10 Effective Things Citizens Can Do To Make Change In Addition To Attending A Protest

A crowd gathered for a “No Kings” protest on October 18, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska. Hasan Akbas/Anadolu via Getty Images

BY SHELLEY INGLIS

SENIOR VISITING SCHOLAR WITH 

THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF

GENOCIDE AND HUMAN RIGHTS,

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY 

What happens now?

That may well be the question being asked by “No Kings” protesters, who marched, rallied and danced all over the nation on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.

Pro-democracy groups had aimed to encourage large numbers of Americans to demonstrate that “together we are choosing democracy.” They were successful, with crowds turning out for demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns from Anchorage to Miami.

And while multiple GOP leaders had attacked the planned demonstrations, describing them as “hate America” rallies, political science scholars and national security experts agree that the current U.S. administration’s actions are indeed placing the world’s oldest continuous constitutional republic in jeopardy.

Once a democracy starts to erode, it can be difficult to reverse the trend. Only 42% of democracies affected by autocratization – a transformation in governance that erodes democratic safeguards – since 1994 have rebounded after a democratic breakdown, according to Swedish research institute V-Dem.

Often termed “democratic backsliding,” such periods involve government-led changes to rules and norms to weaken individual freedoms and undermine or eliminate checks on power exercised by independent institutions, both governmental and non-governmental.

Democracies that have suffered setbacks vary widely, from Hungary to Brazil. As a longterm practitioner of democracy-building overseas, I know that none of these countries rival the United States’ constitutional traditions, federalist system, economic wealth, military discipline, and vibrant independent media, academia and nonprofit organizations.

Even so, practices used globally to fight democratic backsliding or topple autocracies can be instructive.

In a nutshell: Nonviolent resistance is based on noncooperation with autocratic actions. It has proven more effective in toppling autocracies than violent, armed struggle.

But it requires more than street demonstrations.

Tactics used by pro-democracy movements

So, what does it take for democracies to bounce back from periods of autocratic rule?

Broad-scale, coordinated mobilization of a sufficient percentage of the population against autocratic takeover and for a renewed democratic future is necessary for success.

That momentum can be challenging to generate. Would-be autocrats create environments of fear and powerlessness, using intimidation, overwhelming force or political and legal attacks, and other coercive tactics to force acquiescence and chill democratic pushback.

Autocrats can’t succeed alone. They rely on what scholars call “pillars of support” – a range of government institutions, security forces, business and other sectors in society to obey their will and even bolster their power grabs.

However, everyone in society has power to erode autocratic support in various ways. While individual efforts are important, collective action increases impact and mitigates the risks of reprisals for standing up to individuals or organizations.

Here are some of the tactics used by those movements across the world:

1. Refuse unlawful, corrupt demands

When enough individuals in critical roles and institutions – the military, civil servants, corporate leaders, state government and judges – refuse to implement autocratic orders, it can slow or even stop an autocratic takeover. In South Korea, parts of the civil service, legislature and military declined to support President Yoon Suk Yeol’s imposition of martial law in 2024, foiling his autocratic move.

2. Visibly bolster the rule of law

Where would-be autocrats disregard legal restraints and install their supporters in the highest courts, individual challenges to overreach, even if successful, can be insufficient. In Poland, legal challenges in courts combined with public education by the judiciary, lawyers’ associations initiatives and street protests like the “March of a Thousand Robes” in 2020 to signal widespread repudiation of the autocratic government’s attacks on the rule of law.

3. Unite in opposition

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado from Venezuela, is an example of how political parties and leaders who cooperate across differences can offer an alternative vision.

Novel candidates can undermine the ability of autocrats to sow division and demonize major opponents. However, coalitions can be difficult to form and sustain to win. Based on experiences overseas, historian Anne Applebaum, author of “Autocracy Inc.,” has called for a pro-democracy coalition in the U.S. that could unite independents, Libertarians, the Green Party, dissident Republicans and the Democratic Party.

4. Harness economic power

Everyday consumers can pressure wealthy elites and corporations that acquiesce to, or prop up, would-be autocrats through boycotts and other methods, like the “Tesla Takedown” in the U.S. that preceded a drop in Tesla share value and owner Elon Musk’s departure from his government role. General strikes, led by labor unions and professional associations, as in Sudan or Myanmar, can be particularly effective.

5. Preempt electoral manipulation

Voting autocrats out of office remains the best way to restore democracy, demonstrated recently by the u-turn in Brazil, where a pro-democracy candidate defeated the hard-right incumbent. But this requires strategic action to keep elections truly free and fair well in advance of election day.

6. Organize your community

As in campaigns in India starting in 2020 and Chile in 2019, participating in community or private conversation forums, local town halls or councils, and nonpartisan student, veterans, farmers, women’s and religious groups provides the space to share concerns, exchange ideas and create avenues to take action. Often starting with trusted networks, local initiatives can tap into broader statewide or national efforts to defend democracy.

7. Shape the story

Driving public opinion and communicating effectively is critical to pro-democracy efforts. Serbian students created one of the largest protest movements in decades starting in 2024 using creative resistance – artistic expression, such as visual mediums, satire and social media – to expose an autocrat’s weaknesses, reduce fear and hopelessness and build collective symbolism and resilience.

8. Build bridges and democratic alternatives

Bringing together people across ideological and other divides can increase understanding and counter political polarization, particularly when religious leaders are involved. Even in autocratic countries like Turkey or during wartime as in Ukraine, deepening democratic practices at state and local levels, like citizen assemblies and the use of technologies that improve the quality of public decision-making, can demonstrate ways to govern differently.

Parallel institutions, such as schools and tax systems operating outside the formal repressive system, like during Slobodan Milosevic’s decade-long crackdown in Kosovo, have sustained non-cooperation and shaped a future vision.

9. Document abuses, protect people, reinforce truth

With today’s technologies, every citizen can record repressive incidents, track corruption and archive historical evidence such as preserving proof of slavery at danger of being removed in public museums in the U.S., or collecting documentation of human rights violations in Syria. This can also entail bearing witness, including by accompanying those most targeted with abusive government tactics. These techniques can bolster the survival of independent and evidence-based media, science and collective memory.

10. Mitigate risk, learn and innovate

The success rate of nonviolent civil resistance is declining while repressive tactics by autocrats are evolving. Democracy defenders are forced to rapidly adjust, consistently train, prepare for diverse scenarios, try new techniques and strategically support each other.

International solidarity from global institutions, like European Union support for democrats in Belarus or Georgia, or online movements, like the Milk Tea Alliance across Southeast Asia, can bolster efforts.
Democracy’s future?

The end of American democracy is not a foregone conclusion, despite the unprecedented rate of its decline. It will depend, in part, on the choices made by every American.

With autocracies outnumbering democracies for the first time in 20 years, and only 12% of the world’s population now living in a liberal democracy, the future of the global democratic experiment may well depend on the people of the United States.

