Perspectives

Taken as a whole, it is extremely encouraging to see a presidential administration, at last, proposing a range of policies designed to rectify the structural nature of poverty and inequality, writes Mark Rank.

In this video, 14 first-year students from across the university, selected by faculty in the College Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, read from original works written during the 2020-21 academic year.

To live under forced exile in the heart of my homeland or to live in voluntary exile as a resident alien—this is my choice. Either way, to be a stranger in a strange land, writes doctoral student Sayed Kashua.

This episode of the “Show Me the Science” podcast looks at how WashU doctors have tried to protect themselves, their babies and their patients during the pandemic.

C. Robert Cloninger, MD, PhD, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the School of Medicine, is the guest on an episode of the “Take the Long View” podcast about getting to know oneself and what leads to happiness.

The Brown School’s Mark Rank, an expert on poverty band inequality, writes an article in The Conversation about how poverty in the United States has changed since 1964, yet the federal government’s measurement tools have not.

Zach Neronha, a student at the School of Medicine, writes a letter to the editor about the effort to expand Medicaid in Missouri. Voters approved expansion last year, but the Legislature and governor didn’t move forward with expansion, and the issue is now before the Missouri Supreme Court.

Even small Supreme Court reforms could have larger benefits, writes Dan Epps, the Treiman Professor of Law. They put the justices on notice that elected officials are paying attention — and that those officials have the power to rein in a court that goes astray. In our democracy, that’s a healthy reminder for unelected Supreme Court justices to hear.

We still have time to implement policies that pull us back from the brink, but the window is closing. Without action, we will be remembered for debasing the environment so badly that it finally altered or eradicated even the toughest creatures in Earth’s history, writes Michael Moore, post-doctoral fellow with the Living Earth Collaborative.

If the U.S. ever hopes to finally win the war LBJ began in 1964, the poor need to be seen in order for the government to lift them out of poverty, writes Mark Rank, Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare.