RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/faith/trump-administration-to-unc-and-duke-quit-promoting-islam-on-our-dime/

Will the Trump Administration move against the radioactive wastelands of far-Left indoctrination and Islamic proselytizing that our nation’s colleges and universities have become?

On Friday, it made a small, long overdue step in that direction: Associated Press reported that “the Trump administration is threatening to cut funding for a Middle East studies program run by the University of North Carolina and Duke University, claiming that it’s misusing a federal grant to advance ‘ideological priorities’ and unfairly promote ‘the positive aspects of Islam’ but not Christianity or Judaism.”

The U.S. Department of Education wrote to the UNC-Duke Consortium for Middle East Studies, no doubt interrupting these cosseted pseudo-academics as they swapped stories about how oppressed they are, and told them they had three weeks to revise their course offerings or else they could lose federal funds that were intended for instruction in foreign languages.

The Education Department letter came after Rep. George Holding (R-N.C.) noted that the UNC-Duke Consortium for Middle East Studies had held a taxpayer-funded conference featuring “severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric,” which made it like virtually every other conference on Israel and the Middle East held in every college and university over the last few years, but never mind. The Education Department found that instruction in foreign languages (which, remember, the money was for) and national security had “taken a back seat to other priorities,” and that the Consortium was spending taxpayer money on courses that were “plainly unqualified for taxpayer support.”

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/09/17/woke_history_is_making_big_inroads_in_americas_high_schools_120363.html

Like growing numbers of public high school students across the country, many California kids are receiving classroom instruction in how race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship status are tools of oppression, power and privilege. They are taught about colonialism, state violence, racism, intergenerational trauma, heteropatriarchy and the common thread that links them: “whiteness.” Students are then graded on how well they apply these concepts in writing assignments, performances and community organizing projects.

At Santa Monica High School, for example, students organize and carry out “a systematized campaign” for social justice that can take the form of a protest, a leaflet, a workshop, play or research project. They demonstrate their mastery of the subject matter by teaching about social justice to middle school students.

 
“Breakup letters” with oppression: Classwork at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, Calif.
YouTube/echslawndale.org/videos/ 

Students at Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale are assigned to write a “breakup letter with a form of oppression,” such as toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, Eurocentric curriculum or the Dakota Access Pipeline. Students are asked to “persuade their audience of the dehumanizing and damaging effects of their chosen topic.” 

Students at schools in Anaheim, San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco are taught how to write a manifesto to school administrators listing “demands” for reforms. Some conduct a grand jury investigation to determine who was responsible for the genocide of the state’s Native Americans. And one class holds a mock trial to determine which party is most responsible for the deaths of millions of native Tainos: Christopher Columbus, the soldiers, the king and queen of Spain, or the entire European system of colonialism.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dxUVm3P5HPY&feature=youtu.be

https://amgreatness.com/2019/09/15/scapegoating-a-young-minority/

A new school year is kicking off for millions of young Americans and, with an election year looming, expect heaps of new assignments meant to “explore public issues.” In thousands of schools throughout the United States, this will mean further political indoctrination by their mostly left-leaning teachers.

No doubt they will be taught about the “racial income gap” in the United States. Most teachers will suggest that the right remedy would be to enact progressive liberal reparations for approved “victim” groups at the expense of “oppressors.” But to accomplish this, it will be necessary first to scapegoat. And the ones being scapegoated —unsurprisingly—will be white men and their sons sitting in the classrooms.

Your kids will most likely read “objective” articles like this one from Time, which states matter-of-factly, “Nationally, black women earn 61 cents for every dollar earned by white men . . . one 2017 study shows that over a 40-year career, women overall lose $418,800 as a result of the wage gap, with women of color losing almost $870,000.” 

Lost to whom? Non-Hispanic white men, evidently. Or, if they are teachers like me, they can sit through “professional development” lectures about these “pay gaps” conducted by liberal females, most of whom are white and typically make over $100,000 a year. 

That’s what I got to do for five hours over two days recently, along with hundreds of other teachers from schools throughout my state. I work and teach while my white liberal administrators opine about all the “systems” that hold down our underachieving students. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/corrupting-medical-education-11568578153

Stanley Goldfarb knew what he was talking about. Last week the former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania medical school wrote in these pages that climate change, gun control and “other progressive causes only tangentially related to treating illness” were beginning to corrupt medical training. His piece spurred a social-media eruption that immediately proved his point.

Left-wing medical Twitter —yes, there is such a thing—piled on with virtue signaling that distorted Dr. Goldfarb’s argument. He didn’t write that doctors shouldn’t have opinions about political issues. He wrote that those issues shouldn’t interfere with the scientific and clinical training essential to producing doctors who can serve patients.

The most disappointing response came from Penn medical school, which sprinted for political cover. Dean J. Larry Jameson and Senior Vice Dean Suzanne Rose sent a letter to students and faculty that is a case study in progressive correctness:

“Please know that the views expressed by Dr. Goldfarb in this column reflect his personal opinions and do not reflect the values of the Perelman School of Medicine,” the letter said. “We deeply value inclusion and diversity as fundamental to effective health care delivery, creativity, discovery, and life-long learning. We are committed to ensuring a rigorous and comprehensive medical education that includes examination of the many social and cultural issues that influence health, from violence within communities to changes in the environment around us.”

Maybe we should begin to wonder about the quality of the doctors who graduate from Penn. Patients want an accurate diagnosis, not a lecture on social justice or climate change. Thanks to Dr. Goldfarb for having the courage to call out the politicization of medical education that should worry all Americans.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/09/harvards-president-publishes-politicized-phony-jeff-ludwig/

On September 3 of this year, Lawrence Bacow, President of Harvard University, sent a welcome letter to everyone in that community. It was a letter filled as one might expect with expansive platitudes about “traditions” being affirmed and our living in turbulent times. It is a letter that could have been delivered at a commencement address or a general convocation on “How To Make A Better World That Is Acceptable To The Ivy League.”

But the focus of the letter – delivered by a man leading a massive research institution, an institution with outstanding scholars in every branch of knowledge – was President Trump’s immigration policy. In July of this year, he had written of his concerns about delays, disruptions, and cancellations of various student visas to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan. And, also in July, had visited lawmakers in Washington, DC about the same issues, and also about new taxes on institutions of higher education. Obviously, he was not satisfied with those meetings as he now felt the need to vent his concerns to the entire Harvard community, including alumni.

In his letter he alludes to students and/or researchers from certain countries being disrupted in their plans to come to Harvard, but does not name the countries. And he is frustrated because our government is citing national security concerns which he obviously thinks are exaggerated or even unnecessary. Since self-control is a virtue in the Harvard community and among all highly-educated, civilized persons, even though he is clearly pissed off, he does not say so directly.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2019/09/the-oberlin-college-lawsu

The successful lawsuit recently brought by a small local bakery against Oberlin College in Ohio has generated worldwide interest. What occurred is instructive and a shocking commentary on the current state of academic life in the United States. It has obvious implications for academic life here, and indicates the depths to which the academic Left has sunk in recent years.

Oberlin College is a well-known tertiary institution in a small town about 100 kilometres from Cleveland. It is a college, to use the American terminology, not a university, meaning that it has no postgraduate or professional schools attached to it, although it does have a well-known musical conservatory. There are really no Australian tertiary institutions similar to these American colleges, only very large universities which offer postgraduate degrees. In America, however, there are many distinguished undergraduate-only colleges, such as Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Vassar. Oberlin is an entirely private body, not a public institution chartered by the state—again, this has few parallels here—and, like all private colleges in America, is phenomenally expensive, costing $60,000 or more per year for four (not three) years. Although scholarship aid is widely available, most students amass enormous debts by the time they receive their diplomas. Most scholarship aid to students comes from the institution’s endowment, the amount of money, often incredibly vast, which it has in the bank, the product of gifts and legacies from alumni. Harvard has an endowment of $38 billion, while Oberlin is far down the list with an endowment of only $900 million or so.

Throughout its history, Oberlin has had a reputation for political radicalism. Black students graduated from Oberlin as early as 1844, and the college functioned as a stop on the “underground railway” of runaway slaves seeking freedom. It was also the first coeducational college in America, admitting women in 1837, four years after it was founded. During the Vietnam War, Oberlin was a centre of student radicalism. Owing to this reputation, many already radicalised students apply there for admission, and few conservatives. In recent years it has moved even further to the left, with—as will be seen—even its administration associated with radical causes. In terms of its academic reputation, Oberlin is very good, but not quite at the top. For instance, only 5 to 15 per cent of high school seniors who apply to super-elite universities like Harvard or Princeton are admitted to them, while for Oberlin the figure is 28 per cent.

Drag Queen Story Hour returning to the Upstate Sept. 22

Matthew Ablon

SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) – A local group that brought the first Drag Queen Story Hour to the Upstate in Fe…

https://www.foxcarolina.com/news/drag-queen-story-hour-returning-to-the-upstate-

Public Library Deletes Pictures Of Drag Queens Fondling Children

Parents complained about the event, showing the photos of children lounging atop of the costumed drag queens on …https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/22/public-library-deletes-pictures-drag-queens-fondling-children-story-hour/

From a local library in NYC…

Drag Queen Story Hour offers a different kind of page-turner

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/drag-queen-story-hour-offers-a-different-kind-

Drag Queen Story Hour offers a different kind of page-turner

Children’s story hours are intended to instill a love of reading in young kids. But one reading program also see…

PBS (What would Mr. Rogers say?)  It is the first segment on the video that is included with the link.  How warm and cuddly can it get?

Hate group targets American Library Association over Drag Queen Story Hour
“Drag Queen Story Hour [exists] solely to indoctrinate children into transgenderism and homosexuality.”
By Daniel Villarreal 
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2019/08/hate-group-targets-american-library-association

https://www.city-journal.org/black-lives-matter-in-the-classroom

Black Lives Matter, though less prominent in the headlines of late, continues to be quite a growth story. What began in 2013 as a hashtag propagated by a few activists and academics rapidly grew into a nationwide protest movement and then into an institutional establishment, with local chapters around the U.S. and even a few abroad. With lavish funding and generally supportive media attention, the BLM network has become the progressive Left’s primary organ of antiracism activism. Now it seeks to sustain and expand upon that success. In its most ambitious venture yet, the group has moved beyond the streets and into the nation’s public schools.

No one should be surprised. As BLM statements repeatedly make clear, the movement has always linked the charges of police misconduct that brought it into existence with a comprehensive critique of the American polity. “State violence” against blacks “takes many forms,” the BLM network’s “About us” statement declares. The first plank of a widely publicized platform issued in 2016 demands “an immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of Black youth,” including “an end to zero-tolerance school policies and arrests of students, the removal of police from schools, and the reallocation of funds from police and punitive school discipline practices to restorative services.” BLM founder Opal Tometi heads the list of signatories of a 2018 letter urging teachers to support a “new uprising for racial justice” in the nation’s schools.

Neither Tometi nor BLM’s other two founders, however, initiated the latest campaign. In keeping with activists’ pride in their network’s decentralization—a self-conscious departure from the top-down organizational model that they ascribe to the civil rights movement—the present venture is akin to a franchising operation, with local cells of teachers’ union activists as the operators. K–12 educators sympathetic with the movement have successfully promoted the “Black Lives Matter at School” program, bringing its activist spirit and ideology into a growing number of secondary and even elementary classrooms.