01 February 22
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The Supreme Court Is an Antidemocratic Monstrosity. We Should Break Its Power.
Ben Burgis, Jacobin
Burgis writes: "Instead of celebrating Stephen Breyer's retirement, we should be weakening the Supreme Court's power. Popular majorities should determine the course of our society - not nine unelected lawyers."
Instead of celebrating Stephen Breyer’s retirement, we should be weakening the Supreme Court’s power. Popular majorities should determine the course of our society — not nine unelected lawyers.
When Stephen Breyer announced his retirement from the Supreme Court last week, liberals rejoiced that a Democratic president would appoint his successor. You’d think, observing this joyful outburst, that some important turning point in the court’s political composition had occurred. Yet it was more a sign of how defeatist liberals have become on the subject: a Supreme Court that already has a six-three conservative majority will now retain its six-three conservative majority.
That’s pathetic. There’s no reason for anyone to accept that six conservatives should be empowered to block social progress for years to come. In fact, no panel of unelected lawyers should have that power.
Stop Respecting Traditions
In theory, Joe Biden could appoint more justices and the Senate could confirm them until the Court had a twelve-six or eighteen-six liberal majority. Nowhere does the Constitution require a nine-member court, so that number could be changed by a simple act of Congress. In 1937, Franklin Roosevelt unsuccessfully proposed a bill that would have done exactly that, and, as hard as it is to remember now, numerous progressive commentators touted the idea after Donald Trump changed the balance of the court from five-four to six-three in 2020.
We all know, though, that this won’t happen — and not just because of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Many congressional Democrats would balk at such a dramatic change to an institution that holds a semisacred status in the minds of American liberals. In the past, Democrats have treated even informal traditions surrounding Supreme Court appointments with reverence. When Senate Republicans refused to hold hearings in 2016 for Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat, liberals protested that Garland’s spot had been “stolen” by the GOP — never mind that neither the Constitution nor any statute commands the Senate to hold such hearings.
Imagine if Scalia had lived for four more years and Trump was set to appoint Scalia’s successor on the eve of the 2020 election. Imagine too — and I know this is more of a stretch — that Senate Democrats were ready to use every parliamentary trick available to prevent a vote on Trump’s nominee so Biden could appoint the replacement.
Would you be upset that they’d violated the sanctity of the informal tradition by which presidents are allowed up-or-down votes on their nominees? Do you really think that abortion rights, collective bargaining rights, and the rest are less important than the sanctity of the unwritten rule that presidents get a clean vote on their nominees? I know I don’t.
Letting go of the idea that such traditions are sacred would be a baby step in the right direction. Embracing court-packing would be a longer step in that direction. But the real question is why we should accept a status quo where Supreme Court appointments have such overriding political importance in the first place.
High courts don’t have the power to override the decisions of legislatures in most comparable countries. In some cases, courts don’t play any version of this role — the highest court can only hear appeals on ordinary judicial decisions made by lower courts. In others — including, as Kim Lane Scheppele notes, some of America’s “closest constitutional relatives,” like Canada and the UK — courts exercise an extremely weak form of judicial review, with their purview largely limited to issuing advisory opinions on the constitutionality of laws that can be ignored or overridden by the country’s parliament.
Nor is any such sweeping authority spelled out in the US Constitution. The court just grabbed it in their 1803 ruling Marbury v. Madison. Why should a tiny number of appointed officials, almost all of them graduates of Ivy League universities, be granted these vast powers?
Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs put it well in an iconic 1918 antiwar speech, where he savaged this unelected super-legislature:
Who appoints our federal judges? The people? In all the history of the country, the working class have never named a federal judge. There are 121 of these judges, and every solitary one holds his position, his tenure, through the influence and power of corporate capital. The corporations and trusts dictate their appointment. And when they go to the bench, they go, not to serve the people, but to serve the interests that place them and keep them where they are.
Why, the other day, by a vote of five to four — a kind of craps game — come seven, come ’leven — they declared the child labor law unconstitutional — a law secured after twenty years of education and agitation on the part of all kinds of people. And yet, by a majority of one, the Supreme Court, a body of corporation lawyers, with just one exception, wiped that law from the statute books, and this in our so-called democracy, so that we may continue to grind the flesh and blood and bones of puny little children into profits for the Junkers of Wall Street. And this in a country that boasts of fighting to make the world safe for democracy!
As if to illustrate Debs’s point, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction after the speech landed him in jail for sedition.
Does the Supreme Court Protect the Rights of Vulnerable Minorities?
Liberals typically react with horror at the idea of taking away the court’s “super-legislature” powers and leaving it as “just” the highest court of appeal (or at most empower it with a much weaker form of judicial review). They see the Supreme Court as a benevolent guardian of unpopular minorities who would otherwise be victims of majority tyranny.
What if homophobic or transphobic majorities, for example, elected socially conservative legislatures that passed antigay or antitrans laws? Wouldn’t we be happy to have the Supreme Court stop those laws from being enacted?
Certainly. But there are at least two problems with this scenario as a general argument for empowering the Supreme Court as a super-legislature.
The first is that things will only work the way that liberals think they will if the majority of justices have socially liberal views. While it’s true the court has the power to overturn laws passed by conservative legislatures that violate the rights of minorities, it’s equally true that it can overturn laws to protect minorities passed by progressive legislatures — as it’s done so many times. Hence, a liberal integrationist court will give you Brown v. Board of Education, but a conservative racist court will give you Dred Scott v. Sandford.
At this point, presidents understand perfectly well what positions their appointees hold on social issues. Liberal presidents appoint justices they know will intervene on behalf of vulnerable minorities in cases involving those issues, and conservative presidents appoint justices they know will rule in the opposite way. The effect isn’t to limit legislation by some principle that’s guaranteed to be socially liberal but simply to inject whatever the social views of previous presidents happen to be on the review of later legislation.
The rosy liberal view of the Supreme Court’s “normal” function stems from the string of progressive decisions made by the Earl Warren–led Supreme Court in the 1950s and ’60s, which expanded the rights of criminal defendants, ended school prayer, and tried to impose school desegregation on recalcitrant Southern states. But as the legal scholar Samuel Moyn often points out, liberals who think of the Warren Court as the norm and define all the cases before and after where the court acted in the opposite way as aberrations are getting things backward. It was the Warren Court that was the aberration.
