Education

No-whites-allowed ‘Day of Absence’ lives on despite last year’s uproar at Evergreen State College

Students at the embattled Evergreen State College, which made national headlines last year after it hosted an event that asked white people not to come on campus for a “Day of Absence,” have organized a new iteration of the controversial event despite administrators’ efforts to shift gears. Students at the Olympia, Washington-based public school have organized a three-day “Day of Absence” observance that includes a mix of events on and off campus. Some gatherings are advertised as open to all skin colors and others ask that only POC, or People of Color, attend. A poster hung at the school obtained by The College Fix declares that the no-whites-allowed self-segregation events will be held off campus. It asks people to RSVP at a website that spells out “No Nazis Allowed” in its URL. The events launch today and run through Friday, according to organizers, who are not interested in media coverage of their event, according to a Facebook screenshot obtained by The College Fix. A spokesman for Evergreen State College did not respond to a phone call and email from The College Fix on Tuesday seeking comment. The theme of this year’s observance is “Deinstitutionalize/Decolonize.” “The mission of this event is to bring POC together in order to create a reclamation of space and move forward into the future. In reaction to institution’s consistent disregard for our safety, we are operating independently of the college. This is a day for us, by us,” the RSVP page states. “In addition to POC centered events there will be antiracist workshops for white folks and people who do not identify as POC. Please bring a dish or your own packed lunch and dishes! Potluck-style. No one who’s intentions are to cause harm are allowed.” The college’s annual “Day of Absence/Day of Presence” program has been observed for years, during which minority students would voluntarily stay off campus for a day and meet for specialized workshops. But for the first time last spring, the “Day of Absence” event reversed the usual pattern by asking whites to stay off campus for a day while racial minorities stayed on. Following objections by a white biology professor, Bret Weinstein, students confronted him and campus police told Weinstein they couldn’t protect him on campus. After that, his class met at a nearby park. The situation prompted national headlines and criticism. Earlier this year, officials announced they would revamp the controversial “Day of Absence” observance, instead offering an “equity symposium.” For his part, Weinstein has weighed in on this year’s Day of Absence: “This is fascinating on many levels. The college canceled Day of Absence, so the students are going to do it.” Last week, The Olympian reported that Evergreen State “will look to cut more than 10 percent from its operating budget for 2018-19 and raise student fees because of declining enrollment.”

Isn’t that ironic?  Or is it just karma for the school administration that is allowing this brazenly/inherently racist, politically correct waste of tuition to take place?  This is how political correctness is destroying our country.

Students, professors take fight to universities to protect free speech

Legal fights are breaking out across the nation over university policies that curtail the free speech of students and academic freedom of professors. The advocacy group Speech First last week filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan challenging the constitutionality of the school’s Bias Response Teams and content-based restrictions on speech. Nicole Neily, president of Speech First, said the University of Michigan’s attitude toward free speech is representative of the higher education landscape. “Bias Response Teams are fundamentally un-American and have no place on college campuses,” Ms. Neily said Tuesday in a statement. “We have an epidemic on our hands in the higher education system — universities are establishing rules and protocols that create a dangerous environment in which free speech protections under the First Amendment no longer exist.” A spokesperson for the University of Michigan declined to comment. The lawsuit says the university’s Bias Response Team has investigated more than 150 “expressions of bias” since April 2017. “In connection with these investigations, the BRT has acted aggressively to censor what it considers ‘expression of bias,’” the lawsuit says. “For example, the BRT has taken down signs, removed flyers, confronted faculty members, erased speech on whiteboards, and interrogated students accused of expressions of bias (whom the University calls ‘offenders’).” The lawsuit argues that the determination of bias is “completely subjective,” citing the university’s declaration that the “most important indication of bias is your own feelings” and that bias-related incidents “do not always result in unfair treatment that violates nondiscrimination laws.” “Under this regime, the most sensitive student on campus effectively dictates the terms under which others may speak,” the lawsuit contends. There are also signs that the state of free expression at the University of Michigan is trending in the wrong direction. The university announced last month that it would amend its Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities to prohibit “bias-related misconduct.” Speech First believes this will have a “profound chilling effect on protected expression” because of the “utter lack of clear notice about the line between permissible and prohibited conduct.” Speech First is a member organization that represents students at colleges across the nation. Plaintiffs in Tuesday’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, are students who attend the University of Michigan. A sophomore quoted in the lawsuit said free speech is permitted on campus “only if your ideals align with those the University imposed on us.” “In other words, people have their right to freedom of speech and expression,” the student said, “but only until their beliefs no longer align with the so-called ‘correct’ beliefs, then people are not allowed to freely express those opinions.” Another student acknowledged hiding “my political views and opinions from nearly everyone I have encountered here at the university” out of fear of reprisal. A third student recounted being called a racist for supporting President Trump. “I was talking to a friend in the hallway today, [who] also supported Donald Trump, and someone was listening into our conversation,” the student said. “After about 30 seconds of my friend and I having a private discussion, we were both called racists, which is simply not true.” The Ann Arbor institution is not the only university facing a lawsuit over its policies toward speech.

