News & Commentary

As long as Donald Trump is president, American criminal justice reform may depend on the states. So it’s significant that in one state, Massachusetts, a national model for remedying wrongful convictions has recently been created. In late November, the Massachusetts

A 14-year-old Minnesota girl is fighting criminal charges that have the potential to destroy her future, including her ability to obtain housing, to enroll in college programs, and even to pursue some career paths. Her case does not involve harm to others. It does not involve damage to property. And it does not have anything to do with illegal substances. Rather her young life could be ruined all because she sent an explicit Snapchat of herself to a boy she

Jeff Sessions is in denial. Despite all the evidence, he refuses to believe that this country’s decades-long War on Drugs has been a colossal failure. The drug war is a public health menace, racially biased, and an economic disaster that has not curbed drug abuse or made anyone safer. All this is lost on Sessions, who insists on turning back sensible change in drug policy around the country and going against the will of the majority of Americans. On Thursday, Sessions moved to

Almost four months after an American citizen was secretly detained by the U.S. military in Iraq, and three months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion demanding access to him, ACLU lawyers were finally able to meet with the man to ask whether he wants to challenge his detention with ACLU representation. The citizen, who the government

The United States census is constitutionally required to happen every 10 years, making 2020 the next year that this massive population and housing count will take place. Its importance is enormous. The results of the census will determine how more than $675 billion in public funds are allocated and spent, the number of seats allotted for each state in the U.S. House of Representatives, and how congressional and legislative districts are drawn. Making sure that the census is accurate, accessible, and impartial should be the government’s top priority. Unfort

On Wednesday night, the White House announced that it would disband the Election “Integrity” Commission led by Vice President Pence and Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas, citing the refusal of state officials to go along with Kobach’s

In November 2015, Larry Harmon went to vote on a ballot initiative, only to find that his name was not on the list at his usual polling location. He had been purged. The reason? Larry had chosen not to vote in 201

On September 24, Milo Smith took his daughter to an Indianapolis Colts’ game against the Cleveland Browns. Though the Colts won that day — a tragically rare occurrence this year — Smith left the game offended. During the national anthem, a group of players on both teams took a knee in reaction to President Trump’s comments two days earlier, where he called protesting players sons of bitches who should be fired by team ownership. "To me when they take a knee during the national anthem, it’s not respecting the national anthem or our country

Imagine a school administrator telling a high school political science teacher that a whole range of timely topics — for example, medical marijuana, terrorism in the Middle East, gun control, or even politics in general — was off-limits for class discussion. The pedagogical absurdity of it, not to mention the upending of academic freedom it embodies, would seem obvious to most. In school districts across the country, however, a similar type of censorship takes place in the classroom every day, with little dissent. The censorship takes place invisibly, through the use of internet filte