(Source) The wrongfully convicted are an oft overlooked demographic of the American population because society views wrongful convictions as rarely occurring. But in fact, the numbers are quite staggering. The number of people exonerated in the last 30 years due to actual innocence? 2,500. The combined number of years unnecessarily spent in prison? 22,315.
(Source) In November 2019, a group of non-citizen veterans of the United States Military (military) celebrated Veterans Day in Mexico. Many of these individuals enlisted in the military after President George W. Bush signed an executive order fast-tracking citizenship for individuals willing to serve. However, they never officially became citizens and continue to remain vulnerable
Do Not Access – Is Law Enforcement Access to Commercial DNA Databases a Substantial Privacy Concern?
(Source) The use of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) as an investigative tool for law enforcement has become, “if not exactly routine, very much normalized.” The normalization is in large part due to law enforcement’s use of FGG to identify and arrest the Golden State Killer. The April 2018 arrest gained national recognition, and subsequently, so
(Source) As the political circuit heats up, politicians have acknowledged the public’s growing concern for the student debt crisis. The issue has taken center stage, especially among millennial voters, as collective student debt in the United States has hit $1.5 trillion—becoming one of the largest consumer debt categories. The rise of student debt parallels
(Source) As mass incarceration continues to plague the United States criminal justice system, improved technology and evidence-gathering techniques seek to identify and exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Those accused of a crime may be wrongfully convicted for a variety of reasons such as eyewitness misidentifications, coerced false confessions, faulty forensics science, incompetent public defenders, and suppression
(Source) “Life is a marathon, but minority runners often start the race from further back than do whites.” Do you agree or disagree with this quote? How about in the context of higher education? It is no secret that increasing diversity in higher education is a goal for many educational institutions. Affirmative action is
(Source) Since the late 1950’s the National Labor Relations Act has not seen any significant changes, allowing laws that were meant to govern a very different time period to remain as the bedrock of collective bargaining. Today, unionization rates demonstrate the challenges that unions are facing, with only 10.5% of the American workforce being
(Source) As the unionization rate in America continues to decline, union leadership has been searching for new industries, groups, and workplaces in which they might have success with unionization campaigns. One sector of employees that unions have been exploring is graduate students. While the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has swapped positions on allowing
(Source) On Tuesday, October 29, the governing board of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted unanimously to begin the process of “modernizing” their bylaws to allow student-athletes the opportunity to benefit monetarily from the use of their name, image, and likeness. The decision comes after years of discussion by NCAA officials and the
(Source) More than 1,300 communities in the US have totally lost local news coverage, according to a University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism study from late 2018. This nationwide decline in local journalism hit two New York State legislators close to home when Verizon announced that it was closing the doors