VOICES
BRETT KAVANAUGH
Abuse of Women Can No Longer be Ignored
February 15, 2019 | ISSUE 10
By Shuying Ou
The Supreme Court is set up of nine justices. First when a judge was died or retire, the Constitution would give authority to the president to nominate a new candidate. Then the senate would investigate the qualification of the new candidate and vote to the nominee. Brett Kavanaugh is the new judge who just appointed on October 6th, 2018. He filled the seat vacated by Judge Anthony Kennedy. He nominated by the president Donald Trump. Many people are extremely opposed to Brett Kavanaugh becoming a Supreme Court justice.
First of all, at that time, Kavanaugh's nomination three women accused him of varying degrees of sexual misconduct in high school and college. One of the accusers Christine Blasey Ford, who is a Professor of Psychology at Palo Alto University and a Research Psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, accused Kavanaugh of sexually harassing on her at a party. People have doubts about Kavanaugh’s testimony. Most people believe that Christine Blasey Ford has more believable testimony than him. He claimed that the incident about the sexual assault and illicit contact with Christine Blasey Ford during high school and college had not happened in his memory. But he admitted he drank a lot of wine at that night, and he said that he loved drinking. This is what he said at the end of the Thursday's case hearing. “I drank beer with my friends,” Kavanaugh told senators in his opening statement, describing his younger days. “Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer.” He did not deny that he was drinking too much. He denied that he has been unconscious or has forgotten what has happened.
In addition, one of the two friends mentioned in the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, one of them mentioned that there was no such thing that happened at that night. But many of them have doubts in his testimony of drinking alcohol.
An Economist/YouGov poll shows Democrats by about an eight to one margin believe that Kavanaugh committed assault, while Republicans by a similar margin believe he didn’t. From this incident, this shows that he still has no definitive evidence that he has not harassed Christine Blasey Ford. The testimony by Judge Kavanaugh at the hearing made us doubt whether Judge Kavanaugh is suitable as a deputy judge of the Supreme Court.
At that time, as a nominee who was about to become a judge, he might be lying and not telling the truth. In the case of harassment on Christine Blasey Ford, Ms. Ford gave more clear testimony than Brett Kavanaugh. This became one of the points that he not became a justice in the Supreme Court.
Another point about Brett Kavanaugh, is that he leans conservative in his philosophy and has taken very strong positions against women’s rights in the past on issues like abortion. Judge Kavanaugh’s hostility towards women’s reproductive rights was demonstrated by his rulings in the case of Garza v. Hargan. In this case, Judge Kavanaugh was a member of a three-judge panel that sided with the Trump administration and blocked Jane Doe, a 17-year-old immigrant woman, from getting an abortion. Judge Kavanaugh issued an order delaying Jane Doe’s abortion under the guise of finding her a sponsor, and it held that it did not unduly burden her right to an abortion. In addition, the unlisted rights is not only the right to abortion, but also the right to use contraception and marriage.
Coupled with the accusations of many women against Judge Kavanaugh’s, his apparent suspicion of women’s rights is very disturbing.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
February 15, 2019 | ISSUE 10
By Erjia Guan
The Supreme Court is one of the three government branches in a system of checks and balances which distributes the power of the United States’ government into three parts. Made up by 9 judges, who are nominated by the President and decided by the Senate of the Congress through voting, the Supreme Court has the duty to explain the U.S. Constitution and decide cases when there is an unsettled matter.
In the past, the political side that a judge is aligned with did not matter to the operation of the court. Judges were making decision unaffected by which party do they support. However, since the beginning of this century, the Judges become more and more politically involved and their decisions are increasingly sided with the party that they are related to.
The newest Supreme Court judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated by President Trump following the retirement of Judge Kennedy, who is considered to be in the middle of the political spectrum. So at such time when America is so deeply separated and conflicted, with an equal number of judges on each side of political faction after the retirement of Kennedy, winning the seat left by the retired judge could mean the control of the Supreme Court. The arrival of Brett Kavanaugh, a Republican, to the Supreme Court certainly means a tilting towards the right side of the political spectrum, that the majority of the judges are now right leaning. Judge Kavanaugh had been confirmed by a close vote of 50 to 48 in the Senate of the Congress on October 6th.
Brett Kavanaugh, previous to his confirmation, had faced serious allegations of sexually assaulting several women, including Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who was the lead accuser. A Congressional hearing was held on the matter. The back-and-force between the accuser and defendant is seen as a political battle, with Democrats backed up the former and Republican sided with the latter. Dr. Ford has claimed to be sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh and one of his friend, Mark Judge on a night in the summer of 1982, and says since she has suffered mental injuries. She is frequently seeing in a tear dropping manner when giving out her testimonies. Then comes Brett Kavanaugh, who started his testimonies in an angry manner, claiming that all of the accusations are false, that they are created with the intention of smearing his reputation to prevent him from getting becoming the new Supreme Court Judge.
For an event that has happened three decades ago, maybe nobody could ever prove who is telling the truth, and no one could ever know what really happened except for the accuser and the defendant. But we can all follow a simple rule here, a rule that has been used in the judicial system of the United States ever since it is created: “Innocents until proven guilty.” That Kavanaugh, without evidence that directly proves he committed such a sexual assault, should not be denied his right to become a Supreme Court Judge.
DJ CONTROVERSY
Students Choose & I Play
November 15, 2018 | ISSUE 10
By Ronald Chiang
I’m delighted of being DJ in the Halloween Party 2018. To do my job, I place a paper on the desk where I play the music to make my playlist. Students who want can write down the song they want, and I will play it. I play the songs that students choose with only one rule that I limited that 2 songs per person so we can play more people’s choices.
Since FIHS is a diversity school, people want to play songs in their own language. I try my best to play songs with multiple languages and many cultures so no one would be upset for not being able to hear their own language. Sometimes people started come to me and tell me to either play their song or cut another song. I refused in order to keep the fairness. I especially rejecting those who tells me to not playing certain languages or merely play one language.
If anyone only wants me to play more one language? Well, you can play your own playlist in your cell phone. I won’t lose my fairness. To me, people that only want one kind of music sounds more like you when you have a cake and four persons who all want to eat the whole cake, the best solution would definitely be cut the cake to four pieces; there’s no excuse of giving more to one person.
I’ve been trying my best to divide this cake and carefully, but some people always want more cake for themselves.
What Songs Should We Play?
November 15, 2018 | ISSUE 10
By Joy Ziaul
Just like other years, Student Government hosted a halloween party in this year. During the party, the student government was playing music to make the party more enjoyable. However, the songs of the playlist is becoming an issue every year.
Student government tried to overcome and came up with a way to satisfy the diversity of FIHS. In this particular way, each students can write down the song he/she wants to listen and the DJ will follow up the list one by one. But the question remains- is this a good way to satisfy the all the students?
Many feel that whenever a specific native culture’s song is being played from the playlist, the people from other cultures and background do not enjoy it as much and as a consequence they start complaining.
Since, we all have different background culture, we need to resolve this conflict in a better way. I would suggest that the most convenient way to deal with is raising awareness among students with strong leadership. Even in our diverse community there are cultures who are the majorities and they should consider the students from cultures that are less represented.
One way is for the Student Government can arrange the playlist by looking at videos on youtube with the most views. Moreover, since we are all English learners, we should consider more English songs. That way we can have fun and it can be helpful academically as well.