Category Archives: DEI

UVA Report Finds No Pay Inequity for Black, Hispanic Profs

Posted on April 11, 2024 by | 14 comments

Adjusted salary differentials for tenure/tenure track faculty.

by James A. Bacon

The Racial Equity Task Force, a 2020 document that transformed governance at the University of Virginia, listed 12 top priorities for addressing the legacy of historical racism. One was to address “serious challenges to racial equity in staff hiring, wages, retention, promotion, and procurement” by auditing where policies and procedures might be “reinforcing entrenched inequities.”

The report cited no actual evidence of disparities in pay, and the authors did not assert that they existed. In a report that lambasted UVA as “an inaccessible, rich, ‘white’ institution,” pay inequities were just assumed to occur and needed to be documented.

Well, last year the Ryan administration hired the DCI Consulting Group to evaluate “pay equity” for UVA faculty based on gender and race. The results, based on 2022 compensation, were made available to UVA January 5 and, sure enough, pay inequities were found…. for non-tenured Asian-American faculty.

Remarkably, adjusted for their level in the academic hierarchy, seniority and other variables affecting compensation, Black professors who are tenured or on the tenure track were f0und to earn 3% more than their peers, Hispanic professors 3.4% more, and Whites 1.6% less — although DCI did not deem the differences to be “statistically significant.” Continue reading →

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Posted in DEI, Education (higher ed), Race and race relations

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UVA As a “Maze of Predatory Systems”

Posted on March 27, 2024 by | 26 comments

by James A. Bacon

If you visit the latest exhibit at the University of Virginia’s Ruffin Gallery, “EscapeRoom,” it takes no more than five or ten seconds for the artists’ message to sink in — the amount of time it takes to read the signage at the entrance:

The University of Virginia (UVA) is a site of reckoning. The legacies of slavery and white supremacy reverberate throughout its built environment. EscapeRoom confronts the frameworks of injustice that contemporary audiences inhabit and inherit in relation to this UNESCO World Heritage Site. … EscapeRoom charts critical routes through a maze of predatory systems.

Inside, the exhibits contributed by multiple artists elaborate upon the white-supremacy theme. Five 3D-printed pieces of porcelain, for instance, are described as giving “materiality, scale and dimension to the many ‘tools’ that mediate state violence visited upon Black victims: horses, batons, guns, tear gas, and more.”

A mobile made of steel sheet metal “examines violence visited upon Black people at the hands of the American state. It attends to the paradoxes of Black life and death in this anti-Black world.”

To set foot in the EscapeRoom is to enter a world of victimhood that would have been entirely justified a century or two ago but seems tragically out of date 60 years after the passage of Civil Rights legislation, the enactment of the Great Society’s war on poverty, and the dramatic transformation of attitudes toward race in America — not to mention the implementation of Racial Equity Task Force recommendations at UVA itself that made the exhibit possible in the first place. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, DEI, Race and race relations, Virginia history

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In Their Own Words: Jefferson, Whiteness, and Dicks in the Sky

Posted on March 27, 2024 by | 26 comments

Meet Marisa Williamson. The Harvard-educated assistant professor in the University of Virginia art department works in video, image-making, installation and performance art around themes of “history, race, feminism, and technology,” according to her UVA faculty page. Most recently, she co-curated the EscapeRoom exhibition at the Ruffin Gallery, which we highlight in a companion article.

Williamson, who has worked at UVA since 2018, was one of the first faculty members hired under the “Race, Justice and Equity” initiative made possible by grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

She described her approach to art in a 2021 conversation with Tori Cherry, a Charlottesville artist and UVA Grad, hosted by Charlottesville’s New City Arts.

“One of my big goals is to unsettle and to figure out how to haunt, how to keep things moving, how to agitate through these various forms of performance and monument,” Williamson said. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, DEI, Race and race relations, Virginia history

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University of Virginia Spends $20 Million On 235 DEI Employees, With Some Making $587,340 Per Year

Posted on March 5, 2024 by | 119 comments

It takes tuition payments from nearly 1,000 undergraduates just to pay their base salaries!


Bacon’s Rebellion is reposting this article published by Open the Books, a nonprofit group dedicated to transparency in government spending, and republished on the Jefferson Council blog. Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski will speak at the Jefferson Council 3rd annual meeting April 9. Register now to attend. — JAB

The University of Virginia (UVA) has at least 235 employees under its “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30 percent for the annual cost of their benefits.

In contrast, last Friday, the University of Florida dismissed its DEI bureaucracy, saving students and taxpayers $5 million per year. The university terminated 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative faculty appointments. Those funds have been re-programmed into a “faculty recruitment fund” to attract better people who actually teach students.

No such luck for learning at Virginia’s flagship university – founded by Thomas Jefferson no less. UVA has a much deeper DEI infrastructure. Continue reading →

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Posted in DEI, Education (higher ed), Efficiency in government, Race and race relations

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We’re Doctors. Implicit Bias Training Has No Place in Medicine.

Posted on February 19, 2024 by | 28 comments

by Martin Caplan, MD, and Kenneth Lipstock, MD

Apparently, Virginia’s doctors and nurses are racist.

This is the message of two bills that are moving through the state legislature. The bills would force medical professionals to take ongoing “implicit bias training” to get and keep their license. The problem is that such training is insulting, dangerous, and scientifically indefensible. It’s grounded in the false idea that people mistreat and even oppress others, especially those of a different race.

It’s a popular narrative, but there is no sound evidence to support it. What is clear is that if our lawmakers pass these bills, they’ll encourage racial division and tribalism, while undermining the medical profession and hurting patients who need our help. Continue reading →

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Posted in DEI, Education (higher ed), Health Care, Race and race relations, Virginia Law

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VMI Loses DEI Court Case: a Win-Win Situation

Posted on January 23, 2024 by | 65 comments

by Jake Spivey

In Virginia’s ever-shifting landscape of diversity, equity, or opportunity, and inclusion, a powerful decision has been made. Following the sensational, yet unproven, allegations of exceptionally bad behavior and poor leadership at Virginia Military Institute in late autumn 2019, the administration and Board of Visitors attempted to quickly effect conclusive actions that would correct their unproven ills. A prime effort by the administration would be delivery of DEI training to staff, faculty, and the Corps of cadets. Unfortunately, in its haste to instigate the training, VMI circumvented the state’s procurement laws. By sidestepping the proper legal path for solicitations and contracts, VMI became vulnerable to protest by competing but unsuccessful contractors.

After a series of hearings before Judge Christopher B. Russell, the judge rendered a verdict finding VMI in “Violation of Virginia Public Procurement Act and/or the Rules Governing Procurement of Goods, Services, Insurance and Construction by a Public Institution of Higher Education of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” The judge’s decision represents a loss for VMI and its legal counsel,  an alumnus. VMI’s attorneys tried but repeatedly failed to have the case dismissed on technicalities rather than argue the merits of VMI’s actions when pursuing the DEI training contract. Continue reading →

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Posted in Courts and law, DEI, Education (higher ed), Governance

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A Far Better Option for Public Education of Poor Urban Minority Students in Virginia

Posted on December 28, 2023 by | 51 comments


by James C. Sherlock

We are going to discuss here — it will be a series — Virginia’s urban majority-minority school divisions.

School boards, superintendents and teachers in those divisions want their students to learn. They are especially frustrated that far too many of their minority students fail to do so.

For those divisions, an exhaustive 2023 report from Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) confirms that poor urban minority students can and do learn at the same or higher levels as white children.

They do so in charter schools nationwide managed by the best Charter Management Organizations (CMO).

The results reported are stunning.

CMO schools make a bigger difference in urban environments, and for poor minority kids, than anywhere else for any other populations.

Those kids come to school. They and their parents like school. In some of the toughest neighborhoods in America.

Readers who oppose charter schools think there are unacceptable explanations for that. Fair enough. CREDO addresses every one of the commonly cited rationalizations and bats them away. We will get to that in a follow-on article.

What matters here is that the study, focused on equity, finds over 1,000 “gap buster” public charter schools, most run by CMOs, that deliver academic results that eliminate the learning gap across student groups. Continue reading →

51 Comments

Posted in DEI, Education (K-12)

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Virginia Child Victims in the Left’s War on the Enlightenment and Science

Posted on December 26, 2023 by | 75 comments

Richard Bernstein, a founder of American critical theory.

by James C. Sherlock

Modern progressivism is religion, defined by Webster as “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.”

The critical theory progressive, that is to say the modern American progressive, rejects proudly and publicly, root and branch, both the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolutions of the 16th through 18th centuries in Europe.

Critical Theory developed into a synthesis of Marx and Freud. The Frankfurt School which birthed it studied the sources of authoritarianism. Their followers, as in much of human experience, wound up as practitioners.

By contrast, the leading lights of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution awakenings, bravely in their time, stressed the belief that science and logic give people more understanding. And with understanding came freedom and the rights of man.

Logic is the principles of reasoning; science provides the principles of investigation and proof.

