Category: Uncategorized

In a major ruling that would permit weakening the voting power of minorities in the United States, the Supreme Court on April 29, 2026, struck down a Black-majority district in Louisiana’s congressional map as “an unconstitutional gerrymander” and altered the court’s interpretation of the Voting Rights Act.

In a 6-3 decision, the court’s conservative majority argued that Louisiana had violated the law by drawing a second Black-majority district. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the court was upholding a key part of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 2, which prohibits “voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified” in the act.

But the conservative justices also devised a new interpretation for its application based on historical developments. By doing that, the court majority made it more difficult for plaintiffs to challenge redistricting plans under the act.

In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan called the decision the “latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

Kagan, joined by the other two liberal justices, argued that the decision will make it effectively impossible to use race in redistricting – as has been done historically under the Voting Rights Act – and more difficult to prove discrimination under the act. She wrote, “The court’s decision will set back the foundational right Congress granted of racial equality in electoral opportunity.”

I’m a scholar of national political institutions, election law and democratic representation. The timing of the case carries major implications for the 2026 midterm elections. The decision, by weakening the Voting Rights Act, could make it easier for states to draw partisan gerrymanders of their congressional districts that reduce the power of minorities.

Long legal battle

The central question in the case was to what extent race can, or must, be used when congressional districts are redrawn.

Plaintiffs challenged whether the longstanding interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires protection of minority voting power in redistricting, violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that individuals should be treated the same by the law.

In short, the plaintiffs argued that the state of Louisiana’s use of race to make a second Black-majority district was forbidden by the U.S. Constitution. From my perspective as a scholar of U.S. federal courts and electoral systems, this case represent the collision of decades of Supreme Court decisions on race, redistricting and the Voting Rights Act.

To understand the stakes of the current case, it’s important to know what the Voting Rights Act does. Initially passed in 1965, the act helped end decades of racially discriminatory voting laws by providing federal enforcement of voting rights.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act forbids discrimination by states in relation to voting rights and has been used for decades to challenge redistricting plans.

Callais had its roots in the redistricting of Louisiana’s congressional districts following the 2020 Census. States are required to redraw districts each decade based on new population data. Louisiana lawmakers redrew the state’s six congressional districts without major changes in 2022.

Soon after the state redistricted, a group of Black voters challenged the map in federal court as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs argued that the new map was discriminatory because the voting power of Black citizens in the state was being illegally diluted. The state’s population was 31% Black, but only one of the six districts featured a majority-Black population.

Federal courts in 2022 sided with the plaintiffs’ claim that the plan did violate the Voting Rights Act and ordered the state legislature to redraw the congressional plan with a second Black-majority district.

The judges relied on an interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act from a 1986 Supreme Court decision in the case known as Thornburg v. Gingles. Under this interpretation, Section 2’s nondiscrimination requirement means that congressional districts must be drawn in a way that allows large, politically cohesive and compact racial minorities to be able to elect representatives of their choice.

In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a similar racial gerrymandering case in Alabama.

Louisiana lawmakers redraw districts

Following the court order, the Louisiana state legislature passed Senate Bill 8 in January 2024, redrawing the congressional map and creating two districts where Black voters composed a substantial portion of the electorate in compliance with the Gingles ruling. This map was used in the 2024 congressional election and both Black-majority districts elected Democrats, while the other four districts elected Republicans.

These new congressional districts from Senate Bill 8 were challenged by a group of white voters in 2024 in a set of cases that became Louisiana v. Callais.

The plaintiffs argued that the Louisiana legislature’s drawing of districts based on race in Senate Bill 8 was in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which requires equal treatment of individuals by the government, and the 15th Amendment, which forbids denying the right to vote based on race.

Essentially, the plaintiffs claimed that the courts’ interpretation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional and that the use of race to create a majority-minority district is itself discriminatory. Similar arguments about the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause were also the basis of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions striking down race-based affirmative action in college admissions.

In 2024, a three-judge district court sided with the white plaintiffs in Louisiana v. Callais, with a 2-1 decision. The Black plaintiffs from the original case and the state of Louisiana appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The court originally heard the case at the end of the 2024-2025 term before ordering the case reargued for 2025-2026.

Major implications

The court’s opinion reinterprets key precedent on the Voting Rights Act and the application of Section 2 to redistricting. It carries major consequences for the federal courts, gerrymandering and the voting rights of individuals.

For 39 years, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has required redistricting institutions to consider racial and ethnic minority representation when devising congressional districts. Majority-minority districting is required when a state has large, compact and cohesive minority communities. Historically, some states have redistricted minority communities in ways that dilute their voting power, such as “cracking” a community into multiple districts where they compose a small percentage of the electorate.

Section 2 also provided voters and residents with a legal tool that has been used to challenge districts as discriminatory. Many voters and groups have used Section 2 successfully to challenge redistricting plans.

Section 2 has been the main legal tool for challenging racial discrimination in redistricting for the past decade. In 2013, the Supreme Court effectively ended the other major component of the Voting Rights Act, the preclearance provision, which required certain states to have changes to their elections laws approved by the federal government, including redistricting.

In this case the court did not fully overrule the previous interpretation of Section 2, but it has altered its application. The effect is that it limits the legality of using race in redistricting and the most common way to challenge discriminatory redistricting.

Additionally, because of the strong relationship between many minority communities and the Democratic party, the court’s decision has major implications for partisan control of the House of Representatives.

By changing the interpretation of Section 2, Republicans could use the ruling to redraw congressional districts across the country to benefit their party. Politico reported that Democrats could lose as many as 19 House seats if the Supreme Court sided with the lower court.

