We Hate To Do The Number Limbo

I was just a bit too old to have ever been into Barney. It came out in 1992; I was born in 1986 -- six years old is right at the edge of its target audience. For some reason, though, the opening riff to "The Number Limbo" has stuck with me as I round forty years old, periodically popping into my head at random intervals like a parasitic ear worm. I actually didn't even know it was a "Barney" song until I googled it last night. It is a mystery how it burrowed into my subconscious, but it has found its place and it will not be dislodged.

I was born too late to be into Barney itself, but I was also old enough to remember the absolutely mass social hatred people had for Barney. I'm not talking about six- and seven-year-olds performatively rejecting Barney to prove they're not babies. That's at least developmentally appropriate -- though the dirty secret they don't tell you is that this sort of performative rejection is actually a sure-shot indicator you're still a kid. One of my firmest beliefs about human development is that teenagers reject all their "kids" interests to prove they're adults because they're nervous they're not -- then they go off to college and realize the one thing they can be sure they have in common with their new roommate is that they both loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a kid. Actual adulthood is reached when one doesn't feel the need to prove it.

Anyway, I digress. The Barney-hate we all saw was not the kid-appropriate version; it was society-wide and very much an adult phenomenon. And this practice -- I dunno. I don't like it. A society-wide propensity towards hating things whose primary sin is that they make a lot of people -- here, small children -- happy is not a phenomenon we should be proud of.

Perhaps with Barney young parents have an excuse for the haterade. Nathaniel isn't quite at the age where he's consuming children's media, but I can imagine in a few years after hearing the theme song to Bluey or whatever for the 9554th time I will laugh bitterly at my "who is it hurting" naivete. But this phenomenon is larger than Barney or children's media. The exhausted young parents story doesn't explain why we all decided to hate Anne Hathaway for awhile. Or Guy Fieri. Or Richard Simmons (okay, homophobia can explain that last one pretty easily).

The reality is, we do seem to pick out random pop culture figures who've done nothing wrong but be too earnest in making people happy and decide we're going to enjoy ourselves by collectively hating them. It is a society-wide digression towards adolescence and bullying behavior, styled (just as with actual adolescence) as a form of sophistication. We should be much more ashamed than we are of indulging in it.

The Honorable Jo Perini-Abbott

 

There are bigger electoral fish to fry tonight, but I do want to give a congratulations to my friend and colleague Jo Perini-Abbott, who looks set to win a seat on the Multnomah County Circuit Court. While we'll be sad to be losing her at Lewis & Clark, she will make a fine addition to the bench.

I also want to give a quick shoutout to her opponent, John Casalino. By all accounts (including Jo's), he is a fine attorney and also would have made a solid judge. While I supported Jo, I cannot tell you how nice it is to fill out a ballot when the race isn't "Norma Reasonabola versus Dixie McRapist in a nail-biter!" There are three other local contested judicial elections this cycle, and in at least two of them there were a multitude of really strong candidates to choose from (those two races are heading to a run-off). 

The third race is a bit of an odd duck with an incumbent facing controversy (it's ... a long story), but the challenge to her doesn't seem especially ideologically-motivated. The incumbent, Judge Adrian Brown, has clashed with our local DA, but her challenger is a public defender who suggested that frustration with Judge Brown is present on all sides of the bar. In any event, Brown appears to be losing by a very wide margin.

But I don't want to focus on that. I want to focus on a great candidate notching a win, in an election that speaks to the depth of respected and diligent public servants we have in our community. How lucky I am to live in such a place.

Congratulations!

Magic Words in Malign Times

You've probably heard of the shooting at a San Diego Islamic center that killed three people, along with the two shooters (who reportedly killed themselves). Early reports suggest that this was a White Supremacist attack.

I have little to say about this save the obvious -- that this is a despicable act of Islamophobic terror and that it flows directly from the cavalcade of anti-Muslim rhetoric and action that has emanated from the top levels of our government and society. That the perpetrators will never face true justice only underscores their monstrosity. Whatever comfort and support I can give to the victims and their loved ones, I extend it, even as I know I can do little.

I do want to note one other thing. I read the statement on the attack from my local Jewish Federation. It is, of course, horrified -- there was never any doubt of that. But it does not say the word "Islamophobia" or "Islamophobic".  In fact, other than naming the site of the shooting, it doesn't mention "Islam" or "Muslim" at all. The shooting is presented as emblematic of "the threat facing religious communities in America"; it underscores the need for "security funding to help protect all houses of worship and faith-based institutions nationwide."

I am not one to police statements such as these to see whether they have or omit certain "magic words". The tenor of the JFed's statement is clear enough; and if it speaks in universal language, well, I'm not a cheerleader for the overextension of the "all lives matter-ing" complaint. However, there are others out there who do make a habit out of scouring for magic words, and who work themselves up into very high dudgeon when a statement that seems on face perfectly appropriate doesn't use a certain specific word or phrase or framing. 

If such individuals wish to be truly equal opportunity in their critique, then they should have no problem with anyone who rakes the JFed over the coals for its omission. But if they think that would be unreasonable, and that the JFed deserves better than that, then I hope they'll consider extending similar grace to others in turn.

Of Course Dobbs Didn't Completely "Return Abortion to the States"

After a brief delay, the Supreme Court stayed (over dissents from Justices Thomas and Alito) the latest Fifth Circuit gambit to try and take mifepristone off the market. There's plenty to talk about, and plenty of others will talk about it. But I did want to flag one talking point in the dissent that stood out to me for its hackishness.

Justice Alito described the Dobbs decision as having "restored the right of each State to decide how to regulate abortions within its borders." Allowing mifepristone to be sent through the mail, consequently, "undermine[s]" the Dobbs ruling insofar as it permits abortion medication to be sent to states that have sought to ban it. The immediate problem with this logic is obvious: Dobbs did not completely "return abortion to the states." Dobbs held that there was no federally-protected constitutional right to an abortion. But there could be myriad ways the federal government might pass regulations on abortion -- for example, via its power to regulate the safety and distribution of pharmaceuticals.

This point is not novel. Scott Lemieux wrote today that "making mifepristone available through telehealth 'undermines' Dobbs only if the holding was not that the Constitution was silent on abortion but that the Constitution is hostile toward abortion. Louisiana has never had any jurisdiction over the federal drug approval process."

But what I haven't seen flagged yet is just how quickly the dissenters abandon this farkakteh position that they obviously don't believe in the first place. Because you know far you'll have to look in U.S. Reporter to find a Dobbs Justice emphasizing ongoing federal authority on the subject of abortion? Approximately one page, to Justice Thomas' dissent, where he contends that the mailing of mifepristone is illegal nationwide under the Comstock Act! Whatever else one might say about that argument, it is precisely an assertion that federal law continues to have a say on abortion. Which -- of course conservatives believe! There's never been any doubt of that! Or more precisely, there's no doubt of that in circumstances where the federal government might seek to assert authority to limit abortion access, rather than protect it.

As always, the actual meaning of any Supreme Court precedent for the Court's conservatives is whatever they want it to mean, for however long it is convenient for it to carry that meaning. When the Supreme Court in Callais confirmed the continued vitality of the Allen precedent, that commitment lasted approximately two weeks. That's an anemic showing, but it is no match for the one page the ultra-right faction took to travel from insisting that Dobbs forecloses federal regulations on abortion to insisting that federal regulation already makes the distribution of abortion drugs illegal.

