RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/desantis-calls-the-bureaucrats-bluff/ar-AA17jGOb

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has a plan for freeing public universities from the stranglehold of their diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracies. Before DeSantis launched this effort, it was widely believed, even among those who recognized the dangers of DEI, that there was really nothing public officials could do about the problem. Just like the weather, it was simply something we would all have to learn to live with. Public universities were thought to be outside of political control, and academic culture was thought to be too committed to DEI goals. But DeSantis is proving that something can be done. His plan is likely to make significant progress in dismantling DEI in higher education.

DeSantis is showing that DEI is not beyond the reach of elected officials, at least not at public universities. In most states, public universities are state agencies, just like the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Game and Fish Commission. They may have their own boards of trustees, but those boards were created, and can be modified, by legislation, and their activities are governed by state laws and regulations. States can reorganize how public universities are structured to achieve public purposes better, just as they can reorganize the DMV. Lawmakers may alter the size and composition of the Game and Fish Commission, as well as the process for appointing those officials, and they can do the same with the boards of public universities.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dei-spells-death-for-the-idea-of-a-university-diversity-equity-inclusion-academia-college-hillsdale-new-college-of-florida-open-discourse-1d2ca552?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

The first object of government, James Madison tells us in Federalist 10, is the protection of “the diversity in the faculties of men.” By diversity, Madison meant different opinions to be encouraged to preserve liberty. Equity is an ancient legal concept of justice in particular cases, developed over centuries of English common-law practice. Inclusion simply means to make a part of, as in defining a mathematical set by what it does and doesn’t include.

All good words with respectable origins. Yet in true Orwellian fashion, they have been redefined.

Diversity is no longer a term to describe the breadth of our differences but a demand to flatter and grant privileges to purportedly oppressed identity groups. Equity assigns desirable positions based on race, sex and sexual orientation rather than character, competence and merit. Inclusion now means creating a social environment where identity groups are celebrated while those who disagree are maligned.

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”—the compound form of these modern concepts—is especially toxic. It divides us by social identity groups, ranks those groups on privilege and power, and excludes those who fail to honor the new orthodoxy. Rather than being equally endowed with innate dignity and fundamental rights as human beings—best judged by our character and not skin color—we are supposed to discriminate and confer status based on race, sex and cultural affinity.

https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-combat-gender-theory-in-public-schools

As radical gender theory has made its way into public schools across the United States, children as young as five have been exposed to ideas that encourage them to question their gender identities, sometimes with life-changing and irreversible results. Despite Americans’ broadly shared skepticism about gender-identity curricula and practices in schools, many ideologically motivated teachers and administrators have not relented in their mission to advance radical gender theory, even in otherwise-conservative areas.

Among many other examples I’ve uncovered, in Illinois’ Evanston-Skokie School District, kindergarteners read books affirming transgender conversions; in Springfield, Missouri, teacher and administrator training recommends recognizing and affirming a panoply of student gender identities. Over 4,000 schools nationwide feature “gender and sexuality” (GSA) clubs, the national organization which calls for the abolition of the American judicial system and the “cisgender heterosexual patriarchy.”

Too often, teachers and administrators keep parents in the dark or pressure them into “affirming” their child’s claimed gender identity. Indeed, school policies often advise—or require—teachers not to share gender-related information with parents. Michigan’s Department of Education encourages teachers to facilitate students’ sexual transitions without parental consent. In Fairfax, Virginia, and Montgomery County, Maryland, teachers are expressly barred from “outing” supposedly transgender children to their parents. The GSA Network instructs adult club “advisors” to keep a child’s involvement in a GSA club confidential.

https://quillette.com/2023/02/07/the-approaching-disintegration-of-academia/

“The disintegration of academia is coming. Whichever side precipitates the break, it will be a necessary development. Higher education is a serious intellectual endeavor, and nothing is less intellectually serious in contemporary academia than the suggestion that the pursuit of objectivity has been discredited. Empirical observation, mathematical inquiry, inductive and deductive reasoning, and falsifiability are the sine qua nons of higher education. As courses of study in the humanities and social sciences depart from such things, they cease to be higher education in the Enlightenment sense.”

