Florida Gov. Rick Scott's plan to drug test state workers and welfare recipients ran into trouble in the courts. Law professor Pauline Kim and reporter Curt Anderson discuss the drug testing battle.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're starting again today as we did yesterday, with an important court decision. Yesterday, we focused on the Supreme Court's decision to let stand Michigan's ban on the use of race in public university admissions. That was passed by the voters a while back. Today, we want to talk about an issue the justices actually decided to bypass.
Florida Governor Rick Scott hoped the court would hear an appeal stemming from an executive order to drug test all state workers, about 85,000 people. A lower court said the order was unconstitutional, calling it a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.
We wanted to know what the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case means for this drug testing issue in Florida and elsewhere around the country, so we called Curt Anderson, a Florida legal affairs reporter for the Associated Press, and Pauline Kim, professor of law at Washington University School of Law. And she specializes in employment and privacy law. Welcome to you both. Thank you for joining us.
PAULINE KIM: Thank you.
CURT ANDERSON: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So, Curt Anderson, I'm going to start with you. What did the Supreme Court say about Gov. Scott's issue, and what does this mean for the issue in Florida?
ANDERSON: Well, the Supreme Court just decided not to hear the case without comment. They denied certiorari, you know, which means they're not going to grant any hearing any further. So what it means is that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision from last year stands. And what that decision did was it said that Gov. Scott could not just broadly issue an order to randomly drug test all these employees - as you mentioned, about 85,000 - without some suspicion of drug use or some kind of special category of jobs, such as a law enforcement officer or somebody who operates heavy machinery in a safety type of situation.
MARTIN: So does that mean that the state can drug test some people but that they have to demonstrate that this has some direct relationship to the specific work that they do?
ANDERSON: Yes, correct. The 11th Circuit pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has said that the only way you can do this with state workers is when you have a kind of reasonable assumption that they are in a safety and security type of job or could be, for example, working with children or something like that as well.
MARTIN: Let me talk to Professor Kim on this. Professor Kim, Gov. Scott is not alone in his desire to drug test employees. In fact, a number of state and federal government jobs do require it and, as Curt Anderson was telling us, mostly for specific jobs that involve safety, like operating heavy machinery, or certain positions, say, in law enforcement. Are there some states that have very broad-based testing regiments? And what allows those to go forward?
KIM: Well, I don't think any state that I know of has tried to implement testing on such a widespread basis as we saw in Florida. And I think that's because, as the 11th Circuit said, it's not constitutional. There were a pair of cases that the Supreme Court decided back in 1989 that kind of laid out the legal framework for deciding cases like this. And there were two types of employees involved in those cases. One were railroad employees, who are obviously doing jobs that have significant health and safety implications. They're driving these enormous locomotives. And then the second category of workers were customs officials who were involved in drug interdiction and are required to carry firearms.
And in those two cases, the Supreme Court made clear that drug testing of employees, when it's done by the government, does implicate the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of those individuals. And so it can only occur if there's an important government interest that outweighs it. And in those two cases, because of the type of work at stake, it was found to be justified. But how that extends to kind of ordinary employees at a county, at a clerk's office, not at all clear that a state could order drug testing across the board.
MARTIN: Somebody who processes marriage licenses, for example.
KIM: Right.
MARTIN: Curt Anderson, how did the employees in Florida react to this? I mean, who initially objected to this?
ANDERSON: The primary objectors were the - one of the main state worker unions and then the American Civil Liberties Union joined in with that as well. And just exactly what Professor Kim just said regarding the broadness of it, and what the program was going to be here was random drug testing of all of these employees, plus all applicants for new job. So it was about as broad as can be.
And I just wanted to go back. The 11th Circuit pointed out that when the state was trying to argue that all these job categories could be included, they said that the state had brought examples, such as when a person is driving a car in a workplace parking lot, that that's a danger. Well, what if they knocked over a stack of heavy boxes? And just to quote from what they said was that, "We reject the idea that a stack of heavy boxes or a wet floor falls within the same ballpark of risk as the operation of a 10,000-ton freight train or the danger posed by person carrying a firearm." So that pretty much puts it in a nutshell, how they felt about the state's argument.
MARTIN: Just to go backwards, the state's argument was - is that this was a measure to protect other employees...
ANDERSON: Yeah, or...
MARTIN: ...From employees who might be drug-impaired. Is that - that was their contention.
ANDERSON: Other employees, property, anything that I suppose if you were in a drug-addled state, supposedly if you knocked something expensive over, that would be a loss. It was about as broad a definition as anyone could think of.
MARTIN: If you're just joining us, we're talking about mandatory drug testing and the conflict over privacy concerns. Our guests are Curt Anderson, a legal affairs reporter for the Associated Press in Florida, and law professor Pauline Kim of the Washington University School of Law.
Curt Anderson, let's wheel around because Gov. Scott went beyond government employees in his desire to implement drug testing. The state also tried to require drug testing for people who are receiving government benefits, specifically welfare benefits. And as I recall, that was also part of his campaign for office. I mean, so it's kind of a pivotal philosophical position of his, right? What happened with that? Was that issue brought forward, too, as part of this lawsuit?
ANDERSON: Yes, a separate lawsuit - just to backpedal a bit - that was actually passed by the legislature with the governor's support and signed into law by him in his first term - first year of his first term. And so that was a little different, of course. And what it did was it said, not existing welfare recipients, but those that were applying for benefits would have to be drug tested.
That one was challenged again by the ACLU, and the ACLU represented, I believe, an applicant, you know, to get a person who was actually affected. And that was struck down as well by a federal judge in Orlando on New Year's Eve of last year. And it is now being appealed by the state to the very same 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And it's in the midst of, you know, the briefings and all that, so it's going to be a ways. But I have a feeling that Gov. Scott, given his track record, if he loses again, will still try to get the Supreme Court to hear this one as well.
MARTIN: Professor Kim, what about that? It's my understanding that some states do require drug screening for welfare benefits - now, Utah, Oklahoma and Arizona. What are the legal arguments, pro and con? And how is it that these testing regiments are still sustained?
