Steven Mazie
Professor of Political Studies, BHSEC-Manhattan | Supreme Court Correspondent, The Economist
Steven V. Mazie is Professor of Political Studies at Bard High School Early College-Manhattan and Supreme Court Correspondent for The Economist. He holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan. Mazie’s recent publications include “Up from Colorblindness: Equality, Race and the Lessons of Ricci v. DeStefano” (2011), “Rawls on Wall Street” at the New York Times (2011),“Equality, Race and Gifted Education: An Egalitarian Critique of Admission to New York City’s Specialized High Schools” (2009) and Israel’s Higher Law: Religion and Liberal Democracy in the Jewish State (2006). He has taught at the University of Michigan (1998), New York University (2001) and Bard College (2005, 2011).
In an op-ed in the New York Times last week, Arthur C. Brooks tried to account for data showing that conservatives tend to be happier than liberals. Brooks began by […]
A new meme is emerging in the blogosphere: Obama as the “imperial president.” From the left, Tom Egelhardt claims Obama “has the powers previously associated with the gods” while Steve […]
For many Americans, burgers and fireworks may be enough of a July 4th celebration. But to appreciate the curiosities and meaning of Independence Day, you might want to sit down […]
In the avalanche of analysis and speculation about Chief Justice Roberts’ stunning decision to side with the Supreme Court’s liberal wing to uphold Obama’s healthcare law, one strain paints Roberts […]
Something unusually delightful greeted students on the morning of June 19 as they lined up to enter Public School 10 in Brooklyn. The event had nothing to do with standardized […]
In case you thought that Obama’s comments in favor of same-sex marriage, Romney’s tepid response and recent polls were signs that American society is surging toward a consensus on basic […]
by Nika Sabasteanski (guest blogger) Immanuel Kant proposes a one-ingredient recipe for enlightenment: freedom. Provide individuals with the freedom to use public rationality, give them the tools to escape their […]
Antonin Scalia died February 13, 2016, a day before Valentine’s Day. The conservative darling defended your right to abstain from broccoli and from health insurance, but he won’t stand up for your right to pleasure yourself.
If you took the three-question quiz I posted last week, chances are you answered some items incorrectly. Like some of my smart, accomplished friends and family members who took the […]
The questions in this quiz are adaptations of items from research studies from the 1960s to the 1980s, initiated by Daniel Kahneman and his late research partner, Amos Tversky.
Humor fosters community and builds character, two virtues that educational reformers neglect.
After enjoying ratings as high as 80 percent in the mid-1990s, the Supreme Court today has the support of only 44 percent of Americans according to a New York Times-CBS News […]
As Wisconsin voters stream to the polls today in the Gov. Scott Walker recall election, most commentators are warning that a Walker win would be a disaster for the left. […]
Critics of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to ban the sale of soft drinks over 16 ounces in convenience stores, movie theaters and street carts are having a […]
Mitt Romney’s plan for education, released last week, sounds a number of predictable conservative themes: union bashing, continued reliance on standardized testing, expansion of charter schools and reform or elimination of […]
A little science-fiction philosophy to provoke you to remember on Memorial Day, courtesy of Oxford philosopher Derek Parfit: Suppose you were given the chance to teleport yourself, Star Trek style, […]
On Mother’s Day, in a sermon to his flock at the Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina, Pastor Charles Worley revealed his plan to rid America of its homosexuals: […]
The blind 40-year-old Chinese dissident who escaped from house arrest in April — improbably evading guards, finding his way to the U.S. embassy in Beijing and, after a diplomatic fracas, acquiring a visa to study law in the United States — landed at Newark Liberty airport on Saturday. Less than a month after fleeing his village in Shandong Province, Chen Guangcheng and his family are free in Greenwich Village. The question is whether they are here for good.
With Stephen Colbert on vacation this week, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona seems to have jumped into the role of the laughable conservative who makes ridiculous arguments with a straight face — or, in this case, who tries to make worthwhile political science research sound ridiculous.
The cover headline caught my eye, and I surprised both the elderly leafletter and myself when I took a copy of the “Watchtower” magazine on my way out of the […]
The troubling chronicle of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng has me thinking about the trial of another dissident who faced a life-changing dilemma of his own 2411 years ago in […]
Today as I meditate on Arum and Roksa’s much-discussed study, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” my thoughts turn to academic life at the institution where I teach. This week […]
What matters in life? Will Wilkinson wrote wrote a nice Big Think post on Friday quoting some recent psychological research and suggesting the answer is “memorable social experience”: A number […]
My Tuesday post examined parents’ limited options in the age of the standardized test. But what is a teacher to do who is fed up with the testing regime? “I’d […]
The regime of standardized testing in the nation’s public schools is expanding. Soon, children as young as 5 will devote weeks of the school year to preparing and sitting for multiple-choice exams. What is a parent to do?
President Obama apparently thinks the safer way to justify higher taxes on the super rich is to pitch the proposal based on its deficit-reduction potential. But if he wants to get the ball rolling for meaningful tax reform, Obama will summon his rhetorical powers to explain how the Buffett Rule could help reduce the nation’s massive and destructive wealth inequality.
A new mode of civic engagement in New York City, “participatory budgeting,” may help bridge the gap between our country’s foundational principles and our tendency to let ourselves be shepherded by elected leaders. Rousseau would be proud.
While it’s tempting to mock the hollow chants of health care law critics as Jon Stewart did last Thursday — “what do we want? freedom! when do we want it? now!” — […]
You might think the debate over the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act is a classic confrontation between state power and individual liberty, big government liberalism versus minimal state […]
State legislatures tend to make national headlines when they vote on divisive social issues like mandatory ultrasounds or stage epic battles over the status of public-sector unions. But in the […]