Indeed..  And, that’s good.  Colleges and universities in America used to be where there was lively debate and exchanges of ideas.  Now, the pc police and speech Nazis have taken over and if you don’t publicly espouse the “proper” (liberal, politically correct) opinion, they’ll come after you.  And, it’s just getting worse.  We support Speech First and other groups taking the fight to these fascist educational administrations.

Idaho State University loses weapons-grade plutonium capable of making a dirty bomb

Idaho State University was fined last week for losing a small amount of radioactive, weapons-grade plutonium that is too small to make a nuclear bomb, but could be used in a dirty bomb, according to a regulatory commission. Dr. Cornelis Van der Schyf, vice president for research at the university, blamed partially completed paperwork from 15 years ago as the school tried to dispose of the plutonium. “Unfortunately, because there was a lack of sufficient historical records to demonstrate the disposal pathway employed in 2003, the source in question had to be listed as missing,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The radioactive source in question poses no direct health issue or risk to public safety.” The school, which reported the material missing on Oct. 13, was hit with an $8,500 fine and has 30 days to dispute the measure. Victor Dricks, a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman, said the agency “has very rigorous controls for the use and storage of radioactive materials as evidenced by this enforcement action,” he said of the proposed fine for failing to keep track of the material. The agency said a school employee doing a routine inventory discovered the university could only account for 13 of its 14 plutonium sources, each weighing about the same small amount. Idaho State University has a nuclear engineering program and works with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, considered the nation’s primary nuclear research lab and located about 65 miles northwest of the school. The plutonium was being used to develop ways to ensure nuclear waste containers weren’t leaking and to find ways to detect radioactive material being illegally brought into the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the school said in an email to the AP. The school searched documents and found records from 2003 and 2004 saying the material was on campus and awaiting disposal. However, there were no documents saying the plutonium had been properly disposed. The last document mentioning the plutonium is dated Nov. 23, 2003. It said the Idaho National Laboratory didn’t want the plutonium and the school’s technical safety office had it “pending disposal of the next waste shipment.” The school also reviewed documents on waste barrels there and others transferred off campus since 2003, and opened and examined some of them. Finally, officials searched the campus but didn’t find the plutonium. The nuclear commission said senior university officials planned to return the school’s remaining plutonium to the Energy Department. It’s not clear if that has happened.

Holy crap!!

