Gun manufacturers quietly target young boys using social media
Jon Skolnik, Salon
September 18, 2021

Toddler with gun [Shutterstock.com]

When Nikolas Cruz, a then-19-year-old from Parkland, Florida, stormed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 with a semi-automatic rifle, gunning down fourteen students and three staff in roughly six minutes, those unfamiliar with Cruz's personal history felt like the tragedy came out of nowhere. Cruz, like so many mass shooters, had exhibited all of the signs of someone to watch out for long before. Prosecutors found that Cruz had a well-documented affinity for guns and violence. He started playing violent video games as a middle school student, and sought to be a U.S. Army ranger, allegedly telling a family friend that he "wanted to join the military to kill people." Cruz was described by friends and family as being a highly impulsive teen prone to emotional outbursts often ending in violence. He was also known as an avid user of social media – particularly Instagram – which for years provided him a platform to boast about his gun collection as well as his proclivity for animal cruelty.

In February of 2017, just three days after withdrawing from Stoneman Douglas High, Cruz purchased a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 – an AR-15 style semi-automatic assault rifle that bears similarities the the military's M-16. Somehow, he'd passed a background check that included a mental health component, despite being referenced in at least 45 calls to law enforcement spanning back to 2008. A year later, shortly after the FBI was anonymously warned about his potential to carry out an act of mass violence, Cruz brought his rifle to Stoneman Douglas High and executed the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.

Gun reform advocates have worked to understand why an adolescent like Cruz – who had a long history of behavioral issues – was able to legally obtain such a lethal weapon. Companies like Smith & Wesson market their firearms to young men – a demographic that represents a disproportionate amount of mass shooters. So Everytown for Gun Safety and Brady – arguably the two foremost gun control groups in America – renewed their request for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the marketing practices of Smith & Wesson. Their plea, which stems from a complaint jointly filed to the FTC last year, airs out a litany of ways in which the gun giant allegedly attempts to connect with younger audiences, often pushing the envelope of consumer protection law or at times even flouting it altogether.

"It doesn't take a marketing expert to understand what they're trying to appeal to," Kris Brown, President of Brady, said of Smith & Wesson's marketing practices in an interview with Salon. "They're trying to market the gun as a totem – a substitute for masculinity to teenagers."

One of the ways that Smith & Wesson imbues its firearms with a sense of machismo, Brown said, is by creating a sense that its products are in some way affiliated with the U.S. military and law enforcement. Indeed, the company has regularly used such imagery on its website and Instagram, sporting pictures of camo-clad military soldiers as well as police officers serving in the line of duty. Smith & Wesson even offers its own line of firearms called "M&P" specifically devoted to military and police use. (As it so happens, an M&P gun was also used in the Parkland shooting.)


But by and large, the company sells its products to regular consumers, who have no military or police affiliation. In fact, according to a Freedom of Information Act request issued by Everytown and Brady, Smith & Wesson has secured just one small contract with the military over the last decade – a 250-unit supply of revolvers sent to Thailand back in 2012.

Despite this, Smith & Wesson has repeatedly emphasized the need to impart a "halo effect" around its products by associating them with military and law enforcement. In fact, Smith & Wesson went so far as to cite the effect as one of its key "growth drivers," per an investor presentation from 2012, and continued to do so in subsequent presentations. Asked about the effect during a 2016 earnings call with investors, the company's CEO said: "It certainly gives your product a lot of credibility if it is used, adopted and well-regarded by that professional community because the consumer does pay attention to that."

Apart from its potential to mislead buyers, the company's halo effect is especially concerning because it's "attractive to a certain subset of young men who are fixated on law enforcement and military," Alla Lefkowitz, Director of Affirmative Litigation at Everytown and a signatory of the group's complaint, said in an interview.

"You find examples of that in someone like the Parkland [school] shooter, someone like the Kenosha [unrest] shooter, someone like the Poway [synagogue] shooter," told Salon. And when it comes to consumer protection law, she said, "we see that as a real problem…because it doesn't appear to be true that Smith & Wesson's M&P line assault rifles are used by the military."

The gun lobby's alleged effort to foist guns onto young men and adolescents is not a novel phenomenon. For decades, gun manufacturers have sought to sustainably capture the interest of younger buyers, using new methods of marketing and merchandising to give their products a more youthful appeal.

The Violence Policy Center (VPC) detailed this strategy in a comprehensive report from 2017. It notes, for example, how the gun lobby mass-produces light-weight "tactical" rifles designed for shooters with smaller frames, often colored-coded with respect to gender. VPC specifically found that Smith & Wesson at one point offered its M&P 15 – the same gun used by Cruz – in "Pink Platinum, Purple Platinum, and Harvest Moon Orange."

In the past, some gun producers, like Thompson/Center, have been staggeringly candid about their bid to appeal to younger consumers. For instance, in a review of Thompson/Center's child-friendly gun "Hotshot," the company's director of marketing quoted back in 2014: "We're targeting the six- to 12-year-old range and feel that with the inclusion of the one-inch spacer in the box, there will be a longer period that the child can use the rifle, potentially out to 15 years old."

Meanwhile, youth-centered trade publications, like NRA Family or Junior Shooters, heavily feature guns tailored for kids and adolescents, often framing them as family-oriented purchases that preserve American values, like freedom.

"Each person who is introduced to the shooting sports and has a positive experience is another vote in favor of keeping our American heritage and freedom alive," wrote Andry Frink, editor of Junior Shooters, in a 2012 editorial. "They may not be old enough to vote now, but they will be in the future. And think about how many lives they will come in contact with that they can impact! Each of us affects others, and it is up to us how we make an impact on the future."

While federal law prohibits anyone under eighteen years old from owning a handgun, it's fair to say that the gun lobby has, for better or worse, deeply embedded itself into parts of American youth culture. According to a 2015 survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, about 72 percent of gun owners started hunting between the ages of six and fifteen. About 1 in every 18 high school students go to school armed with a gun, the American Academy of Pediatrics found in 2019.

The Washington Post observed that many states throughout the south and midwest have no age restriction on long guns (rifles and shotguns) to begin with. Given the wide swathe of literature that correlates gun ownership with household deaths and injuries, we should be especially concerned about more guns getting into the hands of kids and adolescents, Josh Sugarmann, Director of VPC, told Salon.

"We know from decades of research that bringing a gun into a home increases the risk of homicide, suicide and unintentional injury. That's just a fact," Sugarmann stated in an interview. "And the answer to that is 'let's introduce children to it as early as possible?' We don't apply that same standard to things like alcohol."

Over the past several decades, gun manufacturers have largely marketed toward younger audiences through traditional modes of print advertising, like magazines and catalogues. But more recently, they've drastically narrowed their focus on one channel in particular: social media.

