At a time when equalizing measures like affirmative action are being challenged, a women’s university is uplifting the most neglected and defenseless populations in Bangladesh. Yet the Asian University for Women (AUW) faces additional challenges in providing excellent higher education. This essay discusses how AUW also confronts mounting pernicious state control of education by transforming state-university relationships, and how, despite resurfacing nationalism and parochialism, it advocates for regional collaboration in its student body. In a conflict-ridden world, it marshals political, financial, and diplomatic prowess to provide a liberating pathway to those marooned in conflict. While fostering equality through its undergraduate and graduate programs, AUW has raised an age-old question concerning a university’s function in an unjust, violence-prone, and divided world. Its answer: the best institutions embrace disadvantaged members of society through education aimed at emancipating those under the yoke of oppression.

Section 230, the twenty-six words that created the internet, has become the twenty-six words that are breaking the First Amendment. Section 230’s blanket liability shield for social media platforms is harming our children and our democracy. In this essay, I narrate the story of what Section 230 enabled—the rise of the virtual public square, a circumstance that the framers could never have imagined—and explore its consequences for human well-being and freedom of expression. I conclude that Section 230 must be repealed to unleash First Amendment jurisprudence to confront the threats to the republic in the age of generative AI, as well as to usher in the next round of internet innovation in service of constitutional democratic sustainability. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced to sunset Section 230 as of December 31, 2025. Those who believe in the enduring promise of American constitutional democracy should support its passage.

In this essay, I examine unmet promises and global challenges for achieving language equality in schooling, with special focus on one of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, SDG-4, which aims to ensure equitable and inclusive quality education and lifelong learning for all. Language of instruction is a key determinant of student success, but there is limited recognition of the vital role language plays as an intervening variable. Most languages continue to be excluded from education and 60 percent of out-of-school children live in regions where their own languages are not used at school. Inequities arising from unjust language policies combine to trap the poorest in a cluster of disadvantages persisting across generations. Underinvesting in education jeopardizes a range of social benefits. A well-educated population will increase the overall economic prosperity of a nation. I call for first language–based multilingual education as a pathway to schooling equality and sustainable development.