Monthly Archives: April 2024

Not the UVA I Remember

Posted on April 30, 2024 by | 15 comments

We are reposting this letter from a UVA alumnus describing a “Dean’s Welcome and Tour” his family took part in this spring at the University of Virginia. We took administrators at their word that the Admissions Office was revising tours to give prospective students a more enticing sales pitch than the UVA-history-of-oppression narrative coughed up by the Student Guides. If this experience was typical, we made a huge mistake. — JAB

Thank you for your websites and articles highlighting the challenges UVa and other universities are facing in the age of wokeness and relativism. It is only recently that I came to realize how much UVa has changed, and how grave the challenges it faces are.

After graduating from Darden, my wife and I moved outside of VA to build our career. For 20+ years, we nostalgically enjoyed our fond memories of the Grounds and the UVa experience. My wife and I raised our three kids under clear and overt UVa indoctrination, hoping to extend our fondness and great memories to the next generation. We visited Charlottesville multiple times with our 3 kids. We took them to football games. They grew up learning The Good Old Song and have proudly worn orange and blue since infants. We were raising Cavaliers. Continue reading →

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A Creative New Way to Use Children as Human Shields

Posted on April 29, 2024 by | 4 comments

Stu Smith, producer of StuStuStudios, captured this video yesterday from the Virginia Tech encampment. University police were threatening to shut down the event for violating various university rules and protocols, and the pro-Palestinian demonstrators trotted out this precocious young militant to lead the mindless chanting.

“I’m not leaving,” sing-sang the tyke into a loudspeaker.

“We’re not leaving!” responded the crowd.

Undeterred by the pint-sized protester, Virginia Tech police shut down the event anyway, arresting 82 in the process, according to numbers released by the university. Fifty-three were students, according to the statement. It’s not clear if any were faculty. But it is a reasonable supposition that the vast majority of the 29 others were outside agitators. Continue reading →

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Virginia Tech Cleans up Encampment. UVA Faces Similar Test.

Posted on April 29, 2024 by | 9 comments

by James A. Bacon

Virginia Tech arrested two dozen or more students Sunday night while dispersing an “encampment” similar to other anti-Israeli protests spreading around the country, according to media reports.

The gathering of several hundred people on the lawn of the Graduate Life Center was “not a registered event consistent with university policy,” Tech officials stated in explaining its actions.

“Given these actions by protesters, the university recognized that the situation had the increasing potential to become unsafe,” the university statement said. First, protesters were asked to disperse voluntarily. Then university police approached those who did not comply, warned them that they would be charged with trespassing, and asked them again to leave. At 10:15 p.m., police gave protesters five minutes to disperse. Those who remained were subject to arrest.

Tech President Timothy Sands deserves kudos for handling a difficult situation in a firm but restrained manner.

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan likely will face a similar test. Left-wing groups at UVA have announced a May Day event Wednesday on the Lawn to show commitment to “Palestinian Liberation.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

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What Would TJ Say… About Disruptions on the Grounds?

Posted on April 26, 2024 by | 8 comments

UVA student, circa 1853

by James A. Bacon

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have morphed from rallies and teach-ins into a new form of protest — tent-city encampments. These disruptive gatherings are spreading to college campuses around the country; some have turned violent and resulted in widespread arrests.

In an interview with The Cavalier Daily after a peaceful “die in” protest a week ago, Josh Rosenberg, president of the UVA chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, said the group might amp up its tactics. Stated the CD: “Rosenberg said he hopes to engage in more visible forms of protest, including sitting in on administrative processes or even occupying space on Grounds for longer periods of time.”

We don’t know what Rosenberg means by sit-ins and occupations, but such tactics sound potentially disruptive, and they might well call for a firm response from the administration. President Jim Ryan could find himself forced to choose between appeasing vocal pro-Palestinian militants or alienating University alumni appalled by spreading antisemitism.

Perhaps Ryan could draw spine-stiffening inspiration from the University’s founder Thomas Jefferson, who dealt with student riots in 1825. Continue reading →

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Anatomy of an Intellectual Monoculture

Posted on April 25, 2024 by | 14 comments

by James A. Bacon

University of Virginia employees who donated to Democratic Party candidates between 2017 and 2022 outnumbered Republican donors by an 18-to-one ratio, reports a National Association of Scholars case study.

Professors favor Dem candidates over GOP by a 24-to-one ratio, and staff by a 16-to-one ratio. The only sub-categories that came close to parity were “blue-collar staff (1.4-to-one) and sports team coaches (7-to-4). Twenty-one of 39 academic disciplines included not a single Republican donor.

Compared to other elite higher-ed institutions, the ideological imbalance at UVA is “moderate,” writes author Mitchell Langbert, an associate professor at Brooklyn College. At some institutions, it’s almost impossible to find any Republicans. However, the imbalance is getting worse, not better.

“In the past decade, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) politics, including expensive DEI officers, DEI compliance requirements, and litmus tests for professors have further skewed university cultures,” Langbert writes. “Identity studies departments, such as gender studies, have also influenced universities’ organizational cultures and personnel policies.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Intellectual diversity, Leftist orthodoxy

Share Your DEI Data, UVA!

