Tag Archives: James Sherlock

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

Posted on November 16, 2023 by | 38 comments

by James C. Sherlock

The title of this article seems at first glance axiomatic.

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

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

They need better lawyers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Culture wars, Defense, Democracy and Western Civilization, Education (higher ed), Government Oversight, Marxism

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

Posted on November 14, 2023 by | 6 comments

by James C. Sherlock

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

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

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

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

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

I promised in this Part to look at:

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

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

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Posted in Defense, Education (higher ed), Governance, Government Oversight, Marxism, National Security, Threat Assessment

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

Posted on November 14, 2023 by | 4 comments

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

by James C. Sherlock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Change Management, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Education (higher ed)

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

Posted on November 13, 2023 by | 21 comments

By James C. Sherlock

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

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

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

That has not happened at W&M.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Education (K-12)

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Delusion and Dogma in Virginia Tech’s Admissions Office

Posted on November 12, 2023 by | 48 comments

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

by James C. Sherlock

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

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

The opening sentences:

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

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

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

We also note that

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

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

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

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

48 Comments

Posted in DEI, Education (higher ed)

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Never Again

Posted on November 6, 2023 by | 149 comments

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

by James C. Sherlock

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

But I had never seen anything like this.

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

That was not the surprise.

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

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

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

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

It is never going to stop. Continue reading →

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Posted in Children and families, Culture wars, Democracy and Western Civilization, Gun rights, Immigration, National Security, Threat Assessment

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

Posted on November 2, 2023 by | 32 comments

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

by James C. Sherlock

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Posted in Children and families, Democracy and Western Civilization, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Governance, Marxism, Media, National Security

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Harvard History Professor to Lead Monticello

Posted on November 1, 2023 by | 22 comments

Jane Kamensky, new President of Monticello. Courtesy of Harvard Crimson. Photo credit Soumyaa Mazumder

by James C. Sherlock

She is certainly qualified.

On Oct. 17 the Thomas Jefferson Foundation announced that Jane Kamensky, Harvard history professor and director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, will be the next president of Monticello.

From an interview with Harvard Crimson.

  • “The combination of celebration, commemoration, and reckoning that takes place at Monticello in 2026 will not only do all those things, but will show America how to do it,” she said.
  • Kamensky said she looks forward to engaging the American public, especially young people, in a “shifted tone of conversation about American ideals and imperfections and possibilities,” she said.

“Show America how to do it” is an aggressive vision, but we wish her well.

There is evidence that there are mines in that field. She needs to try to carefully clear them, not set them off. Continue reading →

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Posted in Culture wars, DEI, Democracy and Western Civilization, Freedom

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Governor Youngkin Steps to Curb Anti-Semitic Activities – How about Law Enforcement?

Posted on October 31, 2023 by | 38 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Governor Glenn Youngkin took action today with an Executive Directive to “Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Religious Bigotry in the Commonwealth and on Campuses.”

It is excellent, and we look forward to immediate steps by other actors in the Commonwealth. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Education (higher ed), Governance, Law enforcement, Planning, Threat Assessment

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What is Actually Taught about the History of the Jews and the Jewish State in Virginia Schools?

Posted on October 30, 2023 by | 103 comments

German-Israeli woman Shani Louk, whose semi-naked body was paraded through Gaza by Hamas, has been declared dead. Her skull was found separated from her body. Credit Instagram

by James C. Sherlock

What comes first? Sadism or hatred? Does religious radicalism create sadists or do sadists flock there for approval and opportunity?

Some on the radical right and the radical left in the United States share a hatred for Jews.

The radical right may not be able to remember why, but pursue it anyway.

Radical Islam combines Nazi views and medieval sadism and does not hesitate to act them out. Remember the Munich Olympics massacre, 9/11 and the ISIS beheadings? Now Oct. 7th? Any questions?

Virginia’s schools have lessons to teach. Unfortunately it is not clear what the message has been and will be in the future. Continue reading →

103 Comments

Posted in Democracy and Western Civilization, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12)

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Crime and Punishment in Charlottesville

Posted on October 25, 2023 by | 109 comments

by James C. Sherlock

UVa and Harvard are the two campuses most often cited by the national and world press as homes to the worst actors after October 7.

It is easy work.

I posted a column on Saturday making a series of recommendations for actions by the University of Virginia to protect its Jewish community and rid itself of those that threaten it.

That was my response to the infamous support of UVa-funded organizations for the slaughter of innocents in Israel by Hamas, a group designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.

Kill Jews “by any means necessary” they wrote.

Read the column.  I named them.

Now I have been told by the Executive Director of Hillel at UVa, Rabbi Jake Rubin, that the President’s office and law enforcement “have been incredibly responsive, helpful, and present during this difficult time.”

