Friday, August 21, 2020




The Progressive Racism of the Ivy League

If the definition of racism is deliberate discrimination based on race, color or national origin, Yale University appears to be a textbook case of "systemic racism."

And, so, the Department of Justice contends.

Last week, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband charged, "Yale discriminates based on race... in its undergraduate admissions process and race is the determinative factor in hundreds of admissions decisions each year.

"Asian Americans and whites have only one-tenth to one-fourth of the likelihood of admission as African American applicants with comparable academic credentials...

"Yale uses race at multiple steps of its admissions process resulting in a multiplied effect of race on an applicant's likelihood of admission.

"Yale racially balances its classes."

Yale defends this admissions policy by claiming it considers the "whole person" -- leadership, a likelihood students "will contribute to the Yale Community and the world," and, says Yale President Peter Salovey, "a student body whose diversity is a mark of its excellence."

Yet, somehow, when all these factors are considered, the higher-scoring Asian and white students invariably come up short, because the racial composition of Yale's incoming classes remains roughly the same every year.

The Justice Department refused to wave its big stick -- a threat to cut off tax dollars that go yearly to Yale. Incidentally, Yale sits on an endowment of some $30 billion -- second only to Harvard's.

A court case alleging that Harvard emulates Yale, or vice versa, and admits Black and brown students whose test scores would instantly disqualify white and Asian students is headed for the Supreme Court.

At the heart of this dispute over diversity are basic questions, the resolution of which will affect the long-term unity of the American nation.

Is discrimination against white students in favor of Black students with far lower test scores morally acceptable if done to advance racial "diversity"?

And, if so, for how long? Forever?

Is it praiseworthy to advance Hispanic applicants over Asian applicants with far higher test scores and academic achievements?

Why? What did these Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese high school seniors do to deserve discrimination in the country to which their parents came where, supposedly, "All men are created equal"?

President Lyndon Johnson first formally introduced this notion of benevolent racial discrimination. Addressing D.C.'s Howard University in 1965, LBJ said in a speech written by Richard Goodwin, "We seek... not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result."

But what if equality of opportunity, an equal chance at the starting line, fails to produce equality of results?

What if Black Americans dominate America's most richly rewarded sports such as the NBA and NFL, while Asians and whites excel in academic pursuits and on admissions exams at Yale and Harvard?

Why is it right to discriminate against working-class white kids from Middle America in favor of urban and middle-class Black kids in admissions to prestige colleges?

If so, what does social justice mean? Who defines it?

In California, the state legislature has put on the ballot a measure to overturn the ban on all racial and ethnic discrimination that was voted into California's Constitution in Proposition 209 in 1996.

That prohibition reads:

"The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."

What Californians said in 1996 was: No discrimination means no discrimination.

Civil rights activist Ward Connerly, who is fighting the repeal of Prop 209, argues that while street mobs may be tearing down statues, West Coast liberals are tearing down the principle of equality.

It is the character of the republic that is at issue here.

If Asian Americans, outnumbered 5 to 1 by Black and Hispanic Americans, can be indefinitely discriminated against, this would appear to be the very definition of "un-American."

And if white Americans, the shrinking majority of the nation and a minority in our most populous states, can indefinitely be discriminated against in favor of people of color, they will eventually embrace the tribal politics of race and identity that would risk the breakup of the union, as is happening in Europe and around the world.

The taproot of progressive racism is LBJ's Executive Order 11246. This altered the meaning of "affirmative action" from guaranteeing the equality of opportunity to bringing about an equality of "results."

President Donald Trump, before or after Nov. 3, should convene with Ward Connerly and ask him to redefine "affirmative action" to mean exactly what its original author, JFK, intended it to mean.

As for Yale and other Ivy League universities, it is an indictment of conservatives who have held executive power often in the past 50 years that they have not chopped federal funding for these bastions of progressive racism.

SOURCE 






Most Mass. students will be required to get the flu vaccine this year

In what is believed to be a first in the nation, Massachusetts on Wednesday mandated that nearly all students under the age of 30 get a flu vaccine by the end of this year amid fears that concurrent outbreaks of influenza and COVID-19 in the fall could overwhelm the state’s health care system.

The mandate, hailed by public health experts nationwide, requires the vaccination for anyone 6 months or older in child care centers, preschool, kindergarten, K-12 schools, and colleges and universities, unless they have a religious or medical exemption, are home-schooled, or are a higher education student living off campus and taking remote-only classes.

Elementary and secondary students whose schools are pursuing remote-only models this fall are not exempt.

State officials said that requiring the vaccine is “an important step to reduce flu-related illness and the overall impact of respiratory illness” during the COVID-19 pandemic. In New England, flu season usually begins in the fall and lasts through March.

“Every year, thousands of people of all ages are affected by influenza, leading to many hospitalizations and deaths,” said Dr. Larry Madoff, medical director for the state health department’s Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences. “It is more important now than ever to get a flu vaccine because flu symptoms are very similar to those of COVID-19 and preventing the flu will save lives and preserve healthcare resources.”

