They Say I Blog
The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. What is the goal of incarceration—of doing time? The answer to this question varies. Some argue that incarceration can encourage people to make positive changes in their lives through rehabilitative programs that focus on meaningful education and work opportunities. Marvin Wade, a …
Continue reading Doing time: Marvin Wade on transformation despite incarceration
Over 15 years ago, legal scholar Michelle Alexander published the award-winning book, The New Jim Crow. (Excerpts from this book are included in They Say / I Say.) Alexander explains the rapid rise in incarceration in the United States and argues how the systemic racial prejudices in the US criminal justice system affect Black Americans, …
Recent college graduates, their newly minted degrees in hand, are having a hard time landing their first job. What gives? Georgios Petropoulos, a labor economist, explains how rapidly evolving AI technology has quickly altered the job market, especially for young workers seeking entry-level jobs. In this opinion piece, he explains why entry-level jobs matter and …
What if participation—not profit—fueled AI development? In this TED Talk, researcher and policy expert Nanjira Sambuli proposes a different way forward for creating AI models, an avenue rooted in African indigenous traditions and values. Nanjira Sambuli, “What Ancestral Intelligence Can Teach Us about AI.” TED.com, April 2025. Sambuli begins her argument about AI development with …
Sometimes it’s easy to draw a direct line between the skills you learn in a particular college course and your intended career. Other times, you might be sitting in a general education class and asking yourself, “How will this help me?” In this op-ed, Angeline Thomas, a first-year pre-med student at Rutgers University, makes a …
Continue reading Books as medicine: Angeline Thomas on why reading matters for future doctors
Some say there is a vast “cheating epidemic” in colleges today. Writing studies scholar and Miami University professor Elizabeth Wardle disagrees. Instead of putting all the focus – and the blame – on students, Wardle argues that the problem lies in colleges themselves: how they are staffed, how they are funded, and what they say …
Continue reading Toward a better university: Elizabeth Wardle on how to fix higher education
College campuses have a long history of student protests, and these demonstrations invite questions about the limits of free speech. How far is too far? In this pair of essays, University of Pennsylvania law professor Claire Finkelstein and Trinity Washington University president Patricia McGuire present two different views of the role of free speech in …
Generative A.I. tools are rapidly evolving, and universities are quickly developing guidelines for how – and if – students should use them in the classroom. But what do students think? This op-ed, written by first-year college student Tylar Macintyre, responds to the growing use of A.I. detector tools to determine whether students have illicitly used …
We are “slowly becoming Homo plasticus,” scientist Megha Satyanarayana warns, citing increasing evidence of the pervasive presence of plastics in our bodies, water, air, and soil. In her argument, Satyanarayana describes how a consumer and convenience culture, a desire to make profits, and a slow regulatory process make it hard to address microplastic pollution. Megha …
It seems like everyone is talking about TikTok: its security risks, its seeming ubiquity among teenagers and adults alike. Writer Roxane Gay––whose father introduced her to the app––describes the problem of “pleasurably wasting hours and hours of time” on TikTok and warns about its purposeful addictive and exploitive nature. Is TikTok worth it? Roxane Gay, …
Continue reading It’s never enough: Roxane Gay on desire, addiction, and TikTok