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BY SEBASTIAN JOHNSON This piece is cross-posted from Pangyrus, Boston’s new journal of literature, perspective, arts, and politics. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude – except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted – shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. –13th Amendment to the […]

A lot of things have evolved since the 2011 elections when Nigerian youth celebrated social media as a tool for successful elections. Technology has continued to foster government accountability, as well as active citizen participation in the country. During the 2015 elections, young Nigerians, who make up 70 percent of the country’s 177 million population, […]

Harvard Africa Policy Journal (APJ): Hi Lekan. Thank you very much for your availability for this interview. You are the CEO of Lekoil, a young Nigerian international oil exploration and production company. Where does the company have its offices? Lekan Akinyanmi (L.A.): Hi William. My pleasure! Thanks for inviting me! So, Lagos is the head […]

By Denise Linn and Alison Flint, Co-chairs of Tech4Change The importance of technology in government has been vividly displayed in recent public policy debates over everything from cyber security and net neutrality to the failed Obamacare website launch. As a leading public policy school, Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) seeks to prepare future public sector leaders […]

Abstract The school to prison pipeline refers to the practice of pushing students out of educational institutions, primarily via zero tolerance and harsh disciplinary policies, and into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems. The pipeline has emerged in part as a response to the media panic over youth violence and the need to keep […]

BY MIA MITCHELL Today, four billion people, or two-thirds of the planet, are offline, but that is rapidly changing. Momentum is building among private, public, and non-profit actors to expand Internet access globally. From Facebook’s Internet.org to the Alliance for Affordable Internet to Oluvus, numerous projects have launched in recent years with the shared goal […]

The Citizen Report  The Economic Prosperity for Peace Conference, a first-of-its kind student conference at Harvard Business School, was organized on April 26th. The Conference was aimed at exploring the role the private sector in bridging divides between Arabs and Israelis and laying the foundation for a sustainable and prosperous peace in the Middle East. […]

During a visit with service members in Afghanistan earlier this year, newly installed Secretary of Defense Aston Carter announced he is “very open-minded” about allowing transgender people to serve in the U.S. military. Carter’s speech suggests the military is open to reconsidering its discriminatory ban on transgender military personnel. But we cannot afford to wait. […]

“I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you.” — Gloria Anzaldúa Photo by Mary Glen Fredrick 8/12/2014 Every time someone at school asks me about my city and its “chaos,” I ask them about their line of thinking: “What’s so chaotic about […]

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 […]