Despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that affirmative action is unconstitutional, the demographic makeup of the undergraduate classes of 2028 suggests many colleges are still offering racial preferences. In Commentary’s September cover story, Naomi Schaefer Riley exposes how College Board provided schools with data to infer the racial background of SAT takers. This week, College Board announced it was ending the practice.

Two decades ago, the majority of households in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) included children. But in fiscal year 2023, almost two-thirds of SNAP households were childless, and 60 percent were single-person households. In new research for the Institute for Family Studies, SNAP expert Angela Rachidi documents this trend and explains why it makes strengthening work requirements and nutrition standards all the more important.

President Donald Trump’s attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook raises grave economic and constitutional issues about the central bank’s independence. AEI scholar and former Senator Phil Gramm and former Representative Jeb Hensarling explain that though the Fed has behaved irresponsibly, the president has no authority to fire members of its board at his discretion.

While the Fed litigation is ongoing, on August 29, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that President Trump lacked the authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his tariffs. Though he takes issue with the court’s reasoning, John Yoo agrees that Trump’s stated justification—the trade deficit—does not meet the statutory standard of “emergency” to impose tariffs.

Despite Trump’s claims that protectionism will bring back manufacturing, this week’s jobs numbers showed that manufacturing employment has fallen by 78,000 over the year. In a chapter for the newly published volume The Economic Consequences of the Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment, AEI Economic Policy Studies Director Michael R. Strain shows why tariffs cannot accomplish the president’s objective and exposes the broader lack of empirical basis for protectionism.