Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Andras Molnar, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

Two new experiments show that most people do not even consider that a personal message could be AI-generated, even when they themselves use artificial intelligence to write.

To see how people judge someone based on their writing in the age of ChatGPT, my colleague Jiaqi Zhu and I recruited more than 1,300 U.S.-based participants, ages 18 to 84, and showed them AI-generated messages like an apology sent in an email. We split our volunteers into four groups: Some people saw the messages with no information about who or what wrote them, as in everyday life. Others were told the messages were definitely written by a human, definitely AI-generated, or that the source could be either.

We found a clear “AI disclosure penalty.” When people knew a message was AI-generated, they rated the sender much more negatively – “lazy,” “insincere,” “lack of effort” – than when they believed that the same text was written by a person – “genuine,” “grateful,” “thoughtful.”

But here is the twist: The participants who were not told anything about authorship formed impressions that were just as positive as those from people who were told the messages were genuinely human.

This complete lack of skepticism surprised us – and it raises new questions. Maybe participants were not familiar enough with AI to realize that today’s models can produce detailed and personal messages. (They can.) Or perhaps participants have never used AI themselves. (They likely have.) So we also tested whether participants’ own AI use changed how they judged senders.

To our even bigger surprise, we found little to no effect. People who use generative AI quite frequently in their daily lives – at least every other day – did penalize AI use slightly less when AI authorship was disclosed, compared with people who never or rarely use AI. But participants were no more skeptical by default: When authorship was not disclosed, heavy AI users, light AI users and nonusers all tended to assume the text was written by a person and formed essentially the same impressions.

Why it matters

Lack of skepticism and a lack of negative impressions matter because people make social judgments from text all the time. Recipients consider taking the time and effort to send written messages as an insight into the writer’s sincerity, authenticity or competence, and those impressions shape people’s decisions in friendships, dating and work.

Yet our main findings reveal a striking disconnect: People usually do not suspect AI use unless it is obvious. This unawareness creates a moral dilemma: People who use AI in secret can enjoy the benefits while facing almost no risk of detection. Meanwhile, paradoxically, people who are upfront and admit to using AI suffer a reputational hit.

Over time, lack of skepticism and awareness could reshape what writing means in everyday life. Readers might learn to treat writing as a less reliable signal of someone’s character or effort, and instead rely on other forms of communication. For example, widespread AI use has already prompted employers to discount the value of cover letters from job applicants. Instead, they are relying more on personal recommendations from an applicant’s current supervisor or connections made through in-person networking.

What other research is being done

Other researchers have documented a wide range of negative impressions about people who disclose their AI use. Studies show it makes job applicants seem less desirable and employees seem less competent. Readers of creative writing perceive AI users as less creative and inauthentic. People see personal apologies and corporate apologies that stem from AI as less effective. In general, disclosing AI use decreases trust and undermines legitimacy.

Yet without disclosure, there is clear evidence that most people cannot reliably detect AI-generated text, even with the help of detection tools, especially when the text is a mix of human-written and AI-generated content. Even when people feel confident about their ability to spot AI text, their confidence may be nothing more than a self-affirming illusion.

What’s next

Even though our experiments did not reveal suspicion of AI use, that doesn’t mean people never suspect it in the real world. In some settings, people may already be hypervigilant about AI. Use in academia is an obvious example. In our next studies, we want to understand when and why people naturally start to suspect AI use, and what flips the switch between trust and doubt.

Until then, if you want your personal message to be judged as heartfelt, the safest strategy may be to make a phone call, leave a voicemail or, better yet, say it in person.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

Andras Molnar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Most people do not realize when a personal message they receive was written by AI, study finds – https://theconversation.com/most-people-do-not-realize-when-a-personal-message-they-receive-was-written-by-ai-study-finds-278874

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Greg Eghigian, Professor of History, Penn State

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

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Is the science that we do today truth, likely to be a lie, or is it undetermined? – Nathaniel K., age 15, Hamilton, Ohio

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For most students, science is something you study and something you have to learn. I remember when I was in school, adults were always asking me things like “Do you like math?” and “Do you like science?” It’s almost like asking someone if they like spinach or broccoli.

In reality, science is not really a specific thing to like or hate, or something to believe in or not. Science is an activity. As one famous scientist put it, “Science is what scientists do.” It’s a way of working, a way to get things done.

So, then, what is it that scientists do? As a historian of science and medicine, I’ve studied how scientists try to understand the rules that govern things in the universe. For example, what makes the Moon orbit the Earth? How do clouds produce rain? How do people catch a cold? To answer questions like these, they do three things: They observe, they experiment and they analyze.

The process of science

All scientists carefully observe the subjects they are studying. Take the case of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin traveled the world collecting specimens of plants, animals and fossils to figure out how they came by their different features.

He soon came up with an idea: Maybe certain species in an area look the way they do because they have characteristics that are best adapted to the environment they live in, and they are passing these on to their offspring. Darwin kept testing out this idea everywhere he went, and in the end his theory seemed to work. Ever since, scientists have conducted countless studies that affirm his theory.

Many scientists take observation a step further by performing experiments. In an experiment, the scientist might use a laboratory and special instruments to modify something they’re studying and look at the effects of the change. Their aim is either to test a theory or to see whether certain changes occur regularly.

A good example of this process can be seen in the experiments conducted by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s with dogs. By introducing a sound right before a dog would be fed, Pavlov found the dog would start reacting to the sound the very same way it reacted to a bowl of food. For Pavlov, this demonstrated that animals learned through a process of association, or “conditioning.”

Finally, scientists are constantly analyzing the results of their observations and experiments. Scientists use measurements, logic and math to consider what their findings mean. But it’s often not clear what the findings mean, and so the investigators end up having to make more observations, conduct more experiments and rethink their methods and guesses.

Reporting the findings

The analysis process doesn’t stop there. Scientists show the results of their work to others, who, in turn, are invited to weigh in on whether they did a good job answering their research question. The criticism can be pretty intense at times. In most cases, this practice includes telling other scientists who work in the same field about what they did and what they found by giving presentations at conferences.

Scientists also have to submit their work for more evaluation if they hope to get money to support their research. After that, they go through even more evaluation when they try to publish the findings of their research in professional magazines called journals.

In both cases, scientists undergo a process called peer review, during which other scientists who study similar topics are asked to basically grade the quality of the researcher’s work and provide both negative and positive feedback.

If reviewers decide the study is not good enough, the researcher won’t get funding or their study published.

Is science truth?

The work of a scientist isn’t just observing something out in the world. Scientists must invite other experts to weigh in on what is right and wrong about their methods and ideas. As a result, every scientist has to be ready to rethink what they have been doing and believing.

