Bacon's Rebellion

  • Deflating Degree Inflation

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    Robin Beres

    by Robin Beres

    In May 2021, The Harvard Business Review featured a column by Michael Hansen, CEO of Cengage Learning titled, “The U.S. Education System Isn’t Giving Students What Employers Need.”

    Hansen argued that today’s education system is not equipping students “with the skills and capabilities to prepare for a career where they can obtain financial stability.”

    It’s no secret the pandemic drastically upended the American workforce. After millions of workers lost their jobs and were sent home, they began to appreciate the value of downtime and a stress-free lifestyle. So much so that many of those newly-unemployed were reluctant to return to the nine-to-five grind.

    Businesses, anxious to be up and running again, have been desperate to get warm bodies back on their payrolls and in the office. Many CEOs have come to realize that degree-inflation — requiring an often-unnecessary bachelor’s degree for entry- and mid-level positions — has been a barrier to bringing on good, hard-working men and women.

    These types of jobs can include well-paying positions such as regional managers, supervisors, support specialists, administrative workers, and countless others. While a kid right out of high school may not have the skills necessary for many of these jobs, someone who has worked in the field for five or 10 years or more usually has picked up the qualifications necessary to do the work well.

    Last week, Gov. Glenn Youngkin joined six other state governors in a trend that began last year when he announced that the Old Dominion will no longer require college degrees for nearly 90 percent of state government jobs. It will also no longer give higher preference to degree holders. Every year, Virginia state agencies advertise more than 20,000 job openings. (more…)

  • The Craziness Gets Worse

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Now I understand why so many people are opposed to DEI.  It is “an inherently un-Christian practice.”

    At least that is what some conservatives outraged at Chick-fil-A are saying as they call for a boycott of the company.  As one asserted, “you cannot hold to that position [DEI] and glorify God.”

    What seems to have set off the storm of criticism is this statement on the company’s website;

    One of our core values at Chick-fil-A, Inc. is that we are better together. When we combine our unique backgrounds and experiences with a culture of belonging, we can discover new ways to strengthen the quality of care we deliver: to customers, to the communities we serve and to the world. We understand that getting Better at Together means we learn better, care better, grow better and serve better.

    Chick-fil-A, Inc.’s commitment to being Better at Together means embedding Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in everything we do.

    The website goes on to explain that it would achieve this goal by: “ensuring equal access, valuing differences, and creating a culture of belonging.”

    The company’s critics were also outraged that Chick-fil-A had hired a Vice-President, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Never mind that the company policy has been in place for many years and the vice-president had been in that position since at least 2020.https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/31/business/chick-fil-a-woke-dei.html

    Keep in mind that this is a company that declares that its corporate purpose is “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.” As part of fulfilling this purpose, the company’s stores are closed on Sundays to give their employees the opportunity to go to church.

    This country is going crazy.

  • UVa President Ryan Has “No Idea.” Golly Gee.

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    As a follow-up to yesterday’s story on the slide show for the UVa Board of Visitors on DEI at the University, I think it only fair to offer President Ryan’s preamble to that presentation.

    To summarize:

    • He cannot imagine what all the fuss is about; but
    • He assures that DEI efforts at UVa are misconstrued by critics, who he divides into two camps:
      1. those who support the goals of DEI “but are concerned about overreach threatening academic freedoms or seem designed to enforce ideological conformity”; and
      2. “one that asserts that the programs are being used to promote a stringently liberal, if not radical agenda – one that stands in opposition to merit and excellence and unfairly privileges certain groups over others.”
    • He asserts that any fair criticisms will be taken seriously; and
    • He is trying to create a level playing field.

    He asserts that:

    We ought to define the terms that comprise DEI; assess and resolve instances where DEI efforts are in potential conflict with other core values; and continually examine what is working and what is not and adjust accordingly.

    He then proceeds to define the terms diversity, equity and inclusion in a clear attempt to push critics of his DEI program, expanded enormously in a progressive attempt to “never let a crisis go to waste” in 2020, to the edges of reasoned debate.

