The latest post over at UO Matters, a new watchdog blog about the university, digs up some information on the university’s Under-represented Minority Recruitment Plan (UMRP). The UMRP gives up to $90,000 to departments that hire minority faculty*. UO Matters has an accounting statement from a professor’s UMRP account. Most of the money went towards salary, but the professor also used the account for, among other things, an $82 meal at Excelsior and $227 for “catering.”

Now, the UMRP is considered legal because it awards money to departments, not minority faculty themselves, but I’m not sure of the legality of using UMRP as a Diner’s Club card. AS UO Matters says: “Affirmative action law (in our view appropriately) allows employers to make certain specific extra efforts to recruit minorities – but it is completely illegal to use race, ethnicity, or gender when determining pay, benefits, or working conditions.”

*Or faculty who self-identify as a minority, to be specific.

University of Oregon grad student and ODE columnistDan Lawton has a good article on his personal blog about the lack of ideological diversity in journalism schools and the potential problems that causes.

The article is part of an ongoing project by Lawton on diversity in higher education. I’ve been interviewed for it a couple of times, and there will be a short documentary forthcoming. All in all, it promises to be very interesting.

Using his public records kung fu, Lawton discovers that, of the thirty two full-time faculty in the UO journalism school, none are registered Republicans. Even adding in adjunct faculty, there are only two Republicans. As Lawton notes, “You could walk into a head shop in Berkeley and find a bigger conservative presence.”

Lawton further notes that:

According to a study performed by UO economist Bill Harbaugh in 2006, there are 15:5 registered Democrats in the total UO faculty for every one Republican.  The Oregon Daily Emerald reported that 96% of contributions during the 2008 election cycle went to Democratic candidates; in 2004 the figure was 100%.

The leftist leanings of academia is nothing new, but in an industry that prides itself on its objective, fair coverage of events, you have to wonder (as Lawton does) how well journalism students are served by an almost completely Democrat faculty. (Of course, given the press’ fawning over Obama, maybe they’ve just given up on that whole “objectivity” thing anyways.)

As a J-School student myself, I’d like to say that almost all of my journalism professors at the UO have been courteous, smart and highly professional, even if they disagreed completely with my politics (which comes up more often than you’d think in journalism classes). The only exceptions were part of that select, special group of people you inevitably meet in the course of your life who – politics and ideology aside – are just plain assholes.

As many of you probably remember ten years ago today, a couple of wackos shot up a high school in Colorado. The media had a field day blaming guns, violent video games, scary sounding music (Marilyn Manson in particular), bullying and trench coats. Well, not so unsurprisingly, it turns out a lot of what was initially reported wasn’t true. Slate wrote an article about it a few years ago, in which you can read all about the myths here and the rest of the story right here. Also, there is a new book out that apparently has all the gory details (from the FBI reports and such). 

I think it is great that the misinformation and lies surrounding the columbine massacre are being steadily put to rest. Maybe it’ll help put the kibosh on the many asinine rules and policies that high school administrators use the massacre to justify. Plus, as someone who strongly believed that everyone you picked on and tortured during high school became your slave when you reached Valhalla it is slightly vindicating.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a California law school is not required to recognize religious groups that have closed or discriminatory membership requirements. In essence, this mean that the college can defund any campus religious group that requires its members to follow a particular faith.

David French over at Phi Beta Cons sums up why this a horrible precedent:

From a common-sense standpoint, this is absurd. Imagine telling a Baptist church that its search for a new pastor had to include equal consideration of Buddhist or Hindu candidates. Imagine telling a synagogue that they were engaged in unlawful “discrimination” if they categorically refused to permit imams from functioning as rabbis. How can student guarantee that they can maintain their distinctive voice if each group essentially has to be open to all students, regardless of those students’ beliefs or intentions?

Of course, the ruling extends beyond religious groups to any campus club or organization. Maybe it’s a reductio ad absurdum, but I wonder what this kind of “non-discriminatory environment” would look like at large. For example, the Oregon Commentator has pretty loose membership requirements, aside from my explicit “no hippie nonsense or ASUO fan-fiction” rule. Could the magazine be defunded for not printing or associating with hippie nonsense?

