City Journal

In 1964, the New York Times published an article by Junius Griffin about a supposed gang called the Blood Brothers. He wrote that the members, all black, were “roaming the streets of Harlem with the avowed intention of attacking white people.” Just one problem: none of it was true. When outside reporters tried to follow up on the story, they couldn’t. One of Griffin’s sources said he had only heard rumors about the gang. And when asked to follow up after supposedly having met with the Blood Brothers, Griffin said he could no longer locate them. “Griffin must have sensed that his lurid portrait of ghetto life would be titillating to his white editors,” John McMillian writes. “The Times hired Griffin specifically to cover news from the black community, and he gave his bosses what he must have thought they wanted.” It’s the same dynamic that played out in the recent Jason Arday debacle. “Arday’s biography seemed to exemplify values prized in higher education for years: diversity, inclusion, triumph over adversity, and the elevation of historically underrepresented scholars,” McMillian observes. “Both embarrassing episodes offer the same lesson: when narratives about race confirm what credentialed elites already believe, their skepticism is likely to desert them.” Read the full piece: https://lnkd.in/eu5VHzdj

The University of Michigan has announced that it will exclude grades from overall GPA totals for some freshmen undergraduates starting in fall 2027. Officially, the university claims this new “covered grading” pilot program is aimed at curbing the “mental health crisis” among first-year students. But as Neetu Arnold argues, officials may have other reasons for the move: “U-M’s discussions around covered grading indicate that the policy isn’t so much about giving type-A high achievers a break as it is about softening academic expectations to accommodate the consequences of the university’s own admissions decisions.” Whatever their motive, university officials could soon regret instituting the policy. Johns Hopkins University canceled a similar program in 2016 after professors found that it “delay[ed] development of study skills and adaptation to college-level work,” “negatively impact[ed] students who perform well,” and was “not well-received by graduate schools and potential employers.” Read the rest of Arnold’s piece here: https://lnkd.in/eiZcNCrK

What is a woman? The WNBA may soon be forced to give an answer. Two former NBA players—Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White—have declared their intention to enter the WNBA draft, with White saying that he identifies as a woman for purposes of playing professional basketball. Is it a stunt? Perhaps. “But calling something a stunt does not mean it won’t be effective in providing clarity about where the WNBA truly stands on the question of transgender inclusion,” maintains Colin Wright. The WNBA is now faced with a choice, argues Wright: either block Freedom and White or “allow them in and create a spectacle so absurd, and an angry backlash so extreme, that indifference on the ‘What is a woman?’ question would be impossible to sustain.” Read Wright’s analysis here: https://lnkd.in/eVj4CFMG

New York City’s civic culture runs on philanthropy. From operas to museums, food banks, universities, and world-class hospitals, private donors are key players in making the city a magnet for people from across the country and around the world. But democratic socialists like Mayor Zohran Mamdani don't believe in philanthropy—they believe in heavy taxation and government spending. “The mayor doesn’t want to ask wealthy corporations and people for more money so much as take it—gleefully,” writes Nicole Gelinas. Hence, the mayor’s mass firing, earlier this month, of the advisory board of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City—a philanthropic vehicle transformed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg into a multimillion-dollar funder of everything from hurricane relief to arts facilities to poverty-reduction and summer-jobs programs for youth. The problem with Mayor Mamdani’s philosophy is that “government money, even in a high-tax, high-spend city, is never infinite,” writes Gelinas. “Mamdani should not alienate the city’s donor class, because he can’t replace it with city government.” https://lnkd.in/emF6e5Hs

During a recent Manhattan Institute focus group, San Francisco residents described, variously, being held at gunpoint, bitten by a stranger, pushed off a bus, and robbed. They noted the public drug use, mental illness, and car break-ins that have become rampant around the city in recent years. Even so, they are hopeful. “Participants who had lived through San Francisco’s worst pandemic years described cleaner streets today, a busier downtown, returning companies, and a city that felt more serious about restoring order,” Jesse Arm and Christopher F. Rufo write. “Their optimism was cautious but real.” Nearly everyone pointed to affordability as an unresolved issue, and a few residents still felt the city was moving in the wrong direction. But most praised Mayor Daniel Lurie for his leadership and willingness to focus on basic governance. “This is the encouraging lesson of San Francisco’s recovery,” Arm and Rufo observe. “A city does not have to change parties before it can change direction.” Read more about what voters had to say. https://lnkd.in/ekcnvnPR

Over her five fiscal years as governor, New York’s Kathy Hochul has increased the state’s operating budget by 40 percent ($46 billion). That’s the largest five-year increase since the late 1980s. The budget is now in uncharted territory, E. J. McMahon and Ken Girardin observe. It is “larger than ever, structurally unbalanced, and growing at an unsustainable pace,” they write, “yet temporarily flush with more surplus cash than Albany has ever seen.” That cash comes from pandemic aid and a surge in tax revenues. The massive growth in spending, meantime, comes thanks to a 60 percent surge in New York’s share of Medicaid outlays and local aid to school districts, which has grown even for those with shrinking enrollments. “Reducing New York’s tax burden would require substantial and sustained reforms to public education and Medicaid, both of which would mean confronting the state’s powerful public-sector unions, something that Hochul has shown little appetite for doing,” McMahon and Girardin write. “The state’s annual spending commitments already exceed projected recurring revenues, pointing to multibillion-dollar budget gaps beyond the current fiscal year.”

Jason S. Miyares was Virginia’s attorney general from 2022 to 2026. During his time in office, he worked with Governor Glenn Youngkin to spur job creation, moving the state’s ranking from 46th in the nation post-Covid to the top five. They brought down the state’s murder rate from its 20-year high. They worked with law enforcement to reduce drug overdose deaths from record highs. Their fiscal discipline helped to produce budget surpluses every year. “Some dubbed it the ‘Virginia Renaissance,’” Miyares writes. But it’s a renaissance no more, thanks to Governor Abigail Spanberger’s policies. Higher taxes, more regulations, refusal to work with federal authorities, forced collective bargaining, and gerrymandering have all undermined the previous administration’s accomplishments. “In doing so, Governor Abigail Spanberger has managed to become one of the least popular governors in modern state history after a little more than half a year in office,” Miyares observes. Read more. https://lnkd.in/ejXBb6Qk

It’s common for governments to interfere in bond yields. Japan did this for decades by buying its own debt (to keep yields low) and passing regulations so that entities like pension funds buy the debt. Governments intervene because they want to choose the borrowing price—not let the market decide. “But intervention has its limits,” Allison Schrager writes. Indeed, Japan eventually had to contend with inflation, thanks to the low rates that were putting upward pressure on prices. “This is Tokyo’s third intervention this year,” Schrager observes, “and the markets keep coming for the Yen because yields remain too low relative to other countries, let alone to the Japanese economic outlook.” https://lnkd.in/eNYqATdU

For much of his political career, Gavin Newsom has presented himself as a champion of open government. But when City Journal’s California team has requested public records from Newsom-controlled agencies, they’ve run into repeated roadblocks—and have experienced similar stonewalling tactics at the local level. Christopher Rufo, Santiago Vidal Calvo, and Ryan Thorpe review the governor’s record on transparency and recount the repeated delays and denials that City Journal reporters have encountered after filing records requests in Newsom’s California. These failures, they suggest, are not accidental, and raise questions about Newsom’s commitment to open government. “Until the governor chooses to do the right thing, live up to his commitments to transparency, and release records to the public,” they write, “it is entirely legitimate to ask: What is Gavin Newsom hiding?” https://lnkd.in/e5WW9xyh

In College Sports, a Looming Collision Between Equity and Market Value Since the 1990s, Title IX has required that men’s and women’s sports be able to access the same resources and achieve proportional parity—so, for example, if women make up 55 percent of the undergraduate student body, they should make up 55 percent of athletic slots as well. But 2025’s House v. NCAA settlement puts college sports on a collision course with this requirement, allowing schools to share revenue with athletes—revenue that will likely go to the athletes who generate the most value. “Football and men’s basketball generate the overwhelming share of television revenue, ticket sales, and donor support at major programs,” Scott Yenor explains. Allocating money to those athletes “invites challenges that the distribution violates Title IX’s requirement for equitable treatment,” he writes. Read more. https://lnkd.in/e2QsNscf