Browsing by Author "Rose, Deondra"
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Item Open Access Amateur Hour: Using Historical Lessons to Assess the Trump-Kim Summits(2019-12-06) Borda, SebastianMy research examines President Donald J. Trump’s approach to recent summits with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, drawing on historical lessons from five summits since 1955. After President Trump entered office, U.S.-North Korea tensions increased dramatically, with the president threatening to counter North Korean aggression with “fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before.”1 However, the administration soon pursued a diplomatic path, convening a historic summit in Singapore in June 2018. Since then, Trump and Kim have met on two other occasions, though each of these summits has failed to secure North Korea’s denuclearization. My qualitative analysis of five case studies—the 1955 Geneva Summit, the 1961 Vienna Summit, Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, Carter’s 1978 Camp David Summit, and the 1986 Reykjavik Summit—suggests the president is ignoring important historical lessons on summitry and pursuing a flawed approach in his dealings with Kim. However, with proper adjustments, President Trump’s summit negotiations could secure an interim nuclear agreement—an imperfect but preferable outcome—and further the conflict’s resolution.Item Open Access Beyond a Place to Live in DC: Preserving the Remainder of "Chocolate City"(2021-05-01) Barnes, AndreaOnce known as “Chocolate City” for its prosperous Black residents, businesses, and communities, Washington, D.C. today is in many ways a contrasting image. The City continues to lose its Black residents and remaining majority Black communities are at elevated risk of displacement. Intensive development and gentrification further increase the cost of living in D.C., subsequently making the City too expensive for many. Further, as newcomers integrate into communities, existing norms, spaces, and traditions valuable to long-term residents are erased. The District’s majority Black Ward 8 is at increased risk of erasure through physical and cultural displacement. As long-term residents’ needs go unaddressed and housing costs increase, alongside the elimination of critical community assets, impactful solutions are increasingly decisive to the longevity of Black communities. This report explores the impacts of development and gentrification in the District. Through comparative historical analysis of both Ward 6 and Ward 8 and interviews with long-term residents and field experts, the report provides insights and recommendations for how local leaders can prevent cultural displacement in Ward 8. Recommendations include long-term resident covenants, a DC Council Committee on Preservation, the expansion of grocery store access, community land trusts for small businesses, and additional research on cultural displacement and preservation. To better serve and preserve Black D.C. communities, District leaders must prioritize swift, effective solutions in Ward 8.Item Open Access Condoms and Consent: Exploring the Relationship Between Sexual Health and Sexual Violence on College Campuses(2017-04-29) Weisman, IlanaCollege campuses are ripe for investigation about sexual health and sexual violence: students know very little about sexual health and routinely engage in risky sexual behaviors, and one in four women will experience sexual violence while a student. However, if better sexual health leads to increased women’s agency and self-determination, and if sexual violence stems from socialized power dynamics that diminish self-determination, then it follows that increased sexual health should at least correlate with, if not cause, reduced levels of sexual violence. Fittingly, this thesis questions if increased sexual health associates with reduced sexual violence on college campuses. To investigate this connection, I analyze 59 members of the American Association of Universities by compiling data about their sexual health promotion, sexual violence prevention, and medical resources, as well as their Clery Act Compliant reported rates of sexual violence. I use a statistical approach to draw correlations and posit relationships between indicators of a campus’s sexual health and its reported rates of sexual violence, which I discuss alongside the phenomenon of underreporting sexual violence. This thesis will culminate by providing policy recommendations to universities on how to better their sexual health promotion and sexual violence prevention efforts, as well as to the federal government on how to reform the Clery Act sex crime reporting process to make Clery reports a stronger gauge of campus sexual violence.Item Open Access Lettuce Improve School Nutrition: Best Practices and Key Impacts of the USDA Farm to School Grant Program(2017-04-11) Wien, KaseyAs national and global food systems have industrialized over the last several decades, many children no longer know where food comes from, how to prepare and cook it, or why some foods are healthier than others. American eating and exercise habits have actually resulted in children today having shorter life expectancies than their parents, for the first time in recent history. To address this issue, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) established the Farm to School Program (F2S) in 2010, as part of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA). The USDA F2S Program provides grants to school districts around the country, which have allowed for the implementation of programs that educate students about food, gardening, and nutrition, and introduce more fresh fruits and vegetables into school meals. This study investigates whether the USDA F2S Grant Program effectively empowers schools to increase the impact of existing F2S programming on students and communities. This is a qualitative analysis using interviews with F2S Coordinators, Food/Nutrition Services directors, and teachers from 13 school districts nationwide. It illustrates the wide variety of activities that students experience as a