Vulnerable New Yorkers need help (photo: governor's office)
As we reached the first year anniversary of the pandemic earlier this month, there’s no disputing that overcrowded nursing homes were not the safest way to care for New York’s most vulnerable. Over 15,000 New Yorkers who died of COVID-19 contracted the virus in nursing homes and while we know that home care workers were a safer alternative for our seniors and people with disabilities, this option of care was not available to most given New York State’s current underinvestment in the home care industry.
The Legislature has been working to address the shortfalls in our long-term care system that were brought to the forefront by this pandemic. While warranted, much of that attention has been focused on nursing home >reforms. But we can’t stop there. There are serious gaps in our home care industry that are just as critical. Home care workers are drastically underpaid, which has led to a shortage in care.
The Fair Pay for Home Care Act, which I co-sponsor in the New York State Senate, would enable more New Yorkers to get the care they need at home by lifting workers, who are predominantly women of color, out of poverty and creating more jobs during a time of widespread unemployment.
Two-thirds of New York’s nursing homes are for-profit, which inevitably prioritizes profit over caregiving. The Cuomo administration’s March 25 2020 covid re-admittance order only supercharged the shortcomings at many of these nursing homes, spreading the virus, in the governor’s own words, like “fire through dry grass.” Twelve months later, between 40% and 50% of COVID-19 deaths in New York state can be traced back to nursing homes.
This agonizing scale of loss was preventable by properly investing in safe alternatives to congregate settings. Home care allows people to stay in the comfort of their own home, connected to existing networks of friends and family, without sacrificing the care they need.
Seniors who remained in their communities with the help of home care were ten times less likely to contract the virus than those in nursing homes. COVID-19 patients who struggled with long-lasting symptoms frequently recovered quicker when they received home health care after discharge.
Unfortunately, our state currently pays tireless home care workers just $22,000 a year, well below the cost of living across the state. These workers do the backbreaking, 24/7 job of providing individualized care for New Yorkers who can no longer care for themselves. They keep our loved ones safe. This is essential work, yet the entire workforce is characteristically underpaid and overworked.
Home care is also an industry long dominated by women of color. In New York, 91% of home care workers are women, 77% are people of color, and 60% are immigrants. New York’s economic development strategy largely relies on Regional Economic Development Councils that bypass job-starved communities of color. Investing in home care is an opportunity to create jobs in a sector that cares for the communities that need them most.
The solution is simple: By passing the Fair Pay for Home Care Act, we will mandate a $35,000 salary for home care workers, lifting thousands of home care workers out of poverty and bringing thousands more into the home care sector to end the workforce shortage. This raise will save the state money — generating $5.3 billion for the New York State economy by saving public benefits spending while generating increased tax revenues and boosting individual spending power.
As New Yorkers seek reliable choices for long-term care and as our population ages, we need to retain current home care workers and address the state’s widening home care workforce shortage. Investing in home care during this year’s state budget is critical to ensure we keep vulnerable New Yorkers safe while responsibly uplifting our workforce and stimulating our economy.
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State Senator Gustavo Rivera represents parts of the Bronx and chairs the Senate’s health committee. On Twitter @NYSenatorRivera.
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(l-r) Alvin Bragg, Diana Florence & Tali Farhadian Weinstein
President Biden is right that Governor Cuomo could face criminal charges for his alleged sexual harassment of current and former aides. Forcibly kissing Lindsey Boylan in the Governor’s Manhattan office alone could trigger a probe from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. Still, sexual assault survivors like me have no faith in that office’s ability to undertake such a delicate investigation. Manhattan DA Cy Vance continually backs away from cases involving powerful offenders, including Donald Trump eight years ago.
In just three months, voters have an opportunity to bring new leadership to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office when Democrats choose from a field of candidates, and Vance will not be on the ballot. The current DA has repeatedly been accused of failing survivors of sexual violence despite claiming to be pro-gender justice. Survivors frequently share their experiences of being dissuaded, disbelieved, or discarded by the District Attorney’s office for not having enough evidence, for not being the “perfect victim,” or for not wanting to put themselves at greater risk. It is time for this to end.
The stakes are high in this election with so many criminal justice issues in need of reform. Most of the Democratic candidates have issued sex crimes policy platforms and agree that sexual violence is an issue affecting a significant proportion of voting residents in their lifetime. Yet, the candidates’ approaches to adjudicating sex crimes has been largely missing from the public dialogue surrounding the race.
