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    Police Arrest M.I.T. Protesters After Suspensions Ramp Up Tension

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    Several protesters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were arrested on Thursday after blocking access to a parking garage on campus, a day after some students involved in the pro-Palestinian encampment there received notices of suspension from the university.University police arrested “fewer than 10” people, according to a statement posted Thursday night on M.I.T.’s emergency management website. It was unclear what charges they would face, and a university spokesperson declined to comment further.The university had set a Monday deadline for protesters to vacate the encampment on the Cambridge campus or face suspension. Since then, the M.I.T. administration has begun sending notices of suspension to students who it says defied the deadline. Administrators would not say how many students had been suspended.“This means you will be prohibited from participating in any academic activities — including classes, exams or research — for the remainder of the semester,” said a letter received by one student and viewed by a reporter. “You will also be prohibited from participating in commencement activities or any cocurricular or extracurricular activities.”The university had detailed the consequences of suspension in a letter to student protesters before the Monday deadline, making clear that those who had previously been disciplined “related to events since Oct. 7” would also be barred from university housing and dining halls.As an additional condition of suspension, some students also lost their eligibility to be employed by the university, a penalty that cut off the income of graduate student employees who were suspended.“I don’t know what comes next,” said Prahlad Iyengar, a first-year graduate student who said he had lost his income and housing as a result of his suspension. “I have friends and a community, and I can find a place, but there are people affected who are housing- and food-insecure, some with children.”M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, was one of three university leaders who were harshly criticized last year for their testimony in a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism. The other two, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned in the fallout.Although Ms. Kornbluth did not face the same level of criticism, hundreds of M.I.T. alumni signed a letter calling for the university to take stronger actions to combat campus antisemitism.In a letter to the campus on Monday, she wrote: “This prolonged use of M.I.T. property as a venue for protest, without permission, especially on an issue with such sharp disagreement, is no longer safely sustainable.” More

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      Columbia DEI Chief Is Accused of Plagiarizing Dissertation From Wikipedia

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      A complaint said the official, who oversees diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Columbia’s medical school, also copied work from at least 28 other authors.An official in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center was accused this week of plagiarizing large sections of his doctoral dissertation, according to an anonymous complaint filed with the university.The 55-page complaint accused the official, Alade McKen, of copying material in his 2021 dissertation at Iowa State University from more than two dozen other scholars and from Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers from the general public.The complaint was published online Thursday by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website that led a campaign last year against the former president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay. She resigned in January following accusations of plagiarism and after her response to antisemitism on campus was criticized.Plagiarism allegations have rocked the world of elite academia in recent months. They have often had explicitly political overtones, with conservative critics leveling accusations against left-leaning administrators and at least one high-profile accusation that has been portrayed as an act of liberal revenge.The complaint published online on Thursday accused Mr. McKen of copying passages of his dissertation from the Wikipedia entry for “Afrocentric education” and from the published scholarship or the doctoral dissertations of at least 28 people.“Is Alade McKen a plagiarist?” the anonymous author of the complaint wrote at the top of page 1. “A small selection of examples from his dissertation are included below to guide your investigation.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Artificial Intelligence, Ukraine, China — The Big Buzz at Davos

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      C.E.O.s and world leaders gather in the Swiss Alps this year as war, trade risks and disruptive new technologies loom large.The topics on the mind of attendees at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, include artificial intelligence, the war in Gaza and the future of Ukraine.Denis Balibouse/ReutersThe meetings behind the meeting Thousands of global leaders have once again descended on snowy Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting. The theme of this year’s event: “rebuilding trust.”But there are the public meetings, and then there are the real ones behind closed doors that the attendees are talking about most. These include discussions touching on U.S.-China tensions, the war in Gaza, artificial intelligence and the future of Ukraine.There is a kind of game that some C.E.O.s play with one another: How many public panels are you on, or how many times have you been in the Congress Center, the main hub for the forum’s big presentations? If the answer is zero, you’ve won. Top U.S. officials are set to appear on the main stage, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser. But speculation abounds about whom they’re seeing behind the scenes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      The Election No One Seems to Want Is Coming Right at Us

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      Gail Collins: Hey, Bret, it really is 2024 now. Happy new year. And the race is on! Next week, the Iowa caucuses. After Iowa …Bret Stephens: Le déluge.Gail: OK, I want to hear your thoughts. Any chance Donald Trump won’t be the Republican nominee? Do you have a Nikki Haley scenario?Bret: Gail, my feelings about the G.O.P. primary contest are like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief. After the 2022 midterms, when Trump’s favored candidates were more or less trounced and he looked like a total loser, I was in complete denial that he could win. Then, as his standing in the party failed to evaporate as I had predicted, I was angry: “Lock him up,” I wrote. Next came bargaining: I said he might be stopped if only Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and every other Republican dropped out of the race to endorse Haley.Gail: Stage four?Bret: Now I’m just depressed. After he takes back the White House in November, I guess acceptance will have to follow. Is there a stage six? Does eternal damnation come next?Gail: I don’t accept acceptance! Come on: I know Joe Biden isn’t the most electric candidate in history. We’re all obsessed with his age. But he isn’t under multitudinous indictments, charged with trying to overthrow the democratic process or in a stupendous personal financial collapse.We may wind up going through this every week for the next 10 months, but I’m sticking with my Biden re-election prediction.Bret: Saying Biden can win is like playing Russian roulette with three bullets in the revolver instead of the traditional one. You might be right. Or we end up like Christopher Walken at the end of “The Deer Hunter.”Gail: Ewww.Bret: It isn’t just that Trump is running ahead of Biden now in the overall race, according to RealClearPolitics’ average of polls. It’s that he’s running ahead of him in the states that matter: Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin. I don’t quite understand all of these Democrats who say Trump is an existential threat to decency, democracy and maybe life on the planet and then insist they’re sticking with Biden instead of another candidate. It’s like refusing to seek better medical care for a desperately sick child because the family doctor is a nice old man whose feelings might get hurt if you left his practice.At a minimum, can we please replace Kamala Harris on the ticket with someone more, er, confidence-inspiring? Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan? Or Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland? Come on, why not?Gail: Real-world answer is that Harris hasn’t done anything wrong. You don’t dump a hard-working, loyal veep who also happens to be a woman and a minority just because you think there might be somebody better out there somewhere.Bret: Saying Harris hasn’t done anything wrong leaves out two more salient questions: What has she done well? And does she add to or detract from the ticket’s electability?Gail: Let’s go back to Biden. We all know the problems. But he’s done a good job. The economic recovery is going well. And did you hear his speech on Friday? I know he’s not a great orator, but he made it clear that he’s going to campaign against Trump very, very, very hard.Bret: Well, let’s hope it doesn’t kill him. In the meantime, your thoughts about Trump potentially being disqualified from running in Maine and Colorado?Gail: While I love the idea of his role in Jan. 6 making him an insurrectionist who’s constitutionally not permitted to run for president, I have to admit the whole thing makes me very nervous.You don’t take care of the Trump problem by evicting him from the ballot. He has to be defeated or it’ll be a rallying cry for his many crazy supporters that could split the country in two.Am I being too much of a downer here?Bret: Couldn’t agree with you more. The decisions are wrong, pernicious, misjudged, arrogant and guaranteed to backfire.Gail: Great string of adjectives there. Go on.Bret: If Eugene Debs could run for president in 1920 from prison after he was convicted of sedition, why shouldn’t Trump be able to run for president without having been convicted of anything? If Trump can be kicked off the ballot in blue states on account of a highly debatable finding of “insurrection,” then what’s to stop red state judges or other officials kicking Biden off on their own flimsy findings? And on what basis can liberals continue to argue that Trump or Republicans represent a threat to democracy when they are the ones engaged in an attempt to deny tens of millions of voters their choice for president?Gail: Speaking for liberals, I agree. But I also commend Biden for trying to make Trump’s outrageous, dangerous behavior on Jan. 6 a campaign issue.Bret: The Supreme Court should overturn the Colorado court, swiftly and unanimously, and let voters choose the next president. Maybe at Harvard, too, while we’re at it.Gail: Hmm, do I detect an issue that’s really on your mind? Have to admit Claudine Gay’s problems at Harvard haven’t been at the top of my obsession list. But are you ready to rant?Bret: Yes, particularly about a tweet that The Associated Press sent out the other day that seems to capture a particular kind of inanity. It read: “Harvard president’s resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges: plagiarism.” Maybe this “weapon” wouldn’t have been so injurious to Gay if she hadn’t violated a cardinal academic rule more than three dozen times or been at the top of an institution that is supposed to uphold strict intellectual integrity.I also think the episode is a good opportunity for universities to try to rethink what their core mission ought to be. For starters, they should reread the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report and get out of the business of making political statements of any kind. They should foster more intellectual diversity in their faculties and student bodies. And they need to downsize and restrain their administrative side, particularly the thought police in their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office.Gail: Let me pick out a sliver of agreement here. This country has long had a crippling system of higher education in which kids could get very expensive loans very easily. Sometimes from smarmy private lenders who needed to be shut down and sometimes well-intentioned government-backed ones. But either way, ambitious young people were encouraged to borrow tons of money, and then left with hopeless piles of debt.And all that cash flowing in allowed universities to grow way too much, particularly in areas like administration.Bret: If we keep agreeing this much, the world might end.Gail: University heads have a lot of roles. Representing inclusivity is a worthy one. We’re moving into an era when schools can no longer consider race as its own factor in admissions. But they have to keep finding ways to make sure their student bodies aren’t totally dominated by well-heeled white kids. One strategy is having high-profile administrators and professors who represent a good mix of race, background, special interests, etc.Bret: Sure.Gail: Claudine Gay was an attractive choice on that front. Her performance at that hearing on antisemitism was a disaster, I think in part because she was used to appearing in very different contexts, and didn’t expect her generalizations about inclusivity to be so sharply attacked. Her mistake.Bret: Part of the problem here is that diversity, equity and inclusion went from being a set of worthy aspirations to a bureaucratic and self-serving apparatus with a highly ideological, polarizing and often exclusionary concept of its own mission.Gail: Think you’re leaving me behind here. But go on.Bret: Another part of the problem is that, while diversity is a fine goal, it needs to be in service to the university’s central mission of intellectual challenge and excellence, not at cross-purposes with it. My biggest problem with Gay wasn’t her plagiarism or even her disastrous testimony to Congress. It was her thin academic record: 11 published papers and not a single book in 26 years. I hope her successor is a model of scholarship, irrespective of race or gender.But getting back to politics, Gail, give me your advice on how Biden should run his campaign.Gail: Did you hear his Jan. 6 speech, the one I mentioned earlier? I thought it was pretty good. Best way for him to get past the age issue is to be feisty, take Trump head on. Make the Donald mad — because when he gets mad, he tends to sound more demented than Biden at his worst.Bret: The “Give ’Em Hell, Harry” approach. I like it.Gail: Our president should remind the country of all the good stuff that’s happened under his administration. Including the large economic improvement. And the country’s struggle against that huge jump in the national debt created by Trump’s tax breaks for the rich.Bret: Biden needs an ad campaign in the spirit of Ronald Reagan’s “There Is a Bear in the Woods.” In one ad, people would constantly wake up to a jackhammer, a chain saw or a car alarm, to remind them of what it was like to wake up to whatever Trump had tweeted at 2 in the morning. In another, parents have to deal with a petulant and boastful 12-year-old boy who’s constantly lying to them. A third would just be footage of Trump lavishing praise on Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, not to mention Hezbollah.At the end of each ad, a voice that sounds like Tommy Lee Jones’s would ask the question: “Some people want four more years of this — do you?”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Should Trump Be Removed From the Ballot?

