For a segment aired on Monday,  O’ Reilly sent his squad down to Eugene to research the political imbalance of the U of O faculty.  He surveyed the same five departments– journalism, political science, sociology, law and economics–as I did and came up with slightly different figures but the same conclusion:  The UO faculty lacks conservative voices.

The segment didn’t mention my columns, which was fine by me.  I was contacted by O’Reilly’s producer but never responded because I didn’t want  be complicit in the sort of blood-thirsty ambush interviews that his show has become infamous for.  Sure enough, the segment was punctuated by a FOX News reporter chasing Provost Jim Bean from an athletic club to his car.

Other than that, it wasn’t such a bad discussion.  Lars Larson, a conservative Oregon radio host, was paired against a San Francisco liberal for a brief sparring match.    There was a bunch of stock footage of UO students walking around, then O’ Reilly fulminated a bit and that was that.

Emerald reporter Alex Tomchak Scott has a nice post about the episode, citing the lack of  comparable statistics from other universities and the specious nature of O’Reilly’s assertion that:

“In the country, there are twice as many conservative individuals as liberal in the country, OK? That’s what it is. And I think it breaks down in academia the same way.”

This is of course not true. A great piece of research I came across lately by political scientist Matthew Woessner shows that liberals pursue doctorate degrees–a necessity for college professors–twice as often as conservatives. I don’t think this statistic makes up the extreme disparities we see in higher education, but it’s vital to take into account.

In the wake of my column on ideological diversity last week, my in-box has  flooded with responses from people all over the country.   Ninety-five percent of them have been supportive but I have received some criticism.  Most of it has been pretty incisive and I have appreciated it greatly.    However, occasionally I come across a gem like like this:

What the world needs now is for Dan Lawton to move into the beautiful hills around Eugene and go to work as a tree planter. Dan, please, newspapers are a waste of good trees. Your writing is a waste of education. Plant trees, you aren’t going to be a newspaper person.

This is a comment on a post written by Steven Reynolds, a blogger for a website called All Spin Zone, regarding my column and me.  It’s tagged with the terms, “media,” “right-wing nut job” and “stupid.”  It’s a strange thing to read– especially in the funky state of relaxation that imbues me at the moment–and it makes me wonder who Steve Reynolds is and whether or not he has a mustache.

If he does, I can’t imagine it’s as macho as mine.

Better yet, what did Steve’s face look like when he read my column? I can imagine the twisting grimace, the perspiration dripping down the nib of his nose, the quiver of his lip and the throbbing of his forehead vein.

Anyway without further delay, here are some excerpts (emphasis added).  You can read it all here.

The whole canard of liberals in academe is being argued again, this time by a student at the University of Oregon. Forget for a moment that he chose to attend college in Eugene Oregon, where granola is a highly prized commodity. Dan Lawton seems to be arguing for affirmative action for Republican academics in his sloppily written columns.

(Later)

Does Lawton really mean to say that our voter registration is what’s important? That’s an absurd reduction for a man claiming the high moral ground of impartial journalism in his writing. But the assumptions of Lawton’s article are far worse, and it is no wonder he’s been treated a bit badly by faculty there in Eugene, or so he claims. He simply doesn’t understand that the liberal values of faculty members also coincides with academic rigor and fairness. Would he get that from merely adding Republicans to faculties? Not if those faculty members acted like Republican journalists.

Of course,  I can’t respond to this, it’s just too strange.  Plus, there’s a dearth of granola out here in West Africa.  How could I ever understand that the” liberal values of faculty members coincide with academic rigor and fairness” without my grainy sustenance?

The bill in question, a sprawling 895 page piece of legislation, would provide healthcare for 95% of Americans, according to Democrats.  It would also create a public health plan that would allow Americans to purchase health insurance from the government regardless of pre-existing conditions.  This public option, which is fiercely opposed by Congressional Republicans, was the focus of a robust  NYT/CBS public opinion poll released on Sunday.  Its results were ignored by Douthat in his analysis, while they were used as a building block for Krugman’s column.  The stylistic differences between the two pieces make it easy to see why Krugman’s work is consistently more polished then that of his colleague.

