RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/todays-college-classroom-is-a-therapy-session-11598654387?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Now retired after having taught 30 years in the English department at Northwestern University, I continue to receive announcements from the school. One not long ago carried the heading “Seven Honored with Teaching Award.” I read it wondering if these models of superior teaching might in some way illuminate the question of whether the value of in-person education is worth the risk of coronavirus exposure.

What I learned is that, of Northwestern’s seven 2020 McCormick Teaching and Alumnae Award recipients, a majority are so “welcoming” and “supportive,” so ready “to foster inclusive and anti-racist learning spaces.” One of the recipients seeks to integrate “methodological rigor, impactful engagement, and human sensitivity” into every aspect of her teaching. A student says of another awardee that the “nurturing and supportive environment” of his classes much improved his learning. The department chair(man? woman?) of yet another of the award winners says that her “classrooms are a rare phenomenon: a safe and nurturing forum for learning and debate. . . .” If this sort of thing goes on at universities, it must be redoubled in high schools and elementary schools.

Reading about these award-winning teachers makes one wonder if teaching has become the pedagogical equivalent of psychotherapy. Ought teaching to be primarily about building self-esteem in students, “nurturing” and above all making them feel “safe?” And what do you suppose an “inclusive and anti-racist learning space” looks like?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/black-only-student-housing-nyu-campus-jason-d-hill/

In yet another gesture of shameful appeasement to racist demands by black students for yet more racial self-segregation in the Age of Post-Oppression, New York University recently opened negotiations with students to create black resident floors on campus next year. A “themed engagement floor” for black students is being advanced by a group called “Black Violets NYU.” The group has complained that the overwhelming presence of white students has made it difficult for black students “to connect.” Black Violets has also called for more black professors in its politics department, and for the creation of a black student lounge on campus.

In June of this year, students at Rice University had demanded that the University fund a “non-residential Black House” on campus. They also wanted a statue of the university’s founder removed. Other demands included that new students’ requests for black roommates be met during orientation weeks. This demand is clearly at odds with federal civil rights laws. Other demands included that course descriptions have tags indicating what race and ethnic groups are involved, since  several course titles did not make it clear if diverse perspectives were offered in their course materials. 

We must jog our memories and remember that in June, 2017 Harvard University held separate commencement ceremonies for black graduate students. One hundred and twenty students attended the third LatinX commencement ceremony replete with Latin music. Emory University and Henry College held diversity and inclusion year-end ceremonies. The University of Delaware joined a growing list with “Lavender” graduations.

There is no doubt that by the time this article is published there will be a multiplicity of schools meeting mostly new black students’ demands for special black student lounges, all-black dorms, black seating spaces in cafeterias, and more spaces such as we witnessed at Evergreen University — where white people are absent for days so black students can have a time on campus to feel special as black people. What next? All black libraries with only black authors, black gyms, black professors teaching only black students to avoid the racial trauma of being taught by a white instructor? If you think this is hyperbolic, observe that one of the demands made by the black students at Rice University is that the school hire more black counselors and therapists, and that they be trained in how to handle racial trauma.  

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/making-marx-proud-todays-campus-lunacy/

Earlier this summer, a survey posted on Twitter posed this question: “If you were dropped 2,000 years back in time with nothing but the knowledge you have now, what would you do?”

A man named Timothy Snediker replied as follows: “Easy. I would find and assassinate Jesus of Nazareth. Theologically speaking, it would be really important to get him before his calling and ministry begins, so that gives me roughly a decade to make it to Palestine, locate the man and make my move.”

Shocking, isn’t it? It should be to any decent person, regardless of faith. You’re wondering, “Who is this Snediker guy? A prison inmate? A mental patient? A Satan worshiper?”

He’s actually a teaching assistant at the University of California-Santa Barbara, pursuing his doctorate in religious studies. If he had suggested the murder of Mohammed or Martin Luther King, you can bet he would be looking for work and none of us would care if he never found any. But he is ensconced at progressive UC-Santa Barbara, where a socialist religion teacher can advocate killing the most perfect man who ever lived and likely still land tenure.

It would not surprise me if some of this character’s students will soon be burning down businesses and police precincts, claiming simultaneously that certain lives matter, but not all. Ideas have consequences.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-8-23-progressive-racism-in-practice

What is “racism,” and what is “anti-racism”? This is one of those subjects on which I just see the world completely the opposite from the vision of the current crop of woke progressives. The woke progressive program calls for things like diminished law enforcement, increased state handouts and social service programs, and even “reparations,” as the “anti-racist” remedies for racism. By contrast, in a post in April 2019, I wrote that these same sorts of things only provide evidence of:

the utter contempt in which the self-anointed elites of our country hold members of minority groups, most particularly African Americans. Somehow, these elites — or at least some very substantial number of them — have decided that African Americans are not capable of accepting personal responsibility in life or of being treated like adults.

For today, let’s consider how this issue plays out in the context of student discipline in public K-12 schools. The students in question are not adults yet, but they shortly will be. The question is whether there is an expectation that minority students are capable of becoming responsible adults, and whether their education reflects such an expectation, versus an expectation that they are on track become sub-adults in a lifetime of permanent dependency. For the research here, I’ll be relying mostly on information compiled by Thomas Sowell in his excellent new book Charter Schools And Their Enemies.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/china-american-universities-administrators-must-fight-beijing-authoritarian-influence/

The CCP seeks to make American campuses less conducive to open inquiry, and more dangerous for students and professors. It can’t be allowed to succeed.

With many American universities conducting classes online during the fall semester, some college professors are worried that the Chinese Communist Party will attempt to monitor lessons about topics that are politically sensitive to Beijing. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday on the steps that instructors are taking to protect their students from CCP surveillance as U.S.–China relations continue their downward trajectory amid the coronavirus pandemic and China’s Draconian crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.

The digital classroom is ripe for potential security breaches. Video-conferencing platform Zoom, which is widely used by universities, has in recent months faced allegations that it bows to pressure from the Chinese government. In June, for example, Axios reported that the company had temporarily suspended the account of a U.S.-based dissident for his participation in a virtual panel about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. But even for universities that use different video-conferencing software, the possibility of surveillance still exists. Under the new Hong Kong national-security law, Beijing claims the authority to prosecute anyone, Chinese or otherwise, who engages in what it deems subversive speech outside of China. Beijing has already charged American citizens for such actions. And while Chinese students have been hassled for things that they do and say in the United States before, the law’s astounding claim of universal jurisdiction puts them at greater risk.

All of this has alarmed a number of American educators. Rory Truex, an assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, told the Journal that he will warn his students that his course touches on topics of concern to the Chinese government. He’s also introducing a system whereby students will submit work labeled with numeric codes, not their names, so that they are not linked to the views that they express in written assignments. In a commentary for China File, Truex and four other instructors have also offered advice for how educators should navigate the difficulties of securing their online classrooms against CCP surveillance by, among other things, setting policies on recording class sessions.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/college_students_say_free_speech_is_unacceptable.html

The administration of Princeton University recently published a “Statement on Principles of Inclusivity and Free Speech.” The Statement affirmed that the school “cherishes both inclusivity and free speech, which can be protected even when the speech in question is ‘unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.’” It also noted that Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber is on record as saying the free expression policy “rests upon the idea that the pursuit of understanding, discovery, and truth benefits from the open and vigorous contestation of ideas.”

That belief was the very foundation of colleges and universities for well over two centuries. Eisgruber correctly added, “We are in an era when many people mistakenly treat free speech and inclusivity as competing values. We need the benefit of multiple voices and perspectives, and we need real engagement among them.”

Not any longer. The president and two vice-presidents of the Princeton Graduate Student Government replied to their school’s shocking affirmation of free speech and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, calling it “tone-deaf” and “unacceptable.”

