Author Archives: James Bacon

The Incoherence of DEI Ideology: the Gender Gap

Posted on June 11, 2023 | 13 comments


by James A. Bacon

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Virginia is incoherent in theory, arbitrary in practice, and riddled with contradictions. Nowhere is DEI policy more muddled than UVa’s treatment of men and women. UVa’s long-term goal is to recruit a student body that “looks like Virginia” in its racial/ethnic composition. Yet UVa leadership has expressed no qualms about the persistent imbalance of men and women.

Among UVa’s 16,700+ undergraduate students, 54.5% were female and only 45.5% were male — a nine percentage-point differential. The disparity exists across racial/ethnic groups. Only among foreign students are males enrolled in a slightly higher percentage than females.

Why does the disparity exist? Given the university’s commitment to “equity,” why isn’t the ratio close to 50/50? UVa officials never talk about the gender enrollment gap, which is not surprising given that the disparity cuts against the oppression narrative that undergirds the university’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives. To the contrary, university officials are in a state of perpetual angst over the fact that some disciplines, particularly engineering and the sciences, enroll more men than women. No one is distressed about insufficient male enrollment in the social sciences and humanities. Continue reading →

13 Comments

Posted in Admissions

D-Day message from Tom Neale, President of the Jefferson Council for UVA

Posted on June 6, 2023 | 16 comments

Friends and members of The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia,

79 years ago on June 6, 1944, 156,000 Allied troops from America, Great Britain and Canada stormed the beaches of Normandy. They assaulted the German forces entrenched in pillboxes and surrounding hills who desperately tried to repel our forces with unrelenting machine gun and artillery fire. Despite facing almost suicidal odds, the Allied infantry hit the beaches and charged ahead, sustaining high casualty rates, but ultimately overcoming our Nazi adversaries.

The Jefferson Council is fighting for our following four founding pillars:

  1. Promote an academic environment based on open dialogue throughout the University.
  2. Preserve the Jefferson Legacy.
  3. Preserve the appearance of the Lawn as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and
  4. Support and reinvigorate the Honor System.

However, make no mistake about it, we also pledge to restore Mr. Jefferson’s University to the core principles he and our Founding Fathers fought to create and the men on the Normandy beaches gave their lives to preserve. The Normandy heroes shown above in their final resting places deserve no less. God bless them all.

We will persevere, as our ancestors did throughout America’s history. The Jefferson Council officers pledge this to you on our honor.

Thank you for your continued support.

Warm regards,

Tom Neale

University of Virginia Class of 1974
President and Co-Founder
The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia
Cell ph#: 410-804-0417

16 Comments

“You Can’t Say That!”

Posted on June 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

From our friends at the Alumni Free Speech Alliance
Topic: AFSA Special Event w/ Amna Khalid & Jeffrey Snyder
Time: Jun 6, 2023 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84843986828

Leave a comment

Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

Instead of Red Brick, a “Warm Red Drum”

Posted on June 6, 2023 | 5 comments

by James A. Bacon

Among its other actions last week the University of Virginia Board of Visitors approved a revised design for the $80 million Karsh Institute for Democracy building. In March several Board members had criticized the original design for conflicting with the red-brick motif of Thomas Jefferson’s architectural masterpiece on the Lawn.

The Karsh building is scheduled to open 200 years after construction was completed on the Rotunda, a symbolism not lost on the architects. The new design still won’t have any of Jefferson’s signature red brick, but, as UVa’s chief architect Alice J. Raucher described it, the building will have “echoes” of the Rotunda even as it makes its own statement about democracy and transparency.

In the two main changes, the architects envision a base of white brick and an auditorium wall of red wood behind a white portico. Raucher described the auditorium as a “warm red drum.” The effect, as seen in the juxtaposed images below, show strong parallels when the buildings are lit up at night.

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Board of Visitors, Buildings and Grounds

Back in Vogue at UVa: Viewpoint Diversity

Posted on June 4, 2023 | 20 comments

Douglas Wetmore

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia leadership normally keeps its Board of Visitors meetings running on such a tightly scripted schedule that board members rarely get an opportunity to engage in free-wheeling discussion. But Rector Whitt Clement and President Jim Ryan made an exception Friday during the board’s June meeting: They set aside nearly an hour to talk about Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Board member Douglas Wetmore, a Richmond businessman appointed by Governor Glenn Youngkin, set the tone as soon as the discussion began. On paper the administration values “viewpoint diversity” along with demographic and other forms of diversity, he noted. But unlike the meticulous statistics it compiles on the racial and gender breakdown of students, faculty, and staff, he said, the university does not track viewpoint diversity at all.

“We want a wide range of competing ideas,” Wetmore said. “One hundred percent of statistics are related to race and gender. I haven’t seen one reflecting viewpoint diversity,” he said.

While a few board members suggested that viewpoint diversity was not a serious issue at UVa, the ensuing discussion revolved mainly around how to define viewpoint diversity, how much of such diversity was desirable, and how to measure it while respecting individuals’ right to privacy.

The Board conversation was unprecedented at UVa, where the DEI bureaucracy dedicated to advancing the interests of “marginalized” minorities has grown to 55 employees by the university’s own count. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Race, Equity and Diversity

UVa Board Trims Next-Year Tuition by 0.7%. Big Whoop.

Posted on June 2, 2023 | 11 comments

by James A. Bacon

Responding to a Youngkin administration request for Virginia’s public colleges and universities to curb tuition increases, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted this morning to reduce a scheduled 3.7% tuition hike next year to 3.0%.