Through this process, scientists work at getting closer and closer to the truth. New observations and new experiments may support or disprove earlier ones, or they might open up a whole new set of questions to answer.

The scientific results of today aren’t the whole truth, but they are the closest we can come to it right now. And as scientists today and in the future keep working, they seek to bring the whole truth more and more into focus.

When you see science as something people do to reach the truth, you realize it’s a way of working, whose strength comes from scientists being open to changing their approaches and conclusions.

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Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

Greg Eghigian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Is the science that we do today truth, likely to be a lie, or is it undetermined? – https://theconversation.com/is-the-science-that-we-do-today-truth-likely-to-be-a-lie-or-is-it-undetermined-278947

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Matthew E. Oliver, Associate Professor of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology

The market for oil is global, which is why events like the war in Iran affect oil prices – and prices of the wide range of products made from oil – literally everywhere. Federal data shows that the price at the primary crude oil hub in the U.S. was US$66 a barrel in late February 2026 – before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran – and $101 a barrel on April 13. Similar price increases have reverberated around the globe.

As an energy economist and an international trade economist, we field a lot of questions during such episodes, because when oil prices go up, manufacturers, businesses and ultimately consumers pay more.

Some basic economics

Crude oil may be the most important commodity in the global economic system.

It’s a literal fuel for the industrial economy. It powers the engines that drive transportation and paves the roads vehicles drive on. It’s a source for plastics from which the world’s products get made and packaged, and a key ingredient at some point in almost every supply chain. Even fertilizers that boost the food supply are made from it. In short, it is difficult to imagine modern life without oil and its derivatives.

And when its supply changes, its price changes. Economists explain this using a fundamental model of our field: the supply-demand diagram. When there’s less of something to go around, competition among consumers who want it and companies that need it can drive the price up.

Sometimes this process can play out over time, allowing people to adjust their purchasing or activities to dampen price shocks. But when a significant source of the world’s oil is effectively blocked without much advance notice, such as when the the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, prices can rise sharply in a short period of time.

A natural question many people ask when oil prices spike is: Where does all that additional money go, and who benefits from it?

Some people have written entire books dissecting all the places that money goes when it leaves consumers’ pockets. But ultimately, the bulk of the money heads in the direction of the source of the oil itself – the oil companies.

What they do with the money varies widely, depending on where in the world an oil company is operating and who owns it. What also matters is the business environment – the set of laws and regulations – in which the company operates.

Middle East faces danger

Oil producers in the Middle East face significant new risk because of the war in Iran, including threats to production, processing locations and shipping routes. These risks raise their costs for insurance, security and transportation.

But production costs in the region are relatively low, so higher global oil prices typically still translate into strong profits.

For a major exporter such as Saudi Arabia, the government owns and controls nearly all oil production, so high prices generally benefit the government’s finances and investments, even during a war. In Saudi Arabia, oil revenue has historically been used to fund public spending.

West Texas gets a windfall

The Permian Basin, the largest oil field in the U.S., is a long way from the Persian Gulf. When global oil prices rise because of the war in Iran, oil companies operating in West Texas effectively get a windfall gain: Prices rise more quickly than costs, at least in the short run.

The immediate effect is more income from higher prices. The money largely goes to company owners – meaning shareholders – through dividends, debt reduction, company-backed purchases of its own stock, and reinvestment in drilling and production. Over time, companies may decide to spend some of that windfall on building more production capacity or pipelines to get more oil and gas to market.

North Sea boosts government revenue

In the North Sea, between the island of Great Britain and Scandinavia, a mix of multinational and government-owned companies produce most of the oil.

In the U.K., private shareholders are the primary beneficiaries of higher profits from increased oil prices, though an additional tax on oil and gas companies’ profits means the government also collects a significant share of the money, which it uses to help pay public expenses.

In Norway, oil revenues flow into the Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, valued at over $2 trillion. Laws govern how much, and for what purposes, money can be withdrawn from the fund, supporting public spending and preserving wealth for future generations. This is a similar model to Alaska’s state-owned program, funded by oil revenue, that pays for government services and sends an annual dividend to every permanent resident.

Russian oligarchs get rich

Russian oil is subject to stringent economic sanctions imposed by major industrial countries as a response to the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine. While the U.S. cannot control how much Russia charges for its oil, it can control services needed to move Russian oil around the world. Under current price sanctions, Western shipping, insurance and financing can be used to ship and sell Russian crude oil only if the price is below $60 per barrel.

Russia’s oil industry is dominated by government-controlled companies whose leaders maintain close ties to President Vladimir Putin. The dealings of those shadowy figures are often shrouded in secrecy, but it is likely that they and Putin’s military-industrial complex – not the Russian people – are the main beneficiaries of high oil prices.

What this means for you

Everyday U.S. consumers may not like the idea of their hard-earned cash going into the already deep pockets of any of these groups. But in the short run, there’s not much to do but pay the price. For the long run, however, people around the world are already thinking and talking about, and opting for, sources of energy that don’t depend on fossil fuels.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When oil prices spike, where does the money go? – https://theconversation.com/when-oil-prices-spike-where-does-the-money-go-280763

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Charles Bell, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Sciences, Illinois State University

“Jessica,” the adoptive mother of a third grade student, was shocked when she discovered that her daughter had spent over 100 hours locked in a room alone at her North Carolina public school.

School staff locked the child in a room by herself after she flipped markers in the air, lay on the floor and tilted her chair back, Jessica told me in 2024. Jessica’s daughter has a nonverbal learning disability, mild attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder.

Jessica’s situation is one of dozens that I document in my 2026 book, “No Restraint: Disabled Children and Institutionalized Violence in America’s Schools.” This book is part of my research on how families of children with disabilities navigate public schools that use restraint and seclusion to discipline students.

Restraint in this context means reducing a student’s ability to move their body freely, whether it is someone physically holding a student back or using bungee cords to constrain them, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Seclusion means a student is physically prevented from leaving a room until they are calm.

Not all public schools have seclusion rooms. And seclusion rooms can look different in various schools. Some schools refer to them as quiet rooms or a timeout box. In some schools, a seclusion room has a door with an outside lock. In other schools, a staff member holds the door shut.

Restraint and seclusion are intended to be used in situations where a child is a danger to themselves or others. Some teachers argue that seclusion rooms are necessary to protect them when students become violent.

But parents like Jessica told me school staff routinely used these tactics to punish students for nonviolent, minor offenses.

Understanding restraint and seclusion

Approximately 100,000 students are restrained and secluded in public schools each year, according to the Department of Education’s most recent data, from 2020.

