|
|
|
The Abstract
|
|
> By Stephanie DiCapua Getman, Arnold Ventures
|
"One person plus a typewriter equals a movement."
— Pauli Murray
 In honor of Black History Month, I’d like to highlight an unsung hero of the civil rights and gender equality movements: legal icon Pauli Murray, who is the subject of the film “My Name is Pauli Murray,” which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Murray, who identified at different parts of their life as a man and as a woman, was a poet, author, priest, professor, California's first Black deputy attorney general, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women — and that’s a short list. (The Pauli Murray Center notes that in autobiographical work, Murray used “she/her/hers” pronouns, as is the standard among historians, and the center itself uses all pronouns when writing about Murray. Some scholars have begun using “they-them-theirs” and “he-him-hers.”) Directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen learned about Murray while making their award-winning documentary “RBG” about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who credited Murray in a woman’s rights brief she authored in 1971. Murray was consistently several steps ahead of the moment, launching a public campaign in 1938 for entrance into the all-white University of North Carolina; having her early work cited in the historic Brown vs. Board of Education case; and protesting for racial justice by refusing to sit at the back of the bus — and being arrested for it — 15 years before Rosa Parks. Then-NAACP Chief Counsel Thurgood Marshall called Murray’s 1950 publication “States’ Laws on Race and Color” the “bible” for civil rights lawyers. Murray graduated at the top of their law school class at Howard University but was denied entry into Harvard Law School for graduate work on the basis of sex, and in protest wrote this response: “I would gladly change my sex to meet your requirements, but since the way to such change has not been revealed to me, I have no recourse but to appeal to you to change your minds. Are you to tell me that one is as difficult as the other?” As IndieWire writes in its film review, “what made Murray so keenly attuned to the burdens of inequality — being Black, queer, and assigned female at birth — are the very things that robbed Murray of the recognition they so deserve. That is, until now.” The filmmakers give Murray that long overdue spotlight, one that cements their much-deserved place as an architect of the movement for justice. As noted in this Strict Scrutiny podcast discussion on the film, “Often the people that become famously associated with an idea or a movement are not the first people to that idea. They are the people that are pushing forth at a time that the world is ready to hear it, and Pauli Murray was pushing forth ideas about equality at a time when America wasn’t ready to hear them yet.”
|
|
|
|
Locked Up — Then Locked Out
|
|
|
|
By Ashley Winstead, Director of Strategic Communications
Even after they have been held accountable, people with criminal records continue to be punished in America, facing severe barriers when they’re applying for jobs, renting homes, enrolling in classes — even volunteering at their children’s schools. As part of our new Reintegration portfolio, Arnold Ventures is supporting work to remove these barriers and reduce the long-lasting harm caused by contact with the criminal justice system.
What’s Happening: As a result of decades of failed policies, today one in three adults has a criminal record, and many struggle to escape the collateral consequences and stigma that follow them long after they have served their sentence. A dense web of legal restrictions keep people with criminal justice involvement from finding a job, earning a degree, supporting themselves and their families, participating in civic life, or accessing other basic human needs. These hurdles are particularly high in communities of color, which already suffer from discrimination and disproportionately high rates of arrest, conviction, and incarceration.
What’s Next: Arnold Ventures is supporting grantees such as Root & Rebound, Levelset, the Council of State Governments Justice Center, the Clean Slate Initiative, and many more. In 2021, we'll work with our partners to advocate for state legislatures to remove harmful policy barriers to reintegration, particularly employment restrictions. Our Criminal Justice team is expanding, and we'd love to hear from you with any ideas to help shape our work. Reach out to info@arnoldventures.org.
Dive Deeper: We’re shining a light on this work by telling the stories of real people impacted by these policies and those who are working to change them. Read the series:
Part 1: Locked Up — and Then Locked Out
Part 2: 'They'd Rather I Go Wash Dishes'
Part 3: Removing the Stigma of a Criminal Record — One Law at a Time
|
|
|
|
|
A Multi-Billion Dollar Problem
|
|
|
|
By Adrienne Faraci, Communications Manager
Across the country, some state and local government pension plans have one big problem in common: They don’t have enough cash to pay off all the benefits they’ve promised. Collectively, state pension systems are underfunded by $1.4 trillion, with many municipal plans also in dire shape.
