Tea at Trianon: Schools are Becoming More Dangerous

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, July 9, 2023

Schools are Becoming More Dangerous

From American Greatness:

Senator Rick Scott (R-FL) vented his frustration with the appointment, tweeting that Weingarten “is the last person who should be advising anyone on school safety.”

Scott is right, of course. Coming on the heels of the utterly disastrous teacher union-mandated school shutdowns, where Weingarten was a prime influence, she is indeed the last person to give advice on school safety. In fact, a House subcommittee is currently threatening to subpoena Weingarten for her failure to disclose communications between her and the CDC on reopening schools in early 2021. If she is called in to answer questions, perhaps she can detail how deeply she was involved in affecting CDC decisions. Perhaps she could also explain why Sweden never closed their schools and not one child died from the disease, and teacher cases were rare. Students have been affected in many ways by the shutdowns. The widely publicized learning loss is a huge problem, and violence in our public schools has escalated exponentially in the last few years.

According to EducationWeek, 44 % of school and district leaders say they are receiving more threats of violence by students now than they did in the fall of 2019. Also, two out of three teachers, principals, and district leaders say students are misbehaving more these days than they did in the fall of 2019. On a similar note, a nationwide American Psychological Association survey of nearly 15,000 teachers and staff from July 2020 to June 2021 reveals that school staff (paraprofessionals, school counselors, instructional aides, school resource officers, etc.) reported high rates of student physical violence, with 22% of staff reporting at least one incident of physical violence during COVID. Additionally, the Institute of Education Sciences found that 36% of schools report increased student verbal abuse of teachers since COVID, and 48% reported increased acts of disrespect. (Read more.)

Also from American Greatness:

In May, an appeals court ruled against Texas’s Rice University and in favor of a student athlete in a case about Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, but now used for dating mishaps on the theory that they represent sex bias. The case shows what’s wrong with this law and also what’s wrong on campus. And, unfortunately, the Biden Administration is making matters worse by giving more power to Title IX personnel – the very people causing all the problems.

In the fall of 2017, “Doe” was a male student at Rice University on a football scholarship. He began dating “Roe,” a female student. They eventually entered a sexual relationship, after having discussed their sexual histories. Doe explained that he’d had a “run in” with herpes in high school. The two broke up in early December and shortly thereafter Roe texted Doe saying she had herpes and “most likely got it” from Doe. On December 15, Roe contacted the school’s Title IX office to complain of contracting herpes from a student who failed to inform her of his infection – which was false – and on December 18, she called university police to press criminal charges. The police declined, saying it could not prove Doe’s intent to spread infection.

In January, Roe saw the Director of Rice’s Student Judicial Program (SJP), Emily Garza, who filed a formal disciplinary complaint against Doe on February 12. On February 13, Garza emailed Doe a “no contact order” with respect to Roe and also requested an in-person meeting the next day. Doe asked to postpone the meeting so he could get legal advice. Rice University apparently viewed this request as a lack of cooperation because it then suspended Doe from school and banned him from campus.

Garza informed Doe that SJP was investigating whether Doe had “intentionally inflicted, or attempted to inflict, mental or bodily harm on a person” or if he had acted with “reckless disregard from which mental or bodily harm could result.” Garza also viewed the case as “dating violence” under Title IX and the school’s sexual misconduct policy. (Read more.)