This brings us to the second problem with the liberal argument for judicial review: the unpopular minority that the court has most often protected is the wealthy. The case referenced in Debs’s speech wasn’t an anomaly. FDR’s expansion plan — derided even by many liberals as a power-grabbing scheme — was proposed because the Supreme Court kept blocking New Deal reforms. If progressives managed to push Medicare for All through Congress, we can be confident that conservatives on the court (likely joined by some justices appointed by neoliberal Democrats) would come up with a reason to declare it unconstitutional.
As with social issues, the effect of giving the Supreme Court this kind of power is to impose the economic views of previous presidents on the review of future legislation. That means that if a social democratic majority — never mind a socialist one — ever takes over Congress and the presidency, if we play the usual game of waiting for justices to retire or die before appointing replacements and meekly accepting the super-legislature’s most outrageous decisions, we’d have to hold onto power for decades in order to accomplish major reforms. Good luck with that.
Gutting the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is a fundamentally reactive institution that tends to enshrine whatever balance of power is already present in society. To the extent that it doesn’t just preserve the preferences of previous administrations like some awful disease-carrying insect trapped in amber, it’s because court majorities are to some extent influenced by whatever’s going on in society as a whole.
In the twenty-first century, equality wasn’t decreed by the court until popular opinion on gay rights had already changed. It’s no coincidence that the progressive Warren Court coincided with the period when labor union density was at its peak.
At best, if future democratic socialist electoral gains coincide with a resurgence in working-class organization, the Supreme Court might be a minor hindrance to progress. At worst, it will act as it so often has before: as a kind of capitalist guardianship council.
Either way, if we’re serious about enacting pro-worker policies in this country, we need to counter the institution’s power to override the will of popular majorities. And our ultimate goal should be to strip it of that power entirely.
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Rudy Giuliani led Donald Trump's legal team in the former president's efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election. (photo: Robert Bumsted/AP)
Trump and Giuliani Reportedly Wanted Homeland Security to Seize Voting Machines
Paul Blest, VICE
Blest writes: "After former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he wanted both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in swing states, according to a new report by the New York Times."
New reporting indicates that Trump explored any and all means available to defy the will of the voters and prevent the transfer of power.
After former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, he wanted both the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in swing states, according to a new report by the New York Times.
Trump reportedly raised the question of the DOJ taking control of the machines to then-Attorney General William Barr, but was rebuffed, the Times reported. Soon after, Trump directed his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to ask the DHS if they could legally seize the voting machines, but Giuliani was told by a top DHS official that the department didn’t have the authority to do it, according to the Times.
The House is continuing to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, when Trump supporters stormed Congress and delayed the certification of President Joe Biden as the winner of the election for several hours. And the new allegations indicate that not only the White House but Trump himself explored any and all means available to defy the will of American voters and prevent the transfer of power.
Even after leaving office, Trump has continued to insist, without any evidence, that he was the real winner of the election, and has shown no remorse for his role in the insurrection. Trump told a rally crowd in Texas last weekend that if he runs for and wins a second non-consecutive term in 2024, he would pardon Capitol rioters who’ve been prosecuted. In a Sunday statement, he said that former Vice President Mike Pence had “the right to change the outcome” of the election and that Pence “could have overturned it!”
During a meeting with Barr in November 2020, after Biden had been declared the winner of the election, Trump reportedly first raised the possibility of DOJ taking over the machines in an unnamed swing state, echoing a conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems were compromised, according to the Times.
Barr shot the idea down, saying there was no probable cause to seize the machines, the Times reported. (Dominion has sued Giuliani, lawyer Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for billions over their promotion of the conspiracy theory.)
After Trump and Giuliani shut down a proposal for the military to seize voting machines, compiled by retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, the then-president reportedly directed Giuliani to ask then-Acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia gubernatorial candidate and Trump ally, if DHS could do it. Cuccinelli also said no, according to the Times.
If Trump does decide to make another run at the White House, he’s already got a massive head start on every other potential Republican opponent. Trump began this year with more than $120 million in cash on hand, according to campaign finance reports released Monday.
Despite that, Trump is facing a rebellion from some Republicans who don’t want him to make another bid for the White House. Two GOP governors—Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, the chair of the National Governors Association—said this weekend that Trump shouldn’t be the Republican nominee for president again.
And a bipartisan group of senators led by Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins have recently discussed changing the Electoral Count Act, a century-plus old law outlining the process for counting electoral votes, in an attempt to avoid a repeat of what happened last Jan. 6.
Trump has already denounced the talks, which are still in the early stages, and on Tuesday again said—wrongly—that Pence could have unilaterally helped him overturn the results. He also decried the “political hacks, liars, and traitors” who want to change the Electoral Count Act.
“In other words, they lied, and the vice president did have this right or, more pointedly, could have sent the votes back to various legislators for reassessment after so much fraud and irregularities were found,” Trump said.
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Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, left, waves while flanked by Army Gen. Fredy Santiago Díaz as they review the military guard during his swearing-in ceremony in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jan. 27, 2014. (photo: Fernando Antonio/AP)
Ken Klippenstein | Fearing Corruption Charges, Honduran Defense Minister Requests Asylum From Biden
Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept
Klippenstein writes: "Honduras's Defense Minister quietly requested asylum from the U.S. government after the country elected a new leader in November, The Intercept has learned."
As the left resumes power with President Xiomara Castro’s inauguration, the official seeks shelter in the United States.
Honduras’s defense minister quietly requested asylum from the U.S. government after the country elected a new leader in November, The Intercept has learned.
The defense minister, Gen. Fredy Díaz, said that he fears being charged with corruption by the newly elected democratic socialist President Xiomara Castro, especially considering the role the Honduran military played in the coup that ousted her husband, former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, according to a source whose knowledge of the matter was verified by The Intercept. In light of Zelaya’s expulsion from the presidency — and the country — by the Honduran army in 2009, Castro’s landslide victory on November 28 of last year stunned many in the international community. During her campaign, Castro vowed to “pull Honduras out of the abyss we have been buried in by neoliberalism,” reflecting the stance taken by Zelaya, who was critical of the U.S. role in the region.
Díaz joined the administration of Juan Orlando Hernández, the two-term Honduran president who took office in 2013 and whom the U.S. Justice Department accused last year of drug trafficking and bribery. During his narrow reelection in 2017, protesters took to the streets to oppose Hernández and were met with violent force by the Honduran military police, which killed at least 21 demonstrators and earned the condemnation of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The election was clouded by allegations of fraud from the Organization of American States, which called for a do-over, but U.S. President Donald Trump quickly recognized the results, and Hernández served as president until Castro’s inauguration on January 27.
