Tag: University of Virginia
-
Study of DEI at UVa is Shoddy Work
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Today I participated in a Zoom webinar with our Jim Bacon and Adam Andrzejewski of Open the Books. The title of the session was “How the Open-Government Movement Can Revolutionize Public Policy At UVA.” In reality, it was a rant against DEI and how UVa is “pushing this radical ideology.” The focus…
-
Up, Up, and Away
by James A. Bacon Brace yourselves for another blast of UVA-centric articles, Baconoids and Baconauts. The University of Virginia Board of Visitors meets this week, and I’ll be covering the deliberations. If you’re not interested in all things Wahoo, this might be a good time to take a vacation. On the other hand, if you…
-
DePasquale Owes an Apology
by James A. Bacon A year ago, University of Virginia Board member Bert Ellis was called to task for referring — in private text to two fellow board members — to his UVA critics as “numnuts.” He also referred to unnamed employees in President Jim Ryan’s office as “shmucks,” and expressed disappointment in the leadership…
-
BoV Secretary Edited Board Member’s Scathing Rebuke of Foe
by James A. Bacon Thomas A. DePasquale, an eight-year veteran of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors, is very unhappy with board colleague Bert Ellis. A dogged defender of President Jim Ryan, he took it upon himself in April to write a missive to other board members criticizing Ellis, who has made no secret…
-
UVA to Pay $9 Million in Mass-Shooting Settlement
The University of Virginia has settled with the families of five victims of a November 2022 mass shooting that occurred after a class outing to Washington, D.C. The university will pay $2 million each to the families of football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry and another $3 million to be divided…
-
Open the Books Digs Up 100 More DEI Employees at UVA
by James A. Bacon Back in March, Adam Andrzejewski and his team at Open the Books, a non-profit dedicated to transparency in government spending, concluded that the University of Virginia is spending $20 million in payroll for 235 employees (including student interns) on work relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Describing Andrzejewski’s numbers as “wildly…
-
UVA Groups Are Hamas Proxies, Lawsuit Contends
by James A. Bacon Matan Goldstein, a first-year Israeli-American student at the University of Virginia, has filed a lawsuit against President Jim Ryan and Rector Robert Hardie, alleging that they stood by and did nothing while pro-Hamas groups subjected him to harassment, intimidation and abuse for his religious and ethnic identity. Goldstein drew attention as…
-
UVA Grad Students Urge Withholding of Year-End Grades
by James A. Bacon The United Campus Workers of Virginia (UCWVA) at the University of Virginia has launched a campaign urging faculty and graduate students to withhold grades until the Ryan administration capitulates to its demands of amnesty for people arrested during the May 4 crackdown on the pro-Palestinian “liberation zone.” “UVA exec admin stood…
-
The Crying Game
by James A. Bacon After President Jim Ryan ordered a breakup of their liberation zone for Gaza a week ago in what one might call a “mostly peaceful” police action, encampment veterans are posturing as victims of “brutal” fascist state “violence” and “trauma.” “I got brutalized by the police at a UNESCO World Heritage site,”…
-
So Much for Empathetic Listening
by James A. Bacon Militant students and faculty at the University of Virginia — and elsewhere — often talk about having “hard conversations” about the tragic realities in Gaza. To see what those “conversations” sound like, click on the video above. It was hard alright — hard for President Jim Ryan. The students had…
-
FUCK UVA Redux: The Revolution Consumes Its Own
by James A. Bacon Militant students and faculty held an online gripe session today skewering President Jim Ryan and Provost Ian Baucom, and their rhetoric — including calls for Ryan’s resignation — is more heated than ever. While I support the actions Ryan and Baucom took to shut down the UVA Encampment for Gaza, where…
-
UVA Soft on Nazis but Brutal to Students?
by James A. Bacon A continuing meme in the ongoing rhetorical battle between leftists and anarchists on the one hand and the Ryan administration on the other is that University of Virginia authorities brutally cracked down on peaceful protesters May 4 while allowing White supremacists to march through UVA unmolested in 2017. For example, the…
-
Team Ryan Defends Shutdown of Tent Encampment
by James A. Bacon The University of Virginia called in the Virginia State Police to disperse “UVA Encampment for Gaza” protesters because they feared the demonstration was spiraling out of control, said President Jim Ryan, University Police Chief Tim Longo, and other University leaders in a virtual town hall early this afternoon. Some protesters had…
-
Intellectuals Yet Idiots on the Loose
by James A. Bacon Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the “Black Swan” and “Antifragile” author and curmudgeonly critic of just about everyone, coined the term Intellectuals Yet Idiots (IYIs) to describe the modern-day class of journalists, academics, and other cultural elitists who think they know everything better than anyone else. The term well describes professors with the…
-
With the Tents Down, the Blowback Begins
by James A. Bacon Following the decision to take down the tents in the UVA Solidarity Encampment for Gaza “liberated zone” at the University of Virginia on Saturday, UVA President Jim Ryan is facing strong blowback from leftist elements in the UVA and Charlottesville communities. Pro-Palestinian protesters had rebuked the administration’s orders to take down…