News & Events Amherst in the News

Miller, a teacher of African American literature at Berkeley High School, is co-author of a Black History Month op-ed in The Daily Californian urging all high schools to formally incorporate interdisciplinary Black studies into their curricula.

The other authors, Miller’s colleagues Dawn Williams Ferreira and Spencer Pritchard, are co-chairs of Berkeley High’s Black studies department, the first such department ever founded at a high school, dating back to 1968. “Establishing a Black studies department here demonstrated our district’s willingness to interrogate systemic racism, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, power and oppression. It represents a willingness to commit to prioritizing Black educational needs. It reflects a willingness to invest in a department that will actively improve the level of education that all students are able to receive,” they write. 

In addition to instilling self-knowledge and pride in Black students, filling in the gaps in an otherwise Eurocentric curriculum, and fostering empathy and liberatory politics, the article notes that “a crucial way Black studies courses can improve our schools is by recruiting and hiring Black teachers.”

“Since the latest Black Lives Matter uprisings, more campuses than ever have reached out to our department for help establishing their own classes, programs or even departments,” the Berkeley teachers write. “It’s time for other districts to follow suit.”

“The seven physicians in Congress who voted against confirming the results of the [2020 U.S. presidential] election,” write Blum and Howard Wolinsky in an op-ed on MedPage Today, “have contributed to the subversion of democracy and violated one of the principles of the practice of medicine that all physicians since Hippocrates must try to uphold: Primum non nocere ... first, do no harm.”

Blum is a family physician and professor of family medicine at the University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences, and founding director of the university’s Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. With Wolinsky, a medical journalist, Blum lists and condemns the M.D. members of the Senate and House of Representatives who voted to invalidate the election results, as well as those who “stood in lockstep behind Trump” and his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The votes of these members of Congress “reflect not only the willful rejection of legal and judicial democratic norms but also unabashed racism,” the opinion piece continues. “These physicians’ deeds must be addressed by the medical profession.”

In a piece distributed by the Tribune News Service, Basu describes the farmers’ protest movement that has been underway in India in recent months, and argues that the movement has been egalitarian, inclusive and mostly peaceful—“a democratic response to democratic erosion.”

“Farmers’ protests erupted in September in the state of Punjab after parliament hurriedly passed three agrarian laws which eliminate guaranteed prices for certain crops and increase their vulnerability to corporate exploitation,” writes Basu, the Domenic J. Paino 1955 Professor of Political Science, and Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies. “But their grievances and demands go beyond farm policy. They claim that the government has capitulated to business elites .... They criticize the Bharatiya Janata Party government for decreeing major policy changes, some of which violate federal and constitutional principles, with little deliberation and consultation. They reproach the government for censoring the press and using draconian laws to incarcerate critics without trial ....”

“The farmers’ movement has not simply advocated democratic policies and procedures; it has also engaged in democratic practices,” the professor continues. “The Punjabi Sikhs who lead the movement oppose state persecution of religious minorities. They express solidarity with Muslims who are the target of recent discriminatory citizenship laws.” They have also, she notes, included and supported female farmers, provided food and other services to the poor, and upheld transparency and autonomy in their negotiations with government officials.

Did you know that Kamala Harris is not the first person of color to serve as U.S. vice president? Vigil writes for the History News Network about Charles Curtis, a member of the Indigenous Kaw Nation who became Herbert Hoover’s vice president in 1928.

Vigil, associate professor of American studies, writes that Curtis’s political career “spanned six terms as a congressman (1892–1907) and 20 years as a senator (1907–13, 1915–29), where he served as the Republican Party whip and majority leader” before becoming VP.

“Curtis’s most lasting legacy, certainly for scholars of American Indian history, is the Curtis Act,” she continues. “The 1898 Curtis Act amended the Dawes Act of 1887, which gave the federal government the power to break up tribally held lands.” Charles Curtis later wrote in his autobiography that he had written the act in the hope that it would help Native nations transition to private land ownership. “Instead, it was far more radical,” writes Vigil, “as it abolished tribal courts and instituted civil governments in an attempt to merge Indian territory with the new state of Oklahoma.”

Warren, longtime Chicago journalist and current executive editor of NewsGuard, appeared on the WGN9 Morning News on Jan. 21 to discuss key points from the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Warren talked about the “not so peaceful transfer of power” between the Trump and Biden administrations and the virtual, rather than in-person, format of some parts of the inauguration. He said Biden “symbolized, in theory, a return to normalcy”--but he also pointed out some exciting “firsts” in the ceremony, such as the swearing-in of Harris (the first female, first African American and first Indian American U.S. vice president) “by the first Latina Supreme Court justice, using the bible of the first African American justice.”  Warren then outlined the big questions of the start of Biden’s term, regarding coronavirus relief, Trump’s second impeachment and the widespread (but “absolutely dead wrong”) belief that Biden’s election victory was illegitimate.    

