Virginia

Virginia Candidates Show You Can Try to Kill DEI, But You’ll Fail

Published

5 months ago

June 23, 2025

Virginia Candidates Show You Can Try to Kill DEI, But You’ll Fail

VIRGINIANS HAVE CHOSEN THEIR CANDIDATES for this fall’s election—and if you are trying to murder DEI, they are your worst nightmare. The demographic diversity is spectacular in both parties.

In a state whose first two governors were Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, two women will face off for the top job: former congresswoman and CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, a white Democrat, and Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, a black Republican, Jamaican immigrant, and Marine Corps veteran.

In the lieutenant governor race, it’s conservative talk-radio host John Reid, a Republican who recently came out as gay, vs. Democratic state Sen. Ghazala F. Hashmi, an Indian immigrant. As for attorney general, Democrat Jerrauld “Jay” Jones, a black former state legislator, will challenge the Hispanic Republican incumbent, Jason Miyares.

Is this (still) a great country or what?

When I read off those candidate demographics out loud, one straight white male in my vicinity joked that “this just proves everything’s turned to shit for white men.” And we all burst out laughing.

Don’t get me wrong, the Donald Trump–MAGA war on diversity, equity, and inclusion is deadly serious. The truth is that if those half-dozen people were Pentagon leaders instead of politicians running in a general election, they’d be ousted by now or, at the least, apprehensive about their career futures. If they were historic figures celebrated on federal websites, those pages would likely be wiped. If they were researchers in neglected health fields, their grants would be gone. Project leaders in “shithole” countries and continents, gone—them, their projects, and their web presence.

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The same day the Virginia results were finalized last week, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming treatment for transgender minors. The straight-up ideological 6–3 majority said the ban did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And the Trump administration said it was canceling specialized guidance for LGBTQ callers on a national suicide hotline.

And yet, a couple of days earlier, federal judge William Young ruled that the Trump administration must immediately restore some eight hundred grants awarded by the National Institutes for Health to study topics such as racial disparities and transgender health. “I’ve sat on this bench now for forty years, and I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this. Is it true of our society as a whole, have we fallen so low? Have we no shame?” the Boston-based district judge asked in announcing his decision.

Young is 84. He was appointed by conservative hero Ronald Reagan. And in those remarks, Young was paraphrasing the line that finally brought down Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his “Red Scare” conspiracy hunts and blacklists that ruined so many lives and careers.

BACK IN THE SUMMER OF 2016, when Trump was the newly crowned Republican nominee, a federal appeals court struck down a North Carolina voting law that was written expressly, and with astonishingly open intent, to suppress black votes. I wrote a column about it, and a colleague put the word “racism” in the headline. I was squeamish but didn’t say no.

I still hesitate to use “racism,” or “racist,” and yet what else could it have been in that case? North Carolina lawmakers requested a study of racial voting patterns and then killed or restricted IDs, time periods, registration methods, and anything else black people relied on disproportionately to cast votes. You can argue that it was a partisan move, designed to ensure victory. But zeroing in on one race—ensuring that it’s hard for black people to vote—is racism on its face.

That was before the 2016 election, and at the time, I believed and wrote that Republicans had been “accelerating their march to demographic suicide since Trump blared his hostility toward Muslims, Hispanics and immigrants on the first day of his campaign.” Though Trump won the Electoral College and the presidency, Hillary Clinton beat him by nearly 3 million votes that year.

It’s embarrassing to read that line now, especially after Trump grew his appeal to minority voters last year. Lots of people have sought to understand why that happened, and I won’t try to explain it here. I can only hope that it will fade as Trump continually overreaches on every front.

The disruptions and dangers to health care, immigrants, tariffs, corruption, war and peace, higher education, libraries, museums, and the entire system of checks and balances are manifest. There’s hating on science while crushing on dictators, the abuse of pardon power and obnoxious favoritism toward red states, political allies, anyone who adores him and/or pays him off.

