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What does gentrification in Philadelphia look like?

“High-rise, modern apartment buildings.”

“(A) modern look that’s so out of place with our traditional row homes that have been here for a hundred years.”

“Six- to seven-floor high-rises with garages in the basement. They charge an extra $200 to park.”

“Gray, industrial looking.”

“The houses are ugly as heck. No architectural style. They’re probably two-bedroom, some probably one. And they usually put a deck up. It’s not geared for kids or families. A lot of steps.”

These are some of the descriptions that longtime residents of gentrifying neighborhoods in Philly used to describe the new construction popping up around them.

We are Ph.D. candidates in architectural engineering and geography, environment and urban studies at Drexel and Temple universities in Philadelphia. Working with a multidisciplinary team of professors and students, we recently developed a new way to map gentrification in Philly neighborhoods using a combination of accounts from longtime residents, Google Street View images and machine learning.

Using AI to spot gentrification

Our team posited that the best source for knowing what gentrification looks like comes from the perceptions of longtime residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

So we held focus groups in three rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods – one in Northeast Philadelphia and two in the River Wards section north of Center City and along the Delaware River.

We asked residents to identify the visual cues of building designs, materials, colors and landscaping choices that they associate with gentrification.

Many of these residents could recount, in great detail, the exact street intersections where they saw gentrification-related development occur over the decades.

We corroborated each location they identified through historical Google Street View imagery. By examining the exteriors of these buildings, we could expand upon the more generalized language used in the discussions, such as “modern” or “boxy,” to , such as “presence of bump-out windows” and “increased floor area ratio,” which is a measure of how much of the surface area of a land parcel a building takes up.

When pulling panoramas of residential building exteriors from Google Street View, we looked at two distinct time periods: 2009-13 and 2017-21.

AI is getting better at spotting the visual signs of gentrification. Researchers refer to AI systems that categorize scenery according to certain characteristics, like seeming “gentrified” or “not-gentrified,” as “deep mapping” models.

Deep mapping models use neural network algorithms, which can pick up on patterns in big datasets. The particular model we used is able to pick up subtle, pixel‑level differences between two images.

The model learned to approximate how residents distinguish gentrified scenes from unchanged ones. When we tested the model’s output, we found that it was able to separate “gentrified” from “not‑gentrified” images with an accuracy of about 84%. This showed us that visual cues guided by residents’ observations can be translated into a reliable machine learning signal.

Gentrification doesn’t always look the same

As a neighborhood becomes gentrified, wealthier people move in and long-standing residents can be displaced through rent hikes or the loss of housing. Gentrification can also lead to the disappearance of a “sense of place” – characteristics that make a neighborhood feel familiar and like home.

With deep mapping models, researchers and neighborhood stakeholders can pull their own data on landscape changes related to gentrification and better understand how gentrification changes physical environments. With better data, they can map hot spots of new development and use machine learning models that predict future trajectories of change.

For example, several of our focus group participants in one neighborhood noted that gentrification was connected to the demolition of old buildings that likely contained hazardous substances, such as asbestos and lead. They wondered about the potential for air pollution. With accurate data on where development is occurring, researchers can model relationships between new construction and environmental conditions such as air quality.

Moreover, this process can also give legitimacy to neighborhood groups that may see changes occurring around them but lack the quantitative data to legitimatize their concerns to the media and to city government.

By being more explicit about how gentrification is defined when we categorize images and train our machine learning model, researchers can be more transparent about how image data is prepared and prevent personal biases from guiding the model and the patterns it learns.

For example, certain research finds that gentrification leads to increased greenery. However, some participants in our focus groups reported that gentrification resulted in the loss of community gardens and greenery. This experience runs contrary to common assumptions in gentrification research.

Transparency in training models builds trust

By defining how gentrification is perceived by residents, researchers like us can add clarity to how we prepare the model data. Even with more clarity, however, these AI systems are still “black box” in nature. A black box model means that the connection between inputs and outputs is unclear to the model user.

One way to make the model more transparent is by applying an additional model called XAI, or explainable artificial intelligence. Through XAI, there is potential to better understand which characteristics in an image are more important to the model prediction. For example, does the model focus on the windows of a building or the relative height of buildings?

Answering these questions will help researchers and stakeholders trust model predictions.

At the same time, one of us is leading a complementary line of research focused on explaining the reasoning behind the machine learning model decisions. In Philadelphia and many other U.S. cities, street scenes can have a dense mix of cars, vegetation and architectural styles that can confuse the model. There is a lot of complicated visual information to parse through, a lot of variety. Understanding the model’s internal logic helps ensure that its predictions reflect real neighborhood dynamics rather than irrelevant details in the imagery.

Together, these research directions aim to deepen our understanding of how gentrification unfolds on the ground and how AI can help illuminate patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.

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

Maya Mueller receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Isaac Quaye received funding from the National Science foundation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

On Feb. 24, The Conversation hosted a webinar titled, “What Americans can learn from other nonviolent civil activism movements.”

Executive editor and general manager Beth Daley interviewed John Shattuck, professor of practice at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and Oliver Kaplan, associate professor at Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver and a visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Shattuck is the former president of Central European University in Hungary, where he defended academic freedom against a rising authoritarian government. Kaplan is the author of “Resisting War: How Communities Protect Themselves.” This interview has been condensed and edited for print.

Beth Daley: What is an authoritarian regime, and what are their characteristics?

John Shattuck: The authoritarian, often referred to as a “king,” is the ideal role from the point of view of the king, but certainly not from the point of view of the people. Authoritarian characteristics include centralized unlimited power, the opposite of democracy; no accountability and no rule of law; no independent courts; no checks and balances on how the king operates; rule by fear and coercion, and when necessary, in order to carry out the king’s orders, rule by by force. There are no individual rights or civil liberties except those the king decides to allow those who are loyal to him to have, at least until he decides to take them away.

That’s a nutshell informal description of an authoritarian regime. A special threat today is that an authoritarian can emerge from a democratic election, and, indeed, a democratic election can be used to turn a weak democracy into an authoritarian regime. But when this happens, it opens the door to challenge the authoritarian in a subsequent election if civic activism can defend the electoral process by which the authoritarian was elected.

BD: What are we seeing and not seeing in the U.S. that other countries have gone through in terms of authoritarian government?

Oliver Kaplan: I think we are heading toward an autocracy, if not there already. In their 2026 report, the Varieties of Democracy Project writes that the U.S. is no longer a liberal democracy and is moving into “competitive authoritarianism,” marked by executive overreach and erosion of judicial and legislative checks. The report notes that U.S. democracy is being dismantled at a speed that is “unprecedented in modern history.”

We are seeing shifts in terms of concentration of power to the executive branch and a disregard of the rule of law, things like ignoring court orders and difficulty with holding the executive branch accountable. We are also seeing the militarization of law enforcement, monitoring of U.S. citizens, and what some refer to as the dual state – that the state is working for some people while causing more challenges for or oppressing other people.

One of the things we’re not seeing at full force yet is a complete shutdown of civic space. We’re able to hold this kind of conversation, and people are still able to dialogue and go out on the street. There are some efforts at curtailing free speech, and I think there’s some self-censorship possibly happening. But there’s still this open space and a powerful mass movement growing in this country.

BD: John, you were on the front lines, particularly in Hungary as the head of Central European University. What did you see there that has parallels today to the U.S.?

JS: There’s certainly a parallel between Hungary and the U.S., even though the countries are very different in size, history and background. What I saw in Hungary when I became president of Central European University in 2009 was a weak, new democracy that was only established in 1990 after 70 years of fascism and communism.

I was in Hungary from 2009 to 2016 and, despite the differences, I could begin to see some parallels. Many people had grievances in Hungary about how their economy was operating, particularly after the global financial crisis that affected Hungary more than any other Eastern European country. Then there was an urban-rural divide, the urban elite versus the rural majority in the country.

Along came a cynical populist-nationalist politician, Viktor Orbán. Orban started manipulating these grievances, and did so to significantly divide Hungarian society. He attacked many of the institutions of democracy, which were increasingly unpopular because of people’s grievances. He went after elites, and foreigners, and migrants, and the media. And he blamed all of them for the country’s problems. He then was able to ride these grievances into office.

Once in office, Orban amended the constitution and laws relating to the parliament. He undermined the independence of the media and the judiciary so as to centralize power. All of this happened while I was running an international university in Budapest, which remained independent because it received no funding from the Hungarian government. We were able to resist the increasingly authoritarian regime over issues of academic freedom. The government tried to shut down our programs of migration studies and gender studies, and tried to censor aspects of our history department.

These authoritarian attacks are similar to what we’ve seen happening in the U.S., and in fact, Viktor Orban was greatly admired by Donald Trump, and a lot of the playbook that Orban has followed was mirrored in Project 2025 in the U.S. under Trump.

BD: How do communities respond in different ways to authoritarian regimes?

OK: Pro-democracy movements and protection types of movements at the local level often co-occur. For example, in Colombia there have been various leftist movements and political parties that have pushed for greater democratic opening while communities mobilize to keep people safe and help them cope with repressive conditions. In places like Chile, El Salvador and Guatemala, communities built trust and support networks to provide aid, such as for people who needed food assistance. This provides space to independently operate and preserve the community.

The U.S. has parallels, such as innovating early warning networks to get advance notice of risks and threats, by communicating using the Signal app. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, villages set up radio networks, and in Ukraine they have sophisticated early warning networks to get word of airstrikes and drone attacks.

Fact-finding and countering stigma are important, and in the U.S. we’re seeing that in the form of the video recording and publicizing of harmful actions. This has played out similarly in Syria with fact-finding to protect nongovernment organizations.

There’s also accompaniment where outside actors come in to provide support to communities. Around the world, church organizations play important accompaniment roles. We’re seeing clergy in the U.S. step up and visit places that are at risk.

And then, there are protests, the most visible kind of action. In Minnesota, we’ve seen communities actually setting up community barricades, which has also happened in Mexico, Colombia and Northern Ireland. Communicating the nonviolent nature of these movements is important to avoid any pretext for additional crackdowns.

I think Americans have been taking similar actions to places around the world in part because there are some similar background conditions: repression and strong social capital networks. Those two things come together to produce these strategies.

BD: Could you speak more about the need to build a clear narrative and a positive one?

JS: There are two basic rules for how to resist authoritarianism that I’ve learned from experience: Build a diverse coalition and develop a unifying theme. You need a diverse coalition in order to appeal to a broad range of the public, and in order to do that, you need agreement on the goal and values of what you’re trying to accomplish. You need a clear and unifying narrative. The narrative often involves economic issues and issues of corruption, since there’s often a great deal of corruption in authoritarian regimes.

Hungary will have its next parliamentary election in April in which Orban will seek his fifth term as prime minister. The opposition has developed a broad coalition and a unifying theme, while Orban is using the centralized instruments of government and media that he controls to try to manipulate public opinion. The opposition coalition is headed by Peter Magyar, who was once a major supporter of Orban’s government. Magyar’s name can be magical in Hungary – sort of like a “Joe America” in the U.S.

With Magyar as its head, the opposition is aiming to peel off supporters of the regime. It’s campaigning on economic grounds, with a positive message and on moderate terms. And most importantly, it includes parties from the left, right and center.

Poland has succeeded in doing what the Hungarian opposition is attempting. It managed to vote out an authoritarian government by putting together a broad coalition to defend the independence of the Polish judiciary. That became a coalition to elect parliamentarians in 2023, and that succeeded in changing the government.

BD: How important is the preexisting social fabric of a community to the success of a protest movement?

JS: It’s important, but complicated. Hungary had a very weak civil society after 70 years of totalitarian fascism and communism. When I was there, the very word to “volunteer,” which we think of as the essence of community action and service, was seen to be a bad word in Hungarian because it was closely associated with collaborating with the regime.

In the U.S., we’re the opposite in a sense, although the U.S. is now slipping on this. We have a long history of volunteerism, we have all these civil society organizations, we have a tradition of barn raising, people getting together with their neighbors and doing things in their communities. This is very much a part of the American spirit and a core value.

But today, I would say a combination of consumerism and economic individualism coming out of decades of economic deregulation has caused our civil society to fray. But the authoritarian challenge that we face now, and the way in which we are beginning to respond to it, is in fact bringing communities back together again. I think what happened in Minneapolis is an example of that. And this may reflect a growing capacity to resist an authoritarian regime.

Former President, Central European University (2009-2016)

Oliver Kaplan 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

Operation Epic Fury – the latest round of military strikes against Iran – began when Iran was engaged in negotiations with the United States to renew restrictions on its nuclear program.

