In today&#8217;s polarized atmosphere, false accusations of racism are often hurled about. A self-righteous Internet mob, inspired by a fabricated TV dramatization, is using social media to publicly humiliate and destroy the reputation and livelihood of an award-winning attorney heralded for her trailblazing advocacy for justice for victims of sexual violence and other forms of abuse. This Internet shaming by impersonal digital mobs is the 21st century weapon of choice in our culture of personal destruction.
In 1989, Linda Fairstein headed the sex crimes unit in the Manhattan District Attorney&#8217;s office and supervised the prosecution and conviction of five teenage black and Hispanic men for participating in the brutal assault and rape of Trisha Meili, a white woman out for a jog in New York City&#8217;s Central Park.
In 30 years of postmortems about the Central Park jogger case, suggestions of prosecutorial malfeasance have been investigated and rejected.
Ava DuVernay&#8217;s four-part Netflix miniseries, &#8220;When They See Us,&#8221; is a fictional tale of supposed white institutional racism, accusing Linda Fairstein and her staff of coercing helpless, innocent boys to confess to the vicious assault of Ms. Meili. DuVernay reinforces her narrative by selectively editing portions of the damning videotaped confessions, using cherubic-looking actors to play the leading roles and manipulating a mountain of facts in the public record. &#8220;When They See Us&#8221; is anything but a documentary.
The teens, part of a thirty-plus pack on a rampage in the park, beating and terrorizing innocent people, were tried for the savage assault of Ms. Meile and other crimes. <a href="https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2019/06/03/in-defense-of-the-central-park-5-prosecution/">According to Fairstein</a>, jurors convicted the &#8220;Central Park Five&#8221; despite no DNA evidence against them, believing that there was a sixth, unidentified attacker among the horde of rioters. The defendants completed prison sentences. In 2002, an imprisoned serial rapist/murderer, Matias Reyes, volunteered that he was the jogger&#8217;s rapist. This was confirmed by DNA tests, but his claim of acting alone was never substantiated.
The Five then sued the city for malicious prosecution. City attorneys refused to settle the suit, but in 2014, Mayor de Blasio directed them to agree to a $41 million payout.
Fairstein has insisted that copious evidence, readily available to DuVernay, together with an extensive report from New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Galligan, who oversaw the trials, proves the teens were treated fairly and that their confessions were not coerced.
Following Reyes&#8217; confession, the District Attorney, without declaring their innocence, set aside the convictions of the Five. He found that no police or prosecutorial misbehavior occurred in their detention or questioning.
The lead NYPD officer on the case, African-American Eric Reynolds, viewed the vacating of the convictions as a miscarriage of justice and <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-news-eric-reynolds-detective-central-park-20180713-story.html">insisted</a> there was absolutely no coercion. He <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-news-eric-reynolds-detective-central-park-20180713-story.html">remarked</a> that the case had become so racially charged that &#8220;everybody who had some kind of an agenda was going to use it for their own ends.&#8221;
Immediately after the Netflix miniseries premiere, the #cancellindafairstein campaign, a digital-age witch-hunt, exploded on social media. Multiple petitions, signed by thousands, appeared on Facebook urging that she be removed from boards of trustees, her awards be rescinded, her books banned (she is a successful mystery writer), and that she be prosecuted for her role in the case.
Fairstein&#8217;s book publisher, Dutton, terminated their relationship. Threats to withdraw donations from organizations about which she cares deeply prompted Fairstein to resign from the boards of a victims-services agency, an organization addressing hunger and malnutrition, and another organization that empowers survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse. &#8220;I do not want to become a lightning rod to inflict damage,&#8221; Fairstein <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/central-park-five-prosecutor-linda-fairstein-resigns-from-charity-boards-amid-backlash">wrote</a>, due to <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/06/04/central-park-five-prosecutor-resigns-from-charity-boards-over-netflix-show-backlash/">&#8220;mob-mentality reaction&#8221;</a> to the series.
A Vassar College student started an <a href="https://www.change.org/p/vassar-college-remove-linda-fairstein-from-vassar-college-board-of-trustees">online petition</a>, signed by tens of thousands, to force the school to remove the alleged racist alumna from its board of trustees. The Vassar administration, after <a href="https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2019/06/03/when-they-see-us-central-park-five-prompts-vassar-trustee-review/1322218001/">consulting</a> its African-American alumni group to <a href="https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/local/2019/06/03/when-they-see-us-central-park-five-prompts-vassar-trustee-review/1322218001/">gauge</a> &#8220;the temperature of black alums&#8221; and finding that calls for Fairstein&#8217;s removal were &#8220;strong,&#8221; <a href="https://miscellanynews.org/2019/06/06/news/fairstein-resignation-sparks-debate-on-college-culture-previous-inaction/">asked</a> its board of trustees to investigate. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Fairstein resigned. President Elizabeth Bradley&#8217;s perfunctory announcement of her departure lacked any reference to Fairstein&#8217;s pioneering work or her years of service to Vassar. Vassar appeared more concerned about ridding itself of a public relations problem than standing for the truth.
It is bizarre that many of those same feminists who decry the unfair treatment of sexual assault victims within our criminal justice system joined the digital attack mob.
The fury generated by a made-for-TV fictionalized drama exposes our society&#8217;s inability to separate fiction from reality and reveals the power of social media to create cyber mobs intent on publicly shaming and destroying those the mobs deem unworthy.

Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>.

DAHL: Internet Mob Uses Fictional Miniseries To Take Down Women’s Rights Champion Linda Fairstein

Crime

Internet

Netflix

New York City

Sexual Assault

Violence

On college campuses today, the right to express our opinions, no matter how inflammatory, is being selectively applied to promote certain ideas and exclude others. The notion of free speech for all has been replaced by the Orwellian notion of free speech for me but not for thee.
DePaul University&#8217;s faculty just passed a resolution <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/depaul-university-condemns-professor-who-expressed-support-for-israel/">reprimanding</a> a colleague, philosophy professor Jason Hill, for writing an <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/16/moral-case-israel-annexing-west-bank-beyond/">article</a> strongly supporting Israel&#8217;s right to exist and condemning terrorism and the inveterate corruption of the Palestinian leadership. They claimed that these ideas were insensitive to members of the community and ran counter to the popular opinions of peers.
At Emory, the administration <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/College-administrators-aiding-and-abetting-antisemites-588558">justified</a> the dorm room posting of eviction flyers demonizing Israel by the hate group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as protected by &#8220;free speech.&#8221;
Williams College&#8217;s student government refused to recognize the pro-Israel student club Williams Initiative for Israel (WIFI) despite its compliance with all relevant student organization bylaws. WIFI is the first club in over a decade at Williams to be denied funding and other club privileges. This is a violation of Williams&#8217;s own Code of Conduct, which <a href="https://www.thefire.org/fire_speech-codes/williams-free-expression/">supports</a> the expression of &#8220;all ranges of opinion and belief.&#8221; At the same time, SJP has long been a recognized Williams student club and promotes the boycott of Israel with the goal of eliminating it in its entirety.
Middlebury College last month cancelled a speech on totalitarianism by a renowned scholar of classical political philosophy, former Polish Secretary of State Ryszard Legutko, because he was <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/alexander-kahn-fear-and-cowardice-at-middlebury-college">deemed</a> a &#8220;credible threat to the community.&#8221;
The student government at Trinity College recently denied recognition to the Churchill Club, formed to support discussions on themes underpinning Western civilization. This followed complaints from students of color that the club supports white supremacy and ethnocentricity. Trinity President Joanne Berger-Sweeney reversed this ruling &#8212; not as a freedom of speech matter, but on procedural grounds. Paradoxically, Berger-Sweeney used free speech to defend Trinity Professor Johnny Williams&#8217;s <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/05/01/trinity-college-sociologist-who-studies-whiteness-again-trouble-his-comments-about">tweet</a> that &#8220;whiteness is terrorism,&#8221; which had received national notoriety.
These are just a few examples of a shamefully blatant double standard that exists on campuses across our nation. This weaponization of free speech serves specific political, social, and cultural ends, harshly ostracizing conflicting perspectives.
We live in a time of trigger warnings, microagressions, speech codes, and safe spaces where oftentimes only &#8220;acceptable&#8221; ideas are permitted. &#8220;Diversity&#8221; and &#8220;inclusiveness&#8221; are campus buzzwords referencing the embrace of people differing in race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sexual orientation, and culture, but limiting differing perspectives. Opinions straying from social justice dogma and anti-Western orthodoxy are considered unreasonable, malevolent hate speech that will not be tolerated.
Recent surveys <a href="https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/university/annual-fire-report-college-free-speech/">found</a> that students, faculty and administrators demand censorship of and punishment for what they deem controversial or offensive speech. Fifty-three percent of college students surveyed <a href="https://knightfoundation.org/press/releases/college-students-show-strong-support-for-first-amendment-but-some-say-diversity-and-inclusion-is-more-important-to-a-democracy-than-free-speech-gallup-knight-survey-shows">believed</a> that diversity and inclusion were more important than free speech rights, 64% felt the U.S. Constitution should not protect &#8220;hate speech,&#8221; and 73% supported policies that legally restrict offensive slurs.
American campuses, while professing opposition to all types of hatred in the name of inclusiveness and tolerance, simultaneously embrace &#8220;anti-Zionism,&#8221; with its rejection of the Jewish right to self-determination, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which opposes Israel&#8217;s right to exist.
How many academics such as Professor Hill will risk character assassination and damage to their reputations to express views that counter the accepted campus orthodoxy on any issue and, most particularly, the Jewish state of Israel?
Voltaire&#8217;s allegedly famous commitment to free speech &#8212; &#8220;I wholly disapprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it&#8221; &#8212; has been replaced by the freedom to express only particular views, reminiscent of George Orwell&#8217;s &#8220;Animal Farm&#8221;: &#8220;Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.&#8221;
Historically, universities have been the source of intellectual inquiry by insisting on the free and unfettered exchange of ideas. Today, the decaying of our universities, where free speech protection is dispensed on a selective basis, is the cautionary tale of our generation.

Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>.

DAHL: Freedom Of Speech Is Being Weaponized On Campus

Anti-Semitism

DePaul University

Education

Israel

Palestinians

Anti-Semitism now thrives within the Democratic Party, representing a normalization of Jew-hatred not previously seen in the U.S. political mainstream. The progressive Left’s socialism, devotion to intersectional ideology, and defense of Islamism have incubated and birthed this reality.
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) (the socialist), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) (the Palestinian) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (the Islamist) — three “women of color” who are “untouchable” in the identity politics of the Left — have changed the conversation regarding anti-Semitism and Israel. As Omar recognized, it is now “OK” to discuss anti-Semitic slurs such as Jewish dual loyalty and Zionist influence-peddling. As Ocasio-Cortez<a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-aipac-coming-after-freshman-dems-compares-israel-supporters-to-iraq-war-supporters/"> put it</a>, support for Israel today should be equated with support for the Iraq War.
According to the Democratic Left, American Jews, quintessentially “white” and “privileged,” must be stripped of their power in order to isolate, marginalize, and destroy Israel — the proxy for capitalism and colonialism. Normalizing anti-Semitic slurs seems a small price to pay for a sea change in American foreign policy.
The nineteenth-century socialist movements in Europe often exploited the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jewish capitalist as a tool to target the entire mercantile class. They used the same arguments to critique capitalism as anti-Semites used to attack Jews. Socialist Charles Fourier portrayed the Jews as evil moneylenders and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon considered them the embodiment of corrupt commerce.
Karl Marx echoed those sentiments. Professor Robert Wistrich <a href="https://www.philosophersmag.com/opinion/30-karl-marx-s-radical-antisemitism">observed</a>, “The net result of Marx’s essay [&#8216;On The Jewish Question&#8217;] is to reinforce a traditional anti-Jewish stereotype — the identification of the Jews with money-making — in the sharpest possible manner.” Some of Marx’s followers used anti-Semitism to introduce anti-capitalism to the public. Hate the Jewish merchants and you’ll come to hate the non-Jewish ones.
Members of today’s Left view the state of Israel as an integral part of the Western imperialist power structure that continues to exploit and oppress the rest of the world — including, most particularly, the Palestinians, whose land the Left claims Jews have colonized. Medieval usury stereotypes and socialist capitalist antipathy have expanded to include anti-nationalism. Zionism, as a nationalist movement for Jewish self-determination, is therefore rejected out of hand. The BDS movement is the weapon of choice to destroy the Jewish nation-state.
March into the mix the grievance-peddlers of intersectionality. Their binary paradigm divides the world into good (powerless) and evil (powerful). Originally a theory adopted by postmodern academics, intersectionality now consumes left-wing activism.
Its foundational tenet is that all outcome inequality results from power inequality. If one identity group is more successful than another, the former has benefited from power at the expense of the latter. According to intersectionality, all struggles against injustice share a victimhood identity and have equal validity. Feminist and gay groups coexist with fundamentalist Islamic groups because all claim victim status, binding them in an unlikely coalition.
The intersectional movement’s goal is to destroy the West’s power hierarchy, which it claims is based on rich, white, straight, male power.
Socialism’s poor workers’ struggle against rich capitalists has been transformed into “people of color” versus the “privileged whites.”
Progressives view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a racial prism, placing Muslims — considered victimized people of color — high above the “privileged” Jews. Intersectional theory and anti-Semitism merge. The Left condemns power while anti-Semites posit a cabal of all-powerful Jews who insidiously influence world events.
Intersectionalists refuse to accept Jews as victims, despite their centuries of persecution and dislocation. To do so would be to legitimize the need for safe haven in a Jewish state. The Zionist dream of restoring sovereignty and security to the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland is incomprehensible to those who champion the Palestinian cause.
So the Left condemns Israel, the sole democracy in the Middle East, while ignoring or whitewashing the crimes of its Islamic enemies. Similarly, when Rashida Tlaib <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2019/03/11/watch-tlaib-explains-why-people-reacted-negatively-to-omars-comments-and-shes-n2542953">was asked</a> why some Democrats were unhappy with Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic slurs, she insisted that the problem is instead “Islamophobia.”
The nexus of socialism, intersectionality, and Islamism has radicalized the Democratic Party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at AIPAC’s recent annual <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45203/hammer-what-exactly-current-role-aipac-josh-hammer">policy conference</a>, insisted that Democrats oppose anti-Semitism and support Israel. These are the empty words of a leader who has, in practice, permitted the radical Left to take control of her party. As soon as the words left Pelosi’s mouth, Rep. Omar <a href="https://freebeacon.com/politics/omar-critcizes-pelosi-for-condemning-bds-at-aipac/">attacked</a> the Speaker for stifling freedom of speech.
Sadly, what we are witnessing is the Corbynization of the American Democratic Party. History will not look kindly on this development.
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>.

