It’s not an exaggeration to say that conservative shareholder engagement is changing the corporate game. For years, Left-wing activists controlled the agendas at our largest companies, using not only their leverage as stockholders but their perpetual devotion to activism to get in the ear of America’s boards and directors. The result? Leftward drift in virtually every major company. But now conservative shareholders, from ordinary investors to major conservative nonprofits, are stepping into the game — and their engagements are bearing major fruit. The latest proof? IBM.
IBM’s track record on corporate bias and activism is notorious. The company was a member of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), a group created by the World Federation of Advertisers that worked to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-daily-wire-addresses-the-ad-industry-following-the-fall-of-garm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">keep ad revenue away</a> from conservative news sites like the Daily Wire to free speech-centric platforms like X. And that’s before all the DEI concerns surfaced. After IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was caught on a <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1734374423124176944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1734374423124176944%7Ctwgr%5E42e55266e59ec08d85550be6ab044097866bd072%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdallasexpress.com%2Fbusiness-markets%2Fceo-of-tech-corp-ibm-enshrines-dei-hiring%2F">hot mic</a> discussing how the company uses quotas of ‘underrepresented’ minorities in determining their executive pay — in Krishna’s words, execs have “got to move both [race and gender] forward by a percentage point” in order to get a higher bonus. That means DEI. That means quotas. Following these snafus, the reputational, ethical, and (in the case of the Missouri AG who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/missouri-attorney-general-sues-tech-giant-ibm-alleging-discrimination-against-whites-asians-men" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> IBM) legal scrutiny was swift in coming.
IBM’s motto since its early years has been “THINK,” referring to the innovative spirit with which the company solves problems. Yet when it came to political bias, that motto was missing in action — and shareholders took notice. In January, the firm I work for, Bowyer Research, began <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-expands-efforts-hold-corporate-america-accountable-end-its-discriminatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">work</a> with the Heritage Foundation to hold IBM accountable for the DEI quotas that Krishna described. The argument? Simple — use of non-meritocratic quotas based on race and gender aren’t just bad for reputation, but illegal on their face and bad for business. Shareholders, from major nonprofits to ordinary mom-and-pop investors, shouldn’t have their business returns impacted by IBM’s belief in identity politics.
As the shareholder engagement heated up on the internal front, pressure from <a href="https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far" target="_blank" rel="noopener">journalists</a> and <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1910425361034383545" target="_blank" rel="noopener">influencers</a> like Robby Starbuck increased on the external front. That pressure built and built — and the release began earlier this month, when IBM announced the end of many of its DEI initiatives and related goals, including the elimination of its diversity council, the phaseout of its supplier diversity initiatives, and no longer participating in surveys put out by radical corporate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-radical-intolerance-behind-woke-corporate-activism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activist groups</a> like the Human Rights Campaign, which pressures companies to cover puberty blocker access for employees’ children in the name of “health care access.”
That would have been news enough — until several days ago, when IBM also <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-foundation-secures-commitment-viewpoint-neutrality-ibm-encourages-company" target="_blank" rel="noopener">agreed</a> to include viewpoint neutrality as part of its advertising policy in response to Heritage’s shareholder engagement. That means that biased, activist-driven, political censorship that ad cartels like GARM perpetuate is now explicitly banned under IBM corporate policy. IBM listened to its shareholders, its employees, and its customers — and the result is another company willing to make commitments to political neutrality. This is what happens when authentic shareholder advocacy, championing political neutrality, merges with external pressure to drop corporate bias: change happens, and happens in the form of concrete policy commitments, not just boilerplate PR statements. It’s a praiseworthy step.
But is the scrutiny over? Absolutely not. IBM needs to demonstrate that they’re committed to actually staying the course on being politically-neutral and quota-free. Outstanding questions remain. During our engagement on behalf of Heritage, the company <a href="https://www.sec.gov/files/corpfin/no-action/14a-8/heritageibm3325-14a8.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notably claimed</a> to the SEC that they couldn’t give a definition of DEI as grounds to ignore shareholder concerns — so how did they go from not knowing what DEI is to getting rid of it? (You can probably guess how.) The company holds its annual meeting of shareholders today, and if they’re savvy will make a point of focusing their messaging on business, not activism.
Achieving the commitment to neutrality at IBM was the result of a myriad of groups, from shareholders like Heritage to <a href="https://adflegal.org/press-release/sec-sides-with-adf-denies-absurd-attempt-from-govt-contractor-ibm-to-hide-from-shareholders-on-dei-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">legal giants</a> like Alliance Defending Freedom to the courageous IBM employees willing to speak out about the bias behind the scenes. And it’s going to take all of those groups to be vigilant now — not paying attention to our boardrooms is what got us into the woke mess in the first place.
This is the next phase of rooting out bias and wokeness from corporate America — watching tirelessly to see whether companies that commit to ditching DEI are actually willing to put their messaging and money where their mouths are. Smart companies will be willing to commit to change. Foolish ones will hope to either avoid scrutiny altogether or reintroduce the same tired DEI policies under the guise of <a href="https://www.shrm.org/executive-network/insights/time-to-add-b-for-belonging-to-workplace-dei-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">phrases</a> like “belonging.” It’s our job, as shareholders, as customers, and as Americans, to keep up the pressure for accountability with the leverage that we’ve been given. And above all, to make the case for what truly makes every company successful: the courage to resist activism and the fortitude to focus on business.
* * *
Isaac Willour is an award-winning journalist focusing on race, culture, and American conservatism, as well as a corporate relations analyst at Bowyer Research. His work has been featured at outlets including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Opinion, C-SPAN, and The Daily Wire. He is a member of the Young Voices contributor program and can be found on X <a href="https://twitter.com/IsaacWillour" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Traders On The Floor Of The New York Stock Exchange As Fed Chair Powell Holds New Conference

