August 3, 2012, 5:21 pm
By Michele Goodwin
More than 30 years ago, Elisabeth Landes and Richard Posner provocatively observed that a “glut” in black babies exists in the United States foster care system. Their controversially framed assessment attracted ardent criticism, including charges of racism. Nonetheless, Posner and his colleague touched on urgent and yet unresolved problems, including how to (a) provide more meaningful life opportunities for child wards of the state by transitioning them into permanent home placements, (b) reduce the prevalence of black children in foster care, and (c) decrease state expenditures on foster care, while not sacrificing quality of care. There were other questions of great importance that arose in response to their research. However, the use of economic terms as analytical tools to describe the collision of both a terrible racial phenomenon and family law crisis launched the type of…
Read More
July 30, 2012, 5:23 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Gail Johnson with a portrait of Nkosi
For the past three years, one stream of my work has involved extensive field research on the sexual trafficking of girls in the Philippines, South Africa, and India. For some years, my research has involved trafficking generally, including that of organs, children, and even body parts such as human tissues. However, this project examines trafficking beyond the exploitation and kidnapping women and girls taken against their will and under false consent to work in brothels or on street corners. This current project investigates girls forced into underage marriages or used as “cleaners” or “purifiers” to rid men of HIV in places like South Africa. These transactions violate laws, but not necessarily social norms and customs. Indeed, it has been very…
Read More
July 20, 2012, 3:06 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Last week, Judge Louis Freeh, a former director of the FBI, released a copiously detailed, lengthy report about Penn State’s role in Gerald Sandusky’s sexual abuse of boys on campus. The report notes that there was a “total disregard” for the young boys who were the sexually abused victims of Gerald Sandusky—the former coach. According to Freeh, the most senior members of the university’s governing structure, “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.”
Indeed, to those closely following the investigation, indictment, and trial of Sandusky, the report provided important details, but was no surprise. Last year, when I first blogged about this issue, I wrote, “More curious is the statement released by Penn State’s president, Graham Spanier, who claims the perjury charges against [Tim] Curley and [Gary] Schultz are …
Read More
June 28, 2012, 12:53 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the individual mandate, the anchor of the law, which drew the most scrutiny. Writing for the majority, in NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. SEBELIUS, Justice Roberts opined that the law is constitutional under Congress’ taxing authority. In a 5-4 decision, Roberts upheld Barack Obama’s signature achievement. The full text of the decision is here.
The decision is a victory for Barack Obama and members of Congress who enacted the law. However, this decision is also a victory for Roberts, who vindicates the court as a place where deeply partisan issues can be carefully evaluated and decided on legal principles. Commentators who were convinced that Justice Kennedy would be the swing vote miscalculated Roberts–at least on this issue.
This decision comes two years after…
Read More
June 28, 2012, 10:38 am
By Michele Goodwin
Recently, I posted a column about the decidedly pernicious vitriol against the Obama family, targeting not only the President, but even his children with racialized death threats (to kill his “monkey” children). Some responses to the column offered provocative, insightful comments. Yet, others succumbed to the reductive, which underscored the message behind the post. As one law professor told me, “It becomes clear from reading the comments that some Americans become very defensive about the frequency and entrenchment of racial biases without understanding what racism means.”
Beyond the racial polemic, we should all be concerned about becoming a nation that is so adrift from bipartisanship that recently even Jeb Bush came under attack for pointing it out.
Jeb’s advise on immigration: “Don’t just talk about Hispanics and say immediately we must have controlled…
Read More
June 6, 2012, 11:07 am
By Michele Goodwin
(JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images via Flickr/CC/ProgressOhio)
In each administration, there emerges something to mock, caricaturize, and stereotype. With Bill Clinton, it was his sex addiction and bulbous nose—both issues he has written about or commented on in the press. With Jimmy Carter, it was peanut farming, and with George W. Bush the list is long: reading children’s books turned upside down, political stunts on aircraft carriers, and the misguided invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction. So, caricaturizing Obama’s wide-extending ears or even how his administration rolled out health care reform fits with prior discourse. These are the shots politicians take as presidents.
Yet, noticeably, this administration has been the subject of more pronounced and pernicious…
Read More
June 1, 2012, 10:58 am
By Michele Goodwin
This week, Senator Al Franken chaired a field hearing on patient access and privacy. I blogged previously about the hearings here. Franken, a member of the U.S. Senate Health Committee, launched the investigation after Lori Swanson, the Minnesota attorney general, filed a law suit (complaint here) against Accretive Health, an organization that wears many hats, including that of aggressive debt collection.
