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This week, courtesy of the good folks at Legal Insurrection, a few brief glimpses at academia, AKA the utter and rapidly accelerating destruction of western civilization.  Last week, I covered the pseudo-controversy of Joe Biden’s wife Jill demanding to be called “Doctor.”  It now seems she is so important, on an international scale, special rules have to be made just for her. It used to be all about Barack Obama.  Now it’s apparently all about Jill Biden, or it is until Joe is 25th Amendmented out:

In the wake of the brouhaha over Jill Biden’s use of the title ‘Dr,’ the University of British Columbia has changed its policy and now will refer to all holders of doctorates by that very title.

After former Northwestern University adjunct Joseph Epstein chided Joe Biden’s wife for using ‘Dr.’ before her name (and making others do the same) because she has a doctorate in education (EdD), debate ensued across the media and social media alike.

Many, mostly on the left, thought Epstein’s remarks were ‘misogynistic’ and ‘sexist,’ while those familiar with what an EdD requires largely agreed with him.

We here at SMM are equal opportunities haters.  We think anyone of all 57 or so genders—it’s so hard to keep up–with an Ed.D demanding to be called “Doctor” in anything but an academic, teacher/student setting a pretentious twit.

‘According to the Western Standard, until the current controversy it wasn’t standard practice at U. British Columbia to use ‘Dr.’ to refer to its PhDs, let alone EdDs. It appears a mathematics professor bringing up the issue led to school officials making a change…

In a December 17 press release, the university said media and institutions have pondered how to recognize academic credentials ‘in recent years.’ Traditionally, UBC has followed Canadian Press standards which use ‘Dr.’ only before ‘licensed health care professionals’ such as physicians and dentists.

Now, however, the university will use that title in all UBC press materials in the name of ‘equity, diversity and inclusion.’

So, they’re institutionalizing, for the benefit of Jill Biden, pretentious twithood.  During the days I took my bachelor’s, and many graduate courses, when I walked into the classroom for the first time, most students assumed I was the professor.  I was in the classroom right after a law enforcement career and had what is commonly known as “command presence.”  Therefore, in the name of “equity, diversity and inclusion,” I demand, forevermore, to be known as “your grace.”

I always called Barack Obama’s administration the first post-Constitution presidency.  Kamala Harris’ presidency will not only continue in that tradition, but will also be the first post-America presidency.

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

‘Future Biden Education Secretary Oversaw Creation of Critical Theory Class for High Schoolers

Joe Biden’s likely pick for education secretary helped create a mandated, statewide minority-studies course that “analyze[s] how race, power, and privilege influence group access to citizenship, civil rights, and economic power.”

Miguel Cardona, the current Connecticut commissioner of education, played a key role in creating the curriculum for Connecticut’s required course in African-American, Black, Puerto Rican, and Latino studies. The curriculum supposedly helps students ‘consider the scope of African American/Black and Puerto Rican/Latino contributions to U.S. history, society, economy, and culture’ and is rooted in ‘critical race theory,’ which claims that America is intrinsically racist. As the state’s commissioner of education, Cardona oversees all educational programming.

On Dec. 2, the Connecticut State Board of Education unanimously approved the curriculum for the mandatory course, which students will be required to take beginning in the fall of 2022. The curriculum is only mandatory for high school students, though other K-8 school systems are also changing their curricula along similar lines.

Hearing Youth Voices, a left-wing activist group that works to integrate ‘political education and theory’ into public schools, helped develop the curriculum with Cardona. Hearing Youth Voices hosts a slew of diversity training sessions, including one that claims ‘capitalism is at the root of white supremacy, patriarchy, police brutality, the school-to-prison pipeline and so much more.’ Other training courses call for police abolition and refer to Israel as a police state.’

Of course! What more could we ask for than an education secretary determined to destroy not only America’s economic system, but our educational system?  Throw in eternal race hustling aimed at establishing never-ending racial strife, and a determination to extinguish, once and for all, those pesky Jews, and you have a perfect D/S/C administration.

I’m sure by now, gentle readers, you’ve heard of the Dalton School, a very pricey private school in New York City.  Until recently, private schools were a refuge from one of the worst public school systems in the country, but only for the relatively wealthy. There, children could find actual academics instead of incompetent, lazy teachers and a curriculum of social justice indoctrination.  Where Dalton is concerned, that’s no longer true—if it ever was:

Johnston writes, The Dalton School Is in a Full Meltdown:

‘Possibly relenting under the pressure, Dalton has announced plans to reopen, but this has ignited another firestorm, this time from the faculty.

Apparently, reopening is racist.

The charge has been leveled by black faculty and staffers. They suggest, among other things, that faculty of color are more at risk from having to come to work. The reasoning is that they have, on average, more distant commutes and therefore expose themselves longer to risky public transportation.

