{"id":22551,"date":"2018-10-15T09:12:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T14:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/?p=22551"},"modified":"2018-11-03T19:13:29","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T00:13:29","slug":"political-conversations-imsa-a-closer-look-at-the-metoo-movement-and-the-kavanaugh-confirmation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/2018\/10\/15\/political-conversations-imsa-a-closer-look-at-the-metoo-movement-and-the-kavanaugh-confirmation\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Conversations @ IMSA: A closer look at the #MeToo Movement and The Kavanaugh Confirmation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Thursday, October 11th, &nbsp;students, faculty, and staff gathered in the \u201cinnovative space\u201d &nbsp;of IN2 to discuss the recent political events surrounding Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination into the US &nbsp;Supreme Court. This event, curated by the President&#8217;s Office and BELLAs, was lead by Mr. Kearney. It summoned many attendees who in turn participated in a thought-provoking discussion about the future of our nation and our role as citizens within it. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For readers unaware of the topic at hand, let me introduce to you <\/span><b>Brett Kavanaugh<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, your new Associate Justice of the Supreme Court whom you can read more about&nbsp;<\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/07\/16\/us\/brett-kavanaugh-fast-facts\/index.html\">here.&nbsp;<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, let&#8217;s get back to business.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The discussion (running little over an hour) covered many topics including Institutionalized Sexism, Credibility and Reputation, Hashtag Activism in relation to the #MeToo movement, Toxic Masculinity, and the future of civilian Trust within US Legal Systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While these are all enticing topics to delve into, I have decided to provide you with a brief overview of the main takeaways from the discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><b>Question 1<\/b><\/span><b>: <\/b>&#8220;Part of the Process is not what has happened but will happen in the future. What will be the ramifications of what just happened?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(Answers provided by Mr. Kearney) <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Some of it will fall away.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As many day to day happenings just \u201cfall away,\u201d&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=csnPRCI3bPQ\">Ford\u2019s<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&nbsp;allegations against Kavanaugh will most likely be \u201cswept under the rug\u201d over a period of time. It&#8217;s just the nature of politics.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Trust in the US Supreme Court will drop.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kavanaugh was confirmed with 50 votes. (That is the smallest amount of votes to confirm any Supreme Court Justice in modern history. )<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">*Probable Example*<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> &nbsp;In future Supreme Court decisions where Kavanaugh provides a <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu\/article\/supreme-court-justices-become-less-impartial-and-more-ideological-when-casting-the-swing-vote\">swing vote,&nbsp;<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">there will be public and political skepticism about the candor of his vote.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Polarization within the Country will persist.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Political and Moral views will continue to strain unity within the United States.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Concepts &amp; Topics<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Allegations, Reputation, and Credibility<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>How does it relate to this case?<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/09\/26\/politics\/ford-testimony\/index.html\">Christine Blasey Ford<\/a> brought<span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> forth allegations accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault from the late 80\u2019s, skeptics questioned her credibility.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had no solid evidence of the event, therefore, her accusation could not be validated.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b> Institutionalized Sexism<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What is it?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A form of sexism or prejudice that has been \u201cbaked into\u201d a system.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><b>How does it relate to this case?<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After Ford brought forth sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, her words and disposition were examined and essentially disregarded. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kavanaugh, after being accused of such crimes against Ford, was still admitted into the Supreme Court.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Toxic Masculinity &nbsp;and \u201cBoys will be Boys\u201d<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><b>What is it?<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>\u201c<\/b>Boys will be Boys\u201d\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A phrase once used to provide an explanation for why some boys pursue insensible acts of assault against women and amongst each other.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>How does it relate to this case?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Defenders of Kavanaugh justified his actions of sexual assault against Ford as a result of him \u201cjust being a boy\u2019.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hashtag Activism and #MeToo<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What is it?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>#MeToo\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A global movement against harassment and sexual assault first coined by <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/10\/20\/us\/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html\">Tarana Burke<\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>How does it relate to this case?<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many supporters of Ford used #MeToo as a platform to bring forth personal stories of sexual assault.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Lastly<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, I exchanged a few words with Mr. Kearny concerning Hashtag Activism. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(<strong>JH<\/strong>): <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are your opinions on Hashtag Activism? Do you find it effective?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(<strong>PK<\/strong>): <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It works on a very slow incremental level, but in some ways is very problematic.<\/span><\/i> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You feel as though you did something because you put a hashtag on your Facebook or Twitter feed, but have you really done something? In that sense, it doesn\u2019t work. What it has done, in some instances, has perhaps called people to action when they don\u2019t know about a topic. Hashtag Activism really helps out when its used for someone \u201cless known.\u201d&nbsp; However, the Kavanaugh case was televised, everyone in America knew it was happening. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Thursday, October 11th, &nbsp;students, faculty, and staff gathered in the \u201cinnovative space\u201d &nbsp;of IN2 to discuss the recent political events surrounding Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":415,"featured_media":20043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1019,2724,12,1],"tags":[2969,2709,1234,2578,2968],"coauthors":[2932],"class_list":["post-22551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-imsanews","category-news","category-opinions","category-worldnews","tag-metoo","tag-activism","tag-politics","tag-sexual-assault","tag-supreme-court"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/415"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22551"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22563,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22551\/revisions\/22563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22551"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.imsa.edu\/acronym\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}