What the Hollywood strike means for labor
  July 18, 2023 Hello hello, Meteor readers, As you may be acutely aware right now: We’re currently having the hottest summer of all time. In fact, yesterday was the hottest day the entire Northern Hemisphere has had in recorded history. (Mondays, am I right?)  In today’s newsletter, we’re looking at what the joint writer's/actor's strike means for the rest of us, as well as the largest oral history of activism from young girls. Cranking that fan, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONHot labor summer, cont.: The Writers Guild of America (WGA), representing more than 11,000 film and TV writers, has been on strike since May 2. And last Thursday, July 13, those writers were joined by the 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild (known as SAG-AFTRA). That’s right: Hollywood is looking at a double strike for the first time in 63 years. No Teds will be Lassoed and no Things will be Strangered—not until the networks are willing to negotiate with their workers (and not just kill trees to deny them shade). It could be easy to write off the actors’ strike as symbolic as actors are already mega-rich. But that is not so, hypothetical dissident! Michelle Hurd, vice president of SAG-AFTRA’s Los Angeles chapter, says that the number of SAG-AFTRA members who do not have consistent work has risen to 98 percent. “There’s a perception out there that everyone is doing great, that this career choice is lucrative for everyone, when that’s just not true,” Hurd told actor/writer Amber Tamblyn last weekend. “In reality, most SAG members are worried about making rent, let alone buying a home.” In order to make the rent between jobs, actors and writers rely on residuals, recurring payments based on a share of the profits earned by a particular TV show or movie—or at least, that’s how it works in theory. Historically, this led to even minor actors on major hit films and television shows receiving reasonable residuals for years after their projects had wrapped. But things look different in the streaming era. For example, Kimiko Glenn, who played Brook Soso in one of the first big streaming hits on Netflix, “Orange is the New Black,” shared one of her recent residual statements on TikTok; for all 44 episodes she appeared in, her residual compensation was $27.30. For comparison, Ben Haist, who appeared for two minutes as a background actor in 2011’s “Pitch Perfect,” shared that he still receives a residual check for $200-300 per quarter. In other words, the economics have become more challenging for workers in this industry. But that’s before the rise of AI, which threatens to make things worse: SAG-AFTRA Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland shared that during negotiations, the networks proposed “that background actors should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan...to be able to use it for the rest of eternity.” This would, presumably, include generating new scenes based on that character’s likeness—all for a paycheck of less than $200. All of this is just part of the reason these strikes matter to all of us, whether or not you’ve got anything to do with the entertainment industry. For one thing, the arts are a necessary part of a healthy and functioning society. (What would the pandemic have been without streaming TV?) But also, at a time when tensions around AI in the workplace are already rising, the writer’s/actor’s strike could be a watershed moment for all workers’ equity, one that lets employers know that employees deserve—and will demand—compensation for the labor that makes AI systems work. Studio executives have already claimed that their plan is to wait until union members “start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” If you’d like to keep that from happening, you can donate to the Entertainment Community Fund to keep striking workers afloat. Let’s hear it for the girls: An important report just dropped from UN Women at the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda—and the findings are jarring. Of the 114 countries surveyed, researchers found that not one had achieved true gender parity. What’s worse: Less than 1 percent of women and girls around the world live in a country with high women’s empowerment or a reduced gender gap—and on average, women only reach 60% of their potential in crucial categories like health, education, decision-making, and freedom from violence. (So maybe we can drop the idea that the fight for gender equality has gone too far, hm?)  If you need a shot of hope after reading this, you might consider looking at the next generation of girls, who are increasingly vocal and visible right now—as you know if you spotted a picture of Greta Thunberg flipping off members of the European Parliament in your Instagram feed last weekend. Now this powerful and passionate demographic have a history book of their own: The largest-ever oral history of girls’ activism comes out this week, and it was feted Sunday by Malala in Kigali, Rwanda. Stories of Girls’ Resistance chronicles 150 activists from 90 countries—from Mamta in Fiji, who resisted arranged marriage (“stop marrying me off!” she exclaims), to Naomi in Kenya, who joined a strike on behalf of political prisoners when she was 17. The book is timely: “At a moment when we are seeing rising authoritarianism and attacks on human rights across the world,” co-author Jody Myrum and creative strategist Laura Vergara told the Meteor, “we need to invest in [girls’] resistance more than ever—both because girls’ rights are deeply under attack and because they hold the vision, strategies, and tactics to lead us to our collective liberation.” And—like Mattie Kahn, whose new book Young and Restless warns of the dangers of glamorizing young female leaders as singular figures without supporting them more meaningfully—the oral history sends a message that celebrating girls’ heroism isn’t enough. “Girls do not need any more ‘fame,’ ” said Myrum and Vergara, “but rather clear accountability and support for their work…They need to be meaningfully funded rather than treated as beneficiaries. Specifically for funders – it is time to take girls’ resistance seriously. Move significant resources directly to girls, not thousands but billions.” AND:
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A historic day for the pill
  July 13, 2023 Hello again, Meteor readers, We are officially less than ten days away from the Barbie movie opening, and I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked. My boyfriend and I got matching outfits for the premiere, and today’s newsletter will actually be a 50,000-word essay unpacking the feminist significance of everyone’s favorite plastic doll.  Kidding! Today’s newsletter actually features a monumental step forward for reproductive rights, studio executives exhibiting “Christmas Carol” levels of villainy, trans people winning (what else is new?), and Justice Clarence Thomas’ latest ethics issues. Trying on every shade of pink I can find, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONA huge birth-control victory: For the first time ever, the FDA has approved a birth control pill for all-ages use without a prescription. Opill, a progestin-only pill to be taken once daily, is set to be available for over-the-counter purchase by early 2024, according to Perrigo, the pill’s manufacturer.  How did this feel for contraceptive experts? “Like Christmas!” said Dr. Heather Irobunda, an OB-GYN and one of the founders of Obstetricians for Reproductive Justice. “I’m very happy this happened. It’s an important step in destigmatizing reproductive health meds.” And it’s hardly a radical step: Birth control pills are already sold over-the-counter in over 100 other countries. But this victory serves as a powerful message that birth control is safe and popular—at a time when conservatives are beginning to target contraception, both culturally and politically. As the director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, pointed out, Opill is “safe and is expected to be more effective than currently available nonprescription contraceptive methods.” This decision does, however, raise questions we don’t yet have answers to:
And putting the pill—varieties of which have been safely used for five decades—on store shelves makes sense, says Dr. Irobunda. Keeping it prescription-only, she notes, signaled that “they didn’t trust us to know how to take it. This is a safe drug and can be easily managed, but ‘behind the counter’ made it something that we needed to consult with someone ‘who knows our bodies better’” in order to take. But as reproductive rights advocates have been saying this whole time, who knows our bodies better than us? AND:
 WEEKEND READSOn abortion rights: Last election cycle, all six states with abortion on the ballot scored a win for abortion access. This cycle’s game plan: Do it again, but even better. On (un)fair pay: “Orange is the New Black” was huge for Netflix—so why wasn’t it huge for all the people who worked on it? On positive masculinity: Toxic male gender roles can be like quicksand for young men. But there’s a way out. On “doing the work”: The Meteor’s Samhita Mukhopadhyay explores how social justice organizations can be as active in supporting their staffs as they are in supporting their causes.  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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The cops are sliding into your DMs
  July 11, 2023 High vibrations, Meteor readers, It’s 7/11! All my numerology girlies just nodded while the rest of you are wondering why I feel the need to state the date. But ~mystically speaking~ when those two numbers appear together, they become a powerful and affirming “angel number,” which numerologists say can serve as a reminder to move forward within your intuition and a sign that the universe is open to providing you with new opportunities.  Meanwhile, here on earth: we’ve got a troubling update on a Nebraska abortion case, an AI lawsuit, and a fond almost-farewell to Megan Rapinoe. Reading the stars, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONPrivacy: Last week, a mother in Nebraska pled guilty to helping her daughter obtain an illegal abortion and discard the fetus after it was expelled. Now Jessica Burgess and her daughter Celeste, 18, are both looking at jail time for their actions. You may remember Jessica and Celeste’s case from last August, shortly after the overturn of Roe v Wade, when charges were first filed against them. What made the case unique was not simply the fact that two women were going to be tried for acquiring and using abortion pills in a state where it was newly illegal—but also the questions the case raised about data privacy. A refresher: After Celeste found out she was pregnant, she and her mother communicated via Facebook messages and came up with a plan to end the pregnancy and discard the fetus so as not to leave behind any evidence. Because Celeste was already 20 weeks pregnant and Nebraska bans abortion after 12 weeks gestation, the two knew they could not go to a medical provider to do any of this—hence the secrecy. They thought the messages they shared about the ordeal were private. But Facebook’s parent company, Meta, turned over their correspondence to the police after being served with a search warrant (pertaining to a different investigation)—and the police had what they needed to charge the mother and daughter. The case was among the first to highlight just how vulnerable abortion seekers, many of whom rely heavily on online searches for care, had become in the immediate aftermath of Dobbs. As Shamira Ibrahim wrote for The Meteor last year, apps that use location data and cookie tracking “help law enforcement investigate and prosecute abortion-seekers and their respective networks of support.” That’s exactly what happened in the Nebraska case. Now the women face up to two years in prison, and a man who helped them bury the fetus was also charged and given probation. If you or someone you know lives in an abortion-ban state and needs care, Ibrahim suggests visiting the Digital Defense Fund, which provides steps for protecting your abortion-related data privacy—from Facebook, the phone company, and anyone else you don’t want to know your business. AND:
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Are legacy admissions inherently racist?
  July 6, 2023 G’day mates, It’s been a busy few days this week. First off, Wimbledon is underway. I’m trying to turn my infant into a tennis prodigy by osmosis, so we’re really getting into these matches together. Once it’s over, we’ll be hitting the court to see what she’s learned.  Also having a busy week: Mark Zuckerburg, who launched his latest offensive in the battle of the billionaires in the form of a new social media platform called Threads. Elon clapped back by threatening a lawsuit. Keeping all of the social media managers I know in my prayers tonight. If you’re one of the 10 million people who signed up for Threads in its first hours of life, give us a follow! In today’s newsletter, we’re chatting about college admissions, the attack on Jenin, and checking in on Greta Thunberg. Working on my forehand, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONOut of your (Ivy) league: The Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate affirmative action in college admissions is only seven days old. But Harvard, one of the schools at the center of the decision, won’t be getting any breathing room. On Monday, three civil rights groups came together to file a complaint with the Department of Education (DOE) against the school, challenging its use of legacy and donor-based admissions. The groups are arguing that these practices are in direct violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and “are not justified by any educational necessity.” Quick refresher on what legacy admissions are: If Biff Moneysworth graduated from Harvard in 1999, then that means Biff Jr. will get special consideration when his application hits the admissions desk. Because Jr. is more likely to get in, that means one less spot for someone like Joanna, a first-generation applicant who has the grades but not the family connections. Considering that people of color weren’t allowed to even apply to Harvard (let alone any other Ivy league school) until after World War II, who is most likely to benefit from the maintenance of legacy admissions?  Harvard’s response to the SCOTUS decision and this latest complaint leaves much to be desired: “The University will determine how to preserve our essential values, consistent with the Court’s new precedent.” Yes girl, give us nothing. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that people of color will never get into Harvard, but the barriers just got a lot higher. And while affirmative action was an imperfect Band-Aid to the institutional racism that spawned legacy admissions, it was something. The groups behind the complaint are asking the DOE to investigate Harvard’s use of legacy admissions and decide whether or not it violates Title VI. They’re also asking the DOE to cut federal funding to Harvard unless the school removes legacy and donor considerations from the admissions process. If successful, this could once again change the landscape of college admissions—or at least force the courts to treat all forms of “preference” equally. But in such a secretive and subjective process, racism will always find a way through. As Dr. Anne A. Cheng told us last week, “The problem with college admissions is that it is itself such a vague process; it takes into consideration many factors, and every factor itself has the potential to hold racial and gender bias.” AND:
 WEEKEND READSOn immigration: How Trauma Migrates tells the story of migrant women’s journeys across America’s southern border and the untreated trauma that lingers once they make it. On SCOTUS: Did the Robed Ones quietly legalize stalking? Sort of. On sports: The iconic Venus Williams was defeated in the first round of Wimbledon this week, but her legacy reaches beyond even her 11 previous title wins. On parenthood: Diaper legislation? It’s a thing. And with the loss of abortion access, the once invisible problem of “diaper need” is more glaring than ever.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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Moms Can Do Anything…Even Shape an Election
By Dr. Gillian Frank
“MOMS AREN’T EXTREMISTS & THEY KNOW WHAT’S BEST FOR THEIR KIDS”
This headline appeared on Fox News’ chyron on June 7 beneath Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and current presidential candidate. It punctuated her defense (and praise) of the far-right group Moms for Liberty, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center recently classified as a hate group. But Haley isn’t the only one signing up to be a “joyful warrior”; conservative politicians are lining up to court the group’s endorsement, which, if gained, can go a long way to securing a victory in 2024.
Why are conservatives glomming onto a fringe group of so-called concerned parents? Over the past two-and-a-half years, Moms for Liberty has established branches across the United States and become a powerbroker in local and statewide elections. And the group’s ascent has been fueled, in part, because it has revitalized decades-old conservative rhetoric of “mother knows best,” “family values,” and “parental rights.” That language has helped MFL become the chosen vehicle for conservatives to express anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-statist ideas and policies.
A little backstory: The founders of Moms for Liberty are three Floridian women with deep ties to the state’s Republican Party. They organized the group in 2021 to oppose masking requirements and other COVID remediation measures. Their slogan “We Do Not Co-Parent With the Government” quickly caught on in far-right circles, and MFL’s leaders became fixtures on right-wing media platforms, their organization swiftly growing across dozens of states.
After Florida’s governor prohibited vaccination and masking requirements in public schools in mid-2021, MFL no longer had their initial cause to cleave to and became a solution in search of a problem. The group remained focused on classrooms but trained its sights on long-standing conservative targets like textbooks, library books, and classroom curricula; anything that, in their words, promoted “woke indoctrination.” Right-wing media outlets with national audiences continued to showcase and validate these efforts, prompting local and national politicians to attend their fundraiser events and conservative donors to support them financially. Together right-wing media, politicians, and funders helped the group rapidly grow its membership, cultivate and endorse candidates, and spread its message even further.
The core of that message involves policing gender, racial, and sexual diversity, putting the group in lockstep with the priorities of the Republican Party. Trans youth hold an outsized place in MFL’s imagination. And in the name of “protecting” kids from trans folks and what they call “Gender Critical Theory,” they have successfully undertaken drives to fire teachers, censor books, and restrict what can be taught in the classroom.
But these maternalist campaigns are far from new. Since the 20th century, as historian Michelle Nickerson notes, conservative mothers have “put themselves forward as representatives of local interests who battled bureaucrats for the sake of family, community, and God.” Such conservative mothers’ groups, Nickerson explains, launched “local crusades” and often “successfully overpowered school administrators, boards of education, and teachers…by anointing themselves spokespeople…” Crack open the annals of conservative activism and you can find self-identified mothers battling sex education, school integration, communism, the ERA, and numerous other issues.
But, of course, MFL’s simultaneous opposition to “critical race theory” and “gender critical theory” has local roots in Florida. And the electoral vote-rich state, which has historically been the centerpiece of presidential campaigns, has in turn shaped national politics.
Since the 1950s, conservative opposition to LGBTQ rights in Florida has been intertwined with its opposition to African American rights. And the language used to oppose both the full inclusion of African Americans and LGBTQ folks was (and remains) protecting (white) children and (white) “parents’ rights.” In 1956, two years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, and against the backdrop of massive resistance to integration, the Florida Legislative Investigative Committee, known as the Johns Committee, worked to neutralize African American civil rights organizations and the ongoing attempts to integrate Florida’s schools. When lawsuits stopped these racist pursuits, the committee shifted gears to investigate lesbian and gay teachers in Florida’s schools. Cheering on the Johns Committee’s efforts were White Citizens Councils and women’s groups like the Women’s Republican Club of St. Petersburg.
