Dr. Thomas Sowell has just published &#8220;Charter Schools and Their Enemies.&#8221; He presents actual test scores of students in traditional public schools and charter schools on New York State Education Department&#8217;s annual English Language Arts test and its Mathematics Test. Sowell gives the results of student tests in charter schools such as KIPP, Success Academy, Explore Schools, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First as well as the traditional New York City public schools. On the English Language Arts test, a majority of charter school students, most of whom were black or Hispanic, tested proficient or above. Their achievement ratio was nearly 5 to 1. On the Mathematics test 68% of charter schools&#8217; 161 grade levels had a majority of students testing proficient. In the traditional public schools, 177 grade levels, just 10% had a majority of their student testing proficient.
In April 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that 57% of black and 54% of Hispanic charter school students passed the statewide ELA compared to 52% of white students statewide. On the state math test, 59% of black students and 57% of Hispanics at city charter schools passed as opposed to 54% of white students statewide.
Sowell says: &#8220;In a realm where educational failure has long been the norm — schools in low income minority neighborhoods — this is success, a remarkable success. What is equally remarkable is how unwelcome this success has been in many places. What has been especially remarkable is that it has been the most educationally successful charter schools that seem to have drawn the most hostility, both in words and in deeds.&#8221; The most common form of that hostility are simple legal limits set on the number of charter schools permitted without regard to whether charter schools are producing good or bad educational outcomes.
The education establishment, having the nation&#8217;s most powerful labor union, has the ears of political leaders. They see a huge loss potential if more parents are able to opt out of poorly achieving public schools. For example, in New York City there are more than 50,000 students on waiting lists for admission to charter schools. The per-pupil expenditure tops $20,000 a year. If all the students on the waiting list were able to be admitted to charter schools, that would translate into a billion-dollar loss by the traditional public schools. A substantial decline in traditional public school attendance would mean fewer teachers employed. That would mean declining union dues since most charter school teachers are not union members. Charter schools&#8217; rate of growth since the 1990s has been significant. From 2001 to 2016, enrollment at traditional public schools rose 1% while enrollment in public charter schools rose 571%.
Sowell points out that not all charter schools are successful. Failing charter schools can have their charters revoked, cutting off access to public funds. That is in stark contrast to failing and corrupt traditional public schools that continue to dine at the public trough. Successful charter schools are the real threat to traditional unionized public schools. No charter school in Sowell&#8217;s study has been more successful than Success Academy charter schools in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant and the South Bronx — and none has been more viciously attacked in words and in deeds. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio explicitly campaigned against charter schools saying: &#8220;I am angry about the privatizers. I am sick and tired of these efforts to privatize a precious thing we need — public education.
In another venue, Sowell said: &#8220;We keep hearing that ‘black lives matter,’ but they seem to matter only when that helps politicians to get votes, or when that slogan helps demagogues demonize the police. The other 99% of black lives destroyed by people who are not police do not seem to attract nearly as much attention in the media.&#8221;
At a 2016 meeting, the NAACP&#8217;s board of directors ratified a resolution that called for a moratorium on charter schools. Among the NAACP&#8217;s reasons for this were that it wanted charter schools to refrain from &#8220;expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate&#8221; and &#8220;cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.&#8221; That is a vision suggesting that no black children receive decent educations until all black children receive decent educations. Black people cannot afford to entertain such a vision and other attacks on educational success.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Students raise hands

WILLIAMS: Charter Schools And Their Enemies

charter schools

Education

Leave it to colleges and universities to continue charging exorbitant fees even as students are unable to attend class in-person due to the ongoing coronavirus lockdown.
Multiple schools from across the country will be hiking tuition for the upcoming academic year, The Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/colleges-hike-tuition-slash-classroom-instruction/">reported</a>.
“The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), New York University, the University of Southern California (USC), and Indiana University are among several universities raising tuition and other fees in the upcoming academic year. These institutions will raise the cost of tuition and living expenses by an average of $1,511 while minimizing services, amenities, and in-person classroom learning,” the outlet reported.
“Tuition hikes come as universities struggle to adapt to the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced schools to send students home from campus and adopt alternative teaching methods. Colleges fear tuition revenue will decrease as they transition to online programming, but students are more concerned that they are paying exorbitant rates with little return,” the Free Beacon continued.
Schools that returned Free Beacon inquiries defended the tuition increases by claiming the decisions were made before the coronavirus. For example, University of Illinois spokesman Jan Dennis told the outlet that the university would not reduce costs but would increase financial aid.
&#8220;The tuition increase was approved in January, before the pandemic,&#8221; Dennis told the Free Beacon. &#8220;[The University of Illinois] system created a new fund that will provide at least $36 million to help students facing increased financial need due to COVID.&#8221;
For reference, the outlet noted, UIUC “received $1.9 billion in taxpayer funds in 2019.”
In addition to limiting classroom education and social distancing in classrooms that do continue, the school will also cut back on the number of students in residence halls (while increasing living fees) and make the campus dining centers take-out only.
USC was set to similarly limit students but walked back the decision, the outlet reported.
The moves from these universities have riled students who were already upset at having to pay full tuition despite canceled or reduced classes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. MarketWatch <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/unprecedented-lawsuits-from-students-suing-colleges-amid-the-coronavirus-outbreak-raise-3-thorny-questions-for-higher-education-2020-05-21">reported</a> in late May that more than 100 lawsuits had been filed by students seeking refunds. Attorneys who spoke to the outlet expressed concern with some of the lawsuits and raised questions the students may face in their pursuit, such as whether contracts with colleges promise in-person classes. One attorney suggested at least some of the students might not have standing if their parents are paying for their education or if they have a scholarship.
Attorney Hassan Zavareei, who is representing several students in multiple lawsuits, explained to the outlet that schools market campus life while trying to attract students to attend.
“The school provides education and it provides room and board and provides services. In exchange for that, you give them the consideration of money. What we are trying to do is to enforce that contract,” Zavareei told the outlet.
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Caucasian student standing in classroom

