News & Commentary

What do Pennsylvania high school student Blake Robbins, Mississippi middle school student Richard Wade, Maryland Division of Corrections Officer Robert Collins, and Kim Kardashian-West all have in common? 

The Flint water saga has taken some wild twists in the past few weeks.

Michigan lawmakers will return to the Capitol this week seeking to make the second and final year of this 98th legislature one in which both they and their parties can claim political victory. 

Information is the currency of democracy. 

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. detested violence. Nevertheless, during the month when we commemorate his birth, we must face the fact that black males between the ages of 15 and 34 were the victims of more than 15 percent of all deaths at the hands of police officers in 2015—even though they constitute only two percent of the total U.S. population.

In a key victory for government transparency, a state appeals court this week ruled that Detroit Public Schools must disclose the number of student discipline cases that have been referred to the Detroit police or the district’s internal police department.

Throughout 2015, black students across the country were forced to face down racial hostility and violence on college campuses that seemed drawn straight from the Jim Crow era.  In addition, a leading presidential candidate spent much of the year promising to build a wall to keep out Mexican immigrants.

It’s been exactly one week since I wrote a column for the Washington Post that brought me both praise and derision from around the globe.

DETROIT--As Detroit civil-rights activists prepare to protest the recent fatal shooting of an unarmed Detroit man by a Dearborn police officer, the ACLU of Michigan today called for "transparency and professionalism" in the Detroit Police Department's investigation into the slaying.