Business
Column: As professionals flee antiabortion policies, red states face a brain drain
A couple of days in the past, a college headhunter reached out to Elizabeth T. Jacobs, a professor of epidemiology on the College of Arizona, to gauge her curiosity in transferring to a number one college in Texas.
Underneath regular circumstances and in skilled phrases, the chance would have appeared intriguing. “It was a gorgeous scenario,” Jacobs instructed me. “It was at an establishment I’ve plenty of respect for, and I might not have dismissed it out of hand.”
However the political atmosphere in Texas is just not regular, in Jacobs’ view. She knowledgeable the recruiter that “beneath the present state management I didn’t assume my household can be secure in that state.”
As of tomorrow, I’m on the open market…. I cannot endanger my group.
— College of Utah neuroscientist Bryan William Jones, following Supreme Court docket abortion ruling
Jacobs had a prolonged listing of issues about insurance policies being applied by Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott.
By govt order, Abbott prohibited native authorities entities, together with faculty districts and public well being businesses, from issuing masks mandates. He signed a invoice permitting Texas residents to hold a gun and not using a allow.
Texas has what stands out as the most draconian antiabortion legislation within the nation. Its infamous SB 8 successfully locations a bounty on the heads of medical suppliers and others deemed to have aided and abetted an unlawful abortion, permitting plaintiffs even from out of state to say damages of greater than $10,000 for violations.
The bounty provisions “are going to dissuade essentially the most certified professionals from accepting jobs in locations the place they could possibly be prosecuted for saving the lifetime of a pregnant individual,” Jacobs says. “Over time, that degrades the whole medical equipment.”
Jacobs depends upon the drug methotrexate to deal with her rheumatoid arthritis. However as a result of the drug will also be used to induce abortions, pharmacists in Texas can refuse to dispense it. “I can’t think about being minimize off from a drugs that my physician prescribes to cut back my signs.”
Jacobs can also be involved concerning the atmosphere by which her two teenage sons would develop up — one by which gun restrictions are being loosened even within the face of mass shootings, lecturers aren’t free to show the complete pageant of American historical past, good and unhealthy, and by which LGBTQ residents are focused by official insurance policies.
“I don’t know who they’re going to develop into or who they’re going to fall in love with,” she says. “However I don’t need to transfer to a state the place their choices are restricted.”
Jacobs’ issues will not be distinctive and even uncommon amongst skilled staff. Certainly, they’re spreading. Her July 16 tweet about her encounter with the recruiter has been retweeted 7,900 instances and garnered 72,600 “likes” from Twitter customers.
College school members in pink states are publicly expressing issues concerning the impression of exclusionary right-wing insurance policies on their efforts to draw college students and recruit certified individuals to their establishments. Some have put out public feelers soliciting job affords from states with less-restrictive abortion legal guidelines.
“As of tomorrow, I’m on the open market,” University of Utah neuroscientist Bryan William Jones tweeted June 24, the day the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 choice that established a constitutional proper to abortion. Jones stated he can be prepared to carry his 12 lab members, of whom eight are ladies, with him. “I cannot endanger my group,” he wrote.
Jones famous that the Supreme Court docket ruling, which got here in a case titled Dobbs vs. Jackson Ladies’s Well being Group, routinely triggered a preexisting ban on abortion in Utah. A state decide later positioned the set off legislation briefly on maintain, however that has solely heightened the uncertainty about abortion legislation in Utah.
The Dobbs choice cleared the way in which for whole bans or extreme restrictions on abortions in a minimum of 25 states.
Whether or not or how deeply these restrictions will emerge as a think about job recruitment or college admissions is unimaginable to say simply but — the choice is just not but a month outdated and was handed down after the educational 12 months led to most higher- and secondary training techniques.
Early indications, nevertheless, are that they could increase new obstacles to recruiting staff whose abilities and {qualifications} permit them to select from a number of job alternatives.
College recruiters anticipate the political implications of the Dobbs ruling to permeate their discussions with school candidates.
High quality of life is a serious situation in recruitment discussions, says David Williamson Shaffer, an training professor on the College of Wisconsin who efficiently employed a candidate final 12 months who was additionally being wooed by Stanford and Harvard.
“We spent plenty of time discussing the standard of life right here,” Shaffer instructed me. “As any person who does recruiting, I’ve to look somebody within the eye and inform them I believe this may be a great place to come back.”
