Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Fred L. Pincus, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

In October 2025, the Trump administration made a controversial proposal to nine major colleges and universities, including Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. The administration offered them a deal: If they agreed to adopt certain policy changes, such as revising admissions and hiring practices, they would receive advantages in federal funding programs.

The administration later expanded the list of schools to more than 100 that could benefit from the deal, which it called the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

The plan included a wide range of policy changes. For example, it would require schools to cap international student enrollment at about 15% and to use “legal force” against disruptive protesters.

Only three small schools not initially approached by the Trump administration agreed to sign the restrictive proposal: The New College of Florida, a public, liberal arts college in Sarasota; Valley Forge Military College, a private, two-year military college in Wayne, Pennsylvania; and Grand Canyon University, a private Christian school in Phoenix.

Although the proposed agreement has received little public attention in the past few months, as a sociologist who has studied race and inequality, I think it is important to understand what the document says.

The proposal reveals President Donald Trump’s vision for U.S. colleges and universities. In this vision, universities would have less ethnic and racial diversity, and people’s First Amendment rights would be weakened.

The proposal also suggests a stronger federal role in shaping how universities operate, which I see as a major departure from the long-standing U.S. tradition of academic freedom.

A second act?

Despite the compact’s lack of support among universities, the Trump administration has indicated it may revise the plan.

In an interview on Jan. 21, 2026, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said the administration is working on an updated version.

“There was a draft version, preliminary version, that went out that was intended to be sent to universities to get their reaction from it. … We are working on developing the right kind of compact with some input that we’re already getting,” McMahon said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

The proposal’s broad scope

The original version of the compact included several major policy requirements.

First, universities would be prohibited from giving any preference to prospective students or faculty candidates based on their “sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations.”

This aligns with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that colleges and universities cannot consider race as a factor in admissions decisions.

Second, the proposal would mandate that college student applicants take a widely used standardized test like the SAT – a requirement that an increasing number of schools have dropped in recent years.

Third, the compact calls on universities to “maintain a vibrant marketplace of ideas where different views can be explored, debated and challenged.”

Universities would also need to transform or abolish “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

This follows the Trump administration’s push for more viewpoint diversity, or the exchange of a wide range of philosophical and political perspectives. Conservatives have frequently criticized what they see as a liberal political bias on college campuses.

Fourth, the proposal would require campus administrators to use “lawful force” against “demonstrators” on campus. This action could be directed toward someone disrupting class instruction and libraries, or blocking certain parts of campuses.

The proposal also doubles down on Trump’s 2025 executive order that there are only two sexes: male and female.

This language would provide support for some universities limiting how gender is taught.

Texas A&M University announced in January 2026 that it is ending its women’s studies major. In February, the state of Florida also announced that it is limiting how sex and gender can be taught in introductory sociology classes at public universities.

Academic freedom under threat

The proposal does not specifically say that faculty cannot teach certain subjects or discuss particular issues.

But as a retired sociologist who has taught diversity-related courses and published a diversity textbook, I was particularly struck by the following part of the proposal: “Academic freedom is not absolute, and universities shall adopt policies that prevent discriminatory, threatening, harassing, or other behaviors that abridge the rights of other members of the university community.”

This very broad language gives university administrators, or government officials, leverage over professors’ and researchers’ basic, daily work and their overall academic freedom – meaning, their ability to research, teach and publish whatever they want, without fear of censorship or retaliation.

An ultimatum

None of the schools that the Trump administration initially approached signed on to the proposal.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities, one of the largest national higher education associations, described the compact as an ultimatum: Schools could sign the agreement and receive “multiple positive benefits,” including federal grants, or refuse and risk losing federal funding.

The American Association of University Professors, a national nonprofit that advocates for academic freedom, said that the plan “stinks of favoritism, patronage and bribery.”

Some conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, supported the administration’s attempt to address problems in higher education, such as rising tuition.

However, the organization also warned that “federal officials should avoid expanding the government’s role in higher education” while pursuing those goals.

It is unclear whether the White House will release a revised version of the compact. Still, the original proposal offers insight into how the administration hopes to reshape American higher education.

Fred L. Pincus 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. Trump offered a restrictive deal to universities that almost all rejected – but the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education may not be entirely dead – https://theconversation.com/trump-offered-a-restrictive-deal-to-universities-that-almost-all-rejected-but-the-compact-for-academic-excellence-in-higher-education-may-not-be-entirely-dead-275203

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Peter McGraw, Professor of Marketing and Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder

In 1960, 72% of adults were married, and over 90% would go on to marry. HR policies and management practices back then catered to nuclear families with a lone, male breadwinner.

Today, dual-career couples and working mothers are common, largely due to the growth of women in the workforce in the second half of the 20th century.

To recruit and retain talent, businesses have expanded family-friendly policies by offering flexible work hours, paid parental leave and subsidized child care. These are much-needed improvements, though many employers still lag in offering them.

Today, another demographic shift also demands employers’ attention: the growing share of the workforce that is single – particularly those without dependents. About 1 in 3 American adults haven’t gotten married by midlife.

More adults aren’t married

The workplace has always included recent grads, never-married professionals, divorced empty nesters and widowed retirees. But these categories now represent a far larger share of the labor force than they did a generation ago – and people move in and out of them throughout their lives.

As a behavioral economist and business school professor, I study what I call the “Solo Economy” – how institutions and markets are adapting, or failing to adapt, to this shift.

Workplace policy is one area where the gap is especially wide.

A growing mismatch

Today, 46% of U.S. adults are unmarried. Half of these unmarried Americans aren’t interested in dating. Population forecasters project that about 25% of millennials and 33% of Gen Z will never marry.

Around 29% of U.S. adults live alone – the most common household type in the country. Compare that to 1960, when the median age of first marriage was 20 for women and 22 for men, and single-person households were relatively rare.

The average age of getting hitched for the first – or only – time has risen by nearly a decade since then to 28.4 for women and 30.8 for men.

And yet, many HR policies have not adjusted to this new normal. Of course, there’s a word for this: amatonormativity. It’s the assumption that marriage and family are the ideal relationship model.

Amatonormativity underpins more than 1,000 legal benefits for married people, from tax breaks to Social Security payments. These disparities extend into the workplace when family-friendly policies don’t take the needs of the “family of one” into account.

