Dying in Detention—and in the Streets: ICE’s Expanding Crisis of Impunity, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. July 11, 2026

Dying in Detention—and in the Streets: ICE’s Expanding Crisis of Impunity

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 11, 2026

A disturbing new report by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights documents a rapidly worsening human rights crisis within the United States immigration detention system. During the first 500 days of President Donald Trump’s second administration—from January 20, 2025, through June 4, 2026—52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The mortality rate was the highest in more than a decade, nearly four times the rate under the Biden administration and more than double that of Trump’s first term (Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, 2026).

These deaths cannot be explained simply by the growth of the detained population. Although ICE detention expanded to a record of more than 71,000 people in January 2026, deaths increased at a disproportionately higher rate. Medical experts reviewing available records identified disturbing indications of delayed treatment, inadequate care, failures to respond to medical emergencies, and possible preventable deaths. The report also found systematic failures by ICE to disclose sufficient information about deaths, medical treatment, and conditions inside detention facilities (Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights, 2026).

The crisis extends beyond detention centers. Recently, on July 7, 2026, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as the Houston homebuilder drove his construction crew to a job site. Salgado Araujo had lived in the United States for more than 35 years, had no criminal record, and was reportedly nearing the completion of a process to obtain legal status. He was not the person ICE originally intended to apprehend (Oyekanmi, Brook, & Foley, 2026).

People march through the streets during a vigil for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national fatally shot by a federal immigration agent a day prior, Wednesday, July 8, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Mark Felix)

The Department of Homeland Security asserted that Salgado Araujo attempted to ram an ICE vehicle and endanger an officer. Yet the three men traveling with him have disputed that account, stating through their attorney that no officer stood in front of the van or faced a threat. Federal authorities have released no body-camera footage, photographs, or other evidence substantiating their version of events. The participating officers were not wearing body cameras despite Congress having allocated $20 million for their deployment (Oyekanmi et al., 2026; Santana, 2026).

The rising death toll in detention and Salgado Araujo’s killing are not isolated tragedies. Together, they reveal the consequences of an enforcement system expanding faster than its medical capacity, oversight, transparency, and accountability. A government that deprives people of their liberty assumes a heightened responsibility to protect their lives. A government that authorizes armed agents to conduct raids in unmarked vehicles must also ensure that lethal force is independently investigated and publicly accounted for.

Immigration status does not nullify a person’s humanity, right to medical care, or right to life. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo deserved to arrive safely at work. Those held in ICE detention deserve to emerge alive. Their families deserve answers—and the public must demand them.

References

Human Rights Watch, & Physicians for Human Rights. (2026, June 25). Dying in detention: Rising deaths in an expanding US immigration detention system. Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/06/25/dying-in-detention/rising-deaths-in-an-expanding-us-immigration-detention-system

Oyekanmi, L., Brook, J., & Foley, R. J. (2026, July 10). Detainees tell their lawyer an ICE officer shot a Houston driver through a passenger window, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/ice-shooting-houston-lorenzo-salgado-araugo-10cf77f29d4559f0f3796342b946031a

Santana, R. (2026, July 10). DHS was granted $20M for body cameras. ICE agents in fatal Houston shooting had none, Associated Press. https://apnews.com/article/cameras-body-worn-houston-shooting-ice-immigration-trump-aa316992c75fcd919726afc4db6f4098

Dying in Detention: Rising Deaths in an Expanding US Immigration Detention System

In the 500 days between President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025 and June 4, 2026, 52 people died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the United States. The mortality rate of deaths in ICE custody is at its highest level in over a decade and has more than doubled since Trump’s second term began. The rate is nearly four times that of the Biden administration, and more than two and a half times as high as that of the first Trump administration. The current trend-level rate is now even higher than during the Covid-19 pandemic. Urgent action is needed to address this crisis and prevent further deaths.

The second Trump administration launched an aggressive campaign to expand immigration detention, pushing the number of people held to a record high of over 71,000 people in January 2026. The surge in deaths is much worse than what one would expect even considering the much higher number of people in detention. Deaths in ICE custody have increased at a rate disproportionate to the growth in the detained population. January 2025- January 2026 saw an approximately 140 percent increase in the annual mortality rate compared to the prior year.

 to expand Image

Graphic © 2026 

Methodology

This report draws on two overlapping bodies of analysis. The statistical analysis covers all 52 deaths in ICE custody over the first 500 days of the second Trump administration, from January 20, 2025 to June 4, 2026, and compares the mortality rate with data spanning the past two decades. The medical and human rights analysis focuses on the 39 deaths reported in the first 12 months of the second term, from January 20, 2025 to January 19, 2026, the period for which case documentation was available at the time of review. Medical experts from Physicians for Human Rights assessed the clinical circumstances preceding each death and the adequacy of care described in available documentation, including supplementary medical records in two cases. Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with family members, attorneys, and former cellmates of the deceased.

Findings: Deaths in ICE Detention Indicate Violations of ICE Policy and International Human Rights Law

Under international human rights law, the state has an obligation to respect and ensure the right to life. When a government detains a person, it has a heightened obligation to protect their rights, and to this end must provide adequate health care and other protections. In the case of a death in custody, the government should also provide all relevant information to the family, including medical reports and investigations into the death.

Failure to Ensure Transparency and Public Accountability for Deaths

ICE policy requires public disclosure of a death of a person in custody within 48 hours and more detailed public reporting of the facts and circumstances surrounding the death within 30 days. Physicians for Human Rights found that, in all 39 cases, the government did not publicly provide sufficient information about the circumstances of death or about the medical care provided in detention to support a definitive clinical assessment. The available documentation was often scant, but it was nonetheless sufficient to identify serious concerns about the care provided.

