomfort of many Americans with death and how we die. What, in terms of education, could help with that?

A: The reluctance on the part of many Americans—both patients and caregivers—to confront death has led to unnecessary suffering at the end of life, especially as technological advancements precede thoughtful reflection about the ethical, legal and social implications of the use of technology often designed to keep people alive at all costs. Such suffering can be reduced through enhanced communication and exercising moral courage by ensuring that patients’ wishes are respected. This requires that health-care providers receive more than a purely technical education and instead be taught to listen critically and with understanding, ask questions that will help discern the patient’s values, encourage patients and family members to tell their stories and share their worries and concerns around death and dying, and to identify their own values.

Beyond the transformation of medical education, engagement with liberal education in college classrooms and through public programming in communities can lessen anxieties and fears surrounding the end of life. When I co-taught courses on the politics of being mortal with my colleague Al Killilea [at the University of Rhode Island], he posited to our students that it is not death we fear as much as annihilation and the absurdity of a meaningless life, suggesting that it is only through a recognition and acceptance of human interdependence that meaning can be given to both death and life. Helping students find meaning and purpose while coming to understand the nature of human interdependence is at the core of a liberal education, which invites individuals to grapple with the most fundamental questions of human existence through the study of philosophy, religion, history, music and the arts.

Q: You discuss an incident in 1998 at the University of Rhode Island, where you were teaching at the time. Can you describe the incident and the lessons from it?

A: In 1998, when I was chair of the philosophy department at the University of Rhode Island, there was a series of campus protests related to allegations of racism under the guise of free speech, ultimately leading to a takeover of the administration building, Taft Hall. The protests were sparked by an incident that occurred just before the December final exam period, when the student newspaper, The Good Five Cent Cigar, ran a nationally syndicated editorial cartoon as a filler. Appearing without commentary, the cartoon depicted a Black man carrying books attempting to enter a classroom. The white professor, standing behind a podium bearing the words “UT Law School,” calls out, “If you’re the janitor, please wait until after class to empty the trash. If you’re one of our minority students, welcome!”

Two days after the appearance of the cartoon, student protestors from a Black activist group called the Brothers United for Action circulated a list of demands that included “a new campus newspaper that reflects a campus-wide commitment to ending racism, sexism, and homophobia, and promotes a vision of cultural empathy and understanding.” The managing editor of the paper responded by defending his selection and publication of the cartoon, maintaining that he “felt that the cartoon was clearly a worthwhile commentary in favor of affirmative action and minority rights.” He attributed anger over its content to confusion due to a lack of familiarity with the 1996 Hopwood v. Texas decision, in which four white students, who were rejected from the law school, successfully challenged the institution’s affirmative action policy in admissions on the grounds of equal protection—a decision many feared would lead to resegregation.

At the time, I happened to be teaching a mixed graduate-/undergraduate-level course entitled Race, Gender, and the Law, and my students were intimately acquainted with every aspect of the Hopwood case. Yet, many of them were either directly involved in the Brothers United protests or agreed with those who read the cartoon as conveying the message that students of color were neither welcome on campus nor deserving of a university education. They cited the lack of accompanying commentary and the timing of the cartoon’s publication, a full year after the circuit court’s decision, as evidence in support of their view.

The editor’s rejoinder was that “This is always a timely issue. It is not like the Texas courts did something, made a decision, and it went away: the repercussions continue.” Reacting to the concerns, the Cigar ran the cartoon again, this time with an editorial response to the protests, explaining that the intention of the satirical cartoon was to show support for affirmative action. Protestors were not satisfied, pointing to the fact that only a month earlier, a racist message had been left on the answering machine in the affirmative action office. Even more egregious, at a Midnight Madness event during the previous basketball season—a season in which a group of students chanted racial epithets at some of the Black players—a white student urinated on an African American disc jockey. In the aftermath of these actions, the decision to run the cartoon took on a different meaning, and the Student Senate Executive Committee proposed a resolution calling for a formal apology by the editors. This coincided with a freeze by the Student Senate on funds allocated to the paper, pending an investigation into their finances.

