tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/virginia-19880/articlesVirginia – The Conversation2023-11-09T18:48:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2172492023-11-09T18:48:39Z2023-11-09T18:48:39ZAbortion rights victories show this issue is unlikely to fade in 2024 elections − 3 things to know<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558413/original/file-20231108-17-safd3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion rights supporters celebrate Issue 1 passing in Ohio on Nov. 7, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-supporters-celebrate-winning-the-referendum-news-photo/1769771636?adppopup=true">Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abortion rights advocates <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1211429268/abortion-rights-2023-election-ohio-virginia-kentucky">won major victories</a> in several state elections on Nov. 7, 2023, signaling that abortion laws are likely to continue to play an important role in the 2024 elections. </p>
<p>In Ohio, the only state where abortion was directly on the ballot, more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/07/abortion-ohio-kentucky-virginia-elecitons/">56% of voters in the conservative-leaning</a> state approved a measure called Issue 1. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ohio-abortion-amendment-election-2023-fe3e06747b616507d8ca21ea26485270">constitutional amendment protects people’s right</a> to <a href="https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/getattachment/cf27c10f-b153-4731-ae9e-e3555a326ed9/The-Right-to-Reproductive-Freedom-with-Protections-for-Health-and-Safety.aspx">have an abortion</a> in Ohio, as well as to get contraception and receive treatment for fertility issues and miscarriages.</p>
<p>Virginia Democrats, who campaigned on preserving abortion rights, maintained control of the state Senate and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/virginia-legislature-election-2023-79f9337731c25decc83b83eeb4d3e00e">took control of Virginia’s House of Delegates</a> from Republicans. While <a href="https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?231+sum+SB1483">abortion is legal</a> in Virginia until the 26th week of pregnancy, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said he wanted the legislature to enact <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/11/08/virginia-senate-house-election-results-2023/">a ban on abortion</a> after 15 weeks of pregnancy. </p>
<p>And in Kentucky, Gov. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/07/kentucky-governor-election-results-2023/">Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won reelection</a>. During his campaign, Beshear promised to protect abortion rights and highlighted Republican opponent Daniel Cameron’s support for Kentucky’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-first-nationwide-election-since-roe-was-overturned-voters-opt-to-protect-abortion-access-194140">near-total ban on abortion</a>. </p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CcAfO1UAAAAJ&hl=en">scholars of law,</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4bgaJCQAAAAJ&hl=en">gender and health</a> and co-direct Boston University’s Program on Reproductive Justice.</p>
<p>We wrote last year that new constitutional amendments protecting a right to abortion in states usually considered “red,” like Kansas, <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-first-nationwide-election-since-roe-was-overturned-voters-opt-to-protect-abortion-access-194140">were not flukes</a>. Rather, such wins, which have happened in <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/2023_and_2024_abortion-related_ballot_measures">six other states</a> since 2022, affirm a broader trend. The majority of U.S. voters support laws protecting access to abortion and other reproductive care. </p>
<p>Here are three important things to know about the election results.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman closes her eyes and appears to be crying, surrounded by other people." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558418/original/file-20231108-21-dsckc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Abortion rights supporters in Columbus, Ohio, celebrate winning the right to enshrine abortion in the state’s constitution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/abortion-rights-supporters-celebrate-winning-the-referendum-news-photo/1769779581?adppopup=true">Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>1. Votes amending state constitutions are key to protecting abortion rights</h2>
<p>Ohio voted for former President Donald Trump in 2016 and in 2020. In recent years, it has been considered a toss-up state that is turning “red.” </p>
<p>In the days leading up to the 2023 election, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/11/conservatives-ohio-abortion-referendums-00120837">some conservative commentators observed</a> that “anti-abortion groups are banking on Ohio to end the movement’s run of state-level losses and create a blueprint for battles in 2024 and beyond.”</p>
<p>Instead, most Democratic and independent voters, and some Republican voters, <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/exit-poll-results-from-ohio-issue-1-ballot-measure-on-abortion-rights/ar-AA1jyKvR">cast their ballots in favor of Issue 1,</a> rejecting Ohio’s law that bans abortion after six weeks.</p>
<p>This followed on the heels of a recent high-profile case in which a 10-year-old Ohio girl had to travel to Indiana to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/indiana-doctor-gave-10-year-old-girl-abortion-disciplinary-hearing-rcna86214">have an abortion after she was raped</a> and could not have the procedure in Ohio. Notably, physicians <a href="https://twitter.com/OURR2023/status/1719345494130885114?s=20">vocally opposed</a> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-hgtRAaGszSvdZy7krZ_FZrMKSgZqHSg/view">Ohio’s restrictive laws</a>.</p>
<p>This new constitutional amendment means that <a href="https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/02/roe-v-wade-abortion-supreme-court-ohio-dewine-heartbeat-bill/7767433001/">Ohio’s 2019 law</a> that prohibited abortion as soon as fetal cardiac activity could be detected – as early as six weeks into pregnancy – will not be allowed to take effect. A lower state court stopped enforcement of the six-week ban, but the case was making its way to the Ohio Supreme Court, whose seven members are mostly Republicans that have publicly <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1209092670/2023-results-key-ohio-elections">opposed abortion rights</a>.</p>
<p>Now, the Republican-controlled Ohio legislature <a href="https://www.ohiosos.gov/legislation-and-ballot-issues/putting-an-issue-on-the-ballot/citizen-initiated-constitutional-amendment/">does not have the power</a> to amend or stop the new constitutional amendment or to enforce the six-week ban. </p>
<p>Lawmakers may still campaign to repeal Issue 1, but this change would require voters to first approve a different ballot initiative.</p>
<p>While state constitutions are amended much more frequently than the U.S. Constitution, a majority of voters in Ohio showed they support abortion rights, so another ballot measure seems unlikely. </p>
<h2>2. Reframing abortion restrictions does not fool voters</h2>
<p>In Virginia, Democratic candidates campaigned on preserving abortion rights, while Republican candidates <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-republicans-release-dueling-abortion-ads-high-stakes/story?id=103598015">charged Democrats</a> with being obsessed with abortion. </p>
<p>Some Republican candidates also denied that they supported an abortion ban. Instead, they attempted to describe Youngkin’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/abortion-ohio-kentucky-virginia-election.html">proposed 15-week ban</a> as “legislation that reflects compassionate common sense.”</p>
<p>The election results suggest that a majority of Virginia voters effectively rejected this proposed ban on abortion after 15 weeks.</p>
<p>Instead, they elected Democratic candidates who pledged to protect abortion rights in the one Southern state that had not enacted new <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2023/11/08/abortion-rights-victories-continue-here-are-all-the-wins-in-major-elections-since-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe/?sh=5825d21026ad">restrictive abortion laws</a> since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.</p>
<p>With Democrats controlling both legislative chambers in Virginia, new bills will stall, and the legislative majority can counter other restrictive measures that are proposed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Andy Beshear stands in a dark blue suit at a podium that has his name on it, surrounded by three women on a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558422/original/file-20231108-23-ys1tah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who campaigned on abortion rights, delivered his victory speech on Nov. 7, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kentucky-incumbent-democratic-gov-andy-beshear-is-joined-by-news-photo/1781193061?adppopup=true">Stephen Cohen/Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>3. Abortion rights matter up and down the ballot</h2>
<p>Beshear placed abortion at the center of his campaign for governor in Kentucky, even though the state has a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/abortion-kentucky-governor-campaign-ec767bf7802852d48ea150b7118fc90c">near-total ban</a> on all abortions and does not have any exceptions for cases of incest or rape. </p>
<p>His win, as well as the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-supreme-court-election-results-2023-20231107.html">Pennsylvania Supreme Court election</a> that resulted in one more Democrat joining the court and creating a majority, suggests that highlighting abortion rights in election campaigns can be an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kentucky-primary-governors-race-election-2023-e8df45cd3978ce5a1691ba447c84bafc">effective way to draw in voters</a>. </p>
<p>While Kentucky voters said the economy is a top issue for them, they have also said <a href="https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/election/article281536793.html">abortion and other basic rights </a> are important, too. </p>
<p>Beshear’s campaign <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ_qeTQz_Es">ran an unusual advertisement</a> featuring Hadley Duvall, a Kentucky resident who was raped by her stepfather at age 12. She became pregnant but later miscarried. Duvall, now 20 years old, appeared in the television advertisement and challenged Cameron’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SCOKY-Opinion-Feb-16-2023.pdf">support for Kentucky’s law</a>, which allows an abortion only in order to save the life of a pregnant woman – while instructing doctors to try to save the fetus, too.</p>
<p>The ad <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/northern-ky/2023/10/05/kentucky-abortion-debate-hadley-duvall-commercial-daniel-cameron-andy-beshear/71077318007/">resonated with voters</a>, even in a state that now <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/04/14/kentucky-abortion-clinics-stop-provider-law-ban">has no abortion clinics</a>.</p>
<p>Beshear’s reelection shows that politicians can effectively push for laws that walk back from near-total abortion bans, such as making exceptions in cases of rape or incest. In 2022, Kentucky voters already <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/kentucky-voters-reject-constitutional-amendment-on-abortion">rejected a state constitutional amendment</a> that would have prevented recognizing a right to abortion in the state. </p>
<p>These different state elections point in one clear direction.</p>
<p>Abortion <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/press-release/abortion-access-rises-as-a-voting-issue-and-motivator-especially-among-democrats-and-reproductive-age-women-but-inflation-continues-to-dominate-as-americans-worry-about-bills/">increasingly matters to voters</a>. And most voters do not want laws <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/321143/americans-stand-abortion.aspx">severely restricting abortion</a> and other kinds of reproductive health care. </p>
<p>The 2023 election outcomes also suggest that Democratic candidates can effectively use abortion as a campaign issue. This will be critical for the general elections in 2024.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The new constitutional amendment to protect the right to abortion in Ohio − as well as other wins for Democrats − shows the importance of ballot initiatives and focusing on abortion in elections.Nicole Huberfeld, Professor of Health Law and Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLinda C. McClain, Professor of Law, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2122452023-09-06T12:23:07Z2023-09-06T12:23:07ZThe untold story of how Howard University came to be known as ‘The Mecca’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546503/original/file-20230905-29-n66c1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4772%2C3250&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Howard University students assemble for a graduation ceremony in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Obama/6f638c11ec3448a7854719759a121bd3/photo?Query=howard%20university&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=27&currentItemNo=2&vs=true">Jose Luis Magana for the Associated Press</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you ask just about anyone at Howard University what’s the other name for their school, they will readily tell you: “The Mecca.”</p>
<p>The name has been extolled by former students, such as acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote in his 2015 book “<a href="https://ta-nehisicoates.com/books/between-the-world-and-me/">Between the World and Me</a>” that his “only Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University.”</p>
<p>But ask anyone in the Howard community how and when the school came to be known as The Mecca – a question I’ve been researching for the past year – and blank stares are mostly the response.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman gestures as she speaks." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546502/original/file-20230905-27904-33dilf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vice President Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator, speaks at Howard University in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020Democrats/08266c06a61a4dcbac23af1c6bdacb42/photo?Query=howard%20university%20kamala%20harris&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=95&currentItemNo=1">Manuel Balce Ceneta for the Associated Press</a></span>
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<p>In a 2019 article, The New York Times tried to find the origins of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">the use of the term</a> for Howard when U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, <a href="https://magazine.howard.edu/stories/raising-up-kamala">one of the school’s most well-known alumnae</a>, was still a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.</p>
<p>Greg Carr, an <a href="https://www.drgregcarr.com/about">associate professor of Africana Studies at Howard University</a>, told the newspaper that the term “emerged after the Civil Rights Movement.”</p>
<p>“In the wake of the death of Malcolm X and in the spirit of the Black Power movement, students began to informally refer to the campus as ‘The Mecca of black education,’” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/arts/howard-university-homecoming.html">wrote Bianca Ladipo</a>.</p>
<p>It seemed intriguing to me as a <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2013/08/18/dropouts-tell-no-tales/">longtime admirer of Malcolm X</a> – and also as one who made the pilgrimage to the original Mecca in Saudi Arabia, as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/05/08/archives/malcolm-x-pleased-by-whites-attitude-on-trip-to-mecca.html">Malcolm famously did in 1964</a>. Still, as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=W8iRI5cAAAAJ&hl=en">veteran education writer</a> with an <a href="https://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/multimedia/media-coverage">extensive history</a> of covering <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/students/article/15101319/innovative-strategies-for-hbcus-proposed-at-cbc-conference">historically Black colleges and universities</a> – <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/news-roundup/article/15101322/comeys-speech-at-howard-prompts-protests">including Howard</a> – I decided to dig deeper. My efforts were not in vain. </p>
<h2>A new era</h2>
<p>Using Howard University’s <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/">digital archives</a>, I discovered that one of the earliest documented references to “The Mecca” is found in the Feb. 26, 1909, edition of the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>, a student-run publication. This was – contrary to what The New York Times said about the term emerging after the death of Malcolm X in 1965 – nearly 15 years before he was even born. </p>
<p>My finding comes at a time when Howard, located in Washington, D.C., is entering a new era. Its new president, Ben Vinson III, a <a href="https://alumni.dartmouth.edu/content/give-rouse-ben-vinson-iii-%E2%80%9992">leading scholar on the history of the African diaspora</a>, took the helm at the <a href="https://wamu.org/story/17/03/03/as-howard-university-turns-150-students-find-inspiration-in-its-history/">storied university</a> on <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howard-university-appoints-revered-historian-and-academic-leader-ben-vinson-iii-phd-18th-president">Sept. 1, 2023</a>. </p>
<p>Thanks to a <a href="https://www.diverseeducation.com/institutions/hbcus/article/15306096/howard-earns-90-million-dod-contract-a-first-for-an-hbcu">five-year, US$90 million Department of Defense contract</a>, the school recently became the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/howard-university-hbcu-partner-pentagon/story?id=96636121">first HBCU to partner with the Pentagon to conduct research in military technology</a>.</p>
<p>The university is also <a href="https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howards-historic-90-million-contract-university-affiliated-research-center-spotlights-stem-and-r1">on a quest to attain R-1 status</a>. R-1 is a classification level reserved for universities that grant doctoral degrees and also have <a href="https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/carnegie-classification/classification-methodology/basic-classification/">“very high research activity.”</a> </p>
<h2>Going way back</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">Named after one of its founders</a>, Union general and <a href="https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/2473">Civil War hero</a> Oliver Otis Howard, the school opened in 1867 and was <a href="https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/3-organized/howard-university.html">established through an act of Congress</a>. </p>
<p>Its founders <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/#:%7E:text=Howard%20University%20was%20incorporated%20on,four%20million%20recently%20emancipated%20slaves.">envisioned Howard</a> as a school for educating and training Black physicians, teachers and ministers from the nearly 4 million newly freed slaves.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/04/howard-chess-fundraise-competition-hbcu/">Malik Castro-DeVarona</a>, a political science major and a former president of the Howard University Chess Club, unwittingly helped me discover how the school came to be known as “The Mecca.” He suggested that I look in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/hilltop/">digital archive for The Hilltop</a>, the campus newspaper <a href="https://thehilltoponline.com/2023/01/23/the-nations-oldest-celebrating-99-years-of-the-hilltop/">co-founded in 1924</a> by novelist <a href="https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/zora-neale-hurston/">Zora Neale Hurston</a>. </p>
<p>In my online search, I discovered a different digital archive: <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/huarchives/">Digital Howard</a>. There, I did a simple search for the term “Mecca” and got <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/do/search/?q=mecca&start=0&context=4339039&facet=">more than 400 results</a>, including the one from 1909.</p>
<h2>The meaning of ‘The Mecca’</h2>
<p>Through my research, I discovered that over the years “The Mecca” has been used in different ways. It is most often meant to preserve Howard’s reputation as a beacon of Black thought. </p>
<p>That first reference from February 1909 came in an article written by J.A. Mitchell, a student who referred to Howard as a potential Mecca for young Black students. Specifically, Mitchell wrote: “Howard indeed bids well to become the Mecca, toward which the eyes of our youth will instinctively turn,” Mitchell wrote in the <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=huj_v6">Howard University Journal</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black-and-white image shows a large building with a clock tower." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545827/original/file-20230831-21-fl6tsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 1900 image, the exterior of Founders Library is seen at Howard University in Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/photo-shows-an-exterior-view-of-founders-library-howard-news-photo/515351082?adppopup=true">Bettmann/GettyImages</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“In fact,” Mitchell continued, “it seems as if the present outlook already forecasts a new era in the history of our school and tells of a future Howard, situated on a hill overlooking the national capital, that is second to no institution of its kind.”</p>
<p>That statement was prophetic. In its 2022 rankings, U.S. News and World Report ranked Howard as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/howard-university-1448">No. 2 among historically Black colleges and universities</a>, making Howard second only to Spelman College, an HBCU for women, located in Atlanta, according to the magazine.</p>
<p>Mitchell’s reference was not the only one. A few years later, in a <a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=huj_v11">1913 edition of the Howard University Journal</a>, an article stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Howard is a strategic institution. She is "The Mecca” of higher education attended in main by Negro youths. … She commands the interest of multitudes of people throughout the land and gives impetus to the life of thousands of alumni and alumnae. Again, she nurtures fifteen hundred select youths of a race.“</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A different Mecca?</h2>
<p>Anyone familiar with the culture at Howard knows there’s a <a href="https://www.flofootball.com/articles/7960976-the-real-hu-behind-the-history-of-the-hampton-howard-rivalry">long-standing rivalry</a> between Howard University and Hampton University, located in Hampton, Virginia, over which school is ‶<a href="https://hbcubuzz.com/2021/02/who-is-the-real-hu/.">the real HU.</a>” My research shows there might have once been a debate over which school is “The Mecca” as well.</p>
<p>When Booker T. Washington <a href="https://virginiahistory.org/learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/hampton-institute-and-booker-t-washington">arrived at Hampton in 1872</a> – five years after Howard University was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/november-20/">founded in 1867</a> – Hampton, Virginia, was known as the “<a href="https://dh.howard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=booker_manu">Mecca of the ambitious colored youth of the dismantled South</a>,” according to a 1910 Howard manuscript titled “A Ride with Booker T. Washington.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scores of Black students are standing in rows for a school assembly." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545831/original/file-20230831-23-764upu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students attend an assembly at Hampton Institute in January 1899.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/school-assembly-in-hampton-institute-hampton-va-between-news-photo/1425873980?adppopup=true">Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hampton isn’t the only U.S. city to be known as a Black Mecca.</p>
<p>As noted in a <a href="https://archive.org/details/sim_crisis_1925-07_30_3/page/146/mode/2up?q=mecca">1925 edition of “The Crisis”</a> – the NAACP magazine <a href="https://modjourn.org/journal/crisis/#:%7E:text=Du%20Bois%20founded%20The%20Crisis,social%20injustice%20in%20U.S.%20history.">founded in 1910</a> by <a href="https://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/web-dubois">W.E.B. DuBois</a> – Washington, D.C., was “regarded as the Mecca of the American Negro, for here he is under the wing of the eagle and can’t be made the victim of hostile legislation or rules.”</p>
<p>Around the same time, <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/alain-locke">Alain Locke</a>, who taught English and philosophy at Howard in the early 1910s and started the school’s philosophy department, proclaimed Harlem as the “<a href="https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/17368696">Mecca of the new Negro</a>.” Locke is also known as the <a href="https://www.doaks.org/resources/cultural-philanthropy/alain-locke-collection-of-african-art">“dean of the Harlem Renaissance.”</a> </p>
<p>The point is this idea of a Black Mecca was constantly shifting and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/14/black-migration-south/">continues to shift to this day</a>.</p>
<h2>The Mecca of the future</h2>
<p>Despite archival records that show Howard was called The Mecca as early as 1909, other details have yet to be discovered. Perhaps under the leadership of President Vinson, a <a href="https://www.acls.org/digital-commission-sustaining-diverse-scholarship/">champion of digital scholarship</a>, Howard students and scholars can continue to research how Howard came to be known as The Mecca.</p>
<p>Doing so would be a fitting tribute to one of Howard’s most illustrious deans, Carter G. Woodson. </p>
<p>Hailed as the “<a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/02/celebrating-black-history-months-founder/">father of Black history,</a>” Woodson launched <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/black-history-month-legal-resources/history-and-overview">Negro History Week</a> in 1926. That <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/history-of-black-history-month.html">paved the way</a> for what today is known as <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/civil-rights-leaders/carter-g-woodson">Black History Month</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamaal Abdul-Alim has served as a volunteer adviser for the Howard University Chess Club. In addition to his role as an adjunct at the University of Maryland, he currently serves as education editor at The Conversation.</span></em></p>While it’s widely believed that Howard University came to be known as “The Mecca” in the 1960s, new evidence shows the nickname is more than half a century older than that.Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Lecturer in Journalism, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952412022-11-23T16:25:19Z2022-11-23T16:25:19ZRampage at Virginia Walmart follows upward trend in supermarket gun attacks – here’s what we know about retail mass shooters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497021/original/file-20221123-20-8zq33s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C89%2C5982%2C3898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The latest target in America's gun crime epidemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/WalmartMassShooting/3645c5c9fb8e44a8b681bb2a132addef/photo?Query=walmart&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3337&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/walmart-shooting-chesapeake-virginia-b52927596381aa65efed367ce0c81c83">gun rampage at a Walmart in Virginia</a> is the latest amid a rise in mass shootings in general in the U.S., and mass shootings at <a href="https://theconversation.com/drafts/195241/edit">grocery and retail stores</a> in particular.</p>
<p>Multiple people including the gunman <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/deaths-reported-virginia-walmart-gunman-dead-police-say-2022-11-23/">were killed in the incident</a> on Nov. 22, 2022, at an outlet of the retailer in Chesapeake. It follows a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-suspect-expected-plead-guilty-court/story?id=93787204">racist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo</a> earlier this year in which 10 Black shoppers were killed. A previous <a href="https://apnews.com/article/el-paso-texas-mass-shooting-shootings-us-news-ap-top-news-ar-state-wire-84747760a7b643b694cc57f464640f4f">Walmart mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, in 2021</a>, was similarly racially motivated – 23 people were killed by a gunman who had posted a hate-filled anti-immigrant manifesto online.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.hamline.edu/faculty-staff/jillian-peterson/">are criminologists</a> <a href="https://www.metrostate.edu/about/directory/james-densley">who study</a> the <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/">life histories of mass shooters</a> in the United States. Since 2017, we have conducted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Violence-Project-Stop-Shooting-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B08WJV7W3P">dozens of interviews</a> with incarcerated perpetrators and people who knew them. We also built a <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">comprehensive database</a> of mass public shootings using public data, with the shooters coded on nearly 200 different variables.</p>
<p><iframe id="ND4gM" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/ND4gM/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Overall, mass public shootings in which four or more people are killed have become <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-database-amasses-details-half-century-us-mass-shootings">more frequent, and deadly</a>, in the last decade, to the extent that the U.S. now averages about seven of these events each year. Our definition of mass public shootings excludes cases in which the murders are attributed to any other underlying criminal activity, such as drugs and gang membership, which accounts for why they may be lower than other estimates.</p>
<p>Mass shootings also tend to cluster, with <a href="https://doi.org//10.1371/journal.pone.0117259">one study</a> finding they are contagious for 13 days on average and our <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/stopping-mass-shooters-q-a-00035762">own research</a> showing those responsible study other mass shooters and draw inspiration from them. The Buffalo shooting on May 14 preceded a spate of mass shootings this summer, including at <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/series/uvalde-texas-school-shooting/">an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas</a>, at an <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/shooting-at-tulsa-hospital-exposes-vulnerability-of-health-care-facilities">Oklahoma medical facility</a>, and during a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/highland-park-shooting">4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois</a>. The latest tragedy in Chesapeake, Virginia, comes just three days after a gunman <a href="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/11/22/club-q-in-colorado-springs-has-been-a-beacon-for-lgbtq-community/69666975007/">killed five people at a LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs</a>.</p>
<h2>What do we know about mass shootings at stores?</h2>
<p>The tragedy in Chesapeake, Virginia, is the <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">36th mass shooting in our database</a> to take place in a retail establishment. These shootings claimed 217 lives and injured 227 more, and they have been increasing over time - with 2019 and 2021 the worst years on record for retail shootings. </p>
<p>Retail shootings are most common in Southern and Western states and two-thirds took place in urban locations. The perpetrators were all male except for one woman who committed the shooting with her male partner. </p>
<p>Retail mass shooters were white in 56% of such incidents and Black in 25% of recorded cases and ranged in age from 18 to 70 – although 60% were in their 20s. Around 1 in 10 were employees of the retail establishments they targeted.</p>
<p>Perpetrators usually used one gun (58%). One-third of perpetrators used an AR-15 style assault weapon. </p>
<p>Looking at the life histories of perpetrators, two-thirds had a prior criminal history and half of them <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2785799">communicated intent to do harm</a> to others ahead of the attack. Yet, retail shootings tend to be less well-planned than other mass shootings – only 22% of perpetrators did significant planning. </p>