In a letter written in response to Eisgruber and the administration, the three opined that the free speech policy protects “hate” at the university. They stated, “We as a student body are not looking for ‘dialogue’ on how to cope with institutional racism,” and averred that an emphasis on the importance of free expression “reads as a typical dog-whistle often used to excuse racist speech and hateful actions.”

Their admission that they are not looking for “dialogue” is a refreshing bit of candor, as leftists/progressives never seek dialogue, only victory and submission. Especially submission.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/21/kamalot/

“You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.” Referring to his wife Jill, presidential hopeful Joe Biden uttered those words at the virtual National Education Association convention in early July. He also expressed dissatisfaction with charter schools and said he wanted to triple funding for Title I schools, higher pay for educators, universal pre-kindergarten, etc.—all music to the ears of the teacher union faithful.

But as we all know, if elected, Biden will not be president for long. The man is firmly entrenched on Senility Street, and his legendary gaffes have turned positively daft. When Biden—willingly or otherwise—steps aside, the reins would then be in the hands of Vice President Kamala Harris.

After Biden announced his choice of running mate, the National Education Association referred to the duo as the “Dream Team” and posted “6 reasons educators are excited about Kamala Harris.” It’s all the usual stuff—increasing K-12 funding, defaming current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, asserting that “vouchers divert public school funding,” etc. Yup, all the gooey twaddle that does nothing at all for kids, but does get the NEA elite and their flock really excited.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/08/19/chinas-growing-influence-on-campus/

The U.S. government has opened a multifront assault on the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration of American institutions.

Chinese companies that don’t abide by American securities laws will be delisted from U.S. stock exchanges under an executive order signed by the president. Another order prohibits federal workers’ pension funds from being invested in Chinese-controlled companies. Yet another keeps a growing number of companies, American and foreign, from doing business with Huawei, the Chinese telecom-cum-cyberespionage giant.

These moves follow a series of speeches by top administration officials outlining the threat the CCP poses to our way of life. 

Our government is pushing back, and there is no shortage of targets. The FBI has nearly 1,000 investigations in all of its 56 field offices involving China’s attempted theft of U.S. technology.

Corrupted Professors

University campuses are a major front in the war. 

The FBI arrested Charles Lieber, the chairman of Harvard’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology department, for accepting millions of dollars from the Wuhan virology lab and then lying about it. 

A UCLA professor was convicted of taking CCP money to illegally send semiconductors with military applications to China. 

A University of Kansas professor hid the fact he was working full-time for a Chinese university while he was conducting federally-funded research here. 

One of the top researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas didn’t reveal he was also being paid $14 million by a cancer institute in China.

The Department of Education told the University of Texas to turn over details of its relationship with the Wuhan virology lab (yes, that one!) and other Chinese institutions. Washington has put all universities on notice to disclose donations they receive from CCP sources (which would include any company or individual from the People’s Republic). Under the Higher Education Act, colleges and universities are required to report contracts or gifts of $250,000 or more from foreign sources.

https://www.city-journal.org/academia-systemic-racism

The lethal arrest of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May triggered widespread riots and a torrent of contempt for America from virtually every institution in the country. Businesses large and small, the education establishment, and the press rushed to condemn the country’s purportedly endemic racism, implicitly accusing the majority of Americans of destroying “black lives.” Banks and law firms pledged that hiring and promotions would now be even more race-conscious than before. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured forth from corporate coffers into activist groups; the corporate benefactors hoped to dismantle America’s white supremacy, they announced.

Colleges and universities also promised increased diversity spending, though in amounts dwarfed by those corporate outpourings. Nevertheless, the academic response to Floyd’s death and the ensuing violence will have the greatest impact on the nation’s future. Academia was the ideological seedbed for that violence and for its elite justifications; it will prove just as critical in the accelerated transformation of the country.

Fealty to “diversity” and denunciations of white privilege have been a unifying theme in academia for decades, of course. What’s different this time is the sheer venom of the denunciations. College presidents and deans competed for the most sweeping indictment of the American polity, rooted in the claim that blacks are everywhere and at all times under threat.