DAHL: The Democratic Party Is Being Corbynized

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Democratic Party

Ilhan Omar

Jeremy Corbyn

Judaism

Leftism

Rashida Tlaib

One-third of likely U.S. voters with an opinion favor the &#8220;Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction&#8221; (BDS) campaign against Israel while 39 percent have no opinion, according to a recent Rasmussen survey. Would so many Americans support BDS if they knew that the movement has longstanding direct links to terrorism?
A new report by Israel&#8217;s Strategic Affairs Ministry, &#8220;<a href="https://4il.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/MSA-Terrorists-In-Suits-English-1.pdf">Terrorists in Suits</a>,&#8221; provides damning evidence of more than 100 links between the BDS movement and Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), both designated by the U.S. as terrorist groups. 
More than 30 Hamas and PFLP operatives, 20 of whom served prison time for terrorism or murder, hold senior positions within BDS advocacy organizations. 
Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which advocates the boycott of Israel. Sourani is a PFLP terrorist and legal counsel to Hamas.
Palestinian Leila Khaled, a BDS fundraiser in Europe and South Africa, is a PFLP member involved in airplane hijackings and Jerusalem terrorist attacks as recently as 2011. In 2016, she <a href="https://www.memri.org/tv/former-pflp-plane-hijacker-leila-khaled-germany-palestinian-people-proved-negotiations-it-will-be/transcript">declared</a>, &#8220;Negotiations (with Israel) will be held only with knives and weapons.&#8221;
Muhammad Sawalha, deeply engaged in the U.K. BDS campaign, is a former Hamas military operative and political bureau member. 
Mustafa Awad, working with Samidoun, a BDS-promoting nongovernmental organization based in the U.S., is a Hezbollah-trained PFLP member arrested for facilitating terror funding.
These links make sense because BDS and terrorism share a common goal. One uses words to delegitimize and demonize Israel; the other uses kidnappings and knifings, rockets, and suicide bombers to terrorize and murder the maximum number of Jewish civilians. In both cases, the objective is the same: Elimination of the Jewish state of Israel.
BDS operatives have duped the West into thinking that their campaign is merely to force Israel to end its so-called &#8220;occupation&#8221; of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and in Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Americans favoring BDS need to believe the candid statements of its leaders. BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti has <a href="https://vimeo.com/75201955">declared</a>, &#8220;Ending the occupation doesn&#8217;t mean anything if it doesn&#8217;t mean upending the Jewish state itself.&#8221; Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq concurs, openly <a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5940/bds-hamas">admitting</a> that the ultimate goal of BDS is to &#8220;end the existence of (the) usurper entity,&#8221; Israel. There is no daylight between the ultimate objective of Hamas and that of BDS. Why aren&#8217;t they taken at their word?
The &#8220;Terrorists in Suits&#8221; report provides evidence that the board of the Ramallah-based BDS National Committee includes terror-designated organizations like Hamas, PFLP, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. These groups have a long and bloody history of lethal attacks against Jews, Israelis, and Americans. The American fundraising platform Donorbox <a href="https://www.jns.org/us-fundraising-site-donorbox-shuts-down-bds-account/">suspended</a> the BDS National Committee&#8217;s account when it learned of these terror ties.
According to an <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/263409/bds-umbrella-group-linked-to-palestinian-terrorist-organizations">exposé</a> in Tablet, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the coordinator for 329 different pro-BDS organizations in this country, funnels money to the BDS National Committee. It uses its own nonprofit status to enable tax-exempt fundraising for a foreign political entity.
Remember Cervantes&#8217; observation &#8212; &#8220;Tell me thy company, and I&#8217;ll tell thee who thou art.&#8221;
One hand washes the other in this mutually beneficial relationship Terrorist operatives share human resources with BDS-supporting groups, jointly promoting public campaigns, conferences, events, and fundraising. In return, BDS groups provide funding and cover to those terror organizations, masterfully disguising their desire to destroy the Jewish nation-state behind the façade of human rights for Palestinians.
Not only is BDS a front for terror, it&#8217;s also anti-Semitic as defined by the <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm">U.S. State Department</a>. Clearly, anti-Semitism does not reflect American values, as demonstrated by the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to the recent tweets of Democratic congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
The Rasmussen poll translates into more than 27 million Americans who favor BDS. If they knew the truth about the alliance between BDS and terrorism to destroy the Jewish nation-state, a democratic ally, many would probably change their minds. And the more than 50 million likely voters who have no opinion would perhaps then develop one.
As Americans, it&#8217;s time to reject BDS and take a stand for American values.

Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group <a href="https://salomoncenter.org">Haym Salomon Center</a>.

