tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/alabama-13167/articlesAlabama – The Conversation2024-03-11T12:24:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2251262024-03-11T12:24:14Z2024-03-11T12:24:14ZI’m a political scientist, and the Alabama Supreme Court’s IVF ruling turned me into a reproductive-rights refugee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580509/original/file-20240307-26-mc43ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1095%2C1199%2C1403%2C1892&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spencer and Gabby Goidel hadn't planned to become activists.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Spencer and Gabby Goidel</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The day before the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-supreme-court-from-embryos-161390f0758b04a7638e2ddea20df7ca">frozen embryos created and used for in vitro fertilization</a> are children, my wife, Gabby, and I were greenlighted by our doctors to begin the IVF process. We live in Alabama.</p>
<p>That Friday evening, Feb. 16, 2024, unaware of the ruling, Gabby started taking her stimulation medications, worth roughly US$4,000 in total. We didn’t hear about the decision until Sunday morning, Feb. 18. By then, she had taken four injections – or two doses – of each of the stimulation medications.</p>
<p>For those who don’t know, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-ivf-a-nurse-explains-the-evolving-science-and-legality-of-in-vitro-fertilization-224476">IVF process is a winding journey</a> full of tests, bloodwork and bills. An IVF patient takes hormones for eight to 14 days to stimulate their ovaries to produce many mature eggs. The mature eggs are then retrieved via a minor surgical procedure and fertilized with sperm in a lab. The newly created embryos are monitored, sometimes biopsied and frozen for genetic testing, and then implanted, usually one at a time, in the uterus. From injection to implantation, one round of IVF takes four to eight weeks. </p>
<p>IVF can be as stressful as it is exciting. However, the potential of having a successful pregnancy and our own child at the end of the process, we hoped, would make it all worth it. The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court threw our dreams up in the air.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ow6DhIQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">study politics</a> – I don’t practice it. I’m not involved in state or local government. I’m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state’s highest court. As a result, I became something else, too, which I had not been before: an activist.</p>
<h2>Making sense of the ruling</h2>
<p>Throughout the process of creating, growing and testing embryos in a lab, as many as <a href="https://www.illumefertility.com/fertility-blog/ivf-attrition-rate">50% to 70%</a> of embryos <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-human-embryos-naturally-die-after-conception-restrictive-abortion-laws-fail-to-take-this-embryo-loss-into-account-187904">can be lost</a>. Similarly, in the preimplantation stage of natural pregnancies, <a href="https://doi.org/10.12688%2Ff1000research.22655.1">many embryos don’t survive</a>.</p>
<p>If embryos are children, as the court ruled, then fertility clinics and patients would be exposed to an immense amount of potential legal liability. Under this new framework, patients would be able to bring wrongful death suits against doctors for the normal failures of embryos in the testing or implantation phase. Doctors would either have to charge more for an already expensive procedure to cover massive legal-insurance costs or avoid IVF altogether.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A screen shows a microscope's view of a needle and cells." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580233/original/file-20240306-30-vi57hp.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">Lab staff at an in vitro fertilization lab extract cells from embryos that are then checked for viability.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FrozenEmbryos/ebbb52ebd68b4ab691798f90b3319f05/photo">AP Photo/Michael Wyke</a></span>
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<p>The decision and its implication – that IVF could not continue in the state of Alabama – felt like a personal affront to us. We were infuriated to have this uncertainty injected into the process three days into injecting IVF medication. </p>
<p>While the decision clearly imperiled the future of IVF in Alabama, it was not clear to us whether we would be allowed to continue the process we had begun. We were left completely in the dark for the next four days. Gabby and I had no choice but to continue daily life and IVF as though nothing was happening. </p>
<p>For me, that meant teaching my <a href="https://bulletin.auburn.edu/coursesofinstruction/poli/">political participation course at Auburn University</a>.</p>
<h2>Teaching politics when it gets personal</h2>
<p>I’ll never forget walking into class on Monday, Feb. 19, and telling the students about the court’s ruling and how it – maybe? – was going to jeopardize Gabby’s and my IVF process. </p>
<p>Before starting IVF, Gabby and I had gone through three miscarriages together.</p>
<p>IVF doesn’t always work. Approximately <a href="https://nccd.cdc.gov/drh_art/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=DRH_ART.ClinicInfo&rdRequestForward=True&ClinicId=9999&ShowNational=1">55% of IVF patients</a> under the age of 35 – Gabby is 26 – have a successful pregnancy after one egg retrieval. We couldn’t imagine the pain of telling friends and family that our attempt at having a child had once again failed. So we had agreed we were going to tell as few people as possible about starting IVF. </p>
<p>Yet, here I was now, telling my entire class what we were going through and how the Alabama Supreme Court ruling could affect us. </p>
<p>I wasn’t alone in sharing our story. The night before my Monday morning class, Gabby published an <a href="https://www.al.com/opinion/2024/02/guest-opinion-alabama-supreme-court-embryo-ruling-may-make-it-difficult-for-us-to-have-children.html">opinion column</a> on our local news site about the ruling and our resulting fears and anxieties, which really resonated with people.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clear batches of containers of eggs and embryos in a large, frozen circular container" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cryopreservation gives prospective parents more time to pursue pregnancy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/frozen-embryos-and-eggs-in-nitrogen-cooled-royalty-free-image/520157312">Ted Horowitz Photography/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>I was, that day and throughout the next few weeks, fixated on the conceptual gulf between the court’s ruling and public opinion. I wondered aloud, “Who’s against IVF? Surely, only 5% to 10% of the public agrees with this ruling.”</p>
<p>The actual numbers aren’t far off my in-class guess. <a href="https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_XLG2Z6p.pdf">Only 8% of Americans</a> say that IVF is immoral or should be illegal. But the story is more nuanced than that. Approximately <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2024-02/Axios%20Ipsos%20Alabama%20IVF%20Topline%20PDF%202.28.24.pdf">31% of Americans and 49% of Republicans</a> support “considering frozen embryos as people and holding those who destroy them legally responsible.” </p>
<p>In an attempt to tie our personal political experience into the class topic, I remarked that this court decision was a surefire way to get people involved in politics. I had no clue at the time how prophetic my comment would be.</p>
<h2>Fleeing to Texas for reproductive rights?</h2>
<p>On Wednesday, Feb. 21, the <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/uab-pauses-in-vitro-fertilization-due-to-fear-of-prosecution-officials-say.html">University of Alabama Birmingham’s fertility clinic</a> paused IVF treatments. That wasn’t our clinic, but the move sent us into a total panic. Our clinic’s closure seemed inevitable – and within 24 hours <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/university-alabama-pauses-ivf-services-court-rules-embryos-are-childre-rcna139846">it had paused IVF treatments as well</a>. </p>
<p>We didn’t know what we were going to do, but we knew we were likely leaving the state to continue IVF. I needed to tell my department chair what was going on.</p>
<p>I was walking out of my department chair’s office when my phone rang. Gabby told me, “We got in, we’re going to Temple.” I ran back into my department chair’s office, told her we were going to Temple, Texas, and then rushed home. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/alabama-embryos-ruling-ivf-treatment-leaving-state/index.html">A reporter from CNN</a> beat me there. It was one of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/24/alabama-ivf-treatment-ruling-abortion/">several</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/ivf-doctors-patients-fearful-alabama-court-rules-embryos-are-children-rcna139636">interviews</a> with <a href="https://apnews.com/video/alabama-assisted-reproductive-technology-courts-legislation-gabby-goidel-8990ee5efaab450b940da1e6a39bf8d1">major</a> <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/katy-tur/watch/-thoughtless-ivf-patients-speak-out-on-alabama-embryo-decision-204655173631">media</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/22/alabama-fertility-pause-ivf-embryo-ruling">outlets</a> Gabby did in the wake of her opinion column. After the interview, we threw clothes in a suitcase, dropped our dogs off at the vet and drove to the Atlanta airport. We flew to Texas that night.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9MCbgW7i2I0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">One of the Goidels’ many media interviews in the wake of the Alabama ruling.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The thought of not completing the egg retrieval never seriously entered our minds. We were confident that we could get in with another IVF clinic somewhere, anywhere. But we’re affluent. We’re privileged. What if we weren’t so well off? We wouldn’t have wanted to give up, but we wouldn’t have been able to afford the fight.</p>
<p>We spent exactly one week at my parents’ house in Texas. Thankfully, my parents live an hour and a half away from the Temple clinic. We met our new doctor, <a href="https://www.bswhealth.com/physician/gordon-bates">Dr. Gordon Wright Bates</a>, and were immediately reassured. His cool expertise and confidence were calming to a stressed-out couple. The Alabama Supreme Court may have upended our lives, but we felt weirdly lucky to be in such a comfortable place.</p>
<p>The egg retrieval was Wednesday morning, Feb. 28. By all indications, it went well. IVF, however, is full of uncertainties. Now we are waiting on the results from preimplantation genetic testing. After that, there’s implantation and hoping the embryo continues to grow. We’re not in the clear: IVF is a stressful process even without a state court getting in the way. But today we are in a situation more like an average couple going through IVF than we have been in the past few weeks.</p>
<p>Late Wednesday night, March 6, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/us/politics/alabama-ivf-law.html">Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill</a> providing legal protection to IVF clinics in the state. Gabby and I rejoiced at the news. Hopefully, we’re the last Alabamian couple to flee the state for IVF.</p>
<h2>A mobilizing moment</h2>
<p>When state politics directly interferes with your life, it feels like a gut punch, as if the community that you love is saying you’re not loved back. It’s easy to see how such an experience could either discourage or motivate you. Research shows that traumatic events, for the most part, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422001010">depress voter turnout</a> in the following presidential election. By contrast, families and friends of 9/11 victims <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1315043110">became and remained more politically engaged</a> than their peers. </p>
<p>In this case, the Alabama Supreme Court ruling mobilized Gabby and <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/4/alabama_ivf_patients_warning_to_others">other</a> <a href="https://www.today.com/health/news/alabama-ivf-ruling-embryo-transfer-canceled-rcna140029">women</a> going through the IVF process. For better or worse, the women, couples and families mobilized by this decision will likely always be more engaged because of it.</p>
<p>“Oh, God,” I remarked to my dad, “we’re going to be activists now, aren’t we?”</p>
<p>“So?” he asked.</p>
<p>“No one likes activists,” I responded in jest. But if we’re going to have and raise the family we want, this is just the first of many decisions we’re going to make that someone’s not going to like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Spencer Goidel 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>I’m a scholar, not an activist or an advocate. But now one of the most intimate, personal events of our lives had been turned into a political event by the state’s highest court.Spencer Goidel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Auburn UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231622024-03-08T13:37:46Z2024-03-08T13:37:46ZUAW’s Southern strategy: Union revs up drive to get workers employed by foreign automakers to join its ranks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580189/original/file-20240306-16-zhfgjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=135%2C63%2C5068%2C2506&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A UAW supporter in 2017 outside a Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., ahead of a vote the union lost.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Nissan-Union/90212afb1edb40979e133f3d7931592a/photo?Query=mississippi%20uaw&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=18">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Persuading Southern autoworkers to join a union remains one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the United Auto Workers union to organize this workforce.</p>
<p>To be sure, the UAW does have members employed by Ford and General Motors at facilities in <a href="https://apnews.com/article/general-motors-strike-united-auto-workers-uaw-f16005a7b20a6f1772947957854d1017">Kentucky, Texas, Missouri and Mississippi</a>.</p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-uaw-idUSKBN0TN2DE20151205/">UAW has tried and largely failed</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/14/business/economy/volkswagen-chattanooga-uaw-union.html">organize workers</a> at foreign-owned companies, including Volkswagen and Nissan in Southern states, where about <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/uaw-jobs-south-auto/index.html">30% of all U.S. automotive jobs are located</a>.</p>
<p>But after the UAW pulled off its <a href="https://theconversation.com/united-auto-workers-union-hails-strike-ending-deals-with-automakers-that-would-raise-top-assembly-plant-hourly-pay-to-more-than-40-as-record-contracts-216432">most successful strike in a generation</a> against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023, the union is trying again to win over Southern autoworkers.</p>
<p>The UAW has <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-announces-40-million-commitment-to-organizing-auto-and-battery-workers-over-next-two-years/">pledged to spend US$40 million through 2026</a> to expand its ranks to include more auto and electric battery workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/business/economy/uaw-auto-workers-union.html">including many employed in the South</a>, where the industry is <a href="https://uaw.org/we-are-the-majority-workers-at-mercedes-benzs-largest-us-plant-announce-majority-support-for-movement-to-join-uaw/">quickly gaining ground</a>.</p>
<p>Based on my five decades of experience as a <a href="https://scua.uoregon.edu/agents/people/33456">union organizer and labor historian</a>, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face stiff resistance from Toyota, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and the other big foreign automakers that operate in the South. The <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/uaw-chattanooga-union-drive/">pushback is also coming from Southern politicians</a>, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The back of a worker wearing a UAW t-shirt indicating employment in Brandon, Mississippi." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580185/original/file-20240306-20-vztbm6.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">A sign of things to come?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AutoWorkersStrikeMississippi/f5cb369d2cd245a99b3081ff2af50396/photo?Query=uaw%20alabama&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=0&vs=true">AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis</a></span>
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<h2>Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’</h2>
<p>After the region’s formerly robust <a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9780813037950.003.0010">textile industry imploded</a> in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers. </p>
<p>The strategy of those leaders reflects what the <a href="https://www.bcatoday.org/the-united-auto-workers-labor-union-must-not-do-to-alabama/">Business Council of Alabama</a> has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”</p>
<p>The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/14/automakers-investing-in-the-south-as-evs-change-the-auto-industry.html">lured the likes of Nissan, BMW</a>, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.</p>
<p>Although many of those companies <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volkswagen-ig-metall-agree-wage-deal-2021-04-13/">negotiate constructively</a> with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.</p>
<p>As journalist <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-may-15-la-oe-meyerson-europeans-20110515-story.html">Harold Meyerson has noted</a>, these foreign automakers embraced the opportunity to “slum” in America and “do things they would never think of doing at home.”</p>
<p>The absence of union representation is a major reason why.</p>
<p>Less than 5% of workers in six Southern states are union members, and only Alabama and Mississippi approach union membership levels above 7%, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf">according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. </p>
<p>That’s below the national average, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-10-us-workers-belong-to-unions-a-share-thats-stabilized-after-a-steep-decline-221571">slid to 10% in 2023</a>.</p>
<h2>Blaming unions for bad job prospects</h2>
<p>One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59212/">portraying them as outdated institutions</a> whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.</p>
<p>Automotive leaders in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that <a href="https://www.automotivedive.com/news/is-unionizing-foreign-automakers-next-uaw-strike/698260/">provides management with flexibility</a>, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives. </p>
<p>Southern automakers also draw on another powerful resource in resisting the UAW: public intervention by top elected officials.</p>
<p>In 2014, when the UAW attempted to organize a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. Bob Corker, Tennessee’s junior U.S. senator and a former mayor of Chattanooga, weighed in as voting commenced.</p>
<p>Corker claimed he had received a pledge from Volkswagen’s management to expand production in Chattanooga <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/116653/bob-corkers-uaw-intervention-chattanooga-vw-vote-speaks-volume">if workers voted against the union</a>. </p>
<p>Three years later, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant similarly urged Nissan workers to reject the UAW. </p>
<p>“If you want to take away your job, if you want to end manufacturing as we know it in Mississippi, just start expanding unions,” <a href="https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/state-leaders-unionizing-nissan-will-not-help-mississippi/">Bryant said in 2017</a>.</p>
<p>A majority of the autoworkers <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/business/nissan-united-auto-workers-union.html">heeded their conservative leaders’ advice</a> in both cases and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/02/14/united-auto-workers-lose-historic-election-at-chattanooga-volkswagen-plant/">voted against joining the UAW</a>.</p>
<h2>Making dire warnings</h2>
<p>With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.</p>
<p>“The Alabama model for economic success is under attack,” <a href="https://www.madeinalabama.com/2024/01/gov-ivey-unions-want-to-target-one-of-alabamas-crown-jewel-industries-but-im-standing-up-for-alabamians-and-protecting-our-jobs/">warned Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey</a>. </p>
<p>She then asked workers: “Do you want continued opportunity and success the Alabama way? Or do you want out-of-state special interests telling Alabama how to do business?”</p>
<p>Unions “have crippled and distorted the progress and prosperity of industries and cities in other states,” <a href="https://governor.sc.gov/news/2024-01/2024-state-state-address-governor-henry-mcmaster">South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster</a> declared in his Jan. 24, 2024, State of the State address. He then issued an ominous call: “We will fight” the UAW’s labor organizers “all the way to the gates of hell. And we will win.” </p>
<p>The UAW counters that union membership means workers will get predictable raises, <a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-14">better benefits and improved workplace policies</a>.</p>
<h2>Changing context</h2>
<p>Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/12/1211602392/uaw-auto-strike-deals-ratified-big-three-shawn-fain">UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits</a> resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility. </p>
<p>Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW – including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants – responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/14/cars/uaw-labor-toyota-honda-hyundai/index.html">UAW bump</a>.”</p>
<p>The UAW will presumably cite these pay hikes in its outreach to <a href="https://theconversation.com/next-on-the-united-auto-workers-to-do-list-adding-more-members-who-currently-work-at-nonunion-factories-to-its-ranks-217064">workers at Tesla</a> and other nonunion companies involved in electric vehicle and battery production in which the industry is investing heavily. </p>
<p>“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,” <a href="https://uaw.org/join/">the UAW’s recruiting website</a> warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”</p>
<p>The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”</p>
<p>Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been <a href="https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMPROVING-WORK-LIFE-BALANCE-AT-VOLKSWAGEN.pdf">expressing concerns over scheduling</a>, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.</p>
<p>It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXMNbGS2Hy0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Southern autoworkers applaud the union-organizing drive underway at a VW factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Revving up</h2>
<p>The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up.</p>
<p>In accordance with its “<a href="https://uaw.org/join/#toggle-id-6">30-50-70</a>” strategy, the union is announcing the share of workers who have signed union cards in stages. Once it hits 30% at a factory, the UAW will announce publicly that an organizing campaign is underway. At the 50% mark, it will hold a public rally for workers that includes their neighbors and families, as well as <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/2024-motortrend-person-of-year-shawn-fain-uaw-president/">UAW President Shawn Fain</a>.</p>
<p>Once it gains support from 70% of a plant’s workers, the UAW says it will seek voluntary recognition by management.</p>
<p>A recent National Labor Relations Board ruling provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to recognize the union’s request, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.</p>
<p>To win, unions need a majority of those voting. Under the new rule, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be <a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/board-issues-decision-announcing-new-framework-for-union-representation">required to bargain with the union</a>.</p>
<p>So far, the UAW has announced that it has obtained the support of more than half the workers at factories belonging to two of the 13 nonunion automakers it’s targeting: a <a href="https://uaw.org/were-taking-the-lead-over-half-of-volkswagen-workers-in-chattanooga-tennessee-sign-cards-to-join-the-uaw-in-less-than-60-days/">Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga</a>, Tennessee, and a
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/10/uaw-union-mercedes-benz-alabama">Mercedes-Benz factory near Tuscaloosa</a>, Alabama. It has also obtained 30% support at a <a href="https://thehill.com/business/4440930-hyundai-workers-alabama-uaw/">Hyundai plant in Alabama</a> and a <a href="https://labornotes.org/2024/03/toyota-workers-critical-engine-plant-launch-uaw-union-drive">Toyota engine factory in Missouri</a>.</p>
<p>I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/unions-south-labor-organizing-ussw-seiu-00114085">D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here</a>, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I was briefly a UAW local union member in the 1970s.</span></em></p>Despite intermittent efforts over the past three decades, the UAW union has been unable to organize employees of foreign-based automakers in states such as Alabama and Tennessee.Bob Bussel, Professor Emeritus of History and Labor Education, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247212024-03-07T13:36:07Z2024-03-07T13:36:07ZWhat is a frozen embryo worth? Alabama’s IVF case reflects bigger questions over grieving and wrongful death laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579978/original/file-20240305-16-b0u7k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2986%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An embryologist uses a microscope to view an embryo, visible on a monitor.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AlabamaFrozenEmbryos/e6f3454e8ba144ccadc7e0a21532fb6c/photo?Query=alabama%20supreme%20court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=508&currentItemNo=22">AP Photo/Richard Drew, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the weeks since the Alabama Supreme Court held that <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4477607-alabama-supreme-court-rules-frozen-embryos-are-children/">embryos are “unborn children</a>” under one state law, most attention has been focused on in vitro fertilization – whether the decision imperils parents’ attempts to create a family. On March 6, 2024, Gov. Kay Ivey signed legislation to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-ivf-frozen-embryos-ruling-cab8171e80c88a088778dc7a187b7b5a">shield IVF providers from legal liability</a>, though the new law does not address frozen embryos’ legal status.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://health.usf.edu/publichealth/overviewcoph/faculty/katherine-drabiak">a health law professor</a>, I believe it’s also important to understand the laws that shaped the court’s decision: not only Alabama’s laws about “unborn children,” but wrongful death laws. This is a legal claim where family members can bring a civil lawsuit against a person who intentionally or carelessly caused the family member’s death, which is different from any criminal charges.</p>
<p>Over the past 100 years, laws have evolved to reflect a wider sense of what it means to lose a loved one, and how to “compensate” their family. Courts have been asked to interpret how wrongful death laws should apply to situations before a child is born.</p>
<h2>What happened in the clinic?</h2>
<p>The Alabama case, <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/supreme-court/2024/sc-2022-0579.html">LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine</a>, was brought by three couples who had used IVF at a fertility clinic. They sued the clinic after a patient who wandered into the “cryogenic nursery,” where frozen embryos are stored, picked some up and accidentally dropped them on the floor, destroying them.</p>
<p>In the language of the court, this killed the embryos, since they might have developed into a healthy fetus if implanted in the uterus. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A steel vat, with icy condensation inside, open to reveal white packets inside at the bottom of the container." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580020/original/file-20240305-18-hv069o.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">Containers holding frozen embryos and sperm are stored in liquid nitrogen at a fertility clinic in Fort Myers, Fla., in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AlabamaFrozenEmbryos/25b27e79f3e14fb6910ff3de3ebc7dae/photo?Query=alabama%20supreme%20court&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=508&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The three sets of parents filed a lawsuit based on a claim for <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/wrongful_death">wrongful death</a>. Like <a href="https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2020/03/LENS.pdf">about 40 other states</a>, Alabama allows parents to bring a claim for <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/2022/title-6/chapter-5/article-22/section-6-5-391/">wrongful death</a> of an unborn child.</p>
<p>The court said the question in this case centered around whether the term “unborn child” in state laws only refers to an embryo or fetus in utero, or whether there is an “unwritten exception” for embryos that have not yet been transferred to the womb.</p>
<h2>The court’s decision</h2>
<p>Alabama Supreme Court cases in 2011 and 2012 had already held that the state’s wrongful death law <a href="https://casetext.com/case/mack-v-carmack">allows expectant parents to bring a claim</a> following a death at <a href="https://casetext.com/case/hamilton-v-scott-2">any stage of the embryo’s or fetus’s development</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, Alabama <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Amendment_2,_State_Abortion_Policy_Amendment_(2018)">amended its state constitution</a> in 2018 to affirm that public policy of the state should protect “the rights of the unborn child.”</p>
<p><a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/alabama/supreme-court/2024/sc-2022-0579.html">Combining the previous cases</a>, the state constitution and even dictionary definitions, the court said nothing in the current wrongful death law would exempt “extrauterine children – that is, unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.”</p>
<p>This ruling does not mean that the parents won a wrongful death lawsuit, but that a court will be able to hear the parents’ claim for wrongful death.</p>
