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Campbell Conversations
Hosted by Grant Reeher · EN
Every week Grant Reeher, Political Science Professor and Senior Research Associate at the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University, leads a conversation with a notable guest. Guests include people from central New York -- writers, politicians, activists, public officials, and business professionals whose work affects the public life of the community -- as well as nationally prominent figures visiting the region to talk about their work.
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Scott Levy on the Campbell Conversations
2w ago00:27:53Tap to summarizeScott LevyProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. These days, if you want to find the most white-hot politics, you might look to your local school board. My guest today is the former chairman of Blythedale Children's Hospital in Westchester County, New York, and he's a former investment banker and he's currently a partner at an investment management firm. And he decided several years ago that he'd seek a seat on his local public school board. And he has something to say, not only about the experience, but about school boards more generally. Scott Levy recently published, "Why School Boards Matter: Reclaiming the Heart of American Education and Democracy." Mr. Levy, welcome to the program.Scott Levy: Well, Grant, it's great to be with you today.GR: I really appreciate you making the time. Let me just start with the book's title, "Why School Boards Matter," I think in at least one way, I think it's obvious to a lot of us in recent years that school boards do matter, they have mattered. And let me just give you and our listeners a quick story to illustrate this. At Syracuse University, I help run a course for military veterans who are interested in pursuing elective office for the first time. And as a way to get started down that path, what we used to suggest to them is that they look at school boards, among other local offices. It's a common first step. Now we're cautioning them to tread very carefully there, because this terrain has become so politically fraught with divisive cultural debates. I mean, it's a way for, it seems to me, for someone to get labeled and sucked into a polarized debate right out of the gate in their public service. And just to sort of put an exclamation point on this point I'm making, one of the folks that teaches on our program is a former National Party campaign chair, and he starts out his presentation saying, you know, one thing I want to tell you, don't run for school board.Scott Levy: (laughter)GR: So, my question is, what has happened? Have school boards, do you think, just been drawn into this black hole of political polarization right now along with everything else, or is something more distinctive going on? What happened?SL: So, you're getting to the heart of one of the reasons why I decided to write the book. Because when I first became a school board member in 2015, it's a local district outside of New York City, in Westchester County, I remember school boards being thought of as relatively boring, and I remember when I won the election and I was walking in my town, somebody had stopped me in the street and they said, oh, Scott, congratulations on winning the race, and I said to them, oh, I really appreciate it, and they said, yeah, we're going to see you on video because all the school board meetings are videoed and anybody can watch them. That's one of the things about school boards that's so important, the transparency. And I remember thinking at the time, wow, somebody actually watches this because this is 2015 and not a lot of attention was being paid to it.GR: (laughter)SL: And he responds by saying, yeah, I watch it. I watch it because I've been having trouble falling asleep lately, and it's very helpful, especially when you're doing the budget or you're doing policy language. And that was really, I think, the way so many people thought about school boards in 2015. And then you fast forward to 2020, 21 and 22, in the heart of Covid and afterwards, and we see everything explode. And what my message would be is, on the one hand, school boards have always been a place throughout American history where these battles have taken place. And I did a lot of research looking back at the 1800s and early 1900s, finding examples where you could almost find the same language that people used for the smallpox vaccine, as they did for the Covid vaccine when there was talk of vaccination requirements in the early 1900s on smallpox and obviously around, you know, in the middle of the pandemic. This battle between parental rights and government control or curriculum versus indoctrination, and the fact that we as Americans approached these questions with slightly different ideas, I think gets to the heart of what happens in boardrooms. Now, there are a bunch of things that have changed as well that I'm happy to get into it with you.GR: Yeah, well, you actually anticipated something I want to ask you about. You do get into the history of this, and you take a look at the past regarding school board politics. So, you went back to the 1800s, and that example was smallpox. But, you know, I'm old enough to remember really epic battles over school desegregation. I can't remember how many of those happened at the school board level, but I know it was a big issue at the state level and certainly the national level. Thinking about maybe after World War two, have there been other times when school boards occupied a similarly volatile political space? Or again, are we now in this combination of, you mentioned indoctrination versus education, the battles over curriculum and what books people are going to read, battles over bathrooms and battles over gender identity, the Covid battles, which were huge. I mean, is it new, do you think, or is it just a blip on our continuum?SL: I think it's a blip on the continuum in the sense that there are always issues that permeate boardrooms, and obviously they change from time to time, teaching evolution versus creationism, the way in which religion comes into schools in different ways, even today, we see that, but we've seen that throughout American history. In the early 1800s in Philadelphia, there was literally a riot that happened over what Bible was going to be taught in public schools in Philadelphia. And then you look at the way that lines are drawn between different schools within a district. That's a very controversial issue. Whether a school is potentially going to be closed, that's, it's not a cultural issue, but it's an incredibly important issue for the community that tends to bring out a lot of different factions and some real battles that happen in boardrooms. So, there's just so many different reasons why things can heat up, and you never quite know what's around the corner. But I think that these places are just manifestations of what's happening in broader society and/or in that community.GR: I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Scott Levy. He's a former investment banker and a member of the board of education in Westchester County, New York, and the author of, "Why School Boards Matter: Reclaiming the Heart of American Education and Democracy." So, we've been talking about the real headline, you know, political battles that that are deeply divisive and that have been located in school boards, but your book is about a lot more than that. And, you know, you want to emphasize how important school boards are in American democracy and in education policy. So, I just want to give you some space to talk about that. What are the other reasons why school boards are so important?SL: So, the reason that I decided to run for school board is really after I had seen what happened with the rollout of Race to the Top in New York State, which happened around the time of 2013, 2014. I was the chair of an organization that was raising money for public schools to try to fund innovative projects, projects that couldn't be done in the regular way - school budget. And this organization had been around for 20 years, there had been a steady stream of ideas that had always flowed from teachers, from administrators to the organization, for, you know, funding opportunities. And all of a sudden, those ideas stopped. And I remember thinking at the time, why all of a sudden, I become chair of this organization do the ideas stop? And the reason was that Race to the Top as it was executed by New York State in a very aggressive manner, really did upend the way that everybody thought about schools, the way teachers were teaching, the role of tests tied to teacher evaluations, there were a lot of elements of this, and it garnered all the attention. And I remember thinking at the beginning, well, maybe this is just affecting my district and not affecting the districts more broadly. And I went to this forum that I'll never forget where there were schools across our region, there were schools that were high needs, schools that were low needs, schools on all different, you know, economic ends of the spectrum, all different demographics. And really across the board there was an amazing amount of energy focused on how this initiative was really upending schools in a very negative way. And so that got me to doing a lot of policy research and work and thinking about the fact that, if you're on a school board and you sit within the district as the governance body, there are a lot of things that you can do that even the state and federal government, as well-meaning as they may be, can't do. And that is really the, you know, heart of a lot of what I talk about in my book, ways that school boards can improve districts in just a very different manner than can be done at a centralized level. The thing that I found by the time I finished writing the book was that, perhaps maybe the most important takeaway, is the role of school boards in our democracy more broadly, and how I really do think that despite the fact that we see a lot of infighting in school board meetings and polar...