Reform the Sex Crimes Unit, an advocacy group and campaign I started to bring change to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, issued a questionnaire specifically focused on each candidate's respective approach to fighting gender-based violence. An anonymous panel of nearly 20 survivors, advocates, scholars, victim and defense attorneys, and former prosecutors evaluated the responses. The goal was to identify candidates whose vision for combatting sexual violence is: comprehensive and representative of an understanding of trauma; committed to hearing from and serving the community in need; specific, transparent, and measurable; inspirational and forward thinking.
The panel concluded that three of the eight Democratic candidates — Tali Farhadian Weinstein, Alvin Bragg, and Diana Florence — centered survivors in these ways and would be serious, creative, and kind leaders. Some key ideas stood out as must-dos for whoever wins the position and becomes Manhattan District Attorney in January.
Have the sex crimes team report directly to the District Attorney and ensure they are well staffed. Farhadian Weinstein wrote, “Given the time-sensitive nature of these cases, this Bureau is likely to be the most heavily staffed in the office. The structure will include five central roles: prosecutors, in-house investigators, experts, victim advocates, and toxicologists.” Staff need a nuanced understanding of the different crimes falling under the umbrella of gender-based violence. Leadership must be unequivocal about this.
Train Assistant District Attorneys and staff to look beyond just the accusation in front of them. Bragg said that he “always look[s] at the account of one survivor as part of a bigger picture with the possibility of serial misconduct, complicity by other individuals or an entity, cover-up activity like lying or obstruction, and laundering of funds to facilitate sex offenses.” If gender-based crimes are often “the canary in the corruption coal mine,” as Florence noted, staff cannot work in silos.
Establish a new approach to staff performance evaluation and accountability. Bragg rightly pointed out that “reliance on conviction rates to measure success in any prosecutor’s office is problematic and invariably results in the over-prosecution of easily proven crimes and the under-prosecution of more >challenging crimes. This inevitably leads to under-prosecuting sexual crimes.” Other measures of success must be set and shared publicly along with data on sex crimes prosecutions.
Disclose campaign contributions and possible conflicts of interest. Florence promised to follow “a system of accountability to track and publicly disclose outcomes of all cases referred and prosecuted by the office and whether or not the lawyers or persons accused have given campaign donations.” Bragg rejects contributions from attorneys with cases before the DA.
Be intentional and public about the District Attorney’s commitment to survivors. The three recommended candidates each offered detailed, empathetic plans on fighting and staying the course on sexual violence. Bragg promised to be guided by “cultural humility,” something we all need more of.
Prosecutors often fail to consider or address the root causes of sexual violence. Instead they focus on the over-prosecution of non-violent crimes to bolster their own winning record. Victims, offenders, and communities lose. Whoever wins the election to become the next Manhattan District Attorney must center their work around those closest to the violence and those with the most to lose by coming forward to report it. Survivors deserve a champion who centers victims, delivers justice, and reduces harm.
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Marissa Hoechstetter is the founder of Reform the Sex Crimes Unit, a campaign for transparency and accountability in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. On Twitter @mhoechstetter.
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Nathalia Fernández (photo: Fernández campaign)
New York City is the greatest city in the world, but we have let others surpass us in protecting vulnerable populations from the most significant threat facing our planet: climate change.
In the South Bronx, reducing air pollution rates is a matter of life or death. With 15,000 trucks commuting through the area daily, the borough has become an island of pollution, and communities of color are disproportionately suffering.
Last week, I introduced my plan for a greener Bronx to achieve the true environmental justice Bronxites desperately need. With it, we will uplift and empower our communities while making The Bronx the greenest borough in New York City.
It is time to take concrete steps to address environmental racism in our borough. We must invest in renewable energies, upgrade our infrastructure, create good-paying green jobs, and improve both our air and water quality. We cannot meet this need by relying on traditional, incremental programs. We must meet the magnitude of this moment by implementing new policies and funding investments that not only revitalize but transform The Bronx.
South Bronx neighborhoods are tucked between three major highways — the Major Deegan, the Bruckner, and the Cross Bronx expressways — and the asthma rate is eight to twelve times higher than the national average. According to New York City’s community health profiles, Mott Haven and Melrose had three times as many hospitalizations for asthma as the rest of the city, and 1.5 as many as the rest of The Bronx. In Hunts Point and Longwood, the rate of asthma emergency room visits among children ages 5 to 17 is nearly double the citywide rate.
