Why We Shouldn’t Drug Test Poor People

Faculty research

6/28/2017

Jamila Michener, assistant professor of government, and Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, assistant professor of history, write in this New York Times opinion piece that tying Medicaid benefits to drug testing could imperil Medicaid's long-term viability and create a "vicious cycle of stigmatization and program retrenchment."

"This would tie lifesaving health care benefits to government procedures that force people to submit to degrading invasions of privacy," they write. "Of all the ways to help Americans with drug problems, threatening their Medicaid eligibility is among the worst options."

Read the entire New York Times piece here.

More News from A&S

Artist's illustration of the Pandora spacecraft with an exoplanet and two stars in the background — NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab Artist’s concept of NASA’s Pandora mission, which will help scientists untangle the signals from exoplanets’ atmospheres – worlds beyond our solar system – and their stars.

Cornell astronomy researcher to head planetary science workforce survey

Astronomy 10/27/2026

Historian Cristina Florea wins prizes for book about Bukovina

History 10/27/2026

Francis Fukuyama ’74 named Freedom and Free Societies Professor

Freedom and Free Societies 10/27/2026

Provost Kavita Bala, with shoulder-length gray hair and a striped shirt, talking with a woman while a man and a woman talk in the background, all dressed in business casual attire — Simon Wheeler, Cornell University Cornell Provost Kavita Bala speaking with Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholar Naomi Havron at the Kalaniyot reception Oct. 19. In the background, Kalaniyot Fellow Eden Eran Nagar speaks with Fellow Shachar Yerushalmi.

New program enhances Cornell-Israel academic collaboration

Global Collaboration 10/23/2026

View all news