The SCC Files: going off the deep end (AGAIN)
It’s a universally-accepted fact around Moore County that Sandhills Community College (SCC) president emeritus John Dempsey is a nice person who can be a lot of fun at cocktail parties.
The trouble starts when Dempsey makes his world-view known to the public at-large. The former college president is a proud Democrat whose views put him squarely on the far-left end of the political spectrum. In rock-ribbed Republican Moore County, that makes him stand out like a sore thumb.
Some of you may remember the whole hullaballoo over the state trying to codify the belief that locker rooms and restrooms need to be segregated by gender. The legislature passed a law stating just that and the Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media simply had babies.
Women only in the ladies restroom and locker rooms. Men only in the men’s room and men’s locker rooms. Sounds pretty reasonable, eh?
Not to Dempsey. He was president of the college — and a state employee — when the state law was passed. Dempsey went to the local newspaper and declared he would not enforce gender segregation in on-campus locker rooms and restrooms. He even added that he would QUIT before being forced to enforce it.
Fast forward to this month. Dempsey – in retirement – has gone public in a guest column (published in Pravda-on-Pennsylvania) where he unleashes his wrath on Donald Trump and others seeking to put an end to DEI in public education.:
As you might imagine, the first few months of the Trump/Musk presidency have not exactly dazzled me. They have, in fact, been even worse than I thought they would be — and I’m not even Canadian.
I will concede only that today’s news is more exciting than it was during the Biden years. Of course, we had only one president during those years, and he wasn’t a part-time car salesman.
[…]I worry for the families of the civil servants whose incomes have been slashed by Musk’s scythe and the way it’s been handled, as if it were some kind of game. […]
It’s interesting that Moore County’s chattering class’s favorite former government employee is not bothered by all the waste, fraud, and abuse that’s been uncovered. Or, for that matter, all of the debt this generation and future generations have been saddled with — thanks to said waste, fraud and abuse.
*Decades of bloated salaries and government-provided housing can dull your perception of the world around you, I guess.*
MORE:
[…] I’m not going to labor over our president’s shortcomings. Suffice it to say that “We the People” have gotten ourselves into this situation, and “in order to form a more perfect union,” we’ll have to figure our way out.
Instead, I’ll focus on one of Trump’s favorite whipping boys: DEI, the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI refers broadly to the array of attitudes and programs that appear to favor people of color, and to protect or advance the rights of individuals whose lifestyles are a little different than the norm. Our president and his acolytes have made DEI a central feature of what they, in their own words, call America’s culture war. There’s little blood in this war, just the arrogant assertion that the centuries old hegemony of the white American male is somehow divinely ordained and the result of a color-blind meritocracy — a meritocracy threatened by D, E and I.
What a load of hooey.
Somehow Trump, with the stroke of one of his ubiquitous Sharpies, is attempting to erase 100 years of social progress — progress earned an inch at a time by Rosa Parks, Ernest Green, Medgar Evers, Cesar Chavez, the kids at the Greensboro lunch counter and the combatants in the Stonewall riots. And he’s trying to do it by attacking some pretty hallowed American beliefs. […]
Interesting. Dempsey – a self-professed history and politics scholar – neglected to mention James Meredith. Meredith, a former coworker of mine, integrated the University of Mississippi and made many more great contributions to The Civil Rights struggle. Of course, he found his way rightward to conservatism. So, he is anathema to Dempsey and his comrades.
MORE:
[…] Despite the results of the 2024 election, it hasn’t been proven to me that Americans don’t appreciate and understand the value of diversity. You don’t have to be a bleeding heart to appreciate that differences in our culture — diversity — are what has made us a great country. We have become the world’s strongest economy; chief military power; creators of jazz, country music and rock ’n roll; and the winners of over 400 Nobel Prizes — not in spite of our diversity but because of it. Who could doubt that when those Nobel Laureates have names like Alvarez, Friedman, Ochoa, Vigneaud, King, Khorana and Kissinger? […]
The problem is with the dishonesty Dempsey & co. utilize in defining “diversity.” They think a diverse group or organization is one overwhelmingly populated by people who think just like them.
A male employee among the faculty or administrative sectors at Sandhills Community College — even during the Dempsey era — is as rare as the dodo. (*The same applies for a conservative employee, I’ll bet.*)
MORE:
[…] How dull would the American story be if it didn’t include chapters on the Irish, the Germans, the Polish, the Mexicans, the Africans and the Vietnamese? It would not only be dull, it would be short. We would be Norway, or Japan — or maybe China, with a “great wall” to protect us from the world. Those are fascinating places indeed, but they are places whose cultures have lacked the spice that America has gained through centuries of immigration. […]
No one serious has a problem with immigrants who operate within the law. Mexico’s immigration policy is tougher than what Biden had on the books. (It’s still pretty tough.)
Folks like Dempsey don’t want to talk about Asian-Americans who seem to do just fine without all kinds of government *help.* Hard work and discipline do the trick most every time.
But it’s disturbingly quite important for folks like Dempsey to keep certain *groups* somewhat under control, but angry and ready to riot at a moment’s notice.
DEI is an acronym for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. (If you’re not familiar with it, here’s a great primer to help catch you up.)
To sane, well-grounded people, diversity sounds great. Many different backgrounds and experiences. But that’s not what you get when Dempsey and his comrades speak of diversity. You get an awful lot of people who buy into the far-left notion that America is terrible and hopelessly racist and in need of fixing via a lot of authoritarian tactics. To those folks, America was evil until about 1964 and the passage of federal civil rights legislation. (Now, it’s still *bad*, but can be fixed by tossing in a bit of Marx and Lenin here and there.)
Equity frequently gets confused with Equality. The notion of equality comes from that part of The Constitution which speaks of “equal protection under the law.” Everyone plays by the same rules. Equity, however, has more to do with outcomes. And how do you ensure a preferred outcome? With heavy-handed manipulation and regulation from above, of course. If your desired outcome is black females comprising half of the workforce, you’re going to have to bend the rules to disqualify some people who are neither black nor female. People lose out simply because of their skin color and / or genetics. (*I thought that was the kind of thing The Civil Rights struggle was meant to stamp out.* )
Inclusion, on its face, also sounds nice. But what Dempsey & co. are talking about involves tossing any sort of moral code out the window. This is the component that forces boys wearing dresses and makeup onto girls athletic teams. This has your daughters staying in hotel rooms with boys on overnight school trips.
How does DEI impact the quality of what’s being taught in the classrooms?
During John Dempsey‘s reign — and continuing under Sandy Stewart — English classes include *critical thinking* exercises where students must support or dispute the notions that: (1) Thanksgiving is racially insensitive to non-white people, and (2) The 4th of July is nothing for black people to celebrate.
(Until recently, Sandhills had an official who appeared to buy into the above point #2. )
The real downer is that this line of thinking is commonplace in our institutions of higher learning.