Students with disabilities make up 13% of the school-age population in the U.S. but constitute nearly 80% of those who were restrained and secluded in public schools. Widespread underreporting of this method of discipline is common.

There is no federal law that regulates seclusion and restraint in public schools.

That said, 44 states have laws that limit the use of restraint and seclusion to emergency situations or ban it altogether. Minnesota, for example, bans the use of seclusion for children who are in third grade or younger.

And 41 of these same states have laws that schools must notify parents each time their child is restrained or secluded.

Various news organizations, such as ChalkBeat, have found that schools in North Carolina, Michigan and Illinois have violated restraint and seclusion laws.

In some cases, schools use terms such as “quiet room” and “timeout” to circumvent laws that mandate reporting restraint and seclusion to parents and government agencies.

Talking directly with parents

I interviewed 50 parents of children with disabilities from urban, suburban and rural public schools across 15 states, including North Carolina, Michigan, Illinois, Texas, Utah and Massachusetts, between 2021 and 2024.

I recruited parents by posting a flyer on social media and contacting disability advocates in multiple states. I was interested in speaking with families whose children had been restrained and secluded at school. Some of the families were struggling financially, while others were affluent. I used fake names in my book to protect their identities.

All of the parents I spoke with had children who were restrained and secluded at school at least once, with some experiencing the punishment more than 30 times.

Children could be restrained and secluded for violent behavior. But this punishment was also meted out for relatively minor infractions: singing loudly in class, repeatedly leaving their seat, and eating snow. In some cases, after being restrained and secluded, children began hitting school staff, which led to additional time in the seclusion room.

Punishing with restraint and seclusion

The Department of Education has said that restraint and seclusion “should never be used as punishment or discipline … as a means of coercion or retaliation, or as a convenience.”

However, most of the parents I interviewed told me that school staff were using restraint and seclusion as punishment.

A few parents I spoke with called the police or child protective services after their children were locked in seclusion rooms. Thirty-eight of the 50 parents I spoke with spent between US$2,000 and $300,000 on lawsuits against the schools.

In return, some school staff allegedly used intimidation tactics to stop parents from speaking out about their child’s seclusion, parents told me.

For example, two Michigan parents named “Amy” and “John” told me in 2024 that school staff restrained their 11-year-old son, “Michael,” in 2023 after he pushed a boy who was bullying him. Michael had been diagnosed with ADHD and pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, or PANDAS, a disorder that can cause intense anxiety and mood swings.

School staff physically held Michael back. A teacher then allegedly dragged Michael to a seclusion room and locked him inside with another boy. Moments later, a second altercation occurred between the two boys in the room.

After learning about this incident in 2023, Amy and John withdrew Michael and sued the school.

After they spent $90,000 on a lawsuit, John said, the school requested a gag order to prevent them from speaking about their child’s experience. School administrators also offered John and Amy a $15,000 settlement.

John and Amy decided to stand their ground in court. As the lawsuit continued, school staff retaliated and called CPS on the family.

“There is a saying in the special needs community: ‘It isn’t if CPS gets called on you, it’s when.’ And it’s all because the school is using them as a tool to either push people out of the school or to intimidate them into behaving correctly,” John said.

When I contacted the school in 2024, administrators did not respond to comment on the lawsuit.

In Jessica’s case, she also hired an attorney and filed a federal lawsuit.

Jessica told me school staff concealed evidence of the more than 20 instances between 2018 and 2020 that they locked her daughter in a seclusion room.

When I spoke with Jessica in 2024, she told me that school administrators tried to fire her husband, who was employed by the district at the time of their lawsuit. In this case, Jessica shared how a judge intervened to prevent her husband from being fired.

Searching for meaningful solutions

Within the past few years, there have been calls for Congress to pass the Keeping All Students Safe Act.

After a failed attempt to pass this legislation in 2021, U.S. Rep. Donald Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, reintroduced the Keeping All Students Safe Act to Congress in December 2025. The bill remains in the House Committee on Education and Workforce.

This legislation would protect children from harmful restraint and seclusion practices by ensuring that school staff are properly trained on this practice. The bill would limit the use of restraint and seclusion to emergency situations. And it would mandate that parents are notified every time their child is restrained or secluded at school.

Regardless of federal legislation, I think that parents play an important role in understanding how school restraint and seclusion affect families. Also, researchers and policymakers cannot fully understand how retaliation influences parents’ schooling decisions if parents are not included in this discussion.

Charles Bell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Schools are supposed to limit using restraint and seclusion to discipline kids – but parents I spoke with say the practice is wildly misused – https://theconversation.com/schools-are-supposed-to-limit-using-restraint-and-seclusion-to-discipline-kids-but-parents-i-spoke-with-say-the-practice-is-wildly-misused-279920

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

Hampshire College, a private college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, announced on April 14, 2026, that it was joining the list of small, experimental liberal arts colleges that have closed their doors over the past few years.

Hampshire will cease operations in December 2026 because of “declining enrollment, the weight of long-standing debt, and stalled progress on land development,” Hampshire board chair Jose Fuentes said in a statement. Hampshire currently enrolls 625 students, about half the number who attended in the early 2000s.

Recently admitted Hampshire students will receive a refund on their deposit. Hampshire’s current students completing their final capstone project can still graduate from the school. Other enrolled students can transfer to another school in Massachusetts that is part of the Five College Consortium. Amherst College, where I teach law, is part of this consortium. This arrangement allows students from participating colleges to take classes on different campuses.

As someone who has taught many Hampshire students, I can attest that the college delivered an education that lived up to its motto, “Non Satis Scire,” meaning “To Know Is Not Enough.”

I have also written about the financial dilemmas liberal arts colleges are facing, as enrollment drops, finances are strained and they are pressured to adopt vocational programs.

Hampshire’s demise is another sign of the consolidation occurring in higher education, in which wealthy schools and those that deliver a traditional and often vocationally driven curriculum have an advantage. Meanwhile, dozens of small colleges with small endowments, like Hampshire, cannot keep up.

A growing list of shuttered liberal arts schools

Founded in 1965, Hampshire billed itself as a school that “scrapped generic models of learning” and offered a student-driven curriculum. It does not have traditional core course requirements and encourages students to undertake self-directed projects.

Hampshire is the latest experimental New England college to find its approach was not sustainable.

Three Vermont colleges – Green Mountain College, Marlboro College and Goddard College – closed in 2019, 2020 and 2024, respectively.

These schools were hardly household names in the higher education world, but each was prominent among aficionados of experimental education.

These colleges emphasized students undertaking independent studies, did not have standard academic departments and de-emphasized faculty research. They attracted quirky, passionate students, many of whom did not thrive in traditional high school settings.

