The World and Everything in It: July 4, 2023

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I'm Joe Borecki. I help care for yards in Medford, Oregon. For introducing me to WORLD in 2020, I'd like to wish a happy milestone birthday to my friend, girlfriend, fiance, and wife. Happy birthday, Marin. And you too, America! I hope you enjoy today's program.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! The Supreme Court finds affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional, but what does that mean in practice?

You're probably gonna have plaintiffs, saying that university was putting way too much weight on life experiences and not enough on raw academic indicators.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, the CDC is raising the alarm over a fungus spreading in healthcare facilities. How serious is it?

Plus, WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month for July, Chaim Potok’s novel The Chosen brings us America’s pastime with a twist.

‘Strike three, you’re out!’ ‘Yeah! One more just like that, Davey.’ ‘No batter.’ ‘Easy out, easy out.’

And celebrating true freedom on Independence Day.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, the Fourth of July. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel/West Bank » Israeli soldiers launched tear gas canisters in the West Bank Monday as Palestinian rioters hurled rocks at passing military vehicles.

That came after Israel’s military launched its most intense operation in the West Bank in nearly two decades carrying out a series of drone strikes and sending hundreds of troops into a militant stronghold.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen:

COHEN: We don't have a fight with the Palestinians, actually our fight is with the proxies of Iran in our region, which is mainly with the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.

The crackdown on the Jenin refugee camp follows a series of attacks on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas condemned the raid.

ABBAS: [Speaking Arabic]

He called on the international community to “provide urgent protection to our people and to impose sanctions on” Israel.

At least eight Palestinians were killed in the raid.

Harvard » Activists are challenging legacy admissions… after the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action programs. WORLD’s Josh Schumacher has more.

JOSH SCHUMACHER: Some members of Congress are calling for an end to legacy admissions following the Court’s ruling last week that schools could not use race as a factor in admissions.

A nonprofit legal group filed a complaint yesterday saying that Harvard’s policy unfairly benefits some applicants.

In legacy admissions schools give priority to the children of alumni.

According to Harvard’s data, legacy status makes a student six times more likely to be admitted.

For WORLD, I’m Josh Schumacher.

Holiday Weather » Severe weather is threatening to wash out July 4th celebrations in some parts of the country.

John Weiss with the National Weather Service:

WEISS: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, kind of in that stretch of the Central Plains through the upper Midwest has the greatest risk for July 4th.

Meantime, officials in Western states fear that a rouge spark from fireworks today could ignite a wildfire after weeks of drought.

Oil » You might have noticed that prices at the pump have not risen sharply as many expected at the start of the summer. But major oil-producing countries are hoping to change that.

Saudi Arabia and Russia say they’ll extend July oil cuts of a million barrels a day and a half-million barrels a day, respectively through the end of August.

For the moment, gas prices are actually lower than they were one month ago. The national average is down 2 cents to $3.54 per gallon.

Pentagon Hollywood censorship » Pentagon experts will no longer work with Hollywood studios that cave in to censorship demands from Beijing. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has more.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: China has become a multi-billion-dollar-a-year market for Hollywood.

But the Chinese Communist Party regularly censors American films that don’t parrot pro-China propaganda.

And a leaked document from the Department of Defense says its consultants will no longer work on films that comply with those censorship demands.

For example: The makers of Top Gun: Maverick agreed to remove the Japanese and Taiwanese flags from Maverick’s jacket to secure a China release.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz included the Pentagon policy change in the annual National Defense Authorization Act.

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

California worker strike » Thousands of unionized hotel workers in California and Arizona are on strike today as the summer tourism season ramps up.

They’re demanding higher pay and better benefits.

Union organizer Maria Hernandez:

MARIA HERNANDEZ: The biggest thing folks are fighting for are fair wages to help keep up with the rising cost of housing. More and more, we’re seeing hotel workers having to move farther and farther out to commute into the city.

Contracts expired on Friday at more than 60 hotels.

The strike affects about 16,000 workers.

I’m Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: Education after affirmative action. Plus, July’s Classic Book of the Month.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the fourth of July, 2023.

You’re listening to WORLD Radio and we’re glad to have you along today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It: education after affirmative action. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that considering race as one of many factors in college admissions violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

What was the basis for that decision? And what will colleges and universities do as they go forward? WORLD legal correspondent Jenny Rough brings us a report.

