Undergraduate Journal, Volume IV

SIFTING AND WINNOWING

Sifting and Winnowing The Wisconsin Undergraduate Journal of Political Science, Public Policy, and Law Volume IV, Spring 2019 1

This journal made possible thanks to a generous grant from the Bradley Foundation and the Center for Study of Liberal Democracy, with additional support from the Department of Political Science.

All inquiries may be directed to: Sifting and Winnowing Chief Editors University of Wisconsin-Madison 800 Langdon St. Madison, Wisconsin sifting@polisci.edu Wisconsin Union Directorate Publications Committee Leadership

Fernanda Martinez - Publications Committee Director Jen Farley - Publications Committee Advisor Mills Botham - Wisconsin Union President

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SIFTING AND WINNOWING The Wisconsin Undergraduate Journal of Political Science, Public Policy, and Law Volume IV, Spring 2019

Jake Horwitz - Editor-in-Chief Curtiss Engstrom - Deputy Editor-in-Chief Emmett Sexton - Head of Outreach, Editor Adam “DeDobb” DeDobbelaere - Head of Layout, Editor Hilary Miller - Editor Emily Atseff - Editor Will Maher - Editor Nik Vakil - Editor Ellen Bart - Editor Gabrielle Vinick - Editor Rachel Rosen - Editor Allie Kalik - Editor Ashley Levi - Editor Isabella Boudnik - Editor Luke Georgiadis - Editor Aleesa Kuznetsov- Editor Samuel Coady - Editor Signe Bedi - Graduate Advisor Professor Howard Schweber - Advisor

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Table of CONTENTS Editorials

Features Examining the Resurgence of White Supremacist Terror in the United States

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Where is the National Conversation on Housing?

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ByWill Maher

By Ari Weisenthal

Forward Wisconsin: The Case for State-Led Reconciliation through Legislation

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Climate Change is Bigger than American Political Polarization

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By Gaby Vinnick

By Megan DierMeier

A ‘Triad of Tactics:’ Evaluating the AntiDefamation League’s Response to Anti-Semitic Terror in the United States

By Hilary Miller

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Eat the Rich

By Emmitt Sexton

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Letter from the STAFF “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.�

-University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1894

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ver the past year there has been a proliferation of thoughtful discussion on free speech. From college campuses to debate stages, Americans everywhere are sticking up for their first amendment right. This freedom of speech is a core value of our institution as well as that of UW-Madison and our country as a whole.

We are excited to share fresh research, policy ideas and opinions on white supremacy, anti-semitic terror and indigenous populations in Wisconsin. This year, our staff have also contributed a few of their own opinion pieces covering climate change, housing policy and the wealth tax. We see these as incredibly important issues that will garner more attention as the presidential race to 2020 picks up.

We would like to thank the editors and writers who contributed many hours of their time to this edition.

Our mission, to promote the research and ideas of undergraduates, could not be achieved without the passion and dedication of the individuals who contributed to this journal.

- Jake Horwitz and Curtiss Engstrom

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Feature

Examining the Resurgence of White Supremacist Terror in the United States

By Ari Weisenthal

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The decision to elect Donald Trump in 2016 would prove to dig up aspects of our country’s past we hoped would die quietly. The election brought with it the rebirth of the far-right, white, nationalist ideology. The events surrounding the Charlottesville rally demonstrate the public mobilization of these individuals. The white nationalists who attended provoked the crowd, leading to the death of an innocent protestor.

The question here is not what drove the white nationalists to march in Charlottesville, but rather, what drove the rhetoric that these white nationalists used. Ari notes that the rhetoric Trump used during his campaign can be seen as inflammatory and incendiary. It is entirely possible that Trump’s rhetoric had an effect on these white nationalists. The rise of Trump coinciding with the rise of far-right white nationalism suggests a correlation. Was Trump’s rhetoric ratcheting up the white nationalists? Was it the other way around? Or was it both?

Introduction

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espite defying nearly every conventional expectation associated with the word terrorism, white supremacists are currently the most lethal ideological extremist group operating within the United States today. As reported by the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, white supremacists accounted for 83% of extremist-related murders between 2005 and 2015,1 and in 2017 extremist murders attributable to white supremacists jumped from 13% in 2016 to 53%,2 a sharp and disturbing spike in violent activity. Paradoxically, this resurgence of white supremacist terror is accompanied by a near universal decline in the membership of established white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazi factions. What has motivated white supremacists to lethal action, and why has this violence reemerged now?

When considered through the lense of the fatalist paranoia that has come to proliferate among and motivate white supremacists, this recent and unfortunate leap in violence can begin to be understood. In the mind of the white supremacist, the white race is under constant threat, assailed by enemies both domestic and foreign who aim to degrade or even eradicate the white race. To counter such supposed grave danger, horrible action has been taken. White supremacist terror has claimed the lives of dozens of innocent men, women and children whose only crime was to exist. The tragic consequences of this violence are felt today in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh and countless other cities where white supremacists have wrought terror, intimidation and death.

Formerly a fringe ideology rightfully sequestered to the drudges of American society, an unhappy union of racism and opportunism has brought white supremacy to

the forefront of national electoral politics. Throughout his campaign and during the first two years of his presidency, Donald Trump has played into the fears of white supremacists, hired alt-right advisors, re-tweeted content produced by white nationalists and made kindly remarks towards members of Neo-Nazi organizations.3 This implied though sometimes overt support has encouraged and emboldened white supremacists, the majority of whom now congregate in online chat rooms, forums and Facebooks groups where they exchange ideas ranging from seemingly harmless memes to detailed manifestos.

Through both his stated and thinly-veiled support for white supremacists, Donald Trump has served to hearten these individuals in their actions and further inflame their dangerous paranoia.

Through analyzing various incidents of recent white nationalist terror, one can begin to understand the devastating effects online self-radicalization, changing demographic trends and inflammatory electoral rhetoric have had on contemporary white nationalist beliefs and actions. I will begin by discussing current scholarly theories concerning the white nationalist movements’ recent surge of violence. Following this discussion, I will define white nationalist violence as terrorism while identifying the beliefs, goals, and current organizational status of the white nationalist movement today. Next, a substantial exploration of the manifesto of the Charleston church shooter, Dylann Roof, will serve to illustrate both the danger white nationalist ideologies pose while demonstrating the ease with which these ideas take hold in the digital age. Further, an investigation of Donald Trump’s provocative nativist rhetoric, viewed in conjunction with shifting demographic trends, will aid in explaining why the United States has witnessed a troubling spike in white nationalist violence in 2017. Finally, I will place

1

Mark Pitcavage. With Hate in Their Hearts (The State of White Supremacy in the United States). Anti-Defamation League, 2015, p. 1, With Hate in Their Hearts (The State of White Supremacy in the United States).

2 “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017.” Anti-Defamation League. Accessed November 19, 2018.

3 Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman. “Trump Gives White Supremacists an Unequivocal Boost.” The New York Times. August 16, 2017. Accessed November 19, 2018.

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several incidents of white nationalist terror committed in 2017 under the microscope and scrutinize the perpetrator’s expressed motives, beliefs and political affiliations before offering a summary of my findings.

Literature Review: The Beliefs, Goals and Strategies of White Nationalist Terrorism Current Scholarly Publications Despite the clear and present danger this reinvigoration of white nationalist terror poses, my research has uncovered surprisingly few instances in which scholarly articles have been published analyzing or explaining the movement’s recent activity. Jonathan Greenblatt, author of the Anti-Defamation League’s 2017 report “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017” has partially attributed the spike in white nationalist terror to an increasingly visible white nationalist community.4 Similarly, Lindsay Pérez Huber of California State University, Long Beach has published a detailed analysis of both Donald Trump’s campaign messaging and response to acts of violence committed by his supporters against People of Color.5 However, Greenblatt chooses not to attribute the increased visibility of white nationalist groups to what I contended is their source: Donald Trump.

Further, while Huber acknowledges the white nationalist overtones of Trump’s rhetoric, she fails to engage with the phenomenon of online indoctrination in which virtual echo chambers pave the road from troubling racism to terroristic white nationalism. For these reasons, it is my understanding that thus far there has been no scholarly writing published attempting to attribute the 2017 spike in white nationalist terror to two distinct phenomenon: the migration of the white supremacist movement to the virtual realm coupled with Donald Trump’s utilization of shifting demographic trends to fan the flames of white nationalist fears.

The Present State of White Nationalist Terrorism Though seldom referred to as acts of terror, incidents of violence and public displays of force committed by

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white supremacists, white nationalists, members of the alt-right and other far right extremists undoubtedly fit within the United States government’s definition of terrorism. As defined by the United States Department of Defense, terrorism is “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological”.6 When observed with this definition in mind, acts of violence perpetrated by white nationalists are no longer random incidents of blind hatred, but are instead demonstrations committed in service to greater socio-political ends. Similarly, public displays of force such as rallies, flierings, public speeches and presentation of hateful symbols (swastikas, confederate flags and burning crosses) serve to intimidate and coerce targeted populations.

Historically these terroristic acts have been committed by organized groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

However, since 2000, membership in well organized and established white supremacy groups has declined significantly.7 In a July 2015 report titled “With Hate in Their Hearts” the Anti-Defamation League identified the five main white supremacist movements: Neo-Nazis, Racist Skinheads, “Traditional” White Supremacists (the Ku Klux Klan and various splinter groups), Christian Identity adherents and White Supremacist Prison Gangs. Of these various factions only White Supremacist Prison Gangs are currently growing with the remaining organizations undergoing a period of stagnation or decline. Despite this stagnation, white nationalists account for roughly 83% of domestic extremist-related murders in the past decade.8 Naturally one wonders how it is possible that white nationalists are at once the most lethal domestic extremist movement while simultaneously experiencing a near universal decline in membership.

To begin to address this apparent contradiction, one must first consider the motivations of individual white supremacists. Traditionally it has been the objective of white supremacists to maintain control and dominance over the American south as well as the country as a whole, though changing political and

Jonathan Greenblatt “The Resurgent Threat of White-Supremacist Violence.” The Atlantic. January 17, 2018. Accessed December 19, 2018.

5 Lindsay Pérez Huber “”Make America Great Again!”: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremacy Amid U.S. Demographic Change.” HeinOnline. Accessed November 20, 2018.

6 “Definition of Terrorism.” SecBrief.org. April 08, 2014. Accessed November 19, 2018.

7 Mark Pitcavage. With Hate in Their Hearts (The State of White Supremacy in the United States). Anti-Defamation League, 2015, pp. 5-15, With Hate in Their Hearts (The State of White Supremacy in the United States).

8 Ibid, pg. 1

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social factors have irrevocably denied racist groups those objectives.9 Rather, as Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League writes, Essentially, many white supremacists changed their frame of reference from fighting to maintain white dominance to fighting to prevent white extinction...This core belief was embodied in a slogan coined by a white supremacist prisoner, David Lane, while he served a de facto life sentence for crimes committed as a member of a 1980’s white supremacist terrorist group known as The Order. Often referred to as the ‘14 Words’ the slogan states that ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. 10 Perceived persecution of the white race has been further articulated through disturbing slogans explicitly outlined in the Anti-Defamation League’s 2015 report.

Particularly telling is the white supremacists’ vitriolic rejection of multiculturalism, summarized as, “Diversity is a code word for white genocide” and “Diversity means chasing down the last white person”.11 As exemplified by the 14 Words and similar slogans, white supremacists view the growing diversity within the United States as a direct affront to their beliefs and a threat to their very existence.

Dylann Roof and the Dangers of White Nationalist Rhetoric

The danger posed by fatalist rhetoric currently propagating within the white nationalist movement is perhaps best demonstrated through the example of Dylann Roof. On June 17th, 2015, Roof murdered nine black parishioners in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.12 A self-identified white nationalist, Roof made his motivations and intentions unequivocally clear through the publication of a five page manifesto on

a website titled “thelastrhodesian.com.”13 This manifesto and the numerous photos uploaded alongside it illustrate why Roof felt compelled to commit such a horrible act of violence. Roof begins by detailing his journey towards radicalization through his curiosity regarding the murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent media attention the case garnered. Roof writes; I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious to me that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day.

The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on white murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong.14 The racist sentiments Roof outlines here permeate the ideology of white supremacists across the country —the perceived threat of People of color, specifically black people —pose to both the purity and survival of the white race. This threat manifests itself both immediately and in the long term as, according to the white supremacist, People of Color threaten both the physical safety and security of individual white people; they also believe that further integration and race mixing threatens to degrade both the white race and global society.

Roof’s actions demonstrate a willingness among white supremacists to undergo terrible action in what they view as the defense of their race. Further, Roof believes black people harass and attack white people in order to enact vengeance upon the race as a whole for the practices of slavery, segregation and a myriad of other ills enacted by whites throughout history. However, Roof believes the horrors of slavery were greatly exaggerated and the injustice of segregation was enacted as a means of defending whites from a black population predis-

9 10 11 12

Ibid, pg. 3 Ibid Ibid, pg. 4 Jason Horowitz, Nick Corasaniti and Ashley Southall. “Nine Killed in Shooting at Black Church in Charleston.”

The New York Times. June 17, 2015. Accessed November 20, 2018.

13 Frances Robles. “Dylann Roof Photos and a Manifesto Are Posted on Website.” The New York Times. June 20, 2015. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charlestonchurch-shooting.html.

14 “Dylann Roof’s Manifesto.” The New York Times. December 13, 2016. Accessed November 20, 2018. https:// www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/13/universal/document-Dylann-Roof-manifesto.html.

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posed to violence. Roof explains: We are told to accept what is happening to us because of ancestors wrongdoing, but it is all based on historical lies, exaggerations and myths. I have tried endlessly to think of reasons why we deserve this, and I have only came back more irritated because there were no reasons.15 This perceived undeserved maltreatment manifests itself in the form of harassment and violence, a trait Roof argues black people are predisposed to as a result of their alleged “lower IQ’s, lower impulse control and higher testosterone levels.”16 Alongside his manifesto, Roof published a number of photos brandishing weapons, posing with confederate flags and a collection of images taken at confederate memorials. Most notably, Roof released an image of the number “1488” written in the sand.17 14 is a reference to the 14 words, and the 88 represents the alphanumeric code for “Hail Hitler.” Clearly, whatever “investigation” Roof was pursuing online quickly brought him into contact with established white supremacist beliefs. As Roof continued to consume and pursue white supremacist information, he gradually underwent a process of self-radicalization.

