Opening Packet – Negative – hss 2017 offcase materials start here

Frontline vs. Version 2.0 (Economy)

No roll-back - Federal Anti-Discrimination protections won’t vanish in the status quo. Such laws will also fail if they’re “top-down”.

Anderson ‘16

Internally quoting Robert Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy group focused on free speech in academia. Melinda D. Anderson is a contributing writer for The Atlantic - From the article: “What Is the Future of the Office for Civil Rights?” - The Atlantic - December 2^nd - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/what-is-the-future-of-the-education-office-for-civil-rights/509348/

Melinda D. Anderson: It would seem that the fundamental work of the current OCR—whether focused on sexual harassment and violence, racial bullying, transgender discrimination, or other efforts—is providing equitable learning environments. Could this work look (be) different in the new administration and a DeVos-led Department of Education? If so, how?

Thomas J. Gentzel, the executive director of the National School Boards Association

[Though] the fundamental work of OCR is enforcing civil-rights laws in education, it is the job of school districts to provide equitable learning environments and, ultimately, to balance all of the competing interests so that all students have safe environments in which to learn. NSBA has been concerned about executive overreach through the issuance of guidance [and] will continue to urge the incoming administration to exercise restraint in such an approach to achieving its educational objectives.

Dan Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA’s Civil Rights Project

A major question is to what extent a Trump [administration] will seek to unleash the forces of the far right and yield OCR [and the Department of Justice] as hammers for its agenda, versus dramatically diminishing the federal role in education by substantially cutting OCR's budget and reducing OCR's footprint. The latter entails allowing those [far right] forces to go unchecked at the state and local levels [where] they clearly have power and influence … [it’s] like the difference between aggressive and passive aggressive, but [both] mean a big difference in the lives of children. I predict a lot more bullying, much less sensitivity, and blatant bigotry being tolerated [at schools and campuses.]

Robert Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy group focused on free speech in academia, and the author of Twisting Title IX

The fundamental work of OCR is to enforce the anti-discrimination laws over which it has been given jurisdiction by Congress, as well as duly enacted regulations based on those laws. I suspect that most of OCR’s work will remain largely unchanged, but an agency’s interpretation of laws and regulations is bound to change somewhat with a change of political control. Consensus won’t be possible on every controversial issue, but OCR’s efforts to fight discrimination are severely hobbled from the start if stakeholders don’t even have the sense that they have been given a fair hearing, as they weren’t with the April 4, 2011 [letter to colleges, universities, and schools] mandating that institutions use the preponderance of the evidence standard in sexual-misconduct hearings.

Trump won’t broadly roll-back civil rights.

Sheffield ‘17

Matthew Sheffield is editor and publisher of Praxis, an online journal of politics and technology. Matthew is a contributor to Salon.com and is also president of Dialog New Media, a consultancy firm providing technology, management, and media solutions to businesses, non-profits, and individuals. Sheffield has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University. “On LGBT rights, Trump seems willing to anger Christian right — but activists aren’t convinced” - Salon – Posted on February 2, 2017 – available at: http://www.eqca.org/salon-trump/

The jury’s still out on Donald Trump and LGBT issues, but so far he has defied Republican anti-gay orthodoxy

Donald Trump hasn’t yet been president for two weeks, but already he has taken numerous actions to fulfill promises he made as a presidential candidate. He has set the repeal of Obamacare in motion, implemented a travel ban for immigrants and visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries and worked closely with a conservative legal affairs group to nominate a Supreme Court justice.

While Trump’s swift actions in his early presidency have thrilled his voter base and many Republicans, there is one right-wing constituency that surely must be disappointed: conservatives who hope to roll back the expansion of LGBT rights.

It’s far too soon to write off the religious right as a political force. But it has become apparent by now that the Trump’s administration has departed from traditional Republican politics when it comes to his party’s unease with gays and lesbians, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

There were indications of this during his presidential campaign, as Trump played both sides of the fence in an unconventional fashion. He met with strongly anti-gay Christian nationalists and courted religious conservatives, yet also expressed openness to LGBT rights advocates.

