Title IX protects against sexual assault and gender discrimination at universities. Celene Reynolds discusses the state of Title IX today, and how a law meant for employment discrimination landed at the center of a movement against campus sexual assault.

For More on This Topic:

• Read her two-page brief, What We Know - and Need to Learn - about Progress against Sex Discrimination in Higher Education.

Further Reading:

• The Dangers of Invoking Cultural Explanations in the Fight Against Sexual Assaults on College Campuses, Meg Mott, Marlboro College
• How Federal Government Policies Have Helped Women Earn College Degrees, Deondra Rose, Duke University

Changing public opinion and high costs have death sentences in decline in America. Professor Frank Baumgartner explains that when they do happen, race, mental illness, and even location predict who is sentenced and executed — not just the crime.

For More on This Topic:

• Check out his research on state’s death penalty system discussed in the Louisiana Weekly.
• See the latest from the death penalty debate in the New York Times’ article on the Arkansas executions.

Further Reading:

• Children of Imprisoned Parents and the Future of Inequality in the United States, Sara Wakefield, Rutgers University, Christopher Wildeman, Cornell University
• The Troubling Fate of Aged Prisoners on Death Row, Elizabeth Rapaport, University of New Mexico School of Law

Trump’s cabinet is the wealthiest in U.S. history. In light of this news, this episode revisits Professor Nicholas Carnes' interview on the effects of a government run by the rich, for the rich, and ways to get working class Americans a seat at the table.

For More on this Topic:

• Check out the New York Times graphic and article on the financial disclosures of the White House.

• Read his briefs, How Government by the Privileged Distorts Economic Policy and How Government by the Privileged Distorts Democracies.

Further Reading:

• Why Politically Active Billionaires Threaten the Health of Democracy, Darrell M. West, Brookings Institution

• Who Gets What They Want from Government?, Martin Gilens, Princeton University

Poverty can persist in the same communities for generations, especially communities of color. Professor Darrick Hamilton walks through the policies that prevent people from moving up in the economy and proposes solutions from jobs to schooling to banking.

For More on this Topic:

• Check out his research on ‘Baby Bonds’ discussed in the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
• Read his two-page brief, co-authored with William Darity Jr. and Mark Paul.
• Find the book he referenced, When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson.

Further Reading:

• Why America's Women of Color Have Lost Ground Since the Great Recession, Marion Johnson, NC Justice Centre, SSN Basic Facts, October 2015
• Financial Deregulation, U.S. Party Politics, and Rising Income Inequality, Nathan J. Kelly, University of Tennessee, Giovanny D. Pleites-Hernandez, Eric Keller, University of Tennessee, February 2016