Letter from the Editor
For my final letter from the editor I decided to dig my soap box out of the closest and dust off the cob webs to impart on you, the Juris reader, my unqualified opinion on the current state of our nation which has inspired this thematic issue.
We the people…
The phrase we hear so often yet sometimes fail to see the meaning in. As we inch closer and closer to the upcoming presidential election it is becoming more and more evident that this age-old phrase purposely formulated by our Founding Fathers is lost on many. Our nation has entered an age of money politics powered by media coverage and political personalities. All of which add fuel to the fire that rages on democracy.
“We the people” has become “I the person.” The United States is plagued by severe polarization deeply rooted in different cultural ideals and stubborn individualism.
It seems that every day there is a senseless shooting, a cyber-attack, a foreign policy nightmare, a corruption allegation, a racially fueled protest, a filibuster, a veto, a controversial political statement, a sexist comment, a hate crime, and all the while our nation’s leaders who together form a unified congress hurl childish insults across the aisle. The last two congressional sessions have been the least productive in history, even worse than the Truman-era “do-nothing” congress. This simply put, is a problem, and not just a problem for the D.C. elite but a problem for everyday people like you and me. We have lost sight of the one thing that makes us great, our ability to compromise.
But, how do we solve this problem?
We turn to our democracy, which has been described as the best in the world. We utilize our freedom of speech, our ability to vote, and our right to assemble to preach our own views while trying to understand others’ opinions. I believe in order to come together we need to be educated on the issues and processes that support our system. This issue aims to educate citizen voters and future policy makers on topics ranging from primaries, caucuses, and Super PACs, to multilingualism, student debt, and cybersecurity.
The United States has gone through hard times before and together we will overcome. No one person has the answer, but with knowledge and compromise, there’s nothing we can’t accomplish. I encourage you to look further into these topics and utilize your democratic freedoms to participate in the political process.
Finally, as my classmates and I step on to the stage to graduate this spring, I have the utmost confidence in the fact that Duquesne University School of Law has prepared us well for the challenges that lie ahead as citizens, as people, and as lawyers. Without further ado, I present to you the spring 2016 issue of Juris magazine. As always, happy reading.
Sincerely,
Meghan L. Collins
Meghan Collins, 3L, is the editor-in-chief and designer of Juris. She is the student articles editor of the Duquesne Business Law Journal and president of both the Duquesne Intellectual Property Law Association and the Corporate Law Society. She is also pursuing her MBA at the Palumbo Donahue School of Business. She can be reached at collin21@duq.edu or jurisduqlaw@gmail.com.