JENNY ROUGH, REPORTER: At the University of North Carolina, spring semester wrapped up at the end of April. But in late May, plenty of students still rushed around campus for summer classes. Like Naveen.

NAVEEN: Race seems to be a lot more kind of like color-based: white, black, brown.

Naveen grew up in Chicago, but his family is originally from India. According to the United Nations’ recent estimate, India has surpassed China as the most populous country in the world with over 1.4 billion people. Yet when Naveen applied to UNC, he couldn’t find a precise box to check in the race and ethnicity categories.

NAVEEN: I don't ever really see just Indian American as an option.

Naveen lumped himself into the Asian category.

NAVEEN: But I don't think that's typically how it's framed. I think usually when people think of Asian, they think of East Asian.

Another student who walked by also struggles with race and ethnic categories on application forms. He’s Arab.

STUDENT: Well, it will say, what's your race? And I'll put white. And then what's your ethnicity? And I'll try to put Middle Eastern because they don't have North African, so I have to put Middle Eastern. It's the closest thing.

The University of North Carolina collects this data because it takes race into consideration when deciding who to admit. So does Harvard College. But the organization Students for Fair Admissions sued both schools. It argued that UNC’s policy violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. And that Harvard’s policy violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That prohibits race discrimination and applies to private schools that receive federal funds.

In a decision handed down last Thursday, the Supreme Court agreed with Students for Fair Admissions, and dismantled race-conscious admissions policies. One reason centered precisely on the conundrum the students mentioned: the classifications can be inaccurate.

MCDONALD: It’s all a big continuum. You know, it's just a big sort of blending of DNA.

Barry McDonald is a Supreme Court expert and Constitutional Law professor at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law.

And to say that somebody's black, somebody's brown, somebody's white, somebody's Asian, you know, it's maybe generally true, but at the margins, it just gets very fuzzy and blurry.

The battle of how to handle racial preferences in college admissions has been playing out in the courts for almost 50 years. McDonald says proponents of affirmative action argue that racial preferences have benign motives.

BARRY MCDONALD: They're not designed to put burdens on people. They're designed to rectify past wrongs.

UNC is the first public university in the nation. It was established in 1789. But it excluded black students until 1951. Harvard opened in 1636. It admitted black students starting in the mid-1800s, but only a few until the 1970s.

Those who oppose affirmative action say even with good intentions—

MCDONALD: They can have damaging consequences, like institutionalizing stereotypes that minorities can't succeed on their own, and breeding resentment by the majority white population.

To determine whether a race-conscious admissions program passes constitutional muster, the court applies a test known as strict scrutiny. The schools must have a narrowly tailored process that furthers a compelling governmental interest. Here, the court said diversity as a goal is laudable, but it’s too abstract.

MCDONALD: We don't think these amorphous sort of concepts of preparing leaders for a racially diverse workforce are legitimate goals. We can't measure them. We don't even know what that means.

The court went on to say racial diversity in the classroom doesn’t further a compelling interest. Rather...

MCDONALD: It's just based on the notion of sort of stereotypes that if you bring more races together, you'll get a more diverse range of viewpoints. And he says that stereotyping people on the basis of their skin color.

The court also said for an affirmative action program to be narrowly tailored, it must have an endpoint. The 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger centered on a similar program at the University of Michigan Law School. Back then, the court predicted that the use of racial preferences would no longer be necessary in 25 years. That would be 2028. But so far, UNC and Harvard have vaguely indicated they’ll end their programs once diversity is achieved. Not good enough for the court.

Even so, the recent court decision left the door open for universities to consider an applicant’s discussion about how race affected his or her life.

MCDONALD: You can't take into account the person's race, but you can take into account the person's racial story.

So how exactly will that work?

McDonald suspects high school guidance counselors will encourage students to write essays talking about their racial and ethnic experiences, such as obstacles they’ve personally overcome. Schools will also take into account non-explicit racial factors.

MCDONALD: Socioeconomic indicators, cultural indicators, geographic indicators.

He foresees more litigation in years to come.

MCDONALD: You're probably going have plaintiffs, white plaintiffs or Asian plaintiffs, coming in and saying that university was putting way too much weight on life experiences and not enough on raw academic indicators.

