Young Democrats, on the other hand, have endorsed only one minority candidate in the past five years, when they endorsed Kristin Hill in 2008.

How racist.

According to an email I received from a member of the policy review committee, there are four actions that they may take:

1. Implement an “all-comers” policy where belief-based groups cannot take a prospective members beliefs’ into account when considering them for membership
2. Implement a modified “all-comers” policy where you can take their beliefs into account, but none related to “personal characteristics” (i.e., “a Christian organization couldn’t require that gay members believe homosexuality is a sin”)
3. Require student leaders to sign a non-discrimination statement or require student organizations to incorporate a non-discrimination statement into their bylaws.
4. Make no change.

The first two are highly problematic. Consider the current policy:

Student organizations that select their members on the basis of commitment to a set of beliefs (e.g., religious or political beliefs) may limit membership and participation in the organization to students who, upon individual inquiry, affirm that they support the organization’s goals and agree with its beliefs, so long as no student is excluded from membership or participation on the basis of his or her age, race, color, national origin, disability, religious status or historic religious affiliation, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or, unless exempt under Title IX, gender.

This policy is comprehensive and mediates between the need for free and open access while allowing belief-based organizations to ensure that their members adhere to the organization’s mission statement. Given the multiplicity of beliefs to which an organization may adhere, it also gives both members and the organization flexibility to determine the extent to which a member must support its beliefs before their membership is called into question (i.e., many College Republicans, myself included, disagreed with President Bush’s TARP program, yet were allowed to remain members).

So why is a change necessary?

The member of the committee gave a rationale for a potential change:

The current policy is the legacy of legal action taken against the university nearly a decade ago. It allows for political and religious groups — groups based around a set of beliefs — to limit their membership to students who profess agreement with those beliefs. This is technically different from discriminating on the basis of personal characteristics, which is what the rest of the policy addresses. However, recent history has shown us that this can become problematic for individuals who are required by organizations they are members  of to hold beliefs which could be considered antagonistic toward their personal characteristics. Furthermore, what beliefs are required for membership is open to interpretation with each successive leadership — what it means to be Christian or Conservative is hardly set in stone. In fact, that discussion is in part why many of these groups exist. This can potentially jeopardize members down the line who were formerly in good standing.

This is in keeping with the sentiments expressed by Thomason, Terri Phoenix, and other participants to the Daily Tar Heel which seems to indicate that some change will occur. Also, knowing the other members of the committee, I strongly suspect some change will be made especially given the outside pressure seen last semester for retribution against Psalm 100.

Whatever change is made will be the first step in regulating what precisely student groups may believe. The impetus behind the policy review is a perfect example. While I consider Will a friend and disagreed with Psalm 100′s decision to vote him out, ultimately, the decision was up to Psalm 100 as to whether or not Will was upholding their mission statement. And properly so. The moment the university decides whether or not certain beliefs are acceptable is the moment that we’ve effectively ended the idea that the university is supposed to be a free marketplace of ideas.

Even on the face of it, the proposed changes are laughable. Why should Young Democrats be forced to accept my membership, even though I fundamentally disagree with their values and beliefs? They might want to accept my dues money, but should I be able to vote on which endorsements they make or be elected to their executive board? Should a contingent of College Republicans be allowed to try and dictate YD policy or be present and able to vote when sensitive decisions are being made?

For larger groups such machinations probably aren’t an issue, but for smaller organizations like Carolina Review the chance that a few liberals could dominate the group is very possible. Recent actions taken against the Review by fringe organizations indicate that this could be a real threat.

Or take the issue of representation. After the presumed new policy is in place, could someone who disagrees with the Campus Blueprint join and do anything in the name of the organization simply to embarrass Blueprint? Will magazines like The Siren be able to take editorial stances any more or refuse to publish articles they think don’t uphold their brand of feminism?

What about the Muslim Students Association? Their bylaws require that only members can serve in leadership positions, while, to be a member, one must “strictly accept doctrines prescribed in the Holy Qur’an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as practiced by Ahl-Al Sunnah Wa Al-Jama’a.” In what world does it make sense that MSA would have to accept a non-Muslim as a leader?

