Author: Verna L. Williams

Feminism, Whiteness, and the Women’s March

Post author By Verna L. Williams
Post date 28 Jan 2017
1 Comment on Feminism, Whiteness, and the Women’s March

Guest Contributor: Ashton Tucker (’18)

Suffragettes Frances E. Willard, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 21^st century celebrities Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham.

What do these women have in common?

They’re all, inexplicably, feminist icons. Maybe inexplicably is the wrong word. Although each certainly has advanced or continues to advance womanhood in one way or another, their racism, either intentional or unintentional, often goes unnoticed. They engage in white feminism – a form of feminism that operates as if the experience of white women is universal and that race and class are just added levels of oppression, as opposed to intermingling with gender. The Women’s March on Washington has given me hope that women are embracing difference and inclusion in meaningful and powerful ways.

Tags Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn, Women's March

Intersectionality Social Justice

“Pussy Riot” for Inauguration Day: It’s all about the Beer

Post author By Verna L. Williams
Post date 19 Jan 2017
1 Comment on “Pussy Riot” for Inauguration Day: It’s all about the Beer

So, I’m scrolling through my FaceBook feed the other day and came across an article about women brewers combining efforts to create a “Pussy Riot” beer just in time for the Trump inauguration. I just knew—OK, I hoped—one of my former students was involved. And I was right! Jen Cuesta (’14) is a lawyer by day, brewer by night. With friends Kate Power and Betsy Lay in Denver, Colorado, she co-founded Lady Justice Brewing (Lady J), one of the brewers toasting to a better world as the 45th President takes the oath of office.

Kate Power, Jen Cuesta, and Betsy Lay/Photo by the American Homebrewers Association

Lady J is a “philanthropic brewery”– 100% of its profits for the new beer it debuts at tomorrow’s event, “Making Noise: A Pussy Riot Beer,” will go to the ACLU. I was curious about how a recent law graduate wound up brewing beer for social justice on Inauguration Day, no less. So I contacted Jen. An edited version of my interview follows.

Who and/or what is Lady Justice Brewing?

Lady Justice Brewing is a philanthropic brewery that donates all its profits over costs through a grant-making process to Colorado-based community organizations that promote the status and opportunity of women and girls. Lady J is also a L3C, a limited liability, low-profit company. It is a new tax designation that combines different parts of a for-profit company with the charitable goal of a non-profit.

Tags Lady Justice Brewing, philanthropic brewery, Trump Inauguration

Health Care Reproductive Justice

Finding Coverage and Reassurance– thanks to the Affordable Care Act

Post author By Verna L. Williams
Post date 17 Jan 2017
No Comments on Finding Coverage and Reassurance– thanks to the Affordable Care Act

Guest Contributor: Sara Sheets

For 15 years, neither my husband nor I have enjoyed employer-sponsored health care. He left a stable government job to start his own law practice and I became a self-employed project manager and grant writer. He is still self-employed and I work at a small nonprofit organization without benefits. We’re both doing entrepreneurial work serving our community. The Affordable Care Act has made a real difference in our lives–from ensuring that our daughter won’t be penalized for a cancer diagnosis to putting necessary medical care within our financial reach. Congress should not repeal this important law.

Tags Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, pre-existing condition, Repeal Obamacare

Civil Rights Constitutional Law

Equal Opportunity Offender

Post author By Verna L. Williams
Post date 10 Jan 2017
No Comments on Equal Opportunity Offender

As confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions begin today, some Senators may be tempted to dismiss objections to his elevation as a smear campaign based on ancient history. But, when it comes to Sen. Sessions, the past is prologue. Sessions is the wrong person to be the nation’s top law enforcer.

Tags Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Senator Jeff Sessions, Sessions confirmation hearings

criminal justice Intersectionality

Tyra’s Christmas

For the twenty-second consecutive year, Tyra Patterson will spend Christmas in prison for crimes she didn’t commit. It’s time for Governor Kasich to grant this woman clemency.

northeast-ohio-pre-release-center-cc30078da0b50e9a In 1994, when she was 19, Tyra was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the wee hours of a September morning, Tyra and her friend took a walk and wound up embroiled in a robbery that ended in the murder of 15-year-old Michelle Lai. Tyra left before any gunfire; but police arrested and subjected her to abusive questioning. By the end, they had a confession. A false one. Tyra wasn’t the only young woman who succumbed to the state’s will. Holly Lai Holbrook, the victim’s sister, says police and prosecutors were intimidating and urged her to say what was necessary to put Tyra behind bars.

But the truth that Holly shared at the scene was that Tyra was a bystander. That Tyra played no part in harassing, stealing, or shooting that took her sister.

Now, after living with the contradiction between what she said in court and what she told the police that night, Holly has come forward to recant her testimony, even going so far as writing a letter to Governor Kasich.

