#Open Our Schools and other commentary

From the right: Open Our Schools

“Many liberals continually ignore the science that shows students can safely return to school,” notes Wisconsin ex-Gov. Scott Walker at The Washington Times. The CDC confirmed that “vaccinations of teachers is not a prerequisite for safely reopening schools,” and “plenty of teachers . . . are eager to be in the classroom,” yet “their union is blocking the way.” Soaring enrollment at Catholic and private schools proves that “parents understand that their children perform better with in-person instruction.” Instead of “letting the big government union bosses or liberal school administrators decide what’s best for individual families,” we should “put the power in the hands of parents to make the right choice for their daughters and sons. It is time to open our schools.”

Iconoclast: The Racist War on the Classics

At his Weekly Dish blog, Andrew Sullivan takes on the rising claims that the classics are inherently racist. He points to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s syllabus for a 1962 Morehouse College seminar, with Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine all the way up to John Stuart Mill. “King grasped . . . the core meaning of a liberal education, the faith that ideas can transcend space and time and culture and race.” But now comes “a broadening movement in the academy to abolish or dismantle the classics because of their iniquitous ‘whiteness.’ ” The main claim: Since racist and imperialist societies drew on these ideas, “the classics are therefore fatally tainted.” But: “That’s like saying that science should no longer exist because some scientists once practiced eugenics.”

Futurist: Be Optimistic, Republicans

With the impeachment of ex-President Donald Trump and a focus on Republican infighting, “the propaganda media and the Democrats . . . want to keep the GOP crouched in a circular firing squad shooting at itself,” warns former Speaker Newt Gingrich at Newsweek. Yet “Republicans have every reason to be optimistic,” with a much stronger position in state governments and excellent “opportunities in 2022.” And “the party will remain largely unified and focused on creating more jobs, lowering taxes, increasing take-home pay, defending America’s interests around the world — and developing solutions in health, learning, space and other areas that matter to our future.” In the end, “the Republican Party of entrepreneurship and hard work will defeat the Democratic Party of unemployment and redistribution.”

Conservative: Media’s Memory Hole

As Jane Austen wryly wrote, “a good memory is unpardonable” — and “a bad memory is going to be absolutely crucial” in the new administration, snarks Roger Kimball at Spectator USA. Perhaps “the Big Tech wardens in charge of what we can see and hear and think” will start “censoring items such as the clip” from a Democratic debate where Kamala Harris “lit into her” now-boss “on the issue of busing.” As California attorney general, “she was not above concealing exculpatory evidence that might exonerate” people on death row, but you won’t see that “in the Vogue cover stories of the new VP or in rapturous interviews with her on CNN.” But the “biggest challenge” will be keeping “which acts of violence are OK, indeed commendable, separate from those which are not OK and must be regarded as totally reprehensible.”

Riots beat: Mental Toll on Minneapolis Cops

At the Minneapolis Star Tribune, retired cop Kim Voss recalls the firebombing of her Third Precinct office during the George Floyd riots: “While our leadership held us back and we remained unsupported by our state, our city and our police administration, our neighborhoods burned. We felt helpless.” The department has now seen “almost one-third of its sworn personnel leave due to PTSD both diagnosed and undiagnosed.” This is what happens “when those in leadership disregard warning flags and stick their heads in the sand,” leaving cops on the front lines to “pay the price.” It’s tragic: “If someone, anyone, in leadership from the city or the Police Department had reached out to us and talked to us as if they really cared about us, you would not be seeing one-third of our department leaving. That is a lot of experience walking away.”

 Compiled by The Post Editorial Board