https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270501/prager-u-video-dangerous-people-are-teaching-your-prager-university
Dangerous people are filling the heads of young people with dangerous nonsense. Who are these people? They are what Jordan Peterson calls “the post-modernists:” neo-Marxist professors who dominate our colleges and universities. And here’s the worst part: we are financing these nihilists with tax dollars, alumni gifts and tuition payments. Time to wise up.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/harvard-discrimination-against-asian-american-students-obvious/
For decades, the population of Asian-American students at Harvard University has remained suspiciously stagnant, even as the general population of Asian Americans has exploded. Asian Americans tend to have higher rates of academic achievement — standardized-test scores, GPAs — than other racial groups. While the Asian-American undergraduate population at elite universities that do not take race into account in admissions has soared since the 1990s, it has hovered around 20 percent at Ivy League schools, which do consider race. Against the notion that Asian Americans are a monolith of high achievers, it should be noted that the term denotes a heterogeneous collection of people from all sorts of backgrounds. But the substance of this issue is not complicated: If not for discrimination on the basis of race, there would be far more Asian undergraduates at elite universities than there currently are.
Now a group called Students for Fair Admissions is suing Harvard, alleging that it engages in unconstitutional racial discrimination against Asians in its admissions process. Last week, the plaintiffs released devastating evidence to support their claim, including an analysis of the data of 160,000 applicants conducted by Duke economist Peter Arcidiacono as well as a university review of the admissions process from 2013 that had been buried by the Harvard administration. The plaintiffs deserve to prevail in court; the grim state of affairs at Harvard is a direct consequence of the affirmative-action regime that reigns in this country.
Evidence shows the discrimination happens along two lines. First, Harvard evaluates applicants according to a “holistic” process that considers, in addition to their academic, extracurricular, and athletic achievements, “personal” qualities: whether they have demonstrated “humor, sensitivity, grit, leadership,” etc. Asian Americans consistently rank below others on the personality metric, despite the fact that admissions officials never meet most applicants. The internal review showed that Asian Americans were the only demographic group to suffer negative effects from the subjective portion of the evaluation. Second, even after the subjective criteria are taken into account, the university tips the scales further by adjusting for “demographics.” The specifics of this adjustment have been redacted by the university, but the review found that the share of admitted Asian students fell from 26 percent to 18 percent after it was made.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-is-too-discriminating-1529363694
The U.S. Supreme Court may soon have an opportunity to clarify its muddled jurisprudence regarding racial preferences in college admissions. Unlike the high court’s past cases on the question, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard involves a private university—but the same legal principles apply under federal civil-rights laws to any institution that accepts public funds.
In Fisher v. University of Texas (2013), the justices ruled 7-1 that the use of race in university admissions was permissible only if it was narrowly tailored to achieve “the educational benefits of diversity” and administrators had made a good-faith effort to consider race-neutral alternatives. In 2016, after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, the court ruled in favor of the university in another appeal from the same case. Seemingly exhausted by the topic, the justices held 4-3 that Texas’ idiosyncratic admissions program satisfied the test. Fisher II was the first and only time Justice Anthony Kennedy has approved a use of racial preferences in college admissions. His opinion made clear that the key to surviving judicial scrutiny was “holistic” individualized review rather than quotas or other group-based screens.
Yet holistic review can facilitate discrimination by concealing a process that amounts to a quota. That’s what Harvard did when it devised this method to cap the number of Jews it admitted in the 1920s and ’30s. The university is now credibly accused of doing the same thing to Asian-Americans.
The lawsuit was filed in 2014, but paused as Fisher played out. It picked up steam in August 2017, when the Justice Department opened its own investigation into Harvard’s use of race. This past April, after the department filed a “notice of interest” that cited the need to allow public access to the lawsuit’s filings, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that most of the evidence the plaintiffs had obtained in discovery could be made public. It was last Friday, in legal papers filed with a motion for summary judgment—a request that the judge rule against Harvard without a trial, based on facts not in dispute.