As we speak, Shaffer says, “I’m not completely certain I might try this with any person who was of the age the place they have been desirous about having kids.”
The Dobbs ruling triggered Wisconsin’s 173-year-old abortion ban, beneath which offering an abortion is a felony punishable by as much as six years in jail and a tremendous of as a lot as $10,000. All Wisconsin clinics instantly suspended abortion providers.
“I must be trustworthy with somebody even when they have been previous that stage of life, about what the implications can be by way of healthcare protection,” Shaffer says. “It could completely come up within the dialogue, and it might completely be an issue the subsequent time I’ve to recruit somebody.”
When a put up soliciting candidates for director of knowledge know-how on the new Alice L. Walton College of Medication appeared on Educause, a message web site for college personnel, it drew quite a few responses from professionals who stated they might not contemplate taking a job in a state with antiabortion insurance policies like these in Arkansas.
Arkansas bans all abortions with “very restricted exceptions,” based on the Guttmacher Institute. Amongst different restrictions, the state bans remedy abortions — these not requiring surgical procedure — by “pointless laws,” together with banning telehealth prescriptions or the mailing of drugs.
States implementing abortion restrictions are falling out of favor with college candidates {and professional} staff.
(Guttmacher Institute)
Restrictions on reproductive healthcare threaten to undermine initiatives in some states to draw or maintain their most promising college students. That could be the case in Indiana, the place the privately funded Lilly Endowment Neighborhood Scholarship Program gives 4 years of free tuition, charges and books for profitable candidates to attend schools and universities within the state.
However that hasn’t labored out for one lady I spoke with. She stated she acquired her Lilly scholarship in 2012, works as a advertising skilled and is engaged to a medical pupil who was a fellow Lilly scholar. (She spoke on the situation of anonymity to keep away from political repercussions.)
Now they’re dwelling in a state that, within the post-Dobbs world, might pressure individuals into being pregnant and giving beginning in opposition to their will. She’s nervous about information displaying that states with restricted abortion entry, as Indiana legislators might attempt to enact throughout an upcoming particular session, have worse maternal well being outcomes than states permitting the complete panoply of reproductive healthcare.
“If I miscarry, I don’t need to concern being accused of inflicting it,” she instructed me. “If, for a miscarriage or ectopic being pregnant, I would like an abortion, I don’t need to concern delayed medical care as a result of medical doctors are being intimidated out of their Hippocratic oaths by the state.”
She and her fiancé are hoping to maneuver to Illinois subsequent 12 months, assuming he can safe a medical residency in that state, “as a result of security issues for me as somebody who can get pregnant, and for my fiancé as a medical skilled,” she instructed me.
Highschool college students making use of for faculty are deleting establishments in some states from their lists of fascinating locations.
“Many college students are coming to our counselors with issues concerning the faculty lists they’ve already constructed or need to rethink,” says David Santos, chief govt of Prepory, a Florida faculty utility teaching service with its largest clienteles in Florida, California, Texas and New Jersey.
Santos says that in each case feminine college students are those initiating discussions with counselors about reproductive well being legal guidelines, however feminine and male college students are elevating questions concerning the therapy of LGBTQ residents in sure states.
Conversations between Prepory counselors and their youthful shoppers counsel that “college students will probably be extra influenced by geography than they have been earlier than,” based on transcripts of feedback from counselors. Santos expects this to be “an everyday consideration for college students for years to come back.”
Staff, professionals and college students might properly discover themselves confronting a shrinking portion of the U.S. the place healthcare rights and different social rights are honored. Arizona, the place Jacobs works now, is poised to implement a stringent “personhood” legislation that “classifies fetuses, embryos, and fertilized eggs as ‘individuals’ beginning on the level of conception,” because it’s described by the Middle for Reproductive Rights.
The legislation has been briefly blocked by a federal courtroom, but when permitted to enter impact, it might topic ladies to prison prosecution for miscarriages and stillbirths, based on critics.
The political atmosphere in her house state has led Jacobs to begin in search of alternatives elsewhere. “I’ve stated the scenario I’m in now could be like leaping from the frying pan into the fireplace,” she says. “I’m already within the frying pan, and I’m planning to go away Arizona as quickly as I can. I simply know I don’t need to transfer to a state with related draconian legal guidelines.”
