Thirteen days ago, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics offered a visiting fellowship to Chelsea Manning. Two days later, Doug Elmendorf, Dean of the Kennedy School, rightfully withdrew the fellowship. But the invitation should never have been extended in the first place. In 2013, Manning was convicted of espionage for leaking 750,000 sensitive military […]

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement that President Trump has decided to rescind DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, came as a shock to some and is disappointing to us. Although DACA recipients come from places as wide-ranging as Jamaica and the Philippines, the vast majority of them are from Latinx communities. (Latinx is […]

Agile, iterative, pilot, scrum—these phrases may be common in the world of software development, but one would hardly expect to hear them tossed around the austere marble corridors of state government.  Yet they are common parlance in the Massachusetts Governor’s Office, where a nimble squad of problem-solvers is using every cutting-edge tool in the toolbox […]

BY LAURA WHITE Workforce development had been a frequent news topic in the months preceding my summer at the Governor’s Office in Pennsylvania—from announcements about an executive order on apprenticeships, to predictions about the automation of large swaths of the workforce. Yet I rarely saw in the media the one place where I would find […]

Paul LePage (R-ME) is America’s most conservative governor, and a reliable headline. For ten weeks this summer, he was also my boss. After years of talking the bipartisan talk, I was ready to walk the bipartisan walk as Maine’s inaugural Dukakis Fellow. Beyond building a résumé that joins Michael Dukakis (D-MA) and Paul LePage in […]

BY MAGGIE SALINGER The morning seemed like any other in the Rhode Island State House until my team received a chilling email. It was a note from a local father, whom I’ll call John, still reeling from the loss of his son. Days before his son died of an opioid overdose, John had dragged him […]

BY JAMES PAGANO To kick off the Kennedy School Review’s special series In the Statehouse, Governor Dukakis spoke with me about what drew him to politics, how racial attitudes in Massachusetts have changed over time, his own advice for policy students interested in state government, and his aspirations for a more united Democratic Party. Michael […]

BY ANGELICA QUICKSEY   “Explore. Experiment. Evaluate. Be delightful!” These words, beside a dry-erase drawing of a double-sided funnel, are scrawled across one of many whiteboard-coated walls in an office full of sticky notes, markers, and a quiet buzz of activity. The office sits on the fifth floor of Boston city hall and hosts a […]

BY MADISON CHAPMAN After a tumultuous August in Washington, one thing is certain: the Trump Administration will amend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). President Trump met with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto at the July 7th G20 Summit, where each expressed a desire to conclude any NAFTA discussion by year-end. According to a […]

BY ANIKA MANZOOR The international development sector, like many other sectors under the Trump Administration, is undergoing some deep soul-searching as US foreign aid faces significant cuts. From a former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees official calling the humanitarian system “broken” to our newly-appointed USAID Administrator’s blatant aversion to handouts, development practitioners in the […]

On July 26, 2017, President Trump took to Twitter to proclaim that transgender individuals are prohibited from serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. The directive caused a flurry of activity at the Pentagon. LGBTQ news sources began reporting on Friday, August 4, that a guidance document was on its way to Secretary of Defense Mattis […]

By TOMÁS INSUA “I commend His Holiness [Pope Francis] and all faith leaders here, for raising awareness of the urgent need to promote sustainable development and address climate . . . Your influence is enormous. You speak to the heart of humanity’s deepest hopes and needs.” Ban Ki-moon, former UN secretary general, addressing an interfaith […]