Latest news with #ThomasJefferson
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How The Trump Administration Is Strong-Arming Higher Education
Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda at the University of Virginia When it comes to the Trump Administration's battle with higher education, the headlines tend to focus on Harvard and Columbia. Harvard, because it is fighting tooth and nail against overreach. Columbia, because it attempted to abide by Trump demands only to face more conflict. But the University of Virginia is among other institutions of higher education being strong-armed by the Trump Administration. UVA is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for failing to comply with the president's total ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The probe occurred despite a unanimous decision by the UVA's Board of Visitors two months ago to abolish the university's office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and end practices that discriminate on the basis of race. Conservatives, however, believe that UVA leadership has no followed through on that mandate to end DEI. DOJ lawyers are being egged on by a right-wing organization accusing the university of choosing to 'rename, repackage, and redeploy the same unlawful infrastructure under a lexicon of euphemisms.' That organization, America First Legal, has been described as 'an attack dog' for Trump and lists none other than Stephen Miller as its founder, president and executive director who drew more than a quarter of a million dollars in compensation from the non-profit in 2023, the last year for which it filed a required disclosure with the IRS. Miller, of course, is Trump's White House deputy chief of policy. America First has filed more than 100 legal actions against 'woke' companies and universities, including New York University and Northwestern. While the NYU case was tossed out of court due to lack of standing, the Northwestern lawsuit is still active, with America First charging that its law school discriminates against white men in hiring faculty and in choosing articles for its law review. In a 98-page letter to the Department of Justice on May 21st, America First Legal cites what it believes are numerous examples where UVA simply renamed a DEI initiative without changing the substance of an office or practice. The organization takes particular aim at UVA's Darden School of Business, in addition to the university's law and medical schools. What Darden, among other UVA schools, is being asked to do would not only impact admission decisions but also scholarship dollars devoted to crafting the best possible class of MBA students. America First Legal effectively wants to not only eliminate scholarship money for under-represented minorities and women; it also wants to eliminate awards to applicants from outside the U.S. on the basis that those awards put white men from the U.S. at a disadvantage. The organization's demands also would impact the school's relationships with such organizations as the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the Forté Foundation, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and Reaching Out MBA, non-profits that help business schools gain greater access to under-represented applicants, women and LGBT candidates. It also would impact administrative and faculty hiring and promotion policies. Carried to its ultimate end, particularly with DOJ support, America First would pose a significant threat to the partnerships that business schools have forged with these nonprofit organizations. 'Rather than comply with its legal obligations, UVA appears to have deliberately rebranded its discriminatory DEI infrastructure to evade accountability,' claims American First Legal in its letter. 'Terms such as 'Inclusive Excellence,' 'Advocacy and Opportunity,' 'Community Engagement,' 'Strategic Wellness and Opportunity,' 'Inclusion and Belonging,' and 'Viewpoint Diversity'—some of which were already embedded within its DEI framework—now serve as euphemistic labels across the University's schools, departments, administrative divisions, and official communications. What is unfolding is not bureaucratic oversight but a deliberate strategy to rebrand, relabel, and obscure DEI infrastructure, preserving its unlawful substance while shielding it from legal scrutiny.' The letter, which shows proof of a fairly deep examination of what UVA has made publicly available on its websites, pays special attention to the university's business school. 'The Darden School of Business ('Darden') exemplifies UVA's rebranding of discriminatory DEI practices,' claims America First Legal. 'Replacing its 'Diversity and Inclusion' webpage with an 'Inclusive Excellence' page, Darden retains diversity-focused scholarships, programming, and a Chief Diversity Officer who oversees strategic implementation. UVA's website explicitly states that its inclusive excellence framework 'infuse[s' inclusion and belonging into every aspect' of its 'operation and culture.' UVA's shift in language to 'inclusion and belonging' is not a benign or unrelated initiative. It is part of the 'Inclusive Excellence' model adopted in 2019 for the very purpose of embedding DEI across UVA and other universities across the country. By removing overt references to 'diversity' while retaining the same discriminatory practices under euphemistic terms, UVA is not complying with federal law; it is rebranding its unlawful conduct. 