Townhall Review | Commentaries

In a startling announcement, Princeton University recently declared it was eliminating any requirement that those majoring in the classics take Greek or Latin. The change was made to combat … wait for it … systemic racism.

In fact, a diversity and inclusion statement on the Princeton Classics Department’s site affirms its commitment to creating, “opportunities for the advancement of students and (future) colleagues from historically underrepresented backgrounds.”

Surely they’re not implying that it will be easier to advance minority students if they eliminate the need to learn a difficult ancient language! That would be racist.

In all seriousness, when bastions of elitism like Princeton allow Critical Race Theory to overwhelm any remaining commitment to excellence, they’re headed for trouble. Even the most prestigious universities can coast for only so long on past glories. If they lower their standards, it won’t be long before an “elite” education means far less than it once did. After all, Princeton diplomas mean only as much as the quality of the graduates possessing them.

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Democrats have spent the past year pursuing an obvious contradiction – calling for more gun control while also sympathizing with the Defund the Police movement. They’ve argued simultaneously—and disingenuously—that law-abiding Americans don’t need firearms for self-defense because of the police. At the same time, they have provided support for those who want to scale back or entirely eliminate policing.
 
The astounding new data on gun sales shows Americans aren’t buying either argument. The New York Times reported that a record number of first-time purchasers have bought guns in the past year. Half of those are women, and 40 percent are evenly split between blacks and Hispanics. Household ownership percentage has spiked seven points after years of remaining flat.
 
Gun ownership has become even more diverse, and in many areas where police are in retreat, even more necessary. Joe Biden’s gun-control push will make his party look even more radical, and even more out of touch.

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This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

Next week, the Supreme Court will decide whether to hear a challenge to Harvard’s race conscious admissions program. It’s likely to do so.  Given the Court’s composition, that means affirmative action may finally be declared unconstitutional.

Affirmative action’s proponents argue that “diversity” enhances education because students of different backgrounds benefit by learning from one another. The Supreme Court has been skeptical of this idea, noting it’s untestable. But now a new study claims that articles from law journals using affirmative action selection policies were cited more often than articles published in peer law reviews without such policies.

Because frequency of citations is considered an indicator of merit, affirmative action supporters claim this proves race conscious selection processes yield objectively better outcomes.

But in a country that has spilled blood and spent untold treasure to offer truly equal opportunity to all, one study of law review citations is thin evidence to justify continued state-sanctioned discrimination by race.

I’m Carol Platt Liebau.

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Having awakened to the dangers of left-wing activism in education, some parents are finally fighting back. In a heartening display of community engagement, Asian Americans have challenged the new race-based admissions policy of Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The Fairfax County School Board recently scrapped the standardized test the school had used to select students. Instead, it will now give most slots to the top percent and a half of students at each of the county’s middle schools.

This new policy disproportionately hurts Asian Americans. Under the old, merit and test-based admissions regime, they were upwards of 70 percent of the school’s student body.

A judge has just said the lawsuit can proceed. And that’s a good thing. 

We don’t know if it’s too late to keep the woke crowd from permanently damaging our nation’s prospects. But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, though we may not know the outcome if we do something, we do know the outcome if we do nothing at all!

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This is Ed Morrissey of HotAir.com for Townhall.

Progressives on our country used the indiscriminate rocket attacks of Hamas against Israeli citizens to accuse Israel of “acts of terrorism” and operating an “apartheid state.” Echoing those criticisms, pro-Palestinian extremists targeted Jews in Los Angeles, New York City and elsewhere for violent attacks.

Over the past year, media and Democratic leadership have repeatedly linked criticism of China to hate crimes against Asian Americans. Congress passed a bill this month focusing on such attacks, and Joe Biden gave a lengthy speech while signing it. Yet, few if any media or Democratic voices made the same linkage between progressives’ rhetoric on Israel and rising anti-Semitism.

Four brave House Democrats took a stand against anti-Semitism in their own caucus, a stand the media and their party leadership refused to take. “These statements are anti-Semitic at their core,” they wrote. They foster a climate of hate that forces Jews in America to choose between safety and public religious expression. That’s a choice no American should have to make—and both parties should make that clear.

I’m Ed Morrissey

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This is Hugh Hewitt for Townhall.com.

