News coverage about the Graham-Cassidy bill has been inescapable in recent weeks. This news coverage has primarily focused on comparing the Graham-Cassidy bill with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in terms of essential benefits and caps on coverage. However, there has been some confusion over how this
Read moreThe Illegalization of Undocumented Immigrants
With the Trump administration announcing the end of DACA, which protected undocumented immigrants who arrived as children, the issue of undocumented immigrants is a topic of intense debate, with some favoring increased efforts to locate and expel all undocumented immigrants and others viewing this as part of a larger context
Read moreRace Names
When we teach race, we must have a vocabulary so we can talk about race. Students need to know which words are preferred, which are contested, which are now likely to offend but were never used as insults in their time, and which are unambiguous insults that should not be
Read moreEducational Articles About the White Nationalist and Racist Movements in America
There is a great deal of information available about White nationalist groups. This post compiles some sources that profile the different groups and personalities among today’s White nationalists and also several sources that discuss how these groups operate on the Internet, including Internet trolls. (Trolls are people who make hostile
Read moreThe Struggle for Criminal Justice Reform
This is a guest post by Michelle Phelps, Joshua Page, and Philip Goodman. The history of criminal justice in the U.S. is often described as a pendulum, swinging back and forth between strict punishment and lenient rehabilitation. Before the election of President Donald J. Trump, many argued the pendulum was
Read moreThe Harmful Effects of Implicit Racial Bias in the Police
In a study of police body camera footage recently undergone by researchers at Stanford University, it was found that police officers on average spoke less respectfully to black residents than their white counterparts. This meant that black community members were less likely to be addressed with a formal greeting, titles
Read morePreparing to Teach About Race
For nearly 30 years, I’ve taught “Ethnic Movements in the US,” which takes a social movements approach to comparing the history and politics of American Indians, African Americans, Latinx Americans, and Asian Americans. This course meets the ethnic studies requirement and attracts both students who are actually interested in the
Read morePrison Isolation is Torture, Ineffective, and Illogical
Solitary confinement is, at its core, simply what its name suggests; being confined to solitude. Sometimes called disciplinary segregation, administrative segregation, or simply “the hole”, solitary confinement involves cutting a prisoner off from almost all human contact for 22-24 hours a day by placing them in a compact and barren
Read moreTactical Dilemmas in Resisting White Nationalists
As a citizen and human being, I have watched the recent news coming out of Charlottesville with the same horror as many others have felt. White nationalists displaying Nazi symbols, brawling, and someone purposely driving a car into a crowd are all upsetting. As a scholar of social movements and
Read moreUse of Pepper Spray to “Fog” Inmates in Jail: A National Trend?
Police use of force has recently stirred widespread public interest and concern. Recent use of force incidents have been well-publicized on social media due to the ability of the public to witness and video record police actions. However, owing to the fact that the operations of jails and prisons are
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