'Nowhere is this clearer than in Darden's 'Scholarships for Inclusive Excellence.' These scholarships are backed by a $125 million endowment and prioritize applicants based on impermissible characteristics, including race ('under-represented minorities'), sex ('women'), identity ('LGBTQ students'), international students ('national origin') and 'Breakthrough Scholars'—a Darden-specific awarded through the school's inclusive excellence framework that's part of its DEI-driven effort to shape a 'diverse and inclusive student body.' By reserving awards for specific groups to ensure classrooms 'reflect the diverse world,' these scholarships perpetuate UVA's unlawful use of discriminatory preferences in its operations. 'Darden also partners with external organizations to offer scholarships that favor students based on impermissible characteristics, such as the Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) Fellowship for LGBTQ+ students. This fellowship provides a minimum $20,000 scholarship and rewards applicants for their demonstrated commitment to promoting LGBTQ+ equality rather than academic or professional merit.32 While such preferences may not violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibit discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs, they contravene Executive Orders 14151 and 14173, which mandate equal treatment and prohibit policies favoring specific groups based on impermissible characteristics, including sex or gender identity.' The organization singles out by name several Darden administrators including Christian P.L. West, the former senior director of global diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting, who now holds the title senior director of global recruiting, and Jannatul Pramanik, the former associate director who works under West and now has the title associate director of global recruiting. America First Legal looked up the publicly disclosed job descriptions for both officials and found that they were virtually unchanged. West's duties, according to America First, 'still emphasizes diversity-focused pipelines and partnerships with DEI-affiliated partner organizations. 'These include the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management—whose stated mission is to reduce the underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in the member school's enrollment and management; ROMBA, which awards fellowships to applicants based on LGBTQ+ identity and advocacy, and the Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT)—an identity-based recruitment network that seeks to 'correct the dramatic underrepresentation of minorities in leadership positions.'' If the DOJ follows up on America First's demands, a school's ability to recruit and enroll women, internationals, Blacks and Hispanics students, and gay or queer candidates would be greatly diminished. After UVA, you can bet that other universities and business schools will be next. DON'T MISS: or The post How The Trump Administration Is Strong-Arming Higher Education appeared first on Poets&Quants.
The Guardian
a day ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘Hard for me to understand': grappling with the Charlottesville tragedy eight years on
Deborah Baker's new book, Charlottesville, is about her home town in Virginia, where in summer 2017 white supremacists marched, violence erupted and a counter-protester was murdered. In dizzying detail, Baker charts and reports the chaos. In interludes, she examines the dark history of a city long linked to racist oppression, from the days of Thomas Jefferson, Robert E Lee and slavery to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and resistance to civil rights reform. Putting it all together was a new challenge for a writer whose books include In Extremis, a biography of the 20th-century poet Laura Riding, and A Blue Hand: The Beats in India. 'As a literary biographer, a narrative nonfiction writer, I mostly work out of archives and libraries and letters and diaries and things like that,' Baker said. 'And of course, for this, there wasn't anything like that in a library or institution. So I had to make my own archive, which involved the interviews I did with around 100 people but also old Twitter streams.' Many such streams were shot by progressive protesters and citizen journalists who rallied with local clergy and citizenry against the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, militiamen and alt-right provocateurs who descended on their town. They came because the city government had voted to remove statues of Lee and Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson, slave-owning Confederate generals who lost the civil war – a reminder that national debate over racism and US history long predated the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the turmoil that followed. As Baker shows, tensions flickered and spat in Charlottesville for months, the town riven by internal disagreements, democracy playing out its messy truths in endless rallies and meetings about what to do with the statues and the version of history they told. Then came the night of 11 August, when khaki-clad white men carrying tiki torches chanted 'Jews will not replace us' as they marched to the Lee statue. The next day, a 'Unite the Right' rally produced hours of frenetic face-offs and the awful moment when a white supremacist used his car to drive into counter-protesters, injuring 35 and killing one, Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal. 