Academic Rants

 Once again America is rocked by a Supreme Court decision, one that isn't really a decision based on legal precedents. The politics of race and class as well as personal agendas encouraged six members of the court to vote against the policies of the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.  Since its introduction Affirmative Action has been problematic. However, if equality had been achieved, it would not have been needed. Sadly, we are rehashing an old story. American history was not on trial. But it should be. Centuries of discrimination, attempts at remedies and then backlashes failed to convince the Court that a better solution was needed. The United States refused to blame itself for crafting weak or faulty judgements since the Regents of the University of California v. Allan Bakke in 1978. In contrast to the previous cases, especially the 2003 University of Michigan cases, when the court attempted to define Affirmative Action, this has been a watershed moment. For

New York City is the nation's most populated city. However, it is not regarded as a "car city", but rather the American standard of "working mass transit." Unfortunately working mass transit, or at least the American model, has numerous flaws that have been exposed by COVID-19. Currently, the consumer-based models of mass transit are hemorrhaging as many Americans have not returned to work on a regular or daily basis. Center cities now deserted due to remote plans fail to have the numbers needed to keep transit systems out of the red. And as mass transit fails, other parts of the urban economy will also fail. Occupancy in malls, offices and other retail spaces will continue to decrease unless people are pushed back to center city business districts. While San Francisco represents one extreme of the failure of the center city, Manhattan represents another.  Although the density of New York City, particularly Manhattan, will not turn mid-town into a ghost town, an

 A year ago, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and instantly set the world on fire. Since then lots of people have weighed in with their opinions on the actions of both men and how it affected intra-racial race relations, gender relations, and the state of American politics. Months later Kanye West engaged in a series of actions and statements that equally launched more opinions than the global population. In both cases, questions ultimately focused on traditional American behaviors, the things that your parents taught you never to do or say in public. True to form, it did not take long for someone to respond to defend the offender. And suddenly, the person lending a hand to the offender was subject to the same or even greater levels of scrutiny.  Lessons learned from these two incidents is that American society can be forgiving or unforgiving, not depending on the offense, but on the manipulation of the offense. I can say or do the most heinous things and get away with it if

In a recent newsletter James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute, wrote: "Earlier this summer, I read a rather dispiriting poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics: Only 57% of 18- to-29-year-olds said it is “very important” that the United States is a democracy; 7% of respondents said it is either “not very” or “not at all important.” The same poll found a third of young Americans questioning whether we’ll remain a unified nation." Although Basker received some encouraging news from another source, it is not difficult to see why young Americans might harbor such feelings. There is very little in the news that supports the continuation of our democracy. Our politicians on the left and the right, but especially the right, are engaged in tricking the population about major issues. It would take a devoted academic, attorney or activist to keep up with the manipulations that constantly skirt the law and easily make us doubt the worthiness of our political instituti

In another era, one much earlier than now, most major cities had multiple daily newspapers. Many cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago, had newspapers that were written in different languages. New York, for instance, had newspapers printed in Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Yiddish.  Papers were sold at corner stores, at newsstands, train and subway stations and on the streets. Often on the streets, the job of selling newspapers fell to youngsters. Now only captured in period piece movies, young folk cried out the name of the paper, the headlines or feature stories to get people to buy newspapers. There was a skill in selling newspapers and it became a product of an urbanizing society. Indeed, this was hard work. But it was a job that had no age requirement, did not require a formal education, was not restricted by race, ethnicity or religion, yet required some mathematical and consumer-oriented skills. Crying The News , Vincent Digirolamo’s award winning book

Since Richard Nixon’s presidency, every Republican administration has taken steps to try and kill Affirmative Action. They and their conservative allies have miscast its purpose and its targeted audience. The current actions in front of the most conservative Supreme Court in recent memory continue to weaken the intent of the program, and simultaneously allow attorneys to use racial identities against students of color to deny them from obtaining access that symbolizes the American Dream. Each case brought before the court tries to stress that white students are victimized in an attempt to improve the nation. In this instance to highlight white victimization, white organizations are supporting Asian American groups thereby pitting Asian Americans against African Americans in the Harvard case, and supporting a white coalition to challenge the enrollment of African Americans and Latinos at UNC.  The arguments against Affirmative Action always focus on "alleged losers". However,