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HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

  • September 29, 2021 2:41 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER CRISES: DROUGHT, FLOOD, CONTAMINATION … AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

    Monday, October 25th, 7:00 - 8:30 PM EDT

    Human impact on the planet is being compared to the meteor that struck Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs – we have truly entered the Anthropocene. A changing climate acts first and foremost through the water cycle, which together with human demands are putting unprecedented stress on the reliable availability of water. Its amounts, timing, and quality for humans, other species, and ecosystems have been severely disrupted. Extreme weather events in the summer of 2021 alone run the gamut from wildfires in Siberia and the American West, to unprecedented rainfall events and floods in Germany, China, and the U.S. Gulf Coast, to sea snot (marine mucilage) in the Sea of Marmara off the coast of Turkey. These and other events impact water availability, quality, quantity, and timeliness around the world.

    We bring together a panel of experts, moderated by Erum Sattar, Program Lead of the Sustainable Water Management Program (SWM) at Tufts University, and including Andy Sawyer ’73, Assistant Chief Counsel of the California State Water Resources Control Board, Jeff Hébert, President of HR&A, Kelsey Leonard, water scientist, legal scholar, policy expert, writer, and enrolled citizen of the Shinnecock Nation, and William Moomaw, Emeritus Professor of international environmental policy at Tufts University, to discuss these disparate and interrelated problems. Together, we aim to attain greater understanding of the immense challenges to global and local water security and to begin to chart future actions.

    REGISTER HERE

  • June 18, 2021 4:00 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    CLASSACT LINKS TWO '73 HARVARD GRADS FOR A JOINT

    HEALTH-CARE PROJECT IN HAITI

    By Ron Dieckmann

    Ron Dieckmann '73 in Peru

    Two ’73 Harvard doctors are bringing their nonprofit healthcare groups together for a physician training and software giveaway this summer in the country of Haiti. Dr. Ron Dieckmann and his California-based KidsCareEverywhere organization has joined forces through ClassACT with Dr. Dan Scoppetta and Grand Anse Surgery Project for the first-time exercise in the city of Jeremie, where the project is based. The project will be completely virtual and conducted with Zoom technology.

    Ron and Dan met through the ClassACT healthcare group and have been planning the joint project since January 2021. “Ron and his team have been extraordinary,” says Dan. In Haiti close to 100 individuals were identified as participants in a project that would provide an educational tool of great utility. To me it is having a ‘library on your cellphone’ providing accurate, thorough, practical information about medical management.”

    KidsCareEverywhere, a public charity founded by Ron in 2006, has provided free medical software and software training to physicians in 23 countries on three continents: Africa, Asia and South America. KidsCareEverywhere’s mission is generously supported by EBSCO Health (Ipswich, MA), which donates powerful, up-to-date medical software called DynaMed for distribution in under-resourced countries. The software is primarily used as a mobile app on smart phones and has been extensively used by physicians worldwide for patient-care decision-making, education and teaching.

    Dan Scoppetta '73 in Haiti with a fellow doctor

    Dan’s nonprofit group, Grand Anse Surgery, began in 2016 at the invitation of the Grand Anse Women’s Health Program. The Grand Anse Surgery Project (GASP) then started periodic visits to Haiti to provide breast surgery and to help build an in-country surgical program in Jeremie. The surgical mission quickly expanded to include thyroid surgery and hernia surgery. A third nonprofit group that works with Dan in Jeremie, the Grand Anse Health Development Association, is also an active partner in the summer training exercise.

    The Haiti program will be the first completely virtual training for KidsCareEverywhere. “This virtual model is what we will be primarily using going forward,” Ron envisioned. “With so many barriers facing us now for on-the-ground conventional training, I am extremely pleased to have the chance to collaborate with Dan in Haiti and develop this new, inexpensive approach to our worldwide mission.”


  • June 15, 2021 2:04 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Terrible as the pandemic has been, it also has allowed us to discover Zoom. And like a rose poking out from a slag heap, ClassACT’s Zoom Forums have emerged, with their timely, entertaining and substantive discussions on topics such as health, politics, social justice, the arts and sports. The technology has allowed the Forums to cast a far-flung net, not only in terms of moderators and panelists but also in attracting audiences composed of classmates and interested outside parties.