Several years ago, in the pre-pandemic world of in-person meetings, a newly hired colleague at Fashion Institute of Technology proposed an LGBT-themed sociology course before the School of Liberal Arts. This is a necessary step in getting the course approved by the college-wide curriculum committee. It’s a time for constructive feedback and occasional tweaking before the final committee vote.

It was a good course. The proposal was clear and concise, indicating not only a command of the relevant literature but a sensitivity to students’ interests, expectations, and ability to handle the workload. But I noticed an apparently minor, easily correctable issue. Among the learning outcomes listed was a requirement that students develop a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ perspectives and rights. That struck me as problematic. I happen to think that such acceptance is a good thing, but to stipulate it as a learning outcome raises a knotty question. If a student masters the course material, turns in the required work, and passes the exams, but doesn’t exhibit that acceptance, is he going to fail?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-shows-how-to-combat-woke-indoctrination-on-campus-progressive-ideology-legislation-freedom-academic-college-university-11675883802?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

In the battle for open inquiry on campus, two factions have emerged on the side of free speech. The first camp consists of professors and administrators who consider themselves the true defenders of academic freedom. They seek to create a free-speech consensus in academia across the political spectrum. In the second camp, state legislators seek to restore academic freedom by outlawing advocacy of woke progressivism in schools. This camp views such ideological teaching as discriminatory and outside the bounds of taxpayer-funded education.

A simmering conflict between these two camps has now burst into the open over Florida’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act. In the first camp, the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group of more than 700 university professors from across the U.S., issued a statement against the Florida policy and others of its kind. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, is also opposed to policies that limit classroom discussion, scholarly inquiry and public debate in state universities.

I joined the AFA in 2021 as a founding member. These pages heralded the group’s formation. I share the organization’s stated mission: to “defend faculty members’ freedom of thought and expression” including “freedom from ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths.” But the idea that supporting academic freedom requires opposing anti-woke legislation is misguided.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-diversity-policing-fails-science-equality-equity-education-texas-tech-job-candidates-interview-dei-pronouns-11675722169?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between “equality” and “equity.” Another was flagged for his repeated use of the pronoun “he” when referring to professors. Still another was praised for having made a “land acknowledgment” during the interview process. A land acknowledgment is a statement noting that Native Americans once lived in what is now the United States.

Amidst the explosion of university diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Texas Tech’s biology department adopted its own DEI motion promising to “require and strongly weight a diversity statement from all candidates.” These short, written declarations are meant to summarize an academic job seeker’s past and potential contributions to DEI efforts on campus.

The biology department’s motion mandates that every search committee issue a report on its diversity statement evaluations. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, I have acquired the evaluations of more than a dozen job candidates.

To my knowledge, these documents—published in redacted form by the National Association of Scholars—are the first evaluations of prospective faculty DEI contributions to be made publicly available. They confirm what critics of DEI statements have long argued: That they inevitably act as ideological litmus tests.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/02/american_students__dumber_and_more_woke.html

Professors often complain about the current crop of students being less intellectually talented than when they began their careers decades back. Such griping is, of course, easy to dismiss — it has occurred for millennia. Unfortunately, this time around the grumbling may be true and not the usual nostalgia for “the good old days.”  The anecdotal evidence from textbook reading levels, shortened college syllabi, scrapbook-like research assignments, proliferating college remedial classes, grade inflation, and the popularity of “gut” college majors such as Gender Studies, is indisputable. We have also invested hundreds of millions in our schools yet test results such as the SAT are flat over the past half century. Add the countless stories of illiteracy among high school “graduates” despite falling class size and expensive reforms. Judged by the standards of evolution, Americans may be going backwards.

The best evidence of this decline are data from the highly respected General Social Survey on mean IQ by decade among graduate students, undergraduates, and high school students (a tip of the hat to Charles Murray on Twitter). This is a complicated subject given how America’s demography has altered, and measuring IQ via surveys might be iffy, but the numbers, even if a bit unsure, are alarming.

