What Happened Today: June 28, 2022
Wind-down of Title IX due process; 48 dead in border crossing; Bringing Abortion Out of the Shadows
The Big Story
The clock is now ticking until the Biden administration enacts its revamped TITLE IX framework, a much-anticipated revision of federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools. As vice president in the Obama administration, Biden played a key role in constructing the punitive “sex bureuacracy” of which TITLE IX was a cornerstone. Released last week by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, the proposed revisions will be put into place in roughly 60 days, following a public comment period. “Our proposed changes would fully protect students from all forms of sex discrimination, instead of limiting some protections to sexual harassment alone,” said Cardona about the expansion of the rules, which significantly broaden what constitutes harassment while eliminating several components of the existing grievance procedure that former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos implemented to enhance due process for the accused.
Sexual harassment under DeVos constituted either quid pro quo abuse, in which someone is propositioned to exchange a sexual favor for some material offer or employment opportunity, or “unwelcome conduct,” a type of harassment “severe [and] pervasive” enough to deny someone equal access to an education. The Cardona rules significantly lower the threshold for what constitutes unwelcome conduct and now include such acts as classroom speech that someone else considers “subjectively and objectively” offensive enough to limit their access to an education.
For those who stand accused, the Cardona rules will remove the requirement to show them the evidence against them, as well as the opportunity for the accuser to bring forward a third party, such as an attorney, who can cross-examine their accusers. The Cardona rules would likewise do away with a live hearing for the accused and reinstate a “single investigator” model, in which one college administrator would collect, evaluate, and decide the case. Critics of the proposal point to the dozens of expelled students who, under the Obama-era framework, went on to win civil court cases against colleges for violations of their due process rights. The proposed regulations would “erase essential due process protections that are required by the Department's current Title IX regulations,” said Joe Chon, the policy director of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “They authorize institutions to forego live hearings, returning to a single investigator model that is incompatible with the basic requirements of fundamental fairness.”
Read More: https://reason.com/2022/06/23/title-ix-rules-cardona-biden-sexual-misconduct-campus/
In the Back Pages: Bringing Abortion Out of the Shadows
The Rest
→ Former Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday after being convicted on sex-trafficking charges related to her role procuring underage women for Epstein to sexually abuse. As part of the role she played with Esptein, Maxwell, a one-time British socialite, helped to host the parties at which the two are believed to have trafficked women, including underage girls, using them to lure powerful men to their gatherings. “I hope my conviction and harsh incarceration brings you closure,” Maxwell, 60, said in court Tuesday, addressing her victims, her dark brown locks cut in a bob. The true nature of the influence operation being carried out by Maxwell and Epstein, including their possible relationship to state intelligence agencies, remains a matter of rampant speculation about which authorities have shed conspicuously little light. Epstein killed himself under mysterious circumstances in 2019 while being held in a federal jail cell in New York City.
→ At least 48 people are dead after being found at the site of an abandoned tractor trailer yesterday in San Antonio, Texas. At least two dozen of the victims were from either Mexico, Guatemala, or Honduras, and authorities suspect they were migrants who had attempted to cross into the United States over the Mexico border. No cause of death has been announced, though authorities suspect heat exhaustion and dehydration played a major role, as the trailer was not air-conditioned and the temperature reached 101 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday. Soon after the initial media coverage of discovery, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott attributed the mass causality to the president, writing on Twitter that the “deaths are on Biden” as a “result of his deadly open-border policies.” Though federal law enforcement agencies ostensibly enforce national immigration policies, more people have crossed over the border so far this year than any year prior. Last month, border agents apprehended 239,000 migrants illegally crossing along the southern border, the most ever apprehended in a one-month period.
Abbott has made immigration law reform and enforcement of illegal crossings at the border of his state with Mexico a prominent focus of his administration, spending billions of Texas dollars to strengthen border patrol.
→ The U.S. military has two major recruiting problems: Only 23% of Americans aged 17 to 24 can meet the baseline standards to be eligible to serve, and out of that already small group, only 9% of those eligible “had any inclination to do so,” according to “an internal Defense Department survey obtained by NBC News.” In the age group targeted for military service, most of the young people disqualified from serving are being kept out by “obesity, drug use, or criminal records.” As Tablet writer Maggie Phillips recently pointed out in The Scroll, inflation has hurt both quality of life and recruiting efforts for the military. Then there is the broader malaise affecting U.S. society from which the military is no longer immune. For decades, as Americans lost faith in the rest of their country’s institutions, the military remained a holdout, the rare government organization that citizens felt they could trust. But that, too, has eroded. A 2021 survey conducted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute found that only 45% of Americans reported having a “great deal of trust and confidence in the military,” a 25-point drop since 2018.
→ QUOTE OF THE DAY: “How do we crown our kings?”