This largely appears to be the case with Smith & Wesson, which now heavily relies on its Instagram page in particular to promote its products. While Smith & Wesson engages in many of the tactics discussed above – that is, posting pictures of teens shooting guns and drawing dubious associations between its products and the military – Smith & Wesson also apparently employs its own "influencers" and "sponsored shooters" to connect more intimately with younger audiences.

The phenomenon, Everytown's complaint alleges, is especially controversial because these personalities routinely fail to disclose their financial linkages to Smith & Wesson, despite promoting the company's products. The result, Brown told Salon, is that the company's influencers are able to pass off their paid promotions as authentic opinions – and in the process, avoid a relationship with youngsters feels "transactional."

"If someone tells you, 'Hey, I'm being paid to do this,' it changes [the relationship] from an individual connection to 'I'm dealing with a sales person,'" Brown told Salon. "But that's not how the law is supposed to work. That's not how disclosure is supposed to work. There are people selling things every single day who are influencers. And typically, the way it's supposed to work is: a disclaimer…and a statement."

Smith & Wesson's apparent brand ambassadors include shooting instructor Ava Flanell, trick shot artist David Nash, digital marketer Nikki Boxler, former chief of police Ken Scott, as well as professional competition shooters Jerry Miculek and Julie Golob – all of whom respectively have thousands of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube followers. These influencers often use subtle ways of disclosing their relationship to Smith & Wesson, like naming the company hidden hashtags or putting it in "More" or "About Me" sections. However, according to the FTC Endorsement Guidelines, such admissions are a far cry from the gold standard, which demands recurring disclosures throughout each new post with simple and clear language. Salon reached out to the aforementioned influencers, but none responded to requests for a comment. Smith & Wesson also failed to respond to Salon's inquiries. Asked whether Instagram had any responsibility to moderate poorly-disclosed endorsements of firearms, a Facebook spokesperson told Salon: "Branded content that promotes weapons are not allowed on Instagram and we remove posts that we find to be violating."

While the apparent lack of disclosure by the named influencers is legally questionable, it's also concerning with regards to Instagram's user demographics, Brown said. According to Statista, nearly 30% of Instagram's users fall into the 18-24 age range. A 2017 AP-NORC survey found that 73% of American teens use Instagram, with 66% on Facebook.

"Adolescents are more susceptible to advertising and especially advertising that endorses or simulates risky behavior, right?" Lefkowitz said. "And that's why alcohol companies, cigarette companies, and car companies have to be careful about the way that they market it."

Sugarmann suggested that it's only a matter of time before the gun lobby is held to account for its adolescent marketing efforts.

"The industry has just sort of been operating under the radar for a very long time on this front," he said. "And it's…an area that deserves very close scrutiny."

#AUKUS

Australia resisted using nuclear power for decades. Here's why the AUKUS deal is making people there angry

By Isabelle Jani-Friend, CNN 

The US and UK will be sharing technology and expertise with Australia to help it build nuclear-powered submarines as part of a newly-announced defense pact between the three countries. The move has sparked fury in France, which has lost a long-standing agreement to supply Australia with diesel-powered subs.

© Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto/Getty Images October 1, 2018 - Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States - The USS Indiana, a nuclear powered United States Navy Virginia-class fast attack submarine, is escorted as it departs Port Canaveral in Florida on October 1, 2018, on its maiden voyage as a commissioned submarine. The nearly 380-foot-long USS Indiana was commissioned in a ceremony at Port Canaveral on September 29, 2018, and is the Navy's 16th Virginia-Class fast attack submarine. (Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

But it's not only the French who are furious. Anti-nuclear groups in Australia, and many citizens, are expressing anger over the deal, worried it may be a Trojan Horse for a nuclear power industry, which the nation has resisted for decades.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke personally to her Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, to tell him the vessels would not be welcome in the waters of her country, which has been a no-nuclear zone since 1984.

Six countries -- the UK, US, China, Russia, India and France -- already have nuclear-powered subs in their fleet, and many major developed economies, including the US and UK, use nuclear in their energy mix. In France, 70% of the country's electricity is nuclear.

So what's all the fuss about? Here's why some Australians are bothered by this deal.

How is nuclear power made?

Nuclear power is the world's second-largest contributor of low-carbon electricity after hydropower, according to the International Energy Agency. It accounts for around 10 percent of the world's electricity, generated by just over 440 power reactors.

The power comes from a process known as nuclear fission, which involves the splitting of uranium atoms in a reactor that heats water to produce steam. This steam is used to spin turbines, which in turn produce electricity.

Uranium is a heavy metal found in rocks and seabeds, and it's a powerful element. One pellet of enriched uranium -- about the size of an eraser on the end of pencil -- contains the same energy as a ton of coal or three barrels of oil, according to GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.

While the process itself generates no emissions, greenhouse gases are generally emitted during the mining of uranium, and the enrichment process can be carbon intensive.


Is nuclear renewable?

The simple answer is "no." The energy produced by nuclear power plants is in itself renewable, and the steam produced in nuclear reactors can be recycled and turned back into water to be used again in the nuclear fission process.

© LENNART PREISS/AFP/Getty Images A nuclear power plant in Gundremmingen, Germany on February 26, 2021. Germany is reducing its use of nuclear power, while New Zealand still bans it entirely.

The materials used in its production, however, are not renewable -- the metal is technically finite. But there is an argument that it can be used sustainably; the uranium resources across the world are so large that energy experts don't foresee it running out.

Many groups that oppose nuclear power, however, do so because of the environmental destruction caused by uranium mining.

Governments in many parts of the world are relying on nuclear energy to help decarbonize their economies. It is widely regarded as an efficient way of producing electricity, and depending on the energy used to mine and enrich the uranium, it could potentially be a zero-emissions power source.

Beyond its low-carbon credentials, nuclear power is considered to have the highest capacity factor of any energy source, which means nuclear plants run at maximum power for more of the time than other types. In the US, they run at high capacity 92.5 percent of the time, government data shows. For coal, it's around 40 percent, and wind is around 35 percent.

Nuclear power can prevent millions of tons of emissions from entering the atmosphere each year, compared to fossil fuels.

Sounds great. So why are so many Australians against it?

It's not just Australia. Several countries have put the brakes on further development of the nuclear power industry since the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant lost power in an earthquake and tsunami, which meant the cooling systems failed, leading to nuclear meltdowns and hydrogen explosions, sending harmful radiation into the atmosphere. Parts of the city remain off limits.

It was the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, when a test that went wrong triggered an explosion and fire, releasing devastating amounts of radioactive material into the air. Thirty-one people were killed in the accident itself, while many more died from the effects of radiation exposure in the following years, with some estimates in the tens of thousands.

But Australia's anti-nuclear movement goes further back than that, to a strong protest movement in the 1970s. This emerged largely because of concerns around the environmental impacts of mining uranium -- which Australia has huge reserves of -- but also due to worries around risks to public health, particularly among communities living near proposed facilities.

There are also concerns around how to safely store nuclear waste. Explosions or leaks of stored waste can impact human health too, though such disasters are far less common than they once were.

