by David Huber One of my favorite all-time films is 1982’s “The Verdict” starring Paul Newman as down-and-out attorney Frank Galvin who takes on a case against the Archdiocese of Boston. After astonishingly turning down a settlement offer from the defendant and opting to go to trial, Galvin soon…
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In 1986, an upstart public health researcher named Arline Geronimus challenged the conventional wisdom that condemned the alarming rise of inner-city teen pregnancies. While activist minister Jesse Jackson and health care leaders were decrying the crisis of “babies having babies” as a ghetto pathology, Geronimus contended that teenage pregnancy was a rational response to urban poverty where low-income black people have fewer healthy years before the onset of heart problems, diabetes, and other chronic conditions.
Although Geronimus’ claims gained little traction at the time, the concept she pioneered – “weathering” – eventually became a foundation for the social justice ideology that is now upending medicine and social policy. She has stated in interviews and in her writings that the term “weathering” was intended to evoke the idea of erosion and resilience.
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Students at the University of Houston voted in a Special Recall Election Oct. 26 and 27 to remove Student Government Association President Arsalan Darbin from his position.
A resolution to recall Darbin was set in motion Oct. 6 by Senator Abraham Sanchez, former president of the University of Houston College Democrats, who accused Darbin of fostering a hostile work environment.
“The resolution was very general, like I set a hostile work environment or fail to perform my duties,” Darbin told Campus Reform. “Just very general allegation[s]”.
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Columbia University has developed new programming to help black and Hispanic medical students “disrupt racism” and confront microaggressions they could face.
A medical school professor, who is also the diversity director, said that the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota has made the situation worse at the New York institution.
Professor Jean Alves-Bradford said in a news release that “it’s been very difficult for students in general, but especially for students underrepresented in medicine.”
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In a recent livestream, a Virginia state official gave a presentation on why the far-left and anti-White teachings of Critical Race Theory should be encouraged at the oldest military academy in the United States, the Daily Caller reports.
Janice Underwood, who holds the title of Virginia’s “Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer,” spoke before a virtual gathering of the Board of Visitors at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). In the lecture, Underwood promoted the racist writings of Robin DiAngelo, the author of the book “White Fragility.” She explicitly called for such “uncomfortable” ideas to be promoted at VMI, and said that such race-based thinking should be incorporated into “every single course” at the academy.
“Discomfort is to be expected,” Underwood continued, but encouraged the faculty to “lean into that discomfort. Walk towards the discomfort, not away.” She added that students at the academy must “engage in self-reflection and engage their own racial engagement and biases.”
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An American educator is persuading schools to implement viewpoint diversity in the classroom.
Erin McLaughlin is a teacher from Pennsylvania who is making headlines with her approach to classroom instruction. She argues that viewpoint diversity, which is teaching students how to think rather than what to think, should be at the center of many curriculums.
McLaughlin, in an interview with The College Fix, said that it is the job of educators to teach children how to process things as opposed to what to advocate for.
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As recently as last summer, few people outside academia had heard of critical race theory, whose central claim is that racism, not liberty, is the founding value and guiding vision of American society. Then, President Trump issued an executive order last September banning the teaching of this “malign ideology” to federal employees and federal contractors.
Trump’s ban was blocked by a federal judge in December and immediately revoked by Joe Biden upon occupying the White House in January. Since then, federal agencies and federal contractors have resumed staff training on unconscious bias, microaggressions, systemic racism and white privilege – some of the most common but also most disputed concepts associated with the four-decade-old academic theory.
Now critical race theory is about to face a major real-world test: a spate of lawsuits alleging that it encourages discrimination and other illegal policies targeting whites, males and Christians. But unlike Trump’s executive order, which ran into First Amendment problems by prohibiting controversial speech, the lawsuits name specific policies and practices that allegedly discriminate, harass, blame and humiliate people based on their race.
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