But Jewish first-graders are still sitting alone in the morning meeting, and synagogues still don’t feel safe. Anti-Semitism is rising; it is not old news.
While one may argue that incarcerated people should be satisfied to have any work or income at all, the conditions of their “employment” are not livable.
Human connection is a human right. A child should always be able to talk to their parents; a partner should always be given the right to talk to their significant other.
One out of seven people are therefore being deprived of their chance for education, rehabilitation, and reintegration. These individuals deserve a second chance, because they are human.
Over the course of this semester, this column will explore inhumane aspects of the criminal legal system, sometimes proposing alternatives and sometimes just bearing witness to these practices and spreading awareness of them. I hope you will join me.
If there are clubs whose missions we disagree with, we should be inspired to speak up, or start our own organizations. At the end of the day, the decision behind who gets to talk and how is just one big balancing game — and the scale should never fully tip to one side.
In today’s environment of strict partisanship, academic campuses should be looking for every opportunity to invite a diverse range of speakers, and they should be encouraging openness and dialogue, not censorship and one-sidedness.