What’s Happening: Despite a bullish market, pension plans fell well short of the roughly 7% annual investment returns they normally count on, leaving many state and local government officials thinking of ways to bridge widening funding gaps. Luckily, a new guidebook developed by Donald J. Boyd, of the Project on State and Local Government Finance at SUNY’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, offers policymakers a comprehensive analysis of risk involved in funding pension plans and who bears that risk.
Bottom Line: There are no easy answers when it comes to pension reform, and while it’s an issue for retirees and current employees, it’s also a problem “for all the people with an interest in all the other services governments provide,” says AV’s Patrick Murphy, vice president of public finance — since rising pension costs and declining revenues leave fewer dollars for other budget priorities. For policymakers ready to face these hard questions, the Rockefeller College guidebook offers the most detailed roadmap available.
Read the story >
Related: New analysis from Reason Foundation cautions public pension systems to thoroughly evaluate the downsides of private equity investing.
Related: Virginia is another state moving forward with a state-run retirement savings program for private-sector employees.
|
|
|
|
|
Who's Maximizing Opportunity
|
|
|
|
By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager
Early statistics show homicide rates likely grew by a record amount in 2020, according to a new report by Arnold Ventures and the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice. Homicide rates were almost 30% higher in 2020 than in 2019, based on a sample of 34 cities — a figure likely to exceed the previous largest single-year increase of 12.7% in 1968. The study updates the authors’ earlier research on how responses to the pandemic affected homicide rates.
Why It Matters: The research underscores the need to immediately respond to violent crime by working to rebuild trust between law enforcement and communities, “COVID-proofing” already existing institutions and proven strategies for reducing crime, and restarting outreach to at-risk individuals.
What's Next: Policy makers must address the pandemic, police legitimacy, and violent crime simultaneously, write authors Thomas Abt of the Council on Criminal Justice and Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “A large body of rigorous empirical evidence demonstrates that violent crime can be addressed using strategies that are available now and do not require significant budgetary outlays, new legislation, or deep systemic reforms.”
Read the story > |
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Makowsky of Clemson University on how local governments that rely on revenue from criminal justice fines and fees undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they’re supposed to protect and serve. Americans may be familiar with the cliché of the small town speed trap, but cities like Ferguson, Mo. — whose police practices came under scrutiny after the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown — went much further: It essentially transformed its officers into local tax collectors. And it wasn’t the only city doing that. “This system means the financial burden is borne by people at the very bottom of the income distribution, people who have the least political influence, and have been the most frequently disenfranchised either explicitly or implicitly,” Makowsky says.
Read the Q&A>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Evan Mintz, Communications Manager
President Joe Biden should allow people released from prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic to serve out their sentences at home, argue AV Executive Vice President Jeremy Travis, FAMM President Kevin Ring, and Justice Action Network Federal Director Inimai Chettiar in a new USA Today op-ed.
What’s Happening: The Bureau of Prisons moved thousands of people out from behind bars to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, a last-minute memo issued by the Trump Administration ordered that thousands of people transferred to home confinement be sent back to prison once the pandemic emergency ends.
What’s next: “First, [the Biden administration] should immediately rescind the Trump administration’s cruel and counterproductive memo that would send thousands of people back to prison,” Travis, Ring, and Chettiar write. “Next, it should direct the Bureau of Prisons to identify even more people who could be safely released early back to society. Priority should be given to those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19.”
Read the op-ed >
Related: The Appeal warns that jails across the country are nearing or exceeding pre-pandemic incarceration levels, and governments must act swiftly to release people and divert others to prevent overcrowding. |
|
|
|
|
A Miracle Drug With a Steep Price
|
|
|
|
By Rhiannon Meyers Collette, Communications Manager
We spend a lot of time talking here about the perils of unchecked drug pricing — the financial strain on individuals, employers and taxpayers and the weight of drug costs on state and federal governments — but the reality is that drug pricing can often feel like an intractable problem that's impossible to get your arms around.