<p>Two-thirds of the shooters were suicidal – 26% had a prior suicide attempt and another 37% intended to die during the shooting – and around 30% were experiencing psychosis, although <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2021-43325-001">perpetrators were only acting on their hallucinations or delusions</a> in 11% of retail shootings. Half of the perpetrators had a known prejudice against a racial or religions group.</p>
<h2>Workplace rampages and what motivates them</h2>
<p>The motive in the Virginia incident is not known, but reports suggest the perpetrator was a Walmart employee. In our data, workplace shootings are motivated by an employment issue such as being fired or suspended in 70% of incidents, and by an interpersonal conflict with another employee 23% of the time. Nearly three-quarters of perpetrators show changes in behavior or warning signs prior to the shooting, such as increased agitation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.startribune.com/two-minnesota-professors-have-devoted-their-careers-to-researching-mass-shooters/600123369/">Our research</a> suggests many strategies to prevent these types of mass shootings – from anonymous reporting systems for employees to workplace crisis response teams. However, <a href="https://rockinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/policy-solutions-public-mass-shootings.pdf">restricting access to firearms</a> for high-risk people would be the most effective strategy overall. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Parts of this article were included in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-mass-shootings-are-happening-at-grocery-stores-13-of-shooters-are-motivated-by-racial-hatred-criminologists-find-183098">story that was first published</a> on May 15, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Statistics</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.</span></em></p>At least six people have been killed in an attack at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia. It happened amid a surge of mass shootings in the US.Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1708532021-11-22T13:28:37Z2021-11-22T13:28:37ZThe first Thanksgiving is a key chapter in America’s origin story – but what happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432920/original/file-20211119-22767-1auehyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C296%2C4695%2C3532&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In the 19th century, there was a campaign to link the Thanksgiving holiday to the Pilgrims.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-first-thanksgiving-the-indians-joining-in-the-feast-of-news-photo/514887046?adppopup=true">Bettman/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year marked the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in New England. Remembered and retold as an allegory for perseverance and cooperation, the story of that first Thanksgiving has become an important part of how Americans think about the founding of their country. </p>
<p>But what happened four months later, starting in March 1622 about 600 miles south of Plymouth, is, I believe, far more reflective of the country’s origins – a story not of peaceful coexistence but of distrust, displacement and repression. </p>
<p><a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300230109/trials-thomas-morton">As a scholar of colonial New England</a>
<a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807858486/the-atlantic-world-and-virginia-1550-1624/">and Virginia</a>, I have often wondered why Americans tend to pay so much less attention to other English migrants of the same era. </p>
<p>The conquest and colonization of New England mattered, of course. But the Pilgrims’ experience in the early 1620s tells us less about the colonial era than events along Chesapeake Bay, where the English had established Jamestown in 1607.</p>
<h2>A compelling origin story</h2>
<p>The Pilgrims etched their place in the nation’s history long ago as plucky survivors who persevered despite difficult conditions. Ill-prepared for the New England winter of 1620 to 1621, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-pilgrims-were-actually-able-to-survive-106990">they benefited when</a> a terrible epidemic raged among the Indigenous peoples of the region from 1616 to 1619, which reduced competition for resources.</p>
<p>Having endured a winter in which perhaps one-half of the migrants succumbed, the survivors welcomed the fall harvest of 1621. They survived because local Wampanoags had taught them how to grow corn, <a href="https://plimoth.org/for-students/homework-help/growing-food">the most important crop in much of eastern North America</a>. That November, the Pilgrims and Wampanoags shared a three-day feast. </p>
<p>This was the event that now marks the first American day of Thanksgiving, even though many Indigenous peoples <a href="https://oneida-nsn.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/IROQUOIS-TRADITIONAL-CEREMONIES-8.17.pdf">had long had rituals that included giving thanks</a> and other European settlers had previously declared similar days of thanks – <a href="https://www.history.com/news/did-florida-host-the-first-thanksgiving">including one in Florida in 1565</a> and <a href="https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/new-englands-first-thanksgiving-maine-style/">another along the Maine coast in 1607</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Native American woman presents a turkey to a Pilgrim." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432905/original/file-20211119-27-6lfpuo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A postcard from 1912 depicts goodwill and cooperation between Native Americans and colonists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/postcard-from-circa-1912-with-a-native-ameircan-woman-news-photo/595267242?adppopup=true">Samantha Vuignier/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1623, Pilgrims in Plymouth declared a day to thank their God for bringing rain when it looked like their corn crop might wither in a brutal drought. They likely celebrated it in late July. In 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War, the members of the Continental Congress <a href="https://pilgrimhall.org/pdf/TG_First_National_Thanksgiving_Proclamation_1777.pdf">declared a day of Thanksgiving for Dec. 18</a>. The Pilgrims didn’t even get a mention.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, however, annual Thanksgiving holidays became linked to New England, largely as a result of <a href="https://time.com/5910755/mayflower-plymouth-meaning/">campaigns to make the Plymouth experience one of the nation’s origin stories</a>. Promoters of this narrative identified the Mayflower Compact as the starting point for representative government and praised the religious freedom they saw in New England – at least for Americans of European ancestry.</p>
<p>For most of the last century, U.S. Presidents have mentioned the Pilgrims in their annual proclamation, <a href="https://pilgrimhall.org/thanksgiving_proclamations.htm">helping to solidify the link between the holiday and those immigrants</a>. </p>
<h2>In Virginia, a tenuous peace shatters</h2>
<p>But the events in Plymouth in 1621 that came to be enshrined in the national narrative were not typical. </p>
<p>A more revealing incident took place in Virginia in 1622. </p>
<p>Since 1607, English migrants had maintained a small community in Jamestown, where colonists struggled mightily to survive. Unable to figure out how to find fresh water, they drank from the James River, even during the summer months when the water level dropped and turned the river into a swamp. The bacteria they consumed from doing so <a href="https://jpwhit.people.wm.edu/H150F2004/earle.pdf">caused typhoid fever and dysentery</a>. </p>
<p>Despite a death rate that reached 50% in some years, the English decided to stay. Their investment paid off in the mid-1610s when an enterprising colonist named John Rolfe planted West Indian tobacco seeds in the region’s fertile soil. <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/chesapeake-in-the-seventeenth-century-essays-on-anglo-american-society/oclc/16690358">The industry soon boomed</a>.</p>
<p>But economic success did not mean the colony would thrive. Initial English survival in Virginia depended on the good graces of the local Indigenous population. By 1607, <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/powhatan-d-1618/link">Wahunsonacock</a>, the leader of an alliance of Natives called <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/tsenacomoco-powhatan-paramount-chiefdom/">Tsenacomoco</a>, had spent a generation forming a confederation of roughly 30 distinct communities along tributaries of Chesapeake Bay. The English called him Powhatan and labeled his followers the Powhatans.</p>
<p>Wahunsonacock could have likely prevented the English from establishing their community at Jamestown; after all, the Powhatans controlled most of the resources in the region. In 1608, when the newcomers were near starvation, the Powhatans provided them with food. <a href="https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/life-of-john-smith.htm">Wahunsonacock also spared Captain John Smith’s life</a> after his people captured the Englishman. </p>
<p>Wahunsonacock’s actions revealed his strategic thinking. Rather than see the newcomers as all-powerful, he likely believed the English <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska-paperback/9780803270916/">would become a subordinate community under his control</a>. After a war from 1609 to 1614 between English and Powhatans, Wahunsonacock and his allies agreed to peace and coexistence.</p>
<p>Wahunsonacock died in 1618. Soon after his passing, Opechancanough, likely one of Wahunsonacock’s brothers, emerged as a leader of the Powhatans. Unlike his predecessor, Opechancanough viewed the English with suspicion, <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/james-horn/a-brave-and-cunning-prince/9781541600034/">especially when they pushed on to Powhatan lands to expand their tobacco fields</a>.</p>
<p>By spring 1622, Opechancanough had had enough. On March 22, he and his allies launched a surprise attack. By day’s end, they had killed 347 of the English. They might have killed more except that one Powhatan who had converted to Christianity had warned some of the English, <a href="http://www.virtualjamestown.org/phatmass.html">which gave them the time to escape</a>.</p>
<p>Within months, news of the violence spread in England. Edward Waterhouse, the colony’s secretary, detailed the “barbarous Massacre” <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/a-declaration-of-the-state-of-the-colony-and-affaires-in-virginia-1622/">in a short pamphlet</a>. A few years later, an engraver in Frankfurt captured Europeans’ fears of Native Americans <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1622_massacre_jamestown_de_Bry.jpg">in a haunting illustration</a> for a translation of Waterhouse’s book.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Engraving of Indigenous Americans slaughtering colonists." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432900/original/file-20211119-23-3367gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matthäus Merian’s woodcut print depicted brutal bloodshed in Jamestown, shaping European attitudes toward Native Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/1622_massacre_jamestown_de_Bry.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Waterhouse wrote of those who died “under the bloudy and barbarous hands of that perfidious and inhumane people.” He reported that the victors had desecrated English corpses. He called them “savages” and resorted to common European descriptions of “wyld Naked Natives.” He vowed revenge. </p>
<p>Over the next decade, English soldiers launched a brutal war against the Powhatans, <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/anglo-powhatan-war-second-1622-1632/">repeatedly burning the Powhatans’ fields at harvest time</a> in an effort to starve them and drive them away.</p>
<h2>Conflict over cooperation</h2>
<p>The Powhatans’ orchestrated attack anticipated other Indigenous rebellions against aggressive European colonizers in 17th-century North America. </p>
<p>The English response, too, fit a pattern: Any sign of resistance by “pagans,” as Waterhouse labeled the Powhatans, needed to be suppressed to advance Europeans’ desire to convert Native Americans to Christianity, claim Indigenous lands, and satisfy European customers clamoring for goods produced in America.</p>
<p>It was this dynamic – not the one of fellowship found in Plymouth in 1621 – that would go on to define the relationship between Native Americans and European settlers for over two centuries.</p>
<p>Before the end of the century, violence erupted in New England too, erasing the positive legacy of the feast of 1621. By 1675, simmering tensions exploded in a war that stretched across the region. On a per capita basis, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/100085/the-name-of-war-by-jill-lepore/">it was among the deadliest conflicts in American history</a>.</p>
<p>In 1970, an Aquinnah Wampanoag elder named Wamsutta, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower, <a href="http://www.uaine.org/suppressed_speech.htm">pointed to generations of violence against Native communities and dispossession</a>. Ever since that day, many Indigenous Americans <a href="http://www.uaine.org">have observed a National Day of Mourning instead of Thanksgiving</a>.</p>
<p>Today’s Thanksgiving – with school kids’ construction paper turkeys and narrative of camaraderie and cooperation between the colonists and Indigenous Americans – obscures the more tragic legacy of the early 17th century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170853/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter C. Mancall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The communion between Native Americans and the Pilgrims makes for a compelling narrative. But it masks the suspicions and brewing violence that were far more representative of the era.Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1679322021-10-14T15:30:15Z2021-10-14T15:30:15ZHow the experience of Black people freed from slavery set a pattern for African Americans today<p>The Black Lives Matter movement and the harrowing events that gave rise to it have ensured that global attention remains focused on the enduring legacy of African American slavery. There are numerous ways its continued relevance persists in the public eye, from debates over <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/19/slavery-reparations-from-where-things-stand-to-how-much-it-might-cost.html">reparations for Black people</a> in the US and how slavery’s history is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/apr/30/senate-republicans-black-history-schools-1619-project">taught in schools</a>, to a number of recent <a href="https://www.searchlightpictures.com/12yearsaslave/">big Hollywood films</a> and popular <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/14/the-underground-railroad-review-barry-jenkins">TV shows</a>.</p>
<p>The legacy of racism and violence that originated in slavery, and which continued throughout the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/jim-crow-laws">Jim Crow period</a> of segregation, also survives in many forms today, from persistent inequality to <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/how-you-start-is-how-you-finish">police brutality</a> and the denial of Black people’s democratic rights. </p>
<p>What often gets lost in the discussion of slavery are the experiences of free Black people who co-existed throughout the entire period of enslavement. Of the <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-african-slave-ship-arrives-jamestown-colony">20 Africans first traded to British settlers</a> in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, some served out their indentures and became free.</p>
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<h2>A parallel experience</h2>
<p>Granted, the numbers of free Black people were always significantly smaller than those who were enslaved, but there were communities all over what would become the United States. On the eve of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war">American Civil War in 1860</a> – a conflict fought over slavery – free Black people numbered <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kSFwAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=on+the+eve+of+the+american+civil+war+there+488,000+free+black+people&source=bl&ots=99N9ao-Kqa&sig=ACfU3U16Auwc7h_7pR16ZLM5WOCiuNE1_A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiXieG26MnzAhVM-aQKHXmjDYgQ6AF6BAguEAM#v=onepage&q=on%20the%20eve%20of%20the%20american%20civil%20war%20there%20488%2C000%20free%20black%20people&f=false">488,000</a> in the US compared to 4 million enslaved – not an insignificant number.</p>
<p>A parallel and often intertwined experience, freedom and was not always a permanent condition, but one marked with permeable boundaries between enslavement and liberty. As well-known figures like <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/frederick-douglass#:%7E:text=Frederick%20Douglass%20was%20an%20escaped,and%20during%20the%20Civil%20War.&text=His%20work%20served%20as%20an,of%20the%201960s%20and%20beyond.">Frederick Douglass</a> and <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth">Sojourner Truth</a> – both escaped slaves who became abolitionists and reformers – demonstrated, one could be born into slavery and eventually gain one’s freedom.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://generationsoffreedom.com/the-book/">book</a> Generations of Freedom: Gender, Movement, and Violence in Natchez 1779-1865, I distinguish between those who were born into the system of slavery and later freed – the foundational generation – and those who were born free, known as the conditional generations.</p>
<p>Regardless of which generation they belonged to, a free Black person’s ability to exist within this ambiguous state of liberty was not guaranteed. Although they were technically free – not legally owned – there were limitations on their freedom.</p>
<p>Just like <a href="https://www.biography.com/writer/solomon-northup">Solomon Northup</a>, whose experiences are related in his autobiography Twelve Years a Slave, some people in Natchez, Mississippi, had been born into freedom only to be kidnapped and illegally enslaved. Others lost their freedom for being prosecuted for crimes like living without a proper licence as a free person of colour or incurring jail costs for being held as a runaway. </p>
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<h2>Becoming – and staying – free</h2>
<p>Free Black people lived complicated lives and had to work to ensure their survival in Natchez on the Mississippi River, one of the wealthiest cotton-growing areas in the South. In 1860, Mississippi had one of the <a href="https://www.mshistorynow.mdah.ms.gov/issue/a-contested-presence-free-blacks-in-antebellum-mississippi-18201860">largest enslaved populations</a> (436,631), but a relatively tiny number of free Black people (775). Natchez contained the <a href="http://generationsoffreedom.com/">biggest free Black community in the state</a> with 225, dwarfed by the 14,292 who were enslaved. </p>
<p>People became free in a variety of ways. Some families’ origins derived from enslaved women who were in sexual relationships with white men. A number of these women gave birth to children in slavery and then worked for the liberty of themselves and their families.</p>
<p>In some cases they inherited property in addition to their freedom or worked to save money to purchase themselves out of slavery. Others were promised their future freedom and entered into contracts to work for a number of years before they were freed, all of which different paths to independence. </p>
<p>But however freedom was acquired, it was often limited and contested. Free Black people lived under a different justice system with a higher level of scrutiny by the local police board and state. They had to prove themselves of “good character”, “industrious” and “lawful” or they could be imprisoned or ordered to leave the state.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Original book cover reproduction of 12 Years A Slave by Solomon Northup" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=922&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/426419/original/file-20211014-21-1opk0ee.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1159&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twelve Years A Slave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/books/solomon-northup/twelve-years-a-slave/9781329794641?gclid=Cj0KCQjwqp-LBhDQARIsAO0a6aLghkGKgIE3GtVJPKHEbL-lmwBX4-c-SpkcwFEtKbadgFzjYxRORzIaAuZBEALw_wcB">World of Books</a></span>
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<p>Legislation was passed to prevent free Black people from voting, from serving on juries and on commissions, and engaging in certain occupations such as selling alcohol, operating houses of entertainment or printing establishments – even though they were taxpayers. Their movements were monitored, and suspicion inevitably fell upon them for crimes or during times of slave insurrection.</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, free Black people managed to create community through friendships and kin networks, buy property, build businesses, educate their children and use the court systems to protect their freedoms – in short, to survive and thrive.</p>
<p>Along with the enslaved, their experiences laid the foundation for the development of the uneven colour-conscious system of democracy and criminal justice in the US. The end of slavery did not result in unconditional freedom in 1865. Ever since, people of African descent have had to contend with severe disparities in employment, health, education, voting rights, wealth and countless other factors persisting to this day.</p>
<p>Black people live under a dual criminal justice system that subjects them to heavier policing, racially biased stops, searches and seizures, imprisonment, violence, and even death at the hands of the state. In so many ways, the experiences of free Black people during the era of slavery provided a blueprint for the way future generations would have to negotiate the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nik Ribianszky is affiliated with the Enslaved: People of the Historical Slave Trade project. </span></em></p>Escaping slavery did not result in unconditional freedom.Nik Ribianszky, Lecturer in US History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1513562020-12-21T13:19:40Z2020-12-21T13:19:40ZOppression in the kitchen, delight in the dining room: The story of Caesar, an enslaved chef and chocolatier in Colonial Virginia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375993/original/file-20201218-15-8782r5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C3%2C2463%2C1460&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stratford Hall in Westmoreland, Virginia, where enslaved cook and chocolatier Caesar lived and worked in the kitchen.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Stratford_Hall%2C_Virginia.jpg">Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The holidays are here, and among the many treats of the season are chocolate and hot cocoa. While these traditions provide a hefty dose of sugar, there’s a bittersweet side to chocolate’s history, too.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">Stratford Hall Plantation</a> in Westmoreland County, Virginia, a plantation museum where, as a historian, I work as the director of programming and education, ushers in the holiday season with a <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/events-programs/">chocolate program</a>, highlighting Colonial chocolate-making and its historical ties to American slavery. </p>
<p>This sober look into our nation’s past helps illuminate those whose labor and contributions have been long ignored, and examines the darker attributes of this favorite sweet. There is no better place to set in context the history of chocolate and slavery than at a plantation where cocoa was processed and served by enslaved laborers.</p>
<h2>Hot commodity for the elite</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3bzy8/colonial-america-was-obsessed-with-chocolate-that-probably-tasted-pretty-bad">Americans have enjoyed chocolate since the Colonial days</a>, when they would sip the rich cocoa as a hot drink. Cocoa made its way to North America on the same <a href="https://www.slavevoyages.org/">ships that transported rum and sugar</a> from the Caribbean and South America. The harvesting and shipment of cocoa, like other plantation crops, was an integral part of the transatlantic trade and was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710701260214">heavily reliant on the labor of enslaved Africans</a> throughout the diaspora. </p>
<p>Beginning as early as the 17th century, cocoa was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/brief-history-chocolate-united-states-180964827/">shipped</a> into the Colonies, and by the early 1700s, Boston, Newport, New York and Philadelphia were processing cocoa into chocolate to export and to sell domestically. Chocolate was popular in the <a href="https://blog.britishmuseum.org/the-18th-century-chocolate-champions/">coffeehouse culture</a> and was processed for sale and consumption by enslaved laborers in the North. </p>
<p>Farther south, in Virginia, cocoa was becoming a hot commodity as well, and was so popular that it is estimated that approximately <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470411315.ch23">one-third</a> of Virginia’s elite was consuming cocoa in some form or another. For the wealthy, this treat was sipped multiple times a week; for others it was out of reach. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">At Stratford Hall, Dontavius Williams demonstrates Colonial chocolate-making as Caesar would have done it.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On plantations throughout the Colonies, during the 18th century, cocoa was making its way into the kitchens and onto the tables of the most wealthy families. The art of chocolate-making – <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3bzy8/colonial-america-was-obsessed-with-chocolate-that-probably-tasted-pretty-bad">roasting beans, grinding pods onto a stone over a small flame</a> – was a labor-intensive task. An enslaved cook would have had to roast the cocoa beans on the open hearth, shell them by hand, grind the nibs on a heated chocolate stone, and then scrape the raw cocoa, add milk or water, cinnamon, nutmeg or vanilla, and serve it piping hot. </p>
<h2>Christmas contrast</h2>
<p>One of the first chocolatiers in the Colonies was an enslaved cook named Caesar. Born in 1732, Caesar was the chef at Stratford Hall, <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/the-lee-men/">the home of the Lees of Virginia</a>, and in his kitchen sat one of only three chocolate stones in the Colony. The other two were located at the governor’s palace and at the <a href="https://christchurch1735.org/robert-king-carter-papers/html/C33inven.mod.html">Carter family</a> estate, belonging to one of the wealthiest families in Virginia.</p>
<p>Caesar was responsible for cooking multiple meals a day for the Lees and any free person who came to visit. He was talented, cooking elaborate and refined meals for Virginia’s gentry. He also learned the art of making chocolate. It is unknown where or how he learned this art. His predecessor, an indentured Englishman named <a href="https://newsadvance.com/archives/exploring-family-roots-at-stratford-hall/article_32396a03-eae0-5fca-9067-06977a2d8faf.html">Richard Mynatt</a> who cooked for the Lees during the 1750s, may have learned chocolate-making from other cooks in Virginia and passed it on to Caesar. Or perhaps the Lees, with their obsession with culinary arts, took Caesar to watch the art at one of the coffeehouses in Williamsburg, or even at the governor’s palace. </p>
<p>Chocolate and Christmas had a unique relationship to enslaved cooks throughout the Colonies. While the special treat sweetened the season for the white families, the enslaved communities living and laboring in field quarters had a very different <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/25/american-slaves-christmas-was-a-respite-from-bondage-and-a-reinforcement-of-it">experience on Christmas</a>. </p>
<p>The work was oppressive in the plantation kitchens at Christmas time. The field laborers were typically given the day off, while those working in the big house kitchen and as domestic laborers were expected to work around the clock to ensure a perfect holiday for the white family. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/memo-from-a-historian-white-ladies-cooking-in-plantation-museums-are-a-denial-of-history-127797">biggest task at hand was to cook and serve Christmas dinner</a>, and chocolate was a favorite addition to the three-course formal dinner.</p>
<p>Caesar would have had to direct the execution of such a feast. Oyster stew, meat pies, roasted pheasant, puddings, roasted suckling pig and Virginia ham are some of the <a href="https://www.historyisfun.org/jamestown-settlement/a-colonial-christmas/christmas-traditions/">many dishes</a> that would be served in just one course. The night would finish with the sipping of chocolate: toasted, ground and spiced by Caesar, and served in <a href="https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/18th-century-drinking-chocolate/">sipping cups</a> made specifically for drinking chocolate. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Detail from a 1782 inventory of Phillip Ludwell Lee's estate, listing the name of chocolatier and chef, Caesar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375992/original/file-20201218-19-uk5n2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail from a 1782 inventory of Philip Ludwell Lee’s estate, listing the name of chocolatier and chef Caesar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">Stratford Hall</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stress and fear during holidays</h2>
<p>But it is Caesar’s art of chocolate-making that gives his story distinction. As one of the Colony’s earliest chocolatiers, his status as an enslaved African American puts his story on the map of American culinary history. </p>
<p>Decades before the two well-known enslaved chefs, Monticello’s <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-hemings">James Hemings</a> and George Washington’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2020/11/19/washington-thanksgiving-hercules/">Chef Hercules</a>, became known for their culinary skills, Caesar was running one of the Colonies’ most prestigious kitchens inside of Stratford Hall, and making chocolate for the Lees and their guests. </p>
<p>Caesar lived in the kitchen, and his son, Caesar Jr., lived nearby and was the postillion – a formal position dedicated to riding the horses that drew the carriages. When Christmas came, Caesar may have had his son help out in the kitchen along with other enslaved cooks and waiters. </p>
<p>The stress of cooking the most important dinner of the year was combined with the fear of what was to come on Jan. 1. New Year’s Day was commonly known as <a href="https://time.com/5750833/new-years-day-slavery-history/">heartbreak day</a>, when enslaved folks would be sold to pay off debts or rented out to a different plantation. Jan. 1 represented an impending doom, and the separation of families and loved ones. </p>
<p>One can imagine, after cooking a lavish three-course meal, that Caesar, as he transitioned to the grinding of chocolate for the Lees to sip, worried about the sadness that would soon take over the community. </p>
<p>Caesar disappeared from the records by the end of the 18th century. By 1800, his son Caesar Jr. was still owned by the Lees, but as that year ended, Christmas came and went, and Caesar Jr. was put up for <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Light_Horse_Harry_Lee/ozFUDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=henry+Lee+collateral+1801&pg=PA268&printsec=frontcover">collateral by Henry Lee</a> for <a href="http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/banks_and_slavery_yale.pdf">payment</a> of his debts.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The world Caesar lived in was one fueled by the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbian-exchange">Columbian Exchange</a>, which was built from enslaved labor and rich with culinary delights: pineapples, Madeira wine, port, champagne, coffee, sugar and cocoa beans. These items traveled from plantation to dining room via the Atlantic trade, and were central to securing the reputation of Virginia’s plantation elite. The more exotic and delicious the food, the more domestic fame one would reap.</p>
