Japan’s largest fish market, Tsukiji, caught fire last week in a blaze that burned for 15 hours, destroying massive portions of the historic building that has housed the market for decades. No one was injured in the fire but the cause is still unknown. The fire will not shut down the market, which has been a popular tourist destination since it opened in 1935, but it has brought international attention to the market–which is facing a dramatic move that few of the tourists visiting its stalls and shops are aware of.

Concerns about the antiquated refrigeration systems in the market and the building’s vulnerability to earthquakes have been present for years but the fast approaching 2020 Olympics accelerated plans to move the market, as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike looks to create space for athletic venues and housing during the games. The Tsukiji market was meant to be relocated last year to the man-made island of Toyosu, a location which was not convenient for fishmongers or tourists, but was purpose-built with modern appliances and resources. However, Toyosu was occupied by the Tokyo Gas Company from 1966 to 1988 and industrial chemicals had saturated the area, skyrocketing past legal levels.

Officials claimed that they had sanitized the land but Koike revealed in a press conference last fall that those measures had never in fact taken place–yet she still plans to move the fish market to Toyosu. The local government has invested millions in cleaning up the Toyosu site but it has not yet been declared safe–leaving both the fishmongers who work there and tourists who plan to visit wary. The original site of the Tsukiji market will be rebuilt as a culinary theme park while the traditional fish market will be moved to Toyosu in the summer of 2018. More than 70 percent of the fish wholesalers working in Tsukiji oppose the move but unfortunately the decision is not theirs to make–there is no union, no collective bargaining and even if there was, this is not the type of battle unions are usually designed to negotiate.

Hosting the Olympics is an intensive process for any city–the infrastructure fiasco at Sochi and the massive protests in Rio are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring all that can go wrong when hosting the international event. Koike faces an almost impossible decision–leave the Tsukiji market where it is, a crumbling building vulnerable to fires and earthquakes, or move it to the new site, where contamination could destroy the health of everyone who sells and shops for fish there. The market can’t be shut down–not only is it a tourist destination, it is the largest fish supplier for the restaurants of Tokyo. In a nation where sushi is sold on every corner, the fish supply cannot be cut off overnight. The fate of the market rests now rests entirely on the shoulders of the clean-up team working to purify Toyosu. If the site is still contaminated next summer, Koike will be back to square one–with the clock ticking closer to the Olympics every day.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Tourism and Toxicity at the Tsukiji Fish Market appeared first on Law Street.

Italian newspapers have been filled with tales from the “Mafia Capitale” trial this month, as Massimo Carminati, a right-wing extremist with a criminal history, was sentenced to 28 years in prison for diverting millions of euros that had been designated for public services into the bank accounts of politicians and businessmen.

Among those accused is the former right-wing mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, who was in office when the majority of the bribery and extortion took place. Although the label “mafia” was quickly applied to Carminati, his accomplice Salvatore Buzzi, and 45 others who faced trial for their involvement in the scandal, their lawyers have been quick to push back against using the word as a catch-all phrase.

Giosuè Naso, one of Carminati’s lawyers, stated that “if everything is mafia, nothing is mafia” and argued that using that label detracts from law enforcement efforts against crime syndicates. In Italy, trials involving the mafia come with a different set of punitive measures as “mafia association” itself can be considered a crime. Judge Rosanna Ianniello ultimately decided Carminati and Buzzi were guilty of corruption, not mafia association, even though the state made an argument that the operation was mafia-like and that certain members of the group had ties to the ‘Ndrangheta, Calabria’s powerful mafia. Gianni Alemanno has also been cleared of mafia association charges but is still awaiting trial for corruption and illegal funding of his political party.

The city of Rome is currently in dire economic straits, having pulled out of its bid for the 2024 Olympics  last year because it simply did not have the funds to continue. The financial woes of the city are directly linked to Carminati and Buzzi, whose bribery and extortion racket pulled public funds from a host of civic projects–including public housing for refugees–and shifted the funds into private coffers. Carminati and Buzzi have been in prison for over two years under Italy’s infamous 41-bis prison regime, designed specifically for mafia detainees, but going forward they will be granted more relaxed conditions in prison for their multi-decade sentences.

The two men and their accomplices may have been cleared of mafia charges but it will take years to track down and redistribute the funds they stole. Although law enforcement forces are confident they have removed the crime ring from city hall, there may still be members who escaped the crackdown and will return to their bribery practices once public scrutiny is relaxed. In the meantime, Rome is struggling, overflowing with garbage, struggling to house its population and maintain its public spaces. After a harsh drought this summer, Rome is now considering rationing drinking water for the 1.5 million residents of the city. The Eternal City desperately needs funding and responsible leaders to make sure public funds are spent effectively and responsibly. Mayor Virginia Raggi holds relatively high popularity with Roman voters and her M5S party has framed itself as the “outsider” party, separate from the corruption of the past–yet as the infrastructure and public services of Rome deteriorate, she may see difficulties.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Mafia Capitale: The Line Between Government Corruption and Organized Crime? appeared first on Law Street.

Volvo has set itself apart from other mainstream automakers this month by announcing that all of its new models from 2019 onwards will be electric or hybrid. Five fully electric models and a range of hybrids will become available between 2019 and 2021. In a year in which Tesla has surpassed Ford Motors and GM in market value, the shift toward electric can only be seen as a smart move for Volvo. But, interestingly enough, it was not actually a choice made to corner the American market.

Volvo is owned by Geely Motors, a little known Chinese company that purchased the Swedish brand from Ford in 2010 for a fraction of the cost that Ford had originally paid. The purchase could have driven Volvo into the ground but instead has given it new life in the Chinese market, where government regulations favor electric and hybrid vehicles in large cities. Geely has built a name for itself with its reinvigoration of Volvo and has now moved on to purchasing the makers of London’s ubiquitous black cabs, the racing brand Lotus, and the flying car start-up Terrafugia. Volvo is not the only brand under the Geely umbrella to go green–Geely opened a solar powered factory near Coventry, England this year which has created all-electric cabs for London Taxi Co. The UK government has been preparing plans to give taxi drivers grants for switching to these low emission cabs.

Geely stock price has been climbing ever upward over the past several years, tripling over the course of 2016-2017. The Chinese juggernaut may not be a household name in the U.S. at the moment, but it is expanding across Europe and into the Southeast Asian market, where American automakers have historically struggled to gain a foothold. If the company continues to commit to low emissions vehicles and transforming iconic brands into electric powerhouses its success may spread to the American market. Although the company will probably never have the immense production facilities of its direct competitors, with Ford and GM sales taking a downward turn, Geely may have found its moment to begin edging into the North American market.

The shift to electric has been underway for several years and Volvo is truly just a high profile manifestation of a larger trend–however every effort to drive consumers toward electric energy should be applauded. From the Nissan Leaf to Tesla’s more affordable Model S to the ever popular Prius, electric and hybrid vehicles are now settling into a price range that first time buyers are more comfortable with–but what about drivers with loyalty to a certain brand? In those instances, a massive transformation like the one Volvo is undergoing captures a section of consumers that may never have planned to buy electric–but could change their minds when the vehicle comes from a name they trust. Whether or not the Volvo transition is just a drop in the bucket on the path to a fully electric future, Geely clearly has a vision and commitment to electric energy that makes it unique in the conventional automotive market.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Geely Motors: The Power Behind Volvo’s Electric Bid appeared first on Law Street.

As Muslim communities celebrated Eid al Fitr last weekend, mosques across the globe welcomed worshippers for the celebration–except at Iraq’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri, a thousand-year-old structure recently reduced to rubble in the battle for Mosul.

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency has claimed the mosque was destroyed by a U.S. airstrike, but both U.S. forces and the Iraqi army have stated that ISIS militants destroyed the mosque as they retreated from Mosul. Video evidence shows the blast that toppled the building exploding from within multiple levels of the minaret rather than from the impact of an airstrike.

The al-Nuri Mosque has joined the long list of monuments and historic sites destroyed in the Middle East over the past twenty years. Many cultural heritage sites in the Middle East have been systematically erased, from the Buddha statues of Bamiyan destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan to the dozens of temples and historic cities that have been decimated by ISIS over the past three years. The justification for this destruction is often that the ancient sites celebrate idolatry or polytheism but sometimes, as in the case of the al-Nuri Mosque, the intentional destruction of the site is not motivated by a higher cause–a site that represent generations of tradition and history is simply seen as expendable. Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has claimed that blowing up the al-Nuri Mosque was a declaration of defeat and a clear sign that ISIS is losing the battle for control of the city–but the destruction of the mosque is still a heavy blow to Mosul, as Iraqi military leaders had privately hoped to liberate the mosque and celebrate Eid al Fitr within its hallowed halls.

The leveling of historic sites is often written off as “collateral damage” but an important International Criminal Court case in 2016 could change that. An Islamic militant who destroyed the shrines of Timbuktu was sentenced to nine years in prison after the ICC labeled cultural destruction a war crime. ISIS militants who are captured would of course be put on trial for far more violent and severe crimes than cultural destruction but consider that the International Committee of the Red Cross’ definition of war crimes does include “making buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes or historic monuments the object of attack, provided they are not military objectives.”

The destruction of the al-Nuri Mosque and sites like it do impact the cultural legacy of a nation and should be treated as serious crimes. During the bombings of World War II, cultural sites were burnt to the ground every night but we are now in a different era of warfare and should set different standards. Mosul’s air, water, and land have been polluted and torn apart by the battle for the city but Iraqi forces will seek to rebuild once they have expelled ISIS forces. A structure like a large mosque is important for the rebuilding process on a logistical level as it would serve as an ideal place to set up shelters, food and clothing distribution and a headquarters for relief efforts–but we must also think beyond the practical. The al-Nuri Mosque was a symbol of a shared identity and heritage that defined Mosul–and the militants who destroyed it are committing a form of cultural genocide.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Should We View the Destruction of the al-Nuri Mosque as a War Crime? appeared first on Law Street.

The iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen has taken on a new look this month: anti-whaling advocates vandalized the statue, coating it in red paint in an effort to draw attention to the endangered whales of the Faroe Islands.

Copenhagen’s famous Little Mermaid statue was vandalized…again https://t.co/8Aq7meZiMy pic.twitter.com/odfmW4UiON

— Condé Nast Traveler (@CNTraveler) June 7, 2017

For a thousand years, the people of the Faroe Islands have conducted an annual grindadráp, a drive hunt where a flotilla of small boats drive whales and dolphins into a small bay where they are killed by hand with knives. The organization Sea Shepherd has worked to end these hunts since the 1980s, but the inhabitants of the islands have pushed back, arguing that the “grind” is critical for both food and preserving the islanders’ sense of community. The enmity between environmental advocates and the Danish authorities has grown exponentially since crews of Sea Shepherd boats were detained by the Danish navy when they tried to block the 2014 grind. Whaling is illegal within the EU and Sea Shepherd has declared that Brussels must launch “infringement proceedings” against Denmark for allowing the grind. However, the Faroe Islands have a unique status–as an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, they rely on Denmark for military, judicial, and foreign affairs but have control over their own domestic issues.

Carl Christian Ebbesen, head of Copenhagen’s culture and leisure committee, was outraged by the vandalism, calling it “well out of line” and “as stupid as you can possibly get.” Despite Ebbesen’s dismissal of the red paint, this is not the first time the Little Mermaid statue has been used for political purposes. In 1964, the Situationist avant-garde group sawed off the head of the statue. She has also lost limbs and been painted numerous times by various groups. In 2004, a burqa was draped over the head of the statue as part of protest against Turkey joining the EU and the statue was clothed in a headscarf in 2007 for reasons that are unclear.

Vandalizing the statue may seem like a petty or juvenile act, but it has served its purpose–getting the grinds of the Faroe Island back in the headlines in the wake of Sea Shepherd officially requesting the European Commission punish Denmark for the grinds (Sea Shepherd has claimed no responsibility for the vandalism). Tourists visiting Copenhagen and dozens of media outlets picking up images of the statue have made the red paint stunt go viral, bringing attention to a debate that relatively few outside of Denmark have been following. By next week, the red paint will have been removed from the statue and it will return to its role as a charming backdrop in Instagram snaps for visitors from around the globe–but for the moment, it is a powerful political statement.

In the past, we’ve discussed Greenpeace’s symbolic activism as effective at drumming up sympathy and finding new allies but activism does not always have to take place on such a grandiose scale. The painting of the statue is an effective, albeit temporary, protest–the anonymous painters should consider it a job well done.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Vandalism as Activism: Protesting Whaling on the Faroe Islands appeared first on Law Street.

The residents of Texas City in Galveston, Texas received an unwelcome gift this Memorial Day: plastic bags with fishing weights, candy, and KKK recruitment flyers that were left on their lawns, apparently thrown from a vehicle driving past on Monday night.

Seventeen different homes received the bags, which contained two versions of KKK flyers, one reading “Say No to Cultural Genocide” and the other saying “Join the Best or Die Like the Rest.”  Local police have labeled the plastic bags a criminal matter, so whoever distributed the bags may face criminal charges if they are caught. At this point the police do not yet have a suspect.

The phone number listed on the flyers is not in service, no witnesses have come forward, and there seem to be no leads in the case, unless anonymous tipsters can provide new information. Many residents of Texas City were shocked by the flyers, stating that they typically consider their community to be a diverse and tolerant place, but Ashton Woods, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Houston, called the flyers “not surprising.”

The plastic bags are jarring and disturbing to the residents of Texas City but Woods is correct in citing them as part of larger trend. Earlier this month, flyers reading “around blacks never relax” were circulated on the University of Texas at Austin campus on the heels of a series of flyers targeting Chinese students that were posted in the university’s engineering department. In April, flyers urging white Americans to report illegal aliens with the slogan “America is a white nation” were posted throughout the University of Texas at Arlington campus. In February, the white nationalist group American Vanguard posted flyers at several Texas colleges urging white men to “take your country back.” Immediately after the November election, flyers calling for “vigilante squads” to arrest and torture those who support diversity were posted around the Texas State University campus.

It would seem that each series of flyers emboldened copycats to try their hand at attacking a new group. Hate groups have launched an estimated 17 recruitment campaigns on Texas university campuses since September. In the Anti-Defamation League’s Southwest Region, which stretches from El Paso to Orange, anti-Semitic incidents have spiked by more than a third this year. After a week in which two nooses were found inside the African American history museum and the home of Lebron James was spray painted with a racist slur, the Memorial Day flyers in Texas City feel like par for the course. It is comforting to see that at least all three of this week’s cases are being investigated as serious threats rather than being written off as “harmless” pranks–but the Texas City flyers are part of a larger pattern that needs to be taken seriously before leaving flyers on people’s lawns escalates.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Memorial Day Threats: KKK Recruitment Flyers in Texas City appeared first on Law Street.

After a long investigation, Munich police have arrested two leaders of a Croatian-based crime ring responsible for up to a fifth of all burglaries committed across Germany. The investigation into the criminals began in January 2016, when German police witnessed a group of three young women skillfully break into a home in the Munich suburb of Lehel. The crime ring was reliant upon young women, who were less likely to be seen as suspicious and less likely to receive harsh jail sentences in the event that they were caught.

According to Reinhold Bergmann, the commissioner for organized burglary crime, these women were traded among the families of the crime ring, often through marriage, and were forced to commit the robberies against their will. Police arrested twenty of the young women used as “worker bees” by the crime ring in Munich, as well as two mid-level gang members in western Germany. The women and girls who worked for the organizations were trained to say that they were teenagers upon arrest, presumably so that they would be tried as minors, but it remains to be seen how many truly are teenagers as most of them have forged identification documents. Details about how these young women were recruited into the organization are still unclear but those that were married into the family (rather than those who were blood relations) may have been victims of human trafficking. This organization was built upon home burglaries but their operations appear to reach much further and deeper than the stereotypical mafia clan.

Detectives arrested members of the group in northern Spain this July and the arrests this week will chip away at the organization, but there are believed to be dozens of other “tentacles” of the group still operating in Belgium, France, Italy, and beyond. Millions of dollars worth of property has been stolen in Germany, much of which seems to have been funneled into the mansions in Croatia where the police found the two leaders this week. Some small items including jewelry and watches were recovered in the mansions, but the majority of the stolen property will never be returned.

This week’s arrests are a feather in the cap of Munich’s police department but they also raise questions about exactly how powerful this organization is. No doubt police forces from multiple countries are working together but it is difficult to share information across time zones and language barriers, especially when so few details about the scope and reach of the organization have been revealed. Hopefully these arrests will be the first in a larger chain but for the moment, Germany is the only nation that seems to truly be effectively combatting these crime families.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Story of the “Worker Bees”: Key Arrests in Germany’s Largest Burglary Ring appeared first on Law Street.

After 100 days of aggressive anti-immigrant action, the Trump Administration may be approaching a stumbling block: keeping American farms running without immigrant farmworkers. At a roundtable last month, American farmers explained to Trump that they are dependent on immigrant labor as local hires are rarely willing to work the farms.

Farms across the country, but especially in California, have faced labor shortages for years and as immigration restrictions tighten, the labor supply is quickly dwindling. The White House declined to discuss the specifics of the conversation but Trump reportedly said that he was focused on “criminals” rather than farmworkers and that he won’t destroy the labor force for American farms. However, it is difficult to make such a promise when more than half of American farmworkers are undocumented.

The H 2-A visa program provides agricultural guest workers with legal entry into the United States and as use of the program has risen over the past several years, fewer agricultural workers have been entering the country illegally. However, the H 2-A visa is only a temporary permit. Senate Democrats are currently sponsoring a “blue card” bill that would protect undocumented farmworkers who have worked at least 100 days in each of the past two years from deportation. A “blue card” is a modified green card, designed specially for agricultural workers to fast-track them toward permanent residency in the U.S.

Unfortunately, the bill lacks bipartisan support and there is little incentive for Republican senators to reach across party lines as the majority of their farming constituents voted for Trump, despite the fact that his administration plans to gut spending for farms across rural America. The blue card bill is a viable path to citizenship that will keep farms running and actually stabilize the labor market. Farmers often lose seasonal workers after they return home in the off season and don’t want to risk the passage back into the U.S., but with blue cards, the farmworkers could stay legally and work multiple seasons in a row.

Farmers only stand to benefit from having a steady labor supply but their loyalty to the Trump “pro-business” platform might push them to act against their own self-interest and be satisfied with the empty promise he made at last month’s roundtable. Even if Trump expanded the H-2 visa program, without a path to permanent residency, it is only a Band-Aid over a much more serious labor shortage. The blue card bill could be the path to citizenship that keeps farms running but it’s flown pretty much under the radar up to this point and without a grassroots campaign pushing for it, it will fade before it ever gets close to becoming a law. Undocumented workers do not always have the resources to speak for themselves and fear of deportation after a spike in arrests only makes speaking out seem more dangerous. It is up to the farmers, who have organized unions, lobbying groups and above all, stock with the Republicans, to fight for the blue card bill. If they let this bill fade into obscurity, their farms could take a hit.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Why Farmers Must Support the “Blue Card” Bill appeared first on Law Street.

For the past eighteen years, the Titans of Mavericks surf competition in California has pitted talented surfers from across the world against massive swells that are considered some of the most challenging to surf on the planet. For every one of those eighteen years, the competitors have all been male. Female surfers have been taking on Mavericks for almost as long as the competition has been running, and in recent years it has been increasingly clear that there are qualified female surfers who are ready to join the Titans competition.

In 2015, Sabrina Brennan, a member of the local harbor commission, noticed that the Titans of Mavericks’ five year permit was up for review and that the California Coastal Commission was also reviewing it. Brennan went to work presenting the case that the competition was excluding women; as a result, the commission agreed to adopt a women’s inclusion provision as a requirement for future permits, as well as give Titans a year to create a plan to include more women in the competition.

Despite Titans’ co-founder Jeff Clark arguing that women were already included (as judges and water rescue staff) and that women’s exclusion in the main event was “a performance thing…women just aren’t there yet,” female surfers organized and founded a lobbying group called the Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing. They partnered with Brennan to draft a demand for a women’s heat at Titans, and the commission unanimously voted to enact it in November 2016.

The women’s heat was structured very differently than the men’s, with only $30,000 in prize money compared to $120,000 for men, and only six surfers competing rather than 24. Nevertheless, the heat was ready to go and female surfers stood on the cusp of competing at a level they had been shut out of for almost two decades–that is, until the organizers of Titans of Mavericks declared bankruptcy in February and the competition was shelved. Female surfers can still surf the waves at Mavericks this year, but they won’t benefit from the publicity, cash prizes, and bragging rights that would have come with a formal competition.

The Titans victory may have been short-lived, but it has set an important precedent for women in surfing and other extreme sports across the world. Women’s sports are underfunded across the board–just think about how the U.S. women’s soccer team has had to sue U.S. soccer for wages equivalent to their male counterparts, despite the fact that they generated nearly $20 million more in revenue than the male team. More than 750 million viewers tuned in to the Women’s World Cup in 2015, yet these athletes still have to go to court to be paid what they’re worth.

Consider how difficult it is to compete as a woman in nontraditional or extreme sports, where even male competitors struggle to establish themselves as serious athletes. Women’s prize are consistently a fraction of men’s, and women rarely receive enough sponsorship to allow them to compete as a full-time career. With glaring inequality in organized women’s sports at multiple levels, from the high school level all the way to professional teams, lobbying individual cities and tournaments may be the future of gender parity in sport.

The Committee for Equity in Women’s Surfing should be used as a template for female athletes both in extreme and traditional sports: if the organizers tell you “no,” go over their heads.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Surf Equity: Titans of Mavericks and Beyond appeared first on Law Street.

In January, seven members of Greenpeace scaled a 270-foot crane at a construction site near the White House and unfurled a massive banner with the word “resist” printed in block letters. In April, Greenpeace members blocked the entrance to Coca-Cola’s UK headquarters with a 2.5 ton sculpture of a seagull regurgitating plastic and unfurled a banner reading “Stop Dirty Pipeline Deals!” on the center stage of Credit Suisse’s annual shareholder meeting. All of these Greenpeace interventions grabbed headlines but they did not shut down operations of the White House, Coca-Cola, or Credit Suisse. Greenpeace’s banners certainly entertain and uplift, but do they actually have an impact?

While Greenpeace would be nothing without its partnerships with local NGOs, it does have more brand recognition and funding than local organizations. Greenpeace campaigners unrolling banners and installing sculptures gain more publicity than a handful of protesters picketing outside of Coca-Cola headquarters. Images of a Greenpeace demonstration go viral within hours and that kind of power grants the group access to negotiations that smaller organizations never get. Greenpeace negotiators have worked with dozens of major corporations, including Nestlé, Mattel, LEGO, and McDonald’s, to address how the companies can reduce their carbon footprint, protect the environment, and divest from harmful supply chains.

Under the Trump Administration, when sustainability and climate change are treated like myths, businesses will feel no pressure to commit to green practices–unless they are publicly called out and the public is educated about their operations. The Science March and the People’s Climate March were powerful but brief–the true work will be sustaining the outrage and activism that those marches created over a four year period. Greenpeace has the network, the funding and the name recognition to turn individual protests into a larger, more cohesive movement.

Activists can continue to do their work challenging corporations but should also look to the local level as 2018 approaches. If they choose to expand the “market based campaigning” strategy they’ve used against corporations in the past to local and federal governments, they could build powerful local power bases. Imagine Greenpeace banners in town meetings or on the campaign trail during the mid-term elections–the setting for a Greenpeace campaign doesn’t always have to be a corporate meeting and negotiations should not be reserved for corporate sustainability departments.

When Greenpeace was founded in 1971, its first activists leased a fishing boat called the Phyllis Cormack and set sail for Alaska, protesting nuclear testing off of the coast by putting themselves in harm’s way. This ship was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard and turned back–but several members of the Coast Guard crew signed a letter supporting the protesters’ mission and the media attention the boat drew contributed to ending nuclear testing in Alaska. So, while that first fishing boat could easily have been written off as just another publicity stunt, look what it launched.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Beyond Symbolic: Greenpeace in the Trump Era appeared first on Law Street.

After President Trump signed an executive order last week, every national monument of 100,000 acres or more created since January 1, 1996, is under threat. At least 25 national parks and monuments established under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton will all be subject to review.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 has been used by presidents from both political parties to protect hundreds of millions of acres of land, but overnight, dozens of parks and monuments are now at risk. The parks under review include Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, Marianas Trench near Guam, and the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona. Many of these parks are concentrated in the West and Southwest, but marine reserves in both the Pacific and Atlantic are also under threat. With a second executive order approving offshore drilling in previously protected areas signed last Friday, marine environments are in an especially precarious position.

Trump framed the national parks as a “massive federal land grab” and claimed to be giving power back to the states, but by gutting public land protections, he is opening the parks up to industries that they have long been protected from. If the acreage of national parks is reduced, the land will be available for drilling, mining, and logging. The argument for defending states’ rights is a transparent cover for promoting commercial interests.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke went so far as to state that Trump is concerned national parks result in the loss of jobs and reduced wages. This concern is based on zero evidence. The National Park Service helps add hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economy, which is why economists encouraged President Obama to frequently use the Antiquities Act while in office. In 2016, visitors to national parks spent an estimated $18.4 billion in local gateway regions (communities within 60 miles of a park). Hotels, campgrounds, restaurants, and bars flourish in areas around national parks. The parks are undeniably popular–hundreds of millions of visitors stream to them each year and the number of visitors has been rapidly rising for the past three years. States orient their entire tourism industries around their national parks and reap the benefits accordingly. For example, in Utah, national park tourism at the state’s 13 sites created $1.6 billion in revenue last year. It’s an interesting statistic considering that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch claims that President Obama abused the Antiquities Act and now supports Trump’s executive order.

If Trump truly believes parks are draining public funds, then he should be attacking the private vendors that monopolize concessions and merchandising within the parks. If he really sees designating parks as an individual state’s responsibility, he should have placed state governments in charge of the review, not Ryan Zinke. If Trump truly cared about parks having a negative impact on the economy, he should have established a review of park spending, not a review of the parks’ existence. Disbanding the parks is not a bold move to cut government spending or limit the authority of the federal government–it’s a transparent power grab from the private companies that Trump is beholden to.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post An Executive Order Without Justification: Attacking the National Parks appeared first on Law Street.

Bill O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News is being touted as a victory against the vitriolic reporting of the network. After multiple sexual harassment lawsuits against the cable anchorman became public, sponsors began pulling ads from the show to the point that Fox leadership decided to cut their losses and dismiss O’Reilly. But will that move actually change anything about Fox News?

“The O’Reilly Factor” was an incredibly popular program and producers scrambled to fill the profitable 8 p.m. weekday time slot that draws almost 4 million viewers each night. Tucker Carlson has been chosen from the Fox News bench to fill O’Reilly’s shoes. While he might not have the same popularity or fame as O’Reilly, Carlson’s dismissive views of women hardly make him a departure from the O’Reilly Factor era. For those who don’t regularly tune in to Fox News, Carlson is best known for his program “Crossfire”–which Jon Stewart famously tore to pieces in 2004. This year, Carlson replaced Megyn Kelly after her decision to leave Fox–so it would appear that Carlson is making a habit of replacing more popular hosts.

O’Reilly may be leaving Fox in disgrace, but the moral judgment passed on him does not translate into financial ruin. O’Reilly is receiving a $25 million payout upon his exit, a far greater sum than any of the women who sued him received, which is equal to one year of his salary. He will no doubt be invited to speak on cable news shows and on the lecture circuit, and already has a book deal to further augment his income.

Other media outlets might have taken O’Reilly’s departure as an opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to reform. Fox News could have hired outside of its existing anchor network, a true break from tradition. Even once the executives decided to hire in-house, they could have gone with a candidate with more experience with O’Reilly’s viewers–like host Laura Ingraham, who filled in for O’Reilly on multiple occasions. Ingraham tows the party line at Fox so hiring her would guarantee viewer retention while simultaneously serving as a gesture of respect towards female anchors at the network.

After Megyn Kelly’s departure, which O’Reilly reportedly contributed to, Fox had a chance to step back and address the pervasive sexism that female staff have faced at the network–a chance executives did not take. Representative Maxine Waters, who was personally attacked by O’Reilly, went so far as to call Fox News a “sexual harassment enterprise.” By appointing Carlson, the Fox team has only reaffirmed the culture O’Reilly and Roger Ailes built together at Fox. The window dressing might change, but the 8 p.m. weekday slot–and Fox News as a whole–will be the same, whether or not O’Reilly is at the helm.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Why Bill O’Reilly’s Departure Won’t Change Fox appeared first on Law Street.

Protesters took to the streets of Glasgow last week to push back against the “rape clause” in the UK welfare system. After reforms of the welfare system took effect in April, the tax credits a family can receive for having children are now capped at two children–except in the case of mothers who have a third child as a result of rape. However, those mothers have to provide evidence that the child was in fact conceived from rape–a provision decried as inhumane.

Rape survivors have to fill out an eight-page form detailing the attack and a third party (such as a healthcare provider or a social worker) must provide additional testimony. The woman can only receive tax benefits if she is not living with the perpetrator and if she has not received financial compensation following a conviction of the perpetrator. But psychologists across the UK have expressed concern that this rape clause will harm survivors. In a letter to The Guardian, a set of psychologists write that forced reliving of the attack may cause “flashbacks, renewed shame and emotional turmoil, and consequently affect how mothers bond with their children.”

The clause was an amendment to an existing law, so it was not debated or voted on in parliament. First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP has decried the clause and has fought against it. SNP MP Alison Thewliss led the Scrap the Rape Clause campaign, presenting a petition with 10,000 signatures asking for the clause to be struck from the tax reforms. Members of the Scottish Parliament have filed a motion to debate the clause, which could push the UK Parliament to also debate it. The SNP is not alone in its discontent: the rape clause may particularly harm women in Northern Ireland, where reporting serious crimes, including rape, is mandatory. If women apply for a tax credit for a third child conceived through rape, they may be drawn into a criminal investigation against their will.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has argued that the Scottish government could set up new benefits to aid families with more than two children, outside of the UK government’s reforms. Davidson accused Sturgeon of simply writing the rape clause off as part of her list of complaints against the UK government instead of actively considering how Scotland could adapt the tax credit system.

Whether or not the rape clause is upheld, families across the UK will find themselves in a new financial bracket thanks to the tax reforms. Historically there has not been a limit to how many children a parent can claim–so large families that have previously benefited from tax credits may now find themselves slipping out of financial stability. The tax reforms disproportionately affect low-income families and will push them deeper into poverty. The rape clause was established in an odd effort to be “compassionate” but the misguided attempt to soften the blow of the tax reforms has only exacerbated ideological divides both within Scotland and the UK as a whole.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Scotland’s Battle Against the UK Welfare “Rape Clause” appeared first on Law Street.

American and German hate speech laws are clashing this month after the approval of a German bill that permits fines of up to 50 million euros on social networking sites that fail to remove hate speech and fake news content from their platforms. The bill still needs to be approved by parliament, but if it does pass, it will be the first concrete step by a government to limit and penalize fake news production.

Companies will have 24 hours to take down content that has been flagged by users before the fines kick in. They will also be obligated to file quarterly reports and turn in “malicious” users–an issue that may prove thorny, as demonstrated by Twitter’s recent lawsuit against the federal government.

American-based sites including Facebook and Twitter have been scrambling to fight fake news over the past year but have struggled to walk the line between freedom of speech and hate speech. In Germany, where the legacy of the Nazi reign has created some of the strictest hate speech laws on the books, that line has been far more defined for decades. Under German law, volksverhetzung, which can be translated as “incitement to hatred,” is a crime punishable by heavy fines or several years of imprisonment. These punishments are usually applied to Holocaust denial and overt racist threats but by shifting the focus to social media, Germany is taking on a wider and more varied range of bigoted behavior. German justice minister Heiko Maas told the German media that “there should be just as little tolerance for criminal rabble rousing on social networks as on the street.”

The bill has already come under fire from advocates of free speech, including the EU’s digital commissioner, Andrus Ansip of Estonia. Ansip declared that over-regulating social media will harm innovation and that instead, the EU should encourage self-regulation. However, German supporters of the bill argue that websites have been neglecting reports of abuse coming in from users and that a harsher penalty is the only way to ensure that the sites will truly take fake news and hate speech seriously. The German Jugendschutz, a ministry dedicated to protecting minors online, found that Facebook only removed 39 percent of reported criminal content. Twitter removes an even smaller percentage of reported content–an estimated one in a hundred reported messages. Facebook has refuted the Jugendschutz statistic, arguing that its own analysis showed a higher rate of removal, but Twitter has not pushed back with the same vehement denial.

Tracing and deleting fake news and hate speech is a challenging task, especially for networks like Facebook and Twitter that serve hundreds of millions of users across dozens of countries every day. There is so much content to sift through that it is not surprising the social network teams are struggling to rapidly and accurately take down fake news. However, a worthwhile task shouldn’t be abandoned simply because it is difficult. The true challenge is not taking down abusive content, it is determining whether the strict German definition of hate speech can be applied in an era where even the team in the Oval Office has made disparaging and racist remarks on social media.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post What Germany’s New Hate Speech Law Means for Social Media appeared first on Law Street.

As the Trump Administration cracks down on illegal immigration in the U.S., immigrants have been crossing the border into Canada. In 2016, 1,222 immigrants fled the U.S. to Quebec alone–a fivefold increase from prior years–and there have been similar spikes in British Columbia.

Stories of frostbitten immigrants crossing into remote, unmarked border towns this winter garnered international attention and set conservative Canadians on the warpath, demanding stricter regulation of the border. But the rise of illegal immigration has also led to calls for alterations to (and even the repeal of) the Safe Third Country Agreement, which states that refugees must apply for asylum in the first country they arrive in. Many immigrants who were hoping to seek shelter in the U.S. are crossing into Canada illegally because they believe their asylum claims will be denied in the U.S. but upheld in Canada. If the act was repealed or suspended, immigrants could request asylum at official border crossings and enter the country legally.

In the Justin Trudeau era, Americans tend to glamorize Canada as the last moral outpost on the continent but the nation is not quite the united front we assume it to be. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week, nearly half of respondents want to send illegal immigrants crossing the Canadian border back to the U.S. and a similar number of respondents disapprove of how the government is handling illegal immigration. The subsets that were most in favor of deportation were men, adults without a college degree, higher income individuals, and older individuals. This is by no means a perfect representation of Canadian attitudes. Yet in an era where xenophobia is encouraged and even enshrined by executive orders, it’s important to keep an eye on shifts in public opinion.

The U.S.-Canada border has historically been a “soft” one but as illegal immigration rates climb, Canada appears to be moving slowly toward a more hardline stance. Trudeau has defended proposed legislation that would allow U.S. customs agents to question, search, and detain Canadians on Canadian soil. Trudeau publicly stated in February that the government would not take steps to quell irregular migration–yet by giving more power to U.S. customs agents, he is essentially passing the buck. Policing the border is a cooperative effort between the two countries and if Trudeau steps away from that responsibility, he will be enabling the Trump Administration.

Trudeau met with Trump earlier this year in a carefully coordinated encounter that let Trudeau hold strong on all of his positions without actively attacking Trump. While it is diplomatic common sense not to antagonize an ally, Trudeau could take a stronger stand against the Trump Administration through legislative action–such as scrapping the Safe Third Country Agreement. Trudeau has done outstanding work with the Syrian refugee population, striving to fast-track their entry into Canada so that tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have now been granted asylum in Canada–but can he keep it up?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Other Border: Pushback Against Illegal Immigration in Canada appeared first on Law Street.

Saudi Arabia marked the week following International Women’s Day with a historic event–the country’s first ever girls’ council, convened in the province of Qassim. The council is a small part of the sweeping Vision 2030 plan, a set of goals for the kingdom that includes creating a more tolerant and inclusive atmosphere for women. Yet the council has now become a viral joke rather than an important turning point for the country, after photos from the convening of the council revealed that it was entirely comprised of men.

Some women apparently do sit on the council, but the gender segregation codes of Saudi Arabia meant that they had to sit in a separate room, connected to the main conference by video link. In a country where women quite literally cannot get a seat at the table, what can the girls’ council accomplish?

Qassim Governor Prince Faisal bin Mishal bin Saud, who hosted the conference, framed the council as important because “we look at women as sisters to men.” This is far from a rallying cry for gender parity, but it may be the best we can expect from Saudi Arabia. Life for girls and women in the Kingdom is dictated entirely by their male guardians, who are able to control where they go, who they see, and what they do with virtually every moment of their day. Women are not treated as legal adults, which means even as progress slowly trickles into the country, they are still denied basic legal rights and protections.

In the case of Saudi Arabia, it is always wise to temper expectations and remember that the Vision 2030 goals may not actually be reached by 2030. Women’s rights are not the only issue on the table–poverty, youth unemployment, a lack of affordable housing and a clearly defined racial hierarchy that has been reinforced over the years by the wealthiest Saudi families preserving the status quo.

These civil rights issues are inextricably linked to the oil economy, which has concentrated wealth in certain pockets and has left the rest of the country out in the cold. Vision 2030’s mission requires an overhaul of every part of Saudi life–and it may be impossible to successfully implement the changes that must be made unless the government is willing to relax the ties between its extreme interpretation of religion and rule of law.

The Qassim girls’ council has already been turned into a meme, being compared to the photo of an all male Trump Administration team reinstating the Mexico City Policy (also known as the global gag rule) by executive order this year. Western news outlets picked up the images from Qassim, pointing out the absurdity of a girls’ council without any women present. Still, the criticism has not moved the Saudi organizers to change the make-up of the council or let the female advisers participate alongside their male counterparts.

I sincerely hope that the girls’ council does not fade into the background, and that it does receive the necessary funding and attention to advance gender equality. Yet, at this moment, it seems like a mere publicity stunt gone wrong: an attempt to showcase the Vision 2030 goals that revealed exactly how far Saudi Arabia still has to go.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Why Saudi Arabia Isn’t Going to Hit its 2030 Goal appeared first on Law Street.

The Wikipedia Zero project was launched in 2012, with the goal of sharing Wikipedia via mobile phones across the world without forcing users to burn up their data. The program is specifically designed for users in developing countries where mobile data is incredibly expensive. Operators “zero-rate” Wikipedia and its affiliate projects don’t register as websites that users need data to access. Wikipedia Zero is active in 59 countries, and made headlines this week after partnering with Asiacell to launch the program in Iraq.

Wikipedia’s mission is similar to initiatives like Mark Zuckerburg’s Internet.org and Facebook Free Basics. Internet access is rarely prioritized in communities where access to food, clean water, housing, and healthcare are all lacking–yet connection to the internet means greater opportunities for business, education, and political participation.

While the project has the best of intentions, it has been criticized for copyright infringement as users in Bangladesh and Angola have used Wikipedia Zero and Facebook’s Free Basics to share copyrighted files. Wikipedia editors have tried to monitor and block this file sharing but it’s a daunting task that may not be possible without completely shutting down the project. Wikipedia Zero’s copyright infringement issues came to be because users realized they could manipulate the system in place–but internet piracy happens around the world, and these countries are hardly breaking the mold. Does the project really deserve to be shut down just because a portion of its users are engaging in piracy?

The internet is inextricably linked with development, so shutting down projects like Wikipedia Zero can only be a step backwards.  Yet as projects like Facebook Free Basics and Wikipedia Zero expand, they have to grapple with the consequences of users manipulating the tools they are given.  Beyond that, these companies have to recognize what expanding their audience means, as an audience with limited internet access may rely on them as their only source of information. Think about how fake news on Facebook has a genuine impact on public opinion–that fake news can be accessed globally, not just within the U.S., and suddenly a story that has no grounding in reality has been publicized across the globe. Wikipedia faces a similar problem as virtually anyone can edit or add to a Wikipedia page, which is why fact checkers and researchers generally shudder at its use as a resource. False information is being disseminated at a far greater rate when it seems to have been vetted by a brand name and Wikipedia’s branding is global.

It would be ideal if a more credible site like Encyclopedia Britannica or a useful news site like Reuters could be granted the “zero-rate”–but those sites simply aren’t as easy to access and navigate as the straightforward Wikipedia page, nor do they have the same foundational interest in spreading their content without financial gain that Wikipedia has. There are valid arguments for condemning or rolling back Wikipedia Zero, but what should it be replaced with? Unless governments can take on the herculean task of funding mobile data for their citizens, this may be as good as it gets.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Strange Case of Wikipedia Zero appeared first on Law Street.

Uber leadership is scrambling to react this week to the sexual harassment allegations of former employee Susan J. Fowler, whose blog post on her experience at Uber has gone viral. Fowler describes how she was repeatedly sexually harassed and discriminated against yet every time she made a report to her managers or to human resources, she was dismissed. Fowler’s story throws a spotlight on sexism in an industry that loves to paint itself as forward thinking and inclusive, and her experience was not an isolated case–as Fowler’s blog gained traction, women from a range of companies began sharing their experiences with sexual harassment in the tech world.

Uber’s reputation already took a hit this winter when #deleteUber began to trend after Uber failed to condemn the Trump Administration’s immigration ban and continued sending cars to airports during a tax driver protest. After Fowler’s blog post, the deleting trend is back in full force. With rival Lyft picking up some of the client base that was once so loyal to Uber, the company’s reputation–and financial success–could begin to crumble.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has stated that he was disturbed and shocked by Fowler’s experience and within a matter of hours had hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of sexual harassment claims at the company. This will be Holder’s second venture into creating a more inclusive Silicon Valley brand. After Airbnb received widespread complaints of discrimination from hosts, Holder and Laura Murphy, former head of the ACLU, were hired to craft an anti-discrimination policy for the company. Airbnb now has hosts accept its anti-discrimination rules before they can become part of the Airbnb community, and while there have been arguments that the rules are not actually effective and that they don’t go far enough, the new rules were at least a step in the right direction. Holder has always been a staunch advocate for civil rights and was fully committed to women’s rights during his tenure as attorney general–but is he truly being asked to overhaul Uber’s culture or simply being brought on for publicity reasons?

There are doubts that Holder’s team will be able to defeat sexism in an industry where women are rarely given a seat at the table within a nation where sexual harassment has gone unpunished for decades and where the sitting president has bragged about assaulting women. Uber, like most companies across Silicon Valley and around the world, prioritizes results over respect for women in the workplace. Multiple interviews from current and former Uber employees have revealed that the work environment can be very hostile but that no one reports it out of fear of retaliation.

Now that Fowler’s case has shone a spotlight on a reality that we often ignore, Uber has at least taken steps to acknowledge the problem immediately, both by hiring Holder and by issuing a message that acknowledges Fowler’s case when users try to delete the app. However, over the coming weeks as media attention shifts, Uber may have minimal incentives to improve its sexual harassment policies. Uber is still an exciting company for any young developer to work at, and while Fowler’s case may give female programmers and engineers pause, there is little reason to think that many male candidates will choose not to work at Uber because of Fowler’s story.

The most effective boycott would be taking #deleteUber a step further–don’t work for Uber. If Uber takes a hit in its hiring pool, that is when it will truly feel the pressure to reform. It is the responsibility of young, qualified candidates who are working in Silicon Valley to turn down offers at companies that subscribe to a toxic work environment that devalues female voices. Holder will be working to create new policies and investigate past offenses, but his investigation will be futile if we continue to ignore the results and sign up for Uber just the same.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Why Eric Holder Can’t Save Silicon Valley Alone appeared first on Law Street.

Earlier in February, a French police officer was charged with raping a 22-year-old man with no criminal record during a violent arrest at the Aulnay-sous-Bois housing estate, located in the Parisian suburbs. Three other officers were charged with assault during the same arrest and all four officers, who denied the charges, have been suspended. However, the suspension has not satisfied the desire for justice in the banlieues, the suburbs of Paris that are often compared to the ghettos of American cities, areas of primarily low income housing that the far-right National Front have condemned as hotbeds of crime. The rape of the young man arrested in Aulnay-sous-Bois month has sparked mass protests across multiple suburbs.

Protesters clashed with police, and French academics are concerned that these protests may just be the precursor to riots on a greater scale, especially with the presidential elections just two months away. The victim, identified only as Theo, has asked the public to obey the law and not turn to violence, in a statement reminiscent of Rodney King’s “can’t we all get along” comments in 1992.

Conflict between the police and residents of the banlieues is always colored by the legacy of the 2005 riots, which began with the death of two teenagers who were electrocuted while hiding from the police in a power station. Young people took to the streets across multiple cities, burning buildings and cars, fighting police officers and even in ransacking the police station of Aulnay-sous-Bois. An estimated 3,000 people were arrested and a state of emergency was declared for several weeks. Thousands of extra police officers were called to duty and the images of burning neighborhoods were broadcast worldwide, painting the banlieues as almost apocalyptic.

The suburbs contain a diverse mix of incomes and ethnicities but in the past several decades they have become symbols of violence, unrest, and inequality. The Muslim and immigrant populations of the suburbs have frequently been vilified by politicians from across the country, who associate them with both acts of terrorism and petty crime. The revelation that Samy Amimour, one of the shooters in the November 2015 Paris attacks, came from the banlieues, added fuel to the fire.

This culture of fear combined with soaring unemployment rates has increased the isolation of the suburban population. Although the 2005 riots may have made the world sit up and take notice of the banlieues, they did not garner the community respect or sympathy from politicians or the greater French public. The riots only served to increase fear of the suburban population, to the point that any protest, even a justified one, is automatically considered to be a potential riot. The potential for a riot is by no means nonexistent but the fear of the banlieues has reached the point where even peaceful protest is feared. In an era where the far right is steaming ahead as a seemingly unstoppable force, the voices of the banlieues are getting pushed out of the traditional political sphere. When excluded from normal channels, populations have always relied on civil disobedience–but no one seems willing to frame the protests in the banlieues as such because of the pervasive legacy of 2005.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Will Riots Engulf the Parisian Suburbs Once Again? appeared first on Law Street.

In January, almost half a million people joined the Women’s March in Washington, DC while tens of thousands more marched in smaller protests across the country. The Women’s March has been called the largest single day protest in recorded American history–and the organizers behind the march are not letting their momentum fade. This week, they announced plans for a “Day Without a Woman,” a general strike for women across the country and perhaps even around the globe.

Details on when the strike will take place have yet to be released but a surge of support is evident across social media platforms. The successful Women’s Strike on Inauguration Day, during which over 7,000 workers went on strike from “both paid and unpaid work,” could serve as a valuable template for organizers of a national strike. Those who marched in January seem ready and willing to strike so the challenge for the organizers may not be mass participation but instead efficacy.

Strikes often shut down a single sector of a single industry–a school, a factory, a mine–but they can also go city or district-wide, forcing local governments and employers to cave under pressure. Shutting down a company on a national level is a herculean task, but it can be done–however, the Women’s March organizers are not targeting a single company, or even a single industry. Their vision involves women (and men who would strike in solidarity) striking in the same vein as the Black Monday protests for women’s reproductive health that took place in Poland in 2016–a national day of strike in every industry, at every level, so large that it could not be represented by a single union or cause.

This type of strike could make for a second wave of impressive protests across the nation but it won’t necessarily cripple the economy of the country–strikers will take a vacation day or an unpaid day off and then return to work the next day. The strikers themselves will be the ones who will have to make a sacrifice, as their employers likely won’t lose any money from an employee being absent for a single day.

The Black Monday strikes were powerful but did not come close to stalling the economy of Poland. Unions have historically found strength in the length of their strikes–going without heat, teachers, or transport infuriates the public and makes a company or regulator cave to public demand for a return to usual service. However, when a strike is not concentrated on a single industry, public services and the general economy continue to operate as per usual. Another challenge for the strike will be laying out a concise set of demands. The Black Monday protests were targeted toward a single abortion bill, which ultimately did not pass, whereas the Women’s Strike would be working against a larger set of issues and legislation.

