Category Archives: Academia

When it comes to woke tyranny, are the worms beginning to turn? by Andrea Widburg

You would think people would start to object to being labeled “racist” solely on the basis of skin color, to quite apologizing for crimes they never committed, and to grow disgusted with the nauseating genuflection to the new racial totems. From Andrea Widburg at americanthinker.com:

For three days, I’ve had sitting on my virtual spindle a post that Bari Weiss, formerly of the New York Times, posted on her Substack page.  It’s entitled “I Refuse to Stand by while My Students Are Indoctrinated.”  The author isn’t Weiss but is, instead, Paul Rossi, a math teacher at Grace Church High School in Manhattan (annual tuition: $57,330).  On Friday, Weiss added another open letter, this from Andrew Gutmann, a parent who had just pulled his daughter out of Brearley, another expensive private school (annual tuition: $54,000).  Both are horrifying exposés of and attacks against the woke culture saturating these institutions.

Both letters are long and don’t yield easily to a brief summary.  I’ll quote a few select paragraphs from each, but you must read them to get the full flavor of the Maoist madness at these institutions.

Paul Rossi, the teacher, writes that Grace Church is focused on “‘antiracism’ training and pedagogy that I believe is deeply harmful to [my students] and to any person who seeks to nurture the virtues of curiosity, empathy and understanding.”

Rossi perfectly describes the self-hatred, mental repression, cognitive dissonance, and pure racism this training inculcates into young minds:

My school, like so many others, induces students via shame and sophistry to identify primarily with their race before their individual identities are fully formed. Students are pressured to conform their opinions to those broadly associated with their race and gender and to minimize or dismiss individual experiences that don’t match those assumptions. The morally compromised status of “oppressor” is assigned to one group of students based on their immutable characteristics. In the meantime, dependency, resentment and moral superiority are cultivated in students considered “oppressed.”

Rossi describes how, during a segregated “whites only” student and faculty Zoom meeting, he spoke out, inspiring the students to speak out, too.  This was a bad thing.

I was informed by the head of the high school that my philosophical challenges had caused “harm” to students, given that these topics were “life and death matters, about people’s flesh and blood and bone.” I was reprimanded for “acting like an independent agent of a set of principles or ideas or beliefs.” And I was told that by doing so, I failed to serve the “greater good and the higher truth.”

He further informed me that I had created “dissonance for vulnerable and unformed thinkers” and “neurological disturbance in students’ beings and systems.” The school’s director of studies added that my remarks could even constitute harassment.

Rossi was then denounced over the school announcement system.  There’s more.  Read it all, because it’s important.

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The Racist Incident That Wasn’t, by Dinesh D’Souza

If the supply of racist incidents is insufficient, they’ll just have to make some up. From Dinesh D’Souza at theepochtimes.com:

Commentary

The students, administration, and faculty of Albion College in Michigan were driven into a frenzy a couple of weeks ago when racist and anti-Semitic graffiti surfaced in a dorm stairwell and photos were posted to a local news Facebook group.

The photos included messages such as “White Power” and “KKK.”

Now the campus police have discovered that a 21-year-old black student was responsible. He has admitted creating the graffiti, and video evidence corroborates his confession, police said.

Here we go again! Another fake racial incident, another hoax perpetrated by a supposed victim. This is Jussie Smollett all over again. Fake racial incidents are now commonplace both on campus and in the culture. So the first interesting question is: Why would someone seek to orchestrate a horrific event that didn’t really happen?

It can’t be that the perpetrators, from Smollett to the black student at Albion, are merely trying to call attention to a social problem so that it can be promptly addressed. Blacks didn’t have to stage lynchings in the late 19th century, because tragically there were a lot of them going on in plain sight. Moreover, why would Smollett and his campus counterparts seek to pin the blame on innocent parties for what they did not in fact do?

A good way to understand this bizarre phenomenon is to turn to the discipline of economics, and specifically to the law of supply and demand. It seems that, both on the university campus and in the culture, the demand for racism exceeds the supply. To put it differently, there’s an enormous desire to find racism, and there’s not enough racism to be found.

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No, it is not elitist to correct students’ spelling, by Frank Furedi

Nor is it elitist to refuse to hire someone who can’t spell, or write and talk proper English. From Frank Furedi at spiked-online.org:

Some universities now claim it is ‘white, male and elitist’ to expect students to have good English.

I wasn’t surprised when I read that some British universities are adopting the philistine policy of not marking students down for spelling and grammar errors. Nor was I surprised to learn that sections of British higher education have embraced the anti-intellectual practice of ‘inclusive assessment’. The aim of this is to narrow the attainment gap between white and black, Asian and ethnic-minority students.

Unfortunately, this strategy of ‘narrowing the attainment gap’ is not about levelling upwards with high-quality academic teaching. Rather, the advocates of ‘inclusive assessment’ are more interested in lowering the already low expectations that universities have of students from certain backgrounds.

One of the key tactics of the inclusive-assessment outlook is to brand genuine academic expectations and standards as ‘elitist’. This is why some university administrators are instructing academics not to lower students’ marks for spelling mistakes – because good English is increasingly seen as an elitist demand; as something associated with the ‘homogeneous, north European, white male elite’.

