Research Library

Attempts to undermine church-state separation in Texas reached a crescendo in 2023, writes nonresident scholar David R. Brockman. In this paper, he explores how three high-profile bills introduced during the state’s 88th legislative session threatened to tear down the wall between church and state.

In June 2023, the international boundary treaty governing the U.S.-Mexico border came under attack from Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lonestar. In a new research paper, nonresident scholars Stephen Mumme and Regina M. Buono outline the treaty’s history and examine key issues — advising on merits of recent challenges and long-term implications for the binational relationship between the United States and Mexico.

The authors examine the impact of the transition to low-carbon energy on Texas K-12 education funding.

Texas social studies curriculum standards do not give public school students the balanced coverage of religion they need to function effectively in an increasingly diverse society, contends the author. His comparison of equivalent curriculum standards in five culturally similar states identifies lessons Texas can learn from its counterparts.

On May 28, the Biden administration announced plans to speed up immigrant court cases — a bid to limit backlogs and extremely long waits for cases to be heard. The Center for the United States and Mexico wrote about this problem in its April 2021 recommendations for an "effective, nimble and fair” immigration court system.

Nonresident scholar David R. Brockman examines the role of Christian nationalism in Texas state officials' response to the COVID-19 pandemic between March and July 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25613/q0td-0989

Over the past decade, anti-vaccine rhetoric and activity have increased in the United States, resulting in decreased vaccination rates and more frequent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In this study, researchers use Texas as a case study to determine if vaccine-related legislation became a partisan issue between 2009 and 2019.

This report details analyses and findings from the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Houston’s Fall 2019 academic semester of Texas ACETM programming, and provides perspectives on its transition to alternate programming in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

When states report an increase in Covid-19 cases, Google searches for mental health-related issues also increase, often significantly, the authors find. Their analysis of Google trends data, which is posted in Advance Social Science and Humanities, recommends that policymakers prepare for greater mental health needs in the event a predicted resurgence of Covid-19 becomes a reality.