McWhorter: Black Students Are Being Trained to Think They Can’t Handle Discomfort

2023/12/15 Leave a comment

Of interest:

The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been roundly condemned for arguing at a congressional hearing on antisemitism that calls for genocide against Jews are not always susceptible to sanction on their campuses. (Liz Magill of Penn has since resigned.)

Less noticed has been how starkly their expectations of Jewish students point up how low expectations are for Black students on many college campuses — expectations low enough to qualify as a kind of racism.

Yes, racism, though it’s more of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that George W. Bush referred to.

Many leaders at elite universities seem to think that as stewards of modern antiracism, their job is to decry and to penalize, to the maximum extent possible, anything said or done that makes Black students uncomfortable.

In the congressional hearing, the presidents made clear that Jewish students should be protected when hate speech is “directed and severe, pervasive” (in the words of Ms. Magill) or when the speech “becomes conduct” (Claudine Gay of Harvard).

But the tacit idea is that when it comes to issues related to race — and, specifically, Black students — then free speech considerations become an abstraction. Where Black students are concerned, we are to forget whether the offense is directed, as even the indirect is treated as evil; we are to forget the difference between speech and conduct, as mere utterance is grounds for aggrieved condemnation.

It seems to me that, in debates over free speech, Jews are seen in some quarters as white and therefore need no protection from outright hostility. But racism is America’s original sin, and thus we are to treat all and any intimation of it on university campuses as a kind of kryptonite, even if that means treating Black students as pathological cases rather than human beings with basic resilience who understand proportion and degree.

This is certainly a double standard imposed on Jewish students, as my colleagues Bret Stephens and David French, among others, have argued. However, we must also consider the imposition of this double standard upon young Black people. To assume they can’t handle anything unpleasant infantilizes bright, serious students preparing for life in the real world.

Both expectations are offenses to human dignity, and universities must seek a middle ground. The answer is neither the crudeness of allowing all speech to pass as “free” nor the clamping down on any utterance that rubs a student the wrong way.

The contrast between how university leaders treat affronts to Blackness versus how they are currently treating affronts to Jewishness is almost chilling.

Last year, the legal scholar Ilya Shapiro, before he was to start an appointment at Georgetown’s law school, wrote a tweet implying that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was an affirmative action pick for the Supreme Court. “Because Biden said he’d only consider black women for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached.” Shapiro also said that the Indian American judge he thought best qualified “doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get a lesser black woman.”

For two tweets, his appointment was suspended pending an investigation. Two tweets, that is, and expressing his assessment of racial preferences in the selection of a Supreme Court justice. Shapiro simply — and rather gracelessly — expressed an opinion. His appointment was reinstated — but only because the tweets were written before he was on the job, with it specified that had he written such tweets while employed, it would likely have been classified as creating a hostile environment. (Shapiro ultimately resigned before assuming the position.)

The geophysicist Dorian Abbot was disinvited from giving a talk on climate at M.I.T. when it was discovered that he had spoken against identity-based preferences in the past. The head of the department that had invited Abbot announced that “words matter and have consequences.” But the question is whether the words in this case were so injurious as to constitute abusive action — hardly an open-and-shut case — and more to the point, those were words Abbot was presumably not going to speak in his presentation. This was a medieval-style banning of a heretic.

Sometimes Black students must be protected not only from words, but words that sound like other words. In 2020, Greg Patton was suspended from teaching a class in communications at the University of Southern California. The reason was that one of his lectures included noting that in Mandarin, a hesitation term is “nèi ge,” which means “that …” and has nothing to do, of course, with the N-word. Several Black students said they felt injured by experiencing this word in the class.

The offense can even be 100 years in the past. In 2021 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, some Black students were upset when walking past a boulder on campus that was referred to as a “niggerhead” by a newspaper reporter in 1925, when that term was common for large, dark rocks. The school had the boulder removed.

In cases like those last two, it seems that Black students are being taught a performed kind of delicacy. If you can’t bear walking past a rock someone called a dirty name 100 years ago, how are you going to deal with life?

It surely feels like being on the right side of social justice these days means shielding Black students even from all but nonexistent harms while essentially telling Jewish students, who are being actually assailed verbally, to just grow up. But to train young people, or any people, to think of themselves as weak is a form of abuse.

The contrast in treatment of Jewish and Black students furnishes a teaching moment. In my view, the solution is not to decide whether to penalize all hate speech or to allow all of it regardless of whom it is addressed to. Administrators should certainly decry and penalize not just antisemitism but racism on campuses when it is severe and pervasive and constitutes conduct. However, anyone who has made the mistake of thinking that a healthy Jewish soul must endure ongoing calls for the extermination of Israel might at least consider that a healthy Black soul can endure a sour tweet, a talk by someone who has opposed racial preferences and even the Mandarin expression “nèi ge.”

Source: Black Students Are Being Trained to Think They Can’t Handle Discomfort

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Lynch and Mitchell: Six areas to address for a better federal public service

2023/12/15 Leave a comment

As always, the general diagnostique is easier than concrete implementation, a common failing of these high level commentaries:

The non-partisan Public Service of Canada is an essential national institution, responsible for delivering government services to Canadians and providing policy advice to the government. It has played an outsized role in helping build this country.

But these days it seems to be constantly under the spotlight in the media and in Parliament, as a steady stream of intelligence leaks, contracting fiascos, procurement bottlenecks, workplace harassment incidents and service delivery snafus grab public attention.

This drip-drip of shortcomings is not good for public trust in a vital national institution, nor is it good for morale among public servants themselves.

We can do better. A high-performing public service is what taxpayers deserve and the country needs, and no one wants this more than today’s public servants. They are as troubled by these shortcomings as anyone else. But they are equally aware that they work in an institution burdened with serious impediments to nimble decision-making, innovative ideas, clarity on priorities and meaningful accountability. Indeed, responding to recent problems with yet more rules and regulations rather than solutions would only exacerbate things. So, what can be done?

What is needed is not a years-long Royal Commission but rather a common-sense approach to fixing how government operates. Here are six key problem areas, solutions to which would yield a more engaged public service and  improve services to Canadians.

• The starting point is realizing that government has become too complex to manage effectively. Today, the federal government is composed of 22 regular departments and more than 80 departmental agencies and corporations. This is in addition to 34 Crown corporations, the RCMP and the military.