Using language that presaged MFL’s accusations of “grooming” and “indoctrination,” the Johns Committee argued that homosexual teachers were especially dangerous to schoolchildren because of a “desire to recruit them” and went even further by claiming “homosexuals are made by training rather than born.”
As the Johns Committee hounded civil rights leaders in the 1950s and terrorized teachers suspected of being gay or lesbian in the 1960s, reactionary Floridians continued to support statewide and local Citizens Councils. One of the first statewide efforts (which MFL members have since mirrored) was a 1957 attempt to purge progressive books from school libraries across the state, including a book containing the work of African American artists. In an effort to force the Florida Congress of Parents and Teachers to adopt a segregation resolution, Citizens Councils also targeted local PTAs with letter-writing campaigns, in which they alleged “a lot of teachers in the state are brainwashing the children and are teaching that white and Negro students should mix socially. A check should be made on all teachers through the state and anyone found guilty should be fired immediately.” Parents’ rights and white supremacy became interchangeable terms in the conservative lexicon, with the former becoming code for the latter.
History is not quite repeating itself, but it certainly is rhyming. There are numerous MFL-led or inspired efforts underway: In South Carolina, MFL school board members fired one district’s first Black superintendent and are seeking to ban books from libraries that teach “critical race theory.” In Tennessee, MFL members are seeking to remove children’s books about Martin Luther King Jr., Ruby Bridges, and Sylvia Mendez. In one Pennsylvania county, MFL-backed school board members have implemented policies that have, among other things, barred rainbow pride flags. With 275 MFL-endorsed candidates now holding office, the list goes on. In yoking together racial anxieties and sexualized fears, Moms for Liberty has taken the greatest hits out of the far-right playbook and reinvigorated them.
In the 1930s, James Waterman Wise famously warned that American fascism would be “wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution.” Wise was partially right. These anti-democratic impulses also come wrapped in images of family and as pleas to save “our” children. Indeed, MFL’s well-tested strategy of protecting “our” children from external dangers reinforces the notion that LGBTQ and African American youth are not “us,” and that they and their stories do not belong in “our” spaces. Even more pernicious, the language of maternalism and child protection seeks to obscure the anti-democratic political machinery at play—to make the work look homey and grassroots.
When presented with the image of a mother acting in the “best interest” of children, we are meant to not ask important questions like: Whose mother are you? Whose liberty do you stand for? Are all children being protected by your efforts? With the 2024 elections looming, these are some of the questions that we’ll need to keep asking over, and over, and over.
SCOTUS v. Affirmative Action
 June 29, 2023 Greetings, Meteor readers, It’s an unfortunate day for higher education. This morning, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that will effectively end affirmative action in the college admissions process, rolling back what Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissenting, called “decades of…momentous progress” and presenting yet another barrier for students of color. As a Latina from one of the poorest counties in the state of New York, the process of getting into college was grueling—years of Latin to help me perform better on the SAT, endless extracurriculars, the pressure to get high grades, the money my mother shelled out for an exorbitant prep-school tuition bill. All based on the understanding that I would only succeed if I was extraordinary. Only to finally make it and get called a “spic” by a stranger who wrote it on my dorm room door. It’s laughable that affirmative action was seen as preferential treatment when, for many of us, it was simply a way to gain access to a historically white institution and then spend four years proving you earned your way in. In today’s newsletter, Samhita Mukhopadhyay talks to Princeton University professor Dr. Anne A. Cheng about the ways students of color have been pitted against one another in this debate. Thinking of all the multicultural student unions today, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON
 SCOTUSCutting Race-Based Admissions Will Not Help Asian American Students“Why do we assume that if you keep down the number of Asian Americans, you'll get more African Americans?” BY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY  (IMAGE BY BILL CLARK VIA GETTY IMAGES) Today, the Supreme Court struck down the practice of affirmative action in college admissions. In two cases—one against Harvard and another against the University of North Carolina—the plaintiffs argued that considering race in the admissions process was a discriminatory practice, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The decision has been looming for months, but its implications are yet to be seen. That’s partly because the cases themselves are complicated, bringing to the surface core tensions in affirmative action—who it includes, who it leaves out, and why we ultimately need it. I spoke to Dr. Anne A. Cheng—a scholar of Asian American and African American literature and cultural theory at Princeton University—about all of it. Samhita Mukhopadhyay: What were your thoughts when you first heard the Supreme Court would be looking at race-based admissions in colleges? Dr. Anne A. Cheng: It is very complicated. Affirmative action is an imperfect and yet still necessary solution to a very broken social system in America. I am stunned by how persistent the debate is around affirmative action. I remember a long time ago, when I was a graduate student at Stanford, I was stopped on campus by someone wanting to take a photo of me because they wanted