Author: TheConversation

By Tiffany Puett, Adjunct Professor of Religious and Theological Studies, St. Edward’s University The debate over critical race theory has played out in TV studios, school board meetings and state legislatures across the United States. It has also found its way into churches. The theory comprises a set of concepts that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through personal discrimination. Scholars point to racial discrepancies in educational achievement, economic and employment opportunities and in the criminal justice system as evidence of how racism is embedded in U.S. institutions. But as its critics tell it, critical race theory...

By Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUI Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill on September 7, 2021, that reduces opportunities for people to vote, allows partisan poll watchers more access and creates steeper penalties for violating voting laws. The Republican governor argued that the legislation would “solidify trust and confidence in the outcome of our elections by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.” Democratic opponents of the measure, however, said Republican legislators presented no evidence of widespread voter fraud during debate on the bill. Civil rights organizations immediately filed suit, calling the law...

By Stefanie Lindquist, Foundation Professor of Law and Political Science, Arizona State University The new Texas law that bans most abortions uses a method employed by Texas and other states to enforce racist Jim Crow laws in the 19th and 20th centuries that aimed to disenfranchise African Americans. Rather than giving state officials, such as the police, the power to enforce the law, the Texas law instead allows enforcement by “any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state.” This enforcement mechanism relies solely on citizens, rather than on government...

By Maggie Jones Patterson, Professor of Journalism, Duquesne University; and Romayne Smith Fullerton, Associate Professor, Information and Media Studies, Western University When the names of suspects appear in crime stories, their lives may be broken and never put back together. For years, people have begged The Associated Press, known as the “AP,” to scrub their indiscretions from its archives. Some of those requests “were heart-rending,” said John Daniszewski, standards vice president at AP who helped to spearhead the worldwide news service’s new policy. Acknowledging that journalism can inflict wounds unnecessarily, AP will no longer name those arrested for minor...

By Joan Fitzgerald, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, Northeastern University; and Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University The US$1.2 trillion infrastructure bill now moving through Congress will bring money to cities for much-needed investments in roads, bridges, public transit networks, water infrastructure, electric power grids, broadband networks and traffic safety. We believe that more of this money should also fund the dismantling of racist infrastructure. Many urban highways built in the 1950s and 1960s were deliberately run through neighborhoods occupied by Black families and other people of color, walling these communities...