Colleges To Increase Tuition While Cutting Amenities And In-Person Teaching

colleges

A college in Virginia is considering changing its wasp mascot – a clear reference to the actual insect – because someone, somewhere may be reminded of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant acronym WASP and be offended.
Emails <a href="https://www.yaf.org/news/virginia-college-to-re-examine-offensive-wasp-mascot/">obtained</a> by Young America’s Foundation from Emory &amp; Henry College president Dr. John Wells and its alumni director, Monica Hoel, show the college is thinking about changing the mascot because of the associated acronym. The school is also considering changes to its name, since the two men the college is named after owned slaves, and changes to building names.
In an email obtained by YAF, Hoel wrote that the “little wasp itself isn’t offensive, but the acronym WASP stands for White Anglo Saxon Protestant,” adding that “it sort of cuts both way: [sic] it stands to make us seem exclusive of those not in that category….and I mostly Hear [sic] it used as an insult against people who do fall into that category.”
“Like an interview this weekend where they described someone as WASPy: I don’t think it mean she was terribly cool or open minded! :)” Hoel added. “It’s a pickle, for sure.”
Writing at YAF, Kara Zupkus called the decision to reconsider the school’s mascot “beyond parody.”
“The college’s mascot is clearly in reference to a wasp–the literal insect, not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. This school’s administration is seeking out any and all reasons students may be offended by something. A bug seems like it should be the least of their worries,” she wrote.
Hoel was responding to an email from Wells and vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion John Holloway, who briefly mentioned the mascot as part of their suggestion to re-examine the school’s ties to people who owned slaves.
“Conversations must examine how Emory &amp; Henry’s past has contributed to current and ongoing systemic oppression,” the administrators wrote. “For example, discussion should be renewed regarding College’s mascot, the wasp, and the impact of this mascot on inclusion and diversity on our campus.”
The mascot is literally a winged insect, not a white religious person.
The initial email also questioned the two men for whom the school is named after:
<blockquote>Emory &amp; Henry College must address the history of the institution benefiting from the work of enslaved people. As the oldest college in southwestern Virginia, Emory &amp; Henry has links to slavery that are well documented. The College’s namesakes, Bishop John Emory and Governor Patrick Henry, were slaveholders. In addition, initial research indicates there is one building on the main campus named for a slaveholder.
Continuing research will enable the institution to determine specifically what role slavery played during the College’s early years. This time also will be a distinctive opportunity for the College to have a dialogue and build trusting and meaningful relationships with our communities of color.
…
The College’s leadership and I strongly support examining the names of buildings as well as the publicly displayed portraits, plaques, and statues that point to ties to slavery. These thoughtful discussions will involve students, alumni, and other stakeholders. As a result, our community will develop meaningful ways to acknowledge and pay tribute to the contributions of the enslaved men and women who helped build Emory &amp; Henry College.</blockquote>
The administrators added that 14 “preliminary recommendations” are already being implemented in the next academic year and that a final report would be released next January.
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Wasp

Virginia College Reconsidering Wasp Mascot – A Literal Insect – Because Of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Acronym

insects

A male Oberlin College student was expelled even though the school lacked evidence the female accuser was incapacitated for their sexual encounter and even though she told investigators and a hearing panel drastically different stories.
The male student, referred to as John Doe <a href="https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/20a0195p-06.pdf">in court documents</a>, just received a win from U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which ruled Oberlin violated John’s rights by discriminating against him based on his sex. Writing for the majority, Judge Raymond Kethledge began the ruling with a fiery acknowledgement.
“Any number of federal constitutional and statutory provisions reflect the proposition that, in this country, we determine guilt or innocence individually—rather than collectively, based on one’s identification with some demographic group. That principle has not always been perfectly realized in our Nation’s history, but as judges it is one that we take an oath to enforce. Here, the relevant statute is Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which bars universities that receive federal funds from discriminating against students based on their sex,” he wrote.
Kethledge then laid out several ways in which Oberlin has demonstrated its bias against students accused of sexual misconduct – who are almost all male. For example, “Oberlin instructed its faculty, ‘via an online resource guide,’ that they should ‘[b]elieve’ students who report sexual assault, because ‘a very small minority of reported sexual assaults prove to be false reports,’” Kethledge wrote. Further, members of Oberlin’s Title IX office, which investigates and adjudicates claims of sexual misconduct, reportedly receive “annual training in strategies to protect parties who experience sexual misconduct[,]” but no training on “how to conduct impartial fact-finding proceedings,” John’s attorneys alleged.
The woman who was named Oberlin’s Title IX Coordinator, who oversees the department and has a say in sanctions against accused students, was hired in 2013 and said in 2014 that she was “committed to survivor-centered processes.” The Coordinator’s name is Meredith Raimondo, who was named as a defendant when Gibson’s Bakery <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/worse-you-think-theres-more-oberlin-story-ashe-schow">sued Oberlin for defamation</a> and won millions. Further, a report from Oberlin showed that 100% of allegations that resulted in a hearing panel ended with a responsible finding against the accused.
This all painted the backdrop for Jane Roe, as the accuser is referred to in court documents, to make her allegations against John. The two undergraduates met at a party in December 2015 and spent the night in John’s room after having consensual intercourse without a condom, court documents say. They had little interaction for the next two months, until John texted Jane at 1 in the morning on February 28, asking, “What are you up to tonight?” The two exchanged nine text messages in 30 minutes, court documents say. Jane said she was “about to smoke [marijuana]” in John’s residence hall and asked him if she could come by after. John said “yea.”
Jane arrived at John’s around 1:45 a.m. The two spoke briefly and began making out before taking off their clothes. Jane requested John use a condom when they had sex. During the encounter, Jane said she was thirsty, so John stopped to get her some water. They again had sex, this time without the condom, until Jane said she was “dry” because, “I’m not sober.”
John stopped having sex with her and asked if she would perform oral sex on him, to which she agreed. Afterward, the two talked a little and Jane left.
Nine days later, Jane told Raimondo that John had sexually assaulted her. Raimondo didn’t tell John about the charges until a week later, and even then only gave a vague description, writing in an email that Oberlin was investigating a claim that he had sexually assaulted Jane “on 2/27/16 while she was incapacitated due to alcohol and unable to consent to sexual activity.”
Raimondo appointed Joshua Nolan to investigate the allegations. Oberlin policy stated that investigations should take no more than 20 days and that the entire matter should be resolved in no more than 60 days. Nolan took 120 days to issue an investigative report, court documents say. After 61 days, John emailed Raimondo to ask about the delay, saying he couldn’t get in contact with Nolan. Raimondo said nothing except that Oberlin would notify him “of the reason(s) for the delay and the expected adjustment in time frames.”
It wasn’t until July 7, 2016 – more than four months after the sexual encounter – that John would even learn of the details of Jane’s allegations. Jane’s account of the encounter differed from John’s only slightly. She said John asked her oral sex before they had intercourse and she asked if he had a condom. She said nothing about being thirsty or John getting her water. She again said John “asked” her for oral sex and that she responded “okay, but I’m not very sober right now.” Jane wrote in a personal journal shortly after the incident that John “asked” her “to go down on him.”
Nolan interviewed 10 people, mostly Jane’s friends. Nearly all of them said Jane didn’t appear incapacitated, instead describing her as “intoxicated” but not “overly” so, her speech as “slower” than usual but “not slurred.” Another said she asked Jane if she was “good” when she saw her immediately before her encounter with John, to which Jane replied “yes.” The further from the incident, the more Jane claimed she was sexually assaulted. A friend she saw shortly after said Jane was “disappointed and upset that she had done something.” Another friend said Jane claimed she was “too intoxicated to consent.” A third friend, who spoke with Jane a few days after the encounter, said Jane said John had “sexually assaulted her” by “forc[ing] oral sex on her.”
When Nolan interviewed Jane, she was accompanied by her friend J.B., a male, whom she identified as her &#8220;designated support person.&#8221; J.B. would later say he was surprised by how different Jane&#8217;s account to Nolan was than what she had told him. J.B. said Nolan told him he would be brought back of his own interview, but Nolan never contacted him again. After J.B. heard that John had been found responsible, he emailed Raimondo saying that Jane told him John never forced her to perform oral sex on him and that her hearing testimony was misleading in other ways as well. Raimondo never responded and there is no evidence Oberlin considered anything J.B. said about the incident.
Despite what she wrote in her journal and what she told investigator Nolan about John asking her for oral sex, Jane claimed at the hearing that John forced her and never asked her. Nolan testified at the hearing, saying that the only contradiction he heard in testimony from what he was told during the investigation was from Jane about whether John asked for oral sex.
John was appointed an advisor who was supposed to support him, but this advisor “left the hearing early” and two weeks later retweeted: “To survivors everywhere, we believe you.”
John was unsurprisingly found responsible based on what the hearing panel claimed was a “preponderance of the evidence established that effective consent was not maintained for the entire sexual encounter that occurred on February 28, 2016.”
Judge Kethledge wrote:
<blockquote>Consent was absent, the panel found, because Roe was incapacitated, as the Policy defined it, from the moment she told Doe that she was “not sober.” The panel cited no other behavior supporting a finding either that Roe was incapacitated as defined by the Policy or that Doe would have had any reason to think she was. Nor did the panel mention the contradiction cited by Nolan, between what Roe told him (and several friends) and what she told the hearing panel, as to whether Doe had “asked” for oral sex. As a sanction, the panel recommended the most severe one: expulsion. The College accepted that recommendation and ordered Doe expelled.</blockquote>
Oberlin’s policy defined “incapacitated” as a person who “lack[s] conscious knowledge of the nature of the act” or “is physically helpless.” Jane’s casual remark about not being sober was enough for the hearing panel to determine she was “incapacitated,” despite what her friends said and the fact that not only did the school have to demonstrate that Jane was incapacitated as defined by Oberlin’s policy, but that John or a reasonable person would have been able to see that she was incapacitated.
John sued Oberlin, but a district court granted the school’s motion to dismiss. John appealed to the Sixth Circuit, which overturned the lower court’s decision.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Man sitting on bed

