Editorial Staff

Human Rights Advocate Kristina Arriaga on Cuba, Religious Liberty, & Cancel Culture

/in , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-hosts Cara Candal and Gerard Robinson talk with Kristina Arriaga, president of Intrinsic, a strategic communications firm, and former vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Kristina shares her family’s experiences fleeing Castro’s communist regime in Cuba and other hardships, and how her background has shaped her commitment to religious liberty. They discuss the current political situation in Cuba, and the lessons American citizens, teachers, and students should learn about communism’s impact on human rights. She shares her work to advance religious freedom as former executive director of The Becket Fund, where she honored courageous Cuban political prisoner Armando Valladares and so many other human rights activists, and through her service on several noted international commissions. Finally, they discuss parallels Kristina highlighted in an October 2020 USA Today op-ed, between cancel culture in America and some of the features of communist Cuba, such as speech codes, political correctness, and social shaming. They delve into why cancel culture is so dangerous to the free exchange of ideas and a healthy civic life, and how parents, teachers, and professors can combat it.

Stories of the Week: The Biden administration is extending the moratorium on federal student loan payments and interest – originally scheduled to expire next month – through early 2022. But exactly who is eligible? The New York Times reports that 340,000 of the one million children who did not report for school during the pandemic were in kindergarten, with the sharpest declines in low-income neighborhoods.

Guest:

Kristina Arriaga is a passionate communicator with a storied life — from orchestrating the rescue of a Cuban woman and her two children, for which she was featured in Vanity Fair and Reader’s Digest, to visiting American Pastor Andrew Brunson in prison in Turkey, attending his judicial hearings in Izmir, and advocating for his release both in Turkey and through the pages of The Wall Street Journal. She is particularly interested in free speech, freedom of religion or belief, and international human rights for girls and women, and has written extensively on all these issues. Her recent USA Today piece on cancel culture went viral and was then censored for sensitive content by Twitter. In 2016, the U.S. Congress appointed her to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she was elected Vice-Chair for two consecutive terms. During her 3-year tenure, she met with high-ranking government officials to advocate for human rights in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Nigeria, Turkey, and many other countries. Before the Commission, Arriaga was a member of the U.S. delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission and the executive director of The Becket Fund, a public interest law firm that defends free expression. During her tenure at the law firm, she oversaw several landmark cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Arriaga is the recipient of the 2017 Newseum Free Expression Award. Other recipients that year were Apple CEO Tim Cook, ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz, and civil rights champion John Lewis. Arriaga is a sought-after speaker and has appeared on BBC, MSNBC, C-Span, CNN, and NPR. Her writing includes op-eds published in USA Today and The Hill, and she has lectured at numerous academic institutions. Kristina has a master’s degree from Georgetown University and is reading for her DPhil at the Oxford Law Faculty at Oxford University.

The next episode will air on Wednesday, August 18th, 2021 at 12 pm ET with guest, Professor E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, and acclaimed author of the books, Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know and How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation.

Tweet of the Week:

News Links:

Student Loan Payment Suspension: What the Extension Means for Borrowers

https://www.wsj.com/articles/student-loan-payment-suspension-what-the-extension-means-for-borrowers-11628594394?mod=searchresults_pos1&page=1

NYT: The Kindergarten Exodus

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/07/us/covid-kindergarten-enrollment.html?smid=tw-share

 

Get new episodes of The Learning Curve in your inbox!

Recent Episodes:

UK’s Laura Thompson on Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime Mystery

In this week's episode of The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Mariam Memarsadeghi and Mary Connaughton interview Laura Thompson, author of "Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life." Ms. Thompson discusses into Agatha Christie's life, her iconic characters, and her impact on the mystery genre, including adaptations of her works in film and theater, as well as her mysterious 1926 disappearance. The interview concludes with a reading from Thompson's biography of Agatha Christie.

John Steele Gordon on America’s Economic Rise

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Derrell Bradford interview John Steele Gordon, the author of 10 books on business, economic, and technology history. They discuss the keys to America’s transformation into the world’s foremost economic power and its economic prospects for competitiveness in the twenty-first century.

Dr. Ramachandra Guha on Gandhi’s Enduring Legacy

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Mariam Memarsadeghi interview writer and biographer Dr. Ramachandra Guha. The author of the definitive two-volume biography of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Guha discusses Gandhi’s formative educational experiences, spirituality, political leadership, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance.

Paul Vallas on Chicago, School Reform, and Teachers’ Unions

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Mary Tamer, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, Massachusetts, speak with Paul Vallas, former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and a candidate for mayor of that city earlier this year.

U-Ark. Prof. Albert Cheng on Classical Education & School Choice

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Alisha Searcy speak with Albert Cheng, an Assistant Professor at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. Professor Cheng talks about the importance of classical education for guiding educational philosophy and practice and shaping the character of students.

Professor Jay Parini on Thirteen Books That Changed America

This week on The Learning Curve, Jay Parini, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College, discusses his book Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, detailing how William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, The Federalist Papers, and the works of Thoreau, Stowe, Twain, Du Bois, and others have shaped the American mind, character, and identity.

Colossal Academy’s Shiren Rattigan on Microschools and School Choice

This week on The Learning Curve, guest co-hosts Charlie Chieppo and Kendra Espinoza interview Shiren Rattigan of Colossal Academy, a microschool in Florida. They discuss how Shiren became interested in K-12 education and how and why the COVID-19 pandemic led to her founding a microschool.

U.K. Cambridge’s Prof. David Abulafia on Oceans, Seas, & Global Trade

This week on The Learning Curve, Professor David Abulafia from Cambridge University discusses the many roles of the world’s oceans in human history and trade. He focuses on how the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, along with the Mediterranean Sea, have spurred the rise of civilizations. He concludes with a reading from his book The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans.

Dr. Peter Wood on Diversity and Anger in America

This week on The Learning Curve, Dr. Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, discusses the invention of the modern concept of diversity, the history of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the concepts of diversity and race in college admissions, and how a culture of anger seems to pervade American life.

UConn’s Prof. Manisha Sinha on The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

This week on The Learning Curve, UConn Professor Manisha Sinha discusses the influential figures and seminal events that created the abolitionist movement. She describes the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and other key moments in the fight to end slavery.