Author Archives: sherlockj

A VSU Officer was Shot and Left Paralyzed. At Thanksgiving, Readers Can Help Him and His Family

VSU Police Officer Bruce Foster. Courtesy Foster Family fundraiser website

by James C. Sherlock

Virginia State University (VSU) Police Officer Bruce Foster, 38, was shot on November 12.

He had chased down a suspect who was causing an early Sunday morning disturbance on campus.

Officer Foster was shot from behind while making the arrest.  He remains hospitalized and paralyzed from the waist down.

The five-year veteran of the VSU Police Department has a wife and four children.

This Thanksgiving, each of our readers can help him and his family through this.

VSU Police Officer Bruce Foster and his wife, Deidra. Courtesy Foster Family fundraiser website

I hope you will.

To donate to the Foster Family fundraiser, click here.

Bruce Foster and his four children.  Courtesy of the Foster Family fundraiser website.

UVa Picks Baltimore City Schools CEO to Feature in “Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation.” Seriously.

Sonja Santelises, CEO, Baltimore City Schools Courtesy UVa

by James C. Sherlock

I try to keep up in the field of education.

That led me to read “Exploring New Frontiers for K-12 Systems Transformation” produced by the UVa Partnership for Leaders in Education (UVA-PLE), a long-existing joint project of the Darden School of Business and the School of Education and Human Development.

I read it hoping to see if perhaps Darden could rub some of the rougher edges off of the uber-progressive ed school and offer some good ideas.

Bad guess. Continue reading

The Suppressed Report on the UVa Murders

UVa Shooting Suspect Mug Shot

by James C. Sherlock

President James Ryan of the University of Virginia has decided to suppress the results of a written request that he and the Rector made to the Attorney General

…to conduct an independent review of the University’s response to the shooting, as well as the efforts the University undertook in the period before the tragedy to assess the potential threat Mr. Jones posed to our community.

The Attorney General’s administrative investigation is complete. President Ryan published a statement:

Making the report public at this time, or even releasing a summary of their findings and recommendations, could have an impact on the criminal trial of the accused, either by disrupting the case being prepared by the Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney, or by interfering with the defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury. [Emphasis added.]

The press reports indicate that announcement drew criticism.

I will add to it. Continue reading

Bari Weiss: “You are the Last Line of Defense”

by James C. Sherlock

Video courtesy of the Free Press.  See that link for a full transcript.  I recommend it to everyone.

Bari Weiss recently delivered a speech that will be long remembered.

She offered eloquence in the service of experience, sorrow and determination.  And defined the internal, and existential, threat to America.

I will share with you below short slices of the transcript.

She spoke to the Federalist Society about college radicalism turned antisemitism.  But not just antisemitism.

It is a radicalism that turns with threats, career assassinations and even violence on everything outside its very narrow, “intersectional” acceptance zone.  It is – proudly – a threat to America’s security and the western civilization it hates.

She would not have been welcome at some of Virginia’s most prestigious public IHEs.

And all of us know it. Continue reading

UVa’s “Community Crisis Resources” for Israel/Hamas War Tensions on Campus Has Strange Players

UVa’s Interfaith Student Center. Courtesy UVa.

by James C. Sherlock

The University of Virginia has not lost all sense of perspective. They know exactly what they have been doing.

For this they had to try to thread a needle. They missed.

From the University of Virginia Division of Student Affairs:

“Our Division’s focus remains on supporting and caring for our students and their well-being.

Our Division provides direct OUTREACH AND SUPPORT OF STUDENT LEADERS in the Jewish and Palestinian community, including the Jewish Leadership Council, Chabad at UVA, and Muslim Students Association.”

“The Division owns places and spaces across Grounds for students to meet in community:

• REFLECTION ROOMS AND WELLNESS SUITE: two spaces in Student Health and Wellness are open for students to drop-in and relax, meditate, pray, do yoga, and/or reflect.
• THE INTERFAITH STUDENT CENTER: maintained by Multicultural Student Services is available for daily prayers, and as a place for community connection.”

