Political Science
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13013/2064
2024-03-28T10:58:53ZHigher Education in Crisis: How Attacks from Conservatives, Elites, and Financiers Hurt Our Public Universities
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13013/2982
Higher Education in Crisis: How Attacks from Conservatives, Elites, and Financiers Hurt Our Public Universities
O’Connor, Cassidy
When discussing the state of contemporary public higher education, the conversation centers around an unfortunate, yet accidental, institutional failure. With statewide funding and federal student aid decreasing overall,1 universities have elected to cut programs, take on debt, and raise tuition and fees.2 Rising prices leave students either unable to afford higher education or push them further into debt, decreasing enrollment at four-year public universities.3 However, this crisis did not develop on its own and students are not to blame. This structural imbalance results from a long-term attack by conservative thinkers, elites, and financiers who use higher education to retain power and maximize their wealth. As examples of these trends, white supremacist ideology used privatization to circumvent the desegregation of public schools ruled in Brown v the Board of Education (1954). Throughout the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960’s, university administrations shifted the responsibility of paying for education onto students to keep them from demonstrating against oppressors.4 Private interests, bankers, and financiers used policy to further the assault on education through lobbying, tax avoidance, and investments. Tax loopholes create less tax revenue for already limited state budgets. Private nonprofit or for-profit institutions take the remaining subsidies, denying public universities crucial funding.5 This paper will outline the choices and events that created the current failure of public higher education. 1 Ma, Jennifer and Matea Pender. Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid 2022. New York: College 2 Mitchell, Michael, Michael Leachman, Kathleen Masterson, and Samantha Waxman. Unkept Promises: to Higher Education Threaten Access and Equity. Washington, DC: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3 National Center for Education Statistics. Total undergraduate fall enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by attendance status, sex of student, and control and level of institution: Selected years, 1970 2030. Digest of Education Statistics, 2021. 4 Maclean, Nancy. Democracy in Chains. Penguin Random House: New York, 2018. 5 Eaton, Charlie, Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education. University of Chicago Press, 2022.
2023-05-01T00:00:00ZThe Securitization of Migration: The Case of Haitian Immigrants Since The 1970s
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13013/2966
The Securitization of Migration: The Case of Haitian Immigrants Since The 1970s
Chalvire, Gamael
US immigration policies have negatively impacted Haitian migrants for decades, including, most recently, through policies like Title 42 and the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)--also called the Remain in Mexico Program. My paper argues that laws like these and how they are enforced are problematic and unjust because they negatively impact immigrants of color, especially Black immigrants. They exemplify the extent to which racism continues to affect immigration policy. The paper also shows how Haitian refugees as a group are systematically discriminated against based on their intersecting identities of being both migrants and Black. The paper makes a contribution to the securitization theory of migration, which argues that governments increasingly frame migration as a security threat, in part to scapegoat migrants and to distract from other issues. Relying on in-depth interviews with five Haitian migrants, the paper also shows how immigrants are forced to embark on a dangerous journey through the Mexican border because existing policies have made it impossible for them to come via other ways.
2023-05-01T00:00:00ZToday, the Proclivities of Individual Rule: The Problem of the Supreme Court and How to Fix It
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13013/2961
Today, the Proclivities of Individual Rule: The Problem of the Supreme Court and How to Fix It
Belitsky, Christine
Since 2016, the Supreme Court has become dominated by right-wing justices, nominated specifically by the Republican Party to ensure conservative political wins through the court system. These justices have been handing down partisan decisions from the nation's highest court, resulting in a legitimacy crisis and an erosion of our democracy. Expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court is the most effective way of addressing this crisis as it is clearly within the powers of Congress and has a fair amount of support among congressional Democrats.
2023-05-01T00:00:00ZUnderstanding The Rise Of Right Wing Populism
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13013/2649
Understanding The Rise Of Right Wing Populism
Kroyak, Paul
The United States, like many countries in the West today, is experiencing a wave of populism. While the populist left in the United States has certainly attracted thousands through the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, the populist right, or more accurately the influence of the populist right, has grown amazingly to the point where two-thirds of self-identified Republicans want Donald Trump to retain political power. More astonishingly, forty four percent of self-identified Republicans want Trump (who will be around seventy-eight) to run for president in 2024. Right-wing populism has been dominating the American political discussion since at least 2016, though the precursors to this movement go back further. This paper will discuss the underlying causes of the recent surge in right wing populism and the intentional strategies that right wing political actors use to both gain and retain support for the populist right in the United States. The rise of right wing populism cannot be attributed to a single person, movement, or event but rather a series of (1) a number of underlying economic plights caused by policies which favor the desires of the billionaire class and corporations (to pursue maximum profit) over working class and middle class people, (2) the economic and political manipulation at the hands of bourgeois political actors (such as the Koch family), and (3) a series of intentional political strategies used by right wing political actors to inspire outrage, garner support, and manipulate the political narrative with a particular interest in undermining traditional sources of authority and promoting nativist rhetoric. Mainly, many people in the United States are unable to live basic lives because of a constraining economic system and legislation which favor imminent and permanent indebtment, disinvestment from public goods, tremendous income inequality through financialization and wage theft, and corporate interests. This inability to live comfortably has caused disillusionment with the government for most Americans and is particularly salient with white men who are feeling the heat of unfettered capitalism in ways that contradict their view of the American exceptionalist framework. This disillusionment coupled with the infiltration of right wing views in the political and cultural views by presenting new sources of legitimate discourse and authority is capitalized on by right wing political actors through scare tactics and nativist/white nationalist rhetoric in order to achieve the political, cultural, and economic power to drive their movement.
2022-05-01T00:00:00Z