Opinion Columns

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Members of Proud Boys New Hampshire were outside Salem High School before former president Donald Trump spoke at the New Hampshire Republican State Committee 2023 annual meeting, Jan. 28, in Salem, N.H.

GOP establishment hedges on Trump

Few speak the unvarnished truth: A man who betrayed democracy should be rejected out of hand.

Why I won’t watch the Tyre Nichols video

In 2020, we were promised a reckoning. All we’ve gotten are more Black people killed by police.

Wu wants to cut fares at Boston’s commuter rail stations. Is that really a good idea?

It’s pretty rich to say the proposal’s purpose is “to promote fare equity” when the main beneficiaries are riders in West Roxbury, Roslindale, Hyde Park, and Readville.

What makes David Sabatini think he deserves a second chance after his #MeToo downfall?

He still doesn’t get the impact on anyone’s life beyond his own. “My life was 100 percent destroyed,” he told the Globe.

op-eds

A classified document is framed by shadows on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office on Oct. 5, 2009.

The not-so-secret secret about those classified documents

The government needs classification reform to ensure transparency and an enlightened citizenry, to make certain that public officials continue to act in the best interest of the nation, and to document historical activities to inform future decisions and policies.

Peniel E. Joseph

Tyre Nichols and America’s systemic failure

Proposed reforms at the federal level would not have saved the life of Tyre Nichols. Only the fundamental transformation of systems of punishment that have been normalized in American society and culture can do that.

Will shock treatment finally be banned?

The fact that autistic students are still being shocked at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center is unconscionable.

Big Law’s cancel culture

Ideological uniformity in Big Law, whether on the right or the left, is not a good thing — not for lawyers, law firms, and the rule of law.

More columns, op-eds, and newsletter excerpts

Bina Venkataraman

ChatGPT represents a leap forward in the capacity of machines to scour the vast volumes of text written by humans that exists on the Internet, and to infer relationships and knowledge to create original content — from pithy responses to your questions, to short stories in the style of Chekhov, to compelling undergraduate philosophy essays.

Are you for real? The most urgent question with artificial intelligence as a new interlocutor.

It’s ChatGPT’s fluency and even eloquence that poses its most imminent threat — it’s difficult to detect mistakes and falsehoods in text that reads like credible news.

David Lat

From left, Monica Mastel, John Dean, and Paul Clement were sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee during the final stage of the confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 7, 2018. Clement testified, "Judge Kavanaugh is enormously qualified to serve on the Nation’s highest court. I am confident he will serve with distinction."

Big Law’s cancel culture

Ideological uniformity in Big Law, whether on the right or the left, is not a good thing — not for lawyers, law firms, and the rule of law.

JEFF JACOBY

A building with an apartment for rent in Miami Beach, Fla.

As any economist can tell Mayor Wu, rent control never works

Wherever it’s imposed, the shortage of affordable housing grows worse.

Stephen Harrop

The faculty at Hamline University in Minnesota is calling for its president, Fayneese Miller, to resign for her handling of a Muslim student's objection to a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad being shown in an ancient art course.

Academic freedom and adjunct instructors who aren’t so free to speak

We’re seeing more and more examples of adjunct faculty members who have been “un-hired” because of instruction in the classroom and speech outside it.

Svante Myrick

This photo provided by the Nichols family shows Tyre Nichols, who had a passion for photography and was described by friends as joyful and lovable. Nichols was just minutes from his home in Memphis on Jan. 7, 2023, when he was pulled over by police and fatally beaten. Five Memphis police officers have since been charged with second-degree murder and other offenses.

Tyre Nichols and the culture of toxic policing

How can municipalities restructure police departments, hold officers responsible for abuses, remove unfit officers, and recruit competent officers?

John Rosenthal

The interior of Stephen Paddock's room on the 32d floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, from which he committed the mass shooting that killed 58 people and injured more than 500 attending a country music concert, Oct. 1, 2017.

Gun violence is a uniquely American crisis. How did we get here?

It’s by design to sell more guns.

RENÉE GRAHAM

A memorial outside the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park, Calif.

A dangerously armed nation at war with itself

There have been more mass shootings than days so far in 2023. And January isn’t even over yet.

Rachelle G. Cohen

If International Place developer Don Chiafaro had proposed a gold statue of then mayor Tom Menino himself atop his proposed new harbor-view tower along The Rose Kennedy Greenway, it wouldn’t have gotten the approval of what was then the Boston Redevelopment Agency.

Wu’s planning ‘redo’ puts process over results

Rearranging the boxes of city development is no substitute for mayoral leadership.