RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/determining_objective_information_versus_indoctrination.html

Critical thinking is paramount in determining the validity of documents.  But how does one identify indoctrination when it is couched in alleged compassion for people?  What is the veracity test?  What questions need to be posed?  What research is required?

Recently, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, an independent non-profit organization, created a document titled “Confronting and Preventing Hate in Canadian Schools.”  On the surface, this sounds laudable.

In the introduction, a reader is introduced to the Western States Center.

Western States Center [WSC] is one of the United States’ leading organizations working to combat white nationalism, strengthen inclusive democracy, and assist civil society to effectively respond to social movements that exploit bigotry and intolerance. Based in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, WSC serves as a national hub for building movements, developing leaders, shifting culture, and defending democracy to help build a world where everyone can live, love, worship and work free from bigotry and fear.

My antennae start to wiggle when I read the words “white nationalism,” so I research further and discover that another group called the Social Justice Fund considers the Western States Center its “sister organization established to help strengthen and further develop the progressive movement in the West.”  So my instincts were correct.  But still I am intrigued by the messaging.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-mum-education-unions-proposal-change-mother-birthing-parent-defends-first-lady-vp

The White House refused to comment on the National Education Association’s proposal this week to replace the word “mother” with “birthing parent,” while defending First Lady Jill Biden as a “proud” member of the labor union and Vice President Kamala Harris for attending the union’s annual meeting, where the policy change was introduced. 

When asked for comment on the proposal, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “So, we’re not the NEA and I would refer you to their team about that particular.”

First Lady Jill Biden, a teacher, is a member of the NEA. Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at the National Education Association 2022 Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago on Tuesday.

“The first lady is a proud member of the NEA,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that she was “not going to speak about an organization’s policy or change of policy.”

“I am not their spokesperson — not something that I am going to do,” she said. “Yes, the vice president was there on Tuesday. She spoke at the NEA and when they did, when they did regular order, when they did their regular business, she left.” 

https://americanmind.org/salvo/the-purposeful-degradation-of-americas-schools/

Radical ideologues fueled by billions of woke foundation dollars are destroying public education.

In the wake of school shutdowns, distance learning, and widely publicized school board battles, two trends have become increasingly difficult to conceal. The first is the failure of many of America’s primary and secondary schools to educate children competently—a failure marked by distressingly low levels of student proficiency and widening achievement gaps in core subjects like math and reading. The second is the growing prominence of radical ideology in the nation’s K-12 classrooms.

Equally disturbing is evidence that these trends are largely correlated and that an iron triangle of self-interested actors is contributing to their acceleration in school districts across the country—even those esteemed for high achievement.

Over the past decade, local school districts have proved easy targets for radical ideologues seeking to acquire cultural power. Though prolonged distance learning and draconian mandates have shaken the pre-pandemic confidence that many parents had in edu-crats to put the well-being of their children first, local districts and school boards have historically enjoyed a high level of public trust. Until recently, little attention was paid to union politics, school board decision making, classroom curriculum, or teacher training.  As a result, activists and special interest groups bankrolled by far-left foundations have inundated primary and secondary education with radical race, gender, and queer theory, usually under the guise of innocuous sounding phrases like equity-based education, culturally responsive teaching, and social and emotional learning. While children are increasingly being taught that western institutions are systemically and irredeemably racist, sexist, etc., they are not adequately learning to read or do math. The districts most vested in radical ideology often have the worst results in terms of academic achievement and racial disparities. Seattle has embraced left-wing initiatives for decades and has one of the worst black-white achievement gaps in the nation.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/floridas-new-history-curriculum-is-pretty-great/

Ron DeSantis’s state of Florida drew controversy over the Fourth of July weekend after the Miami Herald released copies of slides that the government used in civics training sessions for K–12 public-school teachers, which it partnered with Hillsdale College to create.

The slides cover reasons for the American Revolution and the philosophical underpinnings of the Constitution, while sometimes wading into contemporary debates about American government. The material is mainstream, historically accurate, and not unlike other curricula. Personally, I learned a lot of it a few years ago in high school when I took Advanced Placement U.S. History and Government & Politics. 

Overall, Florida’s syllabus is a good road map for teaching history. Most of the material is simply stating facts, and when it wades into controversy, it backs up its assertions solidly, for the most part. Nevertheless, some educators have complained that the instructional prescription was too Christian and conservative.

One of the central complaints centers on one of the presentations calling the idea that “the Founders desired strict separation of church and state and the Founders only wanted to protect freedom of worship” a misconception.