Her Story Changed And Even Her Friend Said She Lied About Being Sexually Assaulted. He Was Expelled Anyway.

Sexual Assault

Title IX

Nearly four years ago, the founding chapter of the Black Lives Matter activist network allied with the main teachers union in Los Angeles. They started organizing students to create a foundation that would transform the nation’s second-largest public school system from within.
The two groups became even more intertwined earlier this year when members of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-member-elected-to-lead-los-angeles-largest-teachers-union">elected</a> a Black Lives Matter activist as its new president.
The union represents approximately 35,000 educators, librarians, and counselors, most of whom are employed by the LA Unified School District (LAUSD), which serves more than 600,000 students. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-lausd-teachers-strike-guide-20190113-story.html">According</a> to the LA Times, the overwhelming majority come from low-income families.
“I see teaching as a revolutionary act, just the way I see organizing,” Cecily Myart-Cruz, who captured almost 69% of the vote, has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwJ84Z_BLEw">said</a>.
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Yes!!!!! OUR Cecily Myart-Cruz, the force behind <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatterAtSchool?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlackLivesMatterAtSchool</a>, comrade in the fight to end random searches of our children in LAUSD, and courageous visionary, was elected as the first woman of color president of <a href="https://twitter.com/UTLAnow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UTLAnow</a>!<a href="https://t.co/0ln3TliQoW">https://t.co/0ln3TliQoW</a>
&mdash; #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA/status/1233818281242312704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Myart-Cruz takes over UTLA leadership duties in July, but <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-29/first-woman-of-color-elected-to-lead-la-unified-teachers-union">according</a> to the Times, the incoming president “has long been part of the union’s activist wing.”
She helped <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/los-angeles-teachers-strike-utla-organizing-solidarity/">form</a> a progressive caucus that gained control of UTLA in 2014, when she was elected as a vice president. The faction quickly changed the union from a service model to an organizing model, developing a plan that included children, parents, and local advocacy organizations.
Black Lives Matter-L.A. <a href="https://www.blmla.org/who-we-are#ourteam">describes</a> UTLA as its “partner” in a progressive coalition working on revamping public schools. The alliance functions “to advance racial justice,” promote “liberatory education,” and end “repressive practices that include the policing of our children.”
After teachers chose Myart-Cruz to be the new head of UTLA, its board of directors <a href="https://www.utla.net/news/imagine-police-free-schools-supports-students-deserve">agreed</a> to support BLM’s longtime demand to eliminate the district’s police department budget. The union argues that money should be redistributed to othpolicing of our childrener services and programs “with a particular focus on the needs of Black students.”
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UTLA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UTLA</a> Cecily Myart-Cruz speaks to crowd @ <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LAUSD?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LAUSD</a> headquarters in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LA</a> to de-fund the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Schoolpolice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Schoolpolice</a> Tuesday. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BLM?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BLM</a> <a href="https://t.co/bPXdNS5G3h">pic.twitter.com/bPXdNS5G3h</a>
&mdash; David Crane (@vidcrane) <a href="https://twitter.com/vidcrane/status/1272964502334566400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“We must dismantle white supremacy. We must dismantle racial capitalism,” Myart-Cruz <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2020/06/09/teachers-union-board-calls-for-scaling-back-school-police-at-lausd-campuses-sparking-debate/">said</a> at a June 8 rally. “And definitely, we must defund the police and bring in the mental health services our students need.”
BLM leaders <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-led-drive-to-defund-the-police-also-targets-capitalism">teach</a> that cops exist to maintain America’s capitalist social order, which in turn is the root cause of police brutality and criminalization against people of color. They say racially biased policing and capitalism are connected structures of oppression that must be dismantled.
On Tuesday, the school board <a href="https://www.laweekly.com/lausd-board-votes-against-defunding-school-police/">rejected</a> three different motions directed at changing campus law enforcement. One of the plans called for a 90% cut in funding.
The LA School Police Department is the 14th largest force in California, employing 366 sworn officers and 95 non-sworn officers. Its annual budget is $70 million. Put into perspective, the district spends about $150 million every week.
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“It’s shameful that Board members who make statements or pass motions about making Black Lives Matter in schools wouldn’t take action to do just that. They squandered this opportunity to do the right thing&#8230;” – Joseph Williams, Black Lives Matter &#8211; LA <a href="https://t.co/YrJ3uW2s6a">pic.twitter.com/YrJ3uW2s6a</a>
&mdash; United Teachers Los Angeles (@UTLAnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/UTLAnow/status/1275878034214498304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“If you all remember a couple weeks ago, people acted like…the call to defund police was a radical call,” Dr. Melina Abdullah, lead organizer of BLM-LA, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-15/defund-police-schools-case-security-guards-campus">said</a> at a joint press conference with UTLA and other labor unions. “We’re at a moment when all of a sudden, our most radical imaginings are possible. We can end the system of policing as we know it. We can defund the police. And we have to begin with our children.”
While calls to defund law enforcement agencies have recently gained momentum after the tragic death of George Floyd, BLM-LA began its drive to abolish school police several years ago. Chapter leaders launched youth activist camps and took other measures to train students to organize classmates, parents, teachers, and other faculty members.
In <a href="https://www.blmla.org/who-we-are#ourteam">2015</a>, Abdullah’s daughters co-founded the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard for children and adolescents aged 6 to 18. BLM-LA leaders also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-youth-vanguard-organizes-jeffrey-cawood">mentored</a> top organizers of another youth-centered group called the Schools LA Students Deserve. Primary objectives of both organizations have focused on ending the district’s mandatory random search policy, which activists said unfairly targeted black and brown kids.
The drive was part of an incremental BLM strategy to eradicate police from all campuses eventually. The coalition claimed a significant victory after the school board voted to stop the practice last summer. Myart-Cruz reportedly <a href="https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/lausd-students-not-suspects-searches-metal-detectors-vote-motion-stop/80001/">said</a> UTLA had negotiated on the student-activists’ behalf in a deal that had ended a six-day teachers strike in January 2019.