The court’s decision here doesn’t go against public opinion. Polls indicate about 70 percent of Americans oppose affirmative action on fairness grounds. At the University of North Carolina, the students I talked with were about 50-50 for or against. But all of them hoped to get more out of college than simply acquiring a knowledge base. They seemed hungry for relationships, including ones with others who have different backgrounds, ancestry, and cultures. And they seemed confident the educators would find a way to make it all happen.

STUDENT 2: There is a world where that diversity that you were mentioning earlier, as well as this academic merit, can be upheld.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: A new threat in American health facilities.

From mushrooms to yeast, fungus is everywhere and generally nothing to worry about. But a fungus in the yeast family that’s now spreading across the U.S. is causing concern among health officials.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Back in June, the Wall Street Journal reported what’s causing that concern: infections from Candida auris. The CDC says that it’s “a serious health threat in part because the fungus is resistant to many antifungal drugs.” 

So, how bad is it? WORLD’s Mary Muncy has the story

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Hospitals across the U.S. are learning how to screen for the multi-drug resistant fungus Candida auris, or C. auris.

ALABAMA REGIONAL CENTER WEBINAR: There are key things that we can do to stop the spread.

CDC WEBINAR: Today’s webinar is going to delve into the basics of what we call colonization screening.

JEMS: So who is at risk for contracting this infection?

C. auris was first identified in Japan in 2009. That particular strain, or clade, was mostly found in people’s ears—hence “auris.” Since then, clades have been identified in at least 30 countries.

This is Meghan Lyman, a medical officer in the CDC’s mycotic diseases branch.

MEGHAN LYMAN: And those were likely introduced from other countries, you know, likely through patients who were colonized and came here. But it's interesting that they all seem to kind of arise at the same time in different parts of the world and then get introduced around the same time here in the U.S.

The first cases weren’t found in the U.S. until 2016. Now, there are three main areas where C. auris is found: the Northeast, the Midwest, and the Southwest coast.

Earlier this year, the CDC reported over two thousand clinical cases of C. auris infections in 2022. That seems like a small number in a country of almost 350 million, but because the fungus is often resistant to standard treatments and is invisible to the naked eye, it is a growing concern.

For the most part, C. auris stays on someone’s skin—outside their body those people are considered colonized, not infected, and don’t have symptoms. They likely won’t even know they have it.

LYMAN: We find that like five to ten percent of colonized individuals will develop invasive infections.

C. auris can infect anyone, but it mostly affects people recovering from a procedure that addresses a severe or dangerous condition. For example, a patient who is on a ventilator or has another invasive medical device.

Infection symptoms can range from fever, chills, and sweats, to low blood pressure—the common signs of any type of infection.

LYMAN: There are no specific signs and symptoms for Candida auris. It's similar to other bacteria and fungi, and really depends on the body site that's infected.

This particular fungus is resistant to what Lyman calls the “first line” antifungals.

So what makes C. auris dangerous is not diagnosing it early and prescribing the right antifungal.

Lyman says a few rare cases have been resistant to all three major classes of antifungals.

She says there hasn’t been much study into whether antifungals will also decolonize someone. So while antifungals may kill an infection, the fungus may still be on a patient’s skin, putting them at a high risk of reinfection.

LYMAN: So right now, our only method is for them to not become colonized. So doing as much as we can to prevent that and ultimately prevent them or anyone else they could spread it to from developing an infection is the ultimate goal, but the speed that it spreads makes that really challenging.

If someone is infected, officials put the mortality rate anywhere from 30 to 60 percent.

The wide range is because it’s typically not affecting healthy people, so it’s hard to tell what caused a patient’s death. Was it really the fungus? Or was it actually the medical condition that made them vulnerable in the first place? Or some combination of the two?

Another pressing question is why the fungus is spreading now.

Lyman thinks the spread in healthcare facilities has to do with infection control and the quick identification of cases.

LYMAN: The timing of this increase, and, you know, some findings from our public health investigations, also make us think that the spread of C. auris may have worsened due to the strain on, you know, health care and public health systems during the COVID pandemic just because there were you know staffing shortages, increased patient burden and severity, changes in patient movement patterns and you know, a focus on COVID so perhaps worse infection control for non-covid reasons.

C. auris likes hot, salty environments—like human skin and then sheds onto other things to spread. So, one of the best ways to prevent the spread is to clean surfaces with a bleach-based cleaner.

LYMAN: It's tough, because you know, you can't see it. And so doing thorough cleaning is—can be really challenging, but it's really, really important to prevent the spread.