Fighting AI Slop in Academic Publishing

The prominent academic pre-print repository arXiv has reportedly announced stiff new penalties for authors who submit papers with AI-generated hallucinations (e.g., fake citations). Violators will be subject to a one-year outright ban on submissions, and an indefinite requirement that any future uploads must have been accepted by a "reputable peer-reviewed venue".

This is as good a prompt as any for why I am slightly -- slightly -- more optimistic about the ability of academia to fend off the tsunami of AI slop compared to other entities in the business of generating texts. One problem with AI slop in, say, the news space is that it's essentially impossible to impose meaningful sanctions on violators. It's essentially spam bots -- if one site gets delisted, another springs up in its place. The spammers don't care specifically about the reputation of this website or that (usually fake) author. The main goal is to get their text out in the world; it doesn't matter so much who it's attributed to (except insofar as that can aid the text getting more readers or otherwise embedding itself in the algorithm).

But academics are differently situated. True, an academic might have an incentive to look super-productive, and so an unscrupulous version of me might be tempted by the prospect of being to produce dozens of (low-quality, but cross-cited) papers in a short-period of time. But crucially, it's important that I be the one credited for all this productivity and all these citations. If I'm blacklisted from a bunch of journals, that's a genuine deterrent in a way that banning a spam bot is not for your typical spammer. Penalties like those that arXiv proposed exact meaningful costs that draw (ironically enough) on the self-interested nature of academics (if the only thing we cared about was getting our research into the world, without worrying about the credit, this deterrent wouldn't work). Academics need to put our own name on articles to get credit for articles, and that means that where we are found out to be misbehaving, there can be punishments which stick to us. For my part, I am generally a strong proponent of strong punishments -- including blacklists -- for academic authors who submit AI slop to journals.

This isn't to say there are no abusive uses of AI that wouldn't circumvent these reputational deterrents. I can think of two in particular.

The first is papers with fake authors which over-cite other articles by a real academic. Banning the fake authors would not exact costs on the real-world wrongdoer (the real academic whose presumably using some mill to generate the fake articles to goose his or her own citation counts). That said, where one can credibly ascertain that the over-cited scholar is the "real" author and that they've created a Potemkin article as a means of abusing a citation racket, they still can be subject to meaningful sanctions.

The second possible problem is articles which falsely claim to be authored by a real academic (who actually had no affiliation with the piece), hoping to trade on his or her genuine reputation to boost the reach of the slop article. This practice is especially dangerous because -- consistent with the above promotion of punishing the authors for bad AI practices -- it risks engendering false accusations. It appears that John Smith wrote a bogus AI-generated slop piece, so blacklist John Smith -- except John Smith actually had nothing to do with the piece; some scammers slapped his name on it. This could be a significant problem, though I'll note its scope is limited again by the fact that the main benefits of publishing a "bad" AI-generated article have to at some point accrue to a "real" author, and so eventually whichever co-author is the actual malign actor behind the charade should be able to be sussed out.

Hillel International Forbids Middlebury Chapter From Staying, Leaving

The Jewish students involved in Middlebury College's Hillel want to disaffiliate from Hillel International, citing (among other things) disagreement over implementation over the latter's "partnership policies."

Middlebury College’s Hillel student board made the decision last week after a yearlong consultation process with active participants in the campus organization, university administrators and Hillel International leadership, according to the student group’s co-presidents. The board also voted to disaffiliate from Hillel International, but were told by Middlebury’s administration that they lacked the authority to take that action, the co-presidents told the Middlebury campus newspaper.

The student group, renamed to Jewish Association of Middlebury, will continue to perform similar functions as Hillels do on hundreds of campuses around the world — holding events around Shabbat and Jewish holidays and other Jewish religious and social programming. The board says it will maintain an on-paper link with Hillel without adhering to its guidelines, and it will not receive any funding from the organization.

The response from Hillel International has been ... interesting:

Hillel International, which does not employ a rabbi or any professional staff at Middlebury, said in a statement that it was currently reviewing Hillel’s affiliation status with the college to confirm it will ensure that JAM “adheres to our mission and standards.”

“Hillel is committed to supporting all Jewish students — from all types of backgrounds and with a diversity of views and beliefs on a range of issues including Israel,” the statement in part read. “At the same time, we are a proudly Zionist organization, and do not provide a platform for programming that denies Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state within secure borders.

“All campus Hillels — even those that are just a student group without dedicated professional Hillel staff — are expected to operate in line with our mission, vision, values, and policies.”

[....] 

At the university’s behest, the students then met virtually with Hillel International, whose representative reiterated that the board members must universally adopt Hillel International’s political views and values about Israel, according to the Campus. But the representative also conceded that it couldn’t stop the students from changing the organization’s name.

“We said we want to disaffiliate, and they said you can’t. And we said, well, we’re going to change the name anyway. And they said, we can’t stop you,” Jaffe said.

So to recap: the Middlebury Jewish students object to following the partnership guidelines. Hillel says campus chapters have to follow the partnership guidelines. So the students say they want to disaffiliate from Hillel. They're told they can't. So the students say they won't follow the partnership guidelines. And Hillel says ... they're reviewing the chapter's affiliation status?

Forgive me, but what exactly is Hillel endgame here? Disaffiliation? That's what the students wanted to begin with! It's just a farce at this point: "We're leaving" "You can't leave" "Well we're not following your rules" "Then we'll kick you out!"

I'm a general opponent of campus witch hunts targeting Hillel, which often does essential work as a center for Jewish life on campus. But it is a case that the national office of Hillel has a tendency to forget that it ultimately serves Jewish students, not the other way around, and this is yet another instance of Hillel resisting its badly needed dose of democracy. The reason why Hillel constantly steps in it when it comes to applying the partnership guidelines (among other issues) is that it lacks meaningful democratic accountability to its students. If the Jewish students of Middlebury involved in Hillel want to raise money for World Central Kitchen's relief efforts in Gaza (the incident which apparently set this whole train in motion), that's their prerogative, and it's outrageous that the national body thinks it should be entitled to intercede against it. 

Finally, it would be easy to connect the Middlebury students' decision with broader campaigns aimed at boycotting or rejecting Hillel as a "Zionist" or "Israel-connected" institutions. However, while their problems with Hillel International are certainly related to that organization's narrowness on Israel and Zionism, it's important to stress that the Middlebury students are very much not framing their decision as a general rejection of "Israel" or "Zionism":

“Let us be clear: this decision is not a rebuke of Zionism, Zionist students, or the importance of Israel to many in the Jewish community,” a Dec. 2025 email to JAM membership read. “Rather, it reflects a desire to create the most welcoming and pluralistic space possible.”

This choice, in other words, was not made by a group of radical purists who couldn't countenance brushing up against anything associated with the "Zionist entity." Rather, it was forced by a national office made up of, well, radical purists who couldn't countenance brushing up against anything associated with support for Palestinians. The latter category includes many Jews who most certainly do not see Israel as a dirty word, but nonetheless find themselves personae non gratae in too many Jewish spaces.

How Parenting Changes Politics

It's a cliche to say that becoming a parent changes your politics. But maybe not in the same way for everyone. Parenting, I think, amplifies one's protective instincts. It accentuates vulnerability -- there's this tiny baby, who you want all the best things for, but whom you are painfully aware is dependent on not just you but the whole world to determine the trajectory of his or her life. You want to keep your child safe, and yet you know that it's not ultimately all up to you (or your child, for that matter). It's one of those banalities that feels ridiculous but is true; that it's almost impossible to imagine loving and caring about someone more than the baby in your arms.