KIM: Well, I think that the legal arguments in the context of testing welfare recipients is really the same as the - or very similar to the context of employment to the extent that the Supreme Court made clear that drug testing employees implicates important privacy interests that are protected by the Fourth Amendment. That same reasoning would apply to welfare recipients as well. What would be different is the context in which the testing has occurred and the question of whether the government has an important interest in that testing.
Now, the kinds of arguments I've heard in terms of supporting these types of testing programs are that they'll protect children and that they'll save the states money. I don't think there's any real clear evidence that drug testing programs achieve either of those purposes. And really my sense is these programs, to the extent that they're out there - and apparently they're becoming increasingly popular - they're really about symbolism. They're about government or particular public officials trying to take a stand about their views of illegal drug use. The problem is in the employment context, the courts have been pretty clear that symbolic stand is not a sufficient justification for drug testing that burdens someone's privacy rights.
MARTIN: Curt Anderson, Gov. Scott, as you mentioned, is up for reelection this year. Florida voters, as I understand it, also will have the option to consider approving medicinal marijuana use. What happens if people use these substances on their own time apart from the workplace or in another state where that use is legal? Has that been discussed as part of the debate? What happens there?
ANDERSON: Well, not that specific instance. But just to let you know, on the medicinal marijuana vote, that's a referendum that the people are going to vote on that requires a two-thirds vote to pass. And it's probably going to pass. And, you know, it's a - there's a lot of questions like that that aren't really answered.
However, these things we're talking about regarding the drug testing of employees and welfare recipients, that, certainly, if you had medicinal marijuana that was legal and you had people that were legally prescribed to have it, it would seem like that would be a nonstarter in terms of being able to adopt a policy like this.
MARTIN: Professor Kim, what about that? Has this area been tested where you have maybe drug testing regiments bumping up against people's right to use certain substances in their private lives when they're off duty? How is this issue being resolved at present?
KIM: Well, so one thing to keep in mind, in the private sector - so again, public sector, the Fourth Amendment applies. But in the private sector, there are very few restrictions on what an employer can require of its employees or the bases on which it can make decisions to discipline or terminate an employee. So in most states, employers do have the freedom to make personnel decisions based on what their employees do off-duty whether or not it involves illegal drugs like marijuana.
MARTIN: So, Professor Kim, if we could conclude kind of where we started out. I started asking Curt Anderson this at the beginning of our conversation. So I want to ask you to conclude it. Where did the Supreme Court leave us on this question of how far the state can go in requiring these kinds of regiments? Did they send it back to the states to kind of determine what's appropriate and what's not within kind of a narrow framework? Did they actually give us any additional guidance?
KIM: I think when the Supreme Court declined to accept the case from the 11th Circuit that came out of Florida, I think it was basically saying that what the 11th Circuit did there was consistent with its earlier decisions in the 1989 cases I mentioned earlier. In other words, it kind of laid out the framework to be applied in these settings. And it thought the 11th Circuit was applying it correctly, and it didn't see a need to intervene again at this point in time. Doesn't mean all the questions are answered. But at the moment, it seems to be happy with that framework that it has set out. And it's really up to the lower courts to figure out how to apply that framework in specific settings.
MARTIN: Pauline Kim is the Charles Nagel professor of law at Washington University School of Law. She joined us from St. Louis Public Radio. Curt Anderson is a legal affairs reporter of South Florida for the Associated Press. He joined us from NPR member station WLRN in Miami. Thank you both so much for speaking with us.
KIM: Thank you for having me.
ANDERSON: Thank you very much.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. Share Facebook Twitter GoogleFor political junkies reading the 2016 tea leaves, Jeb Bush offers this newly emptied cup: "I'm thinking about running for president."
That's the report from an attendee of Wednesday's closed-door Catholic Charities fundraiser in New York to Fox News, who said this was in response to a question about the former Florida governor's immediate plans.
No, this isn't terribly different from things he's said in recent months: "I'm going to think about it later," and "There's a time to make a decision. You shouldn't make it too early; you shouldn't make it too late." But from the point of view of tone and nuance, Wednesday's remarks are clearly the most direct
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Listen to the Story All Things Considered 3 min 13 sec Playlist Download TranscriptThe Supreme Court handed down major decisions on some controversial cases this week. David Savage of the Los Angeles Times and Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog discuss the rulings and what's next.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:
This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. The Supreme Court has been in the news quite a lot this week. That happens when they start handing out decisions, and there are some controversial cases - both regarding decisions on and coming up.
We wanted to find out about some of those and what's next. So we've called upon David Savage. He's the Los Angeles Times Supreme Court correspondent. He joins me in our Washington, D.C. studios. Also with me here in the studio is Amy Howe, editor and reporter for the SCOTUSblog. That's the Supreme Court of the United States blog. And she's with me here. Welcome to both of you.
DAVID SAVAGE: Hi.
AMY HOWE: Hi. Thanks for inviting me.
HEADLEE: So obviously, this week we've talked a lot about the decision on Tuesday over the Michigan ban on affirmative action. It was a 6 to 2 ruling, and notably, besides the decision itself, we got an epic 58 page dissent from Justice Sotomayor - longer than both of the other responses combined.
So, Amy, tell me about her dissent - what it was about. Did it relate just to the particulars of this case because it almost seemed like some of the messages she had were basically in general messages to the other justices?
HOWE: That's right. And one of the most interesting things about her dissent was that she decided to read it from the bench. This was the first time she's been on the court since 2009 that she has done so. And so she really picked a big one in which to do it. And so she did address the legal principles behind the court's decision and her arguments for why the court's decision was wrong.
But then there was a whole section of her opinion that, as you suggest, was devoted to the idea that race matters. It matters because there was this long history of inequality in our country. It matters because there's still persistent social and economic inequality based on race, she said. And it matters - and this was the part that was incredibly personal - because there are still slights and judgments, she said, based on race.
And so in a not-so-subtle jab at the chief justice's statement in a decision back in 2007 in which he said the way to stop this discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, she said the way to stop the discrimination on the basis of race is to talk very openly about it.
HEADLEE: So, David, what was the - do we know what the response of the other justices was to this? I mean, I imagine it was relatively uncomfortable in the courtroom.
