RattleBag and Rhubarb

Wings of Wax, Feet of Clay

When Claudine Gay resigned as President of Harvard this week the gloating by some conservative activists and commentators was unappealing to put it mildly.  Their unseemly glee seemed vindictive and disproportionate. It said more about them and their agenda than it did about Dr. Gay and the dysfunction at Harvard. When Gay did herself few favors with her NYTimes guest…

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Dismantle DEI

Dismantle DEI was first published as Dismantling DEI, Ideology, and Some Modest Proposals to Reimagine Purpose by Intrepid Ed News from OESIS Dismantling DEI, Ideology, and Some Modest Proposals to Reimagine Purpose Change always involves a dark night when everything falls apart. Yet if this period of dissolution is used to create new meaning, then chaos ends and a new…

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RattleBag and Rhubarb

Five Things: DEI, Poem, Memoir, Library, Anti-Semitism, and Street Thugs

One Last week IntrepidEd News published another of my pieces. This one is about how schools are on the front line of the political and emotional turmoil of these times. The world is in crisis and schools are in the middle of it. Schools are on the front line in an emotionally charged space where existential threats amplify parental worries…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, The Sex Wars

When DEI means Deny, Exclude, Intrude

The daily stroll last week took us down Claremont Avenue where large picture window affords a passing glimpse into a college classroom at Barnard.  A young teacher was talking while on the large screen was a slide headed “Principles of Democracy”. Only the top bullet had been revealed – “Inclusion”.  Perhaps I jumped to a wrong conclusion but that gave…

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