In February of last year, early in the GOP primary season, the former reality-TV star assured viewers of Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network that he would find a way to repeal the Supreme Court’s “shocking” Obergefell v. Hodges decision that gave same-sex couples the right to marry nationwide. In August Trump spoke before a gathering of an avowedly Christian supremacist organization that seeks to have members of its faith in complete control of the government.

At the same time, however, Trump sought the votes of lesbians and gays, particularly after the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub called Pulse in Orlando. Since that day, Trump has tried to argue that his anti-terrorism policies would protect sexual minorities. His campaign even opened a field office across the street from Pulse.

He even adopted that message in his prime-time Republican National Convention speech. “As your president I will do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens,” he said, before congratulating the crowd for offering some modest applause. Trump also allowed prominent gay Republican Peter Thiel to proclaim, “I’m proud to be gay” from the stage, something that would have been unthinkable at any prior GOP convention.

Since winning the presidential election, Trump has made it clear that despite his campaign promises to Christian nationalists, he largely intends to ignore their wishes, at least when it comes to LGBT issues. In a November interview with CBS, Trump called the issue of marriage rights for same-sex couples “irrelevant” and “already settled” by the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. “It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean, it’s done,” he told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl. “And I’m fine with that.”

Alt Cause – STEM education must improve in order for the US to lead in innovation.

Engler ‘12

John Engler is the former Governor of Michigan and serves as the President of The National Association of Manufacturers – “STEM Education Is the Key to the U.S.'s Economic Future” – US News and World Report – June 15^th – https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/06/15/stem-education-is-the-key-to-the-uss-economic-future

STEM-related skills are not just a source of jobs, they are a source of jobs that pay very well. A report last October from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that 65 percent of those with Bachelors' degrees in STEM fields earn more than Master's degrees in non-STEM occupations. In fact, 47 percent of Bachelor's degrees in STEM occupations earn more than PhDs in non-STEM occupations.

But despite the lucrative potential, many young people are reluctant to enter into fields that require a background in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. In a recent study by the Lemselson-MIT Invention Index, which gauges innovation aptitude among young adults, 60 percent of young adults (ages 16 to 25) named at least one factor that prevented them from pursuing further education or work in the STEM fields. Thirty-four percent said they don't know much about the fields, a third said they were too challenging, and 28 percent said they were not well-prepared at school to seek further education in these areas.

This is a problem—for young people and for our country. We need STEM-related talent to compete globally, and we will need even more in the future. It is not a matter of choice: For the United States to remain the global innovation leader, we must make the most of all of the potential STEM talent this country has to offer.

History proves Anti-Discrimination laws will fail. Scope is too narrow and few can afford to sue anyway.

***note to students - this card also appears in the 1NC shell for the Trans- Pessimism

Spade ‘12

Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer, and Associate Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law – This article is originally from a book chapter of the same title called :"What's Wrong with Trans Rights?" – It originally appeared in the book: Transfeminist Perspectives: In and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012) – edited by Anne Enke – The chapter was made available at: https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/Justice_for_All/CLE_Professor_Dean_Spade.pdf

As the concept of trans rights has gained more currency in the last two decades, a seeming consensus has emerged about which law reforms should be sought to better the lives of trans people.' Advocates of trans equality have primarily pursued two law reform interventions: anti-discrimination laws that list gender identity and/or expression as a category of non-discrimination, and hate crime laws that include crimes motivated by the gender identity and/or expression of the victim as triggering the application of a jurisdiction's hate crime statute. Organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) have supported state and local organizations around the country in legislative campaigns to pass such laws. Thirteen states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington) and the District of Columbia currently have laws that include gender identity and/or expression as a category of anti-discrimination, and 108 counties and cities have such laws. NGLTF estimates that 39 percent of people in the United States live in a jurisdiction where such laws are on the books.'' Seven states now have hate crime laws that include gender identity and/or expression.'1' In 2009 a federal law, the Matthew Shepard and Tames Byrd. Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, added gender identity and/or expression to federal hate crime law. An ongoing battle regarding if and how gender identity and/or expression will be included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a federal law that would prohibit discrimination the basis of sexual orientation, continues to be fought between the conservative national gay and lesbian organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), legislators, and a variety of organizations and activists seeking to push an inclusive bill through Congress. These two legal reforms, anti-discrimination bills and hate crime laws, have come to define the idea of "trans rights" in the United States and are presently the most visible efforts made by nonprofit organizations and activists working under this rubric.