Now the Biden administration is faced with the decision of whether to grant Díaz asylum before possible corruption charges, given that in his role as defense minister, he was at the helm of the Honduran military. The question will serve as a test of how serious the current U.S. government is about respecting the autonomy of governments in the region. A senior Democratic congressional aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told The Intercept: “If the Biden administration wants to make good on its commitment to democracy and human rights, this should be an easy call.”
The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which declined to comment. “Asylum applications are confidential under immigration law,” a Homeland Security spokesperson told The Intercept. The Honduran Embassy did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In November’s high-turnout election, Castro defeated Nasry Asfura, the mayor of Tegucigalpa and a member of Hernández’s National Party, by a wide margin, becoming Honduras’s first female president. Since her inauguration last week, she has vowed to “uproot the corruption of the last 12 years of dictatorships,” making clear her view of the illegitimacy of the post-coup governments. Castro received a high-profile inauguration day visit from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, whose office said it “welcomed President Castro’s focus on countering corruption and impunity.” The new administration faces no shortage of challenges, however, with the Honduran government presently mired in disagreement over whether a member of Castro’s party will run the Congress.
Castro’s husband, Zelaya, was born into an elite family in Honduras and gained political power as a pro-business centrist, but he embraced left-wing positions as president: His signature reforms included boosting the minimum wage by 60 percent, raising teacher salaries, and making school enrollment free. Under his leadership, Honduras in 2008 joined the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, a trade organization established by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez as a rival to the U.S.-sought Free Trade Area of the Americas, an attempt to extend NAFTA while excluding Cuba. (Honduras has since left ALBA, whose 10 member states include Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.)
Though his administration succeeded in decreasing poverty, his policies enraged Honduran business elites, culminating in a military coup in June 2009. While the Obama administration publicly condemned the coup as illegal, behind the scenes, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton soon sought back channel methods of communication with interim President Roberto Micheletti. Of her longtime contact Lanny Davis, then a consultant to a group of Honduran businesspeople, Clinton asked in an email: “Can he help me talk w Micheletti?”
Though the U.S. government’s official stance is that it had no involvement in the coup, subsequent reporting casts doubt on the claim. On the day of the coup, American military officers were at a party at the U.S. defense attaché’s house, along with their Honduran military counterparts, The Intercept reported in 2017. And many U.S. officials present in Honduras at the time had wanted Zelaya removed, said a retired senior Drug Enforcement Administration official who was stationed in Honduras during the coup, speaking anonymously to avoid retaliation. Martin Edwin Andersen, a former professor at the National Defense University and U.S. Naval Academy and an adviser to both the Senate and Justice Department on national security matters, called the claims plausible, noting that U.S. military officials “had myriad back channels to the coup plotters, some institutional and some personal.” Andersen added, “They were knee-jerk ‘anti-communists’ who were Army veterans tied to the School of the Americas.”
Since the coup, the Honduran government has been in the hands of the right. During his two terms, Hernández, a member of the right-wing National Party, hewed to a pro-business, pro-military agenda. In 2018, the administration touched off protests following an attempt to privatize health care and education.
Hernández’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran congressional representative, played a clandestine role in the administration, allegedly funneling millions of dollars in drug profits to both the presidential campaign and the party, on whose behalf he also accepted a million-dollar bribe from Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Tony Hernández was sentenced to life in prison for having trafficked at least 150 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. — enough, as the New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson notes, to provide five doses to every U.S. resident — in what prosecutors called “state-sponsored drug trafficking.” After the sentencing, which directly implicated Juan Orlando Hernández, Trump still praised the then-president for his help “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened,” even emphasizing that he was “working with the United States very closely.” (Former President Hernández has repeatedly denied links to drug traffickers.)
Another former senior DEA official knowledgeable about Honduras who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, while no fan of Zelaya, expressed contempt for Hernández, who he expects will be indicted for his alleged role in narcotics trafficking — a widely held belief.
As Honduras devolved into a virtual narco-state, the homicide rate soared. Its toll includes the ongoing repression of environmental and Indigenous rights activists who interfere with the development aims of the business elite, with hundreds of murders making Honduras one of the most dangerous countries on the planet to defend natural resources and land rights. Poverty skyrocketed along with the homicide rate, driving a migration crisis that U.S. Republicans would later use as campaign fodder. So-called migrant caravans — made up largely of fleeing Hondurans — became a central campaign theme that Trump exploited during the 2018 midterm elections. In Hernández, Trump had a loyal ally: The Honduran president was willing to have migrants who had arrived at the U.S.’s southern border transferred back to his country.
The Biden administration’s diplomatic overtures to the Castro administration appear to be rooted in an awareness of the role that political instability might play in undocumented immigration. In February of last year, President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for the development of a strategy to address the root causes of migration to the U.S. from Central American countries, including Honduras. Harris has led a diplomatic effort to help shore up governments in the region so that people don’t need to flee to the U.S., pledging in a December 10 phone call with Castro to deepen the partnership with Honduras and work to address the root causes of migration. According to Anderson in the New Yorker, when briefed with evidence of the former Honduran president’s role in drug trafficking, Harris suggested, “Let’s go get him now.”
Even so, the U.S. and Honduran militaries maintain close relations. In February 2020, U.S. Adm. Craig Faller presented Díaz with a Legion of Merit award during a visit to U.S. Southern Command in Miami, according to a press release. In December, Southern Command’s new leader, Gen. Laura Richardson, reportedly said that while relations between U.S. and Latin American governments are not “what we would want … the military relationships are really strong.”
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People hold signs representing legislative districts as they protest against gerrymandering in front of the Supreme Court in March 2019. (photo: Evelyn Hockstein/WP/Getty Images)
A New Supreme Court Case Could Make It Nearly Impossible to Stop Racial Gerrymanders
Ian Millhiser, Vox
Millhiser writes: "The Supreme Court is likely to hand down a decision soon in Merrill v. Milligan, a case where the worst-case scenario for democracy would neutralize one of the few remaining prongs of the Voting Rights Act that the Court has not yet dismantled."
The Court takes up its first big redistricting case since Republicans gained a 6-3 supermajority. What could go wrong?
The Supreme Court is likely to hand down a decision soon in Merrill v. Milligan, a case where the worst-case scenario for democracy would neutralize one of the few remaining prongs of the Voting Rights Act that the Court has not yet dismantled.