This is not the first time the United States has bombed Iran during nuclear negotiations.

In June 2025, while its representatives were in talks with Iran over that country’s ability to produce nuclear weapons, Washington launched Operation Midnight Hammer, targeting three Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Washington has been broader in its selection of targets in Iran this time around, even though one stated U.S. goal has been to ensure that Iran does not gain nuclear weapons capability.

Conducting military strikes against a country that is engaged in negotiations to reduce its nuclear capacity sets a dangerous precedent. As a scholar of the global nuclear order, I believe that the conflict has jeopardized all future diplomacy to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.

The U.S. military action during negotiations has also undermined Washington’s ability to conduct diplomacy to end the war. Iranian officials negotiating with mediators have expressed their concern that they “don’t want to be ‘fooled again,’” according to a report in Axios, and that any new set of negotiations might just be a ruse to conduct more attacks.

Breaking trust

The key components of any negotiations are trust and good faith.

Parties coming to a negotiating table to discuss their nuclear programs must trust that those across the table are acting in good faith. Past negotiations on nuclear arms control and risk-reduction measures between entrenched enemies, such as the U.S. and the Soviet Union or even India and Pakistan, have seen trust as a key component of coming to the table.

Trust has its own diplomatic cachet. It allows negotiating states to be a little more vulnerable, thus facilitating the possibility of softened positions leading to landmark agreements.

In the 1960s, negotiations were held to establish a global agreement – the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nations without nuclear weapons had to trust that countries with them would not use their atomic arsenals to gain military advantage over them as they committed to forswear the possession and development of these weapons. Today all but one of the nonnuclear countries of the world – South Sudan – are signatories to the treaty.

The consequences of Washington’s military strikes would be even more grave if a new nuclear deal between Iran and the United States was truly within reach in the negotiations in Geneva days before the conflict started. This is because the reported concessions from Iran were substantial enough to have warranted a pause in Washington’s military strategy.

A day before Operation Epic Fury began, Oman foreign minister Badr bin Hamad al Busaidi, the principal mediator in the talks, announced that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling. That is, Tehran would give up its enriched uranium, would down-blend – nuclear-speak for diluting – all material that was previously highly enriched to a neutral level, and be subject to “full and comprehensive verification” by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If true, these terms could have made any new agreement between the U.S. and Iran as consequential as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated between the United States and Iran under President Obama’s administration.

The violation of trust by the U.S. will be keenly observed by North Korea. In early March 2026, that country conducted tests of what it called “strategic cruise missiles” – missiles it suggests could have nuclear capability – stating that its ability to attack from under and above water was growing and that it was arming its navy with nuclear weapons.

Any possibility of bilateral negotiations between the United States and North Korea on its nuclear and missile programs will now be marked by the unreliability of the U.S. as a good faith negotiator.

Imperiled future

With its actions in Iran, the U.S. has lost credibility as a leading international interlocutor in service of global nonproliferation diplomacy.

Key to a nation’s credibility during negotiations is the reputation that it builds from its past actions. Both instances of the U.S. bombing Iran while negotiating with it will make it very unlikely that other countries will engage with Washington in future nuclear diplomacy.

Those countries that want to take part in nuclear diplomacy involving the U.S. will likely ask that other, trusted countries participate as well. They will also likely seek security guarantees before engaging in negotiations. This will mean that China and the European Union – countries, alliances or institutions that might help keep the United States accountable – will likely have to be a part of any such diplomacy.

Loss of trust in the United States’ good faith will likely continue across future U.S. administrations after the Trump presidency. This will be because of uncertainty over the credibility of international commitments made by the United States. An agreement made by one administration could be reneged on by the next.

Another area of concern is that in the future a country on the threshold of gaining nuclear weapons might not arrive at the negotiating table fully ready to give up all parts of its nuclear program. Even if a country does make concessions, it might choose to hold on to some part of its nuclear or missile program as a guarantee against a future American military strike.

The future of negotiations over nuclear proliferation may yet expand beyond that focus to ballistic missiles as well. Recall that Trump began the latest conflict saying that Iran’s ballistic missiles were an “imminent threat” to the U.S. and its bases abroad. Nuclear weapons programs and ballistic missile programs often go together. Countries with such missile programs that are not allied with the U.S. might also be future targets of bilateral diplomatic and military action.

The loss of trust and good faith has substantially reduced the ability of the U.S. to diplomatically address not only broader nuclear and missile nonproliferation concerns but also its own national security needs. Under these circumstances, military action might be the most tempting option for Washington to secure these goals – and that is dangerous.

Debak Das 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

There is a pall over the Make America Great Again, or MAGA, movement. Donald Trump overpromised. His public support has fallen. Some “America First” die-hards now openly criticize him.

Amid war, economic challenges, democratic backsliding, the Epstein files and Americans shot dead in the street by government agents, Trump’s support is softening and his vow to bring a “golden age of America” is looking more like a political winter for Trump and his MAGA movement.

This is my big takeaway from this year’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. The event, organized by the American Conservative Union, launched with an international summit on March 25, 2026, and runs through March 28 in Grapevine, Texas.

Don’t get me wrong. The attendees are decked out in red, white and blue MAGA merch: sequined “Trump” purses and jackets, USA flag bags, ties and headbands, and, of course, iconic red MAGA caps. As always, they chant “USA,” even if not as often or as loudly as before.

Starting with the first talk by Rev. Franklin Graham, speakers here are still singing Trump’s praises. They underscore what they regard as major Trump 2.0 accomplishments: combating illegal immigration, cutting taxes, a budding economic boom, deregulation, U.S. gas and oil output surging, administrative state winnowing, pro-Christian policies and pulling the plug on the “woke” agenda.

These issues are foregrounded in sessions with titles like “Walls Work,” “Don’t Let Woke Marxists Raise Your Children,” “MAGA vs. Mullah Madness,” “Commies Go Home” and “Cancelling Satan.” In between, pro-Trump advertisements checklist Trump’s accomplishments.

This rose-tinted view is to be expected. After all, CPAC – a cross between a political rally, networking mixer and MAGA Comic-Con – is all about galvanizing the conservative base. Beneath the surface, however, MAGA is churning.

Major grievances

An anthropologist of American political culture and author of the book “It Can Happen Here,” I have been studying MAGA for years and attending CPAC since 2023. Attendees at last year’s CPAC, held a month after Trump’s inauguration, were jubilant, with nonstop talk of “the comeback kid” and “the golden age.”

Read more:
I went to CPAC as an anthropologist to see how Trump supporters are feeling − for them, a ‘golden age’ has begun

Why is the mood at this year’s CPAC more subdued?

Enthusiasm for Trump is dampened because some of his supporters feel he has betrayed America First principles, failed to fulfill key campaign promises and been unable to supercharge the economy. Here are their major grievances:

‘America First’ vs. ‘Israel First’

“America First” is the guiding principle of MAGA. It encompasses border security, prioritizing the U.S. economy and ensuring rights such as free speech. It also means avoiding unnecessary wars.

This is why Trump’s support of the June 2025 “12-day war” on Iran led Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and other MAGA influencers, who have tens of millions of followers, to criticize Trump. The conflict, they contend, served Israel’s interest – their phrase is “Israel First” – not those of the U.S.

Their criticisms became even more pronounced after the U.S. again began bombing Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. The criticism is part of a growing MAGA fissure with pro-Israel stalwarts such as conservative activists Mark Levin, Laura Loomer and Ben Shapiro, who support U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Things got so bad that after Levin called his fellow conservative media personality Megyn Kelly “unhinged, lewd and petulant,” she dubbed him “Micropenis Mark.”

But the MAGA unease with the war extends well beyond the “America First” influencers.

It includes figures from the fringe far right such as provocateur Nick Fuentes, center-right “brocaster” Joe Rogan, and even the Trump administration itself – as illustrated by an intelligence officer whose resignation stated, “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Notably, none of the main Trump critics have been scheduled to speak at this year’s CPAC. Some now call it “TPAC,” or the Trump Political Action Conference.

The Epstein files

MAGA also has a strong populist and anti-elite streak of conspiracy thinking.

Large numbers of Trump supporters, for example, believe there is an elite plot to what they call “replace” the white population with nonwhites through mass immigration. Many also bought into the QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the idea that Trump is fighting Satanic, deep state elites who are running a child sex trafficking operation.

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to take down political, deep state and global elites. He also promised to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, which QAnon conspiracists and others believe prove elite debauchery, including pedophilia.

Trump didn’t deliver. He backtracked and stonewalled on the release of the Epstein files, raising MAGA suspicion that Trump himself is implicated or is protecting elites. Remarkably, one recent poll found that roughly half of Americans, including a quarter of Republicans, believe the Iran war was partly meant to distract from the Epstein files.

Economy and immigration

Trump is also facing headwinds on the bread-and-butter issues of the 2024 election: the economy and immigration.

At CPAC, speakers have repeatedly given him kudos for shutting down the border. Acknowledging the MAGA in-fighting, conservative commentator Benny Johnson said he wanted to “white pill” – or buck up – the audience by reminding them that Trump had stopped an “invasion” and brought “criminal alien border crossings down to zero.”

As a photo of Trump’s bloodied face after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, was displayed, Johnson claimed, “Our God saved President’s Trump’s life for this moment.”

But fewer Republicans approve of his handling of immigration compared with a year ago. Like many Americans, a growing number have misgivings about the strong-arm tactics used by government immigration enforcement agents in places such as Minnesota.

For many, the economy remains a serious worry. A recent poll, conducted before the Iran war, found that the vast majority of Americans, including large numbers of Republicans, are concerned about inflation, jobs and the cost of living. Health care, including the lost Obamacare subsidies, is also a source of consternation.

Few people believe the economy is “booming” – let alone that a “golden age” has arrived – as Trump and his allies often proclaim. The war with Iran, which has led to stock market declines and gas pump hikes, has only added to the unease.

MAGA ‘shattered’?

Amid the recent MAGA in-fighting about the Iran war, conservative podcaster Tim Pool proclaimed, “The MAGA coalition is shattered.”

Not exactly. Despite the many challenges Trump is facing, the vast majority of his MAGA base voters still support him – including almost 90% backing his war with Iran.

But Trump’s support has eased in several ways. First, even his hardcore supporters worry about the economy, and they want him to declare victory and exit the war. And second, Trump has lost support on the edges. Many people in the key groups with which he made crucial inroads in the last election – such as young men and nonwhite voters – have turned from him. The same is true for independents and other Trump voters who don’t identify as MAGA.

Trumpism isn’t dead, as the MAGA-merched crowds here at CPAC make clear. But Trump is struggling through a political winter that could signal the early stages of his MAGA movement’s decline.

Alex Hinton receives funding from Alex Hinton receives funding from the Rutgers-Newark Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America, Rutgers Research Council, and Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Paul Ehrlich opened his 1968 book “The Population Bomb” with a scene recounting returning to his hotel through a crowded Delhi neighborhood on a stifling night in the mid-1960s. He described the physical sensation of overpopulation: people eating, washing, arguing, begging – “people, people, people, people.”

From that visceral opening, he declared that famine, conflict and nuclear war would sweep the globe in the 1970s because of overpopulation. Hundreds of millions of people would starve to death regardless of any crash programs launched to prevent it. Ehrlich argued for population control, chillingly describing population growth as a “cancer” that needed to be cut out.

Ehrlich’s predictions were conspicuously wrong – and experts said so at the time. But his logic resonated through the 1970s and ’80s across the political spectrum. Its shadow is evident in today’s anti-immigration campaigns and White House arguments for mass deportation.

We have followed its long afterlife, as a computational social scientist studying contemporary extremism and as a historian whose book “Building the Population Bomb” analyzed Ehrlich’s impact.

Getting it wrong

Demographers and economists in the decades after World War II rejected the idea that Ehrlich was promoting to millions of readers: that population growth is the primary cause of environmental degradation. Instead, the expert consensus showed how pollution and resource depletion are driven far more by extraction and overconsumption than by head count.

Princeton demographer Ansley Coale told the Population Association of America in 1968, the year “The Population Bomb” was published, that attributing national failures to population growth had become fashionable despite most of the country’s problems having little to do with it.

His colleague and former Population Association of America president Frank Notestein demonstrated at the association’s 1970 meeting that increases in pollution had far outpaced increases in population. Notestein called population control in “developed regions” a distraction from the more immediate need to regulate industry.