The lack of medical information in published government records, including about medical care requested and provided, severely limits external medical expert review. The government has systematically failed to report deaths in custody in a timely and comprehensive way, and to be transparent about the medical care provided during detention.

The family of one man who died in ICE custody in 2025 has been trying to access additional records on his case. His mother is desperate to know more about the care he received and the conditions he was held in before his death, and wants access to any available surveillance footage. “What I want is for them to investigate,” she told Human Rights Watch.

Evidence of Inadequate or Delayed Care

Based on available information, Physicians for Human Rights medical experts had a high suspicion of inadequate or delayed health care in several of the 39 deaths that occurred during the first year of the current administration, raising serious concerns that the deaths may have been preventable.

Examples of the types of circumstances and clinical details that raise concerns that a death may have been preventable include: worsening respiratory symptoms without intervention until the person was found unresponsive; people who did not have more frequent medical evaluations when they had known hypertension and worsening symptoms such as headaches; individuals who died from sepsis and had known risk factors for sepsis (such as an immunocompromised state or indwelling central venous catheter) but no blood cultures drawn or antibiotics given when febrile; cases where contradictory medical instructions were given to patients; and delays in starting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for persons found unresponsive.

In one case, Maksym Chernyak, a 44-year-old man from Ukraine, suffered a stroke in detention. Despite having clear signs of an emergency including seizure-like movements and non-reactive dilated pupils, detention facility staff failed to ensure appropriate emergency medical care. Delays in getting him to higher level medical care almost certainly contributed to his death.

In another case, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a 39-year-old Mexican citizen, reportedly died from cardiac arrest that PHR assessed likely arose from overwhelming septic shock. His repeated attempts to obtain appropriate medical help for an infected abscess were recurrently mishandled.

Santos Banegas Reyes, a 42-year-old Honduran citizen, was “cleared for detention within two hours of arrival” despite being identified during medical intake as being in active alcohol withdrawal. ICE’s reporting on Banegas Reyes fails to identify why he was not sent to a hospital for care or, at a minimum—as would be the standard of care for someone with unknown risk of future severity of withdrawal and thus with potential to progress to life-threatening withdrawal—observed more closely within the detention center’s medical unit. He was found unresponsive in his cell during morning count the day after his arrival and was declared deceased shortly after.

The facts of these and other cases suggest that the United States is failing to meet its obligations to respect and ensure the right to life and to ensure adequate health care in detention.

In addition to such cases, the high number of people who died by apparent suicide in detention is also a serious concern. According to ICE records, seven people died by apparent suicide from January 20, 2025 to January 19, 2026. This compares to one reported death by suicide in 2024.[1] In a custodial environment, the state has significant capacity to monitor wellbeing and safety, and to prevent and respond to attempted suicide. The high number suggests that the state may be failing to adequately respond to the risk of suicide.

Poor Conditions of Detention including Inadequate Staffing and Gaps in Health Care

The dramatic rise in the rate of deaths in detention is a foreseeable outcome of the Trump administration’s immigration policies and practices. Drawing on Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch’s decades of experience documenting deaths in detention and patterns of abuse in immigration detention, this report finds that the high numbers of deaths in 2025-2026 are likely fueled by both long-term systemic problems as well as new changes implemented by the second Trump Administration.

Long-term concerns about US immigration detention include poor conditions in detention facilities, such as unsanitary facilities and inadequate food, which contribute to illness and disease. They also include sub-standard health infrastructure and services in detention centers, which contribute to poor quality and delayed medical care for individuals with physical or mental health conditions or a health emergency. There has long been inadequate staffing at detention centers to ensure proper monitoring and responsiveness to individuals in detention, and inadequate and delayed publication of information about detainee deaths, undermining public accountability.

The second Trump administration has exacerbated these problems and created new ones, including:

• Restrictions on legal immigration pathways and the expansion of mandatory detention have swept more people into custody and prolonged their confinement.

• Soaring detention numbers since January 2025 expose more people to poor detention conditions and lead to more crowded facilities, which in turn worsens sanitation concerns and further strains the provision of health care. This report found that most of the 39 deaths occurred in facilities that had significantly elevated population levels in the two weeks leading up to the deaths (as compared with the previous three-year average population in these same facilities);

• The second Trump administration dismantled or rendered ineffective oversight mechanisms for Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, which were flawed but important mechanisms for preventing and investigating deaths in custody; and

• Changes to the system for processing claims for offsite health care for detained immigrants raise concerns about gaps in health care and coverage.

Violations of ICE Policy, UN Standards, and UN Human Rights Treaties

The United States has obligations to protect the lives and health of those in its custody. The deaths of people in US immigration detention raise concerns that the United States has violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to life and obligates states to take steps to safeguard the lives of those in custody. The mistreatment of people in immigration detention contravenes the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules), which, among other things, call for prompt access to medical care and prohibit delays in emergency response, as well as ICE standards on medical care and suicide prevention. Those ICE standards include the requirement that people in detention be able to communicate urgent needs to staff and receive timely responses. Poor detention conditions and the failure to provide adequate medical care can also amount to violations of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of the ICCPR and the Convention Against Torture (CAT), treaties ratified by United States, as well as the guarantee of humane treatment for people deprived of their liberty under the ICCPR.

Conclusion

For the United States to meet its human rights obligations and prevent more deaths in ICE custody, immediate action is needed to reduce the numbers of people in detention and to improve overall detention conditions, including by using detention only as a last resort. The government should ensure competent medical and mental health screening at intake, ensure adequate medical staffing and resources to those detained equivalent to that available in the broader public community, including mental health care, guarantee uninterrupted access to offsite care, and conduct periodic health assessments. The government should also provide remedies to the families of people whose death resulted from violations of US human rights obligations, restore independent oversight of DHS, and mandate transparent, comprehensive, and timely reporting of deaths and the conditions and decisions that led to them. State and local governments, private detention operators, and UN human rights bodies all have a role to play in upholding these standards.

