Bacon's Rebellion

  • Let The People In

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Dr. Judith Brooks-Buck, Suffolk City School Board

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    The Virginia Supreme Court has again ruled against a local government for violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

    The case arose as a result of Deborah Wahlstrom deciding to attend a day-long retreat of the Suffolk City School Board focused on board training and strategic planning. The meeting was publicly advertised and was to be held in a city school. At some point after she arrived and took a seat in the room in which the meeting was to be held, she was told that members of the public could not be in the room and could only view a video feed of the meeting from another room. She remained in her seat. Board Chair Judith Brooks-Buck then approached her and told her that she couldn’t be there because “this is a closed meeting.” Subsequently, she and the Superintendent of Schools John Gordon told her to exit the room and return to the lobby. She refused, citing her legal right to be present in the room.

    As the discussion continued and got a little more heated, the superintendent threatened to call the police. Wahlstrom remained in the room. The police were called and the superintendent explained to the police that Wahlstrom was “an enemy of the school division.” The police officer escorted Wahlstrom out of the building and told her she had to leave the property entirely. She was not even allowed to view the meeting virtually. (more…)

  • Virginia’s New School Chief: Raise Standards, Fill Teacher Vacancies

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Lisa Coons. Image taken from Virginia Department of Education YouTube clip.

    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 job as chief academic officer for the Tennessee public school system, Coons filled the vacancy created by the resignation of Jillian Balow. She granted Bacon’s Rebellion her first media interview. I started with an open-ended question: What are the greatest challenges facing Virginia public schools today? Her gut response: Recruit more teachers.

    “We have to get a high-quality teacher in every classroom in the state,” she said. “Remove the barriers and challenges to processing licenses. Create plenty of pathways to bring people into the [teaching] workforce.”

    Raising teacher pay is one obvious strategy for reversing the brain drain from schools. Lawmakers have funded significant pay hikes for Virginia teachers, but the raises have lagged cost-of-living increases. Improving working conditions is another approach. Virginia teachers consistently cite disciplinary issues, unsupportive administrators, and lack of respect from students and parents as morale busters. But those issues are inherently local and not amenable to top-down action from Richmond. Rather, Coons is focusing on changing state-level regulations with the goal of enlarging the pool of teachers. (more…)

  • Latin Mass Churchgoers Witnessed Suspicious Activity After FBI’s ‘Radical-Traditional Catholic’ Memo

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    by

    Robin Beres

    Exclusive to The Daily Signal

    by Tyler O’Neil

    Two parishioners at a Latin Mass Catholic church in rural Northern Virginia say they witnessed suspicious activity from what looked like FBI vehicles in February, a month after the FBI’s Richmond office published a now-rescinded internal memo focused on “radical-traditional Catholics.”

    The FBI’s Washington, D.C. office, which monitors the church’s area, denied any knowledge of such activity in a statement to The Daily Signal.

    The two witnesses told The Daily Signal that they saw two cars approach the church, drive through the parking lot as if they were writing down license plate numbers, and then leave, on two separate instances outside Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel in Linden, Virginia, some 63 miles west of Washington, D.C., between Feb. 12 and Feb. 26. (The memo had been published on Jan. 23 and rescinded on Feb. 9.)
    (more…)

  • Where are Virginia Colleges and Universities Headed with “Test Optional”

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    sherlockj

    Harvard University Home Page.  Seriously.

    by James C. Sherlock

    The left despises standardized tests in schools.

    • Teachers unions have fiercely opposed them for years as measures of accountability in K-12. Because SOLs, SATs and ACTS expose both good and bad educational results and measures of student growth over time;
    • Colleges and universities oppose them because they interfere with diversity, equity and inclusion aspirations.

    Thus Virginia colleges and universities, presented with an opportunity by COVID, jumped at the chance to drop the SAT/ACT testing requirement. Now at least some of them are quietly extending that policy.

    This from UVA:

    We’ve extended our current test-optional practice for two years. If you’re applying for admission for Fall 2024 or Fall 2025, you’ll have the choice of sharing or not sharing results from the SAT and ACT.

    Whichever path you choose, we’ll consider your application with care and respect, and you won’t be disadvantaged because of the choice you’ve made.

    Two-year extension. Any bets?