Transcribe →Agustina Paglayan on the Campbell Conversations
3w ago00:27:54Tap to summarizeAgustina PaglayanProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Public education always seems to be under stress. Students spend the school day lost in their phones, we hear that they're horribly behaved, they are crippled by social and other anxieties. My guest today has an interesting take on public education's main origins and its goals, and it casts those problems in a provocative light. Agustina Paglayan is a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, and she's the author of a recent book titled, "Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education". Professor Paglayan, welcome to the program.Agustina Paglayan: Hi, Grant. Thank you for having me.GR: It's a pleasure and we really appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a very basic question that takes us back to the beginning, because, you know, your book tells a story about history in many respects. When and where did mass public education first really take root in the United States and really get going.AP: In the United States, well, it's an interesting question, because the United States was not the precursor in providing access to primary or elementary education. So, within the U.S., I would say Massachusetts was the first state to pass state law to require local areas to fund public schools, which were called common schools at the time. But the precursor was actually Prussia, in Europe, which was an absolutist regime, so, happy to talk more about that. And the U.S. model very heavily emulated the Prussian model. And the Prussian model, so the Massachusetts state law that I was referring to goes back to the very end of the 18th century. I don't remember the exact date, I think it was 1790 or 1789, but it was soon after Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts, whereas, in the Prussian context, the first compulsory primary school year dates to 1763, so a few decades earlier than that.GR: Well, you argue in your book, and you already mentioned when you said Shays' Rebellion, sort of, it sounds like there's going to be a relationship there that you're going to want to draw, but, you argue in the book that the main purpose of public education was to indoctrinate and, I'm going to use a pretty provocative word here, control the unvarnished masses of people to make the public more obedient and well behaved. What is the evidence that you found in doing your research that supports that? What kind of things leapt out to you?AP: There's lots of different types of evidence that I, probably, you don't want me to summarize within the short span of time. But I'll, let me clarify a couple things, because you mentioned the word indoctrination. That's a charged word. I think people think of, ah, indoctrination, it's what communists do, it's what fascists do. We don't do indoctrination in the United States. So, let me clarify it first, how I use the term indoctrination. And if you look at the dictionary definition, indoctrination refers, according to the dictionary, to the process of teaching someone to accept a set of beliefs uncritically. It doesn't make indoctrination dependent on what's the content of those beliefs. Indoctrination occurs whether you're teaching someone that communism is wonderful or fascism is wonderful, or also that democracy is the best form of government. As long as you're teaching these beliefs in a way that doesn't allow for questioning or for students to ask, oh, but why are you saying that? For them to think critically and keep an open mind about what they're being taught when that is not taking place, that's what would be consistent with the dictionary definition of indoctrination, and that's the way that I use it. When I make the claim that when mass education systems emerged around the world, particularly in the Western world, the primary goal was to instill in students, future citizens, essentially, the idea that they needed to respect the government's authority on the government's laws, that it was the right thing to do from a moral standpoint. And that if they behaved in ways that challenged the state's authority, or they behaved in ways that deviated or didn't comply with existing laws and rules that the government was setting, that that was going to bring them to be rejected by their peers, or go to hell, or whatever the basis of morality was, it could be secular, it could be religious, but that it was morally reprehensible to challenge the authority of the state. So, it was essentially, project that states advanced as a way to legitimate their authority and consolidate their power. So, very different from the ideas we have today about what education means.GR: No, I appreciate that, thank you. So, in uncovering that, did you find evidence of this in like, what people at the time were writing about what they were doing? Was it like, correspondence with other leaders, diaries? I'm just trying to figure out sort of where you'd go back and sort of say, ah, you know, I see. One thing you do do, I understand is, you know, you have this association between efforts to do this and perceived threats. I mean, you mentioned Shays' Rebellion there. And so just tell us a little bit about, sort of, what things you're pulling out of the historical records that convinced you about this.AP: Right, because I didn't even speak about the evidence before, which is what you wanted me to talk about. So, the first, I started with this, this was not the idea that I started with. The argument that I shared with you was not, it wasn't kind of where I was a priority. I grew up hearing that agitation spread around the world because of democracy, that it was driven by democratic ideals. So first I started by investigating the truth to that conventional wisdom and looking at, okay, did this education systems, mass primary education systems, did they emerge before the spread of democracy or after the spread of democracy? Well, it turns out they spread well before the spread of democracy, on average, six decades before our country first transitioned to democracy. And then, okay, could it have been that it was driven by prejudice to industrialize on the economic needs to have a skilled workforce in order to sustain industrialization? So again, I looked at, okay, let's compare the timing of when these systems emerge and when they reach a critical access level, versus when industrialization takes place. And again, not a strong relationship there between those two, and in particular, I was mentioning Prussia before as the pioneer of mass primary schooling. Well, it did in 1763, a time when Prussia was an agrarian country, and England on the other hand, an industrial power and leader, was the last country in Europe to introduce compulsory primary education though, or to start legislating primary education. So again, not a relationship there. Another possibility, people said, oh, what about interstate wars and threats from abroad that lead governments to want to teach everyone that patriotism? Could that be something that that led to education expansion? Again, looked at the evidence, no, not actually. It turns out that wars did not spur the expansion of primary school. And through this, as I was doing all of this, which was quantitative statistical analysis, I also was reading about the evidence that politicians at the time, when they were setting up these primary education systems regulated by states, what were they arguing? What was the point they were making? And in those, I mean, you were wondering were they letters they were writing? Some of them were letters, some of them were, like, debates during parliamentary debates. You know, some of these were special reports that they were writing about, the status of education and why it was necessary to expand it. So, there's all different types of evidence. But one thing that became very clear from that was that what they were worried about was the masses being a threat to the state's authority, especially if the masses became organized, and mobilized in violent ways. And so through that, then, back to the Shays' Rebellion and the other evidence that I uncovered, I developed this idea, hypotheses, that perhaps one of the things that spurred the government's fear of mass rebellion was precisely the occurrence of mass violence against the state, and that if it was indeed the case that those kinds of episodes of mass violence against the state, where things that activated or heightened the government's fear of the masses, then we should observe that after those episodes, there should be more efforts to regulate and expand primary education. So, then what I did was look at civil wars as one example of a type of mass violence against the state, and focusing specifically on those types of civil war study involve mass violence against the state. And then I looked again, quantitatively, at the expansion of primary education after episodes of civil war cross-nationally in Europe and Latin America, and found, indeed, that civil wars led to a big expansion of access to primary education. I can keep talking about the evidence because then, but I'm sure you have follow up questions for me on this.GR: Yes, I do. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Agustina Paglayan. She's a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of a recent book on education and its history titled, "Raised to Obey: The Rise and Spread of Mass Education." No, I appreciate that, I’ve a much better...
Transcribe →Gavin Newsham on the Campbell Conversations
4w ago00:27:54Tap to summarizeGavin NewshamProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. Fans of golf were recently treated to another exciting finish at the Masters tournament, and one of the Masters greatest past players, Tiger Woods has also been in the news recently. He crashed his car, he was charged with driving under the influence again and now he's checked himself into a rehab facility in Switzerland. My guest today is Gavin Newsham. He's a veteran golf writer and co-founder of "Golf Punk Magazine," and he's written a new biography of Tiger Woods’ early years leading up to when he turned professional. It's titled, "Project Tiger: The Birth of Genius and the Price of Greatness." Mr. Newsham, welcome to the program.Gavin Newsham: Thanks for having me, Grant, really appreciate it.GR: We appreciate you taking the time. So, let me start with, you know, your book is a lot about Tiger's father, Earl, and their relationship and I just wanted to ask you this question right out of the gate. He's got kind of a, Earl had a had a founding story, if you will, an origin story for how he decided to devote all this time to developing Tiger's golf talent. He said, you know, the kid was, I think he was, he wasn't even a year old and he demonstrated that he could swing a golf club, looked like he knew what he was doing. And so that sort of turned the light on for him and then he said, okay, I'm going to nurture and groom this. Do you think that's actually exactly true, or did his father sort of have this idea that he was going to create a golf genius from the very beginning?GN: I think there's certainly elements of truth in it, Grant. I mean, Earl Woods, incredibly complex man, really. But he was prone to hyperbole and embellishment and exaggeration a lot. So, a lot of the stories he told about Tiger's childhood were kind of changed as the years went on, you know, because he told them so many times, but they seem to get more and more hyperbolic as it were, so he was prone to that. But all this stuff about him, you know, from everything that I've heard, everything I've spoken to, yeah, all this stuff about him, sort of getting a club in Tiger's hands when he was like ten months old is all true. But, I think it also stems from the fact that Earl had three kids from his first marriage, and he was never there for them. So, I think there's some residual guilt there also into the amount of time he plowed into Tiger and his development, certainly as a golfer, but maybe not so much as a person as, you know, as time has gone on, I think.GR: Yeah. Well, that's actually that's an interesting juxtaposition of the children from the first marriage. That's a common, I think, pattern for fathers. Well, I know you could talk about this for the entire program because your book is really a lot about this, but just in sort of brief fashion, how did Earl approach the development of Tiger's golf talent? How would you characterize the way he went about that?GN: I think there were several stages to it, to be honest. I mean, from the early stage that we talked about when he was ten months old and through his, you know, early years into sort of elementary school, he was a pretty happy go lucky kid, by all accounts, you know, loved playing his golf. And, you know, the golf was a fun thing to do, it wasn't something that was expected of him so much, you know, he wasn't needed to be on the golf course every single day, you know, he had a pretty normal childhood. But I think once that talent became so, so, so apparent, you know, and so clear to anybody that cared to see him, whether that be somebody at the golf club. He had a coach from the age of four, you know, and straight away the coach said, I don't want pay because it's a pleasure to teach this kid. You know, I know what this kid is going to do is going to be great for my resumé at the end of the day, you know? And that happened with all Tiger’s coaches. Never, you know, not once did a dollar change hands between Tiger's parents and his coaches because he's that good. I think when he gets to high school and he's become a name, you know, he's known not just in California but beyond there, is like the best junior golfer in the country, it's then I think that you can see in Earl, there's like a shift in Earl's mindset where I'm thinking, right, okay, so my son's really good at golf, I know he's really good at golf. And they struggled financially, the Woods, taking Tiger around the country to all the tournaments coast to coast, flying here, there and everywhere. Earl didn’t make a lot of money, you know, he didn't have a great pension when he did retire. And so, I think the idea that Tiger could turn pro and make a