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The Chancellor Bows Out
On September 6, 2017, Mark Wrighton announced his imminent retirement as the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. He expressed that he wanted a “transition” as he approached the age of 70. He began his service at Washington University in St. Louis in 1995, at the tender age of 46. Only his immediate predecessor…
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Screw the Discourse
For roughly the past six months, I’ve been telling everyone I know to listen to the socialist podcast Chapo Trap House. I’ve done this partially to annoy people, but mostly because it’s great, equal parts incisive and laugh-out-loud hilarious. Many of my more moderate friends—and certainly my conservative ones—will be skeptical. Rapidly increasing partisanship has…
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Being Human
Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum My senior year of high school, my AP English Literature teacher assigned The Handmaid’s Tale as the very last book we would ever read together. I didn’t expect much. Thirteen years of Catholic education tempered my expectations of what would be read in the classroom—probably a “canonical” classic (written by a…
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Mushroom Wars
Unionville High School and Kennett High School are bitter rivals. The two schools are 3.2 miles apart. Both are located in the town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. If a driver were to travel the 3.2 miles between the two, he would encounter two Landhope gas stations, three developments, plenty of trees, a country club, a…
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Affirmative Action and Asian Americans
Since the Department of Justice announced its investigation into the effects of affirmative action on Asian Americans, there has been renewed attention on Edward Blum’s case against race-based admissions at Harvard. I’ve grown increasingly troubled with the fierce discussion that has erupted over this news. I could easily be a plaintiff in Blum’s case: first-generation…
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St. Louis Education Inequality: Normandy
North St. Louis received national coverage following the death of Michael Brown. Since then, however, the area has been largely ignored by the national media. This area includes the St. Louis County city of Normandy, which contains the school district that Brown graduated from. The district had lost its accreditation in 2013, before the shooting,…
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Secretary Arne Duncan: “One of the President’s Best Appointments”
At the beginning of winter break, I had lunch with the then-incumbent United States Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, in his office in Washington, D.C. The meeting was an amazing opportunity, so I used it as my impetus to complete an independent research project about the Department of Education and Duncan’s life and impact during…
