News

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is interviewed for a story about partisan talking points replacing questions about legal issues in Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is interviewed for a story about partisan talking points replacing questions about legal issues in Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Judge Jackson was no more responsive to questions on her legal views than earlier nominees had been, Collins says, and “took very few solid positions on anything remotely controversial. In fact, it seems she closely studied how Justice Barrett handled the committee, and repeatedly referred to Barrett’s responses when dodging the senators’ questions.” Read more at New York Times, Politpost.com and WRAL.

Julie Brigham-Grette, 2017 PEP Fellow and past chair of the Polar Research Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, is quoted in an article about the unprecedented warming of both the North and South Poles

Julie Brigham-Grette, 2017 PEP Fellow and past chair of the Polar Research Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, is quoted in an article about the unprecedented warming of both the North and South Poles. Commenting on how the changing climate is making the jet streams “wavier,” bringing cold currents southward and warm currents northward, she says, “The increase in waviness means much more extreme cold air will come way far south. And then on the other side of these large swings, the warmth can penetrate way up north. And this is what we saw happening in both hemispheres, is these extreme high temperatures. I mean, really seriously extreme temperatures.” Read more at Vice

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is quoted in a news article about possible efforts by Republicans to block the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is quoted in a news article about possible efforts by Republicans to block the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Republican senators can try to delay the process of confirming Judge Jackson through procedural maneuvers, but ultimately they cannot block Judge Jackson's confirmation as long as Senate Democrats stay united,” Collins says. Additionally, Brian Levine, information and computer science, is quoted in another article examining Republicans’ claims that Jackson has been lenient on child pornography offenders in previous cases. “These are all horrible crimes, but you have to differentiate them, and it's fair to ask whether there should be different sentences,” says Levine, who testified at a 2012 U.S. Sentencing Commission hearing about the guidelines for child porn cases while Jackson was vice chair of the commission. Read more at Newsweek and CNN. Paul Collins was also recently quoted in a story analyzing whether GOP will use dark money criticisms to fight the Democrats’ Supreme Court nomination of Ketanki Brown Jackson. Read more at Bloomberg Law.

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018 PEP Fellow, has written an opinion piece on how pay transparency can close the gender gap if done correctly

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018 PEP Fellow, has written an opinion piece on how pay transparency can close the gender gap if done correctly. Tomaskovic-Devey, founding director of the UMass Center for Employment Equity, “The recipe for reducing the gender pay gap is not simply stopping employers from forbidding workers from discussing pay,” he writes. “To reduce the gender pay gap, firms must analyze and report their gender pay disparities — preferably publicly.” Read more at TheHill.com.

Elizabeth Sharrow, 2020 PEP Fellow, co-authored an article about how conservatives are increasingly imposing government control over sexuality and gender

Elizabeth Sharrow, 2020 PEP Fellow, co-authored an article about how conservatives are increasingly imposing government control over sexuality and gender, citing the fact that more than a dozen state legislatures are considering legislation that would ban access to medical treatments for trans youths. “Denying trans kids access to lifesaving health care runs counter to medical science,” write Sharrow and co-author Isaac Sederbaum, a Ph.D. student at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance at the University of Washington. “Targeting families with trans kids for criminal interventions and separation is likely to devastate vulnerable children. And it violates the American Medical Association’s standard that political figures should never infringe on private care decisions designed to “nurture the child’s short and long-term development, and balance the need to preserve the child’s opportunity to make important life choices autonomously in the future.” Read more at Washington Post

Nilanjana Dasgupta, 2015 PEP Fellow, found that female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering

Nilanjana Dasgupta, 2015 PEP Fellow, found that female peer mentors early in college increase women’s positive academic experiences and retention in engineering. Her work was recently cited in an article examining the ways to get women to follow careers in open source software engineering cites. Read more at VentureBeat and News Office release

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is quoted in an article examining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ use of a firm run by Leonard Leo, former head of the Federalist Society, to promote his new book and documentary film project

Paul Collins, 2015 PEP Fellow, is quoted in an article examining Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ use of a firm run by Leonard Leo, former head of the Federalist Society, to promote his new book and documentary film project focused on the jurist’s life. “The continued exposure of real or potential conflicts of interest could be problematic for the court, especially when we see ties like this between a justice and the Federalist Society, which plays such a large role in the legal world,” Collins said. Read more at The Daily Beast and Raw Story

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018 PEP Fellow, is quoted in story about how Intel has released detailed salary data while other big companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft have not

Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 2018 PEP Fellow, is quoted in story about how Intel has released detailed salary data while other big companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft have not. Because the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said it plans to suspend the rule requiring data collection on wages, “it’s unlikely to go mainstream unless there’s some sort of external pressure,” Tomaskovic-Devey says. Read more at Newsnet Daily

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