Undergraduate Journal

In recent years, the importance of utilizing inclusive practices in the workplace has become much more widely-known, especially in regards to supporting neurodivergent employees. The systemic barriers and challenges faced by neurodivergent job-seekers and employees mean this population is often limited in their employment prospects, in turn depriving human resources professionals and their organizations of the chance to hire and benefit from diverse talent. As neurodivergent individuals exist within the workforce and general public, it is critical that organizations properly accommodate their needs in order to ensure optimal inclusivity, business efficiency, and productivity. This scoping review of the literature on neurodivergence in the workplace identifies common themes and gaps in knowledge, and suggests opportunities for future research. Specifically, five dominant themes were uncovered: continued barriers to employment, positive and negative consequences associated with the disclosure of neurodivergent conditions, insufficient employer education, inadequate support structures, and a lack of collaborative decision-making. Findings highlight the need for additional research focused on neurodivergent individuals’ diverse identities, career progression, and the organizational leadership opportunities and practices that shape their workplace experiences. 

Beginning in the 1960s, a rightward shift in politics and “War on Drugs” policies propelled the United States toward mass incarceration. The result was a prison population of around 2 million people, in which minority groups have been disproportionately imprisoned. While historians and legal scholars have examined the policies and legal structures behind mass incarceration, oral historians working in the tradition of social history emphasize the importance of narratives of those most impacted yet traditionally neglected. This paper specifically examines the relatively unstudied Columbia University's 2019 Mass Incarceration oral history collection, which explores the interconnected perspectives of one family’s experience within the prison-industrial complex. This archive uncovers a perplexing paradox: the carceral system can provide a community with economic stability via employment, but this economic security relies on the incarceration of their community, even relatives. Furthermore, previous discussions have focused on black and white males, but this research engages with black women, AIDS patients, and prisoner activists

Prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, access to safe legal abortions was limited and often restricted along racial, economic, and geographic lines. Nearly fifty years later, women’s health policy evolved again following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade. This court ruling decimated federal protections of abortion. This paper presents the research that the 2022 Dobbs judicial decision may contribute to and exacerbate rape-related PTSD on 1 out of 20 American who are unable to access a safe abortion after a rape-related pregnancy. Pregnant women living in conservative states that have outlawed abortions or placed extreme restrictions (i.e. in the case of rape or incest) now face the traumatic reality of being forced to carry a fetus to term. After finding the range of woman that may have a rape-related pregnancy in the United States, we analyzed statistics using PTSD criteria to calculate how many women may develop PTSD symptoms as a result of being compelled to give birth to a rape-related pregnancy following restricted access to abortion care (Dworkin et al., 2021; Kozaric-Kovacic et al., 1995; Lončar et al., 2006; Lundell et al.; Tinglöf et al.; Lissman et al., 2023). Using sources from 1996 - 2023, the estimated number of U.S. women that will have a rape-related pregnancy in their lifetime was calculated to be an average of 4.9% (D’Angelo et al., 2024; Lanthrop et al.; Basile et al., 2018). 

This research examines how unionization rates influence wage growth in the United States’ transportation, trade, and utilities sector. Drawing on secondary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the study compares union and non-union wage trends while taking in factors like industry characteristics. By using historical and comparative analyses across multiple industries, it aims to determine if higher union density consistently translates into stronger wage gains. Prior research in both U.S. and international contexts shows that union presence can positively affect wages, but this influence varies by sector, labor strength, and political backdrop

Like many Native people, the Haudenosaunee were subjected to culturcide and assimilation using residential schools like the Thomas Indian School in the late 19th and early 20th century. During this time, in 1925, the Seneca archaeologist Dr. Arthur C. Parker was hired as the director of the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Parker used his museum position to uplift and preserve Haudenosaunee arts and culture. This paper focuses on his Seneca Arts Project (1935-1941), which gathered art and artifacts from both ancient and contemporary Haudenosaunee members. This project explores how Parker’s work was used to help revitalize and honor Native American identity in New York State. Consulting biographical pieces, historical research, newspaper articles, and state archives, this paper argues that Parker’s work was key in revitalizing Haudenosaunee culture and helped lay the groundwork for the Red Power movement.

In the ancient Mediterranean men were in charge of every facet of life, including women’s medicine. They forced women out of the oversight of gynecology and reformed it into a method of control that they could assert in order to force women into a position of submission. This paper aims to bring the ways in which ancient medicine was influenced by cultural ideas and worked to subjugate women and allow men to gain further control over their autonomy. This research was inspired by the works of ancient physicians like Hippocrates, Soranus, and Galen, as well as contemporary sources that critique the treatment of Greek and Roman women. This paper serves as a bridge between those ancient ideas and the connections that can be seen from a modern perspective. This study of ancient society and medicine indicates that the masculine takeover of women’s medicine served as a turning point that allowed men to validate previously established cultural ideas to advance the patriarchy. The treatment of women when it came to birth specifically, as well as the societal expectations placed on them regarding this, proves to be a large contributing factor to the idea that women are worth less than men. The points presented here, beyond exhibiting ancient stances, can also point people towards facets of modern society that reflect the strategies employed by ancient physicians.

