Lori Lightfoot Goes Orthodox

I just wanted to flag this nice little story about the new Chicago Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who took a trip to visit the small Orthodox Jewish enclave in West Rogers Park and apparently blew away the locals.

[Rabbi Shlomo] Soroka said that Lightfoot herself pitched the visit to West Rogers Park, the city’s biggest Orthodox enclave, after the Poway synagogue attack in April.

“It was her idea – ‘What do you think about me coming to visit on a Shabbos and seeing firsthand what you’re describing, and impart to the people a sense that the mayor cares,’” Soroka recounted.

[...]

Lightfoot spent part of the Sabbath afternoon after synagogue services concluded walking the streets of neighborhood, meeting with leaders and talking with passers-by, learning about their security concerns and some of the particular needs of Orthodox communities, like eruv wires. 

The visit was not publicly announced by City Hall; there are no pictures of the visit on the mayor’s social media pages, and the mayor’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.

But Soroka said the lack of a photographer on Shabbat showed Lightfoot’s sensitivity to community concerns, as well as proving that this was a genuine concern to her and not just for show. 

“In advance of the visit, we requested that we shouldn’t have photographers on the Sabbath, to keep with the sanctity of the day – it may not violate the letter of the law, but the spirit of what it’s supposed to be,” Soroka said. “And that’s a tall order….Pictures are important and messaging is important. And the message I got back is, ‘She’s not coming for the photo op, and if this is something that’s a cultural sensitivity, she would like to respect that.’” 

People who were there told the Forward that Lightfoot was a big hit with the crowd. A rabbi gave her a blessing that God should grant her wisdom; people on the street offered her water bottles; someone else gave her two challahs, a bottle of wine, and a saltshaker “because she’s going to shake things up,” Soroka said.

The story also notes that no Chicago mayor had done such a visit in decades, including its recent Jewish mayor Rahm Emanuel. I'm neither Rahm's biggest fan nor his biggest detractor, and I do think that some of Rahm's absence is attributable to (as the article notes) the suggestion the members of ethnic minorities sometimes don't feel the specific need to reach out to their own community.

That said, I do think Lightfoot is demonstrating a distinct shift in style here, particularly her decision to avoid doing it is a photo-op or a big press flaunt. She's just quietly going about her business, listening to constituents, and apparently blowing crowds away. Good on her. And it's nice to see a story about politics that really is just ... nice, in a completely uncomplicated way.

Danny Davis' Primary Opponent Tackles His Farrakhan Love

Many of you are no doubt aware of the recent controversy where a Women's March leader was cozying up to Louis Farrakhan (you can read my take on it here in Haaretz, or a complimenting one I wrote on this blog). After a lot of foot-dragging, the Women's March leadership has finally issued a statement that says Farrakhan's antisemitism, homophobia, and transphobia are not aligned with their values. Does it suffice? This thread gives a taste of my and others' reactions.

But sadly, the Women's March isn't the only progressive entity that just got caught playing footsie with Farrakhan.

Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) told the Daily Caller (sidenote: who on his staff was dumb enough to let him speak to the Daily Caller?) that Farrakhan was an "outstanding human being", then said he was misquoted, then re-reversed course to say "I don’t have no problems with Farrakhan ... The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question."

Davis actually has a Democratic primary challenger this year in Anthony Clark, and I guess it's not surprising that he'd be the main political figure to jump on this (Davis' colleagues in the Democratic caucus have kept quiet). But while beating an ousting an entrenched incumbent is always hard, it's revealing that Clark thinks that snuggling up to Farrakhan is a valid attack point in a Democratic primary in a plurality-Black district.

(Both Clark and Davis sit on the left-edge of the Democratic Party; Clark's primary pitch is that Davis has become too enmeshed in the establishment and has stopped actually working for the progressive reforms he claims to support).

UPDATE: J Street, which had previously endorsed Davis, is reaching out to his office for comment and may "reconsider" its endorsement.

Who Could Have Known That Characterizing All Jewish Political Agency as a Conspiracy Could Lead To Antisemitism?

I briefly posted last night about the exclusion of queer Jews carrying a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it being excluded from a Chicago gay pride parade. The march was not the main Chicago Pride parade but a smaller "Dyke March" which claimed to be specifically interested in fostering greater inclusion and diversity.