As of December 2022, 29 states had told the CDC that they detected C. auris.

Dr. Ihsan Azzam is the chief medical officer for the state of Nevada.

IHSAN AZZAM: I would say really, that Candida auris is everywhere in healthcare facilities. And it's either unreported or undetected, because it is there. And it's really difficult to get rid of.

Nevada has reported the highest number of clinical cases. Azzam says that if you’re looking for it, you’ll find it.

AZZAM: It is not a bad thing that our facilities were able to detect it. And we are following it, and actually taking precautions I hope I can say, to eliminate it. But I don’t think we can. Just hopefully we can reduce the spread and control it.

So if controlling the spread of this fungus is the best we can hope for right now, is it something we should be worried about?

For healthy people with no immune system concerns or invasive surgeries on the horizon, the answer is no. But for those with family members who may be at risk, C. auris could enter the bloodstream or internal organs and cause an infection. For them, a C. auris infection could lead to medical complications or even death.

So the best things to do are be aware of where in the country the fungus is spreading, get tested if it’s near you, and take some extra precautions like gloves and gowns. And, as always, wash your hands.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: On this Fourth of July, a lot of people are just looking for a fun place to chill out. Emphasis on chill: Something cool, like a water park or pool.

AUDIO: [HYENA SWIMMING]

But I’m guessing you won’t see anything like what you’re hearing.

A woman posted this video last week from South Africa’s Kruger National Park. And it’s a little hard to make out, but the splashing is a swimming hyena.

It’s not uncommon for hyenas to swim. But they’re primarily land animals.

This particular one, though, has taken things to the NEXT LEVEL. He’s doing a backstroke as far as I can tell. Impressive.

MARY REICHARD: There’s always a show-off at the pool.

EICHER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, the 4th of July. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: WORLD’s Classic Book of the Month.

Today, a novel that starts with a clash between two very different Jewish communities.

AUDIO: Get a load of them.

And it leads to an unlikely friendship. The classic book for July is The Chosen. The author is Chaim Potok, and WORLD’s book reviewer is Emily Whitten.

MOVIE CLIP: I doubt if Danny Saunders and I would ever have met if it had not been for World War II and the desire to show Americans we were as physically fit as any other American. We would prove this by playing tough games of American baseball.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: That’s a clip from the 1981 movie adaptation of Chaim Potok’s novel, The Chosen. The book opens in 1944—the height of World War II. It follows two Jewish American families through the post-war period and the creation of modern Israel. We first meet the book’s narrator, Reuven Malter, at a baseball game in the Bronx.

AUDIO: [Baseball sounds]

Even though he’s an orthodox Jew, Reuven has no contact with the nearby Hasidic Jewish community. That is, until that baseball game when he meets Danny Saunders.

MOVIE CLIP: ‘Strike three, you’re out!’ ‘Yeah! One more just like that, Davey.’ ‘No batter.’ ‘Easy out, easy out.’ 

The rest of the book traces Reuven’s and Danny’s friendship, including numerous conflicts between their different Jewish cultures and the modern world.

When Potok published his novel in 1967, it spent 39 weeks as a New York Times bestseller and in 1968, it won the National Book Award. Back then, Americans were reeling from political violence at home and abroad, and many embraced this quiet story of cross-cultural friendship.

WORLD News Coach Kelsey Reed says its themes remain relevant today.

REED: He's not only asking the questions that we need to be asking, he's also hitting on themes that are very different than the way we might write them, but help us to stretch our thinking further, like redemptive themes, incarnational themes.

In terms of Potok’s writing style, Reed says the visuals of that first baseball scene really drew her in.

REED: I found Potok to be very visually compelling.  I just had a sense exactly of what that experience was that he was describing as Danny's team was in opposition to Rueven’s team. And just the very different cultural backgrounds, even between those two teams. I could see it in my mind's eye. And I could envision exactly what was going on.

Potok himself grew up as an orthodox Jew in New York, so while his characters aren’t real people, he certainly drew on personal experience. Like Danny, Potok used to slip away to the library to read fiction he couldn’t read at home, devouring books like Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. This soon caused friction with Potok’s rabbis. He explains in a John Adams Institute interview from 1989.

POTOK: He sensed that I had somehow made contact with the general civilization in which all of us live our lives today and to which all of us contribute our best energies. [cut words and begin again at 31:18] And in so far as my Talmud teacher was concerned, any contact with that civilization was inimical, adversary to what he took to be the nature of my small and particular world, the Jewish tradition.