Even if the policy only bans belief discrimination based on personal characteristics, that leaves the door wide-open for interpretation. Homosexuality is fairly straightforward, but a “characteristic” is simply “a distinguishing trait, quality, or property.” What would fall under this category? Unpopular opinions (i.e., “homosexuality is a sin”) may be the first to go, but the administration would have set a strong precedent for far broader powers to determine which beliefs would pass muster, effectively wielding veto-power over those beliefs.

Vanderbilt University implemented a similar policy to the one UNC is now considering which put the Vanderbilt chapter of the Christian Legal Society in violation. Last September, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) sent Vanderbilt a letter which brought out a crucial point:

[W]hen it comes to religious groups on campus, Vanderbilt’s failure to recognize that religion is also a belief compromises those groups’ ability to effectively communicate their messages. Part of CLS’s expressive purpose is to communicate to other law students what it sees as the Christian message.

On that point, the Christian Legal Society is no different than any other belief-based organization. In the rationale that the committee member gave me (above), he said that our concepts of Christian and conservative are not “set in stone.” No one disputes that. Yet it is still the right of an organization to define what it believes to be Christian or conservative. In our own history, the Review was founded in 1993 after a disagreement over the direction the original Carolina Critic was headed. A later split occurred when some members wanted to go in a more “human interest” direction and founded the Blue & White. If Will Thomason felt as though Psalm 100 were not upholding true Christianity, he had every right to start his own Christian a capella group. No one- including Psalm 100- could stop him. But the fact remains that belief-based organizations are fundamentally evangelical in nature insofar as they have a set of beliefs and it is their intention to publicize those beliefs and recruit new adherents to its standard.

In a follow-up letter to Vanderbilt, FIRE outlined a set of hypotheticals that I hope the policy review committee considers before making a final decision:

• If one of the leaders of Vanderbilt’s Muslim Students Association were to convert to Christianity, is the group required to maintain that person in his or her leadership role despite the fact that he or she is no longer Muslim?
• Vanderbilt informed the Christian Legal Society that its requirement that student leaders “lead Bible studies, prayer, and worship” was against the policy because it implied that these leaders must hold certain religious beliefs. How do you suggest religious groups at Vanderbilt fulfill their purposes without leaders who can accomplish such core tasks of religious leadership?
• While this dispute was originally confined to religious organizations, your statement of January 20 states that all student organizations must accept any student as a member or a leader. If a group of straight students—the majority at Vanderbilt—were to join the Vanderbilt Lambda Association, vote themselves into office, and disband the group or alter the group’s mission, what recourse would LGBT members of the Lambda Association have?
• If a member of the College Republicans joins the College Democrats to discover their plans for political activism and report those plans back to the College Republicans in order to thwart them, do the College Democrats have any way to stop him or her?
• Under this policy, must an ideological student journal like Vanderbilt’s Orbis accept editors or publish columnists who disagree with, mock, or denigrate its progressive political views?
• Many groups in the Occupy movement choose to make decisions by consensus. How could a Vanderbilt-based Occupy group operate if a small group of students joined specifically to prevent the group from acting in any way by constantly preventing a consensus from forming?
• If a student were to join an environmentalist group like Vanderbilt SPEAR and then use his membership in that group to increase his or her credibility when publicly criticizing the group’s positions in the Nashville or Vanderbilt newspapers, what could the group do to prevent this?

The reality is, under an “all-comers” or similar policy, there would be no recourse for the groups in the above situation.

Student fee money became an issue last fall, but the fact remains that Psalm 100 members also pay into the pool that is disbursed to student organizations. Why should they not be eligible to receive money simply because the university thought Psalm 100 fell short of “inclusivity” benchmark? Of course, a voucher system for student fees would resolve this issue quite nicely, but the university administration seems to believe regulating beliefs is the best way to go.

