RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/suppressing-academic-freedom-name-inclusion-mcgill-richard-l-cravatts/

In what has become an increasingly frequent and troubling occurrence on campuses, a McGill University emeritus professor of anthropology, Philip C. Salzman, is under fire by pretentious, virtue-signaling students who wish to hear only viewpoints that conform with their own and who, in attempting to shield others from ideas that might make them uncomfortable, want to suppress the ideas of their ideological opponents.  

The notion that a vocal minority of self-important ideologues can determine what views may or may not be expressed on a particular campus is not only antithetical to the purpose of a university, of course, but is vaguely fascistic by purposely or carelessly relinquishing power to a few to decide what can be said and what speech is allowed and what must be suppressed; it is what former Yale University president Bartlett Giamatti characterized as the “tyranny of group self-righteousness.”

In a November 20th “Open Letter Demanding the Overhaul of McGill’s Statement of Academic Freedom,” eight McGill student organizations not only attacked Professor Salzman and demanded that he be stripped of his academic credentials, it also critiqued the University’s stated policies on academic freedom. In their letter they suggested that if members of the McGill community are able to express any of their views without restraint—and without considering how this expression may negatively affect victim groups and individuals on the McGill campus—then academic freedom should therefore be contained, restricted to avoid “harming” these alleged victims. “Scholars have abused their right of free speech and academic freedom,” the letter contended, “to defend acts of rhetorical violence against marginalized communities on campus, shielding racist, sexist, and transphobic speech . . . .”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/social-media-blitz-outs-america-hating-professors-sara-dogan/

A cutting-edge social media campaign conducted in October by the conservative David Horowitz Freedom Center targeted and exposed the anti-American rantings of four professors at prestigious universities including the University of California-Davis, the University of Houston, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Washington-Seattle.

The ivory tower has long been a refuge for those who hate our country. For decades past, students have been forced to endure scholarly lectures on the evils of American hegemony, imperialist dominance, Western civilization and festering racism. But never before in our history has the very concept of our nation—founded on our inalienable rights to life, liberty and property, equality before the law, freedom of speech, press and association, and control of individual destiny—been so trampled by the institutions that exist to educate our next generation.

Spurred by this rising tide of anti-American hatred, the Freedom Center published a report and created a new website, AmericaHatingProfessors.org, exposing the Top Ten America-Hating Professors. With students and faculty evacuated from campus due to the virus, the Freedom Center conducted a targeted Facebook and Instagram campaign which displayed ads highlighting the atrocious statements and actions of these America-hating professors directly to students, faculty, staff, and alumni at four of the ten schools listed in the report.

The professors targeted in this social media blitz were American defeatist Nicholas De Genova at the University of Houston, cop-hater Joshua Clover at the University of California-Davis, “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo who teaches at the University of Washington-Seattle, and proud left-wing extremist James Thomas who is tenured by the University of Mississippi.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/bribed-how-hostile-foreign-actors-subvert-american-raymond-ibrahim/

A recent governmental report exposes the “purchased” influence foreign nations have on America’s most prestigious universities and, as a result, on what America’s current and upcoming generations of analysts and policymakers  think and believe.

More than one-third of the nearly $20 billion in foreign donations and contracts made to American universities between just 2014 and 2020 were never disclosed as required by federal law, according to “Institutional Compliance with Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965,” a Department of Education report released on October 20, 2020.

Among those “gifts” were more than $3 billion from the Muslim Brotherhood’s number one state backer, Qatar; more than $1.1 billion from the chief disseminator of “radical” Islamic ideology, Saudi Arabia; and nearly $1.5 billion from China.

According to the report:

[A]t least some of these foreign sources are hostile to the United States and are targeting their investments (i.e., ‘gifts’ and ‘contracts’) to project soft power, steal sensitive and proprietary research, and spread propaganda. Yet, the Department is very concerned by evidence suggesting the higher education industry’s solicitation of foreign sources has not been appropriately or effectively balanced or checked by the institutional controls needed to meaningfully measure the risk and manage the threat posed by a given relationship, donor, or foreign venture.

https://pjmedia.com/culture/bryan-preston/2020/12/06/texas-am-threatens-student-for-posting-trump-signs-n1194499

The fifth-ranked Texas A&M Aggie football team whomped Auburn on Saturday, 31-20. But today there’s a question of whether Aggieland is losing its soul.

Campus Reform tells us about student Dion Okeke (Class of 2022) finding himself on the receiving end of a threatening letter from one Jessica Welsch, who is Student Code of Conduct Office Assistant Coordinator. In the letter, Welsch demands Okeke’s presence at a meeting in January regarding an “incident” that occurred in November 2020.

Okeke’s crime? He placed Trump signs on campus prior to the election. The campus police were aware, and after initially trying to stop him on a claim of “ground damage,” allowed him to proceed. But they or someone reported him to the university, involving Welsch’s office.

Welsch wrote to Okeke:

“In response to this information, I would like to meet with you to discuss the circumstances surrounding this incident, your perspective, and how you can be successful as a student at Texas A&M University,” Welsch wrote.

Okeke is “required” to reach out to the Student Conduct Office by phone before January 22, 2021 to schedule the meeting, or an “administrative hold [may be] placed on [his] registration.”

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2020/12/04/bringing_history_to_the_classroom_the_gilder_lehrman_institute_of_american_history_651924.html

Though it’s easy to be pessimistic about America’s future after such a traumatic year, James Basker, president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, feels optimistic: “History teaches us that our country has faced terrible crises in the past and still found its way forward.”

GLI offers a full-spectrum view of American history to classrooms and the general public by providing a vast collection of primary source documents, along with education programs and interactive online exhibits.

Housed at the New-York Historical Society, GLI’s publicly accessible archive contains a treasure trove of documents from 500 years of American history, from Christopher Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World to letters soldiers sent back home while fighting World War II and in Vietnam.

GLI’s namesakes are the late Richard Gilder, an investor who helped revitalize New York’s Central Park and the New-York Historical Society, among other important New York City landmarks; and Lewis Lehrman, an entrepreneur, academic, and author of many well-received books such as Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point and Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War.

Basker has fond recollections of Gilder, who died earlier this year. “Dick rejoiced at the flow of immigrants into America and did everything he could to encourage it,” he says, “because of his passionate belief that our country was based on a set of ideals anyone of any background could embrace and make their own.”

https://quillette.com/2020/12/01/race-and-social-panic-at-haverford-a-case-study-in-educational-dysfunction/

“You have continued to stand as an individual that seems to turn a blind eye to the stuff that’s going on, as a black woman that is in the [college] administration,” said the first-year Haverford College student. “I came to this institution”—and here she pauses for a moment, apparently fighting back tears—“I expected you, of any of us, to stand up and be the icon for black women on this campus… So, I’m not trying to hear anything that you have to say regarding that, due to the fact that you haven’t stood up for us—you never have, and I doubt that you ever will.”

The school-wide November 5th Zoom call, a recording of which has been preserved, was hosted by Wendy Raymond, Haverford’s president. At the time, the elite Pennsylvania liberal arts college was a week into a student strike being staged, according to organizers, to protest “anti-blackness” and the “erasure of marginalized voices.” During the two-hour-and-nine-minute discussion, viewed in real time by many of the school’s 1,350 students, Raymond presented herself as solemnly apologetic for a litany of offenses. She also effusively praised and thanked the striking students for educating her about their pain, while “recognizing that I will never understand what it means to be a person of color or be black or indigenous in the United States. I am a white woman with considerable unearned privilege.”

Not only did Raymond announce that she would be acceding to many of the students’ previously listed demands, she also reacted positively to the new requests that students put forward during the call. “All of the recommendations you’ve made here sound spot on and are excellent,” she said. “We can do those—and go beyond them.”

Since 2015, when Yale rolled over in response to student harassment of two husband-and-wife faculty members, such self-abasement rituals have become common—even if the prevalence of teleconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic has given us an unprecedented opportunity to watch them unfold. A Haverford president can expect an annual salary of about $500,000. And before coming to the role in 2019, Raymond was a successful scientist who had herself helped smash glass ceilings in several male-dominated academic programs. But the moral hierarchy dictated by social justice runs directly opposite traditional hierarchies of accomplishment and professional authority. And the president’s repeated attempts to ingratiate herself to the students on November 5th made it clear which of these two hierarchies governed the proceedings. One student even saw fit to call out the school’s provost for “multi-tasking while eating on this call, despite the seriousness of this meeting, which we don’t appreciate.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/federal-student-aid-applications-down-in-2020-signaling-potential-drop-in-college-enrollment/

The number of high school seniors applying for federal student financial aid for college has dropped significantly since the previous year, signaling that college attendance may remain low during the 2021–2022 school year.

Schools and students have struggled to adapt classes during the coronavirus pandemic, with many institutions implementing hybrid remote and in-person learning. This combination has been more difficult to implement in rural areas, where college and high-school students are less likely to have Internet access.

The first two months of the cycle for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) saw a 17 percent decrease in applications compared with the same period last year, according to Education Department data analyzed by the nonprofit National College Attainment Network. High schools with high minority populations have submitted 22 percent fewer FAFSA forms when compared with last year, and high schools with a high number of low-income students have submitted 20 percent fewer applications.

“To still see double-digit percent decreases from last year is alarming to me,” NCAN data director Bill DeBaun told the Journal.

Overall, 24.3 percent of U.S. high school seniors completed the FAFSA by November 27, while 29.3 percent submitted the application in 2019 by the same date.