Ecologist Barry Commoner’s 1971 empirical study confirmed that postwar environmental damage had stemmed almost entirely from new production methods and rising per capita consumption, not from the growing number of people. When the economist Julian Simon challenged Ehrlich in 1980 to a wager on changes in commodity prices over the next decade, Ehrlich accepted – and lost.

In a 2009 retrospective, Ehrlich acknowledged some of “The Population Bomb’s” flaws but did not revisit its central claim. The mass famines he predicted had not materialized in the 1970s because he had not anticipated the Green Revolution, a dramatic expansion of agriculture output. He said the book’s catastrophic scenarios were illustrative exercises, not inevitable forecasts. He dismissed his critics as shills for polluters. Ehrlich’s retrospective concluded, “It was thus a successful tract, and we’re proud of it.”

Origins of the ‘population bomb’ analogy

Ehrlich’s arguments resonated with the popular anxieties of the late 1960s. By tying population growth to the environment, the threat of nuclear war and the sexual revolution, Ehrlich generated left-wing support for population control, which had previously been primarily a concern of the political right.

With the publication of “The Population Bomb,” Ehrlich became a celebrity almost overnight. Though his claims about the consequences of population growth were consistently wrong, Ehrlich had an enormous public impact. A butterfly biologist, he was suddenly booking appearances on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” He influenced dystopian Hollywood productions, such as “ZPG” (1972), “Soylent Green” (1973) and “Logan’s Run” (1976).

The intellectual genealogy behind “The Population Bomb” ran deeper than Ehrlich’s own career. The “bomb” analogy was borrowed from a 1954 pamphlet by Hugh Moore, a businessman whose population anxieties descended from Guy Irving Burch, the anti-immigrant eugenicist who founded the Population Reference Bureau in 1929.

Burch, worried about “alien or negro stock” replacing Europeans, introduced the phrase “population explosion” to American public discourse in the 1930s as part of a campaign for immigration restriction. Moore updated Burch’s framework for the Cold War, warning that population growth in Africa, Asia and Latin America would produce communist expansion and nuclear war.

Ehrlich’s use of ecological carrying capacity – the idea that any environment has a finite number of resources to support a population before collapsing – justified coercive population control initiatives as foreign and domestic environmental policies in the minds of many Americans.

India’s “Emergency” period from 1975-77 subjected an estimated 8 million people to sterilization under conditions ranging from financial inducement to outright coercion. China’s one-child policy was enforced through fines, forced sterilizations and compelled abortions for nearly three decades. Population control programs in some developing countries imposed contraception and sterilization on women without their consent.

California performed sterilizations on some inmates until the 2010s. Hysterectomies on detainees continued in at least one U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center until 2019.

Ehrlich tied environment to immigration

Within the United States, Ehrlich co-founded the organization Zero Population Growth, which quickly outlasted its original premise. By 1972, the total fertility rate in the United States was already below the replacement level, and ZPG pivoted to immigration restriction as its primary policy target.

David Brower, the first director of the Sierra Club, authored the famous line “the battle to feed all of humanity is over” in the foreword to “The Population Bomb.” He appointed John Tanton, Ehrlich’s ZPG co-founder, to chair the Sierra Club’s national population committee.

Tanton would go on to build a network of groups that would implement the logic Ehrlich had popularized. This logic linked Ehrlich’s ecological carrying capacity, lifeboat ethics – the idea that wealthy nations risked being swamped by immigration – and reactionary anxieties about demographic change.

Tanton’s anti-immigration network became one of the most influential organizations in late-20th-century American politics. In addition to ZPG, Tanton founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1979, the Center for Immigration Studies in 1985, The Social Contract Press in 1990 and NumbersUSA in 1996.

This network produced policy research and lobbied for drastic reductions in both legal and illegal immigration. It was also instrumental in repackaging nativism into genteel policy briefs for the 1994 Republican revolution, securing the bipartisan passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, and backing anti-immigration efforts that passed in California and Arizona. Ehrlich served on FAIR’s board of advisers until 2002. He died on March 13, 2026.

Ehrlich, Tanton and Brower, as part of Californians for Population Stabilization, tried to push the Sierra Club to adopt immigration restrictions as an official position, but members of the influential environmentalist group resisted. Ballot measures and board elections for the Sierra Club from the late 1990s into the early 2000s exposed the deep ties to anti-immigration activists – and defeated them.

Overpopulation in politics today

Ehrlich’s population anxieties continue to have a long afterlife as political figures build on the idea that immigration constitutes a form of “replacement” of existing populations. Once-fringe grievances suggesting white people were being replaced by people of color have become part of President Donald Trump’s MAGA allies’ “mass deportation now” agenda.

Fifty years separate India’s sterilization camps from today’s ICE detention warehouses, but we believe the logic connecting them is direct: a population defined as excessive, a government apparatus authorized to reduce it, and a scientific vocabulary used by some of the president’s closest allies to justify the means as an ecological necessity. Ehrlich’s contributions to that vocabulary proved far more durable than his predictions.

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

U.S. companies stung by President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs had hoped for relief when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 in their favor. But settling on a remedy – namely, rebate checks from the government – may be an even bigger headache.

Fresh wrinkles are prompting businesses to take different routes as they try to recoup money, with many opting to sue to improve their odds. These lawsuits are also underscoring the complex ways that tariffs worked their way through corporate accounting. In some cases, their cost was a clear line item; in others, the impact was muddier – say, through changed supply lines or selective increases in retail pricing. And some have backed off from a legal fight altogether and sold their refund rights to investment firms, often at a deep discount, figuring that getting something is better than risk getting nothing.

These technicalities didn’t seem to concern most members of the high court. In fact, only one Justice, Brett Kavanaugh, raised the question of the decision’s practical complications in his dissent. But his warning of “substantial” repercussions now looks more prescient by the day.

“The United States may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who have paid the … tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed down costs to consumers or others,” he wrote. “As was acknowledged at oral argument, the refund process is likely to be a ‘mess.’”

We are professors of finance and law who have been following these cases closely. To begin untangling the “mess” this ruling created, it’s helpful to focus on the different ways companies processed these tariffs – and why this means that a quick and clean remedy is unlikely.

To refund or not to refund

In its 6-3 decision, the high court concluded that a broad category of Trump’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act exceeded the president’s legal authority. Many companies that had sued for relief in the form of rebate checks cheered the ruling.

