Author Archives: Irfan Khawaja

The Fourth Amendment, Policing, and Pedagogy

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I’m in the middle of working through Akhil Reed Amar’s The Constitution and Criminal Procedure in my Phil/Crim 380 class (“Philosophical Issues in Criminal Justice”), and am also in the middle of planning the second event in Felician University’s “Race and Criminal Justice in America” series. The event is tentatively called “Search, Seizure, Stop, and Frisk: Two Perspectives,” and the idea is to invite a defense attorney and a police officer to share the stage while answering questions on Fourth Amendment rights and contemporary police work. More on that as I firm up the details.

In any case, I’ve got the Fourth Amendment and policing on my mind. To that end, I thought I’d post and invite comments on a paper that I presented back in 2012 at a conference for the Association for Core Texts and Courses, “The Fourth Amendment as a Core Text: A Pedagogy for the Citizen-Philosopher.” The more I think about it, the more I agree with what I wrote in the paper–always the right time to ask whether I’ve gotten anything wrong. Which is where you come in, reader. Feel free to search, seize, stop, and/or frisk the text. Hope you find it arresting.  Continue reading →

Some Questions for Professor Denbeaux

Posted on by under Uncategorized

As readers of this blog have probably figured out by now, I’m organizing an event this Tuesday at Felician University regarding racial profiling by the Police Department and Municipal Court in Bloomfield, New Jersey.* The claim alleging racial profiling has been made by Professor Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University Law School, who’s the featured speaker at the event. (I invited the mayor of Bloomfield, Michael Venezia, to send a representative from municipal government, but he declined the invitation himself and declined to send a representative. I also asked the Police Director through the Community Policing Unit, but never heard back; asked one member of the Town Council, who eventually declined; and asked one member of the Bloomfield Civic and Human Rights Commission, who also declined.)

As I’ve said several times before, I’ve taken no public stand on the findings of the report. Neither has Felician University and neither have any of the sponsors of the event.** In fact, I don’t have a stand to take, publicly or privately. Mostly I have a bunch of questions. As the discussant/moderator of the event, I have the prerogative of setting the agenda for the discussion period following the talk, but there’s no reason to think that the discussion will revolve around my questions in particular. So I thought I’d throw them out there on the blog, as food for thought, and as some rough indication of what we might discuss at the event itself. I may add a few questions if I think of any later. Feel free to come up with some of your own in the combox.  Continue reading →

“Racial Profiling in Bloomfield? A Discussion” (Note Change of Time)

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Just a reminder of the kick-off event for the “Race and Criminal Justice in America” series taking place at Felician University. Please note that the event is now scheduled for 6:30 pm rather than 6 pm.

Felician University’s Committee on Leadership and Social Justice Presents

RACIAL PROFILING IN BLOOMFIELD?
A DISCUSSION

DISCUSSANTS:

Professor Mark Denbeaux, Professor of Law, Seton Hall University Law School, and Primary Author, “Racial Profiling Report: Bloomfield Police Department and Bloomfield Municipal Court” (April 2016).

Dr. Irfan Khawaja, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Co-Chair, Committee on Leadership and Social Justice, Felician University

Tuesday, September 27, 2016, 6:30 pm (note time change)
103 Education Commons Building
Felician University’s Rutherford Campus
223 Montross Ave., Rutherford, New Jersey 07070

The event is free and open to the public. Continue reading →

9/11 + 15: Ten Lessons (Updated)

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I post this every year around 9/11, so here it is again. Highly recommended reading: Steven Brill’s “Is America Any Safer?” The Atlantic (Sept 2016). Though it isn’t up yet, Chris Sciabarra’s annual 9/11 series is always worth reading and should be up soon. Point (3) below connects with Michael Young’s recent post on coercion. 

We’re just a few days away from the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned from the last decade and a half of perpetual warfare. I offer them somewhat dogmatically, as a mere laundry list (mostly) minus examples to illustrate what I’m saying. But I have a feeling that the lessons will ring true enough for many people, and that most readers can supply appropriate examples of their own. Continue reading →

No, You May Not Have Any More

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I spent the afternoon yesterday trawling JSTOR and EBSCO for articles. There is–and you’ll have to trust me on this–nothing more enjoyable than an afternoon spent in the library, skimming through scholarship that was being published when you were in grade school.

