Author Archives: James Bacon

Coming November 9…

Posted on October 24, 2023 | Leave a comment

Heather Mac Donald, a member of the Manhattan Institute, is author of “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

Register here.

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Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

Anti-Jewish Extremism at UVa — Next Steps

Posted on October 21, 2023 | 14 comments

Courtesy of SJP at UVa https://www.instagram.com/sjpuva/

by James C. Sherlock

The University of Virginia has made quite a national name for itself over the responses of its campus anti-Jewish extremists to the slaughter of babies in Israel.

It is not a reputation it wants.

On October 8th, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UVa, an organization officially recognized by the Student Council and eligible for funding by the student activities fee, issued a statement “unequivocally support(ing) Palestinian liberation “by any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary.”

It was cosigned by: Continue reading →

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The Incomplete Case for Higher Tuition at UVa

Posted on October 19, 2023 | 2 comments

by James A. Bacon

As the Board of Visitors ponders how much to raise tuition & fees in the next two academic years, the University of Virginia is grappling with strong inflationary pressures and a long-term shortfall in state aid, senior university administrators said Wednesday.

Even so, administrators told the Board’s Finance Committee, UVa offers a great “value proposition” compared to other Top 50 universities. Its in-state tuition is lower than that of top private universities, and its four-year graduation rate is the highest of any public university in the country.

The Finance Committee meeting yesterday marked the beginning of a two-month decision-making process. The purpose of the initial meeting, said Committee Chair Robert M. Blue, was to provide “context” for the discussion. A November hearing will allow students and others to express their views about college costs. The Board is scheduled to adopt a new tuition structure in December. 

Although university officials did not say explicitly that a tuition increase is justified, the “context” presented was geared to supporting such a conclusion. Board members offered no pushback during the one-and-a-half-hour session, asking only a few questions for purposes of clarification. They did not drill into the data proffered by administrators, nor, despite assurances that UVa was working assiduously to achieve efficiencies and reduce redundancies, did they ask for specifics. No one addressed faculty productivity, administrative overhead, or other drivers of university costs. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Admissions, Board of Visitors, Tuition, affordability, scholarships

A New Form of Antisemitism Surfaces in Charlottesville

Posted on October 17, 2023 | 8 comments

Anna Kriebel, a third-year student in the University of Virginia’s Political Philosophy, Policy and Law program, has had a column published in National Review. She describes the dehumanizing, anti-Israeli rhetoric of the pro-Palestinian students at UVa, and contrasts it with the timid defense of Israel by Jewish students unwilling to sign their names to a column in the Cavalier Daily newspaper. We can replicate the first few paragraphs here, but you’ll have to visit the National Review website to read the whole thing. — JAB

The dehumanizing rhetoric of a student group at the University of Virginia flies in the face of the school’s Jeffersonian principles.

Six years after Unite the Right, an insidious new brand of antisemitism has taken hold in Charlottesville, home to the University of Virginia. Shortly after Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israel, the group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UVA released a statement declaring its unequivocal support for resistance “by whatever means they deem necessary.” In essence, it justified the slaughter of Israeli civilians.

I sympathize with those experiencing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and don’t pretend to condone every military decision made by Israel, the United States, or any other country, for that matter. However, I am deeply unsettled by the antisemitic implications of many of my peers’ statements, as well as their attempts to stifle free discourse. Read the whole thing.

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

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

Posted on October 14, 2023 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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 | 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