Backlash

Washington, D.C.

Hispanics do something bad, media tremble in fear of an anti-Hispanic backlash.

Muslims do something bad, media tremble in fear of an anti-Muslim backlash.

Government does something bad…you got it.

First, Sen. Run-Around Sue Collins (RINO-ME) is wringing her hands worried that IRSgate will “fuel distrust in government.”  One can only hope, except hoping is so 2008.

Second, and locally, the P-D is worried that opposition to Commune Core is “rooted in suspicion of the Federal government.”  Meaning that CC critics have sinned in the eyes of the Post-Dispatch.  Actually, many public school teachers, who are employed and paid by a public entity, oppose Commune Core.  And it’s not just because it’s the latest π-in-the-sky educational theory, like Outhouse-Based Education, No Chillenz Left Behind or Race to the Bottom, but because Commune Core really hard-wires tying teacher tenure and pay to the performance of their (in some cases, “dumb as hell” black) students.  If you think cheating-test scandals are bad now, just wait until Commune Core is fully implemented.

Five, six, seven, eight…

At Risk

I shouldn’t be surprised.  This is the same fruitcake bassackwards country whose prime time TV crime dramas show white Kluxers committing every crime and brilliant black forensic scientists cracking the KKKaper.

I’ll have you know that white men who look like this are anything but “At-Risk.”  The son of one of my secret squirrel sources, who looks something like this, just won a major science-based competition at the university he attends, beating out a lot of those John Engelman master race Oriental Asians in the process.

Want to cause a serious race row in this country?  Write a book entitled, Why Keisha Can’t Read.

Normandy Academy of Peace and Nonviolence

Wellston

Once upon a time, the Normandy district was the most desirable in North County, bar none.  But that was a very long time ago, when the district was white and middle to upper middle class.

Now, Normandy HS is “the most dangerous high school” in the metro area, and the second most dangerous in the state, behind only the very misnamed “Central Academy of Academic Excellence” in Kansas City.

What explains the change?  That’s what happens when the residential areas in the school district transition from boring to vibrant.  Before, students at Normandy High had names like John and Jane.  Now they have names like Daija’h and Ta’Darrian.

 

That’s Winning

America

McPaper:

Managers to Millennials: Job interview no time to text

Many college grads lack interview skills. They take calls, text and sometimes bring their parents or pets to interviews. HR execs blame a coddled generation weaned on smartphones and social media.

Newly minted college graduates soon entering the job market could be facing another hurdle besides high unemployment and a sluggish economy. Hiring managers say many perform poorly — sometimes even bizarrely — in job interviews.

Human resource professionals say they’ve seen recent college grads text or take calls in interviews, dress inappropriately, use slang or overly casual language and exhibit other oddball behavior.

(snip)

Fall and other HR executives say such quirks have become more commonplace the past three years or so, and are displayed by about one in five recent grads. They’re prompting recruiters to rule out otherwise qualified candidates for entry-level positions and delay hiring decisions.

(snip)

Fall says Millennials also have been coddled by parents. “It’s (a mindset of) ‘You’re perfect just the way are,’ ” he says. ” ‘Do whatever you’re comfortable doing.’ “

Not just the parents.  It’s also the educational system which enforces standards of deportment and decorum about as often as one finds a tooth on a hen.

But we should stop looking at this as a bug and start looking it as a feature.  Instilling high self-esteem in students has been the number one priority of the American educational system for the past generation.  In that, they have been wildly successful.

If you do Personnel and you don’t want to hire a 23-year old wearing a crop top or halter top with a picture of a pot leaf and the word “Fuck” above or below it, then you’re just an old fuddy duddy who is behind the times.  Get ready for a ‘scrimination lawsuit.  And don’t laugh — You know that one day soon it will be against the law to “discriminate” against these worthies, because these overly self-esteemed brats have doting helicopter parents that can really put the pressure on Democrat/liberal politicians.

And also…I’m waiting for the first news article about a man or woman with a Ph.D. who can’t read.

