Decreeing a Dream a Nightmare for Some

Beck, Qué onda guero?, Guero, 2005

President Obama's recent executive order regarding the Dream Act has predictably provoked both praise and criticism.  Let's first look at the language of the order.  In brief:

Effective immediately, certain young people who were brought to the United States through no fault of their own as young children and meet several key criteria will no longer be removed from the country or entered into removal proceedings. Those who demonstrate that they meet the criteria will be eligible to receive deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal.

There are five criteria:

1) Have come to the United States under the age of sixteen; 2) Have continuously resided in the United States for at least five years preceding the date of this memorandum and are present in the United States on the date of this memorandum; 3) Currently be in school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a general education development certificate, or are honorably discharged veterans of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States; 4) Have not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety; 5) Not be above the age of 30.

The order, in other words, gives young undocumented immigrants temporary immunity (or "deferred action") from deportation proceedings, an immunity that can be renewed every two years.  The conservative Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) calls this "administrative amnesty," and "amnesty" among immigration hardliners is a pejorative, implying an unwarranted forgiveness of a dastardly crime.  Technically, though, this executive order does not grant amnesty at all (see legal definition of amnesty here).  There's no forgiveness, just a temporary change in status from deportable to some legal netherworld that is neither illegal or legal residency.  The order just tells prosecutors dealing with deportations that they can ignore immigrants who meet the criteria above.

Has the Obama administration "[ursurped] legislative authority," as CIS director, Mark Krikorian claims?  Hardly.  Since the New Deal era, Congress has been turning over a great deal of discretionary authority over to the executive--apparently unwilling or unable to write bills that proscribe executive action with specific language (read your Theodore Lowi. . .).  And last year a number of Senators and Representatives asked the President last year to grant deferred action on young undocumented immigrants--Democrats and Independents, yes, and one moderate Republican (Richard Lugar of Indiana, recently vanquished by the Tea Party).  Krikorian should really get on Congress' case for relinquishing authority instead of accusing President Obama of dictatorial tactics.

The presumptive GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and other Republicans have responded with what I imagine they developed as 'talking points' to blunt the impact of the order (Romney advisor, Kerry Healing delivers these points in this NPR story).

First, the executive order is merely a "stopgap measure" that does nothing to permanently fix immigration law.  This is true, but the question is whether or not the measure is a good policy move or not given Congress' inability to move on immigration reform, including the Dream Act.  I happen to think it is, for practical and idealistic reasons.  The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates that this order could affect the status of around 1.4 million people, and focusing constrained resources on deportation efforts against immigrants with criminal records makes sense.  And to treat immigrants who came before the age of seventeen, before the age of consent, also makes sense since it jives with our tradition of limiting the legal culpability of children.  And I agree with the American Immigration Council's response:

The administration has acted responsibly and compassionately to a growing humanitarian crisis--thousands of undocumented young people, whose talents and energy are incredibly valuable to this country, languish while Congress refuses to act on the DREAM Act.

As well, this policy initiative makes more economic sense than the harsh and costly laws in Arizona, Georgia, and Alabama that promote what is euphemistically called 'self-deportation' (see Your State Can't Afford It).  Don't we want these hundreds of thousands in the legal workforce, getting degrees, joining the military?

Mothers arrive to pick up their children from Flowers School in Montgomery, Ala., Friday, Sept. 30, 2011. Hispanic students have started vanishing from Alabama public schools in the wake of a court ruling that upheld the state's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Second, Obama doesn't really care about Latino/as or about immigration law as much as he pretends; otherwise he would have accomplished reform when he Democratic majorities in both chambers over 2009-10.  This is just plain wrong.  The House did pass the Dream Act in 2010 (after a failed attempt in 2009), but the now standard GOP filibuster  in the Senate killed it (five Democratic Senators helped with that).

And third, it was pure politics, on two levels, one as an election year gimmick and the other to undercut Senator Mark Rubio's intention to introduce his own version of the Dream Act (Rubio may be on Romney's list of possible Vice-Presidential candidates). For sure, there were political motivations in this election year, but the Republicans can hardly complain too loudly since so many of them have been ambivalent or even hostile to comprehensive immigration reform, as well as the Dream Act. And it's not just politics--since the death of the Dream Act in 2011 there has been a growing chorus of members of Congress and immigrant advocacy groups calling for just such a move.  Obama's proclamation hardly appeared in vacuum.  As for Rubio, what's to stop him from pushing his own version of the Dream Act? Moreover, Obama's order may well provoke Congress into action on his legislative proposal.

