RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://tomklingenstein.com/three-pillars-of-education/

Editor’s Note: Nowhere has the group quota regime been more successful in its early years than in higher education, where the ideology of outcome equality is mandatory both as doctrine and as practice. A recent exchange in Public Discourse between Robert George and Yoram Hazony considered whether free speech is still a viable or desirable ideal in this era of the woke university. Here, Peter Wood, the president of the National Association of Scholars, argues alongside Hazony that free speech cannot be the highest principle of education — that firmer groundings and loftier aims are necessary in the fight against a revolutionary enemy.

As Wood writes,“Real intellectual diversity, the hierarchy of knowledge, the integrity of the individual, civility, and the pursuit of truth have all been captured by the radical left and turned inside out. We win this war only if we realize that education itself is at stake.”

“If I had been asked a year ago about free speech on campus and the doctrine of “institutional neutrality,” I would have given an answer markedly different from what I give today. Not that I would have lined up with those who elevate “free speech” to be the highest principle—or the deepest foundation—of higher education. The intellectual heirs of John Stuart Mill say such things frequently and with firm assurance. Mill’s great essay, On Liberty, is their Mount Ararat. It towers over the landscape littered with discarded speech codes, debunked theories, and zealous enforcers of rules against bias. Just as certain religious enthusiasts believe Noah’s ark came to rest on the top of the Turkish mountain, certain free speech advocates anchor themselves on Mill’s idea that the truth can be approached by holding the doors of academe wide open to any and all views.

This is essentially the position taken by Robert George in his debate with Yoram Hazony in Public Discourse. Hazony, by contrast, cites Mill with an attitude of weary disdain. He says American universities love Mill’s idea that the “free exchange of divergent ideas will eventually lead society to truth and virtue.”  Hazony adds, “Indeed, the belief that free inquiry is the only road to truth has been promoted as the principal dogma of the postwar liberal university for nearly sixty years—since the ‘free speech’ movement of the 1960s.”  

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/harvard-university-to-offer-segregated-graduation-ceremonies-based-on-race-class-sexuality/

Harvard University’s Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging will once again host “affinity celebrations” at its 2024 commencement, according to documents obtained by National Review.

Harvard plans to hold a “Disability Celebration,” a “Global Indigenous Celebration,” an “Asian American, Pacific Islander, Desi-American (APIDA) Celebration,” a “First Generation-Low Income Celebration,” a “Jewish Celebration,” a “Latinx Celebration,” a “Lavender Celebration” — which refers to LGBT students — a “Black Celebration,” a “Veterans Celebration,” and an “Arab Celebration.” The university will also hold a central commencement ceremony for students of all backgrounds.

A note on the sign-up form shared with NR by a current student informs registrants that the “Celebration Recognizing Arab Graduates, the Celebration Recognizing Jewish Graduates, and the Celebration Recognizing Veteran Graduates are being planned in collaboration with student groups and campus partners.”

The only publicly available mention of affinity celebrations on any Harvard website is published on the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ page. The note does not mention the specific events or groups recognized, simply describing them as “student-led, staff-supported events that recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of graduates from marginalized and underrepresented communities.”

Harvard’s affinity-group celebrations came under fire in 2023 after the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo posted the schedule on his X account and noted that the university had deleted the page from its website. He also mentioned in his post that white and Jewish students were the only two groups without their own events, though Harvard has now added Jews to the list.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/free-speech-is-alive-and-well-at-vanderbilt-university-023884d1?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The purpose of a university is to assemble a talented group of students from a range of backgrounds and help them grow and learn as part of a community. This includes teaching them how to appreciate a range of perspectives—and to learn how, not what, to think. The university remains one of the last places in society where people with diverse viewpoints can engage in the kind of civil dialogue that allows them to explore complex topics—and find innovative solutions to difficult problems—together. To this end, university students should debate one another respectfully. They should challenge each other’s ideas, as well as their own. If part of that process involves protest, then they should engage in that, too.

Protesting is something that Vanderbilt students have been doing weekly since the start of the war in Gaza. While protests have turned disruptive and even violent elsewhere, those at Vanderbilt had remained peaceful and resulted in civil exchange, including counterprotests, lectures and debates. This commitment to civil discourse is typical for our students. Last month, our College Democrats and College Republicans held a joint debate on another divisive issue: gun control. Despite the charged subject matter, the student-led event was notable for its substance and civility.

Vanderbilt has worked hard to nurture a culture of free expression built on three pillars. The first is a determination to provide an open forum: opportunities for dialogue and debate.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/mohamed-abdou-deep-admirer-of-hamas-now-teaching-at-columbia/

Mohamed Abdou is an “Islamic scholar” who is lost in admiration for Hamas, and how it managed to launch its “stealth” attack on October 7. What most of the world sees as unspeakable atrocities, with Hamas operatives beheading babies, burning children alive, raping, torturing, mutilating, and murdering Israeli girls, cutting the breasts off women and using them to play catch, cutting off the genitalia and gouging out the eyes of men, murdering children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, Mohamed Abdou sees as glorious deeds of derring-do, by a greatly outnumbered force of brave Muslim warriors, and he wants the whole world to know it.

Abdou is now teaching at Columbia, where he was appointed as that appetizing thing, a visiting professor, for the Spring Term. He’s already in his third month of teaching, no doubt singing the praises of Hamas in a lecture hall on Morningside Heights to a captive audience of entranced undergraduates. Why, if he performs to the satisfaction of Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad, and Hamid Dabashi, three other admirers of Hamas on the permanent faculty at Columbia, he may even be made an offer for a permanent appointment to the Middle East Institute.

Robert Spencer wrote briefly about Abdou here, and more on this man, the latest moral monster to slither through the underbrush on Morningside Heights can be found here: “He Endorsed Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Then He Landed a Professorship at Columbia University.” By Jessica Costescu, Washington Free Beacon, February 27, 2024:

During a Jan. 5 interview with socialist podcast Revolutionary Left Radio, Islamic scholar Mohamed Abdou declared his support for Hamas and “the resistance.” The terror group’s “dedicated few,” he said admiringly, worked in “stealth mode” on Oct. 7 to defeat a “larger enemy” in Israel….

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/27/the-plague-that-besets-our-schools-is-extensive/

The year, now a quarter old, reveals that the country’s rapid slide into educational purgatory is moving apace. Leading off the grossness parade is a school in Oklahoma where students lick and suck the armpits and toes of their fellow students in the name of charity. (This may garner a shrug in San Francisco, but Oklahoma?!)

While no district personnel were directly involved, video footage from Deer Creek High School in Edmond, OK, showed mid-teens participating in and watching the disgusting events unfold.

Getting caught with their pants down—so to speak—the school leaders assured us that no staff or faculty were involved in the cringeworthy event. But then the school became upbeat about the happenings. It celebrated the fact that the licker/suckers raised $152,000 for charity, asserting, “We would like to thank all of the patrons, businesses, and sponsors who contributed to the success of this year’s Wonderful Week of Fundraising.”

In other pervy news, Elk Grove, CA, parents discovered in January that a 3rd-grade teacher was inviting all the 3rd through 6th-grade classes to a new LGBTQ club he was starting. The “UBU Club” was for “boys who crush on boys” and “girls who crush on girls,” but anyone could come, the kids were told. Yet, most tellingly, parents weren’t notified about the club.

Also, in California, a bill introduced in January is now going through the legislative process. If passed, it will require that public high schools notify students where they can get free condoms on campus and allow schools to distribute condoms during sex education classes for middle and high school students.