Connectivity

Los Angeles

Breitbart:

LAUSD Wants to Buy iPads for 660K Students

The California school system spends thousands of dollars per year per pupil. But if Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy has his way, that number will skyrocket. Deasy wants to purchase iPads for some 660,000 LAUSD students. According to Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times, “people with ties to tech companies were among the major donors to a political action committee that supports Deasy-friendly school board candidates …. Deasy appears in a promotional video for Apple in which he says tablets are ‘phenomenally going to change the landscape of education.’”

The facilities in LAUSD have long been a wreck thanks at least in part to poor student behavior. And iPad programs have, in the past, ended with a good number of broken iPads: when Honywood Community Science School in Coggeshall, Essex handed out free iPad2s, 489 of the 1,200 handed out were shattered beyond recognition. The Daily Mail reported, “Pupils said in some of the younger classes, around half the class had broken their tablet at least once, and some as many as three times. Despite the threat of confiscation after three tablets, ultimately none were taken away from pupils.”

Just another way for LAUSD to spend cash it doesn’t have without upping the educational standards of students.

According to one of my secret squirrel sources, the WiFi at LAUSD facilities is always on the blink.

That said, that sound you hear is that of some 660,000 LAUSD students all playing Angry Birds on their iMaxiPads at the same time because their schools have no connectivity.

Alliance Correctional Center

Oakland, California

Let’s cut to the chase:

The middle school is one of the toughest in East Oakland, with 360 students ages 10-13. Police have visited the campus 13 times during the school year so far, and five students have been expelled.

Out of a total of 13 teachers at Alliance this year, 10 are new. The turnover rate at the school is much higher than the district average of 14 percent.

“This is a high-need school. And when I’m here, I feel like I owe them 150 percent every time I’m here,” said Kashmir Hyder, a second year teacher. “And as a result of that, I feel like I’ve burnt out. I treated this like a sprint, and not a marathon.”

In fact, two of the three teachers interviewed by KPIX 5 will leave Oakland after the school year. The third teacher is on the fence.

You say “teacher,” I say “prison guard.”  “On the fence” is verbally ironic here, for as you can see in this video, this sad attempt at a learning environment is surrounded by fencing.  The third teacher isn’t “on the fence,” he or she is going to be well on the other side of it after the school year.

Because…Can’t Teach for America.

One might be tempted to think that this jail is “tough” (not in terms of the difficulty of the coursework, obviously) because it’s full of ooklets and ooklettas.  But Great Schools reports that the junior prison is 68% Hispanic and 27% black.

You know what will solve this graybar hotel’s problems?  More money and a longer school day.

Bloomberg, Meet HBD. HBD, Meet Bloomberg.

New York City

WCBS-2 NYC:

New York City To Try Longer School Day In 20 Middle Schools

The school day is about to get longer for some New York City school kids — and we’re not talking a couple of minutes. It’s about to be two and a half hours longer.

If scores go up, the plan could be extended city-wide, CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reported Monday.

Will an intensive reading program and an extended school day help Johnny read?

City officials hope so. They’re launching a pilot program with 2,000 middle school students to see if it’s an idea whose time has come.

“It’s where the achievement gap really seems to grow, in New York City about three-fourths of seventh and eighth graders. Three-fourths of seventh and eighth graders do not read at a proficient level,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said.

Under a pilot program that will start in September, sixth graders at 20 schools throughout the city will stay in the classroom two and a half hours longer for intensive language tutoring — every day — and then continue the longer day into seventh and eighth grades. If they outperform other kids the city will seek to expand the program.

How much do you want to bet that most or all of these twenty middle schools are heavily black and Hispanic?

The reason the middle school years are “where the [racial] achievement gap really seems to grow” (because it does) isn’t because the school days at middle schools aren’t long enough.  The answer can be found in HBD.  At least when comparing blacks and whites, the late elementary and early middle school years are when black brains stop maturing, while white brains keep on maturing.  If you try to pour a gallon full of liquid into a shot glass for six straight hours, and most of the water spills out of the cup, do you expect it to be any different if you try for yet another two and a half hours?

