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2 weeks ago | 
aei.org | Karlyn Bowman |R. Shep Melnick |Clay Calvert |Timothy Carney
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Mar 11, 2025 | 
quillette.com | R. Shep Melnick |Sonya Michel |Andy Lamey |Matt Johnson
At an unusually contentious cabinet meeting on 6 March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy got into an extended and heated argument with Elon Musk. Each side accused the other of lying. What was the burning issue at the heart of this confrontation? Ukraine? Immigration? Tariffs? No, the number of federal civil servants who should be fired immediately.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
aei.org | R. Shep Melnick
Key PointsPresidents and their appointees, rather than career civil servants, have played the leading role in developing Title IX rules. Federal courts have also played a key role, first expanding and—more recently—blocking the expansion of federal mandates.
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Jun 4, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | R. Shep Melnick |Richard D. Kahlenberg |David Armor |Christine Rossell
We believe R. Shep Melnick’s The Crucible of Desegregation is the most comprehensive and evenhanded discussion of school desegregation research and policy issues in America. Yet some of the topics that make the book evenhanded were absent from his recent article in Education Next reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. We would like to comment on these missing topics.
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May 15, 2024 | 
lawliberty.org | R. Shep Melnick |Neal McCluskey |Samuel Gregg |G. Patrick Lynch
People of a certain age might recall the early-1970s “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” television commercial, featuring an expanding chorus of singers, all of different racial and ethnic groups, joining their voices to declare how they would like to “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” It captured an ideal many people no doubt share: All, diverse people, perfectly integrated. Of course, humanity is not a Coca-Cola ad (indeed making that spot had and letdowns).
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May 15, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Richard D. Kahlenberg |Tim DeRoche |R. Shep Melnick
May 17 marks the 70th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark school desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. There is ample reason to celebrate Brown: not only did it mark the beginning of the end of the racial caste system in the South, but also it reinvigorated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its implications reach far beyond race and education, as important as those matters remain.
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May 9, 2024 | 
aei.org | R. Shep Melnick
Key PointsSeventy years after the Supreme Court handed down Brown v. Board of Education, what that decision requires remains unclear—and controversial. For advocates of the “colorblind” interpretation of Brown, the decision prohibits any categorization of students by race.
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Nov 8, 2023 | 
lawliberty.org | R. Shep Melnick |Jr. Professor |Richard Garnett |Dave Barfield
Richard Garnett’s lead forum essay highlights a central tendency of antidiscrimination law: to migrate from the original goal of eliminating discriminatory public behavior to attacking objectionable private thoughts. Behind this shift lies the understandable desire to eliminate the “root cause” of inequality. But in the long run, the expanded regulatory project requires a level of government surveillance of private behavior and control over speech and thought that is incompatible with liberalism.
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Nov 8, 2023 | 
educationnext.org | Ira Stoll |Stuart A Ritchie |R. Shep Melnick |Daniel Buck
It was a Friday afternoon toward the end of the school year, and the 8th-grade English class I taught had finished their required coursework weeks earlier. So, I took them outside. What could go wrong? In this neighborhood, a lot could and did. My students spread out across the fenced-in playground. Some huddled under the shaded play structures to talk with friends. Despite the heat, a few chased each other around in their school uniforms. A handful of boys ran football routes in the limited space.
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
educationnext.org | R. Shep Melnick |Martin R. West |Joshua Dunn
Questions surrounding the application of Title IX to transgender students have been roiling education politics for nearly 10 years. In 2016, the Obama administration tried to settle one aspect of the issue without public input by declaring in a Dear Colleague Letter that transgender students must be able to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. That effort only generated more conflict and was quickly rescinded under President Trump.