    UVA, William and Mary, Tech and W&L should consider the difference between what they are marketing — exclusivity based on merit — and that policy.

    It will quickly challenge them. (more…)

  • Washington Post Editorial Board is Pushing Back on Censorious Students. Finally

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Courtesy Washington Post

    by James C. Sherlock

    After years of silence, The Washington Post editorialized yesterday that censorship of speech on America’s college campuses had gone too far.

    Better late than never.

    We welcome them to the fight.

    The Post does not note that too many students are arriving on college campuses as already-radicalized warriors of the left, trained, not educated, as such from kindergarten.

    It will be a long slog to correct that trend. Perhaps the Post editorial board will one day join that fight as well. But not yet. It does not even acknowledge it is happening.

    As for the colleges, the contest for free speech is in the early innings.

    They will continually have to fight a battle that cannot be fully won while the left provides fresh troops to every freshman class.

  • Critical Staff Vacancies at Central State Hospital

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    sherlockj

    By James C. Sherlock

    This space has offered the opinion previously that it is unwise to build a new Central State Hospital (CSH) on the site of the old one.

    A follow-up FOIA request to the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services has yielded current “jobs filled” data to compare to “jobs vacant” data reported earlier to enable us to examine significant personnel shortfalls by percentages.

    They make a discouraging point about the current status and the future prospects of CHS in Dinwiddie County.

    (more…)

  • Daily Mail Picks up Bettinger Story

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Protesters harass Morgan Bettinger in her car after rumors circulated that she said they’d make good “speed bumps,” a supposed allusion to the Unite the Right rally three years previously in which a neo-Nazi ran his car into a crowd of protesters. Photo credit: WUVA News by way of The Daily Mail.

    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 information, but it does crystallize the insanity of the episode, in which rumors spreading on social media panicked UVa officials into running Bettinger through a flawed student disciplinary system.

    As the Daily Mail summarized the travesty: “Celebrated BLM activist ruthlessly destroyed white student’s life by accusing her of saying racial justice protesters would ‘make good speed bumps’ — only to later admit she may have MISHEARD.” The chief accuser was Zyahna Bryant, who had been awarded numerous honors in recognition of her student activism. She spread vitriol against Bettinger online, and then demanded that UVa discipline her.

    Although UVa’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights (OECR) found no evidence to confirm the allegation that she had verbally threatened the protesters, the student-run judiciary committee compelled her to write an apology to Bryant and perform social justice-related community service if she wanted to graduate. (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • RVA 5×5: Behind in the Count

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    by

    Robin Beres

    by Jon Baliles

    Baseball season is in full swing and I have already been to three games to celebrate spring, sport, and sun. And because this is Richmond, I sometimes wonder how much longer I will be able to repeat this ritual in Aprils in the future. This week, the city announced it had reached final terms with developer RVA Diamond Partners to build a new stadium and the massive Diamond District project. But the news was something of a mixed bag for a variety of reasons.

    Baseball is all about timing. When the pitcher starts his motion, when the batter cocks and decides whether to swing or not, and whether you can make contact. But after a few days of looking at the deal and reading about it, I realized something about the timing of it is off. This post is not a deep dive into the financials of the deal (that will come soon but not today).
    (more…)

  • The Ideology of Transgenderism Critiqued at JMU

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    by

    Robin Beres

    by John S. Buckley

    James Madison University recently showed how it ought to be for a conservative student group to sponsor a speaker on a controversial topic and be received with respect for principles of free speech and open inquiry. Bravo to JMU students, the JMU college administration, and the Harrisonburg community for setting such a good example.

    On Wednesday evening, April 26, the JMU Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter sponsored a notable right-wing speaker, Liz Wheeler, on the “ideology of transgenderism.” She’s a prominent speaker among conservative student groups on college campuses and she doesn’t pull punches, that’s for sure.

    Although the word on campus was that the transgender community at JMU and in Harrisonburg was vociferously urging a boycott of the event and a small, colorfully outfitted, and sign-holding group showed up outside the hall where the talk was to be held, the whole event — inside, outside, and in-between was entirely civil. Everyone involved deserves credit for how it played out. The room was packed and late arrivers, I’m told, were turned away. Judging from the questions put to Ms. Wheeler after the talk, the audience was not all conservatives.

