EDUCATION Comments turned off

In Blow to Academic Freedom, Court Rules Universities Can Punish Faculty for ‘Lack of Collegiality’By Jeff Zymeri

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/in-blow-to-academic-freedom-court-rules-universities-can-punish-faculty-for-lack-of-collegiality/?utm_

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that a public-university faculty member can be punished for the “lack of collegiality” he purportedly showed when he criticized a higher-ed-degree program for prioritizing social justice over scholarship.

To academic-freedom advocates, the decision is a blow, and there are fears the “collegiality” rationale could chill unpopular speech at universities throughout the country.

By a vote of 2-1 in Porter v. Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University, the court ruled against professor Stephen Porter of NCSU, who had been removed from a degree program for complaints he made during a 2016 department meeting, in a spring 2018 email to colleagues, and in a personal blog post written that fall.

According to Porter, “the field of higher education study is abandoning rigorous methodological analysis in favor of results-driven work aimed at furthering a highly dogmatic view of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ and ‘inclusion.’” He also called an academic conference in his field a “woke joke.”

Porter was accused of “bullying” his colleagues, and it was suggested he leave the degree program in question. The professor was soon forcibly removed. Porter also claimed his colleagues were making it impossible for him to recruit new doctoral advisees, jeopardizing his tenure.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Appeals Court Rules University Can Punish Professor for Criticizing ‘Diversity’ Hiring George Leef

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/appeals-court-rules-university-can-punish-professor-for-criticizing-diversity-hiring/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

The academic left has no tolerance for faculty members who aren’t all in favor of the DEI agenda. It will look for any pretext to punish those who dare to disagree.

That was the case at North Carolina State where Professor David Porter complained about a departmental hire that he thought was ill-advised, done just to increase “diversity.” That bit of honesty caused the university to punish him. Porter sued, but the Fourth Circuit, in a 2-1 ruling, held that the university was in the right.

Hans Bader examines the case in this Liberty Unyielding post. 

A slice:

Yet the Fourth Circuit ruled that the professor’s email about a diversity-oriented faculty search, which complained that a colleague ‘cut corners [in] vetting’ a black finalist ‘out of a desire to hire a Black scholar whose work focused on racial  issues,’ was not on a matter of public concern — and thus not protected by the First Amendment, because it (a) ‘was an unprofessional attack on one of [his] colleagues,’ and (b) was ‘sent only to other faculty members.’ This “unprofessionalism” claim is diametrically at odds with the Supreme Court’s Rankin decision saying that ‘the inappropriate…character of a statement is irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern.’

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Hottest Days Ever? Don’t Believe It ‘Average global temperature’ is a meaningless measure, and comparisons to 125,000 years ago are preposterous. By Steve Milloy

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hottest-days-ever-dont-believe-it-global-temperature-north-sole-poles-6e64a991?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The global-warming industry has declared that July 3 and 4 were the two hottest days on Earth on record. The reported average global temperature on those days was 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit, supposedly the hottest in 125,000 years. The claimed temperature was derived from the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which relies on a mix of satellite temperature data and computer-model guesstimation to calculate estimates of temperature.

One obvious problem with the updated narrative is that there are no satellite data from 125,000 years ago. Calculated estimates of current temperatures can’t be fairly compared with guesses of global temperature from thousands of years ago.

A more likely alternative to the 62.6-degree estimate is something around 57.5 degrees. The latter is an average of actual surface temperature measurements taken around the world and processed on a minute-by-minute basis by a website called temperature.global. The numbers have been steady this year, with no spike in July.

Moreover, the notion of “average global temperature” is meaningless. Average global temperature is a concept invented by and for the global-warming hypothesis. It is more a political concept than a scientific one. The Earth and its atmosphere is large and diverse, and no place is meaningfully average.