No private sector firm, no matter how large, would ever set up such a byzantine organizational structure and expect to operate efficiently. The proliferation of entities makes alignment and cohesion of programs across government difficult, creates overlap and duplication, and increases administrative overhead costs.

• Second, and related, the public service is too large to operate effectively. Today it numbers almost 360,000 employees — an increase of 95,000, or 36 per cent, over the last decade. But why?

The Canadian population has expanded by 14 per cent over the same period and the Canadian economy grew just shy of 20 per cent, suggesting public sector productivity has deteriorated. A smaller public service, with less duplication of functions and leaner management structures, would be more efficient and less costly.

• Third, oversight is too diffuse to be effective. Responsibility for oversight spans the Treasury Board, the Privy Council Office, the Public Service Commission, the Auditor General, departmental audit and evaluation committees, and a host of parliamentary agents as well as Parliament itself.

These oversight bodies attempt to enforce a bewildering morass of rules, regulations and red tape that stifle healthy risk-taking but perversely create incentives to work around the rules, as we have seen recently in procurement. Fewer and clearer rules, and clarity about who is responsible for oversight, makes a lot of operational sense.

• Fourth, accountability is too opaque. No organization functions well with fuzzy accountabilities. Clear accountability is not just about who is responsible when things go wrong, but also about who is responsible for making sure they go right.

The accountability problem is exacerbated today by the increasing involvement of political staff in both controlling advice to ministers and implementing policy decisions. Restoring clarity on the respective roles of PMO, political staff and public servants is essential to a responsible, accountable and high-functioning public service.

• Fifth, scant attention is paid to measuring or managing public sector productivity. Rather, governments typically report on inputs and activities, not outcomes and results. The broken procurement system is a logical place to start a focus on productivity and results, after the horror shows of the Phoenix pay system, innumerable military procurement failures and the incomparable contracting fiasco around the CBSA ArriveCAN app.

Another productivity destroyer is long lists of policy priorities set out in mandate letters, with public servants expected to deliver on all of them. Yet the sheer number and lack of prioritization means lots of activity but few priorities actually delivered.

• The sixth is a hesitant management culture. The public service needs to rethink the required skills for working effectively in a 21st-century, data-driven and uber-connected economy and society. Like the private sector, government should be bulking up on data scientists, AI experts, IT specialists and project managers rather than relying on consultants.

High-performing organizations deal promptly with ineffective managers, because they hurt productivity and morale, and with bad apples who undermine the credibility and culture of institutions. More proactive management would yield better service delivery to the public and better morale and engagement by public servants.

Thoughtful people inside and outside government have been writing about these concerns for some time. Now is the time to do something, and that will take leadership and courage. The best way to deal with these issues is not to talk endlessly about them, but to act, to take the tough decisions that will make the public service a more productive organization, geared for success in the 21st century.

It’s only common sense.

Kevin Lynch was the Clerk of the Privy Council and is former Vice Chair of BMO. Jim Mitchell is an Adjunct Professor at Carleton University and a former Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet in the Privy Council Office.

Source: Lynch and Mitchell: Six areas to address for a better federal public service

Filed under Government Tagged with , ,

Birth tourism is rising again post-pandemic

2023/12/15 Leave a comment

My latest annual update:

The COVID-19 pandemic provided the perfect natural experiment to assess the extent of birth tourism in Canada.

Dramatic declines of 50 per cent compared with the pre-pandemic 2016-20 average occurred in 2020 and 2021 in the number of “non-resident, self-pay” births. That was followed by an overall increase of 53 per cent in 2022 compared with the 2020-21 average, although the 2022 figure is still far below the 2019 peak.

This partial return to growing numbers highlights the need for the government to make good on its 2018 commitment to get a better handle on the extent of birth tourism, and to go so far as to consider an amendment to the Citizenship Act.

https://e.infogram.com/f854ba35-d052-4e8d-a5a4-d429e3e18c0d?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fdecember-2023%2Fbirth-tourism-is-on-the-rise-again%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Figure 1 captures the steady increase prior to the pandemic and the sharp fall thereafter. Last year’s increase to 3,575 non-resident births from the pandemic average of 2,339 occurred in all provinces.

Table 1 compares non-resident births in 2011-15 and 2016-20 with those in subsequent years.  The increase over these five-year periods contrasts with the sharp decline in 2020-21 and the sharp reversal in 2021-22, both of which were particularly notable in British Columbia. Compared to the 2019 high, the number of non-resident births has rebounded to 63 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.

There is no comparable U.S. post-pandemic data because since January 2020, the U.S. no longer issues visas “for birth tourism (travel for the primary purpose of giving birth in the United States to obtain U.S. citizenship for their child).”

Because there is no health-specific code for women travelling to Canada on visitor visas for birth tourism, the broader non-resident self-pay code is used. However, this includes international students, about half of whom are covered by provincial health plans, and other temporary residents.

Overall visitor visas in 2022 largely rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. The number of temporary workers has increased significantly. However, this varies by country.

Overall visitor visas for Chinese nationals used to be one of the major groups for birth tourism, but they have fallen dramatically. Chinese government travel-related restrictions are likely a significant factor in the reduction in Chinese birth tourists.

The percentage of non-resident births fell from 1.6 per cent of total births in 2019 to 0.7 per cent in 2020 and 2021, but it rebounded to 1.0 per cent in 2022. About 50 per cent of non-resident births are estimated to be birth tourists.

https://e.infogram.com/a4340e94-719c-4f3c-b997-f4674289d0f5?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fdecember-2023%2Fbirth-tourism-is-on-the-rise-again%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Table 2 provides a view of the impact of COVID-19 on non-resident births for the 10 hospitals in Canada with larger percentages of non-resident births. Since the dramatic fall during the pandemic, non-resident births have increased in most hospitals.

British Columbia’s Richmond Hospital was once the epicentre of birth tourism with its supportive “cottage industry” of “birth hotels.” In 2019-20, non-resident mothers made up 24 per cent of its births. But it fell sharply in this category during the pandemic and has rebounded only to four per cent in 2022. It’s now fourth in the Top 10.

The new No. 1 and No. 2 are Toronto’s Humber River Hospital, with 10.5 per cent of all births being non-residents and Montreal’s St. Mary’s with 9.4 per cent. Humber River is also the only hospital that showed an overall increase compared to pre-pandemic period.

