In the second part of our Opp Now exclusive conversation, UATX prof David Puelz and past Heterodox Academy fellow Elizabeth Weiss explain how “political correctness” and other ideological compulsions have long been around—but today’s climate against free speech is pretty unprecedented. Would Dr. Weiss have been kicked out of SJSU 20, even 10, years ago?
Read MoreSometime Opp Now contributor Susie Murillo writes in to note that equity is often a geographic phenomenon within cities—check out SJ's eastside/westside distinctions. She suggests that SJ's Office of Racial Equity could expand its brief to include solving geographic unfairness. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreA collection of SJ's far-left advocacy groups protested outside the family home of Mayor Mahan last weekend—complaining about the Mayor's homelessness programs. The groups' promotional flyer included violent imagery (crossing out Mahan's eyes—invoking a comic book convention to indicate someone's dead), and a parade of misinformed howlers that we fact check, below. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreScrapped speeches. Ousted professors. Whole campuses biting their tongues. We discuss, below, how replacing scholarship with illegitimate advocacy has bolstered ideological discrimination—via recruitment, hiring, and internal pressures. An Opp Now exclusive with SJSU prof emeritus Elizabeth Weiss and University of Austin prof David Puelz.
Read MoreSome books portraying the free market in action get a bit gritty and dark. Others (like three rec’d by Bay Area English profs, below) spotlight the successes that may come from perseverance, thoughtfulness, and Silicon Valley-style creativity. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreOn the first evening of Passover, historian April Halberstadt invites us to pull up a chair as she recounts the fascinating and inspiring stories of three Jewish San Joseans: doctor/musician Ephraim Engleman, and market owners/activists Sarah and Louis Richards. An Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreSan Jose Mayor Mahan wants to tie merit pay raises for city leadership to outcomes across four key areas. In an Opp Now exclusive Q&A, San Jose native and licensed local real estate agent Mark Burns suggests adding “find and eliminate unnecessary expenses” to the list.
Read MoreWe get funny looks sometimes for publishing exclusive poems (primarily from former Board of Equalization candidate Peter Verbica) alongside more “important” policy analyses. But, as Verbica discusses in this World Poetry Day Opp Now exclusive, “the language of the soul” has much to offer—and, indeed, borrow from—the political sphere. His interview, plus our (growing) library of Opp Now poetry, follows.
Read MoreIn this Opp Now exclusive Q&A, we chat with Santa Clara CM and engineer Kevin Park about why he believes the “area median income” metric no longer serves the Valley’s lower-income residents. Due to wage disparities, local median salaries (and thus, affordable housing prices) are grossly overinflated—so is it time we rethink affordability?
Read MoreThe threatened walkout of local transit workers causes little concern because so few people ride transit in the Valley. Randall O'Toole explores, in this highlight from a beloved Opp Now exclusive, why VTA is one of the worst-performing agencies in the U.S.
Read MoreThanks to the groundbreaking work of new Housing Director Erik Soliván, the SJ Council appears to be (finally) pivoting towards a Shelter First homelessness strategy. But Soliván & team will still have to overcome a lot of false narratives from councilmembers and Housing First advocates alike, as evidenced by CM Pam Foley's comments made while she rejected consideration of congregate shelters at a 2024 Rules Committee meeting. We explore the mistaken assumptions in Foley's anti-shelter statements, below in this Opp Now exclusive.
Read MoreD3 candidate Irene Smith and Recovery Education Coalition’s Tom Wolf parse the discouraging data on current local/statewide homelessness approaches—and how they think we can get back on track with interim housing, CARE Court, Prop 36 enforcement, and behavioral codes. All parts consolidated, below, from this Opp Now exclusive.
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