Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Recent months have been tumultuous for U.S. democracy, in ways that are both novel and yet also connected to conflicts seen throughout the country’s past. MIT News spoke to several of the Institute’s political scientists and historians, and asked them: What must the U.S. do to sustain the health of its democracy?
Melissa Nobles, the Kenan Sahin Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and professor of political science:
Americans must collectively affirm that democracy is “the only game in town,” and that we are now a multiracial democracy. To be sure, the path to full democracy has been fiercely contested. After Congress passed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution in 1870, it was another 95 years before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, in response to the civil rights movement.