The Women’s Strike is only in its infancy, barely even a viable practice at the moment, yet it seems to be a largely symbolic act. That being said, a national strike can still open important dialogues, influence the opinions of elected officials, and engage citizens who may have been apathetic in the past. Ultimately, the strike will not disrupt the American economy but it will unite women in a common act of civil disobedience.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Challenges of Building a National Women’s Strike appeared first on Law Street.

The town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine is preparing for evacuation this week as the town has lost electricity and water. After clashes between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russia rebels, at least ten people are dead and dozens have been wounded.

Reports conflict on the exact death toll and more than twenty civilians and soldiers may have died in the past several days. Heavy shelling has decimated the region, with more than 2,300 explosions taking place in a 24-hour period. Both sides have claimed the other has been using Grad rocket systems, an imprecise weapon which disperses multiple rockets across a broad area. This shelling is a blatant violation of the Minsk agreements of 2014, which halted war in the Donbass region (adjacent to Avdiivka), as well as the ceasefire declared earlier this year by Russian separatists.

As temperatures plummet below zero, the citizens of Avdiivka are trapped in homes without any heat supply, unsure if the shelling will begin again during the week. A state of emergency has been declared across the region and unless utilities are restored to the town immediately, the government will evacuate thousands from their homes.

Avdiivka is a somber reminder of the daily struggle for peace in Ukraine, an ongoing battle that many fear will crumble under the Trump administration. If Trump cuts Kiev out of peace negotiations with Russia in order to bolster his own relationship with the Russian establishment, he could undo years of the Ukrainian government’s efforts to unify and stabilize the country. Tenuous connections are being made between the phone call with Trump and Putin the day before the shelling in Avdiivka and a sense of Russian support for escalating violence in Ukraine.

With Trump seemingly positioning himself as friendly to Russia, Putin will likely not feel the same sting that he felt under the Obama Administration, which leveled multiple economic sanctions against Russia in an attempt to dissuade further military action in Ukraine. President Obama also stationed U.S. troops in Poland before leaving office, citing Russian expansionist doctrine as a threat to Polish autonomy.

There have been no indications that the Trump Administration plans to enact sanctions against Russia or to provide military support for the Ukrainian military as it battles against the pro-Russia rebel forces. The White House has not issued a formal statement but instead directed a request for comment toward the State Department, which cited the Minsk agreements and called for a ceasefire. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg appealed to Russia to exert its influence over the rebels and to request a return to the ceasefire. The UN Security Council has also called for the reinstatement of the ceasefire. However, reports that the rebels are setting up artillery positions in the city center of Donetsk and a significant spike in the amount of shelling in Donetsk this week suggest that the Minsk agreements may already be in tatters. If the Trump Administration continues to turn a blind eye to the crisis, Avdiivka may be just the beginning of the darkest chapter of the Ukrainian war.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Tragedy in Avdiivka: Violence Tearing Through Eastern Ukraine appeared first on Law Street.

Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in the spotlight this week after U.S. prosecutors accused his brother and nephew of conspiring to bribe a government official while he was at the UN. Ban Ki Sang and his son Joo Hyun Bahn allegedly orchestrated a $500,000 bribe to a Middle Eastern official for the purchase of the Landmark 72 skyscraper in Vietnam.

According to the allegations, the initial payment was meant to be followed by a secondary bribe of $2 million after the sale. The identity and nationality of the official the two attempted to bribe has not been disclosed, but the middleman in the deal has been identified as U.S. businessman Malcolm Harris, who apparently took the first bribe but spent it himself rather than passing it along to the official. Harris is currently at large but Bahn and his associate Sang Woo were arrested for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits bribing foreign officials.  Bahn, who was slated to serve as an adjunct professor at NYU, has been stripped of his position but has been let out on bail and will remain within the U.S. for a federal trial.

Ban Ki-moon has publicly stated that he is “perplexed and embarrassed” by the bribery accusations but even if he distances himself from his relatives, the charges against them may still destroy his chances of becoming South Korea’s president. In the wake of President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment the South Korean electorate will be hyper sensitive to any scandal or implication of corruption among the candidates running to fill the presidential seat.  It still remains to be seen if the president’s impeachment will be upheld by the constitutional court, but in the court of public opinion, Park Geun-hye has already been transformed into a monster.

Voters will be looking for an inspirational and trustworthy leader to provide them with a presidential campaign reminiscent of President Barack Obama’s messages of hope and change in 2008. Ban Ki-moon has an unparalleled record of public service and a wealth of experience, but the investigation into his family could very easily become the central story of his campaign.  In the same way that Republican candidates made Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server during her time as secretary of state central to their campaigns, Ban Ki-moon’s opponents may seize on this scandal in an attempt to impugn his character (despite the fact that he was not named in the indictment or charged in any way).

Ban Ki-moon seems like the obvious choice for the South Korean presidency, but he may face strong competition from Moon Jae-in, a social liberal who has called for large-scale corporate reform and an increased dialogue with North Korea, especially regarding their nuclear program. Lee Jae-myung, mayor of the city of Seongnam, who like Moon Jae-in is a member of the liberal Minjoo Party, has also been tapped to run. The bribery scandal may fade into the background as Ban Ki-moon picks up steam and rests on his already sky-high approval rankings, but if we learned anything from 2016, it was that elections are far less predictable that we like to think.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Will Ban Ki-moon’s Family Cost Him a Presidential Bid? appeared first on Law Street.

Megyn Kelly has announced a move from Fox News, her home for over a decade, to NBC, where it is rumored she will join the morning talk shows. Her Fox program, “The Kelly File,” was ranked consistently as one of the most popular cable news programs, with over 2.7 million viewers last year. Sources have stated that NBC is giving Kelly a daytime show that will fill the slot currently running the third hour of the “Today” show, as well as an anchor spot on a Sunday night news program. Kelly’s departure leaves a seat open in a critical late-night time slot, and there is already a flurry of speculation over who will replace her. There are also questions about whether her move will inspire Bill O’Reilly, Fox’s most profitable anchor, to jump ship when his contract ends later this year. Fox currently has no female host in prime time, which bodes ill for a network still reeling from a massive sexual harassment lawsuit.

Kelly has stated her decision to leave Fox is focused around the work-life balance available at NBC. Yet it is impossible to ignore her clash with Donald Trump in the wake of his incendiary comments about her after the Republican primary and the environment created by Roger Ailes, who Kelly called out for sexual harassment. In the wake of Trump’s inflammatory comments questioning her journalistic integrity, Kelly became symbolic of a righteous crusade against Trump. She was profiled in numerous magazines, gained more attention for her show and became a symbol of strength in the face of sexism.

However, the positive press that Kelly received after the debate can be largely categorized as beneficial to her personal brand rather than beneficial to women in journalism as a whole. In the rush to lift her up to icon status, the public seemed to forget the often blatantly racist tone of “The Kelly File” and the fact that, until the Republican primary, she produced the same rhetoric that the rest of the Fox News team does. Kelly was a frequent target of “The Daily Show” under Jon Stewart’s reign and was lambasted for holding shouting matches rather than interviews on her show.

So which version of Megyn Kelly did NBC sign up for: the pundit who railed against the “War on Christmas,” and defended racist emails in the Ferguson police department, or the heroine who was, according to some, the only Republican woman to stand up to Trump? Unfortunately, Kelly’s inflammatory statements from her Fox years will probably come with her to NBC–after all, Kelly claiming that Michelle Obama promotes a culture of victimization will get more clicks and comments than a clip of her calmly reporting the news or interviewing an actor on a press tour for their latest film. Kelly may have moved to a new network and a new time slot, but her star power is wrapped up in the persona she built at Fox News–and that persona demands drama.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post What Should We Expect from Megyn Kelly at NBC? appeared first on Law Street.

The locks left in the chain links of Paris’s iconic Pont des Arts bridge have long been contentious–they were seen as an eyesore, a tourist trap, and a threat to the structural integrity of the bridge, as the weight of hundreds upon hundreds of metal locks weighed down the balustrades. Romantics see the love locks as a symbol of commitment, but locals see them as a form of littering. The city began removing the locks en masse last year but the “love lock trend” still exists across Paris and has spread to practically every major city with an attractive set of bridges. Yet as of this month, the Parisian locks will take on a new identity–they are being bundled together and auctioned for charity, specifically to raise money for refugees living in Paris.

The auction is slated for the spring of 2017 and Bruno Julliard, first deputy mayor of Paris, expects to raise approximately 100,000 euros for the refugee community–but there have been no specific plans released for which organizations will receive the profits. Nor has there been a clear outline of what specifically the money would go toward. Refugees are in need of shelter, food, medical care and supplies, legal representation, job training and placement–which of these efforts will be prioritized when the love lock funds roll in?

Julliard has essentially two options before him: donate a massive sum to a single organization, or donate multiple small amounts to the various charities working to secure housing and employment for the thousands of refugees living in Paris. The general statement Julliard released made a vague reference toward funding “organizations” (plural not singular) working to support refugees in Paris but gave no information about whether that means local, neighborhood organizations or larger, international charities. If several different organizations are going to receive funding, then orchestrating the auction becomes a much more challenging task. What if those bidding on the locks only want to give to certain charities that are benefitting from the funds and not others?

While several small donations to multiple causes can help with immediate issues like purchasing supplies, there is an economic argument that a one-time large donation to a single organization will be more impactful in the long run. However, the true efficacy of the donation has more to do with how the organization spends it money than the sum itself. The websites Givewell and CharityNavigator  only exist because we have seen charities mishandle funds time and again, making us wary of where we donate our money.

At the moment, the sale of the love locks may read as a feel-good publicity stunt but if the auction truly does raise the money that Julliard expects, the funds will become an object of public debate, with every non-profit that even tangentially works with refugees looking for a grant and every anti-refugee National Front supporter arguing that the funds should be spent elsewhere. Unless there is a clear plan of which charity the money is going to and how it will be spent when it gets there, the love lock auction will be, at best, a shallow gesture that does not effectively help Paris’s refugees.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Auctioning the Love Locks: The Challenges of Charity appeared first on Law Street.

The military tactic of “scorched earth”–destroying land and resources while entering or retreating from a territory so that enemies cannot benefit from occupying the land–dates back to ancient history. But most of us associate it either with the Napoleonic wars or the World Wars, when both Russia and Germany destroyed infrastructure and land to slow the advance of their enemy.  And in Iraq, as ISIS fights to control Mosul, the scorched earth tactic is alive and well–during its retreat, ISIS has been regularly lighting oil wells on fire, hoping to slow the government forces advancing on it.

The town of Qayyarah, south of Mosul, has been burning for months, the peril escalated by ISIS igniting the Mishraq sulfur plant outside of the town in October. A sulfur cloud stretches out over the town and crude oil runs through the streets, forcing the evacuation of local families.

It can take weeks to put out just a single fire, as the firefighters have to check the land around the well for booby traps and landmines before beginning their work. The toxic smoke that the firefighters inhale makes the work almost unbearable and despite their best efforts, there are still over a dozen wells burning night and day. Even after the fire has been extinguished, the damage is not yet done. Entire villages are stained with soot and smoke inhalation is already damaging the lungs of the populace, as hundreds are being rushed to hospitals. The sky is dark for most of the day and livestock are dying at an escalated rate under the pressure of constant exposure to smoke and soot.

The burning of the oil wells will have a lasting, devastating impact on the landscape–not just in terms of environmental damage but regarding human security–an entire generation of children growing up with lung damage. NASA satellite images provide a grim portrait of how quickly the smoke and sulfur-dioxide released by the fires has spread and raise questions about when the land will be inhabitable again.

It is fitting that ISIS, with its medieval vision of law and order, would revive a violent tactic that should have died out before the turn of the century. ISIS’ burning of the oil wells is not the only way that ISIS is manipulating natural resources. ISIS has also cut electricity to water stations in neighborhoods where Iraqi troops are arriving, leaving approximately half a million people without access to running water or clean drinking water. The lack of drinking water would have been a critical problem even without the fires, but with citizens choking on the smoke, the need for drinkable water is greater than ever before. ISIS is leaving nothing but husks of infrastructure in its wake, forcing civilians to cooperate with it in order to survive–following the terrorists to cities with clean air and water rather than staying put and waiting for Iraqi troops to arrive under the clouds of sulfur.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Weaponized Oil: Scorched Earth Warfare in Iraq appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, Ukrainian forces arrested two men in the Crimean peninsula, Ensign Maxim Evgenyevich Odintsov and Junior Sergeant Alexander Vyacheslavovich Baranov. According to Ukrainian leadership, the men are deserters who defected to the Russian military in 2014 but according to the Russian defense ministry, the pair are Russian servicemen who have been illegally detained. And no one is quite sure what’s going on.

According to a Russian Black Sea Fleets official, the two men were “lured” into Ukraine, incentivized by the promise of receiving higher education certificates. Ukraine’s Security Service has argued that it apprehended the men after they crossed the checkpoint into Ukrainian-controlled territory while Russia is claiming that the men were kidnapped and dragged back across the border. A video was released last week displaying the detentions at the checkpoint followed by the interrogations of the two men, during which one admits to having served in the Ukrainian military–although it is unclear whether that admission was made under duress. Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, accused Ukraine of “illegal provocation” and added to the Russian narrative that the confession of the captured soldier was forced rather than genuine. As the Russian army mobilizes at an ever-increasing rate to control Crimea, Ukraine has sought to crack down on deserters. Of the estimated 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers who were in Crimea at the time of annexation, only approximately 6,010 have returned to the mainland to fight for Ukraine in the de facto war sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

It remains to be seen whether the two men in question will be detained in Ukraine for the long term or returned to Russia (or at least Russian controlled Crimea) by diplomatic means. If they are truly Ukrainian deserters, they will undergo criminal trials in Ukraine. However, if they are determined to be political prisoners or illegally detained, there may be an opportunity for a prisoner exchange–several Ukrainian citizens have been held illegally by Russian forces in occupied Crimea. Frantz Klintsevich, a Russian member of parliament, stated that he believes the two men were kidnapped expressly to serve as bargaining chips in a prisoner exchange. The last high profile prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place in May, when Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko (captured by rebels and taken to Russia as prisoner of war) was exchanged for two Russian soldiers captured while collecting intelligence in Eastern Ukraine.

Alternatively, the Russians may aim to retrieve the two men by force–which is the true concern that has cast an international spotlight over the capture of these individuals. Neither man appears to be an especially valuable intelligence asset but if Russian forces successfully frame this as a kidnapping, they may justify violent action in order to retrieve their soldiers. Although the evidence presented by the Ukrainian Security Service has so far verified the claim that these men were legally arrested at the checkpoint, Vladimir Putin has condemned the arrest. Putin has spent the past several months building out the narrative he created this summer, when he claimed that Ukraine was planning terrorist attacks against the Russian forces in Crimea, painting Ukraine as untrustworthy and threatening.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Deserters or Victims?: The Mysterious Soldiers Captured in Ukraine appeared first on Law Street.

Tesco Bank, the British retail bank run by the UK’s largest supermarket chain, lost approximately 2.5 million pounds this month after hackers broke into the accounts of more than 9,000 customers. The bank has pledged to reimburse customers who lost money and ultimately decided to suspend online banking for all of its 136,000 customers. Spokespeople claimed that personal data had not been compromised in the hack and that customers do not need to change their passwords, yet the sheer scope of the attack has made security experts uneasy.

The company first caught on to the breach on Saturday, November 5, and immediately began texting customers who had been affected. Many customers saw their money being moved out of Tesco accounts via overseas transactions to Spain and Brazil. Although there was initial concern that the hack was an inside job, aided by a bank employee, it is now being marked up to general human error and a failure to create a truly secure system.

This attack represents a major modern shift in cybercrime, from attacking individual customers to attacking an entire bank in one go. Perhaps the most troubling discovery in the wake of the hack was that Tesco had been warned by the security firms CyberInt and Codified Security about the weaknesses in its system, which the company did not respond to. No company can be expected to track every spam email about cybersecurity that floods its inbox, but in this case, if the reports from Codified Security truly were purposefully ignored, it reveals a dangerously cavalier attitude toward cybersecurity at the Tesco Bank headquarters.

Defenders of the bank have argued that the hack was successful because it took place during the weekend, when the technical staff were not at their desks, responding to customer reports and warning signs like they would during the work week. Regardless of the timing of the attack, the amount of money shifted from customer accounts is disturbing, especially as it is only the latest in a string of high profile hacks this year. Almost two years ago, the Bank of England highlighted cybercrime in the meetings of its financial policy committee, noting that banks were woefully unprepared for large scale attacks on their databases, but that warning came and went with very little impact.

It is not only smaller, less conventional banks like Tesco that have been targeted: in January of this year, HSBC shut down its mobile banking platform after a distributed denial of service attack. Tesco Bank is a relative mom and pop bank compared to the global behemoth that is HSBC, which explains why it did not have the same early warning notifications and success that HSBC did when shutting down the January hack. No bank, either electronic or brick and mortar, is definitively safe but when hundreds of accounts are being attacked, there is a clear issue with security. Tesco Bank will take a major hit in the wake of the attack but rather than lying back and celebrating the decline of a competitor, other UK banks–and banks around the globe–should be rushing to their own cybersecurity teams to repair the weaknesses that could be exploited in the next great hack.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Startling Holes in Our Cybersecurity Network: The Tesco Bank Hack appeared first on Law Street.

The streets of Seoul were packed with thousands of protesters last weekend in the wake of a leaked email scandal concerning President Park Geun-hye. Park ordered ten members of her cabinet to step down because of their involvement in the scandal, and even Prime Minister Yoo Il-ho was pressured to step down, resulting in Yim Jong-yong being named the new finance minister and deputy prime minister.

The scandal stems from the interference of Choi Soon-sil, a longtime friend of President Park, in state affairs. Choi is the daughter of the cult leader Choi Tae-min, who was Park’s mentor until his assassination, and served as a close confidante for the President, allegedly having access to classified documents and important decision making procedures. There are even reports that Choi organized a secret cabinet of “eight fairies” who advised Park behind the scenes, despite not being elected officials or official presidential appointees.

Choi returned to Korea from Germany this week to cooperate with the investigation and was immediately placed under detention after prosecutors expressed fears that she might destroy evidence of her involvement. A tablet computer was found in her possession that showed evidence of her involvement in classified government affairs, including copies of speeches that President Park had yet to give. President Park acknowledged that she let Choi edit drafts of her speeches, which prompted an estimated 9,000 Koreans to march in protest, carrying signs reading “Who’s the Real President?” While editing speeches may not seem like a dramatic crime, Choi has been compared to Rasputin in Czarist Russia and those calling for Park’s resignation argue that Choi was attempting to interfere with the democratic process, molding the government to her own aims. Choi is accused of advising Park on political appointments and policy decisions, and using her influence to force corporations to donate to the foundations that she works with. As she was escorted into prosecutors’ offices this week, Choi stated on the record that she had “committed wrongs for which I deserve to die.”

South Korea’s constitution protects Park from criminal prosecution except in the case of treason or insurrection but that has not stopped calls for her resignation, especially from the younger population. Park’s presidential term will end in 2018 but with her ministers being forced out and her aides resigning, President Park may barely have a cabinet left to work with during the “lame duck” phase of her Presidency. With her reputation destroyed, Park will now most likely fail to push through the changes she had hoped to make to the economy. The protesters who rallied this weekend were doubtful that Park will face impeachment, as that process must be approved by the supreme court (which is staffed by presidential appointees), but hoped that her crumbling cabinet and rock bottom approval rankings will force her into resignation. And now, Park has had to give up her ability to select a new Prime Minister.

The vitriol expressed against President Park is eerily similar to that expressed against Secretary Clinton over her private email server. Both of their political careers have been so severely damaged by email scandals that they may never recover.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post South Korea’s Email Scandal: Protests in Seoul appeared first on Law Street.

Iceland’s election was on Saturday, and while certain mainstay parties were represented on the ballot, an unexpected challenger also had a place there: the Pirate Party, an anti-establishment party that garnered roughly 15 percent of Iceland’s support.

The Pirate Party is just one of the many populist parties that have emerged in Europe since the global financial crisis, but it does not identify as right or left wing, choosing instead to label itself an anti-establishment movement that will attempt to combine the best of both parties. The party operates on a platform of direct democracy, net neutrality, and civil rights, and is an offshoot of the Pirate movement founded in Sweden a decade ago. However, while the Swedish party was primarily preoccupied with copyright law, the Icelandic version embraces a much broader swath of issues and has gained more traction, thanks in part to the release of the Panama Papers.

After the Panama Papers revealed that Iceland’s former Prime Minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, and his wife held funds in offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands, the Pirate Party swooped as the voice of protest, organizing massive protests across the country. Freedom of information and the exposure of corrupt practices is a central theme of the Pirate Party’s agenda: Birgitta Jonsdottir, the leader of the party, is a poet who formerly provided legal assistance to WikiLeaks. Before the Panama Papers, the Pirate Party would never have been in the position it holds now, attracting international attention. Jonsdottir herself has expressed surprise during multiple interviews at how successful the party has become.

The Pirate Party did not win a seat at the table this weekend, largely because of concerns about the profound economic effects for international investors had the party won. However,  there could also be a shift in the political status quo now that the Party has stepped toward legitimacy by at points polling over 20 percent. The Pirate Party has ruled out forming a coalition with the current parties in power if it ever is elected, arguing that it doesn’t want its vote to be influenced or absorbed by the corruption of “the Octopus“–the wealthy families that Jonsdottir argues control the country. The party may not ever succeed in creating a more transparent and equitable democracy (and frankly, the party’s plan of action is more optimistic than realistic) but they will have perhaps opened the door for other outsider parties, not only in Iceland, but across all small European nations.

In the United States, where we have massive voting blocs aligned to our traditional two parties, third party candidates have rarely won elections, yet in Iceland, with a total population of only approximately 332,500, a smaller number of voters can have a greater impact on the election–which means the Pirate Party could set a new precedent for dozens of small-scale movements that want to transition into the formal government. The Pirate Party’s steps toward legitimacy may not impact U.S. elections but it can have an impact on countries with small, young populations–voters who are online, connecting with political movements through social media, and who are frustrated with the traditional party dichotomy.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Election No One Has Noticed: Iceland’s Pirate Party appeared first on Law Street.

Literary critics have spent the past week reeling after the Nobel Prize committee’s announcement that it has granted the 2016 Prize in literature to Bob Dylan (who hilariously failed to even acknowledge the prize for five days). The attention that Dylan’s win has garnered has detracted attention from the Nobel Prizes in both Chemistry and Physics, announced earlier this month, each resulting in an award of 8 million Swedish kronor, or $930,000, to the recipients. Three British physicists who currently work in the U.S. were awarded the prize for their examination of the properties of matter in extreme states , research which can be used for the next generation of superconductors and even quantum computers. The prize in Chemistry was awarded to a team of three scientists from France, the U.S., and the Netherlands respectively for their development of molecular machines, molecules with controllable movements. While these prizes do not draw the same attention as a Peace Prize or a Literature Prize among the general public, they are critical factors that influence what research gets funded at our top universities and how scientists decide what is worth studying. But is that really a good thing?

Incentivized research projects such as the XPrize or Cancer Research UK’s research prizes motivate innovation in certain fields but the Nobel Prize does not have such a targeted aim. Although the Nobel Peace Prize is centered around positive impact on the human race, the scientific prizes are not always as concerned with the human factor. Yes, the matter in extreme states that won the 2016 Physics Prize is incredibly innovative and the molecular machines that won the Chemistry Prize may be used to create revolutionary new materials and energy storage–but do they have immediate benefits that we will feel in 2016? Will they transform medicine, or public welfare, or the lives of the greater population of the planet within the coming months?

These projects are incredible but they are the first step in a larger chain of exploratory science that, while it is admirable and truly commendable, will not be ending world hunger, curing a disease or creating a more equitable and inclusive society within our lifetime. The Nobel Prize is a beautiful way to recognize some of our brightest minds, but it also detracts from the work going on to solve problems that need to solved in order to save lives.

The brightest scientific minds of our world often get caught up in theoretical problems, and when we reward them with financial incentives, the spotlight falls on that research rather than the work of scientists tackling more “mundane” problems. If a research institution gains a Nobel Prize, it will attract the best and brightest minds but will force them to focus on the project that received Nobel acclaim. By giving financial prizes only to scientists who are working on projects that are far-reaching rather than those who are tackling immediate crises, we may cut the legs out from valuable research that needs funding today. Projects that create crops resistant to climate change, make transit more affordable and simple  and design affordable vaccines are all revolutionary and have immediate positive effects on human well being–yet none of them have received the Nobel prize. The Nobel Prize should not by any means be done away with–but perhaps the committee should consider doing even more good by rewarding research that will save lives immediately rather than possibly improve lives after several more decades of research.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Is the Nobel Prize Rewarding the Wrong Research? appeared first on Law Street.

During the first presidential debate, Donald Trump made a point of citing violence in Chicago but failed to recognize Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s new plan for fighting violent crime in the city. The plan is broken into three categories: enforcement, investment, and prevention. But will it actually be effective?

The enforcement step of the plan has received the most attention as it involves hiring almost 1,000 new beat cops, detectives, and supervisors (and outfitting them with new squad cars and equipment). Emanuel has pledged not to raise taxes to pay for the expansion of the police force but it is unclear how he plans to fund these new hires. Hiring will begin as soon as January, so the approximately $135 million necessary to fund this wave of new police hires will have to show up quickly if Emanuel wants to make good on his promise.

Although adding officers to the force is an admirable step for a city where the police force has been stretched thin, there are doubts regarding whether Emanuel’s new hires will be enough to seriously impact Chicago. It is not so much the number of officers who are available as it is their training and interaction with the community that will shape attempts to curb violent crime throughout the metropolitan area. Besides concerns that the plan will be ineffective, critics have also stepped forward to argue that this plan gives Mayor Emanuel too much power, as it interferes with the independence of the police force. These objections are largely linked to the establishment of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which would have the power to investigate alleged police misconduct to a much greater extent than in the past. The mayor will appoint most of the employees of this investigative agency, which has led community members to question its impartiality and ability to break away from the failures of the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency that it will be replacing.

The mayor unveiled his plan during a speech which was notable not for its rhetoric about improving policing but for what it lacked–there were virtually no references to improving the racial divide between the police force and minority communities. The mayor did not address the issues with predictive policing or this summer’s protests against police brutality in Chicago. The majority of both homicide perpetrators and victims in Chicago are black, and gang membership in the city is primarily concentrated among black and Latino populations. Although one should never jump to the same simplistic conclusion that Trump used in the first debate, implying that all minority citizens of Chicago live in violent squalor, it is undeniable that the black community has seen the largest share of violence in the city. Mayor Emanuel touted mentorship programs and family interventions as solutions to violence in Chicago neighborhoods but he did not go any further to discuss how community leaders can dissuade young people from joining gangs, buying guns, or being injured during violent confrontations with police officers. Community policing is a two-way street: police officers have to be trained but there needs to be community outreach as well. If neither side is being provided with directions and tools on how to improve their relations, will anything really change in Chicago?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Chicago’s Incomplete Plan to Combat Violence appeared first on Law Street.

Every year, millions of pilgrims from around the globe trek to Mecca to complete the hajj–the sacred pilgrimage that all Muslims must complete in their lifetime if they are able. The hajj presents massive economic opportunities for the tourism and travel industry. The Saudi economy, which is scrabbling to find other sources of revenue besides oil, has always benefitted from the influx of pilgrims, so much so that revenue from the pilgrims makes up an estimated 3 percent of Saudi Arabia’s GDP.

Pilgrims pay for flights, accommodation, phones, souvenirs, guides, and ground transport, making hajj tourism an incredibly lucrative industry. Families who own property always stand to make money as they can rent out rooms or their entire home to pilgrims for a week. For some, the rent they charge during hajj season can sustain them for months or even until the next hajj. Some travelers sleep at the Grand Mosque rather than paying for a room but most will choose to rest in the “tent city” of Mina where the average pilgrim can find a tent for $500 a night (while a VIP can pay several thousand dollars per night for a luxury tent). Saudi Arabia has actually come under fire for not operating Mina year round as a site for refugees. Using Mina as a refugee camp would lift a great burden off of nations that are currently struggling to support their refugee populations, but it would mean the Saudi government would have to sacrifice part of its hajj profit margin–an act it likely does not feel is worth the risk.

As air travel becomes less expensive, a greater number of people can afford to make the pilgrimage and spend lavishly once they arrive. Saudi retailers who have always counted on the hajj to temporarily boost sales now look to expand the luxury market so that they can maximize sales to the wealthiest pilgrims. Saudi Arabia stands to make as much as $8.5 billion off of the 2016 pilgrimage–but that is a step down from past profits. There are only an estimated 1.86 million pilgrims coming to Mecca this year, as opposed to the almost 3 million who have come in past years. The pilgrims who do come for the hajj are now usually on slimmer budgets–“slim” of course being a relative term considering the average pilgrims will spend over $4,500 on their trip.

This fall, pilgrims from different religions across the world will track routes such as the Camino de Santiago in Europe, the trek to Mount Kailash in Tibet and the Char Dham in India–but none of those routes generate the massive amount of revenue that the hajj does within a matter of days. None of those routes are as fundamental to a national economy nor as closely monitored and regulated as the hajj is in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi economy is now inextricably linked with the hajj–and while there is no sign of the number of pilgrims drying up anytime soon, small drops in attendance can throw off the Saudi economy for a year at a time.

The concept of an entire fiscal year depending on a single week is something we might see in small cities and towns that hold popular festivals (think Telluride or Cannes) but it is rare for an entire country to rely on a cultural event to carry it through the next 11 months. Imagine if the hikers who trekked the Appalachian Trail each September generated 3 percent of the United States’ GDP–our economy would suddenly feel much more precarious depending on the weather, the resource available for those hikers and advertising of the trail to maximize the number of people who hiked it. The drop in the number of pilgrims this year may feel infinitesimal, but if it continues to decline in the future, Saudi Arabia may find itself sitting at the edge of  a steep financial precipice.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post How Does the Hajj Impact the Saudi Economy? appeared first on Law Street.

Virginia Raggi, the newly appointed mayor of Rome, is facing pushback after news outlets revealed a minister she appointed, Paola Muraro, was under investigation during the twelve years she spent as a garbage disposal consultant. Trash disposal is an infrastructure necessity for all cities, but only in Italy is trash synonymous with organized crime, corruption, and intimidation.

Trash collection has been an extremely profitable industry for the Italian mafia, and scores of local politicians have been happy to give it control of refuse. In the mid-2000s, the streets of major cities in the South, such as Naples, were filled with thousands of pounds of garbage. Regional dumps were at full capacity and even though government emergency funding was granted, the money disappeared and the appointed commissioners failed to solve the problem. Under the state of emergency protocols, local governments were allowed to quickly hand out contracts without going through the correct legal vetting of contractors used in other cities–and this allowed the Camorra (a particular syndicate) to expand its practice into a billion dollar profit generator. The corruption behind trash collection has not gone unnoticed–reports of the mafia dumping trash in Germany and illegally dumping so much toxic waste that cancer rates in the region began rising have become commonplace, but acknowledging the problem has not translated into solving it. In many countries, trash disposal issues would be written off as a minor mismanagement but in Italy, the history behind trash corruption makes the investigation into Muraro front page news.

At a hearing this week, Virginia Raggi confirmed that she was aware of the investigation into Muraro’s past but had not thought that it was necessary to share this information with the public. The trash scandal is hardly Raggi’s only problem: multiple ministers have resigned from her administration (including Carla Romana Ranieri, a well-known anti-corruption figure), she is grappling with a bid to host the 2024 Olympics, and as Rome’s first female mayor, her every action is judged through the prism of her gender.

Unfortunately for Raggi, the trash scandal has put her Five Star Movement–a populist, anti-establishment Eurosceptic movement–in a difficult spot right before the elections. The incumbent Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has gotten a boost in the popularity thanks to Raggi’s missteps. Before this scandal, the Five Star had overtaken Renzi, whose numerous reforms to political and economic systems have stirred up anger and distrust among voters. As Raggi struggles to right herself just weeks into her tenure as mayor, doubts are being raised regarding the capabilities of the Five Star movement, which was not originally organized to be a formal political party and has never had a precise platform. Despite being a party that promotes itself as environmentally conscious and operating outside of the traditional corrupt networks of the political world, the Five Star movement seems to have delivered more of the same. For the city of Rome, which has struggled to assert itself as capable of being just as productive and functional as a Northern city such as Milan, this scandal is an regression that embarrasses the city not only on the world stage but domestically, confirming some Northern beliefs that Rome is still too backwards to succeed.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post When in Rome, Don’t Do As Virginia Raggi Does appeared first on Law Street.

Riding high off the success of Ava DuVernay’s “Selma,” David Oyelowo is once again stepping forward in an Oscar contender biopic. This time he portrays Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president, who caused waves both in Botswana and the UK when he married Ruth Williams, a white Briton played by Rosamund Pike. “A United Kingdom,” which depicts their marriage against the backdrop of British imperialism, digs into attitudes regarding interracial marriage in both black and white communities. It will be easy for certain viewers to applaud the love story and then reassure themselves that we have come so far since the 1940s–which is exactly why Jeff Nichols’ “Loving“ is so necessary. “Loving,” starring Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton, tells the story of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, who were arrested and imprisoned for their interracial marriage in Virginia in 1967. The suit they brought against the state went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately declared prohibiting interracial marriage unconstitutional. “A United Kingdom” introduces the unique space that interracial love occupies in our history while “Loving” reminds audiences exactly how recent legal acceptance of that love is.

“Loving’s” debut at Cannes and “A United Kingdom’s” spot opening the London Film Festival essentially guarantees that they will be at least contenders for Oscar nominations. The joy of Oscar season is that films that are difficult to market in other times of year are thrust onto the public radar. These two films reveal too much about the gritty reality of racism to be written off as sweet romances like last year’s “Brooklyn“ (which depicted the difficulties of two lovers from different ethnic backgrounds but who were both white) yet they also are concerned with love stories so they will not necessarily draw crowds who want heavy hitting drama in the style of “Spotlight” or “The Revenant.” Neither director has quite enough star power to attract an immediate, built-in audience. Amma Asante, director of “A United Kingdom,” already proved herself a master of portraying the complexity of interracial relationships with her film “Belle” in 2013 but Jeff Nichols, director of “Loving,” has previously worked largely in the thriller realm. “Variety’s” review of “Loving” at Cannes describes Loving as “too damn polite” and “The Guardian” labeled the film “underpowered.”  Reviews of “A United Kingdom” have yet to hit the presses.

When looking at the contenders for the 2017 Oscars, these films stand apart–but while that makes them the answer to our wish for cinema that reflects our experience, it also paints a target on them. These films will exist between our traditional concepts of cinema–not classically romantic enough to be considered part of the old guard but not angry enough to be revolutionary calls to action.

In the wake of #OscarsSoWhite, critics and the general public alike are looking for films that will starkly contrast those of last year. There is a desire for more actors and directors of color, more diverse stories and more contemporary storylines. These two films bring all of those elements to the table but the weight that will be placed on them is monumental–they will be expected to be perfect to make up for the mistakes of last year. Asante and Nichols face more pressure than any other directors because they are telling true stories but they have to package them in a precise way: not harsh enough to frighten the critics but not sweet and revisionist in a way that will anger viewers aching in the wake of a summer of violence.

In the search for this perfection, there is a distinct threat that critics will judge these films more harshly than if they were love stories about a couple of the same race. They will be pulled apart because they fail to represent the full scope of interracial marriage (interracial love includes many races beyond black and white), their use of “brand name” Hollywood stars (although Negga could still be considered relatively unknown) and, of course, the fact that they center on interracial relationships–why is Hollywood not making more films concerning love between two people of color? Interracial couples and families deserve to see themselves reflected on screen, to have attention paid to their challenges and history–yet this year, when every Oscar contender with a person of color in the lead role is marked as reactionary in the context of #OscarsSoWhite, more attention will be paid to whether critics approve of the films than to whether the viewing public finds joy in seeing interracial love at the multiplex.

It is rare for a film to strike the perfect balance, to satisfy every viewer while making a larger statement about our culture without being defeatist or romanticist. A film that truly achieves that may come about once every decade–and now we are asking two films to do exactly that within the same year.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Interracial Marriage is Front and Center this Oscars Season appeared first on Law Street.

Newton County, Georgia, which bills itself as a center of southern small town charm, is now the site of an ugly dispute over land use as the local Muslim community struggles to build a Muslim mosque and cemetery.

Over the course of several years, the imam Mohammad Islam has built a congregation that now seeks to build a mosque and cemetery on a plot of land in Newton County, purchased by Islam in 2015. He made his plans clear, officially purchased the land, and was ready to build upon the site–until local backlash derailed what should have been a perfectly straightforward construction project. The plans to build the mosque, cemetery, and other affiliated buildings came under fire because they would have been approved without public comment, and an outpouring of protest from the community bolstered by social media led the Board of Commissioners to place a five week moratorium on the construction or the submission of plans for construction of any new religious structures. After the moratorium ends, the Board members will vote on whether or not they will change the zoning rules for religious structures. Ostensibly new zoning would impact any religious building, but thanks to the “Stop the Mosque” campaign and the mass turnout to the public hearings, there is no doubt that the Board is looking to penalize the Islamic community for their proposed structure. There has never been a similar reaction from the community regarding the construction of a Christian building. The objection to the mosque is so clearly prejudiced that federal investigators are looking into investigating the Board of Commissioners.

Comparisons will of course be made to citizens protesting the building of the proposed Park51  Islamic community center at Ground Zero, but comparing these two constructions makes virtually no sense. The proposed mosque and cemetery of Newton, County Georgia is not being built near the site of a massive American tragedy, that must be preserved for historical record. It is not angering locals because they think it disrespects the memory of lives lost (although that logic is flawed in and of itself). In fact, the reason Georgians want to shut down the construction of the mosque and cemetery is because at least some fear it will attract refugees to their community.

Tens of thousands of refugees have been forced from their homes because of uncontrollable violence, shuttled from country to country looking for a safe haven, trying to learn new languages, adjust to a new culture and, above all, contribute and participate in their new communities. The U.S. will not be accepting the same number of refugees that Europe has; our public services and law and order will not be strained under the weight of a population explosion like our European allies. We are accepting and seeking to aid refugees, but we are taking in only a minuscule portion of those who are seeking shelter–and yet, that is still too much for the residents of Newton County.

Never mind that the state of Georgia will be resettling far fewer refugees than states such as Michigan, Illinois and California or that the construction of a single mosque is not in fact what puts a community on the short-list for refugee settlement. Never mind that refugees are seeking to create new lives in which they will become participants in the community, working local jobs, paying county taxes, and sending their children to local schools. What is truly at the core of the objections to the mosque is more than bigotry, it is selfishness. Newton County residents are so afraid of sharing their resources, even land which has been purchased legally for a fair price, that they will not let fellow community members build a simple structure. It seems the refugee population is right to steer clear of them.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Stop the Mosque: Islamophobia in Newton County, Georgia appeared first on Law Street.

Earlier this year a legal battle that spanned twenty years concluded in a major victory for Native American tribes in Washington. “Kennewick Man“–the remains of a 9,000 year old skeleton discovered in 1996–is considered one of the most important archaeological finds in North American history. The skeleton was found on federal land but multiple Native American tribes argued that the skeleton, which was officially determined to be Native American in 2015, belonged on tribal land. Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Native American tribes are allowed to determine what to do with Native remains–either burying them in a traditional ceremony or displaying them in museum exhibits. Thanks to NAGPRA, many Native American artifacts have been brought back to tribal lands but after centuries of removal–both by individuals and archaeological missions–the work of repatriation has only just begun. Certain museums, most notably the Smithsonian Institution, have striven to catalog and repatriate collections but museums across the United States, and the world, are still in possession of contested artifacts. Take a look at the current state of repatriation.

What is NAGPRA?

NAGPRA, enacted in 1990 after being introduced by noted conservationist Morris Udall, requires organizations that receive federal funding to return Native American cultural artifacts to lineal descendants and affiliated tribes. Federal grant money is dedicated to repatriating artifacts, which can be human remains, sacred objects, or personal possessions. Some sacred objects are still used in modern-day ceremonies so they can be especially important for preserving the heritage of the tribes. Museums are required to keep an up-to-date inventory of all artifacts so that tribes can track them down and initiate the repatriation process. Furthermore, NAGPRA requires that Native American and Native Hawaiian organizations are notified by archaeologists whenever they find or expect to find indigenous cultural items (or when such items are unexpectedly discovered on federal or tribal lands). NAGPRA is incredibly important in the context of disturbing burial grounds. Native American graves were frequently unmarked and there was no protection under state or federal law regarding their exhumation.

NAGPRA also criminalizes the trafficking of Native American remains (without right of possession/legal ownership). In 2003, the FBI returned a host of stolen Native American artifacts valued at over $400,000 on the black market to eight tribes. A well-known art gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico had been selling the artifacts out of a back room by the gallery owner and a prominent art dealer. NAGPRA was augmented by the National Museum of the American Indian Act Amendments of 1996, which extends repatriation to include “unassociated” objects that are not tied to a particular tribe. The National Museum of the American Indian operates a six-step process for repatriation which has led to the repatriation of more than 2,000 objects to 100 different Native communities throughout North and South America.

Why Kennewick Man Matters

Multiple tribes, including the Umatilla, Colville, Yakima, Wanapum and Nez Perce tribes, have all claimed the remains of Kennewick Man as their own. The remains were found on Umatilla ancestral land, but that does not guarantee that the skeleton was actually of Umatilla descent as multiple tribes visited that land. The tribes have advocated for the skeleton’s immediate reburial, claiming that holding him in a laboratory and museum environment is disrespectful to his memory. Scientists and archaeologists argue that they can learn a great deal from his remains, as his is one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever discovered on the continent. The first scientists to study the skeleton argued that it lacked “Native American characteristics” which infuriated tribal advocates. Umatilla trustee and religious leader Armand Minthorn told Archaeology that 

If this individual is truly over 9,000 years old, that only substantiates our belief that he is Native American. From our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the beginning of time….We already know our history

The tribes’ assertion that the skeleton was Native American was often considered to be suspect until a 2015 DNA study found that Kennewick Man’s genome was more closely related to modern Native Americans than any other modern human demographic. The DNA testing was not specific enough to confirm a specific tribe but the groups that have claimed ownership over the skeleton agreed to band together for his burial.

Over the years, Kennewick Man became not only an important artifact but a symbol of the Native American battle for credibility in repatriation. Advocates hope the repatriation of Kennewick Man will hopefully set a precedent for future cases, both in the United States and abroad.

Repatriation Failures at the British Museum

Native Americans are not the only indigenous groups who seek to reclaim their history through repatriation. The British Museum, which houses some of the most incredible collections of artifacts in the world, has frequently been criticized for its failure to return objects to the governments of  former British colonies.

Artifacts from India, Africa, and Australia have become contested since the end of colonialism, as indigenous groups argue that they deserve to display their heritage in their own museums. India has asked for the return of the Kohinoor Diamond, Greece has requested the Elgin Marbles. and the statue Hoa Hakananai’a  still stands in the British Museum rather than its ancestral home of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The British Museum has launched some repatriation efforts, but is still in possession of thousands upon thousands of contested artifacts. Earlier this year, the British Museum launched an exhibition entitled Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation which stirred controversy over the museum’s ownership of over 6,000 artifacts that were acquired from Indigenous Australian populations during the colonial era. That community is divided in their reaction to the exhibition: some claim that the British preserved objects that otherwise would have been lost or destroyed while others argue that the artifacts, which were often stolen during violent periods of repression, should be sent back to Australia. There are plans for the exhibition to travel to Canberra in November, but the artifacts will be sent under the 2013 Protection of Cultural Objects on Loan Act, which blocks the repatriation process while the artifacts are on Australian soil. Shane Mortimer, an elder of the Ngambri people, stated that

If the Ngambri people went to England, killed 90 percent of the population and everything else that is indigenous to England and sent the crown jewels back to Ngambri Country as a prize exhibit … what would the remaining 10 percent of English people have to say about that? The exhibition should not proceed without the permission of the owners of all of the items.

Conclusion

The repatriation of artifacts and human remains is a battle that has been fought for decades yet is far from over. Certain archaeologists argue that artifacts need to be preserved in major museums in order to share history with future generations. The idea that a skeleton discovered on an archaeological dig might be buried once again (according to tribal custom) is seen as irresponsible and distasteful. However, advocates for the Native population believe that repatriating artifacts will do much more to preserve culture than holding them in a museum and that the burial of human remains is a sign of respect.

There is no doubt that museums are invaluable to preserving our history but we cannot ignore the fact that a majority of their collections were taken without permission and artifacts are essentially being held hostage under the guise of preservation. There are museums that have engaged in extensive repatriation–the National Museum of the American Indian, for example, has fewer than 300 human remains in its collection, most of which have yet to be claimed by South American tribes–so the process is clearly feasible. Repatriation is a reaction to theft, not preservation, and indigenous tribes deserve support as they try to reclaim their history.

Resources

Primary

National Park Service: NAGPRA

National Museum of the American Indian:  Act Amendments of 1996

National Museum of the American Indian: Repatriation

Additional

NewHistorian: Kennewick Man Will Return Home to Native American Tribes

Annenberg Classroom: Who should own Native American artifacts?

National Geographic: When Is It Okay to Dig Up the Dead?

Smithsonian Magazine: Over 9,000 Years Later, Kennewick Man Will Be Given a Native American Burial

The Guardian: Rreservation or plunder? The battle over the British Museum’s Indigenous Australian show

NDTV: London Point Of View: Give Back Kohinoor? Fat Chance!

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Stolen Identities: The Repatriation of Indigenous Artifacts appeared first on Law Street.

In the wake of doping scandals rocking the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Team in the lead-up to the Rio Games, Russian athletes have been painted as the villains of the summer for breaking basic tenets of sportsmanship. However, there has been virtually no outcry over another common violation in Olympic competitions this year: lying about athlete’s ages.

At the Beijing Games in 2008, the Chinese women’s gymnastics teams made waves after accusations that they were younger than 16 years old, the threshold for competing in gymnastics events. Online records revealed that He Kexin was too young to compete but Chinese officials stood by the birthdate on her passport, which made her eligible (although it is relatively easy to obtain a doctored passport). There was “strong circumstantial evidence” that members of the Chinese team were underage but the International Gymnastics Federation cleared the team of any wrongdoing. In 2010, bronze medalist Dong Fangxiao lost her medal from the 2000 Sydney Games after it was revealed that she had been only 14 at the time.  Yang Yun, who competed with Dong Fangxiao, admitted in a television interview that they were only 14 during the Games. Beyond the Chinese team, North Korean gymnasts allegedly have misrepresented their ages in the past. This year’s Chinese gymnastics squad has stayed away from age related scandals as team manager Ye Zhennan reported all of his athletes are of age. However, with their track record of fabricating documents and misrepresenting ages, some observers in the gymnastics world still have their doubts.

It is difficult to gauge an athlete’s age just by looking at them, and we should by all means give the Chinese gymnastics team the benefit of the doubt, but it is fascinating to see how quick the public is to crucify Russian athletes for violating Olympic rules in 2016 whereas the Chinese athletes accused of being underage in the past received relatively little attention this year.