    ClassACT’s first Zoom Forum featured Jono Quick ’73, on March 23, 2020, and discussed COVID-19 just as it was beginning its rampage through the nation. The most recent, June 10’s presentation, Gerrymandering: Our Democracy at Risk, was the 13th in the series. (It is available for viewing at the webpage provided soon.) That’s a dozen plus one in less than 15 months. For a complete list, take a look at our website here. That would be a dizzying pace for anyone, but it’s especially so for the tiny, all-volunteer, behind-the-scenes band producing them. So, we’d like them to come out from behind the Zoom curtains. Ladies and gentlemen...introducing:

    Executive Producer: Marion Dry '73. The Zoom Forums were the brainchild of Marion, ClassACT Board Co-Chair. She has been the sustaining force through the challenging transformation and rapid expansion of ClassACT’s outreach and educational efforts. Marion’s leadership and her investment of considerable time was critical to building the Forum Team and teamwork was essential to the ability to produce such an extensive Forum series.

    "ClassACT had planned several regional events for summer and fall 2020,” she says. “We wanted to continue to build community, and with the success of the first Forum it seemed a no-brainer to keep at it."

    “What I didn't expect was how meaningful the Forums would become to our audience and to our mission or how much they would expand and diversify our community. The core group working on them reached out to classmates  far and wide, many of whom had had little connection to ClassACT beforehand, to help us with program development and to recruit panelists. Now many of those folks are core contributors to our work. All of us who have worked together on these forums have found a new sense of community and endeavor. It really has been thrilling. I have met and worked with classmates whose names I had never heard before. They are extraordinary people and I am grateful that I can count some of them now as my dear friends. This is the magic of ClassACT as witnessed in the development and production of these Forums.”

    Casting Directors: Donna Brown Guillaume 73 and Therese Steiner ’73. Led by Marion and working with others such as Steve Milliken ’73 (who corralled the panelists for this past March’s Forum on Racism and the Criminal System) and Becky Miller Sykes ’73 (who invited the panelists for the Education forum in November), Donna and Therese—both veteran TV producers—brainstorm topics and then with the help of the ClassACT board and others seek expert moderators and panelists from among classmates and outside experts. Basically, it’s Networking 101. “How do we cast them? It’s largely who you know,” says Donna. “We’ll just start throwing names out there while we are ruminating about the subject matter. People just pitch in if they know someone and that’s their field of expertise.”

    Steve, a former judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and founder of JusticeAid, notes how much care goes into panel-building. For the grouping on Racism and the Criminal System, he recounts, “We needed a D.A.’s voice but we wanted to get a progressive voice [New Orleans’s Jason Williams]. We needed a defender’s voice but I needed it to be somebody who has really pioneered holistic defense as Neighborhood Defenders Service and Rick Jones have done. We needed to have a community organizer’s voice, and that was Gina Clayton- Johnson from Essie Justice Group. And we also wanted to have a police voice…I wanted it to be [Georgetown Law’s] Christy Lopez who has been working with police forces around the country on bystander intervention and other reforms. We took four progressive voices who represent the pillars that constitute the criminal system….So that’s how we approached the composition of that panel and then I went and reached out to people I have known in each of those walks of life.”

    “We have made it a mission to have a woman and a person of color on each panel,” says Therese. “After the first three panels, we really started broadening the scope. We expanded to the Zoom Webinar format, so we can get more people involved. Now the Forums have become something that a lot of people outside of ClassACT and even outside of Harvard have been interested in.”

    “You want expertise, you want representation, you want participation, and you want a broad audience to be listening,” says Donna. “I think that as Ivy Leaguers we sometimes fall into the pattern of just talking to ourselves and each other. That can be very stimulating but I don’t think that necessarily advances the goals of ClassACT. If we’re really trying to achieve change together we really have to talk to people outside the Harvard/Radcliffe Class of ’73.”

    Producers: Sarah Ulerick ’73 and Sara Greenberg ’73Andrea Kirsh 73, Jacki Swearingen 73 and Marion Dry 73 (Executive Producer). Without these five, the Forums would not have happened. When the pandemic hit, Marion reached out to what was then the ClassACT Event Group and asked them to pivot from producing in-person regional events to producing Zoom Forums. They jumped in with both feet and we should now really call them, along with videographer and designer Rick Brotman 73, and production crew members Diana Lobontiu and Katie Marinello, the ClassACT HR73 Forum Production Company! They have demanded excellence of themselves and their product and the Forums keep getting better and better.

