inequality

Our youth are in a mental health crisis. Young people describe steadily increasing sadness, hopelessness and suicidal thoughts. These mental health challenges are greater for youth who hold marginalized identities that include sexual orientation, gender identity or race or ethnicity. Near-constant exposure to traumatizing media and news stories, such as when Black youth watch videos of people who look like them being killed or when transgender youth hear multiple politicians endorse and pass laws that deny their very…

The Supreme Court’s June ruling striking down affirmative action by socially defined race in college and university admissions is a step backward for equal opportunity to access education. While affirmative action was meant to eventually disappear as society dismantled structural racism, we are still far from that goal, and the consequences of this ruling will be widespread. However, as scholars of social justice, we believe that affirmative action has always been a Band-Aid for the wounds in our society caused by…

Projections of exposure risk trend for elderly. a, b Spatial distribution of exposure risk trend for elderly in cities under (a) SSP2-4.5 and (b) SSP5-8.5. An OLS liner regression of the exposure risk trend. The point estimates are statistically significant at p npj Urban Sustainability (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42949-023-00118-9 Prof. Chen Mingxing's team at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of…

At a time of unrelenting attacks on reproductive autonomy, the Food and Drug Administration’s decision on July 13 to approve a birth control pill for over-the-counter (OTC) use is an important advance toward providing people with tools to control their fertility. This includes preventing unwanted pregnancy. Having Opill, a safe, effective, easy-to-use birth control option available without a prescription is essential, because it so difficult for many people to get prescription birth control in the U.S. As researchers and…

The United States is enjoying a remarkable and durable period of tight labor markets. Currently at 3.6 percent, the unemployment rate has been below 4 percent for 18 months. Employers added 209,000 new jobs to the labor market last month, marking the 30th straight month of job growth. The economy is generating opportunity for many workers, including people who have long been on the margins of the work world. More than one million additional people with disabilities found jobs between 2021 to 2022; joblessness among…

The recent decision by the Supreme Court that race-conscious college and university admissions policies are unconstitutional has reversed decades of precedent. This decision, often conflated with the broader concept of affirmative action, will undoubtedly sow confusion and create a chilling effect on campuses. Colleges and universities, fearing further lawsuits, may curtail their actions beyond the minimum legal boundaries of the decision, while advocates of the ruling plead ignorance about the outcomes of their actions.…

Race-based affirmative action improves lives, as abundant scientific research shows, but the U.S. Supreme Court once again ignored evidence and decided to put an end to the use of the policy in college admissions. The judges who delivered the majority opinions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in June interpreted the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment—long used to prevent racial discrimination against people of color—to uphold the idea that race should…

On June 29, the Supreme Court essentially ended affirmative action that considers race in higher education admissions (while exempting military academies), holding that the programs in question at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina “violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” The Court’s ruling in both Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) cases said that Harvard’s and UNC’s admission programs “lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably…

Correlation between ten biases within 3346 participants showed each bias was largely unique and not collinear with other biases assessed, with the exception of overplacement and overestimation (which rely on the presence of some biases). Credit: Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-36339-2 A global study led by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and published in the journal…

Who’s afraid of the big bad bots? A lot of people, it seems. Hundreds of scientists, business leaders, and policymakers have recently made public pronouncements or signed open letters warning of the catastrophic dangers of artificial intelligence, from deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton to California congressman Ted Lieu. We've been here before: AI doom follows AI hype. But this time feels different. What were once extreme views are now mainstream talking points, grabbing not only headlines but the attention of world…