As borough president, I will prioritize reducing the borough’s carbon footprint by advocating for our fair share of funding to implement new greenhouse gas emission limits. For too long, we have been overlooked when it comes to transportation investments, leaving thousands of Bronxites in transit deser >ts without access to affordable and reliable public transportation. I will focus on creating sustainable transportation options, like expanding bike-sharing borough-wide and building miles of bus lanes in underserved communities.
Almost one-third of New York City’s trash is handled at waste transfer stations in the South Bronx and then sent to landfills across the region. On a typical day, nearly 6,000 tons of trash is hauled in and out of the South Bronx, requiring about 1,400 diesel truck trips. Nine waste transfer stations operate in the area along with other waste-related facilities, including a scrap metal recycling plant and sites that collect fill. Perhaps this is why seven of the city’s superfund sites are located in The Bronx.
As part of my plan for a greener Bronx, I will modernize waste removal. The city’s 2018 waste equity law was a significant step in reducing waste processing in the South Bronx, but there is still more we can do. My plan includes zero-emission garbage trucks and increases reliance on waste barges, which can carry 28 times more trash.
Bronxites can trust that I will accomplish these goals because of my record of fighting climate change. I have supported the “Restore Mother Nature” Environmental Bond Act in the State Assembly, an effort to leverage $3 billion to increase resiliency, protect wildlife habitats, and create 65,000 jobs throughout New York State. The urgency of this moment and the recent funding made available by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act make this one of my top priorities as borough president.
I also co-sponsored the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in the State Assembly, now law requiring New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions significantly. Locally, I supported City Council Member Costa Constantinides' Renewable Rikers Act, which creates countless opportunities to turn the island into something that enhances our communities like a hub of renewable energies, such as solar and battery, and a state-of-the-art green energy research, educational, and workforce development center.
I will continue to advocate for common-sense policies that will turn The Bronx into the city’s greenest borough while also providing our residents with green jobs and economic growth. Fighting climate change is not only about protecting our planet; it’s about achieving true environmental justice by empowering our communities that have endured the burden of climate change for too long.
The climate crisis is upon us, and we must stop relying on past strategies to protect us. I will work with communities to bring fresh thinking and new approaches to develop a sustainable, empowered Bronx that works for everyone. Together, we will establish The Bronx as a place the world can look to as an example of a safe, equitable community designed so current and future generations can thrive.
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Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernández represents The Bronx’s 80th District and is a candidate for Bronx Borough President. On Twitter @Fernandez4NY.
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CUNY grads (photo: CUNY)
I pay my City University of New York (CUNY) tuition out of pocket, and as a result, and it has not been easy to stay afloat and earn my bachelor’s degree at the New York City College of Technology.
But if I had attended what is now called CUNY anytime between 1847 and 1975, I wouldn’t have paid a dime, and I wouldn’t be in debt.
There is currently a national conversation about the feasibility and desirability of moving to a model of free public higher education. As a New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, I am well aware that free college is, in fact, viable — we did it here for more than 125 years.
What is now CUNY was founded as the Free Academy in 1847, and soon became the City College that we know today, now one of 25 distinct CUNY schools, including Hunter College, Queens College, and the newest, the School of Labor and Urban Studies.
The first president of the Free Academy, Dr. Horace Webster said, "The experiment is to be tried, whether the children of the people, the children of the whole people, can be educated; and whether an institution of the highest grade, can be successfully controlled by the popular will, not by the privileged few." For more than a century, the experiment proceeded with relative success.
But in 1975, something changed. It is the story that we seek to rewrite this year — by raising taxes on the wealthy and passing a New Deal for CUNY.
In the 1960s, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements swept across American society. In the South, activists fought over white supremacy, smashing segregation in interstate busing, at lunch counters, and in schools. Black workers fought for dignified working conditions — indeed Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the last speech before he was assassinated to a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.
In the North, where overt segregation was illegal, the struggle took different forms. Here in New York, Black and brown students fought for “open admissions” at CUNY. Students at City College occupied the campus fighting for equity and equality. City College was in fact 97% white at the time even though it was in Harlem. As New York City had become more diverse ethnically and racially, CUNY had not. Its four-year colleges remained overwhelmingly white. People of color fought to be admitted to CUNY if they successfully completed their high school degrees — and in 1969, they won.
