Several weeks ago, a leaked tape revealed three LA city council members and a local labor leader engaged in racist conversation. Since then, the city has been enveloped in a political crisis. The language used by the council members has been covered extensively and widely condemned. But beneath these conversations lie deep and pressing questions about Latino representation, inter-ethnic relations, and the distribution of political power in Los Angeles. In the wake of this crisis, are we asking t...
Oct 25, 2022•49 min•Season 3Ep. 3
On Sunday, September 25th, Italy held a snap election following the resignation of prime minister Mario Draghi and the dissolution of the Italian Parliament. The election resulted in a parliamentary majority a right-wing coalition led by Fratelli d’Italia (or Brothers of Italy), a far-right party with roots in postwar Italian neofascist movements. The party and its leader, new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, espouse social conservatism, nationalism, populism, opposition to immigration, and Eurosc...
Oct 17, 2022•50 min•Season 3Ep. 2
This past June, the Supreme Court reached a decision in West Virginia vs. Environmental Protection Agency that curtailed the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions from coal plants. Behind this ruling was the principle of “non-delegation” — the idea that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers, or rule-making authority, to other entities such as regulatory agencies. While non-delegation might seem like an esoteric legal concept to some, it poses a vital question for United States gov...
Oct 03, 2022•33 min•Season 3Ep. 1
This episode features a conversation with UCLA graduate and undergraduate students who authored a new LCHP report exploring the history UCLA's response to crises of major scale. Jazz Kiang, Jannelle Dang, and Nayiri Artounians join Then & Now to discuss UCLA administrators' approaches to the student movement for ethnic studies in the late 1960s, and the on-campus killings of students Bunchy Carter and and John Huggins. They also discuss the firing of Angela Davis, and the implications for pr...
Jun 22, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 22
In the wake of more horrific mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, the United States finds itself yet again engaged in a morbid ritual of horror and grief, thoughts and prayers, and renewed calls for gun control. Last week, the National Rifle Association held its annual convention, during which it steadfastly opposed calls to limit access to guns. But it has not always been that way. The NRA, in earlier decades, supported restrictions on access to guns. What happened? How has the Second Amendmen...
Jun 10, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 21
The student debt crisis in the United States has reached record highs, totaling about $1.75 trillion from 45 million borrowers. As millions of Americans await President Biden’s decision about whether to forgive at least part of this debt, Then & Now asks: how did we get to this staggering figure? How did past policy decisions pave the way for this crisis, and how and why have these decisions had a disproportionate impact on Black and Latinx students? Where do we go from here? Dalié Jimenez, ...
May 31, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 20
The international community has widely condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine and has placed increasing pressure on Russia to withdraw. But what more can it do? What legal mechanisms and levers of pressure are available to the international community, and how effective are they? How did the current international legal order (including the definitions of genocide and crimes against humanity) come into being, and how did it evolve over time? Anna Spain Bradley, UCLA Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversit...
May 09, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 19
In this special episode, Cary Franklin returns Then & Now for a follow-up conversation about abortion rights in the U.S., in light of the leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe vs. Wade ( listen to part 1 here ). Listen to Professor Franklin, Faculty Director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy and of the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, discuss the far-reaching implications of the leaked opinion....
May 04, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 18
On April 29, 1992, three LAPD officers were acquitted after brutally beating Rodney King, and a fourth was let off with no verdict. Widespread protests erupted in response, a result of deep-seated anger with police violence and racial inequality in Los Angeles, heightened by the murder of teenager Latasha Harlins a year prior. Five days later, the city of Los Angeles stood in a shocked, smoldering state with more than sixty people dead, thousands injured, and massive property damage. Now, thirty...
Apr 25, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 17
On March 6th, 2022, the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy, in partnership with the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, hosted the final installment of a three-part series focused on “Breaking the Deadlock” in Israel-Palestine. The aim of this series is to bring together leading scholars, thinkers, and policy-makers—each with different affiliations and visions for the future—to put forward contempo...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 28 min•Season 2Ep. 16
This episode features a conversation with the UCLA graduate and undergraduate students who authored a new LCHP report exploring the history of both racism and the quest for racial justice at UCLA. The report and conversation examine the experience of students of color throughout the university's history, as well as examples of the individuals and movements that led the fight for racial justice at UCLA. This conversation features graduate student co-author Debanjan Roychoudhury, alumna Skylar Wea...
Mar 30, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked and perplexed the world. UCLA Historian Jared McBride joins Then & Now for the third conversation in a mini-series examining this invasion through a historical lens. Professor McBride discusses the history of far-right nationalism in Ukraine from World War II until now, situating both Ukraine’s election of a Jewish president and Putin’s claims of “denazification,” within a historical frame. He also discusses the unique forces shaping and re-shaping Uk...
Mar 17, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shocked and perplexed the world. This special two-part episode of Then & Now features two outstanding historical observers: Benjamin Nathans , Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and J. Arch Getty , Distinguished Research Professor of History at UCLA, offer much needed background and perspective on Russia's actions. Professors Nathans and Getty discuss the historical relationship between Russia and ...
Mar 02, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 13
This week's episode features the recording of Part 2 of the three part webinar series organized by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy in partnership with the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. This innovative series brings together scholars, thinkers, and policy-makers of different visions to reflect on the current impasse in Israel-Palestine and share proposals for the future. This program fe...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 34 min•Season 2Ep. 12
LCHP Student Research Fellows and Geography Ph.D. students Sammy Feldblum and John Schmidt join Then & Now to discuss their new LCHP research report, The Transformation of Academic Labor: Past as Prologue at the University of California . Their research details the various factors leading to the UC’s increased reliance on contingent, non-tenured faculty lecturers over the past decades. They discuss the increased privatization of the university over the past fifty years, the implications of t...
