On this week's episode of the Weekly Roundup we cover the week's top news stories. Stories in the episode include are: the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, the sentencing of Tou Thao, the wildfires in Hawaii, and much more.

Recorded on: 8/17/2023

As schools around the country get ready to reopen, we’re going to focus on a subject impacting a number of classrooms and education curricula. Today we are joined by our Governance Team lead, Devan, social issues intern, Natia, and middle school English teacher, Ashley. We talk about the history of book bans, banned content, what is considered censorship, and much more.

Works Cited: Teichner, Martha. “War of Words: The Fight over Banning Books.” CBS News, 23 Apr. 2023, www.cbsnews.com/news/war-of-words-the-fight-over-banning-books/.

Brownstein, Ronald. “The Book-Bans Debate Has Finally Reached a Turning Point.” The Atlantic, 10 May 2023,  www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/05/gop-book-bans-democrats-state-legislation/674003/.

Ulin, David L. “Op-Ed: Why Inappropriate Books Are the Best Kind.” Los Angeles Times, 19 July 2022, www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-07-19/books-ban-pen-america-censorship.

Burchett, Brittany P. “What Makes a Book ‘Dirty’?: Defining ‘Sexually Explicit’ Content in Books Banned for Teens.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017.

Hudson Jr., David L., Minarcini v. Strongsville City School District (6th Circuit) (1976), The First Amendment Encyclopedia, Middle Tennessee State University, https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1539/minarcini-v-strongsville-city-school-district-6th-circuit

“Pro and Con: Banned Books.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 19 Sept. 2022, www.britannica.com/story/pro-and-con-banned-books.

Regoli, Natalie. “16 Major Pros and Cons of Banning Books in Schools.” ConnectUS, 21 Aug. 2019, connectusfund.org/16-major-pros-and-cons-of-banning-books-in-schools#:~:text=Parents want the chance to,potential advantage of banning books.

DiMarco, Scott R. “Why I Banned a Book: How Censorship Can Impact a Learning Community.” College & Research Libraries News, vol. 74, no. 7, 2013, https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.74.7.8980.

Join us on our first episode of the weekly roundup, where we look back at last week's top stories. Stories included in this episode are: EU Sanctions in Belarus; Green bank programs; Antibiotic resistance; the Moutain Valley Pipeline; indigenous activists in Brazil; student loan news; and more.

Recorded on Thursday, August 10th, 2023

In this week's Allow Us to Explain, we talk about opioid use. Join our social issues intern, Ronan C., and Dr. Helena Hansen (UCLA, author of Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America) as we discuss various aspects of this complex topic. Including the history of opioids and opiates in America; the statistics surrounding opioid use; the rise of fentanyl; the stigma of addiction; the use of harm reduction programs, and more.

If you or someone close to you needs help for a substance use disorder, talk to your doctor or call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP or go to SAMHSA’s Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator at http://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/ 

Works Cited

America’s opioid crisis: the need for an integrated public health approach, Blanco, Carlos; Wiley, Tisha R. A.; Lloyd, Jacqueline J.; Lopez, Marsha F.; Volkow, Nora D., 2020. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK458653/ 

Evidence on Strategies for Addressing the Opioid Epidemic, Phillips JK, Ford MA, and Bonnie RJ, editors, 2017. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-020-0847-1#citeas 

Legal, Regulated Heroin Could Have Saved Philip Seymour Hoffman, Valerie Vande Panne, The Daily Beast, February 28, 2014, https://www.thedailybeast.com/legal-regulated-heroin-could-have-saved-philip-seymour-hoffman 

Safe Spaces for Users, Cara Tabachnick, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring 2019,  https://ssir.org/articles/entry/Wary_of_an_Opioid_Epidemic_Europe_Pushes_Safe_Sites_for_Drug_Use 

When Pain Becomes an Addiction, Newsroom, Carina Walters, July 4, 2023, https://www.newsroom.co.nz/ideasroom/when-pain-relief-becomes-an-addiction 

Earlier this month marked the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The names of significant Confederate people are found everywhere within the United States (streets, schools, libraries, statues, etc.). Join us as we talk about the historical significance, who or what these changes should apply to, and how we should tackle places named after controversial people.