In 1977, the Movement Against Uranium Mining in Australia collected 250,000 signatures for a moratorium on extracting the metal, even though nuclear power wasn't being used in the country. But Australia still mines the metal today and exports it to generate nuclear power in other parts of the world.

There is growing political pressure in Australia coming from leaders of the Liberals -- which is Australia's conservative party -- to start using nuclear power. Without it, some argue, reaching net zero by 2030 will be impossible. It has resisted nuclear largely because it has had plentiful coal and gas reserves, but Australia is under pressure to wind down its use of fossil fuels.

When announcing the new deal, Morrison said Australia was not seeking to develop "civil nuclear capability," which would include nuclear power plants. But Greens Party leader Adam Bandt criticized the agreement in a tweet as putting "floating Chernobyls in the heart of Australia's cities," saying it "makes Australia less safe."

Bob Brown, a former Greens leader who campaigned against nuclear warships coming into Tasmania in the 1980s, told the Australian Financial Review on Thursday the deal put the country closer to developing a nuclear energy industry and warned of a backlash.

"I think it's very cowardly what the government's done," Brown said. "It's made a decision without reference to the public, knowing the public would oppose it."

And what's New Zealand's stance?

New Zealand is one of the few developed countries that does not have any nuclear reactors whatsoever. It also has a zero-nuclear zone which prevents nuclear weapons or nuclear ships from entering into its territory.

In September 1978, the New Zealand government released a Royal Commission of inquiry into nuclear power, and a decision was made for the country to use its own resources to produce electricity, rather than implementing nuclear plants.

Hydroelectric energy -- which harnesses energy from the movement of water -- now provides 80 percent of the country's power, and investing in nuclear plants is still not considered to be cost effective. The initial cost of building nuclear power facilities is extremely high, according to the World Nuclear Association.

However, the main reason for New Zealand's opposition to nuclear power is -- as in Australia -- public opinion and concerns around safety and the disposal of nuclear waste.

New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance applies to nuclear power, nuclear-powered vessels, and nuclear weapons.



A grass fire burns at a uranium mine near Mt Brockman in the Kakadu National Park, Australia on September 1, 2004.

Kristi Noem won't mandate masks in South Dakota schools — but she wants to make students pray

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
September 17, 2021

Gage Skidmore.

South Dakota's Republican Governor Kristi Noem refuses to mandate masks for schoolchildren and teachers but she's trying to make students pray in public. Gov. Noem, who is widely expected to run for president in 2024, has let the coronavirus run rampant in her state of just 886,667 people – a population so small New York City is ten times larger. And yet coronavirus is running rampant in South Dakota, which ranks number eight in the nation for coronavirus cases per capita.

Governor Noem just made clear she does not see herself as a government or political leader, but as a religious one. Speaking to Real America's Voice personality David Brody, Noem declared she will bring back prayer in schools (even though voluntary prayer has always been legal) and thinks political leaders are supposed to "minister" to their constituents.

Complaining that the actions other government leaders are taking "are not biblical," Noem says they are supposed to "line up with God," which is false.

"I think that it's really time for all of us to look at the actions of our leaders and see if they line up with the word of God," Noem said, "see if they're biblical and if they really are following through on those actions that God's called us to do to protect people, to serve people, and to really minister to them."

Protecting, serving, and ministering – but not in the fight against the deadly pandemic.

"We've seen our society, our culture, degrade, as we've removed God out of our lives, and people become what they spend their time doing," Noem declared. "When I was growing up, we spent every Sunday morning, every night, every Wednesday night in church, we were our church, family was a part of our life, we read the Bible every day as a family together, and spent time with each other, recognizing that we were created to serve others."



Again, Noem makes clear she does not believe serving and protecting others has anything to do with COVID-19.

"I don't know families do that as much anymore and those biblical values are learned, in the family, And they're learned in church when the doors are open so people can be there and be taught."

"We in South Dakota, have decided to take action to really stand for biblical principles. We had a bill that was passed during legislative session two years ago that put the the motto 'In God We Trust' in every single school building it is displayed. Now it is displayed in every K-12 school building in the state of South Dakota.

"I have legislation that we'll be proposing this year that will allow us to pray in schools, again, I really believe that focusing on those foundational biblical principles that teach us that every life has value every person has a purpose will recenter our kids and help us really heal this division that we see taking over our country."

MSNBC's Steve Benen notes, "given that the United States is a democracy, and not a theocracy, officials' actions are supposed to line up with the Constitution and the rule of law, not how some people interpret scripture."

"What the governor seemed to be suggesting, however, isn't a system in which students pray on their own," he adds, "but one in which school officials intervene in children's religious lives. In the United States, that's not legal: As my friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State recently explained, 'The South Dakota Supreme Court struck down mandatory recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the state's public schools in 1929. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated school-sponsored prayer and Bible reading in public schools in 1962 and '63.'"

PROPERTY IS THEFT HOUSING IS A RIGHT

Jared Kushner's family firm set to unleash eviction wave amid pandemic

Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
September 18, 2021

Jared Kushner (Nicholas Kamm : AFP)

Properties owned by former White House adviser Jared Kushner's family company have filed at least 590 eviction lawsuits since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and more than 200 in 2021 alone, putting "countless tenants" at risk of losing their homes in parts of the U.S. where Covid-19 transmission levels remain dangerously high.

"With eviction protections gone, corporate landlords like Kushner are relishing the soonest opportunity to evict the vulnerable."

That's according to a detailed analysis conducted by the government watchdog group Accountable.US, which examined public eviction filings submitted largely by properties under the control of Westminster Management, a subsidiary of Kushner Companies. In his 2020 financial disclosure, Kushner—former President Donald Trump's son-in-law—reported $1.65 million in income from Westminster Management, the only item listed in the "Employment Assets & Income" section of the filing.

In a report (pdf) provided exclusively to Common Dreams, Accountable.US compiled the publicly available eviction suits submitted by Westminster properties, including 2021 filings that have not been previously reported. The group emphasized that its list of filings is likely incomplete, given that many lawsuits may not yet be available to view online.

The analysis comes less than a month after the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court struck down a nationwide moratorium that protected millions of people from eviction for non-payment of rent—a decision that housing advocates warned could spark a devastating wave of evictions and worsen the pandemic.

"Jared Kushner is the poster child for ultra-rich landlords clamoring to boost their bottom line by kicking families to the curb, even if it comes at the expense of public health," Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, told Common Dreams. "By siding with big rental companies, the Supreme Court veered even further to the right and welcomed a homelessness crisis that will fan the flames of the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic."

"With eviction protections gone," Herrig added, "corporate landlords like Kushner are relishing the soonest opportunity to evict the vulnerable, but it's still a choice: is it worth making themselves a little bit richer in the short term while making communities where their tenants reside far less healthy? We hope they put people before profits."

According to Accountable's report, Westminster properties and other companies in which Kushner holds investments have filed at least 96 eviction-related lawsuits in New Jersey since the pandemic began, and more than 40 this year alone. All of the New Jersey filings "were in counties that appeared to be covered by the extended CDC moratorium as of August 26, 2021," the group found.

The same was true of Westminster-owned properties in Maryland and Virginia, Accountable.US noted.

The Washington Post reported last November that throughout the pandemic, "Westminster has been sending letters to [Maryland] tenants threatening legal fees and then filing eviction notices in court―a first legal step toward removing tenants."

"Those notices are now piling up in local courthouses as part of a national backlog of tens of thousands of cases... as eviction bans expire and courts resume processing cases," the Post noted at the time. "Those facing eviction proceedings once courts begin hearing cases again include a nurse who struggled financially during the pandemic, healthcare administrators, and a single mother who is currently unemployed."

The Supreme Court's ruling against the CDC eviction moratorium on August 26 removed the last line of defense for many at-risk tenants who have struggled to pay rent amid the pandemic-induced economic downturn. A dashboard produced by the National Equity Atlas and Right to the City shows that more than 5.8 million households are currently behind on rent, holding a combined total of $15 billion in rental debt.

"Given the logjam in the distribution of rent relief, there's diminishing hope that aid will reach renters' doorsteps before eviction notices will."

Kushner Companies is hardly the only corporate firm rushing to evict tenants who have been stuck waiting for federal rental assistance that's been infuriatingly slow to arrive. According to the latest data from Princeton University's Eviction Lab, landlords across six U.S. states and 31 cities have filed for 510,453 evictions since mid-March of 2020.

As Bloomberg recently reported, "owners of large apartment complexes have filed the lion's share of evictions against tenants" throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated the nation's preexisting housing crises.

"Across a dozen cities and counties where data are accessible, evictions at just a small number of apartment buildings contributed between one-fifth and one-half of all pandemic eviction filings," Bloomberg noted, citing figures from the Eviction Lab. "If the evictions to come in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision follow the same course as the evictions that persisted while the moratorium was still in place, then they will disproportionately fall on Black and immigrant families living in class-B or class-C apartment complexes owned by large landlords."

Following the Supreme Court's decision to scrap the CDC eviction moratorium—which corporate landlords sued over and lobbied hard against—members of Congress faced growing pressure to enshrine emergency tenant protections into federal law. Hours after the Supreme Court's ruling, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and dozens of other House Democrats sent a letter imploring their party's leadership to "act with the highest levels of urgency to advance a permanent legislative solution... to extend the life-saving federal eviction moratorium for the duration of the deadly global health crisis."

Weeks later, Congress has yet to act. Earlier this week, Bush introduced legislation to expand access to rental aid during the pandemic, but it's not clear when—or even if—the bill will get a vote in the House.

"So how are renters expected to stay afloat amid a nationwide housing shortage and crumbling federal protections from evictions?" Sabiha Zainulbhai, senior policy analyst at New America's Future of Land and Housing program, asked in a CNN op-ed on Tuesday. "Unfortunately, the answer is not clear."

"Given the logjam in the distribution of rent relief, there's diminishing hope that aid will reach renters' doorsteps before eviction notices will," Zainulbhai wrote. "Despite federal guidance, the distribution of this aid has been too slow and ineffective to meet the scale and the pace of the need. Meanwhile, the Delta variant is still a threat, hiring has slowed to its lowest rate since January, and to top it all off, pandemic unemployment benefits have expired. The outlook for renters is not good."

ANTI RAPE

Protests at University of Kansas signal a major culture shift

Miranda Davis, Kansas Reflector
September 18, 2021

Protestors on Monday crowd the front lawn of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Kansas. Protests took place on Sept. 13 and 14 following an alleged sexual assault by an alleged new undergraduate member of the fraternity. 

(Lily Becker for Kansas Reflector)

LAWRENCE — For two nights this week, hundreds of outraged students showed up at a University of Kansas fraternity house, demanding answers.

With signs reading “no mercy for rapists" and “hold frats accountable," the students crowded the fraternity's lawn and chanted from its steps, protesting an alleged sexual assault at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on Sept. 11.

Their message was clear: The fraternity must be removed from campus and such behavior no longer tolerated.

The scene, filled with palpable anger and frustration, demonstrated a shift in how students think about and respond to sexual violence that organizers say was a long time in the making. For many students, that meant zero tolerance for the accused or his fraternity brothers, or anyone else on campus who commits sexual assault.

“If this doesn't make you leave (the fraternity), then you're standing with him," said Gretchen, a 21-year-old student who asked to be identified only by her first name because of the sensitive nature of the protests.

Organizers and experts said many long-simmering issues, such as institutional distrust of universities and Greek life, the growing power of the Me Too Movement, and social movements like Black Lives Matter, have created a new generation of activists who feel a need to protest and have a framework for doing so effectively. Despite steps KU has taken in recent years to update its sexual assault policies, these students want more transparency and accountability from the university.

The university says it is investigating the alleged assault and the fraternity has been cooperative.

If you have experienced sexual assault and need assistance, contact the Kansas Crisis Hotline at 888-END-ABUSE or visit the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence at www.kcsdv.org.

'High-risk situation'

For Grace Reading, a recent graduate from Kansas City, Missouri, the protests were a welcome change.

Reading is a part of Strip Your Letters, a leaderless organization that calls out systemic issues such as sexual violence, racism and homophobia in KU's Greek Life. Strip Your Letters heard about the protest through a flyer circulating on social media and broadcast it from its Instagram account, which was one of the ways it went viral on campus.

Reading said the protest was organized by anonymous students close to the survivor, who are staying under the radar to protect the survivor's identity. Strip Your Letters has been working with those organizers to amplify events and messages.

Reading said the lack of information about this incident allows more students to relate to the woman's story. Additionally, she said, no one is seeking out details like what she was wearing or how much she had to drink, which are common ways assault survivors have been discredited in the past.

Reading was in a sorority at KU, and she said the way the system is designed creates power imbalances that make it more likely that women in Greek Life will be assaulted. She said there's a gap between assaults reported through formal channels and make it to KU's Clery Reports, versus the lived experience of sorority women.

“If you go into these sorority houses and talk to them, a lot of them will say, 'I don't know anyone who hasn't experienced it.' … These women know that they're in this high-risk situation," she said.

Social unrest leads to change

Laura Palumbo, communications director for National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said the situation at KU echoes national trends in how college students think about sexual violence. Protests and outrage about how colleges handle on-campus sexual assault is nothing new, and it's also not a problem exclusive to KU.

Palumbo said a similar case at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where a 17-year-old University of Nebraska-Lincoln student reported being sexually assaulted at Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, has galvanized other protests.

Both Palumbo and Reading said the Me Too Movement and the Black Lives Matter protests have contributed to a culture where students understand more about protesting and social unrest. Seeing protests from other social justice causes and knowing there's a more accepting environment for these grievances has given protesters a framework.

Reading specifically cited Black women leadership on campus, and KU student body president Niya McAdoo, for pushing for a more equitable campus culture.

McAdoo said inaction by KU administration is part of the reason the protests resonated with so many students. She would like to see the fraternity suspended until the investigation is complete.

“At the end of the day, (the administration) is here to serve students, and students are showing up and protesting and saying this is not OK," she said.

Palumbo said more students are noticing the power structures within Greek Life that allow increased rates of sexual assault. Since fraternities host parties and are allowed to have alcohol, there is a power imbalance that leaves fraternity men in control, she said. Because of fraternities' outsized influence on campuses, it can leave students with the impression they won't face consequences.

Fraternity housing is not owned or controlled by KU, according to the Interfraternity Council. Because the fraternities are affiliated with the university, any crimes that happen at fraternities are reported through the KU Clery Report. a report on campus crimes required by federal law.

“These protests are a way of students holding their peers accountable because they believe that the institution is failing to do so," she said.

History and changes

The University of Kansas has a recent public history with how it handles sexual violence.


Public scrutiny of how KU handles punishments for sexual assault offenders started in 2014, when the Huffington Post published an article detailing one student's complaints about the university's process. In that case, the accused student allegedly admitted to the sexual assault but was not punished harshly. The article said administrators decided not to require the accused student to do community service because it was “too punitive." Another student survivor spoke out about her disappointment with how the university handed her case.

Since that time, the university has faced two Title IX lawsuits filed by two rowers who said the university retaliated after they were sexually assaulted by a football player and reported it. Both lawsuits were settled in 2017 for nearly $400,000. Title IX is the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education.

The University of Kansas was unable to make administrators available for an interview to discuss how both policies and culture at the institution have changed since the initial wave of Title IX lawsuits hit the school in 2014 and 2015.

KU created a task force on sexual assault and is in the process of implementing various reforms. The university also created the Sexual Assault Prevention and Education Center, and has annual mandatory sexual harassment training for all students. KU revised definitions of sexual harassment and sexual assault to bring them in line with Title IX regulations.

The university does not discuss any individual sexual assault cases, said Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, KU's director for news and media relations. She wouldn't say whether there were any other ongoing investigations of sexual assault at other fraternities on campus. In statements earlier this week, both Chancellor Doug Girod and the Lawrence Police Department acknowledged the alleged assault but didn't give details.

KU tries to finish formal sexual assault investigations within 60 days, but it can take months to make a determination and then additional time for administrators to hand down a punishment if the allegation is found credible. Because of that, it will likely be months before this case has any sort of resolution.

What's next

Students at the protest and involved with the affiliated Instagram accounts want to see a full criminal investigation, arrest and conviction in the Phi Kappa Psi case. They also called for KU to remove the fraternity from campus. Reading wants to see the survivor get the healing and support she needs.

On an institutional level, she and Strip Your Letters want to see improved policies at KU, and for KU's Panhellenic organization, which oversees many sororities on campus, disaffiliate and denounce KU's Interfraternity Council. That would limit exposure of sorority members to date parties, philanthropies and events until sexual violence is taken seriously.

Palumbo said, across universities, these protests won't disappear. That's partly because the private investigation processes can lead to increased student action, because they see a need to hold other students accountable if they feel their university isn't doing so.

“Students' perception really plays into culture, and whether students have any trust in the system," she said. “In the absence of information and transparency, it can seem like action is not being taken — and that can contribute to the impression that there is not an effective response."

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

'Fakeout'? As lawmakers demand answers on Afghanistan, SecDef Austin shifts focus to Havana Syndrome

Austin's note comes at a time when he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are under scrutiny over numerous recent events that they personally have been involved in.


By Susan Katz Keating
Updated: September 16, 2021 - 11:05pm

As lawmakers demand answers from the two top Pentagon leaders on issues ranging from the botched U.S. exit from Afghanistan to surreptitious direct contact with an adversary, U.S. defense chief Lloyd Austin shifted focus toward what one insider terms a "convenient fakeout."

Austin on Wednesday sent a memo to all Department of Defense personnel, advising them to be on the lookout for Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI), otherwise known as Havana Syndrome.

A 2020 report by the National Academies of Science found "directed, pulsed, radiofrequency energy" was the most plausible explanation for the symptoms, which first were reported by American government personnel stationed in Havana, Cuba.

Although some 200 American officials have reported since 2016 that they were hit with the syndrome, Austin's note comes at a time when he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are under scrutiny over numerous recent events that they personally have been involved in.

"It's interesting that Austin chooses this moment to sound the alarm on Havana Syndrome, which he's known about for a long time," one senior defense official told Just the News. "It's like a convenient fakeout."

The memo from Austin outlines the history and symptoms of AHI, and explains how to report it.

"Over the course of the last several years, and predominantly overseas, some DoD personnel have reported a series of sudden and troubling sensory events such as sounds, pressure, or heat concurrently or immediately preceding the sudden onset of symptoms such as headaches, pain, nausea, or disequilibrium (unsteadiness or vertigo)," Austin wrote.

The defense chief pledged to find the source of the syndrome, and to make sure its victims receive quick medical care.

"Timely reporting is essential and starts with you knowing what to do if you experience AHI," Austin wrote. "If you believe you have experienced a sensory event with the new onset of such symptoms, immediately remove yourself, coworkers, and/or family members from the area and report the incident and symptoms to your chain of command, security officer, and medical provider."

Shortly before the memo was published on Wednesday, Austin was placed on notice that lawmakers want to talk to him about Afghanistan. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez noted on Tuesday that even though Austin declined a request to testify before the Senate regarding Afghanistan, he could be compelled to appear.

Menendez disparaged the Biden administration's Afghanistan withdrawal plan, and called out Austin for refusing to appear on Sept. 14 for questions under oath.

"I'm very disappointed that Secretary Austin declined our request to testify today," Menendez said at the hearing. "I expect the secretary will avail himself to the committee in the near future. And if he does not, I may consider the use of committee subpoena power to compel him."


Intense scrutiny also is being directed at Milley, who drew ire when controverisal actions were revealed in a forthcoming book.

Milley's alleged actions include secretly calling the top military officer in Beijing, and holding a clandestine gathering of American military officers to demand that they only obey command orders that came through Milley, according to the authors of a forthcoming book.

The actions are described in "Peril," by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. Milley took the unprecedented actions because he was afraid Trump might launch a nuclear strike, the authors wrote.

Milley in a statement confirmed that the anecdotes in the book are true, but couched them as normal procedure, further inflaming those who described his actions as dangerous.

Critics including Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) have excoriated Milley for contacting the Chinese military chief.

"We could have a nuclear war over a mistake because the general is going outside the line of command to insinuate something that nobody believes to be true, but actually could have started a war," Paul told the John Solomon Reports podcast. "So really, instead of actually calming tensions, he could have actually started an accidental war."