There are some people for whom that protectiveness manifests in a form of conservatism -- suddenly becoming a lot less willing to "risk" harms befalling their child (where "risk" is less "letting them climb a tree" and more "letting them attend school with the riff-raff"). But for me, at least, this overwhelming, almost painful sense of protectiveness unlocked a new level of empathy. That feeling of terror at the thought of something terrible happening your baby -- the omnipresent Geiger counter of fear? Every parent has that. Every child (and I include here adult children) has loved ones who feel that way about them too. To see something bad happen to another person -- for them to be in a position where they need help and can't get it -- it hits me like a tidal wave; oddly, not fully on their own behalf, but on behalf of those who love them. I both can't and can imagine how that would feel if it happened to Nathaniel. And all the clever rationalizations and political machinations that explain why this suffering or deprivation or injustice or explosion is the just one wither in the face of that crushing wall of empathy.

The other day I had an idea for a painting series (that is, if I were a talented artist, which I am not), which was to take classic depictions of war and battle and replace all the faces of the soldiers with those of babies. The thought of the painting makes me want to shut my eyes to and run away from my own imagination (which, from an artistic standpoint, is a good sign -- good art makes you feel things after all -- but is less pleasant when one can't create and just has to live with it in your own mind). Each man charging, rearing, falling, crying, in agony, lying still -- they are all someone's baby. No matter what side they're on, they have loved ones grieving for them. How can we not do everything in our power to avert such grief? It is an awful experience even to imagine it, much less to live through it. Even if the rational part of me can fathom -- barely -- that this cannot always be the absolute number one priority, boy should it put one hefty thumb on the scale.

Between "One-Sided" and "Equating", Part II

A few days ago there was a dust-up at the Park Slope Food Coop after a member, during a coop meeting, stated that "Jewish supremacism is a problem in this country." Following an outcry, the store's general manager condemned the remark, along with that of a different member who decried "Arab supremacy" in the context of speaking out against October 7 and criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood.

I read that sequence and thought "that's about as satisfactory an outcome as I could hope for." Whatever theoretical or academic justifications one can use to validate either "Jewish supremacism" or "Arab supremacy", if you want to take the temperature down in these sorts of settings you have to clamp down on that sort of thing. If one isn't okay, then the other isn't either. If anything, it is nicely convenient that both phrases were used, as it lets the coop leadership make clear that there position is one of principle, not a backdoor means of showing favoritism to one group at the expense of another.

But I knew my satisfaction would be another's ill-temper, and so it is here. I wasn't surprised, of course, to see that the coop's pro-Palestinian activists were going to the mat for their right to assail "Jewish supremacism." And unfortunately, I also wasn't surprised to see others complain that to condemn the phrase "Arab supremacy" may as well have nullified the condemnation of the phrase "Jewish supremacism".

For coop member Ramon Maislen, who condemned the comments allegedly made by Huarachi last week, Szladek’s email created a false equivalency between the two remarks.

[....] 

Maislen said he believed Szladek’s email “completely minimizes what Jewish people are feeling at the coop.”

“I don’t think there’s much coded language around Arab supremacy that I’m aware of,” Maislen said. “So I think it’s very, very disappointing when you see an email go out after such a mask-off moment for the hatred within the anti-Zionist movement, and to have the general coordinators basically, completely, make it some sort of like equality between the two statements.”

On Thursday, Coop4Unity, an anti-BDS coalition at the coop that Maislen serves as an organizer of, issued a press release calling on [coop General Manager Joe] Szladek to “issue an unequivocal condemnation of antisemitism,” arguing that his previous email created a “false moral equivalence that members say dilutes the gravity of what occurred.”

“In his statement, General Manager Szladek cited a separate member’s use of the phrase ‘Arab supremacy’ — offered in the context of referencing October 7th and the Muslim Brotherhood — and presented it as a parallel offense to the ‘Jewish supremacy’ remark that drew crowd applause,” the release read. “Coop4Unity argues this is a false equivalence that obscures rather than addresses what took place.”

Ah yes, "false equivalency" -- a sin most heinous. Except, that is, when one doesn't do it -- for then one is committing the equally grievous sin of being "one-sided". I wrote on this subject five years ago, and it remains resonant today. But unfortunately, I feel as if things have gotten worse rather than better. 

And -- morality aside -- this is such a dumb hill to die on. Is it really so important that one be able to rail about "Arab supremacy" that you'll risk undermining a condemnation of people going on about "Jewish supremacism"? Take the win! This whole logic is how you get backed into a corner of being mad at people for saying the JDL is bad, when what one should do is be delighted anytime someone says "JDL is bad" and be ecstatic at the opportunity to negatively polarize your constituency against them and their apologists. The Park Slope group had the opportunity to set the polarity of the debate as "mainstream coop members versus people who are livid that they can't hurl 'supremacist' charges at ethnic minorities", and they squandered it. Again, I think the ethics are bad here, but I'm almost madder at the tactical idiocy of it all.

Prosecuting Our Military When It Murders

The United States military continues to carry out illegal strikes on civilian boats allegedly engaged in drug trafficking.

The case that this is criminal is, in my view, not close. Contrary to the President's assertions, there is no serious argument that we are in the midst of an armed conflict with ... who exactly? Drug traffickers? Their behavior (if indeed the boaters are engaged in wrongful activity at all, which is hardly assured) is the epitome of criminal misconduct, which must be dealt with via criminal proceedings. We do not get to fire rockets at the vehicles of suspected criminals. And even if one could strain to argue that this falls under a military engagement, the follow-up strikes on shipwrecked sailors violates longstanding rules in the law of warfare. We literally sentenced Nazis to death for doing this.

There is a lot of enthusiasm for "prosecutions" amongst Democrats now. I share that enthusiasm. We must make clear that, if and when Democrats retake power, there will be consequences for the criminal activities that have run rampant through this administrative. And in many ways, this represents both an easy and an important case. 

It's easy because not only is the law incredibly clear, but there's no difficulty identifying the responsible party. This isn't a situation where we have to track down a masked unknown grunt who stood out for particularly brutal aggression (as in many of the ICE cases), or alternatively, where we have to do difficult work in tying said grunt's actions to specific orders from higher-ups. Here the military context makes command responsibility obvious, and the commanding General, Francis Donovan, is named in the Pentagon press releases bragging about the "operations".

It's important because restoring the applicability of law of war principles to the U.S. military is of absolute existential importance for a nation with the most powerful military on the planet. Without downplaying the many, many breaches, there is a huge difference between a military that is internally committed to law of war rules and one that from the top decides to openly flout them. The latter situation is how you do start seeing what Trump wanted to do, but couldn't, in term 1 -- deploying the full might of the American military apparatus against the American citizenry to retain a dictatorial grip on power.

And on top of all that, of all the potential criminals one might find harbored by the Trump administration, General Donovan is probably among the most vulnerable. The president's pardon power does seem to extend at least partially into the realm of military justice (and in fact, Trump has already pardoned several war criminals). but it seems clear to me that the pardon power cannot completely obstruct a future Commander-in-Chief's power to drum out of service an officer whom the CinC lacks faith in as a legitimate holder of rank and service. Of everybody implicated in Trumpist crimes, those in the military are, formally speaking, probably the least insulated from facing accountability from a future administration.

But in spite of all that, I suspect that prosecuting General Donovan and his compatriots responsible for criminal actions on the high seas will be much more fraught and less popular than essentially any other prosecution a future administration might bring. The political gravity pulling against prosecuting members of the military -- regardless of the context -- is just going to be too strong. Rightly or wrongly, I suspect it will be insurmountable for any junior officers or enlisted men involved in the operation. And even for the senior leadership, I can't imagine it going over well even in a context where there is a significant demand to prosecute, say, ICE leaders or Trump associates found to have embezzled money.