The logic behind this law reform strategy is not mysterious. Proponents argue that passing these laws does a number of important things. First, the passage of antidiscrimination laws can create a basis for legal claims against discriminating employers, housing providers, restaurants, hotels, stores, and the like. Trans people's legal claims when facing exclusion in such contexts have often failed in the past, with courts saying that the exclusion is a legitimate preference on the part of the employer, landlord, or business owner.iv Laws that make gender identity/expression-based exclusion illegal have the potential to influence courts to punish discriminators and provide certain remedies (e.g., back pay or damages) to injured trans people. There is also a hope that such laws, and their enforcement by courts, would send a preventative message to potential discriminators, letting them know that such exclusions will not be tolerated; these laws would ultimately increase access to jobs, housing, and other necessities for trans people.

Hate crime laws are promoted under a related logic. Proponents point out that trans people have a very high murder rate and are subject to a great deal of violences In many instances, trans people's lives are so devalued by police and prosecutors that trans murders are not investigated or trans people's murderers are given less punishment than is typical in murder sentencing. Proponents believe that hate crime laws will intervene in these situations, making law enforcement take this violence seriously. There is also a symbolic element to the passage of these laws: a statement that trans lives are meaningful, often described by proponents as an assertion that trans people are human. Additionally, both proponents of anti-discrimination laws and hate crime laws argue that the processes of advocating the passage of such laws, including media advocacy representing the lives and concerns of trans people and meetings with legislators to tell them about trans people's experiences, increases positive trans visibility and advances the struggle for trans equality. The data-collection element of hate crime statutes, through which certain government agencies keep count of crimes that fall into this category, is touted by proponents as a chance to make the quantity and severity of trans people's struggles more visible.

The logic of visibility and inclusion surrounding anti-discrimination and hate crime laws campaigns is very popular, yet there are many troubling limitations to the idea that these two reforms comprise a proper approach to problems trans people face in both criminal and civil law contexts. One concern is whether these laws actually improve the life chances of those who are purportedly protected by them. Looking at categories of identity that have been included in these kinds of laws over the last several decades indicates that these kinds of reforms have not eliminated bias, exclusion, or marginalization. Discrimination and violence against people of color have persisted despite law changes that declared it illegal. The persistent and growing racial wealth divide in the United States suggests that these law changes have not had their promised effects, and that the structure of systemic racism is not addressed by the work of these laws." Similarly, the twenty-year history of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) demonstrates disappointing results. Courts have limited the enforcement potential of this law with narrow interpretations of its impact, and people with disabilities remain economically and politically marginalized by systemic ableism. Similar arguments can be made about the persistence of national origin discrimination, sex discrimination, and other forms of pervasive discrimination despite decades of official prohibitions of such behavior. The persistence of wage gaps, illegal terminations, hostile work environments, hiring/firing disparities, and bias-motivated violence for groups whose struggles have supposedly been addressed by antidiscrimination and hate crime laws invites caution when assuming the effectiveness of these measures.

Hate crime laws do not have a deterrent effect. They focus on punishment and cannot be argued to actually prevent bias-motivated violence. In addition to their failure to prevent harm, they must be considered in the context of the failures of our legal systems and, specifically, the violence of our criminal punishment system. Anti-discrimination laws are not adequately enforced. Most people who experience discrimination cannot afford to access legal help, so their experiences never make it to court. Additionally, the Supreme Court has severely narrowed the enforceability of these laws over the last 30 years, making it extremely difficult to prove discrimination short of a signed letter from a boss or landlord stating, "I am taking this negative action against you because of your [insert characteristic]." Even in cases that seem as obvious as that, people experiencing discrimination often lose. Proving discriminatory intent has become central, making it almost impossible to win these cases when they are brought to court. These laws also have such narrow scopes that they often do not include action taken by some of the most common discriminators against marginalized people: prison guards, welfare bureaucrats, workfare supervisors, immigration officers, child welfare workers, and others who have significant control over the lives of marginalized people in the United States. In a neoliberal era characterized by abandonment (reduction of social safety net and infrastructure, especially in poor and people of color communities) and imprisonment (increased immigration and criminal law enforcement), anti-discrimination laws provide little relief to the most vulnerable people.