Works Cited

Garamone, Jim, "DOD Begins Implementing Naming Commission Recommendations", Jan. 5, 2023 https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3260434/dod-begins-implementing-naming-commission-recommendations/ 

Kuznar, Lawrence A. ,  I Detest Our Confederate Monuments, But They Should Remain, Washington Post, August 18th 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-detest-our-confederate-monuments-but-they-should-remain/2017/08/18/13d25fe8-843c-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html 

Petraeus, David, "Take Confederate Names Off Our Army Bases", The Atlantic, June 9th, 2020 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/take-confederate-names-off-our-army-bases/612832/ 

Urell,Aaryn, “The Truth about Confederate-Named Schools.” Equal Justice Initiative, 16 Sept. 2020, eji.org/news/the-truth-about-confederate-named-schools/. Accessed 14 July 2023.

1stLT Winnefeld, James A. “Here’s What to Do about the Naval Academy’s Confederate Names: Change Them.” U.S. Naval Institute, 6 July 2020, www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2020/july/heres-what-do-about-naval-academys-confederate-names-change-them. Accessed 15 July 2023.

Episode 1: Background 

Allow Us to Explain presents our miniseries on the second Iraq War. Rohan Krishnamoorthy (Foreign Policy and Defense Policy Team Lead) and Sam Taylor (Our National Conversation Managing Editor) will analyze the second Iraq War chronologically over the course of eight episodes. We set the stage in episode one by introducing the characters, settings, and events that led to the second Iraq War.

Bibliography

Post, J. M. (1991). Saddam Hussein of Iraq: A Political Psychology Profile. Political Psychology, 12(2), 279–289. https://doi.org/10.2307/3791465

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2023, May 29). Saddam Hussein. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saddam-Hussein

Tripp, C. (2007). A History of Iraq (pp. 105-142). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511804304.011. https://archives.ungeneva.org/mandate-for-mesopotamia

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/08/03/world/the-iraqi-invasion-in-two-arab-capitals-gunfire-and-fear-victory-and-cheers.html

Cooper, Tom; Sadik, Ahmad (6 August 2007). "Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait; 1990". Air Combat Information Group Journal. Archived from the original on 6 July 2013

Warbrick, Colin. “The Invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.” The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 2, 1991, pp. 482–92. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/759738. 

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB279/index.htm

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02-un-wmd_x.htm

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (and the University of North Carolina) has stirred debate about affirmative action in college admissions. Join our policy interns: Devan, Jay, Silas, and special guest Professor Ronald Sullivan Jr. (Harvard University, School of Law) on this week's episode of Allow to Explain as we discuss affirmative action.

Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved July 16, 2023, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/20-1199Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved July 16, 2023, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2022/21-707Margaret Kramer, A Timeline of Key Supreme Court Cases on Affirmative Action March 30, 2019 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court.htmlRoland Fryer Jr. and Glenn Loury,Affirmative Action and Its Mythology, 2005 https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/08953300577435788Shaun Harper, Legacy Admissions At Harvard And Other Elite Institutions Advantage White Applicants, New Evidence Shows July 5 2023 https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/07/05/legacy-admissions-at-harvard-and-other-elite-institutions-privilege-white-applicants-new-evidence-reveals/?sh=7787f9c8593bVictoria M. Massie, White women benefit most from affirmative action — and are among its fiercest opponents May 25, 2016 Vox https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11682950/fisher-supreme-court-white-women-affirmative-actionRenu Mukherjee, Affirmative Action Is Wrong. There’s a Better Way to Make Campuses Diverse. Oct. 30, 2022 New York Times Opinon https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/30/opinion/affirmative-action-harvard-unc-supreme-court.htmlGraziella Moraes Silva, A Horizon of (Im)possibilities A  Chronicle of Brazil’s Conservative Turn 2021 https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv24w62hm.12 Bill Hathaway, Implicit bias may help explain high preschool expulsion rates for black children September 27, 2016 YaleNews https://news.yale.edu/2016/09/27/implicit-bias-may-explain-high-preschool-expulsion-rates-black-childrenDevon W. Carbado, UCLA School of Law (E)racing the Fourth Amendment Michigan Law Review; Abstract, 2002 https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol100/iss5/3/Hannah Demissie, Most Americans approve of Supreme Court decision restricting use of race in college admissions: POLL, July 2, 2023, ABC News https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/americans-approve-supreme-court-decision-restricting-race-college/story?id=100580375Louis Menand, The Changing Meaning of Affirmative Action January 13, 2020 The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/20/have-we-outgrown-the-need-for-affirmative-actionStudents for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College  Docket Number: 20-1199 Court: US Supreme Court  Page 41 June 29, 2023 Supreme Court Center Court https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/600/20-1199/case.pdf

