Amor Mundi

Does Harvard Discriminate Against Asians?

Roger Berkowitz
Jay Caspian Kang believes in affirmative action and racial preferences. But when he dives into the Harvard case coming to the Supreme Court, Kang argues that Harvard’s approach to affirmative action reveals “a profoundly broken system that relies on obfuscation and misdirection, especially when it comes to the treatment of Asian applicants.”

The 2020 Election

Roger Berkowitz
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) has issued what the Wall Street Journal calls the best report on what really happened in the 2020 elections.

Academic Politics

Roger Berkowitz
Matt Beard reflects on the academic politics of the early 20th century- and the ideas of Weber and Arendt- in order to draw lessons for our own time, in which politics is infringing on questions of academic integrity.

Against Memory

Roger Berkowitz
Nicolas Tenzer looks at attempts to destroy “Memorial,” a group founded by the dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov that sought to expose Stalin’s crimes.

The Right Danger

Roger Berkowitz
Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner argue that the real danger to American Constitutional democracy comes from the failure of conservatives to stand up to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine a presidential election. 

The Political Rise of the Family Business

Roger Berkowitz
Melinda Cooper argues that the Trump Republican Party represents the "insurrection of one form of capitalism against another: the private, unincorporated, and family-based versus the corporate, publicly traded, and shareholder-owned.”

The Classics for All

Roger Berkowitz
When Roosevelt Montas immigrated to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic, he found a copy of Plato’s Dialogues in a garbage dump and took it home. It changed his life. Thomas Chatterton Williams writes on the importance of the classics for the underprivileged.

Why A Mugging?

Roger Berkowitz
Adam Shatz, who has taught with me at Bard and spoken at Arendt Center Conferences and events, writes about his being assaulted, beaten up, and mugged in New York last month.

Power to the Politicians

Roger Berkowitz
The voting reform agenda seems dead in Congress. One can argue about the quality of the two bills being proposed. And one can argue about the filibuster. Lawrence Lessig reminds us that the real problem is the untethered pursuit of partisan political power that has taken over our political system.