RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nas.org/blogs/statement/regime-change-repelling-the-dei-assault-on-higher-education?utm_

Criticism of American society for its inequitable treatment of blacks and other minority groups has become a focal point of American education at every level of instruction. Sometimes this criticism is historically well-grounded and tempered by recognition of social, political, and economic complexity. But more often this criticism veers into simplistic claims and fictions presented as fact. The latter sort of critique has become conspicuous in many of the nation’s public schools and has aroused opposition from esteemed historians and parents of all races and ethnicities who object to curricula and teaching practices that treat American society as fundamentally racist and therefore illegitimate. Similar complaints have been leveled at colleges and universities, including graduate schools of law, education, and medicine. But objections to the so-called “anti-racist” agenda in post-secondary education has not drawn nearly as much attention as it has in K-12 schools. In this essay I intend to address the critique of America on racial grounds mainly at the college and university level, but problems in the public schools will necessarily come into the picture.

Words Matter

America’s racial critics often disarm their opponents by using a vocabulary whose unassuming or technical demeanor hides radical meanings. Because many of these words and phrases are ambiguous, I will start by setting out these terms as I shall use them.

Anti-racism is a word contrived by Boston University professor Ibram X. Kendi. It looks as if it means ‘opposed to racism,’ but Kendi and his followers use it to mean racial favoritism towards blacks, deliberate discrimination against whites aimed at compensating for “systemic” racial injustice, and the suppression of all speech and action opposed to their preferred policies.

Systemic racism refers to the supposedly omnipresent racially disparate treatment built into institutions such as law, the real estate market, medical practice, and education. The proponents of the concept of systemic racism argue that it generally operates outside the awareness of white people or other beneficiaries of the privileges it confers on one group at the expense of another. Even individuals who decry racism and are free from any personal racial animus are thus part of systemically racist institutions.

Critical Race Theory (“CRT”) is a branch of neo-Marxist social analysis formulated by Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell in the late 1970s and further developed by his colleague, Kimberlé Crenshaw. Bell and Crenshaw argued that the Civil Rights Movement had failed to reform American society in any fundamental way and that, rightly seen, all American institutions are systemically racist. CRT found a niche in academe among social theorists who hold that participants in a society seldom understand how the social order is actually structured and why it is that way. Most consequentially, CRT achieved substantial influence among scholars focusing on education, and in the curricula of education schools. Proponents of CRT see themselves as liberating people from their illusions by showing them that American institutions are built on and continue racial oppression. They also believe they have a duty to subordinate all activities of life, and especially education, to CRT’s dis-illusioning project.

Diversity was a doctrine first articulated by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in a 1978 decision. Powell argued that colleges and universities might engage in some racial favoritism towards black students if the schools could show that this would advance the “intellectual diversity” of college classes and thus benefit all students regardless of race. Powell’s opinion was not supported by any other Justice at the time and thus lacked the force of law, but colleges and universities soon began to justify racial preferences in admissions by citing diversity. In time, the idea that racial “diversity” was a means to achieve “intellectual diversity” gave way to the widespread assumption that racial diversity is an end in itself. In 2003, the Supreme Court in a majority decision in the case of Grutter v. Bollinger agreed that “diversity” was an acceptable reason for racial preferences in college admissions, provided that the use of preferences was somewhat disguised.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) is the contemporary expansion of the diversity doctrine. “Equity” replaces the older idea of individual equality under the law with the idea that all social goods should be distributed in proportion to each ethnic group’s size relative to the total population. “Inclusion,” which violates the principles of freedom of association and individual merit, requires the extension of group-identity quotas to every part of society, public and private. This fixation on group-identity extends beyond race, as the proponents of DEI increasingly write “gender identity” into institutional policy. DEI ideologues share with their “anti-racist” peers the habit of suppressing their critics rather than answering their criticisms.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/conservative-professor-fights-uclas-bias-and-wins-mark-tapson/

It is a given today that our so-called institutions of higher learning are hostile to political conservatives, not only students but the minority of professors who openly lean Right. Even Progressive academics can find themselves targeted by Cancel Culture for minor or accidental transgressions against woke dogma. The punishment can range from “mere” ostracization, to a hopelessly smeared reputation, to the loss of one’s job – usually a combination thereof. It’s ugly and totalitarian, which is why any moral victory against the Left’s ideological intolerance is a blow for freedom of speech and political balance in the classroom.

