Bacon's Rebellion

  • A Follow-up Rant on Opacity at UVA

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    So much to blog about today. Let’s start with transparency — which is so pathetic that we should start referring to opacity — at the University of Virginia. (For readers who are fatigued by my UVA reporting, get over it. The following observations are relevant to all of Virginia’s public universities.)

    Yesterday I lamented that the Board of Visitors met in closed session to discuss one of the most important and contentious issues facing UVA and higher education generally: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. This was a matter of intense interest to the public across the ideological spectrum.

    The excuse given for shutting out the public was that the Board needed to consult with legal counsel regarding “…compliance by the University with civil rights laws and regulations and presidential executive orders, and potential and actual litigation and investigations involving governmental agencies.…”

    Discussing litigation is a legitimate exemption from the public-meeting requirement if the purpose is to avoid revealing sensitive legal information that would compromise negotiations or litigation. But it is not a legitimate reason for closeting a wide-ranging discussion that goes way beyond the litigation. And the resolution adopted by the Board of Visitors was very wide-ranging. Indeed, that document, crafted in closed session, never addresses litigation, and brushes only briefly against legal issues at all.

    The resolution reaffirms the University’s commitment to being inclusive and welcoming; to creating a campus climate conducive to free inquiry, constructive discussion and diverse political views; and to setting up mechanisms to ensure that the Board’s mandates are carried out.

    Please tell me, what sensitive legal issues were involved with any of that?

    (more…)

  • Trump Policies Hitting Southwest Va.

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    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Volvo Trucks New River Valley plant, Dublin, Va. Photo credit: WSET

    It is not only Northern Virginia that is beginning to feel the effects of Trump administration policies and actions. Southwest Virginia, Trump territory, is also being affected.

    Earlier this month, Volvo announced it would be laying off 250-350 employees at its Volvo Trucks New River Valley plant in Pulaski County. As reported by The Roanoke Times, the company cited “the negative impact on heavy truck orders because of market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes and the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.” The plant currently employs approximately 3,400 workers. These layoffs are in addition to 250-350 layoffs announced in February.

    (more…)

  • UVA Board Rescinds Racial Quotas, Tightens Oversight on President Ryan

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by James A. Bacon

    Meeting in a special session today, the University of Virginia Board of Visitors emerged from behind closed doors to rescind a measure adopted in 2000 implementing the recommendations of the Racial Equity Task Force and to organize a working group to promote open inquiry and “constructive conversation.”

    Under heavy pressure from the Trump administration, the Board resolution said that the University has “made progress” in eliminating “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,” but much work needs to be done.

    The substance of the resolution makes it clear that the Board does not trust President Jim Ryan to undertake the job on his own but requires much tighter oversight.

    The vote comes a day after the federal Office of Civil Rights addressed a letter to Ryan and other University officials to turn over extensive documents and “certify” that “the dictates of the Board of Visitors’ Resolution [of March 7] had been “fully and completely satisfied and accomplished.”

    The Board voted on March 7 to dismantle UVA’s DEI bureaucracy and end racial preferences. Governor Glenn Youngkin declared on national TV that “DEI is done” at UVA. However, the wording of the March resolution did not define DEI and was otherwise ambiguous enough to allow for a range of interpretations. Preliminary indications were that UVA might undermine the intent by moving central DEI office employees to other departments and changing their titles.

    The resolution the Board of Visitors adopted today is far more specific about its goals and sets up mechanisms to ensure that they are implemented. It goes beyond DEI to address a campus climate that is antithetical to the free expression of a wide range of views. The resolution reads as follows:

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  • A Travesty of “Open Government”

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    The University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors convened at noon in a specially scheduled meeting to discuss one of the most contentious and potentially momentous issues it has ever been called upon to address — the dismantling of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and racial preferences.

    The meeting will not be live-streamed.

    Not that it would make much difference. The touchiest topic will be addressed in closed session.

    Transparency is an absolute joke at UVA, a $5 billion-a-year public agency subject to Virginia’s public meeting laws, which were designed in a fit of idealism of some past era lost in the mists of time to make government open to the public, but which have been eroded or ignored ever since.

    Consider the context: DEI is one of the most emotional and consequential debates occurring in the country today. In March the Board of Visitors voted under pressure from the Trump administration and acclaim of Governor Glenn Youngkin to dismantle DEI and end racial preferences. It gave President Jim Ryan 30 days to report back on his progress. He did, but he declined to make the report available to the public. From what I hear, it was brief, superficial, and unsatisfactory, but no one leaked it, so it’s impossible for the public to evaluate it.

    (more…)

  • Why Does Youngkin Attack His Friends, Not His Foes?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    This is a hard post to write because I think Governor Glenn Youngkin has been a pretty good governor overall. I like his rhetorical tone, and I can’t think of a single important policy stance he’s taken that I disagree with. While he has not accomplished as much as I would hope, I recognize that he has to deal with the reality of a General Assembly dominated by intransigent Democrats. His most important contribution may be the dozens (or is it hundreds?) of bills he has vetoed, briefly halting Virginia’s drift into failed blue-state status.

