OPINION COMMENTARY:

Starting in 1909, and every 10 years until 1971, the White House convened delegates from across the country and put them to work on the most pressing problems facing the nation’s children and youth. Anthony Mohr discusses reviving the White House Conference on Children and Youth to address urgent issues that will impact the young.

The current challenges to voting rights, indeed to our democracy, are almost unprecedented in our lifetime. It is imperative for President Biden and Congress to focus on passing election reforms now since the new state laws and new redistricting actions evidence the need for fair guidance and legal limits. The author, Robert Berg, discusses the status of U.S. voting rights, what is being done to address these challenges and provides some suggestions on what we can do.

Bludgeoned on all sides, Haiti is hurtling towards failed state status. It‘s in U.S.’ national security interest to intervene and stop Haiti’s unraveling. The Hon. Vivian Lowery Derryck urges stakeholders to come together and use previously tested strategies to finally put Haiti on a path towards democracy and political and economic stability.

A conversation with historian, teacher and activist, Professor Timothy Patrick McCarthy, on the importance of embracing an honest reckoning with history, battling the culture wars in schools, and liberation dreaming in order to realize our best aspirations and intentions for public education.

California voters hold a high degree of power in the state’s recall process. Combined with the state’s other direct democracy tools (the initiative statute, the initiative constitutional amendment, and the referendum) the state electorate has power that approaches that of a state government branch.

A conversation with Mike Feuer, Los Angeles’ City Attorney and one of California’s leading lawyers and lawmakers. As Los Angeles' chief lawyer and prosecutor since July, 2013, he has brought an innovative, problem-solving focus that combines fair and effective prosecution with initiatives to improve public safety and the quality of life throughout the city.

THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION SERIES:

A conversation with David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and co-founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former White House adviser to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

OPINION COMMENTARY:

We see them in most major cities: tents in our neighborhoods, tarps on our sidewalks, and encampments in our parks. We see garbage piling up. Feces in doorways. Teresa Mosqueda and Sally Bagshaw emphasize, however, that inside the tents, there are people trying to survive.

ONE YEAR AFTER GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER SERIES:

A conversation with Paul Butler, an Albert Brick Professor of Law at Georgetown University and legal analyst on MSNBC, discussing where we are as a country regarding policing and racial equality.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

What do you picture when you think about disability? You probably envision a wheelchair user, the literal symbol of disability plastered on parking spots and bathroom doors. Kathleen Bogart discusses that disability is much broader than most people think.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

While the ADA can be harnessed to carve out physical or digital access where it doesn’t exist, they cannot be used to change behavior from something that upends ordinary social access and norms of community. Peter Slatin discusses that without social accessibility the ADA will remain a half-measure.

DISABILITY AWARENESS SERIES:

As one of the world’s leading universities, Professor Michael Ashley Stein, co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, discusses how Harvard has the opportunity as well as the responsibility, to lead in disability-inclusion.

Carla Dirlikov Canales discusses how cultural diplomacy is one of the oldest and most important tools of statecraft. Often referred to as “soft power,” a phrase coined by University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus Joseph Nye, the power of culture offers the ability to create connections and persuade in a way that may advance national interests more effectively than traditional diplomatic and geopolitical means.

Think about the atypical person who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016. Then consider a different flavor of atypical: the person who voted for Trump in 2016 and flipped to Joe Biden in 2020. In partnership with the Schlesinger Group, the author’ firm, Engagious, has spent the last two years conducting monthly focus groups with these swing voters.

A conversation with the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, a leading New York State policy analysis and advocacy organization working to shape policies to improve health, welfare, and human services for all New Yorkers, especially those who are disenfranchised.

COVID-19 RECOVERY SERIES:

In our post-COVID, post-Election 2020 world, political organizations headquartered in blue states owe it to fellow citizens to invest in red states and purple states. We must build genuine common power.

Facing consistently overcrowded facilities, Joe Finn discusses how shelter providers recognized that they had an impossible choice: should they deny shelter to individuals in need, subjecting them to the risks associated with cold weather exposure, or continue to allow them into shelters where they would be susceptible to COVID-19, a quickly spreading and often deadly virus?

As with any victim of discrimination, people with disabilities and people who are aging often feel robbed of a fair chance to live productive lives or to be their full true selves. Sally Bagshaw discusses by addressing ‘ableism’ and ‘ageism’ and including the formerly excluded, our communities will be better for all of us now and in the future.

CAPITOL INSURRECTION SERIES:

Professor Michael J. Klarman, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Harvard Law School, discusses the events and responsibility from the event on January 6th at the U.S Capitol.

CAPITOL INSURRECTION SERIES:

January 6, 2021 will go down as one of the most disturbing dates in this nation's history. The attack on and destruction of our nation's U.S. Capitol were despicable acts by homegrown terrorists. They also provided a glimpse into the historical contradictions that have been part of this nation's treatment of race.