The state’s claim is certainly controversial, but it is true, nonetheless. While the Founding conception of separation of church and state protected freedom of worship, it was chiefly focused against creating an established church. The Framers did not view all public support of religion as illicit. After all, Congress held church services in the House chamber from when it first moved to Washington, D.C., until after the Civil War, with the speaker’s podium serving as the pulpit. That does not seem like an action of people who wanted religion and government in totally separate spheres.

For those who argue the contrary, the chief piece of evidence, which the Florida curriculum acknowledges, is Thomas Jefferson’s 1801 Letter to the Danbury Baptists, in which he wrote that the First Amendment creates “a wall of separation between church and state.” It is important to note the context of the letter. He was responding to a group of people who were fearful that the government would interfere with their free exercise of religion, and he was attempting to allay their concerns. In no way was he calling for the government to totally distance itself from religion. After all, he would often attend the services in the Capitol.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/07/05/childrens-library-association-pushes-gender-confusion-on-kids-with-pro-lgbt-summer-reading-list/

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is pushing multiple LGBT recommendations in its 2022 Notable Children’s Books and Summer Reading Lists. Some of these books include a simple picture of a gay union, while other suggestions are fully centered around transgenderism, but in each case, these recommendations are meant to normalize and promote LGBT values and lifestyles to children. 

By the ALSC adding these books to the reading list, it communicates that these works are of “especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry, and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children’s interests in exemplary ways.” 

For example, children from birth to preschool are encouraged to read “The Pronoun Book” by Chris Ayala-Kronos to complete the summer reading list. As kids just begin to learn how to talk and read, they can also get a head start on trans pronoun propaganda. 

In this book, young readers are taught that they can’t know what people want to be called. A boy may want to be called a “she” instead of he. A girl may desire to use plural pronouns such as they/them or a “neopronoun” such as co, ey, per, or xe.

“Milo Imagines the World” by Matt de la Peña is another “notable” children’s book on the library association’s list, and while the book is not LGBT-centered, it slips in a picture of a same-sex wedding.

The story follows a young boy named Milo and his sister riding the train to see their mom. While on the crowded train, Milo looks at the faces around him. Notebook and pen in hand, he imagines and draws the lives of the people he sees.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/how_racial_literacy_erodes_education.html

As the country plunges deeper into Wokeland, the institutions of alleged higher learning continue to support and promulgate the ideology of the Left.

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) offers an online book titled “Racial Literacy” edited by Detra Price-Dennis.

Chapter titles include the following:

To Dismantle Racism, We Must Discuss It
Everyday Colorism: Reading in the Language Arts Classroom
Centering #BlackLivesMatter to Confront Injustice, Inspire Advocacy, and Develop Literacies
Reopening Racial Wounds: Whiteness, Melancholia, and Affect in the English Classroom
Tough Talking: Teaching White Students about Race and Responsibility
Antiracist Language Arts Pedagogy is Incomplete without Black Joy

Thus, “[t]his collection shows how teaching from a racial literacy perspective is in conversation with antiracist, culturally responsive, equity-oriented frameworks that uplift curriculum design and instructional strategies to help educators [.]”

In effect, “[t]he English language arts classroom provides a significant place to begin as English Language Acquisition (ELA) schol­ars and teacher educators are illuminating the ways white supremacy of language policies and practice devalue Black ways of knowing, being, and doing in schools.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/biden_sets_his_sights_on_k12_education.html

“Biden’s education council is a hyper-partisan packed court that is likely to dismiss any family input that differs from their progressive views.”

Few noticed or cared when U.S. education secretary Miguel Cardona announced on June 14 the launch of the National Parents and Families Engagement Council (NPFEC). The NPFEC “…will serve as an important link between families and caregivers, education advocates and their school communities. The Council will help foster a collaborative environment where we can work together to serve the best interest of students and ensure they have the academic and mental health support they need to recover from the pandemic and thrive in the future.” 

While this sounds promising, a journalist with Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council (FRC) in their Washington Stand newsletter took an interest and identified some major red flags; “Yet one look at some of the council’s 14 acknowledged members shows it represents a small segment of elitist, left-wing views.” For example:

The National Action Network started by Al Sharpton made an “LGBTQ Alliance” in 2015 “…to promote “the hiring or participation of gay/transgender people “in all areas of religious and public life.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/georgetown-promotes-former-chavez-regime-official-after-sidelining-ilya-shapiro/

At the prestigious university, poorly worded tweets can get you canceled, but working in a dictatorial regime can get you promoted.

Georgetown University recently promoted Angelo Rivero Santos, a former official in the regime of Venezuela’s late socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, to the role of interim director of its Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS). Between 2006 and 2013, Rivero Santos held various positions in the Venezuelan embassy in the United States, eventually serving twice as acting ambassador for the Chávez regime. “As of today, I am humbled to follow in the footsteps of those that have served as Directors of CLAS in the past by serving as your interim-Director for the academic year 2022–2023,” Rivero Santos wrote in a July 1 statement to the university department.

