These Aren’t the Racists You’re Looking For

So, here we are again. A large public university in Virginia is, if you believe the headlines, rallying to defend itself against the Trump administration’s “ongoing assault on academia.” This seems like a replay of the University of Virginia trying to hide its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from the Department of Education a couple weeks ago. But the claim is not true. However, it does show what I call “the dark brilliance” of the progressive Left.

While we can vehemently disagree with the Left’s goals, we must know its tactics and recognize how brilliant they are if we want to battle them.

The dark brilliance is more than simply naming something extreme and controversial with a name that could seem undebatable, like “The Affordable Care Act” or “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” but that is a big part of it.

A shining example was accidentally exposed when, during the pass-it-before-we-can-read-it days of Obamacare, Sarah Palin announced that Obamacare had government “death panels” that would “off” elderly citizens. Left-wing economist Paul Krugman, one of the Obamacare architects, told the viewers of ABC’s “This Week” that there were no such things. Instead, there were “advisability of care” panels that would “determine if certain expensive procedure would be warranted.”

Presumably, under these panels, some patients, just as they are in Britain, would be sent straight to hospice to be kept comfortable till they pass away. So, the government panel didn’t cause the death, it just didn’t stop it.

So, back to the George Mason University case where the U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into not academic freedom, as the press and protesting professors will tell you, but discrimination in hiring practices.

According to DOE, the claim of discrimination is coming from multiple professors at the school. The DOE states that “the university illegally uses race and other immutable characteristics in university policies, including hiring and promotion.”

Sounds like something the Left used to protest against back during “Jim Crow 1.0.”

In the hiring and promotion of professors, weight has been given to the race of the applicants rather than simply their qualifications. That’s certainly not the “academic freedom” argument many professors and others on the Left are claiming.

Professor Tim Gibson, president of the Virginia Conference of the American Association of University Professors, told WUSA TV in Washington, “These are independent, public universities in the state of Virginia. You [DOE] have no role in telling us who we should hire or what policies we should pursue.”

First, he should take a look at The Daily Signal story from June 27 titled “University of Virginia President Resigns Over DEI After Pressure From Justice Department” to understand that taking money from the American taxpayer through DOE comes with certain rules schools need to follow.

The dark brilliance of those on the Left continues to be that they have figured out how to invent victim classes to match any narrative they want to promote: sick people, elderly people, pregnant women (and now, pregnant “men”), and even citizens of other countries! That way, if you oppose them, you are attacking (alternate topics as needed) education, free speech, religious liberty, or health care, to name just a few.

The practical impact of this is to keep those who know a snake oil scam when they see one from speaking up for fear of rebuke and being labeled racist, anti-education, etc.

These diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at universities like George Mason specifically violate laws that were once lauded by the Democratic Party as sacrosanct, like Title IV of the Civil Rights Act.

Title IV lays out very clearly that it “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. It ensures that no person in the United States shall be discriminated against by entities receiving such assistance.”

Yet investigations into the Left’s violations of this law are considered “racist” or “attacks on educational freedom” in much of the news coverage, and, therefore, will seem as such to many of your neighbors who might only have time to glance at a headline or two in their online news feeds.

If it feels like we have covered this story before. And, in a way, we have. It’s similar to the issue that wound up with President James Ryan’s resignation at the University of Virginia. Will the same happen at George Mason?

That depends on what the federal government finds. Remember, in the case of UVA, the government found intentionally deceptive efforts to make it appear as if the school was complying with the Department of Education and the law. The Daily Signal will keep watching the developments so we can tell you what’s really going on.

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