GOP and other critics, rather than complaining about motivations, should be talking about something far more important--does the federal government have the capacity to implement this directive?  The executive order mandates a case-by-case review of applications and--as the MPI points out--with the policy taking effect in two months, there's a lot of work to be done training staff, outreach, and resolving questions of what counts as evidence to support the criteria (such as proof of entering before sixteen).  Given the huge backlogs on other immigrant issues--cases in Los Angeles immigration courts sit for almost two years on average before being resolved--I have my doubts the Dream decree will be ready to go in August.

PDA Police?

Sodahead

I remember an older calculus teacher in high school, we're talking 1975-78, who would run up behind kids holding hands and and separate their hands--I saw him do it once with a sort of soft karate chop.  The same teacher would say "Put away the dirty books" when he caught a student reading something unrelated to the class (not me, ever; I was too busy playing Battleship).


I suspect the poor guy had some issues, and maybe he would have been happier were he teaching today in Tennessee.  The Tennessee state legislature just passed a law mandating abstinence-only sex education in its public schools, what the law calls "family life curriculum."  This mandate applies only to those schools (what Tennessee calls "Local Education Agencies," or LEAs) in counties where the pregnancy rate among 11-18-year olds is over 19.5 per thousand.  Given that the birthrate among 15-19 year-olds (the rate is drastically lower among those <15, thank god) ranges from 32 to 98 among 94 of the 95 counties, almost every LEA is likely under the mandate. The exception are those in Williamson County, a white, wealthy suburb of Nashville, where the rate is a remarkable 14 (2012 data available here).

LAURENCE MOUTON / GETTY IMAGES

What's stirring the most controversy in this law is the notion of a "gateway to sexual activity."  The law defines it as

sexual contact encouraging an individual to engage in a non-abstinent behavior. A person promotes a gateway sexual activity by encouraging, advocating, urging or condoning gateway sexual activities (Sec. 2, 49-6-1301, pt. 7)

The law then states that the

instructor of the family life curriculum shall not. . .Promote, implicitly or explicitly, any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with non-coital sexual activity (Sec. 2, 49-6-1304, pt. c.1)

The law then gives parents and legal guardians the right to formally complain about teachers or other kinds of instructors who they think are not complying with the law, and it's up to local school boards to adjudicate those complaints (Sec. 2, 49-6-1306, pt. a).  Moreover, they can sue those temporarily contracted instructors or organizations they believe are promoting "gateway sexual activity."

If a student receives instruction by an instructor or organization promotes [sic] gateway sexual activity or demonstrates sexual activity, as prohibited under this part, then the parent or legal guardian shall have a cause of action against that instructor or organization for actual damages plus reasonable attorney's fees and court costs; provided, however, this subdivision (b)(1) shall not apply to instruction by teachers employed by the LEA.

The subtext here is Planned Parenthood.  A main proponent of this legislation, the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT), makes this clear in its FAQ sheet on the bill.  It doesn't want Planned Parenthood to have anything to do with sex education because its "approach to teens about sex is simple: anything goes, just don’t contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and use 
condoms if you don’t want to get pregnant."


That characterization isn't completely off base. Planned Parenthood's information on "Outercourse" is sexually explicit, though of course its message is much more complicated, and I would argue that Planned Parenthood's goals are the same as those opposed to any sort of sexual contact prior to (heterosexual) marriage: the safety and emotional security and happiness of young people.  They just radically differ over the means.  Planned Parenthood's approach rests on the assumption that the vast majority of adolescents are going to engage in some sort of sexual experimentation no matter what kind of local rules are in place; the other, like FACT, presumes that enforced norms of sexual abstinence can work.


As FACT complains, though, the law has been unfairly framed in terms of a loose understanding of "gateway to sexual activity." For example, one Tennessee legislative opponent said, "Gateway sexual activity is so vaguely defined it could be holding hands, hugging, anything that teenagers do like that." This may have been the sound bite provoking parodies like that of Stephen Colbert, who after listing a variety of ways teens sexually distract one another, said

You know what really leads to leading to sex?  Eye contact.  That's what it is. And because the subtlest glance could lead to sexual activity, that is why I believe every child should be fitted with a pair of horse blinders. . .

 Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me's Peter Sagal joked that the law "prompt[ed] many students in Tennessee to ask ‘Where is this gateway and how soon can we get there?’"  He then offered this suggestion: 

Peter Sagal: Exactly. We were thinking about this, and we, we have a message for the people of Tennessee. If you want to encourage abstinence. . .in your students. . .this is what you do. You mandate explicit education, but you also mandate that it be taught to the students by their parents, okay?
Kyrie O’Conner: Ewwww.
Peter Sagal: One thing I’ll say about your Mom, son, she is a wildcat.
Roy Blount, Jr.: Awww, no!

Even some ostensibly neutral journalists framed the law this way.  A Tennessee TV news station topped its story "Teen birth rates drop, but Tennessee is still in top 10" with the image below, implying that the distance between the kiss and pregnancy is pretty short.

But as the bill's sponsor pointed out, the law does clearly identify "gateway" as "sexual contact," which in Tennessee law is already defined as the "intentional touching" of intimate parts "for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification."  The problem with this is that the "sexual contact" the sponsor references is in criminal law (e.g. rape, incest).  In fact, there's a vague air of criminality in another section of the new bill that jives with goal of making teachers police their students' sexual conduct.


The bill links sexual activity to other illicit or criminal behaviors, and mandates that sex education teachers 

Discuss the interrelationship between teen sexual activity and exposure to other risk behaviors such as smoking, underage drinking, drug use, criminal activity, dating violence, and sexual aggression (Sec. 2, 49-6-1304, pt. 9)

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.  We've long associated with sex with bad, wrong, and meriting punishment.  Our equation of sexual desire with guilt comes out in teen slasher movies that routinely destroy the sexually active kids in whatever group happening to wander into horror's way (Joss Whedon and Drew Gordon deliciously subvert this trope in the recent film Cabin in the Woods).  Still, I don't get it.  A high school guy making second base will end up sucking on a beer bong (and third base inevitably leads to snorting some lines)?  The girl smoking a J is at greater risk of pregnancy (and probably an abortion since she's obviously an immoral lout)?


I agree that high teen pregnancy rates are more than lamentable.  They too often mean tragedy for both the mother and the child.  But I doubt trumpeting another 'Just Say No' type of campaign will work (or, just say nothing--which Utah has begun with legislation prohibiting schools from teaching anything about contraceptives or homosexuality, and permitting schools to opt out of any sex education).  Churches and schools that repeat "no to sex" to teens only remind them of the topic of sex, just as much as a comprehensive sex ed program.  On top of that, teens are surrounded by public figures--politicians, religious leaders, athletes, celebrities, and teachers--who repeatedly demonstrate an inability to restrain their sexual desire.  And there are all the shows and advertisements that equate sexual desire (or fulfillment) with material consumption and personal satisfaction (you'd think a new car is one of Woody Allen's orgasmatrons), there's the prurient fascination with sex crimes in the media, not to mention the accessibility of internet porn.


I'm not arguing that abstinence-only folks are fighting a losing battle, and that therefore they should give in to the inevitable.  I'm saying they're fighting the wrong battle.  Teaching sex education to teens by trying to turn them into ascetic monks and nuns, resisting "evil" urges until they can doff their chastity in marriage, is not just impractical.  It replaces the simplistic biological determinism (kids are meant to march through that "gateway," no matter what) with an equally simplistic behavioral determinism (training and punishment will stop up that "gateway").  It turns an ubiquitous feature of the adolescent world into a toxic characteristic (if Friday the 13th's Jason puts an ax into your adolescent head just after you had sex, well, maybe your poisonous self deserved it).


That said, of course there are people who have been hurt or damaged by sexual activity at a young age.  But continuing to try to invent different ways to excise sexual activity among youth isn't the way to reduce that hurt and damage, or teen pregnancy rates.


Consider two relevant findings by the Guttmacher Institute (a think tank focused on sexual and reproductive health):

 •Strong evidence suggests that comprehensive approaches to sex education help young people both to withstand the pressures to have sex too soon and to have healthy, responsible and mutually protective relationships when they do become sexually active. 

•There is no evidence to date that abstinence-only-until-marriage education delays teen sexual activity. Moreover, research shows that abstinence-only strategies may deter contraceptive use among sexually active teens, increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs.