Global econ’s resilient and shocks don’t spill over

Posen ‘16

Adam S. Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and external voting member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, “Chapter 1: Why We Need a Reality Check”, REALITY CHECK FOR THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, Peterson Institute for International Economics, PIIE Briefing 16-3, March 2016

A combination of public policies and decentralized private-sector responses to the crisis have increased our economic resilience, diminished the systemic spillovers between economies, and even created some room for additional stimulus if needed. Large parts of the global financial system are better capitalized, monitored, and frankly more risk averse than they were a decade ago, with less leverage. The riskier parts of today’s global economy are less directly linked to the center’s growth and financing than when the troubles were within the United States and most of Europe in 2008. Trade imbalances of many key economies are smaller, though growing, and thus accumulations of foreign debt vulnerabilities are also smaller than a decade ago. Most central banks are now so committed to stabilization that they are attacked for being too loose or supportive of markets, making them at least unlikely to repeat some policy errors from 2007–10 of delaying loosening or even excessive tightening. Finally, corporate and household balance sheets are far more solid in the US and some other major economies than they were a decade ago (though not universally), and even in China the perceptions of balance sheet weakness exceed the reality in scope and scale.

US not key to global econ - Global resiliency checks spillover

Woods 3/3/16

Ngaire Woods is Dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and Director of the Global Economic Governance Program at the University of Oxford, Project Syndicate, March 3, 2016, “The Global Economy’s Stealth Resilience”, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/g-20-shanghai-meeting-distributed-governance-by-ngaire-woods-2016-03

In fact, despite widespread uncertainty – volatile capital flows, plummeting commodity prices, escalating geopolitical tensions, the shock of a potential British exit from the European Union, and a massive refugee crisis – the stalling of global cooperation may be less risky today than it was even a decade ago. The key factor in this context has been widespread recognition of the risks inherent in economic globalization, and concerted efforts to build up the needed resilience on a national, bilateral, or regional basis.

Consider finance. Twenty years ago, a catastrophic financial crisis began in Thailand and quickly spread across East Asia. Since then, those economies, and others in the emerging world, have self-insured against crisis by building up huge stockpiles of foreign-exchange reserves. Partly as a result of this, the volume of reserves has risen from some 5% of world GDP in 1995 to around 15% today.

Emerging economies are also holding less sovereign debt, and they have created bilateral and regional currency-swap arrangements. In addition, more than 40 countries have deployed macro-prudential measures since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Countries also benefit from greater access to more diversified sources of finance. Some emerging and developing countries now access global bond markets individually. And the role of regional development banks – including the African, Asian, and Inter-American Development Banks, as well as the newly created Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank – has grown.

The final manifestation of this new pattern of cooperation – which might be called “distributed governance” – appears in trade. While the Doha Round of negotiations has staggered and fallen, liberalization is proceeding apace, owing to the proliferation of bilateral, regional, and super-regional deals.

These new governance arrangements have important resilience-enhancing effects; but they may not offer a more efficient alternative to multilateralism, and they do not eliminate the need for traditional multilateral institutions. On the contrary, bodies like the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization should be responsible for analyzing and transmitting vital information to the array of institutions that are filling their traditional role.

No impact to economic decline

Drezner ‘14

Daniel W. Drezner, IR Professor at Tufts University, “The System Worked: Global Economic Governance during the Great Recession,” World Politics, Volume 66. Number 1, January 2014, pp. 123-164

The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The aggregate data suggest otherwise, however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of peacefulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Interstate violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker observes that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protectionist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been expected."43

Frontline vs. Version 3.0 (Hegemony)

No roll-back - Federal Anti-Discrimination protections won’t vanish in the status quo. Such laws will also fail if they’re “top-down”.