Kanye West in a tribute to Sean Combs, best known as P. Diddy but once also greeted as Puff Daddy, who received the Lifetime Achieve Awards at Sunday night’s BET awards. Wearing a full ski mask, dark glasses, and a hat, West’s appearance came as a surprise because he’s largely avoided the spotlight since abruptly canceling his concert at Coachella earlier this year. Speaking of his long-standing friendship with Combs, Kanye said the elder statesman of hip hop had “inspired so many of my choices.” Watch it here:
→ Sri Lanka’s government has introduced a new mode of scarcity-driven virtual lockdown, with schools forced to close and people told to work from home in an effort to conserve fuel amid a dire shortage and deepening economic crisis. Some have been queuing up for days in the hopes of fueling up. “We can’t earn,” said one man who had been waiting in line outside a gas station for four days. “We can’t feed our families. This is a tragedy. We don’t know where this will end.” While the country has kept some fuel reserves for public transportation, power generators, and medicinal services, it is unclear how long these reserves will last. Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, are now in Sri Lanka discussing the details of a $3 billion aid package.
→ The bidding wars that have blown up the market for homebuyers, often sending prices hundreds of thousands of dollars above asking, have now come to terrorize the United States’ rental market. Would-be buyers encounter limited stock, sky-high prices, and surging mortgage rates, inspiring them to turn to an ever-tightening rental market where they bid against one another and ultimately offer well above the initial rent. In New York City, rent-stabilized apartments can now have their prices raised by 3.25%—the largest rent increase in a decade. Non-stabilized units, meanwhile, can be price-gouged as much as the market can tolerate. Given the low supply and high demand, that is proving to be a fair deal of money. “In any given week, we get over 13,000 leads for only 200 homes available,” said the CEO of one large real estate company, and so the bidding war begins.
→ Move over drones, there’s a new aircraft taking to the sky—or rather, something old-school is making a comeback. Blimps—of which there are approximately only 25 worldwide currently capable of flight—are set for a commercial revival as one of Europe’s largest regional airlines Spain’s Air Nostrum prepares its new fleet of 10 helium airships for liftoff. Capable of transporting 100 passengers each with a range of 4,000 nautical miles, the AIRLANDER 10 is set to begin operating in 2026 and will likely service first short-distance routes in Spain, with possible expansion to other spots in Europe as well as the Pacific Northwest in the United States.
→ NUMBER OF THE DAY: 300,000
The number of NATO troops on “high alert” after the military alliance met this week—a 700% increase in available forces in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Jen Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, has also pledged to put soldiers right on Russia’s borders to buttress the defenses of the Baltic states. Currently guarded by a force of 8,000 soldiers, Baltic leaders have criticized NATO’s lackluster presence in the region, saying that their countries would be “wiped off the map” by Russia, as Estonia’s prime minister put it, if NATO didn’t deploy more troops.
→ During a “private” conversation at the G7 summit, French President Emmanuel Macron told President Biden about a phone call he had with the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. “I’m at a maximum, maximum,” Macron relayed. “This is what he claims.” As President Biden prepares to travel to the UAE and Saudi Arabia next month to implore the OPEC+ countries to boost their oil production, Macron’s phone call adds to a prevailing sense that Biden’s hopes that Saudi Arabia and the UAE might produce more oil and thereby drive down oil prices are foolhardy. After Macron’s comments became public, the UAE’s energy minister made a statement “to clarify that the UAE is producing near to our maximum production capacity based on its current OPEC+ production baseline.” The comments from Macron also pushed up the benchmark rate for crude oil further, with investors anticipating that oil shortages won’t be ending anytime soon.
→ In yesterday’s Scroll, we reported on the shortage of chemical herbicide and fungicide that is hampering North America’s farms, but it is not only chemicals that are in short supply, as the number of bees and beehives is dropping year after year, leading to a huge shortage of these crucial pollinators for fruit production. Farmers and beekeepers in the U.S. and Canada are reporting hive losses of 40% to 90% this year, and in Canada the shortage is already leading to catastrophic losses in the country’s export market of blueberries, a $211 million industry that is the country’s most valuable fruit crop. Farmers are now scrambling to import more bees to mitigate the crisis. “The number of bees we need this year highlights how susceptible the industry is to a disaster situation,” said Rod Scarlett, the executive director of the Canadian Honey Council. “The greater fear is if we have something close to this next year, things like the pollination industry and the fruit crops and even canola seed could be in jeopardy.”
→ MAP OF THE DAY
A broadband assessment report looked at disparities in broadband access and pricing across New York State, with the more orange districts lacking adequate access. The report noted that “the 16 counties in the lowest 25th income percentile, on average, face the highest prices and are provided with the lowest speeds,” while “the 16 counties with the highest incomes, those in the top 25th percentile, benefit from the lowest prices and the greatest speeds.”