significant amount of money suddenly became more of a driver in Earl's mindset, I think. As it, you know, inevitably would do I think, you know, and so from that stage on, Tiger's childhood really wasn't his own from sort of 10, 11 onwards, I don't think. His parents wouldn't let him play other sports, for instance, you know, not allowed, loved playing football, loved basketball, not allowed to do it just in case he might injure himself or jeopardize his golf career, you know? So, it's interesting how it changes, but also kind of understandable, you know, irrespective of what you think about the actual parenting style. I mean, you can see they're going to nurture and develop a talent, but, at what cost? That is the question.GR: Yeah. Well, on that note, can you give me like, your single best example of Earl putting a lot of pressure on Tiger or being overbearing? Is there one, as you went through and researched this, is there like one greatest hit?GN: One, there's several examples, I mean, especially when he was at college. There was a lot of trouble with the NCAA about Tiger's amateur status, you know, because Tiger was getting offers from left, right and center. And Earl was certainly getting offers as well, you know. I spoke to his, one of the assistant pros that used to be at Tiger's club when he's up to about 16, 17. And he said, that his dad that used to play there, he was a member, he used to turn up every single week with, like, hundreds of new golf balls in the trunk of his car, you know, and start handing them out. And you’re thinking, well, where did they come from? You know, and these are all people are going to Earl and saying, your son's really good, you know, maybe you want to come and chat with our guys, you know, and we can maybe sort of sort something out. And so, I think it's that point where you think, this has changed now, this has changed from being a kid who's good at golf to actually, you know, a meal ticket even, you know? So, I think it's an interesting but understandable way that Earl went, I think, given his financial issues as well, I think.GR: Well, one of the reviews of your book called it a ‘searing indictment of Tiger Woods’ father.’ Did you write that book with that approach? Is that how you went into it?GN: No, not at all. No, I mean, I, like many people. I mean, there's been, you know, thousands of books on Tiger, right? It's not like, you know, you have to go far to find one. But most of them have a similar thing about Earl being the overbearing parent, you know, the, the guy that pushed Tiger and pushed Tiger and pushed Tiger, and he did. You know, let's not get that wrong in any way. But the more you read about it and the more you see the change in his mindset as Tiger gets older, and also how, I mean, a lot's not been said about his mother. You know, his mother's role in this as well was equally important, you know, because everybody thinks he was Earl driving Tiger forward, but his mother was just as disciplined and just as focused on making Tiger as good as he could possibly be, especially on the academic side, because he was a bright kid, right, so, he went to Stanford. So yeah, between the two of them, a formidable backroom team. But, in terms of developing and nurturing this rare talent, they found themselves in possession of, you know, but, in terms of parenting, again, another question.GR: I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Gavin Newsham. He's the author of a new book about Tiger Woods. It's titled, "Project Tiger: The Birth of Genius and the Price of Greatness." So, let's go into Tiger's adolescence. You mentioned that once he got to be about 10 or 11, and then after that. Give us an idea of just the degree to which he differed from other child prodigies. You know, there's a lot of child prodigies out there in different sports, but from your book you get the sense that, like, he's a whole other level of this. Can you give us an idea of just what the distance was?GN: Yeah, I think it’s earlier than age of 10, you know, 9-10 it because even if you look at the kind of golf he was playing, I'm not sure how much you know about sort of standards in golf, Grant, but okay, you know, he was six years old when he shot 48 over nine holes. I mean, I don't shoot that now, you know? First hole in one at 6, broke 70 at 12, scratch by the time he was 13.GR: And these are on real golf courses, not like little kiddie golf courses, right?GN: No, not little pitch and putts, right? These are like, proper adult courses, you know. And so, you know, you've got this kid that is known throughout California and beyond from an early age. And he's winning trophy after trophy after trophy after trophy. Each week he's coming home with, you know, a clut...
Transcribe →Nicole Watts and Nodesia Hernandez on the Campbell Conversations
Apr 1100:27:53Tap to summarizeNicole Watts / Nodesia HernandezProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to "The Campbell Conversations", I'm Grant Reeher. Last week we heard from Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. My guests today are the principal leaders of the county legislature and the Democratic Majority caucus there. Nicole Watts is the county legislative chair. Chairwoman Watts is in her first term of service and represents the 9th legislative district. Nodesia Hernandez is the legislature's majority leader. She's in her second term of service, and she represents the 17th district. Chairwoman Watts, majority leader Hernandez, welcome to the program.Nodesia Hernandez: Thank you for having us.GR: Really appreciate you making the time. And majority Leader Hernandez, I want to start with you. I wanted to ask about the transition for the Democrats from being in the longtime in the minority now to all of a sudden being in the majority party. It was quite a switch in the last election. Did it take some kind of reframing of a mindset, you know, to get out of sort of the party of opposition mentality? I've heard that from other legislatures in other places, and I didn't know if that would be something that was affecting you.NH: So, like you said, I'm in my second term. So, we did two years in the minority, and then now you know, being in majority, you have to remember that you have some control now, right? And you have to weigh that you have some power play. And it takes the mindset of doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the minority and now being able to actually get some work done. And when I say that I mean, in the minority there were five of us, now there's ten of us. So having the five of us, it was a little bit, you know, easier as far as whipping those votes. Having the ten of us now, it's a little bit more difficult to bring all the minds together and making sure that we're all on the same page. But the transition part is making sure that we let our counter-partners know, our colleagues know, that we're here to get the work done. And it's a good thing to get the work done together. And we have to remind ourselves that we're often told that we need to collaborate, but in the situation we're in now, we need those to collaborate with us. It’s a good thing to collaborate with us, because we need to get some work done. (unintelligible) work together and get it done.GR: And just to follow up quickly, so, in the opposition, you know, you're always thinking, okay, how do I criticize this, how do I sort of make a reasoned argument against it or, you know, push back? Well, now you've got to build things. So, did that, was there a kind of a mental shift that you and your colleagues needed to go through?NH: Definitely. Because it went kind of from always defending our position, right, to now having defend our position, right? So, when I say that, I say things, I can give you a quick example, in the minority we were often having to defend why we wanted memorializing resolutions, right? Now, being in the majority, we can say we want these memorializing resolutions because it's what we need. So that mindset went from making sure that we let our colleagues know that we need them to be on board with certain things that we need to get done, and those things, the things that you weren’t on board with before, but now it's a chance. So, you know, maybe you might want to change for the better yourself and be on board and get some work done.GR: That makes sense. Chairwoman Watts, the big picture question for you. How do you see the role of the county legislature in the governance of the county? Where does it fit into that that puzzle?Nicole Watts: When I talk to neighbors, they often say, you're a what? A legislator? County? What does that do, right? And I often say it's the congress of the county, right, where the lawmakers, I think another really key piece that the legislature represents is representation. You know, we are each engaged with unique districts throughout the county, a broader geographic area with people that have very different experiences. That representation piece becomes all the more important. And so, when we're coming to decisions that are being put in front of us, we are all coming to the table with our district in mind, which might have a little bit of a different perspective, right? If you're representing Clay, where Micron's happening, it's a bit different than my district that's down the highway, where our poverty statistics look different than it looks in Clay, right? But we also are both significantly impacted by some of these things that are happening. So, I think that the legislature has a keen role in terms of representation of the people and the different voices that make up our county across the region. And then we're entrusted with responsibilities that have to do with the making of laws, whether those are like, laws as we traditionally think of them, or resolutions that are adopting particular practices. And of course, the very, very big piece, which is the budget, in terms of working through the budget and how the public resources are being utilized to serve the needs of the people of our county. We also this year have been focusing a lot of energy on making sure that we are not only equipped with the information about what's happening at the county, but we have an accountability just like it is at every level of government. That's why we were set up in the structure that we were, in our system of government was to have checks and balances. And so that other key piece of accountability, I believe it's really important for us to know, at least at a cursory level, what is happening across the many departments and the many different services and things that we offer. And so, we've been calling in a lot of the departments, actually, all of them, we've said that every department needs to come in to present before the legislature before the budget time, so that we have at least a starting awareness of how things are going, how the money is being spent, public monies, and so that we can enter the budget with a level of awareness and have an opportunity to ask meaningful questions that aren't trying to fit into the pressure cooker that is the budget process. So, I think that's the other key role, right? So, accountability, representation, lawmaking and the budget.GR: Have you had to think about, I know you're in your first term so this is all new to you, but have you and the legislature had to think about fundamental change in your role? Because before the legislature was Republican and you had a, you know, obviously very outspoken, strong minded county executive, and so the tendency I think was to go along, whereas now are you thinking about, okay, we need to be a reactive body as well as a proactive body?NW: Absolutely. The analogy I found to be helpful is a dance, right? So, the legislature historically has operated a bit like a waltz where you had a leader and the legislature kind of danced with the county executive. And now we have to dance the tango.GR: (laughter)NW: Which requires both parties to actively be dancing together. And sometimes there's a little tension in it too, right? And so, I think that we are learning that though. We've already done a few dances together where we didn't necessarily want to move in the same directions, and we've been navigating our way through that. I think it's important for people to see and experience the legislature as a strong and representative voice of their, what they want to see in government, right? We are not all one particular swath, we are not one particular politic. Whether you're looking at us as a legislature, even within our caucus, right, we represent different districts, different perspectives, and then that extends throughout our county government. And it's extremely important for the legislature to be its own entity, to have its own voice and to be respected as such, because we've been entrusted with a particular role that is distinctly different than what the county executive is responsible for. And it's really important for us to lean into that role. And I do think that we're doing that in a pretty distinctly different way, in terms of how we're hosting our meetings and some of the things that we're doing than had been previously done.GR: And Majority Leader Hernandez, I know it's early days so far for the party, but what do you think have been your biggest successes so far as a caucus?NH: The caucus right now, you know, the transition is going well because right now we're in a situation where we're actually getting work done, right? In the minority it was a lot of battling back and forth battle between the minority and the majority. But now I see our transition as us getting work done and collaboratively getting work done. I like to say, I was a teacher for 17 years, and I feel like I still have that educator hat on, right? I’m educating folks to learning and knowing what that transition looks like, what needs to get done, and at the same time, like Chairwoman Watts said, there's 17 of us, right? In my legislative caucus there's ten of us, and we do represent districts. And we also have to represent those districts in a way that we make sure our constituents are happy, because we do have to get reelected. But while we represent in those districts, we have to also make sure we represent the county as a whole. And that's the...
