We have previously discussed how many professors seem to compete in finding new forms of racism in every facet of society and education. Astrophysics, math, runoffs, science, statistics, and meritocracy have all been denounced as racist. In this academic cottage industry, professors secure publications and speaking opportunities by identifying racism in expressions, images, or entire fields. Even time itself has been declared racist. Now, however, academics have found another undiscovered continent of white privilege: niceness.
When I saw a story in The College Fix on a study of “niceness as Whiteness,” I was skeptical and decided to take a look. The study by Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Research Fellow Abigail Beneke, Professors Benjamin Fisher (U. Wisconsin-Madison), F. Chris Curran (U. Florida), and Samantha Viano (George Mason) was first flagged by Dr. James Nuzzo.
The paper “Niceness as Whiteness in School Police Officers’ Perceptions of Student Arrest” addresses the “perceptions of arrest” by school resource officers, or SROs) in two school districts.
The officers appear to be precisely what you are looking for in an SRO: empathetic and reluctant to make arrests. The researchers admit that they try to avoid arrests. However, according to the authors, hidden behind those sympathetic approaches was, of course, a boiling caldron of racism in terms of the racial disparity of those arrested.
Indeed, the researchers realized that it was the niceness itself that was the evidence of oppressive “Whiteness.” Indeed, the officers may not want to be engines of racism and use “niceness” as a “coping mechanism,” but do so by deluding themselves and others that they are nice:
“Nice SROs did not want to arrest children. Nice police officers thought of themselves as well-meaning. Yet, they expressed being required to arrest children because of real or imagined mandates. They used niceness as a strategy for upholding a system of Whiteness that systematically privileges White people and excludes those who fall outside of Whiteness. Niceness hinders possibilities for the types of political, communal relationships central to authentic care.”
The paper makes it sound like everyone would be better off, or at least more honest, to return to hostile, racist-spewing officers. The reason is that niceness is an “enduring component of Whiteness” which “allows predominantly White people to elide how their own actions contribute to inequality by maintaining a sense of their own benevolence.”
The evidence of niceness includes such findings as how officers work at “minimiz[ing] the negative impact of arrest by highlighting their own goodness.” (This includes saying things like “You want to listen to the radio? You want the window down? Is there a station you want to listen to?” after an arrest.)
Then there is the fact that these officers have good relationships and perspectives of the students. Again, it is just a shield of “whiteness”:
“SROs used niceness as Whiteness in their recounts of arrest … by highlighting the positive relationships they had with students they arrested…As with highlighting their own goodness, highlighting these positive relationships reframes violence (i.e., arrest) that contributes to racial inequality as a positive, since students still like the SROs. This strategy emphasizes the officer’s ability to retain his niceness—by virtue of the maintained interpersonal relationship—despite having arrested the student.”
The paper is an example of ideological screeds posing as academic research. Based on a few interviews, the researchers simply declare the empathy and relationships to be shields perpetuating “whiteness.” They cite other studies identifying niceness as a whiteness tactic:
“Prior research has demonstrated how primarily White women educators use niceness to uphold Whiteness in their work with children (Bissonnette 2016; Drake & Rodriguez 2022; Gardiner et al., 2023; Vlach et al., 2022; Wiborg, 2022). We found niceness was also present in the work of SROs, suggesting the potential for broader application of niceness to well-intentioned actors working in structurally violent systems. In addition to framing niceness as a means of excusing behavior that upholds Whiteness, we equally center the structural binds that delimit SROs’ capacity for providing care. In doing so, we identify niceness as a coping mechanism for arresting children.”
At these universities (Vanderbilt, Wisconsin, George Mason, and the University of Florida), these faculty members and their obvious agenda are viewed as ideal choices to teach their students.
With four kids, I found the SROs at their schools to be extraordinary and popular figures. They would routinely intervene with kids to see if they were having trouble or try to direct them away from trouble. It turns out that everything that parents valued in their SROs was a perpetuation of privilege, according to these researchers.
While the researchers insist that “we do not intend to demonize individual SROs,” they reward the cooperating officers by twisting their every comment as revealing their deep white privilege. Presumably, they conveyed to the SROs that this would be a fair, unbiased study. It was neither, and, perhaps reaffirming their own triumph over racism, they were not a bit nice about it.
For once, I disagree with Turley. Calling this attitude an “ideological screed” is way to nice. It is total BS.
These ‘professors’ have joined radicals now attacking ‘whiteness’ whatever that may be.