Scholarship across youth social policy, child welfare, media studies, and criminology has documented media driven moral panic, racial disproportionality in child welfare involvement, and foster-care-to-prison pathways as related but individual, distinct phenomena. Similarly, critical frameworks by Alexander and Ritchie trace how mass incarceration unfolds across marginalized communities, yet often begin analysis at points of formal criminal legal contact.  This paper builds on an integrated framework that identifies child welfare as a distinct and underrecognized branch of mass incarceration operating at an earlier stage of the life course. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, this analysis demonstrates how fear based media narratives shape child welfare policy, how policy expands racialized system contact through surveillance and family regulation, and how cumulative child welfare involvement contributes directly to criminalization and incarceration down the line. Rather than functioning as a neutral system of protection, child welfare is shown to operate as a mechanism of racialized surveillance and punishment that begins in childhood.  The originality of this work lies in taking these dynamics as a single, interconnected carceral process rather than parallel systems. By reframing child welfare as a structural pathway into mass incarceration, this paper extends existing carceral theory and advances new directions for youth-centered policy analysis and reform.

Undergraduate students face increasing rates of mental health challenges, however discrepancies in mental health literacy and utilization of resources may exist across student populations. This study examined the perceptions of mental health in undergraduate students at Binghamton University and if they differed among STEM vs non-STEM, man vs. women, and first-generation vs. continuing generation undergraduate students. A 20-question survey, containing 5 demographic questions and 15 mental health related questions was distributed through Qualtrics to 9 undergraduate classes. The available response choices were based on the Likert scale. A total of 1266 students participated.  Chi square tests of independence were done for each question for each of the three groups. Statistically significant differences were observed for four of fifteen items in the STEM versus non-STEM comparison, nine in the men versus women comparison, and three in the first-generation versus continuing generation comparison. Responses across all demographics revealed a consistent pattern of decreased mental health literacy, low utilization of campus resources, and a general hesitancy to seek help. However, meaningful differences were revealed for both first-generation students and women students. These findings indicate that while awareness and utilization of available mental health services are low across the student population, first-generation students and women students are particularly vulnerable to intense feelings of stress and self-doubt and may benefit from targeted interventions by mental health services on Binghamton University campus.

This paper argues that modern warfare operates through an ethical infrastructure that enables, rather than restrains, the use of violence. Contrary to the common assumption that moral frameworks such as Just War Theory function as safeguards against harm, the historical record shows that ethical language, humanitarian rhetoric, and democratic narratives serve as mechanisms to legitimize intervention, manufacture consent, and naturalize civilian suffering. Through case studies including Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, U.S.-backed coups in Latin America, and French intervention in Mali, the paper traces how political leaders, media institutions, and corporate actors frame war as a moral necessity while pursuing strategic and economic objectives. These cases reveal a structural pattern: ethical claims precede intervention, empirical outcomes contradict moral promises, and yet the moral narrative persists. This persistence is sustained through what the paper describes as institutional amnesia, in which each new conflict is rhetorically severed from its predecessors so that past failures do not undermine present justifications. Ethics thus becomes cyclical rather than corrective, functioning as a renewable resource that allows war to be continually reframed as exceptional, urgent, and humanitarian. Alongside this discursive process is an economic system in which war generates profit for defense contractors, reconstruction firms, and privatized security companies. The military-industrial complex, post-conflict reconstruction industries, and private military contractors form material incentives that reinforce ethical narratives and ensure the continuity of intervention. Taken together, these political, economic, and ethical systems demonstrate that modern war is not simply fought with weapons, but with ideas: moral vocabulary and humanitarian language become tools of governance that render violence acceptable, profitable, and repeatable. The paper concludes that ethical war is not a contradiction, but a system—one that depends on the replication of ethical narratives to sustain political legitimacy and economic gain.

Zoning regulations are often referred to as tools for managing urban growth. First introduced in the 1916 Zoning Resolution, these tools are meant to respond to NYC’s residents to overcrowding of buildings, loss of light and air, and the unchecked rise of early skyscrapers. However, in highly financialized cities such as Manhattan, these tools, once meant for the public good, have transformed into opportunities for greater capital growth. This paper focuses on the C5 zoning district in Midtown Manhattan to examine how regulatory tools such as Floor Area Ratio (FAR) and other Transferable DEvelopment Rights (TDRs) transform the legally permitted concentration of built floor area of each zoning block to a financial asset. Drawing on the recent political economy and spatial theories from the works of Lefebvre, Harvey, and Smith, this paper argues that the C5 zoning district functions as a predictable investment product which favors investors, but it pushes out people that cannot compete financially, reshaping who gets to exist in Midtown. Using a spatial analysis of zoning capacity, unbuilt FAR, storefront vacancy clusters, and capital intensity, this paper shows how zoning-focused development incentivizes speculative holdings, a process where firms buy out entire lots with the intentions of its price rising in the future, leading to increased vacancies. While this framework has generated economic stability for Midtown Manhattan, it has systematically disadvantaged land uses dependent on continuous human labor and accessibility, particularly outpatient and community-based healthcare services.