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By Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman
The Washington Post
Excerpt: At first glance, the plight of Katherine Rinderle, a fifth-grade teacher in Georgia, might seem confusing. Rinderle faces likely termination by the Cobb County School District for reading aloud a children’s book that touches on gender identity. Yet she is charged in part with violating policy related to a state law banning “divisive concepts” about race, not gender.
This disconnect captures something essential about state laws and directives restricting classroom discussion across the country: They seem to be imprecisely drafted to encourage censorship. That invites parents and administrators to seek to apply bans to teachers haphazardly, forcing teachers to err on the side of muzzling themselves rather than risk unintentionally crossing fuzzy lines into illegality
Gabe Kaminsky, Madeleine Rowley, and Maya Sulkin
The Free Press
Excerpt: On Saturday evening, federal immigration authorities arrested an anti-Israel activist who helped lead protests against the Jewish state on Columbia University’s campus after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. As progressive activists and free speech advocates protested the move to revoke Mahmoud Khalil’s green card over civil liberties concerns Monday, President Donald Trump warned that Khalil’s arrest would be the first “of many to come.”
Ana Ley
New York Times
Excerpt: Mahmoud Khalil, 30, emerged as a public face of students opposed to the war, leading demonstrations and granting interviews. He delivered a message that his side viewed as measured and responsible but that has been branded by some, including the Trump administration, as antisemitic.
Over the weekend, Mr. Khalil was at the center of the news again. He was arrested by federal immigration officials in a drastic escalation of President Trump’s crackdown against what he has called antisemitic campus activity. Mr. Khalil, a permanent resident of the United States, had been living in Columbia’s student housing when he was detained and then transferred to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, La.
Jerry A. Coyne
Why Evolution is True
Excerpt: One of the most odious forms of censorship in modern science. or in any discipline that produces empirical results, is to simply ignore the results of or even refuse to publish a study simply because it gives results you—or a journal or a newspaper—don’t like because they go against current ideology.
Now we have another case, with two media organizations—this time including the NYT—ignoring a study on the inimical (yes, inimical) effects of DEI training on intergroup harmony. Both articles are from late last year.
