677 episodes
The Weeds Vox
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4.4 • 7.6K Ratings
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Politics is how people achieve power. Policy is what they do with it. Every week on The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill and guests break down the policies that shape our lives, from abortion to financial regulations to affirmative action to housing. We dive deep and we get wonky, but we have fun along the way. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Produced by Vox and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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The fate of affirmative action
Summer is around the corner, which means the latest rulings from this Supreme Court are as well. Two cases will take on affirmative action. In this episode of The Weeds we go on a deep dive with Vox reporters Fabiola Cineas and Ian Millhiser and look at the man behind both cases, the current state of affirmative action, and what a future without this policy would look like.
Read More:
Everything you need to know about the Supreme Court affirmative action cases - Vox
The Supreme Court discovers that ending affirmative action is hard in the Harvard and UNC cases - Vox
Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, by Stephen L. Carter
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Cristian Ayala, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
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Why is child labor making a comeback?
The first child labor law in America went on the books almost 200 years ago, and federal labor protections were enshrined in the Fair Labor Standards Act nearly 100 years later in 1938. So almost a century after the passage of the FLSA, why are we seeing reports of children working in factories, slaughterhouses, and even at McDonald’s? Meanwhile, state legislators are introducing bills across the country that further weaken child labor protections. Historian Beth English and Vox senior policy reporter Rachel Cohen explain.
References:
The Republican push to weaken child labor laws, explained | Vox
Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S. | The New York Times
10-year-olds among hundreds of children found working at McDonald's restaurants | NBC News
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Brandon McFarland, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
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The Weeds, Live – Anti-trans legislation, explained
In recent years, there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. The ACLU is currently tracking 474 such bills, the majority of which target transgender rights. Meanwhile, trans people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to be the victims of violent crime. And according to a 2022 report from the Trevor Project, 45 percent of LGBTQ youth seriously considered suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth.
In this live taping of The Weeds, host Jonquilyn Hill sits down with Danni Askini, co-executive director of national programs for the Gender Justice League. The two examine the history of gender-affirming care, discuss how changes in health policy and advancements in marriage equality have led to this backlash, and explore how advocates are responding.
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Cristian Ayala, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
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Policymaking on the high seas
Question: What is the world’s largest habitat? Here’s a hint: It also takes up about half of the Earth’s surface. Any guesses? It’s the high seas, the parts of the open ocean outside any single country’s jurisdiction. And for the first time ever, there is a plan to protect it.
Read More:
The largest habitat on Earth is finally getting protection | Vox
The High Seas Treaty, Explained | Reuters
The BBNJ agreement and liability | ScienceDirect Journal
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Cristian Ayala, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
How Secretary Buttigieg wants to make America’s roads safer
On this week’s episode of The Weeds, we sit down with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about transportation policy in America. From subways and buses to cars and safer roads, listen for more about the future of public transportation and the policies that can curb traffic deaths. Plus, more from Vox’s Marin Cogan and her reporting on the deadliest road in America.
Related Reading:
How a stretch of US-19 in Florida became the deadliest road for pedestrians - Vox
Cars transformed America. They also made people more vulnerable to the police.
A driver killed her daughter. She won't let the world forget.
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Cristian Ayala, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices -
Mifepristone and the FDA’s exhaustive approval process, explained
It’s been 10 days since a federal judge in Texas issued an unprecedented ruling that nullified the 2000 Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, the first medication in a two-pill combination for medication abortion. A confusing legal battle ensued, and now we are waiting to hear from the Supreme Court. But we still want to know: What does this mean for the future of FDA drug approval? Vox’s Keren Landman (@landmanspeaking) explains.
References:
Abortion pill ruling: Why mifepristone is safe abortion medication - Vox
Credits:
Jonquilyn Hill, host
Sofi LaLonde, producer
Cristian Ayala, engineer
A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts
Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Customer Reviews
17 May 2023
The US has a huge new child immigration population. Most of these are ESL and high school students. They may have a large payment to pay for their immigration costs and are often feeling obliged to send monies home to their families. Unfortunately, a lot of these children are being forced into the workforce by their own families…
Right? Not right.
Seems as though too many people use the word ‘right’ and ‘you know’, to the point of excess and into annoying.
How did it go so far off the rails?
I have been a fan of this podcast since at least 2016 when it stood out from the crowd for its critical thinking, deep dives into complex issues, and discussions of intriguing white papers. In its first iteration, you always had the sense that the hosts—Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Dara Lind, and Sarah Kliff—had meticulously researched their topics rather than relying on Twitter or the media narrative of the moment. I also felt that, while the hosts themselves had fairly openly left-leaning views, they nonetheless strove to present issues as objectively as the could and generally tried to avoid relying too heavily on opinions that couldn’t really be supported except through moralistic appeals.
I’ve held on and continued to listen to the show through many changes of hosts and all the upheaval at Vox. I think I’m finally turning in my card after the recent Affirmative Action episode. While I support Affirmative Action in hiring and admissions to various degrees, the whole presentation of the subject was so biased and just disingenuous it really left a terrible taste in my mouth. Aside from essentially equating any opponent of the policy to white supremacists, the podcast also minimized the data Harvard was forced to release in which they systematically downgraded the “personality” scores of applicants of East Asian descent.
Moreover, they began the historical discussion of these policies with the civil rights movement, employing an out of context MLK quote in a totally bogus way, conveniently neglecting the checkered origin of “holistic admissions” as a means of minimizing the number of Jewish applicants that Ivy League universities would have been forced in a system based solely on aptitude testing. There was also little to no reckoning with the fact that Affirmative Action has become democratically unpopular across all demographic groups, including 60% of Black Americans who oppose race being a consideration in admissions. At this point, considering race in college admissions has about an identical degree of support and disapproval as the use of legacy admissions (about 5-7% approval for each as a major factor in admissions, and about 75% of Americans saying that both should “not be a factor” in admissions).
There are good cases to be made for racial preference in admissions and hiring, but the notion that this is self-evident to anyone but a blatant racist is ridiculous.
It’s all just a shame because this really was a great show that seemed to avoid some of the more divisive elements of political debate by drilling down to the facts and embraced complexity. Now it seems to have all the journalistic integrity of Fox News, but just on behalf of the other team.