We should just go all the way.  24/7 schooling.  When we finally get 80 IQ Nashwan’tavious-El at the age of 14 to read that epic novel about green eggs and ham, we’ll be well on our way to closing that achievement gap.

Parents, however, seem to be all on board.

“There’s a great need for additional education and resources,” Reyna Franco said.

“I think it’s a great idea. The kids need it,” Gil Denard added.

“It would depend on the family. For us, I would not like that but other children who might need the work it might be a good idea,” Olivia Kahmi said.

Of course the parents love it.  It’s another two and a half hours of taxpayer funded babysitting.  That means these parents can swill on yet another two and a half hours of low information TV bilge (Wendy Williams, woot woot) and eat their EBT-funded junk food and not have to pretend to care about their kids.

Because…diversity.

They Won

Chicago

Yep, good ole “racism” again.

As you can see in the video, Brooks lost both ends of a doubleheader that was scheduled after the game it won for the forfeit.  You’d think they’d be happy for the win, because this doesn’t seem like the kind of squad that wins that often.

Great Schools on both the forfeiter and forfeitee.  Even though the former is verily diverse and the latter is mostly black and the rest Hispanic, both schools get a perfect 10 from Great Schools’s own rating criteria.  This must mean this article is right when it states that both schools have selective admissions standards.

 

Student Activism

Logan County, West Virginia and Guilford, Connecticut.

Remember when the left loved student activism?

Jolt to the System

Detroit

Detroit Free Press:

Separate-gender classes among changes for Southfield public high schools

Southfield Public Schools today announced wide-ranging changes at the high school level that officials say will help the district improve the way it meets the needs of its increasingly transient population.

Basically, eighth and ninth grade academies within the confines of high schools, and some separate gender education.

Without having known what “Southfield Public Schools” is all about, at least not before going to Great Schools and looking up the racial demographics of their three high schools, I knew just from the wording of the article that it’s basically a black district, for two reasons:  One, I know from the St. Louis area that separating freshmen (ninth graders) into their own separate school-within-a-school environment (“ninth grade academy”) is a big fad in the black schools/districts.  Two, only a heavily black or Hispanic school/district could get away with separate gender classes without getting the feminist/leftard/SWPL shitstorm.

Indeed, as Great Schools informed me, all three of the Southfield district’s high schools are more than 90% black.

School leaders received guidance from experts in Wayne State University’s College of Education at the start of the redesign process. Those experts will continue to be involved in the implementation of the changes.

Awhile back, a regular AR poster who goes by the screen name “Proactive” had this to say about his alma mater, Wayne State University:

Way back in the 70s when I was about to graduate from Wayne State University in Detroit, we soon-to-be-grads had to assemble in one of the campus auditoriums to write a 250 word essay. Regardless of major, every student had to pass this simple (and widely known) exercise in order to receive their diploma. It was blindingly simple. The instructors gave handouts explaining that you had to introduce the subject, discuss it in the body, and then write the closing. 500 topics to choose from were listed on a separate sheet of paper, and an overhead projector kept the instructions, as explained verbally, cast on a huge screen in front of our huge group. A postcard came in the mail a week later telling if you passed or failed. I was already working at a job in my major when I read in The Detroit News how a large group of black students was suing the school for discrimination. It’s important to note here that Wayne State U in Detroit is and always has been just to the left of Karl Marx, politically. Political Correctness may have been born on this campus. Blacks with just over 1.5 high school GPAs were admitted as freshmen, and they were passed no matter which courses they took. Dumbing down for black students and social promotions were the rules of the day at WSU. After 4 years of, uh, “study”, they had failed the simple essay requirement. Their argument was that the requirement was biased against blacks due to the “fact” (sic) that writing essays were particularly difficult for their race. What’s the complaint in this AR article? That multiple choice tests were too difficult for blacks? What testing method is left? A few weeks later I read where the black students vs. WSU lawsuit was thrown out of court. Due to the absence of a healthy shame among blacks, and their near total disregard for learning while IN school, these idiotic lawsuits continue. Today, the courts appear to be so PC-corrupt that the litigants often win. With the liberal messiah in the highest office, expect more of this insanity. After all, he’s our first PC, affirmative action prez.

If Wayne State is indeed that far left, I’m surprised they countenanced any separate-gender program at all.  Or, at the very least, they should have informed the Southfield district that in our world of LGBTQMIAPDLOLPLPLTH and combating *-phobia, that there are more than two genders.

Mixing Ice Cream and Crud

Chicago

CST article, TNUSA breaks the CST’s soft paywall if you have not yet or don’t want to.

Your Blogmeister’s take:  Deseg by any other means.  A perfect way to spread black gang activity all over God’s creation.  You can bet that some of these transferred students will wind up being the drug hookups for the student bodies in the schools to which they are transferred.

Honeymoon Is Over

Chicago

WBBM-CBS-2:

School Closing Opponents Call Mayor A Racist Liar

The Chicago Public Schools’ plan to close 53 schools and 61 buildings, mostly in black neighborhoods, has some West Side residents vowing to fight the Emanuel administration until the end.

As WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports, to hear some tell it on the West Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a racist liar who doesn’t care about the kids. And they’re just getting started.

“I don’t see any Caucasians being moved, bussed, or murdered in the streets as they travel along gang lines, or stand on the steps of a CPS school,” said activist Wendy Matil Pearson as opponents of the school closing plans protested outside Horatio May Elementary Community Academy in the Austin neighborhood.

That’s because we honkies don’t (usually) form gangs or tolerate gangs.  Too, CPS is only 9% white, and probably a lot of those “whites” are only marginally white.

The protesters said the CPS school closing plan would bring nothing more than more street violence and more blight.

“We will have more gangs, more murders, more killers, and everything,” said CPS student Brittany Sanders.

Well, the way to prevent that is to quit murdering and ganging up.

Valerie Leonard, co-founder of the Lawndale Alliance, accused the mayor of trying to drive African Americans out of the city.

“He says that he wants to turn around the city of Chicago, make a new Chicago. Does that new Chicago mean no black folks?” she said. “Where are people going to go?

The answer to your first question is yes, by definition and necessity.  The answer to your second question is South Suburban Cook County.

On Thursday, CTU President Karen Lewis said the plan was both “racist” and “classist,” and she called Emanuel “the murder mayor.”

“He is the murder mayor,” she said, referencing the city’s recent problems with gun violence. “Look at the murder rate in this city.

Look, I’m no Rahm fan, but he’s not murdering anyone in Chicago.  (I don’t think)

Adults Doing Adult Stuff

Mount Pleasant, Michigan

Other than the fact that the school is paying for it, ergo the taxpayers are, I don’t see the problem with this.  To me it seems to be nothing more than adults doing adult things to have adult conversations about adult matters, namely human sexuality.

But what if they wanted to talk about firearms in an NRA-sponsored venue or presentation, or race in an NCF/AR-sponsored venue or presentation?  All hell would break loose.

The Nanny State Isn’t All Bad

NYCDE

This will turn out to be a better long term crime prevention strategy than anything gun-related that any New York politician could ever scream about from a podium.

Just let me pick out my own soda size, Bloomy.

Aren’t We Special?

Prince Georges County, Maryland

It’s as if the work of the typical black public school student of the heavily black Prince Georges County, Maryland public school system is worth copying…

Can’t Retire

Sacramento, Minneapolis, St. Louis

Santa Rosa (Calif.) Press-Democrat:

Teachers’ retirement fund to divest from gun makers

The nation’s largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California.

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer made a motion to begin the divestment process after pension fund officials determined that the fund invests in the owner of a company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Connecticut school shooting. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s investment committee unanimously approved the motion.

