Author: TheConversation

By Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South Carolina Public school funding has shrunk over the past decade. School discipline rates reached historic highs. Large achievement gaps persist. And the overall performance of our nation’s students falls well below our international peers. These bleak numbers beg the question: Don’t students have a constitutional right to something better? Many Americans assume that federal law protects the right to education. All 50 state constitutions provide for education. The same is true in 170 other countries. Yet, the word “education” does not appear in the United States Constitution, and federal...

By Kishwar Rizvi, Professor in the History of Art Islamic Art and Architecture, Yale University President Donald Trump warned the Islamic Republic of Iran in a tweet on January 4 that the U.S. would target Iranian cultural sites, if provoked. His threat followed the United States’ killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which set off fears of retaliation. The Iranian government vowed to avenge his death, followed by missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq on Jan. 7. Trump’s angry tweet, which was immediately condemned...

By Dudley L. Poston, Jr., Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University The U.S. has just entered the new decade of the 2020s. What does our country look like today, and what will it look like 10 years from now, on Jan. 1, 2030? Which demographic groups in the U.S. will grow the most, and which groups will not grow as much, or maybe even decline in the next 10 years? I am a demographer and I have examined population data from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the Population Division of the United Nations. Projections show that whites will...

By Marty Swanbrow Becker, Associate Professor, Florida State University When college students seek help for a mental health issue on campus, something they are doing more often, the place they usually go is the college counseling center. But while the stigma of seeking mental health support has gone down, it has created a new problem: College counseling centers are now struggling to meet the increased demand. As a researcher who examines problems faced by college students in distress, I see a way to better support students’ mental health. In addition to offering individual counseling, colleges should also focus on...

By Klaus W. Larres, Richard M. Krasno Distinguished Professor; Adjunct Professor of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill President Donald Trump’s policy toward Iran is in deep crisis. The president’s approach has the support neither of America’s allies nor of its strategic rivals, China and Russia. And his policy – made even more confrontational by the shooting of a high-ranking Iranian official – has boxed him into a situation where, short of dramatic reversal, Washington and Tehran are edging close to war. By failing to forge policies in cooperation with allies,...

By Brad R. Fulton, Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University The U.S. is becoming more racially diverse. Since 2010, 96% of all U.S. counties registered an increase in their percentage of nonwhite residents. Yet the people who lead nonprofits in the U.S. remain disproportionately white. This mismatch can make it difficult for such organizations to understand and address racial inequality in their community and throughout the country. As a scholar of diversity, I know most nonprofits want to become more racially diverse. However, many struggle to achieve this goal. While researchers, funders and community...