Category: Issue 2

In 2011, as part of a push by the Obama Administration to address statistics making headlines about college campus sexual assault, then- Vice President Joe Biden announced the “Dear Colleague Letter.” This letter, issued by the Office of Civil Rights, reaffirmed the responsibilities of public schools in instances of on-campus student-to-student sexual harassment and assault cases, and made suggestions as to how these institutions could improve their guidelines. The purpose was to clarify many issues within the Title IX statute regulating the role of institutions in sexual harassment and assault cases.

One of the most controversial aspects of this letter is its commitment to the use of the “preponderance of evidence” standard in educational institutions. This burden of proof is considered the lowest used in the court system today: it only requires testimonial and/or physical evidence to provide proof that a crime had a higher than 50% chance of happening. Previously, many schools had used what’s called the “clear and convincing” standard, meaning that the evidence provided needed to be more rigorous than the “preponderance” standard, but less so than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, which is typical of criminal cases. In other words, evidence needed to be highly convincing, but not necessary so high that it positively proved the event happened.

Victims’ rights advocates hailed this as a win in their fight for justice for the victims of sexual crimes. According to one advocacy worker, the preponderance of evidence standard made it easier for LGBT+ victims, who have been met with ridicule and indifference in the criminal justice system, to come forward (Waters, 2017). Others claim that the Title IX clarifications in the Dear Colleague letter help both victims and institutional administrators know what steps schools need to take in instances of sexual harassment and assault (Vaglanos, 2017).

The new leadership within the Department of Education, headed by Secretary DeVos, has decided to rescind these Obama-era Title IX guidelines. Specifically citing the burden of evidence necessary for punishment, Ms. DeVos and her office have claimed that using the preponderance of evidence standard tramples the rights of the accused, removing their right to due process (Tatum, 2017). They’ve since replaced it with their own version of a Dear Colleague letter, which argues for treating victims and defendants fairly, and insists on the use of the clear and convincing standard, in the form of a fact sheet they’ve released while they formulate new guidelines (Hefling & Emma, 2017).

The creation of the original guidelines in 2011 was done with the intention to bring clarity to a system which, in its vagueness, had failed many students across the nation. This much both sides agree on. However removing existing guidelines and creating new, interim ones while yet another document of guidelines is being formed doesn’t speak to a desire to continue making the process just and equitable. Rather, the Department of Education is muddying the waters around Title IX guidelines for schools and their students, and leaving them in limbo for an as-of-yet undetermined amount of time. Once the new guidelines are formulated and released, which Ms. DeVos claims could take several months, institutions will need to recalibrate their own policies, further extending the time it will take for the education system to have clear rules on the consequences of something as serious as sexual violence. And all of this – the uncertainty being created around how institutions should go about investigating and prosecuting sexual harassment and assault, the dismantling of protections created to bring more victims into the light – is being done in the spirit of protecting the rights of those accused of sexual crimes. This policy strategy ultimately comes off as unwise and dismissive of serious issues plaguing our educational institutions.

References

Hefling, K., and Emma, C. (2017, September 22). Obama-era school sexual assault policy rescinded. Politico. Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/22/obama-era-school-sexual-assault-policy-rescinded-243016.

Tatum, S. (2017, September 22). Education Department withdraws Obama-era campus sexual assault guidance. CNN politics. Retrieved from: http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/politics/betsy-devos-title-ix/index.html.

Vaglanos, A. (2017, September 10). Betsy DeVos may rescind Title IX guidelines. Here’s what that could mean. Huffington Post: Women. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/betsy-devos-may-rescind-title-ix-guidelines-heres-what-that-could-mean_us_59aff829e4b0dfaafcf443e5.

Waters, E. (2017, July 14). Betsy DeVos needs to listen to survivors. The New York Times: Opinion. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/betsy-devos-needs-to-listen-to-survivors.html.

As mid-sized farming has seen a drastic decline over the past several decades, more local mid-sized farmers have to be creative to maintain sustainability. With increasing support from local towns to create fresh farmers markets for local small town farmers, many of those who would fall in the middle ground of farming, have had nowhere to turn. It is easy for a small farmer to yield their crop and go to the local farmers market on a Saturday and sell their produce while also working other jobs to economically provide for their families. On the other end of the spectrum, we find larger farms that are producing food at an extreme level of efficiency and productivity, resulting in greater opportunities for growth and wealth. The farmer who has to work their farm in the realm of a normal 40-hour job without the opportunity to supplement it with another career is the one who finds him or herself on difficult times. Local markets are supporting the small farmer and larger grocers are supporting the mass production of produce. So where does this leave the farmer who works his or her fields every day but does not have the manufacturing aspect of many large farms? This is where the significance of value chain businesses cooperates and benefits one another.

