SB 1070 gets its day in court: The Supreme Court. The Vatican orders reforms for progressive nuns. Can HAL correct your college essay? It’s always been the economy, stupid. Plus, the latest news.
SB 1070 gets its day in court: The Supreme Court
Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070, has seen its share of court challenges but on Wednesday the Supreme Court will finally hear oral arguments on the case in Arizona v. United States.
The main issue before the court is whether or not federal law supersedes state law on SB 1070’s key provisions. There are four parts of the law that will be debated. One that requires local law enforcement to check the citizenship of anyone they arrest or detain, another that makes it a misdemeanor to be in the country illegally and solicit work, a third that requires non-citizens to carry papers proving they’re here legally and the last which allows authorities to arrest someone if they have probable cause to believe the person is an illegal immigrant and has committed a crime.
According to the state of Arizona none of these provisions is expressly prohibited by federal law, therefore SB 1070 should stand. However the government says these provisions do conflict, but even if they didn’t SB 1070 interferes with the countries abilities to achieve certain objectives so federal law trumps. Furthermore, the government argues that anything having to do with immigration enforcement is the sole responsibility of the feds because it’s a foreign policy issue.
How will both sides argue their case? How likely is it the court will come down on one side or another? How do you feel the court should rule?
GUEST
Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State; Constitutional law expert and Former Law Professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC); Former Counsel to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (from 2001-2003, he was the Attorney General's Chief Adviser on immigration law)
Daryl M. Williams, Attorney who submitted an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court against SB-1070 on behalf of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, Founding Partner, Baird, Williams & Greer, a law firm based in Phoenix.
The Vatican orders reforms for progressive nuns
The Catholic Church has come a long way since Vatican II opened the door to reform and loosened age-old restrictions for the modern congregation. And many of the changes have been spearheaded by progressive organizations like the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Founded in 1956, the LCWR is an umbrella organization representing more than 80 percent of the nearly 60,000 women religious in the United States. It’s been at the forefront of the Catholic social justice movement, advocating for causes like immigration rights, health care reform, economic justice, gender equality and religious leadership training for women.
Last Wednesday, at the bishops’ conference in Rome, the Vatican announced that it is launching an overhaul of the LCWR, which will radically alter its mission of social justice. The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith cited the group for publicly challenging positions contrary to church doctrine on issues like homosexuality, abortion and the priesthood.
"Since the leadership conference of women religious is actually an entity of the Vatican, set up by the Vatican in order to support for the women religious, the Vatican has the responsibility to look at how it's doing its job, and if it thinks that it's not doing its job correctly, to correct that," Donna Bethell, chairman of Christendom College's Board of Directors, said.
Bethell said the Vatican took issue with the speakers and reading material offered to members of their congregation.
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby, said the sisters are completely faithful to the teachings of the church. She describes the conflict as a difference of culture: not understanding the LCWR's democratic process.
"It's not an issue of faith—it's an issue of culture. And there's a culture within the Catholic Church — we come out of a European model of the last few hundred years, and the European model was focused on monarchy," she said. "We know how in a democratic culture, every family has political disputes. When you have good strong arguments, truth emerges. And we find argumentation being a positive way forward."
Bethell added that Vatican officials have no qualms with most of the work the sisters have pursued, they just haven't been vocal enough about lobbying against abortion.
"They're not being criticized for their support for the poor, or for political activities on behalf of the poor. They're being asked to speak out on this first fundamental issue more than they have," she explained. "There is no point in talking about the right to an education, the right to health care, the right to decent shelter if you're dead. So the bishops are simply saying the right to life is the primary human right. They want the sisters to be more evident in that battlefield."
Campbell said she sees the conflict as a trial of perseverance. "Over and over in the Hebrew scriptures we see people being sent into difficult circumstances to speak a truth to power, as best they can, respectfully, with caring, with love and acknowledging that we have different perspectives on this," she said.
Dissenters seem just as firm on their position. "If you take issue with your church's position on how best to lobby for healthcare, for example, or for more food stamps, nobody's going to excommunicate you," Bethell said. "When it's a doctrinal issue relating to the nature of the church, that's different. ... If you find that you simply cannot accept that position, then you have to ask yourself whether you're a Catholic."
Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain has been appointed to oversee reforms, which will include revising LCWR statutes, reviewing their plans and programs and digging into their affiliations with other progressive religious organizations. Women religious leaders are stunned by the move; some have suggested that church leaders are trying to suppress them for publicly supporting Obama’s health care plan, which the bishops object to on the grounds it would provide government-funded abortion.
Why has the Vatican decided to crack down on nuns? With a dearth of priesthood candidates, a dwindling membership and a battered reputation, can the Catholic Church afford to alienate its women leaders, who remain active and engaged? How will Catholic women respond to these reforms?
Guests:
Donna Bethell, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Christendom College – A Roman Catholic College based in Alexandria, Virginia and Rome Italy
Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby
Robots stole my job! Essay grading edition
A new automated reader developed by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) can grade an impressive 16,000 student essays in 20 seconds. And, according to experts like Mark Shermis, dean of the College of Education at the University of Akron, the robot reader is just about as accurate as human reader at assessing a student’s prose. Humans are great at grading essays, but we can only slog through about 30 essays per hour.
For some in the world of testing ETS’s “e-Rater” is the wave of the future. It’s fast, accurate and never needs a coffee break. Humans, however, have one major plus: They’re able to detect truth and nuance - things about the written word that are totally lost on a computer that can only detect more quantifiable properties like the difficulty of words and essay length.
Critics say if students figure out the computer’s algorithms they can easily game the system and get a stellar grade with an essay full of wordy nonsense. Should speed trump the human element when it comes to the tedious task of grading piles of essays? Is there a way to combine the old technology and the new?
GUESTS
Mark Shermis, Ph.D, Dean of the College of Education, University of Akron; Study author, Contrasting State-of-the-Art Automated Scoring of Essays: Analysis
Les Perelman, Director, Writing Across the Curriculum in the Writing & Humanistic Studies program at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Chair of the Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Writing
It’s always been the economy, stupid
The economy is an issue that’s been at the forefront of nearly everyone’s mind for the past few years, and with the presidential election heating up, it’s grabbing even more of the spotlight than usual. However, while many people are preoccupied with what the American economy is like today and what it will be like tomorrow, perhaps it would do some good to look back at how we’ve gotten to where we are in the first place.
Author Michael Lind does just that in his new book, “Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States.” As modern day lawmakers on both sides of the aisle continue to fight over what role the government should play in the country’s economy, Lind shows how historically the economy and government have been tied to one another through technology.
As technology advances, certain economic industries are affected in such a fundamental way that politicians can no longer competently govern them. Thus, as the economy grows, the government must discard its old order and adapt so as to control it. According to Lind, this is the ultimate impetus for growth, both economic and political, and they serve as each other’s complements.
What inventions does Lind cite in his economic history as being particularly relevant? How did America’s economy prosper for so long before taking a downturn? What is the state of America’s economic health now in comparison to other points in the past? What’s on the horizon for our country’s financial situation?
GUEST
Michael Lind, author of Land Of Promise: An economic History of the United States