Interview by Blake Plante (PO ‘19), D.C. Correspondent & Digital Content Writer Jon Parrish Peede is the current Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). This interview was conducted the week after his confirmation by the Senate. Peede’s previous positions include Publisher of the Virginia Quarterly Review 2011-2016, senior leadership roles in the National Endowment for...
By James Dail (CMC ’20) Last Friday, President Trump, along with the heads of state of Mexico and Canada, signed the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA). The USMCA is the result of extensive trade negotiations between the three North American nations that began shortly after President Trump took office. The President sparked these negotiations in order to replace the North...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC ’19) In 1950, the Supreme Court decided in Feres v. the United Statesthat the federal government could not be held liable for injuries to members of the armed forces that arise from military service. The Feres Doctrine was created as a result of the case. It grants military entities and personnel immunity within the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), a law that allows...
By Daisy Ni (PO ’21) Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has long been a controversial figure. He, alongside with his site, are best known for their release of 25,000 cables of classified government information stolen by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Since then, Assange has had a strained relationship with the U.S. government. President Trump, for example, has...
Katya Pollock (PO ’21) This year’s midterm election results have proven historic for women: 117 female candidates, the most in U.S. history, have been elected to serve in either the House or the Senate. The wave of women legislators to Congress is supported by a dramatic increase in political donations made by women. With new women donors overwhelmingly leaning left, shifting donor...
By James Dail (CMC ’20) Education in the United States is in desperate need of an overhaul. It is a long-recognized phenomenon that students in the United States underperform their peers in the rest of the developed world. In some cases, American students are beaten by students in countries that are less socioeconomically developed, such as with Russia in mathematics. There are many...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) The U.S. Supreme Court answers many questions of serious importance: what are the limits of free speech? Are LGBTQ Americans protected against discrimination? Do corporations have constitutional rights? But, at times, the questions that face the court can seem far more trivial, thought no less consequential. Such is the case in Nix v. Hedden, which forced the...
By Sam Horowitz (PZ ‘20 ) I. Introduction: Disasters on the Rise, and the Science Behind It The frequency and intensity of natural disasters has been increasing in the United States and around the world. As seen in Fig. 1, natural disasters of every type have been increasing in number over the past forty years. This poses a grave risk to the United States, both economically and in terms of human...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC ’19) Central European University (CEU), one of the leading American accredited universities in Central Europe, is being forced out of Budapest, Hungary. In April 2017, the Hungarian Parliament changed the country’s higher education laws, making it illegal for some independent universities to operate. The new law requires universities registered outside of Hungary...
By Bryce Wachtell (PO ’21) In 2015, over twenty adolescents between the ages of 11 and 21 took the initiative to sue the federal government for its role in climate change. The story received international attention, in large part because of the legal standing of the plaintiffs. Three years after it first made headlines, the case, Juliana vs. United States et al., has yet to undergo a formal...