Good start, and Virginians thank them for it, but it does not answer the questions about enforcement of state and federal laws.

So, there is more to do. Continue reading →

109 Comments

Posted in Civil Rights, Courts and law, Crime , corrections and law enforcement, Culture wars, DEI, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12)

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The Proper Understanding of the Importance of Education

Posted on October 25, 2023 by | 27 comments

October 20, 2020.  Fairfax Education Association President asks for Fairfax County Schools to remain closed for 2020-21 school year . Courtesy Fox 5.

by James C. Sherlock

Remember the schools being shut down in Richmond for the entire academic year 2020-21 for COVID?

Remember the teachers union protestations seeking the same outcome elsewhere in Virginia?

Of course you do.

Just a note to put that in perspective.

The IDF’s Home Front Command announced yesterday that Israeli schools and educational facilities across the central region of Gush Dan (Tel Aviv) will resume operations without restrictions starting Tuesday.

Jerusalem schools will also open Tuesday.

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Posted in Education (K-12)

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Anti-Jewish Extremism at UVa — Next Steps

Posted on October 21, 2023 by | 11 comments

Courtesy of SJP at UVa https://www.instagram.com/sjpuva/

by James C. Sherlock

The University of Virginia has made quite a national name for itself over the responses of its campus anti-Jewish extremists to the slaughter of babies in Israel.

It is not a reputation it wants.

On October 8th, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at UVa, an organization officially recognized by the Student Council and eligible for funding by the student activities fee, issued a statement “unequivocally support(ing) Palestinian liberation “by any means necessary.”

“Any means necessary.”

It was cosigned by:

  1. Afghan Student Association
  2. Arab Student Organization
  3. Asian Pacific American Leadership Training Institute (APALTI)
  4. Asians Revolutionizing Together at UVA
  5. Asian Student Union
  6. Bengali Student Association
  7. Black Student Alliance
  8. Black Muslims at UVA
  9. Central Americans For Empowerment (CAFÉ)
  10. Environmental Justice Collective at UVA
  11. Ethiopian Eritrean Student Association
  12. FeelGood at UVA
  13. Hindu Student Council
  14. Indian Student Association
  15. La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity Inc.
  16. Lebanese Club
  17. Minority Rights Coalition
  18. Muslim Institute for Leadership and Empowerment (MILE)
  19. Muslim Student Association
  20. Muslims United
  21. National Pan-Hellenic Council
  22. National Society of Black Engineers
  23. Nepali Student Association
  24. Organization of African Students
  25. Pakistani Student Association
  26. Persian Cultural Society (PCS)
  27. Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Inc.
  28. Political Latinxs United for Movement & Action in Society (PLUMAS)
  29. She’s the First at UVA
  30. Sigma Omicron Rho (ΣOP)
  31. Sikh Students Association
  32. Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers
  33. The 13 Society
  34. Turkish Student Organization
  35. undocUVA
  36. UVA Beyond Policing
  37. UVA Survivors
  38. Young Democratic Socialists of America

Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (higher ed)

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“Girls with Pearls” in Petersburg

Posted on October 14, 2023 by | 2 comments

Courtesy, Most Valuable Kids Program.  Rockdale Academy is in Cincinnati.

by James C. Sherlock

It is important now more than ever to celebrate people doing the right things for the right reasons. Good should be called out where found.

First Lady Suzanne Youngkin has taken helping Petersburg to heart and continues to support multiple initiatives to make that happen.  

She doesn’t have to do that, certainly to the extent that she has done and continues to do. It is clearly personal to her.

She is joining Petersburg Blandford Academy (6th grade of Vernon Johns Middle), Petersburg’s Communities in Schools (CIS), the Petersburg Women’s Club, and a small group of volunteers to bring the “Girls with Pearls” program to that city.

Girls with Pearls is a turn-key, school-based program that fosters leadership to change the outcome for girls by empowering them to plan for a bright future through education, personal responsibility and social awareness.

With those dedicated women and men behind it, Girls with Pearls will help young people become better adults.

They have our thanks and support.

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Posted in Education (K-12)

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National Academy of Sciences Offers Superb Recommendations for Fixing Virginia’s Nursing Home Crisis

Posted on October 12, 2023 by | 6 comments

by James C. Sherlock

Sometimes, we need to listen.

I just finished the 806-page 2022 report “The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality: Honoring Our Commitment to Residents, Families, and Staff” by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). It is downloadable at the link.

That study and report were utterly professional and thorough, as scientific as you expect, remarkably staffed and bipartisan in recommendations.

I have compiled from Appendix D of that report those remedies recommended for execution by states and nursing homes. They deserve to be the centerpiece of Virginia law and regulation going forward.

All of them. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Governance, Government Oversight, Health Care, Long Term Care and Nursing Homes

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