(snip)

The pension fund has investments in private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP, which owns the manufacturer of an assault weapon used at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The pension fund also owns shares of Sturm, Ruger & Co. and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp., two publicly traded gun-makers.

Then what?  Where do they expect to park that money to find anything close to a return?  I really don’t anticipate that much outside of firearms stocks and American T-Bills will be shakin’ in 2013.  Maybe that’s the answer:  I can see Obama’s hand in the background here.  Maybe he wants CalSTRS to park all its money in T-Bills.

Strangely, Cerberus is in the news locally today, too.  SuperValu, the Minneapolis-based supermarket chain that owns the Shop n Save locations in and around St. Louis, as well as all Save-a-Lots, is going to sell most supermarket chains it owns to Cerberus, but not SnS or SAL.  With last year’s droughts expected to jack food sky high, food might be another good business to be in at least temporarily in spite of it being a low margin business otherwise.  This means that because it will be involved in both food and guns, Cerberus at least through much of 2013 will be rolling in money.  Yet, CalSTRS doesn’t want to be invited to that party.

A certain someone reading these words should probably put off those retirement plans for a few more years.

Rose Is Corn

Chicago

McPilgrim:  Maybe Derrick Rose can be an anti-”Stop Snitching” celebrity spokesman.

Don’t count your point guards before they hatch, Garry.  I’m sure Rose doesn’t want a develop a reputation as a cornball brother, an Uncle Tom or a sellout.  Incidentally, Rose is recovering from the same kind of injury that RG3 just suffered.

In other news, three new members of the Illinois state legislature, all three from Chicago, all three black, are currently under indictment for one thing or another.  When do you people in Southern Illinois finally start grokking the Diocletian solution.

In other news, the head of the CTU says:

“The thing is, [the rich] think nothing about killing us,” she said. “They think nothing about putting our people in harm’s way. They think nothing about lethal working conditions.”

She cited the fact that not all Chicago schools have air conditioning as evidence that the union’s opponents want teachers to work in dangerous conditions.

Lewis is no stranger to controversial comments. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, she charged Teach for America with helping to “kill and disenfranchise children from schools across the nation.”

“Not all Chicago schools have AC” not because rich people are engaged in some murderous conspiracy, but because the CPS is basically a hiring agency for otherwise unemployable blacks, and God forbid that anyone suggest that retired CTU members do with a little less in pension and retiree health benefits to fund installing A/C in all schools.  As far as Can’t Teach For America, that’s not a murderous conspiracy either.  It’s just an attempt at union busting, plugging in one low-wage young almost always white woman recent education graduate whose heads full of social justice platitudes into ghetto schools because they actually believe that you can narrow that achievement gap in real life like Michelle Pfeiffer does it in the movies.  (Most flame out after one semester.)

You Big Dummy

New Jersey

Krispy Christie, in Politico:

“Listen I don’t necessarily think having an armed guard outside every classroom is conducive to a positive learning environment,” the Republican governor said when asked at a press conference in Newark. “But let me just say in general I don’t think that the solution to safety in schools is putting [in] armed guard – because for it to be really effective in my view, from a law enforcement perspective, you’d have to have an armed guard outside every classroom.”

In an elementary school environment, it wouldn’t be an openly armed guard outside every classroom ruining the “positive learning environment” of the future Panama-style demographics of America.  The school would mysteriously get a new “assistant principal,” or “facilities engineer,” or “teacher’s aide,” who would seem to have a slight bulge around his or her waste underneath his or her professional dress.

Before we knew all the facts we still don’t know, we thought that the Nutmeg Nutbar started his fateful Friday in New Jersey.  Maybe the Krispinator would think before he spouts.

“Trying to Make a Difference”

Belleville

What, no realizing their full potential? You see, “realizing one’s full potential” is The New “making a difference.”

When you slowly but surely import ESL’s demographics, you also import its social issues.

I suspect that I would have been mentoring these “successful” young black men if the school environment consisted only of young men like themselves and those like the 17-year old version of myself. These successful ones at the high schools in the Belleville district don’t strike me as the brightest bulbs in the box. But in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king.

And also…the achievement gap.  But not for much longer, because it won’t be long before all the whites are driven out of the Belleville district.

Liberty. Equality. Affirmative Action.

France

Francois, pourquoi?

Answer:  French politics and society are very loath to enact action positive.  But the hard core left of the French body politic really wants it.  Therefore, the answer is to do an end-run:  Make school so easy that everyone gets a diploma or degree, first at the elementary level, then at the secondary, then at the tertiary.  Therefore, you can hide affirmative action programs in both education and employment behind the sudden “equality” of academic achievement.

AAPL Of Their Eyes

SLPS

The St. Louis City Public School system is a finalist for Race to the Bottom money.  If they get it, iPads for every elementary school student.

I should have known:  Along with a lot of other things, Race to the Bottom is basically white collar Federal gibsmedat for the benefit of the iCabal.

I’m waiting on the news that iMaxiPads are being “abused” by SLPS future geniuses.  Either one kid will whack another kid with one, one kid will whack a teacher (Can’t Teach For America social justice dingbat) with one, or most likely, a 13-year old fifth grader uses one to watch Los Angeles County-approved condom application-correct porn.

Misandry, Or Accuracy?

United Kingdom

I tend to think a lot of the “boy” or “man” or “male” crisis is basically code for black boys or men.  Therefore, I think the low grades that “boys” tend to get, they get them because they deserve them.

Acting White

England

Slashdot:

Young Students Hiding Academic Talent To Avoid Bullying

“The recent anti-bullying survey conducted by ABA brings up some interesting findings. According to it, more than 90% of the 1,000 11-16 year-olds surveyed said they had been bullied or seen someone bullied for being too intelligent or talented. Almost half of children and young people (49.5%) have played down a talent for fear of being bullied, rising to 53% among girls. One in 10 (12%) said they had played down their ability in science and almost one in five girls (18.8%) and more than one in 10 boys (11.4%) are deliberately underachieving in maths – to evade bullying. Worryingly, this means our children and young people are shying away from academic achievement for fear of victimization.”

Why would anyone bully anyone else for being too smart?

Answer:  It’s this crabs-in-a-bucket “you’re acting white” mentality among young blacks.

If race is not the answer, or not the whole answer, it’s because “smart” in terms of a young man is seen as a euphemism for gay.

No Apple For This Teacher

Baltimore

Unless the apple was going to be thrown at her.

These students seen in this video (black) are many inches taller and each weigh probably twice as much as this teacher (white).

Child Care

Chicago

P-D:

Report: 32,000 Chicago students missed weeks of class

(snip)

The Tribune reports that about 19 percent of kindergarteners were listed as chronic truants.

Educators say students are missing class for reasons like having to take care of younger siblings.

Common problem for kindergartners in Chicago — They’re often drafted into babysitting and taking care of their two-year old brothers and sisters, so that their 19-year old mother can troll the street corner for the father of their next sibling.

And also…Barack Claus refilling their Link and EBT promptly every month.

College Not So Ready

America

CSM:

How tougher classes in high school can help kids make it through college

Some 40 percent of students are failing to graduate from college in six years. A study calls for higher-quality college prep, with more advanced math, advanced placement classes, and better advising.

I don’t really need to go any further than that.  While the 40% failure rate is true enough, and the fact that their high school course work is too easy and that’s giving them artificially low expectations of college life is just as true, all making high school harder will do is make it harder for certain people (ahem) to graduate from high school — It will not mean they’ll be more likely to graduate from college.

Awhile back, auto makers were really bad about feature creep.  They would introduce a cheap compact car, but every new model year add “more power, more features, more room” until it wasn’t cheap or compact anymore.  Then they’d have to introduce a whole new cheap compact model, and start the whole ball of wax rolling again.  (Yes, Toyota, I’m looking at you.)  Education is also suffering from feature creep:  The bar has been lowered at every point in the process to make it easier for blacks and Hispanics to jump over, but this also means that a given diploma or degree doesn’t mean what it used to.

