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Good morning, and happy Friday.
Today, we’re looking at how one of our fellows stood up to attacks from the Left that threatened his family; what President Trump said, and didn’t say, in his Inaugural Address; and emails exposing Ohio State’s discriminatory hiring practices.
Don’t forget to write to us at editors@city-journal.org with questions or comments. |
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“When I lived in Seattle, they put up posters around my neighborhood with my home address, telling insane lies about me and instructing activists to show up at my door … A few times, we had to pack up the kids and leave town.” For CJ’s Christopher Rufo, this has been his reality for the past five years—all because of his campaign to end critical race theory and DEI initiatives. His story is alarming, but not unique. Many conservatives have faced similar harassment, targeted for defending individual freedoms in the face of threats and intimidation.
Now, with President Trump back in office, Rufo writes, that fight is turning in their favor. Read his powerful statement here. |
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| For the past five years, I have been fighting to defeat critical race theory and DEI. |
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Trump’s second Inaugural Address was very … Trump: Both exhilarating and problematic.
Conservatives were understandably thrilled over the host of policy initiatives that Trump said his administration would pursue: returning federal agencies to color-blind merit, freeing speech from government efforts to police "misinformation," ending electric vehicle mandates, restoring border integrity, and the list goes on. (And don’t forget the flurry of executive orders he signed later in the day.)
But the address also lacked magnanimity, argues Heather Mac Donald, Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Why not at least thank President Biden for his service? Yes, Trump was the target of an abuse of power, and yes, then-President Biden’s last-minute preemptive pardons were an insult to his successor. “But conservatives are supposed to honor conventions that check destructive emotion, even when it is ‘their’ guy who is breaking them,” Mac Donald writes.
Still, as Mac Donald acknowledges, “If Trump can achieve all he sets out to do, the country will have undergone possibly the most sudden course correction in its history.” |
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New reporting from Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John Sailer shows that Ohio State hired faculty based on racial and gender diversity, which, of course, is against the law. The internal emails he obtained through public records requests are damning—one bluntly admits that “diversity was just as important as perceived merit.”
Read his scoop here. |
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The Washington Post’s abortion coverage — bad journalism, bad policy ideas, and now, bad art. Their latest Opinions photo essay: |
Winant’s scoop? Abortionists use clocks. (Someone call Woodward and Bernstein!) Our question: Where is the countdown clock for the Washington Post as a going business concern? |
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If you have Face Palm candidates—embarrassing journalism or media output; cringe-worthy conduct among leaders in government, business, and cultural institutions; stories that make you shake your head—send them our way at editors@city-journal.org. We’ll publish the most instructive with a hat tip to the source.
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A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson. |
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