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Hala Rharrit, the Arabic-language spokesperson for the State Department, has quit in protest against U.S. support for Israel in the war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza who murdered 1200 in an unprovoked terror attack on October 7.
The post State Department Arabic Spox Quits to Protest U.S. Support for Israel appeared first on Breitbart.
An Ecuadoran national was allowed to visit the United States on a visa despite being wanted for rape in his native country, federal officials reveal.
The post Biden’s America: Ecuadoran Man Allowed to Visit U.S. Despite Being Wanted for Rape appeared first on Breitbart.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the Biden administration's reported decision Saturday to slap sanctions on a unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for alleged human rights abuses against Palestinians in the past.
The post ‘A Moral Low’: Netanyahu Slams Biden Decision to Sanction Religious IDF Unit appeared first on Breitbart.
State Department Principal Deputy Press Secretary Vedant Patel confirmed Thursday that the U.S. will veto a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution that would have allowed Palestinians to achieve recognition of statehood.
The post State Dept.: U.S. Will Veto Palestinian Statehood at United Nations appeared first on Breitbart.
The federal government increasingly looks like an Ivy League classroom, combining therapy for fragile souls with indoctrination into specious ideology.
Nowhere is this more apparent than at the State Department, where employees are encouraged to take courses in the name of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or DEIA, that stress their differences, trauma, and status on the victim-oppressor continuum.
As reported by The Daily Wire, the State Department spent a whopping $77 million on DEIA programs last year for its staffing shop, the Bureau of Global Talent Management.
Just this past month, the State Department offered a training session called “Unveiling the Hidden Wounds: Exploring Racial Trauma and Minority Stress.” It promised a “space for empathy” where “voices are heard, wounds are acknowledged, and action is taken towards justice and equity.”
Then there was “A Conversation on Racial Equity and Social Justice” with Bryan Stevenson, who pulled in $55,000 in donations per minute for a single TED Talk.
Employees could also take the half-day course “Intersectional Gender Analysis Training,” which “explores how gender and systems of power shape an individual’s lived experience.” Alternatively, they could attend a seminar called “Embrace Equity and Inspire Change” or a series of female empowerment sessions such as “Elevating Women in Technology and Beyond.”
Anticipating resistance, the State Department offered the course “Understanding Backlash to DEIA and How to Address It,” in which psychologist Kimberly Rios claimed to “highlight evidence demonstrating that DEIA initiatives can challenge the power, values, status, belonging, and cultural identity of dominant group members, particularly White Americans whose racial identity is important to their sense of self.” Rios will do this, the announcement said with unwitting irony, “to promote intergroup harmony.”
Government employees are required to take a variety of training courses to advance in their careers. Even five years ago, most of these were about doing your job better—courses on leadership, management, and other skills. But in the “woke” era, employees are also subjected to ideological sessions such as those mentioned above.
Given what all these courses and speakers cost taxpayers to provide, is there any evidence that they are based on sound information or that they improve the workforce?
Let’s examine one offering more closely.
The State Department runs a “DEIA Distinguished Scholar Speaker Series” that “highlights cutting-edge scientific research,” under which the agency recently brought in Yale professor John Dovidio to give a talk titled “Racism Among the Well-Intentioned—Challenges and Solutions.”
In a 2013 speech, Dovidio said: “About 80% of white Americans will say they are not sexist or they’re not racist … but work with the IAT will show that 60% to 75% of the population are both racist and sexist at an implicit level.”
So, what is this “IAT” that Dovidio cites?
Harvard’s Implicit Association Test is a favorite tool of social scientists who want to prove that people are inherently racist and sexist. This is a necessary premise for critical race theory, which posits that nebulous concepts such as “structural bias” and “systems of oppression” can explain all variances in performance between racial groups rather than individual factors such as education, industry, and behavior. The Implicit Association Test offers the evidence the Left needs to support this theory.
But the Implicit Association Test isn’t an accepted measure of bias. One of its own inventors said, “I and my colleagues and collaborators do not call the IAT results a measure of implicit prejudice [or] implicit racism.”
And in a 2015 review, Hart Blanton of Texas A&M wrote that “all of the meta-analyses converge on the conclusion that … IAT scores are not good predictors of ethnic or racial discrimination and explain, at most, small fractions of the variance in discriminatory behavior in controlled laboratory setting.”
In a 2021 academic paper, Ulrich Schimmack came to the same conclusion, writing that “IATs are widely used without psychometric evidence of construct or predictive validity.”
As far back as 2008, in an article for the American Psychological Association, Beth Azar wrote that a person’s scores on the Implicit Association Test “often change from one test to another.” German Lopez, writing for Vox, took the test two days apart and found that in the first, he “had a slight automatic preference for white people,” and in the second, “a slight automatic preference … in favor of black people.”
Summing up, Greg Mitchell of the University of Virginia said, “The IAT is not yet ready for prime time.”
That’s hardly a firm foundation for using taxpayers’ money to train federal staff in a worldview that will affect their careers and lives. And of course, all of the hours employees spend auto-flagellating with critical race theory is paid time they are not working on matters of national interest.
One can’t put too much blame on race merchants such as Dovidio, Ibram X. Kendi, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Nikole Hannah-Jones for simply trying to sell their product. But the question is: Why is the government buying it with our money?
Taxpayer-funded institutions shouldn’t pay for courses and speakers whose premises are contentious and whose efforts won’t measurably improve the workforce.
Federal employees are free to explore social theory on their own time. On our dime, they should get on with their real job.
Originally published by the Washington Examiner
The post Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Fund State Department’s DEI Pseudoscience appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The State Department said on Wednesday that while the Biden administration remains committed to a “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians, it opposes the Palestinian effort to negotiate statehood at the United Nations.
The post Biden Administration Opposes Palestinian Effort to Win Statehood at U.N. But May Withhold Veto appeared first on Breitbart.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued an official statement recognizing "Transgender Day of Visibility" on Sunday, as the Biden administration faces backlash for celebrating it on the same day as Easter, one of the holiest days in the Christian religion.
The post Secretary of State Antony Blinken Praised Trans People for ‘Courage and Resilience’ on Easter Day appeared first on Breitbart.
Nigeria’s police chief on Thursday ordered around-the-clock enhanced security at public venues across the country throughout the Easter weekend, fearing religious violence in a country where Christians are under almost constant attack.
The post Nigeria, World’s Most Dangerous Place to Be Christian, Prepares for Easter appeared first on Breitbart.
Wall Street Journal reporter and American citizen Evan Gershkovich marked one year in captivity as a hostage of Russia on March 29.
The post American Reporter Evan Gershkovich Marks One Year as Russian Hostage appeared first on Breitbart.
Chinese dictator Xi Jinping met with a group of visiting U.S. business leaders in Beijing on Wednesday, making a bid to lure much-needed foreign investment back into China’s flagging economy. Xi promised the economy would stabilize, and said overseas businessmen need not fear persecution by his authoritarian government.
The post Xi Jinping Hosts Personal Sit-Down with U.S. Business Leaders in Desperate Bid to Lift Chinese Economy appeared first on Breitbart.
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