Culturally Responsive Education

Penna Dexter The U.S. Department of Education recently proposed a regulation that would direct funding for K-12 civics education toward “culturally responsive teaching and learning.” Sounds like your typical diversity push. But it isn’t. In his primer on culturally responsive education, New York University Professor David Kirkland declares that “the dominant systems and ideologies which centered around Anglo-European-Judeo-cis-hetero-male whiteness” are…

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States v. NCAA

Penna Dexter Legislators in Alabama recently passed, and sent to their governor, a law prohibiting K-12 schools from allowing biological boys to participate in girls’ sports. That same week, North Dakota passed a similar bill. Other states — about 30 altogether — are considering or have already enacted legislation to protect girls’ sports and to prevent female athletes from losing medals,…

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Infrastructure Plan

Penna Dexter The president has released his $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan. He wants bipartisan buy-in and it’s true that infrastructure bills often pass with strong bipartisan support. But, when we think of infrastructure, we think of airports, ports, waterways, bridges, and highway systems. Only about 7 percent of the proposed spending for this plan is devoted to such projects. Add…

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What Everyone Sees

Penna Dexter The Equality Act has passed the House of Representatives and awaits a Senate vote. It’s a priority for the president who says he wants it passed in his first 100 days. The law makes sexual orientation and gender identity protected categories under civil rights law. Elevating public protections for LGBTQ activities diminishes protections for religious people and organizations….

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Military Gender Policy

Penna Dexter Flanked by a couple of female generals, President Biden spoke recently at an event marking International Women’s Day. In comments on the speech, Fox News host Tucker Carlson wondered how the military’s focus on placing women in combat and procuring maternity flight suits is really going to help us deal with the rising Chinese military threat. Considering this…

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Worth It?

Penna Dexter Studies are surfacing that show us how effective the shutdowns implemented in response to COVID-19 really were in saving lives.  Were the results worth the dramatic drop in private-sector employment, the lost businesses, the forgone dreams?  Are states with stricter lockdowns more effective in preventing deaths from COVID-19? Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation points out…

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Who’s in Charge?

Penna Dexter The early battles in the new Congress concern how much authority this new progressive government will amass unto itself. HR1 would transfer to the federal government the traditional role of states in running their elections. The Equality Act would require public and private institutions nationwide to privilege LGBT identities over common sense and religious liberties. As lawmakers fight…

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Transgender Moment

Penna Dexter On three successive days last week, three disturbing stories appeared in my inbox. The first reported that Amazon is blocking sales of the book, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. The author is Ryan Anderson, who made a name for himself as a brilliant scholar at the Heritage Foundation and was recently appointed president of…

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Gender Factory

Penna Dexter It’s well known that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, supplying over half of all reported U.S. abortions. But the organization’s annual report shows that it’s also the second largest provider of hormone therapy to individuals who identify as transgender or who have gender dysphoria. Although this is called Gender Affirming Hormone Therapy, there’s no effort…

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Fifteen-Dollar Minimum Wage

Penna Dexter A fifteen-dollar per hour minimum wage has been a dream of the Left for a while now. Such an arbitrary number. Why not $50? Why not $100? If the goal is to “lift people out of poverty”, the higher the better, right? Not really. This kind of mandate would result in more people earning $0 an hour. Heritage…

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Marriage is Best

Penna Dexter Valentine’s Day brought a couple of small COVID-style weddings among people I love. It’s refreshing that these couples decided not to wait out the pandemic to have big splashy events. This is an era where lots of couples are postponing marriage, sometimes for years, until they can “afford” the wedding. University of Texas sociology professor Mark Regnerus’s new…

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