Discrimination and Social Justice Issues Today

Representative X:

As healthcare legislation continues to be debated in the House and Senate, I would like to express my support for the continuation of one, significant policy that was instituted under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), namely the idea that young people under the age of 26 should be permitted to remain on their family's health insurance policies. The current generation of young people is graduating with more college debt than ever before and many new graduates are forced to take jobs that do not offer full benefits. The rise of freelance employment also means that many young persons may be forced to forgo jobs with health insurance.

Buying independent insurance is a significant cost, even though ensuring that young and healthy people are in the health insurance risk pool is necessary to keep overall healthcare costs low. Preventative early care can also reduce the need for more costly secondary are tertiary care for patients in the future. Thus, for both young people's own financial security and health as well as for society, maintaining this policy can and will continue to convey significant societal benefits.

Yours truly,

X

UNIT 5 DISCUSSION

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was one of the most significant US Supreme Court cases of the post-Reconstruction era. The case involved Plessy, who refused to occupy a railway car designated for people of color alone and instead sat in a car deemed to be for whites only. The Supreme Court at the time held that it was constitutionally permissible to mandate racial segregation as long as the separate facilities were equivalent to one another. The Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, however, overturned Plessy, first noting the logistical impossibility of creating facilities which were truly separate but equal. As noted by McBride (2006), the Warren Court found that separate facilities in and of themselves were unequal, given the implied discrimination in the division. Furthermore, in actual practice, regarding the specifics of the Brown case, the Court noted that the educational facilities designated for students of color were inevitably inferior to schools for whites. Finally, there was substantial psychological evidence that segregation generated self-hatred and emotional damage to African-American students.

Reference

McBride, A. (2006). Brown v. Board of Education. PBS. Retrieved from: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/landmark_brown.html

UNIT 6 DISCUSSION

The modern LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights movement began around the same time as the civil rights movement for racial equality. In the 1960s, homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. The Stonewall Riots is often characterized as the starting point of the LGBT movement, in which patrons of a gay bar resisted a police raid and catalyzed this moment of resistance into a fight for full legal and social equality. Supreme Court recently legalized same-sex marriage in all states of the union. However, LGBT people still face considerable hurdles to full social equality. "In 28 states, it is legal to fire someone based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity" and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 still does not consider sexual orientation a protected category (Calfas, 2015, par.1).

Reference

Calfas, J. (2015). Employment discrimination: The next frontier for LGBT community. USA Today. Retrieved from: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/31/employment-discrimination-lgbt-community-next-frontier/29635379/

UNIT 7 DISCUSSION

Hillary Clinton's campaign released a campaign advertisement entitled "Mirrors" which depicts middle-school age girls of various races and sizes looking at themselves in the mirror while various words of Donald Trump play over them. Donald Trump is heard calling women fat and criticizing them for being flat-chested. The advertisement ends with the question if this is the president we want for our daughters. The advertisement is clearly targeted as parents, particularly mothers, and questions Trump's fitness to be president because of proven examples of his misogynistic attitudes in the past. The advertisement is powerful in conveying the message that Trump has behaved in a very sexist manner in the past, although it does not make a specific argument as to why Hillary Clinton would make a good president (other than her gender).

References

"Mirrors." (2016). YouTube. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHGPbl-werw