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TODAY WE ENDED RANDOM SEARCHES IN LAUSD SCHOOLS! Today, we disrupted the school-to-prison pipeline. Today, we made <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlackLivesMatter</a> in schools&#8230; at least a little more. Today, we proved that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhenWeFightWeWin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WhenWeFightWeWin</a>. Amazing work <a href="https://twitter.com/LA_StudentsDsrv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LA_StudentsDsrv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UTLAnow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UTLAnow</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLAYOUTH?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BLMLAYOUTH</a>!!!
&mdash; #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA/status/1141240878163537920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 19, 2019</a></blockquote>
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“This is some of the most significant work of the Black Lives Matter movement…the disruption of the school-to-prison pipeline,” Dr. Abdullah <a href="https://twitter.com/DocMellyMel/status/1141279113388404741">tweeted</a>. “Our children’s bodies and spirits will no longer be violated by those who seek to criminalize them in schools.”
UTLA helped <a href="https://www.facebook.com/YouthJusticeLA/photos/a.320299461384906.73054.269856989762487/1166651263416384/?type=3&amp;theater">organize</a> the first official BLM event inside an LA public school on September 29, 2016. Participants filled the auditorium at Dorsey High School for a rally called “Making Black Lives Matter In Schools.” The themes focused on white supremacy, police presence on campus, and ways to “transform the school system to support black students.”
“It’s about having a movement, not a moment,” Myart-Cruz, then a UTLA vice president, <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/09/29/for-first-time-black-lives-matter-event-held-at-lausd-school/">told</a> KCAL-9 News, repeating a slogan often used by Black Lives Matter activists.
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatter?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlackLivesMatter</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/YouthVanguard?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#YouthVanguard</a> takes center stage <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlackLivesMatterInSchools?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BlackLivesMatterInSchools</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/LA_StudentsDsrv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@LA_StudentsDsrv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/UTLAnow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@UTLAnow</a> <a href="https://t.co/GVBX7FBMUt">pic.twitter.com/GVBX7FBMUt</a>
&mdash; #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA/status/781651311171211265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 30, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Dr. Abdullah <a href="https://vimeo.com/185514535">led</a> students in chants, while her daughter, Thandiwe, who was 12-years-old at the time, sat on a panel that discussed topics similar to grown-up BLM themes, like a distrust of law enforcement.
“Whenever I see a cop car, when I’m leaving home for practice, I actually get mad,” said an 8th grader who was identified by BLM as a Youth Vanguard member. “I should actually feel protected whenever I see a cop,” he continued. “Instead, I feel unprotected.”
The gathering concluded outside of the auditorium after attendees <a href="https://vimeo.com/185514535">paid tribute</a> to Assata Shakur, the customary ending of official BLM events.
Shakur was part of a revolutionary extremist group called the Black Liberation Army. Among the FBI’s “<a href="https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/wanted_terrorists/joanne-deborah-chesimard">Most Wanted</a>,” Shakur escaped from prison in 1979 while serving a life sentence for the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. She is living in communist Cuba under political asylum.
Leaders in the LA School Police Department soon began to take notice of UTLA’s cozy relationship with BLM and the anti-cop sentiment that seemed to be surrounding some of their events. After several BLM activists had spoken openly about their long-term objective of abolishing the school district’s police force, officers questioned whether the teachers union shared that goal.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
If you missed the 8am broadcast, please catch “Move the Crowd” on <a href="https://t.co/ZO9cEIVNNw">https://t.co/ZO9cEIVNNw</a> at 12 noon featuring the BLMLA Youth Vanguard talking about prison and police abolition, beginning with ending random searches and police presence in schools. <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLAYOUTH?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@blmlayouth</a> @la_studentsdeserve
&mdash; #BlackLivesMatter-LA (@BLMLA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BLMLA/status/954037597063454720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2018</a></blockquote>
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“I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but the more evasive they were about it, the more suspicious we became. We’re cops,” P.J. Webb, President of the Los Angeles School Police Management Association, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-rally-causes-rift-between-jeffrey-cawood">told</a> The Daily Wire in 2018.
At the time, UTLA insisted it did not have an organizational position on the abolishment of school police, but still refused to provide the two unions that represent school police officers statements of support. However, UTLA did delete specific posts from its official social media platforms, such as a tweet that encouraged “youth of color” to organize against the “over-policing” of LA public schools.
The teachers union continued to deny that it backed BLM’s plan to abolish the school police department until earlier this month.
According to Myart-Cruz, some UTLA members <a href="https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/education/the-first-woman-of-color-set-to-run-l-a-s-teachers-union-makes-racial-justice-her-mission/44665">said</a> they would stop paying their dues after the union issued a statement in support of BLM. Still, the soon-to-be president recently proclaimed she is “proud that my union is standing up,” adding, “we have to move this conversation forward, whether you are teaching Black kids or you’re a Black educator.”
“We need to have a set of demands that dovetail with Black Lives Matter,” Myart-Cruz <a href="https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/education/the-first-woman-of-color-set-to-run-l-a-s-teachers-union-makes-racial-justice-her-mission/44665">continued</a>. “We have to have massive political education. People will say, ‘Not all police are bad,’ but we’re not talking about that. We’re talking about racism as a social construct, systemic and institutional racism, and wrapped on top is white supremacist culture, which is the dominant culture. So as educators, how are we going to equip ourselves to become anti-racist, not for ourselves but for our students. We serve a school district with a 90% free-and-reduced lunch student population. We have to move the needle. It’s imperative to move the needle around racial and social justice.”
Myart-Cruz was a <a href="https://www.dsausa.org/2019-convention-a-world-to-win/">keynote speaker</a> at the Democratic Socialists of America National Convention last August, where she said teachers should engage with students “in a way that shakes the very foundation of our nation.”
<iframe title="Cecily Myart Cruz speaks at DSA Convention 2019" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XwJ84Z_BLEw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/black-lives-matter-led-drive-to-defund-the-police-also-targets-capitalism">Black Lives Matter-Led Drive To ‘Defund The Police’ Also Targets Capitalism</a>

