Category Archives: Race and race relations

Dominion Energy Scholarships Define “Communities” by Race

Posted on January 17, 2023 by | 63 comments

By Carol J. Bova

Dominion Energy is offering 60 undergraduate Equitable Education Scholarships totaling $500,000 for “students from historically underrepresented communities.”

The rules exclude White students (unless they identify as Hispanic), no matter what “community” they’re from, because to be eligible, applicants must:

— Self-identify as Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander with higher education expenses;

— Be high school seniors or graduates or current college undergraduates residing in Connecticut, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Idaho, Wyoming, or Utah, with plans to enroll full-time at an accredited two- or four-year college, university or vocational-technical school for the entire upcoming academic year.

The press release quotes Robert M. Blue, Dominion Energy’s president and chief executive officer, who said: “We have already seen a tremendous return on investment supporting students obtaining higher education. Dominion Energy remains committed to investing in students’ access to higher education, strengthening our communities and future generations, and building a sustainable workforce.”

Scholarship America, a nonprofit specializing in managing scholarship and tuition assistance programs, says it “will support Dominion Energy in the selection of finalists.” Scholarship America says: Continue reading →

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Posted in Charity and philanthropy, Education (higher ed), Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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As TJHSST is Investigated, an Email from 2020 Reveals a ‘Pattern and Practice’ of Hiding Awards

Posted on January 7, 2023 by | 9 comments

by Asra Q. Nomani

This week, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares walked through the glass doors of the Korean Community Center off Little River Turnpike, the dome of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology visible through the window, and with him stood five parents of current and former students at TJ, as the school is known locally.

In a devastating announcement for Fairfax County Public Schools, Miyares announced twin civil rights investigations into, first, the withholding of National Merit Commended Student awards by TJ administrators and, second, a Fairfax County school admissions policy, put in place in December 2020, that a federal judge ruled discriminates illegally against Asian American students.

Miyares’ team will be seeking to identify a “pattern and practice” of discriminatory actions, a standard in civil rights cases. Currently, in defense of the school district, FCPS spokeswoman Julie Moult told reporters on Dec. 29, that withholding National Merit Commendation awards from students this year was a “one-time human error in the fall of 2022 only.”

“To suggest a deliberate intent to withhold this information would be inaccurate and contrary to the values of FCPS,” Moult continued. The district, she went on, values “hard work and dedication.”

“Fairfax County Public Schools also seems to value obfuscation and deception,” said Norma Margulies, the mother of a student at TJ, an immigrant from Peru, and one of the parents standing on stage with Miyares.

An email, obtained by Fairfax County Times, reveals that, indeed, in fall 2020, TJ staffers misled parents and students about the National Merit Commended Student award, presented to the top 3 percent of 1.5 million students who take the PSAT exam.

In the email, dated Nov. 24, 2020, at 11:53:25 a.m., a TJ staffer copied and pasted information about the Commended Student award into an email to a parent, who was asking about the award, incorrectly stating, “There is no letter and no formal announcement for Commended scholars and the list of Commended scholars is not made public.”

In fact, more than two entire months earlier, on Sept. 10, 2020, according to a National Merit Scholarship Corporation spokeswoman, the Illinois-based nonprofit sent a letter to TJ Principal Ann Bonitatibus notifying her the school had 230 National Merit Commended Students. Most of them were Asian- American. The school district typically releases the names of National Merit Semifinalists, who advance to compete to be National Merit Finalists.

The National Merit letter included a note with the explicit expectation that schools will inform students and parents, “Please present the letters of commendation as soon as possible since it is the students’ only notification.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (K-12), Ethics, Parental Rights, Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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$15 Million+ and Growing Fast

Posted on January 6, 2023 by | 17 comments

The Jefferson Council released the following press release at 1:00 p.m. today.

The cost of Virginia’s higher-ed DEI bureaucracy is spinning out of control.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., January 6, 2023 – Virginia’s 15 public four-year universities paid its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion administrators more than $15 million in salaries in 2020, according to a new report, “Should Virginians Pay for University ‘Diversity’ Leftism?”

And DEI spending exploded the following year, 2021, at the two universities for which data are available: 119% at James Madison University and 66% at the University of Virginia. So found the report, which was published by the Virginia Association of Scholars and funded by The Jefferson Council and The Spirit of VMI alumni organizations.

