RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/rocky-top-diversity-equity-inclusion-agenda

Since 2020’s summer of racial unrest, universities across the country have increasingly embraced radical “antiracist” agendas, commonly under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies or programs. Even public universities in deep-red states aren’t immune to the trend—as the case of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (UTK), discussed in a new report, demonstrates.

In May 2016, Tennessee’s legislature defunded UTK’s fledgling Office of Diversity and Equity for one year, diverting its monies toward minority scholarships. The office’s four employees either left the university or were assigned elsewhere. UTK thus had zero dollars and zero personnel dedicated to DEI during the 2016–2017 school year. While minority scholarships reflect the DEI cast of mind, they are probably a better use of such funds than hiring more DEI personnel.

Shortly after the legislature defunded the office, UTK released a strategic plan, Vol Vision 2020, that listed promoting “Diversity and Inclusion” as one of six priorities. Nevertheless, the school allocated no money to the achievement of that priority and proposed no metrics for its DEI policies. The Chancellor’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion also launched a “Campus Diversity Metrics Plan” but did so outside of the strategic plan process.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/witch-closet-larry-sand/

I was afraid of witches as a child. Indeed, I was convinced that there was an old crone hanging out in my bedroom closet just waiting to pounce. Not sure where or how it began, but it ended when I decided to take every bit of clothing and assorted junk out of my closet to convince myself that there was no witch stirring her cauldron there. Tragically, kids today have so much more than one imaginary hag scaring the living daylights out of them. In fact, there are enough witches these days to make a sizable coven.

Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, gets to the meat of the matter in “The Unbearable Bleakness of American Schooling.” He writes that “this pedagogy of the depressed—America the Problematic—is thought to be a virtue among professional educators who view it as a mark of seriousness and sophistication.” He goes on to point out that “contemporary education fetishizes the bad and the broken in American life.” Clearly this has become all the rage. At the heart of the problem is that it really isn’t education, it’s indoctrination. The doomsters see only problems to be solved. Teaching about the existing good – and even celebrating it – is nowhere to be found in the indoctrinator’s playbook.

A major source of fear in children is climate change, which used to be known as global warming, and before that, global cooling. According to a British poll, one in five children have nightmares about climate change. Another survey reveals that 59% of people aged 16-25 are very or extremely worried and 84% are at least moderately worried about atmospheric change. “More than 45% of respondents said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, and many reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate change.” A full 75% said that they think “the future is frightening.” The reality is, yes, the climate is changing, but then again, it always has. And, while it is possible that we may need to do some very  minor adjusting, the academic alarmists and their hysterical media toadies are doing damage far greater than anything climate change will ever do.

The “America is racist” mantra has been exploited maximally by all the usual suspects. School children are placed in groups, labeled oppressors and victims, and taught that America’s system is rigged against persons of color. For example, an elementary school in Cupertino, California – a Silicon Valley community with a median home price of $2.3 million – recently forced a class of third-graders to “deconstruct their racial identities, then rank themselves according to their ‘power and privilege.’” This type of scaremongering has worked, according to the “Coming Together: Family Reflections on Racism” study conducted by Sesame Workshop, which reports that 86% of children believe that people of different races are not treated fairly in this country.