Iserotope Extras #63: Voter Suppression
Iserotope Extras #63: Voter Suppression
Hi and welcome to Iserotope Extras #63! Let’s welcome new subscribers Allison (via Olivia) and Dawn! This week, enjoy articles on voter suppression (a new interest), school re-segregation (not a new interest), trigger warnings in college classes, and Nayib Bukele, the young, idealistic mayor of San Salvador. There’s never a dull moment at Extras!
Texas’s Voter-Registration Laws Are Straight Out of the Jim Crow Playbook
Since Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which gutted the Voting Rights Act, Texas and many other states have passed restrictive voting laws. Most of these laws involve requiring people to show identification in order to vote. In this excellent article, Ari Berman explores an additional way that Texas curbs the franchise: by making it harder for people to register to vote. Mr. Berman suggests that Texas would be a blue (or at least purple) state if voter registration weren’t so limited.
The Desegregation and Resegregation of Charlotte’s Schools
Author Clint Smith argues that the recent police killing of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte can be traced to the community’s decision to resegregate its schools in 1999, after decades of successful integration beginning with Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), when the Supreme Court ordered busing to enforce Brown v. Board of Education. If we abandon public schooling, Mr. Smith suggests, we abandon the possibility that our society can improve.
I did not take this picture of the Milky Way. Joe Marquez (New York Times) did.
Hey U of Chicago: I’m an academic & survivor. I use trigger warnings in my classes. Here’s why.
Last year, Extras featured an Atlantic article that argued that colleges coddle students instead of encouraging them to grapple with challenging issues. This year, the University of Chicago wrote a letter telling students that they needed to engage in difficult topics instead of asking for trigger warnings and safe spaces. In this piece, an adjunct professor argues that trigger warnings and challenging material should not be mutually exclusive.
Fighting Violence By Fighting Poverty: Nayib Bukele, Mayor of San Salvador
Unless you teach in the Bay Area, you may not care about what’s going on in El Salvador. But if you ask Oakland kids if they know about Nayib Bukele, the 35-year-old mayor of San Salvador, they’ll say of course, and they’ll have rave reviews. Mr. Bukele is fighting the city’s gang and violence problem with pro-youth and anti-poverty programs, including skating parks and 100% Illuminado, which puts a streetlight on every block.
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