The case concerns Alabama’s new congressional districts, and whether they violate the Voting Rights Act’s prohibitions on racial gerrymanders. Days before the state of Alabama asked the justices to carve another chunk out of America’s voting rights laws, a three-judge panel ordered the state of Alabama to redraw its congressional maps. Notably, two of the judges on this panel were appointed by former President Donald Trump.
Among other things, the panel’s opinion in Singleton v. Merrill explains that Black Americans make up about 27 percent of Alabama’s population, but they would only have a real shot of electing their candidate of choice in one of the state’s seven congressional districts under the new map based on the 2020 census. Thus, while Black Alabamans represent more than a quarter of the state’s population, they only control 14 percent of the state’s congressional delegation.
The lower court ordered the state legislature to redraw the map, relying on a provision of the Voting Rights Act banning racial gerrymanders. To reach that decision, the three judges spent 225 pages walking through the exceedingly complicated test announced in Thornburg v. Gingles (1986), which asks whether a state election law that imposes a disproportionate burden on racial minorities “interacts with social and historical conditions to cause an inequality in the opportunities enjoyed by [minority] and white voters to elect their preferred representatives.”
As I’ve written, the legal rule that the Court announced in Gingles — which governs many redistricting cases filed under the Voting Rights Act — is a mess. It advises courts to weigh at least nine different factors. And it would be reasonable for a state to ask the Supreme Court to come up with something less unwieldy to help lower courts sort through these sorts of cases. Alabama could have gone this route, and if it had proposed a reasonable modification to the Gingles test, it’s possible that such a modification could have helped them defend their maps.
But Alabama does nothing of the sort in the Merrill case. Instead, it proposes a new rule that, if adopted by the Supreme Court, could effectively make it impossible to challenge a racial gerrymander in federal court.
At one point, for example, Alabama quotes favorably from a 1994 opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, which was joined only by one other justice, and which suggests that no voting rights violation occurs even if a state gerrymanders its districts to make it impossible for racial minorities to elect their preferred candidate. Under this theory, “minorities unable to control elected posts would not be considered essentially without a vote; rather, a vote duly cast and counted would be deemed just as ‘effective’ as any other.”
The state’s primary argument, meanwhile, would trap voting rights plaintiffs in a kind of Catch-22.
Alabama’s arguments could impose an impossible burden of proof on voting rights plaintiffs
The Merrill case is actually two separate lawsuits, one brought by a group of plaintiffs led by Democratic state Sen. Bobby Singleton, and another brought by a group of voters and organizations that includes the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP.
The crux of the plaintiffs’ arguments in Merrill is that Alabama should have two congressional districts, instead of just one, where Black voters can elect their preferred candidate. Before such a lawsuit can proceed, however, Cooper v. Harris (2017) requires these plaintiffs to prove that it is actually possible to draw two such districts without having to rely on ugly, misshapen districts that could stretch across much of the state.
Under Cooper, the Merrill plaintiffs must show that Black Alabamans are a “sufficiently large and geographically compact” group that it is actually possible to draw two districts where they “constitute a majority.” If these plaintiffs cannot make such a demonstration, then their lawsuit will fail before a court even considers many of the more complicated questions demanded by the Supreme Court’s opinion in Gingles.
To overcome this initial burden, two different sets of plaintiffs hired separate experts. One group of plaintiffs, for example, hired Moon Duchin, a mathematics professor at Tufts University, who produced four separate maps with two Black-majority districts.
Again, the purpose of these maps is limited. The state is not required to adopt any of these four maps. Indeed, the lower court explicitly stated that, should it determine that Alabama’s existing maps are illegal, and that a new redistricting plan must be drawn, “Supreme Court precedent also dictates that the Alabama Legislature ... should have the first opportunity to draw that plan.”
Rather, the purpose of these sample maps was just to show that it’s actually possible to draw two majority-Black districts that are reasonably compact.
Alabama’s brief to the Supreme Court, however, faults the Merrill plaintiffs for paying too much attention to race when they produced the sample maps demonstrating it is possible to draw two compact, majority-Black districts. To produce these maps, the state claims, the plaintiffs “must necessarily prioritize race first and consider other race-neutral factors second.” Alabama claims that map-makers must be absolutely forbidden from giving such a priority to racial concerns — even if they only do so to produce hypothetical maps which prove it is theoretically possible to draw two Black-majority districts.
It’s a stunning argument. Again, Cooper effectively requires these plaintiffs to produce sample maps where at least two districts have Black majorities. How is that even possible unless whoever produces these sample maps prioritizes race while drawing them? It’s like asking an artist to draw a picture of an elephant without ever permitting them to look at an elephant.
Indeed, if Alabama’s proposed rule were adopted by the Supreme Court, it’s unclear whether any similar racial gerrymandering lawsuit could prevail — or even get past the threshold of inquiry demanded by Cooper.
The Supreme Court has been systematically dismantling voting rights
Merrill involves a particular kind of racial gerrymandering suit, which permits voting rights plaintiffs to challenge such a gerrymander even if they cannot prove that the lawmakers who drew the maps acted with racist intent. If the Supreme Court adopts the bar proposed by Alabama — one potentially impossible to overcome — a voting rights plaintiff might still prevail if they can show that a map was enacted with a racist purpose.
Except that, in Abbott v. Perez (2018), the Supreme Court required voting rights plaintiffs alleging invidious intent to overcome such a high burden of proof that it is virtually impossible for them to prevail. Under Perez, lawmakers enjoy such a strong presumption of racial innocence that only the most egregious displays of racism are vulnerable to lawsuits.
Similarly, in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court effectively eliminated a practice known as “preclearance,” which required states with a history of racist voting practices — including Alabama — to submit any new election rules for review by officials in Washington, DC, before those new rules could take effect.
The Court, in other words, appears to be systematically dismantling the law’s safeguards against racism in elections. Merrill could continue that project — indeed, it could accelerate it, since this will be the first major redistricting case heard by the Court’s new 6-3 Republican supermajority — and make it much easier for states to draw racially discriminatory legislative districts.
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School libraries in Texas have become battlegrounds in an unprecedented campaign by parents and conservative politicians to ban books dealing with race, sexuality and gender. (photo: Matt Williams/NBC News)
Banned: Books on Race and Sexuality Are Disappearing From Texas Schools in Record Numbers
Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News
Hixenbaugh writes: "From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she'd hidden from her parents for years."
Facing pressure from parents and threats of criminal charges, some districts have ignored policies meant to prevent censorship. Librarians and students are pushing back.
