The Conversation

Latino elites are paying the California dream forward

Written by Jody Agius Vallejo, Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at USC, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A small – but powerful – Latino middle class has emerged in California, led by elites like State Senator Kevin de Leon.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

American Latino economic elites have incomes and wealth in the top five percent of earners. Some own multi-million-dollar companies or work as corporate executives. Latino politicians –...

One American woman's life in revolutionary Russia

Written by Julia L. Mickenberg, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Female protesters in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in 1917 on International Women's Day. Wikimedia Commons

Anna Louise Strong, a journalist from Friend, Nebraska, was thrilled by what she heard about the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Although she is almost wholly unknown today, Strong was a household name in her time. She lived in the Soviet Union...

Two big problems with American voting that have nothing to do with Russian hacking

Written by Sascha Meinrath, Director of X-Lab; Palmer Chair in Telecommunications, Pennsylvania State University

Who gets to vote?Mikko Lemola/Shutterstock.com

Over the past year, the public discussion on election security and integrity has focused on concerns about foreign meddling in U.S. elections. The evidence is still coming in about which countries did what to influence both the public and the election itself. The American people have been left with a...

Taxpayers are subsidizing hush money for sexual harassment and assault

Written by Peter J. Henning, Professor of Law, Wayne State University

The secret settlements that leave the reputations of alleged sexual abuse perpetrators intact are also tax-deductible.Lisa S./Shutterstock.com

Many of the recent stories about sexual abuse claims against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and other powerful actors, journalists and executives mention...

Improving women's lives through energy: What Rick Perry got right and wrong

Written by Michael E. Webber, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Deputy Director of the Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin

Refugee women from Darfur, Sudan return to their camp in eastern Chad with wood for their households in 2011.European Commission DG ECHO, CC BY-SA

On Nov. 2, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry clumsily stated that fossil fuels could help prevent sexual assaults on vulnerable women in Africa. “When the lights are on, when you have light, it...

Why social media may not be so good for democracy

Written by Gordon Hull, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director of Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina – Charlotte

Some of the Facebook and Instagram ads used in 2016 election released by members of the U.S. House Intelligence committee. AP Photo/Jon Elswick

Recent revelations about how Russian agents inserted ads on Facebook, in an attempt to influence the 2016 election, present a troubling question: Is Facebook bad for democracy?

As a scholar of the social...

Academic journal publishing is headed for a day of reckoning

Written by Patrick Burns, Dean of Libraries and Vice President for Information Technology, Colorado State University

Locking articles away behind a paywall stifles access.Elizabeth, CC BY-NC-ND

Imagine a researcher working under deadline on a funding proposal for a new project. This is the day she’s dedicated to literature review – pulling examples from existing research in published journals to provide evidence for her great idea. Creating an...

How citizen investigators can collaborate on crowdsourced fact-checking

Written by Ricky J. Sethi, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Fitchburg State University

People can work together to help tell truth from falsehood.waraut60/Shutterstock.com

It can be hard to know what is true online. Propaganda and misinformation have a much longer history than the internet, of course. But the rapid proliferation of “fake news” on social media, and its tendency to extend into mainstream news coverage, can...

Maria will fundamentally change US policy toward Puerto Rico

Written by Pedro Caban, Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies, University at Albany, State University of New York

In the last 90 years, three catastrophic hurricanes have struck Puerto Rico.

San Felipe II in 1928 and San Ciprían in 1932 triggered political and economic changes in America’s largest colony that endured for generations. However, Puerto Rico remains an unincorporated territorial possession of the United States, subject to the plenary...

The curious relationship between altitude and suicide

Written by Hoehun Ha, Assistant Professor of Geography, Auburn University at Montgomery

Does living at a higher altitude affect your mental health?VAndreas/shutterstock.com

Suicide is one of the top 10 causes of death in the U.S. In the next 20 years, it’s expected to cause more than 2 million deaths per year worldwide, ranking 14th in the world as a cause of death.

There are many factors known to affect an individual’s...