Gender-Affirming Healthcare: Life-Saving Treatment for Trans Youth
In recent months, multiple states, including Texas, Alabama, and Arizona, enacted legislation that seeks to significantly limit access to—and, in some cases, criminalize—the practice of gender-affirming healthcare, especially for trans youth. These developments raise questions as to how we address legislation that is in complete opposition to medical standards of best practice. A preponderance of […]
Prison Labor in a Post-Pandemic Economy
On January 26, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order declaring that the federal government will eliminate its reliance on private prisons in an attempt to reform our deeply broken incarceration system. With this order, the federal government would sever its ties with for-profit detention facilities, aiming towards a more ethical system focused on rehabilitation. […]
The Bermuda Triangle Effect: How This Year’s Inflation Hurts Small Businesses
The Bermuda Triangle is one of our society’s most well-known ghost stories, home to mysteries, misunderstandings, and misinformation. Time and again, conspiracy theorists attempt to paint the disappearances surrounding the infamous site as a supernatural hotspot, but with little evidence to prove their stories. In reality, accidents happen within the Bermuda Triangle at the same […]
The US Government’s Role in Regulating Social Media Disinformation
This article was written prior to Elon Musk’s offer to purchase Twitter. In a 2020 report, the Department of Homeland Security named White supremacists as the single greatest domestic terror threat facing the US. In 2021, QAnon supporters, the Proud Boys, and other extremist groups carried out a direct attack on democracy in plain sight. […]
Reimagining the University to Focus on Education
Something is wrong with our university system. Many young Americans decide against enrolling in or even applying to universities and community colleges. College enrollment has declined every year for the past decade, and there are one million fewer students in college today than there were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Credentialism and the college experience don’t […]
Abolishing Journalistic Objectivity in the Pursuit of Truth
Journalists are hiding information from you, but not in the way you think. Many journalists—protected by the decades-old ethical standard of journalistic objectivity—fail to engage in anything more than surface-level interviews with their sources. “Objectivity” hinders reporters from building trusting relationships with their sources, resulting in poor reporting that lacks emotion. News outlets should abandon […]
The Texas Heartbeat Act and its Alarming Disregard Towards Judicial Precedent
The Texas Heartbeat Act, or Senate Bill 8 (SB8), came into effect on September 1, 2021. The bill—perhaps one of the most uncompromising legislative measures to regulate abortions since the Supreme Court’s ruling of Roe v. Wade—bans almost all abortions in Texas after six weeks of pregnancy, including those that are a result of sexual […]
Atoms for Peace: The New Reality is Embracing Nuclear Energy
Show almost anyone the yellow and black three-pronged nuclear emblem, and you will probably get a negative reaction. The symbol evokes feelings of impending doom, visions of mushroom clouds, and worries of radiation-borne maladies. But ironically, the energy behind it is the only thing that can avert catastrophe: the climate emergency. Our current culture would […]
The Case for Abolishing Cash Bail
In 2010, police arrested sixteen-year-old Kalief Browder for a robbery there was no evidence he committed, set his bail at $3,000, and imprisoned him on Rikers Island—all without a trial. The Bronx’s lengthy case backlog and expensive bail kept Browder imprisoned for three years, often in solitary confinement, until the district attorney dismissed the case. […]
“What, like it’s hard?”: The Systemic Barriers to Law School Applications
Upon fictional character Elle Woods’s acceptance to Harvard law, she asks “What, like it’s hard?” Although the girl-boss icon from the 2001 film Legally Blonde is an inspiration for many, the law school application process is far from easy and laden with financial barriers. The admissions process makes it incredibly difficult for low-income students—who are […]