On October 19th, the Temporary Protected Status of over 100,000 Ukrainian refugees is set to expire in the United States, opening the risk of their deportation. This would be a massive insult to the Ukrainian diaspora’s successful integration into American society. The Ukrainian immigrant population in the United States shows significantly higher rates of higher education than other immigrant groups and native-born Americans. Ukrainian Americans have put their education to good use, as they have a civilian labor force participation rate, median income, and poverty rate roughly in line with the rest of the American population. This integration stands out in comparison to other diasporas consisting largely of refugees, such as those from Somalia and Afghanistan, which have some of the worst poverty, usage of welfare including SNAP or Medicaid, and educational attainment rates. Instead of treating all immigrants the same, the White House should evaluate them based on how likely members of their communities are to be economically successful as Americans.
By Edward Kim
A nineteen-year-old walks into a campus police station to report the worst night of her life. She gives a six-page sworn statement. Then she waits. Nobody calls her back. That, according to her attorney, is what happened to the woman now suing Cornell University and seven former and current Chi Phi members. Her lawsuit alleges she was drugged and gang raped at the fraternity house in October 2024. The defendants deny it, and their lawyers say the complaint misstates the record. Those claims will be tested in court, as they should be, and yet, there’s a secondary story that needs no trial to examine: how a case this serious went nowhere for two years. District Attorney’s Explanation: Matthew Van Houten says he declined to charge anyone in 2024 because the woman’s initial statement did not say she was drugged without her knowledge or physically helpless. He described her as credible,though he also admitted his office never independently investigated. Instead, he relied on the work of Cornell’s campus police, which he says is standard practice across upstate New York. Ruminate on that. The people who decide whether a crime occurred outsourced the investigating to a university department. The department took a statement, and—by her lawyer’s account—stopped there. A Snapchat group chat that her attorney calls “critical” evidence was allegedly handed to authorities in 2024. The DA says it never reached him. Somewhere between the police report and the prosecutor’s desk, a critical piece of evidence simply vanished. Survivors of sexual violence rarely deliver a clean, complete account on the first try, especially when alcohol and drugs blur the memory. Investigators trained in this work know that follow-up interviews are where the fuller picture tends to emerge. Treating one early statement as the final word does not make a process neutral. It makes it a filter, and the cases it screens out are often the hardest ones. The DA has said prosecutions must rest on “evidence and not emotion.” Fair enough, but evidence does not walk into a courthouse on its own. Someone must go looking. Cornell has its own questions to answer. The university says its Title IX process led to expulsions and suspensions and that the chapter was barred from campus. The lawsuit claims some of the men were given the chance to soften their punishment by writing essays, Cornell calls this false. Rather than trade press releases, the public deserves an answer from someone with nothing to protect. That is why Governor Hochul’s call for an independent review makes sense, and why Cornell’s move to hire outside lawyers should be treated as basic law enforcement, not a favor. Universities can expel a student, but they cannot charge one with a crime. Their disciplinary systems are private, slow, and opaque. They are run by institutions with obvious reasons to protect their reputations,and asking a school to police serious violent crime is akin to asking a restaurant to inspect its own kitchen. Then there is the culture underneath it all. Researchers who study fraternities describe organizations where toughness, dominance, and silence earn status. The lawsuit alleges that one member summoned others to the room through a group chat, which, if true, looks less like a lapse in judgment, and more like a performance for an audience of brethren. Closing one fraternity chapter will not resolve the issue, it just relocates the problem to places where universities have even less reach. So, what would real change look like? Campus police should route serious assault reports to specially trained detectives immediately. Prosecutors should review those cases themselves instead of inheriting a first impression. States should fund regional response teams so survivors are not at the mercy of whichever agency answers first, and universities should publish, within privacy limits, how often misconduct findings lead to real consequences. The plaintiff says that after she came forward many of her peers turned away from her. If so, she learned something about the system long before any jury did. A grand jury may finally hear her out, but the real fight is making sure no one else has to wait two years to be heard. Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.