Likewise, could I go to the Student Insurgent and demand to have my articles on laissez-faire capitalism printed? Like French notes, what happens to distinctive voice when you have no control over membership? Or, as the late great Groucho Marx once said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that would have me as a member.”

Cross-posted at Campus Magazine Online.

Here at the University of Oregon we’ve long since become accustomed to the “diversity” gang’s dog and pony show: they find some reason to get offended, write a few letters to the Emerald denouncing whatever it is that’s got them in a huff, engage in a lot of nail-biting and childish, unconvincing theatrics in the ASUO, and basically bully whomever they disagree with by smearing them as racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever.

Unfortunately, a different U of O — the University of Oklahoma — is learning first-hand how the whole “diversity” racket works. In an interesting twist, though, it’s not a group of professional victims and serial whiners in the student body that’s causing trouble… it’s the Oklahoma legislature. Upset by the University’s decision to invite militant atheist and polemicist Richard Dawkins to campus to commemmorate Charles Darwin, the legislature took it upon itself to draft HR1015 (RTF file).

The text of the resolution contains all of the usual pablum:

[T]he University of Oklahoma is a publicly funded institution which should be open to all ideas and should train students in all disciplines of study and research and to use independent thinking and free inquiry…

[T]he University of Oklahoma, as a part of the Darwin 2009 Project, has invited as a public speaker on campus, Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published opinions, as represented in his 2006 book “The God Delusion”, and public statements on the theory of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity and diversity of thinking and are views that are not shared and are not representative of the thinking of a majority of the citizens of Oklahoma…

[T]he Oklahoma House of Representative strongly opposes the invitation to speak on the campus of the University of Oklahoma to Richard Dawkins of Oxford University, whose published statements on the theory of evolution and opinion about those who do not believe in the theory are contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most citizens of Oklahoma…

[T]he Oklahoma House of Representatives encourages the University of Oklahoma to engage in an open, dignified, and fair discussion…

Any of this stuff sounding familiar? About the only thing that’s missing are the words “safe space”.

Now, personally I can’t stand Richard Dawkins. I think he’s as shrill and intolerant as any god bothering evangelical. Regardless of my opinion or anyone else’s, though, the man has every right to speak in a public venue at a public university. HR1015 does not prohibit him from doing so. It’s merely a pointless waste of taxpayer dollars that expresses the displeasure of a nosy and self-important legislature that’s sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.

The Oklahoma House of Representatives has thus given us yet another reason to distrust anyone in government, proving once again that nearly all of them are blithering, power-hungry idiots. Furthermore, it’s a strong reminder to look askance at anyone who is pimping the whole “diversity” scam. As should be abundantly clear by now, such individuals, regardless of whether they’re halfwit undergrads from the MCC or halfwit lawmakers in the Oklahoma legislature, are mostly interested in silencing speech they don’t agree with.

(via Slashdot)

If you want to read more about soon-to-be president of the UO Richard Lariviere, check out this profile of him, written by the University Daily Kansan in March, 2008:

[Lariviere] has a soft voice and strong ideas. He can speak three languages fluently, four with some difficulty. He has written three books in Sanskrit and has just returned from his annual trip to India.

He’s always been interested in how law and religion work together to shape society. Fluent in French and Hindi, if there’s one person that is aware, it’s Lariviere.

[…]

Lariviere is able to read half a dozen different languages and write published works in the Indian language Sanscrit, which can be found in the Watson Library. He can’t recite all the places he’s been without stopping for air.

“I’ve been to all the countries of Europe, most countries of Asia and South America, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Northern Africa and Texas,” Lariviere said.

With such worldly experience he is able to see the University through a unique perspective.

Which is pretty much the exact opposite of Frohnmayer. The Frohn is Oregon-born and raised, and he’s spent pretty much his whole life here – not much of a world-traveler, at least compared to Lariviere. Also, whereas Lariviere is a career academic, Frohnmayer worked in law and politics before becoming involved with the UO. (He served three terms in the Oregon House and three terms as the Oregon attorney general.)

It’s an interesting question: Which is better for leadership – intimate knowledge of an area or wide-ranging experience? What do you guys think?

