RUTHFULLY YOURS

From California to Minnesota to the District of Columbia, the transgender agenda has infiltrated the classrooms of even the most tender youth. Last week Alexandra DeSanctis reported for National Review Online about the “transition ceremony” hosted by a kindergarten teacher at California’s Rocklin Academy Gateway to celebrate a gender-dysphoric boy donning the attire and appellation of a little girl. As DeSanctis noted, the shocked and angry parents of the Rocklin pupils had not received advance notice of the “lesson” and learned of the events only when their confused children returned home.

When the outraged parents complained to school administrators, the principal fell back on Rocklin’s non-discrimination policy and the supposed age-appropriateness of the discussions. The parents’ ire at the principal and, for that matter, even the school board was wrongly directed. The fault lies instead with the California legislature. Here’s why.

California, like 21 other states and the District of Columbia, requires schools to notify parents of their sex-education curriculum. The Golden State also joins 35 other states and D.C. in requiring schools to allow parents to opt their children out of sex education. (Three other states require parents to opt in — that is, to express consent to their children’s participation in sex-education programs.) But the California legislature specifically excluded “gender identity” from the state’s notice and opt-out requirements, by providing in Section 51932(b) of the Education Code:

“This chapter does not apply to instructions, materials, presentations, or programming that discuss gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family and do not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions.”

So, contrary to the parents’ assumption that the local administrators of Rocklin Academy failed them and their children, the blame lies with the California legislature, which purposely exempted gender identity from both the notice and opt-out mandates of its sex-education provisions.

Paradoxically, as Matt Sharp, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal-advocacy non-profit organization working with allies in California to protect parental rights, highlighted in an e-mail interview: “What is so troubling is that, under California law, schools must provide notification and an opt-out before they discuss certain biological truths of human reproduction between males and females, but not when they teach the rejection of those biological truths.”

California is unique in that its legislature expressly excluded classroom instruction related to gender identity from the state’s sex education notice and opt-out requirements. However, while other states have not (yet) taken this direct approach, parents might be surprised to learn that the of law of their state likely provides them with no better protection.

For instance, the Colorado Comprehensive Health Education Act provides that local school boards and districts must provide written notification to parents of any “comprehensive health education program” and allow parents to opt their students out of the curriculum. But the statute defines “comprehensive health education program” to mean “a planned, sequential health program of learning experiences in preschool, kindergarten, and grades one through twelve.”

This is almost beyond belief. Dozens of public school teachers are members of the ultra-violent Antifa faction “By Any Means Necessary” (BAMN) — with many teachers playing a prominent leadership role in what DHS says in an organization engaged in “domestic terrorist violence.” Several of the BAMN teachers helped organize the violent Berkeley protest that assaulted peaceful protesters.

Even after being arrested for inciting violence, the teachers weren’t fired.

The Daily Caller:

One of BAMN’s most prominent organizers is Yvette Felarca, a Berkeley middle school teacher and pro-violence militant. Felarca currently faces charges of inciting a riot for her role in the Sacramento violence

After BAMN and other antifa groups staged violent protests in Berkeley to keep right-wing author Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking, Felarca defended her group’s acts of violence. BAMN was able to cancel another event, this time an April speech by pro-Trump author Ann Coulter, by promising a repeat performance of the Milo riots.

The FBI and DHS say Antifa groups like BAMN are engaging in “domestic terrorist violence,” according to the Politico report.

Just last weekend, Felarca helped organize BAMN’s mass demonstrations that “shut down” a free speech rally in Berkeley last weekend. As with BAMN’s other organized actions, left-wing actors at Saturday demonstrations violently attacked peaceful protesters. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi condemned the Antifa violence in Berkeley, while Felarca called BAMN’s actions a “resounding success.”

Several BAMN members and leaders have run for spots on local teachers’ union boards — successfully.

BAMN organizer and high school teacher Nicole Conaway organized a “sickout” at her school in 2015, leading other teachers in calling in sick to protest the policies of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. The sickout forced six Detroit-area schools to cancel classes, affecting nearly 4,000 students.

[…]

Oakland Technical High School teacher and BAMN member Tania Kappner worked with Felarca this past January to organize students and teachers in a walkout in protesting Trump. Kappner was identified in the media as a BAMN member as early as 2011.