Anderson ‘16

Internally quoting Robert Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy group focused on free speech in academia. Melinda D. Anderson is a contributing writer for The Atlantic - From the article: “What Is the Future of the Office for Civil Rights?” - The Atlantic - December 2^nd - https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/what-is-the-future-of-the-education-office-for-civil-rights/509348/

Melinda D. Anderson: It would seem that the fundamental work of the current OCR—whether focused on sexual harassment and violence, racial bullying, transgender discrimination, or other efforts—is providing equitable learning environments. Could this work look (be) different in the new administration and a DeVos-led Department of Education? If so, how?

Thomas J. Gentzel, the executive director of the National School Boards Association

[Though] the fundamental work of OCR is enforcing civil-rights laws in education, it is the job of school districts to provide equitable learning environments and, ultimately, to balance all of the competing interests so that all students have safe environments in which to learn. NSBA has been concerned about executive overreach through the issuance of guidance [and] will continue to urge the incoming administration to exercise restraint in such an approach to achieving its educational objectives.

Dan Losen, the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA’s Civil Rights Project

A major question is to what extent a Trump [administration] will seek to unleash the forces of the far right and yield OCR [and the Department of Justice] as hammers for its agenda, versus dramatically diminishing the federal role in education by substantially cutting OCR's budget and reducing OCR's footprint. The latter entails allowing those [far right] forces to go unchecked at the state and local levels [where] they clearly have power and influence … [it’s] like the difference between aggressive and passive aggressive, but [both] mean a big difference in the lives of children. I predict a lot more bullying, much less sensitivity, and blatant bigotry being tolerated [at schools and campuses.]

Robert Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an advocacy group focused on free speech in academia, and the author of Twisting Title IX

The fundamental work of OCR is to enforce the anti-discrimination laws over which it has been given jurisdiction by Congress, as well as duly enacted regulations based on those laws. I suspect that most of OCR’s work will remain largely unchanged, but an agency’s interpretation of laws and regulations is bound to change somewhat with a change of political control. Consensus won’t be possible on every controversial issue, but OCR’s efforts to fight discrimination are severely hobbled from the start if stakeholders don’t even have the sense that they have been given a fair hearing, as they weren’t with the April 4, 2011 [letter to colleges, universities, and schools] mandating that institutions use the preponderance of the evidence standard in sexual-misconduct hearings.

Trump won’t broadly roll-back civil rights.

Sheffield ‘17

Matthew Sheffield is editor and publisher of Praxis, an online journal of politics and technology. Matthew is a contributor to Salon.com and is also president of Dialog New Media, a consultancy firm providing technology, management, and media solutions to businesses, non-profits, and individuals. Sheffield has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University. “On LGBT rights, Trump seems willing to anger Christian right — but activists aren’t convinced” - Salon – Posted on February 2, 2017 – available at: http://www.eqca.org/salon-trump/

The jury’s still out on Donald Trump and LGBT issues, but so far he has defied Republican anti-gay orthodoxy

Donald Trump hasn’t yet been president for two weeks, but already he has taken numerous actions to fulfill promises he made as a presidential candidate. He has set the repeal of Obamacare in motion, implemented a travel ban for immigrants and visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries and worked closely with a conservative legal affairs group to nominate a Supreme Court justice.

While Trump’s swift actions in his early presidency have thrilled his voter base and many Republicans, there is one right-wing constituency that surely must be disappointed: conservatives who hope to roll back the expansion of LGBT rights.

It’s far too soon to write off the religious right as a political force. But it has become apparent by now that the Trump’s administration has departed from traditional Republican politics when it comes to his party’s unease with gays and lesbians, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic.

There were indications of this during his presidential campaign, as Trump played both sides of the fence in an unconventional fashion. He met with strongly anti-gay Christian nationalists and courted religious conservatives, yet also expressed openness to LGBT rights advocates.

