Tag Archives: James A. Bacon

EVMS Settles Free-Speech Lawsuit for 38K

Posted on March 23, 2022 by | 4 comments

Edward Si. Photo credit: FIRE

The Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) has reached a settlement with medical student Edward Si over a lawsuit filed after the school prohibited him from forming a Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP) club. The medical school will pay Si and SNaHP $38,000. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) represented Si.

In December 2020, Si formed the chapter, but the EVMS Student Government Association denied the application for recognition on the grounds that SGA  did not want to approve clubs “based on opinions” — even though it had provided recognition to Medical Students for Choice. The day after FIRE filed a lawsuit, Si received notification that the club had been approved. Continue reading →

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Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Education (higher ed)

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The Mental Anguish Veto

Posted on March 23, 2022 by | 22 comments

by James A. Bacon

As the debate over de-platforming former Vice President Mike Pence plays out in the pages of the University of Virginia student newspaper, a recent column illuminates, albeit unwitting, the complex interplay between mental illness, sexual orientation, fragility, and intolerance toward views people find uncomfortable.

Mental illness is rampant in American society today, especially in the so-called Generation Z. An increasing prevalence of anxiety and depression has emerged as a major challenge facing colleges and universities in Virginia, and across the United States. A month ago, students at James Madison University staged an occupation of Alumni Hall. Their demands: more resources and special allowances for students suffering from mental illness. UVa is no exception to this trend.

The anxiety and depression experienced by young people are very real, and those who suffer deserve our sympathy and support. But their anguish does not give them the right to cancel the rights of others.

Within that context, a young woman wrote a letter to The Cavalier Daily expressing her reasons for wanting to ban Pence from the Grounds. I do not use her name because I do not want to expose her to ridicule or otherwise add to the burdens she bears. Her story, though, is telling. Continue reading →

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Posted in Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Culture wars, Mental illness and substance abuse

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Should UVa De-Platform Mike Pence?

Posted on March 22, 2022 by | 69 comments

by James A. Bacon

One might think that former Vice President Mike Pence would have earned a little cred for standing up to Donald Trump in overseeing the counting of electoral votes that resulted in the 2020 election of Joe Biden. So furious about this supposed betrayal is Trump that he has declared he would rule out asking Pence to join his ticket if he decides to run again for president in 2024. But in some quarters, the former VEEP is so racist, so sexist,  so homophobic, and his views are so reprehensible, so beyond the pale, so hurtful, that he should be denied the opportunity to speak at the University of Virginia.

With financial support from The Jefferson Council, on whose board I serve, the Young Americans for Freedom have invited Pence to speak at UVa on April 12. Five days ago, the editorial board of the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, expressed strong disapproval of university leadership’s decision to allow the speech to take place.

“Dangerous rhetoric is not entitled to a platform,” says the editorial headline. “Speech that threatens the lives of those on the Grounds is unjustifiable,” reads the sub-head.

Yes, you read that correctly. Not only is Pence’s speech bigoted, hurtful, and violent, it literally threatens the well-being, safety and even the very lives of UVa students! Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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Deplatformed for “Hate” Speech: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Posted on March 21, 2022 by | 52 comments

Reka Gyorgy, a Virginia Tech senior who missed the cut to compete in the NCAA swimming finals because she was displaced by transgender Lia Thomas, has had her Twitter account suspended.

“I’m a 5th year senior, I have been top 16 and top 8 before and I know how much of a privilege it is to make finals at a meet this big,” Gyorgy said in a letter reprinted on SwimSwam and Swimming World, which she subsequently tweeted. “This is my last college meet ever and I feel frustrated. It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete.”

Thomas, a University of Pennsylvania senior won the 500, defeating three Olympic silver medalists, including 20-year-old University of Virginia swimmer Emma Weyant, who placed second. Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, LGBQT

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One of the World’s Stupidest Inventions Now Illegal in Virginia

Posted on March 21, 2022 by | 19 comments

Who says Virginia’s polarized legislature can’t get anything done? Governor Glenn Youngkin has signed a bill banning the vehicle modification known as “Carolina Squat.” The law was inspired by the death of Virginian BJ Upton in a car accident involving such a vehicle.

The modification raises the front of the vehicle significantly higher than the rear, affecting its handling. Headlights are pointed to the sky rather than illuminating the road ahead, the driver’s view is compromised, and the modification alters the dispersion of mechanical force in a collision.

