Texas Follows Florida in Republican Push to Remake US Colleges
Texas Republicans are tightening their grip on the state's sprawling university systems amid a nationwide drive by conservatives to remake higher education.
The GOP-dominated legislature passed bills limiting protests and expanding state control over academic content, degree programs and administrative decisions at such schools as the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. Supporters say the changes will boost the value of degrees and curb left-wing ideological overreach, while critics argue the measures will chill discussion.
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Biden Staffers Find Powerful New Home to Keep Up Fight Against Trump
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Centrist Democrats want a fight with the left
Centrist Democrats picked a fight with their party's left wing on Wednesday. And the left was happy to punch back. 'Places like City Hall and Albany and even Washington, DC, are more responsive to the groups than to the people on the ground,' New York Rep. Ritchie Torres said at WelcomeFest, held at a downtown Washington hotel and billed as a forum to help the party find more electable candidates and messages. Seconds after Torres' shot at 'the groups' that have become intra-Democratic shorthand for excessive left-wing influence, protesters from … the group Climate Defiance charged on stage with signs reading 'GAYS AGAINST GENOCIDE' and 'GENOCIDE RITCHIE,' attacking his support for Israel's war in Gaza. As the activists were yanked out of the room, conference organizers played Carly Simon's on the loudspeakers in the room. The mockery was part of the point. Welcome PAC, the main organizer of the conference and one of several outfits that have emerged in recent months to try to reverse the party's post-Obama losses, was happy to be accused of embracing a pro-growth 'Abundance' agenda or attacking progressive urban policies. 'Any time someone is against something like 'abundance,' it means that they're afraid of something. They're afraid of losing power,' said Welcome PAC's Lauren Harper Pope, a former Beto O'Rourke adviser. 'If the left feels threatened by what we're doing, then I say: 'You're still welcome in our coalition.'' To speakers in the basement of the Hamilton Hotel on Wednesday, the message of the 2024 election was clear: Voters were sick of left-wing ideas. Candidates and members of Congress described struggles to overcome what they described as their party's toxic brand or to deal with protesters angry at their occasional votes with Republicans. 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Attendees saw polling on voters' dim view of the party and heard advice for Democrats to move on from topics where they lacked credibility. Torres took aim at his party for stretching 'right to shelter' laws too thin in his home state and for being insufficiently tough on crime. After sharing a set of data on Democratic vulnerabilities, pollster David Shor told Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., that her vote for a repeal of California's electric vehicle mandate had been savvy. 'People don't like 'defund the police,' but voters really hate electric cars,' said Shor. 'They don't hate electric vehicles,' replied Slotkin. 'They just don't want to be told that they have to drive an electric vehicle, particularly when the infrastructure hasn't kept pace with need.' DC did not lack for center-left Democratic groups before Welcome PAC or its eponymous conference. Many grew from the ashes of the Democratic Leadership Council, founded after Ronald Reagan's two landslide wins to find viable center-left candidates and ideas. Shuttered in 2011, the DLC survives in its spinoff think tank PPI and in centrist groups that have taken up part of its past mission. Andrew Rotherham, a fellow at PPI, told WelcomeFest that Florida Democrats had erred in fighting the state's GOP 'parental rights' bill — what opponents called the 'Don't Say Gay' bill — instead of fighting for inclusiveness from a stronger position. It was 'actually supported by a majority of Democrats,' he said. Other sponsors of WelcomeFest included the Blue Dog Democrats, the 30-year-old caucus for the party's centrist members of Congress; the New Democrat Coalition, founded two years later to build on Bill Clinton's mixed success; Third Way, founded 20 years ago after Democrats lost the popular vote to George W. Bush; and NewDEAL, founded 14 years ago to elevate 'pro-growth progressives.' 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Implicit in every argument was this view: It would not be enough for Democrats to wait for President Donald Trump to fail, then take advantage of that failure, a notion propagated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others in the party. That's because, as much as they may not like it, centrists and progressive Democrats are confronting a much more popular Trump than they did eight years Chait's influential in The Atlantic — that the book has sparked a useful 'civil war' inside the party — has informed every successive take from the left. 'Their theory of American politics depends on empowering the very groups the abundance agenda identifies as the architects of failure and barriers to progress.' Semafor one of the first interviews with Welcome PAC's Lauren Harper, two summers ago. 'Instead of creating a third party, why don't we just create a Democratic Party that can appeal to a broader range of voters?' In his Political Currents Substack, Ross Barkan looks at how weak the 'professional left' has become, through its struggle to get traction in New York this year. 'They have been proven to be impotent.'
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Education Secretary Won't Say If She Knows What The Tulsa Race Massacre Is
Education Secretary Linda McMahon deflected when asked if she knew what the Tulsa Race Massacre was during a Wednesday congressional hearing, telling lawmakers that she intends to 'look into it more.' McMahon's response comes as Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) pressed her about history lessons that would be considered 'illegal DEI' by the Trump administration. (DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion and has been used by Republicans as shorthand for initiatives addressing race and gender, among other topics.) The comments are also the latest to suggest that McMahon — a former pro wrestling executive who's had little education policy experience — could use a lesson or two herself. 'Would it be 'illegal DEI' for a lesson plan on the Tulsa Race Massacre?' Lee asked McMahon during the Wednesday panel. 'I'd have to get back to you on that,' McMahon said. 'Do you know what the Tulsa Race Massacre is?' Lee asked. 'I'd like to look into it more and get back to you on it,' McMahon replied. McMahon was similarly evasive when asked if lessons involving civil rights trailblazer Ruby Bridges would be deemed 'illegal DEI.' 'How about the book 'Through My Eyes,' by Ruby Bridges, for instance?' Lee asked. 'I haven't read that,' McMahon responded. 'Have you learned about Ruby Bridges?' Lee said. 'If you have specific examples, you'd like to –' McMahon countered. 'That was a specific example... I named a specific book,' Lee emphasized. McMahon's exchange with Lee stood out both for her refusal to acknowledge whether she knew about major historical events as well as her reluctance to answer if the White House would target lessons about them. A January executive order from the Trump administration called for agencies to find ways to claw back resources from schools that advance 'gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology' in their curriculum. And in April, the White House required K-12 schools to certify that they were not engaging in 'illegal DEI practices' in order to receive federal funding, an act that's been blocked by a federal judge. The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a HuffPost request for comment. Both of Lee's questions referred to significant events in U.S. history: The Tulsa Race Massacre took place in 1921 and was 'one of America's deadliest acts of domestic terrorism,' Taryn Finley previously wrote for HuffPost. During the attack, an armed white mob decimated a neighborhood in Tulsa known as Black Wall Street, killing as many as 300 people. And in 1960, Bridges was the first Black child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans. Iconic images from that time captured Bridges, at age 6, flanked by U.S. Marshals and white crowds jeering as she entered the building. Lee emphasized that such lessons are critical for students as the Trump administration has sought to hold federal funding captive if schools advance programs that it disagrees with. 'Their lack of knowledge, denial of history, and open racism doesn't mean students across America should be deprived of learning opportunities or access to a quality education,' she told HuffPost in a statement. 'Clearly they're still needed.'
