Emily von Hoffmann | The Atlantichttps://www.theatlantic.com/author/emily-von-hoffmann/2016-04-11T11:00:41-04:00Copyright 2020 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.tag:theatlantic.com,2016:50-477600<p dir="ltr">Undocumented and mixed-status families (where some have citizen or resident status and others don’t) are increasingly hesitant to <a href="http://wncn.com/2016/02/11/durham-high-schools-attendance-drops-following-students-arrest/">send their kids to school</a>. In some areas, families with undocumented members <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20160128/families-fear-atlanta-immigration-raids">are wary</a> of using their real home address on school forms for fear that their information could be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).</p><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="special-report"></aside><p>“There is a fear about schools no longer [being] a safe haven for undocumented students,” Jose Hernandez Paris, the executive director of the <a href="http://www.latinamericancoalition.org/">Latin American Coalition</a> in Charlotte, said. It makes some sense that in places like North Carolina with a history of <a href="http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/ices-secure-communities-program-now-statewide/Content?oid=2252025">making life difficult</a> for undocumented immigrants, families might not trust school officials, even equate them with law enforcement. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/pre-dawn-raids-leave-us-immigrant-communities-paralyzed-with-fear/2016/01/08/5bdf664c-b412-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html">Raids</a> in January led to the arrest of 121 undocumented migrants in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas. Recent immigrants, many of whom were unaccompanied minors and families among those who entered in 2014 during the so-called <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/15/us/questions-about-the-border-kids.html">border crisis</a>, are now first in line for deportation next to gang members, terrorists, and felons. In practice, this means that undocumented youths who attend public schools become targets when they turn 18. While <a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/immigrants/flores_v_meese_agreement.pdf">minors</a> are protected from detainment, those over 18 are not. This is why many young people intercepted at the border were released into the general population.</p><p dir="ltr">Legally, federal law prevents schools from sharing student information, including their citizenship status, and ICE <a href="http://www.wral.com/ice-no-immigration-enforcement-carried-out-at-schools/15427021/">states</a> that it does not interface with schools at all.  In fact, several existing laws make it extremely unlikely that schools are purposefully collaborating with ICE in any way. <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/pdf/ferpa-disaster-guidance.pdf">FERPA</a>, the most widely-cited student privacy law, protects against the sharing of student information except in a few narrow instances that likely would not apply to undocumented students who have not committed a crime. In addition, schools are required to provide education to all students regardless of immigration status, and are prohibited from insisting on certain forms of residency proof due to a 1980s Supreme Court <a href="http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/access-education-rule-law">case</a>. The <a href="https://boe.lausd.net/sites/default/files/02-09-16OBpost.pdf">protective language</a> employed by some school districts, for example explicitly instructing staff on what to do if ICE should contact them, suggests that the possibility of ICE interference does exist, and makes the total lack of such language in other districts much more striking. And although it is difficult to track events of inappropriate immigration status collection unless <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2011/04/12/splc-demands-end-discrimination-north-carolina-school-district">reported</a> by witnesses, high-profile cases in Alabama in 2011 and in New Orleans in 2014 demonstrate that informal collection of immigration status data may occasionally occur. In the New Orleans <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/news/2014/10/15/new-orleans-schools-violating-federal-law-discouraging-enrollment-based-immigration-status">case</a>, fifty-five schools were found to be illegally requiring social security numbers from registrants.</p><p dir="ltr">“ICE has not approved any enforcement actions at any school under the ‘exceptions to the general rule’ section in recent history,” said Bryan Cox, a spokesperson for ICE.  He further clarified that while he lacks data on ICE’s history of enforcement actions in this regard, “no such approval has been given anywhere in the country during at least the past year.” In a 2011 “sensitive locations” <a href="https://www.ice.gov/doclib/ero-outreach/pdf/10029.2-policy.pdf">memo</a>, ICE commits to not arresting, interviewing, searching, or surveying targets of its investigations while they are in schools, churches, or hospitals. The policy permits a large degree of discretion, since it can be overridden by obtaining prior approval from several officials, or by invoking any of the numerous exceptions noted in the memo.</p><p dir="ltr">Julie Mao of the <a href="https://www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/staff.html">National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild</a> said the memo has not prevented the apprehension of at least one student at a bus stop, in full view of the child’s classmates. This interpretation of the sensitive-locations ban also enabled ICE agents in Detroit to surround an elementary school in 2011, trapping several families inside. Another incident led to the arrests of parents <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/18/1039681/ice-agents-detain-undocumented-immigrants-taking-their-kids-to-school/">during morning drop-off</a> in 2012. Meanwhile, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) collected <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20160128/families-fear-atlanta-immigration-raids">several first-hand accounts</a> that indicate the use of unconstitutional tactics in recent Atlanta raids. In several cases, ICE failed to produce a warrant and ignored requests to that effect. According to SPLC, agents also reportedly used deception to gain access to some homes in January, “saying they were police officers searching for a criminal (even showing a photo of an African American man in some instances).”</p><p dir="ltr">It is in this context that <a href="https://d3jc3ahdjad7x7.cloudfront.net/v4RhOf1UkDIbNP3e5fgC2SXSTP7G1sBMLmWuIMnFq4rvMMhS.pdf">Los Angeles Unified</a>,<a href="http://www.wral.com/durham-school-board-passes-resolution-to-oppose-student-immigration-raids/15353656/"> Durham Public Schools</a>, and<a href="http://www.sfusd.edu/en/news/current-news/2016-news-archive/01/4751.html"> San Francisco Unified School Districts</a> made announcements condemning the raids. In LAUSD’s case, officials promised they would <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/education/lausd/la-me-edu-ice-agents-school-campuses-20160209-story.html">not allow ICE agents</a> on their campuses to investigate students, even while ICE maintains that it will not attempt to. The concerned school districts were joined in their opposition to the raids by officials from communities throughout the country, including the mayors of<a href="http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/ice1/#.Vo2RAN8vCkY.twitter"> New Haven</a> and<a href="http://americasvoice.org/blog/as-ice-raids-target-central-american-families-city-leaders-issue-pro-immigrant-responses/"> Philadelphia</a>, and city council members in<a href="http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/city-lawmakers-join-local-activists-to-prevent-immigration-raids/"> Chicago</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">Early adopters of protective policies for undocumented students include the San Francisco Unified School District. In a 2007 <a href="http://www.sfusd.edu/en/news/current-news/2016-news-archive/01/4751.html">resolution</a> states, “If parents and or students have questions about their immigration status, school personnel will not refer them to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office (‘ICE’),” and “District personnel will not make unreasonable inquiries from a student or his/her parents for the purpose of exposing the immigration status of the child or his/her family.” However, SFUSD public-relations manager Heidi Anderson said, “Overall, it has been our experience that San Francisco ICE officials stay away from our schools.”</p><p dir="ltr">The gap in preparedness between schools, then, has more to do with the possibility of district officials unintentionally breaking the law by sharing information, than with the unlikelihood of widespread conspiracy to deport students. Los Angeles Unified School District’s chief attorney Dave Holmquist addressed the issue directly in <a href="http://laschoolreport.com/what-does-it-mean-that-lausd-is-a-safe-zone-from-immigration-officials/">comments</a> to the LA School Report. On creating a procedure for answering ICE information requests, he told the Report, “I’m concerned that principals in our schools will have to make judgment calls without input from [Counsel’s] office, and that is not the best thing to do … we want principals to comply with the law.” Shannon Haber,  communications director for LAUSD said that at this point, Holmquist’s concerns are purely theoretical.</p><p dir="ltr">The existence of federal law and even a city’s sanctuary policy may not translate to individual awareness and compliance. In 2009, SFUSD passed another <a href="http://www.sfusd.edu/assets/sfusd-staff/board-archive/memberreso/kim%20maufas%20%20%20ICE%20REFUGE%20%20%209%2022%20093.pdf">resolution</a>, containing a key admission that the Board “recently learned that employees and agents of the City and County of San Francisco have been reporting undocumented students of the District to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Officials without providing youth with due process.” This was apparently related to the city’s 2008 ordinance requiring police to <a href="http://www.colorlines.com/articles/san-francisco-narrows-policy-reporting-immigrant-youth-ice">report</a> all undocumented youths to ICE when arrested, even if they did not receive a conviction. This mirrored <a href="https://www.ice.gov/secure-communities">secure communities</a> practices, and is one of many episodes in the city’s ongoing conflict over <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sf-sanctuary-20151026-story.html">sanctuary city policies</a>.