Another young White cisgender man has murdered another group of non-White people, and once again, White brows are furrowing over whether his conduct was racially motivated. Was it a “hate crime,” they ask? How will we ever know? Oh, perhaps we should ask him — because, sure, that’s how you…

How to make it up to the high school and college students we’ve let down so badly. — Graduating high school seniors had just about the worst last semester of high school imaginable. No spring musical, no prom. No graduation, and no graduation parties. Trapped at home, with your family. No spring college visits as those decision dates approached. And now, probably, no college to go to. …

Also, they seem to care whether she lives or dies. — At the worst possible time — a few months into the global pandemic the U.S. is unable or unwilling to manage intelligently — my sister and I found ourselves needing to move our 79-year-old mother into an assisted living facility. You know, those places that have been an epicenter of…

Sex, gender, race and ethnicity in contemporary protest art On June 26, 2020, The New York Times published an op-ed by Caroline Randall Williams that begins with a line now permanently seared on my memory: “I have rape-colored skin.” In the piece, Williams describes her personal history as the descendant…

It is not a performative distraction. It is an American Guernica. This piece has been updated to reflect the addition to the mural on June 6, 2020. On Friday morning, June 5, 2020, the words “Black Lives Matter” were painted on 16th Street N.W., in Washington, D.C. The giant sans-serif…

Sophisticated scientists and faculty members at universities all over the United States have written long, careful take-downs of their institutions’ plans to “re-open” in the fall for face-to-face instruction. Political scientist Jeffrey C. Isaac of Indiana University is one of the best of them, and I commend his work to…

“If you come back in, you will not die of food poisoning. At least, not while you’re on the premises. Probably.” “We’re open! Please come back! Everything’s fine…but please come back. Really. We really really want to keep our restaurant open. “If you come back in, most of your favorite items won’t be on the menu. Instead of our famous homemade lasagna, we’ll nuke a Lean Cuisine for you. But you…

Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Zoom Yoga It was the second week of quarantine, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Not really, of course — but I was going pretty crazy. I’m one of those people with what they call a “daily yoga practice.” Or, if not quite daily, at least several times a week. …

Due process matters. And it’s another thing university administrators are bad at. Campus sexual assault is a scourge on higher education. It has blighted the lives and educational prospects of far too many young women, and colleges have not done nearly enough to address it. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos…