RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/critical-race-theory-the-enemy-of-reason-evidence-and-open-debate/

How this pernicious ideology rejects rational inquiry and objective truth.

O n September 22, 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13950, “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” The order contained the kind of emotionally charged language about critical race theory that is seldom seen in these legalistic documents: “This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”

The order quoted from training materials being used by government agencies and from statements of the agencies themselves, such as this from the Treasury Department: “Virtually all White people, regardless of how ‘woke’ they are, contribute to racism.” The department, according to the order, “instructed small group leaders to encourage employees to avoid ‘narratives’ that Americans should ‘be more color-blind’ or ‘let people’s skills and personalities be what differentiates them.’” Trump’s order was revoked by President Biden on his first day in office.

By this time, however, the ideas that had prompted Trump’s concerns had already begun to disturb the lives of the American people who encountered them. In a suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on December 20, 2020, Gabrielle Clark, the mother of William Clark, a twelfth-grader in a Nevada charter school, complained about the school’s refusal to accept her son’s objection to what was being taught in a recently revised civics course. Ms. Clark, a widow, is black. Her son’s father, however, was white, and her son was light-skinned enough to be considered white.

In her complaint, Clark stated that a new curriculum at William’s school “inserted consciousness raising and conditioning exercises under the banner of ‘Intersectionality’ and ‘Critical Race Theory.’” “The lesson categorized certain racial and religious identities as inherently ‘oppressive,’ . . . and instructed pupils including William Clark who fell into these categories to accept the label ‘oppressor.’”

Despite Clark’s and her son’s objections to what he was being required to admit about himself and his racial heritage, the school insisted that he take this course and gave him a failing grade — imperiling his chances for college admission — because of his refusal to admit that he harbored the views that were being pressed upon the class.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/critical-race-theory-virginia-school-parent-ian-prior

Equal opportunity for all. Judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Diversity of thought, experience, and perspective.

These are principles that we as Americans and Virginians should live by and teach our children. It is a philosophy of thought and action that moves humanity forward to a place where cooperation, meritocracy, and compassion will make the world a better place for all.

Unfortunately, what is happening in Virginia’s schools is threatening those goals. We are talking about critical race theory or CRT which stands for the ideology that everything must be evaluated through the lens of race in order to break down systemic bias in our culture, words, and institutions.

It is a theory that evolved from the French postmodernist philosopher and political activist Michael Foucault.In the decades that followed, his philosophy was adapted to deal with racial questions and has gone mainstream through works like “White Fragility” by Robin Di-Angelo and “How to Be an Anti-Racist” by Ibram Kendi. Add in a summer of unrest following the death of George Floyd, and you have government institutions, corporations, and local school boards accepting this theory as gospel based on pressure from spineless, weak extremists.

In Virginia’s schools, administrators and school board members won’t admit the commitment to critical race theory. Instead, you will hear about their commitment to “equity” and the need to be “anti-racist.”

Make no mistake, “equity” is only critical race theory by different name and ‘anti-racists’ are the army of activists deployed to implement the theory.

To be clear, equity and equality are not the same thing. From Mental Floss: “Equality has to do with giving everyone the exact same resources, whereas equity involves distributing resources based on the needs of the recipients.”

Two examples in Northern Virginia show how equity is implemented.

In Fairfax County, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, one of the top public high schools in America, has a substantial minority population – 70% of its students are Asian. As explained by the non-partisan Reason.com: ‘Education officials…decided to jettison the school’s famously tough admissions test in favor of a “holistic” (i.e., subjective and arbitrary) system that will permit officials to reject Asian-American students in favor of less-deserving students who belong to other racial categories.’

https://pjmedia.com/columns/stephen-kruiser/2021/04/23/the-morning-briefing-critical-race-theory-and-the-death-of-public-education-n1442008

Biden Wants to Make Public Education Even More Worthless

We haven’t talked about the rapidly deteriorating state of public education in this fine country for some time now.

One thing more of the public has learned in this past year is something that a lot of us have known for a very long time: teachers’ unions don’t give a damn about schoolkids. I am not saying that all public teachers are bad and don’t care, but the union higher-ups are pure evil. The rank and file union teachers don’t get a pass, however, because they enable and don’t call out the evil ones.

Public school teachers have made it plain that they’re not interested in teaching kids. If they have to be in a classroom with them they want to be indoctrinating them. That’s really what public education in America has been about for decades. When I wrote “the Death of Public Education” in the headline I didn’t mean that public schools were going away, I meant that education as we once knew it is going to disappear.

Now they’ve got a puppet in the Oval Office who is literally in bed with a union teacher.

The liberal public school brainwash mill is about to get much, much worse.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-5-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#5: University of Pittsburgh

In the fall semester of 2020, the University of Pittsburgh introduced a new mandatory course for incoming freshmen designed to teach critical race theory and Black Lives Matter propaganda. Titled “Anti-Black Racism: History, Ideology, and Resistance,” the course aims “to allow students to gain an understanding of the country’s long struggle with anti-Black racism.”

“The course is designed to inform us all about Black history and culture, about the multiple forms of anti-Black racism, and about how we can be anti-racist,” Pitt’s provost and senior vice chancellor Ann Cudd explained in a statement.

But while the Pitt administration claims that the purpose of its new mandatory instruction is to stifle racist thought and action, the content of the course proves that its intent is the exact opposite. Like much of critical race theory, the new class is based on the idea that all whites are inherently racist and seek to perpetuate that racism in society—a blatantly racist and offensive idea. Lectures presented in the class deride truly anti-racist principles such as “color blindness” and “meritocracy” as “microaggressions” while promoting race-based hiring and admissions. 

The course overview, which is proudly displayed on the university’s website, praises the often-violent activities of BLM activists and instigators in glowing terms.

“In the wake of the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and many others in recent months, activists and scholars in the United States have taken to the streets, the workplace, and classrooms to decry anti-Black racism and call attention to the ongoing devaluation of Black lives in the U.S. and globally,” it states. “The wave of uprisings that have swept the nation and globe represent part of a long struggle of anti-racist organizing—one that can be traced back hundreds of years. This multidisciplinary course seeks to provide a broad overview of this rich and dynamic history.”

The “course objectives” take key principles of critical race theory such as the existence of “microaggressions” and the ubiquity of systemic racism in American institutions for granted.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/new-red-guards-universities-richard-l-cravatts/

Seeming to give credence to Bertrand Russell’s observation that “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts,” Michael Saunders, a member of the University of Washington Student Senate, introduced a resolution to create a system for students and staff to serve on an academic jury. The purpose of this jury, according to the resolution filed by Sanders, is to resolve “all discrimination accusations and charges that violate the University of Washington’s mission statement” so that the university is able to “think outside the lens of an oppressive system and think in a mindset of innovation, improvement, and radical change.”

As is clear from the tortured prose of the resolution, complete with its leftist catchphrases, this is another example of woke students trying to seize moral authority and use their newly found power to enforce a radical ideology on an entire campus. More disturbing is the actual ideology of the proposal which clearly is to promote a singular way of thinking to advance social justice, suppress dissent and opposing views, and “chill” the speech and opinions of faculty who dare to veer off the expected and acceptable way of thinking.

There are, of course, serious issues with the creation of such a tribunal to evaluate and punish faculty expression. For example, how would a faculty member know, in advance, what thoughts and ideas are acceptable and which ones are subject to censure? Who composes this list and whence do the authors derive the authority for creating such a code? Will the creation of a list of forbidden topics be drafted only by liberal students and faculty who feel that they have the moral authority to determine what can be said by whom on campuses now? Will any opposing, conservative views henceforth be tolerated?

Will the subjects questioned and debated by errant faculty—such as affirmative action, the Black Lives Matter movement, gay marriage, abortion, border and illegal immigration policy, gun control, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and other controversial topics—be limited to positions by liberal faculty who have predetermined views on these troubling topics? Does the creation of this jury mean that no opposing views on these or any other topics would be permitted, so that conservative speech and ideology would be effectively suppressed, subject to censure and punishment?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/dumbing_down_schools_in_the_name_of_equity.html

This is the path of national suicide, as Sam Dorman reports for Fox News:

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is moving to eliminate all accelerated math options prior to 11th grade, effectively keeping higher-achieving students from advancing as they usually would in the school system. (snip)

“[A]s currently planned, this initiative will eliminate ALL math acceleration prior to 11th grade,” he said. “That is not an exaggeration, nor does there appear to be any discretion in how local districts implement this. All 6th graders will take Foundational Concepts 6. All 7th graders will take Foundational Concepts 7. All 10th graders will take Essential Concepts 10. Only in 11th and 12th grade is there any opportunity for choice in higher math courses.”

The intellectual gifted among us are a precious resource needing careful cultivation, for they create new knowledge that grows our economy and keeps our national defense strong. This is so obvious that it ought not even need stating.

Educating down to the level of the lowest common denominator will ultimately impoverish and militarily defeat us, a national catastrophe. As Richard Baehr asks, rhetorically:“Do you think China will try this to achieve equity among their various peoples?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/top-ten-most-racist-colleges-and-universities-6-toptenracistuniversitiesorg/

#6: University of Central Florida

Academic freedom has been officially “cancelled” at the University of Central Florida after a tenured professor of psychology was ignominiously fired in February 2020 after making tweets questioning the existence of “systemic racism” and mocking the concept of “white privilege.”

That professor, Charles Negy, tweeted: “Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege.”

He also tweeted: “Sincere question: If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?”

Not only were Negy’s tweets not racist, they raise legitimate and concerning facts regarding the Black Lives Matter movement and its push to condemn America and its institutions as steeped in “systemic racism” and to denounce white Americans for their “white privilege” and promotion of “white supremacy.” Negy’s point about “black privilege” is supported by the recent spate of white academics passing as African-American or Hispanic in order to promote their academic careers. Asian Americans meanwhile face actual racial discrimination in admissions at top universities including Harvard.

Negy’s legitimate commentary on the current state of race relations in America so incensed and infuriated UCF students and faculty that they sparked a Change.org petition signed by 30,000 individuals calling for his firing as well as a full-out witch-hunt to dig up dirt on the professor by any means necessary.

Because academic freedom still exists—on paper, at least—UCF could not officially fire Negy for his comments on twitter. Instead, the university launched a 7-month investigation and compiled a 244-page report which alleges that Negy “failed to report and appropriately respond to a student’s disclosure of having been sexually assaulted by one of his teaching assistants,” and that he tried to stop “students from filing complaints related to his classroom conduct.” It also claims that he “mocked students, repeatedly used profanity, and made inappropriate comments related to sexual assault during class such as telling students that there were many false rape accusations that plagued college campuses.”