Tag: diversity

Commentary: OpenAI and Political Bias in Silicon Valley

RealClearWire
ChatGPT app on a smartphone

AI-powered image generators were back in the news earlier this year, this time for their propensity to create historically inaccurate and ethically questionable imagery. These recent missteps reinforced that, far from being the independent thinking machines of science fiction, AI models merely mimic what they’ve seen on the web, and the heavy hand of their creators artificially steers them toward certain kinds of representations. What can we learn from how OpenAI’s image generator created a series of images about Democratic and Republican causes and voters last December?

OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4 service, with its built-in image generator DALL-E, was asked to create an image representative of the Democratic Party (shown below). Asked to explain the image and its underlying details, ChatGPT explained that the scene is set in a “bustling urban environment [that] symbolizes progress and innovation . . . cities are often seen as hubs of cultural diversity and technological advancement, aligning with the Democratic Party’s focus on forward-thinking policies and modernization.” The image, ChatGPT continued, “features a diverse group of individuals of various ages, ethnicities, and genders. This diversity represents inclusivity and unity, key values of the Democratic Party,” along with the themes of “social justice, civil rights, and addressing climate change.”

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FAA Pushes to Hire People with ‘Severe Intellectual, Psychiatric’ Disabilities in the Name of Diversity

Michigan Star Staff
FAA

In a new statement, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced that it intends to expand its push for diversity hires by hiring people who suffer from “severe intellectual” disabilities.

As reported by Fox News, the FAA’s website clearly states its intentions on the page for a hiring initiative focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The site says that “targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring.”

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Army Struggles for White Recruits amid Recruiting Crisis and Diversity Push

Michigan Star Staff
Army

A precipitous drop in the number of white recruits into the U.S. Army over the past five years sheds a new light on the service’s ongoing recruiting crisis, Military.com reported, citing internal Army data viewed by the outlet.

The Army missed its 2023 recruiting target by 10,000 soldiers, falling short of its 65,000 goal, after hitting only three-quarters of its 2023 goal as the Pentagon doubled down on prioritizing racial and ethnic diversity in the ranks. Much of that decline is attributed to a dramatic decline in the total number of white recruits as the Army brought in roughly 20,000 fewer white soldiers in 2023 compared to 2018 , according to the data seen by Military.com.

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NASCAR Accused of Discriminating Against White Men with Diversity Hiring Efforts

Michigan Star Staff

The iconic National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, NASCAR, has been accused of intentionally discriminating against White men through its efforts to hire more “diverse” drivers and pit crew workers.

As reported by the New York Post, a petition was filed on Thursday by America First Legal (AFL), the conservative legal group run by former Trump Administration advisor Stephen Miller, calling for an investigation into NASCAR by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The petition accuses NASCAR of “illegal discrimination against White, male Americans.”

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Commentary: Diversity Means Divide and Conquer

Michigan Star Staff

By now, everyone should have noticed how ubiquitous the word “diversity” is, often alongside partner terms such as “equity“ and “inclusion,“ making the acronym “DEI.”

Though “diversity” sounds benign and technically only means varied, different or differentiated, its modern usage appears to mean more. How much more may be the difference between something benign and something malignant.

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Brown University to Start Interrogating Ph.D. Applicants on How They Will Advance ‘Diversity’

Michigan Star Staff

An Ivy League university will now be requiring doctoral applicants to submit a 300-word diversity statement, according to the Brown Daily Herald.

Brown University administrators announced changes to Brown University’s Ph.D. admissions process Tuesday in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling banning race-based admissions, as well as changes to their Title IX policies, according to the Brown Daily Herald. Brown’s new Ph. D. admissions process will now include a diversity statement that questions ways in which applicants will “advance diversity.”

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DNC Concerned over Diversity Numbers Among Delegates

Michigan Star Staff

Leaders of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are increasingly worried about the lack of diversity among its delegates ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

As Politico reports, the DNC is falling short of its own self-imposed goals for diversity levels, with some senior officials concerned over how many White delegates there will be at the convention next year.

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Pentagon Personnel Chief Behind Diversity and Abortion Policies Heading Out

Michigan Star Staff

Gilbert Cisneros, a Navy veteran and former Democratic California representative, announced Monday plans to retire as the Department of Defense (DOD) head for personnel policy, leaving a legacy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies.