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      More from our inbox:Reflections After Claudine Gay’s Resignation at HarvardLegal challenges similar to the one former President Donald J. Trump faces in Colorado are pending in at least 16 additional states. Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Seeing Threat to Democracy, With Trump on Ballot or Not” (front page, Dec. 31):The argument by Republicans like J.D. Vance and Chris Christie and Democrats like Gavin Newsom that removing Donald Trump from the ballot would be anti-democratic and would deprive voters of the right to choose their president is flawed in two respects.First, the 14th Amendment — like the rest of the Constitution — was adopted through a democratic process. It is no more anti-democratic to deny Mr. Trump a place on the ballot because he engaged in insurrection than it is to disqualify a 34-year-old from running for president because of the age requirement.Second, if the Supreme Court chooses not to enforce the 14th Amendment on the premise that voters should be able to make an unfettered decision, it must give voters an opportunity to assess all of the facts for themselves. If the court were to reverse the Colorado decision to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot, a necessary corollary must be an expedited criminal trial on the Jan. 6-related indictment so that voters can be fully informed before deciding whether to vote for Mr. Trump.The polls suggest that the results of this trial could change the votes of a significant number of Mr. Trump’s supporters and could determine the outcome of the election.Randy SpeckWashingtonTo the Editor:“Seeing Threat to Democracy, With Trump on Ballot or Not” leaves out a crucial problem: the glacial pace of the criminal justice system. Whether former President Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection should have already been decided in court. But our justice system is too slow, and too vulnerable to Mr. Trump’s favorite legal strategy, to delay, delay, delay.Since March 2023, Mr. Trump has been charged with 91 felonies in four cases: falsifying business records, mishandling classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election through an insurrection and by trying to strong-arm Georgia officials. But we haven’t seen Mr. Trump cleared or convicted of these charges, charges filed only years after the fact.With courtroom justice delayed, and mountains of compelling evidence publicly available, it’s no surprise that challenges have been filed in 32 states to consider whether Mr. Trump is guilty of insurrection and thus ineligible to run for president.Deciding Mr. Trump’s guilt or innocence before the next election is still possible. But it will require judicial officials to act faster than may be comfortable or usual. American democracy is at stake, making it imperative that justice not be denied through delay.Tom LevyOakland, Calif.To the Editor:Re “How Justices May Weigh Trump Case,” by Adam Liptak (news analysis, front page, Dec. 30):In 2000, I wrote a statement eventually signed by 673 law professors (and run as a full-page ad in The Times) denouncing the Bush v. Gore justices for acting as “political partisans, not judges of a court of law.” Will they do so again?The Republican-appointed justices can escape partisanship by rejecting the feeble arguments against removing Donald Trump from the ballot.First, the 14th Amendment plainly applies to the presidency. Who can take seriously the notion that the amendment’s authors wanted to prevent insurrectionists from running for dogcatcher but not the most powerful office in the land?Second, Jan. 6 was obviously an insurrection — a violent attempt to overturn an election and prevent a lawfully elected president from taking office.Finally, those who argue “let the voters decide” ignore that it was precisely the point of the constitutional provision to prevent voters from deciding to put insurrectionists back into power.Anti-democratic? In a way. Those who wrote Section 3 of the 14th Amendment recognized that American democracy remained at risk from those who had once tried to overthrow our government. When it came to insurrection, their view was: “One strike, you’re out.”We face the very same risks today. An insurrectionist wants another shot at dictatorship. The Constitution says no way.Mitchell ZimmermanPalo Alto, Calif.To the Editor:Re “In Trump Case, Voters’ Will vs. Rule of Law,” by Charlie Savage (news analysis, Dec. 23):Mr. Savage considers the argument that removing Donald Trump’s name from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment would deprive voters of the right to pick their leaders, and he sees a clash between voters’ rights and the principle that no one is above the law.But there is no such conflict here. We must of course respect voters’ rights, if our democracy is to endure. Which