There is a need for more hospital-level studies such as the one in Calgary that found about one-quarter of non-resident women who gave birth in the city in 2019-20 were from Nigeria. The study also estimated the cost to Alberta taxpayers.

The development of links between Canadian immigration data (e.g., immigration program and category) and Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) health data on medical services should allow for greater precision about the number of women giving birth while on visitor visas and those under other temporary resident categories.

Is birth tourism about to return now that travel restrictions have been lifted?

Birth tourism in Canada dropped sharply once the pandemic began

Hospital stats show birth tourism rising in major cities

Overall, the federal government has not followed up on its 2018 commitment to “better understand the extent of this practice as well as its impacts” following the first release of the non-resident self-pay numbers and related media attention. The 2021-22 decline understandably reduced political interest and pressure in addressing the issue.

Given current and planned increases in immigration, it is highly unlikely that the government will act because the number of non-resident births is basically a rounding error compared to overall immigration of 500,000 a year by 2025.

However, as visitor visas largely reverted in 2022 to pre-pandemic levels, it is no surprise that non-resident births, including birth tourism, have increased. The government should resume work to clarify the issue. In particular, it should link immigration and health data to improve understanding of immigration and health issues, including birth tourism. As numbers of non-resident births can be expected to increase further, greater precision regarding the components of non-resident births would inform possible policy and program responses.

A 2019 Angus Reid survey found that 64 per cent of those Canadians surveyed would support a change in the law so that citizenship is not conferred on babies born here to parents on tourist visas.

Policy and operational questions remain about whether birth tourism warrants an amendment to the Citizenship Act, visa restrictions on women intending to give birth in Canada, or other administrative and regulatory measures to curtail the practice.

Visa restrictions would be difficult to administer and regional administrative and regulatory measures might encourage hospital and jurisdiction “shopping.”

So the cleanest approach would be an amendment to the Citizenship Act that would require one parent to be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada. That is the situation in Australia.

Should the Conservatives form a government after the next federal election, they may well decide to revisit the issue of birth tourism given that the Harper government pressed the issue in 2012 only to back off.

A note on methodology 

The data is from the CIHI’s discharge abstract database, more specifically “non-resident self-pay” category in the responsible for funding program (RFP), as well as totals for hospital deliveries.

The overall RFP data includes temporary residents on visitor visas, international students, foreign workers and visiting Canadian citizens, and permanent residents. Quebec has a slightly different coding system, but CIHI ensures its data is comparable. Data for Quebec hospitals is not provided through CIHI and thus the larger Montreal area hospitals were approached directly.

Ottawa-area hospitals were not included given the number of diplomatic families likely being a substantial portion of non-resident births. Declines in non-resident births at Trillium-Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga, Ont., led to that hospital falling off the Top 10 list.

Health coverage for international students varies by province, but most of them are covered by provincial health plans. This is not the case in Manitoba and Ontario, as well as for some students in Quebec if their country of origin does not have a social-security agreement with Quebec. The pre-pandemic baseline is the five-year average 2016-20.

Mackenzie Health’s woman and child program moved from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital to Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital when it opened to the community in June 2021.

Source: Birth tourism is rising again post-pandemic

Filed under Birth Tourism, Citizenship Tagged with ,

Advocates, union applaud legislative commitment for groups for Black, LGBTQ+ workers, Sarkonak: Liberals to mandate reverse discrimination with job quotas for Black, LGBT people

2023/12/14 Leave a comment

Two contrasting takes, starting with predictable support from advocates:

…

A news release by Employment and Social Development Canada said that, on top of creating the two new groups, “initial commitments to modernize the Act” included replacing the term “Aboriginal Peoples” with “Indigenous Peoples,” replacing “members of visible minorities” with “racialized people” and making the definition of “persons with disabilities” more inclusive.

Adelle Blackett, chair of the 12-member Employment Equity Act Review Task Force, said the recommendations were designed to address a lack of resources, consultation and understanding of how legislation should be applied.

Blackett noted that the report offered a framework to help workplaces identify and eradicate barriers to employment equity.

Nicolas Marcus Thompson, executive director of the Black Class Action Secretariat, a group that in 2020 filed a lawsuit against the federal government claiming systemic workplace discrimination against Black Canadians, said the commitment marked a “historic win” for workers.

He added this could not have been done without the work of the Black Class Action.

…….

Jason Bett of the Public Service Pride Network said that group “wholeheartedly” endorsed the report’s recommendation to designate Black people and 2SLGBTQIA+ people as designated groups under the Employment Equity Act.

“Our network has been actively engaged in the consultation process with the Employment Equity Review Task Force, and we are pleased to note our contribution to the report,” Bett said. “The PSPN is committed to collaborating on the effective implementation of the recommendations, contributing to a more inclusive and equitable employment landscape in the federal public service.”

Source: Advocates, union applaud legislative commitment for groups for Black, LGBTQ+ workers

Equally predictably, the National Post’s Jamie Sarkonak has criticized the analysis and recommendations (valid with respect to a separate category for Black public servants given that disaggregated data in both employment equity and public service surveys highlight that 2017-22 hiring, promotion and separation rates are stronger than many other visible minorities groups and indeed, not visible minorities: see ee-analysis-of-disaggregated-data-by-group-and-gender-2022-submission-1):

Why would the task force recommend a special category for Black people when the law already privileges visible minorities? The report writers largely cited history (slavery and segregation), as well as employment data. Drawing attention to hiring stats, it said that when comparing Black people to other visible minorities in the federal government, “representation between the period of job application, through automated screening, through organizational screening, assessment and ultimately appointment fell from 10.3 per cent down to 6.6 per cent.”

This analysis ignored the fact Black people, accounting for only four per cent of the population, apply and are hired at higher rates compared to Chinese (five per cent of the population) and Indian minorities (seven per cent). Because Black people are comparatively overrepresented in hiring, this should satisfy DEI mathematicians. The numbers also don’t explain why failed applicants were screened out: were these applicants simply unqualified?

The report also finds that Black employees from 2005 to 2018 had a negative promotion rate relative to non-Black employees — another non-proof of racism, because it’s possible those employees simply didn’t merit a promotion. Federal departments, noted the report writers, have nevertheless wanted to make up for these discrepancies by focusing their efforts on hiring Black people — but were unable to, because the diversity target law targets the broader “visible minorities” group.

