An End-Week Mindshare on Democracy*
Thoughts and insights on 16-year-old voters, a calm campus in Tel Aviv, a crisis defused at Brown, universities to the rescue of democracy, and a joint Jewish-Palestinian student initiative in Austin.
From Our This is Democracy Archive: Let’s move the voting age to 16
Might including younger voices in American democracy with a lowered voting age of 16 invigorate democracy? Given our discussions this week on the new school season, it seems a good time to return to a conversation we had in early 2022 with Samuel J. Abrams, a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College on his proposal to do just that.
Abrams shared his argument with Jeremi and Zachary that Americans between the ages of 16 and 18 have faced challenges unknown to past generations – from active shooter drills and school shootings, to polarized politics, to climate change, and the informational bombardment from media around the globe.
This discussion also followed an essay co-authored on the issue by Jeremi, Zachary, and Professor Abrams a month before in the Washington weekly The Hill. “The time has passed for arguing that 16- and 17-year-olds are “not ready” to vote,” they argued in that article in 2021. In the most recent European parliament elections, the voting age was lowered to 16 in Greece, Belgium, and Germany. A proposal to do the same in the United Kingdom was part of the Labor Party’s platform in its recent, and successful, campaign.
“This is a group that has learned how to process, how to separate the signal from the noise. How to be curious, how to question and how to say, ‘Is this right? Is this wrong? Do I? Does this make sense? Does that make sense?,’ Abrams told This is Democracy. “They’re incredibly sophisticated, incredibly worldly, incredibly connected, and should have a voice at the table.”
Abrams further argued that younger voters are less partisan in general and more focused on practical solutions. He suggested that including younger voters could break political gridlock and bring fresh perspectives to pressing issues such as climate change, education, and social justice.
“After World War II, the argument began to be made to give 18-year-olds the right to vote,” Abrams noted. “As many people might know, until the 1970s, until the 26th amendment (to the Constitution), only 21-year-olds could vote. We moved the voting age by the early 1970s down to 18. Why not now consider moving it to 16?”
Zachary endorsed the idea, offering his own arguments for a voting age of 16, including the fact that young people, who are already taking on significant responsibilities, such as working, driving, and even raising children, should also be given the responsibility to vote.
The need for a Constitutional amendment is a significant hurdle, Abrams conceded. (A measure to do introduced last year by Congresswoman Grace Meng of New York has languished in the House Judiciary Committee). However, Abrams suggested, a movement focused on state-level initiatives would be a good place to start.
This episode is original and sweeping, as it examines the unique position of this generation facing so many vexing challenges. And it includes, of course, a poem from Zachary, “What You Still Have Left to Give.” Take a listen or read the transcript of This is Democracy –Episode 178: Give Young People the Vote in January, 2022.
To read: Calm at the University of Tel Aviv as fighting rages nearby
Continuing this week’s discussions on the new school year, there’s certainly been no shortage of attention to the upheaval on many American campuses prompted by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which we have focused on too. Yet little noted is that in Israel – where the actual war is still unfolding – college campuses filled with Jews and Arabs have managed to stay relatively calm. This is despite the fact that many Jewish students are army reservists who took part in the combat in Gaza, and many of the Arab students are Muslims with family in Gaza and the West Bank.
How Israeli Colleges Manage to Remain Calm During Gaza War, a report by Baltimore-based Jmore, a publication of the region’s Jewish community, examines this dichotomy that is surely surprising to many Americans. It’s a worthwhile read as 20 million students return to our campuses. How did they do this in Israel? The calm at Israeli universities isn’t just happenstance or good fortune, insiders say. Rather, it’s the result of painstaking work over months to minimize possible conflict between Israeli Arabs and Jews on campus. U.S college administrators should take note.
To Listen: How Brown succeeded while other schools failed
One outlier university in last year’s campus protests was Brown University, where as pro-Palestinian protests were escalating across the country, Brown and its students made a deal. The protesters packed up their encampment and the university agreed it would discuss – and allow an administrative vote on – divestmen from companies connected to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. How did that happen?
In this discussion last May on The Public’s Radio, a National Public Radio (NPR) outlet serving Rhode Island, talk show host Luis Hernandez discussed the standoff-ending deal with student negotiator Isabella Garo and Charlie Clynes, a reporter for the student newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald. Explained Clynes: “Brown has managed to avoid [confrontation] altogether to be able to say, ‘We sat down with protesters. We listened to their demands. We granted them some of their demands, not all of them, but we kind of gave them a seat at the table’ that I think looks really good for Brown’s administration on a national stage.”
It’s an interesting short listen on the circumstances at one university where clashes were diffused before they began.
To Listen: Universities can and must bolster ethos of democracy
Just as we need to maintain rainforests to help biodiversity loss and climate change, we need to maintain and support our universities to help fight democratic decline, argues Carnegie Corporation President Dame Louise Richardson in this Harvard University podcast, How Universities Can Address the Crisis in Democracy. Richardson, a former vice chancellor of Oxford and St. Andrews universities, notes that according to Sweden’s VDEM Democracy Report, the advances and global levels of democracy made over the past 35 years have been wiped out. Some 72% of the world's population now live in autocracies. Freedom of expression is deteriorating in 35 countries. Government censorship of the media is worsening in 47 countries. Government repression of civil society organizations is worsening in 37 countries. And the quality of elections is worsening in 30 countries.
“If we are looking for a way back from polarization, extremism, and mistrust in politics, to build a new platform for openness and democratic thought in which a wide range of ideas can safely be tested, then we could do a lot worse than look to universities as spaces that have a proven record in fostering belief in the possibilities of political participation and civic discourse,” Richardson argued in this insightful podcast, recorded as the Samuel and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center of International Affairs.
To watch: Palestinian and Jewish students at UT Austin call for peace
Little reported on, but worth more attention, is a joint Jewish-Palestinian initiative founded at the University of Texas at Austin, “Atidna International”. Its membership comprised of Jewish, Palestinian, and other Muslim and Arab students, Atidna met and continued its efforts at dialogue throughout the protests and confrontation on the Austin campus last spring. In fact, a discussion among these inspiring students that aired on ABC News Nightline News took place in a UT conference room while other students chanted outside. It is led by UT undergraduates Elijah Kahlenberg, who is Jewish, and Jadd Hashem, who is Palestinian.
Here’s Elijah: “We’re called Atidna, so we combine the Hebrew word ‘atid; for ‘future’, with the Arabic suffix ‘na’, for ‘our”’. Put those two together, it means ‘our future.’ We gave ourselves that name as we truly view ourselves as one family. And we think it important to allow families to speak.
Here’s Jadd: “I believe firmly that you can be pro-human being first and foremost, because we are human beings, and human rights must extend to everyone on an equal level. We still think at the end of the day that this is the time to do it [work for peace and reconciliation]. We must take action somehow, we both have family affected, this is the least we can do to get something on the ground here at a grassroots level.”
Please watch this clip from ABC News where students call for peace, coexistence, and mutual flourishing among Palestinians and Israels.
Note: Our “End-Week Mindshare” replaces the usual Mid-Week version published on Wednesday because of a bit of reshuffling over the Labor Day holiday. Our regular cadence returns Sunday with my regular column. - JS.