Clearly they mean to disparage some races [they don’t like Asians much either] to exalt others.
It is a childish but socially dangerous effort that is opening the door to demonstrable facts that they won’t like at all.
First is the fact that black, sub-Saharan Africa has contributed essentially nothing to human civilization.
The folks from there mostly haven’t done much in other parts of the world either. In America where they are mixed with other races they have an average IQ of 85 and in the African homeland it is often in the sixties but varies by region and tribe.
If one regards Caucasian as ‘white’ then the greater part of human civilization has come from them, including Indian and Egyptian civilizations. DNA studies of mummies have shown they have fewer black genes then modern Egyptians who have mixed with their slaves. They were basically typical Caucasian middle east types.
If one narrows white to European then most of modern civilization has come from them. Printing, mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy, steam power, construction with steel, trains, submarines, steam and diesel powered machines and boats, airplanes, telephones, television, jets, electricity, computers, antibiotics, vaccines, modern surgery, universities, and on and on and on…..
…pretty much all white, no black, and they want us to forget it. And some want us to pretend they had a hand in creating it when their actual contribution has been next to nothing when not an actual hindrance.
We could ignore their delusion…have done for years…[that’s that white politeness they ridicule] but now they are getting insulting about it.
Okay, let’s start talking candidly if that’s what you really want. You won’t like it.
The 1961 film, West Side Story reflects America perfectly, particularly the movie clip “America”. There is a lot of truth to the arguments made by both sides of the song and dance routine. Bernardo was played by a Greek-American, Anita by a Puerto Rican, the musical composition by a bisexual son of Russian Jewish immigrants, the lyrics were written by a very successful Jewish gay composer and lyricist, and the movie itself was an absolute sensation. None of the cast thought the film would bring them much attention, never mind 10 Oscars.
The Left never articulates any truth to life in America, a great country. They lie, cast aspersions and denigrate the country because they fail to achieve financial nor professional success by their own merit as were George Chakiris (Bernardo), Rita Moreno (Anita), Leonard Bernstein, and Stephen Sondheim.
Estovir
Is there an actual point somewhere in this mess of gibberish.
If so, it is not obvious.
Why don’t you try try to explain the point of this worthless comment, or are you just having a dissociative episode.
Estovir,
What a great example. I loved West Side Story, the music, the performances, and the story. I didn’t know the background that you described, but it shows America as it is…beautiful, wild. And promising. America leaves each person hopes for Eldorado, the golden one, success. You may not make it, but you can. That dream is so much better to live with than resigning to lie down in the grey mud of socialism. America leaves spacious room for Hope.
Young and Estovir
Are you aware that Leonard Bernstein was a socialist with very strong progressive sympathies?
The FBI considered him to be a communist and actively investigated him for more than 30 years, and maintained an 800 page file on him. He was blacklisted from CBS and other outlets, and at one time the State Dept. revoked his passport, believing him to be a communist. He marched with MLK at Selma, and held fundraisers for the Black Panthers.
Rita Moreno also marched with MLK at Selma, and stood with him at the Capitol address. She also had strong socialist/progressive sympathies.
And are you even aware of the Bernstein’s motivation for writing West Side Story and the themes he was trying to develop?
West Side Story was absolutely not a celebration of the greatness of America. It was the exact opposite. It was a savage critique by Bernstein of how the destructive nature of tribalism was destroying the American dream. It was written at a time when America was consumed with the “us versus them” mentality of the Cold War and the Red Scare. The conflict between the Sharks and the Jets was intended to portray the futility of mindless tribalism where there can be no winners. The loss of innocence by Maria is intended to illustrate how a society beset with racism and tribalism will eventually destroy itself.
The parallels between the gang warfare of West Side Story and the current state of affairs in this country with regard to the MAGA tribe and the liberals is striking. No good can come from this.
If you believe that West Side Story is a celebration of American greatness, then you are delusional, which would explain your attraction to the MAGA gang.
Lots of unsubstantiated claims which if true – mean nothing.
George Orwell was a socialist – Animal Far and 1984 are incredible critiques of socialism
Anon– You assume that I, like Democrats, check a creators”s politics before daring to appreciate their genius.
I don’t.
The conflict between the Sharks and the Jets was intended to portray the futility of mindless tribalism where there can be no winners.
How does this apply when the “them” were Nazis and Japanese militarists?
Yes, the Nazi tribalism failed. As did the Japanese tribalism.
Wasn’t it a Romeo and Juliette theme?
Absolutely not!!
It is the exact opposite of a Romeo and Juliette theme.
In Romeo and Juliette, the conflict is between the warring families of the two lovers. After Romeo dies, Juliette takes her own life.
In West Side Story when Maria’s boyfriend Tony is killed by Chino, she takes the gun and instead of killing herself, she points the gun at both gangs and says that it was not Chino who killed Tony, but rather he was killed by the hatred between the two rival gangs. She drops the gun and walks away, refusing to participate further in the gang violence and tribalism.
It is fascinating how the MAGA mob is completely misinterpreting West Side Story, which is actually a condemnation of the behavior of the tribalism so rampant in the MAGA world.
You’re a mindless self absorbed idiot void of any introspective view of thyself. In your daily attacks, you check every box you pound sand on from your shoeshine box.
Lighten up Francis
yes, ALL of MAGA has missed YOUR point about your favorite movie and therefore it’s ALL Trump’s fault.
Let’s get you back to bed grandma.
The MAGA mob thinks those from Puerto Rico are not Americans.
“Wasn’t it a Romeo and Juliette theme?”
Obviously so. It is a modern adaptation, which the book’s author, Arthur Laurents, acknowledges.
Ignore those who use works of art as political propaganda.
That grey mud is corpses!
There is something deeply attractive, at least to those on the Left, about squalor, misery, treachery, debauchery, violence and vice. They are regarded by Leftists as more authentic, and certainly more exciting, than cleanliness, happiness, and virtue.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Today, ICE would have rounded up the whole lot of them and sent them to a concentration camp.
That is what happens to those accused of violating immigration laws.
So according to the complaints we have heard, white people are hardworking, on time, polite, experts in math and science, the only people who can obtain legal identification, and now, nice as well. No wonder they hate us so much. We are terrible!
4Q2 sez:
The object of this article is a stupid person who has surrendered to the false god of PhDs. People don’t really care about Doctorates; they suppose you worked hard for years and achieved an outcome that deserves some kind appreciation. The facts, however, are far from that. Today, most Doctoral awards are GIVEN, not earned. It’s like the gifts of Oprah: “You get a degree, AND YOU get a degree” etc… A PhD, these days, is a Masters Degree with Fries and a Diet Cola! Whiteness is just another epithet. Why not just call us all “Honkies” and be done with it!
this is ‘study’ is an excellent example of PURE CULTURAL-MARXISM IN ACTION. It isn’t a study at all. It is merely an imposition ot an ideology upon society that it is at war against, with its unambiguous end-goal being the destruction of that/our society and its culture. These ‘professor’s are institutionally empowered propagandists of CULTURAL-MARXISM. Its important to understand this clearly and precisely and to educate other in these terms in order to fight against it. It is used to mind-condition people, so as to achieve its end-goal. These propagandists aka ‘professors’ are also products of CULTURAL-MARXIST INDOCTRINATION by others just like in universities as students. Yes, they clearly aren’t intellectually bright – they are fools and dupes – but this is precisely how CULTURAL-MARXISM operates. Calling it ‘woke’ and other leftist does not work in fighting it. Instead it helps by defecting the real full knowledge of the truth of both what it is and how it operates – absolutely necessary to effectively fight against it and have oportunities to defeat it.
80% v 3%
You’re never going to please them, and they will never stop caterwauling.
What in the world are they doing here?
Oh, yeah, obtaining infinite amounts of “free stuff” and “free status.”
The Israelite slaves were out of Egypt before the ink was dry on their release papers, but then they had the capacity and acumen sufficient for the task.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AI Overview
Nationally, white individuals comprise roughly 73% to 79% of physicists and academic faculty, whereas Black or African American physicists make up about 2% to 3%.
Black scholars should always tick all the check boxes on intake forms. Just ask Jason Arden.
Commenter Steve Witherspoon earlier and importantly pointed out (@10:41) that the ostensible “study” was “using a niceness as Whiteness framework.” Good, Steve.
As anyone who deals with academic publications knows, research studies start with a question, which is then structured into a hypothesis. Accordingly, “framing the issue” is quintessentially critical to success or failure of study results. When you start out with a bibliography/reference list replete with sources that confirm your hypothesis, along with two other authors who share your already-reached conclusion, this is an easy-peasy venture.
