I remember how it was -- JR
Catholic women’s college in Indiana to consider applicants that ‘identify as women’
Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana recently declared it will consider allowing biological males to attend the university if they have a history of identifying as women.
President Katie Conboy told the faculty in an email on Tuesday about the change in policy, according to the Notre Dame student paper, The Observer.
“Saint Mary’s will consider undergraduate applicants whose sex assigned at birth is female or who consistently live and identify as women,” Conboy emailed.
While the college is still reportedly determining the practices that will follow from the policy change, admissions will begin considering transgender applicants in fall 2024.
A campus newspaper reported that Conboy previously assembled a “President’s Task Force for Gender Identity and Expression” that is tasked with coming up with recommendations for housing and possible education surrounding “Catholic identity and women’s college identity.”
Conboy’s email reportedly quoted His Holiness Pope Francis to justify the policy.
“Pope Francis advocates for love as the appropriate approach to those who are different from ourselves: ‘Love, then, is more than just a series of benevolent actions. Those actions have their source in a union increasingly directed towards others, considering them of value, worthy, pleasing and beautiful apart from their physical or moral appearances. Our love for others, for who they are, moves us to seek the best for their lives,” the email reportedly said.
Earlier this year, Pope Francis told journalist Elisabetta Piqué for the Argentine daily newspaper La Nación, that “Gender ideology, today, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations.”
“Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences and the value of men and women,” he added.
He also noted that there is a major difference between caring for people who identify as transgender versus actually endorsing their values, noting the contrast “between what pastoral care is for people who have a different sexual orientation and what gender ideology is.”
The college received blowback for its decision from current students and some alumni.
“St. Mary’s College is no longer Catholic,” Saint Mary’s student Claire Bettag, a junior, told The Daily Signal. “It is no longer a women’s institution. This is fraudulent misrepresentation at best. Every student should be entitled to a refund for fraudulent misrepresentation. An attorney should file a class action lawsuit against the college. They have abandoned their faith, and they’ve abandoned the women. No woman should be forced to share a bathroom or living quarters with a man.”
Some alumni spoke out against the school’s decision on social media.
“This decision is blasphemous & a complete rejection of the Church and it’s teachings on gender and sexuality,” Clare Anne Ath wrote.
“I chose @saintmarys because of its mission to serve as a Catholic, women’s college,” education reform activist Shannon Pahls wrote. “This decision is a complete abandonment of that. Extremely disappointed in my alma mater.”
“I’m deeply disappointed as a @saintmarys alum in this decision. The school has betrayed its Catholic mission,” The Federalist Society Vice President and Director of Lawyers Chapters Lisa Budzynski Ezell wrote. In a separate post, she said the policy shift is “not a surprise” and that “I hope other alumnae will speak out and withhold donations.”
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Lack of Discipline in Schools is the Problem
Students are not showing up in public school today, as attendance is no longer desired by parents. Many public schools have become places of indoctrination by the Left, or downright dangerous to attend.
No one can continue to blame this on Covid-19, when schools shut down. Absenteeism is severe long after the pandemic subsided, as in Nevada where more than a third of the students are chronically absent.
Only 42% of American adults are reportedly satisfied with schools, a 20-year low. Disillusionment with costly higher education is increasing and that may have a spillover effect on attitudes toward secondary education too.
This disappearance of students in classrooms is not merely a few teenagers skipping out for some fun, which is not new. Elementary students who need to be learning fundamental skills during that period of their life are not being taken to school.
Just five years ago only 7% of elementary public schools had chronic absenteeism by 30% of students. But in 2021-22, the percentage of the elementary public schools having chronic absenteeism shot up to 38%.
Last month the New York Times reported that the schools run by the Department of Defense for about 66,000 children of service members have been doing better than public schools in all 50 states, as measured by the widely followed National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. Most of these schools are on American military bases.
The Department of Defense Education Activity schools were first in our nation on the NAEP reading and math assessments in 2022. These schools were the only state or jurisdiction to show an increase in performance in any grade or subject that year.
The U.S. Army has a larger minority population than America as a whole: 46% compared with 40%. The outperformance by secondary schools on military bases compared with other public schools is due to better discipline.
A total of 45% of students in these Department of Defense secondary schools are in low-income families, which is higher than the national average of 38%. Moreover, one-third of the children in military families move each year due to transfers of their parents, which is a hardship.
