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“Cruel, nihilistic sabotage.” That’s how Jessica Winter describes the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Trump Administration to dismantle the Department of Education. But, first, Joshua Rothman on a doctor’s quest for purpose after an unspeakable tragedy. Plus:
After accidentally killing his toddler son, Gulbransen (seen here examining a patient at his practice in Oyster Bay, Long Island) set out to help not just patients but strangers. “Feeling needed, feeling useful, feeling important—they’ve helped me hide the demons,” he says.Photographs by Natalie Keyssar for The New Yorker
A Family Doctor’s Search for Salvation
Instead of turning inward after the death of his son, Dr. Greg Gulbransen turned outward: toward documentary photography and people whose lives he might be able to save.
The story of the Long Island pediatrician Greg Gulbransen is inseparable from tragedy. In 2002, he accidentally killed his two-year-old son, Cameron, when he backed over him while moving the family car from the street to the driveway. In the aftermath, he found ways to direct his energies out into the world, in ways expected (by caring for children, and fighting for legislation requiring back-up cameras in all new cars) and surprising (pursuing photography, and dedicating much of his time to quietly helping far-flung people in need). He’s become, for many people, “part doctor, part social worker, part father figure, part friend,” Joshua Rothman writes.
In this week’s issue, Rothman’s Profile of Gulbransen explores the doctor’s particular kind of goodness. “Good people are often puzzles to those of us who wish we were better,” Rothman notes. “We try to understand what they do, and how, and why. Many base their goodness in principle, or faith, or some vision of how the world ought to be, and we sometimes suspect that, if we could only adopt one of their systems, we might do good, too. But Gulbransen’s goodness wasn’t part of any system; it was personal, even arbitrary.” What can one man’s story illustrate about how to best live a generous life?
Read the story »
Editor’s Pick
The Haw River rose to record levels after Tropical Storm Chantal made its way through North Carolina.Photograph by Matt Ramey / Redux
Chased by Climate Disaster in North Carolina
Just days after floods ravaged Texas, Tropical Storm Chantal dumped ten inches of rain on parts of central North Carolina, closing hundreds of roads and killing several people. In rural communities still recovering from the destruction of 2024’s Hurricane Helene, Jessica Pishko writes, “residents are left to fend for themselves, fighting for their own survival and for the survival of others.” Read the story »
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How Bad Is It?
Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education: In an unsigned order yesterday, the Supreme Court permitted the Trump Administration to fire some thirteen hundred employees from the D.O.E., overturning two lower-court decisions and effectively green-lighting President Trump’s plan to destroy the agency.
How bad is it? “The demolition of the D.O.E. is cruel, nihilistic sabotage: of vital educational research and financial-aid programs; of the rights of low-income students and students with disabilities,” Jessica Winter, a staff writer covering education, told us by e-mail. “But, as Trump once said, ‘When you’re a star, they let you do it,’ and the Court’s conservative supermajority agrees. A President cannot unilaterally abolish a federal agency created by an act of Congress—except he can, because a majority of the Justices say so.
