Last Friday, Craig Trainor, the Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter notifying educational institutions that illegal discrimination on the basis or race would no longer be tolerated and could result in loss of all federal funding.
To remind the readers about early efforts to enforce existing anti-discrimination laws -- Mark Perry, a retired professor of economics, has been relentlessly filing Title VI and Title IX complains about discriminatory programs:
In case anyone is interested, woke DEI "social justice" is going ahead full stream in Canada. Straight white males can no long find jobs in Canadian universities, and straight white women are low on the list of the preferred. It is sad but true that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows unlimited exception to any population who has allegedly suffered from discrimination, with rights, freedoms, and fairness for everyone else waived. Every Canadian educational institution, regulatory body, funding agency, and academic professional organization requires race, sex, and sexuality discrimination. As well, in glorious addition, is the "indigenization" now demanded of academia including science. Finally, decolonialization, a policy of our governments, national and provincial, requires that the "colonial settlers" of European and other origins turn over what they have built to the aboriginal "First Nations," with whom our governments wish to have "nation to nation" relations. You could not make this stuff up, but it is official policy, and, if you object, there is a good chance you will be crushed.
For documentation of discrimination at Canadian universities, see
Absolutely great. It actually shed me to tears. We are so far behind that in Austria. We have obligatory 50 % females in all collegial bodies written down in university law.
What in the hell is wrong with those concerned about the methods of identifying discrimination? Who cares? I'll gladly rat out every single one of these pieces of shit. They knew all along what they were doing. They gladly cheated people out of their due with glee. People worked their entire lives for these opportunities and they stole them, giving them to sycophants. No wonder we got steam rolled by these lunatics. The weakness makes me I'll. God Bless you for making us aware of recourse.
The new "Dear Colleague" letter is going to have little effect in practice besides the renaming of some offices. Why? Higher Ed has already been developing a more advanced theory of DEI.
In this new conception, "DEI" is no longer crude discrimination on the basis of race/gender/etc. in favored directions, but a *skill* that can be developed for people with the right beliefs who engage in correct actions. Being good at "DEI" means using the right words, taking part in the right workshops, reading the right books, bragging about how much you support the right causes and people, etc. By framing DEI as a skill or "competency," they hope to do an end-around against bans on racial/gender discrimination and instead engage in some old-fashioned political/belief discrimination.
This new definition has been around for a while in various forms, but with recent endorsements from the AAUP and others it is likely to become the dominant way of defining DEI (or whatever newfound term it gets called to avoid strict "DEI" bans) now. Applicants who are committed to it can convey that in their materials with a wink wink, nudge nudge to an eager audience. The DOE guidance appears to me to do nothing to stop this kind of ideological usage of DEI. In fact, this new version of DEI-as-a-skill has already received legal support: FIRE recently lost a lawsuit challenging DEI mandates in teaching, service, and scholarship because such mandates were not deemed discriminatory on gender/race/ethnicity lines.
Thus, we are in a strange situation: academia is tripling-down on this new version of DEI while the Trump admin is trying to eliminate the old version of DEI. Expect more DEI syllabus audits, mandatory DEI (or whatever euphemism they might use) courses and learning outcomes in school curricula, DEI tests in job ads and promotion and tenure requirements, and other forms of ideological litmus tests.
I don't like the idea of having a website for tattling on people. Smacks of practices in communist countries. In general, I support stamping out this kind of bias, but that's not the way to do it.
Judy, what do you think would be a better way of notifying the Dept. of Education so it can ensure the Civil Rights Act is being followed? Relying on people to file complaints when they observe violations seems reasonably to me, better than the government showing up and randomly auditing places. Is there a better option?
Sorry Judy, try getting out of your feelings and rather focus on the outcome. It's childish really. You'd watch the entire West crumble to protect some lunatics feelings.
I agree with you about the "tattling", but it will be difficult to find by enforcers if the discrimination is hidden. How about a rule (maybe unwritten rule) that if discrimination is exposed by a tattler, the offending institution will only get a warning. In that case they will be exposed, but there will be no harsh penalty. However, they will be on the radar for the enforcers.
Why would you want to show discriminators any mercy? They weren't going to show those dissenting any grace. It's time to push full force to root out grifters, incompetents and any discrimination based on immutable characteristics. Time is of the essence while the forces of evil are disconcerted and afraid.
Yes, please report any discriminatory sex-based preferences, as well as discriminatory preferences for LGBTQ groups, which constitutes “sex” discrimination under Title IX.
I was wondering the same (are men still screwed?) after reading the first sentence of the "Dear Colleague" letter, "Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible..."
