Bacon's Rebellion

  • The Anti-Racist History of Vouchers in Virginia

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The school choice movement — and vouchers in particular — are portrayed by proponents of public school monopolies as elitist and racist in origin. According to historian Nancy MacLean, the idea for vouchers came out of Virginia’s Massive Resistance to school integration as a way to transfer white children from integrated schools into private “segregation academies.” This widely accepted view is has been little disputed.

    Until now. Writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, Phillip W. Magness with the American Enterprise Institute says the critics of vouchers have their history backward. The voucher idea originated with economist Milton Friedman as a way to advance integration. Writes Magness: “Virginia’s segregationist hard-liners recognized the likely outcomes and began attacking school choice as an existential threat to their white-supremacist order.”

    That’s right, integrationists proposed vouchers as a way to integrate schools, and segregationists opposed them for precisely the same reason. (more…)

  • Bacon Bits: Government Failure, Private Initiative

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    James A. Bacon

    Will Metro ever get its act together? The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has pulled the 7000 series of rail cars from service after a derailment on the Blue Line and discovery of more than two dozen wheel-assembly defects similar to those that had contributed to the accident, reports the Washington Post. โ€œThe potential for fatalities and serious injuries was significant,โ€ said National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, โ€œThis could have resulted in a catastrophic event.โ€ The news represents the latest in a long series of setbacks for the commuter rail system, which serves Northern Virginia. It comes at at time when transit officials were hoping that ridership, devastated by the COVID-19 epidemic on top of a history of safety and service issues, might rebound. But never fear, the federal government has a printing press and it has limitless dollars to prop up failed enterprises.

    K-12 education in crisis. The crisis in K-12 education has far deeper roots than the COVID-19 epidemic. Nationally, 13-year-olds saw unprecedented declines in both reading and math between 2012 and 2020, according to scores released a week ago by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Despite relentless efforts to close the racial achievement gap, the “Nation’s Report Card” shows that Blacks are falling behind even faster than Whites, Asians, and Hispanics. Declines were most severe in the bottom 10th percentile. โ€œItโ€™s really a matter for national concern, this high percentage of students who are not reaching even what I think weโ€™d consider the lowest levels of proficiency,โ€ said George Bohrnstedt, a senior vice president and institute fellow at the American Institutes for Research, as quoted in the 74 Million blog.

    Dumb and dumber. Speaking of the NAEP scores, fewer than half of Virginia’s 4th graders score “proficient” or higherย  in the NAEP tests. By the 8th grade, they fall even farther behind. Here are the most recent numbers (2019): (more…)

  • The Alumni Rebellion Gains Momentum

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    James A. Bacon

    First, Stuart Taylor and Ed Yingling (with Princetonians for Free Speech) got a column published Monday in the Wall Street Journal about the formation of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance. Fox News followed with a storyย yesterday (seen above). Since then, Inside Higher Ed, the leading higher-ed trade publication, has run a news story of its own.

    The response has been fantastic. Yingling has been overwhelmed with inquiries. The number of subscribers to The Jefferson Council blog jumped 50% overnight.

    If anyone in Virginia has an interest in starting a university alumni group to address issues centered on free speech and intellectual diversity, check out the Alliance website. Or contact Yingling directly at edyingling[at]comcast.net. (more…)

  • McAuliffe Unhinged

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    This is what happens when Democrat Terry McAuliffe gets tough questions from the press instead of his customary tongue bath:

    This interview was taped last week by an ABC affiliate in Washington, WJLA 7News. The reporter, Nick Minock, interviewed Glenn Youngkin and McAuliffe, giving each candidate 20 minutes. McAuliffe stormed off after just 10 minutes, berating the reporter for not asking better questions as he left.

    Not a good look. (more…)

  • Climate Rationality Preached in a UVA Pulpit

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    Steve Haner

    Jason S. Johnston, Professor, University of Virginia School of Law

    by Steve Haner

    Efforts to rapidly expand our reliance on wind and solar generation for electricity, while at the same time closing baseload natural gas generation with similar haste, makes no sense economically. โ€œThe only explanation for that policy is you want to shut down the economy.โ€

    Another voice of reason has emerged to challenge the climate alarmist orthodoxy, a Virginia voice,ย  Professor Jason S. Johnston at the University of Virginia School of Law. He brings to the discussion the experience and analysis of a regulatory law expert and economist, distilled into a somewhat daunting 656-page book published by Cambridge University Press in August.