Ross Douthat

The meat of Douthat’s problem is that he’s not really sure if he wants to write about healthcare at all.  He begins by addressing the process of government itself.  “There was one small consolation for Republicans amid last November’s shellacking. For at least four years, their opponents would enjoy the dubious pleasure of trying to govern the United States of America,” he says.

A paragraph later he states that in a hypothetical world without political constraints “conservatives would encourage people to self-ration, by putting a certain number of health care dollars directly in their hands and leaving the rest to market forces.” However, this vision collides with the desires of those within the Republican Party.

In the NYT/CBS poll, half of Republicans supported a public plan, in addition to three-fourths of Independents and 9 out of 10 Democrats, making Douthat’s vision of cohesiveness amongst his cohorts fiction.  Of course, it’s possible his “conservatives” may just be a reference to the Republican leadership, which then by Douthat’s admission is completely out of touch with what its party wants.

And how do Americans rate the GOP’s plans for healthcare reform?  Eighteen percent of those surveyed said the Republicans are more likely to better healthcare, while 57 percent said Democrats would usher in more helpful reform.  In fact, even a quarter of Republicans said Democrats had a better vision for healthcare.  And yet, instead of addressing this schism, or putting forth a few basic reasons why a “market-based” system of healthcare would work, Douthat spends his time trolling about in the  muck of hypothetical and pelting the reader with his musings about how the Democrats will soon realize that governing is much harder than they thought.

Paul Krugman

In Krugman’s column, he cites the poll off the bat, saying,  “If surveys like the New York Times/CBS News poll released last weekend are any indication, voters are ready for major change.”  It gives his argument–that centrist Democrats must refrain from railing against a public option and obfuscating reform–a punch that sustains it throughout the piece.  Krugman’s read is that it is not Republicans (who on healthcare, seem to be uniformly saying nothing more than no) but Democrats that are the greatest danger to reform.  It  is a provocative and seemingly accurate conclusion.  But, it’s not an idea that’s simply reliant upon his observations.

Krugman quotes Democratic Senator Ben Nelson as saying the public plan is a “deal breaker,” because private insurance companies can’t compete and he implicates North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad as well.  “[Conrad] offers a  perfectly circular argument: we can’t have the public option, because if we do, health care reform won’t get the votes of senators like him,” Krugman says.

This reasoning has some teeth.  It doesn’t conflate a hypothetical with the stubborn  logistics of government in order to simply conclude that legislating is tough stuff.  No, instead  it tells me something important that I need to know about a crucial policy debate, which is what good column writing should accomplish.

Of course, I write this from Austria, where I’ve been asking everyone I meet about how their health care system–a single payer, government run program–measures up.  Though most Austrians have only public health insurance, private insurance is available for a price.  I asked one couple in Salzburg why someone would buy private insurance.  Was it to avoid long bureaucratic lines?  Was it to procure better treatment?  They shook their heads and said that the main reason to buy private health insurance was to ensure a private room and a bigger menu at the hospital.  The fact that this is the defining factor between public and private health insurance in some countries in fodder for 10 columns in itself.

(1) So really now, to become a faculty member at a university like this, you must have some intelligence and be somewhat aware of what’s going on in the world  around you. Is it possible that they simply have common sense? Once the republicans pull their heads out of their asses and decide to bring something constructive to the debate, instead of deliberately working to undermine the attempts of our current President, then it will be appropriate for their views to be included in the debate.

–UO Student Michael Vucinovich

Note:  Vucinovich gets huge bonus points for actually addressing me as the “Watchdog” in his letter.

(2) While I enjoyed your article about the dearth of Republican professors, the answer to your dilemma is quite obvious.  Professors, by definition, tend to be very intelligent individuals.  That would explain why so few professors are Republicans.

–Dave Taube

(3) You may be very upset that the University of Oregon, which, I may point out, is funded by people who live in a liberal state, and therefore, no surprise, tends to be liberal, attracts professor applying for a job who tend to be liberal. But as a student you have a choice. You do not have to come here. You most certainly can choose to spend your money to go to school in Alabama, or Texas, or Mississippi, or Georgia, or Louisiana or South Carolina.  And if you like conservatism, you can certainly attend the University of Texas, and you can walk past the statue of Jefferson Davis every day on your way to class.

