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EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVE
Quis magistros ipsos docebit? . |
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26 May, 2024
A University System Just Repealed Its DEI Policy
This week, the board of governors for the University of North Carolina (UNC) System voted to replace its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. The change will impact its 17 public universities across the state.
According to The Hill, the decision, made on Thursday, works to “ensure equality of all persons & viewpoints” and replace a previous policy implemented in 2019.
“Campuses shall continue to implement programming or services designed to have a positive effect on the academic performance, retention, or graduation of students from different backgrounds, provided that programming complies with the institutional neutrality specified in Section VII of this policy and/or other state and federal requirements,” the new policy reads.
ABC 11 noted that two board members voted against repealing the policy. One of them, Sonja Nichols, told the outlet that some voices were not heard during the process.
"DEI is for everybody," Nichols said. "As (someone who's) Black, as a woman, I've just always wanted to be (in) a situation where all the voices are heard. Everyone has an opportunity to express why they feel that the DEI policy was so important. It's been so important over the years."
Board of Governors Chair Randy Ramsey, who supported the repeal, told ABC11 in a statement that repealing DEI programs would promote intellectual freedom.
Before the decision, UNC Chapel Hill reportedly decided to divert its DEI funding to public safety.
The UNC system is the latest to reverse its decision to implement DEI. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that it will no longer require prospective faculty to submit a “diversity statement” during the interview process.
As Townhall covered, in their statements, candidates were required to explain how they would enhance the university’s commitment to diversity. These statements were generally a page long.
“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to M.I.T. and to make sure they thrive once here,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a statement. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”
In January, the Florida Department of Education approved a new rule that would prohibit state colleges from using public funding towards initiatives surrounding DEI.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2024/05/25/unc-dei-policies-n2639451
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Missouri School District Spends $61,000 to Ensure Math Class Is ‘Free of Bias’
A Missouri school district spent more than $61,000 on a new math curriculum that prioritizes “cultural, racial, and gender diversity.”
Webster Groves School District plans to roll out a new elementary math curriculum from Imagine Learning Illustrative Mathematics this fall. The school board approved spending $61,450 on the change at an April 25 meeting, according to a PowerPoint presentation posted on BoardDocs and reviewed by The Daily Signal.
The district chose the program for its “balance of images or information about people, representing various demographic and physical characteristics.” The district, in the wealthy suburbs west of St. Louis, has 10 schools and 4,409 students.
The selection criteria for the kindergarten through fifth-grade curriculum included that the “materials prioritize cultural, racial, and gender diversity and supports the Webster Groves School District Equity Resolution.”
The equity resolution, adopted in 2017, advertises Webster Groves’ commitment to “confront issues of bias and social injustice.”
The district used EdReports’ research in making the choice, which helped Webster Groves determine the curriculum encourages teachers to “draw upon student cultural and social backgrounds to facilitate learning.”
The curriculum “represent[s] different races and portray[s] people from many ethnicities in a positive, respectful manner, with no demographic bias for who achieves success in the context of problems,” according to Susan Bergman, the district’s math curriculum director, citing EdReports’ review.
“Characters in the program are illustrations of children or adults with representation of different races and populations of students,” the EdReport review continues. “Problem settings vary from rural to urban and international locations.”
EdReports, a nonprofit that reviews instructional materials, is partially funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Sydney pro-Palestinian students suspended after classes ‘significantly disrupted’
Two Sydney University students have been suspended after classes were “significantly disrupted” by protesters last week, as the encampment on the institution’s quad lawns enters its fifth week.
In a letter of support, the Sydney University Student Representative Council (SRC) said the university was attempting to silence protesters by handing the two students immediate one-month suspensions.
The SRC said the suspensions were a result of the students making announcements at the start of classes about the university’s ties with Israel and encouraging students to be involved in the campaign for Palestine.
“Such announcements before classes begin do not seriously disrupt teaching activities and usually finish before staff are ready to begin class,” the letter read. “They are a routine part of campus life and have been given around many political issues in the past.”
In a letter to staff and students last week, the university said some individuals had gone beyond the bounds of acceptable political announcements before classes began.
This included deliberately covering their faces to conceal their identity, not allowing classes to commence at the scheduled time, and acting in a way that was considered intimidating.
It said it was also aware of counter-protesters allegedly engaging in intimidatory behaviour towards the encampment overnight and was co-operating with police in their investigations of this behaviour.
A university spokeswoman on Thursday confirmed that two students had been temporarily suspended pending disciplinary proceedings, after two incidents of classes being significantly disrupted last week.
One affected subject has had its in-person lectures for the remainder of the semester cancelled.
“We continue to be very clear about our expectations of behaviour on our campus, writing to students and staff again last week about acceptable and unacceptable conduct,” the university spokeswoman said.
The students are demanding the university disclose and end all ties with weapons manufacturers and Israeli universities over the war in Gaza. Members of the local branch of the National Tertiary Education Union earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to support an institutional boycott of Israel in alignment with the student encampment demands.
Protesters at the university’s encampment have vowed to continue until their demands are met. Vice Chancellor Mark Scott has said he would meet protesters this week, but an agreement is yet to be reached.
‘Too little, too late’
It comes as University of Melbourne protesters agreed to end their encampment after the institution agreed to provide more transparency around its research partnerships.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said the suspensions were welcome but were “far too little and come far too late”.
“The constant noise from their shouted slogans and incessant beating of drums has disturbed and disrupted classes and created a pervasive atmosphere of fear and anxiety among students and staff,” he said.
“Today, a number of buildings went into lockdown. Under state legislation, the university senate has the management and control of all university property, including crown land, but the university has been too timid to use its powers to order external demonstrators to leave its grounds.
“This has emboldened the protesters and made the situation progressively worse.”
A few dozen students and external protesters have been camping out each night, with the university moving to cancel some ID cards that have been shared with non-student campers to give them access to facilities, including bathrooms, overnight.
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May 23, 2024
Educational ‘Redlining’ Still Affects Public School Boundaries
While public schools can no longer discriminate against students based on their race, unfortunately, they continue to use school district and attendance area boundaries to exclude or limit students’ opportunities based on where they live.
Oftentimes, the only way for students to access higher-quality public schools than the ones they’re assigned to is by moving inside their attendance boundaries. However, this option is only available to families who can afford to do so since housing costs typically increase based on their proximity to better schools.
In some cases, families lie about their home address–also known as address sharing–so their children can go to better schools. But falsifying an address can carry major risks, including prison time, in the 24 states that criminalize it.
Unfortunately, living on the wrong side of a school boundary isn’t just bad luck. Even today, schools and governments gerrymander boundaries to exclude students they perceive as undesirable.
Moreover, this practice carries an unsavory past since gerrymandered boundaries sometimes reflect the lingering effects of redlining–now illegal racist zoning policies.
Nearly a century ago, federal agencies drew 239 color-coded maps identifying the lending risks associated with particular neighborhoods. However, eligibility for these loans was based on varying demographic factors, including race.
Neighborhoods that housed large minority populations were often color-coded red and marked as “hazardous.” The Federal Housing Administration’s official Underwriting Manual even went so far as to state that redlining policies would help prevent “large numbers of inharmonious racial groups” from attending the same schools.
While a series of federal laws eventually outlawed housing redlining, many school boundaries still reinforce the old redlined boundaries, limiting students’ public education options.
For example, the map in Figure 1 shows the attendance areas for Cranbrook and Barrington Road Elementary Schools in Columbus, Ohio, ranked 2,146th and 165th overall respectively by the Ohio 2023 Performance Index.
The high-performing Barrington Elementary School’s neighborhoods were exclusively zoned as Blue or Green, the best possible ratings provided by the federal government, back in the 1930s. Meanwhile, most of the neighborhoods assigned to Cranbrook Elementary Schools, at that time, were rated as “hazardous” (red) or “declining” (yellow).
The student populations of these public schools are still divided by race and socioeconomic status. Yet these boundaries block students from attending schools that are closer to their homes or that are a better fit.
For instance, some students living along King Avenue near the boundary line are only about a mile from Barrington Elementary, but they are assigned to Cranbrook, which is three times that distance.
This is just one of the many examples that show how broken public school assignment is nationwide.
A new report by yes. Every kid. Showcases how some policymakers have tried to ameliorate these barriers so students’ public school options aren’t solely determined by their geographic location. Specifically, the report highlights three key policies that can expand public school access today:
Weakening these barriers is a popular policy, as 78% of school parents support strong open enrollment laws according to March polling by EdChoice. Moreover, six states, most with bipartisan political support, strengthened their open enrollment laws last year, letting students attend any public school with open seats, regardless of where they live.
While 43 states permit some sort of public school student transfer, most of these laws are weak and don’t prioritize allowing students to get to better public schools. Brown vs. Board of Education was seven decades ago, and state policymakers still need to take important steps to make schools more accessible to all students by weakening the barriers that residential assignment imposes on families so students can attend schools that are the right fit.
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/05/educational-redlining-still-affects-public-school-boundaries/
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District That Suspended Student For Using Term ‘Illegal Alien’ Fails To Provide Docs To Parents Org
A North Carolina school district that suspended a student for using the term “illegal alien” failed to provide all public records pertaining to the incident that were requested by a parental-rights organization, the group told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student at Central Davidson High School, received a three-day suspension in April for using the term “illegal aliens” during class while asking the teacher for clarification on a vocabulary assignment, prompting his parents to file a lawsuit against the Davidson County Board of Education. Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a records request about the suspension, but received only four emails totaling eight pages that were provided to the DCNF.
“It is possible that said emails so requested may contain confidential student/educational records under FERPA that would not be subject to a public records request and/or to the extent that such emails can be provided pursuant to your request, they may have to be heavily redacted or not provided at all,” a representative for the district told the parental-rights group, referencing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
The Davidson County Board of Education and Davidson County Schools Superintendent Gregg Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.
A spokesperson for PDE told the DCNF that McGhee’s parents were not involved in the records request, nor were they in contact with the parental-rights group. A spokesperson for the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the parents, declined to comment on the PDE records request.
McGhee eventually withdrew from Central Davidson High School and transferred to a homeschooling program after receiving threats due to the suspension, according to court documents.
Christian McGhee had returned to his class after using the restroom and arrived to find the class discussing aliens, leading him to he ask whether the class was discussing aliens from space or illegal aliens, Dean McGee, an attorney with Liberty Justice Center representing McGhee and his parents, told the DCNF.
“A Latino boy in class turned around and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to kick your ass,’” McGee said. “It was said jokingly, and class moved on as normal until later, a girl in class brought up the Latino student’s comment about kicking Christian’s ass, and that’s when the teacher called the assistant principal.”
Despite both boys telling the assistant principal that the comments were not a big deal, the assistant principal viewed Christian’s use of the term “illegal alien” as a racial slur and issued the suspension, McGee told the DCNF. McGee referred the DCNF to Liberty Justice Center’s complaint against the Davidson County Board of Education when asked for more details about the assistant principal’s conduct.
The term “alien” is defined in 8 USC 1101 as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” The term “illegal aliens” is used in multiple parts of the United States Code, including 8 USC 1182, 8 USC 1252c and 8 USC 1366.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/22/exclusive-district-suspended-student-illegal-aliens-parents-org/
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California parents demand principal be fired for ‘humiliating’ their son, censoring his school election speech
The parents of a California middle school student are calling on their son’s principal to be fired after they say he was discriminated against over his beliefs.
Saint Bonaventure Catholic School student Jimmy Heyward, who was running for “Commissioner of School Spirit & Patriotism,” was “completely humiliated” after principal Mary Flock barred him from giving his speech at a school election rally, his parents say.
Heyward’s mother, Hattie Ruggles, claims her son was told to remove “all parts about patriotism” from his campaign speech or he would not be allowed to deliver it before the school assembly. In the speech, the student talks about the importance of showing respect to veterans, and paying attention during the National Anthem or when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
“Jimmy stood up to her and said he wasn’t going to take the parts about patriotism out of his speech,” Ruggles wrote in a Change.org petition calling on Flock to be fired. “She then told him he would not be speaking. Jimmy sat on stage with all the other candidates while they said their speeches. Mary Flock directed the kids hosting the rally to skip Jimmy entirely. He was on the stage for an hour in front of his peers/teachers/parents being completely humiliated by Mary Flock.”
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May 22, 2024
Why America’s Kids Need To Learn From the Founders via “Classical Schooling”
I have a personal post up advocating for a classical education. Link below:
https://memoirsjr.blogspot.com/2015/07/some-reflections-about-education.html
The numbers are in: Parents are fed up with failing government-run schools.
From 2012 to 2022, the share of American children not attending government-run schools rose from 9% to 13%.
That’s roughly 2 million students opting into charter schools, homeschooling or other school options.
For advocates of education freedom, this sea change comes as no surprise.
The steady wave of school-choice policies enacted throughout the United States in recent years created more options for students, and the eye-opening revelations that came along with COVID school lockdowns encouraged parents to take advantage of them.
This same dynamic sparked the development of new types of education, including the resurrection of an old and forgotten approach that made America great—and possible—in the first place: classical schooling.
What is a classical education?
There are nearly as many definitions of it as new classical schools, but one answer is that it introduces students to the tradition of Western thought and literature, as far back as ancient Athens and Jerusalem, and anchors them in the true, the good and the beautiful.
It’s the type of education that America’s founding generations received.
George Washington’s favorite play was about the Roman senator Cato.
John Adams was a devoted student of Cicero.
James Madison’s essays in the Federalist Papers are replete with the case studies of ancient Greece and Rome drawn from classical histories.
When writing about the Declaration of Independence later in life, Jefferson famously described it as “an expression of the American mind,” which drew from—among other sources—“elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney Etc.”
Today, the fact that most people, including many of society’s so-called elite, have no familiarity with these sources should be troubling.
Untethered from the intergenerational wisdom that was one of the key ingredients of our founding, we are floating further and further away from the vision they cast for our future—without even knowing it.
Indeed, the same people who defend “democracy” the most fervently are often the ones most actively undermining our Founders’ idea of it.
For a country based on the principle of government by the people, this is simply unacceptable.
You can’t love what you don’t know—and a republic whose citizens do not adequately understand the responsibilities they’ve been entrusted with certainly won’t last.
Sadly, that seems to be what many of today’s educators, bureaucrats and politicians want.
They aren’t simply failing to teach civics adequately; they are wholly focused on telling students in government schools that the country they live in, along with its Declaration of Independence and Constitution, are fundamentally racist and evil.
Is it any wonder a recent survey found some 70% of registered voters would fail a basic literacy quiz and a mere 25% consider themselves “very confident” in explaining how our government works?
Americans are fed up, and they’re taking action.
From 2019 to 2023, more than 264 new classical schools were founded, and existing ones saw enrollments surge.
Per a market analysis by Arcadia Education, 677,500 students are enrolled in classical schools this year. But by 2035, that number is expected to more than double to 1.4 million.
Contrary to the insanity that we see on TV, college campuses and from politicians in Washington, most Americans still love this country.
They’re proud of our heritage, and they want to pass on that patriotism to the next generation.
Today, the signs of American decline are all around us: a failing economy, rampant lawlessness, the degradation of education and public virtue.
But we should not accept collapse as an inevitability.
Classical education gives us the chance to rekindle the flame of the West before it goes out.
If we fail, then the great nation our Founders created will surely collapse.
But if we’re successful, we can raise our children and grandchildren to be a new generation of “Founders.”
To have a future, we need to start learning from our past.
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Universities Are Morally and Intellectually Destructive
Dennis Prager
All my adult life, I have warned people about the low moral and intellectual level of colleges and universities. This is the way I have put it: “If you send your child to college, you are playing Russian Roulette with his or her values.”
I have always made it clear that for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) and a few other specialized subjects, there may be no choice. You can’t learn those subjects on your own.
But parents take serious risks when they send their child to college.
One reason is that the ages between 18 and 22, when the vast majority of young people attend college, are the years when people are easiest to influence.
We tend to believe that the best time to influence children is when they are very young. That is sometimes true. It was certainly true in the past when people matured at a much younger age, few people attended college, and colleges had not been taken over by nihilists.
But today, many young people remain children until their 30s, and many attend college, the center of immoral ideas in America.
What we are seeing now at American, British, and other Western universities, especially the most prestigious ones, is support for evil and disdain for good. Pro-Hamas, Israel-hating students take over campuses, stage walkouts during commencement exercises, and are supported by large numbers of faculty members on their campuses. In other words, many students and professors support Iranian and Palestinian calls to exterminate Israel and the Jews who live there.
None of this is surprising. Universities have been morally and intellectually damaging for more than 50 years. How many young people return home after four years at college (let alone additional years in graduate school) a finer, kinder, more moral, or intellectually more developed person? Let’s just say it’s rare. I have never met one.
I have however met and heard about many young people who return home from college angrier, unhappier, less decent, and far more morally confused. The number of college-educated young people who have been brainwashed into having contempt for their parents, their religion, and their country is incalculable.
Last week, the New York Post reported on a young woman named Lily Greenberg-Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the Interior Department, who quit her position because the American government is too pro-Israel.
As the Post reported, Greenberg-Call “went out with a bang Wednesday with a red-hot resignation letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. ‘I can no longer in good conscience continue to represent this administration amidst President [Joe] Biden’s disastrous continued support for Israel’s genocide,’ wrote Greenberg-Call, 26, who additionally condemned Israel’s ‘violations of international law’ perpetrated with ‘American weapons.'”
I relate this story because Greenberg-Call is a perfect example of what college can do to a young person’s heart, mind, and conscience.
The article noted that “ironically, while in high school at the ritzy, near-$40,000 a year San Diego Jewish Academy, Greenberg-Call was a staunch Israel advocate, and once reportedly served as president of her high school’s Israel advocacy club. Her views began to shift after going to college at Berkeley, meeting ‘Palestinian-Americans at school’ and entering Democratic politics, according to an essay she wrote in May 2022 for Teen Vogue.”
In other words, her Jewish upbringing, expensive education at a Jewish school, and leadership in pro-Israel activities proved useless when confronted with Berkeley, where she learned that Israel is evil.
Nineteen years ago, when the Los Angeles Times was still publishing conservatives, I wrote a column about antisemitism at American universities. I told the following story:
Not long ago, on my radio show, I invited a UCLA student who, on the occasion of Israel’s birthday, had written a hate-filled article about the Jewish state in the Bruin, the school newspaper. I asked her if she had always been anti-Israel. She said that as a Jewish girl growing up in Britain, she was actually a Zionist who had visited Israel a number of times on Jewish student trips there.
‘What changed you?’ I asked.
‘The university,’ she responded.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/21/universities-breed-evil/
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Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case Challenging School District Policy Hiding Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ From Parents
The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider a case challenging a Maryland school district policy that hides information from parents about their child’s “gender identity.”
Under the Montgomery County Board of Education’s guidelines, parents deemed “unsupportive” will not be told if their child is undergoing a “gender transition” at school, according to court filings. The justices declined to hear an appeal by three parents who challenged the plan, leaving in place a lower court ruling that found they did not have standing to challenge the policy.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last August that the parents did not have standing because their own children were not undergoing or considering a gender transition.
“Absent an injury that creates standing, federal courts lack the power to address the parents’ objections to the Guidelines,” the majority held. “That does not mean their objections are invalid.”
Judge Paul Niemeyer, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, wrote in a dissent that the majority’s decision was “unnecessarily subjecting the Parents by default to a mandatory policy that pulls the discussion of gender issues from the family circle to the public schools without any avenue of redress by the Parents,” adding:
The majority’s conclusion is, in the circumstances of this case, an unfortunate abdication of judicial duty with respect to a very important constitutional issue that is directly harming and will likely continue to harm the Parents in this case by usurping their constitutionally protected role.
The parents told the Supreme Court in their November petition that the issue was “not going away.”
“Schools across the country over the past few years have adopted policies similar to that involved here that require school personnel to hide from parents—lying, if need be—that the school is assisting their child to transition gender at school,” they wrote
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May 21, 2024
Elite University Raked In Almost $700 Million From Qatar
Northwestern University has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Qatar, a nation that has been harboring Hamas’ leaders since 2012, federal disclosures show.
Roughly $690 million in funds originating in Qatar has flowed into Northwestern University since 2007, according to records maintained by the Department of Education. Northwestern caved to several demands made by pro-Palestinian protestors last month, including by providing them with a pathway to make the university divest from Israeli businesses, The Daily Northwestern reported.
Northwestern’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine took credit for the agreement with the university. A group of law firms are suing National Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging that the organization is working to advance Hamas’ goals.
“Around the country, prestigious universities are succumbing to pressure from protestors who have damaged campuses, interfered with other students’ education and safety, and broadcast messages of hatred,” Open The Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski said in a press release. “Deals like the one at Northwestern seem inexplicable—that is, until you follow the money,” he continued.
