Undecided White Voters 'Flee' to White Candidates

Keith Reeves, political science professor at Swarthmore College, talks about the effects of race on politics in a recent issue of New Yorker. "The voting booth is tantamount to the confessional - it's the secrecy of the ballot that is the critical issue," says Reeves. "One thing we found that was surprising was when you have instances of a fairly large percentage of undecided white voters, they flee to the white candidate."

Sundance Festival to Feature Film on Swarthmore Prof

A documentary featuring Swarthmore College linguistics professor K. David Harrison will have its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival later this month. The film, entitled "The Linguists", follows Harrison and Gregory Anderson as they document disappearing languages around the world

Voter ID Law: A New "Poll Tax?"

A new Indiana law requires voters who can't show identification at the polls to use a provisional ballot and then travel to the the courthouse within the next 10 days to either show a valid ID or swear that they are either indigent or have a religious objection to being photographed. Swarthmore College political science professor Richard Valelly recently joined a group of leading scholars of race, class, and politics in America in signing an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court this week challenging the Indiana law, contending it amounts to a poll tax and a "democratic emergency."

Students Working with Stem Cells

"Stem Cells and Cloning," a new biology class at Swarthmore College, lets students conduct research using embryonic stem cells from mice. It is believed to be the first and only course of its kind in the country.

Chasing Vanishing Languages

More than half of the world's 7,000 languages are expected to die out by the end of the century, often taking with them irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world. David Harrison, a linguistics professor at Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College, has identified five "hotspots" where languages are vanishing most rapidly. He has traveled the world to interview the last speakers of critically endangered languages as part of the National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices Project.

Women Have Their Hour at Swarthmore Library

Leading up to the Spanish-American War in 1898, Susan B. Anthony complained that the Civil War had resulted in the emancipation of the slave, that the coming war was to supposed to liberate the Spanish colonies, and asked, "When will there be a women's hour? We must be patient again." Such comments from Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Chapman Catt and other leaders of the women's suffrage movement are contained in dozens of heretofore unreleased letters that have been donated to the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College.