DAHL: It’s Time To Reject BDS And Take A Stand For American Values

Academics have hijacked our universities into conformance with the Marxist view that all events involve class struggle. Every issue is seen through the lens of victims versus oppressors, and social injustice is to blame for all that is wrong. This &#8220;weltanschauung&#8221; has become totalitarian groupthink on campuses, shutting down dialogue and diversity of opinion.
Having successfully indoctrinated college students, progressives are reaching into secondary and even primary schools. Teacher training seminars inculcate postmodern/post-colonialist identity politics. Private and public schoolteachers appreciate easy access to timesaving teaching manuals, handouts and curriculum guides to help design their classes. These materials often encapsulate claims about the evils of Western colonialism, white privilege, and the oppression of &#8220;marginalized groups&#8221; within our so-called endemically racist and sexist Western culture.
College students publicize what happens on their campus and within their classrooms, unlike the inexperienced K-12 community of our most impressionable and pliable.
Race, ethnicity and gender, together with a healthy dose of anti-Americanism, are emphasized in secondary school social studies curricula. They focus on our past sins rather than recognizing and honoring the greatness of those who fought for our liberty, created our institutions of government and made possible the most prosperous and free way of life ever realized by humanity. The goal is to tear apart rather than to foster understanding, respect, confidence and civic pride.
Thanks to the few alert students who communicate with their parents, we are starting to discover what our children are exposed to daily in many schools.
In 2014, in an apparent effort to promote Islam over Christianity and Judaism, Maryland&#8217;s La Plata High School <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.thomasmore.org/news/thomas-more-law-center-files-federal-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-marine-dad-banned-from-school-property-after-he-objected-to-islamic-indoctrination-of-daughter/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE1m5MBYOGiHLklHrZ4Gd4jP6Vuow" href="https://www.thomasmore.org/news/thomas-more-law-center-files-federal-lawsuit-on-behalf-of-marine-dad-banned-from-school-property-after-he-objected-to-islamic-indoctrination-of-daughter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> ordered</a> students to write the Islamic creed &#8220;Shahada,&#8221; which is used for conversion and states, in part, &#8220;There is no god but Allah.&#8221; Students were given a worksheet stating, &#8220;Most Muslims&#8217; faith is stronger than the average Christian.&#8221; This came to light only when an alert parent questioned his daughter.
In 2015, Ithaca, New York&#8217;s Beverly Martin Elementary School <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/12/video-activists-manipulate-third-graders-into-hating-israel/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGiTHRcOcnR8Txi3F9lAz6w5NPo6Q" href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/12/video-activists-manipulate-third-graders-into-hating-israel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">invited</a> known Palestinian activists to present a blatantly one-sided program to third graders. This included a video of a Palestinian girl defaming Israelis as terrorists and saying Jews kill children like her. As a result, children expressed anger and hatred toward Israel. Similar pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist themes play out in many classrooms across the country.
In late 2016, a student recorded a teacher at Norman North High School in Oklahoma <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://kfor.com/2016/10/14/to-be-white-is-to-be-racist-norman-student-offended-by-teachers-lecture/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNERdQHWT0MQHo4Yo3_vg8LjlhNn1g" href="https://kfor.com/2016/10/14/to-be-white-is-to-be-racist-norman-student-offended-by-teachers-lecture/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">saying</a>, &#8220;To be white is racist, period.&#8221;
To promote racial identity politics at Edina Highlands Elementary School in Minnesota, first graders, as part of a &#8220;melanin project,&#8221; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.startribune.com/racial-identity-policies-are-ruining-edina-s-fabled-schools/449825893/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESNkQHVKPFTkSSEIMKs97JoAYL-w" href="http://www.startribune.com/racial-identity-policies-are-ruining-edina-s-fabled-schools/449825893/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">were taught</a> that their identities are tied to their skin color. Fourth and fifth-graders participated in a program characterizing the anti-police Black Lives Matter as a peace movement. Very young students were encouraged to read an alphabet book teaching that A is for Activists (Are you one?), C is for Creative Counter to Corporate Vultures, T is for Trans and X is for Malcolm X. A student in the school district&#8217;s required 10th-grade English course commented, &#8220;[This] class should be renamed &#8230; &#8216;Why white males are bad, and how oppressive they are.&#8217;&#8217;&#8217;
Teach for America <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.campusreform.org/?ID%3D9187&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG3hQwxuOHmoGA3eFJaoF9beK65mw" href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9187" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">promoted</a> a math curriculum, &#8220;Teaching Social Justice Through Secondary Mathematics,&#8221; to advocate progressive agendas like open borders, the evils of anthropomorphic climate change and white racism. In response to criticism, it <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.campusreform.org/?ID%3D9269&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHlZNuWLuvd_GdRhIEb1UoxHhf55g" href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9269" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">replaced</a> &#8220;Social Justice&#8221; with &#8220;Social Issues,&#8221; softened the most radical elements and removed the section calling mathematics a white male field.
At California&#8217;s Rocklin Academy, kindergarten classes <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/3/kindergarten-transgender-lessons-have-parents-chan/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGKh-Vn2JrmHyuCekkzoZm7iKuIgw" href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/3/kindergarten-transgender-lessons-have-parents-chan/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">are exposed</a> to transgender instruction without parental notification. Unaware that a male student now identified as a female, a first grader was <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/23/california-parents-feel-betrayed-transgender-revea/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1547707491451000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE4sjjhcRFbOfghx-J68486N7Cfrg" href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/23/california-parents-feel-betrayed-transgender-revea/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">sent to the principal</a> for &#8220;misgendering&#8221; by using the classmate&#8217;s given name.
These exemplify a campaign of indoctrination in our grammar and high schools. Leftist activists observe no boundaries even when it involves young children. They know that, with prior exposure to progressive advocacy, students arriving at college already will see the world in terms of victimhood, grievance and oppression. It&#8217;s a slam-dunk!
When discussion of race, sex, gender and colonialism is used to promote a one-sided political agenda, American education is debased. When teachers convey their preferences and convictions to students in order to influence their behavior, education quickly becomes propaganda.
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. 
<div> </div>

