Author: Alan Jenkins

There is a saying in many African-American communities that our system of criminal “justice” means “just us.” While overstated, the expression reflects longstanding, as well as very recent, experiences of racial profiling and unequal treatment. For many years the evidence has been mounting that, despite our progress as a nation, race continues to have a […]

For decades, residents of the Coal Run neighborhood of east-central Ohio had to haul water from wells or collect rainwater to drink, cook, and bathe. Their story might be quaint, except that the decades stretched from the 1950s to the 21st Century and, as a federal jury concluded last week, they were denied water services […]

Summer vacation began this week for millions of kids across the country,. But in many communities, school board members, principals, and administrators are still hard at work. Among their tasks for the summer is designing new ways of fulfilling the promise of equal educational opportunity and preparing students for a diverse, interconnected world. They are […]

The nation’s eyes are again on Iowa this week, as its residents struggle with the aftermath of violent storms and devastating flooding. People from Cedar Rapids to Columbus Junction to Des Moines are dealing with the tragic loss of life and the grim destruction of homes and property. The catastrophe has understandably eclipsed recent developments […]

The California Supreme Court connected human rights to reality last week when it ruled that same-sex couples have the same right to marry that heterosexual couples have. The court majority rejected the false notion that offering gay and lesbian couples a separate and unequal arrangement—civil unions—was anything less than second-classed citizenship. It’s time for the […]