In one survey, 62% of single workers reported feeling treated differently from married colleagues with children – and 30% said the disparity reinforced the message that their lives mattered less.

I believe that employers can do better by singles with no kids at home without putting anyone at a disadvantage.

Scheduling can seem unfair

Workers with spouses or who are raising children have real obligations that deserve support. But too often, single employees without dependents are expected to pick up the slack by working on holidays, traveling more for their jobs and taking vacations at less desirable times.

“My manager asked me to take on an extra responsibility, saying she couldn’t ask the teacher who handled it before because she ‘has four boys,’” Sarah Brock, founder of Sarah Bee Talent, posted on Linkedin. “I felt like my life didn’t have the same value because I wasn’t raising a family.” Brock received hundreds of similar stories in response to her post.

Researchers have found evidence that confirms these patterns: Single, childless employees are more often expected to travel, work longer hours and take less desirable vacation times than their married colleagues.

Krystal Wilkinson, a British human resource management professor, has written about finding that children and child care are considered far more legitimate reasons for placing boundaries on work than engaging in hobbies, fitness or dating. Even with policies such as unlimited paid time off, singles may hesitate to take vacations, fearing that their managers will see their reasons for taking time off as illegitimate.

Better benefits for married employees

Employee benefits often favor married workers – not by design, but by default.

The total compensation package is typically worth more for a married employee doing the same job as a single one. A 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 95% of large employers extend health coverage to employees’ spouses, with employers subsidizing part of the cost. This is entirely reasonable – but single employees typically receive no equivalent value in return.

This gap extends to many life insurance policies, retirement plan features, wellness programs and employee assistance programs.

Leave policies reflect a similar pattern. The Family and Medical Leave Act grants up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a parent, child or spouse. Bereavement leave is typically limited to deaths of members of your immediate family. Yet singles without kids at home often have broader support networks that include their close friends and members of their “chosen family” – whom current policies don’t recognize. This tends to be especially true within the LGBTQ+ community.

The issue isn’t that married employees receive too many benefits. It’s that the system was built for one kind of lifestyle and hasn’t kept pace with how many people live today.

What employers can do

Employers can close these gaps without taking anything away from married employees – and in many cases, benefit everyone with these approaches.

Flexible benefits: A cafeteria-style model lets employees allocate a budget based on their own needs, covering everything from child care to gym memberships to pet insurance. Netflix already does this by offering up to US$16,000 per employee yearly to cover medical, dental and vision premiums – regardless of marital status – with unused portions partially refundable.

Broader leave policies: Bereavement leave could cover close friends. Employees might exchange one type of leave for another, based on need.

Fair scheduling: Rather than assuming single employees are more available, companies can adopt first-come, first-served vacation systems with seniority breaking ties. Or companies could adopt a points-based system, giving every employee an equal budget to bid on preferred time slots – ensuring those who value certain dates most get priority, regardless of relationship status.

Inclusive language and culture: Small changes signal who belongs. When employers use wording like “you and your loved ones” instead of “you and your family” in their communications with their staff, it acknowledges relationships beyond traditional structures.

Organizational values: Just as companies affirm diversity in age, gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity, they can explicitly commit to valuing employees regardless of relationship status.

A simple test

If employers want to see whether any of their personnel policies could put their married or single employees at a disadvantage, I suggest they use this litmus test: Would this policy harm a married employee who gets divorced? If so, the policy needs to change.

Many people shift between singlehood and partnership throughout their lives due to breakups, divorce and the death of their spouses or partners. A workplace built for a family of one is built for everyone – wherever they happen to be in their life journey.

Peter McGraw 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. Family-friendly workplaces are great − but ‘families of 1’ get ignored – https://theconversation.com/family-friendly-workplaces-are-great-but-families-of-1-get-ignored-276260

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Olivier Sterck, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Oxford

Michael W. Green, a Wall Street investor, created a buzz in late 2025 by arguing that the U.S. poverty line should be jacked up to US$140,000 for a family of four. Currently, a family of that size has to be eking by on $33,000 a year to qualify as poor in the federal government’s eyes.

His critique builds on a broader debate about how to measure poverty in the United States. The U.S. government has made few changes to how it officially calculates the poverty rate since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched the “war on poverty” in the 1960s.

Outlets such as The Washington Post, Fortune and Fox News covered Green’s assertions, sparking a flurry of public debate over a topic usually relegated to economists like me.

Having spent more than 15 years researching poverty as an economist, I believe that whether the government ought to draw this line at $33,000, $100,000 or $140,000 is not the real issue. Instead, I’ve been arguing that there is no magic threshold below which you are poor and above which you’re doing fine. Instead, poverty should be understood as a spectrum that can be measured without relying on arbitrary lines.

3 different poverty lines

Think about it: Living on $100 a day is better than $75 a day, which is better than $50, which is better than $25. Nothing magical happens when you cross some arbitrary line. People don’t suddenly escape the constraints and vulnerabilities of having low incomes when they make one dollar more than they used to.

And yet almost all public debates, research and policy treat poverty lines as legitimate – as if this threshold really exists.

Consider three very different poverty lines:

Moving the poverty line to $80 per person per day, which today amounts to roughly $140,000 for a family of four per year, as Green proposes, then 56% of Americans are poor according to World Bank data. So are most people in other high-income countries.

Drawing the poverty line at about $20 per person per day – approximately equivalent to the official U.S. poverty threshold for a family of four – the share of Americans who are below that line plunges to 6%, according to the World Bank data I analyzed.

The World Bank also has a definition of extreme poverty: $3 per person per day. If you put the line there, only 1% of Americans would be officially experiencing poverty.

Even among experts, there is little agreement on where the poverty line should fall. As a result, debates about poverty lines often reveal more about the choice of threshold than about poverty itself.

Measuring poverty without lines

Based on my research, I have proposed letting go of poverty lines to get a more meaningful view of how poverty evolved over time and in different countries.

Instead, I propose a new way to measure poverty, through what I call “average poverty,” which reflects the fact that having less income is always worse than having more.

Average poverty builds on a simple intuition. If someone I’ll call Alex earns half as much as someone else I’ll call Barbara, then Barbara is twice as rich as Alex and Alex is twice as poor as Barbara.

Similar inverse relationships are widespread in other fields: Pace is the reciprocal of speed in running as resistance and conductance are in electricity.