SAVAGE: Yes. This was a very powerful dissent and strongly worded. I must say, though, there's a real divide on that, and she hit it very well. John Roberts and Justice Scalia basically say the equal protection clause says that no state may deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, and what we should do is say that means no race discrimination under any circumstances and for any reason.
So that's their very strong view, and she knows that. And she's - that's why her dissent was so powerful because, as Amy said, she kept saying to them, no, no, no, you don't really understand. Race still matters, and it's not good enough to just say it's over, let's treat everybody equal.
HEADLEE: And she said, you can't wish it away. If you have the time, it's a 58-page dissent worth reading. But let's talk about what's next. There was another case actually that revolved around the 4th Amendment. The 4th Amendment, of course, relates to unreasonable searches and seizures. This particular case asked whether police can stop a vehicle based on an anonymous tip, like you call in and say there's somebody's swerving all over the road. Amy, what was this decision about?
HOWE: This decision - there was an anonymous tipster who called police in California and said I've just been run off the road by a silver Ford, and here's the license plate number. And the police tracked down the truck, and they followed it for a couple of miles, didn't see anything wrong. But they pulled it over based on the anonymous tip. As they're going towards the truck to approach it, they smell marijuana. They search the truck. They find 30 pounds of marijuana.
And this was, you know, Justice Clarence Thomas whom we don't hear from that often had a - it's a joked aside when he was announcing the opinion. He said you probably shouldn't carry 30 pounds of marijuana around in your truck.
And so the question was whether or not that anonymous tip was enough to pull over a car in a situation like this. Police need reasonable suspicion that there is an ongoing crime, and that's based sort of on what they call the totality of the circumstances. You look at the whole picture, and you figure out what kind of information police had and whether or not that information was reliable. And here, the court said, this information was sufficiently reliable that the police could pull them over.
HEADLEE: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with Amy Howe, who you just heard, editor and reporter for the SCOTUSblog, and also David Savage of the Los Angeles Times Supreme Court correspondent. They were talking about the Supreme Court - some of the decisions they've make and what's coming up. And, David, there's another case that involves the 4th Amendment next week, and this one involves smartphones. And, again, the 4th Amendment is unreasonable searches and seizures. What's this one about?
SAVAGE: Well, this is the question is if the police stop you and arrest you, the normal rule is that they can take your belongings, you know, something in your pocket. They can pick up anything and look at it. Well, what about your smartphone? Can the police sort of take your smartphone, download everything, track it, get all of your information? Or do they need some search warrant? Do they need you to go to a judge? And so this is a big question about sort of...
HEADLEE: You mean, when you're arrested - i.e. you get arrested, they take all of your things off of you. This is, can they, without a warrant, look through all the data on your smartphone?
SAVAGE: Yes, that's exactly it because the old rule was that the police can - anything that's incident to arrest. And the theory was that is well, what if you've got a gun in your pocket? They want to check your pockets, and they don't want you to destroy evidence. You've got a little note says I'm going to this house to sell drugs. So they could take what's in your pockets and look at it.
But, as you know, as your question suggests - a smartphone is quite a different matter. I mean, it's basically, the argument is, the old 4th Amendment says secure in your houses and personal effects - papers and effects. And there's sort of an old argument that says, hey, in our time our papers and effects are really what we've got on our smart phone. And the police shouldn't be able to just look through all that based on the fact that they've stopped you and arrested you.
HEADLEE: OK, so that's coming up next week. Let's talk about another decision. And this was a decision made in a case about victims of child pornography and who they can sue for restitution. And of course in an incident of child pornography, it could be thousands of users, right, Amy? I mean this is a 5 to 4 decision, so relatively close. Why was it so controversial? Why was the vote so close?
HOWE: This was a - there's a federal law that says when you've got, among other things, victims of child pornography, and someone is convicted for possessing child pornography and, in this case, you're in that image. And so this is a young woman named - who goes under the pseudonym of Amy who, when she was 8-years-old, was abused by her uncle. He not only abused her, but he took pictures of the abuse and circulated them. And apparently images of Amy are now among the most widely circulated images of child pornography on the Internet. A
nd so the defendant in this case was a Texas man named Doyle Paroline, and he was convicted for possessing images of Amy. And using this mandatory restitution law that Congress passed, a lower court judge ordered him to pay $3.4 million dollars in restitution. And so the question is, what did Congress mean when it said that someone like Doyle Paroline should be required to pay restitution? Should he be liable for all of the damages that someone like Amy has suffered or some portion of it? And the problem is that the law that Congress passed doesn't specify how judges are supposed to figure this out.
And so when a 5 to 4 decision - and it was a very interesting lineup. And the four justices did not agree on exactly what should happen. But in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, five justices said, well, basically District Courts should - District Courts, the federal trial courts, should do their best to figure out how to allocate responsibility. And they can look at factors like whether or not this person had a role in producing the images, and whether or not this person had a role circulating the images and how many images there are.
But there's no magic formula here. The chief justice, in an opinion that was joined by chief Justices Scalia and Thomas, said this law was so arbitrary that whatever number that a judge assigns is basically going to be made up. And the criminal law doesn't allow that. And then Justice Sotomayor also dissented, but she would've said that Doyle Paroline could be held liable for the whole $3.4 million.
HEADLEE: David, does this have relevance to other digital - I mean, things of liable? I mean, does this have relevance to people and the Internet at all feel as though they deserve damages?
SAVAGE: Well, no. The law refers to victims of child sexual exploitation, but the law was basically unused - this part of it - for about 20 years. So this is sort of a new thing. And I think actually more good than bad for victims of child pornography because, as you say, this is one of these crimes that was always horrible and has gotten worse because, as somebody said - one of the lawyers said the other day - this used to be about old photos in shoeboxes.
Now these photos are on the Internet and they circulate and they're there forever. And this - the court basically said, every person who is caught with those illegal images can be required to pay restitution and that the U.S. attorneys, the federal government, is responsible for going into court and saying, this victim deserves restitution. The only debate is how much. You know, it could be $5,000. It could be $10,000.
But it seems to me this sort of opens a whole new chapter for victims to register with the government and some of these victims' rights groups have been tracking this child pornography and going to court in case after case after case, and say to these defendants, you have to pay restitution to this victim of, you know, this earlier sexual abuse.
HEADLEE: We don't have a huge amount of time left, but I at least wanted to get from both of you quickly what case you're most looking forward to. Amy, what do you think?
HOWE: Well, I'm looking forward to the cell phone privacy cases. I mean, this is something that affects everyone, and as with the decision in the anonymous tipster case, when you've got cases involving the 4th Amendment, they rarely divide on this sort of traditional, ideological lines.
And so Justice Scalia was one of the dissenters in the anonymous tipster case that we talked about earlier. And so it will be very interesting at the oral argument next week to see what the justices' concerns are. I mean, they all have smartphones and are interested in privacy, too At the other end is that they are not the most technologically savvy...
HEADLEE: That does shock me.
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Tensions remain high in Ukraine, and there are also concerns that anti-Semitism is taking root during the political crisis. Richard Brodsky of Demos discusses the issue.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:
This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Celeste Headlee. Michel Martin is away. Now to Ukraine where tensions remain high. Today, the Ukrainian prime minister reportedly accused Russia of trying to start World War III.
In the midst of all this political chaos, there are also concerns that anti-Semitism is taking root in Ukraine. It's a serious enough matter that Vice President Joe Biden addressed it when he visited Ukraine this week. Take a listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: Injustice, corruption can have no place in a new Ukraine. Neither can anti-Semitism or bigotry. Let me say that again. Neither can anti-Semitism or bigotry. No place. None. Zero.
HEADLEE: Russian officials have been accused of overplaying the level of anti-Semitism among Ukrainian nationalists in order to justify an intervention. But our next guest says there is a cause for concern.
Richard Brodsky is a senior fellow at the public policy group Demos and member of the international organization World Without Nazism. He recently wrote about all of this for the Huffington Post and he joins me from Westchester County, New York. Welcome.
RICHARD BRODSKY: Nice to be with you.
HEADLEE: So without commenting on whether or not the Russians should intervene in Ukraine, how serious and real is this claim of growing anti-Semitism there?
BRODSKY: Well, it's real and it's real not just in Ukraine but in Russia itself and of course, Europe. There is a growing resurgent set of Nazi and neo-Nazi movements that is very difficult for Americans to absorb as real. In fact, across Europe, these parties are now part of the political mainstream.
In Ukraine, the right sector and Svoboda political parties have explicit elements not just of anti-Semitism, but of antigay sentiments, anti-Russian sentiments, anti-Romanish (ph), anti-immigrant sentiments. In a vocabulary in iconography that looks, sounds and feels like some of the things we saw years and years and years ago.
HEADLEE: Look, here in the United States, we tend to call people Nazis or compare them to Hitler probably a little bit too much. I think people get inured to that particular claim. Can you give me a specific example of what you're talking about?
BRODSKY: Yeah, there have been documents published by Svoboda and Svoboda members that talk about things like the protocols of the Elders of Zion and the international Zionist conspiracy. There have been racial criteria for joining parties - political parties - like Svoboda. You have to be fully Ukrainian. They pick at even visitors like the Russian patriarch as not sufficiently Ukrainians.
It's a nationalist as well as anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant movement. It's real. It's complicated. It's very hard to know when these things tip over from fringe crazy people to mainstream political movements. But the evidence across Europe, in Russia and particularly in the Ukraine is that this stuff is real, it's growing and it's got to be first identified and then spoken about in ways that prevent what would be the ghastly repetition of the ghastly events of 70 years ago.
HEADLEE: Obviously, people are talking about this in Ukraine because of all the political chaos and the intervention of Russia. But where in Europe is - are we seeing the worst examples of this?
BRODSKY: Well, probably Greece and Hungary, Russia and Ukraine and the Baltic states are the most obvious. In Greece, for example, you have a political party, the Golden Dawn, which holds 10 percent or so of the seats in the national parliament and which is consistent with this sort of anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, old-style right-wing bigotry.
Same is true in Hungary where there are members of the national parliament there. In Riga, Latvia where I actually attended one of these meetings, there are political parties supporting tensions for the surviving members of Hitler's Waffen-SS, and they hold an annual march, which I visited. And it's terribly disturbing to see the survivors of the elements of society that committed murders honored as part of a political movement in the contemporary political structures of these nations.
I don't want to make too much of this, but you can't say that these societies are dominated by these social and political forces. But you can say that something real is going on. It has echoes of the '30s, '40s in Europe and very little attention is being paid to it. But when these movements and these outbursts morph from fringe acts into mainstream political movements, as they have in the Ukraine and Russia and Hungary and Greece, you know, I'd rather be a little bit over concerned than a little bit under concerned. The evidence is there. If you look at the reports, it's real and it's frightening.
HEADLEE: Richard Brodsky is a senior fellow at the public policy group Demos and senior fellow at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. Thank you so much.
BRODSKY: You're welcome.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. Share Facebook Twitter GoogleThe Havasupai Native American tribe celebrated Blood Victory Day this week. That's the anniversary of their legal victory over researchers who misused members' blood samples without proper consent.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:
This week is an anniversary for a Native-American community in Arizona. The Havasupai Tribe celebrated Blood Victory Day earlier this week in remembrance of their legal victory over Arizona State University's Board of Regents. The Havasupai have lived deep within the Grand Canyon for centuries, but the story of this case begins in the 1990s.
The tribe was suffering from high rates of diabetes and they wanted to know why, so they sought the help of researchers from Arizona State University. The tribe agreed to provide blood samples so the University could test their DNA but what they didn't know was how extensively their DNA would be used. Researchers looked into mental illness, inbreeding, even migratory patterns that contradicted Havasupai traditional belief.
Here to tell us more is Carletta Tilousi a member of the Havasupai Tribe. She was a student at Arizona State University in 2003 when she heard a graduate student's dissertation and discovered that Havasupai blood was being used for more than diabetes research. She joins us now from Supai village in Arizona. Welcome.
CARLETTA TILOUSI: Yes, hello, everybody.
HEADLEE: So you were one of those who donated blood originally to this research. Why did you agree to give your blood?
