Professor John Ellwood convenes a panel of experts to address the major consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, including what the decision means for future health reform, constitutional law, medical care, the insurance market, insurance premiums, public policy and politics. The program is free and open to the public. 10 a.m. to noon, Monday, July 2 Room 132, UC Berkeley Law School (at the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Bancroft Way). Directions here. Panel: John…

Amid the ceaseless and cacophonous debates about how to close the achievement gap, we’ve turned away from one tool that has been shown to work: school desegregation. That strategy, ushered in by the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, has been unceremoniously ushered out, an artifact in the museum of failed social experiments. The Supreme Court’s ruling that racially segregated schools were “inherently unequal” shook up the nation like no…

In November 2011, President Barack Obama signed the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act into law, enacting the most substantial reform of the iconic agency since its inception in 1961.The legislation was the result of years of advocacy from David Puzey (MPP/ERG Candidate '14), whose sister, Peace Corps volunteer Kate Puzey, was murdered after reporting that a Peace Corps contractor had raped several students. The legislation provides powerful whistle-blower safeguards and establishes an Office of Victim Advocacy and Sexual…

“Stop the Clock” week provides students and faculty with a chance to interact with and to hear from leading decision-makers who have worked in government. This year, the Goldman School welcomes Regents’ Lecturer Ann Veneman (MPP ‘71), former US Secretary of Agriculture ( 2001-05) and Executive Director of UNICEF at the United Nations (2005-10). Please note schedule below: Monday, April 2 12:15 – 1:15 pm: Discussion with Henry Brady, Robert Reich, John Ellwood American Politics: The Republican Nomination and the Obama…

The Solyndra uproar and the International Trade Commission Dec. 2 decision to investigate Chinese solar panel manufacturers for dumping their products below cost in the United States threatens to distract us from what we need most: a proactive, long-term clean and sustainable energy strategy. If you look beyond the partisan politics that have recently engulfed the solar industry, two irrefutable facts stand out: -- The solar energy industry is at a tipping point. With a diverse set of promising…

Multiple choice question: In 20 states it's legal to hit (1) an animal, (2) a prisoner, (3) a soldier or (4) a schoolchild. The right answer is - astonishingly - No. 4. Keep your hands off Fido, the law says, and don't manhandle convicts, but from Florida to Wyoming (but not, thank goodness, in California), teachers and administrators are authorized to paddle students. They do so with gusto. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2006-7, the last school year for which…

When it comes to same-sex marriage, is pointed satire possible - not merely on the Jon Stewart or Jay Leno TV shows but in political life? Certainly not in federal court, where the issue has taken on a life-or-death quality for gays. But the ballot box is another story. The most important gay-rights case ever starts next month in San Francisco's federal court building. There's talk of bringing TV cameras into the courtroom, a…

When Don Griffin, the chancellor of San Francisco City College, announced a plan to sell naming rights to courses on his campus, the story made national news. The pundits had a field day. How about the Exxon ecology course, they chortled, or the Bernie Madoff finance class? What about Marlboro Human Biology or Seagram's Women's Fitness? I've got a message for all those snob sisters - get over yourselves. With California's higher…

Champagne corks were popping last week among supporters of same-sex marriage. No wonder: In the span of five days, the number of states where gays and lesbians could tie the knot doubled, from two to four. The Supreme Court of Iowa, a state not usually in the progressive vanguard, declared that gays had a right to marry. A few days later, Vermont's lawmakers, profiles in courage who overrode a governor's veto, voted to let same-sex couples…

Check out commencement photos from elite private universities like Harvard or Stanford, and you'll see a considerable number of black and Latino graduates. Race-conscious admissions policies are the main reason. A recent study finds that, at such schools, black and Hispanic students receive the equivalent of a 200 point edge in SAT scores. (Several states, including California, prohibit public universities from taking race into account, which is why just 3 percent of Berkeley students are African American - the same percentage…