Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / March 7, 2017, edition 1 / Page 18
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«• * Immigration Gerrymandering CONTINUED FROM LAST PAGE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 waTffw Hms If a student came forward seeking legal help, we could direct them to the right place.” Carter said the Coalition is not set on requiring the school label itself a sanc tuary campus, it just wants the actions implied in that title to be carried out. “The word ‘sanctuary’ doesn’t have to be used. The important part is pro tecting students,” Carter said. “We just want to take concrete action to protect our students. When it comes to undoc umented immigrants, you don’t neces sarily want to call too much attention to the campus because you don’t want those students to be targeted.” Grant said a brand of that sort can lead to misinterpreted expectations which can not be met. “Labeling us a ‘sanctuary,’ that’s branding and I’ve seen lots of branding where underneath, they’re not doing the things that they say,” Grant said. “It’s important to ask ourselves, what things are we doing that keep our com munity safe, that provide a safe place for creative thought to support mem bers of our community without having to brand that mission.” Grant said she is happy the students and administration are talking because that is what causes change and that is important, even if UNCA is not heavily ' affected by this executive order. “It doesn’t matter if we have one or two or zero or 1,500 undocumented students, this is something we should all be concerned about,” Grant said. Carter said she is encouraged by the response of the administration to the Coalition’s request for this open meet ing. “I feel grateful that this is the kind of university where the administration would meet with us to discuss that type of thing,” Carter said. “I think that they’re going to work with us. I don’t think they would have held that meet ing if they didn’t take the situation se riously. I’m glad that we had an open dialogue. It’s a start.” Sydney Nazloo, a sophomore polit ical science student, discussed redis tricting in its affirmative and negative aspects. “The idea of racial gerrymandering when you use it to exclude large groups of minorities and disperse them along congressional districts so they have less voting power, that’s definitely an issue because it means that they’re be ing, essentially, disenfranchised and breaking that one person, one vote doc trine from Baker v. Carr,” Nazloo said. Although racial gerrymandering iso lates minority groups, Nazloo argues there must be some redistricting in or der to balance the skewed placement of minorities. “The Voting Rights Act actually stip ulates that there should be majority-mi nority districts and that there needs to be in order to re-enfranchise previously discriminated-against groups,” Nazloo said. “Striking a balance between that is difficult, striking a balance between really enfranchising minority vot ers and completely disenfranchising them.” Non-profit organizations such as De mocracy North Carolina and Common Cause held Lobby Day training ses sions in order to train citizen lobbyists how to speak to their representatives about gerrymandering. Darlene Azarmi, a Democracy North Carolina organizer for Western North Carolina, said persistence in lobbying builds relationships with legislators. “Getting to know those leaders and building relationships by showing up to talk or call or write somebody three times versus one time or 12 times or 72 times versus never, that is relationship building that, inevitably, in some ca pacity will pay off,” Azarmi said. Compared to paid lobbying where experts on a certain topic or policy speak to political actors, citizen lobby ists typically carry influence if enough people show up to lobby, Moraguez said. “Citizen lobbying can be effective if it happens in large enough numbers. One citizen lobbyist is probably not enough to actually make much of an impact, but if a group of citizens lobby for something, you’re hitting legisla- The 2011 North Carolina district design (top) shows how gerrymandering occurred in the redistricting process. The districts were corrected in 2016 (bottom). tors or any political actor where it hurts the most, which is their electoral vul nerability,” Moraguez said. The success of Lobby Day strength ens the already growing movements of citizen activism, Moraguez said. “I do think that right now, we’re seer ing more grassroots activism than we have in.a very long time, where your average citizen is actively getting in volved and is trying to put pressure on their elected officials,” Moraguez said. “We saw a little bit of this during Obama’s presidency where the Tea Party movement was really, really ac tive and they got people to go to town halls and advocate, but it wasn’t on the scale that it is today ” Non-partisan organizations such as Democracy North Carolina continue to encourage advocacy, insisting citizen involvement manifests change, accord ing to Jones. “It’s incredibly important that people get involved now, and theie seem to be endless opportunities to do so,” Jones said.
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