Spring 2003 CAPE Events

The Right to Bear Arms in the Era of School Shootings
Thursday, February 13th, 7:00 PM, PAC 134

On Friday morning, Dec. 13, 2002, an eighth grade student entered her Honors English class at Chico Junior High School with a concealed handgun. As class was beginning she approached the teacher, displayed the gun, and told the teacher to quiet the class. Through savvy handling, the emergency was quelled and no injuries resulted from the incident. However, this case, like others that have occurred elsewhere in our nation, raises in an immediate way the question of gun control and in particular the accessibility of guns in our society. Ought the "right to bear arms" articulated in the second amendment extend to hand guns? What are the arguments for and against gun control? How does the US think about this question in comparison with other countries, in particular in comparison with our Canadian neighbors to the North? Is it time to re-think the second amendment in the wake of Columbine and other school shootings?

Andrew Flescher, Director, Center for Applied and Professional Ethics (moderating)
Rick Ruddell, Department of Political Science
Troy Jollimore, Department of Philosophy
Peter Gross, Department of Journalism

Who Belongs Here and Why? The Politics of Deportation in the Land of the Free
Thursday, February 27th, 7:00 PM, PAC 134

Miguel Moniz, Brown University/University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.

Over the past few years, recent changes to US migration laws have led to the increase of the deportation of foreign residents, documented residents living in the US with green cards. Laws passed in 1996 had already raised questions of civil rights violations for legal migrants, but with the enactment into law of the Patriot Act after the events of 9/11, basic human rights for legal residents have eroded even further. What are the rights afforded to legal residents within a nation-state? Is it just that these rights differ from those of citizens? What is the relationship between citizenship as a legal status and other factors that give or prohibit the right to belong to a community or a state? Following his examination of these and other theoretical questions about citizenship and community, Professor Moniz's talk proceeds to take a hard look at the Patriot Act and at Attorney General Ashcroft's enforcement of it, and asks whether or not homeland security initiatives must come at the expense of the civil rights of migrant residents and even US citizens.

Miguel Moniz is an Anthropologist working in race, ethnicity and transnational migration at Brown University, with a research focus on the transnational Portuguese speaking populations of the Atlantic and the Americas. He is the author of Azores (Clio Press, Oxford, 1999) and an immigrants' rights activist. Moniz has taught at Brown University, the University of Massachusetts and the University of the Azores. He will return to Portugal in September to begin a post-doc at the Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE) in Lisbon where he will research racial and ethnic classifications and the construction of national identity in European and African contexts.

What Is The Media Doing To Children?
Wednesday March 5th, 4:30-5:30 PM, Television Studio A, Basement of Meriam Library

Kids spend more time watching television than attending school. We've all heard what media are consumed by the average television watching, headphone wearing American youth. But what may be the effects of so much stimuli, information, misinformation, story, lyric, advertisement, violence, and humor?

Mark Keegan, Department of Education
Area high school seniors

The Problem of Plagiarism
Thursday, March 27th, 7:00 PM, PAC 134

Plagiarism is on the rise at this university and on campuses across the country. What is the explanation? And how worried should we be? Is the rise in plagiarism connected to the erosion of academic standards? Is plagiarism the worst thing a student can do, the "drunk driving" of academic offenses, so to speak, or is it less severe? What should the appropriate punishment for a student who plagiarizes be? Failure of the assignment? Failure of the course? Probation? Suspension? Expulsion? Finally, what does the current university policy at Chico State have to say about the academic offense of plagiarism? Is it adequate or too lenient? This CAPE forum will feature participants who are administrators, professors, and students alike, all of whom will address the above and related questions from their own perspectives.

Dennis Rothermel, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Undergraduate education (moderating)
Mary Oling Ottoo, Department of Student Judicial Affairs
Bob Jackson, Dean of Graduate, International and Sponsored Programs
Rick Narad, Department of Health and Community Services
Jed Wyrick, Department of Religious Studies
Andrew Flescher, Department of Religious Studies; CAPE director
Fay Roepcke, director of Legislative Affairs for the A.S. and former R.A.

