In honor of Labor Day weekend, we explore the state of labor in the United States and we take stock in the impact of Union organization in America. We consider some of the high profile labor cases, such as Union organization at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, and Trader Joe’s.

We also examine labor history and look at the role that race and gender have played in growing the labor movement.[ dur: 58mins. ]

Lane Windham is Associate Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University. She is the author of Knocking on Labor’s Door: Union Organizing in the 1970s and the Roots of a New Economic Divide, Strengthening workers’ right to organize is 50 years overdue and co-author of Explaining the erosion of private-sector unions.
Jon Shelton is Associate Professor and Chair of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is the author of Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order, and forthcoming in 2023, The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy.
John Logan is Professor and Chair of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Crushing Unions, by Any Means Necessary: How Amazon’s Blistering Anti-Union Campaign Won in Bessemer, Alabama, Not Your Father’s Anti-Union Movement: Ten Key Facts About Starbucks’ Union Avoidance Law Firm, Littler Mendelson and The Movement to Eliminate Labor’s Political Voice (book chapter, 2014)

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – US provides policy incentives for mitigation and adaptation to changing climate and its effects – August 28, 2022

August 27, 2022 host

The United States just passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Much of it addresses climate change. Does it meet the challenge the planet faces on the changing climate? What renewable energy technologies will the US need to utilize to meet its climate goals? [ dur: 28mins. ]

Mark Jacobson is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University. He is also the Co-Founder of The Solutions Project, 100.org, and the 100% Clean, Renewable Energy Movement. He is author of 100% Clean, Renewable Energy and Storage for Everything and the forthcoming No Miracles Needed : How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air.

Scientists say we still have time to address climate change and we’ve made headway, but we still have a long way to go. We rebroadcast a conversation with renowned climate scientist Michael Mann recorded on September 25, 2016. [ dur: 30mins. ]

For a transcript of this interview, please visit: TheBigQ

Michael E. Mann is Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences and the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI). He is the director of Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy and The New Climate War.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Factory Farming of Animals, an Unsustainable Method of Food Production – August 21, 2022

August 21, 2022 host

Farming around the world, and in particular in the US, has increasingly become centralized as large factory farming. What are the environmental, social, and philosophical implications of this mode of agricultural production? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Factory farming carry significant challenges on environmental protection, on pricing and the centralization of wealth, and on social issues such as animal welfare and animal rights. We discuss agricultural policies and the environmental impacts including carbon emission, climate change and pollution.

John Ikerd is author, speaker and leader in sustainability. He is Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics from the University of Missouri. He is the author of the books Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People Through Agriculture, Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture, and The Essentials of Economic Sustainability. Other publications – Factory Farms–Things Everyone Should Know and Economic Realities of CAFOs.
Kendra Coulter is Professor of Management and Organizational Studies at Huron University College and Fellow at Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. She is the co-author of “Animal Protection: Organizational Constraints and Collaborative Opportunities,” author of Looking Forward to a Future Without Factory Farming, and Defending Animals: Inside the Front Lines of Animal Protection (forthcoming MIT Press, 2023)
Gary L. Francione is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lincoln (UK). He is the author of Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals, The Animal Rights Debate: Abolition or Regulation? and Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil – Part II; What is Race and Ethnicity – August 14, 2022

August 14, 2022 host

First, we continue our conversation with preeminent psychology scholar Ervin Staub. Last week we discussed how to build peaceful societies, particularly when some groups have been traumatized by violence, war or genocide. Erwin Staub’s latest book is The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil. This is part two of our discussion. [ dur: 33mins. ]

Ervin Staub is a Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Founding Director of its Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence.

Then, what is race? How is it distinct from ethnicity? And what do they mean for politics and society? [ dur: 25mins. ]

David Livingstone Smith is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of New England. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why we Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others and The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War.
Garrett Albert Duncan is Associate Professor of Education in Arts & Sciences. He also teaches African & African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. His publications are listed here.

