RUTHFULLY YOURS

The combination of academic social-justice Leftism and Islam is getting nastier by the day:

An Ohio music professor who said Muslim women and girls are safer in the U.S. than in any Middle Eastern country has been forced to retire. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports University of Cincinnati assistant professor Clifford Adams has been placed on administrative [leave] for the remainder of the semester and will retire May 1.

He made the comment online to a Muslim student who had criticized Donald Trump’s presidency and spoke about freedom and diversity. Adams wrote “how dare” she complain.

Adams didn’t respond immediately Friday to a request for comment. He earlier wrote a letter to The Enquirer saying he was “deeply sorry” and was trying to have a “lively, provocative, scholarly argument.” School spokesman Greg Vehr says the university is “committed to excellence and diversity.”

Excellence and diversity… right. Well, that’s certainly a funny way of showing a commitment to the former, at least. But “diversity,” now that’s a different story. Over the past 20 years or so, academic has been overwhelmed by the “diversity” fetish, which posits that a racially diverse student body is a desirable end in itself, rather than the byproduct (or not) of colorblind admissions procedures. The result is that “diversity” has become the single most important goal of the modern American university, with the educational standards and course offerings dumbed down accordingly.

Vox had a very long op-ed by an anonymous feminist professor who claims she was violated every time her husband had sex with her. She “acquiesced,” learning coping strategies, such as reading a book to keep her upper half occupied while her husband engaged her lower half.

On the nights when I couldn’t get out of it, we used a method that I had taught myself to tolerate and that he, astoundingly, tolerated as well: I read a book to distract myself for as long as I could while he did the thing he needed to do. I did not let him kiss me for the last several years of our marriage. That was the rule: You can f— me, but you can’t kiss me, and I don’t have to pretend to like it.

Isn’t this terribly insulting to the husband, to read a book while he is trying to have sex with her? I don’t even know if it is possible; I know I can’t read in cars or elevators. Isn’t it really impossible to read when the book keeps bouncing back and forth?

How could my husband listen to me say what I said – even once, even timidly – and sleep well that night, much less continue to insist on sleeping with me?

Of course, the counter-question is, how could any woman have stayed married if she was so unhappy with the sex? The answer to that question comes in a bit. But first, a little about the author of this screed:

I am a humanities professor who teaches feminist theory, models feminist behavior for my students and my own children, and has achieved success in a male-dominated field.

Wait. Feminist theory is a male-dominated field? She must be talking about all those transgender feminist professors.

Last year, my teenage son and I chanted in support of women’s reproductive rights at the Women’s March in Washington.

Stanford University College Republicans were told they cannot include an image of the American flag on club tee-shirts in a recent email from the private institution’s copyright office.

“Stanford does not approve the use of the American (or other flag on product also featuring our trademarks (including the Stanford name) [sic],” states a recent email — obtained by College Fix — to the College Republicans student president from a trademark licensing associate at Stanford University.

“We can approve red/white/blue themed product but cannot approve this design which features altered version of the flag in the background of the design, and within the initials for the organization name. I note you feature a different design on your website — we would be able to approve that design on product,” the email continues.

While the university has cast the censorship as a matter of copyright infringement, the Stanford University trademark guide does not mention flags in any capacity.
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The Stanford College Republicans incoming president, John Rice-Cameron, told College Fix he does not want to use the club’s old logo, as was suggested by the copyright office.

“The [new] logo is emblematic of our club,” he said. “It shows we are willing to boldly promote conservatism.”

Answering a question about which there could hardly have been much doubt, Yale’s admissions blog said last month the university would not penalize prospective students who are suspended for joining antigun protests in the wake of the Parkland shooting. “Yale will NOT be rescinding anyone’s admission decision for participating in peaceful walkouts for this or other causes.”

So far, so routine. A university like Yale would not ordinarily snatch back an admissions offer just because an accepted senior had skipped a day of class, no matter the reason.