But I guess he also omitted disability status... he doesn't have to be complete, but it would have been nice.
Similar gender bias: Title IX offices on college campuses, with multi-million-dollar budgets, investigate hundreds of males each year. Kangaroo courts heavily favored women, per "Dear Colleague" letters from the Federal Title IX Office. How many women have been found "guilty" by Title IX investigations? How many men? The gender imbalance is surely enormous.
Example: In the dorms, a male and female end an evening by sleeping together. Which is more vulnerable to a Title IX investigation? The woman?
Would you like to post your CV? What novel, creative exploits have you performed? My guess is none. My mentors include Nobel laureates? How about you? Struck a nerve, no doubt. Have no idea what obtaining a doctorate entails. Agree, there is much less rigor currently. There is no regurgitation involved, one must perform novel work. Of course, there is no way for you to know this as you have no experience with complex, independent problem solving. I am a traditionalist, conservative and prescribe to none of the post-modernist lunacy. Not all academics are grifters and subjectivists. I'm an experimentalist, therefore grounded to reality. You obviously have an axe to grind, but expose your intellectual immaturity by painting everyone with a brand brush.
The letter was a breath of fresh air to most common-sense academics, so 1-2% at modern Western universities (this being the difference between smart and wise). As predicted, the acronyms are already changing and the “resistance” is re-doubling their (zee/zers) efforts to “flood the zone” with now even more oppressed and marginalized candidates. Our college basketball team still looks the same - they decided to stick with the quality players … what a novel idea…
It depends. As empirical data clearly shows, a large fraction of police reports are NOT reports of actual crimes, and police in fact wastes HUGE resources on false reporting, which is clear and disgusting THEFT out of taxpayers' pockets. Arbitrary reporting is a serious and costly social pathology no law can help about, only long term education and moral improvement (mostly within families).
He didn't say that. He doesn't like unqualified morons. So he should find himself some more highly qualified morons. Would that be higher IQd morons or lower IQd morons? So many questions. So little time.
And who would the "qualified morons" be? The department of snitching probably could use more highly qualified morons to receive the snitching of you useless academics. Quit snitching and do something scientific for a change.
Kevin is one of those bachelor of science majors that got stuck as a technician. Just couldn't make the marks to obtain a doctorate. His attitude reeks of envy.
I didn't get "stuck" as a technician. The pathologists who trained us in Medical Laboratory Science, said we should insist on our qualifications as technologists. I did get "stuck" with a 4 year Bachelors degree and did routine applied science in medical laboratory biochemistry, as a technologist, rather than technician. There were other actual technicians who did 2 year technician qualifications with institutes of technology. But the best laboratory technician I ever worked with had only one year in a Bachelor of Science program, dropped out, and worked first as a phlebotomist and then for the data entry people when we were switching over to being computerized in the early 1970's and then on the Technicon SMA12/60 multichannel analyzer. She couldn't do the university level math, but she could read any method book and do the testing, in a more efficient way than almost anyone --- degreed or not. She was one of them who could do, vs. all the people with big degrees who can't do. So they teach --- at least many of them.
When I ran into the human resources tyrants after my final run-in with a female tyrant in a laboratory I was ready to do a post graduate philosophy degree. And I started when you academics were going into the big slide. I couldn't believe how things had degenerated in the 20 years from when I graduated in 1971 and my return to university level school in the late 1980's. All the kids were regurgitating and ass-kissing for marks. And all the professors expected their asses to be kissed and their words regurgitated with some "original" variations. But that is not how we did things in the late 1960's. If you couldn't answer questions, we just took a different course. If you answered wrong, some people got "revolutionary". But the pathologists always had good answers. You modern people do not.
And I found out why because I studied all the worst of you people --- Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Uncle Bertie Russell, Gottlob Frege's god-awful sentential logic, with those disgusting single letter so-called "atomic" sentences. So at least I know why your modern academic minds are so god-awfully screwed up. You've been taught non-sense for so long, that it has finally turned around and bit your butts with "post modernist" non-sense. Just because you got your PH.D, from idiots does not mean that you are intelligent. It means that you can regurgitate non-sense and get "good marks". Congratulations. They taught you how to be a "rat" which is something I most definitely do not "envy".
To remind the readers about early efforts to enforce existing anti-discrimination laws -- Mark Perry, a retired professor of economics, has been relentlessly filing Title VI and Title IX complains about discriminatory programs:
https://instapundit.substack.com/p/fighting-campus-bigotry-with-prof
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/an-update-on-my-efforts-to-challenge-title-vi-and-title-ix-violations-in-higher-education-despite-new-resistance-from-bidens-office-for-civil-rights/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/bulletin-board/retired-professor-on-a-one-man-mission-to-end-college-reverse-discrimination/
In case anyone is interested, woke DEI "social justice" is going ahead full stream in Canada. Straight white males can no long find jobs in Canadian universities, and straight white women are low on the list of the preferred. It is sad but true that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows unlimited exception to any population who has allegedly suffered from discrimination, with rights, freedoms, and fairness for everyone else waived. Every Canadian educational institution, regulatory body, funding agency, and academic professional organization requires race, sex, and sexuality discrimination. As well, in glorious addition, is the "indigenization" now demanded of academia including science. Finally, decolonialization, a policy of our governments, national and provincial, requires that the "colonial settlers" of European and other origins turn over what they have built to the aboriginal "First Nations," with whom our governments wish to have "nation to nation" relations. You could not make this stuff up, but it is official policy, and, if you object, there is a good chance you will be crushed.
For documentation of discrimination at Canadian universities, see
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/taking-stock-of-discriminatory-hiring-practices-at-canadian-universities
Actual enforcement of law as per the intentions of the Constitution!
Absolutely great. It actually shed me to tears. We are so far behind that in Austria. We have obligatory 50 % females in all collegial bodies written down in university law.
What in the hell is wrong with those concerned about the methods of identifying discrimination? Who cares? I'll gladly rat out every single one of these pieces of shit. They knew all along what they were doing. They gladly cheated people out of their due with glee. People worked their entire lives for these opportunities and they stole them, giving them to sycophants. No wonder we got steam rolled by these lunatics. The weakness makes me I'll. God Bless you for making us aware of recourse.
The new "Dear Colleague" letter is going to have little effect in practice besides the renaming of some offices. Why? Higher Ed has already been developing a more advanced theory of DEI.
In this new conception, "DEI" is no longer crude discrimination on the basis of race/gender/etc. in favored directions, but a *skill* that can be developed for people with the right beliefs who engage in correct actions. Being good at "DEI" means using the right words, taking part in the right workshops, reading the right books, bragging about how much you support the right causes and people, etc. By framing DEI as a skill or "competency," they hope to do an end-around against bans on racial/gender discrimination and instead engage in some old-fashioned political/belief discrimination.
This new definition has been around for a while in various forms, but with recent endorsements from the AAUP and others it is likely to become the dominant way of defining DEI (or whatever newfound term it gets called to avoid strict "DEI" bans) now. Applicants who are committed to it can convey that in their materials with a wink wink, nudge nudge to an eager audience. The DOE guidance appears to me to do nothing to stop this kind of ideological usage of DEI. In fact, this new version of DEI-as-a-skill has already received legal support: FIRE recently lost a lawsuit challenging DEI mandates in teaching, service, and scholarship because such mandates were not deemed discriminatory on gender/race/ethnicity lines.
Thus, we are in a strange situation: academia is tripling-down on this new version of DEI while the Trump admin is trying to eliminate the old version of DEI. Expect more DEI syllabus audits, mandatory DEI (or whatever euphemism they might use) courses and learning outcomes in school curricula, DEI tests in job ads and promotion and tenure requirements, and other forms of ideological litmus tests.
I don't like the idea of having a website for tattling on people. Smacks of practices in communist countries. In general, I support stamping out this kind of bias, but that's not the way to do it.
Judy, what do you think would be a better way of notifying the Dept. of Education so it can ensure the Civil Rights Act is being followed? Relying on people to file complaints when they observe violations seems reasonably to me, better than the government showing up and randomly auditing places. Is there a better option?
it most definitely is a good way to do it.
Do you object to filing police reports re crimes?
Sorry Judy, try getting out of your feelings and rather focus on the outcome. It's childish really. You'd watch the entire West crumble to protect some lunatics feelings.
I agree with you about the "tattling", but it will be difficult to find by enforcers if the discrimination is hidden. How about a rule (maybe unwritten rule) that if discrimination is exposed by a tattler, the offending institution will only get a warning. In that case they will be exposed, but there will be no harsh penalty. However, they will be on the radar for the enforcers.
Why would you want to show discriminators any mercy? They weren't going to show those dissenting any grace. It's time to push full force to root out grifters, incompetents and any discrimination based on immutable characteristics. Time is of the essence while the forces of evil are disconcerted and afraid.
It is also based on gender, or just race?
Yes, please report any discriminatory sex-based preferences, as well as discriminatory preferences for LGBTQ groups, which constitutes “sex” discrimination under Title IX.
