Redstate

Posted at 7:49pm on May 10, 2008 Not a racist? Prof. Alan Abramowitz thinks that makes you even more of one.

By Jeff Emanuel

Headshot of Prof. Alan Abramowitz, the most assuredly not racist professor of PoliSci at Emory University. Click the image above to send Prof. Abramowitz an email about his column in which he called "working class whites" who don't admit that blacks' problems are due solely to racism, racists.

Tomorrow's Washington Post (h/t Adam C) will feature an op-ed by Emory University PoliSci professor Alan Abramowitz ("In These Primary Numbers, Warnings for the Fall") that seeks to turn logic and rationality on its head for the purposes of calling White America racist.

"Voting patterns in Indiana and North Carolina show that resistance to a black candidate among some white Democrats remains a serious threat to his chances in November," Abramowitz writes. "Obama continues to have particular difficulty with one segment of the Democratic electorate: white working-class voters."

His explanation of this is long on unsubstantiated, not-rationally-supportable conjecture, and his conclusions lack anything remotely resembling evidence or facts. I suppose that's the price one pays for (or the benefit of) being a political "scientist": rather than having an academic specialty that prepares one to conduct research (and draw conclusions from that research) and analysis, all a political "scientist" like Abramowitz seems to feel the need to do is obtain numbers. His analysis and conclusions drawn from those numbers are all assumption, with no explanation added as to how those conclusions were reached, or why they should be accepted as correct.

The backdoor assault on working-class whites begins with Abramowitz's declaration that, despite a dearth of "overtly racist beliefs" (which he concedes "are much less prevalent among white Americans of all classes today"), "a more subtle form of prejudice, which social scientists sometimes call symbolic racism, is still out there -- especially among working-class whites."

"Symbolic racism," he explains, "means believing that African American poverty and other problems are largely the result of lack of ambition and effort, rather than white racism and discrimination."

Read on.

Posted in Academia | Barack Obama | Liberals | liberals in the mist | Racism — Comments (78) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:06pm on Apr. 1, 2008 The City: A New Journal of Faith, Culture, and Politics

Subscribing Would Be a Good Idea

By Ben Domenech

I'd like to take time out from your afternoon to encourage you all to sign up for a free subscription to a new journal published by Houston Baptist University.

The City is a journal of Christian thought, featuring insightful articles in our first issue on bioethics, marriage in a postmodern age, and C.S. Lewis's contributions to the nature of teaching - among other topics. Many of you will recognize it as essentially a reborn version of The Critical, a smaller and more politics-focused journal to which many of you subscribed. Except this time, following the model of Hillsdale's Imprimis, it will be distributed free of charge.

The thoughts of leading Christian academics and others on the issues and challenges of the age, delivered to you thrice-annually, and for free. While I am biased, I cannot think of a reason why you would not want to receive this journal. Can you? I thought not.

You can subscribe here. Thank you in advance, and we hope you enjoy it.

Posted in Academia | Announcements | Christianity | Culture — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:54pm on Dec. 16, 2007 Academia Today

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

That this blog post actually needs to be written should constitute an embarrassment for higher education in general and Princeton in particular. See also this. It's hard to decide who looks worse in this entire story; the people who actually perpetrated the assault and threats or Princeton's administrative officials, who appear to be resolute in their effort to look the other way.

Posted at 12:46am on Dec. 11, 2007 Who's the Best College Blogger?

By Bluey

With the end of the year fast approaching, time is running out to submit an application for the America's Future Foundation College Blogger Contest. The competition is open to conservative and libertarian college bloggers with the winning prize of $10,000 being awarded to the winning blog.

The America's Future Foundation asked yours truly to serve as a judge for the contest along with Jonathan Adler of the Volokh Conspiracy, Radley Balko of The Agitator, Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online, Mary Katharine Ham of Townhall, Megan McArdle of The Atlantic and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.

Applicants must be graduate and undergraduate bloggers age 25 and younger. In addition to the cash prize of $10,000, the winning blogger will be invited to speak at an America's Future Foundation roundtable in Washington, D.C. Click here to apply. The deadline is Dec. 31.

Posted at 7:09pm on Dec. 9, 2007 Yes Virginia, There Is Bias In Academia

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

See here. At some point, stories like this one ought to be reckoned with and not just dismissed out of hand by those who have every incentive to preserve the status quo.

Posted at 3:45pm on Nov. 18, 2007 Habitat for the Homeless week: Is misrepresentation necessary to get college students on board with effective programs?

By Jeff Emanuel

Last week at the University of Georgia, the student-run affiliate of Habitat for Humanity celebrated its “Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.” This national event, sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless (not by Habitat for Humanity International) and held in cooperation with groups like the “Students for Environmental Awareness” and “UGA Progressives,” was made up of activities including, but not limited to, a screening of “Sicko,” Michael Moore’s latest film; a student-faculty forum entitled “Too Many Children Left Behind - Addressing the Education Gap”; and a “Provide Housing for People with AIDs” letter-writing campaign.

