Monthly Archives: October 2023

Abigail Shrier Speaks on Grounds, Sparks Protest and Controversy Among Students

Posted on October 14, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Another excellent article from our friends at The Jefferson Independent….

by Christine Schueckler

HATE HAS NO HOME AT UVA. The words have been plastered all over UVA Grounds for the past week, stretching from the first-year dorms to lampposts on the Corner and covering every pillar of Minor Hall. A series of brightly colored posters, beginning boldly with “HEY ABIGAIL,” protest The Jefferson Council’s invitation of Abigail Shrier, an award-winning journalist, to speak at UVA about her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters on Wednesday, October 11 at 7 P.M. The talk was co-sponsored by other conservative groups affiliated with the university, the UVA chapter of Young Americans for Freedom and the Common Sense Society, which only added fuel to the flames.

Dozens of students have posted the link to register for the event on their social media accounts, encouraging students to reserve tickets without attending the event in hopes of leaving Shrier with an empty room. The Editorial Board of the Cavalier Daily has similarly released an opinion article asserting that “certain types of speech simply should not be tolerated here on Grounds,” encouraging students to exercise their own right to free speech by protesting Shrier’s presence on Grounds. Per the picture above, the communal blackboard in Bryan Hall has also been branded with a scaldingly sarcastic advertisement for the talk (image blurred due to profane language), complete with air quotations and little hearts. (It may be interesting to note that JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE is scrawled right next to this announcement in massive, angry letters.)  Continue reading.

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Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

A Conversation on Israel with Victoria Coates

Posted on October 14, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Our friends at the Open Discourse Coalition at Bucknell University invite Jefferson Council members and friends to a zoom session featuring Victoria Coates, a former national security advisor to Donald Trump.

Students and attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions about the terrorist attacks against Israelis and the implications on foreign policy and national security. Dr. Coates’ expertise is informed by her time as Deputy National Security Advisor for the Middle East and North Africa, overseeing the Maximum Pressure Campaign against Iran and initiating the negotiations for the Abraham Accords.

Register here.

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Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

“Seeking a Better World” by Defending the Beheaders of Babies

Posted on October 13, 2023 by | 6 comments

by James A. Bacon

A week ago the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA created a furor by publishing a statement defending Hamas’ attack on Israel. “Yesterday’s rebellion was not ‘unprovoked,’ as many have claimed, but is the consequence of years of mass killings, ethnic cleansing, and oppression from Israel,” the group wrote. “The events that took place yesterday [October 7] are a step towards a free Palestine. … We stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters and all oppressed people around the world seeking freedom and a better world.”

The same group organized a demonstration yesterday at the steps of the Rotunda in the shadow of the statue of Thomas Jefferson. I made a point of attending to hear what the protesters had to say and observe what transpired. I had one major question: Who were these people? What kind of person living in free society could defend the atrocities perpetrated upon Israeli civilians of all ages? What could they possibly be thinking?

As executive director of the Jefferson Council, which is dedicated among other things to free speech and free inquiry at UVa, I supported the right of the pro-Palestinians to hold their rally and make their case. But the Council also stands for viewpoint diversity, which is under threat from the steady leftward drift of the faculty and staff and the slow extinction of professors openly professing conservative, libertarian and independent views. While the far left is a distinct minority at UVa, it is a highly vocal and influential one. How representative, I wanted to know, were the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA? Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Leftist orthodoxy, Speakers, Panels and Events

An Open Letter to UVA President James E. Ryan

Posted on October 13, 2023 by | 4 comments

This article was published today by the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. To read the full article click here.

The university’s admissions processes must comply with the Constitution.

by Walter L. Smith

The University of Virginia is facing a choice of historic significance: namely, whether to embrace admissions policies based on our colorblind Constitution or to engage in mass resistance to the supreme law of the land.

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and UNC, the United States Supreme Court held that the admissions programs at Harvard and UNC violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court’s ruling is, of course, binding on the parties themselves. However, this was no narrow decision. The broad constitutional mandate of colorblindness underlying the majority opinion is applicable to the University of Virginia, as well.

UVA’s Response

On August 1, 2023, in response to the landmark decision, university leaders issued a statement outlining the institution’s new admissions procedures. “The Court has made it clear,” the statement read in part, “that colleges and universities may not consider race, for its own sake, in their admission decisions. […] We will follow the law.”

However, the statement went on: “We also will do everything within our legal authority to recruit and admit a class of students who are diverse across every possible dimension and to make every student feel welcome and included here at UVA.” Continue reading.

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Posted in Admissions

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of UVa’s Transgender Movement

Posted on October 12, 2023 by | 9 comments

by James A. Bacon

I learned a lot about transgender activists and advocates at the Abigail Shrier event at the University of Virginia last night. Some are bitter, angry people who hurl non-stop invective. Some are close-minded but willing to engage in rational conversation. But at least one is courteous, friendly and willing to engage in a thoughtful, one-on-one exchange. I look forward to having lunch with her next week.

Shrier, the author of “”Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” was herself polite, charming and attentive. Even as more than 100 protesters were chanting and demonstrating outside Minor Hall, she remained unflappable inside the auditorium under questioning that ranged from skeptical to hostile.

