Thursday, February 18, 2021



COVID-19 Budget Cuts Hit Students and Profs, Not Admins

It only took a global pandemic to force public and private universities to cut their spending.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that about 650,000 jobs were cut in the higher ed sector—a 14 percent decline. An analysis from The Chronicle of Higher Education on the budgets of about 100 top colleges pegged their losses at $183 billion:

* $85 billion in lost revenues
* $24 billion for Covid-related expenses
* $74 billion in anticipated future decreases in state funding

That figure may be optimistic, as budgets for 2021 aren’t yet settled and state legislatures may cut more. Donations, too, have plummeted, as fundraising has taken a hit during the pandemic.

But critics of higher ed don’t necessarily have much to celebrate just yet.

Job cuts have mostly targeted professors and kept university administrators comfortable. Diversity-related spending doesn’t seem threatened even when it’s hard to see the benefits, and universities have pledged to fight systemic racism and be “anti-racist” since last summer. And, while some universities have cut athletics programs, they tended to be smaller ones like track or swimming, not larger ones like football or basketball. Some schools like East Carolina University even reinstated athletic teams after announcing their end.

Young people, too, aren’t fleeing higher ed to make the edifices crumble on the quad. While enrollments have dipped, that’s mostly happened at community colleges: Fall 2020 enrollment fell by 10 percent compared to a year ago, but four-year public colleges grew slightly by 0.2 percent. Many community colleges face some big problems, but traditional higher ed isn’t facing twin enrollment and budget crises.

Not to be a passive player in this drama, the Biden administration has pushed to send $40 billion to public colleges as part of the COVID-19 relief package. If it passes, the bill would also limit how much state governments can cut higher ed spending.

In the future, budget battles (on the state and federal levels) will continue, as will students asking why they must pay so much in tuition and fees, especially as classes remain online. But, while the higher ed lobby demands another $120 billion, the unanswered question remains: Why do American colleges think they should spend more money every year?

Many colleges are teaching less, researching more, and spending ever-more amounts on the administrative apparatus and athletic programs. Students bear the burden of this increase in spending. State and federal governments, if they want to prioritize the common good, should pause and consider how this relief money will be spent. If students and professors bear the brunt of budget cuts instead of admins and coaches, perhaps relief money only encourages the worst instincts of higher ed’s status quo.

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UK: Top colleges at Oxford are in the grip of 'unconscious bias' training: More departments force students and staff to undergo classes to root out hidden racist behaviour

More Oxford colleges and departments are forcing students and staff to have 'unconscious bias training' to root out hidden racist behaviour – even though there's no evidence that it works.

The Government insists that the training 'does not achieve its intended aims', could make discrimination issues worse, and should be axed by the public sector.

Yet the courses remain popular, including at Somerville, Margaret Thatcher's former Oxford college, where students were ordered to pass a test in which they had to concede that a black lecturer would be more unpopular than white colleagues.

Following an outcry, Somerville's principal, Lady Royall, said students would no longer be compelled to take the course, but other colleges are still insisting undergraduates and dons complete the often 'poor quality and ineffective' training.

The Cabinet Office says of unconscious bias training: 'A strong body of evidence has emerged that shows that such training has no sustained impact on behaviour and may even be counter-productive.

'Instructions to suppress stereotypes may not only activate and reinforce unhelpful stereotypes, they may provoke negative reactions and actually make people exacerbate their biases.'

However, Christ Church, Oxford's grandest college, said 'key priorities' this year include 'compulsory enhanced training on topics such as cultural competency, unconscious bias, and race equality to all students... as well as for non-academic and academic staff'.

Balliol College, alma mater of Boris Johnson, Ted Heath and Harold Macmillan, said last year it was 'expanding the mandatory programme of unconscious bias/tackling race bias training to include all academic staff'.

Oxford's Nuffield Department of Medicine also offers 'mandatory' unconscious bias training for all staff, to help them minimise the 'destructive impact' of discriminatory attitudes. The Radcliffe Department of Medicine says staff must complete similar training.

The University of Cambridge also offers unconscious bias training, but it is only compulsory for those involved in staff recruitment, a spokesman said.

Robert Halfon, Tory chairman of the Commons education committee, said 'there is no evidence' that the training programmes work, adding: 'Universities should be using the money they spend on these courses in helping to get in students from the toughest backgrounds.'

The news came as Education Secretary Gavin Williamson revealed details of proposals to protect free speech on campuses in response to issues such as the stigmatisation of those with 'non-woke' views.