This case builds directly on a recent case also authored by Alito. In 2024, the court overruled a lower court’s finding of racial vote dilution in South Carolina.

This is an updated version of a story that originally published on Oct. 13, 2025.

Sam D. Hayes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire announced on April 7, 2026, after 40 days of war came at an opportune time for the United States. Several reports indicate it is running out of weapons amid the conflict.

As a scholar focused on U.S. military deployments, these reports are concerning and somewhat surprising.

After all, the United States spends more money on its military – nearly US$1 trillion annually – than the next nine highest-spending countries combined.

How can the U.S. military be depleting its weapons against a largely isolated country that spends less than 1% of what the United States does?

I believe that gauging U.S. weapons stockpiles provides insight into how the U.S. military may be constrained in the future, and what countries such as Russia and China may learn from the Iran conflict.

The US has a missile problem

Operation Epic Fury, as the U.S. calls the military operation in Iran, has employed a large amount of military assets in a short time. Military analysts suggest the U.S. is running low on Tomahawk missiles, surface-to-surface missiles and air-defense interceptor missiles.

After a month of war, the U.S. had used over 850 Tomahawk missiles, the sea- or ground-launched cruise missile that has a 1,500-mile range.

That represents years of stockpile accumulation. The U.S., for instance, budgeted for 57 Tomahawk missiles in 2025 and procured 22 of them. The U.S. has built roughly 9,000 since the 1980s and may have deployed over 30% of its current stockpile since the start of the Iran war.

The U.S. military has used two types of surface-to-surface missiles at rates that are not sustainable if the Iran conflict were to continue at its previous intensity. These missiles have a range of 200 to 250 miles (320 to 400 km) and are used for precision strikes against military targets, such as air defenses or enemy troops.

The air-defense interceptor missiles used for the Patriot system, a ground-based air defense system, and terminal high-altitude area defense system, or THAAD, are used to protect bases, infrastructure and troops.

The U.S. has eight THAAD systems and has sent munitions from a Korean THAAD system to the Middle East for the Iran conflict.

THAAD systems operate by shooting a missile without an explosive payload. Instead, THAAD interceptors rely on kinetic energy, which is derived from its motion, to destroy incoming missiles. The U.S. has used between 50% to 80% of its THAAD stockpile in its war with Iran, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The rapid consumption of these resources has forced the U.S. to divert missiles from other regions while seeking new funding and contractors to build missiles. But producing and deploying missiles can take 18 to 24 months because certain components need to be manufactured before being assembled into a final product.

The U.S. has alternatives to these systems, such as the shorter-range, low-cost unmanned combat attack system that uses drones. They are known as LUCAS drones and are based on Iran’s Shahed drone design.

These lower-cost alternatives, however, are less effective and increase the danger to ships, service members and civilians.

Broader concerns

The Iran conflict is not the first time the U.S. has been reported to be depleting its weapons stockpiles. In part, that’s due to its role as the world’s largest supplier of arms, accounting for 43% of global arms exports.

The U.S. has supplied Ukraine with substantial military hardware – missile defense systems, missiles, tanks – for its war with Russia. That has led to delays in weapons shipments, including stinger missiles and Paladin howitzers, to Taiwan, where the U.S. has sent arms since the 1950s to deter China from invading it.

After pausing aid, the Trump administration resumed sending weapons to Ukraine in July 2025. And European support for Ukraine comes through the purchase of U.S. military equipment.

Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon has put additional pressure on the U.S. weapons stockpile. The U.S. provides $3.8 billion annually in military aid to Israel, in addition to $16.3 billion since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel.

Whether the U.S. is depleting its weapons because it’s consuming its own stockpile or because of its global commitments, or both, it has ripple effects across the globe. A conflict in the Middle East and new demands on the supply chain for increased production mean there will be shortfalls in Europe and Asia, where U.S.-aligned countries rely upon arms exports for their security.

The US and other powers

The U.S., nonetheless, has evolved its approach to preparing for global threats since the end of the Cold War.

In the 1990s, Washington’s strategy was to be prepared to fight wars in two regions simultaneously. The U.S. has scaled back this 1990s strategy to focus on conflict against a single adversary in a single theater.

The Iran war has nonetheless exposed the limits of U.S. military dominance. And rivals such as China and Russia are learning lessons from the Iran conflict at the United States’ expense.

Michael A. Allen received grant research funding from the Department of Defense’s Minerva Initiative, the US Army Research Laboratory, and the US Army Research Office from 2017 to 2021.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

At the time of his death in 1831, Stephen Girard – a Philadelphia merchant, banker and philanthropist – was the wealthiest man in the United States. In his will, he left the city of Philadelphia an extraordinary gift of roughly US$6 million, which is almost $227 million today.

Girard also left instructions to use a portion of this gift to found a boarding school for poor, orphaned white boys. Today, this institution for grades 1-12 is known as Girard College, and it now admits students from underserved communities regardless of race or gender. Girard College inherited Girard’s material possessions, including furniture, personal papers and clothing – including this pair of heavily repaired silk stockings.

Their survival might make you wonder: Why was the wealthiest man in America walking around in mended clothing?

As a textile historian who writes about the labor of mending in early America, I studied the stitches used to repair Girard’s stockings along with his expansive archival records.

Together, this historical evidence helped me unravel new details about the value of textiles in early America, but also the women – including those who worked in Girard’s household — who made the country’s expansive economic growth possible.

Lessons from a rich man’s socks

Textiles were used every day by virtually every single early American, and were at the time usually the most valuable items one could own.

Prior to widespread mechanization, textiles were expensive due to the cost of materials and skilled labor needed to produce fabric, and they were often sourced abroad. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the U.S. had a growing domestic textile industry, but many Americans still imported fabrics from other countries like Great Britain, France and India. Bills from Girard’s household show that he regularly purchased many articles of his clothing, including silk stockings, from France.

