Releases : Social Science

On Monday, the Farmers Branch City Council voted unanimously to pass ordinances aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration and making English the city’s official language. The ordinances will require city officials to conduct nearly all official business in English, prohibit landlords from renting apartments to people who cannot prove their citizenship or legal status and have city police enter into a cooperative agreement with federal immigration officials to target "criminal aliens." Anti-illegal immigration activists in Arlington and Fort Worth have said they will push for similar measures in their cities.

Although members of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund have said that these ordinances violate federal law, Dr. Kimi King, University of North Texas associate professor of political science, said provisions making English an official language "have been upheld consistently by the courts, although not without challenge."

"The government has to clearly specify what its interest is in seeking to protect English as the official language," she said, adding that some courts have ruled that failure to provide benefits or services in foreign languages does not constitute discrimination on the basis of national origin under Title VI of the Civil Rights law because equating a person's language with the person's national origin has no basis in law or fact.

King says the larger issue for city councils passing anti-illegal immigration ordinances "is not a legal issue, but a political one."

"A city has to weigh legal issues with political issues, realizing that Spanish-speaking businesses may decide to go elsewhere," she said.

King may be reached at:

Mobile phone: (940) 597-4802
kking@unt.edu

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation was almost inevitable due to increasing opposition to the war in Iraq, a Democratic takeover in the U.S. House and a possible takeover in the Senate, says Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, director of the University of North Texas' Military History Center and the Major General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History.

"A new Democratic majority would have subjected Rumsfeld to the oversight he has not been subjected to by the Republicans , which means he would have been on Capitol Hill defending his strategy," Wawro says. "This all seemed a bit much for him . At the same time, it allowed President Bush to preempt the inevitable opposition of a Democratic majority by offering Rumsfeld's head on a plate."

Bush nominated former CIA chief Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld. Gates, now president of Texas A&M University, headed the CIA from 1991 to 1993 under the leadership of George H.W. Bush.

"It shows that we are seeing a flight from ideology and a reversion to pragmatism, at long last," Wawro says. "Gates is an interesting guy, a smart guy, and he will integrate the proposals of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group and the legitimate concerns of the new Democratic majority in Congress (and of the American people), and integrate them into a new course for the Iraq War."

Wawro joined UNT's Military History Center in the fall of 2005 after serving as the professor of strategic studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Wawro is also host and anchor of the History Channel and History International programs Global View, History's Business and History in Focus.

Wawro can be reached by cell phone at (214) 514-7224.

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- A professor of philosophy and religion studies at the University of North Texas says the scandal surrounding Ted Haggard--who resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals following allegations of sex and drug use--should not have any long-term effects on the evangelical church movement.

"I do not think this will affect the evangelical movement as a whole," says Dr. Joe Barnhart. "Organizations do not fall because of individuals. The church, and the faithful, will go on. It may cause some followers to reevaluate their faith. But, you should not judge a person's faith by the activities of their church's members. There is a difference between hypocrisy and weakness."

Haggard resigned after allegations made by a former male escort that the two had a three-year sexual relationship that included the use of methamphetamine.

Barnhart says if history is any indication, Haggard's ministry--the 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs he founded in 1985--may face a rocky future.

"Jimmy Swaggart's ministry never fully recovered from the sex scandal that enveloped him, and remember that Jim Bakker went to prison for the financial scandal that brought down his ministry," Barnhart says.

Barnhart is traveling, but may be reached at (940) 387-3290.

Witches and witchcraft:

The old, female witch with warts and a hooked nose, wearing a black robe and pointed hat and riding a broomstick, is one of the most recognized symbols of Halloween. Dr. Richard Golden, UNT professor of history, says this image came from the age of witch hunting in Europe, which started around 1430 and ended approximately in 1750. During this period, some 35,000 to 50,000 people -- mostly old, poor women -- were accused of witchcraft and legally executed, says Golden, the editor of the four-volume "Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition," which was published earlier this year.

The encyclopedia includes more than 700 entries from 172 distinguished witchcraft scholars from 28 nations. The entries cover key trials, folklore, magical practices, influential texts and witchcraft theorists, as well as the accused and their persecutors.

Golden, who spent more than five years editing the encyclopedia, says that during the age of witch hunting, some poor women were often first accused of witchcraft after they went door-to-door begging for charity. If a family turned a woman away and a misfortune struck the household shortly afterward, the family might say the woman was a witch who had played a "trick" by throwing a curse to kill or injure a family member or livestock, or to spoil food, he says.

He also says those accused of diabolical witchcraft, or contact with the Devil, were believed to fly at night on animals, demons or brooms to witches' gatherings, or Sabbats, where they worshipped the Devil, practiced cannibalism and infanticide and worked evil magic in order to overthrow Christian society. This a reason why many of today's costumed witches carry brooms, he says.