<h2>The legal ‘value’ of an embryo</h2>
<p>This is significant because in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xfre.2020.06.007">other cases</a> where embryos were destroyed, the law generally has treated embryos as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/university-hospitals-fertility-clinic-faces-new-lawsuits-after-tank-failures-n962341">parents’ property</a>, or allege negligence by the clinic. Only a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2022.12.038">handful of other states</a> – including Illinois, Missouri and Georgia – allow wrongful death lawsuits for embryos.</p>
<p>IVF <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/ivf-treatment-costs-guide.html">is a significant investment</a> of time and money, and involves a variety of <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/in-vitro-fertilization/about/pac-20384716">medical risks</a>. In a case where fertility treatment goes wrong, couples could try to recoup those costs through civil lawsuits that sometimes treat frozen embryos as property.</p>
<p>However, that does not account for each embryo’s biological and emotional uniqueness. Before the Alabama ruling, other cases had tried to classify embryos as <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/would-be-parents-want-embryos-deemed-people-after-clinic-meltdown/">living people</a> to signify their <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/families-sue-cleveland-clinic-malfunction-possibly-destroyed-embryos/story?id=53683517">irreplaceable value</a>. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://vanderbiltlawreview.org/lawreview/2022/11/abortion-pregnancy-loss-subjective-fetal-personhood/">legal experts</a> assert that embryos only have “subjective and relational value.” In other words, only parents can decide whether or not they are important and have meaning.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://contemporarythinkers.org/robert-george/book/embryo-defense-human-life/">experts suggest</a> that embryos have inherent value because they are each genetically distinct, unique human life at the earliest stage. They argue that allowing protection for some stages of human development but not others violates human rights principles.</p>
<h2>How wrongful death laws work</h2>
<p>How the value of an embryo is defined also shapes whether wrongful death laws would apply.</p>
<p>Wrongful death laws were originally designed to compensate family members for the loss of that person’s <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/wsulr5&div=17&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals">services and contributions</a>. Damages from a lawsuit could pay medical bills, funeral expenses and lost earnings from that person’s job, for example.</p>
<p>Each state has its own wrongful death law. <a href="https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2020/03/LENS.pdf">Since the 1850s</a>, these laws have allowed parents to bring claims to recover damages from a person who causes their child’s death. Initially, these laws were designed as an economic tool because parents expected their children to work.</p>
<p>Now, according to some <a href="https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2020/03/LENS.pdf">legal scholars</a>, many states recognize that losing a child means much more: a moral injury, pain and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1286251">the anguish</a> from losing the child’s company and affection. Some states allow the family to <a href="https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2059&ChapterID=57">recover damages for suffering and grief</a> – recognizing a person’s inherent value, not only their economic value.</p>
<p><a href="https://casetext.com/case/stinnett-v-kennedy-1">Awarding damages</a> to a grieving family is meant to deter risky actions that could result in loss of life.</p>
<p>By the mid-1900s, courts began to allow wrongful death claims for children that died before birth as a result of another person’s negligence or carelessness. Some states specify that <a href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=30-809">this includes at any stage of gestation</a>. </p>
<p>Some laws, including in <a href="https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=30-809">Nebraska</a> and <a href="https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CP/htm/CP.71.htm#:%7E:text=71.003.,inside%20or%20outside%20this%20state.">Texas</a>, prevent families from suing the pregnant woman, or from suing her medical provider, if she opts to have a medical procedure that results in unintended fetal loss. Others specify that the law <a href="https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=2059&ChapterID=57#:%7E:text=Whenever%20the%20death%20of%20a,then%20and%20in%20every%20such">does not apply</a> in cases of abortion. </p>
<h2>What the case means moving forward</h2>
<p>Some policymakers have <a href="https://time.com/6835548/lawmakers-ivf-embryos-alabama-legislation/">expressed concern</a> that Alabama’s decision “criminalizes” parents from trying to grow their family, or that they would face <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/us/ivf-ruling-impact-other-states/index.html">prosecution</a>. However, this is not accurate, since this case only relates to civil lawsuits, not criminal law.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a long white sweater, holding a pink sign that says 'I just want to be a mom,' speaks with another blonde woman in a doctor's coat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580222/original/file-20240306-28-lwkhnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patients and doctors gathered outside the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery on Feb. 28, 2024, urging lawmakers to protect IVF services in the state.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AlabamaIVFAffectedGroups/e3ec159eb74c437297b40e73d8835780/photo?Query=ivf&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=110&currentItemNo=4">Kim Chandler/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nor does the decision prohibit using IVF. The Alabama attorney general has stated that he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/23/us/alabama-ivf-embryos-supreme-court-ruling-legislation/index.html">does not intend</a> to use this decision to prosecute either parents or IVF providers. However, several fertility clinics announced that they would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/us/politics/alabama-ivf-treatment-law.html">pause their IVF services</a> while assessing the law.</p>
<p>Based on the U.S. Constitution, courts can only <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/separation-of-powers-legislative-judicial-relations">interpret what the law is</a>, not decide what they think it should be. </p>
<p>In response, state legislators rapidly proposed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/us/ivf-ruling-impact-other-states/index.html">a variety of bills</a> aimed at preserving IVF. The bill signed into law on March 6, 2024 <a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/alabama-legislature-passes-bills-aimed-protecting-vitro-fertilization?emci=9460e6e7-4cd7-ee11-85f9-002248223794&emdi=a8a94336-c3d7-ee11-85f9-002248223794&ceid=519099">gives broad immunity</a> to IVF clinics, shielding providers from prosecution and lawsuits “for the damage to or death of an embryo.” However, it provides more protection than is standard, which may create unintended consequences – for example, potentially making it more difficult to sue for negligence or breach of contract.</p>
<p>As Alabama legislators discuss next steps, they need to incorporate the state constitution while considering how to reflect the will of their voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Drabiak 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>Alabama’s case began when three couples sued an IVF clinic where their frozen embryos had accidentally been dropped.Katherine Drabiak, Professor of Health Law, Public Health Law and Medical Ethics, University of South FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244762024-02-29T13:40:25Z2024-02-29T13:40:25ZWhat is IVF? A nurse explains the evolving science and legality of in vitro fertilization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578412/original/file-20240227-28-67xx7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1024%2C683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of the eggs and sperm in these tubes stored in liquid nitrogen may go on to form an embryo.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/january-2024-berlin-eggs-and-sperm-are-stored-in-a-liquid-news-photo/1954098470">Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Since the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn">overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022</a> ended the federal right to abortion, legislative attention has extended to many other aspects of reproductive rights, including access to assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization, or IVF, after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling in February 2024.</em></p>
<p><em>University of Massachusetts Lowell associate professor and department chair of the school of nursing <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6rrHhmUAAAAJ&hl=en">Heidi Collins Fantasia</a> explains how this decades-old procedure works and what its tenuous legal status means for prospective parents.</em></p>
<h2>What is IVF?</h2>
<p>IVF is a type of artificial reproductive technology that allows people with a range of fertility issues to conceive a child. It involves fertilizing an egg with sperm <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007279.htm">outside the body</a> to form an embryo that is then transferred into the uterus to develop.</p>
<p>IVF is used as a treatment <a href="https://asrmcongress.org/asrm-publishes-a-new-more-inclusive-definition-of-infertility/">for infertility</a>, which the <a href="https://asrmcongress.org/asrm-publishes-a-new-more-inclusive-definition-of-infertility/">American Society for Reproductive Medicine</a> defines as an inability to achieve pregnancy “based on a patient’s medical, sexual, and reproductive history, age, physical findings, diagnostic testing” or the “need for medical intervention.” </p>
<p>While originally developed as a fertility treatment for <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562266/">blocked fallopian tubes</a>, IVF is currently used for other conditions such as low sperm count or when the cause for infertility can’t be determined. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/06/13/ivf-cost-higher-for-lgbtq-couples/11135417002/">LGBTQ people</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/parenting/single-moms-by-choice-photos.html">single parents</a> can also use IVF and other reproductive technologies to grow their families.</p>
<h2>How does IVF work?</h2>
<p>Typically during IVF, a patient takes hormones to stimulate the ovaries to produce eggs. Once a health professional retrieves the eggs using an ultrasound and a thin needle, they either incubate the sperm with the egg or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562266/">inject the sperm into the egg</a> in the lab to fertilize it. Which specific type of IVF procedure a patient undergoes is determined on an individual basis with a health care provider.</p>
<p>Scientists began to develop IVF in the 1930s, beginning with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1387/ijdb.180364mj">live birth of rabbits and mice</a> through the procedure. This research eventually led to the birth of the <a href="https://time.com/5344145/louise-brown-test-tube-baby/">first “test-tube baby”</a> in 1978. Physiologist Robert Edwards received the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2010/press-release/">2010 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine</a> for his research on IVF.</p>
<p>The technology has rapidly expanded since the first live human birth from IVF. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbagen.2011.05.001">development of cryopreservation</a>, or the freezing of human eggs and embryos, has enabled people to pursue pregnancy later in life. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbagen.2011.05.001">Genetic screening</a> of cells from a developing embryo can identify genetic diseases and abnormalities.</p>
<p>The chance of a successful live birth through assisted reproductive technologies varies. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/art/artdata/index.html">Success rates</a> depend on many factors, such as underlying cause of infertility, age and type of technology used.</p>
<h2>Who currently has access to IVF?</h2>
<p>Use of IVF has steadily increased since it was first introduced. In 2015, about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.ss6703a1">2% of all infants</a> in the U.S. were conceived as a result of IVF, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10815-022-02687-7">public support for IVF is high</a> overall.</p>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/14/a-growing-share-of-americans-say-theyve-had-fertility-treatments-or-know-someone-who-has/">10% of women in the U.S.</a> have used some type of <a href="https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/coverage-and-use-of-fertility-services-in-the-u-s/">fertility service</a> to achieve a pregnancy. This includes fertility advice, medications to increase ovulation, fertility testing, surgery and IVF. </p>
<p>Because infertility increases with age, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/infertility.htm">women older than 35</a> typically use these services more often than younger women. Women in the U.S. who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2019.04.044">access infertility care the least</a> are often non-U.S. citizens and uninsured, and they typically have lower income and less education than women who do.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clear batches of containers of eggs and embryos in a large, frozen circular container" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578418/original/file-20240227-26-7ak5sq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cryopreservation gives prospective parents more time to pursue pregnancy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/frozen-embryos-and-eggs-in-nitrogen-cooled-royalty-free-image/520157312">Ted Horowitz Photography/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/art/state-specific-surveillance/2021/figures.html#figure5">Differences in geography</a> also affect IVF access. In 2021, over 5% of all infants in Massachusetts were conceived from IVF, but this dropped to less than 1% in New Mexico, Arkansas and Mississippi.</p>
<p>Service availability and insurance coverage for IVF procedures differ by state, which could account for some of the differences in use. Only a <a href="https://resolve.org/learn/financial-resources-for-family-building/insurance-coverage/insurance-coverage-by-state/">small number of states</a> mandate that private insurers cover IVF. <a href="https://reproductiverights.org/fact-sheet-infertility-and-ivf-access-in-the-united-states-a-human-rights-based-policy-approach/">Public insurance coverage</a> for infertility services is even lower. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12958-022-00984-5">cost of IVF</a> has been the greatest barrier to infertility care. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12958-022-00984-5">Out-of-pocket costs</a> for people without insurance coverage can range from over US$10,000 to $25,000 per cycle, with rising costs per cycle.</p>
<h2>How do debates about when life begins affect IVF?</h2>
<p>Political views vary around reproductive rights, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans-senate-ivf-alabama-ruling/">access to IVF</a> is likely to become an issue in upcoming election cycles.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/20/alabama-supreme-court-ivf-embryos/">Alabama Supreme Court ruled</a> in February 2024 that frozen embryos created during the process of IVF were people. While the ruling currently applies only to Alabama, it has caused <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/feb/23/fertility-doctors-reaction-alabama-embryo-ruling">shock, confusion and concern</a> among health care providers. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OsbGVgnHLBM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Clinicians and people relying on IVF to expand their families are concerned about U.S. legislation around reproduction.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As a result of the ruling, two major <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/a-2nd-alabama-ivf-provider-pauses-parts-of-its-program-after-court-ruling-on-frozen-embryos">IVF providers in Alabama</a> have paused infertility care because of potential legal risk to health care providers. The main concern is whether providers can be held <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/24/health/alabama-ivf-roe-v-wade/index.html">liable for wrongful death</a> if frozen embryos don’t survive the thawing process. </p>
<p>Since the elimination of federal protection of abortion in 2022 with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, individual states have made their <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-year-after-the-supreme-court-overturned-roe-v-wade-trends-in-state-abortion-laws-have-emerged/">own laws regarding abortion access</a>. Many patients, health care providers, researchers and legislators see the Alabama decision regarding IVF as a continuation of the increasing <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-an-alabama-supreme-court-ruling-that-frozen-embryos-are-children-impacts-ivf">erosion of women’s reproductive rights</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Collins Fantasia is the editor for Nursing for Women's Health. </span></em></p>IVF is a decades-old procedure that has allowed increasing numbers of prospective parents to have children. Evolving legislation may put it under threat.Heidi Collins Fantasia, Associate Professor of Nursing, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243652024-02-27T04:06:50Z2024-02-27T04:06:50ZAlabama ruling frozen embryos are equivalent to living children has worrying implications for IVF<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578118/original/file-20240227-28-8t4spu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=49%2C0%2C5472%2C3637&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dewar-liquid-nitrogen-straws-frozenn-embryos-1225485064">Ekaterina Georgievskaia/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/4b56014daa6dda84/a039b1d9-full.pdf">December 2020 in Alabama</a>, a hospital patient gained unauthorised access to an adjoining IVF storage facility, which was not adequately secured. The patient is said to have removed several frozen embryos, which they then dropped on the floor, owing to a freeze-burn to their hand. The embryos were destroyed.</p>
<p>In Alabama, the <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/code-of-alabama/title-6-civil-practice/chapter-5-actions/article-22-injury-and-death-of-minor/section-6-5-391-wrongful-death-of-minor">Wrongful Death of a Minor Act</a> allows parents of a deceased child to recover punitive damages for their child’s death, and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-25/ivf-frozen-embryo-alabama-supreme-court-ruling/103501872">three couples affected</a> by the incident subsequently brought lawsuits against the clinic under this legislation.</p>
<p>When this case was heard recently in the Supreme Court of Alabama, the majority of justices opined this statute <a href="https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/4b56014daa6dda84/a039b1d9-full.pdf">applies to frozen embryos</a> because:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>an unborn child is a genetically unique human being whose life begins at fertilization and ends at death.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This essentially means frozen embryos are protected under Alabama law to the same extent as any living child. While this was a civil matter, it’s not inconceivable that, based on this interpretation, anyone who destroys a frozen embryo in Alabama – accidentally or on purpose – could face criminal penalties, such as manslaughter or even murder charges. </p>
<p>Likely for fear it’s too risky, clinics in the state are now limiting their IVF services, leaving patients having to <a href="https://www.today.com/video/more-clinics-in-alabama-stop-ivf-treatments-after-court-ruling-204773957818">seek treatment elsewhere</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/considering-using-ivf-to-have-a-baby-heres-what-you-need-to-know-108910">Considering using IVF to have a baby? Here's what you need to know</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Ascribing personhood to frozen embryos is not a novel idea, but such a conviction is held only by the very fringes of the religious and conservative spectrum. There are clear political dimensions to this ruling, which appears to be an extension of a radical agenda on the altar of which the <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Supreme Court of the United States</a> recently sacrificed the right to abortion. </p>
<p>This ruling from the Supreme Court of Alabama reflects a profound ignorance about how the process of IVF works.</p>
<h2>Creating multiple embryos is essential for overall IVF success</h2>
<p>The process of in vitro fertilisation, or IVF, begins with a “stimulated” cycle, where hormones are injected into a woman to stimulate an ovary to produce multiple eggs. These eggs are then collected and combined with sperm, forming embryos that are placed in an incubator to grow. </p>
<p>Five days later, the embryos are assessed. Some develop into “good quality” embryos suitable for transfer into a woman’s uterus. The hope is that following the transfer, the embryo will implant and result in a viable pregnancy, ultimately leading to the birth of a healthy child. Any good-quality embryos not used in a stimulated cycle are usually frozen for future attempts.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, IVF is somewhat inefficient, with attrition a prominent feature at every stage. Not all collected eggs are suitable for fertilisation, not all fertilise, not all embryos fertilise normally, and not all normally-fertilised embryos are of good quality. Poor-quality eggs, abnormally-fertilised embryos and poor-quality embryos are routinely discarded.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1760408483688534266"}"></div></p>
<p>The practical implications of this process and the heartbreaking reality for individuals and couples undergoing IVF is that it takes, on average, three to five eggs to produce <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/npesu/data_collection/Assisted%20Reproductive%20Technology%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand%202021.pdf">one good-quality embryo</a>. However, this number is age-dependent and significantly higher for older women. </p>
<p>The chance of achieving pregnancy from one embryo transfer is also significantly influenced by <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/npesu/data_collection/Assisted%20Reproductive%20Technology%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand%202021.pdf">the woman’s age</a>, being as high as 50% in younger women but decreasing exponentially as a woman gets older. At the age of 46, it can be as low as 1-2%. </p>
<p>So it’s vital to be able to safely produce as many good-quality embryos as possible from one stimulated IVF cycle in case multiple sequential embryo transfers are needed to achieve a healthy pregnancy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-business-of-ivf-how-human-eggs-went-from-simple-cells-to-a-valuable-commodity-119168">The business of IVF: how human eggs went from simple cells to a valuable commodity</a>
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<p>Should the initial embryo transfer fail to produce a viable pregnancy, and frozen embryos are available, those can be thawed and transferred into a woman’s uterus in a “thaw” cycle. These cycles usually don’t require the use of injectable hormones or an egg collection and, in most instances, require only monitoring (including ultrasounds and blood tests), and timed embryo transfer.</p>
<p>The risks associated with IVF, such as bleeding and infections, are mostly confined to the stimulated cycles, while thaw cycles <a href="https://npesu.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/npesu/data_collection/Assisted%20Reproductive%20Technology%20in%20Australia%20and%20New%20Zealand%202021.pdf">pose minimal risk</a>. Notably, the most labour-intensive, and, therefore, costly portion is the stimulated cycle, while a thaw cycle can be around three to four times cheaper. </p>
<p>Should embryo freezing become unavailable, all people undergoing IVF would have to rely solely on stimulated cycles to achieve pregnancy, significantly increasing the risks and radically escalating the costs.</p>
<h2>The judge’s error in interpreting Australian practice</h2>
<p>Tom Parker, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, made the following statement in his judgement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>in Australia and New Zealand, prevailing ethical standards dictate that physicians usually create only one embryo at a time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He implied that in Australia, the only IVF cycles ethically permitted are stimulated cycles, where just one embryo is created and transferred, with no embryos being frozen. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A pregnant woman holding her stomach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578120/original/file-20240227-24-koxpao.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">Many women need the help of IVF to become pregnant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/image-pregnant-woman-touching-her-belly-147978782">10 FACE/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, this assertion is demonstrably false. There are no guidelines or regulations in Australia that discourage the creation of multiple embryos, as this practice enhances overall pregnancy rates, while making IVF safer and more cost-effective. </p>
<p>What is discouraged is the <em>transfer</em> of multiple embryos at one time, as this increases the likelihood of multiple births, which carry <a href="https://www.fertilitysociety.com.au/wp-content/uploads/20211124-RTAC-ANZ-COP.pdf">heightened medical risks</a> for both mothers and babies.</p>
<p>It seems the Chief Justice has fundamentally misunderstood the Australian regulatory framework. Ironically, the <a href="https://www.varta.org.au/sites/default/files/2023-11/VARTA_AR2023.pdf">excellent IVF outcomes</a> and very low rates of multiple births in Australia are largely attributable to the widespread use of frozen embryo transfer cycles – a practice now <a href="https://www.today.com/video/more-clinics-in-alabama-stop-ivf-treatments-after-court-ruling-204773957818">under threat</a> in Alabama.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I am a fertility specialist and a Medical Director of Genea Fertility Melbourne, a private IVF unit.</span></em></p>A recent ruling from the Supreme Court of Alabama implies frozen embryos are legally equivalent to living children. This creates risks for IVF providers, and therefore problems for patients.Alex Polyakov, Medical Director, Genea Fertility Melbourne; Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182962023-11-21T20:31:45Z2023-11-21T20:31:45ZWho can defend voting rights? An appeals court ruling sharply limiting lawsuits looks likely to head to the Supreme Court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560834/original/file-20231121-4144-xyqtot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The recent court decision about the Voting Rights Act could be a setback for people's right to vote.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vehicle-displays-a-sign-reading-protect-our-freedom-to-vote-news-photo/1237831969?adppopup=true">Stefani Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>A federal appeals court in <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24172336-arkansas-state-conference-naacp-2023-11-20-8th-circuit-opinion">Arkansas ruled</a> on Monday, Nov. 20, 2023, that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/20/federal-court-deals-devastating-blow-to-voting-rights-act-00128069">only the federal government</a> – not private citizens or civil rights groups – could sue to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act.</em></p>
<p><em>This decision will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court – but if it stands, it could gut individual people’s and civil rights groups’ legal right to fight racial discrimination in voting.</em></p>
<p><em>The Conversation spoke with <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=AI_UyLUAAAAJ&hl=en">Anthony Michael Kreis</a>, a scholar of constitutional law, democracy and civil rights, to better understand the significance of this court ruling.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black middle-aged man speaks at a podium with the words, 'deliver for voting rights,' in a crowd of people who are wearing jackets. One person holds a sign that says 'voter suppression is un-American.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560837/original/file-20231121-4173-ql0xtm.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">Martin Luther King III, eldest son of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., speaks about voting rights in January 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/martin-luther-king-iii-eldest-son-of-civil-rights-leader-dr-news-photo/1237787296?adppopup=true">Samuel Corum/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is most important for people to understand about this court decision?</h2>
<p>There are currently two ways to safeguard the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act</a> and try to enforce it in court. One is through the federal government and the Department of Justice. The other is private groups, often civil rights organizations, that try to enforce the Voting Rights Act when there is a violation and people are not being given equal opportunity and the ability to vote.</p>
<p>I believe it is important that groups like the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/voting-rights/voting-rights-act">American Civil Liberties Union</a>, or ACLU, and the <a href="https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/legislative-milestones/voting-rights-act-1965">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People</a>, or NAACP, can go to court and litigate voting rights questions. Part of the reason is that the Department of Justice is a government office with limited resources and a finite capacity to assess all of the different jurisdictions where voting takes place. It also requires the enthusiastic support of Justice Department leaders – and this cannot be guaranteed from administration to administration. </p>
<p>These private groups have a broader reach in terms of being able to document what is happening locally and at the state level – and whether people’s voting rights are possibly being violated.</p>