is all the more reason to enforce the 14th Amendment and keep Mr. Trump off the ballot.He was already rejected by the voters in 2020, and he refused to accept their decision. He refused to honor his constitutional duty to enable the peaceful transfer of power. He attempted to deprive millions of voters of their right to have their votes counted. One purpose of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is to prevent such people from repeating such a travesty.Let us also dispense with the argument that we should keep Mr. Trump on the ballot to avoid social unrest. The coming election — assuming a rematch between President Biden and Mr. Trump — will be fraught with problems, no matter the outcome.If Mr. Trump wins, he will keep his promises to destroy many of our democratic institutions; if he loses, he will not accept his defeat, and we will see a replay of 2020, and possibly of Jan. 6, 2021.The consequences of enforcing the law might be dire, but the consequences of not enforcing it might be worse.Larry HohmSeattleReflections After Claudine Gay’s Resignation at Harvard Adam Glanzman for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “What Happened at Harvard Is Bigger Than Me,” by Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 4):I applaud Dr. Gay’s guest essay. She emphasizes how her position as a Black woman in a position of power partly explains the venom with which she has been attacked. The press, including The New York Times, should be drawing greater attention to the rampant misogyny unleashed in these attacks on leading women in academia.Susan Laird ModyPlattsburgh, N.Y.The writer is emerita associate professor of education and gender and women’s studies at SUNY Plattsburgh.To the Editor:Claudine Gay wraps herself in Harvard’s toga of integrity. It simply won’t work, not for herself nor for Harvard. Plagiarism allegations are serious, especially for an academic researcher — or for a president of a leading academic institution. The best she can do now is to leave gracefully, without excuses or explanations.Mark CastelinoNewarkThe writer is an associate professor of finance at Rutgers Business School.To the Editor:As a Harvard alumnus, I for one am sorry to see Claudine Gay go. Not because she was a perfect president. But because she demonstrated several qualities often lacking in public figures today: kindness, humility and a commitment to growth.I also don’t understand people who say she wasn’t “qualified” because she didn’t have a voluminous research record. The presidency of Harvard is not a Nobel Prize. It’s an administrative role, and Dr. Gay was an accomplished university administrator. We should consider the agendas of those who suggest otherwise.Bernie ZipprichNew York More

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      Plagiarism Allegations Against Claudine Gay

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      More from our inbox:The Bronx Defenders and the Fallout From WarUndoing Roe: ‘A Shameful Saga’Buying Cashmere Without an Environmental CostKen Cedeno/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Why Claudine Gay Should Go,” by John McWhorter (column, nytimes.com, Dec. 21):Mr. McWhorter argues that Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, should be held to the same academic standards as the institution’s undergraduates. If only that were true!When I was a graduate student there in the late 1990s, I was warned by a senior professor not to pursue a case of plagiarism because it might lead to a lawsuit. The university, he confided, had recently lost a costly court case brought by the parents of a student accused of plagiarism.Plagiarists are rarely brought to account, especially in academe, where it is often treated as a minor delict. How do I know? I’ve been plagiarized by at least two other academics, including a visiting professor at Harvard during my first year of graduate school. Neither she nor the other offender ever faced any consequences.Andrew I. PortDetroitThe writer is a professor of history at Wayne State University.To the EditorRe “Harvard Finds More ‘Duplicative Language’ of President” (news article, Dec. 22):I find it quite odd for The Times to consistently lead the coverage of Claudine Gay’s academic work with an overemphasis that “conservative” voices have driven the claims of plagiarism.The issue is not the political background of the whistle-blowers, but the actual charges. I (hardly a conservative if it matters) wrote articles, a master’s thesis, a Ph.D. dissertation and a book, and I can guarantee that in each case I knew my writing and what I got from other sources (primary and secondary).Nothing bothered my mentor and friend, the late historian Stan Kutler, more than plagiarists who claimed, after getting caught, that their stealing was an oversight, a little mistake, a slight error, a problem in checking content. No, they