Racist Nurses Need Indoctrination, Too, UVa Agrees

Posted on April 20, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Milania Harris and Zara Alisa

by Walter Smith

After the widely publicized killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last year, University of Virginia Nursing students Milania Harris and Zara Alisa founded Advocates for Medical Equality. Their mission was to confront bias, bigotry and racism in healthcare. They won a Martin Luther King, Jr., UVA Health System Award for their efforts, and even a got a big splash in UVA Today.

I admire anyone who carves out time from studies and other student pursuits for the goal of making the world a better place. But I do find it ironic that these two ladies won an award named after a man who wanted people to be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin — in this case by creating a program based on measuring outcomes by color of skin.

Moreover, I am not a little dismayed that that administration lauds, and its house organ UVA Today regularly gives a platform to, students, faculty and alumni who excoriate the United States, Virginia, and the university itself for racism while never — and I mean never — profiling members of the university community who might think differently.

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Update: UVa Freezes Undergraduate Tuition One Year

Posted on April 17, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Jim Ryan

by James A. Bacon

The University of Virginia is freezing undergraduate tuition in the next school year, but increases in student fees, room, and board will total about $392, or about a 1.1% increase in the cost of attendance in the College of Arts & Sciences.

The board had considered boosting tuition as much as 3.1% this year, based on the national cost of providing a college education plus 1%, reports the Daily Progress. While the Board held steady on tuition this year, UVa President Jim Ryan warned, that the respite likely would last only one year. Continue reading →

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Posted in Tuition, affordability, scholarships

UVa Response to Medical Student First Amendment Lawsuit

Posted on April 17, 2021 by | 1 comment

Norman K. Moon Senior Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia

by James C. Sherlock

Jim Bacon reported April 8 on the claims of Kieran Ravi Bhattacharya, a former student at the University of Virginia Medical School, who alleges that he was retaliated against for exercising his First Amendment freedoms at a panel discussion by the University’s chapter of the American Medical Women’s Association (“AMWA”).

Senior Judge Norman K. Moon of the United States District Court Western District of Virginia in a memorandum opinion dated March 31, 2021, dismissed three of the four complaints but left in place the First Amendment allegation. 

Mr. Bacon offered the following cautions: 

“That ruling presents only one side of the story, Bhattacharya’s, and has to be considered in that light.”

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

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Students Launch Conservative Publication

Posted on April 14, 2021 by | Leave a comment


A dozen University of Virginia students have launched an online newspaper, The Jefferson Independent, to provide news and commentary from a conservative perspective on issues of interest to the UVa community.

“In providing an outlet for intellectual diversity, objective truth, and the marketplace of ideas and debate, our goal is to mainstream conservatism amid an increasingly anti-UVA cultural hegemony,” states the publication’s mission. “Our ideas and values will be unapologetically shared and challenged without fear of being ‘canceled’. Never will we allow intimidation to silence us from upholding truth at Mr. Jefferson’s University.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

Happy Birthday, T.J.!

Posted on April 13, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Birthday cake concocted by Young Americans for Freedom to celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday.

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Professors as Partisans

Posted on April 12, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Steven Gillion

by Walter Smith

The politically one-sided “news” in UVA Today makes me wonder if any editor knows anyone who voted for Trump last November, and surely makes me believe there is no chance students get anything other than an indoctrination – not an education from a world-class institution of higher learning.

The March 26th email featured a “fan girl” pre-game of what to expect from President Biden’s first press conference, including this quote from Barbara Perry of the Miller Center: “He seems to me more relaxed now than I ever remember him in his career… He’s both genuine and authentic, but he’s taken on the mantle of the presidency and the dignity of the presidency.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Leftist orthodoxy

When “Words Are Violence,” Only One Side Gets to Speak

Posted on April 9, 2021 by | Leave a comment

If you’re not woke, you’re a fascist.

by James A. Bacon

Victoria Spiotto was brought up in a conservative, religious family of Italian descent in Loudoun County.  It was at the University of Virginia where she found her political identity as a conservative. One day in her third year, she was walking the grounds when she came across a Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) table displaying a 9/11 memorial. She found the club appealing, and started learning about thinkers to whom she’d never been exposed to before — the philosophers and thought leaders of conservatism. By her fourth year, she was leader of the club, determined to grow the organization.