The effort is built on quicksand and hosted in an empty room.

Note no mention of the DEI Division as an honest broker. Good decision. Continue reading

Yes, Virginia, There is a TikTok, and It’s Chinese

Credit Tamara Beckwith, NY Post

by James C. Sherlock

From the NY Post:

“TikTok shredded as influencers promote Osama bin Laden’s ‘terrorist propaganda’ tirade dubbed ‘Letter to America’ after 9/11 attacks”

Virginia bans porno sites.

How did we miss our kids’ favorite (Chinese) app TikTok?

Virginia Must Investigate and Control the Relationships of Its State Institutions of Higher Learning With the Government of China

by James C. Sherlock

The title of this article seems at first glance axiomatic.

After all, the power “to conduct … all intercourse with other and foreign states” is granted in the state constitution to the Governor.

Yet that power has been assumed by some Virginia state institutions of higher education (IHEs) with the apparent approval of their state-appointed Counsels.

They need better lawyers.

Courtesy U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission

The story of Communist Chinese influence in America’s IHEs is the story of left-wing faculty. The same ones that march in Hamas rallies.

They divide the world into oppressed and oppressors, with no room for individuals. They offer a narrative, not discussions.

Somehow, in their admiration for Chinese Marxism, they have missed the fact that the Chinese government is one of the most oppressive regimes on earth.  Straight out of Animal Farm.

It does not bother them that Xi Jinping and his government wish America harm. Or that America is on the brink of war with that country over Taiwan.

The campus radical leftists, and many of the schools they dominate, have their own threat assessments and foreign policies that do not align with those of the United States. Continue reading

William and Mary and the Chinese Communist Party – Dangerous Allies – Part 3

by James C. Sherlock

Chinese fighter and U.S. jet over South China Sea.  Courtesy CNN and YouTube.

William and Mary’s superb AidData program makes major contributions to America’s understanding of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The school is justly proud of it.

AidData published in December of 2021 a study Corridors of Power – How Beijing uses economic, social and network ties to exert influence along the Silk Road.

Chapter 3 is “Social ties: How does Beijing leverage education, culture, and
exchange to amplify its foreign influence strategy?”

I recommend it to the President and the Board of the College.

I promised in this Part to look at:

  • the William and Mary/Chinese Foreign Ministry Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA);
  • Chinese student recruiting and admissions;
  • the courses they take, and their internships and the applicability of their skills to the People’s Revolutionary Army and Navy;
  • what happens when those “students and scholars” return home; and
  • the money.

We’ll do that, and we’ll look at the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to see if it possibly applies. Continue reading

William and Mary and the Chinese Communist Party – Dangerous Allies – Part 2

Courtesy U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission

by James C. Sherlock

The College of William and Mary first contracted with the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Confucius Institute (CI) Program in 2012. Despite all of the public warnings about the dangers listed in Part 1, it extended that contract in 2016 and did not cease until 2020, when threatened with sanctions by the federal government.

W&M’s hosting of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) continues today.

This is Part 2 of a series that will explore those dangerous alliances and recommend changes in that college’s approach to what the United States considers the biggest foreign threat our nation faces, China.

The creation of the new William and Mary Confucius Institute (WMCI) was unfortunately timed.

In 2012 Xi Jinping took full control of both the Chinese Communist Party and the Peoples Revolutionary Army. The CI’s became part of Xi’s United Front Work Department.

The Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community in 2012 never saw it coming. The intelligence community, seemingly always fighting the last war, was late to an understanding of the true China threat, at least publicly.

So it would be unfair to criticize William and Mary for not having done so.

But by 2016, when William and Mary signed the renewed contract with Hanban, there were plenty of warnings. See Part 1 for a list. The University of Chicago closed its CI in 2014.