Qatar constituted the largest bloc of Northwestern’s revenue from Muslim nations that support Palestinian independence, sending about $690 million to the university since 2007, records show. Since 2018, Qatar has sent millions of dollars to the Gaza strip that have been used to prop up Hamas, the terrorist organization behind the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, according to CNN.
Qatar is also harboring Hamas’ political leadership, which it has been doing in some capacity since 2012, according to The Times of Israel.
Qatar’s funding included disbursements to provide scholarships for Qatari students to attend Northwestern, funds for a Northwestern campus in Qatar as well as other financial transfers lacking detailed descriptions, according to Open The Books.
Entities located in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have also given money to Northwestern, according to federal records.
Northwestern received about $24 million originating in Saudi Arabia, records show. About $2.2 million of that was for scholarship grants to Saudi students, according to Open The Books.
Saudi Arabia has historically called for the establishment of a Palestinian state under its 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem as the state’s capital, according to the Associated Press.
Northwestern also took in $250,000 and $525,000 from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. Turkey has been highly critical of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks, halting trade with the Jewish state citing humanitarian concerns, and the United Arab Emirates has similarly condemned Israel’s conduct.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also defended Hamas, calling the group a “resistance movement” and refusing to label them as terrorists, Reuters reported.
Some universities are getting funds directly from entities located in the West Bank and Gaza.
Harvard University, Brown University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania collectively took in about $10 million in funds originating in the Palestinian territories between 2017 and 2023.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/20/elite-university-raked-in-almost-700-million-from-qatar/
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Let’s Put Suspension or Expulsion Back on the Table for Violent College Students
Colleges are considering suspensions and expulsions for students who vandalized campuses and committed violence over the last month. These consequences are entirely appropriate, and overdue. School officials in North Carolina are even reallocating more funds to campus safety.
What took so long? The answer may help prevent violent riots on campuses in the future.
MIT officials recently announced they were suspending “dozens” of students who forced their way back into the area of campus where students had set up encampments. School personnel had warned those encamped, then cleared the tents and set up fencing around the area, telling students not to re-enter. Students proceeded to break through the fences—ignoring the warnings and destroying property.
Now, school administrators have announced sanctions are coming.
Events such as these have happened at schools nationwide. The incidents at MIT, UCLA, Columbia University and elsewhere were not examples of free speech. These were violent acts showing disregard for law and campus rules. School officials should not have waited as long as they did to call law enforcement, and the rioters who were not students, faculty or college staff should face charges. But administrators should be considering suspensions and expulsions for students involved.
College personnel are partly to blame for the disruptions that universities faced over the last month. Campus riots have a long history, but in the most recent iterations of campus unrest dating back at least as far as 2015, colleges were slow to respond to students and rioters who de-platformed or shouted down professors and invited lecturers. Middlebury College in Vermont and Evergreen State College were just a few of the sites of violent shout-downs over the last decade.
Students regurgitated the Marxist slogans from critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as they de-platformed speakers—and in some cases, college administrators did not punish students. Predictably, surveys over the last decade have found that students are afraid to speak their minds on campus for fear of being canceled, shouted down—or worse.
Blocking someone else’s expressive rights is not a protected form of speech. Yet surveys found that some on campus approved of violence in the face of ideas with which they disagree.
In response to the shout-downs at Middlebury and the like, state lawmakers around the country—Alabama, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee and more—adopted provisions to reinforce the U.S. Constitution and protect free-speech rights. But with few notable exceptions, lawmakers did not include provisions that required school administrators to consider suspension or expulsion when students de-platformed a speaker or otherwise engaged in violence.
The message to students was clear: You can be disruptive with minimal or no consequences. Today, however, students have pushed the bounds even further, creating so much disturbance that some schools were forced to cancel classes and graduation ceremonies because campuses were not physically safe for anyone.
Lawmakers in North Carolina and Arizona were among the few who included disciplinary sanctions in provisions adopted after the outbreak of shout-downs between 2015 and the school closures caused by COVID-19. School officials should copy the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees’ latest decision to close its “diversity, equity and inclusion” office and reallocate spending to campus safety.
DEI offices promote censorship by supporting bias response teams, which courts have found to “chill” speech. The offices also promote racial bias in college admissions and other school functions—none of which improves school safety or the free exchange of ideas.
Had school personnel acted decisively during riots over the last 10 years, consistently suspending or expelling violent students, perhaps disrupters would have had second thoughts. State lawmakers should revisit their conduct codes and require public college administrators to involve law enforcement and consider suspension or expulsion when students destroy school property, injure others, violate free-speech protections or otherwise commit violence.
Considering suspension or expulsion to counter—and perhaps prevent—violence is not new. Yale University officials recommended these consequences in the Woodward Report issued in 1974, a seminal document protecting campus speech.
College educators must teach students the difference between free speech and violence. The former deserves protection. The latter should be met with consequences.
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Australia: Homeschooling rises across Canberra post-pandemic
Since COVID lockdowns kept students out of schools, there's been a big rise in the number who now find home the best place to study.
There's been a 50 per cent increase in the numbers not going to school for their learning.
Official figures for the "home-educated" count 465 people of school age in the category in the ACT, compared with 305 just before the virus struck, and compared with only 166 just 10 years ago.
"School is an obsolete model," Ilaria Catizone says in a break between teaching a handful of homeschooled children who've come together to learn a bit of Italian.
She concedes formal schools work for some young people but not for all. The ones who don't quite fit the mould are often the ones opting out, perhaps because of bullying. Some parents told The Canberra Times they were unhappy with "woke" education, particularly on sexual matters.
Ilaria Catizone has been been schooling Audrey, 7, and Elody, 13, for the last three years. At the communal session, Elody also helps teach the younger children Italian through a game of bingo where numbers are called in Italian and pasta rings go on the numbered squares.
These kids are meeting in a community hall for their lesson, so homeschooling doesn't always happen at home. Sometimes, it's collective in that a group get together and learn.
The parents' motives vary.
Rebecca Bonazza said her daughter Skyler, 10, was bullied in her public school in Canberra.
"Bullying was rife. When she concentrates, she hums, and a lot of kids picked on her," the mother said.
"Kids just seem to be more nasty these days, and because she's a bit different she rarely wanted to go to school."
Her mother was also unhappy about the amount of mention of sex, both in class and outside - "woke", as she put it. "A lot of things they are told are a bit much," she said.
She felt homeschooling meant "super-young children" could be protected from "things on the internet".
"You can't protect your children from that but at home you can," she said.
So the mother has bought the daughter a pile of books about a string of subjects, including science and maths.
"We learn about the world, about money. And I plan to take her out into the world, to teach her things, to galleries. We have a lot of discussions. We go to the library. We go to book stores. She has a lot of books," Ms Bonazza said.
Skyler is not yet in her teens and her mother said she may go to college in years 11 and 12 to get formal qualifications.
But for now, home (and a community hall) is the place of learning.
It should be said the number of homeschoolers remains small compared with the number of on-campus schoolers, even though the percentage rise is big.
The latest official figures for the ACT have 465 children in homeschooling compared with 82,280 students across primary schools (47,174), high schools (23,926) and colleges (11,180).
But the rise upwards since COVID is unmistakable (as is the fall for public schools: 50,556 in 2023 compared with 51,153 ACT pupils in 2021).
One of the organisations promoting homeschooling is holding an information session at Downer Community Hall between 4pm and 6pm on Monday.
The organiser, Ms Catizone, said she would try to answer common questions like, "What about socialisation?", "Will my children learn enough?" and "What about university?".
She said kids had opportunities to socialise despite not going to school, with a public school's wide mix of types and backgrounds.
Her daughters' education is "interest-led". Her eldest daughter was curious and learns, even about formal subjects like mathematics.
"She learns a lot of maths through shopping or cooking or helping us do our tax returns. She's renovated her room, and that involved a lot of maths like measuring," Ms Catizone said.
"If she wants to go to university, she will do more formal maths."
Ms Catizone is a vegetarian and, at home, there is an interest in "ethical behaviour" which prompted her daughter to research vegetarianism, both in terms of food but also fashion.
The teenager is interested in make-up, and that provides two fields of learning. "She's done research on ethical make-up", and the daughter has researched "make-up through the ages".
"It's very important for them to do their own research," the mother said.
She rejects the idea schooling children at home gives parents an opportunity to indoctrinate children in the parents' values.
In response to the idea, she says religious schools do the same.
Ms Catizone is a convert to homeschooling but she also concedes it doesn't suit everyone. It is obviously only for those with some money and time.
There is a class aspect.
Parents who both work fixed and long hours to just about pay the bills may not be convinced about homeschooling. For them, public schools are the only option.
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May 20, 2024
Truman Scholarships overwhelmingly awarded to progressive students for tenth year in row
Meanwhile, fewer than one in 10 are openly conservative, analysis finds
Nearly three in four recipients of this year’s prestigious, federally funded Truman Scholarship have clear ties to Democratic politicians or progressive causes, a College Fix analysis found.
Approximately 43 of the 60 students have worked for Democratic politicians, advocated for progressive causes, or identify as left-leaning — continuing an annual trend exposed in past Fix analyses.
In contrast, only five scholars have worked for Republican politicians, advocated for conservative causes, or identify as right-leaning. The College Fix determined this information based on provided biographies, LinkedIn profiles, and email inquiries.
Terry Babcock-Lumish, the executive secretary of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, told The Fix in a recent email the foundation does not consider students’ political affiliation “as a criteria for selection.”
“The Truman Foundation’s selection process is based solely on applicants’ demonstrated commitment to public service, leadership potential, and academic excellence,” she said.
Babcock-Lumish said the foundation often does not know applicants’ political affiliations and students regularly work for politicians “with whom their beliefs are not 100% aligned.”
She continued, “Our annual competition requires nominations from undergraduate institutions, so the Truman Scholars we select are reflective of the pool of candidates that we have before us. If students are not nominated or do not apply, we cannot select them. Accordingly, let me again ask The College Fix to encourage readers making commitments to careers in public service to apply.”
The Democratic politicians whom the 2024 scholarship winners have worked or interned for include Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, California Rep. Adam Schiff, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, and Michigan state Rep. Abraham Aiyash.
Awardees also have been involved with left-wing organizations, including Planned Parenthood Generation Action, College Democrats, Young Democrats, Equal Rights Advocates, and Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Resolution.
Additionally, some have advocated for progressive issues such as “the safety of LGBTQ+ disabled youth,” “racial justice activism,” “pro-union policies,” “environmental justice,” and “social justice and equity,” The Fix analysis found.
A few of this year’s recipients worked for Republican politicians, including Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, and Tennessee Rep. Diana Harshbarger.
The remaining 12 recipients did not respond to inquiries from The Fix about their political leanings, and their ideologies could not be definitively determined based on public information.
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New York City’s public school system has received billions of dollars in additional funding since 2020 — despite enrollment cratering
Per-student spending at K-12 Department of Education schools is expected to hit $39,304 in the upcoming fiscal year 2025 budget — a massive 26.3% increase, equating to $8,185 more per student since 2020, the “Did You Know” study by the Citizens Budget Commission found.
Mayor Eric Adams proposed a 10.2% increase or $2.1 billion more in city taxpayer funding for the Big Apple public school system — which would mostly offset the $2.4 billion phase-out of federal pandemic aid given to DOE.
Total DOE spending will be $269 million, or 0.7%, less than current funding levels.
But the CBC analysis said, “Between fiscal years 2020 and 2025, spending climbed steadily as enrollment fell.”
Total DOE expenditures are projected to reach $39.8 billion in fiscal year 2024, an increase of $5.2 billion, or 15.2 percent, since fiscal year 2020.
City spending rose from $19.7 billion to $20.6 billion from 2020 to 2024, while state aid increased from $12.3 billion to $14.2 billion, according to the report.
Federal funds funneled to the DOE jumped from $2.1 billion in 2020 to $4.6 billion in 2024.
Enrollment plummeted precipitously during the COVID pandemic with the DOE losing 104,374 students between fiscal years 2020 and 2023.
The city now projects an increase of 10,355 K-12 students this year and next, thanks in large part to the migrant influx.
But DOE still has 94,019 fewer students than in the pre-COVID-19 era, the CBC report noted.
During a City Council budget hearing on Wednesday, Council members made it clear they want to jack up education spending in the final negotiated budget with City Hall.
The Council is pushing to boost spending on early education pre-K and 3-K programs by $170 million more than the mayor recommended.
Education officials and the Council are awaiting a report that spells out where the demand is needed for early childhood education seats and where they are not.
Councilwoman Rita Joseph (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the education committee, expressed concern about the more than $200 million gap — the loss of federal aid that was not replaced by city and state funding — in the DOE budget.
“That’s significant,” she told Schools Chancellor David Banks, who testified at the hearing.
https://nypost.com/2024/05/15/us-news/nyc-spends-billions-more-on-shrinking-school-system-analysis/
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Hard to Argue With Logic of 13 Judges Who Say They Won’t Hire Columbia Grads
Is it proper for federal judges to boycott hiring students who attend a particular university? Thirteen federal judges, all of whom were appointed by former President Donald Trump, have announced that they are going to do just that.
In a May 6 letter to Minouche Shafik, president of protest-rocked Columbia University, the 13 judges referred to “recent events” there and informed her that, “absent extraordinary change,” they would “not hire anyone who joins the Columbia University community whether as undergraduates or law students—beginning with the entering class of 2024.”
The recent events, of course, are the campuswide anti-Israel demonstrations that resulted in the occupation of a school building (Hamilton Hall), multiple arrests, and a smaller-than-usual commencement ceremony punctuated by ongoing protests.
Such antisemitic protests, of course, have been taking place on dozens of campuses, but things seem to have been particularly bad at Columbia.
In addition to occupying a Columbia University building and assaulting maintenance workers, protesters accosted and assaulted Jewish students, shouting “F— Israel” and “Israel is a b—-” and telling them that they would be Hamas’ “next targets” and should “Go back to Poland!” (This last was a thinly veiled reference to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Belzek, Sobibor, and Chelmno, the horrific extermination camps for Jews that existed in German-occupied Poland during World War II.)
Many protesters at Columbia were joined by sympathetic faculty members (hundreds, according to The Guardian), who linked arms and formed a protective wall around the anti-Israel encampments. Among these supportive faculty members was Joseph Massad, who said Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, which left over 1,200 dead and 250 hostages taken, was “awesome” and a “stunning victory of the Palestinian resistance.”
The situation became so dicey that one rabbi associated with Columbia said Jewish students should go home and remain there because the school could not guarantee their safety.
Columbia Law School was not exempt from this activity. The editors of the Columbia Law Review—presumably among the best and the brightest students—said that they, like most of their classmates, were “irrevocably shaken” by what was happening on campus and demanded that the school cancel final exams and simply pass all students.
What judge could have faith in the integrity and academic rigor of any institution teaching future lawyers that this is an appropriate response to disturbing events?
As someone with a long family history at Columbia (my grandfather taught at the medical school and I went to Columbia, as did my father and my daughter), this hits close to home.
In their letter to Shafik, the 13 federal judges wrote that they had “lost confidence in Columbia as an institution of higher education” and that the school had “become an incubator of bigotry.” To restore academic freedom and reclaim a “once-distinguished reputation,” the judges stated, Columbia should do three things at a minimum:
1) See to it that students and faculty members who violated the school’s rules and disrupted campus life, including by threatening Jewish students, suffer serious consequences.
2) Ensure that in the future the university protects free speech and enforces rules of conduct in a neutral and nondiscriminatory fashion.
3) Make “[s]ignificant and dramatic change[s] in the composition of its faculty and administration” to promote viewpoint diversity.
Two of the judges who signed the letter are appellate judges, namely James Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Elizabeth Branch of the 11th Circuit. Also signing: eight District Court judges from Texas (Alan Albright, David Counts, James Hendrix, Matthew Kacsmaryk, Brantley Starr, Jeremy Kernodle, and Drew Tipton), a District Court judge from Georgia (Tilman Self), a District Court judge from North Dakota (Daniel Traynor), a judge on the Court of Federal Claims (Matthew Solomson), and a judge on the Court of International Trade (Stephen Vaden).
The federal judges noted that the anti-Israel demonstrations on the Columbia campus had made it clear “that ideological homogeneity throughout the entire institution … had destroyed its ability to train future leaders of a pluralistic and intellectually diverse country,” and that it was equally “clear that Columbia applies double standards when it comes to free speech and student misconduct.”
The judges cited abortion as an example, stating that they had “no doubt” that the response of Columbia administrators would have been “profoundly different” had religious conservatives on campus who “view abortion as a tragic genocide” engaged in an uprising.
I also have no doubt that this is true, and could cite many other examples: Protest racial preferences in admissions policies or the establishment of black-only housing on campus? Rally against biological males being allowed to compete in women’s sports? Galvanize a petition drive against being forced to refer to students by their preferred personal pronouns? Raise a ruckus over the legality and morality of same-sex marriages? Gather a crowd and give a speech claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen?
Not a chance! Any student group that did any of those things would be subjected to discipline for engaging in “hate speech.” But wear a mask and carry placards proclaiming, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” (with its implicit message that Israel must and will be eliminated)? Well, then, “It depends on the context.”
There are those, including Columbia Law grad Dan Abrams (whom I recently debated on this subject on his NewsNation show) and MSNBC columnist Jessica Levinson, who say this is a dramatic overreaction tantamount to guilt by association that punishes innocent students who didn’t participate in anti-Israel protests.
Levinson goes so far as to say that the 13 judges are engaging in extortion and blackmail of Columbia. Other commentators, such as Berkeley Law School professor Orin Kerr, say they believe that “judges as judges do not have an important role to play in our society beyond the work they do in the courtroom or in chambers … , and they shouldn’t be trying to help American society solve problems like anti-Semitism, in any kind of official capacity.”
Still others, less thoughtful or kind, have stated that the judges who vow not to hire Columbia graduates are engaging in a performative protest designed to appeal to “their chosen audience of wackjobs.”
One wonders whether these critics would respond the same way if a university or college, and especially a law school, were to foster a hostile environment, replete with threats to students by mask-wearing fellow students and faculty members, for female, black, or LGBTQ students?
Are there students who will suffer the consequences of this hiring boycott even though they had nothing to do with, and may well have disapproved of, the campus protests? Certainly. But the same could be said of any boycott.
When a group chooses to boycott a product or restaurant chain because of some corporate policy or practice, those who produce that product or work in that restaurant inevitably will suffer the consequences and may well lose their jobs, even though they had nothing to do with formulating the policy or implementing the practice that the protesting group finds objectionable. Boycotts are a blunt but often effective tool designed to bring about systemic change from the top. And change is certainly needed here.
Many of our elite universities, including Columbia, pay far less attention than they should to teaching students how to think and far more attention than they should to teaching students what to think. Overwhelmingly liberal faculty members and administrators divide the world into “oppressors” and “oppressed,” indoctrinate students in left-wing ideology, and “cancel” any contrary views in the process.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/17/13-federal-judges-boycott-columbia-university/
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May 19, 2024
Survivor of Mao’s political purge getting ‘PTSD’ watching history repeat on college campuses
A survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution says she is experiencing post-traumatic stress witnessing history repeat itself on college campuses as “Marxist hordes” have taken over in anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Lily Tang Williams, who is currently running as a Republican candidate for Congress in New Hampshire’s 2nd district, said she fears the country she left is coming back to haunt her again in the United States.
“I sometimes I get nervous, and I feel like I’m having a little bit of PTSD and like I can’t sleep well whenever I see the way they’re chanting, using drums and us[ing] slogans, [are] humiliating people and have a huge amount of young people…chanting ‘Death to America,’ not just ‘Death to Israel.’ I just feel like, oh my goodness the… Red Guards are in action again,” she said.
The Red Guard was a massive student-led, paramilitary social movement in China that was mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966.
Young people were one of the most effective tools Mao exploited to fuel his revolution, Tang Williams said. Most of the young people protesting on college campuses today are “naive” and therefore ripe for manipulation by bad faith actors, she added.
“I think that a lot of students who were protesting on college campuses [are]… confused… Because that’s what Mao said, the young people’s mind is a blank piece of paper, and you can draw the most beautiful pictures,” she said, adding that she thinks they are “naive and easily manipulated… [for] revolution.”
Tang Williams was born in China’s western Sichuan province on the cusp of Mao’s deadly terror campaign – the Cultural Revolution. She experienced extremely poor living conditions, food rationing, social chaos and communist indoctrination.
She came to America in 1988 to study at a graduate school, but it took 20 years over the course of her journey in America to rid herself of all the communist propaganda.
Tang Williams drew a parallel between the Chinese revolution that was based on class and what she believes is a neo-Marxist Cultural Revolution that is based on identity groups molded together into a coalition on an oppression matrix, with Palestinians considered an oppressed group.
