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A special project of Berkeley Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic and the campus’s Undocumented Student Program has helped 103 Berkeley students decide whether to apply for a special immigration category that allows them to work legally and to avoid deportation. Most have won approval under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Politics & public policy archive
Law prof’s book reveals human cost of climate change
February 8, 2013: New book by Andrew Guzman, Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change, predicts a grim future for billions of people in this century.
New research on AIDS transmission focuses on cheating spouses
February 6, 2013: Public-health policy for AIDS prevention in sub-Saharan Africa underestimates the role that cheating spouses play in transmitting the virus, according to new research from UC Berkeley. For the new study, scientists created a highly detailed mathematical model to estimate whether HIV-positive individuals were infected during or prior to their current relationship.
Public Health’s Potts: Educating women is the way to fight terrorism in the Sahel
January 25, 2013: Family planning and education for women are the best weapons to fight terrorism in Mali and the rest of Africa’s Sahel, according to an article by UC Berkeley public health professor Malcolm Potts, an obstetrician and reproductive scientist, published in the Los Angeles Times.
Physics society honors Birgeneau for ‘statesmanship in science’
January 24, 2013: The American Institute of Physics has awarded Chancellor Robert Birgeneau the 2012 Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics. The medal honors Birgeneau’s advocacy for women in science as well as his research.
Law school launches reproductive-rights center
January 17, 2013: As Roe v. Wade turns 40, Berkeley Law announces the formal launch of its new Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice. Founded by professor and Pulitzer Prize nominee Kristin Luker, it is one of the first centers to research the legal, economic and social impact of reproductive laws on women, families and communities.
Prop. 30 and how to sell a tax hike
January 14, 2013: In what even Republicans have called a “coup,” Gov. Jerry Brown’s Prop. 30, a California initiative to raise taxes by roughly $6 billion a year, won with 55 percent of the vote in the November 2012 election. Berkeley’s Ethan Rarick analyzes that rare accomplishment — selling a tax hike — in “Policy Options Journal.”
Law students work to help inmates navigate parole
January 14, 2013: Berkeley Law students will help prisoners navigate the parole process as part of the new student-initiated Post-Conviction Advocacy Project (P-CAP). The group will also work on appeals for inmates who have been denied parole.
How to ‘un-invent’ America’s food system
January 10, 2013: In a special multi-article feature devoted to “diversified farming systems,” or DFS, for the December issue of the journal Ecology & Society, scientists from Berkeley and other institutions lay out a scientific case that biologically diversified agricultural practices can contribute substantially to food production while creating far fewer environmental harms than industrialized, conventional monoculture agriculture—that is, large swaths of land devoted to growing single crops using chemical inputs.
War crimes scholar named to lead Human Rights Center
January 4, 2013: Alexa Koenig, a scholar of war crimes and international human rights law and Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley Law, has been named executive director of the law school’s Human Rights Center. Koenig has served as the center’s interim director for six months.
Banguns initiative calls for change, accountability
December 21, 2012: UC Berkeley political scientist Steve Fish is helping to launch an initiative called Banguns in response to the Sandy Hook massacre. Those signing the initiative pledge to vote for, or financially support, only those elected officials who actively support effective new gun-control legislation
Economist David Card named 2013 AAPSS fellow
December 13, 2012:
Economist David Card is honored for his work “writ large.”
Special Anglo-American relationship to be studied in new program
December 13, 2012: Whether it involves Reagan and Thatcher, FDR and Churchill, or the colonies and the crown, the special relationship between Great Britain and the United States is generally known – but not necessarily well-understood. A new program aims to change that.
Nation’s single-largest gift for scholarships to undocumented students announced 
December 13, 2012: A $1 million gift from the Haas, Jr. Fund, announced Tuesday, Dec. 11, will provide scholarship assistance for nearly 200 undocumented students on campus, who come from 20 different countries.
To Berkeley civil-rights scholar, race is uppercase concern 
December 11, 2012: Civil-rights scholar john powell rethinks notions of race for the 21st century in a recently published essay collection, Racing to Justice. In a Q&A with the NewsCenter, powell discusses the book and his ambitious vision for the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, which he heads at Berkeley.