From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she’d hidden from her parents for years. They don’t know she’s queer, the student told a reporter, and given their past comments about homosexuality’s being a sin, she’s long feared they would learn her secret if they saw what she reads in the library.
That space, with its endless rows of books about characters from all sorts of backgrounds, has been her “safe haven,” she said — one of the few places where she feels completely free to be herself.
But books, including one of her recent favorites, have been vanishing from the shelves of Katy Independent School District libraries the past few months.
For more on this story, watch NBC’s “Nightly News with Lester Holt” tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.
Gone: “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” a book she’d read last year about a gay teenager who isn’t shy about discussing his adventurous sex life. Also banished: “The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy,” “All Boys Aren’t Blue” and “Lawn Boy” — all coming-of-age stories that prominently feature LGBTQ characters and passages about sex. Some titles were removed after parents formally complained, but others were quietly banned by the district without official reviews.
“As I’ve struggled with my own identity as a queer person, it’s been really, really important to me that I have access to these books,” said the girl, whom NBC News is not naming to avoid revealing her sexuality. “And I’m sure it’s really important to other queer kids. You should be able to see yourself reflected on the page.”
Her safe haven is now a battleground in an unprecedented effort by parents and conservative politicians in Texas to ban books dealing with race, sexuality and gender from schools, an NBC News investigation has found. Hundreds of titles have been pulled from libraries across the state for review, sometimes over the objections of school librarians, several of whom told NBC News they face increasingly hostile work environments and mounting pressure to pre-emptively pull books that might draw complaints.
Records requests to nearly 100 school districts in the Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin regions — a small sampling of the state’s 1,250 public school systems — revealed 75 formal requests by parents or community members to ban books from libraries during the first four months of this school year. In comparison, only one library book challenge was filed at those districts during the same time period a year earlier, records show. A handful of the districts reported more challenges this year than in the past two decades combined.
All but a few of the challenges this school year targeted books dealing with racism or sexuality, the majority of them featuring LGBTQ characters and explicit descriptions of sex. Many of the books under fire are newer titles, purchased by school librarians in recent years as part of a nationwide movement to diversify the content available to public school children.
Banned
Katy Independent School District administrators have pulled these nine books off library shelves after deeming them “not appropriate for any grade level,” records show.
“Why are we sexualizing our precious children?” a Katy parent said at a November school board meeting after she suggested that books about LGBTQ relationships are causing children to improperly question their gender identities and sexual orientations. “Why are our libraries filled with pornography?”
Another parent in Katy, a Houston suburb, asked the district to remove a children’s biography of Michelle Obama, arguing that it promotes “reverse racism” against white people, according to the records obtained by NBC News. A parent in the Dallas suburb of Prosper wanted the school district to ban a children’s picture book about the life of Black Olympian Wilma Rudolph, because it mentions racism that Rudolph faced growing up in Tennessee in the 1940s. In the affluent Eanes Independent School District in Austin, a parent proposed replacing four books about racism, including “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi, with copies of the Bible.
Similar debates are roiling communities across the country, fueled by parents, activists and Republican politicians who have mobilized against school programs and classroom lessons focused on LGBTQ issues and the legacy of racism in America. Last fall, some national groups involved in that effort — including No Left Turn in Education and Moms for Liberty — began circulating lists of school library books that they said were “indoctrinating kids to a dangerous ideology.”
And during his successful bid for governor in Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin made parents’ opposition to explicit books a central theme in the final stretch of his campaign, leading some GOP strategists to flag the issue as a winning strategy heading into the 2022 midterm elections.
The fight is particularly heated in Texas, where Republican state officials, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have gone as far as calling for criminal charges against any school staff member who provides children with access to young adult novels that some conservatives have labeled as “pornography.” Separately, state Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican, made a list of 850 titles dealing with racism or sexuality that might “make students feel discomfort” and demanded that Texas school districts investigate whether the books were in their libraries.
A group of Texas school librarians has launched a social media campaign to push back.
“There have always been efforts to censor books, but what we’re seeing right now is frankly unprecedented,” said Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian in Austin who’s helping lead the #FReadom campaign. “A library is a place of voluntary inquiry. That means when a student walks in, they’re not forced to check out a book that they or their parents find objectionable. But they also don’t have authority to say what books should or shouldn’t be available to other students.”
Ten current or recently retired Texas school librarians who spoke to a reporter described growing fears that they could be attacked by parents on social media or threatened with criminal charges. Some said they’ve quietly removed LGBTQ-affirming books from shelves or declined to purchase new ones to avoid public criticism — raising fears about what free-speech advocates call a wave of “soft censorship” in Texas and across the country.
Five of the librarians said they were thinking about leaving the profession, and one already has. Sarah Chase, a longtime librarian at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake, a Fort Worth suburb, said the acrimony over books contributed to her decision to retire in December, months earlier than she’d planned.
“I’m no saint,” said Chase, 55. “I got out because I was afraid to stand up to the attacks. I didn’t want to get caught in somebody’s snare. Who wants to be called a pornographer? Who wants to be accused of being a pedophile or reported to the police for putting a book in a kid’s hand?”
In interviews and recorded comments at school board meetings, parents who’ve pushed for book removals described doing everything in their power to shield their children from sexually explicit content on the internet, only to discover it’s readily available in school libraries.
“It’s not censoring to guard minors from exposure to adult-themed books,” Kristen Mangus, a parent, said at a meeting in November of the Keller Independent School District Board of Trustees, a suburban district outside Fort Worth that’s fielded dozens of requests to ban books in recent months. “If they choose to check out from the public library with a parent, then so be it. But there is no reason whatsoever to have these books in our schools.”
Some protesting parents have insisted that their opposition is about sexually explicit books, regardless of the races or sexual orientations of the characters. They point out that some of the books being challenged feature heterosexual sex scenes. But in many instances, parents and GOP politicians have flagged books about racism and LGBTQ issues that don’t include explicit language, including some picture books about Black historical figures and transgender children.
Free speech advocates and authors deny that any of the books in question meet the legal definition of pornography. Although some include sexually explicit passages or drawings, those scenes are presented in the context of broader narratives and not for the explicit purpose of sexual stimulation, they said.
“Some parents want to pretend that books are the source of darkness in kids’ lives,” said Ashley Hope Pérez, author of the young adult novel “Out of Darkness,” which has been repeatedly targeted by Texas parents for its depiction of a rape scene and other mature content. “The reality for most kids is that difficulties, challenges, harm, oppression — those are present in their own lives, and books that reflect that reality can help to make them feel less alone.”
