With the opening of the U.S. Supreme Court,  Professor Paul Collins comments in a Newsweek article about the possibility that the Court could overturn a ban on bump stocks put in place after a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas. "If accepted, this case will mark the first time in almost 90 years that the justices weigh in on significant gun control measures involving regulations of particular attributes of firearms,” Collins said. (Newsweek, 10/1/22)

Professor of political science and legal studies Paul Collins has co-authored an opinion piece examining the deep mistrust many Americans now hold toward the U.S. Supreme Court. “Scholarship demonstrates that public support for one political institution — like the Supreme Court — is linked to support for democratic institutions and processes more generally,” Collins and his co-author write. “Unfortunately for the court, these have been declining in recent years. For example, public approval of Congress has sunk substantially over the past 20 years. Only about 20 percent of the American public say they are very confident in the integrity of elections. And nearly 70 percent of Americans now believe that U.S. democracy is in crisis.” (The Washington Post, 9/30/22)

Titled "Learning by Doing: Lessons from the Graduate Students in the Boston Human Rights City Pilot Project," the article describes the experience and lessons learned by graduate students and supervising faculty (Sindiso MnisiWeeks and Gillian MacNaughton) in piloting an action-research project aimed at realizing positive economic and social change by advancing the vision of Boston as a human rights city that was articulated in a city council resolution adopted in 2011.

Tatishe Nteta, Provost Professor of Political Science and Director of UMass Poll comments on the possibility that Republican Geoff Diehl might refuse to accept a loss this fall in the Mass. governor’s race, adding that agreeing with Trump’s stolen election claims and suggesting that the 2022 results might not be valid puts Diehl squarely in the Republican mainstream. “In our polling, we consistently find about six in ten Republicans question the legitimacy of President Biden and the 2020 election. … This is a growing sentiment in the Republican electorate, that our election system is fraudulent.” ( GBH, 9/19/22)