Five Mualimm-ak spent 2,054 days wasting in isolated confinement in the New York City prison system. Neither judge nor jury put him there, rather, an endless stream of “tickets” from prison guards. These tickets were not for major offenses like instigating violence in the prison yard or striking an officer, but for seemingly minor infractions. … Read more
In November 2011, Wired magazine ran an article titled “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin.” The article delivered a narrative account of the digital currency and its pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto. The story was written as if it encapsulated the full story of Bitcoin, from its 2008 rise to its probable 2011 demise. Four years … Read more
On March 17, 2015, Facebook Messenger announced a new feature for friends to send and receive money easily and securely. All users have to do is start a new chat with a friend, tap the “$” icon, enter the amount they want to send, and tap “Pay” to add their debit card. Then, assuming the … Read more
At 32 years old and with a net worth of $100 million, Martin Shkreli has become the face of corporate greed and price manipulation in the pharmaceutical industry. Shkreli is the founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. The now-infamous young biotechnology company made headlines after it acquired a 62-year-old toxoplasmosis medication, Daraprim, and increased the … Read more
This June, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew announced a redesign of the $10 bill that would replace the current figurehead, Alexander Hamilton, with a to-be-determined woman “pioneer” and “champion of democracy.” However, Hamilton’s removal from the $10 bill drew widespread criticism, and rightly so. Replacing Hamilton, the Treasury’s foremost founding father and an emblem … Read more
When Alfred Guzzetti began his career as an artist in the 1960s, he was motivated in part by the war in Vietnam. Although he had never seriously considered a career in the arts previously, the pursuit of graduate school and a fellowship in England presented tempting options for avoiding the war. Even so, art school did … Read more
The potential for exploitation is endemic in the current international migrant labor system. In Hong Kong, Filipina domestic workers have reported working 19-hour days and are often beaten and underpaid. In Qatar, the well-documented abuses of the kafala system enable employers to take away their South Asian migrant employees’ passports and prevent them from leaving … Read more
With a comatose swiftness, I shut off my chiming alarm to prevent my roommate from waking up. It was 6 a.m., an hour unknown to most Harvard students, except perhaps athletes and the most ardent of partiers. I crept to my part-time job where I would perform mindless tasks until my 9 a.m. class every … Read more
The debate over affirmative action and race preferences in university admissions is among the most bitter and intractable in American politics. In principle, affirmative action is a straightforward case of compensatory justice. Black and Hispanic students, supporters claim, suffer from structural injustices that may cause them to perform worse than they would if they were … Read more
The debate over affirmative action and race preferences in university admissions is among the most bitter and intractable in American politics. In principle, affirmative action is a straightforward case of compensatory justice. Black and Hispanic students, supporters claim, suffer from structural injustices that may cause them to perform worse than they would if they were … Read more