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JEFF JACOBY

As ‘Taxachusetts’ is being revived, residents are fleeing

The level of out-migration from Massachusetts is the highest in 30 years.
MARCELA GARCÍA

How to protect undocumented workers from exploitation

People should try to get word to workers to contact local legal advocates, immigrant activists, or community organizations so they can explain to the workers what their rights are, what the risks are, and what legal avenues exist to help them.
Alex Beam

Everyone is getting into the trademark game

Because — why not? There is ample precedent for what sound like frivolous filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

op-eds

Vincent D. Rougeau

Clarence Thomas was a beneficiary of race-based admissions at my school

He will probably be among the Supreme Court’s majority in the next few weeks when it is expected to strike down the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
Natasha Warikoo

If affirmative action in college admissions ends, here’s who will fill those spots

States with existing bans make that outcome clear.
Alex Shieh

Affirmative action hurts Asian American kids like me

Asian American students are forced to achieve higher grades and test scores in order to overcome negative racial stereotypes.

letters

Envisioning Boston’s future with a blue-sky mind-set

In a climate crisis, public impact of private jets is too great

The crisis in emergency rooms: It’s complicated

Two zoos? Then which zoo? Or no zoo at all?

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Editor's picks

EDITORIAL

The reasons to look beyond Joe Biden’s age

The oldest president in the nation’s history has accomplished a great deal and deserves a second term. And if Donald Trump is his opponent, the choice is even clearer.
SCOT LEHIGH

Are you a good citizen?

Fretful readers had some strong thoughts on the obligations of good citizenship.
IDEAS | JOSHUA MACHT

An end run around a college degree

University tuition and student debt skyrocketed as higher education became a prerequisite for many jobs. Now new kinds of credentialing programs are giving big employers a chance to end the madness.
Phil Primack

With speech under a microscope, I’m afraid to teach

What once was dismissed as just a dumb statement or simple ignorance is now magnified into DEFCON one piling on, with escalating demands for the limbs, if not the heads, of the perpetrators. Proportion and context are buried in a cyber cascade of outrage.
IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

How Uphams Corner got wealthier without getting whiter

The scrappy Dorchester neighborhood has fulfilled the community activist’s dream: development without displacement.
LETTERS

2024 shaping up to be a race between a guy in his 80s and a guy in his 70s (and their running mates)

The main question in 2024 is: Do we want to get rid or retain the services of the current administration?

Cartoons

Remembering Emily Dickinson

Lest we forget

Florida, we have a problem

EDITORIAL CARTOONS

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Perimenopausal Margaret.

Reboot

A mother’s superpower

More from Globe Opinion

John Kelly

Federal agency should honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice

American Battle Monuments Commission should help Gold Star families honor the fallen buried overseas by reinstating, and encouraging the use of, its discontinued floral program.

EDITORIAL

When clinics can’t afford to keep detox and rehab beds open, state policy needs to change

Substance use should be treated like other mental health care.

Wes Ely

As long COVID turns three, Americans play disability roulette

An ICU physician, I’ve had a front row seat to the heartbreak of the past three years.

Alex Beam

Everyone is getting into the trademark game

Because — why not? There is ample precedent for what sound like frivolous filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

RENÉE GRAHAM

How Tina Turner helped Black girls and women feel free

The iconic performer followed no path but her own and gave many of us the courage to do the same.

SCOT LEHIGH

Ron DeSantis’s ill-conceived campaign

The Florida governor tries to take on Trump without offending MAGA.

EDITORIAL

An unfinished piece of criminal justice reform business: Raising the age for juvenile offenders

New research supports a new approach to dealing with young adults before they get caught up in the prison system.

Joan Wickersham

Don’t call my breasts ‘boobs.’ It’s degrading.

The tone of the word “boobs” is jaunty and jokey and a little bit tough: women taking back and wielding a word that was once used to demean us. But the word is still degrading.

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SPECIAL PROJECTS

IDEAS

Where did all the workers go?

For two years, employers have been desperate for workers — and there’s no indication the labor shortage will soon change. What are we losing — and possibly gaining — as a result?
Explore the project ➞

Globe Opinion’s 2022 Top 10

The readers have spoken: Take a tour through The Boston Globe opinion section’s top 10 most read columns, editorials, cartoons, letters, and Ideas stories of 2022.
RENÉE GRAHAM

Remembering trans lives taken in 2022

Even before a gunman killed five people and injured nearly 20 last month at Club Q, a popular LGBTQ nightspot in Colorado Springs, Colo., 2022 was already a deadly year for trans and gender nonconforming people. At least 35 have been killed nationwide, most of them Black trans women.
TIMELINE

Assault on American democracy

Jan. 6, 2021, was one of the most alarming days in American history. Boston Globe Opinion columns, editorials, letters, and cartoons untangle the continuing aftermath of the attack on the US Capitol.
IDEAS | JOAN VENNOCHI

How the MBTA went off the rails

Nearly everything about Boston has changed in the past few decades, yet the T has the same big problem — a failure to prioritize the rider experience above all.
IDEAS | DAVID SCHARFENBERG

Boston was once a wildly ambitious city. It’s time to go big again.

Soaring housing costs, a broken T, and other existential problems require sweeping fixes that meet the moment.

Young people and the power of social media

Social media holds enormous power over young people. Can they find a way to navigate safely through its ever-changing landscape?

How do we memorialize the pandemic?

As the United States neared its one millionth COVID-19 related death, artists, architects, and community leaders are calling for a permanent memorial to honor all those touched by COVID. Globe Opinion asked several artists for their vision of what a COVID memorial could look like.
Explore the rest of the project →
IDEAS | ABDALLAH FAYYAD

Editing the Constitution

The Constitution is undergoing massive changes in the Supreme Court. It’s time to put the founding document in the hands of the people.
ideas

The Future of Work

The past year has shattered expectations of what workdays look like. Parenting while Zooming. An uncrowded T. Wary interactions with customers. In this special issue of Ideas, we explore which of these changes will stick — and how they’ll affect the quality of our lives.

The Longevity Hub

The Boston Globe Opinion section and MIT's AgeLab present The Longevity Hub, an ongoing series seeking to spark Greater Boston's transformation into the Silicon Valley of aging.
EDITORIAL

Future-proofing the presidency

Donald Trump brought our democracy to the brink and exposed its weak spots. Here’s how to thwart the next American tyrant.
EDITORIAL

A battle for affordable housing in Massachusetts

The Globe editorial board's 2020 series on the need for inclusive housing reform in Newton and across the Commonwealth.

Brave New Planet

Brave New Planet is a podcast that delves deep into the most exciting and challenging scientific frontiers, helping us understand them and grapple with their implications. Dr. Eric Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, is host.

The future of food

What we eat, where it comes from, and how we get it are being reimagined like never before. In this special issue, we celebrate the role of food in our communities and explore how it can be tastier, more accessible, and healthier for us and the planet.
Letters

Postcards from the pandemic

Invited to take a walk, in fact, lots of walks; dining room table repurposed — a snapshot of how readers were coping.
An archive of conversations with the experts writing thought-provoking Globe Opinion op-eds and Ideas features.

The Other swing voter

Political coverage often focuses on voters who oscillate between political parties in a few key swing states. Here we feature perspectives and opinions from and about demographics of Americans — young voters and Black and brown voters —who swing between voting and not voting.
From voter suppression to gerrymandering to foreign interference, the integrity of US elections is under attack. In a three-part weekly series, Globe Opinion examines how the nation arrived at this moment and what needs to be done to protect voting rights.
Thomas E. Patterson

Trapped: Why the GOP's death is imminent

The Republican Party is destroying itself. Thomas Patterson of the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center explains the five traps the party has set for itself and warns that the party's future is in peril without reform.

Black voices now

Globe Opinion seeks to amplify the perspectives and the voices of Black community members, scholars, activists, doctors, teachers, business leaders, students, and parents as op-ed and letter writers, and as innovators and provocateurs featured in Globe Ideas. Here we feature Black voices from the community amid the historic protests following the killing of George Floyd. We aim to amplify yet more Black voices going forward.
IDEAS

Massachusetts Works

We turn the typical model of journalism on its head — instead of focusing on what’s broken, we’re taking a look at what Massachusetts gets right.

Legal Lens documentaries

Law and documentary film may seem far apart, but they actually share many connections. With the guidance of filmmaker and producer Joseph Tovares and support from the Hewlett Foundation, 12 Harvard Law School students from eight countries have worked since January on the Legal Lens project. You can view the films here on BostonGlobe.com.

Choosing, using, and losing your health care: A policy first-aid kit

In a four-part weekly series, Globe Opinion offers a baseline assessment of health care as well as prescriptions for fixing the industry.

Journalists are not the enemy

A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “the enemy of the people.”
National Student Essay Competition winners announced