“It’s traditional Marxism. It’s oppressor versus oppressed. Doesn’t matter how many subcategories you put under each category,” she said. “And it’s this movement’s agenda. It’s well-funded. And students on college campuses are leading the way.”
“They’re using this international conflict, chanting… ‘from the river to the sea’ before Israel even had the chance to launch the defense and go after Hamas. So [the protesters] are the ones who first called for the… genocide of Israel when they were [protesting right after Oct. 7],” Tang Williams added.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward, an economic policy, led to the deaths of up to 45 million people. Adhering to communist ideals, the state seized control of production. Private farmland was confiscated and food distribution was placed under the purview of the government. As a result, the Chinese people died from starvation, forced labor, suicide and torture.
The Five Black Categories of oppressors included right-wingers, rich farmers, landlords, counter-revolutionaries and bad influencers. On the other side were the Red Categories, the poor, working-class, Revolutionary guards and active members of the Chinese Communist Party.
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Federal Appeals Court Rules Maryland Parents Cannot Opt Children Out of LGBTQ Lessons
Despite national attention and thousands of protesting parents, a federal court is refusing to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBTQ courses in school.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided on Wednesday that Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland does not have to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBTQ-themed lessons.
Judge G. Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, claimed that the parents seeking to opt their children out of the lessons in question did not provide sufficient evidence to justify a preliminary injunction.
In March of last year, MCPS added nearly two dozen “LGBTQ+ inclusive texts” to the pre-K through eighth-grade curriculum. According to a lawsuit filed in May, parents were told that “no notice will be given” of when LGBTQ-themed lessons will be taught and that “no opt-outs [will be] tolerated because [students] must learn to be more ‘LGBTQ-Inclusive.’”
The federal lawsuit was brought by a group of Christian and Muslim parents who wished to remove their children from LGBT-themed lessons on religious grounds. More than 1,000 parents—including Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox, evangelical, Muslim, and Jewish parents—attended a subsequent MCPS board meeting to protest the decision to rescind parental opt-outs.
Then, in August, President Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Boardman ruled against Maryland parents, claiming that mandatory LGBT lessons do not constitute a religious liberty infringement. She wrote that reading books about transgenderism, drag queens, and bondage fetishes to children as young as 3 “is not indoctrination” and does not “directly or indirectly” coerce children into activity “that violates their religious beliefs.”
Instead, she suggested that concerned parents—who, according to the policy Boardman sanctioned, have no notice of when these lessons are being taught—discuss the lessons with their children at home after school.
On a separate note, Boardman expressed a concern that too many parents would opt their children out of LGBTQ lessons, which she claimed would “expose students who believe the books represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation” and would further “defeat [the school board’s] ‘efforts to ensure a classroom environment that is safe and conducive to learning for all students’ … ”
Finally, the judge denied any preliminary injunction, meaning that parents cannot currently opt their children out of the objectionable lessons. Boardman wrote that “a constitutional violation is not likely or imminent” and thus “the plaintiffs are not likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, the Family Research Council’s senior fellow for education studies, Meg Kilgannon, warned: “It’s important to understand that this is an effort to develop curriculum to affirm diverse identities.” She noted that the LGBTQ-themed lessons are “not a separate unit (it’s not sex education),” but instead “sexual material that is meant to be incorporated in lessons as the teacher is instructing children in math, reading, science, or history.”
“That is what makes it so noxious. The incorporation of this material this way makes it impossible to remove the content or to remove children from the classes where it is taught,” Kilgannon explained
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Far-Leftist university lecturer sacked over Nazi swastika incident loses bid to get reinstated
He got off the Hilton bombing by the skin of his teeth. At his appeal, a very skeptical judge (Gleeson) just did not believe some of the evidence
The University of Sydney has won its appeal against a court ruling that found a controversial lecturer was unlawfully sacked after he showed students a slide show that superimposed a Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag.
In October 2022, Federal Court Justice Thomas Thawley ruled Dr Tim Anderson was exercising his academic freedom. He accepted the lecturer’s argument the swastika graphic was created to encourage critical analysis.
The judge said that while he considered Anderson’s comments would be offensive to many people, he did not consider the context in which the swastika was used involved “harassment, vilification or intimidation”.
But on Friday, the Federal Court overturned the decision in a two to one majority, finding Anderson’s comments did not comply with the “highest ethical, professional and legal standards” required to be protected under the intellectual freedoms enshrined in the university’s enterprise agreement.
The political economy lecturer, who was supported by the National Tertiary Education Union through the case, was sacked from the university in February 2019, a few months after he had superimposed a swastika over an Israeli flag.
Friday’s judgment said that in July 2018, Anderson posted to his Facebook account a photograph taken at a lunch in Beijing where one of the people wears a shirt with antisemitic slogans in Arabic which translate into English to: “Death to Israel”, “Curse the Jews” and “Victory to all Islam”.
The university directed him to remove the photograph, which he did not do.
In October 2018, the university moved to sack Anderson after he showed a PowerPoint presentation in a lecture about civilian deaths in Gaza that featured the Nazi swastika imposed over the flag of Israel.
It came after two other warnings in 2017 and 2018 over statements made about a News Corp journalist and his labelling of US senator John McCain as a “key al-Qaeda supporter”.
Anderson had previously told the court, in an affidavit: “While some may feel offended by Nazi-Zionist analogies, I say the inclusion of the analogy in that graphic was appropriate. The purpose of the slide was to encourage critical analysis ... No student raised any issue with the slide during the seminar.”
In his reasons, Judge Nye Perram said he accepted it may “in an appropriate case” be consistent with the standards in the university’s enterprise agreement for an academic to use a Nazi swastika.
“It was for Dr Anderson to engage in the forensic gymnastics of explaining how his at least incendiary conduct could be characterised as being consistent with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards. This he did not do,” he said.
The university submitted Anderson’s comments were “variously intemperate ad hominem attacks” and were not in pursuit of academic excellence.
Last year, the court dismissed Anderson’s claims for damages but found Anderson should be reinstated to his position, pending the outcome of the university’s appeal.
Friday’s ruling, which overturns that order, comes amid ongoing discussions about freedom of speech and antisemitism on campus. Vice chancellor Mark Scott has written to the attorney-general to seek legal advice from federal authorities on how to respond to protesters who call for an “intifada” against Israel.
“We’re pleased with this outcome, as we were confident of our actions,” a University of Sydney spokeswoman said.
“We strongly defend freedom of speech and the ability of our staff to express their expert opinion as outlined in our Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. The principle and practice of intellectual freedom must be upheld in accordance with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards.”
The swastika incident followed years of controversial statements and activities by Anderson, including several trips to North Korea and Syria and expressions of solidarity with their dictatorial regimes.
Anderson was also convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton hotel bombing in Sydney. He was acquitted the following year.
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May 16, 2024
How Bad Was Learning Loss During the Pandemic?
We know that school closures hampered student learning during the pandemic. But just how bad was the effect? And how widespread? Those are the questions that Bastian Betthäuser and colleagues sought to answer in a paper published at the beginning of last year.
The authors carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of learning loss over the first two-and-a-half years of the pandemic. By combing the literature, including repositories of unpublished papers, they were able to identify 61 relevant studies.
Before running the numbers, Betthäuser and colleagues manually checked each of the 61 studies for various methodological biases, such as confounding. Based on widely used criteria, they determined that 19 studies (that is, 30% of the total) had a “critical” risk of bias. Excluding these from the analysis left them with 42. And since most studies reported multiple estimates of learning loss – for different subjects and grade levels – there were a combined total of 291 estimates.
The authors also checked for publication bias, but found no evidence that the studies with smaller samples reported larger estimates.
So, what did they find? Averaging the estimates for each study and then pooling across studies, they obtained an overall effect size of d = –0.14. This means that average learning loss was about 14% of a standard deviation of students’ test scores. What does this mean in practice? Well, students typically progress by about 0.4 standard deviations per school year, which means that school closures reduced learning by the equivalent of one third of a school year (a whole term). The authors characterise this as “substantial”.
Next they looked to see whether learning loss decreased over the course of the pandemic. Were later estimates smaller than earlier ones? Their chart is shown below:
Chart from ‘A systematic review and meta-analysis of the evidence on learning during the COVID-19 pandemic’.
Here the dots correspond to individual estimates, rather than averages for each study. As you can see, there is no evidence that learning loss decreased; if anything, it increased.
However, the authors checked to see whether later estimates were significantly larger than earlier ones, and found that they weren’t. The most reasonable interpretation of the data is that learning loss arose during the first few months of the pandemic (when lockdowns were most severe), and then persisted for the next two years.
Now, it’s possible that students who suffered learning loss will eventually catch up to where they would have been in the absence of school closures. Perhaps if you extended the grey line above into 2023 and 2024, it would begin to slope upwards. Yet as the authors note:
Existing research on teacher strikes in Belgium and Argentina, shortened school years in Germany and disruptions to education during World War II suggests that learning deficits are difficult to compensate and tend to persist in the long run.
Which students were most affected? It stands to reason that those from richer families would be less affected, since their home environments were more conducive to learning, and their parents could afford to compensate by hiring private tutors. And that’s exactly what Betthäuser and colleagues found.
They coded estimates for whether they showed an increase in educational inequality by socio-economic background, a decrease in educational inequality or no change. A large majority showed an increase – indicating that poorer students suffered greater learning loss. The authors also found that learning loss was greater in poorer countries.
So school closures not only disadvantaged poor students relative to rich ones within countries, but also disadvantaged poor countries relative to rich ones. This is obviously ironic, given that many on the left championed school closures and initially denounced those who opposed them.
Betthäuser and colleagues’ study is one of the most comprehensive and careful to date, and it basically confirms what we already knew: school closures came with major costs. What’s noteworthy is that, due to data availability, their sample of studies was skewed toward richer countries. Had it included more studies from poorer countries, the overall learning loss would have been even greater.
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/05/15/how-bad-was-learning-loss-during-the-pandemic/
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More Public Charter Schools Are Needed Nationwide
Parents, children, and supporters of school choice have cause to celebrate this National Charter Schools Week.
Charter schools earned the top two spots on a list of the best high schools in America, according to a recent report by U.S. News & World Report. And, of the top 100 public high schools, charter schools claimed 19 spots—10 in Arizona alone—despite accounting for only 8% of all public schools in the country.
Yet with all their proven success, these tuition-free public schools open to all students are far too few nationwide.
Charter schools are in high demand by parents, as evidenced by consistently long waitlists. Yet of the 46 states plus Washington, D.C., with laws allowing charter schools, many states either cap the total number of charters allowed or the number that may be opened each year, or restrict the creation of charter schools to failing districts.
Legislation proposed in Mississippi this year would have expanded the state’s existing, restrictive law to increase the total number of charter schools from the current 10.
As explained by Empower Mississippi, HB 1683 would have allowed applicants to apply to start charter schools in C-rated districts, not just D- and F-rated districts, as is the case currently, without needing the approval of the local school board—which is unlikely to be granted.
The bill also would have allowed for the creation of charter schools in any district as long as they are aimed at serving students with autism or emotional or intellectual disabilities. Finally, the bill would have granted Mississippi’s colleges and universities the ability to authorize charter schools. Currently, only the Charter School Authorizer Board has that power.
Washington state has only 18 charter schools, despite passage of a law allowing them 12 years ago. In 2021, a statewide ban on new charter schools occurred. Liv Finne, director of the Center for Education at Washington Policy Center, noted that the Washington State Board of Education “finds that children who attend a charter public school receive an education that is as good or better than the one provided at most traditional public schools.”
The Washington State Board of Education made two key recommendations in conjunction with charter school authorizers: First, the board recommends that additional charter schools be granted the opportunity to open. Second, it recommends an “examination of the sufficiency of charter school funding and approaches used in other states in order to bring about equitable educational funding for Washington’s schools.” Time will tell if any ground is gained.
Missouri took a step forward last week when Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed legislation allowing charter schools in Boone County—which as of July 2023 had an estimated population of just under 190,000.
Previously, Missouri allowed charter schools only in Kansas City, St. Louis, and unaccredited school districts. In typical fashion, local school superintendents (seven of eight in Boone County) demanded a veto. Their self-serving focus is on maintaining a monopoly on student enrollment and the associated funding, not giving families educational options for their children.
Missouri lawmakers would be wise to extend the state’s charter school law to all districts.
It would be advantageous to the bottom line of all states to encourage more charter schools. A state funds only a portion of the per-pupil amount that it provides to a district’s public schools, and generally doesn’t cover facility costs—in part or in full—for charter schools.
Often, families who send their children to charter schools aren’t able to afford private school tuition or don’t have a parent or grandparents available during the workday to make homeschooling a feasible option. On average, more than half of students who attend a charter school qualify for free or reduced-price lunch based on household income.
As of the 2021-2022 school year, many minority students attend charter schools. In one example, in urban charter school enrollment, an average of 40.5% of students are Hispanic and an average of 32.6% are black. White students, on average, account for 17.6% and Asian students make up 4.4%.
More than 57% of charter schools are located in urban areas, enrolling more than 1.9 million students. Nearly 29% are in suburban areas, accounting for almost an additional 1 million students.
Parents know what is best for their children, and many desire an option other than a district public school assigned to them based on home address. Charter schools have proven to be a high-demand avenue that produces academic results for students.
Lawmakers would be wise to encourage, not limit, the expansion of charter public schools. If these schools aren’t effectively educating students, families can leave because their children aren’t bound to the schools.
Charter schools have incentives to serve families well and provide high-quality student learning, incentives that don’t exist in the near-monopoly held by district public schools.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/14/more-public-charter-schools-are-needed-nationwide/
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Australia: Fears ‘TeacherQuitTok’ social media trend ‘warping perception’ of profession for young teachers
This is a classic case of blame the messenger. If they want to stop teachers talking about quitting, they have to deal with the problems behind the dissatisfaction. And Leftst limits on what teachers can do to maintain order in the classroom are biggest problem. There should be high-discipline schools for unruly pupils
Australian teachers are being inundated with videos of burnt-out peers breaking down as hashtags like ‘TeacherQuitTok’ go viral on social media, prompting fears the negative reinforcement could be pushing young educators out the door.
There have been nearly 17,000 contributions to the ‘TeacherQuitTok’ tag on TikTok, racking up four million views on the single most watched video, while similar tags like ‘TeacherBurnout’ have 12,000 posts under them.
In clips with thousands of likes, young Australian ex-teachers cited the “never-ending” juggle of different needs among their 30-student classrooms, including pupils with behavioural issues, and “lack of respect” from higher-ups and the general public as reasons to quit.
“Being a teacher is really emotionally draining,” a former Brisbane teacher said.
“You’re constantly juggling and being responsible for all these different personalities and different situations, and it’s relentless, it’s never-ending.”
“The access to you 24/7 (from parents) … sometimes it’s a lot,” another added.
Other popular videos under hashtags like ‘TeacherBurnout’ and ‘HowToQuitTeaching’ are even more extreme, with teachers in the US and UK filming themselves having emotional breakdowns in the break rooms and crying in their classrooms.
University of Newcastle Associate Professor Rachel Buchanan has been researching the rise of ‘QuitTok’, which predates the more recent, niche version of the trend for teachers, and is concerned about the impact of such videos flooding educators’ social media feeds.
Although social media allows educators who are feeling “powerless and unheard” to have a voice, Professor Buchanan said, the echo-chamber effect can also “normalise quitting”, especially for young teachers lacking support and mentorship.
“On TikTok it feels inescapable that everyone’s quitting, and everyone’s burnt out … and it can warp your perception of what’s really happening,” she said.
“#TeacherQuitTok also reinforces and validates the decision to leave the profession – hearing others’ stories and joining in feels like participation in a movement or a moment.”
Sydney-based after-school care manager Teneal Broccardo knows first-hand how damaging the exposure to the constant negativity can be, citing the viral content with making her reconsider training to be a primary school teacher.
“There’s this massive trend about how stressful is, and when I was studying I found it really disheartening,” she said.
“I saw all these people working themselves to the ground and I thought, do I want to do this to myself too?”
Already having experience working with children and with classroom management alleviated her fears, the 29-year-old said, but for others she imagined “it could be the last straw”.
“TikTok is very influential. If you’re seeing more positive things instead, like teachers decorating the classroom or explaining different techniques they use, you are going to be more motivated.”
A 2022 Monash University study found only three in every 10 teachers surveyed on staying in the profession for the long-term, and their concerns are regularly reflected in ‘TeacherQuitTok’ content, lead author Dr Fiona Longmuir said.
“It’s the conditions that are making it challenging (to stay) more so than what they’re seeing on social media,” she said.
“There’s a big public discourse saying that teaching is tough, but that’s because it is tough.
“We don’t have a teacher shortage in Australia, but we do have a shortage of teachers who want to work in our classrooms.”
NSW Education Minister Prue Car said a pay rise, more permanent contracts and ban on mobile phones are among the ways the state is trying to “turn the tide on the teacher shortage”.
“Teachers do an incredibly important job in our community and they should be proud of their work. They deserve to be respected and valued,” she said.
“We are starting to see positive signs in terms of teacher vacancies, but we know there is more to do and we continue to look at ways to reduce workload and restore morale.”
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May 15, 2024
Teacher fired for being too rational
A teacher was fired after his video went viral on X, where he gently challenged a student's stance on whether Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is a transphobe and bigot.
"As far as I can see, there was nothing offensive in that video," Ms Marcus told Sky News host Rita Panahi.
"In fact, I would welcome him to any school here in Australia."
"We need more of those kinds of teachers helping our children and university students develop their critical thinking skills, which are so lacking these days."
“He was so careful language when he was being asked about JK Rowling he was pointing out some pretty fair points.”
Warren [Smith], who has now been fired, went viral for questioning why a student thought JK Rowling was transphobic.
In the exchange, he asked the student to articulate specific reasons and cite evidence which made the student admit their stance could use more thought.
Schools firing teachers who promote critical thinking is one of many reasons why so many students graduate unable to form cohesive arguments and acting like mindless NPCs.
Teachers like Warren can be a part of the solution if schools grow a spine
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Ex-Gov. Pataki raises $250K for charter schools as he celebrates their 25th anniversary in NY
Former Gov. George Pataki held a Manhattan gala Monday that raised $250,000 for charter schools in New York — 25 years after approving a landmark law that paved the way for them.
About 300 people attended the not-for-profit Pataki Center event at the private Union Club, a celebration that the ex-gov said hailed the academic success of New York charters.
Pataki, a Republican who served three terms, recalled how he muscled the law through a resistant state legislature in 1998 by linking passage of the bill to a pay raise measure that lawmakers desperately wanted.
“It’s ultimately about the success of the children,” Pataki said during an interview with The Post on Tuesday.
Nearly 150,000 students are now enrolled in 274 publicly funded charter schools in New York City, about 15% of, or one of every six, public-school students.
“In the beginning, there was virtually no support for charter schools. What happened is what I thought would happen,” Pataki said. “The demand of parents for charter schools tells the story. I’m really proud of how charter schools have blossomed.”
Charter schools are run by educators overseen by not-for-profit entities. While publicly funded, they are exempt from many of the rules governing traditional public schools, particularly employee union contracts.
Staffers at most charter schools do not belong to unions, and many of the alternative schools have a longer school day and school year than district schools.
Results on standardized math and English exams over the years show students in charter schools typically outperform their comparable counterparts in the traditional public schools.
Pataki said New York not only passed a law, but it’s good legislation with strong accountability provisions. Low-performing charter schools are forced to close, while successful ones are given the freedom to expand or even be replicated.
Pataki honored and gave shout-outs to people who helped him pass the charter-school law and launch the new schools, including: hedge-fund honcho Steve Klinsky, who helped start the first charter school, Sisulu-Walker Academy in Harlem; Ed Cox and Randy Daniels, who co-chaired the State University of New York panel and institute that authorized the first charter schools, and backers such as the Rev. Al Cockfield and Ray Rivera.
He also acknowledged his then-communications director Zenia Mucha and Robert Bellafiore, who organized charter schools for the executive chamber, former Michigan Gov. John Engler, a charter school advocate, and top aide Rob Cole, who is chairman of the Pataki Center.
He thanked generous sponsors of the event, including John and Margo Catsimatidis, too.
Pataki said he’s still baffled by lefty progressives who fret about income inequality but oppose charter schools that educate mostly lower-income black and Latino kids and help close the academic achievement gap — and ultimately the income gap.
“The political left is a reason we have such a problem,” he said.
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Elementary student wins fight for interfaith prayer club at school:
A Washington state elementary student is celebrating success after battling her school to start an interfaith prayer club.
Laura, a fifth-grade student at Creekside Elementary, was initially told no when she sought to create a prayer group that welcomed all students.
But with the help of First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit Christian organization, Laura was victorious.
