One Year of President Joe Biden: Not a straight A student

 President Joe Biden has been in office for one year. During his campaign, Biden promised to be a leader to the younger generation. He promised a female vice president, to fight climate change, to make work spaces more inclusive, and to battle immigration. So far, what would teens give as a progress report?

Lancer Media posted a survey that allowed students to grade and leave comments on the president for certain topics; Gender Equality, Racial Equality, Immigration, and Climate Change. Overall, LHS students say that Biden is a B-average student.

                                                                  GENDER EQUALITY

President Joe Biden made it known that he would fight for more gender equality in government. He nominated the first woman vice president, Kamala Harris. He also created the Gender Policy Council that is in charge of advancing opportunities in foreign and domestic policy development. Biden released a plan called National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality which will include eliminating gender-based violence, protecting abortion rights, improving women’s educational prospects and jobs in STEM, recruit more women into the military and leadership, and close the gender pay gap.

This vision is so large that there is a lot of planning, budgeting, and infrastructures that need to be put in place before any action can take place. 

“All action taken by Biden so far has been largely symbolic. Although it is good that he has nominated a female Vice President and hopefully a Supreme Court Justice, he has done little to make his gender equality plan into a reality,” said sophomore Liam Griffin.

On February 25 2022, Biden nominated Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to become the 116th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. She is the first black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

“He is doing well, but there are still so many male members in the military that get away with harassing women, and nothing is being done to [discipline] them,” senior Kaelyn Diaz said. 

These students are unaware that on January 23, Biden signed an executive order making sexual harassment an offense in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ authorizes the maximum punishment for rape; life without possibility of parole.  Recently, the military requires action to be taken to those charged with sexual assault convictions, whether that be a Bad Conduct Discharge or a Dishonorable Discharge.

                                              RACIAL EQUALITY

Biden made a priority to fight for racial equality and make our country more equal. He has enhanced bills that create grant programs to fund wealth generation in minority communities, provide high level education to all communities, and close the wealth gap. During Covid, Biden gave money to small business and black business owners. It feels like Biden is stalled in the area of Racial Equality.

“He did make some impact on the African American and other minority communities, but I would like to see him continue on that track though this entire presidency,” sophomore Gabrielle Evans said.

 

                                                          IMMIGRATION

Biden wants to create ways that make it easier for immigrants to become legal U.S. citizens. He also wants to help expand resources available to those who are in the country legally and to help guide those who aren’t to become legal. Since Biden has been in office, the number of deportations has decreased: 80% in 2021. Although Biden wants to improve deportation and border control, there are still problems. Families are still being separated; cells are still being overfilled; people are getting sick and not getting medical attention when needed, and people are going missing.

“Biden has been recently switching his political agenda to immigration law. Obama tried to use an executive order for immigration laws and making immigrants more welcome into the US, Biden is mirroring what Obama did. And results have been shown too; deportations have decreased and Biden plans to do more during his presidency,” said sophomore Ben Conway.

“Biden has not done really anything to improve the current immigration issues that we are trying to face,” senior Caroline Hobson said. 

Biden reinstated executive orders that gave undocumented immigrants traveling with children the ability to remain indefinitely in the U.S.; many in the government warmed the president that this could possibly lead to trafficking of children across the border. In March of 2021, 19,00 children were unaccompanied according to Border Patrol agents; five times the amount in 2020.

                                               CLIMATE CHANGE

During Biden’s campaigning, he announced that he would rejoin the Paris Agreement, a international treaty on climate change. On his first day of presidency, the U.S. rejoined the Agreement. Biden plans on creating wind farms along the entire coastline of the U.S. which would create new forms of energy by 2030. He also plans on battling air pollution, wildfires, and wastewater testing.  In 2021, legislation passed for the Vineyard Wind project that will put 62 turbines 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. This will power 400,000 homes with clean energy. 

“There’s a reason we left the agreement. We put more into it than we got out compared to other countries. Also wind energy is a disrupted energy source with studies claiming that it is expensive and inefficient; nuclear energy is a better option,” senior Chris Ramirez said. 

The cost to build a single windmill is between $2-$4 billion and on top of that, it costs an additional $42,000-$48,000 per year to maintain a single wind mill. Nuclear power plants have been proven to be more reliable because it produces more electricity and has zero emissions. They also take less maintenance and are designed to operate for long periods of time before they need to be refueled.

“We still have problems with the ozone layer but we are moving forward so it is not as terrible as it used to be,” said junior Bradley Rice.

Overall, President Joe Biden has a few things that he needs to work on. He needs to do more to fight racial equality and pass executive orders that tighten security at the border. He needs to find new ways to regulate climate control that won’t add onto the national debt. Even though Biden has a few things that he needs to brush up on, Biden has been pushing for gender equality and is making the work force a more equal and safer place for women.