The detailed six volume report from Swanson’s office highlights alleged misconduct so reprehensible that if found to be true, the company violated numerous federal and state laws. The company is alleged to have back-dated documents; shared with random employees the personal medical histories (as well as social security numbers and other personal data) of more than 20,000 patients; harassed patients at the hospital (often at their bedside) for payments; contacted relatives…
Read More
May 23, 2012, 11:49 am
By Michele Goodwin
"Yeah, but you can still sign a check with your other hand, can't ya, buddy?" (Photo by Parker Michael Knight via Flickr/CC)
Next week, Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, will chair a field hearing on the effectiveness of federal laws to protect patients’ access to care and privacy. The hearing comes on the heels of Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson‘s accusing Accretive Health–one of the nation’s largest debt-collection agencies–of excessive and possibly illegal tactics, including strong-arming patients in Minnesota hospitals. A voluminous six part report can be found here. However, the issue extends beyond Minnesota as Accretive has contracts with hospital systems throughout the nation.
According to the attorney general’s report, the Illinois-based collection agency hid in…
Read More
May 3, 2012, 6:37 pm
By Michele Goodwin
This week Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown tossed race in the fire of his heated re-election bid against Harvard Law Professor, Elizabeth Warren. At issue is Elizabeth Warren’s voluntary listing as a “minority” in the American Association of Law Schools’ directory, which reports how law professors self-identify (by race and gender). For a decade (1986-1996), Warren listed herself as Native American rather than white and felt justified, and in her words, “proud” in doing so because of her great-great-great grandparent’s American Indian status.
Scott Brown’s team demanded that Warren issue an apology or proof. But, to whom and why? Legally, U.S. legislatures and courts imposed a “one-drop” status rule that held all persons of any African decent to be legally—and subordinately—“negro,” thus denying those even 1/16th black the privileges and rights afforded …
Read More
May 1, 2012, 7:20 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Rodney King (photo from Wikipedia)
Twenty years ago this week, riots swept through Los Angeles. Rioters looted stores and then burned them to the ground. Photographers and journalists attempted to capture the mêlée, but some were physically assaulted in the process. South Central and South East Los Angeles were on fire. The vitriol and violence emerged hours after several white police officers were acquitted by an all-white jury in the infamous Rodney King beating case. A year before, Rodney King’s name left an indelible mark on our collective conscious as did the video tape of his brutal beating at the hands of baton-wielding officers.
Indeed there was a sad double consciousness for some blacks—pain and empathy for King while at the same time his beating provided some political expediency…
Read More
April 21, 2012, 5:01 pm
By Michele Goodwin
John McNeil Courtesy of NAACP
A few weeks before Christmas in 2005, John McNeil, an African American homeowner killed a trespasser, Brian Epp. McNeil, a middle-class businessman, claimed that Epp reached in his pocket (where aut
horities found a folded knife) and charged at him. McNeil shot a bullet in the ground, backed away from Epp, and urged the intruder to stop. According to an eye witness, Epp charged forward and was shot in the head.
Earlier in the day, McNeil’s son called his dad to report a trespasser on the family’s property. The McNeils and other homeowners had experienced violent outbursts from Brian Epp, a home builder. Indeed, the McNeils had employed Epp to build their new home. But, according to witness testimony, Epp had a temper. Indeed, at…
Read More
April 20, 2012, 2:59 am
By Michele Goodwin
Come on guys, really? The most recent defense trotted out by men of authority who have sex with women other than their wives is the “I didn’t know she was a prostitute” excuse. It is a clever explanation, because character seems to no longer matter. Clearly these days, sex with anybody or thing is OK so long as it’s “consensual.” Forget about good judgment or character.
Remember Former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s run in with a New York City maid? Despite DNA evidence implicating Strauss-Kahn in a sexual encounter of some sort with the alleged victim, prosecutors dropped sexual assault charges against him after concluding that the hotel housekeeper had questionable character. What about his character?
Strauss-Kahn is back in the news though, charged with aggravated “pimping.” Prosecutors claim that he’s one of the masterminds behind high end…
Read More
March 29, 2012, 3:25 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Trayvon Martin’s tragic death last month focuses attention on Florida’s “Stand Your Own Ground” self-defense law as well as racial profiling as many people believe that George Zimmerman’s fatal shooting of the boy was out of racial anxiety, if not animus, rather than fear for his life. Indeed, the enhanced 911 call undermines statements made by Zimmerman’s attorney that race was not a factor in the shooting. Throughout much of the past two weeks, attention has been on Zimmerman—what was his state of mind on that night? Why was he stalking the boy? Why did he leave his automobile after a warning by the police to remain in the car? Why did Zimmerman intervene when police advised him not to do so, particularly with law enforcement on the way? Was he psychologically unstable prior to shooting Trayvon?
Absent from much of this discussion are probing questions…
Read More
March 23, 2012, 10:15 am
By Michele Goodwin
Trayvon Martin was murdered last month, but this week the case gained national attention. Martin, an African-American teenager, was gunned down by George Zimmerman, an individual who identifies as a white male. The controversy in the case involves not only race: Zimmerman apparently left his car, stalked the youth, because he thought Martin looked suspicious and “out of place,” and gunned him down. Zimmerman’s supporters claim that had Trayvon—who was on his way back to a family member’s home, carrying a pack of Skittles and ice tea—answered Zimmerman by identifying himself and explaining why he was in the neighborhood, this tragedy might have been averted. But, there is no duty to explain oneself while walking down the street. As a constitutional matter, individuals need not answer the police: You have the right to remain silent.