WMCI. WMCI was not an informal arrangement, but a contractual one. The WMCI was under dual governance that gave the Chinese authority over the appointment and firing of the American director of that organization.

The director was Dr. Hanson, whose rosy view of Hanban and the Chinese government we watched on a YouTube video in Part 1. Continue reading

William and Mary and the Chinese Communist Party – Dangerous Allies – Part One

By James C. Sherlock

The faculties of America’s elite universities, among which William and Mary (W&M) would eagerly self-identify, are the beating heart of the anti-American radical left in this country.

It would defy nearly impossible odds to fail to expect that some, perhaps many, of the William and Mary faculty join them.

But we taxpayers expect the Presidents and Boards of Visitors of our state-supported schools to tamp down their worst excesses.

That has not happened at W&M.

That school has ignored multiple warnings from multiple authoritative sources over the years about the dangers of partnering with the Chinese Ministry of Education’s Confucius Institutes (CIs) and the Foreign Ministry’s Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs).

W&M continues to support the CSSA and has transitioned the CI to a relationship with the same Chinese university.

The New York Times published investigative reports in 2012, 2017, and since then have laid out the threat in great detail.

The BBC published “Confucius institute: The hard side of China’s soft power” in 2014.

The American Association of University Professors in 2014 warned in On Partnerships with Foreign Governments: The Case of Confucius Institutes:

relationships with Confucius Institutes “sacrificed the integrity of the university and its academic staff”.  “Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom. Their academic activities are under the supervision of Hanban, a Chinese state agency which is chaired by a member of the Politburo and the vice-premier of the People’s Republic of China.

The U.S. – China Security Review Commission, an agency of the U.S. government, published China’s Overseas United Front Work in August of 2018.  Listed there under Other Organizations Involved in United Front Work are: Continue reading

Delusion and Dogma in Virginia Tech’s Admissions Office

Juan Espinoza, Virginia Tech
Associate Vice Provost for Enrollment Management
and Director of Undergraduate Admissions.  Official photo.

by James C. Sherlock

Showing once again that people can convince themselves of anything, the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, published on November 5th a story titled:

“Record low ACT scores not a concern for Virginia Tech admissions”

The opening sentences:

Virginia Tech admissions are unbothered by the lowest reported ACT scores in 31 years and say that there are other application metrics for determining college readiness.

“When you look at standardized testing as a predictor on how students will do once they’re in college as a standalone variable, it’s never been a very strong predictor,” said Juan Espinoza, director of undergraduate admissions at Virginia Tech. [Emphasis added.]

He is just wrong about that, as we will show.

We also note that

Juan led Virginia Tech’s international admissions and recruitment efforts.

So, he may be the man to see about why the PRC-run Chinese Students and Scholars Association is still on campus keeping tabs, and pressure, on Tech’s one thousand Chinese students.

Institutions need to make temporary adjustments to their admissions criteria to mitigate coronavirus impact on applications and enrollment.

They should not, as in the case of Tech’s admissions head, pretend they have found new facts in the process that make ACT and SAT unnecessary metrics in admissions. Continue reading

Some Virginia State Colleges and Universities Host Chinese Government Student Control Organizations

by James C. Sherlock

Courtesy U.S. – China Economic and Security Review Commission

Virginia Tech’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association

is the largest international student society at Virginia Tech, with more than 1,000 Chinese students and scholars and their families. It is also one of the largest Chinese student and scholars organizations in the United States. [Go to link and click “translate” in URL window.]

Good to know.

More than 350,000 students from mainland China out of about 1 million total international students are enrolled in America’s colleges and universities in 2023.

The financial incentives for the schools are huge.

All of those students pay full-sticker out-of-state tuition as well as room, board and student fees – $58,750 annually for undergraduates.  So Tech realizes about $60 million for its full-time Chinese Hokies.  That does not include summer students, another big program.