Each year at this time, we are granted a three-day weekend in what amounts to a kick-off to the summer months ahead.

This year, Memorial Day weekend is particularly welcome as the nation feels the easing of pandemic restrictions, the benefits of vaccines and the closing of this “COVID chapter” in America. You can sense a sigh of relief.

But let me encourage you not to miss perspective.

This Memorial Day weekend take some time to reflect on the ultimate sacrifices made by so many who are interred at Arlington National Cemetery and the other national cemeteries around the United States.

Remember also those who served and those who have paid very high prices, but short of dying.

Thank the servicemen and servicewomen in your circles. Don’t neglect the opportunity—especially—to say “thanks” to those who said “goodbye” to someone they loved as a result or their service to our great nation.

Put your flag out. Give a civilian salute.

Today—once again—a grateful nation says “Thank you.” 

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On Tuesday, Minneapolis marked the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death.

It was a surreal moment, framing the outcome of the Defund the Police movement perfectly. Dozens of shots rang out through George Floyd Square, forcing reporters to seek cover. Meanwhile, media anchors such as at ABC filled the gap by discussing police reform rather than the soaring rates of violent crime that followed the city council's promises to abolish the police department.

It’s a disconnect we see in the rest of the country as well: media talks endlessly of reform while—as CNN noted last month—homicides went up 33 percent last year in major cities, an unprecedented spike created by the vacuum left from demands for police retreat.  And violent crime has continued to rise in 2021, even over those peaks.

In Minneapolis, the experiment in abandoning law enforcement has left Mayor Jacob Frey begging neighboring jurisdictions to lend them police officers to quell the violence. It’s a sad conclusion to a lost year, in a city that still refuses to meet its responsibilities for public safety.

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The media today has a profound credibility problem.

I recently interviewed Jane Coaston of The New York Times. She was candid in her answers to a long string of my questions about her “intuitions” about the views and votes of the Manhattan-Beltway media elites. 

Coaston assumes exactly what the vast majority of Donald Trump voters believe: The news media is, as I like to say, “far, far, far left and an extension of the Democratic Party.” 

Some years ago, longtime Post reporter, now with the New York Times, Thomas Edsall told me that Democrats outnumbered Republicans in newsrooms by a margin of between 15 and 25 to 1. That was in 2006.

Judging by Coaston’s guesses, that margin has gotten even more lopsided today.

This isn’t a plea for fairness. It’s a plea for change. Hire a hundred more Coastons—and demand the same sort of rigorous candor and disclosure from them about their views—and trust will rebuild. 

It’s the denial of deep bias that is cancerous.

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The evidence is mounting that the American work ethic is disappearing right before our eyes and it's being made clear in the aftermath of the pandemic.

It’s going to have huge consequences. 

The United States has had at the center of our cultural ideal the fact that we are meant to work, that work is important, even vital.

Daniel Henninger—writing for The Wall Street Journal—asked the question, “Is the American work ethic dying?” 

Jobs are available. Henninger notes that “… it is impossible not to be struck by how many employers say that former and prospective employees after a year of forced unemployment simply will not work.”

There are today currently 8 million fewer Americans working than before the advent of COVID-19. 

The pandemic,  says Henninger, “accelerated a transition evident for years” toward, “an emerging idea that life is less about work and more about play.”

This is very bad news for the character of the American worker and for the future of the American economy, for the future of America.  

I’m Albert Mohler.

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The Supreme Court announced last week that it would hear an abortion case coming from the state of Mississippi. 

The case is Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The infamous abortion clinic in Jackson, Mississippi is challenging legislation that makes abortion illegal after the 15th week of a woman’s term. 

If the law is upheld, lives would be saved—lots of them.

This is big news, it’s not necessarily the case that the court will reverse Roe v. Wade. I often refer to the cumulative case theory of the pro-life movement. That comes down to this: Pro-life legislation and pro-life lawyers working to erode Roe v. Wade step-by-step—law by law, restriction by restriction, court precedent by court precedent. Make no mistake, this case is huge and the president will be massive.

The second issue is even more important: The Mississippi law and thus this particular Supreme Court case focuses on the life of the unborn child. That is the biggest issue here. 

We should watch and hope and pray for change from the courts.

We also need to hope and work and pray for a change in human hearts.

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