Several queer students, meanwhile, said the arguments by some parents, specifically the idea that it’s inappropriate for teenagers to read about LGBTQ sexual relationships, are making them feel unwelcome in their communities.
“Reading books or consuming any kind of media that has LGBTQ representation, it doesn’t turn people gay or make people turn out a certain way,” said Amber Kaul, a 17-year-old bisexual student in Katy. “I think reading those books helps kids realize that the feelings that they’ve already had are valid and OK, and I think that’s what a lot of these parents are opposed to.”
‘Short-circuiting’ the process
This fall wasn’t the first time Texas parents packed school board meeting rooms to complain about the corrupting influence of books.
Every year for nearly two decades beginning in the late 1990s, the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union surveyed every public and charter school in Texas to document attempts to ban library books. The annual reports paint a picture of past censorship movements, and make clear that the volume of challenges now hitting schools is unlike anything previously recorded in the state.
In the early 2000s, a conservative backlash to the Harry Potter book series, which some Christian leaders condemned as a satanic depiction of witchcraft, fueled a surge of book banning attempts in Texas, according to the ACLU data. But even at the peak of that wave, the Texas ACLU never documented more than 151 school library book challenges in one year. About half that many were documented in just the first four months of the 2021 school year at only a small sampling of Texas school districts, according to the records obtained by NBC News.
During the 2018-19 school year, the last time the ACLU conducted the censorship survey, Texas schools reported only 17 library book challenges statewide. Twice as many have been filed so far this school year at Keller ISD alone.
“I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, and I’ve never seen the volume of challenges that we’re seeing right now,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association, which tracks attempts to ban library books nationwide.
Caldwell-Stone said the number of Texas book challenges documented in the records obtained by NBC News likely represents a vast undercount, because it doesn’t account for books that are being removed from shelves based on verbal complaints at board meetings or parent emails, often in violation of school district policies.
In response to past censorship movements, the American Library Association developed guidelines for schools to prevent the sudden and arbitrary removal of books. Under the guidelines, which have been adopted by most large districts in Texas and nationally, parents are asked to fill out forms explaining why they believe a book should be banned. Then a committee of school employees and community volunteers reviews the book in its entirety and determines whether it meets district standards, keeping in mind that a parent’s ability to control what students can read “extends only to his or her own child,” according to language included in most district policies.
A challenged book is supposed to remain on shelves and available to students while the committee deliberates, and the final decision should be made public, Caldwell-Stone said.
“What we’re seeing these days is a short-circuiting of that process, despite the fact that school boards often do have these reconsideration policies on their own books,” she said. “They’re ignoring them to respond to the controversy and the moral panics that they’re getting targeted with at school board meetings, and books are being abruptly removed."
That scenario has been repeated at several Texas school districts in recent months, NBC News found. In December, the Denton Independent School District near Dallas made headlines when administrators pulled down a copy of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” a memoir by queer Black author George M. Johnson, after learning that parents in neighboring towns had concerns about it. A district spokesperson, Julie Zwahr, said school officials are now reviewing a total of 11 library books to determine whether they are “pervasively vulgar,” even though the district has received only one formal book challenge this school year. The North East Independent School District in San Antonio hadn’t received any library book challenges from parents as of December, according to records provided to NBC News. But that month, administrators directed librarians to box up more than 400 titles dealing with race, sexuality and gender.
At a subsequent school board meeting, North East leaders said that they had pulled the books for review after Krause, the Republican lawmaker, distributed his list of 850 titles that he said violate new state laws governing how sex and race are addressed in Texas classrooms. North East spokesperson Aubrey Chancellor did not respond to a reporter’s request for comment, but told the Texas Tribune in December that the district asked staff to review books on Krause’s list “to ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material in them.”
“For us, this is not about politics or censorship, but rather about ensuring that parents choose what is appropriate for their minor children,” she said then.
In another instance, the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, responding to an NBC News public records request, reported that it had received zero library book challenges in 2021. But emails reviewed by a reporter show that a parent had complained informally in August to a Carroll administrator and two school board members about the book, “Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out,” by Susan Kuklin.
“There is extreme sexual content in that book that isn’t even appropriate for me to put in an email,” the parent wrote.
Rather than requiring the mom to fill out a form to initiate the district’s formal library review process, Chase, the recently retired Carroll librarian, said an administrator shared the email with her and another librarian, and in order to avoid conflict, they agreed to remove the book from high school shelves.
“I hate that we did this, because we didn’t go through the formal review ourselves,” Chase said. “I think a lot of librarians are making decisions out of fear, and that puts us in a position of self-censorship.”
Book fight spreads from Virginia to Texas
Mary Ellen Cuzela, a mother of three in Katy, a sprawling and booming suburb outside Houston, had never thought much about what library books her kids might have access to at school. But in September, she heard then-candidate Youngkin mention a Virginia school district’s fight over “sexually explicit material in the library” during his campaign for governor against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
Curious, Cuzela searched the Katy Independent School District’s catalog and was surprised to find that one of the books at the center of the Virginia fight, “Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison, was available at her children’s high school.
Cuzela picked up a copy from the public library and “was absolutely amazed” by what she read, she said. The book, which traces the story of a Mexican American character’s journey to understanding his own sexuality and ethnic identity, was “filled with vulgarity,” Cuzela said, including dozens of four-letter words, explicit sexual references and a description of oral sex between fourth-grade boys during a church youth group meeting.
“I don’t care whether you’re straight, gay, transgender, gender fluid, any race,” she said. “That book had it all and was degrading for all kinds of people.”
She soon discovered that several other young adult books that had been targeted in Virginia and other Texas districts were available at Katy ISD. Cuzela shared her findings with some “like-minded parents,” and together they set out to get administrators to do something.
The school system, a diverse district of nearly 85,000 students, had already made national headlines that fall when administrators temporarily removed copies of “New Kid” and “Class Act” by Jerry Craft from school libraries after parents complained that the graphic novels, about Black seventh graders at a mostly white school, would indoctrinate students of color with a “victim mentality” and make some kids feel guilty for being white.
But Cuzela said she and her friends were having a hard time getting Katy administrators to take their concerns about sexually explicit books seriously. So they hatched a plan, and on Nov. 15, she and five other moms showed up at a Katy school board meeting with a stack of books.