He closed by praising the “astonishing grace” of 22-year-old Amanda Gorman, whose poetry reading at the inauguration “really gives one hope about the future, if there are young people like that out there.”

“I began this project as a racial and sexual history of the U.S. military abroad,” says the professor in a Q&A for Black Agenda Report. “It soon became a study in which race and sexuality became the optics through which Black people, conscripted into imperial service, wrestled with notions of death and honor.”

Polk’s book, Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898–1948, was published by The University of North Carolina Press in 2020.

“The historical parallels between the moment of black sacrifice I study and today are pretty shocking,” says Polk, an associate professor of Black studies and sexuality, women's and gender studies at Amherst. “In 1898, Black men and women signed up to serve as ‘immune’ soldiers and nurses in the U.S. military due to a belief that Black people were immune to tropical diseases. Like essential workers today, these military workers were seen as indispensable for their grunt and care labor during the yellow fever epidemic in Cuba, but their lives and sacrifices were ultimately expendable to the larger project of American imperialism.”

An article in American Libraries magazine presents Amherst College as one example of an institution that has been making efforts toward more culturally “responsive and responsible” handling of Native American archival materials.

The “College’s approach to culturally responsive collection care is grounded in the documentation of Indigenous literary history, starting with the 2012 hiring of two Native Studies faculty and the purchase of a 1,500-volume collection of Native-authored books,” writes Ulia Gosart, referring to the Kim-Wait/Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection. 

The article includes remarks from Mike Kelly, Amherst’s head of archives and special collections, about practices intended to accurately call attention to Indigenous authorship, such as consulting with Native communities about how to display catalog data on visual maps and how to note authors’ tribal affiliations, as well as documenting provenance of each book. “We want to embed the history of the collecting in the collection metadata,” Kelly says. “Transparency about how we are acquiring materials is one way of being accountable to communities.”

“I can't stress enough: This is our world, our society, and we have every right to advocate for these issues,” Green says to her fellow young activists in a profile and Q&A on Mashable.com. 

The article, written by Chase DiBenedetto, describes many of Green’s efforts toward, as Green puts it, “increasing racial representation and decision-making power for people of color.” These include working in the Youth Court restorative justice program for Nassau County, N.Y.; interning for Congresswoman and former New York District Attorney Kathleen Rice; delivering a talk at TEDxAmherstCollege; organizing the Leadership Brainery's National Impact Summit at Harvard Law School; and writing for Teen Vogue and Forbes. 

The article recounts Green’s inspirational 2017 meeting with the late civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis, and also touches upon her senior English thesis at Amherst-- “a series of short stories featuring women and girls of color, with a focus on the power of representation in literature.”

“Duquette, who was the general manager of the Red Sox from 1994 until 2002, was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame along with sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, Worcester native Rich Gedman and old-timer Bill Dinneen,” writes Howard Herman of The Berkshire Eagle. The induction ceremonies were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the inductees were honored in a mid-December broadcast on NESN.

The article describes Duquette’s path from Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton, Mass., through Amherst College and into jobs with several different Major League Baseball teams, culminating with his leadership of the Boston Red Sox.

“As general manager, Duquette guided the Red Sox to an overall 656-574 record in his eight seasons,” Herman writes. “Duquette was the architect of three of the most lopsided personnel moves in team history,” which “helped build the foundation for the 2004 World Series championship that was Boston’s first title since 1918.” 

“I think this crisis really owes itself to the character of the person in the Oval Office, not to our electoral system, even though that system could surely be improved,” says Alan Hirsch ’81 in a recent interview with Andrew Keen for the Keen On podcast. Hirsch is a professor at Williams College and author of the 2020 book A Short History of Presidential Election Crises.

“An election crisis is one where after the voting is done, we don’t know who won,” Hirsch continues. “But now we know who won. That’s not really up for dispute. But we have a president who refuses to acknowledge that reality and possibly is willing to go to great lengths to try to impose his own reality, and that’s the crisis, if there is one.”

The interview delves into several major election crises in U.S. history, including those in the 1800 presidential race between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr and the 2000 race between George H.W. Bush and Al Gore. Keen and Hirsch also discuss possibilities for abolishing or reforming the Electoral College, a system that Hirsch believes makes elections especially vulnerable to crises.  

