RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quillette.com/2023/02/07/the-approaching-disintegration-of-academia/

“The disintegration of academia is coming. Whichever side precipitates the break, it will be a necessary development. Higher education is a serious intellectual endeavor, and nothing is less intellectually serious in contemporary academia than the suggestion that the pursuit of objectivity has been discredited. Empirical observation, mathematical inquiry, inductive and deductive reasoning, and falsifiability are the sine qua nons of higher education. As courses of study in the humanities and social sciences depart from such things, they cease to be higher education in the Enlightenment sense.”

Several years ago, in the pre-pandemic world of in-person meetings, a newly hired colleague at Fashion Institute of Technology proposed an LGBT-themed sociology course before the School of Liberal Arts. This is a necessary step in getting the course approved by the college-wide curriculum committee. It’s a time for constructive feedback and occasional tweaking before the final committee vote.

It was a good course. The proposal was clear and concise, indicating not only a command of the relevant literature but a sensitivity to students’ interests, expectations, and ability to handle the workload. But I noticed an apparently minor, easily correctable issue. Among the learning outcomes listed was a requirement that students develop a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ perspectives and rights. That struck me as problematic. I happen to think that such acceptance is a good thing, but to stipulate it as a learning outcome raises a knotty question. If a student masters the course material, turns in the required work, and passes the exams, but doesn’t exhibit that acceptance, is he going to fail?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-shows-how-to-combat-woke-indoctrination-on-campus-progressive-ideology-legislation-freedom-academic-college-university-11675883802?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

In the battle for open inquiry on campus, two factions have emerged on the side of free speech. The first camp consists of professors and administrators who consider themselves the true defenders of academic freedom. They seek to create a free-speech consensus in academia across the political spectrum. In the second camp, state legislators seek to restore academic freedom by outlawing advocacy of woke progressivism in schools. This camp views such ideological teaching as discriminatory and outside the bounds of taxpayer-funded education.

A simmering conflict between these two camps has now burst into the open over Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act. In the first camp, the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group of more than 700 university professors from across the U.S., issued a statement against the Florida policy and others of its kind. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, is also opposed to policies that limit classroom discussion, scholarly inquiry and public debate in state universities.

I joined the AFA in 2021 as a founding member. These pages heralded the group’s formation. I share the organization’s stated mission: to “defend faculty members’ freedom of thought and expression” including “freedom from ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths.” But the idea that supporting academic freedom requires opposing anti-woke legislation is misguided.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-diversity-policing-fails-science-equality-equity-education-texas-tech-job-candidates-interview-dei-pronouns-11675722169?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between “equality” and “equity.” Another was flagged for his repeated use of the pronoun “he” when referring to professors. Still another was praised for having made a “land acknowledgment” during the interview process. A land acknowledgment is a statement noting that Native Americans once lived in what is now the United States.

Amidst the explosion of university diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Texas Tech’s biology department adopted its own DEI motion promising to “require and strongly weight a diversity statement from all candidates.” These short, written declarations are meant to summarize an academic job seeker’s past and potential contributions to DEI efforts on campus.

The biology department’s motion mandates that every search committee issue a report on its diversity statement evaluations. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I have acquired the evaluations of more than a dozen job candidates.

To my knowledge, these documents—published in redacted form by the National Association of Scholars—are the first evaluations of prospective faculty DEI contributions to be made publicly available. They confirm what critics of DEI statements have long argued: That they inevitably act as ideological litmus tests.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/american_students__dumber_and_more_woke.html

Professors often complain about the current crop of students being less intellectually talented than when they began their careers decades back. Such griping is, of course, easy to dismiss — it has occurred for millennia. Unfortunately, this time around the grumbling may be true and not the usual nostalgia for “the good old days.”  The anecdotal evidence from textbook reading levels, shortened college syllabi, scrapbook-like research assignments, proliferating college remedial classes, grade inflation, and the popularity of “gut” college majors such as Gender Studies, is indisputable. We have also invested hundreds of millions in our schools yet test results such as the SAT are flat over the past half century. Add the countless stories of illiteracy among high school “graduates” despite falling class size and expensive reforms. Judged by the standards of evolution, Americans may be going backwards.