UVa was the biggest spender. In 2021 its DEI bureaucracy numbered 77 employees and cost $6.9 million in salaries. JMU had 65 DEI employees whose salaries totaled $5.3 million. In 2020 Virginia Tech ranked No.2 statewide in DEI spending, with 47 staff costing $4 million in salaries.

In 2020, Virginia State University, a historically Black university, and the Virginia Military Institute, a senior military college, were the only two institutions without a DEI staffer. VMI hired a DEI director in 2021. Continue reading →

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

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Why Does Princeton Have All the Luck?

Posted on December 23, 2022 by | 19 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Cavalier Daily, where are you?

There is an article in The Daily Princetonian that is, end-to-end, utterly beyond satire.

It’s title: “3 Princeton DEI staff members resign, alleging lack of support.”

Where to begin?

The “Prince” offers in a single posting Homeric tales of the peripatetic journeys of three school officials that led to their resignations. Three from among Princeton’s 70 (not a typo) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staffers.

We find in that article indignation; tears; allegations of macro-aggressions; an HIV-positive Chair of the University Health Services Transgender Health Team; a self-proclaimed “Black queer non-binary person (is BQNBP an acronym?)” overseeing DEI in the athletics department; fears of monkey pox; claims of burnout; statements of support by the University; a Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity; an Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion; promotion politics; assorted levels of despair; claims and rebuttals relative to structural issues in DEI at Princeton; and more acronyms than you can count.

Like The Pentagon Papers and almost as long, it is exhausting, but you will not be well read until you work through it.

You will be informed that

employees at the University have participated in more than 6,000 learning opportunities across 150 DEI-related classes and that more than 400 managers have been trained on Mitigating Bias in the Hiring Process.

Employees have also engaged in training regarding LGBTQ Allyship; Bias, Power, Privilege and Workplace Communication; Psychological Safety; and more.

One might conclude there may be burnout among the audiences of those “learning opportunities,” too. But it is a very safe bet they do not express it.

We can only imagine the travails of the DEI staff at the University of Virginia.

The Cavalier Daily, challenged, will surely be on it.

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Posted in Culture wars, Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Posted on December 15, 2022 by | 43 comments

by James A. Bacon

I’m so confused. We’ve been hearing for years that air pollution from fossil fuel plants disproportionately impacts minorities. Take, for example, a 2018 Environmental Protection Agency study which found that African-Americans faced a 54% higher health burden from particulate air emissions like soot compared to the overall population. Systemic racism was the culprit. Numerous other studies have reached similar conclusions.

To address the systemic racism embedded in the U.S. energy system, greenies have touted the generation of electricity from non-polluting energy sources such as wind and solar. (Let’s set aside the fact that air pollution is displaced in many cases to unregulated mines in Africa, not known for their health and safety conditions, which produce the materials used in wind turbines and solar cells.)

Now comes a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which finds that the health benefits of wind power could quadruple by dialing down production from the most polluting fossil-fuel-based power plants when wind is available. But the study, published in Science Advances, had a disturbing caveat: only 30% of the benefits would reach disadvantaged communities.

“We found that prioritizing health is a great way to maximize benefits in a widespread way across the U.S., which is a very positive thing. But it suggests it’s not going to address disparities,” says MIT co-author Noelle Selin. Continue reading →

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Posted in Energy, Race and race relations

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Violent Crime Wave? What Violent Crime Wave?

Posted on December 12, 2022 by | 18 comments

Who’s more racist — conservatives calling for a crackdown on violent criminals or the people who insist that the surge in violent crime is a fabricated conservative talking point?

18 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Race and race relations

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Anti-Semitism in Virginia

Posted on December 6, 2022 by | 56 comments

Source: Anti-Defamation League, as republished by “Combating Antisemitism in Virginia“

by James A. Bacon

Antisemitism in Virginia isn’t as severe as in some other states, but the number of incidents of harassment and vandalism has increased in recent years, according to a report by the Commission to Combat Antisemitism, “Combating Antisemitism in Virginia.”

In 2021, 411 reported antisemitic incidents impacted residents of the Commonwealth, reports the study, based on Anti-Defamation League data. These incidents showed a 71% increase over the 292 reported in 2018. Fortunately, none of these events involved the infliction of physical harm to anyone.

