RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/the-krugman-led-mob-comes-for-academic-freedom/

The Left seems increasingly incapable of living by neutral principles.

The long march through the institutions ends in the university economics department. The digital mob, led by New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Michigan professor Justin Wolfers, has arrived at the University of Chicago, where it is pressuring the school to remove Professor Harald Uhlig from his position as editor of Journal of Political Economy, after he criticized Black Lives Matter.

The left-wing economists were triggered (or, more likely, are pretending to be triggered) by an Uhlig tweet contending that BLM “just torpedoed itself” by supporting “defund the police.” Uhlig went on to argue that it was time “for sensible adults to enter back into the room and have serious, earnest, respectful conversations about it all.”

The horror!

It is almost surely the case that Krugman and his followers see an opportunity to appropriate and weaponize a cause to undermine those in the University of Chicago economics department who still cling to heterodox positions.

Wolfers, who demands academics talk about racial inequality in the manner he prescribes, says, “I don’t think it’s just or fair that Uhlig, as an editor at the @JPolEcon is an important gatekeeper for economists trying to make their mark. I don’t think the profession’s resolve to look more deeply into racial justice will get a fair hearing under his editorship.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/open_the_schools_without_politics.html

As of June 3, 2020, the CDC reported that there have been 20 deaths in children in the U.S. due to COVID-19. In my home county of Orange in California, no child has died due to COVID-19. JAMA Pediatrics for May 11, 2020 had this to say: “Finally, it is important to emphasize that the overall burden of COVID-19 infection in children remains relatively low compared with seasonal influenza.”

We have never closed schools or forced children to wear masks during an influenza season. Yet, the CDC has issued guidelines recommending face coverings for elementary school-aged children, social distancing, reduced classroom populations, and other suggestions that make little scientific or common sense.

To put some of the COVID statistics into perspective: Motor vehicle injuries are a leading cause of death among children in the United States — in 2017, 675 children 12 years old and younger died as occupants in motor vehicle crashes, and nearly 116,000 were injured. In the same year according to the CDC, drownings claimed the lives of almost 1,000 U.S. children. That is 50 times greater than COVID-19! As a result, would you favor closing down all swimming pools in the United States?

The argument that children should wear face coverings to prevent the asymptomatic spread of the coronavirus to a high-risk teacher or administrator is also fallacious. First of all, there is little if any evidence that asymptomatic children are spreading COVID-19 to adults. Indeed, the World Health Organization issued a report on June 8th indicating little evidence of asymptomatic transmission of the virus.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/academic_malfeasance_khaled_abou_el_fadl_on_judeochristian_values.html

Khaled Abou El Fadl, who revels in the title of Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Professor in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, has a big theory. As explained in a talk on April 21, 2018, titled “What It Takes for Islamic Intellectuals Today” (at 37:34-42:05; transcript here), his breakthrough idea goes like this:

As the number of Muslims in the West grew in the late twentieth century, the Christian Right sought a way to counter this “dangerous” new population and devised the idea of promoting supposed Judeo-Christian values to which it connected all things modern – “from cars to planes to electricity to computers, everything.” The beauty of this myth lay in helping the Christian Right create an alliance with its “natural allies” in what Abou El Fadl calls the Zionist Right.

And who were the key figures in this alliance? Why, none other than Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org and myself.

This is how Robert Spencer, from the Christian right, became wedded to Daniel Pipes, from the Zionist right. They met together. They met especially with a well-known and well-documented group of industrialists and financiers, convinced them of the danger that they meet; they convinced them that Western civilization is in danger by the rise of Islam and got them to fund everything. … The way they work is actually wonderfully synchronistic.

The two of us then found another twenty intellectuals who shared two attributes: being well-funded and failures in academia. Never mind our failures, we had the money and “with money you can create your own academic forum.” We twenty then “worked closely with a group of activists” and coordinated our movements “with well-known media outlets … and with certain politicians.”

https://www.city-journal.org/brown-university-letter-racism

Last week, in the aftermath of the national fury that has erupted, and continues, over the apparent killing by a Minneapolis police officer of a black man, George Floyd, while he was being taken into custody, a letter appeared in my inbox from Christina H. Paxson, president of Brown University, where I teach. The letter, sent to thousands of students, staff, and faculty, was cosigned by many of Brown’s senior administrators and deans.

“We write to you today as leaders of this university,” the letter begins, “to express first deep sadness, but also anger, regarding the racist incidents that continue to cut short the lives of black people every day.” It continues:

The sadness comes from knowing that this is not a mere moment for our country. This is historical, lasting and persistent. Structures of power, deep-rooted histories of oppression, as well as prejudice, outright bigotry and hate, directly and personally affect the lives of millions of people in this nation every minute and every hour. Black people continue to live in fear for themselves, their children and their communities, at times in fear of the very systems and structures that are supposed to be in place to ensure safety and justice.

I found the letter deeply disturbing, and was moved to compose the following response, which I shared with a colleague. I’m happy now to share it as well with City Journal’s readership.

Dear ____:

I was disturbed by the letter from Brown’s senior administration. It was obviously the product of a committee—Professors XX and YY, or someone of similar sensibility, wrote a manifesto, to which the president and senior administrative leadership have dutifully affixed their names.

I wondered why such a proclamation was necessary. Either it affirmed platitudes to which we can all subscribe, or, more menacingly, it asserted controversial and arguable positions as though they were axiomatic certainties. It trafficked in the social-justice warriors’ pedantic language and sophomoric nostrums. It invoked “race” gratuitously and unreflectively at every turn. It often presumed what remains to be established. It often elided pertinent differences between the many instances cited. It read in part like a loyalty oath. It declares in every paragraph: “We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident.”

New York, NY, June 4, 2020 — Can university officials force their professors to call male students by feminine titles and pronouns? That’s the issue in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case of Meriwether v. Francesca Hartop and other officials at Ohio’s Shawnee State University. Professor Meriwether appealed after the federal district court ruled that his using masculine pronouns for a male student was not “speech” protected by the First Amendment.

The National Association of Scholars (NAS) disagrees and filed an amicus curiae brief supporting the professor on Wednesday, June 3, 2020.

NAS President Peter Wood explains, “This isn’t just about a pronoun, it’s about what that pronoun means. It’s about endorsing an ideology. Forcing the use of a pronoun based on gender perceptions rather than sex is forcing the professor to endorse the idea that he rejects—the idea that individuals decide for themselves what sex or gender they are. And this is happening in a philosophy class, where adults should be able to freely and vigorously debate hot-button topics like gender identity.”

The NAS is a leading non-profit advocate of more than 3,000 scholars for intellectual freedom in American higher education. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/03/advice-from-a-professor-for-college-bound-freshmen-2020/

If you’re starting college this fall, you probably just finished high school. Congrats! If you will begin attending a college or university in the fall, you have some major changes on the horizon. I have enormous sympathy for all of you who graduated high school this year. You got screwed: screwed out of what was supposed to be the most carefree period of high school, screwed out of prom, screwed out of graduation. Let me join all the other adults you know in saying that I’m sorry for what you’ve lost from COVID-19.

But I’m not only sad for your class—I’m worried about you.

Academically speaking, college will demand much more from you than high school did. High school seniors often don’t give their full effort in the final year, but all of you have been “going” to school online for the last two months, and I’m concerned that this will make your college transition even more difficult (if we are able to get back to in-person class meetings by the fall). 

You should begin mentally preparing yourselves now for the work of your freshman year. Most of your professors will be eager to help you succeed. I’m a 42-year-old professor and I’ve been working or studying at a college or university since I was 18. Below is some bold advice. I know you didn’t ask for any advice, but please don’t hit me with the “OK, Boomer” thing. As a young member of Generation X, it wasn’t that long ago that I was a student. I hope the suggestions below help you make a smooth transition.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/06/lying_for_diversity.html

The University of California’s recent decision to replace the SAT and ACT with some future “fairer” test so as to boost black and Hispanic enrollment has generated immense controversy. A key argument was that whites and Asians enjoy an unfair advantage since they, unlike blacks and Hispanics, can afford the extra after-school tutoring available in so-called cram academies.

This justification for this attack on meritocracy is totally false.

Begin with some facts regarding access to these suddenly politically relevant cram academies. Not surprisingly, given the importance of standardized tests such as the SAT, and the minimal investment necessary to open a storefront facility and hiring some college graduates as instructors, they are common in California. Just google “SAT prep California” and a plethora of Mom and Pop businesses pop up with names like Scorebuilder Test Prep or Mr. Testprep. All supply positive ratings on their websites plus more detailed testimonials from successful college applicants, boast of their expertise and may offer money-back guarantees unless scores increase.

This is free market, consumer-sensitive capitalism on steroids, and these academies typically offer customized one-on-one tutoring, very small classes, convenient scheduling, and preparation for a variety of tests and will target any potential clientele provided there is adequate demand.   

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/28/dozens-of-universities-face-lawsuits-for-failing-to-provide-on-campus-learning/

College is absurdly expensive. While some of the mark up comes from the schools’ reputations, much of the price tag is in exchange for the experience. Access to professors, relationships with classmates, and academic, athletic, artistic, religious, and social activities and groups are all a major part of both the “college experience” and the education itself. These aspects, and their associated benefits, are lost when classes are moved to Zoom, or worse, prerecorded lectures. Further, college campuses provide resources for students which are lacking at home, including quiet study locations and access to comprehensive libraries.

While many schools acknowledged the need to refund students for the portion of their on-campus dorms and meal plans unused, many believe that tuition should be likewise discounted, for the commensurate drop in quality and failure to deliver the promised experience.

And since schools themselves aren’t offering the financial credit, students at various universities, including Columbia, Cornell, Drexel, Georgetown, Liberty, UC Berkeley, Michigan State, Vanderbilt, and others, are banding together in class action lawsuits. The students are suing on three counts: breach of contract, conversion, and unjust enrichment.