it to go with an article about some scandal about Asian American admission at Stanford and other elite institutions. That was several decades ago, and it's like we are still there. The thing that I've been trying to parse out in understanding the implications of this case are narratives like the myth of the model minority and how often immigrant communities are pitted against the African American community. Some of the plaintiffs in this case are Asian American students who believe that Black and Latine students were picked above them. Do you think there is validity to that anxiety? There are two different anxieties that I always see around this issue. One is Asian Americans feel like…there's a quota on them. [The Harvard case argued that Asians were discriminated against because race-conscious admissions led to Asian applicants scoring lower marks on traits like likeability, whereas the UNC case argued that Asian and white students were denied admission, their spots taken by Black and Latine students]. But there is [an] anxiety about Asian Americans overrunning American universities. And so, you're right...Somehow, affirmative action—at least race-based affirmative action—always seems to imply that it can only benefit African Americans, not also Asian Americans. College admissions, as you can probably guess, is an extremely closely guarded practice, and faculty are kept far out of it. We know nothing about undergraduate admission. The admission office [doesn’t] ask us for counsel. They don't ask for opinions. They don't even tell us anything. Would I be surprised to find out that there is a quota? No, I would not be surprised. It’s such a complicated process. Even if you say something like, ‘We're not looking at race at all, we're looking at a well-rounded individual.’ Well, what constitutes well-roundedness, right? Some Asian American or Asian students might say if you are an applicant and you are Asian American and, let's say, you are interested in science—you are immediately pegged as this nerd that's not well-rounded. There are all these stereotypes at play. And so I think that part of the problem with college admissions is that it is itself such a vague process; it takes into consideration many factors, and every factor itself has the potential to hold racial and gender bias.  BLACK AND ASIAN STUDENTS PROTESTING ON DIFFERING SIDES OF THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION DEBATE JUST THIS MORNING. (IMAGE VIA ANNA MONEYMAKER VIA GETTY IMAGES) I think that's why this case is so complicated. One of the things the plaintiff is arguing is that Asian American students were more likely to be ranked as not being well-rounded or having lower marks in personality or certain softer skills, which is a type of implicit bias. Yes, it's a very, very, very stubborn and old bias. There's a psychology study done by a psychologist called Susan Fiske. It's called a warm competency test, where she interviewed a bunch of people about their perceptions of Asians and Asian Americans in America along two vectors. One is, are they warm or are they cold? Like: likability. The other question is, are they competent? As you can exactly guess the answer, most people—that is to say, most non-Asian people—found Asians to be competent but unlikeable. This unspoken, unconscious bias is not just Asian Americans, but African Americans and Latinos, too. When you talk about a well-rounded person, we're also talking about, in many cases, the question of class. If you're from a middle-class family, then yes, you had the opportunity to take cello lessons and play soccer and do whatever. But if you come from a lower-income household, there's much less opportunity for you to be a tennis player and a chess player. That kind of well-roundedness has a class dimension. How do I say this? From my reading, there may be validity to the idea that Asian American students applying to Ivy League schools experience some kind of discrimination. But the solution is not to strike down affirmative action—it could also be to expand affirmative action implementation so as also to include Asian Americans. Because ostensibly, it's supposed to, right? Well, there's been a lot of debate about that. I think that [sometimes] affirmative action does not include Asian Americans because they're not considered minorities in certain places. The other thing that's sort of very vexing is that there's a sense often that the so-called “too many Asian Americans” [are] taking spots away from other racial minorities, rather than the fact that they're taking spots away from whites! Why do we assume that if you keep down the number of Asian Americans, you'll get more African Americans? It's weird. Right. I mean, that's why it's a red herring. It's not real. It's a total red herring. All it does is, I think, drive the wedge between Asian Americans and other racialized minorities. It doesn't actually acknowledge that when it comes to elite institutions, I think the anxiety should be much less about how many Asians there are and much more about how they are treated once they are here. That’s true for African American students and Latine students, too—admissions is only one part of this. Yeah, absolutely. It's not just about letting them in. It's about creating a culture in which they can thrive. What do you think is the best strategy for universities to retain the most diverse talent they can? I wish that institutions would think about diversity as a genuine intellectual project and not as a numbers game. Because if they thought it was a genuine intellectual project... The number games mean that you try to get the numbers up so you look like you are an anti-racist institution. But if you're serious about it, it means not only making sure diverse people get in, but also that you are ready to foster these diverse people. You're ready to meet them where they are and then nourish them and help them grow. Do you feel anxious about the outcome of this case? I do…Young people, what they really need is a chance, an opportunity. That's what affirmative action does: give an opportunity to someone who may not otherwise get it.