The high value of textiles at this time meant that even the wealthiest households rarely discarded damaged clothes. Instead, they repaired them, using sewing needles and thread. While some men did mend, the overwhelming majority of textile repair was completed by women.

The menders: Sally, Polly and Hannah

In Girard’s household, at least three women would have mended his silk stockings and other clothes.

While Girard did marry, his wife, Mary, was institutionalized for mental illness at the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1790, and they had no children. In Mary’s absence, Girard had several mistresses who served as his housekeepers: Sally Bickham, a Quaker woman described by Girard in a letter as a “tayloress” or seamstress, and Polly Kenton, who was a laundress. As part of their labor, they managed Girard’s household affairs and shopping to keep his life running smoothly.

In addition, a Black woman named Hannah Brown from Saint-Domingue, a former French colony in what is now Haiti, was enslaved in Girard’s household for more than 40 years. This was the case even though Pennsylvania’s Gradual Abolition Act in 1780 should have ensured her freedom within six months of her arrival in the U.S. Pennsylvania unevenly enforced gradual abolition, and enslavers like Girard were able to skirt its implementation. Girard’s will granted Brown her freedom.

All three women labored in Girard’s household to mend his stockings, run his household’s daily activities and maintain his home. Three different mending techniques on Girard’s stockings – such as Swiss darning or duplicate knit stitch, woven darning and reinforced heels – are also material expressions of their work alongside paper records like household bills, letters and receipts.

Many early American women both free and enslaved completed unpaid labor in homes, but their labor was a central force in the national economic growth of the early 19th century. Across the country, men like Girard encouraged and profited from widespread industrialization and expanded commercial opportunities, but women’s unpaid domestic labor made their participation and profits possible.

While Philadelphians today may not find their names on prominent street signs or city buildings, Sally, Polly and Hannah’s combined efforts — hidden inside Girard’s shoes and behind his looming historical legacy in Philadelphia – were integral to Girard’s economic success.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Emily J. Whitted currently receives funding from The Library Company of Philadelphia.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Most people know the basics of healthy living that become more important as you grow older: Eat plenty of vegetables, exercise regularly, sleep well, have a social life, limit your alcohol consumption and don’t smoke.

As an economist and social psychologist who study altruism and health, we wondered whether civic engagement might play a role as well.

In 2022, the American Medical Association, an organization representing doctors, noted that voting could potentially have health benefits. So we conducted a study that directly tested this idea: We examined whether older Americans – people who are 65 and up – who vote live longer than nonvoters.

Older adults vote at a higher rate than younger adults in the United States. In Wisconsin, the focus of our study, the voting rate of older adults is even higher.

We used data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, a study which has followed a randomly selected sample of Wisconsin high school graduates since 1957. We compared the long-term health of older adults who voted in the 2008 presidential election to those who did not vote in that election. Using objectively verified voting records from Catalist, which tracks Americans’ voting behavior, along with official National Death Index records, we found that voters were 45% less likely to die within five years after the 2008 election, 37% less likely to die 10 years after the election, and 29% less likely to die 15 years later.

We also examined voting in the 2004 and 2012 presidential elections and found that the results were stronger for more recent elections – those held in 2008 and 2012 – compared to the earlier one held in 2004.

You may wonder whether this is just because healthier people are more likely to vote in the first place.

It’s easier to vote when you’re healthy than when you’re not, but this does not fully explain our results. Voters still had a lower risk of dying when we controlled for demographic factors such as gender, marital status and income, other forms of civic engagement such as volunteering, and a voter’s health status prior to voting.

We also found that those in poorer health to begin with benefited more from voting 15 years later than those who had been healthier before they voted.

Here’s another finding: How someone voted didn’t matter. When we compared what happened to older adults who cast their ballots in person to those who mailed their ballots, we found that both groups had about an equally lower risk of dying over the 15-year period.

It also did not matter whether a voter’s preferred candidate won. We found that although it can be stressful when the candidate you support loses, the people we studied experienced similar long-term health benefits of voting regardless of their political affiliation.

Why it matters

Scientists have long known that people who volunteer for nonprofits experience many health benefits, including a longer lifespan.

Voting is, arguably, also an altruistically motivated act. That’s because individual voters are aware that their one vote will not change the outcome of a national election.

What still isn’t known

If you are wondering why voting predicts lower mortality risk, well, so did we.

One possibility is that as with other civic engagement activities, including volunteering, voting may trigger positive biological responses that support well-being. Other researchers have found ample evidence showing that volunteering can boost the brain’s reward system, reduce stress and even slow some aspects of aging.
Although we didn’t test for these in the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, they may help explain why people who vote tend to have better health outcomes than those who don’t.

Voting might also improve health through a sense of self-efficacy, civic duty and social connection, since it is both an altruistic and shared activity.

Although the exact explanations aren’t known, studies consistently show a link between volunteering and a lower mortality risk, which suggests that participating in civic life – even something as simple as casting a ballot – may be good for your health, like going for a run or eating vegetables.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

For the third time in three years, Donald Trump has come under threat by an attacker. Many facts remain unclear after a gunman stormed the Washington Hilton on April 25, 2026, during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

As the investigation into the shooting continues, Alfonso Serrano, The Conversation’s politics and society editor, spoke with James Piazza, a political violence scholar at Penn State, about what is driving the rise of political violence in the U.S. and what can be done about it.

This is not the first time Trump has faced political violence. What stands out after the latest attack?

