RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/systemic_chaos_in_liberal_education_land.html

It’s hard to decide whether to laugh or cry at the education chaos in Liberal Land. There’s Dalton, the swank private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, whose staff has just issued a 24-point anti-racist manifesto demanding, amongst other things, twelve diversity officers, thusly

Expand the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to include at least 12 full-time positions: one Director, one Office Assistant, three full-time staff members per division, and one full-time staff member for PE/Athletics.

Back when I went to a swank private school in England in the 1960s, I’d say the total administrative staff, from headmaster and bursar down to office staff, was no more than five.

Then there’s the school district in swank Brookline, Massachusetts, a town full to the brim with highly-credentialed, well-paid experts and NPR honchos like Meghna Chakrabarti who all seem to have the credentials to boss around the school district and its teachers’ union. Because credentials.

(I wonder if Chakrabarti is a relative of Sandy O’s former eminence-grise, Saikat Chakrabarti? Maybe not: Chakraborty means “ruler of the country,” peasants.)

I have an idea. Maybe this system of politics-and-protest is a good way to cause chaos in our children’s education.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/the_birth_of_cancel_culture_and_the_death_of_education_.html

If today’s poisonous cancel culture is ever to be remedied, the cause must be understood.

When deliberating the origin, most just point to America’s universities and say, “they did it.”  And, clearly, that’s where the programming occurs, but it doesn’t explain why.  

Selwyn Duke recently noted that vanguard leftists have “indoctrinated the young in schools to transform them into foot soldiers in the leftist campaign of civilizational rape.”  Those foot soldiers are today’s cancel culture warriors.

But why did old-time educators morph into purveyors of cancel culture hate?  How did it happen?

The Vietnam War did it.  Or, more precisely, the campus antiwar activities did. 

Most are familiar with the undergraduate student deferments used to dodge the draft in the 1960s.  Less well known were the ones for graduate school, in place until 1968.  Those led to a 3-fold increase in Ph.D. degrees — men only — in the ‘60s compared to the previous decade.  The increases prior to that were a couple percent per decade.

And where are most Ph.D. awardees employed?  At universities.

Since their motivation was to avoid government service, it’s not surprising they would espouse principles not supportive of America.  Their negative views undoubtedly spilled over into their teaching, thereby providing foundational cancel culture training — Woke Philosophy 101; Introductory Victimology 202; Mobology 303: Advanced Bullying — identified as such or not.    

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/suppressing-free-speech-name-inclusion-and-racial-richard-l-cravatts/

The ubiquity of race obsession on campuses in the age of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd showed itself at Princeton University, too, so much so that in September its President, Christopher L. Eisgruber, published a self-flagellating open letter in which he bemoaned the fact that “[r]acism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton” and that “racist assumptions” are “embedded in structures of the University itself.” At least one federal agency took Eisgruber at his word and Princeton subsequently received a letter from the Department of Education (DOE) questioning if the university was, in light of this self-professed racism, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“Based on its admitted racism,” the letter read, the DOE “is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances . . . may have been false,” that “Princeton perhaps knew, or should have known, these assurances were false at the time they were made,” and “Princeton’s many nondiscrimination and equal opportunity claims to students, parents, and consumers in the market for education certificates may have been false, misleading, and actionable substantial misrepresentations . . . .” 

That investigation by the DOE may be of concern for Princeton officials, but the frenzy over racism from inside the campus community is proving to be a thornier problem as the campus has reacted vocally to some recent instances of alleged racism by faculty and students—even questioning whether academic freedom should be restricted to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt by racist expression.

https://americanmind.org/memo/anti-racist-education-is-neither/

Well-meaning Americans are being suckered into an illiberal political cabal.

Days before the Fourth of July, the famed KIPP charter schools announced they’d be abandoning their longtime slogan: “Work Hard, Be Nice.” In a statement, KIPP’s leaders said they were dumping the decades-old slogan because “Working hard and being nice is not going to dismantle systemic racism.”

KIPP lamented that the mantra encourages students to be “compliant and submissive” and “supports the illusion of meritocracy.” The missive closed by declaring that the slogan was at odds with KIPP’s goal: “Schools that are actively anti-racist.”

Slogans change from time to time—that in itself is fairly unremarkable. But KIPP’s stated reasoning puzzled many. “I have interviewed hundreds of teachers, students and staffers at KIPP since 2001,” wrote education columnist Jay Matthews at the Washington Post. “This is the first time I have heard any of them criticize the slogan.” Indeed, one might question why a four-word mantra should be burdened with having to “dismantle systemic racism” or how the nation’s largest charter school network decided working hard and being nice were at odds with its educational vision.