TILOUSI: I agreed to give my blood to see whether in the future I was going to be a diabetic. And that was the way I was approached by Arizona State University officials asking me a question about, do you want to know whether you're going to be diabetic when you get older? And I agreed to do that.
HEADLEE: Do you feel like you at least got the answer to that question? Did the tribe get what it wanted in terms of information about diabetes?
TILOUSI: I never got my answer. To this day I've never received any documents showing whether or not I am going to be diabetic or any of that sort from ASU.
HEADLEE: It's been four years since this went to court and I don't want to rehash all of the details of it. Suffice it to say that the courts decided that ASU had used the blood improperly, that they should have only used it for diabetes research.
But you kind of spearheaded this campaign. What motivated you to stick with this? Why was it so important that they use the blood only for diabetes research?
TILOUSI: Part of it is it was a part of my body that was taken from me, a part of my blood and a part of our bodies as Native-Americans are very sacred and special to us and we should respect it. And once they obtained that blood sample, my understanding was they didn't use it for the purpose of diabetes, they used it for other studies.
And that angered me because I was not properly informed nor did I sign any consent form or fully explained to what my blood was being used for. And it was benefiting different people in the university levels as professors have been obtaining their doctor's degrees and undergraduate students that were graduating with master's degrees while our people down here, first of all, were not informed of all of those studies but was also lied to from the beginning and I don't like being lied to. And it wasn't just myself that did this, it was a lot of people involved that helped with this legal case.
HEADLEE: It took seven years before a settlement was actually reached with ASU. The blood was returned to the tribe. The tribe settled out of court for $700,000. Are you happy with the settlement? Will it make a difference for the tribe?
TILOUSI: I am happy it's over. I am happy the case is over and we all are ready to move forward and begin the healing process. And the number one healing process for the Havasupai people was to obtain our blood samples back, bring them back to Supai Village 'cause these blood samples were of individuals who had passed on and some of the blood samples were my grandmother's mother's blood. And I believe that we owed it to our ancestors to obtain these blood samples back, bring them home and properly bury them. When that was done, I was happy.
HEADLEE: Were there any positive results of this whole situation of the donation of the blood, the research, the legal case? Was there any positive that came of all this?
TILOUSI: There were many positive things that came out of it. And one of the positive things was that all the tribes here in Arizona, the 21 tribes here, supported the Havasupai Tribe and stood alongside us along with tribes across the nation. And we had resolutions passed by the National Congress of American Indians and over 21 tribes passed resolutions supporting the Havasupai Tribe.
That shows that when another tribe needs help, other tribes are available to support us. And due to the Havasupai Tribe's case, the laws have changed for human subject research around the world. From now on, any indigenous people or any citizens of the United States that are being asked to participate in any research study, they have to be properly informed by written consent and explained to, especially if English is their second language. And those are big steps that made a big impact, not just here in Havasupai, but all over the world.
HEADLEE: Carletta Tilousi, the blood case liaison for the Havasupai Tribe and Arizona State University. Carletta, thank you so much.
TILOUSI: You're welcome.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. Share Facebook Twitter GoogleBoth rancher Cliven Bundy and the New York Police Department had a rough week in the spotlight. The Barbershop guys weigh in on the risks of talking or tweeting too much.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.CELESTE HEADLEE, HOST:
I'm Celeste Headlee and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michel Martin is away. It's time yet again for our weekly visit to the Barbershop. That's where the guys talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds.
Sitting in the chairs for shape up this week, we have writer Jimi Izrael. He's with us from Cleveland. Pablo Torre is with us from New York. He's a senior writer with ESPN. From Boston, Neil Minkoff, health care consultant and contributor to National Review Online. And here with me in our Washington, D.C. studios, Georgetown University law professor Paul Butler.
Take it away, Jimi.
JIMI IZRAEL: Prince Paul, what's up, B? Hey, hey, everybody else.
(LAUGHTER)
IZRAEL: Welcome to the shop. How we doing?
PABLO TORRE: What's going on, man?
PAUL BUTLER: I'm good. It's good to be here.
NEIL MINKOFF: It's good.
IZRAEL: I feel like the gang's all here. I feel like we should go rob the Bellagio or something.
HEADLEE: No, no, no. No, we'll be doing no robbing.
IZRAEL: OK, well...
MINKOFF: Maybe beat boxing.
IZRAEL: Well, so much for "Ocean's 14." But anyway, it's a big day at Northwestern University. Football players, they are voting on whether the college team should be unionized. But we may not know the results anytime soon. Pablo, P-dog...
TORRE: Yeah, the vote...
IZRAEL: ...What's up with that?
TORRE: Exactly, it's a big day. The voting is already complete actually. But it's an incomplete picture because all of this - the vote is whether to unionize or not, obviously in light of the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board's decision ruling that college football players are employees. And they're going to vote - they voted on whether to unionize or not. But that is all beholden to what the national board is going to rule on.
They have the ability to review the regional director, and they have granted Northwestern's request to review that. And now, it's going to be months potentially until we find out what they rule and what the players actually said because this is only the first step in a long road. So, yeah, we're still waiting. I mean, but it's - whatever happened today, you know, obviously has significant symbolic importance.
IZRAEL: Thank you. Thank you, Pablo. OK, well, something we do know the results on - Yankees pitcher, Michael Pineda, received a 10-game suspension for using pine tar during Wednesday's game against the Boston Red Sox. What's up with that? I always rub pine tar on the mic. Anyway, here's a clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF BASEBALL GAME)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Now they're checking his back. Now they're throwing him out of the game. He went to his neck and he said there's something on his neck. So Pineda is being tossed.
IZRAEL: Oh, either homeboy had the dirtiest neck in the world, or he had pine tar on his back. Neil Minkoff, as a Red Sox fan, I guess you get the first word.
MINKOFF: OK, so it's interesting. I was watching the game live at a local pub, and I was with my wife. We were watching it, and the pitcher comes up - Pineda comes out to begin the inning, and everybody - like, the camera - it wasn't hidden. There was no subtlety here.
IZRAEL: Right.
