Worse than the Joe McCarthy era!
What did that Stanford University administrator do when asked to restore order as law students disrupted an invited speaker? Instead of quelling the mob, she asked the speaker, a federal judge, “whether the juice was worth the squeeze”? I.E., do you really have to give your speech?
Is anyone surprised that this enabler of cancel culture was Stanford’s associate dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion?
Here at home, a systemwide survey of University of Wisconsin students found that 67.1% of liberal students want administrators to ban “harmful” views. One thing if conservatives were a numerical even match for those (il)liberal students. They’re not, by a long shot. Liberals outnumber conservative students almost four to one (57.4% to 15.8%) on the Madison campus.
Not to mention Madison and Dane County!
Which is why we are thankful to Wisconsin Republicans for striking from Democrat(ic) Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed budget $3 million for a new, cabinet-level chief equity officer AND 18 more equity officers scattered throughout state government.
“The governor’s request comes at a time when diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs are under fire in higher education, business, and in government for fundamental unfairness and divisiveness and a failure to achieve their intended goals,” the Badger Institute notes.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is riddled with DEI bureaucrats. Madison’s flagship campus has an entire administrative division devoted to the subject, headed by a deputy vice chancellor for Diversity and Inclusion (salary $131,852 as of 2021), supported by a “Gender and Sexuality Campus Center,” a multi-cultural student center, and an Office of Inclusion Education. And that’s only at the top. Every school, every college — education, engineering, business, nursing, pharmacy, letters & science, veterinary medicine, law, and agriculture — has its own DEI bureaucrats. Don’t forget the athletics department!
‘Progress requires embedding values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of our community.’
— UW-Madison School of Business
"Whatever the intentions, the imposition of DEI bureaucracy upon the academy has too often come at the expense of academic freedom and freedom of expression. DEI administrators have been responsible for repeated campus rights abuses." — FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights & Expression).
Political commissars
According to FIRE, from 2014 to 2022 there were 877 attempts nationally to punish scholars “for expression that is, or in public contexts would be, protected by the First Amendment.” Of these, 60% resulted in actual sanctions — “more than during the McCarthy era.”
In practice, write two Heritage Foundation researchers in National Review, “DEI staff operate as a political commissariat, articulating and enforcing a political orthodoxy on campus. … Surveys of students (including minorities) which ask about how welcome they feel on campus tend to show worse results at universities with larger DEI staffs.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: A university that renders Academy Award-winner Fredric March a non-person and exiles a 42-ton glacial boulder accused of racism is under the heel of the DEI thought police. Contra a typically meretricious Capital Times editorial that denies the problem, a student body that goes on a vandalism rampage when a conservative speaks on campus has been well schooled in totalitarianism.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
Wisconsin needs to elect a veto proof majority of Conservative leaders who will defund colleges and universities that cave to the cancel culture mob of banishing free speech.
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Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t do either, Lefty Activism. Too much of a moron for Lefty Activism? Commodify your…um…identity, weepily identify which rungs on the Grievance Ladder are yours, and pursue the DIE Leviathan.
And if you think THAT ain’t the place to be, guess again!
Glenn Harlan Reynolds (“The Higher Education Bubble.”) fleshes it out a tad.
(bolds/caps/italics mine throughout)
“EVEN AS THE ONCE MIGHTY UNIVERSITY OF CA SYSTEM SLASHES PROGRAMS AND RAISES TUITION, IT HAS CREATED A NEW SYSTEM-WIDE ‘VICE-CHANCELLOR OF EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION.
“This is on top of the already enormous University of California diversity machine, which, as Heather Mac Donald notes, ‘includes (but likely isn’t limited to):
*the Chancellor’s Diversity Office,
*the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity,
*the assistant vice chancellor for diversity,
*the faculty equity advisors,
*the graduate diversity coordinators,
*the staff diversity liaison,
*the undergraduate student diversity liaison,
*the graduate student diversity liaison,
*the chief diversity officer,
*the director of development for diversity initiatives,
*the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity,
*the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues,
*the Committee on the Status of Women,
*the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion,
*the Diversity Council,
*the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center,
*the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and,
* the Women’s Center.”