For those who doubted that political correctness posed a threat to free speech on campus, Above the Law contributor Joe Patrice just gave you reason to believe. Patrice called for the firing of two tenured professors who coauthored an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer calling for a return to “bourgeois values.”

Patrice characterized the article as racist and sexist, “This dynamic duo of dumb spend the op-ed concocting a theory as terrifying as it is bereft of factual support when they posit that all of America’s woes really do stem from failing to live up to the ideals of an era when (white) men were men and everyone else kept their goddamned mouths shut.”

Amy Wax and Larry Alexander began their op-ed with a clear statement of purpose, “Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries.”

Wax and Alexander argue that the breakdown of what they call “bourgeois values,” contributed to all of these problems. They defined these “bourgeois values” as, “Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.”

Wax and Alexander credit these social norms for boosting prosperity, reducing crime, and increasing social cohesion. It is difficult to see how Wax and Alexander’s innocuous paean to conventional wisdom and middle-class norms could be considered racist. The substance of the article is indistinguishable from what one might hear in a black church on a Sunday morning.

Strangely, Wax and Alexander’s critics seem to associate “non-whites,” with laziness, promiscuity, and irresponsibility. A view that the Charlottesville deplorables would not disagree with.

Racism is not the reason Joe Patrice provides for firing Wax and Alexander. Rather, Patrice writes, “Neither Wax nor Alexander should be fired for holding unpopular opinions. They should be fired for being bad scholars.”

“An op-ed isn’t an academic journal, of course, but belching out so many lies and half-truths while draped in the imprimatur of the credibility that the law school’s name brings is an institutional embarrassment. It undermines that credibility with students and peers. Op-eds for local newspapers may not be held to the strict standards of a scholarly journal, but that doesn’t absolve professors of the need to conduct themselves as scholars for the good of the institution that employs them.”

It would have been more honest for Patrice to say he wants them fired because he disagrees with what they have to say. To paraphrase Voltaire, I disagree with what you say and will ensure that you get fired for your offensive opinion.

Becoming a tenured professor requires around a decade of hard work, from the time you graduate college to the time you receive tenure. In Patrice’s view a single poorly sourced (according to him) newspaper op-ed should be enough to take that away. Regardless of your lengthy and impressive publication record, your stellar teaching evaluations, a substandard op-ed or ill-considered letter to the editor makes you unfit for academic employment.

The University of California in Berkeley was again the scene of violence recently, as protesters claimed license to silence those with whom they disagree. Their fight against “fascism” took the form of not just stopping a speech, but assaulting those who came to hear it.

For those of us at universities and colleges, these counter-demonstrators, and in particular the masked antifa protesters, are a troubling and growing presence on our campuses. They have been assaulting people and blocking speeches for years with relatively little condemnation. They flourish in an environment where any criticism is denounced as being reflective of racist or fascist sentiments.

However, as the latest violence in Berkeley vividly demonstrates, there is no distinction between these protesters and the fascists they claim to be resisting. They are all fascists in their use of fear and violence to silence others. What is particularly chilling is how some academics have given this anti-speech mob legitimacy through pseudo-philosophical rationalizations.

At Berkeley and other universities, protesters have held up signs saying “F–k Free Speech” and have threatened to beat up anyone taking their pictures, including journalists. They seem blissfully ignorant of the contradiction in using fascistic tactics as anti-fascist protesters. After all, a leading definition of fascism is “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.”

CNN recently interviewed antifa protesters who insist that violence is simply the language that their opponents understand. Leftist organizer Scott Crow endorsed illegal actions and said that antifa activists cover their faces to “avoid the ramifications of law enforcement.” Such violent logic is supported by some professors.

Last week, Clemson University Professor Bart Knijnenburg went on Facebook to call Trump supporters and Republicans “racist scum.” He added, “I admire anyone who stands up against white supremacy, violent or nonviolent. This needs to stop, by any means necessary. #PunchNazis.” He is not alone. Trinity College Professor Johnny Williams, who teaches classes on race, posted attacks on bigots and called on people to “let them f—–g die.”

These voices go beyond the troubling number of academics supporting speech codes and the curtailment of free speech. These are scholars who have embraced the antithesis of the life and values of academia. They justify violence to silence those who are deemed unworthy to be heard. Dartmouth Professor Mark Bray, the author of a book entitled “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” is one of the chief enablers of these protesters. Bray defines antifa as “politics or an activity of social revolutionary self defense. It’s a pan-left radical politics uniting communists, socialists, anarchists and various different radical leftists together for the shared purpose of combating the far right.”