    As if anticipating disruption, or at least aiming to head it off at the pass, the program began with remarks from an officer of campus security. I imagine he wouldn’t have said what he did without a green light from the college powers-that-be. He said disruptive behavior would absolutely not be tolerated; he cited some provision or another of the campus code of behavior; and he assured the audience that a second violation on anyone’s part would definitely result in removal and a citation.

    His comments either did the job or weren’t needed in the first place. I sensed it was the latter.
    (more…)

  • WRVA Listeners…

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Here is the link to the post Donald Smith discussed on the radio this morning.

  • Marking Five Years: My Most Read Posts

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Steve Haner

    With the end of April, five years have passed since Jim Bacon gave me a password for Bacon’s Rebellion and the semi-honorary title of contributing editor, probably no longer applicable.  Subscribers numbered one-sixth of what they are now, but it has been clear  from the beginning that some of the state’s political leadership followed the blog.

    Here are ten headlines of mine (out of 650, including my posts of guest contributors) that have reached into the top 200 or so Rebellion posts of all time, in order of total page views recorded on the administration page: (more…)

  • “DEI Is Dead” at VMI

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    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 a moment right now to kill that cow. DEI is dead,” said Brown. “We’re not going to bring that cow up anymore. It’s dead. It was mandated by the General Assembly, but this governor has a different philosophy of civil discourse, civility, treating — living the golden rule, right?”

    VMI recorded the speech and made it available to Washington Post reporter Ian Shapira, who proceeded to consult a half-dozen DEI supporters and quote them extensively to suggest that there is widespread concern about the Youngkin administration’s position. (more…)

  • How the Digital Rumor Mill Fed Incoherent Social-Justice Hysteria

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Graphic credit: Reason Magazine

    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 media — group chats, Instagram posts, and viral tweets — and then leaped to local television and print media. Bettinger was criticized, ostracized, made to fear for her safety, and ultimately punished by UVa’s student judiciary committee.

    After graduating, Camp became an assistant editor of Reason magazine. In that capacity, she has written an in-depth article in the June 2023 issue demonstrating that the story she’d heard at UVa was a fabrication– the outgrowth of social-media rumor mongering run amok.

    The article. “How an Ill-Informed Internet Mob Ruined a UVA Student’s Life,” does a brilliant job of tracing the trajectory of that lie from the actual events through the social-media postings by militant UVa activist Zyahna Bryan, to the amplification of the charges by other local activist groups, local journalists and even UVa faculty.

    “This is the story of a rumor mill that rushed to collective judgment, a pervasive climate of anger and outrage, a weak campus administration, and a unique higher-ed justice system that faltered just when it was most needed,” Camp writes. “It’s the story of a woman who was informally ostracized and formally sanctioned for a story that seemingly everyone on campus had heard and believed, but which was never proven.” (more…)

  • The Unsettled State of Lee Chapel

    Posted on

    by

    Robin Beres

    by Kenneth G. Everett

    “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”
    — William E. Gladstone, British Statesman

    The respect with which a civilization honors its dead has long been a gauge of its adherence to the duties of humane behavior and the cultivation of virtue in its citizens. That respect has found expression in the veneration of deceased persons of exemplary character and achievement, and in the enduring gratitude tendered to those of past generations whose labors laid the foundation of a society’s prosperity and moral strength. From the pyramids of Egypt, to the tombs of ancient Greece and Rome, to the monuments to the dead of more recent times, we find inspiring evidence of the homage paid by great civilizations to their dead — homage extending from the towering monuments that honor national heroes to the simplest graves of common peasants.

    And it bears remembering that none of these honored dead have been without spot. Each suffered some flaw of character or lapse of right conduct, however great or small. Nevertheless, in developed societies it has been the tradition that funeral panegyrics on the dead praise and celebrate the goodness of a life rather than defaming it, so that flaws and missteps in the person eulogized have been commonly abridged or passed over without mention. The same tradition comprehends the epitaphs engraved on tombs of the dead, be they in Westminster Abbey or in humble country churchyards. A survey of funerary epitaphs reveals a uniformity of praise for whatever was worthy in the entombed, with intent to ensure that the record of their good works and virtues of character might live on to become an inspiration and support to those who follow. The arc of an enduring civilization rises upon the best in its historical heritage of individual and collective merit — wherever in its history, and in whatever circumstances, that merit is found.
    (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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