Biden’s draft Title IX rule would allow the single-investigator model. Should it?
"Despite these flaws, the Biden administration is poised to once again allow colleges to use single-investigator frameworks. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education introduced a draft Title IX rule that would pull back the regulation mandating that institutions hold live hearings to adjudicate sexual misconduct cases. Instead, colleges could devise their own systems within the draft rule’s confines, which could be a version of the single-investigator model. " - Higher Ed Dive, 7/5/22
Calling It Quits
"While clear data are elusive, there is emerging evidence that institutions are seeing greater-than-usual faculty turnover. According to Inside Higher Ed’s 2022 Survey of College and University Chief Academic Officers, 19 percent of provosts say faculty members are leaving at significantly higher rates than in the past. Sixty percent say they are leaving at somewhat higher rates. (The percentages were larger for questions about staff turnover.)" - Inside Higher Ed, 7/5/22
What the Biden administration’s new rules for charter schools say
"The Biden administration is moving to overhaul the federal Charter School Program with new rules finalized last week that make it harder for for-profit organizations to win taxpayer money and require greater transparency and accountability for grant applicants....Charter school supporters strongly objected to a draft set of rules released earlier this year, saying they seemed intended to kill the program outright, which the Education Department denied." - Washington Post, 7/5/22
Hillsdale Leader’s Slurs of Teacher Preparation Stoke Tennessee Controversy
"Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee has come under fire from teacher groups and education leaders in his state for sitting by as the president of Hillsdale College—who is advising him on education policy—referred to teachers as being trained 'in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges.'" - Inside Higher Ed, 7/5/22
Fourth of July Brings Warnings of Our Civics Problem
"A Rasmussen Reports survey released over the Fourth of July weekend finds that only 27 percent of people believe the Founding Fathers would consider the United States a success, down from 34 percent a year ago. A stunning 53 percent now say the Founding Fathers -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, among many -- would view America as a failure." - National Review, 7/4/22
Can Western Cultural Literacy Make a Comeback?
"Perhaps then we can get back to what Llosa sees as the truest, noblest calling of culture—nourishing our souls while examining the big questions. Despite our vast scientific and technical knowledge, Llosa argues, 'We have never been so confused about certain basic questions such as what are we doing on this lightless planet of ours, if mere survival is the sole aim that justifies life, if concepts such as spirit, ideals, pleasure, love, solidarity, art, creation, beauty, soul, transcendence still have meaning and, if so, what these meanings might be?'" - American Greatness, 7/4/22
The National Academies Have Abandoned the Sciences
"The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently held an event titled: 'Structural Racism and Rigorous Models of Social Inequity.' The two-day conference seemed less of a workshop, as was advertised, and more of a struggle session against enemies of 'equity.' The main takeaway from this event was that we must implement critical race theory (CRT) into every facet of science. This conclusion was not drawn from inference. Throughout the conference, multiple speakers advocated explicitly for the use of critical race theory. By doing so, however, one must ask: Have the National Academies abandoned the sciences altogether?" - American Greatness, 7/3/22
Supreme Court Decision Advances Educational Freedom
"Last week, the Supreme Court delivered three decisions that have the Left in a snit of epic proportions. On Friday, the Court decided there is no constitutional right to an abortion, and threw Roe v. Wade into the trashcan. The prior day, the justices made clear that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense. And on Tuesday, in Carson v. Makin, the Supremes asserted that if a state subsidizes private education, it cannot disqualify religious schools." - American Greatness, 7/3/22
Former Georgetown Tennis Coach Sentenced to More Than 2 Years in Varsity Blues Case
"A former Georgetown University head tennis coach who pleaded guilty last fall to accepting bribes to help prospective students gain admission to the school was sentenced Friday to more than two years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Massachusetts. The sentencing of the coach, Gordon Ernst, 54, of Chevy Chase, Md., and Falmouth, Mass., to 30 months represented the harshest punishment issued so far in the federal investigation known as Operation Varsity Blues, which has focused on the payment of bribes by wealthy parents in order to have their children admitted to elite colleges." - New York Times, 7/2/22
In trainings, Florida tells teachers that religion belongs in public life
"New civics training for Florida public school teachers comes with a dose of Christian dogma, some teachers say, and they worry that it also sanitizes history and promotes inaccuracies. Included in the training is the statement that it is a 'misconception' that 'the Founders desired strict separation of church and state.'" - Washington Post, 7/2/22
If you want a degree from a state school in Oregon, and you can’t get into the highly selective, prestigious Oregon Institute of Technology, you don’t really have a choice. OSU is the college for most- programming and computer science is apparently more highly rated from U of O- STEM field studies.
Oh no.
This ‘Accusation Circus’ assembled by the University of Oregon is not, in any way an attempt by the Offended to “make the world around them a better, more inclusive place.” This is a part of a continued and concerted effort to make the world around them an absolutely intolerant place.
Big Brother (and all his various toadies and minions) is watching…and watching very carefully there at Oregon’s Stepford U. And for what do all these Informers, these newly minted Handicapper Generals watch? Why they watch for Error: they listen for Offense; they note Bias in all its various forms & shapes and they tally the offenders.
And what is the source of this omnipresent Error? It is freedom, of course. For when the Unenlightened…the Wrong Thinkers…the Flawed and the Foolish are given freedom, they think bad things….they use inappropriate words in uncomfortable ways and they do what must not be done. As a result, when we encounter their wrong thoughts & ill words, we feel bad, or hurt, or offended, or discomfited, or uncomfortable, or just a bit out of sorts — our bellies all woosie.
And obviously that must stop if we are to achieve the paradise envisioned by those who bless & staff these glorious Bias Response Teams.
Of course, like all those who believe the world can be perfected in the here & now, they fail utterly to understand that Life, itself, is offensive. Its slings and arrows, full of outrageous fortune, beset us all, every single day. We see things we find disconcerting; we hear things which disturb our increasingly fine-tuned sensibilities — worse, we do and say things, in our deluded freedom, that inevitably someone, somewhere will find to be offensive. But, thank God, that is how it should be.
Indeed, that is how it must be. Freedom guarantees that our world is full of people doing and saying things that we might not …. just as we do and say things that the Other might not. That is the beauty of Freedom. And what we see at Oregon and the rest of the totalitarian one-hundred is, tragically, the furthest thing from freedom.
As the Chief Reporter for one of the very first Bias Response Teams put it, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.”
Most college students today have never been in a situation where they had to deal with adversity on their own.
Helicopter parents, participation trophies, zero competition in primary education, 1001 anti-bullying campaigns, and a host of other protections from reality. These people have either had someone else to deal with any difficulties, or they were so coddled that those difficulties were squashed before they even realized they were there.
It’s not surprising that they not only lack the skills to deal with problems themselves, but also expect authority figures to immediately fix every minor difficulty they run into.