DAHL: Education Is Quickly Becoming Propaganda In Our Primary And Secondary Schools

A group of Vassar students, calling themselves &#8220;VC brewers hellbent on nothing but destruction,&#8221; distributed a socialist manifesto titled &#8220;Vassar College Disorientation Guide 2018-2019&#8221; to incoming freshmen to counter Vassar&#8217;s six-day New Student Orientation program in late August.
The <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kAE601scPzBfqL3LKMR1LKrz-gAZkxr/view&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1536329686991000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFaDSFwRUF3AJ8OA7-wmIPQwwo0JQ" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kAE601scPzBfqL3LKMR1LKrz-gAZkxr/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Guide</a>, written by a group of self-declared radicals, is a seeming call to violence against the college. It includes defamatory references to &#8220;Zionists&#8221; and vigorously supports the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) against Israel as an effective vehicle for &#8220;fighting colonialism&#8221; and supporting &#8220;liberation struggles.&#8221;
The document attacks Vassar as a &#8220;colonial institution&#8221; with a &#8220;legacy of colonial violence,&#8221; a &#8220;bastion of class power,&#8221; a corporate entity promoting &#8220;white supremacist, cisheteropatriarchal, capitalist values.&#8221; It exhorts students to struggle against capitalism by demanding power over the university.
&#8220;Your college is a corporation&#8221; designed to train students to be economic cogs in a capitalist society, exclaims the manifesto. It criticizes the college for spending huge sums to build a science center, when it should be funding racial awareness, mental health and student finances.
The Guide attacks the Vassar Board of Trustees, including Vassar&#8217;s president, as &#8220;the assortment of villains who control your life.&#8221; It highlights individual board members, accusing them of &#8220;promoting neocolonialism,&#8221; &#8220;sustaining global capitalism,&#8221; participating in &#8220;corporate exploitation&#8221; and &#8220;aestheticizing toxic consumerism,&#8221; and criticizes them for working for corporations that pursue &#8220;illegal activities,&#8221; &#8220;unethical drug testing,&#8221; &#8220;bribery,&#8221; &#8220;protecting the wealthy&#8221; and &#8220;destroying employees&#8217; livelihoods.&#8221; One Jewish trustee is singled out for his support of Israel.
In its discussion of the failure of the 2016 student-led campaign to pass a BDS resolution at Vassar, the 50-page document blames Zionist outsiders and an administration that feared loss of alumni donations. &#8220;All specters of student power and democracy drain away when we threaten Vassar money.&#8221; In the future, &#8220;we must see ourselves as tied to their (Palestinian) resistance&#8221; and &#8220;as comrades in struggle against racism, cisheteropatriarchy, and the settler colonial state.&#8221; The Guide points out the need to resist &#8220;the overwhelmingly Zionist bloc within the alumni&#8221; and exhorts students to &#8220;slap a Zionist.&#8221;
The polemic incites these newly-arrived, impressionable students to organize, subvert, seize power and destroy Vassar as &#8220;part of the struggle for liberation, nationally and internationally.&#8221; It writes, &#8220;This MONSTER of a college deserves to be stopped NOW.&#8221;
It calls on students to &#8220;host a Molotov cocktail making workshop,&#8221; &#8220;sign (President) Bradley up for tons of spam mail,&#8221; &#8220;f**k up the Career Development Office,&#8221; hack wifi, &#8220;expropriate the Vassar farm&#8221; and &#8220;steal plants&#8221; and disrupt alumni fundraising events.
Vassar College admits an extremely diverse student body in terms of race, gender, ethnicity and sexual persuasion. It offers generous financial aid &#8220;to make a selective college experience accessible to students from all backgrounds,&#8221; <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://admissions.vassar.edu/news/announcements/2014-2015/140716-admissions-dean-rodriguez.html&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1536329686991000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEm4CSnncM3DmbuErfvDVwRAurlSg" href="https://admissions.vassar.edu/news/announcements/2014-2015/140716-admissions-dean-rodriguez.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to</a> former Vassar president Catharine Hill. And it makes concerted efforts to support them on campus.
However, in terms of its progressive curriculum and faculty, Vassar College now reaps what it has sown &#8211; a faculty that espouses a postmodern ideology that attacks traditional Western values, divides the world into the &#8220;powerful and powerless,&#8221; and radicalizes students against the supposed evils of colonialism, capitalism and white privilege. The curriculum glorifies revolution and the fight against oppression. Students are marinated in identity politics and are encouraged to become social justice warriors to fight the system in the name of the powerless. Is it any wonder that some of these students have come to the conclusion that they are the powerless, exploited by the powerful and privileged Vassar administration, and that it is their mission to fight to destroy the college?
The &#8220;VC brewers hellbent on nothing but destruction,&#8221; conclude, &#8220;As of right now, we are in a struggle for control, not of dialogue.&#8221;
It is to President Bradley&#8217;s credit that she promptly condemned the Guide. But without addressing Vassar&#8217;s curriculum and academic messaging, any disciplinary action will be just a band-aid on a festering sore.
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. She has a Master of Arts degree in public law and government from Columbia University and an A.B. in political science from Vassar College.