A great example of this is the Hub City Co-op that is owned by thousands of community members who have invested in this full-service retail grocery store. Along with it being invested in by community members, 35 local vendors offer produce, flowers, beer, wine, dairy, meat, soaps, essential oils, etc. It is the only one of its kind in South Carolina. It is a community of owners who work with the non-profit Rural Development Corporation to provide the opportunity for local mid-sized farmers, such as Thicketty Mountain Farms, to join with other local farmers and businesses to meet the needs of the community while helping to sustain one another’s business ventures through collaborating together. By joining together in a value chain it makes it more affordable for businesses to survive when they join together. The co-op benefits the community by bringing various degrees of retail and grocery needs to the customer while also providing the opportunity for mid-size farmers to be successful. While smaller farms have local farmers markets and larger farms have the benefit of larger grocers, what Spartanburg has accomplished through the co-op will be foundational for future mid-size farmers and is a great example of the value chain.

In the last 20 years, the American political climate has undergone a change even Al Gore could not have predicted. 1997 had us poised at the dawn of a new millennium, full of hope and the dream of a super-technological future that would bring peace and prosperity. We were the kings of the world, as Jack Dawson in Cameron’s Titanic put it.

Compare the feeling of the 1997 climate – one of anticipation and promise – to the climate today, and Americans are no longer the Jack Dawson who stood on the bow of the ship with his arms thrown wide, but the Jack Dawson who clung to the railing on the stern as the broken aft section began to sink. “Uncertainty” and “hostility” are the terms that come to the minds of the American people when considering the current political climate, according the APA’s Stress in America: Coping with Change, 2017. Like the fated Titanic, the United States has ignored the warnings, and now our nation is divided. While each side of the ship that was the United States heaves hatred at the other, Americans are failing to realize that – unless we work together to mend what has been broken – we will all sink. Tragically, our quest for equality is the iceberg that will doom us.

Kurt Vonnegut’s short story from 1962, Harrison Bergeron, is proving prophetic, and one is left wondering how long it will be until the United States elects its first Handicapper General to shepherd us to the fiction that is equality. Every morning brings news of another event that rips open old wounds and causes tempers to flare; and it is these heavy tidings that have made our nation’s future murky and uncertain while our present is strained and hostile. Though Americans are more connected than ever due to the technology at our fingertips, an ugly divide threatens to ruin us, and, ignoring the warnings of icebergs ahead, we continue to strive for an equality that can never be.

People are not equal, and they never will be; however, instead of celebrating those differences and capitalizing on them to create strength through diversity, Americans have instead used our differences to draw lines of intolerance in the sand. The only equality that exists is that both sides are equally guilty: we have all made mistakes, harbored hatred in our hearts, stereotyped, overreacted, and refused to listen. Sure, we are equal, but only equal in guilt.

Climate change is the prime example where science can be used to settle disputes among parties for the common good. Persistent doubt about climate change has made solving the issue ineffective. Rather than argue about what we can’t agree on, what does science tell us that we can all agree on? Fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) will deplete, likely, sometime in the next two centuries. What do republicans and democrats agree on? Entrepreneurship and job growth. So, the key to common ground in this area is renewable energy.

Currently, many conservatives negatively associate restriction and regulation with climate change; two things we know republicans will never agree with because it “kills jobs”. We want to reorient the approach to climate change by advancing energy: finding new sources, making renewable energy more accessible, developing more efficient energy storage capability and sustainable building materials, etc.

Renewable energy needs to be put on the table as the future of jobs and innovation. Currently, the solar power industry provides more jobs than coal in the U.S. If the U.S. ignores developing industry in the green energy sector in favor of fossil fuels, countries like China are going to take advantage of the market because they understand renewable energy is the future and are investing accordingly. Movement away from fossil fuels is a step towards innovation and growth, and solving climate change is implicit to renewable energy. But, instead of telling people what they are doing wrong to ruin the environment, we are telling them how we can all come together to make the environment better, the economy strong, and stake our claim as a global competitor and innovator.

Climate change advocates have not done a great job making the idea of climate change easily accessible to those who are skeptical. Climate change seems to be talked about as one big, singular issue, when it involves solving a series of problems across many industries and communities. Needed are policy initiatives to encourage industry to invest in renewable energy and pertinent research as well as government funding for R&D into materials research, battery technology, alternative energy sources, etc. To do this will not be easy. We propose establishing public-private partnerships to compensate for limited federal funding and incentivize the private sector. The private sector has operational efficiency and government research agencies have the resources to accomplish tasks where science, technology, and engineering overlap.

Even though our goal in the short term will change the conversation away from climate change, the long term result will be the same: create a more sustainable society and better standard of living to protect the health of the environment and the people who live in it.