“While the UC system loses top cancer researchers to Rice University, it is creating new chaired professorships in, you guessed it, diversity studies.
“Likewise, in North Carolina, UNC-Wilmington is combining the physics and geology departments to save money while DIVERTING MORE FUNDING TO CAMPUS DIVERSITY OFFICES.”
Reynolds’ book was published in 2012, so its research was compiled during years prior to that; have things gotten better, stayed the same, or gotten worse?
Oy; we’ve gone from bad to diverse!
The Gotch
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Excellent turn of phrase – ‘We’ve gone from bad to diverse’!
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You’re too kind, ML, and credit for that gem goes to The Gotch’s long-time pal GOOD DOG HAPPY MAN.
The Gotch
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The cost of indoctrination continues to increase each year. When I worked in the public sector, each department HAD to have their own “Racial Equity and Social Justice” team who had meetings to write the “Equity plan” for their department. If your department was “underrepresented” each job posting would be “Red Flagged” and special scrutiny given to each hire. Our Human Resources contact needed to review each candidate and be involved in the interview and selection. We also had regular meetings as well as training/ “indoctrination” sessions. If you did not feel like a racist or white supremacist when you went in the session, you were made to feel like one when you came out. Job descriptions were re-written to be more “inclusive”. More emphasis was placed upon ethnicity and less on actual qualifications. As a “Supervisor”, when I questioned the hiring of a new high level employee by not meeting the supervisory experience posted in the job requirements, I was intimidated by the Mayor’s office and informed that it could be grounds for “insubordination”. That was the beginning of the end for me. Fortunately I was at the point where even though I was not looking to retire, I could. My job was extremely stressful and things not in my job description continued to eat more of my time, causing me to have more difficulty doing what I was originally hired to do. Retirement was the best decision I made!!!
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Jeanne Hoffman?
https://isthmus.com/news/news/job-pick-stirs-controversy/
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Yes, retirement is great! Not having to deal with the politics of a government job is a breath of fresh air.
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“Insubordination”–the one unforgiveable sin, at least from the perspective of those doing the subordinating. I understand your decision to retire rather than put up with this crap, but it’s going to take wholescale insubordination to rid government and higher education of the authoritarian grip of the DEI fanatics.
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When I was accused of “insubordination” I always told them it was “questioning authority”.
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It’s a wonder you left with your head still on your shoulders.
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The private sector is wising up to the DEI racket, realizing that their DEI hires have an effect on the bottom line. Or in the case of Silicon Valley Bank,may kill the company completely.
They will be wary of schools like UW-Madison and may actually seek out white male graduates from such institutions. Theory being they have been vetted by having the deck stacked against them.
Not just white males, Indian immigrants too. They are too damn competent.
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To say nothing of Asians, who used to be called the “model minority.” Meaning they valued hard work, assimilation, and educating their kids. Lefties from time to time make attempts to recruit Asians to join the mob of the perpetually aggrieved with little to no success–they’re too busy succeeding by playing by the rules rather than demanding special treatment and squealing “racist” if their every whim is not catered to. As punishment, Asian kids are passed over in favor of (much) less qualified minorities by college admissions officers, who are eager to do the bidding of DEI administrators.
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The University should identify every last thug that executed said vandalism and warn them that if they pull that s—t again, the consequences are immediate expulsion.
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Don’t hold your breath. If, on the other hand, the vandals had been white conservatives protesting a liberal speaker, the FBI would have been called in before the spray paint had dried, and the vandals would have been rebranded as terrorists.
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Indeed. Especially since a majority of the University faculty and administration apologize for and even encourage this behavior. There is no way I’d send any kid of mine into that institution. I’ve read enough stories from parents of well-adjusted high schoolers that are horrified at the woke zombies these places turn their kids into after only a couple semesters.