MINKOFF: There's this big streak of tar on his neck. And they're focusing on the picture, and everybody in the bar looked up and said, is that what I think that this? And people started talking to each other, seriously? He's trying to do this again? Because 10 days or so before he had pitched against the Red Sox...
TORRE: Right.
MINKOFF: ...He had tar on his hand. And the team had chosen not to say anything about that. Major League Baseball Joe Torre had basically said to the Yankees, you know, we know that everybody does this, but try not to be blatant about it.
IZRAEL: Sure.
MINKOFF: And if anything, the second attempt was more blatant than the first. What I think is fascinating is that the culture of baseball has come out and said, we know that people use stick em, we know that people use substances. It's OK, but don't rub our face in it. And that's what Pineda did.
IZRAEL: He's just that dude. Pablo, is it true that a lot of pitchers do this?
TORRE: Oh, yeah.
IZRAEL: Is that true?
TORRE: Totally, and the thing is they're smart enough - and the bar for being smart enough here is very low - but they're smart enough to use stuff that's actually fairly translucent, like hair gel or suntan lotion. I mean, this - as Neil was saying, this goes on everywhere. And some would argue, pitchers would argue that it actually helps them get a better grip on the ball so that their pitchers have more control. Maybe that's good for the batter as well.
But the bottom line, whether you buy that or not, it certainly is advantageous to the pitcher and is one of those unwritten rules where reality does not match up with what's on the books. And that's why when you hear everybody complaining about Michael Pineda, it's about how stupid he is because he forced everybody to call - it's like bringing food into a movie theater. They're not going to bother you about it unless you're eating your Big Mac as you're handing the guy your ticket. That's basically what Michael Pineda did.
(LAUGHTER)
IZRAEL: I do that all the time. I've totally taken Polish Boys into the movies. I'm that dude. I swear to God, I'm that dude.
TORRE: We're all that dude.
IZRAEL: Paul - right. I'm going to put that on a t-shirt - we're all that dude. Paul Butler, weigh in here.
BUTLER: Oh, so I don't get how everybody does it. But Pineda is stupid just 'cause he got caught. So it's like saying breaking the rules is fine, as long as you do it in a discreet way. I just don't like these inside rules that only the cool kids know about. It seems like Pineda's mistake is that he was transparent and honest.
TORRE: Yeah, that's fair. They should probably change the rule, honestly. I mean, I think they should change the rule at this point.
HEADLEE: Yeah, fair point. You're listening to our weekly Barbershop roundtable. We're joined by writer Jimi Izrael, law professor Paul Butler, sports journalist Pablo Torre and Neil Minkoff, contributor to National Review Online. OK, take it away, Jimi.
IZRAEL: Thank you, Celeste. OK, well...
HEADLEE: Oh, you're welcome.
IZRAEL: Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy - Cliven Bundy?
HEADLEE: Woah.
TORRE: Oh, boy.
IZRAEL: That's not a name. That's a major appliance. He had a lot of people on his side, mostly conservatives, over a dispute with the feds. He's been fighting to allow his cattle to graze for free on federal land. But he strayed from the danger zone - (singing) danger zone - by sharing his thoughts on, quote-unquote, "the Negro." Oy vey. Drop the clip.
(SOUNDBITE OF INTERVIEW)
CLIVEN BUNDY: They abort their young children. They put their young men in jail because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, though, are they are better off as slaves, picking cotton and having family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?
HEADLEE: Oh, lord.
IZRAEL: Holy mackerel, Andy. Thank you for that. Cliven Bundy - that sounds like something you catch on spring break. Neil, a lot of conservatives supported Bundy's land fight. As a libertarian, what do you make of him?
MINKOFF: Well, so in fairness, a lot did, but there were a number who from the beginning were saying, this guy is out there.
IZRAEL: Well...
MINKOFF: And I don't really think that he had much of a legal case in the first place. You know, this is ridiculous, this idea of this romanticizing of slavery. One cannot be a libertarian and romanticize the complete and total coercive loss of liberty, right? It is a complete and total paradox. And so this guy is just proving to be a sort of whack job and not really a symbol of anything that's good.
IZRAEL: Oh, OK. Well, Paul Butler, weigh in here, man.
BUTLER: Well, Jimi, what you were calling his land fight, I think you meant to say his illegal occupation of all these acres of government land for, like, 25 years. So can you imagine if he were a Native-American who was doing this? They would have gotten him off of the property one way or another.
IZRAEL: Right.
BUTLER: But instead, he becomes this hero to all these Republicans, even though he's a criminal. So I think it's easy to make this a caricature of a racist. But to me, it's a story about white privilege.
IZRAEL: And I'm so glad I minored in cotton picking. So I've got something to fall back on. So, but anyway, let's keep it moving. There was some headshaking this week in New York - as if - when the police department stepped in by stepping into social media - probably a mistake. In an effort to boost their image, the department asked folks to post photos of themselves with officers using the hashtag #MyNYPD.
That can only go wrong. Instead of shots of Officer Friendly, you know, convocation, they kind of got a ton of photos showing cops pulling hair, dragging people around and even frisking dogs 'cause you know how dogs are. Pablo, you live in New York. What were they thinking?
TORRE: Yeah, I mean, this is, you know - it's as much a New York story as it is a story about just totally misunderstanding what the Internet is.
(LAUGHTER)
TORRE: The point at which you open up a hashtag, and you are this authority - basically anybody in authority - it doesn't even need to be the NYPD. We actually saw this in sports. The NCAA's head, Mark Emmert, did a hashtag #AskEmmert, where he opened up the Internet to questions, and he was going to read all of them. And as soon as that happened, it was flooded by people who are cynical. That's the DNA of the Internet.
And in this case, it actually happens to align with raising actual substantive issues, and it was a form of political protest in and of itself. But the Internet, with anonymity and cynicism, that's not where you want to play. If you're just - I'm speaking as a PR director, not at these institutions at this point because I like the way it turned out.
IZRAEL: Right.
TORRE: But, yeah, just misreading who you're talking to.
IZRAEL: Right. You know what? But you know what? To be fair, we don't know what happened or what was happening before the photos were taken - hashtag #APhotoIsWorthAThousandWords. But, Paul Butler, why don't you jump in here, bro?