–UO Journalism Professor Dan Morrison

Note:  I have invited Professor Morrison to publicly debate the merits of political diversity.  He has unfortunately declined.

Well, what can I say except that I was dead wrong.  My suggestion that UO is intolerant of ideas on the Right couldn’t have been more off base, as evidenced by these three pieces of feedback that argue that (a) conservative ideas should be blacklisted because they’re inappropriate (b) only stupid people are Republicans and (c) students at UO with conservative ideas should smarten up and flee to the South, as their sort of savage dogma is better served by universities with Confederate icons.

Yet regardless of these responses, I feel supremely unfulfilled. I think ideological diversity is important, but clearly a lot of other people disagree.  However, they haven’t done much to convince me.  For this reason, I’ve decided to offer a 12-pack of beer to anyone who will debate me on camera about the merits of ideological diversity in higher education. That’s right, all you have to do is spend thirty minutes hashing out the issue, and if at the end you can look into the camera and state “I don’t think it’s harmful that only around 2% of faculty members at UO are registered with the Republican Party,” you take home the brew of your choice.  If you’re not 21, 20 bucks.

In this time of economic crisis, we all need to do our best to stimulate spending.  Here at DanLawton.com, we’re more than happy to do our part.  Simply leave a comment with your email address or contact me at the email in the about section and you’ll be knocking back a dozen cold ones in no time.

That’s what I discovered last week, via the public voting terminal at the Lane County Voting Office. I spent two hours there, with a spreadsheet full of names generated from the various department Web sites. It was a laborious process, but I was in no hurry. In fact, I even took a break to eat a sandwich and muse on the gorgeous summer weather outside. There would be plenty of time to continue the long, winding procession of faculty down the screen.

When I finished, there were 98 Democrats, nine Independents, two Republicans and two members of the Pacific Green party staring back at me. Both of the two Republicans were in the School of Law, and one of them was University President Dave Frohnmayer. I wondered, as I came across his name marked red in a sea of blue, if he was aware of the monolithic politics of University faculty. Did it irk him? Did it belie the diversity standards that his tenure had ushered in?

The Diversity Plan that Frohnmayer signed off on in May 2006 was a massive effort reviewed by more than 1,000 people, and will remain a prominent feature of his legacy. Contrary to popular belief, it is not just dedicated to increasing racial and ethnic diversity, but takes a broad-based approach to helping “the individual learn to question critically, think logically and communicate clearly.” In addition, it explicitly includes political affiliation as one of the elements of diversity it intends to promote.

Three years later, it’s hard to give the University’s efforts on political diversity anything besides a failing grade. Not only do voting statistics reveal political uniformity, but the checkbooks of the faculty members are just as indicative. Ninety-six percent of political contributions made by faculty to presidential candidates in 2008 went to Democrats. In 2004, it was 100 percent.

As a student with liberal social viewpoints and a middle-of-the-road economic philosophy, I didn’t expect to feel out of place at the University. I assumed the faculty would be primarily left-leaning, but that there would be a small yet formidable cadre of intellectual conservatives to provide the other side of the spectrum.

There wasn’t.

That’s not to say there isn’t a range of political viewpoints on campus. But those on the right of University faculty are basically Social Democrats, with the left represented by an anti-capitalism that flirts openly with Marx. When conservatism does enter the picture, it’s only as a punching bag for students and professors, a tired act that became all too frequent during the presidential election.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reflect,” Mark Twain once said. I spent my first few months as a graduate student here doing just that. I came back to school to prepare myself for a career in which I would be expected to defend my convictions. I matriculated seeking discourse and found conformity, and as I realized there would be little intellectual challenge going left, I drifted right.

In part, I believe this transformation aided my intellectual and professional development. Liberal journalism is so normative that it’s difficult to stake a claim. But if your politics are independent enough that you can occasionally gravitate across the aisle, there’s an expanse of fertile ground waiting. From this realization I have profited, but, in general, the dearth of conservative viewpoints damages the experiences of University students, regardless if they acknowledge it.

