The Columbine Blueprint
As the first school shooting to become a nationwide media spectacle, Columbine shaped a generation of mass-consumed tragedies.
Education
High School Was Different Before Columbine
The year 1999 is, for many, a bright line dividing two divergent teen experiences.
The Disciplines Where No Black People Earn Ph.D.s
In more than a dozen academic fields—largely STEM related—not a single black student earned a doctoral degree in 2017.
The First Reparations Attempt at an American College Comes From Its Students
Georgetown’s students voted to tax themselves to pay descendants of enslaved people, instead of waiting for the school to do something.
Why Are So Many Teen Athletes Struggling With Depression?
When high-school sports replicate the training methods and intensity seen at the college level, players feel the toll.
When Medical Schools Become Less Diverse
Texas Tech recently announced it will no longer take race into account in admissions to its medical school—a move that might affect not only aspiring doctors, but many of their would-be patients as well.
The Children of the Children of Columbine
Twenty years after the shooting at Columbine High School, some survivors—now parents themselves—are figuring out how to talk to their kids about lockdown drills.
The Utter Inadequacy of America’s Efforts to Desegregate Schools
In 1966, a group of Boston-area parents and administrators created a busing program called METCO to help desegregate schools. They thought of it as a quick fix to a passing problem. But the problem hasn’t passed, and METCO isn’t enough to fix it.
College-Admissions Hysteria Is Not the Norm
A focus on highly selective schools obscures the experience of the vast majority of American undergraduates.
The Death of an Adjunct
Thea Hunter was a promising, brilliant scholar. And then she got trapped in academia’s permanent underclass.