Authored by: Matt Wathen, staff editor The debate over the federal government’s minimum wage has seen an increase in intensity over the past few months. The debate came to the forefront when the Biden administration included a $15-an-hour minimum wage increase in the $1.9 trillion Covid relief plan.[1] While the proposal made it through the House of Representatives, it did not meet the Senate’s guidelines for … Continue reading The Fight Over $15: The Debate on Increasing the Minimum Wage

Pharmaceutical Pollutants in the Public Water Supply and Why the Clean Water Act Needs to be Updated Authored by: Haley Walter, staff editor                 The Federal Water Pollution Control Act was passed in 1948, and then reorganized and expanded in 1972 to be the legislation we know today as the Clean Water Act (CWA).[1] The Clean Water Act was later amended to include … Continue reading Pharmaceutical Pollutants in the Public Water Supply and Why the Clean Water Act Needs to be Updated

Authored by: Toviya Nabugero, staff editor   Image courtesy of Equal Justice Initiative. https://eji.org/news/covid-19s-impact-on-people-in-prison/.     It has been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic began. We have experienced overwhelming loss as a country, with our most vulnerable communities disproportionately affected. Some of those communities being individuals in immigration detention centers and individuals in jails and prisons. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities … Continue reading COVID-19 Behind Bars

Is the Government Protecting your Fifth Amendment Rights? Authored by: Kayla DeAlto, staff editor   Over the years Congress has expanded the government’s authority to take possession of criminal’s assets so that criminals do not benefit from their illegal proceeds. There are two forms of forfeiture, which the government uses to take the assets, they are criminal and civil forfeiture.[1] Criminal forfeiture which allows for … Continue reading Is the Government Protecting your Fifth Amendment Rights?

Heirs Property: What is it and how do we fix it? Authored by: Natalie King, staff editor “Heirs property” is noted as “one of the worst problem[s] you [have] never heard of.”[1]  Lately it has been given significant attention from the Black Lives Matter movement.[2] Specifically, the term is used to describe when heirs lack title to property that has been passed down from generation … Continue reading Heirs Property: What is it and how do we fix it?

by  Madeline Culbreth, Staff Editor President Biden has announced that he will be raising the annual cap on the number of refugees the United States will take in to as many as 125,000.[1] This is a stark turnaround from the Trump administration, which cut the annual cap to 15,000[2]. However, while President Biden’s plan would accept more than eight times the number of refugees accepted … Continue reading Looking to History as Inspiration for Evolving Refugee Resettlement Policies

Virginia bill repeals HIV criminalization laws due to disparate enforcement and adverse impact   Authored by: Gordon Willis, staff editor Last month, Senators Mamie Lock and Jennifer McClellan introduced Senate Bill 1138 to repeal the crime of infected sexual battery for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and to remove a ban on HIV-positive organ and blood donors.[1] Washington D.C. and 11 other states … Continue reading Virginia bill repeals HIV criminalization laws due to disparate enforcement and adverse impact

Wage Theft: to Help Struggling Americans, We Must End the Heist Authored By: Greg Mills, staff editor The largest form of theft in the United States is never featured in television crime shows, the thieves are almost never arrested, and it’s likely you or someone you know has been a victim without even realizing it. This is the problem of wage theft, which costs the … Continue reading Wage Theft: to Help Struggling Americans, We Must End the Heist