The Windy City Times (a gay periodical in Chicago) now has some more information on the exclusion. While the march organizers have yet to issue a statement, defenders of the expulsion of Jewish marchers have unsurprisingly seized upon the "pinkwashing" claim as their best gambit. Given that one of the expelled marchers is an officer with the LGBT group A Wider Bridge -- an organization often unjustly accused of pinkwashing on the basis of little more evidence than "they work with queer Israelis" -- I expect we'll hear plenty more contentions that a rainbow flag with a Star of David is actually best thought of as a propaganda arm of the Israeli government seeking to downplay the occupation.

I've written quite a bit about why pinkwashing is an absurd charge, and one that is only intelligible through antisemitic notions of Jewish conspiracy whereby any actions Jews take is presumed to be part of some sort of plot. This shows the inevitable endpoint of that analysis: If you're a Jew, and you're open about it, the presumption is you must be an agent of Israeli hasbara unless you engage in public self-flagellation demonstrating the contrary. A Star of David suffices to show you're in on the plot. A Star of David with a rainbow is enough to infer your true objectives. What else could you possibly be doing at a gay pride parade other than serving as an agent of a foreign power?

Simply put, when you can't conceptualize Jewish political action but through the lens of some sort of conspiratorial effort to prop up Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza, it's utterly unsurprising that simply carrying a Star of David will become sufficient proof of "pinkwashing". "Pinkwashing", as a concept, merges entirely into a politics of antisemitic exclusion precisely because it is predicated on being unable to hold multiple thoughts in one's head at the same time -- the Star of David is a Jewish symbol and it's on the Israeli flag! Jews may be proud of Israel's relative protections of LGBT rights and sharply critical of its policies towards Palestinians!

One final thing. On twitter, some people questioned if the expulsion of these marchers might be unlawful as a form of anti-Jewish discrimination. I believe that the answer is clearly no, under the precedent set by Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. But there is some irony: Hurley allowed an Irish pride parade to exclude gay marchers from the proceedings insofar as the parade organizers disagreed with the "message" of their would-be co-marchers (the message, apparently, being that there were Irish-American gay people who were proud of that identity). And the same rule that permits an Irish pride parade to be homophobic, allows a Gay pride parade to be anti-Semitic.

UPDATE: I've finally seen a statement by a march organizer, Iliana Figueroa:

"Yesterday during the rally we saw three individuals carrying Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags. Some folks say they are Jewish Pride flags. But as a Collective we are very much pro-Palestine, and when we see these flags we know a lot of folks who are under attack by Israel see the visuals of the flag as a threat, so we don't want anything in the [Dyke March] space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism," she said. "So we asked the folks to please leave. We told them people in the space were feeling threatened."

First of all, these flags were not "Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags." They had a Star of David on a Rainbow background. This is an "everything is critical of Israel" move, where an antisemitic action is reformulated as anti-Israel expression, which then will be lobbed back at Jews accused of being unable to tolerate "criticism of Israel" and/or (ironically enough) unwilling to cease "conflating" Israel and Jewishness.

Second, the "we don't want anything in the space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism" -- as applied against a visible Star of David -- couldn't illustrate my above points better if I had written it. The point of "pinkwashing", as an accusation, is to render any organized act of queer Jewish agency that is not torch-and-pitchfork anti-Zionist into the equivalent of an Israeli governmental press release. Once that's the standard, it is unsurprising and predictable that basic expressions of Jewish identity will become illicit as "inadvertently express[ing] Zionism," and the upshot is that Jews are excluded virtually in toto.

Figueroa said that a full statement will be forthcoming "after it finishes crafting one, and that members have asked pro-Palestinian organizations and others to release statements of solidarity with Dyke March as well." Again, note how the easiest move for many groups, when faced with Jewish claims of marginalization, is to shift as quickly as possible onto the "Israel" terrain as a means of delegitimizing the Jewish narrative. This response doesn't remedy the anti-Semitism (indeed, it scarcely seeks to address it) -- it doubles-down on it.

UPDATE 2x: Statement is out, and as predicted "A Wider Bridge" gets exactly the treatment I anticipated. On the other hand, the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement of condemnation.

UPDATE 3x: I wrote a follow-up post: "That's Funny, This Story About Anti-Semitism Keeps Repeating Itself."