    Staff Production Crew: Diana Lobontiu and Katie Marinello. Diana, ClassACT’s dauntless executive assistant, sweats the details. She’s the person who, with the assistance of Sarah, Sara, Andrea, Jacki, and Marion, is in charge of making sure the show sticks to the script and follows the minute-by-minute schedules known as “run of show” that are a godsend to the moderator. (As a former moderator, believe me, I know.) She also guarantees that everyone has the information he or she needs. That includes posting panelists’ bios and relevant links in the Chat area.

    Diana shows up in so many places, including moderating each Forum’s Chat discussion, that at first I thought there must be two of her. And then I found out that in a way, there are! She has a twin sister, Ioana, whom she has involved in the process. “We did the first few [Forums] without a checklist,” says Diana. “Then last summer we all got together and made a checklist. We have an elaborate system. My twin sister emails us with reminders twice each week.”

    (Says Donna Brown Guillaume: “The fact it plays as well as it does—all praises to Diana.”)

    As time went on, a process emerged. “We figured out that we had to standardize things,” says Katie, who is the maestro of ClassACT’s social media initiatives and live-tweets each Forum. “We should be playing from the same playbook. What information are we gathering from the panelists? Let’s put that in one document. What do our runs-of-show look like? Do the panelists need to see the runs-of-show? And the other thing is that the checklist is only as good as the people who use it.”

    With so many safeguards, what could go wrong? “Several things have already happened,” says Diana. “I lost control of the host command and couldn’t turn a panelist’s video on so he just didn’t go on. I recorded a whole panel but my computer shut down so we lost the whole thing.”

    Videographer and Designer: Rick Brotman ’73. In addition to overseeing the Forums’ visual presentation, veteran video guru Rick creates a pre-show “teaser” designed to bring folks into the tent, then edits the show afterward for later viewing.

    Says Therese, “Rick has helped professionalize our look and have an afterlife for people’s comments on the website.”

    “This feels like the same thing I’ve always done,” Rick says of the Forums. “It’s just that everyone’s dialing in rather than walking into a ballroom.” He sees his job as an exercise in brand-building, “to give people a sense of what this thing is about. What’s the emotional tug of this? What’s the thing that makes us us?

    “I always felt that what I was doing in editing was leaving the breadcrumbs. The video is much clearer, much cleaner than the actual event. We’ve got damned good people doing damned good content….When I go back in and realize the nuances of what people are doing, it’s really good content and helps me think about the issue in a much better way.”

    Rick lauds the choice of Forum subjects. “The fact that this has all been topical, present and immediate has just been really important,” he says. “What’s really been lovely about ClassACT is that we put into practice the thing we have learned, which is, how are you connected to people and how are you connecting, and what kind of conversation can come from that. The fact that [the Forums] have resonated with people has just been really rewarding.”

    Rewarding it has been, and it’s getting more so all the time. So take a bow, folks.


  • May 11, 2021 3:59 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Gerrymandering

    By Jacki Swearingen '73

    In this year of insurrection, gerrymandering threatens to weaken democracy even further by the voter inequity and polarization it spawns. Gerrymandering buttresses a congressional system in which getting anything done is next to impossible. In state legislatures gerrymandering bolsters primaries where lawmakers flaunt dangerous conspiracy theories. As for individual citizens, a growing number feel their votes count for nothing.

    “We think the problem is worse than we expected,” said Ryan O’Connell ’73, one of three Class ACT members who have just produced Gerrymandering: Our Democracy at Risk, a primer on redistricting reform. “It is a real threat to democracy. People’s votes don’t get equal weight.”

    Gerrymandering too often remains hidden in back rooms where political operatives find ways to enhance their party’s political clout at the expense of voters. “Gerrymandering occurs when the state legislature draws voting districts in a distorted manner,” O’Connell, Jim Harbison ’73, and editor Sallie Gouverneur ’73, explain in their primer. Finding ways to give their parties as many victories as possible, these architects of gerrymandering have come up with ingenious methods to cram as many opposing voters into as few districts as possible while distributing their own voters in ways that allow them to capture slim majorities in as many districts as possible.

    Legislators who draw those maps have the most to gain from configuring the contorted districts. “The fox is guarding the chicken coop,” said O’Connell, who concludes that such a system shreds accountability. Those lawmakers then focus solely on the voters likely to reelect them while ignoring the rest and rendering their votes worthless. “It distorts the political process,” O’Connell said. “The forces of darkness are very strong.”