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G.K. Chesterton <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43811/stfrancisproblem.htm">wrote</a> of St. Francis of Assisi, “But after all, this man was a man and not half a dozen men. What seems inconsistency to you did not seem inconsistency to him.”
We should keep this same principle in mind today as we continue to pray for the repose of Pope Francis’s soul — and assess what we can learn from his legacy, both good and bad.
Much like the great saint whom he chose as his namesake and clearly intended to emulate, Pope Francis confounded caricature and was often misunderstood. In his life, and especially over the course of his pontificate, this quality often led to confusion for the faithful. No doubt, that pattern of confusion will be one hallmark of Francis’s papacy.
If we hope to learn from the life of Pope Francis, however, we must start by rejecting the mainstream media’s depiction of him as a “liberal” pope. Since his death, the New York Times has been filled with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/pope-francis-gay-muddle.html'" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headlines</a> regarding his perspective on “LGBTQ people,” women deacons, or the Church’s teaching on birth control. But while these may be important issues to the opinion writers of the New York Times, they were not central to Pope Francis’s work.
A much better place to begin is, well, the beginning: those early years of the pontificate when an energetic and vigorous Pope Francis set out to reform the Vatican’s bureaucracy and put an emphasis on serving the poor and taking care of the sick.
<div id="attachment_913279" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-913279" class="size-large wp-image-913279" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg" alt="VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - MARCH 31: Pope Francis embraces a boy prior to his first 'Urbi et Orbi' blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica during Easter Mass on March 31, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis delivered his message to the gathered faithful from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Square after his first Holy week as Pontiff. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Franco Origlia/Getty Images</div>
I will never forget when the Pope, in 2013, reached down and kissed a man suffering from neurofibromatosis, a rare disease which had left him disfigured with boils all over his head. And this was far from the only example. In his first year in the seat of St. Peter, Pope Francis made a point of <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/26889/pope-francis-to-offer-hope-by-washing-young-inmates-feet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">washing the feet</a> of 12 young people at a juvenile detention center, <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/27588/pope-francis-invites-homeless-to-dine-at-vatican" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inviting</a> 200 homeless people to dine at the Vatican, and living in a modest guest house rather than the Apostolic Palace.
With this radical humility, Pope Francis — the first Pope from the global South, where the Church continues to grow — reminded the decadent old continent that the cultural inheritance of Christendom is not in attending U.N. Conferences, but the corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, and give alms to the poor.
Yet as much as Pope Francis loved the poor, he was not a humble Franciscan friar but a savvy Jesuit political operator whose initial attention to the corporal works of mercy — though never entirely lost — soon gave way to practical considerations about what would secure his power over the Church. And unfortunately, as he aged and became more entangled in the politics of the Vatican, Pope Francis became vulnerable to manipulation by his advisers as well as the media and indeed made many missteps that confused and divided his flock.
Examples abound. One week he would promote the blessing of “unions of persons of the same sex.” The next he would say that marriage will always be the union of one man and one woman. On one occasion, he declared that abortion was akin to “hiring a hitman,” while nevertheless appointing a pro-abortion economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
And because of his excessive reliance on the likes of Cardinal Blase Cupich — the radical progressive archbishop of Chicago whom he appropriately dubbed “the little woman” — Pope Francis was especially misguided in his approach to more conservative segments of the Church. He imposed serious restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which is growing rapidly in the United States. And despite his frequent denunciation of “clericalism,” he upended, for no apparent reason, the constitution of Opus Dei, a prelature distinguished for promoting the role of the laity in the Church’s mission.
In short, rather than working with the young, vibrant, and faithful segments of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis attacked them, choosing instead to champion progressive prelates and priests like Father James Martin, a Jesuit who pushes the Catholic church to abandon the traditional definition of marriage.
<div id="attachment_720181" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-720181" class="size-large wp-image-720181" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg" alt="MALMO, SWEDEN - OCTOBER 31: Pope Francis gives a speech during the 'Together in Hope' event at Malmo Arena on October 31, 2016 in Malmo, Sweden. The Pope is on 2 days visit attending Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration in Lund and Malmo. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Campanella/Getty Images</div>
In spite of his own opposition to these groups, however, Pope Francis’s pontificate witnessed a surge of conservative young people converting to Catholicism, in America and around the world. This Easter, dioceses across the United States <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/easter-converts-2024-by-the-numbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> 30%, 40%, 50%, and even 70% increases in the number of converts coming into the Church on Easter Vigil. Young people seeking stability and rootedness account for most of these conversions, and the same phenomenon is happening in <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263349/france-sees-record-10384-adult-baptisms-in-2025-45-percent-increase-as-young-catholics-lead-revival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France</a> and <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263329/surge-in-adults-entering-church-in-england-this-easter-prompted-by-internet-tradition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">England</a>, where a <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggestshttps:/www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> shows that Gen Z Catholics now outnumber Anglicans two to one.
Amid this renewed interest in the Catholic Church, one of the great tragedies of Pope Francis’s papacy is that his misguided opposition to traditional religious communities and conservative political policies may have given many of these young Catholics the impression that a focus on serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and carrying out the other corporal works of mercy is somehow at odds with tradition and orthodoxy.
Let me be clear: this is not and never has been the case.
Christ tells his disciples in Matthew 25, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” The corporal works of mercy are essential for all Christians, regardless of denomination or political party. And beyond informing our personal faith, they also must guide our efforts to reclaim our institutions and restore our country.
Moreover, Pope Francis’s liberal posturing on things like the environment may obscure his urgent message to modernity. Consider the late Pope’s 2015 “global warming” encyclical, Laudato Si. While it did include entire sections on “pollution and climate change” which the liberal media fawned over and promoted, its deeper argument — that we have failed to “safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology” — was profoundly conservative and largely ignored.
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis beautifully lays out how a “technocratic paradigm” has led us to accept “every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings.” And in pursuit of this “unlimited human power,” he argues, we have undermined the various conditions that help us flourish: destroyed God’s majestic creation, contracepted our God-given gift to create life, and dishonored God’s plan for men and women to be different.
This message — not misguided one-off statements on airplane interviews or liberal media headlines about hot button political issues — is what we should take away from Pope Francis’s papacy.
Modernity, despite all its advances, has robbed us of many of the most basic spiritual and moral resources we need to flourish and be truly happy. To recover them, we don’t need complex coding or advanced AI, but rather, as Pope Francis sought to remind us, simply to follow the lessons Jesus taught us about serving our fellow man.
Much like the early parts of his pontificate, Pope Francis’s final days reflected this message.
On Sunday, the Pope’s last day on Earth, he met with Vice President JD Vance, squashing their public spat. He used his Easter message to make an appeal for peace in the world&#8217;s most war-torn regions. And finally, he made one last loop through St. Peter’s square, stopping several times to bless babies brought up to him and wish all his “brothers and sisters” a “Happy Easter.”
May he rest in peace, mixed legacy and all — and may his brother cardinals be inspired to choose a successor capable of combining Pope Francis’s initial emphasis on the corporal works with a steadfast commitment to tradition, both of which were sorely lacking in the final years of the Holy Father’s life.
* * *
Kevin Roberts is the President of The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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What Can We Learn From Pope Francis?