</p><p dir="ltr">SFUSD now says it actively educates officials and teachers on their responsibilities regarding undocumented students. This practice appears unusual after a survey of school district websites in affected areas. While a search for the term “Immigration and Customs Enforcement” on SFUSD’s site brought up relevant Board <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.sfusd.edu%2F%20immigration%20and%20customs%20enforcement">resolutions</a>, the same search agent produced only employment-related forms for <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site:http:%2F%2Fwww.atlanta.k12.ga.us%2F+immigration+and+customs+enforcement">Atlanta Public Schools</a>, and zero relevant results for <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site:http:%2F%2Fwww.dallasisd.org%2F+immigration+and+customs+enforcement">Dallas Public School District</a>, <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site:http:%2F%2Fcps.edu%2FPages%2Fhome.aspx+immigration+and+customs+enforcement">Chicago Public Schools</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site:http:%2F%2Fdcps.dc.gov%2F+immigration+and+customs+enforcement">DC Public Schools</a>. A search of <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=site:http:%2F%2Fwww.dpsnc.net%2F+immigration+and+customs+enforcement">Durham Public Schools</a>’ site revealed a statement opposing the raids, but no relevant policies. A lack of online availability does not rule out the existence of these policies. (At the time of this writing, some districts in Georgia and North Carolina had not responded to interview requests.)</p><p dir="ltr">School districts that did respond have different policies.  Fort Worth Independent School District and Arlington Public School District each wrote in emails that they have no training programs addressing either non-discrimination towards undocumented students, or on whether and how employees should interact with ICE. Prince George County Public School District in Maryland, for its part, wrote that they annually refresh officials on the rights of undocumented students.</p><p dir="ltr">One possible explanation for regional differences could be that Southern states do not have the same experience with undocumented immigrants as states on either coast. Mao said she was not surprised by the patchwork quality of policies in this area— while California became familiar with the issue much earlier, states like Georgia, Louisiana, and the Carolinas began receiving a greater number of undocumented migrants only in the last few years. (Cox did not acknowledge a question about ICE’s view on LAUSD and SFUSD’s policies.)<br><br> It is difficult to determine whether any ICE agents have ever been given information improperly, or if phone calls have ever been made to any principal’s office. But efforts by affected school districts to assert the safety of their campuses despite ICE’s reassurances may indicate an overabundance of caution as far as their students are concerned.</p>Emily von Hoffmannhttp://www.theatlantic.com/author/emily-von-hoffmann/?utm_source=feedAlex Brandon / APA woman carries a sign during a march in support of undocumented youth. Does ICE Pressure Schools for Student Info?2016-04-11T11:00:00-04:002016-04-11T11:00:41-04:00While the agency says no, families and education officials take steps to safeguard the undocumented.tag:theatlantic.com,2015:50-385967<p>“I know a lot of people that’s been in jail. My dad, my uncle ... well, all my uncles. My cousins. But I’m my own person.” Fifteen-year-old Christel is one of several individuals featured in the Frontline documentary <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/2365235229/"><em>Prison State</em></a>, offering a compelling personal account of incarceration’s typically anonymous <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/193121/mass-incarcerations-collateral-damage-children-left-behind">collateral damage</a>. The documentary centers on Beecher Terrace, a majority African American neighborhood in east Louisville. Kentucky pays roughly $15 million dollars a year to incarcerate the residents of Beecher Terrace and the immediately surrounding neighborhoods, according to Frontline.</p><p>Research on the social and public-health consequences of incarceration usually follows one of two arcs: tracing the adverse mental and physical outcomes for people who have been incarcerated, or else noting “spillover” effects that may include depressive or anxiety symptoms among the partners and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831279/">children</a> of those behind bars. Michelle Alexander, a professor of law at the Ohio State University and the author of <em><a href="http://newjimcrow.com/">The New Jim Crow</a></em>, says kids living in communities like Beecher Terrace are “likely to attend schools with zero-tolerance policies, where police officers patrol the hall, where disputes with teachers are treated as criminal infractions, where a schoolyard fight results in [their] first arrest …[They] find that even at a very young age, even the smallest infractions are treated as criminal.” Indeed, in the documentary, after Christel begins skipping class, a school counselor tells Frontline, “She is so angry, Christel could be headed towards prison if she doesn’t get it right, right now.”</p><p>Residents of neighborhoods with high incarceration rates endure disproportionate stress, since these communities face disrupted social and family networks alongside elevated <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1998.tb01255.x/abstract">rates of crime</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2518584/">infectious diseases</a>.  However, only recently have researchers considered how incarceration rate might serve as an ecological variable, rather than just as a something that shapes individual behavior. A new <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25393200">article</a> in the <em>American Journal of Public Health</em> evokes environmental-health research by treating incarceration as a toxin. A team led by Mark Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health examines how higher than average “exposure” might impact community well-being in less direct ways.