The federal government sued Southwest Airlines on Wednesday, accusing the airline of harming passengers who flew on two routes that were plagued by consistent delays in 2022.
In a lawsuit, the Transportation Department said it was seeking more than $2.1 million in civil penalties over the flights between airports in Chicago and Oakland, Calif., as well as Baltimore and Cleveland, that were chronically delayed over five months that year.
“Airlines have a legal obligation to ensure that their flight schedules provide travelers with realistic departure and arrival times,” the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement. “Today’s action sends a message to all airlines that the department is prepared to go to court in order to enforce passenger protections.”
Carriers are barred from operating unrealistic flight schedules, which the Transportation Department considers an unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive practice. A “chronically delayed” flight is defined as one that operates at least 10 times a month and is late by at least 30 minutes more than half the time.
In a statement, Southwest said it was “disappointed” that the department chose to sue over the flights that took place more than two years ago. The airline said it had operated 20 million flights since the Transportation Department enacted its policy against chronically delayed flights more than a decade ago, with no other violations.
“Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years,” Southwest said.
Last year, Southwest canceled fewer than 1 percent of its flights, but more than 22 percent arrived at least 15 minutes later than scheduled, according to Cirium, an aviation data provider. Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines and American Airlines all had fewer such delays.
The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. In it, the government said that a Southwest flight from Chicago to Oakland arrived late 19 out of 25 trips in April 2022, with delays averaging more than an hour. The consistent delays continued through August of that year, averaging an hour or more. On another flight, between Baltimore and Cleveland, average delay times reached as high as 96 minutes per month during the same period. In a statement, the department said that Southwest, rather than poor weather or air traffic control, was responsible for more than 90 percent of the delays.
“Holding out these chronically delayed flights disregarded consumers’ need to have reliable information about the real arrival time of a flight and harmed thousands of passengers traveling on these Southwest flights by causing disruptions to travel plans or other plans,” the department said in the lawsuit.
The government said Southwest had violated federal rules 58 times in August 2022 after four months of consistent delays. Each violation faces a civil penalty of up to $37,377, or more than $2.1 million in total, according to the lawsuit.
The Transportation Department on Wednesday also said that it had penalized Frontier Airlines for chronically delayed flights, fining the airline $650,000. Half that amount was paid to the Treasury and the rest is slated to be forgiven if the airline has no more chronically delayed flights over the next three years.
This month, the department ordered JetBlue Airways to pay a $2 million fine for failing to address similarly delayed flights over a span of more than a year ending in November 2023, with half the money going to passengers affected by the delays.
California government’s plan to phase out heavy-duty diesel trucks and diesel locomotives has been derailed.
The ambitious plan aimed at reducing local pollution and global greenhouse gases required special waivers from the federal government. The Biden administration hadn’t granted the waivers as of this week, and rather than face almost certain denial by the incoming Trump administration, the state withdrew its waiver request.
That means the far-reaching regulations issued by the California Air Resources Board in 2022 to ban new diesel truck sales by 2036 and force fleet owners to take them off the road by 2042 won’t be enforced. Known as the Advanced Clean Fleets rule, the idea was to replace those trucks with electric and hydrogen-powered versions, which dramatically reduce emissions but are currently two to three times more expensive.
“While we are disappointed that U.S. EPA was unable to act on all the requests in time, the withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs,” CARB Chair Liane Randolph said in a prepared statement.
Environmentalists reacted with deep disappointment.
“To meet basic standards for healthy air, California has to shift to zero-emissions trucks and trains in the coming years. Diesel is one of the most dangerous kinds of air pollution for human health,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign, said in a prepared statement. “We’ll be working tirelessly in the coming years — and calling on Gov. [Gavin] Newsom, state legislators, and our air quality regulators to join us — to clean up our freight system and fix the mess [U.S.] EPA’s inaction has created.”
The trucking industry is pleased at the result, but hopes to continue working with California on environmental issues.
“This rule was flawed, and was not reflective of reality,” said Matt Schrap, chief executive at the Harbor Trucking Assn. “Ideally this is an opportunity to take a step back and look at a program that would be more sustainable.”
Trucking representatives had filed a lawsuit to block the rules, arguing they would cause irreparable harm to the industry and the wider economy. Train operators said no zero-emission locomotives exist on the commercial market.