    He professes he has “no idea where this notion” (that equity means equal outcomes) came from. This from a man whose own DEI bureaucracy publishes only statistical outcomes.

    “No idea.”

    I call this the “golly gee” approach. “Golly gee” indicates surprise, excitement or both from an innocent in the ways of the world.

    Seriously?  Spare us. (more…)

  • UVa Board Trims Next-Year Tuition by 0.7%. Big Whoop.

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    James A. Bacon

    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 the budget represents a “good faith” effort to comply with the administration’s request. But in response to a question, she acknowledged that it only “partially” complied.

    “This is very late in the budgetary cycle,” which closes June 30, said former Rector and the board’s financial guru James Murray. “We’re supposed to have a budget number in March. It’s very difficult in this point the year to say, ‘Go find millions of dollars.’” He described the partial rollback as “a concession to political reality.”

    In other business, the Board also approved a $5.4 billion operating budget for Fiscal 2023-24, which begins July 1. The budget encompasses the academic divisions of the University of Virginia main campus, the campus in Wise, and the UVa Health System. The UVa main campus operating budget amounts to nearly $2.3 billion.

    To an outside observer, the proceedings were remarkable — for the lack of oversight. Board input into what is arguably the most important vote of the year was inconsequential. Aside from praise for the UVa financial staff and a few requests for clarifications, board members had little to say. They offered no substantive questions. They provided zero pushback. (more…)

  • DEI Presentation at Tomorrow’s UVa Board of Visitors Meeting Attempts to Deflect the Discussion

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    Tomorrow, June 2, there will be a meeting of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia.

    The University has published a preview of a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion presentation to the Board.

    That presentation is designed quite clearly to deflect the conversation from the true issues.  It attempts to:

    • center the discussions on issues the university president wishes to defend; and
    • define terms in ways he wishes to defend them.

    I offer some questions and observations.

    Slide: Racial and gender diversity at UVA are relatively new – and our DEI work is even newer.  The presentation is off to a weak start. Setting the stage for the DEI discussion with race and gender is a deflection.

    For example, white students have been underrepresented in the undergraduate and graduate school populations at UVa since at least 2010 as compared to whites in the population as a whole in both the United States and Virginia. Females outnumber males in the UVa student population by roughly 60% to 40%.

    Those are facts.  They raise the question of the true reason for the recent expansion of DEI bureaucracy.

    Let’s see if we can find it. (more…)

  • Fact Checking Bill Leighty

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    In my review of Bill Leighty’s memoir, I quoted at length an incident that was supposed to illustrate Leighty’s deal-making skills, as well as how things are often accomplished in state government. One of this blog’s alert readers, “how_it_works,” pointed that the timing of the events related in the story just did not work out, thereby casting doubt on the story.

    I thought the objection was valid and serious enough to warrant investigation. Because the story involved legislation enacted in the late 1980’s and the on-line Legislative Information System does not have legislative history before 1994, I had to wait until the public agencies with the paper records opened after Memorial Day before I could do any checking. This follow-up article sets out the results of my research. (more…)

  • Virginia Democrats Have New Tourism Twist

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    Robin Beres

    by Olivia Gans Turner

    Recently North Carolina passed a bill to prevent abortions after 12 weeks. This new law may save many lives in North Carolina, but most abortions actually happen earlier, in the first weeks of pregnancy.

    Now Virginia Democrats are announcing their intention to make Virginia a destination state for abortions. In the upcoming 2023 elections they must hold the Senate and gain the House of Delegates in order to turn Virginia into a place where unlimited abortions are available and paid for with our taxes.

    It is tragic that the Democrats in Virginia are prepared to make Virginia a destination state for abortions-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy. It is infuriating that they have opposed every rational bill that has come out of the House of Delegates during the past two General Assembly sessions. They have even announced their desire to enshrine a permanent, unrestricted “Right to Abortion” into the Virginia Constitution.

    In polling done earlier this year by McLaughlin and Associates, 70 percent of respondents stated that abortion should only be legal under very limited circumstances, including the life of the mother or rape and incest, with reporting. Less than 5 percent of abortions are done in the U.S. for those reasons. Another 60 percent oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions.

