Ladies and gentlemen, Ole Miss professor James Thomas has left the building. Don’t get too excited, he’s just taking a five-day weekend.
In an email correspondence late Monday afternoon the self-described “Insurgent Prof” informed his pupils he will not be holding any meetings, office hours, or instruction through Zoom or otherwise the Tuesday and Wednesday of this week; leaving students hanging as they enter what is traditionally the kick off for major graded assignments.
Thomas isn’t the only academic taking it easy this week. This corresponds with what has become known as the #ScholarStrike, a movement started by self-described intellectuals to protest police brutality toward communities of color by skipping work.
One must wonder if students would be afforded the same privilege when it comes to project deadlines or absences.
Perhaps not.
Concluding the email, the newly tenured professor of sociology referred his pupils to a “facts sheet” provided by the striking organization that covered instances of police brutality alongside the organization’s political beliefs; signing off with “In Solidarity.”
This shouldn’t come as a surprise as solidarity with his fellow radical liberal academics has become a bit of a calling card by the most notorious professor at Ole Miss.
While students are forced to pay full price this semester for a hodgepodge of sub-par virtual instruction via Zoom, Thomas and his close allies in department administration are all too comfortable exploiting students complacency by taking long weekends, sending out political speech in official emails, and falling short in their obligations as educators; just so long as it fits the woke agenda of 2020.
Ole Miss has been struggling with the “Get Woke, Go Broke” reality of higher education for years, and while there have been many recent improvements to the cohesiveness of our state and its flagship institution, bias from liberal academics still remain a serious threat to the next generation of Mississippians.
Ole Miss shouldn’t have to cave into the politically correct mob or to indifferent academics that choose to be outraged enough to skip work when they already get a long weekend. It’s time Ole Miss rediscover it’s values as a scholarly hub where the free market of ideas flourish, where student-professor relationships based on mutual respect not uniformity of thought are primary.
If we are to restore these values Ole Miss would be a beacon to all across the nation of governance in higher education.
Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Petition. These are the constitutional rights engraved on the entrance to the Overby Center for Southern Politics and Journalism.
This is a rather ironic inscription for a building which just last week prohibited Daily Wire contributor Elisha Krauss from speaking on behalf of a University chapter of Young America’s Foundation.
Blocking the event days before it was scheduled, the School of Journalism and New Media cited an unlisted regulation that prohibited “partisan” figures from speaking at the center.
Following an outcry by conservative student activists and an intervention by Chancellor Glenn Boyce to overrule the initial decision, Krauss will be making her debut on the Ole Miss campus tonight; this time at the newly renovated Student Union.
While the idea that censoring a career journalist who once served as a senior producer to The Sean Hannity Show and a co-host to the Ben Shapiro Show may feel antithetical to the mission of a journalism school; if you were to understand the current political climate at Ole Miss this would all seem as right as rain.
These days at Ole Miss, the academic class is evangelical in their pursuit of progressive values; seeking to censor, harass, and nullify the opinions of those students who still carry with them main street values.
While Boyce deserves credit for reversing the decision of the journalism school, there still is work to be done in promoting free speech on campus as well as addressing institutional biases in departments.
Maybe that will all start with Krauss reminding Ole Miss the meaning of those five words inscribed on the walls of the Overby Center.
A newly tenured professor at Ole Miss has a message for his students and it has little to do with wishing them luck in the upcoming school year.
James Thomas, an assistant professor of sociology at Ole Miss otherwise known as InsurgentProf, took to Twitter Tuesday night to share his thoughts regarding President Trump’s rally in Greenville, North Carolina. Thomas described millennials who support the president as “modern day Hitlerjugend” and declared that “any and every humanities and behavioral/social science teacher has an obligation to put these racist remarks in proper context.”
That’s awfully strange rhetoric for a professor who teaches at a university where a large portion of the student population identifies as conservative, even if the leadership and most professors don’t share that view.
While Thomas’ rhetoric may seem like standard fare for the everyday woke leftist of 2019, Thomas has a long history of inflammatory statements regarding conservatives. The most notable of which was last year when he called for liberal activists not just to disrupt the meals of Republican lawmakers but rather to “put your whole fingers in their salads. Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners.”
Though Thomas is free to have his views, as I’m sure they’re shared by many staff members in his department, Thomas now finds himself in the upper echelon of academia with his recent accomplishment of reaching tenured status. While outspoken and at times brash, Thomas isn’t the problem with Ole Miss. He is merely a symptom of the larger academic culture of the university itself.
