Jon Askonas, a reader studying at Oxford for his PhD, writes:

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article with a quick and dirty analysis of the university bubble as shown by county-by-county voter data comparing the counties where a state’s flagship public university is located and the overall state average. Obviously this is “noisy data”, but it is still absolutely astounding.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Yes-You-re-Right-Colleges/238400

Two graphs below. First one shows states and flagship universities. But then I used the data to make one that displays the difference. In almost half of all the states, there was a TWENTY POINT difference between how much a state supported Hillary and how much the flagship university county did. No wonder the response from the ivory tower to a Trump victory has been so out of touch with the mood in the rest of America.

I have not used the first graf, because it belongs to the Chronicle (you can see it by following the link). But the second one, created by Jon, is here, and it is astonishing:

In other news from the self-exiles in the Academic Archipelago:

UVA professors petition university president to stop quoting UVA founder Thomas Jefferson. No, really, this is happening:

University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan is being asked to refrain from quoting Thomas Jefferson because of his racist beliefs, according to The Cavalier Daily.

A letter, signed by 469 faculty members and students, was sent to Sullivan on Nov. 11 protesting the use of a Jefferson quotation in her email calling for unity after the presidential election, the student newspaper reported.

“We would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it,” the letter read. “For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.”

This kind of thing needs to be beaten back, forcefully and unapologetically. The campus loony left is trying to sever the university from its deepest roots, all in the name of shame left-wing diversity.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Southern Methodist University has made a fool of itself by traducing common decency in the name of, yes, sensitivity and diversity. From the Dallas Morning News:

The daughter of one of the Dallas police officers killed during the July 7 ambush was told she was no longer invited to hit an honorary serve at a volleyball game at Southern Methodist University “in light of recent events and diversity within the SMU community.”

The university has since apologized and re-extended the invitation, but it did not explain why the invite was spiked in the first place.

Heidi Smith shared the email she received from a university official Thursday night on Facebook. Her husband, 55-year-old Sgt. Michael Smith, was one of five officers killed by a lone gunman during an attack after a July protest. Nine other officers and two civilians were injured in the attack.

“Victoria was scheduled to serve an honorary serve at the SMU volleyball game this Saturday to honor her Dad,” Heidi Smith wrote in the post. “This is the email they sent me today to back out … I had to read it to Victoria after dinner tonight.”
The email said there would no longer be an honorary first serve at Saturday’s game against South Florida due to a communication breakdown and concerns about optics.

“The volleyball program was not correctly informed that this would be taking place at the game,” the email Smith shared reads. It continues saying that “the demonstration could be deemed insensitive.”

Can you believe that? Smith’s father was murdered by a racist black man who told police that he “wanted to kill white people” — and SMU officials were so worried that honoring this dead officer would be insensitive to black people on campus that they disinvited this fatherless child?

Contemptible. Utterly contemptible. This is exactly the kind of liberal provocation that is making America worse, and creating division where none need exist.

On a minor scale, but still telling, this e-mail went out to the faculty and staff of Rhodes College in Memphis from the administration:

Dear Rhodes Community,

After this week’s elections, we learned of incidents of verbal harassment between students on campus. We wanted to let you know that we have dealt with these issues quickly and appropriately.

Throughout this past week, you, as administrators, faculty, and staff (along with so many of our student leaders), have stood side by side, every day and night, to ensure that everyone at the college feels safe, valued, and wanted. We will accept nothing less, and we are extremely grateful for the hard work you are doing at Rhodes.

The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority and we will continue do everything within our power to ensure that all of our students have a secure place to live and learn.

If you have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us or other members of the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs teams.

Says the person who forwarded it to me:

Note that nowhere is “verbal harassment” or “dealt with these issues…appropriately” defined. And nowhere in our rulebook either. The administrators and students have a lot of leeway in defining bad behavior, and the punishment is…? I’m trying to find out from colleagues and students with no luck.

The “students must feel safe” business bothers me because our campus is in a high crime city where theft, robbery, assault, carjacking, and shootings, even of colleagues and students are common. Nary a word about that kind of safety though. Violence off campus just evens out millennia of white supremacy I guess.