If UNC decides to expand our nondiscrimination policy, they will have joined Vanderbilt- to quote FIRE- in “abandoning America’s pluralistic tradition by banning religious and political student groups from making leadership decisions based on their religious or political beliefs.” That pluralistic tradition has long been the underpinning of the liberal arts enterprise which UNC will jettison and, in doing so, make a mockery of our motto lux libertas. That’s definitely not the Carolina Way.

I have to wish him the best on undertaking such a herculean task in defending the indefensible. But, unfortunately, this is much more than a “completely novel constitutional question.” A lot is at stake if we conclude that the executive branch has the power to determine when a separate and equal branch is or is not in session and can ignore constitutional precedent in order to make preferred appointments (also, it’s gotta be awkward for a party that, until recently, was denouncing the “imperial presidency” of George W. Bush).

The text of the Constitution granting the president the power to make recess appointments reads:

The President shall have power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session (Article II, Section iii).

As Richard Epstein, a renowned legal scholar at the University of Chicago and NYU, points out, the key words are “Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate [emphasis added].” He says:

What they mean is this: if the vacancy arises in the gap between terms, the President does not have to travel light just because the Senate is not in session.  In the founding period, Congress was not in perpetual session to say the least, so this provision meant that if there was no ability to go through the usual process of nomination and confirmation, the President could act on his own.

But that situation does not describe the situation with Cordray and the NLRB. Those vacancies existed prior to the “recess.” The NLRB appointments are particularly egregious because the Senate hadn’t even had time to set up hearings for the nominations.

Even if we accept the usual practice of recess appointments, Cordray and the NLRB appointments are unconstitutional. Wilson makes the point that the Senate was in pro forma sessions (which, ironically enough, were pioneered by Senator Harry Reid to prevent President Bush from making recess appointments) which aren’t actual sessions because- quoting from the Justice Department’s brief- the Senate cannot “receive communications from the President or participate as a body in making appointments.” He goes on to claim that, “the Constitution is unclear about what constitutes a recess”- this simply isn’t true. A “recess,” being a parliamentary procedure, is determined internally by each body. The Constitution did not intend to define the set of motions either house must adopt for its operations and left it up to the respective bodies. Thus, under current Senate rules, the Senate was not in recess. This forces the Obama Administration to re-define what constitutes a recess which, as John Yoo points out, is not in his purview:

It is up to the Senate to decide when it is in session or not, and whether it feels like conducting any real business or just having Senators sitting around on the floor reading the papers. The President cannot decide the legitimacy of the activities of the Senate any more than he could for the other branches, and vice versa.

Ultimately for Wilson, however, it’s not about the Constitution. It’s about implementing the Obama policy agenda. But it’s important to note that there is no clause in the Constitution that assures a president that every single post he creates will be filled. It’s up to the Senate. So, yes, Republicans can hold these appointments “hostage.” It’s their constitutional prerogative.

However, if Republicans keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to be in trouble when they face the people and have to answer to the gridlock that Obama will undoubtedly point to in his re-election campaign unless they are able to articulate an adequate defense for their actions (which I believe can be made).

That’s the system that the Founders intended. In the Federalist, they argue that “the injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones.” For our current situation, this means that even if the Republicans prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from functioning in the short-term, it’s better to follow the constitution than to set a terrible precedent like Obama has.

I’m always surprised when either side doesn’t see the long-term consequences of their actions. Budget reconciliation- which allows measures to circumvent the filibuster- was used by Republicans to pass the Bush tax cuts, only to be picked up by the Democrats to pass ObamaCare (sidenote: isn’t it interesting that neither policy is accepted by the other side?). Every time the Senate changes hands, the new majority complains about the filibuster, the very same procedure they were defending to the bitter end when they were in the minority.

But it’s important that we retain these restrictions on executive or majority power. I wish that the Democrats currently salivating over Director Cordray could imagine a four-year Ambassador Bolton or Attorney General John Yoo when the next Republican president doesn’t get his way over a certain appointment. Imagine if only 51 senators were required to abolish the Department of Education.

Yeah, it stinks when things don’t go your way in the interim. But, if you have the right ideas, you’ll win in the long run. The solution isn’t to circumvent the Constitution to get your way, but be patient and persuade the American people of the merits of your case. That’s the only way to win a sustainable victory.

