Who broke student loans?
Last month, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness program. Student loan debt these days weighs in at about $1.7 trillion. Leah Litman and Josh Mitchell join us on the latest episode of The Weeds to dive into the legal landscape and discuss how we got this student loan system in the first place. Read More: The Supreme Court’s student loan decision in Biden v. Nebraska is lawless and completely partisan | Vox The Supreme Court put itself in charge of the executive branch with its major questions doctrine | Vox Student Debt Relief Bad, Bigotry Good | Crooked Media Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about. Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Vince Fairchild, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
26 Jul 202352min
Expecting: Weed and Pregnancy
Many states have extremely punitive policies around cannabis and pregnancy. But researchers don't actually have great data on cannabis's harms. This episode of Unexplainable originally aired in May 2023. Read More: Weed in pregnancy: Is it safe? - Vox Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about. Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
19 Jul 202342min
It's an HOA world; you're just living in it
If you’re buying a new home, there’s a good chance it’s part of a homeowners association. HOAs are a form of common interest housing, and roughly a quarter of Americans live in communities with one. These private entities work as a pseudo-government in many neighborhoods, and they’re shaping housing policy across the country. Read More: When your neighbors become your overlords Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
12 Jul 202351min
The Republican plot to defund public libraries
A popular saying is that public libraries are the last bastion of true democracy. But in recent months, Republican state lawmakers and local elected boards in states including Texas and Missouri have threatened libraries as a way to control what materials patrons can and cannot access. But these funding threats didn’t come out of nowhere. They often start with book bans in public schools. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we dig into threats to defund public libraries and the growing movement to ban books at schools and libraries across the country. Cody Croan, an administrative librarian in Missouri, talks about what he’s seen on the ground, and Kasey Meehan, the program director for Freedom to Read at PEN America, tells us what this new level of censorship means for American democracy. Read More: Why Republicans want to defund public libraries and ban books | Vox The “anti-intellectual attack” on higher ed will take years to undo | Vox Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about Credits: Fabiola Cineas, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
28 Jun 202347min
A conversation with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield
In this live taping of The Weeds from TruCon 2023, host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, for a conversation about the role of Africa in the current geopolitical landscape. They discuss the ongoing conflict in Sudan, Uganda’s new anti-LGBTQ law, South Africa’s move to supply weapons to Russia, and take some audience questions. Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about. Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
21 Jun 202334min
We need to rethink discipline in schools
For many Black children, their first encounter with the discrimination that will trail them their whole lives comes from the school system — a system where they are five times more likely to attend a segregated school than their white counterparts. This early exposure to segregation is one of many possible factors contributing to what’s known as the racial achievement gap — the gap between Black and white students’ test scores. Education experts have looked to a number of factors as root causes of the gap: family income, single parenthood, school resources. Another is the disparities in school discipline. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we dig into school discipline and the achievement gap with Francis Pearman of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. Read more: Discrimination everywhere | Vox and Capital B Abbott Elementary Recap: Janine and Gregory Sitting in a Tree | Vulture Excerpt: Collective Racial Bias and the Black-White Test Score Gap Schools are still segregated, and Black children are paying a price | Economic Policy Institute Full study: Collective Racial Bias and the Black-White Test Score Gap | SpringerLink Submit your policy questions! We want to know what you’re curious about. Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
14 Jun 202351min
The kids suing their state for climate change
Do Montanans have a constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment? According to the state constitution they do. And a group of young people are using that language to sue the state over its energy policies. The case is called Held v. Montana, and the plaintiffs want to prove the state’s energy policies directly harm the Montana environment. In today’s episode of The Weeds, we’ll dig into the case with Amanda Eggert (@amandaleggert), environmental reporter at the Montana Free Press, and also hear from a plaintiff about why she decided to join the lawsuit. You can read more reporting from Amanda on the Montana legislature, state energy policy, and the environment at MontanaFreePress.org We reached out to the Montana attorney general’s office for comment. Here is the full statement below: “Following the legislative session, there are no existing laws or policies for the district court to rule on. A show trial on laws that do not exist, as the district court seems intent on holding, would be a colossal waste of taxpayer resources. This same lawsuit has been thrown out of federal court and courts in a dozen other states — and it should be dismissed here in Montana as well.” —Emily Flower, spokeswoman for Attorney General Austin Knudsen “This entire lawsuit is a meritless publicity stunt to increase fundraising for their political activism at the expense of Montana taxpayers. Our Children’s Trust is a special-interest group that is exploiting well-intentioned Montana kids — including a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old — to achieve its goal of shutting down responsible energy development in our state. Unable to implement their policies through the normal processes of representative government, these out-of-state climate activists are trying to use liberal courts to impose their authoritarian climate agenda on Montanans.” —Kyler Nerison, communications director for Attorney General Austin Knudsen Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
7 Jun 202341min
The fate of affirmative action
Summer is around the corner, which means the latest rulings from this Supreme Court are as well. Two cases will take on affirmative action. In this episode of The Weeds we go on a deep dive with Vox reporters Fabiola Cineas and Ian Millhiser and look at the man behind both cases, the current state of affirmative action, and what a future without this policy would look like. Read More: Everything you need to know about the Supreme Court affirmative action cases - Vox The Supreme Court discovers that ending affirmative action is hard in the Harvard and UNC cases - Vox Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, by Stephen L. Carter Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
24 Mai 202358min