Letting younger athletes compete is not always a guaranteed positive–athletes with more physical training and experience on the Olympic stage can perform better under the immense pressure placed on them during the Games. However, in certain sports, it is the youngest competitors who are in the best shape–consider the number of teenagers from multiple countries who have medaled in swimming in Rio and, of course, the Final Five in gymnastics, who are all incredibly young (at least compared to Olympians in other sports). Younger athletes usually have fewer injuries and have greater stamina. What if Nastia Liukin had been able to compete in Athens? Age restrictions kept her out of those Games, even though she was already becoming dominant in the gymnastics world.

Athletes lying about their ages is not limited to the Chinese national team nor to the sport of gymnastics, but in a sport that rewards youth and, in terms of aerodynamics, small bodies, younger athletes have a clear advantage. Famous gymnastics coach Belya Karoli has argued that the age limit should be done away with, as it robs athletes in peak shape of their chance to compete and encourages cheating. Before the age limit was enacted in 1997, multiple American gymnasts set impressive records while only 14 years of age, which is often considered the height of a gymnastic career. While there are gymnasts who compete into their twenties and beyond, most will retire after competing at only one or two Olympic Games. Athletes who lie about their age can get to three or even four Olympics before they lose sight of making the podium.

The age limit exists to protect young athletes from abuse and the physical and mental pressures of competing with the world’s eyes upon them at such a young age. However, if these athletes are forced to fabricate documents and lie for months or years on end to coaches, officials and their peers, the stress of competition can only be compounded. Is it better to miss an Olympics and have the moral high ground or to compete and win, knowing that you will live in constant fear of being stripped of your medal? At the moment, the age limit is not protecting young athletes, it is merely setting them up for an entirely different rash of problems.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Forgotten Controversy? Age and the Olympics appeared first on Law Street.

The voters of Tokyo made history this month, voting in Yuriko Koike as their first female governor. Koike ran as an independent, which isolated her from her former allies in the Liberal Democratic Party, but ultimately served her well, as she won in a landslide. Koike’s political attitudes fall in line with that of the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) but her frosty personal relationships with party leadership kept her out of favor for years. Koike has been a trailblazer in her time, serving as Japan’s first female defense chief and not shying away from feminism, encouraging female politicians to be involved in more than “women’s issues” and challenging her male peers to place women on an equal level.

Koike is now tasked with managing the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, a task that is always challenging but which will be especially difficult in the wake of the Rio Games, which were labeled a disaster before the Opening Ceremonies even began. But the LDP will have control over Koike’s budget for the 2020 Games, and there is suspicion that it will use its financial power to punish her for her break with the party.

During her campaign for governor, Koike pledged to review the budget for the Olympics, suggesting that her predecessors were overspending–a feasible assumption considering that governor Masuzoe stepped down earlier this summer after allegations of massive misappropriations of political funds. Masuzoe denied breaking the law but did admit to several ethical violations regarding the funding of the Games. As Koike takes office, the 2020 Games have been forecast to cost at least double if not more the original budget of $7 billion. It is not uncommon for nations to spend over $14 billion to host the Olympics, which raises questions about why Koike’s predecessors set the original budget so low. The games already face difficulties, as construction of the central stadium has been pushed back and the original logo was left behind after accusations of plagiarism.

There is already chatter in the political world about Koike running for Prime Minister, but that bid can likely only come after she proves herself as governor. At this moment, with Olympic pride at fever pitch, the 2020 Games are central to her success not only as a governor but as a female politician in an arena dominated by males. She will need to manage the building of new infrastructure, a massive influx of tourism and coordination across dozens of different athletics organizations–all the while protecting Olympic sites from terrorist attacks and staying away from the human rights abuses that have plagued Rio.

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s recently impeached president, may not have set a high standard to live up to but Koike will need to deliver an excellent Olympics if she wants to push back against both personal criticism against her from the LDP and larger prejudices against women in offices of power. Japan has long undervalued its female population, and Koike seeks to integrate more women into the workforce, simultaneously stimulating the economy and changing attitudes about women’s value. Koike has pledged to improve daycare and care for the elderly, freeing up women from caretaker roles they have historically occupied out of duty and pushing them into the workforce. She has not yet announced major appointments to her organizational team, but imagine the potential: an Olympics where the decision-makers are women. Koike will need to work with only the most qualified advisors, but if she chooses to open the door to more female politicians and organizers, she may deliver the most equitable Olympics yet.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The 2020 Olympics and Feminism: Yuriko Koike in the Spotlight appeared first on Law Street.

Earlier this month, the government of Ethiopia blocked multiple social media sites–Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Viber–for days on end during the course of annual university entrance exams. The government initiated the shutdown in order to prevent students from sharing answers or otherwise cheating on the exams but went on to claim that it had blocked the sites because they were “a distraction” for students. It is not entirely clear from where the order to launch the shutdown came. Daniel Berhane, editor of Horn Affairs magazine, tweeted that there was no transparency regarding who made the decision and that the government issued no statement on how long social media would be blocked for. The ban on social media ultimately only lasted for a handful of days, as long as the examinations were held, but even though the duration of the ban was relatively short, its scope is troubling.

Ethiopia is not the first nation to block social media during exams–Algeria and Iraq took the same measures this spring after students published exams online. However, this could set a troubling precedent for government control of the web. The UN has defended the internet as a basic human right and has passed a resolution (albeit non-binding) that condemns nations that intentionally disrupt citizens’ internet access. Internet shutdowns have frequently been used in times of violence or impending violence–like during the terrorist attacks on Istanbul, during protests in Bahrain, Venezuela and across sub-Saharan Africa. There are arguments to be made that preventing people from sharing their location on social media can protect innocent people from being attacked if they are in imminent danger, but social media blocking is more often used to disenfranchise “troublesome” populations. Imagine if social media had been efficiently blocked for the entirety of the Arab Spring. Without social media access, populations cannot share their stories beyond the immediate, local level. In 2015, Freedom House reported that Ethiopia was blocking critical opposition websites, including international news outlets–outlets such as the BBC were jammed by the government. There was presumably no threat to the general populace if BBC ran its stories, there was only a threat to the government’s control of information voters were exposed to going into the election.

The UN resolution was a step in the right direction but its non-binding nature means that the council that signed off on it–which included multiple countries that have launched internet shutdowns against their own populace–has no imperative to truly monitor whether the internet is being denied without cause to certain populations. Activist organizations like Access Now work to protect freedom of expression online but short of drawing attention to the problem and encouraging pushback, there is relatively little they can do to block an internet shutdown. VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) have let users in China access Google, Facebook and other blocked websites for years but the VPNs are no longer a secret that governments are unaware of–they are well-publicized tools. As the methods by which the populace circumvents an internet blockage expand, governments are not falling behind. In nations such as Ethiopia where blanket control of social media is a task well within the reach of the government, there is no number of VPNs or new apps that can effectively prevent the disruption of personal expression online.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Blocking Social Media in Ethiopia: New Perspectives on Human Rights Violations appeared first on Law Street.

Thousands are homeless in West Virginia this week after torrential flooding that left at least 23 dead. Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Jackson, Kanawha, Monroe, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Roane, Summers and Webster counties were all damaged in the floods. Bodies were found days after the rains began, having been dragged miles from their homes by the rushing water. But for West Virginia, the reconstruction won’t just be physical, it will be emotional too.

Let’s start with the massive need for rebuilding–FEMA has already approved over $18 million in individual assistance for medical and housing support, but this is just the beginning of the disaster relief process. FEMA began by coordinating disaster centers and donation centers for those who lost their homes to the flooding but it will now need to provide temporary housing and unemployment benefits, assist with home repair, and provide low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses. With over 4,000 flood victims registered to date, FEMA is looking at years worth of construction and economic assistance. If a similar natural disaster strikes other communities this summer, FEMA’s budget will be stretched thin. In the 2016 financial year, FEMA was granted $7.37 billion for the Disaster Relief Fund, a sum that seems somewhat less significant once we factor in that the Disaster Relief Fund is used not only for disasters that occur in 2016 but for the costs of past disasters as well, including Hurricane Sandy. West Virginia’s reconstruction has only just begun and there is no way to fix a deadline for when it will end.

But beyond the physical reconstruction, there is also a need for emotional support. In the wake of natural disasters, communities are more vulnerable to a rise in mental health issues. Consider that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a survey of 392 low income parents affected by the storm found that the prevalence of serious probable mental illness doubled and that nearly half the participants studied exhibited probable PTSD. The American Psychological Association operates the Disaster Resource Network, a group of approximately 2,500 licensed psychologists who work with the Red Cross to integrate mental health into disaster preparedness training, but with so many communities at risk, it is difficult to reach every town that is vulnerable.

FEMA’S Crisis Counseling Program (CCP) provides funding for a variety of counseling services, including both individual and group counseling, but there is no guarantee that the counselors provided will be able to work with victims of disaster indefinitely. Building trust and making progress with a counselor can take months or years, and with so few qualified counselors available to work in disaster areas, those who cannot seek counseling on their own dime may never return to counseling once the CCP grant runs out. In West Virginia, an economically disadvantaged state with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the nation, the likelihood of most flood victims being able to attend counseling without a CCP grant is almost nonexistent.

In a nation where communities are constantly grappling with floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires, FEMA’s work is never done. The agency has worked to transform itself, in a post-Katrina world, into an effective disaster relief agency that can anticipate every need of a community in its darkest hour. Yet FEMA is not beholden to stay in the community forever–it will rebuild and aid as much as it can, a process that may take years, but that does not undercut the fact that FEMA relief is only temporary.

The deeper effects on the community, particularly the scars left by grief and PTSD, last long after the aid money has run out. Organizations like Counselors without Borders are doing critical work in disaster scenarios but they do not have the resources or staff to reach every victim of every crisis. Individuals will play the greatest role in creating positive mental health in disaster communities. Trained counselors and psychologists can donate their time, volunteers can work on emergency and suicide hotlines, school administrators can strive to create safe spaces for students–this type of holistic, community-based dedication to protecting mental health can truly rebuild a town after it has been destroyed. However, when flood victims are focused on rebuilding their homes and businesses, these efforts can fall by the wayside—why focus on mental health when poor physical health is the greater threat to a flood victim’s immediate well-being? How can a community choose to spend money on group counseling for a family instead of spending that grant on rebuilding that family’s home? This is our next great challenge when dealing with natural disasters: making mental health as important as bricks and mortar.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Needed: Mental Healthcare in the Aftermath of a Disaster appeared first on Law Street.

Thousands of workers have mobilized in France this summer to protest a new law that would make it easier for the French government to hire and fire workers. The bill, which would also relax the limit on working hours, went through parliament without a vote, sparking large scale protests.

Union members are rallying behind Philippe Martinez, leader of the General Confederation of Labor, one of France’s most prominent labor unions. Conflicts between the workers, anti-labor groups and the police have become increasingly heated. Tear gas has been used on protesters as trucks block roadways, shutting down everyday traffic in the city. Protesters and police officers have been injured. At this point, large-scale violence has yet to spread across the entire city, but it has made a visual impact on some of Paris’ most famous venues, including the Eiffel Tower, which was shut down after workers walked out on strike. The protests may strike a more peaceful note in the coming days, but with railway workers and other labor unions flooding into the city in a show of solidarity, Paris is becoming a powder keg. Images of police detaining protesters with force have gone around the world, painting the French protests as a violent threat to public order.

French labor unrest comes on the heels of the Verizon strike in the U.S., during which strikers effectively pressured Verizon leadership into adding jobs and raising pay after CWA union members spent 45 days on picket lines. The Verizon protest did not have the same violent clashes with police that have occurred in the French labor protests, but the issues at the heart of their actions are similar. Class ideology, and the battle between those eking out a living as middle wage employees versus those securely earning at the top of the food chain, is central to both conflicts.

The Verizon strike, one of the longest and most efficient in recent memory (if Verizon does honor its agreement with the CWA in the future), created inconvenience, inefficiency, and a drop in stock value for Verizon but it never rocked the boat in the same way that the Paris protests have. Perhaps because the Paris protesters have come closer to violence, teetering on the edge with fistfights and riot police, they have been dramatized as more impressive or pressing than the Verizon strike.

However, only time will tell whether the Paris workers will elicit the desired response by organizing rowdier, more dramatic protests. The Verizon protests may not have been as visually poignant but they did achieve the desired result within a relatively narrow time frame and forced the leadership of the company to truly feel the power of their organized labor force.  Paris’ protests are almost cinematic–smoke, screaming, thousands pouring into the streets–but it is important to distinguish the visuals of the protest from the reality on the ground. The Verizon protest was working towards a similar goal, but managed to do so without violent clashes–so perhaps Philippe Martinez should get in touch with the CWA and ask for pointers?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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Murphy’s Law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, and never has that seemed truer than in Rio as the Brazilian government struggles to keep the 2016 Olympics afloat.

The Rio Olympics took another hit last week, after scientists found dangerous strains of drug-resistant bacteria along the beaches that will host swimming, rowing, and canoeing events during this summer’s Games. Two as-yet-unpublished studies found microbes of “super bacteria” along beaches in San Diego, Ipanema, Leblon, Botafogo and Flamengo. The bacteria, Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC), can lie dormant in the human body for months, only emerging when the body is attacked by an illness. Not only is KPC is antibiotic resistant, but it also has the ability to infect other bacteria and make it resistant as well, making it even more frightening. KPC entered the water system from hospitals, households, and businesses that release waste largely without regulation, bringing bacteria that never should have made it to open water into lagoons and the ocean itself.

Water has already been a concern for the Games, as large bodies of standing water are breeding grounds for mosquitoes that spread the Zika virus. But the idea that the ocean itself could be contaminated along the shoreline is more than a threat to Brazil–the bacteria could spread to the beaches of other nations and begin to infect other strains of bacteria across Latin America’s Eastern coast.

In 2014, journalists documented ridiculous conditions in Sochi, Russia during the Winter Olympics. Lack of potable and running water, half-built hotel rooms and manholes without covers were all staples of the Sochi experience. While Sochi was far from ideal, journalists and athletes were not at risk of serious health impairments due to their accommodations. In Rio, athletes, trainers, journalists, and visitors to the Games could be exposing themselves to dangerous illnesses if they attend.

For athletes who have worked all their lives to qualify for the Olympic Games, it doesn’t make sense to back out–they may not qualify again, they may never reach this level of physical prowess again, they may need an Olympic win to gain or keep a sponsor. Media outlets will still report on the Games and broadcast events from Rio because they are massive moneymakers, no matter how dangerous they are. The International Olympic Committee will not cancel the games because it would consider that to be an overreaction. The World Health Organization has given the Games the green light, stating that Zika virus is still an emergency in Brazil but holding the games will not drastically increase the risk of the virus spreading.

Despite all the evidence that the Rio Games are dangerous, they are still moving forward, setting a dangerous precedent for events such as the Qatar World Cup, which was allegedly secured through bribes and has been allegedly built on slave labor and violent human rights abuses. Athletes and media outlets have the option of abstaining from these events, and international sports organizations have the power to revoke a nation’s bid or cancel an event, but none of them do. The media and organizers fear losing their profits, while the athletes fear losing their one shot at success. However, if taking that shot comes at the expense of public health and safety, is it really worth it?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Bacteria on the Beaches: No One Wins at Rio 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

Since its inception in 2006, the (RED) campaign has reached across industries to create (RED) products, the sales of which go directly toward funding anti-retroviral treatments. This month, (RED) is launching a new initiative called Eat (RED) that utilizes the tagline “86 AIDS.” Eat (RED) involves cooking lessons via Snapchat, an Instagram contest and partnerships with celebrity chefs such as Mario Batalli. The (RED) campaign is looking to engage restaurants, bars, and food trucks in its fundraising drive–whether that engagement will involve drawing attention to HIV/AIDS or donating percentages of certain meals is yet to be determined.

Eat (RED) is an interesting concept, but it is being rolled out as a special event that will last only one month as opposed to a lasting campaign. Whereas (RED) products such as clothing, accessories and headphones have longevity and have continued production over several years, Eat (RED) is a one-off.

Partnering with local restaurants has long been a smart move for regional charities and causes–profit sharing is common practice for several restaurants. Buy a given meal at a given restaurant on a given night and 15 percent of the sale will go to the charity the restaurant has partnered with. However, Eat (RED) has not chosen to center itself on a given city or even a certain group of restaurants.

It is admirable to be open to partners from all over the world but the relaxed nature of the Eat (RED) partnership may be actually hindering the efficacy of the campaign. Eat (RED) asks restauranteurs to contact the (RED) organization if they want to participate but only a handful of restaurants have decided to join in thus far. This does not mean that the (RED) campaign hasn’t attempted to recruit more partners but a restaurant’s participation in the Eat (RED) campaign is essentially dependent on whether they are on the mailing list for the (RED) campaign or happen to come across the Instagram contest on social media. The restaurants that are participating in the campaign have not necessarily been promoting it actively, so there is no following being built on social media platforms that would alert other restaurants to the campaign’s existence. Eat (RED) is an excellent idea, but its execution seems to be falling flat as we move closer to the end of June.

Consider a different color–orange. Last month, on National Gun Violence Awareness Day, groups like Everytown for Gun Safety set out to turn America orange, encouraging people to wear orange, alter their photos to have an orange filter on social media, and even light up buildings with an orange glow. The event was a success largely because it was organized on a local level. Small rallies at transport stations, parks and other public meeting places were compounded into thousands of participants in the day of awareness across the country. Eat (RED) is working for a different cause, with a different set of resources at its disposal, but it should consider taking a page out of Everytown’s book. Eat (RED)’s Instagram contest may reach the same popularity as Everytown’s orange profile pictures but unless money is being spent, the Eat (RED) campaign may never gain ground as a fundraising campaigns. Organizing small, local events can be much more effective than issuing a blanket invite, therefore Eat (RED) could look to partner with a few restaurants at a time in a single city rather than launching a national campaign. New York and DC already have a Restaurant Week, so why not a (RED) Restaurant Week? The campaign could receive more donations and reach more people if it tackles one city at a time.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Eat (RED): The HIV/AIDS Event That No One Has Noticed? appeared first on Law Street.

Wolves are one of North America’s most fascinating indigenous species but they also pose a major threat to cattle populations. While poaching wolves is illegal, culling of wolves by government officials and trophy hunting have historically been used to keep wolf populations in check. However, Guillaume Chapron of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Adrian Treves of the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently conducted a study on wolf populations in Wisconsin and Michigan and found that state laws that opened up legal culling actually slowed population growth–a notable problem for America’s wolf population.

The logic for legal culling is simple: it was assumed that these outlets for hunting would limit illegal poaching and would encourage Americans to coexist with the wolf population. The wolf population would continue to grow without hovering to the point of extinction, as locals will not feel the need to illegally hunt the animals. Including legal culling is a cornerstone of “carnivore management,” which deals with carnivorous populations in the wild that can pose a threat to human life but can also coexist with humans when handled correctly.

Wolves are not the only predators that conservationists have difficulty handling–African lions, grizzly bears and other large carnivores present a massive challenge. Consider that a set of brown bears released into the wild in Italy last year had to be hunted down after they attacked several humans. Whereas conservationists can hope to release animals like pandas and elephants back into the wild, large carnivores that are held for some time may never be able to return to the wild because they are so dependent on a stable ecosystem that consistently supplies them with their daily meat intake. Wolves historically could have eaten bison but now the bison is a protected animal, a population which the United States has a vested interest in preserving. When one species in the food chain becomes off limit, it is difficult to deal with its predators. Farmers across the nation are eager to receive the “right to kill” wolves who threaten their cattle but a survey conducted by Washington State University found that killing wolves who attack livestock can actually backfire. Researchers hypothesized that:

Killing an adult wolf can disrupt the entire (complicated) social system of the grey wolf pack…killing adult wolves may end up locking their offspring to the place where they were killed: without parents to keep them sexually distinct and roaming, the way they normally would, pups may settle down prematurely, having their own pups earlier than normal, and sticking to the place where they became independent — the place where their parents were killed.

These pups then go on to eat local livestock, just as their parents did, rather than roaming to different areas where they might be able to feast on rabbits and other small mammals that have no financial value for ranchers. Wolves are imperfect creatures, that simultaneously threaten human livelihood (ranching) while also desperately dependent on humans for their survival (conservation), but they are part of the American landscape and we are responsible for their future. Containing a large carnivorous species is not an easy task, but with new evidence suggesting that legal culling and “right to kill” laws are not having the desired effect, conservationists and government officials may need to rethink how best to preserve the wolf population.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Hunting American Wolves: Conservation or Extinction? appeared first on Law Street.

Since the Olympic Games were first opened to women in 1900, female athletes have stunned the world with their athleticism and dedication. Like their male counterparts, they train for years–even decades–to achieve perfection in their sport, pushing their bodies to the breaking point in order to bring home a medal for their country. In 2012, Team USA was comprised of more women than men, prompting USA Today to call London 2012 “The Title IX Olympics.”

Yet although we appreciate and applaud our female athletes every four years during the Games, their road to the Opening Ceremony can be significantly rockier than that of their male team members. In fact, 2012 was the first year in which every country in the Olympic Games had female athletes participating–not because not enough female athletes had failed to qualify for the competition but because Saudi Arabia had historically banned female athletes from competing in the Games. After considerable international pressure, Saudi Arabia agreed to send Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani for judo and Sarah Attar for the 800 meter race to the London 2012 Games–the first time in history the nation sent female athletes to the games. Qatar and Brunei’s female athletes at the London Games were also the first female members in the history of their Olympic participation, but in both of those countries, the policies restricting women in sports are significantly less harsh.

However the battle to include female Saudi athletes was hard fought. There was significant criticism when Saudi Arabia originally didn’t include any women–Human Rights Watch called for a ban on the entire Saudi delegation unless it included female athletes. Read on to take a look at the tough fight for gender equality in the Olympics.

The Attention on Gender Equality in the Olympics

History of Exclusion and Inclusion

Today we may take our female athletes for granted, as over 44 percent of the participants in the last summer games were women, but they can face a form of discrimination that their male peers rarely encounter. It has taken decades to open certain sports to women–consider that ski jumping in the Winter Olympics only became open to women during the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. It was not until 1991 that the Olympics officially opened all sports to both genders, but that declaration was undermined by the caveat that sports from the inaugural 1924 Games did not have to be open to female athletes. The rationale behind this ban on women’s participation is tied to the idea that women are at greater risk of physical harm when competing or that they do not have the same physical stamina as male athletes.

Equality?

Even when women are allowed to compete in their sport, there is no guarantee they will have the same privileges that male athletes receive. When the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team filed their EOEC complaint regarding salary earlier this month, they threatened to boycott the Olympic Games unless they received comparable pay to their male counterparts. Under the 1978 Amateur Sports Act, the United States Olympic Committee and its National Governing Bodies are required to operate in a non-discriminatory fashion but not all nations have dedicated the same legal attention to gender parity.

However, no matter what a country’s domestic policy is on women in sports, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has seemingly gone the extra mile to ensure that women can compete at the Olympic level. The “universality clause” states that athletes who do not qualify for an event during the trials can still compete if they are considered critical to the national team “for reasons of equality.” It was under this clause that both female Saudi athletes were able to compete in London 2012.

Case Study: Saudi Arabia as a Last Holdout

Saudi Arabia has effectively placed a blanket ban on women’s sports, even though there is no law preventing women from participating in organized sports (just as there is no official law preventing women from driving). But in order for women to train, they must attend a gym with separate women’s facilities–and only a handful of gyms across the country possess a separate women’s building. Community centers and schools almost never offer women’s training spaces so most women wishing to exercise, let alone train for an organized sport, may have to travel outside of the country to do so. Girls attending government schools are prohibited from taking part in sports. There were discussions in 2014 about allowing physical education programs in public schools but that conversation has stalled and come to naught. Besides being a policy that prevents women from competing in athletics, it can be seen as an incredibly dangerous public health maneuver, considering that 34 percent of Saudi Arabian women are obese and Type 2 diabetes is prevalent throughout the Saudi population.

There is not necessarily a lack of interest in sports among women in Saudi Arabia. In July 2012, a group of citizens requested to organize a women’s sports tournament including volleyball, soccer, and basketball, promising that it would comply with a dress code and would not involve the mixing of genders, yet that request was denied by Saudi officials at the sports ministry. The ministry gave no reason for denying the request. Beyond preventing women from playing sports, the government also generally prevents them from attending sporting events as spectators.

The 2012 Competitors 

Wojdan Shaherkani, the 16-year old judo competitor from Mecca who came to the Games in 2012, lasted less than two minutes on the mat during her first bout at the London Games. Whereas virtually all competitors at the Olympic level have a black belt, Shaherkani had only a blue belt when she entered the Games, having only practiced the sport for two years. Shaherkani was granted no financial or media support from the Saudi delegation. Her match was broadcast on a handful of cable television channels in the Kingdom but was otherwise ignored.

Like Shaherkani, Sarah Attar failed to develop popularity or receive respect from the populace. Attar is from San Diego and holds dual Saudi and American citizenship. Attar is training for the Rio Games at training facility in California, where she is sponsored by Oiselle, a subsidiary of Nike that looks to promote women in sports, and runs without a hijab. She dons the hijab when she races as an Olympian out of respect for Saudi Arabia, a country she hopes to keep representing for the foreseeable future. She may be wearing the colors of Saudi Arabia when she races in the Olympic trials, but some of the population she represents either refuses to watch her run or has labeled her a “prostitute.” She is funded by an American company, not a Saudi one.

Conclusion

As we approach the Rio Games, female athletes around the world are competing in Olympic trials, hoping to represent their nations on the world stage.  Yet not all female athletes compete on the same footing as their male counterparts. Nations such as Qatar and Brunei still have relatively restrictive policies on women’s sports, but at least young girls are given the opportunity to compete and exercise within the borders of their homeland. Qatar is even striving to take more female athletes to the Games in Rio than they ever have before.

However Saudi Arabia still lags behind. Studies have shown that young women who play sports have higher self-esteem, are more likely to do well in school and graduate, and less likely to suffer from depression or have an unplanned pregnancy. Qatar and Brunei have set a positive example by integrating female athletes into their teams, and Saudi Arabia now has the opportunity to follow that example in Rio.

Resources

CNN: Olympic First as Saudi Arabia Names Two Women in London 2012 Team

Feminist Majority Foundation: Equality for Women in the Olympics

The Week: The Olympics’ Longstanding Gender Gap

GOOD: The Women’s National Soccer Team Threatens to Skip the Olympics 

The Huffington Post: As Rio 2016 Draws Closer, When Will Discrimination End For Sportswomen In Saudi Arabia?

Institute for Gulf Affairs: Killing Them Softly 

The World Post: Saudi Arabia’s Olympic Paradox: Insulting Women, Islam and “Prostitutes”

Running.Competitor.com: Q&A with Sarah Attar

The Gender Report: Women Making History in 2012 Olympics

The Guardian: Saudi Arabia’s Judoka Strikes Blow for Women’s Rights at Olympics

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Is Exclusion Still the Norm? Saudi Arabia and Women in the Olympic Games appeared first on Law Street.

SpaceX recently announced that its Dragon spacecraft, designed to deliver both cargo and people, could be touching down on Mars as soon as 2018. Mars has long fascinated space agencies, and the U.S., Russia and the EU have all landed spacecraft on the planet, but SpaceX would be the first private company to complete a mission to Mars.

SpaceX is seeking to land its Dragon using rocket power alone, as opposed to the system of parachutes and airbags that are usually involved in landing spacecraft. In April, SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon 9 rocket ship on a platform at sea, following up a successful landing on a ground-based site in 2015. SpaceX is conducting another rocket launch and landing this week, but the company expects the landing to be unsuccessful, citing “extreme velocities and re-entry heating, making a successful landing unlikely.” Even if this week’s landing is unsuccessful, SpaceX engineers are still confident in the feasibility of launching their product within a few years rather than a matter of decades.

SpaceX may be a private company but it is not looking to keep NASA out of the loop on its Mars project. SpaceX has agreed to gather data for NASA and will utilize technical support from NASA, including use of the Deep Space Network for communications. SpaceX will be the financial power behind the project but the Dragon launch is a collaboration rather than a competition with traditional space agencies. This type of cooperation marks a new era in space exploration. Whereas the initial space race of the past century was defined by U.S.-Soviet competition, we are now seeing space travel as a team effort that brings creative minds together rather than setting them up as mortal enemies. Rocket launches in the private sector are concerned with the goals of the company and its engineering staff rather than a victory for the nation.

National space agencies are not extinct and may even be revived to rival their boom years in the future, but at this moment they are taking on a support role and perhaps making space exploration more cooperative by doing so. Instead of framing the journey to Mars as a race, we need to construct it as a project that all the brightest minds can contribute to, no matter where they come from. The 2018 launch date for the Dragon may come and go without a successful launch, but if SpaceX keeps up its open collaboration with NASA (or expands it to include other space agencies and companies), then the company and its engineers will have made a substantial contribution to the future of space travel on Earth–even if they don’t make it to Mars.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Mars by 2018? SpaceX’s Ambitious Plan for Interplanetary Expansion appeared first on Law Street.

Ferrero, the chocolate company that manufactures international favorites such as Nutella and Ferrero Rocher, is on track to reach over $10 billion in profits this year, making it the world’s third largest chocolate producer. This growth is especially impressive considering that in 2006, Ferrero’s turnover stood at only 5.6 billion. But in light of this news, there is a problem that Ferrero is still working on addressing: child slavery on cocoa farms.

It’s important to note that Ferrero is not alone in this issue. In 2001, leading companies of the chocolate world made a collective promise to eliminate child labor from their supply chain by 2005 but the year came and went without an end to abusive labor practices. The deadline was pushed back to 2008, then to 2010. Ferrero appears to be the only one of those companies that set a secondary deadline for the project. In 2012, Ferrero pledged to end slavery on the farms where it harvests cocoa by 2020. Other leaders in the industry followed this pledge, but chose to amend their commitment to reducing child labor in Ivory Coast and Ghana by 70 percent by 2020 (rather than eliminating it entirely). Ferrero made a bold commitment in 2012–but is it one that the company can feasibly deliver on? Read on for a look at the company and the controversy over eliminating child labor in the chocolate industry.

What is Ferrero?

History

In 1946, Pietro Ferrero invented a cream of hazelnuts and cocoa. Hazelnuts were a creative addition to confectionery during wartime rationing, which limited the use of chocolate. Together with his brother, he launched a company to sell the product, which was eventually taken over by his son, Michele. Michele re-branded the spread as “Nutella,” opening production and sales offices worldwide in the wake of World War II.

Nutella became integral to Italian life, even sponsoring the national soccer team for three years beginning in 1988. Nutella was central to the “Made in Italy” brand but Ferrero also operated the Ferrero Rocher line of pralines, Kinder chocolate bars, and Pocket Coffee chocolates. By the time of his death, Michele Ferrero had unseated Silvio Berlusconi as the richest man in Italy–he had a net worth of an estimated $23.4 billion. In 1997, Michele’s sons Pietro and Giovanni took over the company and ran the brand successfully, but after Pietro’s death in 2011, sole responsibility fell to Giovanni.

A Media Shy Chocolate Megalith 

The family was, and still is, private to the extreme. Michele Ferrero did not hold press conferences or engage at all with the media, even going so far as to block tours of the company’s factories.  Ferrero has cultivated an almost mystical brand reinforced by the control the Ferrero family holds directly over the recipe, the production, and the marketing of their products. Although the company is headquartered in Italy and operates largely from its base in Alba, it is still reliant on West Africa for cocoa. Nutella, interestingly enough, also relies on sugar from Brazil and palm oil from Malaysia, which means West Africa may not be the only place where brutal labor practices have been a concern.

Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry

The world’s largest chocolate producers rely on West Africa–especially the Ivory Coast and Ghana–for cocoa. The combined GDP for both countries is just a fraction of the billions of dollars in sales that international chocolate companies like Nestle pull down annually. Cocoa is generally produced by farmers living in extreme poverty, and child labor is common on the majority of cocoa farms. Children are often sold into slavery by their parents or kidnapped. The average work week can last from 80 to 100 hours and while working on the farms, these children receive no salary or education. The living conditions are brutal, as children are often beaten and rarely well fed.

Tulane University conducted a study in the 2013-2014 growing season that revealed approximately 2.1 million children were involved in objectionable labor practices on cocoa farms in both the Ivory Coast and Ghana. In 2015, three California activists filed a lawsuit against Hershey, Mars, and Nestle for not advertising that their products were made using child labor but the likelihood of that civil action suit coming to fruition is slim. This past September, Nestle commissioned a report from the Fair Labor Association (FLA) which presented the following results:

Researchers visit 260 farms used by the company in Ivory Coast from September to December 2014. The researchers found 56 workers under the age of 18, of which 27 were under 15…Researchers from the FLA, which was commissioned by Nestlé to investigate workers rights on its west African farms in 2013 amid international pressure, found child workers at 7% of the farms visited. Nestlé’s code of conduct prohibits the use of child labour in its supply chain.Though researchers found Nestlé had made substantial efforts to inform farmers about its code of conduct, awareness of the code was low among farmers, with farmers sometimes unable to attend training sessions due to either “lack of interest or time”. The FLA also found that farms lacked any kind of age verification system for workers.

Ferrero has not commissioned a similar report but because almost all of the major chocolate providers rely on the same farms within Ivory Coast and Ghana, concerns from critics allege that conditions are similar on its farms. Ferrero has called out for an end to child slavery and forced labor, but if farmers are ignoring that call to action, like those interviewed for the FLA report, then the company may not be on track to meet its 2020 goal.

 Conclusion

Ferrero has officially displaced Nestle to become the third largest chocolate producer in the world, which means that the company will be centered in the international spotlight like never before. The Ferrero family may have historically been secretive about their business to protect it from corporate espionage but that does not mean they should be allowed to be anything less than transparent when it comes to their labor practices. There are dozens of smaller chocolate companies that have successfully eliminated child and slave labor from cocoa production on their farms, and particular light is being shed on Ferrero (and other leading chocolate companies’) practices. The moment may have come for Ferrero’s leadership to divert attention and resources to reforming the cocoa farms behind their famous chocolate.

Resources

The Local: Italian Chocolate Giant Ferrero to Eclipse €10bn Turnover

Reuters: Michele Ferrero, Owner of Nutella Empire, dies at 89

CNN: Ferrero Sets Date to End Cocoa Slavery

BBC: News; How the World Went Nuts for a Hazelnut Spread

New York Times: Michele Ferrero, Tycoon Who Gave the World Nutella, Dies at 89

Fortune: Was Your Easter Chocolate Made with Child Labor?

Fortune: Inside Big Chocolate 

The Daily Beast: Lawsuit: Your Candy Bar Was Made By Child Slaves

The Guardian: Child Labour on Nestlé Farms: Chocolate Giant’s Problems Continue

The Huffington Post: Chocolate and Child Slavery: Say No to Human Trafficking this Holiday Season

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Chocolate Company’s Growth Puts a Spotlight on Child Labor in West Africa appeared first on Law Street.

Although gender equality in the sporting world is far from perfect, a majority of sports now have women’s leagues. One notable exception is racing–both Formula 1 and NASCAR. Danica Patrick has worked tirelessly to be a visible competitor on the NASCAR scene but few other female American drivers have been recognized. In Formula 1, there are only a handful of female drivers who were recently made to feel even more out of place in their sport when Bernie Ecclestone, Chief Executive of the Formula One Group, said in an interview with The Daily Beast that he didn’t know “whether a woman would physically be able to drive an F1 car quickly, and they wouldn’t be taken seriously.” Ecclestone said in the same interview that he thinks women can break through as executives outside of the sporting world, but by stating that women are not physically capable of driving in Formula 1 Races, he has effectively written them off as trivial rather than valuable contributors to the sport.

Mario Andretti was asked to comment on women in Formula 1 in the wake of Ecclestone’s comments and told TMZ that

You could be more delicate about it, but Formula 1 has been in existence for what, 66 years, and we’ve only seen 5 women try and compete and none have really been successful.
The bottom line is you can make assertions until the cows come home. Saying women can do it. Bottom line, they have to prove it. You can’t just come out of the woodwork and say ‘I want to be a F1 driver.’ You need to earn your way there.  Will it happen one day? It’s impossible to predict, but I’d say probably yes. At the same time, someone else might say, if it was going to happen, why hasn’t it happened in 66 years?  I think it’s clearly more of a men’s sport. Could there be some women who are competitive? Like with tennis… could Serena Williams compete with men? I think yes, but could she win a major, I don’t know.

Former Williams test driver Susie Wolff has stepped forward, stating that Ecclestone’s comments were taken out of context and that Ecclestone has committed to her Dare to be Different initiative, which aims to get more girls interested in motor sports. However, Wolff’s defense of Ecclestone (and his commitment to her initiative) may be too little too late. By claiming that women don’t have the physical capacity to drive at the highest level of racing, Ecclestone has undercut decades of hard work and sacrifice from the women who are pioneering gender integration in Formula 1.

Just because women are a minority in the sport does not mean that they are not capable. When given access to the training, funding, and resources that male drivers receive, women can also compete on the most challenging race tracks in the world. It is a question of opportunity, not of ability. Ecclestone and Andretti are working on the flawed assumption that because no woman has emerged as a racing champion equivalent to a male driver in the past, it would be impossible for such a female to exist in the present or the future. In reality, all forms of sport are based on breaking records and pushing forward rather than being tied to the way the sport was conducted in the past.

When male leaders in the motor sport community dismiss the possibility of female talent, they are shutting the door for the current generation of girls who find racing interesting. These girls may enjoy driving and cars just as much or more than their male peers but when they are constantly told that there is no way they will ever compete seriously, they lose all inspiration and incentive to continue training and racing. Ecclestone and Andretti should have stepped forward and challenged young women to break into the boys’ club of motor sport so that it can become just as diverse as any other major sport. By falling back on antiquated notions of female ability, Ecclestone and Andretti are hammering the final nail into the coffin–if the most high profile and experienced men in the sport don’t think you’re capable, then you can bet no one else will.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Where are the Women in Formula 1? appeared first on Law Street.

Stephen Hawking has spent decades challenging the world to broaden its concept of the cosmos and last week he signed onto a research project connected to that goal. The billionaire Yuri Milner, backed by Hawking, has launched Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million effort to develop computer chip-sized “star ships” that would travel further into space than any craft previously designed by man.

The project would aim to launch a thousand of these tiny star ships, each equipped with a “solar sail” that would push the ships along using light energy. In order to complete such an ambitious task, scientists will have to pour significant time and energy into miniaturizing instruments and developing solar sails strong enough to survive for a long-term journey through space. During  a recent press conference, Hawking stated that his hope for Starshot was a successful launch to Alpha Centauri–a star system approximately 25 trillion miles away–within a generation. Whether such an undertaking is even technologically possible remains to be seen. Read on for a look inside Breakthrough Starshot and the future of space exploration.

Who is Yuri Milner?

Hawking grabbed headlines when he committed to the project this week but the financial titan behind Starshot is an important figure in his own right. Yuri Milner, through his venture fund DST Global, has backed some of the most disruptive companies of the millennium: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and AirBnB to name just a few. Milner’s financial commitment to expanding scientific exploration has developed over time, peaking in the last two years.

He began working as a specialist in private sector banking at the World Bank in the 1990s but eventually shifted into investment brokerage. In the 2000s, he began investing in internet companies, serving as CEO and Chairman of a variety of holdings. In 2009, he purchased a 1.9 percent stake in Facebook for $200 million. In 2012, he stepped into the world of philanthropy by founding the Breakthrough Prize along with a host of other Silicon Valley talents. The Breakthrough Prize, which results in a $3 million grant to the recipient, is divided into three categories (Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics). In 2015, Milner launched Breakthrough Initiatives, a program tasked with exploring the universe for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. It is through this program that Milner and Hawking joined forces. Milner is one of many tech savants who have turned their energy and personal wealth towards funding the future of the human race, but his connection with the most notable scientific names of cosmology make him stand out as more than an amateur enthusiast.

Solar Sails

Although the Starshot team has hailed their use of solar sails as the first new approach to propulsion for a century, the concept of using light to propel spacecraft is not entirely novel. NASA’s Kepler space telescope uses the pressure from photons to maneuver and light sails have been deployed in the past in the Japanese spacecraft IKAROS. Starshot would differ from these spacecraft because it would utilize lasers to push the star ships along, accelerating them to 20 percent of the speed of light. With such an acceleration, the star ships could arrive at the nearest star within a matter of decades (as opposed to thousands of years from now).

However, as NPR reported, there are obstacles to building and controlling a laser powerful enough to give the solar sails the necessary push. There are lasers currently capable of delivering enough laser power to a point to initiate nuclear fusion but the blast only lasts for a microsecond. Starshot team members estimate that to launch its nanocraft, it would need a laser capable of sustaining that laser power for ten minutes.

There is a need for international approval and cooperation on creating the laser and satellites would have to be shifted out of the way of the laser in order for it to fire. Multiple permits will need to be approved from a variety of countries, and changing political climates could make or break Starshot’s success. An administration that has minimal or no interest in space exploration will not move satellites and approve the laser–which could be considered a weapon in the wrong hands–so Starshot will need to seek powerful political allies before beginning to construct the laser. Milner has proposed constructing the laser in a location such as the Atacama Desert, but conservationist interest groups may protest such a large scale construction and the national government of the country where the laser is built would ultimately have to balance environmental concerns with commitment to Starshot.

Funding the Project

The $100 million price tag on Starshot may seem high but when we account for potential problems with production, the need for materials and staff, and the lobbying costs of getting the laser approved, that sum may only be a fraction of the actual cost of getting Starshot off the ground. Milner’s financial commitment is essentially a launching pad that will need to be padded and refurbished in the coming years. His investment will be funneled into research grants, whose conditions are as yet undetermined.

Uniting that research into a single nanocraft will require significant logistical and financial cooperation between various teams. Milner has estimated that the project could cost anywhere from $5 to $10 billion by the time it is completed, and that estimate could even be conservative. The timeline for Starshot is counted in decades, not months: approximately twenty years to start the mission, another twenty for the nanocraft to reach Alpha Centauri and four years for the information to then return to Earth. This means that financial planning for such an extensive time presents a unique challenge for the Starshot team. In periods of economic stability, governments may be more likely to fund space exploration projects but at the moment, space exploration has largely been funneled into the private sector–which means Starshot will need to target a very selective set of potential investors. There are plenty of millionaires and billionaires in the world, but how many are willing to invest their funds in a space exploration project that will most likely not be finished within their lifetime?

However, having Hawking as a supporter boosts Starshot’s credibility and visibility in the press, and Hawking is not the only major cosmological name attached to the project:

The project will be directed by Pete Worden, a former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. He has a prominent cast of advisers, including the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb as chairman; the British astronomer royal Martin Rees; the Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Saul Perlmutter, of the University of California, Berkeley; Ann Druyan, an executive producer of the television mini-series ‘Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey’ and the widow of Carl Sagan; and the mathematician and author Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that their commitment will draw in a sufficient number of investors. Milner’s financial commitment to Starshot may come to naught if the project gets halfway through its initial phase of development only to run out of funds and become defunct before it has ever launched a nanocraft.

Conclusion

Starshot, like many space exploration projects of the past several years, was motivated by the fear that the Earth may no longer be habitable for humans in the near future. Stephen Hawking has discussed multiple potential threats to human existence on Earth, ranging from global warming to asteroids to supernovas. The idea of becoming a multi-planetary species may seem like the stuff of science fiction but an increasing number of the leading minds of science and technology are committing to distributing the human race across the stars.

While proposals like Elon Musk’s plan to put humans on Mars by 2025 are still being written off as overambitious and perhaps alarmist, there is a growing shift in the message behind space exploration: it is less for our own curiosity and more for our own survival. Projects like Breakthrough Starshot require a massive amount of technological innovation and financial investment, which makes their feasibility seem slim at best–but considering how rapidly space travel has developed since the 1950s, it is not absurd to consider that Milner’s nanocraft could be reaching the stars within a matter of decades. At this time, the most pressing limitation on Starshot’s capacity is financial, but if sufficient investment is provided, we may be visiting the stars before the century is out.

Resources

BBC: Hawking Backs Interstellar Travel Project

Sci-Tech Today: Starshot: Russian Billionaire and Stephen Hawking Back New Space Program

TIME: Yuri Milner, Digital Sky Technologies

NPR: Stephen Hawking’s Plan For Interstellar Travel Has Some Earthly Obstacles

Inverse: Apocalyptic Fears Drive Stephen Hawking’s Support for Breakthrough Starshot

Popular Science: Stephen Hawking Answers Our Questions on the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative 

Cosmos Magazine: Space Lasers and Light Sails: the Tech Behind Breakthrough Starshot

Christian Science Monitor: Stephen Hawking Proposes to Hunt for Aliens with a Fleet of Tiny Spaceships

New York Times: Reaching for the Stars, Across 4.37 Light-Years

Editor’s Note: This post has been edited to update the Breakthrough Starshot timeline. 

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Breakthrough Starshot and the Acceleration of Space Travel appeared first on Law Street.

Andy Warhol’s soup cans are one of the most iconic images of American pop art–and last week, someone decided to take them for a walk. The Springfield Art Museum of Springfield, Missouri reported a burglary last week that involved several prints made by Warhol in 1968. The FBI has announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to the apprehension of the thieves–which seems excessive until you consider that a single one of Warhol’s soup can prints sold for $30,660 last year at Christie’s. The reward also pales in comparison to the $5 million reward offered for information regarding the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum robbery–during which multiple pieces by Renoir and Vermeer were stolen. Yet it is still a massive sum that will hopefully tempt informants to come forward.

The FBI has a specially designated Art Crime Team brought in to handle matters involving stolen artwork but unless the prints are found relatively quickly, they may be transferred into the collection of a private buyer via the black market and never seen again. The FBI operates a National Stolen Art File, which provides a comprehensive index of art that has been stolen worldwide, but with a piece as recognizable as Warhol’s soup cans, putting it in the index is not even necessary. The print could never go to auction in a traditional showroom, which means tracking it will be an infinitely difficult task. Law enforcement will be forced to rely heavily on anonymous tips and confidential informants, which is why they have drawn attention to their tip line with a cash incentive.

However, that incentive may not seem justified from all quarters. Why is the FBI designating such a massive cash prize to the Warhol paintings when it could donate the same prize to informants who call in regarding violent actions or organized crime? Why is the FBI designating that money to prizes at all when it could be using it to finance operations and hire the best possible analysts (instead of potentially losing them to the private sector)? The Art Crime Team would respond that stealing art can be equated with stealing history, taking away the identity and history of a given people. This argument holds up when considering the team’s successful recovery of artifacts stolen from archaeological sites and public museums, but when examining private collections, we come to gray area. Should the government be tasked with providing a reward for the theft of a privately owned painting or should that responsibility fall to the owner, who has the ability to insure the painting?

On its website, the Art Crime Team has listed several of its successes, including the case of “approximately 100 paintings stolen from a Florida family’s art collection in a fine art storage facility. This collection included works by Picasso, Rothko, Matisse and others that were recovered from Chicago, New York and Tokyo.” Stealing a painting from a venue like the Springfield Art Museum does impact the community’s ability to access and enjoy art but if it was stolen from a private collection, the public would have just as little access to the artwork after the theft as they did before. The reward offered in the case of the Warhol prints may turn up valuable information, but it could also be a waste of government funds that will do virtually nothing to return the prints. 

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Should the FBI Offer Reward Money for Stolen Art? appeared first on Law Street.

