DEI for Thee But Not for Me

Posted on February 3, 2022 by | 3 comments

Ian Baucom. Beneficiary of White privilege?

by James A. Bacon

On Jan. 16, the University of Virginia announced that Provost Liz Magill had been chosen to serve as the president of the University of Pennsylvania. The same day, President Jim Ryan announced her replacement, Ian Baucom, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Baucom had been widely praised within the UVa community for modernizing the College’s curriculum, but his sudden elevation to the No. 2 spot in the administrative hierarchy prompted a strong reaction. Faculty members wondered why the provost position had not been subject to the usual Diversity, Equity & Inclusion hiring practices — advertising the open position, creating a search committee, diligently considering minority candidates — required to fill other job openings.

In the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, economics professors Amalia Miller and Sarah Turner addressed Ryan’s circumvention of the normal hiring process in order to hire a White male. They wrote: Continue reading →

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Posted in Governance

UVa Free Speech Committee Could Use Some Transparency

Posted on February 1, 2022 by | 15 comments

UVa President James Ryan

by Walter Smith

In February of 2021 University of Virginia President Jim Ryan appointed a committee to articulate the university’s commitment to free speech and free inquiry. With great fanfare, the Board of Visitors “unequivocally” endorsed the tepid, politically correct statement on June 4, 2021.

On June 7, 2021, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to see all documents used by, or submitted to, the Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry. “I would expect this to include, without limitation, submissions from faculty and students, the agendas and minutes from the meetings of the Committee, any submissions from Committee members and any outside groups,” I specified. “Essentially, if any document was before the Committee, from any source, I would like it produced.”

To make a long story short, it is nearly eight months later and I have seen only a fraction of the documents. UVa has withheld them on the grounds that, even though Ryan was not a member of the Committee, they are the president’s “working papers.” Continue reading →

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The DEI Oath

Posted on January 29, 2022 by | 11 comments

The Jefferson Council has heard from a tenured University of Virginia professor who has been required to submit a statement detailing his contributions to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in his teaching, research and service. In response, he has composed the following parody. Seeking to avoid administrative retribution and social ostracism, he asks to remain anonymous.

I pledge allegiance to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and to those People for whom it represents, without liberty and justice for all.

I promise to discriminate by preferencing certain demographic groups over others, and to stereotype by identifying some demographic groups as “oppressors” and others as “victims,” regardless of individual differences. Continue reading →

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Posted in Intellectual diversity

UVa at the Intersection

Posted on January 27, 2022 by | 4 comments

Credit: UVA Today

by James C. Sherlock

UVA has forged yet another academic/political merger and named it, with characteristic modesty, the Karsh (major donors) “Institute of Democracy”.

To those who say the university has more “institutes” and “centers” than bricks, I say give this one a chance until a closer look.

The executive director is Ms. Melody Barnes. Ms. Barnes’ biography and CV reveal her to have an impressive education and to be well left of center politically. Like nearly every member of the UVa faculty.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

But let’s leave her to it. There is more to assess. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Leftist orthodoxy, Speakers, Panels and Events

The Times, Post Mangle the Heaphy Story

Posted on January 24, 2022 by | 3 comments

Square peg, round hole, mainstream media hammer.

by James A. Bacon

Here is what happens when The New York Times imposes its national narrative upon a Virginia story. We are afflicted with articles with headlines like this: “Top Jan. 6 Investigator Fired From Post at the University of Virginia.”

“Democrats in Virginia,” says the sub-head, denounced the action as “a partisan move aimed at helping former President Donald J. Trump undercut the investigation of the Capitol riot.”

The Times quotes Senator Scot Surovell, D-Fairfax, as saying, “This is purely payback for Jan. 6 — there is no other reason that makes any sense. In our state, we normally leave those decisions to the school’s board of visitors and president.” Surovell presented no concrete evidence to support his speculation. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Governance

Begun, the College Wars Have

Posted on January 24, 2022 by | 4 comments

Tim Heaphy, pictured in 2017. Photo credit: The Cavalier Daily.

by James A. Bacon

Attorney General Jason S. Miyares has fired the university counsels of the University of Virginia and George Mason University: Tim Heaphy at UVa and Brian Walther at GMU.

I have no inside knowledge about why Miyares took these actions, but they are, I believe, best understood as the opening salvos in what will be a long-term effort by Miyares and Governor Glenn Youngkin to change the increasingly totalitarian culture of Virginia’s higher-ed system that stifles free speech and free expression.