Average global temperature also changes on seasonal basis: Temperatures are higher globally during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer because of more sunlight-trapping land. In this case, the Climate Reanalyzer’s estimated temperatures in early July were skewed by a heat wave in the Antarctic, where areas may have warmed some Antarctic temperatures by as much as 43 degrees. This is likely the explanation for the difference between the 62.6-degree and 57.5-degree estimates.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Jason L. Riley The Affirmative Action Illusion Defenders of racial preferences argue that they are essential to black advancement—the facts demonstrate otherwise.

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-affirmative-action-illusion

One byproduct of a half-century of affirmative action is that it has given many Americans the impression that blacks can’t advance without special treatment. The response to last week’s Supreme Court decision banning the use of race in college admissions suggests that even some very accomplished black professionals have internalized this belief.

Joy Reid, the MSNBC host, said in response to the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling that racial preferences were the only reason black people like her had access to elite schools such as Harvard. Eddie Glaude, who teaches African American studies at Princeton, said affirmative action was “the only remedy to the legacy of discrimination in admissions in American higher education” and “they’ve taken it away.” Another black academic, Jelani Cobb, wrote in The New Yorker that affirmative action “helped expand the Black middle class” and predicted that one result of the decision will be “fewer students from traditionally underrepresented minorities on college campuses.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in the case is chock-full of similar doomsaying. The nation’s first black female Supreme Court justice presents a lengthy chronicle of racial disparities in outcomes and argues that they can be linked directly to slavery and the legacy of segregation. Ending racial preferences, she writes, ignores “the well-documented ‘intergenerational transmission of inequality’ that still plagues our citizenry” and “will delay the day that every American has an equal opportunity to thrive, regardless of race.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Thou shalt not (censor) More on the genius of Judge Terry Doughty’s decision yesterday in the Missouri v Biden social media censorship case Alex Berenson

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/thou-shalt-not-censor

Imagine if we learned Biden Administration officials had secretly jawboned the New York Times on trans issues. Or told baseball teams they should fly pride flags – or face antitrust hearings. Or complained to the History Channel over a documentary depicting the discovery of crude oil positively.

The First Amendment concerns would be obvious. We’d all wonder why government officials thought they could tell private companies what opinions and news to carry.

The American government is hugely powerful. Not even the biggest company can ignore a call from the White House. If the executive branch has something to say, it should do so with press conferences and open advertising – not secretly threaten the media to carry its water.

Yet when it comes to social media companies, the left has forgotten this simple fact. Instead it claims a new age of information warfare demands that the Constitution be set aside – as if propaganda campaigns haven’t always been a feature of mass media. It has forgotten the importance of an open marketplace for ideas and debate.

Now, in a lawsuit brought by two states against the federal government over social media censorship, a judge has reminded the left – and all of us – of what the First Amendment means and why it matters.

And he’s done so in the simplest, most profound possible way.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

French Malaise Strikes Again by Amir Taheri

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19784/french-malaise

These riots did start with the killing of a 17-year boy of Algerian ancestry by the police. But the killing was not racially motivated and, as protesters made clear, what was at issue was police brutality rather than racial hatred… [T]he root cause of the anger that provoked the riots was a deep dissatisfaction with the way the country is governed.

What has happened in France in the past five or six decades is a major change in the balance of power between the state and society. French society today is far better educated, self-confident, better informed and more enterprising than the French state, which has become costlier, less efficient and more arrogant.

The suburbs that burned are precisely the ones that the French state has invested more than 30 billion euros in “improving” over the past 20 years. The result has been the creation of a whole generation of “assisted” people whose ethnic and/or religious backgrounds are treated as heirlooms to justify government handout in various guises.

But just as man can’t live on bread alone, he won’t be grateful and obedient by handouts alone.

Judging by France’s recent history, the month of June should be a quiet moment when people prepare for summer holidays in exotic places. Protest marches, riots and even revolutions usually take place in the spring, with May being the hottest month for political gesticulations. The baccalaureate exams are over, the annual bonuses are paid and the fruit-picking is over. Thus, the riots of the past two weeks that produced mayhem in Parisian suburbs and a dozen other places across France came like bolt out of the blue.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Any Deal with Iran Requires Congressional Approval by Richard Kemp

Posted By on July 9th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19783/iran-deal-congressional-approval

When President Joe Biden entered the White House… he eased off on sanctions and made it blatantly obvious he would do almost anything for a deal with Iran.

