O’er the Land of the Free…ish Colin Kaepernick’s Quintessentially American Protest
Would you vow to recite and honor words you don’t understand, written by a man you never knew, without question, simply because someone told you it was your duty? If you said yes, that’s not... Read More
Three Things that Must Happen with the Advent of Ending Private Prisons An In-Depth Look at Private Prison Reform
Last Thursday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a memo addressed from Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to the acting director of the federal Bureau of Prisons that they would be phasing out the... Read More
More than a Hill of Beans: Political Protests Face Pressure to Be Noticed
As the temperature heats up around the country, so does the political climate surrounding this year’s presidential election. The city of Philadelphia approved twenty-eight permits for demonstrations and marches during this week’s Democratic National Convention,... Read More
We Need to Talk about Lead’s Role in the Cycle of Poverty
We need resources. If there was one resounding takeaway from the Center for American Progress’s event last Wednesday on “Addressing Lead Exposure in Low-Income Communities,” it’s that efforts to remediate lead paint and other health... Read More
Ted Cruz Calls for Religious Freedom for Atheists in RNC Speech
Yesterday, in his speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) included atheists specifically in his call for religious freedom: Freedom means religious freedom, whether you are Christian or... Read More
Humanist Rights in Federal Prisons One Year after Holden v. Bureau of Prisons
The humanist movement has long fought for the rights and dignity of incarcerated people. But for far too long, humanists in federal prison were not even able to identify as such, meaning that they were... Read More
So-Called “First Amendment Defense Act” Would Actually Weaken Civil Liberties
Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a U.S. House committee hearing on the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA). The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), heard from a... Read More