</p><p>To this end, the researchers trace mental-health outcomes of people who live in areas from which the incarcerated are heavily drawn, but who have not otherwise had contact with the criminal-justice system. Using a representative adult population sample from the Detroit Neighborhood Health Study (DHNS), the team organized corresponding prison-admission data from the Justice Atlas of Sentencing and Corrections for 28 zip codes. The prison admission rates across these neighborhoods varied dramatically, from 0.89 to 7.59 per 1,000 adults. The top quartile, containing neighborhoods with prison-admission rates above 5.12 per 1000 adults, was designated as the “high-exposure” group.</p><p>The team conducted in-depth phone interviews with roughly 1,500 DNHS participants in four waves spaced one year apart. Using criteria from the DSM-IV, researchers assessed generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) symptoms over participants’ lifetimes as well as during the 30 days prior to each wave of interviews. Later, a blind clinical reappraisal study using a small probability sample confirmed the accuracy of their methods.</p><!-- START "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><!-- END "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><p>Even after controlling for individual- and neighborhood-level factors including history of incarceration, age, gender, race, personal income, trauma exposure, percentage of household incomes less than $25,000, and violent-crime rate, individuals living in high-exposure areas were significantly more likely to meet the criteria for MDD and GAD than were their counterparts in low-exposure areas. The team also tested neighborhood parole rates as another measure of incarceration, and found similar results to those achieved using prison admission rates.  They concluded that some elements of community supervision (potentially including the visibility of parole officers, the tone of their relationships with parolees and probationers, and the likelihood of inordinate police scrutiny due to previous arrest patterns in the area) may also be damaging to residents’ mental health. Finally, the results of their sensitivity analyses suggest that “the effect of neighborhood-level incarceration on mental health is similar for individuals with and without a history of incarceration.” These findings offer compelling evidence for a relationship between neighborhood incarceration and mental health independent of an individual’s experience with the prison system, indicating that the <a href="http://www.convictcriminology.org/pdf/pew/onein31.pdf">long arm of corrections</a> reaches even further than previously thought.</p><p>Hatzenbuehler’s work is the latest in a growing trend of applying methods from the health sciences to <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175378043/the-epidemiology-of-gun-violence-race-region-and-policy">complex social problems</a>. Several public-health researchers have reasoned that contagion is an appropriate analogy for incarceration, due to the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1992.tb01093.x/abstract">well-documented finding</a> that proximity to an incarcerated (or “infected”) individual greatly increases the likelihood of incarceration. Ernest Drucker’s landmark <em><a href="http://www.plagueofprisons.com/index.html">A Plague of Prisons</a></em> was the first mainstream work to apply epidemiological modeling to the problem of mass incarceration in order to trace its path through populations. Drucker created a profile for the disease, pointing out that young minority men are the most susceptible, making up more than 30 percent of the cases; poor urban neighborhoods are the hardest hit, with some communities having an infection rate of up to 90 percent; afflicted individuals are often socially marginalized and incapacitated for life, unable to find stable employment or housing; and the children growing up in affected families have shortened life expectancies and are six to seven times more likely to be infected than are children in unaffected families.</p><p>Others continue to strengthen the case for why incarceration is in many ways similar to a plague. Last fall, researcher Kristian Lum and others from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute used a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4233690/">susceptible-infectious-susceptible</a> (SIS) model of infectious-disease propagation to explain why even moderate differences in sentence length can cause <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/mapping-the-new-jim-crow/381617/?utm_source=feed">the vast racial disparities</a> observed in the aggregate prison population. An SIS model is nonlinear: The number of infected individuals and the number of transmissions are not proportional, due to feedback loops present as people transition between being infectious (incarcerated) and susceptible (out of prison, but at risk of going back).</p><p>The researchers in Lum’s study began by considering a puzzle in the data: The per capita rate of incarceration almost quadrupled between 1978 and 2011, and mostly affected African Americans. However, the authors note, “the increase in imprisonment of black males since 1980 was not matched by a similar increase in black-male criminality.” Their model considered incarcerated individuals “infectious” to those who are most affected by their absence, and adjusted the “transmission” probability according to relationship type and personal characteristics (children and male associates being the most susceptible). When individuals are released from prison, they return to a “susceptible” state, while their newly incarcerated friends and relatives introduce positive feedback into the system by becoming the source of additional infections. These feedback loops are responsible for the explosive transmission rate that continues to amplify racial disparities.</p><p>According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, whites have a mean sentence of 14 months for drug possession, while blacks have a mean sentence of 17 months for the same offense—extending the infectious window by three crucial months per individual. Despite these enduring differences, Columbia’s New York Psychiatric Institute <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3477985/">used large national data sets</a> to demonstrate the lower rates of drug offenses and use for blacks versus whites in the United States. Applying epidemiological tools to the problem adds urgency to the argument for reform. The implications are clear, Lum and her fellow researchers write:</p><blockquote> <p>If incarceration risk is indeed propagated through social networks, our results predict that incarceration is self-perpetuating and changes to sentencing policy may have long-term unanticipated consequences. Indeed, harsher sentencing may hinder progress towards the intended goal of decreasing crime, creating safer communities and maximizing justice to the state, victim, and offender. Our model suggests that increased sentencing for an individual has negative effects that spread through social networks to affect families and whole communities. As a consequence, increased sentence lengths may create criminals from individuals who otherwise would have avoided criminal behavior.</p> </blockquote><p>These patterns reveal new depths of the incarceration-poverty problem, with health effects that may carry over into new generations alongside the related <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00195.x/abstract">economic burdens</a>. The cumulative emotional stress resulting from high incarceration rates in a community may generate feedback loops of its own—perhaps by inducing substance abuse and other behaviors associated with depression and anxiety, and in turn predicting further incarceration.  </p>Emily von Hoffmannhttp://www.theatlantic.com/author/emily-von-hoffmann/?utm_source=feedVictor/FlickrHow Incarceration Infects a Community2015-03-06T11:11:00-05:002015-03-06T11:32:50-05:00<span>Disease-based models help researchers understand how prison-admission rates are linked to the health of a neighborhood.</span>tag:theatlantic.com,2014:50-383332<p>As of October 1, 2014, the Rwandan Parliament had the <a href="http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm">greatest percentage</a> of female representatives of any legislature in the world, with a total of 57.5 percent in the upper and lower houses. The nation’s constitution declares: “The State of Rwanda commits itself that women are granted at least 30 per cent of posts in decision making organs,” making it one of more than 40 countries to enforce a gender quota in elections to national parliaments.</p><!-- START "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><!-- END "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><p>Gender quotas like Rwanda’s were devised to improve the problem of female underrepresentation in government. Women hold only about one-fifth of seats in legislatures worldwide (and <a href="http://onpolitics.usatoday.com/2014/11/12/women-congress-record-100-adams/">at least</a> 101 of 535 seats in the incoming U.S. Congress). The specific parameters of quotas often vary by country, but sometimes use gender-neutral language, for example by requiring that a party list contain at minimum 40 percent of each sex. However, “gender quotas” are always understood to impose a floor on the number of female representatives, since underrepresentation does not affect men as a group (though individual men may still be excluded based on their minority status in other areas). The assumption behind gender quotas is that women are present in low numbers because something has gone wrong in the political recruitment process, rather than—as opponents of quotas insist—that women participate in a fair system and are consistently defeated at the party and electoral levels simply because voters find them less qualified to serve.   </p><p>But one researcher is taking this logic and flipping it on its head, arguing that the real problem isn’t that women are underrepresented, but rather that men are overrepresented. Rainbow Murray, an associate professor of politics at Queen Mary University in London, <a href="http://www.rainbowmurray.co.uk/APSR_2014.pdf">proposes</a> that governments move away from implicit quotas for women, which frame women as outsiders and men as the norm, and toward explicit quotas for men—weeding out the male politicians who are perhaps not all that well qualified. “We cannot automatically assume that men are present in these proportions because they were the best representatives available,” Murray said. “Anthony Weiner? Todd Akin?  Did those guys really get elected because they were the best society had to offer?”</p><p>Akin and Weiner notwithstanding, it’s almost impossible to imagine such a system working in the United States. Countries with parliamentary systems are able to implement quotas with relative ease, since political parties have much greater control over the selection of candidates, but in the U.S., mandatory quotas at the party level would likely be unconstitutional. But Murray’s argument is as much a call to reconsider the way society thinks about political exclusion as it is a proposal to actually change electoral laws.</p><p>And Murray’s case, laid out in a recent article in the <em>American Political Science Review</em>, makes for a rich thought experiment. A quota for men would establish a ceiling on the share of male representatives, theoretically driving up the quality of representation for both men and women by making the electoral process more competitive and meritocratic. The current arrangement, in which wealthy, ethnic-majority men dominate as representatives, does not serve the interest of the full range of men in society—and therefore, Murray argues, men have an “enlightened self-interest” in supporting quotas for men. Quotas alone would not necessarily result in a more representative sample of men in office. Murray’s argument requires a certain amount of optimism about the attitudes of voters themselves, since even with a more diverse slate of candidates, inherited beliefs about who is fit to go into politics are unlikely to evaporate.