Commentary: Uncomfortable Facts About Why Fatal Police Shootings Aren’t Declining

Police arresting suspects

When Dexter Reed died in a shootout with Chicago police on March 21, the incident was quickly grafted onto a narrative that began in 2014 after a policeman killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. – namely, that the U.S. faces an epidemic of violence by unbridled cops who do not believe black lives matter. “Killing of Dexter Reed raises questions about Chicago police reform. ‘The message is, go in guns blazing,'” blared a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Reed’s death joins a long list of police shootings that have received wide media coverage and political scrutiny – especially those involving African Americans. Over the years, many police departments embraced reforms, including the use of bodycams, to document incidents – an effort bolstered by a public eager to use smartphones to record the behavior of cops. In 2015, the Washington Post created a database logging every person shot dead by police in the U.S.

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Civil Rights Commissioner to University of South Carolina: ‘Diversity’ Program Excluding White Students Violates Civil Rights Act and Constitution

A University of South Carolina (USC) business school “diversity” program that appears to have accepted students of all races, except white, received the attention of one of the U.S. Civil Rights Commissioners, who wrote to inform the school’s interim president such racially exclusionary policies violate both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the U.S. Constitution.

Speaking for himself, and not the entire U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Peter Kirsanow wrote Thursday to Harris Pastides, USC interim president, about the Business Success Academy at the school’s Darla Moore School of Business.

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University Students Hosted ‘White Student Accountability Group’ to ‘Dismantle Racism’: Report

The University of South Carolina is facing backlash over a “White Student Accountability Group” meeting that instructed students how to “recognize their contribution” to racism, according to a conservative student organization.

Students at the University of South Carolina (USC) College of Social Work were invited to attend a “White Student Accountability Group” meeting on April 26, according to emails obtained by conservative student organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA).

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Three More Universities Close China-Funded Confucius Institutes

Confucius Institutes across the country are closing, the most recent being at Michigan State University, the University of South Carolina, and Colorado State University.

MSU began its Confucius Institute in 2006 and USC followed in 2008, according to The State newspaper. Both schools will discontinue their programs by the end of 2021. Colorado State University also recently announced that its Confucius Institute will close by the end of June.

While national intelligence officials, including President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the CIA, have warned that Confucius Institutes serve as a propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, these schools are not closing their institutes for this reason. Rather, each of the three schools cited former President Donald Trump moving to restrict the amount of funding for universities with Confucius Institutes.

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Colleges Investigate Community Members for Attending Pro-Trump Protest

College community members are subjects of internal and even federal probes for their presence at “Stop the Steal” protests on Jan. 6.

It’s largely unclear if the identified participants committed acts of violence at the U.S. Capitol or simply showed up to peacefully protest the Senate’s confirmation of Electoral College votes.

Yet their alleged attendance – and in one case, online rhetoric – was enough to spawn investigations by their colleges and, in another case, the feds.

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