BLM Symbol

Black Lives Matter And Teachers Union Work As Partners To End ‘Repressive’ Policing In Schools

Black Lives Matter

Defund The Police

Los Angeles

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sounded off on Democrats in an interview published this week, calling presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a “total hypocrite” for wanting the presumption of innocence for himself but not male college students accused of sexual assault on campus.
DeVos <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-education-of-an-education-secretary">spoke</a> to my former Washington Examiner colleague Eddie Scarry and explained how the anti-gender discrimination law known as Title IX and due process was not something she thought would become the legacy-defining issue of her tenure.
“By the time I was confirmed, that was certainly high on the list,” DeVos told Scarry. “But very honestly, when I was first approached for the job, I certainly was not aware of all of the issues facing higher education” on that particular subject.
DeVos was referring to the Obama administration’s infamous 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter that introduced substantive, drastic changes to the way schools adjudicate sexual assault and sexual harassment claims on college campuses. The 2011 DCL told schools to use a lower burden of proof (50% plus a feather) to determine guilt. Statements and a 2014 Q&amp;A from the Obama administration made it clear that schools needed to find more students responsible. The previous administration also discouraged cross-examination, claiming it could re-traumatize victims.
The result was predictable, as schools rushed to find accused students responsible no matter the evidence, leading to hundreds of lawsuits from wrongly accused students who were denied a chance to defend themselves.
“It wasn’t so much the letter itself,” DeVos said of the DCL. “It was the implications of what the letter actually resulted in, and, you know, at the beginning of this process, sitting with a number of groups of individuals, of survivors who told their stories, of those who were falsely accused who told their stories, and then with college administrations and chief legal counsel and those who were charged with actually running these processes, it was heart-wrenching to hear some of the stories that I heard.”
DeVos said that she had listening sessions with affected parties, including victims and wrongfully accused students. After one of these sessions, DeVos told Scarry, “I just had to have some quiet and space just to sort of think through and reflect on what I heard.”
“It was hard. It was very difficult,” she added.
When Biden was accused this year of sexually assaulting a woman back in the early 1990s, he abandoned the “believe women” mantra, saying that claims should be heard but investigated. His new statement was a far cry different than his previous claim: “You’ve got to start out with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”
DeVos called Biden a “total hypocrite” over the change. It amounted to him wanting a separate standard for himself than he wanted for others.
“Reading the statement, I thought he could not possibly have written that himself because he can’t possibly believe what he actually released given where he was in that moment in time,” DeVos said. “A total hypocrite. Right? I mean, he was asking for what the rule has actually guaranteed for everyone, the presumption of innocence, at a time when he wanted something totally different for a 19- or 20-year-old college student. So, it’s a total hypocritical position for him to take, and I was, frankly, disgusted.”
DeVos also took a shot at the Obama administration and the way it handled education issues, such as Title IX.
“Surprising to me was when coming in just how evident it was that the previous administration had been, not only on this issue, but a host of issues, just on an epic power trip,” she said, “and were trying to inculcate every piece of their view of how culture should be into every policy of that department.”
She added that the Obama administration “clearly laid the groundwork for the #BelieveAllWomen movement,” she said, adding, “and I think you can draw a direct line from that to the whole Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process, and I don’t think that was a mistake. I think that was intentional.”
As to criticism that the new Title IX rules eviscerate undefined “survivor’s rights,” DeVos was clear.
“We do need to ensure that individuals are heard and that guilt is not presumed, but [Democrats] are trying to have it both ways,” she told Scarry. “And Joe Biden is chief among them.”
“I mean, you hear a number of people say that, well, I might believe Tara Reade, but, you know, I hate President Trump — essentially, I hate President Trump so much that I’ll look the other way. Well, what kind of an example does that set for the rising generation?” she added.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Betsy DeVos

Education Secretary: Biden A ‘Total Hypocrite’ For Presumption Of Innocence Standards, Obama Administration Was On ‘Epic Power Trip’

Joe Biden

For years I have written about the impossible situation schools are in when it comes to allegations of sexual assault. Schools have skewed their processes so far toward believing all accusers that wrongly accused students have had to sue in order to get their lives back, leading to the Trump administration issuing new guidelines requiring schools to require basic due process in their adjudications.
The problem for schools has always been that if they find an accused student guilty, and that student sues, few media outlets will cover the lawsuit. If an accuser, however, claims a school let her “rapist” walk free, she will likely receive national attention. The most famous example of this was Emma Sulkowicz, known as “Mattress Girl,” who claimed Columbia University didn’t punish the man she said rapist and was plastered all over the media and put on the cover of media, hailed as a hero. In reality, the school found the man she accused “not responsible” because the evidence was against her.
Accusers have used this threat to get schools to abandon truth, fairness, and the due process in order to find accused students responsible – to avoid bad publicity. Yet now, at Coastal Carolina University, a woman publicly accusing the university of mishandling her rape allegations has prompted the school to hold a question and answer session with interested parties to explain its adjudication process.
The woman claimed the school found her “rapist” didn’t violate Title IX even though he admitted to “not having verbal consent.” This could obviously be leaving out information, as “verbal consent” is not required if there is nonverbal consent. Perhaps the school determined nonverbal consent was given.
&#8220;Recently, conversations have taken place on social media channels regarding individual cases of alleged sexual misconduct and the outcomes of those cases in the university’s student conduct process. The university administration takes these comments very seriously, and we understand how circumstances of this nature can cause real concern,&#8221; the school said in <a href="https://www.coastal.edu/conduct/universitystatement/">a statement</a>.
CCU is no stranger to controversy surrounding its definition of consent. In 2015, I <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ever-had-drunk-sex-thats-rape-according-to-this-university">reported</a> on a poster that was seen hanging at the university that said: “Jake was drunk. Josie was drunk. Jake and Josie hooked up. Josie could NOT consent.”
At the bottom, the poster said: A woman who is intoxicated cannot give her legal consent for sex, so proceeding under these circumstances is a crime.”
The sex-discrimination should be obvious: If both students were drunk, why is only the man responsible?
At this time, CCU has made no indication that it will re-evaluate the specific case mentioned on social media, but the Q&amp;A itself still shows the school’s bias. It is hard to imagine that a male accused student who was found responsible would be able to prompt the school into holding such a session if he believed he was wrongly accused.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sad woman