Ole Miss has become so dedicated to the ideals of fabricated diversity, identity politics, and social justice, it celebrates and advances professors like Thomas to the highest levels of the university power structure. Would an equally dedicated conservative professor enjoy the same opportunities of advancement?.
It’s important to remember that it wasn’t too long ago that well-respected, Oxford businessman Ed Meek was forced to sacrifice his $5 million donation to the university and suffer harm to his professional reputation after making social media comments that were deemed politically incorrect and generally “problematic” by the established academic class of leadership in Oxford.
Considering that people like Thomas put such an emphasis on “equal justice,” it’s odd that Thomas’ comments weren’t met with the same strong condemnation by his peers. In fact, one might call it hypocritical – assuming one were not worried about energizing the thought/speech police of the progressive movement.
Ole Miss is at an inflection point and needs now, more than ever, to return to foundational basics.
This starts by encouraging an environment where opinions contrary to Professor Thomas, or any other academic ideologue, are welcomed – even encouraged – as long as such opinions are delivered in respectful and responsible ways. It starts by encouraging true diversity of thought and reasoned debate that comes from the academic tradition of the scientific pursuit of truth. It starts by emphasizing a culture which prioritizes assertive citizenship participation on issues rather than demonstrations of outrage. It starts by recognizing the value of each individual within the university rather than focusing on the rights of a collective group
The University of Mississippi has an opportunity to reclaim its former position as the preeminent academy for a classical, liberal arts education in the state and in the South. It wasn’t so long ago that people like William F. Buckley, Jr. came to Oxford to host nationally televised, Socratic debates between the nation’s best thinkers of the left and right.
If we don’t move back toward the center, we may slowly disintegrate into the University of Nowhere.
If you’ve had an opportunity to check the news recently, you might have noticed a lot a talk about Ole Miss. And we’re not talking about their latest purchase of $4,500 trash cans. Though, that certainly should raise a few eyebrows.
It has now been roughly 230 or so days since Jeffrey Vitter announced his resignation as Chancellor of the University of Mississippi, making him the first person ever to resign his post, and in turn triggering a leadership vacuum.
With the departure, both state and local media have spent a great deal of time talking about who is in the hunt for the chancellorship. Yet not much has been written or said about what the candidates want to achieve.
The question the IHL, students, alumni, and facility should be asking those who seek the chancellorship is not what’s on their resume but what does their Ole Miss look like?
The university finds itself at a critical juncture – between the solidification of the progressive academic movement, centered on political correctness and multiculturalism, that has dominated the school for the last few years –and the real kind of progress in terms of academic rigor and freedom, diversity of thought and speech, citizenship, enrollment, and culture.
Going into this next academic year, Ole Miss will no longer be under NCAA sanctions, will be entering into its second year of being in the top half of one percent of research institutions, and will still be healing from the wounds inflicted by the demonstrations (related to Confederate monuments) which took place last April.
If any man or woman earnestly seeks to carry this office with the style, grace, acumen, humility, and effectiveness of former chancellors, then that potential leader should be communicating a bold plan for the future of Ole Miss. Such a plan should not include following the modern script of the edutocracy. Today’s academies of higher education suffer from many self-imposed wounds. America is losing faith in the value of sending its next generation of civic and business leaders to college. Reversing that dangerous trend is going to require someone with a clear vison but also with the intestinal fortitude to withstand the slings and arrows of the higher education establishment.
The university needs now, more than ever, a chancellor who holds a deep reverence for the school’s traditions and institutions as well as the opinions of its students and alumni. This chancellor will need to possess practical ideas for turning around declining enrollment, for increasing the number of in-state students, for strengthening academic programs across the board, and for creating an environment where free expression is preserved and cherished.
Ole Miss has the potential to be far greater than a mere punchline in the jokes made by the state’s political class. All it really needs is strong leadership. We’ve been there before. But strong leadership is in such short supply, especially if that leader is also required to bring terminal degrees and a publishing pedigree.
The search of the next chancellor isn’t just about whether the IHL picks someone who is qualified. There is no shortage of well-credentialed, academic administration careerists. I’m sure the list of qualified candidates is long and distinguished.
