By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, July 8th, 2011 
Next week I am off to the New School’s Democracy and Diversity Institute in Wroclaw, Poland. The Institute opens today, but I will be arriving a few days late. As I review the events of this week at Deliberately Considered, I am anticipating my work at the Institute, which will be reflected in upcoming posts. The last two posts, on Iran and on American identity, in fact, were informed by Democracy and Diversity experience.
In the most mundane way, the Institute is like many other international summer schools. Students from many different countries, this year Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Italy, Poland, and the USA, among others, come together to study a set of problems from a number of different academic perspectives. As usual, in my judgment, the topics are particularly interesting, this year, each addressing the theme of the year The World in Crisis: “Gender in Crisis? Strengths and Weaknesses in the Strategy of Emergency” (Prof. Ann Snitow), “Media and News in a Time of Crisis” (Prof. Jeffrey Goldfarb and Prof. Daniel Dayan), “Romancing Violence: Theories and Practices of Political Violence” (Prof. Elzbieta Matynia), and “‘We the People’: Nationalism, Ethnicity and Belonging” (Prof. Sharika Thiranagama). Still there are many summer schools that offer interesting programs with talented students such as we have. Yet, there is something special about this Institute that makes it different than most summer programs, linked to its history.
In terms of my student’s observations and reflection on Iran this week, our institute is in a sense, paraphrasing Hannah Arendt, a not so lost treasure of  the revolutionary tradition. He observed how freedom was experienced in the days before and after the 2009 elections in his country, and noted how even in the face of extreme repression, the ability of independent people to speak and act in each other’s presence is still consequential, apparently preventing the execution of Habibollah Latifi. But the real significance of the free politics, before the elections of 2009 and through the Facebook . . .
Read more: DC Week in Review: Democracy and Diversity and Free Public Action
By Rachel Sherman, December 9th, 2010
Rachel Sherman is a sociologist at the New School. Her specific field of study is social class and service work.
Last week, the legislation known as the “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” took effect in New York State, having been signed on August 31 by Governor David Paterson. The existence and passage of this bill is due primarily to several years of organizing by Domestic Workers United (DWU), an organization of nannies and housecleaners in New York City.
 DWU offers computer literacy and child care training to its members, helps protect workers against abusive employers, and has produced a report on domestic employment, “Home is Where the Work Is,” based on original research. Their main policy effort, however, has been campaigning for the passage of this bill, which will affect over 200,000 workers in the state.
The law includes the following provisions: The right to overtime pay (at time-and-a-half) after 40 hours of work in a week, or 44 hours for workers who live in their employer’s home; a day of rest (24 hours) every seven days, or overtime pay if the worker agrees to work on that day; three paid days of rest each year after one year of work for the same employer; protection under New York State Human Rights Law, and the creation of a special cause of action for domestic workers who suffer sexual or racial harassment.
Although these demands are not especially radical (more controversial provisions, such as paid holidays and two weeks notice prior to termination, were removed from the final version), this law will materially influence the lives of many workers. Perhaps equally important, the law is symbolically significant, for a number of reasons. First, domestic workers have traditionally been excluded from labor legislation, beginning with the New Deal laws covering collective bargaining and minimum wage and hour regulations.
Although over the years some laws (such as those covering the minimum wage) have been extended to apply to domestic workers, their work remains largely unregulated. Thus the bill, which also mandated investigation into the feasibility of granting collective bargaining rights to these workers, is a step toward establishing nannies . . .
Read more: Domestic Workers Gain Visibility, Legitimacy
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 24th, 2010 
As we are critical of the paranoid style of politics, as I am concerned that the worst elements of the American populism and demagoguery are being mainstreamed in our political life, I recall that this is a reaction to a major trend that many of us have experienced directly and meaningfully, including me.
 Even as we are bombarded by crazy assertions that the American President is not an American citizen and that he is a secret Muslim, we need to recall that this sort of paranoia is reactionary. It’s a response to an American triumph, the American people elected an African American, Barack Hussein Obama, to be President of the United States. Even as his popularity waxes and wanes, he is our President. We elected him by not succumbing to fears and hatreds, revealing our better selves. This triumph goes beyond our evaluation of President Obama’s job performance. It stands as a challenge to those who work to revive a politics of fear of the different. It challenges those who speak about “taking their country back.”
I came to know the dimensions of the triumph, along with my fellow citizens, on the night of the Iowa Caucuses and the day after. Obama won in an overwhelmingly white state. The previously excluded was chosen, and the seriousness of Obama’s candidacy was clearly revealed.
The next day when I went for a swim at the Theodore Young Community Center (link), I saw how my African American friends, the whole gang, but especially the center of the social circle, Beverly McCoy,  finally came to believe that I wasn’t crazy in thinking that Obama had a chance. In our community center, we started thinking differently about our country. I stopped being the naïve Jewish Professor. Perhaps, I was instead a realist. Together, we realized that we may live in a better country than we had imagined the day before. I think that we started looking at each other differently. We more openly spoke about race, about our fears and hopes, about being black and white, Jewish and Christian, . . .
Read more: Against Paranoia
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