Idaho Association of Scholars

  Wow! Who Would Have Thought! 2/21/22 Yahoo News : Binghamton University recently forced a professor to remove a section of her syllabus that said priority would be given to “non-white folks” to speak during classroom discussions after finding the policy violated the  university ‘s faculty staff handbook. Ana Maria Candela wrote in her “Social Change- Introduction to Sociology” syllabus that she planned to practice “progressive stacking” during class discussions at the New York state school, according to  Campus Reform. “This means that we try to give priority to non-white folks, to women, and to shy and quiet people who rarely raise their hands,” she wrote. “It also means that if you are white, male, or someone privileged by the racial and gender structures of our society to have your voice easily voiced and heard, we will often ask you to hold off on your questions or comments to give others priority and will come back to you a bit later or at another time,” the syllab...

   2/15/22 Inside Higher Education : A professor of physical anthropology is  suing  San José State University, saying she’s being retaliated against for her controversial stance on the repatriation of skeletal remains for reburial. In two examples of alleged retaliation, Elizabeth Weiss says she was suddenly removed as curator of the university’s collection of remains, a role she’d held for 17 years, and locked out of the research facility itself. The lawsuit accuses San José State of multiple violations of Weiss’s First Amendment rights.... Most of the bones in question were found in Alameda County, Calif., and range from 500 to 3,000 years old, Weiss said in an interview. They are in the process of being repatriated, but she would like access to them until they’re gone. Weiss, who remains a faculty member, doesn’t know if she’ll ever again see the skeletal X-rays that are part of the university’s collection, either, even though she said these X-rays are not subjec...

  You may be aware that many universities are now including occupied land statements in syllabi and other official documents.  These are of the form: "We acknowledge that we occupy lands originally owned by [name whatever tribe claims to have been there from the beginning of time, even though most tribes moved a  lot , in the centuries before and after Columbus]." Satire:  A Memo From Privilege University’s Diversity Offices It has, however, come to our attention that there are still some who have not yet completed this essential task. Our DIE agents in the field—Students and Teachers Advocating for Safety and Inclusion (STASI)—have reported that some suggest they could find no evidence that the founders of our school victimized indigenous peoples. Please recall that all at PU are required to attend the mandatory Liberatory and Inclusive Education Sessions (LIES) in which information is plentifully available regarding the moral and spiritual superiority of the  ...

12/3/21 The College Fix : Truckee Meadows Community College has ended an effort to fire Professor Lars Jensen, who had been subjected to termination proceedings after pushing the school to maintain its rigorous math standards. In November, a hearing officer at the Nevada school  found that  Jensen had violated several of the college’s codes when he protested a new curriculum structure that essentially allows remedial math classes to count for college credit. In response to the hearing officer’s report, a five-member faculty termination board recommended on November 23 that Jensen be allowed to remain in his job. The next day, college President Karin Hilgersom accepted the recommendation of the faculty committee and announced Jensen would not be fired.  

 12/8/21 The Truth Fairy : The question I get most often—the thing that most interviewers want to know, even when they’re pretending to care about more high-minded things—is:   What’s it like to be so hated?   I can only assume that’s what some of you rubberneckers want to know as well:   What’s it like to be on a GLAAD black list? What’s it like to have top ACLU lawyers come out in favor of banning your book? What’s it like to have prestigious institutions disavow you as an alum? What’s it like to lose the favor of the fancy people who once claimed you as their own? So, perhaps I’ll begin by telling you a little bit about myself mainly because I’m not so different from many of you. I grew up, daughter of two Maryland State judges, in a multi-racial suburb in Prince George’s County, Maryland. I attended a community Jewish day school, which I loved. In high school, I worked as a stringer for the  Washington Jewish Week  and edited my school pa...

  This is signed by professors  who think math matters: We write to express our alarm over recent trends in K-12 mathematics education in the United States. All of us have first-hand experience of the role that clear mathematical thinking has played in advancing information technology and American economic competitiveness. We all also share the urgent concern that the benefits of a robust mathematical education, and the career opportunities it opens up, should be shared more widely between students of all backgrounds, regardless of race, gender, and economic status. We fully agree that mathematics education “should not be a gatekeeper but a launchpad.” However, we are deeply concerned about the unintended consequences of recent well-intentioned approaches to reform mathematics education, particularly the California Mathematics Framework (CMF). Such frameworks aim to reduce achievement gaps by limiting the availability of advanced mathematical courses to middle schoolers and be...