But there’s more. The post’s author, senior assistant director of admissions Hannah Mendlowitz, makes clear that Yale considers participation in such a walkout to be a plus, rather than a subject of indifference.

“For those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice,” Ms. Mendlowitz writes. “I have the pleasure of reading applications from San Francisco, where activism is very much a part of the culture. Essays ring of social justice issues.” Even if applicants from less-fortunate areas of the country cannot be expected to meet the Bay Area standard, the message is clear. The post is titled “In Support of Student Protests.”

This endorsement of activism raises a few questions. Would Yale really turn away a brilliant young flutist, chemist or poet who, while solidly educated in history, religion and government, is not specifically “versed in issues of social justice”? What about students who have pursued courses based on great works of the past? Must they be versed in contemporary views of social justice too? Besides, which causes constitute social justice?

Harvard, like many elite universities, has become increasingly intolerant.

It has sought, through a series of administrative decisions, to substitute its own values for the individual moral consciences of its students and to punish those who stray from the university’s narrow dogma. Most recently, Harvard moved to ban all exclusive social clubs, including fraternities and sororities, by 2022.

Despite Harvard’s promises that student rights are of primary importance on campus, the proposal would deprive students of their fundamental right to freedom of association, enshrined in the First Amendment.

Ultimately, Harvard’s decision to punish students who are members of such organizations, which choose members based on gender, comes down to a difference of opinion about values.

President Drew Faust explained in a 2016 letter that Harvard’s commitment to having “a truly inclusive community” was one of the university’s “deepest values.” Faust also asserted that gender is an “arbitrary” distinction between individuals.

Marching in protest has become the activity du jour in America. The latest planned protest is “March for Our Lives,” scheduled for March 24 in Washington, D.C. and at high schools across the nation. Ostensibly, it is organized by the students who survived the mass shooting in Florida. But this myth has been busted pretty thoroughly, by Buzzfeed, of all outlets. It should not have taken that crack team of journalists to figure out that high school students couldn’t possibly make this happen without the “guidance” of some very powerful people. But common sense, unfortunately, isn’t the order of the day.https://amgreatness.com/2018/03/02/schooling-for-totalitarianism/

An organization funded by Michael Bloomberg, Everytown for Gun Safety, is the main organization behind the effort. Joining forces are people like Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, and Steven Spielberg, who donated large amounts of money. The basics of the event were likely orchestrated before the shooting even happened. The claims that this is not about politics but about student safety are preposterous because the objective is to expand gun laws, which are already quite strict.

As much as the particulars of this event are important, my objective is more to explore a cultural problem in America. Some students have gladly stepped into the public arena, reciting clichés and canards alongside the proclamation they will “not be silenced anymore.” As if! The overabundance of primitive emotionalism is astounding and the media can’t get enough of it because at the core of it all is hatred for Donald Trump.

American youth are confused. In this instance, they are being used by the Leftist machine to create a public narrative meant to evoke sympathy in the pursuit of policy changes. If you disagree—or worse yet, if you ignore these poor children (who, in case you forgot, are our future!)—then you are a cold-hearted person who lacks compassion or sympathy with the victims of an atrocity.
Miseducation in America

At the center of this emotionalism is the American educational system. “Public education” today is not so much education in the requirements of citizenship in a self-governing republic as it is a series of collectivist events designed to indoctrinate and arm the students with a leftist ideology. I have always been amazed at the coercion that takes place in schools—not from peer pressure so much, but from the teachers.

Growing up in the Deep South, it wasn’t hard to find the last vestiges of segregation if you knew where to look. Years after the Civil Rights Act, there were still a few oddly placed water fountains and even a few signs stuck in the corner at local scrapyards. I couldn’t help but notice them, thankful that those days were gone forever.

Or, maybe not.

A group of students at the University of Texas, San Antonio have decided to create a magazine that exists to promote segregation. Titled “No Whites Allowed,” the student-run magazine doesn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. Further, it excludes heterosexual people of any ethnicity from contributing as well.

