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Barack Obama

Monday, May 14, 2012 8:39 p.m.

Class of 2011 graduate to front Obama campaign’s religious outreach

President Barack Obama speaks at GW last year in the Marvin Center where he encouraged young voters to mobilize before the midterm elections. File photo

A 23-year-old alumnus who walked the graduation stage last year will lead religious outreach for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign starting next week.

Michael Wear, who earned his bachelor’s degree in political science last year, was named Faith Vote director and will join the Obama campaign in Chicago, Religion News Service reported Monday.

An assistant in the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, he started out as an intern for Obama’s 2008 election efforts.

In his new role, the Buffalo, N.Y. native will try to rally religious voters to support a president who riled many with his announcement last week in support of gay marriage. The New York Times reported Monday that some of the religious leaders that Obama calls on for guidance may not support the president because of his pro-gay marriage stance.

Friday, April 27, 2012 1:52 p.m.

Law professor to sit on bench for top city court

by Cory Weinberg

An adjunct professor in the GW Law School will be sworn in today as the newest D.C. Superior Court judge.

Danya Dayson, who has taught part-time at the law school since 2007, will serve a 15-year term on the court after being nominated for the post by President Barack Obama last July and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November.

The D.C. Superior Court includes about 60 judges and 24 magistrate judges, and hears the city’s civil and criminal cases.

Dayson co-taught a seminar on the death penalty at the law school last fall.

She earned her law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1998 and has practiced criminal law and family law in D.C.

Friday, April 20, 2012 5:17 p.m.

LaHood stresses bipartisanship in transportation talk

by The GW Hatchet

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood discusses the need for a quality D.C. public high-speed rail system during an event Thursday hosted by the Graduate School of Political Management in Jack Morton Auditorium. Carly Linsow | Hatchet Photographer

This post was written by Hatchet Reporter Samantha Abramowitz.

The U.S. Secretary of Transportation emphasized the importance of bipartisanship – pointing to his work as one of only two Republicans in President Barack Obama’s cabinet – Thursday at Jack Morton Auditorium.

Ray LaHood, who has advocated for safe driving and transportation projects, said forging compromises in Congress hinges on flexibility.

“In this business that I’m in, public service, not dissimilar to other businesses, is about relationships, building relationships, and building opportunities to get things done,” LaHood said.

LaHood, 66, said despite the need for projects like high-speed rails, the future of the country’s transportation system does not have a distinct vision because of election-year politics.

“Republicans don’t want to hand Obama a jobs bill right before the election and there won’t be a transportation bill right before the election,” he said.

A former congressman from Illinois, LaHood was approached by Obama to become a part of his cabinet in 2008. He announced in October that he would step down from the cabinet in 2013.

He said the lack of federally funded roadwork and transportation innovation hurts contractors and worker, but projected that Congress could make progress after the election.

“People like mass transit,” LaHood said. “We want more walking and biking paths, light rails and street cars in order to give people options in transportation. People will always drive cars, but if there are other options people will use them.”

Obama and LaHood have supported the construction of high-speed rails across the United States, similar to the systems that exist in Europe. LaHood said getting state governors on board with the project would be key to its success.

He added that these projects will likely take two to three decades to complete.

LaHood also addressed the “epidemic” of distracted driving, stressing the dangers of texting or talking on the phone while driving.

“A car travels the length of a football field in four seconds, time in which people need to pay attention,” he said. “There is no message or phone call that’s too important and can’t wait for destination.”

Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:50 a.m.

More than 50 students picket ‘anti-feminist’ speaker

by The GW Hatchet

Phyllis Schlafly, who is famous for her conservative views on social issues, discussed the fallout over Hllary Rosen's comments on working mothers and the importance of the family to the national economy. Francis Rivera | Assistant Photo Editor

Correction appended

This post was written by Hatchet reporter Sarah Margolis

A conservative icon famous for her insistence on traditional roles for women caused a stir Wednesday in the Marvin Center where she spoke about fellow commenter Hilary Rosen and the faults of modern-day feminism.

Phyllis Schlafly, a lawyer and author of 20 books on family, feminism and the traditional roles of women, defended women’s right to be full-time homemakers in front a packed and energized audience of supporters and protesters.

“The principle social issue is what we call marriage absence,” she said. “If a woman is having babies and she doesn’t have a husband who’s a provider, she’s going to look to big brother government to pay the costs. And that is exactly what is going on.”

