“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]
When President George H.W. Bush signed the historic Americans with Disabilities Act 30 years ago, he proudly declared, “Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.” In a recent decision, the Supreme Court tossed another brick on the wall. The ADA was enacted to level the playing field for people with disabilities and [...]
Here we go again. Some men looking all virile in camo and wearing masks or in black outfits it seems are grabbing people off the street and hauling them into vans. In Portland and in Columbus, Ohio. And these camo men are apparently on their way to Chicago. Everyone is tight-lipped about who these people [...]
This essay describes a walk not taken with my students. Here is a pdf version for anyone that might like to have a copy of this material for personal or educational use. The purpose of the walk was to show one thing: a big monument cannot fix a small person or a bad idea. This [...]
I learned with sadness, but not surprise, that Rep. John Lewis lost his battle with pancreatic cancer yesterday. Congressman John Lewis lived courage. Courage takes the path less traveled. Others will write the details. I want to share with you one perspective. John Lewis was savagely beaten—his skull fractured—on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, [...]
One of the most devastating parts of the proposed regulations overhauling asylum law issued on June 15 is a new rule allowing immigration judges to deny asylum applications without an evidentiary hearing. The regulation states that the judge can “pretermit” legally insufficient applications, meaning deny them without even giving the asylum seeker a chance to [...]
With each passing day that the coronavirus pandemic wears on, there are new statistics in the news making headlines, not just regarding the health and well-being of citizens all across the country, but also about which latest retailer is filing for bankruptcy. This May, clothing giants JCPenney, Neiman Marcus, and J.Crew all announced they are [...]
The Trump Administration announced that foreign students would have to take in-person classes or lose their status and risk deportation. The only reason to do this is to pressure universities to hold in-person classes in the fall. How do we know? Because the administration is removing the exemption it made for the spring 2020 semester [...]
A few weeks after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump Administration’s attempt to terminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) for failing to consider important aspects of the problem, including any “legitimate reliance” interests, the Trump Administration made the same mistake again. On June 18, 2020, the Supreme Court faulted the Trump Administration for failing [...]
Regulators need to know what happens out in the world to understand and to oversee the industries under their supervision. Information flow may be a particular challenge for overseeing payday lending. At present, most states do not have database systems to track payday lending operations. Even when states do have database systems, federal regulators may [...]
