PS103
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Student Lists - Section 04,
06 (F99)
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GradeA gradebook (labeled PS103-00 for both
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PS103 Assignments - Renka - Fall 1999
Assignment No. 1 (September 1,
1999)
Assignment No. 2 (Polls - by 1 November
1999)
Assignment No. 3 (October 20, 1999)
Sample Papers
Assignment No. 1 (25 points)
for September 1, 1999
I will be gone to the American Political Science Association annual meeting from Wednesday, September 1 to Sunday, September 5. Your first outside assignment, during my absence, is as follows:
Go to the University's Common Hour presentation, entitled "The Supreme Court's Fear of AIDS" by Michael Closen, Professor of Law. The presentation is at Academic Auditorium on Wednesday, September 1, at 12:30-1:15 p.m. The basic assignment is to write a short paper of 1.5 to 2 honest pages explaining what the speaker said. Write it so that I can understand what Professor Closen said in my absence.
Here are some questions you may consider addressing. First, what is the evidence that the Court has avoided the issue of AIDS? Do you find it convincing? Second, what is the harm or consequence of this Court behavior? In other words, is this behavior by the court really important? Third, what is the likely course for the Court in the near future? For instance, does Closen claim the Court will soon be obliged to address the issue, no matter what? Or will the Court continue to sidestep or avoid the issue?
A note about your point of view on AIDS. Every semester I get a few early papers which begin to address a topic, and then take off on an excursion into a personal point of view. Often these end up ignoring the assignment and "getting it off one's chest" instead. I see political leaders do this often--but it isn't an acceptable way to do a paper. Nothing's wrong with incorporating your own strongly felt judgments about a topic--so long as it does not divert you from truly addressing the assignment. So avoid using the occasion as a soapbox.
Due date is the first date of class next week. For PS103-04, that's Wednesday after the Labor Day rest time. For Section 06, that's Tuesday, September 7.
Russell Renka
Here are two examples of
outstanding papers done on this assignment. Both writers have kindly
assented to my inclusion of their papers, each with the author's name
included. These papers both demonstrate mastery of the basic assignment to
report accurately on the speaker's message. They go further to skillfully
place the speaker's claims in context. And of course they demonstrate the
value of careful editing and good, clear writing.
Paper by Katie Vandagriff
Paper by Julie Stoverink
Katie Vandagriff
PS103-04(H)
Waiting for a “Safe Bet”
AIDS first came to the forefront in 1980. Believed, at first, to be a strictly “gay disease”, the majority of the population did not feel that it concerned or threatened them in any way. However, as the number of infected people, gays and non-gays alike, continued to rise, and no cure could be found, the reality of the threat and the seriousness of this illness came home to roost in the hearts of the American people. AIDS had claimed its status as an issue of national concern and importance.
Why, then, did the leaders of this nation choose to ignore this issue for so long? Ronald Reagan never even spoke the word “AIDS” publicly until the year 1987 – that’s 7 years after AIDS really became a societal problem. The Supreme Court apparently decided that they would follow the president’s poorly set example. But where Reagan eventually did address the issue, the Court remains silent.
So far, out of the thirty-three cases dealing with AIDS and human rights violations filed with the Court, only one of those cases has ever been heard, and it was basically open-and-shut from the start. Why is this? Why do they keep avoiding one of the most pressing and relevant issues of our time? It’s not like they don’t have time – in fact, the total number of cases heard by the Court annually has declined by half over the past eighteen years, while at the same time the number of AIDS cases filed was increasing. No…the answer to this question is simple and strictly political – the Supreme Court of the United States of America does not want to set any precedents on any controversial issue before it has “ripened” or “matured” sufficiently. They would rather wait until the right decision becomes painfully obvious to the people of this country before they go about setting any precedents. But wait a minute…isn’t that their job? They have a responsibility to this nation to be courageous and to take some initiative toward resolving the various types of problems that have arisen as a result of discrimination and violations against people with the AIDS virus! It is their Constitutional duty to lay the groundwork, and yet they continue to avoid the issue like the plague that it is. If the Court had actually heard some cases, interpreted some views and set some precedents for the public to think about and follow, neither the disease nor the discrimination resulting from it could have been completely prevented, but it might have been significantly reduced.
But we don’t
know what they think, because they won’t tell us. If the Court were ever to hear any additional (to the one)
AIDS-related cases, it will probably be soon.
The issue has had plenty of time to “ripen” a bit.
Today’s population is educated and informed about AIDS, and most of us
have already made several of our own decisions regarding AIDS and all the
problems that stem from this disease. The
Court has had plenty of time to draw from the opinions of the public any
information it might require toward deciding any cases in the future.
Finally, a safe bet!
Julie
I. C. Stoverink
9-1-99
PS103-04
Dr. Renka
“The
Decade of Supreme Court Avoidance of AIDS”--Michael Closen
Mr. Closen’s presentation today was very interesting and informative.
Based on the thesis that the U. S. Supreme Court has failed its role as
the highest judiciary board in the country in respect to the pressing issue of
AIDS and HIV, he proceeded to give an overview of the last decade of the Supreme
Court’s history with the issue and the harm that has occurred as a result.
According to Mr. Closen’s research, someone in the U. S. is infected
with HIV every twelve minutes. Over
one million people in the country are carrying the virus currently, yet less
than half of those people are receiving treatment for their condition due to
finances or other complications. Because
of facts like these, AIDS/HIV is one of the most important issues facing our
country.