BUTLER: Well, we do kind of know because the NYPD doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to, you know...
HEADLEE: Community policing?
BUTLER: ...African-Americans - you know, yeah - serving and protecting. But, you know, I do have another NYPD, too, 'cause one of my boys is a cop there. He was running up the stairs of the twin towers on 9/11. And all of a sudden, it came over the loudspeaker, go back down, go back down. And he said they all turned around and started running back down, and the only reason they did that was 'cause that was the order. He's a hero to me. So that's another NYPD. But I think they're all legitimate.
IZRAEL: You tell your boy he's a hero to me, too.
BUTLER: I sure will.
IZRAEL: Neil Minkoff, your take.
MINKOFF: It - I think it's very simple, and I'm down with Pablo on this one, which is either don't wade into social media or have somebody who understands social media explain the rules to before you wade in there. This was just ripe to be taken over with this sort of subversive thing. If I had known about it ahead of time, I certainly would have tried to find the funny pictures and post them here with this. This was absolutely ripe for Internet joke, and it should have been figured out ahead of time. There's no reason to go forward with this knowing that this is the likely outcome.
IZRAEL: Yeah, I don't understand. So you mean to tell me that the NYPD does not know how the Internet works? Clutch the pearls. So anyway, let's move overseas for a tough story about justice in action. The captain of the capsized South Korea ferry was recently arrested. He's accused of jumping ship early. Isn't that right, Celeste?
HEADLEE: That's right. President Obama is in South Korea today. He's expressing his sympathy over the accident that left more than 300 people either missing or dead. But the captain and most of his crew escaped the ship before everyone had been evacuated. So reportedly, the captain directed passengers to stay in their seats below deck. He said he didn't evacuate passengers earlier because he was afraid they'd get swept away by strong currents before rescue ships arrived. The President of South Korea has likened the captain and the crew's actions to murder.
IZRAEL: Well, see, I don't think it's murder. I just think it's dishonorable, and that's something he's going to have to live with. And that's - it's just awful. It's an awful situation, and certainly my heart goes out to all the families and the victims. Paul Butler, your take.
BUTLER: So this actually comes up in the law all the time, how much of a duty we have to help other people. And it turns out, it's very human not to step up. We actually have this instinct for self-preservation. So I think we have to look at these folks with a measure of empathy and humanity.
IZRAEL: He's the captain of a boat. (Laughing) I mean - well, whatever - I mean, you know, captain goes down with his ship. I mean...
BUTLER: Well, you know, maybe we'd like to hope so. But that's not really how it works.
IZRAEL: Evidently. Thank you, Prince Paul. Dr. Neil Minkoff, what do you think?
MINKOFF: Well, so I'm with Paul on this. I mean, this is a - there but for the grace of God go I - I hope I'm never in a situation where I have to make such a horrible decision. It's bad enough working in an emergency room and trying to sort things out one at a time, never mind these large things.
I do think that the whole captain goes down with the ship thing is largely a myth. It was created by the British Navy around the importance of the captain and their selflessness and that their most important duty is the well-being of their crew and their ship. I mean, this is a ferry. Would we say the subway conductor goes down with the subway? It's mass transit. And so I think that a lot of this has been taken over by this myth that was propagated by the British.
HEADLEE: I should mention here - just an insert - that according to South Korean law, the captain does have certain obligations to stay with the ship until all the passengers are rescued. And in fact, there's a criminal penalty for failing to aid passengers in getting off a ship. That's a five-year penalty. And obviously, if it turns out that the sinking happened because of negligence of the crew's part, that brings another penalty as well - just wanted to add that in.
MINKOFF: Now that - that's - that's not - I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that when someone is in a state of panic, they're not thinking.
HEADLEE: Right.
MINKOFF: Their heart rate's up in the 200s. They are literally probably physically incapable of processing that type of thought.
HEADLEE: Pablo, any thoughts before we move onto something prettier?
TORRE: I just - I have no idea what maritime law entails, so I defer to everybody else on that. But I just think, you know, this is a guy reportedly with 40 years of experience on the water. And I just can't imagine that there was much - there's no winners here. Like, I completely understand what he did. I'd like to think I would not do that, that I would have an obligation to my passengers. But geez, I just don't think there is any winner in this situation.
HEADLEE: Well, we have just a few minutes left here. And I - we might as well move on to a much lovelier and graceful subject, right? This is the Barbershop. But let's talk about a woman here for a second.
IZRAEL: Because women are never talked about in the Barbershop.
(LAUGHTER)
HEADLEE: When I go into a barbershop with my son, they stop talking about women.
IZRAEL: I know that's right. I know that's right.
(LAUGHTER)
IZRAEL: I'm going to leave it right there.
(CROSSTALK)
IZRAEL: I know what happens. Go ahead.
TORRE: Barbershop law.
HEADLEE: So I wanted to get your guys' take about People magazine's World's Most Beautiful issue. And right there on the cover is, of course, Lupita. And I'm wondering - well, let me start with you, Paul. What was your reaction to seeing her face on the front cover of People's Most Beautiful issue?
BUTLER: I was really moved. So the most beautiful woman in the world is obviously not an objective thing. It's political.
HEADLEE: Yeah.
BUTLER: It's ideological, and it's always been very racial. And so it's actually a revolutionary moment to have an African woman with African features as the most beautiful. It's a moment of progress, especially for white people. So mad props to white people. You get it.
(LAUGHTER)
IZRAEL: I love it. I love it.
MINKOFF: Thanks, Paul.
HEADLEE: Neil, Pablo, Jimi.
TORRE: Yeah, I would add something real quick. I would add, you know, I think that's fantastic for all the reasons that Paul just said. But I also think that ultimately what we're judging this on - the success of this - you know, we're judging this based on the marketplace that is Hollywood.
So I'd like to see roles that would go to the most beautiful woman actually go to the person we're now saying is the most beautiful woman. I feel a bit cynical about what the power of a single publication is versus the market place in Hollywood. And I hope that it reflects an actual change in that marketplace because that's, I think, when the brass tacks is actually reckoned with.
UNIDENTIFIED PANEL MEMBER: Right.