The Pentagon touted Cisneros’ record in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday, fueling the implementation of new policies developed under his watch to address sexual assault and suicide. Cisneros also presided over numerous social policies that became the subject of conservative ire, such as the DOD pandemic response, ensuringacceptance of the once-mandated COVID-19 vaccine and policies making it easier for female servicemembers to accesscontraceptives and abortion.

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Constitutional Law Center Urges over 150 Medical Schools to End Race-Based Admissions Following Supreme Court Decision

Susan Berry, PhD

A nonprofit law center whose mission is to defend the constitutional rights of Americans has sent a letter to more than 150 medical schools throughout the country, calling upon them to end their race-based admissions policies in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down affirmative action.

Liberty Justice Center, which won a major victory for First Amendment rights in June 2018 after the Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that non-union government workers cannot be required to pay union fees as a condition of working in public service, has now announced efforts to inform the schools of their “legal obligation to end race-based admissions policies” in response to the Court’s recent ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College. 

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Constitutional Experts Welcome Supreme Court’s Takedown of Affirmative Action but Warn of Universities’ Attempts at ‘Workarounds’

Susan Berry, PhD

Many of those who are applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Thursday that struck down affirmative action are also warning that universities that have been steeped for decades in “equity” and “diversity” ideology are not likely to go quietly.

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Google Backs Down from Pride’ Drag Show After Employees Claim Discrimination Against Christians

Susan Berry, PhD

Tech giant Google has reportedly distanced itself from a ‘pride month’ drag performance it had planned to sponsor in San Francisco after several hundred employees signed a petition expressing opposition to the event, arguing it discriminates against the Christian faith.

According to a report Tuesday at CNBC, a drag queen known as “Peaches Christ” was scheduled to perform at Beaux, an LGBTQ bar in San Francisco, at a “pride” event sponsored by Google.

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Biden’s ‘Equity’ Panel Pushes Woke Farm Policy

Michigan Star Staff

The Agriculture Department’s new Equity Commission is seeking the public’s comments after its interim report called for more diversity on related county boards as part of “closing the racial wealth gap and addressing longstanding inequities in agriculture.”

Members of USDA’s 15-member Equity Commission, which was established in February 2022, include NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who recently flagged the state’s policies in issuing a travel warning for Florida, where agriculture is a major industry. 

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Report: CVS ‘Gender Transition Guidelines’ Urge All Employees to Become Allies of Transgender Workers

Susan Berry, PhD

CVS Health’s “gender transition guidelines” for employees shows the drugstore chain catering to transgender employees by allowing them to use whichever sex’s restroom they prefer, insisting all others use their preferred pronouns, and providing medical leave for their gender transition, a Fox Business report says.

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Pentagon’s ‘Strategic Management Plan’ Devotes Roughly One Out of Every Six Pages to Diversity, Climate Change

Michigan Star Staff

Nearly one of every six pages of a document detailing the Pentagon’s management strategy are devoted to combating climate change and fulfilling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

The Strategic Management Plan for 2022 to 2026, released Tuesday, covers 124 pages and underscores the actions the Department of Defense (DOD) is taking to fulfill the Biden administration’s broader national defense strategy. It lays out high-level, long term goals and steps the department will take to accomplish those objectives and overcome anticipated challenges, as well as performance metrics for so-called Agency Priority Goals (APGs) that include climate and diversity targets.

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Civil Rights Commissioner Warns House Judiciary Committee of Biden’s ‘Trojan Horse’ Radical Equity Executive Order

Susan Berry, PhD

A member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has written to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, warning that Joe Biden’s sweeping executive order embedding radical woke equity ideology in all agencies of the executive branch is a “Trojan Horse” that represents “a major step toward socialism.”

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Doctors Condemn Radical Woke Medical School Ideology: ‘Sacrifices the Needs of Patients, Even Their Lives’

Susan Berry, PhD

More doctors are publicly condemning the Marxist racial and gender ideological agenda into which medical school students are being trained, asserting patents’ health, and even their lives, are being sacrificed for a totalitarian political worldview.

A report published last week, for example, by Do No Harm, an organization of physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients, and policymakers, revealed the pervasive infiltration of woke diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideologies in Tennessee medical school curricula and programs.

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Commentary: With Schools Ditching Merit for Diversity, Families of High Achievers Head for the Door

RealClearWire

Alex Shilkrut has deep roots in Manhattan, where he has lived for 16 years, works as a physician, and sends his daughter to a public elementary school for gifted students in coveted District 2. 

