Mark Levin Reminds Americans That Values Count
Merry Hurtz
These reforms, while well-intentioned, leave unaddressed an especially harmful form of bias, which remains entrenched within law enforcement: explicit racism. Explicit racism in law enforcement takes many forms, from membership or affiliation with violent white supremacist or far-right militant groups, to engaging in racially discriminatory behavior toward the public or law enforcement colleagues, to making racist remarks and sharing them on social media. While it is widely acknowledged that racist officers subsist within police departments around the country, federal, state, and local governments are doing far too little to proactively identify them, report their behavior to prosecutors who might unwittingly rely on their testimony in criminal cases, or protect the diverse communities they are sworn to serve.
To develop our plans for the fall, we have convened a Scenario Planning Task Force made up of representatives across the major areas of our campus. Their planning has been guided by the latest medical information, government directives, direct input from our rabbis, faculty and students, and best practices from industry and university leaders across the country. I am deeply thankful to our task force members and all who supported them for their tireless work in addressing the myriad details involved in bringing students back to campus and restarting our educational enterprise.
In concert with the recommendations from our task force, I am announcing today that our fall semester will reflect a hybrid model. It will allow many students to return in a careful way by incorporating online and virtual learning with on-campus classroom instruction. It also enables students who prefer to not be on campus to have a rich student experience by continuing their studies online and benefitting from a full range of online student services and extracurricular programs.
In bringing our students back to campus, safety is our first priority. Many aspects of campus life will change for this coming semester. Gatherings will be limited, larger courses will move completely online. Throughout campus everyone will need to adhere to our medical guidelines, including social distancing, wearing facemasks, and our testing and contact tracing policies. Due to our focus on minimizing risk, our undergraduate students will begin the first few weeks of the fall semester online and move onto the campus after the Jewish holidays. This schedule will limit the amount of back and forth travel for our students by concentrating the on-campus component of the fall semester to one consecutive segment.
Throughout our planning, we have used the analogy of a dimmer switch. Reopening our campuses will not be a simple binary, like an on/off light switch, but more like a dimmer in which we have the flexibility to scale backwards and forwards to properly respond as the health situation evolves. It is very possible that some plans could change, depending upon the progression of the virus and/or applicable state and local government guidance.
Before our semester begins, we will provide more updates reflecting our most current guidance. Please check our website, yu.edu/fall2020 for regular updates. We understand that even after reading through this guide, you might have many additional questions, so we will be posting an extensive FAQ section online as well. Additionally, we will also be holding community calls for faculty, students, staff and parents over the next couple of months.
Planning for the future during this moment has certainly been humbling. This Coronavirus has reminded us time and time again of the lessons from our Jewish tradition that we are not in full control of our circumstances. But our tradition also teaches us that we are in control of our response to our circumstances. Next semester will present significant challenges and changes. There will be some compromises and minor inconveniences--not every issue has a perfect solution. But faith and fortitude, mutual cooperation and resilience are essential life lessons that are accentuated during this period. And if we all commit to respond with graciousness, kindness, and love, we can transform new campus realities into profound life lessons for our future.
Deeply rooted in our Jewish values and forward focused in preparing for the careers and competencies of the future, we journey together with you, our Yeshiva University community, through these uncharted waters. Next year will be a formative year in the lives of our students, and together we will rise to the moment so that our students will emerge stronger and better prepared to be leaders of the world of tomorrow.
In his A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War, James P. Byrd gifts readers with another comprehensively chronicled and extensively analyzed survey of how Americans, in the country's earliest decades, were politically inspired by the Bible. Byrd, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, previously authored Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution. In his latest, he offers the first full-length treatment of what Abraham Lincoln meant when, in his Second Inaugural Address, he remarked that both sides of the Civil War "read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other."
FDA regulates dietary supplements for exercise and athletic performance in accordance with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 [209]. Like other dietary supplements, exercise- and athletic-performance supplements differ from over-the-counter or prescription medications in that they do not require premarket review or approval by FDA. Supplement manufacturers are responsible for determining that their products are safe and their label claims are truthful and not misleading, although they are not required to provide this evidence to FDA before marketing their products. If FDA finds a supplement to be unsafe, it may remove the product from the market or ask the manufacturer to voluntarily recall the product. FDA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may also take regulatory actions against manufacturers that make unsubstantiated physical-performance or other claims about their products.
On the other hand, some conservatives tend to oppose free trade policies and support protectionism and immigration reduction instead. They want government intervention to support the economy by protecting American jobs and businesses from foreign competition. They oppose free trade on the ground that it benefits other countries with lower wages or unfair trade practices (i.e. state-owned enterprises or state-provided subsidies) at the expense of American workers. However, in spite of their support for protectionism, they tend to support other free market principles like low taxes, limited government and balanced budgets.[135]
American conservatives typically promote American exceptionalism, the idea that the United States is inherently different from other nations and has a duty to take the lead in spreading democracy and free markets to the world. Reagan especially articulated this role (and many liberals also agree with it).[236][237] They see American values emerging from the American Revolution, thereby becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation"[238] and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, laissez-faire capitalism and Judeo-Christian values.[5][239]
During this early period, the new central bank did make an important addition to its menu of policy tools. Initially, the Fed's main tools were the quantity of its lending through the discount window and the interest rate at which it lent, the discount rate. Early on, however, to generate earnings to finance its operations, the Federal Reserve began purchasing government securities in the open market--what came to be known as open market operations. In the early 1920s, Fed officials discovered that these operations affected the supply and cost of bank reserves and, consequently, the terms on which banks extended credit to their customers. Subsequently, of course, open market operations became a principal monetary policy tool, one that allowed the Fed to interact with the broader financial markets, not only with banks.11
Explores landmark legal trials that have impacted both domestic and world affairs.The trials provide a lens through which to explore society at the time, as well as shed light on the historical legacies of current social, political, and legal values.