Roof, like so many white supremacists acting today, was acting alone thereby limiting the scope of his action and tempering his murderous ambition. Notably, Roof bemoans the lack of any organized white supremacist organization near him, supporting the Anti-Defamation League’s claims that these organized segments of the white supremacist movement are in poor health. As Roof complains; We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet.

Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.18 For want of an established hate group to associate with, Roof turned instead to online discussion forums, private Facebook groups and white supremacist echo chambers

15 16 17

such as The Daily Stormer and Stormfront.19 It was here that Dylann Roof transformed from a vitriolic racist to a domestic terrorist. Worst of all, as Roof states himself, all this hateful misinformation was a mere Google search away.

Theory: Online Indoctrination, Shifting Demographics and Donald Trump Virtual Vitriol While Roof’s manifesto is shocking, it is worth noting that he did not come upon his fatal course of action without aid. As argued by Cory Collins of “Teaching Tolerance”, two major factors contributed to Roof’s radical indoctrination: a flaw in Google’s algorithm that can be exploited by hate groups to ensure their websites rise to the top when terms such as “black on white crime” are searched, and the issue of search engine’s use of user history to determine what information should be presented.

In effect, these two factors combine to create a virtual echo chamber in which every new piece of information presented affirms and reinforces the beliefs of the user.

This allows for the smoothing the path to radicalization and the introduction of more extreme ideas.20 Though online platforms have enacted measures to supply the user with more credible information, these efforts have been inadequate so far. These online echo chambers have demonstrated their ability to manipulate and mold young minds. As long as these virtual classrooms of hatred persist they pose a threat to our nation’s security.

Through promoting misinformation that generates the most clicks rather than researched and credible material, organizations such as Google and Facebook contribute to the radicalization of individuals, such as Dylann Roof. As the user is spoon-fed information they’re already likely to agree with, they become further indoctrinated by the ideals of white supremacy. Additionally, the decline and collapse of organized white supremacist organizations moved the rhetorical floor online to areas of conversation where users are hidden behind assumed names and invented avatars, creating a sense of heightened freedom through anonymity. Now, an individual interested in white supremacy may simply complete a quick Google

Ibid.

Ibid.

“Shocking Photos of Dylann Storm Roof from ‘Last Rhodesian’ Website - NY Daily News.” Nydailynews.com.

January 10, 2017. Accessed November 20, 2018.

18 “Dylann Roof’s Manifesto.” The New York Times. December 13, 2016. Accessed November 20, 2018.

19 “The Miseducation of Dylann Roof.” Teaching Tolerance. Accessed November 20, 2018.

20 Ibid

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search rather than traveling to a dedicated meeting hall, thus lowering the effort and self-reflection needed to attend and participate in these discussions.

The pain and suffering Dylann Roof caused cannot be overstated. His attack demonstrated to the nation the beliefs that white supremacists adhere to: the ease these ideas may take hold in people, and the lethal lengths to which they will go to protect themselves from imagined threats. Above all else, the Charleston Church Shooting illustrates the danger these individuals pose; a danger that must be understood and managed in an effort to prevent further bloodshed. Unfortunately and coincidentally, one day before Dylann Roof’s massacre, Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President of the United States.

Donald Trump’s Contribution to the White Nationalist Conversation The candidacy of Donald Trump was an affair marked by patent racism. In his speech announcing his candidacy for president, Donald Trump referred to Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists,21 a sentiment remarkably in-line with the views of white supremacists. Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again!”, harkens back to an undefined period in American history, a period in which our country was a respected world power, economically indomitable and (as implied through less than subtle subtext) whiter.

As argued by Lindsay Pérez Huber of California State University-Long Beach, the implicit message of Trump’s slogan becomes clear when analyzed in context. In her article ““Make America Great Again!”: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremacy Amid U.S. Demographic Change”, Huber examines Trump’s official campaign video titled “Make America Great Again.” The video depicts an America in decline. The viewer is presented images of a homeless men, empty storefronts and crumbling infrastructure all followed by images of immigrants crossing a border wall. As Huber writes; In the series of images seen in the video, the viewer is taken from representations of social decline and material decay to “illegal”

U.S.-Mexico border crossings. These images and the storyline Trump narrates suggest our nation is in decline, and that this decline can be attributed to the “millions” of perceived invaders to the U.S. Trump’s official stance on immigration reform confirms this message. 22 Both the imagery and its implications are clear, people of color are entering the United States by the million with the express goal of wreaking havoc and destruction on American society. Trump himself stated these immigrants are here illegally, they are criminals and they are dangerous. As Huber writes, in the same campaign video, Trump “Refers to Victor Martinez, an undocumented Latino immigrant charged with the sexual assault and murder of Marilyn Pharis, a white California woman.”23 The message communicated both through this video and Donald Trump’s early statements appear disturbingly similar to those fears currently motivating white supremacists; People of Color are invading our society.

They’re destroying our economy and ruining our way of life. They want to hurt us and our loved ones, and we need to defend ourselves at all costs.

This apocalyptic attitude, when considered in conjunction with current demographic trends within the United States, combine to create a sense of fatal urgency. As reported by the United States Census Bureau, in 2014, minority backgrounds constitute 50.2% of the nation’s population of children under the age of five.24 Unfortunately, this misinformed and dangerous message, that the United States is being overrun by violent immigrants, is being further inflamed by government-funded research stating that soon whites may expect to become a minority group. Yet, rather than being carried by a fringe group of avowed white nationalists, this message has now been delivered by a, then, candidate for President of the United States that represents one of our nation’s most historic political parties. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s rhetoric, accompanied by the Census Bureau’s report, were not without consequence.

Empirical Analysis: The Resurgence of White Nationalist Terrorism

21

Alexander Burns. “Choice Words From Donald Trump, Presidential Candidate.” The New York Times. June 16, 2015. Accessed November 20, 2018.

22 Lindsay Pérez Huber. “”Make America Great Again!”: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremacy Amid U.S. Demographic Change.” HeinOnline. Accessed November 20, 2018.

23 Ibid.

24 US Census Bureau. “Millennials Outnumber Baby Boomers and Are Far More Diverse.” Census Bureau QuickFacts. June 25, 2015. Accessed November 19, 2018.

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Early Warnings Signs of the damage Donald Trump’s rhetoric would bring began appearing as early as August 2015. Lindsay Pérez Huber outlines a number of incidents of violence committed by Trump’s supporters against People of Color. The following incidents are particularly noteworthy: In August of 2015, the Boston Globe reported that two white men, “inspired” by Trump, beat a homeless Latino man sleeping outside a Boston bus stop….In October 2015, a Trump supporter forcefully dragged a Latino college student protester out of a rally in Miami, Florida. In November 2015, an African American protester from the Black Lives Matter movement was attacked and beaten by white Trump supporters at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama.25 Each and every one of these attacks, motivated by and in some cases, supported by Donald Trump, may reasonably be considered an act of terror under the Department of Defense’s definition. When questioned regarding the August incident in Boston, Donald Trump replied with the following, “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”26 This support for his followers’ violent tendencies became a recurring theme throughout the Trump campaign.

At one point the candidate offered to pay the legal fees incurred by a supporter who assaulted a black protester during a campaign rally. 27 The message soon became clear: if an individual resorted to violence as a means of supporting Donald Trump, they could depend on Trump’s verbal and finical support. This promise of support did not go unnoticed.

In2016, white supremacists accounted for 13% of all extremist related murders, while in 2017 these groups accounted for 53% of ideologically motivated murders.28

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Of these murders perpetrated by an individual with white supremacist or alt-right connections, a majority of these killings appear to have been committed for non-ideological reasons. This predisposition towards violence among adherents to white supremacists implies that these individuals are violent by nature, and consequently are more willing to resort to violence for both political and personal ends.

Additionally, many of the murderers responsible for white supremacist or alt-right motivated killings were members of radically pro-Trump Facebook groups, discussion pages and forums, suggesting that these terrorists were influenced by or at least supporters of Donald Trump.

Incidents of White Nationalist Terror in 2017 To understand the growing threat these individuals pose, it is prudent to begin with analysis of individual murders through the context of both current trends within the white supremacist movement and statements made by Donald Trump. As reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, at the University of Maryland on May 20th, 2017 Sean Urbanski approached and fatally stabbed Richard Collins III. The SPLC reports “Urbanski approached Collins, who was black, and two friends at 3 a.m., seemingly intoxicated, and said, “Step left, step left if you know what’s best for you.” When Collins refused, Urbanski stabbed him.” 29 It was later discovered that Urbanski was a member of an alt-right Facebook group known as “Alt-Reich: Nation,” a group filled with racist propaganda and white supremacist memes.30 Urbanski has been charged with a hate crime due to his connection to the group.

In Aztec, New Mexico on December 14, 2017, William Atchison entered Aztec High School where he shot and killed Casey Jordan Marquez and Francisco Fernandez before killing himself. Atchison left for investigators a long trail of posts in online white supremacist and alt-right communities such as The Daily Stormer (the same website Dylann Roof was known to frequent) and 4chan’s white supremacist board /pol/.31 On Steam, a mainstream gaming website, Atchison wrote;

Lindsay Pérez Huber. “”Make America Great Again!”: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremacy Amid U.S. Demographic Change.” HeinOnline. Accessed November 20, 2018.

26 Ibid 27 Alan Rappeport. “Donald Trump Says He May Pay Legal Fees of Accused Attacker From Rally.” The New York Times. March 13, 2016. Accessed November 20, 2018.

28 “Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017.” Anti-Defamation League. Accessed November 19, 2018.

29 Keegan Hankes and Alex Amend. “The Alt-Right Is Killing People.” Southern Poverty Law Center. February 5, 2018. Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people#ayear.

30 Ibid 31 Brandy Collins and Ben Zadrozny. “New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites.” The Daily Beast. December 15, 2017. Accessed November 21, 2018.

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How am I supposed to function in this world? Wherever I go, I see degeneracy.

Pointless materialism, hedonism, sexual decay, dirty n**gers who do nothing but slowly break down this society etc. it’s fucking everywhere. No way to escape it, 99% of people are part of it and whatever I do I am confronted with the death of the West.32 Atchison’s hatred for minority groups and belief they are bringing societal decay echos the messages found in both white supremacist beliefs and the messaging of Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again!” video. Moreover, it was discovered during Atchison’s autopsy that he had several pro-Trump and white supremacist temporary tattoos on his body, as if he were leaving a message for medical examiners. Included in these messages were the phrase “build the wall”, a clear reference to Trump’s nativist immigration policy, along with a swastika and the symbol of the SS, the elite military unit of the Nazi Party.33 Most tellingly, in 2016 he was removed from his position as a moderator of the website EncyclopediaDramatica as users believed he was abusing his power in order to post and promote pro-Trump material.34 On August 12th, 2017, white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drove his Dodge Challenger through a crowd of protesters during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields killed Heather Heyer and injured nineteen others in an attempt to silence those who spoke out against the rally. Fields has been photographed at the rally holding a shield bearing the insignia of Vanguard America,35 a white nationalist organization involved in the planning and execution of the Charlottesville demonstration.The group has denounced any connection to Fields despite the fact that he was wearing the uniform of the organization during the rally and was pictured in a shield line holding a small shield bearing the insignia of Vanguard America. Kaitlyn Schallhorn of Fox News reports that several social media accounts operated by Fields: Expressed and promoted his belief that

white people are superior to other races and peoples; expressed support of the social and racial policies of Adolf Hitler and Nazi-era Germany, including the Holocaust; and espoused violence against African Americans, Jewish people and members of other racial; ethnic and religious groups he perceived to be non-white.36 Field’s actions constitute direct retribution exacted on these protestors for speaking out against his beliefs, and his comfortability with the use of violence again demonstrates the brutal lengths to which white supremacists will go to enact their beliefs and silence dissent.

The murders of Heather Heyer in Virginia, Casey Jordan Marquez, Francisco Fernandez in New Mexico and Richard Collins III in Maryland represent only a handful of the victims of white supremacists, yet each of their killers shared one thing in common; a fervent support for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s actions and statements towards the white supremacist movement throughout his campaign and presidency are dangerously incompetent overtly complicitet. Trump’s stated position on the issue of immigration falls directly in-line with white supremacist views on People of Color, the belief that minority groups are responsible for the economic, social and moral degradation of our country —and the best solution to this problem is to both restrict immigration of these groups and increase deportations. White supremacists are a group predisposed to violent action, a measure individual white supremacists have demonstrated they are more than comfortable resorting to if they feel sufficiently threatened. By sending a message of approval through offering to pay the legal fees of supporters and failing to provide a strong condemnation for acts of violence committed in his name, such as the above mentioned assault of a Bostonian homeless man in 2015, Trump facilitates and encourages white supremacist terror.

A primary example of Trump’s dangerous mishandling of white supremacy are his statements following the violence and bloodshed of the “Unite the Right” rally in

32 33

Ibid Kassi Nelson. “Autopsy: Aztec Shooter Had Swastika, Other Writing on Body.” KOB 4. February 19, 2018. Accessed November 21, 2018.

34 Brandy Collins and Ben Zadrozny. “New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites.” The Daily Beast. December 15, 2017. Accessed November 21, 2018.

35 Nicole Hensley. “Charlottesville Crash Suspect James Fields Brandished Shield for Vanguard America Hate Group before Attack - NY Daily News.” Nydailynews.com. April 07, 2018. Accessed November 21, 2018.

36 Kaitlyn Schallhorn. “Charlottesville Attack Suspect: What We Know about James Alex Fields, Jr.” Fox News. Accessed November 21, 2018.

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Charlottesville. Famously, Trump drew a moral equivalency between various right wing groups- among them white supremacists and Neo-Nazis- and a number of Trump-supporters and the left wing demonstrators there to protest the rally. In referring to a clash between white supremacists and counter-protesters Donald Trump said, “You had some very fine people on both sides”.37 This tacit approval did not go unnoticed, and Trump soon received tweets from both David Duke and Richard Spencer (A KKK leader and an outspoken white supremacist, respectively) thanking him for his statement.38 Worse still, this outrage is merely one of many incidents in which Trump voiced subtle support for the white supremacist movement. On January 22nd, 2016 Trump posted a retweet from an account called “White Genocide”.39 Trump hired Steve Bannon, operator of the unapologetically white nationalist news website “Breitbart”, as his chief policy strategist.40 One could reasonably expect to fill the entirety of this essay with a list of each and every racially charged comment and ill-advised statement Trump has made and return with a report of similar length.

