RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/biden-wants-use-taxpayer-funds-promote-critical-race-theory-irking-gop

Education is not typically a high-profile policy area for administrations, but it’s proving problematic for President Joe Biden as his team pushes teaching plans Republicans view as dangerously “woke.”

Biden’s first days in office were peppered with concerns he was too prone to the whims of teachers unions as some groups threatened to derail talks over returning to in-person instruction unless their members were vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Now, another classroom clash is brewing. However, this time it’s over the Biden administration’s efforts to incentivize so-called “woke” lessons for teachers and students alike by offering federal grant money.

Biden’s Education Department this week proposed introducing two new priorities for funding covering American history and civics education programs and activities. The first strives to elevate projects that “incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives” into their syllabi, while the other aims to improve “information literacy.”

Biden is approaching a crucial moment for public education, according to Republican strategist John Feehery.

Parents have lost faith in their local school districts during the pandemic because of teachers unions, which “have done everything in their power to keep schools closed, just as they collect their paychecks,” Feehery told the Washington Examiner. More schools are providing in-person instruction as vaccine rates increase and Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package funds are dispersed.

“Kids have to make up for lost time because of the union-imposed COVID disaster, but instead of focusing on opening schools, the Biden administration is focused on creating an ideological curriculum to please their far-left progressive wing of the party,” he said.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-8-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#8: Cornell University

Racially segregated education was ruled unconstitutional more than 60 years ago in the famous Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, but Cornell University is attempting to revive it in the 21st century.

In a throwback to the era of Jim Crow, a racially-segregated physical education class titled “BIPOC Rock Climbing” was offered at the university during the Spring 2021 academic semester. According to the official course description on the university’s website, course registration was restricted to “people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.”  In other words, no whites allowed.

When conservative watchdog group Campus Reform inquired about the discriminatory enrollment criteria for the course—a clear violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits institutions receiving federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race or national origin—the university quickly backtracked. The course description was changed (slightly) and now states that the class is “designed to enable Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color underrepresented in the sport of rock climbing to learn the sport and to feel included and supported.”

“The class is open to all Cornell students interested in learning rock climbing with this special focus,” the edited course description now states.

While students who do not fit into these minority categories are no longer strictly prohibited from enrolling, the intent to maintain a segregated racial environment in the class is abundantly clear.

Cornell Senior Director of Media Relations and News, John Carberry, claimed in a statement that “all Cornell students” are “welcome” to enroll in BIPOC rock climbing—a statement that is clearly in contradiction with the original course description.

“While the original description of the course represented an intentional focus on outreach and inclusion, there was never an intent to exclude non-minority students,” Carberry added, noting that “The description of the course has been adjusted accordingly.”

For deliberately encouraging unconstitutional segregation in official university programs, Cornell deserves its place on the list of America’s most racist universities.

Watch the video HERE. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-9-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#9: Elon University

Elon University, a private educational institution located in North Carolina, has resurrected some of the most hateful and offensive features of the Jim Crow era—and all in the name of promoting “equity” and eradicating “white supremacy.”

The School of Education at Elon, which is dedicated to training our nation’s future teachers, sent an email invitation in February 2021 urging “white-identifying” students to join a weekly “White Caucus” Zoom meeting. As the text of the email made clear, no minority students were welcomed or invited.

“A white caucus is a space for white-identifying individuals to engage in conversations that unpack race and systemic oppression,” the email explained. “White caucuses allow white-identfying [sic] allies to have these conversations in a way that does not burden or re-traumatize people of color. White caucuses give white people a space to learn about and process their awareness of and complicity in unjust systems without harming their friends of color.”

Not only was the “white caucus” restricted to “white-identifying” individuals, its content was considered so potentially dangerous that participants were restricted from sharing anything that was discussed at the meetings or from “talk[ing] negatively about others outside the caucus.”

“White caucuses tend to be vulnerable spaces; being critically reflective and honest is a necessary part of unlearning white supremacy culture,” the email stated in an attempt to justify the extreme confidentiality rules.

This email was sent by Jennifer Strange, the school’s coordinator of graduate programs, to all students enrolled in the School of Education. It was also signed by a number of undergraduate students.

The email declared that it was “urgent” that white students join the caucus because “The School of Education mission statement commits to preparing equity-minded leaders…Participating in a white caucus is one step towards fulfilling this commitment for white-identifying students.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-set-to-push-critical-race-theory-on-u-s-schools/

The woke revolution in the classroom is about to go federal. In an early but revelatory move, President Biden’s Department of Education has signaled its intent to impose the most radical forms of Critical Race Theory on America’s schools, very much including the 1619 Project and the so-called anti-racism of Ibram X. Kendi. (Kendi’s “anti-racism” — which advocates a massive and indefinite expansion of reverse discrimination — is more like neo-racism.) Biden is obviously co-opting conservatives’ interest in reviving traditional U.S. history and civics to deliver its perfect opposite — federal imposition of the very ideas conservatives aim to combat.

Biden’s Department of Education has just released the text of a proposed new rule establishing priorities for grants in American History and Civics Education programs. That rule gives priority to grant “projects that incorporate racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse perspectives.” The rule goes on to cite and praise the New York Times’ “landmark” 1619 Project, as well as the work of Critical Race Theorist Kendi, as leading examples of the sort of ideas the Biden administration wants to spread.