"After they said no, First Liberty sent an email to them, and finally they responded and they said that we can have our club if we found a sponsor, and we found a sponsor," Laura said on "Fox News @ Night" Monday.
Laura and her mother allegedly met with the Creekside principal in February. The principal claimed that all funding for school clubs had already been allocated back in October. However, a Pride club had allegedly launched just a week before the meetings.
First Liberty attorney Kayla Toney argued the school’s decision to deny the club was a violation of the Constitution and that school officials were engaging in religious discrimination.
Toney’s email to the school read in part: "By singling out a religious club and providing an inferior access to school resources than what it provides to other non-curricular groups, the district shows a hostility to religion that violates the free exercise clause."
Toney told anchor Trace Gallagher she’s not surprised the school ultimately allowed Laura’s prayer club to form.
"The law is very clear on this issue," Toney explained. "The First Amendment absolutely protects Laura’s ability to pray with her friends. There's a long history and tradition in this country of voluntary, student-led prayer, and the Supreme Court made that really clear."
"We're very glad that the school district decided to do the right thing here. We think it's better for everyone because Laura is able to have her club starting next week. She doesn't have to have a long, drawn out legal battle. And it's better for the school district because religious liberty brings a beautiful diversity to the school environment."
Toney said it was an honor to stand with Laura and touted her courage to fight for religious liberty in her school.
Laura expects a good turnout at her first interfaith prayer group meeting and said a number of students have already reached out with interest in joining the club.
"It was just a great lesson to learn that even an 11-year-old girl can make a big difference," Laura said.
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May 14, 2024
Missing on Campus: Higher Ed Seeks to Reverse Decline of Male Student Population
Hopeful young entrepreneurs in business schools routinely pitch ideas for startup companies as part of their classroom assignments. But the ones who were doing it at the University of Vermont were still in high school.
It was the inaugural Vermont Pitch Challenge, to which nearly 150 teams from 27 states and seven countries had submitted their entrepreneurial brainstorms. The final five had come to the campus to battle it out for the grand prize: a full-tuition scholarship to UVM.Their ideas included a website to help previously incarcerated applicants get jobs, a nonprofit to provide mental health support to competitive snowboarders, a medical device to prevent the recurrence of a herniated disk, a company to rent equipment to farmers in St. Croix and an invention to sustainably recharge laptops, phones and tablets.
This competition wasn’t solely about helping the planet or improving medicine, health, employment opportunities or agriculture, however.
It was part of a long-term strategy to increase the number of men at a university where women now outnumber them by nearly two to one.
Painstaking research had suggested that entrepreneurship programs could appeal to high school boys considering going to college. The findings appeared to be right: More boys than girls had entered the pitch contest. And the university hoped that some would eventually enroll.
The approach is among a fast-growing number of efforts to increase the number of men in college, which has been declining steadily.
“We thought that this idea would attract men,” said Jay Jacobs, UVM’s vice provost for enrollment management, who declared himself pleased with the results. “We thought that this idea would attract racial and ethnically diverse students. We thought that this idea would attract what I’ll call geographically diverse students, students not just from Vermont or New England.”
The university needs all of those kinds of recruits. Vermont has the nation’s third-oldest population, by median age, making it harder to find students generally. That’s even before a dramatic decline in the number of 18-year-olds about to hit the rest of the rest of the country starting next year.
“Here, we’ve already felt the impacts of the quote, unquote ‘demographic cliff,’ ” said Jacobs. “We want to make sure that we are in front of any eligible student who is able to pursue their education at the University of Vermont, or in the state of Vermont.”
That particularly includes men. The proportion of applicants to the university who are male has declined from 44 percent in 2010 to 33 percent today, an analysis of federal data shows.
“I definitely do notice that,” said Melinda Wetzel, a junior who was having coffee with a friend in the student center. “In my big lecture halls, I’d say there are more women. And I do have one small class where there is only one guy.”
It isn’t just this university that’s searching for new ways to recruit men.
The number of men enrolled in college nationwide has dropped by more than 157,000, or almost 6 percent, in just the last five years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The proportion of college students who are men is now a record-low 41 percent, the U.S. Department of Education says. That’s a complete reversal of the situation 50 years ago, when men outnumbered women in college by about the same extent.
Men are also 7 percentage points more likely than women to drop out, the Clearinghouse reports.
“At conferences, when we’re in rooms together, we all know that this male enrollment gap is something that we’re going to have to deal with,” said Jacobs, whose office window overlooks the university’s grand historic main quad.
The ways universities are trying to address this vary widely.
The University of Montana — whose enrollment overall has fallen from nearly 16,000 to about 10,000 in the last 10 years, and 58 percent of whose undergraduates are women — found in focus groups that many of the men it was trying to recruit were interested in the outdoors. So this spring it sent targeted emails to prospective students highlighting its hunting class, forestry program and recreational opportunities.
“Have you ever eaten fresh meat that you harvested yourself?” one of the emails asks. “Apply to UM and develop a closer bond to the landscape than ever before.” Another shows a brawny, bearded man cutting wood. “Embrace the wilderness, embrace the axe,” it says. “There are few other connections with the natural world better than swinging a sharp axe with the smell of pine in your nose.”
Admitted applicants considering whether or not to enroll are also sent bingo-style checkoff cards with images of hiking, ski and cowboy boots. Other promotional materials include images of country-and-western shows on campus.
Housing deposits from men — which is how the university measures who will be enrolling in the fall, as it doesn’t require enrollment deposits — are up since the campaign began, said Kelly Nolin, director of undergraduate admissions.
“Ultimately all students want to know, ‘Am I going to fit in? Do I belong?’ ” said Nolin.
Among prospective applicants who are increasingly asking those questions, she said, are men from religious conservative families, at a time when universities are accused of being bastions of left-wing cancel culture. “We want them to know they won’t be criticized for their beliefs.”
Further west, the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center has gotten money from the ECMC Foundation to help community colleges enroll and retain more Black and Hispanic men and other men of color. (ECMC is also among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)
“If, in fact, colleges and universities want to recruit and enroll and ultimately retain and graduate more men, they have to have a strategy,” said Shaun Harper, founder and executive director of the center. “It has to be based on input and insights from college men themselves.”
Instead of trying to figure out why so many men forgo college or give up on it after starting, he said, institutions should ask, “Wait a minute, what about the ones who are here and are successful?” Harper said. “What were the factors that enabled their enrollment and their ultimate degree attainment? There’s a lot that we can learn from them that we could scale and adapt to everyone else.”
He and others said they were skeptical of some efforts to enroll more men, such as doubling down on sports by adding more men’s teams in the hope that it will lure more male students, as some colleges are doing.
“They’re not all on sports teams. So that shouldn’t be the only lever that we pull,” said Harper. And even if highlighting hunting might be effective in Montana, “it feels so presumptuous about what really appeals to men. I’m just not sure that institutions understand the full range of young men’s interests, and so they tend to default to things like forestry and outdoor adventures. I’m not sure that would work in California or Maryland.”
Whatever does work, universities are under growing pressure to figure it out. Overall enrollment has declined by 16 percent in the 10 years through 2022, the most recent period for which the figures are available from the U.S. Department of Education. Another 11 to 15 percent decline is projected to begin next year.
And there are signs that the problem of attracting men is only likely to get worse.
Of high school boys in Vermont whose parents don’t have four-year degrees, for instance, only 45 percent aspire to go to college themselves, down from 58 percent in 2018, and much lower than the 68 percent of girls who do, a survey found. Even among high school students with at least one parent who has a bachelor’s degree, 87 percent of girls say they want to go to college, compared to 78 percent of boys.
The problem begins early. Girls do better in high school than boys, and are more likely to graduate. In the 37 states that report high school graduation rates by gender, 88 percent of girls finished high school on time, compared to 82 percent of boys, a 2018 study by the Brookings Institution found. Boys are more likely to think they don’t need a degree for the jobs they want, the Pew Research Center found, or go into the trades. Even if they do enroll in colleges, work opportunities lure them away. Men who dropped out of community college are more likely than women to say it was because of other work opportunities, according to a survey by the think tank New America.
That went through John Truslow’s mind when he was deciding whether or not to go to college.
“There was a point where I wasn’t thinking about college” and considered going into the trades or the military, said Truslow, who ultimately decided to major in business at UVM.
Among his male high school classmates who didn’t go to college, said Truslow, who was playing pool in the student center, some couldn’t afford it. “But most of the ones that didn’t directly go to college, it was mostly academic. They just weren’t feeling school and they wanted to do something else.”
A third of men compared to a quarter of women said they didn’t go to or finish college because they just didn’t want to, Pew found.
Richard Reeves, who studies this problem, said it may be more a result of having so successfully encouraged women to get degrees than having discouraged men.
“I think actually what’s probably happened is the opposite — that we’ve sent a really strong and positive message to girls and women. But we haven’t had similar messages for boys and men,” said Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men.
“We’ve now got to do a little bit of self-correction here and say, look, of course we want girls and women to continue to rise in the education system, but we don’t want to leave the boys and men behind.”
Reeves said that, just as male-dominated programs in engineering and business have made extra efforts to recruit women, female-dominated fields such as healthcare and education should now reach out to men.
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Oregon Middle School Lesson Plan Asks Students to Compare Trump to Hitler
A school district in Oregon, already under fire for violence previously reported on by The Lion, is again on the defensive after asking middle school students to compare Trump to Hitler in a lesson plan.
In December, parents and teachers were calling on Tigard-Tualatin School District (TTSD) Superintendent Dr. Sue Rieke-Smith to resign, citing behavioral issues that went beyond a viral fight.
The latest controversy erupted after an education watchdog posted to X a TTSD lesson plan comparing former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.
A review of the Oregon law under which the lesson plan was created reveals that the intent was to promote progressive propaganda under the guise of Holocaust education.
The lesson plan asked middle school students to pick quotes from both Hitler and Trump and match them to the correct person.
“The exercise is clearly used to guide students to certain conclusions,” said Libs of TikTok.
In an interview with Libs of TikTok, TTSD Community Relations Manager Lisa Burton defended the plan, saying it illustrated how both Trump and Hitler used “propaganda” to influence public opinion against various groups.
The Libs of TikTok presentation also shows the lesson plan trying to draw comparisons between Nazi public book burning and their bans on the sale and distribution of certain books versus the current removal of overtly sexualized, age-inappropriate material that has been taking place in schools and libraries in America.
The lesson plan also compared Nazi book burnings to the current removal of overtly sexualized, age-inappropriate material from American schools and libraries.
“It all began with a book ban,” said the lesson, darkly.
The lesson also claimed “LGBTQ+ people and those who advocated for them” were among the first victims of the Holocaust.
However, the lesson omitted the fact that Hitler tolerated and even promoted some gay individuals.
For example, Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazi stormtroopers, was openly gay, and “Hitler either ignored it or said it was immaterial, depending on who he was talking to,” according to a JSTOR research article. Ultimately, Hitler had Röhm executed for treason due to political differences, not because of his sexuality.
Burton said that the TTSD lesson was part of mandatory teaching under Oregon Senate Bill 664, which requires schools to teach about the Holocaust and genocide.
However, a reading of the law suggests it was passed not to educate about the Holocaust but to promote the kind of “propaganda” that the lesson plan was supposed to critique.
The law includes a list of “teaching” tools, which critics say progressives in Oregon have armed students since passage in 2019.
Four full classes of Oregon high school graduates, now attending university, should be familiar with these lessons.
Amongst the provisions of the law, the lessons must:
“Stimulate students’ reflection on the roles and responsibilities of citizens in democratic societies to combat misinformation, indifference and discrimination through tools of resistance such as protest, reform and celebration.”
Label ”individuals and groups who belong in one or more categories, including perpetrator, collaborator, bystander, victim and rescuer.”
“Explore the various mechanisms of transitional and restorative justice that help humanity move forward in the aftermath of genocide.”
The district, when asked, seemed to understand why some might believe the lesson plan is one-sided and political.
“We could see how that would be perceived, yes,” said Burton.
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Australia: Deakin University orders pro-Palestinian campers off campus
Former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has called on all universities to “clear the camps of hate’’ from their campuses and praised Deakin University for ordering that the encampment protest on its campus be dismantled.
The university’s deputy vice-chancellor Kerrie Parker has warned the protesters that freedom of speech “does not extend to the establishment of unauthorised camps.’’
She sought the “immediate dismantling and removal of the current encampment at Morgans Walk’’ at the Burwood campus in Melbourne.
But defiant protesters insisted they “will not be complying’’ and are organising a rally on Wednesday to “defend and support the encampment’’.
A video filmed on Monday night shows protest organiser Jasmine Duff telling a group of protesters to rally to “defend’’ the camp on Wednesday.
In her email, Professor Parker said the university was committed to freedom of speech and academic freedom.
“Your ability to undertake protest, political discourse and debate on Deakin campuses is not being infringed or curtailed,’’ she wrote.
“However, the right to freedom of speech does not extend to the establishment of unauthorised camps which pose hygiene and safety risks and restrict the access, availability and use of Deakin premises and facilities for the benefit of the Deakin community of users.’’
Mr Frydenberg praised the university’s decision and called on others to follow its lead.
“Our universities must be safe spaces for learning and education, not indoctrination,’’ Mr Frydenberg told The Australian.
“All our universities should follow Deakin’s lead, bringing an end to these encampments and taking a strong and principled stand against the anti-Semitism, violence and hate we have seen across Australia in recent months.
“This is a time for our university leaders to stand up and be counted.”
Mr Frydenberg, a prominent member of the Jewish community, last week accused university leaders of being derelict in their duties in refusing to clear away the protest encampments. He was speaking ahead of the release this month on Sky News of his documentary Never Again: the Fight Against Anti-Semitism.
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May 13, 2024
Report: 67% of Universities Mandate ‘Diversity’ Indoctrination
More than two-thirds of America’s major universities are prioritizing indoctrination in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) ideology over real education.
That’s the bracing conclusion of a new report finding that 67 percent of major universities across the country require students to take courses in DEI—an ideology that promotes race-based discrimination—just to graduate. But the Goldwater Institute has a solution to restore institutions of higher learning to their core educational purpose: the pursuit of truth through the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
The ideology behind DEI teaches that the world is divided into the categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed.” Accordingly, the only way to pursue justice is to practice discrimination against those deemed “oppressors.” DEI thus rejects the American ideal of equal opportunity regardless of race, color, or creed.
Speech First, the free speech advocacy group that drafted the report, found that a large majority of universities studied use general education requirements to force all students to take courses that instruct them in this discriminatory ideology. Fifty-nine percent of those universities with DEI requirements were public institutions. For example, the University of Louisville requires that at least two of a student’s courses in the general education curriculum have a “diversity” focus.
Furthermore, many universities infuse DEI ideology into the general education program’s student learning outcomes (or statements that outline the program’s goals). These universities are making it clear that they seek to promote DEI ideology to their students, not merely to teach this ideology as one idea among many.
The new revelations provide even more confirmation of how embedded DEI has become in American universities. A recent report from the Goldwater Institute reveals that all journalism students at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University must take a course on “Diversity and Civility.” Readings in this course state that seemingly innocuous statements—such as “I believe the most qualified person should get the job”—are “microaggressions,” offensive actions that make people feel unwelcome. The Cronkite School is supposed to be one of the country’s preeminent training grounds for journalists; instead it’s forcing cultural and political indoctrination down students’ throat
https://stoppingsocialism.com/2024/04/report-67-of-universities-mandate-diversity-indoctrination/
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Confronting the Campus Revolutionary Wannabes
Mario Torres is in the front line for the defense of civilization.
Torres is the Columbia University janitor pictured defending Hamilton Hall from invading barbarians last week. The iconic photo of him pinning a protester against the wall became an instant social media meme.
Now, the unassuming Torres wouldn’t describe himself this way. If you listen to an interview he gave to the Free Press, he goes out of his way to say he’s an average New Yorker who now is concerned for his family.
But if you really listen to what he’s saying, you instantly understand the significance of what took place that day. The contrast between the everyday American turned suddenly by circumstances into a hero and the assailant breaking the law couldn’t be more stark.
The protester he pinned is himself a poster boy—for everything reviled in America. He is 40-year-old millionaire anarchist Cody Tarlow, also known as James Carlson or Cody Carlson, a violent trust-funder with a long history of Marxist agitation, whose late parents were megadonor ad executives, and whose trophy stepmother is now dating singer John Mellencamp.
It was the day the bicoastal elite/celebrity/activist set met a Yankee fan. As Torres put it, “It just so happens that they stormed my building. And I was there.”
Torres describes the Columbia campus prior to the protests as “beautiful, always manicured.” He added, “We always felt safe.” When you think about it, Torres may not know it—though, again, he might—but he is describing the essence of civilization.
Then the protesters came to campus, he said, and everything began to feel uneasy. After they took over Hamilton Hall, he quickly realized the attackers knew what they were doing. The surveillance cameras, high in the ceiling and hard to reach, were all immediately covered. “These guys were pros,” Torres told the Free Press.
In words that perfectly describe society’s dilemma right now, Torres said, “You don’t have a plan. They have a plan, you don’t.”
The reason the barbarians have a plan is that they are organized, while Democratic law enforcement refuses to prosecute criminals, and Republicans in the House of Representatives squander what little power they have.
Just take a look at Tarlow. (Let’s call him that, as that was the name of his father, the late ad executive Dick Tarlow, famous for his work with Revlon, Ralph Lauren, Cuisinart, and Pottery Barn, according to Yahoo News.)
The Canada Free Press quotes New York City Police Department officials as saying that Tarlow is a “longtime figure in the anarchist world.”
The New York Post, quoting a source at City Hall, writes that the millionaire’s rap sheet “dates back to at least 2005, when he was charged in San Francisco for participating in the violent ‘West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.’”
So we are dealing with a violent protester who is just a very rich anti-capitalist who has exhibited anti-social behavior for years but whose money, and our increasingly weak law enforcement apparatus, has allowed him to roam our streets free.
As Torres put it, “He’s worth millions, I’m not.”
Tarlow organized with others like him. Lisa Fithian, a legendary Marxist activist, was seen directing students at Hamilton Hall, telling them how to use zip ties to lock the doors. Fithian, who escaped arrest when the police showed up, is a veteran of the anti-world trade Seattle riots in 1999, the Ferguson riots, and every civil disturbance in between.
On her Facebook page, she describes herself as “trying to build the world that we want.” A 2003 New York Times article wrote of her, “You don’t go to Fithian when you want to carry a placard. You go to her when you want to make sure there are enough bolt cutters to go around.”
Torres enjoys no such advantages. He is a janitor with few resources who’s now worried about his children. A GoFundMe page has already been set up for him.
He told the Free Press of these violent activists, “I know they are funded by someone, you know they are funded by someone. People know that they are funded. We figured that out when we saw all the same colored tents, and then it came out in the news that NYU has the same color tents. Someone is funding them.”
We do know. Politico reported this week that the pro-Hamas protesters “are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” That’s less of a surprise than Politico is making out. But keep your eyes on Mario Torres. His skirmish with a violent millionaire revolutionary wannabe is the stuff that stands upstream of politics.
https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/confronting-the-campus-revolutionary-wannabes
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One University leader stands tall against anti-Semitism
Western Sydney University chancellor Jennifer Westacott has broken with fellow chancellors and explicitly condemned anti-Semitism during Gaza protests on Australian campuses.
Ms Westacott, a former Business Council of Australia chief executive, writes in The Weekend Australian that it is time for “collective leadership” to call out “growing division and anti-Semitism”.
Her plea comes after weeks of pro-Palestinian campus protests during which students have chanted “intifada” and “From the river to the sea” anti-Israel slogans, accusations have been made that radical and anti-Semitic outsiders have infiltrated campuses, an anti-Israel terrorist-linked group’s flag has been flown, and Nazi-style gestures have been made at student meetings.
Going further than any university leader has since the anti-Israel campus protests began, Ms Westacott said universities were champions of free speech and places of intellectual challenge “but they must never be places of fear”. “The hate speech and anti-Semitism occurring on our campuses is a direct assault on Australia’s multiculturalism and its principles,” she said.
Ms Westacott said she was speaking both as Western Sydney University chancellor – a role that makes her head of its governing body, similar to a company board chair – and in her personal capacity.
The university administrator and business leader says her own experiences suffering discrimination, and the way war and genocide have affected members of her family, fuelled her opposition to the anti-Semitism crisis in higher education.
“I’m doing so as part of a family that includes two people, a mother and her son, who are from an Islamic background, who are stateless because they faced genocide in Afghanistan, who were forced to flee, and now live as asylum-seekers,” she writes.
“They are our family, and my partner, Tess, and I love them. And I am doing so as someone who has endured sexism and homophobia. I do not believe we can pick and choose our moral positions.”