A fiery white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., has reignited calls to sanitize college campuses of anything reminiscent of the Confederacy. Many of the memorials to the Civil War-era are being targeted with vandalism or hidden away by administrators.https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/36203/

While some say the memorials should remain up as a monument to how far America has come as a nation, others say they represent a celebration of white supremacy and must come down, echoing chants such as “No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!”

The controversy is especially heated on college campuses, where protests and vandalism of the monuments have plagued campuses for several years.

In recent times, the issue surfaced in 2014 when Washington and Lee University, named after the Confederate general, removed Confederate flags on display near his statue. The controversy came up again in 2015 at the University of Texas, Austin when campus leaders removed a statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis after repeated student complaints.

Later in 2016, Vanderbilt University paid more than $1 million dollars to rename a building that included the word “Confederate” in the building’s stone inscription. In November of last year, administration at the University of Louisville relocated a confederate statue on their campus to avoid offending students.

Earlier this year, Yale University reversed their stance on protecting history by renaming Calhoun College, named after the pro-slavery advocate, to Grace Mary Hopper College.

Now, galvanized by the attention brought to the memorials through the rise of white nationalists, more monuments have been vandalized or removed or come under heated scrutiny. Such recent incidents include:

Aug. 13, 2017: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: Silent Sam statue covered with a black hood; a week later a massive rally unfolded against it (and it’s still ongoing)

Aug. 14, 2017: North Carolina Central University: Student takes down a nearby confederate monument by tying a rope around its neck, attaching it to a car and driving away

Aug. 19, 2017: Bowdin College: Moved a confederate monument from public view to an archived section of their library.

Aug. 19, 2017: Duke University: Removed a statue of Robert E. Lee after it was vandalized

Aug. 20, 2017: University of Texas, Austin: Removed three statues of confederate figures and relocating them to the Briscoe Center of American History

Aug. 21, 2017: University of Mississippi: Administration decides to “contextualize” their statue of confederate figure and Civil War-era Supreme Court Justice Lucius Q.C. Lamar by adding a plaque fully describing his legacy

Aug. 24, 2017: Virginia Commonwealth University: VCU President Michael Rao has directed administrators to conduct an audit of all symbols “of an exclusionary nature,” including Confederate ones

Aug. 28, 2017: The University of Maryland marching band decided it will no longer play the state song before the college’s football games because of the song’s ties to the Confederacy

Not all reactions have been supportive. Some say taking the monuments down whitewashes history. Others call the movement a politically motivated stunt that has snowballed out of control.

We are scholars and teachers at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale who have some thoughts to share and advice to offer students who are headed off to colleges around the country. Our advice can be distilled to three words:

Think for yourself.

Now, that might sound easy. But you will find—as you may have discovered already in high school—that thinking for yourself can be a challenge. It always demands self-discipline and these days can require courage.

In today’s climate, it’s all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion on your campus or in the broader academic culture. The danger any student—or faculty member—faces today is falling into the vice of conformism, yielding to groupthink.

At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.

Since no one wants to be, or be thought of as, a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.

Don’t do that. Think for yourself.

Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.

The love of truth and the desire to attain it should motivate you to think for yourself. The central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker. Open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth. Moreover, they are our best antidotes to bigotry.

Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word “bigot” is a person “who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” The only people who need fear open-minded inquiry and robust debate are the actual bigots, including those on campuses or in the broader society who seek to protect the hegemony of their opinions by claiming that to question those opinions is itself bigotry.

So don’t be tyrannized by public opinion. Don’t get trapped in an echo chamber. Whether you in the end reject or embrace a view, make sure you decide where you stand by critically assessing the arguments for the competing positions.

Think for yourself.

Good luck to you in college!

Paul Bloom
Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology
Yale University

Nicholas Christakis
Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science
Yale University

Carlos Eire
T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies
Yale University

Maria E. Garlock
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Co-Director of the Program in Architecture and Engineering
Princeton University

David Gelernter
Professor of Computer Science
Yale University

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
Princeton University

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law
Harvard University

Joshua Katz
Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics
Princeton University

Thomas P. Kelly
Professor of Philosophy
Princeton University

Jon Levenson
Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies
Harvard University

John B. Londregan
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Princeton University

Michael A. Reynolds
Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies
Princeton University

Jacqueline C. Rivers
Lecturer in Sociology and African and African-American Studies
Harvard University

Noël Valis
Professor of Spanish
Yale University

Tyler VanderWeele
Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Director of the Program on Integrative Knowledge and Human Flourishing
Harvard University

Adrian Vermeule
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard University

Simply inaccurate’ to say he approves of political violence https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/36136/

Mark Bray says political violence is justified against certain groups.