<p>A ruling that private groups can no longer file lawsuits related to the Voting Rights Act removes key voting rights protectors from their roles – primarily of stopping discriminatory rules or legislation that either deprive people of their right to vote or dilute the full force of their vote. </p>
<h2>How often do private groups file lawsuits to enforce the Voting Rights Act?</h2>
<p>The NAACP or the ACLU regularly file these lawsuits. Sometimes there have been multiple private groups <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/naacp-publications/ldf-blog/important-facts-about-ldfs-lawsuit-challenging-georgias-voter-suppression-bill/">filing lawsuits</a> at the same time. This happened in 2021, when a <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/03/27/what-does-georgias-new-voting-law-sb-202-do">new election law</a> in Georgia made it harder for some people to vote by limiting access to drop boxes and making it also more challenging to get an absentee ballot mailed. This law is <a href="https://www.lawyerscommittee.org/federal-court-halts-portion-of-georgias-sb202-voter-suppression-law/">still under litigation</a>. </p>
<p>The NAACP has also brought lawsuits against voting rights questions in Alabama, like whether people should have to <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/naacp-loses-11th-circuit-fight-against-alabama-voter-id-law/">present a photo ID</a> in order to vote. Generally, these lawsuits have had a great deal of success at <a href="https://naacp.org/articles/naacp-commends-supreme-court-allowing-new-alabama-congressional-map">protecting people’s right to vote</a>, especially the rights of Black people and other minorities. </p>
<p>It is because they have been so successful that some conservative people who would prefer to limit voting rights in a democracy, rather than expand them, have gone after organizations’ ability to file these lawsuits.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A big sign says 'vote here today' in front of a long line of Black people who stand ouside of a brown brick building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560838/original/file-20231121-3914-gq0a6h.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">Black Americans line up to vote in 2008 outside of a Baptist church in Birmingham, Ala., one of the places that has faced new voting restrictions in the past few years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/african-americans-line-up-to-vote-outside-bethel-missionary-news-photo/83557085?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How has the Voting Rights Act been interpreted so far?</h2>
<p>Over the years, numerous courts, including the <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-5th-circuit/115482724.html">5th</a>, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/mixon-v-state-of-ohio">6th</a> and <a href="https://casetext.com/case/ala-state-conference-of-na-for-advancement-of-colored-people-v-alabama">11th</a> circuits, have taken up this issue. These courts have determined that you cannot plausibly read the Voting Rights Act in its totality and not see there is a clear, private right of action for groups like the ACLU to go to court. </p>
<p>There is a reason why this issue of private groups filing voting rights lawsuits has kind of become a new fad. In a <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2020/19-1257">Supreme Court case in 2021</a>, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas both raised this question of whether this should be allowed.</p>
<p>Now, the <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/eighth-circuit-ruling-limits-enforcement-of-voting-rights-act/">8th Circuit Court has taken that cue</a> and ruled that nongovernmental groups do not have the right, under the Voting Rights Act, to sue states for voting rights violations. The reasoning is that Congress never explicitly provided this right in the act’s text. </p>
<p>But the Supreme Court has informally recognized for decades that Congress recognizes the right of private groups to take action. And while Congress has amended the <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47520">Voting Rights Act through the years,</a> it has never tried to curtail private lawsuits. This confirms the long-understood premise that Congress empowers people and groups other than the federal government to bring voting rights litigation under the 1965 law.</p>
<h2>How does this ruling shift the legal landscape on this issue?</h2>
<p>Most of the appellate courts that have addressed this issue head-on have easily batted away arguments about private groups not being able to file lawsuits, because they have found them to be so implausible that they are not worth their time to analyze in a deep and serious way. </p>
<p>I think this ruling is part of a systemic attack against voting rights in the U.S. at an especially precarious time for American democracy’s health. This court ruling will likely <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/20/federal-court-deals-devastating-blow-to-voting-rights-act-00128069">go to the Supreme Court</a>, but if the Supreme Court affirms the decision, only the Department of Justice could enforce voting laws in a meaningful way. That is exceptionally dangerous and challenges the principle that all eligible voters get to have their voices heard in a democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218296/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Michael Kreis 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 ruling could make it impossible for groups like the ACLU to file lawsuits to protect people’s right to vote – significantly changing how the Voting Rights Act has been interpreted so far.Anthony Michael Kreis, Assistant Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145132023-09-29T12:24:47Z2023-09-29T12:24:47ZUS Supreme Court refuses to hear Alabama’s request to keep separate and unequal political districts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550729/original/file-20230927-19-k90mbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1459%2C308%2C3947%2C3291&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall stands in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on Oct 4, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/attorney-general-of-alabama-steve-marshall-speaks-to-news-photo/1430435175?adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-alabamas-bid-use-congressional-map-just-one-majo-rcna105688">second time</a> in three months, the U.S. Supreme Court has rebuffed Alabama’s attempts to advance its legislature’s congressional maps that federal courts have ruled harm Black voters.</p>
<p>The court had first <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">rejected the maps</a> in its stunning June 8, 2023, decision that upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But in an act of defiance, Alabama lawmakers resubmitted maps that didn’t include what the court had urged them to do – create a second political district in which Black voters could reasonably be expected to choose a candidate of their choice. </p>
<p>On Sept. 26, the court put those Alabama plans on hold and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1200906844/supreme-court-alabama-voting-case">refused to stop</a> a three-judge federal court panel’s plan to choose the maps Alabama will use in its 2024 elections from among a set of three maps drawn by a court-appointed <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/25/politics/alabama-redistricting-special-master-map-proposals/index.html">special master</a>. </p>
<p>One of those maps includes the creation of a second congressional district that has a majority of Black voters, and the other two would increase the percentage of Black voters in an existing district to give them a reasonable chance of electing candidates of their own choosing. </p>
<p>Currently, only one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts is majority Black, although Black residents make up 27% of the state’s population and <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/merrill-v-milligan-faq/">voting rights advocates</a> argued that their numbers suggest they should control at least two of the state’s congressional districts. </p>
<p>On Sept. 5, the panel of three <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23936075-milligan-2023-09-05-order">federal judges</a> rebuked the Alabama Legislature when it ruled that the state’s <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-redistricting-ruling-black-population-affd7b662f65b0b28da42fb88f72207e">proposed voting districts</a> failed to create the second Black district. </p>
<p>The federal judges wrote they were “deeply troubled” that Alabama lawmakers submitted a new plan that did not adhere to previous court rulings, including <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">one issued</a> by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 8.</p>
<p>“The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” the three judges wrote, adding that the state’s new plan “plainly fails to do so.” </p>
<h2>A surprising decision to protect Black voters</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1193749552/alabama-congressional-map">For the 2024 elections</a>, the federal panel of judges assigned a special master to draw three potential maps that each include two districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate. Those redistricting proposals were submitted on Sept. 25, 2023.</p>
<p>Alabama officials have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/us/politics/alabama-congressional-map.html">denied any wrongdoing</a> and said their proposed voting districts, including one where the percentage of Black voters jumped from about 30% to 40%, were in compliance with recent federal court rulings. </p>
<p>After losing its latest appeal on Sept. 26, <a href="https://www.wsfa.com/2023/09/26/alabamas-ag-reacts-supreme-courts-redistricting-map-decision/">Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall</a>, a Republican, still argued that the maps the state has drawn should have been upheld by the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>“It is now clear that none of the maps proposed by Republican super-majorities had any chance of success,” <a href="https://whnt.com/news/alabama-news/alabama-ag-steve-marshalls-says-map-fight-continues-despite-supreme-court-loss/">Marshall said in a statement</a>. “Treating voters as individuals would not do. Instead, our elected representatives and our voters must apparently be reduced to skin color alone.”</p>
<p>At issue in the Alabama case is whether the power of Black voters was diluted by dividing them into districts where white voters dominate. </p>
<p>After the 2020 census, the Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rules-favor-black-142654715.html">redrew the state’s seven congressional districts</a> to include only one in which Black voters would likely be able to elect a candidate of their choosing. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">surprising ruling on June 8</a>, the Supreme Court jettisoned Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that a federal district court in Alabama had ruled in 2022 discriminated against Black voters and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/election-law-explainers/section-2-of-the-voting-rights-act-vote-dilution-and-vote-deprivation/">violated Section 2</a> of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>.</p>
<p>The court relied on a nearly 40-year-old, seminal case, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/83-1968">Thornburg v. Gingles</a>, that determined a state should typically draw a majority-minority district if <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Thornburg_v._Gingles">three conditions</a> are met: </p>
<p>First, if the racial minority can be a majority in a reasonably drawn district. </p>
<p>Second, if the racial minority is politically cohesive, meaning that its members tend to vote together for the same candidates.</p>
<p>And third, if the racial minority faces <a href="https://www.mississippifreepress.org/33699/alabama-violated-black-voters-rights-u-s-supreme-court-rules">bloc voting by a racial majority</a> that tends to defeat the racial minority’s candidate of choice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five men and four women are wearing black robes as they pose for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.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">The Supreme Court, from left in front row: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan; and from left in back row: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-supreme-court-associate-justice-sonia-news-photo/1431388794?phrase=us%20supreme%20clarence%20thomas&adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All three conditions were true in Alabama, and the totality of the circumstances suggested minority voters did not participate equally in the political process in the area.</p>
<p>In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained how racially motivated voter suppression in the century after the Civil War led to the initial passage of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>While the Supreme Court did not explicitly order the state to create a second majority-Black congressional district, Roberts made it clear how he viewed the long history of racist voter suppression in Alabama – and what factors should weigh prominently in the state’s new political map.</p>
<p>“A district is not equally open,” Roberts wrote, “when minority voters face – unlike their majority peers – bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.” </p>
<p>Given the Supreme Court’s recent history of restricting rights protected under the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 – and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-121222/">Roberts’ past opposition</a> – Roberts’ opinion surprised many civil and voting rights advocates. </p>
<p>“States shouldn’t let race be the primary factor in deciding how to draw boundaries, but it should be a consideration,” Roberts wrote. “The line we have drawn is between consciousness and predominance.”</p>
<h2>What Alabama did</h2>
<p>In its case before the federal panel, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-redistricting-ruling-black-population-affd7b662f65b0b28da42fb88f72207e">state argued </a> that its proposed map complied with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Supreme Court decision.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white poster urges Black residents to vote." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster encouraging African Americans to vote in Selma, Ala., during the 2020 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vote-or-die-headline-on-a-poster-to-encourage-african-news-photo/1225712000?adppopup=true">Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>State lawyers <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/court-throws-out-alabama-gop-congressional-map-for-violating-voting-rights-act-00113962">further argued</a> that the Legislature was not required to create a second majority-Black district if doing so would require ignoring traditional redistricting principles, such as keeping communities of interest together.</p>
<p>In its decisions on Alabama’s redistricting, the Supreme Court upheld laws that were designed to protect minority voting power for the last nearly four decades. </p>
<p>The same is true with the three-judge court’s ruling on Sept. 5.</p>
<p>It reaffirmed the legal doctrine that requires jurisdictions to draw majority-minority districts in a narrow set of circumstances in which failing to do would leave minority voters unable to protect their interests through their voting power. </p>
<p>Given Alabama’s long-standing history of suppressing the votes of its Black citizens, the Supreme Court still may not have written its last word on race and redistricting. The court is scheduled in October 2023 to hear a similar case involving <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/supreme-court-south-carolina-voting-map.html">South Carolina’s voting districts</a>. </p>
<p><em>This story has been updated from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/alabamas-defiant-new-voting-map-rejected-by-federal-court-after-republicans-ignored-the-supreme-courts-directive-to-add-a-second-majority-black-house-district-207449">original version</a> published on Sept. 6, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry L. Chambers Jr. 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>Since 2020, Alabama lawmakers have failed to draw political districts that give Black voters an equal chance of selecting political candidates that represent their interests.Henry L. Chambers Jr., Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074492023-09-06T12:23:36Z2023-09-06T12:23:36ZAlabama’s defiant new voting map rejected by federal court – after Republicans ignored the Supreme Court’s directive to add a second majority-Black House district<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546528/original/file-20230905-28402-xuho6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5864%2C3924&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evan Milligan, plaintiff in an Alabama case that could have far-reaching effects on minority voting power across the U.S., speaks outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VotingRightsAct/1a7ba763f8b54408970191fb23123e5d/photo?Query=Alabama%20voting&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1686&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a rebuke of the Alabama legislature, a panel of three <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23936075-milligan-2023-09-05-order">federal judges rejected</a> on Sept. 5, 2023, the state’s proposed voting districts that failed to create a second district where Black voters could elect a political candidate of their choice.</p>
<p>In rejecting the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-redistricting-ruling-black-population-affd7b662f65b0b28da42fb88f72207e">legislature’s proposed voting districts</a> for the second time since 2022, the federal judges wrote they were “deeply troubled” that Alabama lawmakers submitted a new plan that did not adhere to previous court rulings, including one issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 8, 2023.</p>
<p>“The law requires the creation of an additional district that affords Black Alabamians, like everyone else, a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice,” the three judges wrote, adding that the state’s new plan “plainly fails to do so.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1193749552/alabama-congressional-map">For the 2024 elections</a>, the judges have assigned court-appointed experts and a special master to draw three potential maps that each include two districts where Black voters have a realistic opportunity of electing their preferred candidate. Those redistricting proposals are due to the court by Sept. 25.</p>
<p>Alabama officials have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/us/politics/alabama-congressional-map.html">denied any wrongdoing</a> and said their proposed voting districts, including one where the percentage of Black voters jumped from about 30% to 40%, were in compliance with recent federal court rulings. The state is expected to appeal the panel’s latest ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p>“We strongly believe that the Legislature’s map complies with the Voting Rights Act and the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” Alabama Attorney General Steven Marshall, a Republican, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/05/politics/alabama-congressional-district/index.html">said in a statement</a>. “We intend to promptly seek review from the Supreme Court to ensure that the State can use its lawful congressional districts in 2024 and beyond.”</p>
<h2>A surprising decision to protect Black voters</h2>
<p>At issue in the Alabama case was whether the power of Black voters was diluted by dividing them into districts where white voters dominate. </p>
<p>After the 2020 census, the Republican-controlled Alabama legislature <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rules-favor-black-142654715.html">redrew the state’s seven congressional districts</a> to include only one in which Black voters would likely be able to elect a candidate of their choosing. </p>
<p>Black residents comprise about 27% of the state’s population, and <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/merrill-v-milligan-faq/">voting rights advocates</a> argued that their numbers suggest they should control two congressional districts. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">surprising ruling on June 8</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court jettisoned Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that a federal district court in Alabama had ruled in 2022 discriminated against Black voters and <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/election-law-explainers/section-2-of-the-voting-rights-act-vote-dilution-and-vote-deprivation/">violated Section 2</a> of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>.</p>
<p>The court relied on a nearly 40-year-old, seminal case, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1985/83-1968">Thornburg v. Gingles</a>, that determined a state should typically draw a majority-minority district if <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Thornburg_v._Gingles">three conditions</a> are met: </p>
<p>First, if the racial minority can be a majority in a reasonably drawn district. Second, if the racial minority is politically cohesive, meaning that its members tend to vote together for the same candidates. And third, if the racial minority faces <a href="https://www.mississippifreepress.org/33699/alabama-violated-black-voters-rights-u-s-supreme-court-rules">bloc voting by a racial majority</a> that tends to defeat the racial minority’s candidate of choice. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Five men and four women are wearing black robes as they pose for a portrait." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508673/original/file-20230207-29-owvlbb.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">The Supreme Court, from left in front row: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan; and from left in back row: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/united-states-supreme-court-associate-justice-sonia-news-photo/1431388794?phrase=us%20supreme%20clarence%20thomas&adppopup=true">Alex Wong/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All three conditions were true in Alabama, and the totality of the circumstances suggested minority voters did not participate equally in the political process in the area.</p>
<p>In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained how racially motivated voter suppression in the century after the Civil War led to the initial passage of the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>. </p>
<p>While the Supreme Court did not explicitly order the state to create a second majority-Black congressional district, Roberts made it clear how he viewed the long history of racist voter suppression in Alabama – and what factors should weigh prominently in the state’s new political map.</p>
<p>“A district is not equally open,” Roberts wrote, “when minority voters face – unlike their majority peers – bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.” </p>
<p>Given the Supreme Court’s recent history of restricting rights protected under the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 – and <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/john-roberts-voting-rights-act-121222/">Roberts’ past opposition</a> – Roberts’ opinion surprised many civil and voting rights advocates. </p>
<p>“States shouldn’t let race be the primary factor in deciding how to draw boundaries, but it should be a consideration,” Roberts wrote. “The line we have drawn is between consciousness and predominance.”</p>
<h2>What Alabama did</h2>
<p>In its case before the federal panel, the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/alabama-redistricting-ruling-black-population-affd7b662f65b0b28da42fb88f72207e">state argued </a> that its proposed map complied with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Supreme Court decision.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white poster urges Black residents to vote." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546522/original/file-20230905-29-v7yray.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A poster encouraging African Americans to vote in Selma, Ala., during the 2020 presidential election.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/vote-or-die-headline-on-a-poster-to-encourage-african-news-photo/1225712000?adppopup=true">Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>State lawyers <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/05/court-throws-out-alabama-gop-congressional-map-for-violating-voting-rights-act-00113962">further argued</a> that the legislature was not required to create a second majority-Black district if doing so would require ignoring traditional redistricting principles, such as keeping communities of interest together.</p>
<p>In its decision on Alabama’s redistricting, the Supreme Court upheld laws that were designed to protect minority voting power for the last nearly four decades. </p>
<p>The same is true with the three-judge court’s ruling on Sept. 5, 2023. </p>
<p>It reaffirmed the legal doctrine that requires jurisdictions to draw majority-minority districts in a narrow set of circumstances in which failing to do would leave minority voters unable to protect their interests through their voting power. </p>
<p>Given Alabama’s long-standing history of suppressing the votes of its Black citizens, the Supreme Court may not have written its last word on race and redistricting in this case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry L. Chambers Jr. 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>Since 2020, Alabama lawmakers have failed to draw political districts that give Black voters an equal chance of selecting political candidates that represent their interests.Henry L. Chambers Jr., Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2114902023-08-14T17:44:40Z2023-08-14T17:44:40ZTommy Tuberville reportedly doesn’t live in Alabama − should he still be its senator?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542482/original/file-20230813-42160-9mvwcr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4811%2C3205&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alabama voters elected Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Nov. 3, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2020SenateTuberville/ee9266cbcd5d4529b2c7a043281f85b4/photo?Query=Tuberville&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=596&currentItemNo=178">AP Photo/Butch Dill</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville has come under scrutiny following reports that he <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/08/can-tommy-tuberville-represent-alabama-in-us-senate-if-he-lives-in-florida.html">recently sold</a> the last remaining properties he owns in the state that he represents in the U.S. Senate. Instead, Tuberville <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/10/tommy-tuberville-floridas-third-senator/">appears to live almost full time</a> at his beach house in the Florida panhandle.</p>
<p>Although details are still emerging about Tuberville’s precise living situation, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/10/tommy-tuberville-floridas-third-senator/">The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has reported</a> that the Auburn, Alabama, address Tuberville listed when he declared his candidacy for Senate in 2019 is co-owned by his wife and son. Kessler’s review of campaign finance reports and property documents related to Tuberville “indicate that his home is actually a $3 million, 4,000-square-foot beach house he has lived in for nearly two decades in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.”</p>
<p>Why does this matter? </p>
<p>Because Tuberville is running up against one of the oldest constitutional requirements that apply to anyone running for Congress: that <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S3-C3-1/ALDE_00013345/">candidates must live in the state they represent</a> by the time they take office. </p>
<p>But whether Tuberville’s situation actually violates the Constitution – or matters to voters – is another question. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A large white building with a dome atop it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542483/original/file-20230813-82741-fsa66m.jpeg?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">To serve in Congress, the U.S. Constitution requires that a member must be an inhabitant of the state they represent.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CongressDebt/15da08cb69a24b598addbce1b25df374/photo?Query=U.S.%20Congress%20building&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=864&currentItemNo=24&vs=true">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Residency requirements in Congress</h2>
<p>The legal requirement that candidates and members of legislative bodies live in the place they represent is not new. In the case of Congress, it was <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_808.asp#1">debated heavily</a> during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. </p>
<p>The framers decided that members of both the House and the Senate would be required only to be “an inhabitant” of the state they represent. Strange as it may sound, this means that House members don’t even need to live in their specific district – just their home state. In fact, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/04/21/at-least-20-members-of-the-house-are-registered-to-vote-outside-their-districts/">2017 report from The Washington Post</a> found that about 5% of all House members don’t live in the districts they represent. </p>
<h2>Legal consequences for nonresidency</h2>
<p>In Tuberville’s case, it’s possible that he doesn’t meet the constitutional minimum of state residency. Whether he might face any consequences for this potential violation, however, is unclear. </p>
<p>Courts and congressional committees have looked into similar violations in the past. They have generally opted for a wide interpretation of what is called “<a href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41946.html#_Toc410112355">inhabitancy</a>,” often settling for evidence that a member paid taxes in or was registered to vote in the state, even if it was at an address that the member spent little to no time in.</p>
<p>Officials at state and local levels, however, where <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/eligibility-requirements-to-run-for-the-state-legislature">residency requirements can be stronger</a>, have paid the price for being a nonresident. A <a href="https://law.georgia.gov/opinions/2001-3-0">2001 legal opinion</a> from the Georgia attorney general found that if a state legislator “moves his permanent residence outside his district, the office will become vacant as a matter of law,” meaning that the lawmaker would disqualify themselves from serving. </p>