Texas’ Long Struggle Over Civil Rights—and Why It Still Matters, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. July 10, 2026

Texas’ Long Struggle Over Civil Rights—and Why It Still Matters

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 10, 2026

I came across this pamphlet I picked up a while back at the Texas Capitol titled,Minority Civil Rights and the Texas Legislature, revised in 2018, and finally sat down to read it. In light of the recent contentious debates over Texas’ K–12 social studies standards before the State Board of Education, I found myself thinking that this brief but powerful document should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Texas politics today.

At first glance, the document is a concise historical overview. But read closely, it is something more: a record of how law has been used both to deny and to expand democracy in Texas. It tells a story of slavery, Tejano marginalization, Black Codes, Jim Crow segregation, voter suppression, educational inequality, civil rights organizing, court victories, and the long fight for representation inside the Texas Legislature itself.

The report begins with a truth that Texas too often evades: Texas was a slave state. Its 1836 Constitution protected slavery, and by 1860 more than 182,000 enslaved people lived in Texas, about 30 percent of the state population. During the Civil War, enslavers from other Confederate states moved enslaved people into Texas to shield them from advancing Union troops. Some estimates place the enslaved population in Texas at more than 400,000 by emancipation.

This matters because the struggle over civil rights in Texas did not begin in the twentieth century. It is embedded in the founding architecture of the state.

The report also reminds us that Tejanos were not marginal to Texas history. Lorenzo de Zavala, Juan Seguín, José Antonio Navarro, and José Francisco Ruiz were central figures in Texas’ early political life. Yet even as Tejano leaders helped shape Texas independence and statehood, Tejano communities were rapidly subordinated under Anglo political power. After Navarro left office in 1848, no Latino or Latina served in the Texas Senate for more than a century.

That fact alone should stop us in our tracks.

Texas has long celebrated Tejano names on counties, streets, schools, and monuments while too often excluding Tejano people from power. Symbolic recognition has never been the same as representation.

The Reconstruction section is equally sobering. After the Civil War, Texas lawmakers moved quickly to restrict Black freedom. The 1866 Constitutional Convention granted African Americans certain limited civil rights, but Black Texans were denied the right to vote, hold office, serve on juries, and, in most cases, testify against whites. The 11th Legislature refused to ratify the 13th and 14th Amendments and enacted Black Codes that used labor contracts, vagrancy laws, apprenticeships, and convict labor to keep freed people in conditions of dependency and exploitation.

And yet, Reconstruction also produced democratic possibility. African American men served as constitutional convention delegates and legislators. George T. Ruby, Matthew Gaines, Walter Burton, Walter Ripetoe, and others helped imagine a different Texas—one committed to public education, infrastructure, land, labor, and political participation.

That possibility was violently and legislatively contained. By the late nineteenth century, African American representation had been driven out of the Legislature. The report notes that the 25th Legislature in 1897 was the last to include an African American member for seven decades.

Then came Jim Crow.

The report is clear that segregation in Texas was not only directed at African Americans. It was also directed at Mexican Americans and other Latina/o Texans. Schools, neighborhoods, public facilities, restaurants, buses, railroad cars, churches, and political systems were organized through racial separation. African American and Mexican American children were forced to attend inferior “colored” and “Mexican” schools. Minority voters faced poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, ballot-stuffing, and accusations of incompetence.

This is why current efforts to censor discussions of race, racism, Ethnic Studies, and civil rights history are so dangerous. They do not merely omit the past. They disable our ability to understand the present.

The history of Texas is not simply a story of individual prejudice. It is a story of law, policy, budgets, schools, courts, legislative districts, and public institutions. It is a story of how inequality was built—and how people organized to dismantle it.

The report rightly highlights civil rights organizations as engines of democratic change. The Texas NAACP began in El Paso in 1915. LULAC was founded in Corpus Christi in 1929 to fight voter suppression and discrimination in public schools and housing. After World War II, Dr. Héctor P. García and other Latino veterans founded the American G.I. Forum to challenge discrimination against Mexican American veterans.

These organizations helped transform the legal landscape. Smith v. Allwright ended the white primary. Delgado v. Bastrop ISD challenged segregated Mexican schools. Sweatt v. Painter opened the door to desegregation in graduate and professional education. Hernandez v. Texas affirmed that Mexican Americans were entitled to Fourteenth Amendment equal protection. Brown v. Board of Education required an end to segregated public education.

These victories were never gifts from the state. They were won through organizing, litigation, testimony, risk, sacrifice, and intergenerational struggle.

The later rise of Henry B. González, Barbara Jordan, Irma Rangel, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Rodney Ellis, Royce West, Judith Zaffirini, Carlos Truan, and many others represents not simply individual achievement, but the long-delayed return of excluded communities to the halls of power. The report notes that minority legislators have left a significant footprint on Texas political history, including through committee leadership, coalition-building, and legislation important to all Texans.

That is an important point. Minority civil rights have never been a “special interest.” They are democracy work.

When Black and Brown Texans fight for voting rights, public education, fair representation, language rights, labor protections, and access to higher education, they expand democracy for everyone. The history of civil rights in Texas teaches us that exclusion is always defended as tradition, order, property, or local control. But democracy has always required people willing to challenge those claims.

This document is especially important now, as Texas once again struggles over whose histories may be taught, whose votes count, whose communities are represented, whose schools are funded, and whose children are allowed to see themselves as full participants in the state’s future.

The lesson is clear: Texas did not become more democratic by accident. It became more democratic because people organized.

And that means democracy can also be weakened—by silence, by erasure, by voter suppression, by attacks on public education, by curricular censorship, by gerrymandering, and by the refusal to tell the truth.