Schrap said “the most important thing is the EPA could have issued the waiver and they didn’t.”
The EPA said it acknowledges California’s withdrawal of the waiver requests “and as a result is taking no further action on CARB’s prior requests and considers these matters closed.”
President-elect Donald Trump is a champion of the fossil fuel industry, making it unlikely that his administration would have approved the California waivers. The state could, however, pursue waivers at some point in the future.
Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to set its own air standards, and other states are allowed to follow California’s lead. But federal government waivers are required. Most of California’s waivers have been granted, including approval in December of a California ban on new sales of gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035.
Bezos, Zuckerberg and Coke at the inauguration
Corporate America had already raced to donate big sums to Donald Trump’s record-breaking inaugural fund. Now some of its leaders appear eager to jockey for prominent positions at the inauguration next week.
It’s a new reminder that for some of the nation’s biggest businesses, forging close ties to a president-elect who is promising hard-hitting policies like tariffs is a priority this time around.
Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are expected to be on the inauguration dais, according to NBC News, alongside Elon Musk and several cabinet picks.
The presence of Musk isn’t a surprise, given the Tesla chief’s significant support of and huge influence over Trump. But the other tech moguls have only more recently been seen as supporters of the administration. (Indeed, Bezos frequently sparred with Trump during his first presidential term.)
It’s the latest effort by Bezos and Zuckerberg to burnish their Trump credentials. At the DealBook Summit in December, Bezos — whose Amazon has faced scrutiny under the Biden administration and whose Blue Origin is hoping to win government rocket contracts — said that he was “very hopeful” about Trump’s efforts to reduce regulation.
And Zuckerberg recently announced significant changes to Meta’s content moderation policy, including relaxing restrictions on speech seen as protecting groups including L.G.B.T.Q. people that won praise from Trump and other conservatives. On the inauguration front, Zuckerberg is also co-hosting a reception alongside the longtime Trump backers Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta and Todd Ricketts.
Both tech moguls have visited Mar-a-Lago since the election, with Zuckerberg having done so more than once.
Coca-Cola took a different tack. The drinks giant’s C.E.O., James Quincey, gave Trump what an aide called the “first ever Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle.”
More broadly, business leaders want a piece of the inauguration action. The Times previously reported that the Trump inaugural fund had surpassed $170 million, a record, and that even major donors have been wait-listed for events.
Others are throwing unofficial events around Washington, including an “Inaugural Crypto Ball” that will feature Snoop Dogg, with tickets starting at $5,000, The Wall Street Journal reports.
It’s a reminder that C.E.O.s are reading the room, and preparing their companies for a president who has proposed creating an “External Revenue Service” to oversee what he has promised will be wide-ranging tariffs.
David Urban, a longtime Trump adviser who’s hosting a pre-inauguration event, told The Journal, “This is the world order, and if we’re going to succeed, we need to get with the world order.”
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In other Trump news: The president-elect is expected to appear via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which starts on Inauguration Day, according to Semafor.
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Investors brace for the latest inflation data. The Consumer Price Index report, due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that inflation ticked up last month, most likely because of climbing food and fuel costs. Global bond markets have been rattled as slow progress on slowing inflation has prompted the Fed to slash its forecast for interest rate cuts.
More Trump cabinet picks will appear before the Senate on Wednesday. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the choice for secretary of state, is expected to field questions about his views on the Middle East, Ukraine and China, but is expected to be confirmed. Russell Vought, the pick to run the Office of Management and Budget, will most likely be asked about his advocacy for drastically shrinking the federal government, a key Trump objective. And Sean Duffy, the Fox Business host chosen to lead the Transportation Department, will probably face questions on how he would oversee matters including aviation safety and autonomous vehicles, the latter of which is a priority for Elon Musk.
Meta plans to lay off another 5 percent of its employees. Mark Zuckerberg, the tech giant’s C.E.O., told staff members to prepare for “extensive performance-based cuts” as the company braces for “an intense year.” The social media giant faces intense competition in the race to commercialize artificial intelligence.
A new bill would give TikTok a reprieve from a ban in the United States. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he planned to introduce the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act, which would give the video platform 270 additional days to be divested from its Chinese parent, ByteDance before being blacklisted. It’s the latest effort to buy TikTok time, as the app faces a Jan. 19 deadline set by a law; President-elect Donald Trump has opposed the potential ban as well.