Massachusetts has about 1 million children enrolled in K-12 schools, according to state records. About 81 percent of those age 17 and younger received a flu shot in the 2018-19 year — the highest rate in the nation — according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are another half-million attending colleges in Massachusetts, and the new mandate could prove challenging for health officials to enforce, especially among the sizable number of students who travel here from other states and countries.

The rule is also likely to encounter resistance from elements of the population who oppose vaccines for themselves or their children.

Keri Rodrigues, founding president of Massachusetts Parents United, an urban parent advocacy organization, said that while she favors more vaccination for students, the state’s mandate must be followed by a clear plan and resources to see it through.

“Parents are already under enormous pressure and anxiety and are dealing with a lot,” she said. “I’m just hoping our elected officials have a robust plan and a big check to make sure this happens.”

Health care leaders applauded the new rule, saying it will help relieve already burdened hospitals. As students return to schools and colleges, hospitals are also thinking about the arrival of seasonal respiratory viruses. Whenever there is a bad flu season, hospitals fill up. Now they will have to make room for COVID-19 patients, as well.

“The upcoming flu season is of major concern to our healthcare providers, which are already working around the clock to prepare for a second wave of COVID-19,” Steve Walsh, president of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association said in a statement.

“We appreciate the Baker administration’s proactive focus on areas like classrooms, where a flu outbreak could further harm the health of our communities and overwhelm our hospitals,” he said. “Just like wearing a mask and social distancing, getting a flu shot is a simple but powerful way to help our healthcare community through what will be a very challenging fall.”

Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said science shows children transmit more flu virus than adults and for longer periods of time, making this flu mandate critical, especially amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We know that children have the distribution franchise for the influenza virus in the community. They spread it among themselves and bring it home,” Schaffner said.

The Massachusetts flu vaccine mandate is “distinctly unusual and wonderful,” he said.

The Immunization Action Coalition, a Minnesota nonprofit that tracks vaccination regulations nationwide, said that while a handful of states require flu vaccines for childcare and preschool-aged children, none have mandated it for nearly all students.

Now, some public health experts hope other states will be inspired to follow Massachusetts’ lead.

“Every state looks to see what their peer states are doing and each state tries to learn from another,” said Dr. Howard Koh, a former Massachusetts public health commissioner who was an assistant health secretary in the Obama administration.

“This [mandate],” Koh said, “is how change occurs.”

Tom Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, said the flu-shot requirement made sense, noting that reducing the chances of students becoming sick could also decrease false alarms about possible COVID infections.

“I think there is merit to having kids protected as much as we can,” he said.

Doreen Crowe, president of the Massachusetts School Nurse Organization, said in a statement that the organization “supports preventative measures to keep children healthy, safe, and ready to learn.”

“It will be important for school districts to collaborate with health care providers and local boards of health to insure students are in compliance with the new flu vaccine requirement,” she said.

Massachusetts already has a program that pays for local health departments and school districts to buy and administer flu shots for children 18 and younger who rely on state-funded health insurance. And Rodrigues, the parent advocate, said it is imperative now to ensure those resources are going to communities of color and lower-income areas, which have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials need to ensure that “health centers have the vaccine, the supplies they need and that they can handle the surge of parents that will need to meet this requirement,” Rodrigues said, adding that it could serve as a trial run to make sure the COVID-19 vaccine is available and providers are prepared when it is released.

The state must also make its information clear and accessible to those communities, she added, because Black Americans are among the most skeptical of the safety of vaccines, recent surveys have shown.

SOURCE 





Back to Academic Brainwashing

Parents, legislators, taxpayers, and others footing the bill for college education might be interested in just what is in store for the upcoming academic year. Since many college classes will be online, there is a chance to witness professors indoctrinating their students in real-time. So, there's a chance that some college faculty might change their behavior. To see recent examples of campus nonsense and indoctrination, visit the Campus Reform and College Fix websites.

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley warned congressional lawmakers that Antifa is "winning" and that much of academia, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is complicit in its success." In his testimony before Congress Turley said: "To Antifa, people like me are the personification of the classical liberal view of free speech that perpetuates a system of oppression and abuse. I wish I could say that my view remains strongly implanted in our higher educational institutions. However, you are more likely to find public supporters for restricting free speech than you are to find defenders of free speech principles on many campuses."

The leftist bias at our colleges and universities has many harmful effects. A University of California, Davis, mathematics professor faced considerable backlash over her opposition to the requirement for "diversity statements" from potential faculty. Those seeking employment at the University of California, San Diego, are required to admit that "barriers" prevent women and minorities from full participation in campus life. At American University, a history professor wrote a book calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. A Rutgers University professor said, "Watching the Iowa Caucus is a sickening display of the over-representation of whiteness." A Williams College professor has advocated for the inclusion of social justice in math textbooks. Students at Wayne State University are no longer required to take a single math course to graduate; however, they may soon be required to take a diversity course.

