Abstract The shooting and killing of Mike Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, drew national attention to issues of discrimination, police brutality, and the growing divide between communities and their local law enforcement agencies. Compounding this with the grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer responsible, the need for police reform became […]

Abstract Early on New Year’s Day in 2009, a police officer investigating a disturbance at the Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Station in Oakland, California, shot and killed Oscar Grant. The officer was White, and Grant was Black. At every stage of the process that followed, Bay Area residents responded with protests, some engaging […]

 Justin Simien, one of Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch, is the writer/director of the critically acclaimed film Dear White People, which won the Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent at Sundance 2014. In addition to producing and directing online companion pieces for The Help, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Middle of Nowhere campaigns, he has […]

Abstract This paper presents the findings of ArchCity Defenders’ study of municipal courts; documents challenges to that system following the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; and proposes next steps for comprehensive reform. The paper shows how the poor and communities of color are disproportionately stopped, fined, and jailed for nonviolent traffic stops in […]

Background Recent events that have taken place in Florida, Missouri, New York, and Texas all have one common theme: an unnecessary killing due to racial profiling. The history of law enforcement in America is deeply embedded with a presence of racial profiling, often used to maintain the status quo through practices that were biased against […]

The Protest I was thumbing through my Facebook timeline on my cell phone on a warm summer weekend afternoon when I first saw it. The picture of Mike Brown’s dead body, his blood on the concrete in a long red line. It made me sick to my stomach. My mind started playing the song “Strange […]

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), much like women’s health, is a point of frequent contention in Washington and the courts. On June 30, 2014, those two points converged when the Supreme Court, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, dealt a blow to an ACA provision specific to women’s health: the birth control benefit. i The ACA […]

On April 16, 2015, JMEPP Associate Editor Kristin Wagner interviewed Nabil Fahmy, Former Foreign Minister of Egypt and Dean and Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy (GAPP), American University Cairo. Watch the discussion of Egypt’s transitional process, public policy challenges, and foreign policy, including relations with Iran and intervention […]

On 5th July 2014, a group of three sisters got on a night train after visiting their family. They were scheduled to reach Bangkok the next morning. However, the oldest sister woke up to find that her 13-year-old sister had gone missing, her bed in disarray. The two sisters searched the whole train but came up empty-handed. After notifying the officers and their parents, search teams were set up along the train route and police began investigating those […]

Ghana Rising Among the emerging Africa narratives, Ghana has often been touted as something of a model: over a decade of consolidated democratic institutions, economic expansion, and poverty reduction. With economic growth of over 6% for the past seven years, buoyed by high commodity prices, Ghana appeared to have avoided many of the pitfalls in […]

On April 3, 2015, as he came to Cambridge (Massachusetts, United States) to honor an invitation by the Institute of Politics of Harvard Kennedy School of Government to give the opening keynote address of the 6th annual African Development Conference at Harvard University, His Excellency Mr. Issoufou Mahamadou, President of the Republic of Niger, kindly […]

By Malik Siraj Akbar, MC-MPA’ 15, Web Editor For the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) students graduating this May who still can’t believe that it is the time to say good bye to this wonderful school, Friday will come with another earnest reminder about the end of this academic year as the School will be hosting […]