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Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism
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The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, the nation’s first investigative reporting center based at a university, was launched at Brandeis University in September 2004 to help fill a growing void in public interest journalism. Our goals: investigate significant social and political problems and human rights issues, and uncover corporate and government abuses of power. The Institute is one of only a handful of independent reporting centers in the United States focused on national and international issues—and the only one whose central focus is social justice and human rights.

Blog Entries by Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism

Missing the Mark With Donations

(0) Comments | Posted November 15, 2012 | 10:41 AM

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Rockaway residents ignore mounds of soggy donated clothing in the middle of the street and wait for services to be restored to their homes. Photo | Hella Winston.





On Friday, November 9, Schuster Institute Senior...

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Reporting From a Place of Devastation

(0) Comments | Posted November 12, 2012 | 1:46 PM

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The Rockaway Youth Task Force is a youth empowerment group started in 2011. It is now overseeing a meticulously organized canvassing and distribution effort in Hurricane Sandy-ravaged Far Rockaway, a Queens community in New York City. Pictured far left, Vice President, Silaka Cox. Fourth...
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Post-Conviction DNA Testing in Massachusetts

(0) Comments | Posted November 20, 2011 | 1:19 PM

By Michael Blanding and Lindsay Markel, The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism

The Boston Globe Magazine's cover story for Sunday, November 20, 2011, is a Schuster Institute investigation of a longstanding problem facing Massachusetts inmates who claim innocence: No legal right or even a specific legal procedure to test...

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Journalists: How You Can Localize the Troy Davis Story

(8) Comments | Posted September 22, 2011 | 10:10 AM

By Lindsay Markel, Assistant Director, Justice Brandeis Innocence Project, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Brandeis University

In response to a last-minute appeal by attorneys representing Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, the Supreme Court refused to stay his execution. But the controversy over his case -- and the issues it...

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Breaking: Guatemalan Court Revokes Passport, Asks for Return of Adopted Child "Karen Abigail"

(10) Comments | Posted August 5, 2011 | 3:06 PM

By Erin Siegal, Fellow, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University


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Anyelí Liseth Hernández Rodríguez, kidnapped November 3, 2006

Unprecedented news from Guatemala: A Guatemalan court has ordered La Procuraduría General de la...

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A Decade of Anti-Trafficking Legislation: Looking Back and Moving Forward

(0) Comments | Posted June 26, 2011 | 3:15 PM

A Decade of Anti-Trafficking Legislation--Looking Back and Moving Forward

By Sophie Elsner, program associate, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

On Monday, June 27, government officials, law enforcement agents, advocates, and journalists will head to the...

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Britain's Long Fight Against Slavery

(1) Comments | Posted May 2, 2011 | 7:29 PM

"Just think, they sold me like a pig or a dog," a young woman cries to documentarians in the riveting MSNBC special Sex Slaves -- UK that will premiere in the U.S. on Sunday, May 22, at 9 p.m. eastern time. Adapted from the Channel 4 series The...

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Orphaned or Stolen? The U.S. State Department investigates adoption from Nepal, 2006-2008

(1) Comments | Posted February 18, 2011 | 9:12 PM

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Photo © Tom Krymkowski

Exclusive State Department internal cables
from Freedom of Information Act requests






Children abducted from their families for international adoption, so that middlemen could profit from Westerners' cash. Families that left...

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Sex (Trafficking) and the Super Bowl

(2) Comments | Posted February 8, 2011 | 6:22 PM

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Photo ©
Kenneth D Durden | Dreamstime.com

By Lindsay Markel, assistant director and research specialist, the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. Research assistant Sean Petterson contributed to this article.

Sunday's Super Bowl seemed to be on...

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Modern-Day Slavery: A Necessary Beat With Different Challenges

(3) Comments | Posted December 15, 2010 | 11:19 AM

The nonprofit Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism is dedicating a gift of funding to support a reporter's effort to gather and tell these stories.

By E. Benjamin Skinner, senior fellow, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

In its code of ethics, the Society of...

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Angela Wright, "The Other Woman" of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Hearings (Flashback)

(1094) Comments | Posted October 21, 2010 | 5:13 PM

By Florence George Graves

Before Virginia Thomas, there was Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas -- and Angela Wright (who?)

Angela Wright heard Anita Hill and thought, "I believe her because he did it to me." Her testimony might have changed history. She was subpoenaed. Why wasn't she called?

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Betty Anne Waters' Conviction Kept Her Going

(2) Comments | Posted October 19, 2010 | 12:13 PM

By Anne Driscoll, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University

The woman portrayed by Hilary Swank in the upcoming Hollywood movie talks with Anne Driscoll about her remarkable story of courage, faith and yes, conviction. Her brother believed in her and, in return, she achieved...
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First-Hand: Afghanistan Election Reports

(0) Comments | Posted September 20, 2010 | 9:53 PM

In his second dispatch, "The Vote Comes to Afghanistan's Peaceful Heartland" for Foreign Policy, September 20, Schuster Institute Senior Fellow E. Benjamin Skinner reports on the current political climate for women in Bamiyan province where he interviewed Bamiyan's Governor Hariba Sarabi outside a polling station at...

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Anatomy of an Adoption Crisis

(0) Comments | Posted September 13, 2010 | 5:23 PM

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The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi "believes that there is fraud in the overwhelming majority of cases of infants offered for international adoption" from Vietnam.
--U.S. Ambassador
Michael Michalak,
1/8/2008, to Department of State, Washington, D.C.


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Hidden in Plain Sight: The News Media's Role in Exposing Human Trafficking (VIDEO)

(4) Comments | Posted July 15, 2010 | 11:33 PM

Hidden in Plain Sight: The news media's role in exposing human trafficking,

The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University cosponsored a first-ever United Nations panel discussion about how the news media is...

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The Baby Business

(5) Comments | Posted July 7, 2010 | 12:36 PM

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By E.J. Graff, Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University

What's more heartbreaking than this: A group of parents storm a government office, demanding the ability to communicate with their children. The parents say that, a...

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