Archive
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Over-Criminalized & Under-Resourced
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The murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Elijah McClain have drawn national attention to policing issues throughout the U.S. One reform in the wake of these murders that is gaining attention is the Counseling Not Criminalization Act. This act proposes schools to replace school resource officers (SRO) with psychologists,…
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The Case for Puerto Rican Self-Determination
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On February 3, 2020, I stood outside the Drake University building where one of the Iowa Caucuses was taking place. That morning, I had driven up from Humboldt Park, Chicago, squeezed into a rental van with a group of four other members of the Puerto Rican Agenda of Chicago, an…
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The Coffee Cup and Plastic Straw
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Introduction: A regular day in the life of an American Jennifer is on her way to work when she makes her daily stop at the local coffee shop in Chicago to pick up her iced coffee for the day, served in a coffee cup with a single-use plastic straw. As…
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The Rise of Abortion Pills and the Implications of COVID-19
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IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT that you are a 25-year-old Black woman living in Mississippi; let’s call you Jasmine. You are working as a cashier in a grocery store — it is one of the best opportunities you have found since the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began. You and your unemployed partner…
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A New Path to Victory for Minority Candidates
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Once data from the 2020 Census becomes available, the United States is set to undergo redistricting, which will undoubtedly influence the levels of minority representation in government. Historically, most Black and Latino candidates have been elected in districts where minorities make up a large share of the population, known as…
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When Public Spending on Social Policies is Fiscally Responsible
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Governments enact federal programs with the hope that they will improve the well-being of their citizens. But how do we know which programs have the highest long-term returns on investment? It is difficult to compare policies from different domains because of a lack of common factors. In a recent paper,…
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Debunked: The Plainspoken Populist
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In 2015, The Boston Globe famously reported that Donald Trump spoke at a fourth-grade level. The future president’s 2016 announcement speech scored a 4.1 on linguistic tests, meaning a fourth-grade student could understand his speech. By contrast, Hillary Clinton scored 7.1. The results came as no surprise: political scientists and commentators have…
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Direct Democracy Now
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In the internet age, middlemen of all stripes have found themselves out of a job. But there is one type of middleman that seems immune from disruption: the legislator. Each election cycle, these grifters regale us with fantastical promises. Then, their campaigns victorious, they take their seats and suddenly the…
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Executing the Mentally Ill: Do We Deserve to Kill Them?
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On January 13, 2021, Lisa Montgomery was the first woman executed in 68 years by the federal government, for what the Department of Justice called an “especially heinous murder.” She was the twelfth individual killed since July 2020, when the former administration resumed federal executions after a 20 year hiatus.…
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Discouraging Student Cheating Online Without Surveillance
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COVID-19 has transformed the way we work — and the way we learn. In response to the pandemic, many higher education institutions have sought to transition to remote learning. As a result, companies offering technological solutions to problems posed by the pandemic have experienced a windfall; notably, virtual proctoring services…
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The Redistributive Power of City Government
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At their best, cities are places where people of all income levels take the same train and play with their kids in the same park, bridging the gap and fostering a sense of community. In reality, the “tale of two cities” often seen in the differences between glittering downtowns and…