By Isha Mallareddy
On Wednesday, September 30th 2026, the last of the remaining US military personnel stationed in Iraq withdrew from the country, making it the official end of the US military’s operations there. After more than two decades of American involvement, thousands of deaths, and a 13-figure price tag, we must ask: Was the cost of the Iraq war justified by what it ultimately accomplished? The Human Cost The Iraq war represented a catastrophic toll on human life. Not only have US forces lost an estimated 4,432 in this conflict, there have also been 9.2 million Iraqis internally or externally displaced. The fatality count of Iraqi civilians and soldiers is at an estimated 300,000 but some estimates cite it higher at up to 601,027. These numbers are more than statistics. These were human beings that were family members, friends, and colleagues. These wrongful deaths and displacements are a testament to the negligence of the United States and Coalition forces in handling another country’s citizens and communities with care. There were also approximately 31,994 US soldiers wounded in the conflict, leaving thousands of soldiers with permanent injuries and without limbs. A great portion of the financial cost of the war is represented by the cost projections of their future medical care. The Finances Not only did the war extract a severe human toll, it also required a consequentially large amount of US taxpayer money to fund, at an estimated $2.89 trillion cost to the United States. Most do not comprehend the magnitude of this figure, especially as it relates to what the United States could have used this large sum on alternatively. That figure could’ve paid the estimated $220 billion in medical debt 13 times over and the $1.8 trillion held up in student loan debt. The United States government has seen these vast domestic problems and chosen to continue involvement in other Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Afghanistan, while American citizens struggle with their daily lives and expenses. And while these financial hardships occurred, companies like Haliburton and KBR were treated to no-bid oil contracts for Iraq’s then recently vacant and damaged oil fields. US Vice President, Dick Cheney, was formerly the CEO of Haliburton prior to the Vice Presidency, and these contracts prompted the start of an FBI investigation into the contracts. Political Instability and Long-Term Consequences Perhaps the most damning result of this massive expenditure of human life and capital are the ripple effects of overthrowing Iraq’s government and disbanding their military. Saddam Hussein was Iraq’s President from 1979 until US forces took control of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, which led to his subsequent capture by coalition forces in 2003. Saddam was falsely alleged to have connections to terror groups like Al-Qaeda. The previously acknowledged displaced people of Iraq included many people from skilled professions such as doctors, who fled in large numbers after war came to the country. The mass casualties, coupled with the shortage of medical personnel, devastated Iraq’s medical sector. This disparity still continues into the current decade. The power vacuum left by Saddam’s overthrow gave way for an Islamist government to proclaim control and gain power. This made it more difficult for both Iraqi civilians and US forces to operate in the country safely, as Iraq was practically turned into an anarchist state. The Verdict Can we truly say there was any benefit to such activities? In the eyes of most rational people, the answer is no. The United States has decimated the Middle East to an extent where nearly all other operating countries, with the exception of Israel, have in some way condemned US foreign policy and diplomacy over the years following involvement in Iraq. This conflict, coupled with the Afghanistan War, led to the United States becoming comfortable with a more long term presence in the Middle East and North Africa. This led to the beginning of US involvement in Syria in 2011, where US forces helped to destabilize and eventually overthrow another leader, Bashar Al-Assad in 2024. US forces also chose to intervene in Libya in 2011, overthrowing Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi in a violent bloodbath. The United States clearly is not richer, safer, or happier as a result of US tarnishment in Iraq. Subsequent involvement in other countries such as Syria and Libya, has only deepened an already exhausted US obligation to spending more American taxpayer dollars rebuilding countries that our forces destroy. To truly achieve a safer, more prosperous United States, the federal government must direct our best and absolute efforts towards our own domestic hardships and problems. Acknowledgement: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author, not necessarily Our National Conversation as a whole.
By Theodore Maher
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