Campus watch: How To Save Our Universities
Ousted Penn President Liz Magill “exposed the grotesque hypocrisy” inside “modern American higher education,” thunders Bari Weiss at The Free Press. “How can we fix this enormous problem?” By returning “American higher education to its original purposes: to seek the truth” and “pass on the knowledge that is the basis of our exceptional civilization.” How? Dismantle “the DEI regime that has enforced an illiberal (and antisemitic) worldview at nearly every American university.” Fix the “glaring double standard when it comes to speech on campus” and “hire without prejudice toward political affiliation.” “The other solution is to build new things,” like the University of Austin. This moment offers a chance for “resolute commitment to fixing what’s broken and building anew.”
Libertarian: Uncle Sam’s EV-Charger Debacle
Congress in 2021 OK’d “$7.5 billion to build 500,000 public charging stations across the country,” but “not a single charger funded by the program is yet operational,” chuckles Reason’s Joe Lancaster. “While more than $2 billion has been given out, only two states . . . have actually broken ground on chargers, while just six others have awarded contracts.” The nation now has “just under 158,000 public chargers,” but may need “more than 1 million to support the Biden administration’s timeline” that’s “requiring half of all cars to be electric by 2030.” It’s a dubious drive “to change consumer preference by force rather than allowing the free market to innovate its way there.”
From the right: America’s Phony Race War
Ignore spurious stats: “If you are a white person, you are probably not going to be killed by a black person,” snarks Wilfred Reilly at National Review, and the same is true of the “reverse” claim. Data suggesting otherwise are “not even in the same ballpark as the truth.” In fact, “over 80 percent of the murderers of white Americans” are also white. And “interracial felony crime, in any direction, is extraordinarily rare.” Fearmongers never note that “classic interracial crimes — violent clashes between black and white people — made up exactly 2.94 percent of all index, serious crime.” The data are clear: “You simply are not going to be unprovokedly killed by warriors of another race.”
Conservative: Must-Asks for Zelensky
“Subject to Democrats accepting a Republican push for border reforms, the Ukraine package deserves the GOP’s support,” argues the Washington Examiner’s Tom Rogan — but in their Tuesday sitdown Speaker Mike Johnson should urge President Volodymyr Zelensky to do two things. First, “push the Europeans to do far more for Ukraine,” as “Ukraine is bordered by four EU member states” and “far too many European NATO members continue to view the alliance through the motto of, ‘We like to let the Yanks do the hard lifting.’ ” Number two?
“Adopt a less autocratic stance at home and a more diplomatic stance toward partners abroad,” as he “has repeatedly and very publicly attacked foreign politicians who have suggested that he show a little more gratitude for their weapons supplies” and faces “rising criticism for an increasingly autocratic stance toward the media and political rivals” at home. “Zelensky needs to do more to consolidate America’s support.”
Foreign desk: Biden’s ‘Record of Defeat’
President Biden is building a global “record of defeat,” fumes Garry Kasparov at The Wall Street Journal. “From Afghanistan to Ukraine to Gaza,” he’s “adopted Barack Obama’s playbook” of failure. He looks to be “deliberately” letting Russia’s occupation of Ukraine continue” by withholding ATACM missiles that could slag Russia’s supply lines. Expect the prez to “offer NATO membership for the unoccupied parts of Ukraine as a carrot” to get President Zelensky to accept an “unholy partition” on “current front lines.” That would embolden China’s Xi Jinping to invade Taiwan, just as Team Biden “emboldened Iran-backed Hamas to invade Israel” by letting Putin get away with atrocities in Ukraine. “Weakness invites aggression. War and terror spread until the leaders are neutralized.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board