<p>This is precisely what happened in my hometown of Boise, Idaho, when a city councilwoman was <a href="https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/208/boise-city-council-president-holli-woodings-details-process-of-councilmember-sanchez-losing-her-seat/277-cec1eaff-2f4d-408b-8412-df26f4cff95b">legally forced out of office</a> after she inadvertently moved out of the district she was representing.</p>
<h2>Why have residency requirements?</h2>
<p>Although it can be inconvenient, there are good reasons to establish legal residency requirements. </p>
<p>The framers discussed many of them: <a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0205">Alexander Hamilton argued</a> that because of the residency requirement, representatives in Congress “will not only bring with them a considerable knowledge of its laws, and a local knowledge of their respective districts.” In other words, representatives with local ties would be more likely to understand the unique needs of their constituents and thus how to best represent them.</p>
<p>But these requirements aren’t without their drawbacks. For instance, <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/_files/ugd/a6ee68_17c414c6c2754735a1e2ba32a6b55f44.docx?dn=Residency%20Requirements%20Preprint.docx">my own research suggests</a> that in states with stricter residency requirements, their state legislative districts as a whole are more gerrymandered – that is, districts are drawn for the purpose of benefiting the election of a particular legislator or party. Why? Because state legislatures that decide their states’ redistricting processes appear to go out of their way to draw misshapen districts to include the homes of incumbents.</p>
<p>Residency requirements also pose a significant hurdle to candidate quality. That’s because, unlike in Congress, states often set even stricter standards for offices like governor and state legislator, in some cases requiring many years of residency before qualifying for candidacy. The more onerous the residency requirement – for example, <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/eligibility-requirements-to-run-for-the-state-legislature">requiring five rather than two years</a> of residency before holding office – the more otherwise qualified citizens the law excludes from serving. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.charlesrhunt.com/_files/ugd/a6ee68_17c414c6c2754735a1e2ba32a6b55f44.docx?dn=Residency%20Requirements%20Preprint.docx">my own analysis</a> of gubernatorial residency requirements, I found that many states prevent as much as one-fifth of their residents from serving as governor as a result of residency requirements and <a href="https://www.elections.alaska.gov/doc/forms/H05.pdf">more than 30% in Alaska’s case</a>.</p>
<p><iframe id="nPH1e" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/nPH1e/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/running-from-office-9780199397655?cc=us&lang=en&">fewer and fewer Americans show any interest in running for office</a> – even while they disapprove of politicians more and more – this is a serious concern for citizens and lawmakers to reckon with. </p>
<h2>Will Tuberville pay for carpetbagging?</h2>
<p>Even if Tuberville doesn’t face legal trouble, it could become a political liability for him, and the political science research bears this out. In my book, “<a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/12157973/home_field_advantage">Home Field Advantage</a>,” I found that candidates who were born and raised in their home districts consistently outperform so-called “carpetbaggers” – those with few to no ties to their districts – in congressional elections. </p>
<p>This has also played out in high-profile ways in the real world. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dr-oz-should-be-worried-voters-punish-carpetbaggers-and-new-research-shows-why-188569">During 2022’s midterm elections campaign</a>, the news buzzed with Pennsylvania voters’ ridicule for Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s attempts to come across like a regular Pennsylvanian while – among other mishaps – <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oz-accused-filming-pennsylvania-campaign-ad-at-new-jersey-home-2022-7">recording campaign videos</a> at his home in New Jersey and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ozs-viral-crudite-video-sums-up-campaign-fetterman-pennsylvania-rcna43992">mispronouncing the name of a local grocery store</a> chain. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kDsFjrXWnnI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">In the 2020 U.S. Senate race, Tuberville’s GOP primary rival questioned whether he lived in Alabama or Florida.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Some of Tuberville’s rural-state colleagues, like Montana Democrat <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/leading-montana-gop-senate-candidate-matt-rosendales-thick-maryland-accent.html">Jon Tester</a> and West Virginia Democrat <a href="https://rollcall.com/2018/11/06/west-virginias-joe-manchin-stays-put-in-trump-country/">Joe Manchin</a>, have also vastly outperformed their party’s expectations in their states, thanks in part to deep local ties and authenticity.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Tuberville is a Republican in GOP-dominated Alabama and <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2022/11/tuberville-sticking-with-trump-he-doesnt-have-to-learn-the-ropes.html">a loyal soldier for former President Donald Trump</a> in a state where Trump is popular. Plus, although Tuberville was born and raised in Arkansas, he became a hero in Alabama in the 2000s as a <a href="https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/30253791/former-college-football-coach-tommy-tuberville-wins-alabama-senate-seat">successful head coach</a> for the Auburn University football program. </p>
<p>Tuberville also has plenty of time to clean up this mess, as he is not up for reelection again until 2026. However, unless he can show some more concrete evidence of residency, a lawsuit challenging his local credentials may not be out of the question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211490/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Hunt 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 framers decided that members of both the House and Senate would be required to be “an inhabitant” of the state they represent.Charlie Hunt, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Boise State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104992023-07-27T12:26:30Z2023-07-27T12:26:30ZAlabama is not the first state to defy a Supreme Court ruling: 3 essential reads on why that matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539643/original/file-20230726-25-q9sqyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=596%2C571%2C2890%2C3214&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police officers patrolling the front of the Supreme Court building.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/police-officers-with-the-u-s-supreme-court-detain-a-man-who-news-photo/1504442811?adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In its 5-4 <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">Allen v. Milligan</a> decision on June 8, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the state of Alabama to redraw its congressional voting districts and consider race as it made up the new districts. The court had found that the state’s political districts diluted the strength of Black voters by denying them the possibility of electing a second Black member to the state’s congressional delegation.</p>
<p>While the court did not specifically order the state to create a second majority-Black congressional district, Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear how he viewed the long history of racist voter suppression in Alabama – and what factors should weigh prominently in the state’s new political map. </p>
<p>“States shouldn’t let race be the primary factor in deciding how to draw boundaries, but it should be a consideration,” <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf">Roberts wrote</a>. “The line we have drawn is between consciousness and predominance.”</p>
<p>Alabama state officials <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/21/1189494854/alabama-redistricting-map-black-districts">submitted the state’s new boundaries</a> by the Republican-controlled state legislature in late July.</p>
<p>But the new districts still <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/08/1181002182/supreme-court-voting-rights">include only one in which Black voters could reasonably elect</a> a candidate of their own choosing, not two as voting rights advocates had argued – and as the Supreme Court appeared to endorse. </p>
<p>Over the years, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories exploring the consequences of not complying with court rulings and what resistance, including resistance to decisions involving race, does to the legitimacy of America’s legal system. Here are selections from those articles. </p>
<h2>1. When the Supreme court loses Americans’ loyalty</h2>
<p>As political scientists <a href="https://people.tamu.edu/%7Ejura/">Joseph Daniel Ura</a> of Texas A&M and <a href="https://politicalscience.nd.edu/people/matthew-e-k-hall/">Matthew Hall</a> of Notre Dame <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-supreme-court-loses-americans-loyalty-chaos-even-violence-can-follow-192384">wrote</a>, the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education revealed “white Americans’ tenuous loyalty” to the authority of the federal judiciary.</p>
<p>In Brown, the court unanimously held that racial segregation in public education violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. </p>
<p>“Rather than recognizing the court’s authoritative interpretation of the Constitution,” Ura and Hall explained, “many white Americans participated in an extended, violent campaign of resistance to the desegregation ruling.”</p>
<p>The result of such resistance is clear. “Eroding legitimacy means that government officials and ordinary people become increasingly unlikely to accept public policies with which they disagree,” they wrote. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-supreme-court-loses-americans-loyalty-chaos-even-violence-can-follow-192384">When the Supreme Court loses Americans' loyalty, chaos – even violence – can follow</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Oklahoma resists ruling over tribal authority</h2>
<p>In June 2020, the Supreme Court decided in <a href="https://casetext.com/case/mcgirt-v-oklahoma/">McGirt v. Oklahoma</a> that the Muscogee Creek reservation in Oklahoma is Indian Country. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://law.wayne.edu/profile/ew9862">expert in federal Indian law</a> at Wayne State University, Kirsten Matoy Carlson <a href="https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-state-officials-resist-supreme-court-ruling-affirming-tribal-authority-over-american-indian-country-175726">wrote</a> that the ruling meant federal criminal laws applied to much of eastern Oklahoma as Indian Country and enabled the federal government – instead of the state of Oklahoma – to prosecute crimes committed by and against American Indians there.</p>
<p>Oklahoma state officials refused to comply and <a href="https://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/oklahoma-ag-wants-people-released-on-mcgirt-back-in-custody/article_51421619-03db-5a48-9f42-6de3cfc455da.html">actively resisted</a> implementation of the McGirt decision. They asked the Supreme Court to reverse it over 40 times.</p>
<p>The strategy paid off. The U.S. Supreme Court took up a similar case and in June 2022, decided to roll back some of its 2020 decision. </p>
<p>As Carlson wrote, “Conflicts between state and tribal governments are not new; states have long tried to assert power – often violently – over sovereign tribes.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-state-officials-resist-supreme-court-ruling-affirming-tribal-authority-over-american-indian-country-175726">Oklahoma state officials resist Supreme Court ruling affirming tribal authority over American Indian country</a>
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<h2>3. Court’s power may pose a danger to its legitimacy</h2>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://polisci.utk.edu/faculty/pacelle.php">Richard L. Pacelle Jr.</a> at University of Tennessee, Knoxville has examined how the power and authority of the court have waxed and waned over the centuries. </p>
<p>“That immense power has arguably made the court a leading player in enacting policy in the U.S,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-courts-immense-power-may-pose-a-danger-to-its-legitimacy-168600">Pacelle wrote</a>. “It may also cause the loss of the court’s legitimacy, which can be defined as popular acceptance of a government, political regime or system of governance.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-supreme-courts-immense-power-may-pose-a-danger-to-its-legitimacy-168600">The Supreme Court's immense power may pose a danger to its legitimacy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p><em>Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As a powerful branch of government, the Supreme Court has enormous power over public policy only if defendants comply with its rulings.Howard Manly, Race + Equity Editor, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952512022-11-29T13:35:15Z2022-11-29T13:35:15ZAlabama’s execution problems are part of a long history of botched lethal injections<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497724/original/file-20221128-5230-q7icct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3457%2C2175&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In some cases, death row inmates have been strapped to the gurney for hours.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/DeathPenaltyProblemsExplainer/86ba64530aa64b6ba241c943b619f14a/photo?Query=alabama%20execution&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=68&currentItemNo=2">AP Photo/Sue Ogrock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1138357929/alabama-executions-pause-lethal-injection">announced</a> a pause in her state’s use of capital punishment. It follows a run of botched lethal injection executions in the state, including two where the procedure <a href="https://eji.org/news/kenny-smith-alabama-execution/">had to be abandoned before the inmates succumbed to the cocktail of death drugs</a>.</p>
<p>The last straw appears to have been the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/us/alabama-execution-kenneth-smith.html">failed attempt to put Kenneth Smith to death</a> on Nov. 17, 2022. The state had to call off the procedure after difficulty in securing an IV line.</p>
<p>But that was just the latest execution not to go as planned. In September, Alabama had to stop <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/alabama-inmate-execution-alan-miller/671620/">the execution of Alan Eugene Miller</a> after prison officials poked him with needles for more than an hour because they could not find a usable vein in which to secure an IV.</p>
<p>Even when the execution was carried out resulting in death, the manner has been problematic. When the state executed <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-nathan-james-jr-alabama-apparently-botched-recent-execution-anti-death-penalty-group-asserts/">Joe Nathan James</a> on July 28, 2022, the process – which is normally supposed to be over in a matter of minutes – <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/joe-nathan-james-execution-alabama/671127/">took more than three hours</a>. During that time, officials tried repeatedly to insert the IV lines necessary to carry the deadly drugs and jabbed James with needles. </p>
<p>In a statement on Nov. 21, Ivey <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/21/politics/alabama-executions-pause-review-ivey">ordered</a> the state Department of Corrections to do a thorough review of the procedures used in executions and asked the state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, to stop the process for two upcoming executions.</p>
<p>Alabama officials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/us/alabama-executions-lethal-injection.html">have blamed</a> their problems on what they have described as frivolous, last-minute legal maneuvers by death penalty defense lawyers. In the cases of Miller and Smith, state officials claimed that they ran out of time before the death warrant was due to expire.</p>
<p>But whatever the cause, Alabama’s execution difficulties are not unique to that state. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23979">research shows</a> that since 1900, in states across the country, lethal injections have been more frequently botched than any of the other type of execution methods used throughout that period. This includes hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber and the firing squad – even though these approaches are not without their problems.</p>
<h2>The early history of lethal injection</h2>
<p>Lethal injection <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25689/gerry-commission-report-methods-of-execution/">was first considered by the state of New York</a> in the late 1880s when it convened a blue ribbon commission to study alternatives to hanging. During its deliberations, Dr. Julius Mount Bleyer <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=E7S3C4_IYmYC&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=that+%E2%80%9Cthe+condemned+could+be+executed+on+his+bed+in+his+cell+with+a+6-gram+injection+of+sulfate+of+morphine.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=DX7rmZpYKi&sig=ACfU3U2t-1PK08QmFL3jwZ63iRWRO6URAw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOpYe52Zv4AhWBZjABHbQKD00Q6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=that%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20condemned%20could%20be%20executed%20on%20his%20bed%20in%20his%20cell%20with%20a%206-gram%20injection%20of%20sulfate%20of%20morphine.%E2%80%9D&f=false">invited the commission to envision</a> a future in which a person condemned to death “could be executed on his bed in his cell with a 6-gram injection of sulfate of morphine.”</p>
<p>Bleyer and his allies <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/medlejo5&div=43&g_sent=1&casa_token=">argued</a> that the procedure would be painless. They said that unlike hanging, the method could not be messed up. It also would be cheap, they claimed – all that was needed was a needle and a small amount of morphine.</p>
<p>Lethal injection’s critics told the commission that the method would actually be easily botched, especially if doctors did not conduct the procedure. And even when done right, those in favor of the death penalty as the ultimate sentence further argued that it would be too humane. It would take the dread out of death and dampen capital punishment’s deterrent effect.</p>
<p>Ultimately, lethal injection’s opponents prevailed, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Executioners-Current-Westinghouse-Invention-Electric/dp/037572446X">aided by the medical community’s unwavering stance against it</a>. Doctors “did not want the syringe, which was associated with the alleviation of human suffering, to become an instrument of death.”</p>
<p>For nearly 100 years after New York’s decision, no jurisdiction in the United States authorized execution by lethal injection. But the early debate over lethal injection foreshadowed arguments that were heard in 1977 during Oklahoma’s consideration of this execution method.</p>
<p>Proponents echoed Bleyer and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/09/guilty-man/">declared</a> that executions using this method could be accomplished with “no struggle, no stench, no pain.”</p>
<p>This time they won.</p>
<p>The specific drugs to be used in lethal injection – the anesthetic <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/molecule-of-the-week/archive/s/sodium-thiopental.html">sodium thiopental</a> and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/339801/">pancuronium bromide</a>, a muscle relaxant – would not be chosen until four years later. Although the original law only called for those two drugs, a third drug was soon added: <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/us0406/4.htm#:%7E:text=Potassium%20chloride%20is%20the%20drug,within%20a%20minute%20of%20injection.">potassium chloride</a>, which causes cardiac arrest. </p>
<p>Together, these three drugs would <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-alper-3-drug-cocktail-20170420-story.html">make up what became the “standard” three-drug, lethal injection protocol</a>. And what started in Oklahoma spread quickly. Lethal injection soon became the execution method of choice across the United States in every state that had the death penalty. </p>
<h2>Lethal injection’s troubles</h2>
<p>But right from the start, administering lethal injections proved to be a complex procedure that was difficult to get right. In fact, the <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/charlie-brooks-last-words/">first use of lethal injection by Texas in 1982</a> gave a foretaste of some of the problems that would later come to characterize the method of execution.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo shows a white gurney with straps in a bricked room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497726/original/file-20221128-13-taimz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lethal injection chambers have remained relatively unchanged since being introduced in Texas in 1982.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TexasDeptofCorrectionsExecutionRoom1982/00ea6690975145cca2dfd711504ce77e/photo?Query=lethal%20injection%201982&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=14&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Ed Kolenovsky</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Texas team charged with executing a prisoner named <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-execution-by-lethal-injection#:%7E:text=The%20first%20execution%20by%20lethal,when%20administered%20in%20lesser%20doses.">Charles Brooks</a> repeatedly <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/12/16/painful-questions-pbtbhe-execution-of-charles/">failed in their efforts to insert an IV</a> into a vein in his arm, splattering blood onto the sheet covering his body. And after the IV was secured and the drugs began to flow, Brooks seemed to experience considerable pain.</p>
<p>The difficulties in Brooks’ execution and in subsequent lethal injections result from the fact that medical ethics <a href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4294&context=flr">do not allow</a> doctors to take part in choosing the drugs or administering them. In the place of doctors, prison officials are responsible for the lethal injection procedure. In addition, dosages of the drugs used are <a href="https://people.howstuffworks.com/lethal-injection5.htm">standardized</a> rather than tailored to the needs of particular inmates as they would be in a medical procedure. As a result, sometimes the lethal injection drugs don’t work correctly. </p>
<p>Despite the effort to medicalize executions, the history of lethal injection has been anything but smooth, sterile and predictable. In fact, my research reveals that of the 1,054 executions carried out from 1982 to 2010 using the standard three-drug lethal injection protocol, more than 7% were botched.</p>
<p>Since then, owing in part to <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/12/how-the-drug-shortage-has-slowed-the-death-penalty-treadmill">difficulties death penalty states have had in acquiring drugs</a> for the standard three-drug protocol, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35871">things appear to have gotten worse</a>. States have turned to questionable drug suppliers, including compounding pharmacies that are <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/human-drug-compounding/compounding-and-fda-questions-and-answers#:%7E:text=Are%20compounded%20drugs%20approved%20by,safety%2C%20effectiveness%2C%20and%20quality.">not subject to extensive regulation by the Food and Drug Administration</a>.</p>
<p>In the last decade, states have used no less than 10 different drug combinations in lethal injections. Some of them were used multiple times, while others were used just once.</p>
<p>As states have experimented in the hope of finding a reliable drug protocol, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=35871">my research shows</a> that botched executions have occurred as much as 20% of the time, depending on which of the newer drug protocols is employed. </p>
<p>During some of those executions, inmates have cried out in pain and repeatedly gasped for breath long after they were supposed to have been rendered unconscious.</p>
<p>In September 2020, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/21/793177589/gasping-for-air-autopsies-reveal-troubling-effects-of-lethal-injection#:%7E:text=Most%20states%20use%20three%20drugs,as%20cruel%3F%22%20says%20Zivot.">an NPR investigation</a> helped explain the high rate of bungled executions. It found signs of pulmonary edema fluid filling the lungs in many of the post-lethal injection autopsies it reviewed. Those autopsies reveal that inmates’ lungs failed while they continued to try to breathe, causing them to feel as if they were drowning and suffocating.</p>
<h2>Responding to lethal injection’s problems</h2>
<p>Alabama now joins <a href="https://sanquentinnews.com/gov-mike-dewine-halts-executions-in-ohio/">Ohio</a> and <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2022/05/02/tennessee-governor-pauses-2022-executions-lethal-injection-review/9612950002/">Tennessee</a> as states that have paused executions and launched investigations after lethal injection failures. Other states <a href="https://account.thestate.com/paywall/subscriber-only?resume=251151894&intcid=ab_archive">have resurrected</a> previously discredited methods of execution – like electrocution or the firing squad – and added them to their menu of execution options on the books. </p>
<p>Lethal injection’s problems also have contributed to <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state">the decision of 11 states to abolish the death penalty since 2007</a>.</p>
<p>Reviewing the history of the different execution methods used in this country, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/16-602_n758.pdf">wrote in 2017</a>: “States develop a method of execution, which is generally accepted for a time. Science then reveals that … the states’ chosen method of execution causes unconstitutional levels of suffering.”</p>
<p>And, referring specifically to lethal injection and its problems, she observed, “What cruel irony that the method [of execution] that appears most humane may turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat 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>Alabama has paused the carrying out of death sentences after a series of cases in which the state struggled with the procedure.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788632022-03-23T17:46:45Z2022-03-23T17:46:45ZTornadoes, climate change and why Dixie is the new Tornado Alley<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450763/original/file-20220308-27-79zxp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C6144%2C4074&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The heart of U.S. tornado activity, once Tornado Alley, has shifted eastward.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/27906393336/in/gallery-194732561@N07-72157720311063131/">Brent Koops/NOAA Weather in Focus Photo Contest 2015</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Tornadoes and severe storms swept across the South in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/04/05/severe-thunderstorms-tornadoes-south-southeast/">early April</a> 2022, following <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tornadoes-ap-news-alert-florida-a9d5ab5e1479a40a486d436072884181">a deadly and destructive March</a> when <a href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/2022_annual_summary.html">over 200 tornadoes</a> were reported. The March numbers, still preliminary, would be a record for the month, though detection has also improved. Severe storms have damaged homes from <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/killed-severe-weather-spawns-30-tornadoes-states/story?id=83784060">Texas to Florida</a>, and north to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/04/05/severe-thunderstorms-tornadoes-south-southeast/">South Carolina</a> and <a href="https://weather.com/storms/severe/video/tornado-near-savannah-captured-on-video">Georgia</a> in recent weeks. We asked tornado scientist <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ernest-Agee">Ernest Agee</a> to explain what causes tornadoes and how the center of U.S. tornado activity has shifted eastward from the traditional Tornado Alley in recent years.</em></p>
<h2>What causes tornadoes?</h2>
<p>Tornadoes start with thunderstorms. Think of the thunderstorm as the parent of the tornado. When atmospheric conditions favor the development of severe storms, tornadoes can form.</p>
<p>The recipe for a tornado requires a few important ingredients: low-level heat and moisture and cold air aloft, coupled with a favorable wind field that increases in speed with height, as well as changes in the wind direction in the lower levels.</p>
<p>The right combination of heat, moisture and wind can develop rotating thunderstorms capable of spinning off a tornado or a tornado family. Thunderstorms capable of spinning off tornadoes typically develop along and ahead of a <a href="https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/html/fntcodestxt.html">frontal boundary</a> – where warm and cold air masses meet – often accompanied above by a <a href="https://scijinks.gov/jet-stream/">strong jet stream</a>.</p>
<h2>Why do tornado outbreaks seem to be getting more frequent and intense? Is climate change playing a role?</h2>
<p>Studies do show tornadoes getting <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-018-0048-2">more frequent, more intense and more likely to come in swarms</a>.</p>
<p>The most intense and longest-lasting tornadoes tend to come from what are known as <a href="https://www.weather.gov/ama/supercell">supercells</a> – powerful rotating thunderstorms. The <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news/december-2021-tornado-outbreak-explained">December 2021 outbreak, with more than 60 tornadoes</a> that swept across Kentucky and neighboring states, came from a supercell. The <a href="https://www.weather.gov/bmx/event_04272011">2011 outbreak in Alabama</a> was another.</p>
<p>All of this unfolds under the umbrella of global warming. While it’s still <a href="https://theconversation.com/tornadoes-and-climate-change-what-a-warming-world-means-for-deadly-twisters-and-the-type-of-storms-that-spawn-them-173645">hard for climate models to assess</a> something as small as a tornado, they do <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-018-0048-2">project increases in severe weather</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MJJG3-MVz1U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Forecasting tornadoes. NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s interesting is that despite that increase, the per capita death toll from tornadoes has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-18-0078.1">actually gone down</a> in the latter half of the past 100 years. So, as bad as these new outbreaks are, science and technology are saving lives at a faster rate than storms are killing people.</p>