It’s a good life. But Shilkrut regretfully says he may leave the city, as well as a job he likes in a Manhattan hospital, because of sweeping changes in October that ended selective admissions in most New York City middle schools. 

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‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ Public Libraries Agree to Allow Actor Kirk Cameron to Hold Children’s Faith-Based Story Hour Only After He Threatens Lawsuit

Susan Berry, PhD

Actor and author Kirk Cameron announced he scored two victories recently when two public libraries that had hosted a “drag queen story hour” for children finally agreed to allow him to hold a children’s faith-based story hour.

The libraries denied him their facilities at first, but then reconsidered once he threatened court action.

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American Bar Association Drops LSAT Requirement for Law School Admissions in the Name of Diversity

Michigan Star Staff

The accrediting council for the American Bar Association (ABA) voted 15-1 to no longer require the administering of the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) for law school applications, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Starting in 2025, the ABA will no longer mandate that law schools require a “valid and reliable admission test” as a part of its application process, after feedback from a public comment period suggested that dropping the testing requirement would increase diversity, according to WSJ. Law schools may still require the test as a part of its admissions process, but the LSAT will no longer be required for accreditation.

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Fired Michigan Physician Assistant Claims Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director Called Her Evil for Not Using Preferred Pronouns

The Center Square

A physician assistant at a University of Michigan hospital in west Michigan claims she was told she was evil and was responsible for the suicide of transgender people by the health system’s director of diversity and was later fired because she refused to acknowledge the preferred pronouns of patients.

The First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal organization, spelled out Valerie Kloosterman’s grievances against the University of Michigan Health-West hospital system in a Sept. 27 letter that demands Kloosterman be rehired. First Liberty claims that Kloosterman’s religious rights were violated.

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New Department of Defense Equity Chief Has History of Anti-White Statements

Michigan Star Staff

A new diversity hire at the Biden Administration’s Department of Defense (DOD) has a long and documented history of racist statements against White people on her social media.

As reported by the New York Post, Kelisa Wing is an Army veteran and the new chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at the DOD’s Education Activity. Her Twitter account in particular contains numerous anti-White statements, including her declaration in June of 2020 that she was “exhausted with these white folx in these [professional development] sessions.”

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Analysis: U.S. Universities Water Down Standards in the Name of ‘Diversity’

Michigan Star Staff

Higher education institutions have implemented diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to vet students and faculty rather than evaluating them on their merits.

Universities have included different DEI initiatives including axing standardized test requirements, mandating DEI statements in applications and curriculum requirements. The initiatives aim to raise diversity and social justice awareness, considering mainly the promotion of understanding and consciousness of DEI.

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Commentary: Racism to Achieve Diversity Harms All Americans

Michigan Star Staff

If you’ve navigated the thicket of microinstructions, hectoring, guilt-tripping, institutionalized resentment, establishment-generated misinformation, double standards, and bizarre new terminology, then welcome to the world of woke antiracism in America today.

One of the biggest absurdities spread by the woke antiracists is that white people must practice “allyship” and refrain from sharing their opinions on race relations with “people of color.” There is nothing wrong with listening as well as talking, but for white people to remain silent in the face of one of the most destructive movements in American history is negligent and cowardly.

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Diversity and Inclusion, Anti-Racism Featured Prominently in the MBA Programs Training America’s Future Corporate Leaders

Michigan Star Staff

MBA programs at universities across the country have added diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) initiatives into their program curriculum, orientations, leadership, events, and student groups.

Below is a list of how some universities across this country are training the future woke leaders of American businesses.

The list includes Michigan State University, where Disney CEO Bob Chapek received his MBA degree.

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Google Launches New ‘Inclusive Language’ Function

Michigan Star Staff
Person on laptop

The search engine giant Google has rolled out a new feature that acts as an auto-suggestion for changing certain language to more politically correct terms.

According to the Daily Mail, users who type out certain words will be faced with several suggestions encouraging them to adopt language that is gender-neutral, or otherwise more politically correct. For example, “landlord” will yield suggestions such as “proprietor” or “property owner,” while “mankind” will lead to the suggestion of “humankind.” “Policeman” is now recommended to be “police officers,” while “housewife” is to be replaced with “stay-at-home spouse.”