    โ€œClimate Rationality: From Bias to Balanceโ€ (available through Amazon here) focuses at length on the legal precautionary principle behind most climate regulatory schemes, with little or no consideration taken of either the economic costs or unintended environmental consequences. He writes in an excerpt from his introduction:

    The precautionary principle says little if anything about how such costs should be weighed in designing policy. But, given the highly uncertain and unpredictable future impacts of rising atmospheric GHG concentrations and the unprecedented cost of reducing GHG emissions, any rational regulatory response to curbing human GHG emissions must surely closely scrutinize the case for decarbonization. The purpose of this book is to provide precisely such an examinationโ€ฆ

    Precautionary US climate policy has already cost lives, damaged the environment, and increased costs for the basic life necessities, such as electricity, in ways that are felt most acutely by the poorest American households.

    (more…)

  • No CRT to See Here, Move Along Now

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    James A. Bacon

    From the Critical-Race-Theory-is-a-conservative-bogeyman department:

    Celebrate #UnityWeek and join panel discussions where you can engage in healthy and positive conversations about unity. Featured for Unity Week is the โ€œStamped from the Beginning Community Read Project,โ€ a Virginia Beach Public Library (VBPL) read program series featuring “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” by Ibram X. Kendi and its youth and teen adaptations. (more…)

  • Why W&L’s Dudley Must Go

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    James A. Bacon

    Republished from The Generals Redoubt newsletter.

    The Generals Redoubt is calling for Will Dudley to resign or be terminated as President of Washington and Lee University and for a new president to be recruited who better reflects the historical values of the school and the majority of its alumni. Unfortunately, there are too many reasons to justify his dismissal for one newsletter, so this is the first of several editions explaining why #DudleyMustGo.

    In the broadest sense, Dudley should be terminated as his words and deeds indicate that he sees Washington and Lee as deeply flawed. Both he and Rector McAlevey want to reimagine Washington and Lee in a worldview not shared by the vast majority of W&L alumni, parents, and students. (more…)

  • This Is It! Act Now to Save the UVa Honor Code, or It Dies!

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    James A. Bacon

    Letter from Bert Ellis, president of The Jefferson Council to All Friends of the University of Virginia.

    I am writing this letter as Bert Ellis, a passionate Double Hoo (College โ€˜75, Darden โ€˜79) and as a Founder and President of The Jefferson Council. Our University is under attack from multiple sources and at multiple levels. The entire academic and community experience that so many of us shared at UVA is totally at risk. Our Administration has totally politicized the entire university to the detriment of all that we hold dear. (more…)

  • Another Assault on Virginia Landlords

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    James A. Bacon

    HUD listening session soliciting input from landlords.

    by James A. Bacon

    The Office of the Attorney General has filed lawsuits accusing 13 Richmond-area real estate companies of discriminating against prospective renters who receive federal housing vouchers.

    โ€œEvery single Virginian has the right to a safe, comfortable home, regardless of whether they have some assistance paying their rent,โ€ said Attorney General Mark Herring. โ€œBlocking Virginians who would use a [voucher] to pay their rent is outright housing discrimination and will not be tolerated in Virginia.โ€

    Housing vouchersย allow recipients to escape public housing projects and move freely in the private rental market. But participation in the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD program is voluntary, and many landlords opt out. Herring views such behavior as a form of housing “discrimination,” a way to screen out potentially undesirable tenants, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. While federal law does not prohibit discrimination based on the source of income, the practice may violate a state anti-discrimination law enacted in 2020. These lawsuits put the Virginia law to the test.

    What could go wrong? (more…)

  • A New Low: Sleazy Attempt to Get Youngkin Voters to Stay Home

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    There are all sorts of slimy political campaigns. There are campaigns that try to scare folks into voting against a candidate. There are campaigns built on distortions and outright lies.

    Perhaps the most repulsive campaigns are those that engage in subterfuge to try to discourage citizens from voting.

    Voter suppression is profoundly undemocratic. Surely we can all agree about that.

    Yet we learned this week that Dominion Power gave generously to a shadowy PAC that has exactly one purpose: to pretend that conservatives are unhappy with Glenn Youngkinโ€™s stand on guns in an attempt to convince rural Virginians to stay home in November.

    Sick. (more…)

  • Virginia Preschool Initiative Pilot – Political Conclusions Belied by the Data

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    sherlockj

    by James C. Sherlock. Updated Oct 18 at 5:38 PM

    Those who have followed my reporting know that I am passionate on the subject of helping poor children do better in Virginiaโ€™s schools.ย They also know of my disdain for Virginiaโ€™s hyper-political education establishment. ย 

    Well, the Northam administration has turned the Virginia Preschool Initiative Plus pilot into a full fledged program.