Athletes from practically every sport frequently donate their gear to charity but this week, FC Barcelona’s Lionel Messi received negative press after donating a pair of shoes to a charity auction conducted by a television station with high Egyptian viewership. Instead of being seen as a gesture of goodwill, the donation of the shoes was received as a slap in the face–a suggestion that Egyptians aren’t capable of purchasing their own shoes. Furthermore, in Egyptian culture, shoes are seen as a symbol of disrespect or insult (shoes are considered unclean in many parts of the Arab world and the act of throwing a shoe at someone is a powerful insult). Egyptian MP Said Hasasin went on national television denouncing Messi’s donation, removed his own shoes and claimed he would donate them to Argentina as a form of retribution. Egypt’s Football Association representative Azmy Megahed sided with Hasasin, stating that :

I am confused, if he intends to humiliate us, then I say he better put these shoes on his head and on the heads of the people supporting him. We don’t need his shoes and we don’t need charity from Jewish or Israeli people. Give your shoes to your country, Argentina is full of poverty.

The Jewish Chronicle expressed confusion over this reaction, as Messi is in fact Catholic.

Not all reactions to Messi’s donation were negative. The Egyptian football manager (and former player) Mido defended Messi, stating that a soccer player’s shoes are his most prized possession and the whole debate stemmed from a misunderstanding. Reporter Mona El-Sharkawy, who conducted the interview, stated that Messi never suggested he was donating the shoes to Egypt–the program she interviewed him for asks all its guests to donate items to a charity auction and Messi simply suggested that he would like to donate his shoes to that auction. He never mentioned the country of Egypt at all, and meant no offense.

While the Egyptians who spoke out against Messi’s donation have the right to their own opinions, they may have cost Egyptian charities a major opportunity to raise money. Auctioning off the possessions of famous athletes has historically been a profitable practice and an athlete with as much star power as Messi would have no doubt drawn interest from buyers around the world. Messi is a five time Ballon d’Or recipient who is generally considered to be the best soccer player on the planet. The shoes were not a gift to the nation of Egypt, they were a donation to a specific charity that was seeking out the possessions of celebrities. Lionel Messi has historically been very active in donating to charity and taking part in fundraising events, including the foundation of his own organization–Fundacion Leo Messi–which aims to improve the lives of impoverished youth around the world. By taking a gesture that was meant out of goodwill to heart as an attack on national identity and prosperity, Hasasin and Megahed denied the charity auction the opportunity to rake in a significant sum.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Messi’s Donation Offends Egyptian Officials appeared first on Law Street.

Plastic bags have been demonized by the environmental movement for years. They are considered to be wasteful and unnecessary–why opt for plastic when you could have a reusable grocery bag? Yet within the battle to end the use of plastic bags, there is a camp that often goes unnoticed–animal rights activists. In coastal communities, plastic bags pose a major threat to marine life as animals  can get trapped inside of them and injure themselves. Plastic bags are often mistaken for jellyfish by sea turtles, who harm themselves by eating the bags, and large swaths of plastic bags floating on the ocean’s surface block the sunlight that algae and plankton need to survive.

California and Hawaii have already banned large retail stores from using plastic bags, and activists have now set their sights on Florida. Floridian cities are currently not allowed to control the sale of plastic bags but there are half a dozen online petitions to either ban them entirely or to initiate taxes on plastic bags. Officials from Miami Beach have mentioned several times that they would like to have a bag ban but cannot under Florida law as it stands today. A representative from Miami Beach sponsored a bill to ban plastic bags in certain regions of the state last year, but the bill has yet to get off the ground. Take a look at where plastic bags have been banned and what these laws signify for the potential bag ban in Florida.

Bans in California and Hawaii

In 2015, Hawaii banned the use of plastic bags in grocery stores across the state, encouraging shoppers to choose paper or to bring their own reusable bags from home. Hawaii’s ban came not from the state government but from the county level, as each of the four counties decided separately to enact a ban. Unfortunately, there was a small loophole in the ban that allowed thick plastic bags to be considered “reusable,” which means that the ban is often more theoretical than realistic. There are also exceptions for restaurants, pharmacies, and dry cleaning operations, which are still allowed to use plastic bags for their products. Hawaii’s bag ban, though viewed as well intentioned and unprecedented, has come under fire for not enforcing a drop in plastic use across all sectors of the community.

Meanwhile in California, activists spent years lobbying for a plastic bag ban and thought they had secured a law that would go into effect in the summer of 2016. However, after major pressure from the plastics lobby, the ban has been pushed back–citizens will vote on it during a referendum this coming November. According to NPR, a poll conducted late last year by the University of Southern California and The Los Angeles Times  found that California voters plan to uphold the bag ban by a margin of 59 to 34 percent. Yet in the months before the November referendum, any number of roadblocks could emerge to enacting the ban. Plastic bag manufacturers in other states have a strong interest in retaining the California market and have committed funding to lobbyists looking to further stall the bag ban.

Opposition

It is not only plastics lobbyists who stand against the ban though. San Jose resident Don Williams created the website stopthebagban.com because he considers it an “eco-fad” that inconveniences the public and doesn’t make a substantial contribution to conservation efforts. Although Hawaii and California have led the effort to implement state wide bag bans, their efforts have been stymied to the point that the bans may never have the impact that they were designed to. Plastic bags continue to pile up in landfills–and in the case of these coastal communities, ocean fills. Massive floating islands of garbage have built up in the center of major oceans, leaching toxins into the sea and poisoning sea life. Ocean currents move the plastic bags around the world, spreading pollution and endangering animals across the globe. The British Antarctic Survey reported that it found plastic bags as far south as the Falkland Islands and as far north as Spitzbergen, an island inside the Arctic Circle.

Banning Bags in Florida?

Although individual cities in various states have banned plastic bags, Florida state law prohibits individual cities from doing so. However, as of this January, cities along the Treasure Coast region with less than 100,000 residents are allowed to experiment with plastic bag control. Multiple cities in the region have signed up for a two year pilot program designed to decrease the use of bags, the first such program to emerge in the state. The Florida Retail Association has stated that a bag ban would not be practical. General counsel Samantha Padgett argued that:

‘Millions of visitors come to Florida each year. They are going to purchase items and they have to have some means of carrying those items.’ Reusable bags collect germs. And paper bags ‘can be very inconvenient for consumers on a rainy day.’

Proponents of the bag ban also have latched onto the tourism argument, claiming that when Florida’s famous beaches are covered in litter and the flora and fauna are suffering from being choked by plastic bags, no one will consider Florida to be worth visiting. North Shore Hawaii Turtle Tours is one of a dozen businesses that asks visitors to support the bag ban. The Florida Keys have attempted to get citizens to phase out plastic bags without legislation by launching the “Got Your Bags?” campaign, which asks Florida Keys residents to carry biodegradable and reusable bags with them every time they go shopping. Florida Keys Wildlife Rescue has gone so far as to call plastic bags a “cancer.” According to a study in the Journal of Environmental Research,

About 44 percent of all seabirds eat plastic fragments; 267 marine species (sea turtles, seabirds, marine mammals, and fish) are affected by plastic garbage. From Planet Ark, about 100,000 whales, seals, turtles, and other marine animals are killed by plastic bags each year worldwide. These numbers do not include the land-based victims; even cows have been known to eat plastic bags. Dead and surviving fish and animals, now laced with chemicals from eating plastic, transfer those chemicals to the food chain when other animals (including humans) eat them or their products.

In Cedar Key, volunteers pick up plastic bags off the beach and deposit them in dog curbing stations, so that dog owners can reuse them to pick up after their pets. This practice does not eliminate plastic bags but it does make sure that they are more than single use objects. Creative methods of reusing and recycling are important for communities hoping to limit littering but they do not provide an effective solution to the effects of plastic bags on wildlife. Without a significant reduction in plastic bag use, Floridian animals remain will remain in danger for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

Although coastal and island communities have the greatest incentive to ban bags because of the potential harm to their wildlife, multiple landlocked states have also expressed interest in a bag ban. In Arizona, Missouri, Idaho, Indiana, Wisconsin and Utah, several Republican lawmakers have moved to block regulation of plastic bags because of the groundswell of support for bag bans. Grassroots movements to decrease or eliminate use of plastic bags operate in all fifty states but coastal communities are particularly crucial battlegrounds. Plastic bags are not simply artifacts of unsightly littering. They also harm sea creatures, block flood control systems and breed mosquitoes. Past bans on plastic bags have been partially successful at best, largely due to the difficulty of monitoring and enforcing the ban on a state-wide level.

Banning plastic bags is a challenging task but that does not mean it is not worthwhile, nor does it mean that there is not a sizable portion of the population that supports the ban. As the United States becomes more aware of its environmental footprint and actively seeks to create useful conservation laws, cities should be granted the autonomy to make their own laws regarding bag bans. Building a consensus on the local and regional level will make it easier to construct bag bans on the state level–perhaps eventually we could even graduate to a national ban. For the moment, states like Florida that prevent communities from cutting down on plastic are only harming themselves, setting up their cities for increased pollution and endangering indigenous wildlife.

Resources

Aljazeera America: Miami’s Plastic Vice: Bagging the Ban on Bag Bans

Huffington Post: Loophole Undermines Hawaii’s Historic Plastic Bag Ban

HuffingtonPost: This Is How Your Plastic Bag Ends Up In Massive Ocean Garbage Patches

Tree Hugger: Hawaii’s Plastic Bag Ban Goes into Effect, But…

NPR: California Plastic Bag Referendum Could Spark Environmental Showdown

TC Palm: Treasure Coast Communities May be Able to Ban Plastic Bags

The Miami Herald: South Florida Officials Seek Help Controlling Plastic Bags

New York Magazine: The Fight Over Plastic Bags Is About a Lot More Than How to Get Groceries Home

Florida Keys Wildlife Rescue: Plastic–A Cancer in Our Environment

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Ban the Bag: Getting Plastic out of Coastal Communities appeared first on Law Street.

President Obama touched down in Cuba last week, making him the first sitting president to visit the nation in eighty-eight years. As the President and the First Family toured the historic center of Havana, they likely witnessed the stunning old city filled with the vintage cars and delicious cuisine that make Cuba unique. As a result of the embargo, Cuba sometimes seems like a land forgotten by time. However, the Cuba that the Obamas are witnessing this week  is very different than the Cuba the average tourist may experience in the next ten years.  As more opportunities for investment and travel open up in Cuba, foreign investors are making moves–especially within the hospitality sector. Consider that Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson is accompanying President Obama on his visit to Cuba–Marriott may be interested in investing on the island. Read on to see which companies are investing in Cuba and why.

Hotels and Hospitality

Starwood Hotels, the company which owns Westin, Sheraton, and W Hotels (just to name a few), made headlines by announcing that it will open three hotels in Cuba.  At the moment, all Cuban hotels are state-owned but Starwood has the financial and organizational power to build hotels that meet the state’s standards. The location of the third hotel has not been made public but the company has stated that the Hotel Inglaterra, which is owned by a Cuban state tourism company, will become one of Starwood’s Luxury Collection hotels and the Quinta Avenida, which is run by a Cuban military-run tourism group, will become a Four Points by Sheraton hotel.

The potential Starwood-Marriott merger that is currently on the table could have a major impact on how these new hotels will be built and run.  On the heels of the Starwood commitment, AirBnB has announced it will open listings on the island by April 2. AirBnB has in fact been planning for the opening of the country for some time now–last year, the company claimed the right to represent all private residences in Cuba. AirBnB’s chief executive Brian Chesky referred to Cuba as the fastest-growing country that AirBnB has ever launched in. Physical accommodation is not the only segment of the tourism sector that is expanding into Cuba: online booking website Priceline, Western Union, and Carnival cruises have all thrown their hats into the ring (Carnival will begin sailing cruises to the island in May). Multiple U.S. airlines have filed for permission to fly commercial flights into Cuba. At the moment, American citizens cannot travel to Cuba on a tourist visa but visas falling under the following twelve categories have been opened:

Family visits, official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations, journalism, professional research, educational activities, religious activities, public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions, and exhibition, support for the Cuban people, humanitarian project, activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes, exportation, importation, or transmission of information or information materials and certain export transactions that may be considered for authorization under existing regulations and guidelines.

Travelers must provide itineraries that justify their visa, but they no longer have to apply for a formal travel license from the government. Ease of travel is drawing a steadily increasing number of Americans to the island. According to  Jose Luis Perello Cabrera, an economist at the University of Havana, there was a 36 percent increase in the number of Americans visiting Cuba between January and May of 2015 alone.

American investors for the most part are flocking to the hospitality industry but there are a handful of cases of more specific investments. Consider Alabama-based Cleber LLC, a tractor company which was the first company to receive joint approval from the Cuban government and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Cleber LLC is looking to produce tractors in the newly built port of Mariel just outside of Havana, claiming that these tractors will deliver both a financial profit and an ethical good–improving the quality of life of Cuban farmers. Tractors are just one element of machinery that Cuban farms and factories are clamoring for and as the market continues to open, an increasing number of small businesses like Cleber LLC will be given the opportunity to sell their specialized products on the island.

Chinese Investment in Cuba

American companies are not the only investors chomping at the bit to launch projects in Cuba. Venezuela has historically been Cuba’s largest trade partner but in recent years, China has been vying for that position. Cuba has long been reliant on Venezuela for oil but the regime has now turned to China for its technology and infrastructure needs.

American companies such as AT&T have projects in Cuba waiting in their pipelines but Cuban authorities have resisted American telecommunications investment. Instead, they have turned to Chinese operators such as Huawei Technology Co. Ltd., which was tasked with installing fiber-optic connections in Old Havana. Professor William M. LeoGrande of American University has said that “partly that’s a result of the fact that historically we’ve tried to use telecommunications as an avenue to undermine their government, and so consequently they really don’t trust our hardware.”  Silicon Valley tech companies are getting left behind as Huawei installs dozens of Wi-Fi hot spots around the island. Huawei has also partnered with the Cuban telecom company Etecsa to distribute smartphones, further anchoring its brand with the Cuban public.

The economic exchange between the countries has also led to Cuban efforts to break into Asian trade: Cuba’s Havana Club rum has launched major marketing campaigns targeting the Chinese market, hoping that it will be a gateway to Asia as a whole. In 2015, airlines began operating direct flights between Beijing and Havana as both Chinese investment and tourism in Cuba soared. Although Chinese investors have not paid as much attention to the hospitality sector as American companies, China’s Suntine International-Economic Trading Company has partnered with Cuba’s Cubanacan hotel group to launch a new “Hemingway Hotel”–a luxury hotel with a price tag of at least $150 million. If the Hemingway Hotel project succeeds, then Chinese corporations may commit to more hospitality projects–putting them in direct competition with companies like Starwood and AirBnB.

Conclusion

Although foreign investment appears to open up new opportunities for the Cuban people, it has been argued that foreign companies will only further entrench the power of Raul Castro rather than aiding the general Cuban populace. American (and other foreign) companies hiring Cuban workers will not necessarily be allowed to hire employees directly. Instead, they may only be permitted to hire people through state agencies, effectively blacklisting anybody the regime has deemed unacceptable. Foreign investors will pour their money into the regime itself rather than into the individual bank accounts of Cubans who they hire at their enterprises. Cuba is a nation with a rich cultural heritage that travelers have been drawn to for centuries but many Americans are unfamiliar with the island’s government and its approach towards controlling the population. As diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba expand, American investors are trickling into the country, hoping to prepare it for a potential flood of tourists in the coming years.

While Americans seem to have gained the upper hand regarding early investment in hospitality services, Chinese and Venezuelan companies have been positioning themselves to win the contracts on Cuba’s largest infrastructure projects. Tech investment could be a battleground, as Cisco has already committed to a training institute and Google is interested in working on Cuban connectivity but Chinese investment in Cuba’s internet has already put them at a significant advantage. The swell of foreign investment in Cuba may not provide the stability and equality that optimists hope for, but it should not be dismissed outright. Allowing open commerce and investment in Cuba will allow the nation to engage in the global economy in a way that it has never before–but it is, at least at the moment, unclear who will truly benefit from this expansion.

Resources

VOX: Airbnb and American Hotels Aren’t Wasting Any Time Ppening up in Cuba

USA Today: Starwood: 1st U.S. Company to Run Cuba Hotels in Decades

New York Times: American Firm, Starwood, Signs Deal to Manage Hotels in Cuba

CNBC: Marriott, Starwood Team up to Take on Airbnb in New Merger

New York Magazine: Discovering Cuba, One Airbnb at a Time

Financial Times: No Flood of Investment Despite US-Cuba Thaw

ATTN: 12 Ways You Can Legally Visit Cuba

NPR: U.S.-Cuba Ties Are Restored, But Most American Tourists Will Have To Wait

AP News: Stunning 36 Percent Rise in US Visits to Cuba since January

Worker’s World: U.S. Investment in Cuba: How a Little Red Tractor Jumped to Front of the Line

American Enterprise Institute: Why US Investment Won’t Bring Change to Cuba

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Competes With China for Influence in Cuba

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The New Cuba: Who is Investing in the Island? appeared first on Law Street.

March was a significant month for guns in America. Iowa Governor Terry Branstad signed a bill that legalized the use of gun suppressors, or silencers, in the state which went into effect immediately. Rhode Island lawmakers spent the month weighing over a dozen bills that could completely transform the state’s gun culture. A Pennsylvania law that allowed the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups to sue cities that enacted strict gun control policies may come back into effect. These stories suggest that the country is shifting away from traditional gun control laws and opening the door to open carry in more locations. However, two stories which have flown relatively under the radar made March a victory for gun control supporters.

In November 2014, Washington enacted a law that created universal background checks for all gun sales, including those between private citizens. New data just released from the FBI shows that the law has blocked 50 gun purchases by felons since it went into effect. Nearly 4,000 felons tried to purchase guns in Washington over the past year but thanks to the new law, many of those private sales were blocked. There has been debate over whether 50 is a significant number–Dave Workman, of the gun rights group The Second Amendment Foundation, claimed that the number was too small to demonstrate the law being effective and cited the fact that there have been no prosecutions related to the law as evidence of its failure. However, law enforcement officers argue that 50 prevented sales is a significant number, as any one of those guns could have been purchased and used in a crime without the intervention of the new law. Washington is still reeling from a mass murder committed in February, so the idea that increased background checks could prevent even a small fraction of violent deaths makes the law worthwhile.

At the University of Washington, a different approach to gun safety has emerged, paying special attention to suicide prevention. After her husband committed suicide with a gun, Professor Jennifer Stuber reached out to local gun stores to start a dialogue about suicide and the role of gun retailers play in aiding those who wish to take their own lives. Stuber asked gun store employees if they were concerned that they might be selling guns to customers who were suicidal and received a resounding, collective yes. She reached out to the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment Foundation, recruiting them as allies. Stuber’s efforts were the foundation of a bill signed into law this March that unites the firearm industry, pharmacists and suicide prevention activists.  The law establishes a suicide prevention task-force that will train both gun store owners and pharmacists in suicide prevention messaging. Pharmacists will be required to complete six hours of suicide prevention training to receive accreditation while gun retailers will be offered a voluntary course online. This may seem like a relatively small victory, but in reality it will change the dynamic of gun sales significant. Mental health and gun violence have frequently been connected and even small steps towards acknowledging that guns should not be sold without consideration for a person’s mental state are major leaps for gun sense advocates. Twenty years ago, this kind of law would never have gone into effect because the conversation simply did not exist yet. However, after a decade filled with mass shootings, effective gun control is no longer an idealistic goal–it is an immediate necessity.

Laws like the ones that passed in Washington this month represent an encouraging, albeit small, step in the right direction.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Breakthroughs in Gun Regulation in Washington State appeared first on Law Street.

In the United States last month, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints made headlines for committing food stamp fraud. The infamous cult, which the Southern Poverty Law Center referred to as “white supremacist, homophobic, antigovernment, [and] totalitarian,” has practiced polygamy and sexual abuse for years but the evidence of the food stamp case may be the key to shutting the organization down for good. Without lucky breaks like this food stamp case, law enforcement often has difficulty effectively disbanding cults.

Identifying a cult in the first place is often a difficult task, as the line between freedom to practice religion and illegal activity shifts depending on different cultural traditions. Members of cults rarely want to share information with the authorities which makes building a criminal case incredibly difficult.

However, eliminating cults should not be considered an impossible task. Consider the case of Israel. The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has recently introduced an anti-cult law designed to dismantle New Age sects of Judaism that are considered explosive forces within the country by the lawmakers trying to regulate them. Take a look at that situation in Israel and how other countries have handled cults in the past in comparison with the proposed Israeli law.

Spotlight on Israel: The Knesset’s Decision

Israel’s proposed bill was put forward by Orly Levy-Abecassis, a Member of the Knesset from the Yisrael Beytenu party. Levy-Abecassis has been committed to dismantling cults for some time now, as evidenced by her 2014 protest of homeschooling. She argued that homeschooling could shelter cults, allowing them to corrupt younger generations and evade the gaze of Social Services ministries that monitor children’s health.

The proposed law defines a cult as any group that:

Rallies around a person or an idea, in a way that there is exploitation, dependency, authority, or emotional distress experienced by one or more members, uses methods of mind control or controlling patterns of behavior, and operates in an organized, systematic, and sustained fashion, while committing crimes under Israeli law that are felonies or sexual offenses or serious violence.

The bill also labels the act of leading a cult as an offense punishable by up to ten years in prison. The Ministry of Welfare would be tasked with compiling a database of information about members, leaders, and practices of cults. The final segment of the bill asks for the establishment of a department dedicated to helping victims of cult abuse. If this bill is passed into law, it will be the first Israeli statute to distinguish cults from other religious groups that enjoy protection under freedom of religion clauses.

There have been a series of high profile court cases involving cults in Israel over the past several years. In 2014, accused cult leader Goel Ratzon was sentenced to 30 years in prison in October 2014 for a slew of sex crimes but escaped persecution for a count of slavery. One of his former “wives” was interviewed immediately after the court’s decision and said:

It seems that in the State of Israel, pimps, people who pimp other peoples’ body and soul, can continue to do so…they have the right – because there is no law and there is no justice.

There have also been allegations against a man named Rabbi Aharon Ramati for cult behavior. Ramati was arrested and then moved to house arrest but his sentence was relatively short. Parents of the young women who have joined Ramati’s cult argue that the girls are being brainwashed and kept against their will in squalid living conditions but because the cult members are all adults, the Israeli state has virtually no power to intervene. Unless they can compile sufficient proof of crimes on Ramati’s part, joining the cult is legally considered to be a choice that anyone is entitled to make.

International Impact

While the bill is designed to target groups within the borders of Israel, it could potentially be used to condemn Jewish cults throughout the world. One such alleged cult would be the Lev Tahor sect, an anti-Zionist cult that opposes homosexuality, birth control and evolution, and has expanded from Canada into Guatemala. Canadian officials have connected Lev Tahor to dozens of cases of child abuse, human trafficking and forgery and there are no signs that the cult has planned to shut down those practices within their new operation in Guatemala. There are fears that Lev Tahor may become increasingly violent in future years, becoming a threat to both the Israeli community and the greater population. Lev Tahor does not currently exist within Israel and Israel’s bill only applies within national borders, but the rise of the cult has concerned Jewish leaders, no doubt contributing to the impetus to pass a formal anti-cult law.

How do Different Nations Deal with Cults?

Israel is not the only country that is host to a variety of cults.  Different legal systems and law enforcement agencies deal with cults in a variety of ways across the globe.

The United States

U.S. law enforcement has historically struggled with regulating cults because of a hesitancy to violate First Amendment rights. Authorities have to wait until they have sufficient evidence to file criminal charges, which sometimes results in cults being designated criminal organizations. During the latter half of the twentieth century, a host of cults dominated American headlines–the Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, the People’s Temple–but just because many of these high profile cults were destroyed does not mean that cult worship is not alive and well in America. The Children of God (now known as Family International) is an active cult that continues to operate in the United States today. Individual leaders and members have been charged with criminal offenses, but never enough to permanently shut down the organizations.

France

In contrast, the French government has actively sought to disband cults and has even created a “cult-fighting” unit within its law enforcement branch of government. While France runs across the same difficulty defining cults that the U.S. has, the French government did take the time to create a list of ten cult characteristics in 1995 which has proved important for legal cases against cults. The same commission that published that list also put together a set of 173 organizations that it considers to be cults–including Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Church of Scientology.

Indonesia

In Indonesia, new religious groups are emerging that Indonesian authorities are tentatively labeling cults or “deviant sects.” Movements such as Gafatar isolate their members from mainstream society, asking them to follow a charismatic leader and subject themselves a religious hierarchy that controls their lives. Indonesian law allows the government to control religion in the public sphere but does not extend into the private lives of Indonesian citizens. Sects such as Gafatar have come under attack from religious majorities, inspiring outcry from the international human rights community. At this point, it is difficult to identify whether Gafatar is a cult with the same violent potential as those that existed in America several decades ago or if it is simply an emergent religion. Gafatar subscribes to some of the characteristics included on the French commission’s 1995 list but is not as clearly cult-like as an organization like the Branch Davidians. The Indonesian government should be able to monitor the group but cannot take direct action to disband it unless there is evidence of criminal activity.

Conclusion

In the twenty-first century, cults are an uncomfortable reminder of the most archaic and brutal aspects of major religions. As mainstream religious institutions adapt with time and become more open to equality and change, these organizations remain in the past, controlling their members through mental and physical abuse. Bringing the leadership of cults to justice is a priority for law enforcement but it is difficult to disband cults without causing an uproar over the violation of the right to freedom of religion. Israel’s proposed legislation could have lasting effects not only within Israeli borders but beyond, setting a standard for condemning hate speech and brainwashing around the world. However, persecuting cults is a difficult task as the very act of defining them is controversial. Organizations such as the Church of Scientology and the Hare Krishna movement have been labeled cults in some countries and acceptable religions in others. Bills like the one the Knesset is considering take on the blurred lines between religious freedom and criminal activity in a public forum that world governments have historically skirted around.

Resources

Vice News: Polygamist Cult Has Been Running a Major Food Stamp Scam

Daily Beast: Israel’s Cult Crackdown Could Snare Yoga, Rabbis, and Meditation

Times of Israel: MKs Bid to Tackle ‘Harmful Cults’ That Ensnare 20,000 Israelis. But it’s Not so Simple

The Jerusalem Post: Committee on the Rights of the Child: More regulations on homeschooling

The Jerusalem Post: Law and Order: Cult-Busting Bill Gets Ministerial Approval

YNet News: Suspected Ramati Cult Re-emerges

NPR: Dogged By Controversy, A Jewish Sect Is On The Move Again

US News and World Report: How to Address Indonesia’s Religious Cults

Rappler: As Religious Cults Emerge in Indonesia, How Should Gov’t Deal?

Slate: Cult Busters: How Governments Decide if a Religion is Real or Not

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Israel’s Battle to Dismantle Cults: An Inspiration for the Rest of the World? appeared first on Law Street.

Raymond Moore, CEO of the BNP Paribas Open, left his post this week after he stated that women’s tennis “rides on the coat-tails” of the men’s game and that female players “should get down on their knees” in gratitude for famous male players who have, in his eyes, kept the sport afloat.

Moore’s comments angered tennis players from around the world but even though his immediate removal from his post suggests that the tennis community will not stand for this kind of blatant sexism, there has been a surprising wave of agreement with Moore’s comments.

Famed tennis star Novak Djokovic has claimed that male tennis players should be awarded more prize money at competitions because men attract more spectators. He went on to say that:

[Women’s] bodies–and their bodies are much different than men’s bodies–they have to go through a lot of different things that we don’t have to go through. You know, the hormones and different stuff–we don’t need to go into details. Ladies know what I’m talking about. Really, great admiration and respect for them to be able to fight on such a high level.

Djokovic also said that women have to make “sacrifices for certain periods of time, the family time or decisions that they make on their own bodies in order to play tennis.” Although Djokovic was clearly fumbling to reform his comment into a statement that respected women, the mere concept that women are too “hormonal” to compete on the same level as men and that they should set aside time for family life that male athletes should not is not a compliment nor a mark of respect.

Serena Williams responded to Djokovic’s comment, saying that: “Novak is entitled to his opinion but if he has a daughter–I think he has a son right now–he should talk to her and tell her how his son deserves more money because he is a boy.” Djokovic could have made a simple statistical argument about prize money–tournaments that attract more spectators in person and are viewed more on television should have a bigger prize at the end–but by choosing to make the discussion about female bodies and “hormones,” he has stepped firmly into the camp of sexism.

It is never acceptable to suggest that women deserve to be making less in their chosen place of work, but the insult is especially galling in a field where women have historically been excluded because their bodies were considered too weak to play. Female competitors spent centuries being labeled “enthusiasts” rather than athletes. We are lucky enough to have hundreds of strong female athletes in sports across the world who demonstrate that women are capable of incredible athleticism–but consider that the Olympics only began accepting female athletes in 1900,  the U.S. Women’s Open only began in 1946, the FIFA Women’s World Cup only began in 1991, and the Women’s National Basketball Association was only formed in 1996.

Gender parity is not alive and well in the sporting world, even at the highest tier, where men should respect the women who worked the same long, draining hours they did to become champions. Professional athletes and organizers who participate in tournaments such as the BNP Paribas Open are not ignorant of the training athletes of both genders have to go through in order to become the best in their sport. Less than fifty years ago, Billie Jean King and the other founders of the Women’s Tennis Association had to fight to receive equal pay–male tennis players told them that “No one is going to ever pay to watch you birds play.”

Modern women’s tennis is a testament to the work of King and her contemporaries, as millions of viewers tune in to women’s matches, attend the matches in person ,and follow the careers of female athletes. Yet after comments like those of Djokovic and Moore, it would seem that little movement has occurred since the 1970s.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post A Lesson in Sexism: Moore and Djokovic Trivialize Women in Tennis appeared first on Law Street.

Kate del Castillo has had a successful career in Mexican film and television, but she has made headlines this week not for her acting ability but for revelations about her role in brokering a meeting between notorious cartel leader Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, and Sean Penn.

Let’s back up a little bit. In January, Penn interviewed Guzman for Rolling Stone, publishing an article which has come under fire both from del Castillo (who argues that Penn misrepresented what he would be writing when he described the article to her) and from law enforcement (who assert that once Penn had knowledge of Guzman’s whereabouts, he should have immediately contacted the police). Penn himself has admitted that the article failed to initiate a meaningful discussion of the war on drugs and the political situation within Mexico.

Del Castillo has published an essay in Spanish that describes how she came to be contacted by Guzman’s lawyers, who thought she could be a value add to a biopic film describing his life. The actress has become a household name in Mexico thanks to her role as the scheming mastermind behind a major drug cartel on the popular telenovela “Reina del Sur,” and it is that role that partially inspired Guzman’s interest in her. His representation also cited her presence on Twitter, in which she had directly addressed Guzman, asking him to consider alternatives to drug trafficking, prostitution and murder.

The Mexican newspaper Milenio secured a string of leaked texts between del Castillo and Guzman, dated from the period during which she was arranging the meet between him and Penn, which suggest a friendly relationship between the actress and the criminal. Guzman’s attitude towards del Castillo has alleged to be one of romantic interest, which further muddies the waters regarding the relationship between the two. Del Castillo wrote in her essay that nothing romantic happened between the two of them, but that hasn’t stopped a flood of thousands of memes and social media posts mocking the tone of her texts with Guzman. The actress was placed under investigation by authorities almost immediately after the Penn article was published and is currently being cooperative with law enforcement.

But Del Castillo’s interaction with Guzman raises interesting questions about the nature of celebrity, and where we draw the line between being qualified to deal with  fearsome characters on television and being able to handle a high-stakes criminal in person. Del Castillo’s essay illustrates how terrified she was meeting Guzman in person, despite the fact that her texts prior to that meeting emphasize how excited she was to be meeting with him. Del Castillo may play a calculating, cold-blooded crime boss on television but that doesn’t mean she has the skills for negotiating a crisis scenario in real life.

Del Castillo’s organization of the meeting with Penn may have contributed to the later capture of Guzman (as without the meeting, he could have remained in hiding indefinitely) but her actions should not be considered intelligent–and should not be duplicated by other public figures who think that they can pacify major criminals by simply impressing them with their celebrity. As Del Castillo’s description of meeting El Chapo face to face demonstrates, dangerous cartel leaders cannot be taken lightly, no matter how much they like a given person’s Twitter account. Her actions must be considered a bizarre cautionary tale, not a template for how celebrities, or anyone else, should act if they are contacted by fugitives.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Odd Couple: Kate del Castillo and El Chapo appeared first on Law Street.

Abeba Aregawi is one of the world’s fastest women. She is the reigning world champion in the indoor 1500m, and competed in the 2012 London Olympics, the 2013 Moscow World Championships and the 2014 World Indoor Championships in Sopot. However, it is not her athletic accomplishments that have put her in the spotlight this month–it is her suspension from running after testing positive for a banned substance. Aregawi has stated that she did not take drugs and has asked for a separate sample to be taken and tested in order to clear her name.

But as we draw closer to the 2016 Rio Olympics, professional athletes are pushing themselves harder and harder in order to compete at the highest level of their sport–even if that means bending the rules on performance-enhancing drugs. Aregawi is only one of dozens of Olympic athletes who have been accused of using banned substances in the lead up to the summer games. Just this month, a senior Ethiopian official admitted that nine of the country’s elite runners have been placed under investigation for doping. Take a look at the current state of Olympic drug regulation and what it means for Rio 2016.

Changes to Doping Regulations

This month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a major shift in the oversight of doping for future Olympic games. The IOC has agreed to remove itself from the oversight commission and to instead hand authority over to a group of independent sports arbitrators. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is forming a new committee of one to three doping “specialists” to oversee cases presented by athletes and officials who wish to contest charges of doping brought against them.

This transition is designed to make doping cases more equitable and independent, but the logistics involved in handing this responsibility off to a different organization are proving challenging for the IOC. The CAS is setting forth new guidelines which countries may not be able to adapt to with ease. As of now, the Brazilian anti-doping agency is not in line with CAS regulations.  If the agency can not reform its drug testing facilities by the end of the month, samples will have to be sent to facilities outside of Brazil for testing–a cumbersome task that will delay processing for athletes and could increase the risk of contamination or tampering with samples.

Banning Non-Compliant Countries

The World Anti-Doping Agency recently proposed banning Kenya from the coming Olympic games after Kenyan officials missed a deadline to implement new, stricter regulations. In the last three years alone, approximately forty Kenyan athletes have been banned from their respective sports because of doping. The threat of a ban has been looming over Kenya for months but recent talks have set April 5 as the definitive deadline to reform its doping policy if it wants to partake in the Rio Games. Lord Sebastian Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), has made it clear that he is comfortable cutting Kenya from the Olympic roster. Wilson Kipsang, president of the Professional Athletes Association of Kenya and a former marathon world record holder, said in a recent statement that:

If we are banned, Kenya will never be the same again.  This is a country which has made its name as an athletics giant. We have done well in the Olympic and world championships and therefore, we should not miss out complying with the doping directives…Since the formation of Adak [the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya], the agency has never been formalised and most importantly given powers to deal with doping. It also needs legislative will from government.

Although Kipsang claims that a ban would destroy Kenya’s athletic reputation, Russia was banned from world athletics in 2015 but its expulsion has been lifted in time for the country to send its best athletes to Rio this summer. A brief hiatus from Olympic competition would be a blow to Kenyan athletes who have been training to compete this year, but it would not necessarily be as strong a punishment as the IOC and the IAAF might think. If the ban only includes a single Olympics, national teams can make minimal adjustments to their training programs and then return to doping again in the future, once they are not being scrutinized so closely. Only a long-term ban may carry sufficient enough weight to dissuade athletes from doping at the Olympic level.

Bribery in the IAAF

Despite the IAAF’s efforts to reign in corruption, there are problems within the organization itself that have tarnished its credibility. A January report on the IAAF suggests that Russia was only able to sustain its doping practices thanks to widespread corruption embedded within the organization . Former IAAF president Lamine Diack has been accused of taking bribes from Russian athletes and of planning to blackmail marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova.

There are further accusations that the IAAF accepted bribes during the bidding process for hosting the 2017 World Championships. Papa Massata Diack, the son of former President Lamine Diack, has been accused of soliciting a five million dollar payment from Qatar in exchange for securing its bid. There is no evidence that he received this payment but the fact that he asked for it reveals potential the corruption within the bidding process. Unforunately, Papa Massata Diack is currently in Senegal and cannot be formally held accountable for his actions until he is extradited back to Europe.

These scandals within the IAAF have prompted major companies such as Nestle and Adidas to withdraw from their sponsorship deals, pulling millions of dollars of funding away from world athletic events. As sponsors jump ship, Lord Sebastian Coe is left in charge of an allegedly inefficient and corrupt organization that is gradually losing its control over the athletic industry it exists to regulate.

American Icons

The United States has a grand tradition of athleticism on the world stage. Michael Phelps, history’s most decorated Olympian, is currently trying to qualify for his fifth Olympics. Yet at the same time, we have a consistent tradition of doping among our elite athletes. In 2004, cyclist Tyler Hamilton lost his gold medal after it was discovered he had been blood doping–receiving blood transfusions to improve his abilities. In 2007, gold medalist Marion Jones admitted to doping and was stripped of her medals before serving six months in jail. Just last spring, the U.S. men’s sprint relay team was stripped of their medals after the IOC discovered team member Tyson Gay had been using a product containing a banned substance.

The most famous American doping scandal to date broke in 2013, when Lance Armstrong finally admitted to sustained use of performance enhancing drugs after a 2012 investigation that resulted in a lifetime ban from professional sports and the removal of his Tour de France titles. Yet instead of fading into anonymity, Armstrong’s doping–and more specifically, how he got away with it–has become a topic of fascination for reporters and filmmakers. Athletes who are caught doping don’t always fade from the public sphere, they simply shift from the heroic narrative of the champion to the notoriety of the rule breaker. As American athletes train for Rio, it is important to remember that Kenya and Russia are not the only countries where athletes have sustained a program of performance enhancing drugs during championship events.

Conclusion

Monitoring banned substance abuse within the Olympic games is a daunting task that involves coordination between dozens of governments, sports organizations, and individual athletes. The possibility of a false positive can never be ruled out until comprehensive testing is completed but long-term doping is not a myth. Recent overhaul of the doping regulations and efforts to be stricter on countries that violate them are a step in the right direction but this progress has been undermined by the scandals within the IAAF. The United Kingdom has stepped up to the plate, requiring its athletes to agree to never represent their country if they take drugs and proposing a life-long ban on athletic competition after even a single drug offense. Other countries have yet to institute such stringent anti-doping policies, which raises troubling questions about how much national teams care about sportsmanship and equality in international competition. The Rio Olympics have already been fraught with problems, from a failure to sell tickets to fears regarding the Zika virus. A failure to address and rectify doping scandals within the competition could both disrupt the logistics of Rio 2016 and permanently destroy the reputation of the Olympic Games as an institution.

Resources

BBC: Abeba Aregawi: World 1500m Champion Fails Drugs Test

BBC: Senegal ‘Won’t Extradite’ IAAF Bribery Suspect Papa Massata Diack’

ABC News: IOC to Remove Itself From Handling of Doping Cases in Rio

The Sidney Morning Herald: Rio Olympics 2016: Independent Body to Take over Judging of Doping Cases

The Telegraph: Kenya Edges Closer to Olympics Ban over Doping

The Telegraph: Wada Report on Doping: This Scandal is not Just a Russian Problem, it is an Issue Worldwide

The Guardian: Sebastian Coe: IAAF Could Ban Kenya from 2016 Olympics in Rio

The Guardian: IAAF in Crisis: a Complex Trail of Corruption that Led to the Very Top

The Washington Post: WADA’s New Report Cites ‘Embedded’ Culture of Corruption in IAAF

Sky Sports: Former IAAF President Lamine Diack Investigated in Doping Bribery Probe

Sky News: Qatar Athletics Bids Investigated For Bribery

The Richest: 10 Most Shocking Doping Scandals In Sports History

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post How to Get Away with Steroids: Doping on the Eve of Rio 2016 appeared first on Law Street.

The most infamous refugee camp in Calais, France is currently being dismantled by bulldozers, sledgehammers, and axes while its residents clash with police. “The Jungle,” which has existed since 2002, is being razed as conditions have gotten so unsanitary that French authorities can no longer maintain the camp.

The Jungle has been destroyed and rebuilt in the past, but the influx of immigrants over the past year has led to a swell in the population of the camp, making it a much more daunting task to relocate camp inhabitants. There are concerns that, with waves of anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping across Europe, immigrants who leave the Jungle may be vulnerable to violence when they are relocated to other areas. Other smaller “jungles” have emerged in France but none has created the same social networks and infrastructure as the Calais camp. The Jungle may not be sanitary or pleasant but there is a sense of community that will be challenging to recreate once the settlement has been destroyed.

According to The Guardian,

The noise of hammering is everywhere, as refugees knock up basic wooden frames that become, in the space of a day, restaurants and shops, hairdressers and phone-charging booths, arranged along an informal high street. Volunteers from across Europe have built a school, a day-care center for children, a library, a couple of mosques, a church, a refugee advice center, an art therapy tent and medical centers.

As of last month, there were approximately 5,500 migrants living in the Jungle. Over half of these migrants live in the areas of the camp that are currently being destroyed. Inhabitants of the Jungle have taken matters into their own hands, clambering onto roofs and throwing stones at the demolition forces moving through the camp. Multiple young men sewed their mouths shut in protest and a hunger strike was instituted among several Iranian camp residents.

Conditions in the camp are deplorable. The Jungle is located on top of a former toxic waste dump, where fire hazards are plentiful and the close living quarters allow diseases to spread quickly. The French government cannot let the Jungle to continue as it is, yet evacuating the camp leaves thousands of people homeless. Perhaps if there was some sort of guarantee that these refugees would not be attacked once they left the camp, there would be more cooperation in relocating to new camps. However, after arson attacks on refugee camps in Germany, moving to an unknown camp–where there are no well-established social networks and protections–feels like condemnation for many of the refugees.

The Jungle operates by the same code that slums across the world have used for centuries–it is dangerous and unsanitary, but for the people who live there, there is a form of safety that comes from community. Unfortunately, the sheer size of the camp, which is the reason it has created a diverse, thriving community, is exactly what has doomed the camp to destruction. Ultimately, 5,500 people cannot live in such a small geographic area without compromising sanitation and resources. There is no clear solution to end the protests in the Jungle, as both the French officials and the protesting migrants have valid motivations for their actions. However, the police forces’ use of tear gas and hoses does not serve the interests of either side. As French use of force escalates, refugees are responding in kind, mutating the Jungle from a safe haven to a “war zone.”

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post “The Jungle”: Riots in the Calais Refugee Camp appeared first on Law Street.

Pope Francis has received accolades from around the world regarding his message of tolerance and his commitment to opening the Catholic church to populations that were historically excluded. However, there is a shadow hanging over his tenure that has yet to be fully addressed: decades of sexual abuse scandals involving Catholic priests that have come to light over the past decade.

Pope Francis has publicly condemned the perpetrators but has also been criticized for not doing more to renounce the culture of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse. This weekend, one of Pope Francis’ most trusted advisers, Cardinal George Pell, former Archbishop of Sydney, was asked to reckon with the consequences of participating in that culture. In Rome, Pell is known as the Secretariat of the Economy and has led sweeping reforms of the traditional Vatican system but in the city of Ballarat, Australia, Pell has become a household name for a much more sinister reason.

Pell provided testimony in Rome this weekend regarding an alleged cover-up of a sexual abuse scandal in Australia. Victims of clerical sexual assault claim that Pell knowingly let pedophile priests escape legal punishment and continue to assault numerous children throughout Australia. One of the most chilling examples of abuse comes from Ballarat, a town where dozens of survivors have stepped forward over the past five years, after decades of abuse. Read on for an introduction to the Ballarat abuse scandal.

Abuse in Ballarat

Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia. As of May 2015, 14 Catholic priests have been accused of sexual abuse. Survivors provided testimony in 2015, citing abuse that spanned from the 1960s to the 1990s. Multiple abuse victims from Ballarat committed suicide before they ever saw their day in court, but those who did presented names, dates, and precise details about their abusers. The most prolific offender was Gerald Ridsdale, who was accused of over one hundred acts of abuse. Ridsdale pleaded guilty in 2006 to 35 charges of assault but many victims felt that his sentence of a maximum of thirteen years in jail was too lenient.

Cardinal Pell has been accused of moving Ridsdale from parish to parish for two decades rather than reporting his activities to law enforcement or removing him from the Church entirely. David Ridsdale, who was abused by his uncle, has stated that he attempted to speak about his abuse in 1993 but was silenced by Cardinal Pell. After David Ridsdale reported his uncle, Pell allegedly replied “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.” Pell has stated that he never bribed either Ridsdale or his family, but that accusation was bolstered by testimony from another witness who cited Pell brushing off a report of sexual abuse at St. Patrick’s College. The Royal Commission that is overseeing the abuse cases in Ballarat has discovered that abuse committed by several other priests was reported to their superiors but each time, the abuse was ignored and the priests were either moved to different parishes or sent on “treatment” trips.

Pell was summoned to give evidence in Melbourne earlier this year, but his legal team declared he was not healthy enough to fly and instead organized a video-conference from Rome. Upon realizing that Pell would not be coming to Australia, a national crowd-funding campaign was launched to fly Australian sexual abuse victims to Rome to speak with Pell face-to-face. The campaign raised over $200,000 in a matter of days, which paid for the travel expenses of 14 victims and their advisors. The stage was set for a significant confrontation between the upper echelon of the Catholic hierarchy and the survivors whose stories were denied for most of their lives.

Controversial Coverage 

The controversy over Pell has led to significant rifts in public discourse. Columnist Andrew Bolt, who calls himself a close friend of Pell, wrote a piece earlier this month claiming that Pell is an innocent man who has become the target of a national “witch hunt.” Bolt argues that public opinion has turned harshly against Pell, who he considers to be an advocate for sexual abuse victims. Bolt describes how Pell has met with abuse victims in the past and how, in 1996, Pell founded the Melbourne Response initiative, which was tasked with investigating sexual abuse allegations made against priests.

However, questions have been raised about how independent the Melbourne Response has been during its tenure, especially after a controversial “60 Minutes” interview (featured below) that explored Pell’s involvement in the Ballarat cases. Bolt also accused reporter Lucie Morris-Marr of launching a smear campaign against Pell after she reported that police were investigating reports that Pell himself had abused children. Morris-Marr defended her story, arguing that she published the piece after a thorough investigation with no intention of libel. Multiple news outlets picked up Morris-Marr’s piece, which led the Victoria police to announce a crackdown on leaking information to the media, even though the police have not formally acknowledged if they are investigating Pell for abuse. Cardinal Pell denied the allegations, but as press attention shifts towards his testimony in Rome this weekend, they may resurface in the coming days.

Pell has not yet been formally charged with obstructing justice or failing to report abuse but there are already calls for his resignation. Victims of the Ballarat abuse scandal have already named the priests who assaulted them and some, such as Ridsdale, have already received sentences, but many argue that the rift between these survivors and the Catholic Church will not be truly healed unless Pell is asked to accept responsibility for his failure to remove these priests.

Other Vatican Controversies Over Abuse

Ballarat is not the only parish where reports of sexual abuse have allegedly been swept under the rug. In 2011, a 1997 letter from Vatican leadership was released to the public.  The letter told Irish bishops not to report suspicions of child abuse to the police, but instead to handle abuse as they saw fit under canonical religious law. The letter came as a response to a 1996 initiative of “mandatory reporting” that Irish priests enacted to identify sexual abuse within the church.

There is also criticism over a recently released Vatican document that holds that even though bishops should be aware of local legal procedures, they are not obligated to report clerical child abuse to law enforcement. The document was part of training program for new bishops and was written by Tony Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council on the Family. The Guardian reports that

While acknowledging that ‘the church has been particularly affected by sexual crimes committed against children,’ the training guide emphasizes statistics that show the vast majority of sexual assaults against children are committed within the family and by friends and neighbors, not other authority figures.