Minority Civil Rights and the Texas Legislature gives us a usable history. It reminds us that the Texas Legislature has been both a site of exclusion and a site of struggle. It has enacted injustice, but it has also been forced—by movements, courts, and courageous leaders—to widen the circle of belonging.

The question before us is whether we will keep widening that circle.

Because in Texas, civil rights have never simply been about the past. They are about the democracy we are still trying to become.

Reference

Secretary of the Senate, Senate Engrossing & Enrolling, & Senate Publications & Printing. (2018). Minority civil rights and the Texas Legislature (Rev. ed.). Texas Legislative Reference Library. https://lrl.texas.gov/scanned/SIRSI/MinorityCivilRightsandtheTexasLegislature.pdf

Boys Deserve Better Than the Command to 'Be a Man,' by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Boys Deserve Better Than the Command to 'Be a Man'

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 9, 2026

Adam Stanaland’s (2025) Scientific American essay, “Our Narrow View of Masculinity Is Hurting Boys,” offers an important intervention in a moment when masculinity is being weaponized in our politics, schools, media, and homes.

His argument is both simple and profound: masculinity itself is not “toxic.” What harms boys is the pressure to perform a narrow, rigid, emotionally constricted version of masculinity—one that tells them not to cry, not to appear vulnerable, not to be “feminine,” not to ask for help, and not to become anything less than dominant.

This matters deeply for educators and parents. Thankfully, research offers helpful evidence-based insights into how gender norms, social pressure, and rigid expectations shape boys’ development, identity, and behavior (Orenstein, 2020; Rudman & Glick, 2021; Stanaland et al., 2021; Stanaland et al., 2024).

In schools, boys are often socialized into silence long before they are invited into self-knowledge. They learn that tenderness is weakness, that anger is more acceptable than grief, and that care work is somehow beneath them. They absorb lessons about manhood not only from parents and peers, but from classrooms, sports culture, social media, churches, political leaders, and the larger society.

Stanaland’s point is that these pressures do not produce strong boys. They produce fragile ones—boys who may feel compelled to prove their manhood through aggression, domination, homophobia, sexism, emotional withdrawal, or contempt for anything coded as feminine. His research with colleagues similarly finds that adolescent boys can respond aggressively when their masculinity feels threatened, especially when they already feel pressure to be conventionally “manly.”

This is not just a family issue. It is a public issue.

When boys are taught that power matters more than connection, that dominance matters more than empathy, and that vulnerability is shameful, democracy itself suffers. A democratic society requires people who can listen, reflect, collaborate, repair harm, and care for others. These are not “soft” skills. They are civic capacities.

This is why the current political attack on so-called “gender ideology” is so harmful—and, frankly, so nonsensical. The phrase itself is vague by design. It turns serious scholarship, honest classroom discussion, and students’ lived experiences into a caricature. It suggests that talking about gender somehow imposes an ideology, when in fact silence about gender is itself ideological. 

The command to “be a man” is gender ideology. 

The shaming of boys for crying is gender ideology. 

The insistence that girls be compliant and boys be dominant is gender ideology. 

The erasure of LGBTQ+ students and families is gender ideology. 

What opponents call “gender ideology” is often simply the attempt to give young people language for understanding themselves, one another, and the unequal world they are inheriting.

The irony is that our society has rightly encouraged girls to enter domains historically coded as masculine—science, leadership, politics, law, medicine, business, athletics. But we have done far less to encourage boys to enter domains coded as feminine: teaching, nursing, caregiving, early childhood education, social work, emotional labor, and peacemaking. We tell girls they can be anything, but too often tell boys they must be one thing.

That is not liberation. It is another cage.

For communities of color, this conversation is especially layered. Black and Brown boys are already too often read through racist lenses of threat, discipline, criminality, and deficit. They do not need more pressure to perform hardness in order to survive. They need schools and communities that recognize their full humanity—their brilliance, tenderness, humor, creativity, grief, anger, cultural knowledge, and capacity for care.

This is where culturally sustaining education matters. Ethnic Studies, gender studies, restorative practices, critical pedagogy, and social-emotional learning do not “weaken” young people. They give them language for their lives. They help students understand how power works, how identities are formed, how harm is reproduced, and how people can choose otherwise.

In today’s culture wars, however, these very forms of education are under attack. The same politics that censor race, gender, sexuality, and history also narrows the emotional and moral vocabulary available to young people. It tells boys that strength means control, that freedom means domination, and that care is weakness. It calls this “tradition,” but it is really a refusal to let children become fully human.

We should reject this.

Boys deserve a wider horizon. They deserve to know that courage can look like telling the truth. Strength can look like asking for help. Leadership can look like listening. Manhood can include tenderness. And masculinity, when freely chosen and rooted in care, responsibility, humility, and justice, need not be toxic at all.

Stanaland’s essay reminds us that the work before us is not to shame boys or men. It is to free them—and all of us—from scripts that are too small for the lives our children deserve.

The question for parents, educators, and policymakers is not simply, “What kind of men are we raising?”

The deeper question is: “What kind of human beings are we allowing boys to become?”

References

Stanaland, A. (2025, March 10). Our narrow view of masculinity is hurting boys. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-narrow-view-of-masculinity-is-hurting-boys/

Stanaland, A., Gaither, S. E., Gassman-Pines, A., Galvez-Cepeda, D., & Cimpian, A. (2024). Adolescent boys’ aggressive responses to perceived threats to their gender typicality. Developmental Science. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39007941/

Stanaland, A., Gaither, S. E., & Gassman-Pines, A. (2021). The role of social pressure in eliciting men’s aggressive cognition. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33504285/

Rudman, L. A., & Glick, P. (2021). The social psychology of gender: How power and intimacy shape gender relations (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Orenstein, P. (2020). Boys & sex: Young men on hookups, love, porn, consent, and navigating the new masculinity. Harper.

