With the end of June comes the end-of-term for the U.S. Supreme Court, and predictably, the nation’s highest court is out with several high-profile decisions impacting our everyday lives.

Today on the show, we take up the court’s 6-3 decision to invalidate admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, following a pair of lawsuits filed against the universities by the conservative-led group Students for Fair Admissions.

But did the court completely upend the consideration of race in college admissions? Our experts today say not so fast.

We’re joined by constitutional law scholars Reginald Oh and Derek Black for a conversation about what the U.S. Supreme Court actually said on race-conscious affirmative action, and the path forward for higher education.

About the guests: 

Reginald Oh is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University College of Law, where he specializes in research around the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He wrote about these cases last fall for Washington Monthly.  You can follow him on Twitter @ReginaldOhLaw.

Derek Black is Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina, where he’s the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law. He’s an expert in education law and policy, educational equality and school funding for disadvantaged students. He’s the author of several books, the most recent of which is Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy (2020, PublicAffairs). You can follow him on Twitter @DerekWBlack.

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Joy and happiness are not the same thing, says H. Melt, a Chicago-based poet, artist, educator, and documentarian of queer and trans communities.

While “happiness is an individual and often temporary gratification, feeling, and experience,” they’re much more interested in the pursuit of joy, which “feels so much more encompassing, collective, and like something you can share with other people,” they say.

Joy, paired with grief, is a one concept explored in H. Melt’s most recent collection, There Are Trans People Here (2021, Haymarket), which describes moments of resistance in queer and trans history as catalysts for today’s movements.

H. Melt joins WORT producer Jade Iseri-Ramos on today’s show for a conversation on joy, love, and the healing power of community. Along the way, they share selected poems and stories from their work documenting Chicago’s queer and trans communities.

H. Melt is also the author of several previous collections, including On My Way To Liberation, and The Plural, The Blurring. They’re also the editor of Subject to Change, an anthology featuring trans poets in dialogue.  You can find more about them on their website, and follow them @hmeltchi on Instagram and @HMeltChicago on Twitter.

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It’s resilient, regenerative, and revolutionary for agricultural sustainability: it’s Kernza®. This time of the year, you might see Kernza about 3-4 feet high and starting to sprout yellow flowers. In about a month, Kernza will start to be harvested in Wisconsin by researchers and farmers alike.

The Kernza grain, harvested from intermediate wheatgrass, is a cousin of annual wheat. And like wheat, it can be used to make everything from cereal to (slightly sweet) sourdough to specialty beer. Unlike wheat, Kernza is a perennial crop, making it radically unlike the crops we’re used to seeing in Wisconsin farm fields.

Twenty years after first being developed, Kernza is now grown by more than 100 farmers on nearly 4,000 acres across the globe. It’s been developed by The Land Institute, a non-profit research organization dedicated to perennial agriculture based in Salina, Kansas.

The work to domesticate Kernza was guided by Dr. Lee DeHaan, Lead Scientist of the Kernza Domestication Program at The Land Institute. He joins host Douglas Haynes for a program on Kernza, agricultural sustainability, and perennial polyculture.

Also joining the program is Erica Schoenberger, a graduate student in Agroecology at UW-Madison, where she studies nutrient management for Kernza as part of a research lab led by Dr. Valentin Picasso.

Photo of Kernza® courtesy Erica Schoenberger. 

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What was the responsibility of the United States in bringing about the war in Ukraine?

That’s an angle of the Ukraine invasion that’s received little attention in the mainstream press. And while it doesn’t excuse the Russian invasion, or war, our guest argues Western provocations had the effect of bringing the situation to a crisis.

Our guest is Benjamin Abelow, author of the recent book How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe.

In the book, Abelow argues that moves like expanding NATO eastward toward Russia’s borders, and conducting military exercises there, created a sense of threat for Russia and contributed to its decision to invade Ukraine.

So too did the US’s withdrawal from treaties like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, while placing anti-ballistic launch systems in newly-joined NATO countries, as did withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which increased Russian vulnerability to a US first strike.

Other provocations, says Abelow, were laying the groundwork for an armed, far-right coup in Ukraine, and leading Ukrainian leadership to adopt an uncompromising stance toward Russia.

About the guest:

Benjamin Abelow has a B.A. in modern European history from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.D. from the Yale School of Medicine, where he also held the position of Lecturer in Medicine. He previously worked in Washington, DC, where he lobbied Congress, lectured, and wrote about nuclear arms policy.

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When peace, or at least a halt on the invasion in Ukraine arrives, how will it come about?

Could an ascendant China – perhaps the one power positioned to do so – play the essential role of mediator?

UW-Madison historian Al McCoy thinks so. It’s the subject of his latest article on the subject, published earlier this month in TomDispatch.