Judge Richard Eaton at the Court of International Trade, tasked with overseeing the refund distribution, then ordered the Trump administration to immediately start the process by asking Customs and Border Protection to recalculate its revenues without the tariffs to determine the rebate total – a tally that the agency estimates at about US$166 billion. But no one is sure how long it will take or whether it will work. And that uncertainty is sparking a fresh round of litigation.

Consider the different approaches taken by two businesses that paid the tariffs: logistics giant FedEx and the retail chain Costco. Costco filed suit against the Trump administration before the Supreme Court decision, while FedEx was among the many businesses that sued after the ruling.

Fedex, which saw some of its cross-border business plummet by 25% to 35%, collected tariffs from both U.S. companies importing goods and from U.S. customers ordering from abroad. In this function as broker, it was able to separate out the tariffs as a line item. That means it can more easily calculate what it would pay back to its customers. If Fedex gets the rebates, it has said it will refund all clients who bore the cost.

The accounting for Costco, by contrast, is less straightforward. It paid the duties but reallocated much of the cost internally. For some goods, it shuffled its extensive global supply chains to mitigate the tariffs’ bite or covered the cost by selectively hiking prices on items where demand would be less affected. It has not made as explicit a commitment of repaying its customers, although it has said it will try to honor it.

In both cases, executive pledges of refunds weren’t enough to prevent class action lawsuits by skeptical consumers since the Supreme Court’s decision, arguing they needed a more ironclad guarantee.

Avoiding the fight

Other companies, meanwhile, are waiving a legal fight altogether and selling their refund rights to investment firms, often at only a fraction of what they had paid in levies, in the expectation that full repayment is unlikely.

These companies typically are too small to finance a legal battle but big enough to have sufficient money at stake for Wall Street to take interest. For example, Atlanta-based Kids2, which sources almost all of its toy and infant products in China, sold its rights before the high court’s ruling for about a quarter of what it paid out in the emergency tariffs.

Legal complications aside, logistical snags are also emerging. In response to Eaton’s order, Customs and Border Protection chief Brandon Lord stated in a filing on March 6, 2026, that the government was “not able to comply” due to the “unprecedented volume of refunds” overwhelming the agency’s technology. It’s working on an online system to “streamline and consolidate refunds and interest payments,” to be operational in 45 days of that filing, he wrote.

In response, Eaton paused his order requiring immediate refunds, but he has demanded regular updates on CBP’s progress. On March 19, Lord reported
that the four components of the new online system were between 45% and 80% functional.

New tariffs may loom

While some companies may get relief for levies they already paid, there’s the risk Trump could still make good on his threat to use other federal statutes to impose tariffs. Those laws aren’t an easy workaround for the administration, but they still provide some options for Trump to apply tariffs on imports, including those that had been affected under the emergency levies.

Further uncertainty, in short, is likely.

As the stock market volatility in 2025 after Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement showed, this uncertainty can be costly. And the Supreme Court’s decision hasn’t allayed those fears. Companies have delayed investment, stockpiled inventory and diverted resources into compliance and legal review since the tariff wars kicked off.

Such actions can tie up capital that could otherwise fund new employment, higher wages or product innovation. Trump’s trade policy is, in fact, underscoring the basic economic lesson that tariffs don’t eliminate trade but simply make it more expensive, research shows.

Businesses have to decide to either pass these import taxes along to consumers via higher prices or absorb higher input costs themselves. Trump’s experiment is no different. According to fresh research from the New York Federal Reserve, as the average tariff rate jumped from 2.6% to 13% from January through November 2025, almost 90% of the burden hit consumers and businesses.

That’s why tariffs are a rare point of consensus among economists: They harm economic growth and are more costly today than ever before, given how interconnected global supply chains have become. And as the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling shows, undoing their effect is a lot messier than tariff boosters would admit.

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

With the war in Iran a topic on everyone’s lips, you might have noticed an inconsistency in the way that nation’s name is said, varying between a more native-like “Ih-ron” pronunciation and a more Americanized “Ih-ran” one.

An everyday listener might just chalk this up as being the result of regional differences or the version we learned growing up, like the alternate ways Americans have of saying “data” or “roof.”

But as a linguist who studies what our accents reveal about our histories and social identities, I know that the way we pronounce things often gives off clues about who we are and what we believe in.

That appears to be the case with these two distinct pronunciations.

The sound of politics

It’s probably not a big surprise to learn that listeners often hear certain words or accents as indicating someone’s political inclinations.

That’s because people are primed to notice patterns that mark group membership – be it a style of clothes or pronouncing “fire” more like “far.” Once they notice these patterns, people then tend to assign whatever traits are believed to characterize that group to the sounds of their speech.

For instance, researchers examined how people perceived potential political candidates with a Southern vs. non-Southern American accent. They wrote in 2018 that they discovered listeners perceived Southern-sounding politicians as more likely to be conservative and to hold right-leaning views on issues such as gun rights and abortion. All that from hearing someone pronounce “pin” like “pen” or say “bah bah” for “bye.”

This suggests that even a small difference in the way a vowel is pronounced can suggest a lot more about political ideology than you might imagine, even if that suggestion is not always accurate.

Nationalism and names

Going back to the question of what drives variation in the pronunciation of Iran, a linguistic study examining politics and pronunciation during the Iraq War offers some insight.

In analyzing 2007 House of Representatives debates about sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, linguists found that a congress member’s political party affiliation was the strongest predictor of how the “a” vowel in Iraq was pronounced.

Republicans preferred the anglicized short “a” pronunciation closer to “ear-RACK,” while Democrats preferred a more “ah”-like one, as in “ear-ROCK.” The authors suggest that the Democratic preference, approximating a more native pronunciation, was motivated by greater multicultural sensitivity.

The pronunciation of the “i” vowel also exhibited a more anglicized option, as in “EYE-rack/rock,” which was also examined. Unlike the “a” vowel, a more “eye”-like pronunciation by itself did not significantly correlate with partisanship.

Two later studies, in 2011 and 2018, of everyday speakers who were asked to pronounce Iraq in nonpolitical contexts discovered no significant difference by political affiliation. The biggest predictor favoring an “ear-ROCK” pronunciation was that a person spoke multiple languages, as the “ah” vowel sound is more frequent in languages commonly spoken in the U.S., such as Spanish, French and Italian.

Despite not directly patterning with politics, when people in the 2018 study were questioned explicitly about how saying “ear-RACK” or “ear-ROCK” tied into political views, the “ah” pronunciation of the vowel was indeed heard as linked with liberalism, an association particularly strong for those who used “ah” and were liberal themselves.

