Heather Mac Donald gave a fiery and impassioned speech last night at Alumni Hall in defense of meritocracy, color-blind university admissions, a humanistic education and Western Civilization. She had some sharp words for the administration’s race obsession at the University of Virginia as well. View the speech above.
Thanks again to our partners, the Burke Society and the Common Sense Society.
This was an excellent, fact-filled, UVA specific event. I wish we had more time to get into the ridiculous “holistic” admissions process. 56,000 applications for 9,000 offers all based on ridiculous essays of “wisdom” and “struggle” from 17 year olds? Besides the UVA race based questions, there is another way UVA cheats to boost its “marginalized” numbers and will not admit any evidence of it being produced for examination. That process is dishonest, and is yet more of why the Honor System is on life support. She was also excellent on how this tilting of the tables to get more “marginalized” actually hurts the “marginalized.” This is known as the mis-match theory. She railed against the fact that you can’t have an honest conversation about it. UVA hides it as “under flourishing” (an Ian Baucom quote) and therefore more resources are necessary – which ties into the earlier report about UVA’s ballooning expenses.
Watch this Heather McDonald video. Then watch this curated UVA video on “free speech.” – https://millercenter.org/news-events/events/free-speech-universities The permitted political range for these “experts” is “not totally crazy Left” to “almost totally crazy Left” (she was actually a very nice woman, but when your swimming pool is Portland State, you might not be aware that the pool you are swimming in is “different.”)
Ms. MacDonald’s offering was spot on. Fact-filled and well-informed it was offered with passion. It should be included at every freshman orientation. I hope the new BOV takes it to heart and has a “sitdown” with President Ryan. Things must change.
Heather MacDonald is smart, tough, consistent, and honorable.
The Jefferson Council, the Burke Society, and The Common Sense Society receive my praise and encouragement for bringing her to the University of Virginia. Her defense of meritocracy and the individual was great and good. Our Founder would be pleased with her oratory.
She had the guts to speak the truth….so unusual these days.
Absolutely superb talk. Ms. Mac Donald nailed this talk on SO many spots
Bless this truth teller. Down to the Marxist Jim Ryan tactics. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He must goooooo
Thank you for making this possible. Ms. MacDonald is honest and smart.
My wife and I are pondering solutions to the ticket spamming problem. Would the following be a possible solution?: charge $50 per ticket via credit card through Eventbrite or similar. Bring the paper or digital ticket to the event. Upon attending, the credit card is not charged. If the person or persons decide not to come, their credit card is charged the full amount. Maybe this would discourage certain people from pretending to be interested in coming just to clog the system. Just a thought. Maybe Eventbrite would work with the council although they are apparently not exactly unbiased as evidenced by how they treated Riley Gaines.
We have considered that option. We’ve been reluctant to adopt it because of all the extra work it entails and the possibility that it might scare off students. But we may be forced to go that route.