The plaintiffs argue that Harvard intentionally discriminates. “An Asian-American applicant with a 25% chance of admission,” the plaintiffs’ motion summarizes, “would have a 35% chance if he were white, 75% if he were Hispanic, and 95% chance if he were African-American.”
That’s not because Asians are weak in areas other than academics that might legitimately be considered in admissions decisions. Harvard’s own documents show that Asians have higher extracurricular and alumni-interview scores than any other racial group, and scores from teachers and guidance counselors nearly identical to whites (and higher than African-Americans and Hispanics). Yet admissions officers assigned them the lowest “personal” rating—an assessment of “positive personality,” character traits like “likability,” “helpfulness,” “courage,” and “kindness,” and whether the applicant has good “human qualities.” It’s reminiscent of the old stereotype that Jews weren’t “clubbable.”
The plaintiffs’ motion asserts that Harvard officials’ testimony “amounts to a confession” of racial balancing. Statistical analysis of public data by Duke economist Peter S. Arcidiacono, whom the plaintiffs hired as an expert witness, reinforces the suspicion that the school manipulates subjective criteria to maintain the same student-body composition regardless of shifts in the pool of qualified applicants. If the admissions office admits what it deems to be “too many” or “too few” students of any race it reshapes the next class as a remedy. The plaintiffs conclude that “Harvard has a desired racial balance and aims for that target”—an approach the Supreme Court has consistently said is improper since it first approved the limited use of race in admissions in 1978.
When shown evidence of this legerdemain at her deposition in this case, the director of college counseling at New York’s elite Stuyvesant High School (where Mayor Bill de Blasio has been trying to reduce Asian enrollment) broke down in tears over Harvard’s treatment of “my kids.” She rejected the notion that “the Asian kids are less well rounded than the white kid” and agreed with the plaintiffs’ lawyer that “it’s hard to think of anything other than discrimination that could account for this.”
Nor is Harvard’s use of race narrowly tailored to achieve any particular measure of diversity. The idea of “critical mass” of minority enrollment played a central role in Fisher, and in a pair of landmark 2003 cases involving the University of Michigan. But Harvard officials’ depositions show that, as the plaintiffs put it, “Harvard concedes that it has no interest in achieving critical mass and has never given the concept serious thought.” Citing redacted testimony from the dean of admissions, the plaintiffs conclude that “Harvard is adamant that racial preferences are indispensable to its mission—and always will be.” In other words, race isn’t just a “plus factor,” which would be acceptable under the Michigan precedents, but often the dominant consideration—which again the Supreme Court has held to violate the law. CONTINUE AT SITE
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270451/white-mythologies-campus-near-you-jack-kerwick
Traditionally, a classical liberal arts education had as its point and purpose the disinterested pursuit of truth and knowledge.
Yet most of today’s academics scoff at this mission as a “white mythology.”
The most recent example of this phenomenon comes from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, which offer the course, “White Mythologies: Objectivity, Meritocracy, and Other Social Constructions.”
The course is co-taught by a sociology professor, Kendralin Freeman, and anthropology professor, Jason Rodriguez. According to its description, the course “explores the history and ongoing manifestations of ‘white mythologies,’” which it characterizes as “long-standing, often implicit views about the place of White, male, Euro-American subjects as the norm.”
In fulfilling its objective, “White Mythologies” will also examine “how systematic logics that position ‘the West’ and ‘whiteness’ as the ideal manifest through such social constructions as objectivity, meritocracy, and race.”
According to the watchdog organization, Campus Reform, Freeman and Rodriguez co-authored an article that featured in the journal, Whiteness and Education. In their essay, the two argue that “discourses” over the topics of “‘diversity’ and ‘intersectionality’ can undermine efforts to address racism [.]” Such “discourses” can also “protect white privilege” and “marginalize people of color.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/responding-to-the-bias-response-team-1529263974
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently promised to be “vigilant” in defending free-speech rights on campus, and last week the Justice Department followed through by scoring the University of Michigan for chilling speech.
Justice filed a statement of interest, similar to an amicus brief, siding with Speech First, a nonprofit that has sued the school on behalf of its student members. Justice says the university’s policies and practices “ban a broad swath of core protected speech based solely on ‘listeners’ reaction.’”
Speech First’s lawsuit takes issue with the university’s student code, which prohibits bullying and harassment but with only vague definitions of both. The university also operates a Bias Response Team, to which students can submit complaints accusing peers and professors of “bias incidents” that violate no law.
University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told the Chronicle of Higher Education that Speech First and Justice have “seriously misstated University of Michigan policy and painted a false portrait of speech on our campus.” The university hasn’t filed its legal response, so there’s “little more we can add at this point,” Mr. Fitzgerald told us last Wednesday.
But lo, last Monday the university updated the student code’s definitions of harassment and bullying, bringing them in line with Michigan state law. That decision “was accelerated” by the lawsuit, Mr. Fitzgerald admitted on the university website. The school also took down a web page in which the Dean of Students Office promoted the Bias Response Team and advised students that “the most important indication of bias is your own feelings.”
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/06/universities-banishment-truth/
ANU’s rejection of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation has made it, in the words of one commentator, ‘a laughingstock’. To that appraisal add a toxic and shameless hypocrisy which sees that university and others eagerly accept cash for ‘Islamic centres’ where Western ideals are actively opposed.
You may have heard of the decision by the Australian National University to buckle under pressure from some academics to pull out of negotiations with a wealthy private donor, the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, over funding for a scholarship and teaching program in studies of Western Civilisation. Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt announced the ANU is withdrawing from negotiations on the grounds of academic freedom, despite no attempts to have such freedom limited by the Ramsay Centre.
Curiously, the university’s own website makes it clear that the Ramsay negotiators were not desiring an undue level of influence over delivery of the programs.[1] On April 30, 2018, the website of the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences was indicating the university would be in control in any deal with the Ramsay Centre. Apparently this was not nearly good enough for these university academics. As law professor and Quadrant contributor James Allan puts it, Australian academics, especially in the Arts and Social Sciences, ‘lean massively to the left side of politics’ and so they have developed a sort of anti-intellectual hatred for anything that can potentially contribute to a better understanding of Western culture and values. As Professor Allan explains,
The complaining academics to which [the ANU’s Vice Chancellor] succumbed were afraid they would not have autonomy when it came to appointments. But if the Ramsay Centre gave them full autonomy they would pick near on wall-to-wall lefties, and that would result in teaching students quite a different account of Western civilisation than the donor intended. Mr Ramsay, like me, saw Western civilisation (warts and all) as having created the best place for humans to live ever. That goes doubly for women and minorities. You don’t have to sacrifice academic scholarship in the slightest to prefer a degree program that overall was supportive of Western civilisation’s many virtues and on balance scored comparatively best in the field grades”.[2]
https://pjmedia.com/trending/feminist-academic-launching-masters-program-in-masculinities/
Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, will soon become the first college in the nation to offer a master’s degree in the emerging field of “Masculinities.”
The Master’s Program in Masculinities will be a 30-credit online program offered through the school’s Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, which aims to “disseminate research that redefines gender relations to foster greater social justice.”
The center counts feminist icons such as Gloria Steinem, Eve Ensler, and Jane Fonda among its Board of Directors, and it is led by Michael Kimmel, a feminist academic who most recently wrote a book on “angry white men” suffering from “aggrieved entitlement.”
Speaking to PJ Media, Kimmel said Thursday that the degree will likely launch September of 2019, pending state approval. The proposal for the degree is “now working its way up the SUNY ladder to Albany having passed all Stony Brook screens,” Kimmel explained.
“The curriculum of the course is to study masculinities through the lenses of the social sciences and humanities,” said Kimmel, adding possible courses could be on “literary representations of masculinities” or on “male development from within the framework of developmental psychology.”
Kimmel was quick to note that he doesn’t use the phrase “toxic masculinity.” Instead, Kimmel says he takes an “intersectional” approach to the study of masculinity.
“As to our approach … we focus on a life-course perspective, are sensitive to variations among men, and adopt an intersectional approach, as would be the norm in Gender Studies programs today,” said Kimmel.
Target audience? Well, that depends. Kimmel anticipates that students will come from a variety of backgrounds. Some likely will have just graduated college. Others, he believes, will be teachers and counselors looking to deepen their understanding of boys and men. CONTINUE AT SITE
http://freebeacon.com/issues/harvard-hospital-taking-portraits-white-men/
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is taking down its prominent display of its past medical legends because too many are white men.
Diversity and inclusion initiatives prompted the removal of 30 portraits from the hospital’s Bornstein Amphitheater because the paintings reinforce “that white men are in charge,” one professor said. The Boston Globe first reportedthe news, writing that past white male luminaries will be dispersed to “put the focus on diversity.”
Portraits that had hung in the amphitheater for decades will now be moved to less visible areas like conference rooms and lobby halls.
Dr. Betsy Nabel, the president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said she made the decision to get rid of white men after reading the minds of minority students looking at the portraits.
“I have watched the faces of individuals as they have come into Bornstein,” Nabel told the Globe. “I have watched them look at the walls. I read on their faces ‘Interesting. But I am not represented here.'”
“That got me thinking maybe it’s time that we think about respecting our past in a different way,” she said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-misery-in-missouri-1529103599
Indulging protesters can be expensive, as the University of Missouri is discovering three years after students successfully demanded the resignation of the president and chancellor. Last week the school said it will have to eliminate 185 positions on top of 308 cut last year.
Apparently fewer parents want to send their kids to a school where activism eclipses academics. Between the fall 2015 and 2017 semesters, freshman enrollment dropped by 35%. Lost tuition accounts for $29 million of the university’s current $49 million budget shortfall.
In response, Mizzou has had to lay off employees, decline to renew expiring faculty contracts, and leave positions unfilled after retirements. The university is also cutting back on travel and phasing out low-demand courses, among other austerity measures.
Mizzou claims more aggressive recruitment from neighboring states’ schools has contributed to the enrollment decline. And it says growing maintenance, research and personnel costs have contributed to the budget strain. But “we know the perception of Mizzou was a key factor in the difficulties we had over the past two years,” adds spokesman Christian Basi.
Much of the public outcry concerned free speech, and Missouri has tried to improve on that score. Since 2015, all campuses in the Missouri university system have adopted the Chicago Principles, which guarantee “the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn.” But other speech policies at Mizzou remain ambiguous, earning it a mediocre yellow rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education that tracks free-speech on campus.
In May 2017, the university signed a $1.3 million contract for three years of outside PR help. This year it has spent $1.8 million on ads to recruit and enroll new students. The school has added $8 million to its scholarship budget and will decrease the cost of student meals and housing next year.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/14/indiana-teacher-i-was-forced-to-resign-because-i-wont-pretend-boys-can-be-girls/
An Indiana orchestra teacher says public school administrators gave him three options at the end of this school year: refer to students as the opposite sex, resign, or be fired. He decided to resign at the end of the school year because the school would not budge, but at a local school board meeting Monday pleaded to have his job back. The board voted instead to accept his resignation.
Local public officials have so far refused to publicly discuss the policies they put into place at the beginning of 2018 that John Kluge says led to his resignation in May. Brownsburg Community School Corporation, the district that employed Kluge, put out a transgender policy document in January instructing staff to call students by their chosen names and pronouns once they are so designated on school records. Kluge opted instead to address students by their last names to avoid either referring to his apparently several transgender students with pronouns and names of the opposite sex, or offending them by not doing as they wished despite its contradiction of reality.
That wasn’t good enough. At the school board meeting, students accused Kluge of saying that transgender persons “are not an actual human being” and “actively disrespect[ing]” them for not using opposite-sex pronouns to describe them.
“Mr. Kluge’s religious beliefs have absolutely no place in a public high school. I think what he believes is morally just conflicts with what not only I believe, [but] what my parents believe, what my psychiatrist, therapist and doctor believe and the school board believe are morally just,” said student Aidyn Sucec. Kluge’s beliefs are not merely moral, but also scientific. Scientifically, there are only two sexes. “Gender” is a linguistic term for a non-physical concept.
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