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NOVEMBER 18-19,  2022

FIRST THE GOOD NEWS – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  

More than 1,000 professors across the country have signed the “Stanford Academic Freedom Declaration” that calls on universities to restore free speech, academic freedom and institutional neutrality.

The open letter calls on universities and professors to adopt and implement the “Chicago Trifecta” — the Chicago Principles on unilateral free speech, the Kalven report that requires institutional neutrality on political and social topics, and the Shils report, making “academic contribution the sole basis for hiring and promotion.”

As of Thursday the letter had 1,095 signatures, and it increases daily.

“The larger hope is to bring back academic freedom on campus and in the academic enterprise more generally,” Stanford economist and co-author John Cochrane said in an email to The College Fix. “Only with robust academic freedom, the ability to investigate ideas and bring out uncomfortable facts, does scholarship bring about new and reliable knowledge, especially on crucial issues to our society.”

The loss of academic freedom, the letter states, is tied to a leadership crisis.

Many university leaders want to uphold free speech yet “punish those who express views deemed to be incorrect and enforce ideological conformity in hiring and promotions,” it states.

Underscoring the problem is the fact that purse strings — funding resources — are tied to following the accepted narrative instead of a free exchange of ideas, Cochrane said.

“[A]cademic freedom, free speech, and the pursuit of scholarly excellence are under siege at universities, in professional societies, and in government agencies, including those that give grants,” Cochrane said. “Simple facts cannot be spoken out loud. Research that comes to conclusions that counter political narratives can’t be conducted, published, or popularized.”

The declaration signers call on their universities to implement the “Chicago Trifecta” to help resolve that problem: “Freedom is a culture, not merely a set of rules, and a culture must be nurtured.”

Cochrane, on his Grumpy Economist blog, recently pointed out that some academics are scared to sign the letter because other signatories have been labeled as “well known deplorables.”

“That reaction tells us a big part of the problem,” he wrote. “All along we have tried very hard to reach out to self-described left/liberal/democrat colleagues, who privately bemoan what’s going on but are too afraid to be seen in public. But why not fix it: if some of you sign perhaps that will give courage for more of you to sign. Take it over, get together with your friends, add lots of signatures, make this your cause, prove that we can stand together for freedom!”

UC Berkeley statistics Professor Will Fithian told the Daily Californian student newspaper via email that he signed the declaration because “I have heard from many students and colleagues that they are afraid of openly discussing controversial issues.”

COMMENT:  We wish them well.  As the Chinese say, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."  It will be a long, bitter fight to restore our universities, and success is not guaranteed.  The other side is littered with Marxist garbage and quick fixes.  The dissenter is risking his career.  But we have some heavy firepower as well – especially a new generation of parents who are taking a renewed interest in their children's education, right up to the college level. 

The market will play a critical role here.  If a new generation of parents and students starts rejecting wokeness and its branches, wokeness may well fade away. 

November 18-19, 2022       Permalink   

WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST – FROM DAILY MAIL: 

The American Bar Association voted to drop the LSAT and other standardized tests as requirements for law school admissions. 

An ABA panel made its decision on Friday after noon after a committee recommended the testing requirements be scrapped because they hurt diversity in admissions.

The LSAT, or Law School Admission Test, estimates a prospective students reasoning and reading comprehension, and it serves as a predictor on how they will fair in classes. 

The ABA's ruling will take effect in the fall 2025 semester, after a final determination from the association's Hose of Delegates in February.

Despite its ruling, individual law schools are still free to require an admissions test. 

The ABA's move comes as Yale and Harvard withdrew from US News & World Report's law school ranking system, criticizing its heavily reliance on LSAT and GRE testing scores that they argued hurts low-income applicants. 

The woke law schools argued that many lower scorers on the LSAT can't afford exam prep courses and guides, and schools that admit the poor test takers are penalized by ranking lower on the prestigious US News list. 

However, proponents of the tests fear that dropping the exams altogether may not actually help promote diversity but instead benefit wealthy applicants. 

ABA’s House of Delegates has two opportunities to reject any proposed changes to the law school accreditation standards before they become final, meaning that the legal education council would have the final say.

The House of Delegates thwarted the same rule change in 2018. The council approved removing the testing requirement but withdrew it just moments before it was to be considered for final approval by the House of Delegates.

Despite the ABA panel's vote on Friday, half of 82 law schools in the US recently polled by Kaplan Testing said they would keep the tests, with only four saying they would scrap them. 

Kaplan, which has a financial interest in school requiring the tests as they offer prep courses and guides, said 37 of the 82 schools polled did not know what they would do if the ABA drops the testing requirements. 

The respondent pool included 12 of the top 25 law schools as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, according to Kaplan, which did not identify respondents' answers by school name. 

COMMENT:  Standardized tests should always be looked at for their fairness and relevance, but when you say that a test "hurts diversity," you are condemning an entire class of people by the use of codewords.  The idea here is to develop innovative methods of test preparation, a worthwhile financial investment that will give applicants more of a fighting chance. 

November 18, 2022     Permalink

NOVEMBER 16-17,  2022

WE FORGET THIS AT OUR PERIL:  There is a revolt going on in Iran.  It is growing.  It can have a dramatic effect on the future of the region.  And yet, Americans are ignoring it.  From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran is worried that several recent incidents in the country point to a growing chance that the two-month-old protests are becoming dangerously violent.

For the regime, the protests become problematic when the violence spills over and when the protesters are armed.