Key highlights:

1. The FHA is leveraged 840 to 1 (which would mean it would have been already shut down by regulators if it were a private lender)
2. The FHA uses accounting techniques similar to Enron to obscure the reality of their financial situation
3. The FHA is no longer focused on low-income homeowners- “In FY 2011, 54 percent of the FHA’s dollar volume went to finance homes that were greater than 125 percent of an area’s median home price, up from 36 percent in 2010.”
4. “[M]ore than 90 percent of all mortgages are acquired and securitized with a GSE guarantee or insured by the FHA or the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and securitized by Ginnie Mae with a government guarantee.”
5. “The off-budget debt of various government agencies—the majority of which is GSE debt—is $7.5 trillion, all of which is ultimately the responsibility of the federal government.”

But the GSE model works, so they tell us…

In practice, though, both sides fall short of their ideals. Liberty University gave us an example of where the right is dictatorial in academia, but the vast majority of academic institutions aren’t run by right-wingers like Falwell (though Chancellor George F. Will has a really nice ring to it). It’s accepted that the majority of the faculty and students at your average institution of higher education are generally very left-wing.

UNC is no exception based on my own undergraduate career. I’ve written before about my personal experiences as a conservative at UNC, but one thing that continues to surprise me is the apparent lack of self-awareness among students who invite speakers, host events, or sponsor panels. As I’ve written before, if you’re supposed to be a nonpartisan organization whose goal it is to “challenge” the student body, a sixth consecutive liberal speaker may not do the job. Why not throw some conservative names into the mix, just for funsies?

But that thought never seems to cross people’s minds. This week, there will be a panel entitled “Popular Movements: A Panel Discussion.” Here’s the first line in the introduction: “This panel…will explore four contemporary popular movements.” Let’s think of some major contemporary popular movements: the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, the anti-war movement, the Tea Party, the environmental movement, the immigration rights movement, maybe the Jasmine Revolution in China, or the recent unrest in Russia.

The four that were selected: Arab Spring, OWS, the environmental movement, and the immigration rights movement. Hm, no Tea Party, even though they are credited with giving the Republican Party one of the largest majorities in the U.S. House in history, completely re-focused the budget debate, and have had a marked (if negative) influence on the 2012 election? A movement so influential that liberal commentators were yearning for a similar movement on the left?

The panel is sponsored by UNC’s Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday Celebration, you say, so the Tea Party has no place? Alveda King, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s niece and daughter of his brother who was a noted civil rights activist, spoke at one of the largest Tea Party rallies in the country. And a member of the Frederick Douglass Foundation would be very willing to debate whether the Tea Party aligns with Dr. King’s vision for America.

When I expressed that sentiment on the Facebook event, one of the leaders of the event said that I had a good point, but it was too late for this year’s panel. The fact is, this shouldn’t be an issue in the first place. Whenever I question whether a group that invites speakers or sponsors panels lives up to the goals of actual diversity or inclusiveness, the response is invariably something along the lines of “Oh shoot, you’re right. Just come to our meetings to contribute!”

That shouldn’t be necessary. How can a room full of reasonably intelligent liberals not realize that they’re being unbalanced or are somehow unable to come up with a list of conservatives that they could invite? You shouldn’t pretend to be au courante if you can’t name, at minimum, Charles Krauthammer, George Will, David Brooks, or Ross Douthat which, in my experience, is a difficult project for very intelligent folks who can articulately discuss the nuances of single-payer health care systems around the world. You don’t even have to subscribe to National Review (though you should) to find more names. The internet is a lovely thing.

I don’t want a bunch of Anthony Dent clones running around (a weird accusation once leveled against me)- I want a vigorous, healthy, and free marketplace of ideas. UNC purports to be a liberal arts university whose purpose is to cast away all preconceived notions of the world in the search for truth. Offering only one viewpoint for lectures, speeches, and panels simply doesn’t do that.