Students gathered in the hallways of the Marvin Center to show their disapproval of conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly. She spoke Wednesday at an event hosted by the GW Young America's Foundation. Francis Rivera | Assistant Photo Editor

Blaming President Barack Obama for supporting welfare programs that subsidize children and insurance policies that mandate birth control coverage, Schlafly said the deficit can only be cut if basic social issues are solved. Instilling traditional family values, she said, is key to reducing poverty and scaling back federal debt.

Protesters lined the walls outside the GW Young America’s Foundation event with signs that read, “This is what a feminist looks like.”

The protest grew out of a Facebook event that sophomore Yasemin Ayarci started the day before Schlafly’s appearance. More than 50 students, including members of Allied in Pride, Voices for Choices and the sexual assault prevention group Men of Strength, turned up to hold signs in protest.

Tensions ran high before the event, and Marvin Center staff approached the protestors with warnings and a request for silence.

“Phyllis Schlafly = Dolores Umbridge,” one sign read.

“Take your advice: go back to the kitchen!” read another.

Fifteen minutes into Schlafly’s remarks, about 30 of the protestors in attendance silently filed out.

“Oh I’m so sorry you’re not going to stay around and let me convince you that you’re wrong!” Schlafly scoffed. “Too bad.”

This post was updated April 19, 2012 to reflect the following:
Due to a reporting error, The Hatchet incorrectly spelled Hilary Rosen’s named as Hillary. We also reported that the College Republicans hosted the event.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 3:26 p.m.

School Without Walls students protest Trayvon Martin killing

by Cory Weinberg

Students from the School Without Walls Kristin Ellis, left, Quintess Bond, middle, and Angelique Gaston, right, march along G Street from the White House Tuesday calling for justice after the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. Elise Apelian | Hatchet Staff Photographer

The sign that reads “Silence is acceptance” in the front window of the School Without Walls says it all for Neah Evering.

He joined 350 of his classmates Tuesday from the Foggy Bottom high school to march to the White House in protest of the contentious killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.

“That sign epitomizes everything we do. We have a voice,” said Evering, a 12th-grade student who helped organize the demonstration. “The march was emotional and powerful. It felt really good.”

Evering said the Feb. 26 shooting of the Sanford, Fla. teen galvanized students at the 450-student public high school after government classes and African culture clubs discussed the killing.

Five seniors sparked a letter-writing campaign and coordinated the protest. Bernard Demczuk, GW’s assistant vice president for D.C. government relations and an African American history teacher at the high school, helped to secure Metropolitan Police Department permits to demonstrate.

“We’ve discussed a lot about oppression in school,” 10th-grade student Samantha Kolawale said. “But it’s not just the black community that’s upset. It’s everyone. It’s about justice, not about race.”

Martin, who was black, was killed last month by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who said he shot the 17-year-old out of self defense. Police did not arrest Zimmerman, 28, because of the state’s Stand Your Ground law.

The shooting has drawn demonstrations across the country, and was lifted further into the spotlight when President Barack Obama discussed Friday how the situation has affected him personally.

At the high school, students in classes and small assemblies listened to the 9-1-1 tapes of police officials advising Zimmerman to not pursue Martin, which 10th-grade student Anna Tsai said helped students learn more.

“The way they investigated it was perverse. Allowing this man to hide behind this is wrong,” Tsai said. “Everyone in school is on board.”

Edward Ismail, an A.P. Literature teacher who helped students organize the rally, said the march would help combat people’s perception that the school is cut off from other D.C. public schools because of its location on GW’s campus.

“There’s always this feeling that we’re not completely connected. By spearheading this youth movement, it shows we’re at one with the youth of the District,” Ismail said.

Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:51 p.m.

Students pose as Guantanamo Bay prisoners in protest

by The GW Hatchet

Seven members of GW Amnesty International donned prison jumpsuits and blindfolds Wednesday, symbolizing the hundreds of detainees who have encountered political and human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. Avra Bossov | Hatchet Photographer

This post was written by Hatchet reporter Silverio Ramirez

Members of GW Amnesty International protested Tuesday the treatment of detainees in the United States’ most controversial military prison with visual demonstrations of some of the conditions in Guantanamo Bay.

Seven students – dressed in orange prison garb with cloth blindfolds over their eyes – walked in a silent single-file line around the H and 21 streets block.

After several minutes of lapping Kogan, the group returned to the middle of the quad, where they remained for two hours, handing out flyers and asking students to pen their names on a petition calling for President Barack Obama to shut down operations at the prison. The organization cited Obama’s 2008 campaign pledge to release all Guantanamo inmates not charged with a crime.

The last student in the prisoner chain wore a black bag over his face and wore a sign that read the name Shaker Aamera.

Amnesy International handed out dozens of flyers that told Aamer’s well-known story about being held for a decade without being formally charged or given a trial. The Saudi Arabian prisoner has become a prominent voice raising the issue of maltreatment at Guantanamo.