Keith Fink – a successful attorney, legal commentator, academic, and author –was a Communications Studies lecturer at the University of California Los Angeles from 2008 until his forced departure in June 2017. His courses on “Race, Sex & Politics: Free Speech on Campus;” “Free Speech in the Workplace;” “Entertainment Law;” and “Arguing Contemporary Social Issues” were among the students’ most popular ones at UCLA. But Fink is politically conservative and an ardent, fair-minded advocate for truth, so a confrontation with the school’s Progressive administrators was inevitable.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/canceling-honors-classes-name-equity-jason-d-hill/

Like ineradicable fungi spreading across a diseased body devoid of inoculants to fight it off, there is a growing educational malfeasance taking root in many of our nation’s public schools that few seem to have the moral courage to speak out against. Honors Programs are being eliminated or are being considered for elimination on the premise that they discriminate against the non-gifted, most of whom fall into minority groups. The elimination of such programs is being defended in the name of equity and recognition.

The theory behind the “deleveling” of subjects such as English, social studies, biology, math and science, and history is to give all students the opportunity to engage in rigorous instruction. In the highest-performing school district in Rhode Island, Barrington High School has been in an uproar over the cancelation of such courses. Many of them have since been restored.

The school had been moving into a “one universal design for learning,” or one curriculum for students of varying abilities. The “universal design” is seen as a way to offer equal access to a rigorous curriculum to traditionally under-represented groups.

In San Diego at the Patrick Henry High School, more than 150 parents protested the school’s decision to eliminate eight advanced and honors courses from its offerings, including advanced English, History and Biology. The school’s principal, Michelle Henry, announced a more equitable program that will be part of a district pilot of “Honors for All.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-georgetown-law-purge-ilya-shapiro-resigns-tweet-william-treanor-11654552225?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Optimists have opined that America has reached “peak woke” as a backlash against it grows. Think again, as the experience of Ilya Shapiro demonstrates.

Nearby Mr. Shapiro describes his treatment at the hands of Georgetown University Law School, which had hired him to be the executive director of its Constitution Center. Mr. Shapiro is a libertarian-minded legal scholar who sometimes writes for these pages. Georgetown, like most law schools, is dominated by progressives, often of the intolerant and vindictive variety.

But Mr. Shapiro was encouraged by dean William Treanor and the school’s Speech and Expression Policy, which promises to defend dissenting voices on campus. His painful education has been discovering that some speech is more protected than others.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-quit-georgetown-11654479763?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

After a four-month investigation into a tweet, the Georgetown University Law Center reinstated me last Thursday. But after full consideration of the report I received later that afternoon from the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action, or IDEAA, and on consultation with counsel and trusted advisers, I concluded that remaining in my job was untenable.

Dean William Treanor cleared me on the technicality that I wasn’t an employee when I tweeted, but the IDEAA implicitly repealed Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy and set me up for discipline the next time I transgress progressive orthodoxy. Instead of participating in that slow-motion firing, I’m resigning.

IDEAA speciously found that my tweet criticizing President Biden for limiting his Supreme Court pool by race and sex required “appropriate corrective measures” to address my “objectively offensive comments and to prevent the recurrence of offensive conduct based on race, gender, and sex.” Mr. Treanor reiterated these concerns in a June 2 statement, further noting the “harmful” nature of my tweets.