Mexican American toddlers lag in preliteracy skills, but not in their social skills, new study shows
December 11, 2012: Mexican American preschoolers fall behind their white counterparts in terms of early language and preliteracy skills, but the social competencies between the two groups are indistinguishable, according to a new UC Berkeley/UCLA study.
NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco on ‘society’s wicked problems’
December 10, 2012: In a talk sponsored by the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute and the Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology, the marine ecologist and longtime university professor spoke of a “social contract” for scientists, urging them not just to identify problems but to work toward solutions.
Survey shows most Americans want a ‘Do Not Mail’ initiative
December 7, 2012: A new survey by UC Berkeley School of Law finds that a very large majority of Americans, across all ideologies, age groups, and income levels support a Do Not Mail initiative similar to the popular Do Not Call registry.
Peacemaking is her passion
December 4, 2012: Intent on creating a safe space for students to learn and talk about a fractious issue — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — Shannon Thomas founded a student organization at Berkeley. A double major in peace and conflict and Middle Eastern studies, and a Model U.N. delegate, she sees fostering peace as her path.
UK’s chief rabbi assesses ‘Future of Judaism’
December 3, 2012: In a lecture at Berkeley Law, renowned scholar Lord Jonathan Sacks argued for the importance of what he called the ‘Jewish voice’ in Western civilization.
In Savio’s spirit, Van Jones calls for end to ‘silence from the left’
November 30, 2012: In this year’s Mario Savio Lecture, Barack Obama’s former green-jobs adviser had some advice for the president’s supporters: Celebrate his re-election victory, but don’t settle for it.
Best student blog posts on energy, resources
November 27, 2012: From RIO +20 to cap and trade, editors at the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative revisit favorite posts by BERC bloggers over the past year.
A conversation with writer-farmer Wendell Berry
November 9, 2012: Conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist and poet Wendell Berry currently holds the Townsend Center’s Avenali Chair in the Humanities. See video of his Nov. 1 reading and discussion at the Berkeley Art Museum.
USAID invests up to $20 million in UC Berkeley’s global development initiatives
November 8, 2012: Recognizing UC Berkeley’s leadership in developing practical, innovative solutions for global problems, the U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded $20 million to establish a Development Impact Lab on campus.
How science can heal a divided electorate
November 8, 2012: In the aftermath of President Obama’s re-election, how can Republicans and Democrats work together? Jason Marsh of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center interviews Righteous Mind author Jonathan Haidt on psychological differences that fueled the election’s partisan divide — and what we can do to overcome it.
Yudof, chancellors express ‘relief and gratitude’ on Prop. 30
November 7, 2012: On the day following the election, the chancellors of 10 UC campuses, along with UC President Mark Yudof, issued a message expressing thanks to the UC community for efforts leading to the passage of Proposition 30.
Chancellor’s message on passage of Prop. 30
November 7, 2012: In a message to the campus community Nov. 7, Chancellor Birgeneau thanked members of the campus community for their work to foster dialogue on Prop. 30, which will raise revenues for education and public safety. He called voters’ approval of the measure a “welcome respite” from deep budget cuts to UC.
As Latinos go, so goes the nation?
November 6, 2012: Professor of Education Lisa García Bedolla argues that anti-immigrant policies supported by Romney and other mainstream Republicans are alienating Latinos and driving them to support Democrats, even though they feel Obama has fallen short on his promises.
Election-night returns on a big screen, in a big crowd
November 6, 2012: Why watch the 2012 election returns alone when you can share the nail-biting hours with UC Berkeley political junkies? Sproul Plaza will be the main campus venue for tracking the action — on a Jumbotron, starting at 5 p.m.
Life in the margins
November 6, 2012: The effects of social stigma can be physically harmful, even deadly. Those shunned by society — due to homelessness, drug use, non-conforming gender identity or other attributes — tend to have poorer health and higher death rates than those in the mainstream. At the School of Public Health, many faculty and students are working to address the health effects of marginalization, reports Berkeley Health Online.
California leads nation in exonerations of wrongfully convicted
November 5, 2012: At least 200 wrongful convictions have been thrown out since 1989 in California, costing those convicted more than 1,300 years of freedom and taxpayers $129 million, reports the California Wrongful Convictions Project, launched by UC Berkeley Law and Hollway Advisory Services, a criminal justice research firm.
