Tag: James A. Bacon
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Update: Dissident VMI Alumni Lawsuit
by James A. Bacon Last week Bacon’s Rebellion published a column by Bob Morris which mentioned a lawsuit that dissident Virginia Military Institute alumni had filed against the VMI Alumni Association. The petition demanded records that would allow dissident alumni access to 20,0000+ alumni emails to communicate with other alumni ahead of the association’s annual…
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Is Stingy State Funding to Blame for UVa Tuition Increases?
by James A. Bacon In explaining the cause of rising tuition & fees at the University of Virginia, we described last week how the driving force over the past 20 years has been a relentless increase in spending. Expenditures in the academic division of the University of Virginia, fueled by an expansion in salaries, increased…
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UVa’s 20-Year Expenditure Explosion
by James A. Bacon Tis the season for Virginia’s universities to announce how much they are raising tuition & fees for the upcoming academic year. Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors has jacked up tuition by 4.9% and the College of William & Mary by 4.5%. Virginia Commonwealth University is considering an increase of 4% to…
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Bible Quotes Verboten in Loudoun Teacher’s Work Email
by James A. Bacon A Loudoun County school teacher has been told to remove a Bible verse from the signature block of her work email. She contends her constitutional rights are being violated, according to the UPI news service. Loudoun County Public Schools maintains that the quote — “For God so loved the world, that…
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Enjoy the Blackouts — They’re Coming!
by James A. Bacon The graph above shows the key trend driving the major revisions in Dominion’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, which Steve Haner describes in the previous post. The projections of peak summer electricity demand, based on PJM Interconnection forecasts, has been consistently revised upward, taking a dramatic jump higher in the 2023 iteration.…
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Virginia’s New School Chief: Raise Standards, Fill Teacher Vacancies
by James A. Bacon Dr. Lisa Coons, Virginia’s new superintendent for public instruction, has been on the job for only two weeks, but she has clear priorities for reversing the slide in educational achievement in Virginia’s public schools: raise standards, get chronically absentee kids back into the classroom, and address teacher shortages. Recruited from her…
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Daily Mail Picks up Bettinger Story
The Morgan Bettinger case is gaining national notoriety. After Reason magazine detailed the travesty of the University of Virginia student who was punished for using the words “speed bumps” in a way that militant leftist protesters construed as threatening, the Daily Mail has picked up the story. The Daily Mail does not add much new…
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“DEI Is Dead” at VMI
by James A. Bacon The Youngkin administration has just unloaded a HIMARS rocket attack on Virginia Military Institute’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion program. Speaking Friday in a session of mandatory “inclusive excellence training,” Martin D. Brown, Youngkin’s chief of Diversity, Opportunity & Inclusion, left steaming rubble where VMI’s DEI program had been standing. “Let’s take…
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How the Digital Rumor Mill Fed Incoherent Social-Justice Hysteria
by James A. Bacon When Emma Camp was a student at the University of Virginia in 2020, she heard the tale of Morgan Bettinger, another UVa student, who was said to have approached left-wing protesters in downtown Charlottesville and threatened to make “speed bumps” of them. The story, says Camp, was repeatedly endlessly on social…
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Conservative Snowflakes
by James A. Bacon Delicate snowflakes aren’t found only on college campuses. Some conservatives in Virginia, it seems, are just as prone to melting down and suppressing images and ideas they don’t like. It appears that “multiple parents” have approached Patrick County Supervisor Denise Stirewalt with concerns about reading materials their children are being exposed…
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New York Times “DEI” Article Prompts Questions About Ryan’s Views
by James A. Bacon Kudos to Stephanie Saul for her front-page article in The New York Times this morning. She quotes Bert Ellis and me accurately and in context in an impressively even-handed account of the brewing controversy over Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the University of Virginia. Followers of Bacon’s Rebellion will find that…
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Apologies Run One Way in Woke World
by James A. Bacon The woke witch trials of the 21st century don’t burn their victims at the stake, but they still do immense harm. We previously told the story of how Morgan Bettinger, a 4th-year student who ran afoul of the University of Virginia’s social-justice warriors, was vilified on social media, investigated by university…
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Hmm. I think I’ll Stick with Google for Now
Supposedly, Microsoft is integrating ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology into its search results. I’m not sure how far along the tech giant is in this process, but what I’m seeing so far is not impressive. Just for yuks, I posed the following query to Microsoft’s Bing search engine: “What is causing the breakdown in discipline in…
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Peace, Love and Tolerance at W&M
Although she passionately believed in the right to life when she entered the College of William & Mary, Skyler Culbertson describes herself as “borderline liberal” and politically uninvolved. The past two years, however, have radicalized her. In a Hot Air podcast she says: “I was like, oh my gosh, indoctrination is not just a right-wing talking point —…
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D.C.’s Crime Problem Is Virginia’s Crime Problem
by James A. Bacon Washington, D.C. has a crime problem, and due to its proximity to Virginia, that means Virginia has a crime problem, Attorney General Jason Miyares wrote a week ago in a letter to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser. Miyares attributed D.C.’s crime wave to lax-on-crime policies. “Your unwillingness to enforce your laws and…