America’s school systems are broken. With George Floyd protests proliferating across the country, Americans are now reflecting upon the many deeply-flawed institutions including criminal justice courts, housing policies, and now schooling. Recent reports indicate that the alarming prominence of “intensely segregated schools” where whites are less than 10% of the student body population has tripled in the last 20 years. Now, nearly 42% of Latinos and 40% of African Americans attend minority-majority schools which severely lack in quality, funding, and equal treatment. While Brown v. Board of Ed was a landmark case passed 66 years ago in favor of racial equality in schooling districts, these sentiments have unfortunately not been reflected in the United States.

For instance, New York City’s school district, home to an extremely racially-divided education system, has been called on to revamp its admissions process. Elite high schools in New York including Stuyvesant and Manhattan Beacon employ a standardized-test based admission process, allowing wealthy students to hire private tutors while poorer students are left behind. For this reason, these elite schools have incredibly low racial diversity rates:  in Stuyvesant, only 4% of its student population is Hispanic, Latino, or African American. However, to better understand how the public school system has failed racial minorities, we must first understand the historical context of America’s unequal school systems. 

 To begin, Brown v. The Board of Ed. was simply not followed through by states. During the 1950s and 1960s, nearly 1,000 school districts remained as segregated as before the ruling. This was because a plethora of southern states clashed with lower and federal courts, bringing in any method of slowing down the process of desegregation. As such, a desire for a truly ambitious education reform failed. Moreover, in the years following World War 2, the 1950s saw a period of immense rapid population and housing shortage, prompting the emergence of suburbs around large cities. Under this new development, “white flight” occurred where wealthy white families moved to predominantly white-majority suburban towns, creating racial-minority areas in poor cities and separating high-echelon neighborhoods. 

As a result, white-majority neighborhoods grew more prosperous while living standards in urban areas declined due to a depleted tax base. Even though school segregation was banned in 1954, because of the vast separations in areas, busing projects to bring low-income students into higher-quality schools were scrapped altogether. In the worst case, Boston’s Busing project in the 1970s erupted in violence, as white residents harassed racial minorities through insults and threats.  Moreover, during the 1980s, the rollback of legal mandates allowed white families to “splinter” from existing districts, separating their school funding and population from the poorer district. Thus, school segregation existed very much in spirit. These impacts are manifest in two important outcomes in schooling districts across the United States: lack of funding for poor districts and consistent separation. 

Education spending across the country is widely inconsistent among school districts. States like New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts with fewer lower-income students of color spend twice as much on their students compared with states like Mississippi with a larger population of low-income students. Unfortunately, these fewer dollars means that school districts with less resources provide less services such as more personalized teaching, important field trips, and resources like computers (all essential to the learning process). On the other hand, poorer districts suffer from significantly lower standardized test scores because they are unable to acquire textbooks or test-prep books for teaching materials. 

As stated before, the sources behind fewer resources originate from the highly-concentrated areas of poverty areas that some minority students grew up in. Because of the massive white-flight movement in the 1950s, racial-minority families in mostly urban areas were stuck in the cities, where property values sunk and schools saw decreases in funding. Thus, local governments were less able to collect property taxes, the main mechanism for funding schools. For this reason, school quality began dropping off, creating a vicious cycle that pushed more wealthy areas away from these neighborhoods due to poor education. These effects are already well documented: a report by the US Department of Education found that the 20% reduction of pupil-spending in districts is correlated with a whopping 25% reduction in future income gains. 

Even if richer families reside near minority-majority school districts, they often do not attend these schools. In a study revolving around the National Educational Longitudinal Survey during the 1980s, Dr. Robert Farlie and Alexandra Resch from MIT discovered an alarming fact: white families simply reverted to nearby private schools instead, cementing the prevalent segregated school district problem. This becomes extremely problematic, as not only does school integration receive less political backing, but interacting with people from all different backgrounds is crucial for raising an open-minded society. By establishing an integrated school district with all races, studies show that these places help white students “overcome prejudice”, while Black and Latino's students receive higher test scores. In some instances, the achievement gap was cut in half in math and one-third in English. 

