RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pay-up-for-the-damage-youve-caused-oberlin/

Back in 2016, a case began when administrators from Oberlin College aided students in defaming Gibson’s Bakery, unjustly smearing it as racist. Eventually, the jury sided with the plaintiffs, ordering Oberlin to pay a large damage sum — $36 million.

Just as you’d expect, Oberlin fought on and on, hoping to find an appellate court that would overturn the jury. But it now appears that the case is done, since the supreme court of Ohio declined to entertain its last appeal. Legal Insurrection has the details here.

This is good news. College officials across America should be thinking about reining in their own woke zealots before they land in similar situations.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/08/cancel_culture_infests_cornells_law_school.html

If you’re a prospective law student, do you want to pay $74,000 a year to attend Cornell University’s Law School whose faculty members publish what looks like a false accusation of murder and can’t seem to do better than play “woke pigeon chess” in the court of public opinion, or $25,400 a year for in-state tuition at the State University of New York in Buffalo? SUNY’s web page says, “Our students graduate to work at the same law firms and earn the same starting salaries as those who attend pricey private law schools.” The difference comes to almost $150,000 over three years and, from where I sit, I don’t see what an attorney gets from Cornell for that kind of money.

Law professor William Jacobson reports, “There’s an effort to get me fired at Cornell for criticizing the Black Lives Matter Movement” and, from what I have seen, Jacobson’s criticisms are accurate. Dean Eduardo Peñalver nonetheless used a Cornell web page to say, “In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/campus-wokeness-harms-america-globally-international-students-tuition-dissent-loan-forgiveness-liberal-education-china-global-elite-11661797706?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

President Biden’s decision to forgive up to $20,000 in student loans for certain classes of borrowers won’t fix the underlying problems of American higher education. An educational system that routinely encourages inexperienced young people to assume excessively burdensome debt is morally broken, and repairing it will take more thought and care than went into the politically motivated student-loan decision. Bureaucracies that demonstrate hypersensitivity on issues ranging from pronoun use and trigger warnings to gender-neutral bathrooms while saddling students with tens of thousands of dollars in unpayable debt are exploiting their students, not helping them.

As Americans discuss the need to address issues such as administrative bloat, attacks on intellectual diversity, controversial admissions practices and spiraling tuition costs, we need to remember that the state of the American academy isn’t merely a domestic question. Since the middle of the 19th century, when American missionaries in China and elsewhere began encouraging promising young people to enroll in U.S. universities, the American academy has been a powerful force shaping global perceptions of the U.S. and its engagement with the world.

Millions of foreign students have attended American colleges and universities. Most return to their home countries as influential professionals or thinkers who will shape their societies’ perceptions of America for years to come. Some remain in the U.S., where their intellectual gifts and entrepreneurial energy propel American progress and renew the American dream. Their tuition dollars subsidize university costs for American students, even as their perceptions and experiences enrich discussions in American classrooms.

Attracting foreign students is more important than ever. American higher ed faces a difficult environment as the number of native-born 18-year-olds declines nationally and rising tuition leads more Americans to rethink the importance of a four-year academic degree. While top-tier American universities have little to fear, ever-rising tuition combined with a continued drift from traditional measures of merit and achievement is likely to reduce the attraction of an American college education for many families abroad even as American colleges grow more dependent on international students who pay full tuition.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yeshiva-university-fights-for-its-constitutional-rights-first-amendment-free-speech-students-higher-education-religious-schools-values-morals-11661798761?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

In recent years, a spate of lawsuits have asked whether, and to what degree, religious colleges and universities are free to craft policies consistent with their religious values, even when those policies are unpopular with those who don’t share those values. These decisions run the gamut from the mundane—whether to allow tobacco, alcohol, caffeine or meat on campus—to the headline-grabbing—how to structure on-campus housing arrangements or decide which student clubs get official school recognition.

In these lawsuits, student plaintiffs typically ask the court to force the school to abandon a longstanding religious principle in favor of a policy incompatible with the school’s faith. But as judges continue to evaluate the legal merits of these cases, it is important to consider the real danger to the First Amendment, and to the continued viability of religious schools, each time a suit like this succeeds.