Anatrella’s training document was published just a few days after Peter Saunders, a British victim of abuse serving on the papal advisory commission on clerical sexual assault, was forced out of his position via a vote of no confidence. The vote of no confidence came after Saunders was accused of being difficult to work with and too familiar with the media. The commission announced publicly that Saunders would be taking a leave of absence but Saunders told the press that he had no knowledge of that decision and that he refuses to step down unless Pope Francis officially asks him to. Saunders has been critical of the commission since it was formed two years ago, but as one of two survivors appointed to the commission by Pope Francis, his presence was considered an important victory for victims who want to participate in the discussion. His removal, whether or not it gets Pope Francis’ stamp of approval, may be viewed as a significant step backward in creating open dialogue and building trust between abuse survivors and the bureaucracy of the church.

Conclusion

The sexual abuse that Catholic priests engaged in for decades around the world is a heinous crime not only in its nature but because of the sheer scale on which it was committed. It is not only the priests who abused children who must be held accountable in court, it is also their superiors who ignored allegations of sexual assault over extended periods of time. The last decade has seen a sharp rise in victims coming forward, sharing their stories and formally testifying in court about their experiences, which will hopefully hold the Church accountable for its actions. As Pope Francis tries to usher in a new brand of Catholicism, investigations like the Ballarat case serve as a constant reminder of exactly how much reform is still needed to redress the past crimes. Pell’s testimony in Rome this weekend may not have deviated from the statements he made last year during the investigation conducted by Australia’s Royal Commission but the attention that the conference has garnered has put Pell in the spotlight, not just in Australia, but on the world stage.

Resources

New York Times: After Criticism, Pope Francis Confronts Priestly Sexual Abuse

New York Times: Vatican Letter Warned Bishops on Abuse Policy

LA Times: Catholic Sex Abuse Hearing Will Take Place in the Dead of Night in a Hotel in Rome

The Age: Ballarat Abuse Survivors Head to Rome to see Cardinal George Pell Give Evidence

The Age: Victoria Police Refer Leak of Investigation into Cardinal George Pell to IBAC

ABC: Child Abuse Sex Inquiry: Bishop Paul Bird Denies as Many as 14 Ballarat Priests Involved in Abuse as Hearings Wrap Up

The Guardian: George Pell Tried to Bribe Abuse Victim, Royal Commission Hears

The Guardian: Ballarat Priests Involved in Child Sex Abuse sSent on ‘Treatment’ Trips, inquiry told

FT: Australia Clerical Sex Abuse Victims Travel to Rome

Herald Sun: Cardinal George Pell is the Victim of a Vicious Witch Hunt

News.Com.Au: 60 Minutes Reporter Tara Brown Digs Deep into George Pell’s Melbourne Response

Reuters: Critic of Vatican Refuses to Step Down from Sex Abuse Commission

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Reckoning in Rome: A Look at the Ballarat Abuse Scandal appeared first on Law Street.

Michael Platini, former UEFA president, and Sepp Blatter, former FIFA president, were denied appeals on their ban from all football activities this week. However, the FIFA appeals committee did decide to reduce the ban from eight years to six, based on the duo’s “service to the game.” Both Platini and Blatter claim they are innocent and plan to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to lift their ban, but with the election of Gianni Infantino as President of FIFA, it appears that the soccer world is moving on without them.

Infantino was previously an adviser to Platini, but when seven of FIFA’s highest ranking officials were arrested five months ago, he transitioned from UEFA secretary general to the race for the FIFA presidency–a far more contentious position. Infantino’s primary competitor was Sheikh Salman, who ran on a platform of transforming FIFA from a Euro-centric governing body to a truly international organization that would recognize the interests of soccer around the world. Despite this noble ideal of creating a more equitable soccer world, Sheik Salman did not build the solid constituency that Infantino managed to construct.  This could be attributed to Sheik Salman’s allegedly checkered past when it comes to human rights–he was connected with the jailing and torture of Bahraini athletes who peacefully protested against his family during the Arab Spring.

Infantino has multiple issues to tackle during his first several weeks in office. The most immediate concern regards Russia and Qatar’s respective bids for hosting World Cups. The circumstances by which those countries secured the bids are under investigation by Swiss law enforcement, but the chance of FIFA reneging on the bids is relatively slim. Construction has already begun on stadiums and tourist attractions in Qatar, and although the working conditions on these construction sites have caused outrage among human rights activists, there is no sign of development slowing down.

A troubling prospect for the 2022 Qatar World Cup is that Platini and Blatter might be able to return to football just in time to participate in the tournament. The shortening of their sentences leaves the door open for them to participate, either within FIFA or through smaller organizations that will be working on logistical issues in Qatar. Argentina’s legendary Diego Maradona recently stated that he feels Platini and Blatter should receive life in prison for their abuse of power, and while that seems like an extreme reaction, it is clear to many that their current sentence is not a sufficient punishment for their crime.

Missing the 2018 Russia World Cup may be a blow to the egos of Platini and Blatter but if the two men are allowed to participate in the Qatari World Cup, they could be able to step back into their old habits without missing a beat. By 2022, Infantino may enact broad reforms of FIFA activity during his tenure but the return of Platini and Blatter would automatically undermine any of those actions. If the Court of Arbitration for Sport moves to completely overturn the ban on football related activities that was upheld this week, then FIFA may never escape its reputation for corruption.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post FIFA 2016: Can Sepp Blatter and Michael Platini Get Back to Soccer’s Inner Circle? appeared first on Law Street.

Activists have crusaded for decades for better treatment of animals around the world, but there are certain watershed moments in popular culture that have sparked widespread debate over how we treat animals in the twenty-first century. In 2009, the European Union banned cosmetic testing on animals and the sale or import of seal products. In 2013, the film “Blackfish” achieved massive popularity and opened up a conversation about human treatment of killer whales on an unprecedented national scale. Last year, the death of Cecil the Lion divided popular opinion not only on the subject of hunting for sport but how we value animal lives versus human lives.

The next great animal rights discussion may be inspired not by a violent event but by one that activists have been warning the public about for years: the treatment of animals in the world’s zoos, animal parks, and aquariums. In this globalized age, animals are often traded between zoos for mating purposes or because the original zoo simply does not have the resources to care for a given animal. With this shuffle of ownership, activists worry that there are no guarantees that an animal will be treated humanely throughout its life. Read on for a look at some of the criticisms at zoos across the world:

Ocean Parks in China

There are 39 ocean theme parks operating in China right now, the largest of which is Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, famous for its beluga whales and polar bears. Most of the animals displayed in these parks were captured in ways that the China Cetacean Alliance have argued are stressful and frightening for them. Whereas the goal of many zoos and aquariums is to preserve endangered species, a recent report from the China Cetacean Alliance states that:

Due to the lack of a legal definition of ‘animal welfare’ in Chinese laws and regulations, and the absence of specific animal welfare concepts within the laws and regulations relevant to the ocean theme park industry, cetaceans in captivity in China are without proper protection from conditions that can cause suffering.China’s participation in the live capture of free-ranging cetaceans from the waters of both Russia and Japan, and the subsequent import of these individuals, is having a negative impact on the conservation status of some targeted cetacean populations and on the international image of the country for its ability to protect wild animals.

Whereas zoos and wildlife preserves do not require animals to perform tricks or be exhibited multiple times per day, theme parks rely on animals to put on a show throughout the operating hours of the day. Animals displayed in these parks are considered valuable because they can perform a program, not because they are an endangered species.

This view of animals as a commodity has allegedly led to problems–for example, a beluga calf recently died in captivity in a Chinese water park apparently because there was not sufficient space in its tank for it to be nursed by its mother. Although Seaworld’s killer whales featured in “Blackfish” became more aggressive when confined to small pools, there is little risk that the belugas on display will exhibit the same violent tendencies. However, beluga whales are listed as “near threatened,” which means that they do need to be protected both in the wild and in captivity.

There is relatively little oversight of marine mammals in captivity in China, which means that there is no pressure on animal trainers in these theme parks to treat animals humanely. There are challenges with raising any animal in captivity because they are occupying a significantly smaller space than they would in the wild, but the risk for the animal increases dramatically when there are no regulators who can fine or suspend zoos or theme parks who fail to give their animals sufficient enclosure space and exercise.

War-torn Zoos in the Gaza Strip

There are six active zoos in the Gaza Strip. Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) appears to be in full effect in these struggling zoos. The presence of Hamas in Gaza, and the ensuing Israeli and Egyptian blockade, means massive shortages on food and supplies for both humans and animals.

The organization Four Paws launched a crowdfunding campaign to purchase supplies for Gaza’s zoos but as of its trip to Gaza recently, it has only been able to deliver enough feed to keep animals fed for four more weeks. Medical supplies are also in short supply so that if animals don’t die of hunger, they often succumb to disease. The frequent bombing and firefights throughout the Gaza Strip often prevent zookeepers from reaching their animals. In an interview in January, one zookeeper described how neither he nor his team could reach the zoo during a fifty day conflict between Israel and Hamas last year. By the time they finally got back to the zoo, one of the African tigers had starved to death. Furthermore, Gaza’s frequent power cuts make it difficult to run the generators necessary to keep animals warm.

At the Khan Younis Zoo, animals starved to death but were then stuffed and returned to their cages in a desperate attempt to keep the zoo solvent. Unfortunately, the zookeepers have neither the funds nor the transport to move their animals to other zoos in safer environments. Four Paws managed to evacuate three lions from the al-Bisan zoo which had been damaged by major shelling, temporarily resettling the lions in Jordan, but that is the exception to the general trend of animals dying in Gaza.

Elephants in the United States

Although animal rights activism is better organized and vocal in the United States than in other nations, the battle is far from over. This winter, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved the transfer of 18 elephants from big game parks in Swaziland to American zoos. The transfer is the result of historic drought conditions that are threatening the health of these elephants in their native environment. These elephants are at risk of starving or being trapped in brushfires in the extreme drought (an especially dangerous prospect for young elephants). Rangers in the big game parks are struggling to care for their animals under these extremely taxing conditions. A transfer to the United States will give these elephants access to water, more temperate climates, and the attention of prominent veterinarians.

However, conservationists are disturbed by the movement of these animals to unfamiliar environments that are significantly smaller than the terrain they are used to in the expansive game reserves. Additionally, the shock of being  moved to such a different location may disrupt animal relationships or cause them to become more aggressive. There is no guarantee that these elephants will deal well with either the trip to the United States or their resettlement in American zoos.

The elephants will be sent to zoos in Kansas, Nebraska and Texas, which has prompted rounds of questioning regarding whether these states have the appropriate facilities to host multiple elephants during a harsh winter. While zookeepers have stated they are trying to keep elephants together in their usual social groupings, there is little doubt that the journey across the world will have an impact on each elephant. Animal rights activists are worried not only about the physical health of these animals after they arrive in the U.S. but their mental health, as elephants are social creatures that operate best when included in a herd. Even though all the American zoos are well-funded and have solid track records with animal care, the shock of adjusting to such a different space could be physically and psychologically traumatic for the elephants. The group Friends of Wildlife have already filed a lawsuit hoping to block this transfer of elephants but their claim may not gain traction in time as the elephants are already being prepared for transport.

Conclusion

Zoos are an important space for the conservation of animals and the education of the general public but they are not always as safe as we would like them to be. In Chinese theme parks, where whales and polar bears are kept in spaces that are significantly smaller than their natural environments, there is no requirement to report on animal’s living conditions to a formal advisory board. In Gaza’s zoos, animals die on a daily basis, waiting for the food and medicine that they could easily receive if they were in a different zoo–but there is no pressure from the international community to evacuate them or send them the supplies they need to survive. Animals are comparatively fortunate in the United States but the arrival of a large group of elephants from Swaziland this month may prove disastrous if zookeepers cannot care for them adequately while drought ravages Swaziland. Any one of these three stories could be the one that attracts international attention and sparks a wide-scale commitment to protecting animals living in captivity in this next era of promoting animal rights.

Resources

The Washington Post: China’s Booming Ocean Parks Mean Misery for Bears, Belugas and More

China Cetacean Alliance: Ocean Theme Parks: A Look Inside China’s Growing Captive Cetacean Industry

WWF: Beluga

US News and World Report: Gaza Zoo Animals are Suffering

Huffington Post: Gaza’s Khan Younis Zoo Sees More Animals Starve To Death As Four Paws Delivers Urgent Supplies

Four Paws: Save the Animal’s of Gaza’s Zoos

Four Paws: Cry for Help from Gaza: FOUR PAWS Takes Care of Animals at Bombed-out Zoo

CNN: Swaziland to Relocate 18 Elephants to U.S. Zoos

CBS News: Animal Rights Group Blocks Zoos’ Elephant Import

Christian Science Monitor: Why Swaziland is Putting 18 Elephants on a Boeing 747

Al Jazeera: Animals Suffer in Gaza’s Cash-strapped Zoos

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Inside the Cage: Controversial Zoos Might be the Next Animal Rights Crusade appeared first on Law Street.

Dr. Stanley Riddell’s team at the Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center earned themselves a place in medical history with the research they recently presented at the American Association for the Advancement for Science’s annual meeting. Riddell’s immunology team works with terminal patients. This new treatment engineers a patient’s own T-cells to target and fight back against the blood cancer cells that are attacking them–a major breakthrough in cancer research.

In the most recent trial, U.S. researchers used genetically modified T-cells in 35 terminally ill patients with leukemia, and 94 percent went into remission. Riddell’s T-cell research has only been applied to blood cancer but for the thousands of people in the United States alone suffering from blood cancer, this treatment could be the medical innovation they have waited years for. As with any new treatment, there is cause for caution–the data from this treatment is still being processed which means it still needs to be peer-reviewed and vetted by a host of evaluators. Furthermore, the risk involved in the treatment can be steep. For all the patients who witnessed major positive effects or full remission, there were several patients who were admitted to intensive care due to their treatment.

Cancer treatments are on the whole brutal and exhausting for the patient, but in this case, two of the participants in the study died because of adverse reactions to the treatment. It is important to remember that the patients for this trial were all terminal, which meant they were incredibly weak even as their newly trained T-cells tried to fight against the more aggressive cancer cells. However, members of the medical team believe they can minimize the dangers as time goes on by using lower doses of the therapy. This week, Dr Alan Worsley, from Cancer Research UK, told the BBC that while the field was incredibly exciting, “this is a baby step…the real challenge now is how do we get this to work for other cancers, how do we get it to work for what’s known as solid cancers, cancers in the tissue?”

Even though this research still has a long way to go before it becomes a typical cancer treatment, the attention that the stunning success rate has garnered will no doubt spark a wave of funding for similar T-cell therapy projects. There are dozens of top research institutions working around the clock to test experimental treatments and Riddell’s team is not the only one investigating the efficacy of engineering cells to fight off cancer attacks.

Nonprofits, corporate donors, and governments alike should all take note of this new T-cell trend and adjust cancer research funding accordingly. It can be difficult to divert funding into one particular branch of research when there are so many different forms of cancer that need cures, but if the results of T-cell training research continue to match the success rate of this study, the financial forces behind research hospitals may allocate more resources to this genetic branch of research.  Prioritizing treatment of one type of cancer over another may seem callous, but if this blood cancer treatment can be adapted to solid cancers then we may be looking at an actual cure for the disease as a whole–an opportunity it is difficult to ignore.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Will the New T-Cell Treatment Change the Funding of Cancer Research? appeared first on Law Street.

Pop singer Kesha will appear in court next week to hear the judge’s decision on her contract with her producer Dr. Luke. In October 2014, the singer filed a lawsuit against the producer for sexual, physical and emotional abuse. He responded by filing charges against her for defamation–which were dismissed by a New York judge earlier this month (although the suit Dr. Luke filed in Tennessee is still active). As the legal battle has played out over the past two years, Kesha has suspended her musical career, not by choice, but because her contract with Dr. Luke’s company prevents her from recording with another label. The social media campaign #FreeKesha has picked up considerable momentum in the past several months and has raised questions about how much power managers and producers have over the artists they work with. Controlling a musician’s contract means control not only over their creative process, but often over their finances. Read on for a look at who controls royalties in the music industry.

Contracts in the Music Industry

When an artist signs a contract with a record label, they usually give the company ownership of the copyright on their music for the full life of the copyright. This leaves artists vulnerable because it designates even unreleased music as the property of the label. One notable artist who has secured a reversion of this copyright is Robbie Williams, who managed to secure the return of his “masters” in the contract he signed with EMI–ownership of his albums will eventually return to Williams rather than the label. In exchange for relinquishing their copyright, artists are given royalties–which are based on record sales. Artists receive a full royalty rate for any album they sell through normal retail channels but may receive only a fraction of that royalty for records that are sold at a discount rate or through a record club. Artists are also often expected to pay a producer’s royalty out of their own royalty share. While record companies aim to make royalty rates as attractive as possible, as attorney Anthony N. Luti explains, there are hidden cuts to royalties that all artists may face:

Artists normally get no royalties on records given away free for promotional purposes ‘All-in’ royalty rate deductions: most royalty rates are ‘all-in.’ This means that you must pay the producer out of your royalties. Typically, a producer will take 3 points (3%) which lowers your royalty rate even further. ‘Packaging’ deductions: the theory behind this deduction is that the band pays for the packaging of the CD and tape. Typically, these deductions range from 15 to 30 percent of your royalty rate. As a result, a 12% royalty rate and a 25% packaging deduction lowers your actual royalty rate to 9%.

A recording contract is more than just the exchange of recorded music for royalty payments. Recording contracts almost always require the artist to sign an exclusivity agreement with the label. If an artist wants to collaborate with another artist (particularly one on a different label) they will need to have a “sideman” clause built into their contract. The contract also dictates the territory where an artist can distribute music, tour support, and promotion of the music once it is released. Terminating the contract is a complex process. Hyper successful artists can sometimes afford to break their contracts or renegotiate them to a better financial position, but most artists are locked into an initial contract. A 12 month contract may not seem like a major commitment but when a record label constantly renews the contract, the company can retain the rights to years worth of creative work, even if the album is never released to the public.

Technology Changing The Game

Music royalties and administration are becoming more equitable thanks to technological advances, and now online companies help close the gap between artists and other services. One prime example is Music Reports, a global music administrative rights platform that has created a neutral transaction platform where music producers can handle rights administration and accounting.  In a recent interview with Law Street, Bill Colitre, Music Reports’ VP of Business & Legal Affairs, discussed how recording houses once controlled the relationship between buyers and sellers. Thanks to the advent of the Internet, the music publishing community can now set rights and prices via online platforms.

Colitre also described how the Internet has tapped into worldwide creativity, letting new entrants participate in a market that they traditionally took a backseat in. The global connectivity of the twenty-first century is making a historically rigged game increasingly equitable.  The assemblage of music rights and information online let artists and producers have greater control over their products while online financial services help them get paid faster and more efficiently. However, even with access to better accounting, most artists are still vulnerable to exploitation if they have not negotiated their contracts correctly.

Promoting Music Without a Record Label

Choosing to forgo a record deal does let artists retain control of their copyright but it also cuts them off from the promotional power that only an established label can provide. Self-released albums often rely on a marketing agency to promote them. Without the infrastructure of a traditional record company, artists have no way to meet DJs and promoters who can connect their album with the listening public.

British rock band Enter Shikari cracked the U.K.’s top five charts in 2007 with a self-released album and rapper Dom Kennedy reached the U.S.’s top five in 2013 but have neither have maintained that level of commercial success over time. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis made a name for themselves by promoting their album “The Heist” without signing onto a record label but their claim to indie fame is not entirely factual. The duo hired Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), a branch of the Warner Music Group, to promote their album.

Numerous artists who achieved commercial success with a major label chose to build their own record companies after their contracts expired, but they only were able to establish their own brands once they had built a significant popular following. OK Go was fortunate enough to break with their initial record label right as they released their third album–they were able to re-release the album off of their new label, using the publicity they had received from their original label to kickstart their own enterprise. Cyrus’ recent Dead Petz album was created without financial or creative assistance from her RCA team, but she is fortunate enough to be in a position where she did not need that kind of support from the label (and the label did go on to promote her album, despite its lack of involvement in its creation). Both Peter Gabriel and the Who have self-released albums, but the success of those records was built on the fame they had already garnered from the years during which they were tied to a label.

 Conclusion

There are a host of reasons why a record label might delay or block an album’s release but no matter how it happens, gagging a musician is usually legal under the contract they signed. The shifting metrics of the music industry–from physical records to digital albums to streaming–provide new opportunities for artists but don’t necessarily guarantee more relaxed recording contracts. Kesha is not the only artist to speak out about restrictive contracts–Jojo, who only returned to creating music recently, has stated that she was unable to release music for years because of a contract she had signed when she was a minor and Sky Ferreira‘s label pushed her album release date back again and again. For major artists who have already built a successful brand, record labels may be more willing to provide them with flexible contracts that they can renegotiate or terminate without massive legal penalties. However, for artists who are just breaking into the music scene or who are looking to retain a degree of creative and financial control, recording contracts can still be so restrictive that they undermine that artist’s ability to work.

Resources

People: Legal Win for Kesha in Dr. Luke Lawsuit: Judge Dismisses Claims

Sound on Sound: Recording Contracts Explained

The Wall Street Journal: Pop Star Robbie Williams Signs a Massive EMI Deal

Luti Law Firm: Recording Contracts 101: The Basics

NPR: The Real Story Of How Macklemore Got ‘Thrift Shop’ To No. 1

NPR: To Sign Or Not To Sign: Artists Big And Small Face The Label Question

Billboard: U.K.’s Enter Shikari Scores Without Label

Fobres: How Rapper Dom Kennedy Made It Without A Record Deal

Paste Magazine: 14 Artists who Launched Their Own Labels 

Music Times: Miley Cyrus’ Surprise New Album Surprised Her Label RCA Records

Huffington Post: OK Go Talk Creative Music Videos and Life Without a Label

US: JoJo Claims ‘Bad Contract’ Meant She Couldn’t Release Music, ‘Didn’t Legally Own’ Her Own Voice

Buzzfeed: What It’s Like When A Label Won’t Release Your Album

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post When The Show Can’t Go On: Dissecting Music Industry Contracts appeared first on Law Street.

At the end of last year, the United Nations launched a working group to discuss the “arbitrary detention” of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been living in London’s Ecuadorian embassy since 2012, after his 2010 arrest in London, where he was brought in on charges regarding sexual assault and molestation in Sweden.

Both of the women who reported these assaults have remained anonymous in the press, but police have revealed that both incidents took place in August 2010. One of the charges was dropped in 2015, but the other still stands today. In a controversial move that alienated him from several political allies, the Ecuadorian ambassador granted Assange political asylum on the grounds that Ecuador has historically protected those who are vulnerable. Assange was concerned that if he was deported to Sweden, he might then be deported to the United States, where his involvement with Wikileaks could lead to him being tried for treason–and, according to Assange and his supporters, could face the death penalty. In July 2015, Assange requested asylum in France but his request was denied by Francois Hollande. For a series of several months, British police forces did guard the Ecuadorian embassy but they never made overt threats or attempts to forcibly remove Assange from his place of refuge.

The Guardian ran a poll this week to gauge popular opinion on the United Nation’s ruling that Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained–66 percent of Britons polled felt that the UN had made the wrong call. British politicians also fell into this camp–Prime Minister David Cameron said that the only person detaining Assange was “himself” and Secretary of State Philip Hammond rejected the UN decision via Twitter.

The UN may have handed down a ruling from on high, but British law enforcement still has agency over how to proceed with Assange. Assange has called the UN’s decision a victory that is legally binding, but the overwhelmingly negative response from British officials has led Assange to remain within the Ecuadorian embassy for the time being.  Swedish officials have supported the British decision to reject the UN ruling, leaving Assange essentially in the exact same position he was before the UN working group was formed. The UN has claimed that he should be allowed to walk free of the embassy and is even entitled to compensation but it did not specify how and when the UK and Sweden should go about dropping the charges against him and ensuring his reintegration into society.

The UN has effectively asked two governments to abandon a sexual assault case for no better reason than that the defendant is living a life of relative discomfort. Neither of these governments have tortured or committed any form of violence against Assange, they simply want to bring him in for questioning and put him on trial if necessary. Assange’s ruling should not be considered a landmark case because it is not one that will apply to any other situation. If any other criminal sought refuge within an embassy for several years, he would still be asked to undergo questioning and trial after leaving his place of asylum. Assange may have the satisfaction of a UN stamp of approval but the ruling likely has no leg to stand on in a legal setting.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Julian Assange’s Partial Victory: A UN Declaration with No Teeth appeared first on Law Street.

“The Birth of a Nation,” Nate Parker’s biopic of Nat Turner that examines the slave rebellion Turner led in 1831, had a week that was nothing short of epic at Sundance. Not only did the film snap up the grand jury prize and receive the audience vote for best film at Sundance, Parker sold his project to Fox Searchlight for a record-breaking $17.5 million. Parker was offered an even larger sum for the film from Netflix, but ultimately turned it down because he dislikes the passive nature of Netflix viewing and hopes to engage audiences more actively through traditional cinema. Parker’s decision to go with Fox Searchlight is no doubt financially savvy but it requires him to sacrifice control over his film. Take a look at what happens to an independent film after it is purchased from a film festival lineup:

Why Fox Went Shopping at Sundance

When the Sundance Film Festival began in 1978, indie film-making was an open and amorphous genre that welcomed directors and casts from all walks of life. The one thing the films at the festival had in common was that they were built outside of the traditional studio “system.” Sundance was built on an outsider identity, and, as Joe Reid points out, that created a brand for Sundance that is simultaneously gratifying and limiting. Directors who present their films at Sundance may be operating outside of conventional studios, but by bringing their films to the festival, they hope to gain access to the resources that only a large studio can provide.

As the festival became more popular, studios became increasingly interested in plucking films from the theaters of Park City. “Birth of a Nation” is not Fox Searchlight’s first purchase at Sundance, nor will it be the last. Only a handful of Sundance films have reached the commercial and critical success of movies produced and released by large studios, but companies like Fox Searchlight are hoping to recreate the enormous success of that elite group of movies. In addition, several film critics have debated whether Fox Searchlight picked up “Birth of a Nation” in response to this year’s #OscarsSoWhite trend, aiming to correct the lack of diversity in the prestigious film awards for next year.

What This Deal Means for Nate Parker

After selling “Birth of a Nation” to Fox Searchlight, Parker is not removed from his role as director, writer, and lead actor but he will have to relinquish some control to the buyer. According to Lawyers for the Creative Arts, when a film is purchased by a studio, a deal is struck over the control, financing, liability, and tax involved in producing the film on a larger scale. Sundance directors are usually allowed to retain control over the film, protecting their intellectual property, but they may not take such an active role on the business side of the venture. Parker will likely not have to make adaptations to the script or the length of the film but Fox Searchlight will now take control of distribution and marketing of the film. The studio will control when the film is released to general audiences, how the film is advertised in the media, and how the cast and director should promote the film in the run-up to its large-scale release. In short, Fox Searchlight will decide how and when non-Sundance viewers will see Nate Parker’s creation.

The Fox Searchlight deal has already made Parker a household name and the release of the film to the general public should only cement that image. However, Sundance founder Robert Redford has publicly cautioned Sundance directors not to get swept up in the large studio system. In a 2002 interview with the Harvard Business Review, Redford said that

For beginning filmmakers at Sundance, the devil’s bargain is very tempting, and it’s easy for them to strike it the wrong way. If they go straight for the stardom, glamour, and money, they run the risk of sacrificing their artistic integrity. So at the beginning of the festival, I spend a few minutes talking to all the filmmakers. I remind them that Sundance is for them—and ‘them’ means the films. I outline the bargain very clearly for them: ‘What will you do when a studio offers you a tidy sum in return for control over your next project?’ I remind them that they have to decide how to negotiate this question, and I ask them if they are strong enough to stand up for their art.

The fame and connection to a traditional studio that Parker’s Sundance deal brings may be the type of devil’s bargain that Redford cautions against but Sundance organizer Geoffrey Gilmore has argued that the commercial success of Sundance films is not a negative for young directors–on the contrary, it sets them up for profitable, sustainable careers.

Why Does Film Marketing Matter?

Parker’s film has been hailed by the Sundance crowd as a triumph but it could be a commercial flop if Fox Searchlight does not market it appropriately. Parker created the film hoping to create conversation and incite action but if Fox Searchlight emphasizes certain aspects of the film over others, it could lose that message.

“Birth of a Nation” has been labeled a risk for the studio because of its violent content, which will most likely necessitate an R rating. Fox Searchlight is still riding high on the success of “12 Years a Slave,” which also portrayed the brutality of slavery realistically and received an R rating. However, even the most professional marketing teams can do a poor job promoting a film if they don’t target the correct audience, as evidenced by numerous commercial flops in the past several years from Hollywood’s biggest studios. The film’s trailer alone can influence the success of the film, and as there is currently no official trailer for “Birth of Nation,” Fox Searchlight will have to take on that responsibility. The studio will have to decide what scenes it should publicize, where it should place its advertisements, and which actors should go on press tour during the film’s release.

The rise of social media has drastically altered the film promotion landscape and Fox Searchlight will have to adjust its marketing strategy accordingly. All the positive feedback that “Birth of a Nation” has generated this month is going to die down as moviegoers shift their attention from Sundance to the Oscars, and the studio will have to recapture that positive attention if it wants the movie to perform successfully once it is released.

Conclusion

The Sundance Film Festival has gradually transformed from a space for outsider film to a hunting ground for major studio representatives. “Birth of a Nation” is just one of the films picked up by major studios and online content providers at this year’s festival but the Fox Searchlight’s major investment in the film puts an incredible pressure on it to perform well. Nate Parker’s film performed well in the festival environment but it will be subjected to a much broader audience once it is released to mainstream cinema, where its success will hinge largely on the marketing campaign that Fox Searchlight will lead in the coming months. If Fox Searchlight can drum up significant interest in the film, it could be the frontrunner for next year’s awards season but if Fox Searchlight bungles the marketing campaign, “Birth of a Nation” may sink into obscurity. It is a common tale that a critically acclaimed film performs poorly at the box office, not because audiences weren’t interested in its content, but because audiences did not even realize it was there. Independent filmmakers who sell their movies to major studios may be cashing out but they are also taking on a significant risk by allowing an exterior party to take control of the business aspect of the project.

Resources

The New York Times: ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Sweeps Top Awards at the Sundance Film Festival

Deadline: Bart & Fleming: The Big Sundance Deals

BBC Culture: Is Sundance a Victim of its Own Success?

The Atlantic: The Power of the Sundance Brand

Hollywood Foreign Press Association: The Brisk Business of Sundance 2016: Let It Snow, Show Me The Money

New York Daily News: ‘Birth of a Nation’: Why Sundance Fave is a Big Deal Amid the #OscarsSoWhite Controversy 

Forbes: Nate Parker’s ‘Birth Of A Nation’ Cannot Be Allowed To Be An All-Purpose Solution To #OscarsSoWhite

Harvard Business Review: Turning an Industry Inside Out: A Conversation with Robert Redford

The Nation: Long Live Indie Film

Lawyers for Creative Arts: Legal Issues in Film Production

Variety: Sundance: The Math Behind Fox Searchlight’s Record-Shattering ‘Birth of a Nation’ Deal

The Telegraph: 2015’s Biggest Box Office Flops

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse: The Effectiveness of Film Trailers: Evidence from the College Student Market

California Polytechnic State University: Current Trends in the Marketing and Promotion of Movies Using Social Media

WIRED: How The Birth of a Nation Became Sundance’s Biggest Sale Ever

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Beyond Sundance: What’s Next for “The Birth of a Nation?” appeared first on Law Street.

At this year’s X Games in Aspen, Colorado, 13-year-old Estonian skier Kelly Sildaru took home the gold in the women’s ski slopestyle event, garnering praise from her fellow athletes and attracting attention from corporate sponsors. Sildaru has been offered a sponsorship from ROXY as a reward for her athleticism, becoming one in a long line of exceptional athletes who  have committed to sponsorship deals at a young age.

Sponsorship is defined by the IEG Sponsorship Conference as “cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property  in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that property.” Sponsorship costs can include equipment, travel fees, training fees, and a host of other expenses that an athlete would not be able to cover on their own dime. Once an athlete accepts sponsorship from a company, they often effectively agree to promote the company: wearing the company’s logo, using that company’s products and promoting that company among their peers. By sponsoring the athlete, the company will profit within the elite circles of a given sport but if they want to advertise their brand to the general public, they will ask their athlete to commit to a celebrity endorsement–print, radio, or television advertisements for the company’s products.

Some companies, such as Contour HD, require their sponsored athletes to endorse their products in interviews and on social media while others pay their athletes for endorsements in addition to their sponsorship contract. In many American high school and college level athletics programs, athletes are prohibited from striking endorsement deals (which has often been cited as an unfair practice) but in the less traditional world of winter sports, athletes as young as Sildaru may strike sponsorship deals without any penalty.

Sponsoring athletes in extreme sports was once considered risky, as it did not connect with a large enough consumer base, but as these sports become more popular, the sponsorship deals surrounding them become more attractive. The X Games 2016 were sponsored by AT&T, Coors Light, Intel, LifeProof, America’s Navy, GoPro, Harley-Davidson, Jeep, Monster Energy, Oakley, Polaris, Skype, and Xbox. Several of these companies hosted welcoming events and their logos were prominent throughout the competition, cropping up on jackets, helmets, snowmobiles and tents. During the broadcast of the X Games, commentators were not obligated to “endorse” any of the sponsors but they were required to mention the names of the sponsors at the opening of the broadcast.

Most athletes rely on sponsorship as a primary source of income and actively court endorsement opportunities. The idea of competing in a sporting event for the sheer joy and thrill still exists for many athletes, but it is complicated by the pressure placed on athletes to attract sponsors. Winning a gold medal results in a sense of pride and the respect of fellow athletes, but it also is a surefire path to a sponsorship deal. Chris Tierney, father of X Games snowboarder Meghan Tierney, stated in a recent interview that

In my eyes, from a marketing standpoint, most snowboarders would say that the Olympics and the X Games go hand in hand.

The X Games pride themselves on celebrating bright, young talents in the extreme winter sports world–but over time, the competition has become less about the sport and more about the sponsorship. The Olympics have been dominated for years by their McDonald’s and Coca-Cola sponsorship and the X Games may be taking the same path. Sponsorship is a major boon for any athlete hoping to carve out a long-term career in their sport but it also shifts the ultimate goal of the Games from athletic excellence to financial solvency.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Real Competition in Aspen: Sponsorship Deals at the X Games appeared first on Law Street.

Every winter, the mountain resort of Davos, Switzerland plays host to the business world’s most eminent economic, journalistic and entrepreneurial minds at the World Economic Forum. The three-day long summit at Davos has repeatedly been lampooned as an obnoxious demonstration of power and privilege that does very little to create significant change in the world economy. However, looking past the elaborate meals and chartered helicopters, Davos can grant insight into what the top tier of the economic sector has planned for the future. Read on for a breakdown of the most important moments at Davos this month and what they mean for 2016.

What is Davos?

The World Economic Forum–a Swiss nonprofit based in Geneva–holds its annual meeting in the ski resort town of Davos, in the Eastern Alps. The meeting is usually comprised of approximately 2,500 business leaders, policy makers, and journalists–referred to as “influencers.” The three-day conference serves as an opportunity to discuss the world’s most pressing economic and social challenges and often serves as a crucial meeting place for building the groundwork for both corporate and political collaboration in the coming year. Davos’ mission is to facilitate public-private sector relations, and while it has done an admirable job of meeting that goal, it is often criticized for being too exclusive or elitist. The Davos invitee list is often limited to only the most profitable economic corporations, mainstream news networks, and representatives from developed nations.

The Issues

Spotlight on Migration

The refugee crisis took center stage at this year’s conference, with political leaders discussing both the nature of open travel across Europe and the impact of the swell of immigrants on the continent’s economy. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte claimed that Europe has only “six to eight weeks” to save the Schengen system of travel–which allows for unrestricted travel for those who hold visas for any of the twenty-six countries that make up the Schengen zone.  Several countries have suspended their Schengen policy and Davos provided opportunities for several ministers and politicians to discuss future plans for border control. Rutte argues that as spring approaches, the number of refugees entering Europe will only swell, potentially leading to a complete shutdown of the Schengen zone’s open border policy. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also spoke on border policies, claiming that the European Union was not originally built to withstand the challenges of the refugee crisis.

In an interview given in the days before the conference began, billionaire George Soros added to the panic surrounding a European Union breakup by stating that

The EU is on the verge of collapse…the Greek crisis taught the European authorities the art of muddling through one crisis after another… The EU now is confronted with not one but five or six crises at the same time.

Outside of the formal roundtable discussions, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven spoke out regarding the spike in sexual attacks in Cologne, Germany and other European cities this month, saying that all refugees are not to blame for these crimes and that sexual harassment was problematic in Sweden and other nations long before the refugees arrived.

The Possibility of a “Brexit”

Davos’s discussions focused on the potential of Britain leaving the European Union in 2016 or 2017. Multiple European leaders made fervent pleas to the British representation and citizenry at large to stay within the union, referring to British secession as a “tragedy.” There is no scheduled vote on England leaving but with tensions over the refugee crisis stretching European governments thin, rumors of a potential British exit sent shock waves through Davos. However, Britain would most likely not benefit from exiting the EU in 2016. In a recent interview, Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia group, said that

If you’re asking if it is in Britain’s narrow interest to stay in Europe, I would say it is less in their interest than it was a year ago – but I would still make the point that if the Brits leave the EU, the likelihood that Scotland leaves Britain goes up very significantly, and I do believe that’s bad for the UK… Furthermore, leaving the single market, irrespective of the fact that Britain is not in the euro, would damage Britain’s role in finance globally; Britain would take a hit because of that. Also the logistics of the unwinding process, playing out over a couple of years, would be immensely distracting and damaging to both sides. Investment decisions are going to be changed both in the UK and the EU, and both would suffer

The potential “Brexit” dominated politician’s rhetoric at the summit but ultimately appeared to be a red herring as Prime Minister David Cameron stated that he is “not in a hurry” to schedule a vote on a British exit from the EU.

Debt Relief for Greece

During the forum, the IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, and the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, met briefly to discuss the future of the Greek economy.  The IMF has agreed to extend new loans to Greece but it has also publicly stated that it is only prepared to support Greece on a “strings-attached basis.” Greece will need to enact significant economic changes and receive backing from Eurozone partners if it wants to take on IMF funds. Representatives from both the IMF and the Greek delegation referred to the talks as cordial and productive. Tsipras made a statement during Davos promising to reform the Greek economy–while simultaneously criticizing European insistence on lowering budget deficits.

It should be noted that Lagarde, who is responsible for the IMF’s prediction of world economic growth, recently downgraded the statistic to 3.4 percent from 3.6 percent for 2017. This contributed to worries for all countries represented at Davos but should be especially troubling for Greece as it takes on its new package of loans. Tsipras made a series of optimistic statements regarding a rebound for Greece but with limited prospects for growth and the influx of migrants that have swept into Greece, his speeches hardly seem to be realistic.

Discussions on Gender Inequality

Davos featured multiple events on closing the gender gap this year. Historically, Davos has been male dominated and as only 11 percent of company board directors from across the globe are women, the invite list was still mainly masculine this year. However, the organizers of Davos did dedicate specific time and spaces to gender inequality brainstorming sessions and panels. The United Nations brought its HeforShe campaign to the summit. Both Sheryl Sandberg and Justin Trudeau spoke at a panel on gender inequality, advocating for business and political leaders to embrace feminism. The Girls’ Lounge, a space reserved for the 18 percent of Davos attendees who are female, hosted a roundtable discussion on gender inequality during this year’s conference. The discussion focused on making workplaces more equitable and changing the culture of the corporate world. However, German journalist Manuela Kasper-Claridge noted that a great deal of the events on gender inequality were led by men, seriously undercutting the participation of the female attendees. While the soundbites produced at the forum were mainly positive, relatively few attendees committed publicly to promoting gender equality in their corporations or parliaments.

Conclusion

Davos is not a perfect yardstick for upcoming political and economic changes as it only includes a small percentage of the thousands of decision makers involved in the global economy, but it does create a platform for valuable discussion. The refugee crisis continues to dominate the political and economic discussions of European parliaments, and the pressure from the potential withdrawal of Great Britain from the EU has only complicated the debate. Davos is struggling to create gender parity in its annual conference but its efforts this year may open up more discussions in the coming years and prove valuable in the effort to promote feminism in workplaces across the world. Ultimately, Davos is a forum held for ideas not action–there are no votes or referendums that come as a direct result, the stock market does not rise or fall based on its speeches, and many of the attendees are only repeating their position on issues they have discussed time and time again. However, Davos serves as an unparalleled signpost for where European leaders hope to focus their time, energy, and resources in 2016.

Resources

The Guardian: Let’s Make Attending Davos as Shameful as Running a Sweatshop

The Atlantic Sentinal: Weeks Left to Save Schengen, Dutch Premier Warns

The Express: EU could go UNDER in 6 WEEKS, Dutch PM Claims as France Admits ‘We Weren’t Built for This’

The Daily Mail: Davos elites fear weakened European Union

The Irish Times: Number of Migrants Entering Europe ‘Needs to be Reduced’, Davos Hears

CNBC: Migrants Not to Blame for Sex Attacks: Swedish PM

Foreign Policy: Davos Diary: Europe Fears ‘Brexit’ But Not At ‘Any Price

The Telegraph: Davos Leaders Fear ‘Brexit’ May be Deathknell for EU

International Business Times: Davos 2016: Greece Promised New IMF Loans At Meeting With Lagarde And Tsipras

The Market Mogul: Worries in Davos 2016

The Guardian: IMF Demands EU Debt Relief for Greece Before New Bailout

Quartz: #Davosproblems: The Financial Crisis isn‘t Over, and the Inequality Crisis is Just Beginning

The Guardian: Embrace Feminism to Improve Decision-Making, says Justin Trudeau

Deutsche Welle: Davos, we Have a Gender Problem

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post What are the Major Takeaways from the 2016 World Economic Forum? appeared first on Law Street.

Since the launch of Chobani in 2005, Greek yogurt sales have boomed and a multitude of Greek yogurt products have filled the shelves of grocery stores across the country. But there may be a dark side to everyone’s favorite yogurt product–debates over the disposal of one of Greek yogurt’s by-products may soon reach a head in New York state.

Greek yogurt’s claim to fame is that the liquid is strained out of it, making it thicker and more protein-rich. This straining process creates a byproduct called acid whey, comprised of lactic acid produced during the fermentation process. Like any other byproduct created in the food production process, acid whey must be disposed of in a responsible way that has minimal effects on the environment. Acid whey cannot be dumped near any bodies of water because it depletes water of oxygen, destroying the marine environment, and it also cannot be disposed of in a typical landfill because it would leach into the soil.  At the moment, yogurt producers have not discovered a way to recycle or reform the acid they so they can monetize it. Researchers have used filters to attempt to salvage reusable elements of the acid whey but so far, the thousands of gallons of acid whey produced in the production of Greek yogurt are the albatross around the neck of the yogurt industry.

In 2013, ModernFarmer published a piece on Greek yogurt that claimed that producers were not disposing of acid whey responsibly. Instead, they sold the acid whey to farmers who mixed it into their fertilizer or cow feed, even though adding too much acid whey to cow’s diets could have damaging effects for the animals. In response to the ModernFarmer article, John Lucey of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research defended the Greek yogurt straining process, calling it a “non-issue.” A research team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed lactose-isolating technology that lets yogurt makers separate and resell the lactose in acid whey (although there is still waste left over that must be disposed of) and plans to continue its research on acid whey in the future.

Yet the red flag raised by the ModernFarmer article should not be completely ignored. Greek yogurt may not be a significant threat to the greater American public but it may still have negative impacts for New York farmers. Both Fage and Chobani, major Greek yogurt producers, have major factories in the state of New York–and it is farms within a comfortable driving distance of these factories that are most likely to receive acid whey to use for agricultural purposes. Acid whey is not a threat to national environmental standards but in the coming years, it may impact the farming community of New York, as it is concentrated within their properties.

The disposal of acid whey in New York farming communities is a relatively new practice, and in a decade’s time, both the soil and the livestock may witness minimal effects after the addition of acid whey to fertilizer and feed.  However, if acid whey does have a wide-spread impact on these farms, the yogurt producers could be responsible for placing an entire state at a disadvantage in the agricultural sector. Research on reusing acid whey is a step in the right direction but it should be paired with long-term research on the farms that have incorporated acid whey into their daily operations. If it does in fact have toxic effects on the environment and animals, it may be the farms of New York who will be the victims of that pollution, not the nation as a whole.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Big Fat Greek Yogurt: Acid Whey Disposal in New York appeared first on Law Street.

Eight men have been arrested following the hundreds of robberies and assaults that occurred on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany. Over 600 criminal reports were submitted regarding New Year’s Eve in Cologne, and over half of those reports involved sexual harassment or assault. A large number of the victims who reported their attacks described their assailants as Middle Eastern, which triggered fears of backlash against Germany’s refugee population. Angela Merkel has remained firm in her commitment to refugee acceptance and integration but the attacks in Cologne may provide a critical groundswell of support for anti-immigration groups. At this time, one 26-year-old Algerian asylum-seeker is in custody for groping a woman and stealing her phone but the refugee status of the other suspects in custody is mostly unknown. Read on for a closer look at the events of New Year’s Eve and what they may mean for Germany in the coming years.

The Attacks across the City

Over 1,000 drunken men gathered outside of Cologne’s central train station, adjacent to its famous cathedral, to ring in 2016. It was within that neighborhood that a large part of the attacks took place, as young women emerged from the train station and headed off into the night. Groups of men who were reported to be of “North African/Arab” origin surrounded young women, groping and assaulting them. Dozens of men would circle women, both those walking alone and those in groups, forcing them to “run a gauntlet” to escape. In addition to sexual attacks, hundreds of people reported theft of money, phones, and valuables.

The identities of the attackers were initially unclear but in the days following the attacks, a significant number of the victims described their attackers as young men of Middle Eastern origin. The majority of the women targeted were German nationals. One woman reported that her rapist told her “German women are just for sex.” Media reports of the incidents were initially only running in local newspapers but within a few days, the story of the horrific night had spread worldwide.

The police have stated that they have never dealt with this kind of situation before and had not created a plan of action to combat such wide-scale criminal activity occurring at once. The preceding year, police officers were deployed in the same volume and had no problems with crowd control. However, with the influx of people outside the station, there were so many attacks happening simultaneously around the central station that security forces were essentially powerless to stop them. The violence was not confined to Cologne, as hundreds of other sexual assault cases poured in from across Germany on New Year’s Eve. However, the collective nature of the attacks in Cologne and the authorities’ disturbingly lackluster response on the ground outside the station mark them as unique. In the wake of the New Year’s Eve attacks, several German cities cancelled other winter celebrations out of fear of similar widespread violence.

Unexpected Implications

Continued Anti-Immigration Sentiment

Right wing protesters, already against the influx of refugees, have doubled down on their positions. During a recent protest, they clashed with police in riot gear, screaming at police officers for not defending local women–although it was unclear if they meant defending them from assault or defending them from refugees. One supporter of the anti-immigration Pegida movement went so far as to refer to the attacks as “bad for the women, but good for us, because the people are being woken up.” Anti-immigration rallies were held across the country in the wake of the attacks, with hundreds of people carrying signs reading “Rapefugees Not Welcome.” Although few of the women who were assaulted have come forward with anti-immigrant positions, Pegida and other groups have taken it upon themselves to be their voices.