This means that poverty can be defined as the inverse of income, and its unit is simply inverted. If incomes are measured in dollars per day, poverty is measured in days per dollar.

Average poverty therefore captures something very concrete: the average number of minutes, hours or days that it takes to get $1 in income.

For these purposes, income includes earnings from work, government benefits and other sources of money, and it is averaged among all family members. It is expressed in international dollars, which account for inflation and global price differences. The time to get $1 refers to a day of life for anyone at any age and in any circumstance, not just the hours worked by someone with a job.

My proposed measure casts the U.S. in a strikingly different light from traditional poverty statistics. In the U.S., I’ve calculated that it takes 63 minutes on average to get $1 in income. That’s much slower than in many other high-income countries:

• United Kingdom: 34 minutes

• France: less than 31 minutes

• Germany: about 26 minutes

This indicates that average poverty is substantially higher in the U.S., even though U.S. average incomes are higher than in most Western European countries. While average poverty declined over time in most other high-income countries, it has increased almost continuously in the U.S. since 1990 despite swift growth in average incomes.

There is one exception to this trend: during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. adopted several short-term anti-poverty measures.

The price of inequality

At first glance, this seems paradoxical. How can a rich country’s economy grow and yet get poorer?

The answer is simple: inequality.

Seeing poverty as a spectrum rather than a switch that’s on or off casts light on what traditional measures hide: Inequality matters no matter where you are on the poverty-prosperity continuum. Under this approach, poverty can change for two reasons: either incomes rise or fall on average, or the distribution of income may become more or less unequal.

And the U.S. has one of the most unequal economies in the world, and by far the most unequal among rich countries. Across all 50 states, inequality has risen sharply since 1990, regardless of political orientation, demographic composition or economic structure.

When inequality rises faster than incomes grow, average poverty increases even in a growing economy. This is why the U.S. appears poorer under a continuous measure than when there’s a simple line drawn at the $20-per-day mark: Its income distribution has been getting more unequal even as the average income has risen.

Seeing poverty as a spectrum changes the conversation. It reveals what poverty lines miss and why inequality matters so much.

Olivier Sterck receives funding from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any organization that would benefit from this article.

– ref. Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality – https://theconversation.com/measuring-poverty-on-a-spectrum-instead-of-an-arbitrary-line-conveys-a-more-accurate-picture-of-inequality-271912

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Terrence Liu, Assistant Professor, University of Utah

Americans age 65 and older who are insured by Medicare logged about 60 million telehealth visits annually between 2021 and 2023 – about 31 million for mental health and 29 million for other health issues. That’s the key finding in a new study I co-authored in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

We also found that people with Medicare coverage who used telehealth services were generally in poorer health and faced more physical and functional limitations in their daily life, compared with their counterparts who only had medical appointments in person.

To get at these numbers, we analyzed a national survey called the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey, which provides a nationally representative snapshot of how different groups of Americans use and receive health care. Based on our analysis, we generated national estimates of telehealth visits that reflect care patterns for everyone insured through Medicare, a federal health insurance program primarily for people age 65 and older as well as some younger people with disabilities.

Why it matters

In just a few years, telehealth has become a central part of how health care is delivered in the United States – and it is likely to continue to play an important role in the health care system.

Before 2020, patients rarely got their health care virtually. About 1.7% of Medicare patients – 910,490 people – used telehealth for medical appointments in 2019. These were mostly patients in rural areas, and only certain clinics were authorized to offer it.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government expanded telehealth coverage for people insured by Medicare to make it easier for patients to maintain access to health care. Many insurance companies did, too. The number of Medicare patients using telehealth services jumped to 53% in 2021, corresponding to nearly 28.3 million telehealth users at the peak of the pandemic.

While telehealth appointments overall – not just for people with Medicare coverage – have dropped since the height of the pandemic, they remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data from Epic, the largest electronic medical record company in the U.S.

Legislation passed in 2021 made Medicare’s coverage of telehealth permanent for mental health services. But coverage for accessing care via telehealth for other types of health conditions, such as respiratory infections or diabetes, is set to expire in 2027 – and policymakers are still deciding whether to continue it.

Our findings underscore the important role that telehealth has come to serve in enabling older adults to access health care for all types of acute and chronic medical conditions. Emerging research suggests it can help them see their providers more consistently without compromising the quality of care compared to in-person visits.

Limiting access to telehealth services could reverse recent gains in access for older adults – particularly for patients who have geographical or health limitations that can make getting to in-person appointments challenging.

What still isn’t known

While our study sheds light on who used telehealth and for what medical conditions, several important questions remain.

First, we did not explicitly examine quality of care. More research is needed to pin down whether telehealth visits are comparable to in-person visits for treating different conditions. My colleagues and I plan to explore this issue for specific conditions, such as diabetes.

Second, our analysis focused on people who have Medicare coverage. Patterns may differ for younger patients or those with other kinds of health insurance.

However, our study aligns with others that have examined telehealth use since the pandemic.

While no single study or report is perfect, the overall evidence suggests that telehealth can help improve access to care and appears to be a reasonable alternative – either by itself or as a complement to in-person care for certain medical conditions.

Terrence Liu 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. Telehealth is widely used by older adults insured by Medicare, new research shows – https://theconversation.com/telehealth-is-widely-used-by-older-adults-insured-by-medicare-new-research-shows-276566

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Max Crowley, Professor of Human Development, Family Studies and Public Policy, Penn State

Since early 2025, several large federal health grants to states have been suspended and then restored after legal challenges. On Feb. 13, 2026, for example, the federal government moved to suspend about US$600 million in public health grants to four states before a federal court temporarily blocked the action. Hundreds of millions of dollars that had already been allocated by Congress were briefly put on hold before the court intervened.

From the outside, these episodes may look like routine disputes between states and the federal government, as such cancellations do happen. But inside state agencies and in communities, they create something more consequential: uncertainty that interrupts crucial public health programs – even if states ultimately get the money.

As a scholar who studies how to build infrastructure for preventing human suffering, I’ve seen how instability – even when temporary – changes how agencies and the communities they serve plan, hire and invest.

Even when funding is eventually restored, repeated cycles in which funding is frozen and then temporarily reinstated, pending lawsuits, can disrupt how public health systems operate. This, in turn, erodes the public health infrastructure that federal funding helps build and maintain.

