StudentNation | The Nation

By Peter Rothberg

The ACLU is generously offering 16 of the nation’s most committed, young civil liberties activists $12,500 each toward their first year in college. The winners will become part of a special class of scholar-activists who will be invited to participate in ongoing activities with the ACLU, including activist trainings, strategy sessions and public events. Since 2000, the venerable civil liberties organization has awarded scholarships annually to honor and recognize the efforts of graduating student activists.

To qualify, you must be a high school senior planning on entering an accredited college or university as a full-time, degree-seeking student with at least a 3.0 GPA who has demonstrated a profound commitment to civil liberties through some form of social, political or artistic activism.

By Hooman Hedayati

In 2007, the Supreme Court accepted a case from a Kentucky inmate challenging the constitutionality of lethal injections. This created a national moratorium on executions that lasted for more than seven months. Now, after the longest death penalty moratorium in 25 years, executions have resumed in the U.S. Georgia executed the first inmate, and Texas followed, executing eight more people. The next execution in Texas is scheduled for Sept. 9. Litigation that caused the moratorium did not question the death penalty itself but rather the manner in which it is carried out. This forest-for-the-trees approach, however, avoids a fundamental question: What did we learn during the seven-month-plus postponement? And how should what we learned influence us as we go forward?