June 18, 2026

Photo credit: Mario Tama / Staff / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee—its governing body—approved a new platform that commits the organization to a series of radical proposals, such as abolishing the U.S. Senate, “abolishing the carceral forces of the capitalist state,” defunding the Department of War, and replacing the presidency and the Supreme Court with an executive and judicial branch controlled by Congress.

As Stu Smith notes, these radical revisions are a product of the DSA’s big tent structure, which “has allowed Bernie Sanders devotees and more reform-minded socialists to work alongside self-described Maoists and Communists.” But that broad coalition is a double-edged sword, since members of the organization’s core “have tended to push for radicalism within the organization.”

As the DSA’s core continues to radicalize, the tension between it and the organization’s more moderate allies seems bound to increase. It’s “a tension they will inevitably have to resolve,” writes Smith.

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The University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill has been a standout on higher education reform in several ways: adopting an institutional neutrality policy, creating a new School of Civic Life and Leadership, and in 2024, hiring a permanent chancellor, Lee Roberts, who seemed likely to press the reform agenda forward.

“But nearly two years into Roberts’s appointment, the university still suffers from many of the maladies afflicting higher education––from questionable course requirements to senior leadership committed to the ‘social-justice university,’” writes John Sailer.

Despite instructions from the UNC System Board of Governors to end DEI course requirements, Chapel Hill merely renamed the course listings and left its social-justice-themed courses largely untouched. Roberts has also appointed several ideological and activist picks to administrative positions handling crucial functions such as admissions and faculty hiring.

“Real reform requires vigilance, follow-through, and leadership on the ground,” writes Sailer. “Time will tell, but for now there’s trouble in Tar Heel country.”

Last week, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) determined that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)’s disparate-impact guidelines violated the Constitution by encouraging employers to engage in racial discrimination.

American Civil Rights Project Executive Director Dan Morenoff hails the opinion as a major step toward restoring a colorblind interpretation of civil rights law, while acknowledging that Congress and the courts will ultimately have to resolve the underlying statutory and constitutional questions that remain.

“The OLC’s constitutional analysis is well-grounded and persuasive,” he writes. “It has admirably answered the question it was asked and proposed adjustments to current Title VII disparate-impact analysis that would bring it up to the Constitution’s minimum requirements. We should applaud the OLC’s opinion for moving the ball this far and look forward to seeing the EEOC’s new replacement guidance documents.”

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New York lawmakers have approved a bill requiring pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to pay pharmacies a minimum reimbursement rate plus a $10.18 dispensing fee per prescription. The legislation passed with bipartisan support despite estimates that it could add hundreds of millions of dollars in costs statewide.

Empire Center Senior Fellow Bill Hammond argues that the measure does little to improve competition or transparency in the prescription-drug market and instead shifts costs onto employers, insurers, and non-unionized New Yorkers, while exempting many union health plans from its effects.

“That price tag did not faze supporters,” he writes. “They implausibly insisted that PBMs would eat the expense without passing any of it along to insurers, employers, or consumers. The bill text itself says nothing along those lines. It merely compels PBMs to pay more and lets the impact land where it may, almost certainly yielding higher premiums.”

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