Author / Eli Scher-Zagier
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Engagement’s Hard. We Still Need It.
“True diversity is diversity of thought, not diversity of color. I don’t see color,” conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren argued during an interview with Trevor Noah in December 2016. Noah, the liberal host of The Daily Show, replied that “there is nothing wrong with seeing color; it’s how you treat color that’s more important.” This…
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Is College Worth It? Rising Costs, Falling Benefits Hamper Higher Education
At the Republican primary debate on November 10, 2015, presidential candidate Marco Rubio called for “more welders and less philosophers.” Fact-checkers quickly pointed out that this statement was based on comparing starting salaries of philosophers to mid-career salaries of welders, but the sentiment is far from Rubio’s alone. Last year, President Barack Obama was pressured…
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Keystone XL: The Myth of Something More Than Just a Pipeline
When Keystone Pipeline owners TransCanada and ConocoPhillips filed an application to expand the pipeline under the name Keystone XL, not even the most prescient Washington policymakers could predict the firestorm that would soon envelop the proposal. Construction on Keystone XL, which would carry Canadian oil sands (also known as tar sands) to refineries on the…
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The Supreme Court Hears Disparate Impact: Endorsement With Limits
On April 11th, 1968, Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act (FHA) into law, calling it one of “the proudest moments” of his time in the White House. The FHA, which followed up the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawed housing discrimination based on race or certain other protected characteristics. Precisely what type of…
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Elonis v. United States: When Are Threats Free Speech?
“Fold up your [protection from abuse order] and put it in your pocket Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?” So wrote Anthony Elonis after his wife left him in 2010. Elonis took to Facebook with the pseudonym “Tone Dougie” to create rap lyrics laced with expletives in what he termed “therapeutic” writing. These…