I don't have a good answer for this because, again, the need to restore deterrence here is nothing short of existential. We've seen in the Israeli case -- it barely managed to limp across a conviction in 2016 when IDF soldier Elor Azaria shot an unarmed Palestinian, and just doing that nearly tore the country apart. That set the stage for the non-prosecution decision for soldiers accused of sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees ten years later -- a decision that again came on the heels of widespread government intervention (including joining in outright rioting) in support of the abusers. The culture of impunity that's developed in the intervening years no doubt plays no small role in the brutal devastation the IDF has wreaked against civilian infrastructure in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon (the soldiers punished for vandalizing a Jesus statute had every reasonable expectation of assuming they'd be let off scot-free were it not for the  bad fortune of angering one of the few foreign constituencies the Israeli government still cares about appeasing). As disastrous as that trajectory has been in the Israeli case, I don't think they're in any way unique -- most countries (and certainly our country) blanches at holding their uniformed military personnel accountable for misdeeds.

So I don't know. It might that these prosecutions, or other retributive measures, have to be a little less media-forward than others. They might not be political winners (and to be clear, I do think that going after corrupt Trump apparatchiks will, in general, very much be a political winner in addition to being the right thing to do). But it still needs to be done.

Seventh Circuit Accidentally Tells Truth About Voter ID Laws

There is no "right to vote" in the United States Constitution.

This is a fact that surprises many people, given the centrality of democracy to our national ethos. But it's true. The Constitution prohibits certain specific types of restrictions on the franchise -- for example, limits based on race (15th Amendment), sex (19th amendment), or, in federal elections, failure to pay a poll tax (24th Amendment). However, there is no general, textual protection for a right to vote.

That said, the Supreme Court has recognized some heightened scrutiny that applies to limitations on suffrage. The "interest of the State when it comes to voting," the Supreme Court held in 1966, "is limited to the power to fix qualifications." The Court in that case concluded that wealth was not a valid qualification the state could impose on the franchise -- the state has no interest in preventing an otherwise qualified voter from casting a ballot because of his or her income. The broader principle is that the state has no valid interest in voter suppression -- preventing validly qualified voters from casting ballots. By contrast, a law which is related to enforcing a legitimate qualification -- say that the voter who presents themselves at the poll is in fact who they say they are -- may be permissible.

This distinction has been critical in more recent litigation over voter ID laws. Critics say that these laws are about voter suppression -- they are attempts to prevent lawful and qualified voters from casting their ballots by throwing up extraneous and burdensome obstacles in their path. Proponents, at least officially, deny any such motive -- they contend that such laws are simply about ensuring "election integrity" by preventing fraudulent votes from being cast. Any resident who actually is a valid voter should still be able to cast their ballot (all they need to do is show a valid ID! How hard is that?).

Now, it's always been evident that the latter, "anti-fraud" justification was a lie. The alleged "fraud" was essentially non-existent; and demanding voter ID wouldn't generally even forestall the tiny amount of fraud that did occur. But when the Supreme Court later upheld laws like Indiana's voter ID statute in Crawford v. Marion County against a facial challenge, it relied on this distinction between wrongfully trying to disenfranchise qualified voters and the legitimate state authority to fix qualifications. Voter ID laws are permissible because they are not about blocking qualified voters from voting, they are about ensuring that only qualified voters vote.

Recently, Indiana modified its voter ID law to prevent student IDs (but not VA, military, or tribal IDs) from being used as "voter ID". A district court had enjoined the law, ruling that it would unconstitutionally suppress the votes of young Indianans (and to reiterate -- young Indianans who are entirely legitimate and valid voters in Indiana elections). Earlier today, though, the Seventh Circuit stayed that injunction under the so-called Purcell principle, which cautions against court injunctions that change election rules too close to election day (ballots in Indiana's primary elections have already been mailed out).

The district court analyzed Purcell but concluded it did not apply, given that Indiana had permitted student IDs as a valid form of ID for decades and so would have to do nothing more complicated than revert to the system it had been using in every election up to the present one. But the Seventh Circuit disagreed, and in doing so it said something very revealing:

We view the risk of disruption to Indiana’s primary election as very serious. In no uncertain terms, the district court’s injunction will alter who can cast a ballot in this election (emphasis added).

This is a very revealing line. In theory (very, very naive theory), Indiana's law should not "alter who can cast a ballot in this election." The students who were eligible to vote before the ID law was passed are still fully eligible to vote after the law was passed. All Indiana is doing is tightening up security to ensure that only eligible voters vote -- but these students are eligible voters. In practice, of course, the court is absolutely right: some voters -- qualified, eligible voters -- who would be able to satisfy Indiana's voter ID law with a student ID will no longer be able to do so under the new rules, and so will not be able to cast a ballot. The function of the law is not to simply fix legitimate qualifications -- it is to prevent eligible, lawful voters from voting. The critics were right all along. 

Worse, the court's logic here manifestly treats as an injury (a "serious" injury; a "disruption" demanding emergency judicial action) the inability of Indiana to suppress valid, legitimate votes. Indiana did not change who was formally eligible to vote in its elections, meaning that the class of voters whose ability to "cast a ballot in this election" will be altered is comprised entirely of legitimate, registered voters. That cannot be stressed enough. One could imagine Purcell analysis that goes entirely to the procedural difficulties of changing voter ID eligibility rules midstream (such an argument might be plausible given that ballots had already been mailed, though the district court found that all Indiana would have to do to come into compliance is delete a single line in its election guidance documents). But that's not what the panel said. The court's articulation of the problem here is not one of administrative strain. The court's problem, "in no uncertain terms", is that certain eligible, registered voters who would be prevented (in spite of their eligibility) from casting a ballot if the student ID prohibition was in effect would now be allowed to cast a ballot in the primary. People who are eligible to vote will now not be blocked from voting. In essence, the court treats voter suppression as tantamount to a compelling state interest -- a stunning perversion of even our meager "right to vote" jurisprudence.

One might say I am reading too much into a single line in a hastily-filed emergency ruling. But I would say the Seventh Circuit's opinion is the epitome of a judicial Kinsley gaffe. Everybody knew that voter ID laws were not about concocted concerns about "fraud" but rather about trying to suppress lawful votes from Democratic constituencies. The Seventh Circuit just finally got around to admitting it.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume LXXVIII: Lack of Pedophilic Incest Options

There is a paradox at the heart of this series. Its core premise is that if one looks hard enough (and honestly, not too hard), one can find someone blaming the Jews for anything. But precisely because of that, its almost uninteresting when the blamer is some complete internet rando. It's more "fun" when it's someone of at least marginal import or influence.

Our character today does have an X blue check, but that doesn't mean anything nowadays -- it's literally just an indicator that your content is paid promotion. So it probably is a complete rando. But some complete randos manage to transcend their humble origins and deserve their moment of spotlight. And so here, I present a man earnestly complaining that if it weren't for Israel, he'd have a baby sister he could groom.

Blech.

This also demonstrates one of the oddities of this series, which is that sometimes the Jews are falsely "blamed" for something that's actually good. Way before this series ever started, I remember finding a quote by the President of Sudan blaming Jews for ... causing people to protest against the Darfur genocide. Probably not entirely attributable to us, but also, I wouldn't ashamed if it was. Likewise, I actually don't think the Jewish State is why this man can be an incestuous pedophile, but if you're going to give away the credit, hey, I'm not going to object too loudly.

