Imani Engel

Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

Has anyone thought through what employment actually looks like across 50 states? A unionized team at a private school in New Hampshire bargaining under federal labor law, while the public school across town answers to a state labor board with completely different rules. Strikes before rivalry week. Players as W-2 employees filing taxes in six states from away games. Walk-ons: are they employees too, or second-class citizens in their own locker room? What about DIII, where nobody gets a dime? The people pushing this talk like it's a light switch. It's fifty different labor regimes, Title IX litigation, tax consequences for teenagers, and collective bargaining with 18-year-olds who change schools every spring. I'm not saying the current system is just. I'm saying the replacement has to be designed, not declared, and "make them employees" is a slogan, not a plan.

Should voting be mandatory in the United States?

Mandatory voting wouldn't fix a single thing that's actually broken. My district in Texas is drawn so the Republican wins by 20 points no matter what. Forcing everyone to vote in a gerrymandered district just manufactures a bigger landslide for the preordained winner. Same story with the Electoral College and the Senate map. [Brennan Center](https://www.brennancenter.org/) has shown how skewed districting decides outcomes before a single ballot is cast. The disease is that millions of votes don't matter because of how lines are drawn and seats are allocated. Compulsory voting treats the symptom, which is low turnout, and leaves the disease untouched.

Alamo is the reason I still go to theaters at all. I drive 40 minutes past two multiplexes to get there because I know nobody's phone will light up. That is the whole business model.

Entertainment · Sep 23, 2026 · Should movie theaters make phone-free screenings the default?

I see both sides. My daughter's school did a decent unit on this, but it was one week in health class competing with everything else. Hard to know how much stuck.

Lifestyle · Sep 23, 2026 · Should schools teach practical habits for managing social media’s effects on ide…