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The Abstract
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> By Stephanie DiCapua Getman, Arnold Ventures
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Evan Mintz, director of communications, writes about the killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police:
Over the past week we’ve seen nearly the entire political spectrum united in condemnation of the inhumane killing of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police officers. Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man and father of a 4-year-old son, died after being pulled from his car and beaten by police officers. Five officers now face charges for second-degree murder, while two additional police officers have been taken off duty and three fire department employees have been fired for their actions. However, rather than descending into the partisan rancor that has dominated so much of the reform debate over the past three years, we’ve seen a nearly universal call for justice.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, demanded that the officers involved “be brought to justice for this tragic loss of life.”
“The City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department need to take a hard look at the misconduct and failure that has occurred within this unit,” he said.
Even Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, publicly described the killing as a “criminal assault under the pretext of law.”
"The fact that none of those officers — NONE of them — acted to stop this vicious attack only compounds my horror — it is sickening,” Yoes said. “The bottom line here is that Tyre Nichols, his family, and our entire country need to see justice done — swiftly and surely.”
And at the federal level, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, also called for “swift, decisive action.”
“We have been here too many times before. We cannot continue down this path. America cannot stand silent,” Scott said in a statement. “This was a man beaten by the power of the state. We must unite against this blatant disregard for human life, especially from those we trust with immense power and responsibility.”
Yet the passion of the moment has a way of fading quickly, and the window for action can close long before any action is taken. It falls on this emergent political coalition to ensure that justice means more than a criminal trial. President Biden has talked about trying to resuscitate the Justice In Policing Act, a bipartisan proposal born from the murder of George Floyd. At the state level, Tennessee lawmakers are discussing bills to strengthen accountability.
But at a certain point the specifics of the legislation matter less than the fact that something is done. This is a rare moment when progress feels possible. Even small steps in the right direction are enough to show that Democrats and Republicans can work together on professionalizing the police. This means policies focused on decertification, use of force standards, and data collection. Right now the nation needs proof that the entire political spectrum agrees on a shared goal of policing that protects the lives, dignity, and rights of all Americans.
Read Arnold Ventures Vice President of Criminal Justice Walter Katz on how leaders in law enforcement, city government, and state legislatures need to ensure that we have professional and accountable police departments: "Demanding Accountability After the Killing of Tyre Nichols"
Related: AV's Walter Katz discusses Tyre Nichols, police reform, and violent crime in America in this livestream from Reason.
Related: “It seems that the Memphis Police Department may have leaned into the one practice that creates the biggest risk for something horrible to happen,” AV's Walter Katz tells NBC News.
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By Rhiannon Collette, communications manager
Strong local news has long served as a pillar of American democracy. Independent journalism holds the powerful to account, examines problems, identifies solutions, and informs and engages the communities it serves. It hardly seems coincidental that the disappearance of local newspapers has coincided with a rise in governmental dysfunction, increased partisanship and rancor, and voters who are increasingly tuning out.
What's Happening: A burgeoning industry of fledgling nonprofits aims to change that downward spiral, and this week, a new endeavor joined the ranks of independent, nonpartisan, non-paywalled news outlets seeking to strengthen democracy through journalism. Houston Landing, supported in part by Arnold Ventures in collaboration with two other Houston philanthropies, debuted its new name (more on that below) and newsroom leadership, with plans to launch a full site later this spring.
Why it Matters: Much ado has been made about the perils of the decline of commercial newspapers, but the meteoric rise in independent, nonprofit news outlets across the U.S. paints a brighter picture for the future of journalism. There are more than 360 nonprofit newsrooms across the nation and growing, advancing ambitious visions for reimagining how the news will be covered. Houston Landing is embracing this strategy, pledging to expand its coverage beyond the basics to focus on responding and reflecting the community’s needs and striving to “improve the lives of Houstonians one story at a time.”
What’s Next: This week’s announcement unveiled the Houston Landing name, a nod to the 1836 landing of the Allen brothers, the city’s founders, and the 1969 moon landing, which was guided by mission control in Houston, earning our hometown its “Space City” moniker. The project also announced this week that it will be helmed by award-winning journalist Peter Bhatia as CEO and a seasoned editor, Mizanur Rahman, who will serve as editor-in-chief, along with a growing team of journalists, whose reporting will make an appearance in the coming weeks.
Read more about the venture or take a survey to help shape the editorial vision.
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Data Dive: A Kingpin Dethroned?