Kristina Delgado, co-director of GW Amnesty International said the main goal is to “start a conversation on campus” about human rights violations in the prison.

“With a campus this politically active and the presidential elections coming up, it’s a great time and opportunity for us to do this,” Delgado said.

Friday, March 2, 2012 2:11 p.m.

House votes to wind down academic regulations

by Cory Weinberg

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., sponsored the Academic Freedom in Higher Education Act, which the House of Representative passed Tuesday. | Courtesy of the office of Congresswoman Virginia Foxx

The House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday to undo Department of Education regulations opponents called bureaucratic and burdensome.

The bill, H.R. 2117, would repeal two rules the Department of Education set for universities in 2010: The federal definition of a credit hour and a mandate for states to authorize colleges that operate within their boundaries.

Higher education activists denounced the increased costs the regulations would incur on universities trying to widen their online programs.

University spokeswoman Michelle Sherrard said the University would wait to see the bill’s significance as the Department of Education pushed back the deadline for colleges to comply with the rules until July 2014.

“We are monitoring the progress of the bill, but it is too early for us to speculate on its impact,” Sherrard said.

Universities like GW that participate in federal aid programs like Pell grants must comply with the regulations.

The bill, which was sponsored by Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., is unlikely to pass in the Senate.

“[The regulations] will stall the efforts in our country to make higher education more accessible and more affordable to everyone in the country,” Foxx said on the House floor Tuesday.

While the Higher Education Act of 1965 stipulates that states must give authorization for colleges and universities to operate there, the rule became cloudy with the rise of online learning.

Michael Lambert, executive director of the accrediting agency Distance Education and Training Council, said the states would use the regulations to gouge colleges for review fees.

He estimated that colleges would have to shell out $250,000 to $500,000 in licensing and curriculum review fees, as well as adding staff to check their compliance with regulations. He added that some states would look to gouge colleges for fees to

“It pushed a button and started a whole new cottage industry of certain states saying they assert the right to license a school that enrolls any citizen of their states. It used to be that states let sleeping dogs lie,” Lambert said. “This regulation encouraged states to become more aggressive and see this as a source of income for themselves.”

The University offers 60 degree and certificate programs that use a distance learning model. The Board of Trustees, the highest governing body at GW, allotted $2.3 million to develop mostly graduate-level online and hybrid programs in the GW School of Business and the College of Professional Studies this year.

GW’s graduate programs in business, education and nursing swept U.S. News & World Report’s inaugural list of top online-only programs in January.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the leading Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said repealing the regulations would allow colleges to inflate the number of credits and overcharge students.

“The bill before us today explicitly increases the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse in our federal student aid programs,” Miller said on the House floor. “At a time when the higher education market is in so much flux, with new kinds of programs popping up around the country and online, this is the wrong time to reopen this loophole.”

The Obama administration also opposed the bill.

Monday, Feb. 27, 2012 4:15 p.m.

Battleground poll puts Obama in driver’s seat on road to re-election

by The GW Hatchet

Political management professor Christopher Arterton, left, fields a question about the health care overhaul law and its impact on the 2012 elections. He was joined by, from left to right, Republican pollster Ed Goeas, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake and senior politics reporter for POLITICO Jonathan Martin. Francis Rivera | Assistant Photo Editor

This post was written by Hatchet reporter Samantha Abramowitz.

Positive economic headlines and a bloody Republican race are lifting President Barack Obama’s approval ratings and setting him on a track toward re-election, a panel of pollsters and journalists said in the Marvin Center.

More than half of registered voters nationwide now approve of Obama’s presidency, according to a Politico-George Washington University Battleground Poll released Monday. That job approval rating has increased nine percentage points to 53 percent since the partnership’s last survey in November.

The poll was conducted by a bipartisan duo – Republican Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group and Democrat Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners – and housed in GW’s Global Media Institute.

Obama now has the economy on his side, particularly in terms of falling unemployment numbers, Goeas said.

“Two things are going on. The Republicans are being inwardly focused [on the primary] and that has giving an opening to the president’s cabinet here and there on some key points in the economy,” he said.

Voters have consistently considered the economy and jobs the most important issues in the country. Just less than half of voters praise Obama’s economic moves and what his administration has done to create jobs.

The Labor Department reported big job gains in January, bumping the unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent – the lowest level since early 2009.

Goeas said the Republican candidates’ downfalls have been not spending enough time hammering out clear economic ideas in the campaign. Arizona and Michigan will hold their primaries Tuesday and 10 more states will vote March 6 on Super Tuesday.