The Carolina Squat apparently is Redneck America’s answer to Mexican-American lowriders, which California made illegal in 1957 for similar reasons: the configuration altered handling characteristics. But the Carolina Squat looks far more dangerous than lowriders. The Governor’s press release touting the signing of the bill didn’t detail the causes of the accident that killed Upton, but it’s a good bet that driver visibility was an issue.  Continue reading →

19 Comments

Posted in Public safety & health, Transportation

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Another Promising Young Life Snuffed Out

Posted on March 21, 2022 by | 29 comments

by James A. Bacon

Our society has become inured to stories of drug dealers and other criminals shooting and killing one another on our cities’ streets. But we still maintain a capacity for outrage at the death of pure innocents — children and others who were unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Such was the case with Sierra Jenkins, a 25-year-old Virginian-Pilot reporter who was hanging out with friends outside Chicho’s Pizza Backstage in downtown Norfolk around 1:30 a.m. Saturday as the bar was closing. Gunfire broke out, and she was caught in the crossfire. A total of five people were shot. Sierra was killed, one other person died from his wounds, and three others were hospitalized.

A Norfolk native, Jenkins graduated from Granby High School, earned a B.A. degree in journalism from Georgia State, worked as an intern at Atlanta Magazine and CNN, and joined the Pilot in 2020, where she covered education. Her editor called her a passionate journalist and “a bright and talented woman with so much going for her.” Continue reading →

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Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement

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What Virginia Can Do to Temper Inflation

Posted on March 20, 2022 by | 26 comments


by James A. Bacon

Governor Glenn Youngkin has proposed using $437 million in unanticipated transportation revenues, much of it generated by the wholesale tax on gasoline, to give Virginians a three-month break on the 26-cent retail gasoline tax.

During his campaign, Youngkin ran on a platform of addressing Virginia’s high cost of living and reversing the erosion of middle-class living standards. A vacation on the gasoline tax is certainly consistent with that theme. And with inflation running at nearly 8% over the past 12 months, Virginians need help wherever they can find it. They will find no succor from Democrats, whose list of unmet societal “needs” is endless. They are delighted to spend every dime in tax revenue on one of their favored causes — which, alas, rarely includes helping financially strapped middle-class taxpayers.

While Youngkin has identified a winning issue, he needs to think bigger and more systematically. It’s fine to dial back the gasoline tax for a time, remove the sales tax on groceries, and try to repeal the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax, but there is so much more that he can do.

Forty-one percent of the cost of living, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is housing, 17% transportation, 7% medical care, and almost 7% education. Each of these categories is, to some degree, influenced by state-level budgetary and regulatory policy. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Energy, Health Care, Land use & Development, Transportation

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Search for Community College Chancellor Left Youngkin Out of the Loop

Posted on March 18, 2022 by | 52 comments

Russell A. Kavalhuna, new chancellor of the Virginia Community College Systemby James A. Bacon

Community colleges across the country are suffering declines in enrollment. The drop-off in Virginia is particularly acute. Enrollment has fallen 27% over the past 10 years, even as there are 300,000 unfilled jobs in the state. Virginia’s job recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic has been dismal — 43rd out of 50 states.

Governor Glenn Youngkin thinks that’s a problem. And with the retirement of Glenn DuBois, who has served as chancellor of the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) for 21 years, he saw an opportunity to hire a new leader whose vision for workforce development was aligned with his own.

But yesterday, the board announced that it had hired Russell A. Kavalhuna, president of Henry Ford College in Detroit, to succeed DuBois. The search committee largely left Youngkin out of the loop.

The implications are bigger than the impact on the community college system alone. If the board of the VCCS showed Youngkin no deference, it’s not likely that the boards of Virginia’s other higher-ed institutions — fully stocked with Democrats appointed by former Governor Ralph Northam and/or Terry McAuliffe — will either. Continue reading →

52 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed)

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Dig, WaPo, Dig! You’re Halfway to China!

Posted on March 17, 2022 by | 44 comments

by James A. Bacon

It’s fascinating to watch The Washington Post try to dig itself out of the pit it created for itself with its coverage of a Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) letter that was critical of the Youngkin administration. The WaPo news team appears to have forgotten the First Law of Holes: “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

VASS Executive Director Howard Kiser said in the text of the March 10 letter that he was communicating “on behalf of” the state’s 133 public school superintendents in urging Governor Glenn Youngkin to stop his campaign against the teaching of divisive concepts in schools. The lede in the WaPo story interpreted that to mean that “all 133 Virginia public school division superintendents” supported the letter.