    Pro-life Republicans are committed to passing reasonable laws on abortion, including the bill to protect unborn babies who can feel pain and a bill to provide medical care to babies who survive an abortion. Radical pro-abortion members of the Virginia Senate, led by Sen Louise Lucas, blocked every rational pro-life bill that came out of the House of Delegates.

    Virginia Democrats are way out of step with most Virginians and are only committed to the abortion groups that fund so many of them. Abortion with no limits does not help women and it kills their babies. It is not good medicine or real health care. Tragically, it is big business in Virginia now.

    It is up to Virginia voters to stop this dangerous agenda.

    Olivia Gans Turner directs American Victims of Abortion (AVA), an outreach project of the National Right to Life Committee. This column was originally posted in The Republican Standard. It is reprinted here with permission.

  • Judge Orders LCPS to Turn Over Investigation into the Assaults and Rape at Two County Schools

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    Robin Beres

    by Jeanine Martin

    Loudoun County Circuit Court Judge James P. Fischer has ordered Loudoun County Public Schools to turn over its internal investigation into the assaults and rape that occurred in 2021 at two Loudoun County high schools.

    The school system had argued that it was privileged information that they need not share with the public. Judge Fischer disagreed and ordered the report to be turned over to the public within 7 days.

    From WTOP.com:

    The ruling is a win for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who has been fighting to expose how he says the school district mishandled the incidents.

    The judge agreed with prosecutors from the Miyares’ office that the internal report on the 2021 sexual assaults and rape on school grounds was not protected under attorney-client privilege — noting that then-Superintendent Scott Ziegler gave the perception that any findings from the independent investigation were for the public’s benefit.

    In a statement, Miyares’ spokeswoman Victoria LaCivita said in part, “We appreciate the courts time and attention to this matter.”

    More on the story here.

    This piece was originally appeared in The Bull Elephant and is reprinted with permission.

  • Equity: Equal Outcomes or Equal Opportunity?

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    James A. Bacon

    Photo credit: Richmond.com

    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 means “equal outcomes” as opposed to “equal opportunity.”

    “I have no idea where this idea came from, but it ought to be rejected out of hand,” he says. “I know of no college that assures equal outcomes.”

    Where, oh where, could critics of UVa’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion policies have gotten the idea that equity stands for equal outcomes?

    Perhaps they got it from “Audacious Future: Commitment Required,” which summarized the 2020 findings of UVa’s Racial Equity Task Force, established by Ryan. The document was endorsed by the Board of Visitors, and never has Ryan, the Board, or anyone else in authority at UVa distanced themselves from its goals and objectives.

    The task force report makes abundantly clear what “equity” means to its authors (my bold face): (more…)

  • New Offshore Wind Power Project Proposed to Come Ashore in a Virginia Beach Flood Zone

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock

    There is a dominant engineering problem in bringing offshore wind-generated electricity ashore in Virginia Beach. Flooding and water tables very close to the surface are the twin reasons there are few basements in Virginia Beach. And those that have them regret it.

    The 2020 Virginia Beach FEMA Flood Hazard Map is 56MB. It is too big to display here. So don’t try downloading it on a phone. But take a look. It is important to the discussion.

    Camp Pendleton and Sandbridge are Virginia Beach shore landing spots proposed for offshore wind electricity generated by two different fields. Both will have similar infrastructure pictured below.

    courtesy https://coastalvawind.com/about-offshore-wind/delivering-wind-power.aspx

    Below is the SCC-approved transmission line route from Camp Pendleton for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. The map does not show flood hazard zones.

    I am not sure any public version of it ever did. (more…)

  • Ryan Calls for a Kinder, Gentler DEI

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    James A. Bacon

    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” theorists such as Ibram X. Kendi, Ryan argues that DEI is misunderstood. There is no talk in the essay about “white supremacy,” “white privilege,” “structural racism” or other leftist buzzwords.

