Op Ed

A famous party leader from the 19th century, "Boss" Tweed, once said, "I do not care who does the electing, just so as I can do the nominating." Boss Tweed knew that real power arose from controlling the nomination process. Because nominations matter so much, there's been a quadrennial battle over how "best" to select presidential contenders. Read More

The recent two-day strike of 73,000 UAW members at General Motors and the resulting labor accord are nothing short of monumental. But it's still a short-run solution for retaining cradle-to-grave benefits and restoring U.S. manufacturing power. Read More

The Supreme Court's recent decision in Parents v. Seattle nudges the nation further along the path of race-neutral decision-making in the educational arena. Unlike the 2003 Michigan cases that dealt with racial preferences in higher education, the latest case strikes down the use of race in pupil assignment to K-12 schools in Louisville, Ky. and Seattle, Wash. By doing so the Court agreed with the parents that the diversity plans being challenged violated the equal protection rights of the white students to attend the schools of their choice. Read More

Another Supreme Court term has come to a close, and, while many things changed in the law, one thing stayed the same: The justices spent much of their time reversing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Read More

Nearly 50 years ago, Karsten Solheim, working from his garage, developed the first PING 1-A Putter. PING's innovative products and services, among them custom fitting and perimeter weighting, have since changed the industry. Read More

The recent school desegregation decisions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court drive home three important lessons. Read More

An Op-ed by Claire Smrekar, associate professor of education and public policy, on the recent U. S. Supreme Court ruling regarding race-based assignment plans for the school districts of Louisville, Ky. and Seattle, Wash. Read More

An op-ed by Carol M. Swain, Vanderbilt professor of political science and law, on the impact of illegal immigration on African Americans. Read More

In this op-ed, Michael Newton, special adviser to the Iraqi Tribunal and acting associate professor of law at Vanderbilt University, argues for Congressional action to provide funding for the U.S. troops stationed in Iraq. The op-ed orignially ran in the Washington Post on May 3, 2007. Read More

One of the biggest stories in global financial markets this summer was China‘s switch from pegging its currency to the dollar, to tying the yuan to a basket of currencies. The switch also revalued the yuan by 2.1 percent in relation to the dollar. Read More

On the recent fifth anniversary of 9/11, Americans faced anew a choice between fear and compassion. Five years have passed since that bright blue, cloudless, horrific morning. Since then it has become a truism to say that American life has changed unalterably. In the coming weeks, politicians and pundits will pontificate about how 9/11 changed American life. But a prior, more basic question will remain unasked: Why should that day change the very fabric of our common life? Should heightened security concerns corrode our national character? Must it lessen who we are? Read More

For the last week, astronomers gathered in Prague have debated, among other topics, what the right answer is to the question 'Is Pluto a planet?' This debate has captured the attention of huge numbers of people, many of whom have passionate opinions on this question. And now, by the vote of a small majority from among the 424 professional astronomers who happen to be members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) — I am not — and who also bothered to attend the first part of the final plenary session of the meeting — more than 2000 persons attended the IAU meeting but did not participate in the vote — a decision has been made. The answer: vagueness and confusion. This debate will continue. Read More

Earlier this year, with surprisingly little media attention, we celebrated a major milestone in the fight against cancer — for the first time in record-keeping history, the number of American lives lost to cancer declined. Read More

From adolescence on, I heard a constant refrain from my Indian father: "Don't ever believe that you're really American." I found his advice peculiar, especially as I had been living in America since age 8 and had largely forgotten my time in India. To him, it didn't matter that the only language in which I could think a complex thought was English. It didn't matter that the only music I listened to was Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Billy Joel. Read More

It is election time again. Governor Bredesen and those seeking to replace him have begun to campaign. Seats in both houses of the General Assembly also are up for grabs. No issue is as important as education for Tennessee's long-run well being. Yet, it is difficult to elbow other urgencies aside and place our schools and colleges front and center. This should change. Read More

In his State of the Union Address, President Bush called for a sharpening of America's competitiveness and highlighted the need to pick up the pace of innovation in order to thrive on the playing field of global commerce. Read More

When it comes to education reform, Tennessee needs a booster shot. Somehow, education has fallen from its once prime place on the public policy agenda. We need a mechanism that can overcome our current statewide school policy steady state and stimulate and guide local creativity. Charter schools offer such hope. Read More

The recent riots in France have their roots in that nation's colonialist history, argues Assistant Professor of History Moses Ochonu. Read More

Sometimes it is best not to cut corners. Bargain hunting for a plastic surgeon, say, does not make much sense. You just might get your money's worth. So too with airline mechanics. Looking through small, thick windows at the workers scurrying around my plane in preparation for take-off, I hope that they are all well fed and happy, the sort of loyal and devoted employees who always double-check that troublesome hydraulic joint. Read More

A democracy can survive with or without a filibuster. It cannot, however, long survive without respect for the rule of law at the top levels of government. Yet we hear much about whether the filibuster is good practice, and almost nothing about the subversive nature of the proposal to end it. Citizens of all parties should be banding together to resist the way in which the Senate leadership plans to bring about the change they want, at the expense of the rule of law. Read More