I think the events of April 25 underscore how dangerous this political moment is in the United States. For the past several years – certainly since Jan. 6, 2021 – the U.S. has been experiencing a period of increased political violence, which is generally defined as violence that is motivated by politics or is intended to communicate a political message or achieve a political objective.

Researchers at the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab have documented that political violence has increased in the U.S. in recent years. Several recent examples come to mind: the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building; multiple assassination attempts on President Trump; the deadly attacks on Minnesota lawmakers Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman that left Hortman and her husband dead; the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi; the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In my home state of Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro was targeted in an attack on the governor’s mansion.

What’s driving that apparent plague of political violence afflicting the country?

There are several important drivers of political violence at work in the U.S. today, according to my own research and research by other scholars. The United States is currently very politically polarized, meaning that Americans are sharply divided against one another along partisan lines. They are suspicious and hostile toward one another, and this produces a tense and volatile environment for politics and public life. This has produced a “zero-sum” environment in which every election and political contest is a “do or die” moment.

What stands out to me is the moral dimension of polarization in the U.S. Each side views members of the other party not as merely having a different view on politics but rather as evil or immoral. The polarized environment has made political violence more normalized. It has also dampened public backlash against political violence when it occurs. This makes political violence more likely.

Political rhetoric has become much more divisive and violent in nature. This works hand in hand with polarization and helps to further normalize political violence. In particular, when politicians use demonizing or dehumanizing rhetoric to attack their opponents – for example, using words that depict their opponents as subhuman – this fosters extremism and helps motivate extremists to hurt their opponents physically.

Disinformation is also an important driver of political violence. A number of people who have engaged in recent acts of political violence seem to have been motivated by conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation, often gleaned from social media. Disinformation plays a particularly important role in the context of social media communities, where people are exposed to large amounts of disinformation and are hermetically sealed off from other sources that might challenge their worldview. This facilitates radicalization and has been shown to fuel political violence in some cases.

Finally, I think an important factor is also the current assault on democratic norms and democratic institutions in the United States. U.S. democracy is experiencing pressures that are unprecedented in the modern era. This has had a very damaging effect on Americans’ trust in government, confidence in democratic institutions and value for democratic rule itself.

My work shows that individuals who are skeptical about democracy are much more likely to express support or tolerance for political violence.

How does this moment of political violence stand out from other violent periods in U.S. history – are we in uncharted waters?

While the U.S. is currently experiencing an uptick in political violence, unfortunately it is not unprecedented. One example would be the highly polarized period in the 1850s in the run-up to the Civil War. In this era, there was a sharp division between abolitionists and advocates of slavery. This culminated in political assassinations, an assault on an abolitionist member of Congress by a pro-slavery member of Congress, and a bloody civil conflict in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery armed groups.

The early 1900s, right after World War I, saw another increase in political violence due to labor issues and violence by the second generation of the Ku Klux Klan.

Finally, the 1960s also saw a period of intense political violence surrounding opposition to the Vietnam War and backlash to the Civil Rights Movement.

Though there are some unique features about political violence today – namely the influence of social media – I think we can look for some parallels in these early periods of political violence.

Any last thoughts?

I believe it is absolutely critical that both Democratic and Republican politicians – politicians from all sides – unite to condemn this attack and all political violence. Political commentators and influencers can also condemn this and all use of political violence.

Research amply shows that what political elites – politicians, political leaders, media commentators, online influencers – say in the wake of these sorts of events has a huge effect on citizens’ attitudes. Political elites can adopt rhetoric that does not normalize this sort of behavior.

If the message comes from across the political spectrum, it will be that much more effective at reducing the public attitudes that nurture political violence.

James Piazza has received grants from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, a non-partisan research and public events center that sponsors research on democracy.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

With the NFL draft taking place in Pittsburgh and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people expected to attend the events downtown and on the North Shore, conversations about sex trafficking have resurfaced – as they often do when major events draw large crowds to a city.

But how much of what people believe about trafficking and big events is actually supported by evidence? Mary Burke, a psychology professor at Carlow University who studies this intersection, breaks down what the data shows.

Burke partners with local nonprofit groups that fight human trafficking, such as Eden’s Farm. The organization offered three community training sessions ahead of the NFL draft that focused on recognizing the signs of exploitation, understanding grooming tactics and strengthening prevention strategies.

With Pittsburgh hosting the NFL draft, what does research show about how large events can influence sex trafficking activity?

Researchers have not found conclusive evidence that large events such as the NFL draft, the World Cup or other similarly sized, temporary events cause an increase in sex trafficking. However, experts do believe the crime of sex trafficking is underestimated in general due to a number of factors. Because so much effort goes into concealing trafficking, the crime goes unreported and undetected more often than it’s discovered. The true scale of the problem is likely much larger than the data reflects.

Large events that draw crowds even on a smaller scale than the draft, such as motorcycle rallies and large business conferences, often create opportunities traffickers may try to exploit, according to a 2016 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

Also, we do see an increased demand for commercial sex with events that draw a large male audience. Some of this demand is met through consensual means and some through force, fraud and coercion, which is the definition of sex trafficking.

How are organizations like Eden’s Farm working on the ground to prevent trafficking during the draft?

Eden’s Farm as well as the Social Impact Institute and Carlow University have led training. The hope is that this will equip citizens and those on the ground – law enforcement, ride share drivers and hotel and restaurant employees, for example – to know how to identify and respond to potential trafficking situations.

Additionally, these groups teach the public how to recognize signs of exploitation, how grooming works and how to strengthen online safety. The training also help families, educators, service providers and community members prevent people they know from being trafficked.

What are common misconceptions people have about sex trafficking during events like this?