P.S. I also submit a request to readers for a good sobriquet or nickname for our upcoming president, although I don’t think it will be able to match “Das Frohn.”

This video of the ignominious end of some kind of student protest at NYU has been making the rounds today, and it really is worth a laugh. It kind of reminds me of the 2000 occupation of Johnson Hall by a motley assortment of protesters demanding that the U of O join the Workers Rights Consortium.

The NYU kids, though, had an even more hillarious list of demands than did the WRC protesters. In addition to the usual laundry list of college progressive smegma, they decided to include such reasonable requests as the establishment of a student commission with full power “to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions” (and you thought the ASUO was bad…), forcing the university to “donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza”, and demanding that someone else pick up the tab for their political theatrics by compensating “all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.”

My favorite part of the video, though (aside from the cameraman bleating out platitudes about “consensus”, “hierarchy”, and “power structures” that he obviously thinks makes him sound “academic”), comes at the end when he’s making video of the protesters’ possessions just in case campus security confiscates their stuff. After making sure to document all the MacBooks, iPods, and headphones the rabble-rousers are carrying around in their bags, he proclaims that the police won’t be interested in confiscating a water bottle, since “they probably drink corporate water.”

Fight the power!

Jeffrey Maxwell, a marine and student at Western Oregon University, was approached by campus security on Jan. 28th for having a pocketknife clipped to his pocket. According to his sister, Kim Maxwell, the situation escalated from there to “a huge ordeal” where Jeffrey had to remind the security guards to remain professional. Monmouth police arrived, and he was arrested for possessing a firearm (two shot derringer) in a public building. He was also issued a formal trespass barring him from school property.

Except that with his valid Oregon concealed handgun license he was statutorily exempt from the prohibition on gun possession in public buildings. Since he had not committed a crime, the Polk County DA quickly dropped the charges, issuing a statement to the Oregon Firearms Federation’s attorney (who is representing Maxwell) that said, “I believe the Monmouth Police Department issued the citation in good faith and that there was an arguable violation. However, a careful reading of the statue and the facts led me to conclude the charge was not in the best interest of justice.”

Unfortunately, Jeffrey is not free and clear. According to an Oregon Firearms Federation news alert, a tribunal of four students and one WOU staff member sentenced him to:

“a psychological evaluation stating he is not a threat to himself of others” and a mandatory “ten page paper” ” with references, “citing, but not limited to:
1) the importance of following the law, even through civil disobedience.
2) the importance of accepting responsibility for one’s actions
3) and recognizing the impact possession of weapons on college campuses has on others.”

This is not the first time a permit holder has been caught on campus with a concealed weapon. Last term, a student here at the UO who wishes to remain nameless was detained by DPS and the Eugene Police Department. He was not charged with any firearm related offenses, but the police did seize his weapon (a snub nosed revolver) and his shoes. The UO student was initially expelled from the University, but upon legal threats the expulsion was reversed, but the student was required to attend alcohol abuse and anger management classes.

While it is completely legal, it is clear that if a student is caught carrying a concealed firearm even with a valid license they will be harassed. (The UO student got his shoes back after a couple days.)

More updates to come. Also, in the next issue there will be an in depth look at the history of concealed carry in the Oregon University system. (This new case could have interesting implications in regards to UO graduate student Brian Stubbs’ failed lawsuit against in the University regarding his carrying of a concealed firearm. For more on that case, check out Tyler Graf’s article in Vol. 21, issue 7/8, pg. 16.)

From a letter in today’s Emerald, “Poster exemplifies need for respect for women“:

As I walked across campus today, I noticed that the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art is celebrating its new remodel and expansion with (among other things) a large billboard of a piece of artwork by Agustin Bejarano. The painting, called La Coqueta VII (Mujer Embarazada), depicts a side view of a heavily pregnant woman sitting on a stool. [Picture of the painting]

It’s a beautiful picture, which has also been featured on the cover of the most recent edition of the Eugene Weekly. And if I hadn’t seen it on the cover of the Weekly, I never would have noticed that the JSMA’s billboard crops out the woman’s stomach entirely. It’s as if it has been cut off – the billboard ends at the woman’s breasts.