An article in Iranian pro-Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps media on Thursday indicated that the media narrative, spun from the top levels of government, will now hyper-focus on armed attacks by the protesters. Iran calls these groups “separatists,” a term it generally uses for Kurds, Baloch, Arabs and other minority groups in Iran.

Not only is Iran a diverse country but minority groups may outnumber Persians, meaning that the regime has to balance the fact that it is rooted in the Persian theocratic elites, with the support it needs from minorities.

The largest minority groups are generally concentrated in various periphery regions of Iran; such as Kurds in the northwest, Azeris in the northwest, Balochis in the southeast as well as Arabs in the southwest. There are also populations of Lurs, Turkmen and other groups.

According to reports, gunmen attacked a bazaar in southwest Iran this week. There have also been armed clashes in Zahedan and areas where the Baloch minority are present.

Iran also carried out rocket and drone attacks on Kurdish groups in Iraq.

The regime believes dozens, or even hundreds of Kurdish activists have crossed from Iraq into Iran and that these “separatists” are involved in mobilizing opposition to the regime.

The fact remains that the Kurdish community doesn’t need to mobilize to oppose the regime — the average person does that just fine.

There are a plethora of Kurdish groups that operate in Iraq and among Kurdish Iranian exile groups. These include the PDKI, the PAK, Komala and PJAK. Iran’s regime has lashed out at PDKI, PAK and Komala over the last two months.

Iran’s goal is to neutralize these groups.

However, the shooting attack in southwest Iran in Khuzestan province does not bode well for the regime.

It’s not the first armed attack or clash since the protests began two months ago, but it may be one of the more serious incidents.

The regime believes that extremist groups are behind some of these attacks, such as ISIS. An attack by Islamic State in late October killed 15 people in Iran.

From the regime’s perspective, it is easier to blame ISIS or “separatists” than admit that large numbers of people in Iran detest the regime. Towards this end the regime wants to segment the protesters, using less lethal means against some protests, while beginning a harsh crackdown on others.

However, the shooting attack in southwest Iran in Khuzestan province does not bode well for the regime.

It’s not the first armed attack or clash since the protests began two months ago, but it may be one of the more serious incidents.

The regime believes that extremist groups are behind some of these attacks, such as ISIS. An attack by Islamic State in late October killed 15 people in Iran.

From the regime’s perspective, it is easier to blame ISIS or “separatists” than admit that large numbers of people in Iran detest the regime. Towards this end the regime wants to segment the protesters, using less lethal means against some protests, while beginning a harsh crackdown on others .However, the shooting attack in southwest Iran in Khuzestan province does not bode well for the regime.

It’s not the first armed attack or clash since the protests began two months ago, but it may be one of the more serious incidents.

The regime believes that extremist groups are behind some of these attacks, such as ISIS. An attack by Islamic State in late October killed 15 people in Iran.

From the regime’s perspective, it is easier to blame ISIS or “separatists” than admit that large numbers of people in Iran detest the regime. Towards this end the regime wants to segment the protesters, using less lethal means against some protests, while beginning a harsh crackdown on others.

Some 16,000 protesters have already been detained and several sentenced to death. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei spoke on Thursday trying to placate minorities; heralding the importance of interethnic partnerships.

It will become more clear in the coming days whether those behind the shooting attack in southwest Iran will carry out more attacks, or if this was a unique event.

COMMENT:  Many of the protests in Iran have been led by women, and yet there is only silence from the "women's" groups in the West.  The hypocrisy just flows. 

And the United States Government, under the leadership of Freedom Fighter Joe Biden and Defender of Women's Rights Kamala Harris, issues minimal reprimands that could fit on a postage stamp.  They're still hoping to turn the radical mullahs into great friends of Washington.

November 17, 2022       Permalink

SAME OLD STORY:  Los Angeles is going right down the tubes.  From Urban Hollywood: 

Congresswoman Karen Bass has made history after winning the race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.

The announcement came late Wednesday afternoon following the latest vote count, which showed Bass with an insurmountable lead of nearly 50,000 votes over real estate developer Rick Caruso.

Numbers posted online by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office showed Bass with 403,427 votes compared to Caruso’s 356,849. That was a difference of 53.06 percent to 46.94 percent.

Caruso led in early vote counts right after election night, but as more mail-in ballots were tallied, Bass pulled ahead.

The Congresswoman had the backing of the White House, former President Barack Obama, both of California’s U.S. senators, and many high-ranking Democrats across the state.

She vowed throughout the campaign that if elected, she would focus on addressing L.A.’s high rent prices and the city’s spiraling homelessness crisis — which saw 1,988 people die on the streets of the L.A. area between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021 — according to county officials.

After learning she had won the election, Bass posted a statement on social media vowing to bring change to the city, where the quality of life has deteriorated for many residents in recent years.

“To the people of our city, my message is this: We are going to solve homelessness. We are going to prevent and respond urgently to crime. Our city is no longer going to be unaffordable for working families. And know this — that work has already begun,” she tweeted.

In a follow-up tweet, Bass said she had received a “gracious” call from Caruso and added, “I am honored and humbled that the people have chosen me to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.”

COMMENT:  Oh please, where have we heard those words before?  Karen Bass is an old Castroite, a fan of Fidel, and I doubt if she'll finally find truth.  Los Angeles, city of car agencies, is not exactly a place that pushes mayors to the right.  Expect nothing new, but be happy if she surprises us.

November 16, 2022       Permalink