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It’s hard to keep track of all the immigration cases that blew up once President Trump started securing our borders and enforcing U.S. immigration law only three months ago.
The latest <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25897170-chnvparole041425/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decision</a> by Massachusetts District Court judge Indira Talwani was an unjustified and baseless nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s decision last month to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-pulling-legal-status-more-than-530k-migrants" target="_blank" rel="noopener">end the parole status</a> for half a million Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan nationals.
Nationwide injunctions by federal judges are based on dubious authority and threaten the separation of powers doctrine in the Constitution – the checks and balances that hold this nation together. The sooner Congress and the Supreme Court implement and enforce clear limits on this, the better.
But it’s not just the sweeping executive power that Judge Talwani, an Obama appointee, asserts is the problem. It’s also the bewildering double-standard applied to the Biden and Trump administrations on immigration.
Americans want to believe that once appointed, judges do their best to follow the Constitution and the law. But it gets harder each time we see a ruling that stretches logic and law to reach a conclusion that aligns with politics. We’ve seen so many in the past few years, including the many “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/video/series/wonder-land-henninger/wsj-opinion-the-high-price-of-democrats-anti-trump-lawfare/04D0426F-2196-433D-B6FF-56BCA3688D79?mod=bizbuysell_trending_now_video_pos1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawfare</a>” cases brought against President Trump since his first term.
Let’s get our heads around immigration parole. Aliens who want to come to the U.S. need a visa. In exceptional cases, Congress provided a <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title8-section1182&amp;num=0&amp;edition=prelim" target="_blank" rel="noopener">limited power</a> for the executive (exercised by the President through his Secretary of Homeland Security) to parole aliens for limited periods. When that period ends, they go back to whatever status they had before.
In 1996, Congress tightened the rules, clarifying that parole could only be granted on a “case-by-case basis,” and strictly “for urgent humanitarian reasons” or a “significant public benefit.” Parole isn’t a path to permanent status.
Blatantly violating the clear limits set by Congress, Biden perverted parole to invent a slew of “McVisa” programs to benefit groups he liked and to bypass numerical caps.
Biden’s DHS started paroling illegal aliens caught at the border, arguing that they didn’t have room to detain them. This <a href="https://cis.org/Arthur/Federal-Judge-Vacates-Bidens-ParoleATD-Border-Release-Policy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Parole+ATD”</a> was shut down by a federal judge who <a href="https://legacy.myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/GPEY-CPQPAB/%24file/final%20order.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">found</a> the president didn’t have the authority to give illegal aliens a free pass into the country.
In August 2021, Biden invented Operation Allies Welcome to let in thousands of Afghans. In theory, these were supposed to be the ones who’d helped the U.S. and whose lives might be in danger under the Taliban, but in practice, many got in through fraud or had nothing to do with our efforts in their country. Some were even criminals and suspected terrorists.
Then in April 2022, Biden <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/ukraine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">began</a> a Uniting for Ukraine program to bring people in from that country, even though (a) you might wonder why the men weren’t home fighting Russia, and (b) why they could not have claimed asylum in neighboring European countries instead of the U.S.
In January 2023, Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/05/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-border-enforcement-actions/">rolled out</a> a Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan Parole program allowing up to 30,000 nationals from those four countries per month to enter the U.S.
Then he added up to 1,400 appointments a day for nationals of any country to schedule their illegal entry into the U.S. using the <a href="https://cis.org/Arthur/Whats-Biden-Doing-Migrants-Ports-Entry">CBP One</a> phone app, as long as they claimed to be in Mexico. Nearly all of them ended up getting <a href="https://cis.org/Arthur/958-Percent-Illegal-Migrants-Who-Preschedule-Their-Illegal-Entries-Are-Allowed">paroled</a> once they showed up at a U.S. port of entry.
Finally, in June 2024, Biden tried but failed to give a de facto amnesty via parole to over a million illegal aliens who were married to American citizens. Who knows how far a “President Harris” could have continued with parole-a-palooza, had she won.
All told, Biden used bogus parole programs to bring in over 1.5 million inadmissible illegal aliens.
Even though the law specifically says a president can’t use parole to bypass the U.S. official refugee program, that was clearly the intent. The Biden administration expected them all to claim asylum and live here while their cases dragged on for years or decades. But not all of them bothered to make that claim, figuring parole would just be extended. Bad bet.
Trump revoked the CHNV parole – as was his rightful power as president – in March. What Biden did, even if it wasn’t right, Trump had the power to undo.
For Judge Talwani to now tell Trump he can’t revoke parole for 530,000 paroled CHNV nationals without a “case-by-case” review is rich indeed. Does she seriously think that every one of the 30,000 CHNV applicants Biden let in per month was examined and approved on a “case-by-case” basis? Sure, if we say every fan let into Yankee Stadium for a game has been admitted “case-by-case.” If it simply means ‘one-by-one’, then Secretary of Homeland Security Noem can certify that, and it will be just as true as it was when former Secretary Mayorkas did.
Federal immigration law is very clear that the president has wide discretion to deny or revoke visas and remove aliens on national security or discretionary grounds. He can do or undo parole as well.
Joe Biden violated the law when he provided mass parole to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. No judge should be able to stop a successor president from undoing the harm a prior president has done, particularly harm that was done by ignoring, twisting, and breaking the law.
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Simon Hankinson is a Senior Research Fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

White House Homeland Security Advisor And Deputy Chief Of Staff Stephen Miller Speaks To The Media At The White House

Liberal Judge Tries To Block Trump Over Bogus Biden-Era Parole For Countless Illegals

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Conservative activist Robby Starbuck is joining the Heritage Foundation as a visiting fellow, where he’ll lead an effort encouraging corporations to drop left-wing ideologies, and instead, prioritize merit.
Starbuck, who has led successful <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pure-lunacy-robby-starbuck-on-exposing-dei-in-corporate-america">campaigns</a> to get corporations like Tractor Supply, Home Depot, Harley Davidson, John Deere, Jack Daniels, and even Walmart to ditch the left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda, explained how he will continue the fight at the Heritage Foundation.
“I am thrilled to join The Heritage Foundation to help lead the charge in pushing back against the dangerous rise of woke DEI and ESG policies that undermine American values,” Starbuck said. “These harmful initiatives have no place in our businesses or institutions, and I’m committed to advancing policies that prioritize merit, free enterprise, and individual freedom over divisive ideologies.&#8221;
Starbuck will lead Heritage’s capital markets initiative, which the organization says will be dedicated to encouraging aligned organizations to reshape corporate America, encouraging corporations to prioritize ethics and merit while dropping left-wing ideologies like DEI.
“It’s time to restore common sense and accountability to the workplace, and I’m excited to continue to lead that movement from Heritage,” the conservative activist added.
Andrew Olivastro, the Heritage Foundation’s chief advancement officer, celebrated the announcement that Starbuck is joining the conservative organization. “Robby Starbuck is a trailblazer for our times, and we are thrilled he is joining us at Heritage. Robby has played a leading role helping Americans find their voice and reclaim their rights as shareowners, employees, and customers,” Olivastro said. “Our combined efforts will both set the agenda for the business community and save the private sector for future prosperity.&#8221;
John Backiel, vice president of finance and accounting at Heritage, also celebrated Starbuck’s move and further explained the goals of the effort.
“Heritage is leaning into the coalition of organizations, businesses, and individuals who desire to put their capital to work as a force multiplier by investing in companies and organizations building a better American future,” Backiel noted. “Through our corporate engagement we will help bring an end to corporate progressive indoctrination of the workforce and engage in constructive dialogue that rewards good businesses and products.&#8221;
“Heritage and our allies won’t stop until we break the imminent tyranny of a technocratic modern state and its corporate satellites stripping ordinary people of their God-given individual sovereignty,&#8221; the Heritage vice president said.

EXCLUSIVE: Robby Starbuck Joins Heritage Foundation To Continue Fight Against Woke Corporations

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If 2014 was a “<a href="https://manhattan.institute/event/the-great-awokening" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Great Awokening</a>,” then 2020 was the start of a second wave – a movement that’s led the entire nation to wrestle with questions around race, diversity, and our origin story.
But what will 2026 – the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – bring? Some hope it’ll be a time to celebrate and commemorate the American story. But others – including many influential organizations – stand in opposition, seeking instead to fundamentally transform Americans’ understanding of our history.
Foremost among these activist organizations is the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, our <a href="https://monumentlab.com/monumentlab-nationalmonumentaudit.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“nation’s largest supporter of the arts and the humanities.”</a>
In 2020, Mellon placed <a href="https://www.mellon.org/news/mellon-foundation-announces-transformation-its-strategic-direction-and-new-focus-social-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">social justice at the center of its grant-making initiatives</a>. Since then, it’s issued <a href="https://www.heritage.org/american-history/commentary/the-mellon-foundations-assault-american-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">numerous and sizeable</a> grants supporting anti-racist and pro-LGBTQ+ programs.
Notably, it gave <a href="https://www.mellon.org/grant-details/gender-and-lgbtq+-history-20450131" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$150,000 to the New-York Historical Society</a> in 2021 to support a “Gender and LGBTQ+ History Fellow.” In 2023, that same society <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/06/somethings-queer-colonial-williamsburg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partnered with Colonial Williamsburg</a> to host a teacher chat on “Queer History and Methodologies” and a workshop on “Best Practices for Teaching Queer History.” This course, open to educators from preschool to college level, was officially approved by New York state as qualifying toward public educators’ continuing education requirements.
In 2023, the Mellon Foundation joined the Alice Walton Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and Pilot Philanthropy in a “<a href="https://www.mellon.org/news/new-investments-for-more-diverse-leadership-in-art-museums" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Leadership in Art Museums” initiative</a> that committed over “$11M in funding to museums to increase racial equity in leadership roles…” at museums.
This program is in addition to the <a href="https://www.nationalparks.org/news-and-updates/press-releases/mellon-foundation-grants-over-13m-to-the-national-park-foundation-to-support-thirty-postdoctoral-fellowships-in-the-humanities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Park Service Mellon Humanities Fellowship</a>,” which funds postdoctoral fellows at national parks to research “how the parks are impacted and/or informed by issues related to gender and sexuality equality, the legacy of the civil rights movement, and the history of labor and productivity.”
One of these fellows, placed at James Monroe’s Highlands (his home from 1799 to 1823), wrote <a href="https://clioandthecontemporary.com/2023/10/31/engaging-different-communities-highland/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">that 2020 marked</a> a “racial and social” reckoning at museums, which she described as “preservers of white supremacist versions of the past.”
In 2022, Mellon <a href="https://www.nationalparks.org/news-and-updates/press-releases/mellon-foundation-grants-over-13m-to-the-national-park-foundation-to-support-thirty-postdoctoral-fellowships-in-the-humanities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expanded this post-doctoral program</a>, committing over $13 million for 30 new fellows at our national parks. Another Mellon fellow remarked that this program “has the potential to transform the stories told at many of the country’s national parks.”
Words like “transform” and “reimagine” are often indicators of post-modernist mischief.
For example, the Mellon Foundation has committed <a href="https://www.mellon.org/article/the-monuments-project-initiative" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$500 million to transforming</a> our nation’s monuments landscape, in part because it saw a lack of “U.S.-born Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, or self-identified LGBTQ+ people” in the list of top 50 individuals most frequently memorialized.
This sort of transformation seeks primarily to achieve equity of identity characteristics rather than recognition for meritorious deeds that all Americans can claim as part of our history. Ultimately, this approach favors inclusivity over accuracy.
As was previously noted, the Mellon Foundation has been partnering with the National Park Service on some of its initiatives. The National Park Service and Foundation are currently making changes to the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, to be completed by this spring and the 250th anniversary, respectively.
Work at the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/thjework.htm?utm_source=article&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=experience_more&amp;utm_content=small" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jefferson Memorial will include</a> “expanded and reimagined exhibit space” and “new state-of-the-art exhibits” that will provide “more perspectives as it shares Thomas Jefferson’s multi-faceted story.”
<a href="https://www.nps.gov/wamo/planyourvisit/undercroft.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">At the Lincoln Memorial</a>, new exhibits “will highlight the construction history of the memorial and discuss how the Lincoln Memorial has become the nation’s foremost backdrop for civil rights demonstrations.”
Both of these efforts have been enabled by donations from philanthropist and businessman David M. Rubenstein, who funded the exhibits on slavery at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and <a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/understand-montpeliers-leftist-turn-follow-the-money" target="_blank" rel="noopener">James Madison’s Montpelier</a>.
Americans can hope that the new exhibits at two of our foremost national memorials will be informative, balanced, and accurate. But the ones funded by Rubenstein at Montpelier are decidedly not.
There are currently <a href="https://www.montpelier.org/visit/galleries-and-exhibits/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no exhibits at Montpelier focused on James Madison</a> and his contributions. And the ones on offer contain <a href="https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/report/tale-three-presidential-houses-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many distortions, “gotcha” efforts, and at least one factual error</a>.
This raises concerns for the memorials both of Thomas Jefferson, Madison’s close friend and ally in the cause for human freedom, and for Abraham Lincoln, who urged us to give all honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times.
Today, a visible divide exists between those who want to commemorate our first 250 years of history and dedication to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and those who want to transform and reject it.
In this moment, perhaps we should turn to Abraham Lincoln, who began his famous <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/house-divided-speech-3/">House Divided speech</a>, “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it.”
Anniversaries are times to reflect, assess, and resolve a way forward. More, they are cause to celebrate, remember, and demonstrate gratitude.
America is indeed exceptional. This free country has granted us, its current posterity, the opportunity to continue in the work we are in, to prove to ourselves, and the world, that the noble ambition of a self-governing nation can indeed be kept.
* * *
Brenda M. Hafera is the Assistant Director and Senior Policy Analyst at The Heritage Foundation&#8217;s Simon Center for American Studies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Note: This article has been edited for clarity.