Ms Westacott’s condemnation of anti-Semitism comes after the University Chancellors Council decided at its plenary meeting last Thursday week not to explicitly call out anti-Semitic elements among campus protests, a resolution that went against the wishes of some chancellors. After the May 2, meeting the council issued a statement that condemned hate speech but stepped around the issue of anti-Semitism.
“Hate speech or conduct directed at any person or group of persons because of their nationality, religion or identity is completely unacceptable,” it said.
Another university chancellor told The Weekend Australian the council statement should have been stronger and explicitly condemned anti-Semitism, but this view was not accepted at the meeting.
In her article, Ms Westacott said the Australian values of tolerance, respect and fairness “made us the most successful multicultural country in the world”.
“I believe we cannot be silent when members of the Jewish community are targeted for the actions of a government more than 14,000 kilometres away,” she writes, saying Jews in Australia cannot be considered responsible for the Israeli government’s invasion of Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
“It would be like persecuting the Russian diaspora for the actions of Vladimir Putin,” Ms Westacott writes.
“Nor can we allow any form of discrimination or intimidation against Palestinians because of the actions of Hamas.”
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12 May, 2024
‘Bully Organization’: FFRF Forces Florida Elementary School to Disband Christian Club
Over the last several years, former President Donald Trump has voiced his disapproval of how people of faith have been treated in America. In late December, he posted a video on his social media platform Truth Social with the caption, “Stopping the Persecution of Christians!”
“Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before,” he said in the video. “Catholics in particular are being targeted, and evangelicals are surely on the watchlist as well.”
Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist group founded in 1976, has had a history of targeting Christians. Some of FFRF’s past projects include suing a Tennessee elementary school on behalf of The Satanic Temple, suing New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way for forcing public office candidates to swear a religious oath, and ensuring that a Latin cross was taken down at Chino Valley Adult School in California.
While FFRF’s eyes are currently set on demanding that the Birmingham Police Department “end coercive staff prayer,” the group is celebrating another win in its book. An elementary school in rural Florida was forced to disband its Fellowship of Christian Athletes club after being accused of indoctrinating children into religion by FFRF. The FCA chapter included a small group of fifth-grade students.
On March 29, FFRF legal fellow Samantha Lawrence wrote a letter to District Superintendent Dorothy Lee Wetherington-Zamora “regarding a constitutional violation” at Hamilton County Elementary School. The sole elementary school in the small town of Jasper was accused of “alienating” and “excluding” nonreligious families, as well as violating “students’ First Amendment rights by organizing, leading, and promoting a religious club.”
Lawrence defended FFRF’s stance by pointing out that the Equal Access Act allows students to form religious clubs in secondary schools, but not elementary schools. To further her point, she wrote, “Elementary students are too young to truly run a club entirely on their own initiative with no input from school staff or outside adults,” insinuating that “adults are the ones truly behind the club.”
“Hamilton Elementary should strive to be welcoming and inclusive of all students, not just those who subscribe to a particular brand of Christianity,” Lawrence continued. “The District must immediately investigate this matter and ensure that the FCA club at Hamilton Elementary is disbanded.”
Joseph Backholm, senior fellow at Family Research Council, responded to FFRF’s complaints in a comment to The Washington Stand.
“In general, the FFRF is a bully organization that leverages people’s ignorance of their freedoms against them,” he said. “This is far from the first time someone has tried to force a religious organization out of a school, but the First Amendment has, does, and hopefully always will be acknowledged as protecting those rights.”
After receiving the FFRF’s accusations, a local law firm representing the Hamilton County School District responded with a letter relaying their compliance.
“In an effort to avoid any perception that such a gathering on the campus of Hamilton Elementary is being organized, promoted or endorsed by the District or its employees, the club has been dispersed.” The letter also stated that the participating students would be starting sixth grade in a few months and would “be eligible to participate in FCA on the campus of Hamilton County High School.”
Ultimately, the elementary school caved to FFRF’s demands, a decision First Liberty Institute—a nonprofit defending religious freedom—disagrees with.
“Banning students from having a religious club at a school while permitting other, secular clubs is a travesty that teaches children their faith is unwelcome and must be hidden,” First Liberty Institute Deputy General Counsel Justin Butterfield told The Christian Post.
While FFRF exists to lessen religious influence in America, organizations like First Liberty fight to preserve religious freedoms. Its mission heavily contrasts with FFRF’s, as it has set out to defend “religious liberty for all Americans.”
Meanwhile, FFRF has begun celebrating its victory in shutting down the FCA chapter at Hamilton Elementary.
“It is well settled that public schools may not show favoritism towards or coerce belief or participation in religion. It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for an elementary school to organize, lead, or encourage student participation in a religious club like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes,” the press release following the disbandment read. “Thankfully, the district was willing to listen to reason and obey the law.”
While some leaders raise the alarm and organizations fight against religious persecution occurring on American soil, Backholm assures Christians ought not to fear.
“The last thing Christians should ever be is afraid,” he said. “There have always been sectarian conflicts in the U.S., but fortunately they have been less serious than in most other parts of the world because respecting the conscience of others has long been an American value. Yes, it’s being threatened by a dogmatic and highly intolerant form of secularism, but relatively speaking we have much to be grateful for.”
Backholm also warned that Christians live “on a spiritual battlefield.” He encouraged those with a faith to stand firm, as “any public testimony to the gospel will illicit some kind of response,” but it is a “reality Christians needs to be comfortable with.”
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The Most Dangerous People in America: College Professors
American college campuses are permeated with corrupted professors who themselves corrupt students. Without a doubt, college professors are the most dangerous people in America.
They’re not dangerous because they challenge the status quo or encourage their students to think critically. On the contrary, they are dangerous because they encourage impressionable young college students to adhere to the doctrines of the professors they choose without giving them the chance to meaningfully challenge those doctrines.
During the recent pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests on elite college campuses, thousands of students put up tents on private property, commandeered university-owned buildings, defaced private property, and chanted disturbing, antisemitic rhetoric. But while we constantly talk about the actions of the students, we fail to recognize that these students aren’t alone but instead are educated and cheered on by their college professors.
At Columbia University, many of the university’s professors joined the protests, donning orange reflective vests and standing alongside students in protest of Israel and—apparently—in support of the students’ right to free speech. Of course, these professors, like their students, are not constitutional scholars, yet they teach their students that what they’re doing is protected.
The First Amendment does not protect the right to vandalize or trespass on private property, which is what these students were doing, or even make terroristic threats or aid a terrorist organization, which arguably many of these students did. The very idea that there were professors aiding the students in their illegal takeover of the university should sound alarm bells.
Even in the face of the professors’ statements and actions, which were to the effect of “we support our students’ right to protest,” no rights were being violated. But you can be absolutely sure the impressionable college students seeing their actions and reading their statements feel more emboldened than ever and as though they were the ones wronged, not the scores of Jewish students who were barred from campus nor the many impoverished students unable to access the now-closed dining halls.
There can be no doubt left now that students who witnessed their professors, people of great authority and respect to them, supporting a protest that resulted in the unprovoked stabbing of a Jewish woman in the eye with a Palestinian flag, chants of “death to America” and “globalize the intifada” (a violent uprising in which more than a thousand Israelis were murdered in the early 2000s), students claiming “we are Hamas,” and a significant number of students donning Hamas militant headbands will think any violence or violent rhetoric on their part is somehow justified.
Look no further than the case of Russell Rickford, an associate history professor at Cornell University, who took a leave of absence after openly stating that the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks were “exhilarating” and “energizing.” He was seen back on campus, protesting in solidarity with the students and speaking in support of the students and Palestine.
Why should a student feel afraid of being suspended—or even expelled—when a professor of the institution who met a similar fate is back on campus voicing his support of Palestine?
One thing any college student—particularly one who challenges authority—will learn is that when that authority (the professor, the administration, or even the student body) is overwhelmingly liberal, questioning dogma is a recipe for failure and being labeled an outcast.
For a college student, a bad grade can make or break their college career, which, to college students, is the most immediately important thing in their life. Giving a college professor the ability to judge a student more harshly because they disagree or even simply question the professors’ beliefs is the perfect recipe for indoctrination.
Let’s be clear, college professors should not be feared; they should be respected when they earn that respect, same as anyone else. The only power they wield is the title they were given by their institution—a title that can be quickly stripped away from them. To college students, these professors are the most academically accomplished people they know, so they follow them mindlessly; that’s why they are dangerous.
Well-educated people are often the least intelligent. They are so confident in their ability to think critically that they have successfully convinced themselves that they can do no wrong. It is only when students have an honest professor who understands their fallibility that they can truly learn
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/09/the-most-dangerous-people-in-america-college-professors/
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NSW schools: More Leftist censorship
Australia: The battle to gain a place at one of the state’s prized selective schools has for years been hard fought by parents and students who see it as a golden ticket to top HSC results and entry to a prestigious university course.
But education analysts say recent changes to stop publishing cut-off scores have backfired and are now breeding the “worst of behaviour” by tutoring companies who are preying on the information vacuum to spruik their services.
A record 18,544 students competed on Thursday for about 4200 spots in the NSW public system’s high-achieving selective high schools for next year’s entry. Despite population increases, the number of places in selective schools has not grown.
Australian Tutoring Association president Mohan Dhall said entry requirements for a test to gain entry to a NSW public school should be clear and transparent to parents and students. He said the secrecy meant tutoring companies were filling the subsequent information vacuum with their own league tables and exploiting parent anxiety to spruik their services.
“If you’re not disclosing scores, you don’t know what you’re reaching for. The children have to try harder because of the uncertainty. They’re breeding the worst of behaviour,” Dhall said.
“It is a public test in a public system and there should be public disclosure of test scores and accountability around it. The citizens of NSW should be able to make informed decisions, and you can’t do that in the absence of information.”
A department spokesman said the decision to stop publishing minimum entrances scores for schools came after wellbeing and privacy concerns were raised by students and parents. Under the changes, parents were also not told specific marks but rather broad “performance bands” – a general ballpark of how their child performed in the test. It coincided with the introduction of the equity model, which reserved 20 per cent of selective school seats for students from disadvantaged groups.
Irum Shaheen said she wanted her 10-year-old son Adilimran Shaheen to sit the selective test but did not want to place undue pressure on him.CREDIT: RHETT WYMAN
In response to the move, tutoring companies simply triangulated performance bands and offers made to individual students to create their own league tables, albeit without precise scores.
Despite previously publishing annual lists of minimum scores required for entry to each school on its website, the NSW Department of Education refused to release the scores following a freedom of information request made by the Herald, saying the cut-off scores requested did not exist.
Carlingford West Public father Rav Singh, whose 11-year-old son Veyaan sat the test, said he wanted clear information about which schools were the hardest to get into. Parents must preference three schools, and he will put Veyaan down for Baulkham Hills High, Normanhurst Boys and Sydney Boys High School.
North Sydney Boys High tops HSC for first time
“It is a better idea to publish the marks so you know where your kid stands,” he said.
The Ponds School parent Irum Shaheen said she did not want to put undue pressure on her son, Adilimran, 10, to get into selective school, but said test scores would give her a clear indication of what was achievable.
“To be very honest, I think it should be published so that it really gives us an idea of what is going on,” she said.
James Ruse Agricultural High School has historically been the most difficult school to gain entry to, but that may change this year after it lost its position at the top of HSC league tables to North Sydney Boys.
Revealed: Sydney’s most overcrowded primary and high schools
The former principal of North Sydney Boys, Robyn Hughes, predicted the test performance required to gain entry to her former school would increase this year after it successfully dethroned Ruse ending its 27-year-reign as the state’s top school.
“North Sydney Boys cut-offs will probably go up, reflecting the demand from parents. They will be seriously thinking about North Sydney Boys in contrast to James Ruse,” she said.
She said the move to no longer releasing cut-off scores might go some way to reduce the competition among parents – who would also utilise the scores to gain entry to private school.
As principal, she was aware that some parents showed their child’s selective school placement offer and performance scores to private schools in a bid to gain a scholarship.
“Parents know the offer can be a passport to getting into private schools,” she said.
A Department of Education spokesman said factors that contribute to an offer being made, including the number and performance of the children who apply, change each year.
“There are no minimum entry scores or “cut-off” scores for selective high schools,” he said.
“Parents should be cautious of relying on information from coaching colleges as it is often inaccurate and not representative of the full range of students who apply for placement in selective high schools across the state.”
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9 May, 2024
Punishing students because their parents are too successful is unfair and unwise
Leftist discriminatory practices are truly odious and usually futile. An interesting example is preferential admissions of underqualified blacks to medical schools, where they oten drop out anyway. But those who stay the distance graduate regardless of any performance criteria. And other blacks know that -- resulting in some blacks refusing to be seen by a black doctor
If you are a strong student at UC San Diego with middle-class college-educated parents and wish to transfer to a “selective major” (engineering, data science, public health), the university isn’t interested in you. A new directive gives one point each for California residency, first-generation college-student status, low income, and a GPA above 3.0—a low bar for “selective” admissions. This is the latest instance of exclusionary practices in the name of “equity.” Merit takes a back seat to socioeconomic status. Your family tree matters more than your academic performance. California has taken a page from the population-classification schemes of now-defunct Marxist regimes.
Proposition 209 bars California universities from explicitly using race as a criterion, but they have spent 30 years engineering their results through holistic admission criteria, the elimination of SATs, and socioeconomic-class proxies.
But California is not alone. Other states and the federal government responded to earlier court challenges by including class in programs that target underrepresented minorities. The federal McNair program offers funding to minority graduate students and non-minority first-generation low-income students. The GPA requirement is as low as 2.50. Low GPA thresholds are needed to reach a significant number of African-American and Hispanic students, whose high–school GPA averages are 2.68 and 2.83, respectively. Asian and white students have GPA averages well above 3.0.
Some observers interpret the addition of class-based preferences as a response to the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down race-based affirmative action. Yet calls for class-based measures date back to the civil-rights era. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson signed the explicitly color-blind Civil Rights Act into law. That same year Martin Luther King Jr. proposed a “Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,“ which included the “forgotten white poor.” This was a path not taken. Federal agencies soon threatened colleges and employers with legal action and denial of federal funding if they did not produce racially proportionate outcomes. Corporations and colleges got the message and introduced racial preferences. With some exceptions, the courts upheld this bias until last year’s decision signaled a sharp turn to colorblind law.
Is class-based affirmative action better than race preferences? “Affirmative action prophet” Richard Kahlenberg has long agitated for class not race criteria in college admissions. After the Supreme Court struck down race-based admissions, he took to the New York Times and other liberal venues to advocate admitting more lower-income students from poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods as exemplars who “overcame obstacles.”
Kahlenberg is right that most minorities admitted to elite colleges—like their white classmates—are well-off. Many are the children of immigrants whose families experienced no history of discrimination in America. Swapping class for race would make elite colleges more economically diverse. He’s also right that class-based affirmative action is safer from legal challenge. The courts have accepted class-based policies for more than a century based, for example, on income or the employer’s size.
Yet class-based affirmative action is an illusion. If America had pursued King’s approach we might have avoided six decades of affirmative-action debate. But current practices and an institutional mindset are ingrained and defended vigorously. There’s a reason why Kahlenberg’s quixotic pleas went unheard.
By prioritizing class over academic performance, the practice is a further assault on the social norm that we ought to treat individuals according to their merit and the “content of their character,” not their skin color or parental status. Kenny Xu makes this case in his passionately argued An Inconvenient Minority: The Harvard Admissions Case and the Attack on Asian American Excellence (2022). The assault on excellence affects all of us and weakens America in its competition with nations that don’t hamper the academically gifted.
The law should protect all individuals regardless of their status. Racial discrimination is odious because we can’t change our skin color and it violates our dignity as individuals. Likewise, we cannot change our parents. It is one thing to tax wealthy Americans more heavily than those with lower incomes, but it is another to exclude their 18-year-old children from high-demand majors because their parents are “too successful.” It is unfair and unwise to disadvantage young people simply because they chose the wrong parents.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14921
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No, Demonstrations Today Aren’t Like the 1960s
The current demonstrations on college campuses against Israel remind some of the unrest on college campuses during the 1960s.
But the comparison is not a good one.
The unrest of the 1960s was defined by the war in Vietnam and by the Civil Rights Movement. Both had practical, personal impact on young Americans in their own country.
American soldiers were fighting and dying in Vietnam. There was real, life-and-death impact on all Americans, and certainly on young Americans.
The military draft was still operative then. Despite various deferments, including for university attendance, the draft was still a reality and was a looming presence for all college-age Americans. They knew they could be drafted and had friends and friends of friends who were.
The official number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam stands at 58,220.
Although there were legitimate moral concerns about American involvement in this war, the moral concerns were accompanied by young Americans having real skin in this game.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s also had real personal moral impact on all Americans. And youth are always highly sensitive to the moral failings around them.
The reality of segregation and Jim Crow started getting national attention with the Civil Rights Movement, the activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other, sometimes violent groups.
In contrast to the woke activism of today, which is totally political in character, the movement was led by a charismatic and articulate black pastor and had a religious, moral tone rooted in the Christian church.
Anyone that questions this should read, or reread, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963.
But King’s moral appeal was to an America very different than today.
In 1965, per Gallup, 70% of Americans said religion was personally “very important” to them. In 2023, by contrast, only 45% of Americans say religion is “very important.”
In 1962, per Gallup, 46% of Americans said they attended religious services over the last seven days. In 2023, this was down to 32%.
During this period there were two major wars involving Israel and the surrounding Arab states.
In 1967, Israel prevailed in the Six-Day War, which began with preemptive action by Israel against the Egyptian army mobilized for attack, and subsequent aggression by Syria in the North and Jordan in the East. In 1973, Israel again prevailed against attacks on these same fronts.
In 1967, per Gallup, 45% of Americans supported Israel against 4% who supported the Arab states, with 26% with no opinion. In 1973, 48% of Americans expressed support for Israel versus 6% expressing support for the Arab states and 24% with no opinion.
Support for Israel among Americans during this period was one-sided and clear.
But, again, America today is very, very different.
Our young people in the 1960s understood what personal responsibility is about.
On a national level, in the 1960s, all young Americans faced the reality of military conscription. Today, regarding national obligation and service, there are virtually no demands on our youth.
Now President Joe Biden is even erasing their student loan obligations.
On a religious, moral level, religion then had a much stronger hold on the nation. Religion teaches and inspires a culture where individuals have a sense they belong to and have obligation to something beyond their own egotistical inclinations.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and as religion has weakened and disappeared from our culture, it has been replaced by politics and the welfare state.
The end of it all is we now have a generation of youth insulated from all sense of national and religious and moral personal responsibility.
So now they demonstrate in support of terrorists and against the only free country in the Middle East that shares the very values that made our own country great.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/04/no-demonstrations-today-arent-like-the-1960s/
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Where are the university vice chancellors?
"Vice Chancellor" is the Australian term for a university CEO. They appear to have no principles other than their own survival in their jobs. They are utter cowards. JANET ALBRECHTSEN below outlines what men of principle would be saying
Australian vice-chancellors have been speaking in platitudes, desperate not to upset anyone. Here is a speech they should give.
We, vice-chancellors who are now trying to manage the pro-Palestinian protests on our university campuses, had this coming. For many years, when it mattered, we squibbed the importance of free speech.
Now, when students side with Hamas, when little children are encouraged and orchestrated to shout “intifada” and “From the river to sea”– both phrases used by terrorists to signal the destruction of the state of Israel – when Jewish students no longer feel safe on campus, we talk a lot about free speech. The chickens are coming home to roost. Chickens is the operative word.
We haven’t taken free speech seriously in the past. We’ve shut down events for apparently controversial speakers for “safety” reasons. Peter Ridd, a celebrated marine biologist, was famously sacked for breaching a code of conduct after he publicly challenged the work of colleagues. Free speech, academic freedom? They didn’t get a look-in then.
Even Malcolm Turnbull couldn’t get through a speech at a university without it being shut down by shouty protesters. We ramble under our breath about free speech when it suits, instead of giving this foundational principle of democracy the full-throttled defence it deserves.
Students who want to be educated, not to mention parents who pay for their kids to get educated at our universities, and taxpayers who fund us, expect us to take free speech seriously always – not just now when we university leaders find ourselves in a bind.
As a vice-chancellor at an Australian university, I am inspired to speak out after reading the weekend address by University of Florida president Ben Sasse. I make no apologies for quoting from his address. When a university leader stands out, it emboldens others to do the same. We need now to speak up for the sake of students who come to university to learn, not to use campus lawns as a platform for performance art.
The more violent American experience is not yet here. Before things get worse, I want our students to understand a few salient points about university life.
But first, I say to other university vice-chancellors, the reason Australians can and do lump Australia’s biggest universities together is that together we have turned our great sandstone universities into homogenous, anti-intellectual blobs. When things have gone wrong, and they have, it’s treated, rightly, as failure across the board.