Transcribe →Ryan McMahon on the Campbell Conversations
Apr 400:27:53Tap to summarizeProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Onondaga County executive Ryan McMahon. The Republican is in his second full term as county executive and recently delivered his annual state of the county speech. Prior to his service as executive for the Onondaga County, he served as that county's chair of the legislature. County Executive McMahon, welcome back to the program, good to see you.Ryan McMahon: Glad to be here.GR: All right, thanks for making the time. So let me just start with the speech. What, you know, briefly, what is the current state of the county?RM: Yeah, I think if you look at where we are, you know, we put forward a pretty bold vision coming out of the pandemic and made strategic investments and turning the White Pine Business Park into a mega site to attract a high tech manufacturer. We're now in a position where, let alone we were successful attracting one, but now the company, Micron Technologies, the greatest memory technology company in the world, is constructing and they're building. And with that, we're starting to see the first economic boom. And to support them, there's going to be massive infrastructure investments that are about to start. And that means jobs, and it means jobs for people, and it means more people coming into the community spending money on the community, which means more revenue for county coffers to address longstanding issues related to people. And so, the way we've talked about it, you know, towards the end of the speech, is if you look at the metrics of the county and what we do, we've cut your tax rates over 40% since we've been here, your taxes, as the assessment value in the community has gone up, we've given that back to you. Our poverty rates are starting to go down, which is obviously been a core mission of my administration since we've been here. Jobs are going up. We're exceeding every metro, essentially, in the state of New York. Private sector investment is going up, and it's really just getting started. And so, I think overall, our goal was to land this project at White Pine, now our goal is to create this central New York semiconductor cluster. And we're doing that and we're starting to see the supply chain co-locate. We announced the first, at the speech, the first win. Wonik Materials, the South Korean company is going to come to Onondaga County. And then, we are going to have a lot more wins to talk about later this year as well.GR: So, just to follow up on that last point, and you anticipated a few of my questions there on what you just covered, I'll come back to them, but it sounds like the spin off from Micron is already beginning to happen, that there are these other companies now that want to be in the same physical location because of Micron, things related to that business or things that they think they can profit from being here, correct?RM: Yeah, I think that's, if you look at this industry anywhere around the world, but, it's a little bit easier to look at here in the US where, certainly over the last 20 years the industry, you know, kind of, moved to Asia, but if you look at the pockets where it exists today in Oregon, legacy Intel operations, they have huge clusters, right? A lot of material supply companies. If you look at what's going on in Phoenix, that's the best comparable for what's going to happen here. TSMC being the anchor, Intel does have high tech legacy manufacturing there as well. Now all these supply chain companies, the gas and chemical companies, the tooling companies, materials supply companies, they're all locating there. In Texas, you have Texas Instrument and Samsung, right? So those are really the three clusters. What we're creating is the Northeast essential cluster here in Onondaga County. And it's really going to be driven by memory technology, with Micron being the anchor. And we've all seen how well Micron is doing as a company. AI uses memory technology more than logic technology, and so having the best memory company is a big deal. And it's going to mean that this is a really strong, sustainable cluster, and a national security cluster as well.GR: One of, you mentioned the AI, and the relationship between that and what Micron does, and I want to ask you a question that's kind of related to that, in a way. I went back and I looked at the history of Micron’s stock price. And what got me thinking of that was, it had a bad month up until a couple days ago, where it had lost 20%. But if you look at the…RM: Had a really good year before that. (laughter)GR: Had a really good year before that, exactly, I was going to say. Then if you go a little bit further back, it has quadrupled in price and then yesterday went back up like 10%. My question is, that's just a lot of volatility, and it's great for investors if they can ride out, you know, the dips, but does just this fact that Micron is playing in the space where there's a lot of volatility and particularly with AI, a lot of uncertainty, does that worry you at all?RM: No, for a couple reasons. One, the stock markets are stock markets, right? It doesn't look at the health of the company. Essentially that helps drive price, but, you know, Micron, when they announced this deal, I tease the CEO, Sanjay, about this, it was a $50 stock when they announced this deal in 2022.GR: (laughter)RM: Now it's probably at, it hit 440, right? That's what you're referencing, maybe a little higher.GR: Yeah.RM: And now it's probably in the high threes.GR: I think so.RM: But the fact, if you follow stock trading which I, to a degree I do, not really, don't really have the time for it, but the great companies all have like these big shifts, right? You know your Apples, your Amazons, your Teslas, your Nvidia's. So now the fact that Micron is in that league, we should feel pretty good about that, right? I think what we should feel really good about is that they can't even produce the consumer demand with their existing consumers right now and their customers, and so that means they have to grow and grow fast. Their competition are the Korean companies Hynix and Samsung. Samsung, not as much anymore, but Hynix. All these companies are all investing big in more fabs. And we’ll be their largest, you know, North American investment, the largest investment in the company's history. 100 billion is the number used, but Grant, it's going to be more than 100 billion. It's going to be, the CapEx on this is going to be much more than that when it's all said and done. So, I think overall we have the right company. Out of all the mega projects that we're competing for, you know, we learned from the TSMC deal, that's what basically gave us the confidence to go grow the site. We were in on the Intel project. Essentially, we built out the site for Intel for a long period of time, and then we won Micron. It's a good thing we got the Micron project, not the Intel project, as that stalled out Columbus. So, I think overall we're in a great position. They were here last week, community week, announcing, you know, $30 million, $35 million of investments in the community, everything from housing to transportation to child care, workforce. I just met with their team again, you know, making sure that, we get all of our infrastructure projects on time so that they can be making chips on time and, you know, continuing to work together to bring suppliers here and create that ecosystem.GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon. So, you mentioned this in the outset of our conversation here, but one of the issues that you originally ran on was poverty. And I know it's been, you know, one of your top priority issues. How is that challenge been going at the county level? What been happening with that?RM: Yeah. So, if you look at our time here, you know, we walked into a global pandemic where, tough to operate, put in policies to do things that changed life for a period of time. And also, because of all the money into the, to help address families, it also kind of camouflaged where actual poverty would settle at the end of the day. Once you're getting ,families are getting, you know, money for two years that they don't get anymore, they're outside poverty ranges, right, but artificially. So, I think overall, what we've learned is there are key aspects of, you know, we'll say, things that prohibit work that need to be addressed and I think as a community, we're addressing them. If you think about child care being a big one, there's an affordability piece to that, but there's also an infrastructure piece making sure you have enough child care capacity. Between the State of New York and ourselves, we are spending a lot of money on both sides of that. So, I think we are making progress there. Micron's investing in that as well. When you look at transportation, the ability to get people to work, we're making strides there. When you look at, you know, early childhood education, I think that's the biggest thing from a long-term. Kindergarten readiness, we spent a lot of money on that, and that's been something really important to me. If you're kindergarten ready, you are going to pass that third grade proficiency exam. If you do that, you're going to graduate high school. I'll share with you this one project that we do, G...
