RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/2-american-revolutions/

Evidently, the Chinese are actually not the source of the curse “May you live in interesting times.”  But whatever its source, that curse seems to have landed on us in double strength.  Our time is more than interesting—it is revolutionary.  The revolution you and I are living through is a counter-revolution; it is un-doing the America which was made at the founding.

A serious scholar has presented the un-making of America with startling clarity in a Frontpage article, and another serious scholar has told the story of the making of America with unprecedented precision and in astonishing detail.  Together, they tell the tale of where we are, where we came from, and, unless we manage to change America’s direction, where America is headed.

If you missed Bruce Thornton’s recent posting here at Frontpage about what has happened to education in America, I encourage you to read it.

“Today our educational institutions are grubby, rent-seeking businesses, and propaganda organs for illiberal, incoherent ideologies based on the “higher nonsense” that has captured “higher education,” and from there trickled down into K-12 schools.”

That was not the case when Thornton’s university teaching career began in 1977. Today, a serious scholar like Bruce Thornton is no longer welcome.  Real scholars have been replaced by propagandists, as America’s universities abandoned their reason for existing.

What is astonishing about this transformation is how quickly it happened.  In the span of a single career, America’s educational institutions were transformed.  The “higher nonsense” replaced the best that has been known and thought so rapidly that it was fully accomplished before most people noticed.  Americans continued donating to their alma mater without realizing it was no longer even the same kind of place it had been when they were there.

The consequences of this revolution are grim, terrible, horrific: the un-making of America. 

https://pjmedia.com/culture/lincolnbrown/2023/01/10/dear-young-people-college-is-lame-get-a-job-n1660538

Young people, are you ready for success? Want a career in a rewarding field that will lead to a fulfilling life? Don’t go to college. Be an electrician, be a plumber, be a welder,  be a carpenter — hell, learn to code — but for heaven’s sake and for that matter, your own, don’t go to college. I know some of you are months or even years away from high school graduation, but: Don’t. Go. To. College. Okay, so if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or physicist (more on that below), maybe look for a college that does not double as an asylum. Other than that, treat college campuses like the radioactive waste depots that they have become.

Back when I was your age, everybody had to go to college. “Get a liberal arts degree,” my mother said. “You can do anything with a liberal arts degree.” You can’t do much with a liberal arts degree in the 21st century. Actually, you couldn’t do much with one in the 20th century, but no one seemed to know that. We were all supposed to go to college. One person told me to skip it and be a plumber. Not a day goes by that I do not rue failing to heed that advice.

Today, oh young people, college is likely to be a monumental waste of time and money: time you could have spent learning how to do something that people need; and money you could have been earning instead of waiting to see if Biden’s magical student loan forgiveness plan will take root and blossom. (Hint: the election is over. You won’t hear anything more about that until 2024.)

If you do go to college, you may be looking for a challenging atmosphere, an exchange of ideas, and opportunities to grow and craft a future. Instead, like Coleridge’s ancient mariner, you will find yourself on a tiny raft, adrift on a cold, gray, featureless sea with a rotting albatross of a student loan hanging on your neck. And if you don’t get that reference, find someone with a liberal arts degree. Once they explain it, ask if that explanation was worth all the money they paid.

College is lame and depressing. For example:

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has appointed a number of conservatives to the board of the uber-left New College of Florida. One student said, “I got really sad and then just, like, laid down.” Just, like, laid down. It’s a board, kid, you didn’t get a terminal diagnosis. Students are also concerned that their personal safety is at risk, according to The Daily Caller. At risk from what? A different idea?

https://www.thefp.com/p/how-dei-is-supplanting-truth-as-the

One of the things The Free Press has been doing since its inception is documenting and exposing how many of our most important institutions—medicine, the media, the law—are increasingly being captured by an ideology that is hollowing out their core functions.

Today, John Sailer, a fellow at the National Association of Scholars, tells the story of how that’s happening at American universities across the country.

You don’t have to have ever stepped foot on a college campus to care about the revelations in today’s piece. Because as we’ve seen again and again, what happens on campus doesn’t stay there. It’s just a preview of what’s coming for the rest of us. — BW

In June 2020, Gordon Klein, a longtime accounting lecturer at UCLA, made the news after a student emailed him asking him to grade black students more leniently in the wake of the “unjust murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.”

Klein’s response was blunt. It stated in part:

Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota. Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we’ve been having online classes only? Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half? 

He went on:

Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the “color of their skin.” Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK’s admonition?

Thanks, G. Klein

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/01/04/with_schools_ditching_merit_for_diversity_families_of_high_achievers_say_were_out_of_here_872909.html

Alex Shilkrut has deep roots in Manhattan, where he has lived for 16 years, works as a physician, and sends his daughter to a public elementary school for gifted students in coveted District 2. 

It’s a good life. But Shilkrut regretfully says he may leave the city, as well as a job he likes in a Manhattan hospital, because of sweeping changes in October that ended selective admissions in most New York City middle schools.

These merit-based schools, which screened for students who met their high standards, will permanently switch to a lottery for admissions that will almost certainly enroll more blacks and Latinos in the pursuit of racial integration.  

Shilkrut is one of many parents who are dismayed by the city’s dismantling of competitive education. He says he values diversity but is concerned that the expectation that academic rigor will be scaled back to accommodate a broad range of students in a lottery is what’s driving him and other parents to seek alternatives.

Although it’s too early to know how many students might leave the school system due to the enrollment changes, some parents say they may opt for private education at $50,000 a year and others plan to uproot their lives for the suburbs despite the burdens of such moves. 
 
“We will very likely leave the public schools,” says Shilkrut, adding that he knows 10 Manhattan families who also plan to depart. “And if these policies continue, there won’t be many middle- and upper middle-class families left in the public schools.” 

https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2023/01/03/science_and_math_teaching_need_an_upgrade_110805.html

The United States needs mathematicians and scientists who can, among other things, learn about the natural world, discover new technologies, and help the country maintain its military advantage over China. As presently operating, American public K-12 schools aren’t up to the job. Far too many of our children graduate from high school without enough knowledge of mathematics and science to prepare them for college, much less for a career. They aren’t even educated sufficiently to judge news reports and public policy proposals that require mathematical and scientific knowledge.

State education departments need first to ensure that mathematics standards correctly sequence mathematics instruction in order to provide sufficient classroom time for rigorous education. Education reformers should make sure that K-12 schools teach Algebra I in the eighth grade as the foundation for four years of high school mathematics education. All K-7 mathematics standards should be aligned to prepare students to take and pass Algebra I in the eighth grade. High school mathematics standards should include Algebra II, Geometry, Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus, and either Introductory Calculus or Introductory Statistics.

Statistics is an intrinsically important subject and an extraordinarily useful one for scientific careers. State education standards should allow local school districts to choose whether to cap the mathematics sequence with Introductory Calculus, Introductory Statistics, or both. Earlier K-12 mathematics standards should incorporate the suggestions of the American Statistical Association to make sure that students are as ready at the end of the eleventh grade to take a course in Introductory Statistics as they are to take a course in Introductory Calculus. 

Of course, not every K-12 student will go on to a scientific career. But all K-12 students should learn basic statistical and scientific literacy, and especially how to detect specious arguments presented in the guise of scientific authority. Every high school student should take a course in science literacy, which should teach students to understand, evaluate, and apply basic statistical and scientific concepts when they appear in media and public policy. This course should be organized around four sequences devoted to statistics literacy, risk analysis, experimental design, and the irreproducibility crisis of modern science. Students should learn to use these skills both as citizens judging journalism and policy and as businessmen and administrators making professional decisions.

 https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2022/12/26/former_university_president_gets_16m_parting_gift_871735.html

The former president of Colorado State University collected a payout of almost $1.6 million. The university won’t say why she left before the end of her planned tenure.

Joyce McConnell’s annual salary was $550,000 per year. In the June separation agreement between McConnell and CSU Board of Governors, she was paid $1,572,725 as a result of ending her contract early. McConnell signed a five-year agreement in 2019, keeping her employed as president through 2024, The Coloradoan reported.

Neither McConnell nor officials at the public university will say why she left. Colorado state taxpayers have a right to know why she was paid the equivalent of three years of salary.

She was the university’s first female president, having come from West Virginia University where she served as provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Amy Parsons, a former senior administrator at Colorado State University at Fort Collins, is her most likely replacement, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/26/left-wing-academics-seek-to-revoke-honorary-degrees-for-conservatives/

Multiple far-left activists at various universities and colleges are demanding that schools rescind any and all “honorary degrees” that have been bestowed upon prominent conservative figures.

The Daily Caller reports that the latest example comes from Syracuse University, which has begun taking steps to revoke an honorary degree given to Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City and later attorney for President Donald Trump. In April, the University Senate passed a resolution demanding that the Board of Trustees take action to rescind Giuliani’s degree. Giuliani, who was hailed as a national hero for his leadership after the September 11th attacks, led the legal team that attempted to fight back against voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Since the 152-year-old university has never done so before, the school does not even have a formal process in place for revoking anyone’s degree. Yet due to pressure from the far-left, a spokeswoman for the school confirmed that the school has officially adopted a new process for doing so, solely for the purpose of hurting Giuliani. The Senate Committee on Honorary Degrees will now make the final decision, and could make its choice as soon as spring.