<p>Having cocoa delivered directly to your home, and having a chocolatier in the kitchen, were exceptional. It was through Caesar’s culinary arts that <a href="https://leefamilyarchive.org/">Stratford Hall</a> became well-known throughout Colonial Virginia as a culinary destination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151356/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelley Fanto Deetz works for Stratford Hall. She received funding from Mars Wrigley. </span></em></p>There’s a bittersweet history to chocolate in America. At one plantation museum in Virginia, the story of enslaved chocolatier Caesar shows the oppression that lay behind the elite’s culinary treat.Kelley Fanto Deetz, Visiting Scholar, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1477982020-10-20T12:19:26Z2020-10-20T12:19:26ZRestoring seagrasses can bring coastal bays back to life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364103/original/file-20201018-13-1fbnw6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C35%2C3944%2C2934&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Eelgrasses covered with small snails, which keep the leaves clean by feeding on algae that live on them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Lefcheck</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A century ago Virginia’s coastal lagoons were a natural paradise. Fishing boats bobbed on the waves as geese flocked overhead. Beneath the surface, miles of seagrass gently swayed in the surf, making the seabed look like a vast underwater prairie. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/seagrass-and-seagrass-beds">70 species</a> of seagrasses grow in shallow waters around the world, on every continent except Antarctica. In Virginia, beds of <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/importance-eelgrass">eelgrass</a> (<em>Zostera marina</em>) provided habitat for bay scallops and food for birds, and kept barrier islands from washing away. Eelgrass was so common that people who lived near the shore packed and baled it to <a href="https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/insulation/a-history-of-eel-grass-insulation_o">use as insulation</a> for homes, schools and hospitals. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, however, pandemic plant disease and repeated hurricanes eliminated the eelgrass along Virginia’s eastern shore. The once-vibrant seafloor became barren mud, leading to a loss of “wildfowl, the cream of salt-water fishing, most of the clams and crabs, and all of the bay scallops,” sportsman and publisher <a href="https://cpl.org/the-derrydale-press/">Eugene V. Connett</a> <a href="https://www.jamescumminsbookseller.com/pages/books/239493/eugene-v-connett/duck-shooting-along-the-atlantic-tidewater-chapters-by-frederick-c-lincoln-lynn-bogue-hunt">wrote in 1947</a>. </p>
<p>We are marine scientists who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bVEVdsEAAAAJ&hl=en">seagrasses</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wTArpJgAAAAJ&hl=en">marine biodiversity</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=l6zTkPUAAAAJ&hl=en">coastal ecosystems</a>. In a newly published study, we describe the results of a 20-year mission to reintroduce eelgrass into Virginia coastal bays using a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/%2010.1126/sciadv.abc6434">novel seed-based approach</a>. </p>
<p>This project has now restored 9,600 acres of seagrasses across four bays – one of the most successful marine restoration efforts anywhere in the world. It has triggered large increases in fishes and invertebrates, made the water clearer and trapped large quantities of carbon in seafloor sediments, helping to slow climate change. We see this work as a blueprint for restoring and maintaining healthy ecosystems along coastlines around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graphic of seagrasses and other near-shore ecosystems." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364122/original/file-20201018-13-mda8ht.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seagrasses and other coastal habitats stabilize coastlines, store carbon and provide habitat for fish and shellfish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49983475236_35e2e8d974_o.png">Hisham Ashkar/GRID-Arendal</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why didn’t seagrasses recover naturally?</h2>
<p>Development, nutrient runoff and other human impacts have damaged marshes, mangroves, coral reefs and seagrasses in many bays and estuaries worldwide. Loss or shrinkage of these key habitats has reduced commercial fisheries, increased erosion, made coastlines more vulnerable to floods and storms and harmed many types of aquatic life. Rapid climate change has compounded these effects through <a href="https://theconversation.com/ocean-warming-has-fisheries-on-the-move-helping-some-but-hurting-more-116248">rising global temperatures</a>, more <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-frequent-and-intense-tropical-storms-mean-less-recovery-time-for-the-worlds-coastlines-123335">frequent and severe storms</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-climate-change-alters-the-oceans-what-will-happen-to-dungeness-crabs-61501">ocean acidification</a>.</p>
<p>In the late 1990s, local residents told two of us who are longtime students of seagrasses (Robert “JJ” Orth and Karen McGlathery) that they had spotted small patches of eelgrass in shallow waters off Virginia’s eastern shore. For years the conventional view had been that seagrasses in this area had not recovered from the events of the 1930s because human activities had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquabot.2005.07.007">made the area inhospitable for them</a>.</p>
<p>But studies showed that water quality in these coastal bays was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02782971">comparatively good</a>. This led us to explore a different explanation: Seeds from healthy seagrass populations elsewhere along the Atlantic coast simply weren’t reaching these isolated bays. Seagrasses are underwater flowering plants, so seeds are among the main ways they reproduce and spread to new environments.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Satellite map showing project area in coastal Virginia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=536&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364352/original/file-20201019-17-1ed9xo2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=674&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eelgrass beds were restored in four bays at the southern tip of Virginia’s eastern shore on the Atlantic coast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David J. Wilcox/VIMS</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sowing a new crop</h2>
<p>From our <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1941597">earlier research</a>, we knew that when eelgrass seeds fall from the parent plant, they sink to the sea bottom quickly and don’t move far from where they land. We also knew that these seeds don’t germinate until late fall or early winter. This meant that if we collected the seeds in spring, when eelgrass flowers, we could hold them until the fall, helping them survive over the months in between.</p>
<p>We decided to try reseeding eelgrass in the areas where they were missing. Starting in 1999, we collected seeds by hand from underwater meadows in nearby Chesapeake Bay – plucking the long reproductive shoots, bringing them back to our laboratory and holding them in large outdoor seawater tanks until they released their seeds naturally. After about 10 years we started gathering the grasses using a custom-built underwater “lawn mower” to collect many more of the reproductive shoots than we could by hand. </p>
<p>In 2001 we sowed our first round by simply tossing seeds from a boat. Our first test plots covered 28 acres of mud flats in waters 2 to 3 feet deep. Returning the following year, we saw new seedlings sprouting up. </p>
<p>Each year since then, the <a href="https://www.vims.edu">Virginia Institute of Marine Science</a> and the <a href="https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/virginia/">Nature Conservancy’s Virginia Coast Reserve</a>, along with staff and students from the <a href="https://www.vcrlter.virginia.edu">University of Virginia</a>, have led a team of scientists and citizens to collect and seed a combined 536 acres of bare bottom in several coastal bays.</p>
<p>These initial plots took off and rapidly expanded. By 2020 they covered 9,600 acres across four bays. Several factors helped them flourish. These bays are naturally flushed with cool, clean water from the Atlantic Ocean. And they lie off the tip of Virginia’s eastern shore, where there is little coastal development. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/K9NyfPLINtk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">To restore eelgrasses to Virginia coastal bays, scientists collected grasses in other areas, harvested their seeds and spread them by hand.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sheltering marine life and storing carbon</h2>
<p>Since eelgrass disappeared from these bays in the 1930s, human understanding of seagrass ecosystems has evolved. Today people don’t pack their walls full of seagrass insulation but instead value different services they provide, such as habitat for fish and shellfish – including many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12645">commercially and recreationally important species</a>.</p>
<p>Scientists and government agencies also have recognized the importance of coastal systems in capturing and storing so-called “<a href="https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/bluecarbon.html">blue carbon</a>.” In fact, we now know that seagrasses constitute a globally significant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1477">carbon sink</a>. They are a key tool for reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64094-1">slowing climate change</a></p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>We are working to understand the valuable services that our restored seagrass beds provide. To our surprise, fish and invertebrates returned within only a few years as the meadows expanded. These organisms have established extensive food webs that include species ranging from tiny seahorses to 6-foot-long sandbar sharks.</p>
<p>Other benefits were equally dramatic. Water in the bays become clearer as the seagrass canopy trapped floating particles and deposited them onto the bottom, burying significant stocks of carbon and nitrogen in sediments bound by the grasses’ roots. Our research is the first to verify the overall net carbon captured by seagrass, and is now being used to issue carbon offset credits that in turn <a href="https://vaseagrant.org/eelgrass-carbon-credits/">create more funds for restoration</a>. </p>
<p>One big question was whether restoring seagrasses could make it possible to bring back bay scallops, which once generated millions of dollars for the local economy. Since bay scallops no longer existed in Virginia, we obtained broodstock from North Carolina, which we have <a href="https://chesapeakebaymagazine.com/return-of-the-bay-scallop/">reared and released annually</a> since 2013. Regular surveys now reveal a growing population of bay scallops in the restored eelgrass, although there is still some way to go before they reach levels seen in the 1930s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aerial photo of restored seagrass beds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364124/original/file-20201018-19-186i0gd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Restored seagrass beds (dark areas) along Virginia’s Atlantic coast, with sunlight reflecting from a small island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Lefcheck</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A model for coastal restoration</h2>
<p>Repairing damaged ecosystems is such an urgent mission worldwide that the United Nations has designated 2021-2030 as the <a href="https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/">U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration</a>. We see the success we have achieved with eelgrass restoration as a prime model for similar efforts in coastal areas around the world. </p>
<p>Our project focused not only on reviving this essential habitat, but also on charting how restoring seagrasses affected the ecosystem and on the co-restoration of bay scallops. It provides a road map for involving scholars, nonprofits organizations, citizens and government agencies in an ecological mission where they can see the results of their work.</p>
<p>Recent assessments show that the restored zone only covers about 30% of the total habitable bottom in our project area. With continued support, eelgrass – and the many benefits it provides – may continue to thrive and expand well into the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert J. Orth receives funding from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coastal Zone Management, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Virginia Recreational Fishing License Fund, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Department of the Environment, Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, Virginia Sea Grant . He is an elected official on the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors as an independent. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Lefcheck is supported by the Michael E. Tennenbaum Secretarial Scholar gift to the Smithsonian Institution.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen McGlathery receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Fisheries and Wildlife Foundation, and Virginia Sea Grant.</span></em></p>Healthy seagrasses form underwater meadows teeming with fish and shellfish. A successful large-scale restoration project in Virginia could become a model for reseeding damaged seagrass beds worldwide.Robert J. Orth, Professor of Marine Science, Virginia Institute of Marine ScienceJonathan Lefcheck, Research Scientist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Smithsonian InstitutionKaren McGlathery, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Director, Environmental Resilience Institute, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1411562020-06-19T14:18:51Z2020-06-19T14:18:51ZLatest legal hurdle to removing Confederate statues in Virginia: The wishes of their long-dead white donors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342975/original/file-20200619-43187-1xbllfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5472%2C3587&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richmond's towering 1890 Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-image-of-george-floyd-along-with-the-black-lives-matter-news-photo/1219836149?adppopup=true">John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A controversial statue of Robert E. Lee will remain in place in Richmond, the former capital of the American Confederacy –- at least temporarily.</p>
<p>On June 18, a judge <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/updated-richmond-judge-extends-injunction-barring-removal-of-lee-statue-on-monument-avenue/article_2494d3df-fcf5-5c5d-b66e-5fe3c01e9481.html">extended an injunction</a> barring the removal of the Confederate general’s statue, stating that “the monument is the property of the people,” not the state of Virginia, which seeks its removal. </p>
<p>In early June Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/northam-to-remove-lee-statue/2020/06/04/0b2c013c-a603-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html">vowed to dismantle</a> the prominent Lee statue in Richmond, the state capital, following <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/06/confederate-monuments-statues-richmond-virginia-protests/612691/">sustained, nationwide protests over police brutality and racism</a>. That plan was blocked by <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/09/872707016/virginia-judge-blocks-plan-to-remove-statue-of-robert-e-lee">a 10-day court injunction</a> – now extended through late July – based on the petition of a man whose ancestor, Otway Allen, gave Virginia the land the the sculpture sits on.</p>
<p>In his petition, William C. Gregory claimed that dismantling the Lee statue would violate the conditions of his great-grandfather’s <a href="http://virginiamemory.com/transcribe/scripto/transcribe/4096/14116">1890 land deed</a>, which says Virginia “will faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it.”</p>
<p>Richmond isn’t the only Virginia city where a centuries-old land deed is a legal hurdle in removing monuments to men that many see as defenders of white supremacy. Nearby Charlottesville has <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/charlottesville-seeks-lawsuit-s-dismissal-so-it-can-move-forward-with-lee-statue-sale/article_eb002250-2471-11e7-865c-77334390b7a1.html">faced similar questions</a> about the intentions of the philanthropist who donated its contested Robert E. Lee statue.</p>
<h2>‘Irreparable harm’</h2>
<p>Richmond’s Lee sculpture sits atop a pedestal on a traffic circle at the gateway to Monument Avenue, an architectural paean to white Richmonders’ long tradition of gracious, segregated living. </p>
<p>The land <a href="https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/history/2017/08/24/lee-monument-richmond-celebrated-confederacys-deathless-dead/596700001/">was a gift</a> to the state from real estate investor Otway S. Allen and his sisters, Bettie F. Allen Gregory and Martha Allen Wilson. The donors hoped that putting the monument on the tree-lined boulevard would hasten development of the <a href="https://www.livingplaces.com/VA/Independent_Cities/Richmond_City/Monument_Avenue_Historic_District.html">prestigious</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/its-not-just-the-monuments/612940/?fbclid=IwAR0jH2-A3U-nHG5TbQuV-Z3zbgLTN1gTEUc4lL8w87c9oBCG2AupcRgZ1Zk">whites-only</a> residential neighborhood planned for the area. </p>
<p>Back in the 19th century, the Lee monument was on the outskirts of the city. Over the next 40 years, four more Confederate monuments were erected along the avenue, which traverses what is now central Richmond.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Lee-complaint.pdf">injunction request</a>, Gregory claimed that removing the statue would cause “irreparable harm” because his family “has taken pride for 130 years in this statue resting upon land belonging to his family.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Richmond postcard from the early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/rBwunh">VCU Library Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To many locals, especially black Richmond residents, the sculptures have always been <a href="https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/is-monument-avenue-set-in-stone/Content?oid=2909428">colossal reminders of the South’s</a> history of enslavement and the violence wrought on black lives. The governor and city leaders <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/local/updated-richmond-leaders-want-confederate-monuments-removed-a-small-town-mayor-was-ready-to-take/article_a0583665-36f9-5e15-8c81-1fe18c8cfd20.html">now seemingly agree</a>, saying that monuments glorifying the region’s white supremacist history should not displayed on public land.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Richmond’s Lee statue <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/along-historic-richmond-street-residents-grapple-with-confederate-legacy/2020/06/12/86944d42-aaa5-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html">still has its defenders</a>. On June 15, six Monument Avenue homeowners <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/six-monument-avenue-residents-sue-to-stop-lee-statues-removal/article_cf0be699-55d0-56df-9fa6-8ac9039e32ea.html">filed their own separate lawsuit</a> to block its removal, claiming that dismantling the “priceless work of art” would lead to the “degradation of the internationally recognized avenue on which they reside.”</p>
<h2>Charlottesville’s ‘princely giver’</h2>
<p>An hour away in Charlottesville, another Robert E. Lee statue has been embroiled in legal challenges since 2017, when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-a-step-in-our-long-arc-toward-justice-82880">city council vote for its removal</a> triggered a deadly white supremacist rally.</p>
<p>Charlottesville’s statue was a gift of a <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/what-did-mcintire-really-want/article_20040940-bbce-5e87-9cc5-c425e98c5f2f.html">prominent local philanthropist</a>, Paul Goodloe McIntire. McIntire, born during the Civil War, was the son of the Charlottesville’s mayor when the city surrendered to General Custer’s Union troops in 1865. </p>
<p>McIntire made his money on the stock exchanges in Chicago and New York before returning to Charlottesville, a <a href="https://www.c-ville.com/paul-goodloe-mcintire-goodwill-men/">city shaped by his philanthropy</a>. Funding Charlottesville’s first library and building an amphitheater for the University of Virginia, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WBz3LgKePpQC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=McIntire+princely+giver+of+gifts&source=bl&ots=9smhE-zJER&sig=ACfU3U3z7FYE6W6wzif0T5eF5hMwwIF_PQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiC-szP6IbqAhVdSTABHVzyBbAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=McIntire%20princely%20giver%20of%20gifts&f=false">McIntire earned the sobriquet</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/10/charlottesvilles-confederate-statues-still-stand-still-symbolize-racist-past/">“princely giver” of gifts</a>. </p>
<p>In 1918 McIntire <a href="http://www.c-ville.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Monument-Fund-v.-City-of-Charlottesville-complaint-2017.pdf">donated land</a> to the city for use as a public park, to be called Lee Park. The deed stipulated that <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/395627/robert-e-lee-confederate-monument-charlottesville/">a sculpture of the Virginia-born Confederate general</a>, commissioned and paid for by McIntire, would be installed and maintained. </p>
<p>Among <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/charlottesville-seeks-lawsuit-s-dismissal-so-it-can-move-forward-with-lee-statue-sale/article_eb002250-2471-11e7-865c-77334390b7a1.html">other objections to the statue’s removal</a>, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Monument Fund and a small group of local citizens cited this land deed in their successful <a href="http://www.c-ville.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Monument-Fund-v.-City-of-Charlottesville-complaint-2017.pdf">March 2017 legal complaint</a>. They claimed that removing the statue would violate the terms and conditions of McIntire’s gift.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since 2017 Charlottesville’s contested Lee statue has been alternately shrouded in black, barricaded and given police protection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-virginia-state-police-waits-outside-the-park-news-photo/1015049006?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Courts side with progress</h2>
<p>Both Virginia lawsuits argue that the land donors’ original wishes are inviolable. </p>
<p>But my <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3202660">legal research</a> on <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2680466">charitable gifts</a> shows that donor wishes are not always set in stone, so to speak. Under state law, Virginia’s included, courts can <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title64.2/chapter7/section64.2-731/">modify gift conditions</a> when fulfilling them is no longer possible or practicable.</p>
<p>Gifts with problematic racial restrictions and segregationist intentions have troubled many American institutions, from <a href="https://casetext.com/case/colin-mck-grant-home-v-medlock">nursing homes</a> established by donors to benefit elderly, white Presbyterians to <a href="https://casetext.com/case/tinnin-v-first-united-bank-of-miss">church scholarships mandated to fund white students only</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richmond’s graffiti-covered Lee statue, June 13, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-visit-the-graffiti-covered-statue-of-confederate-news-photo/1249586748?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In such cases, judges have often declined to preserve the outdated wishes of long-dead donors, allowing discriminatory gift conditions to be eliminated. That renders the gifts usable in the modern era.</p>
<p>Rice University, for example, was founded in 1912 with a <a href="https://www.law.uh.edu/ihelg/monograph/11-08.pdf">charitable bequest</a> on the condition that the school educate only “the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas.” In 1963, seeking to integrate the university, Rice trustees filed a motion to modify the racial restrictions. </p>
<p>Despite opposition by a group of alumni who sought to keep the school segregated, the court concluded that strict adherence to the donor’s racial restrictions was no longer practicable and that the terms of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=921901346000076013&q=coffee+v.+rice+university&hl=en&as_sdt=6,47&as_vis=1">Rice’s charter could be modified</a> to admit black students.</p>
<p>On July 23, a Richmond court is expected to hold a new hearing to determine whether land given to Richmond by a private citizen making a very public statement about Southern racial inequality can instead be used to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/cookout-at-confederate-statue-monument-richmond-virginia">celebrate new and different histories</a>. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/dead-white-men-get-their-say-in-court-as-virginia-tries-to-remove-robert-e-lee-statues-140813">story</a> originally published June 17, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Anna Tait does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Richmond court says the city cannot remove its controversial Robert E. Lee sculpture because an 1890 land deed gave the Confederate monument ‘to the people’ of Virginia, not its government.Allison Anna Tait, Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1408132020-06-17T22:36:05Z2020-06-17T22:36:05ZDead white men get their say in court as Virginia tries to remove Robert E. Lee statues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342465/original/file-20200617-94054-o22ozd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C147%2C5111%2C3374&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richmond's towering Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd. Is removal next?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-image-of-george-floyd-along-with-the-black-lives-matter-news-photo/1219836149?adppopup=true">John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest chapter in the United States’ ongoing debate about Confederate monuments involves some unexpected opinions: those of long-dead land donors.</p>
<p>Responding to <a href="https://www.citylab.com/design/2020/06/confederate-monuments-statues-richmond-virginia-protests/612691/">sustained, nationwide protests over police brutality</a>, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on June 4 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/northam-to-remove-lee-statue/2020/06/04/0b2c013c-a603-11ea-b473-04905b1af82b_story.html">vowed to dismantle</a> a prominent statue of the Virginia-born Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, the state capital.</p>
<p>That plan was put on pause just four days later when a state judge issued <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/06/09/872707016/virginia-judge-blocks-plan-to-remove-statue-of-robert-e-lee">an injunction</a> based on the petition of a man whose ancestor, Otway Allen, gave Virginia the land the the sculpture sits on.</p>
<p>In his petition to the court, William C. Gregory claimed that removal of the statue would violate the conditions of his great-grandfather’s <a href="http://virginiamemory.com/transcribe/scripto/transcribe/4096/14116">1890 land deed</a>, which says Virginia “will hold said Statue and pedestal and Circle of ground perpetually sacred to the Monumental purpose … and that she will faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it.”</p>
<p>On June 19, a judge will decide whether to let the 10-day injunction expire, enabling Richmond to dismantle its Lee monument, or to obey the donor’s wishes – at least temporarily. </p>
<p>Richmond isn’t the only Virginia city where a centuries-old land deed is a legal hurdle in removing Confederate monuments many see as a symbol of white supremacy. Nearby Charlottesville has <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/charlottesville-seeks-lawsuit-s-dismissal-so-it-can-move-forward-with-lee-statue-sale/article_eb002250-2471-11e7-865c-77334390b7a1.html">faced similar questions</a> about the intentions of the philanthropist who donated its controversial Robert E. Lee statue.</p>
<h2>‘Irreparable harm’</h2>
<p>Richmond’s Lee sculpture sits atop a pedestal on a traffic circle at the gateway to Monument Avenue, an architectural paean to white Richmonders’ long tradition of gracious, segregated living. </p>
<p>The land <a href="https://www.newsleader.com/story/news/history/2017/08/24/lee-monument-richmond-celebrated-confederacys-deathless-dead/596700001/">was a gift</a> to the state from real estate investor Otway S. Allen and his sisters, Bettie F. Allen Gregory and Martha Allen Wilson. The donors hoped that putting the monument on the tree-lined boulevard would hasten development of the <a href="https://www.livingplaces.com/VA/Independent_Cities/Richmond_City/Monument_Avenue_Historic_District.html">prestigious</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/its-not-just-the-monuments/612940/?fbclid=IwAR0jH2-A3U-nHG5TbQuV-Z3zbgLTN1gTEUc4lL8w87c9oBCG2AupcRgZ1Zk">whites-only</a> residential neighborhood planned for the area. </p>
<p>Back in the 19th century, the Lee monument was on the outskirts of the city. Over the next 40 years, four more Confederate monuments were erected along the avenue, which traverses what is now central Richmond.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Lee-complaint.pdf">injunction request</a>, Gregory claimed that removing the statue would cause “irreparable harm” because his family “has taken pride for 130 years in this statue resting upon land belonging to his family.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342467/original/file-20200617-94060-h0m99e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Richmond postcard from the early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/rBwunh">VCU Library Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To many locals, especially black Richmond residents, the sculptures have always been <a href="https://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/is-monument-avenue-set-in-stone/Content?oid=2909428">colossal reminders of the South’s</a> history of enslavement and the violence wrought on black lives. The governor and city leaders <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/local/updated-richmond-leaders-want-confederate-monuments-removed-a-small-town-mayor-was-ready-to-take/article_a0583665-36f9-5e15-8c81-1fe18c8cfd20.html">now seemingly agree</a>, saying that monuments glorifying the region’s white supremacist history should not displayed on public land.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Lee statue still has its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/along-historic-richmond-street-residents-grapple-with-confederate-legacy/2020/06/12/86944d42-aaa5-11ea-a9d9-a81c1a491c52_story.html">defenders in Richmond</a>. On June 15, six Monument Avenue homeowners <a href="https://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/six-monument-avenue-residents-sue-to-stop-lee-statues-removal/article_cf0be699-55d0-56df-9fa6-8ac9039e32ea.html">filed their own separate lawsuit</a> to block its removal, claiming that dismantling the “priceless work of art” would lead to the “degradation of the internationally recognized avenue on which they reside.”</p>
<h2>Charlottesville’s ‘princely giver’</h2>
<p>An hour away in Charlottesville, another Robert E. Lee statue has been embroiled in legal challenges since 2017, when a <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-a-step-in-our-long-arc-toward-justice-82880">city council vote for its removal</a> triggered a deadly white supremacist rally.</p>
<p>Charlottesville’s statue was a gift of a <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/what-did-mcintire-really-want/article_20040940-bbce-5e87-9cc5-c425e98c5f2f.html">prominent local philanthropist</a>, Paul Goodloe McIntire. McIntire, born during the Civil War, was the son of the Charlottesville’s mayor when the city surrendered to General Custer’s Union troops in 1865. </p>
<p>McIntire made his money on the stock exchanges in Chicago and New York before returning to Charlottesville, a <a href="https://www.c-ville.com/paul-goodloe-mcintire-goodwill-men/">city shaped by his philanthropy</a>. Funding Charlottesville’s first library and building an amphitheater for the University of Virginia, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WBz3LgKePpQC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=McIntire+princely+giver+of+gifts&source=bl&ots=9smhE-zJER&sig=ACfU3U3z7FYE6W6wzif0T5eF5hMwwIF_PQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiC-szP6IbqAhVdSTABHVzyBbAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=McIntire%20princely%20giver%20of%20gifts&f=false">McIntire earned the sobriquet</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/10/charlottesvilles-confederate-statues-still-stand-still-symbolize-racist-past/">“princely giver” of gifts</a>. </p>
