Month: March 2025

• Going after Harvard: It’s not about antisemitism

  March 31, 2025

  So the Trump administration now feels confident enough to go after Harvard, as the NYT and Globe report. But it isn’t really about antisemitism, as the administration claims. As I’ve said previously, it’s mostly about long-standing right-wing animus toward higher-ed’s past and present liberal ways.  It’s about ideology. It’s about payback time. It’s about muzzling dissent. 

  As Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor, told the Globe earlier this month: “They are coming after the universities and they are using antisemitism as an easily available weapon.”

  Update – 4.1.25 – At the Globe, Alan Solomont, a dean emeritus at Tufts,  also rejects the claim that the administration is fighting antisemitism by arresting foreign college students.. …

  To make clear: I firmly believe, and I presume Alan does too, that there’s indeed old and modern versions of antisemitism on most college campuses today. But this isn’t how you fight antisemitism.

  Update II –– 4.2.25 – From the Globe: “Antisemitism is a real problem at Harvard. Canceling $9 billion in grants is not the solution.”

  Update III – 4.2.25 — From WBUR: “Some Boston-area Jews worry Trump’s university crackdowns weaponize antisemitism.”

• What the hell? O’Brien decides not to run for mayor

  March 31, 2025

  

  Maybe he read Hub Blog over the weekend and realized his run for mayor was doomed before it even started? Anyway, Tom O’Brien has decided not to run for mayor, apparently reversing a pre-weekend decision to go for it, the Globe and BBJ report. … What a weird turn of events. … Can I technically say I predicted “Mayor O’Brien” wasn’t going to happen? I mean, after all, it’s not going to happen. … UH’s headline: “Rich guy decides not to run for mayor against the other rich guy and the incumbent.” … I guess this means Josh Kraft will make it to the second round before getting beat by Wu in November. … 

• Hub Blog launches companion newsletter on Substack

  March 31, 2025

  Just to let Hub Blog readers know: I officially launched a companion Hub Blog newsletter this morning, via Substack, where you can sign up. For now, it’s going to be a weekly newsletter, mostly summarizing my previous week’s posts here on HubBlog.com. The newsletter is free – and you can unsubscribe whenever you want. Hopefully, I’ll add new content over time and maybe pursue a paid-subscription model one day.  But that’s a ways off. Until then, enjoy. 

  P.S. – Now that I got you, I’m still working to improve good old HubBlog.com, such as recently figuring out (finally) how to install permalinks. Next up: introducing an ‘About’ section on Hub Blog. It’s trickier than thought partly because, I think, I complicated matters by importing an old Hub Blog site design when I resurrected the blog last year. Or at least that’s my working non-techno theory. Anyway, until I get the ‘About’ section up and running, you can learn more about my background here and you can reach me at jfitzmedia at gmail. Thanks. … J.F.

  Update – 4.1.25 — Thanks to Scott Van Voorhis for the kind words at Contrarian Boston about the new Hub Blog newsletter. … Re other comments from readers: I’m definitely going to be tweaking the newsletter’s design, adding a logo (see above) and more prominent headlines, etc. Right now, it’s a pretty boring and confusing design, I know. I’m also taking out the “pledge your support” buttons that accompanied the inaugural edition. I didn’t know Substack would include the pledge prompt. To emphasize: No need to make a pledge. The newsletter is definitely free . Thanks. … J.F.

• At least Boston’s WilmerHale is fighting back

  March 30, 2025

  Some of Boston’s law firms may have gone silent amid the White House’s effort to isolate and punish firms it politically doesn’t like. But WilmerHale, founded in Boston and co-headquartered here, is fighting back, the BBJ and Reuters report. And WilmerHale and Chicago’s Jenner & Block are scoring some preliminary legal victories, according to a report at ‘BUR.

  Quick aside: Law firms. Colleges. Media outlets. Medical research. Clean energy. What industry is next on the White House’s hit list? 

• NYT: Dems have ‘moved too far left on social issues’

  March 30, 2025

  A moderate Democratic reader texted me a link to this NYT editorial (‘The Democrats Are in Denial About 2024’) with the comment: “When the NY Times says that Democrats are too liberal on social issues then you know that they have gone too far.” …

  Besides saying Dems have “moved too far left on social issues,” the Times editorial also knocks down the incredibly lame arguments that the Dems’ main problem was ‘messaging’ in 2024 and that moving forward they merely have to re-energize last year’s non-voters.

  One other passing thought: I’d argue the Times played its own past role in pushing Dems too far left, via biased political reporting and content that at times made the Times come across as a mouthpiece for progressive causes. But’s that’s a topic for another post.

  Update – 4.1.25 – From James Freeman at the WSJ: “When You’ve Lost the New York Times…”

• Gov. Diana DiZoglio? Also not going to happen

  March 29, 2025

  Might as well get this one out of the way too, re Joe Battenfeld’s piece hyping the possibility/probability that “firebrand” State Auditor Diana DiZoglio will take the plunge and challenge Gov. Maura Healey next year. … DiZoglio’s supporters may be urging her to run. But I think she’ll come to her political senses and not take on the somewhat popular incumbent. DiZoglio is young. She’s only 42. She has plenty of time. She also needs to prove she’s more than a one-issue wonder on Beacon Hill. …

  Plus: Do you sense an anti-incumbent groundswell within the Democratic Party? Maybe outside the party. But not much inside the party. I just don’t see a primary-election insurrection against Healey. 

• Mayor O’Brien? Not going to happen

  March 29, 2025

  Maybe Tom O’Brien’s brother, BC head football coach Bill O’Brien, could defeat Mayor Wu. He’s got decent name recognition. But Tom? Not so much. O’Brien, the former city development czar who plans to announce next week that he’s running for mayor, may be well known within business circles and parts of East Boston, where his investment company has been redeveloping the old Suffolk Downs site. But he’s a non-entity to the vast majority of voters in Boston. The best he can do, I figure, is squeeze past the other mayoral challenger in the race, Josh Kraft, for a head-to-head contest against Wu in November. And then she beats him. …  

  A quick aside: Boston’s business community must really be in a lather these days. O’Brien is the second candidate, after Kraft, to emerge from the general business/establishment world to challenge Wu. Those in the business community talk amongst themselves. They gripe amongst themselves. They reinforce each other’s negative opinions that Wu is a disaster for the business community. They assume everyone else is unhappy with her too. And so … you get candidates like O’Brien and Kraft.

• So the Trump administration now believes in campus ‘speech codes,’  ‘triggers’ and ‘safe spaces’

  March 28, 2025

  Re the shocking detention of Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk, I refer you to Dan Kennedy’s post from Thursday.  This really is a free-speech issue. It’s also a sign that the Trump administration, in its own uniquely weird and indirect way, is enforcing its own version of campus ‘speech codes,’ ‘triggers,’ and ‘safe spaces.’ … I really hope FIRE eventually takes a strong stand on the high-profile Ozturk case. So far it hasn’t, as far as I can tell.

  On another academic-detention front, Adam Gaffin proves once again it’s hard to beat a Universal Hub headline: “Russian researcher who fled dictatorship and got a job at Harvard Medical School now in Louisiana gulag pending possible deportation back to Russia.”

• A shameless early jump onto the Red Sox bandwagon

  March 28, 2025

  Even before yesterday’s opening-day win, I decided to actually follow the Red Sox this year “after five seasons of abject mediocrity,” as the Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy aptly puts it. I decided to resume my old shallow (as opposed to recent non-existent) interest in the Red Sox after reading these MLB 2025 preview predictions by Globe staff writers and figuring it couldn’t hurt to follow the Sox through the first half of the season, after which I could always dump them if they looked like losers again, allowing me to transfer my full mid-summer bandwagon attention to Mike Vrabel and the Pats. … This is my bold declaration: I shall learn the names of all Red Sox starters this season (or at least most of them) and know approximately where they stand in the AL East on any given day (plus or minus a position or two in the standings).

• Local housing mystery: Why carriers are not renewing home-insurance policies in western Mass.

  March 27, 2025

  The BBJ’s William Hall reports that, yes, climate change has led to some insurers not renewing home-insurance policies with customers on Cape Cod. But seven of the state’s top 10 ZIP codes with the most insurance non-renewals are actually in central and western Mass., far from rising sea-level threats. What gives? It’s a little bit of a mystery, but perhaps it’s tied to smaller, locally based insurers pulling back coverage. Hall explains.