The best evidence of this decline are data from the highly respected General Social Survey on mean IQ by decade among graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students (a tip of the hat to Charles Murray on Twitter). This is a complicated subject given how America’s demography has altered, and measuring IQ via surveys might be iffy, but the numbers, even if a bit unsure, are alarming.

These data are divided into three groups: those with high school diplomas, undergraduate degrees, and graduate degrees. Then the data are then divided by decades beginning in the 1960s through to the 2010 onward decade. The overall pattern is a steady decline in IQ scores for each group from decade to decade. For example, high school graduates in the 1960s had an average IQ of 99.3 but this figure declined so by 2010 and onward, it was 93.5. A similar drop occurred among college graduates — from 113.3 in the 60s to 100.4 in the 2010 decade. For those with graduate degrees, the fall was from 114.0 to 105.8.          

These are depressing numbers. That in 2010 the average college student had an IQ of 100.4 (almost exactly our national average) signifies that we are miles away from trying to educate the brightest youngsters. Worse, with an average of about 100, many of those enrolled must score below 100 and thus suitable only for low-skill occupations. This picture may even be worse than these numbers suggest if we subtract out the many smart international students now enrolled in U.S. higher education.  

https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-its-done_5020230.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

The Jesuits used to say that if you gave them a child until he was 7, they would give you the man.

We can dicker about the time it takes to form a person’s character, but there’s no doubt that those early experiences shape us for life. Which is one reason why we think primary education is so important.

Sure, it’s partly then that the kiddies learn to read, write, and calculate.

But just as important are the moral lessons they learn: the emotional weather they cultivate; the sorts of feelings they nurture and those they recoil from.

This process continues throughout our educational career.

Most people instinctively recognize this, which is why education is always such a hot topic with voters.

What sorts of people are our schools and colleges helping to form? What values are students being taught?

Such questions help explain the passion that has erupted at school board meetings when angry parents confront school board members about the sorts of things that were being taught in schools: the gussied-up versions of Marxist ideology that goes under the name of critical race theory (CRT) as well as the quasi- and sometimes not-so-quasi pornographic exotica disseminated under the rubric of “gender” studies.

The COVID lockdowns first exposed the grim reality to parents.

Their children were forced to stay home from school and attend class remotely.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-2-1-time-for-the-rest-of-the-red-states-to-follow-the-desantisrufo-lead

It was only six days ago, on January 26, when I wrote a post containing a list of proposals for Christopher Rufo and the other new trustees of New College of Florida to take back control of the institution from the insane left. In an uncanny development, as if they having been reading the Manhattan Contrarian blog, Rufo and his fellow trustees, along with Governor Ron DeSantis, have already implemented the first proposal, and are well along on implementing the second.

How about all you other red states? Why can’t you do the same things?

My first proposal was: “Replace the President.” It took them all of five days. From ABC7 Sarasota, yesterday (January 31) evening: “New College President Okker terminated by Board of Trustees.” The newly designated President, according to ABC7, is a guy named Richard Corcoran, a Republican who served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2016 to 2018. Good start!

My second proposal was: “Fire the entire ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ staff.” The new trustees aren’t wasting a lot of time on that one either. Again from ABC7 Sarasota: “The board offered to hold off on abolishing the school’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence, instead opting to terminate four positions within the office.” OK they didn’t fire them all at once, and they are “holding off” on abolishing the office altogether. But they should not wait long to finish the job.

Actually, it may not matter so much what these trustees do on this issue, because Governor DeSantis is separately taking on the job himself. From The Independent Florida, January 31:

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he will completely defund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Florida universities during a press conference Tuesday morning. DeSantis addressed what he called “DEI bureaucracies,” or departments within universities that promote diversity, equality and inclusion, which he said impose a liberal agenda on university students and faculty. “These bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom, and really they constitute a drain on resources and end up contributing to higher costs,” he said.