In February of last year, early in the GOP primary season, the former reality-TV star assured viewers of Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network that he would find a way to repeal the Supreme Court’s “shocking” Obergefell v. Hodges decision that gave same-sex couples the right to marry nationwide. In August Trump spoke before a gathering of an avowedly Christian supremacist organization that seeks to have members of its faith in complete control of the government.

At the same time, however, Trump sought the votes of lesbians and gays, particularly after the June 12 mass shooting at a gay nightclub called Pulse in Orlando. Since that day, Trump has tried to argue that his anti-terrorism policies would protect sexual minorities. His campaign even opened a field office across the street from Pulse.

He even adopted that message in his prime-time Republican National Convention speech. “As your president I will do everything in my power to protect LGBTQ citizens,” he said, before congratulating the crowd for offering some modest applause. Trump also allowed prominent gay Republican Peter Thiel to proclaim, “I’m proud to be gay” from the stage, something that would have been unthinkable at any prior GOP convention.

Since winning the presidential election, Trump has made it clear that despite his campaign promises to Christian nationalists, he largely intends to ignore their wishes, at least when it comes to LGBT issues. In a November interview with CBS, Trump called the issue of marriage rights for same-sex couples “irrelevant” and “already settled” by the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. “It’s law. It was settled in the Supreme Court. I mean, it’s done,” he told “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl. “And I’m fine with that.”

Alt Cause – STEM education must improve in order for the US to lead in innovation.

Engler ‘12

John Engler is the former Governor of Michigan and serves as the President of The National Association of Manufacturers – “STEM Education Is the Key to the U.S.'s Economic Future” – US News and World Report – June 15^th – https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/06/15/stem-education-is-the-key-to-the-uss-economic-future

STEM-related skills are not just a source of jobs, they are a source of jobs that pay very well. A report last October from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that 65 percent of those with Bachelors' degrees in STEM fields earn more than Master's degrees in non-STEM occupations. In fact, 47 percent of Bachelor's degrees in STEM occupations earn more than PhDs in non-STEM occupations.

But despite the lucrative potential, many young people are reluctant to enter into fields that require a background in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. In a recent study by the Lemselson-MIT Invention Index, which gauges innovation aptitude among young adults, 60 percent of young adults (ages 16 to 25) named at least one factor that prevented them from pursuing further education or work in the STEM fields. Thirty-four percent said they don't know much about the fields, a third said they were too challenging, and 28 percent said they were not well-prepared at school to seek further education in these areas.

This is a problem—for young people and for our country. We need STEM-related talent to compete globally, and we will need even more in the future. It is not a matter of choice: For the United States to remain the global innovation leader, we must make the most of all of the potential STEM talent this country has to offer.

History proves Anti-Discrimination laws will fail. Scope is too narrow and few can afford to sue anyway.

***note to students - this card also appears in the 1NC shell for the Trans- Pessimism

Spade ‘12

Dean Spade is a lawyer, writer, and Associate Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law – This article is originally from a book chapter of the same title called :"What's Wrong with Trans Rights?" – It originally appeared in the book: Transfeminist Perspectives: In and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012) – edited by Anne Enke – The chapter was made available at: https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/Justice_for_All/CLE_Professor_Dean_Spade.pdf

As the concept of trans rights has gained more currency in the last two decades, a seeming consensus has emerged about which law reforms should be sought to better the lives of trans people.' Advocates of trans equality have primarily pursued two law reform interventions: anti-discrimination laws that list gender identity and/or expression as a category of non-discrimination, and hate crime laws that include crimes motivated by the gender identity and/or expression of the victim as triggering the application of a jurisdiction's hate crime statute. Organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) have supported state and local organizations around the country in legislative campaigns to pass such laws. Thirteen states (California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington) and the District of Columbia currently have laws that include gender identity and/or expression as a category of anti-discrimination, and 108 counties and cities have such laws. NGLTF estimates that 39 percent of people in the United States live in a jurisdiction where such laws are on the books.'' Seven states now have hate crime laws that include gender identity and/or expression.'1' In 2009 a federal law, the Matthew Shepard and Tames Byrd. Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, added gender identity and/or expression to federal hate crime law. An ongoing battle regarding if and how gender identity and/or expression will be included in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a federal law that would prohibit discrimination the basis of sexual orientation, continues to be fought between the conservative national gay and lesbian organization, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), legislators, and a variety of organizations and activists seeking to push an inclusive bill through Congress. These two legal reforms, anti-discrimination bills and hate crime laws, have come to define the idea of "trans rights" in the United States and are presently the most visible efforts made by nonprofit organizations and activists working under this rubric.

