By Kara Crutcher Associate Editor, Vol. 24 On March 15th, young people walked out of classrooms across the globe in the name of environmental justice. Following in the footsteps of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg – who’s been protesting Swedish lawmakers’ failure to implement the Paris Climate Agreement – young activists took to the streets to further […]
From Our Editors
States Holding Foster Kids Ransom
By Taylor Jones Associate Editor, Vol 24 In America, estimates show that six percent of all children and twelve percent of black children will have been placed in foster care by the age of eighteen.[1] As a result of interactions with Child Protective Services, on any given day there are roughly 438,000 children in foster […]
Reproductive Justice for Black Mothers: The Preventing Maternal Deaths Act and the Work We Have Left to Do
By Meredith Reynolds Associate Editor, Vol. 24 The Preventing Maternal Deaths Act was signed into law in December 2018.[1] This legislation has been years in the making[2] and part of a growing “birth equity movement” confronting how racism, poverty, and other social inequities are impacting mothers of color and their children.[3] The Centers for Disease […]
Litigating the Constitutionality of Trump’s National Emergency Declaration
By Sam Kulhanek Associate Editor, Vol. 24 On February 15, 2019, President Trump declared a national emergency in order to push forward his long-standing plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.[1] Earlier that same day, Trump had signed an act of Congress appropriating $1.375 billion for the border wall, which fell far short […]
Power Grab or Not, Expanding Voting Rights is in the Interest of the People, and Democracy
By Mackenzie Walz Associate Editor, Vol. 24 Within days of regaining control of the House of Representatives after an invigorating midterm election, several Democrats vowed to focus their legislative efforts on restoring ethics and transparency in our democratic institutions.[1] As promised, the first bill introduced in the 116th Congress was an ethics reform package […]
New Report on the School Funding Gap Highlights The Continuing Dangers of School Segregation
By Rose Lapp Associate Editor, Vol. 24 “Good schools can’t solve structural inequality on their own, but neither can it be solved without them. Without an effective education, our children’s futures are all but guaranteed to succumb to the imposed conditions of their lineage and location.”[1] So warns a new report by the nonprofit group […]
We Have the Technology: Reducing Deaths by Cops and Crashes
By Chris Hemry Executive Editor, Vol. 24. The police have a lot of power over civilians. This is especially palpable on the roads.[1] The police can pull you over for a “broken taillight,” order everyone out of the car, frisk everyone, arrest the driver for the broken taillight, impound the car, and then search every […]
Chilling Effect: Brooklyn Detainees Bang on Prison Walls as Temperatures Drop
By Elizabeth Morales Associate Editor, Vol, 24 On the first day of February, as temperatures in East Coast dropped below-freezing, a video showing inmates banging on the walls and windows of their cells at a Brooklyn jail went viral. The inmates were trying to alert people on the outside that their building had been with […]
The Role of Transactional Law Clinics in Promoting Social Justice
By Leah Duncan Associate Editor, Vol. 24 Access to justice is arguably one of the biggest problems facing the legal profession.[1] As Brian Price, director of Harvard Law School’s Transactional Law Clinics, puts it, “[w]hen people try to navigate the legal world without representation, deterred by the cost, they are at a structural disadvantage compared […]
The Indian Child Welfare Act on Appeal: Is It a Racial or Political Preference?
By Taylor Jones Associate Editor, Vol. 24 On October 4, 2018, the Northern Federal District Court of Texas held the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) to be unconstitutional. Since that decision, Cherokee Nation, Navajo Nation, and other tribes are seeking to have the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturn the decision. Enacted as a response […]