Our Narrow View of Masculinity Is Hurting Boys

Masculinity isn’t “toxic” by itself, but the strain boys feel from society and parents to meet unrealistic expectations is

By Adam Stanaland edited by Megha Satyanarayana | Scientific American | March 10, 2025

Matt Porteous/Getty Images

Each semester, I ask my psychology students to imagine how people would grow up, think and act in a world without societal rules and expectations. This may seem like an easy task, but their initial answers are similar to what you’d expect a fish to say if asked what it’s like to live in water. “What norms?” they ask. This is especially the case for the young men who, like me, had never explicitly questioned messages like, “Boys don’t cry” and “Be a man” before going to college. Amid a resurgence of rigid masculinity—and as a psychologist who studies these issues—I’ve grown increasingly concerned with these unacknowledged pressures that can thwart the healthy development of boys and young men.

This question I pose to my students is based on research I and others did a couple of years ago, looking at how pervasive social norms, especially current views of masculinity, can shape people often in unideal ways. As I’ve noted before in Scientific American, many boys and men report feeling pressured to be stereotypically masculine. This means, for example, pressure to be tough (physical and emotionally), able to fix things and in positions of power – what we call “hegemonic masculinity.” These pressure are often rooted in fundamentally human needs, such as men’s desire to provide for their families, or simply to belong and accepted by others.

Importantly, we’ve found that pressure to be a certain kind of masculine leads to aggressive thoughts and feelings, especially among adolescent boys and young adult men who are in throes of forming an identity. To me, it’s not masculinity that is inherently bad or toxic. Rather, problems arise when rigid masculinity is pressured onto boys and men.

In psychology, pressure is the antithesis of autonomy—or the basic human need to act in line with one’s true self. This is why acting out manliness for pressured reasons leads to “fragile” masculine identities. Instead of a healthy identity rooted in authenticity and autonomy, fragility stems from an insecure need for external validation. As a result, these boys and men feel compelled to prove their manhood to others through stereotypically masculine means. We see the results in the disproportionate rates of men’s gun violence, homophobia, sexual aggression, political bigotry and even anti-environmental behavior, compared to women.

Against this, parents are a critical part of how boys see themselves, and how they understand masculinity. With the rise of a “masculinity” that is increasingly pressuring, parents can help boys develop more expansive identities. This is not about demonizing one idea of masculinity, or boys and men as group, but reducing the pressure to be a narrowly defined man. Genuine and compassionate versions of masculinity exist, and it’s okay for boys to take those paths. Getting there means conversation, modeling desired behavior, and reckoning with our own definitions of what a man is. But it matters, because this pressure to conform to narrow norms is hurting boys.

While we were collecting data on boys’ aggression, we also surveyed their parents, asking them to agree or disagree with statements relating to current beliefs about masculinity. Some of these items had to do with relatively benign beliefs—like, whether men should be handy—and some were more consequential, such as beliefs about homophobia and gender inequality.

We found that parents’ beliefs about hegemonic masculinity related to pressure their sons reported to be stereotypically masculine; that is, parents who simply believed that men should have status and power over others had sons (some as young as 10) who reported feeling pressured to be manly. It’s no surprise, then, that these were the boys who responded aggressively when we challenged their manhood, especially when they were already in the throes of puberty.

These results tell us there is a consequence to raising boys in a man’s world: living up to these expectations is stressing them out. We know this because they report being bullied, or shut out of peer groups. They tell us they have low self-esteem. In their book on the psychology of gender relations between women and men, Laurie Rudman and Peter Glick propose that we are powerfully shaped by how societies are structured—with men most often at the top and women (and people of other genders) situated below them. For proof, look no further than government and business in the U.S. where only 27 percent of federal lawmakers, 10 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs and 0 percent of presidents are women.

Immediately, we think about what these disparities mean for girls, and we should, but to the extent that girls receive messages that they can’t get to the top, many boys are hearing that they must get to the top. It’s certainly a double-edged sword. Boys and men are afforded power and privilege, yet many are also pressured to earn and maintain it.


AleksandarNakic/Getty Images

We’ve made great strides in inspiring girls to achieve just as well as boys (and even better)—though there is still much work to do here—yet we’ve so far failed to encourage boys to aspire toward culturally feminized work and communal careers in fields such as nursing, child care and early-childhood education. Instead, in many capitalist cultures across the world, we continue to push and pressure our boys away from anything remotely feminine—away from the innate nurturing and caring tendencies that they demonstrate in childhood—and toward the pinnacles of what we (as societies) have defined as success.

Redefining masculinity starts with you. Not every expression or experiment in masculinity will be safe for your child to pursue, especially in certain areas of the world. (For example, we found that parents in conservative parts of the U.S. put significant pressure on their sons to be masculine, which may be rooted in a fear of openly challenging masculinity norms.) But, as psychologist Onnie Rogers notes, we can encourage boys to “run with intentionality in the opposite direction, against the grain, and more importantly, toward [their] full humanity,” and this means that ideas around masculinity are worth talking about.

As you talk to, play with, observe and guide your sons along their paths, here are some ideas to consider, what I think of as “four Rs” to get you started:

Realize that you can have these hard conversations; that you can intervene and guide. Although you might feel like your sons will develop in ways beyond your control, you do have a significant effect on your children’s core beliefs, values and worldviews. Psychologist Sylvia Perry recently wrote in this very column about how children and young adults can handle hard conversations about race. They can understand complex ideas, histories and perspectives about gender, too.