Columbia University: ‘God Hates Guns, Loves Gay Porn’

Columbia University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts bears the message “GOD HATES GUNS, LOVES GAY PORN” prominently blazoned on the exterior of the building, according to a report Wednesday from the Catholic League. The University bills its Center for the Arts as “a dynamic new hub for cultural and civic exchange in Upper Manhattan” offering “unprecedented opportunities for the presentation and generation of contemporary art across disciplines.” According to Carol Becker, Dean of the School of the Arts, the goal of the center is “to create a welcoming venue where every space can be activated by the work of students, faculty and guest artists in film, theatre, writing and visual arts, opening our doors to new collaborations both across the University and our community.” Catholic League president Bill Donohue noted the irony of the center’s message. “So this is the message—‘God Loves Gay Porn’—that the Ivy League school says contributes to ‘cultural and civic exchange’ and ‘contemporary scholarship.’ The bar doesn’t get much lower than this,” Donohue said. “Imagine paying $60,000 a year to get an education like this? There must be a lack of street artists in that neighborhood,” he added.

No, you are not reading The Onion..

CUNY Law Students Shout ‘F*ck the Law’, Try to Shut Down Conservative Guest Lecturer

Students at the City University of New York School of Law tried to shut down a guest lecture from South Texas College of Law Professor Josh Blackman this week. Professor Blackman, who was named to Forbes‘ “30 under 30” for “Law and Policy,” spoke this week at the CUNY School of Law. Blackman was scheduled to give a lecture entitled “Importance of Free Speech on Campus.” Blackman was met with a horde of protesters shouting “shame on you!” when he went to enter the event room. “You wrote that I supported the president’s decision to rescind DACA. I actually support the DREAM act. I actually think the DREAM act is a good piece of legislation…my position is that the policy itself is not consistent with the rule of law, which teaches a lesson: you can support something as a matter of policy but then find out that the law doesn’t permit it.” “Fuck the law,” one protester shouted. “It’s a bizarre thing to say, ‘Fuck the law,’ when you are in law school,” Blackman responded. Shortly after Blackman began his speech, the protesters dispersed. Many left the room and a few stayed behind and engaged in a back and forth with Blackman. One protester held a sign that read “oppressors are not welcome here,” while he pressed Blackman on his views on various topics. Blackman claimed in his blog post that the student protesters who left the event marched over to the dean’s office to complain that they allowed the event to take place. Only a few students attended the event. In his blog post, Blackman explained that some students were pressured by their peers into skipping the event. “I learned that some students were either ashamed, or intimidated, and did not want to be seen as attending the event,” Blackman wrote. “A number of students thanked me after the event, and explained that conservative speech is stifled on campus not by the faculty, but by the students. The students swarm on anyone who does not toe the progressive line.”

Typical liberal, college “snowflakes..”  They’re all for free speech…until you say something they don’t agree with.  Then, they want to censor you, and intimidate those who might want to espouse, or even listen to, an opposing view.  And God forbid that view be a conservative person/viewpoint!  These protestors actually stood behind Professor Blackman with signs about “Free Speech”…while trying to shout him down and prevent him from, well, exercising HIS right to free speech.  The sad thing is that they’re too stupid to understand the irony and hypocrisy of their actions.  To see a video of this exchange and the way Mr. Blackman was treated by these obnoxious kids, just click on the text above.  Unreal..

Recess making comeback in public schools: ‘Children do better when they have a break’