Go through the study’s reference material and look at the titles of cited publications, particularly the recurring theme of CRT and Harris’s “White Property” publications. There is little, if any, discussion or citing of academic sources that counterbalance or offer other justification or explanation for SRO’s responses, –nor is there inclusion of SRO’s responses that did not contribute to the authors’ preconceived conclusory objective. Virginia doesn’t even get to ask if there is a real Santa Claus.
I find this less a study and more of an opinion piece worthy of publication in The Atlantic or HuffPost. To that end, it has merit as bait for discussion, but cannot buoy its silo-significance without at least discussion of other countervailing opinions.
Here’s a nice publication on framing and its effect on public opinion.
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054
*”SRO’s responses that did not contribute to the authors’ preconceived conclusory objective.”
addendum: which are not immediately dismissed as non-relevant or not carrying any significance.
So what you’re saying is we need the SRO’s to do a study of the racism of these so called academics. I agree. I wonder what that study will conclude?
I don’t believe this man would be onboard with this study: It makes me angry when people do this to our country, but it’s sad too because what it tells me is that the indoctrination machine is hard at work convincing people [of] this narrative,” he said. “This is a wonderful country; it’s the greatest nation on earth. And you’ve got people so indoctrinated into seeing our country sliced and diced into race and ethnicity and class and income and so forth that they fail to understand the blessing of the United States of America.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/descendant-slaves-shames-smithsonian-woke-indoctrination-greatest-nation-earth
OLLY,
I agree. That is a great man.
I think he might be a case study of what we were discussing: The out come of someone whom came from a challenged situation and overcame those challenges to go on to become not only successful but a respected person in their community.
Then I look at people like AOC. Here is a person who came from a not so challenging situation. Some would even call her situation privileged. Good schools, college degree, yet a bar tender. Was that her parents fault or hers who is to say she did not get a well paying white collar job and landed in F&B. Now a Congress woman, attending the Met Gala in a some thousand dollar dress, and yet endorsing socialist ideals.
It was capitalism that got not only her, but her parents to their positions.
How odd.
Upstate,
You just described formation without using the word. That’s exactly it.
The man in that Fox piece was shaped by hardship, responsibility, and consequence. Those pressures build a certain kind of person, one who sees the country as something to be grateful for because he knows what building something from nothing actually costs.
Compare that to a kid raised in comfort who never had to carry real weight. Not her fault necessarily, nobody picks their formation. But when the environment removes struggle, risk, and consequence, it removes the things that build gratitude and self-reliance right along with it. What’s left often gets filled by ideology instead, because ideology is easier than earned perspective.
Same country. Same opportunity. Two completely different formations. That’s not an accident, and it’s not really about politics. It’s about what each of them was shaped by long before they ever cast a vote or ran for office.
I’ve actually spent a lot of time digging into exactly this, how formation precedes the politics we argue about. Happy to point you somewhere if you’re interested.
The “study’s” core data:
A school district with a student body that is 17% black. Yet 47% of the students arrested are black.
So now a percentage disparity is evidence of bias?
Sam, agreed, and I’d add one thing to it. A disparity isn’t evidence of bias by itself, but it’s not nothing either. It’s evidence that something is producing that gap, we just don’t know what yet. Could be enforcement, could be referral patterns, could be underlying behavior shaped by formation long before any officer’s involved. The number alone doesn’t tell you which. The real problem with this study is it never did the work to find out. It just dropped the number straight into a framework it walked in with and called that the answer.
This is standard practice for critical race theory, anti-racism and other progressive modes of so-called analysis. Disparities are taken as proof of racism, and where there is no evidence of intent, the racism inheres in the structure, which is established and deliberately maintained to preserve the wealth and power of the white oppressors who benefit from it.
The Trump administration has been seeking to pull this way of thinking out by its roots, most recently through its elimination of the use by the EEOC of disparate impact as a foundation for liability.
The causes of disparities are varied and complex, and in my view likely derive largely from family structure and cultural differences in child rearing.
Daniel, the part I’d underline is the last line, causes are varied and complex, and family structure and child-rearing differences are a real, underexamined piece of it. That’s the actual gap in this study. It never asks that question at all, it goes straight from a percentage gap to “Whiteness” without testing a single alternative. Whatever else is going on in the broader political fight over disparate impact, that narrower point stands on its own. The study owed us a real investigation into causes, and gave us a framework instead.
on a related note, Bishop Robert Barron nails the primal nature of those on the Left in academic circles today. Suicidal empathy indeed.