</p><p>The list of reasons for female underrepresentation is long and deeply rooted. There are simultaneous problems of supply and demand—qualified women often opt not to run, and they are overlooked by political gatekeepers when they do. Women also have historically lacked the funds, social connections, free time, and education to run for office. Now that the education levels of women in western democracies often exceed those of men, newer theories suggest that women are socialized to have lower political ambitions, or that potential female candidates may be deterred by the prospect of public humiliation in the media and in legislatures. When they do decide to run, <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&amp;aid=4495316&amp;fileId=S1743923X09000051">previous research</a> has demonstrated that women undergo a more difficult selection process, pressed to demonstrate their competence according to traditional “male-oriented criteria,” while also demonstrating an added value in their experience with “women’s issues.”</p><p>Quotas for women address the demand-side problems of underrepresentation, accepting that women face an uneven playing field, and seeking to create a less unfavorable environment for potential female candidates. (Once “quota women” enter office, however, they still face suspicion and dismissal, regardless of their qualifications. Critics charge that quotas amount to preferential treatment by sex, since quota women often displace incumbents who by no fault of their own happen to be male.)</p><p>Moreover, assuming men don’t have a naturally superior talent for holding office, it cannot be true that the current proportion of men in legislatures won their seats in a truly meritocratic contest. While individual men face scrutiny during their evaluation as candidates, they are not required to justify their inclusion in the political process. Enforcing a ceiling for male representatives might change that, and it would reverse the current stigma of having been brought into office by quota.</p><p>The qualifications that make a good representative are highly contested among scholars—and highly gendered among voters, skewing our ideas of merit toward stereotypically masculine qualities and making the pickings for successful candidates unnecessarily slim. If voters hold the essential prerequisites for candidates to be time and money to run a campaign, charisma, eloquence, public argumentation skills, media appeal, intelligence, and networks, it’s natural that the winners typically come from elite institutions, careers in business or law, and “springboard positions ... such as coveted, usually male-dominated positions within local or party politics.”</p><p>However, studies on quotas and individual <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-impact-of-gender-quotas-9780199830084?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">political background</a> suggest that using established (i.e., male) norms to evaluate female politicians risks devaluing credentials women are more likely to hold, like grassroots or community-organizing experience, that may in fact be more useful for representatives than the traditional prerequisites. Career and educational prestige are likely superfluous, since representatives must take a broad approach towards the many issues they vote on, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2391183?uid=3739808&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=4&amp;uid=3739256&amp;sid=21105331479503">delegating to staffers</a> the task of mastering details and making expertise in any one subject only a minor advantage. A high level of personal ambition is also unnecessary, since a candidate who favors his or her own advancement “could be seen as violating the principles of representative democracy.” Murray argues for the inherent usefulness of qualities like authenticity, empathy, and personal experience with common concerns like public-school zoning, caring for an ailing parent or child, or the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17826509">price of milk</a>, which are traditionally considered “feminine” (although they are not necessarily possessed by women more frequently than men) and have therefore been devalued as qualifications.  </p><p>What do men have to gain from curbing their dominance as representatives? More than you might expect—and not only those men who are not part of the dominant classes. The status quo, Murray contends, encourages a specific sort of masculinity “based on aggression, confidence, virility, and power.” <a href="http://www.hampp-verlag.de/Archiv/2_98_Hearn.pdf">Research</a> on organizational culture has found that “male-dominated environments can be intimidating for men as well as women, with men compelled ... to conform to the dominant culture, even when this does not come naturally.” Those already in power, of course, may feel that they lose out when the talent pool is widened. But they would be hard-pressed to argue that the existing, less diverse body is a better representation of the whole of society.</p><p>Furthermore, men have distinct gendered interests in some political areas, including healthcare, where men’s needs differ substantially from women’s; education, where men now lag behind women in “many subjects and countries;” and paternity, where men have special interests as fathers. These interests may go unaddressed when essentialism reigns, allowing “views about what men want and need [to] thrive unchallenged,” and preventing discussion of modern concerns such as flexible work arrangements that would allow men to be primary or equal caregivers of their children.