Others have called for Milley to resign or be sent before a court martial.

Critics so far have not asked for punitive measures to be used against Austin. The memo regarding Havana Syndrome may be part of an attempt by Austin to distance himself from controversy, the defense official said.

"He is sending the message that he is doing his job," the official said.

In an appeal to personnel, Austin wrote: "Your help and vigilance will help our efforts to fully understand the nature of these incidents. For our part, rest assured we will continue to provide updates on AHi through internal DoD information channels."

Austin retired from the Army in 2016, after having served as the chief of U.S. Central Command. He was awarded a Silver Star for 2003 actions ​​during the Battle for Baghdad, Iraq. The publicly available synopsis for his award does not specify what he did to receive the prestigious award for heroism under fire.

Mexican president urges Biden to end Cuba sanctions

Issued on: 16/09/2021 - 

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (L) and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attend a ceremony marking Mexico's independence, in Mexico City on September 16, 2021 

Alfredo ESTRELLA AFP

Mexico City (AFP)

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday appealed to US President Joe Biden to end sanctions against Cuba, warning the measures risked fomenting unrest.

Lopez Obrador made the plea alongside his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel, who was a rare guest of honor at an Independence Day military parade in Mexico City.

"Hopefully President Biden, who has sufficient political sensitivity... puts an end forever to the political grievances towards Cuba," Lopez Obrador said.

The leftist leader called "respectfully" for Washington to lift the embargo against Cuba, arguing that "no state has the right to subdue another people, another country."

Sanctions hurt the well-being of the Cuban people "so that they, forced by necessity, have to confront their own government," Lopez Obrador said.

"If this perverse strategy were to succeed... it would become a vile and despicable Pyrrhic victory," he warned.

Diaz-Canel thanked Mexico for its "solidarity" at a time when Cuba, he said, was under attack on several fronts.

As well as a US embargo and the Covid-19 pandemic, the island faces an "aggressive campaign of hatred, misinformation, manipulation and lies" on social media, he said.

It is Diaz-Canel's first trip abroad since protests shook the island in July, leaving one dead, dozens of injuries and hundreds detained.

Mexico and Cuba have a history of close ties.

It was in Mexico that Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara met the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1955 and joined his guerrilla expedition to Cuba.

Mexico maintained diplomatic relations with Cuba even after the island was expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962.

Diaz-Canel will participate in a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States on Saturday in Mexico City.

© 2021 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Former Theranos Workers Cite Device Failures, Frustrations In Elizabeth Holmes Trial Testimony

By Len Ramirez

September 17, 2021 

SAN JOSE (BCN) — The examination of former Theranos lab associate Erika Cheung wrapped up in San Jose on Friday in the federal criminal trial against Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

Holmes is charged with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, based on allegedly false and misleading statements about the viability of Theranos’ blood-testing technology. If convicted, Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison and $3 million in fines.

On cross-examination about her testimony earlier this week that Theranos’s “Edison” blood-testing machines “frequently failed” quality control (QC) tests, Cheung agreed with defense counsel that Theranos had other QC checks in place, including on the mechanics of the devices themselves.

The device QCs were “a completely separate process” from the chemistry-related QC procedures Cheung performed.

Cheung also agreed that “when there is a QC failure, no patient samples” were run on the defective machine “until it gets recalibrated.”

Upon further questioning by prosecutors, Cheung said that the recalibration process could take up to 14 hours “if everything goes right,” and longer if everything didn’t, meaning that employees sometimes worked back-to-back shifts to get the machines reset.

“We had people sleeping in their cars because recalibrating the machines was just taking too long.”

The lengthy and frequent recalibration processes “jammed” the clinical lab’s workflow, meaning that a patient sample “supposed to be out in two hours” could take as long as three days.

Cheung testified earlier this week that she made about $19 an hour working for Theranos.

Also earlier this week, Cheung testified as to a “warning” letter sent to her by nationally known trial lawyer David Boies. The letter was delivered over a year after Cheung left Theranos by a man who waited all day in a car for her to come out of her then-new place of employment.

Defense counsel pointed out that Cheung had not responded to two phone calls from the human resources department at Theranos before the letter was sent.

Upon further questioning by prosecutors, Cheung testified that “when I heard 1/8the human resource director’s 3/8 voice and how scared she sounded, it just reminded me of how scared I was working for that company” and that “I had a right to not speak to them.”

U.S. prosecutors next called Surekha Gangakhedkar. Gangakhedkar, a scientist who worked for Theranos for eight years, reported directly to Holmes for the last four of those years.

On Wednesday the court signed an order compelling Gangakhedkar to testify and granted her immunity from any future prosecution based on that testimony.

Gangakhedkar, who was the manager in charge of developing the blood tests, testified that she felt increasing “pressure” and “frustration” as Theranos rushed to launch its Edison technology at Walgreens in September 2013.

Holmes repeatedly directed that getting the blood tests ready to use on the Edisons was a “top priority.” But the Edisons and related technology were not cooperating.

The nanotainers in which the fingerprick samples were collected could not handle the volume of blood; a test for thyroid function elicited “no response” from the machines; and there were wide variations and “problems in getting consistent results,” all of which constituted “bad news” for the upcoming launch.

In meetings and emails Gangakhedkar and her team brought these problems to Holmes’ attention.

Believing that it was not “the right decision” to “test clinical samples from patients” using the faulty Edison machines, Gangakhedkar resigned prior to the Walgreens launch.

When she met with and then submitted her resignation letter to Holmes in early September, Holmes told Gangakhedkar that the launch would use traditional venous draws, not fingerpricks, until the Edisons worked.

This explanation did not satisfy Gangakhedkar, who felt that “all the hard work” that she and her team had done to develop tests based on the fingerprick method “was going to waste,” because now they were launching “no matter what.”

Cross-examination of Gangakhedkar will continue on Tuesday.MORE NEWS:Santa Rosa 

© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. and Bay City News Service. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Interview with Dr. Jeremy Fischer, philosophy professor at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, who resigned over COVID-19 safety and morality concerns

Emma Arceneaux

15 September 2021

The following is an interview withDr.Jeremy Fischer, former associate professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, who resigned his position in protest of the university’s inadequate COVID-19 health and safety policies. In his resignation letter, Dr. Fischer said he did not want to be complicit in a moral atrocity and pointed to the political nature of the current health crisis. His areas of specialization include ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of emotion and philosophy of race. The interview was conducted by email.

Emma Arceneaux: Why did you resign? What developments led to you concluding that you should leave?

Jeremy Fischer: As you can imagine, this is a long story. In the end, I resigned because the university refused to implement readily available measures that would greatly protect the public health. After extensive advocacy efforts failed, I chose to distance myself from—and sound the alarm about—what I fear is an impending moral disaster.