Warning Against Warning Against Trigger Warnings

A recent letter sent by the University of Chicago to its incoming students has generated quite a bit of attention for its verbiage on that ever-present collegiate bugaboo, "trigger warnings":

Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so called "trigger warnings," we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual "safe spaces" where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.

One point of contention has been whether this statement, fairly read, means that the U of C now bans its professors from issuing trigger warnings. I'm inclined to doubt this is the case, but if it is so it most certainly is an intrusion on the academic freedom of Chicago professors to manage their own classrooms. Hopefully, we can all agree that the issue of trigger warnings is one best left to the sound academic discretion of individual professors -- it should not be mandated or forbidden by academic administrators.

But leave that aside, and turn to the advisability of "trigger warnings" as a pedagogical tool. Ilya Somin offers his "Warning against Trigger Warnings" that he delivers at the start of his Constitutional Law course.

I don’t believe in trigger warnings. But if I did, I would have to include one for virtually every day of this course. We are going to cover subjects like slavery, segregation, sexism, suicide, the death penalty, and abortion. There is no way to teach this course without discussing these issues. And there is no good way to cover them without also considering a wide range of views about these subjects and their relationship to the Constitution.

This is, to reiterate, framed as a statement against trigger warnings. But it seems to me that it functions ... basically as a trigger warning. It tells students, accurately, about some of the content they'll be reading, and notes that much of it deals with issues of deep injustice and controversy. It explains why that material is there, and why it needs to be addressed forthrightly. We see things like this a lot. Jerry Coyne argued in The New Republic that while perhaps it is appropriate of professors to prospectively inform students of triggering content, there most certainly should not be a trigger warning -- heaven forbid! What they do in disclaiming trigger warnings is for the most part not far different from what many, though not all, trigger warning advocates are asking for.

What, exactly, is going on here? In part, many people seem to ascribe to "trigger warnings" a function they are manifestly not designed for -- to avoid teaching sensitive topics. But that's silly -- if you don't want to teach a sensitive topic, you don't put it on your syllabus. The very fact of including a trigger warning indicates that this material is present on the syllabus and being taught.

What else? Well, clearly what many people have in mind when they think of "trigger warnings" are not the mild cases outlined above, but more extreme versions where every ticky-tack element of the syllabus is meticulously sorted through and warned over to appease the most sensitive theoretical student. Perhaps cases like that do exist -- I'm sure one can find some obscure sociology professor at Southwest Oregon State Technical College who's hard at work making a 12 page list of potential triggers on his syllabus -- but certainly they don't represent the main. And in any event, that's a difference of degree, not kind.

So we can certainly say that certain extreme manifestations of trigger warnings are ridiculous, pedagogically and otherwise. But this argument cuts both ways -- it seems to me that there are cases where something like a "trigger warning" would be universally agreed to be not just prudent but the only pedagogically responsible course of action.

I was talking with a colleague at another law school who teaches First Amendment law. As part of the course they discuss various anti-pornography ordinances, and as part of that unit she shows a clip in class of graphic rape pornography of the sort targeted by the ordinance. And the class before that class, she tells her students that this clip will be shown and asks them to prepare to discuss and react to it. In short -- though she doesn't use the term -- she provides a trigger warning.

We can of course debate whether it is wise to show such a clip in class at all. But given that she does so, I imagine all of us think it is wise that her pedagogical tack is not "surprise! Rape porn!" Of course you give students advance notice that it's coming. Anything else would be recklessly irresponsible. Does anyone disagree on that score?

The other argument against "trigger warnings" that might apply even in a case like this is the appeal to the "real world". In the real world, this argument goes, people are exposed to disturbing or hostile events without warning. It will happen, and it is important that young adults learn to cope with it. The proponents of this view sometimes recognize that people really do have deep-seated aversion and anxiety to certain topics, but, they suggest, the way to resolve it is through some version of "exposure therapy." We expose people to their fears under safe and controlled conditions so they learn to cope.

This argument really just does not grasp the professional and pedagogical role of a university professor. To begin, I am not my students' therapist. I am not professionally trained in getting students to overcome their anxieties. If I were forced into that role, however, my instinct would be that exposure therapy would exist alongside "trigger warnings" and even some of the more controversial forms of university "mollycoddling" that conservatives like to condemn. As my friend Kate Manne observed, we do not cure arachnophobes by randomly tossing spiders at them. If we do exposure therapy, it is in controlled environments, with advance warning and significant support to help the subject recover when they're (understandably) rattled.