The University of Sydney is no different to the University of Melbourne. The Australian National University is indistinguishable from the University of NSW. The University of Western Australia is a carbon copy of the University of Adelaide. No university leader of the so-called Group of Eight has had the courage to speak up about the ignorance that has flourished on our campuses, right under our noses.
We won’t fall into the trap of using slogans for either side. We won’t tar all student protesters with the same brush by describing these as encampments of hatred.
To be sure, there is extremism and hatred, in pockets, but the deeper problem is the ignorance that we, as CEOs charged with running these once great institutions, have allowed to flourish.
We have stood silent for years while our lecture rooms became breeding grounds for teaching kids – and they are just kids, with minds not yet fully formed – that the whole world must be divided into two camps: Oppressors and The Oppressed. I have used capital letters deliberately.These categories are now fully formed political projects. No nuance is welcome when considering who are the oppressed and who are oppressors. Whether you call this postmodernism, critical race theory, Marxist class struggle or some variant, our universities have become infested, and infected, by academics and students who view the world through prisms of power relationships.
For some the world is a giant mass of racist power structures. Others say the world can be understood only as organised male oppression. Others point to colonialism as the root of all evil.
There is much overlap. And adherents of this share the common belief that shutting down their opponents is an end that justifies more or less any means. They also believe that once you have identified your oppressed group of choice, you can ignore logic and reason in pursuit of their liberation.
You want evidence? Pro-Palestinian protesters on campus have every right to protest against a brutal war in Gaza. But if facts matter, they should also be the biggest critics of Hamas. This terrorist organisation understood, indeed intended, that invading Israel, killing innocent civilians, raping women at a music festival and beheading babies, would lead to a war in Gaza where innocent Palestinians would die, as innocent civilians have done in every war. Hamas uses its own people as human shields. Hamas steals foreign aid intended for Palestinians to enrich its leaders. Hamas keeps its people in a state of poverty as part of its project to call for the destruction of Israel. If students can’t identify Hamas as terrorists, then something has gone terribly wrong with their education – under our watch.
And ask yourself how those who believe in the equality of women, or the rights of LGBTQ people, can demonstrate in support of Hamas? Living in a tent on the university lawn may address the rental crisis temporarily, but what will it do for the poor Palestinians, let alone the Israelis who live with terrorists on their doorstep?
Instead, too many of our students have been trained in ignorance. Those copying Gaza Solidarity encampments on US campuses should be reading what we are reading: students are being manipulated by extremists who are sharing instruction manuals encouraging militancy and violence. At New York universities last week, almost half of those arrested by the NYPD were not university students.
I want our students to think for themselves, to test what they have heard, what they have read, what they think they believe, to read widely and to listen to people they think they disagree with. If academics at our university don’t encourage students to do that, these teachers need to find another job.
Living in a democracy means rights come with responsibilities. The American student, draped in a keffiyeh for cameras, who demanded food and water for protesters who had taken over a building at Columbia University clearly has not studied history. If you are going to be a revolutionary, remember to pack your lunch. We will not facilitate criminal behaviour by sending in Uber Eats.
Members of the Australian Palestinian community shout slogans at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney.
Members of the Australian Palestinian community shout slogans at the Palestinian Protest Campsite at University of Sydney.
While curing the disease of illiberalism infecting our universities will take time, we will start by treating the symptoms. We have spent too much time worrying about gendered language and other slight offences, and lost sight of what really matters.
As Sasse said, “We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.” As adults, you shouldn’t need written codes of conduct to govern your behaviour on campus. You must now weigh the costs of your decisions and own the consequences. We will defend your rights to free speech and free assembly – but if you cross the line, damage property, hijack buildings or take part in any other prohibited activities, you will be suspended. Those who incite violence will be reported to the police, immediately. We will not tolerate mob rule.
We say this to be clear with you. We mean it. We will hold you responsible for your actions.
We shouldn’t need a written code to explain that a university is committed to free speech and to academic freedom. Yet we do because that’s how far we have lost our way. Students of all backgrounds, cultures and religions should expect to hear things at university that may make them uncomfortable. We must equip students for the real world, where slogans and tent protests won’t get you very far. We need to teach students how to listen, reason, challenge and persuade. These skills will enrich them and the society they step into with their degrees and doctorates. Otherwise, what is the purpose of university?
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8 May, 2024
Anti-Israel encampment at fashion college cleared as NYPD arrests dozens of protesters who refused to leave
Antisemitism as a party!
The anti-Israel encampment at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan was cleared away Tuesday evening — after dozens of protesters were arrested for refusing to shut down their rally.
NYPD officers in riot helmets and carrying zip ties moved in on the crowd of hundreds just 10 minutes after announcing that those who failed to vacate the West 27th Street campus would be charged with trespassing.
“Students, students you make us proud!” the crowd chanted as their buddies were hauled onto an NYPD corrections bus shortly before midnight.
Within 30 minutes, a university cleaning crew cleared the encampment, dragging the tents away from the property.
It wasn’t immediately clear if FIT gave the NYPD the go-ahead to arrest the protesters — as Columbia had done on its students twice last month.
Before police moved in, hundreds of protesters played games like Connect 4 and Jenga, drew on the ground with chalk and munched on cookies.
The only strife appeared to emerge when an officer scolded a protester for throwing candy at the crowd, telling her it was dangerous and that it could hit someone in the eye.
“Did I hit anyone in the eye?” she hauntingly asked her friends in front of the cop.
“No!” they jeered back.
Police began monitoring the peaceful demonstration over two hours before swooping in with arrests.
The officers set up barricades in front of the tent city as protesters locked arms in front of the encampment.
Throughout the demonstration, the protesters hurled insults at the officers as they maintained the perimeter.
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High school is slammed after student newspaper published 'Hitler had some good ideas' in its overheard on campus page
But shouting to kill all Jews is OK?? Unfathomable
A Sacramento high school newspaper has been hit with backlash after publishing an article saying 'Hitler had some good ideas' in its 'overheard' section.
C.K. McClatchy High School in the Land Park area has been slammed with controversy due to an article published in the student newspaper's spring edition.
The Prospector printed an offhand remark allegedly made by a student, who said 'Hitler's got some good ideas' in a Government class.
After one of the paper's editors heard the shocking comment, it was included in the 'What did you say' section - a feature that states 'some of the weirdest stuff' overheard on campus.
Nine of the 'favorite' remarks were listed, including other items such as 'I would definitely get suspended if I beat up the mascot' and 'I miss my ex. I'm probably gonna stalk him.'
'I may have kissed my cousin,' 'Dammit, I wasted the whole time drawing drugs' and 'Please stop licking my armpits' were several of the other 'favorite quotes' included.
The disturbing Hitler comment was last on the list.
After receiving furious backlash, the paper issued a 'response to 2024 Spring Edition Controversy.'
'The recent release of the spring edition of The Prospector has sparked controversy, and we would like to speak on the matter that involves a column found on page 15 titled 'What Did You Say' which includes anonymous quotes from students here at McClatchy. The quote in question is 'Hitler's got some good ideas.'
'We would first like to express that this quote does NOT reflect our ideals or beliefs; it was included to spark a conversation on how students here choose to use their words. The quote was included along with others deemed inappropriate for school, such as, 'I miss my ex. I'm probably gonna stalk him.'
'The topic of Hitler is, of course, a very sensitive one, especially considering the current political climate. We understand many were hurt and are concerned about the publishing of this quote. We, as a news outlet, believe it is important to bring awareness to the fact that a student on campus felt it was ok to say that in a classroom setting.'
After the inviting those who want to express their opinion on the matter openly because the paper 'want to hear your voices' - the editors were then forced to disable Instagram comments because of 'malicious comments'
'Unfortunately, due to individuals using the comment section to publicly shame and make malicious statements, we have decided to disable our comment section,' an Instagram post stated.
The Prospector's website lists seniors Ivy Hawkins and Ilijah Curtin as editors.
It it is unclear who made the initial decision to include the controversial quote, which editor heard the statement being uttered and who said the disturbing sentence to begin with.
The paper's faculty advisor, Samantha Archuleta said that, although the remark was troubling it was 'important' for them to report it.
Archuleta, writing with her student-editor, Ilijah Curtin, told The Sacramento Bee, 'The discussion before the publication was that the students' intent was to show a variety of overheard statements on campus, from innocuous to harmful.'
The faculty advisor said that the student journalists and the editor that overhead the comment made by her classmate are working on a follow-up story to provide more context.
McClatchy High's principal, Andrea Egan, said in an autodial response to the antisemitic remark sent to parents and the school community on Sunday that she found the comment 'alarming.'
'My primary goal was and is to ensure that our campus is a safe and welcoming community for all students while navigating the complicated free speech issues associated with student publications,' she said in the message.
'I promptly met with the journalism students early the next day to discuss my concerns, and shared with them the importance of exercising good judgment in their editorial decision-making. Words have the power to cause harm.'
Egan also said that she would be organizing a meeting with representatives from a local Jewish congregation to strategize on a response.
Brian Heap, the chief spokesman for the Sacramento City Unified School District, released a a statement saying that the 'highly offensive comment' hadn't been reported to a teacher or administrator before it was published.
'Our principals are first and foremost instructional leaders and, in this capacity, Principal Egan felt that addressing the (journalism) class directly and promptly was an important and necessary teaching opportunity.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13391837/Sacramento-high-school-newspaper-hitler.html
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American academia is deeply infected with antisemitism AND anti-Americanism
Minouche Shafik certainly ought to go as president of Columbia, along with all her peers across academia who’ve utterly bungled their “tentifada” occupations, but America’s campus rot runs far deeper.
Note the CCNY staff who pulled a sympathy sickout after City College had its encampment cleared, and the Columbia and NYU profs who formed human chains in defense of the students (and outsiders) grossly violating the schools’ rules.
And, as Charlie Gasparino flags, the way elite colleges have taken vast overseas donations in tacit exchange for shaping their faculties and curricula in opposition to Israel (and America).
Heck, notice that Pritzkers serve on the boards of both Columbia and Harvard — even as the Pritzker family foundation funds multiple groups supporting the “pro-Palestinian protests.”
Mayor Adams is certainly right to stress the role of “outside agitators” in fanning the campus flames, but plenty of “agitators” are deep on the inside, too.
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7 May, 2024
Anti-Semitic mobs thrive on old campus hatreds
There is much truth in what Greg Sheridan says below. Where he goes wrong is his attribution of problems to "our society". It is nothing of the sort. "Society" is not uniform or homogeneous. The Left is seriously sick with hatred of everything normal but that does not mean everybody else is.
The Left will eventually mismanage its way out of power, perhaps at the hands of Donald Trump, and the pendulum will swing back, erasing the worst atrocities of Leftism
From Marx onward, the Left have always hated success in others and Israel is a shining example of success -- so hatred of it has long been festering on the left waiting only for even a slight excuse to burst into the open.
The absurdity that the Islamic extremists of Gaza represent "Palestine" has become excuse enough for Leftist hate to burst out. Most Palestinians live at peace with Israel -- in Jordan, in the West Bank and in Israel itself
The widespread intellectual and moral corruption of our universities is one of the most alarming signs of deep sickness in our society.
The universities contribute institutionally to the current madness in several ways. Their leaders are institutionally cowardly. These institutions will throw you on to the street for contesting elements of climate change alarmism, send you on a re-education course if you use the wrong pronoun for someone, get you into mighty trouble if you express the view that a racially segregated study space is not the best way to fight racism.
They will offer students trigger warnings lest they be upset by the prose of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or even Jane Austen.
But shouting demonstrators harassing Jewish students; screaming for intifada that has meant murderous campaigns against Jewish people, not only in Israel; declaring that Israel is a terror state; calling for Palestine to be free “from the river to the sea”, which can only mean the destruction of the Jewish state; even staff and students supporting Hamas itself, an outfit proscribed as a terrorist organisation under Australian law – that’s all fine because these lions of campus administration have suddenly discovered that, when faced with a violent enemy, they believe in free speech after all.
The great anti-communist academic Frank Knopfelmacher, a collection of whose writings has just been published, once told me the collective noun for vice-chancellors was “a lack of principles”.
In the US, college administrators have been shamed into requesting police action to end pro-Palestinian encampments with their blatantly anti-Semitic overtones. This may have something to do with how badly these demonstrations are affecting Joe Biden politically and contributing to the possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency in November. Biden changes his positions entirely according to political convenience. He and Kamala Harris gave a degree of support to the defund the police movement and demonstrations in 2020. They were able to portray much of the civic violence of that period as chaos caused by Trump.
But, combined with his failure on illegal immigration, Biden will suffer tremendously if this campus disorder continues. Middle America hates it. At the same time the hard left, and especially the profoundly ill-educated young people who wouldn’t know which river and which sea they were chanting about but love the idea and romance of faux social revolution, can’t bear Biden’s qualified support for Israel nor his qualified support for law and order.
On this occasion Biden could lose support on both his left and right.
But universities have contributed to this crisis in a much more direct and profound way. And that is through allowing, over decades now, many of their humanities courses to be invaded by critical theory, neo-Marxism and toxic identity politics.
For a long time, Western universities, including Australian universities, have been teaching that our societies are essentially and uniquely evil, that we are colonial, racist, sexist etc.
I was an undergraduate at Sydney University in the mid-1970s and came to the considered conclusion that the courses I was taking were junk. In a human geography class a lecturer informed us that the shining example of “praxis” was China’s Chairman Mao. Even then I knew that Mao Zedong was directly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of innocent Chinese. How could he be lauded by this lecturer?
In economics, I got to choose between political economy and mainstream economics. Political economy was dominated by pretty crude Marxism. I took classes there because they required no work. As long as in essays you proclaimed how unjust society was, you’d get at least a credit. It was easy but a complete waste of time. Mainstream economics had taken refuge from Marxism in almost pure mathematics. That’s not as objectionable as Marxism but it doesn’t describe reality very well either.
The only possible use of such a university education was to get a credential. Educationally, intellectually, morally, it was utterly worthless.
Many, perhaps most, university humanities and social sciences subjects have been captured by critical theory. Critical theory reduces everything to a shoddy analysis of power structures. It has destroyed much of the joy of studying literature. A friend, a little younger than me, told me he switched from literature, his first love, to philosophy. In literature it didn’t matter whether he was studying Austen or a restaurant menu, it was the same old fifth-rate power analysis, analysis of the allegedly hidden power structure behind the text.
Universities in many cases have thus abandoned the substance and truth of the subjects they allegedly teach. Critical theory is frequently festooned with Marxoid scripturalism and endless self-referential footnoting. But it’s not a complicated intellectual discipline. Really it’s a simplistic conspiracy theory that absolves universities from the hard but rewarding work of exploring human culture in all its richness.
Instead, like all conspiracy theories, it reduces human experience to a simple formula that assigns heroes and villains, in this case on an identity politics basis.
Our moral outrage students and academics are aquiver with hatred of the world’s only Jewish state. Their universities take money from Arab states that outlaw gay relationships, host Confucius Institutes financed by a government that tolerates no dissent at all. But in critical theory, Chinese and Arabs aren’t villains.
Critical theory, this monstrous engine of hatred, is profoundly anti-intellectual, which is perhaps why it thrives at contemporary Western universities, including ours.
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Trigger warnings, mental health issues, transgender rights and knee-jerk cancel culture: Welcome to life on university campus in modern Britain
An anonymous academic has lifted the lid on what life is like on university campus in modern Britain, with trigger warnings rife, knee-jerk cancel culture, and lecturers dishing out inflated grades with it impossible for students to fail their course.
Although most students are well-behaved and more interested in eating healthily than 'getting smashed', there is an 'epidemic of mental illness' spreading throughout, The Secret Lecturer reveals in a new book.
Financing issues are causing standards to be 'obliterated' while universities are striking murky million pound deals with 'arms dealers, fossil fuel companies and foreign dictatorships'.
Some lecturers are taking books and films that represent slavery, sexual assault and suicide off the syllabus out of fear they might upset some hypersensitive students.
'But a representation of something terrible is not a moral validation of it — quite the contrary,' they say.
'We're back to that dilemma of needing to protect the welfare of students but also requiring them to recognise that the world is nasty, unfair and violent — and that a good deal of great art reflects that.'
The advances in AI mean and the arrival of Elon Musk's ChatGPT mean plagiarism is virtually 'untraceable', reported The Times.
Even when students are caught out they break down in tears and blame mental distress for cheating, with their punishment being allowed to resubmit their work in the summer.
'Nobody is allowed to fail,' they say as students are now seen as 'customers we can't afford to upset'.
The anonymous author suggests some colleagues are 'bribing' students into giving them positive feedback by handing out over-generous marks.
One colleague is described as 'unapologetic grade-inflater, awarding firsts to submissions that are as coherent as Shane MacGowan after a four-day bender'.
They write about in one course where 67 per cent of students were given first class degrees: 'No way are two thirds of them that smart. I read in our staff bulletin that the same course has been named best of its kind in the country, based on the votes of those same students — any chance whatsoever that grade inflation is a wheeze to ensure that students like us lecturers enough to give us positive feedback?
'Decisions to close departments have been based on such feedback — I dread to think how many lecturers have been fired because they were too honest to bribe students with over-generous marks.'
They bemoan the culture within campuses with 'jaded' lecturers 'underpaid, overworked and on casual contracts'.
On academic standards, they write they 'are slowly being obliterated, though that has more to do with financing than with a slide into "wokery"'.
For two seminars in a row no students turned up with mental health problems leaving some walking around like 'lost souls'.
In terms of transgender rights, students will change their minds based on who they are with 'for if the company they are in at any one time doesn't like their principles, they'll change theirs. Rather than leading thought, they genuflect to the prevailing intellectual and ideological winds'.
They say endless meetings are draining with 'the further up the university hierarchy you look, the thicker people get'.
'It's like a parody of Darwinian selection - survival of the dimmest,' they add.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13386327/what-like-university-secret-lecturer.html
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‘Federal Overreach’: Lawsuit Aims to Stop Biden’s Title IX Rule Change
After the Biden administration released its new Title IX rule on April 19, it took less than two weeks for the Defense of Freedom Institute to file a lawsuit against it.
“We are asking the court to … basically stop the effect of the regulations for a variety of legal reasons,” says Robert Eitel, the institute’s co-founder and president. That’s because the rule change is “simply unlawful,” he explained.
Among the changes to Title IX, the Biden administration is attempting to redefine sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation. Title IX is an education amendment that was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972 and requires there be equal opportunities for men and women in schools across the country.
Eitel says the Biden administration’s attempt to redefine sex in Title IX is “federal overreach.”
The states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Idaho filed the suit with the Washington-based Defense of Freedom Institute, a conservative nonprofit dedicated to providing policy and legal solutions within the spheres of education and the workforce.
Eitel joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the lawsuit against the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule. He also explains what should be done about the ever-growing issue of student loan debt, and why President Joe Biden can’t legally issue mass student loan forgiveness.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/05/06/this-group-filed-lawsuit-stop-bidens-title-ix-rule-change/
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6 May, 2024
NYU protestors call for 'death to America' and 'long live the intifada' in horrifying notes in their 'Gaza' camp
Sinister pro-Hamas flyers have emerged on the NYU campus amid fears over rampant anti-Semitism and threatening behavior at demonstrations.
Posters declaring 'Death to America' and 'Long live the intifada' have been plastered around the Manhattan college's Gaza encampment, days after over 100 protestors were arrested in furious clashes with the NYPD.
The police force shared images of the fliers on Friday, noting the 'inflammatory literature and signage' observed at the 'illegal encampment.'
It comes as universities across America have struggled to control pro-Palestine protests, with aggressive police crackdowns sparking outrage as arrests have topped 2,000 nationwide.
While New York colleges including NYU and Columbia have continued to see hostile clashes between protestors and police, nearby Rutgers University became one of the first to bring their encampment to a close this week.
On Thursday, the New Jersey institution reached an agreement with protestors on eight of their ten demands, including severing its partnership with Tev Aviv University and creating Arab Cultural Centers on all campuses.
Although conflict at Rutgers' encampment only seemingly extended to counter-protestors chanting 'USA', the NYPD shared images of NYU's campus with more threatening displays of protest.
In one poster, activists called to 'disrupt/ reclaim/ destroy Zionist business interests everywhere', alongside: 'Death to America.'
'Squat or rot! Do what you want!' the poster read. 'Long live the intifada!'
In another flyer, protestors said they had 'enough with de-escalation trainings - where are the escalation trainings?'
'We can choose to learn how to build effective barricades, how to link arms most effectively to resist police attacks, or what type of expanding foam works best on the kind of doorknobs present in our universities,' it said.
'This is not rhetoric - this is an urgent need.'
The poster also took aim at references to 'outside agitators' - or 'professional protestors' - pretending to be students to join the cause, saying that they would actually be welcome to the movement.
