2017-18 Theme: 

Walls:

Migration, Confinement, and the Problem of Mobility

Against the backdrop of globalization, where capital flows across borders more easily than people, we are living in increasingly walled-off societies. This year’s Center theme delves into those  structures, ideas, and practices that divide individuals and communities in Long Island and our region, also  societies and nations in the larger world.   Read more here...

OP-ED: Harvard has shown its commitment to diversity was always a farce

This fall, a history scholar named Michelle Jones will begin her doctoral work at New York University. Earlier this year, she was rejected from Harvard — after being initially accepted. While there are plenty of academics who could relate to Jones’s exclusion from one of the most elite universities in the world, a closer look beneath the surface reveals the politics that shape the kinds of people who are typically “selected” — and those, like Jones, who are kept out. Read more here....

TRUMP’S ASSAULT IN HISTORY AND TESTIMONY

The EPA Under Siege is the first part of a multipart series on the early days of the Trump administration. In this series, EDGI authors systematically investigate historical precedents for Trump’s attack on the EPA, consequences for toxic regulation and environmental justice, the influence of the fossil fuel industry on the new administration, changes to the public presentation of climate change, and the new administration’s hostility to scientific research and evidence.

The Trump administration currently poses the greatest threat to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its entire 47-year history. Twice before, presidential administrations in North America have targeted their own environmental agencies with comparable aggression, in the early Reagan administration (1981-1983) and under Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006-2015). Trump’s assault is on track to surpass these. Successful challenges to these earlier attacks provide pointers for those hoping to uphold the EPA’s mission of protecting human and environmental health today, Republicans and Democrats alike. Our analysis draws upon deep digs into historical literature and archives as well as sixty interviews with current and former EPA and some OSHA employees. Read more here....