But that’s just the start of Dalton’s problems. 

Over one hundred faculty have taken the opportunity to issue a lengthly set of racially-based demands that are breathtaking in their wokeness. Black students have added their own demands.

These demands, which have been obtained exclusively by the Naked Dollar, go on for eight pages, and have as their underlying assumption that Dalton is systemically racist. Dalton’s teachers are refusing to come back until they are met. Parents are in an uproar, some threatening to remove their children. Major donors are said to be balking. The board, filled with New York movers and shakers, is in turmoil. The Naked Dollar has learned they have contracted an outside consulting firm to advise on handling the crisis.

Johnston then recites a partial list of faculty demands, which include paying off student load debt of black faculty and reconfiguring the curriculum around diversity narrative:

Here is just a sample of the demands:

*The hiring of twelve (!) full time diversity officers

*An additional full time employee whose ‘entire role is to support Black students who come forward with complaints.’

*Hiring of multiple psychologists with ‘specialization on the psychological issues affecting ethnic minority populations.’

*Pay off student debt of incoming black faculty

*Re-route 50% of all donations to NYC public schools

*Elimination of AP courses if black students don’t score as high as white

*Required courses on ‘Black liberation’

*Reduced tuition for black students whose photographs appear in school promotional materials

*Public ‘anti-racism’ statements required from all employees

*Mandatory ‘Community and Diversity Days’ to be held ‘throughout the year’

*Required anti-bias training to be conducted every year for all staff and parent volunteers

*Mandatory minority representation in (otherwise elective) student leadership roles

*Mandatory diversity plot lines in school plays

*Overhaul of entire curriculum to reflect diversity narratives

My favorite is eliminating AP courses.  As regular readers know, I see the entire AP system as something of a scam, but am fully in support of Gifted/talented classes with a more demanding curriculum, higher academic standards, and an emphasis on accomplishment.  But of course these woke dimwits want to eliminate any academic rigor, particularly if demanding it would reflect badly on favored victim groups.

In a separate post, Johnston has the full list.

​

Like cockroaches scurrying for the cover of the fridge when the kitchen lights come on, Dalton faculty are trying the “who you gonna believe, us or your own lyin’ eyes?” ploy:

Statement attributed to a spokesperson for Dalton:

​​‘Dalton’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and anti-racism is grounded in our deep appreciation for the dignity of all community members, an understanding of differing life backgrounds, empathy for one another, and the ability to engage and listen with respect across differences.
​
​​What is erroneously being referred to as ‘faculty demands’ is in fact a set of thought-starters created this summer by a subset of faculty and staff responding to Dalton’s commitment to become an anti-racist institution. While Dalton prides itself as a leader in this important work and welcomes honest debate around how to meaningfully bring these principles to life, the school does not support all the language or actions it contains. Instead, Dalton is actively, thoughtfully engaged in securing consensus around what equity and inclusion mean to our community, in line with our standards for academic excellence. We look forward to sharing meaningful progress towards that end in the months ahead.’

Riiiiight.  When more than 100 faculty sign a list of bull goose loony, racist demands, and get caught, the demands become “thought starters.”

I’ve often been amused by various professors and others at academic institutions who suddenly discover their institutions are cesspools of racism, sexism, and various other isms.  Such a discovery has recently occurred at St. Olaf’s:

Campus Reform reports:

‘St. Olaf prof echoes call for school to ‘repent’ of systemic racism

The director of St. Olaf College’s Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community echoed a call for the school to ‘repent’ of systemic racism.

Deanna Thompson wrote an article for the Minnesota school’s blog entitled ‘Uncomfortable Grace: Drawing on St. Olaf’s Lutheran Identity to Guide Our Path to Anti-Racism,’ in which she argued that ‘racism is embedded deep within institutions across the United States, including St. Olaf College.’

To support her argument, she paraphrased Lutheran pastor Lenny Duncan, who visited the college in February.

‘Rev. Duncan called on St. Olaf, in good Lutheran fashion, to name the evil in our midst and to confess and repent for the harm that’s been perpetuated through the systemic racism that exists on our campus,’ wrote Thompson. ‘While many of us who are White may not see ourselves as agents of racism that harms people of color within and beyond the St. Olaf community, Rev. Duncan helps us understand that ‘white supremacy doesn’t need active racists to function.’

Well of course it doesn’t!  The mere existence of white people is more than sufficiently helpful.  The only logical course, therefore, is the total elimination of all white people!  Anyway, it’s particularly appropriate this systemic racism would be discovered on a Lutheran college campus, because as we all know, Christianity is a white supremacist, systemically racist religion.

Back in the 1400s when I was in high school, due to my musical interests, I was associated with a Lutheran church.  Even way back then, the Church was becoming socialist.  Looks like they’ve bypassed socialism and gone full communist.

And we thought 2020 was bad…