Author: TheConversation

By Ronnie R. Gipson Jr., Assistant Professor of Law, University of Memphis When police officers kill people without apparent justification, those officers may face both criminal charges, as in the case of Derek Chauvin who was convicted of murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, and civil lawsuits. Floyd’s family filed a federal civil rights suit against Chauvin and three other officers, alleging they used “unjustified, excessive, illegal and deadly force” while detaining him. The suit also named the city of Minneapolis, alleging city officials did not have good policies about using force and didn’t train the officers properly....

By Travers, Professor of Sociology, Simon Fraser University For people who have never thought about it before, it might sound reasonable to require trans kids to wait until they are adults before they can receive certain forms of care known as gender-affirming treatment, which is what legislation that just passed in Arkansas does. But this type of legislation actually prevents kids from accessing treatment before and during a crucial period of development: puberty. When I was researching my book The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids and Their Parents are Creating a Gender Revolution, I observed how not all trans...

By Alison Gash, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Oregon On April 6, 2021, despite Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto, Arkansas became the first state to prohibit physicians from providing gender-affirming medical care like hormone treatments designed to delay puberty in transgender youth. These “puberty blockers” are used to delay the physical changes associated with puberty and provide time for transgender young people to consider their options. Arkansas physicians now face criminal penalties if they prescribe puberty blockers or other forms of cross-gender health care to transgender youth. Twenty other states are considering similar bills. Some would classify...

By James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los Angeles The images and reports coming from Israel, Jerusalem and Gaza in recent days are shocking. They are also surprising to those who thought the 2020 Abraham Accords and subsequent agreements to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan would place the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians permanently on the backburner. As someone who has been writing and teaching about the Middle East for more than 30 years, I had no such illusions. The reason for this is that...

By Joshua Holzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Westminster College “The word filibuster derives from the Spanish filibustero, itself deriving originally from the Dutch vrijbuiter, ‘privateer, pirate, robber.’ The Spanish form entered the English language in the 1850s, as applied to military adventurers from the United States then operating in Central America… The term was revived in the mid-19th century to describe the actions of adventurers who tried to take control of various territories by force of arms.” – Wikipedia As the U.S. Senate proceeds with its business, split 50-50 between Republicans on one side and Democrats and independents...

By Amelia Noor-Oshiro, Ph.D. Candidate, Public Health, Johns Hopkins University Racially motivated violence looks like the mass shootings that killed Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Chung Park, Hyun Grant and Suncha Kim in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Racially motivated violence also looks like suicide, which is defined as a deliberate act of self-directed violence in order to cause injury to oneself that results in death. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. When broken down by race, suicide is the first leading cause...