That infrastructure includes vaccination clinics, restaurant sanitation inspections, opioid response teams, school violence prevention, maternal health programs and disease surveillance systems, to name a few. Programs like this play a critical role in public health, but because they focus on preventing problems before they occur, many people aren’t away of the critical need for them until something goes wrong.

Most disruptions never make headlines, but they affect services communities rely on.

Public health depends on continuity

Despite the heavy media focus on emergency response during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, most public health work is long-term planning built around multiyear prevention strategies.

Federal grants support epidemiologists, prevention specialists, behavioral health providers and data analysts. They fund disease surveillance systems, maternal and child health initiatives, substance use prevention programs and partnerships with community organizations. These efforts operate on multiyear timelines. Each one requires hiring staff, bringing on outside contractors and service providers, and setting up systems to track outcomes.

When funding is suddenly paused or regulatory environments change, agencies cannot simply wait for clarity. Hiring slows. Leaders draft contingency plans in case the suspension becomes permanent. Many state and local employees begin exploring more stable employment opportunities.

National workforce surveys show that roughly 1 in 4 state public health employees report considering leaving their job within a year. In 2023, local health departments lost an average of 19% of their staff, reflecting how the COVID-19 pandemic strained the public health workforce. In a small county health department, where the entire staff may consist of only four to seven people, losing even a single nurse or disease investigator can significantly disrupt services.

If funding is later restored, as has occurred in several cases in 2025 and early 2026, agencies must reverse course. They reissue guidance, renegotiate contracts and reassure partners. But the disruption has already consumed time and public resources.

Some projects and communities may not fully recover. Volatility creates costs even when the money returns.

The financial and administrative cost of legal battles

Suing the federal government over funding suspensions is expensive. When states challenge federal decisions, state attorneys general devote staff time and legal resources. Health departments must coordinate with lawyers, compile documentation and model alternative budget scenarios. Senior leaders shift attention from program oversight to legal and fiscal risk management.

Those administrative hours are funded by taxpayers. They represent real expenditures, though they rarely appear in public debate. And while litigation proceeds – often for months – agencies must prepare for multiple possible outcomes.

The uncertainty itself shapes planning. Agencies may hesitate to launch new initiatives if funding could disappear midstream. They may shorten contracts, delay hiring or scale back expansion plans to reduce exposure. Over time, that caution can slow implementation and limit innovation.

Instability extends beyond grant dollars

Suspended funding is not the only source of instability. The federal government has also announced structural changes within some health agencies, starting with a major reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services in March 2025. These changes, too, inject uncertainty into how public health systems operate.

For example, federal health officials recently indicated they plan to significantly scale back the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation within the Administration for Children and Families.

Since 1995, that office has studied the impact of programs serving families and children, including Head Start, the foster care system and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Independent research and policy organizations, including the Data Foundation and Results for America, warn that interrupting those studies could undermine states’ ability to assess and improve these programs.

Similarly, recent grant terminations and restructuring within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which administers major behavioral health grants to states, have introduced uncertainty. When staff supported by grants are cut or funding terms shift abruptly, payments can be delayed, reporting guidance becomes unclear, and local treatment providers may struggle to plan. For communities trying to prevent opioid overdoses or rising mental health needs, even short-term disruption can be a matter of life or death.

Pausing or reorganizing such studies midstream disrupts the ability to understand what works and what doesn’t. Experienced staff may leave. Rebuilding that expertise can take years.

Prevention is especially vulnerable

Almost by definition, people take prevention for granted. If programs focused on vaccination, substance use treatment and youth mental health are effective, many people never experience the crises that might have occurred without them.

But prevention depends on continuity: sustained staffing, stable partnerships and consistent data collection. The effects of disruption are difficult to measure in a single budget cycle, but they influence how confidently agencies invest in long-term strategies. In that sense, funding instability can become a public health issue of its own.

Policy priorities will always evolve. Courts review executive actions. Congress revisits allocations. Change is part of governance. But if policymakers want stronger, more resilient public health infrastructure, stability is not simply administrative convenience. It is part of the foundation that makes prevention and preparedness possible.

Max Crowley 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. Public health needs steady budgets – and federal funding uncertainty cause real harms, even if the money is later restored – https://theconversation.com/public-health-needs-steady-budgets-and-federal-funding-uncertainty-cause-real-harms-even-if-the-money-is-later-restored-276500

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Carolina Rossini, Professor of Practice and Director for Program, Public Interest Technology Initiative, UMass Amherst

A Los Angeles courtroom is hosting what may become the most consequential legal challenge Big Tech has ever faced.

This is an inflection point in the global debate over Big Tech liability: For the first time, an American jury is being asked to decide whether platform design itself can give rise to product liability – not because of what users post on them, but because of how they were built.

As a technology policy and law scholar, I believe that the decision, whatever the outcome, will likely generate a powerful domino effect in the United States and across jurisdictions worldwide.

The case

The plaintiff is a 20-year-old California woman identified by her initials, K.G.M. She said she began using YouTube around age 6 and created an Instagram account at age 9. Her lawsuit and testimony allege that the platforms’ design features, which include likes, algorithmic recommendation engines, infinite scroll, autoplay and deliberately unpredictable rewards, got her addicted. The suit alleges that her addiction fueled depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia – when someone see themselves as ugly or disfigured when they aren’t – and suicidal thoughts.

TikTok and Snapchat settled with K.G.M. before trial for undisclosed sums, leaving Meta and Google as the remaining defendants. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before the jury on Feb. 18, 2026.

The stakes extend far beyond one plaintiff. K.G.M.’s case is a bellwether trial, meaning the court chose it as a representative test case to help determine verdicts across all connected cases. Those cases involve approximately 1,600 plaintiffs, including more than 350 families and over 250 school districts. Their claims have been consolidated in a California Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding, No. 5255.

The California proceeding shares legal teams and evidence pool, including internal Meta documents, with a federal multidistrict litigation that is scheduled to advance in court later this year, bringing together thousands of federal lawsuits.

Legal innovation: Design as defect

For decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded technology companies from liability for content that their users post. Whenever people sued over harms linked to social media, companies invoked Section 230, and the cases typically died early.

The K.G.M. litigation uses a different legal strategy: negligence-based product liability. The plaintiffs argue that the harm arises not from third-party content but from the platforms’ own engineering and design decisions, the “informational architecture” and features that shape users’ experience of content. Infinite scrolling, autoplay, notifications calibrated to heighten anxiety and variable-reward systems operate on the same behavioral principles as slot machines.