'The prospect of talking to not just living people, and asking them questions about this deeply traumatic event in the center of their lives just made me quail,' Baker said. 'It's one thing reading people's private letters and diaries, and especially dead people. It's completely different when you're actually faced with a person, someone who's half your age, who's grown up in a world that's as foreign to you as India might be to an American.' Baker is 66. Many of those who marched against the right in Charlottesville, if by no means all, are 30 years younger or more. Writing their stories meant understanding their worldviews. 'I was just learning about the parameters of an online existence that was very unfamiliar to me,' Baker said. 'Luckily, I had people who were very patient with my learning curve. 'I didn't know what this historical period was. It was very hard for me to understand the present. I thought certain things were assumed. You know, that Nazis were bad. We figured that one out, I thought. I guess you have to keep refreshing that narrative.' Married to the writer Amitav Ghosh, Baker lives in Brooklyn and India. But as the subtitle to Charlottesville says, in writing about her hometown she also set out to write 'An American Story', particularly about the rise of the far right under Donald Trump. When she started work, in the first days of 2021, Trump had been beaten by Joe Biden. It seemed the far right had reached its high-water mark: the deadly January 6 attack on Congress. But many traced paths from the Capitol back to Charlottesville, particularly to the moment when Trump failed to disown the rightwingers who marched in his name. Baker writes: 'For those watching around the world, Charlottesville's fate as the global synonym for 'white supremacy' and 'white nationalism' was sealed when the president of the United States declared there were 'very fine people on both sides.' 'He doubled down several days later to describe the violence of an imaginary 'alt-left' … Trump's remarks seemed to open the gates of hell. The next 18 months saw a surge in white supremacist violence across the country.' Trump left office but far-right violence continued. Trump didn't leave the stage either. Seven years after Charlottesville, he is back in the White House, attacking anything in government seen to even acknowledge the US's racist past, using claims of 'white genocide' to import white Afrikaners. 'American democracy was failing the whole time I was writing,' Baker said, 'and I didn't realize that it could fall that much further. And obviously it's falling very fast now.' She notes how police violently broke up pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville last year, aggressive behavior in stark contrast to restraint shown to the white supremacists who marched eight years ago. She wonders about the effect her book might have on people 'that didn't quite register what happened in Trump's first term, and about the sense of deja vu not only with 2017 but also these other periods of history which we have conveniently forgotten or swept under the rug, whether it's the Klan or the White Citizens Councils', groups that sprang up in the 1950s, in opposition to attempts to end segregation. In the historical sections of her book, Baker considers famous figures including Lee, Jackson and particularly Jefferson, who lived at Monticello above Charlottesville and designed the UVA campus. She also provides studies of some now forgotten. Prominent among them is John Kasper, an esoteric young demagogue, close to the fascistic poet Ezra Pound, who staged cross burnings in Charlottesville in the 1950s. Kasper died in 1998, long bypassed by history. But as Baker studied the resurgence of a far-right threat she had thought long buried, so she sensed echoes including something of Kasper in the polished figure of Richard Spencer, the 'alt-right' leader who achieved a sort of national prominence around events in Charlottesville in 2017. 'They're like doppelgangers,' Baker said. 'You know: knee-jerk contrarianism, superficiality, really just hunger for fame and attention.' Spencer also saw his star fade. The Lee and Jackson statues, and other contentious Charlottesville monuments, finally did come down. The statue of Lee and his horse, Traveler, is 'the only one that has been actually destroyed,' Baker said. 'The rest of them are all in storage rooms, or they've been moved to battlefields. I'm glad this one is gone. It really is due to this group of Charlottesville women who were very set on not just melting it down and destroying it but set out to make some new kind of art and give to the city.' One day soon, via the Swords Into Plowshares project, the bronze once used in the statue of Lee will form something new. Baker is under no illusion that the far right is defeated. Four months into Trump's second White House term, she is 'surprised that I haven't seen more violence already'. 'I think there was a kind of giddiness when he was first elected,' she said, describing 'a sense that they had their presence. They did these marches for Trump. They had their boat rallies. They had their truck rallies. They had their guy. 'There hasn't been as much of that so far this time. That isn't the form that it's taking. Maybe they just don't feel like they have to be so active.' Charlottesville is out now