The task force also pointed to Canada’s “distinct history of slavery,” abolished by the comparatively progressive British Empire in 1834 before Confederation, as another reason for special status

Slavery was objectively wrong, but it is much less clear why it should factor into special hiring considerations today. There were relatively few slaves in Canada and not all of them were Black. It would be notoriously difficult to determine who in Canada is still affected by this history — and impossible to hold others living today responsible. Additionally, the majority of Canada’s Black population is made up of immigrants who are unlikely to trace family lines back to enslaved Canadian ancestors.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: Liberals to mandate reverse discrimination with job quotas for Black, LGBT people

Link to full report: A Transformative Framework to Achieve and Sustain Employment Equity – Report of the Employment Equity Act Review Task Force (on my reading list)

Filed under Aboriginal, LGBTQ, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Ongoing shift from integrative multiculturalism programming to anti-racism focus

2023/12/14 Leave a comment

The latest CFP for funding continues greater emphasis on anti-racism programming and initiatives rather than the earlier more integrative focus of multiculturalism funding (and indeed the raison d’être of the program).

While anti-racism initiatives are of course needed, they tends towards a more binary approach between discriminated and non-discriminated. They don’t address adequately the complexity of diversity and intersectionality within and between different groups, not just the conventional dichotomy between visibly minorities and whites. More a Hegelian dialectic than linear.

Success rate of these projects is mixed judging by my earlier experience and the most recent evaluation I could find: Evaluation of the Multiculturalism Program 2011-12 to 2016-17. PCH’s departmental report is similarly vague on results:

With Canada’s population becoming increasingly diverse, it is crucial to strengthen our commitment to inclusivity and take the necessary steps to dismantle racism and discrimination in all its forms.

Today, the Honourable Kamal Khera, Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities, launched a Call for Proposals for the Organizational Capacity Building (OCB) component of the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program, which aims to build on the Government of Canada’s commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive society.

The OCB component will help organizations build and strengthen their internal capacity to advance anti-racism and promote intercultural and interfaith understanding, to provide equitable opportunities, to promote dialogue on multiculturalism and anti-racism, and to build understanding of disparities. The OCB component Call for Proposals will focus on:

  • initiatives that are led by or serving the communities of focus in Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy (Indigenous, Black, racialized and religious minority communities), as communities with lived experiences of racism;
  • community-based organizations in order to support them in their daily efforts to drive positive change;
  • initiatives that reach into rural and remote locations across Canada.

The Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program (MARP) was launched as part of the Government of Canada’s work on supporting diversity through inclusivity. The renewed program—a consolidation of the Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives Program and the Anti-Racism Action Program—aims to enhance efficiency and support more effectively communities and organizations throughout Canada.

Under the OCB component, funded initiatives will contribute to building an organization’s financial health, human resources capacity (including volunteers), governing practices, partnership and networking abilities, and strategic planning.

Eligible organizations can apply from now until February 22, 2024.

Quotes

“Our government proudly supports community organizations across the country in promoting diversity and fostering inclusion within their communities. A more equitable society is not only fairer but also more resilient and prosperous. I encourage all eligible organizations to apply to the Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program’s Call for Proposals so we can continue to work together to build a more just and inclusive society for everyone.”

—The Honourable Kamal Khera, Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities

Quick Facts

The Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program is replacing the Community Support, Multiculturalism, and Anti-Racism Initiatives Program and the Anti-Racism Action Program.

The MARP has three distinct components: Events, Projects and Organizational Capacity Building. The current Call for Proposals is for the Organizational Capacity Building component of the program.

Source: The Government of Canada launches the renewed Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Program

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Regg Cohn: Who says we need to choose between Palestinians and Israelis?

2023/12/14 1 Comment

Good and needed commentary. Binary over simplifies. Hopefully Gondek can treat this as a learning moment:

…

Put simply, to be anti-Zionist today is to be anti-Israel. To be anti-Israel is to show antipathy to all those Jews who believe Israel is a sanctuary and ought not to be a cemetery for Jews.

As to the larger question of whether or not an anti-Zionist is antisemitic, rest assured it is problematic for most Jews. Slogans matter, just as words matter, countries matter, people matter.

Appearances matter, and so do no-shows. It is telling that Her Worship the mayor of Calgary worships at the altar of indifference to Israel, but another current slogan comes to mind:

Happy Hanukkah

Source: Who says we need to choose between Palestinians and Israelis?

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

How Unconscious Bias in Health Care Puts Pregnant Black Women at Higher Risk

2023/12/14 Leave a comment

Of note (and disturbing):

Shakima Tozay was 37 years old and six months pregnant when a nurse, checking the fetal heart rate of the baby boy she was carrying, referred to him as “a hoodlum.”

Ms. Tozay, a social worker, froze. She had just been hospitalized at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Wash., with pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening complication of pregnancy, and she is Black.

“A ‘hoodlum’?” she said. “Why would you call him that?”

The fetus was 14 inches long and weighed little more than a box of chocolates.

A doctor who came into the room downplayed the comment, saying the nurse was just kidding, but that only hurt Ms. Tozay more. She was already distressed: She and her husband lost an earlier twin pregnancy, and now she worried this baby was at risk, too. The hospital later apologized for the nurse’s behavior, but the damage was done.

Black women , who die of pregnancy-related complications at two to three times the rate of white women, say that remarks like these, often made when they are most vulnerable, reflect pervasive bias in the medical system. They report that medical staff don’t listen to them when they complain of symptoms, and dismiss or downplay their concerns. Studies validate their experiences: Analyses of taped conversations between physicians and patients have found that doctors dominate the conversation more with Black patients and don’t ask as many questions as they do of white patients. In medical notes, doctors are more likely to express skepticism about the symptoms Black patients report.

Hovering over these experiences is the stark reality that Black women have worse pregnancy outcomes, lose more infants in the first year of life and have higher rates of preterm birth and stillbirth, when compared with white women. Glaring racial disparities in health outcomes persist between white women and even the wealthiest Black women, and between Black women and white women who experience the same complications.

These findings have forced the medical establishment to acknowledge and confront its biases. Many health systems have mandated anti-bias training for faculty. Some hospital committees that review cases with poor outcomes in order to identify the causes now consider whether racial bias played a role.

