Why including people with disabilities in the workforce and higher education benefits everyone

For one thing, the presence of employees with disabilities improves the culture of the entire organization, making it more collaborative and responsive.

Lauren Shallish, Associate Professor of Disability Studies in Education, Rutgers University - Newark • conversation
Feb. 24, 2025 • ~10 min

Mass deportations don’t keep out ‘bad genes’ − they use scientific racism to justify biased immigration policies

The US has a long history of misusing genetics and biology in immigration policy, the effects of which are still keenly felt today.

Shoumita Dasgupta, Professor of Medicine, Assistant Dean of Diversity & Inclusion, Boston University • conversation
Jan. 13, 2025 • ~14 min

Hundreds of 19th-century skulls collected in the name of medical science tell a story of who mattered and who didn’t

Marked with numbers, demographic information and provenance – though not name – these skulls tell a story of racist hierarchies but also diversity in the early United States.

Pamela L. Geller, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Miami • conversation
Nov. 14, 2024 • ~10 min

A new ‘race science’ network is linked to a history of eugenics that never fully left academia

The second world war forced eugenicists to retreat to the fringes of science - but still found ways to publish in journals.

Lars Cornelissen, Academic Editor, Independent Social Research Foundation • conversation
Oct. 21, 2024 • ~7 min

The ‘average’ revolutionized scientific research, but overreliance on it has led to discrimination and injury

The average might come in handy for certain data analyses, but is any one person really ‘average’?

Zachary del Rosario, Assistant Professor of Engineering, Olin College of Engineering • conversation
March 1, 2024 • ~9 min

Backlash to transgender health care isn’t new − but the faulty science used to justify it has changed to meet the times

For as long as trans medicine has been around, so has its opposition. The tactics of prior waves of anti-trans policies are still in play today.

G. Samantha Rosenthal, Associate Professor of History, Roanoke College • conversation
Jan. 30, 2024 • ~12 min

In the worst of America's Jim Crow era, Black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois found inspiration and hope in national parks

Though progressive politics at the turn of the 20th century called for the protection of America’s national parks, it did so for the enjoyment of white people.

Thomas S. Bremer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Religious History, Rhodes College • conversation
Dec. 14, 2023 • ~9 min

What is voluntary sterilization? A health communication expert unpacks how a legacy of forced sterilization shapes doctor-patient conversations today

The term voluntary sterilization, referring to the choice to receive permanent birth control, arose as a contrast to the involuntary, or forced, sterilization that stems from the eugenics movement.

Elizabeth Hintz, Assistant Professor of Health Communication, University of Connecticut • conversation
Dec. 9, 2022 • ~9 min

Transgender men and nonbinary people are asked to stop testosterone therapy during pregnancy – but the evidence for this guidance is still murky

Testosterone therapy is often essential for the health and well-being of transmasculine people. The choice to stop it to pursue pregnancy can be a difficult one.

Carla A. Pfeffer, Associate Professor of Social Work, Affiliate Faculty in Sociology and the Center for Gender in Global Context, and Director of the Consortium for Sexual and Gender Minority Health, Michigan State University • conversation
Sept. 26, 2022 • ~11 min

Britney’s conservatorship is one example of how the legacy of eugenics in the US continues to affect the lives of disabled women

The legacy of eugenics is still active in the U.S. Paternalistic attitudes and policies on the reproductive agency of disabled people is one way it manifests.

Michaela Kathleen Curran, Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Health, University of Iowa • conversation
Oct. 1, 2021 • ~8 min

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