20231211

Harvard Under Heightened Pressure After Penn Leaders Ousted

The ominous statement from Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican from upstate New York, came moments after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill announced her resignation on Saturday.

It had been just days since Stefanik had confronted the leaders of Penn, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology on whether calling for the genocide of Jews is against school policy — eliciting narrow legal responses that were slammed by the White House, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, business leaders, alumni and even lampooned on Saturday Night Live.

Since that made-for-social media moment on Dec. 5 in Washington, some of America’s most elite universities have been under unprecedented scrutiny, capping weeks of accusations that schools tolerate antisemitism while decrying other forms of racism and bias.

Protests on campuses against Israel have ignited debate over the limits of free speech and pitted donors and alumni against each other, faculty and students, as well as raising fundamental questions over university independence.

“This is as difficult a moment for elite higher education as any moment since the Vietnam War,” said Larry Summers, a former Harvard president who’s a paid contributor to Bloomberg TV. “Perhaps more difficult.”

Harvard, whose board includes ex-Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and former American Express Co. head Ken Chenault, has issued no such supportive statement since the hearing, even as complaints intensify over Gay’s leadership and board members convened on campus this weekend for a regularly scheduled meeting.

Harvard alum Bill Ackman, who has almost 1 million followers on X, has used the platform to highlight antisemitism on campus while urging Gay be replaced. He’s broadened his criticism to Harvard’s diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which Gay has supported.

EK: This shows how dangerous it is when those with money push their agenda all over the campus as well as the press. And of course, women CEOs are the first victim to go. Too bad she didn’t push her opinion a bit harder if she was going to get fired anyway. Say whatever you need to say before you slam the door.

Trump’s Comeback Bid Haunts Climate Talks in Dubai

As US officials at COP28 try to convince other nations the world’s biggest economy will support them by cutting carbon emissions and building renewables, they’re being undermined by someone who isn’t even at the climate summit in Dubai.

Even if Joe Biden remains in office after the 2024 elections, Republican gains in Congress could put some of the country’s clean energy incentives in jeopardy and make it impossible for the US president to deliver a promised $11 billion in climate finance. It threatens a core element of US credibility in the climate talks, since financial support and carbon cuts from the world’s second-largest emitter are a major determinant of how ambitious the world can be in phasing out fossil fuels and scaling up alternatives.

To negotiators in Dubai, the risk feels especially acute. Some House Republicans want to repeal broad swaths of last year’s sweeping climate law, with a particular focus on Inflation Reduction Act tax credits worth up to $7,500 toward the purchase of new electric vehicles. Just days ago, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing a pollution rule that would compel automakers to ensure two out of every three cars and light trucks sold in 2032 are electric.

The world already knows what happens when the federal government sidelines workers and forgoes the economic upside of clean energy “to serve some base political objectives,” said White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi. “At the end of the day, leadership matters. And you’ve got House Republicans who’ve put up countless efforts to try to roll this back.”

“Once these announcements are made, steel goes into the ground and jobs are created — all across the country,” he said. “When that happens, the value in those communities of keeping those jobs and keeping that renaissance and manufacturing is going to very, very strong.”

Some promises may be harder to keep. Biden’s vow of more than $11 billion in international climate finance by 2024 and a new $3 billion for the UN Green Climate Fund depend on support from Congress. The administration managed to muster at least $9.5 billion in climate finance this year, even with Republicans in charge of the House. But Trump ripped up checks for the Green Climate Fund during his first term, and climate finance reached just $1.5 billion in 2021.

EK: Now, for the sake of the Earth, we don’t want Trump.