Texas and the Trump administration worked together to restrict minors’ abortion access
Jane Doe, a 17-year-old girl from Central America, learned she was nine weeks pregnant while in immigration detention. She decided that she wanted an abortion, a procedure that is illegal in her home country. The state of Texas, where Jane Doe’s immigration detention is located, is obligated to allow her the abortion. But public officials […]
Why we care whether Mark Zuckerberg is a robot
If you’ve been on Facebook at all this past year, you’ve probably seen the joke that Mark Zuckerberg is a robot. These jokes reached their apex during Zuckerberg’s Senate hearing this week, where he testified in front of the Senate to explain Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook sold the personal […]
Don’t suspend students
Nevada High School student Noah Christensen was one of the many who participated in pro-gun control walkouts last week. At the walkout, students distributed a paper with the phone numbers of local Congressmen, encouraging students to call. Christensen called Representative Mark Amodei, a Republican with a reputation for being pro-gun. When Christensen reached the Representative’s […]
Bojack Horseman challenges to TV narrative of abortion
In America, an unwanted pregnancy can be a terrifying endeavor. When deciding whether to continue the pregnancy or get an abortion, pregnant people are faced with myriad societal pressures that can make them feel helpless. This feeling of helplessness is compounded by the fact that abortion, an often painless and simple procedure, is portrayed by […]
Homophobic violence is on the rise
The Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a Constitutional right in 2015. This year, a record number of LGBT people are running for Congress, and there are a record number of seven openly LGBT Congress members. It’s possible to take these signs of political and social progress for LGBT people as an indication that […]
Finding empowerment when choosing a menstrual product
Most elementary schools teach young girls about periods. This usually happens in the form of a “puberty class,” that occurs in a split-gender environment and lasts a couple of hours. My elementary school’s “puberty class” consisted mostly of sitting in a dark room, watching educational videos that explained menstruation. These videos taught us that when […]
Support farm workers by boycotting Wendy’s
The Fair Food Program was born in 2005 when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group of activist farm workers than originated in Florida, staged a boycott of Taco Bell. The coalition was protesting inhumane conditions on the American farms from which Taco Bell sourced its produce. At these farms, workers were subjected to dangerous […]
Strippers deserve better from the #MeToo movement
The #MeToo movement has effectively exposed the flawed and dysfunctional way that American culture views sexuality and consent. The movement revealed the extent to which sexual misconduct permeates the lives of so many women, but with a focus on women in Hollywood and famous athletes. Despite the growing voice of survivors of sexual misconduct, the […]
How athletic institutions can hold abusers accountable
Larry Nassar was sentenced to 175 years in prison last Wednesday. He was sentenced to seven counts of criminal sexual misconduct, but the scope of the trial made it obvious that his crimes went far beyond those seven counts. At the trial, almost 200 women and girls gave victim impact statements about Nassar’s crimes and […]
Larry Nassar and the limits of #MeToo
Ninety eight women and girls are scheduled to give victim impact statements during this week’s sentencing of Larry Nassar, the former sports doctor who molested them. The sentencing comes after a deluge of over one hundred accusations, mostly from women whom he molested as young gymnasts. These victim impact statements come after Nassar pled guilty […]
NCAA gymnastics requirements favor wealthier athletes
After the 2016 Olympics, many of the nation’s elite gymnasts went off to college, where they now compete for NCAA teams. Madison Kocian, who won one gold and one silver medal in Rio, just began her sophomore year at UCLA. British Olympian Ruby Harrold is one of the stars of the gymnastics program at LSU. […]
America isn’t falling for rebranded bigotry
Journalist Gary Younge says that he took a “risk worth taking” when he decided to interview famed white supremacist Richard Spencer. The interview happened last July at a conference of white supremacists and revealed that Spencer’s brand of “professional” white supremacy was beginning to fray at the edges. Spencer is notorious for his ability to […]
Famous men and the hypocritical response to Harvey Weinstein
After the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal broke, men all over Hollywood have come out against the influential producer. While some of these men mean well, their statements are often hypocritical and hurtful. One key example of this is a recent Ben Affleck tweet about Weinstein. On Oct. 10, Affleck tweeted, “We need to do […]
Only sustained public pressure can end Reddit hate speech
Americans are reluctant to take Reddit seriously. They see the website as primarily populated by mid-twenties male losers living in their parents’ basements, typing racist rants while covered in Dorito dust. Americans don’t want to associate themselves with this part of their society and so they refrain from discussing the site’s important, and sometimes disastrous, […]
America’s gentrification problem will require a large-scale solution
American cities are struggling with the dual issues of gentrification and homelessness. Google defines gentrification as “the process of renovating a district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.” It results in higher rents and cost of living, forcing the neighborhood’s original residents to move out in search of a cheaper place to live. Gentrified […]
#TakeAKnee and the patriotism of protest
This week, hundreds of NFL players knelt during the national anthem in protest of growing racist sentiment in America. The protests were inspired by former 49’s quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who stirred controversy by kneeling during the national anthem in August 2016, in protest of police brutality against people of color. Other players joined in his […]
Environmental racism is not a joke
A disturbing trend has been sweeping right-wing media that combines anti-environmental sentiment, racism and hatred of college students and protest movements. Right-wing YouTubers, social media moguls and news sources have been ridiculing the concept of environmental racism. Environmental racism is the tendency for the effects of climate change and pollution to be directed toward people […]
Artists deserve to be paid more
One of the most important debates in the modern music industry is that on intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are expressed in the art and music worlds through copyrights. A copyright, in short, gives the artist the exclusive right to make money off of their work and to decide who is allowed to use […]
Patriotism and Nationalism in the Boston Common
I attended at the anti-white supremacy rally in Boston on Aug. 19. The rally involved about 40,000 counter-protesters responding to a group of only about 40 neo-Nazis attending a “Free Speech” event. The protest was peaceful, though there were a few skirmishes between individual protestors, especially after the rally had died down. The counter protest […]
On better birth control options
The birth control pill is falling out of favor. This is happening for several reasons. Firstly, the pill is high maintenance, demanding that patients remember to take the pill at the exact same time every single day. Also, recent viral Internet articles have revealed the anti-feminist history of the pill, explaining that physicians hid the […]
