“The first thing to know is that these are two different words with two different meanings,” Rather told an audience at a Q&A event organized by Fordham’s Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies on Feb. 15. “The heart of patriotism is humility. The heart of nationalism, though, is a breast-beating conceit or arrogance.”

The Emmy Award-winning journalist said some of the values that are rooted in America’s national identity include public education, freedom of the press, and inclusion.

“The appeal of America worldwide is the essence of the idea and the ideal,” said Rather. He recently published What Unites Us (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017), a book of essays on American values.

A Voice of Reason

Though he stepped down from his CBS Evening News post 13 years ago, Rather continues to weigh in on the issues he feels are shaping the United States and the world at large. He has more than 2.5 million followers on Facebook, a platform he said is allowing him to remain a “steady, reliable voice of reason that can put events into context and historical perspective.”

Now 86 years old, the veteran journalist said one of the major divisions among American citizens today revolves around race. He described his first major news assignment covering the beginnings of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He said the first time he saw a KKK rally, the “hair on the back of my neck stood up.”

“I thought to myself, “If I—a white person with a press tag—if this has this kind of effect on me, what effect could it possibly have on African-American families and their children?” he said.

Having been on the front lines of some of the country’s biggest news events—from John F. Kennedy’s assassination to Watergate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—Rather said that “every generation is tested.” He maintained, however, that the values that have defined the country for centuries are what has carried it through “bad times.”

“There’s a great struggle going on, a struggle for the soul of our country,” he said. “Who are we as a country? What are we about? [Those are questions that are] being decided now.”

Protecting a ‘Great Historical Experiment’

Rather expressed special concern about the escalating attacks on the free press, which he argued are an attempt to evade checks and balances on people in positions of power.

“We need to see clearly that a truly free and fiercely independent press is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy,” he said.

He said that America has gone through major transitions that have led to fear among some of its citizenry, starting with the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.

“The demographic of the United States changed so dramatically in the wake of that immigration reform that this country today is not recognizable to a lot of people, particularly those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale,” he said. “They’re fearful about the jobs at stake, but even more, I think they fear [a]change in the [American] culture.”

Calling the formation of the United States of America a “great historical experiment,” Rather said America’s ability to remain a united front could prove difficult without a firm commitment to its founding principles.

“This idea and ideal is not an empty hope,” he said. “If we put our minds to it, if we stick to this willingness of heart, then we’re going to be okay.”

Will sanctions against Putin’s inner circle succeed in provoking regime change? And if so, will Putin’s replacement be any better?

A lively panel discussion on Monday, Sept. 22 at Fordham’s School of Law, laid bare the bind that the U.S. and its allies face when it comes to how to deal with Russia in the years ahead.

“Back to the Future of U.S.-Russia Relations,” featured Stephen Sestanovich, Ph.D., professor at Columbia University, Kimberly Marten, Ph.D., professor at Barnard College, and Mark Galeotti, Ph.D., professor at New York University. Stephen Holmes, Ph.D., professor at New York University School of Law, served as moderator.

Panelists spent a great deal of time debating the best way to counter the sway that Putin exerts on the Russian elite. His decision to annex Crimea and send troops into Eastern Ukraine, are clearly meant to be challenges to international institutions such as the United Nations, which Galeotti noted he despises for being too dominated by Western interests.

“From Putin’s point of view, he’s happy to see Russians sacrifice their day-to-day quality of life, if in the process they regain some sort of Russian-ness,” he said.

“He wants to ensure that Europe is not in a position to flout Russian interests within what he regards as Russian’s sphere of interest.”

The biggest disagreement revolved around sanctions that the United States and Europe have recently imposed on Russian businesses and leaders.

Martin argued that it’s not clear what Russia would have to do to get them lifted, it’s not clear whether any of the things we would like Russia to do are possible, and for them to be successful, they have to be as severe as those that are currently being imposed on Iran.

“In terms of what the goal is in Russia, it’s not clear either. Is it to separate Putin from his networks so that they’ll put pressure on him? Who would provide for their needs better than Putin is providing for them?” she said.

“It’s just cementing a really ugly form of anti-west nationalism, that now the west is once again picking on us, so let’s all get together on this.”

Sestanovich said if there’s something wrong with sanctions, it’s that there haven’t been enough of them.

“It seems to me that we should also establish the precedent that serious cooperation is possible. We shouldn’t write that off,” he said.

