In a refreshing break from its recent streak of awful opinion page hires—one that included neoconservative climate-denier Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss, a reliable apologist for Israeli atrocities—the New York Times announced on Thursday that it has hired author, civil rights lawyer, and criminal justice reform advocate Michelle Alexander as a full-time columnist.
In addition to becoming the first woman of color to hold the position, Alexander will also be the only Times columnist who backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2016 presidential election, providing the so-called paper of record with a genuine left-wing voice to at least partially counter conservatives like Stephens and David Brooks and Ross Douthat and Tom Friedman.
"Michelle is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, the book that changed the way many of us think about criminal justice and about the persistence and adaptation of forms of racial control in the United States," Times opinion page editor James Bennet said in a statement on Thursday. "She is a powerful writer, a fierce advocate for a more just world, and a deep believer in open-minded, searching debate over how to achieve it."
The Times' decision to hire Alexander was met with applause by progressives, who argued her "prophetic voice is badly needed" in the midst of worsening racial injustice, mass incarceration, and economic inequality.
The first woman of color AND the first Bernie supporter hired as a columnist by @nytopinion. I guess Bennet listened to his critics, eventually. Excellent hire. https://t.co/Puml7zFtGL
— David Klion (@DavidKlion) June 21, 2018
This is great. No book has galvanized more people against mass incarceration than Alexander’s New Jim Crow https://t.co/HQeVkC3eXP
— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) June 21, 2018
This is awesome. Finally, a woman of colour joins the NY Times op-ed pages as a columnist.
Next up, a Latino columnist maybe?
Someone who’s not Tom Friedman to speak for brown/Arab/Muslim communities, which find themselves at the centre of so much of our political discourse? https://t.co/QTr8WLBcfY
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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) June 21, 2018
We're beyond thrilled that @nytimes has hired Union visiting professor Michelle Alexander as a opinion page columnist! In these dire times, her prophetic voice is badly needed. https://t.co/D187rGjn2F
— Union Seminary (@UnionSeminary) June 21, 2018
Michelle Alexander's talks with Naomi Klein on climate change and economic injustice alone make her a really exciting addition to an opinion page prone to inaccuracy and trolling on these issues.
Here's video of one such talk in Chicago from last year:https://t.co/LLueAN3VcS https://t.co/VvS7XgTYkb
— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) June 21, 2018
Congratulations to our friend Michelle Alexander on joining @nytopinion as a columnist! Check out her powerful keynote speech on race and the war on drugs from DPA's Reform Conference last year: https://t.co/oxd2KbCHbW https://t.co/aZjuo7c0WB
— Drug Policy Alliance (@DrugPolicyOrg) June 21, 2018