While the Senate leaders disavowed any connection between the funding freeze and the protests, the newspaper staff regarded the actions as not only retributive, but also as a violation of their First Amendment rights. Their adviser, a journalism professor, joined faculty from philosophy, sociology and politics in facilitating open forums centered on the questions of who gets to decide what constitutes racial offense and the circumstances, if any, whereby offense can serve as a legitimate liberty-limiting principle within the context of college campuses committed to the free exchange of ideas and to safeguarding the equality of educational opportunity.

I learned that taking direct aim at educational disparities and patterns of systemic disadvantage—especially those resulting from historical and contemporary effects of racism—and making equity a pervading focus of educational reform and innovation requires moving beyond the goals of access and compositional diversity to design and deliver experiences that support the success of all students. This, in turn, requires making colleges and universities places of welcome and belonging.

Several of the leaders of the 1998 student protests at URI are still in touch with me, and I have been struck by how many of them cite their protest experience as preparing them for leadership in their communities, in life and in their professions. As we look ahead, knowing that there will continue to be demonstrations, demands and debates, we should seek opportunities to encourage and guide our students in their activism, connecting the curriculum and co-curriculum through community-based learning and other high-impact practices.

Q: You note that, more recently, many colleges in 2020 made changes in response to Black students. While I know you support those changes, did colleges really help Black students?

A: The summer of 2020 constituted a moment of racial reckoning in the U.S., with many campus leaders engaging in dialogue across stakeholders. While these short-term tactics responded to an immediate crisis, they did little to help Black students in the absence of long-term initiatives aimed at strategic hiring and curriculum reform, as well as the broad interrogation of institutional practices and policies to identify and counter inequities. Campuses must be willing to engage in truth-telling conversations about the existence and persistence of inequities and affirm that equity goals need to be embedded within the strategic priorities of the institution, to acknowledge that racialized practices marginalizing students of color must be confronted directly, and to admit that preparation to address structural and systemic racism must be a core component of a liberal education.

Q: You discuss how liberal education should help us overcome our differences. How can it do that? What if one side of those debates doesn’t embrace liberal education?

A: Liberal education instills the habits of heart and mind that encourage individuals to consider the possibility that some of their most fundamentally held beliefs might actually be mistaken. It also engenders a sense of moral and sympathetic imagination as the foundations for empathy and tolerance. These capacities are more critical than ever in the face of a burgeoning economic and racial segregation, isolation and despair resulting from the worst global pandemic in more than a century, increasing polarization and partisanship, and rising authoritarianism. I cite Tony Carnevale’s research on liberal education and authoritarianism, which indicates that liberal education reduces individuals’ sensitivities to potential triggers by providing psychological protection in the form of self-esteem, personal security and autonomy, while fostering a level of interpersonal trust associated with lower inclinations toward expressing authoritarian attitudes and preferences. Exposure of liberal arts majors to diverse contexts, histories, ideas, lifestyles, religions, ways of life and cultures diminishes the likelihood that differing worldviews will trigger authoritarian responses and increases the chances of their being countered with evidence.

The fact that not everyone embraces liberal education means that we need to learn to speak across differences and find common ground by having colleges and universities serve as anchor institutions, illustrating that their success is inextricably linked to the psychological, social, educational and economic well-being of those in the communities in which they are located and those they seek to serve.

Q: You discuss how higher education is no longer seen (unfortunately) as a force for the public good. What can be done to change that?

A: To restore public trust in higher education and destabilize the cultural attitudes at the basis of proposals that both devalue liberal education and those who have rejected it, we need to reframe the narrative, highlighting the fact that in the global knowledge economy, employer demand for graduates with a liberal education is growing. At the same time, those of us in the academy need to take seriously the underlying concerns of our most ardent critics—that higher education is too expensive, too difficult to access and doesn’t teach people 21st-century skills.

This will require getting outside our own language game, drawing attention to the humanistic practices and endeavors people engage in daily, and demonstrating at the local level why our work matters to individual thriving in work, citizenship and life, and to the strength of our democracy.