A welcome sign on campus
STUDENTS at Middlebury College in Vermont succeeded recently in ruining an appearance by a conservative speaker. Yet their abhorrent behavior has served as an awakening of sorts. Perhaps free speech on college campuses isn’t dead after all.
The protest March 2 against American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray devolved into a mob scene that left one Middlebury professor with a concussion and in a neck brace. Soon after, several Middlebury College professors issued an online statement on the importance of free speech.
On Tuesday, Harvard professor Cornel West and Princeton professor Robert George posted their own defense of free speech, which when we checked it Friday had about 550 signatures (it’s available at http:// jmp.princeton.edu/statement). West and George are polar opposites in terms of their worldviews; they once taught a class at Princeton on how to listen to opposing viewpoints.
In their statement, West and George noted that it’s all too common today “for people to try to immunize from criticism opinions that happen to be dominant in their particular communities.” They defend the right to peacefully protest, but suggest that before doing so, “each of us should ask: Might it not be better to listen respectfully and try to learn from a speaker with whom I disagree? Might it better serve the cause of truthseeking to engage the speaker in frank civil discussion?”
That used to be the expectation on college campuses. Perhaps it will be again someday.
Bad day for free speech
For some ideologues, it appears promotion of abortion takes precedence even over explicit constitutional rights, including free speech. Hawaii’s Democratic state Senate (the chamber has no Republican members) recently voted to require the state’s five pregnancy centers to promote the availability of abortion elsewhere or face fines of $500 to $1,000 per violation. The legislation requires the centers to notify those it serves, “Hawaii has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to … abortion for eligible women,” and to direct those women to a website to apply for government benefits for that purpose. Pregnancy Help News notes that the centers targeted by the legislation, which are operated by people morally opposed to abortion, “receive no state funding whatsoever …” For those who value First Amendment rights, the Hawaii bill should be far more troubling than disputes over what media outlets get to attend White House briefings.
Coburn’s concerns
Debate has been heated over what’s included in the Republican plan to replace Obamacare. Former Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, a medical doctor, is concerned about something that’s not in the bill – price discovery. In an interview Monday on CNBC, Coburn called the omission “a fatal flaw” if the true goal is to lower prices for consumers. “There’s no market in the world where you can have efficiency unless you have price discovery,” he said. In any marketplace, Coburn said, “you ought to know what things cost, you ought to be able to look at the difference in prices and you ought to be able to see quality outcomes.” Instead, that often is not the case with health care. “No matter what they do, without that you’re never going to lower the cost of health care in this country,” Coburn said. We’ll see as this process unfolds whether his former colleagues address his concern.
Teacher literacy
Public schools have a bad rap — and much of the blame lies with those running the schools. Starting in the 2013-2014 school year, New York officials required prospective teachers to pass four tests before entering a classroom. Now officials plan to scrap one of those tests that measured teacher literacy. The reason: Too many teachers failed the test. The Albany Times Union reports just 46 percent of Hispanics, 41 percent of blacks and 64 percent of whites passed the test on their first try. Critics concluded this meant the test was racially discriminatory, although a judge disagreed. Leslie Soodak, a professor of education at Pace University who supports ending the test, told the Times Union, “Having a white workforce really doesn’t match our student body anymore.” Somehow, we suspect most parents would prioritize having their children taught by someone who is capable over someone with a similar racial background.
Tax ranking
Some critics contend Oklahoma’s budget shortfall is caused not by an economic downturn, but primarily by insufficient taxation. They argue Oklahoma is one of the nation’s lowest-tax states, and suggest higher taxes could be imposed without economic harm and that associated higher levels of government spending are the key to future growth. A new report from WalletHub undermines part of that argument. WalletHub’s analysts compared state and local tax rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, applying the effective income tax rates in each state and locality to the average American’s income. In Oklahoma, WalletHub found the effective total state and local tax rate on the median U.S. household was 10.7 percent, which landed 25th in the country, ranked from lowest to highest. That doesn’t make Oklahoma a truly high-tax state. But it also shows taxes in Oklahoma may be not be at the rockbottom level some critics suggest.
Bad exports
Typically, one would welcome news of growth in Oklahoma exports, but not when what’s being exported is an embarrassing, cringe-worthy idea. In 2012, former Sen. Connie Johnson, D-Oklahoma City, filed an amendment declaring “any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.” Johnson apparently believed her proposal mocked abortion opponents. This month, a Texas state lawmaker pulled a similar stunt. Rep. Jessica Farrar, a Houston Democrat, filed an amendment to fine men $100 for masturbating and create a required booklet for men with medical information regarding vasectomies, Viagra prescriptions and colonoscopies. Farrar said she wanted to make people think. What most people will think is that people like her are not only ideologically obsessed, but also straight-up weird.
Business optimism
Government policy matters. Those who doubt it should note what has happened since Donald Trump became president after promising to roll back the anti-business environment of the Obama administration. Wells Fargo reports its Small Business Index rose 20 points from three months ago, hitting 100. That’s the highest level since the third quarter of 2007. In other words, small-business confidence is already higher under Trump than it was at any point during former President Obama’s two terms. Multiple surveys show similar attitudes based in part on Trump’s call to lower taxes and reduce regulation. Lower health care costs are also expected once many Obamacare provisions are repealed. Democrats may not like it, but business owners are giving every indication the slow growth of the past eight years was substantially due to the bad policies advanced by the Obama administration, not by simple bad luck.