But IDEAA makes clear there is nothing objective about its standard: “The University’s anti-harassment policy does not require that a respondent intend to denigrate,” the report says. “Instead, the Policy requires consideration of the ‘purpose or effect’ of a respondent’s conduct.” That people were offended, or claim to have been, is enough for me to have broken the rules.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/the_left_despises_people_of_color.html

Under the guise of caring and concern, the Left continues its assault on Black people, aka People of Color.

First, it began with substandard education to Black children and the control of the school systems by the teachers’ unions, who shill for the Democrat party.

Not surprising, these very children could not compete academically because they were never given the basic tools to do so.  But the seed was planted fostering the implicit bias that Blacks were simply not capable of doing well.

So, the next step was to institute affirmative action.  After 60 years, it has been discovered, for example, that while these very students could have done well in second tier law schools, far too many could not compete in the elite schools and dropped out. 

The chaos that now describes American education has created ignorance of a magnitude that is terrifying.  Of course, it has affected the Caucasian students, but it has only worsened things for the Black students.

Obama speeded up the process of victimology when he decided that disparate discipline measures needed to be addressed.  Thus, if a child’s melanin level met the standards, that was all that mattered.  Behavioral problems, misdemeanors and felonies were simply glossed over as the misdeeds of these students were attributed to racism in America.

And now, the low expectations of soft bigotry rear their ugly head again as race-based grading systems will now be implemented in Illinois schools. Of course, it is a natural outgrowth of the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity programs that the Left has insinuated into school systems across the country. Achievement and merit have been eliminated but race rules the roost. 

https://news13now.com/2022/06/02/a-wake-up-call-for-public-education/

A recent national analysis contained a deeply disturbing finding that has generated little public discussion when it should be causing an outcry: Nearly 1.3 million students have left public schools since the pandemic began. Most states have seen enrollment declines for two straight years. In New York City, K-12 enrollment has dropped by an astounding 9%.

Given that state education funding formulas rely on student population numbers, a large reduction in students will lead to a corresponding reduction in school budgets. That’s the law of supply and demand. Otherwise, at this rate, the public will soon be paying teachers to lead half-empty classrooms.

The message to educators and elected officials could hardly be clearer: Too many public schools are failing, parents are voting with their feet, and urgent and bold action is needed. Until now, however, the only governmental response has been to spend more money — too much of which has gone to everyone but our children.

Since 2020, Congress has sent an additional $190 billion to schools, in part to help them reopen safely and stave off layoffs. But in many districts, union leaders resisted a return to in-classroom instruction long after it was clear that classrooms were safe. And by and large, remote instruction was a disaster. By one analysis, the first year of the pandemic left students an average of five months behind in math and four months behind in reading, with much larger gaps for low-income schools.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/bu-professor-reveals-weeks-new-thing-thats-racist-robert-spencer/

It costs $58,000 a year to attend Boston University, but don’t think that for all that money you’re going to get anything resembling, say, an education. No, Boston University today, like most other American colleges and universities, is dedicated to turning out thoroughly indoctrinated Leftists who will serve as reliable cadres in the fundamental transformation of American society that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have promised us. That’s why BU employs someone such as Saida Grundy as an assistant professor: a racist apologist for rioting is just the kind of professor the universities want these days. Having one on staff is a big source of prestige.

This is clear from the fact that Grundy’s racist, pro-rioting remarks weren’t just statements she made as an individual, which BU tactfully ignored or even disavowed. Come on, man! This is 2022! On Wednesday, BU proudly tweeted video of Grundy speaking about the George Floyd riots, and saying:

