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If I were asked by a survey to describe my experience with sexual assault in college, I would pinpoint two incidents, both of which occurred at or after parties in my freshman year. In the first case, the guy went after me with sniper accuracy, magnanimously giving me a drink he’d poured upstairs. In the second case, I’m sure the guy had no idea that he was doing something wrong. I had joined a sorority, and all my social circles were as sloppy, intense, and tribal as the Greek system—the...

Fifty years ago in March, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., at what turned out to be his last Sunday sermon . He talked about the perils and promises of the three major changes he saw taking place around the world—a “triple revolution,” as he called it, consisting of automation, the emergence of nuclear weaponry, and the global fight for human rights. Regarding that first prong, he noted at the time: It’s this speech that Virginia Eubanks, an...

Jessiann Hodges grew up on Simpson Street in the 1980s when the crack epidemic hit urban neighborhoods hard. Her family was poor. Her father was in and out of prison while her mother struggled with mental illness. Hodges first tangled with the law when she was caught stealing food for her family. She was 9. By 11, she was selling pot and ecstasy. By 14, she was participating in armed robberies and was eventually sentenced to Southern Oaks Girls School in Union Grove. Hodges returned to...

A report from the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health revealed suicide rates among young people in Wisconsin have doubled from 2007-15 and continue to rise above the national average. Nationally, the 2015 rate of suicide among teens aged 15 to 19 was almost 10 per 100,000. Wisconsin’s rate was nearly 12 per 100,000. Self-harm hospitalizations for those under 18-years-old in Wisconsin have also increased since 2011 — especially among females — as have the number of students receiving...

When Heather Kugelmass, a doctoral student at Princeton University, decided to study access to psychotherapy according to race and class, she found levels of discrimination that exceeded her expectations. Kugelmass and her associates called 320 psychotherapists with PhD or PsyD degrees in New York City who were listed as providers for a single health insurance company. Each therapist received a call from clients who, by virtue of vocabulary, grammar, or accent, could be identified as black...

When Reverend Tyler Amundson first read the 1998 ACE study, he realized that this landmark science could become a common language: a way to talk about adversity and healing with clinicians and government officials, devout churchgoers and people who would never step inside a place of worship. “I call this the secular gospel,” he says. “It was easy to describe the ACE study to people. It opened a door for us to name how people face trauma and adversity and how positive relationships can help...

The Future is Ms. is an ongoing series of news reports by young feminists. This post is made possible by a grant from SayItForward.org in support of teen journalists. Sexual harassment and assault don’t suddenly happen in college or in the workplace. They occur because perpetrators hone these behaviors in K-12 schools, making them the t raining ground for sexual harassment and assault that occurs in college and the workplace. While the #MeToo social media campaign gives an important voice to...

More than 1 million children, according to the International Labour Organization, are exploited each year in the commercial sex trade. IndyStar columnist Tim Swarens, through the support of a Society of Professional Journalists fellowship, spent more than a year investigating a lucrative business where children are abused with low risk to buyers or traffickers, despite tougher laws and heightened international awareness of the scourge. Google, Eli Lilly and Co., and Indiana Wesleyan...

In December 2015, I wrote a story about the potential uses of the gene-editing technology known as CRISPR. That piece, based on a conference that I attended in Washington, D.C., quoted six men and one woman. The six men included five scientists and one historian, all quoted for their professional expertise. The one woman was a communications director at a tissue bank organization, and her quote was about her experience as the mother of a child with a genetic disease. These disparities, both...

A new research study on communicating about opioids in Appalachia has published shocking results: stigma is the driving force that keeps people who use drugs from seeking help. I’m kidding. Anyone who has worked with people who use drugs already knows that stigma plays a pivotal role in why drug use can flourish under the radar, why so many people have difficulty seeking help, and why communities and policy makers often kick the can over to law enforcement instead of investing in...

I still remember the time I hit one of my close friends. It happened many years ago. We were exiting a chemistry class together, and he was teasing me…mercilessly. I repeatedly asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t. Rather than shrugging it off, though, I hit him hard on the arm. Both of us were shocked, but only I was left feeling shame, too. I know I’m not the only one who has let anger get the best of them only to regret it afterwards. While anger can sometimes be useful , more often than...

Minority youth are more likely to become incarcerated than white youth. This fact is so prevalent that even people outside the juvenile justice field are familiar with the term school-to-prison pipeline . In an era when there’s an overall decline in the incarceration of youth, we are also seeing problematic practices regarding school discipline. The use of in- and out-of-school suspensions has nearly doubled since 1970 even though we know that suspensions serve to disrupt education and are...