It may be argued that it is not Trump’s intention to provoke the white supremacist movement. Similarly, a change in Trump’s actions alone would not be able to substantially impact white nationalist terrorism. Regardless of Trump’s intentions however, consequences of his actions are clear. By virtue of his station as President of the United States, he has the clout to unequivocally condemn all manifestations of white supremacy, yet he has neglected this responsibility. As demonstrated by the brutal massacre of eleven Jewish worshipers in Pittsburgh this past October, our nation appears to condemn Trump’s attitude and further terror, bloodshed and tragedy.

Conclusion The white supremacist movement is evolving, abandoning the swastika-adorned meeting hall for the online message board and the burning cross for Pepe the Frog. Their objectives have shifted from maintaining dominance to ensuring survival heir perceived enemies carry out assaults against both themselves and the supports of the movement from near and far a. In desperation, these terrorists have killed their fellow Americans

37

in their schools, their places of worship, their political rallies, and the streets of their hometowns.

In response to this growing threat, Donald Trump has proven that he is either unwilling or unable to condemn these acts of domestic terrorism. He has elected to abide by and reinforce their beliefs, promote their leadership to his administration, stoke their fears, and support their violence.

While one person cannot be held responsible for the terror perpetuated by white supremacy, he must not be excused for pouring gasoline on a raging fire while denying culpability for the ensuing blaze. To eradicate the rising tide of white supremacy requires global effort of Huriculian scale spearheaded by adept leadership that is able to confront these white supremacists and call them what they are; terrorists. This lofty goal may not be achieved in our lifetime, but as time marches on, as these old ideas decay, we may eventually bear the fruits of a more tolerant society.

Works Cited: Burns, Alexander. “Choice Words From Donald Trump, Presidential Candidate.” The New York Times. June 16, 2015. Accessed November 20, 2018. https:// www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/16/ choice-words-from-donald-trump-presidential-candidate/.

Collins, Brandy Zadrozny Ben. “New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites.” The Daily Beast. December 15, 2017.

Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-mexico-school-shooter-had-secretlife-on-pro-trump-white-supremacy-sites.

“Definition of Terrorism.” SecBrief.org. April 08, 2014.

Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.secbrief. org/2014/04/definition-of-terrorism/#fn:7.

“Dylann Roof’s Manifesto.” The New York Times.

December 13, 2016. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/13/ universal/document-Dylann-Roof-manifesto.html.

Gray, Rosie. “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides’.”

The Atlantic. August 15, 2017. Accessed November

Rosie Gray. “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides’.” The Atlantic.

August 15, 2017. Accessed November 21, 2018.

38 Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman. “Trump Gives White Supremacists an Unequivocal Boost.” The New York Times. August 16, 2017. Accessed November 22, 2018.

39 David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick. “Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List.” The New York Times.

January 15, 2018. Accessed November 22, 2018.

40 Ibid

14

21, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/.

Greenblatt, Jonathan. “The Resurgent Threat of White-Supremacist Violence.” The Atlantic. January 17, 2018. Accessed December 19, 2018. https://www. theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-resurgent-threat-of-white-supremacist-violence/550634/.

Hankes, Keegan Hankes, and Alex Amend. “The AltRight Is Killing People.” Southern Poverty Law Center.

February 5, 2018. Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www.splcenter.org/20180205/alt-right-killing-people#ayear.

Hensley, Nicole. “Charlottesville Crash Suspect James Fields Brandished Shield for Vanguard America Hate Group before Attack - NY Daily News.” Nydailynews. com. April 07, 2018. Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/charlottesville-suspect-held-hate-group-shield-attack-article-1.3407245.

Huber, Lindsay Pérez. “”Make America Great Again!”: Donald Trump, Racist Nativism and the Virulent Adherence to White Supremacy Amid U.S. Demographic Change.” HeinOnline. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein. journals/charlwrev10&div=13&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals.

Jason Horowitz, Nick Corasaniti and Ashley Southall.

“Nine Killed in Shooting at Black Church in Charleston.” The New York Times. January 19, 2018. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www.nytimes. com/2015/06/18/us/church-attacked-in-charleston-south-carolina.html.

Leonhardt, David, and Ian Prasad Philbrick. “Donald Trump’s Racism: The Definitive List.” The New York Times. January 15, 2018. Accessed November 22, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/ opinion/leonhardt-trump-racist.html.

“Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017.”

Anti-Defamation League. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/murderand-extremism-in-the-united-states-in-2017.

Nelson, Kassi. “Autopsy: Aztec Shooter Had Swastika, Other Writing on Body.” KOB 4. February 19, 2018.

Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www.kob.com/ new-mexico-news/aztec-high-school-shooter-william-atchison-autopsy/4794886/.

Rappeport, Alan. “Donald Trump Says He May Pay Legal Fees of Accused Attacker From Rally.” The New York Times. March 13, 2016. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/politics/firstdraft/2016/03/13/donald-trump-says-he-may-pay-legal-fees-of-accused-attacker/.

Robles, Frances. “Dylann Roof Photos and a Manifesto Are Posted on Website.” The New York Times. June 20, 2015. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www. nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html.

Schallhorn, Kaitlyn. “Charlottesville Attack Suspect: What We Know about James Alex Fields, Jr.” Fox News. Accessed November 21, 2018. https://www. foxnews.com/us/charlottesville-attack-suspect-whatwe-know-about-james-alex-fields-jr.

“Shocking Photos of Dylann Storm Roof from ‘Last Rhodesian’ Website - NY Daily News.” Nydailynews. com. January 10, 2017. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www.nydailynews.com/news/shocking-photos-dylann-storm-roof-gallery-1.2265282.

“The Miseducation of Dylann Roof.” Teaching Tolerance. Accessed November 20, 2018. https://www. tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2017/the-miseducation-of-dylann-roof.

Thrush, Glenn, and Maggie Haberman. “Trump Gives White Supremacists an Unequivocal Boost.” The New York Times. August 16, 2017. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-white-nationalists.html.

Thrush, Glenn, and Maggie Haberman. “Trump Gives White Supremacists an Unequivocal Boost.” The New York Times. August 16, 2017. Accessed November 22, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-charlottesville-white-nationalists.html.

US Census Bureau. “Millennials Outnumber Baby Boomers and Are Far More Diverse.” Census Bureau QuickFacts. June 25, 2015. Accessed November 19, 2018. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html.

15

Feature

Forward Wisconsin: The Case for State-Led Reconciliation through Legislation

By Megan Diermeier

Nick16Olejniczak

Unjust Native American histories are not unique to Wisconsin. However, Megan Diermeier believes that policy prescriptions going forward should be. She argues that special attention must be paid to Wisconsin’s specific history and Native populations that live here today. Beyond simply acknowledging historic wrongs, Wisconsin must take an active role in righting these wrongs. Past attempts at reconciliation in Canada and Greenland provide opportunities to learn and build upon, but Wisconsin should center its efforts around engaging Native community leaders here, as they work to address persistent disparities in living conditions and life outcomes.

Introduction

T

he University of Wisconsin sits on sacred HoChunk ground. Students walk up Bascom Hill each day and gaze at a statue of Lincoln, the president who gifted the University to the state through his land grant system. Most students - even as they walk by effigy mounds on Observatory Drive or Lakeshore Path - never realize that the land was not Lincoln’s to give. The State of Wisconsin and its institutions are possible because of the cultural genocide and removal of American Indians. Federal Indian Policy eras such as Relocation, Assimilation, and Termination removed native tribes from the state, undercut the legitimacy of their natural governments, and destroyed their cultural integrity to make space for settlers and white homogeneous values and interests. The historical trauma experienced by native populations in the State of Wisconsin continues to impact tribes and their members today. Furthermore, the diminished value society places on American Indians and their historical trauma leads to modern injustices. This essay searches for an initial step toward progress in Wisconsin. First, this essay will provide historical context and examples of cultural genocide in the creation of the State of Wisconsin. Next, it will touch on contemporary issues and the impact the previously discussed historical trauma still has on native populations. After establishing the context of the problem, the essay will look toward international law as well as precedent set in Greenland to inform on a solution in the form of truth commissions. Finally, this essay will then look inward to national precedent and argue that, at the state level, truth commissions with the

intent of creating dialogue and authoring tribal-friendly legislation is the best way for Wisconsin to acknowledge its past wrongs and move forward together with its native population.

Historical Context The arrival of Columbus in the Americas and subsequent settlement on the present-day U.S. mainland marks the beginning of Native American physical and cultural genocide. The pre-Columbian indigenous population is estimated to have ranged anywhere from five to ninety-four million people1. By 1880, this number fell to a mere 300,000 – the result of war, genocide, disease, and slavery.2 Although these national numbers are poignant, for this paper it is important to focus on more-localized effects of colonization and settlement.

The history of the Ho-Chunk tribe represents the native experience in what would become the State of Wisconsin. The Ho-Chunk were initially located in the Green Bay area and had an estimated population of about 10,000 in 1634,3 prior to the arrival of settlers. Largely because of the introduction of new European diseases, the population dropped to about 600 by 1654.4 Intertribal conflict caused by newly-migrated groups from the East, ongoing disease, and effects of trade and migration both by settlers and natives continued to take their toll through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The U.S. gained the Wisconsin territory following the War of 1812, and the purpose of settlers shifted from trapping and trading to farming. Thus, more land was required by the U.S. government in order to support settlement.

Territorial demarcation, as seen in the Treaty of Prairie

1

William Bradford, “‘With a Very Great Blame on Our Hearts’: Reparations, Reconciliation, and an American Indian Plea for Peace with Justice,” American Indian Law Review 27, no. 1 (2002): 22.

2 3

Ibid.

4

Ibid.

Gary Sandefur, Miguel Ceballos, and Susan Mannon, “Land and Population on the Indian Reservation of Wisconsin: Past, Present and Future,” North America Series 42, (2000): 3.

17

du Chien in 1825, soon became the norm. By statehood in 1848, most Indian land in Wisconsin had been ceded by treaty.5 It is necessary to understand not only what happened, but also why. The seizure of native land in Wisconsin and the U.S. in general was justified by negative racial sentiments and the international legal principles of discovery and conquest. These principles legitimized nation-building on top of the ruins of native civilizations because they “provided as a matter of international law that a nation became the sovereign of territory its agents ‘discovered’ provided it subjugated the population and annexed the land.”6 Furthermore, the racist belief that American Indians were “savages” first led to relocation efforts and then a destructive policy of assimilation led by the U.S. government. From the Founding Fathers up to the contemporary participants of the spearfishing controversy, the perpetration of the belief that American Indians were inferior to white people justified harmful acts and policies. In the minds of the academics and politicians at the time of the signing of the Declaration, it was inevitable that the white man would rule over Indian land because of their innate superiority. This superiority was shown in military terms, as Jefferson expressed in an 1803 letter to the then-governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison. He states, “as to their [Indians’] fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them.”7 It was also expressed in legal terms, as showcased in the 1823 Supreme Court case Johnson v. M’Intosh. In his opinion, Chief Justice John Marshall validated the belief that indigenous property rights were nonexistent in the face of white occupancy and seizure and fueled later claims that “‘Indians were conquered as soon as John Cabot set foot on American soil’ and ‘that it only required the inevitable march of history to carry out this preordained outcome.’”8 Around the turn of the nineteenth century, the assimilation era replaced relocation efforts and physically genocidal federal policies. To “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man,” Captain Richard H. Pratt founded the Carlisle Indian School in 1879, the first

5 6 7

off-reservation Indian boarding school. The Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs funded and ran over 100 boarding schools, all with the purpose of separating native children from their families and tribes and assimilating them to the “American” way of life.

Children were forced to attend off-reservation schools under the federal law, with the threat of enforcement by armed police. Even if families could circumvent the law and police, rampant racism in public schools often compelled them to attend the all-native federal schools anyway.9 The Meriam Report (1928), was a study commissioned by the Institute for Government Research and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation that documented the conditions of Indian education.

According to the report, conditions were “grossly inadequate,” and problems such as disease and infection, lack of nutritious food, and illegal child labor ran rampant.10 The government report went so far as to state that “the discipline in the boarding schools is restrictive rather than developmental” and “routine institutionalism is almost the invariable characteristic of the Indian boarding school.”11 This institutionalism, which included the erasure of native names, the outlaw of native language, and militant punishment, is still remembered by past boarding school students today. NPR’s story “American Boarding Schools Haunt Many,” includes the memories of Bill Wright, a Pattwin Indian who was sent to Stewart Indian School in Nevada in 1945.

He was just 6 years old. Wright remembers matrons bathing him in kerosene and shaving his head.

Students at federal boarding schools were forbidden to express their culture — everything from wearing long hair to speaking even a single Indian word. Wright said he lost not only his language, but also his American Indian name. “I remember coming home and my grandma asked me to talk Indian to her and I said, ‘Grandma, I don’t

Ibid., 4.

Bradford, 20.

Angelique Townsend EagleWoman, “The Ongoing Traumatic Experience of Genocide for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States: The Call to Recognize Full Human Rights as Set Forth in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People,” American Indian Law Journal 3, no. 2 (2015): 433-434.

8 9 10 11 18

Bradford, 31.

Charla Bear, “American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many,” NPR, May 12, 2008.

“A Practical Guide to the Indian Child Welfare Act,” Native American Rights Fund (2007): 11-13.

Ibid., 14

understand you,’ “ Wright says. “She said, ‘Then who are you?’ “Wright says he told her his name was Billy. “ ‘Your name’s not Billy. Your name’s ‘TAHrruhm,’” she told him. “And I went, ‘That’s not what they told me.’”12 In Wisconsin, boarding schools were established at Wittenberg (1886), Tomah (1893), Lac du Flambeau (1895), Red Springs (1901), and Hayward (1901). The dissolution of federal boarding schools only began in 1975, with the passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.13 This left plenty of time for traumatic experiences to impact multiple generations of tribal members. From physical genocide, to cultural genocide in the form of assimilationist policies, the native population in the U.S. and Wisconsin suffered from the consequences of the federal government’s attempt at the erasure of a culture and of a people.

