Author Archives: jimbacon1953

Ellis Honored by White Rose Society

Posted on March 18, 2024 | 10 comments

Bert Ellis, co-founder of the Jefferson Council and a University of Virginia board member since 2022, has been awarded the White Rose by the White Rose Society, for his stand in defense of Jewish students at UVA.

The White Rose Society honors and thanks “individuals who have become beacons of hope for the Jewish people by recognizing those who make a difference through their actions.” The organization’s name pays homage to the Weiße Rose (White Rose), a resistance group founded by non-Jewish students at the University of Munich in 1942.

“The BOV is now well aware of the antisemitic activities that have happened/are happening at UVA,” Ellis said. “I intend to keep antisemitism front and center until we can bring this issue under control. There is no reason why students and faculty at UVA cannot debate the issues of Israel and Palestine and the Middle East in an open and civil manner without the need to vilify or verbally abuse or threaten one side or the other.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors

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“Rest as Resistance,” the “Nap Ministry,” and Thanksgiving as White Supremacy

Posted on March 16, 2024 | 13 comments

Editor’s Note: Today we profile Melody Pannell as an illustration of the intersectional-oppression ideology — colloquially referred to as wokeness — that permeates the University of Virginia. To avoid letting our biases creep into this and other profiles, we let the subjects express themselves in their own words. Sometimes the informally spoken word does not translate well into the written word as seen in a transcript, so we have done our best to render Pannell’s statements more intelligible by means of punctuation and excisions. Readers can judge from the video clips if we have done a fair job. — JAB. 

Meet Melody Pannell, UVA Health’s Director of Diversity & Community Engagement. Her job, says the UVA Health website, is to “cultivate an inclusive community, address social disparities and health inequities, and empower others. She also develops diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings.”

Pannell described herself and the struggles of her work in a video dialogue with Kimberly Barker, the Librarian for Belonging & Community Engagement at UVA’s Health Sciences Library.

Said Pannell: “As an activist, accomplice … DEI work, all kind of stuff like that, I’ve had my times where I lean in. … And sometimes I just have to retreat and say rest is resistance. Part of my work is actually making sure that I’m still here.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Leftist orthodoxy, Race, Equity and Diversity

From Zoomers to Boomers

Posted on March 14, 2024 | Leave a comment

Unraveling Political Perspectives Across Generations

Join the Center for Politics for an engaging dialogue delving into the diverse perspectives and ideologies of Gen Z and Baby Boomers, represented by three members of each generation. The rules: (1) Participants agree to listen with an empathetic ear, (2) Respond without becoming defensive, and (3) Strive to try to understand each other. Paul Begala, political commentator and former Clinton adviser, will moderate.

Jefferson Council Executive Director Jim Bacon will share his curmudgeonly perspective as a Boomer with a Gen Z son and two Millennial daughters.

Time: 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., March 19
Location: Nau Auditorium, Room 101
Register here

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Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

Assigning Extra Credit for Attending Pro-Hamas Event

Posted on March 14, 2024 | 1 comment

Tessa Farmer

by James A. Bacon

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion staff at the University of Virginia downplayed concerns about Tessa Farmer, an anthropology professor who last fall offered extra credit to students to attend a Students for Justice in Palestine-organized teach-in, reports The Washington Examiner this morning.

The purpose of the event was to show solidarity with Palestinians resisting Israeli “occupation” and demand that the United States withdraw its support for Israel. 

“Internal emails show DEI staffers were apparently unperturbed by this professor’s promotion of a Students for Justice in Palestine event despite the group’s radical rhetoric,” the newspaper quoted Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of federal-spending watchdog OpenTheBooks, as saying. OpenTheBooks worked with the Examiner on the Freedom of Information Act requests that recovered the emails. The group also collaborated with the Jefferson Council to publish recent findings that UVA spends $20 million on salary and benefits for DEI staff at UVA. Continue reading →

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Posted in Administration, Freedom of speech and expression, Leftist orthodoxy

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What “Viewpoint Diversity” Looks Like at UVA

Posted on March 13, 2024 | 5 comments

by James A. Bacon

An email from the Karsh Institute for Democracy arrived in my computer this morning, highlighting upcoming events at the University of Virginia. One event seemed to offer the potential for being non-ideologically loaded. Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy will explore American-Soviet relations through the prism of Soviet and American airmen on U.S. air bases in the Ukraine during World War II.

But if you’re looking for a variety of perspectives on the challenges and promises of democracy today — not a tangentially related curiosity from 80 years ago — you won’t find it at Karsh this April.

There is nothing in the smorgasbord of democracy-related events that explore such themes as, say, the conditions required for wealth creation, the rise of America’s cultural elites and concomitant alienation of the working/middle class, the government role in suppressing “misinformation,” the political weaponization of the justice system, the impending fiscal collapse of the federal government, or other themes that — agree or disagree with them — are serious narratives raised by the non-left. One wonders if UVA’s faculty and administrators even know such perspectives exist.

A review of other events highlighted by Karsh shows vividly how UVA has become an intellectual monoculture that explores only ideas that fall within a narrow partisan and ideological range. Join me as I tour the intellectual offerings provided by a university whose leadership touts its commitment to “viewpoint diversity.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Leftist orthodoxy

Letter: Not a Good Place for a Jewish Student

Posted on March 11, 2024 | 20 comments

Dr James Ryan
President
University of Virginia

Dr Ryan,

My three sons, Cary, Brian and David, attended UVA in the 1980’s. Those years were wonderful for our family. We attended UVA sports events, made frequent visits to Charlottesville, and became active in different facets of the University such as the Virginia Athletics Foundation and the Center for Politics.

My wife and I have remained avid UVA supporters for close to 40 years, but, regrettably, we now feel uncomfortable continuing to be involved with the University because we are Jewish. It has deeply saddened us to read about UVA students being harassed and threatened because they are Jewish and do not feel safe at UVA. Continue reading →

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Did the Board of Visitors Illegally Meet in Closed Session?

Posted on March 9, 2024 | 6 comments

by James A. Bacon

Last week the University of Virginia leadership dodged and weaved and did everything it could to suppress an open, wide-ranging discussion at the Board of Visitors meeting of how Jewish students are treated at UVA.

Most pointedly, Rector Robert Hardie called a “hard stop” on board member Bert Ellis’ bid to focus on how the administration was allowing Jewish students to be subjected to hostile and discriminatory treatment. Hardie declared that the points raised by Ellis fell under the rubric of “student safety issues,” which the Board would discuss in closed session.

Was “student safety” a legitimate reason to reject Ellis’ call for open debate about one of the most contentious set of issues to afflict UVA in years?

I’m not a legal expert in government transparency, but it looks to me like UVA violated state open-government law in calling the closed session. I’ll make that case below. But I would welcome feedback from anyone with an expertise in this area to guide the Jefferson Council as we ponder whether to escalate our criticism of what was — whether legal or illegal — a grotesque lack of transparency at an institution supposedly committed to open inquiry. Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Visitors, Governance, Transparency

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DEI Scrutiny Spreads

Posted on March 7, 2024 | 3 comments

Open the Books’ expose on DEI costs at the University of Virginia is generating loads of attention.

The Daily Mail published a lengthy story here, adding some of its own reporting. The headline: “University of Virginia EXPOSED for $20M annual DEI spend on 235 staff, including $243,000-a-year equity tsar who calls OxyContin deaths payback for the ‘toxicity of whiteness,’ watchdog says.”

Virginia Congressman Bob Good, 5th district, also cited the Open the Books research during a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. See the clip here.

 

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Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

Board of Visitors Video Archive, Feb. 29-March 1, 2024

Posted on March 7, 2024 | 3 comments


The University of Virginia is mandated by state law to livestream its Board of Visitors meetings…. which it does. But the University is not required to maintain video archives, so, despite the minimal cost and effort… it doesn’t.

For anyone interested in UVA governance, it can be immensely helpful to consult Board of Visitors proceedings rather than refer to the minutes, the publication of which can be delayed for days or weeks. Archiving the video is essential to maintaining transparency and accountability. Therefore, if UVA won’t do it, the Jefferson Council will.

We’ll start with the February-March board meeting. We have captured the video of sessions pertaining to the academic division, not the health system, and for reasons of economy, we are not archiving video relating to the Wise campus. (Sorry, guys.) Time notations are scheduled times, not actual times. Note that YouTube provides a transcript of the proceedings as well.

Advancement Committee
Feb. 29, 1:30 – 2:30 p.m.

Buildings & Grounds Committee
Feb. 29, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

Academic and Student Life Committee
Feb. 29, 3:30 – 4:45 p.m.

Finance Committee
Feb. 30, 8:30 – 9:45 a.m.

Audit, Compliance and Risk Committee
Closed session.
Feb. 30, 9:45 0 11:15 a.m.

Full Board – Business Meeting
Feb. 30, 1:45 – 2:45 p.m.

Summary and Final Session
Feb. 30, 4:00 – 4:15 p.m.

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New Thing: Labor-Based Grading

Posted on March 6, 2024 | 4 comments

by James A. Bacon

The more we dig, the more we find. Last week the Jefferson Council highlighted University of Virginia art-history professor Christa Robbins, who caused a stir for cancelling class so students could vote on the Israel-divestment referendum. In her public utterances, she employed the rhetoric of intersectional-oppression theory, so we wondered whether she used the same ideological framework in her teaching.

Through the Freedom of Information Act, my colleague Walter Smith obtained a syllabus of one of her courses, “Engaging Aesthetics,” which numbers among the Engagement seminars designed to introduce first-year Wahoos to the liberal arts and sciences.

There are hints of intersectional theory — students are asked to reflect upon the “historical, geographical, and cultural differences that shape cultural expressions and hierarchies” — but we stumbled across something totally unexpected. In the syllabus Robbins gives a detailed exposition of “labor-based grading.”

It turns out that labor-based grading has become a thing in higher education. Bing’s AI describes it as “an alternative grading style where grades are based on the amount of labor that is agreed upon between students of the course and the course’s instructor. This approach assesses the quantity of work students do rather than the quality of the work.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Academic programs