By Charles Tiefer* The press coverage of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s silencing under Senate Rule XIX was colorful, but sadly shallow. Much more daunting than a one-cycle news bite or a catchy hashtag, the incident in fact revealed that today’s narrow Republican Senate majority is poised to use procedure to subjugate the minority Democrats to an extreme. In the news bite version of the story, the Warren silencing was simply a clash of personalities against a background of quaint Senate rules …
Taking on Debt: Advancing the Discourse on America’s Bottom Line
by Ryan Cohen and Shane Hebel, Harvard Law & Policy Review, Volume 11 Editors-in-Chief During this time, when our nation appears so divided, there is one thing that we all share, whether we are Democratic or Republican, teacher or coal miner, voter or U.S. President, from the coasts or from Appalachia. Debt. We may be a nation of red, white, and blue, but mostly, we are just in the red. Our students are in debt (as graduate students, we can attest to that from personal …
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A Drop in the Ocean of Casualties
By Maseeh Moradi* The recent immigration executive order promises in its title to protect “the nation from foreign terrorist entry.” It does so by barring the entry of, among hundreds of millions of others, all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins (my own parents, once aliens, now citizens, would have been barred as well). Protecting the nation from terrorists evidently means banning everyone from Iran, even though no national from there, or any of the other listed countries, has committed deadly …
Problems of Perception: Unintended Effects of the Immigration Ban on Military Recruitment
By William Denn* Like many Americans, I was deeply troubled by Hameed Khalid Darweesh’s detention at New York’s JFK airport on January 28th. Darweesh, a former U.S. military interpreter from Iraq, who received a special immigrant visa (SIV) on January 20th, was detained due to the recent travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries. The action bans travel for 90 days and suspends all refugee admission for 120 days. Darweesh, who was later released with help from the ACLU, expressed …
Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline: South Florida’s Approach
By Jeremy Thompson[1] The U.S. incarceration rate has increased 700% since 1970.[2] As a result, the U.S. has the highest prison population in the world.[3] In the U.S., only 12% of the population is Black.[4] Yet, despite living in a “post-racial,” “colorblind” society,” 38% of the prison population is composed of Blacks.[5] Part of this disparity stems from the disparate impact of zero-tolerance policies in school discipline. These policies were influenced by the fear of the media-driven …
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Automatic Voter Registration: A Rational Solution to an Irrational Problem
By David Howard* Automatic Voter Registration Voting “is a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society . . . . [because it] is preservative of other basic civil and political rights.”[1] But before one can vote, that person must first register with the state, often weeks before the election. Voter registration continues to be a contentious issue in the United States, and the current system in many states presents significantly more problems than solutions. Article I, Section 4 of …
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