This intergenerational trauma continues to influence health, education, and wellness outcomes for the Indian American population in Wisconsin today.

Intergenerational Trauma and its Contemporary Effects Past cultural genocide and continued social discrimination against Indian Americans continue to affect today’s new generation. Federal policy up until the late twentieth century focused on the erasure of American Indian culture and community through methods such as assimilation, forced allotment of tribal land, relocation, and general destruction of culture and language. And even though the State has now turned toward a position of self-determination, the impact of previous policies has left its mark on contemporary native populations. The loss of Indian children to boarding schools up until the 1970s closed off the community to an entire generation and interrupted the natural passage of oral traditions and culture. Rearing children in a traditional community plays an important role in how they learn to interpret the world around them.14 Culture and community can act as buffers to trauma, but when these support systems are destroyed,

12 13

2018.

education, health, and social indicators fall. In its 2015 report, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction states that from 2012 to 2013, the American Indian dropout rate in Wisconsin was more than twice that of the general high school population. Based on the same data, they also concluded that American Indian students are less likely to graduate from high school than any other racial or ethnic group in Wisconsin, apart from African American students. Wisconsin schools are failing its native students. But, it is important to note that these gaps are not isolated to educational outcomes. Health and social factors also indicate a disparity in quality of life between native state citizens and their white counterparts. The Spring 2016 issue of the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families: Health Issue Brief laid the facts bare. In 2014, the average age of death in Wisconsin was 63 years for Native Americans, compared to 77 years for whites. Additionally, from 2012 to 2014, infant mortality rates for Wisconsin Native American children were 69 percent higher than those of Wisconsin white children. Building more health clinics and filling them with practitioners is not going to fix these statistics; the negative health outcomes are symptoms of a much larger societal problem. Isolation, learned maladaptive coping mechanisms, and the lack of a cultural buffer or community are all the direct effects of past state and federal Indian policy. If the State of Wisconsin continues to address these concerns as mere health metrics instead of recognizing the larger public health problems that require trauma-informed care, the native population will continue to suffer. American Indians in Wisconsin are more likely to live in poverty and less likely to have a college degree than their white counterparts.15 This fact and the history of cultural genocide perpetrated against the Wisconsin native population are not coincidental; historical trauma transcends time and impacts the health and societal outcomes of today. It is immensely important that the State of Wisconsin develops a way to recognize past trauma and reconcile with tribal communities. After this recognition, legislation can be drafted through partnerships with tribal members and organizations that more effectively addresses the current effects of cultural genocide and sustained governmentendorsed racism. As William Bradford writes in his

Bear.

“History of Ojibwe and Other Tribes during the Twentieth Century,” Wiigwaasi-Jimaan Birchbark Canoe, accessed May 10,

14

Lorie M. Graham, “’The Past Never Vanishes’: A Contextual Critique of the Existing Indian Family Doctrine,” American Indian Law Review 23, no. 1 (1998): 9.

15

Wisconsin, WI Department of Health Services, Healthiest Wisconsin 2020 Baseline and Health Disparities Report: American Indian Population (2014): 11.

19

article on reparations and reconciliation, “for the United States, justice will not come without a painful reexamination, acknowledgement, and communication of its hidden history” (173).

So What? International Precedents in Indigenous Reconciliation The U.S., and more-specifically, the State of Wisconsin, would not be the first to address concerns of an indigenous population in the form of a truth commission. Indeed, an international document has already laid the groundwork for reconciliation and the recognition of cultural genocide against indigenous populations: the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. The UNDRIP consists of 46 articles which address specific rights of indigenous peoples and how governments must act to preserve and protect those rights. Multiple articles explicitly state that governments must coordinate with native populations to redress grievances and combat prejudice and discrimination.

Many sections begin with, “states shall take measures” to improve the daily life of indigenous peoples in some way. Article 38 says that, “States, in consultation and cooperation with indigenous peoples, shall take the appropriate measures, including legislative measures, to achieve the ends of this Declaration.”16 This is a clear call to action on the part of the UN and the 143 countries that initially voted to approve it in 2007. The four opposing votes – Canada, the US, New Zealand, and Australia – eventually switched to endorse the UNDRIP. The US was the last nation to drop its opposition to the Declaration in 2010, under President Barack Obama.17 Since its adoption in 2007, the UNDRIP has encouraged multiple nations to publicly address the concerns of their native populations. One example is the Canadian government and its apology to the First Nations.

The Canadian national government’s apologies in 2008 and 2017 to victims of government-run boarding schools were in direct response to the UNDRIP and an international phenomenon known as the “politics of embarrassment.” In 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized to the First

Nations for the federal boarding schools which ran from the nineteenth century until 1996. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission followed the 2008 apology and “looked not only at the legacy of residential schools but also at overall relations between Canada and its indigenous people.”18 The TRC conducted research over a period of six years, obtained 6,750 interviews, and offered 94 recommendations in its final report.

These recommendations included an overhaul of the child welfare system, the full adoption of the UNDRIP, and a change in Canada’s oath of citizenship to include a promise to observe the laws of Canada, including “treaties with indigenous peoples.”19Along with his separate apology in 2017, current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to fulfill most of the TRC’s recommendations during his time in office. Although Canada’s example seems like an obvious step in the right direction, more-effective reconciliation requires something more: a contemporary acknowledgement of continuing colonialism. Trudeau did not address current issues in the First Nations community with his apology, but rather attempted to frame the problem as one isolated to the past. As Pauline Wakeham writes in her article, “Reconciling ‘Terror’: Managing Indigenous Resistance in the Age of Apology,” “Despite the seemingly progressive nature of these apologies, the Canadian government’s practices of atonement reveal a strategic management of liability by framing past wrongs in terms of historically delimited, specific injuries rather than acknowledging the systemic and ongoing practices of colonialism” (3).

The US and the State of Wisconsin should avoid falling into this trap of superficial reconciliation and truth-telling. Instead of Canada’s example, the U.S. should follow in the steps of Greenland’s Reconciliation Commission and its acknowledgement of current problems faced by its indigenous Inuit population.

After three years of study, the Greenland Reconciliation Commission published its findings in December 2017 in

16

United Nations, General Assembly, “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” New York: United Nations (2008): 13

17

2010.

Valerie Richardson, “Obama adopts U.N. manifesto on rights of indigenous peoples,” The Washington Times, December 16,

18

Ian Austen, “Trudeau Apologizes for Abuse and ‘Profound Cultural Loss’ at Indigenous Schools,” The New York Times, November 24, 2017.

19

Ian Austen, “Canada’s Forced Schooling of Aboriginal Children Was ‘Cultural Genocide,’ Report Finds,” The New York Times, June 2, 2015.

20

a 63-page report that contained seven recommendations for the future. Although Greenland’s Reconciliation Commission included the testimony of victims of colonialism and involved fact-finding missions like Canada’s own TRC, it differed in one major aspect; instead of focusing on the past, its recommendations addressed the four main challenges that the Commission believed Greenland is currently facing. These include the after-effects of Danish and Norwegian colonialism, the feeling of being left behind in terms of development, the loss of language, and the need for a common set of values to unite all Greenlanders, both Inuit and Danish.20 The recommendations include the establishment of a research center, a community-based effort to strengthen language practice, and the creation of a Greenlandic calendar. These recommendations will affect current and future generations. Instead of ruminating in the past, the Greenland Reconciliation Commission took facts from its colonial period, used them as a lens to understand the present, and then adopted relevant solutions. It is important to note that the Greenland Reconciliation Commission took place without the “mother” state of Denmark. Indeed, Denmark bowed out of the process in 2014 before it even began. This fact may have led to Greenland’s “in-order-to” motive of projection, which “separates the wounded from the attacker, thus creating a space in which self-determination is not dependent on what the powerful might do, say or permit in the journey to reclaiming strength.”21 In contrast, Canada’s TRC focused on actions prefaced by a “because” motive, which “require a stepping back into the cultural wounding experience and therefore a reinstating of relations between the politically strong and the politically weak or historically oppressed.”22 The US and the State of Wisconsin must tread a thin line between these two international examples and motives.

It must acknowledge the past in its reconciliation but use it as a lens to look toward the future instead of as a blinder that restricts the sovereignty and legitimacy of American Indian tribes. One way to work toward this goal is through Congressional hearings and subsequent legislation. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and its preceding hearings are an example of comprehensive

reconciliation on the federal level.

National Precedents in Reconciliation Legislation: ICWA The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 shows how Congressional testimony and legislation can aid in reconciliation between the federal government and native tribes. In 1974, the Ninety-Third Congress held the Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs to address “problems that American Indian families face in raising their children and how these problems are affected by federal action or inaction.”23 The hearings were an exercise in effective reconciliation because they asked questions about a specific and contemporary issue faced by American Indians, judged the federal government’s own performance based off testimony from multiple sources, and wholeheartedly included native professionals and tribal members in the dialogue. They engaged with the native community and took criticism on the Congress’s own errors in legislation and policy. The Hearings did mention historical wrongs, but used this past cultural trauma as a framework for future legislation instead of a catch-all opportunity to apologize and then effectively leave the conversation. The Hearings spanned a total of two days in early April, and included statements from Senators, tribal councilmen and women, psychiatrists, Bureau of Indian Affairs employees, and the president of the National Congress of American Indians. A plethora of documents were submitted to the record from professionals, organizations, and tribal members. All material addressed the problems facing Indian children in the welfare system. Unfortunately, Wisconsin appears often in the written record. William Byler, the Executive Director of the Association on American Indian Affairs stated that “in Wisconsin, the risk of Indian children being separated from their parents is nearly 1,600 percent greater than it is for non-Indian children.”24 The Director of the American Indian Child Placement and Development Program, Victoria Gokee, also spoke to Wisconsin’s history of child removal. She described, “the State came in, the State of Wisconsin, they would take our children and they would never again consult with the families as to

20 21

Jane George, “Greenland’s reconciliation commission sets path for national healing,” Nunatsiaq News, January 09, 2018.

22 23

Ibid.

24

Ibid., 3.

Amanda Kearney, “Ethnicity, Cultural Wounding and the ‘Healing Project’: What Happens When the Wounded Survive?” Ethnicities 14, no. 5 (2014): 609.

United States, Congress, Cong. Senate, Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Indian Child Welfare Program,” Indian Child Welfare Program, 1974, pp. 1–531. 93rd Congress, 2nd session, document: I.

21

where they should go. They took them and placed them all in non-Indian homes.”25 The Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Indian Affairs of 1974 brought up uncomfortable subjects which undoubtedly led to contention and rancor in Congress.

However, instead of wiping their hands of the past with a quick apology and a pat on the back for a truth-finding well-done, the Subcommittee used the stories and data to create a new option for the next generation of Indian children. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 is a direct result of the Hearings of 1974 and shows how a government can create change through coordinated discussion and legislation. The ICWA directly addresses the issues discussed in 1974 and attempts to reduce and eliminate the disparity between Indian children taken from their homes compared to white children. To protect Indian children from ongoing cultural isolation, the ICWA establishes a protected political class for children who are either members of a federally-recognized tribe or are eligible for membership. The two main goals of the ICWA are the permanence or reunification of family, and if that is impossible, that the Indian child should be placed with an extended family member or in another tribal household.26 Already in 1996, data connected to ICWA showed its preliminary effectiveness. Social workers placed children with tribal members more often, and so fewer children grew up outside of their native culture.

Tribes exercised more control over their members, and exclusive jurisdiction over Indian children amplified the legitimacy of tribal governments. Indeed, in 1996, it was already clear that “with few resources and against great historical odds, tribes have met the initial challenge of the ICWA with accomplishment.”27The State of Wisconsin should take this federal-level example of “reconciliation through legislation” and work directly with tribal members to condition it more specifically to the needs of Wisconsin native populations. The final section of this paper will address the effects of context-specific legislation and will use the sturgeon spearfishing controversy and Act 31 as an example of why reconciliatory legislation should be localized.

Forward, Wisconsin: Sturgeon Spearing and Act 31 The violence and racism that surrounded Ojibwa off-reservation treaty rights to spear sturgeon unhindered by state regulation led Wisconsin activists and legislators to push for a reform of education in public schools through Act 31. In 1983, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago ruled that the State of Wisconsin had no right to regulate fishing on Ojibwa reservations and that the treaties of 1837 and 1842 guaranteed the Ojibwa rights to hunt and fish off-reservation without the future threat of state regulation. The Supreme Court upheld this ruling, commonly known as the Voigt Decision, in the same year. The decision sparked outrage in hunter and fisherman-heavy Wisconsin and many opponents of the decision railed against what they saw as “special privileges” based on outdated treaties. Others claimed that the Ojibwa would wipe out all fish and game by the time the regulated season rolled around.

Demonstrations at lakes, docks, and boat landings turned contentious and physical; posters displayed messages such as “Save a Deer, Shoot an Indian” and “Spear an Indian, Save a Muskie.”28 Racial tension presented itself inland as well, and non-Indian children at school near the Lac du Flambeau Reservation “drew a series of anti-Indian images, including a picture of a giant fish spearing an Indian through the head,” and “both Lakeland Union High School and Crandon High School also experienced multiple bomb threats.”29 Clearly, something had to be done.

The idea of Act 31 emerged in 1989 as community leaders looked to public schools as the solution to rising racial tension; advocates viewed the lack of knowledge about Indian treaties and rights among Wisconsin students as a factor of the ongoing racism and violence. Indeed, Act 31 was a direct result of the recommendations of the Ad Hoc Commission on Racism (1984), much like the ICWA was a result of Hearings before the Subcommittee. The commission “urged K-12 schools and university teacher education programs to develop ‘well-taught courses on tribal sovereignty, the treaties, Indian culture and history’ in order to ‘stem the current racism that exists in

25 26 27

Ibid., 164.

28 29

JP Leary, The Story of Act 31 (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018), 50.

“A Practical Guide to the Indian Child Welfare Act, vi.

Ann E. MacEachron, Nora S. Gustavsson, Suzanne Cross, and Allison Lewis, “The Effectiveness of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978,” Social Service Review 70, no. 3 (1996): 460.

22

Ibid., 55.