That year, CUNY took a huge step toward the mission of educating “the children of the whole people,” not just the city’s white people. And that window, which stayed open from 1969 to 1975, is the model for the CUNY we want to see today: embracing students of color and not just white students, well-funded by the state and the city, and, of course, free.
But as the New York population continued to expand and diversify, elected officials were reluctant to raise taxes to fund the increased need for services. A free and well-funded CUNY had worked for white New Yorkers for more than a century, but all of a sudden, the cost of providing the very same education to Black and brown students was too great.
Absent increased tax revenue, the City turned to the banks to finance its ongoing operations. This of course only kicked the can down the road, and eventually the city had to pay the piper — the 1975 fiscal crisis arrived.
The City wound up in negotiations with Washington D.C., seeking a bailout. Federal bureaucrats demanded, among other things, to see CUNY start charging tuition. Pitifully, it wasn’t even about the savings, they wanted New York to make a show of breaking social democracy, of ending benefits they saw as too good for the working class.
But the original sin, the thing that broke the CUNY experiment, happened in New York and not Washington. The original sin was the failure to raise taxes to fund the very same services that had been good enough for white New Yorkers for more than a century. Federal officials never should have made it to the table.
This year we can right the racist wrongs of the 1970s. The CUNY Rising Alliance is fighting for a bill that would make CUNY tuition-free once again. The New Deal for CUNY would also improve the quality of services by mandating ratios of mental health counselors, academic advisors, and full-time faculty to students up to nationally-recommended levels. And it professionalizes adjunct faculty wages, pegging them to the full-time lecturer salary.
Meanwhile, the Invest in Our New York coalition is organizing to support six bills that would raise approximately $50 billion in tax revenue, even to fund CUNY and other essential ser >vices and programs. If this sounds like a lot, it is only because we’ve just survived 46 years of racist austerity.
It is not just CUNY that has been underfunded.
The subway, once cheap and well-maintained, has been hammered by the same racist austerity that has threatened the CUNY mission. All the things that were good enough for the white working class, became too good for the diverse working class that emerged in New York in the second half of the 20th century.
Enough is enough. CUNY was free for more than a century, and it can be free again. Let’s get it done in this year’s state budget, due by April 1.
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Juvanie Piquant is CUNY University Student Senate Chairperson and CUNY Student Trustee. On Twitter @juvaniepiquant.
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Students (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)
Like many states, New York’s sex education laws are dizzyingly complicated. Sex education itself is not mandated in New York public schools (though many school districts choose to teach it), but HIV/AIDs education is — though parents can opt their children out with the promise that they will teach the content at home. If sex education does take place, New York state law requires that it stresses abstinence, but makes no legal requirement concerning its medical accuracy. Some individual school districts, like New York City, do mandate a comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) curriculum, while others have no such requirement.
Democratic State Senator Samra Brouk’s bill (S2584) would simplify some of this tangled mess by making comprehensive sexuality education mandatory for all K-12 New York State public and charter school students, and it should be passed by both houses of the Legislature and signed by the Governor as soon as possible.
CSE is endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Public Health Association, and others. And with its dedication to being “age-appropriate, medically accurate, and inclusive of all students,” CSE should be the bare minimum of what we ask of sex education in schools, and Brouk’s bill should be a no-brainer.
But if history is any guide, there is no guarantee that our young people will be given what they are owed. New York’s 2020 legislative year saw six very similar bills to Bourk’s, all of which failed.
Despite widespread support from medical, public health, and education experts, opposition to CSE is fierce in New York and nationwide. The Catholic Church and other conservative Christian denominations came out against a bill nearly identical to Bourk’s in 2019, and will almost certainly line up to do so against this one, and right-wing media is already at work misrepresenting the project.
“Get ready for the latest woke wave in education,” The New York Post began in an article about the bill. The Christian Post proclaimed: “NY bill could force schools to teach sex ed to kindergarteners, gender identity to 2nd graders.”
Both of these stances misrepresent the project of CSE. First, the implication that comprehensive sex education is new is false. Sex education in some form, for students of all ages (including kindergarteners), has been in the United States since at least 1913, and “comprehensive sex education” is a term that has been in use since at least 1981, if not earlier.
And while the term “sex ed” as levied in these articles tends to bring to mind a condom and a banana, in reality, CSE encompasses a whole range of things that most of us don’t think of as falling squarely into the category.