Her School Didn’t Find The Man She Accused Responsible For Sexual Assault, So She Took To Social Media To Shame The School

Rape

More than 100 U.S. universities have failed to disclose foreign donations from the Chinese government, meaning the Chinese Communist Party has a bigger influence on our nation’s colleges and universities than we know.
An <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-creep-on-campus/">analysis</a> from The Washington Free Beacon found that the more than 100 universities that currently host or have hosted Confucius Institutes, which are programs developed by the Chinese government to teach American students about Chinese culture and the language.
“The Department of Education requires all credentialed universities to disclose foreign gifts of more than $250,000, but only about 30 percent of institutions with Confucius Institutes have disclosed their financial ties to Beijing, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of federal records,” the outlet reported.
The Free Beacon reached out to the 75 institutions that had Confucius Institutes but did not report funding from the Chinese government. Twenty-two institutions replied, many of them saying they didn’t need to report because they received less than $250,000 from the Chinese government. In one example, a spokesman from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville told the outlet that they didn’t have to report its 2019 foreign donations “because it received only $246,711.”
The outlet spoke to Rachelle Peterson, director of Policy at the National Association of Scholars, who said the lack of transparency from these universities was “alarming.”
&#8220;It is extremely alarming how little transparency there is,&#8221; she told the Free Beacon. &#8220;$250,000 is much too high of a threshold. Gifts of money at much smaller amounts can be very swaying over a college or university, especially the humanities [departments] which traditionally have lower funding.&#8221;
More from the Free Beacon:
<blockquote>The Chinese government has funneled millions of dollars to American universities to support more than 100 Confucius Institutes across the country. Colleges such as the University of Michigan, University of Maryland, and Emory University, which did disclose funding, have received $30.4 million in total between 2014 and 2020 for their Confucius Institutes, according federal filings.
But experts warn that the widespread failure to report the foreign funding leaves millions of dollars worth of Chinese government funding in the dark.
Policymakers and education experts alike have long warned that Confucius Institutes might be a conduit for Chinese influence on American campuses that could restrict academic freedom and promote a distorted account of Chinese history and culture that favors the Chinese Communist Party. <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/PSI%20Report%20China's%20Impact%20on%20the%20US%20Education%20System.pdf">Senate</a> and <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-401T">federal</a> investigations have corroborated some of these concerns, finding that the Chinese regime directly hires teachers for the program and prohibits them from saying anything negative about China to students.</blockquote>
This analysis from the Free Beacon comes on the heels of <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties">an investigation</a> into the National Institutes of Health, where 54 scientists have resigned or been fired for failing to disclose financial ties to foreign governments, mostly China.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

China

U.S. Universities Fail To Disclose Donations From Chinese Government

Chinese Communist Party

While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called &#8220;systemic racism.&#8221; Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.
Some of the most dangerous big cities are: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven&#8217;t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.
In 1965, there were no blacks in the U.S. Senate, nor were there any black governors. And only six members of the House of Representatives were black. As of 2019, there is far greater representation in some areas — 52 House members are black. Nine black Americans have served in the Senate, including Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama of Illinois, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California. In recent times, there have been three black state governors. The bottom line is that today&#8217;s black Americans have significant political power at all levels of government. Yet, what has that meant for a large segment of the black population?
Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets. Consider Baltimore, Maryland. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore&#8217;s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state&#8217;s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state&#8217;s English test. That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It&#8217;s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.
Violent crime and poor education is not the only problem for Democratic-controlled cities. Because of high crime, poor schools and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves. When World War II ended, the population of Washington, D.C., was about 800,000; today, it&#8217;s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore&#8217;s population was almost 950,000; today, it&#8217;s around 590,000. Detroit&#8217;s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today, it&#8217;s down to 673,000. The population of Camden, New Jersey, in 1950 was nearly 125,000; today it has fallen to 74,000. St. Louis&#8217; 1950 population was more than 856,000; today, it&#8217;s less than 294,000. A similar story of population decline can be found in most of our formerly large and prosperous cities. In some cities, the population decline since 1950 is well over 50%, and that includes Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Academic liberals, civil rights advocates and others blamed the exodus on racism — &#8220;white flight&#8221; to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don&#8217;t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people cannot wait to leave troubled cities.
White liberals and black politicians focus most of their attention on what the police do, but how relevant is that to the overall tragedy? According to Statista, this year, 172 whites and 88 blacks have died at the hands of police. To put police shootings in a bit of perspective, in Chicago alone in 2020 there have been 1,260 shootings and 256 homicides with blacks being the primary victims. That comes to one shooting victim every three hours and one homicide victim every 15 hours. Three people in Chicago have been killed by police. If one is truly concerned about black deaths, shootings by police should figure way down on one&#8217;s list — which is not to excuse bad behavior by some police officers.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

BLM protest

WILLIAMS: The True Plight Of Black Americans

African American community

Crime

Democrats

A man emailed me last week, and his email cut me to the core. He said he was really angry about the Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd deaths, but not for the reason the rest of us are. He, a black, middle-class man, lives with his wife and children on the edge of a crumbling neighborhood. They are saving to move.
He is angry because white people are suddenly realizing what he has always known, but white people are still refusing to look at the rest of the problem. White liberals who are suddenly railing about the police unions protecting police are unconcerned about teachers unions protecting teachers. His children are academically successful in a public school. He acknowledges teachers can only do so much when kids are coming in from broken families and were up all night listening to gunshots. But he also knows from his community how many of the kids could do better with better teachers.
He is angry about the failure of public schools and the unwillingness of rich white people across the political spectrum to let him use his tax dollars to send his kids to better schools. He is angry about white people talking about the violence in Chicago but taking no action and deciding that is a conversation best left &#8220;to the black community.&#8221; He is angry at the health care system for failing black communities, and he is angry at the black communities for failing themselves.
I have not lived his frustrations, but I understand them. Last week, in Chicago, violence took more deaths in the black community. Progressives want to talk about gun control. Conservatives want to talk about the collapse of families. White people generally have decided they should not talk about it, and I am unaware of prominent black voices talking about it.
Some white people look at the black community crime rates and conclude the police are doing what they are doing because of the crime rate. My black friends tell me to understand the issue — that many young black men have simply given up in a society that has not given them a chance. Families have crumbled; opportunities never came; the public schools have failed.
Teachers tell me they are frustrated because kids come into schools from broken homes. The oldest siblings are taking care of the youngest siblings because the mom has to go to work to provide for a family without a father. The teachers are angry because they are held accountable based on the results of tests taken by hungry kids whose souls are hurting.
Saying &#8220;systemic racism&#8221; is at play actually gives government too much of a pass. The failure has a lot to do with deciding a government in Washington can fix the problems of Atlanta or Chicago or Lake Charles. Then there is the failure of thinking a bunch of politicians are going to truly fix a problem when they could instead let it fester and use that to maintain power.
The organization Black Lives Matter has taken the statement of fact that black lives do matter and turned it into a progressive cause that, among other things, seeks to &#8220;disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.&#8221; It is not a Western-prescribed structure. It is a structure that works globally. It is a structure government itself decided was not necessary. It is a structure that, with its systematic collapse, has seen society crumbling around it.
My correspondent is a black father working in the middle class. His children are more academically successful than their peers from broken homes. That is not a coincidence. If we want to rebuild a more just world, we need to strengthen the two-parent nuclear household, not disrupt it. It is already disrupted and needs repair.
We need to remember the poor kids who cannot escape the teachers unions, which they&#8217;ll encounter more regularly than representatives of police unions. We need to remember the victims of violence not seen on camera. We have a lot to do, but that work is best done in our communities, not abstractly in Washington.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Mother and sons