But there's a deeper misunderstanding here. Just as my job as an academic is not to be a therapist, likewise it is not to be a generic life coach offering exposure to the various hard knocks my students will inevitably encounter as they walk through life. Yes, it's true that my students will "in the real world" encounter disturbing or distressing material without warning. It's also true that my students will "in the real world" most likely have a supervisor who is a jerk. Does that mean I should be a jerk to my students? They'll have to get used to it to survive in the real world! No, of course not. My job is not to offer a buffet table of life's prospective misfortunes for my students. My job is to teach the material I offer in the most effective manner possible. The advisability of a trigger warning, as far as I'm concerned, depends wholly on how it meets that criteria: will it aid or impede my students in the learning process? That will be a matter of individual judgment on individual cases, and it strikes me as fairly ridiculous to try to sweep more broadly than that.

Seeking Peace versus Evening War

Israel, including the Israeli Defense Forces, commits human rights violations against Palestinians as part and parcel of its ongoing occupation. Israel also faces genuine threats to its security from neighbors who wish that it and its denizens would be wiped off the map.

Some people are in denial about (or worse, are indifferent to) the first. Others don't care about (or worse, are excited by) the second.

Scientists and engineers have not yet created a weapon that can only be used to attack an attacker. There is no such thing as purely defensive power. The same guns, tanks, missiles, and airplanes which keep a vulnerable population safe from those who wish it harm also can bring about death and misery to persons who harbor no ill-will at all.

The latest divestment resolution to cross my browser comes from my old stomping grounds, the University of Chicago. It isn't particularly notable -- even if it passes the student council, there is no way that the University of Chicago administration will break from the Kalven Report to endorse it. I use it only for illustration of some broader points.

The resolution targets ten companies that do business with Israel's security establishment. They include Boeing, which sells Israel the AH-64 Apache Helicopter for carrying out targeted attacks on terrorist leaders, Caterpillar, whose bulldozers Israel coats with armor and used to destroy arms smuggling tunnels, and Hewlett Packard, whose software assists in maintaining Israel's blockade of Gaza and prevent weapons from reaching Hamas.

Needless to say, the resolution supporters would dispute this characterization. They would note how the attack helicopters can wreak devastation on civilian areas, the bulldozers can destroy homes to make way for more settlements, the blockade further isolates Gaza's population from basic economic necessities.

Who is right? The answer, of course, is: both. It's the same tanks, the same ships, the same aircraft. This perhaps explains some of the confusion between the people who think they're just "defending human rights" (who could object to that?) versus those who think they're trying to undermine Israel's right to self-defense (who could support that?). The potential for one includes the potential for the other (which is not to say that one needs to do one to do the other). You take away the one and you take away the other. If power, by definition, includes the power to abuse, then taking away the power to abuse by definition requires dis-empowerment.

The goal of these resolutions is to do both -- no doubt the advocates are sincere that they want fewer IDF abuses of Palestinian rights. But they also want (or are at least indifferent to) increased Israeli vulnerability in general. They want to roll back the clock to 1973 or earlier, when Israel's regional military superiority could not be taken for granted and when its security was not assured. And sure, the body counts of the conflicts then dwarfed those we see now. And sure, the Palestinians then didn't have a state either -- in fact, they had less political autonomy than they enjoy today. We might not be any closer to peace, we might be far more violent, far more nasty, far more fragmented, and far more chaotic than even today's decidedly non-idyllic status quo -- but at least the Israelis would be right there with us.

For those of us who are interested in a just peace, rather than a more even-handed war, it is evident why these resolutions are a dead end. A just peace comes not the politics of disempowerment but from democratic empowerment, where the Israeli and Palestinian people commit themselves to a progressive co-existence that respects the identity and self-determination rights of the other. This is the only path to peace because it's the only path that can defuse the abusive potential of power without simply restoring a prior state of vulnerability. It's the difference between those who see Palestinian liberation coming when Jews are too weak to hurt anyone versus those who see it coming when Palestinians and Jews no longer are interested in hurting each other.

