Abandoned Evidence Suspends Justice
Hundreds of thousands of unprocessed and untested rape kits sit in evidence lockers across the country, while thousands of sexual assailants walk free. Because there is no standard for processing them, many of these kits are never tested. Estimates of the rape kit backlog near...
Doors Closing on Transgender Students
Transgender students across the nation are being threatened for something as simple as using the bathroom. On March 28 the U.S. Supreme Court was set to deliberate on the case of a transgender boy in Virginia whose high school barred him from using the boys’...
Justice Waits on the Border
Friends dared 15-year-old Sergio Hernández to touch the chain link fence separating Mexico from the U.S., but he didn’t know he would lose his life because of it. As Hernández sprinted back toward Mexico, he was shot at. The third shot to the head killed...
Safeguard Consumer Rights
If President Donald Trump gets his way, the watchdog agency entrusted with protecting student loan borrowers from unscrupulous loan servicers could lose its teeth — and its ability to protect consumers. The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a government entity designed to protect citizens...
Undercutting Fear and Sensationalism
Across the country, over 680 confirmed arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) occurred within one week in at least 11 different states. With these sudden arrests, many fear new, aggressive policies and an increased normalization of raids and separation of families. Conflicting reports from...
Repeal the Ban
Hundreds of travelers — college students returning from breaks or research trips, families who’ve sold everything to start a new life, refugees escaping despotism — were detained or turned away as a result of President Trump’s executive order. This order does more to ignite division,...
No Slurs in Sports
Racial slurs have no place in sports culture, and California just made this fact the law. Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 30, the California Racial Mascots Act, in 2015. This month, it comes into effect. Four schools in California with the mascot name “Redskins”...
UC’s Income Inequality Disregards Workers
The University of California and a select few employees sit comfortably atop an $11.2 billion endowment. Jim Mora, UCLA’s head football coach, makes over $3 million. George Blumenthal, UC Santa Cruz’s chancellor, makes over $380,000. Meanwhile, according to a 2016 Occidental College study, more than...
War on Women’s Health
By attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and federal funding to Planned Parenthood, Congress has declared a war on women’s health. Republicans have been steadfast in calling for a repeal of the ACA, President Barack Obama’s health care reform, since it was signed...
Last Chance for Commutation
The first time Chelsea Manning wore clothing that matched her gender, she was on leave in the U.S. from her deployment to Iraq. In her column published in The Guardian, she wrote, “Joy, confidence and security can’t begin until we are able to just be...