Wisconsin.’ ”30 After organization by advocates and legislators, publication of Act 31 was completed in August of 1989. Although an unfortunate sequence of events, the spearfishing controversy of the 1980s showcased how activists and legislators can enter a dialogue and pass a bill that addresses a specific Wisconsin problem and protects tribal legitimacy is some way. The State of Wisconsin should use Act 31 and the ICWA as examples of reconciliation through legislation. However, instead of waiting for racism to rear its ugly head, such as after the Voigt Decision, state legislators should work directly with tribal leaders and members to develop more proactive solutions.

Conclusion Truth-seeking hearings should take place at the Wisconsin state level, with the end goal of active legislation developed with the leadership of Indian leaders and tribal members. Historical trauma and its long-lasting intergenerational effects require acknowledgement from the U.S. government. However, any proposed solutions should extend beyond an apology and instead seek active solutions toward reconciliation.

The Hearings of 1974 and the subsequent passage of ICWA, along with state-specific Act 31, offer examples of what reconciliation through legislation might look like. However, history of state-tribal relations is deep and painful. It is ignorant to believe that a few state hearings and the passage of a bill or two will change what happened in the past or will ameliorate all of today’s problems. But, it is a place to start. Without conversation, without dialogue, no change will ever occur. This is a proposal for a small step and should certainly not be seen as an attempt at a state-tribal relations panacea. One additional caveat – the author of this paper does not identify as American Indian and the author fully recognizes this as a limitation in her knowledge. The goal of reconciliation is to promote tribal sovereignty. It is important that Wisconsin listens to what tribes want, not to what the state believes they want. This is one opinion, and the author proposes it as a small step in the right direction: forward.

Works Cited “A Practical Guide to the Indian Child Welfare Act,” Native American Rights Fund, 2009.

30

Agni, Chet. “Closing Gaps in Native American Health.” Wisconsin Council on Children and Families: Health Issue Brief, Spring 2016.

Austen, Ian. “Canada’s Forced Schooling of Aboriginal Children Was ‘Cultural Genocide,’ Report Finds.” The New York Times, June 2, 2015.

Austen, Ian. “Trudeau Apologizes for Abuse and ‘Profound Cultural Loss’ at Indigenous Schools.” The New York Times, November 24, 2017.

Bear, Charla. “American Indian Boarding Schools Haunt Many.” NPR, May 12, 2008 Bradford, William. “‘With a Very Great Blame on Our Hearts’: Reparations, Reconciliation, and an American Indian Plea for Peace with Justice.” American Indian Law Review 27, no. 1 (2002).

EagleWoman, Angelique Townsend. “The Ongoing Traumatic Experience of Genocide for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United States: The Call to Recognize Full Human Rights as Set Forth in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.” American Indian Law Journal 3, no.

2 (2015).

George, Jane. “Greenland’s reconciliation commission sets path for national healing.” Nunatsiaq News, January 09, 2018.

Graham, Lorie M. “‘The Past Never Vanishes’: A Contextual Critique of the Existing Indian Family Doctrine.” American Indian Law Review 23, no. 1 (1998).

“History of Ojibwe and Other Tribes during the Twentieth Century.” Wiigwaasi-Jimaan Birchbark Canoe, accessed May 10, 2018.

Kearney, Amanda. “Ethnicity, Cultural Wounding and the ‘Healing Project’: What Happens When the Wounded Survive?” Ethnicities 14, no. 5 (2014).

Leary, JP. The Story of Act 31. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2018.

MacEachron, Ann E., Nora S. Gustavsson, Suzanne Cross, and Allison Lewis. “The Effectiveness of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978.” Social Service Review 70, no. 3 (1996).

Ibid., 91.

23

Feature

A ‘Triad of Tactics:’ Evaluating the AntiDefamation League’s Response to AntiSemitic Terror in the United States

By Hilary Miller

24 AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Anti-Semitism, like other forms of hatred, has long been part of American life, dating back to religious restrictions in the colonial era and Ulysses S. Grant’s 1862 order barring Jews from Tennessee. The early 20th century, in particular, saw a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism, highlighted by the lynching of Leo Frank in 1913. This gruesome murder spurred the creation of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to combat expressions of anti semitism.

More than a century after the murder of Leo Frank, the ADL is confronting a rise in antisemitism, including acts of terrorism carried out against American Jews. This piece, by Sifting’s very own Hilary Miller, explores how the ADL has responded to the latest rise of antisemitism by explaining the ‘triad of tactics’ the ADL has employed in its campaign against antisemitism. Hilary also sheds light on the actors behind this scourge on both the Left and the Right, and explores the political ideologies motivating domestic terrorists who carry out acts of violence.

Introduction It was in the latter part of August, 1913 when a mob approached the Milledgeville State Penitentiary in Georgia to apprehend Leo Frank, the man accused for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl.1 The alleged victim was found dead in the basement of Frank’s Atlanta pencil factory. To his detriment, Frank was arraigned during a period when forensic science was relegated to the prejudices of detectives and law enforcement. Although there was not enough evidence to prove Frank’s involvement in the crime, he was detained and tried based solely on one merit: his Jewish identity. Frank’s religious persuasion was enough to convince the prosecution of his culpability and the public “to believe the worst of him” in wake of the pencil factory tragedy.2 Despite its constitutional promise of religious freedom, America in the early 20th century was home to a vocal horde of bigots who despised Jews. The sensational newspaper coverage, popular hysteria, and legal demagoguery that demonized the Jewish Georgian encouraged the frenzied mob to seize and ultimately lynch Frank in a nearby forest.3 Frank’s fate was the result of an unconscionable act of terror, remembered as “one of the most lurid displays of intolerance in the Progressive Era.”4 This sordid affair marked a paradigmatic shift in the

way American Jews perceived their vulnerability to hatred and violence. Anti-Semitism had always been a fact of the American Jewish experience. However, Frank’s lynching was the impetus for American Jewish leaders to take remedial action. They did so by creating the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), purposed “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people” before it escalated to the type of violence that claimed Leo Frank and terrorized Jews throughout America.5 The League remains one of the foremost Jewish civil society organizations and a palpable force for good. Throughout its long history and especially within the 21st century, its programs, policies and people have contributed to the fight against anti-Semitism in the United States and around the world.

Despite the passage of time since Frank’s death, anti-Semitism remains a dismal reality in America, where hatred and violence towards Jews has become more pronounced in the last two decades. Over the past 12 years there have been a half-dozen shootings at Jewish institutions that resulted in fatalities.6 The ADL reports that between 2016 and 2017, anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. rose by 57%, the largest single-year increase and the second-highest number reported since the League started tracking such data in 1979.7 Many of these crimes were acts of terror, where Jews were targeted with physical violence accompanied by expres-

1

Nettanel Slyomovics, “Lynched at Midnight: How anti-Semitism Doomed Leo Frank,” Ha’aretz, August 17, 2015, https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/lynched-at-midnight-story-of-leo-frank-1.5387758.

2 MacDonald, The Kansas City Star, 25 October 1913, sec. C, p. 3.

3 Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 2nd ed. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2008), 157.

4 Ibid., 1.

5 “Our Mission,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-mission, paragraph 1.

6 David B. Green, “From Lynchings to Mass Shootings: The History of Deadly Attacks on Jews in America,” Ha’aretz, October 29, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-from-lynchings-to-mass-shootingsthe-history-of-deadly-attacks-on-jews-in-america-1.6601089.

7 “2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/2017-audit-of-anti-semitic-incidents#major-findings, paragraph 2.

25

sions of anti-Semitic animus.8 Furthermore, for the first time since 2010, an anti-Semitic incident has occurred in every U.S. state. This shows how the scope of hatred for Jews is not a confined trend but instead a widespread truth of the “rising climate of incivility” that is emboldening hate groups and widening divisions in society.9 In what ways have the Anti-Defamation League responded to the intensifying anti-Semitic terrorism in America during the 21st century?

Throughout the 21st century, the Anti-Defamation League has responded to anti-Semitic terrorism in America by using a ‘triad of tactics’ that involve educating key groups, raising public awareness, and affecting legislative change to preempt anti-Semitism before it escalates to violence. In order to understand the ADL’s manifold response, I will define anti-Semitic terrorism and evaluate the scholarship on the political motivations of anti-Semitic extremists from the radical Right and Left. This information gives a more complete understanding of the anti-Semitic violence that has occurred with growing frequency in the last two decades. Surveying the literature on anti-Semitism in connection with the measurable increase in violence helps to explain the ADL’s triad of tactics for preempting anti-Jewish terror.

This theoretical framework is relevant to the study of counterterrorism. Further, the triad may be adopted by civil society advocacy groups beyond the Jewish institutional realm as a model for safeguarding minoritized communities that are also vulnerable to terror.

Literature Review Defining Anti-Semitic Terrorism Targeting Jews with physical violence is part of the larger paradigm of terrorism, which is defined as politically motivated violence usually carried out by non-state actors against civilian targets.10 However, the working

8 9

definition of terrorism alone cannot address its indelible social, political and cultural impact. As “propaganda of the deed,” acts of terror engender a psychosis of fear that hinders ordinary people from their daily life pursuits.11 This impediment is relevant to the experience of American Jews in the 21st century. A recent survey found that more than half of American Jews feel less secure and more unsafe than they did a year ago.12 Thus, taken together, the skeletal criteria along with the communicative and symbolic functions of terrorism provide a more nuanced understanding of anti-Semitic terrorism and its effect on American Jewish life in the 21st century.

Although it has no uniform definition, anti-Semitic terrorism encompasses much of the criteria put forth in the working definition of terrorism. Even though it varies among scholars of anti-Semitism, it is widely understood as the use of violence against Jewish people or Jewish property with the intention of causing physical harm or damage.13 The “Draft International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Anti-Semitism” outlines a more comprehensive description: Any expression of hostility or demonstration of violence toward Jews individually, or as a group, a collectivity, or toward the Jewish People as a religious, ethnic, or racial group, or toward Jewish culture, religious practices, and property that can be attributed to the Jewish religion and/or ethnicity, including attacking physically and in other ways, people or property—such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries—because they are, or are perceived to be Jewish or linked to Jews.14 The ADL more simply defines it as a form of “assault where people’s bodies are targeted with

Ibid., paragraph 3.

Oliver Holmes, “Antisemitic incidents in US soar to highest level in two decades,” The Guardian, February 27, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/27/antisemitism-us-rises-anti-defamation-league.

10 Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism,” International Security 31 no. 1 (2006): 50.

11 Arthur H. Garrison, “Defining terrorism: philosophy of the bomb, propaganda by deed and change through fear and violence,” Criminal Justice Studies, 17 no. 3 (2004): 266.

12 “AJC 2018 Survey of American Jewish Opinion,” The American Jewish Committee, https://www.ajc.org/news/survey2018, paragraph 25.

13 Andrew Baker and Stacy Burdett, Understanding Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes and Addressing the Security Needs of Jewish Communities: A Practical Guide (Warsaw: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, 2017), 5.

14 Alan Baker, Draft International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Anti-Semitism (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2015), 9.

26

violence accompanied by expressions of anti-Semitic animus.”15 The Political Motivations for Anti-Semitic Terrorism from the Radical Right and the Radical Left There is a rich body literature on the political motivations that fuel anti-Jewish violence. Vitriol for Jews is a unique phenomenological prejudice that plagued human history as much as it pervades modernity. Anti-Semitism as an ideology is deeply entrenched in the historical record and steeped in contemporary forms of political violence. Given the longevity of anti-Semitism and the academic breadth of the topic, it has imported different meanings to scholars from a variety of fields, including political science, law, Jewish studies, sociology, and history. Central to their discourse is understanding what drives anti-Semites to use terror, and specifically how terrorists on the Right and Left have transformed their disparate anti-Jewish ideologies into political programs that aim to severely harm or, in the most extreme cases, entirely eliminate Jews.16 In the United States, extremists on the Right draw upon anti-Jewish tropes that date back to the 15th century, during which Christian anti-Semites fostered a collection of stereotypes that cast Jews as both religious outsiders and of a “distinct, inferior, and troubling race.”17 This very xenophobia and mysophobia drove the policies of the Nazi regime and inspired the murderers of Leo Frank.18 Professor Ruth Wodak researches how in the 21st century white supremacists,

as an outspoken cohort within the Radical right, evoke the sentiments of European anti-Jewish racism.19 These ideas are central to their ethno-national narrative that Jews are plotting a “white genocide” by facilitating an exodus of non-whites to mix, overrun and exterminate the white race.20 Right-wing radicals see the elimination of Jews as a rational way to ensure the continued racial dominance of whites in America. On October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers acted upon this belief when he attached the Tree of Life synagogue out of spite for Jews’ connection to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a non-profit that provides aid to refugees.21 This act of terror, carried out by a fringe figure on the radical Right, claimed 11 Jewish lives.

Individuals on the radical Left also purvey hatred for Jews. Kenneth Marcus explains them as progenitors of “the new anti-Semitism,” whose political ideology is categorically distinct from the older racially and religiously charged dogmas of Christian Europe.22 Anti-Semitic radicals on the Left are motivated by an intense hatred for Israel. They harbor “stereotyped negative opinions describing the Jewish state and its members, supporters and coreligionists as threatening, immoral and categorically different from other peoples.”23 Wilhelm Kempf explains how criticism of Israel, under particular circumstances, has become a socially accepted medium for anti-Semitism.24 This includes demonizing Israeli citizens and leaders, delegitimizing Israel’s fundamental right to exist, or holding Israel to a double standard because of its Jewish character.25 Leonard Dinnerstein explains how anti-Israel beliefs

15

“2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/2017-audit-of-anti-semitic-incidents#major-findings, paragraph 3.

16 Robert S. Wistrich, “The Old-New Anti-Semitism,” The National Interest no. 72 (2003): 69.

17 Mohan Rao, “’Scientific’ Racism: A Tangled Skein,” Economic and Political Weekly 38 no. 8 (2003): 698.

18 Leo Ferguson, Dove Ken, and Keren S. Sharon, Understanding Antisemitism: An Offering to Our Movement (New York: Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, 2017), 11.

19 Ruth Wodak, “The Radical Right and Anti-Semitism” in The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jen Rydgren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 2.

20 Raphael S. Ezekiel, “An Ethnographer Looks at Neo-Nazi and Klan Groups: The Racist Mind Revisited,” American Behavioral Scientist 6, no. 1 (2002): 52.

