Prosecutors in Colorado decided Tuesday to seek the death penalty for James Holmes, the infamous Batman shooter in Aurora, Colo. The news was met with a round of applause in the courtroom, which included many victims’ families and Holmes’s parents. As I read news articles detailing the way the courtroom crowd reacted, I gave a lot of thought about what I would do in...
I would like first and foremost to unequivocally condemn the act of the Florida Atlantic University professor who instructed his students to write the word “Jesus” on a piece of paper, and then to stomp on it. I also believe that we, whatever our political or religious views may be, should not allow such acts to pass unmarked. In an earlier issue of the Daily Mississippian,...
As I perused Facebook yesterday, I noticed posts declaring outrage over Google’s doodle. Instead of Easter, Cesar Chavez was honored on the search engine’s home page. Cesar Chavez was an American civil rights activist who nonviolently organized farmers into a union named the National Farm Workers Association. His contributions to the Hispanic community and the...
Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two separate cases dealing with gay marriage. These cases dealt with the constitutionality of the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Prop 8, both pieces of legislation that outlaw gay marriage. The decisions in these cases will be announced in June, and while it seems unlikely that either...
BY TRENTON WINFORD tgwinford@bellsouth.net In 2010, Florida pastor Terry Jones announced that he would burn Qurans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida. This announcement sparked outrage around the world, particularly in Muslim countries, where riots and murders were the normal response to a simple announcement of intention to burn the Quran. The civilized...
BY LEXI THOMAN alexandria.thoman@gmail.com This past Friday, my senior-class colleagues in the Croft Institute for International Studies and I hit a milestone in our undergraduate education: We turned in the second drafts of our senior theses for edits and review. After beginning the projects in August, it was a relief to turn in nearly finished products and see the hard...
It’s been over 30 years since former Mississippi Gov. William Winter passed the Mississippi Education Reform Act. This act overhauled public education, namely publicly funding education and establishing compulsory school attendance law. At the time, Mississippi ranked last in education as well as in many other social and economic categories. Fast forward to present day...
Baby boomers and Generation X so often express hatred for Generation Y, or millennials, that it’s a cliché. We get it: You think we’re lazy, ADD and socially inept. Sure, I guess I can agree. I actually can’t deny that my generation is full of neurotic, overly medicated, unemployed video gamers. But aren’t the baby boomers and old Gen Xers our parents? You raised...
The Voting Rights Act was landmark legislation when it was passed, but it will soon undergo scrutiny from the Supreme Court yet again. At issue this time is if the formula to determine preclearance, which defines which states or counties are under Department of Justice control, is outdated. In 2009, the Supreme Court decided that the Voting Rights Act was constitutional...
