In August 2021, the world watched as the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, sweeping away two decades of progress toward democracy, human rights and gender equality. While international headlines have since moved on to other crises, millions of Afghan women and girls continue to live under increasingly restrictive policies that have systematically stripped away their [...]
Search Results for: don\'t ask don\'t tell
JURIST Senior Editor for Long Form Content Pitasanna Shanmugathas interviews Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, chief editor of LeftWord Books, and author of forty books including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World and The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. In this interview, Prashad delves [...]
Judi Rever is a Montreal-based journalist and author of In Praise of Blood, which investigates mass violence under Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s regime, using survivor testimonies, former soldiers, and leaked UN documents. A Ryerson journalism graduate, Rever covered the Congo-Rwanda crisis for Radio France-Internationale in 1997 and later reported for Agence France-Presse. Her work has [...]
In Civil Rights Stronghold, Alabama's Anti-DEI Law Faces Constitutional Challenge
Before US President Donald J. Trump returned to the Oval Office and began systematically attacking initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) across US institutions, Alabama passed SB 129, a law aimed at stifling a broad swath of DEI-related initiatives at public universities. Now, educators and students are challenging the controversial state law in [...]
School Book Bans Undermine Democratic Values in US Education
In September, a federal lawsuit settlement forced Florida’s Nassau County public school district to restore 36 books featuring race-related or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) themes to bookshelves. Among the books is the award-winning And Tango Makes Three, which tells the true story of two male penguins who raise a chick together at the Central Park Zoo. [...]
Israeli Back Channel Negotiator Gershon Baskin on Gaza War, Hamas Talks, and Path to Peace
Gershon Baskin, a prominent Israeli peace negotiator who is currently conducting back-channel negotiations between Hamas and Israel to bring an end to the current offensive in Gaza, spoke to JURIST Senior Editor for Long Form Content Pitasanna Shanmugathas about the complex obstacles preventing a ceasefire amid the conflict’s expansion into Lebanon and Iran, his unique [...]
With the 2024 presidential elections rapidly approaching, concerning trends in electoral confidence and rule of law have emerged across party lines in the US. The latest Rule of Law Index, released last week by the World Justice Project (WJP), shows the US dropping to 43rd globally in measurements of “lawful transition of power” — a [...]
In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of the Afghan capital of Kabul. In the two decades that had passed since their previous rule, a generation of women and girls experienced the gradual but powerful onset of expanded rights and freedoms. After the Taliban’s resurgence, these rights were systematically dismantled vis-a-vis the regime’s strict interpretation [...]
US president pardons LGBTQI+ military veterans' convictions of now-repealed discriminatory laws
US President Biden on Wednesday pardoned American veterans who were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity under a military code for more than 60 years. Biden’s proclamation grants direct clemency to people who had been given court marshal convictions between 1951 and 2013 because of their status in [...]
Sharon Basch is a rising 3L at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a JURIST staff correspondent in Washington DC this summer. Wednesday morning I attended a US Senate Budget Committee hearing entitled “Making Wall Street Pay its Fair Share: Raising Revenue, Strengthening Our Economy.” The hearing was called to discuss tax policy [...]