Office phone number: (940) 369-8933
Home phone number: (972) 317-4969
rmg@unt.edu

Spooky music:

From the screeching violins on the "Psycho" soundtrack and the tinkling bells of the opening theme of "The Exorcist," Dr. Andrew May, director of the Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia in the University of North Texas College of Music, can explain why horror film music can send chills up your spine.

"Spooky suggests ghosts; and its cognate, ‘eerie,' suggests things being out of proportion, against expectation, outside of the normal bounds of experience. Imagine hearing a voice -- or before radios, hearing music -- when there's no one there," he says, giving music from "The Phantom of the Opera" as a classic example.

"The image of Lon Chaney at the organ in the film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel is a reminder that the organ itself is the eeriest of traditional instruments. A lone performer sits at a keyboard, while sounds come from all around the space; we hear a colossal sound, magically disembodied and magnified from the human who controls it," he says.

Silent films helped create our present-day expectations of spooky music, May says. Musicians would use sheet music, catalogued by mood or situation, to create a musical setting for the film.

"Some pieces became stock items for romantic, adventurous or horrific scenes," he says, "and these may have had a role in defining our repertoire of spooky music."

What is it about the composition of the music that makes it so spooky? May lists several things:

"Extremes of high and low register or both; dissonant or unusual harmonies, particularly those that slide chromatically between keys, or away from any key; strange timbres; and extreme, shocking contrasts of dynamic -- for example, a quiet, tense harmony suddenly broken by an explosion of furious, dramatic music," he says.

May is a violinist, computer music researcher and composer who has written pieces for orchestra, chorus and wind ensemble. His music has been performed in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Greece, Switzerland, Germany and England and throughout the United States. He is best known for chamber music in which some of the performers are computer systems, which he sometimes calls "playing with ghosts."

The Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia will present a concert called "Ghostly Presences" at 8 p.m. Oct. 30 (Monday) at UNT's Merrill Ellis Intermedia Theater, located in the Music Building. The Music Building is on the southeast corner of Avenue C and Chestnut Street on the UNT campus.

Office phone number: (940) 891-6816
amay@music.unt.edu.

Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead:

In Mexico, Mexican-American communities and some Latin American nations, Halloween is followed by a holiday that remembers the dead not in a spooky or morbid fashion, but in a joyful fashion. Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, on Nov. 1 and 2 is a national holiday in Mexico.

Dr. Alicia Re Cruz, UNT associate professor of anthropology, says the tradition has deep historical roots in Ancient Mesoamerica.

"In the Mesoamerican system of thought, death and life are not considered opposites. Death is considered the essence for life, and vice versa," she says.

Mexican people celebrate the holiday "as the day to welcome those relatives' souls in their lives and as a way to pay homage to their ancestors," Re Cruz says.

"It is a celebration -- a recognition that the dead are also part of the family and the community. This symbolical articulation of death and life is well represented in the fact that food is brought to the cemetery and in communion, symbolically shared by everyone," she says.

Office phone number: (940) 565-2663
arecruz@unt.edu

DENTON (UNT), Texas -- North Korea claims it has tested a nuclear weapon -- a move that was inevitable but needs to be dealt with through negotiations, says Dr. Geoffrey Wawro, director of the University of North Texas' Military History Center and the Major General Olinto Mark Barsanti Professor of Military History.

"The North Korean regime will not bend in the face of the sanctions and pressures that we put on normal countries. This is an absolutely abnormal country, and you could see this coming from a long way off," Wawro says. "The great danger is the unpredictability and the volatility of this regime. The Kim regime's likely willingness to share or sell this technology with troublemakers is most troubling."

The United States' military efforts in Iraq have shown North Korea that "we are quite mortal and we have real limitations," Wawro said. "Bringing on a military conflict is not really sensible," he says. "We should sit down and talk with these people and understand in the backs of our minds that North Korea is an eccentric country, but it's an eccentric country that needs to be dealt with. No regime that has gone nuclear has ever been persuaded to disarm. North Korea will be no different, obviously.

"The Kim regime may be willing to commit suicide -- that is, inflict massive casualties on Seoul and U.S. installations in Korea before eventually being defeated," he says. "The biggest winner in such a situation will not be the U.S., but China, which will watch us suffer, lose casualties and spend billions invading and reconstructing Korea, and then step in to harvest all of the benefits, cost-free."

Wawro also says the Bush administration lacks a credible plan for Korea, creating a situation as worrisome as the question of nuclear weapons.

"No one there wants a reunited Korea, least of all the South Koreans, who do not want to take on East German-sized liabilities. In fact, only the U.S. is pushing for a unified peninsula," he says. "Ingenuous in Iraq, Bush appears positively naïve in Korea."

Wawro joined UNT's Military History Center in the fall of 2005 after serving as the professor of strategic studies at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Wawro is also host and anchor of the History Channel and History International programs Global View, History's Business and History in Focus. Wawro can be reached by cell phone at (214) 514-7224.

As the Supreme Court begins its new term this week, several scheduled cases may define the new political composition of the Court, according to three University of North Texas political scientists.

