Weekly Roundup

Reading List

Schools can help disadvantaged kids without discriminating against others

This week on our Substack, Sasha Rosenberg describes how his family history of discrimination and living in the U.S.S.R. shaped his perspective on “the controversies surrounding specialized high schools in New York City.” Rosenberg outlines a number of bad policies and proposed reforms which will harm disadvantaged students in an attempt to help them, and proposes his own ways to uplift those in need without employing discrimination or racism.

The larger point is that the intense focus on the racial composition of a few highly performing schools is a red herring; it distracts from our society’s failure to educate those with fewer resources and opportunities for advancement. Instead of taking on the root causes of the problem, our current social justice movements prefer to tinker with admissions policies and dumb down curricula. This cosmetic approach to fixing our problems does exactly the opposite of what it intends. Lowering standards of education makes everyone worse off—especially those who truly need help.

---

To destroy Trump, is it OK to break the rules? We'll pay a high price for doing so.

For USA Today, FAIR Advisor John Wood, Jr. discusses a recent clip from the Triggernometry podcast, in which Sam Harris “seemed to express approval for Twitter and Facebook’s censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the run-up to the 2020 election.” Wood examines the moral and practical costs of “ends justify the means” behavior in much of our political and cultural discourse, which he believes is far too great.

Obviously, outcomes are critical. But to focus on the outcomes we want at the expense of how we achieve them is to hollow out the basis for trust in society and ultimately to push our goals further and further away.

---

Democracy is in Danger, K-12 Education Can Help

For his Substack, Thought Stretchers, Drew Perkins writes that “the approach to teaching and learning in our K-12 schools over the past four decades is a contributing factor to the divisive, downward spiral that may be the end of our democracy.” However, “the good news is that we can course correct.”

In schools with a culture of inquiry students and teachers have more opportunity to engage in the kinds of Socratic style that surfaces differing viewpoints and questions and helps develop epistemic humility.  Students investigate the complexities and nuances of concepts, issues, and ideas and learn to ask and ponder questions in a way that they don’t with more traditional, teacher and answer centered pedagogy. The leveraging of curiosity and a level of comfort with discomfort becomes more the norm as the possibility of being wrong about something or not knowing is the prevailing mindset.  It is precisely this kind of education that can help us through these divided times and help create more empathetic adults who are less committed to proving their ideological position is right and more committed to understanding differing perspectives, seeking nuance, and being understood themselves.

The Battle Over Diversity Training

For The Bulwark, Cathy Young writes about “workplace diversity training,” or DEI, and how it “has become a hotly contested battlefield in the culture wars.” Young notes that “DEI training is also one of those issues on which the right and the left tend to get trapped in a mutual cycle of escalating culture-war follies.”

Contrary to the anti-woke crusaders’ portrayal of “wokeness” as a juggernaut crushing everything in its path, we live in a pluralistic society in which those who oppose toxic DEI training have many options. You can reach out to corporate leaders and try to persuade them that there’s a better way. You can help boost alternative programs such as the ones created by [Chloé] Valdary and [Irshad] Manji, which seem to have a very real appeal. (This may sound shocking, but most corporate leaders probably aren’t crazy about programs that breed negativity and resentment in the workplace.)

On Student Loan Forgiveness, Congress Must Act

For Chalkboard Review, Robert Evans writes about the recent announcement from President Biden that “Americans earning less than $125,000 annually ($250,000 for households) would receive up to $10,000 in federal student loan forgiveness, with Pell Grant recipients having $20,000 forgiven.” Evans discusses the issues with this policy, and “the deep unfairness that many feel when watching across-the-board loan forgiveness.”

The Democratic party currently holds the presidency, along with both houses of congress, giving them the ability to enact any legislation they choose. The result is that Biden, using executive power to enact such a divisive policy, has led many to rightly question whether he has misused the power of his office to protect political allies and buy votes ahead of the midterm elections where Democrats are largely expected to lose their majority. There are many pros and cons of this student loan forgiveness, but removing the decision from Congress prevents the debate from happening among the American public, where it belongs. Thus, Congress must act.

Addiction To Perfection: Black Swan & The Anti-Woke Wars

For her Substack, Chloé Valdary writes about the film Black Swan, its themes of duality and the tension between light and dark within oneself, and the ways an “addiction to perfection” has caused our culture wars to polarize and become destructive to us all.

The political polarization of our time and the need to constantly shape one’s image after the approval of whoever is on social media — and this is a temptation I personally feel as someone who is active on social media — are both illustrations of this trend. It becomes all too easy to sacrifice authenticity on the altar of being liked, especially when the practice of nuance is not only not in vogue, but considered, in some cases to be a demonstration of  the countenancing of evil itself. We see this in the binary, all-or-nothing thinking that tempts people to align with their political teams, come hell or high water, as a matter of affirming their own worthiness, and moral salvation. Both those who identify as woke and those who identify as anti-woke fall into this trap. All the more so because not only are they at war with each other; they are at war with different aspects of themselves.

---

Join the FAIR Community

Become a FAIR volunteer or to join a FAIR chapter.

Join a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission, or watch a previously recorded session in the Members section of www.fairforall.org.

• Take the Pro-Human Pledge and help promote a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity.

• Join the FAIR community to connect and share information with other members.

• Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.

• View our FAIRstory Learning Standards.