Author: TheConversation

By Simran Jeet Singh, Visiting Lecturer, Union Theological Seminary Ten years ago, a white supremacist opened fire on a Sikh congregation in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring several others before taking his own life. An eighth person, Baba Punjab Singh, was left partially paralyzed and died from his wounds a few years later. At the time, it was among the deadliest mass shootings in a place of worship since the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963. It was also the most lethal assault on Sikh Americans since they began migrating...

By Pierre M. Atlas, Senior Lecturer, Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Even after the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, 70% of Republicans said it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun violence, while 92% of Democrats and 54% of independents expressed the opposite view. Just weeks after those mass shootings, Republicans and gun rights advocates hailed the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated New York state’s gun permit law and declared that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. Mayor Eric Adams,...

By Jennifer A. Taylor, Associate Professor of Political Science, James Madison University; and Katrina Miller-Stevens, Associate Professor of Management, Colorado College When anger over everything from the killing of unarmed people of color to new restrictions on access to abortion bubbles over, many Americans act on it. One avenue for someone who has gotten fed up with current events is to take part in protests, such as marching for gun reform in response to mass shootings. Another is by what nonprofit and philanthropy scholars like to call “rage giving” – charitable donations motivated by strong emotions and dissatisfaction with...

By Scott Skinner-Thompson, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Boulder Almost all American adults, which include parents, medical patients, and people who are sexually active, regularly exercise their right to privacy, even if they do not know it. Privacy is not specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. But for half a century, the Supreme Court has recognized it as an outgrowth of protections for individual liberty. As I have studied in my research on constitutional privacy rights, this implied right to privacy is the source of many of the nation’s most cherished, contentious and commonly used rights –...

By David Herzberg, Associate Professor of History, University at Buffalo The public has heard about the Sackler family and the role that they and their privately held company, Purdue Pharma, played in the opioid crisis. One TV series depicting the family as a villainous clan has earned 14 Emmy nominations. Another is in the works. Purdue is infamous for its hard-sell marketing of its powerful, long-acting opioid OxyContin. Among its troubling tactics: co-opting legitimate medical organizations to spread messages overstating the drug’s effectiveness and understating its addiction risks. Sales boomed, making its owners fabulously wealthy and building what journalist...

By Andrew Mines, Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington University; and Amira Jadoon, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Clemson University When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, there were faint hopes that this time would be different. The Taliban promised to respect girls’ education and women’s rights, and to not allow the country to become a breeding ground for terrorism, as it had been in the Taliban’s previous stint in government before the 2001 U.S. intervention. But a year after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban has failed to deliver on...