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A Self-Loathing Ruling Class Cannot Endure, by Conrad Black

Inculcating hatred of your country and its history is not a long-term strategy for national survival. From Conrad Black at amgreatness.com:

The U.S. now has an official regime of lies, supported by an almost worthlessly dishonest media, and scores of millions of Americans brainwashed into the false view that they live in an evil country.

Not every aspect of the onslaught of self-hate that has broken over America, warped its media, and turned most of the academy—and even apparently, most of its elementary and secondary schools—into centers of reorientation designed to convince Americans their national past is loathsome hypocrisy, is bad. Every country has a national mythos, and the larger, more complicated countries have relatively elaborate, conventionally agreed-upon versions of the raison d’être of their nationalities. In the case of the United States, there have always been some soft points in this rationale, and to a slight extent, there may be some merit in addressing them.

Despite the brilliant opening and ending of the Declaration of Independence, the indictment of King George III as a virtual Nuremberg Trial defendant who was trying to destroy America and indiscriminately kill its people, while dabbling in other atrocities such as the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith throughout the 13 colonies (an insane allegation—Jefferson was referring to the Quebec Act, which assured that population the practice of their language, religion, and civil rights) was an outrage. George III was a limited monarch who suffered from porphyria, but he was far from an evil man (and he was an arch-Protestant papaphobe).

The facts were that Americans really had no more civil rights after the Revolution than before, nor measurably more civil rights than citizens of England, Switzerland, most of the Netherlands, and parts of Scandinavia. But they had a resident government. Unlike almost all the nations of Europe and East Asia, in a world of only about 25 sovereign countries, the United States did not have a language of its own, and its founders, with great ingenuity, and eloquence invented for it the vocation of freedom and opportunity. The lore was not of the past but of the future. And with the dramatic emergence of the Americans, facilitated by Franklin’s stupendous feat in persuading the absolutist French monarchy to go to war on behalf of secessionism, democracy, and republicanism, the eyes of the world were on America and have never ceased to be on America these 245 years.

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MMT Is a Disaster Waiting to Happen, by James Rickards

There is no economic theory so stupid that it won’t have its adherents in academia. From James Rickards at dailyreckoning.com:

MMT is the most potentially damaging economic doctrine I have ever encountered, with the exception of communism.

Let’s begin with the idea that the Fed and Treasury should be merged in practice so that the Fed will monetize any amount of spending or borrowing the Treasury wants.

The reason markets have any confidence at all in the Fed is precisely because they are perceived as independent of congressional spending plans. MMT takes this confidence for granted and assumes the Fed can just crank up the printing press whenever the Treasury likes.

But, as soon as this kind of coordinated effort appears, markets will lose confidence, inflation expectations will soar and interest rates will skyrocket. The plan would collapse before it really began. This is exactly the type of adaptive behavior by investors and markets that MMT academics do not understand.

MMT says that a currency issuer such as the U.S. can never go broke because it can simply print money to pay off the debt (provided the borrowings are in the same currency as the printed money). This may be true in some narrow, literal sense, but it does not mean investors have to wait around for the trainwreck.

IMG 1

The evidence is strong that debt-to-GDP ratios above 90% are a major headwind for growth. Today that ratio is 130% and heading higher. More borrowing does not produce growth; it simply makes the debt problem worse.

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Stephanopoulos, Blinken Score Win for MICIMATT, by Ray McGovern

Geopolitical tension and the constant threat of war are of enormous benefit to one group, the MICIMATT. From Ray McGovern at antiwar.com:

Interviewed Wednesday on The Critical Hour, I took issue with the prevailing conventional view that George Stephanopoulos’s mousetrapping President Biden into calling Putin a “killer” and Secretary of State Blinken’s boorish attempt to get China to kowtow in Alaska were “disastrous“.

One must always ask cui bono? Who profits from those two “disasters”. Were they not a boon to the people with inordinate influence over those we elect (at least nominally) to run the country? I refer, of course, to those of the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex who profiteer from tension.

The MICIMATT needs credible foreign enemies to “justify” obscene levels of military spending and to line the pockets of the wealthy “one percent” – whom the Russians still call “the ruling classes”. As for the rest of us, as comedian George Carlin might put it, the ruling classes with their bastard-child MICIMATT make up a big club, and we’re not in it. It has grown like Topsy since President Eisenhower warned us of its disastrous potential 60 years ago. In his farewell address he labeled it the “military-industrial complex”:

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Ike noted that the conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry was in those days new to the American experience. He added that “the total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. … Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.”

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It’s officially an offence now to LEAVE England, by Simon Black

Totalitarian regimes often won’t allow their citizens to leave. Simon Black’s weekly chronicle of the absurd at sovereignman.com:

Are you ready for this week’s absurdity? Here’s our Friday roll-up of the most ridiculous stories from around the world that are threats to your liberty, risks to your prosperity… and on occasion, inspiring poetic justice.

It’s officially now an offence to LEAVE England

After four hours of debate yesterday in the House of Commons, the United Kingdom has approved an emergency measure that will, among other restrictions, fine Brits who LEAVE the country without a qualifying reason.