Martin cautioned that a replacement for Putin might be no better than he is; a point that Galeotti took issue with. He noted that Nikita Kruschev and Margaret Thatcher are good historical examples of times when countries’ elites judged their leader to be a problem rather than an asset, and forced them to step down.

“I’m not sure the next person is likely to be worse. We’re not talking about Libya. We’re not talking about a place where we bomb the snot out of countries and hope suddenly that democratic leaders rise from the rubble,” he said.

At the same time, all the panelists agreed that Russia’s foray into Eastern Ukraine illustrated a stunning level of over-reach on Putin’s part. Sestanovich said that had Russia only seized Crimea, it probably would have gotten away with it, while
Marten noted that the incursion had re-invigorated the NATO alliance, which isn’t in his interest.

It helps to remember that Putin’s a judo master, not a chess player, she said, because judo masters go into every round as if it’s a new one.

“To be the winner of a judo match, you don’t have to be the stronger person, you have to be the cleverer person. You have to know more about your opponent more than your opponent knows about you, and have to get your opponent to fall from his own weight,” she said.

“I believe that’s how Putin approaches every interaction with the west, and so I don’t think even he knows what how long term strategy is in Ukraine.”

The evening was sponsored by the Center on National Security at Fordham Law and PEN America.

As a volunteer helping anxious parents understand the immigration system and fight to keep their children in the United States, Rodrigo Ricxu Bacus, found that parents sometimes needed more than just information. They needed encouragement, reassurance, and hope.

“It’s a confusing system,” said Ricxu Bacus, one of a handful of Fordham Law students who volunteered to assist at information sessions sponsored by Catholic Charities in Manhattan. “I sometimes [found]myself saying, ‘This is just the process. It’s not a barrier.’ I guess it can be, but I try to reassure them: just think about the process, what you need to do, what your responsibilities are.”

Student volunteering is just one effort at Fordham to grapple with the current immigration crisis, marked by tens of thousands of vulnerable Central American children fleeing violence in their home countries for the United States, where they often seek to reunite with family.

This year 90,000 children are expected to be apprehended at the southern U.S. border, up from 7,000 or 8,000 annually just two years ago, when the numbers started to spike, said Olga Byrne, director of the New York Unaccompanied Immigrant Children Project (NYUICP) at the Feerick Center for Social Justice of Fordham Law School.

The majority of the children are trying to reach parents or relatives here, Byrne said.

“There are so many stories of family separation and reunification behind this,” she said. “It could be parents who have been living here for a decade and left behind a toddler in their home country who’s now a teenager. Parents are desperate to see their child, like any parent would be. On top of that, the kid is getting menaced by gangs who may either want to kidnap him (or) extort him—‘Oh, you have parents in the U.S.? We’re really going to go after you now because you are getting remittances sent back.’”

The NYUICP—a collaboration among the Feerick Center and other external organizations—involves research and advocacy efforts to make it easier for unaccompanied immigrant children to make their case for legal residency. (The children are given court dates after being apprehended at the border and, where possible, released to any relatives in the United States.)

Thousands of other undocumented young immigrants in the New York area are entirely alone, without support from family, and are vulnerable to exploitation by traffickers, smugglers, employers, and others, according to the Feerick Center.

The center and Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) cosponsored a panel in June on the migration crisis, and IIHA Director Brendan Cahill intends to host more—perhaps one per semester—that will point to solutions.

“By everyone’s account, this is a humanitarian crisis,” driven by gangs who are preying on the young in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, he said. “Parents are saying, ‘Take a bag and go. Get to a safer place.’”

Another Fordham event focused on the immigration crisis will take place Sept. 16, when the Center on Religion and Culture and the Center for Ethics Education cosponsor a panel discussion, “A Crisis of Conscience: What Do We Owe Immigrant Youth and Families?”

Meanwhile, Fordham law students who volunteered at Catholic Charities last year will renew their efforts this year, and hope to recruit more of their peers.

They’re helping out at a Catholic Charities legal orientation program that informs the children’s custodians about bringing the children to immigration court, helping them sign up for school, obtaining health care and other services, and protecting them from trafficking and other dangers.

While the students can’t offer legal advice, they can answer questions not addressed in the one-hour presentation, help attendees fill out forms, and provide general information and referrals.

Some are finding that school systems won’t accept the children as they’re supposed to, said Laura Wooley, a law student and the coordinator of the volunteer effort. Others might struggle with forms that aren’t available in Spanish, said Ricxu Bacus, once a child immigrant himself.
Born in the Philippines, he had to wait 10 years to join his mother in the United States after she moved here on a green card. He remembers the fear and confusion he felt as an adolescent going through the slow, bureaucratic intake.