In associated programs, Chinese universities provide Mandarin language instructors to American faculties and accept U.S. students.

But the institutions who accept Chinese Student and Scholars Associations (CSSAs) know they monitor and control Chinese students and spread the official dogma of the Chinese state to their campuses.

The Chinese don’t even try to make it a secret.

CSSAs have closed at UVa, VCU, James Madison and George Mason without apparent effect on their Chinese student inputs.

Yet Virginia Tech, William and Mary, and ODU continue to host them.

It makes no sense. Continue reading

Sam Rasoul and Jewish Democrats in the General Assembly – An Uneasy Alliance

James C. Sherlock

Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, speaks at a pro-Palestinian rally in Roanoke. 
Credit: David Hungate, The Roanoke Times

Salam “Sam” Rasoul is a Democrat delegate from Roanoke.

He still publicly blames Israel for an explosion at a Gaza hospital that the western world’s intelligence services have blamed on an errant Hamas rocket.

Even The New York Times changed its story after jumping the gun on that report.

At the rally (pictured), The Roanoke Times reported:

Rasoul, a Palestinian … used his speech to call for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and for the U.S. to stop funding Israel’s war effort.

Apparently he did not consider that wearing his team’s colors in a war might not be well received by some in his party.

He will find that his words and actions will cause, at best, discomfort within his caucus in January.

Continue reading

Never Again

Chinese-funded Code Pink’s co-founder Medea Benjamin at antisemitic rally in D.C. Nov. 4th. Courtesy Asra Nomani

by James C. Sherlock

At 78, I have been all over the world often and for long periods of time. I felt myself reasonably immune to cultural surprises.

But I had never seen anything like this.

It was the Maghrib prayer time about 5 p.m. on Saturday. On the southeast corner of 12th and Pennsylvania Ave. in D.C., a devout Muslim man was in the sujood prayer position on the sidewalk, forehead touching the ground.

That was not the surprise.

But a girl we took to be the praying man’s daughter was waiting a few feet away next to her mother and three young siblings. She looked to be, at the most, four years old.

There had been thousands like her at the festival on that beautiful afternoon. Families with toddlers and baby carriages were everywhere at the edges of the demonstrations. Watching. Learning.

Full of adrenaline from the hate that had been spewed out on a huge screen broadcasting anti-Israel rally speakers in the middle of shut-down Pennsylvania Avenue, that beautiful little girl was jumping up and down, tiny fists clenched, shouting in her small voice “Gaza,” “Gaza,” “Gaza.”

Three thousand years of hatred of Jews was being passed down to another generation.

It is never going to stop. Continue reading

“Good old TikTok: Chinese spy engine and purveyor of virulent antisemitic lies.” Sen. Josh Hawley

San Francisco High School students enflamed by false report from the NYT (which later offered “nuance”) broadcast worldwide on TikTok #freepalestine that Israel bombed that hospital in Gaza.

by James C. Sherlock

Taylor Lorenz, the estimable young Tech and Online Culture columnist for The Washington Post, has been the author of some of the most important reports on the Hamas-Israel war.

Today, she published with Drew Harwell, a Post reporter covering artificial intelligence and the algorithms changing our lives, “Israel-Gaza war sparks debate over TikTok’s role in setting public opinion.

A pro-Palestinian hashtag, #freepalestine, had … 770 million views over the last 30 days in the United States, TikTok data show.

To longtime TikTok critics like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), that assertion offered further proof that the app, owned by the China-based tech firm ByteDance, is a secretive propaganda engine built to manipulate American teens for Chinese geopolitical goals — in this case, Rubio said, to “downplay … Hamas terrorism.”

The same Post article, attempting balance, reports both the Sen. Hawley quote in the title of this piece and that:

TikTok creators and social media experts say the reality (of reporting on the war) is more nuanced (than critics have asserted).

“Nuanced.” What would we do without “TikTok creators and social media experts”? Continue reading