ERICKSON: The Forgotten Ones

George Floyd

School Choice

Sonya Forte Duhé was all set to start her new job at Arizona State University as dean of the school’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, yet her job offer was rescinded after former students reached out to complain about some comments she made in the past they perceived as insensitive.
In a tweet that now has been deleted, Duhé wrote, “for the family of George Floyd, the good police officers who keep us safe, my students, faculty and staff. Praying for peace on this #BlackOutTuesday,&#8221; The Washington Free Beacon <a href="https://freebeacon.com/media/incoming-asu-journalism-dean-out-after-microaggression-complaints/">reported</a>.
This tweet, along with the complaints from former students, cemented Duhé’s fate. One former student, Whitney Woods, responded to Duhé’s tweet by claiming there was “no way in hell that black lives matter to you.” Woods added, “You are one of, if not, THE most racist human that I have ever encountered in a professional setting.&#8221; Woods <a href="https://www.statepress.com/article/2020/06/spcommunity-incoming-cronkite-dean-has-alleged-history-of-racist-homophobic-comments-toward-students">told</a> The State Press that Duhé openly liked conservative news outlets and allegedly told Woods that her hair was messy but she didn’t know the student was black because she didn’t act black.
“Not once was she, or did I ever feel like, she was a genuine POC ally,” Woods told the outlet. “She never advocated for any students of color, not a single one. She never took any of them under her wing. She never mentored them. And to have her be a dean of students in our current climate in 2020 would be a disservice to their education.”
Another student, Andrew Ketcham, who didn’t complete his degree at Duhé’s former employer, Loyola University New Orleans, because he lost his grant, claimed Duhé criticized his voice, implying it was because he was gay. “I&#8217;ll never forget her advice to me that my voice was too theatrical and that I should stick with print,” Ketcham told the Press. Ketcham also said he remembered Woods telling people about what she claimed Duhé said about her appearance.
Edward Wroten, another student, claimed Duhé would compare black and white students and suggest students of color change their looks and the way they spoke.
Zinsule Bonner told the outlet that her friend, Wroten, didn’t feel he could be himself around Duhé and that the professor would yell and make inappropriate coments. Bonner alleged that Duhé told a student to have their mole removed for television and black students not to have “natural hair.”
Hannah Gomez Farias told the outlet that she failed a presentation in Duhé’s class for not being presentable enough. Gomez Farias claimed Duhé said she “was too tan,” and didn’t wear makeup for the presentation, saying that if your hair wasn’t straight you would lose points in Duhé’s class.
In all, 23 students complained to the Press about Duhé’s behavior. In 2019, a student lodged a bias complaint against Duhé at Loyola, which was investigated. The outcome is unclear, as the report simply stated “appropriate action has been taken.” Duhé defended herself during that investigation, saying that to “accuse me of telling students of African American descent that I said to have their hair not natural is just ludicrous.”
“I do expect students to follow all professional standards of the news industry,” Duhé wrote in the report, according to the Press. “I do require my students to have professional photographs on their digital portfolios which includes appropriate attire and grooming. That is the professional standard of the news industry and one I adhere to as a journalism professor who has years of experience in the television news industry and a standard I uphold as director of our school.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Police

University Rescinds Job Offer From Incoming Journalism Dean For Calling Some Cops ‘Good’ And Alleged ‘Microaggressions’

Racism

A UCLA lecturer has reportedly been placed on leave after he rejected a student&#8217;s request to &#8220;give black students special treatment&#8221; amid racial protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes during an arrest.
The Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement that Klein&#8217;s classes &#8220;have been reassigned to other faculty&#8221; while his alleged conduct is investigated, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ucla-lecturer-leave-after-complaints-woefully-racist-response-request-postpone-n1228916">NBC News</a> reported.
The lecturer received an email from a group of students requesting the professor allow for a “‘no-harm’ final exam that could only benefit students’ grades, and for shortened exams and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects,” Inside Higher Ed <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/04/professor-resigns-after-criticizing-protesters-and-another-faces-calls-his">reported</a> last week. The students requested all of these accommodations due to recent &#8220;traumas,&#8221; explaining that &#8220;we have been placed in a position where we must choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter.&#8221;
&#8220;We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option,&#8221; the students added.
The students insisted they did not make the request as &#8220;a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students,&#8221; but rather to &#8220;ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.&#8221;
Klein responded in an email. &#8220;Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we&#8217;ve been having online classes only? Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?&#8221;
The lecturer also suggested &#8220;a white student from [Minneapolis] might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they’re racist even if they are not. My [teaching assistant is] from Minneapolis, so if you don’t know, I can probably ask her,&#8221; Higher Ed reported.
&#8220;Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the &#8216;color of their skin,'&#8221; Klein continued. &#8220;Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK&#8217;s admonition?&#8221;
The lecturer rejected the students&#8217; request.
&#8220;Klein said he was following the orders of his direct supervisor when he denied the request, saying he has in the past extended or even eliminated final exams under extraordinary circumstances, including when students had to be out of the country,&#8221; NBC News reported.
A petition on Change.org has drawn more than 20,000 signatures pushing for his firing.
&#8220;We ask for your support in having Professor Klein’s professorship terminated for his extremely insensitive, dismissive, and woefully racist response to his students’ request for empathy and compassion during a time of civil unrest,&#8221; the petition says.
Klein later said the student who requested the change to the exam was not black. &#8220;In 39 years of teaching, there are hundreds of students who can attest that I have given them compassion, encouragement and support,&#8221; he said.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, came to Klien&#8217;s defense.
&#8220;While some may disagree with Klein’s approach, his right to academic freedom encompasses the right to manage the content and direction of his course. Further, his email exchange with the student who proposed an altered schedule and grading policies, with whom Klein had a prior cordial relationship, did not amount to unlawful harassment or discriminatory conduct,&#8221; wrote Katlyn Patton, program officer, Individual Rights Defense Program and Public Records.
RELATED: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-students-want-two-professors-fired-because-they-didnt-accommodate-student-feelings">UCLA Students Want Two Professors Fired Because They Didn’t Accommodate Student Feelings</a>
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">member</a>.