New Dawn over Washington

Post-Modern Mischief At America’s National Parks And Museums

Post-Modern Mischief At America's National Parks And Museums

Equity

Founding Fathers

Leftists

LGBTQ

Museum

National Park Service

Turns out that it’s easy to make people move out of your state: Just raise taxes.
Recently, residents of high-tax states such as California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey have been on the move. Specifically, they’ve been flocking to low-tax destinations such as Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Tennessee.
Between April 1, 2020, and June 30, 2023, high-tax states lost net 2.8 million residents to low-tax states. That’s more people than could be seated in all 30 NFL stadiums and 29 NBA arenas combined.
Zero-income tax Florida and Texas were the top two destinations for interstate movers, gaining 819,000 and 656,000 net residents respectively. Americans in the northeastern U.S. and the upper Midwest poured into Florida, while Texas was the destination of choice for many people living west of the Mississippi.
North Carolina (310,000), South Carolina (248,000), Arizona (218,000), and Tennessee (207,000) ranked third through sixth in net population gain from interstate migration. Each of them is a low-tax state (except South Carolina, which stands in the middle of the pack). Tennessee, like Florida and Texas, is one of the seven states with zero income tax.
It’s no coincidence that former Californians led the exodus out of high-tax states. California has the highest state income tax rate in the country at 13.3%, and it lost 1.2 million residents to interstate migration in a little more than three years.
Incredibly, California was the leading source of net domestic migration into every state within 1,000 miles of either Los Angeles or San Francisco.
The most popular destinations for Californians were Texas, Arizona, and Nevada. Texas and Nevada have no income tax, and Arizona has the lowest non-zero income tax rate.
New York state has the second highest income tax rate at 10.9%, and it had the second highest level of net outmigration during the roughly three-year period – a net loss of about 883,000 people. Counting both local and state taxes, nobody faces higher tax rates than do New York City residents.
Frank Sinatra once sang that if you could make it in New York, you could make it anywhere. These days, more and more people have been trying to make it somewhere else.
New Yorkers have been gravitating to greener pastures in Florida, Texas, and North Carolina. Low overall taxes and non-existent income tax play an important role in attracting New Yorkers to Florida and Texas (North Carolina is also among the lowest-tax states in the country).
Other New Yorkers fled to neighboring states like Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Jersey – states which have lower taxes than New York, but which certainly can’t be considered low-tax states.
Each of these states lost population to interstate migration overall, despite all the people flowing in from New York. In fact, New Jersey had the fourth highest population loss from interstate migration – about 153,000, behind only California, New York, and Illinois (364,000).
Other factors besides taxes also contribute to population flows. But the pattern of high-tax states losing residents to low-tax states is too strong to chalk up as a coincidence. The pattern holds year after year, between neighboring states, and across regions.
The pattern also holds across the income spectrum. Even low-income Americans (who may themselves pay a small amount of taxes) tend to move from high-tax states to low-tax states. If high taxes are supposed to pay for government services that improve the lives of low- and middle-income residents, well, it’s not working. 
The highest-income residents are especially sensitive to differences in tax rates, but that just shows why it’s so counterproductive for state lawmakers to try to soak the rich. Driving up tax rates drives out the people who pay the most in taxes.
State lawmakers eager to harvest more tax revenues must be careful lest they cause the geese with the golden eggs to fly away to somewhere they’re appreciated more and taxed less: states like Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, and Tennessee.
* * *
Preston Brashers is a Research Fellow for <a href="https://www.heritage.org/taxes/report/if-you-tax-them-they-will-run-millions-americans-flee-california-and-new-york" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tax policy</a> in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget. Read his new report: <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/BG3896.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;If You Tax Them, They Will Run: Millions of Americans Flee California And New York.&#8221;</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

U-Haul Ahead Of Earnings Figures

Why States With No Income Tax Are Winning The Population Battle

Blue States

California

Democrats

Economy

Florida

migration

New York

North Carolina

Republicans

Taxes

Tennessee

Every time a radical, out-of-control federal judge issues an outrageous opinion, you would think things couldn’t get any worse. But then someone like Richard Young comes along.
Young, a Clinton-appointed federal district court judge in Indiana, just ordered the state’s Department of Corrections to provide sex reassignment surgery to a man who wants to masquerade as a woman—a man who is in prison for murdering a baby.
That, shockingly, is what Young did in his <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trans-inmate-prison-killing-baby-must-get-gender-surgery-earliest-opportunity-judge.print">order</a> in Autumn Cordellione v. Indiana. Lest you be fooled by the name “Autumn” or the fact that Young refers to “Autumn” as “Ms.” and “her” throughout his disgraceful opinion, this criminal’s real name is Jonathan Richardson. He is in prison for strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001.
Richardson, who the judge refers to in his order as the “individual” or the “incarcerated transgender person,” is being represented by the ACLU in this lawsuit, in which Richardson demands that he be provided with “gender-affirming surgery.” Really, how can anyone justify making contributions to the ACLU when it engages in this type of despicable litigation?
Indiana has already provided this male child killer with “panties, makeup, and form-fitting clothing” while in prison—a place that, if justice is served for this vicious crime, Richardson will never, ever leave. But as Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trans-inmate-prison-killing-baby-must-get-gender-surgery-earliest-opportunity-judge.print">says</a>, “Convicted murderers don’t get to demand that taxpayers foot the bill for expensive and controversial sex-change operations. It defies all common sense.”
Au contraire, according to Young. He says that Indiana’s failure to provide Richardson with the surgery necessary to cut off his penis and give him fake breasts violates the Eighth Amendment.
If this wasn’t a real order from a real federal judge, you’d think it was something written for The Babylon Bee or Mad magazine.
The Eighth Amendment prohibits the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.” As the Heritage Guide to the Constitution <a href="https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/amendments/8/essays/161/cruel-and-unusual-punishment">explains</a>, the amendment was included in order to prevent the type of “torturous punishments” often inflicted by the British Crown, like “pillorying, disemboweling, decapitation, and drawing and quartering.”
Yet for decades, opponents have tried to use the ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” to outlaw the death penalty altogether. The Supreme Court ended that in 1976 in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/74-6257">Gregg v. Georgia</a>, when it held that the death penalty is not a per se violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The court has further held in a series of cases that under the Eighth Amendment, punishments cannot be disproportionate to the offense. But it also held just last year in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf">City of Grants Pass v. Johnson</a>, a case illustrating the extremes to which those trying to misuse the Eighth Amendment will go, that public bans on camping in public parks are not “cruel and unusual punishment.” That claim was just as absurd as the ACLU’s claim in the Richardson case.
Young relies on his opinion in the guidelines on “gender dysphoria” issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, as well as some other so-called experts. WPATH’s <a href="https://can-sg.org/2024/06/28/scandalous-suppression-of-research-on-transgender-health/">work</a> and medical opinions have been severely criticized for bias and lack of scientific rigor. It has also been accused of suppressing research that contradicts its opinions.
Young dismissed the opinion of the treating psychologist at Richardson’s prison that Richardson has personality disorders, not “gender dysphoria,” that display “an established pattern of attention-seeking behavior.”
Richardson is certainly getting that attention with Young’s decision that not providing him with gender surgery is “cruel and unusual punishment.” But we shouldn’t be surprised. Young is the same judge who in 2018 struck down an Indiana law that required healthcare providers to report abortion complications to the state health department in <a href="https://www.aclu-in.org/sites/default/files/sea_340_decisoin.pdf">PPINK v. Indiana</a>.
In other words, when the health and lives of real women were endangered by botched abortions performed by incompetent physicians who committed malpractice, Young prevented state health authorities from being able to do anything about it. Young apparently believes in protecting only fake women, not real ones.
As this case demonstrates, it isn’t only the Trump administration that’s dealing with an arrogant, imperial judiciary that ignores the Constitution and the rule of law and acts far outside of its authority. State governments are also on the receiving end of outlandish and bizarre orders like this one.
The Supreme Court recently declined to intervene – at least for now &#8211; in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a831_3135.pdf">Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition</a>, in which the Trump administration is dealing with another rogue judge who has ordered the government to distribute $2 billion of taxpayer money without examining the serious defenses raised by the government. In a dissent from the court’s refusal to hear the case, which was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Samuel Alito wrote:
Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) $2 billion? The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.
The taxpayers and residents of Indiana should also be stunned by the actions of Judge Richard Young who used his thus-far-unchecked power to force them to pay for a sex change operation for a child murderer, the worst of the worst.
Stunned indeed.
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Tyrants Of The Imperious Judiciary: Federal Judge Orders ‘Gender Reassignment’ For Child Killer