<p>Scientists can now anticipate and forecast areas where tornadoes may develop. If you look at NOAA’s <a href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/">Storm Prediction Center website</a>, you’ll see eight-day outlooks now. That’s based on scientific knowledge and technology able to target where conditions conducive to tornadoes are developing.</p>
<p>People also <a href="https://abc11.com/tornado-warning-severe-weather-alerts-watch-vs-accuweather/5321358/">know what to do now</a> and are more likely to get warnings, and more homes have <a href="https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/risk-management/safe-rooms">safe rooms</a> able to withstand a tornado. Social media also plays a big role today. A few years ago, I had a student who was on his family’s farm when he got a text warning that a tornado was coming. He and his family got to safety just before the tornado hit.</p>
<h2>The Southeast seems to be getting a lot more severe storms. Has Tornado Alley shifted?</h2>
<p>In 2016, my students and I published the first paper that clearly showed, statistically, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-15-0342.1">emergence of another center of tornado activity</a> in the Southeast, centered around Alabama.</p>
<p>Oklahoma still has tornadoes, of course. But the statistical center has moved. Other research since then has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5285">found similar shifts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Map of U.S. showing tornado activity greatest from Louisiana through Alabama and north to Tennessee." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450797/original/file-20220308-21-1nm6thq.png?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">Mean number of days per year with a tornado registering EF1 strength or greater within 25 miles, 1986-2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/">NOAA Storm Prediction Center</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found a notable decrease in both the total number of tornadoes and days with tornadoes in the traditional Tornado Alley in the central plains. At the same time, we found an increase in tornado numbers in what’s been dubbed Dixie Alley, extending from Mississippi through Tennessee and Kentucky into southern Indiana.</p>
<p>In the Great Plains, drier air in the western boundary of traditional Tornado Alley probably has something to do with the fact that tornadoes are a declining risk in Oklahoma while wildfire risk is growing. </p>
<p>Research by other scientists suggests that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0011.1">dry line</a> between the wetter Eastern U.S. and the drier Western U.S., historically around the 100th meridian, has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1175/EI-D-17-0012.1">shifted eastward</a> by <a href="https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/04/11/the-100th-meridian-where-the-great-plains-used-to-begin-now-moving-east/">about 140 miles</a> since the late 1800s. The dry line can be a boundary for convection – the rising of warm air and sinking of colder air that can fuel storms.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1506617765347614725"}"></div></p>
<p>While scientists don’t have a full picture of the role climate change may be playing, we can certainly say we live in a warmer climate, and that a warming climate provides many of the ingredients for severe storms.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-youresmart">Read The Conversation daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a></em>.]</p>
<p><em>This article was updated April 6, 2022, with more severe storms and tornadoes across the South.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ernest Agee 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>Studies show tornadoes are getting more common and more intense, and they’re shifting eastward to a new tornado hot spot.Ernest Agee, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science, Purdue UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1788482022-03-09T16:10:31Z2022-03-09T16:10:31ZSupreme Court inches towards deciding whether state legislatures can draw congressional districts largely free of court oversight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450824/original/file-20220308-21-1twpw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C16%2C5526%2C3684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Which branch has the power to rewrite congressional maps?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-us-supreme-court-is-seen-in-washington-dc-on-february-8-news-photo/1238293782?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To what extent can state or federal courts limit how state legislatures draw congressional districts? </p>
<p>It is a substantial question with huge implications for future elections and voting rights in America. But the Supreme Court has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-rebuffs-republicans-electoral-map-disputes-2022-03-07/">decided not to answer it</a> – for now, at least. But on March 7, 2022, justices suggested that the question will be answered sooner rather than later, perhaps even before the 2024 presidential election.</p>
<p>In two orders, the justices <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/us/supreme-court-voting-maps.html">refused requests from Republicans in Pennsylvania and North Carolina</a> to block court-approved congressional maps to replace ones designed by Republican-led legislatures in both states. </p>
<p>The decisions are consistent with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/supreme-courts-ruling-on-alabama-voting-map-could-open-the-door-to-a-new-wild-west-of-state-redistricting-176950">court’s February order</a> that halted a court injunction seeking to bar Alabama from using a congressional map that critics say disadvantages Black voters. </p>
<p>That order benefited Alabama Republicans. The ones that came down on March 7 will likely help Democrats in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. But all the orders were based on the same principle: America is too close to the 2022 elections for federal courts to demand legislatures redraw congressional maps to be used in those elections.</p>
<p>Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said as much in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a455_5if6.pdf">his written concurrence</a> in the North Carolina case: “It is too late for the federal courts to order that the district lines be changed for the 2022 primary and general elections, just as it was too late for the federal courts to do so in the Alabama redistricting case last month.”</p>
<p>But perhaps of more significance, he, along with the three dissenting justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – suggested that the question of how closely courts can regulate how state legislatures draw congressional maps was one that would return. </p>
<p>“The issue is almost certain to keep arising until the court definitively resolves it,” wrote Kavanaugh. “We will have to resolve this question sooner or later, and the sooner we do so, the better,” added <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a455_5if6.pdf">the trio of dissenting justices</a> in the separate opinion.</p>
<h2>Independent state legislature doctrine</h2>
<p>The court is clearly inching toward a showdown over what is known as the “<a href="https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5885&context=flr">independent state legislature doctrine</a>.”</p>
<p>This is a legal theory in vogue largely <a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39373459/supreme-court-north-carolina-map-samuel-alito/">among conservative circles</a> that holds that state legislatures have an independent right to draw congressional districts free of much court oversight. The theory is based on the Constitution’s grant of authority to state legislatures to determine “the times, places and manner” of holding elections.</p>
<p>The independent state legislature doctrine is controversial, and may be inconsistent with Chief Justice John Roberts’s 2019 opinion in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/18-422">Rucho v Common Cause</a>. In that case, which also centered on a congressional map in North Carolina, Roberts argued that partisan gerrymandering presented political questions that go beyond the reach of federal courts. He suggested states could address the issue through legislation that could then be enforced by courts.</p>
<p>However, a particularly legislature friendly version of the independent state legislature doctrine could limit how courts could curb partisan gerrymandering in congressional elections – and that will be of great concern to voters’ rights advocates.</p>
<p>It now seems only a matter of time before the Supreme Court addresses the theory. Four of the nine justices must agree to hear a case for one to be taken up. The opinions on March 7, 2022, suggest the court has the numbers. </p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178848/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry L. Chambers Jr. 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>Justices declined GOP requests to block court-approved congressional maps in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. But justices punted a bigger question over the role of courts until after the midterm elections.Henry L. Chambers Jr., Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1769502022-02-11T13:30:30Z2022-02-11T13:30:30ZSupreme Court’s ruling on Alabama voting map could open the door to a new Wild West of state redistricting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445853/original/file-20220211-25-bieqjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C5760%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not every vote is counted equal.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sadie-janes-shows-off-her-voting-sticker-after-casting-her-news-photo/1204917605?adppopup=true">Joshua Lott/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. Supreme Court’s order <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/us/politics/supreme-court-alabama-redistricting-congressional-map.html">allowing Alabama to use a congressional map</a> that critics say <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdznq/alabama-congressional-map-blocked">disadvantages Black voters</a> has <a href="https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/02/09/supreme-court-ruling-alabama-redistricting-black-voters-voting-rights-act/6722894001/">voting rights advocates worried</a> – and understandably so.</p>
<p>On the surface, the stay issued Feb. 7, 2022, in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a375_d18f.pdf">Merrill v. Milligan</a> was procedural. In a 5-4 decision, the justices halted a <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2022/02/federal-court-prepares-for-possibility-of-drawing-new-alabama-congressional-map.html">district court’s injunction</a> that had barred Alabama from using a newly redistricted map in the upcoming 2022 elections. The Supreme Court will hear the full case in its next term starting in the fall, with the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-courts-alabama-ruling-signals-new-threat-voting-rights-law-2022-02-08/">ruling due by the end of June 2023</a> – after this year’s midterm elections.</p>
<p>Had it stood, the district court’s injunction would have required Alabama to <a href="https://www.al.com/news/2022/02/federal-court-prepares-for-possibility-of-drawing-new-alabama-congressional-map.html">redraw congressional districts</a> ahead of the election to give Black voters greater representation. Instead, Black voters – <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/AL">more than a quarter of Alabama’s electorate</a> – will be the majority in just one of seven districts.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court’s order could have a significant, substantive effect on the 2022 midterm elections – and not just in Alabama. In allowing the state to use a voting map adopted in late 2021 that a court has ruled unlawful soon after passage, the Supreme Court is sending a signal to other states regarding the lack of review available regarding problematic maps they may draw.</p>
<h2>Expanding Purcell</h2>
<p>The justices’ decision rests on <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/election-law-explainers/the-purcell-principle-a-presumption-against-last-minute-changes-to-election-procedures/">the Purcell principle</a> – a rule the Supreme Court created in 2006 when vacating a Court of Appeals decision to block Arizona’s voter ID law a month before the upcoming general election.</p>
<p>In their ruling in the case <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2006/06-532">Purcell v. Gonzalez</a>, justices said federal courts should not interfere with state election processes close to a general election because doing so would confuse voters and burden election officials.</p>
<p>The latest ruling by the Supreme Court in Merrill appears to expand the scope of the Purcell rule significantly.</p>
<p>The Merrill ruling does not appear to track Purcell. The district court’s injunction in Merrill was the result of a full review of Alabama’s congressional redistricting plan. The district court heard seven days of testimony and read a substantial volume of briefings before reaching its decision.</p>
<p>At the conclusion of the case – handled at warp speed for a federal court – the district court wrote an opinion of more than 200 pages explaining in detail the law and facts underlying its decision. </p>
<p>Moreover, the injunction against Alabama’s redistricting plan was <a href="https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/PRELIMINARY-INJUNCTION-MEMORANDUM-OPINION-AND-ORDER.-Signed-by-Judge-Anna-M-Manasco-on-1_24_2022.-1.pdf">issued on Jan. 24, 2022</a> – more than nine months before voting in Alabama’s general election ends on Nov. 8, 2022.</p>
<p>In contrast, the Court of Appeals in Purcell had enjoined the use of the Arizona voter ID law without explanation mere weeks before that year’s general election. </p>
<h2>Novel reading of the Voting Rights Act</h2>
<p>This apparent expansion of the Purcell principle is more than just a technical change. It could have a tangible impact on the election results in Alabama.</p>
<p>At the heart of the case is a dispute over whether Alabama must redraw its congressional districts to provide a second seat in which Black voters form the majority. The current map contains one such district. </p>
<p>That issue reaches the heart of the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=100">1965’s Voting Rights Act</a> and could affect Black Alabamians’ ability to elect their representatives of choice.</p>
<p>In Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a375_d18f.pdf">concurrence with the court’s order</a>, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, he suggested the stay of the injunction stopping Alabama from using its map is sensible, in part, because the plaintiffs are not clearly going to win the underlying case when it comes before the Court.</p>
<p>Justice John Roberts <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a375_d18f.pdf#page=8">dissented from the stay</a>, noting the district court appears to have applied the law correctly and left nothing for the Supreme Court to correct.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Justice Elena Kagan’s <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a375_d18f.pdf#page=10">dissent</a> – which was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor – argued the underlying merits in the challenge to Alabama appear so clear that the Court’s majority would need to employ a novel reading of the Voting Rights Act to make the case appear debatable.</p>
<h2>Tilting elections</h2>
<p>The court’s order in Merrill suggests that the window for deciding the legality of redistricting measures before the 2022 elections has now closed.</p>
<p>That likely sends a message to all states – those that have not finished redistricting and those that may wish to revise their redistricted maps – that they can pass whatever maps they want, possibly tilting the 2022 congressional election, without fear of being overruled in federal court. </p>
<p>[<em>Understand key political developments, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=politics&source=inline-politics-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s politics newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henry L. Chambers Jr. 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>Alabama will be allowed to keep a congressional map that critics say disadvantages Black voters. That does not bode well for 2022 midterms, argues a law scholar.Henry L. Chambers Jr., Professor of Law, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1663242021-08-27T12:31:27Z2021-08-27T12:31:27ZTikTok, #BamaRush and the irresistible allure of mocking Southern accents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417869/original/file-20210825-19-1bffixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=211%2C30%2C2548%2C1840&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of Alabama's Alpha Phi sorority runs out of Bryant-Denny Stadium during bid day in 2014.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AlabamaSororities/2f63d36f739d40aea211a77cb69ac367/photo?Query=alabama%20AND%20sorority&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=50&currentItemNo=26">AP Photo/Brynn Anderson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As college students across the country return to campuses grappling with the COVID-19 delta variant, Greek letters of a different variety have captivated social media feeds with stunning virality.</p>
<p>The #BamaRush trend on TikTok introduced followers to the annual recruitment process for <a href="http://www.npcwomen.org/">National Panhellenic Conference</a> sororities at the University of Alabama. The popular videos offer a firsthand perspective on the recruitment process, showcasing the various events and the women’s corresponding fashion choices – the “outfit of the day,” or #OOTD – for each stage.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/style/bama-rush-explained.html">this phenomenon</a> came to my attention, I noticed that TikTok’s algorithm fed me not only the posts of women participating in #BamaRush but also <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@i_delz/video/6994805208417111302?is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">parody videos</a> made by people glued to the unfolding events.</p>
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<p>In these videos, I immediately observed a fixation on the women’s accents, which <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/daily/alabama-sorority-rush-tiktok-bamarush">one reporter</a> described as “thick” and “heavy.” </p>
<p>Having been born and raised in northeast Georgia and educated in North Carolina, I was quite young when I intuited that, if I were to be taken seriously as an actor, a scholar and a human, my accent would have to go. By the time I arrived in New York in 2006, I had successfully erased most markers of my Southernness from my speech. What remained I was able to surgically remove after receiving notes and feedback from directors and coaches. </p>
<p><a href="https://theatre.utk.edu/people/katie-cunningham/">Now I teach voice and speech</a> to actors in a theater program in the South, and I think a lot about how people perceive the native speech varieties of this region. What’s behind this enduring fascination with – and thinly veiled disdain for – some Southern American accents?</p>
<h2>Sorority culture rife with issues</h2>
<p>I speak from personal experience about sorority culture because, for a short time, I was a member of one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I experienced recruitment from within and witnessed some of the problematic aspects of this system. My sophomore year, I formally withdrew – what’s called “<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/10-things-to-know-about-dropping-your-sorority">de-sistering</a>.”</p>
<p>During the flood of media coverage of the #BamaRush trend, Slate’s ICYMI podcast did an <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2021/08/alabama-rush-tiktok-videos-explained.html">explainer episode</a> addressing all the “-isms” inherent to certain Greek organizations, including racism, sexism, classism and weight discrimination.</p>
<p>In fact, the University of Alabama’s own student newspaper, The Crimson White, <a href="https://cw.ua.edu/16498/news/the-final-barrier-50-years-later-segregation-still-exists/">published an article</a> in 2013 that investigated racism in sorority recruitment, spurring <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/17/sorority-segregation-ended-university-alabama">a process of integration</a>. (Yes, in 2013!) </p>
<p>To be clear: There are plenty of things to criticize about the National Panhellenic Conference’s sorority culture.</p>
<p>Accents, however, aren’t one of them.</p>
<h2>Inside the #BamaRush accents</h2>
<p>Among the #BamaRush vloggers, one who garnered intense attention during the unfolding recruitment process was Makayla Culpepper, whose <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@whatwouldjimmybuffettdo/video/6994056773153967365?is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">pronunciation of “philanthropy”</a> in an early round was the subject of much mockery. In fact, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@whatwouldjimmybuffettdo/video/6996715146299067654?is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">she credits</a> this pronunciation as the genesis of her newfound internet stardom. Culpepper, who is biracial, was <a href="https://www.seventeen.com/life/school/a37291501/alabama-rush-tiktok/">subsequently dropped</a> from recruitment under dubious circumstances.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1426906951837958144"}"></div></p>
<p>Other pronunciations that have <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@gabbyyhorne/video/6997066057445838085?traffic_type=google&referer_url=amp_bamarushtok&referer_video_id=6997066057445838085&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">piqued the interest</a> of onlookers include words in what linguists and accent coaches call the PRICE <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_set">lexical set</a>, a category of words that are generally pronounced with the same vowel sound in their stressed syllable. </p>
<p>Several of the #BamaRush TikTokkers pronounce words in the PRICE set – such as “bite,” “rice,” “my” and “right” – with a single vowel that sounds something like “ah.” This differs from the way these words are pronounced in a <a href="https://vimeo.com/75961485">so-called General American</a> accent, in which a speaker glides through two different vowel sounds, resulting in something like “aight” in “right.” Some of the women’s pronunciations of “on” and “own” are nearly indistinguishable, <a href="https://www.southerncultures.org/article/on-and-on-appalachian-accent-and-academic-power/">another marker of some dialects of Southern American English</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://bittersoutherner.com/with-drawl#.YSahZS2cbs0">The quality described as Southern drawl</a> may be related to the way some speakers vocalize words like “dress” and “hair” with a lengthened glide between vowels and syllable break: “dray-ess” and “hay-ur.”</p>
<p>It is questionable to connect the undeniably performative aspects of these videos – the fashion shows, the bid day envelope opening <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@hannahmorris2/video/6996761679719582982?is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">videos</a>, the choreographed <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@ebbabyyy/video/6995531572199836933?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">dorm room introductions</a> – with the mistaken idea that these accents are part of the performance. When investigating the #BamaRush trend, I heard these women described more than once as “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@torikonchel/video/6995003127602613510?lang=en&is_copy_url=0&is_from_webapp=v1&sender_device=pc&sender_web_id=6904819716789044741">characters</a>” in an unfolding “drama.” </p>
<p>But this is not a scripted series with characters or a reality show with contestants. They are not playing at sounding like this. It’s just their speech. And speech is essential to identity.</p>
<h2>The cost of satirizing Southern accents</h2>
<p>In 2019, an episode of the podcast series <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/dolly-partons-america/episodes/dolly-partons-america-episode">Dolly Parton’s America</a> included interviews with students at my institution, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In it, they shared their encounters with the realities of linguistic bias. As one interviewee noted, her own mother cautioned her: “If you want people to take you seriously, we’re going to have to work on the way you talk.” </p>
<p>One cost of scoffing at Southern accents is the ceaseless perpetuation of negative stereotypes about Southern people. <a href="https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J_DeJesus_Northern_2013.pdf">A 2013 study</a> found that by the age of 9 or 10, all children – including Southern children – identified Northern-accented speakers as sounding “smarter,” which indicates that they’re internalizing stereotypes about speech at a young age. </p>
<p>Psycholinguist <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/How_You_Say_It/pkSvDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Katherine Kinzler</a> has also shown that accent-based biases may be tied to the mistaken assumption that speakers should be able to adjust their speech to conform to societal norms. Kinzler argues that this “perception of controllability” is at the root of weight- and mental health-based stigmas as well. </p>
<p>Furthermore, most mockery of Southern accents underestimates the <a href="https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/LDC2012S03">linguistic diversity</a> of the South and creates the false perception that Southern accents are all the same. In addition, <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article-abstract/93/3-4/497/136131/Southern-Speech-With-A-Northern-AccentPerformance?redirectedFrom=fulltext">research shows</a> that most accent imitations are not especially accurate. There is a reason accent and dialect coaches are specially trained to help actors do this work respectfully and convincingly. </p>
<p>The harm of stereotypical accent imitations is one familiar to many whose speech exists outside the accepted “standard,” like speakers of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-American-English">African American English</a> and those for whom English is a second language. The same forces that reduce Southern speech to a uniform monolith also run the risk of reducing the idea of “Southernness” to a single stereotype: white, unintelligent, bigoted. This discounts the diversity of the South, and the significant cultural and political power of Black Southerners, who make up large shares of the populations of many Southern states – <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/AL">including Alabama</a>.</p>
<p>So why should people care about Southern accents being the butt of viral jokes? </p>
<p>Ignoring the way that speech and identity are so inextricably linked erases the people behind the voices. Going after these women’s accents when there is much about the institutions themselves to legitimately critique feels like punching down. This is especially true when the accent is played only for laughs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166324/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author was a member of an NPC sorority from 2001-2002.</span></em></p>There’s plenty to critique about sorority culture. But going after Southern accents is punching down.Kathryn Cunningham, Assistant Professor of Theatre, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1539692021-02-05T18:27:51Z2021-02-05T18:27:51ZSlave-built infrastructure still creates wealth in US, suggesting reparations should cover past harms and current value of slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382613/original/file-20210204-14-1kyoub7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C23%2C5301%2C3520&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Port of Savannah used to export cotton picked by enslaved laborers and brought from Alabama to Georgia on slave-built railways. Cotton is still a top product processed through this port.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/shipping-in-the-port-of-savannah-savannah-georgia-news-photo/144072885?adppopup=true">Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4978">American cities</a> from Atlanta to New York City still use <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/11/26/how-slave-labor-built-and-financed-major-u-s-cities/">buildings, roads, ports and rail lines</a> built by enslaved people. </p>
<p>The fact that centuries-old relics of slavery still support the economy of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">United States</a> suggests that <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/anti.12704">reparations for slavery</a> would need to go beyond government payments to the ancestors of enslaved people to account for profit-generating, slave-built infrastructure. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/from-40-acres-and-a-mule-to-lbj-to-the-2020-election-a-brief-history-of-slavery-reparation-promises-114547">Debates about compensating Black Americans for slavery</a> began soon after the Civil War, in the 1860s, with promises of “40 acres and a mule.” A national conversation about reparations has reignited in recent decades. The <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/reparations-definition-2020-candidates/590863/">definition of reparations varies</a>, but most advocates envision it as a two-part reckoning that acknowledges the role slavery played in building the country and directs resources to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist">communities impacted by slavery</a>. </p>
<p>Through our <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yi48Sl4AAAAJ&hl=en">geographic</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=s4pLMm0AAAAJ&hl=en">urban planning</a> scholarship, we document the contemporary infrastructure created by enslaved Black workers. Our study of what we call the “landscape of race” shows how the globally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/slavery-capitalism.html">dominant economy of the United States</a> traces directly back to slavery. </p>
<h2>Looking again at railroads</h2>
<p>While difficult to calculate, <a href="https://railroads.unl.edu/views/item/slavery_rr">scholars estimate</a> that much of the physical infrastructure built before 1860 in the American South was built with enslaved labor. </p>
<p>Railways were particularly critical infrastructure. According to “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442262287/The-American-South-A-History-Volume-1-From-Settlement-to-Reconstruction-Fifth-Edition">The American South</a>,” an in-depth history of the region, railroads “offered solutions to the geographic barriers that segmented the South,” including swamps, mountains and rivers. For inland planters needing to get goods to port, trains were “the elemental precondition to better times.”</p>