SIECUS, a comprehensive sexuality education advocacy group founded in 1964, publishes guidelines for CSE that would probably be used to develop New York curricula if Brouk’s bill passes. SIECUS outlines six “key concepts” involved in CSE: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture.
SIECUS’ recommendations for the youngest grades are relatively tame, and mostly have to do with families, friendship, body parts, and feelings. Most of its focus is on teaching children that their bodies belong to themselves, a measure that works to reduce instances of childhood sexual abuse.
The frank discussion about masturbation, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV/AIDS for the younger grades, and the information about contraception, abortion, and gender identity for older ones may make some squeamish — but truthful answers, words, and names are better than the alternative.
And the alternative to CSE rarely is no sex education at all. While some school districts may choose to forego the subject entirely, often schools choose instead to employ an abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) curricula, which has now been rebranded as “sexual risk avoidance education” (SRAE).
AOUM/SRAE curricula are marked by their refusal to instruct about (and sometimes even discuss) contraception, and have traditionally and consistently been homophobic, racist, tinged with a Christian bias, and can be medically inaccurate — all of which CSE classes correct for.
The reprehensible biases and misinformation in these curricula are enough to call for their immediate disuse, but the data also suggests that AOUM/SRAE classes just don’t work in any measurable way. CSE has a number of goals, some more quantifiable than others. But one of the markers of a successful sex education curriculum should certainly be its efficacy in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections — and on that score, AOUM/SRAE are demonstrably less effective than CSE.
And preventing STIs and pregnancy should be a priority everywhere, including New York. As of 2018, New York had the 10th highest rate in the nation for both chlamydia and syphilis, and 54% of all STIs were diagnosed in people under the age of 26. And though New York does relatively well nationally in terms of teen pregnancy, the United States has one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world.
These are high-stakes issues: real-world problems screaming for real-world, data-driven solutions. CSE is one of those solutions, and we shouldn’t let willful misinformation about it cloud our perceptions or actions any longer.
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Margaret Grace Myers is a Brooklyn-based writer. On Twitter @margaretgmyers.
NYPD (photo: @NYPDnews)
In December, a group of models and influencers at Fashion Week publicly accused designer Alexander Wang of drugging and sexually assaulting them. The victims all painted the same picture: Wang would allegedly ply them with alcohol or lace a water >bottle with MDMA, and then forcibly touch them, make them perform oral sex, or sodomize them while incapacitated. Many of the acts happened here in Manhattan at the popular bar Bedlam on Avenue C and at Wang’s West Chelsea apartment.
But the story has mostly flown under the radar. Why?
Because socially and legally, we downgrade sexual violence against men and transpeople.
Under the law, none of Wang’s alleged victims were technically “raped.” New York only recognizes this most serious crime as between a cis man and a cis woman. At most, the alleged attacks constitute criminal sexual acts. Rape is defined as only vaginal penetration and treats oral and anal sexual conduct as separate crimes. The rape statute is a relic of the Model Penal Code, drafted in 1962, seven years before the Stonewall riots and almost 50 years before many of the enumerated rights of the LGBTQ community. It relies on an outdated notion of sex suggesting queer people are deviant and transpeople do not even exist.
The social implications of 1962 live on. Reporting among men is incredibly low, less than 10% of reported rapes according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. When men do report they’re often met with skepticism. HBO’s I May Destroy You most recently dealt with this reality in an excruciating episode where a gay character tries to report being raped after first having consensual, anonymous sex with a man he met on Grindr. He’s doubly victimized by the police officer who shames him for not knowing his attacker’s name, and blames him for using a dating app.
Albany lawmakers can take an axe to the ingrained homophobia still baked into our laws by passing the "Rape is Rape" bill now. The legislation would remove the penetration requirement and define rape as either vaginal, anal, or oral “contact.”
Seems like a no-brainer, but the male dominated District Attorneys’ Association of New York State opposes it. When current Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance headed up the association in 2013, he wrote a letter claiming the bill would “create an insurmountable hindrance to consecutive sentencing.” That’s just a technical pretext though, which is neither insurmountable nor a hindrance. The fact is the bill would allow prosecutors across New York to hold rapists accountable for rape no matter who the survivor is.
If politicians are willing to chant “love is love” then we should demand they declare rape is rape too.
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Diana Florence is a Democratic candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. On Twitter @DianaJFlorence.
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This article has been corrected to accurately reflect classifications under the current law.
Gov. Cuomo (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)
Governor Cuomo seems to be letting his political scandals get the best of his judgement. Last Thursday, he announced sports stadiums and outdoor concerts can resume on a limited basis in April, even as New York State books more than 6,700 new cases each day. That is 6,000 more cases per day than we were registering at our lowest point last summer. Combined with his decision to increase indoor dining capacity, the governor’s move simply invites the virus and all its variants to infect more New Yorkers before the vaccine reaches enough people.
Despite all the talk of optimism, the situation remains serious and concerning. With new more-contagious variants spreading, the risk of another wave of infections exponentially rises each time we allow more people to gather. Even if people are vaccinated and tested at the door of stadiums and concerts, the virus can still spread, especially if new variants emerge that are less detectable or resistant to the vaccine. Our likely long-term endgame in that scenario – the one we need to avoid – is an endemic virus that mutates chased by vaccines that statistically reduce but do not eliminate the pandemic.
Governor Cuomo’s decisions, taken together with disastrous moves by Governors Desantis in Florida and Abbott in Texas, underscore why the United States always seems to be one step behind COVID-19 - cycling through a Groundhog Day-like pattern of opening, closing, and reopening again. Lawmakers impose restrictions when hospitalizations and infections rise. They lift those restrictions when metrics fall. Then - having allowed another crisis to mount - they’re forced to put those same restrictions back in place. This is unacceptable, and it doesn’t have to be this way.
By contrast, places like Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, and Atlantic Canada have all returned to a sense of normalcy, mostly because they began taking aggressive steps before infections and hospitalizations got so far out of control.
Australia, for instance, has confined outbreaks by restricting inter-state travel among its eight states. In some cases, such as Melbourne in September and Sydney in December, travel restrictions were imposed within a city. This has at times been difficult for the 25 million Australians. But today, as the United States infection rate remains stubbornly high, Australia’s daily new case count is miniscule, averaging less than 11 new cases in the last week.
For the U.S. to change course for the better, we need to reset and choose to resemble Australia’s approach. That means doubling down on actions that stop community spread for a short period of time, providing space for vaccines to take hold and then re-opening in a targeted fashion.
The concept is simple: endure five weeks of stay-at-home orders now to save lives and put us in a position to reopen our economy as soon as possible. It means allowing only minimal essential services and mandating transmission prevention protocols like delivery, curbside pickup, mask wearing, air purification, and disinfection. It also means rigorous travel restrictions and 14-day traveler quarantines to prevent COVID-19 from crossing borders. The smaller the area, the faster the process of getting to zero. Testing, vaccinations, and mask-wearing remain critical, but they should not be the sole emphasis.
After one month of these measures, some areas will have eliminated community transmission. Those can be labeled green zones and begin reopening their economies. All other areas are labeled red. Travel between red and green zones should be limited. Week after week, more green zones will emerge, and travel can begin across a green zone travel network. Our model predicts that after six weeks, participating states could end community transmission of COVID-19.
I know there is a political desire to start making people feel good about gathering in large number >s again. But neither politics nor wishful thinking should drive our pandemic decisions. It is this mentality that has dug us into a hell of our own creation. The only way we beat the virus is by using vaccinating and simultaneously imposing stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions to end transmission and stop variants from emerging. This is the fastest route back to normal. If New York does it, the rest of the world will follow.
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Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam is the founding president of the New England Complex Systems Institute, where he is an expert on pandemics and other complex systems. He is spearheading the effort of over 3,000 volunteers working to stop the outbreak at endcoronavirus.org. On Twitter at @yaneerbaryam.
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SUNY leaders (photo: @SUNY)
When I accepted my position to teach in the Anthropology department, I didn’t expect to be worrying about having enough to eat every day.
Yet that is the unfortunate reality many graduate student workers in the State University of New York (SUNY) system face, where the combination of exorbitant fees and a meager stipend for our labor push us to the brink of poverty.
At SUNY Binghamton, where I work as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, I shell out approximately $2,000 a year in fees, which is nearly 13% of my stipend.
These fees are purportedly for items like technology services and software programs that we need to use and access to do our jobs. There is no reason that we should be footing the bill for these expenses. Our employer is shifting the standard costs of the job to its employees. This has become even more outrageous during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we cannot even use many of the services we are being charged for.
