11-18: "Ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian," imputed the Trumpian dean; Meanwhile, OC Covid numbers go up, up, up while Supes carp about state limits and defiant GOP governors spawn major health crises

✅ Dean Who Said Biden Voters Don't Meet His ‘Standards’ Resigns 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     A dean who criticized supporters of Joe Biden as “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian” has resigned from his leadership position and his professorship at Virginia Wesleyan University, the institution announced this week. Paul Ewell, former dean of Virginia Wesleyan’s Global Campus and former professor of management, business and economics, made the controversial statements on Facebook, where he asked Biden supporters and Democrats to unfriend him, alleging that they had “corrupted” the recent election, “our youth” and the country. “I have standards and you don’t meet them,” Ewell wrote on his personal Facebook page, images of which were circulated online. “I wouldn’t hang out with you in real life, I don’t want to hang out with you virtually either.” 

     Ewell apologized for his comments as unbecoming of a Christian and asked for forgiveness in a statement to the college newspaper. An email from Virginia Wesleyan president Scott Miller to the university's governing board, obtained by the local Virginian-Pilot, says, “While we respect Dr. Ewell’s right to free speech, his comments, particularly coming from a dean of the institution, contradict the values and culture that are such a valued part of who we are.” 

     President Trump retweeted a news story about Ewell's comments, saying, "Progress!" 

✅ UC's New Gender Pronoun and Lived Name Policy 

—Inside Higher Ed 

     The University of California has new, systemwide gender identity and name options for UC-issued documents and information systems, it said Tuesday. The university system “continues to fully embrace diversity in our country,” said President Michael V. Drake, announcing the new policy. John A. Pérez, chair of the UC Board of Regents, said as the state’s third-largest employer, “UC’s recognition of nonbinary gender identities and lived names supports broader transgender rights, which has been a long time coming for California and the nation.” 

     University students, employees, alumni, retirees, vendors, medical center patients and others may now choose from man, woman or nonbinary gender identification options on official documents. They may also choose a lived name, or preferred name, that differs from their legal name, as a default for all documents. The legal name will be kept confidential and not published. 

✅ The Outrage Peddlers Are Here to Stay 

Campus Reform, a website that calls out professors for spreading “liberal bias,” has become mainstream. And higher education is learning to live with that. 

—CHE 

✅ California State University faculty, administrators remain at odds over ethnic studies requirement -- California State University took another step Tuesday toward requiring students to take an ethnic studies class as part of their lower-division coursework, a move that would also have significant implications for the state’s 115 degree-granting community colleges. Michael Burke EdSource -- 11/18/20 

✅ These governors' states are in crisis after they resisted masks and Covid-19 rules 

—CNN 

     …[South Dakota] Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican in office since 2019, has adopted much of the language of President Donald Trump during the pandemic…She has resisted restrictions on gatherings and given credence to those who question whether masks are helpful in stopping an airborne virus…. 

     Noem has also encouraged crowded gatherings with no social distancing, in particular at a Trump rally at Mount Rushmore in July. 

     The results have been devastating health-wise. South Dakota has averaged more than 1,400 new coronavirus cases per day over the past week in a state with about 885,000 people. Adjusted for population, it's the second-highest number of new average cases in the country. The state's seven-day positivity rate is a stunning 58%, and more people are hospitalized per capita than in any other state, according to the Covid Tracking Project. 

     Jodi Doering, a nurse at a South Dakota emergency room, said some people dying at the hospital are still in denial about the virus. 

     "They don't want to believe that Covid is real," she said. "Their last dying words are, 'This can't be happening. It's not real.' "

✅ The Trumpiest and most anti-Trump counties in California: Where does yours rank? -- November’s election results showed that most of California’s Democratic counties moved further away from President Donald Trump — and the bulk of its Republican counties did too. Ben Christopher CalMatters -- 11/17/20

The trend is bad; OC Supes don't seem to get it. They're Republicans. They don't believe in science and they condone pussy-grabbing and constant prevarication. God help us.