Newsweek Caves to the Rage Mob After Publishing an OpEd About Harris

Newsweek decided to publish an opinion piece by Dr. John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University and a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institution. In his OpEd, Eastman makes the argument that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) is ineligible to be vice president because she's not a "natural born citizen."

"Her father was (and is) a Jamaican national, her mother was from India, and neither was a naturalized U.S. citizen at the time of Harris' birth in 1964. That, according to these commentators, makes her not a 'natural born citizen'—and therefore ineligible for the office of the president and, hence, ineligible for the office of the vice president," Eastman wrote.

Of course, the cancel culture mob went after Newsweek editors, claiming that this was pushing the "birther" movement. Editors responded by defending Eastman's piece, saying it had nothing to do with the birther movement:

"Some of our readers have reacted strongly to the op-ed we published by Dr. John Eastman, assuming it to be an attempt to ignite a racist conspiracy theory around Kamala Harris' candidacy. Dr. Eastman was focusing on a long-standing, somewhat arcane legal debate about the precise meaning of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" in the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment. His essay has no connection whatsoever to so-called "birther-ism," the racist 2008 conspiracy theory aimed at delegitimizing then-candidate Barack Obama by claiming, baselessly, that he was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya. We share our readers' revulsion at those vile lies:

The 14th Amendment is one of the most-studied areas of constitutional law, and questions were raised by the Constitution's Article II, Section 1 "natural born Citizen" requirement for presidential eligibility about both John McCain and Ted Cruz, at the time of their respective runs. The meaning of "natural born Citizen," and the relation of that Article II textual requirement to the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause, are issues of legal interpretation about which scholars and commentators can, and will, robustly disagree.

Debating the meaning of these constitutional provisions and, in the particular case of Dr. Eastman's piece, the meaning of the 14th Amendment's phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," is not an attempt to deny facts or to make false claims. No one is questioning Harris' place of birth or the legitimacy of an obviously valid birth certificate.

After President Trump referenced the OpEd in his press conference on Friday, politicos took to Twitter to slam the so-called "birth strategy.

Newsweek ended up issuing an editor's note at the top of Eastman's OpEd, saying the piece was never meant "to spark or to take part in the racist lie of Birtherism."

It's ridiculous that Newsweek had to issue any kind of editor's note at all. Why can't we discuss the merits of someone's eligibility for office without it automatically being considered racist or xenophobic? Eastman laid out the scholarly debate surrounding the 14th Amendment. He brought up questions about Harris' eligibility for the office. The same questions have come up when John McCain and Ted Cruz both ran for president.

We need to get back to having intellectually honest conversations surrounding the Constitution. Not every question is risen with malice. For some people, like law professors and scholarly experts, are focused on the Constitutional aspect of things.

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