These are conscious product design choices, and the plaintiffs contend they should be subject to the same safety obligations as any other manufactured product, thereby holding their makers accountable for negligence, strict liability or breach of warranty of fitness.

Judge Carolyn Kuhl of the California Superior Court agreed that these claims warranted a jury trial. In her Nov. 5, 2025, ruling denying Meta’s motion for summary judgment, she distinguished between features related to content publishing, which Section 230 might protect, and features like notification timing, engagement loops and the absence of meaningful parental controls, which it might not.

Here, Kuhl established that the conduct-versus-content distinction – treating algorithmic design choices as the company’s own conduct rather than as the protected publication of third-party speech – was a viable legal theory for a jury to evaluate. This fine-grained approach, evaluating each design feature individually and recognizing the increased complexities of technology products’ design, represents a potential road map for courts nationwide.

What the companies knew

The product liability theory depends partly on what companies knew about the risks of their designs. The 2021 leak of internal Meta documents, widely known as the “Facebook Papers,” revealed that the company’s own researchers had flagged concerns about Instagram’s effects on adolescent body image and mental health.

Internal communications disclosed in the K.G.M. proceedings have included exchanges among Meta employees comparing the platform’s effects to pushing drugs and gambling. Whether this internal awareness constitutes the kind of corporate knowledge that supports liability is a central factual question for the jury to decide.

There is a clear analogy to tobacco litigation. In the 1990s, plaintiffs succeeded against tobacco companies by proving they had concealed evidence about the addictive and deadly nature of their products. In K.G.M., the plaintiffs here are making the same core argument: Where there is corporate knowledge, deliberate targeting and public denial, liability follows.

K.G.M.’s lead trial attorney, Mark Lanier, is the same lawyer who won multibillion-dollar verdicts in the Johnson & Johnson baby powder litigation, signaling the scale of accountability they are pursuing.

The science: Contested but consequential

The scientific evidence on social media and youth mental health is real but genuinely complex. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) does not classify social media use as an addictive disorder. Researchers like Amy Orben have found that large-scale studies show small average associations between social media use and reduced well-being.

Yet Orben herself has cautioned that these averages might mask severe harms experienced by a subset of vulnerable young users, particularly girls ages 12 to 15. The legal question under the negligence theory is not whether social media harms everyone equally, but whether platform designers had an obligation to account for foreseeable interactions between their design features and the vulnerabilities of developing minds, especially when internal evidence suggested they were aware of the risks.

First, a manufacturer has a duty to exercise reasonable care in designing its product, and that duty extends to harms that are reasonably foreseeable. Second, the plaintiff must show that the type of injury suffered was a foreseeable consequence of the design choice. The manufacturer doesn’t need to have foreseen the exact injury to the exact plaintiff, but the general category of harm must have been within the range of what a reasonable designer would anticipate.

This is why the Facebook Papers and internal Meta research are so legally significant in K.G.M.’s case: They go directly to establishing that the company’s own researchers identified the specific categories of harm – depression, body dysmorphia, compulsive use patterns among adolescent girls – that the plaintiff alleges she suffered. If the company’s own data flagged these risks and leadership continued on the same design trajectory, that would considerably strengthen the foreseeability element.

Why it matters

Even if the science is unsettled, the legal and policy landscape is shifting fast. In 2025 alone, 20 states in the U.S. enacted new laws governing children’s social media use. And this wave is not only in the U.S.; countries such as the U.K., Australia, Denmark, France and Brazil are also moving forward with specific legislation, including mandates banning social media for those under 16.

The K.G.M. trial represents something more fundamental: the proposition that algorithmic design decisions are product decisions, carrying real obligations of safety and accountability. If this framework takes hold, every platform will need to reconsider not just what content appears, but why and how it is delivered.

I was staff at organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, and the Harvard Berkman Klein Center, which were funded by various foundations and companies. Refer to their websites for disclosures. I was a staff member in the connectivity policy team at Facebook (2016-2018). I am an advisory board member of non-profits, including Internet Lab (Brazil) and Derechos Digitales (Chile). I am a senior advisor (without any honorarium) at the Datasphere Initiative and Portulans Institute. More details at https://www.carolinarossini.net/bio

– ref. How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability – https://theconversation.com/how-instagram-addictiveness-lawsuit-could-reshape-social-media-platform-design-meets-product-liability-277066

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kenneth Michael White, Associate Professor of Political Science & Criminal Justice, Kennesaw State University

The Trump administration’s aggressive policies on immigration are receiving pushback not just on Capitol Hill but across the country. Democratic leaders in multiple states are refusing to cooperate with immigration arrests.

In response, the federal government is refusing to share evidence with state investigators in the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal officers while protesting immigration enforcement in Minneapolis.

Throughout U.S. history, there have been many moments of conflict between the federal and state governments, such as on slavery, racial segregation, school testing requirements, health care, abortion and climate change. Conversely, there has also been a long history of cooperation between the different levels of government in matters such as disaster relief, law enforcement and antiterrorism efforts.

But what happens when the various states and the federal government see the same legal issue differently? Which side wins in a dispute? This is an ongoing and open question, as evidenced by the frequent lawsuits being filed against Trump administration policies by state attorneys general.

As a legal scholar, I study issues related to constitutional law, including federalism, or the division of power between the various levels of government in the U.S. system. Ultimately, the question of who prevails when there’s a dispute depends on whether the issue is more national or local in scope. It may also matter whether the issue affects fundamental rights, which no government may justly infringe.

Layers of authority

The framers of the Constitution saw the division of power between the states and federal government as part of the U.S. system of checks and balances. Just as the judicial, executive and legislative branches check each other, so do the different levels of government. “The true barriers of our liberty in this country are our state governments,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1811.

Still, it’s easy to assume that the federal government has greater power. The U.S. Constitution states that federal laws are “the supreme Law of the Land.” This is a model known as vertical federalism – in essence, putting the federal government above the states and localities.

There are areas of law where that framework clearly prevails. For example, immigration is an issue that the Constitution places squarely under the authority of the federal government. States cannot nullify, or invalidate, federal law. That is vertical federalism.