Lake said without a clear-cut Republican to counter Obama’s momentum, the poll demonstrates his likelihood of winning the 2012 election.

Obama may also take advantage of Republicans’ weakness with independent voters. Mitt Romney earned only a 33 percent approval rating from independent voters while 40 percent of independent voters viewed Rick Santorum favorably.

But Obama’s pathway to victory is not certain, the pollsters said, with more than half of voters who believe the country is on the wrong track.

Goeas said while conservative voters’ opposition to Obama solidifies Republican turnout in elections, independent voters hold the key.

“My belief is that angry independents determine the vote in the presidential year,” Goeas said.

Chris Arterton, a professor of political management, said Obama’s ratings are experiencing a “halo effect,” where voters who see gains in the economy endorse the president overall.

He said Obama will hear good news on Election Day only if voters see the economy growing and the unemployment rate continuing to fall near November.

“There is good reason to be optimistic, but the election is not tomorrow. We have a long time to go and if the economic news doesn’t continue to improve, the polling will deteriorate,” Arterton said.

The poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters around the country Feb. 19 through Feb. 22. It has a margin of error of + 3.1 percent.

This post was updated on Feb. 27, 2012 to reflect the following:
The Hatchet misidentified Jonathan Martin as Jim VandeHei in the photo caption of this post.

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012 7:33 p.m.

Obama campaign identifies two law professors as top bundlers

by The GW Hatchet

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign listed two GW Law School professors as the top bundlers from 2011. | Hatchet File Photo

Correction appended

This post was written by Hatchet staff writer Matt Kwiecinski.

Two GW Law School professors are the biggest fundraisers in the D.C. area for President Barack Obama’s re-election bid, each raising over $500,000 in 2011.

Professor Spencer Overton and Associate Dean for Trial Advocacy Alfreda Robinson are “bundlers” for the Obama campaign – those who fundraise money independently and pass the checks to the campaign in big checks.

The law professors were among nine other D.C. lawyers that bundled for Obama’s reelection, raising a total of more than $1.8 million in 2011, according to a fiscal report released by Obama’s campaign Tuesday.

Overton, who teaches government ethics and campaign finance courses, and Robinson were the only two lawyers who live in the area who bundled more than $500,000

The list of bundlers did not include any other faculty members.

Presidential campaigns are not required to release the names of independent donors if they are not considered registered lobbyists. No Republican presidential candidate has disclosed a list of bundlers.

When the Obama campaign last released the list of campaign fundraisers in October, Overton and Robinson also topped the list by bundling between $200,000 and $500,000.

This post was updated on Feb. 5, 2012 to reflect the following:
The Hatchet incorrectly reported that bundlers combine donations into one check to hand over to campaigns. In fact, bundlers do not aggregate the funds into one lump sum check. They hand over a bundle of checks.

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 12:20 a.m.

Obama underlines college access in national address

by The GW Hatchet

President Barack Obama addressed college affordability and access in his third State of the Union address Tuesday. Hatchet File Photo

This blog post was written by Hatchet Reporter Mary-Ellen McIntire.

President Barack Obama emphasized the importance of education in solving the nation’s challenges in his third State of the Union address Tuesday.

Obama also noted the rising cost of college attendance and called on lawmakers to provide financial relief to students.

He urged Congress to stop interest rates on student loans from doubling, as they are set to do in July, and to permanently extend the tuition tax credit his administration created.

The president also called on Congress to double the number of Federal Work Study jobs in the United States over the next five years. GW faced $400,000 in federal funding cuts for work-study positions last semester, forcing departments to pay a higher percentage of student salaries – a unique move as peer universities chose instead to slash the number of jobs available.

“States also need to do their part by making higher education a higher priority in their budgets,” Obama said.

He called on colleges and universities to keep tuition costs down, warning, “If you can’t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down.”

Obama said he has met with a group of college presidents whose schools had successfully lowered tuition. Some colleges redesigned courses to help students graduate quicker, he said.

Students opting to save money by cutting their final semester has been a trend at GW, although statistics are not available because the University does not officially track students who leave a semester early.

“Higher education can’t be a luxury,” Obama said. “It is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.”

Obama also addressed the importance of pre-college education.

While tight budgets have forced states to fire thousands of public school teachers, Obama said that a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of students.

“Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. And in return, grant schools flexibility: to teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”

Obama also proposed that every state require all students to stay in high school until graduation or until they turn 18 years old.

“When students are not allowed to drop out, they do better,” Obama said.

The emphasis on education policy in the national address is a continuation of Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” campaign. Launched last October to address student debt, University administrators said few GW students would benefit from the plan.

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