The consequence has been uranium enrichment from 5% to 60%, and with some material up to 84%, according to IAEA suspicions — verging on the levels needed for a bomb.

Biden was so fixated on gaining a deal that he allowed Moscow to take the lead on international negotiations, and his plans even envisaged Russia getting control of Iran’s highly enriched uranium. All of this as Putin has been threatening the West with his own nuclear weapons and savaging Ukraine while US taxpayers spend billions of dollars to counter him.

In return for virtually nothing, Tehran would get an initial $20 billion release of frozen assets with perhaps hundreds of billions more to follow, plus US undertakings not to add further sanctions or pursue resolutions against Iran in the UN Security Council or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

This freeze-for-unfreeze deal makes no sense on any level, especially with Iran, a country that has a track record of breaching the terms of the JCPOA not to mention its documented violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed.

With Iran’s long history of violence across the region and around the world, the administration can’t point to any signs of a reformed, more peacefully-inclined regime that might provide some rationale for thinking it can be dealt with like a civilised country.

The list really does go on and on. It is proof positive of Iran’s continued violent intent which will be enabled and fuelled by the huge cash injection Biden is proposing. Some of this money will also of course be funnelled into Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.

Biden will also be peering down the barrel of further policy failure if Ukraine cannot prevail against Russian military might despite enormous quantities of US aid. He knows that if Kyiv cannot prevail, some of the responsibility for that will lie at his own door, given his drip-feeding of weaponry when a deluge was not only necessary but also possible. It will represent another defeat for the US and NATO on his watch.

Add to all that Biden’s misjudgement in the Middle East: not only his appeasement of Iran but also his petulant and insulting treatment of Saudi Arabia, which opened the door to the Chinese Communist Party becoming a major regional power broker.

Israel, above all nations, cannot afford for Iran to become a nuclear-armed state. It is Tehran’s number-one target. Jerusalem cannot take any chances with a regime that has repeatedly stated its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and is developing the means to do so.

What is clear is that Biden has no more intention of standing by his repeated undertakings to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran than Obama had. Like his Democratic Party predecessor, Biden has rolled over to the inevitability of Tehran getting the bomb and is opting for a policy of containment based largely on appeasing the ayatollahs, camouflaged by a nuclear agreement. It amounts to nothing less than capitulation to Iranian blackmail.

FOREIGN POLICY, HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Iranian Threat in America’s Backyard, Thanks to The Biden Administration by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on July 8th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19782/iranian-threat-latin-america

Thanks to the Biden Administration’s apparently lack of policy towards Latin America as well as the Administration’s policy of appeasement towards Iran’s Islamist regime, the ruling mullahs have been freely violating sanctions and increasing their influence in America’s backyard without facing any consequences.

“One confidential intelligence document… links Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami to 173 Venezuelan passports and ID’s that were issued to individuals from the Middle East, including people connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.” The passports could be used for travel to North America or Europe. — CNN, February 14, 2017

“We’re concerned that [Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro has extended safe harbor to a number of terrorist groups… [including] supporters and sympathizers of Hezbollah.” — Nathan Sales, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the US Department of State, Yahoo News, January 20, 2020.

“President Raisi’s visit to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua in plain defiance of the United States demonstrates the failure of the Administration’s Latin America policy. We must repair our relationships with our friends in the region so that we can form a united front against the countries that invite the Islamic Republic’s terrorist regime into our hemisphere.” — US Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Chair of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Fox News, June 15, 2023.

Iran began significantly increasing its influence in Latin America after US President Joe Biden assumed office, most likely assuming, apparently correctly, that the Biden Administration would not take any action against the regime.