In Virginia the governor appoints members of the boards of visitors, but the attorney general appoints the university counsels. BoV members serve on a rotating basis, with only a few seats expiring June 30 at the end of every fiscal year. But university counsels serve at the pleasure of the attorney general, as I understand it, and can be replaced at any time. Miyares has lost no time in acting.

AG spokesperson Victoria LaCivita said in a statement to The Washington Post that Heaphy had been a “controversial” hire and that Miyares’ predecessor Mark Herring had “excluded many qualified internal candidates when he brought in this particular university counsel.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Governance

The New McCarthyism at UVa

Posted on January 20, 2022 by | 4 comments

Darkness descends upon the academical village. Photo credit: Washington Post

by Joel Gardner

One of my earliest memories is sitting with my mother as a pre-kindergartener watching the McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954. Television was a new medium for most American households and the bombastic anti-communist antics of the junior senator from Wisconsin held the population enthralled for months. But, while television gave Joe McCarthy the exposure and notoriety he craved, it also spelled his doom, as more and more citizens came to realize that his agenda of intolerance and intimidation did not represent the American way. In fact, so many Americans were disenchanted and disgusted with the senator’s methodology that the term “McCarthyism” became a widespread derogatory term — which would become synonymous with authoritarian behavior characterized by thought indoctrination, loyalty oaths, and intolerance and punishment for dissenting views.

For over five decades, most American institutions eschewed tactics and agendas that reeked of McCarthyism. Which is why it is so disheartening and frightening to witness so many current institutions embracing the attributes of
McCarthyism — especially the one institution where it should be absolute anathema, but where it is most pronounced — our college campuses.

Unfortunately, this includes my alma mater, the University of Virginia, whose founders, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were the individuals most responsible for our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, the two pillars of American individual rights and freedoms. And just as the illuminating screen of television revealed the evils of McCarthyism, for those concerned with a free exchange of ideas and a level playing field of learning in higher education, it is important to shine the light of truth on the inappropriate and dangerous indoctrination flourishing at UVA. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

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Year-End UVa Update from Bert Ellis

Posted on December 18, 2021 by | 18 comments

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of my fellow Wahoos:

I am extremely pleased with the results of the Virginia elections. Governor Youngkin and Lt. Governor Winsome Sears and Attorney Gen Jason Miyares are all very interested in re-focusing UVA and other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia on educating students and not brainwashing them with the Woke/CRT/DEI mantras that have overtaken UVA and almost all other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia and across our country.

The most immediate opportunities for the Governor are his selections for the Board of Visitors. Over the next four years, he can totally replace the Board with his nominees. There are 19 total members of the Board of Visitors, 17 of whom serve 2-year terms and one faculty rep and one student rep each serving 1-year terms.

The Board of Visitors hires/fires the President and manages the overall strategy of the University and the University Health System. This current Board are all appointees of either former Governor McAuliffe or outgoing (thank heaven) Governor Northam and are responsible for letting the University make the outrageous changes that have been made over the tenures of Presidents Sullivan and Ryan. Continue reading →

18 Comments

Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

Tagged ,

Diversity Statements Snuff Out Academic Freedom

Posted on December 14, 2021 by | 3 comments

by Allan Stam

Why should you care about faculty review policies at the University of Virginia and other public Virginia universities? You should care because they affect which faculty are likely to stay at a university and which faculty are likely to move on. In other words, they affect who will teach your children and grandchildren. 

You should want universities to keep professors who conduct state-of-the-art research and excel at teaching their scholarly discipline. But that’s not what you’re going to get with the new guidelines issued by the UVa College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. (See the previous post.)

Pay raises and the annual reviews that affect them are powerful administrative tools that universities use to incentivize faculty efforts. Given that there are only so many hours in a day, faculty allocate their time towards areas that their employers reward and away from those that they do not. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity

Enforcing the New Diversity Dogma

Posted on December 14, 2021 by | Leave a comment

by James A. Bacon

This month University of Virginia departments embark upon a four- to five-month “peer review” of faculty members. The stakes are high. Scores from the review will affect merit raises and prospects for promotion.

New this year: Twenty percent of the scores will be awarded on the basis of the faculty member’s contributions to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).

In theory, the “guidance” issued by the dean’s office of the College of Arts & Sciences allow individual departments some latitude in how they conduct their peer reviews. But the language, though bland and formulaic, is clear: professors who fail to enlist in social-justice activism will have a less-than-promising future at UVa.

Evaluations of each faculty member’s “performance” will be shared with other faculty members. There is no uniform standard for weighting the scores, but if departmental reports don’t specify otherwise, the “default” mode is 40% teaching, 40% research, and 20% DEI. Continue reading →

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Posted in Race, Equity and Diversity