Against the World on Abbott Elementary

*Spoilers for the most recent episode of Abbott Elementary*

So we need to talk about the big plotline on this week's episode of Abbott Elementary.

I'm talking, of course, about Melissa and her former student, Jonathan.

The basic thrust is that Jonathan has supposedly become a big New York City finance guy, much to Melissa's elation, as she remembers him as a smart kid from one of her first classes. She's eager to have him visit her class to deliver an inspirational message to her current students. Unfortunately, it turns out that Jonathan actually is facing prison time for being involved in a crypto scam, and he wants Melissa to write him a character letter for the judge.

Jonathan makes clear that he assumed Melissa would be on his side as a fellow hustler. She was the one who taught him that you had to take what was yours, that it was each of them against the world, that the system was rigged so why not play dirty, and so on. He assumes he was living out her lessons, so of course she would do her part to help bend the legal process in his favor.

As Melissa realizes what's going on, it's clear she's heartbroken but also a bit rattled. She limply tells Jonathan that he taught him to punch up, not down, and tries to remind him of the sweet boy she remembers teaching who genuinely did care for others. This all falls on deaf ears though, and ultimately Melissa refuses to write the letter.

There was something about this plotline that rubbed me the wrong way. Obviously, Jonathan is an adult, and it would be juvenile and simplistic to blame the parables of his third-grade teacher for his adult exploitative choices. However, what I wish we saw, but we didn't really, was a bit more reckoning and reflection from Melissa about what message she is sending her children when she delivers these "the system is out to get you, it's you against the world" sermons, because that narrative genuinely can breed a sort of egoism and nihilism of the sort adult-Jonathan embodies. Instead, the story beat lands more on "sometimes the kids just turn out bad, and you have to accept that", which is true, and heartbreaking, but it didn't inspire much in the way of growth. 

It helps that as the episode progresses, Jonathan becomes more and more cartoonishly sociopathic. His targets were confused seniors, the "lessons" he learned centered entirely around not getting caught, and he's already plotting his next scam even before his sentenced for the current one! (For what it's worth, I also felt they kind of went this direction with Draemon Winding, another former-student-turned-minor-antagonist). That Jonathan feels so irredeemable ultimately brings the episode in for a softer landing, since surely Melissa couldn't have had any role in such a bad egg (even though Melissa specifically recalls him being a sweet kid with a good heart).

I'll also add here that while one character suggests to Melissa that his efforts to play on their past relationship is simply scammers being scammers, I actually don't think that's (wholly) true. Whatever else may be the case, Jonathan to my eyes seems to genuinely believe that Melissa would respect his hustle and be on his side (if he didn't, he'd have fed her a much more conciliatory, "I was wrong but now I see the light" story). That's more powerful evidence that she really was a (bad) influence on him --  again, not to overstate her role or culpability, but suggesting that she really should reflect a bit on what lessons she's imparting on her kids. Certainly, I can see the value of imparting to disadvantaged kids a bit of a chip on their shoulder as a motivating tool. But that medicine has side effects, and maybe it would have been valuable if Melissa realized it needed some tempering.

The BlueSky discourse of the day is the finding that GenX is by far the most resiliently pro-MAGA generational cohort. Some folks have suggested this is ironic, given GenX's paradigmatic mistrust of authority should have made them resistant to authoritarianism. But I'm not surprised at this link. My Arendtian theory of the appeal of Trumpism is that Trump is most appealing precisely to the sort of person whose ignorant cynicism styles itself as sophisticated realism -- they know that all politicians (and the entire "system") are liars and corrupt and bullshitters, and so they are unperturbed to see someone whose only sin seems to be being a bit more brazen than most (indeed, isn't that very brazenness in a sense more honest? At least Trump doesn't hide who he is!). The drumbeat of messages to the effect of "both parties are the same", "every politician is bought", "everybody is lying to you" -- all versions of "the entire world is out to get you, so go get yours" -- this mentality is a breeding ground for political fascism and social scamming. Again, without discounting intervening causes and his own agency, Jonathan Pierce is a predictable product of that worldview. And I wish the show and the character realized that.

Oh, and apparently Gregory and Janine are on the rocks? So you can talk about that too, if you want.

"Everybody Knew" vs. "Not My Story To Tell"

Earlier this week, a flurry of sexual misconduct allegations emerged against Democratic Rep. (and California gubernatorial candidate) Eric Swalwell, including at least one woman (a former staffer) who alleges that Swalwell raped her while she was intoxicated.

I don't think there's any question that Swalwell must drop his campaign for Governor and resign from the House. Testimony is evidence, and a bunch of people have now come forward to testify as to a pattern of misconduct by Swalwell. In a court of law, it's possible that more evidence would be necessary to secure a conviction, but the assignment of political power and opportunities does not and should not obey the federal rules of evidence. I have no interest in dwelling on this point beyond that.

Shortly after the story broke, I saw several journalists and DC insiders immediately chime in with some version of "open secret" or "everybody knew". And that, in turn, caused many people to emit the "hmm" emoji, since if all these journalists and insiders already knew ... why wasn't the story ever reported? To that, the counternarrative I heard (ironically, from someone who was giving "hmm" vibes but also was trying to cabin it) was a variation of "not my story to tell." The women in question had told the stories, but in confidence; they had made clear (up until now) that they did not want to go public, and the persons they told it to felt obliged to respect that choice. 

And so we face a quandary: when nobody talks about what everybody knows, therein lies the space for known abusers to run free. But to take it upon oneself to override the wishes of the victim and put them and their trauma under an inevitably horrible spotlight -- that is a great and terrible thing to do. I don't think the confidant's silence can be chalked up always or solely to a desire to preserve an omerta protecting the powers-that-be. There's more to it than that.

So how do we resolve that quandary? What are our instincts as between the competing force of "everybody knew" and "not my story to tell"? Kate Manne in her work has written about her own experience being abused by a powerful older man, how she begged those she confided in not to pursue, and how now, in hindsight, she wishes that her confidants had not listened to her and spoken out. That instinct, perhaps, is what motivates mandatory reporting laws (such as the ones professors like myself are often subject to). Without necessarily disagreeing with her stance, the issues no doubt land differently for the victim in the moment or in hindsight versus the confidant they report to.

Anyway, I'm curious what others think on this, and how it should be resolved.

Iron Dome and the Leveraging of Civilian Death

While there is by now a relatively large contingent of Democrats opposing the sale of offensive weaponry to Israel, we're also seeing a growing push to try and forestall the sale of defensive weapons to Israel as well (most notably, the Iron Dome missile defense system). Iron Dome intercepts missiles and rockets being fired at Israel by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and in doing so has saved countless civilian lives. Unsurprisingly, the endeavor to strip Israeli civilians of these protections is far more controversial than the effort to bar the sale of additional offensive weapons to Israel -- it seems to demarcate a clear difference between wanting to preserve Palestinian life versus wanting to extinguish Israeli lives.

So what is the argument against providing Israel with Iron Dome? This article in +972 provides an illustrative example of the case, which runs basically as follows: the existence of Iron Dome enables Israel to engage in military aggression without having to internalize the costs. Israel feels free to engage in military attacks basically at will, secure in the knowledge that any attempted reprisals will be blocked. By contrast, if Israel was more vulnerable to military attacks -- if it had to reckon with the reality that "the other side" really can hurt them too -- it would be more judicious about electing to commence its own military operations. An Israel which was forced to more tangibly endure the costs of the wars it started might be forced to consider other approaches to solving its various diplomatic (or even security) dilemmas beyond just bombing the problem away. And the hope is that, where all parties face real risk of injury or destruction, all parties will be more reluctant to resort to militarism in the first place.