For many religious traditions, religious schools help convey beliefs to new generations of faith and community leaders. But they also bring critical diversity to higher education and prepare students to weigh moral considerations of justice, mercy and kindness while in pursuit of stellar educations and professional careers. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this only months ago, noting that “educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission” of religious schools. Not only is this blend of religious and secular learning the primary goal of a religious school; it is also the reason why hundreds of thousands of students voluntarily attend such institutions each year.

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2022/08/08/woke-trophy-hunting/

The woke mob’s attack on academic heretics can be likened to hunting. Most hunts attract scant attention, often no more than shooting squirrels with a .22. Blocking the reappointment of a visiting instructor at Smallville Community College who mis-gendered a student is an example of this low-level hunting. But of far greater consequence is what might be called “Big-Game Trophy Hunting.” Here the prey are the academic equivalent of elephants or elk, and these trophies will be prominently displayed as a warning to all others who refuse to obey.

As with big-game hunting in the wild, the academy has its own, though unwritten, rules for bagging big-time campus heretics.

First, the trophy must be associated with a top-tier institution—the more Ivy the better—and honored with notable prizes—such as an endowed chair—all the while being recognized by one’s professional colleagues as a star. Possums don’t count.

Second, the offense instigating the coup de grâce must appear inconsequential to non-academics. This is dog-whistle persecution. Firing a distinguished Yale professor for falsifying government-funded research is the equivalent of bagging an infant rhino. It’s barely noticeable and hardly worth paying the taxidermist. But not so where the hanging offense was asserting an obvious truth, albeit in language that mysteriously offended the ultra-thin-skinned Dean of Marginalized Communities. A big-game conviction is covered by the Wall Street Journal and countless internet sites. That’s the point—notoriety is the aim of these show trials. And nothing brings notoriety as much as violating some obscure, impenetrable element of today’s woke ideology. Punishing an obscure philosophy professor from a fly-over community college counts for zero. It’s a waste of time—nobody notices, so it never happened.

Finally, and most importantly for our purpose, the trophy must be secured with minimal personal risk. Cowardice is essential. Think of the luxury African safari that guarantees your safety no matter what. So, when you unload your large caliber AR-15 on a Cape buffalo and miss, and the beast charges you, don’t worry—nearby sharp-shooters will finish the job, and your trophy is secure.

In practice this means never attacking members of groups enjoying a justified reputation for violent retaliation. Similarly avoid those on the ideologically endangered species list, such as the transgendered or students explicitly protected by a government agency. Heed the commandment of the Church of the Woke—strike those who meekly shuffle off. What provost wants drumbeating, screaming feminists following his family into Costco?

https://www.newsweek.com/name-equity-schools-are-reintroducing-racism-opinion-1737058

There was a time in America when racial discrimination and segregation were not only supported by the government but mandated. Restaurants had separate areas for Black and white Americans, people were only allowed to use restrooms and water fountains that were specifically designated by their skin color, and Black and white students were taught in separate school systems. It wasn’t until after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 that the nation began integrating its educational institutions and healing the wounds caused by the Jim Crow era, edging closer to a society that does not judge individuals based on their skin color or ethnicity.

But fast forward to 2022 and the pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction. Today, in the name of “equity,” there is a major push to incorporate elements of the thinking that was pervasive in the Jim Crow era into today’s K-12 schools, but this time from people who cast themselves as social justice warriors, who are bringing race-conscious schooling back in the name of fighting racism.

Many school districts now promote racial affinity groups, which the Great Schools Partnership defines as “a group of people sharing a common race who gather with the intention of finding connection, support, and inspiration.” The ostensible purpose of these groups is to “provide participants support to survive the racial isolation that exists in many schools and institutions.”

Affinity groups are typically based on shared interests, but racial affinity groups are specifically designed to provide activities and meetings that include or exclude students based on their skin color.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/26/the-success-sequence-an-alternative-to-radical-school-indoctrination/

Do you know what’s being taught in the sex education program at your child’s school? It’s unlikely that it’s “The Success Sequence.” And that’s unfortunate – because it should be.

