
Podcast
Terms of Engagement – Censorship by Settlement?
What does Columbia’s recent settlement with the Trump administration mean for higher education? Are the First Amendment rights of Columbia and other universities being infringed?
Policy Brief
Tova Wang and Melina Geser-Stark argue that while grassroots advocacy has been pivotal in advancing voting rights, it remains overshadowed by the perception that voter reform is the domain of political elites — a view this paper challenges by examining how grassroots efforts mirror modern social movements and drive the push for a more inclusive democracy.
The recent passage of major state-based voting rights legislation demonstrates the critical role grassroots organizations play in protecting and advancing U.S. democracy. In 2023, grassroots organizers, working in coalition, were instrumental in securing significant election reform and voter inclusion legislation in New Mexico and Minnesota. By documenting these landmark efforts, this paper offers a fresh perspective on how grassroots organizing can drive meaningful change in the voting rights arena.
In academic literature, news reporting, and the public consciousness, contemporary voting reform is traditionally viewed through a top-down lens, with “elite” actors—such as policy advocates, lawyers, and legislators—seen as the key drivers of change. In contrast, the role of grassroots activism in shaping contemporary voting rights reform is often overlooked. As a result, the work of organizers in legislative efforts is less understood than that of those who traditionally hold political power. However, under-resourced state-based grassroots organizations are often central to moving election reform policy. They educate constituents about policies, build networks of passionate communities, and mobilize their bases to impact policy decisions.
This paper challenges the traditional top-down approach to voting rights reform by examining how grassroots efforts often exhibit many of the features of social movements as they have been understood in scholarship and in the public mind. Historically, when we think of voting rights movements, we most often think of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s or the suffragists at the turn of the 20th century. Here, we look at how modern voting reform efforts also display key attributes of social movements.
Podcast
What does Columbia’s recent settlement with the Trump administration mean for higher education? Are the First Amendment rights of Columbia and other universities being infringed?
Article
In this op-ed, Jennifer Hochschild explains that Chicago is facing a financial crisis decades in the making — a crushing burden of pension debt that no current resident created but all must bear. Instead she says, it is the result of a century of political promises, underfunded commitments, and systemic avoidance — leaving Chicagoans to reckon with the consequences today.
Podcast
A majority of people agree that democracy is worth fighting for, but when asked if democracy is at risk, opinions begin to differ. Are we all operating under the same idea of what a democracy truly is?
Podcast
What does Columbia’s recent settlement with the Trump administration mean for higher education? Are the First Amendment rights of Columbia and other universities being infringed?
Article
In this op-ed, Jennifer Hochschild explains that Chicago is facing a financial crisis decades in the making — a crushing burden of pension debt that no current resident created but all must bear. Instead she says, it is the result of a century of political promises, underfunded commitments, and systemic avoidance — leaving Chicagoans to reckon with the consequences today.
Podcast
A majority of people agree that democracy is worth fighting for, but when asked if democracy is at risk, opinions begin to differ. Are we all operating under the same idea of what a democracy truly is?