And, of course, Trump’s travel bans and restrictions against countries that are mostly black and brown, in contrast with the several dozen poor, pitiful white people of South Africa, ceremonially invited and welcomed into the United States to escape their oppression, indeed their genocide (both thoroughly discredited).

I’m getting less squeamish all the time about the words “racism” and “racist.” The labels “white supremacist” and “white nationalist.” And the bald truths about attacks on DEI called out by a Reagan judge born 84 years ago.

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Virginia

Postseason Bowl Projections for Virginia Football After Win Over Virginia Tech

Published

3 hours ago

November 30, 2025

Press Room

Postseason Bowl Projections for Virginia Football After Win Over Virginia Tech

A football player in a navy blue uniform running with a brown football while a player in white tries to tackle him — Nov 29, 2025; Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; Virginia Cavaliers wide receiver Kameron Courtney (5) is pushed out of bounds after a catch by Virginia Tech Hokies cornerback Thomas Williams (23) in the second quarter at Scott Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images / Geoff Burke-Imagn Images

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Virginia, Duke to play for ACC title: Could the conference miss the Playoff?

Published

22 hours ago

November 30, 2025

Press Room

Virginia, Duke to play for ACC title: Could the conference miss the Playoff?

Next week’s ACC championship game won’t include the league’s best team. It will instead feature a doomsday scenario that could leave the power conference out of the College Football Playoff entirely.

First, the matchup: No. 18 Virginia vs. unranked Duke. The Cavaliers (10-2, 7-1 ACC) easily earned their spot with Saturday night’s 27-7 triumph over Virginia Tech. J’Mari Taylor rushed for a touchdown and threw for another in the first half, and the defense forced seven three-and-outs and snagged two interceptions in the Hokies’ first 10 drives to put the Cavaliers in the conference title game for the first time since 2019.

“This is what we came here for,” Cavaliers head coach Tony Elliott said on the ESPN broadcast. “Just super proud of the staff, super proud of the players, but we have four more quarters.”

Those four quarters are, surprisingly, against Duke, which ended up atop a log jam of five other teams with two conference losses (joining Miami, Pitt, SMU, Georgia Tech) … even though the Blue Devils were the only one unranked by the CFP selection committee.

Duke’s first appearance in the ACC championship since 2013 opens the door for a disastrous scenario for the conference. The CFP’s protocol does not guarantee a bid to every Power 4 conference. Rather, it reserves a spot for the five top conference champions, regardless of their league. Duke’s resume includes defeats against UConn, Illinois and Tulane. If the Blue Devils beat Virginia, the CFP selection committee could snub the ACC’s champion in favor of whoever wins the American Conference (Tulane or North Texas) and James Madison (11-1 entering next week’s Sun Belt championship) for the fourth and fifth automatic bids. The Mountain West’s champion (San Diego State, New Mexico, Boise State or UNLV) could also have a case.

The Athletic’s Playoff projection model gives Duke a 47 percent chance of winning the ACC title game, but just a 7 percent chance of making the Playoff — while James Madison has a 47 percent chance.

No. 12 Miami is regarded as the ACC’s top team, but losses to SMU and Louisville put the Hurricanes in a complicated web of tiebreakers despite Saturday’s 38-7 triumph at No. 22 Pitt.

The No. 21 Mustangs (8-4, 6-2) were in the best position to join Virginia in Charlotte, N.C., next week. All they had to do was beat a 6-5 Cal team led by interim coach Nick Rolovich to play for the ACC title for a second consecutive year.

They could not. SMU lost a wild game 38-35 on the road despite making a furious comeback. The Mustangs trailed by 17 early in the fourth quarter but scored touchdowns on four consecutive drives to take the lead with 2:22 to go. Cal’s standout freshman quarterback, Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, led the Golden Bears on a 75-yard drive, and Kendrick Raphael twisted out of a would-be tackle and past the goal line for the winning score with 43 seconds remaining. SMU missed a 52-yard field goal in the closing seconds, sealing the loss.

