Glenn Loury and John McWhorter React to School District Dumbs Down the Math Curriculum in the name of “Equity.”

Glenn Loury and John McWhorter react to a recent decision of the Princeton School District to dumb down the math curriculum in the name of "equity." John McWhorter sums up the problem: In the view of some school administrators, "It is not authentically black to be nerdy."

Here is an article describing the problem: "Opinion: Princeton Public School parents express concerns about school district’s ‘new direction’"

Continue ReadingGlenn Loury and John McWhorter React to School District Dumbs Down the Math Curriculum in the name of “Equity.”

Left Leaning News Media Censorship Continues

From Matt Taibbi:

Now the script is flipped. The press mainstream has borrowed from the old Fox model and not only (as Shapiro notes) excludes dissent via the “laundering of expertise” but leads interminable crusades against an exploding list of deviationists within their own ranks. You may have thought you were solidly a progressive, but you can catch a permanent green-room ban for going against narrative on any issue, whether it’s Syria or Ukraine or Russiagate or trans issues or any of a hundred other things. This is the same losing strategy that hurt the old GOP, which logically should lead to the same losing outcome, except this is a political atmosphere where no one seems to be winning.

Here are some examples that I have collected over the past two years. Bottom line: You should now expect that Left leaning news media will preach to you, not inform you with wide-ranging perspectives, on politically contentious stories of the day. Left leaning legacy "news" outlets like to think they are much better than Fox News, but they are often engaged in the same tactics.

Continue ReadingLeft Leaning News Media Censorship Continues

Daryl Davis and Quay Hanna: The Best Strategy Against Racism is Conversation

New FAIR video featuring Daryl Davis and Quay Hanna. Let's not write off our fellow American, even proud racists. Daryl Davis says, "Take time to sit down with your adversaries. You will learn something from you and you will learn something from them."

Continue ReadingDaryl Davis and Quay Hanna: The Best Strategy Against Racism is Conversation

Modern Day Religions

I agree with Zuby. As I see it, traditional religions were serving a purpose that was not fully appreciated. I'm not claiming that the religious claims touted by most traditional religions were true. The truth of such claims is not where the source of the power of a religion. It is more accurate to state the the falsity of the dogmatic claims underlie the power of a religion. I explain this in a five-part series of articles I titled "Mending Fences."

What happens when you take eliminate a popular institution?  We're finding out as it is occurring, as described by Chesterson's Fence:

The principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.

The most powerful social dynamic is our tendency to form tribes. Whenever people do this, they point to principles and beliefs, but there is no need for these principles or beliefs to be factually true to serve as the "reason" for the tribal affiliation. We often see this: the wackier the belief, the stronger the tribal ties, because proclaiming nonsensical things serves as a badge of tribal belonging.

John McWhorter has repeatedly made this point with regard to Wokeness. It is not like a religion. Rather, he says, it is a religion. “The reality is that what the Elect call problematic is what a Christian means by blasphemous.” The following excerpt is from the introduction of McWhorter's book, Woke Racism (2021):

My main aims will be:

1. To argue that this new ideology is actually a religion in all but name, and that this explains why something so destructive and incoherent is so attractive to so many good people.

2. To explain why so many black people are attracted to a religion that treats us as simpletons.

3. To show that this religion is actively harmful to black people despite being intended as unprecedentedly “antiracist.”

4. To show that a pragmatic, effective, liberal, and even Democratic-friendly agenda for rescuing black America need not be founded on the tenets of this new religion.

5. To suggest ways to lessen the grip of this new religion on our public culture.

Continue ReadingModern Day Religions

Biden’s Giant Leap Backward on Title IX

Here is an excerpt from a new article on the common sense changes to Title IX that occurred under the Trump Administration that are being reversed by the Biden Administration.  This article is titled: "Biden's Sex Police: The White Houses's new regulations will gut due-process rights for college students accused of sexual misconduct." It appears at Bari Weiss' excellent Substack, Common Sense.

The new rules recommend a return to a “single investigator” model that was barred under the DeVos reform. This means one administrator can act as detective, prosecutor, judge, and jury on a Title IX complaint. The new rules also undo many of the procedural protections for the accused—including the right to see all the evidence, inculpatory and exculpatory, gathered against him. “It’s an evisceration of the procedural protections given to the accused,” says historian KC Johnson, co-author of The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities.

Under the DeVos rules, adjudication of a formal complaint required a live hearing be held that included cross examination. The Biden administration lifts this obligation. The Biden rules also call for a return to investigations initiated by third parties, even if based on rumors or misunderstandings, in which male students can be subjected to Title IX proceedings over the objection of their female partners. (Robby Soave at Reason has a good summary of the Biden proposals.)

“It’s a document that validates all of the concerns we had about due process and free speech being on the chopping block,” says Joe Cohn, legislative and policy director at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He adds that the administration is giving schools the blessing of the Department of Education “to cut many corners that are essential for fundamental fairness.”

As vice president, Biden made clear that campuses were just the first stop in an effort to remake throughout society how males and females interact. He said in a 2015 speech at Syracuse University about sexual misconduct, “We need a fundamental change in our culture. And the quickest place to change culture is to change it on the campuses of America.”

[More . . . ]

Continue ReadingBiden’s Giant Leap Backward on Title IX