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JEFF JACOBY

Biden is failing because he abandoned his mandate

The singular task the president set himself was to bring the nation together. What happened?

RENÉE GRAHAM
Democracy’s other threat: Book bans and purges
Limiting access to literature, especially by authors of color, is yet another authoritarian tool polluting political discourse.

SCOT LEHIGH
Maura Healey will soon be in the governor’s race
Meanwhile, Republicans may have a race between a Trump toady and a successful businessman.

Kevin P. Hill and John F. Carmichael Jr.
Clardy Law would keep roads safe
Next to alcohol, marijuana is the second-most commonly found substance in the bodies of drivers involved in fatal crashes.

Michael Milburn and William DeJong
Bill to combat marijuana-related impaired driving should be rejected
There is no blood, saliva, or breathalyzer analysis that can ascertain whether a person who has used marijuana is actually impaired.

More Opinion Columns

Julia Mejia
Second-grade teacher Rachelle Milord helps Schemaeja Paillant learn to tell time at Mozart Elementary School in Boston, June 15, 2021. Principal Michael Baulier says hiring and retaining great teachers of color is one of his top priorities in running the Boston Public School.

With the necessary resources, urban leaders and parents of color can lift up Boston’s schools

Making the move to take BPS into receivership is inherently anti-democratic in a time when 78 percent of Boston voters approve of returning to an elected school committee.

Roger Lowenstein
A student listens to a teacher as he calls off names for each new classroom in the 7th and 8th grade community meeting on the first day of school at the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter Public School in Hyde Park on Aug. 30, 2021.

Boston Public Schools should go into receivership

It would be hard to design a school system that has more poorly served Black and brown students than BPS.

RENÉE GRAHAM
Laura Coates, author of "Just Pursuit: A Black Prosecutor's Fight for Fairness."

A former federal prosecutor interrogates the inequities of the criminal justice system

With her new book, Laura Coates processes the pain of “being a part of a system I wanted to reform.”

Rachel Laser and Brian Kaylor
Flags fly above Boston City Hall on Nov. 11, 2021. The city allows private groups to fly a flag on the pole on the right.

Boston was right to refuse to fly Christian flag

As a Jewish legal advocate and a Baptist minister, we support the arguments of Boston in this critical First Amendment case that Supreme Court justices will hear on Jan. 18.

SCOT LEHIGH
Senator Ed Markey, seen here at press conference outside the US Capitol on Oct. 7, has suggested that Joe Manchin, President Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi sit in a room and determine what they can agree upon in regard to Build Back Better.

Democrats need to get real on Build Back Better

The question isn’t what you dream of; it’s what you can get done.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr
Kevin McCarthy accused the Jan. 6 committee of abuse of power, saying it seeks “to interview me about public statements that have been shared with the world ... I have nothing else to add." Certainly, that's not true.

When it comes to subpoenas, Congress must use its power or lose it

Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson must create real consequences for those who flout congressional authority. He can start inside his own chamber by compelling the testimony of minority leader Kevin McCarthy.

Deval Patrick
Voting rights activists march on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on June 26.

Voting is sacred

Whether the right to vote remains sacred depends now on members of the US Senate. The people have expressed their support. The House, along partisan lines, has voted its approval. Now democracy waits.

Cole Moran
At the Eliot K-8 Innovation School in Boston, 5-year-old Aria Marci gets support from school principal Traci Griffith as she prepares to receive her second dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 15, 2021.

BPS needs a democratic vision for the future of open-enrollment schools

My colleagues and I vehemently oppose the plan to ‘innovate’ Charlestown High School.