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Commentary: The Medical Industry’s Embrace of Woke Science

RealClearWire
group of doctors

Just a few years ago, concepts such as “white supremacy,” “systemic racism,” and “structural intersectionality” were not the standard fare of prestigious medical journals. These are now the guiding ideas in a February special issue of “Health Affairs” that focuses on medicine and race.

Featuring nearly two dozen articles with titles such as “Racism Runs Through It” and “Sick and Tired of Being Excluded,” as well as a poem called “Identity,” the Washington, D.C.-based, peer-reviewed journal analyzes racial health disparities not through biology, behavior, or culture, but through the lens of  “whiteness,” along with concepts such as power, systems of oppression, state-sanctioned violence, and critical race praxis – a sampling of terms that come up in the February issue.

Health Affairs, dubbed by a Washington Post columnist as “the bible of health policy,” represents something much more ambitious than woke virtue signaling. Its February issue reflects the effort of newly empowered “anti-racist” scholars to transform concepts that are still considered speculative and controversial – and some say unprovable – into scientific fact. This growing effort to document, measure, and quantify racism is being advanced by other high-profile publications, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of the American Medical Association, and Scientific American, which last year ran articles entitled “Modern Mathematics Confronts Its White, Patriarchal Past” and “Denial of Evolution Is a Form of White Supremacy.”

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Commentary: Even with ‘Defund the Police’ Discredited, Some Schools May Still Shun the Police

RealClearWire
Des Moines Police standing at a crime scene

Des Moines this week suffered its first fatal school shooting – reigniting a controversy in the city after the district removed police officers from its schools last year.

Police say a group of teenagers in vehicles outside Des Moines’ East High School fired multiple rounds onto school property on Monday, killing a 15-year-old boy and critically wounding two female students who were bystanders. Six teenagers, some of them current Des Moines students, have been charged with first-degree murder.

The deadly drive-by shooting now hovers over the decision by Des Moines officials, along with about 30 districts across the country, to exile cops from schools. These moves were part of the “defund the police” movement that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. It’s a movement now reeling in the face of violent crime surging nationwide, punctuated by President Biden’s State of the Union vow last week to “fund the police.”

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Michigan Education Department Touts Video That Makes False Claims About School Funding

Admin

The Michigan Department of Education posted a document on its website that encourages people to watch a YouTube video about systemic racism, but it contains inaccurate information about finances in the state’s public school system.

The document was published in July 2020 by an entity called the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council two months after George Floyd was killed in Minnesota by a police officer, and while riots were taking place in many U.S. cities. The document promotes and links to a video titled “Systemic Racism Explained,” telling visitors it “is a good place to start.” But the video suggests that Michigan school districts which service low-income communities get less funding than others. The claim is not accurate; the reverse is true.

The video tells a story of two youths – an African-American child named Jamal and a white child named Kevin – and how their school districts are funded. The fictional students are said to live a few streets from each other.

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American Bar Association Requires Law Schools to Educate Students on ‘Bias, Cross-Cultural Competency, and Racism’

Admin
Man in a suit writing on paperwork at a table

The American Bar Association House of Delegates has approved new law school accreditation standards at the 2022 ABA Midyear Meeting, of which two amendments were focused on “diversity.”

In order to eliminate bias and enhance diversity, the ABA’s amended Standard 303(c) requires that “a law school shall provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism: (1) at the start of the program of legal education, and (2) at least once again before graduation.”

To fulfill this requirement, “Law schools must demonstrate that all law students are required to participate in a substantial activity designed to reinforce the skill of cultural competency and their obligation as future lawyers to work to eliminate racism in the legal profession.”

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Commentary: Shutting Down Parents Does Not Help Public Education

Michigan Star Staff

As school districts start dropping the mask mandates, removing pornographic books from their libraries, and explicitly prohibiting critical race theory, it’s clear that the parent protests are working. School boards, even in progressive bastions like San Francisco, are currently being cleaned out and replaced by more pro-parent members. Moreover, politicians like the governor of Oklahoma are openly instituting a school choice model that would allow for different schooling models and have education dollars follow the student, not automatically go to the school.

Naturally, these developments invite more pushback (sometimes literally so) from those who believe they’re supporting public education. It was fine in the past to let various kooky parents carry on about the evils of teaching Harry Potter or sex ed; school boards and district leaders could simply yawn and carry on as before. However, now that it actually threatens their authority and influence, they can no longer ignore parents’ concerns..  

