The Personal is Political: The Power of Local Activism

Isabel Velarde

Our current state of hyper-connectivity through social media allows us to stay connected to socio-political movements on the national level—#MeToo, Black Lives Matter, etc.—and to remain informed, within seconds, of the latest domestic and international news. Interestingly, our use of social media encourages us to take the personal and make it political—by hashtagging, tweeting our own story, sharing a thought-provoking picture, and so on. At the same time, however, it fools us into thinking that we should prioritize change at a national level, rather than at a local level. In…

Overworked and Underpaid: America’s Public Defender Crisis

Theodore Schoneman

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy famously uttered in his inaugural address. This is a valid statement. Beyond citizens’ responsibility to provide for themselves and their families, there is a need for people to work for the common good. Someone must serve on the front lines of combat, while others must attend to those who are starving. However, Kennedy’s call can be difficult to heed. Consider, for example, the legal field. Imagine being a third-year law…

Larry Pressler: A Relic of Conservatism

Ryan Slattery

What is your most outrageous college dorm story? Here’s mine. It was a warm but windy Wednesday afternoon. After the high winds caused my fruit punch to splatter all over my beloved peacoat, I furiously opened the door to my room to vent about the weather. It is a usual routine and, admittedly, a bad habit of mine to complain about things that are completely out of my control. But something was different. Jacob Linker, the president of the College Libertarians and a personal friend of mine, invited an unusual…

Governmental Censorship in the Age of Trump

Anastasia Lacina

In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr. published a book entitled: “God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of ‘Academic Freedom.’”  This work is the first instance of the all too familiar argument that conservative speech is censored on college campuses.  During the 1950s – when capitalism was at its peak, and the social movements of the 1960s had yet to kick off – this accusation was easily dismissed by the American public.  It wasn’t until the late 1970s that Buckley’s persecution complex gained traction in mainstream conservatism. Since then, conservative…

#MeToo: Not Just A First-World Problem

MacKenzie Stuart

If you have a smartphone, laptop, television, or just a set of eyes and ears, then you haven’t been able to escape the dazzling onslaught of sex abuse scandals within the last few months. Dozens of women have come forward to confess that they have been preyed on by powerful and prominent men like Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, comedian Louis C.K., and politician Roy Moore, thus breaking the silence that usually protects men in these positions from facing consequences. Tens of thousands of women have been using the #MeToo movement…

What We can learn From High Schoolers

Michael Fissinger

Mass shootings and gun deaths as a whole have become mainstream in the United States, with the number of guns proliferating and accumulating over the years so that there are nearly as many guns as people in the country. Shooting after shooting, death after death, for a multiplicity of reasons, the topic of gun control falls out of the news cycle, because the complexity of the issue prevents policymakers from proposing a clear-cut solution. Without agreeing on a possible end goal, lawmakers can’t begin to debate the merits of a…

Immigration Gridlock and its Effect on Trump’s Image

Sophia Singh

For the past month and a half, Congress and the White House have been in a whirlwind of chaotic, divisive discussion and legislative gridlock over immigration. On January 30th, President Trump gave his second State of the Union address, in which he laid out a four-pillar outline for immigration reform. These four pillars included a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, a $25 billion budget for building his famous Mexican border wall and bolstering border security, elimination of the current visa lottery system in exchange for a “merit-based” system,…

Civil Rights, Then and Now: A Conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton

Anastasia Lacina

FPR Copy Chief Anastasia Lacina sat down with Rev. Al Sharpton on February 26, 2018 to discuss gun control, mass shootings, and the future of the civil rights movement. Al Sharpton is a civil rights leader and baptist minister, and the current host of PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton on MSNBC and the radio talk show Keepin’ It Real. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect those of Fordham Political Reiview, its various members, or the interviewer in question. Anastasia Lacina: Thank you so much for coming…