According to Campus Reform, an event description stated: “This zine specifically features and promotes black and brown lgbtqa creatives.” It continued: “We hope to showcase our talent and create an open space for our voices to be heard.”

“[F]or a very long time, black and brown people, especially those who are queer, have been told that they don’t have a space. That they don’t have a voice or a say. With this we would like to create a space.”

I am the Headmistress of a school called Michaela, a free school in inner-city London, trying to make a difference. We opened in 2014 and we have been straining to increase opportunity for our working-class kids ever since. The good news is that so far we have been winning the fight. The bad news is that the technology epidemic is one hell of a weapon in the enemy’s arsenal.

Visitors to our school often ask me what has been our biggest obstacle. I used to say our detractors. Protesters demanding the closure of free schools outside our gates, or letters/emails/tweets shouting abuse or even death threats are hard to handle. We also have to manage the absence of a sports hall and sports fields (we don’t have any grass at all) and tightening budgets. Finding excellent teachers is also hard. But none of that compares to the fight we have against technology.

In the last few weeks, I have had dozens of individual meetings with our Year Ten families as we prepare for 2019 when their children will take their GCSE exams. In some of the meetings, both the child and the parent will say that the child is doing too much homework, that the school should expect less of them. The parent knows the child has their smartphone next to them during homework time, giving them access to video games, Snapchat, Instagram, Netflix, WhatsApp and YouTube. Yet the parent is still convinced that their child is doing their homework properly.

I then try to explain to the parent why I think this is dangerous, as I have done at assembly to the children. Several of the big tech CEOs don’t allow their children to own smartphones and when they are older don’t allow them unsupervised access to the internet on their phones. Steve Jobs, when asked what his children thought of the iPad when it came out in 2010, said they had not tried it because he thought it was too dangerous. Both he and Bill Gates preferred their children to spend time around the dinner table talking about books and history. Imagine that: these big tech CEOs pack their houses with real books with pages to turn!

This is always eye-opening for our parents. They, like me, had no idea. In fact, I hear stories from parents who have saved for months in order to get their child a new smartphone for their birthday. Some of them then look to me in desperation, saying that the present they saved up for now monopolises and controls their child.

For parents who are still unconvinced, I suggest that these CEOs must know something we don’t know. They must have inside knowledge. They are protecting their own children from what they are selling to our children. I explain how the tech CEOs remind me of Snoop Dogg, who sells rap to other people’s children, yet doesn’t allow his own children to listen to his music.

Nearly one year after the release of Outsourced to China: Confucius Institutes and Soft Power in American Higher Education, NAS’s report remains front page news. Through our work on this issue, NAS has also become a go-to resource for Senators and Representatives considering policy changes to address Chinese government-funded Confucius Institutes at American college campuses.
Earlier this month, Florida Senator Marco Rubio cited NAS’s report in a letter sent to all Confucius Institutes in Florida. Senator Rubio also questioned FBI head Christopher Wray in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on February 13, at which Wray acknowledged, for the first time, that the FBI is investigating Confucius Institutes.
NAS has briefed staff members for six U.S. Senators and Representatives; the Government Accountability Office; the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee; and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. We have recommended specific policy changes to address Confucius Institutes.
Outsourced to China has become one of several key studies—including Academic Malware by University of Chicago anthropologist Marshall Sahlins and the documentary In the Name of Confucius—that have turned Confucius Institutes into a topic of national discussion. We are gratified to note that at least one Confucius Institute, at the University of West Florida, is now preparing to close.
NAS is committed to engaging with members of Congress, academic institutions, and members of the media to promote academic integrity and push back against the rise of Confucius Institutes. We encourage NAS members to learn more about the threat Confucius Institutes pose to academic freedom and institutional integrity by visiting www.nas.org/ConfuciusInstitutes.