The solution for America’s deeply-divided public schools is tricky, but still possible. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, there are no “neighborhood schools”. Instead, all residents choose their top school choices and district administrators select a match based on socioeconomic factors and preference to ensure an integrated school experience. In New York City, the city council has attempted to push school districts towards integration through offering grants, where schools that develop an integration model are rewarded with extra funding. Luckily, last year, Brooklyn started to craft an admissions process that no longer requires standardized tests. However, without addressing the root of the problem, segregation will still exist in housing. 

Overall, because school segregation is entirely based on neighborhood demographics and median income levels, the United States will remain divided unless a major shift occurs soon. As long as Americans are determined to draw lines around each other, whether physical or social, racial progress will be stymied by the lack of educational and economic opportunities that racial minorities face. Learning to live together amidst ethnic and economic tensions may seem impossible right now, but it is the only way Americans can learn to set aside their differences. Through dismantling school and neighborhood segregation, the United States would be one step closer to fulfilling the wish from Brown v. Board of Ed 60 years ago.

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On September 16th, 2015, Martin Shrekli, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur known as “ Pharma Bro” and infamous for his online feud with the Wu-Tang Clan, acquired the living-saving drug Daraprim which had initially cost $13 per pill. The very next day, he jacked up the price up to $750 – a price hike of over 5000%. Soon Shrekli became the most hated face in America, an embodiment of the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. Unfortunately, Shrekli’s actions are not a rare occurrence. Rather, they follow an alarming trend of rising healthcare prices which are leaving thousands either at the brink of death or nearing poverty to pay for their exorbitant medical costs. In fact, near the beginning of 2020, average price hikes on prescription drugs rose by over 10% across the board. To address this impending issue, Speaker Nancy Pelosi proposed HR3 or the “Lower Drugs Costs Now Act” in September 2019, which implemented sweeping reforms across the healthcare system. HR3 contained two major components: first, it would drastically decrease all drug prices for anyone covered by private insurance and second, it would reinvest the savings into new breakthrough treatments. All in all, HR3 has become a controversial bill supported by the majority of Democrats but despised by many Republicans. 

Congress’s debate over drug pricing mainly centers around the trade-off between accessibility and innovation. Many Republicans claim that only the small pharmaceutical companies would suffer under these barring regulations, which can drastically reduce America’s drug innovation output. A report from the Congressional Research Service finds that US companies could lose over $358 billion dollars in profits annually, resulting in significant cuts to research and development budgets and decreasing the new innovative drug output from small companies by 88%. This could be catastrophic for the pharmaceutical industry; as CNBC writer Lori Ioannou explains that because startups need a way to appease new investors to fund their projects, they often produce the most innovative and risky drugs in the market, accounting for 63% of new drug approvals in 2018. With a drastic reduction in the profitability of the pharmaceutical industry, venture capital investment and seed funding into startups could suffer, preventing many companies from creating innovative drugs in the first place. This political discourse over drug pricing is especially vital, as the importance of pharmaceutical innovation cannot be understated. Republicans such as Mitch McConnell argue that promoting innovation helps consumers in the long term, as general improvements on existing drugs could lower drug prices along with generics development. Moreover, innovation in the United States not only benefits Americans but also the dozens of other countries that are able to buy these essential medicines at often discounted prices. The National Bureau of Economic Research finds that US pharmaceutical innovation accounted for an incredible 73% increase in life expectancy in developing countries. In conclusion, while critics demonize the Republicans for supporting the “greedy” drug corporations, many downplay how drug innovation impacts both the developing and developed world. 

However, many Democrats argue that HR3 would save the thousands of suffering and desperate Americans who are unable to take their medicine and could jumpstart innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. A Center for American Progress reports finds that the bill could give the government authority to negotiate down the prices of over 250 pharmaceutical drugs each year. This would be incredibly important for many consumers, as American drug prices are four times higher compared to other countries, causing one-fourth of all Americans to commonly skip out on their medication. Nicole Rapfoegel, a writer from the Center for American Progress, finds that “reform is desperately needed. Today, pharmaceutical companies set excessive prices that they increase over time in order to maximize profits.” A report in the New York Times on April 17th of 2017 which studies comprehensive data from all 50 states from 2012 to 2017 finds that nonadherence results in over 125,000 deaths in America annually. Additionally, while some critics/Republicans forewarn that drug price caps could stifle innovation, House Democrats argue that implementing HR3 could actually benefit innovation. A Statnews report finds that big pharmaceutical companies use the majority of their profits to invest in killer acquisitions to buy out small pharmaceutical startups rather than investing in their own research and development budgets. In fact, over 81% of drugs from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer actually originate from third-party developers bought out. Thus, reducing drug profits would not affect Big Pharma’s already small budget on innovation. With mortality rates rising from America’s broken medicine industry, the implementation of this policy could mean the literal life or death for thousands of Americans annually. 