Indiana

Prison

SCOTUS

Transgender

The Oversight Project on Monday revealed documentation of what they described as a &#8220;secret agreement&#8221; among 22 states to plot their resistance to President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump&#8217;s</a> agenda, especially on immigration, just three days after Trump&#8217;s landslide victory.
The document focuses on &#8220;developing potential litigation&#8221; by sharing information and documents and using other methods to stop Trump from &#8220;ending or curtailing birthright citizenship.&#8221; Notably, Trump has already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dem-attorneys-general-sue-trump-over-birthright-citizenship-exec-order" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed an executive order</a> to effectively stop the practice of birthright citizenship, though it&#8217;s currently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/judge-new-hampshire-trump-birthright-citizenship-injunction.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blocked</a>.
&#8220;We have obtained a secret agreement between 22 blue states, DC, and San Francisco, signed beginning on November 8, 2024,&#8221; the Oversight Project said. &#8220;This agreement, just 3 days after President Trump&#8217;s landslide election win, shows that these resistance actors began, as a matter of absolute urgent top priority, plotting their resistance to President Trump&#8217;s anticipated actions to end birthright citizenship.&#8221;
&#8220;The Parties have agreed that they have a common interest in developing potential litigation to challenge executive action related to ending or curtailing birthright citizenship (the &#8216;Common Interest Matter&#8217;),&#8221; the document reads.
The Heritage Foundation&#8217;s <a href="https://www.heritage.org/oversight" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Oversight Project</a>, which obtained the document, uses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other avenues to make the government more transparent by disseminating information to the public, according to the group&#8217;s website.
The document further outlines how the states will interact to advance their resistance efforts. &#8220;The Parties agree to share information, documents, and communications for the purpose of advancing their common interest, including but not limited to potentially filing complaints, dispositive motions, and briefs and commenting on draft filings, to keep such information and materials confidential, and to protect any privileges attaching to such information and materials to the extent authorized by law,&#8221; it reads. &#8220;The Parties also agree that the sharing of information, both written and oral, among each Party&#8217;s staff, management, consultants, 
experts, counsel, and all of their agents will further their common objectives.&#8221;
The Oversight Project criticized the agreement, saying the Democrat leaders are working to subvert the will of the people, which was voiced on Election Day, to advance their own power.
&#8220;Despite the mandate from the American People to end the border crisis and return immigration enforcement to the United States, politicians instead acted to frantically preserve their perceived political gains of the Biden Border Crisis,&#8221; the group said.
&#8220;Their top priority was not gas, groceries, public safety, or any other matter of concerns of their citizen constituents, but instead a raw political calculus to ensure that the future children of the illegal aliens that entered during the Biden Border Crisis could turn into voters,&#8221; the post continued. &#8220;Instead of trying to win back American voters, they seek to create new ones to replace them on the back of the worst border crisis in American history.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨SECRET BLUE STATE RESISTANCE AGREEMENT OBTAINED &#8211; BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP🚨
We have obtained a secret agreement between 22 blue states, DC, and San Francisco, signed beginning on November 8, 2024. This agreement, just 3 days after President Trump&#8217;s landslide election win,… <a href="https://t.co/7AsqgCjlcX">pic.twitter.com/7AsqgCjlcX</a>
— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) <a href="https://twitter.com/OversightPR/status/1889110830978834727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2025</a></blockquote>

President Trump Signs Executive Orders At The White House

Oversight Project Uncovers ‘Secret Agreement’ Among Dem-Led States To Resist Trump Agenda

Oversight Project Uncovers ‘Secret’ Agreement Between Dem-Led States To Resist Trump Agenda

Donald Trump

Illegal Immigration

Politics

So far, President Trump’s actions on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” have seen federal DEI offices shuttered and DEI officials placed on mandatory leave. But that isn’t the end of the story. Greater enforcement of civil rights law is coming, and American colleges and universities should be worried.
In President Trump’s first anti-DEI Executive Order, he sought to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">eliminate</a> all DEI (both legal and illegal) across the federal government – a broad stroke that extends to all agencies’ “‘equity-related’ grants or contracts.”
This directive includes many grants that directly or indirectly reach colleges – and it has already had some effect.
According to Arizona State University’s provost, several agencies have told grantees to “cease and desist all DEIA activities required of their contracts or grants.” Already, Rutgers University has <a href="https://mailchi.mp/gse/jff-mini-conference-5217834?e=13a3d67b45" target="_blank" rel="noopener">canceled</a> an equity-related conference supported by Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit using funds from the Department of Labor.
Trump’s second anti-DEI order – designed to <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">uproot and destroy</a> illegal treatment throughout the country – will hit colleges even harder.
This order notes that institutions of higher education are among those that “have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences,” and instructs federal officials to prepare investigative, legal, and regulatory action against universities that engage in such illegal activities.
Far too many American colleges and universities make violating civil rights laws part of their daily routine.
More than simply operating DEI offices (which themselves often blatantly violate civil rights law), many colleges support discriminatory scholarship programs that violate civil rights laws so clearly that even the Biden administration regularly found them illegal.
These scholarships boldly discriminate based on race or sex by explicitly limiting themselves to, for example, members of “<a href="https://americananthro.org/prizes-and-awards/minority-dissertation-fellowship-program">historically underrepresented U.S. racialized minority group[s]</a>” (as in one scholarship offered by the American Anthropological Association and advertised by the <a href="https://grad.uchicago.edu/fellowship/american-anthropological-association-aaa-fellowships/">University of Chicago</a>).
More examples include a scholarship limited to <a href="https://apiqwtc.org/call-for-applications-apiqwtc-scholarship-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Asian/Pacific Islander lesbian, bisexual, or queer women or transgender individuals”</a> (<a href="https://www.rochester.edu/education-abroad/finances/scholarships/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advertised</a> by the University of Rochester), or the Brown and Caldwell <a href="https://brownandcaldwell.com/careers/minority-scholarship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Minority Scholarship</a>, which is limited to those who <a href="https://brownandcaldwell.com/careers/minority-scholarship/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">identify as members of minority groups</a> (advertised by the <a href="https://seas.umich.edu/student-services/financial-aid/funding/brown-and-caldwell-bc-minority-scholarship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Michigan</a>, <a href="https://funds.environment.yale.edu/brown-and-caldwell-minority-scholarship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yale University</a>, and many others). 
Closer to home, University of California, Berkeley’s Cal Alumni Association, a separate nonprofit organization, <a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/get-involved/scholarships/aai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">offers a scholarship</a> only available to those who “identify as Black/African American/African.” Berkeley proudly includes this scholarship on its own website.
These all are examples of external scholarships, where off-campus organizations (those offering the scholarships) are the ones discriminating and violating civil rights laws. But when a federally-funded college advertises such opportunities to its students, it too is violating civil rights and must be held accountable.
Heritage Foundation interns have found hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of such violations.
But external scholarships aren’t the only issue. In other instances, universities act on the behest of the government to execute federal programs that discriminate because Congress requires it.
As one example, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) operates a <a href="https://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/programs-and-scholarships/marc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maximizing Access to Research Careers</a> (MARC) program that is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and which only funds students who are from “historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups,” have disabilities, or are from “low-income background[s].”
This program operates <a href="https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-24-138.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">under the authority</a> of the HHS’s National Research Service Award (NRSA) program – a program Congress <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/288" target="_blank" rel="noopener">specifically instructed</a> the HHS to run “in a manner that will result in the recruitment of women, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds (including racial and ethnic minorities), into fields of biomedical or behavioral research.”
Needless to say, this blatantly violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
The second anti-DEI Executive order instructs federal officials to issue guidance on how institutions of higher education must comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard.
In that decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” That means discriminatory DEI offices and scholarships must go.
The clock on DEI is ticking. Within 120 days, the guidance – and recommendations for enforcement – will be released.
Under current law, violating civil rights can mean the end of all federal funding. We can expect the Trump administration to use this tool vigorously to incentivize change throughout the education sector. Unless they start cleaning house immediately, colleges have a lot to worry about. 