The dream of experimental education

The origins of experimental education in colleges and universities can be traced to the turn of the 20th century and the American philosopher John Dewey. While Dewey focused on elementary and secondary education, he also wrote a book in 1899 called “The School and Society: Being Three Lectures,” which became a handbook for schools like Hampshire College.

Dewey “insisted that the old model of schooling … was antiquated,” explained Peter Gibbon, an education scholar at Boston University.

Dewey believed that “students should be active, not passive,” wrote Gibbon. “Interest, not fear, should be used to motivate them. They should cooperate, not compete.”

Those principles inspired the first stirrings of experimental education in the United States.

In 1917, Deep Springs College, a college focused on student self-government and manual labor, opened on a California cattle ranch. There are 24 to 30 undergraduate students at a time at this two-year school. Students are responsible for helping to run the school, including hiring faculty and admitting new students.

In 1921, Antioch College, a private college in Ohio that had opened 70 years earlier, reorganized itself to emphasize learning by doing. It became the first liberal arts college in the U.S. to create a co-op program, which combined in-class instruction with learning through employment outside the college.

Dewey’s influence also inspired Alexander Meiklejohn, who, after a tumultuous tenure as president of Amherst College in the early 1900s, directed the Experimental College at the University of Wisconsin from 1927 to 1932. Students at this independent college, operating within the broader University of Wisconsin, did not receive conventional grades. They also studied in six-week sessions, rather than traditional semesters that last a few months.

Meiklejohn wrote that this school had “one aim and that aim is intelligence.”

Some University of Wisconsin faculty, though, thought Meiklejohn’s approach was not rigorous. In a preview of what was to come a century later, the Experimental College closed five years after its inception.

Sarah Lawrence, a New York liberal arts college that opened in 1926, and Bennington College, a small college that opened in Vermont in 1932, were soon added to the list of the early adopters of experimental education.

Experimental colleges come into their own

Throughout the late 1950s and ’60s, dozens of other experimental colleges were founded, including Evergreen State College in Washington state.

These schools were not developed to transform higher education, argues education scholar Reid Pitney Higginson. They were designed to add variety to the menu of existing schools.

In a sense, experimental colleges captured the spirit of the 1960s. They wanted to free their students from the traditional educational paths and empower them to have a say in how their colleges operate. That sometimes caused difficulty, when students pushed for greater control over their schools.

Yet even in their halcyon days, experimental colleges never became as financially well off nor as prestigious as their mainstream competitors. At its founding, Hampshire seemed to have a distinct advantage: its membership in the Five College Consortium, connecting it with Amherst, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts.

An exception to the rule

But even that was not enough to save Hampshire. One challenge for it and other higher education institutions is that a rising number of students are questioning the value of a college degree, especially if it does not result in skills or a certification they can quickly use as graduates to make a living.

Tuition and housing for students attending Hampshire in the 2025-26 school year costs more than US$72,000.

Hampshire’s closing signals the full flowering of a higher education era that favors well-resourced schools, which benefit from federal funding and large private donations. Those schools often deliver a more conventional, safer educational product and can attract students from wealthy families.

Because Hampshire remained steadfastly unconventional, its failure may encourage schools to double down on offerings they know will attract a job-anxious generation of students.

What documentary filmmaker and Hampshire graduate Ken Burns told The New York Times about his alma mater’s closing helps explain why it and other experimental colleges could not survive as the exception to the rule in today’s higher education landscape.

“(Hampshire) was dedicated to a transformational education, in an era when higher education has been hijacked by the transactional,” Burns said. “A college education is, to some, like a Louis Vuitton handbag. And that’s not Hampshire.”

Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Hampshire College’s demise is yet another blow to creative, outside-the-box options in higher education – https://theconversation.com/hampshire-colleges-demise-is-yet-another-blow-to-creative-outside-the-box-options-in-higher-education-280791

Source: The Conversation – USA – By William Garriott, Professor of Law, Politics and Society, Drake University

Thousands of Americans will soon gather to celebrate April 20 – or “4/20” – the most important day of the year for cannabis enthusiasts.

But this year, a cloud of uncertainty will hang over these celebrations. After years of success, the movement to legalize recreational and medical cannabis has stalled.

It’s a moment unlike any that I have seen in the 12 years that I’ve been researching cannabis legalization as part of my broader interest in U.S. drug policy.

Not so long ago, the movement had so much momentum that nationwide cannabis legalization felt virtually inevitable. That momentum is now gone.

The strategy to legalize cannabis through ballot initiatives is no longer working. The coalition of supporters that made this strategy work has frayed, and new research is raising concerns about the health impact of regular cannabis use. All of this constitutes the most significant challenge to the movement since it went mainstream in the 21st century.

Years of success

As a social movement, cannabis legalization has been extremely successful. Since 2012, 24 states and Washington have legalized recreational cannabis use. Forty-nine states and Washington have legalized medical cannabis use, though programs vary from state to state.

While cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, changes have happened there, too.

The 2018 Farm Bill, for instance, legalized hemp, a non-psychoactive derivative of the cannabis plant used to make textiles, rope and other consumer goods. While it wasn’t lawmakers’ intent, entrepreneurs figured out how to make products from hemp that contain enough of the chemical compound tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, to be psychoactive. This fueled growth of the hemp market, which in 2023 was valued at US$1.63 billion.

Additionally, the Biden administration in 2024 began the process of rescheduling cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act. It’s a course that has continued under the second Trump administration.

The scheduling system classifies substances based on accepted medical use and potential for abuse. Federal rescheduling would not legalize cannabis, but it would move it from the most restrictive Schedule I – which includes substances like heroin and LSD – to Schedule III, with substances like anabolic steroids, ketamine and codeine. It would recognize cannabis as having medical use.

Challenges emerge

With rescheduling still underway, it may seem odd to say that the legalization movement has stalled. But a closer look reveals significant challenges.

The biggest challenge can be found at the ballot box. The 2024 election was the legalization movement’s worst showing in years.

All three recreational legalization ballot measures failed. Only Nebraska’s medical legalization measures passed, but it has yet to be fully implemented due to ongoing political and legal challenges.

Then there’s the 2025 tax and spending package approved by Congress. When its new provisions go into effect later this year, they will dramatically alter the hemp market.

Many hemp products currently on shelves, like THC-infused beverages and gummies, will become illegal. Many businesses currently selling these products will be forced to close.

Some of this is already happening, as states like Tennessee and Iowa rush to pass restrictions on hemp products.

For instance, the dispensary closest to my university in Iowa has just closed. Once a growing business that employed 30 people, it was forced to shut down after new state laws significantly limited what they could sell. This crackdown on the hemp market is particularly significant in states like Iowa that have no legal market for recreational marijuana use and only a limited medical marijuana market.