In addition to Syracuse, three other universities have already revoked honorary degrees for Giuliani: Drexel University, Middlebury College, and the University of Rhode Island.

The effort to revoke honorary degrees has targeted multiple officials from the Trump Administration, including the President himself. Lehigh University and Wagner University rescinded President Trump’s honorary degrees following the peaceful protest at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021. He also lost an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University simply for running for president in 2015.

The University of Rhode Island, in addition to Giuliani, also revoked a degree for Lieutenant General and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was falsely accused of coordinating with the Russian government and was later exonerated.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/12/24/stanfords-naughty-and-nice-list/

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. 

It’s not clear what the origin is of that admonitory observation, though one plausible source is Sophocles’ Antigone, in which the chorus observes that the gods muddle the minds of those to whom evil seems good. 

We usually think of this stricture applying mostly to individuals. But as I look around our culture today, I wonder whether it might apply equally to institutions. 

Investigating that possibility with anything like thoroughness would take many pages. But let me offer what Kierkegaard described as a “preliminary expectoration” by noting what prompted the thought that this connection between madness and destruction might have an institutional as well as an individual application. 

For anyone attuned to the cultural static of our times, it will come as no surprise to learn that the bulletin came from that pullulating golden midden, the university, and from the highest reaches thereof. Elsewhere I have written about Harvard’s decision to go full blackface by appointing Claudine Gay, an activist intellectual nonentity, to be its next president. 

As the commentator Francis Menton noted in an excellent piece on Gay’s appointment, she has long been “the enforcer-in-chief of [wokeist] orthodoxy at Harvard.” She helped destroy the career of the brilliant economist Roland Fryer because he came to the “wrong” conclusions about whether the police displayed racial bias in their use of force (they don’t), while overlooking alleged data fabrication by Ryan Enos, another Harvard professor, because his studies had come to the right (i.e., left-progressive) conclusion about race and public housing. 

Gay’s appointment was just another example of how the obsession with race is destroying the academy in this country. Would she have been appointed had she not been black? Of course not. But no sooner had I filed that piece than Stanford University beclowned itself even more dramatically. As the Wall Street Journal reported, administrators at this gilded elite bastion of politically correct attitudinizing (endowment as of June: $40.1 billion) recently published guidelines for its “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” “a multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford.”

It gets worse, much worse, but for now all you need to know is that the “EHLI” is “one of the actions prioritized in the Statement of Solidarity and Commitment to Action, which was published by the Stanford CIO Council (CIOC) and People of Color in Technology (POC-IT).” If you have some Dramamine or an air sickness bag handy, check out the emetic verbiage at the links. 

It’s all part and parcel of our culture’s process of inversion, reversal, or—to give it a more familiar name—suicide. The EHLI website is . . . special. Early on, prospective readers are warned: 

CONTENT WARNING: THIS WEBSITE CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT IS OFFENSIVE OR HARMFUL. PLEASE ENGAGE WITH THIS WEBSITE AT YOUR OWN PACE. 

https://www.city-journal.org/war-on-merit-takes-bizarre-turn

For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in. It’s a race to the bottom.

An intrepid Thomas Jefferson parent, Shawna Yashar, a lawyer, uncovered the withholding of National Merit awards. Since starting as a freshman at the school in September 2019, her son, who is part Arab American, studied statistical analysis, literature reviews, and college-level science late into the night. This workload was necessary to keep him up to speed with the advanced studies at TJ, which U.S. News & World Report ranks as America’s top school.

Last fall, along with about 1.5 million U.S. high school juniors, the Yashar teen took the PSAT, which determines whether a student qualifies as a prestigious National Merit scholar. When it came time to submit his college applications this fall, he didn’t have a National Merit honor to report—but it wasn’t because he hadn’t earned the award. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, a nonprofit based in Evanston, Illinois, had recognized him as a Commended Student in the top 3 percent nationwide—one of about 50,000 students earning that distinction. Principals usually celebrate National Merit scholars with special breakfasts, award ceremonies, YouTube videos, press releases, and social media announcements.

But not at TJ. School officials had decided to withhold announcement of the award. Indeed, it turns out that the principal, Ann Bonitatibus, and the director of student services, Brandon Kosatka, have been withholding this information from families and the public for years, affecting the lives of at least 1,200 students over the principal’s tenure of five years. Recognition by National Merit opens the door to millions of dollars in college scholarships and 800 Special Scholarships from corporate sponsors.