Ezra Klein on Charlie Kirk:
“You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.
“That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.”
“Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended through bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine, and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are.”
@FluentInFinance@carbolton Community leaders are failing to address the role that corporations are playing in driving up both sale and and rental costs by purchasing private family homes at prices unaffordable to most and converting them to rentals at equally unaffordable prices.
Some good advice here - and if you want more see https://t.co/5jI0iMIMYp. What Do Universities Owe Their Big Donors? Less Than You Might Think, Explain 2 Nonprofit Law Experts https://t.co/Yx4gb6wloe
“The alumni who are furious are not trying to turn Harvard into something we do not want. They are trying to rescue Harvard from what we let it become.”
Eloquent and heartbreaking. From Harvard Law Professor Mark Ramseyer's email to a Harvard list (with permission). I came for my PhD in '99, he came as a prof in '98. We were each publicly attacked for our views in '21.
"Harvard is a vastly less tolerant place than it was when I arrived in 1998. The intolerance is a function of an increasingly large fraction of our colleagues. And we – the rest of us on the Harvard faculty – let it happen. The cancelling, the punishments, the DEI bureaucracy, the DEI statements, the endless list that we could all recite – all this happened on our watch. We saw it happen, but we did nothing. We were too busy. We were scared to speak up. We – we on the faculty – let Harvard become what it is. The Harvard that we have is the result of our own collective moral failure.
The alumni who are furious are not trying to turn Harvard into something we do not want. They are trying to rescue Harvard from what we let it become.
We as a faculty failed. That is why the alumni are speaking up. That is why we formed the Council on Academic Freedom in the first place." @cafharvard@sapinker
@DrWinarick@ProfDBernstein You should also be asking how trustees are nominated. Increasingly, alumni are spoon fed the “alumni trustees” for whom they can vote.