Author: Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig
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Over the past year, many of you have asked why I chose to step down as provost and what comes next. The Western Herald captured that journey with care: the moment that tested my values, the exchange program I proposed to help students and scholars displaced by war, and the larger lesson I keep returning to, failure…
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You’ve probably heard about the Supreme Court’s latest decision: being visibly Latino (and working at a car wash, speaking Spanish, etc.) can now count as a legally “relevant factors” for harassment from law enforcement. The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court LOVES to proclaim “colorblindness.” When it struck down race-conscious college admissions in Students for…
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When we talk about justice, we often focus on resistance, sacrifice, and struggle. These are real and unavoidable parts of the story, but they are not the whole of it. There is another current that runs through liberation work, one that sustains movements and nourishes people when the fight becomes heavy. That current is joy.…
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Every September, fans across the country settle into couches, stadium seats, and sports bars with the same anticipation. The football season begins, and for the next several months we get to witness the complexity of the game: strategy, athleticism, competition, and drama. Every year there are new stars, unexpected contenders, and, of course, the inevitable…
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When UC Berkeley scholar Travis J. Bristol speaks of a “second nadir” in U.S. race relations, he invokes a chilling historical echo. The first nadir followed the end of Reconstruction—when the Ku Klux Klan rose, lynchings of Blacks was commonplace, and Plessy v. Ferguson enshrined “separate but equal” into law. Today, Bristol argues, we are…
Cloaking Inequity 