October 2017

The Wisconsin voting rights case before the Supreme Court has been cast as the definitive test of whether partisan gerrymandering is permitted by the Constitution. But a closer look at the case and others like it shows that race remains an integral element of redistricting disputes, even when the intent of those involved was to give one party an advantage. Consider Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin case that was argued last week before the nation’s highest court. During its journey through the...

For the past few years, America has started to take a closer look at our soaring prison population. Decades of tough-on-crime policies mean we now incarcerate 2.3 million people — the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. And who are the fastest-growing group of prisoners in the U.S.? Women and girls . This story was published in partnership with Teen Vogue . The U.S. makes up just 5 percent of the global population, yet nearly one-third of all the female prisoners in the entire world...

The concept of the slum emerged when industrial capitalism hit its stride in the late 19th century. Derived from Cockney street slang, the word was soon taken up by reformers and moralists of the Victorian period, a loaded descriptor of the densely populated and poorly serviced neighborhoods that housed workers, their families, and the reserve army of the unemployed. Plenty of people used the word “slum” with the best of intentions, but it is notable that very few have used it to describe...

A couple of years ago I had a light bulb moment. So many women color their hair to cover the gray. Many resent the effort and expense, and it’s a major way in which we make ourselves invisible as older women. When a group is invisible, so are the issues that affect it. Suppose the world saw how many we are, and how beautiful, I mused. Suppose we morphed together, in solidarity: the Year of Letting Our Hair Go Gray! It would be transformative! I posted the idea on my This Chair Rocks Facebook...

On March 13, 2017, the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine and the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement jointly convened a 1-day public workshop in Washington, DC, to explore potential strategies for public health, environmental health, health care, and related stakeholders to help communities and regions to address and mitigate the health effects of climate change. Participants discussed the perspectives of civic, government, business, and...

The Black in Design conference at Harvard University this past weekend featured presentations from some of the top names in design and social activism, including Hamza Walker , Walter Hood , Sharon Sutton , and DeRay Mckesson . Not bad for a student-led movement that began less than three years ago. “We didn't really understand how big this thing would become back when we started planning it back in 2014,” says Cara Michell, an alum of Harvard Graduate School of Design’s African American...

On May 5, 1857, eight men sat down to dinner at Boston’s Parker House hotel. They had gathered to plan a magazine, but by the time they stood up five hours later, they had laid the intellectual groundwork for a second American revolution. These men were among the leading literary lights of their day, but they had more in mind that night than literary pursuits. The magazine they envisioned would, its prospectus later promised, “honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors...

Carey talks with Richmond Assistant Police Chief Bisa French . Assistant Chief French serves the city and neighborhood where she grew up with a commitment to justice both for families and the larger community. She and Carey talk about how our own stories can better connect us to the people we serve.

What are ACEs and Why Do They Matter? In 2016 1 , nearly half of U.S. children – 34 million kids – had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) and more than 20 percent experienced two or more. The new brain sciences and science of human development explain how ACEs can have devastating, long-lasting effects on children’s health and wellbeing. These events resonate well beyond the individual child to have far-reaching consequences for families, neighborhoods, and communities. ACEs...

Desperate to reduce crowding in jails and prisons, court systems all over the country are trying diversion – alternatives to putting offenders behind bars. On today’s Reveal, we peek behind the good intentions and uneven results. Reveal’s Amy Julia Harris and Shoshana Walter investigate an Oklahoma recovery center called Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery, or CAAIR. The founders of the program say it’s all about helping people with addiction. It turns out it’s also a work camp...

The ways in which states and their respective child welfare agencies support LGBTQ youth varies greatly, according to a state-by-state analysis and map of child welfare systems’ policies from Lambda Legal . Some state agencies have explicit safeguards that protect youth from discrimination on the basis of sex or gender, while other states have none at all, according to the national organization that works to promote the civil rights of the LGBTQ community. The issue has grabbed attention...

This site features painful stories of America’s history of racial injustice. In order to heal the deep wounds of our present, we must face the truth of our past. After slavery was formally abolished, lynching emerged as a vicious tool of racial control to reestablish white supremacy and suppress black civil rights. More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched across twenty states between 1877 and 1950. These lynchings were public acts of racial terrorism, intended to instill fear in entire...