Even if we ignore the liberal arts mission for the university, we can’t ignore the fact that hearing other viewpoints makes you a deeper thinker whether you agree with the speaker or not. You can sit down and read The Fatal Conceit (which everyone should do) and toss it away in disgust, but confronting opposing ideas forces you to evaluate your own and formulate reasons why you simply cannot accept this viewpoint. Or maybe reasons why you do. Either way, you come away better for it. In this age of polarization, we all could use a healthy dose of true diversity.

Here’s a rough transcript starting around 2:08:55-

Question: I’ll be brief. You mentioned that with the AARA as it was moving through Congress, you provided projections based on a set of multipliers and econometric models and then later, when evaluating the effects you used multipliers and econometric models and that gives the impression of assuming what one’s trying to prove in terms of measuring the effects. So, a two part question: first, is that treatment required by the rules Congress sets for the CBO; and second, how would that be different if you compared the initial projections—both baseline and with the stimulus bill—versus actual experience?

Elmendorf: So, our method of analysis of that is not required by Congress. We’ve tried to be very clear on our reports on that that we don’t one can learn much by watching the particular components of GDP over the last few quarters about the effects of the stimulus. We think the best evidence about the effects of past policies comes from more detailed studies done often several years later: the behavior of particular households that got tax rebates sooner or later or whatever. We don’t think you can learn much from that so we fall back on repeating similar analysis that we’ve done before and we try to be very explicit about that that is, essentially, repeating the same exercise we did rather than an independent check on it. The part that is the check is we watch how the money has flowed out of the government budget—we can update that. We’re reading new evidence—if we thought we saw evidence that substantially shifted the body of work in this area then we would shift our views but we haven’t seen that at this point.

Question: If the stimulus bill did not do what it was originally forecast to do, then it would not have been detected by the subsequent analysis, is that correct?

Elmendorf: That’s right. That’s right. In terms of what we would have found otherwise—I don’t remember each of our forecasts—certainly by last March our economic forecast took on board a very large decline in employment, a run-up in the unemployment rate, weak GDP growth in the recovery of the second half of last year. Our January forecast—last January’s forecast—did not have that. We marked down the forecast considerably from January to March. Our first estimates of the effects of the stimulus package, I think, were coming out in between those benchmarks so it’s hard for me to go back and disentangle those pieces entirely.

So what about all the liberal brouhaha over the “independent, nonpartisan report by the CBO”?

A fellow Tar Heel, Jeff DeLuca, former Co-President of GLBTSA, recent participated in this process by questioning Speaker of the House Thom Tillis about the amendment and expressed his opinion on the matter:

Jeff provided a model for engaging in political discourse, so the video was rightly celebrated, even getting picked up by Think Progress, a left-wing advocacy group.

The irony, of course, is that the very same leftist groups who adore this kind of confrontation fell over themselves to quickly condemn the precisely same phenomenon three summers ago during the health care debate. A quick search of Think Progress reveals article after article mocking those “teabaggers” who were simply exercising their rights just as Jeff did when he questioned Speaker Tillis.

Conservatives do this too, make no mistake. No doubt some conservative in the state had a few choice words upon seeing the above video. But if we ever hope to have some semblance of a civil and measured- albeit vigorous- debate, we shouldn’t jump to attack efforts like the Tea Party or Jeff’s video- just the ideas they espouse.

To my mind, this is a great development for UNC and shows a maturity in how we attempt to address the problems plaguing our society. The futility of student protests should be obvious. Look at the examples Mark lists of student protests that he presumably wishes UNC would emulate: protests against the tuition increases in California, marches against Scott Walker’s ban on collective bargaining in Wisconsin, and protests like Occupy Wall Street in New York.

Now, show of hands: who thinks that, because of those protests, tuition won’t increase in California, public-sector unions will be restored in Wisconsin, and income inequality will magically disappear across the country? *crickets* Thought so.

The same would apply if we had a far more active Occupy Chapel Hill/UNC (and not merely a “damp squid”) or massive numbers of students protesting our own tuition hikes. They would achieve nothing. The tuition hike would still happen because protests don’t make economic realities disappear.

