Politics

By Alyssa Battistoni, current Member in the School of Social Science:

"When the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it was celebrated as the biggest piece of federal climate legislation ever passed in the United States."

"Alondra Nelson stepped down last month from her role as leader of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Today’s editorial in Science highlights her accomplishments while she served in the Biden administration."

By Heba Gowayed, current Member in the School of Social Science, and Julie Dahlstrom: 

"Former President Donald Trump has made human trafficking central to his platform, pledging to mobilize the full force of the U.S. government to fight this 'epidemic,' a hard line he recently reiterated in a speech in Ohio."

Yale Law School Professor Amy Kapczynski and Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, discuss the value of democracy, the role of the courts, and strategies for democratizing our political economy.

By Jennifer Lee, current Member in the School of Social Science: 

"Affirmative action is on trial again. This time, opponents of race-conscious college admission practices are claiming that Asian Americans are hurt by it. The plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, which presented oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Monday, allege that Harvard holds Asian American applicants to higher academic standards and rates them lower than other students on personal characteristics, such as fit, courage and likability."

By Maira Hayat, current Member in the School of Social Science: 

"As Pakistan is enduring devastating floods and an ongoing humanitarian disaster — including decimated crops, more than 500 children dead, hospitals filled with malaria and dengue-infected people and millions of people displaced from their homes — its water infrastructure and management have come under increasing scrutiny.

By Andrea Sempértegui, Visitor (2021–22) in the School of Social Science:

"For eighteen days this June, thousands of Ecuadorians participated in a national strike that blocked highways across the country, paralyzed the capital city of Quito, and obstructed oil wells and mining sites from the northern Amazon to the southern Andes."

By Wendy Brown, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science: 

"Above all, Dobbs further entrenches states’ rights as a powerful weapon of minority rule in what we sloppily call the 'culture wars' today."

Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, has been awarded an honorary doctor of science degree by Rutgers University, an honor presented to her at the 2022 Rutgers Commencement by the 21st president of Rutgers, Jonathan Scott Holloway. 

"The halls of academia may appear to be overrun by battles over academic freedom, free speech, identity politics, cancel culture and overreaching wokeness. But why does it look that way? And what are the real causes? The influential political theorist Wendy Brown has spent her career studying the very ideas — those of identity, freedom and tolerance — that are central to current debates about what’s happening on college campuses across the country, as well as to the attacks they’re undergoing from within and without."