The most important qualification right now should be about a candidate’s vision for Ole Miss. What can it become? What should its graduates know? What principals and ideas underpin the institution in such a way that a degree is unmistakably valuable and unique? The people of the state of Mississippi, the alumni, the faculty, the students, and even the world, await the results of this incredibly important hire.
So what will Ole Miss become?
New innovations continue to make our lives easier. If only the government would get out of our way and let consumers decide for themselves.
Because of new technology, getting around town can feel incredibly easy with companies like Uber and Lyft transforming the way we get from point A to point B. Users now have a choice in what was once controlled by a government-backed monopoly.
The new option is and was largely cheaper, easier, and more convenient. Though government tried, the city of Oxford in particular, ride sharing became so popular that there was little government could do to stop it.
But while ride sharing has changed how we travel, massive progress has also been made in the field of micromobility where customers can use electric scooters and bikes to travel to their desired destinations. This has helped to solve the first-mile and last-mile gaps for many.
In the past year dozens of scooter and bike companies have sprung up to meet the needs of consumers expanding to many major and midsized communities, along with college towns.
Yet at the same time, scooters have hit some roadblocks with city governments opting to ban the service, often describing it as a nuisance. Essentially, the same treatment ridesharing services received from Mississippi governments not too long ago.
Though scooters are generally designed for urban areas, of which Mississippi has few, residents of midsized communities, particularly college towns, could stand to benefit greatly from local deregulation.
Oxford and Starkville stand out as the most logical destination for scooters.
Students would no longer have to worry about parking or missing a bus to class as scooters or electric bikes could supplement their transportation needs. While scooters have never made it to Oxford, they lasted less than a month in Starkville.
The city brought scooters in on a trial basis, while Mississippi State had a ban in place. Naturally, the confusing laws led many students, the biggest user of scooters, to bring the scooters on to campus, drawing the ire of university officials. Lime, the scooter operator, decided to leave the city as a result. And students were again left without this option.
In larger cities like Jackson or tourist towns along the Coast, the introduction of scooters could radically transform how transportation is thought about.
The dangers of scooters are not different than the dangers of any other mode of transportation. There are people who are reckless, whether it's on a scooter or behind the wheel. We can control bad behavior without punishing everyone else. The government just needs to err on the side of individual liberty and personal responsibility.
Technology, creative disruption, and capitalism continue to work together to make our lives better and easier. Though there is often a desire by government to limit the full potential of new technology.
Having a personal shopper or getting fine dining delivered straight to your doorstep aren’t just luxuries for the ultra-rich these days. Now they’re available in a single click as mobile delivery apps continue to expand in their creativity and their delivery.
While these services may feel common in today’s society, they would have seemed otherworldly just 10 years ago. Instead of spending hours grocery shopping, you can have your groceries delivered to your front door, fine dining with the convenience of take out, and cheap rides on demand around the clock - leaving those who commute to work a less expensive alternative and those who drink and drive no excuse.
If you felt so inclined to take advantage of these conveniences, all you would have to do is place an order with any one of the dozens of delivery services available on the App Store,. Yet in Mississippi there may be something missing from your order – an adult beverage of your choosing.
That is because Mississippi has a prohibition on the delivery of alcohol with your meal. You can order that adult beverage if you sit down at the restaurant and eat. But when you order that same meal from the same restaurant via an app, that same drink cannot be included.
Mississippi is part of an ever-shrinking pool of states with such a policy. Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill legalizing home delivery of alcohol with your meal. And in doing away with outdated regulations, Texas sets a good example for Mississippi to follow.
Home delivery is about more than just drinking, it’s about the completion of an experience created by the free market. Customers benefit from being able to enjoy a drink with dinner or by saving another trip to the grocery store. Employees and employers benefit by an expanded consumer base, thus creating higher wages as well as new jobs. And the state benefits by introducing new revenue without the increase of taxes.
While they say everything’s always bigger in Texas, these benefits would make a pretty big impact right here in Mississippi, for the state and for the individual.
The technology is available. Convenience could be just a click away. If the government would let consumers choose.
Mississippi State University has been making headlines in recent weeks not only for their outstanding performance on the baseball diamond, but for the actions of one of their professors who some claim pushed blatantly leftist views on graded assignments.
Professor Michael Clifford was identified by academic watchdog group Campus Reform for providing questions on a Business Ethics exam which asserted moral judgements regarding CEO pay and suggested that Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby practiced employment discrimination against LGBT applicants, without providing evidence to support the suggestion.
