The case for Cal’s admissions policy, designed to mirror the state’s population.
Health & Social Policy
States First: The Other Path to National Health Reform
As a state legislator in Massachusetts since 1985, I have seen the best and worst of state health policy-making. In 1988 the Massachusetts Legislature approved a measure intended to guarantee health insurance to all 600,000 uninsured state residents. The early steps under the law, covering students, the unemployed, and disabled adults and children, were preludes […]
Rehnquist’s Road to Serfdom: The Ominous Message of -Rust v. Sullivan-
An Orwellian Supreme Court decision creates a false choice between social benefits and individual rights.
The Limits of Legalization
Advocates of legalization confuse the effects of criminalizing drugs with the effects of social deprivation. They’re also blithely unrealistic about the impact of legalization on drug consumption and its social costs.
Dealing with Legalization
What would happen if we legalized hard drugs? Here are six different plans for what to do after the end of drug prohibition—and why one of them makes the most sense.
Civil Reconstruction: What to Do Without Affirmative Action
The time is approaching when we will have no alternative but to find a new road to equal opportunity in America. With the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court now will likely have a black justice among the majority when it votes to overturn Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the 1978 […]
A New Picture of The American Economy
What really ails the American economy? Many economists blame stalled productivity—without understanding it. A new analysis suggests that prosperity depends on success in key industries significant in international trade.
From Crisis to Working Majority
Reports of the death of the Democrats are greatly exaggerated. Three new books, despite their author’s pessimism, suggest how to reconstruct the party’s middle-class foundations.
The Rehabilitation of the Asylum
The shift of mentally ill patients out of institutions has not worked out the way supporters of deinstitutionalization wanted. But is the remedy a return to the asylum? Some neoconservatives think so.