Bishop Robert Barron
@BishopBarron
Apparently, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts has determined not to count letter grades toward its freshmen’s GPAs during their first semester, starting in 2027. The reason given is that this move will address the growing mental health crisis among young people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It will, in fact, exacerbate the crisis.
Across cultures, one can discern a common pattern in the initiation rituals of primal peoples. The elders of the tribe rip a young person from the comfort of his home during the night. He is then scarified or otherwise physically marked in some way—a tooth is knocked out or his face is cut—in order to impress upon him that life is difficult.
Then he is introduced to the lore and history of his people, and finally he is taken to the edge of the wilderness, given a few simple provisions, and told to make his way for an extended period of time.
The entire purpose of the exercise is to break him free from the dominance of his self-regarding feelings and to orient him to the achievement of objective goods.
Plato famously compared the soul to a horse-drawn chariot. The animals represent the passions, which provide energy for the vehicle, and the driver represents intelligence and refined moral consciousness. As long as the charioteer is in place, the chariot makes its way purposefully. But if the charioteer is kicked out, the horses will run amok.
Our “suicidally empathetic” culture, which consistently privileges feeling over objective value, has produced armies of dangerously uninitiated young people. In terms of Plato’s metaphor, it has given rise to lots and lots of chariots with no sense of direction, crashing into one another.
Electing not to count first-semester grades toward students’ GPAs in order to spare the delicate emotions of eighteen-year-olds is, spiritually speaking, about as dumb a move as a university could make.
1:12 PM · Aug 11, 2026
https://x.com/BishopBarron/status/2087225619738165315
Estovir,
That was very interesting.
At one time, it was the classic story of good vs evil, e.g. Beowulf. A coming of age story of a young person, historically a male, again, Beowulf, who has to find the inner strength to confront and over come evil, the monster Grendel. The concept has been repeated thousands of times, with more contemporary story telling being that of a female protagonist.
Regardless of the sex, and that it is the similar story, if told right, a good story sometimes even great, e.g. Star Wars (the good ones).
What I think is different from till wokeism is now, young people do not see themselves as a coming of age, trial and tribulation, requiring personal suffering or sacrifice be it of physical or mental kind for some kind of victimhood. Rather than some kind of personal growth, toughening be it mental or physical, trial by fire, just blame their situation in life on . . . some. Anything. Anything but their own personal flaws. Rather than say to themselves and the world, they are going to do something to get themselves out of their situation, they wallow in their own self misery.
Now, there can be the idea of community and help from friends like in The Lord Of The Rings or Band Of Brothers. That too is a common thread through out literature and history.
What I think we are seeing, namely with some of Gen Z, is a gravitation towards not only victimhood but of helplessness. Rather than do something for themselves, they want someone, anyone else to do the real work for them.
Perhaps we need to get back to good or great story writing.
What I think is different from till wokeism is now, young people do not see themselves as a coming of age, trial and tribulation, requiring personal suffering or sacrifice be it of physical or mental kind for some kind of victimhood. Rather than some kind of personal growth, toughening be it mental or physical, trial by fire, just blame their situation in life on . . . some. . Anything. Anything but their own personal flaws.
Other than Professor Turley, I am unaware of anyone on this forum who interacts with university students. I’m “limited” to grad students in the basic medical sciences, medicine and medical training (Residency and Fellowship training). I see a very broken young population, most of whom are emotionally stunted. They have zero interpersonal skills, most are single (mid to late 20s). They really have no fire in them. They struggle greatly, as seen in their appearance, their dress, their comportment, how they present themselves when approached. They would rather slither in the hallways and not be noticed, than stop and engage.
Few have the angst of the crazies you often mention e.g. the boy (?) who had a meltdown because someone didn’t use his preferred pronouns. I see no budding AOC at my campus. No “National Organization for Women” types like I did back in the 80s and 90s. I’m at a state university, unlike Turley, so my sample population is skewed in the opposite direction Turley at GWU. I’d say the majority are struggling mentally, emotionally, and their IQ (and EQ) are not what you and I encountered when we were in our teens/20s. I know you have told us you never attended college, and if I recall correctly, you were an orphan who was adopted – though I could have that wrong. So you and I had our best education through the hard knocks of life – mine was no picnic. My in-laws call themselves “hillbillies” and when I speak of my past, they say nothing because they don’t know what to say. Hillbillies had it grand compared to my experience. I did have, as I’ve mentioned many times, an enviable Jesuit education, all on charity. i stand on the shoulders of others. The difference between kids today and what you and I represent is that we had the drive to overcome. Im also certain people showed you the way. That definitely is my case. this is why I continually hammer the Catholic ethos: do onto others, give to others, lend a hand, teach others, show mercy, listen, preach often but use words seldom.