Transcribe →Mehrzad Boroujerdi on the Campbell Conversations
Mar 2800:27:54Tap to summarizeMehrzad BoroujerdiProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The war in Iran continues to occupy the political attention here in the United States and around the globe. And here with me today to provide some deeper context and understanding of the situation and how it might develop is Mehrzad Boroujerdi. He’s one of the leading experts on Iranian politics, and currently serves as the vice provost and dean of the College of Arts, Sciences and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. For many years prior to that, he was on the faculty at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Among his many publications is a massive compendium of the biographies of all the political leaders and elites in Iran. It's titled "Post-Revolutionary Iran: A Political Handbook." Dean Boroujerdi, welcome to the program.Mehrzad Boroujerdi: Thank you, Grant, for having me.GR: We really appreciate you making the time. So let me start with something I heard you say the other day. It really caught my attention, and I wanted to get you to talk about it again. I've heard you argue that the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th, 2022 are essential in understanding the decision making regarding this current war with Iran, it really provided a turning point. Explain that briefly.MB: Sure, my pleasure. Yes, so, October 7th really became significant in the sense that, you know, that terrorist attack by Hamas convinced Israel that, you know, they want to go and try to really subdue Hamas once and for all, right? And therefore, we have had this ferocious war, you know, for the last few years, even though supposedly, you know, a peace deal has been reached, there are conflict and killing, it still continues on that front. What was significant about that was that Israel then decided, all right, not only am I going to be going after Hamas, but also I want to try to weaken Hezbollah because of its attack from the Lebanese, you know, land, right? And then, you know, they went ahead and did that with a great deal of success. And then the question was, well, you know, while we are on it, why not go after the puppet master, which is Iran, right? Because of Iran's support for those two entities. Therefore, Netanyahu, who as we know, you know, has been the longest serving prime minister of Israel. And from the get go, you know, he has been dreaming about, you know, a regime change in Iran. I think he managed to really use the weight of the October 7th events and, you know, convince President Trump that this was really the time to go after Iran. So, as a result, we had the 12 day war of 2025, right, where, with US help they really managed to, you know, destroy a good chunk of Iran's nuclear capability. The fact that it was such a one-sided event, right, you know, led President Trump to declare victory. However, for Netanyahu, this was an unfinished job, because if his endgame is regime change in Iran, right, calling it quits after 12 days, they feel that they still have some unfinished business. And therefore, my sense is that, you know, he really did his best to try to convince Trump once again that we can go and this time bring about regime change, right? So that's how President Trump, you know, was declaring things such as, we do the bombing, then the Iranian masses, you come out and you take things into your own hands. Of course, this is happening after the, you know, December-January uprising in Iran, where, you know, millions of people express their opposition to the regime, right? So, they felt it's ready, the situation is ready. And yet I think they perhaps underestimated the resilience of the Iranian state in terms of staging a fight, right? And I think that's why we are now, you know, into whatever day, you know, for the fourth week of this conflict, right? Imagine Grant, you know, we're in 2003 when the US toppled Saddam Hussein, it took three weeks. So, this conflict is already, has taken longer than the 2000 war with Iraq. In 1991, when the US went to get Saddam out of Kuwait in that Gulf War, that thing also took 41 days, right? So, we are approaching that type of a, you know, time limit where U.S. military excursions have lasted, you know, 4 or 5 weeks, etc. but there is really no end in sight right now that this is going to pan out the way Netanyahu and Trump were envisioning it.GR: Really interesting comparisons to previous US involvement there in that region. You've anticipated a couple of my other questions here, I wanted to draw on one of them. One thing that I have heard in the criticisms of the Trump administration and this war is that it has been overly influenced and perhaps even duped, depending on who's making the criticism by Israel. It sounds like you are saying, well, let me ask it this way, would you go that far in that account of why we're here?MB: Yeah. I wouldn’t go really that far to say they were duped, because, you know, my exposure to the US government has led me to believe, right, that this idea of regime change and, you know, confronting Iran dates back, right? Many, many decades even, right, because of the hostage crisis and everything that that happened with Iran. So there have always been contingency plans, you know, by various US agencies, you know, to think about, you know, what might happen in Iran, right? But I think this time the forceful personality of, you know, Netanyahu, perhaps President Trump's lack of experience with the Middle East, the fact that he dispatched two real, inexperienced negotiators, right, to carry on the conversations with Iran, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, etc. I think all these elements and what they were seeing in the streets of Iranian cities led them to this false assumption that this is really the moment to do it. You see, what is fascinating is that Iran, since 1979 really, has been sort of the Bermuda Triangle for various US presidents. I mean, think of Jimmy Carter, right? What happened to him? Lost the election as a result of the Iran hostage crisis. President Reagan, the Teflon president, right? His reputation got damaged because of the Iran contra, you know, affair and so forth and so on. You know, Clinton tried to deal with Iran, you know, his secretary of state apologized for the 1953 coup in Iran, etc., hoping that, you know, there will be reach, but it didn't happen. And now I think this is the last chapter, right? President Trump really getting involved in a military confrontation that, of course, is going to, you know, leave an indelible mark, right, in the lives of ordinary Iranians for years and years to come, because the damage, even, you know, four weeks into this conflict is already more than the eight years of war between Iran and Iraq, right? Because the Iraqis could not really inflict that type of damage on Iran's infrastructure the way U.S. and Israel have been able to do over, you know, 13,000 strike points so far.GR: Yeah, really interesting points. I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is the Iranian politics expert Mehrzad Boroujerdi, and we're discussing the war in Iran. So, what has been Iran's kind of master counter strategy to these attacks? How is it seeing what it's trying to accomplish or trying to avoid?MB: Right, so, I think from the Iranian perspective, it's important to realize that they feel, you know, that they are the morally right party. Meaning what? Meaning that, you know, it was President Trump that in his first term got out of the nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, right? So, they feel, you know, they remain faithful to it, it was Trump that left the thing. Then they feel that they were negotiating twice. One in 2005 and now in 2006 with the US administration and then all along, right, the next day, the US attacked them along with the Israelis, right? So, from their perspective, they say, you know, we've done some wrong, we do not trust this administration, all right, we are not going to be fooled and, you know, get involved in a third round of, you know, negotiation only to be bombed again, etc.. President Trump might be buying time for orchestrating yet another attack for us, right? So, they are coming at this, you know, with that type of a mindset. Now, it's also important to realize that these guys have a realistic sense of their capabilities. They know that they are not really a match for the combined power of Israel and the United States, militarily speaking. Yes, they have, you know, an adequate supply of drones and missiles, right, that are, you know, indigenous to Iran. They made these things because, remember, Iran, a country of 92 million, has an enormous human capital, a highly educated, technically savvy population. And, of course, the government over the last four decades has concentrated a lot of its, you know, energy and money into building up its military industry, right? So, the Iranian strategy is that, okay, if we cannot be a match for the US, you know, Air Force, Israeli Air Force, what it is that we can do? Their thinking is that, all right, we will fire as many of these missiles and drones that we have as a way of doing a number of things, inflicting political pain in Washington and Tel Aviv so that these folks will rethink their decision about continuation of the war. But parallel to that, they think that by closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most, if not the most important choke point, right, for global economy, they realize that they can...
Transcribe →Oxana Shevel on the Campbell Conversations
Mar 2100:27:53Tap to summarizeProgram transcript:Grant Reeher : Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. In America, we seem to pay attention to only one international issue at a time, and lately, that's been the conflict with Iran. But the war in Ukraine carries on. And with me today to bring us up to date on that and also deepen our understanding of it, is Oxana Shevel. She's a professor of political science and director of the International Relations program at Tufts University. She's also the coauthor with Maria Popova of, "Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States". Professor Shevel, welcome to the program.Oxana Shevel: Thank you for inviting me.GR: We really appreciate you making the time. Let me just start with a basic question for you. What's the current situation in Ukraine? Where do things currently stand?OS: The current situation is not that different from where it has been some months ago, and in some way even a year ago, when, of course, President Trump was thinking or saying that he could end this conflict very soon, like, you know, absolutely one day. But the conflict obviously still continues. And, in a way, Ukraine continues to resist Russian invasion, Russia continues to insist on maximalist aims. And this is why, I'm sure we'll get to the details, but this is ultimately why there is no settlement, because the demands and the interests of the two sides remain irreconcilable. And that has to do, again, with Russia wanting to subjugate Ukraine and Ukraine wanting to be a free state. And, you know, maybe the only sort of recent difference, and that's of course, was the war in the Middle East. The price of oil changing in a way that benefits Russia, so that's a concern. And at the same time, the weather improved in Ukraine and Russia has been freezing Ukrainian population with the strikes on the heating infrastructure through the coldest winter in recent history. So that's in a way, you know, a positive change in Ukraine that spring is here. But other than that, the conflict is pretty much where it has been for some months and years.GR: And when you say, this is an obvious point but I want to make sure that our listeners are all on the same page with you, when you say that the war in Iran has helped Russia because of the oil, you mean because they are able to sell it for a better price and there's a higher demand for their oil, correct?OS: Yes. There is high demand for the oil. Some sanctions have been eased. And again, you know, this war is very costly for Russia. They have been projecting an image of, you know, and I think in a way, some Western observers, including political leaders, are kind of buying this narrative that, you know, one way or the other, Russia has to win because it's bigger, stronger and so forth. But in a way, you know, Russian economy has been suffering with the sanctions and all of this. And the price of oil is very important for the war effort because, you know, certain prices projected as too they have to sell oil for at least that much. And now this price has been up a lot. So, in that sense, that's what that meant. Yes, that the increase in the price of oil helps Russia.GR: And when you said that Russia is hanging on to its maximalist aims, just explain what maximalist means there in this context.OS: Yeah. This is essentially what Popov’s and my book is about. That we have wrote this book, we were motivated to no small extent by trying to push back against the narrative that has been very prevalent in certain circles. This is sort of this realists take or perspective on the conflict that basically says that, well, you know, it’s bad that Russia invaded, but ultimately they invaded because they felt threatened by NATO expansion. And that's really what the conflict is about, that, you know, Ukraine had a change of government in 2014, it was going to enter NATO, it is threatening Russia and Russia invaded. And that's kind of what the root cause of the war is, right? But, you know, those who study Ukraine, who have studied Ukraine and Russian relations, who studied Ukrainian and Russian history as we have and many other experts in Ukraine have, do not buy this argument. And then again, the question becomes, what are the root causes of the war? And as we argue in the book, the root causes of the war is Russia's desire to not let Ukraine slip from its grasp. And we're not talking about just geopolitically, you know, of course, I mean, Ukrainian membership in NATO was never realistic and if it were ever was, Russia would look like it. But that's not really the main, neither necessary nor sufficient condition, we can say. And what it really goes down to is Russia not being able to accept Ukraine that is sovereign, that does its own thing in all sorts of policy areas, from historical memory politics to cultural development to economics. And again, we see this history of Russia becoming increasingly unwilling to accept this kind of Ukraine. And that's ultimately what this war is about. And so even if we look at specific, you know, disputes over, say, the territory in the Donbas, like I think some in America would say, and I think, again, that's part of the view in the current administration that there's some bunch of, you know, almost destroyed territory, what's the big deal? You know, just give it to Russia and then the war is over. But in Ukraine, nobody believes this because what ultimately it would mean that this is heavily fortified territory. If Russia were to take this territory, just opens the way for new aggression. And we've seen this since 2014, first Crimea, it's on the Crimea. Well, it wasn't on the Crimea because then there Donbas. And then sort of Donbas why it's not really because when they invaded in 2022, they go straight for Kiev. Why go straight for Kiev to decapitate the government if you are supposedly protecting Russian speakers in the east? Which, by the way, are the ones suffering the most from the bombing. So again, sort of in the same irreconcilable position, it ultimately goes down to Ukraine being determined, increasing this whole since ‘91 and especially since 2014, to have its own past, to be oriented to Europe, to be sovereign country, to not be under Russian dictate and Russia increasingly unable to accept that. And that's really why we have the clash of irreconcilable objectives, which have been there in ‘22, in 2014, and they’re here in 2026.GR: So, I want to ask you a question about the United States for a moment, and then I want to come back and follow up on some of the things that you just said. Do you think that in the United States, the public attention on this war in Ukraine, despite the fact that it's the largest war in Europe since World War two, do you think that Americans are kind of suffering from an exhaustion of sorts with their waning attention or do you think it's the war with Iran has sort of pushed it out from people's attention span? What's your sense of that?OS: Yeah, I would maybe mention two things here, because first of all, I think when we look at the opinion polls and, you know, if the American public believes that, you know, Ukraine should be supported and deserves U.S support, we still see substantial support. So this is, you know, this notion that, you know, Americans are tired. Actually in Ukraine there are memes about tired Westerners, like who should really be exhausted. It's not the westerners, but Ukrainians. But sort of that aside, first of all, there is still support, right, so even if, say, the administration is less skilled and less eager to support, I think the public understands, again, like this is, you know, very kind of the story that the smaller countries attacked by bigger country, by right and wrong. And this is really the conflict with right and wrong is very clear. There are many wars around the world, and when conflicts have lasted for generations where, you know, it's sort of confusing. Like who are the good guys? And I think here it really isn't confusing. But then again, you know, as you opened this program saying that the only one foreign policy issue seem to be kind of dominating the headlines. So, I think this is part of that, right? So again, we have a new conflict, obviously media attention has turned to that conflict. And then there is just less front page space, right? For everything else. And of course, you know, so I think in some sense it is understandable, but on the other sense, of course, it is also something to say, like, is this all media? Or to the working, you kind of latch onto whatever is in the news right now. So, I think both of these things are going on, as I said, the thing that is still substantial support and that's important to realize, but also the way the media prioritizes what to cover, something that is new and happening now and this sort of, you know, big and consequential in that way dominates the coverage.GR: I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Tufts University political science professor Oxana Shevel. And her recent book is titled, "Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States". So, let's talk a bit about this entangled history part of your argument and your book. How are the histories entangled and why is that so important?OS: Yeah, I think this is very important. And this is why we chose the ‘entangled’ as opposed to ‘common’ or ‘joint’ or something like this. Because even to say that countries had like a common history i...
Transcribe →David Oppenheimer on the Campbell Conversations
Mar 700:27:53Tap to summarizeDavid OppenheimerProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Diversity is a concept that's at ground zero of our political wars in recent years, and my guest today has written a history and a spirited defense of the idea. David Oppenheimer is a clinical professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of a new book titled, “The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea.” Professor Oppenheimer, welcome to the program.David Oppenheimer: Thank you very much. It's a delight to be here with you.GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So, I want to set the stage for our listeners by doing one thing myself here, and then I'll start asking you questions. But I wanted to read what you name as the diversity principle, and it's the very first page of your book. And so, it's a short paragraph. I'll read that, and then I'll come in and ask you a question after that. Here's the diversity principle, “People with different backgrounds, experiences and viewpoints benefit from engaging with each other. That's why it's important for people who are insiders to expand their circles to include outsiders, and vice versa. The experience of being an outsider is often influenced by age, religion, ethnicity, gender, race, language, disability, economic class, and other forms of identity. Compared with groups that are more homogeneous, diverse groups do a better job of solving problems, making discoveries, teaching and learning from each other, and improving democratic discourse.” A very good summary I think of an idea that is somewhat slippery at times. So let me ask you this to start, you tell a history of this principle and this idea, where and with whom does your story start?DO: Well, my story starts with Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the great figures of the German or Prussian Enlightenment and the founder of the University of Berlin in 1810, where he decided to create an experiential university which has become the model for research universities around the world, and decided to include Catholics and Jews in order to benefit from a more diverse learning community.GR: Interesting, okay. And so, my next question is going to force you to kind of take something that you spend almost 200 pages writing about, but to condense it into a reasonably brief answer. How does this concept then wind its way into higher education more generally? That's the University of Berlin, but where do we go from there?DO: So, Humboldt influences John Stuart Mill and Charles Eliot, the transformative 19th century president of Harvard University. Eliot takes Humboldt's ideas and applies them at Harvard, and transforms Harvard from a sort of a sleepy college into a great university through bringing in, again, Catholic students and Jewish students and faculty and black people and immigrants and poor people with scholarships. And when he steps down, says that the thing he's most proud of about Harvard is the deep diversity in terms of racial and ethnic and religious and class diversity. And once it becomes part of the DNA of Harvard, it spreads to other American universities, it spreads to free speech law, it spreads to academic freedom law, it spreads to civil law, to civil rights law. And it all carries from there from Humboldt and Mill, or the Mills, to Eliot.GR: And then in your story, you kind of locate this as you just did in the academy. And, you know, the things that you just articulated are things that we would associate with almost any university in the United States with, you know, a couple of exceptions, I guess. But then how and why does commerce and science come on board this diversity train that was originally put on the tracks by the academy?DO: Well, businesses figured out the value of diversity through business school professors who were one foot in the university and one foot in the world of commerce. There was this early, very influential article called, ‘From Affirmative Action to Affirming Diversity’. And once business school professors and then psychology professors started testing the idea that diversity really has measurable value, they found that it did. They found that companies, for example, with more diverse boards and more diverse C-suites and more diverse management, made more money. And that was the point of what they were doing. And scientists, one, began studying diversity in many environments and finding that it really made a difference, and two, finding that in science, in science labs that were more diverse, they were making more important discoveries.GR: Interesting. And then one of the things that I wanted to see if you had any thoughts about, I was thinking of some of my own discoveries about diversity that I've made along the way, and one of the ones that kind of surprised me when I first came upon it was in the workplace in the United States, you could argue that really one of the biggest leaders is the United States government. That they do quite well in comparison with the private sector. And not only if we think about the military, but the civilian workforce as well. I don't know if you had any comments about that.DO: Well, one, I completely agree that the U.S. military, has been much more diverse and has done a much better job of creating opportunity for women and for black Americans and Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans than private industry. And then second, yes, the government, all the way back to the reconstruction period, and with the exception of the Wilson administration, which was really terrible toward black federal employees, but with that exception the government has had a more diverse workforce, and has been better at having rules that required employment decisions to be made, looking at a broad pool instead of simply, oh, I've got a friend who could work for us, let's hire him.GR: I'm Grant Reeher. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is University of California at Berkeley law professor David Oppenheimer, and we're discussing his new book. It's titled, “The Diversity Principle: The Story of a Transformative Idea.” So, you have kind of a two-pronged way of talking about this concept. And it's, you know, the way that it gets argued about. And one is sort of as an issue of fairness and as an issue of justice. But you've also emphasized the fact that, hey, you know, it's not just a good thing to do, it's good for business, it will make you more money. And so there's the self-interested aspect of it from a collective perspective. I was wondering if you had some reflections on, as this concept then is wending its way and becoming more and more accepted in different kinds of realms of our lives, is there an impact back on the concept itself? Does the concept itself go through any formative changes in that process?DO: Well, it certainly has, from an idea that seemed like a good idea into the business world, where it was very heavily analyzed by the business consultancies who were training, HR people and training businesses and looking for feedback. And that's how we saw the movement from a diversity principle to diversity, equity and inclusion. As businesses concluded and their consultants concluded that they were recruiting a more diverse workforce, but they weren't bringing them into the community of the workforce so that there was no sense of inclusion. And in the absence of inclusion, they weren't fully gaining the benefits of diversity.GR: Interesting, interesting. And I wanted to pick up on that. You know, you mentioned DEI, it's obviously a, you know, like a flashing neon light political phrase right now. Do you think that this concept has suffered in recent years with what many people perceive as a hyper focus, especially on the left, on gender, race and sexual orientation as the be all and end all of diversity that, you know, has that sort of weakened the strength of the concepts some way, do you think?DO: Well, certainly it's important that we recognize that there are all kinds of diversity and all kinds of diversity contributes to the diversity effect. So, for example, there's a criticism that American universities are too left.GR: Yeah, I want to come back to that a bit later, but go ahead.DO: Okay, Well I'm sorry to jump ahead.GR: Oh no, it's fine, it's good.DO: But certainly, I agree and I probably agree more from having studied diversity, that we need conservative voices on our faculties in order to, one, improve our own research as professors, because we're hearing voices that today we're not perhaps hearing enough. And two, improve the teaching of our students. So just as it's important that women's voices be heard, just as it's important that racial minorities be included in the community, just as it's important that people with disabilities be part of the community. I think it's also important that there be political and ideological diversity in order to gain fully the benefits of diversity.GR: Yeah, I wanted to come back to that. I wanted to ask you a different question, though, might be related to it in a way. And it's about the academy, and it's based in part on my own experience, but you've already alluded to it. In this focus on certain kinds of diversity, there also seems to me to be a return and an embrace of what I thought as a society, we were trying to w...
Transcribe →Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on the Campbell Conversations
Feb 2800:27:52Tap to summarizeAndrew Guthrie FergusonProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. When it comes to generating data that can be used against us by the government, are we are own worst enemies? My guest today has a lot to say about that. Andrew Guthrie Ferguson is a professor at George Washington University Law School, and he's the author of a new book. It's titled, “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance." Professor Ferguson, welcome to the program.Andrew Ferguson: Thank you so much for having me.GR: Well, we really appreciate you making the time. So, I'm going to spend, I think, most of our time just unpacking a very provocative sentence that you write near the beginning of your book. You write, “you are, at best, a warrant away from having your most intimate personal details revealed to a government agent looking to incarcerate, embarrass, or intimidate you.” There's a lot to unpack there. So, that's going to be our roadmap. But first, I thought it would help to set some of the context for this by breaking down some of the building blocks for your analysis in your argument. So let me start with this one, you write of certain kind of data sources, and it's right in the title of your book, you call them ‘self-surveillance’. Just give us a clear idea of what that means, the kinds of data mines that you're talking about there.AF: Sure. So, if you live in a world where you have a smartphone in your pocket or a smartwatch on your wrist, or drive any modern car that is essentially a smart surveillance car, or have a ring doorbell camera on your front door, an Alexa in your home, use the internet, ask Google questions, you are creating data about yourself. And the thing that I think we haven't fully recognized is that all of our smart devices are surveillance devices. In fact, that's sort of what you're purchasing. You're purchasing some insight about yourself, about your life, about your patterns that you think will add value to your life. The downside risk is that all that data is available to law enforcement, to prosecutors. And it is, as you said, at best, a warrant away from being revealed. And what the book does is try to explain how we have sort of built this world of self-surveillance. Not to judge us, we are all digital citizens in one way or another, but to recognize that these purchases and these choices have costs and that we haven't really wrestled with the costs of that self-surveillance.GR: So, in your book, you take the first several chapters breaking out that different kind of data, and you just gave us an idea of that when you just listed the different kinds of devices that, you know, a lot of us have, certainly almost everybody has the cell phone, the smartphone. And you talk about data that's in and about our homes, and you have one about our things, our bodies, our cities, our papers and our likes. Now, some of those I think we understand immediately. And when you just described that list that you gave, you know, we all can relate to that. I was curious to hear you spell out a little bit about what our cities and our papers mean in those chapters. That's less clear on the surface.AF: Sure. So, we as a society have invested a lot of money in building surveillance devices in our cities. Whether they're automated license plate readers that catch the license plates that drive down your streets, cameras that are connected to real time crime centers where police can surveil the city streets from the comfort of their command center. Whether it is other forms, you know, drones and other new technologies that are watching us. That is a form of self-surveillance. It’s democratically mediated, it's our city council saying that we think that we can buy a world of safety through surveillance. But these are choices. Choices that we make with our tax dollars, we make with our elected choices of representatives. And it is another form of this world where we are building surveillance devices for when we go out in public, but also, of course, as we are in our home. And the papers part, again, the chapters that begin the book talk about how our homes have been transformed into smart homes, our bodies have been transformed using biological markers, be it your Fitbit or your smartwatch or your smart pacemaker or whatever it would be. But papers, papers also date back to the founding fathers. We have papers, effects, persons in homes as our Fourth Amendment protections. And most of what we do now is mediated through a digital form that takes the place of papers. You know, my parents used to get a bank statement in the mail, literally every month, that they saved in the attic so we would have boxes of papers and that was your financial records. Now it's all digital on your phone. We used to write letters. Again, they actually had love letters that they wrote back when they were courting in the air and now people have, like, texts and maybe an email or two to do that. But all of that digital information is recorded somewhere, usually held by some third party, and is available if there is a criminal prosecution, if there is a warrant, if there is a desire. And what I don't think we realize is that that exposure, that digital exposure, leaves us all very vulnerable to political winds that change, to certain kinds of targeted prosecutions. And it's something that we should just have a conversation about, and the book is trying to start that conversation.GR: Yeah. Just a couple of quick observations about our cities. I just want to, you'd be interested in hearing this, but that question and that issue has been one that has come up in Syracuse, because Syracuse has been instituting these. It has been framed as something that will make the city run more efficiently and provide better services. But at the same time, there has been conversation about this idea that we are, you know, increasing our sense of monitoring. And I remember I worked several years ago over a number of different summers in London, and it was often said, I remember it being said that because of the heavy use of CCTV, that pretty much anywhere in London, you were on television somewhere. And I remember taking some comfort in that as a pedestrian walking around. But I see the other side of this now that you bring it up.AF: And that's part of it, it's that duality, right? It's not that smart cities are bad, it's not that security cameras are bad, but in an unregulated world, in a world where that technology can be weaponized for other things that we didn't agree to or don't think is wise, we run into problems. And that's the hard part. We are not wrong in thinking that maybe certain forms of surveillance will help law enforcement. It will. And the book is actually filled with stories of people getting caught because of their data and like, bad people getting caught because of their data. And that's not a bad thing. The danger is that who is bad or what is criminal can change politically, can change because of who's getting targeted and without rules and regulations to limit it. It really does expose all of us to essentially the whims of who's in charge and what they want to prosecute.GR: Yeah, anyone who's watched British crime television knows, the first thing that detectives all go to is the CCTV. But you're right, the double edge-ness. I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is George Washington University law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson and we're discussing his new book. It's titled, “Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance.” So, give us some more examples, maybe some of the ones that you think are most telling or the most intriguing or the most disturbing of how the information can be used against us. I mean, we understand that there are some good things that can be done with it, but as you say, it depends on whoever is in power and using this. Give us some examples of things we might want to be worried about.AF: There’s a story that I think both captures the promise and dangers and just difficulty of these issues. (It) involves a gentleman who had a smart pacemaker in his heart. So, I think we can all agree that the medical inventions and interventions that allow someone to live better because their heart is beating at a certain way and recording that data for the individual themselves so it can take care of themselves, go to the doctor, but is also that data is also being forwarded to the doctor's office is a good. That's actually the kind of thing that we should encourage, we would like. But the case in the book is when detectives go to the doctor's office and get this guy's heartbeat and use it against him in a criminal case, because, and this is the tension, he was involved in some insurance fraud. He was basically, burned down his house, claimed it was, you know, an accident when really it was arson. And the detectives wanted to disprove his story by showing that his heartbeat didn't match what he said had happened. And this is, you know, the detectives aren't necessarily doing anything wrong in the sense of they have a crime, they're trying to investigate it. But the idea that our own heartbeats could be used against us in a court of law, I think raises some really difficult questions of, are we okay with that? Because the truth of the matter is, there is nothing too private. The data from your smart bed,...