Regardless of the current fierce debate over HR3, the bill is unlikely to be passed in its current form. Paul Hastings, CEO of Nkarta Therapeutics, explains that the House had “another near party-line vote in the Chamber” with Democrats voting for it and Republicans voting against it. Because the Republicans control the Senate, many analysts predict that the bill will easily be thrown out. Instead, politicians will likely make bipartisan compromises to ensure that some reforms are made in America’s dying healthcare industry. For instance, Erik Watson from Bloomberg argues that the most likely result would be to keep reforms on capping out-of-spending costs for Medicare beneficiaries in HR3, as it benefits the gray vote or America’s elderly voter population, an essential constituency both Republicans and Democrats must win. Other bipartisan agreements under Pelosi’s HR3 bill could include the measures to promote price transparency among American consumers and possible antitrust policies that restrict killer acquisitions to increase competition among existing pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. The result could benefit a large portion of America’s elderly population who see reductions in their medical expenses. Furthermore, improving price transparency and competition could still lower drug prices, but to a lesser degree, ensuring that some of the thousands of Americans can afford another night of medicine. All in all, Congress’s compromise bill over drug pricing will most likely implement some minor common-sense reforms which could further progress in increasing accessibility while still allowing companies the budget to pursue productive innovation. Unfortunately, with the 2020 presidential elections coming up, many Democrats are choosing to forego negotiations because they believe that bipartisan bill could potentially give Trump a political boost. Thus, it is likely that Congress’s fierce debate over drug pricing policy will be delayed until 2021. 

Sources:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/martin-shkreli-who-raised-drug-prices-5-000-percent-heads-into-fraud-trial/
https://www.newsweek.com/us-drug-prices-rise-2020-companies-prepare-charge-more-ibrance-xeljanz-200-others-1479939
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/well/the-cost-of-not-taking-your-medicine.html
https://www.statnews.com/2019/12/09/hr3-wrong-path-lower-drug-costs/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/26/pharma-industry-ups-donations-senate-republicans-mcconnell/2116231001/
https://itif.org/publications/2017/05/30/fact-week-pharmaceutical-innovation-accounted-73-percent-increase-life
https://www.greenwichtime.com/business/article/Congress-seeks-drug-pricing-deal-in-spite-of-2020-14956252.php

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With Presidential Nominee Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to win her primary elections and almost attaining the presidency, and with President Donald Trump becoming the first real-estate-baron-turned-reality-television-star-turned-orange to win the presidency, the Presidential Election of 2016 was an event of both groundbreaking progress and curious intrigue. For instance, the use of social media by politicians to directly connect to the millions of political constituencies under the swipe of a keyboard skyrocketed, championed by Donald Trump in his persistent nocturnal toilet tweeting sessions. However, under the surface of technological progress holds a darker sinister secret revolving around foreign intervention and its threat to democracy.

Russia’s disinformation operations on social media have become infamous for their intervention to sway the results of the election in favor of Trump. For example, Russian agencies swarmed Twitter with Twitterbots which promote false information about Hillary Clinton, inaccurate polling results favoring Trump, and even cropped images depicting pro-Trump rallies internationally. However, lesser-known is Russia’s attempts to exploit racial tensions in order to demoralize and divide African Americans, discouraging them from voting; over two-thirds of Russian fake ads during the 2016 campaign season targeted Black Americans with the intention to lower turnout. In a country rife with racial discrimination and a history of suppressing the black vote, Russia is now only another group to disentangle African Americans from the political process. More specifically, reports indicate that Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) on social media has depicted false movements such as “Black Matters US” or “Don’t Shoot” where 96% of all Youtube activity focuses on police brutality on black victims in left-leaning areas. In 2016, the unfortunate police shooting of African-American, Keith Lamont Scott, gave rise to numerous protests for ending police brutality across Charlotte, North Carolina. However, Russian internet trolls attempted to manipulate the mood over these protests through its focus on instigating hate and violence over rightful anger. By injecting negativity of lies among social media and by pressuring African-Americans through antagonism, Russia’s spread of misinformation detrimentally dissuaded real political actions in favor of more violent and hateful alternatives. 