Unfortunately, many onlookers worry that the transparent racism and xenophobia of Pegida undermines the validity of the victim’s reports. One young woman named Selina publicly discussed her attack and her attackers (men of Middle Eastern descent who spoke Arabic and did not seem to understand German) and was accused of being racist by a variety of internet sources. Women seeking justice for the crimes committed against them should feel comfortable reporting physical descriptions of their attackers but in the case of  the Cologne attacks, where race and violence are inextricably linked, those who report their attack may become targets for the vitriol of those who assume they are prejudiced.

An Attack on Women

Two weeks after the attack, The Irish Times published an editorial on the violence in Cologne which stated that

Perpetrators of sexual assault against women do have one thing in common, and it’s not religion or ethnicity, it’s gender…Perpetrators of sexual assault are typified by their diversity. But the common denominator is men. Until we are honest with ourselves about that, and until prevention focuses on stopping men from assaulting women – not blaming one demographic of men, or outlining ways in which women can avoid potential assault – we are kidding ourselves. What happened in Cologne, that mass act, was primarily unusual in its collective nature. But all over the world, in every village, town and city, mass acts of misogyny are fragmented daily, manifesting as individual assaults. We ignore them, because they are not as newsworthy. Victims of sexual assault are just as diverse. Being raped transcends all demographics.

A majority of news outlets have chosen to classify the attacks in Cologne as an issue of sexual assault and violence rather than an issue of race. Evidence from police data shows that refugees have, in fact, committed less crime than native Germans since arriving in the country, therefore outside of the right wing rallies, few news outlets have traced the crimes to be associated with race. While the German government has prioritized deporting refugees who are found guilty of sexual and physical assault, women’s advocacy groups argue that this is not about immigration policy–it is about protection for women. The events of Cologne are being attributed to a massive spike in the number of young men in Germany, which changes the demographics of security.

Regardless of race or socioeconomic status, men are more likely to commit violent acts than women. Considering that the majority of sexual assault cases involve the assault of women by men, the shifting gender dynamics of Germany may affect the country’s future. Cologne has been labeled a potential watershed moment for legal reform and creating protections for all women against all forms of sexual harassment and abuse. As Germany adapts to its new population, the legal processes and security of the nation will have to change in tandem. The brutality of New Year’s Eve in Cologne may inspire German officials to create comprehensive legal protection for women who are sexually harassed and assaulted.

Conclusion

The attacks in Cologne will be remembered as an unprecedented night of terror but the implications of the attacks go beyond criminal activity. Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome over a million refugees (and potentially more in the coming year) into Germany was controversial and she will likely have to keep defending it for years to come. Asylum seekers engaging in criminal activity only fuels the fears of Germans who were already opposed to the influx of refugees. The entire refugee population should not be held accountable for the actions of a few, but as security services are sorting through hundreds of potential suspects who often match the description of Middle Eastern refugees, right-wing xenophobes are gaining public support. The German police presence will need to adapt and expand to deal with its swelling population if they want to avoid a repeat of Cologne in the coming years but that will require not only a new style of training, but an increase in the number of staff they have available for deployment at any given time. Cologne will not only be an important marker for the history of women’s rights and violent crime, it may serve as the trigger for an new era of policing in Germany.

Resources

CNN: Eight in Pretrial Custody in Cologne New Year’s Eve Mass Robberies, Sex Assaults

CNN: Cologne, Germany: Hundreds of Sexual Assault Charges from New Year’s Eve

BBC: First Suspect Held Over Sex Assault Claims

The New York Times: As Germany Welcomes Migrants, Sexual Attacks in Cologne Point to a New Reality

Huffington Post: Here’s What We Know So Far About The Sexual Assaults At Cologne’s Train Station

Daily Mail: Migrant Sexually Assaulted 25-year-old Victim after Telling her ‘German Women are Just There for Sex’

NBC News: Cologne Sex Attacks ‘Good for Us,’ Anti-Refugee Protesters Say

Breitbart: Cologne Sexual Assault Victim called a Racist and Harassed after Identifying Her Attackers

The Irish Times: Cologne Assaults a Mass Act of Misogyny

The Local: Police: Refugees Commit Less Crime than Germans

TIME: Reaction to Cologne Attacks Should Focus on Women’s Rights

Psychology Today: Male Aggression: Why are Men More Violent?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Impacts of Widespread Sexual Assault in Cologne appeared first on Law Street.

Mexico City is a bustling metropolis that attracts millions of visitors from across the world every year. The city is home to Frida Kahlo’s restored house, the Floating Gardens of Xochimilco, the prestigious Souymaya Museum, and dozens of other historic cultural sites. It is no wonder that it has has been ranked the number one travel destination for 2016 by The New York Times. Yet, through an American lens, the entire nation of Mexico is synonymous with drugs, murder, and corruption.

Mexico City, just like any other urban center, is not a paragon of virtue and safety, but it is also not the national hub of organized crime and violence many think. Mexico City is not included in the U.S. State Department’s Travel Warning for Mexico and is not considered to be unusually dangerous for tourists either by global standards or by domestic standards. In fact, Acapulco, the famous resort city with idyllic beaches and futuristic high rises, is the most dangerous city in the country.

Mexico City did witness a troubling rise in homicide rates in 2015 but it is still considered an oasis for travelers and natives alike. The Northern areas of Mexico are generally considered to be the most dangerous, as they are home to the trading routes for drug cartels, but tourists are more likely to be robbed than they are to be caught up in the drug war. Metro and buses within Mexico City are generally considered to be safe, although tourist buses traveling to the pyramids of Teotihuacan outside the city have been robbed in the past.

Mexico City has lower homicide rates than a great deal of American cities and is safer than the capital cities of many of its Latin American neighbors. The most common crimes against tourists are petty theft and robbery during taxi rides, but Mexico City hoteliers go out of their way to make sure that visitors are as safe as possible. There are areas in the city which tourists are advised not to enter–Tepito, Lagunilla, Iztapalapa, and Nezahualcoyotl–but the same is true for any large city in America or Europe. Making generalizations about an entire country based on its most violent regions is a dangerous step in the wrong direction. Mexico has rich artistic, musical and culinary traditions that travelers will miss out on if they buy into the fiction that all of Mexico is filled with criminals out to take their lives.

Tourists do not eschew visiting the cultural sites of the United States because of our crime rates, therefore we should not write off an entire nation because of regional violence (especially not when our own State Department has not issued a travel warning for the nation as a whole). Superimposing the violence in Acapulco or Ciudad Juarez over Mexico City is a foolish mistake that trivializes the sheer size of Mexico–these cities are not all adjacent! When we view Mexico City through sensational anecdotal evidence rather than the reality on the ground, we cut ourselves off from incredible destinations within our own hemisphere.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Myths of Violence in Mexico City: Is it Safe to Travel There? appeared first on Law Street.

In 2011, a personal injury complaint was filed in regards to Mirena, an intrauterine device (IUD) manufactured by Bayer Healthcare, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Since then, over a thousand lawsuits have been filed against the manufacturers of Mirena. Some Mirena users have suffered from uterine perforation, inflammation, organ damage, and a host of other medical complications. The Mirena IUD is Bayer’s most popular model worldwide, and the company markets the product as safe and efficient. Yet as the number of lawsuits continues to rise, Mirena’s reputation may take a hit. Take a look at the details behind Mirena and why these lawsuits are making the news.

Mirena by the Numbers

The three hormonal IUDs available in the United States: Skyla, Liletta, and Mirena. Both Skyla and Mirena are manufactured by Bayer while Liletta was developed by Actavis and Medicines360 specifically to be low cost and available to public health clinics. According to Mirena’s official website, Mirena is recommended for women who have already had a child. The IUD is marketed as a “hassle free” form of birth control for busy moms. The major benefits of the IUD are that it is effective, convenient, reversible (the IUD can be removed if you wish to become pregnant) and estrogen free (the IUD utilizes progestin).

However, in 2009, the FDA issued a warning letter to Bayer, arguing that the Mirena advertising campaign exaggerated the efficacy of the device, misleading consumers. The FDA singled out certain advertisements that failed to describe any of the risks associated with IUDs and sent a letter requesting the immediate termination of specific websites. The letter was meant to serve as a larger warning towards Bayer for future advertising campaigns: do not overstate Mirena’s positive effects while minimizing its negative impacts.

Despite the 2009 warning from the FDA, Mirena sales continued to rise. Once implanted by a medical professional, the Mirena IUD is expected to last for up to five years. Each Mirena IUD costs $800, which has generated over a billion dollars in revenue for the manufacturers. The risks of side effects for Mirena users is equivalent to the risk that oral contraceptive users face so many women who once relied on oral contraceptives have transitioned to the IUD, expecting minimal changes in their physical health. For the vast majority of women who have made that switch, that has held true–IUDs including Mirena largely are safe and effective forms of contraception. However, the plaintiffs in the the lawsuits filed against Mirena have experienced side effects including perforation of the uterus, pelvic inflammatory disease, and ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy that occurs outside the uterus). The most common complaint among the plaintiffs is device migration, during which the IUD shifts and eventually presses against organs or blood vessels, sometimes causing internal damage.

The Nature of the Lawsuits

Bayer is being sued in multiple states by thousands of plaintiffs, after more than 45,000 adverse event reports. These event reports usually involve medical side effects once the IUD has been inserted, but several cases have been filed regarding removal of the IUD. Mirena removal is meant to be simple but some women have needed surgical procedures to remove the device. These lawsuits are currently being filed on an  individual basis and in 2014, the US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation chose not to consolidate multiple claims into one. The differing nature of the claims against Mirena (uterine perforation, increased risk of neurological damage and painful surgical removal, to name just a few) make it difficult to consolidate the claims into a single case. However, as the number of lawsuits increases, the possibility of a class action suit has not been ruled out. According to Lawyers and Settlements,

A refusal to centralize lawsuits at this stage does not mean that the lawsuits will never be centralized. Plaintiffs in Lipitor lawsuits faced a similar situation in 2013, when their request to have lawsuits centralized was denied. At the time, the panel ruled that with only five lawsuits and 24 potential tagalongs, there was no need to consolidate. By 2014, however, the number of lawsuits had increased to 56, with 170 potential tagalongs. At that point the request to consolidate was approved. As of August 2014, there were approximately 1,000 Lipitor lawsuits filed.

If a sufficient number of Mirena users come forward with similar complaints, their cases could be combined into a single class action suit against Bayer. However, because Mirena is still a relatively new product, it may take years before a sufficient number of users come forward with similar complaints. There have been multiple online forums set up for women to discuss Mirena effects, including one established by famed activist Erin Brokovich, but for the time being, efforts to consolidate Mirena claims are at a standstill.

What Does this Mean for Bayer?

Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals is a speciality pharmaceutical company that works in General Medicine, Hematology, Neurology, Oncology and Women’s Healthcare. Bayer Healthcare is one of 289 subsidiaries of the Bayer Group, based in Germany. As the parent company of Mirena, Bayer is being held liable for virtually all of the personal injury claims involving the product. Most plaintiffs have chosen to sue Bayer rather than their doctor, arguing that their medical side effects come from the IUD itself not from a poorly performed insertion. When the FDA submitted its 2009 letter to Bayer, it stated that Bayer had overstated the efficiency of the product (making unsubstantiated claims), omitted information about the risk of the product and ultimately made a serious of false or misleading statements in its advertising campaign. Bayer has claimed it was not aware of those side effects and that its marketing campaign should not be considered irresponsible.

Other Legal Concerns 

Besides the Mirena lawsuits, Bayer is also involved in a host of lawsuits regarding its birth control pill, Yaz. Research found that blood clot risk could be higher in women who used Yaz compared with women who used other oral contraceptives, and Yaz has been linked to many injuries and dozens of deaths. This is largely due to the presence of drospirenone in Yaz, which was found to “increase the risk of an embolism or thrombosis by up to three times compared to previous generations of contraceptive pill” according to DW.

A study in Denmark assessed the data of 1.6 million Danish women who took a drospirenone contraceptive pill for several years and found that the “risk of a heart attack or stroke was higher in these women than those using a non-hormonal method of contraception.”

Plaintiffs argue that Bayer downplayed the risks of the drug and exaggerated the benefits. There are further claims that the Bayer team did not complete sufficient research during product testing and failed to issue a recall once the side effects of the drug became apparent. The FDA has at least somewhat supported these claims, as it sent a warning letter to Bayer in 2008 discussing misleading marketing techniques used to sell Yaz. As of last year, Bayer had settled 8,250 cases for $1.7 billion but there are still lawsuits pending in national and state courts across the country. Onlookers point out that the number of settlements Bayer has made in the Yaz case may be promising for the plaintiffs in the Mirena cases. When Bayer’s oral contraceptives and IUD have come under significant criticism, both from the FDA and from individual users, the company has the potential to lose credibility. 

Conclusion

IUDs are a largely effective and safe form of birth control and a growing number of physicians have been recommending them to women. However, the lawsuits against Mirena should not be ignored and the manufacturers should strive to correct errors in their products in order to reduce the medical risks of their IUD. The lawsuits against Mirena do not only affect Bayer, they also affect the reputation of all versions of the IUD across the United States. If drug companies use misleading advertising to sell their products, the number of adverse event reports (and the lawsuits that accompany them) will swell in size. Birth control should not inspire fear in young women but should instead be seen as a safe and effective choice. Pharmaceutical companies have a duty to these women to present them with safe and effective products and to fully explain the medical risks associated with any form of birth control–we’ll have to see what the courts decide when it comes to whether or not Bayer took on that responsibility appropriately.

Resources

Primary

FDA: Notice of Violation Letter

FDA: Warning Letter

Additional

Injury Lawyer News: Mirena IUD Named in California Injury Lawsuit

Newsweek: The Courtroom Controversy Behind Popular Contraceptive Mirena

Lawyers and Settlements; More Mirena Lawsuits Expected with New Study

Drug Watch: Manufacturer:Bayer

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: IUDS: Access for Women in the United States

Deutsche Welle: Bayer Sued over Controversial Contraceptive Pill Yasminelle

The Richmond Legal Examiner: FDA to Review Essure Birth Control Device

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Legal Battles over the Mirena IUD: What’s Next? appeared first on Law Street.

This week, over sixty schools in Detroit were closed due to teacher absences as teachers went on strike against horrific conditions in the city’s schools. Teachers are outraged by both the physical conditions of the schools (mold, rot, etc…) and by the enormous class sizes that the school district was forced to adopt after major budget cuts. The school district is hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, and the state legislature has seemingly preoccupied itself with the bottom line rather than the conditions within the school district. So, teachers called in sick this week to protest their working conditions, effectively shutting down the school system for days.

The Detroit Federation of Teachers, the city’s primary teachers’ union, has not called for an official strike. However, its former President Steve Conn, who was ousted from the presidency in 2014, does take credit for organizing the “sickout.” This week’s empty classrooms frustrated many parents and lawmakers but the sickout did strike a chord with city leadership. Mayor Mike Duggan conducted an inspection of several schools this week and has announced plans for further health and safety inspections across the school district.

Some view the sickouts as a step in the wrong direction, arguing that the teachers’ actions will only further isolate decision-makers in the state legislature. Yet the sickout can also been hailed as a genius move to sidestep the bureaucracy and effectively protest non-violently. Organizing a strike through formal channels takes a great deal of time and formal procedures but the sickout was pulled together quickly and effectively because it required relatively little formal protest organization. By using their sick days, teachers were simultaneously protesting and using the personal time legally allotted to them, which may protect them from harsh retributions from anti-reform sympathizers. Every teacher is entitled to a set number of personal days and they can use them however they see fit.

Teacher strikes are devastating to any school district as they deny students crucial time in the classroom, but they are also a critical tool for reforming our nation’s schools. Detroit has now captured national attention, placing significant pressure on state and city officials to act quickly. As the teachers return to their hazardous classrooms, the city leadership and the state legislature have the responsibility to make health and safety a priority for the school district. Meetings have already been arranged (although no date has been set) to discuss health and safety reform. The sickout only lasted a few short days, and time will tell if it achieved the desired results, but it did shine a spotlight on conditions that few outside of the Detroit school system were aware of before this week. The sickout is an unconventional tool but it may be exactly what many organizations are looking for: a peaceful way to protest that does not impose on the quality of life of the protesters. Taking a sick day is an inconvenience, but for many it is preferable to going on a formal strike and forgoing wages and health benefits. The average teacher only has a handful of sick days every year so spending even one is a sacrifice, but the publicity that Detroit teachers have garnered may inspire other suffering school districts to follow in their footsteps.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post What Does Detroit’s “Sickout” Mean for the Future? appeared first on Law Street.

Apple is one of the world’s most powerful and innovative brands, and there is no doubt that it has significant staying power that will guarantee the company an enviable position in the tech world for the foreseeable future. However, the cult of Apple has been losing some followers who have decided to switch back to their original PCs. What does this mean for millennials, many of whom have been behind Apple’s huge growth in recent years?

Companies generally use PCs for workplace desktops and laptops, but many former PC users have also abandoned Apple as their personal device provider. There are a host of reasons why someone might switch back from a Mac, but the most commonly cited ones are variety of devices and cost. With dozens of different PC models on the market, consumers have a wide range of options to choose from. The rise of the tablet has also converted many traditional laptop users into tablet users, who have become devotees of the Microsoft Surface or the Kindle Fire. The Surface has become a major revenue generator for Microsoft, allowing it to hold its own against Apple over the past few years. The Samsung Chromebook has not overtaken the Macbook Air but it has opened the door to other companies creating lightweight yet still powerful laptops. More than usability, however, the cost of Apple products is what dissuades consumers from joining the Mac bandwagon. Shelling out almost a thousand dollars for a new laptop every few years seems absurd to consumers who could be buying PCs for half the cost.

Defenders of Apple argue that the user experience is far superior and that the level of customer service is unparalleled. The prevalence and ease of Apple stores makes computer repair seem like a breeze and customer satisfaction surveys constantly rank Apple at the top of the list. Apple will not be falling into oblivion anytime soon but it also does not have the tech market entirely under its control. Microsoft has claimed it will be making significant advances in 2016, and if that promise holds true, the Mac vs. PC debate may no longer be as much of a no-brainer as late 2000s Mac ads made it seem. My conversion to an iPhone two years ago has made me acknowledge the ease and efficiency of using an Apple product, yet, as a long-time PC user, I have no desire to switch to a Macbook. I love that the computer itself is not fragile (I am always thankful that I have a PC whenever I see someone carrying a Macbook with a shattered screen into their local Apple store) and seeing as I mainly use my computer for Microsoft Suite, hanging on to my PC makes perfect sense. Perhaps Microsoft, Samsung and other companies should take that to heart. We may all have become addicted to iPhones, but some are still wary of Apple when it comes to our more substantial technological needs. In an age where technology is constantly developing and growing, it’s almost paradoxical to think that we are still so comfortable with the original iteration.

This is an interesting question for the millennial generation specifically, given that we have grown up with Apple–iPods and Mac Pros were circulating around us when many of us were still in elementary school. When consumers that grew up surrounded by Apple products actively choose to look elsewhere for their personal device, Apple should consider it a major red flag. Many people receive their technological devices as gifts from their parents, which explains why the PC has retained a foothold with so many youth consumers who have transitioned to Apple for their phones and musical devices–but not for their laptop. Apple needs to cater not only to the generation that has grown up with their products but to the purchasing power behind that generation (the parents).

According to The Huffington Post, some users still identify very strictly along Mac vs. PC lines, associating personality traits and distinct demographics with each brand, but for many consumers, “the operating system wars are over.” The competition between Mac and PC has pushed both sides to produce higher quality technology and security, to the point that they are essentially equivalent. This generation will probably care less about the customer service or usability of the device because by the time they are purchasing their own device (rather than receiving one selected for them by their parents), both Mac and PC will have exceptional platforms.

So, this means that the factor that will now decide the Mac vs. PC debate is cost. Who can sell the best quality product for the lowest price? When catering to a consumer base that has been rocked by a recession, facing heightened unemployment, and crippling student loan debt, cost cannot be considered a minimal piece of the puzzle. Loyalty to one brand over another may not survive in the coming decades, but competitive pricing will always be a surefire way to attract customers.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Return of the PC: Are Millennials Going to Move Away from Apple? appeared first on Law Street.

Rivers from Texas to Illinois have flooded as a severe storm system moves through the Midwest. There have been numerous flood related deaths in Missouri and Illinois; many of these deaths were related to drivers being trapped in their cars as the flood waters rose. The Midwest is currently recuperating during a brief reprieve from rain but Southern states have begun preparations for massive flooding. Thousands of people have been displaced by the evacuation process, seeking shelter in hotels or with family members while their homes are claimed by the rising water. The Midwest is usually hit by flooding hardest in the spring and summer, and was expecting snow during December rather than rain. Whereas summer floods are easily contained and property damage is often minimal, the winter flooding has been catastrophic. Read on for a look inside the disaster relief process that has swung into action over the past few weeks.

FEMA and El Nino

Earlier in December, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) organized a specialized El Nino task force to tackle the oncoming weather phenomenon. FEMA operates under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, coordinating efforts between regional, state and federal relief teams. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

An El Nino is a weather phenomenon in which warmer tropical Pacific Ocean waters cause changes to the global atmospheric circulation, resulting in a wide range of changes to global weather. Over North America, the Pacific jet stream (a river of air that flows west to east) often expands eastward and shifts southward during El Nino, which makes precipitation more likely to occur across the southern tier of the United States.

El Nino is also responsible for the nationwide temperature spikes that have made this winter season relatively mild for most of the Eastern seaboard. The current El Nino moving through the Midwest is the strongest since 1998. El Nino’s impacts do not only impact the Western hemisphere. According to BBC News,

Aid agencies like Oxfam are worried that the impacts of the continuing El Nino in 2016 will add to existing stresses such as the wars in Syria, South Sudan and Yemen. They say that food shortages are likely to peak in Southern Africa in February with Malawi estimating that almost three million people will require humanitarian assistance before March. Drought and erratic rains have affected two million people across Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. More floods are expected in Central America in January.

Weather services provide FEMA with consistent updates on El Nino weather patterns, information which FEMA then uses to design response plans for individual states and regions. FEMA coordinates with regional and federal officials to manage disaster response and evacuation. After Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and deployed the National Guard in Missouri, he spoke with President Obama to discuss federal aid and intervention. According to a recent NASA report, the El Nino pattern is not waning and will continue to hit the country with significant force in the coming week. NASA satellites have tracked sea surface heights and temperatures over the past several weeks and will continue to work with disaster relief teams throughout the duration of the floods.

The History of FEMA

FEMA was founded in 1979, created via an executive order by President Carter. The federal government had completed informal disaster relief for domestic weather emergencies since the 1930s but the establishment of FEMA merged multiple agencies and marked an official commitment to aiding communities. In 2003, FEMA became part of the Department of Homeland Security, largely as a result of 9/11. According to FEMA’s website,

The agency coordinated its activities with the newly formed Office of Homeland Security, and FEMA’s Office of National Preparedness was given responsibility for helping to ensure that the nation’s first responders were trained and equipped to deal with weapons of mass destruction. Within months, the terrorist attacks of Sept.11th focused the agency on issues of national preparedness and homeland security, and tested the agency in unprecedented ways. Billions of dollars of new funding were directed to FEMA to help communities face the threat of terrorism. Just a few years past its 20th anniversary, FEMA was actively directing its ‘all-hazards’ approach to disasters toward homeland security issues.

But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA was criticized for a number of reasons. Critics claimed that the evacuation process was not coordinated well enough and the number of supplies set aside for evacuees was not sufficient. Attempts to ensure that the process was running smoothly were in some cases interpreted as massive mistakes that slowed down the relief process on purpose. FEMA was considered to be uncoordinated on the ground, and images of New Orleans’ citizens baking in the heat of the SuperDome became synonymous with an ineffective FEMA response.

Hurricane Katrina was FEMA’s first massive challenge after becoming part of the Department of Homeland Security and was considered an embarrassment both for the agency and the Bush administration as a whole. FEMA director Michael Brown was considered by some to be insufficiently experienced in disaster management, although he claims that he did not have access to a great deal of information on the ground until days after evacuation began. The difficulties of Katrina evacuation and aid were not solely FEMA’s but the agency became the poster child for bureaucratic inefficiency.

The Difficulties of the Current Evacuation

As evacuation orders went into effect across the region, escaping the oncoming surge was made difficult because of compromised transportation routes. Interstates flooded, forcing travelers onto local roads that quickly became jammed. Trucks transporting commodities along set driving routes got stuck on the flooded roads and drivers were forced to abandon their cargo as the waters rise. Police forces and volunteers have been adding sandbags to major roads in preparation for flooding but the effects of these preventative measures have been minimal as multiple levees have broken across the region. Evacuees are forced to abandon their cars on the road, often after waiting on the roofs of their vehicles for hours for rescue teams. The majority of businesses and buildings have shut down during the floods, essentially turning several counties in Missouri and Illinois into ghost towns. People who tried to stay in their homes to wait out the flood found themselves fleeing to higher stories to escape more than water–untreated sewage filled the water of towns in Missouri and thousands of people were left without access to drinking water. In agricultural areas, pigs, horses and other livestock are often casualties of massive flooding. U.S. News reported yesterday that:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it is not planning to open a southeastern Missouri floodway in response to the swollen Mississippi River – at least not yet.

Opening floodways to divert the flow of water is one solution to local flooding but it will likely not be significant enough to impact the whole state. When flooding occurs this heavily over such a wide stretch of land, there is no easy solution. Even if water can be diverted out of certain communities, it would be held by levees that may be incapable of successfully containing the rivers, endangering other towns further downstream. The activation of the National Guard should provide extra manpower and resources for evacuation efforts but as long as the El Nino weather pattern persists, the flooding will continue in full force. Without an end to the incessant rain and flooding, conditions will likely only worsen in the Midwest and South.

 Conclusion

The flooding in the Midwest presents a daunting challenge for rescue teams across the country, but if FEMA has learned from Hurricane Katrina, it will tackle it efficiently and quickly. Evacuation is a challenging process that requires dozens of teams to coordinate transportation and rescue efforts during any time of year, but winter weather conditions make the task Herculean. Flooding is only expected to increase and expand to the South in the coming days. As FEMA, the National Guard and various regional officials coordinate their efforts, thousands of residents await aid as their homes sink deeper and deeper under the flooded rivers. If handled correctly, these floods may redeem FEMA’s public image and create a functional template for future evacuation scenarios. If handled poorly, these floods may cement FEMA’s reputation as ineffective and disorganized in the face of tragedy.

Resources

Primary

FEMA: About the Agency: A New Mission: Homeland Security

Additional

ABC News: 22 Dead, 2 Missing in Record Flooding Across Midwest

Reuters: Midwest Braces for More Flooding as Rain-swollen Rivers Rise

Eastern Arizona Courier: FEMA preparing for possible El Nino disasters

Scientific American: Record Flooding Hits U.S. Midwest, Threatens South

PBS News Hour: FEMA Faces Intense Scrutiny

BBC News: El Nino Weather: Worries Grow over Humanitarian Impact

US News: The Latest: Flooding Forces Closure of 3 Historic Sites in Illinois Because of Unsafe Roads

Hexa News: Missouri Residents Told To Evacuate Immediately Due To Flood Danger

NBC News: ‘Historic’ Floods Threaten 19 Levees Along Mississippi River

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Flooding in the Midwest: The Challenges of Disaster Relief appeared first on Law Street.

After a two year investigation into complaints of civil rights and health violations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a $4 million settlement for former employees at the Sara Lee factory located in Paris, Texas. This case marks the largest settlement in EEOC history involving a hostile work environment. The EEOC took on the case after twenty-five workers filed complaints against the company during their time at the now-shuttered factory, which closed in 2011. Attorneys now estimate that over seventy employees stand to benefit from the settlement. In addition to financial reparations, the company will be required to implement measures to prevent workplace discrimination and to submit regular reports to the EEOC. Read on for a look inside the landmark case.

The Allegations Against Sara Lee

The EEOC’s two year investigation found that black employees were targets of intimidation and were denied promotions that went to their white peers. Black employees reported racial slurs and graffiti during their time at the factory, incidents which were corroborated by the EEOC. A lawsuit filed separately from the EEOC complaint revealed that the graffiti included racial slurs, threats, and crude drawings of apes and black men with nooses. A large portion of the alleged abuse came from white supervisors within the factory and several Sara Lee officials have been accused of ignoring complaints from black employees about the conditions within the factory. In addition, workers were reportedly exposed to black mold asbestos and other toxins during their daily work. The working conditions were so hazardous that:

One of the cake lines was nicknamed the ‘cancer line,’ because so many people were getting sick, said Sara Kane, one of the workers’ attorneys, of the law office Valli, Kane & Vagnini.

According to the investigation, black employees were exposed to these conditions while their white colleagues were promoted to positions located in safer areas of the factory. These white employees were allegedly often less-experienced than their black co-workers but they received promotions nevertheless.

According to the EEOC’s report, several black employees contracted cancer and other diseases as a direct result of their exposure to toxins in the workplace. When black employees reported their diseases to management, their complaints were either ignored or dismissed as being unrelated to working conditions within the factory. The closure of the factory in 2011 meant that the EEOC had relatively limited exposure to the physical conditions of the factory, so the investigation did rely heavily on interviews with employees.

 The Role of the EEOC

The EEOC enforces federal laws against discrimination in most companies with 15 employees or more (although this can vary according to certain jurisdictions and circumstances). The EEOC processes both private sector and federal sector violations of discrimination laws, although it takes a more active investigative role in private sector cases. There are two distinct private sector and a federal sector mediation programs, which each offer dispute resolution with EEOC cooperation. If conciliation cannot resolve a private sector dispute, the EEOC has the right to pursue litigation and also has a right to participate in an ongoing lawsuit. According to the EEOC website,

The EEOC has the authority to investigate charges of discrimination against employers who are covered by the law. Our role in an investigation is to fairly and accurately assess the allegations in the charge and then make a finding. If we find that discrimination has occurred, we will try to settle the charge. If we aren’t successful, we have the authority to file a lawsuit to protect the rights of individuals and the interests of the public. We do not, however, file lawsuits in all cases where we find discrimination.

The EEOC may handle tens of thousands of complaints every year, but they very rarely escalate to the heights that the Sara Lee case has, which makes the future of Sara Lee critically important. If Sara Lee complies with the EEOC regulations and actively changes its workplace environment in the coming years, it will serve as a model for other companies that have had large-scale reports of discrimination. The successful transformation of the Sara Lee case will lie with its parent company–Tyson Foods.

A New Name and a New Brand

In 2012, so chronologically after the alleged abuse occurred, Sara Lee went through a major re-branding, effectively splitting the business in two. The food side of the business was labeled Hillshire Brands while the tea and coffee end of the company (centered in Europe) was named D.E. Master Blenders 1753. The name change was speculated to have been prompted by lackluster sales of meat products.

In 2014, Hillshire Brands completed a merger with Tyson Foods, Inc. which The Wall Street Journal referred to as the “meat industry’s biggest deal.” After the merger, Hillshire’s chief executive Sean Connolly stepped down, clearing the way for new leadership. However, the Sara Lee discrimination case did not disappear with the name change. Although headlines associate the case with Sara Lee, Tyson is now liable for the settlement and for rebuilding the brand’s image in the wake of the EEOC investigation. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, Tyson Foods spokesperson Worth Sparkman said the company is

‘Committed to treating our team members with dignity and respect and have a policy against harassment and discrimination,’ noting Tyson Foods requires annual training and offers a toll-free help line for workers to report any concerns without fear of retaliation. ‘While we don’t agree with all of the allegations in this case, we oppose any unlawful discrimination in the workplace and believe it makes sense to resolve this matter,’ Sparkman wrote in an email. When asked which allegations the company disagrees with Sparkman said, via email, ‘We’ll point out that any alleged conduct in this case occurred before portions of Sara Lee were acquired by Tyson Foods in 2014.’

The Tyson brand has also had a series of legal skirmishes over working conditions over the past few years. This November, the Supreme Court heard a case against Tyson in which employees argued that Tyson unlawfully failed to pay for the time it took them to put on and then remove safety equipment during their daily tasks. In a lower court, employees were awarded half of what their counsel requested. The case has raised interesting questions about collective action lawsuits, as the case involves more than 3,000 workers in total: Should that many employees be allowed to file their complaint at one time, in a single case?

The Supreme Court has approached the case less as an issue of wage violations and more as a debate over what the threshold should be for the number of participants in a collective action lawsuit. Yet, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the employees, Tyson may pay out even more than they it in the Sara Lee case–approximately $6 million.

Conclusion

The Sara Lee case is a unique one in that a significant number of workers were courageous enough to file complaints and patient enough to wait for the legislative process to work over several years. Not every discrimination case is investigated by the EEOC, either because there is not sufficient evidence or because victims do not feel safe reporting misconduct. Hopefully, the Sara Lee case will inspire other companies to enact preventative measures to disband discrimination. The EEOC has delivered a decisive victory for the employees of the Texas factory, and we’ll have to see what effects it might have in future discrimination cases.

Resources

CBS Dallas Forth Worth: $4M Settlement Awarded In Sara Lee Discrimination Case

The Chicago Tribune: Sara Lee Discriminated Against Black Employees, Attorneys Say

Dallas Business Journal: EEOC Wins Record Settlement for Former Texas-based Sara Lee Factory Workers

Buzzfeed: Sara Lee Will Pay $4 Million To Settle Racial Discrimination Suit

Business Insider: Turning Sara Lee Into Hillshire Brands Is A Perfect Example Of How Not To Name A Company

The Wall Street Journal: Tyson Completes Acquisition of Hillshire

EEOC: Overview

JD Supra: United States Supreme Court Hears Argument in Tyson Foods’ FLSA Collective Action

The New York Times: Supreme Court Hears Case for Tyson Foods Class-Action Lawsuit

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The EEOC and Sara Lee: A Landmark Discrimination Case in Texas appeared first on Law Street.

To no one’s surprise, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” broke box office records around the country and around the world over the weekend. As perhaps the most anticipated film of the year, its release has dominated both print and online media. Some websites are treading very carefully, aiming not to spoil any content for readers who have not yet seen the film. It’s an admirable goal–but what’s the legal side of the spoiler debate?

In an interview with Buzzfeed UK, Harrison Ford asked moviegoers not to ruin the film for others, but it is difficult for websites to avoid publishing content on a film that is dominating online discussions. During a week when the question on everyone’s lips is not if you will be seeing “Star Wars,” but when–what else would entertainment bloggers be writing about?

For a film that has already made profits off of its opening weekend, spoilers are not a threat to commercial success. Yet for films with smaller budgets, the exposition of a plot could be a financial death sentence. Why go see the film if its summary is available online? Websites like Wikipedia and IMDB often post plot summaries of films quickly after they are released, and many entertainment websites post articles about films before they are released in theaters that discuss major plot points under the heading “spoiler alert.”

I personally would not want to pay admission for a film I already knew the plot of. In an era where films are freely available for illegal download or are released directly to a streaming service, fewer young people set time and money aside to go to the movie theater. When the plot of a major film is revealed online, paying admission price seems foolish. A film such as “Star Wars,” with plenty of die hard fans who are so loyal to the franchise that they prefer to see it in theaters, has no trouble breaking even, but films with smaller budgets and a less-publicized release may not attract such dedicated viewers. That being said, film studios have not launched legal action against bloggers who reveal the plot of their films in the same way they do against people who illegally film or download their films. Five separate Hollywood studios have filed for damages against Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who is currently facing extradition to the United States, but no studio has brought a case against an online platform for “spoilers.”

Spoilers present an interesting copyright issue for web sources. Filming a scene from a movie in the theater and uploading it would be considered piracy (and could be removed from a content sharing website by the host), but can a written description of the scene be treated the same way? What is the line between writing a review and revealing a pivotal plot point? There is no set rule for when a film’s plot is considered part of the public domain, or when a spoiler becomes common knowledge. How can copyright law ever regulate written descriptions of a film if there is no clear limit on how much a writer is allowed to reveal?

Piracy has a flexible definition that is constantly adapting and expanding as the worldwide web incorporates more forms of media, but I doubt it will ever encompass movie reviews. At the end of the day, movie reviewers are tasked with describing a film and it is perfectly within their rights to do so in as much detail as they want. Hordes of Star Wars fans may have cut themselves off from their favorite websites to avoid spoilers this week, but that hasn’t made a significant dent in internet traffic on major entertainment websites. Spoilers are inconvenient and frustrating, but they are ultimately an inescapable part of internet culture, embedded in the Web, and probably won’t face any legal action anytime soon.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Spoiler Wars: What Should Entertainment Websites Publish? appeared first on Law Street.

Beijing currently resembles a scene that could be from an apocalyptic horror movie: sidewalks deserted, citizens wearing masks, and an impenetrable layer of gray smoke flowing through street corners. Beijing recently announced its first “red alert” for smog, which led to the closure of schools and construction sites and a restriction on the number of cars on the road.

Since Beijing issued its red alert, Shanghai has issued a “yellow alert” and has taken to curbing factory work and suspending outdoor activities at schools. Elderly, young, and sick citizens are asked to stay indoors while the smog alert is in effect–but smog can take days or weeks to clear, leaving these residents essentially trapped in their homes. China’s smog problem has been growing for years but it is reaching a critical level wherein smog actually interferes with the daily behaviors of Chinese citizens. Read on for a look at how the smog problem developed and what the red alert signifies for the future.

The Meaning of the Red Alert

Although the Chinese government never instituted the red alert before this year, Beijing has had higher levels of pollution in the past. Beijing has reached the next-highest level, orange alert, several times but always stopped there. It has been speculated that the government decided to issue the red alert as a nod to public sentiment regarding the smog problem. According to the South China Morning Post,

A red alert marked official acknowledgment of the public perception that previous bouts of bad air had been played down. Some state media tried to put a positive spin on the development, with China Daily editorialising that ‘with the first such red alert, the capital has set a good example in this respect.’ But others took a darker view. China.com.cn, a news portal run by the State Council Information Office, said smog had damaged the government’s image, and Xinhua contrasted photographs of the city on pollution-free days and the depths of the alert.

Smog interferes with the image of a modern, progressive China. Pollution impacts not only the environment and the healthcare of the Chinese population, it also leads to a decline in economic growth. Smog limits the number of days workers can leave their homes and causes health problems for those who do work in urban centers. Toxic air means that life expectancy is an estimated five years shorter for a person living in Northern China than a person living in Southern China.  In addition, China’s brain drain–a phenomenon where educated professionals emigrate to other nations rather than working in their country of origin–has been largely linked to pollution. Educated young workers want to start families in countries where the air is better. Chinese youth have an altogether different concept of outdoors than their parents do. In an interview with the New York Times, a cafe manager named Kan Tingting said that

What bothers me the most is that my child may have a very negative view of nature. She loves nature much less than she would in a normal environment. I don’t want her to grow up thinking nature is ugly.

In a country where “smog days” are akin to snow days in the United States, many children are growing up thinking of smog as a part of their daily life rather than an environmental hazard.

 Smog in the Cities

China’s air pollution comes largely from the use of coal in its major industrial cities. China’s economic boom has generated massive economic growth, but that led to a parallel spike in airborne pollutants. Coal pollution is compounded with car emissions to create a toxic atmosphere, only exacerbated by dust storms and construction dust that floats in the air of most urban centers. Beijing recognized the sources of its pollution and has striven to use coal substitutes and limit the use of cars, but those solutions have yet to create lasting change in the smog levels.

Yang Weimin, Deputy Chair of the Central Leading Group on Finance and Economic Affairs, stated earlier this week that China will need to build ten new mega-cities to offset the pollution and traffic pressures of Beijing. Mainland China has six mega-cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Chongqing) and the Chinese government has recognized the need for shifting growth to other areas of the country. However, building these cities is a twofold challenge. First, it will be difficult to convince people to relocate to new cities without stable job prospects so the government will need to convince major companies to set up headquarters in this new set of mega-cities, but at the same time, they will need to retain the job sector in the existing cities. Second, building new cities requires a great deal of construction, which creates hazardous dust and only contributes to negative air quality in the short term.

Cleaning Up Before 2022

China will host the Winter Olympic Games in 2022 and officials have already stated that they plan to welcome athletes from around the world to a city with healthy air. The Beijing Olympics of 2008 were an unforgettable marvel that China hopes to match with the Winter Games, but air pollution has made athletes and coaches worry about the safety of competing there. When China made its bid for the 2008 Games, it promised to cut down on pollution in Beijing, and was largely successful in meeting its goal–during the Olympics, Beijing air quality was the best it had been in a decade. Beijing is clearly capable of reducing smog in the short-term, but the return of smog in the wake of the 2008 Games has left many pessimistic about the probability of long-term smog reduction. Although organizers of the Olympics have stated that they are treating the smog as a serious threat and plan to mitigate before athletes arrive, they have not outlined a precise plan for what they will do to reduce smog.

Profiting off of China’s Plight

This week, a Canadian company made headlines for charging up to $28 for bottles of “clean air” on the Chinese market. Vitality Air, which bottles air from Banff and Lake Louise, has seen a massive spike in sales in China over the past two months. Vitality Air began almost as a joke–co-founder Moses Lam listed a Ziploc bag of air on Ebay to see how much he could get from it, and then ran with the idea of “selling air”. Vitality Air prides itself on being hand-bottled and is supposed to be used to fight hangovers, lethargy and now, pollution.  Bottled air may seem to be a ridiculous concept but according to the Times of India:

Vitality Air is not the only business cashing in on China’s pollution problem – a restaurant in in Zhangjiagang city recently started charging patrons for fresh air, after owners bought air filtration machines for the establishment and added a surcharge to people’s bills for the operation costs.

Selling air like it is any other commodity may be a fad sparked by the introduction of the red alert, but it raises interesting questions about the future of commodities in China. What products are Chinese citizens willing to buy in order to feel safe, and does that make them a target for companies that seek to profit off of their distress? Will foreign countries take advantage of China’s environmental weaknesses to sell them unexpected products or will they commit valuable technology to solving the pollution problem?

 Conclusion

As the world celebrates the major climate agreement made in Paris this week, managing pollution and reducing smog seems like a more manageable task. Yet in China, the damage may be irreversible and a new generation may grow up without access to clean air. It is tempting to accept China’s air pollution as a problem too monolithic to tackle but considering the impressive reduction in smog that the country enacted before the Olympics of 2008, mitigating smog is possible. It will require political action and firm commitments to reach the government’s goal of reducing smog by 2022. China’s leading officials need to seek immediate, effective changes before the red alert becomes a commonplace event in Beijing.

Resources

CNN: Smog in China Closes Schools and Construction Sites, Cuts Traffic in Beijing

The Guardian: Smog Envelops Beijing: Before and After Pictures as City Goes on Red Alert

New York Times: Smog So Thick, Beijing Comes to a Standstill

South China Morning Post: China Needs to Build 10 More Megacities to Ease Pollution and Traffic Pressure on Beijing, Top Planner Says

South China Morning Post: Winds of Change: After Years of Denial, China’s Politicians Have Finally Woken up to Nation’s Concerns Over Hazardous Air Pollution

USA Today: Punchlines: China’s Smog Days Beat Snow Days

ABC News: Hazardous Smog Blankets Shanghai, China Pledges to Clean up by 2022 Winter Olympics

Times of India: Canadian Company Sells Bottled Fresh Mountain Air in China as Smog Levels Worsen

CNN: Canadian Start-up Sells Bottled Air to China, Says Sales Booming

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Red Alert in Beijing: Smog’s Debilitating Impacts appeared first on Law Street.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUD) shut down schools across the county this Tuesday after members of the School Board received a threatening email that referenced explosive devices, assault rifles, nerve gas, and machine pistols.

LAUD is comprised of over 900 schools that educate 640,000 students. Tuesday marked the first district-wide school closure since 1994, when classes were cancelled during the Northridge earthquake. Students took to social media to document their day off, treating it almost like a snow day. Some students even joked that they would have preferred school closing on Friday so that they could go to the premiere of the new Star Wars film. However, the scene within the deserted schools was far from lighthearted. Police officers walked through over 1,500 school sites, scanning for bombs or any other evidence of a terrorist threat. The message had discussed attacking students in school, mentioning packages and backpacks, but did not specify which school would be a target.

The email threat was also made against New York schools, but they remained open for classes on Tuesday. By the end of the day, the email was revealed to be a hoax and schools reopened on Wednesday morning without incident. New York mayor Bill de Blasio called the threat generic and outlandish, arguing that closing down schools for the day would be a disservice to New York students. Neither city seemed to be aware that the other city had received the same threat when they made their respective decisions for the school day. New York’s dismissal of the threat has led to doubts regarding whether Los Angeles make the wrong call–was shutting down school an overreaction?

Multiple news outlets have compared Los Angeles in the wake of the San Bernadino attack to New York in the wake of 9/11. Los Angeles should not be deemed oversensitive when the aftermath of brutal domestic terrorism still weighs heavily on the state, and the nation as a whole. It is still unclear who made the threat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee has stated that the threat may have been designed to disrupt school districts or to test school district responses to threats in large cities. Los Angeles did not witness any attack on its schools on Tuesday but, as Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has said, it is easy to criticize the decision in hindsight, with all the information that is now available.

New York and Los Angeles may have witnessed a peaceful day at their schools on Tuesday but that doesn’t mean that every threat will be a hoax. School closure should still be treated as an extraordinary measure rather than a casual occurrence, but that doesn’t mean school districts should be criticized for wanting to protect their students. Los Angeles was justified in shutting down the district on Tuesday. Even though it may seem overly cautious to us now, when there are thousands of young lives at risk, the adage “better safe than sorry” should always be at the forefront of our decision makers’ minds.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post School Closure in Los Angeles: Overreaction or Justified Caution? appeared first on Law Street.

Buried treasure often seems a fantasy that doesn’t exist outside of the movies but last week, Colombia announced an archaeological discovery beyond the imagination of any Hollywood writer. The Spanish galleon San Jose, which was sunk on June 8, 1708, has been discovered off the coast of Colombia. The vessel may contain as much as $17 billion in precious metals and gems. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is already hailing the wreck as a major discovery for Colombia but there have been conflicting claims over who should profit from the salvage. Take a moment to learn about the bounty of the San Jose, the ongoing legal scuffle, and who stands to benefit.

History of the San Jose

The War of Spanish Succession raged from 1701 to 1714, sweeping across Europe and sending a dozen kingdoms into turmoil. The conflict sparked proxy battles in colonial territories in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Spanish relied on jewels and precious metals from their colonies to fund some of their battles in Europe and the British Empire sent ships from its holdings in the Caribbean to attack Spanish vessels carrying these treasures back to the court.

On June 8, 1708, a battle which is now referred to as Wager’s Action broke out in the early evening. A squadron of British ships commanded by Charles Wager ran into a Spanish treasure armada led by Admiral Jose Fernandez de Santillan off the cost of what is now the city of Cartagena. Wager attacked the armada, hoping to seize the treasure, but during the battle the San Jose exploded, losing its cargo and almost the entire crew to the depths of the sea. It is unclear why the ship burst into flames, but now that the wreck has been discovered, archaeologists may be able to determine the source of the explosion. Wager was able to sink another ship in the fleet, the Santa Cruz, but the rest of ships escaped him and sailed on to Cartagena. The Spanish court history recorded the loss of the San Jose’s crew in its records:

Six hundred lives had been destroyed in an instant. Most of them either were vaporized in the explosion or went to the bottom of the Caribbean with the tons of precious metal which had been destined to finance the killing of thousands more on the battlefields of Europe

Competing Claims to the Treasure

President Santos is hailing the discovery as a Colombian success, but a group of American salvage investigators, who call themselves Sea Search Armada, have contested the president’s claim. Sea Search Armada (SSA) claimed that it first found the wreck in 1982 and the Colombian government is trying to cut them out of the profits. According to the Associated Press,

Two years later, Colombia’s government overturned well-established maritime law that gives 50 percent to whoever locates a shipwreck, slashing Sea Search’s take to a 5 percent ‘finder’s fee.’…A lawsuit by the American investors in a federal court in Washington was dismissed in 2011 and the ruling was affirmed on appeal two years later.

SSA claims that the Colombian government recognized how profitable recovering the wreck could be and purposefully changed the existing law to cut out the research team which found the wreck 700 feet below the surface in 1982. The group claims that the original research team from the Glocca Morra Company (contracted by SSA) struck a deal with the Colombian government to receive 35 percent of the treasures of the San Jose. Colombia has not delivered on this deal and SSA managed to win the right to a 50 percent share to any proceeds make off of the wreck in a Colombian court case. However, the government has denied SSA’s claim to the treasure since announcing its recovery last week. The Colombian government is already planning to build a museum dedicated to the San Jose in Cartagena, hoping to draw more tourists into the site of the wreck. The SSA could potentially benefit off of the museum and the treasure itself if it appeal its case in coming months.

The litigation between the Colombian government and SSA has been brewing for decades but this week  an unexpected claimant entered the contest: Spain. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia-Margallo is obtaining more information on the wreck, hoping to build a case for returning it to its nation of origin. In a recent interview, Garcia-Margallo claimed that Spain wants to resolve any ownership conflict with Colombia in a peaceful manner but also stated that, according to a prior UNESCO convention, the wreck can be considered part of Spain’s national heritage and may fall under Spanish protection. President Santos has struck back at both American and Spanish claims, arguing that the wreck is part of Colombian national heritage and that the claimants throwing their hats into the ring have no right to the wreck. During a recent press conference, Minister of Culture Mariana Garcés discussed how the salvage of the ship was an effort organized and undertaken by Colombians. The three competing claims will most likely have to be processed in multiple courts, making it a truly international legal battle.

The Role of UNESCO

In 2009, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage went into effect. According to UNESCO,

Underwater cultural heritage encompasses all traces of human existence that lie or have lain underwater and have a cultural or historical character. Over the course of earth’s history, entire cities have been swallowed by the waves, and thousands of ships have perished at sea. While these ships, structures and other cultural items are not frequently visible from the water’s surface, they have survived at the bottom of lakes, seas and oceans, safely preserved by the submarine environment.  Such heritage provide testimony to various periods and aspects of our shared history; for example, the cruelty of the slave trade, the ferocity of war, the impact of natural disasters, traces of sacred ceremonies and beliefs and the peaceful exchange and intercultural dialogue between disparate regions of the globe.

The 2009 act was designed to protect these underwater sites for generations, both from the ravages of the sea and from looters who steal artifacts and sell them for personal profit. UNESCO has been criticized for being vague in the definition of “cultural heritage” and for poorly defining the procedures for how artifacts should be retrieved and restored. Spain may manipulate those ambiguities in attempts to gain ownership of the wreck of the San Jose but Colombia is not a participating member of the 2009 treaty and therefore has no binding obligation to turn the ship over to Spain. The San Jose was built in Spain but Colombia now considers the wreck to be part of its national history.

This raises an interesting question for future wrecks that pit a former colonial power against a country they once exploited. The ship itself was Spanish but the treasure came from Colombian mines and was uncovered by Colombian laborers. Spain may have been using the treasure to finance its European endeavors, but did the treasure ever truly belong to Spain or was it stolen from Colombian indigenous tribes? With access to the treasures of the wreck, archaeologists may be able to determine who held original ownership of the gold and gems using markings in the gold and shipping records to retrace where they came from. Charles Beeker, Director of the Center for Underwater Science at Indiana University, argues that the wealth aboard the San Jose was taken during conquest and should be returned to the indigenous population.

Conclusion

President Santos has announced that the retrieval of the shipwreck will take years to complete, so neither Colombians nor Americans can expect to benefit off of the San Jose immediately. However, the wreck presents an interesting challenge for policymakers trying to determine ownership of archaeological sites. Should “finder’s fees” be the only reward for researchers who unearth major archaeological finds or should we cut them a bigger piece of the pie?  Do indigenous populations have a right to treasures that were stolen from them decades ago or should colonial powers retain the wealth they captured during the height of imperialism? Discoveries like the San Jose don’t turn up every day so the legal code on how to proceed when they do is far from clear. As the Colombian government enters the international legal quagmire to defend their claim to the wreck, archaeologists and treasure hunters around the world are waiting with bated breath to see who will win the prize.

Resources

Primary

UNESCO: The World’s Underwater Cultural Heritage

Additional

CNN: Colombia Says it Found Spanish Galleon; U.S. Firm Claims Half of Treasure

Facebook: Sea Search Armada

Encyclopedia Britannica: War of the Spanish Succession

Live Science: Sunken Treasure Ship Worth Billions Possibly Found After 300 Years

CBS News: “Holy Grail” of Shipwrecks Found off Colombia

BBC News: Spain Says it has Rights to Colombian Treasure Ship

The City Paper Bogoto: The ‘Rich’ History of the San José

Law of the Sea Institute: Ensuring the Preservation of Submerged Treasures for the Next Generation: The Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage in International Law

National Geographic: Treasure on Sunken Spanish Galleon Could Be Biggest Ever

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Wreck of the San Jose: Legal Battles Over Sunken Treasure appeared first on Law Street.

Consider a scenario: the restaurant where you work is short-staffed and even though you are billed as a “part-time” worker, you are asked to pick up 34 hours in one week. This is completely legal–the Bureau of Labor Statistics considers a job that requires 34 hours or less in a week to be “part-time” whereas 35 hours or more in a week is considered “full-time” employment. But, before you accept the 34 hour week, consider another dimension: you are a college student and this is the week of your final exams. What comes first: your paycheck or your education?

According to a 2013 survey, 71 percent of college undergraduates work a part-time job. Out of that number, one in five were working at least 35 hours a week year-round. Among undergrads who weren’t full-time workers, more than half of them clocked in more than 20 hours a week.

The American Association of University Professors states that college students should be working total of ten to fifteen hours a week, based on research assessing retention rates for students who work part-time during the academic year. The College Board agrees that working more than 15 hours a week can lead to decreased success, which may in turn lead to dropping out of school entirely. During a presidential debate this fall, Hillary Clinton proposed that under her new education plan, college students would be expected to work 10 hours per week. Most colleges have accepted this 10 to 15 hour rule and attempt to limit the number of hours per week a student can work on campus, but that does not prevent students from seeking off-campus employment. In addition to part-time employment, college students spend an average of 17 hours per week studying outside of class. Students also have lives outside of the library and workplace. They make time to participate in clubs, play sports, act, play music, work on political campaigns, and go out with friends. In my experience, the young person who comes to college just to drink, sleep until noon, and build an insane Instagram feed is a myth.

Every student should have the opportunity to work during their academic career, either to finance their studies or to earn a little spending money, but the work-life balance many are expected to maintain is setting them up for failure. Unfortunately, without holistic reform of college tuition, students will have to keep working twice the number of hours they should be. The majority of students spend responsibly, sticking to budgets and depositing their earnings into savings accounts.

Several candidates in the 2016 presidential race have promised sweeping reforms if they are elected but in the meantime, I would like to appeal to the professors and employers of America’s undergraduate population: cut them some slack this month. Don’t make them choose between their education and their employment. Professors can give extensions on final exams and papers, and employers can assign their student employees fewer shifts during their final exam period. Higher education comes at a steep financial cost and these students are doing the best they can to balance their aspirations in the classroom with the realities of their checking accounts.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Textbooks and Time-cards: Working “Part-Time” in College appeared first on Law Street.

In February 2015, Teach for America was invited to West Virginia schools for the first time. The first Teach for America educators are slated to arrive in West Virginia next August but only 15 educators will be stationed in the state, and Teach for America only plans to expand that number to 30-35 teachers in the next five years. Several county officials, teachers unions and education advocates have opposed the introduction of Teach for America, claiming that they do not need or want under-qualified teachers.

Despite this backlash, the West Virginia education system is in dire need of educators and is willing to take on Teach for America educators. West Virginia’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation, and installing Teach for America recruits is considered by some to be the cost-efficient alternative to raising teacher pay. However, critics are concerned that cutting costs may also result in cutting quality in the classroom. Read on for a look at Teach for America’s current training program for new teachers and how it is implemented in new locales.

What is Teach for America?

Teach for America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp began the project as a senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989. Low-income schools faced a debilitating teacher shortage and student outcomes had remained stagnant for several years. In 1989, Knopp launched recruitment programs at 100 universities and began funneling college graduates trained by TFA into the American school system.

Since then, TFA has expanded to 52 regions across the country and has an average of over 40,000 applicants every year. TFA provides educators in the most low-income and low-performing school districts in the country, which have difficulty attracting qualified teachers. The recruits that TFA introduces to the school system are tasked with closing the achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. According to the TFA official website, a majority of school principals are satisfied with the commitment of TFA educators and would gladly hire from TFA again in the future. The statistics on the official website suggest that TFA teachers perform at the same level, if not higher, than their colleagues who were trained through traditional education programs. Despite these positive reports, there has been a growing backlash against TFA for not training teachers for the challenges they will meet in their classroom.

Teach for America Training

TFA usually recruits college graduates (often without education degrees) to teach in the most high-need school districts across the nation. Recruits undergo a five-to-seven week training course the summer before they begin their two year contract at a given school. According to TFA’s website, there are five components to the summer institute: teaching summer school, receiving observations and feedback, rehearsals and reflections on the classroom experience, curriculum instruction, and lesson-planning clinics. The training course is built on the assumption that recruits will learn quickly and embrace challenges. After the summer institute, a five day regional induction/orientation period introduces recruits to the town in which they will be working, connecting them with fellow educators and community members. Recruits rely heavily on mentors both within the school system and from the TFA regional network to aid them in the transition.

Concerns with the TFA Training 

TFA has come under fire over the past several years for how little material the summer institute covers. In an essay for The Washington Post, Professor Jack Schneider summed up the problematic nature of this training:

Even filling every moment of the day as they do, there simply isn’t enough time in five weeks to prepare novices for the classroom.  And to make matters more complicated, TFA corps members are often placed in schools where they are least qualified to be.

TFA subscribes to a philosophy of “learning by doing,” wherein teachers adapt to the needs of their classroom in real time. TFA cites the Mathematica Policy Research group’s 2004 report that students taught by TFA recruits topped their peers in math and matched them in reading as evidence that this strategy works. However, a 2010 review of independent research by Professors Julian Vasquez Heilig (University of Texas at Austin) and Dr. Su Jin Jez (California State University, Sacramento) revealed that students taught by TFA recruits perform at significantly lower levels than their peers taught by credentialed beginning teachers. This report found that

Teach for America recruits start at a disadvantage. After several years, they perform equal to or better than their peers, but they often leave the profession before the benefits of their experience can make an impact in the classroom. School districts must spend more money on recruiting as a result of Teach for America’s churn. In addition, the organization charges school districts an average of $2,500 for each teacher it provides, and districts spend extra money to train teachers once they arrive.

One of the largest problems with TFA recruits is that they only sign on for two-year periods. Fortunately, many TFA recruits have begun to stay longer than their two-year commitment. A 2011 study found that 60.5 percent of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their initial two-year commitment. However, remaining within the public school system is not equivalent to staying in the same teaching position. The same study found that 56.4 percent of TFA recruits leave their initial posting after two years and that after five years, only 14.8 percent of recruits continue to teach at the same low-income school to which they were originally assigned. TFA recruits may develop a love for teaching but that doesn’t mean they stay in the schools where their skills are most needed.

Teach for America in West Virginia

The TFA training program will encounter a new set of hurdles upon its implementation in West Virginia. As the program has not operated in the state before, and is only sending a minimal cadre of teachers to work there, the mentoring network for TFA recruits will be less engrained. One big concern is that it will be difficult to hold an effective regional orientation if the organizers themselves are only just adjusting to the West Virginian environment. TFA has operated in Appalachia for several years, but its activities have been confined to Kentucky–specifically to rural eastern Kentucky. TFA recruited a substantially larger set of teachers in Kentucky, bringing in 30 a year since 2011. The Kentucky program is well-established, with connections to the public school system and a set of TFA alumni who can serve as advisers for incoming TFA recruits in the region. TFA is hoping that West Virginia will parallel the Kentucky program, creating a broader Appalachian success story, but the nonprofit’s proposed efforts in West Virginia are currently so minor that it will be difficult for TFA recruits to make any sort of significant impact in the community.

Teach for America: Are there alternatives?

Teach for America is often considered the only successful program of its kind in the American educational system. Despite its inefficiencies, there is no nationally integrated program that attracts as many college graduates as TFA does. This may change in the coming months, due to a host of educational grants enacted this fall. In November, the Gates Foundation announced that it will be funneling $34 million in grants to five teacher education and preparation centers across the nation. Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Education at the Gates Foundation, said that

We know that having an excellent teacher is critical to a student’s success, but there is still much to learn about how to best prepare teacher-candidates to be successful in the classroom. We’re excited to fund these new Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers so that together, we can better understand which practices are the most effective in preparing new teachers.

Funding these teacher preparation systems will create a new supply of credentialed teachers for K-12 education, so the most needy schools in America will have access to more qualified candidates and will not be as reliant on TFA recruits. In addition, the Harvard Graduate School of Teaching announced a brand new pilot program that will be launched next year called the Harvard Teaching Fellows, which is marketed as an alternative to TFA. The Harvard program plans to:

Engage Harvard students in the second semester of their senior year, with selected students taking a foundational course in the spring and remaining at Harvard for a summer-long training program following Commencement. In September, they will be deployed to partner school networks and districts where they will teach in a classroom, though with only a 60 percent workload. Fellows will then come back to Cambridge for a second summer of professional development for additional support before they return to classrooms. Upon a second year of teaching and program completion, fellows will continue to have support and connections to Harvard Teaching Fellows for the next few years of their careers.

After student protests against TFA in 2014, Harvard has been moving away from connecting its graduates with the organization. The Harvard Teaching Fellows program is only in its infancy, but the fact that it was designed specifically to address the shortcomings of TFA gives it a certain cachet in the education world. School districts like those in West Virginia may prefer to receive teachers from these preparation centers in the coming years rather than the handful of TFA recruits they are currently relying on. More efficient and comprehensive training for teachers could transform school districts across the country to the point that TFA may become less prevalent. In lieu of reforming TFA, the education sector may prefer to phase the program out entirely, replacing TFA recruits with teachers who graduated from these newly funded preparation centers.

Conclusion

Teach for America began twenty-five years ago with the best of intentions: connecting educated and passionate young people with students in dire need of educators and mentors. However, educators are concerned that the lack of training that these teachers receive may leave their students struggling in the classroom and the brief nature of their contract leaves school administrators scrambling to find replacements every two years. The introduction of new teacher preparation centers may solve the shortcomings of the Teach for America training process, but for now, Teach for America is the only organization sending a steady stream of teachers into the nation’s most desperate schools. Parents and educational professionals in West Virginia are only just opening their doors to Teach for America, but with that invitation, they also may be welcoming a lower caliber of teacher.

Resources 

Primary

TFA: Summer Training

TFA: Our History

TFA: On The Record

Additional

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Teach for America Still Coming to W.Va, but Impact May be Limited

Metro News West Virginia: Why WV needs Teach for America

Washington Post: Teach for America’s “Dirty Little Secret”

Washington Post: A New Look at Teach for America

Harvard Magazine: Is Teach for America Good for America?

The Gates Foundation: Gates Foundation Awards Over $34 Million in Grants to Help Improve Teacher Preparation Programs

The Harvard Crimson: To Teach A Teacher: Harvard’s Alternative to Teach for America

Education Week: TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Teach for America Expands to West Virginia: Potential Pitfalls and Alternatives appeared first on Law Street.

Chef Jamie Oliver has been charming television audiences with his cooking and humor since his cooking show “The Naked Chef” debuted in 1999. His brand has expanded since 1999 to include a host of cookbooks, restaurants, advertising deals, and televised cooking programs, including “Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube” and “Drinks Tube” which introduces guest chefs and bartenders collaborating with Oliver. During his meteoric rise to fame, Oliver has become a champion for healthy eating and ending childhood obesity, both in the United Kingdom and beyond. Now, he’s advocating for a sugar tax as his latest move to help end obesity.

In 2010, Oliver launched the show “Jamie’s Food Revolution” as the first step in his Food Revolution Campaign. “Jamie’s Food Revolution” aimed to introduce healthy food into school districts where obesity ran rampant by reforming school lunch programs. Earlier this year, Oliver addressed the UK Parliament, calling for government intervention in children’s diets to prevent obesity. He presented his own Obesity Strategy, in which he outlines the policy changes that the UK must make to protect the health of the next generation. Oliver also launched a petition asking for the government to introduce a tax on soft drinks with added sugar in conjunction with the documentary “Jamie’s Sugar Rush,” which publicizes sugar’s links to obesity and type 2 diabetes. When the government failed to introduce the tax on soft drinks, he introduced his own version of the tax in the restaurants he operates. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Oliver stated that

I’ve seen first-hand the heartbreaking effects that poor diet and too much sugar is having on our children’s health and futures. Young children are needing multiple teeth pulled out under general anesthetic and one in three kids [is] now leaving primary school overweight or obese. Soft drinks are the biggest single source of sugar among school-age kids and teenagers and so we have to start here.

Prime Minister Cameron has dismissed the sugar tax in the past, but last week, The Commons’ Health Committee (a panel of representatives that Oliver testified to earlier this year) called for the introduction of a sugar tax in the UK. This call for action, combined with Public Health England’s October 2015 report, has revived the feasibility of passing a sugar tax in the near future. The sugar tax would be part of a larger program to combat obesity in the UK, which would aim to limit soft drink advertising and the sale of large quantities of soft drinks. This crackdown on soft drinks may be successful, as it was in Mexico where a 10 percent tax on sodas led to a 6 percent reduction in consumption, but it is important to remember the massive backlash against Mayor Bloomberg’s 2010 proposal to limit soda consumption in New York. It has been argued that reducing obesity will come from cultural shifts rather than taxes that negatively impact the poorest sectors of society. Oliver has defended the tax by citing its success in other countries and has continued to promote the tax despite criticism about the efficiency of the tax and about Oliver’s own motivations.

The British case may have significant impacts on sugar consumption debates in the United States. If the UK can introduce a sugar tax that successfully reduces consumption and improves national health, Mayor Bloomberg’s dream may be revisited as a national reality. At this moment, we don’t have a celebrity champion for the cause, but if Oliver is successful in the UK, he may expand his petition for a sugar tax globally. The American public should keep an eye on the sugar tax battle in the UK, because the momentum that Oliver has stirred up may soon cross the Atlantic.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Jamie Oliver’s Crusade for a Sugar Tax: Will the U.S. Be Next? appeared first on Law Street.

On November 20, China Labor Watch released a report on labor conditions at five toy manufacturing companies in China. The nonprofit sent undercover representatives to a variety of factories. The toy companies investigated in the report are suppliers to both Hasbro and Mattel, two of the largest and most successful toy distributors in the world. While Mattel’s alleged labor violations should take center stage, the story has been crowded out by Mattel’s advertising campaign in preparation for the holiday sales season. Read on for a look at the recent competing stories on Mattel and the concerns over labor conditions at the company.

History of Mattel’s Alleged Violations

Mattel, based in California but with a variety of third-party contractors in China, is the world’s biggest toy company. Mattel is responsible for the design, production and marketing of toys sold to both consumers and larger vendors (such as Toys ‘R’ Us or Target). Besides its incredibly famous Barbie, Mattel is the parent company of Fisher-Price, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and American Girl. China Labor Watch, a nonprofit which strives to increase transparency and advocate for workers’ rights, has accused Mattel of underpaying and overworking Chinese workers. China Labor Watch’s first formal report on Mattel was published in 2012, yet the nonprofit claims to have seen little change in labor conditions in the intervening years. After embedding numerous representatives in the factories and conducting hundreds of interviews, the nonprofit stated that:

Workers making Mattel toys are forced to stand for 10 to 13 hours, exceeding the nine-hour working-day limit stated in Chinese law. In some factories, fire escapes are blocked and emergency exits are locked, posing fire-safety concerns.

According to an interviewee protected by a pseudonym, workers in Mattel partner factories work up to 13 hours a day in unsafe conditions with no fire escapes. After hours, these workers share overcrowded dorms with no access to proper sanitation. Managers were accused of being abusive and forcing workers to build toys even when they were sick or struggling to reach their quotas. Those who protested risked losing their jobs. After China Labor Watch’s investigation, the French nonprofit Peuples Solidaires established an anti-Mattel petition protesting the labor conditions in the Chinese factories, but it had only minimal success.

Mattel claimed to be taking steps to improve working conditions and address the issues raised by the nonprofit, but the accusations continued to crop up during 2014 and 2015. Despite this constant stream of violations, Mattel has reportedly continued to operate with the same vendors in the same labor conditions.

China Labor Watch’s report could have encouraged a wave of protest against Mattel but instead, two other stories are dominating the media this month: Barbie’s first ad featuring a young boy and the company’s falling share prices as the holiday season approaches. While China Labor Watch’s report appears to have only been covered in depth by Fortune, dozens of web sites and TV shows covered the new Mattel ad and the company’s holiday earnings.

Commercial Attention

Earlier this month, Barbie ran its first ad for the new limited edition Moschino doll, featuring a boy playing with the doll. Mattel received praise for the ad campaign, which was hailed as a move for gender equality. Companies such as Disney have already made similar moves to encourage gender parity with their toys, removing “girls” and “boys” labels from their merchandise. However, major toy commercials have long aimed to incorporate both boys and girls, so Mattel’s doll advertisements are somewhat late to the movement.

Though Mattel was hailed as the architect of the campaign, in reality, it was Jeremy Scott, creative director of Moschino who masterminded the campaign–Scott modeled the young boy in the commercial after his own childhood self. The ad has been described by both Scott and Mattel as a “fauxmercial”–a creative statement not actually designed to be official marketing for the doll. The advertisement, real or not, has drummed up significant sales for the doll–it has already sold out of stores and can now be found Ebay and other resale sites for a massive mark-up. The advertisement went viral online but has not been moved to television.

Mattel’s Black Friday Conundrum

Barbie may be one of the most famous toys in America, but Mattel has been struggling with sales over the past several years. According to Forbes,

Sales of the fashion doll have slumped for the past four years, down 16 per cent in 2014 and showing no signs of improvement. Even American Girl, Mattel’s once-hot line of pricey historical collectibles, has disappointed in recent years. Sales were down 2 per cent in the third quarter of 2015. Starting next year, Barbie will be faced with new competition from rival Hasbro, which won Mattel’s long-held license to sell the hugely popular Disney Princesses line of movie tie-ins, including Frozen heroine Elsa.

As the holiday shopping season opens up, toy companies are counting on the months of November and December to make or break their sales portfolios. Mattel needs an incredibly successful holiday sales season to make up for the lack of growth in past quarters, but at the moment, short interest on Mattel is sitting at an all-time high. In order to impress investors, Mattel must make a major profit during Black Friday super sales but competition from Hasbro may make that difficult. Not only has Hasbro licensed Disney Princess toys, it has also cornered the market on Star Wars merchandise on the eve of the release of the new Star Wars film. The after-effects of Black Friday and holiday season may ultimately decide the fate of both toy companies, but at this moment, Hasbro’s success is virtually locked in.

However, Hasbro was also named in the China Labor Watch report for labor violations in the manufacturing of several of its toys (including the Star Wars line). According to a statement from Hasbro spokeswoman Julie Duffy,

We are aware of the China Labor Watch report and take their allegations very seriously. We require all Hasbro products to be manufactured in accordance with rigorous ethical standards, and that all third party facilities ensure employees have a healthy and safe working environment. Hasbro combines industry best practices, strategic partnerships, and strict auditing standards to respect the safety, well-being, and dignity of workers, and works continuously to ensure compliance with all third party facilities

Mattel also released a statement in the wake of the China Labor Watch report,

We are aware of the China Labor Watch report and take their allegations very seriously. We require all Hasbro products to be manufactured in accordance with rigorous ethical standards, and that all third party facilities ensure employees have a healthy and safe working environment

But all eyes are on both Mattel and Hasbro regarding their sales, so the alleged labor violations appear to have taken a back seat.

Lack of Attention on the Labor Violations

According to the report, Mattel’s third party companies have been consistently violating labor laws for several years. Over the past few weeks, Mattel has been associated with the Moschino ad and the battle over Black Friday sales but the labor violations discussed in China Labor Watch’s report have gone virtually unnoticed. Mattel’s frequent violations of Chinese labor laws could be inspiring outrage, but they are not well publicized enough to be making waves in the public discourse. Hasbro is guilty of the same infractions but it has kept its name largely out of the headlines this month.

Unfortunately, Mattel’s financial suffering only makes it increasingly likely that it will utilize Chinese labor in the future. With production costs soaring and little profit, the company will likely remain reliant on the cheap labor provided in China. Though there has been more scrutiny placed on Chinese labor oversight in recent years, the labor conditions are still, on the whole, deplorable. There may even be an increase in labor law violations as the company adopts a “nothing to lose” attitude to selling its toys at any cost.

There is some hope, however. In July of 2015, workers at the Jingyu Toy Products company in Shenzhen, China went on strike to protest minimal wages and long hours spent building Hasbro and Mattel toys. When the factory was relocated, 100 workers went on strike, asking for severance pay and retirement insurance. The strike was isolated, and did not inspire similar action across China, but it is important to consider how protest and public scrutiny can impact these companies.

Conclusion

Children across the world will spend their holiday unwrapping dolls, toy cars and building blocks that were manufactured in the harshest conditions. Companies that work with third party vendors must be held accountable for the actions of their third party vendors abroad. Mattel received positive coverage during the release of the fauxmercial for the Moschino Barbie that let the company circumnavigate a public discussion of labor violations. But in the coming weeks, it will be interesting to see if we open the dialogue on labor laws rather than just focus on sales during the holiday season.

Resources

Primary

China Labor Watch: The Other Side of Fairy Tales: An Investigation of labor conditions at five Chinese toy factories

Additional

Forbes: With Boy In Barbie Ad, Mattel And Moschino Aim To Bust Gender Stereotypes

Bloomberg: Bearish Bets on Mattel Surge Ahead of Black Friday

The Observers: The Barbie  Blues: Workers Describe Awful Conditions at Mattel Suppliers

IB Times: Labor Law Violations At Chinese Supplier To Hasbro, Mattel, Takara Tomy: Report

Dana C. Nicholas: China’s Labor Enforcement Crisis: International Intervention and Corporate Social Responsiblity

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post A Tale of Two Barbies: Did Mattel’s Labor Law Violations Fly Under the Radar? appeared first on Law Street.

Who are the heroes of modern American cinema? Marvel’s record-breaking profits and Jurassic World’s massive success this summer were built on ensemble casts performing stylized action sequences with larger than life special effects. The traditional superhero narrative is alive and well in America–underdogs getting bit by spiders, struck by lightning, and using their freakish talents to fight crime. Yet, as integral as superheroes are to popular culture, there has been a parallel movement in film and television that reflects an entirely different underdog narrative: biopics of infamous criminals. These anti-heroes don’t have super strength or mutated genes, they are simply violent and ambitious. Watching them climb the ranks of the organized crime ladder should be disturbing, but instead we find ourselves cheering for the gangsters, projecting our own struggles onto them, and taking their own victories as our own.

According to Thomas Leitch, “the crime film is the most enduringly popular of all Hollywood genres, the only kind of film that has never once been out of fashion since the dawn of the sound era.” Organized crime has inspired directors since the 1930s, when early gangster films presented fictionalized accounts of the rise and fall of Prohibition era criminals. These films did not expressly seek to glorify crime but they represented a shift in American cinema, in which crime became directly connected with wealth and glamour. In the years that followed, American audiences were presented with a host of films that asked the audience to sympathize with the criminal rather than law enforcement.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, directors moved away from fictionalized accounts and began cracking history books to find the heroes of their scripts. A host of real criminals were turned into heroes in modern American cinema–Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, to name a few. Writers and directors reached across time periods and geographical borders to assemble epic films that narrate an alternative version of the American dream. Audiences became increasingly disinterested in the fictionalized version of a gangster, loosely interpreted on an amalgamation of different characters. They wanted a true biopic, from birth to death (or incarceration, whichever comes first). “The Godfather” led to “Goodfellas,” “The Departed” led to “Black Mass,” “Boyz in the Hood” led to “Straight Outta Compton”—American moviegoers want a historical account tied to a real individual. This month, the film “Legend” (starring Tom Hardy and Emily Browning) will introduce American audiences to the true story of Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the twin leaders of the Firm, an infamous gang that dominated London in the 1960s. “Legend” is based on the biographical writings of John Pearson, who prior to writing on the Krays, wrote a biography of Ian Fleming. The connection between Pearson’s two biographies should not be overlooked–both examine living, breathing men behind myths.

The gangster film is a consistent moneymaker for Hollywood, promising glamour, action and intrigue for its audience. Yet the rise of the true crime story, the biopic of an individual, represents a pivot away from the escapist nature of crime films. Audiences still want to cheer for the anti-hero, still want to witness the massive robberies and shoot-outs and are still fascinated by men counting stacks of hundred dollar bills from illicit activity, but there is a different note entering this films. Viewers want to know the details behind these figures’ rise to power–their homes, their families, their weaknesses. Half the fun of the biopic is playing armchair psychologist after leaving the theater, puzzling over which events from the protagonist’s childhood made them turn to a life of crime. Hollywood still glorifies organized crime, yet the move away from fictionalized dramas towards well-researched biopics represents a new era of gangster cinema. Viewers are less interested in the destination than the journey–they don’t want to know what criminals do once they reach the top of their game, they just want to know how they got there.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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This weekend, vigils were held all over the country in honor of the victims of last week’s ISIS attacks. There were hundreds of remembrance events held across the world: flags flew at half-mast, monuments were lit up with the image of the French flag, flowers were laid outside of French embassies, and candles burned through the night. These moments let us stand in solidarity with the populations of Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad but they also represent a global commitment to peace. Yet this commitment is already dissolving as the 24-hour news cycle spins onward and our attention is diverted by new issues. Read on to explore the fleeting nature of solidarity in the wake of tragedy, and what can be done to carry that solidarity forwards after the fact.

 What Solidarity Looks Like

In the aftermath of many tragic events, informal memorials spring up across the globe.  We are all familiar with the images of teddy bears, flowers, and posters stacked at the scenes of mass shootings and natural disasters. A vigil, or any form of remembrance event, takes these memorials a step farther by requiring the prolonged presence of activists and onlookers. Vigils–which commonly involve lighting candles and holding moments of silence–mark a unified act that includes an entire community. There is no membership requirement for participating in a remembrance event, all are welcome to grieve collectively–whether or not they lost a friend or family member during the event.

Remembrance events let us engage in collective empathy outside of our personal social circles. The word empathy evolved from the German einfühlung which describes observers projecting themselves “into” that which they observe–essentially, the experience of putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Empathy is considered a deliberate cognitive process, in which we take an active role, striving to share the emotions of another person in order to better understand them. This week, people around the world have sung the French anthem, painted the French flag on their faces and carried signs bearing the peace symbol through the streets of their respective cities. They sought to adopt the mentality of the victims of last week’s attacks, turning the mourning process into a global moment of empathy. But how do we transform this moment into a more lasting commitment?

From Empathy to Commitment

James Hawdon and John Ryan have studied the processes behind generating and sustaining solidarity in the wake of mass tragedy, using web-based surveys to study public sentiment in the wake of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. They argue that:

Event-specific parochial and event-specific public activities generate solidarity after heinous crimes. However, general parochial activities, such as attending local organizational meetings and frequenting local businesses, sustain solidarity…displays of communal bereavement are collective acts that increase the ritual intensity of social interaction and therefore promote solidarity. They are collective displays of the community’s resiliency, and the emotional intensity of these solidarity-producing rituals likely helps the collective. Yet, general parochial relations, such as participating in neighborhood clubs, religious organizations, civic organizations and even eating at local restaurants, also appear to promote social solidarity. Participating in these parochial activities shortly after a tragedy also has lasting benefits for the community.

Hawdon and Ryan raise an obstacle to international sustained solidarity. The Virginia case focused on a relatively small community, in which it was easier to sustain solidarity. Anyone from the Virginia area can probably attest to the powerful bond that survivors of the attack feel for one and other, even eight years after the shooting. When we look at a global case–for example, ISIS attacks–it is much more difficult to sustain interest in the crisis and solidarity with the victims. It is admirable to hold a march or a vigil that represents support for the bereaved, but we don’t organize them on a daily basis. There are simply too many of us and it would take up too large a time commitment. How do we sustain solidarity, if it was not our community that was attacked, but multiple cities around the world?

Can Solidarity Be Sustained?: Selma as a Case Study

In the modern era, we are accustomed to remembrance events being beautiful but fleeting. A town square may be filled with candles and banners the night after a tragic event, but within a matter of days, it returns to its original state–a functional space devoid of political activism. But there have been some exceptions in which solidarity has been transformed into mass protest and action.

On February 18, 1965, a young activist named Jimmie Lee Jackson, was shot to death by a state trooper during a peaceful protest march organized in Selma, Alabama by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Jackson’s funeral, mourning the man lost but also calling for an end to the systemic racial violence that had led to his death. Jackson’s death sparked the organization of another march on March 7, 1965–which has gone down in American history as “Bloody Sunday.” Images of civil rights protesters in Selma being beaten with excessive force by police officers were broadcast worldwide. Instead of momentarily grieving for the violence in Selma and then moving on, activists across the nation got off of their living room couches and came to Selma. The initial group of 600 marchers on March 7 swelled to 2,000 by March 21. When the marchers reached Montgomery, they found a crowd of 50,000 supporters waiting for them. Those supporters continued to march and advocate for civil rights throughout 1965, achieving success with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in August.

The Selma to Montgomery march could have been a blip in the Civil Rights movement–a story that made the cover of the newspaper for a single day and then disappeared into a historical void. Yet, the images of violence in Selma inspired action–they recruited Americans to become members of a movement, rather than passive observers. The Selma march is a unique case, in that it elicited immediate action and it secured legislation in alignment with its goals within a year. Yet the lesson from Selma can seemingly be applied to any violent scenario that plays across our television screen: our solidarity can have teeth. It is important to remember the victims but those who remember can also strive to change the conditions that led to their deaths.

In the case of last week’s ISIS attacks, those who wish to help are presented with a complex challenge. They cannot march to end their bombings, they cannot hold a rally or a vigil that will turn back the tide of violence that they embrace. Instead, supporters have to think on how we can actively improve the lives of those living in cities destroyed by the attacks. These populations will need us over the coming weeks: Parisians will need blood donations in the coming weeks, aid organizations in Beirut and Baghdad need staff and support, and police forces will be relying on civilians to report suspicious activity in their neighborhoods. The greatest demonstration of solidarity will be committing to the victims in the coming months and years, not just for the week after the violence.

Conclusion

Solidarity can sometimes just be a fleeting after-effect of a tragic event. The moment of silence, the vigil, the lit candle–all of these symbols are an important starting point. However, in order for solidarity to be transformed into action–eliminating the forces that attacked, and promoting peace and acceptance in the coming months and years–it will take effort, patience, and hard work.

Resources

James Howdon and John Ryan: Social Relations That Generate and Sustain Solidarity After a Mass Tragedy

Mark. H. Davis: Empathy: A Social Psychological Approach 

History: Selma to Montgomery March

Civil Rights Museum: Who Mourns for Jimmie Lee Jackson?

The New York Times: After Paris Attacks, Vilifying Refugees

Mashable: Here’s How You Can Help Victims of the Paris Terror Attacks

New York Times: At Virginia Tech: Remembering While Moving On 

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Sustaining Global Solidarity: Can Vigils Incite Activism? appeared first on Law Street.

On Friday night, as the throngs of terrified Parisians sprinting through the streets scrambled to find safe haven in the midst of the attacks, #PorteOuverte  (“Open Door”) erupted across Parisian Twitter and Facebook accounts. Parisians tweeted out their neighborhood, their phone numbers, which languages they speak, and the number of free beds they could spare for the night. Some even tweeted out their exact addresses, aiming to get victims off of the streets as quickly as possible (although there was a rapid shift toward using direct messages  for address information to ensure that terrorists could not track the whereabouts of those fleeing them). Messages were sent out in multiple languages, and within hours, the hashtag was being promoted internationally. Twitter users across the world promoted #PorteOuverte, encouraging friends and family in Paris to use the feed to find safety. The hashtag was also used to circulate the phone numbers of foreign embassies, so that tourists could connect to their representatives and locate friends and family in the midst of the chaos.

As the hashtag spread, Twitter users Janyk Steenbeek and Pascal Schwientek used it to create a city-wide interactive map of the homes marked as #PorteOuverte. The hashtag was quickly followed by the creation of a Twitter handle, @PortOuverteFRA, which tweeted important phone numbers and news updates during the attacks. In collaboration with the individual homeowners who opened their doors, Sikh temples functioned as temporary shelters and the infamous bookstore Shakespeare and Company sheltered approximately 20 customers during the attack. On the other side of the globe, #PorteOuverte was used by Americans in the vicinity of international airports, who offered to take in travelers bound for Paris whose flights were grounded on Friday. French citizens were encouraged to use the #strandedinUS, which connected them to Americans who volunteered to house them while the French borders remained closed. It has been said that the desperate look for any port in a storm, but it certainly helps if that port is equipped with beds, food, and comfort in the face of brutality.

On Saturday morning, Parisians returned to social media, this time using the French #dondusang and the English #donateblood to ask for blood donations for the victims of the attacks. Hundreds of Parisians left their homes (despite government advice to stay indoors) and queued in front of hospitals and donation centers for hours to donate. In fact, many donors were asked to go home and return to donate in the coming weeks–blood has a relatively short shelf life, so continual blood donations must be made over the coming weeks and months in order to meet the blood banks’ needs. The lines of Parisians waiting to give blood in a virtually empty city lent a note of optimism to the surreal photos of the city on Saturday.

#PorteOuverte is being hailed as a shining example of humanity and kindness in the midst of unthinkable violence but I would take it a step further: #PorteOuverte is one of the most impressive, albeit short-lived, protest movements of the past several years. It united people across socioeconomic and national divides, across neighborhoods and languages. It grew organically and rapidly, without formal organization or development, but it restored a basic right to the Parisian population within a matter of hours: the right to safety, to peace of mind, to breathing without fear within their own city. The murder of civilians is designed to make a populace feel weak and insecure, to throw them into a panic wherein their terror engulfs their rationality and compassion. When terror reigns, we are expected to lose our will to think and resist. We are expected to capitulate to the architects of violence. Yet, on Friday night, Parisians stood together. Those who opened their homes to strangers denied the terrorists of the satisfaction of seeing Parisians terrified and friendless in the streets. Fear feeds on intolerance and paranoia, but it cannot survive when we are sensible and selfless in moments of crisis. #PorteOuverte is a protest against the violence that tore through Paris, but it is also a protest against fear itself.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post #PorteOuverte: Fighting Fear in the Heart of Paris appeared first on Law Street.

For centuries, there have been a handful of professions that are respected and privileged around the world: doctor, lawyer, and professor all come to mind. These professions are often thought of in broad stereotypes–elderly men sitting in wood-lined studies, wearing jackets with patches on the elbows, and heading off to golf games at three in the afternoon. In reality, all three of these professions have diversified over the past fifty years, yet we still think of them as representative of the upper class. While medical and legal salaries are still generous and relatively stable, the same cannot be said for academia. Success as a professor is now inextricably linked to receiving tenure (a permanent job contract), without which professors are often relegated to “visiting” or “assistant/adjunct” professor status. Without the protection of tenure, adjunct professors are constantly vulnerable and rarely get the support and resources they need to put their best foot forward in the classroom. Read on for a look at the realities of being a professor in America.

What is tenure?

In the American collegiate system, professors receive tenure after several years of teaching at a given institution, usually three years at community colleges and six to seven years at four-year colleges. Although tenure was designed to protect the academic freedom and economic stability of professors, many education experts argue that it promotes lackluster teaching, as professors cease to engage with their students as soon as they receive tenure. Tenure is not a lifetime job guarantee, but a school administration cannot dismiss a tenured professor unless they present sufficient evidence that the professor is incompetent or has behaved inappropriately, or that an academic department must be closed for financial reasons. Although most professors enter the teaching field with tenure as their ultimate goal, the number of tenured professors in the United States has been steadily declining in recent years. Colleges rely increasingly on part-time or non-tenure-track professors to fill their open positions, because they can hire and fire faculty on a rotating basis. A non-tenure-track contract is designed to hire for the short term, and while some PhD students embark on the non-tenure-track by choice, a majority view non-tenure-track positions as an interim until they can switch to the tenure track. Unfortunately, the more reliant colleges become on non-tenure-track professors, the fewer tenure track positions are opened. Non-tenure-track contracts let colleges save money, as they are paying professors “per course” as opposed to the fixed salary that tenured professors receive. According to Forbes contributor and Professor David Kroll,

Rather than paying a professor $75,000 plus benefits, you can now hire from the ranks of unemployed scientists a no-benefits PhD at $3,000-$4,500 per 3 credit hour class per semester. I have seen some tenure-track faculty actually be threatened by their supervisors with being replaced by such adjunct faculty if they can’t score grant funding. The abuse of adjunct faculty by US universities is a travesty.

A 2014 report by the U.S. House of Representatives revealed that a large portion of non-tenure-track professors live below the poverty line, whereas their tenured colleagues receive a significant and stable salary. The alleged exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty has flown largely under the radar in recent political debates over American higher education. The Obama administration has worked tirelessly to promote higher education–aiming to make it affordable and inclusive, encouraging as many students as possible to enroll. The introduction of the College Scorecard this year gave students access to a “data dump of epic proportions” but it doesn’t tell them anything about the professors who teach at a given school.

This is problematic for many reasons. For example according to Adrianna Kezar’s Delphi Project, students taught primarily by adjunct professors are more likely to drop out. According to an interview Kezar gave to The Atlantic last year:

This high attrition rate has nothing to do with the quality of instruction adjuncts provide; it is entirely a function of the compromised working conditions adjuncts face…universities do not give adjuncts the basic resources they need to properly teach their courses, such as sample syllabi or learning objectives. Since most departments hire adjuncts at the last minute, they are often inadequately prepared to enter the classroom. Universities do not provide adjuncts with office space, making it difficult for them to meet with students outside class. To make matters worse, many adjuncts teach at several colleges to make ends meet: Commuting—sometimes between great distances—further reduces the time they can devote to individual students.

The United States is graduating more students than ever before, yet there are concerns that we’re not paying attention to who is teaching those students and how well they are compensated for their efforts.

Who Defends Non-Tenure-Track Professors?

The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), an umbrella organization comprised of various academic unions and advocacy groups, has aimed to address the unjust nature of the existing tenure system. CAW has conducted various surveys of faculty across the nation and has published a series of reports condemning the inequality of the current academic system.

But the majority of CAW’s research, which concludes that pay is too low and there is little opportunity for advancement for adjunct professors, has been ignored by college administrations and politicians alike. Most lawmakers focus on public K-12 education when discussing tenure, balancing the interests of taxpayers and teachers unions. Higher learning is often left off the docket at town hall debates and round table discussions on whether abandoning tenure is the next great reform in education.

Although some adjuncts prefer the flexibility of a short-term contract, the majority of those surveyed in University of Michigan study were concerned with job security and the potential for professional growth.  The study also found that non-tenure-track faculty often felt they were disrespected or excluded in the workplace, suggesting that tenure-track professors rarely welcome their adjunct colleagues into their departments–perhaps because they fear they will be replaced by adjuncts, as Kroll suggested.

Tenure in K-12 Education

In public K-12 schools, tenure (which is usually received after three years of teaching) protects teachers from being fired without just cause. Though tenure is meant to protect teachers and reward them for positive work, parents and educational reformers often worry that it protects bad teachers while preventing more qualified teachers from entering the school district. Teachers’ unions have historically defended tenure, arguing that it protects teachers from discrimination and unwarranted criticism. In October, New York teachers unions sought to dismiss a case that would make it easier for school districts to fire teachers and extend the number of years necessary to receive tenure from three to four. The judge denied the motion to dismiss the case and it will move forward in the coming months.

The case argues that tenure violates students’ civil rights because inefficient  teachers receive job protection in some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country. In the case of K-12 education, cases are often fought between the teachers unions and a coalition of parents–each side is well-organized, committed, and can find political allies relatively easily. Almost every municipality has its own teachers union, which feed into larger regional and national union structures. By contrast, academia’s umbrella union, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), only has chapters in a few dozen of the thousands of American colleges across the nation. AAUP aims to advocate for professors but it has nowhere near the political sway of K-12 teachers’ unions.

What are the arguments for preserving the current system?

Advocates for preserving the tenure track argue that it is the most effective defense against “anti-intellectualism” in academia. Without tenure, professors may be fired simply for having controversial opinions–Professor Jonathan R. Cole of Columbia University explains:

Tenure grew up in the first two decades of the 20th century in response to the abusive use of power by university presidents and Trustees who were free to fire professors for almost any reason, most often because of their social and political views…in the past decade, strong opposition to the War in Iraq and Afghanistan led to sanctions and dismissals of non-tenured faculty at American universities…f we demand conformity and orthodoxy among our professor, and we fail to protect them when they play the critical role that is at the heart of a great university, then the quality of our institutions of higher learning will inevitably decline.

Proponents of the tenure track also argue that providing tenure retains good teachers and attracts teachers of a higher quality to a given school, although this argument is often applied to K-12 schools rather than higher education. Tenure provides economic stability that makes the teaching profession more attractive, encouraging our brightest minds to give back to the next generation through teaching.

All of these arguments present valid reasons for preserving tenure, but critics worry that none of them address why tenure-track academia has become such an exclusive club in the United States. If tenure is such a beneficial system, why are universities so hesitant to expand it? Universities have the right to deny tenure if they find the candidate to be a bad professor, but if they are turning away qualified candidates merely to cut costs, the tenure system appears to have strayed far from its original goals.

Conclusion

In the twenty-first century, higher education has shifted from an option to almost an inevitable step in the lives of many high school students. As we send more and more students off to four-year colleges, it is critical we understand exactly where their tuition money is going and what they are paying for when they enroll in a course. Will they be greeted by a professor who is well-prepared, enthusiastic, and supported by the administration or by a professor who can barely present a coherent lesson–either because tenure has left them complacent or because the stressful nature of adjunct teaching has left them physically and mentally exhausted? We owe to it both students and teachers to create environments where talent is recognized and rewarded.  The tenure system needs to be debated and reformed both within individual universities and on a national level.  Unless we open this dialogue soon, there’s concern that we’ll see American universities mutate from beacons of learning and opportunity into inefficient programs that value cost-efficiency over education.

Resources

Primary

U.S. House of Representatives: The Just In Time Professor: A Staff Report Summarizing eForum Responses on the Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education

Additional

AFT Higher Education: The Growth of Full-Time Nontenure-Track Faculty

National Education Association: The Truth about Tenure in Higher Education

The  Atlantic: The Adjunct Revolt: How Poor Professors Are Fighting Back

Forbes: Top 10 Reasons Being A University Professor Is A Stressful Job

Inger Bergom and Jean Waltman: Satisfaction and Discontent: Voices of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

AFT: How Due Process Protects Teachers and Students

The Washington Examiner: Unions Suffer Loss in Teacher Tenure Court Case

A Coalition on the Academic Workforce: A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members: A Summary of Findings on Part-Time Faculty Respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors (2012)

Slate: Finishing School: The Case for Getting Rid of Tenure

The Huffington Post: Why Academic Tenure is Essential for Great Universities

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Professor in Name Only: Teaching Without Tenure in American Universities appeared first on Law Street.