Closen states, however, that there are two epidemics that have hit the
nation due to AIDS/HIV. Not only
has the disease spread across the nation, but an epidemic of discrimination has
spread as well. Since the early
1980’s, when AIDS/HIV was first recognized and discovered, numerous
individuals have been the victims of ignorance and discrimination revolving
around the disease. Ryan White was
refused by his school. Another
family, the Ray family in Florida, was burned out of their home.
Many others have been subject to job loss, loss of parental visitation
rights, ridicule and shunning, whether they had actually contracted the disease
or were only thought to possibly have it. Though
many of these instances violated human rights and fed the ignorance of the
general public, President Ronald Reagan waited nearly seven years of his
presidency before even uttering the word “AIDS.”
Closen believes this is a very significant failure on the part of the
president as he holds one of the most highly visible positions in the country
and holds much power to encourage the education of the public and the banishing
of unbiased prejudices and discrimination.
What Closen particularly emphasizes, however, is the Supreme Court’s
failure to act on this issue. From
1987-1997, twenty-eight cases involving AIDS/HIV were filed to the Supreme Court
and every single one of them was refused. Closen
used two charts to show trends over the past two decades in the cases taken on
by the U. S. Supreme Court. In the
early 80’s, the U. S. Supreme Court heard 175-184 cases per year.
After 1986, however, when Remquist became Chief Justice, the case load
began dropping so that by 1993, the case load had fallen to only 90-100 cases
per year. Regardless of the
HIV/AIDS issue, this is a failure of responsibility because it means that over
the past decade, over 600 cases of importance to the U. S. people have declined.
In the meantime, up to 1999, only one of the thirty-one cases dealing
with AIDS/HIV issue has been heard, and it had to be filed more than once.
Rather than dealing with this issue, the court has been taking on cases
that deal with comparatively insignificant cases such as whether a patent can be
put on the color of a product, what to do with abandoned shipwrecks, and various
taxation questions. The one
HIV/AIDS case that has been taken by the Court has only addressed the issue of
whether or not AIDS is a handicap, a subject which had been determined already
by many and that avoided the issues of discrimination and education and so
forth.
Some people may not want these cases to reach the Supreme Court because
they are worried that the political stance of the Court would turn the decisions
against their favor and adversely affect the movement of the AIDS/HIV
supporters. Thirty-three cases is
still a very small number of cases compared with the number of cases dealing
with the issue that filter through the local and state courts every year.
Even when cases dealing with other issues such as abortion, capital
punishment, and the right to vote have been presented to the Supreme Court, it
has had a history of deciding along the majority opinion held by the general
public.
Mr. Closen states that the U. S. Supreme Court has been too endorsing of
the public majority. In their
position as the ultimate judicial board in the U. S., they have a responsibility
to challenge the people. This court
that is supposed to be courageous and an example to the people has failed in not
using its position to better the country and the lives of the people in it.
For one reason or another, the Court has time and again avoided the issue
of AIDS/HIV and because of it, numerous people have been affected by the
discrimination and ignorance that has continued to exist.
I found this presentation to be very interesting and informative.
Mr. Closen was an effective presenter who was well-prepared and
well-informed. He communicated his
opinions well and backed them up with reliable evidence.
He used visual aids as a source for the audience as well. I am pleased that the University has chosen this topic as a
theme for this semester’s Common Hours and that Mr. Closen was invited to be
one of the presenters. I agree with
him in the fact that AIDS/HIV is one of the more important issues facing us
today and that the population is still in need of much education and
enlightenment on the subject. I
hope that the people will take this information and use it to help the community
progress as a whole in their sensitivity and understanding of this condition.
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PS103
Assignment No. 2
'Bad' Polls
Due: immediately; if revisions required, submit final by or before
November 1, 1999
50 points
Your mission is to find a bad poll (based on use of this label at my website entitled Polls), print or copy a physical product, and label it with pen or pencil or marker to identify the offending evidence. That is, prove to me that you have correctly identified what it is about the poll to render it "bad" as defined in the website Polls document. If I issue a reply without credit, treat that as a requirement to revise and resubmit. That means either properly finding and labeling the evidence, or resorting to another site to find a suitable poll. Caution: often the absence of suitable evidence owes to the fact that you found a news report about a poll rather than the poll itself. It pays in most such cases to check for links directly to the poll. If no link, then use the poll's proper name as a search term.
Russell Renka
PS103
Assignment No. 3
George Edwards presentation, Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Glenn Auditorium, Dempster Hall, 12:15 - 1:15 p.m.
50 points
Professor Edwards will present a speech entitled "What We Should Expect of Presidents" at the time cited above. Your assignment is first to act as a good straight reporter, faithfully recording the content of Professor Edwards' speech. What was his thesis? What supportive evidence did he present? What problems or difficulties did he identify? Who and what did he talk about? And what was his conclusion? The second part of the assignment is to act as a good interpretive reporter. How does the thesis and conclusion presented by the speaker square with available evidence on his topic (i.e., presidents)? What shortcomings or problems are inherent in his presentation?
Due date: Class time the first class of the following week, namely Monday, October 25 for PS103-04, and Tuesday, October 26 for PS103-06.
Russell Renka
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