The lifeblood of learning is exposure to a diverse and combative set of viewpoints. This sort of framework allows students to sift through ideologies and compose their own independent belief systems. The concept of “diversity” and the “marketplace of ideas” shouldn’t just act as convenient adages for progressive grandstanding, but as a philosophy that operates at the core of higher education.

There needs to be movement – along with intellectual consistency – on the issue of political diversity by faculty and administrators. If queried, most professors would likely agree that a university with only 2 percent Democrats would be inadequate. However, when the discrepancy is in their favor, they appear uninspired to act.

As a student, I want a campus full of professors not only from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, but different political backgrounds as well. I want Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Marxists, Independents and anyone with a halfway decent idea that doesn’t incorporate hate. That’s what true diversity means to me. I want that more than free football tickets, a new basketball arena or pretty much anything else a University could offer. In exchange for paying $20,000 in tuition a year, I think I deserve it.

Don’t you.

This column was published in the Oregon Daily Emerald on June 1

Related Post:  Do Journalism Schools Need More Conservatives?

As the medium evolves, so do the labels, leaving many readers feeling helpless in evaluating authenticity among a mosaic of voices. In the throes of the new media revolution, credibility is more fluid than ever before. Sure, a New York Times byline may be impressive, but how does it fare against 25,000 Twitter followers and a top-10 Technorati blog?

Image by Patrick Finney

The answer, for the most part, is in the eye of the beholder; but the question gains much more saliency when it migrates from a media context into the realm of the law. Toss in an unsolved San Francisco homicide, a couple of First Amendment lawyers and a journalism student with a blog, and you’ve achieved the perfect storm of ingredients to wreak havoc on the California Shield Law.

A San Francisco State University journalism student – who has remained anonymous because of safety concerns – is invoking the shield law to resist attempts to turn over photographs and other information that police say could help them solve a murder. The student was working on a photojournalism project in a rough neighborhood when an individual he was profiling was murdered while shooting dice. The circumstances of the incident are cloudy, but when police arrived, the student was taking pictures of the victim and the scene. He may have also witnessed the slaying firsthand.

Lawyers for the student argue that because he had written blog posts about his project, he is protected under the California Shield Law. The majority of U.S. states have passed some degree of shield law legislation, which is intended to protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources or information to law enforcement. The idea is simple enough: When doing valuable reporting, journalists often rely on confidential sources. If courts can force reporters to betray promises of anonymity, watchdog journalism will suffer.

The California Shield Law applies to journalists “connected with or employed by a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service.” Not surprisingly, there is no provision for journalism students or bloggers, but many First Amendment lawyers insist they are covered as well.

But if the Shield Law protects any and all bloggers, that potentially exempts an estimated 10 million-plus Americans from having to disclose information related to anything about which they are blogging. It’s hard to see how granting such widespread journalistic immunity helps either the rule of law or journalism flourish, outside of generating a new breed of citizen bloggers in the organized crime industry.

When press rights clash with the power of the judiciary, it is often a titanic battle. Both institutions are necessary components of a functioning democracy, and inhibiting either can have profound ramifications. When journalists are compelled to reveal certain confidential sources, it strikes a blow to public interest reporting, but when they are permitted to evade subpoenas for specious reasons, the judicial system is atrophied.

In this case, there is no anonymous source to be revealed: The source is in a grave. His killers are free and a citizen journalist who has valuable information is cloaking himself in the First Amendment not to protect the public interest, but because he is scared of retribution. Is his fear valid? It may be, but fear or danger are not allowances to dodge subpoenas and withhold information, nor should they be. It is rarely comfortable to testify in a murder case, but without the fortitude of key witnesses, thousands of additional murders would be unsolved. Just like any other citizen, the student journalist should be forced to disclose information and/or testify.

Shield laws should not be utilized as broad-based immunity invoked whenever convenient, but as rare exceptions in cases where the public interest is at stake. They should also not be available to every “Joe Blogger” out there, though online journalists doing rigorous and authentic reporting should be covered regardless of their medium. More importantly, journalists and First Amendment advocates should abandon a bit of their paranoia regarding journalists working with police.

Journalists are citizens too, and a press pass shouldn’t relieve them of basic civic responsibilities. If the creed of the press, as many suggest, is to seek truth and demonstrate a loyalty toward the populace, then it should promote such ideas by assisting the judiciary whenever ethically possible. Not doing so not only damages the legal process, but also sends the message that those seeking accountability from others are immune from it themselves.

