Category: Education (higher ed)
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UVa Admissions Trends: Whites Down, Asians Up, Blacks a Question Mark
by James A. Bacon As the University of Virginia community debates the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of race in higher-ed admissions, The Jefferson Council is publishing publicly available data that provide context for the discussion. UVa’s office of Institutional Research and Analysis publishes three types of admissions data (applications,…
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Equal Protection, Affirmative Action and Effecting Generational Change
by James C. Sherlock America is the most successful nation in the history of the world because of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by our Constitution. More than a hundred other nations have emulated the American Constitution. Without constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights, we would be chained to the whims of the state. Most immediately…
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Info-Wars in the College Admissions Debate
by James A. Bacon It will be exceedingly difficult to hold an honest conversation in Virginia about the role of race in higher-education admissions and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. College administrators are the gatekeepers of data critical to the discussion and they will not share it. I have been stymied twice this week in my…
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Culture Wars about College Admissions Tend to Ignore Guaranteed Entry from Virginia Community Colleges
by James C. Sherlock Much angst has accompanied the Supreme Court’s decision banning overt racial preferences in admissions to colleges as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The conversations in the comments to Jim Bacon’s article on admissions were as split philosophically/politically as is anything else these days.…
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Whites Under-Represented in UVa’s Entering Classes
by James A. Bacon As the debate unfolds about how to apply the U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting the use of race as a factor in college admissions, it would be helpful for the discussion to be rooted in reality. At the University of Virginia, any dialogue should be based upon the recognition that admissions…
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A New “Landscape” for UVa Admissions
by Walter Smith With the recent U.S. Supreme Court restricting “affirmative action” in college and university admissions, an all-consuming question in Charlottesville is how the University of Virginia might change its policies and guidelines for admitting students. While prohibiting the use of race as a decisive factor in admissions, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts allowed…
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Setting the Stage for the Great Race-in-Admissions Debate
by James A. Bacon People have been asking me what I think about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting colleges and universities from using race as a specific basis for admitting students. I’m not a legal scholar, so I won’t offer any opinions on the legal or constitutional merits of the decision. I speak as…
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WaPo Eats Crow, Students’ Journalism Award Stands
by James A. Bacon It is sweet indeed to read the latest Washington Post article about the Virginia Military Institute: after calling into question a top journalism award bestowed upon The Cadet independent student newspaper, media reporter Paul Farhi found himself gulping down a serious helping of crow in a follow-up story headlined, “VMI student…
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Who Guides the Guides?
by James A. Bacon In the spring of 2022 University of Virginia alumnus Warren Lightfoot emailed Rector Whitt Clement, a fraternity brother, to share the experiences of a friend and friend’s daughter during a university tour. Among other negative observations about UVa, reported Lightfoot, the student tour guide had made a point of noting that…
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Colleges Falsely Claim Juneteenth Was ‘The Day Slavery Ended in the U.S.’
by Hans Bader Many colleges and progressives are claiming that Juneteenth — June 19, 1865 — was “the day slavery ended” in the U.S. But slavery actually remained legal in Kentucky and Delaware until December 6, 1865, the day the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery went into effect. Yale University has a web site titled,…
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Men Need Not Apply
by James A. Bacon Mark R. Perry, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has filed 841 complaints over the years against universities whose policies and practices discriminate against men. So far, the Office of Civil Rights has opened 28 investigations just based on more than 100 complaints he’s filed for Do No…
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Probing UVa’s Gender Gap: Is It an Admissions Problem?
by James A. Bacon As highlighted in our last post, the University of Virginia admits significantly more women than men. The split in the undergraduate student body is roughly 54/46. My aim in pointing out the disparity was not, as some readers presumed, to argue for special preferences for men; admission to UVa should be…
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Darkness Comes to Hokietown
by James A. Bacon Wokeness is so all-pervasive in Virginia higher-ed that I cannot possibly keep readers abreast of it all. Today I settle for quoting the thoughts of others. Today The Wall Street Journal op-ed section highlights litigation surrounding Virginia Tech’s Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT). The advertising catchphrase “see something, say something” calls…
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The Incoherence of DEI Ideology: the Gender Gap
by James A. Bacon Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Virginia is incoherent in theory, arbitrary in practice, and riddled with contradictions. Nowhere is DEI policy more muddled than UVa’s treatment of men and women. UVa’s long-term goal is to recruit a student body that “looks like Virginia” in its racial/ethnic composition. Yet…
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VMI’s DEI Chief Resigns — “Vitriolic” VMI Critics Implicated
by James A. Bacon Virginia Military Institute’s chief diversity officer, Jamica Love, has resigned nearly two years after taking on the job of implementing Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the military institute. While Superintendent Cedric T. Wins noted that Love served with distinction and professionalism, VMI gave no reason for her resignation. She has issued…