Contrast that with the approach currently being taken by Student Government or the Campus Y- instead of protesting, they’re sitting down to figure out a way to minimize the tuition hike. They’re working with administrators to achieve their ends, not calling them rich, white, males who clearly don’t care about the poor.

Consider the difference between the Campus Y of the ’90s and the Campus Y of today. Two decades ago, the Campus Y was a rowdy bunch heavy on ideology, not so heavy on actually doing social justice. Today, that’s almost completely changed. Committees like Best Buddies, Big Buddy, Carolina Microfinance Initiative, Nourish International, or Project Literacy do amazing things to change our community for the better. But we’re expected to believe that their time would potentially be better spent on protesting?

Protesting is  merely man’s shallow attempt to satisfy that need to do something even though we realize that human action is ultimately futile. But on a practical level, imagine all the good that could have been done if, instead of beating drums all day and yelling, the Occupiers had devoted their time and energies to a Habitat build. We ought to celebrate that “this campus today seems far away from its activist history.” It’s not a sign that we’re any less dedicated to improving the lot of man- it’s just that we’re finally beginning to do so, little by little.

The recent debate about tuition is no different. A recent article in the DTH outlines the divide between SDS and reality. The three main student groups affiliated with the “UNC Education Justice Alliance”- how Orwellian- are SDS, Student Government, and the Campus Y. The latter two groups understand that, in a recession, the state appropriation has to decrease. To make up the gap, sadly, tuition has to go up. Fortunately, UNC has the Carolina Covenant, so lower-income students won’t feel its affect. Middle class students will primarily be affected.

This is unacceptable to SDS. The recent letter to the editor by SDS member Sean Langberg put forward the utterly asinine argument that, somehow, the race and sex of most administrators explains why they want to increase costs. They’re white males, as the logic goes, they don’t care about poor minorities. The comment section is a hilarious read because another SDS member chimes in by conceding the poor minorities are covered by Carolina Covenant, but they won’t apply in the first place because they heard about rising costs. No evidence to support her idiotic argument, but, in their alternate reality, this makes complete sense.

Student Government and the Campus Y understand reality with its (apparently) well-known white, male bias. They are putting forward proposals to limit the damage, but understand that tuition will go up. As it will.

Which just goes to show how useless SDS is as an organization. Given their track record of failure, why does the DTH even pay attention to them?

It’s definitely favoritism.

First, let me be clear that I do not think the “room is unfair to Christians.” Like I said in my original post, the room is not unfair to Christians (or any religious tradition), it’s the policy that caters to request by followers of one religious tradition, but not the other.

Let’s not play games: the meditation room was created explicitly to fulfill a request by Muslim students to have a room where they can pray five times a day. The room was given a wash basin at the request of CUAB President Cierra Hinton specifically to facilitate the Islamic ritual of Wudu. That any student including non-Muslims can use the space is irrelevant. Christmas trees are also accessible to non-Christians- it’s not like they’re thestrals that can only be seen and enjoyed by certain students. But this defense was ultimately rejected by Chancellor Holden Thorp when Christmas trees were removed from Davis and Wilson libraries three years ago.

The absence of a Muslim a capella group is a non sequitur. Yes, no group of Muslims have requested to form such a group. But, Christians did in fact request that the Christmas trees be re-instated, a request which, again, was denied. The precedent thus established was that the university would not celebrate one set of customs over others (even though the compromise solution, putting up a menorah and Kwanzaa candles in addition to the trees, was shot down).

I’m glad the union is creating a meditation room, but if they were seeking true diversity they would not create a room specifically (though not exclusively) for Muslim students while not allowing Christmas trees or other religious symbols as well.

This is curious:

If a Christian group needs and would regularly use a meditation room with a crucifix, or if some Muslims decide that they want to form an a cappella group, then they can and should be allowed to do so.

I’m glad to see a liberal reject that idea that secularism necessitates atheism, but I sincerely doubt that, if a Christian group were to make that request, the Campus Blueprint would see it as “inclusive” or “accommodating,” but just another step down the road to theocracy…