Texas Archives - Public Seminar

Education

The Texas Attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education

DEI was already a compromise, so now what?

April 22, 2024 • by Jonathan Cortez

Texas legislature has made it clear that Texas institutions of higher education—and, by extension, the state itself—are not welcoming to people of color, queer and trans people, and undocumented immigrants. ...

The Texas Attack on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Higher Education

Past Present

Uvalde, Texas and the Persistence of American Gun Violence

Past Present Podcast, Episode 329

June 7, 2022 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Yet another mass shooting, this one at a Texas elementary school, highlights the unique American obsession with gun rights. Niki referred to this NPR piece on the tape recording of NRA leadership after the 1999 Columbine school shooting, and Natalia ...

Uvalde, Texas and the Persistence of American Gun Violence

Democracy

“I’ve had enough”

When are we going to do something?

May 25, 2022 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Today, a gunman murdered at least 19 children and 2 adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of ...

Podcast

The Texas Abortion Law

Past Present Podcast, Episode 292

September 14, 2021 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: The Supreme Court has failed to strike down a Texas law that drastically restricts abortion rights. Natalia referred to this Vogue article about “what six weeks pregnant looks like,” and Niki discussed this Public Seminar piece. Niki and Natalia drew ...

The Right

Creeping Fascism

The Texas law attacking reproductive justice is the antithesis of both law and democracy

September 8, 2021 • by Laura Briggs

_____ Is there any other phrase for the events that have activated the Texas abortion law other than “creeping fascism”? First, the ban itself is essentially an anti-law, designed to promote vigilantism. In itself, that’s not surprising. S.B. 8 is the culmination not just of numerous state-level laws that have narrowed abortion ...

Politics

By Turning Law Enforcement Over to ‘Abortion Vigilantes,’ Texas Uses Lawlessness to Destabilize Equal Treatment Under Law

So far, it has the Supreme Court’s blessing

September 8, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ The United States Supreme Court finally spoke about a new Texas law that, in effect, creates a market for abortion vigilantism, according to the Editorial Board’s Mia Brett. While the law stands, it invalidates Roe. The high court should have said any law that invalidates a 50-year-old court precedent recognizing ...

By Turning Law Enforcement Over to ‘Abortion Vigilantes,’ Texas Uses Lawlessness to Destabilize Equal Treatment Under Law

Feminism

How We Are Doing in Texas

S.B. 8 and the hypocrisy of a “pro-life” state

September 8, 2021 • by Lauren Gutterman

_____ On September 2, 2021, I received a text from an old friend, an advocate for global reproductive health. “Sending love to Texas,” she wrote. “How are you all doing?” In short, not well. The day before, Senate Bill 8 took effect; that night, the United States Supreme Court announced it ...

Feminism

Why Does the Texas Legislature Believe That Embryos Have a Heartbeat?

Because fake science is part of the American conservative tradition

September 8, 2021 • by Claire Potter

____ The Texas statute that went into effect last week is one of many similar anti-abortion laws that have either recently cleared state legislatures or will clear them in the coming months. Using the weapon of a civil suit that can be filed by any private citizen, the law seeks to ...

Why Does the Texas Legislature Believe That Embryos Have a Heartbeat?

Feminism

Are You Looking for Jane?

From 1965 to 1973, the women of Chicago’s Jane Collective took the right to a safe abortion into their own hands. Literally.

September 6, 2021 • by Heather Booth and Claire Potter

_____ This week, when a Supreme Court majority permitted Texas to eviscerate Roe v. Wade and created a legal path for other states to end legal abortion after six weeks, I dashed off an email to feminist Heather Booth. A lifetime organizer against social injustice, Booth’s work began in the civil rights and anti-war ...

Activism

Texas Women Just Lost Their Right to Their Own Bodies

It’s time to fight back, and time to understand the anti-feminist backlash that allowed this to happen.

September 3, 2021 • by Jill Filipovic

_____ I am frothing and devastated watching the Supreme Court allow Texas to functionally overturn Roe v. Wade. I’m angry in a million different directions: At the woman-hating “pro-life” movement that has spent decades working up to this moment; at Democrats who have never done enough to preserve abortion rights; at ...

Texas Women Just Lost Their Right to Their Own Bodies

Columnists

A Shocking Win in Texas

One of the worst corporate boondoggle programs in the country met its end

June 14, 2021 • by Pat Garofalo

_____ The Texas legislature earned a lot of pixels in the political press recently for the quick rise and sudden demise of a bill full of voting restrictions, which was only defeated thanks to Democrats in the statehouse literally walking out in order to run out the clock on the state’s ...

Democracy

The United States Is in Recovery

What Texas, white supremacy and coronavirus can teach us about American history

February 18, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

"In the exchange, Americans saw a president who cared, and a government that finally, after its previous leaders had told them to get out of a terrible catastrophe on their own, responded to their needs."...