Maybe some students will be forced into sharing the vision of Professor Laurie Rubel, a math education professor at Brooklyn College. She says the idea of cultural neutrality in math is a "myth," and that asking whether 2 plus 2 equals 4 "reeks of white supremacist patriarchy." She tweeted, "Y'all must know that the idea that math is objective or neutral IS A MYTH." Math professors and academics at other universities, including Harvard and the University of Illinois, discussed the "Eurocentric" roots of American mathematics. As for me, I would like to see the proof, in any culture, that 2 + 2 is something other than 4.

Rutgers University's English department chairwoman, Rebecca Walkowitz, announced changes to the Department's graduate writing program emphasizing "social justice" and "critical grammar." Leonydus Johnson, a speech-language pathologist, and libertarian activist says Walkowitz's changes make the assumption that minorities cannot understand traditional and grammatically correct English speech and writing, which is "insulting, patronizing, and in itself, extremely racist."

Then there is the nonsense taught on college campuses about white privilege. The idea of white privilege doesn't explain why several historically marginalized groups outperform whites today. For example, Japanese Americans suffered under the Alien Land Law of 1913 and other racist exclusionary laws legally preventing them from owning land and property in more than a dozen American states until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned. However, by 1959, the income disparity between Japanese Americans and white Americans had almost disappeared. Today, Japanese Americans outperform white Americans by large margins in income statistics, education outcomes, and test scores, and have much lower incarceration rates.

According to Rav Arora, writing for the New York Post, several black immigrant groups such as Nigerians, Trinidadians, and Tobagonians, Barbadians, and Ghanaians all "have a median household income well above the American average." We are left with the question of whether the people handing out "white privilege" made a mistake. The other alternative is that Japanese Americans, Nigerians, Barbadians, Ghanaians, and Trinidadians, and Tobagonians are really white Americans.

The bottom line is that more Americans need to pay attention to the miseducation of our youth and that miseducation is not limited to higher education.

SOURCE 






Trump's Campaign For Fairness In College Admissions

The outcome of November's election will likely determine the role of racial preferences in the college admissions process. Voters have a clear choice. The Trump administration wants an applicant's grades and achievements to matter most. The Obama-Biden administration had urged colleges to tilt the scale in favor of minority applicants. Now Joe Biden is doubling down on that position by selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate. Harris has persistently advocated for giving Black and Latino college applicants favored treatment.

In California, racial preferences literally will appear on the ballot in November. Voters will be asked whether or not they want to repeal a part of the state's constitution that bans discrimination in public college admissions and bans hiring based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin. Harris supports the repeal and instead legalizing discrimination and making it possible for the University of California to favor Black and Latino applicants over white and Asian applicants.

As California attorney general, she urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold racial preferences at the University of Texas and at public colleges in Michigan.

On the other hand, Donald Trump is battling to overturn racial preferences in college admissions everywhere.

On Thursday, Trump's Department of Justice gave Yale University two weeks to abandon its preferential scheme or face a federal lawsuit. DOJ found that Yale's admissions process resembles a quota system. Asian American and white students have one-tenth to one-fourth the chance of being admitted as African American applicants with similar academic credentials, according to DOJ.

The Trump administration is also battling Harvard's race-conscious admissions process. Harvard prevailed in a lower court, but an appeal is pending. If Trump wins reelection, count on this issue reaching the Supreme Court, where a 5-4 victory against racial preferences is likely.

The justices have managed to equivocate on the issue for years. But newly appointed Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch are expected to oppose preferences. Chief Justice John Roberts, often a swing vote, also opposes them. "It's a sordid business, this divvying us up by race" he's written. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discrimination on the basis of race."

On the other hand, Biden sees nothing wrong with discrimination. He's even promised to limit his first Supreme Court pick to black women only. If the Biden-Harris ticket wins, expect lawsuits against colleges to stop and widespread use of race preferences to thrive.

That would be a shame. College admissions can be a tool to give disadvantaged youngsters a leg up. But race is an imperfect proxy. It sometimes winds up helping the African American child of a college professor or business executive over a white kid from Appalachia or an Asian student at Bronx High School of Science whose parents are factory workers.

Racial preferences split us instead of uniting us. Trump's DOJ told Yale, "There is no such thing as a nice form of race discrimination." It "fosters stereotypes, bitterness and division." Ask any high school senior who's worked tirelessly to get into a college only to be rejected while less accomplished minority classmates get in.

Despite the moral complexity of the issue, if you dare question it, the thought police will come after you. When University of Pittsburgh cardiologist Dr. Norman Wang argued in the Journal of the American Heart Association that medical school applicants should be assessed based on their individual merits, "not their racial or ethnic identities," he was made to pay big time. The University stripped him of his administrative position, while his academic colleagues cowered in silence.

The good news is you can oppose racial preferences without risking the same fate as Dr. Wang. All you have to do is vote. And the best thing about voting is that it's secret. A vote for Biden-Harris will perpetuate racial preferences on campus. A vote for Trump will help restore the vision of a nation committed to colorblind justice, where individuals are judged by their achievements, not their skin color. The decision is up to you.

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