Meg Mott
How do we give due process its due?
Meg Mott is professor emerita of Marlboro College and Emerson College and describes herself as a "Constitution Wrangler."...
What does the Constitution says about this moment?
Yes, the country can persist with an overly exuberant executive and the cold shower of the judiciary, but that doesn’t give us a functional government. For that, we need to govern through good-faith deliberation and debate, not slavish adherence to their political party.
Meg Mott, Ph.D. is professor emerita of Marlboro College and Emerson College and describes herself as a Constitution wrangler. PUTNEY-Is the Constitution in crisis? If you listen to Democrats, the president is exceeding his authority. All these executive orders, all these firings and spending freezes! How can this be...
Can civics save us from ourselves?
Vermont is one of 11 states that do not require students to study civics before graduation. Without a civics education, we are more easily seduced by the beliefs of the majority — and we are at risk of believing that the majority speaks for everyone.
Meg Mott, a longtime Marlboro College professor of political science, serves as Putney's town moderator and describes herself as a "Constitution wrangler." Democracy has a lot to recommend it: all those opportunities to participate in the governing process, to consider public matters with your neighbors in Town Meeting or...
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A rich ecosystem of arguments can keep democracy alive
Fragile as a moth's wing and vibrant as a sunset, democracy is a wonder of nature. When a nation is alive to its mysterious forces, when it allows various approaches to human flourishing and happiness, democracy feels as elemental as gravity. But when we stop believing in our capacity to handle complex issues from myriad points of view, then democracy dies. When we fear our political opponents more than we cherish democracy, we engage in behavior that undermines democratic rule.
Power, control, and the politics of advocacy
In 1994, at the Women's Crisis Center in Brattleboro, we were very careful about how we spoke. We did not speak on behalf of battered women, for that would be to rob them of their voices. Nor did we call them “battered women,” for that imposed an identity of powerlessness. Nor did we call them “clients,” for that assumed that we had some authority and expertise, as if we were Social Workers. We fretted over language because we didn't want...
The case for restorative justice in campus sexual assault discipline
Sometime between freshman orientation and Thanksgiving break, a female undergraduate on a campus somewhere in the United States will be sexually assaulted by a peer. A panel will convene to deal with the situation and will inevitably handle things poorly. Just as rape predictably occurs in the fall on some college campuses, campus disciplinary panels are also predictably ill-prepared to properly adjudicate. Why is it that colleges can't respond to such a predictable problem? One explanation is that members of...
Making the leap from traitor to hero
In the last three weeks, reactions to Edward Snowden's leaks to the American and British press have shifted from shock at the contents of the leak to whether the leaker has the credibility of Vietnam whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Snowden's supporters, who include Ellsberg himself, point to the similarities between the two men: the risks they took and the love they have for democracy. Snowden's detractors point to Snowden's lack of academic and patriotic credentials. He's not Ellsberg, they say, because...
Raising chickens as spiritual practice
Meat birds begin their life in transit, inside the arteries of the United States Postal Service, crossing state lines with bestsellers from Amazon and stretch jeans from Lands' End. But unlike those other packages, chick boxes contain a surplus, a couple of extra baby birds to make up for the wear and tear of travel. It's an inexpensive way to console the customer when a pile of feathers arrives without any peeps. Chicken farmers, however, are a peculiar type of...