In The Chosen, Danny’s crisis of identity is brought about by reading Freud. And many Christian parents today will relate to that kind of culture clash.

REED: The library was to Danny what smart phones are to the Christian teenager. There were so many books there that opened the world to different thinking outside of that orthodox belief set that his dad had sought to instill in him. 

Eventually, Danny and Reuven go to college together, but while they’re hard at work, unfolding events in Israel cause an even bigger rift between their fathers. The question presses in, can their friendship survive such grave political and cultural division?

REED: He provides an insight into a culture that is completely alien from my own and shows me they're not so different from me. And they're dealing with the same core struggles, in terms of those core struggles that they deal with their conservative orthodox culture, confronted by and put into juxtaposition with modern secular culture.

Except for a few instances of bad language including use of God’s name in vain, this is a clean, thought-provoking story of ideas. These families remind me of my own conservative, Christian community in many ways, but they also vainly seek—as Paul put it—to establish their own righteousness apart from Christ. Still, Christian readers who look closely here can see shadows of Jesus, the true Chosen One.

REED: Danny needs somebody to be with him. And Reuven ends up being that friend that is closer than a brother, you know, there's something of the nature of their friendship that reminds us of things that we understand about who Jesus is. So Reuven ends up being a redemptive presence in Danny’s life.

I’m Emily Whitten.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, July 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: WORLD Commentator Steve West on the current state of American liberty, and God’s amazing faithfulness in a fallen world.

STEVE WEST, COMMENTATOR: Like many Americans, this Independence Day may find you having a backyard bar-b-que, enjoying fireworks, or simply enjoying a day at the pool or beach. Yet we might also take time to contemplate the promise and peril of American liberty and our place, as citizens of another Kingdom, in a world in rebellion.

We rightly celebrate the vestiges of ordered liberty that our country’s Founders wrote into our Constitution and which was carried forward in the Bill of Rights. As recently as last week, our Supreme Court confirmed that a web designer like Colorado’s Lorie Smith can now follow her Christian convictions and not be forced to design websites for same-sex weddings. And in another ruling last week the court said employers will have to work harder to accommodate religious workers who object to sabbath work or other workplace requirements. In previous rulings, the court has also moved to ensure that Christian adoption and foster care agencies and religious schools are treated fairly when it comes to governmental benefits and allowed to follow their convictions.

This is a Supreme Court of promise, one that has helped restore First Amendment guarantees to their rightful place as first liberties. And yet there is peril, as we Christians find ourselves estranged from a country and culture that we no longer recognize, one profoundly post-Christian. Some governmental officials seek to shut down speech with which they disagree, and a less religious society often seeks to undermine religious liberty in the face of a push for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Like the Apostle Peter reminds us, we are “aliens and strangers” in the world. Yet rather than lament our immigrant status, alienation, and estrangement, we can embrace it.

Peter tells us in his first epistle to live our “time as foreigners here in reverent fear.” He is saying: Be strange. Be alien. Remember you don’t belong here. Remember your homeland. Remember you are exiles.

Throughout their letters, Paul and Peter call us to non-conformity, to an alien, counter-cultural, even otherworldly life. In God’s Kingdom we don’t celebrate a declaration of independence, but one of dependence. As Christians, our constitution doesn’t begin with “We the people” but with “In the beginning, God.” We live here but our true citizenship lies elsewhere.

Fellow exiles, the Lord directs us as he did the Jews in Babylon to “build houses and settle down,” to work for the good of our place of exile. And in the same way that John 3:16 reminds us that the Father loves the world that He made; we are to love it too.

Even in unsettling and evil times, amongst people in rebellion, He seems to be saying: “Settle down. Commit to the future of life here. Meet your neighbors. Watch the fireworks. Celebrate all that is good about the country where you live. Wait for me. I will deliver you, if not in life, then in death. Much is at stake, much more than you realize, but I will never forsake you.”

Happy Independence Day. May it find you ever more dependent on our gracious Lord.

I’m Steve West

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: House Republicans are trying to find out whether Hunter Biden peddled influence, and whether whatever they find might affect President Biden’s chances at reelection?

And, camp for kids living with disabilities. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: the devil took (Jesus) to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,“‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Matthew 4, verses 8 through 10.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.