“When you’re looking at a maze of things, at a process where you have to do 20 different steps, it’s much easier to see an obstacle than it is to see a pathway,” he said.

The Millennials—those Americans born between the late 1970s to the late 1990s— must foster an enormous dialogue about America’s economy, culture and place in the world, Gingrich told a crowd of nearly 2,000 people.

“As Americans, you must work to reassert the culture of American exceptionality, rebuild the economy and ensure that the U.S. is strong, and that our opponents are much more afraid of us than we are of them,” he said.

Gingrich is a former speaker of the House and leading Republican who is rumored to be considering a presidential run in 2012. The event was held at Fordham Prep’s Leonard Theater on the Rose Hill campus.

In his nearly 90-minute talk, Gingrich criticized President Barack Obama for shaking hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the most recent Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

“There is something bizarre about an administration that is against using coal but bows to the king of Saudi Arabia and embraces the dictator of Venezuela,” said Gingrich, who started his speech praising Ronald Reagan for always speaking out on what he believed.

“We have lost the moral courage to speak out on what is wrong,” he said. “Moral language matters. Rendering judgment matters. It matters because, in the long run, cultures are led by words that have meaning.”

Gingrich said he was fascinated to watch a variety of “semi-dictators,” specifically, the leaders of Nicaragua and Argentina, who lecture the president on what the United States is “doing wrong.”

“There aren’t many countries that have a net surplus of people leaving the U.S. to go to them,” Gingrich said. “If we have such a bad economy, if we do so many bad things, how come their people want to flee their country to come here?”

Gingrich also criticized the Obama administration, as well as the national media, for not focusing enough on national security.

“The world around us is really dangerous,” he said.

He emphasized his point by relating a scenario from a novel written by William R. Forchsten—the same man who co-wrote Gingrich’s latest book. In the novel, a nuclear explosion triggers a massive failure of the nation’s power grid.

“The media doesn’t talk about things like this. These aren’t scare tactics, but the purpose of a national leader is to understand what could happen,” Gingrich said.

The media also missed the point of the various “tea parties” attended by many conservatives on April 15, he said.

“It wasn’t about taxes,” said Gingrich, who spoke at a New York City tea party earlier in the week. “It was about the fundamental question of the nature of America.

“Is America a place where you can dream big, where you have unlimited potential, where you might even make more than $250,000 without being a bad person? Or is America, in fact, a place where you need to cap everything, such as incomes?

“This whole idea that Congress now randomly decides the right bonus—can you imagine a group less likely to make a reasonable decision?”

Earlier in the evening, Gingrich met a handful of students and professors at a reception sponsored by The Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

When asked if anyone should be blamed for the economic strife the country is experiencing, Gingrich named former President George W. Bush and former treasury secretary Henry Paulson.

“They signed a $25 billion housing bill, a $700 billion Wall Street bailout and a nearly $2 trillion Federal Reserve guarantee—and that was all before Obama took office,” Gingrich said. “They created such momentum.”

At the informal event, Costas Panagopoulos, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy, introduced Gingrich as a man “of strong principles and convictions.”

“Speaker Gingrich has routinely gone beyond the call of duty in his endeavors, a tradition he upheld in preparation for his visit to Fordham by converting to Catholicism three weeks ago,” Panagopoulos said in jest. “Although this was not a condition of our invitation, it is fitting that we welcome him to the Jesuit University of New York.”

Gingrich’s talk was sponsored by the Fordham University College Republicans, in conjunction with the Fordham University Finance Society, United Student Government, American Age Lecture Series, The Ram and the Fordham University Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy.

“These photos are straight, smart, understated lyrical works,” said the show’s curator, Joseph Lawton, M.F.A., clinical associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Visual Arts. “They are images pulled from the real world, describing the real world. The art is almost transparent.”

Muir’s 30-year career has included several solo shows.  His large color photographs depict renderings of contemporary public spaces in large American cities. Putnam’s work features a black-and-white photo essay of a road trip across Route 66 during the mid-1970s. He has traveled extensively in the U.S., documenting everyday life in small towns and rural areas. Both photographers draw their inspiration from photographers such as Walker Evans and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lawson said.

The Center gallery offers 8 to 10 shows year, all curated by Fordham faculty and students.

– Janet Sassi