One of the most common misconceptions about sex trafficking is the idea that trafficking includes abduction or physical captivity. While kidnapping can occur, many trafficking situations are carried out through psychological coercion rather than physical force. Victims may be controlled through grooming, fraud, intimidation, fear of retaliation against loved ones, or deep emotional dependency on the trafficker.

This translates into a victim not appearing to be restrained physically, which can make identification of a person in distress more difficult.

What signs should the general public look for that might indicate trafficking is happening?

This is tricky, as some of the indicators would be revealed through conversation, rather than observation at a distance. With that said, people should be on the lookout for patterns of control – for example, someone who does not seem to be able to speak freely or move about freely, has money or identification that is controlled by another person, or appears fearful.

In our training, we explain how to become aware of signs that someone is being pressured into commercial sex through manipulation rather than overt violence or consent. No single sign is definitive on its own, but there are some common situational red flags the public can take notice of regarding potential victims: They are coming and going from a hotel room at unusual hours with multiple different people, they are dressed in a way that seems inconsistent with the weather or setting, or they don’t seem to know basic details about where they are or where they’re going.

What are some prevention strategies Pittsburgh could adopt?

For this event and going forward, trafficking prevention should include a city- and county-level plan that can be implemented in relevant agencies. Pennsylvania’s plan focuses on prevention through public awareness and training, especially by equipping transportation workers and the public to recognize and report trafficking.

Prevention plans could include recommendations for the service and hospitality industries that require staff training on recognizing trafficking indicators, such as signs of coercion or restricted movement, and how to report to law enforcement or 911 for a rapid response. There are also a variety of ways to report suspected sex trafficking activity through the National Human Trafficking Hotline. When businesses and service workers interact with people who may be trafficking victims, they should do so in a way that is sensitive, nonjudgmental and doesn’t put the person in danger.

For example, a hotel employee who suspects a guest may be a trafficking victim shouldn’t confront the trafficker directly or make a scene – instead, they should know how to quietly offer help or alert the right people without escalating the situation or making the victim feel ashamed or accused.

Mary Burke is also the Director of the Social Impact Institute.

Rachel Seamans volunteers with the Social Impact Institute and Eden’s Farm.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Justice Department has identified 384 foreign-born Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke as “the first wave” of such measures, according to recent reporting by The New York Times. These cases are being assigned to prosecutors in 39 U.S. attorney’s offices across the country.

The administration has ordered Department of Homeland Security staffers to refer upward of 200 denaturalization cases per month to the Justice Department as part of its crackdown on immigration, compared to an average of 11 cases per year between 1990 and 2017.

This shift comes as the Justice Department faces a severe staffing crisis, having lost nearly 1,000 assistant U.S. attorneys in resignations and firings. The strategy of distributing cases to regional offices appears designed both to increase capacity and to work around the expertise gap created by staff departures.

As we document in recent research, denaturalization risks becoming a tool of political control and intimidation. The lack of any statute of limitations in civil denaturalization gives prosecutors what the Supreme Court in 2017, in Maslenjak v. United States, warned against: “nearly limitless leverage” over naturalized citizens – creating permanent vulnerability for over 20 million naturalized Americans.

A brief history

Denaturalization is different from deportation, which removes noncitizens from the country. With civil denaturalization, the government files a lawsuit to strip people’s U.S. citizenship after they have become citizens, turning them back into noncitizens who can then be deported.

The government can only do this in specific situations. It must prove someone “illegally procured” citizenship by not meeting the requirements, or that they lied or hid important facts during the citizenship process.

The Trump administration’s “maximal” enforcement approach, outlined in a June 2025 Justice Department memo, means pursuing any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, regardless of priority level or strength of evidence. As our earlier research documented, this has already led to cases like that of Baljinder Singh, whose citizenship was revoked based on a name discrepancy that could easily have resulted from a translator’s error rather than intentional fraud.

For most of American history, taking away citizenship has been rare. But it increased dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s during the Red Scare period characterized by intense suspicion of communism. The United States government targeted people it thought were communists or Nazi supporters. Between 1907 and 1967, over 22,000 Americans lost their citizenship this way.

Everything changed in 1967 when the Supreme Court decided Afroyim v. Rusk. The court said the government usually cannot take away citizenship without the person’s consent. It left open only cases involving fraud during the citizenship process.

After this decision, denaturalization became extremely rare. From 1968 to 2013, fewer than 150 people lost their citizenship, mostly war criminals who had hidden their past.

How the process works

In criminal lawsuits, defendants get free lawyers if they can’t afford one. They get jury trials. The government must prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” – the highest standard of proof.

But in most denaturalization cases, the government files a civil suit, where none of these protections exist.

People facing denaturalization get no free lawyer, meaning poor defendants often face the government alone. There’s no jury trial – just a judge deciding whether someone deserves to remain American. The burden of proof is lower – “clear and convincing evidence” instead of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Most important, there’s no time limit, so the government can go back decades to build cases.

As law professors who study citizenship, we believe this system violates basic constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court has called citizenship a fundamental right. Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1958 described it as the “right to have rights.”

In our reading of the law, taking away such a fundamental right through civil procedures that lack basic constitutional protection – no right to counsel for those who can’t afford it, no jury trial, and a lower burden of proof – seems to violate the due process of law required by the Constitution when the government seeks to deprive someone of their rights.

The bigger problem is what citizenship-stripping policy does to democracy.

When the government can strip citizenship from naturalized Americans for decades-old conduct through civil procedures with minimal due process protection – pursuing cases based on evidence that might not meet criminal standards – it undermines the security and permanence that citizenship is supposed to provide. This creates a system where naturalized citizens face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives, potentially chilling their full participation in American democracy.