But the 10th Amendment says “powers not delegated to the United States … are reserved to the States respectively.” There are areas where states retain authority and the relationship between the levels of government is more horizontal, or flat or equal.

Consider cannabis. In 1996, California voters approved a ballot initiative making their state the first to allow the medical use of marijuana since prohibition started in the early 1900s. This was despite the fact that federal law viewed all cannabis as contraband. But California determines its own criminal code.

Californians could not stop the federal government from enforcing a valid federal law in their state, but that did not mean that California – or the vast majority of other states that have since passed their own medical or recreational marijuana measures – have to participate in a federal policy choice.

Federal agencies have continued occasional cannabis raids in California. But for state law enforcement officials, failing to punish a person for the medical use of cannabis is not a federal crime. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot force a state “to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program.” That is horizontal federalism.

Constraints on all governments

The federal government is limited to its enumerated powers – which is to say, the powers spelled out directly by the U.S. Constitution. But states possess “police powers,” which is a broader authority to regulate health, safety and morality.

The federal government is responsible for foreign policy and regulating interstate commerce. But states and localities regulate vaccine mandates, police and fire services, and operate or oversee water and sewer systems, as well as taking stances on moral issues, including alcohol and gambling, due to their potential to cause harm.

But both the federal government and the states are limited by the Constitution. Neither can justly violate the freedom of the press, for example, under the First Amendment.

And the reality is that, at least at this point in history, there is no neat division between federal and state authority on a broad range of issues. The federal government, for example, pays for the bulk of interstate highway construction. But those roads are actually paved by states.

When the federal government is paying a share of the cost of carrying out its policies, the Supreme Court has ruled that it can, in fact, tell states what to do, such as enforcing a legal drinking age of 21 or risk a share of federal highway funds. But it has also found that federal demands on states can be unconstitutionally excessive or “coercive,” as with a mandate under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid, which the court struck down, even though Washington was paying most of the bill.

Federalism and the question of which level of government has the ultimate say is often complex and messy. But for that reason, as the framers foresaw, it remains an important safeguard of liberty, preventing too much power from residing in one place.

Kenneth Michael White 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. When Washington and the states are in conflict, the ultimate winner is not always certain – https://theconversation.com/when-washington-and-the-states-are-in-conflict-the-ultimate-winner-is-not-always-certain-276485

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Eric Lob, Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations, Florida International University

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, 2026, set off the process of selecting a new supreme leader. It is only the second such transition in the Islamic Republic’s 47-year history and the first since the ailing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini transferred power to Khamenei in June 1989.

As stipulated in Article 111 of the Iranian Constitution, a three-person Interim Leadership Council was created on March 1, 2026. It consists of President Masoud Pezeshkian, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, who is also a candidate for supreme leader.

The council has temporarily assumed the duties of the supreme leader until a new one is appointed by the Assembly of Experts – an elected body of 88 clerics. The assembly is expected to swiftly elect the next supreme leader, especially with Iran being in a state of war.

Assuming it can be carried out, a swift succession is meant to signal to domestic dissidents and external enemies alike that the regime – or ruling system, nezam – remains in place. During the assembly’s first meeting to select a new supreme leader on March 3, Israel bombed its building in the city of Qom. The building was evacuated before the strike, and no casualties were reported.

Some media reports have portrayed Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as a top contender, even though he lacks the status of a senior cleric. Although his is just one of a number of names that has been talked of as a potential successor.

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said that Israel would kill any successor to Khamenei that is selected. Nevertheless, the Assembly of Experts appears determined to carry out its constitutional duty and appoint a new supreme leader.

As a scholar of Iranian politics, I argue that the succession process, irrespective of its outcome, has never been free or transparent.

The history of succession

The Iranian supreme leader serves for life and is the highest religious and political authority in the Islamic Republic.

He is the commander in chief of the armed forces and oversees other key institutions, such as the judicial branch and state media.

He also supervises the Guardian Council, which has the power to vet electoral candidates and veto parliamentary legislation.

In this capacity, the supreme leader has the final say on foreign policy and different areas of domestic policy.

The first leader of the Islamic Republic – Khomeini – ruled between 1979 and 1989. In addition to being a revolutionary and charismatic figure, Khomeini was a grand ayatollah and a “source of emulation,” or marja’ al-taqlid.

A grand ayatollah and source of emulation is among a select few of the highest-ranking clerics. He is considered a “sign of God” in Twelver Shiism, the largest branch of Shiism and the state religion of Iran. A grand ayatollah and source of emulation has the authority to make legal decisions for his lay followers and for lower-ranking clerics in Iran and the wider Shiite world.

There are several dozen grand ayatollahs and sources of emulation in the world. Most of them reside and run seminaries in the holy cities of Qom in Iran and Najaf in Iraq. Shiites can choose which one they want to follow as a senior figure of the faith, making the institution decentralized.

The electoral facade

The members of the Assembly of Experts serve eight-year terms and are authorized to elect, supervise and, if necessary, dismiss the supreme leader. Article 111 of the Iranian Constitution grants the assembly the authority to remove the supreme leader if he is deemed incapable or unqualified politically and religiously. However, it is unlikely to do so given that its members are first vetted by the Guardian Council before being elected by a popular vote of Iranian men and women ages 18 and older.

It should be noted that the members of the Guardian Council are appointed by the supreme leader and the chief justice, or head of the judiciary, who is also appointed by the supreme leader.

Therefore, through the council, the supreme leader approves the candidates. They are potentially elected to a body that oversees him, making the process far from free and fair.

In the last election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024, which had a historically low voter turnout of about 40%, the Guardian Council disqualified many candidates.

This was particularly the case with moderates and reformists, who tended to oppose the supreme leader on various issues. For this reason, the assembly has not been known to seriously supervise or challenge the supreme leader, and its proceedings have remained strictly confidential or closed to the public.

The 1989 succession

As Khomeini approached the end of his life in 1989, the constitution was amended so that a lower-ranking cleric like Khamenei could assume the position.

As a seminary student of Khomeini who was more interested in politics than religion, Khamenei ranked below an ayatollah. Within the Shiite clerical hierarchy, and like other Islamic scholars who studied under an ayatollah, he earned the title Hojjat al-Eslam, or “proof of Islam.” He possessed the foundational knowledge of Islam without the advanced and independent reasoning – ijtihad – required for an ayatollah.