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The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Has Gone Into Effect
  June 27, 2023 Greetings, Meteor readers, I come to you once again bound up in a moral conundrum. As I’m sure you’re all aware, Taylor Swift will be re-releasing Speak Now and has been singing the album’s most iconic song at her concerts—“Dear John,” the one she allegedly wrote about her relationship with John Mayer. But now that we are on the precipice of this song charting again, Taylor has made an impossible ask of her fans: to stop bullying her ex-boyfriends online. “I am not putting this album out so that you can go and…defend me on the internet against someone you think I might have written a song about 14 million years ago,” she said to a stadium full of fans this week. Basically, she doesn’t want the Swifties to repeat the saga of Jake Gyllenhaal who was raked over the internet coals when she re-released “All Too Well.” That’s cute and all. but how can she make this ask of me when talking shit about men online was essentially how my career got started? It’s like telling a bird not to fly.  In today’s newsletter, we’ve got the pros and cons of a new labor law, plus another reason Canada might be a nice place to live. Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONBaby steps: After 10 years of hard work by advocates, today the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) went into effect. The biggest success of this act is that it requires employers to grant time off for employees to recover from childbirth or to access abortion care; however, that time is unpaid. The new law also requires “covered employers” to provide “reasonable” accommodations for pregnant and postpartum workers as long as doing so doesn’t bring “undue hardship” on the employer. As a naturally mistrusting person, I have questions. Let’s dig into the deets. First, what are covered employers? According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), they are any “private and public sector employers with at least 15 employees, Congress, Federal agencies, employment agencies, and labor organizations.” This covers a huge swath of workplaces—but it’s worth knowing that if you work at a small startup or do contract work, you’ll have to rely on your state’s labor laws or Title VII to maybe get an accommodation. (Part-time workers, though, are covered under the PWFA.) And then there’s this little wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing of a phrase: “undue hardship.” Under the PWFA and EEOC regulations workers can request “accommodations” ranging from a longer break time to a better parking spot. For example, if this law had been in effect in 2022 when I was pregnant, I would have had the legal standing to ask The Meteor for a better desk chair to accommodate my work of sitting and typing these newsletters you love. But The Meteor could have claimed that providing that chair was an “undue hardship”—in which case I’d file a complaint with the EEOC, but my kid would be a toddler by the time I got my chair. And that’s what’s at the root of my concern here: The law is predicated on employers operating in good faith with pregnant and postpartum workers. Historically, that just isn’t what happens; while most workplace accommodations are inexpensive and easy to implement, employers in the very recent past have denied simple things like water bottles and extended breaks simply because they hold all the cards. Granted, this law is a huge step forward in protecting pregnant workers’ rights. But perhaps it’s less of a destination and more of a starting point to do even more for pregnant and postpartum workers. AND: 
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The numbers paint a devastating picture of life after Roe
  June 24, 2023 Dearest readers, Today officially marks 365 days since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. We’ve spent this week sharing stories and conversations about the consequences of that decision, but, as they say, “the numbers never lie.” So for today’s newsletter, we turn to the numbers. The first one's a big one: 25,640. That’s how many fewer abortions the Society of Family Planning says there were across the country in the nine-month period after the Dobbs decision compared to the nine months before. That’s an especially stark drop considering that it goes against what had been a multi-year trend: The number of abortions in the U.S. had been increasing since 2017. On its face, “25,000 fewer abortions” may sound like a positive statistic (or so the anti-abortion clique has trained us to think). But in reality, it means that over these last few months, roughly 25,000 people who needed a medical procedure were essentially told they couldn’t make that choice for themselves. It’s the same as if 25,000 people were denied a cancer screening because an unclear law made it impossible to obtain in their state. The greatest drops happened, unsurprisingly, in states with total abortion bans, where there were “65,920 fewer clinician-provided abortions than would have been expected,” the report found. This shocking decrease doesn’t mean people aren’t getting abortions, though; many traveled to other states, exhausting their personal resources to obtain care.  A WOMAN CRIES AT A VIGIL OUTSIDE THE SUPREME COURT DAYS AFTER THE DOBBS DECISION (PHOTO BY BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES) And it isn’t just patients who’ve seen an upending of their lives since the Dobbs decision; many providers have had to close their doors. A New York Times report found that of the 61 clinics tracked by their reporters over the last year, 28 closed permanently. The building which once housed the clinic at the center of the Dobbs case, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is now a luxury consignment shop. And here’s a final figure for you: 229%—the increase in abortion providers being stalked in the months after Roe fell, according to the National Abortion Federation. Two. Hundred. Twenty. Nine! In any other line of work, such a drastic number would incur national outrage, and yet we’ve seen little done to protect providers. They’ve even become targets for harassment from their own governments—consider Dr. Caitlin Bernard, who was fined by the Indiana medical board after providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim who had traveled there from Ohio. There will be other numbers to track as the ripple effects of Dobbs become clear in the years to come. After all, a growing population exacerbates climate change. More children being born into poor or low-resource communities creates a greater need for government-funded safety nets—something conservatives aren’t willing to allocate funds to. When birthing people do not have basic human rights, every aspect of societal infrastructure suffers. And if everything you’ve read this week makes you feel hopeless, we’d urge you to think about one more number: 61%. That’s the percentage of Americans who support access to abortion. As Jessica Valenti reminded us on Tuesday, “We probably will win this, eventually. But in the meantime, a lot of people are going to be hurt.”  