The Justice Department memo establishes 10 priority categories for denaturalization cases. They range from national security threats and war crimes to various forms of fraud, financial crimes and, most importantly, any other cases it deems “sufficiently important to pursue.” This “maximal enforcement” approach means pursuing not just clear cases of fraud, but also any case where evidence might support taking away citizenship, no matter how weak or old the evidence is.

This creates fear throughout immigrant communities.

About 20 million naturalized Americans now must worry that any mistake in their decades-old immigration paperwork could cost them their citizenship.

A 2-tier system

This policy effectively creates two different types of American citizens. Native-born Americans never have to worry about losing their citizenship, no matter what they do. But naturalized Americans face ongoing vulnerability that can last their entire lives.

This has already happened. A woman who became a naturalized citizen in 2007 helped her boss with paperwork that was later used in fraud. She cooperated with the FBI investigation, was characterized by prosecutors as only a “minimal participant,” completed her sentence, and still faced losing her citizenship decades later because she didn’t report the crime on her citizenship application – even though she hadn’t been charged at the time.

The Justice Department’s directive to “maximally pursue” cases across 10 broad categories – combined with the first Trump administration’s efforts to review over 700,000 naturalization files – represents an unprecedented expansion of denaturalization efforts.

The Trump administration’s strategy of distributing denaturalization cases across 39 U.S. attorney’s offices – many now staffed by less-experienced prosecutors handling unfamiliar constitutional terrain – may prove counterproductive.

These cases will come before dozens of federal judges, creating opportunities for multiple courts to rule against the policy. This pattern has already been seen with the administration’s detention policy: Federal courts have systematically rejected the administration’s attempt to drastically expand immigrant detention without hearings, with immigrants prevailing in 350 out of 362 cases decided by over 160 judges nationwide.

Denaturalization cases raise even more serious constitutional concerns and could face similar widespread judicial pushback.

The Supreme Court, in Afroyim v. Rusk, was focused on protecting existing citizens from losing their citizenship. The constitutional principle behind that decision – that citizenship is a fundamental right which can’t be arbitrarily taken away by whoever happens to be in power – applies equally to how the government handles denaturalization cases today.

The Trump administration’s directive, combined with court procedures that lack basic constitutional protections, risks creating a system that the Afroyim v. Rusk decision sought to prevent – one where, as the Supreme Court said, “A group of citizens temporarily in office can deprive another group of citizens of their citizenship.”

This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 10, 2025.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Pittsburgh is widely regarded as a relatively affordable place to live. Overall, housing and living costs remain below national averages for midsize cities in the United States.

Along with low home prices, Pittsburgh offers stable employment rates and close proximity to leading universities and high-quality hospitals.

However, data from a March 2026 survey shows that a single adult needs to earn about $95,000 to live comfortably in Pittsburgh. This is well above the city’s median household income of $67,000. A family of four needs nearly $239,000.

My peer‑reviewed work examines how housing affordability affects a community’s health. It also documents how well policy holds up over time in terms of affordable housing efforts.

Inclusionary zoning explained

Inclusionary zoning requires developers to reserve a portion of new housing units for lower-income residents at below-market rents. A city might require, for example, that a new residential complex reserve or set aside 10% of units for households that earn 80% or less of the area median income.

Also referred to as a “mandatory set-aside,” inclusionary zoning is often done in exchange for developer incentives, such as density bonuses, which allow developers to build additional units. Other incentives could be expedited permitting or relaxed parking minimums, allowing developers to build fewer parking spaces than normally required.

In 2025, Pittsburgh adopted the Affordable Housing Bonus Program, a largely voluntary, incentive-based policy that applies inclusionary zoning requirements only within designated overlay districts. An overlay district is an extra layer of rules that apply to a specific area on top of the neighborhood’s regular zoning rules – such as a special zone within a zone.

The goal is to encourage developers to include a percentage of affordable units within specific geographic areas, such as Lawrenceville, Bloomfield, Polish Hill and parts of Oakland. The Affordable Housing Bonus Program emerged after legal challenges and public opposition derailed inclusionary zoning citywide.

The Affordable Housing Bonus Program is now being tested by a University of Pittsburgh student housing project called The Caroline at University Commons. University Commons is situated in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood, an inclusionary zoning overlay district. However, the developer, Walnut Capital, is seeking to exempt the project from inclusionary zoning overlay requirements altogether. This would reduce the number of affordable units set aside from 16 to 0. Walnut Capital believes it’s exempt from inclusionary zoning because it meets all other bonus requirements.

Short on homes, split on solutions

The fragility of the Affordable Housing Bonus Program matters not only for the neighborhoods that it affects but for what it reveals about Pittsburgh’s housing affordability.

Pittsburgh faces a persistent shortage of affordable housing. This is especially true for extremely low-income residents, or those who earn less than 30% of an area’s median income. That’s roughly one-quarter of all Pittsburgh residents.

Local estimates from The Pittsburgh Foundation show a deficit of more than 11,000 affordable units for residents at the lowest income levels. This shortage leaves many of these renters cost-burdened and vulnerable to eviction.

The debate about inclusionary zoning in Pittsburgh is heated. Among advocates, community organizations and some policymakers, it’s seen as an effective policy lever. They say it keeps neighborhoods affordable and diverse while giving residents a voice in how their neighborhoods change.

Conversely, developers and some policymakers argue that inclusionary zoning can reduce new construction and lead to higher rents overall. They also warn it can undermine equity goals by slowing housing production or concentrating affordable units in just a few areas.

Why Pittsburgh struggles to provide affordable housing

Pittsburgh’s housing challenges stem from a combination of rising construction and administrative costs; dependency on fragmented financing structures; housing market shifts and demographic change; a constrained tax base and a complex zoning and permitting system.