In general, opponents of protesting parents make the same points over and over. They deny that public schools have problems, play semantic games with critical race theory (“it’s just an abstract legal theory taught in law school,” etc.), and accuse angry parents of being misguided racists. In their view, parents who demand a more wholesome and academic experience for their children are actually demanding an exclusively white and privileged experience. And for good measure, they will add an anecdote about a heroic public school teacher changing lives, proving beyond any doubt that public schools are still doing noble work and are essential for a healthy, diverse society.  

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Some School Districts Cancel ‘Diversity’ Programs After Backlash

Michigan Star Staff

As backlash grows against so-called “diversity” programs in public schools, some districts throughout the country have been canceling plans to implement such programs.

According to ABC News, one such program was in Colorado Springs School District 11, a district that serves over 26,000 students. In May of 2020, shortly after the accidental fentanyl overdose death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the district was among the first in the nation to push for an “equity policy.”

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University of Michigan Makes List of Top Medical Schools with CRT Programs

Peter D'Abrosca

A report by an organization that tracks Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools says that 23 of the top 25 medical schools at universities across the countries have some form of CRT program. 

The University of Michigan Medical School is among them. 

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Politically Incorrect Professor Faces Firing After Lawmakers Show Up on Law School’s Doorstep

Michigan Star Staff
University of Pennsylvania professor Amy Wax

University of Toronto psychologist Jordan Peterson, who famously opposed Canadian gender pronoun mandates, disclosed Wednesday that he had resigned as a tenured professor years earlier than planned.

In a lengthy and impassioned account of his decision for the National Post, the bestselling author argued that the “radical leftist Trinity” of diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) is reducing his students to their race and ignoring their merit. He faulted colleagues for “going along with the DIE activists.”

Meanwhile, an Ivy League law professor who is even more politically incorrect than Peterson may not have a choice in whether she keeps her job of two decades.

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Denver Elementary School to Hold BLM Event Teaching Kindergarteners, First Graders to Disrupt the ‘Nuclear Family,’ Recognize ‘Trans-Antagonistic Violence’

Michigan Star Staff
sign that says "families of color playground night Wed. 12/8 4:10 p.m.

A school district in Denver, Colorado, plans to host a Black Lives Matter “Week of Action,” according to a report from Parents Defending Education.

Centennial Elementary School (CES) in Denver Public Schools (DPS) announced its plans to participate in the “Black Lives Matter (BLM) at School Week of Action” from Jan. 31 – Feb. 4, according to a report from Parents Defending Education (PDE). The school said it will instruct kindergarteners and first graders to be “transgender affirming” by “recognizing trans-antagonistic violence” and “queer affirming” so “heteronormative thinking no longer exists.”

Most kindergarteners and first graders are five, six and seven years old, according to PDE.

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Professor Jordan Peterson Surrenders Full Time Status at University of Toronto, Warns of Dangers of Certain ‘Social Justice’ Initiatives

Cooper Moran

Jordan Peterson, a long time professor at the University of Toronto, announced on Wednesday that he will surrender his full time status, largely due to social justice initiatives of the university and higher education in general.

However, Peterson will remain at the school. He will receive the title of professor emeritus, a title normally awarded to a retired professor who wishes to remain involved in academia.

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Professor Stuart Reges Commentary: Defy the Nonsense of Indigenous Land Acknowledgments

Michigan Star Staff

How do you make the progressives on campus so “horrified” that they spring into action to defend their sacred ideology?  Make an indigenous land acknowledgment that doesn’t match their view of history and watch them lose their minds.  Let me describe how that happened to me.

Indigenous land acknowledgments have been common in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and they are now starting to crop up on college campuses in the United States.  At the University of Washington, they are showing up all over the place.  The diversity experts in the university’s Allen School of Computer Science—where I teach—have produced a “best practices” document that encourages faculty to include these on their course syllabus.  The document also suggests replacing the phrase “you guys” with “ya’ll,” but that’s a topic for a different piece.

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School District Openly Promotes Implementation of CRT, High School Presentation Discusses ‘Pyramid of White Supremacy’

Admin
Girl standing up in the middle of classroom

A high school in Oregon gave a presentation featuring a “Pyramid of White Supremacy” that discussed concepts like “white fragility” and “white saviorism,” according to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education.

Grant High School in Portland, Oregon, taught students about equity and racial justice as part of its “Race Forward” project from December of 2021, according to documents obtained by Parents Defending Education (PDE).

The presentation defined “whiteness” in connection with “the belief that white people are the standard in society” and said “white fragility” is demonstrated by white people showing discomfort and defensiveness “when confronted by information about racism,” such as “bringing up having family members or friends who are Black.”

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Professor, ‘Free Black Thought’ Co-Founder Discusses Why He Teaches English, Not ‘Social Justice’

Michigan Star Staff
Dr. Erec Smith of York College of Pennsylvania

Erec Smith is an associate professor of Rhetoric and Composition at York College of Pennsylvania. After experiencing cancel culture 2019, he has since become an advocate for viewpoint diversity, especially in the Black community.

In a June 2021 “On the Media” podcast, Smith discussed the incident that led him to be “canceled” in higher education.

He spoke to WNYC Studios’ Shamed and Confused podcast about “Feeling ‘canceled’ in Academia,” and was featured in a December 2021 segment on Reputation.Erec Smith is an associate professor of Rhetoric and Composition at York College of Pennsylvania. After experiencing cancel culture 2019, he has since become an advocate for viewpoint diversity, especially in the Black community.

In a June 2021 “On the Media” podcast, Smith discussed the incident that led him to be “canceled” in higher education.

He spoke to WNYC Studios’ Shamed and Confused podcast about “Feeling ‘canceled’ in Academia,” and was featured in a December 2021 segment on Reputation.

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Commentary: The Path to ‘Racial Justice’ Runs Squarely Through Fixing Failed Schools

Michigan Star Staff

The Rittenhouse verdict has unleashed a torrent of stupidity and racist rhetoric from commentators across the country. The usual race peddlers seem to have kicked into high gear—even though everyone involved was a person of pallor.

But for me it only got my blood boiling. Let me explain.

In the course of my management consulting, I’ve been to some of the roughest neighborhoods in the country.

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Conservative Think Tank Sues California over Forced Diversity Quotas on Corporate Boards

Michigan Star Staff
Assembly member Shirley Weber

A conservative think tank is suing California to block a law that will force race, gender and sexual orientation quotas on corporate boards of publicly held companies located in the state.

The suit, National Center for Public Policy Research v. Weber, was filed against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

The free market think tank argues that AB 979 perpetuates discrimination by treating people based on fixed characteristics rather than individual merits. Specifically, the law requires that all publicly held companies headquartered in California must meet a quota of female board members or be fined. Beginning in 2022, the law will extend to board quotas based on race and sexual orientation.

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Democratic Senate Bill Allocates $5 Million for ‘Chief Diversity Officer’ at National Science Foundation

Michigan Star Staff
Black scientist with safety goggles and mask on

A Senate bill that ostensibly focuses on strengthening American competition with China includes a provision between the lines that would designate $5 million for funding of a new “chief diversity officer” position at the National Science Foundation (NSF), according to the Washington Free Beacon.

The bill is the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which is supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans. The bill aims to address the ongoing economic rivalry and supply chain crisis between the United States and China, by increasing domestic manufacturing and tightening supply lines in the United States.

According to the bill, the duties of the NSF’s new “chief diversity officer” would include “establishing a strategic plan for diverse participation” in the foundation’s various programs, as well as collecting information on the demographics of the NSF’s staff and patent applicants, in order to know which demographics to hire to offset alleged “inequity.” The bill would direct states to close such “equity gaps” by giving subgrants to students in computer science education classes who face “systemic barriers.”

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Commentary: Very Fine People

Michigan Star Staff
Large group of people storming Washington D.C. in protest on January 6.

Jacob Anthony Chansley, who also goes by the name Jake Angeli, was one of the people who made their way into the chamber of the U.S. Senate in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to protest the Senate’s impending certification of state electors who would install Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. His name may not register, but his image will: he was the fellow bizarrely attired in a coyote-fur hat sprouting black buffalo horns; shirtless, showing his muscular but heavily tattooed torso; sporting black gloves and a red knapsack; face painted in vertical red, white, and blue stripes; and carrying an American flag on a spear.

The disorderly intrusion of several hundred protesters into the Capitol was quickly characterized by the media, and by many politicians, as an “insurrection.” Moreover, the accusation of insurrection was applied to the many thousands of Trump supporters in Washington that day who had nothing to do with the intrusion into the Capitol. And that characterization became the basis for the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump for supposedly inciting the “insurrection” and the impetus for Joe Biden to order 26,000 National Guard troops to defend Washington during his inauguration on January 20.

As it happened, there was no insurrection.