simply got caught.Dr. Gay would surely support a grad student’s expulsion for plagiarizing. Her turn.Joseph L. DavisMadison, Wis.To the Editor:The New York Times has devoted a startling amount of coverage to sorting out the question of Claudine Gay’s plagiarism. May I suggest that before devoting more, the newspaper’s reporters might want to examine publications by all the Harvard presidents who came before her? And perhaps some of those by its most famous professors, too.The computer technology that exists today may allow critics to scrutinize her writings far more than any past scholar’s work was scrutinized when such technological capabilities did not exist.Let’s see how much she is an outlier in her community — or not — before condemning her so roundly.Janna Malamud SmithMilton, Mass.The writer graduated from Harvard in 1973.The Bronx Defenders and the Fallout From WarSome lawyers in housing and family courts have said they want nothing to do with members of the Bronx Defenders.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Feud Over War Imperils Future of Legal Group; Claims of Antisemitism at Bronx Defenders” (front page, Dec. 15):I am an attorney and a former priest at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in the South Bronx.The Bronx Defenders are among the best lawyers in the city. A lawyer’s duty is to represent a client “zealously,” and the Bronx Defenders represent their clients passionately. I always felt confident when they represented a parishioner or someone I knew from the community.Apparently they bring the same passion to advocating for Palestinians, seeing the hardships they face as similar to those of their South Bronx clients.I urgently hope that they can see that, throughout history, the Jewish people have suffered from prejudice that is also similar to the prejudice their clients have experienced, and, for the sake of their clients, save the Bronx Defenders.(Rev.) Martha OverallNew YorkTo the Editor:Your article about the Bronx Defenders epitomizes my deepest fears about the effects of the Israel-Hamas war on the United States.Longstanding progressive American allies in the campaigns for free speech, civil rights, marriage equality, reproductive freedom, L.G.B.T.Q. protections, educational and legal reform, health care for all, affordable housing, academic freedom, animal and environmental protection — and more — are fighting each other over support for Israel versus support for Palestine as if no compromise were possible and this one point of conflict outweighed years of cooperative work, personal friendships and even family ties.Marches, flag-waving and ill-informed slogan-shouting, especially on college campuses, will have little effect on the war, but they might alienate enough normally Democratic voters to let Donald Trump win a close election. That would harm the country beyond our wildest imagining far into the future.Judy OlinickMiddlebury, Vt.Undoing Roe: ‘A Shameful Saga’Erin Schaff/The New York Times; Illustration by Matt DorfmanTo the Editor:Re “Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe” (front page, Dec. 17):This brilliant account of the undoing of Roe v. Wade exposes a shameful saga of partisan judging by justices who were committed to ending a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion even as they misled the Senate about their respect for long-settled precedent.Appointed by then-President Donald Trump with the mandate of reversing Roe, the three newest justices joined the reactionary core of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to fashion a decision that will live in infamy, rivaled in disgrace only by the cases of Citizens United and Dred Scott.The story of how the conservative majority manipulated the calendaring and hearing of the case, and their activism in going beyond the limited relief initially sought by Mississippi, will further erode public confidence in the integrity of the court and undermine its legitimacy as a once revered institution.Gerald HarrisNew YorkThe writer is a retired New York City Criminal Court judge.Buying Cashmere Without an Environmental CostGoats grazing on the Mongolian Plateau in Central Asia.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Demand for Cashmere Is Harming the Environment,” by Ginger Allington (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 17):While, of course, we must do all we can to preserve the incredibly fragile world we walk on, we can own cashmere — buy it used!Dr. Allington’s vivid essay teaches us to eschew the fabric that comes from the destructive practices used in herding Mongolian goats. But, as she says, “consider vintage cashmere.” We can head to our nearest consignment shop or other retailer of preworn clothing and find cashmere treasures for our loved ones during these alarming times.Here’s to such warmth!Deborah FriedNew Haven, Conn.To the Editor:Thank you so much for Ginger Allington’s guest essay on cheap cashmere fibers. It is up to every one of us to make a difference by choosing sustainable options.I had the luxury of buying several real cashmere sweaters in the 1970s. I am still wearing them! And I have just inherited a batch from my mother’s closet that are all still perfectly wearable because of the quality. The cheap cashmere that is being produced is doubly egregious because it won’t last one season.At what cost fast fashion? Is it the chicken or the egg? Buyers should stop buying, or manufacturers should stop producing?Susan StockToronto More