It’s not that kids today are intent on blaming others for their standing in society. They’re neutered. Mute. They are so castrated and voiceless because, unlike you and me, they lack the soul to put it all out there and proceed onward. If anything I feel very sorry for them. So i do what i can knowing that my history (perhaps like yours) was very difficult, so I try to be compassionate and show others the way.
#. You had “ambition” as a gift and a corporeal intelligence to succeed molded by Jesuit instruction, Estovir. It’s your story. Others do not have ambition, intelligence and instruction.
“Plato famously compared the soul to a horse-drawn chariot. The animals represent the passions . . .”
I vehemently disagree with Plato’s philosophy. However, his chariot metaphor is pure genius. And your Bishop butchered it.
The two horses in Plato’s chariot metaphor do *not* “represent the passions.” One does. The other horse symbolizes what Plato regards as man’s noble element. Those two forces, Plato argues, pull man in opposite directions.
Rather than your Bishop’s “reimagining” of Plato, here are his own words:
One “horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal . . .” (the Phaedrus)
The dimwitted, low thinking, alleged “physician”, religious extremist and MAGA cultist known as Estovir is attempting to frame this action by University of Michigan as some liberal plot to mollycoddle freshmen, and protect them from the realities of life.
Unfortunately, he does not know that not counting freshmen grades towards the final GPA is quite common, especially among elite colleges, and especially those focused on science and technology, such as Caltech and M.I.T.
Take Caltech for instance, where all freshmen are graded pass/fail. Pass/fail grades are recorded in the transcript, but do not affect GPA. They have been doing this for 62 years. Caltech offers only one undergraduate degree, that being Bachelor of Science. Caltech operates on a 3 term academic year.
All incoming freshmen take the same core curriculum of a full year of math, consisting of Calculus of One and Several Variables, and Multi-variable Calculus, and Linear Algebra. These classes are taught at a level typically found only at senior undergraduate levels at other colleges. They also take a full year of Physics, consisting of Classical Mechanics, Waves, Special Relativity and Electromagnetism. They also take two terms of General Chemistry and one term of Biology, and one term of Computer Science, as well as at least two experimental laboratory classes.
Every single freshman takes these same core classes, no exceptions. They are all graded pass/fail. Fails appear on the transcript but do affect GPA.
M.I.T. has a similar compulsory core curriculum for all freshmen consisting of Calculus, Physics, Chemistry and Biology. All freshmen must take these classes. They do not get a letter grade, but M.I.T. goes a step further than Caltech by using a pass/no record grading system. Freshmen who fail a class get a no record grade, which means no record is ever made of them taking the class. It is if they had never taken the class at all. No “fail” grade appears on the transcript. Again, like Caltech, freshmen grades do not affect GPA.
Many other elite colleges use the same pass/fail grading for freshmen and have been doing so for many years.
The University of Michigan is actually a late comer to this widely used grading system.
Unfortunately, the dimwitted Estovir is completely lost in his fantasy world of religious bigotry, and MAGA extremism. He is completely disconnected from the real world.
So your whole argument boils down to, “other people do it too.” Nothing about why it’s appropriate or inappropriate from a student personal growth perspective. At least Estovir offered a perspective on why it’s good or bad for the students involved, which is far more interesting than your boring little rant. You offered nothing on that topic, which is the real subject. Your comment is devoid of content. Your jealousy of Estovir then causes you to lob the most juvenile insults at someone who is obviously your intellectual superior. Your parents must be so embarrassed by how you turned out.
Anon, Estovir said he was instructed Jesuits. It’s a different emphasis.
Estovir, would you agree that the soul of a person is the sum total of all the person has seen, heard, done during his lifetime as filtered through his human body’s capacity?
^^^ guess I won’t know? Well it is. It’s a story that doesn’t die.
If “niceness if whiteness”, then these genius academics should certainly be able to explain what is the corollary of being kind, no?
In overcrowded areas niceness becomes an imperative. Ask the Japanese.
OT sort of- the hatred of all that’s white, hatred of white people era, has corrupted everything including Leave It to Beaver. The haters have digitally altered the endings of episodes. IT’S AMAZING!