This column was published in the Oregon Daily Emerald on May 27.

He may not be He may not be He may not beHe may not He may no

He He He may not be the most authentic journalist, but libertarian radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller has recently injected himself into the debate on torture in support of coercive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.  This morning he decided to take the plunge himself. “I wanted to prove it wasn’t torture.” he said.  “They cut off our heads, we put water on their face….I really thought ‘I’m going to laugh this off’.”‘

But after six seconds, Mancow terminated the demonstration and had a change in heart. Visibly traumatized, he stammered, “I don’t want to say this: absolutely torture.” Check out the video below as well as videos of three other journalists who have submitted to waterboarding.

Playboy Journalist Mike Guy was waterboarded in late April.  He wagered that he could last fifteen seconds, and only lasted six.

Vanity Fair writer Christopher Hitchens was not only waterboarded for an August 2008 article, but even had himself abducted by ex-military interrogators to recreate the process.  He lasted under ten seconds and claimed that in the aftermath he suffered from paranoia and claustrophobia anytime he was out of breath.

The only journalist who appears to have fared well during waterboarding was FOX News correspondent Steve Harrigan.  However, after watching the reactions of the other journalists, it’s hard to imagine his interrogators were using the same methods.

Regardless of your politics, you have to respect any journalist who submits to waterboarding.  It does seem that the opinions of most these guys, excluding the FOX anchor, are pretty consistent after they experience the procedure:  it’s torture, no bones about it.

The crazy thing is that all of these journalists are in controlled situations in which they can stop the procedure at any time, which means it must be 100 times more intense for those who have no control.  Of course, not every journalist supporting waterboarding has stepped up to the plate.

FOX News anchor Sean Hannity–a proponent of waterboarding– said in late April that he would submit to the tactic in some sort of “charity” event. MSNBC anchor Keith Olberman has taken him to task, offering to donate $1,000 to a military charity for every second Hannity is waterboarded.  Post his boast and Olberman’s challenge, Hannity has kept mum on the issue.  My assumption is a Hannity waterboarding video would put the rest of these to shame. UPDATE:  Olberman has withdrawn the offer to Hannity and instead paid $10,000 to a charity of Mancow’s choice.

Related Post: Muzzling Bush’s Legal Mastermind

Yoo’s answer: “No treaty,” and depending on the president’s belief at the time, no law.

It is similar legal opinions that have made John Yoo one of the most vilified lawyers in America. Yoo’s resumé from his tenure in the White House Office of Legal Counsel reads like a list of bullet points of the most widely criticized policies of Bush’s presidency. It was Yoo who provided the legal backbone to strip enemy combatants of Geneva Convention protections. It was Yoo who validated Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. It was Yoo who argued that the president was not subject to the War Crimes Act. And most notably, it was Yoo who authored a slew of memos deeming waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques legal.

For his actions, Yoo has been pilloried by the left as a sadistic tyrant who eviscerated the Constitution. The U.S. Justice Department has recommended his disbarment. He has been sued by the mother of U.S. detainee Jose Padilla, and officials in both Spain and Germany have brought war crimes charges against him.

Will Bunch Teaches John Yoo a Lesson About Appropriate Public Discourse

For these reasons, one might think Yoo’s prospects for future employment were dim. However, his past didn’t stop the Philadelphia Inquirer – Yoo’s hometown newspaper – from hiring the controversial lawyer to write a monthly column. Yoo’s writings, published under the headline “Closing Arguments,” are primarily about law. His most recent column argued against President Obama’s assertion that he will appoint a new Supreme Court justice who uses empathy in the courtroom.

Before serving in the Bush administration, Yoo served as a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His vast legal scholarship focused on U.S. foreign relations, international law and the Constitution’s separation of powers. He also wrote two books on foreign affairs and the War on Terror. Yoo even had a short stint as journalist; he spent a summer interning at The Wall Street Journal between college and law school. But for Will Bunch, a writer for The Philadelphia Daily News, Yoo’s credentials don’t make the cut for columnist material.

In a scathing blog post, Bunch harshly criticized the decision to hire Yoo. “As an American citizen, I am still reeling from the knowledge that our government tortured people in my name,” Bunch said. “As a journalist, the fact that my byline and John Yoo’s are now rolling off the same printing press is adding insult to injury.”

As a journalist and an American citizen, I couldn’t disagree more. The Philadelphia Inquirer has voiced an editorial opinion against harsh interrogation techniques; the fact that it would hire a law scholar who holds the opposite viewpoint is a testament to its commitment to promoting a marketplace of ideas. Too often, newspapers abandon rigorous discourse on the opinion page for an echo chamber of rants. Harold Jackson, the opinion editor of the Inquirer, said the paper has been adding more conservative columnists to provide ideological balance. “It means we aren’t afraid to let people hear what the other side has to say,” Jackson said. “We think most of our readers aren’t afraid, either.”

I wish Jackson was correct, but unfortunately many Americans don’t want discourse that challenges their belief structure. They’d rather write Yoo off as a sadistic yahoo and argue for his removal from the Inquirer than actually hear the basis for his political philosophy.

Bunch argues that the inclusion of Yoo in the Inquirer’s editorial page is another example of what he calls “on one hand, on the other hand journalism,” a practice in which newspapers provide equal time and authority to ideas regardless of their merits. This observation makes the grossly inaccurate assumption that Bunch or the staff of the Inquirer are the only ones qualified to pass judgment on the complexity of Yoo’s legal memos – they aren’t. However, Yoo is eminently qualified to provide a conservative interpretation of executive power and international law.

To suggest that editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer should make a moral judgment to prohibit discussions about legal issues and accordingly exclude Yoo’s voice for the paper is absurd. And to drape what is clearly an attempt in political censorship under the guise of patriotism is not only disingenuous, but a complete bastardization of what a free press is intended to provide.

Let me make this crystal clear: I don’t agree with what John Yoo has to say, but I find his opinions nowhere near as detestable as those who seek to muzzle him because he doesn’t fulfill their standard of appropriate speech. To remove Yoo would sully the history of debate that has made newspapers such a vibrant and important part of American culture. As someone who believes in the promise of journalism, I simply cannot tolerate that.

This column was printed in the Oregon Daily Emerald on May 18.  Props to Patrick Finney for the illustration.

Related Post:  John Yoo is Not a Nice Guy, Especially When He’s Filling Your Coffin With Insects

The disparity, as dramatic as it is, mirrors the the political composition of many other journalism schools across the country.  A 2005 study of nine top journalism schools by David Horowitz and Joseph Light revealed similar ratios of political affiliation.  Columbia University had 15 Democrats and one Republican, while Berkeley had ten Democrats and zero Republicans.

According to a study performed by UO economist Bill Harbaugh in 2006, there are 15:5 registered Democrats in the total UO faculty for every one Republican.  The Oregon Daily Emerald reported that 96% of contributions during the 2008 election cycle went to Democratic candidates; in 2004 the figure was 100%.

Academia generally trends to the left, and the concentration of liberal professors at UO isn’t too surprising.  In most subjects, politics are irrelevant, but not in journalism.  The question of whether or not reporting is fair and objective is reliant upon how the beholder perceives the ideas presented.  It is innately difficult to support journalism that reveals an inadequacy or flaw in one’s own ideology.  How many times does a pro-choice advocate heap praise on pro-life reporting or vice-versa?

In fact, the two biggest media watchdogs in the business are divided on ideological terms.  Media Matters is “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Newsbusters calls itself “the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.” The bottom line:  people rarely push ideas they dislike, and that goes for college professors as well.

“College is supposed to be the marketplace of ideas ” said C.J. Ciaramella, editor of the UO conservative magazine The Commentator.  “But it’s more like the Model T of ideas here, you can get any one you want as long as it’s black.”

Jon Palfreman, a long form documentary filmmaker and UO journalism professor, agrees the University can be hostile to Republican thought.  “Diversity of ideas means embracing ideas that you hate as well as ideas that you like.  We don’t have many smart right-wing ideas on campus here, and you probably won’t survive by promulgating such ideas,” he said.