One by one, they took turns at the lectern during public comments. Cuzela implored the board to audit all of the district’s library books and get rid of those that are too obscene to be read aloud in public.
“If you are filtering a student’s internet access,” she said, “why are we not filtering the library?”
Minutes later, Jennifer Adler, a mother of five, held up a copy of “Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts),” by L.C. Rosen, for the board to see. Adler explained that the book is about a character named Jack, who writes a teen sex advice column for an online site. Then she began reading.
“‘I wonder how he does it … how he gets all that D?’” Adler said, reading the first in a series of explicit excerpts referring to anal and oral sex.
After ending with a passage that included a detailed description of male genitalia and advice on how to give oral sex, she looked up at the board members, her voice shaking as she spoke.
“I cannot even imagine how I would feel if my child came home with this type of book,” said Adler, whose oldest child is in middle school. “We cannot unread this type of content, and I would like to protect my kids’ hearts and minds from this.”
The audience, packed with parents and community members who shared her concerns, erupted in applause.
‘Taking the matter seriously’
Rosen, the author of “Jack of Hearts,” wasn’t surprised when he heard about the demands to ban his book in Katy. Like other authors whose books have been targeted in recent months, Rosen said parents have been reading passages out of context.
At the time of the book’s release in 2015, the School Library Journal, a magazine that districts rely on to select library books, wrote that the dearth of “sex positive queer literature” made “Jack of Hearts” an “essential addition to library collections that serve teens.”
The sex advice columns written by the book’s protagonist are part of a bigger narrative that’s meant to empower queer teens and help them feel safe talking about their sexuality, Rosen said.
All of the questions answered in Jack’s advice column were submitted by real students, Rosen said. And the author consulted with sex education experts to write Jack’s responses, with the goal of providing LGBTQ teens with practical information that’s often omitted from sex ed classes.
“I think it’s troubling when they can’t distinguish between porn — which is not meant for education — and a book like mine that’s trying to educate teenagers and tell them, ‘It’s OK to have these desires; here’s how to act on them consensually and safely,’” Rosen said.
Cuzela and her allies, who denied that they were specifically targeting LGBTQ content, saw things differently. And so did Katy ISD leaders, according to internal messages obtained by NBC News.
Rather than asking the parents to file formal challenges or forming a committee to review the books they’d read aloud, Darlene Rankin, the district’s director of instructional technology, sent an email the day after the school board meeting directing school staff to immediately remove two titles from all libraries: “Jack of Hearts” and “Forever for a Year,” by B.T. Gottfred.
“If these books are currently checked out to students, you must contact the student in order to have the book returned,” wrote Rankin, who declined an interview request.
In the weeks that followed, Katy parents continued applying pressure, calling on the district not only to audit libraries for vulgar content, but to overhaul the selection process to de-emphasize recommendations from prominent book review journals, arguing that those groups are pushing a liberal agenda.
In early December, Superintendent Ken Gregorski responded to those demands, announcing in a letter to all parents that the district was launching a broad review of its library books to remove any that might be considered “pervasively vulgar.” Gregorski, who declined to be interviewed, invited parents to report other books they want removed and assured them that he would “ensure the district is taking the matter seriously and putting into action the plans that resolve the issues for which we are all concerned.”
In total this school year, according to internal messages, the district has launched reviews into at least 30 library books and so far has deemed nine to be inappropriate for students at any grade level, including five that prominently feature LGBTQ characters. Several other books, including “This Is Your Time,” by the civil rights era icon Ruby Bridges, were deemed inappropriate or too mature for young children and removed from either elementary or middle school libraries.
Most of these reviews were opened without a formal book challenge, records show, even though one is required under Katy ISD’s local policy.
In at least two instances, according to three district employees with knowledge of the review process, senior district administrators have ordered books to be removed from libraries even after review committees examined them and voted to keep them in schools. The district employees spoke to a reporter on the condition of anonymity, worried that they might be disciplined for sharing their concerns publicly.
In response to detailed written questions, Katy ISD spokesperson Maria DiPetta wrote that “the district will have to kindly pass on your request.”
Cuzela said she’s pleased that the district is now taking her concerns seriously and hopes administrators go further. Although she doesn’t believe most librarians are knowingly stocking shelves with “pornographic material,” she agrees with Abbott’s call for criminal charges against any who do, including in Katy.
“We have laws in Texas against providing sexually explicit material to children,” she said. “It’s a law on the books, and if they knowingly are providing this, they need to be advised and investigated.”
Foote, the retired school librarian who’s leading a statewide campaign against book bans, said Katy’s approach is flawed, not only because it lacks transparency and opens the door for additional censorship attempts, but because of the signal it sends.
“You can’t overstate the impact these decisions can have on LGBTQ students and even teachers,” Foote said. “Intentional or not, these bans are sending a message to them about their place in the community.”
On the phone at her high school library, the queer Katy student who worries her parents won’t accept her for who she is said she was outraged when she found out librarians had started removing books — especially “Jack of Hearts.”
“For me, a lot of these books offer hope,” the student said. “I’m going to be going to college soon, and I’m really looking forward to that and the freedom that it offers. Until then, my greatest adventure is going to be through reading.”
Like other library books she’d read that centered on LGBTQ characters, the student said “Jack of Hearts” gave her a sense of validation. The main character, a 17-year-old who isn’t shy about his love for partying, makeup and boys, was a sharp contrast to her own high school experience, constantly on guard against saying or doing anything that might lead to her being outed.
The book, she said, made her feel less alone.
Rosen, the author, has heard similar things from other teenagers. When he gets those messages, he said he usually replies to say that he hopes things will get better.
But then he adds: “I can’t promise that it will.”
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Israeli forces detain a man at the entrance of Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque. (photo: Menahem Kahana/AFP)
Israel Imposing 'Apartheid' on Palestinians: Amnesty International
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Israel is carrying out 'the crime of apartheid against Palestinians' and must be held accountable for treating them as 'an inferior racial group,' Amnesty International says in a new report, joining the assessment of other rights groups."
Israeli authorities must be held accountable for enforcing a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians, Amnesty International says.
Israel is carrying out “the crime of apartheid against Palestinians” and must be held accountable for treating them as “an inferior racial group”, Amnesty International says in a new report, joining the assessment of other rights groups.
Released on Tuesday, the 280-page report [PDF] by the leading rights group details how Israeli authorities enforce a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinians.
Its damning investigation lists a range of Israeli abuses, including extensive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, administrative detention and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians.
