The Conversation

The death penalty, an American tradition on the decline

Written by James Acker, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, State University of New York

George Stinney, a 14-year old wrongfully executed for murder in 1944.M. Watt Espy Papers, University at Albany, CC BY-ND

Capital punishment has been practiced on American soil for more than 400 years. Historians have documented nearly 16,000 executions, accomplished by burning, hanging, firing squad, electrocution, lethal gas and lethal injection....

How smallpox devastated the Aztecs – and helped Spain conquer an American civilization 500 years ago

Written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

A 16th-century Aztec drawing of smallpox victims.

Recent outbreaks in the U.S. have drawn attention to the dangers of measles. The Democratic Republic of Congo is fighting a deadly outbreak of Ebola that has killed hundreds.

Epidemics are nothing new, of course. And some widespread infectious dieseases have profoundly changed the course of human...

Charter schools exploit lucrative loophole that would be easy to close

Written by Derek W. Black, Professor of Law, University of South Carolina

Some charter school operators make profits by leasing space to themselves at unusually high rates. By Ilya Andriyanov from www.shutterstock.com

While critics charge that charter schools are siphoning money away from public schools, a more fundamental issue frequently flies under the radar: the questionable business practices that allow people who...

Trump may seek more punishment of Cuba

Written by William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs

If Cuban exiles can sue businesses operating in Cuba, it could affect flights to the country, like this JetBlue landing in Havana.AP/Desmond Boylan

President Donald Trump may soon do a huge favor for Cuba’s wealthy, upper-class exiles, many of whom are now U.S. citizens living in Miami.

Some of them still dream of recouping their lost...

Indict or shut up: The public may never see a report from Mueller's investigation

Written by Stanley M. Brand, Distinguished Fellow in Law and Government, Pennsylvania State University

Will the public ever see a report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller?Shutterstock

Almost from the day of Robert Mueller’s appointment as special counsel, the media and the public have expected that his investigation will end with a report to either the Congress or the public or both.

I’m a law school professor who teaches a course on...

The survivors of clergy sexual abuse who finally pushed the Vatican to recognize the problem

Written by Brian Clites, Instructor and Associate Director, Case Western Reserve University

Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests protest against clergy sex abuse in Los Angeles in 2010.AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

The Vatican’s decision to defrock Cardinal Theodore McCarrick comes just days before the world’s leading bishops gather in Rome for a summit on the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

The bishops were instructed to...

Virginia politics: The uneasy marriage of new liberalism and historic racism

Written by Julian Maxwell Hayter, Associate Professor of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

Virginia is home to America’s original contradiction – the peculiar juxtaposition of slavery and freedom.

The recent “blue-ing” of Virginia has obscured a sobering political reality: Racial progress and racial bigotry can exist at the same time.

Those contradictions were on display when Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph...

Must the president be a moral leader?

Written by Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance, University of Washington

President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, during the funeral for former President George H.W. Bush.AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool

The best presidents – including figures such as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington – are celebrated not only as good leaders, but as good men. They embody not...

A brief history of presidential lethargy

Written by Stacy A. Cordery, Professor of History, Iowa State University

A television set turned on in the West Wing of the White House.AP Photo/Susan Walsh

No one doubts the job of president of the United States is stressful and demanding. The chief executive deserves downtime.

But how much is enough, and when is it too much?

These questions came into focus after Axios’ release of President Donald Trump’s...

Senate vote could end US complicity in the Saudi-led genocide in Yemen that spans Obama, Trump administrations

Written by Jeff Bachman, Professorial Lecturer in Human Rights; Director, Ethics, Peace, and Human Rights MA Program, American University School of International Service

Severe malnutrition, like this Yemeni boy experienced, is one of the results of the Yemen conflict. AP/Hani Mohammed

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass legislation to deny further military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen.

The bipartisan vote for the bill was a repudiation of the Obama and Trump...