Tags David Singleton, Governor John Kasich, mass incarceration, Ohio Justice and Policy Center, Tyra Patterson, wrongful conviction

Constitutional Law Voting rights

Tyranny of the Minority

Guest Contributors:

Nancy Chi Cantalupo and Judith E. Koons, Barry University School of Law

No matter how one interprets the proper purposes and history of the Electoral College, if the electors who make up the 2016 Electoral College want to vote based on either Constitutional or democratic principles—and not just political expediency or blind obedience—they must vote for Hillary Clinton to be President of the United States. If the Electoral College instead proceeds as it has in the modern era, it will elect Donald Trump, who represents, at best, a minority of voters.

Trump lost the popular vote to Clinton by over 2.8 million as of early December, but because of the way the Electoral College now works, 80,000 votes in three states were decisive. All three of these states have faced demands for a recount, an effort funded by nearly 140,000 donors skeptical about the integrity of the original vote count at least in part due to significant, credible evidence that a hostile foreign government engaged in cyberattacks to sway the election in favor of Trump.

A portion of this minority has already proven itself tyrannical in a very real way. In the few weeks since the election was “called” on November 9^th, nearly 900 hate crimes have been directed at immigrants, members of the LGBT community, people of color, Muslims, and women. Over 180 of these crimes have taken place in K-12 schools.

But the hateful threats and violence perpetrated by this minority of the minority are not the only way an Electoral College vote for Trump would enable a “tyranny of the minority.”

Tags Election 2016, electoral college, electors, faithless elector, popular vote

Intersectionality Race Discrimination

Rise Up!

I walked into my office one recent Monday, coffee mug in hand and noticed the red light signaling that a voicemail awaited me.

Has it started already?

That morning, my op-ed about post-election acts of hate on college campuses appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The piece discussed incidents at universities in Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania, complete with hypertext links, and explained why, contrary to conservative pundits, student fears were based on reality and not a temper tantrum about Trump’s victory. I praised institutions for taking action and argued that Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric gave license to misconduct targeting people of color, Muslims, and frankly all the groups the candidate insulted and denigrated on his way to the White House.

Based on prior experiences, I was braced for negative responses from conservative readers in the comments section. In truth, I had planned to avoid those like a Ted Nugent concert. But, a voicemail? Readers usually never called to complain. Maybe I was overreacting. I decided to listen.

It started off innocuously enough.

Tags Election 2016, hate speech, Trump

Immigration Race Discrimination

We’ve Been Here Before!

earl_pro_2

Guest Contributor: Earl Morris II, UC Africana Studies Professor

On November 8, 2016 Donald J. Trump was elected the 45^th President of the United States of America. Many Americans greeted this fact with trepidation Trump’s presidential campaign garnered the favor of groups including, but not limited to, the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis and other White supremacists. Trump became their candidate of choice because of his divisive rhetoric on such groups as Muslims, Mexican Americans, and African Americans. In the aftermath of an election where he won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote by nearly three million, this nation has witnessed a surge in hate crimes.

Trump’s shocking win dismayed not only by the groups mentioned above, but also by many academics experiencing unease and anxiety from campus environments altered in new, troubling ways since the election. Conservative groups have launched an aggressive aggressive campaign that encourages college students to “out” liberal/progressive faculty. Essentially, encouraging and promoting a “hit list” of “unpatriotic” faculty, which places the lives of many faculty engaged in social justice work, whether in the class or via research, in jeopardy.

While events surrounding the 2016 presidential election are causing some to literally fear for the lives and livelihood of themselves and their family and friends, I would be remiss if I did not remind you that, “we’ve been here before!” What I suggest in this brief essay is that contemporary academics can learn from Black Sociology, or Jim Crow sociology, how to navigate this current era of “Trumperica.”

Tags academic freedom, Black Sociology, Donald Trump, Earl Wright II, Election 2016

Gender-based discrimination Immigration Race Discrimination

Calling it Like it is

Corrine Yu

Guest Contributor: Corrine Yu, Managing Policy Director, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Let’s take a quiz. The “alt-right” is:

A new Spotify playlist.
A keystroke shortcut (like Control-Alt-Delete).
A movement that includes and is heavily shaped by white supremacists, anti-Semites, anti-Muslims, nativist, and other extremists.

The correct answer, of course, is “c”. Since the election, a number of news organizations, including the Associated Press and The Washington Post, have sought to clarify the use of “alt-right” or “alternative right.” NonProfit Quarterly wrote a piece on this, as did The New York Times.

As the NonProfit Quarterly piece notes, following the publication of its profile of Richard Spencer, The Washington Post received thousands of comments protesting the description of the white nationalist, white supremacist movement that Spencer says he leads as “alt-right.”

The New York Times had its own case study, which involved its article on the man whom President-elect Trump wants as his chief strategist in the White House—Stephen Bannon. As the executive chairman of Breitbart LLC, Bannon turned the website Breitbart.com into what he described as “the platform for the alt-right.” Times readers tweeted their complaints, as well as emailed the newspaper’s public editor, about the article’s use of the term “populist” to describe Bannon, which seemed to normalize his views.

Nothing is “normal” about the “alt-right” or what it stands for.

Tags alt-right, Corrine Yu, LCCR, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Steve Bannon