Conservatives are mostly invisible at UVa, and they have few means of connecting. Spiotto wanted to let people know the group was out there, that YAF was a club where students of a conservative/libertarian stripe could find like-minded people and make friends. So, she began organizing a series of initiatives to get noticed. “It wasn’t a call to fight.” The idea, she says, was to “stand your ground. Don’t compromise on the truth you believe in.”

YAF now may be the most vilified student organization at UVa. The hostility is unrelenting. Spiotto and her buddies don’t worry for their physical safety. But left-wing students take down their signs and rain down vitriol on social media. Student Council leaders stifle dissent. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression

The Bureaucratic Banality of Academic Oppression

Posted on April 8, 2021 by | Leave a comment

by James A. Bacon

Two-and-a-half years ago, Kieran Ravi Bhattacharya, a medical school student at the University of Virginia, attended a session on “microaggressions” in which psychology professor Beverly Colwell Adams gave a presentation about her research. In what he considered to be a collegial manner, Bhattacharya challenged her analysis.

The challenge was not well received. Indeed, other participants in the session deemed his questions disrespectful. There followed a sequence of events in which Bhattacharya was investigated by the Academic Standards and Achievement Committee for unprofessional behavior, was told to submit to psychological evaluation, was suspended, was branded as a threat to the university community, was banned from the university grounds, and ultimately was expelled. Continue reading →

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Posted in Freedom of speech and expression, Governance

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The Real King Ralph (Sampson, not Northam) Saves the White Spot!

Posted on April 7, 2021 by | Leave a comment

Robert Henry at the counter of The White Spot Photo credit: https://www.wspot.net/wspot/#

By Don Rippert

Double Gus, all the way. Students who attended The University of Virginia going all the way back to 1953 are likely to be familiar with the White Spot “restaurant.” The term “restaurant” is in quotes because The Spot, as it is affectionately known, is a hole in the wall that originally had 11 stools all in a row along a counter directly across from the stovetop. At some point The Spot expanded to include the adjacent space where a few simple tables sit. As for the food… The Spot never served alcohol but still managed to attract lines of UVA students out the door waiting for a stool. Enough said. The hallmark dish was the Gus burger. The Gusburger was a mainstay of The Spot going back at least to 1977 (and probably much further). It was a cheeseburger or double cheeseburger with a fried egg on top. And this was long before the trend of putting eggs on burgers became a common fad.

Everybody wondered what would become of the beloved Spot given the Coronavirus shutdowns. A cramped space like The White Spot was not expected to fare well. But suddenly … Good news! An icon has come to save an icon. UVa and NBA basketball legend Ralph Sampson has teamed with businessman Bert Ellis to buy The White Spot. Best of all, they insist that maintaining the classic look, feel and menu of The Spot is job #1. Continue reading →

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Cavalier Athletes Excel Academically

Posted on April 2, 2021 by | 1 comment

2016 championship women’s golf team

University of Virginia student-athletes enrolled between 2010 and 2013 have racked up the highest graduation-rate scores since the National Collegiate Athletic Association began issuing its annual Graduation Success Rate data.

Cavalier student-athletes graduated at a 95% rate, up one percentage point from last year’s report, a previous high for UVA athletics. The NCAA’s national average this year was 88%, reports UVA Today. Twenty of 21 Virginia athletic programs matched or exceeded the national average. A dozen recorded 100% graduation rates, including men’s basketball. See the NCAA report here.

The women’s golf team and women’s lacrosse team both had their 11th straight years of 100% graduation rates.

Kudos to the UVa athletic program. This is a track record of which the entire UVa community can be proud!

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