Forbes
2 days ago
- General
- Forbes
The Second Most Important Thing A Writer Must Do
College student, asian man and studying on laptop at campus, research and education test, exam books ... More and course project. Happy Japanese university student, knowledge and learning online technology Let's get the remarkable grasp of the obvious out of the way. The most important thing a writer must do is generate content. Runing a close second, though, is one of the most overlooked or taken-for-granted functions in all of communications: Revision. Other than the Ten Commandments – all 70 simple words – hardly a document has ever been written that either needed revision or already got it. Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence went through a round of revision, mostly with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. Abraham Lincoln was busy revising his Gettysburg Address on the train ride from Washington, DC, only an hour or so before delivering his speech. JFK was revising his inaugural address in the limo on the way to the ceremony. Mark Twain was a stickler for revision: 'It usually takes me three weeks to write a good impromptu speech.' And if those four masters of the word needed to revise their works, so do you and I. Full stop. Here, then, are some of the major considerations for good revising that will help your writing become more clear, informative, persuasive, interesting, and lively – whatever your purpose is. There's an old saying among writers: 'Whatever you write is your baby. You have to learn to kill your babies.' No one is certain who first said it, but it most often gets attributed to William Faulkner. Generally, there are five steps in the writing process: prewriting (organization of thought, amassing data or other sources), drafting, revising, editing and proofreading, publishing or presenting. Know where you are and the purpose of each. For instance, editing and revising are two different things. The prefix – re – means again or over, and the root – vision – comes from the Latin – visus – to see. Revision means to see again. The document. What's your purpose and focus? Who's your audience? How will you structure and organize this? The paragraph. Paragraphs must have relevance (support the main idea), unity (among all sentences), and coherence (logical connection between preceding and following paragraphs). The sentence. Vary sentence lengths and beginnings. Run-on sentences are almost always sloppy. Incomplete sentences are usually disjointed, unless style matters and you really know what you're doing. The word(s) Write like you talk. Don't try to be someone else. Natural is best – and it shows. Use strong verbs, vivid adjectives, and specific nouns. Avoid unnecessary words or phrases, such as qualifiers (very, quite, somewhat), or empty phrases (as I said before, needless to say). Your first draft is never your final. But don't go directly from writing to revising. Put it away for a while, read it out loud, have a trusted colleague look it over. It's striking how new and different your document can be.
Epoch Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Epoch Times
Good Sports: NTD Announces Sports Photography Award
The NIPC invites photographers to compete for its new award, titled: Best Sports Photography. The winner will receive $2,000 cash or $2,000 worth of photography products and equipment. Thomas Jefferson lauded exercise beyond physical fitness. 'I give more time to exercise of the body than of the mind, believing it wholesome to both,' he wrote on Dec. 15, 1810. Any sportsperson would concur; an individual or team player develops camaraderie and the muscles of diligence and perseverance. A sports photographer captures great sporting moments. A great sports photographer captures the action and the indomitable human spirit. NTD International Photography Competition (NIPC) judge, photographer Renee Luo told The Epoch Times: 'Sports photography inspires courage in people, representing a spirit of bravery, determination, fearlessness in the face of difficulties, overcoming personal weaknesses, and more.' The new NIPC award recognizes the specific skills required to take moving sports moments. Luo, who has been part of the NIPC judging panel since the first competition in 2008, says sports photographers need a thorough understanding of the different sports, be competent in taking action shots, and know the characteristics of people of different ages and genders. Then they can 'capture the most exciting and dynamic moments, particularly those that are thrilling and allow viewers to emotionally connect with the scene frozen in time.' She explained that sports images are 'generally captured in wide-angle shots, showcasing the explosive power of individuals or the competition among groups of people, often with an intense, fiery atmosphere. This requires clear facial expressions, as only with facial expressions can the speed and intensity of the sport be portrayed.' Related Stories 