After being appointed to succeed Khomeini, Khamenei’s rank was elevated overnight to a grand ayatollah. The reason for the appointment was that Khamenei was a longtime loyalist and regime insider, even though he lacked the charismatic and religious authority of Khomeini.

Until 1989, Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri – a prominent theologian and revolutionary leader – was expected to take over as the supreme leader. That year, however, he was ultimately passed over by Khomeini and detained by the Revolutionary Guard.

Montazeri succumbed to this fate because he had questioned Khamenei’s qualifications as supreme leader and condemned the regime for its repression, especially the execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 by a committee of four prosecutors. After continuing to criticize Khamenei in 1997, Montazeri was placed under house arrest under the pretext of protecting him from hard-liners. In 2003 he was released by the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who had received pressure from parliamentarians to do so.

The situation with succession today

For years, rumors circulated that Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the recently slain supreme leader, could be named the next one. However, such a scenario seemed unlikely during the lifetime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who openly opposed it.

He did so to avoid antagonizing parts of the political and religious establishment that categorically reject hereditary or dynastic succession. After all, the concept is considered antithetical or anathema to the Iranian Revolution, which deposed the monarchy led by the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1979.

From a political perspective, Mojtaba has never held public office. By contrast, his father served as Iran’s third president between 1981 and 1989.

Religiously speaking, Mojtaba – like his father before he became the supreme leader – is only a midranking cleric, though he teaches theology at the renowned Qom Seminary. As with his father, and for political purposes, the Assembly of Experts would have to elevate Mojtaba’s status to a grand ayatollah, even without the requisite religious credentials.

It is worth mentioning that Mojtaba is being considered for supreme leader alongside some seniors clerics whose credentials come closer to that of a grand ayatollah. Alireza Arafi, whose name has also come up as a potential successor, attained the rank of an ayatollah, or mujtahid, after publishing over 20 books and articles on Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy.

That said, in 2022 his religious qualifications were called into question. That year he joined the Assembly of Experts without taking the required written exam administered by the Guardian Council, even though he had been a member of it since 2019. Instead, he was appointed to the assembly by Khamenei through a legal loophole and without being elected. This incident indicated that Arafi was favored by Khamenei and may have an advantage as a candidate for supreme leader.

Another candidate, Ayatollah Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, is an Islamic philosopher and theoretician. In this capacity, he serves as the head of the Qom Academy of Islamic Sciences and has been a member of the Assembly of Experts since 2016.

Yet another contender is Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri. He was educated in the Qom Seminary and became the Friday prayer leader of the city. Alongside Arafi, Bushehri serves as a deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts.
As the current conflict continues, and even with the Interim Leadership Council in place, the Assembly of Experts is under immense pressure to rapidly rule on succession to preserve the system.

Mojtaba Khamenei’s election, as I see it, would continue the trend of prioritizing political preferences over religious principles that started in 1989.

This piece includes material from an earlier one published on May 23, 2024.

Eric Lob is affiliated with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

– ref. How does Iran go about selecting a new supreme leader? And who is in the running? – https://theconversation.com/how-does-iran-go-about-selecting-a-new-supreme-leader-and-who-is-in-the-running-277249

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Michael Christopher Low, Associate Professor of History; Director, Middle East Center, University of Utah

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and neighboring countries in the Persian Gulf region use the fossil fuels under their desert lands not only to make money, but also to make drinking water. The petroleum they produce powers more than 400 desalination plants, which turn seawater into drinkable water.

In the war that began on Feb. 28, 2026, with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, retaliatory attacks from Iranian forces have hit oil refineries and natural gas plants and disrupted tourism and aviation. Those attacks all hurt Gulf nations’ economies and their hard-won reputations for safety and stability.

But Iranian strikes have also already hit close to a key desalination plant in Dubai. Iranian strikes on March 2 on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port hit about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away from a massive complex with 43 desalination units that are key to the city’s production of more than 160 billion gallons of water each year.

And there has already been damage to the UAE’s Fujairah F1 power and water plant and at Kuwait’s Doha West plant. In both cases, the damage seems to have stemmed from attacks on nearby ports or from falling debris from drone interceptions.

Saltwater kingdoms

The region’s monarchies are often described as petro-states, but they have also become what I call saltwater kingdoms, global superpowers in the production of human-made fresh water drawn from the sea. Desalination is part of the reason there are golf courses, fountains, water parks and even indoor ski slopes with manufactured snow.

All together, eight of the 10 largest desalination plants in the world are in the Arabian Peninsula. Israel’s two Sorek plants round out the list.

The countries of the Arabian Peninsula have about 60% of global water-desalination capacity. And plants close to Iran, around the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, produce more than 30% of the world’s desalinated water.

Roughly 100 million people in the Gulf region rely on desalination plants for their water. Without them, almost nobody would be able to live in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE – or much of Saudi Arabia, including its capital, Riyadh.

Sabotage of water supplies

CIA worries about attacks on Gulf region desalination plants date back to the 1980s. During Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, those worries became real.

After coalition forces began bombing Iraqi positions in January 1991, part of Iraqi troops’ response was to release millions of barrels of crude oil into the Persian Gulf. As the massive oil slick drifted south, U.S. and Saudi officials feared it was meant to sabotage desalination systems.

Workers installed protective booms to shield intake valves at major plants, especially the one that supplies much of Riyadh’s water. In Kuwait, Iraqi sabotage damaged or destroyed much of the country’s desalination capacity.

Kuwaiti authorities also turned to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to supply some 750 water tankers and 200 trucks to import an 18-ton emergency supply of bottled water. U.S.-supplied generators and mobile desalination units provided additional temporary relief, though the full recovery took years.

More recent threats

Fears of attacks on desalination plants resurfaced after Yemen’s Houthi movement launched drones and missiles at Saudi facilities at Al-Shuqaiq in 2019 and 2022 – though they did no lasting damage.

Iran’s weapons are far more numerous and sophisticated than the Houthis’, though, so if it attacked desalination plants, the damage could be significant.

There is an irony here: Iran’s capital city of Tehran has a water shortage crisis so serious that in 2025 the government reportedly considered relocating the drought-stricken capital to the coast. But Iran is less vulnerable to attacks on desalination, because its water supply relies instead on dams and wells.

Whatever else the war may be about, water could well become a major factor in the violence and leave lasting political scars. And if either side were to intentionally attack water sources or desalination plants, it would clearly be a human-rights violation.