I will note, though, that the University of Alabama (UA) System initially responded fairly well to the COVID crisis. For the 2020-2021 school year, UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) and the UA System moved most classes online. Most staff were also permitted to work from home. On-campus mitigation policies included indoor mask requirements, six-feet indoor social distancing, re-entry COVID testing at the start of each semester, and regular random-sample testing throughout each semester. UAH also set up a vaccination clinic in March 2021. Even as late as February 2021, UAH administrators liberally granted requests to teach entirely online in the upcoming fall semester.

Jeremy Fischer

It became clear by April 2021, however, that the UA System and the state of Alabama would be downplaying coronavirus risks for the fall. At that time, as word came down from the Chancellor and/or the Board of Trustees that all workers would soon be required to report to campus, the permission I received to teach online in the fall was revoked.

Then in May, the state of Alabama passed a law prohibiting public universities from mandating either COVID vaccinations or even that proof of such vaccination be shown ( Act No. 2021-493 ). (Other legal guidance which might prove relevant is the state’s liability shield law, Act No. 2021-4, implemented on February 12, and discussed below.) In June, the UA System Health and Safety Task Force plan for the fall in effect eliminated social distancing requirements, among other changes. The plan, in my judgment, was to allow largely uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus and hope for the best.

By June, it was clear from news reports out of India that a Delta crisis might soon threaten the U.S. As the crisis spread to the UK and then to Israel, I reached out to colleagues in the faculty senate (of which I was a member) and across the campus. Several of us decided to draft and distribute a petition urging the UA System leadership to adopt a more protective health and safety plan. Our demands were modest: (1) To require mask use of all persons inside classrooms and all university facilities (with few exceptions); (2) To require six feet of distance between all persons inside classrooms and all university facilities (with few exceptions); and (3) to permit any faculty or staff who is concerned about the safety of returning to campus workspaces to (a) work remotely or (b) take unpaid leaves of absence. The first two demands drew on C.D.C. guidance for universities where not everyone is fully vaccinated. The third was grounded in both public health considerations that favor more aggressive intervention, as well as basic principles of academic freedom .

By the end of July, the petition attracted signatures from 135 UAH faculty, instructors, staff and researchers from 29 departments, seven colleges, and numerous additional units across campus.

On August 3, we sent the petition to the UA System leadership. UAH President Dawson acknowledged receipt, but the petition received no substantive response.

On August 13, we followed up with President Dawson by emailing him with further specific questions and suggestions. By that time and to their credit, the UA System modified its policies to require university indoor face coverings. However, we asked the president to comment on our demands for social distancing and for being able choose whether to work from home, as well as on the following possible mitigation policies:

(1) Introducing MERV13 HVAC filters in all buildings, offices and classrooms.

(2) Measuring CO2 levels in all classes to ensure sufficient outside air is being introduced and circulated.

(3) Providing stand-alone HEPA filters in all classrooms to supplement HVAC filtration.

(4) Resuming regular random-sample testing of the UAH community.

(5) Mandating re-entry testing requirements for faculty, staff or students who are coming back to campus for Fall 2021.

(6) Testing wastewater in buildings in order to rapidly alert large numbers of people of possible exposure.

(7) Publicizing the percentage of UAH community members who are vaccinated.

(8) Requiring high quality (e.g., N95) masks indoors.

We received no reply to this follow-up email. Informal communication with senior faculty led me to suspect that administrators lacked good reasons for declining to implement all of these measures.

Meanwhile, UAH announced to the community that we could be “confident” in the university’s response to COVID and implied that the campus was “a safe environment for all students, faculty and staff” and that “the well-being of Charger Nation remains our top priority.” These assurances struck me as severely downplaying the dangers (especially given UAH COVID-policies) of the Delta variant and as introducing a false sense of security into the community. They also ignore the impact that COVID spread within Charger Nation might have on the broader community surrounding our campus. After all, about 85% of UAH undergraduates live off campus. Since the fact that UAH is a public institution of higher education gives it tremendous credibility with our students, I worried that these students would be lulled into taking health risks they might come to regret and/or spreading the coronavirus into the broader Tennessee Valley region.

So, for reasons I discuss at further length below, I decided to publicly resign in the hopes of drawing some public scrutiny to the matter.

EA: Can you describe the 2020-2021 school year at UAH/UA? What measures were in place, including remote learning/instruction, masks, ventilation, distancing, etc.? Were there known outbreaks? Were there any deaths within the school system that you know of?

JF: See above for details on the 2020-2021 measures at UAH.

In the first year of the pandemic, UAH recorded 393 COVID cases. To my knowledge, UAH did not publicize COVID-related deaths on campus. But I happen to know of one person who died from COVID.

EA: You noted that UAH President Darren Dawson acknowledged receipt of the petition. Has he since responded further to the petition or directly to your resignation?

JF: No UAH or UA System administrator ever responded to the substance of the petition or to my resignation letter.

EA: What has been the reaction to the petition/your resignation, particularly by those with sentiments like yourself who are deeply concerned over community transmission?

JF: The most common reactions have been disbelief and outrage about the UA System’s meager policy response to the Delta crisis. Colleagues elsewhere have told me that they are hesitant to return to the classroom—even though they live in states like Washington with much lower transmission rates and even though their university mandates vaccines and regular testing. Most importantly, several instructors from across the U.S. have reached out to me to brainstorm about what they might do at their own institutions. Some campuses, like nearby University of Georgia and also Georgia State University, are holding demonstrations. At other institutions, at least two instructors have chosen to resign in protest. Some have organized their campus with petition efforts. Some instructors are unilaterally moving their classes online, or unilaterally requiring in-person mitigation measures (like face coverings).

These stories are heartening, and the possibilities for constructive action are numerous. I suspect that instructors—especially tenured professors—greatly underestimate their power, especially when it comes to unilaterally moving their classes online.

EA: I am interested to know what you have heard from students to your resignation. In addition, can you discuss the impact of both the pandemic and the response to it by policy makers, from politicians to university administrators, on your students—how they see the world, how this will alter their lives, and the socioeconomic, political system within which they live?

JF: It’s hard to know how the pandemic, and the policy response to it, has affected students. I have heard from about a dozen students, all of whom support my decision to sound the alarm about the local COVID policy response. I suspect that many students share my sense of disappointment, frustration, and outrage. But the situation is complicated. Many students also seem eager to get “back to normal” and believe that it is now safe to do so.

I hope that social scientists are surveying students’ attitudes on the questions you ask. Some universities are soliciting and then publicly sharing feedback from students about campus safety measures. I’d like to see more of that.

EA: The World Socialist Web Site calls for the eradication of the virus, not merely mitigation. Mitigation measures are only effective, scientists have shown, in combination with efforts to eradicate the disease. How would you respond to that?

JF: The policies of the University of Alabama System—especially the rejection of C.D.C. recommendations for six-feet social distancing indoors, the promotion of flimsy low-quality masks, the absence of supplemental HEPA filtration and the elimination of regular random-sample testing—can barely even be categorized as aiming at mitigating, let alone eliminating, COVID. Robust mitigation policies would be a huge improvement for Alabama.