It’s the era of hatred.
I wonder why there is all this hatred.
Kindness is a genetic traits. People often mistake it as instinctual behavior? Is that true?
Have they done so?
I suspect that nearly all of the professors in these fields of study are Jason Ardays.
I hope there is an effort to use AI to winnow through all of their publications and discover how many other instances of plagiarism, corrupt citations, falsehoods and pure gibberish support their academic reputations.
Maybe a Herculean AI can clean the stench of the academic stables.
Young,
Re: Jason Arday.
What a hot mess that is!
And they are still going to release his memoir tomorrow. It might be a best seller, but not for the reasons he wants them to be!
What is really messed up is how all those in academia, got duped by this guy.
Upstate,
I am not sure all those in academia were duped. Maybe they just hoped to dupe us.
Nobody needed a PhD to see he was a faker. He ran a marathon on a broken leg?
In any event, they sooo wanted to have a black, genius, black, young, black researcher on faculty that they either duped themselves or hoped to dupe us. Did I mention that the only qualification that mattered to them was black? They could look at him and see he was fully qualified. No need to look further.
Cambridge once had Newton. Now they have these repugnant, inept idiots.
“He ran a marathon on a broken leg?”
Actually, he claims 9 marathons on a fractured fibula — that last 9 of 30 marathons he ran in 35 days.
“Cambridge once had Newton.”
And Crick & Watson. And you’re right: *That* is the crime.
Sam,
Yes, on your expanded description of his athletic achievements with broken bones. Nobody who has broken a bone would believe any of it.
And I agree with your thought that the great crime here is that a citadel of Western Civilization like Cambridge has had its walls breached and it’s corridors sullied by these disgusting clowns.
Of course we can add Crick and Watson together with Alan Turing and Josephson and many others who have added to its reputation.
An aside, a friend of mine who took his PhD in chemistry from Cambridge remembered Josephson and said, “OH, he’s a nut…” But he thought the same of Mullins and I suppose you would have to be strange to think of Josephson tunneling. Maybe many of them are strange; think of Henry Cavendish. But having a citadel for strange geniuses is one thing; having a rewards machine for con men is another.
With your Cambridge adds include one of the greatest scientists in history: James Clerk Maxwell. He led the design and construction of the Cavendish Laboratory. If you don’t already know, take a look at what Maxwell discovered while going through Cavendish’s unpublished papers. Those achievements, alone, put Cavendish in the Pantheon of great scientists.
Thanks for Arday alert. His list of “achievements” makes Smollett look like a piker.
“. . . a rewards machine for con men . . .”
That would make a fascinating book, that I would love to read — _From Newton to Arday: How the University of Cambridge Self-Imploded_.
(I’ll proofread your MS for free.)
Sam: “If you don’t already know, take a look at what Maxwell discovered while going through Cavendish’s unpublished papers. Those achievements, alone, put Cavendish in the Pantheon of great scientists.”
Thanks, Sam…I didn’t know Maxwell [also a great] had discovered interesting things while going through Cavendish’s unpublished papers. That sounds truly interesting.
I wish our public schools would focus more on the great men and women of science. We are losing our sense of identity and worth.
“I wish our public schools . . .”
Yes!
A two-semester course for nonscience students, titled something like: “The Atlases of Science.” Focus on what they discovered, how they made their discoveries, their character traits, the mistakes they made, and the opposition they faced.
That would inspire generations to love science, and to be courageous achievers.
The history of science books I’ve read are often overly technical and filled with minutiae. The best ones are by non-academics who know how to tell a *story* to the general public, e.g., Dava Sobel.
He also claimed to have a disability, so he checked two boxes.
AI is corrupt, Young. It’s sloppy programming and no one has been able to fix it.
We should all plant trees. That’s a real endeavor.
You can’t mix oil and water.
That requires emulsifiers.
The emulsifiers in the political version of this compulsory “mixing” within a free society are welfare, affirmative action, quotas, forced busing, WIC, SNAP, Obamacare, etc., etc.—ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Of course, all of this nonsense is unconstitutional, as Congress may tax for only debt, defence, and “general Welfare” (i.e., all well proceed) or police, fire, and basic infrastructure, per Article 1, Section 8.
And, of course, the communists have arbitrarily amended the Constitution to expropriate property and redistribute it.
The 5th Amendment right to private property is unqualified with the exception of the “takings clause” and, therefore, absolute.
The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.