<p>In 1918 McIntire <a href="http://www.c-ville.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Monument-Fund-v.-City-of-Charlottesville-complaint-2017.pdf">donated land</a> to the city for use as a public park, to be called Lee Park. The deed stipulated that <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/395627/robert-e-lee-confederate-monument-charlottesville/">a sculpture of the Confederate general</a>, commissioned and paid for by McIntire, would be installed and maintained. </p>
<p>Among <a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/charlottesville-seeks-lawsuit-s-dismissal-so-it-can-move-forward-with-lee-statue-sale/article_eb002250-2471-11e7-865c-77334390b7a1.html">other objections to the statue’s removal</a>, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Monument Fund and a small group of local citizens cited this land deed in their successful <a href="http://www.c-ville.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Monument-Fund-v.-City-of-Charlottesville-complaint-2017.pdf">March 2017 legal complaint</a>. They claimed that removing the statue would violate the terms and conditions of McIntire’s gift.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342468/original/file-20200617-94078-szdx4u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since 2017 Charlottesville’s contested Lee statue has been alternately shrouded in black, barricaded and given police protection.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-the-virginia-state-police-waits-outside-the-park-news-photo/1015049006?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Courts side with progress</h2>
<p>Both Virginia lawsuits argue that the land donors’ original wishes are inviolable. </p>
<p>But my <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3202660">legal research</a> on <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2680466">charitable gifts</a> shows that donor wishes are not always set in stone, so to speak. Under state law, Virginia’s included, courts can <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title64.2/chapter7/section64.2-731/">modify gift conditions</a> when fulfilling them is no longer possible or practicable.</p>
<p>Gifts with problematic racial restrictions and segregationist intentions have troubled many American institutions, from <a href="https://casetext.com/case/colin-mck-grant-home-v-medlock">nursing homes</a> established by donors to benefit elderly, white Presbyterians to <a href="https://casetext.com/case/tinnin-v-first-united-bank-of-miss">church scholarships mandated to fund white students only</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342469/original/file-20200617-94040-yovldl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richmond’s graffiti-covered Lee statue, June 13, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-visit-the-graffiti-covered-statue-of-confederate-news-photo/1249586748?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In such cases, judges have declined to preserve the outdated wishes of long-dead donors. Instead, they’ve allowed discriminatory gift conditions to be eliminated, rendering the gifts usable in the modern era.</p>
<p>Rice University, for example, was founded in 1912 with a <a href="https://www.law.uh.edu/ihelg/monograph/11-08.pdf">charitable bequest</a> on the condition that the school educate only “the white inhabitants of Houston, and the state of Texas.” In 1963, seeking to integrate the university, Rice trustees filed a motion to modify the racial restrictions. </p>
<p>Despite opposition by a group of alumni who sought to keep the school segregated, the court concluded that strict adherence to the donor’s racial restrictions was no longer practicable and that the terms of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=921901346000076013&q=coffee+v.+rice+university&hl=en&as_sdt=6,47&as_vis=1">Rice’s charter could be modified</a> to admit black students.</p>
<p>Now, a Richmond court must tackle a similar issue. The ruling will determine whether land given to Richmond by a private citizen making a very public statement about the South’s legacy of racial inequality can be used to <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/06/cookout-at-confederate-statue-monument-richmond-virginia">celebrate new and different histories</a>. </p>
<p>What happens in this former capital of the Confederacy may influence similar cases in Charlottesville and beyond. </p>
<p><em>This story has been updated to reflect latest developments. You can find the updated version <a href="https://theconversation.com/latest-legal-hurdle-to-removing-confederate-statues-in-virginia-the-wishes-of-their-long-dead-white-donors-141156">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140813/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allison Anna Tait does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On June 19, a court will decide whether Virginia must obey a 1890 deed that gave the state a plot of prime Richmond land as long as it would ‘faithfully guard’ the Robert E. Lee statue erected there.Allison Anna Tait, Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306822020-02-28T14:06:15Z2020-02-28T14:06:15ZLibrarians could be jailed and fined under a proposed censorship law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317637/original/file-20200227-24651-1uz26vf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sign of the times</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/right-only-rebecca-breksa-27-of-fullerton-protests-the-news-photo/569150145">Geraldine Wilkins/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A bill pending in Missouri’s legislature takes aim at libraries and librarians who are making “<a href="https://house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills201/hlrbillspdf/4634H.01I.pdf">age-inappropriate sexual material</a>” available to children.</p>
<p>The measure, championed by <a href="https://www.therolladailynews.com/news/20200118/interview-ben-baker-speaks-about-his-now-controversial-library-bill">Ben Baker</a>, a Republican lawmaker, calls for establishing review boards who would determine whether materials in libraries contain or promote “nudity, sexuality, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, or sadomasochistic abuse.” In addition, the boards, which would be comprised of parents, would root out materials lacking “serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”</p>
<p>Librarians who defy the review boards by buying and lending such materials would be subject to misdemeanor charges, fines upward of US$500, and a potential jail sentence up to one year.</p>
<p>As a librarian, and now as an educator who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=iPhNa4EAAAAJ">teaches aspiring librarians</a>, I see this bill as the latest chapter in a <a href="https://lithub.com/the-history-and-present-of-banning-books-in-america/">long history of books being banned</a> from <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/some-northern-virginia-parents-wanted-two-books-with-lgbtq-characters-removed-from-schools-officials-said-no/2020/01/15/06f8be0e-36df-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html">public and school libraries</a>.</p>
<h2>Censorship and book banning</h2>
<p>Often, efforts to censor and muzzle libraries originate with members of the public rather than public officials or school leaders. </p>
<p>Censoring and banning library materials and programs <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/a-short-history-of-book-banning/">is nothing new</a>. <a href="https://libguides.butler.edu/c.php?g=34189&p=217684">Many classic books have been challenged and banned</a>, including classroom favorites like “<a href="http://www.bannedlibrary.com/podcast/2016/12/28/nineteen-eighty-four-1984-by-george-orwell">1984</a>” by George Orwell, “<a href="https://sites.psu.edu/bannedbookscmlit130/2016/02/18/catcher-in-the-rye/">The Catcher in the Rye</a>” by J. D. Salinger, “<a href="https://www.history.com/news/why-to-kill-a-mockingbird-keeps-getting-banned">To Kill a Mockingbird</a>” by Harper Lee, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/02/texas-prisons-ban-books-mein-kampf-color-purple">The Color Purple</a>” by Alice Walker, and “<a href="https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/?p=1495">I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings</a>” by Maya Angelou.</p>
<p>The children’s book “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/And-Tango-Makes-Three/Justin-Richardson/9781481446952">And Tango Makes Three</a>,” by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and illustrated by Henry Cole, was <a href="https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/09/23/banned-books-week-and-tango-makes-three">challenged and banned</a> from libraries around the country for many years after its publication in 2005. The picture book is based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopt and care for an egg and then keep caring for their daughter, Tango, after she hatched.</p>
<p>J.K. Rowling’s <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/harry-potter-and-other-banned-books-you-didnt-know-face-censorship-threat-669682">Harry Potter series</a> is also regularly challenged and banned. </p>
<p>Separately, opponents of the storytime program known as “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/07/protest-seeks-to-stop-us-libraries-supporting-drag-queen-story-hour">Drag Queen Story Hour</a>” at libraries and other community venues, have held protests to ban and condemn such events aimed at children. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/07/protest-seeks-to-stop-us-libraries-supporting-drag-queen-story-hour">objections voiced by protesters</a> stem from their belief that drag performers are evil and amoral and that exposure to drag queens will, in their view, cause children to become gay.</p>
<p>The Missouri bill is not the first of its kind. State lawmakers in <a href="https://www.billtrack50.com/BillDetail/1004882">Colorado</a> and <a href="http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/bills_129th/billtexts/HP008001.asp">Maine</a> both tried to pass similar legislation in 2019. Both efforts failed. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C0%2C3500%2C2326&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C0%2C3500%2C2326&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316667/original/file-20200221-92502-sioc7r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The drag queens who read to kids in libraries are attracting protesters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/drag-queen-pickle-reads-from-a-book-during-the-drag-queen-news-photo/1157847779?adppopup=true">David McNew/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A profession</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2020/01/oif-responds-missouri-legislation-proposes-policies-and-procedures-threaten">American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom</a>, the <a href="http://molib.org/">Missouri Library Association</a>, and
<a href="https://pen.org/press-release/proposed-book-banning-bill-in-missouri-could-imprison-librarians/">PEN America</a> – a nonprofit that defends free expression – are among the literary and library groups that have voiced their objections.</p>
<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VS6ZLk4JwQ">drag queens</a> who <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/drag-queens-plan-protest-state-capitol-against-bill-that-would-jail-librarians-displaying-1483982">read to kids</a> are planning a protest against the measure on March 7. Baker has said his concerns about these readings were a factor in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/missouri-libraries-sexual-books.html">inspiring him to draft the bill</a>.</p>
<p>Librarians are professionals. Librarians working in K-12 school libraries also earn certification as <a href="https://www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/careers/school-librarian/">school library media specialists</a>. Librarians have expertise in children’s literature, collection development, child development, psychology, readers’ advisory, reference services and other specialized skills needed to serve <a href="http://www.ala.org/alsc/edcareeers/alsccorecomps">children</a> and <a href="http://www.ala.org/yalsa/guidelines">young adults</a> in a variety of settings.</p>
<p>In short, librarians are more than capable of selecting and purchasing quality books and other materials for people of all ages.</p>
<p>To imply otherwise, as I believe the proposed Missouri measure would, is to insult these skilled educators. If it should be enacted, I would consider it a potential threat to information access, intellectual freedom and the freedom to read.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Cooke works for the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina.
I belong to professional library associations that advocate for librarians and free speech, several of which are mentioned in the article.</span></em></p>There’s a long history of books being banned from public and school libraries.Nicole A. Cooke, Associate Professor of Library and Information Science, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1293092020-01-10T13:47:22Z2020-01-10T13:47:22ZWhy some public universities get to keep their donors secret<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/309164/original/file-20200108-107219-wa0q1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Charles Koch Foundation had a say in some GMU faculty hires. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In April 2018, the public learned that <a href="https://apnews.com/0c87e4318bcc4eb9b8e69f9f54c7b889">George Mason University</a> had let the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-george-mason-will-take-the/243414">Charles Koch Foundation</a> have a say in the hiring and review of faculty. The revelation confirmed long-held suspicions that Virginia’s largest public university was susceptible to pressure from wealthy people who make big donations to a foundation that solely exists to support the school. </p>
<p>The news also raised more questions. For example, how was the school able to conceal the <a href="http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/gmu-president-calls-for-review-of-financial-donor-agreements/article_14ad0920-4fae-11e8-ae7e-8760dbb94979.html">strings-attached gift agreements</a> for years? Do other <a href="https://splc.org/2010/10/access-to-university-foundation-records/">public universities have similar arrangements</a>, in which donations flow not to them, but to affiliated foundations? </p>
<p>Most importantly, do these foundations give donors a legal right to shape a public institution of higher education without <a href="https://splc.org/2010/07/using-the-tools-of-the-trade/">public oversight</a> if they so choose?</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.jjay.cuny.edu/faculty/alexa-capeloto">journalist-turned-professor</a> who researches the tension between privatization and the public’s right to know, I can tell you the vast majority of public colleges and universities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10811680.2015.1078617">have separate foundations</a> that exist to receive and manage their private donations. And unless state lawmakers do more to address the transparency status of these foundations, I’m concerned there are few ways to detect the kind of influence allowed at George Mason. </p>
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<h2>The George Mason case</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/transparentGMU/">Transparent GMU</a>, a student advocacy group formed in 2013, had tried for years to access the Koch agreements under <a href="https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodepopularnames/virginia-freedom-of-information-act/">Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act</a> (VFOIA). The group suspected that George Mason might be trading academic influence for Koch dollars.</p>
<p>An agreement forged in 2008 for a <a href="http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/florida-state-university-koch-grant-supports-free-enterprise-critics-cry-foul">$1.5 million donation</a> with strings attached from the Charles Koch Foundation to Florida State University caused a <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/25/koch-foundation-pledges-make-future-grant-terms-public-critics-want-know-more-about">public outcry</a>; Florida State later <a href="https://foundation.fsu.edu/about/press-releases/president-thrasher-comments-koch-foundation-gift">changed its policies</a>.</p>
<p>Transparent GMU’s VFOIA requests were denied on the basis that the George Mason University Foundation possessed the agreement records and, as a private entity, did not have to share them. </p>
<p>The group <a href="http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/students-take-gmu-to-court-over-koch-brothers-million-in/article_93778250-ba6f-11e7-9fcf-3b19f2a5cac0.html">sued the foundation</a> in 2017. Transparent GMU argued that because the nonprofit accepts, disburses and administers funds for the sole benefit of a public university, it <a href="https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit/sites/circuit/files/assets/documents/pdf/opinions/cl-2017-7484-transparent-gmu-v-gmu-et-al.pdf">should be subject</a> to VFOIA requests just like the university.</p>
<p>More than a year later, while the case was still pending, the university released the agreements and <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-george-mason-will-take-the/243414">acknowledged</a> that allowing donors to influence faculty decisions “falls short of the standard of academic independence we should expect in every gift.” </p>
<p>In the wake of the scandal, in May 2019 the university revised <a href="https://universitypolicy.gmu.edu/policies/gift-acceptance-policy/">its gift acceptance policy</a>. The university now accepts conditions attached to a private donation in writing, which makes them <a href="http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/gmu-to-make-all-future-gift-agreements-public/article_6df08690-78db-11e9-b175-67c32eea5f07.html">part of the public record</a>. The Charles Koch Foundation also announced that it will now <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/07/25/koch-foundation-pledges-make-future-grant-terms-public-critics-want-know-more-about">make public</a> all multi-year agreements with colleges and universities.</p>
<p>But Transparent GMU ultimately lost its court challenge. In a unanimous decision that leaves no path for appeal, the <a href="http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1181375.pdf">Virginia Supreme Court ruled</a> Dec. 12 that as a privately held corporation with its own bylaws, the George Mason University Foundation is not a public body. Therefore, it’s not obligated to disclose records. </p>
<h2>State by state</h2>
<p>Unless it’s related to the federal government, public information access is regulated state by state under <a href="https://www.nfoic.org/coalitions/state-foi-resources/state-freedom-of-information-laws">individual Freedom of Information laws</a>. <a href="https://www.rcfp.org/open-government-guide/">Each state defines in its own way</a> what constitutes a public body, public records and public meetings. </p>
<p>Only Nevada explicitly defines university foundations as governmental entities under its <a href="https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-239.html">public records act</a>. A handful of other states, including <a href="https://splc.org/2015/09/shaking-the-foundation/">Colorado, Georgia and Minnesota</a>, have laws dictating that foundations disclose certain financial records while still remaining private. In most cases, <a href="https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-396.html#NRS396Sec405">even in Nevada</a>, donor identities remain confidential.</p>
<p>Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act applies to public agencies, bodies supported wholly or principally by public funds, and entities “of the public body created to perform delegated functions of the public body.” </p>
<p>The state Supreme Court cited the Webster’s dictionary definition of the word “of” in deciding the George Mason foundation wasn’t a product “of” the university, even though it <a href="http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1181375.pdf">exists to support that school</a>, pays the majority of the president’s salary, operates on campus, is part of the GMU website and staff directory, and is considered a “component unit” in university accounting. </p>
<p>“Had the General Assembly intended the unreserved inclusion of nonprofit foundations, that exist for the primary purpose of supporting public institutions of higher education, as public bodies under VFOIA, it could have so provided, but it has not,” <a href="http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1181375.pdf">Justice Cleo Powell wrote</a>. “Policy determinations of this nature are peculiarly within the province of the General Assembly, not the judiciary.”</p>
<h2>California case</h2>
<p>Courts in other states have followed the same logic. In 2001 a <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/4th/90/810.html">California appellate court</a> found that the California State University, Fresno Association, a nonprofit that operates the university’s commercial enterprises, wasn’t a public agency under the state’s <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=7.&chapter=3.5.&lawCode=GOV&title=1.&article=1.">Public Records Act</a> (CPRA).</p>
<p>The court looked at the language of the law, weighed it against the spirit of transparency, and saw a puzzling gap.</p>
<p>“We are fully cognizant of the fact that our conclusion seems to be in direct conflict with the express purposes of the CPRA ‘to safeguard the accountability of government to the public,’” Justice Rebecca Wiseman wrote. “The Legislature’s decision to narrowly define the applicability of the CPRA, balanced against its sweeping goal to safeguard the public, leaves us scratching our judicial heads and asking, ‘What was the Legislature thinking?’”</p>
<p>But courts don’t act as super-legislatures to determine the wisdom or propriety of statutes, she continued. “The rewriting of a statute is a legislative, rather than a judicial function, a practice in which we will not engage.”</p>
<p>Ten years later, California <a href="https://afscme3299.org/2011/09/07/governor-brown-signs-afscme-3299-transparency-bill-sb-8/">passed a law</a> that makes university foundations’ financial records, contracts and correspondence subject to public disclosure. </p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=EDC&division=9.&title=3.&part=57.&chapter=14.&article=">Richard McKee Transparency Act of 2011</a>, donors can remain anonymous unless they receive something in exchange that’s worth more than $2,500 or a no-bid contract within five years of the donation, or if they attempt to influence university curriculum or operations. </p>
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<h2>Pending in Virginia</h2>
<p>Following the George Mason court decision, <a href="http://www.davidbulova.com/">David Bulova</a>, a Democratic Virginia state delegate from Fairfax County, where the university’s main campus is located, introduced <a href="https://www.npr.org/local/305/2019/12/19/789722429/virginia-democrats-want-more-transparency-in-university-donations">two related bills</a>. Both would preserve the private status of foundations that support public universities while also imposing new transparency requirements on them.</p>
<p>One, <a href="http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+HB510">introduced Jan. 4</a>, would make the amount, date, purpose and terms of a public-university donation subject to FOIA, and only grant donor anonymity if the donor requests it and does not set conditions related to academic decision-making.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+HB1529">second proposal</a> follows George Mason University’s lead. It would make universities accept in writing any terms or conditions placed on a donation and then provide that document upon request.</p>
<p>If those bills become law in Virginia, they could serve as good models for legislators in other states. Efforts to define university foundations as public entities <a href="http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?171+sum+SB1436">usually go nowhere</a>, but states can require more transparency of private organizations that are so clearly enmeshed with public institutions.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify that Florida State changed its policies after a controversial gift.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexa Capeloto does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no law forcing George Mason University’s allied foundation to make the public university’s donor deals public.Alexa Capeloto, Associate Professor of Journalism, John Jay College of Criminal JusticeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1263932019-11-26T14:06:06Z2019-11-26T14:06:06ZJimmy Hoffa disappeared – and then his legacy took on a life of its own<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303034/original/file-20191121-112971-10pgrgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C22%2C2950%2C2002&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jimmy Hoffa waves to delegates at the opening of the 1957 Teamsters Union convention in Miami Beach, Florida.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hoffa-Search-Chronology/06e32ce7f7a240c794d79fd531a52778/7/0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa, the former president of the Teamsters Union, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1975/08/01/archives/hoffa-is-reported-missing-police-find-his-car.html">disappeared</a>.</p>
<p>He’d gone to a restaurant in suburban Detroit apparently expecting to meet a couple of mafia figures whom he had known for decades. He’d hoped to win their support for his bid to return to the union’s presidency. A few customers remembered seeing him in the restaurant parking lot before 3 p.m. </p>
<p>Sometime after that he vanished without a trace.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Desperate_Bargain.html?id=O27hAAAAMAAJ">FBI has long assumed</a> that Hoffa was the victim of a mob hit. But despite a decades-long investigation, no one has ever been charged with his murder. His body has never been found.</p>
<p>Yet even though his physical remains are missing, Hoffa lives on in our collective cultural consciousness.</p>
<p>Martin Scorsese’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302006/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1">The Irishman</a>” is only the latest film to offer a fictionalized version of Hoffa’s story. Before that there was Sylvester Stallone’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077531/?ref_=nv_sr_8?ref_=nv_sr_8">F.I.S.T.</a>” (1978), Danny DeVito’s “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104427/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Hoffa</a>” (1992) and the made-for-TV movie “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085252/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2">Blood Feud</a>” (1983).</p>
<p>He’s been the subject of countless true crime books, most famously Charles Brandt’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qPF0PgAACAAJ&dq=i+heard+you+paint+houses&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDo47HnP7lAhUlwVkKHRPiBloQ6AEwAnoECAAQAg">I Heard You Paint Houses</a>.” He inspired <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701151/trivia">an episode</a> of “The Simpsons.” And he crops up in tabloids such as the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=a-4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=hoffa+living+in+argentina&source=bl&ots=UVkTmWJrpl&sig=ACfU3U1-NuSbBYkxOkPZ3qLIsSXAuHgNZQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7heG05IDmAhWmxFkKHR0WAlgQ6AEwCXoECAwQAQ#v=onepage&q=hoffa%20living%20in%20argentina&f=false">Weekly World News</a>, which claimed to have found him living in Argentina, hiding from the vengeful Kennedys.</p>
<p>Ever since I started researching and writing on <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Corruption_and_Reform_in_the_Teamsters_U.html?id=LkVKPwAACAAJ">the history of the Teamsters</a>, people have asked me where I think Hoffa’s body is located. His story, I’ve learned, is the one aspect of labor history with which nearly every American is familiar. </p>
<p>Hoffa’s disappearance transformed him from a controversial union leader into a mythic figure. Over time, I’ve come to realize that Hoffa’s resonance in our culture has important political implications for the labor movement today. </p>
<h2>The rise and fall of the ‘Teamsters Teamster’</h2>
<p>Hoffa became a household name in the late 1950s, when Robert F. Kennedy, then serving as chief counsel for the <a href="https://themobmuseum.org/blog/robert-f-kennedys-crusade-mob-part-2/">Senate Rackets Committee</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rSNQceRJ_0">publicly grilled him</a> about his mob ties.</p>
<p>While other witnesses avoided answering questions by invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, Hoffa, the newly elected leader of the nation’s largest and most powerful union, adopted a defiant stance. He never denied having connections with organized crime figures; instead, he claimed these were the kinds of people he sometimes had to work with as he strengthened and grew his union in the face of employer opposition. He angrily dismissed any allegations of corruption and touted the gains his union had won for its membership. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303574/original/file-20191125-74593-y19pjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=624&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa, left, listens to testimony during the Senate Rackets Committee’s hearings on allegations of corruption in the union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Dist-of-Columbi-/fa8c98afbae5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/8/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/17824432/struggle-get-hoffa">verbal sparring</a> between Kennedy and Hoffa became the most memorable part of the hearings. </p>
<p>To the benefit of big business, it turned Hoffa into a menacing symbol of labor racketeering.</p>
<p>But to his union members, it only enhanced his standing. They were already thrilled by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1958/11/09/archives/why-they-cheer-for-hoffa-the-boss-of-the-teamsters-has-emerged-from.html?searchResultPosition=1">contracts Hoffa had negotiated</a> that included better pay and working conditions. Now his members hailed him as their embattled champion and wore <a href="https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1960ca-hoffa-the-teamsters-teamster-campaign">buttons proclaiming</a>, “Hoffa, the Teamsters Teamster.” </p>
<p>His membership stayed loyal even as Hoffa became the target of a series of prosecution efforts. </p>
<p>After becoming attorney general in 1961, Kennedy created a unit within the Department of Justice whose attorneys referred to themselves as the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/01/14/walter-sheridan-dies/2137398d-9a73-4423-9cf7-8da24eef860b/">Get Hoffa Squad</a>.” Their directive was to target Hoffa and his closest associates. The squad’s efforts culminated in convictions against Hoffa in 1964 <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Out_of_the_Jungle.html?id=a69CD1IRlpYC&source=kp_book_description">for jury tampering and defrauding the union’s pension fund</a>. Despite that setback, Hoffa’s hold on the Teamsters’ presidency remained firm even after he entered federal prison in 1967. </p>
<p>When he finally did leave office, Hoffa did so voluntarily. He resigned in 1971 as <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-04-08-0104080311-story.html">part of a deal to win executive clemency</a> from the Nixon administration. There was one condition written into the president’s grant of clemency: He couldn’t run for a position in the union until 1980.</p>
<p>Once free, Hoffa claimed that his ban from union office was illegitimate and began planning to run for the Teamsters presidency. However, he faced resistance not from the government but from organized crime figures, who had found it easier to work with Hoffa’s successor, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/07/obituaries/frank-fitzsimmons-of-teamsters-dies.html">Frank Fitzsimmons</a>. </p>
<p>Hoffa’s meeting at the restaurant on July 30, 1975, was part of his efforts to allay that opposition. </p>
<p>Clearly, things didn’t go as planned. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Teamsters/sLCNAn8ZjKIC?hl=en">Some theorize</a> that the mafia had him killed in order to ensure that he would not run against Fitzsimmons in the Teamsters’ upcoming 1976 union election. </p>