Shrier is the object of venom in the transgender community because her book dared to ask questions that many do not want to be asked. While acknowledging the gender dysphoria is real and those who suffer from it deserve compassion, she argues that much of the transgender “craze” is a social contagion mainly affecting teenage girls, that “affirmative” treatment such as testosterone shots and top surgery are fraught with ill-understood risks and dangers, and that a legion of affirming educators, counselors, and even medical doctors have abandoned science in favor of ideology. She elaborated on those themes in a Q&A session hosted by the Jefferson Council in partnership with the Young Americans for Freedom and the Common Sense Society. Continue reading →

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Posted in Leftist orthodoxy, Sex and gender, Speakers, Panels and Events

The Jefferson Independent on Hamas Terrorism

Posted on October 11, 2023 by | 1 comment

The Jefferson Independent has published an excellent editorial on how the Hamas attack on Israel is playing out at the University of Virginia. The author wrestles with the conflict between his commitment to free speech and intellectual diversity and his condemnation of those at UVa who justify unspeakable evil. — JAB

Hamas and Their Heinous Crimes Must Be Condemned

On October 7th, 50 years after the start of the Yom Kippur War, the Islamist militant group Hamas violently attacked Israel without provocation. Over 1,000 terrorists crossed the border, backed by airstrikes from the Gaza Strip. Recent reports reveal over 900 reported deaths and 2,600 injured, per Israeli authorities. As an Editorial Board, The Jefferson Independent wholeheartedly denounces any form of violence, irrespective of the perpetrator. We wish for nothing more than a swift and diplomatic end to this tragedy.

However, the manner in which this conflict is being fought must be illuminated and condemned. By now, many have read of the countless atrocities committed in the last four days. Make no mistake, this is not solely a targeted military operation. Hamas terrorists are murdering innocent civilians in cold blood, kidnapping children, and parading beaten victims as trophies in the street. Most disgustingly, recent IDF reports claim that Israeli soldiers discovered slaughtered babies in Kfar Azza, one of the last villages captured by Hamas. The brutal yet frivolous behavior on display as they ruthlessly murder women, children, and senior citizens is a level of hatred only rivaled by the Holocaust.

Aren’t people rushing to condemn acts of terrorism? Who could support such horrible atrocities? It turns out there are groups at universities all over Europe, the United States, and even our very own UVA who seem to believe these actions are completely justified.

Read the whole editorial here.

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Intellectual diversity

Abigail Shrier Will Be Livestreamed Tonight

Posted on October 11, 2023 by | 5 comments

Abigail Shrier, author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” will be speaking tonight (Oct. 11) at 7:00 p.m. at the University of Virginia. Register here.

If you can’t make it to Charlottesville, you can livestream the event by clicking here.

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Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

Another Race Institute at UVa

Posted on October 10, 2023 by | 6 comments

Kimberly J. Robinson, UVa Professor of Law. Official Photo

by James C. Sherlock

Fund it and they will come.

The Daily Progress reports that thanks to a $4.9 million gift from an anonymous philanthropist, a new “Institute” has been launched at UVa’s School of Law.

The new organization, the Education Rights Institute, plans to

“find ways to improve K-12 education and help educators address the obstacles that face disadvantaged students.”

Staff have been hired and the institute’s first projects are already in development. There will be a star-studded roll out on October 16th.

Excited?

Hold that thought while you read about the Institute’s leadership, goals and intentions. Continue reading →

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Posted in Endowments, Fund-raising and Philanthropy, Intellectual diversity, Leftist orthodoxy, Race, Equity and Diversity

Free Speech and the Abigail Shrier Event

Posted on October 6, 2023 by | 13 comments

by James A. Bacon

It is gratifying to see the editors of The Cavalier Daily engage in an exchange of ideas, albeit indirectly through dueling editorials, with conservative proponents of free speech at The Jefferson Independent, the University of Virginia’s independent student publication, and The Jefferson Council.

It is even more gratifying to see that the CD editors embrace a principle in an editorial yesterday with which we whole-heartedly agree: “Free speech does not guarantee comfort” (even though we’re pretty sure that it’s our comfort that deserves no guarantee, not their own).

However, even as they tout the University of Virginia’s No. 6 ranking in the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) 2024 free speech survey, the authors argue that there are justifiable limits on speech — and that those limits should apply to people at UVa whose views they happen to dislike.

The event precipitating the editorial is the impending visit to UVa of Abigail Shrier, a journalist whose writings about the role of social contagion in the spread of transgender identity among adolescent girls has triggered trans activists across the country. “We must … recognize that certain types of speech simply should not be tolerated here on Grounds,” writes the editorial board, “even if this speech is technically permissible under the law.”

Shrier is scheduled to speak at 7:00 p.m., October 11, Room 125 of Minor Hall. You can register to attend the event here. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Speakers, Panels and Events

University Boards’ Primary Duty is to the Commonwealth, AG Says

Posted on October 5, 2023 by | 2 comments

Jason Miyares

by James A. Bacon

The primary duty of board members of Virginia’s public colleges and universities is to the commonwealth, not to the individual institutions, Attorney General Jason Miyares wrote Monday in response to an advisory opinion requested by Governor Glenn Younkin.

According to Miyares’ missive, Youngkin asked whether Virginia law imposes upon boards of visitors “a duty to serve the interests of the university or college only, or the Commonwealth more broadly.”

“Although they extend services to non-residents, Virginia’s institutions of higher education exist to fulfill the commonwealth’s commitment to provide education to the students of Virginia,” the AG answered. “It is clear that the boards of visitors serving them, as public officers of the state, have a duty to the Commonwealth as a whole.”

The letter does not elucidate the particular circumstances that led to the request for clarification, but the issue of board members’ primary duty did arise during the September 2023 meeting of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors meeting. Rector Robert Hardie had invited Clayton Rose, former president of Bowdoin College and currently a Harvard University professor, to lead a discussion of “best practices in board governance.” (See our coverage here.) Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Governance