The answer lies with KIPP’s stated desire to be “actively anti-racist.” This summer, the tragic legacy of American racism came to the fore. This has created propitious, historic opportunities to confront real societal challenges. Yet “anti-racism,” for all its high-minded claims and surface appeal, proves to be, on close examination, a farrago of reductive dogmatism, coercion, and anti-intellectual zealotry that’s remarkably unconcerned with either improving schooling or ameliorating prejudice.

https://triblive.com/news/education-classroom/pitt-cardiologist-sues-school-after-ba

A University of Pittsburgh cardiologist who faced backlash over an opinion piece he wrote criticizing affirmative action is suing his employers, the American Heart Association and the company that published and then retracted his article, alleging that he was demoted and defamed because his views were unpopular.

Dr. Norman C. Wang, who is a faculty member in Pitt’s School of Medicine and a doctor with University of Pittsburgh Physicians, was removed from his position as director of UPMC’s clinical cardiac electrophysiology fellowship program in August — days after his article was noticed by other cardiologists on Twitter.

“What’s remarkable about this is that he was not punished for an inappropriate joke or an intemperate remark in the classroom, but for publishing a thoroughly researched article in a peer-reviewed journal,” said Terry Pell, the president of the Center for Individual Rights, which is representing Wang in his suit.

“This should concern anybody concerned about academics and free speech regardless of whether it challenges conventional thinking.”

Wang filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court alleging that university officials retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. The complaint also includes claims for defamation, breach of contract, tortious interference and retaliation under Pennsylvania’s Whistleblower Law.

Named defendants include the University of Pittsburgh; UPMC; University of Pittsburgh Physicians; the American Heart Association; Wiley Periodicals Inc., which publishes the Journal of the American Heart Association; Samir Saba, who is the chief of cardiology at the school of medicine and Wang’s supervisor; Mark Gladwin, the chair of the department of medicine; Kathryn Berlacher, a professor in the cardiology division; Marc Simon, a cardiology professor and several people who are unnamed.

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/528315-comey-to-teach-at-columbia-law-school

Former FBI Director James Comey will begin teaching at Columbia Law School next year.

The school announced on Tuesday that Comey will be a senior research scholar and part of the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership beginning in January. He will also lead a seminar called “Lawyers and Leaders,” according to its website.

Comey will take on a role as one of two “Leaders-in-Residence” through the Mark Initiative’s Leader-in-Residence Program, which invites executives from government agencies, corporations and top law firms to teach classes at Columbia and share their professional experience with students through advising and engaging in other programing at the school.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/15/the-disunited-state-of-america/

“We acknowledge that we meet on stolen land.”

The above quote kicks off a contemptible “White Privilege” PowerPoint presentation that the San Diego Unified School District is forcing its teachers to watch. Authored by Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi, two high-profile race hustlers, all the usual victimology blather is in full bloom—you know, whites by virtue of their skin color are advantaged, white fragility is a real problem, etc., ad nauseam.

Unacknowledged, of course, is that this is being subsidized by taxpayers—fragile white ones and otherwise. As if the above were not despicable enough, because too many black students are failing in San Diego schools, the district will no longer let late work or bad behavior affect a child’s grade. Yes, the soft bigotry of low expectations is in full bloom in “America’s Finest City.”

It is far more than a San Diego problem, however; much education throughout the country has gone “woke.” But just how far have we gone?

The EdWeek Research Center finds that 81 percent of the nation’s teachers, principals, and district leaders support the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement. Many of America’s miseducated children are now going through an anti-American indoctrination that would have Mao Zedong beaming.

In Los Angeles, a middle school math coach created a map of police shootings for “a lesson on proportionality and graphing.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/12/15/dr_no_northwesterns_unwise_r

Joseph Epstein wrote a controversial column last week saying Jill Biden should stop using the courtesy title “Dr.,” despite her doctorate in education. Leave that title for physicians, Epstein said on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page.

The column set off fireworks among academics and intellectuals. The epicenter was Northwestern University, where Epstein, a prolific and erudite essayist, has long been listed as a “lecturer” in the English Department. No more. His name disappeared immediately from the department website. Ditching him quietly wasn’t enough for university administrators, who issued a blistering official condemnation of Epstein’s views. They added that he hadn’t really been a lecturer since 2003, without mentioning his many years of teaching there.

In a news release, Northwestern offered 10 pro forma words of support for academic freedom before turning to the real goal: lacerating Epstein.

While we firmly support academic freedom and freedom of expression, we do not agree with Mr. Epstein’s opinion and believe the designation of doctor is well deserved by anyone who has earned a Ph.D., an Ed.D. or an M.D.

Northwestern is firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views.

What’s the problem with Northwestern’s statement? It is not their defense of using “Dr.” for Ph.D.s or Ed.Ds. Jill Biden earned the latter degree, and she has every right to use the title, if she wishes. Henry Kissinger used it after he joined the Nixon administration, believing it carried more weight than “professor” with journalists, policymakers, and the general public. At Harvard, where he had been teaching, “Dr.” is reserved for physicians. But he wasn’t on campus, and neither is Jill Biden. Neither are thousands of psychologists and educators who use the term regularly.