<p>But after no arrests and multiple fruitless excavations to try to locate his body, Hoffa’s case remains, to this day, unresolved.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303041/original/file-20191121-112967-b17v0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this June 2013 photograph, Robert Foley of the FBI’s Detroit division announces that the FBI had come up empty after an excavation, based on a tip, to uncover Hoffa’s remains.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hoffa-Search/0df29dfe203b41dea62bb74cd03b8f83/284/0">AP Photo/Carlos Osorio</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From man to myth</h2>
<p>In Andrew Lawler’s history of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uK6ZDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&dq=andrew%20lawler%20lost%20colony%20roanoke&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">he writes</a>, “To die is tragic, but to go missing is to become a legend, a mystery.” </p>
<p>Stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle and an end. But when people go missing and are never found, Lawler explains, they’ll endure as subjects of endless fascination. It allows their legacies to be re-written, over and over. </p>
<p>These new interpretations, Lawler observes, “can reveal something fresh about who we were, who we are, and who we want to be.”</p>
<p>The myth of Hoffa lives on, even though almost five decades have passed since that afternoon in July 1975. </p>
<p>What shapes has it taken?</p>
<p>To some, he stands for an idealized image of the working class – a man who’d known hard, manual labor and worked tirelessly to achieve his success. But even after rising to his leadership post, Hoffa lived simply and eschewed pretense.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://search-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/307597398?accountid=13158&pq-origsite=summon">Washington Post article from 1992</a> put it, “He wore white socks, and liked his beef cooked medium well… He snored at the opera.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, his feud with the Kennedys pitted a populist “tough guy off the loading docks” against “the professional class, the governing class, the educated experts.” The Washington Post piece ties Hoffa’s story to that of another working-class icon. “Watching Hoffa go up against Bobby Kennedy was like watching John Henry go up against a steam hammer – it was only a matter of time before he lost.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/303035/original/file-20191121-112981-ejxin7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man walks over rubble in Jersey City, N.J., one of the locations where authorities searched for the body of missing former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hoffa-Search/2132e839ae064fdabda70fd83630395e/63/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Hoffa’s myth can also serve as a morality tale. The <a href="https://search-proquest-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/docview/212889901?OpenUrlRefId=info:xri/sid:summon&accountid=13158">New Republic</a>, for instance, described how Danny DeVito’s 1992 film reworks Hoffa’s life into the story of an “embattled champion of the working class” who makes “a Faustian pact with the underworld.” </p>
<p>In the movie, Hoffa’s Teamsters are caught in hopeless picket line battles with mob goons who the anti-union employers have hired. In order to get those goons to switch sides, Hoffa makes a bargain with mafia leaders. But the mafia ultimately has Hoffa killed when he tries to defy their control, becoming the victim of his own unbridled ambition. </p>
<p>Finally, the underworld’s mysterious role in Hoffa’s death keeps his story compelling for Americans who have a fascination with conspiracy theories. It supports the idea of an invisible cabal that secretly runs everything, and which can make even a famous labor leader disappear without a trace. </p>
<p>Hoffa’s story is often intertwined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-withering-public-trust-in-government-be-traced-back-to-the-jfk-assassination-87719">theories about the Kennedy assassination</a> that attribute the president’s murder to an organized crime conspiracy. Both Hoffa and Kennedy’s murders, in these accounts, highlight the underworld’s apparently unlimited power to protect its interests, with tentacles that extend into the government and law enforcement.</p>
<h2>Did Hoffa taint the labor movement?</h2>
<p>Over two decades after he went missing, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-aug-17-op-23341-story.html">a 1997 article in The Los Angeles Times</a> noted that “No union in America conjures up more negative images than the Teamsters.”</p>
<p>This matters, because for most Americans who lack first-hand knowledge about organized labor, Hoffa is the only labor leader’s name they recognize. And as communications scholar <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875461854/through-jaundiced-eyes/">William Puette</a> has noted, “the Teamsters’ notoriety is such that for many people in this country the Teamsters Union is the labor movement.” </p>
<p>A union widely perceived as mobbed up – with a labor leader notorious for his Mafia ties – has come, in the minds of some Americans, to represent the entire labor movement. That perception, in turn, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-_b_913311">bolsters arguments against legislative reforms</a> that would facilitate union organizing efforts.</p>
<p>The other themes in Hoffa’s myth have similar negative implications for labor. He represents <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/3/8/11177770/white-working-class-nostalgia-john-wayne">a nostalgic, white, male identity</a> that once existed in a seemingly lost world of manual work. That myth also implies that the unions that emerged in those olden times are no longer necessary.</p>
<p>This depiction doesn’t match reality. Today’s working class is <a href="https://www.demos.org/research/understanding-working-class">diverse</a> and employed in a broad spectrum of hard manual labor. Whether you’re working as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/nyregion/home-health-aide.html">home health aide</a> or <a href="https://qz.com/1556194/the-gig-economy-is-quietly-undermining-a-century-of-worker-protections/">in the gig economy</a>, the need for union protection remains quite real. </p>
<p>But for those working-class Americans who see their society controlled by a hidden cabal of powerful, corrupt forces – like the puppet masters who supposedly had JFK and Hoffa killed – <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-so-many-working-class-americans-feel-politics-is-pointless-121232">labor activism can appear quixotic</a>. </p>
<p>For these reasons, the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa continues to haunt the labor movement today.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Scott Witwer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Hoffa’s ghost continues to haunt the labor movement.David Scott Witwer, Professor of American Studies, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1158812019-06-18T10:47:38Z2019-06-18T10:47:38ZThe Supreme Court’s Virginia uranium ruling hints at the limits of federal power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279901/original/file-20190617-118518-1ml46w1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many Virginians back the decades-old moratorium.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Virginia-Uranium/bbff647094b3432c97b739915c9c26c8/5/0">AP Photo/Steve Helber</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Virginia has the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/16-1275_7lho.pdf">authority to ban uranium mining</a> under state law, even as the federal government regulates the processing of nuclear fuel under the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ehss/atomic-energy-act-and-related-legislation">Atomic Energy Act</a>, the Supreme Court has ruled.</p>
<p>Neil Gorsuch, joined by the court’s longest-serving and newest conservatives – Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh – rejected the idea that Congress’ plan for nuclear enrichment could override Virginia’s decision to prohibit uranium mining altogether. On that point, these three conservatives were in sync with three of the court’s liberals, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. This remarkably diverse coalition agreed that the “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/16-1275_7lho.pdf#page=22">Commonwealth’s mining ban is not preempted</a>” by federal authority. Chief Justice John Roberts filed a dissent.</p>
<p>I have been <a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/caj5f/1176168">involved in this case</a>, Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren, in its various iterations for more than a decade. Before joining the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law, I worked with the <a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/uranium-mining-a-risky-experiment">Southern Environmental Law Center</a>, an environmental advocacy organization that had raised grave concerns about a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/26/virginia-uranimum-mine/1866489/">proposed uranium mine</a> near the city of Danville. </p>
<p>All three of the opinions published in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/16-1275.html">Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren</a> are likely to prove significant in future environmental battles – both in the courts and in the court of public opinion.</p>
<p>On one level, the justices sketched out the court’s evolving views on the proper balance between federal regulatory power and the rights of states in setting their own policies. Their opinions also challenged some common assumptions about how grassroots environmental advocates can pull together winning political coalitions. </p>
<h2>Inverting the states’ rights divide</h2>
<p>Conventional wisdom holds that <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-neil-gorsuch-72142">conservatives have excelled at getting judges</a> who support states’ rights on the bench. These judges are broadly seen as distrustful of large federal bureaucracies and enthusiastic about a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment">Tenth Amendment precept</a> that the national government is one of limited powers. Any power not explicitly granted to Congress or the president is, according to the Bill of Rights, “reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” </p>
<p>So you might have expected all five of the court’s conservative justices to side with the Commonwealth of Virginia and reject an application of the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ehss/atomic-energy-act-and-related-legislation">Atomic Energy Act</a> that would extend federal administrative power into an area of traditional state control. </p>
<p>Likewise, you might have guessed that all four liberal justices would have questioned Virginia’s motives in enacting a 1982 moratorium that, according to the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/16/16-1275/54817/20180719144052589_Petitioners%20Brief.pdf">uranium mining industry</a>, was allegedly designed to circumvent federal law.</p>
<p>But Gorsuch’s and Ginsburg’s separate, concurring opinions in the uranium case show how difficult the political calculus can be. </p>
<p>While Gorsuch’s lead opinion charted a conservative tack by emphasizing states’ rights, Ginsburg followed a different path that leaned heavily on defending legal precedents.</p>
<p>She also pushed back on the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-thomas/justice-thomas-urges-us-supreme-court-to-feel-free-to-reverse-precedents-idUSKCN1TI2KJ">right’s recent interest in revisiting settled case law</a>. Roberts’s dissent is equally important, even though it only garnered two additional votes, from Stephen Breyer, the most moderate member of the liberal camp, and Samuel Alito, a conservative. </p>
<p>Roberts staked out an ideological middle ground between Gorsuch and Ginsburg. Echoing concerns <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2018/16-1275_c07d.pdf#page=41">Breyer raised during oral argument</a>, he looked at the “purpose and effect” of Virginia’s mining ban to consider whether the Commonwwealth’s concerns interfered with Congress’ actions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279899/original/file-20190617-118505-xr9b1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">No joke: Everyone in this photo besides Chief Justice John Roberts joined together to uphold Virginia’s uranium mining ban.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Supreme-Court/f216996b265b413793105ffb497040fd/2/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Economic interests</h2>
<p>In its lawsuit, Virginia Uranium claimed that its proposed mining site, about 220 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., could generate <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/16-1275-cert-petition.pdf#page=258">US$4.8 billion</a> in net revenue for Virginia businesses. </p>
<p>Uranium oxide, commonly <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/yellowcake.html">known as yellowcake</a>, can be enriched to produce the fuel that powers the nation’s nuclear reactors. But first it has to be extracted from the ground, which is a monumentally significant undertaking. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/fact-sheets/a-summary-of-key-findings-from-national-academy-of-sciences-report-uranium">Green groups</a> seized on a report published by the <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13266/uranium-mining-in-virginia-scientific-technical-environmental-human-health-and">National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine</a>, which found that uranium mining increases the incidences of cancer, acidification of local waterways, and the emission of soot and smog-forming pollutants from industrial equipment.</p>
<p>Local businesses joined environmentalists in pushing back. The <a href="https://www.godanriver.com/news/pittsylvania_county/uranium/in-multi-faceted-case-that-defies-political-stereotypes-highest-court/article_f630b634-dfb0-11e8-8e74-ebc58661f835.html">Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce</a> opposed the mining project, out of concern about the potential harm to agriculture, tourism and other economic development opportunities.</p>
<h2>The state of the law</h2>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-atomic-energy-act">Atomic Energy Act</a>, states retain jurisdiction over conventional uranium mining. The federal government lacks authority over uranium ore “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2095">prior to removal from its place of deposit in nature</a>,” when it is milled into yellowcake. </p>
<p>In our brief to the Supreme Court, we noted that Virginia had narrowly tailored its ban to avoid any conflict with that measure. The state’s moratorium exclusively restricts state-controlled mining and bans only that activity. </p>
<p>Even with the ban on the books, we explained that it still would be legal to process uranium ore under the federal regulatory regime, so long as that ore had been <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/16/16-1275/62611/20180904162044841_AMICUS%20BRIEF%20IN%20SUPPORT%20OF%20RESPONDENTS%20FOR%20SOUTHERN%20VIRGINIA%20DELEGATION%20ET%20AL.pdf#page=25">mined out-of-state and trucked into Virginia</a>. In a footnote, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/16-1275_7lho.pdf#page=32">Ginsburg shared a similar observation</a>: “The mining ban at issue would not prevent uranium ore mined in North Carolina from being milled, and the resulting tailings stored, in the Commonwealth.”</p>
<p>In other words, Ginsburg focused on the real-world mechanics of how the ban would work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/16-1275_7lho.pdf#page=6">Gorsuch</a>, on the other hand, kept his eye on broader implications and questioned whether one of the court’s settled judicial doctrines should be retained.</p>
<p>Supreme Court precedent holds that a state’s law can be struck down if it creates an irreconcilable “obstacle” to carrying out a congressional objective. Gorsuch appeared to suggest that such an obstacle might exist when he described Virginia’s mining ban as a “roadblock” that prevents the mining company from even reaching the point where the federal Atomic Energy Act could “kick in.” </p>
<p>The mining company initiated this lawsuit “to overcome that obstacle,” he wrote. Instead of finding the Virginia statute to be preempted, however, Gorsuch found the “obstacle” itself suspect. It’s impossible to pin down, he suggested, without “piling inference upon inference about hidden legislative wishes” – something he refused to do. </p>
<p>Ginsburg was not amused. Gorsuch’s criticisms of judicial doctrine is “inappropriate in an opinion speaking for the Court” because it “sweeps well beyond the confines of this case.”</p>
<h2>A roadmap for future advocacy</h2>
<p>The farthest-reaching implications of Gorsuch’s discussion only garnered three votes. But it clearly indicated where the Court’s most conservative justices hope to take the law, staving off “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/16-1275_7lho.pdf#page=16">the costs to … individual liberty</a>” if courts were to dissect a state’s legislative motives to find a conflict with a federal regulatory program. </p>
<p>Perhaps that points to a <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3217107">playbook for advocacy</a> on other federal actions that environmentalists might find objectionable, such as the Trump administration’s reversal of <a href="https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/electric-utility-generating-units-repealing-clean-power-plan-0">President Barack Obama’s climate change policies</a>.</p>
<p>Environmentalists are, after all, <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/05/07/states-resist-trumps-environmental-agenda/">gaining an appreciation</a> for the value of state initiatives, like Virginia’s mining ban, which can provide a bulwark against regulatory rollbacks.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Portions of this article appeared in a related article published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/virginias-uranium-mining-battle-flips-traditional-views-of-federal-and-state-power-109167">Jan. 11, 2019</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cale Jaffe served as counsel of record before the Supreme Court for the Members of the Southern Virginia Delegation to the Virginia General Assembly, et al., who filed an amicus brief supporting Virginia's uranium mining ban. He previously served as director of the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), and currently volunteers as chair of the board of directors for the Virginia Conservation Network (VCN). SELC and VCN also support Virginia's prohibition on uranium mining.</span></em></p>The 6-3 ruling challenges some common political assumptions about conservatives and liberals.Cale Jaffe, Assistant Professor of Law and Director, Environmental and Regulatory Law Clinic, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116972019-02-15T23:52:31Z2019-02-15T23:52:31ZVirginia politics: The uneasy marriage of new liberalism and historic racism<p>Virginia is home to America’s original contradiction – <a href="https://books.wwnorton.com/books/American-Slavery-American-Freedom/">the peculiar juxtaposition of slavery and freedom</a>.</p>
<p>The recent “blue-ing” of Virginia has obscured a sobering political reality: Racial progress and racial bigotry can exist at the same time. </p>
<p>Those contradictions were on display when Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam recently admitted to, and subsequently denied, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/analysis-northam-struggles-to-escape-virginias-troubled-past--and-his-own/2019/02/02/b4cb1962-2729-11e9-90cd-dedb0c92dc17_story.html?utm_term=.3c3b7252cc60">being photographed in blackface in the early 1980s</a>. </p>
<p>Northam is the latest elected official to fan the flames of America’s tortured racial history. </p>
<p>The Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook photo <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/01/virginia-gov-ralph-northams-yearbook-page-shows-blackface-kkk-photo/2747748002/">shows a man in blackface standing next to a person in Ku Klux Klan</a> attire. This image, nearly three decades old, ignited a chain of nationwide commentary on the current state of American race relations. </p>
<p>The photo represents another sobering reminder of old bigotry in contemporary politics. </p>
<p>And while racist political power is not specific to Virginia, the “Old Dominion” is, and has been, a bellwether for American politics – the good and the bad, but mostly the contradictory. </p>
<p>As a historian of 20th-century American history and <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=4997#.XGc6zC2ZPgE">Richmond, Virginia’s recent political history</a>, these contradictions have contemporary connotations. </p>
<h2>Reconciliation and dehumanization</h2>
<p>Despite its recent history of voting Democratic, ambivalent political traditions continue to characterize the Commonwealth. The home of the Confederacy’s capital, Richmond, also gave the United States its first African-American governor in 1990, <a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Wilder_Lawrence_Douglas_1931-">Lawrence Douglas Wilder</a>. </p>
<p>Virginia also <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/campaign-2008/articles/2008/11/04/barack-obama-wins-conservative-virginia">helped elect</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2012/results/states/virginia.html">Barack Obama, twice</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259336/original/file-20190215-56232-1h2goz0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Virginians voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012. Here, he’s campaigning in 2018 for Democratic candidates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Election-2018-Senate-Kaine-Obama/7679e70f1e0f47e5912babddf8641236/1/0">AP/Jacquelyn Martin</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in the late 19th century, Southerners and Virginians met the challenges of slavery’s abolition with legal and social racial separation. This separation, commonly referred to as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedom-riders-jim-crow-laws/">Jim Crow segregation</a>, was not only sanctioned by state laws, many of these laws lasted until the late 1960s. </p>
<p>In other words, Southern black Americans were not full citizens of the United States until the 1960s and Jim Crow mitigated many African-Americans’ upwardly mobile aspirations. </p>
<p>Northam, who campaigned on racial reconciliation yet allegedly once wore a costume inextricably linked to black dehumanization, embodies this American dilemma – a dilemma with deeply segregationist overtones. </p>
<p>That Virginia, the wealthiest state of the former Confederacy, has recently turned blue is a watershed moment in American political development. </p>
<p>When the Commonwealth went for Obama in the 2008 presidential election, Virginians ended nearly four decades of conservative control over Southern presidential politics. Virginia also cast all its 13 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton in 2016.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.dailyprogress.com/opinion/opinion-commentary-changing-demographics-also-shift-virginia-politics/article_1a62feea-e943-11e8-902e-cfa9dbe87f1c.html">Much of this is attributable</a> to the growth and diversifying of populations in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., the Hampton Roads region and the Richmond metropolitan area. </p>
<p>Virginia’s recent elections undeniably <a href="https://prospect.org/article/end-solid-south">helped shatter the Southern Strategy</a>, a long-term Republican plan designed to break Democrats’ dominance over Southern politics. A region that has trended red since the <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=4997#.XGSoAS2ZPgE">ratification of the Voting Rights Act of 1965</a> had turned blue.</p>
<p>But developments in national politics cannot alone explain Northam’s and Attorney General <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/us/politics/virginia-blackface-mark-herring.html">Mark Herring’s</a> ostensibly contradictory behavior. Herring – the state’s third-most powerful elected official – also recently admitted to donning blackface. </p>
<p>If blackface is inextricably linked to slavery, people wearing blackface in the 1980s is attributable to racial segregation. In understanding this crisis, Virginia’s history matters. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259344/original/file-20190215-56243-qqj9by.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The April 30, 1904 Richmond Planet described a Jim Crow law meant to bar blacks from streetcars.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84025841/1904-04-30/ed-1/seq-1/#">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Segregation and the suburbs</h2>
<p>Virginia’s 20th-century political history is nothing short of scandalous. </p>
<p>Poll taxes (a fee required to vote) determined who voted in the Commonwealth <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1965/48?page=8">until 1966</a>. Virginia’s Constitutional Convention of 1901-02 eventually erased <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4583">80 percent of African-Americans and 50 percent of whites</a> from the polls. Throughout the early 20th century, the Commonwealth had the lowest voter turnout rate in America and one of the lowest rates of any free democracy in the world. By 1959, the year of Northam’s birth, these obstacles to democracy continued to shape politics in the Commonwealth.</p>
<p>The undemocratic face of disenfranchisement had grave implications for Northam’s generation. </p>
<p>In fact, disenfranchisement ensured that mid-20th century Virginians inherited an oligarchy – a small number of people controlled the political structure. </p>
<p>A handful of well-heeled segregationists used disenfranchisement to spearhead Southern <a href="https://www.virginiahistory.org/collections-and-resources/virginia-history-explorer/civil-rights-movement-virginia/massive">“massive resistance”</a> to public school integration in 1956. Anxiety over integration gave rise to unprecedented white flight to suburbs – not just in Virginia, but throughout America. </p>
<p>During the 1950s and 1960s, the same officials used the power vested in the General Assembly to clear urban slums, build freeways – often through communities whose voters had been disenfranchised – and compress the descendants of former slaves into isolated public housing projects. While these urban policies shaped cities throughout the United States, Jim Crow laws and disenfranchisement expedited this process in Virginia (and throughout the South). </p>
<p><a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=4997#.XGSoAS2ZPgE">By 1970</a>, Richmond’s poverty rate was 25 percent. African-Americans bore the brunt of that poverty. </p>
<p>The city’s public schools were nearly 80 percent African-American by 1980. In 1985, Richmond trailed only Detroit in murder rate per capita. Between 1970 and 1980 alone, approximately 40,000 whites – of roughly 140,000 in 1970 – fled to Richmond’s suburbs. </p>
<p>In other words, segregationists, along with federal officials, helped create the inner city and suburban growth at the same time.</p>
<h2>Progress isn’t linear</h2>
<p>Americans remember the story of the civil rights movement as a triumph of democracy. History speaks otherwise. </p>
<p>Many of Virginia’s cities were more segregated by race and class in 1980 than in 1960. </p>
<p>In time, segregation undermined the types of social trust – <a href="https://timeline.com/redlining-federal-housing-racist-14d7f48267e8">the notion that people can understand and count on one another</a> – that experts argue is required for thriving communities. </p>
<p>It also explains how students from racially homogeneous communities populated Virginia’s predominantly white colleges during the 1980s.</p>
<p>These were the colleges where students such as Northam wore blackface. The Virginia Military Institute, Northam’s alma mater, <a href="https://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-xpm-19971011-1997-10-11-9710110047-story.html">did not integrate until 1968</a>. That was only 13 years before Northam graduated from the institute in 1981. </p>
<p>These places were in short supply of racial diversity well into the late 20th century. They remind Americans that nowhere have white and black Americans been closer together, yet further apart, than beneath the Mason-Dixon line. </p>
<h2>The new divide</h2>
<p>More ominously, the politics of segregation outlived Jim Crow laws. </p>
<p>By the 1980s, white flight and congressional redistricting (namely, the compression of black voters into exclusively urban enclaves) hastened the rise of regional partisanship. And while this rise in partisanship characterized American politics broadly, it hit the South and Virginia hard – a region that Democrats dominated for nearly seven decades. </p>
<p>As African-Americans hitched their wagons to Democrats, many whites fled the Democratic Party. They left a party that was once home to generations of Southern racists who would never contemplate belonging to Abraham Lincoln’s GOP, and became Republicans. </p>
<p>Virginia’s policymakers drew district boundaries to protect these white areas from the voting power of urbanites, who were mostly black. </p>
<p>In time, residential segregation and redistricting gave rise to shockingly predictable electoral outcomes. Cities trended liberal, while rural and suburban areas mostly voted conservatively. </p>
<p>Between 1970 and 1988, only 13 African-Americans had served on Virginia’s General Assembly. Yet, African-Americans made up nearly 20 percent of Virginia’s population in the 1980s. The total number of African-Americans in the General Assembly did not exceed five until 1984.</p>
<p>To this day, a disproportionate number of the Commonwealth’s legislators are from rural and suburban enclaves. </p>
<h2>Liberal in blackface</h2>
<p>Governor Northam not only inherited this Virginia, he was a product of it.</p>
<p><a href="https://prospect.org/article/end-solid-south">Millennial voters</a> are relocating to once-predominantly African-American cities and the so-called <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/books/review/the-great-inversion-and-the-future-of-the-american-city.html">“Great Inversion”</a> out of American suburbs continues. </p>
<p>The once “solid South” is up for grabs. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/27/ratfcked-the-influence-of-redistricting">Political consultants</a> have long recognized and exploited these changes. In fact, these trends changed the political composition of not just Virginia, but America.</p>
<p>Yet old habits die hard. </p>
<p>The re-emergence of <a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/conversations-about-confederate-monuments-in-the-former-confederate-capital">Confederate memorialization</a> and <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/national/what-happened-charlottesville-looking-back-the-anniversary-the-deadly-rally/fPpnLrbAtbxSwNI9BEy93K/">white supremacy</a> in Virginia is a panic reaction to these political and demographic developments. </p>
<p>Is it any wonder, then, that a son of the segregated Virginia might wear blackface in one era – yet recognize the political expediency of racial reconciliation in another?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Maxwell Hayter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Virginia’s stark political contradictions, reflecting centuries of racism and a new liberal majority, were on display when a blackface image was found recently on the governor’s old yearbook page.Julian Maxwell Hayter, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1114062019-02-11T11:45:53Z2019-02-11T11:45:53ZLatest allegations of sexual assault show how the legal system discourages victims from coming forward<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258035/original/file-20190208-174894-km1hbx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Virginia’s Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/09/us/politics/justin-fairfax-virginia-impeachment.html">refusing to resign</a> after denying charges by two women who have said that he sexually assaulted them. </p>
<p>The first woman to come forward was Vanessa Tyson, a politics professor at Scripps College. She initially <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/for-vanessa-tyson-speaking-out-on-sexual-assault-began-long-before-she-accused-fairfax/2019/02/08/ce8b721a-2b26-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html">contacted The Washington Post</a> after Fairfax’s election in December 2017, alleging that Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex in 2004.</p>
<p>The Post stated it did not <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/2019/02/06/daed33aa-2a30-11e9-b2fc-721718903bfc_story.html">publish a story</a> at that time because it “could not corroborate Tyson’s account or find similar complaints of sexual misconduct.”</p>