Clifford is also accused of ideological favoritism with the distribution of lower marks to those who disagreed with the premise of affirmative action or the data supporting the wage gap theory. One of Clifford’s former students told Campus Reform that he felt afraid to offer an opposing viewpoint in his classroom. “Shortly after I started the course in January, I heard from other students that he was very liberal and graded people based on whether they agreed with him or not,” Mississippi State student Adam Sabes, who is also a Campus Reform correspondent, said.
“Personally, this discouraged me from answering a question based on how I really feel and led me to answer tests or discussion board questions based on what the professor would like best as I needed a good grade in this class,” Sabes added.
This professorial behavior, while appearing unethical (which is rather ironic in a class on ethics), may not seem shocking to the average American if we were talking about Boulder or Berkeley. But this is a largely conservative university in an overwhelmingly conservative state, showing that the problems of bias in academia are not isolated to our nation’s coastal communities or famously liberal college towns.
Academia has become a complex game of inside baseball in recent decades where groups of ideologically aligned and motivated academics provide cover for one another as they actively pursue leftist or progressive viewpoints.
The evidence for this bias comes from Clifford himself. In response to Campus Reform’s reporting, he said that while he included the aforementioned questions that he also included others to choose from. This assertion isn’t a denial. It’s a premeditated cop out for any criticism of his bias.
Could you imagine what news outlets like CNN or MSNBC would say about a conservative professor who made statements offensive to the sensibility of the progressive academic class? Safe to say that they would be looking at some very tough days in the university faculty lounge.
It has unfortunately become the norm that we accept the liberal doctrine in our nation’s universities. Until we start calling out the bias, we’re going to continue to see colleges and universities remain the academic left’s own Animal House – without Dean Wormer to shut down their party.
In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy a delicious chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, while there is still time
The recent scandal regarding celebrities and the elite class and the college admissions of their children has riled up many as we wonder about the deserving child who was left out in favor of an undeserving child.
But even before this scandal, we knew Americans believed the primary consideration for college admissions should be high school grades.
This common belief runs directly against the narrative of Ivy League institutions, and many others, where the trap of identity-based admissions has affected both the highest and lower margins of applicants. However, this belief has reached the point where one ethnic group is being discriminated against simply for being exceptionally talented at achieving high grades.
Affirmative action was designed to provide a remedy to long-standing discrimination allowing schools “considerable deference” in how they select students. This concept of considerations to race and identity in education has been debated extensively in the courts.
These court battles began in 1978 with University of California v. Bakke to Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which may soon make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. The latter case is redefining the generational debate about affirmative action. Unlike other cases, which have questioned if students on the margins can be rejected so that diversity may be preserved at universities, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard asks if minority students that excel, can be discriminated against because of their race, specifically Asian students.
Harvard contends that the lawsuit is frivolous as Asians make up roughly six percent of the national population while making up more than 17 percent of Harvard students. Yet Harvard’s own argument is used against it by Students for Fair Admissions, who contend that Harvard’s knowledge of this led the university to discriminate against highly qualified Asian applicants in favor of non-Asian students. Essentially, Harvard’s case is that they have too many Asians.
While schools are granted privilege to foster “equality” in admissions, courts have consistently denied any effort to employ quotas or “racial-balancing” in admission considerations. If the accusations against Harvard are true, it is likely the U.S. Supreme Court will find the university went beyond the law. Regardless, the ruling here will likely have a big impact on future cases involving race-based, university admission policies.
Harvard does make a very good point in its lawsuit; they suffer from an over-representation of exceptionally talented applicants for admission. How awful it must be for them.
Suggesting that some people are just “too good” to be Harvard students could be seen as a symptom of the current times, yet it is more likely this sort of discrimination is a byproduct of the current structure of affirmative action. Diversity in education has proven to be beneficial, but not when the definition of diversity is narrowly confined to the color of skin or the country of origin. When diversity is programmatically enforced by an intentionally vague policy, you can bet actual diversity is not the goal; alterations to student populations based on emotional appeals are.
Such admission policies can be incredibly dangerous to colleges and Harvard has emerged as the face of it. Asian students often outperform white students (and every other race and ethnicity) on academic and extracurricular metrics. This is no secret in the Ivy League community, yet they lag far behind on personal appeals. The mysterious conglomeration of factors, which qualifies some to be Ivy League material and others not, is curiously subjective. And the plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, have made the argument that such policy is inherently discriminatory.