Cannabis legislation in the United States is a complex and evolving issue. In this episode of Allow Us To Explain, we sit down with ONC's healthcare policy team lead, Rishit, and social issues intern, Natia, to talk about cannabis use and legislation. We talk about medical marijuana, how certain states regulate the cannabis industry, the health benefits and drawbacks of cannabis use, the social implications of cannabis use, and the future of cannabis legislation and policy.

Works Cited

Buckner, Julia D., et al. “Microaggressions and Cannabis-Related Problems among Black Adults: The Roles of Negative Affect and Cannabis Use Motives.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, 24 Apr. 2023, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-023-10375-8.

“Know the Negative Effects and Risks of Marijuana Use.” SAMHSA, 27 Feb. 2023, www.samhsa.gov/marijuana.

“Marijuana Legalization: Risks and Costs.” Hazelden Betty Ford, www.hazeldenbettyford.org/recovery-advocacy/marijuana-legalization. Accessed June 2023.  

Motley, Robert O., et al. “Perceived Racism-Based Police Use of Force and Cannabis Use among Black Emerging Adults.” Addictive Behaviors Reports, vol. 15, 19 Apr. 2022, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100430. 

Railton, David. “What Are the Health Benefits and Risks of Cannabis?” Medical News Today, 22 Feb. 2022, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320984. 

Silva, Lauren. “Health Benefits of Cannabis, According to Experts.” Forbes, 21 June 2023, www.forbes.com/health/body/health-benefits-of-cannabis/.

Solomon, Robert. “Racism and Its Effect on Cannabis Research.” Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, vol. 5, no. 1, 27 Feb. 2020, pp. 2–5, https://doi.org/10.1089/can.2019.0063. 

In today's episode, we met with Dr. Sally Thompson Iritani, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and a Professor at the University of Washington. Dr. Thompson and our Science Environment and Technology team lead discuss the benefits and limitations of animal testing in medical research.

Balmain, Allan, and Curtis C Harris. “Carcinogenesis in Mouse and Human Cells: Parallels and Paradoxes.” Carcinogenesis, vol. 21, no. 3, Mar. 2000, pp. 371–377, https://doi.org/10.1093/carcin/21.3.371. Accessed 21 June 2023.

Doke, Sonali K, and Shashikant C Dhawale. “Alternatives to Animal Testing: A Review.” Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, July 2015, pp. 223–229, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsps.2013.11.002. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“How We Use Animals: Animal Research at the ICR.” The Institute of Cancer Research: United Kingdom, www.icr.ac.uk/our-research/about-our-research/animal-research/animal-research-at-the-icr. Accessed 21 June 2023.

Keim, Brandon. “What Do We Owe Lab Animals?” The New York Times, 23 Jan. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/science/what-do-we-owe-lab-animals.html. Accessed 20 June 2023.

“Why Animal Research?” Animal Research at Stanford, med.stanford.edu/animalresearch/why-animal-research.html. Accessed 21 June 2023.