'In the eyes of our enemies in the belly of the beast, we are all outside agitators,' the flyer concluded.
The NYPD also shared an image of a separate flyer, which said that 'those who call for peace are chasing a mirage.'
'As for the resistance: strike them everywhere,' it read. 'What kind of life is this that we live in peace with those who abuse our blood and the blood of our children, our men, our sisters?'
'To enemies: The time of calm you sing of will not return... you will not find a truce from us.'
The threatening posters at NYU come as Jewish students at nearby Columbia University shared their terrifying encounters with protestors with DailyMail.com.
Rory Wilson, a 22-year-old history major, shared his story of how he stared down an anti-Israel mob, which left him 'pinned against the door' and fearing for his safety.
He said: 'After a friend and I worked our way into the heart of the crowd swarming around Hamilton Hall, I looked out at the masked, shouting masses lit by the constant flicker of cameras.
'My adrenaline soared.
'We started pulling back a table propped against the doors and the crowd realized we were not with them.
'They started accusing us of aiding genocide and calling us idiots for risking ourselves for nothing.
'We were pinned against the door. I played contact sports in the past, so a bunch of shrieking Barnard girls half my size didn't faze me, but then a man dressed all in black jumped up beside us.
'He glared through the eye-slit in his mask – and I recognized that he had harassed me several days before, calling me a 'Zionist inbreeder.' I had no idea if he was a student or what he was willing to do.
'He started grabbing me, wrenching at my leg, trying to force me away from the doors. After a brief struggle, he jumped away and the screaming mob returned. Ultimately a friend got me out of there safely.
'Looking back now, I am grateful to God for the chance to have stood against them. Yet I am saddened that the university let the situation devolve into such chaos and intimidation.'
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Locks, chains, diversions: How Columbia students seized Hamilton Hall
New York: The protesters occupying Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University seemed ready to stay awhile.
They had a microwave, an electric teakettle and sleeping bags, images distributed by police show. On a blackboard in a classroom-turned canteen, next to the words “Free Palestine” in bubble letters, they had written a chart for occupiers to list their dietary restrictions (two were vegan, one vegetarian).
In another classroom, they made a chart for security duties in two-hour shifts, and listed three Maoist revolutionary slogans as inspiration, according to the police videos.
“Political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” one of the slogans said.
For two weeks, Columbia’s campus had been the focal point of a growing crisis on college campuses around the country. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up tent encampments, held rallies and otherwise attempted to disrupt academic activities in an attempt to force universities to meet several demands, including divesting from Israel.
But the takeover of Hamilton Hall was a new turning point. The university decided to call in police to clear the building - drawing both harsh criticism and praise, and raising new questions about who, exactly, was behind the growing unrest.
The people who took over the building were an offshoot of a larger group of protesters who had been camping out on campus in an unauthorised pro-Palestinian demonstration. On Tuesday night, more than 100 of them – people inside the hall along with others outside on campus and those beyond Columbia’s gates – were arrested.
In the days since, Mayor Eric Adams, police officials and university administrators have justified the arrests in part by saying that the students were guided by “outside agitators,” as the mayor put it. “There is a movement to radicalise young people, and I’m not going to wait until it’s done and all of a sudden acknowledge the existence of it,” he said on Monday.
In an interview, Adams said that 40 per cent of people arrested after the protest at Columbia and another that night at City College “were not from the school and they were outsiders”.
But at Columbia, at least, the percentages appeared to be lower, according to an initial analysis of police data by The New York Times.
On Thursday, Adams and Edward A. Caban, the police commissioner, released a statement saying that of the 112 people arrested at Columbia, 29 per cent were not affiliated with the school. That percentage was similar to the findings of a Times analysis of a Police Department list of people who were arrested that night.
At City College, north of Columbia in Manhattan, 170 individuals were arrested, and about 60 per cent of them were not affiliated with the school, the statement said.
According to the Times analysis, most of those arrested on and around Columbia’s campus appeared to be graduate students, undergraduates or people otherwise affiliated with the school.
At least a few, however, appeared to have no connection to the university, according to the Times? review of the list. One was a 40-year-old man who had been arrested at anti-government protests around the country, according to a different internal police document. His role in the organisation of the protest is still unclear.
The day after New York City police officers stormed into the building through a second-floor window and rooted out the protesters from Hamilton Hall, new details emerged about both the takeover of the building and the operation to reclaim it. The details revealed a 17-hour-long student occupation that was both destructive and damaging to property, amateurish, but in some respects, carefully organised.
The Police Department list showed that most of the more than 100 people arrested in the sweep of Hamilton Hall and other parts of campus on Tuesday evening were in their late 20s, white and female. The average age was 27; more than half were women.
The records do not specify which people were arrested inside the building. But at least 34 taken into custody on or around the campus were charged with burglary, which is defined by New York law as unlawfully entering a building with intent to commit a crime.
As of Thursday afternoon, at least 14 people who had occupied Hamilton Hall and later been arrested appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court. All were charged with trespassing, a misdemeanour.
The occupation began early Tuesday morning, after a group of protesters decided to escalate their efforts to force Columbia to divest from companies supporting Israel.
As hundreds of protesters gathered around Columbia’s central campus, forming a picket, a smaller group carried tents to a lawn on the opposite end of campus from Hamilton Hall, apparently to create a diversion, several witnesses said. At the same time, a second set of protesters approached the building.
A protester who had been hiding in the building after it closed let the others in, according to Columbia officials. Those protesters entered and told the security guard there to leave, said Alex Kent, a photojournalist who entered with them. They then began the process of bringing in supplies and barricading themselves in.
Some of the demonstrators wore Columbia sweatshirts; others wore all black. They also wore gloves, and masks around their faces. They hauled in metal police barricades to help reinforce the doors against entry, according to images shot by Kent.
Kent and the police said that the protesters covered security cameras, and threaded heavy metal chains through windows they had smashed in the building’s French-style doors, securing them with bicycle locks. Protesters carried wooden desks and tables from classrooms to help reinforce the doors. They joined the pieces of furniture together with white plastic ties to make them harder to move, police images show. They secured another door with a vending machine.
They got into a shoving match, Kent said, with a facilities worker who was still in the building, but the worker ultimately left. Outside, a career protest organiser in her 60s, Lisa Fithian — whom Adams later labelled a “professional agitator”— tried to talk down two student counterprotesters who were blocking the throng from further barricading the entrance. The protesters tried to physically remove the two students, who ultimately walked away; Fithian was not arrested.
Police officials had been in regular conversations with Columbia for weeks about how to handle the increasingly entrenched student encampment. Now, university officials were in crisis mode.
The school’s leadership team, including the board of trustees, met throughout the night and into the early morning, consulting with security experts and law enforcement, Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, wrote in a letter to the community.
“We made the decision, early in the morning, that this was a law enforcement matter, and that the NYPD were best positioned to determine and execute an appropriate response,” she wrote.
Once police got that call sometime after 11 am, “We had to put together a plan fast,” according to Jeffrey Maddrey, the chief of department, who described the police response during a news conference the day after the arrests.
On Amsterdam Avenue, outside Hamilton Hall, police brought in a BearCat truck equipped with an extendible ramp, so that officers could bypass the barricaded front doors and climb into an upper-story window.
Just after 9:30 pm, a group of officers in riot gear began lining up and then balancing across the BearCat’s platform, one by one. Once inside, police said, some students started throwing things at them.
Maddrey said police decided to deploy “distraction devices”— commonly called “flash-bangs” or stun grenades - that produce a very strong noise and burst of light to temporarily disorient people’s senses. At least eight loud bangs were heard echoing on footage from a police body camera.
Another team of officers entered through the building’s front doors, cutting the metal chains and rapidly dismantling the items blocking the entryway, the body camera video showed.
While city officials praised police for what they said was restraint in clearing the campus, protesters said some officers at the scene had been aggressive with demonstrators.
Protesters and independent journalists posted videos that appeared to show police officers pushing and dragging demonstrators outside Hamilton Hall’s main entrance during the arrests. The Columbia Spectator reported that outside Hamilton, officers threw protesters to the ground and slammed into them with metal barricades. Most journalists had been required by police to leave the area and could not document the scene.
“Students were shoved and pushed,” said Cameron Jones, a student in Columbia’s Jewish Voice for Peace chapter, who was watching from a nearby building. One protester lay motionless for several minutes, and was zip-tied while in that position, Jones said, before she came to and was carried away by police.
“It really seems as though the university, the police and Eric Adams are just trying to save face and not acknowledge the police brutality that happened on our campus,” he said.
Adams said there had been “no injuries or violent clashes” and the Fire Department said no one in Columbia’s immediate vicinity had been transported to the hospital.
During the sweep of Hamilton Hall, one officer fired a single gunshot, according to Doug Cohen, a press secretary for the Manhattan district attorney. No one was struck, and no students were in the area when the shot was fired. It was not clear whether the shot was fired intentionally.
The charges against those arrested ranged from burglary, trespassing and disorderly conduct to criminal mischief, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration. More than half of the people arrested at Columbia — those facing less serious charges — were issued summonses and released, or issued appearance tickets. The remaining 46 were arraigned and released without bail.
Some of those arrested at City College were students who had built an encampment earlier in the week in a plaza on the school’s campus.
But they also included people who had joined a protest outside the campus’s locked gates, on a public sidewalk. Many of the people on the police list arrested near City College appeared to be unaffiliated with the school.
On the list of protesters arrested at or near Columbia were a handful of people without clear ties to the university, including one man who apparently lives in the neighbourhood and who was arrested outside, and a woman who describes herself online as a “poet and farmer” who went to college in Vermont.
Attempts to reach several of the protesters on the list were unsuccessful as of Thursday afternoon.
Columbia students received more news Wednesday that their semester would not be returning to normal.
While classes had already ended Monday, the school announced that all final exams and academic activities on the Morningside Heights campus would be fully remote for the rest of the semester.
“It is going to take time to heal, but I know we can do that together,” Shafik wrote.
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Yarra Valley Grammar School students suspended over disturbing list rating female classmates
This is hysteria over nothing. We all evalute other people's appearance all the time. Why not discuss it? The behaviour described is not uncommon. It is simply adolescents enlisting their friends in at attempt to get an understanding of females, a common puzzle for males of all ages. And the sense of humour in it has been missed. There is nothing abnormal or dangerous about it.
Four boys from a Melbourne private school have been suspended after a list was posted to social media rating their female classmates.
The shocking list was posted by Year 11 students from Yarra Valley Grammar School in Ringwood onto the platform Discord and was discovered by the school last Wednesday.
It featured photos of female students and ranked them from best to worst as 'wifeys', 'cuties', 'mid', 'object', 'get out' and 'unrapeable'.
The students were suspended on Friday pending further investigation, Nine reports.
Yarra Valley Grammar principal Dr Mark Merry spoke to Nine on Sunday and described the post as 'disgraceful'.
'Respect for each other is in the DNA of this school, and so this was a shock not only to us … but it was a shock to the year level and the boys in the year level that see this as way, way out of line,' he said.
He said he was offended by the final category, and has since reported the matter to police to ensure the list wasn't linked to any criminal offence.
'As a father, I find it absolutely outrageous, disgraceful, offensive. As a principal, I need to make some decisions [about] what we do about all of this,' he said.
'My first impulse and concern is about the wellbeing of the girls concerned. I want to make sure they feel assured and supported by the school.'
'We are going to be consulting the police because the language used could be an inferred threat.'
'I don't think it was, but we need to get further advice on that…I'm hoping it was an appalling lapse in judgment.'
It costs around $30,000 a year to send a student to the elite Ringwood private school, and Dr Merry said the school prides itself on teaching 'respectful relationships'.
'We are well aware of the broader issues in relation to respecting women…we need to really do our best to ensure that young men understand their responsibilities and their boundaries of how they should behave,' he said.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13385557/Yarra-Valley-Grammar-School-ranking-list.html
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5 May, 2024
As IQ scores decline in the US, experts blame the rise of tech— how stupid is your state?
This is just the decline to be expected from declining educational standards. Education does have some influence on measured IQ. In a futile attempt to bridge the black/white "gap" in educational achievement Leftists have extensively "dumbed down" American education
Do all Americans go through a process of dumbening?
IQ scores in the US are on the wane for the first time ever — and experts are saying that technology is to blame.
A report from 2023 revealed the depressing reality — that the average intelligence test score fell from 100 to 98, a dismal, two point decline after a previously uninterrupted 30 point rise that began in 1905.
Test-takers are quizzed on matters of logic, spatial reasoning, visual and mathematical problem-solving and vocabulary. Scores have only been tracked since the beginning of the 20th century.
Now, experts theorize that the problem dates back to the millennium, when Americans began relying more heavily on tech in their daily lives — a reliance that has only grown.
“I do suspect that increased technology use could be playing a role in impacting our nation’s overall literacy levels,” Dr. Stefan Dombrowski, a psychology professor at Rider University, told the Daily Mail.
“It is well known that people who read and write more, generally score higher on IQ tests — of course, this is a chicken/egg scenario,” he explained.
“Do these individuals engage in reading and writing activities more frequently because they are brighter, or do they become brighter…on IQ tests because they read more?”
The data shows there is now a gap of approximately eight points between the smartest state — New Hampshire, with an average IQ of 103.2 — and the least smart, New Mexico, all the way down at 95, according to World Population Review.
Behind New Hampshire are Massachusetts (103.1), Minnesota (102.9) and Vermont (102.2), with North Dakota and Wyoming tied at number five (101.7).
The bottom five in 2024 are New Mexico (95), Louisiana (95.2), Mississippi (95.8), Alabama (96.4) and Nevada (96.6).
According to scientists, the average person ought to be able to score around 100 on an IQ test. Anyone managing 115-130 would be considered “gifted,” while an elite group — labeled as “genius” — will score between 130-145.
Hetty Roessingh, professor emerita of education at the University of Calgary, told the Mail previously that young children are no longer meeting traditional academic benchmarks as they grow up, now that technology has become so widely available.
‘There is a level of academic underachievement, where students are underprepared for college,’ Roessingh said.
The professor said that time spent with devices like phones and iPads means less time for more effective methods of increasing one’s intelligence level.
Adult brains are also at risk, as we spend more time asking Siri and Google for information than we might have previously stored in our brains, the Mail suggested.
https://nypost.com/2024/05/03/lifestyle/iq-scores-decline-in-the-us-where-does-your-state-rank/
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Rutgers students counter anti-Israel agitators on campus by waving American flag, chanting 'USA! USA!'
Anti-Israel protesters on campus at Rutgers University were countered by a large group of patriotic students waving an American flag and chanting "USA!" on Thursday.
Video from Thursday afternoon showed a large gathering between the two chanting groups on Voorhees Mall at the New Brunswick, New Jersey, university.
As the anti-Israel group yelled "Free, Free Palestine!" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!" the patriotic group could be heard repeatedly chanting "USA! USA! USA!"
At a later point during the demonstration, a couple of people within the anti-Israel group began instructing their protesters to link up to form a circular human chain in front of the students chanting in favor of America.
As the people were linking up, a woman within their group came over a bullhorn and said, "We are not protesting. We're not. We have to clean up. We have to leave."
It's unclear what she said after that, but it's likely the protesters were in the beginning stages of taking down their encampment after negotiations were reportedly made with Rutgers administrators.
Before they began breaking down their human chain, the "USA!" chants from the patriotic students surrounding them got louder and eventually turned into the singing of the National Anthem.
Some singing students could be seen holding their hands over their hearts and at least one student was waving an American flag. When they were done singing, the "USA!" chants resumed.
The anti-Israel protesters agreed to end their demonstration by 4 p.m. on Thursday after coming to an agreement with university administrators, according to a statement from Rutgers.
"All students involved will leave the encampment, remove all tents and personal belongings, and clear the mall of all trash. This agreement is contingent upon no further disruptions and adherence to University policies," the statement said.
A variation of eight of the protesters' ten demands were met by Rutgers administrators, according to the statement. The university did not immediately agree to divest from firms tied to Israel and said it would not be terminating its partnership with Tel Aviv University.
Rutgers said it is meeting with its endowment board and will undergo "the review process that is outlined in the university's investment policy."
The university did agree to accept at least 10 displaced Palestinian students to study at Rutgers on scholarship; to create an Arab Cultural Center on each Rutgers campus; to continue its relationship with Birzeit University and to look into student exchange and study abroad opportunities; to continue using the words "Palestine, Palestinians and Gazans" in future communications about the region; to hire a senior administrator with "cultural competency" in Arab, Muslim and Palestinian affairs; to create a feasibility study for the creation of a Department of Middle East Studies; to make sure flags representing all students enrolled at Rutgers are displayed in appropriate areas on campus; and to not retaliate against students, faculty or staff for simply participating in the encampment.
"We are pleased to report that these students have agreed to peacefully end their protest. They have committed to removing their tents and belongings, effectively clearing Voorhees Mall," Chancellor Francine Conway said in a statement. "This process began before the 4 p.m. deadline and is currently underway."
The video ended by showing the anti-Israel protesters taking down and packing up the encampment.
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Over half of anti-Israel protestors arrested at the University of Texas in Austin during a protest earlier this week were adults with no ties to the Univeristy
The university issued a statement saying “of the 79 people arrested on our campus Monday, 45 had no affiliation with UT Austin.”
The protesters included a former elementary school teacher, a costume designer, a Palestinian store-owner and interpreter, all of whom were between 30 and 59 and unaffiliated with the university according to the Daily Mail.
Authorities confiscated guns, buckets of large rocks, bricks, steel enforced wood planks, mallets, and chains from protestors, according to the school, which said there had been staff members who were “physically assaulted and threatened.”
In addition, protestors “headbutted” police, hit them with horse poop, and slashed their car tires with knives.
UT President Jay Hartzell had called in state troopers to quell the violent protests on April 24 and make arrests.
“These numbers validate our concern that much of the disruption on campus over the past week has been orchestrated by people from outside the University, including groups with ties to escalating protests at other universities around the country,” the school said.
One of the protestors was 55-year-old Julian Reyes, who seems to be a protest regular in Austin featuring his confrontations with police he calls “micro tyrants” on his YouTube channel, according to the Daily Mail.
Reyes was one of the non-UT affiliated individuals arrested on April 24 for criminal trespassing after he allegedly refused to leave despite a notice to disperse given by police, according to an arrest warrant.
Reyes has been arrested at least nine times. He calls himself the “Lizard King” and was seen being arrested at UT while carrying a lizard.
Arrested Sophia Deloretto-Chudy, 28, is a former third-grade teacher who was fired from Becker Elementary School in Austin for badmouthing her superiors on TikTok over an administrative review of her teaching.
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2 May, 2024
Pro-Palestinian protesters attacked at UCLA, hundreds arrested in New York at encampment
Groups of protesters have clashed overnight at a pro-Palestinian camp at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) — while 280 people have been arrested at similar encampments in New York.
More than 1,000 people have so far been arrested across the United States amid growing protests that have spread to Australian universities.
Witness footage from UCLA, verified by Reuters, showed people wielding sticks or poles to hammer on wooden boards being used as makeshift barricades to protect the pro-Palestinian protesters before police were deployed to the campus.
As student rallies have spread to dozens of schools across the US in recent days expressing opposition to Israel's war in Gaza, police have been called in to quell or clear protests.
The student protests in the United States have also taken on political overtones in the run-up to the presidential election in November, with Republicans accusing some university administrators of turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic rhetoric and harassment.
On Tuesday, UCLA officials announced that the encampment was unlawful and violated university policy. UCLA Chancellor Gene Brock said it included people "unaffiliated with our campus", though he provided no evidence of the presence of outsiders.
Footage from the early hours of Wednesday morning showed mostly male counter-demonstrators, many of them masked and some apparently older than students, throwing objects and trying to smash or pull down the wooden and steel barriers erected to shield the encampment.
Some screamed pro-Jewish comments as pro-Palestinian protesters tried to fight them off.
"They were coming up here and just violently attacking us," said pro-Palestinian protester Kaia Shah, a researcher at UCLA.
"I just didn't think they would ever get to this, escalate to this level, where our protest is met by counter-protesters who are violently hurting us, inflicting pain on us, when we are not doing anything to them."
Police said they had responded to a request from UCLA to restore order and maintain public safety "due to multiple acts of violence" within the encampment.
Broadcast footage later showed police clearing a central quad beside the encampment.
On Tuesday night local time, New York police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed up in a building at Columbia University and removed a protest encampment that the Ivy League college had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that about 170 of the 280 arrested at Columbia University and City College have received summonses.
The remaining 100 or so cases will be making their way through the court system, with the earliest arraignments later Wednesday afternoon and into the evening local time.
It is not yet known how many of those arrested were students and how many weren't affiliated with the colleges, he said.
