Even before the death of George Floyd under the knee of a
Minneapolis police officer, universities had demonstrated that they were
in thrall with an obsession about racism and racial equity.
Diversocrats in bloated fiefdoms of equity, diversity, and inclusion
diligently indoctrinated so-called marginalized students on how to be
victims and oppressed, and whole systems were set up to monitor the
behavior of potential racists and punish them for their transgressions.
At the University of San Diego’s Law School, for example, members of
the Black Law Students Association, in order to confront “the
oppression that is inextricably linked to [their] Blackness,” demanded
that the law school “develop a classroom diversity officer position
tasked with observing classroom practices and reporting questionable
conduct within the classroom to the administration” so that perpetrators
could be censured and punished.
At Princeton, several hundred faculty members published a letter to
the administration in which they asked that the University form “a
committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the
investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research,
and publication on the part of faculty . . ,” overlooking the fact that
what they were calling for was a veritable star chamber in which a
handful of virtue-signaling, race-obsessed faculty would use their own
bias and subjectivity to vet the research and teaching of fellow faculty
and decide which viewpoints would be permitted and which, henceforth,
would not (and would potentially even be punished)—a blatant violation
of both the spirit and intent of academic freedom.
That same desire to ferret out any racist thought or bias which
might injure or make uncomfortable a member of an identity group has
seeped into public schools, as well, along with the impulse to censure
and punish any staff or students who violate the overly-broad strictures
of conversations about race, culture, and politics.
In Chicago, for example, where out of nearly 1,500 shooting victims
so far in 2021, over fifty were 15 or younger, at least school-aged
children will not be threatened by racism and bias on the part of their
school peers now that they can identity and report bigotry in their
schools. The formal program, “Transforming Bias-Based Harm,” promotes
some of the insidious aspects of now-typical diversity and inclusion
campaigns, including finding racism where it is almost imperceptible:
implicit or unconscious bias and microaggressions. Students will be able
to report the misbehavior of fellow students, including “everyday
verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether
intentional or unintentional,” directly through the Chicago Public
Schools website, and perpetrators are potentially subject to being
punished for their unacceptable speech.
Officials in the Wellesley, Massachusetts public school system have
proposed a nearly identical program to Chicago’s and have found
themselves at odds with parents and other critics alarmed at what they
see as further degradation of education because of an obsession with
anti-racism and the desire to make everyone tolerant and accepting.
In March, in the wake of a mass shooting at spas in Atlanta during
which six Asian women were murdered, the Wellesley school system’s
Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) hosted a Zoom
session described as a “Healing Space for Asian and Asian American
students (grades 6-12), faculty/staff, and others in the BIPOC (Black,
Indigenous, People of Color) community who wish to process recent
events.” Noticeably absent from the invitation to this race-based
“affinity session” were white students. How was that outrageous decision
justified by Wellesley officials? “Note,” the invitation read, warning
that minority sensitivities had to be respected. “This is a safe space
for our Asian/Asian-American and Students of Color, ‘not’ for students
who identify only as White.”
Virtue-signaling Wellesley school officials had also decided that it
was a good idea to mandate that all schools fly the Black Lives Matter
flag to show solidarity with the movement and its goals. Questioning
that decision, a group of Wellesley parents wrote an open letter
critiquing the flag decision, “not [because of] the concept behind the
slogan” but because “the flag and the slogan mirror those of the Black
Lives Matter, or BLM, political organization and the associated
political movement,” and Wellesley should be neutral on a political
issue. More seriously, the parents pointed out, not all of the group’s
objectives are positive and the neo-Marxist BLM organization has called
for the murder of police officers, violent demonstrations, hatred of
white people, and support for the anti-Semitic BDS movement in its
campaign to destroy Israel.
Since incidents of blatant, visible racism are extremely rare on
either university or high school and elementary school campuses anymore,
diversity officials now have sought ways to ferret out examples of
racism even where few realize it even exists—including its purported
victims. Thus, we have witnessed the creation of what the Chicago
officials referred to as “microaggressions,” instances of bigotry and
racism that are subtle, unintentional, almost imperceptible to both
victim and perpetrator. Nonetheless, for the diversocrats,
microaggressions are another form of racism that must be revealed,
suppressed, and punished, which is why Wellesley, in its latest racism
misstep, has instituted a reporting system so that students, faculty,
and staff can anonymously report instances of alleged racism, bigotry,
hate speech, and other unwelcomed speech and behavior from members of
the community.