That said, I agree that the debate between elimination- and mitigation-based approaches is extremely important. I applaud your efforts to present these issues to the public. Moreover, I respect epidemiologists and concerned members of the public who advocate elimination by means of paying workers for a few months to stop engaging in nonessential activities.

However, I am still studying the issue. In particular, I am still figuring out what concrete practical differences there are between a genuinely robust mitigation effort (which we have hardly glimpsed in the US) and an elimination effort. A vigorous public debate between prominent advocates of these approaches would be useful. Until I learn more, I’d prefer not to comment further.

EA: The powers-that-be are trying to claim the solution to the pandemic is “personal responsibility.” We believe this requires a global, coordinated scientific response. That is, this is a social responsibility. Could you comment?

JF: The “personal responsibility” slogan is widely deployed in Alabama as well. But notice the extraordinary steps taken to protect workplace managers from accepting their own personal legal responsibility for how they treat their subordinates. The passage of Alabama’s liability shield law, Act No. 2021-4, suggests that, as is often the case, decision-makers escape personal responsibility for their mistakes while the rest of us are made to bear the costs.

In my view, even though the disproportionately powerful have a correspondingly disproportionate responsibility, at the end of the day responsibility is broadly shared. Yes, the situation requires a global, coordinated scientific response; but (as I suspect you’d agree) such a response will only come about if vast numbers of private individuals demand it. I make this obvious point to push back slightly against the tendency, common among professors, to shift all responsibility onto administrators and other powers-that-be. Academic administrators certainly play an important role in these matters; but faculty (especially senior faculty) sometimes have more power than they choose to exercise.

EA: In your resignation letter, you said you did not want to be complicit in a “moral atrocity.” Can you elaborate on what you consider to be the “moral atrocity” in this situation? Is it limited to UAH? What does it mean on a world scale?

JF: There is a good chance that classes and other in-person events on campus will accelerate COVID transmission in the wider community. This is a huge problem for a state like Alabama, in which only about 76% of senior citizens are fully vaccinated. (Compare that number with 99% in Vermont, 98% in Maine, 96% in Washington State and 95% in Maryland.) Already, as the school year begins, Alabama hospitals are packed with COVID patients and running out of ICU beds (and workers to staff them ).

In such circumstances, large institutions like schools and universities need to take all reasonable steps to minimize coronavirus transmission. (See, for example, the possible mitigation policies, numbered (1)-(8) above, as well as our petition demand to move at least some classes online and implement C.D.C.-recommended social distancing guidelines.) But, despite their modest efforts, the UA System failed to take even most of these steps. In my judgment, this failure is morally atrocious.

My particular role at the university complicated matters further. At UAH I taught various philosophy courses, including courses on the philosophy of mind and ancient Greek philosophy. Most often, though, I taught ethics courses. For the upcoming year I was scheduled to teach a course called, “Advanced Moral Philosophy.” The last time I taught this course, the texts included Jeff McMahan’s important book, The Ethics of Killing. Teaching this material again in the present context would have been a fascinating experience. But sitting around a seminar table during a moral emergency, cogitating—rather than spending more of my time agitating—seemed somewhat in bad taste. The fear that my students might transmit the coronavirus to each other during these “ethics” seminars, moreover, horrified me.

On reflection, I concluded that it might be best to publicly distance myself from the disaster that I fear is taking place in Alabama, and to use my resignation to focus attention on the moral seriousness of our situation, as well as on the low-hanging fruit still available to schools and universities that want to minimize coronavirus transmission in the region. I have some hope that persuasion and other kinds of coordinated campus actions might still hasten UAH’s move to online classes—or at least its implementation of additional, if ultimately inadequate, mitigation measures.

Regarding your last question, it does seem that administrators at UAH are merely responding to intense outside political pressures. As far as I see, they are not, for the most part, personally opposed to taking adequate measures against the coronavirus. They were perfectly willing to support these measures last year. Rather, their decisions take place downstream from state and federal policy decisions, including general funding policy decisions, as well as specific coronavirus policy decisions. So, there is likely a role for all concerned citizens to play in shaping these upstream decisions.

EA: In your letter, you state that the pandemic involves not only a public health but a political crisis. What do you see as the nature of this political crisis? A political problem requires a political solution. In your view, what would that be?

JF: These are hugely important questions, but ones that I hardly even attempt to answer in a satisfying way here.

Here is one thought. I alluded already to state and federal actions that, in my view, improperly constrain universities’ decision making. We can speculate about the various interests that guided these decisions. But clearly one enabler of this political problem is the considerable lack of voice that workers suffer in the workplace—even in the academy, where “shared governance” is the dominant buzzword. This lack of voice, for example, legally enabled UAH administrators (who were not in the first place elected by workers) to shrug off the strong concerns of 135 workers who signed their names to our petition. I believe this response reflects a management structure that Elizabeth Anderson has called workplace dictatorship (in her book, Private Government ).

If that assessment of the political crisis is sound, then the solution presents itself: Workers should have significant and formal input in workplace decisions that greatly impact their interests. If that is so, then one political solution to consider is workplace democracy (as David Ellerman discusses in his recent interesting book, Neo-Abolitionism ).

EA: What do you think about the call by the WSWS for the formation of rank-and-file workplace committees as a means of organizing against unsafe work and school reopenings? Are you familiar with, and what are your thoughts on, the statements from the rank-and-file committees, including the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee (founding statement here: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/01/20/alab-j20.html )?

JF: After only glancing at this founding statement of the Alabama Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee, I am inclined to agree with most of its demands including (1) full transparency from school boards about the spread of the coronavirus, (2) more democratic decision making, (3) robust opportunities for educators to receive vaccinations, (4) income protection for parents, (5) the halt of nonessential production in the state (again, with income protection for workers), (6) increased funding for ventilation system upgrades in schools, and (7) free, high-quality mental health and social services for students and families who request it.

Because I am not an expert on K-12 pedagogy or child development, and because (as I said above) I am still a bit unsure about whether robust mitigation efforts might suffice to minimize suffering and death from the coronavirus, I would prefer to withhold my public judgment from some other demands until I study the issue more carefully. On those demands, I would rather defer to “rank-and-file committees of educators, school workers, parents and students in each school in collaboration with trusted scientists and health experts” (in the words of the Safety Committee).

EA: What do you hope others take away from your story?

JF: I hope to encourage faculty to further organize around and voice their concerns about campus safety issues, in particular, and the lack of shared governance more generally. Regarding the former, it’s also important to consider the long history of higher ed institutions neglecting the well-being of their members. And I would hope that people who are now rightly concerned about COVID on campus might broaden their concerns to encompass these related issues as well—issues such as the harassment that students sometimes face from campus police and the barriers to accessibility that immunocompromised and disabled people sometimes face, not to mention the costly tuition bills that often force already burdened working-class students into wage work during the school year.