This is the same university that stirred controversy in January for placing Ilya Shapiro, who was set to lead its law school’s Center for the Constitution, on administrative leave during a four-month “investigation” for three tweets in which he questioned President Biden’s reliance on racial and gender preferences in promising to nominate a black woman — to the exclusion of all other possible nominees — to replace Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer. In the end, the law school reluctantly retained Shapiro, though it legitimized the tactics and concerns of the woke mob attacking him. Shapiro resigned days later, citing his belief that the school had “yielded to the progressive mob, abandoned free speech, and created a hostile environment.”

https://josephhmanson.com/2022/07/04/why-im-leaving-the-university/

I’m a professor, retiring at 62 because the Woke takeover of higher education has ruined academic life. “Another one?” you ask. “What does this guy have to say that hasn’t already been said by Jordan Peterson, Peter Boghossian, Joshua Katz, or Bo Winegard1?

There’s only one way to find out.

Defenestration of a Colleague

I’ve been a tenure-track professor since 1996 (tenured since 2000) in the Anthropology Department at UCLA. (My research, which I plan to continue doing, has spanned topics ranging from nonhuman primate behavior to human personality variation). For decades, anthropology has notoriously been riven by conflict between scientific and political activist factions, leading many departments to split in two, but UCLA’s department remained unusually peaceful, cohesive, and intellectually inclusive until the late 2000s. Gradually, one hire at a time, practitioners of “critical” (i.e. far-left postmodernist) anthropology, some of them lying about their beliefs during job interviews, came to comprise the department’s most influential clique.  These militant faculty recruited even more extremely militant graduate students to work with them.

I can’t recount here even a representative sample of this faction’s penchant for mendacity and intimidation, because most of it occurred during confidential discussions, usually about hiring and promotion decisions. But I can describe their public torment and humiliation of one of my colleagues, P. Jeffrey Brantingham. Jeff had developed simulation models of the geographic and temporal patterning of urban crime, and had created predictive software that he marketed to law enforcement agencies. In Spring 2018, the department’s Anthropology Graduate Students Association passed a resolution accusing Jeff’s research of (among other counter-revolutionary sins) “entrench[ing] and naturaliz[ing] the criminalization of Blackness in the United States” and calling for “referring” his research to UCLA’s Vice Chancellor for Research, presumably for some sort of investigation. This document contains no trace of scholarly argument, but instead resembles a religious proclamation of anathema. As you won’t be surprised to hear, Jeff is not a racist, but a standard-issue liberal Democrat. The “referral” to the Vice-Chancellor never materialized, but the AGSA resolution and its aftermath achieved its real goal, which was to turn Jeff, who had been one of the most selfless citizens of the department, into a pariah. He taught (still teaches) a course, “The Ecology of Crime,” that consistently drew 150+ students and earned rave reviews. This course had a catalogue number that grouped it with sociocultural anthropology, and it fulfilled a sociocultural anthropology requirement for anthro majors. In an act of petty spite, ritual moral purification, or both (take your pick), the Woke faculty clique, which comprised a majority of the sociocultural anthro faculty, banned him from using (polluting?) any of their course numbers. Jeff continued to offer the course, just under a different kind of number.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/03/the-national-academies-have-abandoned-the-sciences/

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently held an event titled: “Structural Racism and Rigorous Models of Social Inequity.” The two-day conference seemed less of a workshop, as was advertised, and more of a struggle session against enemies of “equity.” The main takeaway from this event was that we must implement critical race theory (CRT) into every facet of science. This conclusion was not drawn from inference. Throughout the conference, multiple speakers advocated explicitly for the use of critical race theory. By doing so, however, one must ask: Have the National Academies abandoned the sciences altogether?

To answer that question, one must first answer another: Is critical race theory scientific and beneficial to the scientific community? CRT contends that race is a social construct, tracing that argument back to W.E.B. DuBois, and there are good reasons to accept this claim. After all, while it is observably true that people vary by the color of their skin and other immutable characteristics, it makes little sense to divide people into “races.” Biologists, for example, talk not of “races” but of populations, and those medical researchers find genetics a far more useful analytical tool than any abstract concept of “race.”

So far, it would appear that CRT is scientific and beneficial to the scientific community. However, one has yet to consider the applied postmodernism of the theory, and its concern with language. Critical race theorists focus on issues such as hate speech, microaggressions, and cultural appropriation. In fact, they believe that speech which may lead to “racial inequity” must be censored. Such an approach is antithetical to scientific progress, as free speech and open debate are necessary to challenge ideas. Censorship will only hinder that speech and debate, slowing scientific progress, if not stalling it completely.