The logic behind this law reform strategy is not mysterious. Proponents argue that passing these laws does a number of important things. First, the passage of antidiscrimination laws can create a basis for legal claims against discriminating employers, housing providers, restaurants, hotels, stores, and the like. Trans people's legal claims when facing exclusion in such contexts have often failed in the past, with courts saying that the exclusion is a legitimate preference on the part of the employer, landlord, or business owner.iv Laws that make gender identity/expression-based exclusion illegal have the potential to influence courts to punish discriminators and provide certain remedies (e.g., back pay or damages) to injured trans people. There is also a hope that such laws, and their enforcement by courts, would send a preventative message to potential discriminators, letting them know that such exclusions will not be tolerated; these laws would ultimately increase access to jobs, housing, and other necessities for trans people.

Hate crime laws are promoted under a related logic. Proponents point out that trans people have a very high murder rate and are subject to a great deal of violences In many instances, trans people's lives are so devalued by police and prosecutors that trans murders are not investigated or trans people's murderers are given less punishment than is typical in murder sentencing. Proponents believe that hate crime laws will intervene in these situations, making law enforcement take this violence seriously. There is also a symbolic element to the passage of these laws: a statement that trans lives are meaningful, often described by proponents as an assertion that trans people are human. Additionally, both proponents of anti-discrimination laws and hate crime laws argue that the processes of advocating the passage of such laws, including media advocacy representing the lives and concerns of trans people and meetings with legislators to tell them about trans people's experiences, increases positive trans visibility and advances the struggle for trans equality. The data-collection element of hate crime statutes, through which certain government agencies keep count of crimes that fall into this category, is touted by proponents as a chance to make the quantity and severity of trans people's struggles more visible.

The logic of visibility and inclusion surrounding anti-discrimination and hate crime laws campaigns is very popular, yet there are many troubling limitations to the idea that these two reforms comprise a proper approach to problems trans people face in both criminal and civil law contexts. One concern is whether these laws actually improve the life chances of those who are purportedly protected by them. Looking at categories of identity that have been included in these kinds of laws over the last several decades indicates that these kinds of reforms have not eliminated bias, exclusion, or marginalization. Discrimination and violence against people of color have persisted despite law changes that declared it illegal. The persistent and growing racial wealth divide in the United States suggests that these law changes have not had their promised effects, and that the structure of systemic racism is not addressed by the work of these laws." Similarly, the twenty-year history of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) demonstrates disappointing results. Courts have limited the enforcement potential of this law with narrow interpretations of its impact, and people with disabilities remain economically and politically marginalized by systemic ableism. Similar arguments can be made about the persistence of national origin discrimination, sex discrimination, and other forms of pervasive discrimination despite decades of official prohibitions of such behavior. The persistence of wage gaps, illegal terminations, hostile work environments, hiring/firing disparities, and bias-motivated violence for groups whose struggles have supposedly been addressed by antidiscrimination and hate crime laws invites caution when assuming the effectiveness of these measures.

