Author Archives: Michael Magdzik

Straight and gay people alike need to work to reinject meaning into the oaths we take in marriage, because those oaths are reflective of our national character. When this institution fails, so will we, and so we all need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on infidelity, no matter the stature of the leader committing adultery.

I watch all of the debates. I allow myself to be drawn into long back-and-forth conversations on Facebook and in the dining hall. I write columns and papers on politics and policy issues. I even major in Political Science. For these reasons, most of my friends are genuinely surprised when I reveal to them that »

“It’s just rhetoric, you know?” I was sitting in an interview the other morning, making small talk about the vice presidential debate, when this familiar phrase reared its ugly head: just rhetoric. The art of manipulating the American people has been on display for so long that many of us recognize the game. We’ve realized »

In mid-September, the New York City Board of Health approved the Bloomberg administration’s controversial ban on large sodas and sugary drinks. Four days later, Master Marvin Chun of Berkeley College announced a new policy confining smokers to one bench in each courtyard. This past Friday, amidst a renewed emphasis on safety by Yale’s higher-ups, the »

Sixty percent is a failing grade. Sixty percent is also where the high school graduation rate for Chicago Public Schools hovers. It’s a shame when any child doesn’t pass, but when failure happens at this rate, it’s an educational crisis. When nine-tenths of the students in this system are low-income and more than four-fifths are »

When you first came to tour Yale, your guide probably emphasized just how safe you would be in this place. With a private police force, blue-light outposts never more than a drunken stumble away and our friendly neighborhood Predator drone, affectionately dubbed M.A.M.A (Miller Always Monitors Adolescents), how could you not feel protected? That last »

George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is one of the most hackneyed phrases in all of writing, yet for all its overuse, it retains a certain placid stubbornness, preying on our collective subconscious as a potent, if not perhaps entirely reliable, indicator of truth. During a »

The top lawyer at the Department of Defense encouraged law students to enter public service on Wednesday in front of a crowd of over 100 at Yale Law School. Jeh Johnson, general counsel of the United States Department of Defense, explained how legal principles shape his office’s work in the government’s counterterrorism efforts. Although the »

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” was not written about graduate students, but it may as well have been. Between years of work, small stipends — or for those lucky folks getting masters’, crushing debt! — boring tomes dusty enough to constitute a choking hazard and, for prospective »

Diverse feminist views collided Saturday in a panel discussion about the ethics of pornography. Three feminists from a range of professions spoke about the industry and its impacts on women before a mostly student audience of about 60 people. The talk continued Sex Week 2012’s dialogue on controversial social issues as the panelists shared their »

Martin Bourqui, a young activist for responsible investing, suggested Friday that the Yale Investments Office needs to manage the University’s $19.4 billion endowment in more socially and environmentally responsible ways. In an afternoon talk at St. Anthony’s Hall attended by about a dozen students, Bourqui, national organizer for the Responsible Endowments Coalition, charged that the »

Last Thursday’s Republican debate featured a prime instance of one of the most pernicious movements in modern American politics — the attempt to divorce the private and public lives of politicians and to make the former illegitimate fodder for voter scrutiny. Americans, and conservatives in particular, should resist this folly. For those of you who »