This suggests that people might have picked up on this pattern from hearing politicians. They were aware of the fact that this vowel variation had become, in relevant contexts, symbolic of liberal vs. conservative stances.

Respect and pronunciation

In looking more generally at the pronunciation of borrowed words written with the letter “a,” like that of “pasta” or “tobacco,” linguist Charles Boberg suggests that Americans generally follow two possible paths, either pronouncing it with the short “a” like in “bat” or with the “ah” like in “father.”

Boberg suggests that attitudinal factors play a role in the choice between the two. Since many Americans associate the “ah” pronunciation with more education and sophistication, given its connection to upper-crust British use in words like “bath” or “aunt,” there has been an increasing tendency for Americans to use “ah” in words borrowed since World War II, as with “origami” or “nacho.”

But in looking at variability in the pronunciation of Iraq, other linguists hypothesized that the “ah” vowel is only heard as more sophisticated when a source language is held in high esteem – as with the British-derived “ah” in “aunt” – or when those speaking foreign languages are well regarded.

In contrast, when there is less respect for a people or a place, the choice of an Americanized vowel rather than the more accurate native one might be preferred. This attitude difference may well explain much of the variation in politicians’ pronunciation of Iraq – and possibly Iran.

Not surprisingly, in their study of congressional variation in pronunciation of Iraq, these researchers found that, beyond party affiliation, the politician’s war stance – for or against sending additional troops – was a significant determinant of which vowel was used. If they used the “ear-RACK” pronunciation, they were more likely to favor sending more troops to the country.

Trump and ‘I-ran’

While there is, as of yet, no similar study comparing politicians and their pronunciation of Iran, it is interesting to note that both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say the name in the more anglicized fashion, using the same vowel as in “ear-RACK” – that is, as “Ih-RAN” not “Ih-RON.”

Considering the highly contested nature of this war, this presidential preference for the anglicized version of the name may be driven by a similar politicized positioning to that found for the pronunciation of Iraq. Trump and Vance may be underscoring their “pro-America” focus by creating a linguistic and ideological distance with the named nation and its speakers.

A similar linguistic contrast was made during the Vietnam War, when “VietNAM” was commonly pronounced as having the same short “a” sound as in “bat,” including from the lips of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Now, years later, the “VietNOM” pronunciation dominates, and the “NAM” version is virtually absent in those born in more recent eras.

In the same way, Americans might eventually find a linguistic middle ground in the current pronunciation debate over Iran. But it might be a while before peace in the Middle East prevails long enough to give the next generation a linguistic clean slate.

Valerie M. Fridland 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

Three weeks into the U.S. war with Iran, it seems increasingly evident that President Donald Trump and his administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to attacks.

Besides appearing unprepared by the escalation of war, the president has offered contradictory statements on the U.S. rationale for bombing Iran, including that Iranian missiles could “soon” rain down on American cities.

The administration’s inconsistent rationale for waging war was laid bare on March 18, 2026, when Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee and declined to say whether her agency had made an estimate of if and when Iran would threaten the U.S. mainland.

“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” Gabbard said.

The statement was especially odd given that the briefing’s subject was the U.S. intelligence community’s latest global threat assessment. It’s clear to me that neither Gabbard nor other members of the intelligence community were part of Trump’s decision-making about going to war.

Besides serving as chair of the National Intelligence Council in the Barack Obama administration, I was a staff member of the National Security Council in the Jimmy Carter administration. I know that this apparent lack of a coordinated policy on Iran is a far cry from the war preparation and planning done during previous presidential administrations.

National Security Council

Typically, the National Security Council, which consists of the Cabinet secretaries of the national security agencies, does its work through its committees, including the Deputies Committee, which is made up of the top deputies in those departments. The Deputies Committee reviews plans and assesses options, usually presenting a recommendation to the principals, including the president.

In that sense, the National Security Council is seen within an administration as the honest broker, especially in balancing the roles of the two main foreign affairs departments: the State Department and the Defense Department.

To be sure, different administrations have used the National Security Council in different ways.

President Dwight Eisenhower created the modern National Security Council. His was an elaborate structure, with groups for both assessing options and overseeing implementation. It reflected his wartime experience, with careful staffing from a general staff whose responsibilities ranged from operations and logistics to intelligence and plans.

Other administrations have favored less formal arrangements. John F. Kennedy, for instance, kept discussions with the National Security Council secret during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But all the National Security Council stakeholders were represented, and Kennedy reached out to consult outside expertise on the Soviet Union.

Lyndon Johnson made Tuesday lunches his forum for debating decisions about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Beginning with just his secretaries of state and defense, the lunches became a National Security Council meeting but in less formal circumstances. The CIA director, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the press secretary were later added to the group.

In other administrations at war, including the George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush administrations in Iraq, the Deputies Committees would meet daily to assess progress and review options for what came next.

In the Obama administration, the National Intelligence Council I chaired supplied the intelligence support to the Deputies Committee. We provided a steady stream of intelligence assessments across various subjects. Those included pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring in the 2010s to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The intelligence assessments provided the information – about where wars stood and what may come next – used for discussion among the deputies. They were discussions informed by experts on the Deputies Committee and from staff on the National Security Council who specialized in the region or military affairs.

This was nowhere better illustrated than in negotiating the Obama administration’s nuclear agreement with Iran. The deal required bringing together experts on Iran and regional dynamics in the Middle East with experts on nuclear fuel cycles and the making of nuclear weapons.

Hardly seen

The Trump administration cut the National Security Council staff in half in May 2025, to around 150. The plan was to streamline and restructure national intelligence under Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Since White Houses always want to pretend they are cheaper than they are, most staff with the National Security Council are seconded – or loaned for free – from one of the agencies. The process saves the White House money. But it also provides it with invaluable in-house expertise and exposes those seconded officials to presidential policymaking.

A friend and colleague who served as under secretary of defense quipped that every time he saw a State Department counterpart coming to a Deputies Committee meeting, he knew what was coming in substance: a request for a military solution to a geopolitical problem.

His stock answer: “Yes, we can do that, but it’ll require 100,000 soldiers and cost US$10 billion.” That answer was his quip, but the Deputies Committee provided a forum for arguing about the merits of the case.

