Social justice

A boisterous crowd gathered at the State House to celebrate significant progress this year — a new law will expand coverage for gender-affirming care for people with Medicaid insurance — but they noted that much more work is ahead in making the state safe and inclusive for trans Marylanders.

Baltimore must find ways to rightfully honor writer, orator and abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and the power of her legacy, author and Johns Hopkins History Professor Martha S. Jones says.

Housing redevelopment in Baltimore’s distressed neighborhoods would pay for itself with economic benefits such as tax revenues and construction jobs, says Paul C. Brophy, a principal with Brophy & Reilly LLC who specializes in neighborhood revitalization.

Harassment and vandalism accounted for most of the spike, which gave the state the 10th highest number of antisemitic incidents in the country in 2022.

The Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission probably won’t consider the case of Hattie Carroll, but it should, DeWayne Wickham, public editor for The Baltimore Banner, says.

The Environmental Protection Agency needs a stronger rule to reduce particle air pollution and to protect people with chronic lung disease and the broader community in places like Baltimore, says Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a physician with the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and community engagement co-director of the Baltimore Breathe Center.

Baltimore entrepreneurs are well-positioned for a breakthrough on tech startups, despite challenges nationwide from events such as the SVB crisis, says Jamie McDonald, chief executive officer of UpSurge, which is focused on making Baltimore the country’s first "equitech city."

The Moore-Miller transition team gathered input from more than 5,000 Marylanders to identify the state’s biggest challenges, develop solutions and help set priorities, says Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, who chaired the transition team.

A scholarship program for kindergarten to 12th-grade students is the target of selective outrage, Tony Campbell, a Towson University faculty member, says. Loss of Medicare Advantage plans is putting the health of Maryland seniors at risk, Rev. Alvin Hathaway Sr., president and founder of Beloved Community Services, says. Promising and rewarding careers are available at facilities serving seniors, Allison Roenigk Ciborowski, president and CEO of LeadingAge Maryland, says.

Prosecution of children in adult court, which expanded as some Black and brown youths were being singled out as “super predators,” must end in Maryland and elsewhere, Adnan Syed and defense attorney Melissa Miller say.

Persistent stigma and misunderstanding of ADHD may be contributing to an apparent lack of political will to resolve the shortage of medications to treat it.

Emergency allotments for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is ending Wednesday, resulting in cuts that experts say could affect over 360,000 Maryland households.

Maryland was the first state to submit and receive approval for its reimbursement plan, which will result in over $2.5 million in stolen SNAP benefits being disbursed among more than 3,800 victims.

A U.S. government official moved to censor W.E.B. DuBois in the months after World War I for challenging racial injustice in an editorial published in the magazine of the NAACP, Banner Public Editor DeWayne Wickham says. During that era, some inside the government sought to prevent distribution of Black newspapers and magazines that published anti-lynching editorials and other work by Black journalists, Wickham says.

Draper was eminently qualified to practice law in Maryland when he applied for admission to the Maryland Bar in 1857 but was denied admission because he was Black. Attorney John G. Browning says admitting Draper to the Maryland Bar posthumously is a step toward reckoning with the history of discrimination in the legal profession.