To some, this may not seem like an issue. To me, it is a crystallization of how our culture views women, pregnancy and reproduction in general. In a society that has embraced abstinence-only education, that often views pregnancy and childbirth with embarrassment and disgust, and that frequently deconstructs images of women into individual body parts in movies, magazines and advertisements, it should really come as no surprise that the JSMA has censored the image of a woman blooming with life, fertility and power.

Projecting much? I mean, really, which is more likely: “I think this picture is more aesthetically pleasing cropped like this,” or “This woman is too full of ‘life, fertility and power,’ so I will crop her big pregger-belly out.”

A university in Taiwan has begun offering courses in everyone’s favorite subject: Porn! The class calls on students to analyze porn and the impact it has on it viewers.  Maybe you would think there would be some concern over the exploitation of women, but you would be wrong.  The biggest worry heard from the class was best put by one anonymous student:

“I am really worried my parents will see the score report when it is mailed home. I won’t know what to say if I get a high score. However if I fail the course, I can speak to my parents and suggest that maybe I should watch more porn.”

Other news worth reporting; I am currently working on my transfer application to a university in Taiwan.

… because your country’s going to tell you what to do, where to do it, and what time to report for duty, citizen.

I’d like to use this space to make Alex Conley aware of great opportunities like this, this, and this. All of these offer excellent volunteering opportunities that don’t require the creation of yet another vast and inertial government bureaucracy that uses millions of taxpayer dollars for the express purpose of violating citizens’ freedom of conscience by forcing them to labor on government projects under penalty of law.

Who wants to bet that all this enthusiasm for mandatory volunteerism will vanish the next time a Republican is in the White House?

There’s an uproar at Slashdot over Microsoft’s newly filed patent application for a “Metered Pay-As-You-Go Computing Experience”. The patent application argues that, when a person buys a computer they shell out for hardware that can handle the most demanding application they’re likely to use (a graphics-intensive video game, for instance), even if that application is only actually in use for relatively short periods of time — the idea that the average person uses their computer mostly for e-mail, word processing, and web browsing and only fires up the video games on the weekends or whatever. Unless they’re evil software pirates, they’ve probably spent $50-70 for that video game, too.

Without getting too technical, Microsoft’s solution seems to be to come up with a scheme where you pay a fee per hour to use certain “bundles” of software and hardware performance is somehow throttled to match the “bundle” you’re using.

While Microsoft claims in the application that “[b]oth users and suppliers benefit from this new business model” it mostly sounds to me like a way for software companies to fleece their customers. Nevertheless, it’s not hard to envision instances where a metered pay model might be superior (one commenter at Slashdot mentions spending upwards of $1000 several hundred dollars for Adobe CS3, which he uses only a few times a year).

In any case, Microsoft made a typically poor choice in choosing the examples that it decided to include in the illustrations that accompanied the patent application. One of them reveals that the company envisions charging users a fee of $1.15 per hour to use a “homework bundle“, which apparently would incorporate some future version of Microsoft Office, some kind of graphics software, and even your web browser (the Patent Office’s website was a bit squirrelly for me, so if you can’t see the image, you can find a screenshot of it here).

That paper about Racism, Capitalism, and American Foreign Policy you have to write for a Chuck Hunt class is about to start costing you a lot more than your sanity and dignity.

Of course, there’s a very high chance that this idea will never fly, at least in its current form. And if it does… I guess there’s always this.

In case you thought it was just the ASUO who were complete idiots:

Students at an Ottawa university are pulling out of a Canada-wide fundraiser that provides close to $1 million a year for cystic fibrosis research and treatment, arguing that the disease “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men” — something experts say is untrue.

[…]

The student council motion stated that orientation week “strives to be inclusive” and “all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve their diverse communities.”

I have trouble believing this is real and not some sort of bad parable constructed by an Ayn Rand zombie.

Thanks to OC alum Michael for the tip.

It’s a story that sounds like it could’ve come from the University of Oregon: a law professor got on the wrong side of a group of minority students and found himself on the receiving end of a bunch of bogus racism charges intended to smear his reputation and drag his name through the dirt.

(more…)