<p>Our archival research on Montgomery, Alabama, shows that enslaved workers built and maintained the Montgomery Eufaula Railroad. This 81-mile-long railroad, begun in 1859, connected Montgomery to the Central Georgia Line, which served both Alabama’s fertile <a href="https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/money/business/2014/11/07/cotton-dominates-montgomerys-early-history/18634383/">cotton-growing region</a> – cotton picked by enslaved hands – and the textile mills of Georgia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Sepia-toned lithograph of six Black men and women in sunhats and overalls in a cotton field" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382777/original/file-20210205-20-1q117t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Picking cotton outside Savannah, Ga., in 1867.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lccn.loc.gov/2015650292">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Eufala Railroad also gave Alabama commercial access to the Port of Savannah. <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/atlantic-slave-trade-savannah">Savannah was a key cotton and rice</a> trading port, and slavery was integral to the growth of the city. </p>
<p>Today, Savannah’s deep-water port remains one <a href="https://gaports.com/press-releases/savannah-top-port-for-u-s-exports/">of the busiest container ports in the U.S.</a> Among its top exports: cotton. </p>
<p>The Eufala Railroad closed in the 1970s. But the company that funded its construction – Lehman Durr & Co., a prominent Southern cotton brokerage – existed well into the 20th century. </p>
<p>Examining court affidavits and city records located in the Montgomery city archive, we learned the Montgomery Eufaula Railroad Company received US$1.8 million in loans from Lehman Durr & Co. The main backers of Lehman Durr & Co. went on to found Lehman Brothers bank, one of Wall Street’s <a href="https://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/26/17-major-companies-never-knew-benefited-slavery/">largest investment banks</a> until it collapsed in 2008, in the U.S. financial crisis. </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>Slave-built railroads also gave rise to Georgia’s largest city, Atlanta. In the 1830s, Atlanta was the <a href="https://www.atlantaga.gov/visitors/history#:%7E:text=Atlanta%20was%20founded%20in%201837,%2D%2D%20as%20in%20the%20railroad">terminus of a rail line that extended into the Midwest</a>. </p>
<p>Some of these same rail lines still drive Georgia’s economy. According to a <a href="https://www.georgia.org/sites/default/files/wp-uploads/2016/03/2013_Georgia_Logistics_Report-FULL.pdf">2013 state report</a>, railways that went through Georgia in 2012 carried over US$198 billion in agricultural products and raw materials needed for U.S. industry and manufacturing.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white image of an old train depot" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382779/original/file-20210205-17-1j3wt4n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&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 1872 Vicksburg & Brunswick Depot, a passenger and freight station in Eufala, served the Eufala and Georgia Central rail lines, among others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/habshaer/al/al1300/al1302/photos/193383pv.jpg">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rethinking reparations</h2>
<p>Savannah, Atlanta and Montgomery all show how, far from being an artifact of history, as some <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/case-against-reparations-slavery">critics of reparations suggest</a>, slavery has a tangible presence in the American economy. </p>
<p>And not just in the South. Wall Street, in <a href="https://www.nycurbanism.com/blog/2019/6/18/a-short-history-of-slavery-in-nyc">New York City</a>, is associated with the trading of stocks. But in the 18th century, enslaved people were <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49476247">bought and sold there</a>. Even after New York closed its slave markets, local businesses sold and shipped cotton grown in the slaveholding South.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black-and-white lithograph of a wide street lined with large buildings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382616/original/file-20210204-16-hl2pv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wall Street around 1850.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nypl.getarchive.net/media/wall-street-faac73">New York Public Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Geographic research like ours could inform thinking on monetary reparations by helping to calculate the ongoing financial value of slavery. </p>
<p>Like scholarship drawing the connection between slavery and <a href="https://civilrightstrail.com/attraction/the-legacy-museum-from-enslavement-to-mass-incarceration/">modern mass incarceration</a>, however, our work also suggests that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/business/economy/reparations-slavery.html">direct payments to indviduals</a> cannot truly account for the modern legacy of slavery. It points toward a broader concept of reparations that reflects how slavery is built into the American landscape, still generating wealth.</p>
<p>Such reparations might include government investments in aspects of American life where Black people face disparities. </p>
<p>Last year the city council in Asheville, North Carolina, voted for “reparations in the form of community investment.” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/054c0c9061e168d4a685b71e9bb3aa95">Priorities could include</a> efforts to increase access to affordable housing and boost minority business ownership. Asheville will also explore strategies to close the racial gap in health care. </p>
<p>It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to calculate the total contemporary economic impact of slavery. But we see recognizing that enslaved men, women and children built many of the <a href="https://notevenpast.org/slavery-and-freedom-in-savannah/">cities</a>, rail lines and ports that fuel the American economy as a necessary part of any such accounting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua F.J. Inwood's research was made possible by a grant from Penn State and UC Berkeley. He knocked on doors for Joe Biden's presidential campaign in the 2020 election. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was made possible with research support from the University of California, Berkeley. Anna Livia Brand is affiliated with the Democratic Party and volunteered for the 2020 election. </span></em></p>Geographers are documenting slave-built infrastructure, from railroads to ports, in use today. Such work could influence the reparations debate by showing how slavery still props up the US economy.Joshua F.J. Inwood, Associate Professor of Geography Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn StateAnna Livia Brand, Assistant Professor, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1460672020-10-28T12:25:18Z2020-10-28T12:25:18ZScientists at work: Sloshing through marshes to see how birds survive hurricanes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365956/original/file-20201027-15-1o2njm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C1280%2C931&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A clapper rail with a fiddler crab in its bill.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Gray</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When hurricanes menace the Gulf Coast, residents know the drill: Board up windows, clear storm drains, gas up the car and stock up on water, batteries and canned goods.</p>
<p>But how does wildlife ride out a hurricane? Animals that live along coastlines have evolved to deal with a world where conditions can change radically. This year, however, the places they inhabit have borne the brunt of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/26/zeta-louisiana-florida-flooding/">10 named storms</a>, some just a few weeks apart.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jJytBnoAAAAJ&hl=en">wildlife</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mark_Woodrey">ecologists</a>, we are interested in how species respond to stresses in their environment. We are currently studying how marsh birds such as <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Clapper_Rail/overview">clapper rails</a> (<em>Rallus crepitans</em>) have adapted to tropical storms along the Alabama and Mississippi Gulf coast. Understanding how they do this entails wading into marshes and thinking like a small, secretive bird. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Least bittern in marsh grass" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365955/original/file-20201027-13-1op6sa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=770&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 least bittern, one of the smallest species of heron.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Gray</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Mucky and full of life</h2>
<p>Coastal wetlands are <a href="https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/habitat-conservation/coastal-wetlands-too-valuable-lose">critically important ecosystems</a>. They harbor fish, shellfish and wading birds, filter water as it flows through and buffer coastlines against flooding. </p>
<p>You wouldn’t choose a Gulf Coast salt marsh for a casual stroll. There are sharp-pointed plants, such as <a href="https://plants.usda.gov/factsheet/pdf/fs_juro.pdf">black needlerush</a>, and sucking mud. In summer and early fall the marshes are oppressively hot and humid. Bacteria and fungi in the mud break down dead material, generating sulfurous-smelling gases. But once you get used to the conditions, you realize how productive these places are, with a myriad of organisms moving about. </p>
<p>Marsh birds are adept at hiding in dense grasses, so it’s more common to hear them than to see them. That’s why we use a process known as a callback survey to monitor for them. </p>
<p>First we play a prerecorded set of calls to elicit responses from birds in the marsh. Then we determine where we think the birds are calling from and visually estimate the distance from the observer to that spot, often using tools such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_rangefinder">laser range finders</a>. We also note the type of ecosystem where we detect the birds – for example, whether they’re in a tidal marsh with emergent vegetation or out in the open on mud flats.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y3b9fOUrdzQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Adult clapper rail calling.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through this process we’ve been able to estimate the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1672/08-174.1">distributions of several species</a> in tidal marshes, including clapper rails, <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Least_Bittern/overview">least bitterns</a> (<em>Ixobrychus exilis</em>) and <a href="https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/seaside_sparrow">seaside sparrows</a> (<em>Ammospiza maritima</em>). We’ve also plotted trends in their abundance and identified how their numbers can change with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-018-1082-x">characteristics of the marsh</a>. </p>
<p>We’ve walked hundreds of miles through marshes to locate nests and to record data such as nest height, density of surrounding vegetation and proximity to standing water, which provides increased foraging opportunities for rails. Then we revisit the nests to document whether they produce young that hatch and eventually leave. Success isn’t guaranteed: Predators may eat the eggs, or flooding could wash them out of the nest and kill the developing embryos inside. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3E32JHYSdSU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Salt marshes shelter many types of plants, birds, animals, fish and shellfish.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Rails in the grass</h2>
<p>Our research currently focuses on clapper rails, which look like slender chickens with grayish-brown feathers and short tails. Like many other marsh birds, they have longish legs and toes for walking across soft mud, and long bills for probing the marsh surface in search of food. They are found year-round along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. </p>
<p>Clapper rails typically live in tidal marshes where there is vegetation to hide in and plenty of fiddler crabs, among <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12237-010-9281-6">their frequent foods</a>. Because they are generally common and rely on coastal marshes, they are a good indicator of the health of these coastal areas. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scientist in marsh holding live Clapper Rail" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365944/original/file-20201027-14-smv7k7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ecologist Scott Rush with clapper rail, Pascagoula River Marshes, Mississippi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Woodrey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Water levels in tidal marshes change daily, and clapper rails have some adaptations that help them thrive there. They often build nests in areas with particularly tall vegetation to hide them from predators. And they can raise the height of the nest bowl to protect it against flooding during <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/cond.2010.090078">extra-high or “king” tides and storms</a>. The embryos inside their eggs can survive even if the eggs are submerged for several hours. </p>
<p>When a tropical storm strikes, many factors – including wind speed, flooding and the storm’s position – influence how severely it will affect marsh birds. Typically birds ride out storms by moving to higher areas of the marsh. However, if a storm generates extensive flooding, birds in affected areas may swim or be blown to other locations. We saw this in early June when Hurricane Cristobal <a href="https://www.wlox.com/2020/06/09/marsh-birds-blown-by-cristobal-out-place-beach/">blew hundreds of clapper rails onto beaches</a> in parts of coastal Mississippi. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Clapper rails hiding under a breakwater" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365938/original/file-20201027-18-1okc6s.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">Clapper rails on a Mississippi beach after Hurricane Cristobal in June 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Woodrey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In coastal areas immediately to the east of the eye of a tropical cyclone we typically see a drop in clapper rail populations in the following spring and summer. This happens because the counterclockwise rotation of the storms results in the highest winds and storm surge to the north and east of the eye of the storm. </p>
<p>But typically there’s a strong bout of breeding and a population rebound within a year or so – evidence that these birds are quick to adapt. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005, however, depending on the type of marsh, it took several years for rail populations to return to their pre-Katrina levels. </p>
<p>Now we’re radio-tagging clapper rails and collecting data that allow us to determine the birds’ life spans. This information helps us estimate when large numbers of birds have died – information that we can correlate with events like coastal hurricanes.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="2020 Atlantic hurricane paths" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365873/original/file-20201027-17-x8plpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Summary map of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, updated Oct. 27.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Atlantic_hurricane_season#/media/File:2020_Atlantic_hurricane_season_summary_map.png">Master0Garfield/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Losing parts</h2>
<p>Tropical storms have shaped coastal ecosystems since long before recorded history. But over the past 150 years humans have complicated the picture. Coastal development – draining marshes, building roads and reinforcing shorelines – is altering natural places that support marsh birds. </p>
<p>Clapper rails and other species have evolved traits that help them offset population losses due to natural disasters. But they can do so only if the ecosystems where they live keep providing them with food, breeding habitat and protection from predators. Coastal development, in combination with <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level">rising sea levels</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920849117">larger tropical storms</a>, can act like a one-two punch, making it increasingly hard for marshes and the species that live in them to recover.</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>Biologist Paul Ehrlich has compared species at risk to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1313377">rivets on an airplane</a>. You might not need every rivet in place for the airplane to fly, but would you fly it through a cyclone if you knew that 10% of its rivets were missing? What about 20%, or 30%? At some point, Ehrlich asserts, nature could lose so many species that it becomes unable to provide valuable services that humans take for granted.</p>
<p>We see coastal marshes as an airplane that humans are piloting through storms. As species and ecosystem services are pummeled, rivets are failing. No one knows where or how the aircraft will land. But we believe that preserving marshes instead of weakening them can improve the chance of a smooth landing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Rush receives funding from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Woodrey receives funding from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. </span></em></p>Birds found along the Gulf Coast have evolved to ride out hurricanes and tropical storms. But with development degrading the marshes where they live, it’s getting harder for them to bounce back.Scott Rush, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Management, Mississippi State UniversityMark Woodrey, Assistant Research Professor, Mississippi State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1183192019-06-17T11:21:56Z2019-06-17T11:21:56ZNo African American has won statewide office in Mississippi in 129 years – here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279000/original/file-20190611-32366-1jnq6sg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People waited outside the Supreme Court in 2013 to listen to the Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder voting rights case.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/States-Voting-Rights/9cc3794c332d4b88862c51387c19e31a/17/0">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mississippi is home to the highest percentage of African Americans of any state in the country.</p>
<p>And yet, Mississippi hasn’t elected an African American candidate to statewide office since 1890.</p>
<p>That’s 129 years.</p>
<p>John Stuart Mill wrote about “the tyranny of the majority” – the idea that an electoral majority will use the political structure to impose its will on the minority population – in his essay <a href="https://academyofideas.com/2013/08/john-stuart-mill-on-liberty/">“On Liberty” in 1859</a>. </p>
<p>Mill could have used the way Mississippi chooses statewide offices as the symbol of this tyranny. Mississippi requires winners to receive more than 50% of the votes. When no one receives a majority, the Mississippi legislature, not the voters, chooses the winner.</p>
<p>In late May 2019, <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3ad297610e314e4a863ebb521b98efd0">four African American Mississippians</a> sued in federal court to end this practice, which they say was designed to keep black candidates from winning. </p>
<p>“The scheme has its basis in racism – an 1890 post-Reconstruction attempt to keep African Americans out of statewide office,” <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/lawsuit-calls-mississippis-choosing-governors-racist-63377648">said former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder</a>, the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group backing the lawsuit. </p>
<p>As a professor of political science who has written about African Americans <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-384542804/the-role-of-a-voting-record-for-african-american-candidates">seeking</a> <a href="http://gpsa-online.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/QiP_Volume-II_20141.pdf">elected office</a>, I’m especially interested in barriers to minority candidates running for office.</p>
<p>Let’s look at what happens when candidates have to win a majority of votes, or compete in large geographical areas – not just in Mississippi, but around the country.</p>
<h2>Case study: Georgia</h2>
<p>One interesting example is Georgia.</p>
<p>My co-author, Seth Golden, recently presented his research on county elections in Georgia at <a href="https://www.tuskegee.edu/Content/Uploads/Tuskegee/files/News/4th-Annual-POLSCI-Symposium.pdf">an undergraduate political science research symposium</a>. His work shows that at-large districts – where <a href="https://www.nonprofitvote.org/bias-large-elections-works/">all or most candidates must run city or countywide</a> – were statistically unlikely to provide African American representation.</p>
<p>In 2013, Ariel Hart, Jeff Ernsthausen and David Wickert, reporters for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution looked at how at-large districts affected minority representation in Georgia. They <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/disputed-voting-system-racial-power-gap-persist/xwhYqMwM2eGa1kCqMjo2IJ/">found that</a> “more than 100 counties elect at least one commissioner at large, meaning by countywide vote. Sixty percent of voters in those at-large contests are white; 92 percent of commissioners who hold the seats are white.” </p>
<p>Our research updates their study, looking at minority voting and representation in several Georgia counties in 2019. Of the six from the AJC that were included in our updated analysis, only one – Rockdale County – has any African American representation on the county commission. Rockdale County has 52% African American population – a majority.</p>
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<p>Our work and that of others shows that these at-large districts make it harder for minority groups to gain power because it takes more money and organization to win them.</p>
<p>The problem isn’t limited to just Mississippi, Georgia or even to the state level. Many cities and counties – including <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/california-s-latinos-asian-americans-target-city-councils-district-elections-n879376">some in California</a> – require candidates to carry a majority of the district in order to win.</p>
<h2>Bolden’s case</h2>
<p>Even when minorities make up nearly 40% of the electorate, an at-large district can easily produce an all-white council.</p>
<p>In fact, the at-large district had been the subject of a landmark Supreme Court case. In 1976, Wiley Bolden, an African American, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1978/77-1844">sued Mobile, Alabama, and its at-large district system</a> which was enacted in 1911. Bolden argued that while 36.2% of the city was black, nobody on the city commission was black, which he said was a violation of <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/history-federal-voting-rights-laws">the Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>.</p>
<p>Though the Federal District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed with Bolden, the Supreme Court overturned their decision in <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/446/55/">City of Mobile v. Bolden</a>. By a 6-3 margin, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1978/77-1844">the justices ruled</a> that the 15th Amendment did not give black candidates the right to be elected, and “only purposefully discriminatory denials of the freedom to vote on the basis of race demanded constitutional remedies.”</p>
<p>In other words, the court found that at-large districts were not necessarily unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The outrage was bipartisan. The NAACP <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/01/us/compromise-likely-on-voting-rights.html">lobbied Congress heavily</a>. Republican Sen. Bob Dole led the charge to amend the Voting Rights Act to ban discriminatory laws even if the accuser could not prove the intent of a law was to discriminate against a minority group.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, the city of Mobile changed their election laws to more closely resemble a single member district system. Single member districts are those that elect just one representative from a particular part of a city or state. Sure enough, <a href="http://www.protectcivilrights.org/pdf/voting/AlabamaVRA.pdf">leaders in Mobile became more diverse</a> after the change.</p>
<h2>After Mobile</h2>
<p>Yet subsequent Supreme Court cases like the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2012/12-96">2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling</a> weakened the Voting Rights Act. </p>
<p>In that case, the judges ruled that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which required the federal government to sign off on electoral changes in an effort to reduce racial discrimination in several states where past problems occurred was unconstitutional. In other words, localities could maintain an at-large district or switch to one if they choose to do so.</p>
<p>Professors Jessica Trounstine of Princeton University and Melody E. Valdini from Portland State University found that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25193833?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">single-member districts were better at increasing</a> minority representation on city councils, county commissions and other local legislative bodies, especially where minorities are concentrated in those districts.</p>
<p>In Jones County in North Carolina, at-large districts <a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/02/challenging-racism-large-elections">kept the African American minority from winning a single seat for more than 20 years</a> even though they made up 30% of the population. When the rules allowed single-member district elections in 2018, <a href="https://www.witn.com/content/news/Jones-County-makes-history-with-election-of-two-African-American-commissioners-499949301.html">two African Americans were elected to the Jones County Commission</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings support Trounstine and Valdini’s conclusions. For those single-member district counties in Georgia that the AJC researched, we found that the percentage of African American voters is a lot closer to equitable representation in local legislative bodies.</p>
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<p>While racial gerrymandering and voter laws are being targeted for disenfranchising voters, it’s clear that at-large districts and states requiring candidates to get a majority of votes have the same effect, and will likely be the next battleground in promoting minority rights.</p>
<p>Back in 1859, Mill famously asked how America could live with a huge inconsistency at its heart: a proclamation of liberty for all co-existing with the institution of slavery? Slavery ended not long after, but the tyranny of the majority still takes many forms.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118319/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>When no one in Mississippi wins a majority of votes in an election, the legislature chooses the winner. This has led to white men winning over and over.John A. Tures, Professor of Political Science, LaGrange CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/950292018-04-24T10:51:04Z2018-04-24T10:51:04ZLynching memorial shows women were victims, too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216029/original/file-20180423-94149-1bh28jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">National Memorial for Peace and Justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Brynn Anderson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A memorial to victims of lynching in the U.S. is now open in <a href="http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/ref/collection/voices/id/2516">Alabama</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://eji.org/national-lynching-memorial">National Memorial for Peace and Justice</a> is a six-acre site that overlooks Montgomery, the state capital. It uses sculpture, art and design to give visitors a sense of the terror of lynching as they walk through a memorial square with 800 six-foot steel columns that symbolize the victims. The names of thousands of victims are engraved on columns – one for each county in the United States where a lynching took place. In Alabama alone, a reported total of 275 lynchings took place between 1871 and 1920.</p>
<p>U.S. history books and documentaries that tell the story of lynching in the U.S. have focused on black male victims, to the exclusion of women. But women, too, were lynched – and many raped beforehand. In my book “<a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9780230112704">Gender and Lynching</a>,” I sought to tell the stories of these women and why they have been left out. </p>
<p>Between 1880 and 1930, close to 200 women were murdered by lynch mobs in the American South, according to historian <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674061859">Crystal Feimster</a>.</p>
<p>Will this new memorial give these murdered women their due in how the U.S. remembers and feels about our troubling history? </p>
<h2>Enforcing white supremacy through terror</h2>
<p>In a recent report, <a href="https://eji.org/reports/lynching-in-america">Lynching in America</a>, researchers documented 4,075 lynchings of African-Americans that were committed by southern whites in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia between 1877 and 1950.</p>
<p>Lynching differed from ordinary murder or assault. It was celebrated by members of the Ku Klux Klan as a spectacular event and drew large crowds of people who tortured victims, burned them alive and dismembered them. Lynching was a form of <a href="https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/">domestic terrorism</a> that inflicted harm onto individuals and upon an entire race of people, with the purpose of instilling fear. It served to give dramatic warning that the ironclad system of white supremacy was not to be challenged by word, deed or even thought. </p>
<p>The conventional approach to teaching the history of Jim Crow and lynching has focused almost exclusively on the black male victim. However, such an approach often simplifies and distorts a much more complex history. </p>