21 Rich Lord, Liz Navratil, and Chris Huffaker, “From nonpartisan voter to virulent extremist: The undoing of Robert Bowers,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 31, 2018, http://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2018/10/31/Robert-Bowers-accused-killer-political-Warroom-synagogue-pittsburgh-mass-shooting/stories/201810300154.

22 Kenneth L. Marcus, “The Ideology of the New Antisemitism” in Deciphering the New Antisemitism, ed. Alvin H. Rosenfeld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015), 21.

23 Ibid., 23.

24 Wilhelm Kempf, “Antisemitism and Criticism of Israel: A Methodological Challenge for Peace Research,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 4 no. 2 (2012): 519.

25 Natan Sharansky, “3d Test of Anti-Semitism: Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization,” Jewish Political Studies Review 16 no. 3 (2004): 1.

27

that derive from the new anti-Semitism prompt the violence inaugurated by left-leaning activists on American college campuses.26 Especially in the last decade, he notes how a growing number of universities across the U.S. have seen “more intense and physical verbal attacks” against student supporters of Israel—a large portion of whom are Jewish. There have been multiple cases in which anti-Semitic violence has become so extreme that Jewish students have received assistance from security guards attempting to quell violent demonstrators.27 Data from a recent poll shows that younger Americans, who as a demographic largely identify with the Left, associate issues related to Israel with Jewish people; more than a third of participants between 18 and 34 believe that “Jews are more loyal to Israel” than they are to America.28 The prevalence of typecasting Jews as having a conflict of national interest because of their religion among a significant number of young people on the Left is discomfiting.

It is a distortion of truth inflected with anti-Semitism.

Even so, the increasing number of violent manifestations carried out by terrorists on the extreme Left give greater cause for alarm.

Relevance of the Literature: Measuring the Increase in AntiSemitism in America Radicals on either extreme of the political spectrum espouse different forms of anti-Jewish hatred. As a collective, they have contributed to the acute rise of anti-Semitism and concomitant recurrence of terror affecting Jews

26

in America. The Uniform Crime Reporting Program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports that Jews have consistently been among the top targeted religious groups for over two decades.29 In 2013 there were 737 victims of anti-Jewish violence, whereas in 2016 there were 862, showing the progression of anti-Semitism in recent years.30 The FBI Hate Crime statistics indicate that attacks on Jews in 2017 accounted for 60% of all religion-based hate crimes—the highest amount of any targeted religious group in America.31 This data solidifies the ADL’s finding that anti-Semitic incidents totaled to 1,986 in 2017, which is a 57% increase from 2016. Most incidents were cases of vandalism, but an alarming few entailed crimes of physical assault, violence, or death.32 No matter the source, the type, or growing threat of anti-Semitic terrorism, the Anti-Defamation League has responded with force and potency. Their triad of tactics is designed to educate key groups, raise public awareness, and affect legislative change. With this manifold approach, the ADL is working to stave off anti-Semitism writ large and preempt violent attacks from harming Jewish communities across the U.S. While there is an extensive literature on the definition, causality, and political motivations that underpin anti-Semitic terrorism, along with multiple sources that evidence its growth in America, the scholarship of counterterrorism meagerly addresses strategies for combating lethal forms of violence, specifically against Jews.33 Furthermore, within the discursive realm of anti-Semitism studies, more intellectual focus is direct-

Leonard Dinnerstein, “Antisemitism in America: An Update 1995-2012,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 4 no. 2 (2012): 562.

27 Kenneth L. Marcus, Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 50.

28 “ADL Global 100: USA,” The Anti-Defamation League, http://global100.adl.org/?_ga=2.12839159.1305745360.15 41357709-889508015.1536182006#country/usa/2014, paragraph 1.

29 FBI National Press Office, “Press Release: FBI Releases 2017 Hate Crime Statistics,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, November 13, 2018, https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2017-hate-crime-statistics.

30 “2016 Hate Crime Statistics,” U.S. Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/tables/table-1.

31 “2017 Hate Crime Statistics,” U.S. Department of Justice: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division, https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017/tables/table-1.

32 “2017 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/2017-audit-of-anti-semitic-incidents#major-findings, paragraph 2.

33 There are some policy reports that propose strategies to counteract violence against Jews. Most reports have been intended to influence the policies of European countries, which have also experienced a rise of anti-Semitism in recent years.

Overall, the existing scholarship meagerly addresses counterterror strategies specific to protecting Jewish communities that are detailed in policy reports; Escalating Anti-Semitic Violence in Europe: Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 107th Cong., 2nd sess., 2002; Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, 108th Cong., 2004; Hearing on Anti-Semitism: A Growing Threat to All Faiths, 113th Cong., 2013; Statement by the Anti-Defamation League: Responding to the Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism, 114th Cong., 2015; “Responding to Cyberhate: Progress and Trends,” The Anti-Defamation League, 2016.

28

ed towards evaluating the rise of anti-Semitic violence in Europe compared to that in the United States.34 By evaluating the ADL’s triad of tactics and using the United States as a particular level of analysis, this paper contributes to what scant empirical analysis exists on strategies to counteract anti-Semitic extremists before their radical beliefs escalate to terrorism. Over the last two decades, this trend has become increasingly distinct within the United States.

Theory: The Triad of Tactics Despite the palpability of anti-Jewish animus in America, the anti-Defamation League has been a stalwart in addressing and adjudicating anti-Semitic terrorism during the 21st century. With a network of 26 regional offices throughout the nation, the ADL is a leader in monitoring, tracking and responding to anti-Semitism in the United States. The triad of tactics—educating key groups, raising public awareness, and affecting legislative change—is ADL’s strategic predicate for pursuing this cause. First, the ADL educates students and law enforcement officials about anti-Semitism to equip these key groups with the necessary skills and knowledge to combat it before it escalates to acts of violence. Second, by creating interactive digital tools, the League renders critical information on the scope, nature, and frequency of anti-Semitic incidents transparent to raise public awareness about the growing issue. Third, the ADL employs a robust legislative agenda to inform lawmakers about the reality of anti-Semitism and to encourage policies that protect Jews from terrorism in the United States.

Measuring the extent to which the triad of tactics has effectively thwarted anti-Semitism and, more specifically, anti-Semitic terrorism is beyond the scope of this analysis. Anti-Semitism, as a unique transhistorical phenomena, is capricious; it wanes and varies according to global dynamics and current events. However, evaluating the ADL’s manifold effort to combat anti-Jewish violence is still contributive to the empirical study of counterterrorism. Further, the confluence of educating key groups, raising public awareness, and affecting legislative change provides a model for civil society organizations looking for mechanisms to protect their respective minoritized

groups which, like Jews in America, are subjected to prejudice and its potential escalation to lethal forms of terror.

Tactic 1: Educating Key Groups Education is a valued component of the Anti-Defamation League’s triad of tactics. According to the League, “in the long term, educating against hate will shrink the pool of potential recruits to terrorism and will also reduce anti-Semitic attitudes in the entire population, making Jewish communities more comfortable.”35 The organization has an entire professional staff devoted to developing curriculum and facilitating programs on anti-Semitism and related topics for key groups, such as students and law enforcement officials. The League considers them best-suited to cultivate a more tolerant civil society and a less divisive political climate in which all forms of racism, bigotry, and hatred are deplored more than they are accepted.36 Given their relative youth and intellectual curiosity, students have a marked potential to notice and confront anti-Semitism by learning its historical roots and modern ubiquity. Law enforcement officials have a unique dual capacity to protect Jews from physical harm and maintain data and issue reports detailing the recurrence of anti-Semitic incidents. Given their incontrovertible value in deterring anti-Semitism’s escalation to terror, these key groups have been the motivation for the League’s continued development and exercise of its education tactic in the last decade.

Throughout the country, the ADL has multiple education campaigns that reach a cross-section of students from kindergarten to college. Their signature program is “No Place for Hate,” an anti-bias program that promotes a culture of tolerance by teaching students the history of anti-Semitism. It serves as a predicate for understanding how all forms of hatred stem from sociocultural constructs of ignorance and hate. This curriculum equips students with particular skills for addressing anti-Jewish bias, while generally encouraging them to demonstrate learned principles of inclusion and acceptance both inside and outside of the classroom. ADL’s trademark concept, the “Pyramid of Hate,” provides a visual for comprehending the escalatory potential of hateful rhetoric

34

Michel Wieviorka, The Lure of Anti-Semitism: Hatred of Jews in Present-Day France (Leiden: Brill Publications, 2007); Gunther Jikeli, “Explaining the Discrepancy of Antisemitic Acts and Attitudes in 21st Century France,” Contemporary Jewry 37 (2017): 257-273.

35 Statement by the Anti-Defamation League: Responding to the Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism, 114th Cong., 2015, 10.

36 Abraham H. Foxman, “Global Antisemitism: Old Hatred, New Threats,” Journal for the Study of Antisemitism 4 (2013): 739.

29

to transform into acts of terror which, if not confronted, may lead to genocide.37 The Pyramid conveys students’ pivotal role in “combating bias and bullying as a means to stop the escalation of hate.”38 The reach of the No Place for Hate curriculum is noteworthy; analytics show that it was embraced by a record number of 1,600 schools in 2017, impacting over one million students throughout the country.39 A significant number of schools were using No Place for Hate before August 2017, but the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on prompted its widespread implementation. The “largest and most violent gathering of white supremacists in decades” was suffused with anti-Semitic tropes from the radical Right that imparted Jews as an imminent threat to “white culture” in America.40 Vehement demonstrators from alt-right and neo-Nazi groups carried torches and brandished Nazi salutes while chanting “Jews will not replace us.”41 The League resolved by implementing “No Place for Hate” in 12 new schools across the Eastern seaboard. This immediate response to the high-profile event reached more than 15,000 students who, because of ADL’s education effort, learned how to counteract “the escalation of hate” in wake of the high profile anti-Semitic event.42 The vast reception of No Place for Hate, along with other anti-bias programs, by students across the nation reveals how the League is using education as a core tactic to avert the growing threat of anti-Semitic vitriol and violence in America.

ADL also educates law enforcement officials, a crucial

37

ally in the fight to protect Jewish communities, to address anti-Semitism writ large and prevent its escalation to terrorism. In the past ten years, the ADL has graduated more than 100,000 federal, state, local, and military officers from a variety of its counterterror training programs. Twice a year, the League brings senior-level personnel to Washington D.C. for its Advanced Training School (ATS) course on Extremist and Terrorist Threats.43 This three-day program gives participants an opportunity to learn from ADL experts about strategies to confront anti-government extremists, homegrown radicals, and terrorists with a predilection for harming Jews.44 As “one of the premier law enforcement counterterrorism trainings in the country,” the ATS has worked with over 1,100 individuals from nearly 250 different agencies since its inception in 2003.45 In the same year, the ADL launched its National Counter-Terrorism Seminar (NCTS), an annual trip that brings about a dozen top-level officers from across the U.S. to Israel for a week of intensive counterterrorism training. Participants meet with commanders from the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and the Palestinian Police Authority, along with policy experts and scholars from the Israel National Police, who offer insight into counteracting domestic terror.46 Steven Sargent, Police Chief of Worcester, testifies to how learning about anti-Semitic terrorism in the Middle East augmented his perception of how to confront it in Massachusetts. By speaking with Israeli counterparts, he learned what strategies effectively mitigate threats from lone-wolf actors who aim for soft

“Pyramid of Hate,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/education/resources/tools-and-strategies/pyramid-of-hate, paragraph 1.

38 “No Place for Hate,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-organization/signature-programs/no-place-for-hate, paragraph 1.

39 “ADL: A Leader in Anti-Bias Education and Civil Rights,” National: ADL Blog, April 18, 2018, https://www.adl. org/blog/adl-a-leader-in-anti-bias-education-and-civil-rights.

40 Allison Padilla-Goodman, “ADL Southeast: How to Create No Place for Hate: Extremism like that seen in Charlottesville requires monitoring, education, and action,” Atlanta Jewish Times, September 11, 2017, https://atlantajewishtimes. timesofisrael.com/adl-southeast-how-to-create-no-place-for-hate/.

41 Emma Green, “Why the Charlottesville Marchers Were Obsessed with Jews,” The Atlantic, August 15, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/nazis-racism-charlottesville/536928/.

42 “Twelve Schools in the Washington, DC Region Participating in No Place for Hate,” Washington, D.C. Region: Blog, January 31, 2017. https://dc.adl.org/twelve-schools-in-the-washington-dc-region-participating-in-no-place-for-hate/.

43 “Advanced Training Seminar (ATS),” The Anti-Defamation League, Washington, D.C. Region, https://dc.adl.org/ advanced-training-school-ats/, paragraph 1.

44 Ibid.

45 “Law Enforcement Partners,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/what-we-do/combat-hate/law-enforcement-partnerships, paragraph 3.

46 “Regional police commanders learn about counter-terrorism efforts in Israel,” St. Louis Jewish Light, April 27, 2017, http://www.stljewishlight.com/news/local/regional-police-commanders-learn-about-counter-terrorism-efforts-in-israel/ article_8422e920-2b5e-11e7-a86b-0b25337ad38a.html.

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targets, such as Jewish places of worship, community centers, or cemeteries.47 Orlando Police Chief John Mina also notes how the NCTS provided him with critical insight into how Israeli officials not only respond to but preempt terror in a region marred by civil dispute.48 His experience reflects the ADL’s greater objective of educating students and law enforcement officials: to expose these key groups to the motivations and causal mechanisms of anti-Semitic terrorism so that they will take practical steps to address, monitor, and resolve anti-Semitism before it escalates to violence. The League’s education tactic is a critical component of the triad’s larger confrontation with anti-Semitic terrorism—a form of violence that the League also addresses by raising public awareness about the ubiquity of anti-Jewish hatred with innovative and resourceful technology.

Tactic 2: Raising Public Awareness ADL’s second tactic for preempting anti-Semitic violence is raising public awareness with digital tools that unearth the palpability of anti-Semitism in modern America. These online resources visually represent the distressing scope, frequency, and nature of anti-Semitism to generate information and stimulate public discourse.