This show was recorded on June 2015

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Effect from Arms Trade on Politics and Society ; Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil – August 7, 2022

August 6, 2022 host

First, a look inside the arms trade and its effects on politics and society.[ dur: 33mins. ]

Suzette Grillot is a Professor of International Studies at University of Oklahoma. She is the co-author of the book The International Arms Trade (with Rachel Stohl), Arms Control and the Environment (with Lakshman Guruswamy) and the co-editor of Understanding the Global Community (with Zach P. Messitte).

Then, we speak with Ervin Staub about his latest book, The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil: Inclusive Caring, Moral Courage, Altruism Born of Suffering, Active Bystandership and Heroism. [ dur: 25 mins. ]

Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology Emeritus and Founding Director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also the author of Psychology of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence and The psychology of good and evil: Why children, adults and groups help and harm others.

This recording is from June of 2015.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Undoing of Separation between Church and State by SCOTUS – July 31, 2022

July 30, 2022 host

Thomas Jefferson once declared that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was intended to build a wall of separation between the church and state. Have the recent Supreme Court rulings eroded this purpose? And what do these ruling mean for the role of religion and lawmaking in the larger society across the United States? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Samuel D. Brunson is Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development at Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He is the author of God and the IRS: Accommodating Religious Practice in United States Tax Law and God Is My Roommate? Tax Exemptions for Parsonages Yesterday, Today, and (if Constitutional) Tomorrow.
Andrew Koppelman is John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Increasingly Dangerous Variants of the “Most-Favored-Nation” Theory of Religious Liberty and The Supreme Court and the new religious aristocracy in the Hill.
Micah Schwartzman is the director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy and the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law at University of Virginia. He is the co-author of Establishment Clause Appeasement, When Do Religious Accommodations Burden Others? and The Quiet Demise of the Separation of the Church and State.
Caroline Mala Corbin is Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law. She is the author of Opportunistic Originalism and the Establishment Clause, The Supreme Court’s Facilitation of White Christian Nationalism and Justice Scalia, the Establishment Clause and Christian Privilege.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS on the path to take back tribal sovereignty set in law by the US Congress – July 24, 2022

July 23, 2022 host

The US Supreme Court just challenged tribal sovereignty in its ruling in Oklahoma v Castro-Huerta, which empowers the state much greater power to prosecute for alleged crimes in tribal lands. The legal implications are vast. We will explore the case and the future of tribal sovereignty in light of the Court’s drastic reversal of case precedent.

What does this case mean for the jurisdiction of the tribe on reservations and on child welfare under what’s called the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Robert J. Miller is Professor of Law at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He is Interim Chief Justice at Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals. He is the author of American Indian Sovereignty versus the United States (in Handbook of Critical Indigenous Studies) and the forthcoming A Promise Kept: The Muscogee (Creek) Nation and McGirt v. Oklahoma. He is an enrolled citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe.
Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví, is Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. She is the author of The Other American Law and The Supreme Court strikes again — this time at tribal sovereignty. She is tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo.
Matthew L.M. Fletcher is the Harry Burns Hutchins Collegiate Professor of Law at Michigan Law. He sits as the Chief Justice of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. He is the author of American Indian Education: Counternarratives in Racism, Struggle, and the Law and Ghost Road: Anishinaabe Responses to Indian-Hating. He is a member of the Grand Traverse Band.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Regulatory challenges for EPA after West Virginia v. EPA Decision of 2022 – July 17, 2022

July 16, 2022 host

The Supreme Court has weakened executive agencies and their ability to regulate and make policy. No agency has been more affected than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). What is next for environmental protection? [ dur: 58mins. ]

Traditionally, the US Supreme Court has given executive branch agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency quite a bit of latitude at enforcing Congressional legislation. This principle is called Chevron deference. But in this term, the Supreme Court weakened this principle significantly, in particular in the area of environmental protection. In West Virginia v EPA, the Court signaled that the EPA can only enforce on areas specifically outlined by Congress. Specifically, it weakened the agency’s ability to take regulatory steps to combat climate change. We will discuss what this means for the EPA, for public policy, and for the US’s ability to make international commitments on the environment.

