Gender Bender

There is a profound change happening in America. For the first time in our history, women are better educated than men and women are more likely to be the breadwinners in families.

In 2006, female science, health and engineering graduates outnumbered males 56% to 44%. The bachelor's degree-level fields of study with the highest percentage of female graduates were health (86%) and psychology (77%). The recent bachelor's degree fields of study with the highest percentage of male graduates were engineering (78%) and computer and information sciences (77%).

Overall, women earned 58% of all bachelors degrees and 60% of all masters degrees in 2006. The reason: Women appear to have much lower drop out rates than men, in both high school and in college. Among whites, women outnumbered men in college by 1995-1996. Although the number of men entering and graduating from college is rising slightly, the recruitment of women has resulted in steady increases in both the numbers and the percentages.

The disparity between women and men seeking college degrees is greatest among African Americans--60% of African American college students are women, only 40% are men. Among Hispanics, the gap is only slightly smaller--57% are women, 43% are men.

Yet despite the fact that more women are graduating from college than men, male recent graduates still make more money than women: $2.92 less an hour on average.

That wage differential makes sense only if engineering and information sciences are the highest paid areas.

This gender gap extends to unemployment during this economic downturn. According to the Center for American Progress, women are now the breadwinners because more men are losing their jobs than women. Male-dominated job areas are the places where jobs are disappearing: manufacturing, construction, and transportation.

What does this mean? In the area of legal education, there is a move to end tenure, or at least make job security issues more flexible while we are in this economic mess. But this move to end a practice that has established independent scholarship and academic freedom within law schools comes when despite the fact that about half of the students in law school are women, 60% of tenured law faculty are men, white men at that. Law is power, and white men still control.

Getting Ready to Say Goodbye

The Center for American Progress sends out a daily email to those of us who like to remember what the American ideal is all about. Today's alert was perfect, in the glowing aftermath of Bush's farewell speech last night: It's titled "The 43 Who Helped Make Bush the Worst Ever."

Of course, Bush isn't on the list, because he gets to be the worst president ever.

Not surprisingly, Dick Cheney tops the list, followed by Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, and Michael Brown. Surprisingly, Paul Wolfowitz betters David Addington, whom I believe is downright evil. Of course, you will recognize most of the names. However, it's important that we keep these people's names familiar. We have to watch out for where they end up. Hopefully some of them will end up in jail, many will never be able to travel outside the United States, and remember, don't buy their memoirs.

Yet as my anger begins to ebb, just a bit, I spoke with a friend today who is going to the inauguration with her seven year old son. I spoke with another young woman who is going to DC, too. Neither has tickets to anything. They are pulled, like we all are, to be a part of history, to resurrect the American spirit during these hard, hard times. Hope is powerful, more powerful than I ever understood, until now.

Will There Be Justice After Bush?

The Center for American Progress Action Fund released its "Change for America," a blueprint to bring our country back from the depths of Bush-Cheney lawlessness, incompetence, cronyism, corruption, opaqueness, profiteering, and hypocrisy. Click here to read the table of contents of this newly released book, a real collaboration by some of the best progressive minds in America. The Center for American Progress, for those of you who might not know, was started by John Podesta, who is currently leading the Obama transition team. Podesta served as Bill Clinton's chief of staff during the very difficult years 1998-2001.

Reading through the table of contents, and you can download ten chapters for free, one comes across the section on National Security Policy. Within this section is an overview: Public Diplomacy Can Help Restore Lost U.S. Credibility contributed by Doug Wilson, former congressional director and senior advisor at the United States Information Agency. Wilson also served as principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Defense, is co-founder of the Leaders Project, and a member of the board of directors of the Howard Gilman Foundation.

What is missing from this new book, developed by one of Obama's most trusted advisers, is a section that demands holding the Bush-Cheney administration accountable for its lawlessness, incompetence, cronyism, corruption, opaqueness, profiteering, and hypocrisy.

In the December 2008 issue of Harper's Magazine, Scott Horton, an international human rights attorney from New York, sets out the case why it is essential that Obama initiate a domestic inquiry into the outgoing administration. If you don't ordinarily buy Harper's, you can access a pdf of the article by clicking here.

In contrasting the Bush-Cheney administration to presidencies past, Horton explains, "This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself."

Admittedly, although "no prior administration has been so systemactically or so brazenly lawless," "it is no simple matter to prsecute a former president or his senior officers."

What are the crimes? They are beginning to sound familiar, but no less despicable: voter suppression; dismissal of professional justice department attorneys; illegal hiring of professional staff within various departments based on religious and ideological beliefs; use of federal offices for political schemes; wartime contracts to substandard and thieving vendors; spying on churches, peace groups, political protesters, anyone with a "funny" name or "foreign" accent. A preemptive war started on manufactured evidence, signing statements that undid Congressional legislation. And torture, rendition, more torture. Misuse of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department into a Dick Cheney and David Addington cabal that shut out policymaking and professional assessments from ever reaching the President to inform his decisions.

The United States, although its law has served as the framework for the International Criminal Court, headquartered in the Netherlands, refused to accede to the jurisdiction of that tribunal. Foreign courts might try to prosecute Bush and Cheney, if they ever step foot outside the United States, but those courts cannot undo the damage wrought to the image and prestige of the United States of America.

Only we can do that. Only Americans can repair that damage. But there is the looming threat of pardons, last minute or otherwise, to prevent prosecution of anyone except for Bush himself. And since Harry Truman claimed executive privilege years after he left office, refusing to answer questions posed by Congress, there is some sense that Bush might claim the privilege well beyond January 20, 2009 himself. And a truth and reconciliation procedure like we saw in South Africa doesn't fit this situation, where power needs to be redistributed once again into a balance of power among the three branches of the federal government--executive, legislative, and judicial--according to function not party or ideological loyalty.

Scott Horton suggests an inquiry, a Warren Commission or Kerner Commission, with a full mandate, findings, and recommendations. Take a while to wade through this document. I don't necessarily agree with everything, but we need to begin to think about how to restore our legitimacy as a country governed by the rule of law.

The excitement people felt working for Obama was the offer of empowerment. Now that we have the prospect of "adults in leadership" again, as superbly stated by Bill Maher after the election, we have to act like adults, too, and learn to read difficult and thought-provoking concepts so that never again do we allow our government to be so lawless, so anti-democratic, and so painfully destructive to the entire planet.