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| The Yale Herald - Roosevelt group seeks big stick in policy processRoosevelt group seeks big stick in policy process A year after its inception, RI aims to impress—and clarify its actual mission. BY MARTHA LEGOCKI At their Mon., Sept. 15 launch event, the Roosevelt Institution (RI) advertised and delivered "a swanky affair." From the delicate hors d'oeuvres at the requisite schmoozing hour to the star-studded lineup of keynote speakers, every bit of the evening smacked of Beltway professionalism. And that's just what the planners wanted. This past February, RI plunged into an already-teeming pool of political groups on the Yale campus, yet it sees its niche as currently unfilled. Unlike debate or activist organizations, RI seeks to produce original research on progressive policy solutions to problems facing Americans today, and to present their findings to members of Congress. The organization currently consists of seven policy centers, their focuses ranging from economics to security and foreign policy. This policy-center structure provides more specialized receptors for students to approach with their ideas. Since its official inception, the Institution has sparked a surprisingly strong following on campuses in all corners of the nation. It already boasts 24 university chapters, including ones at Princeton and Northwestern, and over 100 more in the works. "We've helped hundreds, if not thousands, of students to connect with policy makers," Nate Loewentheil, BK '07, Chief Financial Officer for the Yale chapter, said. With an inaugural national conference last month under its belt, and the first edition of the Roosevelt Review hot off the press, the organization is seeking to turn heads and prove its legitimacy outside of academic spheres. Indeed, appearing legitimate in the eyes of policy makers is one of RI's greatest concerns, since pushing progressive policy in Congress is their ultimate goal. "Universities are effectively already think tanks," Fertik said in his speech at the recent launch event. "They're just not effective think tanks." Jeremy Ershow, SY '06, a member of the Yale College Democrats, agreed that Yale students are endowed with a rich set of resources right at their fingertips. "As someone who worked at a think tank this past summer, I can say that in terms of access to journals, Yale's resources far surpass those of any think tank," he said. RI hopes to harness this distinct research power to create viable policy solutions. In fact, in a video statement at RI's launch event, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, LAW '67, said, "Organizations like the Roosevelt Institution make me optimistic...Too often in Washington, I feel like we're living in an evidence-free zone." She praised the Roosevelt Institution for "providing unblemished facts" in the form of student research, to support various calls for policy reform. Others wonder, however, if RI—as a student group—is setting its sights too high in seeking to substantially affect legislation. "Their significance is not that they are going to be helping Washington politicians come up with new policies," Keith Urbahn, SY '06, a member of the Yale College Republicans and a prominent voice in Yale's conservative student body, said. "Rather, their value is getting college students to discuss these issues." RI's ambition, while impressing many, has created skeptics out of others. "The goals of the Roosevelt Institution seem idealistic to me," Andrew Olson, BR '08, president of the Yale Committee for Freedom, said. To him, the group seems more like a practice ground for its members for future careers as politicians or research academics. "Forget about the Roosevelt Review and going to Capital Hill," Urbahn said. "That's just hubris." RI also seeks to bolster the efforts of campus advocacy groups by offering important research as a foundation for the groups' goals. "Most of these [Yale] groups are engaged in activism, which is different from what we're trying to do," RI co-founder Jesse Wolfson, TD '07, said. "We are putting research issues on the table for activist groups to pick up." Yet so far, student groups have hesitated to accept, perhaps out of a perceived risk that their own aims will be diluted by an institution with as expansive a scope as RI. "When you talk about think tanks, especially those that have a wide-reaching policy campaign, there is always a concern that they might not have reach or depth into any particular issue," Aaron Tang, CC '05, co-founder of Our Education—a group that advocates for better education standards in America initially conceived at Yale—said. RI approached the Yale International Relations Association (YIRA), among other groups, with a proposed collaborative research project, but YIRA ultimately rejected their offer, citing their status as a group for debate rather than generating policy. "YIRA is not only a non-partisan organization, but also doesn't actively advocate a political agenda," David Gershkoff, BR '06, the president of YIRA, said. YIRA's suspicions that RI may not uphold its own standards of non-partisanship echo a larger concern among both group members and outsiders: What does it mean for a non-partisan group to promote "progressive" politics, anyway? To start, the group was born out of frustration over the Republican Party victory in the 2004 election. "It became clear as we watched the presidential debates that nobody knew what either candidate was going to do to accomplish his aims," Fertik said. Seeing the clumsiness of the election as an example of the nation's dire state, Wolfson began scheming for a way to help find a remedy. A chance mutual acquaintance put Wolfson in contact with two Stanford students mirroring his efforts across the country at their own university. The three of them were able to weld their ambitions into a single vision, giving rise to the Roosevelt Institution. The founders intentionally sub-labeled their launch event "Students and a New Progressive Politics," careful not to mention a specific political party. In fact, when one of the guest speakers started his speech by saying, "I want to talk about the Democrats," RI members visibly cringed. But the exact meaning of RI's claim to new "progressivism" remains unclear, despite the fact that explicating the term is the first component of RI's mission statement. "There are some people in the group who understand progressivism in a different waymore Teddy Roosevelt's progressivism, bringing in more centrism," Urbahn said, after pointing out that many others tend to equate "progressivism" with "liberalism." Countering such a slant, both Fertik and Wolfson stressed at the launch event that the group has no preferred political leaning.Critics could not help but notice, however, that there was not one conservative speaker at Monday's launch event; indeed, all three key-note speakers were active Democrats. Along with Clinton's video appearance and a speech by Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, pollster Stan Greenberg—who served as campaign advisor to Bill Clinton, LAW '73, Al Gore, and John Kerry, JE '66—also spoke. Given this panel of speakers alone, it may prove difficult for RI to assert its political independence. "I certainly don't think I'd be welcome in contributing my thoughts in creating public policy," Urbahn said. But Wolfson pointed out that RI extended invitations to all state and local legislators—Democrats and Republicans alike—as well as to the Yale College Republicans. Attendence, he said, simply reflected individuals' availability rather than ideology. Furthermore, RI's infrastructure is designed to maintain more permanent ties to the political right. "We have members of our advisory board who are affiliated with the Hoover Institution, which is typically construed as a conservative think tank," Wolfson said. "It shows that we really are a non-partisan group." Despite the challenges which stand in its way—to prove its legitimacy as a student research organization and to define what it means to be progressive beyond partisanship—RI has been lauded as a unique institution, even by its critics. "The Roosevelt Institution has a critical mass of students who are really interested in talking about ideas and get together every week to talk about them," Urbahn said. "There's really no analogous other place at Yale." Sarah Raymond and Ali Frick contributed to this article. Click here to read the article from the Yale Herald's website.
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