Hate crime laws do not have a deterrent effect. They focus on punishment and cannot be argued to actually prevent bias-motivated violence. In addition to their failure to prevent harm, they must be considered in the context of the failures of our legal systems and, specifically, the violence of our criminal punishment system. Anti-discrimination laws are not adequately enforced. Most people who experience discrimination cannot afford to access legal help, so their experiences never make it to court. Additionally, the Supreme Court has severely narrowed the enforceability of these laws over the last 30 years, making it extremely difficult to prove discrimination short of a signed letter from a boss or landlord stating, "I am taking this negative action against you because of your [insert characteristic]." Even in cases that seem as obvious as that, people experiencing discrimination often lose. Proving discriminatory intent has become central, making it almost impossible to win these cases when they are brought to court. These laws also have such narrow scopes that they often do not include action taken by some of the most common discriminators against marginalized people: prison guards, welfare bureaucrats, workfare supervisors, immigration officers, child welfare workers, and others who have significant control over the lives of marginalized people in the United States. In a neoliberal era characterized by abandonment (reduction of social safety net and infrastructure, especially in poor and people of color communities) and imprisonment (increased immigration and criminal law enforcement), anti-discrimination laws provide little relief to the most vulnerable people.

Hegemony isn’t key to peace

Fettweis ‘11

Christopher Fettweis, Department of Political Science, Tulane University, 9/26/11, Free Riding or Restraint? Examining European Grand Strategy, Comparative Strategy, 30:316–332, EBSCO

It is perhaps worth noting that there is no evidence to support a direct relationship between the relative level of U.S. activism and international stability. In fact, the limited data we do have suggest the opposite may be true. During the 1990s, the United States cut back on its defense spending fairly substantially. By 1998, the United States was spending $100 billion less on defense in real terms than it had in 1990.51 To internationalists, defense hawks and believers in hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities,” argued Kristol and Kagan, “doubts that the defense budget has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace.”52 On the other hand, if the pacific trends were not based upon U.S. hegemony but a strengthening norm against interstate war, one would not have expected an increase in global instability and violence. The verdict from the past two decades is fairly plain: The world grew more peaceful while the United States cut its forces. No state seemed to believe that its security was endangered by a less-capable United States military, or at least none took any action that would suggest such a belief. No militaries were enhanced to address power vacuums, no security dilemmas drove insecurity or arms races, and no regional balancing occurred once the stabilizing presence of the U.S. military was diminished. The rest of the world acted as if the threat of international war was not a pressing concern, despite the reduction in U.S. capabilities. Most of all, the United States and its allies were no less safe. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict declined while the United States cut its military spending under President Clinton, and kept declining as the Bush Administration ramped the spending back up. No complex statistical analysis should be necessary to reach the conclusion that the two are unrelated. Military spending figures by themselves are insufficient to disprove a connection between overall U.S. actions and international stability. Once again, one could presumably argue that spending is not the only or even the best indication of hegemony, and that it is instead U.S. foreign political and security commitments that maintain stability. Since neither was significantly altered during this period, instability should not have been expected. Alternately, advocates of hegemonic stability could believe that relative rather than absolute spending is decisive in bringing peace. Although the United States cut back on its spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered. However, even if it is true that either U.S. commitments or relative spending account for global pacific trends, then at the very least stability can evidently be maintained at drastically lower levels of both. In other words, even if one can be allowed to argue in the alternative for a moment and suppose that there is in fact a level of engagement below which the United States cannot drop without increasing international disorder, a rational grand strategist would still recommend cutting back on engagement and spending until that level is determined. Grand strategic decisions are never final; continual adjustments can and must be made as time goes on. Basic logic suggests that the United States ought to spend the minimum amount of its blood and treasure while seeking the maximum return on its investment. And if the current era of stability is as stable as many believe it to be, no increase in conflict would ever occur irrespective of U.S. spending, which would save untold trillions for an increasingly debt-ridden nation. It is also perhaps worth noting that if opposite trends had unfolded, if other states had reacted to news of cuts in U.S. defense spending with more aggressive or insecure behavior, then internationalists would surely argue that their expectations had been fulfilled. If increases in conflict would have been interpreted as proof of the wisdom of internationalist strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at least pose a problem. As it stands, the only evidence we have regarding the likely systemic reaction to a more restrained United States suggests that the current peaceful trends are unrelated to U.S. military spending. Evidently the rest of the world can operate quite effectively without the presence of a global policeman. Those who think otherwise base their view on faith alone.