Antisemitism became a high-profile issue in 2017 during the Unite the Right rally of White supremacist groups, which was marked by numerous chants, and signage and sieg heils that singled out Jews for vilification. The vast majority of White Supremacists came from outside the state, but the event gave Virginia a bad name.

“Antisemitism is a wide-ranging problem that cuts across diverse segments of American society and exists on both the extreme left and extreme right sides of the political spectrum, as well as within the gradients in between,” states the report. Continue reading →

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Posted in Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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Fathering While Black

Posted on December 6, 2022 by | 31 comments

by Asra Q. Nomani and Debra Tisler

STAFFORD, VA — “They are not taking my baby girl!” cries Sean Jackson, the black father of a beautiful girl, Amoria Adams, 10 months old, holding his beloved daughter.

This week, a school board member from Fairfax County, Va., Karen Keys-Gamarra, put in motion a judge’s order that tonight took a beautiful baby girl from the home of her doting father and paternal grandparents. At this moment. At 8:33 PM.

“You guys are taking my child,” says Jackson, distraught.

“No!” cries the paternal grandmother, Kimberly Jackson-Makle.

Three Stafford County sheriff’s officers moved tonight — Monday night, to seize this baby, nicknamed “Mori,” because of a judge’s order put in place by Keys-Gamarra on Monday without the father’s or paternal grandparents’ awareness.

Then, in the darkness of the night, little Amoria was strapped into a car seat in a white car and driven away by a stranger. Her father and grandparents have no clue where she is tonight.

How did this miscarriage of justice happen?

The writing on the wall was written on May 4, on the fourth floor of the Arlington Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, a bailiff held Amoria as a three-month-old baby girl and shouted, “Father? Where’s the father?”

Jackson, 28, a paramedic in nearby Stafford, Va., stepped forward and declared, “I’m the father.”

The bailiff thrust the baby into his arms.

Ever since Jackson had learned through a paternity test that he was Amoria’s father, he had been trying to win visitation. It seemed his case might have suddenly been strengthened. A few feet away, Arlington police led away the baby’s mother, 21, in handcuffs, arrested on an outstanding warrant for alleged assault and battery involving abuse of another of her daughters.

What are you? Retarded?

In the confusion, Jackson wondered what happened next.

But when he sought advice from the person who would know, Karen Keys-Gamarra, Amoria’s court-appointed attorney, he got a shocking answer – one that he says telegraphed her bias against him.

“What are you?” Keys-Gamarra snapped: “Retarded?”

While Keys-Gamarra denies using the term, it wouldn’t be the first time the lawyer, a Black activist and Fairfax County School Board member who ran as a “voice for the voiceless,” used the slur. On Thursday, Oct. 20, at a public meeting of the school board of Fairfax County Public Schools, Keys-Gamarra blurted out at one point during a dispute, “We cannot be this retarded,” in a hot-mic moment. The next day, disturbed by the use of the word, school board chair Rachna Sizemore Heizer told a local WUSA9 TV reporter, “That is actually the third time she’s used it.” Little did Sizemore Heizer know that a young father had also heard the word used to demean him. And according to someone close to Amoria’s mother, Keys-Gamarra refused to give Amoria to Jackson once when the baby was sick, saying: “He is retarded.”

For Jackson and his parents, the case illustrates the biases of a system rigged against fathers even by so-called progressives. Amoria’s mother, who is also Black, was three months pregnant with her when she was jailed in July 2021 for felony charges of possession of controlled substances and “gross, wanton or reckless care of a child.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Children and families, Culture wars, Parental Rights, Race and race relations

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In Higher-Ed, Diversity = Affirmative Action

Posted on November 7, 2022 by | 163 comments

More blue M&Ms, please

by Allan Stam

A couple of years ago, in a conversation with another dean at the University of Virginia, I was asked about my views on the ever-expanding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion enterprise. I explained that I was not a fan of the diversity movement and affirmative action. When asked why, I explained that my preference was for merit, and merit alone, to determine the allocation of scarce resources and in particular, admissions and employment spots. The conversation then turned to what the effects might be of basing admissions decisions solely on merit.

“Would you be OK with the student body being 40% Asian?” I was asked.