New York mayor Eric Adams told reporters that the occupation of the building at Columbia was led by people not affiliated with the university.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-02/pro-palestinian-camp-attack-at-ucla/103793068
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Jewish students rally at University of Melbourne
Hundreds of pro-Israel supporters, many draped in Israeli and Australian flags, have gathered at The University of Melbourne.
The group is calling on educational institutions to make its campuses a safe place to be for Jewish students.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive officer Alon Cassuto opened the rally.
“We know that students don’t feel safe to be who they are and celebrate who they are,” he told the crowd.
“And since October 7 … anti-Semitism around the world has been on the rise.
“We’re here to say that the past seven months are not something we’re prepared to tolerate any longer. Our campuses have to be free of hate.”
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students president Noah Loven said he would not give the pro-Palestinian encampment any oxygen.
“We don’t want to lean into what they want. So we’re here to stand proud as your students and to stand together for peace,” Mr Loven said.
“In response to the troubling trend that has taken root in our academic institutions across Australia and New Zealand … Jewish students, my peers, have increasingly become targets of fear intimidation, and harassment.”
Protesters were holding signs that read “keep hate off campus” and “stand together against anti-semitism”.
Groups of police officers were stationed around the parameter of the event.
Jewish students say they are in fear of being intimidated and harassed on campus.
The Australasian Union of Jewish Students has voiced concerns and decided to take action after hearing reports of Jewish students avoiding their universities
The union is calling for a roundtable with Education Minister Jason Clare, state education ministers and vice chancellors, and are also demanding that universities implement policies that prohibit hate speech on campus.
It also demands that universities require students to show their student identification “to ensure that external extremist actors do not hijack our campuses”.
The union’s Victorian branch president Holly Feldman said she had friends at Columbia University in the US who have been harassed for being involved in Jewish life.
“The situation continues to escalate and Jewish students are distressed,” Ms Feldman said.
“It’s simply not safe for many Jewish students on campus at the moment, and it’s unacceptable that many feel they cannot attend their lectures and classes in person without fear of intimidation, harassment and violence,” Mr Loven said.
“This is not an issue of free speech – it is of vilification and the endorsement of terror.
“Some of these extreme groups are crossing the line.”
The protest, to take place on Thursday afternoon, is in response to student activists camping out at Australian campuses, including at the University of Melbourne.
Thursday will mark the eighth day members of Uni Melb for Palestine have camped out on the campus’ south lawn.
Students at the University of Sydney, University of Queensland and Australian National University are also holding their own camps.
Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni has shown his support for the Melbourne outfit by attending and giving a speech, and in Sydney, Greens Deputy Leader Mehreen Faruqi also addressed students camped out.
The new wave of protests take inspiration from university encampments across the United States, which on Wednesday saw a heavy police presence descend on Columbia University to forcibly clear protesters out.
Uni Melb for Palestine issued a warning to students ahead of the Jewish student-led protest to “not engage with agitators or Zionists at all” and to “not divulge information/details of comrades to cops or security”.
The group are hosting a “teach in” event which will include speeches from Melbourne Law School senior research fellow Dr Jordana Silverstein and a Jewish anti-Zionist student who will discuss “Palestinian liberation from an anti-Zionist Jewish perspective”.
Zionist Federation of Australia chief executive officer Alon Cassuto said he was concerned about the welfare of Jewish students on campus and voiced his support for the demonstration.
“We warned universities last year about the manifestations of antisemitism on campuses, but the situation has gotten worse since that time,” Mr Cassuto said.
“There has been a collective absence of leadership, with appalling and intimidatory behaviour being ignored in the hope that it will go away. Instead, in the face of inaction, it’s gotten worse.”
He claimed that Jewish students are scared to complain “for fear their marks will be affected” which has resulted them to stay away from campus.
“Societal cohesion requires community and political leaders to publicly and strongly call out and push back on those seeking to undermine that cohesion,” the ZFA leader said.
“Anti-Semitism under the guise of political discourse is still antisemitism. We must be vigilant and clear in our opposition to any form of hate on our campuses.”
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Top French university loses regional funding over pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests
The Paris region authority sparked controversy Tuesday by temporarily suspending funding for Sciences Po, one of the country’s most prestigious universities, after it was rocked by tense pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrations.
“I have decided to suspend all regional funding for Sciences Po until calm and security have been restored at the school,” Valerie Pecresse, the right-wing head of the greater Paris Ile-de-France region, said on social media on Monday.
She took aim at “a minority of radicalized people calling for antisemitic hatred” and accused hard-left politicians of seeking to exploit the tensions.
Regional support for the Paris-based university includes 1 million euros ($1.07 million) earmarked for 2024, a member of Pecresse’s team told AFP.
On Tuesday, the university’s acting administrator, Jean Basseres, said he regretted the decision.
“The Ile-de-France region is an essential partner of Sciences Po, and I wish to maintain dialogue on the position expressed by Mrs. Pecresse,” he told French daily Le Monde in an interview.
In an echo of tense demonstrations rocking many top United States universities, students at Sciences Po have staged a number of protests, with some students furious over the Israel-Hamas war and ensuing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
France is home to the world’s largest Jewish population after Israel and the US, as well as Europe’s biggest Muslim community.
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1 May, 2024
The Biden Administration Has Redefined ‘Sex.’ What Does That Mean for Schools?
The Biden administration now says that “sex” means “gender identity.” So, what does this mean for K-12 teachers?
In a new regulation released last week, the Biden administration changed the definition of “sex” in a crucial civil rights law that was originally designed to protect women. Title IX of the Civil Rights Act says that schools cannot discriminate against individuals based on sex, which gave women better access to higher education and athletics.
But the Biden administration has swapped “sex” for “gender,” which will allow biological males access to females’ bathrooms, locker rooms, sports competitions, etc.
K-12 educators around the country are wondering what to do next, because this rule would have major implications for school facilities and athletic teams.
Washington wants schools to change their harassment policies, too, because the new rule says individuals could face charges of harassment if they address someone according to his or her sex instead of “gender” choice.
Our advice to educators: Wait.
The Biden administration’s rule violates numerous administrative laws and constitutional free-speech provisions, not to mention women’s civil rights. The rule goes into effect Aug. 1, and we forecast a long, hot summer of litigation that will stall and should ultimately overturn this rule.
The rule violates state laws that protect women’s athletics and prohibit men from competing in women’s sports. Louisiana Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley has already issued a letter to school officials in his state saying the rule violates their state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which keeps single-sex sports just that—for individuals of one sex to compete with each other: girls’ soccer for girls, boys’ basketball for boys, as schools have operated for generations.
“This rule runs contradictory to the entire foundation of Title IX,” Brumley wrote to teachers and principals. “The Title IX rule changes recklessly endanger students and seek to dismantle equal opportunities for females.” The lead education officials of Oklahoma and South Carolina have sent similar letters to educators in their states.
The rule also ignores research that finds health professionals do not know enough about the long-term effects of drugs and medicines being used to alter human bodies, including the biological functions of children. Earlier this month, England’s National Health Service released a report that the Times of London called “the world’s biggest review into the contested field of transgender health care.”
The release, called the Cass Report, found that scientists “have no good evidence” on the long-term outcomes from puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and surgeries that alter reproductive organs.
Young people in particular may feel “an urgency to transition,” the Cass Report said, but “young adults looking back at their younger selves would often advise slowing down.” The report’s authors said the effects of so-called gender interventions “needs to be better understood.”
The Independent Women’s Forum, an advocacy organization, has already announced its intent to sue the administration. The new rule “turns Title IX on its head through extra-statutory regulations,” the group said in a news release.
Public opinion sides with Brumley, the Cass Report, and the Independent Women’s Forum. A 2023 survey of Americans found that 55% of respondents said it is “morally wrong” to change your gender, an increase of 4 percentage points from 2021. In the same survey, 69% of Americans said that “transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that conform with their birth gender.”
Americans do not like watching videos on social media of middle-school girls getting thrown down by a boy in a basketball game or of a high school girl having her teeth knocked out while playing field hockey. Nor do any parents want their daughters to share a locker room with a boy.
The Biden administration is violating civil rights law and ignoring research and public opinion. School officials would do well to wait before changing school rules—both to see what happens in court and to protect students and teachers from this harmful policy.
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The Problem Is Academia
The explosion of violent and shockingly antisemitic protests on college campuses is just the latest in a series of self-inflicted black eyes for higher education in the United States. In March last year, a group of students at Stanford Law School shut down a talk by federal Judge Kyle Duncan, screaming vulgar epithets and refusing to allow him to speak.
In October, the presidents of Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania embarrassed themselves in congressional hearings convened to ask about combating antisemitism on their campuses. Penn President Liz Magill resigned immediately thereafter. Harvard’s President Claudine Gay survived that controversy but resigned a few weeks later when multiple instances of plagiarism in her research were exposed.
This week, protests have erupted not only at Ivy League schools like Columbia, Harvard and Brown but the University of Southern California, the University of Michigan, the University of Texas, Emory University and elsewhere, causing enormous disruption. Jewish students at Columbia left campus, after which the administration announced that classes will be hybrid (in-person and virtual) for the remainder of the semester. USC has canceled its public commencement ceremony. Dozens have been arrested on multiple campuses.
Americans are understandably asking, what’s the problem in academia?
I’ve worked as a professor and administrator at multiple institutions since 1991. Despite its historic strengths (and there are many), there is a great deal wrong with our system of higher education. A comprehensive list is impossible given space constraints, but here are some issues that have contributed to the damaged culture in academia.
— Academia is dominated by one political perspective. A 2017 article from Inside Higher Ed cited a study showing that just over 9% of faculty surveyed identified as “conservative.” A more recent article from the American Institute for Economic Research points out that this trend has worsened in the past few years, with the number of faculty who identify as “far left” more than doubling. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the disciplines where leftist ideology is most monolithic — up to 80% — are the humanities and social sciences; subjects all students are exposed to, regardless of their majors.
— Standards for publication contribute to the proliferation of nonsense. Faculty are required to publish significantly more than was the case decades ago. Candidates for tenure are evaluated not only for publishing in “A” journals but for the number of times their work is cited by other scholars. While this can demonstrate serious and groundbreaking work, it also incentivizes taking radical or inflammatory positions for the sake of getting attention. (On the internet, this is called “clickbait.” We’ll call this practice “citebait.”)
In 2018, scholars Peter Boghossian, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay revealed another consequence of the “publish — a lot — or perish” culture. The three crafted multiple papers with deliberately absurd theses — calling for “feminist astrology” or arguing for the existence of “rape culture” in dog parks — and several were accepted for publication. (In a disturbing display of defensive embarrassment, Boghossian’s employer, Portland State, accused him of “academic fraud” and commenced a disciplinary investigation. He resigned in protest.)
— Research is captured by politics and money. When headlines proclaim that “most researchers agree,” readers may assume scientists with competing ideas duked it out, and the theory with the most proof prevailed. That isn’t necessarily true. A 2019 article in medical news journal Stat revealed that research into alternative theories about the causes of Alzheimer’s was thwarted by “experts” who didn’t want their theories challenged: Scholars’ papers weren’t published, their grant applications were rejected, speaking engagements were denied, faculty candidates were denied tenure. This has happened in other disciplines as well, including nutrition, climate change and gender dysphoria. Dissenters from the orthodoxy are dealt with harshly.
— Tenure is a big part of the problem. The “third rail” in any discussion about academic policies, tenure is supposed to promote diversity of viewpoints, encourage scholarly exploration and protect faculty from retaliation. In practice, however, as noted above, it has contributed to publishing “churn” and been used as a weapon against scholars whose work challenges or repudiates prevailing viewpoints.
It has also insulated faculty who espouse societally destructive ideologies from any accountability. It’s one thing to posit a controversial theory of particle physics and be proven wrong. It’s altogether different to defend a political philosophy like Marxism — as many professors continue to do. By way of comparison, if a company or industry produced a product that killed 100 million people, it’s safe to say there would be some blowback. Why should faculty be able to preach doctrines like collectivism, moral relativism or the nonexistence of truth without being called to account for the consequences?
Tenure also gives arguably undeserved credibility to “theories” that often amount to little more than the authors’ worldviews. Those viewpoints make their way into corporate boardrooms, government regulations and K-12 education policies, foisted onto an unsuspecting public that has had little to no opportunity to evaluate their merits.
Even before last year’s congressional hearings or the protests about the Israel-Hamas war, the constant drumbeat of academic scandals (Varsity Blues, sexual assault at Michigan State, skyrocketing tuition) had already produced calls for more oversight. Here in Indiana, our governor signed a bill last month designed to promote “intellectual diversity” and “free inquiry,” and changing the criteria for tenure at our public universities.
Faculty are concerned that such oversight could be abused. But the universal lesson here is to govern yourself or be governed. Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson opined in an interview earlier this year that higher education “cannot be reformed from within.” Whether or not he’s right, American colleges and universities have for decades hidden behind “academic freedom” when confronted with the socially destructive behavior that seems to be the aftermath of terrible ideologies. The general public has grown weary of it.
In academia, as elsewhere, a few bad apples create problems for everyone else. Most doctors don’t commit malpractice, most teachers don’t sleep with their students, most business owners don’t commit fraud. Similarly, most faculty are people with deep interest in their subject matter and sincere concern for the education and well-being of the college students they teach. But, unlike the other professions noted above, ours has not been willing to root out the bad actors — or indeed had any real mechanism for doing so.
If we don’t do it ourselves, it will be done for us.
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/106322-the-problem-is-academia-2024-04-26
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Sydney University pro-Palestine camp shows topsy-turvy world of warriors for radical chic
Like children with matches in a summer bushland tinderbox, the pro-Palestinian protesters at our universities seem to have no idea about the lethal forces that are their playthings. Islamist extremism, anti-Semitism, Arab grievance, Jewish defiance, great power politics and social cohesion in Western liberal democracies like our own are all in the mix.
These are tensions not easily grasped or resolved by undergraduates looking for the revolutionary cause of their era. When they bandy around terms like “Israeli genocide” and “apartheid state” or talk about a colonial power usurping the rights of an Indigenous people you know that facts, history and context have no place in their considerations.
Politicians of the left in the US, Britain and here do little to chastise or correct them because they are in the ugly electoral game of courting the ever-growing Muslim vote, holding off ever more radical leftist rivals, and appealing to the young and impressionable. National values and interests play second fiddle to the spineless mathematics of political power.
At Columbia University in New York City, which has led the way in what has become a global campus campaign, Jewish students this month were advised to stay away from classes, and now the whole university has switched to a remote learning model. Even one pro-Palestinian protester, Linnia Norton, seemed shocked at the hatred they had unleashed, telling a reporter; “There were people outside of campus one time with signs that said, ‘Death to all Jews’ – that is awful and nobody should be having to experience that on their campus.”
The Students for Palestine protesters at the University of Sydney are unashamedly derivative, posting on Instagram that they have been “greatly inspired” by the movement at Columbia. They have chanted “Intifada, intifada”, cheering on Palestinian armed uprisings that have visited terrorism on Israel repeatedly since the 1980s, taking thousands of innocent lives.
Whatever your view of Palestinian aspirations and the Israeli government, no rational approach to this issue should ignore the human reality. It seems incomprehensible that these privileged students could see the Hamas atrocities of October 7 last year and the horrible war they were designed to trigger and use those events not to condemn and campaign against Hamas but to advocate the terror group’s agenda.
On Anzac Day, after bathing in the warm and reassuring camaraderie of the dawn service at Bondi, I went to the Sydney University students’ “occupation” site to see for myself. From a distance, the whole thing looked like topsy-turvy world to me. These are students who promote and enjoy sexual liberation, gender equality, embracing of gays, bisexuals and transgender people, imbibing of alcohol, and no doubt free expression, democracy and individual rights; how could they offer comfort to the Islamist extremist terror group Hamas, which would readily throw them off a rooftop on any of those counts?
And yes, like topsy-turvy world, this mob inverts logic and consistency. This is a movement that deliberately targeted Anzac Day for “glorification of war” while it refuses to condemn Hamas for instigating and continuing a war with unspeakable barbarity against civilians. The protesters do not even denounce Hamas for the way it deliberately triggered war: slaughtering 1200 people, including babies, women, teenagers and the elderly, while taking nearly 250 hostages for raping, torture and murder, with about 130 unaccounted for more than six months on.
As I walked into Sydney’s tent city I saw a sign scrawled on the walkway declaring this was the “Gaza camp”. There were Palestinian flags, tents emblazoned with “From the river to the sea” (the obliteration of Israel as a slogan), a stand for Socialist Alternative with a copy of Introducing Marxism on display, and a lot of young people milling about in Palestinian keffiyeh – clearly this lot had skipped the unit on cultural appropriation.
Unusually for people running a demonstration, they were very shy. I asked two women why they had “from the river to the sea” on their tents and they denied knowledge or responsibility for the tent daubing – I am certain if I had stuck around they would have denied it three times before the cock crowed.
Another group of students told me they would speak with the ABC or SBS but not with The Australian, and when I asked them why I saw no posters or banners calling for the release of hostages they broke eye contact and scattered without response.
When the protesters gathered for an open-air meeting, in keeping with their “people’s movement” schtick, they said they could not speak freely while I was watching and asked me to leave. Before leaving I posed the hostage question again – they offered no answer.
Why are the hostages conscientiously unremembered as a political inconvenience? Like the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, these protesters want to wipe away October 7.
It troubles me that young students can turn their backs on a family such as the Bibas family. I witnessed videoed brutality and terror from October 7 that I would dearly love to unsee, but a video of the Bibas family, without overt violence, haunts me like no other, and should haunt the free world.
On the morning of October 7 last year at kibbutz Nir Oz, Shiri Bibas, 32, is seen holding her two beautiful red-haired boys, Kfir, 9 months, and Ariel, 4. (We’ve since learned Shiri’s husband Yarden had been dragged off bleeding from the head and is believed to be dead; Shiri’s parents later were found murdered). In the video Shiri appears to be uninjured but is surrounded by Hamas terrorists telling her what to do and where to go, and she is confused and terrified, clutching her boys. Her blameless terror and fear for her boys are a violation of humanity.
This mother and her boys remain unaccounted for, with some reports suggesting they were alive early this year, and Hamas claiming they were killed later by Israeli attacks. So cowardly and depraved is this abomination that the best we can hold any slim hope for is that this woman and her two boys somehow have endured almost seven months of horror.
The only person at the university who would engage in a meaningful discussion with me was Josh Lees. He is not a Sydney University student but clearly had a leadership role at the camp.
Lees is an organiser of the Palestinian Action Group and a writer for Red Flag, the newspaper and website of Socialist Alternative which claims to be the nation’s “largest Marxist revolutionary group”. So much for student autonomy.
“What’s your view of Hamas?” I asked Lees. “It’s not about Hamas, we’re opposing the genocide in Gaza,” he diverted.
And so it went, repeatedly, with this professional activist refusing to condemn Hamas or its bloodcurdling terrorism. After five unsuccessful attempts for a view on Hamas I switched to asking about his view of what Hamas did on October 7. “My view is that nothing that happened on October 7 can possibly justify a genocide that’s been taking place,” he said.
I persisted, suggesting the point was not what the events did or did not justify but more simply, did he have a view about 1200 people massacred and up to 250 taken hostage. “You wanna ask me about something that happened six-and-a-half months ago?” he deflected.
“One human being to another,” I implored. “Do you have no view about what happened on October 7?” Silence. “You can’t find it in your heart to condemn the atrocity that occurred on October 7?” Nothing.
Eventually he muttered in rhetorical tone, “Israel can defend itself, but the Palestinians can’t?!” This was a sickening characterisation of the October 7 bloodlust as self-defence.
The conversation was abhorrent and pointless. Pushed on hostages Lees claimed Israel had 10,000 hostages – facts do not matter on this campus.
These protests at some of our most prestigious universities are deeply disturbing and metastasising across our public debate. Sydney University trumpets three values of “trust, accountability and excellence” and it champions diversity, yet it tolerates a protest demonising Jews and Israel, and encouraging armed uprising by Islamist terrorists against a liberal democracy.
This, while the Islamist extremist threat re-emerges on our shores, pointed among the young. And the type of Islamist society promoted by Hamas and like-minded groups is the most brutally intolerant version known to humankind – anathema to the claimed values of any university or Western democracy.
Columbia University proclaims its mission cannot succeed without “thoughtful, rigorous debate” that is “free of bigotry, intimidation and harassment”. But right now Jewish students and staff are being physically intimidated and blocked from attending classes, so that most are too fearful to attend.
The Sydney students chant “Intifada” and “Revolution” on social media and claim Israel is “murdering tens of thousands of people”.
The university says it wants all its students to be able to express their views and it has beefed up security as a precaution – vice-chancellor Mark Scott seems to have switched from the staff-run collective model at the ABC to a student-run collective on campus.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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