After a years of teetering on the brink, recess is making a comeback in public schools as state lawmakers move to reinstate playground time lost in the push for higher test scores. Last week, Arizona and Virginia approved bipartisan recess bills, following on the heels of Florida in June and Rhode Island in 2016, as pressure builds from parents who argue that all work and no play is hobbling student achievement. Providing daily recess for elementary-school children “helps them with stress and built-up energy,” said Sylvia Tenney Allen, the bill’s sponsor and chair of the Arizona Senate Education Committee. “Studies prove that children do better when they have a break throughout the day.” For Christine Davis of Phoenix, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision to sign the bill Thursday represented the culmination of an effort that began three years ago when she asked her daughters what they did during recess — and was greeted with blank stares. “I would ask my kids, ‘Hey, what did you do at recess today? Any tetherball? Any kickball?’ And they’d be like, ‘Well, not really. We only go once, and it’s only for 10 minutes,’ ” Ms. Davis said. “That’s when I went, what? And that’s when I learned also that so many parents and grandparents just have no idea.” Nine states now require daily recess in elementary schools, said Carly Wright, director of public policy and advocacy for SHAPE America, the Society of Health and Physical Educators, which champions recess and physical education. Each state bill has its twist. The Arizona measure requires elementary schools to provide two recess periods per day without specifying the length of the break. The Florida and Rhode Island bills require 20 minutes of daily recess. Objections have centered on the wisdom of allowing state legislators to override the authority of local school boards, as well as concerns about whether more teeter-totter time will result in lower test scores. “All it does is add an additional mandate to schools that we have to comply with,” Chris Kotterman, a lobbyist for the Arizona School Boards Association, said in testimony against the bill, as reported by The Arizona Republic. Even local superintendents who want to extend recess may find their hands tied by federal and state mandates on curriculum hours, a dilemma that Arizona and Virginia have addressed by allowing schools to count recess as instructional time. Virginia moved to expand recess last week when Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, signed a measure authorizing school districts to include “unstructured recreational time” in their “total instruction time or teaching hours.” During debate on the bill, “There was concern about core subjects, and what it’s taking away from, and are we teaching enough science and history as it is?” said Barbara Larrimore, who leads More Recess for Virginians. She argued that “this is going to enhance the education process, not take away from it,” because “they’re going to come back refreshed. They’re going to come back with more attention than if they had if they were working straight through.” Schools have seesawed for years between recess and instructional hours under pressure to improve standardized test performance, but playground time took its biggest tumble with the 2001 enactment of No Child Left Behind. Faced with the prospect of raising scores or losing federal funding, school districts in some cities, including Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit, eliminated recess entirely. “That’s when it really ramped up. You saw schools all over the country cut to only lunch recess or, in many cases, cut to none,” said Ms. Davis, a lawyer and founder of Arizonans for Recess. “So 2001 is kind of the year we recess advocates look at and say, ‘That’s when it really got dire.’ “ The rules of the game changed in 2015, when Congress shifted more control to the states by replacing No Child Left Behind with the Every Student Succeeds Act, but many schools “just stuck to the recess cut,” she said. “That’s why education advocates are increasingly turning to the state legislatures for mandates because we just haven’t been able to make a dent at the local level,” Ms. Davis said. “We go to them and say, ‘Hey, recess is great for kids, the research is very clear, and on top of that, you don’t have to work under that No Child framework anymore.’ And for some reason, they just don’t hear that.”

For more on this article, click on the text above.

Second-grader given ‘white privilege’ handout

A North Carolina parent is upset after her 8-year-old son was given a handout teaching him about “white privilege.” The sheet is labeled “Step 3: (Begin to) Understand the Concept of White Privilege” and lists statistics showing a disproportionate number of white people in government, media and the entertainment industry. Amber Pabon, a parent at Hunter Magnet Elementary, said her son came home last month with the paper in his folder. “I think the message itself is inappropriate because, yes, there is racism out here, and they need to learn about it, but let the parents do that,” Ms. Pabon told ABC affiliate WTVD. “Because like I said, if she’s teaching him the way she knows, it could be completely different from the way I know. And me being part of the black community, I know different from how the white community sees it.” A note at the top of the sheet said it’s an initiative of the school’s PTA to generate “awareness and empathy to create a safe and equitable Hunter Community.” Ms. Pabon claims the material was taught in her son’s second-grade class, but a district spokesperson said it’s not part of the school’s curriculum. PTA members said the handout is intended for parents, and new material is sent home, emailed or posted to Facebook every week. They said it’s part of a popular “11-Step Guide to Understanding Race, Racism, and White Privilege” created by the high school teacher Jon Greenberg.

This the kinda crap that is destroying our country..  Unreal..