“Of course,” I responded. “But if you feel that UVA, as a public institution, should have a student body that represents Virginia’s population, then be explicit about that, and adopt quotas. I wouldn’t be happy with that, but at least we wouldn’t be hypocrites.”

My partner in the conversation, being of a legal mind, then observed, “You know we can’t do that, adopt quotas. Quotas are illegal.” And therein lies the rub.

Diversity, as practiced in American higher education, in general, and at the University of Virginia in particular, is a fraud. The word ‘diversity’ is a linguistic dodge to enable universities to sidestep what lawyers refer to as ‘strict scrutiny’ of the legality of affirmative action. Affirmative action, as a term, is a euphemism for race-based discrimination. So, Diversity is a double dodge. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Race and race relations

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Blue on Blue: Richmond Progressive Attacks White Feminist Privilege

Posted on October 31, 2022 by | 18 comments

Photo credit: Reparations4slavery.com

by James A. Bacon

There’s big money in telling White people how racist they are. Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo have made millions of dollars doing it. Now Saira Rao, an Indian-American Richmond resident, has figured out how to cash in on the action.

Rao has written a book with Colorado co-author Regina Jackson, “White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better,” that berates White feminists. The title has been picked up by big-time publisher Penguin Random House. Peter Galuszka interviewed Rao for a friendly piece in Style Weekly. 

While the book is sure to rake in royalties, the author’s shtick generates loads of ancillary revenue. In a program called “Race2Dinner” Rao and Jackson direct two-hour cocktail-and-dinner sessions in which six to eight White women confront their racism. Based on one of those dinner conversations, Director Patty Ivins Specht produced a documentary, “Deconstructing Karen,” which highlights “the unwitting ways” in which White women uphold “everyday white supremacy.” A ticket to a Race2Lunch event in Toronto this summer set back attendees $495 each; a Race2Dinner event in Denver cost $625.

Rao takes no prisoners. As she and Jackson write in the book, “Privilege is power. By ignoring your white privilege, you ignore your white power. When you ignore your white power, you uphold white supremacy. This is white feminism. White feminism. Is. White Supremacy.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Feminism and women's rights, Race and race relations, Uncategorized

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Three Strikes and You’re Out, Mr. Ryan

Posted on October 28, 2022 by | 12 comments

Jim Ryan

by James A. Bacon

If University of Virginia President Jim Ryan wants to recruit more African-American students, faculty and staff to the university, here’s some advice: stop reinforcing racial paranoia. Stop lending legitimacy to the idea that Blacks at the University of Virginia are under threat.

So far this semester, there have been three racial scares at UVa. First someone threw a rock through the window of the Office of African-American Affairs. Then someone laid a flag bearing an owl symbol next to the Enslaved Laborers memorial and donated an anonymous check to an African-American student. Then someone hung a noose around the neck of a statue of the blind Greek poet Homer.

The three incidents generated alarm about a “larger pattern of racially motived crimes” before the full facts came in. Upon investigation, the first two were found to have no racial motivation and significant doubt has been cast on racial hatred as a motive for the third.

UVa officials deserve some credit for quickly releasing exonerating information as it became available. But rather than dampen unfounded speculation in his early remarks, Ryan legitimized it. Continue reading →

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

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Square Peg, Meet Round Hole

Posted on October 24, 2022 by | 39 comments

Morgan Griffith, Southwest Virginia’s representative to the U.S. House — described by the Times as a 2022 election “objector”

by James A. Bacon

I love it when The New York Times tries to explain to its liberal and progressive readers what makes Republicans tick. Viewing the world through their woke lens of intersectional oppression, an article published yesterday concludes that the depravity of White Republican political views reflects their ignorance and racism. The Times never used the “R” word outright, but that’s the unavoidable implication of its argument.

The article purports to explain the votes of Republican congressmen who voted last year to reject President Trump’s electoral defeat. An article published yesterday sums up the thesis thusly:

A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge Mr. Trump’s defeat, a New York Times analysis found — a pattern political scientists say shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep him in power.

The Times allows Ashley Jardina, a George Mason University political scientist, to elaborate: “Because they are more vulnerable, disadvantaged or less educated white voters can feel especially endangered by the trend toward a minority majority. A lot of white Americans who are really threatened are willing to reject democratic norms because they see it as a way to protect their status.”