We should not be asked to maintain operations at our schools when we have been hired to teach and provide high-quality instruction to students. It makes remaining in our programs nearly impossible, and takes away from our work. That is why I support a current State Senate budget proposal that would phase out mandatory school fees for graduate workers like me.
$2,000 might not seem a lot to some, but it essentially amounts to a 13% pay reduction. As a result, I have been forced to take out loans and live in an apartment without heat to save money for other essentials, like food. Many of my fellow grad workers rely on the food pantry on campus because we simply do not have enough cash to buy groceries.
All of this can take a significant mental toll on graduate student workers. We cannot focus on our work if we are struggling to meet our basic needs like paying for food and rent. We are here to teach and learn but instead our energy is often focused on simply surviving.
There is something fundamentally wrong with this >dynamic. Graduate student workers should be treated with respect and dignity. And that means not paying to work. It’s time for the Legislature and the Governor to act and protect the integrity of our university system and the graduate workers who sacrifice so much for our state universities.
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Ana Sanchez-Bachman is a PhD Graduate Worker at SUNY Binghamton.
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NYPD (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Last summer, our state repealed 50-a, one of the worst police secrecy laws in the country, and required the NYPD to release previously hidden personnel records, that included officer misconduct and abuse cases. 50-a prevented parents like Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, from knowing whether the officers who killed her son by placing him in a banned chokehold and not coming to his aid as he pleaded to breathe had histories of misconduct. For years, it protected police from scrutiny at the expense of safety and transparency that New Yorkers deserve. I was proud to lead the fight alongside grassroots organizers for the repeal of that law, and earlier this month the NYPD made thousands of those records public.
We now have a clearer view of what “police accountability” in its current form looks like. In short, it’s a scary picture of officers facing few to no consequences for their documented misconduct and abuse. A closer look also demonstrates the need for District Attorneys who will hold police accountable for abuses.
Recent reporting on new data made public from 50-a’s repeal revealed that in more than 40 instances over >the past five years, NYPD officers found guilty of abuse and misconduct by a police department judge had their verdicts voided by NYPD commissioners and faced no punishment. Despite the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and NYPD judges evaluating evidence, hearing from witnesses, and finding these officers guilty of misconduct, they faced zero consequences because the police commissioner chose to reject those findings.
These stories are infuriating. We know that almost all Americans, over 95 percent, support accountability reforms that punish officer abuses. Over 95 percent of Americans agree that officers with multiple incidents of abuse of power should not be allowed to serve. But now that New Yorkers have the evidence, what’s next on actually holding law enforcement accountable?
The Manhattan District Attorney has not historically been an office that holds police accountable. Over the past decade, the District Attorney has prosecuted only a small handful of police officers who engaged in misconduct and broke the law. But the District Attorney’s office should be where officers face accountability -- the District Attorney’s is the most well-resourced office to handle cases of police excessive force and misconduct. The unfairness and injustice of a system that protects violent police officers is exactly why the next Manhattan District Attorney must be committed to fighting practices like this and holding police accountable.
This is not, and has never been, an easy fight. The NYPD has fiercely resisted change and reform for decades. Despite calls from every level of government, community organizations on the ground, and voters, the NYPD has defied efforts to increase accountability and transparency.
I know these fights -- I’ve gone up against the NYPD multiple times and won. In addition to repealing 50-a, I challenged the current Manhattan District Attorney, Cy Vance, when he wouldn’t release the names of officers that have filed false reports or lied under oath. Then-Public Advocate Letitia James and I also fought the NYPD and then-Commissioner Bratton to have officer body camera and dashboard camera footage released to the public, instead of classifying the footage as protected by 50-a.
The next Manhattan District Attorney will face enormous and immediate public pressure to enact real accountability measures when they take office. We have the evidence, and we know what steps to take, but who can the public trust to hold abusive police officers accountable for their misconduct? Manhattan needs a reformer, and for the past decade, I’ve led fights for reform from outside the District Attorney’s office and won. I’m the only candidate with a decade-long record of holding police accountable.
The history of police officers engaging in violent misconduct and not being held accountable has been a recurring problem in New York City. Past prosecutors-turned-District Attorneys have not held these officers accountable and brought about much-needed reform of our criminal legal system. As District Attorney, I will prosecute officers who use excessive force, lie under oath, and file false reports. I will release the names of officers who have proven to be untrustworthy, and I will always use my platform to advocate for comprehensive police reforms.