But the case also brings into…
Read More
March 21, 2012, 2:47 pm
By Michele Goodwin
Part 1 of this series addressed gender and the Fisher case, which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court later in the year.
According to the CIA, Cuba’s literacy rate is 99.8%. Why does Cuba, an incredibly poor nation, have a higher literacy rate than the U.S.? Education is regarded as a priority for all; their poorest youth are treated to boarding schools. The same is true in China. Some of the most attractive architecture in China happens to be its boarding schools—and those institutions are public. That’s right—free boarding-school education and dormitories for students.
Around the world some of the best architecture is devoted to public schools. The American Institute of Architects will host an exhibit on Finnish public schools this year. Why? Because their public schools are beautiful and their students are among the highest achievers in the world. No…
Read More
March 15, 2012, 9:35 am
By Michele Goodwin
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fisher v. University of Texas, a case brought by a young woman who claims that she was discriminated against in the Texas undergraduate admissions process. Many commentators on the left and right assume that Fisher marks the death of affirmative action. Justice Kagan recused herself; she was US Solicitor General and filed a brief when the case was before the Fifth Circuit. However, few commentators consider who benefits from the platform and whether or not (and for whom) it achieves its goals. For example, some blacks think affirmative action was only about them. On the other hand white women may not recognize the entitlements they’ve gained due to affirmative action. In part, the dialogue about affirmative action misses much.
Ironically, if affirmative action “dies,” some might argue that its demise is proof of its…
Read More
March 6, 2012, 9:51 am
By Michele Goodwin
(from freakingnews.com)
Yesterday, more advertisers departed from Rush Limbaugh’s ranks, responding to public pushback and outrage against a man known for vitriolic, uninformed commentary. Likely others will drop the show today as a public campaign to boycott all who advertise with Limbaugh mounts.
Why? For several days last week, Limbaugh lambasted Sandra Fluke, an articulate, Georgetown law student who urged health insurer coverage for contraception. Limbaugh took to the air, ridiculing Ms. Fluke, calling her a slut, comparing her to a prostitute and demanding a video so “so we can see what [sex] we are getting for our money.” This campaign may gain momentum in spite of the fact that prior efforts to “shut down” Rush failed. In this case, Rush isn’t beating up on poor black women by…
Read More
February 23, 2012, 10:49 am
By Michele Goodwin
Guest post by Patricia Lee*
One of the most beautiful voices during our lifetime was physically and vocally silenced last week. Whitney Houston, entertainer, inspired songstress, and a diva (to many), passed away in Beverly Hills and was laid to rest in Newark on Saturday.
As close friends, her family and pundits reflected on Houston’s amazing lifetime impact during and after her funeral service, one begins to question whether the economic compensation paid through her recording contracts and the legal protections garnered for Houston’s gifts of song were on par with what she gave? Even if the economic compensation was hefty and the intellectual property rights and estate matters were fully in order, did Houston adequately guard her own body and her miracle vocal cords (as friend Kevin Costner suggested Houston might caution someone in her shoes) and did she properly prioritize…
Read More
February 17, 2012, 11:33 am
By Michele Goodwin
A dear college friend died yesterday while serving as a correspondent in Syria, reporting on the rebellion against the Syrian president. He was 43. The world knows Anthony as a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for International Reporting, whose stories painted a broader picture of the beauty and terror in war-torn countries in the Middle East. He reported on war and conflicts in lands that now hold vital interest for the world. Through Anthony’s reporting, we came to learn about the struggles of people—an on-the-ground view. His work involved risk and danger. He was successful, because he was a decent man; success in that line of work can only occur if trust is built, especially among people increasingly wary about journalists. It is reported that he died of an asthma attack—the second he suffered that week.
Anthony was one of my closest college friends. We attended…
Read More
February 3, 2012, 2:18 am
By Michele Goodwin
For quite a while, I’ve been concerned about how norms change in countries where human rights abuses persist despite international interventions, treaties, and the promulgation of laws. Sometimes cultural traditions are so deeply entrenched that “law” does not seem to matter.
For example, last week, an Afghan woman was found dead shortly after giving birth to her third daughter. Police believe that her mother-in-law assisted in the murder, by aiding her son as he strangled his wife to death. For months, the victim lived in fear that she would die if another girl were born into her family. It’s illegal to murder, but the instincts surrounding family honor, tradition, and birthing boys mattered more to the family that murdered the young mother.
According to local authorities and friends of the 22-year-old woman (only known as Estorai), she knew that her husband…
Read More
Follow Brainstorm through your favorite RSS reader.