Let me make the syllogism crystal clear: White Republicans fear the demographic rise of minorities, and they fear their resulting loss of status. Rejecting democratic norms in a bid to preserve that status, they refused to concede Trump’s election loss, and their representatives voted to keep Trump in power.

This is what you get when you try to impose a progressive world view upon an recalcitrant reality. Continue reading →

39 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Elections, Race and race relations

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Diversity Done Right… and Wrong

Posted on October 23, 2022 by | 11 comments

Glenn Loury, author of “The Anatomy of Racial Inequality”

by James A. Bacon

The drive to institutionalize Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in elite colleges and universities is profoundly destructive, according to presenters at a Friday conference of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

Far from contributing to intellectual diversity, as it purports to do, DEI constrains free expression and free inquiry. It creates bureaucracies that consume resources that could be more profitably invested elsewhere. Moreover, DEI fails to address the underlying causes of racial inequality in America. Rather, it perpetuates inequality by setting lower standards for minority students and imbuing them with a crippling victim mentality.

John McWhorter, author of “Woke Racism”

The 2022 Athena Roundtable also presented awards and recognition to prominent intellectuals Glenn Loury and John McWhorter as well as to up-and-comer Erec Smith, founder of the Free Black Thought website, all of whom champion diversity of thought among African-Americans.

In a roundtable discussion, “Diversity Done Right,” the panelists did not hold uniform views but they agreed with one another far more than not.

One recurring topic in the roundtable’s critique of DEI was the idea that demographic diversity contributes to intellectual diversity. DEI mission statements in colleges and universities across Virginia, for instance, justify the value of DEI programs on the grounds that they create a more vibrant intellectual environment by bringing together people whose perspectives are derived from different “lived experiences.” None of the panelists took exception to the notion that demographic diversity adds value, but they noted (a) other types of “lived experience” have value, too, and (2) DEI in elite universities is couched in the vocabulary of identity politics that suppresses free expression and intellectual diversity in actual practice. Continue reading →

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

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Police Bias in Traffic Stops? Still No Proof.

Posted on October 11, 2022 by | 31 comments

Senator Don Scott, Jr., D-Portsmouth. Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch

by James A. Bacon

The Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) has published a new report that finds that Black and Hispanic drivers in Virginia are more likely to be stopped than Whites, and they are more likely to be searched and arrested.

However, the report also says there isn’t enough data to draw definitive conclusions about bias in policing. “This analysis does not allow us to determine the extent to which these disparities may or may not be due to bias-based profiling or to other factors that can vary depending on race or ethnicity,” it states.

Veteran reporter David Ress makes that caveat very clear in the third paragraph of his story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today, but he then goes on to highlight quotes by House Minority Leader Don Scott Jr., D-Portsmouth, Delegate Jeff Bourne, D-Richmond, and Senator Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, blaming racism.

“Obviously, bias is still a factor. It’s disingenuous not to arrive at that conclusion,” said Scott. “This is a historical and empirical truth. The data today validates the lived experiences of Black and brown Virginians.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Race and race relations

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Solar Farms Trump Environmental Justice in Virginia

Posted on October 4, 2022 by | 52 comments

Dominion’s Amazon Solar Farm in Pittsylvania County – Courtesy New York Times.

by James C. Sherlock

Virginia is a solar energy boom state.

The Commonwealth ranked 4th in total generating capacity of new solar installations in 2020. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in 2021 ranked Virginia 6th nationally for projected growth in solar capacity over the next 5 years.

The left is consumed by concern for environmental justice. Except when it isn’t. Like when it wants green energy.

Take the location of utility-scale (>5 MW) solar farms in Virginia. Virtually all of them were sited during the administrations of Democratic governors. Each was subject to environmental reviews by multiple agencies of the state government, coordinated by the Department of Environmental Quality.

And yet let’s look where they have been built and are planned.

Places like Emporia. Places like Essex, Buckingham, Charlotte and Lunenburg Counties where new solar farms are under development.

Environmental justice did not make the cut during the Northam and McAuliffe administrations’ rush for green energy.

Poor, rural Black people, and Republicans, apparently needed to take one for the team. Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Environment, Race and race relations

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