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How New Foreign Worker Visa Fees Might Worsen Doctor Shortages In Rural America

Many physicians who aren’t U.S. citizens come to the U.S. to do medical residency programs. SDI Productions/E+ via Getty Images

BY PATRICK AGUILAR

MANAGING DIRECTOR OF HEALTH,

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

IN SAINT LOUIS

There are almost 1.1 million licensed physicians in the United States. That may sound like a lot, but the country has struggled for decades to train enough physicians to meet its needs – and, in particular, to provide care in rural and underserved communities.

Foreign-born physicians have long filled that gap, reducing the overall national shortage and signing up to practice in often overlooked regions and specialties. Today, 1 in 5 doctors licensed to practice in the U.S. were born and trained in another country.

But the ability of physicians from other countries to obtain work in the U.S. may be threatened by the Trump administration’s aims of limiting foreign workers. In September, Trump issued a proclamation requiring employers sponsoring foreign-born workers through a type of work visa called an H-1B to pay a fee of US$100,000 to the government. The White House has signaled doctors may be exempt but has not clarified its position.

As a physician and professor who studies the intersection of business and medicine, I believe increasing restrictions on H-1B visas for physicians may exacerbate the physician shortage. To grasp why that is, it’s important to understand how foreign-trained doctors became such an integral part of U.S. health care – and the role they play today.

The roots of today’s physician shortage

The Association of American Medical Colleges, a trade association representing U.S. medical schools, estimates there will be a deficit of about 86,000 physicians in the country by 2036.

The roots of this shortage stretch back more than a century. In 1910, a landmark study called the Flexner Report detailed significant inconsistencies in the quality of education at American medical schools. The report resulted in the closure of over half the country’s medical schools, winnowing their numbers down from 148 to 66 over two decades.

As a result, the number of doctors in the U.S. declined until new training programs emerged. Between 1960 and 1980, 40 new medical schools launched with the help of federal funding. In 1980, a congressionally mandated assessment deemed the problem solved, but by the early 2000s, a physician shortage emerged once more. In 2006, the American Association of Medical Colleges called for raising medical school enrollment by 30%.

Growth in medical school enrollment hit that target in the late 2010s, but even so, the U.S. still lacks enough medical graduates to fill yearslong training programs, called residencies, that early-career physicians must complete to become fully qualified to practice.

Especially lacking are primary care physicians – particularly in rural areas, where there are one-third as many physicians per capita as in urban areas.

Opportunities for foreign-born doctors

Even as the U.S. built up medical school enrollment in the 1960s and 1970s, the government joined other countries such as the U.K. and Canada in creating immigration policies that drew physicians from developing countries to practice in underserved areas. Between 1970 and 1980, their numbers grew sharply, from 57,000 to 97,000.

Foreign-born and -trained physicians have remained a key pillar of the U.S. medical system. In recent years, the majority of those physicians have come from India and Pakistan. Citizens of Canada and Middle Eastern countries have added significantly to that count, as well. Most arrive in the U.S. as trainees in residency programs through one of two main visa programs.

The majority come on J-1 visas, which allow physicians to enter the U.S. for training but require them to return to their home country for at least two years when their training is complete. Those who wish to remain in the U.S. to practice must transition to an H-1B visa.

A small percentage of physicians come to the U.S. on H-1Bs from the start.

H-1B visas are employer-sponsored temporary work permits that allow foreign-born, highly skilled workers to obtain U.S. employment. Employers directly petition the government on behalf of visa applicants, certifying that a foreign worker will be paid a similar wage to U.S. workers and will not adversely affect the working conditions of Americans.

Several programs sponsor H-1B visas for physicians, though the most common requires a three-year commitment to work in an underserved area after completing their training.

Foreign physicians fill a crucial need

In 2025, foreign-trained medical graduates filled 9,700 of the nearly 40,000 training positions. Of those, roughly one-third were actually U.S. citizens who attended medical schools in other countries, with the remainder being foreign citizens seeking more training in the U.S.

After residency, these doctors frequently practice in precisely the geographic areas where the physician shortage is most severe. A nationwide survey of international medical graduates found that two-thirds practice in regions that the federal government has designated as lacking sufficient access to health care.

These doctors also occupy a disproportionate number of primary care positions. In a sample of 15,000 physicians who accepted new jobs in one year, foreign-born doctors were nine times more likely to enter primary care specialties. In 2025, 33.3% of internal medicine, 20.4% of pediatric and 17.6% of family medicine training positions were filled by physicians trained in other countries.

Who will pay?

Approximately 8,000 foreign-born physicians received H-1B visas in 2024. The new requirement of a $100,000 sponsorship fee would hit hardest for hospitals, health systems and clinics in areas of the country most significantly affected by the physician shortage.

These organizations are already under economic strain due to increasing labor costs and Medicare payments that have not kept pace with inflation. Dozens of these hospitals have closed in recent years, and many currently do not make enough money to support their operations.

On Sept. 25, 2025, 57 physician organizations cosigned a letter petitioning Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to waive the new application fee for physicians.

Already, however, the new rule may be having a chilling effect. Despite years of annual growth in the number of foreign-born applicants to U.S. physician training programs, 2025 has seen a nearly 10% drop. If the new H-1B fee is applied to physicians, the number is likely to keep falling.

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Antioxidants Help Stave Off A Host Of Health Problems – But Figuring Out How Much You’re Getting Can Be Tricky

The antioxidant levels of a food can be affected by its storage time in the supermarket. d3sign/Moment via Getty Images

BY NATHANIEL JOHNSON

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF

NUTRITION AND DIETETICS,

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

When it comes to describing what an antioxidant is, it’s all in the name: Antioxidants counter oxidants.

And that’s a good thing. Oxidants can damage the structure and function of the chemicals in your body critical to life – like the proteins and lipids within your cells, and your DNA, which stores genetic information. A special class of oxidants, free radicals, are even more reactive and dangerous.

As an assistant professor of nutrition, I’ve studied the long-standing research showing how the imbalances in antioxidants and oxidants lead to oxidative stress, which is linked to cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, a primary cause of aging is the damage accumulated across of a lifetime of oxidative stress.

Simply put: To help prevent oxidative stress, people need to eat foods with antioxidants and limit their exposure to oxidants, particularly free radicals.

The research: Food, not supplements

There’s no way for any of us to avoid some oxidative stress. Just metabolism – the processes in your body that keep you alive, such as breathing, digestion and maintaining body temperature – are a source of oxidants and free radicals. Inflammation, pollution and radiation are other sources.

As a result, everyone needs antioxidants. There are many different types: enzymes, minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals.

Two types of phytochemicals deserve special mention: carotenoids and flavonoids. Carotenoids are pigments, with the colors yellow, orange and red; they contain the antioxidants beta-carotene, lycopene and lutein. Some flavonoids, called anthocyanins, are pigments that give foods a blue, red or purple color.

Although your body produces some of these antioxidants, you can get them from the foods you eat, and they’re better for you than supplements.

In fact, researchers found that antioxidant supplements did not reduce deaths, and some supplements in excessive amounts contribute to oxidative stress, and may even increase the risk of dying.

It should be pointed out that in most of these studies, only one or two antioxidants were given, and often in amounts far greater than the recommended daily value. One study, for example, gave participants only vitamin A, and at an amount more than 60 times an adult’s recommended intake.

Foods rich in antioxidants

In contrast, increased antioxidant intake from whole foods is related to decreased risk of death. And although antioxidant supplementation didn’t reduce cancer rates in smokers, the antioxidants in whole foods did.

But measuring antioxidants in foods is complicated. Extensive laboratory testing is required, and too many foods exist to test them all anyway. Even individual food items that are the same exact variety of food – such as two Gala apples – can have different amounts of antioxidants. Where the food was grown and harvested, how it was processed and how it was stored during transportation and while in the supermarket are factors. The variety of the food also matters – the many different types of apples, for instance, can have different amounts of antioxidants.

Nonetheless, in 2018, researchers quantified the antioxidant content of more than 3,100 foods – the first antioxidant database. Each food’s antioxidant capacity was determined by the amount of oxidants neutralized by a given amount of food. The researchers measured this capacity in millimoles per 100 grams, or about 4 ounces.

For fruits easily found in the grocery store, the database shows blueberries have the most antioxidants – just over 9 millimoles per 4 ounces. The same serving of pomegranates and blackberries each have about 6.5 millimoles.

For common vegetables, cooked artichoke has 4.54 millimoles per 4 ounces; red kale, 4.09 millimoles; cooked red cabbage, 2.15; and orange bell pepper, 1.94.

Coffee has 2.5 millimoles per 4 ounces; green tea has 1.5; whole walnuts, just over 13; whole pecans, about 9.7; and sunflower seeds, just over 5. Herbs and spices have a lot: clove has 465 millimoles per 4 ounces; rosemary has 67; and thyme, about 64. But keep in mind that those enormous numbers are based on a quarter-pound. Still, just a normal sprinkle packs a powerful nutritional punch.

Other tips

Other ways to choose antioxidant-rich foods: Read the nutrition facts label and look for antioxidant vitamins and minerals – vitamins A, C, E, D, B2, B3 and B9, and the minerals selenium, zinc and manganese.

Just know the label has a drawback. Food producers and manufacturers are not required to list every nutrient of the food on the label. In fact, the only vitamins and minerals required by law are sodium, potassium, calcium, iron and vitamin D.

Also, focus on eating the rainbow. Colorful foods are often higher in antioxidants, like blue corn. Many darker foods are rich in antioxidants, too, like dark chocolate, black barley and dark leafy vegetables, such as kale and Swiss chard.

Although heat can degrade oxidants, that mostly occurs during the storage and transportation of the food. In some cases, cooking may increase the food’s antioxidant capacity, as with leafy green vegetables.

Keep in mind that while blueberries, red kale and pecans are great, their antioxidant profile will be different than that of other fruits, vegetables and nuts. That’s why diversity is the key: To increase the power of antioxidants, choose a variety of fresh, flavorful, colorful and, ideally, local foods.

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Hamas Is Battling Powerful Clans For Control In Gaza – Who Are These Groups And What Threat Do They Pose?

Hamas security forces patrol an area of Gaza City during a crackdown on a Fatah-linked clan in 2008. Hatem Houssa/AP

BY MARTIN KEAR

SESSIONAL LECTURER, DEPARTMENT 

OF GOVERNMENT AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

Despite the euphoria surrounding the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, Gaza is still wracked with violence.

More than two dozen Palestinians have been killed in recent days in clashes between Hamas and members of various clans. Hamas has also reportedly executed blindfolded men in a public square.

With the Israeli military withdrawing to pre-determined ceasefire lines, Hamas members are beginning to re-assert their control. However, powerful clans are also jockeying for position – some allied to Hamas’ ideological rival, the West Bank-based Fatah movement, and some backed by Israel.

So, who are these clans? What role do they play in Gaza? And how much of a threat are they to Hamas?

Who are the clans?

Familial clans have existed in Palestinian society for centuries. In recent decades, they have come to play a key role in Palestinian politics.

The clans are primarily collections of family groups in various parts of Gaza. One of the largest and most well-armed is the Dughmush clan in Gaza City, headed by Mumtaz Dughmush. This clan was immediately targeted by Hamas after the ceasefire.

The al-Majayda clan also holds sway in part of Khan Younis. Hamas forces raided their neighbourhood earlier this month, killing several family members. This week, however, the clan publicly supported Hamas’ effort to regain control over Gaza.

Importantly, these clans and their relationships with Hamas and Fatah are dynamic and constantly evolving. Members of both Hamas and Fatah also belong to clans. This often leads to clashes over territory and control, with clan loyalties often outweighing movement allegiances.

As Israeli historian Dror Ze’evi notes, any attempt by Hamas or Fatah to disarm the clans would be seen as an affront and met with serious opposition.

A long history of entrenched power

After the 1948 war that saw the creation of Israel and the Palestinian al-naqbah (or Nakba), around 750,000 Palestinians fled Israel to the Gaza Strip, West Bank and neighbouring Arab states.

This was when clans began to assume traditional roles of mediators and patrons. Their organised structures made them best-placed to provide welfare and assistance to a shattered Palestinian society.

As law and order, security and financial independence improved in the territories in the subsequent decades, Palestinians came to rely less on their support. This brought a decline in their power and influence.

This changed, though, during the First Intifada (1987–93) and Second Intifada (2000–05) when Palestinian society was again plunged into crisis. This was especially true in the Gaza Strip, which was known as the engine room of organised Palestinian resistance.

The Second Intifada, in particular, changed the role of the clans significantly, after Israel destroyed much of the organised Palestinian security forces and infrastructure in the territories.

With neither Hamas nor Fatah able to ensure the safety of Palestinians, this created a security vacuum. And some of the clans exploited this by transforming into paramilitary organisations. Again, this was especially true in the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s efforts to crush Palestinian resistance were felt most intensely.

When the Second Intifada ended, the Gazan clans retained a significant amount of political influence and military power. After Hamas won the 2006 elections, some Fatah-aligned clans tried to prevent it from taking power.

So entrenched were these clans that when Hamas finally assumed control of Gaza in 2007, it took the movement a year to effectively bring the more powerful clans under its authority. Even then, it was more of a truce than a victory for Hamas.

Israel backing Hamas rivals

This status quo remained until Hamas’ October 7 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel. Israel’s revenge for these attacks devastated the Gaza Strip, once again robbing Gazans of any semblance of safety and security.

Now, with Israel’s partial troop withdrawal, another security vacuum has been created. And many clans appear keen to fill it, some with the help of Israel.

In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted his government was arming some Gazan clans, gangs and militias, such as the Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab.

Netanyahu’s rationale was that any opposition to Hamas helped Israel and saved soldiers’ lives. It also pitted Palestinian against Palestinian, placing additional pressure on Hamas.

After the ceasefire came into effect, Hamas began targeting what it called “collaborators and traitors” – an apparent reference to those clans and gangs cooperating with Israel.

The Popular Forces, meanwhile, have refused to lay down their arms. A dozen other new militias have also reportedly emerged across the strip in recent days, including one led by Hossam al-Astal, who said:

Hamas was always betting that there won’t be any alternative to replace them in Gaza, but now I’m telling you, today, there is an alternative force to Hamas. It could be me or Abu Shabab or anyone else, but alternatives today exist.

While this violence between Hamas and rival groups does not directly affect the ceasefire that ended the war, it is evidence that Israel is still attempting to meddle in Gaza’s security and exert its control.

But the peace plan negotiated by US President Donald Trump looks shakier by the day, given its call for Hamas to disarm. Trump said this week if Hamas refused to disarm themselves, “we will disarm them […] perhaps violently”.

The peace plan also calls for Hamas to withdraw from Palestinian politics, to be replaced eventually by the Palestinian Authority, which currently administers parts of the West Bank. However, Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the Palestinian Authority assuming control of Gaza.

This ambiguity over the future governance of Gaza opens the possibility that the more powerful clans could become alternate centres of political power, as they had during the Second Intifada. This time they may do so under the auspices of Israel’s military occupation.

This would further fracture Gaza and weaken any effort by the Palestinian Authority to reunite the territories under a single governance structure. It would also make a future Palestinian state tenuous.

Also, Hamas will not go quietly. And this is a very real danger to peace and security in Gaza, especially if Hamas sees any resistance to its authority from the clans as little more than a proxy war with Israel.

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The World’s Forgotten States

BY JENNA REES

Being unrecognised does not just strip a population of sovereignty and legitimacy. It strips them of protection, visibility, and memory. Forgotten states leave behind not only contested borders but generations of civilians forced to endure the everlasting consequences of erasure.

I first came across the state of Biafra when I read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie. I had never heard of Biafra before. It was a foreign concept, a foreign place. A country that I didn’t even know existed had a history so complex and intricate that it displaced millions and left scars that echo today in modern Nigeria. And yet, Biafra has been forgotten. It has been lost to the history books of African post-colonialism. This has me wondering: how many forgotten states are there? And how does a state even become forgotten?

A forgotten state is not just a country that failed or collapsed. It is not a place like the Soviet Union, which is still highly relevant and spoken of in today’s modern discourse. Instead, a forgotten state is an unrecognised, erased, or deliberately sidelined country that has been lost to distant echoes and silenced memories.

The first example I thought of was Biafra (1967–1970), but there are other countries too. Katanga (1960–1963) seceded from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before being reincorporated; East Turkestan Republic declared sovereignty twice in the 1930s and 1940s, and was then erased by the Republic of China, and later the People’s Republic of China; Chechnya, in the 1990s, declared independence from Russia, and after war, was reintegrated. Alongside these historical examples, there are many contemporary states that are also unrecognised or only partially recognised. There are the obvious examples such as Palestine and Taiwan, but I would not see these states as ‘forgotten’, since they are highly prevalent in today’s modern news. Rather, the forgotten states of modernity include places like Somaliland, which is stable yet ignored; Western Sahara, a UN non-self-governing territory, occupied by Morocco; and Tibet, a government-in-exile, erased from official world maps.

These forgotten states fall into the black holes of history; their legacies do not last through the social discourse due to the lack of recognition from the global north. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 sets out four criteria for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, an effective government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Without all four of these factors, states have a difficult time showing legitimacy. However, even if they were to have all four of these factors, it ultimately comes down to powerful hegemonies, such as the United States and China, to determine whether or not they would like to recognise said state.

An example of this is the contrast between why Kosovo gets recognition in the UN but a country like Somaliland does not. Kosovo, a small country in Eastern Europe, once a part of Yugoslavia, seceded from Serbia in 2008. Kosovo, a state backed by the United States and recognised by the EU, is considered to be a state under international law. Whereas, Somaliland, also a state which declared independence, is not recognised by the international community. Despite having their own functioning government, a national flag, its own currency, a police force and even a military, it is not recognised. The UN and African Union warn that recognising Somaliland could trigger a domino effect of other separatist movements across Africa. Not only is this extremely neo-colonialist, it exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of international law: recognition is less about meeting the Montevideo criteria and more about whether a state’s existence is convenient to global powers. Somaliland has done everything a state is supposed to do — build institutions, govern its people, and maintain stability — yet it is punished because its recognition might unsettle borders drawn by colonial rulers centuries before.

Declaring legitimacy is not neutral, it is deeply intertwined with the global hierarchies of power. Recognition is seen as a geopolitical bargaining chip. Great powers use recognition strategically. China, for example, aggressively blocks recognition of Tibet. They insist that in acknowledging an independent Tibet, it would undermine their own sovereignty and affect their regional dominance. China wants to keep asserting their power within East Asia, and by recognising a region such as Tibet, it would affect their power, despite the region being lowly populated. Russia, on the other hand, selectively recognises small breakaway nations such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and more recently places like Donetsk and Luhansk, as tools to weaken neighbouring states. For example, Abkhazia is a breakaway state from Georgia and, following the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, Russia recognised the independence of Abkhazia. By declaring its legitimacy, and asserting that it is its own sovereign nation, Russia aims to weaken Georgia,a former Soviet Union state. In each case, sovereignty is not an impartial standard but a weapon of geopolitics. It is granted or withheld depending on the interests of the hegemonic power whose control is at stake.

The consequences of nation erasure are felt mostly by the citizens. Being citizens of an unrecognised and forgotten country creates problems that are inescapable. For example, Western Sahara remains unrecognised. As a result, Sahrawis have spent decades in refugee camps in Algeria, where education, work, and mobility are minimal. Those in Moroccan-controlled areas often face discrimination and oppression, with little recourse to international protections. Their ‘unrecognised’ status allows mistreatment to persist. History records also show the same situation happening in Biafra. The lack of recognition of Biafra from the international community led to a heightened brutal civil war, famine, and the death of millions. While this happened, the world simply turned away, unwilling to legitimise the seceded state. Once defeated, Biafra’s existence was erased from mainstream history, and remembered only through personal testimony and novel literature. Being unrecognised does not simply strip a population of sovereignty — it strips them of protection, visibility, and memory. Forgotten states leave behind not only contested borders but generations of civilians forced to endure the lasting consequences of being forgotten.

The question must be asked of whether the 20th-century model of the nation-state is still fit for purpose or whether it was ever truly universal. The Montevideo Convention, drafted over 90 years ago in the Americas and modelled on European traditions of statehood, continues to be held up as the standard. But this framework is deeply Eurocentric. It reflects an undeniable Western vision of sovereignty, rooted in fixed borders and centralised authority, a model exported during colonialism and imposed on diverse societies that often organised themselves through fluid boundaries and kinship networks. There is an undeniable tension here: between people’s right to self-determination and an international system whose primary obsession is preserving the ‘stability’ of borders drawn by European states. As such, recognition is less about whether a nation can govern itself and more about whether it conforms to an inherited European style. If recognition is ultimately political, filtered through these Eurocentric norms and enforced by global powers, can freedom ever truly rest in the hands of the civilians?

So, when I look at a forgotten state, such as Biafra, I can’t help but question how something as historically intricate as a nation can be reduced to only a footnote in the encyclopaedias. How a group of people can fight for survival, raise a flag, and yet still be erased because they were not recognised. This reveals the overarching, uncomfortable truth: the world map is not a neutral record of geographical reality, but a political document. Borders shift, and nations appear and disappear, memories fade, and not because people cease to exist, but because recognition is withheld. Forgotten states expose the fragility of sovereignty itself, highlighting how legitimacy is less about self-determination and more about power. If recognition is what makes a country real, then perhaps the world map is less a reflection of reality than a ledger of power. Entire nations can disappear at the stroke of a hegemony’s pen.