→ In February, when Joe Rogan found himself in hot water over conversations about COVID-19 on his podcast, his corporate sponsor, Spotify, stood by his side. “We should have clear lines around content and take action when they are crossed, but canceling voices is a slippery slope,” Spotify CEO Daniel Ek wrote in a message—a position that probably had more to do with Rogan’s role as the most popular podcaster in the country than any deeply held principle, as Spotify’s patronage of Rogan is part of a billion-dollar bet on podcasting (be it from Rogan or the Kardashians) as a major revenue generator. But an internal review of Spotify’s podcasting programs found that they were failing to make the company much money or to attract many new listeners to the platform. As Spotify’s stock continues to fall, dropping almost 60% in 2022 alone, it is now a question whether the company can continue to spend billions on podcasts that don’t produce revenue. “They have quite a bit to go in terms of constructing a mature, functioning, coherent machine,” says Nick Quah, the founder of the podcast newsletter Hot Pod. “The question is whether they’ll be able to do that before investors lose patience.”
→ Wimbledon Watch: On the hunt for a record 23rd Grand Slam, Rafael Nadal moves into the second round after a win today in four sets, while women’s favorite, Iga Swiatek, kept her hot hand going by claiming her 36th consecutive match victory—the longest win streak for a woman since Martina Hingis did it in 1997—dropping only three games as she cruised into the second round today.
Additional reporting and writing provided by The Scroll’s associate editor, David Sugarman
Bringing Abortion Out of the Shadows
What pro-choice activists can learn from the gay rights movement
By James Kirchick
Abortion is not a personal issue for me. As a gay man, I have never had a sexual partner who needed to terminate a pregnancy and, if all goes according to plan, never will. My distance from the risks and rewards of childbearing has meant that I have resisted voicing a strongly held point of view. When pressed, my stance accords with the one held by Bill Clinton and, if public polling is to be believed, the majority of the American public: Abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, I watched a new documentary about an underground abortion network operating in 1960s Chicago that made this most vexatious of moral quandaries register unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The Janes tells the story of a group of young women who defied the Chicago political machine, police department, and Catholic Church to help other women in need of safe, affordable, and illegal abortions. The film opens with one such woman recounting her traumatic experience dealing with the local mob. Speaking over the phone, she had to communicate in code. Did she want a Chevrolet, a Cadillac, or a Rolls Royce, the man on the other end of the line asked, each a euphemism for the quality of the procedure, with the top-of-the-line option costing $1,000 (not a small amount, especially at the time). Able only to afford a Chevy, she was told to show up at a grimy motel room, where the abortionist muttered three sentences: “Where’s the money?,” “Lie back and do as I tell you” and, after he finished, “Get in the bathroom.” She was left bleeding and had to call herself a taxi home.
This situation was ripe for abuse. It was not uncommon for the abortionist—who in most cases was not a medical professional—to demand sexual favors in exchange for his work. Understandably fed up with these appalling circumstances, a group of women banded together to start the film’s eponymous collective, dubbed after the name they told women to ask for when calling their hotline. “There was a philosophical obligation on our part, on somebody’s part, to disrespect a law that disrespected women,” one of the organizers explains. Now that Roe has been overturned, there should be no doubt that women in states where abortion is suddenly illegal will confront conditions similar to those recounted so harrowingly in this film.
As the author of a new book about the Cold War-era gay subculture of Washington, D.C., this all resonated very strongly. Like women seeking abortions in pre-Roe America, gay people once were criminals, and they faced the same antagonists in law enforcement, the government, organized religion, and the medical establishment. (OBGYNs at the time were 95% male, one woman recalls, and doctors were treated “like kings.”) Gay men used to meet each other in public parks and toilets, where they were subject to the murderous predations of hustlers and the entrapment operations of police. Like the women of The Janes, gay people had to develop their own codes of communication and underground networks to ensure their survival, and a group consciousness was similarly forged through common struggle against adversity.
Read more here:
What Happened Today: June 28, 2022
The story about the Janes reminded me of how of the much the culture conflict of the 1960s was a civil war within the Democratic party. Obviously true of segregation versus civil rights. Also true of the Vietnam war. And the state-level conflicts over abortion and, to a lesser extent, birth control, also involved large, traditionally Democratic constituencies in the South and in the heavily Catholic large cities, like Chicago, and states like Connecticut.
You should take a look at what Bari Weiss is doing on the topic.
Not sure if my comment registered, so re-writing it..
But I believe that according to Kinsey, the number of exclusively homsexual adult males was 4% and an additional 6% may have experimented, but was heterosexual in adulthood. I think that's where the 10% comes from, which is much overstated.
The percentage of adult females who were Lesbians was 3% according to Kinsey. I am relying on my reading from almost 40 years ago.