If we’re gonna talk about George Floyd and really understand it, then we need to understand community reactions to it, and we often hear politicians, we hear civic leaders, from inside black communities and from outside of them as well. We hear President Biden say, “You know, I understand your frustrations but don’t destroy property.” Well, when you say that to black people who historically have been property, one of our greatest weapons against injustice was the looting of ourselves as property from the system of slavery. And what we see in communities is they’re reacting to the very racism of what we call property, right? So that’s why I think it’s very important for, you know, people who see reactions in communities to not judge and to not make assumptions about what is good and not good reactions. And not actually re-victimize communities by saying there’s an acceptable and a not acceptable way to react. Listen to them, and then we can say what these communities need.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ilya-shapiros-reinstatement-is-a-win-for-the-political-power-of-free-speech-but-a-loss-for-the-value-of-academic-freedom/

There are two ways to look at Georgetown University Law Center’s decision to reinstate Ilya Shapiro after a five-month investigation into a tweet. On the upside, Shapiro was not fired, and he will begin teaching at the law school, a visible symbol of vindication over cancel culture. That is a win for the good guys in terms of raw power: Georgetown clearly signaled, in its statement (reprinted in full below), that the dean would have preferred to fire him — whether due to the dean’s own animus or terror of his woke students — but did not feel at liberty to do so given the extensive publicity and the forces rallying to Shapiro’s defense. Thus, he was grudgingly retained with some excuses about technicalities (his tweet preceded his start date) and allowed to return — only after students are off campus for the summer. The cowardly timing suggests that the dean is hoping the whole thing goes away by the fall.

That’s progress! The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is justly crowing at the win. The cry-bullies and rage-mobbers failed because they were resisted. They prefer to work in the darkness, and they fear the light.

The bad news: This was a win for outside pressure, not for internal reform. The law school’s statement validating the mob’s whining contains obvious warnings that political statements disliked by left-leaning students or administrators will be a firing offense. There is not a shred of acknowledgement that academic freedom is actually valued by the law school. The process — 122 days in limbo — was punishment in itself. The message here is clear: Stay in line, or you will go through the same thing — and if you’re not as prominent and respected as Ilya Shapiro, and supported with as much vigor by enough friends of free speech, you may not survive as he did.

s://www.wsj.com/articles/ilya-shapiro-georgetown-twitter-kbj-cancel-law-school-supreme-court-appointee-twitter-free-speech-11654211044?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

My long public nightmare is over. Tomorrow I assume my duties as a senior lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center and executive director of its Center for the Constitution. A four-month investigation by the human-resources department and the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action determined that I wasn’t yet an employee when I posted a tweet to which some at the school objected (which the Journal covered from the beginning) and so wasn’t subject to the relevant policies on antidiscrimination and professional conduct.

It was an experience I wouldn’t wish on anyone except perhaps the instigators of the Twitter mob that launched this tempest—particularly the first few days, which were truly terrible for me and my family. Although my administrative leave was paid, the uncertainty made it a roller coaster of emotions and instability, a personal and professional purgatory. I’m grateful to the many allies who supported my cause. I found out who my friends are, even if I would’ve preferred not to have had the need to know.

What I achieved was a technical victory but one that still shows the value in standing up for free speech in the face of cancellation. That’s so even when that speech is inartful, as I readily admitted was my criticism of President Biden’s decision to limit his Supreme Court pool by race and sex. Although I apologized for my poor phrasing—some advised “never apologize,” but I take pride in clear communication—I stand by my view that Mr. Biden should have considered “all possible nominees,” as 76% of Americans agreed in an ABC News poll, and that the best choice would have been Judge Sri Srinivasan, who is an Indian-American immigrant.

I’m relieved that now I’ll get to do the job for which I was hired in January. I’m confident that even without the jurisdictional technicality, I would’ve prevailed. After all, Georgetown’s Speech and Expression Policy provides that the “University is committed to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas.” There’s an exception for harassment, of course, but I wasn’t harassing anyone except possibly Mr. Biden.

In any case, I look forward to teaching and engaging in a host of activities relating to constitutional education and originalism. As befitting a center for the Constitution, all students and participants in my programs can expect to be accorded the right to think and speak freely and to be treated equally. A diversity of ideas will be most welcome.