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By Juliana Keeping, communications manager
$200 Billion
Revenue generated by Humira, a drug long considered a kingpin of drug company patent abuse
20 years
Length of time the drug experienced a monopoly
165
Patents granted related to Humira
Humira, which had its first competitor come to market this week, has long been a poster child for drug company abuse of the U.S. patent system. An extended monopoly drove prices to roughly $80,000 per year, a price tag shouldered by employers, taxpayers, and patients. Employers spent $15 billion on Humira in 2020 alone, according to an analysis by the Health Care Cost Institute done for the podcast Tradeoffs, both AV grantees.
The vast majority of Humira's 165 patents were granted after the drug entered the market, The New York Times reported, citing AV grantee the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, which tracks drug patents.
Even with the introduction of Humira’s first competitor this week, serious questions remain around savings patients will actually see, Tradeoffs reported.
AV Co-Founder and Co-Chair John Arnold weighed in on Twitter: "Amgen’s new Humira biosimilar is launching at 2 different list prices: a 5% discount & a 55% discount off Humira’s ≈$80k list price," Arnold tweeted. "Exact same drug, very different prices. Yet they'll likely sell much more of the higher $ drug. Welcome to dysfunctional world of drug pricing."
Throughout the drug supply chain, “everybody is feeding at the trough," Robin Feldman, a professor at University of California Law, San Francisco and AV grantee, told NPR this week.
This all serves to underscore that elected leaders must move on opportunities to fix drug pricing issues related to the abuse of the patent system and supply chain in 2023.
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One Big Act to Increase the Value
of Higher Education
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By Torie Ludwin, communications manager
With the start of the new Congress comes the possibility of bipartisan progress on one of the largest, most comprehensive pieces of legislation in higher education: the Higher Education Act, which governs how students and schools may receive federal student aid.
Why it Matters: The federal government’s investment in higher education is now more than $115 billion per year; today, students owe $1.6 trillion in federal student loan debt. Since the last reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in 2008, the student loan system has become more complicated, rising tuition has far outpaced increases in the cost of living, and the schools that enroll federally aided students too often leave students without a credential of value. The Higher Education Act has not adapted to address these problems.
What’s Next: “With huge challenges facing higher education, the need for reform is greater than ever before,” says Vice President of Higher Education Kelly McManus. “These priorities for improvements to the Higher Education Act offer commonsense, straightforward solutions to hold institutions accountable for ensuring that students' and taxpayers' investments are in high-value programs.”
Read the story >
Related: Read our priorities for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.
Related: USA Today reports that just 38% of students who attended a for-profit university say their degree was worth the cost, according to a new polling report from Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research firm, funded by Arnold Ventures. “Compared to public higher education institutions, for-profit colleges have been criticized for being more expensive with similar or worse outcomes for graduates, who tend to be left with higher debt,” according to the report.
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What does 2023 have in store in the health care reform space? Policy experts on AV’s health care team share where there could be traction to improve health care affordability — from shedding light on the prices hospitals charge to furthering drug pricing reforms that address supply chain issues and patent abuse.
Read the 5 Things to Watch in 2023 in Health Care
Related:
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National Trends
in Mass Incarceration
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By Thomas Hanna, communications manager
The Sentencing Project has released a new report on mass incarceration trends in the United States that reveals almost 2 million people — who are disproportionately Black — are currently incarcerated in the nation's jails and prisons. It also documents how this system of mass incarceration negatively impacts individuals, families, and the wider community. Since 2010, the number of incarcerated people has slowly started to decline — punctuated by a large decrease in 2020 as jails and prisons released people in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United States still has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Moreover, as the report details, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of when the U.S. incarcerated population began its meteoric rise. In 1970, there were just 360,000 people incarcerated in the country's jails and prisons.
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Criminal Justice
- ABC news explains how more jurisdictions are using risk assessment in an aptly titled piece “A new scientific method for bail reform."
- Colorado is a year into its new approach to prison, reports NPR. The Restoring Promises unit at Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility is more focused on rehabilitation than punishment and follows more humane models used in Germany and Norway.
Related: Look inside a Restoring Promise unit in Connecticut. "It’s about creating opportunities for people to be their best selves.”
- The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice has filed an amicus brief with the Illinois Supreme Court in support of the Pretrial Fairness Act. Around 400 organizations and individual elected officials, faith leaders, lawyers, and law professors were represented.