He wants a 'free speech champion' to investigate infringements, such as the dismissal of academics or no-platforming speakers – denying those with non-woke views the chance to debate them.

A University of Oxford spokesman said: 'Unconscious bias training is one of a range of resources available to staff. 'There is ongoing public debate about unconscious bias training and Oxford staff are free to challenge and question it under our Freedom of Speech policies.'

A Christ Church spokesman said it was one of 'a number of initiatives at Christ Church as part of our broader commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion', adding: 'Unconscious bias training has been compulsory at Christ Church for several years. This year we reviewed and refreshed what is provided.'

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A new madrassa: Margaret Thatcher's old Oxford college Somerville makes all students take an 'unconscious bias' test... and warns students they must get 100pc mark

Every student at Margaret Thatcher’s old Oxford college was ordered to take a course in ‘unconscious bias’ to expose innate ‘racism, homophobia, transphobia and disability discrimination’.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon, principal of Somerville College, instructed students to complete the online class by this Friday, and told them they must ‘achieve a mark of 100 per cent’ in a final test.

In her message the Labour peer, 65, who served in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet, also claimed there was ‘irrefutable evidence’ that injustices in society were being fanned by ‘individual unconscious biases that many or all of us have’.

During the test used by Somerville College, seen by the Daily Mail, students must admit that they are ‘susceptible to bias’ and need to ‘accept responsibility for monitoring our own behaviours’.

They are also forced to admit to suffering from the bizarrely-named ‘mini-me syndrome’, because they ‘automatically favour’ people like themselves.

In one section, students must concede that a black lecturer would be more likely to be disliked by students than her white colleagues.

In another section, they are also told that thinking their tutor ‘doesn’t look smart’ and is ‘a bit unprofessional’ may not be appropriate.

Lady Royall’s letter and the accompanying test prompted the Free Speech Union (FSU) campaign group to warn that her orders could be a breach of both the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.

The Somerville College course presents a question about whether a black or white lecturer has the least satisfied class.

Students are told to use ‘what they know about unconscious bias’ to make a selection. The options are two white men, a white woman and a black woman.

After clicking on the image of the black woman, the course says this is the correct answer, citing research that ‘indicates students are less likely to rate courses positively if they are taught by black or ethnic minority academics’.

The course asserts that ‘stereotyping is present in our unconscious and affects everyone at a university’. It claims that ‘it can be difficult to override your unconscious biases when you are not aware of them’.

It suggests that all students ‘accept in general terms that we are all likely to be biased in some respects’.

FSU general secretary Toby Young said the organisation had been contacted by a student who was ‘understandably anxious that if they refuse to take this training course, or if they score less than 100 per cent in the assessment at the end of the course, they may face disciplinary action’.

He added that evidence suggests that such courses do not lead to ‘a reduction in real-world discriminatory behaviour and can lead to an increase in such behaviour’.

Last night friends of Lady Thatcher, who studied chemistry at the then women-only college in the 1940s, said the training flew in the face of her libertarian beliefs.

Sir Bernard Ingham, the former PM’s long-time press secretary, commented: ‘I think it is entirely in keeping with the university that refused her an honorary degree. The best way to deal with them is to laugh at them.

‘She would have thought the country had gone mad. She believed in freedom, these people don’t, they believe in dictatorship. To hell with them!’

Last night, Somerville College backed down in the face of the FSU challenge, with Lady Royall saying she should have ‘thought further’ about her order that all students must score 100 per cent.

She wrote in reply to the FSU: ‘On reflection, it has been agreed that completing the test with less than 100 per cent will be seen as the opportunity for a chat about the issues involved, nothing more.’

After initially telling students they were ‘required to complete this course’, Lady Royall also said she was ‘happy to confirm that there was never even the slightest question of disciplinary action following a student not completing the test or scoring less than 100 per cent’.

Defending the ideology behind the course, she said it was ‘clearly incontestable that a plethora of systemic injustices exist in our society’. She emphasised the college’s commitment to free speech.

Responding to Somerville’s U-turn, Mr Young said: ‘I am pleased Baroness Royall has backed down on her insistence that students have to score 100 per cent on the test. ‘But she still says students who score less than 100 per cent will have to come in for a chat, which sounds ominous.’

The row comes as many universities and student unions are being accused of trying to enforce Left-wing ‘woke’ values across supposedly impartial institutions.