Feb 14, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In honor of Black History Month and in the midst of the Winter Olympics, we revisit this episode on the "Black Athlete" that originally aired on July 6, 2020. From Jack Johnson to Muhammed Ali, from Tommie Smith to Colin Kaepernick, Black athletes have played a huge role in the social and cultural history of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ben Carrington, sociologist at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, joins Then & Now to discuss the "racial project" of the Black Athle...
Feb 07, 2022•58 min
On October 21, 2021, cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was killed by a live round of ammunition fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the set of the movie Rust . Her death has prompted numerous discussions about what constitutes “safety” while working on a film set. Dr. Kate Fortmueller, Assistant Professor of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia, examines the evolution of these discussions - and the evolution of general labor struggles in the film industry - throughout history. S...
Jan 24, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 10
This wide-ranging conversation features Professor Mishuana Goeman, Professor of Gender Studies and American Indian Studies, and the inaugural Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs at UCLA. Professor Goeman discusses her personal journey into interdisciplinary scholarship, the relationship and tensions between academia and community-centered work, and the many tangible steps universities and other institutions can make toward reparative justice for Native Ame...
Jan 10, 2022•49 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Professor Manisha Shah, Franklin D. Gilliam Chair in Social Justice and director of the Global Lab for Research in Action at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, joins Then & Now producer Maia Ferdman in conversation about the long history of policy approaches to sex work. They discuss the motivations behind the prohibition and regulation of sex work as well as their public health and economic implications. They also discuss the “end demand” policy approach to sex work, which criminaliz...
Dec 13, 2021•49 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which addresses the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. This case is the latest in a decades-long legal battle over the legality of abortion access, which may culminate in the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case affirming a woman's right to an abortion. Professor Cary Franklin, McDonald/Wright Chair of Law and Faculty Director of t...
Dec 06, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 7
This week's episode features the recording of the three part webinar series organized by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy in partnership with the USC Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. This innovative series brings together scholars, thinkers, and policy-makers of different visions to reflect on the current impasse in Israel-Palestine and share proposals for the future. This program features: Om...
Nov 29, 2021•1 hr 36 min•Season 2Ep. 6
This revisited episode originally aired on October 12th, 2020, marking Indigenous Peoples Day. Professor Kyle T. Mays, historian and scholar of Afro-Indigenous studies, urban history, and Indigenous popular culture at UCLA, joins Then & Now to discuss the history and significance of the day, as well as his scholarship tracking the parallel and often intersecting histories of Indigenous and African American communities in the United States. He discusses moments of historical conflict and coll...
Nov 15, 2021•41 min
In recent months, there has been a raging debate over whether the state--or private actors--can require vaccine mandates. Some resisters claim that such a mandate stands in opposition to their religious liberty; others maintain that the state should not have this authority. Where did vaccine mandates--and the fierce resistance to them--come from? Dorit Reiss, Professor of Law and James Edgar Hervey ’50 Chair of Litigation at UC Hastings, and one of the country's leading authorities on vaccine ma...
Nov 01, 2021•43 min•Season 2Ep. 5
This episode of Then & Now features a conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III, Chancellor's Professor of African American Studies at UC Irvine and author of the book Afropessimism. The conversation tracks his extraordinary life journey from youthful radical activism in Minnesota to a career as a stockbroker to participation in subversive activity for the African National Congress in South Africa. It also focuses on Wilderson's stark and unsparing philosophical stance of Afropessimism, which...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joins this special episode in conversation with former LA County Supervisor and LCHP Board Member Zev Yaroslavsky. Mayor Garcetti reflects on his tenure as mayor, discussing his impact on issues ranging from homelessness to the 2028 Olympic Games, and sharing the surprises, lessons, and challenges of leadership.
Oct 04, 2021•51 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Dr. Sharon Balter, the Director of the Acute Communicable Disease Control Program at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, has had a busy 18 months. She joins then & now to discuss how knowledge about COVID-19 has shaped – and re-shaped – public health approaches throughout the course of the pandemic.
Sep 20, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Gray Davis, the 37th Governor of the State of California, is uniquely positioned to comment on the current effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom. He kicks off Season 2 of then & now by discussing his path into public service, his numerous legislative successes as governor, and his experience being recalled and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also delves into the political and legal backdrop to the current recall effort and offers some important advice for dealing with adversity in lif...
Sep 02, 2021•52 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Whether discussing COVID-19 vaccinations with different people, reading two different news sites, or merely glancing at any given Twitter feed, one might think that Americans across the country live in alternate universes. It is clear that political polarization has reached a boiling point. Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, a nationally renowned expert in deliberative democracy and Executive Director Emerita of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, joins Then & Now producer Maia Ferdman to disc...
Aug 23, 2021•51 min
UCLA researchers and graduate students Marques Vestal, Fernanda Jahn Verri, and Andrew Klein join Then & Now to discuss the Luskin Center for History and Policy's research report detailing the history of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles County. They discuss how the last century of housing policy, racial dynamics, and policing practices all contributed to the crisis we find ourselves in today. This is the first episode in a series covering the report findings. Read the report, "The Maki...
Aug 09, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Months after the national election and despite numerous judicial decisions to the contrary, many Americans still believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump. In recent weeks various state legislatures have used the claim of voter fraud to propose new bills to change voting procedures, launching a new chapter in the long battle over the franchise in the United States. In this episode of "Then & Now," we discuss the history of voter suppression and the current state of play with election...
Jul 26, 2021•51 min
