Let’s start out with a simple decision most of us have to make at one time or another. I don’t know about you, but if I am flying or having surgery, I want someone qualified by training and ability to handle the cockpit or the scalpel. I certainly don’t want someone who is there because […]
August 12, 2022
Let’s start out with a simple decision most of us have to make at one time or another. I don’t know about you, but if I am flying or having surgery, I want someone qualified by training and ability to handle the cockpit or the scalpel. I certainly don’t want someone who is there because […]
April 20, 2022
White Racists, 2022 Update Over the past several years, the University of Alabama’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion vigorously denied it teaches white racism is inevitable, endemic, and cannot be changed. But is this what they teach? A couple of summers ago DEI at UA hosted a “common read” of the New York Times […]
January 22, 2022
What was it like going to school a half century ago? Or maybe a century ago? My brother graduated from Georgia Tech seventy years ago in 1952. And for you all who like ancient history, my grandfather was born before the Civil War. I mentioned that to some undergraduate students a few years ago and […]
September 10, 2021
Many schools and colleges have done away with the F grade as too demeaning and demoralizing for students. I don’t know what the rules are today since I retired from teaching almost ten years ago, but I do remember that UA got rid of Fs for introductory English courses, and other discipline entry-level courses did […]
August 9, 2021
Over the past few weeks, we have taken a look at the origins of the critical race theory now so popular among some sectors of the American population, pundits, and politicians among them. Today let’s tackle the theory itself. We are taking a look at the theory largely because it is based on an interpretation […]
March 29, 2021
Since we live in a university and college town, from the University of Alabama to Stillman College with Shelton State Community College tucked in for good measure, I thought readers would be interested in the state of academic freedom in the U. S. It comes from a piece by Eric Kaufman, “Academic Freedom is Withering” […]
March 15, 2021
I have written about “equity” in this column, especially last summer focusing on the University of Alabama’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. I figured I’ve had my say and am done with it. Then I read a piece, “Equity Is a Mandate to Discriminate” in the March 4, WSJ, and recall, of course, that […]
March 4, 2021
I promised myself not to write any more about politics this year. Everyone with a computer, tablet or cell phone is writing, all the way from Twitter to the New York Times, and most of it is just political importuning from the Left or Right in American politics. The heretofore “objective” role of journalists is […]
January 31, 2021
This is going to be a thought piece which some of you may like and some may dislike. But I compose it with the old rules in place: we can disagree on just about anything, but we agree to listen to each other with civility, and usually reach an accord or compromise. There are however […]
May 4, 2023
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