FAIR Educates a University About Segregated “Listening Sessions”

Update from Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism's (FAIR) Legal Team. It's interested that the University thought it had to divide the students by "race" in order to have a "listening session":

On April 13th, our legal team sent a letter to Anderson University president, John Pistole, in response to a FAIR Transparency report about upcoming “listening sessions” segregated by skin color. We informed Pistole that this would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The stated reason for these segregated sessions was to ensure “a safe space where students can voice their opinions freely,” but many other non-discriminatory alternatives are readily available, such as encouraging students to speak openly and freely, allowing equal time for each student who wishes to speak, the ability to speak anonymously, and articulating rules and expectations for respectful conduct and dialogue. The message that it is “unsafe” to be around those who do not share the same skin color stigmatizes everyone.

We are happy to report that Anderson University has recognized the divisive nature of this proposed practice, and has reconsidered its approach to providing an open and inviting environment for all.

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The Conflation Strategy of the Political Far Left

At Real Clear Politics, Batya Ungar-Sargon explains what really going on in the Washington Post's bizarre framing of the Twitter account @libsoftiktok. No, she explains, this is not about Americans trying to gang up on L's, G's, B's or most T's. Here is an excerpt.

The question is why. Why is the left folding in the issues of an extreme minority of transgender activists and teachers into the larger fight for gay rights – one that’s already been won?

It’s a similar case to what’s happened with the conversation of race. After winning the battle against real racism, the left moved the goalpost, redefining what counts as racism to the thing they most like to fight: the exposure of their own privilege.

That’s what’s happening here. A tiny elite that benefits politically and economically from portraying its opponents as bigots is using every tool at its disposal – social media, liberal legacy media, and executive action – to obfuscate the vast distance between their views and the vast majority of middle- and working-class Americans with normal views. Like the view that strangers shouldn’t teach toddlers how to masturbate.

Liberals had many major wins in the past 50 years. There was a time in the not-so-distant past when average Americans in either political party had little appetite for interracial marriage, let alone gay rights. But those days are long behind us. So why is the left pretending we are still in the midst of these fights? Because if you take away the issues that used to divide them from average Americans and no longer do, all you’re left with is what now divides them – the enormous economic, educational, and social capital that sustains the meritocratic liberal elite.

Here's what @libsoftiktok is actually doing: reposting bizarre tiktok videos made by teachers bragging about teaching things to children that are (rightfully) making many parents angry. These are simply completely undoctored reposts and not the tiktoc posters are being shamed for the things they are actually saying online. But they thought they would be left alone in their corner of the world, not thrust into the spotlight for all to see.

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Keeping Your Company Out of the Culture Wars, Keep it Free to Pursue its Business Purpose

Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff wrote an article that offers real-world advice to corporations. They are addressing businesses that want to simply do business while avoiding moral dependency of the up and coming generation that includes many childlike adults who have been coddled all the way through life, including at their elite universities. Here are the first three suggestions list in How To Keep Your Corporation Out of the Culture War: Eight steps business leaders can take to prevent ideological pressure and political conformity in the workplace.

1. Expand your definition of diversity. While racial diversity and gender expression often dominate what people mean by diversity on campus, for a company trying to serve a diverse market in a fast-changing economic environment, having diversity of opinion, diversity of experience, and diversity of social class and geographic background can be even more important. In fact, the kind of diversity most often found to confer advantages on teams is not demographic diversity but rather diversity of perspectives on topics closely related to the task at hand. This includes both functional diversity (e.g., what roles people play in the company) and political diversity (at least when trying to find truth about politically controversial topics).

2. Reconsider what colleges you hire from. While elite colleges offer the promise of bright and hard-working employees, the problems we covered in our book are generally more severe at elite private colleges. You might want to consider hiring from large state schools, and ones from regions of the country other than the West Coast or Northeast. This will increase your diversity by social class and region, and it may help your organization avoid the elite college groupthink that seems to be damaging some organizations, potentially giving your organization a competitive advantage.

You might want to go still further and consider hiring people who have not attended college at all, if you can put in place standards that still guarantee hard-working employees with relevant skills. We believe that the numbers of bright, hard-working, and talented people choosing to skip college or to learn through a less traditional alternative will increase in the coming years, while the ability of elite college graduates to work well with those who do not share their beliefs will continue to decline.

3. Orientation: Be direct with candidates and new hires. If you decide that you want your organization to be politically neutral or self-consciously politically heterogeneous it’s a good idea to say so in job postings, and to introduce that idea to employees from their very first day. For example, you could state: “Our company’s culture is oriented toward success in our mission, which is [lay out business mission here]. We therefore do not take public stands on issues that are not central to our business mission. If you're not willing to work for such a company, or with people who disagree with you on some of your deepest beliefs, this might not be the right organization for you.”

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A Modern Approach for Teaching Your Child about Sex at a Public School

For those of you who are parents, is this how you want sex education taught to your first grader? Is there really a medical school class called "Guessing the Sex of New born Babies"? Sex is anchored strongly to biology. That's what doctors care about. They don't care about "gender" except to the extent that gender means "sex" and only one out of 6,000 babies has an intersex condition.  And how is it that when you go to the humane society to adopt a "female" or "girl" dog or cat, they don't look confused?  They know exactly what you mean.  It's the same thing as doctors, who don't "guess" what sex a baby is, except one out of 6,000 times.

Those who hate "Libs of Tik Tok" are pissed that the creator of that account is holding up the mirror to modern incoherent non-scientific insanity.  My kids are now grown, but if I had first graders and I found out that they were being taught this gibberish, I would be outraged. I write these words as a person who has voted almost entirely for Democrats for the past four decades and who has canvassed for Bernie Sanders. If moderate Democrats don't muster up the courage to speak up, they will have earned the red wave that is currently being predicted.

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