21 hours Ago By Post Editorial Board
Campus watch: Anti-DEI Fight Just Beginning Amid the Trump anti-DEI push, notes City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald , “private and public entities are also calibrating their language to preserve as much of the pre-Trump status quo as possible.” Schools like the University of California and the University of Pennsylvania are shamming compliance with Trump directives around fairness and standards. Yes, the “administration can flag certain words and phrases essential to the antiracist project.
It can eliminate them from official executive branch pronouncements.” But “professional antiracists in faculties and bureaucracies won’t cede power without a fight.” “Uprooting the diversity ideology constitutes an existential threat.
” “After this first round of executive orders and funding decisions, the Trump administration will have to get even more creative in combating a poisonous worldview. The battle is just beginning.” Libertarian: NIH Cuts Won’t Kill Bioscience Critics’ claims that Trump-proposed cuts to National Institutes of Health indirect funds “will annihilate biomedical scientific research” just “don’t stand up under scrutiny,” explains Zachary R.
Caverley at Reason . “In the era before the NIH was spreading federal money,” US biomedical-science “was not hurting for private support”; “the public sector’s role” in research achievements “is often overstated.” Notably, the “chief innovator” of mRNA vaccine tech, Katalin Karikó, “was roadblocked for years in academia” before creating the Pfizer vaccine “in the private sector.
” Public funding plainly “is not necessarily the crucial factor for scientific advancement and innovation.” “In practice, the private sector drives new technologies,” since it does “have motivation to invest in basic research.” NY/NJ beat: Pols’ Frivolous-Lawsuit Addiction “Lawsuits targeting industries such as energy, agriculture and manufacturing have become en vogue for populist politicians — and billionaire donors,” lament Alex Daniel & Tom Stebbins at USA Today .
Yet these officials are “racking up a string of losses” at taxpayers’ expense. They blame energy companies for global emissions, though “emissions don’t come from energy production” but from “energy use.” That’s why judges have rejected several such suits.
Similar ones notably from New York and New Jersey, have fared badly. These include New York Attorney General Letitia James’ suit against a meatpacker over its environmental impact. “When will these politicians learn from their repeated failures?” Gov.
Hochul is adding judges to address a court backlog; better if pols just “stop filing bad cases.” Astroturf alert: Democrats Paid for ‘Brat’ Cred Kamala Harris’ brat status last summer was “quietly funded by an elusive group of Democratic billionaires,” RealClearInvestigations’ Lee Fang reports . “Way to Win, one of the major donor groups behind the effort, spent more than $9.
1 million on social media influencers during the 2024 presidential election.” Much of the cash went to Gen-Z friendly influencers, like comedian Illana Glazer, who “received Way to Win funding for a series of election videos called ‘Microdosing Democracy,’ in which she half-heartedly endorsed Harris as she lighted a spliff.” “While television or radio ads require disclaimers showing the groups responsible for paying for the advertisements, there are no equivalent mandates for TikTok stars or Instagram personalities.
” To put it mildly, that “tidal wave of enthusiasm” for Harris “was not entirely genuine.” Eye on Africa: Somalia Falling “For decades, the U.S.
and African Union have sought to keep the government of Somalia afloat, but time is running out,” warn Jonathan Sweet & Mark Toth at The Hill . Muslim terror group Al-Shabaab is moving “to capture Mogadishu and establish a Sunni caliphate in East Africa.” Al-Shabaab could be Iran’s new proxy now that “Hamas and Hezbollah have been significantly degraded.
” Tehran aspires “to shut down the Red Sea, and l-Shabaab could be the missing ingredient.” ISIS-Somalia, al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab are major threats “to the government of Somalia, international shipping lanes and U.S.
forces in the region.” The Trump administration must address al-Shahaab’s enablers — namely, “the Houthi rebels, Iran and Russia.” — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board.