Posted on April 24, 2024 by | 4 comments

by James A. Bacon

We’re making progress of a sort… The University of Virginia is dribbling out details that clarify the University’s spending on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Thanks to an article in UVA Today, the University’s house news organ, we have learned a bit more about how UVA classifies its employees as “DEI,” allowing us to move a baby step closer to a solid number.

But the analysis is far from complete, and the debate continues unabated. We urge UVA to make public the data it uses. We extend an offer to collaborate in getting beyond what is at present a debate over semantics — whether a particular employee should be tagged as “DEI” or not.

The size and scope of UVA’s DEI bureaucracy has long been a matter of conjecture. The Heritage Foundation has taken a swipe at divining a number, as has the Virginia Association of Scholars. At one point UVA told The New York Times that it had 40 DEI employees, and not long thereafter the administration told the Board of Visitors that it had 55 — a number it has stuck with. The question became one of national interest when Open The Books, in collaboration with the Jefferson Council, published an estimate of 235 employees including student interns.

“Strictly as a factual matter, if you hear UVA spends $20 million yearly on DEI programs, including 235 employees, that’s simply false,” Kevin McDonald, UVA’s vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion and community partnerships, told UVA Today.

Sure, given whom UVA includes as a DEI employee, that’s likely true. But who counts as a DEI employee? Who is UVA including and excluding? Continue reading →

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UVA Responds to TJC Questions About Plagiarism Charges

Posted on April 23, 2024 by | 3 comments

Brian Coy, chief spokesperson for the University of Virginia, responded to TJC’s questions posed in the previous post about plagiarism charges leveled in The Daily Wire against Natalie J. Perry, chief DEI officer at UCLA, in her 2014 PhD dissertation for the University of Virginia. Said he:

“The University takes concerns about research integrity seriously. We are aware of these allegations from 2014 and we are initiating an investigation according to our process. While federal student privacy laws prohibit us from commenting on any specific case, the University does have the ability to revoke degrees in cases where plagiarism or other qualifying forms of misconduct are identified and proven. “

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Posted in Academic programs

Extensive Plagiarism Alleged for Education School PhD Dissertation

Posted on April 23, 2024 by | 13 comments

by James A. Bacon

Natalie J. Perry, who now leads the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion program at UCLA, plagiarized long passages in her PhD dissertation at UVA, allege Luke Rosiak and Christopher F. Rufo in The Daily Wire.

In describing the plagiarism in Perry’s dissertation, “Faculty Perceptions of Diversity at a Highly Selective Research-Intensive University,” Rosiak and Rufo write:

An analysis of the paper found it ridden with the worst sort of plagiarism, reproducing large swaths of text directly from several other authors, without citations. The scale of the plagiarism suggests that Perry lacks both ethics and competence and raises questions about academic programs that push DEI.

Perry’s dissertation lifted passages from ten other papers. In key portions of her text, she copied almost every paragraph from other sources without attribution. She fails even to mention at least four of the ten plagiarized papers anywhere in her dissertation.

The article says Perry earned her PhD in 2014. Her official biography states that she holds a degree in “higher education” from UVA. The School of Education and Human Development website indicates that the school offers a PhD in Higher Education.

“A legitimate academic field never would have found this dissertation plausible,” Rosiak and Rufo write. Speaking of UVA, Harvard, and UCLA Medical School, they add, “These institutions have dramatically lowered expectations for favored groups and pushed a cohort of ‘scholars’ through the system without enforcing basic standards of academic integrity.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Academic programs, Race, Equity and Diversity

Dr. Tiffany King: We Need to Crash the US Settler State

Posted on April 19, 2024 by | 10 comments

Dr. Tiffany King, a tenured professor in the University of Virginia’s Department of Women, Sexuality, and Gender, spoke last week in a virtual symposium hosted by Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies.

The symposium, “At the Edge of Each Other’s Battles: Puerto Rican, Palestinian, Black, and Indigenous Futures,” explored the “mutual solidarity” that is believed to exist between these communities. King and a Hunter College professor closed out the symposium with their panel, “Letters for Palestine: Storytelling as Praxis.” We have excerpted clips from that even for this blog post, but we have made the entire discussion available for viewing should anyone wonder if we are taking comments out of context.

King argues that the Palestinian Resistance inspires Black and Indigenous feminists to “crash the US settler state.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Leftist orthodoxy, Pure Crazy, Race, Equity and Diversity

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Keffiyehs, Yarmulkes, and Belonging at UVA

Posted on April 18, 2024 by | 21 comments

by James A. Bacon

It’s “Palestinian Liberation Week” at the University of Virginia this week, and the Students for Justice in Palestine have organized loads of activities for antizionists, culminating with a “Die-In for Gaza” Friday.

“Wear your keffiyeh,” urges UVA’s Students for Justice in Palestine on its Instagram page. Keffiyehs are traditional Arab scarfs, which students wear to signal their solidarity with Palestinians seeking to combat “settler colonialism” in Israel.

Meanwhile, Jewish students have stopped wearing yarmulkes, Stars of David or other ornamentation that would identify them as Jews.

What does that dichotomy say about the sense of “belonging” — the holy grail of the Ryan administration — experienced by Arabs and Jews respectively at UVA? Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

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