There is a logic to this argument. But it isn't as straightforward as it sounds, and there is both a strategic and a moral objection one could level against it.

Start with the strategic objection. The above logic assumes that a country which is more vulnerable to external security threats will be less inclined to commence its own military operations (since doing so would risk triggering reprisals which, by stipulation, might cause it serious injury). Again, this logic is not implausible. But neither is it incontestable. Another story one could tell is that a country which faces substantial security vulnerabilities may become more aggressive, because the reality of a substantial security threat makes certain risks which might otherwise be tolerable become intolerable. If one gets intelligence that a militant group on your border is accumulating missiles, the way you respond if you're confident those missiles can be intercepted without causing significant harm is very different from the way you respond if those missiles pose a severe and substantial threat to your civilian population. The latter nation may be far more likely to attack preemptively in circumstances where the former country may not feel the need for an immediate proactive response.

In Israel's case, after all, the most concrete recent instantiation of Israel having to reckon with a significant security vulnerability -- a severe threat to its civilian population that it was unable to stop -- was October 7 itself. And no matter how one characterizes what happened next, the one thing that I think is entirely indisputable is that Israel reckoning with real and genuine security vulnerability did not cause it to pull back from militarism due to being forced to account for the possibility that the other side can really hurt them. Much the opposite: the concrete illustration of an acute security vulnerability made Israel lightyears more aggressive and more militaristic than it was before. A security situation it had previously thought it had "managed" now had revealed itself to be incalculably more dangerous than they realized, and the result of that realization was, to say the least, not a sober reassessment of the merits of military action.

Now, to be sure, I don't want to say that this argument is necessarily "right" either. Again, the initial critique has a logic to it as well; my suspicion is that the actual play-out will not vindicate either narrative without qualification. The point is simply to say that it is not self-evident, as it is sometimes presented to be, that taking away Iron Dome will yield a more cautious and less belligerent Israel.

But now let's go ahead and accept the premise. If we don't provide Israel with Iron Dome, it will be less militaristic, to the greater good of all. If one is in fact persuaded by this premise, I still think it is important to be very clear on what the core logic of this approach is. Clear away the rhetorical fog, and the argument here is simply this:

If more Israeli civilians were endangered or died, things would be better.

Again, I will reiterate: I accept there is an instrumental logic to this. The argument is not that Israeli deaths are good for their own sake, it's that they will prompt Israel to be more cautious and restrained, and ultimately reduce the net amount of conflict and warfare in the reason. My challenge above notwithstanding, this argument is not transparently absurd.

Nonetheless, we shouldn't obscure the point. The argument against Iron Dome is, by its nature, consciously attempting to leverage the endangerment of civilians for (noble) strategic ends. It is by no means the only argument that takes such a form: one need not venture far from Israel proper to hear other renditions of such a claim, that permitting greater endangerment of civilians will ultimately bring about peace faster. And all I will say to this is that there are good reasons why, bloodless strategic logic notwithstanding, progressives might want to draw a redline around arguments like this, and that if we do not draw such a line ourselves we cannot act too appalled when others don't draw redlines against other attempts to leverage the endangerment of civilians for good policy ends. For my part, I fully admit I lack the stomach to put innocent civilians at greater risk for the greater good, and I'm proud of my shortcoming in that respect.

I'll be honest though -- my gut sense is that the driving force behind those who want to take away Iron Dome is not any sort of assessment of the strategic debate I outlined above at all. It is a more primal rebellion against the perceived unfairness of it all: that Israel can wreak so much death and destruction on its neighbors and face comparatively little in return. I don't doubt that, for most of these people, the genuine hope really is a reduction in violence and death for everyone. But my strong suspicion is that, if that doesn't come to pass, a tolerable second-best outcome would be if Israeli civilian deaths rose to approach those of their neighbors. If it turns out that the elimination of Iron Dome does nothing other than get a bunch more Israeli civilians killed -- it does not make Palestinians safer, it perhaps even puts them in more immediate peril -- well, we still have a karmic retribution if nothing else, and that's worth it on its own. And while I guess I can wrap my head around the egalitarian sentiment behind this, once again, I lack the stomach to engineer greater civilian death, even under as noble a rubric as "fairness".

Of course, not everybody is me. But if you are inclined towards opposing Israel having the Iron Dome based on the sketch provided above, I would ask that you have the courage to own your conviction. You are okay with leveraging civilian endangerment in order to achieve your desired policy ends. You of a kind with many other people, of many other ideological persuasions and of many other partisan loyalties across many other conflicts, that hold similar beliefs. Take note of the company you keep.

Trump Admin Can Get Its Jew List

A federal district court has agreed to enforce the EEOC's request for a list of Jewish-affiliated individuals at the University of Pennsylvania, rejected an attempt by Penn and various stakeholders (including Penn's Jewish Law Students association) to quash the subpoena. You can read Judge Gerald Pappert's opinion here.

On the legal question, the judge's decision is justifiable. The standard for issuing a subpoena in this context is very low, and under normal circumstances there are good reasons why the EEOC needs to investigatory power in this domain. Moreover, with one possible exception (which I'll discuss in a minute), I agree the challengers didn't muster much concrete evidence that they would be substantially burdened by the subpoena or that it would impinge on their protected interests.

I was not happy, however, to see the dismissive tone Judge Pappert took towards the challenge, and particular the echoes they raised regarding "Jew lists." He accused the interveners, including the Jewish interveners, of 

significantly rais[ing] the dispute's temperature by impliedly and even expressly comparing the EEOC's efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazis' compilation of 'lists of Jews.' Such allegations are unfortunate and inappropriate. [emphasis original]

Elsewhere, he was disdainful of the interveners notation of ties Trump administration officials have to antisemitic and neo-Nazi organizations, characterizing them as "unserious political arguments, not serious legal ones."

I confess I am quite tired of people lecturing Jews on how inappropriate and unserious we are being when we raise concerns about antisemitism. There is a reason why the Trump administration's request raised echoes of "Jew lists" (a history which, I'd add, is by no means restricted to Nazi Germany) and the Trump administration's well-documented connections to far-right antisemites bolsters those echoes. It is not lying or political opportunism which prompts these fears. The fact that these far-right associations have discredited the Trump administration in the eyes of much of the Jewish community should be seen as an embarrassment for the Trump administration, not a failing on the part of the Jews not understanding who their "protectors" truly are. 

On that note, one might think that, if the EEOC was actually concerned about protecting Penn's Jewish employees from antisemitism, it would respond more empathetically to concerns from many of those very same employees that the EEOC's conduct was making them feel less, rather than more, secure. This is perhaps the paradigmatic arrogance of the Trump administration when it comes to antisemitism -- it dreams of fighting antisemitism without those pesky Jews getting in the way. The court's breezy acceptance of the Trump administration's preferred framing -- of course they're protecting Jewish employees -- is part of this. The Jews don't seem to feel very protected! But that doesn't matter: after all, are we really going to let some Jew tell us how to fight antisemitism?