    While Youngkin has held back the tide, he has not reversed it. His tenure is shaping up as a brief interregnum in the inexorable New Jerseyfication of Virginia. Unlike, say, Ron DeSantis who converted Florida from a swing state to a solidly red state, Youngkin has made no lasting impression on the correlation of political forces in the Old Dominion. Why? One reason is that he has declined to take the battle to the opposition.

    Instead, Virginians have witnessed the spectacle of Youngkin training fire on his own supporters!

    First it was Bert Ellis, a Virginia-born, Atlanta-based entrepreneur who served on the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. When appointing him, Youngkin tasked him to recapture Virginia’s flagship university from an administration that had re-engineered the institution from top to bottom along “social justice” principles. When Ellis proved to be a trifle too demonstrative in his language, Youngkin kicked him to the curb.

    Now it’s John Reid, a popular Richmond talk-show host before he gave up his job to run for lieutenant governor. Reid’s sin? As a gay man posting three photos of himself at a drag show (horrors!) and allegedly posting photographs of nude male models on a tumblr account five years ago. Without seeking Reid’s response to charges originating from a yet-to-be revealed opposition research group with a yet-to-be-revealed agenda, the Governor demanded that Reid drop out of the race.

    Is this how you treat your friends and allies?

    (more…)

  • Virginia’s GOP Better Get a Reid on the Situation

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    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    Here’s some free advice for Virginia’s Republican Party: Get your act together before the Democrats sweep the November elections and Old Dominion turns into California East.

    Intra-party squabbling and charges of extortion are not a winning message.

    Cut it out.

    Four years after stunning the nation by taking the commonwealth’s top three elected offices back from Democrat control, the Republican party is in disarray and appears on the verge of a schism with the governor on one side and some GOP committees and a former governor on the other.

    In a close election, this will be fatal.

    When news broke a week ago the Fairfax County’s most prominent Republican, Pat Herrity, had withdrawn his primary bid to be the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor due to health problems, it looked like the party was going to avoid a bruising primary altogether and focus on November.

    Herrity’s withdrawal cleared the way for his opponent, John Reid, to be the nominee.

    Reid is the son of the late Jack Reid, an 18-year Republican veteran of the House of Delegates. John Reid’s conservative credentials are impeccable: he interned in the Reagan White House, served as then-Sen. George Allen’s communications director and hosted a popular conservative Richmond talk radio show for eight years.

    Reid has been a guest on The Kerry and Mike Show and he’s a smart, engaging guest. There’s no daylight between his issues and mine.

    I’ll vote for him without hesitation. Continue reading.

  • Reid Hangs Tough

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    View video here.

    by James A. Bacon

    Is there room for a gay man, no matter how conservative, in Virginia’s Republican Party? The signals are mixed, but it appears that there may be.

    Five years ago, a Virginia GOP committee passed a resolution censuring Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., for betraying the party’s values when he officiated a same-sex wedding. He was challenged in a Republican primary, lost his seat, and has since dropped out of the Republican Party.

    History doesn’t repeat itself, as the saying goes, but it does rhyme. Today, John Reid, the lone contender for the GOP candidacy for lieutenant governor, is under pressure to drop out of the race. Indeed, he says, he has been the victim of a “coordinated assassination attempt” to force the first gay GOP candidate for statewide office off the ticket.

    Citing the existence of photos of nude men on what was purported to be Reid’s tumblr account, Governor Glenn Youngkin demanded last week that Reid drop out of the race. The former Richmond radio talk-show host refused. And it turns out that a lot of conservative Republicans are willing to look past his sexual orientation. This may not be a replay of Denver Riggleman after all.

    Reid was greeted warmly in Abingdon, in far Southwest Virginia, by local GOP activists including Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va. The suburban ladies of the Henrico County GOP have leaped to his defense online. And Matthew Hurtt, chair of the Arlington County Republican Party, sent out a tweet protesting the Governor’s call.

    Philip Kazmierczak, a member of the Virginia LGBQT+ Advisory Board, submitted his resignation. “One of the fundamental principles of the Republican Party, and a value I hold dearly, is that government should stay out of the personal lives of individuals — all of the time, not merely when it is political convenient,” he wrote. “This recent episode stands in stark contrast to that principle. We are meant to be the party of the big welcoming tent.”

    Kazmierczak wrote that he was “deeply moved” by the support that Reid was receiving from conservative circles.

    (more…)

  • Matthew Carroll’s Kafkaesque Journey Through Woke Purgatory

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    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: ChatGPT

    by James A. Bacon

    Matthew Carroll, an event coordinator with the Office of Student Affairs, was in his office at the University of Virginia on April 12, 2023, when a professor in Garrett Hall called to say that someone outside the building was playing music so loudly that he couldn’t teach. Student Affairs needed to fix the problem. Pronto.

    Carroll and a colleague hustled over to Garrett Hall. Several students had set up a table to conduct a fundraiser and were blasting out loud music. Explaining that they had not obtained a permit to set up at that location, did not have an approved table, and were not authorized to use amplified sound, he told them to move.