result of their school district’s F2S grant, such as nutrition and garden lessons, field trips to farms, cooking competitions, and partnerships with farmers’ markets, to name a few. The interviews reveal several positive impacts on students’ knowledge of food, gardening, and nutrition; willingness to try healthy foods; enjoyment of school; and food security. This research provides substantial evidence that the USDA F2S Grant Program allows schools to scale up F2S programming and increase their impact. In order for F2S to be part of the majority of American children’s education, the federal government needs to allocate more funding toward this program and others like it.Item Open Access Protecting and Serving: What Actually Matters to Young, Black Men in Durham, North Carolina(2021) Clemmons, Ajenai ShareeceYoung Black men in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty and intensive policing have a greater risk of violent death—both at the hands of civilians and police—than any other demographic group in the United States. Yet, there is a dearth of academic research that examines safety and what constitutes legitimate policing from this demographic’s perspective. In this dissertation, I conduct two-hour qualitative interviews of 21 young Black men living in Durham, NC to examine how they assess police and their desired police reforms. Chapters focus on participants’ (1) criteria for judging how well police are doing; (2) ideal attributes of officers well-suited to carry out their vision of policing; and (3) standards for building and maintain trust. I find that participants are principally concerned with the unpredictable nature of policing. Their reforms center on forging a police force that is predictable and reliable, and whose actions reflect a government contract they are owed as American citizens and, more importantly, human beings. Findings enrich our theoretical understanding of what this population believes would need to change to ensure their communities are and feel safe. Each substantive chapter concludes with policy recommendations for police departments and municipal leaders.
Item Open Access Racial Framing and Public Support for Ex-Felon Disenfranchisement(2016-11-08) Pelle, MichaelIt is well documented that framing certain race-neutral policies, such as the death penalty, voter ID laws, and three-strikes laws, in terms of race can increase whites’ support for those laws. This study utilized a survey-based experiment to explore the impact of racial framing on voters’ support for repealing ex-felon disenfranchisement statutes. White respondents who were told that felon disenfranchisement disproportionately affects blacks were less supportive of restoring felons’ voting rights than were those given no racial frame. This impact was concentrated among white Republicans, and the racial frame had a minimal impact on white Democrats’ responses to the question. The survey also asked respondents for their opinions about restoring both felons’ voting rights and firearm rights. The difference between the control and experimental groups’ responses to this question was greater than the difference between the two groups’ responses to the question about voting rights alone. Republicans and Democrats responded similarly, with both expressing lesser support for restoring felons’ voting and gun rights when the issue was racially framed. Racial threat theory and negative attitudes about blacks help explain why whites became less supportive of ex-felon rights restoration when told that the issue disproportionately affects blacks. The survey also polled blacks, but the frame had a minimal impact on their opinions.Item Open Access Setting the Standard: Meeting the Needs of Sex Trafficked Black Girls in the State of California(2023-05-03) Battle, GabrielleThe sex trafficking industry has become glamorized in recent years, with films like the movie Taken (2008) shaping America's perception of the industry. The film portrays an upper-middle class White teenage girl's abduction by a sex trafficking ring during a trip to Paris. Films like these do not accurately depict the everyday experiences of trafficking victims and do not properly highlight how poverty, racism, and emotional abuse are oftentimes the leading factors that make girls vulnerable to sex trafficking. Due to systemic racism, intersecting layers of oppression, and cultural bias, Black girls are disproportionately affected by domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST) in the United States. In this thesis, I will examine California’s service provision for victims of domestic minor sex trafficking. I seek to answer the question: How can California best meet the service provision needs of Black girls affected by DMST? My thesis utilizes scholarly literature to inform a framework for understanding the needs of trafficked Black girls. Using insights from scholarly literature and drawing original qualitative data from interviews with experts working in the DMST space, I explore the ways in which California can best meet Black girl’s service provision needs. Both my literature review and expert interviews grounded my policy recommendation aimed at promoting stronger service provision for Black girls.Item Open Access The Politics of Affirmative Action in North Carolina's Higher Education(2021-12-03) Melatti, KyleRace-based affirmative action has been under threat for the past several decades since its rise during the middle of the 20th century. As several Supreme Court cases have upheld and rebuked certain elements of race-conscious admissions, some states have even gone as far as to ban affirmative action in their public universities entirely. In 2003, the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger decided that race-based admissions would no longer be necessary after 25 years. While making this bold assertion, the Court left several questions open. For example, what would no longer needing affirmative action look like? This thesis examines the issue of race-based affirmative action by asking whether or not the admissions process at public and private universities