Op-Ed
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Good Policy is Good Politics
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In the parts of America that will decide the election, the presidency is won or lost with policy and not in courts, brokered conventions, or headlines. With a high-stakes and volatile election, mired in early controversy, the focus on economic policy remains the most constructive path to gain the support…
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From Gang Rule to Iron Fist: Questioning Progress in Bukele’s El Salvador
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Significant sums from a secret government fund? CHECK. Calling for occupation of the Legislature by security forces? CHECK. Intimidation of local journalists using death threats and imprisonment? CHECK. Nayib Bukele’s reign as president of El Salvador has exhibited all the fixings of an authoritarian regime. Embracing this image, Bukele openly…
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Public Perception May Curb Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket
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Mike Bedell is a student in the University of Chicago’s Evening Master’s Program. Just before midnight on September 1, 2021, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unsigned order declining to block S.B. 8, the Texas law that bans almost all abortions in the state. The order…
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No Amount of Training Can Prevent Police Brutality
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Marvin Slaughter contributed to this piece. The killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by officers of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has led to renewed calls for improved police training. But no amount of training can fix the institution of policing; we need an entirely new system and organization to build…
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Yellow Phone Booth
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With promising advances in the COVID-19 vaccination effort and a new administration in the White House, 2021 has felt hopeful for many reasons. For me, an Iranian-American immigrant who has maintained an emotionally split home for the past eighteen years, the new administration’s approach to foreign policy is particularly exciting…
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End Sexual Abuse in ICE Facilities
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The afternoon before she was supposed to be deported to Mexico, “Jane Doe” was moved to a dark cell in an unfamiliar part of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Houston she had been detained at for three months. Two other women were placed in the…
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Trading Places: The Future of the World Trade Organization
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In August 2020, the World Trade Organization (WTO) began the election process of its new Director General. The process started after the resignation of the Brazilian Roberto Azevedo, one year before the expected end of his term, and ended in February 2021 with the election of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, from…
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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…