<p>Not all victims were African-American men, and although allegations of African-American men raping white women were common, such allegations were not the leading motive for the lynchings. We know from the pioneering work of anti-lynching crusader <a href="https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">Ida B. Wells-Barnett</a> that African-American men, women and children were lynched for a range of alleged crimes and social infractions. </p>
<p>The book “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/102257/trouble-in-mind-by-leon-f-litwack/9780375702631/">Trouble in Mind</a>,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Leon Litwack, provides a detailed account of the many accusations of petty theft, labor disputes, arson and murder that led to these lynchings.</p>
<p>This fact requires a richer, more nuanced understanding of discrimination that is critical of racism and sexism at the same time. Martyrs such as Laura Nelson and Mary Turner experienced racial and sexual violence at the hands of vigilante lynch mobs because of their race and gender.</p>
<h2>Laura Nelson and Mary Turner</h2>
<p>In May 1911, Laura Nelson was lynched in Okemah, Oklahoma. </p>
<p>Nelson allegedly shot a sheriff to protect her son. The officer had been searching her cabin for stolen goods as part of a meat-pilfering investigation. A mob seized Nelson along with her son, who was only 14 years old, and lynched them both. However, Nelson was first raped by several men. The bodies of Laura and her son were hung from a bridge for hundreds of people to see.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=854&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216014/original/file-20180423-94115-1b421wq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laura Nelson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laura_Nelson_high_res.jpg">G.H. Farnum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The violent murder of African-Americans was so accepted at the time that a postcard was made of Nelson’s lynching by George Henry Farnum, a photographer. Brooklyn-based artist <a href="http://site.kimmayhorn.com/">Kim Mayhorn</a> created in 1998 a multimedia installation that memorialized Nelson’s death. There’s an empty dress in Mayhorn’s installation that resembles the postcard of her lynching. The disembodied dress represents the void in the historical record and Mayhorn’s effort to redress the absence of Nelson. </p>
<p>The title of Mayhorn’s installation, “A Woman Was Lynched the Other Day,” refers to <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/odyssey/archive/06/0610002r.jpg">a banner</a> the New York NAACP would unfurl from their Fifth Avenue office when news of another lynching surfaced. With white letters inscribed on a black background, it declared “A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY” and became a rallying cry for justice. </p>
<p>Seven years later, in May 1918, <a href="http://www.maryturner.org/">Mary Turner</a> was eight months pregnant when a mob of several hundred men and women murdered her in Valdosta, Georgia. The Associated Press reported that she had made “unwise remarks” and “flew into a rage” about the lynching of her husband, insisting that she would press charges against the men responsible. </p>
<p>Her death has since been recognized by local residents, students and faculty at <a href="https://www.valdosta.edu/about/news/releases/2018/02/vsu-presents-mary-turner-and-the-lynching-rampage-art-exhibit-feb.-15-march-31.php">Valdosta State University</a>, first with a public ceremony that placed a cross at the lynching site and second with a historical <a href="http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/remembering-a-dark-page-of-history/article_9ed9cbab-3059-520d-a7b0-e20af458556a.html">marker in 2010</a>.</p>
<p>Nelson and Turner have often been depicted as tragic characters or “collateral victims” who supported and defended the males in their lives. </p>
<p>Such deaths, however, were not incidental. They were essential to maintain white supremacy, as a form of punishment for defying the social order.</p>
<p>Though women represent a minority of lynching victims, their stories challenge previous attempts to justify lynching as necessary to protect white women from black male rapists. </p>
<p>Understanding lynching and the motives behind it requires including the stories of African-American women who were robbed of dignity, respect and bodily integrity by a weapon of terror. The violence against them was used to maintain a caste system that assigned inferior roles to African-American women and men alike. </p>
<h2>Redefining the ‘civil rights movement’</h2>
<p>By including women in the historical narrative of lynching, the new memorial in Alabama reveals a more complete understanding of this devastating social practice. This memorial brings African-American women like Nelson and Turner to the fore as victims, and the weight of visual evidence on display at the memorial challenges the silence surrounding their deaths. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://eji.org/">Equal Justice Initiative</a> assists scholars, teachers and ordinary people in recognizing the roots of the civil rights movement that began long before the years 1954-68.</p>
<p>The monument sheds light in an unprecedented and innovative way on the reasons and circumstances surrounding the death and torture of countless victims, including women and children, who suffered at the hands of vigilante mobs. By unearthing the soil and pinpointing the counties where such cruel and inhumane acts were committed, the monument sends a powerful message and conveys to its audience a desire for deeper understanding.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evelyn M. Simien 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>Although fewer black women were lynched in the US than men, their stories have been marginalized. Will a new memorial in Alabama help make their sacrifices known?Evelyn M. Simien, Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/883522018-04-12T10:55:41Z2018-04-12T10:55:41ZResistance to school integration in the name of ‘local control’: 5 questions answered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/214343/original/file-20180411-543-1ugb8fd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The nation has struggled with school integration since school segregation was outlawed in 1954.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-AP-A-FILE-OH-USA-APHS373460-African-Amer-/0ae5644309554156a2df11f4b765c3d0/283/0">AP </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The word “secession” is often used in reference to states or countries that wish to break off and form their own government. But here in the United States, there are communities that want to secede from their school districts to form their own. One of the latest examples is a case in Gardendale, Alabama, where a court recently ruled that the community’s attempt to leave the Jefferson County, Alabama, school district was motivated by racial discrimination and therefore unconstitutional. In order to gain more insight into what’s driving school district secession efforts, The Conversation reached out to Erica Frankenberg, who has examined the effect of the school secession movement on school segregation in Jefferson County and throughout the nation.</em> </p>
<h2>1. Why are some communities trying to break off their schools from larger school districts to form their own districts? Is it about educational efficiency or are race and ethnicity at play?</h2>
<p>Seceding communities often argue they want more local control. They also argue that secession will assist community development efforts and increase home values. But secessions imperil desegregation by creating additional boundary lines that separate <a href="http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018-01-10-Education-Inequity.pdf">resources</a> and students by race and class.</p>
<p>Gardendale’s secession materials don’t mention race at all, but two recent federal court <a href="http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201712338.pdf">decisions</a> stated that race indeed was a significant factor. The materials warned that the community didn’t want to become like other communities in the county that didn’t gain local control of schools. Even though they didn’t mention the racial composition of these communities, the courts found this to be evidence of racial discrimination.</p>
<p>This is an example, repeated in communities across the South, of how <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0002831217748880">“local control” may sound racially neutral</a> but is also used to justify more narrowly defining a community and its resources to educate what is typically a majority white group of children. Such moves further segregation.</p>
<h2>2. It’s almost 2020. Why are we still dealing with court desegregation orders that were issued in the 1950s and 60s?</h2>
<p>In some states like Alabama, desegregation didn’t even start until 1963, almost 10 years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/347/483/case.html">decision</a> that called for an end to segregation in public schools. Districts resisted integration to the extent possible, and it was up to <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2014/10/federal_court_document_traces.html">judges</a> and black plaintiffs and lawyers to accomplish desegregation.</p>
<p>The court in Gardendale’s case noted the challenge of trying to desegregate with a continually changing size and enrollment due to secession. Seven school districts enrolling more than 27,000 students have seceded from the Jefferson County district since its desegregation order in 1965. Trussville was the most recent district to secede in 2005. Our <a href="https://cecr.ed.psu.edu/research/school-district-secessions">research found diversity</a> in Jefferson County’s school district has decreased as school districts secede. The white percentage of students would be 10 percentage points higher if including the enrollment of districts that have seceded since 1970.</p>
<p>So, while the court orders began more than 50 years ago, they must be updated to reflect today’s demographic and policy realities. In many cases, judges are doing that work – as are the plaintiffs and the Department of Justice. Today’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-agreement-st-james-parish-louisiana-school-district-desegregate">desegregation orders</a> not only ensure that black and white students go to school together to the extent possible, but that there is equality within the school as well.</p>
<h2>3. What does the research about academic and social outcomes say about the importance of whether black and white children attend segregated or desegregated schools?</h2>
<p>Research finds integrated schools are critical for students’ <a href="http://school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo10.pdf">academic</a> and <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED571629">social</a> outcomes – and <a href="http://www.school-diversity.org/pdf/DiversityResearchBriefNo3.pdf">our multiracial democracy</a>. </p>
<p>Desegregation is <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED571621">beneficial for white students</a>, who have the lowest exposure to students of other races. For white students in diverse schools, attending schools with students from different racial backgrounds relates to lower prejudice and greater comfort working across racial lines. These skills are important in today’s diverse workplace. </p>
<p>Even more <a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/race-conscious-policies-assigning-students-schools-social-science-research-and-supreme-c">research</a> shows that black students – and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013161X14549957?journalCode=eaqa">Latino</a> students, where studied – benefit from attending desegregated schools compared to segregated schools because diverse schools tend to have more resources that improve educational opportunities. In other words, on a large scale, we have never made separate, segregated schools equal.</p>
<h2>4. Are there sociological reasons to be concerned about desegregating the nation’s public schools?</h2>
<p>One of the rationales of school desegregation is that it will result in more integrated communities. And indeed, secession not only furthers school segregation but <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2009.01166.x">inequality</a> among communities as well.</p>
<p>In our <a href="https://cecr.ed.psu.edu/research/school-district-secessions">research</a>, we found that growing, affluent, highly educated white communities often exist next to communities with declining populations, lower income and higher percentages of black residents. School funding is affected when home values in neighboring school districts diverged sharply like they have in Jefferson County, particularly after school districts formed. More specifically, in the decade immediately after the formation of a new district, the community’s values are most likely to surge as they now offer a separate district as an additional “amenity.”</p>
<h2>5. Even though Gardendale ended its bid to secede from Jefferson County school district, there are <a href="http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2018/03/district_secession_proposal_ma.html">other efforts afoot in Alabama</a> and throughout the nation for communities to secede. How much more of this will we see in the future, and how likely are secession efforts to succeed?</h2>
<p><a href="https://edbuild.org/content/fractured#national">State laws vary</a> as to when and how district secession can take place. In Alabama, district secession is quite permissible. Other southern states, which often have countywide districts, have also recently <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.3102/0013189X17732752">made it easier to secede</a> or are <a href="https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/02/why-southern-schools-are-talking-secession/553517/">contemplating</a> such actions, although North Carolina recently postponed any effort to make district secession easier.</p>
<p>Since courts have ruled that districts have eliminated existing segregation and released them from judicial oversight, today <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/02/a-bittersweet-victory-for-school-desegregation/554396/">few court orders remain</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, many school districts may find an easier path to secession. Unless courts step in to prevent future Gardendale-type secessions, allowing new districts to form may have harmful implications for racial justice and democracy. As a result, it will be up to political leaders and the residents of local communities to fully examine whether proposed secessions will further educational segregation and inequality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88352/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>Some communities are seeking to secede from larger school districts to form their own school districts in the name of ‘local control.’ But court rulings find race is often at play.Erica Frankenberg, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, Penn StateKendra Taylor, PhD Student, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/893522018-01-23T11:20:17Z2018-01-23T11:20:17ZWhen it comes to your health, where you live matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201400/original/file-20180109-36025-1w9kvpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shoppers browsing vegetables at a farmers market.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/en/market-vegetable-market-1558658/">Pixabay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to <a href="https://assets.americashealthrankings.org/app/uploads/2017annualreport.pdf">a recent report</a>, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia have the worst health in the U.S. These states have higher rates of premature deaths, chronic diseases and poor health behaviors year after year.</p>
<p>Why are people in some places in the U.S. consistently less healthy than those in others? If you look to health and fitness magazines, it may seem like poor diet, lack of exercise and other bad behaviors are to blame. Genetics and access to health care are also commonly cited reasons for why some people are healthier than others. </p>
<p>But where a person lives, works and plays also matters. As a public health researcher interested in how society affects our health, my research shows where you live plays a powerful role on your health.</p>
<h2>Economic distress</h2>
<p>Public health experts often talk about the “<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/socialdeterminants/">social determinants of health</a>”: community traits like housing quality, access to nutritious and fresh food, water and air quality, education quality and employment opportunities. These factors are thought to be <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.08.024">among the most powerful influences</a> on a person’s health.</p>
<p>Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia also share a similar economic environment. <a href="http://eig.org/2017-dci-map-u-s-counties-state-map">Data from the Economic Innovation Group (EIG)</a>, a bipartisan public policy organization in D.C., shows that these states are the top five most economically distressed states in the U.S. </p>
<p>In fact, Alabama and Mississippi have the highest shares of people living in distressed zip codes.</p>
<iframe src="https://eig.org?embedEIG2017=1&eigmap2017=nationalcountiesEIG2017" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The U.S. has experienced economic prosperity since the end of the Great Recession. But not all states have shared equally in this economic growth. In North Dakota, for example, employment rates increased almost 20 percent between 2010 and 2013. During the same time period, residents in Alabama have seen only about four percent growth in employment. </p>
<p>Local communities in every state across the U.S. face similar poor economic realities: 52.3 million Americans <a href="http://eig.org/dci">live in economically distressed zip codes</a>. This means that about 17 percent of the U.S. population lives in places with limited opportunities for education, good housing and employment. These factors are essential for good health. </p>
<p>Prosperous zip codes tend to have <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/49116/2000178-How-are-Income-and-Wealth-Linked-to-Health-and-Longevity.pdf">social resources</a> that distressed zip codes do not, like access to <a href="http://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300865">fresh and nutritious foods</a>, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-poor-neighborhoods-breate-more-hazardous-particles/">cleaner air</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/property-taxes-and-unequal-schools/497333/">high-quality schools</a>.</p>
<h2>Place and health</h2>
<p><a href="http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Distressed-Communities-Index.pdf">Analysts at the Economic Innovation Group</a> found that people in prosperous counties live, on average, five years longer than those living in distressed counties. In distressed counties, deaths from mental and substance abuse are 64 percent higher compared to prosperous counties. </p>
<p>My own analysis of EIG data and the <a href="http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/">2017 County Health Rankings</a> follow this pattern. The more economically distressed a county is, the worse their health outcomes are. This is true across measures of clinical care, quality of life, mortality, chronic conditions, health behaviors and health environments. </p>
<p>I am currently researching a range of health outcomes across the U.S. My unpublished results show that infants are about 20 percent more likely to die before their first birthday in distressed counties. Adults in distressed counties are 18 percent more likely to report poor or fair health than those in prosperous counties. </p>
<p>Those in distressed counties are also more likely to live in places with fewer resources for good health. For example, distressed counties are 26 percent more likely to have limited access to healthy foods and have about 24 percent fewer opportunities for exercise. They also have about 20 percent fewer primary care providers than prosperous counties.</p>
<h2>Investing in solutions</h2>
<p>Shared economic prosperity is good for our health and <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/health-and-economic-growth">good for the economy</a>.</p>
<p>Improving population health requires more than changing health behaviors or increasing health care access. Similarly, if we want to increase shared economic prosperity among those who need it most, we need to focus on more than employment rates and average incomes.</p>
<p>As public health researcher David Williams and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Vice President James Marks <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2011.0987">wrote</a>, “reaching America’s full health potential will require that targeted initiatives have a dual focus” on health and community economic development. This means that the health and economic sectors must collaborate, which is often made difficult by separate funding streams and political battles.</p>
<p>Despite challenges, there are successful examples of communities working together to improve health and foster economic opportunity. In Sacramento, California, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2014.0640">the Building Healthy Communities program</a> worked with community members to develop bike paths and expand community gardens. This effort was a part of an initiative to transform formerly contaminated land into healthy, livable and usable property. </p>
<p>More investments in the social determinants of health will help close the health gaps we see across the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Owens-Young 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>Why are people from some states so much healthier than others? Despite what you may hear, it’s not just about genetics or poor choices.Jessica Owens-Young, Assistant Professor, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/891382017-12-16T13:43:40Z2017-12-16T13:43:40ZBlack voters won Alabama for the Dems. Here’s what they need in return<p>As a scholar of African-American and Southern politics for the last 25 years, I’ve witnessed a lot of election upsets and surprises. None has been more interesting than the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/politics/alabama-senate-race-winner.html">Democrat Doug Jones’ election</a> to the U.S. Senate in a Dec. 12 special election against Republican Roy Moore. </p>
<p>I’m not talking here about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html">the controversy surrounding Moore’s sexual history</a>. No, for me this race was fascinating because America now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/black-voters-boosted-doug-jones/index.html">has black voters to thank</a> for helping Alabama send a Democratic senator to Washington for the first time in 25 years. </p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/alabama-exit-polls/?utm_term=.889972b0a8a1">exit polls</a>, 30 percent of the over 1 million people who participated in this election were black, and 96 percent of black voters supported Jones. In short, in an election where Jones’ margin of victory was <a href="http://whnt.com/2017/12/12/alabama-voter-turnout-far-surpasses-expectations-reaching-well-over-1-million-voters/">less than 2 percent</a>, Alabama’s near-unanimous black voters were the deciding factor. </p>
<p>Now that black Alabamians have accomplished their goal of electing their preferred representative, the big question is: What will they get in return? </p>
<h2>Voter concerns</h2>
<p>Black voters in the South, especially black female voters, are historically the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/minutes/144925/democrats-losing-loyal-voters-black-women">most loyal supporters of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates</a>. They are a force powerful enough to sway the outcomes of elections in red states.</p>
<p>Having done so, black voters may reasonably expect Democrats to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/opinion/alabama-black-voters-democrats.html">thank them</a> by actually tackling the issues that disproportionately affect their communities. </p>
<p>Poverty is probably top on that list of concerns. Alabama is the sixth poorest state in the nation, with a poverty rate of <a href="https://datausa.io/profile/geo/alabama/">18.5 percent</a>. In some counties more than <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/alabama_is_6th_poorest_state_i.html">40 percent of people live in poverty</a>. Alabama’s rural areas have been said to show “<a href="http://www.newsweek.com/alabama-un-poverty-environmental-racism-743601">the worst poverty in the developed world</a>.”</p>
<p>Most of those areas are in <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/05/inside_the_numbers_5_startling.html">the state’s so-called “Black Belt.”</a> In Wilcox County, for example, the white poverty rate is 8.8 percent, but the black poverty rate is 50.2 percent. Nearby Lowndes County has the lowest white poverty rate in the state – 4.1 percent – but almost 35 percent of black people there live in poverty. </p>
<p>Other Black Belt counties show similar wealth disparities, with black households three to four times more likely to live in poverty than their white neighbors. Democrats have talked <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/10/29/politics/democrats-white-working-class/index.html">a lot about poor whites since the 2016 election</a>. It’s useful to remember that black people, particularly in the rural South, still face stunningly high rates of economic exclusion.</p>
<p>Entrenched poverty means that health care access for black Alabamians is also dismal. The Black Belt region <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-health-care-system-is-leaving-the-southern-black-belt-behind/">has fewer primary care physicians, dentists, mental health providers, and hospitals</a> than other parts of the state. It has a much higher rate of uninsured people than other regions. In most of its counties, more than 25 percent of residents lack access to health care – and that’s with the Affordable Care Act in place.</p>
<p>I believe Jones will also be expected to address Alabama’s educational achievement gap. The state has <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/alabamas_achievement_gap.html">20 to 30 percent differences</a> between the reading levels of black and white students, a discrepancy that results from such <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/07/alabamas_achievement_gap.html">factors</a> as a student’s family income, residential segregation and school resources – or the lack thereof. </p>
<p>Finally, black Alabama voters have expressed concern about crime and punishment in the state. Just <a href="https://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-alabama">26 percent of Alabama’s population</a> is black, yet more than <a href="http://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons/">half its prison population is</a>, according to the Sentencing Project.</p>
<p>At the same time, in 2016, Alabama also had the <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state#MRord">third-highest homicide rate in the U.S., after Louisiana and Missouri</a>, data from the Death Penalty Information Center shows. More than 71 percent of <a href="http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_hom_vic_by_rac_bla-crime-homicide-victims-race-black">homicide victims were African-American</a>. </p>
<h2>A real Alabama Democrat</h2>
<p>Black voters voted for Jones, rather than just against Moore, because they expect Jones care about issues like these. His <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/12/politics/roy-moore-doug-jones-issues/index.html">campaign</a> centered on liberal causes like abortion access, support for the Affordable Care Act, LGBTQ rights and immigration reform and he has an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/doug-jones-alabama.html">extensive civil rights</a> background. </p>
<p>In 2002, as a U.S. Attorney in Alabama, Jones <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-voters-doug-jones-birmingham-church-bombing_us_5a313bd4e4b07ff75aff70d1">prosecuted two members of the Ku Klux Klan</a> for their roles in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which killed four African-American girls. Both men were later sentenced to life in prison.</p>
<p>In 2007, Jones also testified before the House Judiciary Committee <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/_files/hearings/pdf/Jones071023.pdf">in favor of re-examining crimes that took place during the Civil Rights Era</a>. Jones said that he believed civil rights activists could have been wrongly prosecuted, while hate crimes went unpunished.</p>
<p>Jones additionally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/us/doug-jones-roy-moore-black-voters.html">campaigned heavily in predominantly black areas of Alabama</a> and benefited from an effective get-out-the-vote effort. African-American celebrities and politicians – including NBA legend and Alabama native Charles Barkley, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia – descended on the state to stump for Jones. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/199337/original/file-20171214-16422-58xmve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jones campaigning in Selma, an iconic city of the U.S. civil rights movement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jeff Amy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On election day in Alabama, <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/12/reports-of-voter-suppression-tactics-pour-in-from-alabama-election/">numerous reports surfaced of voter suppression</a> in predominantly black precincts. Even so, black voter turnout in this special election may have surpassed levels of the 2008 and 2012 general elections, when Barack Obama was on the ballot. </p>
<h2>A Republican birther</h2>
<p>Contrast this record with that of his competitor Roy Moore, the former Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, who was <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/08/trump-endorses-roy-moore-again-287143">publicly endorsed by President Donald Trump</a>. </p>
<p>During the campaign, Moore was credibly accused of romantically <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/11/17/564752427/sexual-misconduct-allegations-continue-to-mount-against-roy-moore">pursuing girls as young as 14 years of age</a> when he was in his 30s. He has also made a number of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/10/alabama-senate-race-roy-moore-vladimir-putin-russia">homophobic</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/26/16365774/judge-roy-moore-us-constitution">Islamaphobic</a> comments. </p>
<p>Moore also has <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/11/10/white-supremacist-leader-recently-donated-roy-moore-s-campaign/218519%E2%80%8B">ties to white nationalist groups</a>. In September, he <a href="http://time.com/5056590/roy-moore-america-great-slavery/">averred</a> that he thought that America had been “great” during slavery, saying that “at the time … families were united – even though we had slavery …. our country had a direction.” </p>