    The students, who belonged to the Central Americans for Empowerment at UVA (CAFE), reacted defensively. They accused Carroll of being belligerent and disrespectful.

    After a brief standoff, the students packed up their gear and departed. Carroll returned to the office and recounted the incident to his boss. He didn’t think much about it until the next day when he discovered that the confrontation had blown up on social media. People were assailing him as a racist and calling for him to be fired.

    Six days later, UVA placed Carroll on administrative leave, made him turn in his work keys and laptop, and issued a No Trespass Order blocking him from setting foot on Grounds until an investigation could be completed. Despite their violation of University rules and disruption of other students’ classes, CAFE members received no sanction whatsoever.

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  • Resolute Mr. Reid

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    James A. Bacon

    Out, proud, and in the fight.

    by Gordon C. Morse

    “Virginia’s embattled Republican nominee for lieutenant governor,” The Washington Post now calls John Reid.

    The paper might have called him “bewitched, bothered and bewildered.” That would have been more fun, but “embattled” will probably do.

    There are photos. Re-posted on-line and by Reid, so claimed.

    His? Not so, says Reid. “I’m not going anywhere.”

    “This is the new way that politics is played,” Reid said over the weekend. “The politics of personal destruction are coming right home to everybody who runs.”

    New? Tell that to the Founding Fathers. That will give their spirits a chuckle or two.

    Personal attacks and character assassination have been present in American politics since the nation’s founding. The highly charged and often vicious rhetoric of the 18th and 19th centuries included personal smears, rumors, and public shaming.

    (more…)

  • Justice for Jews?

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    James A. Bacon

    Five months after a student sent antisemitic messages, entered a Jewish student’s room, and brandished a gun, UVA leadership has yet to denounce or acknowledge the hate crime.

    by James A. Bacon

    Two-and-a-half years after the University of Virginia failed to prevent the shooting homicide of three football players, a student who entered a Jewish student’s room and brandished a gun has been readmitted to the University after a brief suspension.

    “Although UVA initially suspended the perpetrator, the case was handed over to a student-run judiciary committee—an entity that has issued expulsions for far lesser offenses,” states a letter circulated by a group of Jewish parents identifying themselves as The Lions of Zion.

    “Shockingly, the committee overturned the suspension and assigned community service instead,” states the letter, which is addressed to University leadership. “To date, the university has not publicly acknowledged the incidents and has been evasive in providing information about the disciplinary status of the perpetrator and a second roommate who purchased the handgun.”

    The Lions of Zion called for UVA leadership to publicly condemn the incident, expel the students involved, ensure the safety of the target (who wishes to remain anonymous), and “commit to protecting all students from hate and violence.”

    The University of Virginia is one of 60 institutions warned by the U.S. Office for Civil Rights that they might be subject to enforcement actions if they do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.

    (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • DEI Not Dead at UVA

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    James A. Bacon

    *** Sponsored Content ***

    This ad was published today in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

    DEIatUVA.com

  • When Did Democrats Begin to Resemble the Rockettes?

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia Democrats long defended and preserved the state’s “right-to-work” law. They’re shifting in unison.

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by Gordon C. Morse

    Join a labor union, if you like.

    Or do not join a labor union, if you like.

    Your choice. Virginia law says that no one can force you to financially support a union as a condition of employment.

    Does the law put labor unions at a disadvantage? You bet.

    Which was politically sound. There previously existed a clear consensus in favor of right-to-work. In 1985, the director of the state’s Department of Economic Development called right-to-work “almost Biblical.”

    Was it resented? Sure. Danny LeBlanc, the stalwart Virginia labor leader of that era, said, “The whole purpose of the right-to-work law is to make unions weak.”

    It really wasn’t the whole thing, but that wasn’t far off.

    LeBlanc further claimed that state politicians “feel they have to have the corporate bosses in order to get elected. They are the ones who have the bucks to make things go.”

    Well, unions make things go, too, bucks included. The cash just flows differently.

    It mostly comes down to a question of where power best resides and how the answer encourages or discourages private business investment and economic growth.

    Has public sentiment on this matter shifted? We’re about to find out.

    (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Bonfire of the Sheepskins

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Image credit: Bing Image Creator

    by James A. Bacon

    As tuitions climb ever higher and the wage premium for a college degree has plateaued, an increasing percentage of Americans — especially younger Americans — consider their diplomas a waste of money, concludes Indeed.com, an online job site, on the basis of a new survey.

    Twenty percent of Baby Boomers considered their college degrees worthless, but the percentage increased to 41% for Millennials and 51% for Gen Z, found the poll, which queried 772 U.S. adults who are employed or seeking employment and have an associate degree or higher.

    The high cost of higher-ed means that half of all respondents (52%) were saddled with student debt. Unsurprisingly, those with higher debt burdens were more likely to question the value of their degrees.

    “The combination of stagnating wage benefits, skyrocketing costs, degree saturation, and debt may explain why younger generations increasingly question whether college is worth it,” states Indeed’s analysis. “The traditional promise of higher education simply doesn’t align with the reality many younger professionals experience.”

    (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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