scharrison's blog

Monsters on Campus: UNC-CH survey of sexual assault is chilling

Submitted by scharrison on

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The problem appears to be getting much worse:

About three thousand undergraduate women start their college careers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill each fall. By the time they graduate, nearly half are likely to experience sexual assault or misconduct. A quarter are likely to experience assaults that meet the definition of rape -- and that’s only the women.

Those numbers are based on the anonymous responses of college seniors at UNC-Chapel Hill who participated in the largest survey ever about sexual violence on college campuses.

Not trying to blame the victim here, but: The magic number is 2. While female students may still be vulnerable using the buddy system, the "he said, she said" dynamic is broken. That potentially corroborating witness will discourage most budding rapists, and they will go to great lengths to separate you. You don't go to a party, or leave a party, without your sidekick. Rushing, crushing, pledging, or even going to the fricking library, go with a friend. Lecture over, here's more:

Mark Johnson is the subject of ethics probe over campaign texts

Submitted by scharrison on

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When your moral compass hasn't worked for years:

Multiple complaints were filed earlier this month after Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of emails and text messages to public school families and employees trumpeting his opposition to Common Core.

The timing of the campaign raised eyebrows since Johnson had been almost silent on Common Core throughout his tenure as superintendent, choosing to launch his vocal opposition just as voting began in the primary for Lieutenant Governor–an office he is seeking.

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the Ethics Commission to actually do anything substantial over this. Made that mistake in the past, won't do it again. But if anybody has any doubt about the connection between this text barrage and Johnson's campaign, he made that clear a few weeks ago:

Mapping NC's school-to-prison pipeline

Submitted by scharrison on

Prejudice lies at every turn in the road:

The SCSJ used 2018-19 suspension data from the state’s 115 school districts to compile its report, which provides a “snapshot” of the so-called school-to-prison pipeline in each district. The pipeline is described as the system of policies and practices that push students out of school and into the juvenile and adult criminal justice system,

“The pipeline has three key entry points; academic failure, school discipline and court involvement,” SCJS researchers wrote. “Students of color are over-represented at each entry point to the pipeline in almost every school district in North Carolina, and once students enter the pipeline it can be difficult for them to re-engage and be successful at school.” Last year, the SCSJ found that Black students were 4.3 times more likely than white students to be suspended from school.

I had an unsettling conversation recently with a former teacher (white), which started out with, "You can't do anything for them, they won't let you!" As I probed a little deeper, it turned out this teacher would call on her black students for answers at the same rate as her white students. But since there were only 4-5 black students in her classes, compared to 20+ whites, that meant each black student was called upon every other day, if not every day. This particular teacher thought this was fair, and that she was (genuinely) trying to help them. But it's very likely her expectations of their potential success was clouded:

Litigants want NC Supreme Court to rule on GOP power grab session

Submitted by scharrison on

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Arguably the most blatant abuse of power the NC GOP has engaged in:

Plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of a legislative session Republicans quickly called in 2016 to limit the power of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper before he could take office now want the state's highest court to hear their case.

Lawyers for Common Cause and ten citizens filed an appeal petition with the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, about a month after the Court of Appeals upheld the legality of the three-day session in December 2016. Republicans in charge of the House and Senate approved a pair of measures during the session that weakened Cooper's power as governor.

Understand, then-Governor Pat McCrory had just lost a bitterly-contested election, and NCGA Republicans knew that lame duck would gladly sucker-punch the man who defeated him. And the GOP used human suffering (hurricane relief) to launch a completely inappropriate and ethically void additional "special" session to wrest authority from the Executive and grant it to themselves. And instead of hanging their heads in shame, BergerMoore actually joked about it when questioned by reporters. Forget about political party designations for a moment; this kind of corrupt behavior needs to be checked by the Supreme Court, or the separation of powers framework could very easily collapse, taking the Court with it.

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Submitted by scharrison on

For your information:

Unfortunately, the turnout I've witnessed so far in this Primary has been dismal. I voted Saturday shortly after noon and was the only voter present. My point is, if you vote absentee in order to avoid waiting in line, think again.

It's the babies, stupid: Collapse of rural health care endangers lives

Submitted by scharrison on

No county should be without a maternity unit:

In the rural Appalachian county, where winters are harsh and narrow dirt roads make driving difficult even when the weather is clear, the maternity unit at Angel Medical Center was an important asset. But then in July 2017, Mission Health, which owns the hospital, closed the unit for financial reasons, leaving women in the community without an in-county option for childbirth.

The closure forces women to travel 20 miles south over a mountain to Harris Regional Hospital in neighboring Jackson County, or even to Asheville, an almost 70 mile trek northeast, to give birth. In some cases, women may even have to venture as far as Charlotte, more than 180 miles away, Garrett said.

It has been mentioned before, but it can be extremely frustrating trying to advocate for rural healthcare when many of your readers hail from the Triangle, Triad, or Queen City regions. And it doesn't help when faux-Libertarians seem to be more concerned about overturning Certificate of Need regulations than expanding coverage to areas that are medical deserts. And of course those same "advocates" are relentlessly attacking Medicaid Expansion, which is very likely the only lifeline for rural healthcare available. The hypocrisy is mind-numbing.

Wake Forest President apologizes for its treatment of slaves

Submitted by scharrison on

Pay close attention, UNC Chapel Hill:

“I apologize for the exploitation and use of enslaved people — both those known and unknown — who helped create and build this university through no choice of their own,” he said.

“Our founder and all of the antebellum presidents owned enslaved people,” Hatch said, adding that many trustees were slaveholders and that students too “perpetuated slavery.” He said that slaves helped build and maintain the college and that as many as 16 slaves were sold to the benefit of Wake Forest.

This is an especially important step for Wake Forest to take, since the last few years have seen an uptick in White Supremacist harassment of faculty and students. Most of that has been via e-mail, but that doesn't equate to "harmless." It's just a different medium. This apology is only a part of Wake Forest's commitment for racial equity:

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