No single reason for current slump

Several factors are driving these changes.

One is politics. While the vast majority of Americans support marijuana legalization, the approval is much higher among Democrats and independents than it is among Republicans.

Of the 26 states where recreational marijuana has not been legalized, 20 of them have state governments that are under total Republican control. Another four have Republican-controlled legislatures. Pennsylvania’s legislature is split between Republicans and Democrats. Only Hawaii has a Democrat-controlled state government that has not legalized recreational cannabis.

Then there is the health issue. A growing body of evidence is raising concerns about the negative impact of regular cannabis use that includes the risk of cannabis addiction, psychosis, anxiety and depression.

Researchers are also questioning cannabis’ efficacy as medicine. Several recent reviews have concluded that there is insufficient scientific evidence to support the therapeutic use of cannabis for most of the conditions for which it is consumed, such as insomnia and acute pain. A review of cannabis’s use for treating mental health conditions came to a similar conclusion.

Citing such evidence, The New York Times editorial board recently recanted some of its earlier support for legalization. The newspaper wrote, “The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies … has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected,” adding, “It is time to acknowledge reality and change course.”

The coalition of supporters frays

Still another issue is conflict within the legalization movement itself, particularly between the business and activist wings.

The tension between these groups is long-standing, with activists often accusing members of industry of being more focused on money than justice. And as the cannabis industry has grown, these tensions have become more acute.

In 2022, for example, the pro-cannabis organization True Social Equity in Cannabis sued three Illinois cannabis companies for engaging in coordinated anticompetitive practices and violating federal antitrust laws. In court documents, they called the three companies the “Chicago cartel,” before voluntarily dismissing the case.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used a similar strategy in 2024 in his successful campaign against the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in the state. He consistently criticized “corporate cannabis,” a catchall phrase often used by critics to describe the large cannabis companies that increasingly dominate state markets. He warned voters that the law would create a “weed cartel.”

Prominent cannabis activists like former Massachusetts regulator Shaleen Title have also called out corporate cannabis in their accounts of what’s wrong with the legalization movement.

In many ways, these challenges are the result of the movement’s earlier success. Making marijuana legal has meant more people trying it, more people studying it and more people making money from it.

The insights from the past 12 years could help inform whatever comes next. The fact that public support for legalization remains high suggests that a return to the days of blanket prohibition is unlikely.

Still, as the history of cannabis law and policy has shown, there are no guarantees.

William Garriott’s work has been supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

– ref. Why the future of marijuana legalization remains hazy despite high public support – https://theconversation.com/why-the-future-of-marijuana-legalization-remains-hazy-despite-high-public-support-279960

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Daniela R. P. Weiner, Teaching Assistant Professor of the First Year Experience and Humanities, Stevens Institute of Technology

In 2025, 48% of Americans ages 18-29 could not name a single concentration or death camp, according to a survey by the nonprofit Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which works to secure compensation and restitution for Holocaust survivors.

Another 53% of surveyed Americans said that they had encountered Holocaust “denial or distortion while on social media.”

Given their ages, approximately 70% of living Holocaust survivors will likely die by 2035. As they do, more and more people will never hear firsthand experiences about the atrocities Nazis perpetuated during the genocide of European Jews.

My research shows that Holocaust education and awareness, though, doesn’t always follow a linear path.

Teaching a dark chapter

In my 2024 book, “Teaching a Dark Chapter: History Books and the Holocaust in Italy and the Germanys”, I study how Holocaust education evolved in East Germany, West Germany and Italy from the 1940s through the 1980s. In particular, I focus on the content of history textbooks that schools used for middle school students.

I also explore how two antisemitic incidents, one in 1959-60 and then another in 1977, revealed West German students’ lack of Holocaust knowledge.

Both times, international and domestic West German news outlets expressed alarm about students’ ignorance.

These antisemitic incidents also led to a series of educational reforms, in which educational leaders affirmed the need for Holocaust education and specified how educators should teach about the Holocaust.

The ‘swastika epidemic’

All of the synagogues in Cologne, Germany, were either destroyed or badly damaged during the Nazi pogroms of 1938, sometimes called Kristallnacht, or the “Night of the Broken Glass.”

The prominent, historic Roonstrasse synagogue was among the badly damaged Jewish houses of worship and was one of the few synagogues in West Germany to be rebuilt following World War II. In September 1959, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer attended a high-profile ceremony when the synagogue’s reconstruction was complete.

But then on Christmas Day of that year, Roonstrasse was defaced with antisemitic graffiti.

Two 25-year-old men were arrested for the vandalism. They testified during their 1960 trial that they never learned about Nazism in school. At the time, West Germany had vague guidelines on how to teach students about the Nazis and the Holocaust.

Historian James Loeffler has challenged whether these arrested men were actually responsible for the vandalism. He argues that the Soviet KGB actually drew the swastikas in order to discredit West Germany.

Regardless, following the Roonstrasse defacement, a wave of additional antisemitic vandalism spread throughout West Germany and other places, including the United States. The press called this trend the “swastika epidemic.”

Many people attributed the rise in antisemitic activity to a lack of education about the Nazi period. They questioned what West German students were learning about their country’s recent past.

New guidelines on how to teach Nazism

The swastika epidemic wasn’t happening in isolation.

In April 1959, the TV documentary “Blick auf unsere Jugend,” meaning “Focus on Our Youth”, focused on a class of West German high school students. Very few of them knew how many Jews were killed by the Nazis.

The negative media coverage coincided with representatives of German and international Jewish organizations meeting with the West German federal president, Theodor Heuss, regarding the antisemitic vandalism and the failures of the West German education system to teach about Nazism.

A committee of West German state cultural representatives called the Kultusministerkonferenz, or KMK, began issuing new guidelines in 1960 and again in 1962 about how to teach about Nazism in schools.

The West German federal states were instructed to examine how Nazism and what we now know as the Holocaust – the term was not used at the time – was depicted in school textbooks. Feedback was then provided to the textbook publishers.

How books were revised

I analyzed many versions of the same middle school history textbook called “Kletts geschichtliches Unterrichtswerk Ausgabe B,” which translates into “Klett’s Historical Instructional Materials Version B.”

Between 1959 and 1960, the textbook authors completely revised a subsection on “Terror and Crimes,” which examined how the Nazis murdered disabled people, as well as how the Nazis persecuted and murdered Jews.

The subsection tripled in size between the 1959 and 1960 textbook editions. The new version also included important new information, such as that the Nazis murdered an estimated 6 million Jews.

Previous editions had used generalizations like “many million,” without providing actual numbers.