As articulated in its policy statement, “Responding to Bias-based
Incidents,” a bias incident is “any biased conduct, speech or expression
that has an impact but may not involve criminal action, but
demonstrates conscious or unconscious bias that targets individuals or
groups that are part of a federally protected class (ie. race,
ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual
orientation, religion, or disability). Bias-based behavior can also be
described as when someone treats another person differently or makes an
offensive comment because of their membership in a protected group, such
as their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or
disability.” The troubling policy allows students and parents to file
complaints, even anonymously, so that transgressors can be identified
and punished. “Potential disciplinary actions for students who violate
the anti-discrimination policy,” the policy reads, “could include
detention, suspension, or,” in language that Cotton Mather might have
written, “other restorative responses that require them to acknowledge
their responsibility and minimize its impact.”
While observers o this situation may think that identifying and
targeting bigotry and microaggressions is an easy task, they may well
have overlooked the logistical issues that impact the creation of a
speech policy. Who decides what words and which expressions and thoughts
are forbidden and in what context they may or may not be used? A
committee, school officials, experts from outside the school system,
parents, students? Must there be a consensus?
Is only anti-racist speech covered by the policies or are all forms
of bigotry and hatred included? Is simply telling jokes subject to
punishment? Can an accused defend himself or herself and who decides if
punishment should move ahead? Is there an appeal process? The problem
with proscribing speech and telling students who may say what to whom,
and when, is that there are invariably exceptions and contradictions in
both the selection and enforcement of forbidden speech.
If someone utters “All Lives Matter,” for instance, does that
constitute a microaggression that diminishes the Black Lives Matter
slogan and can be considered racist? If the BLM organization itself is
attacked for some of its radical beliefs, as it has many times by
faculty and students alike, would that constitute hateful speech or
expose the perpetrator to censure or punishment, or both? Would Jewish
students, who are now almost universally considered to be white and who
are said to enjoy “white privilege,” be able to complain when someone
says, “Zionism is racism”? Or “free Palestine”? Or “from the River to
Sea, Palestine will be free,” suggesting, of course that there will be
no more Israel and Jews will have been expelled or murdered to create a
Palestinian state?
Are only “people of color” to be protected and insulated from
criticism, censure, or bigotry in the Wellesley and Chicago schools? In
the wake of a nation-wide spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes in recent
months, and especially after the recent Gaza incursion, will the equity
officers offer Jews-only affinity spaces in which Jewish students will
be coddled and minority students and other non-Jews will be forbidden
from attending because they cannot empathize with Jewish pain and fear?
Clearly, this is a thorny issue with which school officials must
deal, and it is precisely because this attack on individuals’ right to
express themselves—even poorly or in bad taste—is often threatened by
zealous, self-appointed censors that the courts have frequently found
themselves examining where rights begin and end. In the case most
relevant to this topic, Tinker v. Des Moines, for example, the
Court famously found that “It can hardly be argued that either students
or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or
expression at the schoolhouse gate,” and the right to express oneself,
even hatefully, was sacrosanct, providing the speech is not excessively
and obviously disruptive to school activities or operations. So even if,
in the name of diversity and inclusion, schools implement policies to
eliminate any expressions that might threaten racial equanimity, those
policies should not and cannot override the individual’s right to speak
his or her mind. “In our system,” the Court found, “students may not be
regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State
chooses to communicate. They may not be confined to the expression of
those sentiments that are officially approved.”
School officials now apparently see themselves as social workers and
therapists as well as teachers, and this role they have usurped is
dangerous because it is motivated by the leftist ideology embodied in
critical race theory and such terms as “white privilege,” notions that,
instead of making children less race conscious, work to make them more
aware of racial differences and whether they are, by virtue of their
skin color, either oppressor or oppressed, victim or victimizer,
tolerant and accepting or bigoted and regressive.
And that students can now be singled out, censured, and punished for
not conforming to the totalitarian effort to control what children can
say about each other is both violative of constitutional rights and
morally unacceptable. In 1943, when the Supreme Court addressed the
issue of mandatory saluting of the flag in the case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, it
noted that even when policies are well-intentioned and are designed to
create a common good, there is a danger in allowing government or
individuals to impose a specific view of the world on others, even with
supposed lofty purposes. “Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in
support of some end thought essential to their time and country,” the
Court noted, “have been waged by many good, as well as by evil, men.”
And, more disturbingly, initial efforts to define what is right and
good—such as improved race relations—can eventually lead to a required
adherence to one set of beliefs and the suppression of other views.
“Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent,” the Court concluded,
“soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification
of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”
In
short, Biden practices Catholicism through private rituals at home or
in the sanctuary but practices the religion of leftist progressivism in
public. The Catholic faith does not speak to his actions. Again, Biden
echoes JFK, who said, “For contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not
the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's
candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not
speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. (Italics mine.)
Dong
provided copies of pathogenic studies to the DIA which show that the
Chinese military was involved in the development of the COVID-19 virus.
He also provided copies of Chinese models which predicted the spread
and damage that the pandemic would do to the U.S. and the rest of the
world. Given what we’re learning about Dr. Fauci and his “gain of
function” research, we may have paid China to develop a weapon that was
used against us.