THE ORIGINAL CHILDREN’S CRUSADES WERE CREEPY: Their modern incarnation is no different.

It’s hard to separate truth from legend when it comes to the 13^th century. But there does seem to be a kernel of truth to the story of the Children’s Crusades.

Stephen of Cloyes was evidently a real person.  And he appears to have been really 12 years old when he claimed to have received a message from God commanding him to lead a peaceful crusade to the Holy Land to convert Muslims to Roman Catholicism.

Stephen is said to have led an army of 30,000 children to Paris, where he demanded and received an audience with King Philip II. But Philip was not impressed with the little squirt. He declined to back Stephen’s grandiose plans. Stephen therefore decided to act without royal backing. Believing that the waters of the Mediterranean would part and that his followers could thus walk to the Holy Land, he led his army to Marseille.

There, the movement came to no good. The waters didn’t part. Legend has it that many were tricked into securing passage on a ship that took them to North Africa instead of the Holy Land, where they were promptly sold into slavery. Tough break, kids.

A similar movement appears to have been led by a boy named Nicholas of Cologne in Germany. There is even less known about it. But it was certainly no more successful.

Today we have Greta Thunberg, a now-16-year-old teenager with Asberger’s syndrome who lectures world leaders about climate change at Davos and at the European Parliament. Her parents really ought to be ashamed.

This week Greta did the British Parliament. And she helped lead traffic-disrupting protests in the London streets.  There is a Greta Thunberg cult out there today.

The only good news is that Theresa May did not show up for Greta’s meeting with British leaders. On other issues, the news about May has not been good lately. But so far at least, she, like King Philip II, is not taking her orders on climate change from a child.

WASHINGTON POST: “SRI LANKA’S MUSLIMS FEAR RETALIATION AFTER EASTER ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS”: Yes, of course, I sympathize with innocent Sri Lankan Muslims who fear that they will be associated and hence blamed for the sins of their ISIS co-religionists. But I’m not sure this is the most newsworthy angle on the Sri Lankan murders today. The victims are not even all in their graves. Shouldn’t we hear a bit more about them? Or about the royal screw-up of the Sri Lankan government, which had been warned that such an attack was being planned?

This appears to me to be another example of left-leaning journalists’ political usefulness bias. I suppose we all have such a bias, but given the disproportionate number of leftists in the media, it gets a little tedious.

You’d think that after the Washington Post’s howler of a headline (“Christianity under attack? Sri Lanka bombings stoke far-right anger in the West”) earlier in the week that it would want to avoid such criticism … but I guess not.

THE LATEST DUELING NEWS STORIES: The Guardian reports, “Immigration Detention Centers Nearly Empty as Trump Claims Border Crisis.” Meanwhile the New York Times, reports on “overburdened detention centers” in “ICE Faces Migrant Detention Crunch as Border Chaos Spills Into Interior of the Country.” Whatever.

For what it’s worth at this point, here’s what I saw when I visited two immigration detention centers a few years ago. I am hoping to visit another soon.

WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HOSTS NO-WHITES-ALLOWED FACULTY AND STAFF MEETINGS: It’s to promote inclusivity.  Of course it is.

WHAT?: Apparently, it’s not just a racial slur, but it’s also a criminal offense in Texas to accuse someone of making monkey faces?

NON-PARTISAN: “AP U.S. History Textbook Calls Trump ‘Racist,’ Questions His Mental Stability.”

ON THIS DAY IN 2014: The Supreme Court decided the absurdly named Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. In it, the Court held that it’s not unconstitutional for Michigan voters to prohibit the State of Michigan from engaging in race discrimination. Yes, it took the Supreme Court to decide that.

“MICROSOFT CONFUSES THE WORKPLACE WITH A WOKE PLACE”:  Make sure you read the last paragraph.

NEVER SAY NEVER: I really never thought I’d be praising Kim Kardashian. I’m not a celebrity-oriented kind of girl.  But her response to the celebrity college admissions scandal is actually praiseworthy: “If [my kids] couldn’t get into a school, I would never want to use privilege to try to force them into a situation that they wouldn’t thrive in anyway.”

Go, Ms. Kardashian!

Yes, if you’ve been reading Instapundit, you already know my view on race-preferential (or any other kind of preferential) admissions policies: that it’s a mistake for any student to attend a school where he or she doesn’t have a fighting chance at graduating at the top of class. What you didn’t know is that the fabulous Kim Kardashian and I are … uh … spiritual sisters (except for the killer sex appeal part).

“SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER,” THEY DEMANDED:  Williams College student newspaper demands segregated housing.

ACHIEVEMENT GAPS IN EDUCATION: No, you’re not going to fix them by blaming the schools.

DON’T ALL LIVES MATTER?: “Oregon county to pay black worker who complained about ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag $100K settlement.”

Chaser: Buttigieg now regrets having said “All lives matter.”

And by the way: Black crime victims matter too.

THE TRANSGENDER BATHROOM CONTROVERSY CONTINUES TO ROIL: In February of 2017, the Trump Administration (at the behest of Jeff Sessions) withdrew the Obama-Era guidance that required federally-funded schools to allow anatomical boys who psychologically identify as girls to use the girls’ bathrooms, showers and locker rooms (and vice versa). Sessions was right about the law (as I believe I explain here pretty thoroughly).

But people are still arguing about that issue. And even if the Supreme Court ultimately determines that Sessions was right, that only leaves each school district the discretion to choose a policy for itself. Here are links to some of the little and not-so-little battles being fought just in the last few weeks.

ANOTHER MEN’S COLLEGE DECIDES TO ACCEPT “TRANSGENDER MEN”: But it says that it expects all its students to identify as male throughout their stay. Transgender women are evidently not eligible for admissions.

Here’s an odd angle:  It is ordinarily thought that there are more biological males who identify as women than there are biological females who identify as men. Hence by accepting transgender men, but not transgender women, a men’s college may actually minimize the likelihood that it will have transgender students.

“THE BIG FAIL:  WHY BAR PASS RATES HAVE SUNK TO RECORD LOWS”:  Glenn linked to this article yesterday and pointed out the the biggest problem is the decline in law students’ entering academic credentials. I can only add what I hope is obvious: Assuming the credentials decline is the same across racial groups (and I believe it is), the lower the bar passage rate, the more problematic race-preferential admissions (and the problem of mismatch) will be.

MAX EDEN:  “Racial Resentment As Pedagogy.”

OF COURSE SHE DOES:  “Woman Who Assaulted Kellyanne Conway Skates.”

THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, AMERICAN STYLE, CONTINUES UNABATED:  Students demand that Camille Paglia be fired and replaced by a “queer person of color.”

THE SMARTEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THE PROBLEM OF INTEGRATING EX-FELONS INTO THE ECONOMY IS BY EMPLOYER TAX INCENTIVES: The dumbest way is the EEOC’s way—accusing employers who shy away from hiring ex-felons of race discrimination.

ZUCKERBERG FAMILY TO SPEND MILLIONS TO INCREASE MINORITY REPRESENTATION IN STEM: That’s nice. But eliminating mismatch would be more effective.

RIP:  Charles Van Doren, disgraced quiz show contestant, has died at the age of 93.

“WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE RISE OF RADICAL PARTISANSHIP IN CONGRESS?”: Over at the Federalist, Madeline Osburn is asking who killed civility in Congress. She resists (as she should) the usual story that it was Newt Gingrich. Instead, she reports that, according to Professor Kevin Portteus, the trend was already well underway in the 1970s.

I can add this: Part of the problem is that legislative compromise is a dying art in Congress. Why? Because one side (and for the examples that come to mind for me, that side is the GOP) has been repeatedly made into a chump when the compromise comes unraveled in the executive branch (through one-sided enforcement) or in the courts (through one-sided interpretation). The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is a good example. For many years at least the part that GOP favored most went unenforced, while the part the Democrats favored most was interpreted broadly and enforced vigorously. There are other examples.

When legislators feel like chumps, they start shying away from legislating. That gets them out of the habit of negotiating with their colleagues across the aisle. Instead, they spend their time posturing. That posturing in turn makes future negotiations more difficult. Alas, I don’t know how to solve this problem. Once trust is lost—whether in the context of a legislature or elsewhere—is it hard to regain.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  The Bataan Death March begins.

“CANDACE OWENS NUKES THE DEMOCRATS:”  Watch this. Really.

YOU WILL UNDERGO RACIAL SENSITIVITY TRAINING: When I was a child, teachers used to punish the whole class when they couldn’t identify an actual wrongdoer. It didn’t make us resolve to do better. Instead, it greatly annoyed us.

It will likely do the same to the tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff members who are going to be forced to undergo racial sensitivity training by the University of Tennessee. They, rather than the individuals in the tasteless photo on Instagram that triggered this response, are being punished. As Hans Bader points out in Liberty Unyielding, mass training like this costs millions of dollars in lost work and study time. But it’s worth it because … no wait … I can’t think why it would be worth it.

Bader has a lot more to say, including on some of the legal aspects of the situation. Read his whole post.

The aspect that bothers me is how counterproductive such training may be. Instead of increasing racial harmony, it may diminish it. As Rohini Anand and Mary-Frances Winters noted in a 2008 article in the Academy of Management Learning & Education: “Many interpreted the key learning point [from their diversity training] as having to walk on egg shells around women and minorities—choosing words carefully so as not to offend.” I’ve talked to many people who have undergone such training in recent years and drawn a similar conclusion.

People don’t like walking on eggshells. They will avoid contact with those who make them feel that way. It’s the precise opposite of what we want.

Why do employers and schools nevertheless insist on such training? As Bader points out, they may feel they reduce the likelihood of a lawsuit against them. Another interesting question is: Why do diversity advocates insist on it? Why not instead promote activities like sports and group projects that promote integration rather than convince students that race really does matter? Why not ask schools to promote integration by doing away with separate dormitories for racial groups and other kinds of campus separatism? My fear is that the answer is while diversity training may have started out as an effort to help achieve something worthwhile it has become simply a big business.

As Eric Hoffer famously said, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”