</p><p>More than an institutional reform that might chip away at gender inequality, quotas for men are most powerful as a provocation. Freed from practical constraints, the idea offers tools for a new mindset in which men and women admit that the <a href="https://hbr.org/2010/04/the-abiding-tyranny-of-the-mal.html"><u>paucity of women leaders is equity denied</u></a> and work to change it.</p>Emily von Hoffmannhttp://www.theatlantic.com/author/emily-von-hoffmann/?utm_source=feedTobias Toft/FlickrDoes Politics Need Gender Quotas&mdash;for Men?2014-12-02T12:59:53-05:002014-12-02T14:34:22-05:00How limiting male representation, rather than creating a floor for female participation, might shake up governmenttag:theatlantic.com,2014:50-382090<p>At a particular moment during every tour of Georgetown’s campus, it becomes necessary for the student guide to acknowledge the singular blight in an otherwise idyllic environment.  </p><p>“Lauinger Library was designed to be a modern abstraction of Healy Hall”: a sentence that inevitably trails off with an apologetic shrug, inviting the crowd to arrive at their own conclusions about how well it turned out. Much of the student population would likely agree that the library’s menacing figure on the quad is nothing short of soul-crushing. New research conducted by a team of architects and neuroscientists suggests that architecture may indeed affect mental states, although they choose to focus on the positive.</p><p>I spoke with Dr. Julio Bermudez, the lead of a new study that uses fMRI to capture the effects of architecture on the brain. His team operates with the goal of using the scientific method to transform something opaque—the qualitative “phenomenologies of our built environment”—into neuroscientific observations that architects and city planners can deliberately design for. Bermudez and his team’s research question focuses on buildings and sites designed to elicit contemplation: They theorize that the presence of “contemplative architecture” in one’s environment may over time produce the same health benefits as traditional “internally-induced” meditation, except with much less effort by the individual.</p><p>Contemplative architecture contains a series of design elements that have historically been employed in religious settings: Bermudez noted that it is “logical to expect societies not only to notice [the link between built beauty and experience] over time, but to exploit it as much as possible in their places for holy purposes.” These elements may be used in any place intended for contemplation or discovery, whether of a spiritual, personal, or even scientific nature. <em>Architectural Digest</em> <a href="http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architecture/2013-02/louis-kahn-salk-institute-la-jolla-california-article">wrote</a> of the “modernist beacon” <a href="http://www.salk.edu/">The Salk Institute for Biological Studies</a> in La Jolla, California:</p><blockquote> <p>The nonprofit research center … interweaves private and public spaces with a strikingly formal, inward-looking plan that echoes the format of a medieval cloister. Composed of strong-willed yet sensuous materials—travertine and reinforced concrete—it possesses a hushed dignity that encourages contemplation.</p> <p>Two six-story laboratory buildings form the north and south boundaries of the complex. Each shelters an inner row of angular semidetached office structures that face each other across a travertine courtyard. Bisecting it all is a channel of water that seems to pour into the Pacific below. The buildings, fashioned of concrete accented with teak, focus one’s gaze on the horizon so “you are one with the ocean,” observes admirer Jim Olson, a partner in the Seattle firm <a href="http://www.architecturaldigest.com/AD100/2012/olson-kundig-architects-ad100-profile">Olson Kundig Architects</a>.</p> </blockquote><p>By showing 12 architects photos of contemplative and non-contemplative buildings from facade to interior, the researchers were able to observe the brain activity that occurred as subjects "imagined they were transported to the places being shown."</p><p>All of the architects were white, right-handed men with no prior meditative training, creating the necessary (if comical) uniformity for neuroscientific research—the team wanted to ensure that the brain scans would not be influenced by factors unrelated to the photos, like gender, race, or handedness. For instance, the brain scans of left- and right-handed people often look different even when subjects are performing the same task.</p><p>In addition to posing an interesting control on the experiment, the decision to use architects was a strategic one meant to increase the researchers’ chances of achieving conclusive results. Though everyone encounters architecture, studies on the built environment struggle for funding because, as Bermudez remarked with a sigh, “it’s difficult to suggest that people are dying from it.” Architects were a natural choice for the pilot study because, the team reasoned, their critical training and experience would make them sensitive to features of the buildings that a lay person might overlook.