DAHL: Vassar College Disorientation Guide Embraces Anti-Semitism, Describes College As A ‘Monster’

In The Art of War, 6th century BC, <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/sun-tzu">Sun Tzu</a> wrote, &#8220;Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking a superabundance of strength.&#8221; The famous Chinese military strategist argued that to be successful in war, it is critical &#8220;to attack the enemy&#8217;s strategy.&#8221;
Students supporting the Jewish right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland should consider his advice: Go on the offense rather than the defense, dominate the generation and flow of information and selectively adopt opposition tactics to use against them.
Israel supporters on campus are systematically targeted, harassed and silenced inside and outside the classroom by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and like-minded faculty.
This is a war &#8212; a vicious, coordinated war of words as dangerous to Israel&#8217;s survival as mortars and rockets. By poisoning the minds of our future thought leaders, the enemy is attempting to destroy the Jewish state. This psychological warfare is modeled after Herr Goebbels&#8217; &#8220;Big Lie&#8221; strategy: Say that Israel is a racist and genocidal country often enough and people will ultimately believe it.
Democratic Israel is the only nation universally demonized, delegitimized and held to a double standard on campuses across America &#8212; exactly what the U.S. State Department <a href="https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm">defines</a> as anti-Semitism.
SJP, Muslim Students Association and other campus organizations promote boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) resolutions against Israel, sponsor the annual hate-filled &#8220;Israel Apartheid Week,&#8221; import speakers to viciously defame the Jewish state, disrupt pro-Israel programs and speakers and label Israel supporters racists and white supremacists.
Every time a BDS resolution is proposed or an apartheid wall is erected, Israel&#8217;s student advocates attempt to explain away the lies, thereby giving legitimacy to the propaganda they are trying to debunk. They play defense rather than exposing the opposition as purveyors of hate, false advocates whose real intent is to weaponize the human rights mantra to deny the Jewish people&#8217;s inalienable right to self-determination.
For the most part, Israel supporters&#8217; response on campus has remained reactive, studied and overly cerebral. They are rightfully jubilant when BDS resolutions are voted down. But, in reality, whether they pass or fail is irrelevant. This tactic fulfills its objective &#8212; exposing the student community to a constant barrage of anti-Israel invective which, over time, will alter public and political consciousness.
But things may be changing. A few pro-Israel groups are starting to take the fight to the haters, using opposition strategies against them.
Founded by two University of Minnesota Israeli undergraduates, Students Supporting Israel (SSI) connects with students by appealing to emotion, believing, as the opposition does, that feelings are more powerful than facts. They have selectively co-opted enemy tactics and use language and symbolism as assertive as that of SJP. Fighting back with verbal <a href="http://www.kravmagainstitute.com/self-defense/what-is-krav-maga/">krav maga</a>, to quote SSI.
Columbia University&#8217;s SSI launched &#8220;Hebrew Liberation Week&#8221; during Israel Apartheid Week. They wore blue and white<a href="http://www.semitictribes.com/product/new-4-0-blue-keffiyeh"> kefiyahs</a> symbolizing the indigenous Jewish connection to Israel, designed &#8220;liberation-style&#8221; graphics and displayed a logo of King David&#8217;s Star and Shield.
At UCLA, they hosted a panel, &#8220;Indigenous People Unite,&#8221; to provide a platform for Kurdish, Armenian and Jewish students to share their history, struggles and aspirations.
The group proposed its own resolutions to student governments at six universities, with four passing. One called for increasing Israel study abroad programs and three for adopting the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism.
Determined to swiftly get its message out whenever an Israel-Palestinian issue arises, SSI members rehearse techniques for launching a quick advocacy response. <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/19/grassroots-group-teaches-students-to-transform-anti-israel-campus-pressure-into-defensive-action-on-behalf-of-jewish-state-interview/">According</a><a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/19/grassroots-group-teaches-students-to-transform-anti-israel-campus-pressure-into-defensive-action-on-behalf-of-jewish-state-interview/"> to</a> co-founder Ilan Sinelnikov, &#8220;We need to make sure Israel&#8217;s message is the first one on campus&#8230;directing the narrative.&#8221; He<a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/08/19/grassroots-group-teaches-students-to-transform-anti-israel-campus-pressure-into-defensive-action-on-behalf-of-jewish-state-interview/"> summarized</a>: &#8220;If you are constantly defending Israel and being reactive, at some point you won&#8217;t be able to make a difference anymore.&#8221;
Reservists on Duty, an NGO of Israeli reserve officers combating anti-Israel propaganda on U.S campuses, launched an event called &#8220;Palestinian Values Day.&#8221; Founder Amit Deri <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/IDF-Reservists-on-Duty-aim-to-expose-Palestinian-hatred-on-US-campuses-471494">explains</a> that, while it&#8217;s fine to talk about Israel&#8217;s intellectual and scientific achievements, it&#8217;s more important to talk about shared values, contrasting Palestinian behavior with Israel&#8217;s democratic institutions and protections for minorities. &#8220;Nobody is talking about what the Palestinians are doing to their own people, and the values of that society.&#8221; Deri thinks that no American student wants to associate with people who throw gays off rooftops, condone honor killings of women or use their people as human shields. But all they hear is the defamation of Israel.
Israel should be defined on campuses by its supporters, not its detractors. It&#8217;s about time Israel campus advocates recognize that they are in a consequential war. Embrace Sun Tzu&#8217;s recommendation. Get up from the defensive crouch, get out from behind the lectern, think outside the box and seize the offense on the battlefield of ideas.
Ziva Dahl is a fellow with the Haym Salomon Center. She has a Master of Arts degree in public law and government from Columbia University and an A.B. in political science from Vassar College.

