Category: Uncategorized
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VMI Disguises DEI Contract
By Jake Spivey In late fall 2021, Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors and its newly installed superintendent were still reeling from the state investigator’s specious report condemning the Institute’s cultural climate. Resolving to quiet a mostly nameless and unidentifiable assortment of individuals criticizing VMI, the Board submitted through the state’s contracting website a request…
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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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JMU Debate Team Opposes Debate
by Kerry Dougherty It’s been decades since I was in college so help me out here. Wouldn’t you expect a university debate team to support free speech and the airing of diverse ideas? Yep, that’s what I thought too. But you haven’t met the easily triggered members of James Madison University’s debate team. They’re leading…
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Unaffordable Housing, Redux
by Joe Fitzgerald Proposed housing construction in the city of Harrisonburg could add about 1,200 students to the Harrisonburg City Public Schools, with housing already under construction in Rockingham County possibly adding 400 more. A quarter of the 1,600 potential students could be absorbed by the opening of Rocktown High School, leaving the city to…
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Is the Commanders Stadium Coming to Loudoun?
by Jeanine Martin The deal for Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder to sell the team to Josh Harris hasn’t even been inked and yet speculation begins again that the team may move to eastern Loudoun County. Supervisor Tony Buffington (R-Blue Ridge), is opposed to the stadium moving to Loudoun. He said today that he and…
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The Strike at the AdvanSix Chemical Plant in Hopewell – A Complex Story
by James C. Sherlock We don’t see very many industrial strikes in Virginia. Regular readers know that I have often supported blue collar unions in the private economy. My family roots are linked to Pennsylvania coal mines. Those miners’ strongest claims were for their own safety. Followed very closely by their demands for living wages.…
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Increasing Teacher Vacancy Rates
by Matt Hurt The teacher vacancy rate in the Commonwealth has become such a problem that the Virginia Department of Education created a database to track this problem. The Staffing and Vacancy Report found on the Education Workforce Data & Reports page of the VDOE website displays unfilled Virginia educator positions at the state, region,…
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Sens. Warner, Kaine Visit Roanoke To Tout New Bridge But City Council In The Dark About Scope of Project
by Scott Dreyer On a picture-perfect April 12 with a backdrop of the sparkling Roanoke River and dogwoods and redbuds in bloom, Virginia’s Senator Mark Warner (D) and Senator Tim Kaine (D) visited the Roanoke Greenway at Roanoke City’s Smith Park. The occasion was for the two senators to present a cardboard poster representing a…
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School Bullying and Victimization Data: Just the Facts
by Dr. Kathleen Smith Earlier this week on Bacon’s Rebellion, James Bacon posted “The Fruit of School Disciplinary ‘Reform.’” Regarding the matter of bullying, I am adding a few additional statistics from the Youth and Juvenile Justice System 2022 National Report from the National Center for Juvenile Justice. The abstract embedded in the report includes the…
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As Newspapers Struggle, Local News is Harder to Find in Virginia
by Christopher Connell It is, unfortunately, old news. Virginia’s newspapers, the single biggest source of local news, face unprecedented challenges, with their readers, revenues, and staffs steadily dwindling. It’s a paradox because news writ large now seems to be available everywhere, all the time, on phones in our pockets and purses. People still hear about…
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Five Questions: An Interview with Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears
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by Shaun Kenney Last week, The Republican Standard had the opportunity to follow Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears as she toured the Richmond Slave Trail — which included not only the site of the notorious Lumpkins Slave Jail but also the site where Gabriel Prosser was executed and presumably buried in 1800. Winsome Earle-Sears brought a…
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You Want to Teach? Wait in Line.
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Last September, Governor Youngkin issued an executive directive addressing teacher shortages in Virginia. That directive laid out numerous actions to be taken by the Superintendent of Public Instruction and other agency heads with regard to reducing the teacher shortage. In his remarks upon releasing the directive, he called the actions “transformational.” It…
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The More Things Remain the Same
by Joe Fitzgerald Stop me if you’ve heard this one. The Hopewell chemical plant where Kepone was born and raised has been cited 66 times over the past eight years for releasing toxic chemicals into the air and into the James River. The Richmond Times-Dispatch tells the story better than I do. What makes this…