I’ve been a journalism graduate student at UO for the last year, and though I’ve found the facutly to be generally open-minded, there’s no question that the discourse suffers when half of the political spectrum isn’t represented.  Journalism thrives on ideas, not just left-wing ideas or right-wing ideas, but a steady stream of diverse ideas. I don’t think a ratio of 26-0 or 38-2 achieves that.  Although, short of a political litmus test (which I’d oppose), I’m not exactly sure what can be done about it.

Forty-four months after Hurricane Katrina descended on New Orleans and its surrounding parishes, there are still 4,600 Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers inhabited by hurricane victims. The majority of them are elderly, poverty-stricken, disabled or mentally ill. Some are still rebuilding homes that were destroyed during the storm, a process fraught with red tape and governmental delays. Others have sunk into a state of severe and unremitting depression. Unable to adjust to the chaos and instability of the storm, they have simply tuned out of life. Now, it appears many of these individuals will soon be booted from their homes, as well.

By: Patrick Finney

FEMA recently announced its intention to repossess all trailers on May 30, and evict those still residing there. It’s not a surprising response, considering the colossal inefficiency the organization displayed from the get-go in providing Katrina aid. From its bungling of the initial emergency effort to its inadequate housing relief, FEMA has routinely appeared out of touch with the full effects of the storm on residents of the Gulf South.

In fact, being wrested from their trailer homes is just one of the many burdens Katrina victims have had to bear. Almost four years after the storm, none of the 500 Katrina cottages that state officials agreed to build to offset housing problems has been erected. The Louisiana Road Home program, which is intended to provide large grants to homeowners for repair, has been beleaguered with red tape and administrative problems. Additionally, a caretaking organization, authorized by the Louisiana Recovery Authority, never materialized, leaving local aid organizations to combat the homelessness and poverty still associated with the storm.

The 143,000 FEMA trailers provided to residents after the hurricane was one of the organization’s most visible and robust undertakings. They did not arrive in the timeliest manner, and many of them were later found to contain dangerous levels of formaldehyde, but for hordes of Katrina victims, they provided a home. Now, most of these trailers have been dragged away as the majority of Katrina victims have rebuilt, but there are still a fraction of residents who call the trailers home. And while a handful or so of these individuals may be looking to freeload off the government’s dime, most of them would love nothing more than to secure their own residence. They simply don’t have the funds or the resources to do so.

However, some people think they’re not trying hard enough. Bruce Ramsey, a columnist for The Seattle Times, supports FEMA’s decision to give hurricane victims the boot. Ramsey criticized a New York Times series on the trailer debacle as a “compendium of hard luck stories.” He was especially irked by the focus on a man who was attempting to finance his home by selling aluminum for soda cans.

“Collecting pop cans is a wino’s job. It is no way to finance the repair of a building,” Ramsey squawked. He called the man irrational and suggested he attempt to sell his gutted, flood-damaged home, or take out a second mortgage.

Ramsey’s right. Collecting cans isn’t the best way to finance the repair of a building. It’s a desperate and an ill-conceived plan. However, it’s nowhere near as ill-conceived as suggesting that a 70-year-old, poverty-stricken man with no resources have his home stripped from him because he hasn’t dealt with his finances adroitly.

The Katrina reconstruction effort has cost hundreds of billions dollars. It’s been a long, painstaking process, and one that’s done little to quell the bitterness many victims feel for the government’s initial response. Now, FEMA wants to evict people from their domiciles with no contingency plan for how they will survive, and pundits like Ramsey support such a plan. What sort of rational idea is that?

FEMA should not only extend the housing privileges in the trailers, they should simply give the trailers away. The demonization of these individuals as freeloaders is not just insulting – it’s absurd. Furthermore, regardless of whether they’re genuinely trying to find alternative housing, it’s inane to suggest evicting an already disadvantaged population for such an insignificant amount of money.

FEMA’s mission is to provide disaster relief, and as long as the ramifications of Katrina are still being felt it should stay the course. Pundits such as Ramsey need to discard their Horatio Alger fetishes and realize it’s hard to pull yourself up by the bootstraps when you’re poor, disabled, disadvantaged, discarded and unstable. The victims of Hurricane Katrina deserve more sympathy, or at the very least, a dose of common sense.