PROTESTORS GATHER EN MASSE IN DENVER, COLORADO THE DAY THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED ROE (PHOTO BY MICHAEL CIAGLO/GETTY IMAGES) While that may be a hard reality to face, it’s a common one in American history. We think of the work of people like Jose Jimenez and Denise Oliver— members of The Young Lords Party who fought for healthcare access for women and impoverished people in the 60s and 70s—and their victories reassure us that we will have our own. It’s just a matter of time. We keep fighting, The Meteor team  More reading on this Roe anniversary: My Pregnancy vs. The State of Texas: Amanda Zurawski’s story of developing sepsis after being denied abortion care It All Started in Pensacola: How the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn set off 30 years of anti-abortion violence "Your worst case scenario is something we would kill for": Reproductive rights advocate Robin Marty on what states with abortion bans really need I Asked 61 Colleges if They Would Pay for Students to Travel for an Abortion. Only Five Hinted That They Might.: A soon-to-be college freshman surveys colleges across the country to find out which institutions would support their students in a post-Dobbs world What’s Next for the Abortion Pill?: A look into the right’s attempt to ban mifepristone—why they did it and what’s next An OB-GYN Meets with a Midwife: Dr. Heather Irobunda discusses reproductive care with Texas midwife Nikki McIver-Brown The First Week Without Roe: Dahlia Lithwick’s analysis of Dobbs is as relevant now as this time last year  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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A "Tidal Wave" of Southern Abortion Seekers
  June 23, 2023 Wonderful Meteor readers, Would it shock you to learn that Florida—land of Mickey Mouse and Ron DeSantis's war on everyone who isn't white or wealthy—has also become an unlikely abortion destination for pregnant people in the Deep South? It certainly shocked me. In today's newsletter, journalist Stassa Edwards writes about the women behind the abortion funds that have been aiding a “tidal wave” of patients who have been deeply affected by trigger-ban laws. On a more personal note, if you or someone you know is living in a trigger-ban state and needs an abortion I urge you to reach out to your local abortion fund. As you'll read in the following report, abortion funds can help you or your loved one find safe travel, accommodation, and access to proper medical care no matter where it may be. These resources can save a life. With love, Shannon Melero  A YEAR WITHOUT ROEThe Women on The Frontlines of Abortion Care in the Deep SouthWith Florida’s six-week abortion ban looming, advocates stay steadfast in their commitment to providing care. BY STASSA EDWARDS  A WOMEN'S HEALTHCARE CLINIC IN NORTH MIAMI BEACH. (PHOTO BY JOSH RITCHIE VIA GETTY IMAGES) When the Dobbs v. Jackson decision dropped one year ago tomorrow, it had immediate impact on the lives of millions of people—particularly those in the South, where trigger laws swiftly went into effect in Kentucky and Louisiana, then Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi, abortion is now banned with few exceptions. And with that, patients found themselves turning to an unlikely place: Florida. In comparison to its Deep South counterparts, Florida currently has fewer hurdles to accessing care. As of publication, the state prohibits abortion after 15 weeks, a law that Governor Ron DeSantis signed in 2022; it also requires a 24-hour waiting period, thanks to a law that went into effect in 2022 after a seven year legal battle, as well as a parental notification and consent law for minors. But despite those restrictions, abortion numbers in Florida have increased over the last year. Jessica Wannemacher, the health center manager at Jacksonville Planned Parenthood of South, East, and North Florida, said that her clinic has seen an increase in patients traveling from Georgia; she calls them “fearful” and “desperate.” But her ability to welcome those patients may soon change. In April 2023, in an effort to double down on his anti-choice bonafides ahead of a presidential run, DeSantis signed a six-week ban into law. That ban is still working its way through the courts, but Florida's conservative Supreme Court is expected to uphold it. And that would be disastrous for residents in the Deep South.  THE FLORIDIAN RESPONSE TO DESANTIS'S PRESIDENTIAL RUN. (PHOTO BY JASON KOERNER VIA GETTY IMAGES) Ever since Dobbs, providers and funds in Florida have been serving what Wannemacher calls a “tidal wave” of abortion seekers from across the South. “Our numbers doubled and tripled,” she adds. Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida health centers saw their patient numbers quadruple. That follows the national trend: Planned Parenthood centers in states where abortion is still accessible have seen a nearly 700% increase in out-of-state patients. The influx of abortion seekers into a state already underserved has put an immense amount of financial pressure on abortion funds, which provide things like childcare, legal services, hotels, and transportation to a rapidly increasing number of patients. “What we do has not changed, but the intensity and volume has changed,” says McKenna Kelly, a board member at the Tampa Bay Abortion Fund. The Tampa Bay Abortion Fund has already provided money to 1,300 people in 2023; in comparison: the fund aided 1,100 people in all of 2022. “We went from having no one coming into [Tampa Bay] to a few dozen a month,” Kelly said. Immediately after the Dobbs decision, Kelly says the fund saw an increase in donations, including a portion of the $2 million raised by activist Olivia Julianna’s followers which allowed them to support the growing need. And while the fund has seen “bumps here and there,” especially after major news events, donations have steadily tapered off in the year after Dobbs, even as the need has increased. Jessica Hatem of the Emergency Medical Assistant Abortion Fund (EMA) in Palm Beach County echoes Kelly. EMA has also seen demand and costs increase, and there is “definitely desperation,” Hatem says of the people who reach out. “In the beginning there was a lot of shock,” she says. “If we weren’t here to fill these gaps, it would be so much harder for these individuals.” Florida abortion funds like Tampa Bay and EMA have been working hard to get patients from out of state in—but they’ve also been working to get pregnant people who are past the 15-week mark out of Florida. And on that front, they’ve seen their options narrowing as more and more states pass increasingly punitive restrictions. Hatem said that EMA had been sending patients to North Carolina, but in May, that state’s Republican assembly overrode the governor’s veto and banned abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. (The law will go into effect July 1, 2023.) Even before that new legislation, North Carolina clinics had wait times of up to 10 days, so EMA had been sending patients to Washington, DC, New York, and Baltimore, where hotel rooms are significantly more expensive. (Hatem points out that she always books non-stop flights because many of the people EMA helps have never been on an airplane.) “The six-week ban