Maine’s Portland Phoenix profiles Dan Cluchey ’08, one of the three major speechwriters for Joe Biden during his recent presidential campaign. “With the presidential campaign now giving way to a transition effort, Cluchey isn’t sure what’s next for his career,” writes reporter Elizabeth Clemente, “but he admits he has had quite the ride from his childhood in Cape Elizabeth to his life in Washington, D.C.”

The article traces Cluchey’s career from Amherst College, where he first became interested in writing speeches; through Harvard Law School; and into his speechwriting jobs for President Barack Obama’s administration and later for Biden. It touches upon the challenges of crafting speeches for a socially distanced, virtual environment in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cluchey praises the diversity of people who advised him in writing about such issues as Black Lives Matter and transgender rights: “We were just fortunate to have a campaign that looked like America in all respects and to have their input not as some sort of afterthought but as a critical part of the process.”

The article also includes mentions and photos of Cluchey’s wife, lawyer Miriam Becker-Cohen ’11.     

In a post for the Islamic Law Blog, Assistant Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought Mona Oraby writes about participating in the Students as Partners Faculty Learning Community, hosted by Amherst’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Through this pilot program, each faculty participant chose a student partner to provide feedback on the professor’s teaching of a particular course.

“I chose to collaborate with Sophia Friedman [’21], one of my departmental advisees who has taken two of my courses,” Oraby writes. The advisee became an advisor regarding the professor’s Spring 2020 “Islamic Constitutionalism” course. “It was by working with her that I realized more fully the importance of soliciting and incorporating student feedback on how we teach, not just what we teach—as we teach. By mid-semester Sophia and I had a shared understanding of the classroom environment and the learning styles of students enrolled in the course. We developed a range of strategies for different students that would encourage each one to contribute more actively and substantively to classroom discussion.”

Oraby describes how this collaboration continued even after COVID-19 necessitated a shift to teaching the course remotely. She discusses how the pandemic and the summer’s political upheaval surrounding the killing of George Floyd both underscore the urgent need for adaptability in the quest for accessible and equitable learning environments.

The Santa Barbara Independent profiles Eli Harris ’15 as a co-founder of R-Zero, a company whose relatively inexpensive, movable lamp shines ultraviolet rays to kill 99.99 percent of nearby microorganisms. The lamp, called the R-Zero Arc, is now being used in restaurants, hotels, classrooms and other spaces around the country to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The article describes Harris’s path from his youth in Santa Barbara, Calif., to enrolling at Amherst with the intention of entering the foreign service, to winning a Fulbright scholarship at the U.S. Embassy in China, to becoming an entrepreneur. Harris created, but later sold his shares in, a lithium ion battery company called EcoFlow.

The article also explains the development of the R-Zero Arc lamps; the legal and economic factors at play in pricing and selling germicidal lamps; and their potential for use in businesses, schools and hospitals to combat not only COVID but also influenza, food poisoning and other germ-related public health threats. It includes photos and quotes from Santa Barbara-area establishments that are already using or planning to use Arc lamps.  

“Stavans is the author of Popol Vuh: A Retelling, a prose rendition of the heroic epic poem about the creation of the world as told by the K'iche' Maya people of Guatemala,” reports Arturo Conde of NBC News. “The book, with stunning illustrations by the Salvadoran folk artist Gabriela Larios, is out Tuesday.”

“The preservation of the Popol Vuh is a story about indigenous oppression, survival and endurance. But it also shows how colonizers can have within themselves the ability to rescue a culture, give voice to a people as an outsider," says Stavans, the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst. The epic poem, believed to have been passed down through an oral tradition for more than 1,000 years, was first put in writing by K'iche' nobility in the 16th century, and first translated into Spanish by Dominican friar Francisco Ximénez in the early 18th century.

The NBC News article tells more about the poem’s history, its structure and Stavans’ new version of it, comparing it to Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Netflix series Stranger Things.

“The fact that we don’t yet know who our next president will be is not evidence of a system malfunctioning,” writes Professor Lawrence Douglas in a Nov. 4 op-ed for The Guardian (U.S.). “It is proof that election officials around the country are taking the requisite time to make sure that all ballots—including all those cast by mail—are properly tallied.”

Douglas, the James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, points out that counting mail-in ballots is a labor-intensive process, the timing and procedures for which vary state by state. He criticizes President Donald Trump’s partisan “fearmongering” attempts to rush and undermine confidence in the election process, as well as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s “sloppy concurrence” with the president’s efforts, noting that suspicion of the “blue shift” in late-counted ballots was also voiced by Republicans during the 2018 elections.

“[P]atience is the order of the day,” writes Douglas. “The integrity of the electoral system demands no less.”