Gonzales v. Carhart, which will focus on the validity of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of Act of 2003, is expected to be the most debated case among the Court justices when it is heard in November. Dr. Kimi King, UNT associate professor of political science, says the Court's decision on this case will be significant because it will indicate how John Roberts, the Court's Chief Justice since September 2005, and new Justice Samuel Alito, who was appointed in January, "position themselves ideologically on abortion and on the precedent associated with abortion doctrine."

The case focuses on whether the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is invalid because it doesn 't include exception for performing the procedure in situations in which performing the procedure would alleviate pain and suffering. The act currently allows the procedure only if the pregnant woman's life is at risk. King says that because there is absolutely no exception for health, the ban "may be subject to an analysis like the one done in Stenberg v. Carhart just five years ago."

"If a majority of the Justices feel constrained by stare decisis -- the principle of following precedent in prior cases --, the Court may be less divided than most might think," King says. "Because abortion is such a hot button issue, the Court may find a procedural way to avoid addressing the issue heads on in terms of the substantive doctrine. There is an argument to be made that the language of the partial birth abortion law could be held ‘void for vagueness' because of the legislative language that does not specify the procedures to be used."

King's colleague Dr. Corey Ditslear, UNT associate professor of political science, lists four immigration-related criminal cases with broad public interest that will be heard by the Court. All four focus on the government's deportation options when crimes are committed by both legal and illegal immigrants.

"These cases will further clarify the two new justices' positions with respect to executive branch power. The Court seems to be renewing its interest in labor and employment law after about 20 years of declining cases. This may be a sign that the Court will be reducing the rights of employees and unions while increasing the discretion given to employers," Ditslear says.

He adds the Court will also hear several capital punishment cases, noting that in recent years, the Court has limited the circumstances when capital punishment is allowed.

"These new cases allow the new members of the Court to reaffirm that commitment or reverse course," he says.

Dr. Wendy Watson, UNT assistant professor of political science, agrees that the number of criminal issues on the Supreme Court docket should make this term interesting. In addition, she points to two cases that explore how the University of Michigan affirmative action decision impact race in elementary and secondary schools.

"Meredith v. Jefferson Co. Board of Ed. involves a claim that the county's race-conscious school assignment system -- which was set up to address Brown v. Board of Education concerns but which results in some students spending three hours per day on a bus -- violates the Equal Protection Clause," she says. "The other case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, looks at the extent to which race can be a ‘tie breaker' in determining who gets accepted to a particular school in the context of an open-enrollment school choice program. Both cases will help define where desegregation ends and affirmative action begins."

King may be reached at:
Mobile phone: (940) 597-4802
kking@unt.edu

Ditslear may be reached at:
Mobile phone: (214) 629-6851
ditslear@unt.edu

Watson may be reached at:
Mobile phone: (940) 595-3083
wwatson@unt.edu

As you plan your coverage for the Texas gubernatorial race and other races before the Nov. 7 election, consider these University of North Texas experts who can discuss a variety of topics related to the election.

Political and electoral party systems, particularly third-party candidates:

Dr. Emily Clough, assistant professor of political science, can also discuss the role of polls and other information in political decision making. She has been a reviewer for American Political Science Review, Journal of Theoretical Politics, and Political Psychology, and published her research in British Journal of Political Science.

Office phone number: (940) 565-2214
Home phone number: (940) 381-2341
E-mail address: eclough@unt.edu 

Congressional and gubernatorial elections:

Dr. Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, assistant professor of political science, has published research in the American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Presidential Studies Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, and Congress and the Presidency, and has contributed chapters to "Politics in the American States" and "Public Opinion and Polling around the World." He is the author of the recently released book, "The President's Speeches: Beyond ‘Going Public,'" which explores the impact of the president's signals on the adoption and implementation of public policy.

Office phone number: (940) 565-2329
E-mail address: mes@unt.edu

Political rhetoric:

Dr. John Gossett, associate professor of communication studies, has served as a consultant to Chris Bell, the Democratic candidate in this year's Texas gubernatorial race. Gossett was also a debate adviser to former Texas Governor Mark White and an analyst of political candidate speaking and debating for The Dallas Morning News, KXAS-TV in Fort Worth and KDFW-TV in Dallas. 

Office phone number: (940) 565-2718
Home phone number: (940) 382-7443
E-mail address: gossett@unt.edu

Congressional elections and abortion and religious policies:

Dr. Elizabeth Oldmixon, assistant professor of political science, can discuss how policies legislating abortion and morality influenced Congressional elections. She is the author of "Culture Wars in the Congressional Theater: How the U.S. House of Representatives Legislates Morality, 1993-1998," which appeared in Social Science Quarterly. Her current research focuses on analysis of support for Israel in the U.S. House and a comparison of state and federal legislator decision-making on social welfare issues.

Office phone number: (940) 565-4761
Cell phone number: (940) 543-2491
E-mail address: oldmixon@unt.edu