Conservative: Un-Democratic Lies on Tenn.

Slamming a New York Times story, National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke thunders: “The two Democrats who were expelled in Tennessee were not expelled for choosing to ‘defy Republican-endorsed policies,’ ” but “because they broke the rules of the legislature and they ground all legislative business to a halt.” The lie is appalling: “For the last two years, Americans have been told — correctly — that storming into legislative chambers and interrupting their work is ‘undemocratic’ per se, and that, if we do not want to see more of it, it must be punished wherever it happens.” Yet the moment “a couple of lawmakers whom the media likes chose to invite a mob into a legislative chamber and to deliberately interrupt its work, the moral poles were reversed and it was those who objected who were deemed to be ‘undemocratic.’ ”

Libertarian: Jobs Are Good for Teens

“While the recent attempts to liberalize child labor law have been minimal at best, it hasn’t kept critics from framing the reforms as inherently exploitative,” chides Reason’s Emma Camp. Several states, including New Jersey, Ohio and Arkansas, have “proposed reforms to their child labor laws in an attempt to ease labor shortages” to make “it easier for teenagers to enter the work force” with parental approval. Good: “Empirical evidence shows that the benefits of being employed as a teen,” including higher pay and a more robust skillset, “last for years after landing the first job.” In painting teen workers as “helplessly exploited,” critics miss “both the economic benefits of working as a teenager, as well as the pride most teenagers feel about their after-school or summer jobs” — huge in an age when “teenagers are less and less likely to meet once-important milestones of independence.”

Urban beat: US Cities’ Downward Spiral

“Two million people fled from America’s largest cities from 2020 to 2022,” reports Daniel de Visé at The Hill: The “retreat from urban centers” during the pandemic “has hardened into an enduring and potentially worrisome trend.” The “exodus, combined with chronic office vacancies and surging crime,” portends “a gradual unraveling of the social fabric that made big cities attractive” and “a return to the urban decay of preceding decades, an era of high crime, spiraling poverty and inadequate schools in many large cities.” And it seems “the revolution is only beginning”: “One large-scale survey” last year “found that 19 million Americans planned to move because of remote work, vastly outnumbering the 4 million Americans who had already moved.”

Eye on NJ: Gov. Murphy No Honest Broker

“The political fix is in for professors” at Rutgers University, grumble The Wall Street Journal’s editors. Faculty walked off the job in a strike for higher pay. State law lets the school sue to bring the state employees back, but “Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy intervened. An ally of public unions, he barred Rutgers on Monday from seeking an injunction.” He’s now hosting contract talks, yet “has already tipped the scales toward the unions. The university and faculty failed to agree after 10 months of talks, but administrators are now under political pressure to cave.” In the end, “taxpayers and tuition payers can expect higher costs, courtesy of a governor who’s supposed to be on management’s side of the table.”

From the right: Choose Merit, Not Identity

“Being female is not an accomplishment,” argues City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald. Nor is “being black, gay, or gender-fluid.” All “should have nothing to do with faculty hiring or student admissions” at universities. Indeed, “the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy is the nemesis of the Enlightenment ideal of knowledge.” “A university’s task is the pursuit of truth. The DEI bureaucracy, however, is founded on a lie — one that teaches students to think of themselves as victims and to see racism where none exists.” “The university should embrace a single colorblind definition of excellence. It will only do so, however, by eliminating DEI fiefdoms and by replacing identity with merit as the touchstone of academic accomplishment.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board