Tag: James A. Bacon
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Countering the VEA… on a Shoestring Budget
The Internet ad displayed above, produced by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, reached 12,000 Virginia teachers. The return on the modest investment has been impressive. Says Co-President Chris Braunlich: “Inquiries about alternative educator associations are pouring in. Some have already cancelled their union membership (taking $700 in annual dues with them).” —…
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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…
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Back in Vogue at UVa: Viewpoint Diversity
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia leadership normally keeps its Board of Visitors meetings running on such a tightly scripted schedule that board members rarely get an opportunity to engage in free-wheeling discussion. But Rector Whitt Clement and President Jim Ryan made an exception Friday during the board’s June meeting: they set aside…
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UVa Board Trims Next-Year Tuition by 0.7%. Big Whoop.
by James A. Bacon Responding to a Youngkin administration request for Virginia’s public colleges and universities to curb tuition increases, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors voted this morning to reduce a scheduled 3.7% tuition hike next year to 3.0%. As explained by Chief Operating Officer J.J. Davis, the shaving of $5.5 million from…
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Equity: Equal Outcomes or Equal Opportunity?
by James A. Bacon University of Virginia President Jim Ryan begs to differ with critics of “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.” The term “equity” has become a lightning rod in the debate over DEI, he writes in an essay recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Somehow, he muses, people got the idea that equity…
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Ryan Calls for a Kinder, Gentler DEI
by James A. Bacon As the University of Virginia Board of Visitors gears up for a discussion of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at its June board meeting, President Jim Ryan has made the case for a kinder, gentler DEI in an essay recently published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Forgoing the rhetoric of “anti-racism”…
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The Sucking Sounds Gets Louder
by James A. Bacon Six Virginia newspapers owned by Lee Enterprises — the Bristol Herald Courier, the (Charlottesville) Daily Progress, the (Culpeper) Star-Exponent, the (Danville) Register & Bee, the Martinsville Bulletin, and the (Waynesboro) News Virginian — will begin publishing “expanded” print editions three days a week and deliver them by postal mail rather than…
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No One Does Memorials Like the Italians
by James A. Bacon The Bacon family has just returned from vacation in Italy, which included two days in Rome. We saw the Colosseum, of course, toured the phenomenal Vatican Museum, and marveled at the Trevi Fountain, all of which are well known to American tourists. The big surprise to us was the Altar to…
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Time to Cancel Memorial Day?
For context, read Robin Beres’ uplifting tribute to the Arlington National Cemetery in the post below. Then, if you can stomach it, read Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Jeff Schapiro’s take on Memorial Day today. Memorial Day, he writes, “began as a commemoration by Southerners of husbands, fathers and sons who perished in the 19th-century Confederate revolt…
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How UVa Offsets Bureaucratic Bloat
by James A. Bacon College Simply‘s 2023 Best Value Colleges in America ranks the University of Virginia as the 2nd “best value” among public colleges and universities in the United States in 2023. The best-value distinction is conferred upon institutions that provide students the most academic prowess for the money (defined as net tuition after financial…
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DEI Has “Gone Off the Rails”
by James A. Bacon Finally, we’re getting an open debate about “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” in Virginia — not an honest debate, mind you, but a debate which, whether honest or not, is long overdue. Last month, Virginia’s chief diversity officer Martin Brown proclaimed that DEI was “dead” at the Virginia Military Institute. Various parties,…