Joel A. Mintz is Professor Emeritus of Law and C. William Trout Senior Fellow in Public Interest Law at Nova Southeastern University Law Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is the author of Enforcement at the EPA: High Stakes and Hard Choices and “Thinking Beyond Gridlock: Towards A Consistent Statutory Approach To Federal Environmental Enforcement“.
Richard N. L. (Pete) Andrews is a Faculty Fellow of the Institute for the Environment and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is the author of Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy.
Pamela Chasek is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at Manhattan College. She is the author of Global Environmental Politics.

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Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – We examine post Roe world of Women’s health care – July 10, 2022

July 11, 2022 host

Women have lost their constitutional right of bodily autonomy and the right to an abortion in the United States. We discuss the impact of the overturning of Roe v Wade with an emphasis on the future legal struggles, as well as, the social challenge of ensuring reproductive health and equality. How has the discourse around abortion shifted? What has altered about the way we think and talk about abortions and the right to abortions? We look at Crisis Pregnancy Centers and their impact. Also, we explore the role of the federal government. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Greer Donley is an Associate Professor of Law at the University Pittsburgh Law School. She is the author of Medication Abortion Exceptionalism, and co-author of Abortion, Pregnancy Loss, and Subjective Fetal Personhood (with Jill Wieber Lens) and The New Abortion Battleground (with David S. Cohen and Rachel Rebouché).
Carole Joffe is Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion before and after Roe v. Wade, Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients and the Rest of Us and co-author of Obstacle Course: The Everyday Struggle to Get an Abortion in America.
Aziza Ahmed is Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. She is the author of The Future of Facts: The Politics of Public Health and Medicine in Abortion Law, Informed Decision Making and Abortion: Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Informed Consent, and the First Amendment, and Medical Evidence and Expertise in Abortion Jurisprudence .
Cary Franklin is a Professor of Law at UCLA and the Faculty Director of UCLA’s Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy. She is the author of Roe As We Know It, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt and What It Means to Protect Women and Living Textualism.

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Scholars’ Circle – States’ Rights to Legislate Gun Violence restricted by SCOTUS – July 3, 2022

July 3, 2022 host

The US Supreme Court, in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen, ruled that state laws must reflect a Second Amendment protection that allows for individuals to carry guns for personal protection outside of their homes. We examine the future of gun control legislation in light of the Court’s rejection of state power to restrict gun ownership to private homes and gun clubs, thus, restricting the legislator’s ability to address gun violence. Historically, how have courts and legislators viewed the second amendment to the constitution?

Who are the victims of gun violence? Most victims are from intimate partner violence, suicide and homicide? We explore the impact of the proliferation of weapons in the United States. [ dur: 58mins. ]

Robert J. Spitzer is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. He is the author of the books Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules And Rights, The Politics of Gun Control, and his latest article on the NYSRPA v. Bruen decision, How the Supreme Court rewrote history to justify its flawed gun decision.
Carl T. Bogus is Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law. He is the editor of The Second Amendment in Law and History: Historians and Constitutional Scholars on the Right to Bear Arms and the author of The Hard, Simple Truth about Gun Control,” and Gun Control and America’s Cities: Public Policy and Politics.
David Hemenway is Professor of Health Policy and Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He is the author of Private Guns Public Health Reducing Firearm Violence, and How the US can have guns but fewer gun problems.

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The Scholars' Circle Interviews

Scholars’ Circle – Impact of Union Organizations on Labor Rights in USA – September 4, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – US provides policy incentives for mitigation and adaptation to changing climate and its effects – August 28, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Factory Farming of Animals, an Unsustainable Method of Food Production – August 21, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil – Part II; What is Race and Ethnicity – August 14, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Effect from Arms Trade on Politics and Society ; Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil – August 7, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Undoing of Separation between Church and State by SCOTUS – July 31, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – SCOTUS on the path to take back tribal sovereignty set in law by the US Congress – July 24, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – Regulatory challenges for EPA after West Virginia v. EPA Decision of 2022 – July 17, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – We examine post Roe world of Women’s health care – July 10, 2022

Scholars’ Circle – States’ Rights to Legislate Gun Violence restricted by SCOTUS – July 3, 2022

By Maria Armoudian