Displaying posts published in

June 2021

America Has An Existential Civics Education Crisis That More ‘Civics Education’ Will Only Make Worse By Joy Pullmann

https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/14/america-has-an-existential-civics-education-crisis-that-more-civics-education-will-only-make-worse/

This entire fight is over whether Americans will live under the original Constitution or its bastardized enemy. The civics curriculum battle is key to who will win that war, and the left has the upper hand.

As leftists push for greater control of what children learn about American history and how Americans define their civic responsibilities, a majority of Americans support more “civics education,” an interesting new Heritage Foundation survey finds.

“[T]wo-thirds of parents and nearly three-quarters of teachers share a strong desire to see greater emphasis on civics education. Indeed, interest in civics education among parents has increased substantially over the past five years. However, only around one-third of each group are satisfied with the type of content included in their schools’ civics education,” says the report, which Gabe Kaminsky exclusively reported here.

This datapoint might be taken by some Republicans and right-branded institutions to support an effort underway branded as a “bipartisan” push to “increase civics education.” Look, something about which most Americans can agree amid a time of bitter cultural divides!

The problem with this takeaway is that it is neither supported by the rest of the report, the context into which it is released, the history of American public education, nor the increasingly clarifying realities of America’s current cold civil war.

Stanley Kurtz and the National Association of Scholars have done yeoman’s work exposing the national “civics education” agitation as a leftist play for increased political power. In short, here’s the problem this report underscores about that political background: Most Americans may want more “civics.” But they do not at all agree what “civics” means.

Inflation’s Here, Getting Worse, And Could Last Longer Than COVID-19 Pandemic

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/14/inflations-here-getting-worse-and-may-even-last-longer-than-covid-19-pandemic/

Both the out-of-touch Biden administration and our betters at the Federal Reserve Board continue to assert that inflation’s no big thing. They’re right. It’s not, unless you work for a living. Then it’s a very big thing indeed.

We were told by all the best “experts” that inflation is ephemeral, a mere blip. The Fed keeps telling us the recent jump in prices is “transient.” Democrats and many of their media friends continue to insist it’s not an issue. Just keep spending, they say. Stimulus!

But calling the recent burst in inflation “transient” or any other such euphemism to suggest it’s like a brief summer cold is not exactly accurate. In fact, it’s wrong.

The recent surge in inflation isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Indeed, it’s even worse than the numbers now indicate.

In the most recent Consumer Price Index data, year-over-year inflation hit a tad above 5%. That’s the biggest spurt since 2008. In April, it hit 3.6%, nearly twice the recent average. Meanwhile, core prices (excluding volatile food and energy) are rising at their highest pace since 1992, when then-Fed chief Alan Greenspan was forced to nearly double interest rates to kill what many feared would be a bad bout of inflation.

This is no coincidence. In May, real average hourly earnings fell 2.8%, even as employees worked more hours. Let that sink in: Those earning an hourly wage actually took home less pay for working more.

As inflation rises, real wages — that is, earnings adjusted for inflation — inevitably go down. Just as in the 1970s, low-skilled, less-trained and less-schooled workers can’t keep up. Their wages fall behind. That’s the real danger here.

Qatar Behind Hostile Israel Statements From American Universities As rockets rained on Jerusalem, professors and students condemned the Jewish state Alex Nester

https://freebeacon.com/campus/qatar-behind-hostile-israel-statements-from-americ

Students and faculty at American universities in Qatar issued strikingly similar condemnations of Israel during last month’s Hamas rocket attacks, one result of a longstanding Qatari campaign to shift U.S. public opinion.

Professors at Northwestern University’s Qatar campus issued a letter condemning Israel as an “apartheid” state that commits “crimes against humanity.” Georgetown University in Qatar followed suit. The Qatari government bankrolls these and other American schools, which are located in the capital city of Doha, through the Qatar Foundation, an arm of the regime aimed at promoting Qatari interests abroad.

Qatar is not alone in its attempt to infiltrate American educational institutions. The China-backed Confucius Institute maintains chapters on American university campuses to promote Chinese interests among students. Though former secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared the Confucius Institute an arm of the Chinese Communist Party in August 2020, the Confucius Institute still maintains chapters on 47 U.S. campuses.

The Qatar Foundation spends $405 million per year to support satellite campuses of American universities in Doha, according to the Clarion Project. A separate group, Qatar Foundation International, operates at schools in the United States. Qatar Foundation International is not officially recognized as a foreign agent.

“Qatar wants to exert itself more and position itself as a power player,” Lawfare Project general counsel Gerard Filitti told the Washington Free Beacon. “They want to find a way to influence other countries to predispose them to back agendas. And one way they’ve done so is through education. It’s no secret. The way to influence the next generation of leaders is by educating them.”

Qatar has extended the same hospitality to terrorist leaders as it has to American universities in the regime’s capital. The Free Beacon reported in 2015 that Qatar harbored Khaled Meshaal, a top Hamas official, in a hotel just miles from the American campuses. Qatar has for years funded the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and in January pledged another $360 million in aid to the terrorists.

Supreme Court Shows Interest in Harvard Anti-Asian Affirmative Action Case By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/supreme-court-shows-interest-in-harvard-anti-asian-affirmative-action-case/

This was another uneventful morning at the Supreme Court, with two uncontroversial decisions (one unanimous, one split between 9–0 and 8–1 decisions in two related cases) involving the First Step Act and the felon-in-possession statute. But the big news came in case number 20-1199, Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. The Court has yet to decide whether it wants to hear the case, but this morning, it asked the Biden administration to file an amicus brief setting forth its views of the case. Cases in which the Court asks the Solicitor General for such a brief are not always taken by the Court, but they are much more likely to end up on its docket.

While there is little doubt that the administration will side with Harvard, its position could be politically sticky, and the case could be explosive. The petition asks the Court to overrule its pro-“diversity” rationale for allowing universities to consider race in admissions:

 (1) Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Grutter v. Bollinger and hold that institutions of higher education cannot use race as a factor in admissions; and (2) whether Harvard College is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by penalizing Asian-American applicants, engaging in racial balancing, overemphasizing race and rejecting workable race-neutral alternatives.

Roger Clegg has set forth the argument for why the Court should hear this case, and it now has the Court’s attention. The case involves blatant discrimination against a group of non-white, historically discriminated-against group (Asian Americans) who have been the subject of much recent attention over anti-Asian hate crimes. Democrats have been very touchy about being forced to admit that they support Harvard’s discrimination. The Biden administration dropped an investigation into anti-Asian discrimination at Yale. Democrats rejected, by a 49–48 vote in the Senate, a Ted Cruz amendment saying that no college “may receive any Federal funding if the institution has a policy in place or engages in a practice that discriminates against Asian Americans in recruitment, applicant review, or admissions.” Congressman Ted Lieu erupted in anger at a hearing in March when Peter Kirsanow raised the issue. Hardly anything is nearer and dearer to Asian-American parents than educational opportunity. Democrats are understandably hesitant to openly admit that they support discrimination against Asian Americans in that very area. But they do.

CRT Invades the Law Schools By George Leef

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/crt-invades-the-law-schools/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

For many years, law schools have been moving away from teaching the nuts and bolts of our legal system and toward what Professor Charles Rounds of Suffolk Law School calls “bad sociology, not law.”  I have spoken with veteran lawyers who wring their hands over the fact that so many graduates have had their heads stuffed with dodgy theories but have difficulty with legal fundamentals.

Things are getting worse, as critical race theory invades the law schools. On her Dissident Prof blog, Mary Grabar has posted an excellent piece by Professor Matthew Andersson on the harm of CRT.

Andersson writes, “CRT, along with BLM, is a pleading tool: a position taken up by an organized — or more accurately by an incited — coalition of individuals and institutions opportunistically advancing a synthetic complaint in the public forum, especially through media, universities, and government organizations. These are needed to create the impression that their argument has an historical basis and  possesses moral weight. The sufficiently articulated demands can be seen as a path to both social and legal relief through remedies of financial damages and restitution, and through policy that codifies its demands and interests — despite any constitutional violations.”

This “pleading tool” is one that will do a great deal more damage to our concepts of equality under the law.

The Revolt against Left-Wing Schooling By Michael Brendan Dougherty

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/06/the-revolt-against-left-wing-schooling/

The struggle ongoing in public schools reflects a battle between the historic nation and the ideological nation.

I n the past few months, we’ve seen teachers resigning their positions with fiery letters denouncing the “tribalism and sectarianism” that is overtaking traditional liberal education. We’ve seen parents taking the stage at their local board of education meetings to denounce their school for “emotionally abusing our children” and “demoralizing them by teaching them communist values.” The 1619 Project from the New York Times was turned almost immediately into material to be included in school curricula — a really killer play at a new income stream. And several red states have worked up legislation to ban variations of “critical race theory” or the endorsement of “divisive concepts” in history curricula. We have parents denouncing anti-racist parents’ associations as “Chardonnay antifa.”

Let’s just tick off a few things right at the top. The fact that these debates involve children almost guarantees that they will be the subject of moral panic and hysteria. And we should say that, in these curriculum debates, there is a great deal of deception, hiding the ball, talking past each other, often deliberately. A school district might propose an “anti-racist pedagogy” and parent-critics will respond that they don’t want “critical race theory” taught in school. The district’s defender will reply, haughtily, “We’re not teaching graduate seminars on the thought of Professor Derrick Bell.” Parents will complain that teachers are smuggling in trendy concepts about “white fragility” or “whiteness.” And teachers will fire back, “These parents don’t want us to teach that slavery was racist.” Finally, and most unhelpfully, someone will pipe up to say, “Who really remembers what they taught you in tenth grade anyway?”

Besides the fact that it involves children, this conflict is hot for two other reasons. First, precisely like police reform, it involves a public-sector union that certain members of the community feel is staffed and run by fundamentally hostile people who cannot be trusted to safely carry out their mission — even if given new and tough strictures and training.

News Flash: Trump Was Right by Roger Kimball

https://www.theepochtimes.com/news-flash-trump-was-right_3857177.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=RCP

On Saturday, June 12, former President Donald Trump released a statement that, in tone, will have his opponents rolling their eyes.

“I told you so,” they will say, because Donald Trump told them so and managed to get in a bit of signature Trump braggadocio along the way.

Under the legend “Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America,” this is what he wrote:

“Have you noticed that they are now admitting I was right about everything they lied about before the election?”

“They” of course are the eye-rollers, not only those the former President delighted in calling dispensers of “fake news” but also their clients, toadies, and enablers.

Not for the first time, I wonder whether they all are readers of “Pride and Prejudice.”

I am thinking of that passage towards the end of the novel where Lizzy confesses her love for Mr. Darcy to her sister Jane.

Jane is horrified. “Oh, Lizzy! It cannot be. I know how much you dislike him.”

“That is all to be forgot,” Lizzy replies. “In such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is that last time I shall ever remember it myself.”

So it is with the reporters at CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Politico, the entire Democratic side of Congress, not to mention woke members of our intelligence services, the DOJ, military men with a rank of colonel or higher, members of any teacher’s union and of course anyone who has been graduated from or teaches at any Ivy or near-Ivy institution of so-called higher education, not to mention the NeverTrump sorority and time-servers in HR departments across the country.

To save time, let’s call this wretched multitude The Committee.

The Committee said one thing then, when Donald Trump was president.

They say something contradictory now, claiming—or in the case of Joe Biden, really—to have forgotten what they said when their bête orange was in office.

Critical Race Theory Opponents Win Board Elections at Nation’s Top High School Candidates opposed woke curriculum and eliminating merit-based admissions tests Alex Nester

https://freebeacon.com/campus/critical-race-theory-opponents-win-board-elections-at-nations-top-high-school/

A group of anti-critical race theory candidates this week won seats on the governing body of the nation’s top high school after campaigning against the school’s racially driven admissions practices.

As part of the district’s push for diversity and inclusion, Fairfax County Public Schools scrapped the admissions test for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in October, and two months later, adopted a quota system to boost black and Hispanic enrollment numbers. A slate of four candidates opposed to the school’s recent embrace of “equity” won seats on Thomas Jefferson’s Parent Teacher Student Association.

Activists who wanted to eliminate Thomas Jefferson’s test requirement also pushed for implementing “antiracism” and critical race theory-based initiatives district-wide, according to a series of emails uncovered in December. President-elect Harry Jackson, the first black man to lead the association, told the Washington Free Beacon that if left unchecked, critical race theory will tear communities apart.

“It’s teaching that white people are inherently racist,” Jackson told the Free Beacon, “teaching that other children are there to oppress you. This is not the way to go.”

Parents across the country have organized against schools’ embrace of “woke” standards and practices. Anti-critical race theory candidates have won school board seats in two Dallas suburbs. Parents in Indiana criticized one school district’s promotion of racially divisive resources, including works from “antiracism” scholar Ibram X. Kendi and an article on how white women play a “role in racial (in)justice.”

Coalition for TJ, a nonpartisan group of parents opposed to the district’s leftward sprint, supported Jackson. They also backed Jun Wang, Himanshu Verma, and Hanning Chen, who were elected second vice president, treasurer, and corresponding secretary, respectively. Fairfax County Public Schools did not reply to the Free Beacon’s request for comment in time for publication.

The Fairfax County School Board made headlines in October when they eliminated the STEM-focused high school’s merit-based entrance exam. The board set a cap on the number of students that could attend Thomas Jefferson from each of the district’s middle schools, in an attempt to boost black and Hispanic enrollment.

Reflections on the Digital Revolution These firms, birthed during the Golden Era of the digital revolution, have now become parasitic and extractive rather than dynamic and innovative. By Chris Buskirk

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/13/reflections-on-the-digital-revolution/

The problems and challenges posed by what is often referred to as “Big Tech” should primarily be understood as novel instantiations of age-old issues. Power, whether political, cultural, or economic, tends to concentrate over time unless that concentration is disrupted by an outside force that favors or forces dispersion.

This is readily apparent across nearly every segment of the American economy today. Every major industry and thus every labor market is dominated by what are effectively cartels: chemicals, airlines, steel, automobiles, health care, and so forth. This creates all kinds of undesirable byproducts, but nowhere is the effect more pronounced and the outcomes more anti-social than those created by Big Tech—especially the FAANG companies. These are Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. I’d also include Twitter for our purposes because of the outsized role it plays as a platform for public discourse. It’s noteworthy that Microsoft is not included: it may be larger than Facebook, but is clearly less powerful.

That fact is critical to understanding the nature of the problem America faces. Part of the problem is bigness itself, but the more significant issue is the power that the large tech companies exert by controlling access to critical technology, infrastructure, customers, or people. The network effects that make these companies powerful also create a natural defense against competition. That’s a fantastic business proposition, but it can be bad for the country. And that’s where we find ourselves today. The power wielded by these companies undermines what Oren Cass describes as “the basic assumptions on which our market, our democracy, and our society have relied.”

The solutions to the problems created by the digital revolution are perhaps not simple, but they are less complex than they may seem once we understand the problems clearly. While the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which already prohibits anti-competitive behavior, should be applied—and updated if necessary—to Big Tech companies, that is only a partial solution. The bigger issue is that these companies abuse the essential political rights of all Americans by regulating political speech. This is where both our thinking and the law need upgrades. The scale of these companies and the essential role they play as platforms for political speech mean that they must be regulated in order to protect and promote that speech. Arguments that Facebook and Google are analogous to small, local bakeries because they are both non-state-owned companies are facile, untrue, and disingenuous. They don’t have anything like the same amount of power and they don’t play the same role in the lives of their customers or the country.

Anatomy of the Woke Madness How did such collective madness infect a once pragmatic and commonsensical America? By Victor Davis Hanson

/https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/13/anatomy-of-the-woke-madness/

Wokeism has become our most popular secular religion—at least for a moment dethroning climate change. It reduces all of the past and present into puerile binaries between “whites” and “non-whites.”

Its aim is for the present generation to rewrite our history—whether by The 1619 Project and cancel culture or iconoclastic statue-toppling and Trotskyization of names and places. Wokeism becomes a child’s morality tale of noble non-white victims versus villainous white victimizers. Erasing the past and its language supposedly fuels a recalibration of the future, all in the here and now, a holy Year Zero

In the process, wokeism has done a lot of damage to America, and will do even more if left unchecked. Here are its chief characteristics.

Elites vs. Elites

First, remember that wokeism is a top-down phenomenon. It started in academia with “critical race theory” and “critical legal theory.” These are bastard offshoots of harebrained “critical theory,” which arose from a demoralized and adrift Europe after the cataclysms of two devastating European-spawned world wars.

These ‘theories” are merely adolescent delusions that norms, customs, traditions, laws, and rules are just arbitrary “constructs.” Thus they should have no authority over those whom they “oppress.” These relativist props are the tools of the white male hierarchy to gain and consolidate their “power.” So they can only be resisted by rejecting all these insidious “norms,” whether  the canons of physics and math, jurisprudence, standardized test scores, or the idea that police keep the “peace.”

Outside of the campus, the media, the entertainment industry, the corporate boardroom, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley, thousands of rank-and-file social justice warrior demonstrators are not demanding, for example, to enroll women in Special Forces combat units. Grassroots America does not insist on subsidized transgendered surgeries.

Instead, leftist Washington politicos and bureaucrats pressure the Pentagon brass, in quid pro quo fashion. The subtext is that those who promote woke policies are assured of promotion and future exemption from audit of lucrative retirement consulting for defense-related corporations.

The people⁠—that is, 51 percent of America—is not organizing for more cancel-culture censorship on Facebook, or even greater percentages of college admissions determined largely by race. Inner-city residents are not clamoring for less police patrolling. Defunding law enforcement is an elite obsession of those who do not live in insecure places.

Whether in the corporate boardroom or in Hollywood casting meetings or in the campus president’s office, race-based obsessions mostly reflect intramural wars between elites for the lucrative spoils of the one-percent’s news anchorships, roles in TV shows and commercials, diversity deanships, and admissions quotas to the Ivy League.

As a result, class considerations have vanished. They are replaced by absurd racial reductionism. For example, CNN mediocrity Don Lemon, by virtue of his race-mongering, can pose as a multimillionaire victim. The anonymous white deplorables at Walmart, caricatured as smelly in the Lisa Page-Peter Strozk text trove, are his proverbial anonymous oppressors.