Sarah Szilagy

selected stories

a non-exhaustive sampling of my skills in narrative reporting, data analysis, archival research, and public records.

Mother Jones •

Interest on student loans for low-income borrowers is about to skyrocket

When President Joe Biden announced the creation of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program in 2023, Sarah Letsinger enrolled immediately. Graduating in 2012 with a degree in fashion design, Letsinger never earned more than $16 an hour in her chosen field—and hardly made a dent in her approximately $35,000 in federal student loans. After she gave birth to her daughter in March 2020, the day her state of Illinois announced its Covid lockdown, she realized that if she returned to work, he...
Mother Jones •

Parental rights is a movement with deep roots. It's spreading nationwide.

In late March, the US Department of Education put state education officials on notice: No longer would the federal government tolerate what the agency described in a “Dear Colleague” letter as the widespread infringement on parents’ rights to direct the schooling of their kids. “By natural right and moral authority, parents are the primary protectors of their children,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon declared in a cover letter attached to the guidance. “Yet many states and school districts ha...
Mother Jones •

Here's the latest example of how conservatives have gamed state supreme courts to restrict abortion

When the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that abortion was a fundamental right to be protected under the most stringent level of judicial review, reproductive justice advocates cheered. Even in a state where Republicans dominated every level of government, it seemed that abortion rights could still prevail—as long as the courts went along.

That didn’t sit well with Iowa’s first woman governor, Kim Reynolds, or her allies in the legislature, who set about rewriting the rules for how justices ar...
Mother Jones •

Ohio passed a measure protecting abortion rights. Then the money ran out.

Every Monday morning, the staff of the Abortion Fund of Ohio’s intake line starts fresh, answering calls, following up on voicemails, and doling out cash to people who can’t afford to go to their abortion appointments. The team of three fields as many financial requests as they can until the money allotted for the week runs out. Lately, that’s been by Tuesday. Sometimes they can stretch the funds until Wednesday.

The Ohio Fund, one of the largest abortion funds in the United States, didn’t alwa...
Mother Jones •

Thou shalt run for office: Ohio pastor obeys the 11th Commandment

The day after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July, Pastor Diane Mullins took the microphone in front of the southwest Ohio church she and her husband, Jim, preside over and began to pace in front of a large LED screen with the graphic of a billowing American flag.

“I’m tired of holding back because I’m running for a stupid office, and I don’t care if they hear that,” she said, her voice slowly rising. “The only reason I’m running, it’s about the kingdom of God a...
NBC4 WCMH-TV •

At odds with governor, Ohio statehouse override of trans bill veto marks ninth attempt in 40 years

The Ohio House’s expected vote to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a LGBTQ+ bill would mark only the ninth such attempt in nearly 40 years.

Ohio governors do not regularly veto bills; just over 100 have been vetoed since 1969. It’s rare for the legislature to try to override those vetoes, and even less common for them to succeed.
Now, the Ohio House is conveni...
NBC4 WCMH-TV •

The legacy of segregated housing that remains at Ohio State

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – John W. Bricker had only been Ohio’s attorney general for weeks when he defended Ohio State University’s segregated housing policy to the state Supreme Court.


A Black student wanted to live in an on-campus home economics laboratory with her white peers. But the university did not permit “racial intermingling” in on-campus residences. At the time, it didn’t allow Black students to live on campus at all.


“The University does not believe, rightly or wrongly, that we ar...
The Lantern Projects •

As Strauss victims and students supported statutes of limitations bill, Ohio State lobbied against it

While Ohio State was publicly silent about legislation to allow victims and survivors of former university physician Richard Strauss to sue the university, its administration worked for months to prevent the bill from making it to the Ohio House of Representatives’ floor.
A Lantern investigation found that the university’s Office of Government Affairs led a coordinated effort to block House Bill 249, legislation introduced in May 2019 to waive the statute of limitations on civil sexual abuse cas...