The Iranian regime’s terror cells have indeed grown in Latin America. Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah and Al Mustafa International University have both played a key role in expanding the mullahs’ presence and ideology in the region…. “where they can then recruit students and inculcate loyalty to the Islamic Revolution among local populations…” – Report, United Against Nuclear Iran.

Back at home the Iranian regime continues to enrich uranium to levels slightly below those needed for nuclear weapons breakout, all of which — along with China set to militarize Cuba — is a clear and present existential danger to the United States.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

House Republican Bill Would Keep Foreign Nationals From Voting In U.S. Federal Elections By: Shawn Fleetwood

Posted By on July 8th, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/07/house-republican-bill-would-keep-foreign-nationals-from-voting-in-u-s-federal-elections/

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., introduced legislation earlier this week ensuring that only eligible U.S. citizens are able to vote in federal elections.

Titled the “NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act of 2023,” the proposed bill includes amendments to the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and 2002 Help America Vote Act that seek to clarify states’ authority in maintaining federal voter registration lists and establish that federal election funding cannot be “used to support States that permit non-citizens to cast ballots in any election.”

Under the NVRA, states are required to “ensur[e] the maintenance of an accurate and current voter registration roll for elections for Federal office.” The current version of the law, however, only refers to “eligible voters” and does not include a provision about citizenship requirements.

While the Constitution and federal law stipulate that only U.S. citizens can vote in federal elections, several Democrat-led cities in states such as Maryland and California have adopted measures in recent years permitting the practice for their respective municipal elections. In October, for instance, Washington, D.C. passed legislation granting foreign nationals the ability to vote in the district’s local elections. House Republicans’ efforts to revoke the law have been blocked by Senate Democrats.

“Since the Constitution prohibits non-citizens from voting in Federal elections, such ineligible persons must not be permitted to be placed on Federal voter registration lists,” the NO VOTE for Non-Citizens Act reads.

In order to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting in federal elections, Griffith’s bill includes a provision requiring states that permit localities to allow noncitizen voting in their respective elections to place such non-citizens on a voter registration list “separate from the official list of eligible voters with respect to registrants who are citizens of the United States.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Misinformation’ Is The Vocabulary Of A Culture That Has Lost Its Capacity To Discuss ‘Truth’ By: Elle Purnell

Posted By on July 8th, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/07/misinformation-is-the-vocabulary-of-a-culture-that-has-lost-its-capacity-to-discuss-truth/

EXCERPTS

The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information.

In a preliminary injunction issued against the White House and federal agencies on Tuesday in Missouri v. Biden, Judge Terry Doughty eviscerated government actors for colluding with social media companies to censor users’ protected speech in the name of eliminating “misinformation.”

Doughty, as others have done, compares the government censorship to Orwell’s hypothetical “Ministry of Truth.” But Orwell’s satirical title gives the speech police too much credit: It assumes “truth” is still a functional part of their vocabulary. No, our censors speak in terms of “misinformation.”

The perversion of truth is falsehood; misinformation is just the perversion of information. Truth has a moral component; information doesn’t. Years of moral relativism have eroded our cultural understanding of “truth” as a knowable, agreed-upon concept — and in our modern world, all we’re left with is an infinite supply of information.

Truth, Discerned in Nature by Reason

For most of Western history, philosophers and laymen alike have agreed upon the existence of “truth,” as a factual concept but also as a moral one.

Today, we see factual relativism as well as moral. Not only does our prevailing social ethic tolerate individuals’ self-determination of “what’s right for me,” we’ve gone so far as to nod along when a man says he is actually a woman, lacking the philosophical footing to explain why that simply can’t be true.

To “speak your truth,” as distinct from the truth, is a moral victory to be praised according to our prevalent irrational dogma. Our cultural rejection of reason is evident in every field: Look at the deconstructionist sculptures and poetry that pass for art, or the assault on the fixed, rational rules of mathematics.

In this cultural condition, people are no longer equipped to speak in terms of truth, grounded in the divinely appointed laws of nature, discernible by human reason. Those concepts aren’t in our contemporary vocabulary.