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      Even in Washington, Weasel Words Will Only Get You So Far

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      Gail Collins: Hey, Bret, would you hate it if I asked for a couple of predictions for 2024?Bret Stephens: Gail, it would be better if you asked me for my prediction for the year 2112. That way, hardly anybody will remember how wrong I was and I won’t be around for them to remind me. But here’s my 2024 prediction anyway: Trump is elected president again, and we become neighbors in Toronto.Now your turn.Gail: OK, Donald Trump is going to be campaigning for president while on trial for an astonishing range of crimes. Meanwhile, we’ll shiver with fear every time Joe Biden coughs. But in the end, I predict the nation will square its collective shoulders and elect the better man, even if he’s beginning to look like an old 81.Bret: Biden has a 37 percent approval rating, according to Gallup, and Trump is running four points ahead of him in the latest Wall Street Journal poll — or six points, if you factor in third-party and independent candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. This is beginning to have the makings of an epochal disaster, not just for the country but for Western civilization. Yet Democrats are driving at high speed toward a rock wall because they don’t want to tell Grandpa that he no longer should be allowed to get behind the wheel or even suggest he replace his vice president with someone more … confidence-inducing.Gail: Here’s a pre-new year prediction: In stores around the nation, children — and their parents — will stand in line to sit on Santa’s lap and beg him to bring them a different presidential race.Bret: Nikki Haley against Gretchen Whitmer — how much fun would that be? But we are where we are. Pass the absinthe.Changing the subject: Did you watch the testimony of the university presidents?Gail: Yeah, Claudine Gay of Harvard is probably going to be haunted for the rest of her life for having said “it depends on the context” when asked whether calling for genocide of the Jews violated Harvard’s rules against bullying and harassment.Bret: Along with Elizabeth Magill, the now-former president of Penn, and Sally Kornbluth, the president of M.I.T. Just imagine the reaction to any university president saying “it depends on the context” as to whether calling for the genocide of, say, Black or Asian people is permissible. It was heartening to see Democrats and Republicans alike taking them to task for such colossally stupid answers, even if it’s hard to find myself on the same side with an election denier like Elise Stefanik.Gail: In the world of higher education, free speech is a cardinal virtue and leaders learn how to get past questions that would force them to call for anything that sounds like censorship.Magill framed her answer in what sounded like a weaselly dodge, but I’m sorry she felt compelled to resign.Bret: I’m against cancel culture on principle, so I hope Gay, who apologized for her remarks, and Kornbluth, who hasn’t — at least as far as I know — don’t follow Magill out the door. There needs to be space for contrition and learning.I’m also a fervent believer in free expression, including at private universities that don’t have a legal obligation to abide by the strictures of the First Amendment. The problem is that universities like Harvard often enforce rules against hate speech when it comes to heinous statements against some minority groups, but they invoke free speech when it comes to heinous statements about Jews. That double standard lies at the root of the antisemitism that pervades too many campuses. If colleges were truly serious about free speech, they would work a lot harder to pierce the left-wing bubble that so many college campuses have become.The other big national story from last week is Hunter Biden’s indictment on tax evasion charges. Your thoughts?Gail: Well, we’ve been down this road before. Hunter is certainly in a ton of trouble on the tax front, but I don’t believe voters will hold his problems against his father.Bret: We’ll see.Gail: Joe Biden is a man who, early in his political career, lost his wife and daughter in a terrible car accident. Then later he lost a beloved son — the