will be devastating,” Kelly says. At EMA, Hatem says, the fund will begin to prioritize Floridians who need to leave the state and no longer be able to aid out-of-state abortion seekers. “We will still be helping people leave the state,” she says. And “that’s going to be a huge amount of people.” Despite the barriers, though, the women who spoke to The Meteor are hopeful and resilient, even in an increasingly hostile political environment. They plan to build bridges with providers and funds in other states; Planned Parenthood is quickly working to expand its patient navigation program, which helps coordinate care, including financial assistance. Hatem and Kelly said that they are both working with other funds and independent clinics in states where abortion is protected. And they plan to keep showing “true solidarity,” Hatem says. Her group, EMA, has a legacy of that: It was founded by Harriette Glasner, a Palm Beach resident who, as a young woman in the 1950s, survived an illegal abortion without anesthetic. The experience turned her into a crusader of sorts and she became a one-woman abortion fund, buying plane tickets for Florida abortion seekers long before Roe went into effect. “We are going to come out of this one way or the other,” Hatem says. “This is not where we’re landing. That’s what keeps me hopeful.” Stassa Edwards is a writer and editor. Her bylines have appeared in Jezebel, Slate, Self, Aeon, and Lapham’s Quarterly.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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Brittany Packnett Cunningham Talks to Vice President Kamala Harris After a Year Without Roe
  June 21, 2023 Good morning, friends! Coming to you with something big today, so let’s get straight to it. Kamala Harris’s vice presidency was always going to be historic—she is, of course, this country’s first Black, first AAPI, and first female vice president. But a year ago this week, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the administration she represents was also faced with history of a different kind: millions of its citizens stripped of their bodily freedom after an unprecedented Supreme Court decision. How has she responded? What does she plan to do next? And, in the words of podcast host Brittany Packnett Cunningham, “Are you mad? Because I'm mad, so I know you gotta be mad!” To find out, Brittany sat down with the Vice President last week. Their conversation comes to you today as a special episode of UNDISTRACTED (listen here); in it, they talk about everything from the urgency of this moment to the advice Shyamala Gopalan Harris would have for her daughter now. Here, Brittany tells us all about their sit-down. 
First things first—why did you want to talk to the Vice President for this particular anniversary? Brittany Packnett Cunningham: We’ve been intentional at UNDISTRACTED to speak to people from all angles on this issue—people who’ve had abortions, organizers, folks who defend the clinics…I wanted to talk to a person who has more power than most to do something about this. And to have a woman in the VP role—I thought it was especially important to hear from her. I’ve known the VP for a long time…when she was in the Senate, she would call to hear my POV on issues of policing, of race, of gender…I’ve been very candid with her. What I heard in our conversation in the podcast is similar to what I’ve heard in private conversations with her: a lot of justified concern, and frustration, and a very clear fight. Yeah, there’s a moment when you say to her, I feel like I’m seeing that Senate Judiciary Committee fire from you. You’re talking about the questions she asked in the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Why was that on your mind? I remember her bringing such a real clear-eyed drive to get at the truth in those hearings. That energy is what people saw from her even before she became the VP nominee, and it’s something that even people who don’t agree with her politically appreciate about her. I wanted to see how she was bringing that fire to this fight. Of course, everybody does not like the way fight and fire look on Black and Asian women—and the stereotype that goes along with that, especially for Black women, can be undermining to the work that she’s trying to do and the people she has to persuade to do it. She spoke to having to navigate that, and it was revealing to see behind the curtain a bit. There’s a science to it that she’s had to figure out that no one else has had to in that job. So how do you measure up what the administration is actually doing on abortion? The Vice President was pretty honest that the Women’s Health Protection Act is not going to pass this session. Listen, especially knowing the history that Joe Biden has of wanting to work in a bipartisan manner, I’m realistic about how far he is willing to go. But on a number of issues the filibuster is going to continue to be a thorn in the side of the American people, and there is no way forward unless we get rid of it. I don’t get the sense that [President] Biden is willing to upset his Republican colleagues in order to do that—even though they would not give him the same consideration. So, while we work long-term to get a filibuster-proof congressional majority, we still have to push him on the filibuster and court reform. What else would you like to see the administration doing on this issue, especially as we head into 2024? They should be following the Vice President’s and organizers’ lead in being unafraid to say the word abortion—and to destigmatize this medical procedure. The administration should be getting behind candidates up and down the ballot who are pro-bodily autonomy. And they need to be pushed to be unafraid to explore all options, including expanding the Supreme Court. Speaking of 2024: Republicans are already coming at Harris hard with racism and misogyny. How can we all counter that? We need to not fall for the bait. The bait is going to be the perpetuation of culture wars, including banning abortion and banning gender-affirming medical care, and banning Black history. And the bait is also going to be a messaging strategy that tries to convince us that that’s not happening. We’re gonna continue to be gaslit. It’s going to be up to candidates who want to stand on the right side of history and who, as my mother would say, won’t fall for the okeydoke. And it’s going to be up to voters to remain on fire. The challenge is that Republicans have dispersed [the abortion] fight, so it’s happening locally and at state levels and it’s easy to get distracted and forget how important this is, this year and next year. Listen to the interview with Vice President Kamala Harris now.  THIS EPISODE OF UNDISTRACTED IS SPONSORED BY:  Hey Jane is health care, on your own terms. As the most-trusted virtual clinic offering telemedicine abortion care, we’re proudly putting the power back in people’s hands by providing care that’s private, safe, supportive, accessible, and convenient—for less than the average in-clinic cost of a medication abortion. Learn more about our services here, and how you can support Hey Jane here.  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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