Through their numerous means to divide Americans, all Russian ads have one common message: to skip out on Voting Day. Unfortunately, in 2016, Russia’s strategy worked. The voter turnout for black Americans was 7% lower in swing states in 2016, and a study by the University of Tennessee quantifiably found that every 25,000 retweets connected to Russia’s Internet Research Agency correlated to a 1% increase in Trump polling results. With significant efforts by Russia to destroy the legitimacy of American elections, has the United States shown equal efforts to protect American elections from the foreign intervention? The answer is more nuanced than it seems. 

America’s own cybersecurity and election infrastructure are still incredibly vulnerable to malicious manipulation from foreign and domestic threats after 2016. In Georgia’s sixth congressional district’s election in 2017, leading Democrat Jon Ossoff had 50.3% of votes, enough for him to win the vote, but soon after a computer crash saw his vote share drop to 48.1% which allowed the Republicans to win the district. While initially blamed as a technical error that miscounted the number of Democratic votes, many were looking towards Russia as the culprit behind this cyber attack. However, Georgia is not the only state with a vulnerable election infrastructure today. Alex Halderman, a leading cybersecurity expert at the University of Michigan explains that “Many states are making progress, but the progress is patchy and there are major gaps … Forty states are using computer technology that is a decade old or more and often they are not receiving software updates or security patches”. Critically, with consistent cyber tampering looming over America’s elections and with Republican states passing stricter voter ID laws which disproportionately affect minority voters, more and more African Americans are choosing to remain home on election day. However, even if the states completely renovated their online infrastructure with state-of-the-art technology, many would still face issues. The ISC(2) reports that North America will face a cybersecurity shortage of over 800,000 professionals in the field. With over 51% of cybersecurity professionals citing that their organization is at extreme or moderate risk due to staff shortages, the United States is completely unprepared to defend its minority population from the delegitimization of American elections. 

Instead in 2018, rather than “defending” America, the United States has adopted an “offensive” position actively hacking Russia’s agencies before they hack America first. Under the newly-adopted US Cyber Command which gained new powers in 2018, the federal government is currently targeting individual Russian operatives to deter them from spreading false information in the next election cycle. Dubbed “Defending Forward”, the US Cyber Command pursues an offensive strategy of disrupting, denying, and shutting down enemy networks as a measure of preventing the hacking election. For example, in the 2018 Midterms, US Cyber Command successfully took out the online capabilities of Russian Troll Farm, the Internet Research Agency, thus severing their abilities to spread online propaganda without the need for the United States to defend their networks. Additionally, the United States also took out numerous agencies funding the IRA and indicted over 13 individuals connected to the IRA who face prosecution in the United States. Senator Mike Rounds corroborates “the fact that the 2018 election process moved forward without successful Russian intervention was not a coincidence.” While taking the operations of the IRA offline may seem temporary, America’s strong cyber capabilities can act as a deterrence factor that discourages other countries from hacking into US elections. 
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Overall, America’s decision to ignore cybersecurity and instead focus on offensive cyber operations against Russia will play an important role in the upcoming 2020 elections. With the legitimization of America’s elections and the voter turnout of minorities at stake, the success of Russia’s hacking could very much shake the foundation of American democracy. 

Sources:
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2019/1206/After-Russian-trolls-target-black-Americans-one-city-fights-back
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/06/us/russia-disinformation-black-activists.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-study-shows-russian-propaganda-may-really-have-helped-trump-n1025306
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/13/us-election-cybersecurity-hacking-voting
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/cybersecurity-skills-shortage-tops/
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/23/us/politics/russian-hacking-usa-cyber-command.html
https://outline.com/YZ4UZ7