The Dartmouth University history lecturer is not saying this privately or describing the historical use of political violence: He’s advocating it in media interviews while promoting his admittedly sympathetic new book about the left-wing terrorist movement Antifa.

But when his university president publicly criticized Bray’s expressed views, saying “the endorsement of violence in any form is contrary to Dartmouth values,” Bray’s faculty peers rushed to his defense.

More than 100 faculty have signed a statement that praises Bray as “the national expert” on fascism and anti-fascism in the 21st century, according to a Monday report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which says faculty names were not on the letter it was shown.

The statement says, bafflingly, Bray’s accurately reported words in media appearances are “simply inaccurate.”

It also raises a straw man, that Dartmouth has threatened Bray’s job by criticizing his accurately reported views: “There is nothing that Professor Bray has said that is in violation of Dartmouth’s stated free speech and academic freedom policies.”

The statement asks the university to retract President Philip Hanlon’s critical statement, apologize to Bray “for exposing him to entirely predictable possibility of physical harm,” and study how Dartmouth’s peer institutions “react when such a situation arises again—as it most certainly will.”

Here’s the somewhat typo-ridden transcript from the Aug. 20 broadcast of Meet the Press, where moderator Chuck Todd asks Bray why he’s part of “a very small minority here who is defending the idea of violence considering that somebody died in [the ‘Unite the Right’ rally and counterprotest in] Charlottesville.”

Bray replies:

I think that a lot of people recognize that, when pushed, self-defense is a legitimate response to white supremacy and neo-Nazi violence. And you know we’ve tried ignoring neo-Nazi’s in the past. We’ve seen how that turned out in 20’s and 30’s and the lesson of history is you need to take it with the utmost seriousness before it’s too late. … And the way to stop that is what people did in Boston [by physically attacking a “free speech rally”], what people did in Charlottesville. Pull the emergency break and say you can’t make this normal.

Reminded by Todd that the civil-rights movement had its own supporters of political violence who were overruled by its leaders, Bray again euphemizes political violence against words as self-defense:

Well, there’s a big difference between confronting fascism and confronting other forms of violence. So we can see that during the 30’s and 40’s, there was no public opinion to being leveraged by non-violent resistance. If you get fascist to be powerful enough in government, they’re simply not gonna listen to the kind of public opinion that non-violence can generate. … A lot of people are under attack and sometimes they need to be able to defend themselves. It’s not, you know, it’s a privileged position to be able to say that you never have to defend yourself from these kinds of monsters.

Not to be left out of the social justice chorus in the post-Charlottesville age, a coalition of 17 Princeton University student organizations have penned an op-ed blaming President Trump for the rise of the alt-right and racist incidents since the 2016 election, as well as a resurgence of white supremacy.

The groups — which include the Princeton Students for Reproductive Justice, Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity, and the Princeton Hidden Minority Council — also chide their university for its complicity in the “oppression” of marginalized communities, declaring it “is not good enough to disapprove of or condemn racism, white supremacy,” etc.

The school must act, you see … and in the manner these groups demand.

Here are some of the ways in which “white- and male-serving” Princeton is “upholding structural oppression” against its students, according to their Daily Princetonian op-ed :

–Refusal to remove racist memorialization on campus (e.g. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson Residential College, Stanhope Hall)

–Refusal to divest from private prisons and detention centers

–Failure to declare itself a sanctuary campus for undocumented students

–Lack of accommodations for non-binary students (e.g. lack of accessible gender-inclusive restrooms across campus, denial of resources, and continued harassment of queer, trans and non-binary students of color from low-income backgrounds on campus)

–Failure to provide adequate food options for low-income students

–Failure to provide students with a more diverse academic curriculum that addresses historically marginalized groups, especially within the field of ethnic studies (e.g. Latinx Studies, Native/Indigenous Studies, Asian American Studies, and Pacific Islander American Studies)

–Perpetuation of double standards regarding the establishment of affinity living spaces. While the University allows for students to live together based on shared artistic (e.g. Edwards Collective ) or sustainability (e.g. Pink House) interests, it has declined to allow living spaces based on shared race or ethnicity.