In 2019, I ran for school board in Fairfax County, Virginia – one of the nation’s most infamous battlegrounds when it comes to woke public education. I ran on a platform of school choice, listening to parents and reforming the school’s sex ed program to align with community values. Key to my platform was promoting The Success Sequence.

I like to call the Success Sequence the greatest poverty-breaking tool known to man. Unlike most government programs that might cost thousands – if not millions – of dollars per school district to implement with sketchy results, the Success Sequence costs nothing but perseverance and self-discipline.

It teaches that the best way to move up from poverty to the middle class and beyond is to do the following things in sequential order:

Graduate from high school.
Get a full-time job. 
Get married before having kids.

According to an American Enterprise Institute study, “97% of Millennials who follow what has been called the ‘success sequence’ are not poor by the time they reach their prime young adult years.” This is in comparison to over half of the poor young adults who were found to have not followed the sequence. And it is abundantly clear that not following The Success Sequence is even more disastrous for those in poor or black and Hispanic communities.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/27/drain-the-academic-swamp/

Recently, a number of medical schools have joined the anti-European, anti-Christian, pro-Marxist woke bandwagon. According to physicist Lawrence Krauss, “the American Association of Medical Colleges has approved a Diversity-Equity-Inclusion based curriculum, which the AAMC Council of Deans Chair says is as important as teaching the latest scientific breakthroughs.”

Meanwhile, our military leadership continues to push incoherent gender ideology upon a captive audience of young soldiers, sailors, and airmen.And justices at the heights of our judiciary system, because of political correctness, dare not even define the word woman.

In response to these instances and instances like them within the present culture war, conservatives have offered much-needed criticism within the domains of news media, entertainment, government, and law. While these battles are necessary, of course, they have been largely impotent against the omnipresent spread of leftist ideas. This is so because conservatives consistently miss the mark when it comes acknowledging the true root cause of such radicalism: the ivory tower.

For some time now, American patriots have committed the grave mistake of overlooking the extreme aggregated impact of subversive, far-Left academics; individual rogue neurons in the cultural nerve center who have produced so much suffering in our body politic. The hypothetical, one-sided thought-experiments and hot-air pseudo-philosophies cooked up at run-of-the-mill liberal arts colleges across the nation have achieved the desired effect on all the cultural institutions downstream from the academy: complete destabilization and disintegration. From law and medicine to religion, government, media, and even to language itself (ze? zir?), the bottom has fallen out and the center cannot hold.

Conservatives can no longer afford to shrug off academy-bred, society-wide intellectual sepsis, as if what happens in academia stays in academia. It’s not true; the effete eccentrics and dangerous, sandal-clad subversives at the fringes of the sociology and lit crit departments have exercised maximum influence over our shared institutions and overall culture, and all for the negative. Conservative nonchalance in the face of intellectually weaponized neuropathy has now come home to roost.

https://thestarnewsnetwork.com/2022/08/26/report-the-gay-straight-alliance-network-now-operates-in-more-than-4000-u-s-schools/

The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) Network, which promotes radical gender theory in elementary, middle, and high schools, now operates over 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” under the guise of student “clubs,” reports Christopher Rufo at City Journal.

A senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory (CRT) at the Manhattan Institute, Rufo explained the GSA Network is a “professionally staffed nonprofit with a multimillion-dollar annual budget. GSA Network serves as an umbrella organization for more than 4,000 “gender and sexuality alliances” across 40 states.”

After rebranding itself in 2016 as the Genders & Sexualities Alliance, GSA Co-Executive Director Ginna Brelsford noted:

The name change has been a long time coming.  We have heard from countless youth leaders who understand their genders and sexualities to be uniquely theirs and have moved beyond the labels of gay and straight, and the limits of a binary gender system. For several years, students have been naming their individual school-based clubs in a way that reflects the values and identity of its members.

Brelsford further explained the “function” of school GSA clubs had “evolved.”