Reconsider the messages boys are sent (and not sent), both explicitly and implicitly. Children learn about gender through many pathways—summed up as direct teaching, experiencing and modeling. You might try to directly teach your boys to combat gender stereotypes and even explicitly encourage them to take part in “feminine” activities; but arguably more important is what they learn by watching you and what they experience in their own worlds. What’s vital is that boys be given the space to develop apart from pressures to be masculine or feminine—nothing is inherently wrong with boys liking to play with trucks, and pressuring boys to do more “girly” things against their inclinations defeats the purpose.

Resist in the sense of equipping boys to resist messages about who they should and shouldn’t be. Even the best schoolteachers sometimes fall back on antiquated tropes like gendering pink versus blue pencils. If your son wants to use the pink pencil, why the hell shouldn’t he? A new and exciting area of research is looking at how easy it is for boys to actively resist masculinity norms and what benefits they may get from this.

Recognize that the way that society is right now isn’t how it has to be. You could, for instance, tell boys that even though there has never been a woman U.S. president, anyone can be president, regardless of their gender. Highlight women who are leading companies and, possibly more importantly, men who excel in HEED occupations (health care, early education and domestic roles).

These won’t be easy. It won’t be a onetime thing. But the sooner we can start dismantling gender gaps at all levels of society, the sooner we’ll see boys (and girls) less pressured to meet outdated expectations—and more fulfilled in finding authenticity.

Adam Stanaland is an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Richmond. He received a joint Ph.D. in psychology and public policy from Duke University, after which he completed postdoctoral training at New York University. Broadly, his research explores the interplay between societal structures and social norms, such as how political and economic systems influence norms, as well as how norms and beliefs shape group-level behavior.More by Adam Stanaland

Texas Cannot Survive on Culture Wars Alone: What Should Haunt All Texans of Good Conscience, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Texas Cannot Survive on Culture Wars Alone: What Should Haunt All Texans of Good Conscience

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

July 8, 2026

Jorge Meave’s powerful Substack essay in The Credential, “Hitza Hitz: A Humanist Sermon,” does something urgently needed in Texas politics: it connects the dots.

He begins with the New World screwworm, confirmed in Texas on June 3, 2026—the first U.S. animal case in the current outbreak, according to the CDC. The USDA has described the screwworm as a serious pest of livestock and wildlife, and Texas officials have imposed movement restrictions across affected counties. This is not metaphor. It is living tissue, animal suffering, ranching vulnerability, and state capacity all converging in real time (see Center for Disease Control).

But Meave’s deeper point is that the screwworm is not alone. It is part of a larger story of abandonment—and Mother Earth herself is reflecting it back to us. Across Texas, the signs are everywhere: water disappearing, farmers leaving, schools closing, aquifers threatened, and the ground itself shaking under the pressures of extractive industries. Research from UT Austin and SMU has linked significant seismic activity in the Permian Basin to wastewater injection associated with oil and gas production (UT Austin News). 

Meave is right: the ground is telling us what is happening.

And now, to this already stressed landscape, we must add the rapid expansion of data centers.

Texans across the state are beginning to ask urgent questions about who benefits and who pays when massive data centers arrive requiring enormous amounts of electricity, water, land, and infrastructure. The Texas Tribune reports that Texas is experiencing an AI-driven data center boom, with at least 248 projects planned statewide. Experts warn that these facilities could intensify pressure on Texas’ already fragile water supplies, especially in arid regions and communities already facing drought, population growth, and climate stress.

A 2026 UT Austin report similarly warns that data center growth could significantly increase water demand in Texas by 2040 and calls for greater transparency, shared standards, and integrated planning. HARC Research estimates that Texas data centers already consume roughly 25 billion gallons of water per year and that this figure could rise dramatically by 2030. Meanwhile, ERCOT and energy analysts are grappling with the electricity demand created by data centers, AI technologies, fossil fuel production, and other energy-intensive industries.

This is where Meave’s essay becomes even more important. The issues facing ranchers, farmers, schoolchildren, rural communities, Black and Brown communities, immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Texans, women, teachers, and working people are not separate. They are connected by the same politics of extraction, deregulation, privatization, and neglect.

For too long, Texans have been told to see the culture wars as separate from material survival. But they are not separate. The same political forces that scapegoat immigrants, attack LGBTQ+ communities, restrict women’s autonomy, dismantle DEI, and censor honest teaching about race and history are also too often the forces that look away when aquifers are drained, schools are underfunded, rural hospitals disappear, ranchers lack veterinary access, and communities are asked to absorb the costs of corporate expansion.

This means that “regular Texans” and Black and Brown communities are increasingly in the same boat. The culture wars may target Black, Brown, immigrant, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and women’s communities first and most visibly. But the broader policy regime harms far more people than it claims to represent. It leaves rural Texans without infrastructure. It leaves working families with higher costs. It leaves communities fighting over water. It leaves schools struggling. It leaves the land exhausted.

That is the heart of Meave’s piece.

Immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Texans, women, students, teachers, ranchers, farmers, rural communities, and working families are not competing constituencies. They are all living inside the same state policy regime—one that protects wealth, extraction, and ideological theater while ordinary people are left to absorb the damage.

This is what is at stake in the coming election. Not simply party control. Not simply personalities. Not even simply corruption, though that matters, too. The deeper question is whether Texas will continue to be governed through distraction, scapegoating, deregulation, privatization, and neglect—or whether candidates for public office will be expected to see the whole state and tell the truth about what is happening.

Meave’s invocation of the Basque phrase Hitza Hitz—when you give your word, it is what you are—lands with particular force. In politics, words are cheap unless they become policy, budgets, protections, regulation, and repair.

If leaders give their word on rural Texas, they must show up for ranchers facing animal disease and veterinary deserts.

If they give their word on water, they must protect aquifers and communities before private interests drain them.

If they give their word on data centers, they must demand transparency about water use, electricity demand, tax abatements, environmental impacts, and who ultimately pays.

If they give their word on schools, they must fund them and oppose privatization efforts—urban, suburban, and rural alike.

If they give their word on Black and Brown communities, they must defend truthful curriculum, Ethnic Studies, voting rights, language rights, and the public institutions that make democracy possible.

If they give their word on the land itself, they must listen when the ground shakes.

Meave’s essay is a sermon and a warning. Texas cannot survive on culture war politics while its water disappears, its schools are weakened, its communities are divided, and its land is treated as disposable.

The ground is telling us what is happening.

So are the ranchers. So are the teachers. So are the students. So are the farmers. So are the communities watching data centers, pipelines, private water deals, and extractive industries arrive without adequate public accountability.

The question now is whether Texas politics will listen.

Cases of the New World screwworm fly infecting animals are on the rise, with the U.S. 

Department of Agriculture documenting 32 cases since June 3. More than 93% of those are 

based in Texas. U.S. Department of Agriculture

Hitza Hitz: A Humanist Sermon

Saturday, July 4, 2026

Friends,

On June 3, 2026, the New World screwworm was confirmed in a calf in Zavala County, Texas. The first case in sixty years. By now, twenty-five confirmed cases. Twenty-one Texas counties under quarantine. The animal lies infested with larvae burrowing through living flesh. A rancher has to move that animal 50 miles to find a veterinarian. Maybe. If there is one.

This is not drought. This is not abstract. This is a living animal, dying.

And I need to tell you something else about this moment. Because the screwworm is not alone.

It happens across Texas.

South Texas: a calf is infested. A rancher cannot move the animal without breaking quarantine. A veterinarian is 50 miles away, or does not exist.

West Texas: The Pecos Valley melon farmers are gone. A state agriculture official said it plainly: "There's no water. They had to leave." That is a brand. That is a name people know. It is gone.

North Texas: In the Permian Basin, nineteen earthquakes recorded in 2009. Sixteen hundred by 2017. Southern Methodist University and UT Austin confirmed this year what was happening: wastewater injection from oil production reactivates pre-existing faults. The ground fractures. Magnitudes as high as 5.4. When the state reduced injection rates in late 2021, the earthquakes declined. The science is clear. The ground is telling you what is happening.

Central Texas: Schools are closing. Local control is being stripped. Families are watching groceries climb. Traffic clogs the cities and the country roads both. This is survival.

East Texas: A hedge fund manager wants 15 billion gallons of water from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. The property rights doctrine that says "what you pump is yours" — that rule — is being used to drain the wells of people who have lived on that land for generations. Look it up. The details will astound you.

So we have a living animal infested with larvae. We have farmers gone. We have the ground shaking. We have schools closing. We have property rights being stripped. We have water vanishing.

That is Texas. All of it. Right now.

And I want to ask you something.

There is a woman named Gina Hinojosa who was born in McAllen, Texas. She is running to be governor. The crowds chant in Spanish: No te dejes. Don't let them. Hold your ground. Fight back.

I know that the people fighting the culture wars — the ones defending immigrant families being scapegoated, defending LGBTQ+ people being attacked, defending women being stripped of bodily autonomy — I know those are survival fights. They are real. Those are real people trying to live with dignity and safety. That fight matters.

But here is what haunts me.

While that fight has been happening, other survival issues have been put on hold. And the people affected by those issues — rural Texans, working people in suburbs and small towns — have watched that happen and moved away. Thirty-two years ago, Democrats won rural and suburban Texas. Then they stopped. Not because they got lazy. But because they focused on one fight and put another one on hold.

Democrats have not won a statewide office in Texas since Ann Richards in 1994. Thirty-two years. No Democrat has cleared 45 percent in a governor's race since Richards lost to George W. Bush. They have not cracked 46 percent once in thirty-two years.

The research is clear on why. Rural Texas and suburban Texas realigned to the Republican Party starting in 1994. They did not move left. They moved right. And once they moved, they stayed.

But here is what the research also shows.

Democrats could hold both fights at once. They could defend the people being attacked in the culture wars AND address the screwworm, the water, the schools, the property rights, the ground itself.

If Hinojosa ran on this. If she said: I see you. The people you're defending in the culture wars — I see them. But I also see the rancher in South Texas who cannot move livestock because the state was not prepared. I see the farmer in Pecos who is gone because water policy failed him. I see the family in North Texas living above fracturing ground because wastewater injection was not regulated. I see Central Texas closing schools instead of funding them. I see East Texas property rights being stripped in the name of profit.

If Democrats made that their case. If they said: we will fight the culture wars and we will fight for survival. We will not pick one and abandon the other.

The research says that would work. That would move votes. That would change things.

But it would require one thing.

It would require Democrats to stop choosing between the fights. And start leading on all of them.



Quisiera escribir con amor y la pluma se me torna látigo.

I would like to write with love, but the pen turns into a whip.

An ancestor wrote that in exile, more than a century ago. Because he saw the machine crushing people and could not stay silent.

I am not in exile. But I see the same machine. The same extraction. The same silence from the people who might fight it.

I want to speak two words this morning. From the Basque Country.

Hitza Hitz.

When you give your word, it is what you are.

Not what you say. Not what you promise. What you do. What you actually do. What you fight for when the cameras are gone and the money is cut and the polls move against you.

If you give your word on screwworm ranchers, you act. You deploy. You show up.

If you give your word on water, you regulate. You mandate transparency. You protect property rights before they are stolen.

If you give your word on schools, you fund them. All of them. Even in rural Texas. Even in the Panhandle. Even in the counties that vote for the other party.

If you give your word on the ground itself, you tell the truth about what is happening to it. You do not look away.

A hitza hitz is not noise. It is substance.

Go see the ground. All of it. From Zavala County to the Pecos Valley. From the Permian Basin to Central Texas to East Texas.

See what is there. See what is not there.

Tell what you see.

And if you are a politician — if you are running to serve these people — give them your word on this: that you will see them. That you will see their screwworm ranchers, their water, their schools, their ground. That you will not look away.

Because the ground is telling you what is happening.

The only question is whether you are listening.

Quisiera escribir con amor y la pluma se me torna látigo.



“Ann Richards, Texas Governor 1991-1995. The last Democrat to win statewide.”

"America’s entrepreneurial boom begins long before venture capital," by Anthony Hernandez, Ph.D.

Friends,

Dr. Anthony Hernandez’ just-published piece in Fortune, “America’s Entrepreneurial Boom Begins Long Before Venture Capital,” makes a powerful and necessary point: entrepreneurship does not begin in boardrooms or venture-capital meetings. It begins in classrooms, community colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, HBCUs, Tribal Colleges, and other Minority-Serving Institutions that cultivate the talent, confidence, and opportunity on which our economy depends.

His argument matters because it reframes education policy as economic policy. At a time when Latino entrepreneurs are helping drive business formation, job creation, and revenue growth across the United States, disinvesting in the institutions that prepare these future innovators is not only unjust—it is economically shortsighted.

Dr. Hernandez reminds us that America’s competitiveness depends on whether we are willing to invest in the students, workers, and communities already shaping the nation’s future. This is an important essay for educators, policymakers, business leaders, and anyone concerned about inclusive opportunity and shared prosperity.

I encourage you to read and share it: https://lnkd.in/gcsSzf2k

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.


America’s entrepreneurial boom begins long before venture capital

by Anthony Hernandez, Ph.D. July 5, 2026

Dr. Anthony Hernandez is a faculty member in the Department of Educational 

Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.©courtesy of Anthony Hernandez


The United States has spent years worrying about slowing business creation. But one group of entrepreneurs has quietly prevented that decline. According to a new report out of Stanford, between 2017 and 2023, Latino-owned businesses added 180,000 new firms while white-owned businesses lost roughly 140,000. Put differently, without Latino entrepreneurs, America would have ended the period with fewer businesses than it started with.

Latino entrepreneurs weren’t simply contributing to America’s business growth. They were preventing its decline.

Yet this remarkable economic story has received surprisingly little attention. At a moment when business leaders are searching for new engines of economic growth, one of the country’s fastest-growing entrepreneurial forces has been hiding in plain sight.

Latino-owned businesses added nearly one million jobs during those six years, compared with roughly 658,000 among white-owned firms. Revenue climbed from $495 billion to more than $832 billion, a 68 percent increase compared with 45 percent growth among white-owned firms. Latino-owned businesses generated more net new firms and jobs than businesses owned by any other major racial or ethnic group.

But this isn’t simply a story about one community. The broader Latino economy now approaches $4 trillion in annual economic output, making it one of the world’s largest economies if it stood alone. It is growing more than twice as fast as the overall U.S. economy.

These entrepreneurs did not simply appear. Every founder begins somewhere. Behind every successful entrepreneur is a talent-development system that helped prepare them. We often celebrate entrepreneurs after they build successful companies but spend far less time thinking about the institutions that helped prepare them.

Colleges and universities, particularly Minority-Serving Institutions, are part of America’s economic infrastructure. They produce workers, innovators, and entrepreneurs. If policymakers and business leaders want more business creation, they cannot afford to weaken one of the country’s most productive talent pipelines.

As a former Title V administrator at a Hispanic-Serving Institution, I have spent years studying how colleges create pathways into economic mobility. Research consistently shows that these institutions produce strong workforce, degree completion, and economic mobility outcomes despite serving students with fewer resources.

The story is visible at Compton College, a Minority-Serving Institution in California. Over the past decade, the college has invested in the supports that help students complete college and enter the workforce like dual-enrollment programs, workforce advising, childcare, healthcare access, basic-needs supports, and transfer pathways. These are often described as “student services.” Business leaders should recognize them as investments in future workers and entrepreneurs.

Corporate America spends billions searching for talent. Yet one of the country’s fastest-growing entrepreneurial pipelines already exists. Partnerships with these institutions offer companies access to future founders, engineers, healthcare workers, technology professionals, and business leaders. Supporting these institutions is not charity. It is a long-term talent strategy.

IPEDS data show that Compton College outperforms many peer institutions in completion and transfer despite serving large numbers of Pell-eligible students. Those outcomes strengthen local labor markets and expand the nation’s talent pipeline.

But federal support for Minority-Serving Institutions has become increasingly uncertain.

This debate comes at a pivotal moment. Even as new research documents the rapid growth of Black and Latino entrepreneurship, policymakers are reducing or redirecting investments in higher education, including programs that support many Minority-Serving Institutions. America cannot expect to produce more entrepreneurs while investing less in the institutions that educate them.

Policymakers should strengthen these institutions through investments tied to workforce development, entrepreneurship education, and student success. Business leaders should do the same. Rather than viewing partnerships with Minority-Serving Institutions as philanthropy, companies should view them as long-term talent investments through internships, workforce partnerships, entrepreneurship centers, and research collaborations.

Returns on educational investment also extend well beyond the individual student. They benefit their families, neighborhoods, employers, and regional economies. A healthy workforce pipeline is not a social luxury. It is fundamental to doing business.

The future of American entrepreneurship will not be determined solely by venture-capital or startup investment. We can invest in the institutions preparing tomorrow’s entrepreneurs or continue treating them as expendable.

America cannot celebrate record entrepreneurial growth while underinvesting in the institutions producing tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. America’s next generation of entrepreneurs is already in our classrooms. The question is whether we will invest in them before our competitors do. Strengthening those institutions is not simply education policy. It is economic policy.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.