    For the ClassACT team that created the primer, it is past time to break that web of secrecy and silence. Their five months of work has resulted in an incisive and detailed analysis of gerrymandering that inspires hope for change. Along with historical context that stretches back to 1788, they introduce readers to the latest mathematical tools used both to construct gerrymandered districts and to expose them. Most importantly, they provide pragmatic routes to reform already underway.

    With the release last month of new census numbers, the ClassACT authors’ mission is more urgent than ever. This year states begin redrawing congressional and state legislative districts according to how their population has shifted. With demographic movements from northern industrial states like New York and Michigan to southern and western states like Texas and Florida, the borders of many electoral districts are likely to shift dramatically.

    In too many cases, the authors say, state legislators see redistricting as a means of holding onto and extending their own power. In recent decades the party in power in the legislature gerrymanders to gain a disproportionate number of seats and to send a disproportionate number of their party members to Congress. Gerrymandering gives incumbents a convenient way to design the maps of their own districts so that they can easily hold on to “safe seats.” Harbison noted “We are the only democracy where legislators pick who votes for them.”

    The end result is a political system where countless voters in state and federal elections find their votes are essentially worthless. Gerrymandering proponents deliberately rely on such methods as “packing” and “cracking” to place voters into the districts they construct. With “packing,” Harbison explains “You want to pack the opposing party into as few districts as possible.” There those disenfranchised voters are likely to choose a candidate of their own party by an overwhelming majority. But that cramming means there are fewer voters from their party to place in other districts where they might have a shot at winning an election.

    Conversely, “cracking,” Harbison says, allows these same architects to scatter the voters being disenfranchised into as many districts as possible. It then becomes nearly impossible for their party to approach the 51 percent necessary to win an election in these districts. One telltale sign of such practices are the contorted shapes of districts on gerrymandered maps whose creators have linked narrow strands of counties to get the voting pools they desired.

    When did the excesses of gerrymandering reach the point where it became the threat to democracy that it is today? Harbison and O’Connell trace the trend back to the 2008 election when Republicans failed to secure the White House or Congress. Savvy political operatives figured out the key to winning back seats in Congress was first to establish control of the state legislatures that would do the redistricting after the 2010 Census. “If you look at history,” Harbison said, “the Republicans recovered by winning back all the legislatures. They did very well.” The eventual rewards were redistricted maps that ensured a majority of Congressional and legislature seats that would allow them to perpetuate control for years to come.

    The legacy of that power grab means even though polls indicate the majority of voters care about issues such as climate change and gun control, incumbents can dismiss those concerns. “Popular opinion is in one place, and politicians are in another,” Gouverneur said. Lawmakers do not have to respond to changes in voters’ attitudes because the current system works to keep them in power, Harbison added.

    Moreover, elections in districts where one party’s victory is essentially guaranteed tend to result in intraparty contests that give rise to extremist candidates. “When you give lawmakers safe seats, they can ignore the people in the middle,” O’Connell cautions, observing that elections become less competitive. The result is an electorate that is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War. Reforming gerrymandering can remedy this trend by reducing the wings of both parties and appealing more to the center, he adds. “More moderate politicians come from areas where elections are contested.”

    The tech and software advances that have emerged since 2010 have heightened the excesses of gerrymandering because they make it easier and cheaper to draw up redistricting maps, Harbison said. Gerrymandering specialists can now look at new sources of “big data” to determine how a block of voters will behave by using indicators like their shopping habits on Amazon.com.  “There is an incredible amount of sophistication,” he added.

    With state legislature control cemented in 2010 and high-powered digital tools, gerrymandering practitioners appear poised to thwart the demographic changes sweeping the country. Democrats once thought they would prevail as their core constituencies assumed larger shares of voting blocks and moved into states that were previously Republican strongholds, but they have found that the tools that entrenched legislatures weld make it tough to overcome disproportionate representation, explained O’Connell. Current efforts by state legislatures in Texas and Georgia reveal how eager those lawmakers are to reduce the power of voters in cities like Austin and Atlanta. Redistricting is one more means they are likely to use to secure their seats this year. “We can’t assume that demographic change will do it,” O’Connell concluded.

