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  • 6/4/2023

    Can the Left Take Back Identity Politics?

    by Umut Özkırımlı

    Recovering the liberatory potential of identity politics means going back to the term's source—the Combahee River Collective—and recognizing its radical roots and embrace of coalition-building and politics.

  • 5/28/2023

    Dangerous Records: Why LGBTQ Americans Today Fear the Weaponization of Bureaucracy

    by Emily Hand

    Requests made by Texas's Attorney General for information about gender change requests on drivers' licenses and other documents alarmed transgender advocates because the data could support an official list of trans Texans at a moment when the group faces public vilification. History shows that innocent bureaucratic records can be used oppressively.

  • 5/28/2023

    The Modern Relics in Crow's Cabinet of Curiosities

    by Matthew Dennis

    Understanding Harlan Crow's collection, including Nazi memorabilia, as a set of relics (and not trophies or investments) helps to clarify the unease Americans feel about his understanding of power and cultivation of relationships with people of influence over the federal judiciary.

  • 5/21/2023

    Forget "Finding Forrester"—Our Best Teaching Can Be Ordinary

    by Elizabeth Stice

    Hollywood loves to tell the stories of singularly brilliant students pushed to greatness by similarly singular mentors with unconventional methods and unaccommodating personalities. This ideal won't help anyone teach the real students in their classrooms. 

  • 5/14/2023

    How a Little-Known Anti-Vietnam Protest Reverberates Today

    by Gary B. Ostrower

    A 1968 disruption of an ROTC ceremony at Alfred University in 1968 involved just 15 students and 2 faculty. It won't be remembered with Berkeley or Columbia in the annals of student protest, but it made a significant impact on the legal requirements placed on universities' policies for dealing with student protest. 

  • 5/14/2023

    Brandon Johnson Built a Coalition to Win in Chicago. Can He Keep it to Govern?

    by Gordon K. Mantler

    When Brandon Johnson takes office on Monday as Chicago's mayor, he will experience the same challenge that his political predecessor Harold Washington did in 1983: turning a winning electoral coalition into a durable governing coalition. It won't be easy, but progressive change in the city depends on it. 

  • 5/14/2023

    Political Pundits, Apply the "Resentment" Label with Caution

    by Robert A. Schneider

    As the brief respite between two Trump-Biden races reaches its end, "resentment" is once again the go-to political explanation. But too often the term is used to describe voters as irrational and unhinged while obscuring some real causes of moral aggrievement in contemporary society. 

  • 5/7/2023

    Buried Footage Helped Chicago Police Get Away with Killing 10 Labor Activists in 1937

    by Greg Mitchell

    Paramount's newsreel division shot footage of the murderous attack on a steelworkers' march in 1937. They sided with the bosses by burying the footage. Even after Senator Robert LaFollette pushed for the film's release, cities banned it from the screen as Chicago prosecutors ruled the killings justifiable. A new documentary tells the story of the film. 

  • 5/7/2023

    Let Us Now Praise R. DeSantis

    by Marc Stein

    "I can’t believe it’s taken this long to have a political leader take a stand against gender and sexuality!"

  • 5/7/2023

    The First Campgrounds Took the City to the Wilderness

    by Martin Hogue

    The growing popularity of the Model T put wilderness excursions within reach of ordinary city dwellers, bringing trash, fire, and pollution with them. The solution, mass campgrounds, made camping more accessible at the cost of rendering the experience more orderly, rule-bound, and urban. 

  • 4/30/2023

    Bipartisanship Once Took Flight—To Protect Birds

    by Will McLean Greeley

    Senator George McLean's successful effort to pass the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one of the most important conservation laws in American history, reflected two virtues in short supply in Washington today: bipartisan cooperation and humility.