Kennedy School Review

In approximately 500 B.C., The Greek city of Sybaris encouraged inventors to register their creations with a grant of monopoly for one year. Thus began human civilization’s practice of patenting, a system that is now synonymous with free markets. Now as the world waits with bated breath for a pharmaceutical lab to develop a vaccine […]

In 2008, freshman Senator Barack Obama defied the odds to win the Democratic nomination for president against former first lady and two-term Senator Hillary Clinton. When the time came for Obama to select his vice presidential candidate, it was speculated he would choose Clinton. Choosing a former competitor who came runner up in the primary […]

COVID-19 exposes injustice in the workforce. Frances Perkins offers a model to fix it. We are only beginning to understand the economic repercussions of COVID-19. In less than two months, more than 30 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits, eliminating all of the jobs gained since the 2007-2009 Great Recession. The pandemic has brought unprecedented […]

A hand-written sign on the front door of Bell’s Market, a small South Boston grocer, asks patrons to cover their mouth and nose while shopping. But the store’s owner, my father, says they have had trouble with compliance. “Ninety percent of the people are great, but five to ten percent give us a hard time. […]

On March 15, 2020, the Peace Corps announced the global suspension of all programs and the evacuation of all Volunteers – for the first time since John F. Kennedy founded the organization in 1961, no Peace Corps Volunteers are currently serving abroad. The Peace Corps reassuringly stated, “We are not closing posts, and we will […]

Two miles across the water from Miami’s glamorous beaches and luxury apartments lies what is perhaps the city’s most important but underappreciated waterfront property – the Central District Wastewater Treatment Plant. Donning hardhats and reflective vests, a team of Harvard Kennedy School environmental policy fellows toured this lesser-known side of Miami. The facility is operated […]

American democracy is increasingly more like a Homeowners Association (HOA) than the participatory and empowering system to which we should aspire. Property owners control decision making over the community by virtue of their wealth, excluding those unable to access property and pushing aside those with insufficient resources to participate. What’s more, the whims of long-passed […]

Since the attempted coup on 15 July 2016, Turkish state authorities have engaged in what they characterize as a counterterrorism campaign against the political enemy they blame for the attacks: the expatriate cleric and government critic Fethullah Gülen, as well as hundreds of his followers who fled the country. The Turkish government still maintains that […]

Students with disabilities were already on unequal footing before COVID-19. Now, the pandemic is putting their civil rights at risk. The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill grants Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the authority to ask Congress to waive key protections for special education students afforded by the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA), the federal education […]

As countries across the world struggle to contain and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Iran’s battle with the virus has been compounded by the lack of access to adequate medical supplies imposed by the U.S. government’s crippling sanctions on the country. Iran is amongst the countries most impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19. As of […]

Renowned sociologist Dana R. Fisher studies political movements for a living. She has analyzed and surveyed protesters in every major modern U.S. movement, including the 2017 Women’s March, and the 2017 March for Science. In her latest book, American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave, Dr. Fisher explores the 2016 election cycle […]

While international students are chasing their dreams at colleges across the nation, visa requirements are forcing their spouses to put theirs on hold. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday. At a bustling café in Cambridge, a group is sipping coffee, sharing cakes – and discussing strategies to stay busy. They’re not retirees (their […]