Sex is an incredibly complicated matter, not just because we're still not sure of all the factors that drive sexual behavior (the nature vs. nurture thing), but because our identities, our emotional security, and our moral universes are so tightly connected to the topic.  While the Tennessee bill doesn't turn teachers into PDA police, it does turn schools into agencies of a sex education policy that has a dubious track record, an overly dark view of human sexuality, and makes up for both by trying to silence contrary voices with the threat of lawsuits and fines.

Political Snapshots of Young Voters

A student wondered the other day whether younger voters were more likely than older ones to be liberals and Democrats.  So I decided to check it out. According to the General Social Survey (GSS), there's been a notable shift from 1980 to 2010 among both under and over 30 people--from "Not Strong Democrat" to "Strong Democrat."  But also note that in both years the under 30 crowd is less polarized than the older voters, and is more likely to be independent.  In other words, age, at least at this level of generality, is not a very strong predictor of party affiliation.

18-30 1980 2010 Difference from over 30 population Strong Democrat 5.8 12.6 -7.0 -4.6 Not Strong Democrat 26.4 20.6 0.9 3.4 Independent, Near Democrat 16.0 16.0 2.8 2.9 Independent, Near Republican 10.9 10.0 2.5 0.8 Not Strong Republican 14.7 13.9 -0.2 -0.3 Strong Republican 3.3 4.2 -4.5 -4.3 Independent 22.3 21.6 5.5 4.3 Other Party 0.5 1.5 -0.1 0.8 over 30 1980 2010 Strong Democrat 12.8 17.2 Not Strong Democrat 25.5 17.2 Independent, Near Democrat 13.2 13.1 Independent, Near Republican 8.4 9.2 Not Strong Republican 14.9 14.2 Strong Republican 7.8 8.5 Independent 16.8 17.3 Other Party 0.6 0.7

We find a similar pattern in people's ideological stances.  There's more polarization in 2010 in comparison to 1980, and in 2010 the 18-30 year-olds are slightly more likely to identify as moderate, liberal, or extremely liberal.  I don't think there's enough difference here in ideological identification to say that "millennials" are significantly different from their elders.

18-30	1980	2010		Difference from over 30 population
Extremely Liberal	2.3	4.8		-0.3	1.3
Liberal	12.9	15.7		6.3	3.7
Slightly Liberal	23.9	10.6		13.1	-1.0
Moderate	35.0	40.6		-7.0	4.9
Slightly Conservative	14.2	11.4		-4.9	-2.1
Conservative	9.1	11.4		-4.5	-5.1
Extremely Conservative	1.3	2.7		-2.4	-3.1
Don't Know	1.3	2.4		-0.3	-0.6
over 30	1980	2010
Extremely Liberal	2.6	3.5
Liberal	6.6	12.0
Slightly Liberal	10.8	11.6
Moderate	42.0	35.7
Slightly Conservative	19.1	13.5
Conservative	13.6	16.5
Extremely Conservative	3.7	4.3
Don't Know	1.6	3.0

But we should keep in mind that what it means to be "liberal" or "conservative" may shift over time.  For example, again based on GSS data, a third of 18-30 year-olds in 1980 identifying as "liberal" or "extremely liberal" also thought homosexuality was "always wrong."  In 2010 that figure was down to about a fifth.  The acceptance of homosexuality has also grown among conservative and extremely conservative 18-30 year-olds, and in both ideological camps in the over 30 crowd.  But note, too, that the gaps between the ideological camps have grown wider, particularly among those over 30.  It may well be that younger voters have the reputation of being more liberal because homosexuality is not an issue for so many of them.  But growing acceptance of homosexuality among 18-30 year-olds has not meant they're migrating to the Democratic party, nor are they repositioning their ideological identities to any great extent.

18-30 1980 Homosexual relations are:	Liberal and Extremely Liberal	Conservative and Extremely Conservative
Always Wrong	33	68
Not Wrong At All	48	19
18-30 2010 Homosexual relations are:	Liberal and Extremely Liberal	Conservative and Extremely Conservative
Always Wrong	18	55
Not Wrong At All	69	32
over 30 1980 Homosexual relations are:	Liberal and Extremely Liberal	Conservative and Extremely Conservative
Always Wrong	56	81
Not Wrong At All	25	9
over 30 2010 Homosexual relations are:	Liberal and Extremely Liberal	Conservative and Extremely Conservative
Always Wrong	25	72
Not Wrong At All	66	18