They led much of Europe, and the American colonies, to develop more successful systems of governance, economics, mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, and education than did tradition and religion.

One development, capitalism, has raised more people out of poverty than any economic system ever.

Some of the rest of the world followed. Some did not. Those that did, prospered, and improved the lives of billions of people.

But success in those twin intellectual revolutions came too slow for some.

To that table came two prominent 19th and 20th century experiments in rejecting the Enlightenment: communism and national socialism.

They proved the deadliest political movements in human history. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, DEI, Democracy and Western Civilization, Education - Early Childhood, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Governance, Marxism, Public employee unions, Race and race relations, Science & Technology, Virginia Law

Teacher Vacancies in Virginia Cities with a Majority of Black Students Continue to be Very High

Posted on December 15, 2023 by | 32 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The statewide performance of Black kids on Virginia’s SOLs was horrible. Chronic absenteeism is a primary reason.

But I continue to look for underlying reasons and solutions for both.

This morning I checked the Staffing and Vacancy Dashboard.

The teacher vacancy rate for Region 2, Tidewater and the Eastern Shore, is currently the highest in the state at 7.62%. That statistic combines teachers and special education teachers aides and paraprofessionals. There are 3,115 unfilled positions in Region 2.

That region has been the worst in the state for a long time.

The next highest is Central Virginia at 4.9%. Southwest Virginia is lowest at 2.28%.

Region 2 vacancies both in actual numbers and in percentages are always high because school staff vacancies in Hampton Roads’ majority Black urban cities, and their proportion of the region’s public-school population, drive them up.

The data reveal that in divisions with majorities of Black students in the rest of the state, some are very high and some not.

Petersburg, as such things happen, is off the charts.

But there are a major differences in teacher vacancies, and in student performance, between Black kids in Black majority urban cities (Suffolk is a officially a city but not urban) with the honorable exception of Hampton’s Black student SOL scores, and those in Black majority rural counties.

We should perhaps look at what vacancies can tell us.

And another time at what the City of Hampton Public Schools has been doing right for so long. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children and families, Civil Rights, DEI, Education (K-12), General Assembly, Governance

Insufferable and Dangerous Nonsense in Academia – Antisemitism Sector

Posted on December 8, 2023 by | 149 comments

A rally on the steps of the University of Virginia Rotunda calls for a free Palestine amid the war in Israel on Thursday, Oct. 12. CAL CARY, THE DAILY PROGRESS

by James C. Sherlock

I read this morning in the latest issue of Chronicle of Higher Education a particularly smarmy article by a Keith E. Whittington.

He is, among other things, “professor of politics at Princeton University and founding chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance”.

Good to know.

He addressed in his article the Congressional hearing that put the presidents of Penn, Harvard and MIT on the hot seat for the unaddressed antisemitic turmoil on their campuses.

Other articles in the same issue called the hearings a disaster for the colleges.

“Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, administrators have struggled to respond. Many issued statements that faculty members, students, and others saw as tepid, while protests drove deep rifts into campus communities.”

Whittington’s was titled:

“Colleges Can Recommit to Free Speech or Double Down on Sensitivity – The congressional hearing on antisemitism presents a stark choice.”

He offered a false, self-serving choice of only two ways forward.

If President Ryan of UVa had joined the others in front of the committee, they could have gotten past statements to actions, and lack of them. Continue reading →

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Posted in Civil Rights, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed)

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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part Four – Chronic Absenteeism, Social Promotion, VTSS and UVa’s Ed School

Posted on December 2, 2023 by | 19 comments

by James C. Sherlock

There is a rule: nothing else schools do will matter much for kids who are chronically absent.

In Charlottesville, it is the Black children who dominate the chronic absenteeism statistics.

Their SOL performance validates the rule.

The process for preventing and dealing with chronic absenteeism within the school system is so lengthy, bureaucratic and “progressive” (literally and figuratively) that it has failed Black children starting in kindergarten.

Absenteeism and social promotion are recipes for educational failure.

They also contribute directly to the breakdown of order and discipline in schools, as kids who are frustrated and lost in class act out first in disruptive, and then destructive ways.

Yet CCS schools allow runaway Black chronic absenteeism without truancy charges and engage in wholesale social promotion of Black students who do not have the academic skills to learn in the next grade.

Lest they be labeled racist.

What they get are racist outcomes. Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Culture wars, DEI, Discipline and disorder, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12)

Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part Three – CCS Abandons Truancy Filings, Absenteeism Soars

Posted on November 30, 2023 by | 132 comments

Courtesy of wallpaper.com

by James C. Sherlock

The effects of public policies can be murky.