It describes these as components of a system that amounts to apartheid under international law.
“This system is maintained by violations which Amnesty International found to constitute apartheid as a crime against humanity,” the group said in a statement.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister and alternate prime minister, rejected the report as “divorced from reality” and alleged that “Amnesty echoes the same lies shared by terrorist organisations”.
He also charged that Amnesty had an anti-Semitic agenda. “I hate to use the argument that if Israel were not a Jewish state, nobody in Amnesty would dare argue against it, but in this case, there is no other possibility,” he said.
Ramy Abdu, the chairman of the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said Israel has for decades accused detractors and critics of its human rights violations as being “anti-Semitic”.
“This policy is adopted by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs and supported by such systematic practices of labelling critics,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Israel’s frequent use of the term ‘anti-Semitism’ has discredited its accusations and proven that they are only used as a proactive tool for the purpose of intimidating activists, critics and organisations.”
The accusation is not just levelled at those who are critical of Israel, but also those who are on the fence or act neutral, Abdu added.
Jewish majority
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and maintaining a “Jewish demographic majority”, the report said. Israel also exercises full control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis, including those in illegal settlements.
After the 1967 war, during which Israeli forces occupied all of historical Palestine, Israel “extended this policy” to the occupied West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip, which has been under a crippling siege since 2007.
Today, all territories controlled by Israel continue to be administered with the “purpose of benefiting Jewish Israelis to the detriment of Palestinians, while Palestinian refugees continue to be excluded”, the London-based group said.
“Our report reveals the true extent of Israel’s apartheid regime. Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general.
Speaking at a press conference in occupied East Jerusalem, Callamard called on the international community to take “resolute action against the crime against humanity being perpetrated in order to maintain the system of apartheid”.
“It is the cruelty of the system – the intricate evolving administration of control, dispossession, and inequality [and] the incredible detailed bureaucratisation upon which that system is predicated,” she said. “Its sheer banality, and at times absurdity that has taken my breath away.
“Our conclusions may shock and disturb – and they should,” she continued. “Some within the government of Israel may seek to deflect from them by falsely accusing Amnesty of attempting to destabilise Israel, or being anti-Semitic, or unfairly singling out Israel. But I am here to say that these baseless attacks, barefaced lies, fabrications on the messenger will not silence the message in an organisation of 10 million members the world over.”
Israel must ‘dismantle the apartheid system’
Amnesty called on the UN Security Council to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, as well as “targeted sanctions, such as asset freezes, against Israeli officials most implicated in the crime of apartheid”.
Its report follows a similar conclusion reached by US-based Human Rights Watch, which published a report (PDF) in April last year that found Israel is committing the “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution” against Palestinians.
Likewise, Israeli rights group B’Tselem published a study in January 2021 that found that Palestinians – divided into four tiers of inferior treatment – are denied the right to self-determination.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said Palestinian human rights organisations have always used the apartheid term to describe Israel’s system in the occupied territories.
“For Palestinians, they want the world to know that they are living under a system for two people when it comes to roads, land, laws,” she said, speaking from the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians in the occupied territories live under Israeli military rule that is being used to confiscate lands and benefit the Jewish Israeli residents who live in settlements that are considered illegal under international law, Ibrahim explained.
“At the same time, Israel uses the same military rule to make the lives of Palestinians harder, the ultimate goal of all of this is to get them to leave [the land],” she said.
Amnesty said the unlawful killing of Palestinian protesters in Gaza is perhaps the “clearest illustration of how Israeli authorities use proscribed acts to maintain the status quo”.
It was referring to a period over 2018 and 2019 where Palestinians in Gaza held weekly demonstrations along the Israeli separation fence, calling for the right of return for refugees and an end to the blockade.
The Great March of Return protests were met with violence by Israeli forces, who fired tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and live ammunition, mostly by snipers. By the time the demonstrations were suspended at the end of 2019, Israeli forces had killed at least 214 Palestinians, including 46 children, according to the UN.
“The international response to apartheid must no longer be limited to bland condemnations and equivocating,” Callamard said.
“Israel must dismantle the apartheid system and start treating Palestinians as human beings with equal rights and dignity.”
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A Yellowstone wolf. (photo: NPS/Jacob W. Frank)
After Hunters Kill Record Number of Yellowstone Wolves, Officials Take Steps to Limit Season
Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch
Rosane writes: "Montana wildlife officials have taken steps to limit hunting on the border of Yellowstone National Park after a record number of park wolves were killed this season."
Montana wildlife officials have taken steps to limit hunting on the border of Yellowstone National Park after a record number of park wolves were killed this season.
The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission voted Friday to pause wolf hunting and trapping for the season in a region of southwest Montana once 82 wolves have been killed in the area. Currently, hunters have claimed the lives of 76.
“The damage you are doing on wolves, this has got to stop,” March Cooke of conservation group Wolves of the Rockies said at a public comment period ahead of the decision, as the Billings Gazette reported.
Wildlife advocates and park workers are alarmed because a record number of Yellowstone Park wolves have been killed this winter, AP News reported. To date, 23 wolves from park packs have been killed: 18 in Montana, three in Wyoming and two in Idaho. That’s more than during any winter since wolves were reintroduced to the U.S. northern Rocky Mountains more than 25 years ago, and that’s bad for both ecology and tourism, wolf advocates say.
“These are the most viewable wolves in the Lower 48, if not the world,” Cara McGary, owner of In Our Nature Guiding Services, said during the public comment session, as the Billings Gazette reported. “Their economic value cannot be overestimated. Thirty percent of these northern range wolves are now gone, the Phantom Lake Pack has been eliminated. How would you expect any business person to respond to such a loss of essential supply, and what’s the justification for this damage?”
While the commission decided to end hunting for the season in southwest Montana’s Region 3 once the 82 number is reached, it refused calls to lower quotas along the park’s northern border. Lower quotas near the park used to be the norm before they were lifted by Republican lawmakers last year, according to AP News.
The debate comes at a perilous time for gray wolves. The predators lost their Endangered Species Act protections in 2020, though protections in six northern Rockies states were lifted more than a decade ago. Republican lawmakers in both Idaho and Montana have also relaxed laws to allow strategies like night hunting, snares and aerial hunting in Idaho. So far this year, about 181 gray wolves have been killed in all of Montana as of January 26, The Hill reported. The upper limit is set at 450, and if it is reached then the commission will have to review the quota.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in September that it was now considering whether to restore protections for wolves in Western states.
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