Again, this is admittedly an objection to tone, and the law is extremely deferential to the EEOC (and I think -- though perhaps regrettably in this specific context -- appropriately so under normal conditions). At the end of the day, historical "echoes" aside, the challengers did not do much to establish much of a credible burden on the subpoena (the claim that Jews would stop praying with the Jewish Law Students Association was extremely speculative, for instance). But the one potential exception I saw was in the EEOC's request to get the information regarding participants in a "listening session" Penn conducted on antisemitism, or who reported instances of antisemitism to the Penn administration. Penn asserted that requiring disclosure of the participants here would deter employees from reporting instances of antisemitism, significantly obstructing Penn's ability to gather information on its campus climate. The court's analysis rejecting this argument was quite thin -- it didn't view the argument as establishing a burden on Penn, and it stated without elaboration that permitting Penn to withhold the names of complainants would simply give it a "weapon" to interfere with the EEOC's investigation.

On this issue, at least, the arguments Penn raised deserved greater attention. I have an article forthcoming that is expressly about how the Trump administration's hyper-aggressive approach to "fighting antisemitism" may in many cases actually serve to deter Jewish students and stakeholders from speaking out on antisemitism. One of my keynote examples is precisely a scenario like this: the student who may wish to attend a "listening session" and give her perspective on the campus climate for Jewish students. She nonetheless may decline to participate so if she knows that her remarks might become grist for a MAGA war on her university. There are many students, one imagines, who might have concerns they wish to raise, but do not want to make a (literal) federal case out of them -- particularly in the present moment, where they know that a "federal case" could mean catastrophic funding cuts for her department or arrests and deportations of her classmates. 

This chilling effect is only enhanced by the clear propensity of the Trump administration to gleefully and overtly run roughshod over the will of the Jewish students it is nominally "protecting" -- she knows full well that even a loud and unambiguous objection will not even reduce, let alone eliminate, the risk that her words and participation will be conscripted into a destructive project she abhors. In that context, it is very likely she will elect not to participate, to her detriment and to the detriment of the university which earnestly wishes to provide a space where it can hear testimony on these issues.

Again, on the law this still may a close question -- we simply aren't well-equipped right now to handle situations where a substantial portion of group the EEOC claims to be "protecting" believes that the EEOC is in fact an adversary (and that the EEOC's very investigation "on their behalf" is a component of its antagonistic campaign). So maybe even here, the information must be disclosed.

But the concerns here are legitimate ones. They are not inappropriate, they are not unserious, they are not simply the raising of political hackles. Jews have good reason for their concerns here and good reasons to mistrust what the EEOC is up to; that's true regardless of how the legal argument should play out.

In Trump's first term, we went through a similar situation to this following reports that the administration was classifying Jews as a distinct "national origin" so as to qualify Jews for protection under Title VI. This was not a novel decision -- it's roots dated back to both the Bush and Obama administration -- but in the context of this administration it raised serious worries by many Jews that Trump was trying to position us as foreign, of another "nation", and thus not truly American. I wrote then that "The fight against discrimination requires judgment—but many Jews don’t trust this administration to exercise it appropriately."

That mistrust has only grown, and only grown more justified, in the present moment. Perhaps a trustworthy administration would not garner such an intense backlash if it sought information about Jewish community members in the context of an ongoing antisemitism investigation. But Jews are not obligated to trust this administration. And whatever the right result was on the formal legal question, it was unnecessary and fundamentally improper for Judge Pappert to deride the basis for our mistrust.

How To Be Honored By Friends

I've occasionally commented on the weird "honors" I get from nutty lunatics who hate me. Sure, they're extreme, and sure, they openly detest me, and sure, they probably are mentally ill. But on the other hand, do my friends place me in a group of some of the most illustrious legal scholars of the 21st century? Do my friends dedicate whole websites to declaring me a "disgusting Zionist punk" (it's still up!)? My enemies, I've often quipped, seem to have a far higher opinion of me than my so-called friends do!

It is in that light, though, that I'm especially pleased about two presentations I gave over the past week -- the first at the Washington State Judiciary's appellate conference, and the second at Reed College. Both talks were wonderful in their own right. But it was equally exciting who I shared the program with. In Washington, I followed directly after none other than Erwin Chemerinsky. And at Reed, I was part of a "free speech" program headlined by Cass Sunstein. Those are pretty big names -- ones fit, I daresay, for even the most discerning ramble from a damaged personality blasting off email screeds about Jewish perfidy.

So thanks to all my friends and supporters, for finally catching up to my enemies. I'm profoundly grateful.

(But in all seriousness -- I am profoundly grateful. It is awe-inspiring to seriously keep company like that).

Food Poisoning

I had food poisoning this weekend. Did I miss anything important?

I was all ready to write a very TMI blog post regaling you with the dirty details of my day -- which was exactly as miserable you might expect -- but I finally thought better of it. I will relay one story though (Yeah, it's a little gross. Feel free to skip this one).

As you know, when you throw up you can sometimes taste what food item it is that's coming back up. For me, last night, it was a donut.

At first, I was annoyed that that was what was being regurgitated. What a waste of a perfectly good donut!

But then I thought (and this was all occurring while I was hunched over the toilet), "well, if I have to throw up anything, isn't the donut the best thing to throw up? After all I already tasted and enjoyed it -- that's the fun part! All that's happening now is I skip the nutritional impact!"

And I was very pleased with myself for approximately two seconds, before I realized that I just invented an eating disorder from first principles. Whoops.

(Later in the day it happened again -- I was marveling at the fact that stuff kept coming out of me even as I wasn't putting any food into me, and I caught myself wondering how much weight I must have lost over the course of the day. The answer was: less than you'd think! Becoming violently ill is in fact not a good weight loss strategy, to say nothing of a general healthy living strategy, and I don't recommend it at all!).

Chicken Soup for the Zionist Infiltrator Soul, Part II

The left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), a major ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, has unveiled a plan to combat hate and keep Jews and other minorities safe that doesn't rely on policing or traditional securitization measures. This is a project a long time in development by JFREJ, of course, flows from and follows on a larger philosophical skepticism many leftists have towards the police -- arguing that the reliance on guns and fortresses and policing is both ethically suspect and discriminatory against other groups (including Jews of color) for whom the police are not a force for safety but for threat).

The report has quite a few layers, but the basic idea behind it is familiar enough -- invest in cross-community engagement projects that undermine hate at its roots.

The report calls for investment in “intergroup collaborative projects” that would foster connections across lines of difference, overseen by district-based or community-based program managers. 

“From renovating a playground, to operating a soup kitchen, to tenant organizing, to planning a street fair, we should look at many local activities as potential sites of intergroup relationship building,” the report reads.

I'm not hostile to this approach. I think these interventions are, by and large, welcome. I will repeat a point I've made before, which is that in the short-term these proposals cannot replace but must coexist with more traditional securitization measures. Even at their most optimistic, programs like this stop antisemitic violence by shriveling antisemitic attitudes. But they have little to offer in terms of actually materially obstructing someone who does commit to make an attack. Had Temple Israel in Michigan adopted JFREJ's preferred approach a week before the attempted attack on its preschool, the result would have been a lot more dead Jewish preschoolers. (By contrast, the Colleyville case was an example of "all of the above" -- the synagogue both credited "traditional" police collaborations as directly saving lives when it came under attack, and credited its entrenched history of cross-community engagement for redounding in genuine solidarity and support in the attack's aftermath). Where proposals like this are framed as immediate replacements for the police, or worse, are presented as justifications for blaming Jews who do still think more traditional policing measures are necessary, they have the potential to do immense harm rather than good.

But the larger point I want to make is this: if JFREJ is serious about this as the preferred approach for undermining hate, then it has to take aim at "anti-normalization" politics. The latter is a direct threat to the former. One cannot simultaneously talk up the importance of "intergroup relationship building" as a means of undermining hate and then turn around and justify kicking the Israeli vendor out of the food festival because it's colonialist and thievery and an attempt to whitewash Zionist crimes. "Anti-normalization" campaigns are nothing other efforts to strangle potential nodes of cross-community engagement and collaboration, precisely because permitting them to go forward risks muddying up attitudes of uncompromising antagonism and humanizing the enemy population. Indeed, the very example JFREJ offers of collaborating on a soup kitchen together -- that was used by prominent anti-Zionist (and antisemitic) activist David Miller as an example of perfidious Zionist infiltration that must be opposed at all costs!

Of course Israel have sent people in to target that, to deal with that. Particularly through interfaith work … pretending Jews and Muslims working together will be an apolitical way of countering racism. No, it’s a Trojan horse for normalising Zionism in the Muslim community. We saw it in East London Mosque for example, where East London Mosque unknowingly held this project of making chicken soup with Jewish and Muslim communities coming together. This is an Israel-backed project for normalising Zionism in the Muslim communities.

Again, this isn't to say JFREJ's proposal is bad. It is to say there is an active political movement that actively opposes programs like this from the left. They present these "collaborative projects" as collaborationism; they focus their energy not on extending solidarity but on compulsory abandonment. To the extent these groups still mouth the words of solidarity, it is solidarity not as an offer but as a threat: "'safety through solidarity' -- or else."

My read on JFREJ is that they are not among the anti-normalizers, but also that they are reluctant to present the anti-normalizers as antagonists. They'd rather not talk about anti-normalizers at all; they vastly prefer their enemies to be among the traditional establishment. But to be honest -- that's a them-problem. Not every element of a campaign to combat hate will be as fun for JFREJ as explaining why the police suck. If this proposal is going to be taken seriously, then its proponents have to demonstrate that they're seriously committed to it even when it means calling out problematic figures on their own side of the fence. Does JFREJ have the stones to do that? I'm not sure. We'll see. I think there's a decent chance they get evasive and try to weasel out of taking a stand. But I hope I'm wrong about that, because I do think that their proposal is serious enough that it deserves serious advocates in turn.

Promotion

Yesterday, I was informed that the Lewis & Clark Law School faculty had voted to grant me tenure.

Also this week, Nathaniel's preschool wrote to tell us that he was ready to be moved up to the next age group.

Both pieces of news are, of course, very exciting, and very emotional.

For me, this has been the culmination of literally twenty-five years of work. I first knew I wanted to be a law professor in high school, when I had the good fortune of being on the debate team with a friend whose father taught law at Georgetown. It was soon very apparent that he had the job I wanted. He got to think interesting thoughts for a living. How cool was that! That's what I wanted to do!

Becoming a law professor was my ambition. And that was a big deal, because I didn't (and don't) really see myself as an ambitious person. For the most part, I'm a pretty content person. I'm happy with what I have. To really want something is fraught. You might not get it. And my pursuit of an academic job reflects that -- I went on the entry-level job market five times before I finally got a job offer. The preceding years were full of one heartbreak after another. I had jobs change requirements in the middle of the interview process. I had one school interview me on three separate years, advancing me to the final stage of the process twice, and then both times end up pulling the hiring line altogether days before the actual vote for budgetary or internal-politics reasons. I had schools in dream locations or with dream program setups where I was the runner-up. And I had years where I didn't get any callbacks at all.

It was maddening. I knew this was what I was meant to do. I knew this was the only job that would make me happy. And I knew that I was qualified. I had an outstanding academic record, a solid clerkship, legitimate teaching experience, and a lengthy publication record featuring articles in some stellar journals. None of this entitled me to a job, of course. But I knew I wasn't delusional in thinking I should have been competitive for one. People often stressed how much getting an academic job was a matter of luck. I know even more now that this is entirely true (I've said that serving on the appointments committee here at Lewis & Clark has been equal parts cathartic and retraumatizing, because peering inside the black box one gets a sense for how random and arbitrary this whole process can be). And while at one level that was meant to be comforting -- it's not you, it's the cosmos -- for the most part feeling like "well, I guess the universe hates me" wasn't comfortable at all.

Words cannot express how low I got in the midst of my years of unsuccessful attempts. In fact, I have a distinct memory of being absolutely miserable at the conclusion of yet another heartbreaking hiring cycle and swearing that, no matter what eventually happened or how things might play out in the years that follow, my future self would never say "but it worked out for the best."

I won't betray my past self's promise. Maybe I'd be equally happy if I had gotten an academic job the first time around and never went through this rigamarole. But what I can say is that I am incredibly happy, and incredibly lucky, and incredibly fortunate to be at this school and in this city, with these colleagues and living this life. At the end of the day, there aren't many people who can honestly say they're living their dream, and I am.

And speaking of dreams, let's turn to Nathaniel's own big promotion.

The message wasn't surprising. Nathaniel was by far the oldest in the "infants" room and was already walking (and starting to kind of say a few words). In fact, Jill and I had talked about broaching the subject of when he should be moved up just a few days before we got the email from school. Nathaniel was ready for new stimulation and new challenges. He'll go from being the oldest kid in his class to the youngest, which will be an adjustment, but it will also be how he learns. He's already had a few sojourns into the new "Cats" class (he's currently an "Owl") and has gotten along well with the older kids. They're going to ease him in over the next few days, but it's time to make the move.

Weirdly, I've felt even more emotional about this than my own tenure vote (though in the latter case, the lack of emotion may be due to no small measure of disassociation during the runup). One of the things I was most worried about in becoming a new father was sentimentality. For my entire life (childhood and adulthood), I've been someone who gets very sentimental about change. I don't like it. I get comfortable where I am, and don't want to let it go. I still have all my childhood stuffed animals in a box (and thought of losing them in any way still is the fastest way to spur an emotional breakdown). I was devastated when my parents sold my childhood home. I had a panic attack around seventh grade because I was scared of growing up. It's a whole thing. And the thing about raising a kid is -- they're non-stop change! They outgrow things, they move past things, they transcend things. Everyone says to get excited about the growth, but I knew myself, and my propensity would absolutely be to fixate on the loss. I was sincerely very, very worried about this.

The good news has been that I've done way, way better than I ever could have anticipated on the "adjusting to change" front. A huge part of this is attributable to Nathaniel, who has handled every major adjustment with aplomb. Bassinet to crib? No problem. Dropping bottles? Barely noticed. Going to daycare after staying at home with mom and dad? Easy-peasy. He's a remarkably mellow and resilient guy, which makes it easier for me to be resilient too. (one of his teachers once wrote a message speaking of Nathaniel's "quiet dignity", which is an objectively hilarious way to describe a baby).

Anyway, for whatever reason this "graduation" hit me a little harder than the prior transitions I've rolled with. He's growing up so fast (in fairness, this one doesn't just "feel" fast, it is fast -- he's only been in his program for three months)! And while I know he can't stay in the infants room forever, for someone like me, who's seen his baby thriving in his current position, it always feels fraught to move him somewhere new. What if he doesn't like it? What if he misses his old teachers? What if he gets scared? All the questions every parent worries about (and one thing I love about sending him to this school is that the teachers and staff have seen it all before -- they'll know what to do). I suspect that three weeks from now, when Nathaniel is all settled in and thriving as he always does, I'll feel fine.

Regardless, there is something special about sharing this big promotion together. He's taking his big step up, and I'm taking my big step up. How lucky I am, to get to experience this moment of growth from both vantage points.