* * *
Adam Kissel is a Visiting Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy. 
Mary Mobley is an Editorial Fellow in Heritage&#8217;s Strategic Communications department.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

If You Didn’t Get Into an Elite Private Institution, a Public School Is the Better Investment

Anti-DEI Enforcement Is Coming For America’s Colleges

Anti-DEI Enforcement Is Coming For America's Colleges

American Universities

College

Education

When it overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Supreme Court eliminated the biggest legal obstacle to advancing the pro-life cause. But our fight has never been a fight against Roe v. Wade. It’s a fight for life – one that is only just beginning.
In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court said that regulating abortion belonged in the hands of the people and their elected representatives. Since then, nearly half the states have passed pro-life laws of different kinds – while others have doubled down on their pro-abortion policies.
Pro-abortion states and activists, however, are not content with legally protecting abortion where they live. They are now passing so-called abortion “shield” laws designed to undermine the ability of pro-life states to enforce their own laws.
Normally, states cooperate with each other when, for example, it comes to returning individuals to where they have committed crimes. This cooperation is required by the Constitution, and by multiple agreements that most states have signed.
Abortion shield laws break from that tradition, potentially causing irreparable damage to the interstate comity that has characterized the United States for so long.
But abortion shield laws also undermine traditional medical practice, which has long considered the location of medical care to be that of the patient, not the doctor.
In 2022, for example, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), the board representing state medical and osteopathic boards, adopted a policy stating that the “practice of medicine occurs where the patient is located.” This is true, the FSMB said, even when a patient receives telemedicine: the state of care is the state in which the patient is located.
But states such as California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Washington have passed laws reversing this principle so that the laws of an abortionist’s state apply.
This poses extreme risks, especially now that a majority of abortions are caused by drugs rather than surgery. It allows abortionists to mail abortion drugs into pro-life states while claiming that a completely different state’s laws apply – even though women receive, use, and (in case of complications) are treated for those drugs under the laws of their home state.
Abortion advocates know this is both nonsensical and dangerous.
The primary authors of this abortion shield strategy <a href="https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/Cohen-76-Stan.-L.-Rev.-317.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acknowledge</a> that “[s]tandard telehealth practice considers medical care to have occurred where the patient is located.” They also concede that “there are important reasons for defining care as occurring where the patient is located,” and that “shifting the location of care is a significant departure from the standard of care, the provisions of state medical practice acts, and the guidance of professional organizations.”
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They even admit that “the state where the patient resides typically has the strongest interest” and best means of protecting the safety of the resident patient.
Yet while abortion activists know all of this, for them, nothing comes close to matching the importance of maximizing abortion in this country. Nothing, not even protecting women’s health, can compete with killing unborn children.
Thus, they turn a blind eye while doctors prescribe and provide abortion drugs to patients they will never see in person – and whom they will not treat in the case of resulting complications.
The pro-life cause requires not only passing laws that protect the unborn but also being able to enforce those laws. These abortion shield laws have the same objective as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade: forcing abortion upon states that oppose it. The March for Life calls us to fight for life on these new fronts, meaning it’s not outdated – it’s more important than ever.
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Thomas Jipping is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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Abortion ‘Shield’ Laws: The Next Front In The Battle For Life

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South Korean lawmakers are moving to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived martial law declaration that was unanimously shot down in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Opposition parties in South Korea introduced a motion to impeach Yoon on Wednesday. That motion could be voted on as early as this week and would require a two-thirds majority to pass the unicameral National Assembly. Six of the nine justices on South Korea’s Constitutional Court would then have to approve the motion to remove Yoon from office, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-yoon-martial-law-25a2a7c957e77a19f771b6b7c56a2173" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Associated Press</a>.
The opposition coalition in the National Assembly, led by South Korea’s Democratic Party, holds 191 seats in the 300-seat parliament, so the impeachment motion would need support from some members of Yoon’s own People Power Party to pass.
Parliament members voted unanimously 190-0 in an emergency session early Wednesday to rescind Yoon’s Tuesday martial law declaration. That vote included more than a dozen members from Yoon’s party.
The situation means that Yoon, a conservative politician who has been friendly with the United States, may be nearing the end of his political career. His martial law order shocked even members of his own party and inspired widespread backlash. Armed soldiers surrounded the National Assembly and clashed with protesters in a scene reminiscent of South Korea’s military rule of the 1980s.
Yoon’s gamble has left experts wondering what the president believed would happen.
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“I was in Seoul less than two weeks ago meeting with very senior officials and there was no indication that Yoon would do this, or even a warning of Yoon’s growing anger,” said Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow and expert on northeast Asia for The Heritage Foundation. “It really was quite a shocking development. I think it caught everyone by surprise.”
“I think the implications are that Yoon, perhaps, is a dead man walking, and that he may well be impeached to be replaced by someone who will not be in line with U.S. objectives,” Klingner told The Daily Wire.
Yoon delivered a speech denouncing “shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people” before declaring martial law. The military rule, which placed strict regulations on the media and political activity, was to remain in effect until Yoon could &#8220;eradicate anti-state forces … and normalize the country,” he said.
The president cited an unworkable relationship with South Korea’s opposition-led National Assembly, which had targeted 22 officials for impeachment since Yoon took office in 2022 and, according to Yoon, planned to target 10 more officials. The president also cited National Assembly reductions in the national budget, which he said “undermined the essential functions of the state and turned Korea into a drug paradise and a public order panic.”
Yoon&#8217;s complaints about the parliament fell short of justifying a declaration of martial law, however. The National Assembly’s behavior, while obstructionist, was carried out through constitutional means, according to Klingner.
“It does seem to be extra-constitutional actions by the president,” Klingner said. “There is a clause, which he cited in his declaration, as allowing the president to declare martial law, but that is reserved for war, armed conflict, or a national emergency, none of which seems to be prevalent here.”

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South Korean Lawmakers Move To Impeach President Over Short-Lived Martial Law Order

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The following is an excerpt from the new book &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Jewish-State-Israel_And-America_Can/dp/164177455X" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Battle For The Jewish State: How Israel — And America — Can Win,</a>&#8221; by Victoria Coates (December 17, 2024, Encounter Books).
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<h2>The Dreyfus Affair</h2>
While the Holocaust executed by Nazi Germany may be the most sensational example of antisemitism in Europe, hatred of Jews has been a perennial and insidious evil on the Continent since antiquity, gaining strength through the medieval period and persisting into our own time. Despised as an “inferior race,” the Jews became Europe’s routine outsider scapegoats. One of the most infamous instances of such scapegoating, the Dreyfus Affair in late-nineteenth-century France, was a harbinger of horrors to come—horrors that would necessitate the establishment of a Jewish state that would, in time, become a critical ally to the United States.
During the Third Republic, Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish army officer, was accused of selling military secrets to the Germans, including cutting-edge French weapon designs.(1) A document allegedly in Dreyfus’s handwriting seemed to prove his guilt, and in January 1895 he was convicted of treason by a closed court martial. In a humiliating ceremony formally expelling him from the French army, Dreyfus’s medals and insignia of rank were torn from his uniform and his sword broken, and he was paraded in front of the assembled officers, who jeered him as a traitor and a Jew. He was shipped off to Devil’s Island, the notorious penal colony off the coast of French Guiana, where the mortality rate was so high that it was known as the “dry guillotine.”
<div id="attachment_836947" style="width: 622px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-836947" class="wp-image-836947 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2664679-612x576.jpg" alt="Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain in the French Army accused of anonymously sending secret documents to the German embassy in Paris, is tried for treason before a court-martial at Rennes. (Photo by Henry Guttmann Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" width="612" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2664679-612x576.jpg 612w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2664679-300x282.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2664679-768x723.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-2664679.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 612px) 100vw, 612px" />Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain in the French Army accused of anonymously sending secret documents to the German embassy in Paris, is tried for treason before a court-martial at Rennes. (Photo by Henry Guttmann Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)</div>
That should have been the end of Dreyfus, but the lack of substantial evidence remained troubling to some observers, as did the growing impression that he had been targeted primarily because he was a Jew. Eventually it was revealed that it would have been logistically impossible for Dreyfus to have had dealings with the Germans in question. Another suspect emerged, one whose handwriting more closely matched the incriminating document than Dreyfus’s. The case that had once seemed open and shut began to look like a set-up.
The Dreyfus Affair was hotly debated between the traditionalists, who saw the controversy as a Jewish plot to undermine traditional French military culture, and progressives, who believed the persecution of Dreyfus was a shameful manifestation of antisemitism masked by the anti-German sentiment of that period following the Franco-Prussian War. The new French President Félix Faure, who had inherited the scandal, became the de facto leader of the traditionalists, while the journalist and future prime minister Georges Clemenceau spearheaded the effort to clear Dreyfus.
On January 13, 1898, the front page of Clemenceau’s newspaper L’Aurore screamed “J’Accuse … !” Distilling the concerns and misgivings about the Dreyfus Affair into one resonant phrase, the headline introduced an open letter to President Faure by the critic and author Émile Zola. It was the most detailed account of the injustices done to Dreyfus and a warning to the president that the scandal threatened to engulf his administration. Acknowledging that his letter potentially violated the law as libel, Zola defiantly declared, “My fiery protest is the cry of my very soul.”(2)
Zola was duly convicted of libel and fled to England, but the case against Dreyfus began to fall apart. A second court martial convicted him again but commuted his sentence, and ten days later he was pardoned by a new president. Acceptance of the pardon required an admission of guilt, but Dreyfus was fully exonerated in 1906.
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Jewish-State-Israel_And-America_Can/dp/164177455X" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-836915 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/71g7pdI2YoL._SL1500_-382x576.jpg" alt="" width="382" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/71g7pdI2YoL._SL1500_-382x576.jpg 382w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/71g7pdI2YoL._SL1500_-199x300.jpg 199w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/71g7pdI2YoL._SL1500_-768x1159.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/71g7pdI2YoL._SL1500_.jpg 994w" sizes="(max-width: 382px) 100vw, 382px" /></a>
While justice had finally been done for Dreyfus, Jews sensed a growing threat. Many believed that they could no longer depend on assimilating into European culture, as had been the hope, but needed to establish their own state to protect themselves. The Dreyfus Affair inspired the pioneering Zionist Theodor Herzl to write The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution to the Jewish Problem in 1896, laying out the case for reestablishing a Jewish nation in the Holy Land.
The concept was hardly new, as Jews had been living in the region for millennia and had governed it as far back as the time of King David. But for the Austro-Hungarian Herzl, the pogroms of isolation and marginalization of the nineteenth century made the project immediate and urgent. As a young man he had hoped that enlightenment would lead to the end of antisemitism. However, he came to believe that hatred of Jews in Europe was so entrenched that the only real solution was a state for Jews in their ancestral homeland, where they could live and worship in peace and security. Herzl pressed his case with everyone from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. The organizations that would eventually provide the foundation of the Israeli government, notably the Zionist Congress and the Jewish Agency, were formed.
Herzl’s proposition was controversial, but it was also powerful, and modern Zionism gained steam after his death in 1904. Had his vision of a safe haven for Jews been realized in the early twentieth century, one of the greatest evils in history might have been avoided. But it was not yet to be. The gathering antisemitism he identified in European society spread into the mainstream in Germany in the 1920s, feeding on the general discontent following Germany’s humiliating loss in World War I.
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Victoria Coates is the Vice President of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Coates previously served as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Energy and Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa on the NSC, both for President Donald J. Trump, as well as the National Security Advisor for Senator Ted Cruz. Coates holds a B.A. from Trinity College, a M.A. from Williams College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, all in art history.
This excerpt is published by permission from Encounter Books. &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Jewish-State-Israel_And-America_Can/dp/164177455X" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Battle For The Jewish State: How Israel — And America — Can Win,</a>&#8221; by Victoria Coates (December 17, 2024, Encounter Books). © 2024 by The Heritage Foundation Foreword © 2024 Ted Cruz. 
The views expressed in this book excerpt do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * * 
NOTES:
CHAPTER TWO: WHY ISRAEL? AMERICA AND THE JEWISH STATE
<ol>
<li>Victoria C. Gardner Coates, David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art (New York: Encounter Books, 2016), 240–42.</li>
<li>Émile Zola, “J’Accuse . . . !,” L’Aurore, January 13, 1898.</li>
</ol>

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