NYC NOW - April 12, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Eric Adams announces a new “rat czar,” Governor Phil Murphy defends his signing a bill overhauling the state’s election finance rules. Also, Columbia University has a new plan to open up a global center in Tel Aviv, Israel. But the proposal has divided the school’s faculty with hundreds of supporters and opponents taking a stand. The debate takes place against the backdrop of recent widespread political protest and unrest in Israel. WNYC’s Michael Hill spoke with senior reporter for the WNYC Race & Justice Unit, Arun Venogopal about the proposed plan.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, April 12th. Here's your midday news from Michael Hill. New York City Mirror, Eric Adams has finally announced a new rat czar to help reduce the rodent population in New York City. Kathleen Corita will now spearhead efforts to curb the rat population, strategizing with various agencies to eliminate the rodents. Corita handled rat mitigation efforts under the City Education Department as part of her long history battling vermin. She says she had as a strategy in mind. I will bring a science and systems-based approach to reducing New York City's rat population. With a strong focus on cutting off the food, water, and shelter rats need to survive.

The search for a rat czar goes back months. Several hundred people applied for that position. Governor Phil Murphy is defending, signing a bill overhauling the state's election finance rules in New Jersey. Speaking on WNIC's Ask Governor Murphy last night, the governor says the law is not perfect but does bring more transparency. Far too much of the money in politics was going to outside organizations. It's a natural reality. They're legal. They're allowed.

Whether we like it or not, they exist. And far too little money is going in to the hard money side, the institutional candidate side. of the ledger. The Elections Transparency Act requires a certain donations made to so-called dark-wanted groups to be made public for the first time, but it also doubles most limits on campaign donations and replaces local pay-to-play laws with looser state standards and insureds the statute of limitations on campaign finance violations from 10 years all the way down to two. 76 with sunshine out there, mostly sunny in 81 today, 85 tomorrow, and Friday. Columbia University has a new plan to open a global center in Tel Aviv, Israel, but the proposal has

divided the school's faculty with hundreds of supporters and opponents taking a public stand. The debate takes place against a backdrop of recent, widespread political protest and unrest in Israel. WNYC's Arun Venegal-Paul has been following the controversy, and he joins us now. Arun, good morning. Good morning, Michael. Before we get into the debate, Tell us about the university's plans for Tel Aviv. Well, this is the 11th so-called global center that the university has opened.

The first was in Beijing in 2009, followed by other global cities, Istanbul, Mumbai, Paris. These aren't full-fledged campuses. They don't offer degrees, but they're places where the university likes to convene intellectuals from across a given region, fostered discussion, especially with people from different disciplines. Now, a letter of support for the center in Tel Aviv has been signed by 173 faculty members, while the letter raising concerns has been signed by 107 faculty. What are some of those concerns? Well, broadly speaking, the critics of the center in Tel Aviv have a couple of issues. One is access, and the other is the timing of this announcement.

One of the scholars who has problems of the project, her name is Catherine Frankie. She was barred from entering Israel a few years ago. She's a legal scholar or a human rights lawyer due to her work with the group Jewish Voice for Peace and her criticism of what she refers to as Israel's apartheid policies. And Frankie says this center is not going to be accessible to various people. Palestinian students, faculty members like herself, students at Columbia who have been critical of the Israeli government. Let's hear her now. We would never tolerate this in the United States.

not allowing people to participate in Colombia programs because they have a criticism of the United States foreign policy, but we're doing exactly that in the state of Israel. And in terms of the timing, Frankie and other scholars say this announcement comes at the same moment that there have been these massive protests across Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans, these very controversial plans for a judicial overhaul. And critics like her say it's just really poor timing on the part of Columbia University to be moving forward with this project at this moment. All right. What's the case that supporters of the project are making? Well, supporters say that there are global centers like this in all sorts of countries,

and that these include countries with worse human rights records in Israel. For instance, there are centers in India and Kenya, which are rated partly free by the organization Freedom House, as well as centers in China, Jordan, and Turkey, all of which are rated not free. Israel is rated by Freedom House as free. Esra Fuchs is a political scientist at Columbia and a supporter of the project. She says she disagrees with the Nahu government, and she also opposes barring anyone from Colombia at centers like this. But she still thinks that engagement is just critical. So there's something kind of twisted about this idea that we shouldn't be engaged. in places where we have political disagreements.

The Academy needs to be open to these conversations. Or where else are we going to have the conversations? These global centers have been a project of Columbia University's president. How is he responding to this debate? Well, the president is Lee Bollinger. And at the time of the announcement, he said, I quote him, it is more important than ever for Columbia to continue seeking to advance inquiry and learning across border.

But critics of the project say they have tried repeatedly to meet with him. They want to voice their concerns and get insurances at the center is going to advocate for access to all students and faculty, and that it shouldn't shy from discussions on really difficult subjects, and that he simply hasn't agreed to meet with them. But Ben Chang, he is a spokesman for the university. He told me, Columbia University, will always work towards full accessibility of its facilities to all members of the Columbia Community. Arun, do we know when this particular center will open? So far we don't, Michael. They haven't established when that opening date is.

WNYC is Arun Van de Gaulle Paul. Arun, thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.