Tag: University of Virginia
-
UVa Free Speech Committee Could Use Some Transparency
by Walter Smith In February of 2021 University of Virginia President Jim Ryan appointed a committee to articulate the university’s commitment to free speech and free inquiry. With great fanfare, the Board of Visitors “unequivocally” endorsed the tepid, politically correct statement on June 4, 2021. On June 7, 2021, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act…
-
COVID, Risk, and Organ Transplants
This is the second of three posts about COVID and kidney transplants. James A. Bacon In January Stafford County resident Shamgar Connors, who has undergone kidney dialysis for nearly three years, engaged in an annual consultation with the University of Virginia Health system’s organ transplant team. His conversation with Dr. Karen Warburton went like this:…
-
Times, Post Mangle the Heaphy Story
by James A. Bacon Here is what happens when The New York Times imposes its national narrative upon a Virginia story: we are afflicted with articles with headlines like this: “Top Jan. 6 Investigator Fired From Post at the University of Virginia.” “Democrats in Virginia,” says the sub-head, denounced the action as “a partisan move…
-
Begun, the College Wars Have
by James A. Bacon Attorney General Jason S. Miyares has fired the university counsels of the University of Virginia and George Mason University: Tim Heaphy at UVa and Brian Walther at GMU. I have no inside knowledge about why Miyares took these actions, but they are, I believe, best understood as the opening salvos in…
-
The New McCarthyism at UVa
by Joel Gardner One of my earliest memories is sitting with my mother as a pre-kindergartener watching the McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954. Television was a new medium for most American households and the bombastic anti-communist antics of the junior senator from Wisconsin held the population enthralled for months. But, while television gave…
-
UVa on Third-Vaccination Mandate: Trust Us
by James A. Bacon So, the University of Virginia bumped up its deadline for students, faculty and staff to get a COVID-19 booster shot to today, one day before Glenn Youngkin, a foe of vaccination mandates, takes office. In an interview with CBS19 News, UVa spokesman Brian Coy says Youngkin’s ascension to office was not…
-
Youngkin, UVa COVID Policy on a Collision Course
by James A. Bacon The debate over COVID-19 policy rages unabated. Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares announced today their intention to challenge Biden-administration vaccine mandates through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, OSHA, and Head Start. “While we believe that the vaccine is a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19,…
-
UVa’s Thought Police Have Taken Control
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia is becoming a modern-day reeducation camp where the views of faculty and staff must conform to the dictates of Leftist ideology regarding social justice issues. Not only must employees adopt the Woke rhetoric of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI), they must engage in activist behavior. Between the…
-
Diversity Statements Snuff Out Academic Freedom
by Allan Stam Why should you care about faculty review policies at the University of Virginia and other public Virginia universities? You should care because they affect which faculty are likely to stay at a university and which faculty are likely to move on. In other words, they affect who will teach your children and…
-
Enforcing the New Diversity Dogma
by James A. Bacon This month University of Virginia departments embark upon a four- to five-month “peer review” of faculty members. The stakes are high. Scores from the review will affect merit raises and prospects for promotion. New this year: twenty percent of the scores will be awarded on the basis of the faculty member’s…
-
Emil Faber Weeps
by Walter Smith The statue of Emil Faber, founder of Faber College (of Animal House fame), bears a quote, “Knowledge is good.” The reigning philosophy at the University of Virginia, by contrast, seems to be, “Only some knowledge is good.” By way of introduction, let us note that the University of Virginia Alumni Association this…
-
The Memory (Hole) Project
by Walter Smith “And when memory failed and written records were falsified—when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.” — George Orwell, “1984” Charlottesville…
-
What Higher-Ed Reformers Are Up Against
by James A. Bacon The incoming Youngkin administration didn’t campaign on reforming “woke” public colleges and universities in Virginia, but I am getting plenty of signals that pushing back against the leftist indoctrination and conformity on campus follows close behind fixing Virginia’s public schools as a priority. The first step will be appointing board members…
-
UVa Board Ponders Tuition Increase
After freezing tuition (but not room, board or fees) this academic year, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors is considering raising tuition and fees between 3.5% and 4.9% for the 2022-23 academic year and the year after that, reports The Daily Progress. The Board had considered a 3.1% boost in tuition last year, but…
-
Does Jim Ryan Value Jefferson’s Legacy?
by Walter Smith University of Virginia President Jim Ryan has stated that, as long as he holds office, the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda will remain in place. UVa’s founder, he says, will not be de-memorialized. Talk is cheap. When given a golden opportunity to publicize Jefferson’s contribution to religious freedom —…