Category Archives: Civil Rights

Equal Protection, Affirmative Action and Effecting Generational Change

Posted on July 6, 2023 by | 40 comments

by James C. Sherlock

America is the most successful nation in the history of the world because of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by our Constitution.

More than a hundred other nations have emulated the American Constitution.

Without constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights, we would be chained to the whims of the state. Most immediately to the whims of the executive branch. There would be precious little for the judicial branch to protect.

A recent Supreme Court decision found affirmative action in college admissions to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, Section 1:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Justice Roberts for the majority ruling that the Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause:

Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.

Three justices disagreed.

Justice Sotomayor read her opinion from the bench — a sign of strong disagreement. An excerpt:

Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter.

Note that Justice Sotomayor, as always careful of the words in her opinions, chose “endemically” to modify “segregated.” Oxford dictionary: “regularly found and very common among a particular group or in a particular area.”

That is different than the word “systemically” — Oxford: “in a basic and important way that involves the whole of an organization or a country and not just particular parts of it.” Continue reading →

40 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Freedom, Governance, Individual liberties, Politics, Poverty & income gap

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What It Means to Be a Citizen

Posted on July 4, 2023 by | 32 comments

Photo credit: Financial Times

by James A. Bacon

The 4th of July, commemorating our nation’s declaration of independence, is an occasion to think about what we appreciate about America. Amidst our social breakdown, culture wars, and vitriolic politics, that’s not an easy thing to do. Among the most demoralizing aspects of our times is the abysmal level of understanding of the source of the precious rights — freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble and petition the government — that we take for granted.

As Joni Albrecht, director of the John Marshall Center for Constitutional History & Civics, observes in the Virginia Mercury, less than half of U.S. adults could name all three branches of government; only one in four U.S. adults could name a single right identified in the First Amendment.

Many of our schools fail to teach the basic knowledge required to be a functioning and contributing citizen. According to Virginia Department of Education data, only 70% of Virginia school children passed their Civics & Econ Standards of Learning exam in the 2021-22 school year. Only one in five scored “advanced.” In other words, 30% are politically illiterate, and another 50% are marginally literate. Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Individual liberties

School Boards, Model Policies and Parental Rights in the Raising of Children

Posted on June 11, 2023 by | 16 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The Virginia Beach School Board will vote tomorrow.

The announced subject will be transgender rights in schools.

It is couched by The Virginian-Pilot as the school board defending transgender students against “unnecessarily cruel policies.“  As opposed, one supposes, to necessarily cruel policies.

The local paper refers, of course, to the Youngkin administration’s “Model Policies” on the subject. Which, like their predecessors from the Northam administration, are not mandatory, so need not be debated at all.

The School Board debate is at its core constitutional.

You will note that the Youngkin Model Policies linked its constitutional interpretations to court decisions. The Northam version did not. Northam’s just asserted what the constitution meant. Must have been an oversight.

My take:

  • Families are responsible for shaping the values, beliefs, and personalities of children;
  • Government is required to protect children from abuse and neglect. But government schools are not allowed to substitute their judgements on values and beliefs for those of the families;
  • They are most certainly not permitted to define parental moral or political disagreements with school personnel as emotional abuse at home. Or as harassment of government schools or teachers;
  • And government schools, absent evidence of abuse or neglect, must never be allowed to substitute their own moral judgments for those of parents.

But that’s just me. Not a lawyer. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (K-12), Freedom, Governance, Individual liberties, Marxism, Parental Rights, Politics, Social services

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UVa’s Undergraduate Female/Male Demographics vs. Diversity, Equity and Federal Law

Posted on June 3, 2023 by | 55 comments

UVa President Jim Ryan

by James C. Sherlock

The University of Virginia measures its diversity efforts by statistics. We’ll hold them to their own standards.

That seems only equitable.

President Ryan has said that the demographic composition of students is easy to measure. The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office, proving him right, proudly displays a Diversity Dashboard.

All eyes, including their own, go to race.

But we’ll look at sex. And we’ll remember the requirements of Title IX of the 1972 Federal Education Amendments.

no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

It is demonstrable statistically that males are woefully underrepresented in the undergraduate population of the University of Virginia at rates inexplicable by chance.

We will examine as potential root causes the skewed demographics of:

  • the undergraduate student population on the one hand; and
  • the Undergraduate Admissions Office and Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights on the other.

And then we will see if we can identify any other potential causes of those discrepancies.

It won’t go well. Continue reading →

55 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Demographics, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Federal, Scandals

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

Posted on June 2, 2023 by | 34 comments

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. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed), First Amendment

Appeals Court Upholds TJHSST Admissions Policy

Posted on May 29, 2023 by | 45 comments

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.