Follow-up reporting by other media revealed a very different story. Kiser clarified that the letter was “crafted and adopted” by VASS’ 12-member board and “doesn’t necessarily reflect a consensus among all its members.” WJLA television found two superintendents willing to say off the record that they had not seen the letter before it was sent out. Meanwhile, in Campbell County, a school superintendent submitted a resolution supporting Youngkin’s campaign against inherently divisive concepts relating to race (without mentioning the letter). In response to a reporter’s question, Youngkin opined that the letter was a “gross misrepresentation of what superintendents believe, I believe.”

So, yesterday the WaPo published the following headline: “Youngkin says superintendents back him but offers little evidence.” States the summary paragraph: “Little evidence has emerged to support the administration’s claim that there is widespread dissatisfaction among superintendents with the letter.”

Nice trick. Rather than concede that it had misconstrued the letter, the WaPo is trying to make Youngkin’s statement the issue and is shifting the burden of proof to the Governor to back his claim. Continue reading →

44 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Media

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When COVID Hysteria Meets Safetyism

Posted on March 16, 2022 by | 37 comments

by James A. Bacon

The percentage of Northern Virginia’s adult population grappling with anxiety and depression more than tripled during the COVID-19 epidemic — from 8% to 28% — according to data published by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia. The percentage peaked at 39% in February 2020, affecting 755,000 individuals, but abated to 545,000 individuals by October.

Including other types of mental illness, the Community Foundation estimates that, all told, 750,000 Northern Virginia adults, or 39% of the adult population, have mental health needs. An estimated 370,000 want therapy or counseling but the region’s 5,100 mental health professionals can’t come close to meeting the demand. And they charge so much — around $215 per 45-minute session for self-pay — that many people can’t afford them anyway.

Wow!

Let those numbers sink in. Northern Virginia is one of the most affluent metropolitan regions in the country, yet nearly two out of five residents suffer from mental illness. Anxiety and depression are endemic. There’s a lot to unpack here. Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Mental illness and substance abuse, Public safety & health

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How English-Learner Stats Debunk Woke Education Theory

Posted on March 15, 2022 by | 20 comments


by James A. Bacon

It is dogma among practitioners of Critical Race Theory (or whatever other label you wish to apply to the doctrines of the Woke) that Hispanics are akin to Blacks in being “under-represented minorities,” or URMs for short. As URMs, Hispanics are said to be victimized by systemic racism, White privilege, and Whiteness, as evidenced by the disparities in educational achievement between black and brown people on the one hand and Whites and Asians (who are deemed “White-adjacent” even when their skin color is dark) on the other.

Leftist ideology holds that Hispanics are victims of discrimination — either from individual bias, structural racism, or both. But are they? Is it not possible that the No. 1 challenge holding back Hispanic academic achievement in Virginia public schools is the language barrier?

A high percentage of Hispanics come to the United States from poor countries with little education and minimal working knowledge of English. They have to learn the language when they get here. That’s not a monumental problem for adults living in self-contained communities where everyone speaks Spanish, but it is an obstacle for school-age kids who have no choice but to learn the language — especially when school districts are hard-pressed to find teachers qualified to teach English as a second language.

Scarcity of teachers capable of teaching in Spanish is a very different problem than endemic bias and racism, and it calls for different solutions. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Race and Race Relations

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The VASS Letter: Another MSM Lie Exposed

Posted on March 15, 2022 by | 17 comments

Image credit: Flickr

by James A. Bacon

When The Washington Post published an article four days ago claiming that “all 133 Virginia public school division superintendents” had called upon Governor Glenn Youngkin to end his campaign against “divisive” concepts in schools, only two media outlets in Virginia questioned the veracity of the statement. One was Kerry Dougherty’s blog, Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited (republished in this blog). The other was WJLA-Channel 7.

Stories published in the Post, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and other media were based on a letter issued by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. In the letter, VASS executive director Howard B. Kiser stated that he was writing “on behalf of the 133 public school division superintendents” and reiterating “key points that were shared by division superintendents.”