In tried and true politically correct contradictory fashion, the coalition further argues that the “labor of organizing has not always been equally assumed by groups of differing privilege.”

But … how do groups of differing privilege “equally” assume responsibility? It’s obvious enough from this treatise that straight white males would assume the most responsibility; however, as I’ve previously joked regarding the creation of, a “PC hierarchy handbook” what would be the guidelines after this group?

More from the piece:

We all have an obligation to oppose those who seek to foster hatred and discord by adopting these beliefs and actions.

Over the past seven months, the current presidential administration has actively opposed carrying out this obligation. White supremacy and the oppression of marginalized peoples has always had a political platform in the United States. The Trump administration has only exacerbated the level of violence against vulnerable individuals by emboldening racists to exercise their hatred explicitly, as evident from the acts of violence against people from historically marginalized communities directly following the election to the racist marches in the present day. Donald Trump is complicit in the rise of the alt-right and the racism and white supremacy that accompanies it.

[…] we need not hold our breath for a president who will not condemn white supremacist terrorism. Instead, we must turn to one another in solidarity and commit to coalition-building and accomplice-ship between communities of differing privileges. Recognizing the value of diversity and acceptance is a start, but we can and must do more than loftily promising to stand together.

We must be in solidarity with the counter-protesters who stood inches from torch-bearing fascists at the University of Virginia. Solidarity with Takiyah Thompson, who was arrested for toppling a Confederate statue in Durham, N.C. Solidarity with all those in this country who live under and struggle against systems of oppression. …

Lastly, courtesy of this newfound alliance, here’s a new term for your “oppression” vocabulary: “transmisogynoir,” the oppression of trans women and trans feminine people of color.

A new school year is upon us, and the assault on free speech continues as Yale Law School students reject their new dean’s call for civil discourse. George Washington proclaimed in 1783 that if “the freedom of Speech may be taken away,” then, “dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” If campuses are incubating our next generation of leaders, I hope America likes lamb chops.

While teaching at Yale, I have often witnessed students demonizing each other over their disagreements. Concerned students informed me of a school-wide e-mail argument in which one student was branded racist because of his disagreement with another student’s criticism of course offerings. The accused pointed out that he obviously could not see his interlocutor’s race over e-mail, nor guess it from her name; he simply disagreed with her idea. The ad hominem attacks only intensified from there.

Another time, a student group invited a controversial speaker to campus. Rather than speak up to expose the flaws in the speaker’s ideas, offended students announced that anyone in that group who did not publicly denounce the speaker and call for a disinvitation would be labeled sexist and ostracized. Intimidated students quietly dropped out of the group.

These private interactions are a symptom of what ails the public sphere.

Since its birth, the United States has grappled with people’s natural tendency to quash dissenting views. The founding generation rejected the British Crown’s practice of publishing its own newspaper in favor of both an independent free press and ardent support for free expression. But by 1798, a mere ten years after the Constitution’s adoption, the federal government had enacted the Sedition Act, making it illegal to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing” against Congress or the president. The act was a clear violation of Americans’ First Amendment rights. The Federalist party, under President John Adams, used its control of the government to silence its critics and attack the Democratic-Republican minority.

With the nascent Supreme Court neither willing nor ready to check the other branches, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison appealed to the people to defend Americans’ rights “to think freely and to speak and write what they think.” They used the very rights under attack — the freedoms of speech and the press — to educate the populace, galvanize public support across the states, and win back control of the government. In other words, they successfully countered a bad law with rational arguments.

Today many will instinctively reject the Founders’ principles because many of them were white slaveholders. But that is part of the point: Automatically dismissing ideas based on the identity of the messenger can leave us all worse off. After all, these deeply flawed individuals nevertheless managed to enshrine in the country they founded — our country —many wonderful principles, from freedom of religion to checks and balances to free expression itself.

That latter principle is once again under siege today, and we could do worse than to dust off some of the grassroots tactics of Jefferson and Madison in its defense. We must take to the press, utilize social media, contact school administrators and professors, support leaders who practice and foster civil discourse, and speak to our friends and neighbors to help educate our communities on what freedom of speech really means.