So instead of pondering the breadth and scope of reform, let me instead tell you the tale of a single drug: Truvada.
When you think of breakthrough miracle drugs that save lives and change the course of diseases, Truvada is a rock star. One pill, taken daily, is 90 percent effective at preventing the spread of HIV.
There's just one big problem: The list price for a monthly supply is more than my mortgage payment.
The story behind Truvada's price tag — how it came to be so expensive and why it remains pricey even though it has been on the market for years and now faces generic competition — is a window into the deep and systemic market failures that exist within the drug industry. It's also a stark example of the real, and lasting, impacts on individuals and society wreaked by high prices.
Truvada got approved nine years ago for use as a prevention tool. Today, fewer than one in four of the high-risk people who would benefit the most from Truvada are actually accessing it. That's in part because of Truvada's prohibitively high price — a price that is so steep, in fact, that in 2019 it attracted the attention of the federal government, which is now pursuing a lawsuit against Truvada's manufacturer.
From its exorbitant list price at launch to the various tactics drug maker Gilead used to maintain Truvada's market dominance, this drug is a "textbook example" of drug market dysfunction.
It's also a rallying cry for why reform is so necessary.
Read the story>
Related: Patients for Affordable Drugs questions whether big pharma exaggerates its argument that any action to curb high drug prices will kill innovation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| • |
First-person accounts from The Marshall Project of citizens who found themselves under the knee of police officer Derek Chauvin long before the death of George Floyd. Their experiences are part of the criminal case against the former officer. “Police records show that Chauvin was never formally reprimanded for any of these incidents, even though at least two of those arrested said they had filed formal complaints.”
Related: Former Columbus police officer Adam Coy was indicted this week in the killing of Andre Hill, who was shot while he was holding a cell phone. Columbus City Council also this week passed "Andre's Law," which puts new requirements on police regarding body cameras and rendering aid.
Related: This disturbing incident of police use of force against a 9-year-old girl in Rochester, N.Y. “What we saw in that video is police escalating the situation rather than de-escalating.”
|
|
| • |
Former Alaska Gov. Bill Walker warning that climate change in Alaska can no longer be ignored and recommending Congress move forward with a carbon dividend plan. “It is not only transforming our landscape and stressing our economy; it’s imperiling lives.”
|
|
| • |
This Q&A with Thea Sebastian of the Civil Rights Corps on the emergency of reforming our pretrial system so legally innocent people are not sitting in jail. “We see it as both wealth-based discrimination and race-based discrimination with how it’s disproportionately affecting Black and Brown communities that already face systemic discrimination.”
|
|
| • |
Hospitals are bypassing insurers and placing liens on car accident settlements in pursuit of bigger reimbursements — commonly against Medicaid patients, reports Sarah Kilff of The New York Times. (This predatory behavior is happening at institutions that continue to receive taxpayer-funded relief.)
|
|
| • |
Why policymakers must identify ways to increase revenues and reduce wasteful spending as Medicare careens toward insolvency in 2024, via this Commonwealth Fund brief where AV’s Mark Miller and Erica Socker outline commonsense solutions.
|
|
| • |
For-profit colleges are bracing for a major reckoning under the Biden administration after years of deregulation, Yahoo Finance reports. “The Trump administration repeatedly sided with this predatory industry and against the very students our government is supposed to serve. That must end."
|
|
| • |
Power to Decide visualizing the state-level landscape of how telehealth services impact access to birth control. They’re hosting a webinar on the issue today.
|
|
| • |
The Appeal arguing that Trump turned the justice system into a "black box," and fixing the data that comes out of the Bureau of Justice Statistics should be a priority for the Biden Administration.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This TrustCast podcast with AV Executive Vice President of Advocacy Kevin Madden on the “shot clock” mentality of news, the “quarantine effect” of how we process information, and his thoughts on presidential campaigns, then and now.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Have an evidence-based week,
– Stephanie
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stephanie DiCapua Getman develops and executes Arnold Ventures' digital communications strategy with a focus on multimedia storytelling and audience engagement and oversees daily editorial operations and design.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the AV Newsletter.
|
|
|
|
You received this message because you signed up for Arnold Ventures' newsletter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