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Woke Investment Firm Will Require Approval to Hire White Men

Peter D'Abrosca
Cyrus Taraporevala

According to several Sunday reports, one of the world’s largest investment firms has set strict guidelines on when white men can be hired in a new diversity initiative. 

State Street Global Advisors will require leaders to seek approval before they hire white men, according to Fox Business. 

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Commentary: The Navy’s New Emphasis on ‘Diversity’ Puts the Nation at Risk

Michigan Star Staff
group of Navy members sitting on bleachers

After the 2020 summer of riots, the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations stood up Task Force One Navy (TF1N) on July 1, 2020. After a six-month effort, the final 142-page report was submitted on January 28, 2021 Its two operating assumptions are, first, that the Navy, as an institution, is systemically racist, and, second, that “Mission readiness is stronger when diverse strengths are used and differing perspectives are applied.” Notwithstanding several key military principles—such as unit cohesion, strict discipline across the chain of command, and, well, uniforms—the Navy is now ideologically committed to the mantra that “diversity is strength.”

Not surprisingly, considering the key entering assumptions, the task force report identified problems with Navy systems, climate, and culture; and submitted almost 60 recommendations aligned with four lines of inquiry: Recruiting, Talent Management/Retention, Professional Development, and Innovation and STEM (as well as a fifth line for miscellaneous recommendations).

One should be skeptical, however, about the entire exercise and the recommendations that flow from it. It inaccurately depicts the proud institution of the United States Navy as systemically racist—a slander that has more potential to undermine morale, good order, discipline, and military effectiveness than any geostrategic adversary. 

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White Executive Wins $10 Million in Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

Michigan Star Staff

A former executive in North Carolina has won $10 million in a lawsuit after he was fired for being White, the New York Post reports.

David Duvall previously served as a senior vice president of marketing and communication at the health care system Novant Health. But in July of 2018, Duvall said that he was fired with no prior warning or justification, around the same time that the company decided that it needed more “diversity” in its executive ranks.

“We are pleased that the jury agreed that Duvall’s race and gender were unlawful factors in his termination — that he was fired to make room for more diverse leaders at Novant,” his attorney, S. Luke Largess, said in a statement after the verdict on Tuesday. “Duvall was a strong advocate of diversity at Novant. We believe the punitive damages award is a message that an employer cannot terminate and replace employees in order to achieve greater diversity in the workforce.”

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Commentary: America Gone Mad

Michigan Star Staff

After three weeks in Europe and extensive discussions with dozens of well-informed and highly placed individuals from most of the principal Western European countries, including leading members of the British government, I have the unpleasant duty of reporting complete incomprehension and incredulity at what Joe Biden and his collaborators encapsulate in the peppy but misleading phrase, “We’re back.”

As one eminent elected British government official put it, “They are not back in any conventional sense of that word. We have worked closely with the Americans for many decades and we have never seen such a shambles of incompetent administration, diplomatic incoherence, and complete military ineptitude as we have seen in these nine months. We were startled by Trump, but he clearly knew what he was doing, whatever we or anyone else thought about it. This is just a disintegration of the authority of a great nation for no apparent reason.”

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American Civil Liberties Union Sues Oklahoma over Statewide Ban on Critical Race Theory in Schools

Michigan Star Staff

The far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against the state of Oklahoma over a recently-signed law that forbids the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools, according to CNN.

The lawsuit represents a group of teachers and students who support CRT, and is supported by the ACLU, the Oklahoma NAACP, the American Indian Movement (AIM), and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The suit claims that the law infringes on the rights of freedom of speech guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

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Commentary: Biden Priorities Put Citizens, Not National Enemies, in the Crosshairs

Michigan Star Staff

When 13 U.S. service members were killed by suicide bombers as American citizens were abandoned in Afghanistan last August—in perhaps the most ill planned military operation since our efforts in Somalia which resulted in naked U.S. servicemen being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu—it should have given us a clue about the Biden Administration’s priorities. Much as the Somalian disaster led to a massive influx of Somali immigrants, which is changing the makeup of the Midwest, we can soon expect a surge in Afghan immigration.

In retaliation for the Kabul airport bombings, the United States conducted a drone strike on what the world was told were ISIS-K members. When confronted about the irregularities of the operation, General Mark Milley described the air attack as a “righteous strike.” We later learned this “righteous strike” killed an innocent aid worker and nine members of his family. No one has been held accountable for this tragic political slaughter.

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