I’m running for District Attorney to make Manhattan safer for everyone. With the repeal of 50-a and the thousands of NYPD records released earlier this month, there will be more stories of officer misconduct and abuse disclosed to the public. And this June, Manhattanites have the opportunity to choose a proven reformer, someone who is best equipped to hold the NYPD accountable for these abuses. We can and we must build a New York that keeps everyone safe, and police accountability is a critical piece of achieving that safety.
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Dan Quart represents parts of Manhattan's East Side in the New York State Assembly. He is a candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. On Twitter @AMDanQuart.
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Jay Jacobs, Andrew Cuomo, Anna Kaplan (photo: Cuomo campaign)
The recent sexual harassment accusations against Governor Andrew Cuomo underscore the pervasiveness of a toxic work environment, especially for women. Lindsey Boylan, Charlotte Bennett, and Anna Ruch all came with receipts – contemporaneous emails, text messages, and photos – to corroborate their allegations against the governor. It took an immense amount of courage for them and other accusers to come forward. But simply applauding them for their courage does not do their bravery justice, nor does it change the environment that gives rise to these situations. We must act.
The #MeToo movement has succeded in centering a public discussion about sexual harassment and assault, especially their relation to power dynamics. Cuomo’s pattern of alleged behavior and overall scandal make it clear that more must be done to prevent sexual harassment and create a safe, independent space for people to come forward without fear of retaliation. We can start by creating that space in our own Democratic Party.
In 2019, several members of the New York State Democratic Committee and several County Committees reviewed the ethics process at both the State and County levels. What we found was a badly-flawed process that lacked the necessary independence required for such work. For example, in the current rules of the Democratic State Committee and Manhattan County Committee, the Chair directly nominates the panel that adjudicates ethics complaints and can remove any member for undefined reasons. Furthermore, the current ethics rules have no procedures for, or language about, sexual misconduct or discrimination and no ethics rules binding on all elected members of the State Committee.
With the help of sexual harassment experts, reform of New York Democratic Party ethics rules was proposed with five key objectives:
Creation of an ethics process independent of the Chair and other political actors.
Inclusion of specific language regarding sexual harassment, misconduct and discrimation.
The application of ethics rules to all State Committee and Executive Board members.
A centering on restorative justice and accountability in response to violations.
And, requiring an independent expert review of our ethics rules and policies, with a $10,000 budget.
These changes to the ethics rules were introduced in July 2020, but were not adopted. Instead, the State Committee tabled the discussion of ethics reform until the next meeting, which was held last October. At that meeting, the State Committee voted to establish a committee that would review the party’s ethics rules in depth, with the current proposal as a starting point. As of Monday, this Committee has been formed with a mandate to make our New York State Democratic Party a safer and more inclusive institution.
It is important to highlight that the proposed reform is not limited to sexual harassment, but gives all its members a way to report discrimination and/or ethic violations of any kind. It gives members of our party a way to have their grievances heard and adjudicated in a fair and impartial setting. It provides transparency and accountability and furthers our goals of making ours a more equitable party.
In the wake of the initial allegations against Governor Cuomo, New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay S. Jacobs released the following statement:
"I consider the Governor a friend. He has done and continues to do a lot of good for the people of our State. Nonetheless, these are serious allegations that require a fair, thorough and independent investigation. An independent investigation will best serve those making the allegations, the Governor and the people of the State of New York."
This is exactly why we need to establish independent investigations for sexual harassment and misconduct all >egations. We cannot allow bad behavior to be swept under the rug, but without a safe, transparent process victims will fear retaliation and resolution will be dictated by political maneuvering. If a person can exercise their power to influence outcomes, no victim will feel safe enough to come forward. Perpetrators of harassment or assault - even powerful leaders - need to know that they can’t use their power to avoid justice.
Now is the moment for our New York Democratic Party to change so it can better reflect our ideals. In this Ethics Reform Committee, Chair Jacobs has the opportunity to back an open, transparent, and safe process within one of the key institutions for promoting people to power in New York State. We urge him to do just that.
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Ben Yee is the Democratic State Committeeman for New York's 66th Assembly District and former Secretary of the Manhattan Democratic Party. Vittoria Fariello is a district leader from Lower Manhattan and a partner at Balestriere Fariello, a trials and investigations law firm that has prosecuted claims for sexual harassment, human trafficking, and other complex claims. On Twitter at @yben & @VittoriaNYC.
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