These supply-side challenges are compounded by demand-side barriers. In 2025, Pittsburgh added “housing status” as a protected class to prevent discrimination against the unhoused population, those with disabilities, and families fleeing domestic violence. But widespread landlord refusal of Section 8 vouchers shows how affordability policies can fall apart without real enforcement. The Affordable Housing Bonus Program similarly faces compliance problems.

Pittsburgh’s housing crisis is a health crisis

Pittsburgh’s uncertain housing affordability policies have far-reaching implications for public health, equity and neighborhood stability.

Research shows 2 in 5 Pittsburgh renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, and 1 in 4 spend over half. This increases eviction risk and housing instability, with cascading health effects, such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and depression.

Housing burdens can also force people to make trade-offs between housing and health care, medications, nutritious food or transportation.

Displacement and aging, poorly maintained housing stock compound these problems, making Pittsburgh’s affordable housing crisis a public health crisis as much as a housing one.

Pittsburgh’s path forward

No single policy can resolve Pittsburgh’s housing challenges. But the city has taken meaningful steps.

Since the city budget was approved in March 2026, Pittsburgh has streamlined its permitting processes, increased local funding commitments for community investments and strengthened support for nonprofit developers and community organizations.

Treating housing affordability as a serious policy priority will require more innovation, not only in regulation and financing, but in how policies are evaluated, adapted and sustained over time.

Selena E. Ortiz receives funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The recent publication of confidential Supreme Court memoranda by The New York Times has brought to light a pivotal moment in the court’s history. “The birth of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket has long been a mystery,” wrote reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak. “Until now.”

Originally coined by legal scholar William Baude, the term “shadow docket” refers to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, which, as Baude wrote, includes “a range of orders and summary decisions that defy its normal procedural regularity.”

That’s law professor-speak for cases that are given abbreviated consideration and accelerated review by the justices, all out of public view – what The New York Times story referred to as the court “sprinting.” These cases aren’t included in the annual list of cases the justices have chosen to consider and that are presented by attorneys in public sessions, called “oral argument,” at the court.

During the second Trump administration, such shadow docket cases have proliferated as President Donald Trump has continued to push boundaries, challenge precedents and expand executive power. These cases have typically involved a request by the presidential administration “to suspend lower court orders” that temporarily block “an administration policy from taking effect,” according to liberal legal advocacy group the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The lack of transparency in considering and ruling on the shadow docket, combined with the weight of the issues presented to the court via that docket, mean that the practice has come under strong criticism by many court watchers. Here’s how the process works and what you need to know to evaluate it.

The merits docket

The emergency docket is different from the court’s merits docket, which is the customary path for cases to reach the Supreme Court.

Ordinarily, in federal courts, a case begins in a federal district court. An appeal of the decision in the case is made to a federal appeals court. If a party in the case wants to appeal further, they can aim for U.S. Supreme Court review. That requires filing a “petition for writ of certiorari” to the court.

The Supreme Court does not take all the cases for which it has been petitioned. The court holds complete discretion to choose which cases to consider each term and always rejects the vast majority of petitions that it receives. By custom, the court agrees to consider a case if at least four justices vote to grant the writ of certiorari.

For the cases that the court agrees to consider, the parties to that case file briefs – written legal arguments – with the Supreme Court. Third parties can also file briefs with the court to assert their own arguments; these are known as “friend of the court” or amicus curiae briefs.

The justices then read those briefs and hear oral arguments in the case in a public session, during which they can question attorneys for both sides, before they meet and confer. At the end of this conference, the justices vote on the outcome in the case before assigning an author to draft the opinions.

The merits docket – the ordinary process – is methodical. It promotes deliberation and reasoned decision-making resulting in lengthy opinions that explain the justices’ rationale and provide guidance for lower courts in future cases.

The emergency docket

On the other hand, the emergency docket is a process whereby the court makes quick decisions without full briefing and deliberation, and it produces orders and rulings that almost always present little to no explanation.

As Baude wrote, “Many of the orders lack the transparency that we have come to appreciate in its merits cases.”

Most of the court’s rulings and orders in cases on the emergency docket go without explanation. On occasion, however, the court produces short opinions that provide some explanation in emergency docket cases, albeit these are often dissents from the justices who disagree with the ruling.

Transparency is important, especially for the Supreme Court, because it builds trust and legitimacy. According to Gallup, as of September 2025, 42% of respondents approve, 52% disapprove and 6% have no opinion of the Supreme Court. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 48% of Americans have a favorable view of the court, down from 70% five years earlier.

As a constitutional law scholar, I’ve written elsewhere that the low approval might be attributable to the court’s undisciplined overruling of landmark cases regarding individual rights, such as the abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. In my view, it is reasonable to conclude that the court’s lack of transparency, specifically with its growing emergency docket, contributes to distrust in the court.

As the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated, “The Court’s power lies … in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception that shows itself in the people’s acceptance of the Judiciary as fit to determine what the Nation’s law means and to declare what it demands.”

Conversely, a lack of transparency breeds distrust and erodes institutional legitimacy.

Unprecedented action

The 2016 case at the center of the memoranda published by The New York Times –West Virginia v. EPA – concerned environmental regulation. As the justices’ memoranda illustrate, West Virginia, North Dakota and several energy companies sued the Obama administration over its Clean Power Plan and sought to block the new, transformative regulation from going into effect.

The Clean Power Plan would have required states and energy companies to shift electricity production from higher-emitting to lower-emitting production methods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

After losing at the trial court, the states and energy companies filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court asking the justices to pause the Obama regulation from going into effect while the parties litigated the case in the lower courts.

This was a highly unusual request because, as Taraleigh Davis at SCOTUSblog confirms, “nobody had previously asked the court to halt such a major executive regulatory action before any appellate court had ruled on it.”