Not this one.

The subject in this Part 3 is alarming chronic absenteeism of Charlottesville City Schools (CCS).  

At issue is the virtual abandonment by that division of the use truancy filings with the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, removing parental consequences.  

That change has been accompanied by enormous increases in absenteeism and everything, all bad, that comes with it.

The numbers are stark. Continue reading →

132 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Civil Rights, Courts and law, DEI, Discipline and disorder, Education (K-12)

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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part Two – Black Students

Posted on November 29, 2023 by | 102 comments

by James C. Sherlock

What drew me to this story is the fact that Black students in Charlottesville City Schools (CCS) have suffered to a degree unequaled elsewhere in the Commonwealth.

Keeping in mind the domination of Charlottesville and its schools by the University of Virginia and its School of Education and Human Development discussed in Part One, we will move ahead from there.

CCS is a school system designed unusually with six schools for Pre-K-4, one for grades 5 and 6, another for 7 and 8, and a single high school with a couple of alternative programs.

Map of elementary school boundaries courtesy of Charlottesville City Schools.  Author’s annotations in overlays reflect Virginia School Quality data

 

The map above shows that the Pre-K-4 school boundaries roughly follow the city’s neighborhoods.

Now look at the elementary school performance and attendance annotations.

The biggest anomaly is that the gap between White and Black academic performance in CCS is an ocean. Worse than Richmond both in absolute performance by the Black students and relative to White students.

I can find nowhere in the Commonwealth, including other college towns (and I looked), in which White and Black public-school students exist in academic disparity to the extent they do in Charlottesville.

The Charlottesville High School riots reflect that gulf.  Buford Middle is worse.

CCS has managed to fail those Black children in a relatively balanced student demographic of 42% White, 29% Black, 14% Hispanic, 5% Asian and 10% multiple races.

The teachers have far more advanced degrees, most from UVa’s ed school, than the average school division.

It just doesn’t work.

Continue reading →

102 Comments

Posted in Attendance, Culture wars, DEI, Demographics, Discipline and disorder, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Parental Rights, teacher education

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Charlottesville, Its Public Schools and UVa – Part One – Bad things Happen

Posted on November 27, 2023 by | 94 comments

Charlottesville neighborhoods.  Courtesy Charlottesville Low-Income Housing Coalition

by James C. Sherlock

In the relationship between Charlottesville and the University of Virginia, very bad things have happened to Charlottesville and continue to do so.

I have developed a working thesis on that relationship.

The city is at the mercy of the University by virtue of the latter’s wealth, influence, and power in Charlottesville elections.

It is, driven by University community voters, the bluest voting district in the Commonwealth.

Unfailingly progressive Charlottesville city council, school board and Commonwealth’s Attorney candidates are elected by the dominant votes of the University, its employees and its students.

Charlottesville City Schools (CCS) are to a large degree creatures of the University.

Many CCS teachers have their bachelors and/or advanced degrees from UVa’s School of Education and Human Development. Many University ed school students do their student teaching in Charlottesville.

Every progressive educational policy and virtually every experiment the University’s ed school can dream up are visited on those students.  The University’s ed school Research Centers and Labs find the proximity convenient and a pliant school board welcoming.

The University can’t bear to leave anything in CCS alone.

As Charlottesville High School faces the aftermath of rising rates of violence at the school and three canceled days of school due to alack of personnel, teachers at the University and other community groups have assisted in the school’s response. Faculty from the University’s School of Education and Human Development were present at development sessions with Charlottesville High School teachers aiming to address underlying issues….

“Dr. Stephanie Rowley, dean of the University’s Education School, said faculty from Education’s counselor education and educational psychology programs were particularly involved with the efforts because of the relevance of their expertise.”

There is no record of their being invited.

“Lack of personnel”.  The teachers walked out because of runaway violence.

The University “lent a hand”.

“In light of the University’s recent push to bolster its impact in Charlottesville, some members of the University who specialize in education attended the teacher work day meetings at Charlottesville High School.”

Seriously.  To “bolster (the University’s) impact in Charlottesville”.

For Black children in CCS schools, that influence, long-running and well-meaning though it has been, has turned out to have been a disaster unparalleled in the Commonwealth.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Attendance, Children and families, Civil Rights, Culture wars, DEI, Demographics, Discipline and disorder, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Elections, Governance, Housing, Race and race relations, teacher education

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The Suppressed Report on the UVa Murders

Posted on November 20, 2023 by | 41 comments

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 →

41 Comments

Posted in Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, DEI, Education (higher ed)

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