When the Conservative Political Action Conference convened in Texas last month, state Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took the stage and surveyed the culture war issues that define today’s Republican agenda: hostility to immigration and transgender rights, and deep commitment to gun rights as a defense against government tyranny.

For UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, the ability for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn abortion rights, expand gun rights and limit the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse emissions, all within the span of a week, is proof that conservative justices’ originalist view of the Constitution has politicized the court for decades to come.

With the U.S. midterm elections approaching and political disinformation posing a continued threat to democracy, UC Berkeley’s ambitious new Our Better Web initiative, launched on a small scale in April, is advancing efforts to study and combat online harms including deception, discrimination and child exploitation.