<p>So Tyson’s story did not make national headlines until this week, when it was first published by the conservative blog <a href="https://bigleaguepolitics.com/vanessa-tyson-releases-statement-accusing-justin-fairfax-of-sexual-assault/">Big League Politics</a>. </p>
<p>The second woman to come forward is Meredith Watson, who alleges Fairfax raped her while they were both students at Duke University in 2000. According to <a href="http://time.com/5526146/duke-basketball-sexual-assault-claim/">a statement</a> written by her attorneys, Watson told a dean at the school about the rape, and the dean “discouraged her from pursuing the claim further.”</p>
<p>On Feb. 9, Fairfax asked the FBI to investigate their allegations. While it’s not clear that the FBI will investigate, the controversy raises important questions about how the legal system deals with cases of sexual assault.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_mdgqXMAAAAJ&hl=en">I am a scholar of domestic and sexual violence</a>, and my work has focused on analyzing the stories survivors share when they seek safety and hold perpetrators accountable for abuse. I’ve also studied what happens when the legal system encounters and processes these stories. </p>
<p>What I’ve found is a fundamental mismatch between what survivors disclose and what legal systems need to hear to take action.</p>
<h2>Survivors and systems unaligned</h2>
<p>Survivors of sexual assault expect to be able to share what they have experienced in a way that reflects how they have made sense of the event and its aftermath. </p>
<p>In contrast, courts want a report that is linear, providing an almost objective, dispassionate accounting of abuse with specific names, dates and “facts.” They want independent evidence of the abuse. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240120/original/file-20181010-72133-ysvvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Activists demonstrate as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from both Ford and Kavanaugh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Supreme-Court-Kavanaugh/86b0e70b364043bca0cc1071848ce8a2/160/0">AP//J. Scott Applewhite</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is, acts of sexual and domestic violence rarely occur in front of other people, and survivors of sexual and domestic violence often have little external evidence of their assault other than their story. </p>
<p>The end result is that systems that are supposed to help are, in general, unable to adequately assess and respond to survivors’ stories.</p>
<p>For example, officers responding to cases of domestic violence often do not make arrests, especially in cases of sexual violence. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128714540277">analysis of FBI data</a>, my colleague Matthew Fetzer and I found that only 26 percent of cases of sexual domestic violence reported to the police resulted in an arrest (in comparison to 52 percent of cases of physical domestic violence). </p>
<p>This may be due to the intimate nature of sexual violence and the difficulty of proving sexual assault. As one woman who experienced sexual violence <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1022893231951">told researchers</a>: “I was raped by my husband. There was no evidence except for bruises on the inside of my legs or the pain on my breasts, and you just can’t prove it.” </p>
<p>Many institutions and organizations make decisions based on stereotypes about survivors that rarely <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">reflect their actual circumstances</a>. That’s especially true with survivors who are not “good victims,” who are not <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801204271431">white, middle-class women</a>, and who do not have external documentation of their abuse. </p>
<p>For many survivors – especially women of color, women reporting violence committed by perpetrators who hold power or women who experience sexual violence – it’s easier and safer to not report the abuse and pretend that the resulting trauma never happened.</p>
<p>To an outsider, the choice not to report an assault in the moment, or even years later, does not make sense. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-compassion-chronicles/201711/why-dont-victims-sexual-harassment-come-forward-sooner">They do not understand</a> how survivors compartmentalize in order to survive or even thrive. </p>
<p>Many legal options for reporting sexual assault – such as calling the police – aren’t designed with survivors’ goals, needs and motivations in mind. So survivors do not see reporting as an option, and do not see the legal system as a resource.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240125/original/file-20181010-72133-1ftmcrx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many survivors of assault are afraid to make reports to the police.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/572843410?src=5KELnsRp3mTAm64A6tMzNw-1-12&size=huge_jpg">Jacek Wojnarowski/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Expecting a survivor to disclose their abuse to someone in the moment does not reflect current knowledge and theory about sexual and domestic assault.</p>
<h2>Rethinking responses to violence</h2>
<p>The Fairfax story is an opportunity to rethink how to help survivors of violence and how to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. </p>
<p>In the right environment and with the right support, survivors will want to come forward, share their stories, and gain strength from doing so.</p>
<p>However, the legal system is an adversarial system with confusing and complex bureaucratic procedures and often untrained staff. As trauma scholar <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/author/judithlewishermanmd/">Dr. Judith Herman</a> explains, “If one set out intentionally to design a system for provoking symptoms of traumatic stress, it might look very much <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/542700.Trauma_and_Recovery">like a court of law</a>.” </p>
<p>Survivors are asked to recall specific details about their victimization that they have repressed in order to survive. As one advocate said to me in an interview, “They’re trying to forget what happened and here I am, asking them to write down, with as many details as they can, <a href="https://repository.law.miami.edu/umrsjlr/vol5/iss2/22/">what they went through</a>.” </p>
<p>How might we create a more responsive system? </p>
<p>First: Stop requiring survivors to narrate their abuse. It’s more detrimental than helpful, especially if we simply discount it as a “story” afterward. </p>
<p>If there is some form of external documentation, survivors should be able to provide that instead. If there is no external documentation, then the narrative should be elicited in a supportive environment of the survivor’s choosing, with trained staff available to help them better understand the kinds of information that judges and law enforcement need.</p>
<p>Second: People charged with listening and responding to survivors need to be educated about the dynamics of domestic and sexual violence. While some are, many do not fully understand the ways in which domestic and sexual violence affect survivors. It is impossible for them to hear and respond appropriately unless they understand those dynamics.</p>
<p>Finally: Explore what believing and supporting a survivor means. </p>
<p>While the words “I believe” and “I support” are critically important, they should not become buzzwords that replace actions. When you believe a survivor and decide to support that survivor, you must act. You must make hard, even unpopular, decisions. </p>
<p>You must work to adapt the system in order to uphold justice.</p>
<p>I believe. Period. I believe.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a story originally published on <a href="https://theconversation.com/kavanaugh-confirmation-could-spark-a-reckoning-with-system-that-often-fails-survivors-of-sexual-abuse-and-assault-104564">Oct. 12, 2018</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alesha Durfee receives funding from the Center for Victim Research.</span></em></p>What happens when assault survivors enter systems that are not designed to respond to their words or meet their needs.Alesha Durfee, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1091672019-01-11T11:46:36Z2019-01-11T11:46:36ZVirginia’s uranium mining battle flips traditional views of federal and state power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252948/original/file-20190108-32136-yfeb74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supreme Court is likely to rule on the case by June.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Supreme-Court/fed3540dfaaf464caa6145bac01394d4/23/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Supreme Court will decide in 2019 whether a Virginia law that bans uranium mining is preempted by the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ehss/atomic-energy-act-and-related-legislation">Atomic Energy Act</a>, the U.S. law governing the processing and enrichment of nuclear material. </p>
<p>The case, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/16-1275.html">Virginia Uranium, Inc. v. Warren</a>, will require the court to interpret laws governing nuclear fuel production. But its most significant, long-term impact might be the glimpse it provides into the court’s view of the proper balance between federal regulatory power and the rights of states in setting their own policies.</p>
<p>I have been <a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/faculty/profile/caj5f/1176168">involved in this case</a> in its various iterations for more than a decade. Before joining the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law, I worked with the <a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/uranium-mining-a-risky-experiment">Southern Environmental Law Center</a>, an environmental advocacy organization that had raised grave concerns about a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/26/virginia-uranimum-mine/1866489/">proposed uranium mine</a> near the city of Danville. </p>
<h2>Inverting the states’ rights divide</h2>
<p>Conventional wisdom holds that people on the political right <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2010/04/18/distrust-discontent-anger-and-partisan-rancor/">distrust large federal bureaucracies</a> and would rather allow state officials the freedom to regulate their own economies. Under this line of thinking, conservatives would be expected to side with the Commonwealth of Virginia and recoil at an intrusive application of the <a href="https://www.energy.gov/ehss/atomic-energy-act-and-related-legislation">Atomic Energy Act</a> that would prohibit the state from enforcing a <a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/uranium-mining-a-risky-experiment">ban on uranium mining in place since 1982</a>.</p>
<p>Those on the liberal end of the spectrum, on the other hand, might be expected to <a href="https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2018/2/27/17058498/federalism-hard">see a strong federal hand</a> as necessary to prevent states from deregulating and despoiling their own environments.</p>
<p>This case is one of several, recent <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3220597">environmental</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/democrats-and-republicans-switched-sides-on-states-rights-2017-1">public policy</a> disputes to demonstrate how that thinking can be wrong. </p>
<p>Over the course of their political careers, conservative Republican Sens. <a href="https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=132">Tom Cotton</a> of Arkansas, <a href="https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-republican?ID=5B3A5418-802A-23AD-45D7-FC3874CED3A4">Jim Inhofe</a> of Oklahoma and <a href="https://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=news&id=2241">Ted Cruz</a> of Texas have each highlighted the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/1632/cosponsors">10th Amendment</a> in advocating for a limited view of federal government power and deference to states’ rights. Yet all three of them signed on to an <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/16/16-1275/55620/20180726162704872_Virginia%20Uranium%20-%20Merits%20Amicus%20Brief%20-%2007.26.2018.pdf">amicus brief</a> in support of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/16-1275">Virginia Uranium, Inc.’s</a> sweeping view of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s role in this instance. </p>
<p>On the flip side, <a href="https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/05/07/states-resist-trumps-environmental-agenda/">environmentalists are gaining an appreciation</a> for the value of state initiatives, like Virginia’s mining ban, which can provide a bulwark against environmental rollbacks from the Trump administration.</p>
<p>Before the Supreme Court, I co-authored, with former Virginia Attorney General <a href="https://www.eckertseamans.com/our-people/anthony-f-troy">Tony Troy</a>, another <a href="https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/201809/environmental-clinic-brief-defends-virginia%E2%80%99s-uranium-mining-ban">amicus brief</a> defending the state law. We filed it on behalf of <a href="https://apps.senate.virginia.gov/Senator/memberpage.php?id=S82">six</a> <a href="https://apps.senate.virginia.gov/Senator/memberpage.php?id=S59">members</a> <a href="https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/house/members/members.php?id=h0252">of the</a> <a href="https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/house/members/members.php?id=H0216">Virginia</a> <a href="https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/house/members/members.php?id=H0150">General</a> <a href="https://virginiageneralassembly.gov/house/members/members.php?id=H0136">Assembly</a> who represent affected communities and on behalf of <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/16/16-1275/62611/20180904162044841_AMICUS%20BRIEF%20IN%20SUPPORT%20OF%20RESPONDENTS%20FOR%20SOUTHERN%20VIRGINIA%20DELEGATION%20ET%20AL.pdf">local chambers of commerce; civic, trade and economic development associations; and municipalities</a>. </p>
<h2>Economic interests</h2>
<p>Virginia Uranium claims that its proposed mining site, about 220 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., could generate <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/16-1275-cert-petition.pdf#page=258">US$4.8 billion</a> in net revenue for Virginia businesses. </p>
<p>Uranium oxide, commonly <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/glossary/yellowcake.html">known as yellowcake</a>, can be enriched to produce the fuel that powers the nation’s nuclear reactors. But first it has to be extracted from the ground, which is a monumentally significant undertaking. Producing the 133 million pounds of yellowcake that the company thinks it can develop would require mining more than <a href="http://virginiaenergyresources.com/i/pdf/VUI-Coles-Hill-PEA-Updated-Technical-Report-Aug19.pdf#page=11">267 billion pounds of raw ore</a>, which is roughly 365 times the weight of <a href="http://www.esbnyc.com/sites/default/files/esb_fact_sheet_final_0.pdf">the Empire State Building</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.southernenvironment.org/cases-and-projects/fact-sheets/a-summary-of-key-findings-from-national-academy-of-sciences-report-uranium">Green groups</a> seized on a report published by the <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13266/uranium-mining-in-virginia-scientific-technical-environmental-human-health-and">National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine</a>, which found that uranium mining increases the incidences of cancer, acidification of local waterways, and the emission of soot and smog-forming pollutants from industrial equipment.</p>
<p>Local businesses joined environmentalists in pushing back. The <a href="https://www.godanriver.com/news/pittsylvania_county/uranium/in-multi-faceted-case-that-defies-political-stereotypes-highest-court/article_f630b634-dfb0-11e8-8e74-ebc58661f835.html">Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce</a> opposes the mining project, out of concern about the potential harm to agriculture, tourism and other economic development opportunities.</p>
<p>Agriculture and forestry-related industries provided the counties adjacent to the proposed mine site with an estimated <a href="https://ceps.coopercenter.org/sites/ceps/files/Ag_Forestry_Study_2017-05.pdf#page=63">$5.4 billion in total economic benefits</a> in 2015, according to the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service’s analysis. </p>
<p>Cognizant of the boom-and-bust nature of the uranium mining industry, economic development leaders in Southern Virginia have expressed fears that Virginia Uranium could leave behind a shuttered mine and a <a href="https://www.virginiamercury.com/2018/11/05/virginias-36-year-old-uranium-mining-ban-is-on-the-supreme-courts-docket/">weakened local economy</a>.</p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-atomic-energy-act">Atomic Energy Act</a>, states retain jurisdiction over conventional uranium mining. The federal government lacks authority over uranium ore “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2095">prior to removal from its place of deposit in nature</a>,” when it is milled into yellowcake. </p>
<p>Virginia’s law speaks exclusively to state-controlled mining and bans only that activity. Mining proponents, however, insist that the state’s motive for enacting this ban was a concern about safety hazards associated with the storage of <a href="http://www.virginiaenergyresources.com/s/NewsReleases.asp?ReportID=718457&_Type=News-Releases&_Title=Virginia-Energy-Files-Federal-Suit-Against-Commonwealth-of-Virginia">radioactive tailings</a> from the milling process – issues traditionally addressed by the <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/">Nuclear Regulatory Commission</a>.</p>
<h2>The Supreme Court delves in</h2>
<p>When the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/16-1275">Supreme Court heard oral argument</a> on the case, on Nov. 5, 2018, the court considered whether state legislators should be left free to prohibit mining if they find that the harms outweigh the benefits.</p>
<p>The justices also probed whether the Atomic Energy Act could effectively mandate mining at the state level to provide ore for federally regulated milling operations.</p>
<p>As they delved into these questions, it became clear that conventional assumptions about federal authority and states’ rights might not apply. </p>
<p>Justices <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/11/argument-analysis-justices-express-skepticism-over-using-legislative-motive-in-pre-emption-analysis/">Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan</a>, both liberal justices appointed by President Barack Obama, voiced a reluctance to infringe on a state’s traditional lawmaking authority – the kind of concern typically raised by judicial conservatives. To that point, Justice <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-neil-gorsuch-72142">Neil Gorsuch</a> approvingly referred to Kagan’s observations and suggested that his view of the case shared a similar skepticism. </p>
<p>Justice <a href="https://theconversation.com/kavanaughs-judge-as-umpire-metaphor-sounds-neutral-but-its-deeply-conservative-102820">Brett Kavanaugh</a> departed from conservative orthodoxy and appeared to call for a pragmatic interpretation of Virginia’s law. He asked whether state-controlled mining and federally regulated milling might be inextricably interconnected.</p>
<p>Justice <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2018/16-1275_2q24.pdf#page=41">Stephen Breyer</a>, who reflected on his 24 years on the Supreme Court bench, observed that “every judge, as far as I know, including Justice Scalia, whom we used to talk about this, sometimes will look to a statute’s purpose” and depart from the plain text.</p>
<p>Both Kavanaugh’s and Breyer’s comments and questions hinted at an expansive view of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s purview. </p>
<p>But as Breyer implied, it might be the legacy of Justice Scalia that looms large when the court announces its decision. Gorsuch had kicked off oral argument by citing <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/03/analysis-sorting-out-an-erie-sequel/">a Scalia opinion</a> explaining why federal courts should avoid an inquiry into state motives.</p>
<p>That Kagan and Sotomayor were also interested in this narrower inquiry into state legislative action suggests that conventional wisdom about judicial philosophies might not hold in this case.</p>
<p>A ruling is expected before the end of June 2019.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cale Jaffe served as counsel of record before the Supreme Court for the Members of the Southern Virginia Delegation to the Virginia General Assembly, Local Chambers of Commerce, Civic, Trade, and Economic Development Associations, and Municipalities, who filed an amicus brief supporting Virginia's uranium mining ban. He previously served as director of the Virginia office of the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), and currently volunteers as chair of the board of directors for the Virginia Conservation Network (VCN). SELC and VCN also support Virginia's prohibition on uranium mining.</span></em></p>Distrusting large federal bureaucracies isn’t reserved for conservatives anymore.Cale Jaffe, Assistant Professor of Law and Director, Environmental and Regulatory Law Clinic, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1065892018-12-07T11:39:47Z2018-12-07T11:39:47ZI used facial recognition technology on birds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248848/original/file-20181204-34157-15w7897.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1529%2C1582&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do you know this downy woodpecker?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lewis Barnett</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a birder, I had heard that if you paid careful attention to the head feathers on the downy woodpeckers that visited your bird feeders, you could begin to recognize individual birds. This intrigued me. I even went so far as to try sketching birds at my own feeders and had found this to be true, up to a point. </p>
<p>In the meantime, in my day job as a computer scientist, I knew that other researchers had used <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162%2Fjocn.1991.3.1.71">machine learning techniques</a> to recognize individual faces in digital images with a high degree of accuracy.</p>
<p>These projects got me thinking about ways to combine my hobby with my day job. Would it be possible to apply those techniques to identify individual birds?</p>
<p>So, I built a tool to collect data: a type of bird feeder favored by woodpeckers and a motion-activated camera. I set up my monitoring station in my suburban Virginia yard and waited for the birds to show up. </p>
<h2>Image classification</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249029/original/file-20181205-186067-146tavh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The data collection rig.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lewis Barnett</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://thenextweb.com/artificial-intelligence/2018/07/18/a-beginners-guide-to-ai-computer-vision-and-image-recognition/">Image classification</a> is a hot topic in the tech world. Major companies like Facebook, Apple and Google are actively researching this problem to provide services like visual search, auto-tagging of friends in social media posts and the ability to use your face to unlock your cellphone. <a href="https://www.eff.org/pages/face-recognition">Law enforcement agencies</a> are very interested as well, primarily to recognize faces in digital imagery.</p>
<p>When I started working with my students on this project, image classification research focused on a technique that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109%2FICCV.1999.790410">looked at image features</a> such as edges, corners and areas of similar color. These are often pieces that might be assembled into some recognizable object. Those approaches were about 70 percent accurate, using benchmark data sets with hundreds of categories and tens of thousands of training examples. </p>
<p>Recent research has shifted toward the use of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/SCIENTIFICAMERICAN0992-144">artificial neural networks</a>, which identify their own features that prove most useful for accurate classification. Neural networks are modeled very loosely on the patterns of communication among neurons in the human brain. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/neco.1989.1.4.541">Convolutional neural networks</a>, the type that we are now using in our work with birds, are modified in ways that were modeled on the visual cortex. That makes them especially well-suited for image classification problems. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248890/original/file-20181204-34128-1horrfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A spotted salamander.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/salamander-portrait-139468802">Miroslav Hlavko/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some other researchers have already tried similar techniques on animals. I was inspired in part by <a href="http://www.cs.williams.edu/%7Eandrea/">computer scientist Andrea Danyluk of Williams College</a>, who has used machine learning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2445196.2445502">to identify individual spotted salamanders</a>. This works because each salamander has a distinctive pattern of spots. </p>
<h2>Progress on bird ID</h2>
<p>While my students and I didn’t have nearly as many images to work with as most other researchers and companies, we had the advantage of some constraints that could boost our classifier’s accuracy. </p>
<p>All of our images were taken from the same perspective, had the same scale and fell into a limited number of categories. All told, only about 15 species ever visited the feeder in my area. Of those, only 10 visited often enough to provide a useful basis for training a classifier. </p>
<p>The limited number of images was a definite handicap, but the small number of categories worked in our favor. When it came to recognizing whether the bird in an image was a chickadee, a Carolina wren, a cardinal or something else, an early project based on a facial recognition algorithm achieved about 85 percent accuracy – good enough to keep us interested in the problem.</p>
<p>Identifying birds in images is an example of a “fine-grained classification” task, meaning that the algorithm tries to discriminate between objects that are only slightly different from each other. Many birds that show up at feeders are roughly the same shape, for example, so telling the difference between one species and another can be quite challenging, even for experienced human observers.</p>
<p>The challenge only ramps up when you try to identify individuals. For most species, it simply isn’t possible. The woodpeckers that I was interested in have strongly patterned plumage but are still largely similar from individual to individual. </p>
<p>So, one of our biggest challenges was the human task of labeling the data to train our classifier. I found that the head feathers of downy woodpeckers weren’t a reliable way to distinguish between individuals, because those feathers move around a lot. They’re used by the birds to express irritation or alarm. However, the patterns of spots on the folded wings are more consistent and seemed to work just fine to tell one from another. Those wing feathers were almost always visible in our images, while the head patterns could be obscured depending on the angle of the bird’s head. </p>
<p>In the end, we had 2,450 pictures of eight different woodpeckers. When it came to identifying individual woodpeckers, our experiments achieved 97 percent accuracy. However, that result needs further verification.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/249038/original/file-20181205-186085-fbynin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adult female and juvenile grabbing lunch. Patterns in head feathers change with mood, but wing feathers are relatively stable in the collected images.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lewis Barnett</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How can this help birds?</h2>
<p>Ornithologists need accurate data on how bird populations change over time. Since many species are very specific in their habitat needs when it comes to breeding, wintering and migration, fine-grained data could be useful for thinking about the effects of a changing landscape. Data on individual species like downy woodpeckers could then be matched with other information, such as land use maps, weather patterns, human population growth and so forth, to better understand the abundance of a local species over time. </p>
<p>I believe that a semiautomated monitoring station is within reach at modest cost. My monitoring station cost around US$500. <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2969033.2969197">Recent studies</a> suggest that it should be possible to train a classifier using a much broader group of images, then fine-tune it quickly and with reasonable computational demands to recognize individual birds. </p>
<p>Projects like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2009.05.006">Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s eBird</a> have put a small army of citizen scientists on the ground for monitoring population dynamics, but the bulk of those data tends to be from locations where people are numerous, rather than from locations of specific interest to scientists. </p>
<p>An automated monitoring station approach could provide a force multiplier for wildlife biologists concerned with specific species or specific locations. This would broaden their ability to gather data with minimal human intervention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106589/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Barnett is affiliated with the Richmond Audubon Society and the Virginia Society for Ornithology. </span></em></p>By looking closely at traits like wing feathers and spot patterns, a computer scientist trained an algorithm to recognize individual woodpeckers.Lewis Barnett, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1069722018-11-15T11:43:51Z2018-11-15T11:43:51ZWhy politicians are the real winners in Amazon’s HQ2 bidding war<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245704/original/file-20181115-194519-9wkdm7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">For cities that lost like New Jersey, there may be more than one way to win.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Now that Amazon <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-hq2-announcement-lic-crystal-city-nashville-1542121089">has announced</a> the winners of its competition to host its second headquarters, a question on many minds is whether it’ll be worth the incentives offered.</p>
<p>We have a different question: Why did so many cities play Amazon’s billion-dollar bidding game in the first place?</p>
<p>One media narrative <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/amazon-hq2-long-island-city-virginia.html">has portrayed</a> the leaders of losing locations as simply fooled by Amazon’s ingenious scheme. Most of the 238 cities that made bids – offering lucrative tax and other incentives – really didn’t have a shot because they didn’t fulfill the basic requirements, such as access to skilled human capital, sufficient infrastructure and population density. </p>
<p>According to this view, their role was to provide competition, driving down the tax bill Amazon would eventually pay in the locations it had already selected for its own business reasons. They also provided Amazon with valuable data about what types of incentives they would need to provide in the future as it expands.</p>
<p>There is certainly merit to this narrative. Where we disagree is the notion that the politicians were simple dupes in a game they didn’t fully understand. Rather, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TunpR_MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">our</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LKESzSgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research</a> suggests it is far more likely they were willing participants.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245705/original/file-20181115-194506-12knbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Birmingham put large Amazon Dash ‘buttons’ all around town as part of its effort to lure the retailer’s second headquarters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Amazon-HQ2-Public-Money/44dbc8c63b5a48b59ac38ea09d2419af/13/0">AP Photo/Brynn Anderson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A game of incentives</h2>
<p>Amazon first unveiled its public competition for what has been dubbed “HQ2” last September.</p>