He joins Allen Ruff on the program for a conversation about a “forever war” in Ukraine, the potential dealmaking of President Xi Jinping, and the significance of peace conferences not just in resolving conflicts but in signaling the arrival of a new world power taking center stage.

About the guest: 

Al McCoy is the Harrington Professor of History at UW-Madison. He’s the author of numerous works on global geopolitics, US imperial policy and practice, European colonialism in Southeast Asia, the illegal global drug trade, CIA cover operations, and the question of torture.

He’s author of more than a dozen books and countless articles. His most recent title is “To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change” (Haymarket Books, 2021), which explores the interplay of sovereignty, human rights, and energy in the succession of empires and global systems.

Photo courtesy Chuttersnap on Unsplash. 

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Wisconsin is in the midst of a childcare crisis. It’s prohibitively expensive for families, if you can find a spot. But employees aren’t making competitive wages, and providers – facing high operating costs – are struggling to stay afloat. That plays out in a child’s most formative years, when investment in quality care and education is most crucial.

Federal pandemic funds brought sorely-needed cash to the situation, keeping thousands of Wisconsin child care businesses afloat. That funding – through a program called Child Care Counts – stabilized pandemic effects by helping providers with operating costs, while recruiting child care workers.

But funding for Child Care Counts is set to expire. And despite advocates’ best efforts, Republican lawmakers have shot down a proposal to spend $340 million in the next budget to keep the program going.

Today, we welcome a roundtable of researchers, advocates, and childcare providers for their perspective – and why they say protecting access to high-quality child care impacts everyone.

Our guests are…

Sara Shaw, a senior researcher focusing on education at the Wisconsin Policy Forum, a nonpartisan policy research organization. She’s author of a recent report that outlines how families, employees, and childcare providers are simultaneously struggling.

Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, or WECA, the leading nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the early childhood workforce and early care and education in Wisconsin.

Brooke Skidmore, and co-owner of The Growing Tree, a childcare center in New Glarus. She’s also a co-founder of Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed, or WECAN, a grassroots advocacy organization aimed at increasing public investment in early childhood.

Abbi Kruse, executive director at The Playing Field, a childcare center in Madison serving children experiencing homelessness alongside those from far more advantaged families.

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Just over a year ago, the supreme court overruled Roe v Wade. The decision left us with zero federal abortion rights. Here in Wisconsin, our access to abortion is governed by a law from 1849. That law bans abortion unless the life of the mother is at risk and has been challenged in court. Its fate will likely be decided by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 

Over the last year, we’ve talked about abortion a lot on this show. One of our favorite guests is comedian and abortion advocate Lizz Winstead. She is able to find humor in what feels like a dark place. She joins Ali Muldrow to talk about draconian abortion bans, comprehensive sex ed, and the national fight for abortion access.

Lizz Winstead is a comedian, co-creator of The Daily Show, and founder of Abortion Access Front. She hosts a talk show called Feminist Buzzkills Live.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

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Earlier this month four Huitoto (also spelled Witoto) siblings were found in the Colombian jungle, after surviving a plane crash and 40 days on their own. Their Indigenous heritage and knowledge has been credited as the reason they were able to survive. Their rescue was a collaborative effort of Colombia’s army and volunteers from Indigenous tribes.

In this case, perhaps for the first time ever, the state put its power and resources behind finding Indigenous children. That’s a shift  from the ruthless way countries have treated Indigenous people for centuries – enslaving them, kidnapping them, and erasing their culture.

Joining us to talk about the unprecedented rescue, and other firsts, is Richard Emblin. Emblin is the Director and Editor of The City Paper Bogotá, Colombia’s first free English language newspaper.

Image by Victor Castano from Pixabay

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In his new book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right, historian Matthew Dallek argues that the Birchers’ extremism remade American conservatism. Dallek joins A Public Affair host Allen Ruff  to explain how the radicalized, mostly white professionals were courted by the GOP for decades, and how that led to the inevitable shake up of the Republican party and the election of Trump.

Matthew Dallek is a historian and professor of political management at George Washington University’s College of Professional Studies. The author of The Right Moment and Defenseless Under the Night, his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and other publications. He lives in Washington, DC.

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Wisconsin election administrator Meagan Wolfe’s term is set to expires on July 1st, and due to election denialism following the 2020 presidential election, state Republicans are unlikely to reappoint her. Joining us to explain how we got here is ProRublica Reporter Megan O’Matz. She is the author of an in depth report of Wolfe’s tenure and the backlash she has received.

We end the show with a live report from the 13th annual Make Music Madison. WORT Reporter and Make Music Madison intern Elizabeth Walsh calls in with a report from one of the hundreds of locations on this year’s map.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

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