Jim Shaw

Fargo

Columnist at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

🏀 Head MBB Coach at Fort Hays Tech Northwest 🐅 NJCAA D1 Jayhawk Conference

Articles

Shaw: Feds shamefully cancel grants to local colleges

2 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

It’s no secret that our schools are under attack from the Trump administration. Now, grants that were awarded to local colleges have been canceled. At North Dakota State University, a previously approved deep mapping project was revoked. This terrific project would have looked at historic documents, archaeological finds and personal family histories in North Dakota. People could have looked up the history of individuals or addresses.
Shaw: Fedorchak, Fischbach, Hoeven and Cramer support a big, ugly bill

3 weeks ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

Shame on Reps. Julie Fedorchak and Michelle Fischbach for voting for the “big, beautiful bill.” Shame on North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer for praising the bill and promising to support it. This bill is big, but it sure isn’t beautiful. It’s ugly. It’s also cruel. What Fedorchak, Fischbach, Hoeven and Cramer are supporting is a mean plan to help the wealthy and seriously harm the poor and the needy. Under this bill, millions of Americans would lose their Medicaid and nutrition assistance.
Shaw: A tough call for the Fargo School Board, and congrats to John Wheeler

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

The Fargo School Board had no choice. There was too much at stake. Specifically, $19.7 million in federal funding. The board had to drop its DEI educational justice philosophies from its website, which it did recently. Let’s put the board’s decision in context. President Trump has unleashed a frightening assault on DEI. What was designed as a system to open doors and remove biases and bigotry, is being treated as something sinister now.
Shaw: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

The 2025 North Dakota Legislative session was a mixed bag. There were many excellent bills passed, many bad bills passed, and many missed opportunities. The top of the list for the good bills is significant property tax relief. Homeowners have been rightfully outraged at their high property tax bills, and the $1,600 tax credit will make a big difference. The only possible downside is the 3% limit on mill levy increases imposed on cities, counties and school boards.
Shaw: With approval voting gone, Fargo needs a primary

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

Approval voting in Fargo was good while it lasted. Instead of city commissioners being elected with just 15% of the vote, the winners received about half of the vote. It’s shameful that the North Dakota Legislature abolished approval and ranked-choice voting for local elections. Many lawmakers said it’s damaging for cities to have this system. Of course, nobody can cite any specific damage from Fargo’s system.
Shaw: This could be the last time I ever see her

1 month ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

It was an emotional reunion five years in the making. A daughter meeting with her mother. The daughter, Anastassiya Andrianvova, lives in Fargo. The 74-year-old mother, Oksana, lives in Kyiv, Ukraine. They were hoping to get together in 2020, but then the pandemic hit. Two years later, Russia launched its brutal attack against Ukraine. Meeting each other was virtually impossible. “I can’t put into words how hard this family separation is,” Anastassiya told me.
Shifting perspectives: a reflection on cancer-specific quality-of-life metrics in cancer care economics

1 month ago | thelancet.com | Eva Gamper |Madeleine King |Jim Shaw |Outcomes Research

aDepartment of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, University Hospital of Psychiatry II, Medial University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria bSchool of Psychology, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia cGlobal Health Economics and Outcomes Research, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lawrenceville, NJ, USA dDepartment of Health Economy, Norwegian Medicines Agency, Oslo, Norway eCenter for Health Technology Assessment and Center for Pharmacology and Drug Research and...
Shaw: Local residents fighting for our democracy

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

They come by the dozens every Friday in Fargo-Moorhead. Young people, workers and retirees. They come to passionately voice their displeasure with the direction of this country.
Shaw: Veto this frightening bill, and other thoughts from the North Dakota Legislature

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

Censorship and book bans must be stopped in North Dakota. Senate Bill 2307 would require public and school libraries in the state to hide “obscene” material from minors. Who is to say what’s “obscene”? What’s offensive to one person could be entirely appropriate for somebody else. This frightening bill is completely unnecessary. What is the problem legislators are trying to fix? There’s already a process in place at libraries to remove objectionable materials.
Shaw: Want to get rid of FEMA? Remember the 1997 flood

2 months ago | inforum.com | Jim Shaw

If you lived in the Red River Valley in 1997, you will never forget the massive flood that year. Grand Forks and East Grand Forks were walloped. The damages to those two cities amounted to more than $3 billion. Tens of thousands of people were affected. The Grand Forks area has since had a tremendous recovery, in large part because of FEMA. So, it's alarming to hear President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem say they're looking to get rid of the agency.