Students, regardless of who they are and where they come from, should be judged by their academic records, their extracurricular accomplishments, and their personal references from school officials/teachers/coaches who know them best, not by arbitrary factors. The result of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard will likely impact admissions policy significantly. Let’s hope it rewards students who apply for admission based on the quality of their records and not the color of their skin or the country of their origin.
Hate is back in style but that’s no thanks to those who extol it. Those making their living from it are the ones truly prospering.
The conservative viewpoint on hate is that it is morally wrong to endorse any ideology that seeks to deprive an individual of his or her God-given right to life and liberty. And just as this extends to Neo-Nazis, it also extends to those who advocate for the deprivation of rights for anyone who presents ideas which oppose their own.
Liberals, progressive academics, and much of the mainstream media see this quite differently. When you understand how much of their wealth, power, and influence comes from a monopoly on outrage, it should come as no surprise.
American liberalism now abides by three principles. The first, if you do not demand groups which oppose progressivism be dismantled by the state or vigilantes granted special privilege by the state, you are complicit. Next, if you do not see people who hate as enemies of the state, only to be dispelled by force either provided by the state or vigilantes granted special privilege by the state, you are an enabler. Finally, if you do not participate in the crowdsourcing of outrage culture, which provides the foundation of the Hatred Industrial Complex, you are racist/homophobic/xenophobic/sexist and bigoted. Because the list of names a liberty-minded conservative can be called grows daily, I’m sure I missed a few.
Any violation of these three principles can lead you to be named as part of the irredeemable class, ineligible to work or live in this society. And this is true regardless of your ideology. After decades of educating academics who go on to train the permanent class of bureaucrats in government, progressives have finally gotten what they have longed for. No, not a world without hate, but a cultural super weapon which can be deployed to destroy anyone who challenges their power.
Progressive ideology cannot exist in a world based on the equality granted through objective judgements of character. It can only exist in a world where the permanent government class and the academics have the power to force their ideological opponents into submission. On the rare occasion the super weapon fails, progressives can quietly encourage people to stage inauthentic crimes of a bigoted nature to force through policies by crowdsourcing online outrage or through the vast network granted to them by political professionals and their allies in much of the national media.
The list of manufactured outrage from social stagecraft is long and distinguished. From actor Jussie Smollett’s recently staged homophobic attack to Jackie Coakley’s erroneous report that a University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi engaged in her gang rape during initiation rites to Nick Sandamann’s media crucifixion for smiling, and to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s attempted show trail, the left’s Kabuki theatre game is strong.
But, do you remember the 2014 racist incident at Oberlin College in which the faculty were fully aware the events were staged by students so that they could force through diversity programs? What about the arson of an African American church defaced with pro-Trump graffiti in Greenville, which turned out to have been perpetrated by one of the members? Don’t forget about the Episcopal church in Indiana, which was defaced in a false flag attempt. These serve as a few of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of examples of fake stories distributed by mainstream media to invoke outrage. In most cases, the invalidated stories were later quietly disregarded because the truth does not matter to people who seek to control our opinions and viewpoints.
Each of these “false flag” incidents under the guise of defeating hate, was carried out as an effort to make liberty-minded conservatives in America guilty by association.
The people in the Hatred Industrial Complex, whether members of mainstream media, academic progressives, or government careerist, despise the things you and I hold dear. They’re disgusted that you love your country or your spouse. They resent your respect for foundational ideas like natural rights and a constitution written to preserve those principals. They hate that you and I believe in God and have the temerity to associate with others who value religious liberty. The people in the HIC believe they know best and they aren’t interested in hearing your dissent, especially if it emanates from a rural town or a red state. Unless you agree that America is a fundamentally unjust place with only victims and victimizers, we must spend trillions to save the planet from climate catastrophe, and capitalism is the root of all evil, you’re seen as an obstacle to progressive utopia. What exactly does this utopia look like? I’m not sure but I know it’s a place where the HIC can keep lining their pockets and leveraging their power.
Without a concerted effort by every liberty-minded conservative to limit the Hatred Industrial Complex, those who truly are the legitimate victims of crimes motivated by bias will no longer have the capacity to pursue justice. The very foundation of equality and justice under the law will be eroded and eventually destroyed. If we don’t put up a fight for the real American values, truth will be lost to the theater of the outrageous.
If outrage soon becomes the policy currency, most of us are going to wind up being flat broke.