A question of succession
JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock, the giant money manager, just reported earnings. (In short: Both handily beat analyst expectations.)
But the Wall Street giants are likely to face questioning on a particular issue on Wednesday: Which top lieutenants are in line to replace their larger-than-life C.E.O.s, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink.
Who’s out:
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Daniel Pinto, who had long been Dimon’s right-hand man, said he would officially drop his responsibilities as JPMorgan’s C.O.O. in June and retire at the end of 2026. Jenn Piepszak, the co-C.E.O. of the company’s core commercial and investment bank, has become C.O.O.
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And Mark Wiedman, the head of BlackRock’s global client business and a top contender to succeed Fink, is planning to leave, according to news reports.
What Wall Street is gossiping about JPMorgan: Even in taking the C.O.O. role, JPMorgan said that Piepszak wasn’t interested in succeeding Dimon “at this time.” DealBook hears that while she genuinely appears not to want to pursue the top job, the phrasing covers her in case she changes her mind.
For now, that means the most likely candidates for the top spot are Marianne Lake, the company’s head of consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, the other co-head of the commercial and investment bank; and Doug Petno, a co-head of global banking.
The buzz around BlackRock: Wiedman reportedly didn’t want to keep waiting to succeed Fink and is expected to seek a C.E.O. position elsewhere. (So sudden was his departure that he’s forfeiting about $8 million worth of stock options and, according to The Wall Street Journal, he doesn’t have another job lined up yet.)
Fink said on CNBC on Wednesday that Wiedman’s departure had been in the works for some time, with the executive having expressed a desire to leave about six months ago.
Other candidates to take over for Fink include Martin Small, BlackRock’s C.F.O.; Rob Goldstein, the firm’s C.O.O.; and Rachel Lord, the head of international.
But Dimon and Fink aren’t going anywhere just yet. Dimon, 68, said only last year that he might not be in the role in five years. And Fink, 72, said in July that he was working on succession planning: “When I do believe the next generation is ready, I’m out.”
The S.E.C. gets in a final shot at Musk
Another battle between Elon Musk and the S.E.C. erupted on Tuesday, with the agency suing the tech mogul over his 2022 purchase of Twitter.
It’s unclear what happens to the lawsuit once President-elect Donald Trump, who counts Musk as a close ally, takes office. But the agency’s reputation as an independent watchdog may be at stake.
A recap: The S.E.C. accused Musk of violating securities laws in his $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.
The agency said that Musk had failed to disclose his Twitter ownership stake for a pivotal 11-day stretch before revealing his intentions to purchase the company. That breach allowed him to buy up at least $150 million worth of Twitter shares at a lower price — to the detriment of existing shareholders, the agency argues.
The S.E.C. isn’t just seeking to fine Musk. It wants him to pay back the windfall. “That’s unusual,” Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane Law School, told DealBook.
Alex Spiro, Musk’s lawyer, called the latest action a “sham” and accused the agency of waging a “multiyear campaign of harassment” against him.
The showdown sets up a tough question for the S.E.C. Will Paul Atkins, the president-elect’s widely respected pick to lead the agency, drop the case? Such a move could call the bedrock principle of S.E.C. independence into question.
Jay Clayton, who led the agency during Trump’s first term, earned the respect of the business community for running it in a largely drama-free manner. It was under Clayton that the S.E.C. sued Musk over his statements about taking Tesla private.
Musk, who is set to become Trump’s cost-cutting czar and is expected to have office space in the White House complex, has called for the “comprehensive overhaul” of agencies like the S.E.C. The billionaire said he would also like to see “punitive action against those individuals who have abused their regulatory power for personal and political gain.”
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In related news: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One, accusing it of cheating its depositors out of $2 billion in interest payments.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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DAZN, the streaming network backed by the billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik, is closing in on funding from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund as the kingdom continues to expand its sports footprint. (NYT)
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The Justice Department sued KKR, accusing the investment giant of withholding information during government reviews for several of its deals. KKR filed a countersuit. (Bloomberg)
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OpenAI added Adebayo Ogunlesi, the billionaire co-founder of the infrastructure investment firm Global Infrastructure Partners, to its board. (FT)
Politics and policy
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