is insulated from external influences. This “politics” of affirmative action potentially shows that race-conscious admissions is under attack not due to grave constitutional violations, but rather a mixture of federal, state, and local prejudice and diminishing public support. This thesis looks at North Carolina and adds to existing literature by using time-series regression of 39 public and private universities and difference-in-difference modeling on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after its major 2014 federal lawsuit, Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC. Findings indicate that private universities outperformed public universities in affirmative action outcomes between 1994 and 2020. This thesis argues the difference stems from politics. Results regarding the impact of the 2014 lawsuit remain inconclusive.Item Open Access The Pro-Choice Republican's Political Right to Life(2016-02-01) Bender, SarahAbortion has evolved into a highly partisan issue that now defines both the Republican and Democratic parties. Though it remains a salient political issue, it is unclear how abortion affects vote choice in contemporary elections. This thesis examines the relationship between state legislative candidates’ abortion positions and their electoral outcomes. Specifically, it examines whether candidates who deviate from their national political party’s abortion position – pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats – have better or worse electoral outcomes than those who do not. Using data from the 2012 and 2014 National Candidate Studies (n = 1,907; 1,869), I constructed a series of multiple logistic regression models to determine how candidates’ abortion beliefs impacted their electoral outcomes at both the primary and general election levels for those years. I also interviewed a number of relevant political actors in order to better understand and contextualize my quantitative analysis. Though the regression results were somewhat inconsistent, my findings indicated that abortion does have some effect on vote choice, particularly at the primary level. These results suggest that candidates who deviate from their national party’s abortion position are somewhat less likely to be elected.Item Open Access The Socioeconomic Influence on Duke Students' Perspectives of Law Enforcement(2017-05-12) McMorrow, MaddiePast research concludes that race affects people’s perspectives of the police as defined by their perceived fairness, trust, and confidence in law enforcement in which blacks tend to have more negative perceptions of the police than whites. This study surveyed Duke University students to determine whether family income within different racial groups leads to varying opinions about their home state police, Durham police, and Duke police. The population of this study was undergraduate Duke University students. I hypothesized that as family income rises, Duke students will have more positive views of home state, Durham, and Duke police. In addition, I predicted that within the negative opinions of the police, the nature of these negative feelings will vary between white and black Duke students. For example, white students will see the police as an annoying disruption to their daily life whereas black students will see the police as a more significant threat to their safety. Findings confirm that race is the largest predictor when determining one’s perspective of the police. Within racial groups, for black Duke students, as income rises, one’s perspective becomes more positive of the police in all regards of trust, confidence, and perceived fairness. However, income appears to play less of a role in white students’ perspectives of law enforcement. Finally, the survey results showed that as one evaluated more local types of police – from home state, to Durham, to Duke police – one’s perspective became more positive. Thus, the Duke police force had the greatest satisfaction rates for all students, regardless of race. I offer recommendations to law enforcement departments based on my results.Item Open Access Transit Deserts in Durham, North Carolina and Opportunities for Increased Transit Service(2021-04-27) Rochelle, PatrickFor this project, the author developed a transit equity index on behalf of GoDurham, the local transit agency in Durham County, and used it to identify transit deserts. In this study, the transit equity index was a tool used to measure the quantity (or supply) of transit service across the county and helped identify what census tracts may benefit from greater service. The author used the transit equity index to answer the following question: Are there “transit deserts” in Durham County and what should GoDurham do to provide better service to those areas in the future?Item Open Access Understanding class stratification and inequality through the Greek social system at Duke University(2020-05) Brilhart, KayleeThe purpose of this thesis is to show that the Greek social system at an elite university is based upon a social class hierarchy and attempt to explain how this class-based system is enforced and perpetuated by students across social classes to maintain class stratification on campus. Through surveys of students in historically white sororities and low-incomes students at Duke University, this thesis finds that the interplay of Greek membership and social class influence the formation of economically homogenous friend groups. Selective inclusion processes, mainly through dirty rush, by high-status, historically white sororities are used to differentially place middle- and high-income students within the Greek social system while self-exclusion by low-incomes students, due to their negative feelings towards Greek life, places them out of the system before they could potentially be excluded from or given a lower place in it by higher-income groups. These two processes prevent the integration of social classes, resulting in the formation of economically homogenous friend groups among both high-income and low-income students, maintaining class stratification and inequality on campus.