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By Jessica F. Simmons | Despite widespread public support and growing national momentum for reproductive rights, Youngkin’s second veto of the Virginia Right to Contraception Act underscores a troubling pattern of political resistance to safeguarding access to birth control.

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(Library of Congress) 

By Janell Hobson | The Combahee River Raid was a military operation during the American Civil War led by Harriet Tubman on June 1-2, 1863. Historian Edda L. Fields-Black—this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History—reflects on Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.

“What I speculate is that the Union told the enslaved people who she was. And her presence facilitated the enslaved people in trusting the Union. We know, from some of the sources I’ve brought together in [my latest book] Combee that Harriet Tubman was on the ground in the raid, that she participated in the burning of buildings, and that she went to the slave cabins and coaxed the people there to come onto the boats and come to freedom. So how she convinced them to do that, we don’t know, but they did trust her, even if they didn’t know her entire backstory.”

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By Sheree L. Williams and Eleanor Wesley | Throughout the month of May, the Profiles in Courage spotlighted women in the Department of Justice, federal agencies and the military whose careers have been defined by integrity, resilience and reform. Their quiet heroism—often at personal cost—reaffirms the enduring role of public servants who choose justice over self-interest. Through their stories, Ms. pays tribute to a tradition of service that safeguards democracy and inspires the next generation to lead with courage.

In 2023, labor lawyer Gwynne Wilcox—whose union-side advocacy career has spanned decades—shattered two barriers: becoming the first Black woman seated on the National Labor Relations Board and, soon after, its chair. The board’s institutional independence was hastily put to the test on Jan. 27, 2025, just one week after President Donald Trump’s return to office. Wilcox received a midnight email from the White House saying she was dismissed, effective immediately.

Refusing to accept her unlawful dismissal, Wilcox filed suit against the Trump administration. On May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief order allowing Trump to dismiss Wilcox from the NLRB. Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan quoted Alexander Hamilton as saying: “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents.” The order, she said, “favors the president over our precedent.”

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Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on

Apple Podcasts + Spotify.

In this emergency episode, we’re ringing the alarm bells: We just learned that in the state of Georgia, a woman named Adriana Smith, who passed away in February, and has been declared brain-dead, is being forcibly kept on a ventilator due to the state’s strict abortion ban, against her family’s wishes. Dr. Michele Goodwin breaks down Adriana Smith’s case, and the cases of other women who, like Smith, have been disrespected and desecrated in death thanks to abortion bans and pregnancy exclusion laws.

We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!

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