What Do You Get When You Cross a Boy Scout with a Hippie?

In the 1890s, a grass-roots movement of young men came into existence in Germany. A cross between Boy Scouts and hippies,*  they called themselves the Wandervögel, literally the “wandering birds.”** They rejected the strict class system, materialism, and urban life of Germany under the Kaiser and embraced a romanticized ideal of a simpler time when…

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How Title IX Changed the World

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 turns 50 this year. Which doesn’t seem possible, because I was a high school freshman that year. (Stopping to count on my fingers.) Oh well, time flies when you’re kicking doors open, I guess. The language of Title IX is dry, straight-forward, and clear: “No person in…

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