Ironically, the British government insists they can legally impose these new rules because of authority that was granted to them under a law called the Public Health Act… which just happened to be passed in… 1984.

Starting on Monday, anyone who leaves England must submit papers making a certified declaration of their reason for leaving. The authorities will then retain the discretion to fine travelers £5,000— nearly $7,000, if the reason isn’t valid.

The government has provided a list of 14 valid excuses, such as a professional football team traveling for a match. This is totally fine.

But someone who wants to attend a religious pilgrimage is forbidden to travel. So is someone who wants to visit an elderly parent they haven’t seen since 2019, unless it is a parent whom the traveler “reasonably believes is dying.”

How magnanimous.

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Should Anything Be Off-Limits to Debate and Discuss? by Alan Dershowitz

In a free society the answer is no. From Alan Dershowitz at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • The fact that we even have to ask these questions demonstrates the precarious state of freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas in the cancel culture….
  • Professors are being fired for private discussions of grades and race. Students are terrified of expressing politically incorrect views, especially about race, sex, sexual orientation and even politics. Even silence is not always an option.
  • There are several exceptions to this cancel culture rule. You can say almost anything negative about Jews, as evidenced by the recent Grammy awards, during which three overt anti-Semites were honored. These bigots did not even try to disguise their anti-Semitism behind the facade of anti-Zionism.
  • There has never been a time when respectful and nuanced debate has been more needed, especially about race and other taboo subjects— taboo unless you toe the line of political correctness.
  • Slate’s decision to suspend Peska strikes a blow against diversity. Yes, diversity! —which includes diversity of views about every issue including how best to deal with racism and how best to achieve equality.
  • Slate should end Peska’s suspension, apologize to him, and encourage debate about the issue over which he was suspended.
Professors are being fired for private discussions of grades and race. Students are terrified of expressing politically incorrect views…. Pictured: photo of Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School. (Photo by Senate Television via Getty Images)

Slate — the online magazine known for its provocative content—has indefinitely suspended one of its star podcasters, Mike Peska, for debating with a colleague, on an inter-office messaging platform, whether it is ever appropriate for a non-Black person to use the N-word in the context of a discussion about race. It is not clear whether in the course of the discussion Peska actually uttered the word itself or just used the term “n-word.”

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Leading Academic Quits After Showing No School Children Died During The “First Wave” In Sweden, by Arjun Walia

Sometimes, being right can make your life unbearably miserable. From Arjun Walia at collective-evolution.com:

In Brief

  • The Facts:

    Jonas F Ludvigsson, a paediatrician at Örebro University Hospital and professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute is quitting his work on covid-19 because of harassment from people who dislike what he discovered.

  • Reflect On:

    Why are scientists, journalists and doctors who present information that opposes what we hear in the mainstream censored, ridiculed, harassed and never given any air time?

What Happened: A letter to the editor published in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Open Schools, Covid-19, and Child and Teacher Morbidity in Sweden” has found that “Despite Sweden’s having kept schools and preschools open, we found a low incidence of severe Covid-19 among schoolchildren and children of preschool age during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic…No child with Covid-19 died…Among the 1,951,905 million children who were 1 to 16 years of age, 15 children had Covid-19, MIS-C, or both conditions and were admitted to an ICU, which is equal to 1 child in 130,000.”

It was published by Jonas F Ludvigsson a paediatrician at Örebro University Hospital and professor of clinical epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute.

Scott Atlas: The Last Word

The money sentence from Scott Atlas: “This crisis has also exposed what we all have known existed, but we have tolerated for years: the overt bias of the media, the lack of diverse viewpoints on campuses, the absence of neutrality in big tech controlling social media, and now more visibly than ever, the intrusion of politics into science.” From Atlas at stanfordreview.org:

Editor’s Note: Scott W. Atlas, MD, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, served from August through November 2020 as Special Adviser to the President and was a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Atlas delivered the following remarks in a virtual lecture hosted by the College Republicans. They have been lightly adapted to appear in print.


It is always a great pleasure, and an important part of my job, to speak to students. It is essential for students to hear ideas from many sources, especially ideas they may not agree with.  That is a key part of learning how to think critically – and critical thinking is the most important lesson to learn in college, in my opinion.

The coronavirus pandemic has been a great tragedy, there can be no doubt about that. But it has also exposed profound issues in America that now threaten the very principles of freedom and order that we Americans often take for granted.

First, I have been shocked at the enormous power of the government, to unilaterally decree, to simply close businesses and schools by edict, restrict personal movement, mandate behavior, and eliminate our most basic freedoms, without any end and little accountability.

Second, I remain surprised at the acceptance by the American people of draconian rules, restrictions, and unprecedented mandates, even those that are arbitrary, destructive, and wholly unscientific.

This crisis has also exposed what we all have known existed, but we have tolerated for years: the overt bias of the media, the lack of diverse viewpoints on campuses, the absence of neutrality in big tech controlling social media, and now more visibly than ever, the intrusion of politics into science. Ultimately, the freedom to seek and state the truth is at risk here in the United States.

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