<p>The retailer gave interested city and state governments only two months to put together proposals for the opportunity to attract what Amazon <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-headquarters/amazon-opens-bidding-to-cities-for-5-billion-hq2-a-second-headquarters-idUSKCN1BI1DM">described</a> as a US$5 billion investment that would employ 50,000 workers. </p>
<p>Most states, and dozens of cities, <a href="https://qz.com/1119945/a-nearly-complete-list-of-the-238-places-that-bid-for-amazons-next-headquarters/">jumped at the opportunity</a> to put in proposals. Of the 238 initial bidders, Amazon culled this list down to <a href="https://theconversation.com/amazon-headquarters-heres-what-it-will-take-to-be-the-winning-city-91429">20 cities</a> in January and requested additional information and the signing of non-disclosure agreements. </p>
<p>After <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/technology/amazon-second-headquarters-split.html">reports</a> began to leak that Amazon was splitting its investment between two sites, Amazon revealed that Long Island City in New York City’s Queens borough and an area in Northern Virginia known as Crystal City were the co-winners, each receiving half of the investment. </p>
<p>New York State reportedly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/nyregion/amazon-long-island-city.html">offered</a> $1.7 billion in incentives along with additional local tax reductions to lure Amazon to Long Island City, while Virginia and Arlington County <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-news/amazon-hq2-to-receive-more-than-28-billion-in-incentives-from-virginia-new-york-and-tennessee/2018/11/13/f3f73cf4-e757-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.c97171f14e86">put up</a> a more modest $573 million. But both locations had something else in common: access to reserves of high-quality human capital and pre-existing hi-tech infrastructure. And according to urbanist <a href="https://www.geekwire.com/2018/leading-urbanist-richard-florida-convinced-amazon-hq2-wont-go-suburb/">Richard Florida</a>, that’s what ultimately drove the decision in what some called a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/amazon-hq2-long-island-city-virginia.html">bait and switch</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245708/original/file-20181115-194513-fzr914.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Extensive transportation infrastructure was seen as a key reason Crystal City was picked as one of the winners of Amazon’s HQ2 competition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Amazon-HQ/3205c0a61e71495b9b9463675e3d8aea/45/0">AP Photo/Cliff Owen</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Putting on a show</h2>
<p>While this narrative is surely true, we believe something else is also going on here. </p>
<p>In our book, “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/incentives-to-pander/E0003C20215EDA5047EA0831FEEB6D92">Incentives to Pander</a>,” we explain how offering incentives to companies is a way for cities that know they aren’t going to actually attract their investment to show voters just how hard they are trying, allowing them to minimize the blame when they don’t succeed.</p>
<p>To better understand the effects of offering investment incentives on voters, we asked 1,500 respondents of the annual YouGov survey about how a business investment that would create 1,000 jobs in their state would affect their support for the governor. Participants were randomly told one of the following: </p>
<ol>
<li>that the governor offered greater tax incentives than other states and won the investment</li>
<li>that the governor offered greater tax incentives but didn’t win the investment</li>
<li>that the governor offered tax incentives equal to or less than other states and won the investment</li>
<li>that the governor offered tax incentives equal to or less than other states and didn’t win the investment.</li>
</ol>
<p>Respondents were then asked whether they would be more or less likely to vote for the governor in the next election. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, respondents were always more likely to support the governor if the company invested in the state. What was striking was their response to the incentive. </p>
<p>A winning bid that included a bigger tax incentive led to a 5 percent boost in support relative to the scenario in which the governor won the investment but didn’t outbid other states. Even more interesting is that a losing bid that included a big incentive led to double the boost of support. </p>
<p>This study demonstrates the electoral value to politicians of making a splashy bid for an investment, particularly when they have good reason to believe their locality has little chance of actually winning it. We suspect that this allows a politician to avoid the potential blame of losing a bid as well. </p>
<p>So in terms of game theory, politicians have a dominant strategy to offer incentives to all prospective investors, whether a company needs a break or not or however improbable it is to actually happen.</p>
<h2>Hide and seek</h2>
<p>Amazon HQ2 is an extreme case of this thesis. </p>
<p>Mayors and governors offered up to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hq2-cities-developers-economic-tax-incentives-2017-10/#raleigh-north-carolina-well-over-50-million-1'">$8.5 billion</a> in incentives as a way to show effort. While some bids were serious, there was also rather embarrassing theater, such as the mayor of Kansas City <a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article178340976.html">publicly reviewing</a> Amazon products during a video address to constituents, the city of Stonewall, Georgia, offering to <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/city-amazon-proposed-attract-company-hq2-georgia/WVuopYRd6WFQE3w7JjcdnO/">rename the city</a> after the retailer, and Atlanta <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/atlanta-offered-amazon-the-chance-at-its-own-train-car-for-hq2.html">proposing to build</a> the company a train to deliver goods throughout the city. </p>
<p>New York Governor Andrew Cuomo even jokingly offered to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/05/technology/amazon-second-headquarters-split.html">rename himself</a> Amazon Cuomo if doing so would help win the bid. </p>
<p>What’s worse is that some mayors, governors and other city officials tried to hide the true costs of their bids from their constituents. Cities such as <a href="https://www.bisnow.com/dallas-ft-worth/news/economic-development/dfw-disappointed-but-says-hq2-bid-alerted-many-to-its-strengths-94949">Dallas</a> and <a href="https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2018/01/18/amazon-passes-over-detroit-2nd-hq/1043515001/">Detroit</a> <a href="https://www.muckrock.com/project/america-bids-on-amazon-175/">avoided public disclosure requirements</a> by not submitting bids though local government agencies. Instead, they expressed their interest through Chambers of Commerce, public-private economic development agencies and nongovernmental organizations that were formed only to pursue HQ2 and dissolved afterwards. Only now are they releasing the details of their failed bids. </p>
<p>Austin’s Chamber of Commerce immediately released a statement that they <a href="https://www.austinchamber.com/blog/austin-chamber-statement-on-amazon-hq2-bid">don’t intend</a> to release details of its bid – ever. </p>
<p>And in other cases, such as Pittsburgh, normally transparent governments <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/business/development/2018/10/31/Judge-orders-city-county-to-release-Amazon-HQ2-bid-PIttsburgh-open-records/stories/201810310180">fought public records requests</a> in the courts, at a minimum stalling the revelation of what was offered and possibly avoiding it all together.</p>
<p>Even many city council members were <a href="https://www.statesman.com/business/20180302/council-member-city-chamber-mishandling-amazon-pursuit">left in the dark</a>.</p>
<p>In follow up experiments to our YouGov survey, when we told voters what the actual cost of the incentive would be to taxpayers, the vote bonus declined to zero. This is why transparency about the incentives is so important.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"918483988867555328"}"></div></p>
<h2>The real losers</h2>
<p>This is the irony of HQ2. </p>
<p>Our research suggests elected officials will later try to use their efforts, win or lose, as a way to show that they are doing “all they can” for their communities and local economies. When asked for details about their actual effort, however, many will claim the Chamber of Commerce ate their homework.</p>
<p>The problem is simple: Elected officials are expected to create jobs in their communities, but most of the policies that <a href="https://upjohn.org/timothy-j-bartik-what-works-economic-development">facilitate economic development</a> often take decades to pay dividends, such as investments in public education or providing adequate public services to small business. </p>
<p>There aren’t easy solutions but the first step is to recognize what is happening. Amazon HQ2 was another case of a company playing states and cities against each other to achieve special benefits. It’s also a story of complicit governments playing along with the game by offering grandstanding deals and keeping the details of the deals out of the public eye.</p>
<p>They both played a game – and their constituents are the real losers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Jensen has received funding from the Center for Equitable Growth, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, and the Kauffman Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund Malesky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some say the more than 230 cities that lost their bids for Amazon’s second headquarters were dupes in the retailer’s game. In fact, they were willing participants with their own aims.Nathan Jensen, Professor of Government, The University of Texas at AustinEdmund Malesky, Professor of Political Science, Duke UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031462018-09-14T10:35:07Z2018-09-14T10:35:07ZNuclear reactors in hurricanes: 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236277/original/file-20180913-177959-phwhx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Florida's Turkey Point Nuclear Plant shut down 12 hours before Hurricane Andrew made landfall in 1992.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-FL-USA-APHS436799-Hurricane-Andrew/a7d7961c5dea42c5811c9b30fdd8b0f8/4/0">AP Photo/Phil Sandlin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: Hurricane Florence may affect the operations of several of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-florence-nuclear/us-nuclear-power-plants-prepare-for-hurricane-florence-idUSKCN1LR2C8">16 nuclear reactors</a> located in the Carolinas and Virginia, raising concerns about safety and power outages. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=yxN_35oAAAAJ">Ted Kury</a>, director of energy studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center, explains why nuclear power stations must take precautions during big storms.</em></p>
<h2>1. Keeping cores cool is the top priority.</h2>
<p>The top safety concern at nuclear power stations is protecting the <a href="https://nrl.mit.edu/reactor/core-description">nuclear cores</a> of their reactors.</p>
<p>Reactors <a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-power-reactors/nuclear-power-reactors.aspx">operate at temperatures exceeding 350 degrees Centigrade</a>, relying on cooling systems to dissipate the heat. When cooling systems malfunction, portions of the reactor core may begin to melt. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/mechanics-of-a-meltdown-explained">Meltdowns</a> can lead to explosions and the potential release of radioactive material.</p>
<p>When a reactor’s power supply is interrupted, it may affect the system’s ability to cool the plant.</p>
<p>To prevent accidents, the outer wall of reactor containment systems are made out of reinforced concrete and steel. Since they are designed to withstand the <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part050/part050-0150.html">impact of a large commercial airliner</a>, flying debris – even if it’s propelled by 200 miles-per-hour winds – is unlikely to pose much of a threat. </p>
<p>Therefore, utilities <a href="https://nuclear.duke-energy.com/2017/09/28/how-nuclear-plants-weather-storms">prepare for storms</a> by inspecting power stations, securing equipment, testing backup pumps and generators and stocking critical supplies in case workers have to stay on site.</p>
<h2>2. Why do utilities sometimes shut down reactors before hurricanes?</h2>
<p>The first time that a hurricane significantly affected a commercial nuclear power plant was in 1992, when the eye of <a href="https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/1992andrew.html">Hurricane Andrew</a> passed directly over Florida Power and Light’s <a href="https://www.fpl.com/clean-energy/nuclear/turkey-point-plant.html">Turkey Point Nuclear Station</a>.</p>
<p>The plant, located 25 miles south of Miami, was <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1993/in93053.html">subjected to</a> sustained winds of 145 miles-per-hour with gusts up to 175 miles-per-hour.</p>
<p>While the reactors themselves were not damaged, the plant site sustained US$90 million worth of damage. It lacked external power for five days, relying on backup generators to run critical equipment and keep the reactor cores cool.</p>
<p>A Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/info-notices/1993/in93053.html">report on the incident</a> noted that the plant had begun to shut down 12 hours before the storm arrived, earlier than required at the time.</p>
<p>Had the plant operators strictly adhered to the requirements, the plant may not have been ready to take the necessary precautions once the storm hit. As a result, plant operators today begin their shutdown procedures and status reports to the NRC 12 hours ahead of the storm’s impact.</p>
<h2>3. Why do utilities sometimes wait before turning reactors back on?</h2>
<p>At any given moment, the amount of power electricity grids generate must equal the amount customers consume plus what gets lost on its way to them. When there is no way to consume the power, or to transmit it, utilities halt generation.</p>
<p>And even when utilities take steps to protect the grid, such as by laying <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-us-put-power-lines-underground-83771">power lines underground</a> to reduce the risks posed by downed trees and flying debris, it makes them more susceptible to storm surges and flooding.</p>
<p>Therefore, when large numbers of power lines and substations are disrupted, reactors once turned off may not be able come back on line until after all that infrastructure has been repaired.</p>
<p>Before <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32992">Hurricane Irma</a> made landfall in South Florida in September of 2017, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-storm-irma-fpl-nuclear/fpl-shut-one-reactor-at-florida-turkey-point-ahead-of-irma-idUSKCN1BL0MD">Florida Power and Light</a> originally planned to shut down the Turkey Point reactors 24 hours in advance of landfall, but ultimately made the decision to leave one of them online as Irma’s path changed.</p>
<h2>4. What about the Fukushima disaster?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/iaea-releases-director-generals-report-on-fukushima-daiichi-accident">There was a major disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant</a> in 2011. Few of the more than <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-years-after-fukushima-much-of-japan-has-lost-faith-in-nuclear-power-73042">100,000 people who were evacuated</a> from the surrounding area have returned home, although the government has announced that it is safe to return to at least part of that region.</p>
<p>The disaster began when a tsunami caused by the <a href="https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/Education-and-Careers/Plate-Tectonic-Stories/Outer-Isles-Pseudotachylytes/Tohoku-Earthquake">Tohoku earthquake</a> disabled emergency generators used to cool nuclear reactors, causing multiple meltdowns, followed by explosions and the release of radioactive material.</p>
<p>It changed how utilities prepare for major storms, including in <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard.html">the U.S.</a>, where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission strengthened <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/priorities.html">safety standards</a> across the board and <a href="https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/japan-dashboard/japan-plants.html">instituted customized requirements at some power stations</a>. </p>
<h2>5. What might happen in the Carolinas and Virginia?</h2>
<p>The U.S. gets about one-fifth of its electricity from nuclear energy but the region where Hurricane Florence will have the biggest impact relies on it more heavily.</p>
<p>About 57 percent of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/state/index.php?sid=SC">South Carolina’s grid</a> is nuclear-powered while <a href="https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NC">North Carolina</a> and <a href="https://www.eia.gov/state/index.php?sid=VA">Virginia</a> both get roughly a third of their electricity from nuclear power stations.</p>
<p>Duke Energy, which owns <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/storm-florence-nuclear/us-nuclear-power-plants-prepare-for-hurricane-florence-idUSL2N1VX1FW">nearly all of the nuclear power stations in the Carolinas</a>, reportedly planned in advance to shut down some of these reactors <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-florence-north-carolina-nuclear-power-plants-preparations-2018-9">12 hours before the hurricane’s landfall</a>.</p>
<p>The company also predicted before the hurricane that as many as <a href="https://apnews.com/7e9cac25a28d4781a184c913f6ec5c9a/The-Latest:-Duke-Energy-says-millions-could-lose-power">three-quarters of its 4 million customers</a> in the Carolinas could lose power in outages that could last for weeks – depending on the storm’s severity and trajectory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103146/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Theodore Kury is the Director of Energy Studies at the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center, which is sponsored in part by the Florida electric and gas utilities and the Florida Public Service Commission, none of which has editorial control of any of the content the Center produces.</span></em></p>Lessons learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the Fukushima disaster in 2011 have changed how utilities brace for big storms.Theodore J. Kury, Director of Energy Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/853502017-12-11T03:01:16Z2017-12-11T03:01:16ZHow to put data to work in your neighborhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191709/original/file-20171024-30571-1atucvx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many cities collect valuable data on themselves.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/residential-neighborhood-subdivision-skyline-aerial-shot-569669149?src=Gq6ws1eFmE60EV9-0_KrTw-1-0">TDKvisuals/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, city governments collect vast amounts of administrative data – local property tax assessments, 911 emergency response calls, social assistance recipients and more. </p>
<p>These data have huge potential to <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v531/n7594_supp/full/531S64a.html">enhance residents’ quality of life</a> and <a href="https://www.cep.gov/news/sept6news.html">stimulate economic growth</a>. Many local governments have jumped to create so-called “smart cities” that harness these data to enhance livability, workability and sustainability.</p>
<p>But most cities still don’t use their own administrative data to inform their decisions. In many cases, they lack the technical capacity and have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2330443X.2017.1374897">only limited resources</a>.</p>
<p>Our lab has worked with the city of Arlington, Virginia to strengthen their services, particularly through the demographic planning and fire and police departments. Our work, which we are now expanding across Virginia and Iowa, shows how cities across America can leverage the data they already have to improve residents’ lives. </p>
<h1>Start with existing data</h1>
<p>By overlooking their administrative data, local governments are missing out on innovative ways to address their most pressing problems. Data provide a valuable way to describe the nature of the problems, assess the likely impact of potential solutions and predict future outcomes. </p>
<p>For example, in 2015, Arlington demographers wanted to understand the <a href="https://www.bi.vt.edu/sdal/projects/assessing-new-data-sources-for-the-federal-census">demographic and economic diversity of housing in local neighborhoods</a>. Knowing this could help them better plan school enrollments and adjust future school boundaries. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bi.vt.edu/sdal/projects/assessing-new-data-sources-for-the-federal-census">Housing value information</a> from local property data is an excellent proxy for diversity, as it represents the wealth of the household. Individual local property values provide more timely and detailed information than federal data sets. </p>
<p>We used these data to determine <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/163688a0">measures of diversity</a>, down to the census block level or even smaller. We calculated diversity by computing the probability that two housing values selected at random from the geographic area differ on home value. The higher the score, the more diverse the home values are in the region. </p>
<p>This information provided city demographers with a new lens to explore available housing opportunities and relate this information back to younger families with children, whose income is often lower than other families. Higher economic diversity is an indicator of more <a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/promoting-neighborhood-diversity-benefits-barriers-and-strategies">opportunities for all</a>. It also helped them plan for school age enrollments by age. </p>
<h1>Using all data</h1>
<p>Government decisions have even more impact when local officials can combine their own data with other easily accessible outside resources, such as social media and state or federal databases. These combined sources can provide a more holistic view of our neighborhoods. </p>
<p>The Arlington fire chief, for example, wanted to improve <a href="https://www.bi.vt.edu/sdal/content/generic_page/Arlington-County-911-Response-Time-Data-Science-Public-Good-2016.pdf">situational awareness of his fire department operations</a> by using his data on the current placement of equipment and personnel.</p>
<p>We looked at what time incidents were reported and responded to. The patterns for response time in relation to distance from the call appeared similar across stations. However, by plugging the data into a statistical model and controlling for several other variables – including month, hour of day and call type – we found that response times were highest for calls for hazardous materials investigations, highway calls and wires-down incidents.</p>
<p>These estimates helped the fire chief better anticipate when these incidents might occur and decide where to place fire or medic units and when to have more firefighters available.</p>
<h1>Scaling our work</h1>
<p>Today, there are many examples of cities using administrative data to advance the public good. In San Francisco, the <a href="https://www.sfdph.org/dph/comupg/aboutdph/insideDept/OPP/hia.asp">Department of Public Health</a> partners with the private sector to inform the public about potential health issues seen in public health data and local data – for example, by adding <a href="http://sfist.com/2015/11/05/yelp_now_explicitly_warning_you_off.php">city restaurant inspection ratings to Yelp restaurant ratings</a>. In Alburquerque, New Mexico, universities and local governments are working together to better understand the size, composition and behavior of <a href="https://vimeo.com/237118398#t=29m56s">those who have been arrested multiple times</a>. </p>
<p>Scaling and sustaining such an approach requires a new and bold agenda. The universities we work at are land grant institutions, meaning that they’re part of a class of universities founded to provide the working class with a practical education directly relevant to their daily lives. One of our primary roles is to translate evidence-based research for the public.</p>
<p>We believe that land grant universities like ours should build upon their current roles and bring data in service of the public good. By partnering more closely with local governments, researchers can help communities that are data-driven to govern more intelligently.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85350/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Shipp received funding from Laura and John Arnold Foundation and the U. S. Census Bureau. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Woteki is affiliated with Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sallie Keller received funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and the U. S. Census Bureau.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah M. Nusser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many cities lack the resources to analyze their own vast troves of administrative data.Stephanie Shipp, Deputy Director and Research Professor at the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory, Virginia TechCatherine Woteki, Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State UniversitySallie Keller, Professor of Statistics, Virginia TechSarah M. Nusser, Vice President for Research, Iowa State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871042017-11-08T23:54:18Z2017-11-08T23:54:18ZDemocrats’ sweep of Virginia shows the state is moving beyond its Confederate past<p>In its first election since Trump became president, Virginia gave Democrats a sweeping victory. This <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/12/virginia-is-no-longer-a-purple-state/?utm_term=.306f2f6768f5">one-time swing state</a> and former Confederate capital elected Democrats in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/11/08/daily-202-anti-trump-backlash-fuels-a-democratic-sweep-in-virginia-and-elections-across-the-country/5a023fd230fb0468e76541b3/">all three statewide races</a> – governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. </p>
<p>Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a mild-mannered physician from Virginia’s eastern shore, led the ticket with a platform focused on women’s reproductive rights, climate change and racial justice. He defeated Republican Ed Gillespie with <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/election-results-virginia-new-jersey-n818406">just under 54 percent of the vote</a>. </p>
<p>Northam saw particularly strong support from a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrats-send-trump-and-trumpism-a-message-with-election-night-wins/2017/11/07/5e6a7b5c-c308-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.843e830ea452">diverse population of suburban voters</a> in Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties, where Virginia’s Confederate history figures less prominently than in the state’s more rural and southern parts. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/exit-polls-how-ralph-northam-won-in-virginia/">Black voters</a> in Tidewater and Richmond, the capital, also rallied around Northam. </p>
<p>The Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, drew his base from the same areas. <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/news/politics/fairfax-wins-va-lieutenant-governor-race-becomes-second-african-american/article_37aed012-3978-583f-ad94-25a791939868.html">He beat out</a> Republican House of Delegates member Jill Vogel, 53 percent to 47 percent. Fairfax will be the first black politician to hold statewide office in Virginia since <a href="https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/jan-13-1990-douglas-wilder-becomes-first-elected-african-american-governor-in-u-s/">former Gov. Douglas Wilder became lieutenant governor in 1985</a>. </p>
<p>Fairfax, who has never held elected office, is now in a position to follow the path of Governor-elect Northam and <a href="http://www.ltgov.virginia.gov/lghistory.htm">seven other Virginia lieutenant governors</a> who’ve risen to the state’s highest office. If he were to do so, he would become only the second African-American ever to lead Virginia. </p>
<p>Race is never an <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-e-lee-george-washington-and-the-trouble-with-the-american-pantheon-82665">afterthought in southern politics</a>. And in Virginia’s election, it was a central factor. As a political analyst who focuses on race, I interpret this Democratic triumph as a sign that the Old Dominion has entered a new era – one characterized by definite urban-rural divisions. </p>
<h2>City vs. country</h2>
<p>In modern Virginia, urban areas have <a href="http://www.diversitydata.org/Data/Profiles/Show.aspx?loc=1412">considerable racial and ethnic diversity</a>, especially in <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/10/northern-virginia-diversity-race/18079525/">northern Virginia</a>. These cities vote overwhelmingly democratic.</p>
<p>Republican Ed Gillespie, a Washington lobbyist who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/gillespie-schedules-1-pm-news-conference-amid-speculation-that-he-will-concede/2014/11/07/6bff3a98-6689-11e4-9fdc-d43b053ecb4d_story.html?utm_term=.5abe7ee870d4">almost defeated incumbent senator Mark Warner in 2014</a>, knows this. So he ran a campaign clearly aimed at appealing to the Trump base throughout rural Virginia. </p>
<p>Gillespie favored retaining statues of Confederate icons like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, a particularly hot-button issue in Virginia since alt-right, pro-Confederacy protesters <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/unite-the-right-torch-rally-ends-in-violence-at-the/article_32a1a082-7f0a-11e7-9f72-f3433c42fb49.html">killed one person in Charlottesville in August</a>. </p>
<p>Gillespie also attacked Northam on Gov. McAuliffe’s policy of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/mcauliffe-restores-voting-rights-to-13000-felons/2016/08/22/2372bb72-6878-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html">restoring the voting rights of former felons</a>, and he opposed sanctuary cities. Gillespie ran television ads implying that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-republicans-ad-ties-opponent-to-ms-13-democrats-compare-it-to-willie-horton/2017/09/20/28d673bc-9e49-11e7-8ea1-ed975285475e_story.html">immigrants would join violent gangs like MS-13</a>, which did not play well in liberal urban areas.</p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Anti-immigrant campaign ads did not play well in Virginia’s liberal cities.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, Northam actually <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/democrat-ralph-northam-projected-the-winner-in-virginia-gov-race-1090841155581">fared better in northern Virginia suburbs</a> – a key population center – than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Arlington voters gave Northam 80 percent, Fairfax 67 percent, Loudoun 59 percent and Prince William 61 percent.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://statisticalatlas.com/place/Virginia/Norfolk/Race-and-Ethnicity">heavily black cities like Norfolk</a> and Hampton, too, Northam saw a robust win. Statewide, 87 percent of black voters and 67 percent of Latino voters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/virginia-politics/governor-exit-polls/?utm_term=.843c0aac48cd">supported the Democratic candidate</a>.</p>
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<p>Even before polls officially closed at 7 p.m., it was clear that this diverse coalition of black Virginians, northern Virginia suburbanites and city-dwellers had become a powerful voting bloc. Together, these communities put Northam, Fairfax and <a href="https://wtop.com/virginia/2017/11/virginia-house-delegates-results-democrats-republicans/">over a dozen Democratic General Assembly delegates</a> into office. </p>
<h1>A new era</h1>
<p>This strong Democratic showing suggests that Virginia is entering a new era. </p>
<p>History is the foundation of the Old Dominion, one of America’s 13 original colonies. However, in my assessment, the 2017 gubernatorial election proved that forward-thinking Virginians now place a greater value on the future than on the past. </p>
<p>Although it is a southern state, Virginia rejected ads that sought to racially divide and frighten the electorate. Even the rallying cry of the Confederate flag and Civil War monuments did not deter voters from writing new history. With little fanfare, the state carried a <a href="http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/fairfax-wins-va-lieutenant-governor-race-becomes-second-african-american/article_7c1db5a4-25ae-5f81-af51-cd9bacbd0af5.html">black attorney into the office of lieutenant governor</a>. </p>
<p>This Democratic shift is only likely to grow. I believe rural Virginia voters will gradually lose their political clout – even in the representative General Assembly – as lack of jobs <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/townnews/work/wallmeyer-lack-of-job-skills-hurts-rural-virginia/article_9ce46ea4-0d18-53db-8611-93e4a23ace68.html">continues to shrink the rural population</a>. </p>
<p>In contrast, <a href="http://statchatva.org/2017/01/30/virginias-population-is-growing-at-its-slowest-pace-since-the-1920s/">census data show</a> that Virginia’s urban areas will expand. That likely means more Democratic voters.</p>
<p>The big question now is whether the Democrats’ victory in Virginia portends a national trend. In <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2018-election/">2018</a>, 36 states and three territories elect governors. More than 30 senators will face election.</p>
<p>I see Virginia’s “off-off-year” election as a repudiation of Trump’s policies. The state showed that African-Americans, suburbanites and millennials could be the vanguard of future Democratic contests. Next year, all America will find out if Virginia was the start of something bigger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87104/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toni-Michelle C. Travis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Virginia, suburbanites, city-dwellers and black voters together rebuffed racism as an electoral strategy and handed Dems a huge win. Is this diverse coalition the future of Old Dominion politics?Toni-Michelle C. Travis, Professor of American Politics, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/870822017-11-08T05:00:27Z2017-11-08T05:00:27ZNortham win in Virginia shows why newspapers should stop endorsing candidates<p>Ralph Northam, a folksy Democrat from the Eastern Shore, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/us/politics/virginia-election-democrats.html">beat out</a> Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, in Virginia’s heated gubernatorial race. Northam’s victory was remarkably comfortable. He won with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/virginia-governor-election-gillespie-northam">54 percent of the vote</a>. His opponent, a Washington lobbyist who sought to distance himself from President Donald Trump, received 45 percent. </p>
<p>But you would have predicted just the opposite if you had been following newspaper endorsements in Virginia leading up to Election Day. I’m a <a href="http://has.vcu.edu/jeff-south-fulbright/">journalism professor</a>, so I was closely following the media’s engagement in this election.</p>
<p>And over the past month or so, I observed with interest as most of Virginia’s newspapers favored Gillespie over Northam, a pediatric neurologist who served six years as a Virginia state senator and four as the state’s lieutenant governor.</p>
<h2>Who got it wrong</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/editorial-the-richmond-times-dispatch-endorses-ed-gillespie-for-governor/article_a8e6e275-8163-554e-bce6-72b9ea7a2e36.html">Richmond Times-Dispatch</a>, in an Oct. 27 editorial, for example, praised Gillespie for running “an energetic, inclusive, moderate-conservative, solutions-oriented campaign.” In a swipe at Northam, the paper said Gillespie “knows, unlike most Democrats, that more government spending is not the cure for all that ails society.”</p>
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<p>Newspapers in Roanoke, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Harrisonburg, Lynchburg and Halifax also urged readers to vote for Gillespie.</p>
<p>One week later, in early November, the editorial board of the <a href="http://www.dailyprogress.com/opinion/opinion-editorial-gillespie-has-admirable-plan-for-economy/article_3c8bfd1c-c00b-11e7-9394-97c4be6393a2.html">Daily Progress</a>, Charlottesville’s local paper, opined that because Republicans also control Virginia’s General Assembly, “we believe Ed Gillespie has the best chance of leading Virginia to a brighter economic future.”</p>
<p>The editors of <a href="http://www.fredericksburg.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-ed-gillespie-for-governor/article_9ef71ff1-52aa-5016-b551-52e72b4313ae.html">The Free Lance-Star</a> in Fredericksburg agreed. “Unlike his Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, Gillespie is not in favor of expanding Medicaid,” they asserted just days before Northam would go on to win Virginia, a <a href="http://www.roanoke.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-is-virginia-really-a-swing-state/article_171f99c3-0018-583f-9274-26b21daaf425.html">Republican stronghold turned swing state</a>.</p>
<p>In the end, Northam received endorsements from only three newspapers: The Virginian-Pilot, in Norfolk, where he now lives; the Daily Press of nearby Newport News; and the Washington Post.</p>
<h2>Credibility problem</h2>
<p>As Northam cruised to his <a href="http://results.elections.virginia.gov/vaelections/2017%20November%20General/Site/Statewide.html">nine-point</a> victory over Gillespie, I couldn’t help but think that maybe it’s time for newspapers to stop telling their dwindling number of subscribers how to vote.</p>
<p>News organizations already have a credibility problem: <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/newspaper-endorsement-poll_us_57f56d01e4b0b7aafe0bc8fd">Polls show</a> that only 13 percent of Americans trust their local paper “a lot.”</p>
<p>And while journalists swear there’s a wall between the editorial staff that endorses candidates and the reporters who write the news, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/11/05/164342234/should-newspapers-make-political-endorsements">many readers are skeptical</a>: They suspect that a newspaper’s endorsement influences what should be objective coverage.</p>
<p>In my opinion, getting out of the endorsement game would help newspapers regain trust, fend off charges of bias and show respect for the public’s decision-making abilities.</p>
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<h2>Some opt out</h2>
<p>Some news organizations are starting to recognize this. In the runup to the gubernatorial election, the editorial board of the <a href="http://www.martinsvillebulletin.com/opinion/editorial-don-t-look-for-endorsements-from-the-bulletin/article_274998e8-bf8d-11e7-8314-6b14fa8fb9c1.html">Martinsville Bulletin</a> wrote that the newspaper wouldn’t be making endorsements in state or local races: “It’s not for a lack of interest. It’s that we truly do not feel it’s our job to tell any of you who to vote for.”</p>
<p>The Martinsville Bulletin, which serves communities along Virginia’s border with North Carolina, questioned the point of endorsements:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A person or organization announces who they support, with the implication everyone else should follow suit. We see that as tricky for a news organization, where the goal is to be objective. If we do a piece on candidate X, but we’ve endorsed candidate Y, how can you be expected to trust it?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s a valiant acknowledgment from a small-town paper, but newspaper endorsements – no matter their credibility or weight – won’t be easy to extirpate. They have a very long history in the United States. </p>
<p>During the presidential election of 1860, for example, the editorial page of <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/opinion/timeline/lincoln-1860.pdf">The New York Times</a> announced its support for “Mr. Lincoln, of Illinois, familiarly known as ‘Old Abe,’ age 51, height six feet seven, by profession Rail-Splitter.”</p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln won that election, of course. But overall, newspaper endorsements have had <a href="http://archives.cjr.org/united_states_project/why_some_newspapers_are_abandoning_endorsements.php">mixed results</a> in influencing voters or forecasting election outcomes. Most papers, for instance, endorsed Hillary Clinton over Trump last fall – and were soundly <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-wins-us-election-scholars-from-around-the-world-react-68282">repudiated at the polls</a>.</p>
<h2>Bad for business</h2>
<p>It’s not just arrogant for newspapers to issue endorsements in elections – it may also be financially unwise.</p>
<p>Newspapers already face <a href="https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/06/30143308/state-of-the-news-media-report-2016-final.pdf">severe economic challenges</a> as they lose readers – and thus advertising – to digital platforms. Readers turned off by an endorsement are likely to seek their news elsewhere. Digital outlets like Slate and BuzzFeed do not endorse candidates.</p>
<p>Indeed, in Virginia you could already see signs of readers’ rejection of this blatant display of politics in the media. In the comments reacting to the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s endorsement of Gillespie, one person wrote, “If the RTD thinks he is a wise choice, I now understand why the RTD is losing readership.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=254&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193709/original/file-20171108-6718-h54hn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=319&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not the best move, in the end.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot, Richmond Times Dispatch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many <a href="https://www.uuworld.org/articles/community-news-civic-health">media experts believe</a> that for newspapers to survive, they must position themselves as community forums – platforms for engaging the audience and fostering a dialogue. That means hosting a conversation, not delivering a lecture.</p>
<p>By forgoing endorsements, newspapers could better fulfill that role: They would be making a statement that news organizations provide impartial information – and readers should act on it as they see fit. Plus, if Virginia’s race is any indication, they’re not so great at the endorsement game, anyway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87082/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff South does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s time for newspapers to stop telling their dwindling number of subscribers how to vote.Jeff South, Associate Professor of Journalism, Virginia Commonwealth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/694242016-11-28T04:58:11Z2016-11-28T04:58:11ZNo politician can singlehandedly bring back coal – not even Donald Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147692/original/image-20161128-22739-181iwap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Virginia coalminers in the industry's 1970s heyday.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFIRST_SHIFT_OF_MINERS_AT_THE_VIRGINIA-POCAHONTAS_COAL_COMPANY_MINE_%5E4_NEAR_RICHLANDS%2C_VIRGINIA%2C_LEAVING_THE_ELEVATOR...._-_NARA_-_556393.jpg">Jack Corn/EPA/US Natl Archives & Records Administration/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the night Donald Trump won the US election, one of the many jubilant supporters featured in the media coverage was 67-year-old <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/33157923/trump-claims-victory-in-us-presidential-election/#page1">Doug Ratliff of Richlands, Virginia</a>. An owner of struggling shopping malls in a region hit hard by coal closures, he said Trump “gives people hope” that these ailing industries can be brought back to health.</p>
<p>But the reality is that Trump won’t be able to do it – any more than he can stop the rising seas flowing over vulnerable coastal areas of Florida, one of the states that helped to elect him president.</p>
<p>King Canute Trump and his aides can <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en">deny the veracity of climate change</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/please-donald-trump-dont-send-climate-science-back-to-the-pre-satellite-era-69358">threaten to shut down NASA’s climate programs</a> all they want, but they are largely powerless to stop the global processes now under way to remove fossil fuels from global and local economies.</p>
<p>As the graph below shows, global economic growth has decoupled from growth in greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147691/original/image-20161128-32054-zg8yti.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Growth in wealth with the plateau and decline in greenhouse emissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IEA/World Bank</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>European nations such as Denmark, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK are now showing “absolute decoupling” – that is, their fossil fuel use is declining while their economies continue to expand. The UK – the birthplace of coal-fired power two centuries ago – will <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook">switch off its last coal power station in 2040</a>.</p>
<p>America and Australia have been slower to decouple, but both have shown absolute declines in coal use since 2005 and 2009 respectively, while still growing economically. China is rapidly decoupling (in absolute terms with coal) while India is relatively decoupling.</p>
<p>The reality is that the world has learned to grow economically in the 21st century without needing fossil fuels to do it. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) has <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/company/new-energy-outlook">assessed the trends</a> in prices for different fuels and predicts that coal and gas-based power will go from 57% in 2015 to 31% in 2040, while renewables will go from 11% to 56% of power. This is without subsidies.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=315&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/147690/original/image-20161128-32046-1u9x3lt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Renewables will gobble up more pie in the coming decades.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bloomberg New Energy Outlook 2016</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Already the world’s financiers have decided that renewables are a better deal than fossil fuels, which are riven with political uncertainties, volatility and declining competitiveness. BNEF’s analysis shows that new investment in renewables passed fossil-fuel-based power in 2005 and is now running at twice the rate.</p>
<p>Is this being driven by politicians, perhaps as a result of the Paris Agreement signed by nearly every government in the world, which took effect earlier this month?</p>
<p>Probably not. Apart from a few long-term goals, you could not say that governments have controlled this market in the past decade. What is actually happening is that they are now recognising the growing market for clean energy and in most cases simply trying to help it along where they can.</p>
<p>Rooftop solar, in particular, has become a dramatic market success story, with Australia leading the world in its recent growth. In Perth, for example, the resources boom led huge numbers of households to invest in solar photovoltaics, which are now available at <a href="http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/news/bigger-installer-profits-higher-solar-prices-usa-230916">roughly half the cost compared with the United States</a>. As a result, 25% of houses in Perth have solar panels – a combined total of 550 megawatts, which effectively makes them the biggest power station in Western Australia.</p>
<p>This was not a government plan; it was ordinary householders seeing a good deal provided by smart new Australian businesses. WA Energy Minister Mike Nahan was initially somewhat sceptical, but as a good market economist he now says that the government just needs to get out of the way. Solar panels are well on the way to hitting 70% of households. Along with batteries going through the same dramatic price spiral, no extra fossil fuel power stations are now being envisaged.</p>
<p>It’s a similar story in Australia’s eastern states, where coal plants like Hazelwood are being phased out and the National Electricity Grid is absorbing solar at similarly high growth rates. The same story is being played out across the globe.</p>
<p>Businesses are also becoming their own utilities, as shown by high-tech companies like Apple, which are <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-apple-is-getting-into-the-energy-business">becoming energy “prosumers”</a> that generate their own solar power and then sell excess back to the grid. The 24 largest current buyers of renewable power – a group that includes Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Ikea, Equinix, Mars, Dow, WalMart and Facebook – have bought 3.6 gigawatts of renewable energy since the beginning of 2015. That’s enough to power about half the state of Connecticut.</p>
<p>How or why would Donald Trump want to stop this?</p>
<h2>Turning back the tide</h2>
<p>Governments, including Trump’s, can try to stand in the way in a bid to force the economy back to a nostalgic past based on coal. But if they do, the lower levels of government, especially the cities of the world, will drive the agenda forward in tandem with businesses that are already riding high in the green economy.</p>
<p>California has driven much of the climate change agenda in the United States, since its Climate Act of 2006 required all cities to develop a climate action plan. San Francisco is <a href="http://sfenvironment.org/energy/renewable-energy">moving to 100% renewable energy by 2030</a> and has mandated all buildings to install solar panels. The city expects paybacks within five years for everyone making the investment.</p>
<p>For all Trump’s pledges to bend trade to his will, he cannot stand in the way of market forces as strong as this. His place in history will be likened to the last Roman emperor standing on top of the wall in Constantinople as the invading horde bears down on the decaying city.</p>
<p>People in climate science and innovation, solar entrepreneurs and businesses will simply shift to those cities that want to be competitive in the 21st century. Many of them will still be in the United States – maybe even in Richlands, Virginia, assuming they don’t want to be left in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69424/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Newman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America’s coal heartland is delighted with Donald Trump’s election win. But like King Canute, he can’t turn back the tide of the global market push away from coal and towards renewables.Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639782016-08-22T15:35:24Z2016-08-22T15:35:24ZScottish identity is moving too fast to keep up, as Edinburgh play shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134973/original/image-20160822-18734-nts5gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's it all about, wonders Sandy Grierson.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does the Scottish national identity amount to in 2016? That’s the central question in one of the most hotly anticipated shows at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, <a href="http://www.eif.co.uk/2016/light">Anything That Gives Off Light</a>. A collaboration between the Brooklyn-based <a href="http://theteamplays.org/about/about-the-company/">TEAM ensemble</a> and the National Theatre of Scotland, the play was originally intended to coincide with the 2014 independence referendum. With a second referendum now <a href="https://theconversation.com/scottish-independence-back-in-play-after-brexit-shock-with-a-note-of-caution-61457">looking likely</a> after the Brexit vote in June, it feels just as timely. </p>
<p>The plot focuses on three main characters with different perspectives on Scottish identity: Brian (Brian Ferguson), a Glaswegian living in London who has returned home to find a burial place for his granny’s ashes; Red (Jessica Almasy), a Virginian holidaying in Scotland to try and understand her estranged husband; and Iain (Sandy Grierson), Brian’s childhood friend who stayed with his mammy in Glasgow. </p>
<p>It opens with Brian shuffling around the stage, trying and failing to shake off London and reconnect with Scotland by walking in a “Scottish way”. It concludes with Iain driving around Glasgow, finding his Scottishness in everything from a group of Slovaks singing in three-part harmony to a girl outside a Sikh gurdwara clapping to the rhythm of an Orange March. </p>
<p>In between is a bawdy, mythical, emotional romp across Scottish and Appalachian landscapes on an introspective quest for self and Scottishness. It tells the story of the shift from a rural-based, tightly-knit Scottishness to a more inclusive, urban one which has more experience of dealing with migrants and outsiders. </p>
<p>This sense of a Scotland emerging from its dark imperial past reminded me of the sentiment in Hamish Henderson’s <a href="http://tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/98252/2">Freedom Come-All-Ye</a>, sometimes described as an alternative national anthem. Yet it’s Iain, the Scot within the country, for whom this shift is more apparent than for Brian, the one who has moved away.</p>
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<p>As the characters journey towards the Highlands, they travel not only in space but in time, and their different homelands merge. The story of an old lady about to be evicted as part of the 18th and 19th-century <a href="http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/jacobitesenlightenmentclearances/clearances/">clearances</a> of tenant crofters by Highland aristocrats blends into the story of a young lady whose home is threatened by environmental disaster in <a href="https://www.namb.net/send-relief/arm/appalachian-culture">Appalachia</a> in the eastern US, many of whose original settlers came from Scotland. </p>
<p>Brian, who works in London property, first becomes the landowner evicting the tenants during the clearances, then turns into a Scottish emigrant “made good” in latterday Appalachia and responsible for pushing people off their land. It was a perceptive comment on the circularity of life and the way different generations deal with the same issues again and again. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jessica Almasy as American tourist Red.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Stories and heritage</h2>
<p>The play explores how stories are central to our sense of identity. We all have stories of family, community, nationhood and past successes and failures. We carry them in our journey through life and have to negotiate and recreate them during crises. As part of Scotland’s story, the play references <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wallace_william.shtml">William Wallace</a>, <a href="http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/bonnie-prince-charlie">Bonnie Prince Charlie</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-margaret-thatcher-and-the-legacy-of-thatcherism-13324">Margaret Thatcher</a>. Meanwhile Red sings of putting stories in a bag around her neck that eventually merge into a single story that becomes too heavy to carry. </p>
<p>The three characters in the play hotly debate themes of Scottish heritage, putting the record straight about some things along the way. For example the common understanding of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/culloden-why-truth-about-battle-for-britain-lay-hidden-for-three-centuries-62398">battle of Culloden</a> of 1746 as simply a massacre of the Scots by the English – making it a useful vehicle for Scottish nationalism – is dismissed as ignoring how Scots colluded against one another at the time. </p>
<p>The play also emphasises the impact of the <a href="http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scottishenlightenment/">Scottish Enlightenment</a> on American political culture, while <a href="https://theconversation.com/walter-scott-was-no-bland-tartan-romantic-he-was-dumbed-down-28933">Walter Scott’s</a> <a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/waverley.html">Waverley</a> novels are credited with inspiring the <a href="http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html">American Civil War</a> by generating a sense of Romantic nationalism replete with notions of identity and loyalty. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134979/original/image-20160822-18690-1v9ned0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Digging in the dirt: Brian Ferguson – as Brian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But above all, Anything That Gives Off Light is about how Scotland is perceived from the inside and outside. It is about how outsiders have not necessarily caught up with the ways in which stereotypes about parochial Scots with a Culloden-type chip on their shoulder have been superseded in the years since devolution and even the Scottish referendum. </p>
<p>There is much truth in this, in my view. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-europes-new-nationalism-is-here-to-stay-61541">Brexit referendum</a>, it was the English who voted in fear of the effect of immigrants on their national identity while the Scots appeared more comfortable with theirs. And while Red speaks several times in the play about how Scots and Americans both view themselves as underdogs but see them as losers and survivors respectively, the confidence of the two Scots in the play seems to question this aspect of the Scottish psyche. </p>
<p>The play is a powerful reminder to outsiders to listen first and speak cautiously about what they think they know: culture and identity are constantly evolving, however much it might be more comforting if they stayed still.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mairead Nic Craith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anything That Gives Off Light explores Scottishness from three very different perspectives.Mairead Nic Craith, Professor of Culture and Heritage, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627672016-07-23T12:13:01Z2016-07-23T12:13:01ZKaine was the logical choice as Hillary Clinton’s vice president<p>Hillary Clinton has selected Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate. </p>
<p>While this news was not surprising – Kaine had long been suspected to be a top choice and made President Obama’s short list in 2008 – it does raise questions about Secretary Clinton’s choices. In an extremely polarized election contest where her own liberal bona fides were questioned, why would she pick a centrist Democrat as her running mate? </p>
<p>Those who study the vice presidency usually concede that the veep pick <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-vice-presidential-candidates-matter-this-year-maybe-but-not-the-way-you-think-62401">has a negligible impact</a> on the ticket’s eventual vote totals. John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin in 2008 may be an exception. Researchers estimate she may have <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379410000442">cost the campaign</a> as much as 1.6 percentage points. However, the choice of a running mate still reflects a nominee’s judgment and sends signals about which groups campaigns they feel they need to target in a general election.</p>
<p>Both Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had to balance the demands of base constituencies with their own need to find complementary partners for the campaign. </p>
<h2>What Pence does for Trump</h2>
<p>As a political novice with a penchant for hyperbole, Trump’s VP choice had to soften his ticket’s rough edges and assure the base that experienced hands would be guiding this inexperienced potential president. </p>
<p>In both temperament and résumé, Mike Pence complements Trump. His experience in executive and legislative government, including foreign policy-related committee experience, and his even-keeled personality and connections to the evangelical Christian community assuage the fears of Republicans who worry that an inexperienced, bombastic candidate like Trump would ruin the government.</p>
<p>Clearly, no one is worried about Hillary Clinton’s lack of experience. However, she has had to worry about attacks on her character and challenges to her positions from her left ideological flank. In addition, she is also factoring in down-ticket considerations, as she, unlike Trump, appears more focused on helping her party make legislative gains in Congress. </p>
<p>A few weeks ago, when polls showed that anywhere from a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-22/nearly-half-of-sanders-supporters-won-t-support-clinton">fifth</a> to a quarter of Sanders supporters were contemplating supporting Trump, it made sense that Clinton was giving serious consideration to adding a clearly progressive running mate like Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to the ticket. However, since then, Clinton has taken steps to mitigate the chances of a progressive revolt. </p>
<p>Clinton has reached out to progressives and given their concerns voice. She secured endorsements from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-endorses-hillary-clinton_us_56e98f60e4b0b25c91841bdd">Bernie Sanders</a> and <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/elizabeth-warren-endorse-clinton-rachel-maddow-show-n589236">Elizabeth Warren</a>. She welcomed Sanders supporters to help shape the <a href="https://www.demconvention.com/platform/">Democratic Party platform</a>. They played a role in moving the platform to the left on issues like the minimum wage. Based on this, Clinton may feel that she has sufficiently covered her progressive bases.</p>
<p>Now it is time for Clinton to shore up her right flank. Choosing a more centrist candidate signals a desire to try to appeal to the voter who is ideologically in the middle and most likely to cast the deciding vote for president. Clinton is betting that the median voter is disinclined to support Donald Trump. </p>
<p>Reportedly, Clinton’s finalists were a roster of centrists: Kaine, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker – who, while being socially progressive, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfqc3">staked out a more conservative, neoliberal fiscal position as mayor of Newark</a>. In light of the perception that Clinton is untrustworthy, these men’s sterling reputations complement her. At the very least, they would not provide additional distractions to the campaign. </p>
<p>Admittedly, Tim Kaine does not add diversity to the ticket the same way Booker, Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro would have. </p>
<p>However, Kaine is able speak to many different audiences.</p>
<h2>What Kaine does for Clinton</h2>
<p>Kaine is fluent in Spanish, having <a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/07/22/486960028/5-things-to-know-about-tim-kaine">lived in Honduras</a> with Jesuit missionaries in the early 1980s. His fluency is so strong, in fact, that he has delivered speeches in Spanish on the Senate floor and gives interviews in Spanish to networks like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hus06T4a4vU">Telemundo</a>. </p>
<p>He also served as mayor of Richmond, Virginia at the turn of the century. According to the 2000 Census, Richmond was about 57 percent black at the time. </p>
<p>Kaine’s father-in-law is Linwood Holton, the former Republican governor of Virginia.</p>
<p>Finally, it is important to consider domestic geopolitics. Democrats don’t want to just win the White House. They also want to regain control of at least one house of Congress. This year, 24 of the 34 senate seats up for reelection are held by Republicans, who hold only 54 seats in the chamber. The Cook Report suggests that <a href="http://cookpolitical.com/senate/charts/race-ratings">seven of these seats</a> are vulnerable. This week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee all but conceded that the Wisconsin seat, held by Senator Ron Johnson, was a <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/288558-republican-groups-back-away-from-sen-johnson">loss</a>. </p>
<p>Warren, Booker and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown (who was also mentioned as a potential running mate) all hail from states with Republican governors – governors who could appoint Republicans to replace them should they be elected vice president. Fortunately for Tim Kaine, his state is led by fellow Democrat and longtime Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, who will almost certainly protect the seat for Democrats.</p>
<p>While some people may be disappointed in Hillary Clinton’s choice of a running mate, there are good reasons for Kaine to join this ticket.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62767/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andra Gillespie has received funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation. She has previously worked for a Democratic pollster. She is also from the metropolitan Richmond, VA area and has written a book on Sen. Cory Booker.</span></em></p>The senator from Virginia has a reputation for integrity, speaks Spanish and comes from a purple state. Also, control of his Senate seat isn’t in play.Andra Gillespie, Associate Professor, Political Science, Emory UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.