Author: James A. Bacon
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The Purge Comes for Edwin Alderman
by James A. Bacon As President of the University of Virginia between 1904 and 1931, Edwin Anderson Alderman led Thomas Jefferson’s university into the 20th century. A self-proclaimed “progressive” of the Woodrow Wilson stamp, he advocated higher taxes to support public education, admitted the first women into UVA graduate programs, boosted enrollment and faculty hiring,…
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Boomergeddon Countdown: Ten Years… Nine…
by James A. Bacon The last time the United States had a serious conversation about deficit spending and the accumulating national debt was in 2010 with the publication of the Simpson-Bowles study. (That’s about the same time I wrote Boomergeddon, predicting that the United States had 20 to 30 years before the fiscal wheels fell…
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No More Legacy Admissions in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Bills to ban preferential treatment for relatives of alumni at Virginia’s public universities flew through the 2024 session of the General Assembly in remarkable time. In a legislature marked by intense partisan divisions, companion bills passed subcommittees, committees, and the full Senate and the House of Delegates on unanimous votes. According…
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Scott Surovell’s End Run Around Jason Miyares
by James A. Bacon The battle for control of higher-ed institutions in Virginia is boiling over into the state legislature. Senator Scott Surovell, D-Mount Vernon, has submitted a bill, SB 506, that would allow Virginia’s public universities to hire their own legal counsel in place of lawyers answering to the Attorney General. The bill would…
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Looking More Like New Jersey Every Day
by James A. Bacon I’ve frequently made the observation that Virginia has been leaking population through domestic migration. However, as recent data published by Old Dominion University’s Strome College of Business make clear, the loss of population through domestic migration is more than offset by net international migration. Between April 1, 2020, and June 30,…
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The Most Woke Universities in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Borrowing a methodology from a Harvard computer science prof, Jay Greene and Mike Gonzales with The Heritage Foundation have calculated a wokeness ranking for Virginia’s public universities: the number of times “social justice” appears in a university’s course catalog. Measured by the absolute number of “social justice” mentions, James Madison University…
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Virginia’s New, Post-Covid Population Growth Reality
by James A. Bacon Population growth patterns are shifting within Virginia. So far during the current decade, Virginia’s two largest metropolitan areas — Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads — have been losing population due to net migration (more people moving out than moving in). The trend, evident before the Covid epidemic, became more pronounced during…
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What Do You Do If There Are No Statues Left to Tear Down?
Step #1: Reinterpret the Confederate statues; Step #2: Remove the Confederate statues from the public square; Step #3: Prevent those who want the statues from having them. Decapitate the statues, melt them down, or desecrate them in art and museum displays. What’s left? Where else is there to go? Step #4: Take away tax-exempt status…
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“Enacting Racial Change by Design”
by James A. Bacon The backlash against Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in higher-ed and the corporate world may be gathering momentum across the country, but the University of Virginia is rolling out a new DEI initiative oblivious to the shift in the national mood. UVA’s College of Arts & Sciences has launched a program this…