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By the middle of last week, I’d read, heard or watched a lot of stories about Texas’ new law that bans almost all abortions. I didn’t know what else The Conversation could contribute to the discussion until the legislation was challenged in court.
But then, Stefanie Lindquist, a legal scholar at Arizona State University, submitted a story to us that broke new ground. The law is carefully structured to evade legal challenges against the state over its constitutionality. It does this by giving individuals the power to enforce the law. And that, writes Lindquist, is an old Jim Crow tactic.
Lindquist walks readers through two Texas laws dating from that era in which the state constructed the statutes to give private individuals or organizations the power to enforce legal maneuvers to disenfranchise Black voters.
“Texas has resurrected a decades-old technique that it used during the Jim Crow era to insulate its discriminatory laws from constitutional review in the courts,” writes Lindquist. Her story tells just what happened to those earlier laws when they got to the Supreme Court.
Also today: Why cheaper, accessible COVID-19 tests are critical Who are the Hazara, Afghanistan’s persecuted minority? What happens when your foot ‘falls asleep’?
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Naomi Schalit
Senior Editor, Politics + Society
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill that effectively bans abortion in the state.
AP Photo/Eric Gay
Stefanie Lindquist, Arizona State University
Texas lawmakers resurrected a Jim Crow-era legal maneuver, used to deny Black people the right to vote, in their new law banning most abortions.
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Health
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Zoë McLaren, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Making rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 cheaper and more accessible can catch the infectious cases before they spread and help everyone resume normal activities safely.
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Julia Raifman, Boston University; Alexandra Skinner, Boston University
President Biden outlined a six-point strategy to confront the pandemic. But two public health scholars believe it would work better with help from states.
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Ethics + Religion
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Phil Zuckerman, Pitzer College
Regularly topping lists for ‘greatest song of all time,’ the former Beatle’s classic 1971 song is taken by many as an atheistic anthem.
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Iqbal Akhtar, Florida International University
With the Taliban again in power in Afghanistan, minorities like the Hazara may have the most to lose.
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Economy + Business
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Wendy Chen, Texas Tech University; Una Osili, IUPUI
Larger shares of Asian, Black and Hispanic people are donating to these nonprofits, compared with white donors. They are also more likely to give to others through less formal channels.
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Environment + Energy
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Mojtaba Sadegh, Boise State University; John Abatzoglou, University of California, Merced; Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, McGill University
As the risk of fires rises in areas once considered too wet to burn, it creates hazards for mountain communities and for downstream water supplies.
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Education
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Stephen Sireci, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Public outcry against standardized testing, along with adjustments required by COVID-19, have led to a new generation of academic tests.
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Science + Technology
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Zachary Gillen, Mississippi State University
An exercise physiologist explains how it’s a problem of communication between your brain and your body.
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Trending on site
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Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University
If you see the Tesla Bot as a joke or a harbinger of a dystopian future, you could be missing the real threat, which has more to do with Elon Musk’s power than robots run amok.
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Wendy Whitman Cobb, US Air Force School of Advanced Air and Space Studies
The Inspiration4 mission is sending four civilians to space for three days. Though still funded by a billionaire, the mission is a step forward in the nascent space tourism industry.
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Maureen Ferran, Rochester Institute of Technology
It has been six months since the Johnson & Johnson vaccine received emergency use authorization. What does six months of data show about its efficacy, side effects and protection from variants?
Today’s graphic
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