The Trump administration in January 2025 outlined the National Security Council structure in familiar terms. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and director of national intelligence, both a regular presence in debates in previous administrations, were made situational rather than regular members. They would attend as needed, not automatically.

But the National Security Council has hardly been seen since, unlike Trump’s Cabinet, which gathers occasionally at meetings that often begin with Cabinet members lavishing praise on the president.

Brian Kilmeade of Fox News Radio asked Trump on March 13, 2026, about that inner circle.

“In your Cabinet with the vice president, secretary of state, what is it like, what are the dynamics when you have a big decision like Iran or Venezuela?” Kilmeade asked. “Are people speaking up and speaking their minds?”

Trump’s answer spoke volumes.

“They do,” the president said. “I let them speak their mind, and they do. And we have some differences, but they, they never end up being much. I convince them all to, let’s do it my way.”

Perhaps this casual approach to national security from the Trump administration should not surprise Americans after “Signalgate” – when administration officials in 2025 used the messaging app Signal rather than secure government modes to discuss U.S. military strikes on Yemen and inadvertently included a journalist in the communications.

But when lives are at stake, not to mention Americans’ pocketbooks and the global economy, I think the nation deserves better. Conducting a war requires a hard-headed process for assessing progress and evaluating next steps. In other administrations, the National Security Council would have provided that.

Gregory F. Treverton 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

Imagine you’re a server at a busy restaurant that requires you to wear a form-fitting, polyester shirt as part of the uniform. When a hot flash hits, you are a sweaty mess. You really wish your employer would let you wear a cotton T-shirt instead.

If you live in Philadelphia, relief is on the way.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, the city of Philadelphia will prohibit discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause and menopause, and it will require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees for needs related to these conditions.

Perimenopause is the transitional period before menopause, marked by fluctuations in the hormones estrogen and progesterone. Menopause marks the end of the reproductive years, defined by not having a period for 12 consecutive months.

Both life stages are having a moment.

Social media is rife with influencers and life coaches selling supplements to relieve night sweats, clear brain fog and sustain libido. Many encourage strength training, walking with weighted vests, hormone replacement therapy and creatine, a compound that works to add muscle mass.

As a law professor at Villanova University, I teach and write about employment law and gender discrimination. I often focus on solutions to real-world problems for women and girls in the workplace.

Recently, I’ve taken up strength training, protein shakes and needlepoint. I’m clearly leaning into my identity as a woman over 50.

I believe the Philadelphia ordinance is a model for other cities and states to provide relief for workers suffering from symptoms of hormonal cycles and changes while balancing the needs of employers.

Following Rhode Island’s lead

Women’s health advocates have brought attention to the lack of training for medical professionals on the issues girls and women face resulting from menstruation, perimenopause and menopause.

In 2022, for example, a national survey of 145 OB-GYN residency program directors found that fewer than one-third of programs included curriculum on menopause. This is despite the fact that every single woman, if she lives long enough, will go through it.

While some progress has been made in the medical field, there has been even less when it comes to workplace protections.

To address this gap, in July 2025 Rhode Island became the first state to prohibit discrimination on the basis of menopause. Rhode Island also requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees experiencing menopause-related symptoms.

The Philadelphia City Council said: “Hold my weighted vest.”

In December 2025, the council amended the Philadelphia Code to prohibit discrimination on the basis of menstruation, perimenopause and menopause. For example, if an employer fires an employee because of heavy menstrual bleeding resulting in leaking, that would violate the new law.

In addition, the City Council amended Section 9-1128, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for needs related to pregnancy, childbirth or a related medical condition. That list now also includes “symptoms of menstruation, perimenopause or menopause” – provided the employee requests the accommodation and it does not cause an undue hardship for the employer.

Experts in medicine and public health and described the physical and emotional symptoms women and girls may face during these life stages. These symptoms include abdominal or pelvic cramping, fatigue, mood changes, headaches, irregular menstrual cycles, hot flashes, sleep disturbances and cognitive changes.

One expert noted that 23% of women who are experiencing perimenopause have symptoms severe enough to “.”

Employers will not have to accommodate every symptom, only those that “substantially interfere with an employee’s ability to perform one or more job functions.” Although the new ordinance does not define “susbtantially interfere,” the intent is to require accommodations when a worker cannot perform some part of her job – for instance, if period pain is so high that a retail worker cannot stand for their shift, or if hot flashes prevent a food service worker from staying in the kitchen.

Clear and explicit protections

In light of existing antidiscrimination laws, why is such a targeted law necessary?

Federal, state and local laws already prohibit employers in Philadelphia from discriminating because of sex. They also require employers with 15 or more employees to provide reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions.

Federal, state and local laws also prohibit employers from discriminating against people with disabilities and require reasonable accommodations to allow them to perform the essential functions of the job.

But menopause and menstruation protections do not clearly fall within these protections.

There are a few cases across the country in which an employee successfully challenged their firing for a condition related to menstruation. But other employees have lost cases under federal law when courts ruled that menstruation is not covered by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act or Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Further, people seeking protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act for menstruation complications such as endometriosis, which occurs when tissue grows outside of the uterus and often causes severe pain during menstrual cycles, face an uphill battle. Instead of requiring employees who experience these sorts of symptoms to fit their cases into other statutes, Philadelphia’s new ordinance makes protection clear and explicit.

Reasonable accommodations

During a hearing on the proposed legislation, council member Nina Ahmad, who introduced the bill, noted that the accommodations envisioned are not costly. She and other council members gave : access to bathrooms and drinking water, brief flexible breaks, breathable uniforms, temperature control to manage hot flashes, fans or ventilation, ability to layer clothing, stocked period products and brief scheduling flexibility.

The type of accommodations necessary will change depending on the employee’s industry. Many women who experience symptoms already can decide what they wear to work, when they take a bathroom break and maybe even whether to work remotely. However, for workers in retail and service, or other workplaces with strict break policies, the ability to request a bathroom break or to drink water during a shift could significantly ease symptoms.

Just as the accommodations required will differ by job and industry, the employer’s ability to demonstrate undue hardship will also differ. Under the Philadelphia Code, undue hardship is an individualized assessment that considers such factors as the cost of the accommodations, the size of the workforce and the employer’s financial resources.

The devil is in the details, of course, but come January 2027, relief should be on the way for workers who are just trying to do their jobs while suffering from symptoms caused by menstruation, perimenopause and menopause.

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

Ann Juliano 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