Transcribe →Will Barclay on the Campbell Conversations
Feb 2100:27:53Tap to summarizeWill BarclayProgram transcript:Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Will Barclay. The Pulaski based Republican has represented New York's 120th State Assembly district since 2003 and was the minority leader of that chamber from 2020 until just last week. He recently announced that he was stepping down from that position, and that he would not run for reelection to the Assembly this coming November. Assemblyman Barclay has been on the program several times in the past. Assemblyman Barclay, it's bittersweet, but welcome back to the program.Will Barclay: Thanks, Grant. As always, I appreciate you having me on. I will say this is the first interview I have done since I made my announcement that I wasn't seeking reelection and since I've stepped down as minority leader. So, I always appreciated your interviewing style and I think you give a good, fair shake to all sides, so I appreciate that and look forward to talking with you today.GR: Oh, that's very nice of you, well thanks so much, I appreciate that very much. Well, let me just start with a basic question about the timing of your decision and the timing of your announcement. What were some of the factors that went into that for you?WB: Well, I think primarily the biggest factor was personal. I served for 23 years. You know, I live in Pulaski, I have two boys and my wife, and they put up a lot with politics and I think I put my time in. So, the timing just seemed right from a personal perspective. I’m 57, so I'm not, I'm older, but not so old that I can't do other things in my life and I figured if I kept running for reelection, some of those other things that I would like to do, you know, I had a shorter time period to accomplish them. So that was a primary reason that I decided to get out. There's other factors, like outside income for one that played a role, but I would say that was a relatively minor role. And I think also it's good to have new blood come in to, you know, I have been leading the conference for six years, I gave it my best shot and there's a lot of successes I think I had there, but it's always good to, I think, get new energy. So that also played a role and I feel very confident with the new leadership that's come in in our conference that's going to lead it appropriately going forward.GR: You mentioned in the course of that, the outside income limitations and I appreciate that you did that. I was going to ask you about that and concerned that it might be a little sensitive for you, but you brought it up. So, what I'm assuming that is that, you know, there's this new rule, new law, and it's been challenged, but it looks like now it's going to take effect next year. And it limits the outside income that state legislators can make, I believe it's $35,000 a year. Is that correct?WB: Yeah, that’s correct.GR: So, I guess what I'm taking from this, then, is that you are a lawyer, and you've had a law career so that that was going to constrain your ability to push out on your law career, is that what you mean?WB: Yeah, I'm involved in a number of different things, but yes. So, there is, you know, Mrs. Barclay would like me to earn more money. (laughter) I think anybody's family would like to see spouses, you know, earning more money. So, again, that played a role. But I don't want to overblow that, even though I do find that outside income limitation, really a misdirection by the state and bad public policy. You know, we have public financing of campaigns, now we're going to have full time legislators. And what you're going to see is full dependency by members of the legislature on leadership, because they control all that power. And if you don't have enough income or outside job, you're less willing to take, in my mind, risk. And this was never meant to be a full-time legislator. In my mind, I think it's important that we can attract people with backgrounds, you know, with all different occupations. And I worry that, you know, making this a full-time legislature just will not attract maybe some of the people that I think would be very helpful to good government and legislators. But I don't want to dwell too much, because that was a bit. I’m (unintelligible) it didn't play any role, it did play some role. But, you know, I could have gone on for 2 or 4 more years with, you make a very good salary in the Assembly, so it wasn't like we're going to be impoverished by any sense of it, but it did drive me. And one thing, Grant, it did point to sort of a bigger issue that, you know, I've had frustration with all my time serving down there, but I think it's become more acute over the years is the one-party rule. And we hear a lot about the Republicans drifting right. You know, I don't change my ideology. A few issues I've changed on, some to the left, frankly, and some to the right. But, generally I've had my same beliefs since I've been down there. Where I've seen the biggest drift is from the Democrats moving more to the left and that's because it's hard to have a check on that, because, you know, they control the Senate, they control the Assembly and they control executive branch. So, it's been very hard. And that frustration has probably grown in me over the last few years. And that's another reason I think maybe someone new in my position can give a different, maybe it’s perspective or a different fight than I've been doing. Not that I think I did a bad job, but again, I think some new blood, can re-energize things which I fully support.GR: Well, you know, it's interesting, this is not about you now, with the income. I'm thinking about it more generally, but you brought up something I hadn't thought about, of creating a lack of something to fall back on if you're in the legislature and thinking then about this needing to be your career because you're doing it, not only full time, but it is your entire livelihood. And what just went through my head really quickly was thinking about Congress. Members of Congress know when they get out that they've got, they can take that time in Congress and leverage that into something that they can make quite a bit of money at. And we see all sorts of former members of Congress doing that. I guess that's less true for the state legislature. And so that's a yeah, I hadn't thought about the way it might affect things differentially in that regard. It's an interesting point. Well, let me ask you about some of the positive things, and then I do want to dive into some of the things that you just brought up where your frustrations have been. But what do you think you're going to look back most fondly about your service in the state legislature? What’s going to rise to the top of your fondest memories?WB: Well, I'll talk public policy and some of the successes we had there. But I think what, you know, I went down there, I thought I would serve six years and here I am serving, by the end it’ll be 24 years. And, you know, the reason being is because I love the people that I was able to work with. And I love my colleagues on both sides, I mean, many on both sides of the aisle. So, I ended up making friendships a lot more deeper than I thought, maybe when I first went down there in the first few years that I served that ended up, I think, keeping me there longer than maybe I initially thought I would, so that was good. I think from a public, one thing I love, I love this area. As I've told you many times, I'm 8 generations, so I'm not moving out of the area. My boys are ninth generation, they love here. I love trying to help my area, Oswego County, particularly is where I'm from, Pulaski. So, you know, I look back and some of the successes, some of the things I've been able to accomplish for the area, and that makes me very proud and makes me think my time in politics was worthwhile. Probably on the apex of all that is being able to save the Fitzpatrick nuclear plant. Albeit I didn't do that alone, but I certainly played a, I think a large role in able to save that end up saving thousands of jobs. And lo and behold, look, now we're even looking at possibly getting another new plant here in Oswego County. So, you know, if I had to point to one thing that, I guess I would say was probably my greatest success or the thing that brought me the greatest happiness in the whole thing was saving that plant. There's a lot of other things, being in the minority, I was like, you know, I didn't have the opportunity to pass a lot of state-wide type of legislation, but I can point to a number of things that either we were able to stop or get reform on that I'm also very proud of because I thought the best I could, I was able to use the bully pulpit to sometimes be able to either stop legislation or shame the Democrats into making changes to that legislation. So, there's a whole host of things I'm very proud of during my career and made it all, for me, made it all worthwhile doing it. Even though people often say, you know, you're in the minority, you can't get anything done. I never, like, took that to heart. You can. You just have to have a realistic perspective on it and not think you're going to be able to change the world in a day.GR: I'm Grant Reeher, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is New York State Assemblyman Will Barclay. So, in a similar vein there, thinking about the institution itself, the way the institution works. What do you think your biggest impact was as minori...
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