DeSantis’s defunding initiative requires approval by the legislature, which will begin its session in March. But with large Republican majorities in both houses (28-12 in the Senate and 84-35 in the House), I would expect the proposal to pass easily.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ron-desantis-schools-the-college-board-ap-african-american-studies-curriculum-crt-condoleezza-rice-11675293239?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The College Board has released a serious rewrite of its framework for a new high-school advanced placement (AP) course in African-American Studies. Critical race theory is out, and Condoleezza Rice is in. The group insists that revisions were done for pedagogical reasons and completed in December, but even assuming that’s true, it’s vindication for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida rejected the last version of the curriculum, which featured topics on “Black Queer Studies,” “‘Postracial’ Racism,” and “the case for reparations.” That framework suggested teens read a text from an academic exponent of critical race theory. “We believe in teaching kids facts and how to think,” Mr. DeSantis said, “but we don’t believe they should have an agenda imposed on them.”

Even as it deletes this academic theorizing, the College Board denies it’s reacting to Florida’s criticism. The other explanation is that it arrived at a similar conclusion on its own. Mr. DeSantis’s critics have accused him of trying to erase black history, though he was doing nothing of the sort. If the revised AP framework actually was drawn up in December, then the curriculum committee had already decided that none of this nonsense was needed for teaching black history to high-schoolers.

The College Board’s CEO is calling the revised course “an unflinching encounter with the facts and evidence of African-American history.” One thing driving the changes, he said, was that students in the pilot class were engaged by primary sources, but they found the academic theories “quite dense.”

Yesterday, I joined Governor Ron DeSantis in Sarasota, Florida, to support his new education reform initiative, which promises to abolish DEI bureaucracies, prohibit coercive “diversity statements,” ban mandatory critical race theory-style “diversity training,” and end identity-based preferences in all Florida public universities.

In my speech to the press, I stood with the governor and explained the Orwellian nature of DEI, which sounds well-intentioned, but in truth, divides Americans into “oppressor” and “oppressed,” actively discriminates on the basis of ancestry, and seeks to create equality of outcomes, rather than equal treatment under the law.

DeSantis’ proposal is a bold one. For decades, conservatives have ceded the universities to the most intolerant and ideological factions of the Left. We’ve been paralyzed by the fear of specious accusations of “censorship.”

No more. It’s time to restore public authority over our public institutions. I will do everything in my power to help leaders such as Governor DeSantis—who has proven to be the most ambitious and strategically-minded political figure in the United States—succeed in transforming these proposals into the law of the land.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/this_is_how_you_do_it_make_woke_academics_live_up_to_their_own_rules.html

Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” apply to all radicals, including those who take the radical position that patriotic constitutional conservativism is a good thing. Conservatives need to enshrine his sixth rule: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” That’s the wonderful move the descendants of T.C. Williams made when the University of Richmond deleted his existence.

The University of Richmond is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy. It was founded as a Baptist institution in 1830 and officially became a college in 1843. During the Civil War, its entire student body enlisted in the Confederate Army, while its buildings were a hospital for wounded Confederate troops.

The college fell on hard times after the Civil War and was saved thanks only to a $5,000 donation ($93,332 in 2023 dollars) in 1866 from James Thomas. Thomas’s papers are at the Duke University Library, which describes him as “one of the largest of antebellum tobacco manufacturers.” If he wasn’t a slave owner, I’ll eat my…well, I don’t have a hat, but I’d eat it if I did. No schools or buildings, however, carry his name.

And then there’s the law school. It was founded in 1870 but got its real boost in 1890 when T.C. Williams, a trustee, passed away, and his family donated $25,000 ($803,999 in 2022 dollars) to start an endowment for the law school. That endowment was so important that, by 1920, the University of Richmond renamed the law school. Up until last year, it was The T.C. Williams School of Law.

What changed in 2022 was the left’s crusade to wipe out the stain of American racism by renaming everything that carried the name of someone associated with racism or slavery in any way. (I’m still waiting for Democrats to rename everything associated with Woodrow Wilson, who segregated the federal government.) So it was that The T.C. Williams School of Law will henceforth be called the “University of Richmond School of Law.”