The protests that followed the brutal police killing of George Floyd have at times become violent and caused considerable damage to public and private property. But riots are not always indefensible, and we can use three criteria to assess that question. In late May and June, following the brutal death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer in Minneapolis, mass protests against systemic racism took place across the United States and around the world. Floyd’s death followed many previous police killings of unarmed African-Americans who were not behaving violently. Most protests were peaceful, but some turned into…

The Covid-19 crisis is likely to bring about further rapid and far-reaching shifts in the economic ground beneath us. But we need not view these changes with dread if the pandemic also propels a transition to better and more universal higher education. Will Covid-19 finally trigger a long-overdue technological disruption of higher education? Throughout the world, sudden mid-semester lockdowns aimed at combating the pandemic forced universities to switch to distance learning almost overnight. But while this rapid transition has been tough for faculty and students alike, some good might yet come of it. Like many businesses, universities are struggling with…