Photo credit: UVa Today
The Mike Pompeo speech Monday night to an audience of 400 at Alumni Hall was a great success. View the speech in the video above. And read an excellent account of it in UVA Today.
Many thanks to our collaborators in putting on this event: the Young America’s Foundation, the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and the College Republicans-UVa.
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
As previously announced, Mike Pompeo is coming to the University of Virginia Sept. 25 to speak on the topic, “Talk softly but carry America with you: Inside negotiations on the world stage.” Registration is now open!
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
Save the date: Monday, September 25
Time: 7:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m.
Location: Newcomb Hall Ballroom
Former Secretary of State and Director of the CIA Mike Pompeo will speak on the topic, “Talk softly but carry America with you: Inside negotiations on the world stage.”
Michael R. Pompeo served as the 70th Secretary of State of the United States, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was elected to four terms in Congress representing the Fourth District of Kansas. Mike graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986. He served as a cavalry officer in the U.S. Army, leading troops patrolling the Iron Curtain. He left the military in 1991 and then graduated from Harvard Law School, having served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Up next was almost a decade leading two manufacturing businesses in South Central Kansas – first in the aerospace industry and then making energy drilling and production equipment.
Please join us for what promises to be an exciting evening listening to one of America’s premier statesmen of the last half century.
SPONSORS: The College Republicans, The University of Virginia Center for Politics, The Jefferson Council for the University of Virginia, Young America’s Foundation.
We will post a registration link shortly.
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
Stanley Goldfarb. Photo credit: Do No Harm
In no field of scientific endeavor has the woke revolution made greater inroads than medicine. Militant leftist ideology and its administrative handmaiden, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, are transforming the practice of clinical medicine and medical research into subsidiaries of the “social justice” movement.
From locking down society during COVID-19, to promoting transgender surgery for minors, to agitating against “systemic” racism, America’s healthcare system has become thoroughly politicized.
We know what many of you are thinking – “I agree it’s terrible, but what can I do about it?”
Here’s a place to start. Attend a July 12 speech by Stanley Goldfarb, founder of Do No Harm and author of “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns: Why Turning Doctors into Social Justice Warriors is Destroying American Medicine.” He will address the topic, “How to Save Medicine from Identity Politics.”
The event will begin 6:00 p.m. with a reception at the Boar’s Head Inn, followed by Goldfarb’s speech. Click here for details. Continue reading
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
From our friends at the Alumni Free Speech Alliance
Topic: AFSA Special Event w/ Amna Khalid & Jeffrey Snyder
Time: Jun 6, 2023 05:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84843986828
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
Photo credit: Bob Turner
Speaking to a packed house in the Minor Hall auditorium at the University of Virginia last night, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will traced the rise of the totalitarian movement on college campuses. Contemporary totalitarian thought, which arises from the conviction that human behavior is infinitely malleable and that all ills in society can be traced to flawed institutions and pernicious cultural traits, seeks to control every aspect of human culture. Only by ridding society of those flaws can humanity be perfected and justice achieved. Those hewing to this view, Will opined, invariably seek to enhance the power of government at the expense of individual liberty.
Will contrasted the view of a malleable and perfectible man with the notion that there is such a thing as human nature, and that that nature makes humans stubbornly resistant to the efforts of intellectual and political elites to perfect them. From this view arises the doctrine of natural rights and the Jeffersonian idea of government instituted to secure those rights. In this tradition of thought, the rights of individuals supersede the will of the majority.
The perfectibility paradigm rules in higher education today. The increasing threats to free speech and free inquiry in academia flow naturally from the conviction that undesirable ideas and cultural traits cause harm by thwarting progress toward a progressive utopia.
Read the written version of Will’s speech (without digressions) here.
UVA TODAY covers the Will speech: “‘Free and Fearless Inquiry’ Must Prevail on College Campuses, George Will Urges“
Posted in Speakers, Panels and Events
Register for the Livestream Debate, 1:30pm EST, Wed, May 3, 2023:
“Protecting Academic Freedom at U.S. Universities: Do Proposed Policies in Florida Make Sense?”
Many educational leaders have become acutely concerned that Academic Freedom and Free Expression are being abandoned at U.S. universities. In recent years, educational priorities seem to have shifted from researching and teaching “academic knowledge & objective truth” to the promotion of “political activism & social justice.” Many see this educational “mission drift” as seriously undermining the fundamental purpose of U.S. universities – while others see such political activism in curricula and research as bringing necessary change to American society and culture. Continue reading
For your convenience, here’s the complete line-up of speakers at the Second Annual Meeting of the Jefferson Council in order of appearance, with links to videos of their presentations.
Allan Stam, professor at the Batten School of Leadership: “What’s at Stake: a National Perspective.”
Bert Ellis: co-founder of the Jefferson Council; president emeritus; and member of the University of Virginia Board of Visitors: Welcome and opening remarks
Connor Murnane, director of engagement and mobilization for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): “Culture or Codes: Promoting Free Expression on Campus” Continue reading