In 2014, the League launched a premier resource for analyzing and promulgating the spread of anti-Semitism: the ADL Global 100 Index. The Index is based on results from a comprehensive public opinion survey. In a yearlong project, ADL professionals were dispatched to 102 countries to interview over 53,000 people with questions that gauged levels of anti-Semitic attitudes and adherence to traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes.49 Findings from “the most extensive poll conducted on this subject” vin-

dicate the rise of anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States. As a means to convey this international trend and its prevalence in America, the ADL designed a website for users to interact with the Index’s finding by traversing the interface of a world map. Selecting any surveyed country reveals the likely number of its citizens who hold anti-Semitic beliefs.50 The website reveals the Index’s projection that 24 million Americans, virtually 10% of the population, harbors anti-Semitic attitudes.51 Past ADL National Chair Barry Curtiss-Lusher elaborates on the website’s ability to influence people in different vocational capacities and from varied backgrounds: The level of anti-Semitism in some countries and regions, even those where there are no Jews, is in may instances shocking. We hope this unprecedented effort to measure and gauge anti-Semitic attitudes globally will serves as a wakeup call to governments, to international institutions, and to people of conscience that anti-Semitism is not just a relic of history, but a current event.52 Educators, scholars, government officials, journalists, and ordinary people draw from the Index and use the website to foster critical conversations on the measurable increase of anti-Semitism.53 The website’s accessibility and transparency of information signifies a powerful way in which the ADL is using digital tools to inform the public about the veracity of anti-Semitism in America and abroad.

In a more recent effort to raise public awareness, the League cultivated the “ADL H.E.A.T (Hate, Extremism,

47

George Barnes, “Chief returns from studying counterterrorism,” The Associated Press, December 18, 2017, https:// apnews.com/68d6f821b91041d88e2c42c731be3c3e.

48 Daniel K. Eisenbud, “US Police Chiefs Visit Israel to Learn Counter-Terrorism Techniques,” The Jerusalem Post, August 3, 2016, https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/US-police-chiefs-visit-Israel-to-learn-counter-terrorism-techniques-463090.

49 “ADL Global 100: About the Survey Methodology,” The Anti-Defamation League, http://global100.adl.org/ about#aboutAntiIndex, paragraph 3.

50 The ADL used a particular methodology to determine its results for the ADL Global 100 Index. Within each country, the data was weighted to be reflective of the national population based on a various demographic measures. Each national sample is fully representative of its country; “ADL Global 100: The Anti-Semitic Index,” The Anti-Defamation League, http://global100.adl.org/about#aboutAntiIndex, paragraph 1.

51 “ADL Global 100: USA,” The Anti-Defamation League, http://global100.adl.org/?_ga=2.12839159.1305745360.15 41357709-889508015.1536182006#country/usa/2014, paragraph 1.

52 Pamela Engel, “Barely Half of the World Has Heard of the Holocaust,” Business Insider, May 13, 2014, https:// www.businessinsider.com/anti-defamation-league-survey-on-anti-semitism-2014-5.

53 “FAQs on the ADL Global 100 Index of Anti-Semitism,” National: ADL Blog, May 13, 2014, https://www.adl.org/ news/article/faqs-on-the-adl-global-100-index-of-anti-semitism.

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Anti-Semitism, Terrorism) Map”—a “first-of-a-kind interactive map detailing extremist and anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S.”54 Similar to the Global 100 Index, the H.E.A.T Map is a visual representation of anti-Semitism coursing through the United States. It creates a user-friendly platform to evaluate over 4,500 cases of anti-Semitism. Each data point, which was collected by ADL experts over the last two decades, represents a single event within a spectrum of extremist activities carried out by radicals on the far Right and Left. They include: extremist-related murders, terrorist plots and attacks, white supremacist propaganda and rallies, and specific cases anti-Semitic violence.55 Even though the Map is rife with data, the site is easily navigable. Filtering the data set allows users to see a perpetrator’s chosen tactic for an event, their ideological motivation, along with the location, date, and time of the incident. Users also have the option to compare incidents by type or state. The H.E.A.T Map shows that between 2017 and 2018 there were 31 reported anti-Jewish incidents in the state of Wisconsin. These included cases of verbal harassment and vandalism of property owned by Jewish individuals, organizations, and community centers.56 The scope, detail, and accessibility of the Map’s data is a significant way that ADL is informing citizens throughout the country about how anti-Semitism affects their communities.

This project was intentionally released in advance of the first anniversary of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which reinforces how the ADL responds directly to the intensifying anti-Semitism across the nation. In a comment on the H.E.A.T Map’s release in August 2018, ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt notes how it serves as a potent reminder that “extremist activity is not just confined to a historic town in Virginia, but rather an issue faced by communities ev-

54

ery day across the country.”57 Both the Global Index 100 and H.E.A.T Map expose the malevolence of anti-Semites who propagate hate and incite violence against Jews.

These digital tools have had a measurable impact on enhancing the public’s perception of the widening scope, recurrence, and increasingly antagonistic nature of anti-Semitic incidents in America. A 2017 poll projects that a majority of Americans are concerned about “violence in the U.S. directed at Jews.”58 Their stated apprehension reflects the League’s tactic to repress anti-Semitism by raising public awareness about its ubiquity with interactive and informative digital resources.

Tactic 3: Affecting Legislative Change The third tactic of the League’s triad is its robust legislative campaign to inform policymakers about anti-Semitism and ultimately affect policies that better protect Jewish communities in America. This course of action influences both state and federal levels of government, which the League imputes equal responsibility to ensuring that “Jews are afforded the same rights as others to live in security and with dignity in their communities.”59 The League promotes these civil rights by lobbying congressional leaders, who are receptive to learning about the political motivations that compel anti-Semites and how they act upon their beliefs with lethal forms of violence against Jews.60 Individuals on every level of ADL’s organizational continuum, from lay leaders to professional lobbyists, meet with lawmakers to address Jewish related-issues. In response to the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, ADL Los Angeles board members and staff met with Representative Judy Chu (D-CA-27) to discuss the incident and its effect on the local Jewish community. Her office acknowledged the

“Press Release: ADL Unveils First of-its-Kind Interactive Map Pinpointing Extremism and Hate Across U.S.,” National: ADL Blog, August 9, 2018, https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/adl-unveils-first-of-its-kind-interactive-mappinpointing-extremism-and-hate.

55 Ibid.

56 “ADL H.E.A.T Map,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/education-and-resources/resource-knowledge-base/adl-heat-map?s=eyJhcmVhIjp7InN0YXRlIjoiV0kiLCJ0eXBlIjoic3RhdGUifSwiaWRlb2xvZ2llcyI6WyJSaWdodCBXaW5nIChXaGl0ZSBTdXByZW1hY2lzdCkiXSwiaW5jaWRlbnRzIjpbIkFudGktU2VtaXRpYyBJbmNpZGVudCJdLCJ5ZWFyIjpbMjAxNywyMDE4XX0%253D, paragraph 1.

57 Kristin Toussaint, “White supremacist propaganda up since Charlottesville rally: ADL,” Metro US, August 9, 2018, https://www.metro.us/news/the-big-stories/adl-heat-map-white-supremacist-actions-charlottesville-rally.

58 “Press Release: In First, New ADL Poll Finds Majority of Americans Concerned About Violence Against Jews and Other Minorities, Want Administration to Act,” National: ADL Blog, April 6, 2017, https://www.adl.org/news/press-releases/ in-first-new-adl-poll-finds-majority-of-americans-concerned-about-violence.

59 Statement by the Anti-Defamation League: Responding to the Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism, 114th Cong., 2015, 11.

60 Andrew Baker and Stacy Burdett, Understanding Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes, 29-30

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tragedy by organizing a community vigil.61 ADL’s solid rapport with Representative Chu has had positive policy implications; she co-sponsored the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2018 (H.R. 1911).62 The lobbying work of ADL Los Angeles reflects that of other regional offices that build relationships with local congressman and leverage them as a way to enact policies that address anti-Semitism in the U.S. The ADL’s legislative campaign also extends to the federal level. The League testifies before congressional committees that institute policies relevant to the protection and security of minorities groups in America.63 These testimonies have a two-fold purpose: they outline the definition, political ideologies, and varied manifestations of anti-Semitism to educate lawmakers and also provide policy recommendations for Congress to address the rising tide of anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence in America.

This dual approach predicated the League’s 2013 testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. It details the characteristics and alarming pervasiveness of anti-Semitism throughout the world and specifically in the United States while conveying to Congress its unique capacity to pass legislation that is not only “instrumental in advancing the fight against global anti-Semitism” but can also “address and prevent anti-Semitism and hate crimes at home.”64 The testimony concludes with a set of policy recommendations for counteracting anti-Semitic terrorism, which include: spotlighting anti-Semitism by improving reporting and monitoring procedures, improving outreach to Jewish communities as a means to co-develop strategies that preempt terror, and encouraging Congress to authorize federal anti-bias and hate crimes education programs for schools throughout the country. In 2015, the ADL appeared before Congress with a similar testimony to reinforce and encourage the “systematic, comprehensive” adoption of these same policies.65 By lobbying and producing testimonies, the League has

induced some legislative effect. Both the House and the Senate have proposed resolutions that encourage a bilateral collaboration with the European Union to stymie the uptick in anti-Semitism within their disparate polities.66 Further, the Senate recently introduced the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018, which proposes that the Department of Education make anti-Semitism studies a facet of national school curriculum.67 Perhaps the cynosure of ADL’s legislative campaign was the passing of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004. This institutionalized the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, a federal government position appointed by the President for someone of “recognized distinction in the field of combatting anti-Semitism.”68 The Special Envoy provides input and expertise on anti-Semitism to the State Department and has established ties with the ADL in their joint effort to combat anti-Semitism in its varied forms. The continued legislative support and funding of the Special Envoy is a product of the ADL’s dedication to lobbying and appearing before Congress.

Despite the rise of anti-Semitism, the League’s legislative effort is a significant tactic with measurable success. This tactic compounds with educating key groups and raising public awareness to complete the triad of tactics which the ADL is using judiciously to confront anti-Semitism before it escalates to terrorism.

Conclusion The triad of tactics represents the Anti-Defamation League’s response to the intensification of anti-Semitism and concomitant anti-Jewish terrorism in America in the 21st century. As a means to promote tolerance and allay anti-Jewish sentiment before it escalates to violence, the League educates key groups, such as students and law enforcement officials, with anti-bias curricula and through vocational training programs. Further, with its own interactive digital tools, the ADL reaches the American public by making the nature, scope, and frequency of an-

61

“ADL Meets with Congressmember Judy Chu (D-CA),” Los Angeles Region: ADL Blog, November 6, 2018, https:// la.adl.org/adl-meets-with-congressmember-judy-chu-d-ca/.

62 H. Res. 1911: Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2018, 115th Cong., 2017-2018.

63 Foxman, “Global Antisemitism: Old Hatred, New Threats,” 738.

64 Hearing on Anti-Semitism: A Growing Threat to All Faiths, 113th Cong., 2013, 15.

65 Statement by the Anti-Defamation League: Responding to the Rising Tide of Anti-Semitism, 114th Cong., 2015, 11.

66 H.Res 190: To express the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and to encourage grater cooperation with the European governments, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in preventing and responding to anti-Semitism, 114th Cong., 2015-2016.

67 S. 2940: Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018, 115th Cong., 2017-2018.

68 H. Res. 1911, 115th Cong. 2017-2018.

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ti-Semitic events more transparent and comprehensible.

Finally, the ADL affects legislative change by lobbying lawmakers to inform them of the phenomenological veracity of anti-Semitism and by testifying before Congress to recommend policies that better protect American Jews. These three tactics form a unique synergy that conditions leaders and ordinary civilians alike throughout the nation to address and adjudicate anti-Semitism.

In so doing, the triad actively works to thwart the threats of anti-Jewish bigotry and hatred before they transform into acts of terror.

As a potent response to the politically motivated who rhetorically taunt and lethally assault American Jews, the League’s triad of tactics lends itself to a broader conversation on counterterrorism. The ADL’s model shows how “an effective counterterrorism capability does not only mean having elite military forces but also the capability to take on terrorists at every level of operation: military, political, economic, social, and legal.”69 The League’s multilayered method for fighting terrorism is in no way a comprehensive counterterror approach; the contingency measures of the triad narrowly pertain to the social and legal levels of operation. Despite its limitations, the triad’s effort to hamper anti-Semitic terrorism provides a solid construct for understanding what tactics on those levels are useful for the prevention, deterrence, and response to terrorist activities. Furthermore, this analysis expands on the established framework provided by rational studies of terrorism.70 While many of the rational models are deterministic in how they reveal the terrorist perspective of perpetration, this analysis reveals the learning effect of targeted victims. When these different approaches to evaluating terrorism are taken together, it creates a more comprehensive and evolutionary way of understanding counterterrorism.

Because educating key groups, raising public awareness, and affecting legislative change are generalizable tactics, they can be adopted by groups similar to the ADL who protect other minoritized groups in America. Like Jews, these communities are the object of radical political distortion and vulnerable to terror. The triad of tactics, as a foundation for preempting lethal forms of violence, could serve as a viable

69

counterterror model to combat the unique forms of bigotry and terror that affect minoritized communities. In a speech marking the League’s centennial year, past National Director Abraham Foxman notes how the organization’s model for addressing anti-Semitic violence is germane in the broader fight against all forms of prejudice that stereotype, discriminate, and diagnose “the other.”71 Encouraging the transferability and widespread application of the triad for preempting violence signifies the universal predilection of the League to not only stop the defamation of the Jewish people but also “to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”72 The ways in which the ADL responds to anti-Semitism would impress its founders. Over a century ago, they began the organization hoping to quell the types of lethal violence and perverted conceptions that rendered the lynching of Leo Frank. The League’s founding statement comments on the consequences of being apathetic to Frank’s murder and anti-Semitism writ large as it appeared at the turn of the century in America: Remarkable as it is, this symptom, standing by itself, while contemptible, would not constitute a menace, but forming as it does but one incident in a continuing chain of occasions of discrimination, it demands organized and systematic effort on behalf of all right-thinking Americans to put a stop to this most pernicious and un-American tendency.73 The triad of tactics has made the “un-American tendency” of anti-Semitism less abstract for Americans of all trades, ages, and backgrounds. However, variations of the bias and terror that claimed Leo Frank remain part and parcel to the American Jewish experience. Even so, the Anti-Defamation League persists with its manifold method to quash anti-Semitism and eradicate the widespread proliferation of anti-Semitic terror in modern America.

