I remember how it was -- JR
Diversity director fired for questioning California college’s anti-racism policies, she claims
A black director of a “woke” California college’s Office of Equity, Social Justice and Multicultural Education claims she was fired for questioning the institution’s anti-racism “orthodoxy” and what the term “anti-racism” even means.
Dr. Tabia Lee said De Anza College, a community college in Cupertino, retaliated after she objected to several campus policies aimed at inclusion.
“I was working in a California community college, and I noticed that there was a lot of resistance to my even asking questions about anti-racism, policy efforts and language,” Lee told nonprofit Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.
“And I just purely wanted to know what folks meant when they were using those terms. And I encountered a lot of hostility a lot of resistance to me even asking question.”
She told Higher Ed she was canned after declining to join a “socialist network,” objected to the college’s land acknowledgments for an Indigenous tribe and questioned why the word “Black” was capitalized but not “white.”
Additionally, Additionally, Lee said she refused to use the gender-neutral terms “Latinx” and “Filipinx” because of her belief they only fuel racism.
“I find that the same toxic ideologies around race ideologies are now being advanced under gender ideologies,” Lee said, according to the outlet.
“I also find that the constant obsession with pronouns and declaration of pronouns causes deep discomfort for individuals who identify as gender fluid or who struggle with gender dysphoria.”
A colleague of Lee’s also accused the black faculty member of “white speaking,” “whitesplaining” and supporting white supremacy.
The school has a very different reason for firing Lee, however.
In a letter obtained by Higher Ed, district chancellor Judy Miner wrote Lee showed a “persistent inability to demonstrate cooperation in working with colleagues and staff” and an “unwillingness to accept constructive criticism.”
De Anza College voted Tuesday not to re-employ Lee, who started at the school in 2021, for the next academic year.
Lee claims she felt backlash from administrators shortly after she started the position.
They finally saw a reason to fire her when she published a Feb. 18 essay published in “Journal of Free Black Thought” stating: “Under the banner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, in many learning environments a neo-reconstructionist race(ist) orthodoxy has emerged that actively works to suppress and exclude alternative frameworks, methods, ways and means for dealing with American education’s race(ist) problem.”
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The University of Michigan Is in a DEI Mess
Policies that divide Americans by race, or increase their perception of racial differences, spawn tribalism, separation, and hatred.
Although black and Hispanic enrollment rose slightly [at U of M], students are increasingly avoiding students of other races, ethnicities, and political views.
The DEI administrators at the University of Michigan have chosen small tribes over greater uniting principles. No wonder its students are unhappy.
Read many of America’s greatest writers about race and legal equality, and you’ll find a similar theme: policies that divide Americans by race, or increase their perception of racial differences, spawn tribalism, separation, and hatred.
Frederick Douglass warned that policies fostering racial identity, rather than shared American values, sow “dangerous seeds of discontent and hatred.” Justice Thomas Cooley wrote that distinctions based on race would “assail the very foundations of [our] government.” Justice John Marshall Harlan said that nothing could “more certainly arouse race hate” and “a feeling of distrust between these races” than segregationist polices. And Justice Antonin Scalia, quoting Professor Alexander Bickel, called racially discriminatory policies “destructive of a democratic society.”
Scores of others, like Thomas Sowell, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Shelby Steele, have said the same.
The University of Michigan did not listen to them, and it is learning its lesson the hard way.
As reported in The Michigan Review, one of the university’s student-run publications, the school launched a major Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiative in 2016 that made racial identity a key focus for all of the school’s programs and vastly increased the size of its DEI bureaucracy.
At the same time, the school conducted Campus Climate Surveys of its students. Comparing those surveys to ones conducted in 2021 reveals some of the harmful effects of that initiative. Students are increasingly self-segregating. Although black and Hispanic enrollment rose slightly, students are increasingly avoiding students of other races, ethnicities, and political views. The Michigan Review reports:
The number of students who interacted with people of different political persuasions decreased by more than 11 percent, of different religious beliefs by over 9 percent, of a different national origin by 5 percent, and of different races by more than 3 percent.
Students are also increasingly unhappy.
By nearly every metric in the survey, students have become less happy since the beginning of DEI 1.0. They are less likely to believe that U-M has an institutional commitment to DEI and less likely to feel valued or that they belong on campus. The number of students who felt that they were treated fairly and equitably at Michigan fell by over 3 percent. Finally, the number of students satisfied with the campus climate overall fell by almost 11 percent.
The only thing that hasn’t changed, likely to the chagrin of the University’s DEI administrators, is students’ feelings about the racial climate on campus.
The school is about to launch a new DEI initiative, and this time it ought to pay some attention to the great minds quoted above.
Frederick Douglass offered advice in a 1867 speech called “The Composite Nation.” Much of his wisdom is directly applicable to modern universities. Let’s hope they take it.
Americans in 1867, Douglass said, “def[ied] all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision, no man can remember.” Then, as now, the country was “of all extremes, ends and opposites.”
What policy, he asked, should the nation adopt towards its many ethnic groups, which were only increasing?
The answer, he said, could not be racial separation: “Those races of men which have maintained the most separate and distinct existence … are a standing confirmation of the folly of isolation.” Besides, America had tried that already. It had previously chosen to be governed “by race pride, rather than by wisdom.” And that policy “filled the country with agitation and ill-feeling and brought the nation to the verge of ruin.”