These data are divided into three groups: those with high school diplomas, undergraduate degrees, and graduate degrees. Then the data are then divided by decades beginning in the 1960s through to the 2010 onward decade. The overall pattern is a steady decline in IQ scores for each group from decade to decade. For example, high school graduates in the 1960s had an average IQ of 99.3 but this figure declined so by 2010 and onward, it was 93.5. A similar drop occurred among college graduates — from 113.3 in the 60s to 100.4 in the 2010 decade. For those with graduate degrees, the fall was from 114.0 to 105.8.          

These are depressing numbers. That in 2010 the average college student had an IQ of 100.4 (almost exactly our national average) signifies that we are miles away from trying to educate the brightest youngsters. Worse, with an average of about 100, many of those enrolled must score below 100 and thus suitable only for low-skill occupations. This picture may even be worse than these numbers suggest if we subtract out the many smart international students now enrolled in U.S. higher education.  

https://www.theepochtimes.com/how-its-done_5020230.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

The Jesuits used to say that if you gave them a child until he was 7, they would give you the man.

We can dicker about the time it takes to form a person’s character, but there’s no doubt that those early experiences shape us for life. Which is one reason why we think primary education is so important.

Sure, it’s partly then that the kiddies learn to read, write, and calculate.

But just as important are the moral lessons they learn: the emotional weather they cultivate; the sorts of feelings they nurture and those they recoil from.

This process continues throughout our educational career.

Most people instinctively recognize this, which is why education is always such a hot topic with voters.

What sorts of people are our schools and colleges helping to form? What values are students being taught?

Such questions help explain the passion that has erupted at school board meetings when angry parents confront school board members about the sorts of things that were being taught in schools: the gussied-up versions of Marxist ideology that goes under the name of critical race theory (CRT) as well as the quasi- and sometimes not-so-quasi pornographic exotica disseminated under the rubric of “gender” studies.

The COVID lockdowns first exposed the grim reality to parents.

Their children were forced to stay home from school and attend class remotely.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-2-1-time-for-the-rest-of-the-red-states-to-follow-the-desantisrufo-lead

It was only six days ago, on January 26, when I wrote a post containing a list of proposals for Christopher Rufo and the other new trustees of New College of Florida to take back control of the institution from the insane left. In an uncanny development, as if they having been reading the Manhattan Contrarian blog, Rufo and his fellow trustees, along with Governor Ron DeSantis, have already implemented the first proposal, and are well along on implementing the second.

How about all you other red states? Why can’t you do the same things?

My first proposal was: “Replace the President.” It took them all of five days. From ABC7 Sarasota, yesterday (January 31) evening: “New College President Okker terminated by Board of Trustees.” The newly designated President, according to ABC7, is a guy named Richard Corcoran, a Republican who served as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2016 to 2018. Good start!

My second proposal was: “Fire the entire ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ staff.” The new trustees aren’t wasting a lot of time on that one either. Again from ABC7 Sarasota: “The board offered to hold off on abolishing the school’s Office of Outreach and Inclusive Excellence, instead opting to terminate four positions within the office.” OK they didn’t fire them all at once, and they are “holding off” on abolishing the office altogether. But they should not wait long to finish the job.

Actually, it may not matter so much what these trustees do on this issue, because Governor DeSantis is separately taking on the job himself. From The Independent Florida, January 31:

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he will completely defund diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at Florida universities during a press conference Tuesday morning. DeSantis addressed what he called “DEI bureaucracies,” or departments within universities that promote diversity, equality and inclusion, which he said impose a liberal agenda on university students and faculty. “These bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom, and really they constitute a drain on resources and end up contributing to higher costs,” he said.

DeSantis’s defunding initiative requires approval by the legislature, which will begin its session in March. But with large Republican majorities in both houses (28-12 in the Senate and 84-35 in the House), I would expect the proposal to pass easily.