The week ended with a “Broken Bread Poverty Meal” which, according to UGA Habitat for Humanity’s website, is “a creative activism event sponsored by Acting on AIDS. Participants are invited to identify, interact with and intercede for those broken by the cycle of AIDS, poverty, and hunger. Using a simple porridge meal, true-to-life stories, discussion, prayer and advocacy, students are invited to engage their faith and respond with their hearts and through their citizenship.”

Read on . . .

Posted in Academia | Compassionate Conservatism | Liberals — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:12pm on Apr. 18, 2007 "Say it ain't so, Joe!"

Or, "When murdered people are like baby elephants, and other similarly appalling comparisons"

By Jeff Emanuel

ESPN baseball analyst Joe Morgan made what is, in my opinion, an absolutely egregious faux pas while a guest on yesterday's edition of the Dan Patrick show on ESPN Radio. Asked what he thought about the Virginia Tech massacre, Morgan said:

I was sitting there yesterday, and to be honest with you, I was equating it a little bit to the Imus thing; here are kids going to school, not bothering anybody, trying to, you know, make something of themselves, trying to be better, and this is what they're subjected to. I mean, the kids who are still at that school, how are they going to handle this?

He went on to lament that, since this did not take place during football or basketball season, then "everyone that's involved, that was touched by it directly, they pretty much have to deal with it by themselves."

Are you kidding, Joe?

Read on . . .

Posted in Academia | ESPN | Featured Stories | Special Features | Virginia Tech — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:25pm on Apr. 4, 2007 Where's Bill Cosby when you need him? (or, "A little Revolution with your University address?")

By Jeff Emanuel

Every year since 2001 at the University of Georgia, a "Mary Frances Early" lecture has been given in April in honor of Ms. Early, who was UGA's first African-American graduate.

This year's lecture, "sponsored by Graduate and Professional Scholars, a minority graduate and professional student organization at UGA," will feature an interesting, not-divisive-at-all speaker: Elaine Brown, former head of the Black Panther Party, current Green party member (and announced 2008 presidential candidate), and slightly radical activist.

Read on . . .

Posted in Academia | Activism | Liberals — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:59am on Mar. 27, 2007 Ummmm....I told you so?

By Jeff Emanuel

The Georgia GuardDawg is reporting that two conservative students at Georgia Tech are suffering verbal abuse from their Liberal counterparts, and is lamenting the lack of action taken by the administration to protect them from such speech.

These two students, who are fire-breathing, in-your-face activists in their spare time, are also, of course, the same ones who, with the help of the ADF and David Horowitz, sued their school last year to get speech codes prohibiting insults and other such "verbal abuse" struck down.

Well, they were successful - and, thanks to their success, have no recourse against the "verbal abuse" they are still receiving, because, thanks again to their action, such "abuse" is no longer prohibited.

Oops.

Click title to read on...

Posted at 8:39pm on Mar. 8, 2007 Re: Women's Day (or, "Those subtle ironies which scare me to death")

By Jeff Emanuel

Wednesday night at the University of Georgia, the Department of Women's Studies presented a lecture by former Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma chief Wilma Mankiller.

Yes, you heard that right: Women's Studies, and Mankiller.

Needless to say, I did not attend, out of fear for my personal safety.

Posted at 2:51am on Mar. 2, 2007 Can government legislate "Intellectual Diversity" (without becoming the Thought Police)?

Georgia's “Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education Act”: A breath of fresh air – or the first step down a slippery slope?

By Jeff Emanuel

“Academic freedom” has been a growing buzzword in recent years for conservatives paying attention to the goings-on at America’s college campuses. The leftist tendencies inherent in academia are, of course, not a new development, though they have been better-documented of late by conservative writers, such as UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams, and activists, like David Horowitz.

Case after case of liberal activism and indoctrination has been publicized by conservative individuals, and by organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). As a result, acts which in the past might have gone unnoticed and unquestioned – such as a Northern Kentucky professor’s demolishing of an anti-abortion display, or the University of Georgia’s disqualification of a Christian fraternity from student-organization privileges due to its requirement that its members be Christian – have been both exposed and corrected through quick, vigilant action on the part of those who were willing to stand up for actual equal treatment of college students, regardless of political affiliation or religious beliefs.

However, despite the watchfulness of those on the outside, America’s universities maintain their seemingly irreversible liberal bent. Part of this is because of a natural imbalance in the ideology of those employed there; another part is that one rarely seems able to find a professor they can peg as "conservative," due to the fact that those who lean right - bless their souls - do their job correctly, and rarely reveal their personal political inclinations in the classroom.

Read on . . .

Posted in Academia | Culture | diversity | Georgia — Comments (22)/ Email this page » / Read More »