This was entirely predictable. After all, prejudice “is an ancient feeling among men … peculiar to no particular race or nation.” But that is no reason to accept it, Douglass argued.
Instead, he urged Americans to embrace America’s founding principle, “that is the principle of absolute equality.” That principle transcends base and arbitrary classifications like skin color: “Man is man, the world over,” and we have much more in common than not.
Rather than adopt policies that separate us along racial lines, we ought to receive all others “as friends and give them a reason for loving our country and our institutions.” In fact, Douglass argued that we must adopt such a policy.
A nation like ours, unique in the world for its diversity of color and creed, has only two paths before it. On the one hand, it can tolerate tribalism and, in that case, allow “the very soil of the national mind [to become] barren,” or, on the other, it can set aside tribes and unite a disparate people under a greater principle.
It is worth remembering that these were the words of a former slave who had every reason to be resentful and to think that America’s founding principle was false. But he did not. Instead, he believed that root of the evil he suffered “was never our system or form of Government, or the principles underlying it; but the peculiar composition of our people, the relations existing between them and the compromising spirit which controlled the ruling power of the country.”
The principles were noble, the people were not. But if the people actually lived up to their principles, they could be.
Our nation, he said, “will be great, or it will be small, according to its own essential qualities.” So, we ought to adopt essential qualities greater than our small, divisive tribal loyalties.
The DEI administrators at the University of Michigan have chosen small tribes over greater uniting principles. No wonder its students are unhappy and self-segregating. Nothing at the University of Michigan inspires them to something greater than human nature’s petty tribal instinct.
The solution is not a new DEI plan, or more anti-racism initiatives, or segregated dormitories and graduation ceremonies. The solution is “the principle of absolute equality,” which is the only path away from human nature’s tendency toward petty prejudice.
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Andrew Tate is flooding Australian schoolboys with an aggressive ideology contemptuous of feminist correctness
Tate has shown the emperor to have no clothes. There is no considered guide to healthy masculinity. There is nothing to replace his message. Masculinity is simply attacked by elite writers
A prominent principal has warned schools are contending with a “tsunami” of misogynistic digital trends and revealed they are tackling the problem with in-house education programs to specifically address the rise of so-called ”mega misogynist” Andrew Tate.
Tate, the former professional kickboxer turned king of “toxic masculinity’’ has amassed a huge global following on social media sprouting his extreme anti-feminist, alpha male views.
Youth workers say Tate, currently in a Romanian jail under investigation for human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group, has emerged as a key influencer of 11-17 year old boys.
St Joseph’s Nudgee College principal Peter Fullagar, 62, said Tate had been on the school’s radar for the past 12 to 18 months and discussions about him had been incorporated into its educational programs.
“There is a tsunami working against us to be fair. It is relentless,’’ Fullagar said.
“We do talk to boys about Andrew Tate and rather than say, ‘Don’t go there’ and try to shut it down, we want to learn why boys are attracted to his message.
“As schools, as educators, we are working really hard to give boys an opposite message.
“We are dealing with young boys‘ behaviour all the time through mistakes they make in and around misogynistic behaviour, homophobic language, racial comments, bullying and harassment. It is part of young people’s landscape today.
“The power of social media has come at us in a rush over the past 10 years so schools are continually responding and refining responses. If it’s Andrew Tate currently, it will be a bigger name in a couple of years time.’’
Fullagar said his school’s established Student Formation Program covered a range of issues including respectful relationships, the definition of masculinity, mental health and wellbeing, risk taking, drugs, issues of consent, social media and being safe in the online environment. Andrew Tate was discussed in the context of social media and what it means to be a young man in today’s world.
St Paul’s School, a coeducational private school north of Brisbane, is also aware of Tate’s influence. Headmaster Dr Paul Browning said young people were bombarded with negative social media messages.
“The temptations are right there in their face, in their bedroom at night time. Unfortunately, undesirable influences follow them into that space,’’ Browning said.
“You can’t ignore it and we have strong programs at the school to help with social and emotional development of young people and the development of their character. We’re not just interested in a child’s academic achievement but also the type of people they are becoming.’’
St Paul’s executive director of Faith and Community Nigel Grant said he first became aware of Tate about a year ago when year nine boys “tried to shock me’’ during a school wellbeing program called The Rite Journey. “We are trying to be on the front foot on this,’’ he said.
“We were having a conversation with year nine boys about what it means to be a man, asking who they respected and who were their heroes. It was in that context that Andrew Tate’s name came up.
“The boys had heard all about him and were aware of the power to shock adults. Some had been impressed by some of the stuff he was saying.
“I was suitably naive but quickly became well informed and, as a group of teachers, we addressed the issue directly and tried to produce a suitable counter message.
“We are regularly shocked but rarely surprised at the content young people see. The internet is like the wild, wild west. Even the best filters can be worked around and children are particularly vulnerable.’’
QUT Professor of sociology Michael Flood, an expert in engaging men in violence prevention, men and masculinities, said schools must be proactive in dealing with toxic social media influencers.
“Schools have an absolutely central role to play particularly through respectful relationships education in inoculating young people against the sexism and the misogyny that Tate and others preach,’’ Flood said.
“Conversations about influencers like Tate should be going on in schools and certainly growing numbers of teachers are forced to have those conversations whether they want to or not because boys and young men are repeating some of the things that Tate claims.’’
A Department of Education Queensland spokesperson said the Respectful Relationships Education Program has been available in Queensland schools since 2017.
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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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