TWO PART SERIES ON THE CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST I. Israel and the Palestinian People: Historical Context, Present Threats Thursday ,April 10th, 7:00 PM, PAC 144 Professors Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpentar Professor of Feminist Theology at The Graduate Theological Union/Pacific School of Religion; and Herman Ruether, independent scholar. Off the heels of their recent visit to the Middle East, Professors Rosemary and Herman Ruether will provide some historical context for the treatment of the Palestinians by Israel and proceed to focus on the contemporary issue of the threat of a new expulsion. Rosemary Radford Ruether is a PhD in Classics and Patristics (1965) from Claremont Graduate School. She holds twelve honorary doctorates and is the author or editor of thirty-five books, including The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (1989), which she co-authored with her husband, and upon which this talk will be loosely based. II. Prospects for Peace in the Middle East: Israeli, Palestinian, and American Perspectives Tuesday, April 22nd, 7:00 PM, Wismer Theatre (PAC 135) Is peace in the Middle East possible? Where do we begin? What does each side minimally need to do in order to co-exist, side by side? This forum features a discussion among faculty who will proffer possible solutions to the current conflict in the Middle East in light of their disciplinary perspectives and personal experiences. Andrew Flescher, Department of Religious Studies (moderating) Irv Schiffman, Department of Political Science Loren Lybarger, Department of Religious Studies Jim Jacob, Department of Political Science

Has Special Education Outlived Its Usefulness?
Wednesday, April 23, 4:30- 5:30 PM, Television Studio A, Basement of Meriam Library

Special education programs are more costly, and they are growing. More and more kids are deemed 'special' -- usually by someone's assessment of their deficiencies. Are their needs, and society's needs, truly being served?

Mark Keegan, Department of Education
Selected educators in the Chico area school district

Darwinism, Religion, and Morality
Thursday April 24th, 4:00 PM-5:00 PM, Ayres 120

In what ways does Darwinism challenge views about religion (e.g., atheism, theism, deism, fundamentalism)? In what ways does Darwinism challenge systems of morality? Can Darwinism provide foundations for ethics and social structure? Can Darwinism provide foundations for human behavior? In this forum, professors Lisa Gannett and Micki Lennon explore the philosophical and religious implications of Darwinism in the academy and in society at large. This presentation occurs in conjunction with the Anthropology Forum Series and represents the third part of the "Darwin at the Millennium" Sequence.

Thomas McCready, Department of Mathematics (moderating)
Lisa Gannett, Department of Philosophy
Micki Lennon, Department of Religious Studies

Why Corporations are not Morally Responsible for Anything They Do (co-sponsored by Students in Free Enterprise)
Thursday, May 8th, 7:00, PAC 134

Manuel Velasquez, Santa Clara University

What went wrong at Enron? How is it that corporations can go so far in the wrong direction before society finally comes to hold them morally accountable? In his talk, Professor Velasquez concentrates on the systemic explanations for the collapse of major corporations and proceeds to argue that individuals, not legal entities, are moral agents and therefore are the sorts of things that can have moral responsibility. Velasquez maintains that it is dangerous that we say things like "Enron was wrong" because it allows those who acted immorally to hide behind the corporate entity, a legal fiction. In his analysis, Velasquez examines the laws and regulations that provide the framework in which people operate in a corporate environment as well as at the culture that shapes the values and perceptions that inform our intuitions about corporate America.

Manuel Velasquez is the Charles Dirksen Professor of Business Ethics at Santa Clara University. He received his Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley. He teaches courses in the Leavey School of Business in the areas of Legal, Political, and Social Environment of the Firm; in Business Strategy; and in Business Ethics. Professor Velasquez's research interests lie in the field of business ethics. He has published numerous articles in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Business Ethics Quarterly, Social Justice Research, and the Business and Professional Ethics Journal, and is the author of Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases, now in its third edition.