TORRE: We need to see that person actually get jobs in the way that other people have.
HEADLEE: Try and slip into other, rather than just "12 Years a Slave." Jimi, Neil?
IZRAEL: Well...
MINKOFF: So...
IZRAEL: Neil, you go in, and I'll end. Go ahead.
MINKOFF: So to me - so I get everything that's been said, and I agree with the validation of a different standard of beauty. Lupita being gorgeous is maybe the least interesting thing about her.
HEADLEE: Yeah, that's true.
MINKOFF: I mean, she was raised all over the world. She's fluent in multiple languages. Her father is in the Kenyan Senate or Parliament - I'm forgetting the proper term - that in some ways, I feel like it's the least interesting thing about this woman and her journey through the world - and a master's degree in Yale and Academy Awards. This is - she's gorgeous. We know that.
HEADLEE: Jimi, final thoughts?
MINKOFF: I'm kind of beyond that.
IZRAEL: Well, I share Pablo's cynicism insofar as - to be sure, she is beautiful. But I wonder, circling around Prince Paul's point, if she wasn't just kind of put on the cover in a move to pander, in a move so that, you know, white Hollywood could pat itself on the back and white people could congratulate themselves. I mean...
HEADLEE: Yeah.
IZRAEL: ...This shouldn't take away from her beauty. But I'm just saying.
HEADLEE: Jimi Izrael is always just saying, a writer you can find his blog at JimiIzrael.com. Neil Minkoff, health care consultant, contributor to National Review Online. Paul Butler is a professor at Georgetown University Law School. And Pablo Torre, a senior writer for ESPN. Thanks, all, so much.
TORRE: Thank you.
MINKOFF: Woof. Woof.
BUTLER: Hey, hey, hey.
IZRAEL: Yupp.
HEADLEE: And that's our program today. I'm Celeste Headlee. This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News and the African-American Public Radio Consortium. Tune in for more talk on Monday.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to NPR. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. Share Facebook Twitter Googlehide captionLt. Gov. Anthony Brown at a January 2014 minimum-wage rally outside the Maryland State House.
Jose Luis Magana/APRegular political commentators, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times, discuss turmoil in Ukraine and the suspension of Middle East peace talks.
Share Facebook Twitter Googlehide captionLt. Gov. Anthony Brown at a January 2014 minimum-wage rally outside the Maryland State House.
Jose Luis Magana/APReports of what transpired during the Ukrainian offensive are stirring some confusion. Fewer people died than initially reported, and life appears normal in the allegedly besieged city of Slovyansk.
Share Facebook Twitter GoogleTwenty-three students from Columbia and Barnard say that the university is mishandling allegations of sexual assault. They filed federal complaints with the Department of Education on Thursday.
Share Facebook Twitter GooglePresident Obama is in South Korea, on another stop in his four-nation swing through East Asia. He voiced support for the country amid North Korea's threats to detonate another nuclear device.
Share Facebook Twitter GoogleNorthwestern University football players are voting Thursday on whether to unionize. Earlier, the National Labor Relations Board in Chicago ruled that the athletes' team requirements essentially make them employees of the university. This, in turn, means they can form a union. The university is appealing the NLRB ruling to the full board.
Share Facebook Twitter GoogleNorth Korea says it has detained a 24-year-old American tourist. NPR's Michele Kelemen filed this report for our Newscast unit:
"North Korea's official news agency identifies the man as Miller Matthew Todd, saying he was arrested because of his 'rash behavior' as he was entering the country.
"The country says he was taken into custody earlier this month. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki says the U.S. is aware of the reports.
" 'We have been in touch with the Embassy of Sweden about these reports; as you know Sweden is our protecting power in North Korea,' Psaki said.
"She offered no further details about that case. In another case of a jailed American, Psaki renewed calls on North Korea to release Kenneth Bae. She says Swedish diplomats have visited him 11 times since his detention, most recently last week."
CBS News reports that a large number of tourists were in North Korea in mid-April "to see events held for the anniversary of national founder Kim Il Sung's April 15 birthday."
The annual Pyongyang marathon was also opened up to foreigners for the first time ever this month.
One Canadian tourist who ran the race also posted pictures of her journey on Instagram. It's worth your time giving her account a quick browse, because it gives you a rare look at a normally closed-off country. We'll leave you with one of her pictures:
North Korea Share Facebook Twitter GooglefromWLRN
Listen to the Story All Things Considered 3 min 47 sec Playlist Download Transcripthide captionSandbags protect the front of the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 29, 2012, in preparation for Hurricane Sandy.
Richard Drew/APYousef al-Khattab, a Jewish kid from New Jersey who turned into a radical Islamist, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on Friday.
As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reported earlier today, al-Khattab is the founder of a radical Islamist group called Revolution Muslim, "which became a gateway for young jihadists in the U.S. looking to join violent Islamist groups overseas."
Dina continued:
"Back in October, al-Khattab pleaded guilty to using the RevMuslim website to 'place persons affiliated with Jewish organizations ... in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.' "
The AP reports the judge in the case said he imposed a modest sentence so people " 'understand the line' between free speech and criminal calls for violence."
The AP adds:
"Al-Khattab, 45, renounced his postings during the hearing in federal court in Alexandria, asking district Judge Liam O'Grady to hold him responsible only 'for what I say, not how other people understood it.'
"Derisively calling himself a 'clown' and 'the Gilbert Gottfried of the Muslims,' al-Khattab said he did not intend to incite violence but would not make the postings today that he did years ago.
" 'I look back now, and I'm very wrong,' al-Khattab said."
Share Facebook Twitter GoogleA panel convened by a federal court to represent the interests of retirees in Detroit's bankruptcy says it has reached a deal with the city.
Reuters reports the deal would cap retirees' pension losses and call for more contributions to their health benefits.
The Detroit Free Press reports that while the deal still has to be approved by individual retirees, it marks an important step in the resolution of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.
If approved it would mean the retirees are "supporting Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr's restructuring plan to pull the city out of bankruptcy."
Reuters adds:
"The agreement, subject to documentation, would permit the committee to support Detroit's plan to adjust $18 billion of debt and exit the
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