Michael Christopher Low 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. Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war – https://theconversation.com/persian-gulf-desalination-plants-could-become-military-targets-in-regional-war-277597

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Beverly Kingston, Director and Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado Boulder

Northeast Park Hill, a Denver neighborhood, has a long history of violence. During Denver’s summer of violence in the early 1990s, it was considered ground zero for gang conflict.

From the late 1990s through 2014, violent crime in Northeast Park Hill declined from its peak in the early ’90s but remained persistently higher than city averages. In 2016, Northeast Park Hill recorded 1,086 youth arrests per 100,000 young people. The arrest rate for the combination of the other 76 Denver neighborhoods was 513.

With a population of approximately 9,600, 19% of families in the neighborhood lived below the federal poverty line, 39% of residents identified as Black, and 27% identified as Hispanic.

Yet, Northeast Park Hill is also a community defined by collective action. In 2013, residents started organizing in response to a series of violent events. They laid the foundation for an emerging movement committed to rebuilding community safety.

Building on these community strengths, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence partnered with local leaders to implement Communities That Care in 2016. The program is a science-based prevention process designed to help communities use data, evidence and collective action to reduce youth violence.

As a sociologist and director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, my work examines the root causes of youth violence. I study how community-led, data-driven prevention efforts can reduce risk and build supports that help young people stay safe and connected. Working alongside leaders and residents in Northeast Park Hill, I’ve seen firsthand what’s possible and what their remarkable success can teach all of us.

A welcome change

After just five years, the youth arrest rate in Northeast Park Hill fell to 276 per 100,000 – a 75% reduction.

This drop in youth arrests reflects a decades-long nationwide trend. Across the country as a whole, juvenile arrests peaked in 1996 and then began a steady decline.

But not all neighborhoods benefited equally. To measure the impact of local prevention work in Northeast Park Hill, we compared its arrest rate to a carefully constructed “look-alike” community made up of similar Denver neighborhoods that did not receive the intervention. We found Northeast Park Hill saw a sharper and earlier decline than its comparison community – pointing to an impact beyond national trends and tied to the local interventions.

Impacts of youth violence

Youth violence is a major cause of harm.

This is especially true for urban communities that have endured decades of chronic disinvestment. That includes neglected infrastructure, deteriorating housing and long-standing environmental and health inequities. Such environments often lack the opportunities, resources and support that are essential for healthy youth development.

Young people in these neighborhoods are more likely to face increased exposure to violence and daily challenges associated with navigating violent communities, such as witnessing shootings near their homes and schools. They also face ongoing experiences of marginalization and discrimination. Many young people move through daily life in a constant state of vigilance. Some youth withdraw, carry weapons for protection or turn to substances to cope with chronic anxiety.

Building a prevention infrastructure

As part of Communities That Care, the community formed a prevention coalition of approximately 25 members, known as Park Hill Strong, to guide the work.

Three Black leaders, Troy Grimes, Jonathan McMillan and Dane Washington Sr., who grew up in the neighborhood and experienced the violence of the 1990s firsthand, chaired the coalition.

Following the Communities That Care model, they began by creating a community profile. They used local data, including youth and parent surveys, and neighborhood indicators, such as access to safe parks, after-school programs and healthy foods. The data helped the coalition identify the biggest sources of risk and what protective supports were available in the community.

That data pointed to several factors that increase the likelihood of youth violence. Many youth felt disconnected from their community and had limited supervision or inconsistent support at home. The data also highlighted early and persistent problem behaviors among youth, including aggression and defiance, which can place young people on a pathway toward later violence.

The data also revealed protective supports to build on. It showed that opportunities for young people to participate in positive activities were limited. Community recognition of youths’ healthy and constructive contributions was also low — highlighting important areas for improvement.

Once the profile was complete, the coalition developed a community action plan describing the community prevention strategies the coalition would use to address their prioritized risk and protective factors.

Community-level prevention strategies

The coalition selected three community-level prevention strategies.

First, a youth-led media campaign called the Power of One (PO1) addressed the risk factor of low neighborhood attachment. The campaign challenged the idea that young people themselves are the cause of violence, instead highlighting how decades of redlining, concentrated poverty and limited access to quality schools and jobs have shaped the conditions they are navigating. The campaign also highlighted positive stories about young people and their communities. The Power of One has reached more than 3,000 youth and adults through social media and hosted six community block parties.

Second, the coalition selected Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, known as PATHS. This evidence-based program aims to reduce early and persistent problem behaviors. It was implemented in all three of the elementary schools in Northeast Park Hill. PATHS helps students learn social and emotional skills, including managing strong emotions by recognizing when they are feeling angry and using calming strategies before reacting. Strengthening these competencies is associated with lower rates of aggression.

Third, pediatric health care providers identified youth at risk for carrying out future serious violence through the violence, injury protection and risk screening tool. Youth identified as high or medium risk after completing a 14-item screening tool that assesses violence and victimization history and other risk factors are referred to appropriate services. A total of 222 youth ages 10 to 14 were screened between 2016 and 2021.

Funding is in jeopardy

For more than two decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has funded the National Academic Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention, which includes programs like ours. But recent CDC funding cuts threaten the continuation of this work.

Since 2000, these efforts have contributed to reductions in violence in communities across the nation, including Chicago; Denver; Flint, Michigan; Richmond, Virginia; and Youngstown, Ohio.

In Flint, community groups mowed and removed trash from vacant lots between 2009 and 2013. The surrounding areas saw 40% fewer assaults and violent crimes between the months of May and September compared to areas surrounding unmaintained lots.

Likewise, in Youngstown, during the summer months from 2016 to 2018, violent crime fell at twice the rate on streets surrounding vacant lots transformed into gardens and play spaces by community residents than on streets where professional mowers did the greening.

Funding for programs like these is critical for neighborhoods where resources are already scarce and the burden of violence has been concentrated for generations. Without continued investment, communities risk losing hard-won gains and the capacity to create safe and supportive environments for young people.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Beverly Kingston receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Centers of Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention under Cooperative Agreement Number, 5 U01 CE002757. The findings and conclusions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

– ref. How Denver’s Northeast Park Hill community reduced youth violence by 75% – https://theconversation.com/how-denvers-northeast-park-hill-community-reduced-youth-violence-by-75-265943