As explained by Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis, the shaving of $5.5 million from the budget represents a “good faith” effort to comply with the administration’s request. But in response to a question, she acknowledged that it only “partially” complied.

“This is very late in the budgetary cycle,” which closes June 30, said former Rector and the board’s financial guru James Murray. “We’re supposed to have a budget number in March. It’s very difficult in this point the year to say, ‘Go find millions of dollars.'” He described the partial rollback as “a concession to political reality.”

In other business, the Board also approved a $5.4 billion operating budget for Fiscal 2023-24, which begins July 1. The budget encompasses the academic divisions of the University of Virginia main campus, the campus in Wise, and the UVa Health System. The UVa main-campus operating budget amounts to $2.3 billion.

To an outside observer, the proceedings were remarkable — for the lack of oversight. Board input into what is arguably the most important vote of the year was inconsequential. Aside from praise for the UVa financial staff and a few requests for clarifications, board members had little to say. They offered no substantive questions. They provided zero pushback. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Administration, Board of Visitors, Finances, State funding

Team Ryan Defends UVa Commitment to Free Speech

Posted on June 2, 2023 | 5 comments

Leslie Kendrick (wearing a mask and recovering from a cold) and Melody Barnes address the Board of Visitors.

by James A. Bacon

Jim Sherlock, a Bacon’s Rebellion columnist, offers his take on the Diversity, Equity& Inclusion presentation to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors scheduled to take place this afternoon. Based on the PowerPoint deck to be used as the basis of the presentation, he concludes that the administration intends to deflect the conversation from the main issue, which, he maintains, is using the DEI bureaucracy to impose political and ideological control.

Read his essay here. You might want to check out the comments section in which Ryan administration sympathizers and critics engage in a lively (and mostly civil) back and forth.

Sherlock published his essay yesterday before another important presentation took place. Anticipating criticisms like Sherlock’s, the administration stressed the value it places on “free speech,” “free inquiry” and “diversity of viewpoints.” Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Board of Visitors, Freedom of speech and expression

Baucom Lays Out Priorities for UVa’s R&D Growth

Posted on June 1, 2023 | 4 comments

Ian Baucom

by James A. Bacon

R&D at the University of Virginia’s has increased at roughly double the rate of Duke, the University of North Carolina, and other peer institutions over the past ten years, Provost Ian Baucom told the Board of Visitors this afternoon during its June meeting. Admittedly, UVa started from a lower base and its R&D expenditures are still only half those of its Research Triangle rivals, he said. “We should feel really good about the trend. But we’re still behind.” 

A university’s research ranking is important for several reasons, Baucom told the visitors. Research discoveries on maladies from autism to Alzheimer’s “literally change lives.” Research enables students to develop personally so they can participate in the economy as innovators and knowledge creators. And research rankings can affect institutional prestige. “Our reputation and standing depend upon it.”

Research funding from external and internal sources amounts to about $650 million a year. Much of the research — 63% — occurs in traditional STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) fields, where the big money is, but UVa’s comparative advantage is in the social sciences, humanities, quantitative research and computational science. Rather than copying strategies that worked for other institutions, UVa needs to create its own vision, Baumon said. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in R&D

Equity: Equal Outcomes or Equal Opportunity?

Posted on May 31, 2023 | 11 comments

Photo credit: Richmond.com

by James A. Bacon

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan begs to differ with critics of “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.” The term “equity” has become a lightning rod in the debate over DEI, he writes in an essay recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Somehow, he muses, people got the idea that equity means “equal outcomes” as opposed to “equal opportunity.”

“I have no idea where this idea came from, but it ought to be rejected out of hand,” he says. “I know of no college that assures equal outcomes.”

Where, oh where, could critics of UVa’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies have gotten the idea that equity stands for equal outcomes?

Perhaps they got it from “Audacious Future: Commitment Required,” which summarized the 2020 findings of UVa’s Racial Equity Task Force established by Ryan. The document was endorsed by the Board of Visitors, and never has Ryan, the Board, or anyone else in authority at UVa distanced themselves from its goals and objectives.

The task force reports makes abundantly clear what “equity” means to the authors of the report (my bold face). Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

Tagged

Ryan Calls for a Kinder, Gentler DEI

Posted on May 30, 2023 | 11 comments

Photo credit: Richmond.com

by James A. Bacon

As the University of Virginia Board of Visitors gears up for a discussion of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in its June board meeting, President Jim Ryan has made the case for a kinder, gentler DEI in an essay recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Forgoing the rhetoric of “anti-racism” theorists such as Ibram X. Kendi, Ryan argues that DEI is misunderstood. There is no talk in the essay about “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “structural racism” or other leftist buzzwords.

Indeed, Ryan argues that the most contentious element of DEI — equity — does not mean striving for equal outcomes, as many conservatives say it does. Sounding very much like Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, Ryan contends that “equity” really means equal “opportunity.” Unlike Youngkin, who renamed the state’s office of DEI to the office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion, however, Ryan is satisfied to retain the equity label and redefine it in more benign terms.

The tone in Ryan’s essay is moderate and reasonable. Political conservatives and moderates would not find much to argue with. The problem is that the words are largely divorced from reality. One is driven to conclude either that UVa’s president, insulated by layer upon layer of management, does not know what is occurring at the institution he leads or, worse, he does know and he is doing his best to obscure it. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity