Author Archives: James Bacon

How Do You Say “F— UVA” In Arabic?

Posted on January 19, 2024 | 12 comments

This image of two doors on the Lawn is taken from the Instagram account of the Students for Justice in Palestine boasting of its accomplishments this fall.

by James A. Bacon

One of the key events that sparked the creation of The Jefferson Council was the defilement of a Lawn residency door. In 2021 a 4th-year student posted “F— UVA” in large letters, along with a bill of particulars detailing why the university was a racist institution. Outraged alumni mobilized to protest the desecration of Thomas Jefferson’s academical village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited by thousands of potential students, their parents, tourists and others every year.

Turning the door into a bulletin board for profane political posters violated the terms of the lease and the spirit of Lawn residency, described on the UVA website as respecting the living space as “a place of historic value and as the public face of the University.”

The Ryan administration argued that because it had failed to enforce those terms from the beginning of the school year, removal of the sign would constitute a violation of the woman’s right to free speech. However, the administration did issue new guidelines effective the following semester restricting door postings to a small bulletin board on the doors. From that point onward, unhappy alumni were assured, the guidelines would be enforced consistently. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

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COVID and Religious Freedom at UVA

Posted on January 17, 2024 | 8 comments

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia has paid more than $1.8 million in legal fees fighting a lawsuit filed by UVA Health employees who were fired, despite religious objections, for refusing to take the COVID vaccine. And that’s just through November. Given the continuing litigation, billing has likely passed the $2 million mark.

Eleven former employees filed a lawsuit a year ago, claiming that the $3 billion-a-year-in-revenues health system arbitrarily declined to grant them religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate.

Hunton Andrews Kurth is the lead law firm for UVA, charging between $600 and $900 per hour for legal services and racking up $1.52 million in charges through November, according to documents The Jefferson Council has acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. Eckert Seamons has charged $240,000, and IslerDare $70,000. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Jefferson legacy, Religion

Morals, Coddling, Mental Illness, and Wokeness

Posted on January 16, 2024 | 7 comments

Jonathan Haidt

by James A. Bacon

Jonathan Haidt is one of the most important public intellectuals in America today. If you’re not familiar with his work, you need to be. You’ll get a chance to hear him when he comes to the University of Virginia February 8 as a guest of The Jefferson Council.

The social psychologist (and former UVA professor) gained national attention in 2012 with the publication of his book, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” which asks the question, why can’t we all get along? In America, liberals and conservatives hew to different sides of six fundamental moral realms such as Fairness/Cheating and Liberty/Oppression, he argues. Differing moral sentiments translate into different worldviews, which inform different political positions. Moral intuitions are the primary driver, and reason follows mainly as a means to justify those intuitions. Though an old-fashioned liberal who has confessed to having never voted for a Republican for president, Haidt eschewed demonizing those who think differently. Liberals and conservatives alike, he said, are prone to group thinking, rationalizing their intuitions, and confirmation bias (seeking data that confirms their worldviews while ignoring data that doesn’t). 

Jonathan Haidt
February 8, 2024, 6:30 p.m.
Nau Hall Auditorium
Register here

Continue reading →

7 Comments

Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events

Don’t Cut the Rattle Off the Rattlesnake

Posted on January 14, 2024 | 6 comments

by James A. Bacon

Robert Grayboyes, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center in George Mason University, has penned a post on his Substack account, Bastiat’s Window, about the importance of free speech — even offensive free speech. As evidence, he points to his recollections of a controversial debate that took place during his days as a student at the University of Virginia.

Faithful readers of this blog will find the controversy familiar, for it is one that the enemies of Bert Ellis twisted during their campaign to block his elevation to the UVA Board of Visitors. Writes Grayboyes (his bold):

“In 1975, William Shockley, Nobel physicist-turned-white supremacist crackpot, was invited to the University of Virginia (UVa) to debate Richard Goldsby, an African American biologist, on “The Correlation between Race and Intelligence and Its Social Implications.” Some argued fiercely then (and argue still today) that the university should never have offered him a platform from which to disseminate his ignorant bile. My 2022 Bastiat’s Window essay, “Shockley versus Shockley,” explored why the university was wise to allow Shockley to speak and why those who attended the event (including me) were wise to sit quietly and let him speak. As I wrote: Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

How Open Is “Political Dialogue” at UVA?

Posted on January 12, 2024 | 8 comments

by James A. Bacon

There is widespread concern among critics of higher education in America that elite universities are squelching free speech and open dialogue in the pursuit of social justice. There is ample evidence that such is exactly the case. But institutions vary, and what occurs at Harvard or Yale may or may not be indicative of reality at the University of Virginia. It is incumbent upon us at the Jefferson Council to draw conclusions about the state of free speech and civil discourse at UVA based on what is happening at UVA, not what we read of horrors elsewhere.

Fortunately, in the age of the Internet, the partisan and ideological proclivities of college faculty are more transparent than ever — even if administrators are not. Professors leave abundant evidence in their writings and in digital recordings. Insofar as we have time, we will profile cases we come across.

We first became interested in Rachel L. Wahl, an associate professor of education at UVA who is affiliated with the Karsh Institute for Democracy, because she was one of eleven appointees to the Religious Diversity Task Force charged with addressing religious bias on the Grounds. If a purpose of the task force is to facilitate dialogue between hostile religious groups, appointing Wahl was likely a good idea. Not only does she encourage respectful dialogue, she researches what it takes to achieve it. Continue reading →

8 Comments

Posted in Academic programs, Faculty profiles, Intellectual diversity, Leftist orthodoxy

The Jeff Recaps Youngkin’s Higher Ed Summit

Posted on January 11, 2024 | 1 comment

It comes a little after the fact, but The Jefferson Independent has published a colorful and highly readable account of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s higher-ed summit at the University of Virginia back in November: “Freedom from Expression: How Youngkin’s Free Speech Summit Fell on Deaf Ears.”

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

UVA Needs an Honest Assessment of Its Covid Response

Posted on January 10, 2024 | 11 comments

by Walter Smith

In late 2019, I spent sixty-five nights in the VCU hospital — first to beat leukemia, then to undergo a bone marrow transplant. I was dismissed to a post-hospital protocol of isolation, except for trips to the hospital. So, I was doing seclusion well before COVID made it “cool.” I found the hospital experience fascinating, along with “the science” of what was done to me.

When COVID first appeared, I was willing to trust “the experts,” but I lost trust pretty quickly. When Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked about hydroxychloroquine, touted by a French physician as useful in fighting COVID, he dismissed the study as “anecdotal.” The beneficial effects, he said, were never demonstrated in randomized double-blind, clinical trials. The very next questioner asked him about masking and social distancing. He responded he had no doubt those strategies were working — no need for randomized double-blind trials. My lawyer BS detector went through the roof. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Student health, safety, welfare

How Widespread is Cheating at UVA?

Posted on January 9, 2024 | 5 comments

Honor Code

by James A. Bacon

Thirteen days ago, a University of Virginia student with the unlikely screen name of Worldly-Anteater3429 posed a question on the UVA channel of Reddit, a social-media discussion site. “What would happen, “he (or she) asked, “if someone tried to take a paper test outside the room?”

In a class of 100 or more, Worldly Anteater said, it would be easy to do. Worldly Anteater insisted he would never do such a thing but wondered whether cheaters would get away with it or, if caught, how they might get caught.

There ensued an exchange in the discussion thread that should be alarming to anyone intent upon preserving the Honor Code.

A student going by the name of Cthecookie said that based on his experience “almost half of the people I knew” collaborated in some way on the chemistry exams. “All it takes is one phone call to collaborate with your buddy on the exam while absolutely nobody is proctoring you.” (No one considered cheating in Genetics, he added. He offered no explanation of why that might be.) Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Honor code

UVA Needs an Antisemitism Task Force, Not a Religious Diversity Task Force

Posted on January 9, 2024 | 2 comments

We publish here a January 5 letter from 29 parents of Jewish students at the University of Virginia to Provost Ian Baucom followed by his response. — JAB

Dear Provost Baucom,

In light of the 337% increase in antisemitism in the United States since October 7, 2023, numerous universities have formed dedicated antisemitism task forces to reduce antisemitism on their campuses. For example, Harvard, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Indiana University and University of Maryland have all established task forces or committees to combat antisemitism. NYU created a Center for the Study of Antisemitism. Those institutions join other universities that already had programs in place to address antisemitism.

Given those initiatives at other universities, and the rise of unaddressed antisemitic acts on Grounds, we were initially relieved to hear that UVA had likewise created a task force to address the current campus climate. We are disappointed to learn, however, that the focus of the task force is not aimed at addressing antisemitism but rather to “examine religious diversity and belonging.” The announcement of the initiative included a vague acknowledgement of Jewish hate on Grounds. It did not state that an objective of the initiative is rooting out antisemitism at UVA. Even worse, the entity states it will not have any recommendations until the end of the academic year. There is pervasive antisemitism on Grounds now; therefore, recommended actions are needed now. Continue reading →

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Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

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Who’s Killing Higher-Ed Transparency in Virginia?

Posted on January 8, 2024 | 4 comments

So much for transparency

by James A. Bacon

The previous post, “What Is UVA Hiding,” highlights the excessive use of the “working papers” exemption to prevent access to the UVA president’s documents, emails and texts under the Freedom of Information Act. I might have been unfair to UVA. The headline implies that UVA, or by extension its leadership, is guilty of overreach in the interpretation of state law.

It turns out that many other Virginia universities utilize the exemption. ProPublica and the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO spotlight in The Chronicle of Higher Education how they were thwarted in efforts to obtain documents shedding light on Christopher Newport University’s encroachments on adjoining neighborhoods.  Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Transparency