The military knows how to discipline its members, without permitting bad behavior until expulsion becomes necessary. Corporal punishment, such as swatting a misbehaving student, was allowed nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court for public schools in Ingraham v. Wright (1977), yet states outside the South ban it.
In public schools 77% of teachers are female today, in sharp contrast with how our military is run. The overwhelming percentage of those public school teachers are liberal and opposed to any physical punishment of any kind for bad conduct.
Studies show that physical penalties for misbehavior are not any more harmful than other forms of punishment, such as repeated yelling. Many of the same students who are violent toward other students and teachers also play in violent sports like football, which create a far greater risk of injury to them than any physical discipline would.
Bringing back sensible discipline to public schools is way overdue, and would be a better focus of the never-ending special sessions in Texas where Gov. Greg Abbott just called for a record-breaking fourth legislative session on education. Even if vouchers for private schools were to pass there, the vast majority of students would remain in declining, undisciplined public schools.
A third of teachers encounter threats by students annually, yet effective punishment is not allowed. Instead, liberals are permissive about misconduct until violence occurs, and even then sometimes fail to impose appropriate penalties.
While forbidding any meaningful discipline, public schools ultimately expel students but only after an egregious rampage. The single biggest reason for the increase in homeschooling is a fear by parents for the safety of their children in public schools.
Yet rather than restore order in schools, the failed approach of Vice President Kamala Harris while she was the district attorney for San Francisco was to prosecute parents for truancy, the outdated criminalizing of non-attendance at school. When she campaigned for California attorney general she promoted enacting a state law to punish parents when their children missed more than 10% of public school.
“We are putting parents on notice. If you fail to take responsibility for your kids, we are going to make sure that you face the full force and consequences of the law,” Harris threatened parents.
Harris, Biden, and the entire Democrat Party pander to teachers unions who should be blamed for turning schools into dens of crime, drugs, and liberal ideology. A study by the libertarian Cato Institute during Covid showed that delaying the reopening of schools was not based on valid concerns about the virus and safety, but on how powerful the regional teachers unions were.
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High School Reportedly Cancels ‘USA Day’ Because It’s Too ‘Politicized’
A high school in Massachusetts canceled “USA Day” from its spirit week activities to “avoid politics,” according to multiple reports.
Reportedly, the principal of Wellesley High School, Jamie Chisum, sent a letter to the school community explaining that the patriotic-themed day was canceled because the topic had become “politicized” (via Boston 25 News):
“The high school Administration decided not to go forward with that spirit theme because it felt really different than the other themes kids came up with for the week. We felt that the topic has been politicized beyond our school and we wanted to avoid politics. We’ve had Mismatch Monday, Tropical Tuesday, Western Wednesday, Team Jersey Thursday and today was Fitness Friday. Monday is Monochrome Monday and Tuesday is Pajama day. Spirit Week is intended to be a light and fun way for our students to get excited about our pep rally and Thanksgiving Day football game.”
“We acknowledge that the impact for some people has been just the opposite of our intention and that we have inadvertently politicized this activity. I am definitely sorry for any negative effect this has had on kids and families. "
Each day of the week consisted of a different theme leading up to the school’s Thanksgiving football game, according to Boston 25 News. Some themes included Throwback Thursday and Wild West Wednesday. Instead of hosting “USA Day” on Friday, the school replaced it with “Fitness Friday.”
Olivia Spagnuolo, a member of the school’s Student Unification Program, told Boston 25 News that the group was tasked with coming up with the themes.
“The administration was not going to let this happen,” Spagnuolo said of “USA Day.”
“It wasn’t a topic for discussion,” she added. “They said it was not allowed because it separated people at the school.”
One parent who spoke to Boston 25 News said the decision to cancel “USA Day” was “absurd.”
“I think it’s absurd,” said one parent picking up their child. “I think it’s sad and depressing we’re at this state that celebrating the United States is political.”
This month, Townhall reported how an elementary school in Redmond, Washington replaced its annual assembly to commemorate Veterans Day with a “Peace Assembly,” to recognize “International Day of Tolerance.”
A parent who spoke to Seattle outlet KTTH said that in recent years, the school had “moved strongly away from our traditions and American history.” He added that “we should be taking the time to show our children and our community that we have brave men and women who are willing to stand up and fight for our freedom and the peace that other places in the world can only dream of.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2023/11/20/high-school-cancels-usa-day-n2631439
******************************************************My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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