Two hours before Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce was to be the keynote speaker at the Columbus VA annual MLK lunch, an organizer told Mr. Boyce he could not mention DEI topics or anything deemed "politically charged" due to President Donald Trump's executive orders limiting DEI in the federal government. Unwilling to compromise his values, Kevin withdrew from the event.

“It was an insult to demand that I restrict my comments to not include equity and inclusion, I can’t separate diversity from the memory of Dr. King,”

Kevin Boyce believes that the opposite of poverty is justice. With funding provided by Franklin County Board of Commissioners and the City of Columbus, the Rise Together Innovation Institute is on a mission to harness the collective power of people and systems to disrupt structural racism and issues of poverty.

Kevin’s father was killed when he was just 7 years old. He credits his mother and grandmother for inspiring his success – and thanks teachers, coaches and his grandmother for convincing a judge to give him a stern warning, not time in juvenile detention, after a street fight landed him in court. He was 16. The brawl began with Kevin defending a bullied friend but ended with a charge of aggravated rioting. His unblemished record, accolades from teachers and coaches and a heart-felt letter from grandmother, resulted in a second chance.

Today, Kevin's oldest son attends Brown University on a scholarship. “When I think that I grew up in a house that didn’t always have electricity or running water, and now I have a son attending an Ivy League school, I hope I can use my abilities to help other kids get the opportunities they need to succeed,’’ he said.

Kevin became the first in his family to earn a college degree – a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toledo. It’s there he met political science professor Jack Ford, who would later serve as minority leader of the Ohio House of Representatives. Seeing Kevin’s affinity for public policy and passion to improve his community, Ford talked Kevin into coming to Columbus with him. He eventually rose to become Ford’s chief of staff.

There’s an old English song, “It’s the rich what gets the pleasure. It's the poor what gets the pain.” The song holds true today. We talk with Bill LaFayette, the owner of Regionomics, about the expanding wealth gap in America.

In 1980, the income of one percent of Americans was 23 times that of the other 90%. In 2022, the income of the top one percent was 69 times the income of the bottom 90%. In 1965, CEO compensation at the 350 largest publicly traded firms was 21 times the typical worker's compensation. In 2023, CEO compensation was 290 times a typical worker’s compensation.

Some of the big differences between then and now was a much higher tax rate and more economic regulation. And then, things changed. Big business argued it was being hamstrung by regulations and persuaded Congress to loosen those regulations. Plus, we saw the birth of the trickledown theory, which benefitted the wealthy and did nothing for those of low income. The rich got richer, and the poor got left behind.

Contributing to wealth inequality is the legacy left by discrimination. Low-income neighborhoods, largely populated by minorities, were redlined by banks, making it impossible to buy homes and accumulate wealth. Though redlining was declared unlawful in the 1960s, its vestiges remain. The neighborhoods that were subjected to redlining are often the same neighborhoods that remain impoverished today.

Politicians don’t help. They’re influenced by those who can write checks, a luxury well beyond those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Adding to the problem: low-income workers are often maligned as either lazy or living off the government dole, when, in reality, many are disadvantaged because of their zip code; they live in neighborhoods that lack resources, opportunities, safety and other benefits most of take for granted.

Listen to our conversation with Bill LaFayette.

With billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos circling in President Trump’s orbit, we are witnessing a new age of extremely wealthy business owners seeking to expand their influence on the government. The robbers barons of the late 19th century—JP Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—had nothing on these fellows.

As we moved into the mid-20th century, the wealthy wanted to hide their wealth—as if they were like everyone else. When Fortune magazine first published its list of the wealthiest Americans in the 1970s, the people listed weren’t happy about it. They wanted that information kept private.

Things are different now. Society, it seems, is on a new wave of revering people of great wealth, and wealth is seen as an indicator of wisdom and intellect, and men like Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy act as if they know everything, even when it comes to running the federal government.

But the difference between running a business and running the government is huge. With a business, there is one goal: profitability. With government comes the obligation of doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people. It's rare to see a business person who can make that kind of transition.

Men like Musk and tech moguls Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen exhibit a libertarian ideology. They seem to think they don’t owe anything to anybody, never mind how they may have made their money or who helped them get their start. And they don’t want to be hampered in any way in how they do business, and so they resent government interference.

These titans of business are poised to exert their influence in ways we haven’t seen before. Just take a look at who was seated closest to President Trump during his second inauguration.

Listen to our conversation with Steve Conn, professor of history at Miami University.

Are immigrants a drain on society, or does America benefit from their presence? It’s a hot topic, with Republic politicians telling lies during the last election about Haitians in Springfield eating dogs and cats—and telling these stories solely for the purpose of political gain. What was really stunning is that those lies resonated with some number of people, and Haitians were threatened with violence.

We talk with Flannery Rokey-Jackson of Community Refugee & Immigration Services here in Columbus, Ohio, about two classes of immigrants. Because of the crisis in Haiti, the Haitians were granted temporary protection status by the U.S. government. Other immigrants have fled their homes because of race, religion, nationality, membership in certain social groups, or political opinion, and have met the criteria set by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to merit refugee status.

Whether we’re talking about temporary protected status or refugees, these are people who want to integrate into society, educate their children and become productive citizens.

Here’s a snippet of the conversation with Flannery:

“So first, your first question about criminality, I've personally never experienced. Helping a family resettle here and then seeing them turn to any kind of crime, especially with refugees who … are required to apply for their green card after one year in the United States, and if they are commit any kind of crime, even a misdemeanor, that could jeopardize that ability to get their green card.

“So, I have worked with families who won't even jaywalk across the street with me because they don't want to break the law. They're also so excited to start their new lives, and to join the workforce, get jobs, go to school, and become contributing members of society.

“And of course, we see refugees using benefits more earlier on in their resettlement and then once they're, you know, 10 years after resettlement, they are paying back into the system quite significantly.”

Do police officers get it right more often than not when it comes to shooting a suspected threat? Are police trained adequately in terms of simulated scenarios and stressful situations? Are small police departments able to access the same level of training as police departments in large metropolitan areas? Do people suspected of a crime, who fail to comply with police commands, bear responsibility for being shot?

We talk with retired police officer Bob Meader, who served as a commander at the Columbus Police Academy, about the challenges that come with police work.

As Bob puts it, how many skills do you need to have to play a certain sport versus how many skills a law enforcement officer must have? Officers are tasked with dealing with myriad situations, ranging from intervening in an emotional domestic dispute to stopping an armed robbery in a convenience store.

And then there’s the matter of stress… “You have the epinephrine dump, the heart becomes quicker, the breathing becomes more shallow, the pupils become constricted, and what goes is your finite motor skills, which you need to hit that target 50 feet away.” That’s a different situation than just shooting at paper targets.”

Bob calls police work “the hardest job in America, and everything officers are doing today is recorded, and then guys like you and me get to sit in a temperature controlled office and hit rewind.”

Complexities of the job aside, there are shootings where you scratch your head and say, “What in the world was that cop thinking? I didn’t see anything close to a threat.” Sure, officers face prosecutions for bad shootings and incarceration, but still we’re left with someone dead who shouldn’t be dead. And these are the stories that make the news.

Do we judge police shootings fairly? Do we expect too much? Do we give officers more deference than we should. Listen to the conversation.

Guessing the outcomes of cases brought before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) can be challenging, and, sometimes, the court's decisions leave you scratching your head. Jack and Gonzo discuss our current court’s propensity to rule in favor of popular conservative causes.

If the casinos in Vegas took bets on how SCOTUS were to decide a case, the odds makers probably wouldn't give long odds, because you pretty much know how the justices will rule by their political affiliation. Oh, sure, the justices are supposed to look at each case objectively, but we’re all subject to subliminal inclinations and beliefs that guide us. Even the justices.

Jack and Gonzo take a look at two cases to explain.

The first concerns Marcellus Williams, a black man of humble means, who was convicted of murder. His attorney asked SCOTUS to stay Williams’ execution (legal speak, for temporarily stopping the execution) because of multiple problems with the case. It wasn't a matter of asking the court to overturn Williams’ conviction, just a pause. SCOTUS was asked to intervene so as to avoid the very real possibility that the state of Missouri might execute an innocent man.

Even the prosecuting attorney for the county where Williams was convicted was advocating for a stay, and the family of the person who was murdered stated that Williams should not be executed.

But a majority of justices (all appointed by Republican presidents) couldn't be bothered and didn’t grant the stay. And Williams was executed.

The second case concerns how SCOTUS handled the Trump immunity case. With nothing in the constitution about presidential immunity—literally, not a single word or even an inference about immunity—the court held that presidents have immunity for just about everything they do. Respected constitutional lawyers were stunned.

The court couldn’t be bothered to stay the execution of a black man who grew up in an impoverished and dysfunctional household, but the court went out of its way to protect a man of privilege. The two cases really make you question where the court is.

Does the First Amendment give us the right to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater? No, and this is one of the very few restrictions on free speech in America. Jack and Gonzo discuss the importance of free speech with Nico Perrino, Executive Vice President of FIRE.

Founded in 1999 as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE has worked to advance the cause of free speech and the values of the First Amendment at our nation’s colleges and universities. In 2022, FIRE changed its name to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression to reflect its broader effort to protect and promote these values off campus as well.

FIRE educates Americans about the importance of free speech and promotes a culture of respect for this right and provides the means to preserve it. FIRE’s mission is to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society.

To this end, FIRE places a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience. In 2023, FIRE’s Policy Reform team won 43 victories at 22 schools affecting more than 215,000 students.

Our guest, Nico Perrino, was Co-Director and Senior Producer of “Mighty Ira” (2020), a feature-length film about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser. He also worked as a consultant on “Can We Take a Joke?” (2015) and "The Coddling of the American Mind" (2024).

Listen to our conversation with Nico and for more information, visit FIRE | Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (thefire.org).

Lawyers know how difficult it can be to represent a client with developmental disabilities and how ill equipped our justice system is to protect them. Our guest, McCracken Poston, Jr., is a practicing criminal defense attorney and former member of the Georgia House of Representatives. He just published his new book “Zenith Man: death, love and redemption in a Georgia courtroom,” the true story behind a controversial and unusual murder case.

McCracken’s client, Alvin Ridley, who suffers from autism, was charged with murdering his wife in the late 1990s, only to be found innocent thanks to overlooked, peculiar evidence and the persistent efforts of his lawyer. Decades later, McCracken is retelling the story as a warning about prejudice, a rush to judgment, and how Americans who are different can be swept up unfairly in our justice system.