When the quality of lawyering is inadequate, courts are frustrated in their adjudicative role. Nowhere is this more apparent than in cases involving immigrants hoping to fend off deportation. As an appellate judge on a court whose immigration docket reached 40 percent of our caseload, I have too often seen deficient legal representation of immigrants. Although courts are reactive, resolving cases before them, judges can systematically promote the fair and effective administration of justice.

The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced our focus on mental health. Concerns about the high levels of mental disorders in the United States are not new, with rising trends–particularly among youth–observed prior to the pandemic. However, the pandemic may have exacerbated and accelerated these trends. The silver lining is that we can leverage this moment to reevaluate and reimagine not only how we treat mental health problems, but also how we promote emotional well-being throughout the life course. We argue that scholars, policymakers, and practitioners should broaden their view of mental health, and consider it as a full spectrum ranging from serious mental illness to robust emotional well-being. This perspective recognizes the importance of treatment access and quality, but also elevates the value of prevention, particularly at the population level. Greater attention to preventing problems before they occur will not only reduce manifest disorders but also encourage higher rates of psychological resilience and, ultimately, better physical health.

As a design innovation, the modern university is an institution that unites the advancement of knowledge through research with its dissemination through teaching. Its inception in Germany in the first decade of the nineteenth century inspired an American adaptation that merged the German version with the English undergraduate college to produce a new bundle that would be emulated the world over. The historical view reveals cycles of sustaining innovation in which academic entrepreneurs supplemented the research-teaching synthesis with institutions devoted to one task or the other. Despite these disruptive efforts and continuing evidence of inefficiency, however, the original institutional hybrid remains the dominant model. This essay argues that the university’s persistence is best understood as fulfilling a deeper need in American political culture.