United States Archives - Page 36 of 73

Feature

Courts Rethinking Gerrymandering

Pennsylvania Supreme Court throws out congressional districts drawn by republicans

January 28, 2018 • by John Lawrence

Whenever a discussion of the origins and causes of contemporary partisanship takes place, it doesn’t take long for the subject to turn to the pernicious topic of gerrymandering: drawing legislative district lines to enhance the probability that one party will win a larger number of seats than the partisan vote ...

Feature

Millions March Throughout Country on Inauguration Anniversary

Hundreds of thousands in New York City

January 26, 2018 • by Jo Freeman

It was called a Women’s March, and it took place on the first anniversary of the massive women’s march on Washington after Trump’s inauguration. But women and women’s rights were only one of several themes. The most prevalent theme was opposition to everything Trump has done and said, before and ...

Millions March Throughout Country on Inauguration Anniversary

Education

The Dark Side of Homeschooling

What the Turpin case teaches us about the lack of oversight on homeschooling in the US

January 26, 2018 • by Milton Gaither

Earlier this month, police responded to a 911 call made by a 17-year-old girl, informing them that her brothers and sisters were being held captive in her family home in suburban Perris, CA. On arrival, police found her thirteen siblings, aged between 2 and 29, showing clear signs of malnourishment and ...

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Why Liz Watson’s Progressive Endorsements Matter

A look into Indiana’s 9th district

January 25, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Fighting for democratic ideals and for social justice must include principled thought and careful strategic calculation. In this post, Jeff Isaac demonstrates how this is done, as he links his political thought to political action in the race to unseat a particularly bad Republican Congressman, Trey Hollingsworth. -Jeff Goldfarb For well ...

Why Liz Watson’s Progressive Endorsements Matter

Education

Tiny Houses, Narrow Visions

Examining American inequality through the problem of teacher housing

January 24, 2018 • by Nick Juravich

This past December, the Vail School District, in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona, stumbled briefly into the national spotlight when it announced a plan to build tiny homes for teachers who couldn’t otherwise afford to live in the district. Starting salaries for Arizona teachers are $36,000 a year, while the median income in ...

Education

Milo in Berkeley

Further reflections on the renewed academic free speech debate

January 23, 2018 • by Michael Weinman

What light if any, I will ask here, does this claim shine on the larger discourse about academic free speech, specifically as that discussion has come to focus, for historical and strategic reasons, on UC-Berkeley. The proximal cause of Berkeley’s centrality is the shutdown of an intended speech by Milo ...

Feature

“They’re Not Sending Their Best”

The problem with the merit narrative in U.S. immigration

January 22, 2018 • by Sarah Sklaw

Gathered atop a boulder in Central Park the weekend after the Trump administration rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), activists with the Cosecha movement channeled their frustration through a battle-worn bullhorn. Leading an estimated 3,000 protesters, Cosecha organizers marched from the Trump International Hotel in Columbus Circle, past the New ...

Feature

The Long Shadow

The legacy of the Moynihan Report and the limits of postwar liberalism

January 20, 2018 • by Brian Caterino

In Rochester NY, where I live, a recent poverty initiative has been proposed to address some of the most deeply entrenched poverty areas of this country. History casts its long shadow over the understanding of poverty evinced by these initiatives. Short on proposals to empower the community, the reading lists ...

Feature

Why Is Trump’s Authoritarianism So Hard for Some to Recognize?

Responding to Corey Robin

January 16, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

Corey Robin asks, “If authoritarianism is looming in the U.S., how come Trump looks so weak?” He has posed this question many times in the past year, and always to the same effect: Trump looks weak because he is weak, and his weakness proves that “authoritarianism” is not “looming.” Robin likes to ...

Why Is Trump’s Authoritarianism So Hard for Some to Recognize?

Feature

Nowhere is Somewhere

Solidarity and the space between nations

January 15, 2018 • by Siobhan Kattago

Since the Brexit referendum in June 2016 and the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, there has been a distinct shift away from a liberal international order based on supranational organizations supporting human rights, freedom and equality towards the primacy of the nation-state. Moreover, sentiments of fear and resentment ...

Feature

The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

Urban Matters talks with James Parrott

January 13, 2018 • by James Parrott

On Jan. 16th, Governor Andrew Cuomo will present New York State’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year. Earlier this month, in his State of the State address, he previewed some possible major tax overhauls designed to offset the potentially punishing blows to State finances resulting from the recently passed ...

The Trump Tax Trap: Can New Yorkers Escape It?

Feature

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?”

Reflections on a provocative presidential question

January 12, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Some of my best friends come from “shithole countries.” “Oriental,” Latin American and African: they’re not white, wealthy or Christian. They don’t come from countries like Norway. According to the President of the United States, they are undesirables. When considering immigration, Trump reached, yet again, a new low. The racism and ...