    Indeed, Ryan argues that the most contentious element of DEI — equity — does not mean striving for equal outcomes, as many conservatives say it does. Sounding very much like Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, Ryan contends that “equity” really means equal “opportunity.” Unlike Youngkin, who renamed the state’s office of DEI to the office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion, however, Ryan is satisfied to retain the equity label and redefine it in more benign terms.

    The tone in Ryan’s essay is moderate and reasonable. Political conservatives and moderates would not find much to argue with. The problem is that the words are largely divorced from reality. One is driven to conclude either that UVa’s president, insulated by layer upon layer of management, does not know what is occurring at the institution he leads or, worse, he does know and he is doing his best to obscure it. (more…)

  • FIVE QUESTIONS: Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares

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    Robin Beres

    by Shaun Kenney

    Last week, TRS was able to sit down and talk with Virginia’s Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) about the challenges he is facing from opioid and fentanyl abuse to the FBI Richmond’s targeting of Catholics in the public square.

    Miyares — a longstanding conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan and a leading thinker in his own right — shares his convictions, his hope for civility over violence, and some discussion on what he rightly calls the American Miracle.

    So it seems as if some congratulations are in order. Russian President Vladimir Putin has put you on the Russian sanctions list. What did you do to earn such an esteemed award?

    Yeah, I keep making lists!

    I keep visiting with the Uigurs in Northern Virginia. I find it interesting but not surprising because we have such a different worldview. I detest autocracy and tyranny in all forms. When Putin said that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the single greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, I view that as Ronald Reagan’s greatest victory.

    Yet the reality of any autocratic regime is that ideology trumps the individual. C.S. Lewis said that of all the tyrannies in the world, the tyrannies that are for your benefit are the worst in the world. Solzhenitsyn writes about this in the Gulag Archipelago.
    (more…)

  • Dollars and Scholars

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    Robin Beres

    by John Butcher

    Table 15 in the 2022 Superintendent’s Annual Report includes the division expenditures per student for operations. Let’s juxtapose those data with the 2022 division Standards of Learning (SOL) pass rates. But first: Economically Disadvantaged (ED) students (those eligible for Free/Reduced Meals, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], eligible for Medicaid, or identified as either Migrant or experiencing homelessness) pass the SOLs at rates about 20 percent lower than their more affluent peers (not ED). Thus, division SOL averages are affected by the relative percentages of ED and Not ED students in the division. The (very nice) SOL database provides data for both groups so we can look directly at the divisions’ performance.

    To start, here are the 2022 SOL reading pass rates graphed vs. the per student expenditures.

    There’s no room to label that crowd of data points. I have settled for labels on some of the high performers and three not-high performers. The aqua points are the state averages. Richmond is the gold points.

    As you can see, some of the high-expenditure divisions do very well while some do not. And a number of low expenditure divisions do just as well as the best high expenditure ones. Falls Church leads the pack for the Not ED rate but is just above the state average as to its ED number. (more…)

  • Appeals Court Upholds TJHSST Admissions Policy

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    For all the ink that has been used on this blog concerning the “illegal” and “unconstitutional” new admissions policy at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, here is a story that has strangely escaped comment here:  the federal appeals court has upheld the policy.

    In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court panel found that the group challenging the new admissions policy as discriminatory toward Asian Americans “cannot satisfy its burden of proving that the Board’s adoption of the race-neutral challenged admissions policy was motivated by an invidious discriminatory intent, whether by way of “racial balancing,” “proxies,” or otherwise.”  Furthermore, the panel ruled that “expanding the array of student backgrounds in the classroom serves, at minimum, as a legitimate interest.”

    It is expected that the decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.  There is speculation in legal circles that the plaintiffs are “laying the groundwork for a much bigger legal transformation” that could ban any public policy effort to close racial gaps.

     

  • The Sucking Sounds Gets Louder

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    James A. Bacon

    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 using traditional newspaper carriers, reports Cardinal News… a digital publication.

    How long until the Richmond, Norfolk, and Roanoke newspapers are reduced to three days a week? (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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