I couldn’t help chuckling over the sheer curmudgeonliness of this item, a critique of E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class:

Dale Edward Williams, “Were ‘Hunger’ Rioters Really Hungry? Some Demographic Evidence,” Past and Present, vol. 71 (May 1976), 70-75.

Have scare quotes ever been so dismissive? The thesis, apparently, is “not really.” At any rate, they could have been hungrier.

Felician University Event: “Race and Criminal Justice in America” (Note time change)

Posted on by under Uncategorized

(Note the change in the time of the event to 6:30 pm.) 

I’m the co-chair, with Dr. Edward Ogle, of Felician University’s Committee on Leadership and Social Justice (CLSJ). Our theme this year is “Race and Criminal Justice in America,” and I’m pleased to be able to announce our kick-off event: a presentation by Professor Mark Denbeaux, of Seton Hall University Law School, on his recent co-authored study of racial profiling in Bloomfield, New Jersey (“Racial Profiling Report: Bloomfield Police and Bloomfield Municipal Court“).

The event will take place at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, September 27, 2016 in the Education Commons Building at Felician University’s Rutherford, New Jersey campus (223 Montross Ave, Rutherford NJ, 07070). I will serve as discussant; all are invited and welcome. (Note: Felician University’s sponsoring the event does not necessarily imply agreement with the contents of the Seton Hall Report, or with Professor Denbeaux’s views).

The CLSJ had originally conceived of the event as a debate between Professor Denbeaux and a representative from Bloomfield Municipal Government, but unfortunately, despite a summer’s worth of invitations to Bloomfield (several invitations each to the mayor’s office, to the Police Department, and to Councilwoman Wartyna Davis), Bloomfield has not only declined our invitation but declined to acknowledge it altogether. (If any relevant party in Bloomfield government sees this, and thinks that I’ve been too hasty in making the preceding claim, feel free to contact me at khawajai at felician dot edu. I’m still open to participation by a representative of Bloomfield Township, but the date and time of the event should now be considered fixed.)

Here’s a video based on Denbeaux’s report, from Vice News. 

And here’s another video, an out-take from the first one, that opens in a new window. Here’s some press coverage of the report, from NJ.com. Some more, more, more, more, and yet more. (And one more, for good measure.) I neither fully agree nor disagree with Denbeaux’s report, and hope to blog it–as well as Bloomfield’s refusal to acknowledge my invitation–in the near future.

Postscript, September 1, 2016. Belatedly discovered this NPR interview with Professor Denbeaux. Hat-tip: George Abaunza.

Postscript, September 19, 2016: The time of the event has been changed from 6 to 6:30 pm.

Stun Grenades, Philosophy, Hilarity: Ringside at a Riot in Palestine

Posted on by under Uncategorized

I’m sitting in the common room on the eighth floor of Al Abraj Housing Complex in Abu Dis, having a conversation with a friend, when we hear a loud boom.

“What was that?” he asks. He’s a newcomer.

“I have to get a closer listen.” I go to the balcony, and cock my ear in the direction of the booms.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

“I don’t think that’s firecrackers,” he says.

“Neither do I,” I respond.

BOOM.

“Definitely not,” I confirm. “Today is Friday, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s Friday Clashes in Abu Dis. You want to go?”

He looks at me. There’s a slight tinge of apprehension on his face. “No,” he says, at last. He’s a newcomer, after all.

“OK,” I say, brightly. “Well, I’m off.” Continue reading →

Theory and Practice

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Snippet of a classroom discussion at Al Quds University on chapter 2 of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.”

Khawaja: So are there any topics that are taboo in Palestinian society, that people refuse to discuss?

Student: Yes, but there really shouldn’t be such topics. We should be able to discuss anything.

Khawaja: I see. But unfortunately, there are such topics?

Student: Yes, there are, like homosexuality and gay rights. These are topics that need discussion, but in our society, people act as though they can’t be discussed.

Khawaja: So what would you want to say on that topic?

Student: I’d prefer not to discuss it.