 

45 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (K-12)

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Martin Brown Is Absolutely Correct: To Achieve Real Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, “DEI” Must Die

Posted on May 25, 2023 by | 34 comments

by J. Kennerly Davis

Martin Brown, a senior aide to Governor Glenn Youngkin, created quite a stir when he told an audience at the Virginia Military Institute that “DEI is dead.” Democrats in politics and the media jumped on the remark, and the Governor’s support of Brown, to assert that the Youngkin administration is hostile to policies and programs that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion. The partisan criticism is baseless. Martin Brown is correct. For Virginia to effectively foster diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI must die.  

Every system of government is based upon an idea, a fundamental concept for its organization and operation, a proposition. Most times, the idea has been small, shabby, uninspiring, and authoritarian. Ultimate authority has been held by a ruling class. The rights of individuals have been understood to be nothing more than malleable artifacts, with their scope and substance and tenure entirely dependent upon the changeable determinations and dispensations of the ruling class.

But sometimes, the idea for a system of government is a grand one, exceptional, inspiring, revolutionary. The idea of America is a grand idea: the revolutionary proposition that all persons are created equal, endowed by their Creator with inherent dignity and unalienable rights; the revolutionary proposition that the only rightful purpose of government, the legitimizing purpose, is to recognize, respect, and protect the shared sacred humanity, inherent dignity, and natural rights of the people;  the revolutionary proposition that the people shall rule, and each shall be able to think and speak and worship and associate freely; the revolutionary proposition that a richly diverse people can form a strongly united nation, e pluribus unum. That is a grand idea!

For more than a hundred years, the regressive authoritarians who wrongly style themselves “progressive” have worked to undermine the grand idea of America and replace it with their own very small idea: the counterrevolutionary proposition that an elitist ruling class of credentialed technocrats, infallible “experts,” should exercise unrestrained administrative power to define the rights, allocate the resources, and direct the affairs of the supposedly unenlightened masses under their paternalistic supervision. Continue reading →

34 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Democracy and Western Civilization, Ethics, Individual liberties, Politics, Race and race relations, Scandals

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Which of These Persons at UVa Oversees the Educational Development of the Rest?

Posted on May 20, 2023 by | 11 comments

by James C. Sherlock

In order to illustrate the truly insulting nature of the DEI program at the University of Virginia, I offer the following quiz.

See if you can pick out the person pictured who:

directs a range of educational programming focused on educational development for staff, faculty and students.

Nana Last, Professor of Architecture

Ira C. Harris, Professor, McIntyre School of Commerce

Sankaran Venkataraman, Professor, Darden School of Business

Sandhya Dwarkadas, Professor and Chair Department of Computer Science

Tisha Hayes, Professor of Education

Trinh Thuan, Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy

Kelsey Johnson Professor of Astronomy

Haibo Dong Professor Aerospace Engineering

Sly Mata, Director of Diversity Education, Division for DEI

Nicole Thorne Jenkins, Dean, McIntyre School of Commerce

Devin K. Harris, Professor of Engineering

Mool C. Gupta, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Tomonari Furukawa, Professor of Engineering

Allan Tsung M.D., Professor and Chair Department of Surgery, Medical School

Sallie Keller, Professor of Data Science

Harsha Chelliah, Professor School of Engineering

 

 

 

 

 


Bottom line.  Good guess.

There is every evidence that Mr. Mata is a fine man. His biography is inspiring.

But the people pictured above who are not Mr. Mata excelled and earned their plaudits and appointments before there was a UVa Division for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).  Even before James Ryan was President. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed), First Amendment, Freedom, Marxism, Race and race relations

Read It and Weep – DEI at UVa

Posted on May 18, 2023 by | 124 comments

Navy helicopter overflies UVa Disharoon Park as team stands at attention for national anthem. Photos By Sanjay Suchak, sanjay@virginia.edu

by James C. Sherlock

Kerry Daugherty’s column this morning was heart-wrenching for anyone who cares at all about kids’ educations.  The Norfolk School Board voted 6-1…

to begin teaching gender ideology, masturbation, sexual identity, homosexuality, abortion and lesbianism in middle and high schools.

To kids who cannot read or perform mathematics at grade level.

Now we get a look at what awaits any kid who escapes Norfolk public schools with sufficient skills and diversity credits to get accepted into the University of Virginia (UVa).

They will be welcomed by a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy so large, powerful and widely distributed that a DEI factotum will:

  • review and grade their application in the recruitment process;
  • exercise authority over the curriculum and faculty;
  • monitor their progress; and
  • interview each candidate for graduate school and meet with each annually to assess political views.

If I just told you how this works as above, you would think I was making it up.

So I will quote from UVa’s website. Continue reading →

124 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Freedom, Government workers and pensions, Individual liberties, Marxism, Taxes

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Clear Violations of Title IX in Employment at UVa

Posted on May 17, 2023 by | 33 comments

Courtesy UVa Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights

by James C. Sherlock

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

It covers employees as well as students.

There is clear work to do at UVa for its Title IX staff.

We’ll sample the problems.

Arts and Sciences. A look at the leadership team of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences must especially be troubling to the Title IX staff, if indeed they examine it.

Dean Christa Acampora, her senior special assistant, her chief of staff, and Senior Associate Dean for Administration and Planning are all women.

All six of the Associate Deans are females:

  • Associate Dean for Social Sciences (Professor)
  • Associate Dean for Arts & Humanities (Professor)
  • Associate Dean for the Sciences and Research (Professor)
  • Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Programs (Professor)
  • Associate Dean for Graduate Education (Associate Professor)

Correct. In Arts and Sciences, a female Associate Professor is Dean for Graduate Education, not a professor.

Since A&S does its own hiring and promotions, it should be pretty easy for the Title IX office to find the people to interview about discrimination on the basis of sex in that department.

School of Education and Human Development. The Dean and four of the six members of her leadership team at the ed school are women.

One of the two males among those seven people in leadership positions in that school is the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Which is almost amusing if you think about it.

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Compared to those two schools, the engineering school leadership is relatively balanced. It includes:

  • a female Dean;
  • a female Senior Executive Assistant;
  • women hold four of the eight department chairs;
  • women are two of the seven Associate Deans;
  • a female Assistant Dean for Graduate Affairs;
  • a female Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Affairs;
  • a female Director of Operations, Engineering Systems and Environment;
  • a female Director, Center for Applied Mathematics.

Bottom line. I believe in enforcement of all laws.

And I am not even a male professor trying to get promoted in UVa’s School of A&S or of Education.

Nor am I Rachel Spraker, Senior Director for Equity and Inclusive Excellence, who leads UVa’s employment equity team.

It will be interesting to see what role the Provost, the immediate past Dean of A&S, plays in this.

Title IX is there to be enforced. Perhaps the Title IX office at the federal Department of Education will be interested in enforcing it.

I’ll check.

33 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Education (higher ed)

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Virginia Democrats – “Progressive for Who?”

Posted on May 8, 2023 by | 46 comments

Al Sharpton. Courtesy New York Post

by James C. Sherlock

“Progressive for who?”

That question was asked by Al Sharpton directly to a gathering of his supporters at a conference hosted by his National Action Network while flanked by Lori Lightfoot, Eric Adams and two other big city Democratic mayors.

“Anybody that tells you they’re progressive but don’t care about dealing with violent crimes are not.”

“Progressive for who?”

“We gotta stop using progressive as a noun and use it as an adjective.”

“You’re labeled progressive but your action is regressive. I’m woke? You must think I’m asleep.”

He demanded “a national agenda around urban violence, urban crime and accountability.”

“Accountability.” There is no word more anathema to progressives. He could not have hurt them worse.

Watch the video.

That was not the first shot, but one of heavy caliber, in the revolution against progressive destructiveness by the Black people who are among its primary victims. Continue reading →

46 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Politics, Race and race relations

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

Posted on May 1, 2023 by | 41 comments

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.)
Continue reading →

41 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Individual liberties, Uncategorized

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

Posted on April 30, 2023 by | 118 comments

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.

118 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Culture wars, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), First Amendment, Freedom

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Fourth Circuit Gives Standing to Parents Suing Loudoun County Schools over First Amendment Violations

Posted on April 21, 2023 by | 45 comments

Ian Serotkin
LCPS School Board Chair, Defendant

by James C. Sherlock

In a win for freedom of speech, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond overturned a finding by a federal district judge that Loudoun parents did not have standing to sue the School Board for infringement of First Amendment rights.

The parents alleged a bias reporting system instituted by Loudoun County Public Schools “chilled their children from exercising their free speech rights.”

The ruling:

… the parents plausibly allege that implementing the new reporting system chilled their children’s speech to support their First Amendment claims. So, we vacate the district court’s order dismissing those claims and remand for those claims to be considered on the merits.

I suspect the new trial and appeals will find even the current, revised LCPS policy on reporting to be intended to chill protected speech. Continue reading →

45 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Culture wars, Education (K-12), Freedom, Individual liberties, Parental Rights, Virginia Law

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Assault and Battery in Schools – Virginia Law and School Division Policies Make “Marks” of Principals

Posted on April 15, 2023 by | 10 comments

by James C. Sherlock

This is addressed directly to Virginia public school principals.

You are compliant with current Virginia law whether you report assault and battery to police or do not.

Bad law makes for bad policy.

Depending upon your school division, your requirements may vary. A lot.

In gambling, and this issue is a big gamble for you, if you don’t know who the mark is, it is you.

The current law on reporting of assault and battery to police reflects a poorly conceived and poorly written attempt by Virginia Democrats in 2020 to break what they called the “school-to-prison pipeline.” They made reporting to police conditional upon on-scene medical and legal findings – by you.

The Board of Education has done nothing to improve the matter. School divisions are all over the spectrum on what to do about reporting. You cannot carry out either the law or many of the school division policies without personal jeopardy. Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Government workers and pensions, Law enforcement, Scandals, Unions