Experts who study bias in medical care say that a vast majority of people in the healing professions have good intentions, but that even providers who reject overt racism have internalized cultural stereotypes, and that this unconscious or implicit bias can influence medical care and bedside manner.

“They will say, ‘Hey, I’m not biased,’ and consciously they are not,” said Dr. Cristina M. Gonzalez, a professor of medicine and an associate director at the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity at NYU Langone Health. “But the unconscious runs a lot of the show during the day.”

The brain is wired to make decisions quickly, said Sarah M. Wilson, an assistant professor at Duke University. It uses cognitive shortcuts that let bias seep in, especially when a person is uncertain, tired or stressed — common circumstances in a busy practice or hospital, where providers often treat patients they do not know.

“If it’s a very complicated situation and you have to make a decision at a moment’s notice,” Dr. Wilson said, “then it is very natural to fall back on these automatic assumptions.”

“They sent us away”

Ms. Tozay was sent home from the hospital that evening in 2017 on bed rest. Pre-eclampsia, a serious condition that causes extremely high blood pressure, can lead to preterm birth, stillbirth, organ damage and ultimately eclampsia — a sudden seizure that can be deadly for mother and baby.

Ms. Tozay and her husband, Glen Guss, kept a close eye on her blood pressure, measuring it often with a cuff. A few days later, it started climbing precipitously. During pregnancy, hypertension starts when the top number, which is systolic blood pressure, reaches 140 or more, or the bottom number, diastolic blood pressure, reaches 90 or more. One of Ms. Tozay’s systolic pressure readings was in the 190s, Mr. Guss said. Deeply worried, he drove her back to the hospital.

The intake nurse looked concerned and told the couple she would measure Ms. Tozay’s blood pressure again once she had calmed down. Some tests were done, and while Ms. Tozay waited to be seen by a doctor, her pressure declined to 149/81, according to her medical records, still too high.

Then, Ms. Tozay and her husband said, the nurse told them that the attending physician had said Ms. Tozay could go home.

Mr. Guss said in retrospect that the hospital did not give enough weight to factors that put his wife at high risk: her relatively advanced age for childbirth, previous miscarriage, uterine fibroids, low amniotic fluid, contractions early in the pregnancy and the pre-eclampsia diagnosis. He and Ms. Tozay said they never got the chance to tell a doctor that she felt something was very wrong, had been lightheaded and had “a surreal kind of feeling.”

A spokeswoman for the hospital, Melissa Tizon, said only a doctor could have ordered the tests Ms. Tozay was given, but she could not confirm from hospital records whether a physician actually examined her. She said that a physician had been “engaged” in Ms. Tozay’s care, but added, “We can’t tell if the physician was face to face with the patient.” Ms. Tizon said a hospital review of the interaction concluded that it “met the appropriate standards of care.” (Ms. Tozay gave written consent for hospital officials to discuss her care.)

Not having a physician examine a woman who came into the triage room at Ms. Tozay’s stage of pregnancy would be very unusual, said Dr. Tanya K. Sorensen, an obstetrician specializing in high-risk pregnancies who oversees women’s health care for a region of the Providence health system that includes the hospital where Ms. Tozay was treated.

“I wish that I had said, ‘No, I’m not going home,’” Ms. Tozay said recently. “But I didn’t know what was going on. My husband didn’t know. We were trusting that they knew.”

“There were so many red flags saying they should just take him out right away,” Mr. Guss said. “But they sent us away.”

The next morning, the fetus was not moving.

Stereotypes and skepticism

To better understand how bias plays out, I interviewed dozens of Black women who described disturbing experiences with health care providers during their pregnancies. Their accounts were corroborated whenever possible by medical records, emails with providers and other documentation, as well as interviews with family members and hospital officials.

In Ms. Tozay’s case, the hospital spokeswoman, Ms. Tizon, confirmed that Ms. Tozay filed a complaint with the hospital on Nov. 6 about the nurse’s hoodlum remark on Nov. 3. The manager of the hospital’s childbirth center, Lisa Von Herbulis, met with the nurse to discuss her lack of sensitivity and wrote a letter of apology to Ms. Tozay, dated Nov. 16, a copy of which Ms. Tozay shared with The New York Times.

In interviews, many Black women complained of being stereotyped by administrative staff, nurses and doctors and of being repeatedly asked about their marital status and insurance — even when they wore a wedding band, had a hyphenated last name or had private insurance.

“I was always being asked, ‘Where’s your baby daddy?’” said Ruhamah Dunmeyer Grooms, 35, a business analyst and mother who lives outside Charleston, S.C. “I don’t have a baby daddy. I have a husband.”

Black women are more likely to be tested for illicit drugs during labor and delivery than white women, regardless of their history of substance use, and even though they were less likely than white women to test positive, a recent study found.

Other studies indicate that physicians may express less empathyfor Black patients, compared with white patients, and their notes reflect a belief that Black patients are less likely to follow medical advice.

They are more likely to describe Black patients as uncooperative or “noncompliant,” and they may prescribe less aggressive treatment because they don’t think Black patients will adhere to it, experts say.

In one study of patient records, researchers found that doctors signal disbelief in the records of Black patients, appearing to question the credibility of their complaints by placing quotation marks around certain words — for example, writing that the patient “had a ‘reaction’ to the medication” — or by describing a complaint with words like “claims” or “insists.”

Failure to take patients seriously and believe their accounts can have deadly consequences.

Shalon Irving, a 36-year-old public health expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sought help from doctors at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Atlanta at least six times in the weeks after her cesarean section, according to her mother, Wanda Irving, who was helping her with the new baby and who accompanied her on three of the visits.

Shalon Irving felt ill, had severe headaches and gained almost 10 pounds, her mother said, but was sent home every time.

“Her blood pressure was so high the last time she went in that the nurse checked it twice,” Wanda Irving said. “She demanded to see the doctor and sat there waiting, but was told he was too busy.”

Within hours of returning home from that last visit, Dr. Irving collapsed and died, her mother said. An independent autopsy determined the cause of death was complications from hypertension. “We need to make doctors accountable for these deaths,” she said. “If it was a crime, they would pay more attention to what the patient is saying.”