3/8/2025 7/18/2023 The sports award is an NIPC first, but budding entrants can look to previous competition award winners for inspiration. They submitted a wide range of sports images—from community sports, to age-old cultural activities and international events like the Olympics. Hubert Januar won a Silver Award in the Society & Humanity category of the Third NIPC for his photograph of the traditional Indonesian bull racing event: 'Pacu Jawi.' Januar captured a focused jockey balancing on a wooden plow, while steering his two charging bulls on the rice field race track. In the Fourth NIPC, Tsai-Chieh Liu won a Bronze Award in the News & Global Events category for a thrilling rugby tackle image of three players. A player has just kicked the ball to his teammate who clutches the ball while an opponent tackles him to the ground. Jeans Tsai won an Outstanding Technique Award in the News & Global Events category of the Second NTD International Photography Competition for a photograph of two exhausted runners supporting each other in a race to the finishing line. The NTD International Photography Competition Now in its fifth iteration, the NIPC invites photographers around the world to enter uplifting images. Hosted by The Epoch Times' sister outlet, NTD, the NIPC is one in a series of international art and cultural competitions that celebrate time-honored traditions. The competition's mission is to 'preserve traditional aesthetics,' so each entry must be free of digital editing. However, photographers can adjust the brightness, sharpness, and color balance of their images. The NIPC focuses on photographers' technical skills and manual dexterity, including hand-eye skills when setting up a shot. It invites entrants to submit luminous, naturalistic images that depict beauty and kindness. Photographers have until July 31, 2025, to register. Selected NIPC Award-winning Sports Photographs 'Support' by Jeans Tsai (Taiwan). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Second NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'Do My Best' by Tsai-Chieh Liu (Taiwan). News & Global Events category Bronze Award winner of the Fourth NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'On the Road' by Yating Yang (Taiwan). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Fourth NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'Flying' by Xiao-Lin Liu (China). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Second NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'Leap to Fame' by Tsung Pin Lu (Taiwan). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Fourth NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'Happiness in Beijing' by Xiao-Lin Liu (China). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Second NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition 'Hearts Together, Oars in Sync' by Chun Kit Wong (Hong Kong). News & Global Events category Outstanding Technique Award winner of the Third NTD International Photography Competition. Courtesy of the NTD International Photography Competition Finalists' work will be featured online and in an exhibition in New York City from Jan. 25 through Jan. 31, 2026. To find out more, visit What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Skull of one-ton ground sloth found in Kansas
ELLIS COUNTY (KSNT) – The unearthing of a partial skull of a 10-foot-tall ground sloth has prompted a review of the history of the species in Kansas. The paper, published by the Kansas Academy of Science on May 26, claims a mostly intact braincase of Megalonyx jeffersonii, also known as Jefferson's ground sloth, was discovered near Hays in Ellis County. The discovery helps flesh out the distribution of the species during the late Pleistocene. The skull is estimated to be between 12,000-21,000 years old due to its discovery in a significant geological formation in Kansas. State wrestling tournament will stay in Topeka Megalonyx jeffersonii was named after Thomas Jefferson, who recovered bones of the animal from a cave in West Virginia in the late 18th Century. Jefferson originally thought the fossils belonged to a giant cat based on the large claws he found, according to the Illinois State Museum. The Illinois State Museum lists Megalonyx jeffersonii as being between 8-10 feet tall and weighing between 2,200-2,425 pounds. The animal was large and heavily built with large, blunt teeth. The animal's hip bones indicate it could stand on its hind legs which it probably used to strip leaves from trees with its large claws. Megalonyx jeffersonii has a long geological history in Kansas, with records from the late Miocene to the late Pleistocene, according to the paper. The location of Megalonyx jeffersonii in Kansas was associated with river drainages, indicating a reliance on forests within the grassland habitat of the Great Plains. Planned road closures for Emporia Unbound Gravel races As of this new publishing, the Megalonyx jeffersonii has been found in the following Kansas counties: Ellis County – 2025. Jewell County – 1995. Sedgewick County – 1985. Wyandotte County – 1979. Republic County – 1975. Wallace County – 1968. Johnson County – 1967. Meade County – 1938. McPherson County – 1892. Greenwood County – Unpublished date. Rawlins County – Unpublished date. For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