    In doing so, it has finessed the needs of the children by ignoring the results of that pilot to satisfy the political desires of the progressive education establishment. (more…)

  • Dominion and Despicable Voter Suppression

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    Steve Haner

    So it was Dominion Energy paying for campaign ads opposing gun regulation! Here is why.

    by Steve Haner

    Dominion Energy Virginiaโ€™s knowing participation in an effort to suppress the November 2 vote, aimed mainly at Western Virginia Republicans, is a truly despicable act. It should enrage all Virginians, without regard to party. This is a state-created and regulated monopoly and the $200,000 it spent on this underhanded activity was provided by captive customers.

    I further assert that in previous election cycles, as heavily as Dominion funded various candidates, this type of expense would not have been approved by the management, including the late Thomas Farrell. But Farrell is dead and the political deciders at the top now are both long-time partisan Democrats who fully understood they were paying for voter suppression.

    I would be expressing no anger whatsoever if Dominion had merely donated $200,000 directly and openly to Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe. It would have been a logical move to support a former governor who strongly backed its failed natural gas pipeline project, and now has pledged to deeply enrich the company by accelerating the transition to unreliable renewable generation instead.

    McAuliffe is nothing if not flexible. I used another word to describe his subservience to Dominion on Twitter yesterday and got blocked for 12 hours. (more…)

  • Alumni Power

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Brent Nelson, Flickr

    by James A. Bacon

    The university alumni rebellion, which first took root in Virginia, is going national.

    Washington & Lee University was the first higher-ed institution in the country, to my knowledge, where alumni organized to fight the leftward drift of their alma mater. The W&L group, known as the Generals Redoubt, was followed quickly by The Jefferson Council (to which I belong) at the University of Virginia and The Spirit of VMI at the Virginia Military Institute.

    Now the W&L and UVa groups have joined with newly formed alumni organizations at Princeton University, Cornell University and Davidson College to form the Alumni Free Speech Association. While each institution has its unique, parochial issues, they share a common resolve to stand up for free speech, free expression, independent inquiry, and intellectual diversity in the face of a doctrinaire “woke” ideology that, in increasingly totalitarian fashion, dictates the permissible range of opinions people are allowed to express.

    Graduates are creating new organizations from scratch because the incumbent alumni organizations almost universally have failed to represent all of the alumni. They have been co-opted by the university presidents and turned into fund-raising arms. If the University of Virginia alumni association is any indication — and I hear the same critique of the associations at W&L and VMI — they function as rah-rah-aren’t-we-great propaganda arms for their university administrations and sugar-coat the march toward leftist orthodoxy. (more…)

  • Alumni of the World Unite!

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    James A. Bacon

    The Free Speech Wall in downtown Charlottesville

    This press release was issued today by the Alumni Free Speech Alliance, of which The Jefferson Council is a founding member. I serve as vice president-communications of the Council. — JAB

    Millions of college and university alumni around the country are dismayed by the intolerance of unpopular viewpoints at their alma maters, and many have begun to fight back.

    Alumni have organized groups at five of Americaโ€™s most prestigious higher-ed institutions — Cornell University, Davidson College, Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and the Washington & Lee University โ€“ to defend free speech, academic freedom, and viewpoint diversity in college campuses. Today those groups are announcing that they have joined forces under the banner of the Alumni Free Speech Alliance to launch a national effort to mobilize alumni.

    โ€œFree speech and academic freedom are critical to the advancement of knowledge and to the success of our colleges and universities,โ€ said Edward Yingling, a co-founder of the Princeton alumni group. โ€œYet these basic principles are under attack today at schools across the country.โ€

    (See the column co-authored by Yingling that was published in today’s Wall Street Journal.) (more…)

  • Stronger Teacher Unions = Weaker Parents

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    Steve Haner

    Loudoun County parents pack a School Board meeting. Photo credit: Idiocracy News Media

    Allowing collective bargaining will put yet another special interest ahead of the parents who simply want a say in what is best for their children.

    by F. Vincent Vernuccio

    First published by Virginia Works and reprinted with the author’s permission.ย 

    Virginia parents soon could lose even more control over their childrenโ€™s education.

    Parentsย frustrated with school curriculumย and other education issues throughout the state have earnedย national attention. But as that frustration boils over intoย school board recall petitionsย and theย race for governor, one policy change that could limit parental and voter choice is being overlooked: public sector collective bargaining.

    Aย new law in Virginiaย gives local governments and school boards the power to permit government unions to have a monopoly on representing public employees. If school boards pass the law, they will be forced to negotiate with these union officials.

    This will put an extra, unaccountable unelected layer of bureaucracy between parents, teachers and schools.ย  (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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