Today Education Secretary Gavin Williamson will unveil his plans for a ‘free speech champion’, who will work to fight censorship on campus and stick up for academics who find themselves vilified.

The tsar will work within universities regulator the Office for Students, now chaired by former Tory MP Lord Wharton of Yarm.

Recent examples of cancel culture include students at Clare College, Cambridge, trying to force a porter out of his job after he declined to support a pro-trans motion in his role as a city councillor.

Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd was also ‘no-platformed’ by an Oxford University society last year. The society was later banned.

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Florida teacher is being investigated after telling his class slaves weren't whipped and the n-word is not hate speech as it 'just means ignorant'

A Florida high school has launched an investigation after viral TikTok videos showed a teacher telling his class that slaves were not whipped by white people and that the n-word is not offensive as it 'just means ignorant'.

The unidentified teacher was overseeing an Advanced Placement government course at Island Coast High School in Cape Coral when the videos were allegedly recorded and posted online by a student on Friday.

It shows the black student, who posts under the username Hector Fortillien, in selfie mode as he interacts with the teacher who threatens to throw him out if he doesn't stop arguing back about the treatment of slaves.

In a later video, the teacher tells a female student that it is not hate speech to state that a woman's place is in the home.

The videos range between 28 and 38 seconds long and it is not clear if the teacher or the other students in the room knew they were being recorded.

They appear to capture different parts of a discussion that was taking place as part of the class.

In the first video, which the student captioned 'ap gov gets interesting sometimes', it begins with another student talking about how white people 'would crack the slaves with the whips'.

'They wouldn't do that to the slaves,' the teacher responds.

'How do you know that? Were you there?' the student filming asks and laughs.

'Let me help you out with your … ok, before I kick you out,' the teacher tells him.

'If you want to have an honest conversation, let's have an honest conversation about it…That's what I want. That's what we're here in AP for.'

At the start of the second video, the teacher asks, 'if I call somebody the N-word what am I calling them?'

'The n-word?' a confused student asks.

'No,' the teacher insists. 'The N-word just means ignorant. It doesn't have any other meaning in any other vocabulary other than you are a stupid person. You are ignorant. You are not well read. You are not well educated. That's what it means.'

'Yes, there's more,' the student wrote as he posted the third video on Friday.

In this clip, a female student is heard talking about an incident in which a man asked why a woman was working and said that she should have been cooking and cleaning instead. 'That's hate speech because that attacks women,' she states.

Again, the teacher disagrees and says, 'to you that's hate speech'.

'But that could be hate speech to a lot of other women because that would have offended me. That would have offended a lot of the other girls in the room,' another student chimes in.

The student filming asks 'why don't you apply it to the N-word, too, because that might be hate speech to me, but it won't be hate speech to you regardless of our skin color obviously'

'That's a good point,' the teacher tells him before the video is cut off.

The Lee County school district is currently refusing to name the teacher involved but he has been placed on leave as the videos are investigated, according to Fox 4.

Island Coast High School said in a tweet on Sunday that they are 'aware' of the videos and that it is 'currently under investigation'.

According to the News Press, the school lists ten teachers in the social studies department but does not specify grades or the content taught.

The class in question was an AP course with offers college-level work, offering the chance for students to earn college credit.

Island Coast High school board chair Debbie Jordan told the News Press that the video had been sent to 'professional standards to be investigated'.

'We are definitely investigating this, as we would anything that would come before us,' she added.

School board member Gwyn Gittens added that she was unaware of the identity of the teacher in the video but that they acted as a reminded that the district 'has a lot of work to do'.

'We are very short of teachers,' she said. 'I understand that, but we need to vet the few that we have to make sure that they're doing what it is that needs to be done.'

Gittens said she was particularly concerned as she believed the class had the potential to leave the students 'more divided than they came in'.

'That's where we have to look at what is our responsibility as adults in this situation and what lesson has been left in these kids,' she added.

The videos sparked immediate reaction on social media with comedian Leslie Jones stating she 'needs this teacher's resignation immediately'.

'I'm sick of it. Most of what is in the textbooks is already racially biased... add this IGNORANCE to it and this is what you get. I am no longer letting people get away with it,' she added.

'Do better than investigate,' Twitter user Laura Bowman also wrote in response to the high school's statement. 'We all heard what he said, and it's cause for dismissal.'

'How is this guy a teacher,' another Twitter user asked.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

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://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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