Tag: Alison Gash

From the Ground Up: Connections and Contradictions Within the United States Housing Movement

Presenter: Anna Nguyen – Economics, Political Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Alison Gash

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—Connection and Community

The repercussions of the housing crisis today are immense, to say the least. Accelerating trends of deregulation, financialization, and globalization produce conditions that are ripe for real estate investment. Neoliberal policies make affordable housing inaccessible by design. The idea of housing— as a lived and social space, a necessary form of shelter, and a universal basic need—has been stripped away for purposes of profit generation. With these deteriorating conditions in mind, this much is clear: the housing crisis is a colossal problem and will not be resolved overnight. Tenant and unhoused organizers who understand this reality are motivated by it and have acted accordingly to respond to the crisis at its worst. Evaluating the scope of eviction and its root causes necessitates a deeper understanding of housing insecurity and the traumatic displacement of tenants on a political, economic, and spatial level. Because working class tenants and their unhoused neighbors are subject to experiences of housing precarity in their daily lives, they have a lot to gain from establishing solidarity with each other. The goal of this thesis is to investigate how tenant and unhoused groups navigate these collaborative relationships tensions as they respond to the housing crisis on a local and national scale.

Queering the Way: Investigating the Relationship between U.S. LGBT+ Advocacy and Policy Advancement

Presenter: Matthew Hampton − Planning, Public Policy and Management, Political Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Dyana Mason, Alison Gash

Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—The More You Know (in depth looks and prevention)

The modern LGBT+ rights movement in the United States has pushed political and social advancement since the mid-twentieth century, continuing the fight for equal treatment even as hundreds of anti- LGBT+ bills are being proposed and passed in states across the country. This study analyzes the specific tactics used by LGBT activists and nonprofits from the mid-twentieth century to present day, framing them using Political Opportunity Theory to try to explain how they make campaigns or movements successful. The study will be conducted using interviews of LGBT+ activists and aligned policy makers, either archived or original. Ultimately the study seeks to answer the question: In the LGBT+ rights movement (specifically the fight for equal employment), what advocacy strategies have worked to create political and social change, and how can their success be replicated for current and future rights battles? Do political and social change require both grassroots and policymaker support? Using theories, previous scholarly literature, and activist interviews, many factors were found to contribute to the overall success of an advocacy campaign: access to resources, ability to mobilize populations, clear goals and strategy, and strong relationships between outsider activists and political insiders. The goal of this report is to increase knowledge for creating effective policy and social change both inside and outside of policy arenas to further promote LGBT+ equality and understanding.

A Healthy Doctrine – Examining Sebelius’s Effects on Congressional Regulatory Powers

Presenter: Carl Windrup (Political Science, Philosophy)

Mentor: Alison Gash

Oral Presentation

Panel C: “Technology and Government” Coquille/Metolius Rooms

Concurrent Session 1: 9:00-10:15am

Facilitator: Melina Pastos

This project examines the effects of the Supreme Court’s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius on the Commerce and Taxing and Spending Clause doctrines. The goals of this thesis are twofold. First, it seeks to parse out the details and ambiguities surrounding the decision in Sebelius, and show how this fits with the doctrinal history of the Commerce Clause. To this end I have devised a new framework for thematically arranging the Court’s vast Commerce Clause case history. Through this new framework, I am able to show that the case marks a return to the Obstructionist pre-1937 Court jurisprudence. This novel thematic analysis is the main significance of this paper, and my main contribution to the field of political science. Secondly, this paper has shown that Sebelius not only limits the scope of Congress’s commerce power, but also how Chief Justice Roberts, through a very deft move, also limited the scope of the Government’s taxing power. Specifically, by appeasing the opposing side with a victory in the short-term, Roberts has forced Congress to turn to its taxing power for major legislations dealing with economic regulation. Given the hostile political climate around taxation, this move will come to limit this power in the long-term. Importantly, the inquiry in this paper is not merely an intellectual exercise. There are real political implications at stake in this discussion of Sebelius’s effects on Congress’s commerce and taxing powers. The case directly effects congressional proceedings, and thus, the political process.

War Paints (A Play About the Dangers of Racism and War Hysteria)

Presenter(s): Natalie Tichenor − Political Science

Faculty Mentor(s): Priscilla Yamin, Alison Gash

Poster 116

Research Area: Political Science and Theatre Arts

Funding: Wayne Morse Scholarship, Play Selected for New Voices UO Performance in 2018, Received Global Oregon Undergraduate Award

I believe plays have an unparalleled capacity to communicate a complicated and seemingly extraneous period as something relatable. In the same vein, theatre presenting historical periods has a profound capacity to illustrate the repetition of historical events, allowing for the errors of the past to highlight current troubles. This is the reason I, when troubled by the current political climate, I wrote a play. Demagogic claims about the alleged national security threats of immigrants and refugees hits close to home. During the 1940s, my family struggled in vain to obtain refugee visas for Hungarian Jewish relatives. They led rallies and lobbied the State Department, but were rebuffed because officials insisted that East European Jews were prone to radical political ideologies and thereby too threatening to receive asylum. Nearly all of these family members perished in the Holocaust. In the same period, the other side of my family, my German immigrant great- grandparents, and their family, faced discrimination because their loyalty was questioned as enemy aliens. In this prevailing political climate ordinary citizens need to mobilize on behalf of refugees, the most vetted migrants and also the group that political philosopher Michael Walzer calls “the most necessitous strangers.” From Brexit to the Trump administration’s constitutionally contested travel bans on migrants from six Muslim-majority countries, immigrants and refugees serve as convenient political scapegoats in even the most established democratic nations. Even when historical and social scientific evidence shows that these newcomers strengthen national economies and are less apt to engage in violent activity than native-born populations, they’re blamed for taking jobs, consuming public benefits, and posing significant threats. Today’s threats to constitutional principles and basic rights are frighteningly reminiscent of another haunting period in history. During the Second World War everyone with Japanese descent, regardless of citizenship, were forcibly, and without warning, placed into concentration camps. Detainees lost their homes and businesses, their educations and careers were interrupted, and their possessions stolen. They suffered the loss of faith in the government and the humiliation of being confined as traitors in their own country. My play follows closely real events. Dr. Seuss, who’s celebrated for progressive stances in his children’s books, was swept up in racial tensions and hysteria along with the majority of Americans. Seuss later travels to Japan for Life Magazine following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, distraught by the destruction he witnesses, writes Horton Hears a Who as both an apology and as a plea for future generations to stand up for the rights of others.