Health Care
Higher Education
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More scrutiny on school accreditors at Higher Ed Dive: The boards of accreditors must have a member from the public — not from higher ed — and many struggle to do so. Accreditor boards should pursue adding public members who focus on consumer protection, says AV Higher Education Fellow Clare McCann.
Related: Bolstering the Public Voice in Accreditation
- AV grantee The Urban Institute released an analysis of the proposed regulation on income-driven repayment. Report authors found this new plan could vastly lower the share of borrowers who would fully repay their federal student loans — an estimated 20% of bachelor’s degree recipients would pay nothing under the new income-driven repayment plan (compared to the current 11%).
- The Education Department got dinged by auditors over its cost estimate for student debt cancellation, Inside Higher Ed reports. KPMG found the Department did not provide “adequate evidential matter to support certain key assumptions” in calculating the cost of debt cancellation.
- In light of the recent lawsuit by former students of the University of Southern California against their school and its partnership with online program manager (OPM) 2U, where they claim USC and 2U misled potential students by using inflated rankings numbers, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro speaks out against the predatory dealings of OPMs. In Higher Ed Dive, DeLauro said, "Just like predatory for-profit colleges, these OPMs mislead students, drive up costs and leave student borrowers with a low-value education, excessive debt and low-paying jobs after graduation."
Related: Online Program Management Companies: A For-Profit Pocket within Higher Ed
Contraceptive Choice and Access
- The Biden administration this week proposed a rule to make it easier for people to get contraception with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), CNN reports. The proposal would remove an exemption to the ACA mandate that allows employers to opt out of providing FDA-approved contraceptive methods for reasons of moral convictions. It would also create a path for individuals enrolled in plans offered by employers with religious exemptions to access contraceptive services through a willing provider without charge.
Public Finance
- AV grantee the Tax Policy Center looks at the use of Nurse-Family Partnerships as trusted messengers to reach new mothers from low-income families about tax-filing tools and assistance.
- Watchdog group the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee identified 70,000 “questionable” Social Security numbers used to obtain $5.4 billion in pandemic-related federal loans, reports The Hill.
- Cutting funds to the IRS is a boon for America's wealthiest tax evaders, argues Vanessa Williams at the Brookings Institute.
- Joe Bishop-Henchman of the National Taxpayers Union Foundation writes at the Cato Institute about the pitfalls of dedicating the lion's share of new IRS funding to enforcement rather than service.
- AV grantee the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget highlights that the Congressional Budget Office is predicting that Social Security will become insolvent by 2033.
Journalism
- Jelani Cobb, whose Lipman Center For Journalism and Civil and Human Rights is catalyzing journalism on the intersections of race and and criminal justice, provides a powerful perspective on how police violence has long been disproportionately directed at Black individuals.
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- In The New York Times opinion documentary “Safe Place,” filmmaker Sam Mirpoorian examines the final harrowing moments in the life of Jerod Draper, who died while detained at the Harrison County Jail in Indiana after a traffic stop arrest. He admitted to taking methamphetamines, but rather than provide medical care for a drug overdose, the jail staff stunned Draper with a Taser seven times in a 15-minute period while he was completely restrained, graphic surveillance video shows. There was no investigation into Jerod's death. “If no one is investigating this case, after seeing that video, then imagine how all these other cases and bad things just seem to disappear — like it never counts, it never happened, and it never mattered,” says investigative reporter Natalia Martinez.
- The Marshall Project, an AV journalism grantee, debuted its inaugural episode of Inside Story, a serialized news program aimed at delivering deeply reported and thoughtfully crafted criminal justice journalism to audiences inside the nation's prison and jails. The first of the eight-part series explores juvenile justice reform, with coverage centered for the incarcerated community and featuring interviews with people who have lived experience. "There's a lot of shows out there, but I promise you, you've never seen one like this," host Lawrence Bartley promises.
- New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis advocates for second chances in a video from AV grantee the Louisiana Parole Project.
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- On Consider This from NPR, host Michel Martin explores how the media's reporting on gun violence can unintentionally skew the public's perception of violence and ways the media can avoid retraumatizing survivors of gun violence in their reporting. She talks to Nick Wilson, senior director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress, and Dr. Jessica Beard of the Philadelphia Center For Gun Violence Reporting.
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Have an evidence-based week,
– Stephanie
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Stephanie DiCapua Getman develops and executes Arnold Ventures' digital communications strategy and oversees daily editorial operations and design.
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