A conservator for Dr. Irving’s baby girl, Soleil, reached a financial settlement with Emory Healthcare. The hospital, citing federal medical privacy laws, declined to comment.

Doctors who don’t listen

Black patients say that health providers often disregard and overrule their wishes.

Pregnant Black women are more likely than white women to say they were pressured to undergo cesarean section deliveries and other childbirth interventions, such as epidurals and labor induction, when they sought to avoid them. Although a C-section may be unavoidable when a woman develops complications or the fetus is at risk, it is major surgery and can be more dangerous than a vaginal delivery.

When Tennille Leak-Johnson’s fetus stopped growing at a normal rate, her doctor in Chicago counseled her and her husband about the option of terminating the pregnancy, even before genetic testing was carried out, Dr. Leak-Johnson said. Her doctor also offered the option of placing the infant with a family that wanted to adopt a sick or disabled child.

The doctor, who is no longer practicing in Chicago, did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Dr. Leak-Johnson’s medical records contain a note her doctor wrote expressing concern about the baby’s health early on in the pregnancy and a lengthy summary of the doctor’s counseling on abortion or adoption.

Fetal growth restriction can signal a serious medical condition in the fetus, but Dr. Leak-Johnson and her husband were unequivocal about wanting to keep the pregnancy.

“I told the doctor that even if I could only love him for one day or one hour, I was not getting rid of him,” said Dr. Leak-Johnson, who has a doctorate in molecular genetics and genomics and was familiar with the medical risks.

Dr. Leak-Johnson said she was a high-risk patient because of her weight, so she saw her doctor frequently. At each appointment, she said, the doctor raised the question of termination — continuing to do so even after genetic testing and a 20-week anatomy scan found neither genetic nor structural abnormalities.

A brief note the doctor put in Dr. Leak-Johnson’s chart after the normal test results reiterated the doctor’s concern that something was wrong with the baby. The only reference the note made to the normal genetic test results, which revealed the sex, was that the fetus was male.

Mid-pregnancy, Dr. Leak-Johnson switched doctors.

Her son, Stanley Johnson III, was born 11 weeks before his due date, and Dr. Leak-Johnson became acutely ill during the delivery. But the baby — who spent two months in neonatal intensive care — survived and has thrived.

He turned 12 this year, and “aside from his wearing glasses because of his prematurity, you wouldn’t even know that he was born a pound and 14 ounces,” Dr. Leak-Johnson said. “He’s the love of my life.”

Prioritizing the mother’s care

A lack of empathy in medical settings can put pregnant women at risk.

In New York State, Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn pushed for a measure, which became law in 2020, that requires hospitals to care for women in preterm labor, after she herself was turned away from Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Ms. Hermelyn, who was 43 at the time, said her Columbia-affiliated doctor sent her to the hospital in 2016 when her labor started at 22 weeks. She was distraught over the possible loss of the pregnancy, she said, but hospital doctors told her that they were not required to intervene to save the pregnancy at such an early stage in gestation. They told her she was almost three centimeters dilated and that they could not do anything to stop the labor or save the fetus at that stage, she said.

“They said, ‘We can terminate your baby,’ but that was not an option, and made me cry even more,” Ms. Hermelyn said. The doctors told her they had other patients to tend to and “sent me home,” she added.

Columbia University officials refused to comment on the case.

In interviews, experts not involved in the case noted that when preterm labor starts before 24 weeks of gestation, the baby is extremely unlikely to survive, so hospitals do not generally take extraordinary measures to save the fetus. Labor in these cases can be protracted, so a woman who is admitted might be hospitalized for several days.

Ms. Hermelyn turned to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, a hospital that predominantly serves patients who are low-income, on Medicaid or uninsured, and where the staff knew her. They admitted her, sought to relieve her emotional distress and tried, but failed, to save the baby.

The mother herself needed care, said Dr. Daniel Faustin, director of Wyckoff’s division of maternal and fetal medicine. Ms. Hermelyn had a high-risk pregnancy, and preterm labor put her at risk of serious infection. If she delivered at home, she would risk deadly hemorrhaging.

“Even if you give up on the baby, you cannot give up on the mother,” he said. “The best place for her to be if she’s going to deliver is in the hospital, to make sure that after this unfortunate experience, her life is not at risk.”

When Ms. Hermelyn gave birth to a son last year, she named him Daniel, after Dr. Faustin.

From tragedy, reforms

After Ms. Tozay and Mr. Guss’s baby stopped moving, they returned to the hospital. Doctors could not find the heartbeat, confirming the couple’s fears. The placenta had separated from the wall of the uterus, cutting off the flow of oxygen to the baby, a complication that occurs more frequently when the mother has high blood pressure. The baby they planned to name Jaxson was dead.

A hospital doctor who had not cared for her before performed a cesarean section. As she handed the dead newborn to Mr. Guss, the doctor said, “Congratulations — I mean, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Ms. Tozay and Mr. Guss said they were still reeling from the stillbirth when the doctor told them that she should never have become pregnant, and that they should not try to conceive again.

“I felt blamed, like she was saying: ‘Why would you ever think about having a kid? You just killed your son,’” Ms. Tozay said.

Mr. Guss said, “Even if it was true, it didn’t need to be said right then and there.”

Dr. Sorensen, the executive medical director of Providence, and Dr. Nwando Anyaoku, chief health equity officer, said they did not doubt Ms. Tozay’s recollections. “For her, that moment is probably etched in her mind,” Dr. Anyaoku said.

The doctor who did the C-section might have been exhausted, distracted or distressed, but that did not excuse the lack of sensitivity, Dr. Sorensen said. “The whole case is incredibly heartbreaking,” she said. “That’s not the experience we want to deliver.”

In 2020, Providence invested $50 million to reduce health inequities and racial disparities in maternal outcomes. It has educated its staff about implicit bias and started new programs for pregnant women: JUST Birth Network, which matches pregnant women of color with doulas who help them navigate the health care system, and TeamBirth, a framework for open communication between patients and providers.

The health system is seeking to reduce C-section rates for Black women and to improve care after birth, when many complications occur. Clinical review committees that examine hospital cases have been instructed to consider whether implicit bias played a role in poor outcomes.

A Washington State initiative aimed at improving outcomes for women with pre-eclampsia encourages health providers to give pregnant women with high blood pressure blue wristbands to draw attention to the condition — and to ensure no doctor or nurse overlooks it.

Ms. Tozay and Mr. Guss have decided not to try another pregnancy, though her regular obstetrician said it would be safe to do so.

“The words of the delivering doctor will always stick with me,” Ms. Tozay said. “Doctors need to realize that what they say carries power and weight.”

Source: How Unconscious Bias in Health Care Puts Pregnant Black Women at Higher Risk

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Friedman: Here’s What the University Presidents Should’ve Said to Congress

2023/12/13 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

I suspect I am not the only one who found it difficult to laugh on Saturday night, watching SNL’s send-up of last week’s congressional hearing on antisemitism and college campuses. Coming only hours after Liz Magill actually resigned as Penn’s president amid the ongoing fallout, the real-world consequences of the hearing had become too… well, real.

Here was a leading university president stepping down, amid a storm of politicians’ and donors’ demands, after an exchange with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) from last week’s hearing went viral. In it, Magill, along with the presidents of Harvard (Claudine Gay) and MIT (Sally Kornbluth), offered a series of technical, “lawyerly” responses to the question of whether calling for genocide of Jews on campus would constitute bullying or harassment under their codes of conduct.

Stefanik’s audacious and frank question demanded a fuller explanation; but the presidents’ curt responses left many aghast at the prospect that such a heinous hypothetical could ever be construed as acceptable.

The fallout was swift. Now, the incident has a high likelihood of shaping the next wave of a years-long debate about free speech on college campuses.

At best, it may spur universities to review their philosophies and policies, and to recommit to creating campuses where bigotry and hate are rejected and where open and respectful exchange can thrive. At worst, it may embolden some politicians to ratchet up their attacks on higher ed, using the latest crisis to advance ideological ends.

“One down,” Stefanik posted on X in response to the news of Magill’s resignation, “Two to go.”

“…these leaders might have modeled how fostering a climate of free speech and open exchange need not—and must not—mean allowing hate to flourish unchecked.”

Meanwhile, the people who have spent years pushing for bans on Critical Race Theory, gender studies, or seeking to dictate how faculty teach about American history, have already announced their intention to introduce bills to fight antisemitism for the upcoming legislative sessions. We ought to be skeptical when the team that has repeatedly shown its desire to advance censorship now seeks to be in the vanguard of setting out new regulations for speech.

But perhaps most troubling about the now viral exchange is that Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth were technically correct. Any free speech advocate will tell you that the analysis of whether insulting, offensive, odious, or even hateful speech can be punishable begins with the question of context.

This is understandably compounded on university campuses by their size and complexity. For the application of university policies it obviously matters who is speaking—students, faculty, administrators, invited speakers—and where—in a classroom, in the quad, in a dorm room, on social media, etc.

Certainly, Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth could have made this all clearer. As private universities, they are not obligated to hew to the First Amendment, but many do, understanding that this offers the best safeguards for free speech and academic freedom. The presidents could have explained this in greater detail, and how this works in practice. They could have explained how different kinds of speech might be punishable in certain circumstances but not in others. And they could have offered a clear condemnation of the hypothetical before them, regardless of the legal or policy analysis involved.

The high-stakes format of the congressional hearing was, of course, not set up for the nuanced exchange this question truly demands. And perhaps that was the point. As Michelle Goldberg explained in the The New York Times, the clip looks really different when viewed on its own than it does in the context of the entire hearing, where it seems clear that Stefanik was referring to her own earlier questions about whether certain specific common pro-Palestinian slogans like “from the river to the sea” directly connote genocide of Jews or not.

The context—again—matters. If Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth thought they were being asked about whether certain specific phrases should result in punishments, their hesitancy to say that they should, from a speech-protective lens, is not only technically consistent with the First Amendment, it also makes a lot more sense.

In the wake of the hearing, in addition to Magill’s resignation, we are now seeing ideas to regulate “hate speech” put forth, such as one resolution from the Board of Advisors at Wharton, that, among other things, proposes to punish students and faculty for celebrating murder or using language “that threatens the physical safety of community members.” The language of the resolution is general and vague, and particularly in campus contexts where students now routinely invoke notions of “harm” and “microaggressions,” it would inevitably open the door to chilling a wide swath of speech on any side of the Israel-Palestine conflict—let alone on a great many other issues, too.

But this is the danger in this moment: that institutions adopt new policies to restrict speech in the rush to remedy their image, policies which might appear to solve one challenge, but will in fact make many other challenges worse. Proposals to ban “hate speech” against racial and ethnic minorities, for example, tend not to contemplate how they can be used by someone like former President Donald Trump, who said “Black Lives Matter” was a “symbol of hate,” or by really any authority to suppress any speech they find disfavorable.

The better answer that Magill, Gay, and Kornbluth could have proffered last week would have been to explain that just because an incident of hateful speech might not constitute grounds for punishment, it does not mean that it needs to be construed as acceptable to a college or university community. And that the question of determining a punishment for speech can, in fact, be separate from a university’s more immediate holistic response: to condemn hate, work to educate their communities, and offer resources to those impacted.

In so doing these leaders might have modeled how fostering a climate of free speech and open exchange need not—and must not—mean allowing hate to flourish unchecked.

The missed opportunity to offer moral clarity and condemnation of hate at last week’s hearing has invited criticism from those who care deeply about higher ed’s future, as well as those who have been working to impose new ideological controls on universities, or generally undermine them. We must be wary of what comes next—as some who want to take advantage of this crisis are clearly already making plans.

Jonathan Friedman is Director of Free Expression and Education at PEN America.

Source: Here’s What the University Presidents Should’ve Said to Congress

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

‘A lot of these women had no idea what they got into’: inside the world of birth tourism – The Guardian

2023/12/13 Leave a comment

Looking forward to seeing the doc.

Of note that birth tourism to the USA appears to have dried up given the impact of Trump and COVID travel restrictions along with anti-Chinese and American sentiment in both directions (my latest analysis of Canadian numbers, out shortly, will confirm a similar decrease with respect to Chinese birth tourism to Canada):

It started a decade ago, when Leslie Tai, who lives outside San Francisco, heard from a woman she’d met in Beijing and who told her that she was staying for a few months in Los Angeles. Tai’s friend was evasive about the purpose of her visit, until the pair finally had a video call and Tai watched her friend oil a round belly on camera. “She said, ‘I have a surprise for you,’” Tai recalled. “‘I’m having an American baby.’” Tai, who knew that her friend came from a poor family and was dating a wealthy older artist in China, asked if he had friends in southern California. “And she was like, ‘No, honey, you don’t need friends to do what I’m doing.’”