DAHL: It’s Time For Israel’s Campus Advocates To Seize The Offense In The Psychological War Against Israel

Award-winning director/producer Gloria Z. Greenfield introduces her fourth documentary, The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the Ideological War Against the West, with the warning, &#8220;Civilizations, empires, great powers can fall apart very fast. Collapse can come suddenly like a thief in the night.&#8221; In the ensuing 64 minutes, Ms. Greenfield&#8217;s impressive cast of experts present a powerful argument that we in the West are facing a lethal threat to our way of life &#8212; to our Western culture and tradition. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are in the fight of our lives against the greatest challenge of our time.
Harvard&#8217;s Niall Ferguson sets the stage with the admonition that great civilizations have disappeared more quickly than those living at the time ever anticipated. Author/journalist Melanie Phillips provides the film&#8217;s organizational framework, noting that the West faces an existential threat both &#8220;from within&#8221; and &#8220;from without.&#8221;
In compelling detail, the documentary first explores the threat from within &#8212; postmodernism, the West&#8217;s collapse of confidence in its values after WWII&#8217;s devastation. An ideology that now defines the public debate, dictates what&#8217;s acceptable and turns the West against itself.
We learn that postmodernism encompasses two key ideological components, the first being anti-colonialism, the belief that people around the world coexisted comfortably and peacefully prior to Western imperialists invading, dividing, conquering, exploiting and oppressing them.
The second element is cultural relativism, advocating that all cultures are equally valuable, including those morally repugnant to Western sensibilities. There are no absolute truths: One cannot sit in judgment on cultures that practice female genital mutilation, cut off limbs as punishment or hang gays from rooftops. Hoover Institution&#8217;s Victor Davis Hanson comments, &#8220;One man&#8217;s terrorist is another man&#8217;s freedom fighter.&#8221; The doctrinal philosophy of multiculturalism springs from this theory.
For postmodernists, history is the story of the powerful and powerless, the victimizers and the victims. Classical liberalism, with its primacy on the individual, is replaced by identity politics championing victim-groups based on race, class, ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual persuasion.
In academia, most faculty members in the social sciences and humanities espouse postmodernist ideology, seeing themselves as adversaries of Western values and demanding that their students strictly adhere to this dogma. Allowing no criticism of their worldview, professors tell students what to believe. Students demand &#8220;safe spaces&#8221; to protect themselves from alternative views. According to Ms. Phillips, ideas are no longer &#8220;in direct combat with other ideas.&#8221;
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz describes academia today as the &#8220;light fog of fascism&#8221; threatening to &#8220;mis-educate&#8221; our future leaders. Too few students today read the works of the people who make the best arguments for liberal democracy and political pluralism.
The sections &#8220;Breaching the Gates&#8221; and &#8220;People of the Book&#8221; identify the &#8220;threat from without&#8221; &#8212; political Islam with its goal of world domination and its intolerance for different religions, political and legal systems, and cultures.
We learn that there are Muslims abusing our open society to infiltrate government, academia and the media in order to impose Sharia law on our democratic way of life, attacking the Judeo-Christian values that underpin Western civilization.
The viewer is reminded that the dream of millions of Muslims for a worldwide Islamic caliphate is no more absurd than was Lenin&#8217;s or Hitler&#8217;s totalitarian vision, and is equally dangerous.
Using the &#8220;narration without a narrator&#8221; technique, Greenfield skillfully weaves commentary about this complex subject into a cogent argument. The musical score and photographs complement the discourse.
The Fight of Our Lives should convince you that action is necessary to defeat this clear and present danger. Our children must learn about Western civilization&#8217;s humanism, Judeo-Christian morality, Enlightenment thought, commitment to separation of church and state, human rights, freedom of speech and religious diversity. The Fight of Our Lives reminds us that if we don&#8217;t renew our &#8220;moral confidence&#8221; in our heritage, we will lose the fight.
The film will premiere February 19 at The Broad Stage, Santa Monica, California, sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Victor Davis Hanson will offer pre-screening remarks. Details for upcoming screenings can be found at <a href="https://www/">https://www</a>.<a href="http://thefightofourlives.com/">thefightofourlives.com</a>.

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Ziva Dahl