Last month, the lower house of the Italian parliament approved a bill that will let children born in Italy to immigrant parents receive citizenship if their parents have been residents in the country for at least five years.  If this bill passes in the Italian Senate, it will undo the principle of jus sanguinis (under which citizenship is only granted to those who have Italian ancestors) that has historically prevented children of immigrants from receiving full citizenship.

As the law stands today, children of immigrants, including those born in Italy, are given the permesso di soggiorno–a temporary residency card (the same one that study abroad students and short-term contractors receive) instead of an EU passport. Children cannot even apply for Italian citizenship until they come of age at 18. The application process takes years–waiting in line, submitting the same forms over and over, and living in fear of being arrested for not having the proper documentation. While they wait for their citizenship applications, these members of the “second generation” are not allowed to travel outside of the country. If the child of an immigrant is stopped by the police and they are not carrying the correct documents, they may be deported to their “country of origin”–even if they were born in Italy. Jus sanguinis is creating a generation of disenfranchised, second-class citizens. Filippo Miraglia, vice-president of ARCI, an organization that promotes social integration, explains that:

People born in Italy to foreign parents must now wait until they are 18 years old to request citizenship and they must have lived in Italy throughout their youth, and at least one of the parents must have a long-term permit to stay in Italy, must have a job, must own their home, and have no outstanding legal issues. And even then they can be turned down for subjective reasons based on the person processing the request.

Even in the rare case that these people obtain their documents, they still face widespread discrimination that is rarely addressed in the political sphere. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Italian government has failed to take any effective action against racist and xenophobic violence over the past several years. There are relatively few political champions working to expand immigration rights for the second generation. Both the Northern League and Forza Italia have been adamant that immigration is negatively impacting Italy and have referred to the influx of immigrants over the past several decades as an “invasion.” Silvio Berlusconi made a series of racist comments during his time in power that reveal how little much of the Italian political elite care about creating a racially integrated society.

The new bill that has passed through the House is promising but without sufficient support in the Senate, it will lose momentum and fade into oblivion without making the slightest impact. Organizations like Rete G2  and ARCI  advocate for the rights of the second generation, but they have no representatives within Parliament to argue their case. Immigrants make up about 7 percent of the Italian population, yet they are largely excluded from political participation, the only arena in which they can fight for their own citizenship and security.

Before we dismiss Italian immigration policy as draconian and outdated, consider that over two dozen other countries use jus sanguinis (sometimes referred to as leges sanguinis) to determine citizenship. American citizens take for granted that nearly all of us receive birthright citizenship, but in an age where approximately 13 percent of the American population is comprised of immigrants, we too have to pause to assess the path to citizenship. This week, after a federal court overturned President Obama’s efforts to protect five million undocumented immigrants from deportation, the President has asked the Supreme Court to hear the case during its current term. The process of getting a green card and a work permit is arduous and requires patient navigation of a complex bureaucracy, but at least our legislative branch has moved to expedite the process and incorporate more immigrants into the legal citizenry. Our citizenship application, though complex and by no means perfect, is a dream compared to the Italian process.

Donald Trump’s threat to build a wall along the Mexican border earlier this year struck many of us as ridiculous, yet the Italian government has already built just such a wall to protect their borders–they have merely done so using an inefficient bureaucracy and institutionalized racism instead of bricks and mortar.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Dangers of Jus Sanguinis: Outdated and Restrictive Immigration Policy in Italy appeared first on Law Street.

America’s favorite (or least favorite, depending on who you ask) blonde is back in the headlines this week: Taylor Swift is being sued by musician Jessie Braham over the lyrics to her song “Shake it Off.” Even though neither the lyrics nor the melody of Braham’s song are identical to Swift’s song, he has launched a lawsuit worth $42 million, and has also demanded he receive writing credit on Swift’s song. Braham’s case seems less than credible and with the massive legal resources at her disposal, it is almost inevitable that Swift will never pay him a cent–yet Swift’s case is only the latest in a string of high profile intellectual property lawsuits involving pop stars.

Earlier this month, Jay-Z and Timbaland defeated a lawsuit brought against them by Osama Ahmed Fahmy, who claimed the duo’s song “Big Pimpin'” had infringed upon the copyright of his uncle Baligh Hamdi’s song “Khosara Khosara.” Timbaland had already paid $100,000 in 2001 to secure the usage of the flutes from Hamdi’s song as a sample for the track, but Fahmy argued that the rights to the sample were invalid. After testimony from both Jay-Z and Timbaland, the judge threw the case out. Fahmy’s lawyer announced plans to appeal the decision, but with the massive legal power behind the hip-hop duo, Fahmy is fighting an uphill battle.

Copyright lawsuits against singers and songwriters are nothing new–but what are the legal bases for these kinds of suits? Read on to learn about the history of copyrights in music and the current cases in play.

The Complexities of a Copyright Case

A copyright:

Protects a literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictoral or graphic, audiovisual, or architectural work, or a sound recording, from being reproduced without the permision of the copyright owner…the author(s) may transfer the copyright to any other party if she(they) choose(s) to do so. Subject to certain limitations, the owner of a copyright has the sole right to authorize reproduction of the work, creation of a work derived from the work, distribution of copies of the work, or public performance or display of the work. This right lasts for the life of the author plus fifty years; or in the case of a copyright held by an entity, for seventy-five years.

Copyright law is well-defined and there is a substantial legal precedent in the U.S. that protects authors from losing the rights to their content. However, modern music relies heavily on multiple producers and record labels, instead of a single artist recording and copyrighting their work. Increasing the number of “authors” increases the complexity of the copyright and leaves more openings for copyright infringement suits in the future.

Music has also been transformed by the introduction of sampling–taking pieces from a pre-existing song and incorporating them into the melody of a new song. Sampling in modern American music was born in the 1970s, as hip hop DJs experimenting with multiple turntables mixed samples from older songs with newer hip hop records. The 1980s created a new variety of dance and pop music, and sampling spread quickly from the alternative world of hip hop into the mainstream. When so many hit songs are reliant on samples, it is difficult to discern where sampling ends and copyright infringement begins. Most artists pay for the rights to sample a given track, but there are many pieces that are considered part of the public domain or that are old enough that artists assume that the copyright has expired on them, making them fair game for an unlicensed sample. There is also a “50 second/5 second, 8 bar/1 bar” myth in the music industry that informs artists that if they use brief enough clips of another song, it does not technically count as a sample and they do not need to file for the privilege to use that song. In reality, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2004 that:

The use of a two-second sample was an infringement of the sound recording copyright. The court went further stating that when it came to sound recording there was no permissible minimum sanctioned under copyright law.

Major pop artists who have to promote albums and perform in the public eye should be less likely to commit copyright infringement. They are signed to major labels that have impressive legal departments, are surrounded by handlers who vet all of their songs and work with production teams that are familiar with the intricacies of copyright law.  Yet prominent members of the music world still violate copyright law, both on purpose and unintentionally. The “Blurred Lines” case of 2015, which resulted in Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams paying $5.4 million in damages to Marvin Gaye’s family, represents the ambiguous nature of copyright law in pop music. Thicke and Williams did not directly sample Gaye’s hit “Got to Give it Up” but they claimed that they were “inspired” by Gaye’s work. It is not up to the legal system to police what inspires an artist, but that word can cover all manner of sins. Let’s examine the 1950s and 1960s as a case study of what happens when musicians are “inspired” by their contemporaries–and disregard copyright law on their way to the recording booth:

Copyright Conflict and Rock and Roll 

Copyright infringement is by no means a recent trend in the music world. In the 1950s, copyright law was hardly the organized mechanism that it is today and it was not applied to protect all races and genders equally. Well-publicized lawsuits regarding copyright infringement may seem like a recent development, but the theft of intellectual property has been thriving for decades in the music industry. One of the most infamous cases of plagiarism in American musical history involves black jazz and blues musicians of hte 1950s. Examine, for example, Chess Records, the Chicago-based record label that launched Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Etta James, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf. The artists signed to the Chess Records label were pioneers of blues and rock and roll, influencing countless musicians, including the Rolling Stones, who named their band after one of Muddy Waters’ original songs. Although Chess Records’ musicians were legends in their own time, they were often denied paychecks or paid significantly less than their white contemporaries. Furthermore, some musicians blatantly stole content from the Chess Records stable. Both Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry filed suit against multiple artists for stealing their melodies and lyrics–the most famous of these lawsuits was leveled against the Beach Boys for their unlicensed use of the melody from Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” in their song “Surfin’ USA.”

Then there is the problematic nature of Elvis Presley’s success. It is obvious that Elvis was an incredible talent who shaped modern music, yet his success also relied greatly on black rock and roll music. The famous song “Hound Dog” was in fact originally recorded by “Big Mama” Thornton and Elvis’ version was intended to be a cover, yet history has painted his rendition as the original. Presley openly acknowledged that his music was inspired by black pioneers yet he has consistently received a far greater share of the credit for the rock and roll revolution than any of his black contemporaries. Elvis did not invent the style in which he sang and danced, he simply made it popular with white audiences. Elvis did not directly infringe upon the lyrics or melodies of other artists, but imagine if he was singing on stages across the country today. Would Thicke and William’s “inspiration” argument apply to his music or would he be taken to court? If music is a medium that incorporates the most exciting aspects of our predecessors’ lyrical and melodic abilities, their stage presence and public personas, where do we draw the line between a heartfelt tribute and plagiarism? These are still questions we struggle to answer today.

Modern Copyright Laws

Modern copyright legislation has expanded and adapted to protect authors regardless of race or record label.  Beginning in the 1990s, the Supreme Court and host of other appellate and circuit courts ruled on various intellectual property cases in the music industry, largely coming down on the side of the authors. In 2012, the introduction of SOPA and PIPA represented a conscious legislative shift towards protecting intellectual property in the Internet age. In 2015 alone, ten bills have been proposed to expand copyright holders’ privileges and protections. However, despite this extended legislative protection, authors may still struggle to receive damages in a lawsuit. The Blurred Lines case was exceptional because it is one of only a handful of music copyright infringement cases in the past decade in which significant damages were awarded to the defendant. The defendants (Marvin Gaye’s family) had access to a powerhouse of a legal team, but not every author has access to such representation. Without sufficient funds and skilled legal representatives, many authors may not be able to pursue a lengthy and bureaucratic court battle.

Conclusion

Copyright lawsuits are not a novel phenomenon in American music. While the spike in high-profile musical lawsuits in the past two years may suggest that litigation is becoming more popular in the music industry, it is less the lawsuits themselves that are garnering our attention than the artists. When major pop stars are put on trial for copyright infringement, the spotlight is thrown onto the complex and unpredictable nature of intellectual property law. However, that focus only stays on the issue for as long as the pop star takes the stand–the minute they are acquitted, we lose interest in their copyright compliance. Many cases of copyright infringement are flimsy or invalid, but it is important to treat them with respect.  Our favorite musicians may make us dance and cry and air guitar, but they don’t have the right to profit off of other’s hard work.

Resources

Betsy Rosenblatt: Copyright Basics

Thomas Kennedy: The History of Sampling

CNN: Haters gonna sue: Taylor Swift hit with copyright infringement lawsuit

Manatt Phelps and Philllips LLP: Blurred Lines-The Sequel: Post-Trial Rulings Edition

Time: Elvis Rocks. But He’s Not the First

The Atlantic: Getting Elvis’s Legacy Right

Michelle Fabio: 8 Basic Facts Every Musician Should Know About Copyright Law

USA Today: Jay Z Prevails in Major Copyright Case

Mita Carriman: 4 Music Law Myths That Indie Musicians Need To Unlearn

Stanford University Libraries: Copyright Law Changes that May Affect You

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Copyrights, Sampling and Rock ‘n’ Roll: Intellectual Property in the Music Industry appeared first on Law Street.

In June of 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office cancelled six federal trademark registrations for the Washington Redskins, declaring the team name “disparaging to Native Americans.”  This ruling was reinforced earlier today and while owner Dan Snyder is scrambling to defend the trademark, this ruling will unfortunately not actually force Snyder to change the name of the team.

Stripping the team of the trademark is an important first step, but there has been no other legal action leveled against the team that will result in an official name change. Snyder and team President Bruce Allen have doubled down on preserving the team name, finding allies in presidential candidates Donald Trump and Jeb Bush. Despite overwhelming protest from the Native American community (and the American populace in general), it seems like the leadership of the team is determined to retain the name by any means necessary. In 2013, Snyder released a letter claiming that:

After 81 years, the team name ‘Redskins’ continues to hold the memories and meaning of where we came from, who we are, and who we want to be in the years to come.  We are Redskins Nation and we owe it to our fans and coaches and players, past and present, to preserve that heritage.

In a nation where there are infinite loopholes that let teams retain offensive names, the Redskins are an omnipresent reminder of exactly how far we still have to go to create and protect racial equality. Snyder’s disconnect from the reality of the American political landscape and the importance of inclusive language is nothing short of disturbing. Eighty-one years of ignoring organized protest against a racial slur isn’t a legacy, it’s a travesty. Snyder “owes” nothing to the “nation”–football fans turn up to games because they want to see their favorite players win, not because they are demonstrating solidarity with the management’s decision to stay on the wrong side of history. His decision to retain the name is purely financial, which is exactly why he has fought so hard to retain the trademarks.

Snyder appears to be fully aware of the nonsensical nature of his claim, as evidenced by his establishment of the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation in 2014, which is dedicated to providing resources to Native communities across the country.  If the term “Redskins” is truly a term full of memories and heritage, why would he use the term “Original Americans” when establishing his foundation?  The contradictory nature of the Foundation’s name reveals that Snyder is not ignorant of the offensive nature of the slur. The Foundation is a transparent attempt to assuage his guilt and pacify Native American activists. Despite Snyder’s efforts to build a positive PR strategy, a new generation of Native youth is growing up surrounded by the slur–seeing it on television screens, t-shirts, and toys across the country. Constant use of the slur is not only frustrating for this generation, it endangers their perception of safety and their ability to learn. If Snyder truly wants to clear his conscience and make peace with the protesters, he’ll need to put in more than minimal effort. This is not a minor gaffe or an honest mistake. The use of a racial slur in the team’s name is a conscious action, which prioritizes profit over equality and inclusion.

Not everyone subscribes to the idea of karma, but if there ever was a case for its existence, it is the Washington Redskins. Since Dan Snyder purchased the team, the team has lost spectacularly and consistently. There are dozens of reasons to change the team’s name, but seeing as none of them have yet swayed management, I’d like to put forward a new one:

Snyder, perhaps if you took a racial slur off of your helmets, your jerseys, your field and your merchandise, the stars would align in your favor and you would be able to win a game.

I hate to think that such an insane idea could actually impact Snyder’s attitude, but at this point, it’s not a stretch to think that a man this deluded about the reality of the world believes that stars can control his fate.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Changing The Redskins Mascot: Washington, D.C.’s Greatest Embarrassment appeared first on Law Street.

Artisti Ai Weiwei is back in the headlines this week for his battle with Lego over “censorship and discrimination.” According to the artist’s Instagram, he requested a large-scale shipment of Legos in September, but was denied because Lego does not support the use of the blocks for “political works”. However, Weiwei argues that Lego dismissed him for financial gain: the company announced plans to build a Legoland in Shanghai this month.

Ai Weiwei planned to use the blocks for an upcoming exhibition in Melbourne but without a bulk shipment from the company, completing the installation on time seemed impossible. Overnight, the #legoforaiweiwei crowdfunding movement was born. The news spread like wildfire across social media, with fans around the world volunteering to donate their own Legos to the artist. Ai Weiwei is now establishing collection points, the first of which is a parked car in Beijing, where fans can drop off blocks. Crowdfunding has, until now, been a cash transaction–Kickstarter and GoFundMe let donors add to a recipient’s bank account, not their stash of plastic toys. Does #legoforaiweiwei signify a shift in crowdfunding or is it an isolated phenomenon?

Who is Ai WeiWei?

In order to understand his fans’ enthusiasm, it is first necessary to explore Ai Weiwei’s artistic and political importance. Weiwei, a Beijing native, has been an active artist since the 1970s, beginning his career with film and animation studies but ultimately focusing on sculpture and architecture. Weiwei’s work has explored topics such as human rights and freedom of expression, but his artwork is not the only factor in his transformation into one of China’s most prominent dissidents. In 2006, he launched a controversial blog that openly criticized the Chinese government, signifying his transition from an apolitical artist to a political figure. One of centerpieces of his blog was the “Citizen’s Investigation” he launched to explore the inefficient response of the government to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Weiwei attempted to testify in court in support of fellow dissident Tan Zuoren, but was beaten so violently by the police he had to receive emergency brain surgery in Munich to combat internal bleeding. His blog was shut down in 2009 and in November 2010, Weiwei was briefly placed under house arrest.

A year later, Weiwei was arrested for unclear reasons–it was initially reported he tried to leave the country without the proper documents but the Foreign Ministry later claimed he was arrested for economic crimes. Weiwei was held for two months without being formally charged with a specific crime. The arguably false pretenses on which Weiwei were arrested sparked international outrage and led to the creation of FreeAiWeiWei.org and FakeCase.com. After a three-month sentence for “tax evasion,” Weiwei was released from prison but was forbidden from leaving Beijing for at least a year. For several years, Weiwei’s movements were closely monitored and restricted by the government, until July 2015, when his passport was returned and he was permitted to leave the country. Unfortunately, Weiwei’s freedom may only be superficial–this October, Weiwei found multiple listening devices in his Beijing studio.

Crowdfunding and Art

Over the past several years, artists have taken advantage of the crowdfunding movement to finance everything from studio space to paintbrushes. There are even crowdfunding websites tailored to the needs of the art community. When artists want to sell their work, they can use Etsy and Amazon’s new “Handmade” marketplace to set their own prices and connect with individual clients. As the artistic process becomes more reliant on digital interactions, art becomes a more attractive and financially stable source of income.

Yet Ai Wewei’s case is unique in that he was not sent funds via PayPal or Venmo that he then translated into a creative product. He was explicitly banned from purchasing Legos in bulk, which required others to not just send him money but to deliver the physical components of his artwork to him. This is a far greater commitment than anything artists have received thus far from the crowdfunding movement. Granted, dropping off Legos in an abandoned car has a certain adventurous appeal that doesn’t parallel with delivering palettes and canvases to an artist’s door. Yet, if Ai Weiwei’s fans feel comfortable going the extra mile to ensure he can complete his installment, will other popular artists receive the same support? Weiwei did not explicitly ask for donations–that occurred organically through social media. Should other prominent artists who promote their art as a political tool receive the same donations? This time next year, Yayoi Kusama and Shepard Fairey may be getting paint delivered to them in the mail by fans every week instead of buying their own–but I doubt it. The impetus for #legoforaiweiwei emerged not from Ai Weiwei asking for Legos, but from Lego’s response to his request.

Lego’s Complicated Relationship with Art and Politics

Ai Weiwei used Lego blocks in his 2014 project Trace, which presented massive portraits of 176 political prisoners across the globe.  In the wake of this week’s scandal, Lego spokesperson Roar Rude Trangbaek said

We refrain — on a global level — from actively engaging in or endorsing the use of Lego bricks in projects or contexts of a political agenda…. [we do not accept] donations or support for projects — such as the possibility of purchasing Lego bricks in very large quantities, which is not possible through normal sales channels — where we are made aware that there is a political context.

Although Lego did not block Weiwei’s 2014 exhibition, they have asked other artists not to use their products in artwork in the past. Multiple political and advertising campaigns have used Lego characters and blocks, only to be asked by Lego to remove their photos and videos. Legos were also used in the infamous model of a concentration camp created by Zbigniew Libera in 1996. In Libera’s case, Lego donated bricks to the artist but had no idea what the piece would ultimately become. Once the final product was revealed, Lego attempted to prevent the exhibition of the artwork.

While it is clear that Lego’s leadership is uncomfortable being associated with controversy, they are usually responsive to consumer complaints. After a seven-year-old girl wrote a letter complaining about the lack of female Lego action figures, Lego promptly launched a set of female scientist toys that promote gender parity in STEM fields. With the massive outpouring of support for Ai Weiwei, it would be smart for Lego to adapt and roll with public sentiment–yet at the same time, if Weiwei’s fans are purchasing Legos in massive amounts to drop off at donation centers, the company still turns a profit. The initial pressure from Weiwei’s fans may have seemed like a public relations disaster, but now that Weiwei’s project is steaming ahead,  Lego has no reason to acquiesce to Weiwei’s demands.

Weiwei’s fans seemingly reacted strongly to Lego’s statement because it contradicted their past involvement in Weiwei’s work. Fans immediately categorized the company as a hypocritical lackey of the Chinese regime. It was ultimately a perceived violation of morals and free speech that led Weiwei’s fans to crowdfund the Lego project. A quick scroll through Instagram reveals that the artist’s fans consider Lego’s refusal to be a demonstration of solidarity with Chinese oppression. With Lego painted as a capitalistic demon shaking hands with a corrupt government by many,  it is no wonder that fans have had a strong reaction. Ai Weiwei’s popular appeal lies not only in his talent as an artist but in his ability to mobilize political sentiment. Most artists don’t have a complicated past with a major company nor do they have a fan base with strong political and moral beliefs–therefore, Weiwei’s case should be considered an isolated incident, not the start of a new age of crowdfunded art. An artist running short on supplies does not pack the same emotional punch as a man only just freed from prison being denied his right to freedom of speech. Ai Weiwei has done a masterful job of morphing the Lego project from an artistic statement into a grassroots political movement.  Donating Legos lets fans protest the Chinese regime, but not in a way that puts them in any danger or requires a significant time commitment. Ai Weiwei may have found the solution to the collective action problem: let them buy toys.

Conclusion

Ai Weiwei’s artwork and political activism makes him a controversial figure but that does not necessarily give Lego the right to deny his request for a bulk purchase. Weiwei’s fans have reacted with a powerful, well-organized display of support by buying him individual Legos but their donations do not signify a larger shift in the crowdfunding movement. Artwork that is tied to political motivations can elicit a strong reaction and rally supporters around a cause, but in this case, it has not changed the policies of the Lego corporation.

Resources

Primary

Instagram: Ai Weiwei

FreeAiWeiWei

Additional

CNN: Ai Weiwei is not alone: LEGO’s history of hiding from politics.

Barnaby Martin: Hanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei.

The Guardian: Ai Weiwei

For-Site Foundation: Trace.

BoingBoing: The World’s Most Controversial Lego Model

The Atlantic: Ai Wei Wei vs. Lego

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post GoFundAi: Crowdfunding and Ai Weiwei’s Battle with Lego appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, when Mark Zuckerberg announced his new TechPrep project, my brilliant sister turned to me and said “Zuckerberg having a daughter is probably the greatest thing that ever happened to the world.”

That may seem like a hyperbolic comment but let’s take a look at Zuckerberg’s new project: a website designed to make coding a more inclusive field and teaching the next generation how to code while they are young. TechPrep aims at diversifying the tech world, reaching out to Black and Hispanic populations, women, and low-income communities. If it is successful, it may transform Silicon Valley from the stomping grounds of white twenty-somethings wearing stained hoodies into a cosmopolitan center that finally includes those who have been barred from the coding world in the internet age. The site is designed to connect with parents as well as their children, encouraging them to ask for computer science courses at their schools and asking them to support their children’s efforts. Zuckerberg’s past philanthropic efforts never emphasized parent participation. It’s hardly a stretch to think that Zuckerberg designed this project with his daughter in mind, hoping to make the coding world more inclusive for her as she grows up within it. Most parents want to make the world a better place for their children, and Zuckerberg is no exception.

Zuckerberg has spent the past five years donating generously to education–his infamous $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools has been dissected at length in Dale Russakoff’s “The Prize“—but this is the first time he has stepped forward to launch his own community outreach initiative. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are also launching a K-12 school in Palo Alto designed for low-income students (tuition will be free and healthcare services will be provided for all students). Like TechPrep, the school promotes parent involvement, offering parent-inclusive activities for infant and toddler students. Chan is the mastermind behind the project, with a passion for education and healthcare–she taught elementary school science, ran an after-school program in a housing project and worked as a pediatrician in a low-income area. Chan’s experience gives the project credibility while Zuckerberg’s commitment guarantees efficiency. A well-funded school with educated leadership? This is a fairy tale that could only come true in Silicon Valley.

Before TechPrep and “The Primary School,” Zuckerberg’s donations to education were massive and undeniably made with the best intentions, but lacking organization and creativity. Throwing money at the Newark Public School system, without oversight or active involvement, was a recipe for disaster. Zuckerberg had no experience with the administration or bureaucracy of the school system, therefore he had no idea which changes would be most effective and how long it would take to implement them.  He thought teachers would be the linchpin of educational reforms but had no concept of the power and obstinacy of teacher’s unions. The Newark project essentially crashed and burned because he jumped into philanthropy without sufficient research on the realities of the challenges he was hoping to solve. In contrast, TechPrep holds a greater potential for success because it capitalizes on Zuckerberg’s existing skill set–of course the man who launched the social media revolution should train the next generation of coders. Of course the person with the most knowledge on the subject should be in charge. TechPrep is the ideal successor to the Newark fiasco. Zuckerberg has learned his lesson about inefficient philanthropy and is going back to doing what he is best at: innovating in front of a computer screen.

Zuckerberg’s child will be tantamount to a First Daughter–celebrated as an icon, photographed like a movie star, and referred to on a first-name basis by complete strangers. With parents like Zuckerberg and Chan, it is almost certain that this child will be working hard and achieving from an early age. For all we know, the Zuckerberg baby may unlock the cure to cancer, undo global warming and make pigs fly. But even if she doesn’t do all those things, we are already in this baby’s debt. This child has her father-to-be thinking creatively about how to level the playing field in education–and nothing is more promising than a day when Mark Zuckerberg is on his A-game.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Mark Zuckerberg’s Baby May Save the World appeared first on Law Street.

Last week, a report obtained by the Washington Post revealed that there have been seven sexual assaults reported within the last year in a Marine Corps unit that was specifically designed to study how to best integrate women into combat roles. The report rocked the Marine Corps, which had just published a study claiming that sexual assault in mixed-gender units is no higher than in the Marine Corps as a whole. That study was by no means a statistical analysis to brag about–for years, the Marine Corps has had the highest rate of sexual assault against women in the armed forces.

The gender-integrated unit was meant to be a shining example of how much the Marine Corps has matured and adapted to protect women who serve, but it has now become a harsh reminder of the prevalence of sexual violence in combat.  The unit in question was comprised of approximately 100 women and 300 men and underwent training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, which is the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast, (on a weekday there may be as many as  100,000 people at Camp Lejeune and at the neighboring air station) before training in California.

Six of the seven assaults discussed in the Post report were reported anonymously, which is often considered the safer option among survivors of sexual assault, especially in cases where the survivor has to be in constant contact with the assailant in the workplace. According to a recent Pentagon survey on sexual assault, 62 percent of women who reported being sexually assaulted experienced retaliation.  It is twelve times more likely that a sexual assault survivor in the military will be retaliated against than it is likely their attacker will be prosecuted for a sex offense. Even for those survivors who report their assault, justice is rarely delivered.  A 2014 RAND survey found that 45 percent of survivors were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their chain of command’s response after they reported their assault. Read on to learn about the issue of sexual assault in the Marine Corps, the newest controversial report, and the considerations moving forward.

Welcome to Camp LeJeune

Before the Marine Corps continues its efforts to meet President Obama’s goal to integrate women into all combat positions or provide specific exemptions by 2016, a spotlight must be placed on the unit that trained at Camp Lejeune. Camp Lejeune is not the only military base where sexual assault has taken place (and the report does not cite specifically where the assaults took place) but as one of the largest bases in the country, its policies provide an important glimpse into the culture of sexual assault awareness in the Marine Corps.  It is obviously easier to police smaller bases, but one would hope that the larger Marine bases serve as models for procedure across the country.

Camp Lejeune, built in 1941, has a history of conflict and scandal. From 1957 to 1987, the water on base was contaminated with over 70 chemicals that poisoned Marines and their families (the staff on base did not comply with regulations on the dumping of chemicals). In 2012, the Janey Ensminger Act was passed to compensate the hundreds of people who were victims of the contamination but Camp Lejeune will forever be remembered for its failure to respond to residents’ claims sooner. Camp Lejuene was also the site of a military riot between black and white Marines on July 20, 1969 during which fifteen Marines were injured and one man was left dead. In the wake of the riot, the Marine Corps reformed race relations, but once again it was criticized for taking too little action, too late.

The modern Camp Lejeune is a thriving military community that usually makes headlines for its major pediatrics center, innovative renewable energy program and commitment to Marine families. However the size of the base, and the constantly rotating military population, makes it difficult to police effectively. Camp Lejeune was the site of 70 cases of sexual assault in 2012, a figure that has held relatively consistent in the intervening years.  Sexual assault cases account for approximately 60 percent of the caseload for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) unit on base. Earlier this year, Camp Lejeune hosted a 5K run to raise awareness for sexual assault and promoted April as Sexual Assault Awareness Month. However, the administration on base has yet to release a statement on the sexual assaults that were reported by the Post.

Camp Lejeune is as large and well-organized as a medium-sized city (in fact, Jacksonville, NC, the nearest city, has a smaller population than that of the base–only 70,000 people) and therefore it has to address sexual assault as a serious threat to its population. Camp Lejeune operates a 24/7 Sexual Assault Hotline and connects military families with support groups, as well as all the resources that the Marine Corps offers on a national level. Yet in 2012, it was the site of more sexual assaults than any other Marine base in the world. Critics hope that the disproportionate number of sexual assaults that occur at Camp Lejeune will encourage Marine Corps leadership to funnel more resources into sexual assault awareness and prevention, but at this point, Camp Lejeune’s efforts at reform are underwhelming.

Reporting Sexual Assault in the Marine Corps

The Sexual Assault Prevention & Response Program (SAPR) performs outreach to military members who have been victims of sexual assault, connecting survivors with advocacy groups, medical aid, and legal advice.  In a 2013 meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, General James F. Amos claimed that the Marine Corps has witnessed measurable improvements in handling sexual assault cases, but Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) has repeatedly argued that there is a need for reform and restructuring of the SAPR and other outreach initiatives. In 2013, Gillibrand introduced the Military Justice Improvement Act, which aimed to reform the procedures for the process of trial by court-martial, setting up an independent tribunal where survivors can report assault without fear of retaliation. Taking the judicial process out of the original chain of command was a controversial move on Gillibrand’s part–some of her fellow Democrats disagree with implementing a different process. However, Sarah Plummer, a survivor of military sexual assault has stated that:

Having someone within your direct chain of command handling the case, it just doesn’t make sense. It’s like your brother raping you and having your dad decide the case.

For the past two years, the Military Justice Improvement Act has fallen short of the votes needed for it to pass in the Senate–but it has put pressure on the military (specifically the Marine Corps) to improve its sexual assault response programs. According to a 2014 SAPR report, the primary goals of the Department of Defense’s Strategic Plan are prevention, investigation, accountability, advocacy/victim assistance, and assessment. SAPR focuses on developing the advocacy/victim assistance portion of the plan but there have been several concerted efforts to improve prevention: standardizing procedures that prohibit inappropriate relations between recruiters/trainers and recruits/trainees, adapting alcohol policies, and designing a collaborative forum for sexual assault prevention.

Integrating Women in Combat

The Marine Corps is considered the most difficult sector to integrate out of all of the military branches trying to introduce women to combat units. The Marines are 93 percent male, have only a handful of integrated units, and still train male and female recruits separately. The ongoing debate on integrating women into combat (examined in depth by Law Streeter Jessica McLaughlin) has been influenced in recent months by a leaked Marines Corps report that states women in combat may reduce performance, but may also increase decision making in the field. This report did not find sufficient evidence to change the traditional mentality of Marine Corps leadership on integrating women, and it has been predicted that the Marine Corps will ask for exemptions from President Obama’s order (keeping some positions male-only). The Marine Corps have not announced any plans to disband the units designed to test the integration of women in combat, yet once President Obama leaves office, his successor may not place sufficient pressure on the Marines to integrate. If that happens, many fear that the Marine Corps will almost definitely return to their segregated, traditional employment practices. For women who have begun training in combat practices, this would be a major step backwards professionally. Integrating more women into combat positions would not only create parity in the armed forces, it would place massive pressure on the Marine Corps to improve its sexual assault prevention program.

Conclusion

Women have served in the Marines since 1918 (in clerical positions) and were integrated into the Marine Corps in 1948. Their service to their country has paralleled that of their male counterparts, and participating in combat scenarios would let them reach the ultimate level of commitment to their profession. However, if sexual assault continues to plague the Marine Corps’ combat units, women cannot perform their duties and contribute to the mission of the armed forces. The deadline for the armed forces to integrate women into combat is January 2016. If the Marines commit to full integration, they will need to reexamine their approach to sexual assault in order to protect Marines both at home and abroad.

Resources

Primary

Kristin Gillibrand: Comprehensive Resource Center for the Military Justice Improvement Act

Department of Defense:  Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, Fiscal Year 2014

Additional

The Washington Post: In Marine Unit Focused on Integrating Women, Seven Sex Assaults Reported

Scribd: Marine Corps Analysis of Female Integration

Stars and Stripes: Reports of Sexual Assault Made by Marines in Unit Focused on Integration of Women

MarineCorpsTimes: New Data Shows Marine Corps has Highest Rate of Sexual Assault Against Women

Human Rights Watch: US: Military Whistleblowers at Risk

Huffington Post: Military Rape Cases Will Stay Within The Chain Of Command

Huffington Post: The Military Justice Improvement Act Ensures Justice, Despite What Its Critics Say

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Still Not Good Enough: Sexual Assault in the Marine Corps appeared first on Law Street.

Halloween is right around the corner, so it’s time for an annual public service announcement: women’s Halloween costumes are incredibly sexist. The costumes hanging in the aisles of Party City reflect a set of stereotypes that women are sorted into without their consent. Unfortunately, categorizing women in narrow and reductive terms doesn’t end at midnight on October 31st–it is a reality of gender inequality in the workforce year-round.

Consider just how many Halloween costumes reflect prejudices women face on the job every day: women who are focused on their work and don’t “let loose” are ice queens, women who are aggressive when pursuing their tasks are ball busters, and women who demand respect in the workplace are witches. A man with these same patterns of behavior is considered a leader with the potential to succeed in the corporate hierarchy. A man with this behavior is never reduced into any stereotype that can be recreated with polyester and tin foil for trick-or-treating. If there is a Halloween costume that mocks being a hard working male in the corporate environment, I have yet to find it–but a single Google search turns up two dozen different sexy secretary costumes and many a college campus this Halloween will host a “CEOs and Office Hoes” themed party. There are dozens of Halloween costumes that will send feminists reeling from their local shopping centers this October, but perhaps the most offensive is dressing as a “sexy businesswoman.”

A majority of mass-produced Halloween costumes are offensive, but these are truly disturbing because they reveal latent prejudices within our national mentality. In 2015, when there are two female candidates for President of the United States, when there have been positive strides to close the wage gap, when women are feeling more optimistic about their futures in the workplace–being a competent, gainfully employed woman is still a costume? For most women, dressing up to go to work is the way they support themselves and their families, not a fun fashion statement for a party.  Halloween is supposed to be an escape from reality that lets us celebrate kooky, amusing characters–being a woman in the workforce should never be considered “amusing.” Women should feel beautiful, confident and empowered when they get dressed for work. When we turn workplace attire into a costume, we take that power away from women, making them feel like they are dressing up as clowns instead of competent workers. In a work environment where women are constantly ignored, belittled and even threatened, they should at the very least feel comfortable in their own clothes.

Beginning in 2011 at Ohio University, the phrase “we’re a culture, not a costume” has been utilized to protest racist Halloween costumes that trivialize the cultures of African-Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans, as well as others. The campaign caught on relatively quickly and a call to reform Halloween costumes was taken up by a variety of media outlets—including Buzzfeed, which recently produced a set of videos illustrating how offensive these costumes can be. In keeping with the historic tradition of intersectionality between racial equality campaigns and women’s equality movements, this Halloween, I think that the campaign could be extended further–“we’re 50 percent of the population, not a costume”.

Ask a child in your family why Halloween is fun. There’s the candy, getting to stay up late, getting to play games at school–but above all, it is the costume that makes the day special. As we reach our teens and twenties, Halloween becomes more sexualized and wild but we should never forget that Halloween is ultimately a holiday for children. If you teach a little girl that dressing up in business casual is just as ludicrous as dressing up as a fairy princess, what are you teaching her about the opportunities waiting for her in the world?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Employed Women Are Not Halloween Costumes appeared first on Law Street.

Anyone tuning into the first Democratic debate heard hopeful Bernie Sanders’ shout out to Denmark–and Hillary Clinton’s subsequent dismissal of applying standards that work in Denmark to the United States. It’s become common practice for politicians from around the world to constantly applaud Northern Europe as a set of model countries: their healthcare, their political participation, their education, and their commitment to environmental protection. On the environmental front, Northern Europe is a heavyweight that puts its money behind implementing policy that results in substantive change. Denmark, for example, has funneled time and funding into wind energy nationwide and seeks to use 100 percent renewable energies by 2035. No one is claiming that Northern Europe deserves anything less than respect for its efforts–but let’s step away from the Prom Queen of Electric Energy for a moment and talk about the wallflower making moves without attention from the global media. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s turn to Uruguay.

Uruguay is a powerhouse of hydroelectric and wind energy in Latin America, hosting dozens of projects that are pushing alternative energy to the forefront of the country’s economy. In the past fifty years, the country has transformed from an unstable agrarian community plagued by insurgency and economic instability into a thriving, stable leader in the Western hemisphere. Yet because Uruguay is located in “the Global South,” the international community rarely takes the time to applaud its commitment to green energy. Let’s take a minute to catch up on what you’ve been missing in Uruguay:

Uruguay’s Accomplishments

Uruguay, with a population of approximately 3.3 million people, is the second-smallest country on the continent. Good things come in small packages: the State Department ranks Uruguay first in Latin America for democracy, quality of living, peace, press freedom and a host of other attributes. Uruguay is a beacon for political liberty, a financial powerhouse and a force for peace both in the region and abroad (it is one of the highest contributors to UN peacekeeping forces). Plus, Uruguay has legalized marijuana, same-sex marriage, and abortion. Healthcare is both high quality and affordable, as is higher education, and Uruguay considered the safest country in Latin America. The icing on the cake is that Uruguay’s former President José Mujica, who just stepped down in March, was known as the “world’s humblest president” because he lived an extremely modest lifestyle and donated the majority of his salary to charity. Although it’s obviously not perfect, Uruguay has a lot to be proud of: particularly its commitment to alternative energy.

Uruguay and Alternative Energy 

Denmark better watch its back–Uruguay is aiming to get as much as 38 percent of its national power from wind energy by 2017 and that goal appears easily within reach. In comparison, Denmark started shifting to alternative energy in the 1970s and currently gets about 30 percent of its electricity from wind power. Uruguay is aiming to hit the same energy goal in half the time–ambitious, yet seemingly plausible if wind turbine development continues at aggressive rates. Uruguay exists outside of the ongoing tug-of-war between electric energy and fossil fuels that rages in most of South America–as a nation with no significant coal, oil or gas deposits, alternative energy was a necessity. Historically, Uruguay was dependent on Argentina and Brazil for energy imports but the shift to alternative energy is granting Uruguay a path of economic self-reliance at an astounding rate. In fact, Argentina and Brazil may start importing energy from Uruguay soon.

Starting in 2005, Uruguay invested over 3 percent of its GDP each year in overhauling the energy system. This has transformed the nation into a major center for wind turbines and hydroelectric energy. Uruguay’s flat landscape makes it ideal for wind energy, which proved especially important when major droughts disrupted hydroelectricity productivity in 2014. Billions of dollars have flooded into Uruguay in recent years as UTE (the state-owned electric company) grants projects to international bidders looking to create large-scale wind farms. Uruguay has the highest clean energy growth on the continent and it has created this growth without excluding native workers. Uruguay requires that the control centers of these projects are built in Uruguay and that after the first year of operation, 80 percent of maintenance jobs go to local employees. Expanding the job market for local workers is giving the country traction on its path to energy independence. Beyond wind energy, Uruguay has two unique projects in the works: making Carrasco International Airport the world’s first sustainable airport and using electric energy to power all public transport by 2030.

Oil on the Horizon

The 2005-2030 energy plan that Uruguay has been committed to has performed incredibly so far, but national governments have to plan for worst-case scenarios. Uruguay’s worst-case scenario would be abandoning green energy for fossil fuels.  Uruguay, despite its lack of on-shore resources, has been scouted for off-shore drilling to the tune of over $1.6 billion in 3 years. The current administration wants to reach a consensus before committing to oil ventures but with companies such as BP, BG Group, and Tullow Oil knocking on Uruguay’s door, the pressure is rising. Alternative energy is working for Uruguay, but the lure of oil investment is no doubt tempting for the small nation. The transition to oil would lead to a huge shift in the political culture of the country, as new lobbies and political partnerships would open the door for corruption and conflict. Uruguay has made almost unparalleled strides in energy development, yet all those efforts may crumble if the country turns to oil development.

So, Why is No One Cheering for Uruguay?

Why is Uruguay flying under the radar while Northern Europe is lauded on the world stage for its work on alternative energy? One could argue it is because of the size of Uruguay–who is keeping track of a country that small? Well, Latvia and Estonia are both smaller than Uruguay but a quick Google search will turn up a dozen listicles praising these nations’ commitment to green energy. Uruguay may have a small population but that doesn’t mean we dismiss it out of hand. Uruguay has done nothing to anger the international community, on the contrary, it has upheld essentially every possible standard of good governance. So why isn’t everyone planning to retire to Montevideo?

Instead, many suspect that it all comes back to the global North-South divide. The North (Europe, North America, Australia–“the first world”) and the South (Central and Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East–“the third world”) developed in different ways but although economic prosperity has been redistributed over recent decades, the North is still considered the ultimate authority on economic matters. We shed attention on successful European countries that already hold our attention because historically the “global South” has been years behind us in development. We like to think of Latin America in terms of coconuts and jungles rather than a diverse continent with a set of booming economies that rival our own. We are used to Northern European countries succeeding at everything they try their hand at, so watching them succeed at alternative energy implementation is par for the course. However, Uruguay’s success is all the more impressive because it didn’t come from the more stable economy of Northern Europe. Uruguay rebuilt itself after the turbulence of the 1970s–the Tupumaros Marxist guerilla movement, of which Mujica was a part, led a nation-wide insurgency for over a decade–and transformed into not only a regional leader, but to perhaps the most impressive wind development center of the hemisphere. Uruguay is overturning the stereotype of a Latin-American nation plagued by corruption and violence that lags behind the rest of the world. Hopefully, the continuing growth of wind energy in Uruguay will grant it a larger spotlight but until then, the pressure from oil investment places the fate of Uruguay’s energy plan in a vulnerable position. In order to continue creating incredible energy changes, Uruguay must receive more international attention–the media must promote the nation as an ideal location for investment. In the meantime, politicians are going to keep writing love letters to Denmark while Uruguay creeps towards being the most environmentally friendly nation in the world.

Ignoring Uruguay’s achievements is not only insulting to the country, it increases the probability that Uruguay will turn to oil dependency. A concerted effort to recognize Uruguay’s energy achievements will give the nation the public support that it needs, and deserves, to meet its energy goals.

Conclusion

Uruguay is a much-overlooked dark horse when it comes to energy independence. The country’s move toward clean energy threatens to pass its European counterparts, but it doesn’t get nearly as much recognition as European nations. While that may, in part, be because of endemic biases in the United States and Europe, it’s important to recognize the innovative technology being used in the Latin American green-energy haven.

Resources

Primary

Embassy of the United States-Montevideo, Uruguay: Uruguay Rankings

Additional

CountryStats: Uruguay-Introduction

IRENA: Renewable Energy Policy Brief Uruguay

Jean-Pierre Lehmann: Bridging the 21st Century’s North-South Divide

Katell Abiven: Latin America Divided between Oil and Green Energy

Ken Parks: Uruguay Spends $2.6 Billion to Become South America Wind Leader

MercoPress: Uruguay Among the World’s Top Ten Greenest Countries

Pulsamerica: Uruguay:A Record Breaking Wind Power Revolution

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Uruguay’s Green Energy Policy: The World’s Best Kept Secret? appeared first on Law Street.

No one has ever stopped their friend in a parking lot and said, “Quick, take a photo of me with that Prius.” But on the stage of the Fremont warehouse where Elon Musk revealed the Tesla Model X two weeks ago, every smartphone camera in the room was flashing as invitees to the event jostled each other in attempts to take the best Instagram. Tesla Motors is a brand committed to making electric energy exciting, creative and even sexy. Yet Tesla is frequently categorized as a niche product reserved for Silicon Valley that will never create significant change outside of a designated tax bracket.

This perception of Tesla is a key part of green energy’s clique mentality–only a narrow percentage of green activists are considered to be truly making impactful change and other innovators and policymakers get written off as merely jumping on the bandwagon. The stereotype of the aging hippie with a handmade sign and a tie dye shirt is not a comical caricature–it’s a key part of why green energy movements freeze out certain voices and interests. The idea of “selling out” or “going corporate” is so antithetical to the roots of the green energy movement that activists fear even being associated with luxury products. Here lies the paradox of the Tesla Model X: it is an innovative and high performing electric vehicle yet because it is priced as a luxury product, the green energy movement feels uncomfortable endorsing it. Silicon Valley, for all of its flaws, is one of the world’s greatest incubators of alternative energy and technology but in recent years, it has been labeled too elitist and narrowly-focused. Green energy leaders tend to laud the advances of American technology but then proceed to write Silicon Valley off as disconnected from the economic and political realities of energy implementation. Yet this criticism comes without any proposed reforms–Silicon Valley gets dismissed without advice on how to improve.

Take the Model X as an example. After the initial slew of articles describing the features of the Model X, newspapers picked up a second story: the potential $25,000 tax loophole for small business owners who purchase a Model X. The Model X was immediately transformed from a feather in the cap of electric energy into a symbol of corrupt capitalism. The phrase “tax cuts for the rich” is almost a curse word in the green energy world and may create significant backlash against the Model X. Why? Because being “part of the establishment” is the cardinal sin of the green energy movement (even in the case of the Model X, where Tesla is merely following the rules of the IRS tax code). However, opponents of this tax break present no other viable solution to get more drivers behind the wheel of electric vehicles. In fact, tax breaks for electric vehicles are a key part of green energy reforms across the country–so why attack one electric energy tax break while lauding another?

Green energy no longer lives on the periphery–the fact that multiple candidates in the 2016 presidential race have outlined detailed alternative energy plans that reach as far as 2050 is proof that activists have done incredible work in educating policymakers. However, green energy will never match the lobbying power of traditional energy companies if it continues to subscribe to the outdated idea that green energy can’t exist across a broad range of commercial interest–including the luxury market. Environmental activism was born out of populist desire to protect the environment, for both current and future populations, regardless of class, creed, or color. Green energy can’t fully commit to this goal unless it lets go of its own prejudices and accepts that you don’t have to rock a peace sign and long hair to care about alternative energy.

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Fear and Loathing in Green Energy: Prejudice Against the Tesla Model X appeared first on Law Street.