star of the next generation of Bidens in the political world — to cancer.Hunter was the offspring who was always getting into trouble. Many families have one and God knows he’s caused his father a lot of grief. The message the country should be getting from all this is that our president is a leader who can work through incredible personal pain for the common good.Bret: I think we both recognize that the president has suffered through a lot — and having a surviving son with a longstanding drug habit has been part of the suffering. He has my sympathy.But Joe’s political problem is that Hunter’s story keeps getting worse — and parts of it suggest attempts to conceal the full truth. Before the election, Joe claimed that Hunter’s lost-and-found laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. False. He said he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings and never got involved. False. David Weiss, the special counsel appointed by Merrick Garland, Biden’s attorney general, was about to give Hunter a sweetheart plea bargain. The judge rejected it, and now Hunter has been hit with tax evasion charges that could end up in a long prison sentence.Gail: The last was a punishment for being Joe’s son. A normal defendant would have had no problem getting that deal approved. A normal well-lawyered defendant, anyway.Bret: He’s accused of evading more than $1 million in taxes and spending it on drugs and, uh, companionship. And Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Hunter a fortune to sit on its board when Joe was vice president — with a special responsibility to help clean up Ukrainian corruption — cut Hunter’s salary in half after Obama left office.Gail: Don’t think even the Bidens’ best friends believed Burisma hired Hunter for his depth of knowledge on energy issues in post-Soviet republics. But let’s just say it’s not unusual for the children of powerful men and women to get jobs because of their names.If there were serious stories about Joe using his political muscle to, say, get Burisma a special government contract, that would be a different matter.Bret: At a minimum, all of this will help Trump neutralize some of the ethical and legal charges against him, at least with some wavering voters, the way Bill Clinton’s record of sexual misconduct neutralized Trump’s vulnerabilities on that score. But if there are other shoes to drop, it will turn into an even bigger political liability for an already vulnerable president.Gail: Praying all the shoes are already on the floor. But I think the Republicans are flirting with trouble when they tie all this into an impeachment crusade. Just gonna remind the public that Trump was the only president in American history to be impeached twice.Bret: Do they even remember? Stalin supposedly said that the death of one man is a tragedy but the death of a million is a statistic. I propose a corollary for Trump: A single criminal indictment against a former president is a disgrace, but 91 counts is a blur.Gail: OK, gonna quote that one in 2024.Bret: Gail, we’ve made it a December tradition to mention charities we admire and support. Do you have a recommendation for our readers?Gail: First, can I say kudos to the many readers who provide ongoing support for projects that help the poor, educate the neglected, protect the environment and do so many other great things?Bret: You may indeed.Gail: I’m happy to recommend La Mision Children’s Fund in El Cajon, Calif. It fights hunger and works to improve education in impoverished communities in Mexico near the California border. With all the current hysteria over border politics, it’s a particularly good time to encourage something so sensible.Your turn.Bret: Rails-to-Trails conservancy. It has been around since the 1980s, working for the creation of biking and walking trails across the country, including a trail that will eventually connect Washington, D.C., to the state of Washington. Conservatives and liberals will always have differences, but we should be able to agree on the importance of conservation, of urban and rural renewal, and creating great public spaces that can be enjoyed by everyone.Gail: Once again we’re in accord. Although the disaccords are always fun, too. Happy holidays on both fronts, Bret.Bret: Gail, before we go, I want to put in a word for our colleague Megan Stack’s brilliantly reported and beautifully written essay on life for Palestinians in the West Bank. I’ve known Megan for more than 20 years, when we both worked in Jerusalem. And while we are on opposite sides of this subject, politically speaking, I have nothing but respect for the deep sense of humanity she brings to everything she writes. We need to preserve our intellectual humility by paying attention to those with whom we disagree, sometimes passionately. The alternative really is the abyss.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More