Happy Tuesday!
Today’s Brew could be called “Reversing Course.”
Update: Elementary School Will Allow Interfaith Prayer Club
Last month, we told you about an elementary school in Sammamish, Washington, that rejected two fifth-graders’ requests to start an interfaith prayer club. Oh, sure, the school allows a Pride club and all sorts of others — but a prayer club? Not so much.
First Liberty Institute took on the cause, and convinced Creekside Elementary School administrators to change their minds. “We are very pleased that the Issaquah School District is allowing our clients to start a prayer club at their school this spring,” First Liberty’s Kayla Toney said in a statement. “This is a victory for students of all faiths and a reminder that people of faith have a constitutional right to express their religious beliefs and pray, even in a public school setting.”
Reversal: UNC-Chapel Hill Diverts DEI Funding to Campus Security
The DEI racket is running its course. You can now add the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to the list of major universities nationwide that are moving away from the toxic “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” initiatives. Yesterday, the school’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to divert $2.3 million away from DEI programs to “public safety.”
Marty Kotis, a member of the university’s board, is definitely on board with that idea. “I think that DEI in a lot of people’s minds is ‘divisiveness, exclusion, and indoctrination,’” he said. “We need more unity and togetherness, more dialogue, more diversity of thought.”
According to a local public radio station, WUNC, many board members pointed to the anti-Israel protests that rocked campus last month as a reason for shifting the money to campus safety.
So the same woke agitators that pushed DEI just help push DEI out.
UNC’s not done yet, though. WRAL reports that the system’s Board of Governors is expected to vote next week to eliminate diversity goals and jobs at member institutions. A Board of Governors policy revised last month calls for each school in the UNC system to certify by September 1 that it “fully complies with the university’s commitment to institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.”
Reversal: Two Virginia Schools Change Names to Honor Confederate Military Leaders
One of the ill effects of the post-George Floyd, BLM-sponsored riots of 2020 was the rush to change the names of schools honoring Confederate and other historical (but now disfavored) leaders. One of the positive effects of voters paying attention to school board elections, not to mention a bit of distance from the mindless cowering to BLM, is the chance to set things right.
The newly elected (and now conservative) school board in Shenandoah County, Virginia, has voted 5-1 to reverse a previous decision and give Stonewall Jackson High School and Ashby Lee Elementary back their original names. Stonewall Jackson had become Mountain View High while Ashby Lee’s name had been changed to Honey Run.
The new board members said their predecessors had made the name changes without sufficient consideration of public opinion or due process.
This story emphasizes again the importance of conservatives and people of faith voting — and running, if called — for seat on school boards and other often-ignored offices. (Keep your eyes peeled in upcoming days for a multipart series from author John Amanchukwu on this very topic, and how to go about it, on The Stream.)
Reversal: Snopes FINALLY Acknowledges Ashley Biden Diary Is Authentic
The left-leaning fact-checker outlet Snopes has finally admitted Ashley Biden’s diary is the real deal. Up until now, Snopes has listed its legitimacy as “unproven.” Even after its emergence, even after President Joe Biden’s FBI raided journalists who had gotten hold of it, even after the arrest of a woman for “stealing” and trying to sell it, and even after the woman was convicted, Snopes had repeated that mantra. Only now that a letter Ashley Biden wrote in April to a judge presiding over a case related to the diary has been made public is Snopes admitting it is legit.
Why would Snopes wait until there was absolutely no choice? Because of the off chance the media would actually pay attention to what’s in the diary, and what Ashley wrote about the man who sits in the Oval Office. In conservative circles, we hear rumblings that she wrote about taking “probably not appropriate” showers with her father as she was growing up, but not as much attention has been paid to another line that raises many red flags: “My father was — message — I could get love from men” (emphasis Ashley’s.)
Methinks if the media really cared about women, girls, “Me Too,” and sexual abuse, they would be all over this story, especially now that even Snopes is admitting the diary is real.
Along The Stream
Stream cofounders James Robison and Jay Richards appeared on Charlie Kirk’s show last week to talk about their new book, Fight the Good Fight. We’ve got that appearance for you.
Plus our own Aliya Kuykendall shares a powerful video: “‘Why Wasn’t She Enough?’: Grieving Father Declares the Personhood of Aborted Daughter.”
Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.