    Those who use gerrymandering to solidify minority control have increasingly set their sights on the judicial as well as legislative bodies. Thirty-eight states elect Supreme Court judges rather than appoint them. In almost all of them, judicial candidates must run a statewide campaign. But in states like Pennsylvania and Texas, legislatures have worked to have Supreme Court judges elected by specific districts, like lawmakers, to tilt the bench toward the party who orchestrated the gerrymandered maps, O’Connell explained.

    It is no wonder, argue the authors, that the majority of citizens polled say that they do not like gerrymandering. “Whether Democrat or Republican, 60 percent of voters are opposed to this method of redistricting,” O’Connell said. Yet the movement to uproot gerrymandering has taken off in only a handful of states. Reporters and pundits as well often echo the fatalistic view that reforming gerrymandering is a quixotic struggle.

    That redistricting looms right after the release of the 2020 census data underscores the urgent need for just apportionment. That imperative is strongest for states that stand to gain or lose Congressional seats in 2022, O’Connell said. On the critical list are Pennsylvania and Michigan, which will lose representatives, as well as Florida, North Carolina and Texas, all slated to add seats.

    Nonetheless, other states on the list have already put in place reforms likely to ensure a more accurate redrawing of maps than in cycles past. California, which will lose a congressional seat for the first time, became the “gold standard” in 2011 when the state under then Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger created a commission designed to check partisanship. Citizens apply to a selection committee independent of the governor or legislature to become one of fourteen commissioners – five Democrats, five Republicans, and four independents – who will draw the new maps in a transparent fashion. Members cannot have held or run for state or federal office prior to their selection. Nor can they act as a political candidate or appointee for ten years after their tenure is completed.

    Pennsylvania has moved toward fairer redistricting in a more contentious fashion. When Republicans who control the legislature proposed heavily gerrymandered maps, citizen groups sued in state court. Not only did Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court examine the contorted shapes of many districts, but the judges also used the latest mathematical tools to measure whether voters were divided fairly among the proposed districts. “In Pennsylvania part of the court’s reasoning was that the maps made no sense,” O’Connell added.

    Virginia, a state emerging as “purple,” has a hybrid commission that could serve as a model for battleground states undergoing similar political transformation, the primer suggests. After nearly a decade of citizen activism, Virginia came up with the a bi-partisan commission of legislators and citizens who draw up the maps and then submit them to the legislature for approval. If a mandated threshold fails to approve the maps, the state Supreme Court then appoints a “special master” to draw revised maps. Those agents when appointed in other states have “taken an impartial approach,” the primer concludes.

    While some state courts like Pennsylvania’s have pushed for fairer redistricting, the federal judicial system has been reluctant to weigh in on reforming a gerrymandered system, O’Connell said. “One of the hallmarks of this Supreme Court is its antipathy to protecting voter rights,” he added, pointing to the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that opened the way for unchecked gerrymandering in states like Texas and Georgia. That decision stripped the 1965 Voting Rights Act of any federal oversight of practices that restrict voting access in states where obstacles for Black Voters have historically existed. On occasion, the authors note, the Supreme Court has upheld lower court decisions, like the one in Cooper v. Harris in 2017 that invalidated North Carolina maps “on the grounds that they had been unconstitutionally drawn predominantly on the basis of race.” But when cases are brought that challenge partisan gerrymandering, the Supreme Court has declined to rule. “The Court essentially said in recent decisions ‘We are not mathematicians…We punt,” O’Connell said.

    On a federal level the passage of the “For the People Act of 2021,” which aims to preserve voting rights and fair elections would be an invaluable reform, the authors concur. The proposed legislation would require that all states adopt the California model of an independent commission for remapping Congressional districts. “On the Congressional level, it is a massive reform,” O’Connell observed.

    Even if the legislation becomes law this year as its Democratic sponsors hope, it would not directly affect how state districts are mapped. But the act might inspire people to seek change on the state level after witnessing the improvements on the federal, O’Connell said. Its passage might succeed in raising the awareness of voters that gerrymandering, while not as obvious as sharply reducing mail-in voting and poll stations, can still render their vote worthless.

    Another cause for optimism is the ability of mathematics to make the process more transparent, maintains Harbison. Mathematics not only enhances our ability to evaluate the fairness of voting maps, but it also allows us to construct maps that try to reflect the actual strength and distribution of each party’s voters. Now when the shape of a district or the gap between the number of one party’s voters and the number of seats held in a state congressional delegation seem disproportionate, when it “smells funny,” as Harbison puts it, mathematical analysis can determine if partisan gerrymandering has gotten out of hand. “In bringing the process out into the light, math comes to the rescue,” Harbison adds.

    In other ways Harbison and O’Connell see encouraging signs that gerrymandering can ultimately be turned around in the years to come. O’Connell praises voting rights activists like Stacey Abrams, the former Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, for her “nuts and bolts’ work to safeguard fair elections. Brian Cannon, the Director of Campaigns for the Institute for Political Innovation, wins his respect for patiently working for nearly a decade to make Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission a reality. Likewise, he lauds analysts like Michael Li at the Brennan Center for Justice for elucidation of how gerrymandering took hold and how insidious it is for democracy.

    Optimism also springs from states that have adopted reforms that make it likely they will emerge from the 2020 cycle with fairer voting maps. New York, a state where gerrymandering prevailed, is set to rely on an advisory commission chosen largely by both Democratic and Republican legislators to recommend its new maps. That redistricting plan, which will allow for the loss of one Congressional seat, must then be approved by a super majority of the Assembly and Senate. “I am hopeful that New York will get some good maps,” said O’Connell.

    Colorado, set to gain one Congressional seat, and Michigan, which will lose one seat, have given the task of redistricting to independent commissions like California’s. Ohio, which will also lose one seat, and Utah have also put reforms in place.

    Obstacles to reform in the other battle ground states remain because they do not allow the ballot initiatives that birthed fairer procedures in places like California. Half the states still do not permit voters to decide at the polls if they want a reformed procedure. As a result, O’Connell said, “You have to convince their state legislatures to give up the power they now hold to draw maps that may ensure their incumbency.”

    For these seemingly intractable states, civic activism matters enormously, O’Connell and Harbison say. At the primer’s end they lay out recommendations they believe will erode gerrymandering’s hold. They advise readers to push senators and representatives to support the “For the People Act” with its promise of ending gerrymandering on a federal level. Write and call their offices, they urge, attend upcoming town halls when they resume, make representatives aware you want legislation to safeguard voting rights and end partisan gerrymandering.

    Secondly, they counsel, don’t lose sight of state elections. Press state lawmakers to establish an independent commission to oversee how maps for state elections are drawn. Most states, even those with processes that foster gerrymandering, require public meetings when they come up with new maps. “As a rule, no one shows up at those meetings,” Harbison mused. This time around find a way to discover the plans that are being concocted and make your voice heard if you don’t approve. If your state intends to establish a bipartisan commission, apply to serve on it, he adds.

    One of the best ways to get involved with reforms is to join one of the state chapters of organizations like The League of Women Voters (https://www.lwv.org) or Common Cause (https://www.commoncause.org) that are already seeking to improve redistricting practices. FairMaps groups across the nation concentrate on organizing grassroots activists who lobby their state lawmakers for specific reforms, as OneVirginia2021 did. “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, in most cases; you can simply volunteer for one of these organizations,” the authors write.

    This task of reforming redistricting becomes more critical as states prepare to receive by September 30 detailed Census information about voters. “Now is the time to get cracking,” says O’Connell, who warns that inattention means the chance for fair redistricting could be lost for another decade. Harbison takes a more sanguine view that setbacks during this cycle do not mean that all is lost until after 2030. Citizens who begin trying to establish more bipartisan modes of redistricting may see gains in the years leading up to the next apportionment. And both he and O’Connell maintain that Democrats will not overlook the process at the state level as they did in 2010. “The Democrats are far, far behind in terms of history and experience,” Harbison said, but “there won’t be a roll over like 2010. They have their swords out.”

    Activists across the political spectrum who oppose gerrymandering need to develop patience and a willingness to be informed and involved in state and local elections. “Gerrymandering is not a sexy topic,” O’Connell cautions. “It’s about long-term change. Lots of patience is needed.” He reminds those eager for quick fixes that it took a decade for Virginia to create its bipartisan commission. “No matter your political stance,” Gouverneur said, “You can make politicians have this as a topic of conversation.” Developing habits of thinking about state wide issues also bode well for citizen involvement when the redistricting phase has ended.

    Reforming gerrymandering is at the heart of the current struggle to preserve democracy, Gouverneur and her fellow authors conclude. Unless we embrace the effort to change the current imbalanced and partisan system, many of us will continue to cast wasted votes. The time for giving into “doom and gloom” has passed, said O’Connell, who hopes that the primer will inspire his Harvard classmates and fellow citizens to take on the challenge of ending gerrymandering. “If people get involved, we should have a good shot at turning things around and having a functioning democracy.”

    CLICK HERE FOR THE GERRYMANDERING PRIMER

  • April 15, 2021 7:48 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    When politicians draw voting maps to favor their party’s candidates over their opponents, that undermines the power of elections in our system of government…and citizens’ faith in our republic. “Gerrymandering: Our Democracy at Risk,” created by J. Ryan O'Connell and James P. Harbison and edited by Sallie Gouverneur, will show you how to stop lawmakers from gaming the map-drawing process. We urge you to share this primer with your friends, communities and educational institutions. 

    CHECK OUT THE PRIMER HERE

  • March 22, 2021 2:20 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    ClassACT, as part of its Justice & Civic Engagement Initiative, hosts this examination of one of the hot-button issues of our time: understanding racism in the criminal system and ending mass incarceration and police abuse of BIPOC communities. The panel has voices deeply familiar with community activism, prosecution, policing and public defense. Panelists include Rick Jones, Executive Director of JusticeAid’s 2021 grantee partner, NDS PACE; Gina Clayton-Johnson, Executive Director & Founder, Essie Justice Group (JusticeAid grantee partner in 2018); Christy E. Lopez, Law Professor, co-leader of the Innovative Policing Program at Georgetown Law; and Jason Williams, newly elected Orleans Parish District Attorney and former City Council President, New Orleans, La. Classmate Sylvester Monroe, former Washington Post journalist and author, will serve as the moderator.

    Each year, JusticeAid, a ClassACT multi-year sustained collaborative partner, shines a spotlight on timely issues related to civil and human rights. “Following the events of 2020, police accountability and community empowerment demand a national conversation," explains JusticeAid co-Founder & CEO, our classmate, Steve Milliken. "This year we are raising money to support the expansion of NDS PACE, which is working on the front lines to address these issues."

    To prepare our audience for this important conversation, we reached out to Steve, who connected us to Rick Jones, who heads the NDS PACE program (Police Accountability/Community Empowerment). Classmate Dick Friedman interviewed him for this article.


    Rick Jones

    Rick promises that attendees will get a thorough look at the state of justice—and injustice. “This is an opportunity for folks to hear from a good mix of people all along the spectrum of the criminal legal system,” he says. “It’s an opportunity to do a deep dive on the state of policing in America, and also a way to understand how communities can take a more proactive role and be empowered in terms of self-determination and figuring out how they want to have public safety operate in their communities, all of which are the hallmarks of the NDS PACE program.”

    Jones sees JusticeAid’s support of NDS PACE as a worthy follow-up to JusticeAid's focus on voter suppression in 2020. “JusticeAid was right on the money last year to be supporting election protection,” he says. "To see how dramatically important that protection was, particularly in a place like Georgia—we’re already seeing the manifestations of this.” He also points to how 2020 “really changed the landscape in lots of different ways. It really underscored the inequities, the disparities, the injustices. If you look at the communities that were the most heavily impacted by COVID, they were primarily communities of color and communities that were poor. The year 2020 and the pandemic really put a spotlight on the injustices of our society and of the legal system.”

    In fact, there was a synergistic effect—a deadly one. Says Jones: “If you’re arrested and you’re poor and you’re black, the likelihood is that you’re going to have bail set on you and the likelihood is that you’re going to be unable to make that bail. Because of the situations in jail and your inability to protect yourself from that virus, it might very well be a death sentence. So we really began thinking about the business of compassionate release, how to safely take people out of the prisons and prevent prisons from being super spreader sites.”

    With this year’s initiative, JusticeAid is returning to its roots in public defense. “NDS has always been about realizing and maximizing the underutilized and undervalued power of public defenders,” says Jones. “I think we have a different landscape now. You wouldn’t have the problems we have now if you had a strong and robust public defense program from the beginning. Prosecutors and police have been able to roam unfiltered and unfettered. Now with the NDS PACE program, we can try dismantling those systems in our society that perpetuate these inequalities.”

    What does Jones seek from ClassACT? “Time and treasure!” He responds.

    “For us to be successful, we need to have the resources. This is a 10-year, $10 million enterprise. Plus, we need people who have particular connections and specific talents—[especially] those who can help us strategize and plan.”

  • February 04, 2021 2:23 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Tuesday, February 23, 6:00 - 7:15 pm EST

    Please join the HR class of 1979 for a conversation with HR79 classmate Ray McGuire (and HBS/HLS 84), moderated by NPR’s Michel Martin, HR80, and learn about Ray’s life so far and why he’s running for “the second toughest job in America.”

    The conversation will focus on Ray’s journey through Harvard and its impact on his career. Along with looking back at his career highlights, they will explore the personal reflections that led him to decide to enter public service and run for mayor. Award-winning journalist and weekend host of NPR’s All Things Considered Michel Martin will guide us through this discussion, which will include a Q&A with attendees.

    Click here for more information: https://www.classacthr79.org/McGuire_and_Martin

  • February 01, 2021 12:56 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Spend an evening with bestselling authors Evan Thomas '73 and Oscie Thomas.

    Their talk will be followed by personal reflections from two of Justice O'Connor's former judicial clerks: Ivan K. Fong, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary 3M; and Lisa Kern Griffin, Candace M. Carroll and Leonard B. Simon Professor of Law, Duke University.

    Evan Thomas is one of the most respected historians and journalists writing today. He is the bestselling author of ten works of nonfiction including the New York Times bestsellers John Paul Jones, Sea of Thunder, and Being Nixon. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for 33 years at Time and Newsweek. Thomas will be in conversation with his wife, Oscie Thomas, a legal professional and a frequent collaborator with her husband on his books over the years.

    Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1298340887198817


  • January 05, 2021 1:20 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Did you miss the symposium on Benazir Bhutto in December? Click below for highlights from the interactive session organized by the Alumnae-i Network for Harvard Women (ANHW) Pakistan in partnership with #CourtingTheLaw. The session features reflections from speakers who have either personally known Benazir Bhutto or studied and written about her life’s work.

    Click here


  • December 10, 2020 2:10 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    ClassACT HR73 is pleased to announce two great events taking place in December.

    1. Remembering Benazir Bhutto: Lessons in Resilience, Democracy, and Leadership

    The first, on Saturday, December 12 at 9am EST, features former Benazir Bhutto Leadership Program Fellow, Natasha Jehangir Khan, as co-moderator, and HR73 classmate Peter Galbraith, as a member of the panel.

    To join, please register at anhwlahoresecretary@gmail.com

    Co-sponsors: Harvard Law School Women’s Law Association, ClassACT HR’73

    Media Partners: Courting the Law

    Optional Resource Materials:

     Benazir Bhutto’s biography and interview by the Academy of Achievement

     Benazir Bhutto: Paying the Ultimate Price (Podcast) 

     Benazir Bhutto’s interview on “Rendevouz with Simi Grewal” 

     Obituary by the NY Times

    2. ClassACT HR85 Presents:

    Healing American Democracy: A Conversation with Michael Abramowitz, ’85, president of Freedom House

    Tuesday, December 15, 8pm EST

    For the second, the ClassACT HR73 Justice and Civic Engagement Initiative is proud to promote this forum presented by ClassACT HR85.

    Register here

    The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 seemed to mark the triumph of democracy. Yet, three decades later, democratic governance is declining around the globe. Shockingly to many, recent events have called into question the security and vibrancy of American democracy as well.

    ClassACT HR85 welcomes fellow alumni to join us in exploring the issue of democracy protection. To launch our initiative into this vital and timely issue, we are excited to announce an upcoming online event: “Healing American Democracy: A Conversation with Michael Abramowitz, ’85, president of Freedom House.” The event will take place on Tuesday, December 15 @8:00 PM EST.

    Freedom House was founded in 1941 to advocate for American participation in World War II and the fight against fascism. Since 1973, Freedom House has been assessing levels of democracy in every country around the globe in its annual report Freedom in the World. Michael Abramowitz has been the president of Freedom House since 2017.

    This online event will consist of a moderated conversation between Michael and David Schanzer, ’85, followed by an open discussion on democracy protection and ways private citizens can work towards securing American democracy.

    Preregistration for the event is required. Please join us here.

    ClassACT HR85 uses the communications platform – Shindig. Anyone that would appreciate some assistance navigating the Shindig platform is encouraged to log on at 7:45pm.

ClassACT HR ‘73
Classacthr73@gmail.com

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