The court granted the unprecedented stay on Feb. 9, 2016, without any explanation as to why it temporarily blocked the Clean Power Plan. It eventually struck down the plan on June 22, 2022.

Defenders of the emergency docket frequently claim that the court’s conduct is permissible because its orders are temporary. In West Virginia v. EPA, the court temporarily blocked the Clean Power Plan from going into effect until it eventually struck it down after hearing the case on its merits docket.

What is overlooked, however, is that even temporary orders from the court can have lasting implications that are difficult, and in some cases impossible, to undo.

Damage done

Consider the example of one of Trump’s immigration actions.

The administration seeks to terminate the temporary protected status for Haitian nationals, which had shielded them from deportation. But a federal district court temporarily blocked the president from doing so as the litigation continued.

The administration then filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court – still pending as of this writing – asking the court to overrule the district court. If granted, the court effectively would allow the administration to revoke TPS for Haitian nationals.

As an amicus brief in the case articulated, if TPS is revoked, Haitians “will be forced to face the untenable options of leaving behind their citizen children and/or partners, bringing family members with them to a country submerged in crisis, violence, and food insecurity, or staying in the U.S. without any legal status or work authorization and facing the constant threat of deportation.”

In other words, if the Supreme Court overrules the district court in this case on its emergency docket, then the Trump administration could deport the Haitian nationals even as their cases challenging the revocation of their TPS continue.

If the Haitian nationals ultimately prevail, reversing their deportation would be exceptionally difficult to do.

Wayne Unger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Washington is buzzing with the possibility that President Donald Trump might name one or more Supreme Court justices before the November midterm elections.

In a conversation with Fox Business TV host Maria Bartiromo on April 15, 2026, Trump discussed the potential retirement of Justice Samuel Alito, 76, the reliably conservative justice appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005.

Trump praised Alito as “a great justice” and said that he is prepared to appoint a replacement, should Alito retire.

Trump added, “In theory, it’s two – you just read the statistics – it could be two, could be three, could be one.”

Trump didn’t say who the other potential retiring justices are. Speculation from pundits is that he is referring to Justice Clarence Thomas, 77, another solid conservative vote. Thomas, appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991, is the court’s oldest justice and longest-serving member.

In the same Fox interview, Trump pointed to former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was under intense pressure to retire during President Barack Obama’s presidency. Ginsburg opted to stay on the bench and died in September 2020.

Republicans blocked Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland in 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Then, in 2020, Trump replaced Ginsburg with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, solidifying a 6-3 conservative majority.

As a scholar of the Supreme Court confirmation process, I know the timing of Trump’s comments is closely linked to November’s midterm elections.

If Democrats were to take over the Senate following the midterms, it is very unlikely they would confirm a Trump-appointed Supreme Court nominee. Instead, they would probably follow the precedent set by Republicans in 2020 and block a Trump pick.

The clock is ticking on November’s midterm elections, and Democrats’ chances of taking back the Senate are improving. Assuming a current Supreme Court justice retires, here’s what has to happen for Trump and Senate Republicans to successfully confirm a successor.

The Supreme Court confirmation process

The Constitution says that the Senate provides “advice and consent” on presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. Over the course of the nation’s history, this has developed into a complex process.

Once the Senate receives a nomination from the president, it goes to the Judiciary Committee.

This is where the most public part of the confirmation process takes place: confirmation hearings. These typically last three to four days and feature a high stakes question-and-answer session with the nominee.

Prior to the hearings, senators and the nominee engage in a substantial amount of preparation.

Senators, with their staffs, do extensive background research on the nominee, which helps inform their questioning. Some of this is accomplished through the Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire, to which nominees provide written answers. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s 2022 questionnaire was 149 pages long. It included questions about organizational memberships, public speeches and judicial opinions authored.

Meanwhile, the nominee makes courtesy calls to senators to build support for confirmation.

At roughly the same time, the nominee takes part in hearing preparation, known as “murder boards.” Here, the nominee’s allies play the roles of members of the Judiciary Committee, anticipating the type of tough questions the nominee will face from skeptical senators from the opposition party of the appointing president.

During Jackson’s murder boards, for instance, the focus was on expected Republican attacks that Jackson was soft on crime.

Within a few days of the end of the confirmation hearings, the Judiciary Committee votes on its recommendation to the full Senate. Then the nomination goes back to the full Senate for more discussion and a final confirmation vote. A simple majority is needed to confirm a Supreme Court nominee.

For the nine members of the court, it has taken an average of 70 days between presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, according to data from The U.S. Supreme Court Database. But this number has decreased recently, with Barrett and Jackson taking 30 and 41 days, respectively, to be confirmed.

So, as long as there is roughly a month before the November midterms, it is likely that there is enough time for the Republican Senate to confirm a Trump nominee.

Democrats have limited options

In 2017, Senate Republicans ended the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. It was a move to secure the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch.

This reduced the threshold for confirmation from 60 votes to 51 votes. Perhaps most importantly, it also severely limited the options available to the minority party to block a Supreme Court confirmation.

With a 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate, so long as Republicans stick together, it will be very difficult for Senate Democrats to block a Trump nominee.

There are some delay tactics available to Democrats – they can perhaps even grind the entire Senate to a halt – but they may pay a political price for these tactics. Republicans, for instance, may try to paint Democrats as obstructionist, potentially motivating a voter backlash against the Democratic Party in the midterm elections.

Nonetheless, Democrats may view this as a fight worth having, since the confirmation of another Republican-appointed justice will ensure conservative dominance on the court for decades – if not generations – to come.

Paul M. Collins Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation