The Daily Signal - Congress to Investigate Harvard President, More Than Half US Voters Think TikTok Should Be Banned, Catholic All-Girls College Backpedals on Transgender Policy | Dec. 21

Starting point is 00:00:01 I'm Virginia Allen, and this is the Daily Signal Top News for Thursday, December 21st. Here are today's headlines. Congress is investigating whether Harvard's president plagiarized in her academic work. North Carolina Republican, Representative Virginia Fox, says the House Education Committee is expanding the investigation into Harvard President Claudine Gay to consider allegations of plagiarism. Gay has been accused of committing plagiarism and more. multiple of her academic works. Congresswoman Fox says her concern is that Harvard holds different academic standards for students than it does for faculty. In a letter obtained by Bloomberg,

Starting point is 00:00:55 Fox wrote, if a university is willing to look the other way and not hold faculty accountable for engaging in academically dishonest behavior, it cheapens its mission and the value of its education. Harvard commissioned an investigation previously that concluded that the claims of plagiarism were not substantive. The investigation found that there were only a few instances of inadequate citation in Gay's work. Gay has submitted three updates to her dissertation, which was published in 1997. The updates include adding quotes and citations to properly reference the work of other scholars. Gay has earned a great deal of attention recently after her controversial testimony before the House earlier this month regarding anti-Semitism on Harvard's campus.

Starting point is 00:01:48 During that testimony, Gay would not say if calls for genocide of Jews was in violation of Harvard's code of conduct. Gay later apologized following the hearing and clarified her remarks. She has faced calls to resign, but Harvard's board continues to back her. Congress has left D.C. and gone home for Christmas without legislation to secure America's southern border. Meanwhile, a record number of illegal aliens have been encountered at the southern border this week. Monday and Tuesday saw a combined amount of almost 27,000 illegal alien crossings. With Congress gone for the next several weeks, there's only one person who can do anything about securing the border, and that's President Joe Biden,

Starting point is 00:02:39 and House Speaker Mike Johnson is asking him to do just that. In a letter obtained by Axios, Johnson tells Biden that significant action on the border must start with you. Specifically, Johnson calls on Biden to resume border wall construction and parole programs that are releasing illegal aliens into the interior of the U.S. and to re-implement the remain-in-Mexico policy. Former President Donald Trump implemented the remain in Mexico policy, which requires migrants to wait in Mexico until the date of their asylum hearing. In May, the House passed a border bill called HR2 that would restart construction on the wall and end catch and release, but the Senate has not taken that bill up.

Starting point is 00:03:26 I reached out to the White House to see if they have any plans to take any executive action on border security or immigration issues before the end of the year, but did not receive it. a reply. The state of Utah is being sued for placing age restrictions on social media. The group Net Choice represents Facebook, TikTok, and X. The social media platforms are arguing that Utah is violating First Amendment rights of children and adults in the state because of age restrictions that were set in place in March. If you want to have a Facebook or TikTok account in Utah, you have to be 18. Now, you can have an account if you're younger than that. You just have to have the consent, written consent, of a parent. Utah implemented that law in an effort to mitigate some of the harmful effects that social media has been proven to have on young people.

Starting point is 00:04:23 Utah Governor Spencer Cox says that he's confident that they will defeat the legal challenge brought against the law. But that remains to be seen. Net Choice did succeed in temporarily blocking Arkansas's age verification law in August, according to Axios. But in other social media-related news, a new poll finds that 54% of American voters think that TikTok should be banned in the U.S. The poll was conducted by RMG Research, which is a polling firm, led by Scott Rasmussen. 1,000 registered voters were polled between December 18th and 19th. The poll found that more than half of all American voters view TikTok as somewhat or very dangerous. TikTok's parent company BiteDance is headquartered in Beijing and is subject to China's information sharing policies, meaning that China can access user data.

Starting point is 00:05:22 We're going to leave a link in today's show notes to Rob Bleuie's full report on that polling data. A Catholic All-Girls College is backing down. on its transgender policy after receiving some significant backlash. St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana, announced in the fall that it would admit men who identify as women into the school. But this week, the college said it was reversing that decision. The Daily Signals, Mary Margaret Ollahan, has been covering this story, and she joins us now. Mary Margaret, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Well, can you explain what exactly this policy was that St. Mary's College put in place and then announced that they were reversing? Yes, so St. Mary's, right before Thanksgiving actually, sent out an email to the students and staff and let them know that they were considering allowing men who identify as women to enroll in the university.

Starting point is 00:06:21 And I think it's important to note here that St. Mary's is an all-female institution and has been for a long time, and this decision was going to allow men to enroll in the university. I think they were surprised to find that there was a lot of pushback to this decision. Many alumni were very upset. It is a Catholic institution, and so those who had attended the institution and are faithful Catholics pointed out that this goes against Catholic teaching, which teaches that a man is a man and a woman is a woman and that they cannot change their gender. All right, so Mary Margaret, it was interesting to see the response that came from the president of the college, President Katie Convoy, in response to some of the outcry and really vocal opposition to the school announcing that they would allow men who identify as women into the school. Can you share some of the president's remarks? Yes, I found this really interesting because when the president sent out this email today, which the daily signal obtained and it says that the school is no longer going to be instituting this policy that allows men who identifies women to enroll at St. Mary's.

Starting point is 00:07:30 In the email, the president talked about how some in the community, the St. Mary's community and alumni did not want to be part of this kind of trailblazing effort to set policy at a Catholic school on. this matter. So that indicated to me and to others that St. Mary's was interested in kind of being a trailblazer in this instance and in saying, look, a Catholic institution can have men who identify as women enrolled. But thanks to the St. Mary's network of alumni and their community, these individuals came forward and said, no, you can't. That is not in line with Catholic teaching. So then since the school has announced that they're not following through on this policy change and they're going to continue to truly be an all-girls school, what has the reaction been from students there and from Catholics in the community at large?

Starting point is 00:08:24 Well, I've heard some very excited reaction. A lot of thanking God from different women who have reached out to me, alumni, as well as a student that is currently enrolled, Claire Batag, who is, a conservative and has kind of pushed back against the school administration on a number of occasions, such as when the school tried to tell her that she could not have a TPOSA chapter at St. Mary's because of TPSA's st.mases on transgender ideology. I also spoke with Catholic votes, Brian Birch, who said that this is a great move in showing that a Catholic institution cannot be embracing stances that go against Catholic teaching. Excellent. Well, Mary Margaret, we

Starting point is 00:09:06 appreciate your reporting on this. We will leave a link in today's show notes to your full article, but appreciate your time. Thank you. The Daily Signals, Tony Connett, is reporting that Butler University in Indianapolis launched an official investigation into its College Republicans chapter this fall. The investigation was launched after the College Republicans chapter criticized in October 12th students for justice in Palestine protest that included anti-Semitism chance. This is what the protest sounded like. So you can hear there that they are shouting long live Palestine. Well, in response to the school's investigation of that Republican chapter, Representative Jim Banks sent a letter to Butler University demanding answers over the investigation.

Starting point is 00:10:09 Banks wrote in the letter, your investigation not only risks having a chilling effect on students' free speech, but reasonably could lead outside observers, including myself, to believe that Butler University is targeting its college Republicans chapter because of its own political biases. Butler University has refused to share any details with the daily signal concerning details related to the ethics or basis for their investigation. You can check out today's show notes for Tony Connett's full reporting on this issue. Well, a quick announcement before we go today,

Starting point is 00:10:46 we don't have a top news edition tomorrow on Friday, but we are wrapping up the week before Christmas with a conversation, very timely conversation, with Hillsdale College Professor Dwight Lindley to discuss the history of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Next week, we are bringing you the best of 2023 podcast series every morning starting on Tuesday.

Starting point is 00:11:11 These are the top interview shows from 2023. I'm so excited to share these. conversations with you all starting next Tuesday. We do not have any top news shows next week either. So today's top news edition is our last for 2023. We'll be back with you with top news shows, keeping you up to date on all the news of the day in the first week of January. But we hope that you enjoy the conversation tomorrow morning with Professor Lindley, as we discussed, Charles Dickens of Christmas Carol. And then, of course, our best of 2023 episodes. releasing all next week.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Have a wonderful Christmas. We hope it's filled with joy and peace and lots of rest and family and good food. And we hope that you as well might take a minute over the Christmas holiday and leave the Daily signal a five-star rating and review wherever you like to listen to podcasts. It's a huge blessing and gift to us to see your feedback and to know what you like about the show and where we can improve. So please take a minute over the holiday to do that. a very Merry Christmas.

Starting point is 00:12:19 We will see you right back here tomorrow morning for my conversation with Professor Dwight Lindley as we discuss Charles Dickens at Christmas Carol. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Luey and Kate Trinco. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit you.

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The Daily Signal - Congress to Investigate Harvard President, More Than Half US Voters Think TikTok Should Be Banned, Catholic All-Girls College Backpedals on Transgender Policy | Dec. 21

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