The programs immediately targeted by Biden’s new priority criteria for American history and civics grants are small. Once in place, however, those criteria will undoubtedly influence the much larger and vastly more dangerous “Civics Secures Democracy Act.” That bill would appropriate $1 billion a year, for six years, for history and civic education. Support for leftist “action civics” is already written into the priority criteria of the bill itself. I have argued that additional anodyne-sounding priority criteria in the Civics Secures Democracy Act — criteria favoring grants targeted to “underserved” populations and the mitigation of various racial, ethnic, and linguistic achievement gaps — would be interpreted by the Biden administration as a green light to fund Critical Race Theory in the schools. The new draft federal rule for grant priority in American history and civics education makes it clear that this is indeed the Biden administration’s intent.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-10-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

The David Horowitz Freedom Center is exposing prestigious American campuses as the “Top Ten Most Racist Colleges and Universities” for enacting policies and programs that are allegedly “anti-racist” but which in reality promote racial discrimination and a return to Jim Crow. 

A report and video on Brandeis University, #10 on our list, follows below.

The full report on the Top Ten Most Racist Colleges and Universities may be read HERE . 

#10: Brandeis University

“Whites-only” spaces are making a comeback—not in the Jim Crow South, but at prestigious American universities. Brandeis University in Massachusetts recently created one such racially segregated program for the ironic purpose of allegedly combatting racism. 

The voluntary six-week anti-racist training program is led by Brandeis’s Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion. In an Orwellian paradox, the program deliberately segregates white students in order to lead them in “racial sensitivity training” such that they can “come to a deeper understanding of how whiteness moves.”

When questioned as to the wisdom of segregating students by race, Brandeis officials astonishingly declared it a matter of safety not to allow whites and blacks to converse about racial issues until the white students have been sufficiently shamed for their innate racism.

According to Joy von Steiger, a clinical psychologist who serves as a “Racial Justice Educator” at Brandeis, it is essential that white students participate in the sensitivity training so that they do not “case harm.” She added, “It doesn’t have to be kumbaya, but white folks in particular have to have done enough work” to safely exist in shared spaces with non-whites.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/raceobsessed_brearley_school_claims_victimhood_when_challenged.html

Andrew Gutmann, who was pulling his daughter out of Brearley, an expensive private school in New York (annual tuition $54,000), wrote an open letter explaining exactly what was wrong with its “anti-racist” racism. A walk through the school’s website and the school head’s response to Gutmann’s letter prove that, if anything, he understated how bad things really are there.

Brearley, in New York, caters to rich leftists. It has a cachet. From Jane Foley Fried, the head of the school, on down to every administrator and faculty member, everyone is highly credentialed.

On its “statement of beliefs” page, Brearley boasts that it “challenges girls of adventurous intellect and diverse backgrounds to think critically and creatively and prepares them for principled engagement in the world.” If one goes by the school’s response to Gutmann’s letter, there is no evidence that either the faculty or the students have any critical thinking skills.

The same page includes statements about Brearley’s “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and its being “Antiracist.” The school’s website also has a page dedicated to “Diversity and Equity.” It repeats the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and “Anti-racist” statements, but the important item is a lengthy calendar showing the energy and time the school dedicates to “diversity.”

There are constant meetings and seminars for parents and students, all of them led by various facilitators, and most of them divided along racial lines. I cannot urge you strongly enough to check out the calendar because it is a stunning example of the accuracy of Guttman’s claim that:

It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way.

[snip]

I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners.

[snip]

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.

(Again, if you haven’t read Gutmann’s letter, you must — and then share it with others.)

Brearley responded with a letter from Principal Jane Fried. It demonstrated how the wokerati invariably cast themselves as victims. And I do mean victims: Fried speaks of physical and psychic terror as if Gutmann had threatened their lives rather than challenging their beliefs.

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-american-jewish-academic-center-smears-israel/

Is this the kind of programming that the donors to the Feinstein Center want their money used for?

Why is a major academic center for the study of American Jewish history, which was founded by a stalwart friend of Israel, falsely accusing Israel of “state violence against Palestinians”?

The Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, at Temple University, was founded—and for many years directed—by the late Dr. Murray Friedman, a distinguished historian and longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee in Philadelphia.

I had the privilege of attending presentations by Murray Friedman and I know what a strong supporter of Israel he was. He is surely turning over in his grave at the news that his center is now being used to spread anti-Israel lies.

On April 20, the Feinstein Center will be hosting a public program called The Weaponization of Discourse: Israel/Palestine, Antisemitism, and Free Speech on Campus

The Feinstein Center’s advertisements for the event declare that it will explore, among other things, what it calls “increased state violence against Palestinians.” The phrase “state violence against Palestinians” means that Israel, as a state, is carrying out a policy of committing war crimes against Palestinian Arabs. That’s false.

I expect Arab propagandists to spread such lies. I don’t expect the falsehoods to come from an academic center that was founded by a pro-Israel scholar, and is funded in part by donations from pro-Israel members of the Philadelphia-area Jewish community.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/you-have-to-read-this-letter?token=

……If you don’t know about Brearley, it’s a private all-girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It costs $54,000 a year and prospective families apparently have to take an “anti-racism pledge” to be considered for admission. (In the course of my reporting for this piece I spoke to a few Brearley parents.)Gutmann chose to pull his daughter, who has been in the school since kindergarten, and sent this missive to all 600 or so families in the school earlier this week.

Dear Fellow Brearley Parents, 

Our family recently made the decision not to reenroll our daughter at Brearley for the 2021-22 school year. She has been at Brearley for seven years, beginning in kindergarten. In short, we no longer believe that Brearley’s administration and Board of Trustees have any of our children’s best interests at heart. Moreover, we no longer have confidence that our daughter will receive the quality of education necessary to further her development into a critically thinking, responsible, enlightened, and civic minded adult. I write to you, as a fellow parent, to share our reasons for leaving the Brearley community but also to urge you to act before the damage to the school, to its community, and to your own child’s education is irreparable. 

It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley’s antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed. 

I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died.