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The Igbo Paradox: Why A Tribe That Builds Is Feared, Fought And Yet Flourishes

BY EZEWELE CYRIL ABIONANOJIE

In the heart of Nigeria’s story lies a paradox, a people despised yet indispensable, envied yet imitated, persecuted yet prosperous. The Igbo people of Southeastern Nigeria have, through sheer grit and communal wisdom, risen to dominate the nation’s business landscape. From markets in Lagos to factories in Aba, from motor parts in Nnewi to real estate in Abuja, the Igbo man’s fingerprints are all over Nigeria’s economic pulse. Yet, instead of admiration, what often meets them is resistance, not from the government alone, but from other major tribes who seem uneasy with their relentless success.

From the civil war that sought to erase their existence, to the systemic marginalization that followed, the Igbo have lived under a shadow of suspicion, as if their ambition were a crime and their prosperity a provocation. The Nigerian political structure has long been tilted against them – denied key positions, underrepresented in power, and occasionally scapegoated for national woes. Yet, despite the odds, they rise always.

In Nigeria and in some other African countries, many fear the self-reliant Igbo people who do not wait for permission to succeed. The Igbo man’s success story is not built on government contracts, nepotism, or state favoritism. It is built on the strength of the Igbo Apprenticeship System, which is a centuries-old model of economic mentorship rooted in trust, hard work, and brotherhood. In this system, a young boy, often from a humble background, serves under a master known as Oga for several years, learning the ropes of trade, discipline, and relationship management. When his time is up, the master settles him, not with a salary, but with capital, goods, and the connections needed to start his own business.

Unlike in many other tribes where an apprentice must pay his master to learn, and still pay again to earn his freedom, often spending heavily to host a party and pay for certificate before being released. This practice amounts to exploitation, void of the spirit of brotherhood in its entirety.

The Igbo Apprenticeship System is not just economics for it is communal capitalism. It is nation-building at a micro level. Through this system, one man’s success becomes a seed for another’s prosperity. The servant today becomes a boss tomorrow, and the cycle continues, expanding like ripples in water. This model has created millionaires without formal education, industrialists without political godfathers, and a network of entrepreneurs who owe nothing to government policies but solely to the Igbo spirit of enterprise.

It is this independence that unsettles the system. A man who does not depend on you cannot be controlled by you. The Igbo man’s economic power challenges Nigeria’s political order, which thrives on dependency and patronage. Hence, many who cannot match their industriousness seek to malign it. Markets are sometimes burnt, properties demolished, policies skewed, yet, like the proverbial phoenix, the Igbo rebuild from ashes with their undying spirit of the bone shall always rise again.

To understand the Igbo resilience, one must understand the psychology of a people who have lost everything and rebuilt from nothing. After the civil war, when the Nigerian government declared that every Igbo man would get only £20, regardless of their pre-war wealth, they did not riot, rather, they reinvented. They turned humiliation into hustle, and within a decade, they had re-established their dominance in commerce across the nation. That is not luck; that is the champions’ character worthy of emulating.

The tragedy however, is that instead of studying the Igbo model and replicating its brilliance, other tribes and even the state often choose resentment over reflection. Rather than build partnerships, they build prejudice. But resentment has never stopped progress for it only exposes insecurity.

What the rest of Nigeria must realize is that the success of the Igbo is not a threat; it is a template. The Igbo Apprenticeship System is one of the most powerful wealth distribution models in human history. It takes the poor, trains them, empowers them, and makes them employers of labour. It is an African success story born on African soil that other Africans should emulate in order to secure the conqueror’s marching order known as “the forward ever”. If Nigeria truly wants economic transformation, it must learn from the Igbo, not fight them.

The Igbo spirit is not about tribal dominance; it is about collective upliftment. It is about the dignity of labour, the value of mentorship, and the audacity to dream beyond one’s circumstances. The Igbo believe that no man should die serving another forever, and that every servant should one day become a master. That philosophy, simple yet profound, is what has kept them afloat amid storms of discrimination.

My humble request: #FREENNAMDIKANU

Ambassador Ezewele Cyril Abionanojie is the author of the book ‘The Enemy Called Corruption’ an award winner of Best Columnist of the year 2020, Giant in Security Support, Statesmanship Integrity & Productivity Award Among others. He is the President of Peace Ambassador Global.

Igbo Art Exhibition

BY SANTIAGO LEON TORRES

Presently, the walls in the Lewis stairway are blank. They remain the same sterile shade of white they were the last time they were repainted. Despite their current dull state, they were host to paintings belonging to the Igbo (Ihe Ncheta) art exhibition over the summer. These walls were adorned with dynamic and colorful paint strokes on frayed canvases. Each piece was unique in its style, from realism to surrealism, and even abstraction.

On September 17, 2025, a reception was held in the Reflection Room to commemorate the creation, display, and eventual transfer of these pieces of art. This exhibition was brought to fruition through various Dominican University departments, including the Black World Studies program, and featured selected works from contemporary Igbo artists.

The reception was opened by Dr. Nkuzi Nnam, Director of Black World Studies, who quickly introduced Provost Mia Hardy. During her speech, she expressed her gratitude in regard to the impact of this exhibition, “It speaks to the dedication of the Black World Studies Program, and it speaks to the contributions of the [African] continent to this continent.”

In the corner of the room, there was a brightly colored masquerade. It stood tall, and it nearly draped to the ground. The top portion was embellished with dolls and national flags. Despite its beauty and significance in Igbo tradition, Dr. Chad Rhoman, Dean of Rosary College of Arts, Education, and Sciences, says it is a symbol of unity. “It is a moving city of symbols. It’s a political actor, a spirit, a God,” he said. “It is not only the performer who moves. It is the whole community, fast and present in motion.”

The reception closed with the presentation of various paintings to Dr. Glenna Temple, President of Dominican University. The paintings all mimicked one of the paintings from the exhibition and were presented by students majoring in Black World Studies.

Making A Case For Aid: Less Donor-Curated Visibility, More Redistribution Of Narrative Power

Local communities often work on innovative solutions that remain invisible to major donors.

BY KEVIN MOFOKENG

There is a quiet power struggle unfolding across Africa’s development landscape, waged not through protest or policy, but through funding calls, curated dashboards, and strategy decks written far from the communities they aim to serve. At the centre of this ecosystem is what might be called the Social Impact Mafia: an influential and self-reinforcing network of consultants, NGO insiders, donor advisors, and programme officers.

This elite clique not only decides who receives funding but also shapes the contours of what qualifies as “good,” “innovative,” or “worthy.” The result is a growing disconnect between lived African realities and the narratives that dominate the development space.

This isn’t an abstract concern. Consider the case of birth registration in sub-Saharan Africa.

According to UNICEF, fewer than 51% of children under five are officially registered. In Zimbabwe, the figure fell below half in 2019, especially among rural and home births. Yet much of the funding continues to pour into digitization projects that benefit urban centres and areas already serviced. What remains is a gap between community needs and what donors are willing to fund, because the latter often prioritize tech-forward optics over grounded, context-sensitive work.

This misalignment is not limited to bureaucratic inefficiency, it is a symptom of a system obsessed with performance over substance. Development programmes are increasingly designed for global audiences: media-ready, metric-driven, and brand-compliant. Local knowledge is routinely undervalued unless it can be repackaged to fit donor logic. Even the language of participation has been commodified. “Community-led” has become a label to affix on a brochure, not a commitment to relinquish power.

The social impact mafia does not operate through malice. It functions through selectivity, and its tools are subtle: grant criteria that reward certain storytelling styles, eligibility requirements that demand professional networks inaccessible to grassroots actors, and partnerships that quietly favour those with pre-existing institutional legitimacy. In this world, trust is extended not based on
proximity to the problem, but on proximity to the funding circle. The consequence is the silent marginalization of Africa’s most disruptive, transformative ideas, because they are too radical, too informal, too slow, or too unbranded to fit into slick theory-of-change templates. Some of the most effective civic, gender justice, and economic resilience work is being carried out in informal settlements and rural nodes, but without the glossy visibility required to get a seat at the table.

This is not to suggest that alternatives don’t exist. The Segal Family Foundation, for instance, has adopted a more trust-based approach, prioritizing unrestricted, community-led funding across several African countries. Their model allows grantees to define success on their own terms. In 2020, over 800 organizations signed on to similar principles, calling for less bureaucracy, more listening, and a shift in power from funders to communities. But these remain exceptions. The centre still holds, and the gatekeepers are very much in place.

What’s especially troubling is how performative inclusion has become. Many institutions loudly proclaim their commitment to decolonizing aid, diversifying leadership, and elevating youth voices. But too often, this amounts to symbolic gestures: a panel here, a soundbite there. Young leaders are invited to speak but not to decide. Feminist and queer movements are tokenized, then defunded when they become inconvenient. And criticism from within the sector is tolerated only when it conforms to its own grammar of change.

This performativity is not harmless, it is structurally violent. It displaces accountability, erases dissent, and rewards conformity. More dangerously, it replaces transformation with theatre, projecting the illusion of progress while cementing existing hierarchies. Africa does not need more donor-curated visibility. It needs a redistribution of narrative power.

The recent moves to scale back US foreign assistance, particularly USAID funding, could radically alter this ecosystem. For years, USAID has shaped Africa’s development agenda through large-scale grants that often favour big implementers with the right connections and branding. A pullback could disrupt this status quo, forcing donors to rethink their reliance on elite intermediaries. But it could also deepen inequities: smaller, community-rooted organizations may be left scrambling as big players pivot to chase private capital and corporate partnerships. Whether this shift dismantles the social impact “gatekeepers” or simply reshuffles them depends on how funding is restructured and whether African governments and philanthropists step in to fill the gap.

As new funding flows into Africa, from green bonds to ESG investments, from climate justice to tech-for-good, there is an urgent question we must ask: whose vision of the future is being funded? If the power to define “good” remains confined to elite circles and institutional pipelines, we will only reproduce exclusion with a friendlier face.

It is not enough to rebrand development. What is required is a fundamental shift in who decides, who designs, and who tells the story. Otherwise, the continent’s most brilliant possibilities will remain unfunded, unheard, and unrecognized, not because they failed, but because they refused to perform.

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Book Review: “We The People” — When Constitutional Crisis Meets Narrative Excess

BY DANIEL LAZARE

Are books fit subjects for psychoanalysis? If so, Jill Lepore’s We the People would be first on the couch. Its topic is American constitutional history with a particular emphasis on Article V, the 140-word run-on sentence that says you need the approval of two-thirds of each house of Congress plus three-fourths of the states in order to change so much as a comma. The amending clause is a killer, Lepore notes, one that has led to a constitutional deadlock that grows more dangerous by the week. But, instead of exploring the implications of this fact, all of which are explosive, she pours out an abundance of anecdotes whose purpose, to quote George Orwell, is to fall “upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outlines and covering up all the details.”

The result is a book that is padded, overlong, and hence far less powerful than it ought to be. This is not to say that Lepore doesn’t do a good job. She does – with certain aspects, that is. She deals with the immovability of Article V by citing Antonin Scalia on the three-fourths half of the rule, the one that now allows as few as 13 states to veto any attempt at constitutional reform. After running the numbers, Scalia’s conclusion was that “something like less than two percent of the population can prevent a constitutional amendment.” The math seems a little off, since the 13 least populous states add up to 4.4 percent of the population, meaning that a majority would be somewhere around 2.2 percent or 2.3. But why quibble? The point is that Article V allows infinitesimal minorities to veto any and all efforts at constitutional reforms sought by the remainder. Hence Lepore’s conclusion: “That is not a constitutional door. That is a constitutional barricade.”

Quite right. Article V is an example of the tyranny of the minority that bottles up the desire for change until it’s ready to explode. As We the People puts it, “It is a rule of American history that when amendment becomes impossible, the risk of insurrection rises.” A constitutional freeze that began early in the 19th century thus contributed directly to the Civil War some 60 years later. The constitutional freeze that began in the early 1970s contributed to Donald Trump’s attempted coup in January 2021.

Instead of a force for stability, an unchangeable Constitution is the opposite. Lepore tosses in a corollary for good measure: “The more difficult it became to amend the Constitution, the more politicized were nominations to the Supreme Court.” This is accurate as well, given how vicious confirmation battles have become. As she notes:

The tit for tat had begun in 1967, when Strom Thurmond had tried to trip up [LBJ nominee] Thurgood Marshall with obscure questions about constitutional history in an attempt to prove that Blacks were racially inferior to whites. Birch Bayh had then defeated the nomination of [Clement] Haynsworth and [G. Harold] Carswell by introducing evidence that they were secretly segregationists. Feminists had defeated [Robert] Bork by claiming he would turn back the clock on women’s rights and overturn Roe. By the time Bush nominated [Clarence] Thomas, sexual harassment was the topic of the day.

And so on until 2018 when Democrats tried to deep-six Brett Kavanaugh by bringing in a mystery witness named Christine Blasey Ford with a tale of sexual assault at a teenage party that was not quite as iron-clad as they wanted us to believe. (Ford was unable to remember key details while a friend named Leland Keyser, who was also present at the party, later said her account didn’t hold up. “I don’t have any confidence in the story,” she told reporters.) But the nomination went through regardless, sending polarization rocketing upwards even more. We the People sums up how the vicious cycle works:

It was because of the insurmountable hurdle of Article V that … that liberals had sought constitutional change through the courts instead of by way of amendment. … The greater their success, the stronger the backlash. The stronger the backlash, the greater the polarization. The greater the polarization, the greater the difficulty of amendment. The greater the difficulty of amendment, the greater the recourse to the courts. And then the wheel turned again.

Lepore explores other aspects of the breakdown. There are the endless wars over interpretation and original intent. The latter concept seems sensible enough. If you want to know more about particular clause or text, then why not explore the thinking of those who formulated it? But the effort leads to a paradox. Participants in the 1787 constitutional convention were so intent on secrecy that they nailed the windows shut and pledged to keep mum about the proceedings for a half a century after. “Whatever venerations might be entertained for the body of men who formed our Constitution,” Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, “the sense of that body could never be regarded as the oracular guide in expounding the Constitution.”

So it seems that the founders’ original intent was that we should ignore original intent. But yet another problem looms: we’re drawn to original intent regardless. Lepore tells of a New Deal constitutional lawyer named Jacobus tenBroek who denounced the doctrine as out-and-out fraud:

Any theory which describes the meaning of the Constitution as changeless, which understands that constitutionality is decided by the outcome of a judicial search for the original intent, which makes of a constitutional issue only an historical question, which denies the proper influence of the altering factual world upon the meaning of the document – any theory which does all these things – is an utterly false portrayal of what the Supreme Court actually does.

Instead, tenBroek argued in behalf of a “doctrine of constitutional adaptability” that would allow Americans to interpret the document more flexibly in view of changing historical circumstances. This seems sensible too, since it’s obvious that modern society can’t be forced to conform to an 18th-century constitutional framework. But then tenBroek went and spoiled it all by arguing that flexibility was “the framers’ original intent,” to quote Lepore. The circle of confusion was thus complete. Even if you adhere in original intent, you’re stuck with the problem of which original intent to adhere to, the one that says we can be as flexible as we wish or the one that says we can’t. Americans are like characters in Dante’s Inferno, condemned to argue for all eternity over a doctrine that no one believes in, yet no one can quite let go.

There’s also the theory of implicit rights, which refers to rights that the Constitution does not lay out in black and white, but which nonetheless seem to flow from the document’s overall logic. For conservatives, it’s an article of faith that liberal Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas stretched things to the breaking point when, in a 1965 decision, he claimed to discern a general right of privacy in various “penumbras” and “emanations” arising out of the Bill of Rights. Not surprisingly, Clarence Thomas supposedly put up a sign in his chambers saying, “Please don’t emanate in the penumbras.” But Lepore cites an anti-abortion group called United for Life, which claimed to discern a general right to life that is “implicit in other, more explicitly protected rights.” So we’re back to implicit rights after all. When the other side does it, it’s playing fast and loose with the text. When our side does it, it’s strict construction at its finest.

One could go on – and indeed Lepore does for close to 600 pages. But despite her deep knowledge of the subject and her formidable analytic abilities, she lards the text with so many digressions that the reader winds up lost. There are side excursions into complicated 18th-century devices known as orreries, which were designed to show the planets revolving in their orbits. There are further digressions about Jefferson and his slaves, about native-American efforts to devise constitutions of their own, about Dred Scott and the problem of a constitutional reading that holds that all men are not created equal, and so on.

Lepore paints an extended portrait of a pioneering Black journalist named Ethel Payne, a reporter for the Chicago Defender. We see Payne covering the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, listening to the Brown v. Board of Education hearings, and reporting on congressional efforts to amend the Constitution so as to prevent integration once and for all. The Bandung Conference, which took place in 1955, was especially important because it shows how appalled the ex-colonial world was about US racial policies. But it’s unclear why Payne merits attention and not, say, Dean Acheson, Truman’s secretary of state, who complained that Americans “are reminded over and over by some foreign newspapers and spokesmen, that our treatment of various minorities leaves much to be desired.” Acheson was a key supporter of Brown because he thought desegregation would enable America to fare better against the Soviets. It was proof, as the historian Mary Dudziak has argued, that desegregation was as much “a Cold War imperative” as anything else. But why Lepore places a peripheral character like Payne at center stage instead is unclear.

Ultimately, all these digressions, anecdotes, and mini-profiles seem like an avoidance mechanism whose purpose is to steer clear of a constitutional crisis that is too painful to face. We the People is particularly unsatisfying when it finally gets to Trump. This, after all, is the man who lost the popular vote in 2016 and only squeaked into office by virtue of a constitutional quirk; whose presidency sparked a near civil war over alleged Russian influence; who was impeached twice; who ran afoul of Democratic “lawfare” aimed at destroying his business and putting him behind bars for the rest of his life, and who then clawed his back into the presidency in 2024.

Now that Trump is busy trying to put enemies like James B. Comey and Letitia James in jail, it’s a sterling case of backlash and polarization raised to the nth degree. It should have gotten Lepore’s juices flowing because it illustrates all too well how a frozen constitution leads to democratic collapse. Yet her discussion goes flat. Instead of confronting the problem head-on, we get still more digressions – into Jefferson’s use of child labor, into an early-19th-century French loom that used punch cards to weave new patterns, into AI, the climate crisis, and even William F. Buckley Jr. The prose is so cloying as to make even Oprah Winfrey’s toes curl:

No constitution can be kept forever, like a butterfly under glass, tacked down with pins … To constitute is to become or establish; to amend is to mend, correct, repair, and improve. Americans might learn against to amend, or else they could invent a new instrument to guarantee liberty, promote equality, nurture families, knit communities, thwart tyranny, and avert the destruction of a habitable earth. Constitutions began with stones and seashells, with old books and oak trees, with sheepskin and goose feathers. From the burning, scorched earth, new ideas might arise once more, seedlings, sprouting, tendrils wending to the sun.

Yuck. Calling for a new instrument of governance means calling for revolution. Lepore takes refuge in excess verbiage because she’s afraid to confront where all this is going. Paging Dr. Freud…

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New Student Loan Limits Could Change Who Gets To Become A Professor, Doctor Or Lawyer

BY RODNEY COATES

PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL RACE

AND ETHNIC STUDIES,

MIAMI UNIVERSITY

As millions of student loan borrowers settle into the school year, many are stressed about how they’ll pay for their degrees. These students may find that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the big tax and spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law over the summer, could limit how much they can borrow.

Until recently, graduate students could take out two types of federal loans: Direct Unsubsidized Loans, which had a lifetime limit of US$138,500, and Grad PLUS loans, which allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance, minus financial aid.

But Grad PLUS loans will be eliminated next summer, with a three-year transitional period for current borrowers. That will leave only the capped loans for new borrowers, and those loans have new lifetime borrowing limits: $200,000 for students pursuing certain professional degrees, and $100,000 for nonprofessional graduate programs.

If you add both undergraduate and graduate loans, there’s a new lifetime limit of $257,500 per person.

That seems modest to me. Consider that the annual average costs for an undergraduate degree range from $24,920 for in-state public universities to $58,000 for private universities. That means we’re looking at up to $224,000 for a bachelor’s degree. If we add three years of law school, we’re looking at an additional $132,000 to $168,000, respectively. Alternatively, completing four years of medical school will set you back another $268,000 to $363,000. It’s not easy to make those numbers add up to less than $257,500.

As I reflect on these numbers and my journey to becoming a college professor, specializing in race and ethnic studies, one thing becomes clear: I would never have been able to earn my bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and Ph.D. under these new rules.

Adjusting for inflation, I took out nearly $300,000 in student loans, and I paid them all off within a decade of starting my college teaching career. For me, the system worked. I wonder how today’s aspiring professionals, especially those from less prosperous backgrounds, will manage.

The future of professionals

Professional students already graduate with a lot of debt – often far more than the new loan caps will allow. In 2020, more than a quarter of graduating medical students and nearly 60% of graduating dental students had borrowed more than the new limits would allow, author Mark Kantrowitz, who is an expert on student loans, has found. In 2024, nearly a quarter of medical school graduates left school with more than $300,000 in debt.

The new borrowing limits will likely hit minority students especially hard. While about 61% of all graduate students take out student loans, the share is much higher for Black students compared with white students, 48% to 17%.

While some might be able to supplement their federal loans with private ones – which tend to have much worse terms for borrowers – I fear that many others will be forced to end their educations prematurely.

That, in turn, would worsen the already severe shortage of doctors serving the Black community. As pointed out in a 2023 report of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the shortage of Black primary care physicians is directly related to overall lower population health and ultimately higher mortality rates within the Black community. As of 2023, fewer than 6% of U.S. doctors were Black, versus 14.4% of the population.

Research has suggested that student loan relief would help diversify the medical workforce. Adding new restrictions would likely have the opposite effect, making the profession more homogeneous and significantly undermining Black public health.

Or consider attorneys. Law school costs have risen more than 600% over the past two decades. The average 2020 law school graduate left with $165,000 in student debt.

Black law students face unique challenges, graduating with approximately 8% more debt on average than white students and facing significant wage disparities once they enter the legal workforce. Making it harder for Black students to afford law school could reduce the number of Black attorneys, which has held steady at about 5% of active lawyers over the past 10 years.

Reducing access to federal student loans risks disproportionately affecting women, since they hold roughly two-thirds of all student debt.

What comes next

Supporters of the change say that capping graduate student borrowing will encourage universities to rein in tuition hikes. They also say private student loan providers will step in to help students. I am skeptical, but the true test will come next year.

In the meantime, professional students might want to familiarize themselves with the many scholarship opportunities available. Many organizations offer a range of medical school scholarships, including those targeting women and minorities. The same is true for students interested in law school. A helpful starting point is this list of scholarships with approaching deadlines and these opportunities for women and people of color.

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What The First Amendment Doesn’t Protect When It Comes To Professors Speaking Out On Politics

The First Amendment is on display in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. StephanieCraig/iStock via Getty Images Plus

BY NEAL H. HUTCHENS AND JEFFREY C. SUN

American colleges and universities are increasingly firing or punishing professors and other employees for what they say, whether it’s on social media or in the classroom.

After the Sept. 10, 2025, killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, several universities, including Iowa State University, Clemson University, Ball State University and others, fired or suspended employees for making negative online comments about Kirk.

Some of these dismissed professors compared Kirk to a Nazi, described his views as hateful, or said there was no reason to be sorry about his death.

Some professors are now suing their employers for taking disciplinary action against them, claiming they are violating their First Amendment rights.

In one case, the University of South Dakota fired Phillip Michael Cook, a tenured art professor, after he posted on Facebook in September that Kirk was a “hate spreading Nazi.” Cook, who took down his post within a few hours and apologized for it, then sued the school, saying it was violating his First Amendment rights.

A federal judge stated in a Sept. 23 preliminary order that the First Amendment likely protected what Cook posted. The judge ordered the University of South Dakota to reinstate Cook, and the university announced on Oct. 4 that it would reverse Cook’s firing.

Cook’s lawsuit, as well as other lawsuits filed by dismissed professors, is testing how much legal authority colleges have over their employees’ speech – both when they are on the job and when they are not.

For decades, American colleges and universities have traditionally encouraged free speech and open debate as a core part of their academic mission.

As scholars who study college free speech and academic freedom, we recognize that these events raise an important question: When, if ever, can a college legally discipline an employee for what they say?

Limits of public employees’ speech rights

The First Amendment limits the government’s power to censor people’s free speech. People in the United States can, for instance, join protests, criticize the government and say things that others find offensive.

But the First Amendment only applies to the government – which includes public colleges and universities – and not private institutions or companies, including private colleges and universities.

This means private colleges typically have wide authority to discipline employees for their speech.

In contrast, public colleges are considered part of the government. The First Amendment limits the legal authority they have over their employees’ speech. This is especially true when an employee is speaking as a private citizen – such as participating in a political rally outside of work hours, for example.

The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 1968 case that public employees’ speech rights as private citizens can extend to criticizing their employer, like if they write a letter critical of their employer to a newspaper.

The Supreme Court also ruled in 2006 that the First Amendment does not protect public employees from being disciplined by their employers when they say or write something as part of their official job duties.

Even when a public college employee is speaking outside of their job duties as a private citizen, they might not be guaranteed First Amendment protection. To reach this legal threshold, what they say must be about something of importance to the public, or what courts call a “matter of public concern.”

Talking or writing about news, politics or social matters – Kirk’s murder – often meets the legal test for when speech is about a matter of public concern.

In contrast, courts have ruled that personal workplace complaints or gossip typically does not guarantee freedom of speech protection.

And in some cases, even when a public employee speaks as a private citizen on a topic that a court considers a matter of public concern, their speech may still be unprotected.

A public employer can still convince a court that its reasons for prohibiting an employee’s speech – like preventing conflict among co-workers – are important enough to deny this employee First Amendment protection.

Lawsuits brought by the employees of public colleges and universities who have been fired for their comments about Kirk may likely be decided based on whether what they said or wrote amounts to a matter of public concern. Another important factor is whether a court is convinced that an employee’s speech about Kirk was serious enough to disrupt a college’s operations, thus justifying the employee’s firing.

Academic freedom and professors’ speech

There are also questions over whether professors at public universities, in particular, can cite other legal rights to protect their speech.

Academic freedom refers to a faculty member’s rights connected to their teaching and research expertise.

At both private and public colleges, professors’ work contracts – like the ones typically signed after receiving tenure – potentially provide legal protections for faculty speech connected to academic freedom, such as in the classroom.

However, the First Amendment does not apply to how a private college regulates its professors’ speech or academic freedom.

Professors at public colleges have at least the same First Amendment free speech rights as their fellow employees, like when speaking in a private citizen capacity.

Additionally, the First Amendment might protect a public college professor’s work-related speech when academic freedom concerns arise, like in their teaching and research.

In 2006, the Supreme Court left open the question of whether the First Amendment covers academic freedom, in a case where it found the First Amendment did not cover what public employees say when carrying out their official work.

Since then, the Supreme Court has not dealt with this complicated issue. And lower federal courts have reached conflicting decisions about First Amendment protection for public college professors’ speech in their teaching and research.
Future of free speech for university employees

Some colleges, especially public ones, are testing the legal limits of their authority over their employees’ speech.

These incidents demonstrate a culture of extreme political polarization in higher education.

Beyond legal questions, colleges are also grappling with how to define their commitments to free speech and academic freedom.

In particular, we believe campus leaders should consider the purpose of higher education. Even if legally permitted, restricting employees’ speech could run counter to colleges’ traditional role as places for the open exchange of ideas.

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