A second controversy

Seventeen years later, in 1977, a West German teacher named Dieter Bossmann published a widely publicized study that offered more detail on the widespread ignorance among West German students, at every level.

Some students admitted to knowing almost nothing about Hitler. Some said relatively positive things about Hitler. One student thought that the Nazis had killed tens of thousands of Jews. Another thought that 16 million Jews had been killed.

The West German news magazine Der Spiegel observed at the time that the issue was perhaps not so much what students were learning, but rather how they were being taught. Although West German textbooks had been revised in the 1960s, somehow there was a disconnect between the textbook page and students’ understanding.

The KMK issued a new resolution in April 1978 that called for new curricular material for schools.

After this, more West German teachers began to prioritize an active teaching model. They encouraged students to analyze primary sources and participate in experiential learning activities, such as visiting concentration camp memorials and conducting local history research.

Remembering history

Holocaust education in West Germany was not perfect after 1978 – or any time since.

For example, Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public news broadcaster, quoted a Berlin history teacher saying in 2023 that among his students, “Adolf Hitler is known by most; the term National Socialism too. Some of them also know about the Holocaust, but knowledge is selective and it contains many blank spots.”

An estimated 18% of German adults incorrectly said in 2025 that 2 million or fewer Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

My particular focus on textbooks and curricular guidelines, though, demonstrates that sometimes, knowledge gaps lead to leaps forward.

Today, in part because of these developments, it’s mandatory to teach about the Holocaust in all federal states in Germany.

In the U.S., Holocaust education requirements are determined at the state level, and not all states provide Holocaust education guidance or mandates. If the West German case shows anything, I think, it is that guidance on teaching history should be continuously updated and reiterated.

Daniela R. P. Weiner has received funding from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the German-American Fulbright Commission, the German Historical Institute, Washington, DC, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media | Georg Eckert Institute, the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, the Stanford Graduate School of Education, and the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also affiliated with the Association for Jewish Studies.

– ref. About half of young Americans can’t name a single Holocaust site, repeating a pattern of ignorance seen in postwar Germany – https://theconversation.com/about-half-of-young-americans-cant-name-a-single-holocaust-site-repeating-a-pattern-of-ignorance-seen-in-postwar-germany-278507

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology; Institute for Humane Studies

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives set April 21, 2026, as the date to hear from and question top Pentagon officials Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, head of U.S. Africa Command, about the war in Iran. But Republican legislators put off the hearing for a month, giving up – for now – the opportunity to exercise oversight of the war.

Adam Smith, the top Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, told The New York Times, “We are six weeks into this conflict. And we still haven’t gotten a public briefing from anyone in the administration about the war.”

President Donald Trump’s military campaign against the Iranian regime is currently in a ceasefire. Despite the low approval rating of the war, the president has not drawn the conflict to a close, and the result of the operation is so far unclear.

The postponed hearing was only one example of how Congress has been noticeably meek about the war, with most Republicans killing the many Democratic efforts to exercise constitutionally granted power over engaging in such military conflicts. For the fourth time, the Senate on April 16, 2026, rejected a war powers resolution.

As scholars who research war powers and have a book coming out about President Barack Obama’s decision-making about the Afghan war, we know that the reluctance of Congress to assert its power is, in fact, history repeating itself, as is the president’s unilateral action.

Historically meek Congress

Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president. But most modern presidents and their legal counsel have asserted that Article 2 of the Constitution allows the president to use the military in certain situations without prior congressional approval – and have acted on that, sending troops into conflicts from Panama to Libya with no regard for Congress’ will.

Based on the 1973 War Powers Resolution – passed over President Richard Nixon’s veto – the president has an obligation to inform Congress about his actions within 48 hours of initiating military action and requires him to seek legislative authorization if the military operation will last over 60 days.

Since its passage, presidents have dutifully informed Congress within the 48-hour window when they unilaterally initiate military operations. Typically, they use the following language: “Pursuant to” their power as commander in chief and chief executive, they are initiating an operation.

Yet presidents since Nixon have never formally acknowledged the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. They have, however, mentioned it in their letters to Congress about their actions, and for the most part they have abided by its restrictions. So language is crucial and presidents tend to use the phrase “consistent with” the War Powers Resolution when they inform Congress about military operations.

The second Trump administration has broken with that standard. In Trump’s message to Congress about the Iran war, sent on March 2 2026, he did not acknowledge the War Powers Resolution or the Constitution, let alone pay lip service to either.

Instead, Trump has sidestepped the traditional use of the War Powers Resolution – and avoided the congressional oversight that comes with it – by relying on executive orders to convey his intent to use military power against the Iranian regime. That move, whether legal or not, has provided the president with a great deal of freedom to decide what the military can do, what tools they can use to do it and how long they can do it. His decision to send another carrier group and the addition of thousands of U.S. troops to the region is just the latest example.

Congress has proved incapable or unwilling to check this presidential unilateralism. Shortly after the start of the military campaign against Iran, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy introduced war powers legislation to constrain Trump that failed to pass the Senate. In the House on March 5, members narrowly rejected a resolution to impede a broader or longer operation.

To a meaningful extent, we are watching history repeat itself: Over the past seven decades during times of war, members of Congress have not wanted to act, and presidents have not wanted to ask permission.

From alacrity to deference

Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt made their case for war and obtained a formal declaration from Congress within three days in 1917 and within the same afternoon in 1941, respectively.

Since the start of the Korean War, however, members of Congress have demonstrated more deference and less assertiveness.

In Korea, President Truman did not get congressional authorization for the war.

Following North Korea’s invasion of the South in June 1950, Truman bypassed Congress, making his case for war to the United Nations Security Council. In July 1950, United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 “authorized the United States to establish and lead a unified command comprised of all military forces from UN member states, and authorized that command to operate under the UN flag.”

Truman’s rhetoric about American combat operations on the Korean peninsula being part of a U.N. “police action” became increasingly tenuous, but he managed to avoid seeking congressional permission. In doing so, Truman created a precedent in which a congressional declaration of war was no longer necessary for the American military to carry out combat operations. Sen. Robert Taft, a Republican, opposed this lack of congressional deliberation, declaring that Truman’s actions represented a “usurpation” of the war powers authority.“ But Congress did nothing to stop the war as the tactical and strategic picture in Korea stalemated.

In Vietnam, in the aftermath of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident – a purported attack by the North Vietnamese on American naval vessels that did not, in fact, occur – President Lyndon Johnson used the alleged crisis to push for congressional authorization for the escalation of force in Southeast Asia.

Johnson presented the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to Congress, which quickly passed it. The resolution allowed Johnson to freely escalate American military involvement in Southeast Asia with a vague authorization to engage militarily as he saw fit, in contrast to the very clear declarations of war that came before it for previous wars.