Graeme C.S. Steven and Rohan Gunaratna, Counterterrorism: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 41.

70 Andrew H. Kydd and Barbara F. Walter, “The Strategies of Terrorism;” Robert Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 97 no. 3 (2003): 343-361; Mia Bloom, “Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public Support, Market Share, and Outbidding,” Political Science Quarterly 119 no. 1 (2004): 61-88.

71 Foxman, “Global Antisemitism: Old Hatred, New Threats,” 736.

72 “Our Mission,” The Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/who-we-are/our-mission, paragraph 1.

73 Leonard Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, 2nd ed. (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2008), 157.

34

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Toussaint, Kristin. “White supremacist propaganda up since Charlottesville rally: ADL.” Metro US. August 9, 2018. https://www.metro.us/news/the-big-stories/ adl-heat-map-white-supremacist-actions-charlottesville-rally.

“Twelve Schools in the Washington, DC Region Participating in No Place for Hate.” Washington, D.C. Region: Blog. January 31, 2017. https://dc.adl.org/twelveschools-in-the-washington-dc-region-participatingin-no-place-for-hate/.

Wieviorka, Michel. The Lure of Anti-Semitism: Hatred of Jews in Present-Day France. Leiden: Brill Publications, 37

Editorial

Where is the National Conversation on Housing?

By Will Maher

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As democrats come off a relieving, if not entirely satisfying, midterm election season, focus has shifted to the issues that will define the 2020 elections. Chief among these seem to be healthcare. It was a winning issue for democrats across the country in 2018, and one which candidates hammered incessantly down the home stretch of the campaign.

While there is certainly plenty to fix in the American healthcare system, and it’s a good issue for Democrats to campaign on in 2020, there are other social problems that remain overlooked and could aid Democrats’ election hopes, chief among these is housing.

When surveying the policy challenges currently facing America, it’s astonishing that housing, specifically the lack of affordable housing, hasn’t received more attention. About half of American renters, some 50 million people, live in a cost-burdened household paying more than 30% of their income for rent. These people face a host of issues related to the (un)affordablity of rental housing.

Paying a high percentage of income to rent leaves less resources for other necessities such as food, transportation, or education. It also leaves families vulnerable to exploitive landlords, who in some states face very little regulation, to provide substandard or unsafe housing.

This can lead to health affects such as asthma among young children. These have very real effects that echo across our society. Given the importance of housing and the central role it plays in our lives, there are very few social problems that don’t relate back to housing. The stability and quality of neighborhoods, food insecurity, access to quality education, housing impacts all of these issues and more.

While coverage of this issue usually focuses on major metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, New York, and Washington, there is an affordable housing shortage in virtually every county in America. Here in Madison, WI, rents have gone up nearly 14% in the last two years, and policymakers project a shortfall of almost 30,000 units over the next 10 years.1 This is a problem that affects both red states and blue states.

Hope for a thoughtful national discussion about an issue affecting millions of Americans might be unrealistic and naive in today’s political climate. But, you’d expect someone at the national level to say something about this.

1

So far, cities and counties have taken the lead on this issue. This is promising and it shows that there is a clear grassroots desire for leadership and change. However, the vast majority of funds for affordable housing comes from the federal level and very few federal politicians seem to be talking about this. Local governments have a huge role in fixing this issue, but it’s largely up to Congress to determine the level of funds local authorities can access. It’s a real shame federal policymakers have failed to talk about this.

All politics is local and there are few issues that have more immediate effect on the character and health of a neighborhood than the presence of affordable housing.

This is a huge issue, affecting millions of Americans. It will be politically beneficial for Democrats to make this part of their focus in 2020.

https://plandev.countyofdane.com/pdf/Housing_Needs_Assessment_01152015.pdf

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Editorial

Climate Change is Bigger than American Policital Polarization

By Gaby Vinnick

A

merican political polarization is a phrase loosely used to explain our sharply politically divided country. While this division is a tremendous problem, there is one issue that weighs more heavily on our generation’s shoulders: climate change.

We can no longer justify our inaction to combat climate change because of the hard-line division that stands between Republicans and Democrats. InsideClimate News, a nonprofit news organization that reports on climate change, revealed that as of 2016, the average Republican Senator “was voting pro-environment 14 percent of the time, while the Democrats’ average was 96 percent.”1 But climate change has the potential to be so catastrophic that we must overcome the ridiculing, disdain, and angry fervor permeating interactions between different party leaders. And frankly, coverage of the three percent of scientists who dispute the notion that climate change is man-made is part of the false balance phenomenon. In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has 195 members including expert and scientists, has declared that “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”2 It is challenging to teach a generation who has legislative power to have empathy about the harmful toll climate change will take on Generation Z, the generation people have deemed “lazy.” It is tough to teach Generation X, one that has never made climate change a prime concern, to care. Yet, it is also hypocritical to distinguish my peers and me as the “Me Me Me” generation.

Speaking on behalf of Generation Z, we are a product of what Generation X has created. Our “ignorance” and phone-obsession is a manifestation of the work of people like Steve Jobs, who have made technological devices

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InsideClimate News.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

addictive.The technology that we have grown up with has its unintended consequences, and we acknowledge that. But more importantly, speaking on behalf of my generation, we are concerned about ourselves and our future because of ignorance the shareholders of legislative power exhibit. Neglecting to acknowledge the public health threat climate change poses is only one example, but arguably the most significant.

We have received warnings decades ago that our environment is at stake, but fear may be our only driving force taking us toward any real change. Though the private sector has recently taken more steps toward clean energy, legislators delaying any climate change initiatives should be named and shamed for their complacency. The coal industry, the oil companies, the car industry, our legislators, all must be held accountable. We should too.

We can pressure polluters and legislators who support polluters by inspiring fear -- the kind that other politicians felt when Parkland survivors started a movement.

We also need to destigmatize the phrase “climate change.” It currently is viewed in a negative light by some who believe that it is an extreme liberal tactic to broaden governmental control and regulation. It does not matter what party you associate with; we need sweeping reform if we want to safeguard our success and advance humanity. The 91% of plastic that fills our landfills and oceans instead of being recycled, as reported by National Geographic in 2018, presents a unique opportunity for us to overcome partisan division and unite to work toward implementing some solutions.

Simply because we are not seeing the tangible effects of climate change hit as hard as they are in places like Bhutan or the Maldives, does not mean we should be in-

different to their plight. The Maldives has been saving to invest in a new home as their land inevitably is predicted to disappear in the upcoming years because of the rise in sea levels.

Evidence has indicated that climate change exacerbates catastrophic natural disasters. Children are pleading for help.3 But how do we invoke empathy from people who fail to acknowledge the drastic effects of climate change?

According to the Pew Research Center’s 2019 study of current public priorities, only 44% of Americans ranked climate change as a top priority.4 A concerning statistic, this suggests that people cannot understand the severity of climate change as an issue that they should care about -- probably because we have not received the brunt of the effects, despite the fact that we are the second biggest polluters in the world.

Enough coverage of party division; we need to build a stronger coalition. Our leaders need to work directly and closely with youth instead of rejecting their efforts to call for change. There should be a more expansive educational program in schools across the nation about climate change. It’s time to unite and stop making excuses for why a Green New Deal, which is arguably more extensive than the New Deal, has no chance to pass. The oil companies, the car industry, and President Trump are feeding into a fallacy that climate change is irrelevant to the economic interests of our future. But just like FDR’s New Deal faced criticism, as should the Green New Deal and any policy proposal, unless there is a superior alternative we must address this pressing issue now. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change alarmed people by establishing it as a crisis, stating that “global net human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would need to fall by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching ‘net zero’ around 2050.”5 Despite this revelation, we still have a President that calls climate change a hoax and who supports a dying and harmful coal industry. Efforts to revive the coal industry have failed. The Bureau of Labor Statistics actually reported that there are only about 52,000 workers in the coal industry as of 2018; while this may appear to be a large number on the surface, CNBC reported that “economists say the change is not statistically significant,” and for decades the number of coal mining jobs has followed a negative trajectory. We used to invest in energy infrastructure. We can do it again. Despite the fact that the industry itself shows no sign of revival, we continue to pollute the air. We shouldn’t revert back, we must move

forward to center businesses around renewable energy.

There are huge economic opportunities available from the promotion of clean energy. Even several oil companies are investing in clean energy, which could lead to the proliferation of entirely new, innovative industries growing from more research and investment in renewable energy. Sir Nicholas Stern, a British economist, wrote that “in China, [air pollution] causes about 4,000 deaths a day.”6 We thus need to act not only in the interest of our economic well-being, but for the sake of our global health.

If we don’t act now, we can’t expect a better, more hopeful future for the rest of the human race. Investing in clean energy will bring new businesses and profits to companies. However, if we keep prioritizing the fossil fuel business instead of cleaner, renewable energy, we will find it is too late to offset the drastic economic and health consequences it will elicit. There need to be some solutions, and investing in change now will yield great dividends later. We may not share beliefs about abortion or a border wall, but we all share one planet. So let’s protect it.

3

Several student-led protests have occurred across the globe from Australia to countries in Europe to the United

4 5 6

Pew Research Center.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The Guardian.

States.

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Editorial

Eat the Rich

by Emmitt Sexton

Washington’s ambivalence towards the well-being of future generations is a dereliction of duty. Congress continues to ignore the real ramifications of an increasing federal debt that currently exceeds, tops $21 trillion.1 This debt not only threatens our stability, but more importantly, limits how we invest in future generation

1

David Leonhardt recently framed this economic negligence as a “fleecing”2 of younger generations, and indeed it is. By 2020, the U.S. will spend more on debt interest payments than on children.3 Young Americans miss out on transformative early childhood opportunities and suffer from some of the highest child poverty rates ins the devel-

“Public debt of the United States from 1990 to 2018,” Statista, 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-the-united-states-since-1990/ 2 David Leonhardt, “The Fleecing of the Millennials,” The New York Times, January 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes. com/2019/01/27/opinion/buttigieg-2020-millennials.html 3 “Budgeting for the Next Generation: How Do Kids Fare?,” Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, June 7th, 2018. http://www.crfb.org/papers/budgeting-next-generation-how-do-kids-fare

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oped world, thanks in part to the debt constrained budget.

The “deficit hawks” may be gone, but Congress must take heed of their message, once proudly proclaimed,that debt reduction is important. But, instead of slashing invaluable social programs, Congress should increase taxes that specifically target those who can bear the costs: the wealthiest Americans.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has proposed a tax on accumulated wealth. This is a solid foundation from which to start. She frames her plan as a way to even the playing field today, but it also has great potential for increasing intergenerational equality tomorrow.

While her plan is in its early stages, it is centered4 around “a 2 percent tax on fortunes worth more than $50 million, and a 3 percent tax on fortunes worth more than $1 billion”. Warren’s proposal takes aim at wealth, opposed to income, because she believes growing wealth inequality destabilizes our country. There are other rational reasons to target wealth too.

Taxing wealth will help tackle our outstanding debt by generating trillions of dollars in revenue. Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two Berkeley economists, estimate5 that the policy would produce an extra $2.75 trillion over 10 years. Marginal income tax focused policies, however, fail to capture this much revenue. For the most part, this is simply because the richest Americans have far more wealth than income.

This wealth tax would significantly increase revenues while only affecting a select few. Saez and Zucman also importantly find that Warren’s proposal would impact less than 0.1% of American households. Focusing on extremely well-off families makes sense because that is where the vast majority6 of wealth lies. On the other hand, universal taxes that ignore this extreme concentration of wealth are destined to capture less revenue and public support.

The focus nature of the tax ensures broad popularity.

A recent poll showed over 60% of Americans support a 2% tax on wealth over $50 million. Crucially, over half of both Democrats and Republicans say they approve of

the policy. However, only 31% of Republicans support raising the top marginal income tax rate. The wealth tax would not only raise more money than adjusting marginal income tax rates, but it enjoys more support. This bipartisan public support will be critical when it comes time for navigating the policy details in the legislature.

Some critics of the proposal lean on the impracticality of implementing the policy. They point to the decline of wealth taxes in some European countries over the last thirty years as examples of failure. Different countries had different reasons for changing their policies and some of them did shift away from wealth taxes because of increased tax avoidance.

However, John Cassidy, at the New Yorker, still thinks the proposal is feasible. His optimism7 stems from the initial Saez and Zucman assessment because the $2.75 trillion increased revenue estimate was based on lessons from other countries and a predicted avoidance rate of 15%. Additionally, the proposal allocates substantially more for enforcement mechanisms to deter avoidance. Even more desperate critics proclaim that the new tax would be unconstitutional, but the courts have said otherwise.8 America needs a fiscal reckoning. Continuing to spend today and kicking the can of debt down the road unfairly burdens younger generations with an insurmountable problem. Younger generations are being impacted today too. They miss out on meaningful social investment programs which are bearing the brunt of debt constrained budget cuts.

Slashing these vital programs furthers will decrease the quality of lives of millions of Americans. The sustainable solution is through increased revenues generated by increased taxes. These taxes should focus on the wealthiest Americans as they enjoy the highest concentrations of wealth, and importantly, they are the ones who can still thrive under greater tax burdens.

4

Jeff Stein and Chris Ingraham, “Elizabeth Warren to propose new ‘wealth tax’ on very rich Americans, economist says,” January 24, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/01/24/elizabeth-warren-propose-new-wealth-tax-very-rich -americans-economist-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fba2939b3377 5 Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, Estimated Effects of Proposed Wealth Tax, January 18, 2019. http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/saez-zucman-wealthtax-warren.pdf 6 Christopher Ingraham, “The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years,” December 6, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/the-richest-1-percent-now-ownsmore-of-the-countrys-wealth-than-at-any-time-in-the-past-50-years/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c67b76ca72f8 7 John Cassidy, “Why Elizabeth Warren’s Wealth Tax Would Work,” January 31, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/ news/our-columnists/elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-is-an-old-idea-and-its-time-has-come 8 Bruce Ackerman, “The Constitutional Critiques of Elizabeth Warren’s Wealth Tax Plan Are Absurd,” February 19, 2019. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/elizabeth-warren-2020-wealth-tax-constitutional.html

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