She was part of the birth tourism industry, which boomed during the Obama years, when scores of pregnant Chinese women of means invested in package deals that cost anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 and granted buyers the ability to fly across the world and stay for three months at a facility that catered to expectant mothers looking to score US citizenships for their children or skirt the one-child policy that was the law in China until 2015.

Tai, a Chinese American documentary film-maker, wasted no time embedding in the group home where her friend was waiting out the final days of her pregnancy, alongside a handful of other expectant mothers. “I got kind of obsessed with this idea of how on the outside, it’s just nondescript suburban tract housing, with palm trees everywhere, but then behind closed doors there’s this whole world with multiple families living in close quarters and all in this crazy intense situation of waiting to have a baby,” she said.

Securing subjects’ permission was not easy for Tai. “I started asking my aunties and uncles like, do you know anybody who is involved in this industry? They were all like, yeah, actually, my cleaner, or our nanny from when our kids were children ended up working in one of these maternity hotels,” she recalled. Tracking down subjects and winning over their trust took an enormous amount of care and strategy. “Even though what they were doing was not illegal, they had reservations, so it was not like I came in like guns blazing.” Tai’s English fluency proved a valuable resource as she pursued mothers-to-be, nannies, drivers and cooks to grant entry to their private world and anchor the vignettes in her film. “I made myself of service because actually, when they saw me, they were like, ‘Oh my God, you speak English. Can you help me call PG&E?’” She had given similar help to her friend, who did not speak English, in the delivery room.

Nearly 10 years in the making, Tai’s entrancing and heartrending film How to Have an American Baby provides viewers insider access to a phenomenon that took place behind closed doors and on Chinese websites where brokers offered pregnant women package deals as if they were cruise holidays. Money-hungry operators offered help obtaining visas and lining up rooms at specialized facilities. There were enormous industrial maternity hotels, as well as private Beverly Hills homes and boutique group homes where up to five women at a time waited out their births and holed up for the 30-day postpartum quarantine that is a Chinese tradition. Then, more often than not, they returned to China.

“By and large, the majority of the women that were coming were simply coming to evade the one-child policy,” Tai said. Some, though, were mistresses, as Chinese law did not allow unmarried mothers to give birth in public hospitals until earlier this year. Sales agents knew how to tap into maternal anxieties, playing up the supposed advantages of US citizenship. “There’s a lot of misinformation that the customers are receiving,” Tai said. “They think that there’s universal healthcare. They think that there’s universal education. It’s sold as a really good investment, but they’ve been lied to.” Babies born in the US have the right to declare their American citizenship at age 18, and apply for green cards for their families when they turn 21. “There was a sentiment of: who knows what the world is going to look like in 18 years? If China goes to hell, what if America goes to hell, whatever, they have two passports.”

Tai’s film is less concerned with policy than offering a textured portrait of the day-to-day, minute-to-minute experience that the mothers went through. The exteriors are mostly shot at night on suburban streets of southern California and the interiors sit with women bathing their babies or microwaving cups of tea while they wait to go into labor. A meditative quality pervades the work, which weaves several vignettes together into a broader portrait of women navigating a terrifying life phase in a strange land. “A lot of these women had no idea what they got into,” Tai said. “It’s almost like they were sold on the pretty pictures of this vacation and then when they come here, they realize: ‘My family’s not here, and I’m having a baby. Oh, my God, I’m sequestered with a bunch of pregnant women. Plus there’s all the drama living in the suburbs. It’s like Real Housewives from hell.”

While many of the visitors enjoyed daily meal deliveries and shopping excursions, they were surrounded by people who saw them as financial marks. The doctors in the film offer all-cash birthing options (vaginal for $3,000 or caesarean for $5,000) with the tenderness of night market vendors hawking ripoff handbags. Tai captured a maternity hotel worker saying about the residents: “If you become too friendly they will use you. The more you give them, the more they complain.”

The birth tourism world underwent major upheaval over the course of filming and editing, to the point where Tai said her film was “like a time capsule”. With the rise of Trump and the travel restrictions around Covid, and anti-Chinese and anti-American sentiment flying in both directions, the phenomenon has come to a standstill.

Tai had her own changes as well, namely, the birth of a baby this past January, a few weeks before the world premiere of her film at a festival. “I definitely took a lot of lessons from watching all these births, like making sure I was set up with the right support,” she said.

And now she is in what she called “double postpartum mode”, watching both her baby and film find their footing in the world. While the film has a jaw-dropping concept at its core, the bulk of the footage focuses on the mundanity and emotion that color the days leading up to and following childbirth, as well as the terror and ecstasy of labor itself. (There is a birthing scene more honest and beautifully gruesome than any video they’ll show you at birth class.) Tai’s ambition for her movie is strikingly tender. “I want to fight for the moving image that allows you to really sink into the humanity of the people, regardless, and even in spite of, how controversial the situation is,” she said.

Source: ‘A lot of these women had no idea what they got into’: inside the world of birth tourism – The Guardian

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship Tagged with , , ,

Globe editorial: When it comes to international students, ‘show me the money’ is only half a policy

2023/12/13 Leave a comment

Valid critique that politicians (and stakeholders IMO) are to blame:

The Liberals, as well as the opposition parties, have been loathe to blame immigrants, temporary foreign workers, international students and refugees for a housing crisis that has been fuelled by rapidly growing demand combined with a stagnant supply. They should be loathe to, because it is the politicians who are to blame.

Until the housing crisis emerged, Ottawa and the provinces turned a blind eye to shady “diploma mills” in Canada that sell dodgy educations as a back door to permanent residency. They also let the temporary foreign workers program turn into a massive cheap labour boondoggle that brings hundreds of thousands into the country.

Ottawa made a shocking error this year when it secretly waived rules for temporary visitors that required them to prove they would leave the country when their visas expired, leading to a huge surge in refugee claims at airports. The Trudeau government has also refused to alter its plan to increase annual immigration targets.

Source: When it comes to international students, ‘show me the money’ is only half a policy

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

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