Thanks FASORP for clarifying.
I was wondering the same (are men still screwed?) after reading the first sentence of the "Dear Colleague" letter, "Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible..."
But I guess he also omitted disability status... he doesn't have to be complete, but it would have been nice.
Similar gender bias: Title IX offices on college campuses, with multi-million-dollar budgets, investigate hundreds of males each year. Kangaroo courts heavily favored women, per "Dear Colleague" letters from the Federal Title IX Office. How many women have been found "guilty" by Title IX investigations? How many men? The gender imbalance is surely enormous.
Example: In the dorms, a male and female end an evening by sleeping together. Which is more vulnerable to a Title IX investigation? The woman?
Would you like to post your CV? What novel, creative exploits have you performed? My guess is none. My mentors include Nobel laureates? How about you? Struck a nerve, no doubt. Have no idea what obtaining a doctorate entails. Agree, there is much less rigor currently. There is no regurgitation involved, one must perform novel work. Of course, there is no way for you to know this as you have no experience with complex, independent problem solving. I am a traditionalist, conservative and prescribe to none of the post-modernist lunacy. Not all academics are grifters and subjectivists. I'm an experimentalist, therefore grounded to reality. You obviously have an axe to grind, but expose your intellectual immaturity by painting everyone with a brand brush.
The letter was a breath of fresh air to most common-sense academics, so 1-2% at modern Western universities (this being the difference between smart and wise). As predicted, the acronyms are already changing and the “resistance” is re-doubling their (zee/zers) efforts to “flood the zone” with now even more oppressed and marginalized candidates. Our college basketball team still looks the same - they decided to stick with the quality players … what a novel idea…
It depends. As empirical data clearly shows, a large fraction of police reports are NOT reports of actual crimes, and police in fact wastes HUGE resources on false reporting, which is clear and disgusting THEFT out of taxpayers' pockets. Arbitrary reporting is a serious and costly social pathology no law can help about, only long term education and moral improvement (mostly within families).
Great work!
Wish we had that in Canada.
Craig Trainor is an unqualified moron, was this already discussed?
So you are in favor of race bigotry in universities?
He didn't say that. He doesn't like unqualified morons. So he should find himself some more highly qualified morons. Would that be higher IQd morons or lower IQd morons? So many questions. So little time.
Stop posting trash.
And who would the "qualified morons" be? The department of snitching probably could use more highly qualified morons to receive the snitching of you useless academics. Quit snitching and do something scientific for a change.
Qualified morons = HR departments employees.
Kevin is one of those bachelor of science majors that got stuck as a technician. Just couldn't make the marks to obtain a doctorate. His attitude reeks of envy.
I didn't get "stuck" as a technician. The pathologists who trained us in Medical Laboratory Science, said we should insist on our qualifications as technologists. I did get "stuck" with a 4 year Bachelors degree and did routine applied science in medical laboratory biochemistry, as a technologist, rather than technician. There were other actual technicians who did 2 year technician qualifications with institutes of technology. But the best laboratory technician I ever worked with had only one year in a Bachelor of Science program, dropped out, and worked first as a phlebotomist and then for the data entry people when we were switching over to being computerized in the early 1970's and then on the Technicon SMA12/60 multichannel analyzer. She couldn't do the university level math, but she could read any method book and do the testing, in a more efficient way than almost anyone --- degreed or not. She was one of them who could do, vs. all the people with big degrees who can't do. So they teach --- at least many of them.
When I ran into the human resources tyrants after my final run-in with a female tyrant in a laboratory I was ready to do a post graduate philosophy degree. And I started when you academics were going into the big slide. I couldn't believe how things had degenerated in the 20 years from when I graduated in 1971 and my return to university level school in the late 1980's. All the kids were regurgitating and ass-kissing for marks. And all the professors expected their asses to be kissed and their words regurgitated with some "original" variations. But that is not how we did things in the late 1960's. If you couldn't answer questions, we just took a different course. If you answered wrong, some people got "revolutionary". But the pathologists always had good answers. You modern people do not.
And I found out why because I studied all the worst of you people --- Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Uncle Bertie Russell, Gottlob Frege's god-awful sentential logic, with those disgusting single letter so-called "atomic" sentences. So at least I know why your modern academic minds are so god-awfully screwed up. You've been taught non-sense for so long, that it has finally turned around and bit your butts with "post modernist" non-sense. Just because you got your PH.D, from idiots does not mean that you are intelligent. It means that you can regurgitate non-sense and get "good marks". Congratulations. They taught you how to be a "rat" which is something I most definitely do not "envy".