Where Was This When I Was In College?

St. Joseph

“Gender neutral housing.”

Translation:  A man pretends to be transgender or transsexual to scam his way into being able to look at naked women.

Looking into a Crystal Ball

Maryland

Puggg, the second most frequent commenter here, noticed this in AR yesterday in a story about the black undertow complaining about yet another big city fire department (I added the link herein):

Ironically, the following web banner ad is appearing on the right side of this story as I’m reading it.

That’s where this whole issue is leading, according to Steve Sailer’s outlook:  In true Griggs vs Duke Power style, they’ll do away with hiring and promotion tests for fire departments and use education as a proxy.  The University of Maryland seems to be getting in on the ground floor of that trend.

Here’s the banner ad in question:

Puggg went on to say in another comment that:

Actually it’s the other way around. There will always be some fly by night for-profit college or some HBCU that will graduate [blacks] no matter what. Even mainstream colleges will pass them along without expecting any real work of them.

Any time testing is replaced with education, it’s always a sop to affirmative action.

Proof of that is what happened to the Federal bureaucracy after the PACE exam was scrapped in favor of educational requirements.

If you don’t think that mainstream colleges will give undergraduate and even graduate degrees to affirmative action blacks to help them in their first responder career, I have two names for you:  Dan Isom, Charles Moose.

Cold Snap

Georgia

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Student protest disrupts Regents meeting

ATHENS —

About a dozen students halted a state Board of Regents meeting for a few minutes Wednesday, protesting a policy that bans illegal immigrants from Georgia’s top colleges, plus the use of a coal-fired boiler on the University of Georgia campus.

The ban, which went into place in fall 2011, prohibits illegal immigrants from attending colleges that had to turn away academically qualified students for the past two years. It applies to UGA, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, Georgia Health Sciences and Georgia College & State universities.

A few students also held signs demanding UGA shut down the coal-fired boiler on campus. The college plans to replace it but has said it will take time. Students want administrators to commit to a deadline and work with experts and the UGA community to come up with a sustainable alternative, said senior Ian Karra, one of the protesters.

Put it all together.  Athens, Georgia is certainly south of St. Louis, but it’s not exactly Key West, Florida, either.  It can and does get cold from time to time, and houses and buildings there sometimes need to be kept warm.  What this means is that if these protesters get their way, the University of Georgia will be full of illegal aliens freezing their brown asses off in cold dorms in January.

Obsessed With Merely a Social Construct

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Minding the Campus:

In History—the Obsession with Race, Class and Gender

The University of Michigan history department has 28 tenured or tenure-track professors whose research specialties in some way relate to U.S. history after 1789. Race is the favorite topic; at least eleven of the department’s professors indicate that their research in some way deals with race in America. Gender is the next prominent area of specialization; at least seven of the professors offer research in this area (with some overlap with race). Race and gender are, obviously, important themes in U.S. history. But are they of such importance that they should dominate to this extent the Americanist wing one of the nation’s major departments? And is Michigan fulfilling its mission of preparing future citizens by offering such a limited view of the nation’s past?

With the rise of the race/class/gender approach, subfields perceived as excessively “traditional” or overly focused on “dead white males” have gone into decline—or, in the case of political history, have been “re-visioned” in the hopes of transferring focus to topics oriented around themes of race, class, and gender. Since (at least in large departments, or at elite institutions) U.S. history hires in the national (post-1789) period come in subfields, looking at personnel specialties can give a sense of exactly how a university does—or does not—fulfill its obligation to train future citizens in the foundational events of their nation.

Machiavellian me says “bring it on.”  If the history profs are obsessing over race, then it’ll be a lot harder for the anthropology profs to con the students into thinking race is just a social construct.