The American Founders established a Nation, its Law, and its Population.
The United States of America, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and Free White Persons.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, 1802 (four iterations for maximal clarity)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof….
“[Racial separation] [is necessary], and [though difficult] must be effected by colonization… The enterprise is a difficult one, but ‘where there is a will there is a way’; and what colonization needs most is a hearty will… Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time [not against] our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857
Lincoln was afraid those lefty slave owners would kill their slaves and so they would be safer in Africa.
That would be mighty white of us.
Make no mistake, this “study” is part of a broader agenda to rid schools of SROs. My children all went to public high schools with SROs and expressed a good relationship with them. After 2020, all of the sudden there were students, at least so the administrators claimed, that professed a fear of the SROs. The school missed a genuine teaching moment to address any such fears – in life we all have certain fears and as part of growing up we need to master our fears not give in to our fears. Well, the SROs were dismissed despite of the vast majority of students and parents wanting them. After the COVID lockdown ended and school resumed normal operation sans SRO, the high school had a riot inside the building with the principal sheltering inside her office. It took time for the police to arrive to clear the halls and get the principal out of hiding. An SRO would easily have mitigated the whole affair on the spot.
The paper states in part: “Here, we do not intend to demonize individual SROs, but to suggest that the structures of policing in which SROs operated prevented them from providing authentic care as theorized in prior scholarship. That SROs of color also did not describe caring relationships with students suggests that this is not a phenomenon unique to individual, White SROs. Many of the SROs in our study expressed a desire to develop relationships with students, mentor them, make connections between their school and community, and deescalate conflicts.” Don’t you just love the term “authentic care as theorized in prior scholarship”. Their view of “authentic care” seems to be expressed as some sort of “…caring teacher practice, highlighting the importance of political clarity, meaning that relationships are leveraged as a means of providing for students’ social and emotional development and as a force against Whiteness and other systems of oppression.” The academic peanut gallery in action! These authors clearly have no idea. The authors seem to want the SROs not do anything about bad behavior (except perhaps the bad behavior of white students) but never actually explicitly state how they would correct the students bad behavior or even if the bad behavior that the SROs addressed should have been corrected.
You speak of this study as “part of a broader agenda to rid schools of SROs” as if that is a bad thing.
The vast majority of countries do not have armed police officers in schools. Indeed most countries explicitly and actively reject this concept because it fosters a mindset whereby the inevitable misbehavior of children is criminalized.
The US is very much an outlier with this concept.
The US is an outlier in many aspects including some of our freedoms.
The US would be very much an outlier in this regards as well. Unlike most of the world where there are stronger social norms, the US has an extraordinarily diverse set of school children some of whom attend school without understanding the need to conform to reasonable behavior. Back in my days, we had a student body with much less ethnic diversity so the role of enforcer fell to the vice principal. It seems that today the vice principals either are unwilling or are unable to fulfill that role – hence the need for SROs. It also has the social benefit to the police department of reducing the us/them mentality in some communities.
The paper is clearly coming from a Marxist perspective viewing the world as split between oppressors and the oppressed. This is delusional. And by the way, the paper, sotto voce, admits that even the non-white SROs engaged in the same mode of thinking and behavior. This “niceness” stuff is found in all sorts of people – not just those of European descent.
So yes, I think getting rid of the SRO is a bad thing. I have seen the results of their absence and presence. Their presence is, without a doubt, beneficial.
The vast majofrity of countries allow police to search people on a whim…
The point is this idea, of schools not being safe today, when historically they were. What happened?
It started occuring when parents started leaving the parenting to the government run schools.
Governments love to paternalize.
If niceness is whiteness, then let’s all be white to each other.
This academic “analysis” is just plain BS. This is a sign of people with way too much time on their hands. Perhaps the authors are also being spurred on to publish hogwash like this so they can add it to their underwhelming resumes.
You didn’t read it did you? Academics do these kinds of things because they have a reason to and providing data to support a theory that there is a systemic problem is the logical course of action.
and that reason is…? that theory is…?insincere to the last eh x?
I blame Sigmund Freud. Before we were enlightened by the great Viennese psychiatrist, we did not need other people to tell us what we really think. Now post-Freudians Freudians employ the simple paradigm: Since you are incapable of knowing what you really think, I will tell you. Genius! Almost as good as seizing control over our CO2 output.
Bring it on dipsticks, bring it on and you will regret your attempted take over on our nation for we shall remember every inflammatory detail of your abuse to us.