CAL COMPLETES THE UPSET OVER SMU‼️ pic.twitter.com/8r9VenWZ2o
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) November 30, 2025

The Mustangs’ defeat gave the final spot to Duke, which did its part Saturday afternoon with a 49-32 win over Wake Forest. The Blue Devils (7-5, 6-2) recovered three fumbles, and quarterback Darian Mensah threw for two touchdowns to pass Maalik Murphy for the Blue Devils’ single-season record (28). Mensah also rushed for a touchdown.

Regardless of who wins the ACC, Miami would still have a shot at making the field as an at-large team. That bubble is crowded, too, however, as the Hurricanes compete against the likes of Notre Dame (which Miami beat), Alabama, BYU and Texas.

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Where to watch #5 Texas Tech vs. West Virginia football today on free streams, TV

Published

2 days ago

November 29, 2025

Press Room

Where to watch #5 Texas Tech vs. West Virginia football today on free streams, TV

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The 5th-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders look to stay the course to make a national title run with a schedule that takes them to Morgantown to face the West Virginia Mountaineers in their season finale. The game is scheduled to start at noon ET with TV coverage on ESPN and streaming on-demand.

How to watch #5 Texas Tech vs. West Virginia on TV and stream without cable:

When: Saturday, Nov. 29 at noon ET
Where: Milan Puskar Stadium, Morgantown, W.Va.
TV channel: ESPN
Streaming on: FuboTV (free trial) | DirecTV (free trial) | SlingTV (low intro rate) | ESPN Unlimited ($29.99/mo.)

#5 Texas Tech vs. West Virginia: The matchup

Texas Tech has just one little hiccup to this point in its campaign, a 26-22 road loss to then-unranked Arizona State on Oct. 18, but has otherwise looked the part of a contender with an offense that ranks No. 3 nationally in scoring (42.6 ppg) and a defense that ranks No. 4 in the same category (12.3 ppg). Not only that, but the Red Raiders are No. 3 in turnover margin and No. 1 defending the run, showing few statistical weaknesses in their bid to win the Big 12 and secure prime position in the playoff bracket.

See also: College football coverage on PennLive

Meanwhile, West Virginia is showing its teeth late in the season after a five-game losing streak mid-season derailed coach Rich Rodriguez’s reunion season in Morgantown. The Mountaineers are 4-7 overall with a surprising early win over current No. 22 Pitt (31-24) and road win more recently over then-No. 22 Houston (45-35) on Nov. 1 that they followed with a 29-22 win over Deion Sanders and Colorado. The possibility of a three-game win streak slipped away last weekend in Tempe with a 25-23 loss to Arizona State.

#5 Texas Tech vs. West Virginia: Know your live streams

FuboTV (free trial): Offers most extensive package of live sports with rates competitive with DirecTV. The FuboTV Pro Package ($54.99) includes ESPN Unlimited, but the Elite with Sports Plus package ($74.99) is required for NFL Red Zone. Monthly rates rise to $84.99 and $104.99 after that.

DirecTV (free trial): DirecTV offers a 5-day free trial and $49.99 first month ($89.99 after) with a current offer for $40 off the first full month. DirecTV’s Entertainment package ($49.99) carries ESPN Unlimited and NFL Red Zone on its channel lineup.

SlingTV (low intro rate): Full month of streaming runs as low as $45.99 with day passes available for 24 hours ($4.99), Friday-Sunday ($9.99) and 7-day access ($14.99). Most noteworthy omission is CBS, which carries college football and NFL games.

ESPN Unlimited ($29.99 bundle): ESPN has a new, standalone package that includes ABC broadcasts, all of ESPN’s sports channels, and access to ESPN+. For a limited time, ESPN can be bundled with Disney Plus and Hulu for $29.99 per month. This package is included free in select FuboTV and DirecTV plans, along with other TV providers.

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