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The entitled Stanford Law School mob that shouted down an invited conservative judge was practicing censorship. According to one account, a couple of the placards held up by the “protestors” were obscene and meant for the visitor’s eyes. Scary thing is, these thugs are future lawyers, judges, court commissioners, politicians, administrators, etc.
When a school official publicly apologized for this behavior, she also was targeted by a mob wearing frightening masks who were stationed outside her office, and she had to be escorted from the building.
Civility is in short supply these days.
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“Civility is in short supply these days”. Truer words have never been spoken.
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Here is more evidence of this stupidity.
A 12 year old being asked to remove a tee-shirt that says “There are only two genders”. When the boy refused, the school called his dad to come and remove the boy. https://www.foxnews.com/media/middle-school-student-allegedly-sent-home-refusing-change-shirt-said-only-two-genders
These jr. high administrators are running the school by the saying “Stupid is as Stupid does.”
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Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent for DEI on behalf of the citizens and corporations of the People’s Democratic Republic of Amerika, yet what do they get for their money? –Not much. DEI “calls attention” to problems, solves very few, and produces little progress towards the “Final Solution”.
DEI highlights the settled science that all white people, their fascist storm troopers in the justice system, and ALL Republicans of any color are virulent racists. Whites seek the oppression, if not outright genocide of minorities. They strive to prevent thousands of Criminal-Americans from expressing themselves and “living their true lives”. DEI simply “calls attention”, meanwhile millions of the oppressed die every day.
DEI exposes the Right’s war on non-cisgendered people, pushing not just genocide, but total erasure, denying them the ability to “simply exist”. Radical right-wing religious zealots attempt “conversion therapy” on impressionable youth, causing them to question their chosen “identity”. The number of K-8 teachers who feel comfortable teaching “in drag”, or sharing their sexual proclivities with the class is woefully small. The failure to introduce children to sexual diversity during their formative years (K-8) does great harm to “L” people, “G” people, “B” people, “T” people, “Q” people, “I” people, “A” people, “+” people, the other “+” people, the third “+” people (different from the other two), and others, — and probably makes them die. Once again DEI just “calls attention, while millions of the non-cisgendered die every day.
DEI has enjoyed moderate success in summoning the masses to shut down live performances of unapproved hate speech by the Right, while failing in attempts to totally eradicate it from media and public discourse. DEI prattles on about “safe spaces” while “calling attention” to the problem, at the same time ignoring the critical need for massive amounts of tin foil and aromatherapy that could end suffering and save lives.
The truth is, DEI just doesn’t do enough.
Only through strict draconian measures imposed by the government, confinement and elimination of dissenters, and mandatory compliance of the masses will “fascism” be defeated.
Only when the Rainbow Flag hangs in every classroom, and the pledge of “alliance” is spoken. Only when the populace is thoroughly indoctrinated in the ever-changing fluidity of sexual identities, and the equal merits of each. Only when problematic concepts (social constructs) like “male” and “female” are eliminated and a man is elected as the first woman president. Only then will people be safe. Total mandated indoctrination of the masses is the only way to combat the dangerous and deadly idea of “conversion therapy”
Only when people are conditioned to recognize the difference between approved Progressive “free” speech and dissenting “hate” speech will the mission of DEI be accomplished.
(This post was rated “S”, for satire)
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“Tolerance will reach such a level that the intelligent will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. “A quote misattributed to Dostoevsky, but still good.
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How did they do that? Almost removed all news from crime stoppers and police chief’s blog for several weeks BEFORE mayor election. Like magical…poof, then crickets.
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Here’s the DEI staff list for just one college at UW-Madison. 13 folks are listed on the College of Engineering’s DEI webpage. There may be others working on DEI projects in Engineering departments and centers.
https://engineering.wisc.edu/about/inclusion-equity-and-diversity/people/
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You’d expect far more in the Math Department…because Math is RAYcist…
The Gotch
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Good Lord. Just what that school needed—a DEI bureaucracy to dilute its caliber amongst global standings. I’d bet good money that Asians and Indians are well represented in that engineering school. Want to guess how much their numbers count towards diversity?
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