Col. Harry G. Summers, who wrote an influential strategic analysis of the Vietnam War, points to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as evidence that the relevant actors – the executive, Congress and the military – failed to foresee the scale of the course of action they were embarking on.

The resolution significantly increased the president’s freedom of action – and freedom from oversight – and marked a major step toward the Americanization and escalation of the war in July 1965. Despite the deeply troubled engagement in South Vietnam and the passage of the War Powers Resolution, we still see presidents acting alone, without consulting members of Congress, let alone getting authorization.

Refusing responsibility

In Summers’ Vietnam postmortem, he relates a telling anecdote of a professor at West Point. The professor, an Army officer, remarked, “When people ask me why I went to Vietnam I say, ‘I thought you knew. You sent me,’” a comment indicative of “the civilian sector’s growing refusal to take responsibility for the kind of army it needs.”

In the case of Trump’s decision-making concerning hostilities with Iran, Americans will one day need answers to the questions: Why did the United States engage in this war with unclear political objectives? And why did Congress allow it to continue?

This story contains material from an article published on March 6, 2026.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump sidelined Congress’ authority over war on Iran – and lawmakers allowed it, extending a 75-year trend – https://theconversation.com/trump-sidelined-congress-authority-over-war-on-iran-and-lawmakers-allowed-it-extending-a-75-year-trend-280671

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By James R. Elliott, Professor of Sociology, Rice University

Ten years ago, the infamous Tax Day storm swamped the Houston area with off-the-charts rainfall. Nearly 2 feet of rain fell in less than 15 hours in parts of the region, starting on April 17, 2016. The rain flooded thousands of homes and exceeded a 10,000-year event at some gauges.

But the storm’s damage could have been much worse.

The brunt of the deluge hit Waller County, west of Houston, where the impact was largely on farms and ranches. Had the same volume of water fallen just a few miles to the east, over Houston’s dense urban core, the tragedy would have been far worse.

What made the Tax Day flood so devastating was its speed. It was a flash event that struck overnight, without warning.

At Rice University’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience, we used state-of-the-art hydrological modeling conducted by our colleagues at Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters Center to see what would happen if a similar storm struck more populated parts of the city today.

The results suggest that current flood planning strategies in Houston – and similar strategies used in communities across the U.S. – are dangerously narrow in how they consider what’s at risk. In today’s world of increasingly extreme downpours, preparing for flood disasters means preparing for more than just what’s probable – it means also preparing for extreme situations that are less likely but could be far more dangerous.

The perils of relying on probability

In the United States, flood risk is publicly defined by maps produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. These maps, suggesting which properties face flood risks, guide everything from emergency planning to decisions related to the National Flood Insurance Program.

However, FEMA’s risk maps are based on probabilistic modeling that typically stops at the 500-year flood risk level, meaning a property has 0.2% odds – a 1 in 500 chance – of being flooded in any given year. There is a mathematical reason for doing this: There are simply too few cases to reliably estimate probabilities below that threshold.

Consequently, “off the charts” events like the Tax Day flood are effectively ignored in official planning. Authorities often prefer to view them as unrealistic until more data is collected – a process that can take decades. Yet, parts of Houston suffered another 1,000-year event the following year when remnants of Hurricane Harvey stalled over the city in 2017, and Houston has seen other 500-year floods in recent years.

The Dutch, who are global leaders in flood science by necessity, since more than half their country is at risk of flooding, use a different approach. They take what they consider “worst credible floods” seriously. These are events that extend beyond standard probability models but are still considered by experts to be realistic, or credible, possibilities.

If the Tax Day storm hit today

To get a clearer picture of the Houston area’s credible risks, we simulated the impact of the Tax Day flood from rainfall alone if the storm had centered over two different watersheds in Houston’s Harris County.

The suburban risk: Clear Creek runs through a middle-class suburban area near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Vast stretches of suburban concrete block its natural drainage, and thousands of homes have been built along its winding, sluggish tributaries.

Even moderate rainfall can quickly transform these waterways into destructive torrents that overflow into nearby townships, including Friendswood and League City.

Our simulations show that if the Tax Day storm had centered over the Clear Creek area, more than 13,500 properties with homes would have quickly flooded with at least 6 inches of water. Above 6 inches is the danger zone where roads become unsafe for most passenger vehicles. In a home, when drywall gets wet it begins to wick water upward, requiring tear-outs. Even in elevated homes, that much water can damage equipment and contaminate water systems. In some areas, our simulations indicate the water depths would have exceeded 3 feet within hours.

The financial “what if” is even more staggering. Our analysis of publicly available data indicates that 92% of homes in Clear Creek’s flood zone likely have no flood insurance, and 52% fall outside the 100-year flood plain in FEMA’s latest proposed maps. Even with FEMA’s latest map updates, most mortgage holders would not be required to carry flood insurance on homes in the area that would have flooded.

The equity gap: When we moved the storm over Hunting Bayou, a working-class area in inner Houston populated largely by residents of color, the results were even more severe. Here, flooding represents the legacy risk of midcentury urbanism, where a naturally shallow, sluggish stream was penned in by industrial warehouses and tightly packed residential streets long before modern drainage standards existed, restricting the waterway’s ability to expand and meander gracefully.

Because much of the area has flat, poorly draining soils, this watershed has become a bottleneck that can rapidly overflow during heavy rains. We found the Tax Day storm would have flooded more than half of all residential lots there with at least 6 inches of water, compared to 16% of residential lots in the Clear Creek area. And flood insurance in the Hunting Bayou area is nearly nonexistent.

Both simulations, viewable through our interactive online tool at the Center for Coastal Resilience and Adaptive Futures, reveal a sobering reality: Devastation that local, state and federal government planning dismisses as improbable is, in fact, entirely possible.

When FEMA or state planners prioritize probabilistic mapping over “worst-case” modeling like we conducted, they treat historic deluges like the Tax Day flood as improbable anomalies rather than predictable consequences of a changing climate and rapid urban expansion. Moreover, unlike hurricanes, which typically arrive with several days’ notice, the sudden destructive force of “normal” storm systems like the Tax Day storm is discounted.

Learning from ‘worst cases’

The levels of destruction we simulated could easily occur in the coming years as global temperatures rise and storm intensity increases.

To prepare, U.S. emergency planners and flood authorities can look to three lessons from the Dutch planners’ possibilistic playbook.

Embrace flexible planning: Overly detailed plans can create a false sense of control and end up paying less attention to neighborhoods considered to be outside the flood plain. Simple and flexible plans that empower local officials to repurpose everyday assets in real time work best. That might include preemptively mobilizing high-water rescue vehicles into geographically vulnerable areas.