Yesterday Dougherty picked up on a statement buried in a WRIC-television news report — “Kiser clarified that the letter was crafted and adopted by the 12 member board and doesn’t necessarily reflect a consensus among all of its members” — that triggered her journalistic spidey senses. What were the odds, she asked, that 133 school superintendents would unanimously endorse a letter critical of Youngkin’s education policy?

More reason to question the argument that Virginia’s school superintendents were “unanimous” in their opposition to Youngkin appeared in an article published by WJLA today. The television station quoted Youngkin as saying, “It’s my understanding that in fact there was not a vote, this was a board of an association that wrote a letter and mischaracterized the support they had for that letter.”

Then the Washington-area television station did something remarkable. Its news team actually started calling public school superintendents. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12), Media

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The Rural Housing Challenge

Posted on March 14, 2022 by | 18 comments

Click for more legible image.

by James A. Bacon

I’ve tended to think of the housing-affordability issue in Virginia as a phenomenon relegated to the major metropolitan areas. Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads are where the population growth has occurred, and that’s where zoning and environmental restrictions have been the most stringent, making it difficult for homebuilders to keep pace with demand. Figure in the higher cost of land, particularly near the urban cores, as well as regulations discriminating against trailer parks and manufactured housing, and it just seemed obvious that affordability would be a bigger issue than in slowly depopulating rural areas where, if anything, housing would be in excess supply.

But according to a recent article in the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank’s District Digest, affordability in the 5th District, which includes Virginia, is almost as severe a problem in rural areas as in metropolitan areas.

“In the Fifth District, rural households are only slightly less likely to
be housing cost burdened than urban households,” states an article by Sierra Latham. “Twenty-five percent of rural households at all income levels are housing cost burdened, versus 28 percent of urban households.” (The definition of “cost burdened” is when rent or home-ownership payments exceed 30% of income.) Continue reading →

18 Comments

Posted in Housing, Uncategorized

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Feel-Good Stories for a Cold, Wintry Day

Posted on March 12, 2022 by | 1 comment

by James A. Bacon

Yes, hot war is raging in the Ukraine and culture wars are burning in the United States, but a few things are happening here in Virginia to make you feel good about the world: Longwood University making it into the NCAA tournament, Crozet resident Kenedi Anderson winning a platinum ticket in American Idol, and Liberty University football star Malik Willis giving the shirt off his back (actually out of his suitcase) to a homeless woman.

America’s new favorite underdog. Let’s start with America’s new Cinderella team in the NCAA — Longwood! Here’s how The Wall Street Journal (yes, the WSJ!) kicked off a story about the college’s improbable entry into the biggest tournament in college basketball after winning the Big South Tournament Championship:

A coach who assisted in perhaps the greatest college basketball upset of all time is now creating another underdog story. Specifically, a man who has overcome both cancer and the decision to become an attorney is now leading his unheralded team into next week’s NCAA tournament.

The Longwood Lancers had never had a winning record in conference play until Griff Aldrich arrived to coach four years ago. A graduate of Hampden-Sydney and the University of Virginia Law School, he took a six-figure salary with a Houston firm, then abandoned his conventional career to take a basketball coaching job for $32,000 a year. Read the WSJ article for the rest of the story. Go Lancers! Continue reading →

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Early Reading Skills Still “Going in the Wrong Direction”

Posted on March 11, 2022 by | 65 comments

by James A. Bacon

Governor Glenn Youngkin is getting an inkling of how difficult it will be to reform Virginia’s public school system. The Virginia Association of School Superintendents (VASS) has issued a letter criticizing the administration for its action two weeks ago of deleting from the Virginia Department of Education website any references to “divisive language” — mainly references to policies and guidelines premised on the idea of society as divided between White oppressors and minority victims.

“School division superintendents, along with their communities, know best their curriculum, personnel, and student services, and they believe that gross assumptions have been made, without evidentiary support,” stated the letter addressed to Superintendent Jillian Balow.

Meanwhile, a report just issued by the University of Virginia education school — with abundant evidentiary support — highlights the disastrous impact of the shutdown policies pursued by many of the very same school superintendents during the COVID epidemic. While individual school systems had released data on reading assessments of kindergartners, first graders and second graders, the new report is, I believe, the first detailed statewide review.

The conclusions are grim. Data from the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessments found that the percentage of children in those three early grades who fell short of basic reading benchmarks rose from 21.3% in 2019 to 34.9% in 2021. The percentage was highest (42.2%) for second graders. Continue reading →

65 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (K-12), Uncategorized

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