And it is more than a little telling that BDS advocates' thoughts never seem to turn in this direction. In Israel and Palestine, human rights and peace activists are feeling the squeeze. Yet the proponents of these resolutions are exactly the same people who shouted down Palestinian rights activist Bassem Eid at UChicago and who stormed Jerusalem Open House's event at the National LGBTQ Task Force's Creating Change conference. They only have one thought, and its not a very good one.

We can say the same thing, of course, to "advocates" of Israel who don't seem to understand what power is for. The whole point of having all those tanks and guns and missiles is precisely so that one can self-determine -- and Israel should determine for itself that it will take the steps in its power to bring about a Palestinian state that exists side-by-side with Israel (hopefully in peace but, if not -- that's what all those tanks are for). There is nothing more infuriating to me than the omnipresent complaint by the Israeli right that they don't "have a partner for peace." Even if we stipulate they're right -- what a pathetic (dare I say, anti-Zionist?) objection! You're not going to withdraw from settlements because Hamas won't react the right way? What kind of Zionist are you? You say that it is an unrealistic dream for the occupation to end in our lifetime? How far have we fallen from "If you will it, it is no dream"?

I've been reading Nietzsche recently and thinking about him in relation to nationalism, Zionism, and decolonization. The BDS movement is about as clear an expression of ressentiment as one can possibly see -- it's not about empowering Palestinians so much as it is about bringing low the Jews. But the conservative Israeli government isn't any better -- it is insecure in its power; it fears to self-generate; it continually demurs taking a preemptive role in the peace process because the Palestinians or the Arabs or the Iranians or the whomevers won't sign its permission slip. Both factions are sick. And the only cure is to empower the forces in Israel and Palestine who are more interested in creating their own justice than they are in bringing the other down to their level.

Northwestern Law Professor's Home Defaced

On Twitter, Northwestern Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich states that he was among the victims of a string of incidents where anti-Semitic graffiti was sprayed on Chicagoland garages.

Eugene writes often on the intersection of international law and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our politics are not identical, but I've always found his analysis to be thought-provoking. I hope he and his family are feeling safe, and that the offenders are identified and brought to justice.

Does Human Rights Law Do Anything?

An interesting conference at The University of Chicago Law School. As a decided skeptic regarding the capacity (and beneficence) of international law, this sounds right up my alley.

I'm Your Wing, Vector One

One of the stranger things about my time in Champaign was the phonecalls I'd receive aimed at former denizens of my office. One of my colleagues, for example, had an apartment in Chicago, and so ADT was constantly calling me to say the alarm had gone off.

I'm not in Champaign anymore, but my voicemail is still linked to my email address and so I'm still forwarded the messages. Only now these emails come with an attempt to transcribe the message into text. The results are glorious.

Good afternoon this is ADT SECURITY everything is in regards to berg alarm we received only room ocean front [name, almost gotten right!] residents [phone number] yeah I got that they have provided to be sunset divide it up 40 they've and I wanted 3 foot notified them if you have any question please and take it easy vector one.

"Take it easy, Vector One" is my new AALS motto. It makes me feel like an X-Wing pilot going off on a mission.

Birthday Bash in Chicago

Wooooo!

Well, actually, nothing so dramatic. But it is my birthday, and I am in Chicago celebrating with some friends.

Back in Champaign tomorrow night, but for now, it's the bright lights of the big city.

Children of the Corn

Everybody around here is sniffly and stuffy -- myself included. Apparently, it's not a virus. Rather, it's the ongoing corn harvest, which supposedly sets off allergies left and right. Including, it seems mine -- worse even than I had in Minnesota (where I believe my New Student Week group was worried I would actually keel over and die while working in St. Paul).

Now, I'm allergic to many things. Some of them (grass, cats) I've even managed to nail down. Mostly, it's a mystery when my eyes suddenly start running water or my skin breaks out in hives. But I'm pretty sure I'm not allergic to corn. I mean, I eat corn all the time. Corn syrup is in literally 85% of the food I eat. How could a corn harvest set off an allergic reaction.

Oh whatever. At least it will be over in ... a month? It takes a month to harvest all the corn.

God damnit. I miss Chicago.

Champaign Versus Chicago: The Early Evaluation

My comparison of Chicago versus Champaign is very strange. Chicago is a huge city. Champaign is a small town. Yet Champaign has the early edge in "big city" characteristics, and while Chicago is winning on "small town" things.

For example, there are more good restaurants in close walking distance of our Champaign Apartment. And the Chinese delivery we've gotten is much better. On the other hand, our downtown Chicago apartment was very quiet and peaceful, while we're on top of two beer gardens in Champaign, one of which decided to bring out a live brass band to play at 12:30 in the morning.* I also had more of a "community feel" in Chicago than I do here, though that's a little unfair of a metric.

In any event, so far the noise in the beer garden has dropped off by around 1:30 each night. And other than that, I'm a happy camper.

* I'm already plotting my counterattack to this. Since we're in downtown, a noise complaint probably won't fly. So instead, I'll just fight fire with fire -- blast out the most obnoxious rap and heavy metal I can think of out my second-story window. I can just imagine the ensuing complaint:

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Playing music. What are you doing?"

Acclaimed

The University of Chicago college magazine has listed The Debate Link as one of its top ten best University of Chicago blogs: "Third-year law student David Schraub × (U.S. law + Israel) = funny, thoughtful, acclaimed blog." I'm listed alongside such luminaries as the Becker-Posner blog and "This is Jasmine". Hot.

More Unfortunate Typos

Rich Whitney, The Green Party candidate for governor of Illinois will show up on electronic ballots as "Rich Whitey". But not in every precinct, mind you. Just a few heavily Black ones in Chicago.

The Internets Do Not Welcome You, Mr. Schill

My University of Chicago spam filter just tagged a message from the new Dean of the Law School. Ouch.

Go Sox

I love this piece, mostly because it is accompanied by the perfect photo of Professor Nussbaum. It's 100% "Oh yeah, I'm actually even more badass than you knew. Turns out, that is possible."

Maroon is a Color

Roger "Lily White" Clegg is coming to speak at Chicago, where presumably he will preach his message that empirical research into the effects of racism is bad because it would distract Black people from remembering that all their problems are their own fault.

I can't tell you how excited I am.

Sad, Deluded Souls

Someone asked me where they could find a "street with a bunch of good restaurants" here in Hyde Park.

I gave it my best shot, but I have the feeling that they're going to be some deeply disappointed folks come tonight.

Not Strep

The culprit for my recent rundown feeling is a fading viral infection, plus a canker sore in the back of my throat (which, annoying as it is, pales in comparison to the exquisite agony of having one on the side of my tongue). But I think I'm on the other side of the slope now, so that's good.

Also, Chicago's medical services best Carleton's by a country mile -- one of the few advantages I'll give to this school over my beloved alma mater.

Incrementalism and Interest Groups

My post on this week's Chicago Works in Progress talk is now up. Dean Saul Levmore presented on how incrementalism can be a tool for interest groups to enact divide and conquer strategies, leading to disoptimal social outcomes..

The Summa of All Fears

Fred Barnes and Bill Bennett talk about Sotomayor's academic credentials:

BARNES: I think you can make the case that she's one of those who has benefited from affirmative action over the years tremendously.

BENNETT: Yeah, well, maybe so. Did she get into Princeton on affirmative action, one wonders.

BARNES: One wonders.

BENNETT: Summa Cum Laude, I don't think you get on affirmative action. I don't know what her major was, but Summa Cum Laude's a pretty big deal.

BARNES: I guess it is, but you know, there's some schools and maybe Princeton's not one of them, where if you don't get Summa Cum Laude then or some kind of Cum Laude, you then, you're a D+ student.

Ta-Nehisi Coates promises to stop being amazed soon. I'm just curious what Latin honors, if any, appear after their respective degrees.

Look, Carleton was one of those places where cum laude wasn't that hard to attain. It wasn't D+ work (3.25 average, so B/B+), but it wasn't difficult. Magna (what I got) required a 3.5 average, which still was quite doable for a hard worker. But Summa sat at a lofty 3.9 average, and it was quite an accomplishment -- I'd say that about 10 people in our class of over 450 reached it.

Chicago's equivalent honors (honors, high honors, and highest honors) are given at 179 (B+), 180.5 (A-), and 182 (A) respectively -- but thanks to a curve where the median is set at 177, any and all honors require serious chops. Only a bare handful achieve high honors, and highest honors, in fact, only pops up once every several years.

In sum, I'd be very surprised if at Princeton, or any other college in the country, Summa can be taken for granted. But if a Latina woman can get it, I guess it must come cheap.