Archive for May 3, 2022

Social justice warriors and the academy

Posted: May 3, 2022 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

During my 17 years at Temple University, I have seen a leftward-leaving body of faculty become a home for social justice warriors.

One of the SJW stars is Sara Goldrick-Rab, one of the most outspoken and obnoxious leaders at Temple, where she heads the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice. The center has attracted at least $6 million since she arrived in 2016, and she’s been named one of Education Week’s most influential scholars. 

Nevertheless, her autocratic and abhorrent methods for running the center have resulted in the massive departure of employees and has caused the university to hire investigators to find out what’s going on. 

Moreover, Godrick-Rab has been placed on paid administrative leave from the university while the investigation continues.

Not surprisingly, you won’t find a single word about the controversy on Temple’s website or in the student newspaper—only laudatory articles about her extraordinary work.

The problems first surfaced in Inside Higher Ed, a news organization devoted to reporting about university affairs. See https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/04/14/temple-hires-outside-counsel-investigate-hope-center

“More than a dozen center employees, past and present, have in interviews with Inside Higher Ed over the past several months described toxic management under Goldrick-Rab,” the news organization reported. That’s quite a few since only 50 people work there!

Here’s a sample of some statements in the interviews:

“The center fails to live out the public values of the work being done when it comes to the treatment of staff,” said one former employee, who (like most of his former colleagues who reached out to share their experiences) wished to remain anonymous, for fear of professional or personal retribution. “The Hope Center tagline is that ‘students are humans first,’ [but] in every possible way [Goldrick-Rab] fails to apply that same lesson to the treatment of staff, viewing them as disposable to her and the work of the center.”

Another current center employee said, “There’s drama everywhere, you know. You go to places of work, and there’s bad bosses. There’s people who do shitty things. I get it. But this is just untenable.” More than two dozen colleagues have left the center in the last few years, the employee said.

Goldrick-Rab told Inside Higher Ed that she had asked for the investigation and has faced retaliation for speaking out about Temple education dean Gregory M. Anderson. Earlier this year, Anderson resigned his post as dean. 

Temple acknowledged in a statement that it had initiated a “review” and that Anne Lundquist, managing director of learning and innovation at Hope, will act as interim director during that process.

“Temple takes seriously its responsibility to ensure a supportive workplace climate and professional environment,” the school said in a statement.

Whatever the case, social justice apparently only applies to those who join its highest rank of warriors. 

Five SCOTUS Leak Thoughts Under the Fedora

Posted: May 3, 2022 by datechguy in abortion, the courts
Tags: , ,

It amazes me that anyone is surprised at the left leaking an SCOTUS opinion concerning overturning Roe Vs Wade.

People who are willing to use riots, violence in US cities and draconian COVID sanctions, not to mention stealing election are not going to blink at breaking norms.

What I’m really interested in knowing is if one of the justices authorized said leak or hinted to a clerk to do so.

It’s no surprise to me if it’s true, remember dishonorable people don’t suddenly become honorable because they are elevated to a position of honor or hired to assist someone in such a position.

Back when the left could count one enough votes to keep their agenda going the left/media were all about the sanctity of the court. We’ve been seeing signs for months if not years that the left media is all in on abandoning said position.

There is no surer sign that the left believes they will not retake the court’s majority anytime soon then a tactic like this which hurts the institution and it’s reputation. If the court is not theirs then as far as they are concerned it’s not legit.

As a general rule you will see Roberts vote with the right in three situations:

  1. If the right already has five votes without him so it doesn’t matter
  2. If the left already has five votes without him so it doesn’t matter
  3. If it’s an issue that the left is not invested in.

If however you have a key issue like Obamacare where he can give the left the winning vote he’ll always vote with the Obama crowd.

This time it’s different. If the left can’t intimidate one of the five actual conservatives Roberts vote would not matter in theory but if they can’t change the end result the next best thing the can do is make it a 5-4 vote in order to make it seem less legit so without a doubt Roberts vote will be required of him by the left.

That to me will be the key tell that the left has something on John “Old Yellowstain” Roberts to keep him in line. If you didn’t believe it before before you’d better start believing it now.

I’d be delighted to be proven wrong, but frankly if he becomes the 6th vote to overturn I think the shock might be too much for me.

Finally it will be quite interesting to see how far the left goes in terms of violent protect in DC. Given that there are still dozens of people still being held without trial for basically trespassing on January 6th how the Capital Police and the AG & White House treats people who go over the line here is going to be VERY telling.

I predict that anything short of actually murdering a conservative justice will not rise to the level of “insurrection” to the press, and even that might still cause any protests to be called “mostly peaceful”

Unexpectedly of course