Oh you're withholding judgment on NHJ because we don't have all the facts? Where was this excessively deferential ambivalence with David Shor? It was, quite rightly, non-existent.
A five-year position sounds pretty great to you so what's the big deal?
JK Rowling is a billionaire, Matt Yglesias is making bank, and Gina Carano has a sweet gig with rightwing media. What's the big deal?
"Sure, her cancellation was political, but so was the decision to offer her the position in the first place!"
"Sure, deplatforming Ben Shapiro was political, but so was the decision to invite him in the first place!"
Was NHJ mean to you? Think she's dishonest, doesn't publish enough, and spreads nasty rumors? Did she try to get someone on your side canceled? Well what do you think critics like to say about Bari Weiss?
"So what if I'm not as angry about her cancellation as you think I should be. When someone I like was cancelled last week, you weren't as angry as I thought YOU should be! BTW, in the future when someone else I like gets cancelled, please don't throw this logic back in my face."
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Briefly breaking my Twitter fast because there's a lot of context to this @nhannahjones story that people should be aware of. Namely, the degree of absolute unhinged-ness within the UNC Board of Governors.
There's a political valence to every university system's governing board. It's inescapable and in some ways desirable. But the issue in North Carolina is on a whole other level, and the only way to show you how is to barrage you with one horror story after another.
Last year, two members of the East Carolina Board of Trustees secretly approached a candidate for student body prez and offered to bankroll her campaign. In return, they expected her to support their "personal political agenda".
He's right. I've been trying to draw attention to the Azarova Affair for months now, with very little success. It's shouldn't take "Look at the Cancel Culture Crowd's hypocrisy!" to drum up their interest, but sometimes it feels like that's the only thing that works.
OK, let's talk about Idaho. This bill, which is now on its way to the Governor's desk, is getting a lot of attention this morning. But the mess in that state is so, so much bigger than just HB 377. Let me explain.
First, I'll just dispel one confusion. Contrary to what @ClintSmithIII excerpts here, HB 377 does not prohibit "discussing" the role of race/sexism. That's a misunderstanding based on an earlier draft of the bill. But the reality is still very bad.
Under HB 377, no public K-12 school or college/uni may "direct or otherwise compel students to personally affirm, adopt, or adhere" to a series of beliefs about race, sex, religion, etc., nor may any state money be used to do so.
My position on court packing hasn't changed: It's a bad idea and shouldn't happen. While the GOP has successfully packed multiple state supreme courts without any clear damage to those courts' legitimacy, there's every reason to think Dems packing SCOTUS would be catastrophic.
I'm open to other, more moderate reforms. And of course I think Dems would be absolutely within their rights to never vote to confirm a single Republican nominee to SCOTUS ever again. That's the Garland precedent and Dems would be fools not to follow it.
Should Dems also start packing apex courts at the state level? That's a tougher call. Again, they can point to GOP precedents in Georgia, Arizona, and West Virginia. But there are surely nuances there I'm missing, so I don't know what to do.
I want to highlight two critical responses to the Cromwell Report, which cleared senior UofT admins of any wrongdoing in Azarova Affair. Valentina Azarova, you may recall, was in final talks to accept a directorship position when a donor intervened over her pro-Palestinian views.
The first is from Vincent Wong, who had served on the hiring committee and subsequently resigned in protest. The entire thing is a must-read and I won't single out any one passage. Not only is it a damning indictment of Cromwell, but of UofT Law.
The second is from Joseph Carens, a political theorist and emeritus prof at UofT, who nicely lays out why Cromwell's report fails to actually clear the administration of corrupt interference.