Map potential disruption, not just probability: Extending flood planning beyond who is in or out of the 100-year flood zone can also help identify where road networks and critical infrastructure are likely to fail during extreme events. This approach also helps identify infrastructure such as public parks that can double as temporary water retention basins.

Raise public risk perception: Residents can respond more effectively when local flood authorities share plans for “what if” scenarios with the public, along with guidance on how best to prepare.

The 10th anniversary of the Tax Day flood is a reminder of why it’s crucial to stop ignoring improbable events and start scientifically leveraging the possible to make all cities safer in an age of worsening climate change.

This article, originally published April 14, 2026, has been updated to include the Rice University SSPEED Center’s contribution to the research.

Dominic Boyer receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the John S. Guggenheim Foundation.

James R. Elliott and Yilei Yu do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What if Texas’ destructive Tax Day storm had centered on inner Houston instead? It’s why cities should plan for the improbable – https://theconversation.com/what-if-texas-destructive-tax-day-storm-had-centered-on-inner-houston-instead-its-why-cities-should-plan-for-the-improbable-279964

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Anisah Bagasra, Associate Professor of Psychology, Kennesaw State University

The war with Iran has led to a surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric – spilling into political discourse.

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine of Florida posted on X that “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one,” and added in another post, “We need more Islamophobia, not less.” Similarly, U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas called for stopping the entry of “Muslims immigrating to America.”

A study by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that the average number of Islamophobic posts jumped from 2,000 to 6,000 each day on X alone in the first six days of the conflict.

I have studied the impact of Islamophobia on mental health over the past two decades, following soaring hate crimes in the wake of 9/11. Research consistently shows that negative portrayals of Muslims shape public attitudes toward Muslims and can lead to increased discrimination, hate crimes and psychological consequences.

Increase in Islamophobia

Islamophobia in the United States tends to surge during global conflicts, political campaigns and terrorist attacks. Human Rights First, an organization that works to promote human rights in the U.S. and abroad, documented surges in Islamophobia in 2015 following the Syrian refugee crisis, when a large number of people were displaced. That same year the 2015 attacks in Paris and shooting in San Bernardino, California, intensified public anxiety about terrorism, and a surge in crimes against Muslims followed.

Islamophobic rhetoric in the U.S. intensified during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and continued into his presidency, often framing Muslims as a security threat. Burton Speakman, a scholar of digital media, and I found an increasing acceptance of such rhetoric among the political right in social media posts from 2016-19.

Social media posts and comments showed an increasing use of dehumanizing language toward Muslims. In a study I conducted in 2020, a majority of 830 Muslim Americans reported encountering the most Islamophobic content on Facebook, followed by Twitter and Instagram. This shift was also reflected in the language and coverage of Islam in right-wing media, which often portrayed Muslims as invaders wanting to impose Sharia law and as a drain on social welfare.

Mainstream media can also amplify negative depictions of Muslims by often discussing Islam within the context of terrorism and portraying Muslims more negatively than other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups.

Hate crimes tend to increase alongside Islamophobic rhetoric. During 2016, a period with high rates of Islamophobic rhetoric, there were 307 reported incidents – the highest recorded number immediately following 9/11. The numbers dropped the following year but were followed by an increase in 2024 with the start of the Israel-Hamas war; the number of reported anti-Muslim hate crimes was 288 that year.

A 2025 poll found that 63% of American Muslims reported experiencing religious discrimination, with many reporting at least one such incident every year since 2016.

Mental health of Muslim Americans

The cumulative effects of Islamophobia have an impact an American Muslims’ mental health and access to care.

Numerous studies since 9/11 link the high rates of discrimination experienced by the Muslim American
community to higher rates of depression. Experiences of discrimination also lead some Muslim Americans to believe they are not viewed as being American.

Thirty-one percent of participants in my 2020 study described the impact of social media on their mental health: Many said they avoided displaying their Muslim identity in social media posts, supporting a Muslim political candidate on social media, or even sharing religious content or videos. Some just withdrew – 27% deactivated or deleted their social media accounts.

In addition, many Muslims report feeling discouraged from seeking both physical and psychological treatment from non-Muslim providers, leading Muslim Americans to significantly underutilize available services compared to other ethnic and religious minority groups.

A 2015 study found that nearly one-third of Muslim Americans report experiencing discrimination in health care settings, which has an impact on their trust in providers. The majority reported being treated rudely by providers, insensitivity regarding modesty requirements, or having their pain disregarded. One participant in that study said: “Going into a surgery, health care providers didn’t recognize the importance of me keeping my hijab on and wanting most of my body covered.”

In my 2023 study, a number of participants described personal experiences with mental health professionals who seemed not to see them as individuals beyond their religious affiliation. One participant described a provider as being “quick to attribute problems” to religion or culture. “I worry about them stereotyping and end up feeling as if I’m on the defense,” this participant said.

My most recent study, conducted in 2024, which is currently under review, asked 325 Muslim Americans who had used any psychological services about their health-seeking behavior: 56% said they were worried ; 57% were worried about being misunderstood.

Following Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim countries in 2017, a study conducted by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health found that many Muslim Americans skipped their primary care appointments; at the same time, their visits to the emergency room went up.

Addressing the challenges

In response, a number of initiatives have emerged at the local and national levels.

One approach involves increasing mental health literacy within Muslim communities and creating networks of mental health professionals working with Muslim clients.

For example, mental health professionals and community leaders are working to increase mental health literacy through in-person education and digitally. Muslim community members learn about symptoms of mental health disorders through training, such as Mental Health First Aid. Online directories of Muslim mental health providers have also been created.

Another approach involves training mental health professionals. A team at Stanford University has created a six-part training module that provides therapists with knowledge of religious norms and an opportunity to reflect on their own possible biases.

Finally, Muslim researchers and providers have begun to develop therapies and resources that integrate Muslim beliefs and spiritual approaches with treatment. These include psychotherapy that is inspired by the Quran, the teachings of the prophet and spiritual practices such as self-reflection, prayer and mindfulness.

Muslim Americans can often feel helpless in combating the hate they experience – more awareness and advocacy could reduce Islamophobia and address the mental health needs of an already vulnerable community.

Anisah Bagasra received funding from Meta’s Content Policy Research on Social Media Platforms research award in 2019 to study Islamophobic rhetoric and imagery on social media platforms.

– ref. How Islamophobic rhetoric leaves an impact on the mental health of Muslim Americans – https://theconversation.com/how-islamophobic-rhetoric-leaves-an-impact-on-the-mental-health-of-muslim-americans-279046