<p>Nor did Moore’s <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/kfile-roy-moore-birther-comments/index.html">early leadership in the birther movement</a> – which erroneously alleges that former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States – endear him to African-Americans, in Alabama or elsewhere. </p>
<p>All of this helps explain why Democratic turnout <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/upshot/alabama-turnout-republican-problem.html">was far higher than white Republican turnout</a> in Alabama’s special election. That should send a strong message to the Republican Party about the power of black voices.</p>
<p>But, critically, it should also send a message to Democrats. For years, black Democrats have <a href="http://time.com/4292683/hillary-clinton-black-voters-al-sharpton/">warned that the party takes their votes for granted</a>. If Jones is to stand a chance at re-election, he’d do well to <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/what-doug-jones-and-the-democrats-owe-black-voters.html">represent the base</a> that sent him to Washington just as soon as he gets there.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89138/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon D. Wright Austin 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>Almost 100 percent of black Alabamians voted for Doug Jones. The Democratic senator-elect can thank this key base by addressing his home state’s problems with rural poverty, education and health care.Sharon D. Wright Austin, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of African American Studies, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892012017-12-15T11:25:00Z2017-12-15T11:25:00ZWhat Doug Jones’s win means for Mitch McConnell, Steve Bannon and the Democrats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199342/original/file-20171215-16469-zxm7fm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls for Roy Moore to step aside. He later said "let the voters decide."</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Here’s the thing about selling your soul: The devil had better deliver. It’s one thing to be damned; it’s another to be a damned loser. </p>
<p>This is the difficult lesson that the <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/363239-rnc-reverses-will-support-moore-in-alabama">Republican National Committee</a> and much of the GOP are learning right now, in the wake of Roy Moore’s loss on Tuesday. While there were <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/12/politics/republicans-roy-moore/index.html">plenty of Republicans</a> who refused to back Moore, there were also plenty who <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/08/trump-endorses-roy-moore-again-287143">did</a>, or chose to “<a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/12/03/mitch-mcconnell-roy-moore-let-voters-decide-nr.cnn/video/playlists/roy-moore/">let the voters decide.</a>” </p>
<p>As someone <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/scholar/david-barker">who has studied politics as long as I have knows</a>, the GOP holds no monopoly on betraying principles. But this was a pretty high profile investment in it. They did so presumably not because they are down with pedophilia, but because their discomfort with Moore – or for that matter, with Trump – did not outweigh their discomfort with losing power. For the past 18 months or so, and perhaps most conspicuously in the past couple of weeks, most Republicans seem to have calculated that their best path to maintaining power was to jump in bed with Steve Bannon and the so-called Trump base (maybe with the lights off, but still). And now here they are.</p>
<p>Sure, only one seat changed hands. But that one seat makes a big difference when you are clinging to such a <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm">precarious Senate majority</a>. One place where that difference is being felt immediately is on the tax bill. Any hope that the GOP would carefully work out the bill’s considerable <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/6/16737784/republican-conference-committee-tax-bill">kinks in a conference committee</a> is now lost. Republicans know they have to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/us/politics/republicans-tax-bill.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=9741631344C251457E5A66A26E2B6B31&gwt=pay">get this thing done now</a>, before Jones is seated in January. The Senate bill only passed with <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/01/politics/senate-tax-bill-vote-uncertainty/index.html">51 votes</a>. Come 2018, all it would take is for John McCain to rediscover his <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/28/watch-senate-members-gasps-applaud-mccain-votes-no-skinny-repeal/519289001/">thumb</a> or for Rand Paul to get <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/6/16612734/rand-paul-neighbor-assault">beaten up</a> again (which is never out of the question), and the signature achievement of this GOP team would wind up falling short of final passage. And <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gop-doesnt-care-if-you-like-its-tax-plan-heres-why-88467">as I wrote</a> a couple of weeks ago, if Republicans can’t cut taxes when they enjoy unified power, why do they get up in the morning?</p>
<p>Conservatives should finish their business on the tax bill now – because getting anything else on their wish list just became considerably more daunting. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/gop-eyes-post-tax-cut-changes-to-welfare-medicare-and-social-security/?utm_term=.e0d0bc1386b0">Entitlement reform</a>? Please. Swing vote Republican lawmakers like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski just became more powerful, and they aren’t going to put up with significant cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or SNAP.</p>
<p>Just as the moderates in the party are seeing their stock rise, the insurgents are surely seeing theirs fall. In case there was any doubt following the special elections in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/virginia-general-elections">Virginia</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/virginia-general-elections">New Jersey</a> last month, this Alabama outcome pretty well explodes the myth that candidates should cultivate Steve Bannon’s blessing. <a href="https://twitter.com/MeghanMcCain/status/940788444506349569">Meghan McCain,</a> John McCain’s daughter and a Republican, pithily summed up the new conventional wisdom, tweeing “Suck it, Bannon.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"940788444506349569"}"></div></p>
<p>As for 2018, the Democrats still have to draw an inside straight to gain control of the Senate. They are defending 26 seats, 11 of which are in states that Trump either won or lost narrowly. By comparison, the Republicans are only defending eight seats, mostly in deep red states. The Democrats only have two, or perhaps <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/364048-dems-hope-bredesen-can-still-win-over-tn-voters">three</a>, realistic pickup opportunities. But they only need two, and Tuesday’s result means they now have a plausible chance at getting them. The party that is out of power <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/mid-term_elections.php">typically gains seats</a> in midterm elections anyway, even when the president is not <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/do-republicans-trump-latest-polls-show-base-slipping-approval-rating-plunges-715748">historically unpopular</a>. And recent <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2504">polling</a> shows that Democrats enjoy a double-digit lead when voters are asked which party they would prefer to control the Senate. If such sentiment holds for another 11 months, it may be enough to counterbalance a map that, in any other year, might be prohibitive.</p>
<p>And the sledding might grow even tougher for Republicans. Something has clearly changed since Trump was elected. <a href="https://www.theresistanceparty.org/">The Resistance</a> is gaining strength, as we could see even before Tuesday in the <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/358780-women-are-running-for-office-in-record-numbers">historic numbers</a> of women who are running for office, and in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/metoo?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Ehashtag">#MeToo</a> locomotive. Alabama just gave the movement that much more momentum.</p>
<p>This is not just feminist protesters in coastal cities wearing <a href="https://theconversation.com/pussyhat-power-the-feminist-protesters-crafting-resistance-to-trump-and-his-supporters-72221">vaginas on their heads.</a> It isn’t just self-righteous entertainers making <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/08/arts/television/meryl-streep-golden-globes-speech.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=056F56F2FCD72FD39756EF34169749A0&gwt=pay">windy acceptance speeches</a>. And it isn’t just college students asking for trigger warnings and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2017-09-21/colleges-tackle-free-speech-trigger-warnings-safe-spaces">safe spaces</a>. It’s also <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/black-voters-mothers-and-millennials-carried-doug-jones-to-victory/">devout mothers</a> –- in red states, no less –- saying enough is enough.</p>
<p>It also helps Democrats that by ousting Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers, and by (mostly) cheering as the litany of offenders in Hollywood and the press have gone down, they can authentically claim the moral high ground on what may have become the most salient social issue of our time.</p>
<p>And in a reversal from 2016, the politics of race seem to be working in the Democrats’ favor these days as well. Turnout among <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/despite-the-obstacles-black-voters-make-a-statement-in-alabama/548237/">African-Americans has spiked,</a> while <a href="https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2017/11/8/16625578/rural-whites-no-show-virginia">falling among whites</a> in most of the special elections that have happened this year.</p>
<p>Looking forward to 2020, it’s too bad for Democrats that there isn’t a charismatic candidate who is ready-made to capitalize on this environment. Oh wait, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-12-01/kamala-harris-navigates-the-2020-presidential-landscape">there is</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David C. Barker 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>Everything on the GOP wish list just became more daunting to achieve.David C. Barker, Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University School of Public AffairsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/891102017-12-14T03:57:03Z2017-12-14T03:57:03ZAlabama and #MeToo’s disruptive force<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199121/original/file-20171213-27583-16rhcbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman rallies for Doug Jones on Dec. 12. Jones defeated Republican
Roy Moore who was accused of sexual misconduct.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Bazemore</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Roy Moore’s electoral defeat in Alabama is an important victory for #MeToo. </p>
<p>Let’s recall that the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?utm_term=.fb2ff4de0146">allegations</a> about his preying on teenagers came to light amidst a wave of #MeToo-inspired charges. National attention to sexual harassment raised the profile of this state-level race. </p>
<p>The focus has now turned to Donald Trump, as some members of <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/will-congress-investigate-trump-sexual-misconduct-744841">Congress</a> call for investigating <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/12/what-happened-to-trumps-16-sexual-misconduct-accusers.html">multiple complaints</a> of sexual misconduct against him. If their call gains traction, it will be a remarkable development. </p>
<p>The words “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/the-movement-of-metoo/542979/">movement</a>,” “<a href="http://msmagazine.com/blog/2017/12/11/looking-back-moving-forward-history-tells-us-uprising/">uprising</a>,” and even “<a href="http://beta.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-farrow-woody-allen-me-too-20171207-story.html">revolution</a>” have been used to describe events over the past two months. As a feminist scholar, I see them as apt because of the unprecedented <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/12/06/times-person-of-the-year-the-silence-breakers-for-speaking-out-against-sexual-harassment/?utm_term=.e44cd8410049">momentum and scale</a> of the outcry.</p>
<p>There is also another term that quite precisely conveys what is happening: “disruption.” I borrow this term from <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/?id=SIexi_qgq2gC">technology and business writers</a> who use it to describe an upheaval of institutionalized ways of doing things. In many ways, what we are seeing is a textbook case of cultural disruption. </p>
<h2>Moving ‘relentlessly upwards’</h2>
<p>According to the theory, disruptors are typically <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation">small actors</a> who ask: Why should we do things the same way as before? They offer new and low-cost solutions to problems from below, moving “<a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/">relentlessly upwards”</a> and “<a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/">eventually displacing</a>” established institutions. In our time, disruptions in the business world are mostly made possible by digital technology, the best examples being <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation">Netflix</a>, which used digital streaming to subvert network television, and <a href="https://medium.dave-bailey.com/how-to-know-if-your-product-is-disruptive-4f033c9d33e8">Airbnb</a>, which directly connected home sharers with potential guests.</p>
<p>I see sexual harassment victims as disruptors because they use social media platforms to circumvent legal channels for pursuing justice. The current sea change began with little-known individuals using Twitter and Facebook to share personal stories, echoing the “survivor speak-out” model long championed by feminists of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Back_the_Night">anti-violence movement</a>. </p>
<h2><strong>Short-circuiting the law</strong></h2>
<p>The scale of the viral #MeToo hashtag led journalists to investigate and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/rape-in-the-storage-room-groping-at-the-bar-why-is-the-restaurant-industry-so-terrible-for-women/2017/11/17/54a1d0f2-c993-11e7-b0cf-7689a9f2d84e_story.html?utm_term=.3b7728b9bd72">publicize</a> victims’ stories. Effectively, this allowed a short-circuiting of the law. Lawsuits pose burdens of proof that are sometimes impossible to meet. How do you produce material evidence of unwanted touching or obscene words said in passing? So victims said: I need a different route to justice. By speaking publicly and shaming their harassers, victims have disrupted legal channels of redressal.</p>
<p>In court, you are innocent until proven guilty. But #MeToo has tilted public sympathy and power in favor of accusers by showing how widespread sexual coercion is. Taking accusers more seriously than those accused is a reversal of the principle of legal due process. Yet because those who are victimized have been so ill-served by legal burdens of proof, they are using the most effective alternative available. And many in the public are, for now, trusting the investigation process followed by reporters and management and ethics committees. </p>
<p>Some journalism outlets such as The Washington Post are using stringent investigative methods. Its reporters were not duped by false claims made by a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?utm_term=.7dd0">sting operation</a>. The pressure to be thorough and fair is very high, since the possibility of <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Chuck-Schumer-Fake-Sex-Harassment-Scandal-New-York-City-463810263.html">false accusations</a> is real. This chaotic quality and the need for vigilance is reminiscent of other disrupted environments: Airbnb offers guests no guarantee of safety, and guests take on the risk of <a href="http://www.benedelman.org/publications/airbnb-guest-discrimination-2016-09-16.pdf">racism</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/travel/airbnb-lawsuit-host-sexual-assault.html">sexual assault</a>. </p>
<p>What remains to be worked out, after the dust settles, is a genuinely transformative solution to the problem of sexual coercion— one that goes beyond shaming and punishment to enabling perpetrators to take responsibility for the harm they have caused. </p>
<h2>Targeting specific sectors</h2>
<p>In the business world, disruptors typically take advantage of vulnerabilities in an industry or market. In this case, sexual harassment complaints are primarily effective in sectors where reputations matter, such as entertainment and politics. Media companies and political parties do not want to risk the public relations fallout from scandals. As a result, we see swift firings and resignations on the heels of allegations.</p>
<p>Yet media industries and politics, while being challenging environments for women, are not known to be the worst sites of gender-based abuse. The arenas considered historically unfriendly to women are <a href="http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-male-dominated-industries-and-occupations">male-dominated sectors</a> such as <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0891243213510781">construction and blue-collar</a> trades, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-10/damning-report-reveals-bullying-harassment-among-surgeons/6763490">surgery</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-hollywood-could-learn-from-wall-streets-sexual-harassment-reckoning">finance</a>. The most troubling sectors, feminist scholars note, are those where private settings make abuse easier, such as <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/women-in-the-service-sector-are-at-the-forefront-of-resisting-sexual-harassment/">domestic work or childcare</a>, and service industries such as <a href="http://rocunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/REPORT_TheGlassFloor_Sexual-Harassment-in-the-Restaurant-Industry.pdf">restaurants</a>, where the pressure to seek tips make servers succumb to customer requests. But harassers in these sectors are not celebrities and therefore less vulnerable to public shaming.</p>
<p>The term “disruption” is also apt because it is a wholesale attack on an institution. Disruptors draw few distinctions between the valuable and less-valuable features of institutions, or the worst or least offensive perpetrators. The goal is to upend a system, or in this case, to root out a systematic problem. For instance, the distinctions between Democrat and Republican party positions on women’s issues seem less meaningful right now, as allegations against members of both parties spill out. The pent-up fury driving victims to come forward has meant dispensing with this distinction.</p>
<p>Finally, it is worth noting that the energy associated with this movement, as with many disruptors, is youthful. The driving force behind the movement against sexual harassment is young women, who, according to a Pew survey, most readily identify it as a <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/07/americans-views-of-sexual-harassment-allegations/">widespread problem</a>. This is not surprising; it is those in the age range of 15-35 years who are most frequently harassed, and the young are also the most avid users of social media platforms. Women in older age groups are, of course, also speaking out about past experiences of harassment and its very real <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2007.00067.x/full">effect</a> on their lives and careers. But in the impatience and refusal of the status quo, we can distinctly hear a new generation’s voice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashwini Tambe received funding from SSHRC and NEH to study the history of girlhood in South Asia.</span></em></p>The word disruption describes an upheaval of institutionalized ways of doing things. Disruptors draw few distinctions between the valuable and less-valuable features of institutions.Ashwini Tambe, Editorial Director, Feminist Studies; Associate Professor, Department of Women's Studies, University of MarylandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/890502017-12-13T19:33:24Z2017-12-13T19:33:24ZHow Republican missteps turned Alabama blue<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199057/original/file-20171213-27568-1gucpki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Doug Jones supporters celebrate his stunning victory.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Bazemore</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If there was one Republican in Alabama the Democratic Doug Jones could beat, Roy Moore was that Republican. </p>
<p>And in a Tuesday night nail-biter, Jones did just that, edging Moore by a mere 1.5 percentage points in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1992.</p>
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<p>So while the Democrats are celebrating a victory in the special election, perhaps it makes sense to ask: How did Republicans manage to lose this seat?</p>
<h2>How we got here</h2>
<p>Let’s take a moment simply to marvel at the bizarre and cumulatively improbable series of events that ever led us to a “Senator Jones.”</p>
<p>You could say it began in 2014. That’s when <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-dianne-bentley-alabama-governor-wife-sex-scandal-resignation-2017-4">Dianne Bentley, wife of 50 years</a> to Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley, a 71-year-old Baptist deacon, began to suspect her husband was having an affair with a member of his staff decades his junior. Dianne planted a recording device in the governor’s office and captured some <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/03/hear_recording_that_helped_put.html#incart_big-photo">intimate phone dialogue</a>. The governor attempted to use state resources to cover up his affair. Dianne leaked her tape to the press and the controversy exploded. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, another scandal was brewing. Alabama Chief Justice and conservative firebrand, Roy Moore, was suspended from active service as a result of an ethics investigation stemming from orders he gave to the state’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/2/9/8005931/gay-marriage-roy-moore">67 probate judges to disregard the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision legalizing same-sex marriage</a>. This was, incredibly, <a href="http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2016/09/alabama_supreme_court_chief_ju.html">the second time in his career</a> that he had been removed from the bench for defying a federal court order. </p>
<p>Back in gubernatorial purgatory, pressure had mounted upon Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to investigate Bentley. Strange, though, was in no hurry to do this. You see, while the Bentley scandal was unfolding, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Trump selected Alabama’s junior U.S. senator, Jeff Sessions, to become his attorney general, thereby creating a vacancy in the Senate. </p>
<p>In this vacancy, Gov. Bentley <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/bentleys_notes_show_thinking_b.html">reportedly saw an opportunity</a> to avoid prosecution. He could appoint Strange to Sessions’ vacated seat, then appoint a new – presumably more sympathetic – state attorney general to replace Strange, and avoid prosecution. Allegedly to facilitate this scheme, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/us/alabama-senator-strange.html?_r=0">Strange sent a letter</a> to the Alabama House of Representatives urging them to slow down on articles of impeachment. In February 2017, Bentley appointed Strange to Sessions’ vacant seat. The public screamed foul at the apparent corrupt bargain. </p>
<p>After nearly a year of ceaseless controversy, Bentley entered into a deal to plead guilty to two misdemeanors, resign the governorship and avoid a more aggressive prosecution. Alabama Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey assumed the office of governor and swiftly moved up the date of Strange’s election by more than a year. Seizing upon this opportunity, the suspended Roy Moore resigned the chief justiceship and announced his opposition to Strange. The race pitted President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the side of Strange with Trump’s former campaign director Steve Bannon supporting Moore. Roy Moore trounced Strange by <a href="http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/09/alabama_senate_runoff_live_upd.html">nearly 10 percentage points</a> on his way to the general election.</p>
<p>But at least one more shoe needed to drop. Approximately one month before the election, the Washington Post published <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html">bombshell accusations</a> that Moore had serially preyed upon teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. A flurry of accusations followed, with a total of nine women accusing Moore of some sort kind of sexual misconduct. Before they knew it, Republicans found themselves in a neck-and-neck race with Jones, a former federal district attorney most famous for successfully <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/13/politics/doug-jones/index.html">prosecuting a Klansman who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church</a>. </p>
<h2>A steep hill for any Democrat</h2>
<p><a href="https://books.google.es/books?id=wZ0wDwAAQBAJ">Previously</a>, I have argued that in a statewide race, “perceivably any Republican is preferable to perceivably any Democrat.” In an ordinary race, Jones would have been a severe underdog. His base, African-American voters, the young, urban, and the well-educated constitute only about 35 percent of the state’s electorate. Nevertheless, this was not an ordinary race.</p>
<p>Alabama’s Republican Party is predominantly composed of upper-middle class individuals and white evangelicals. Generally, they vote as an homogeneous group. But Roy Moore, like George Wallace before him, has been a perennially divisive figure. He vocally supports an agenda of Christian supremacy such as bringing back <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/roy-moore-quotes-slavery-abortion-homosexuality-alabama-742445">state-led school prayers, outlawing homosexuality and barring Muslims from serving in Congress.</a></p>
<p>Moore’s extremism makes wealthier and better-educated Republicans in Alabama’s cities and suburbs uneasy, but he remains the darling of the hinterland. Rural voters have largely disbelieved <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alabama-republicans-allegations-against-moore-false-cbs-news-poll/">Moore’s accusers</a>. They characterize these accusations as contrived attacks upon a man they deeply affiliate with, ginned up by enemies who care more about tipping the outcome of an election than in reporting matters of fact. </p>
<p>Moore’s unique unpopularity meant that, even before the scandal, Jones had a fighting chance. In Moore’s last election in 2012, he only narrowly beat Democrat Bob Vance for the chief justiceship – <a href="http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/11/roy_moore_bob_vance_chief_just.html">earning 52 percent of the vote compared to the 61 percent</a> Mitt Romney earned the same day. Moore performed similarly yesterday compared to 2012 – even improving his performance in rural, overwhelmingly white counties. But his losses in more populous areas ultimately outweighed his strongholds.</p>
<p>Jones, like most Democrats, ran up the score in the cities and in the Black Belt – a swath of southern counties where a majority of voters are African-American. Moore did his best in the Wiregrass – counties near the Florida border – and in rural north Alabama. But when you compare Moore’s share of the vote with Donald Trump’s from last November, Moore’s numbers are worse in every single county.</p>
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<p>Moore especially underperformed around the suburbs. In Shelby and Tuscaloosa Counties, located south and west of Birmingham, Moore’s share of the vote was about 16 percentage points below what Trump earned last year. In more highly educated counties, such as Madison – home to a NASA research center – Moore also performed poorly compared to Trump. </p>
<h2>Future of Alabama and Republican politics</h2>
<p>Both the Alabama and national Republican Parties have some soul-searching to do. Roy Moore’s failed Senate bid demonstrates fundamental weaknesses for a political party with a narrow, and narrowing, base of power. </p>
<p>Right about now, Republicans are nervously eyeing their suburban base of support. In the 1970s and ‘80s, the Republican Party carved out one of the most durable coalitions in American political history using suburban voters as a springboard to public office. Last year’s presidential election and this year’s special elections demonstrate that Republicans are healthy in the hinterland, but Democrats are making <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/nj-virginia-governor-election-2017-murphy-northam-trump-gop-20171107.html">important headway into the suburbs</a>. As the Republican Party becomes the Party of Trump and Moore, the party that looks the other way on alleged sexual assault and pedophilia, a study from the Pew Research Center shows <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/05/17/partisan-identification-is-sticky-but-about-10-switched-parties-over-the-past-year/">young, educated and wealthy voters leaving the party in droves</a>. </p>
<p>The Alabama Republican Party has less to fear than their national counterpart, but if candidates like Moore continue to win Republican primaries, that may change. Trump won Alabama by nearly 30 percentage points, and Roy Moore is a unique candidate. But even in highly conservative Alabama, Republicans have a demographic problem on their hands. </p>
<p>Young Republicans, in particular, are not aligned with many Republican values – especially not Moore’s. Presently, there is an effort to remove the Alabama Young Republicans from the state Republican Steering Committee for <a href="http://wiat.com/2017/12/06/talladega-county-gop-requests-alabama-young-republicans-lose-steering-committee-post/">rescinding their endorsement of Moore</a>. This generational rift will only worsen if the divide between the grassroots and the mainstream wings of the party cannot be mended. </p>
<p>Democrats may use this opportunity to begin digging themselves out from rubble that is their state party. They should begin with disaffected, young, better-educated and suburban voters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89050/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Hughes 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 began with a sex scandal. How else?David Hughes, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Auburn University at Montgomery Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.