</p><p>He conceded that the team "totally loaded the deck" by examining a horde of architects as they perused photos of the "most beautiful buildings mankind has ever produced.” Among others, the sites in the “contemplative” experimental group include <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=la%20alhambra%20interior&amp;revid=626419971&amp;imgdii=_">La Alhambra</a>, the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=Pantheon+&amp;imgdii=_">Pantheon</a>, the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=chartres+cathedral&amp;imgdii=_">Chartres Cathedral</a>, the Salk Institute, and the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=ronchamp+chapel+le+corbusier&amp;imgdii=_">Chapel of Ronchamp</a>. In response to a critic at the presentation he gave at the <a href="http://www.anfarch.org/">Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture</a> (ANFA) shortly after the study's conclusion, Bermudez explained that the goal of the pilot study is to reveal something interesting that warrants additional funding for an extension of the experiment using the general population. “It may be a limitation of the system,” Bermudez added, “but it’s what everyone has to do.”</p><p>The challenge began when the researchers set out to measure an experience few have paused to identify—they deployed online surveys in Spanish and English to gather testimony on extraordinary architectural experiences (EAEs), or encounters with places that fundamentally alter one’s normal state of being. Critically, most of the buildings or sites mentioned in the 2,982 testimonies were designed with contemplation in mind, whether spiritual, aesthetic, religious, or symbolic, leading the researchers to conclude that “buildings may induce insightful, profound, and transformative contemplative states, [and] buildings designed to provoke contemplation seem to be succeeding” to a great degree. In addition to churches, mosques, and other types of religious buildings, some art galleries, monuments, homes, and museums are examples of contemplative architecture—the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=guggenheim+bilbao&amp;imgdii=_">Guggenheim</a> in Bilbao, the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=la+alhambra&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=q7VPVNCBFJfIsASn9oD4BA&amp;ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667#tbm=isch&amp;q=louvre+museum&amp;imgdii=_">Louvre</a> in Paris, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22my+home%22+frank+lloyd+wright&amp;espv=2&amp;biw=1366&amp;bih=667&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=mblPVL_yGviTsQTCoIGQCQ&amp;ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&amp;q=%22my+home%22+frank+lloyd+wright+fallingwater">“My Home”</a> in Fallingwater were in the top 10 sites referenced in the surveys.</p><p>Anticipating skeptics who would claim that these experiences are subjective, the researchers expanded the question to draw on the established neuroscientific subfield of meditation, with some important differences. Related studies to date have focused on internally produced states that are easily replicated in the lab, and on aesthetic evaluation, or the activity that occurs in the orbital frontal cortex as we make snap judgments about whether we find things ugly or beautiful.</p><p>Bermudez and his team expected that architecturally-induced contemplative states would be strong, non-evaluative aesthetic experiences— eliciting more activity in areas associated with emotion and pleasure, but less activity in the orbital frontal cortex.</p><!-- START "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><aside class="callout-placeholder" data-source="curated"></aside><!-- END "MORE ON" SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 --><p>The presence of an external stimulus (the photos of the buildings) also removes the tedious self-regulation that occurs in the prefrontal cortex during traditional meditation. The interviews of the 12 subjects revealed that “peacefulness and relaxation, lessening of mind wandering, increasing of attention, and deepening of experience” were all common effects of viewing the photos—also common was a slight element of aesthetic judgment, seemingly inescapable in the crowd of critics.</p><p>The provisional conclusions of the study are that the brain behaves differently when exposed to contemplative and non-contemplative buildings, contemplative states elicited through “architectural aesthetics” are similar to the contemplation of traditional meditation in some ways, and different in other ways, and, finally, that “architectural design matters.”</p><p>That last conclusion sounds anticlimactic after all this talk of lobes and cortices, but it reinforces a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447976/">growing trend</a> in architecture and design as researchers are beginning to study how the built environment affects the people who live in it. ANFA proclaims that “some observers have characterized what is happening in neuroscience as the most exciting frontier of human discovery since the Renaissance.”</p><p>Other findings discussed at ANFA’s conference get even more into the gritty details: the optimal ceiling heights for different cognitive functions; the best city design for eliciting our natural exploratory tendencies and making way-finding easier; the ideal hospital layout to improve memory-related tasks in patients recovering from certain brain injuries; the influence of different types and quantities of light within a built space on mood and performance.  </p><p>I didn’t ask Bermudez what the fMRIs might reveal if his subjects were shown pictures of Lauinger Library, though. I suspect it wouldn’t be pretty.</p>Emily von Hoffmannhttp://www.theatlantic.com/author/emily-von-hoffmann/?utm_source=feedKatie Brady/FlickrSaint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowThe Brain on Architecture2014-11-10T09:10:00-05:002014-11-10T09:25:18-05:00Looking at buildings designed for purposes of contemplation&mdash;like museums, churches, and libraries&mdash;may have positive measurable effects on mental state.