New Report: Half Of Recent College Graduates Under- Or Unemployed

UCLA Professor On Leave After Denying Request That He ‘Give Black Students Special Treatment’ Amid Race Riots

Race

Earlier this month, a distinguished professor of organic chemistry at Cornell University sent two tweets relating to the current riots that have spread across the country following the police-involved death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd.
The professor, David Collum, responded to a video of police officers in Buffalo, New York, shoving an older gentleman who then stumbles backwards and falls, hitting his head on the sidewalk, resulting in visible bleeding. While many saw the incident as police brutality, Collum pointed out that the “guy needed to give that cop space,” saying it “Wasn’t brutality: the guy was feeble. The cracked skull (which I agree was the likely event) was self inflicted.” Collum also tweeted: “Can you imagine how fried these cops are at this point? The guy got a nudge. The old guy had something in his hand. Looked like maybe a taser. If [I] were a cop, my nerves would be raw. I am tired of these riots.”
Collum’s tweets weren’t that explosive, yet students at Cornell (who tried to get this same professor fired three years ago, which I’ll discuss below) want him fired for expressing his opinion outside of the classroom.
William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection (who is also a Cornell professor of law) <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/cornell-students-demand-chemistry-prof-david-collum-be-fired-for-tweeting-that-buffalo-incident-was-not-police-brutality/">reported</a> that Cornell students have started an online effort to demand Collum’s firing. “The campaign against Collum has been highly organized. It involved a Change.org petition, complaint letter templates and auto-complaint portals to flood the Cornell administration, contact information for Collum’s superiors and colleagues, suggestions that bias complaints be filed against Collum, and recommendations that Collum be contacted himself and told to resign. The graduate student organization which targeted Collum in 2017 has been involved,” Jacobson reported.
The Cornell Daily Sun, the school’s student-run newspaper, published an article about the tweets that included the discredited allegations against Collum from three years ago, which I <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/27/cornell-grad-students-charge-professor-sexism-retaliate-union-opposition/">reported</a> on for The Federalist.
Back in 2017, Collum opposed an attempt by Cornell’s graduate students to unionize. At the time, he sent an email to several hundred faculty members about the “risk” of such unionization.
“Although we must be circumspect in communications with students, I can be brutally blunt with you: I believe it will be a disaster in the long run if unionization occurs — an existential risk to Cornell’s graduate program,” Collum wrote.
Collum at the time told the Daily Sun that it was not his intention to distribute “propaganda,” but that’s how the union-supporting students saw it. Collum was even investigated after he was accused of violating the school’s Code of Conduct contract between the union and the school, but no violation was found.
When the unionization vote failed, students looked through Collum’s tweets in an apparent effort to find a reason to get him fired. They discovered tweets they used to claim Collum was a “sexist” and “transphobic” and wrote to the Daily Sun claiming Collum created a “hostile work environment,” without evidence. The students simply claimed that because of Collum’s tweets, they didn’t “feel” like they could come to him with sexual misconduct complaints.
One of the tweets allegedly damning to Collum was that he tweeted to Mike Cernovich, who has made controversial statements about campus sexual assault in the past. Collum simply asked Cernovich to write about “fake news” after Cernovich responded to a “60 Minutes” appearance. To the Cornell students looking to get Collum fired, this simple ask meant Collum must agree with everything Cernovich has ever said or tweeted. Collum was made aware of Cernovich’s past statements and deleted his tweet, something left out by graduate students angry at Collum.
At the time, Collum responded to the controversy by saying his department “provide[s] an environment that optimizes everybody’s sense of well being, happiness, and professional progress.”
“Life offers no emotionally safe spaces—statements to the contrary are a crock—but you can take actions to optimize the world around you,” Collum wrote. “The adults on campus are poised and anxious to help.”
Jacobson himself was smeared in the current anger surrounding Collum due to his defense of Collum back in 2017. Cornell students claimed Jacobson “has his own history of running starkly against campus opinion, holding a generally dismissive view towards Black Lives Matter.”
“It’s a total pile-on seeking to enforce rigid uniformity of opinion, even opinion expressed away from campus. The Cornell <a href="https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2007/08/cornells-any-person-any-study-named-best-college-motto">motto</a> of “any student … any study” has been a theme of the attacks on Collum, arguing that Collum’s tweeted words make students feel unsafe and the campus non-inclusive,” Jacobson wrote.
Jacobson also <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/07/are-the-criminal-charges-against-the-buffalo-police-officers-excessive/">cited</a> George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who explained the nuance behind the video of the Buffalo cops to which Collum referred.
“In the background, you can hear someone say ‘push him back’ as the police seek to clear the area. It is standard for police to shove back individuals as a line moves forward. The question is whether this shove constitutes not just excessive force (subject to disciplinary action) but an actual crime of assault. <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/05/martin-gugino-pushed-ground-buffalo-police-known-peaceful-man/3160820001/">An eyewitness who was highly critical of the police action is also quoted as saying that he thought the fall after the shove was &#8216;an accident.&#8217;</a> He is likely to be called to any trial and that statement would be admissible in any examination,” Turley wrote.
Further, officers did render aid to the man in the video, Martin Gugino, 75. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown also stated that Gugino was an “agitator” who had been trying to work up the crowd and was asked to leave “numerous times,” The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8394057/Buffalo-Mayor-says-75-year-old-man-shoved-ground-police-agitator.html">reported</a>.
“What we were informed of is that that individual was an agitator. He was trying to spark up the crowd of people. Those people were there into the darkness. Our concern is when it gets dark, there is a potential for violence,” Brown said, according to the Mail. “There has been vandalism, there have been fires set, there have been stores broken into and looted. According to what was reported to me, that individual was a key major instigator of people engaging in those activities.”
Collum’s tweets appear to have picked up steam after actor Kumail Nanjiani quote-tweeted his response about police brutality, which sent a rage mob Collum’s way. Collum has since protected his tweets, though he and I have followed each other since the last time Cornell students went after him. In a statement to The Daily Wire, Collum said he was “stunned by the vitriol at all levels.”
“When a mob acts in unison, the individuals have ceased thinking for themselves. It has been eye opening,&#8221; he added.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Censorship

Cornell Students Target Chemistry Professor For Tweets About Buffalo Cops

Cancel culture

Cornell University

Police Brutality

Two University of California-Los Angeles professors are under fire because they did their jobs, which upset some students.
Gordon Klein, an accounting professor, received an email from a group of students requesting the professor allow for a “‘no-harm’ final exam that could only benefit students’ grades, and for shortened exams and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects,” Inside Higher Ed <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/06/04/professor-resigns-after-criticizing-protesters-and-another-faces-calls-his">reported</a>. The students requested all of these accommodations due to recent “traumas, we have been placed in a position where we much choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter.”
“We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option,” the students added.
The students insisted they did not make the request as “a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students,” but rather to “ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.”
The students were using the May 25 police-involved death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd and the resulting riots across the country to get leniency in class. Professor Klein did not accept their arguments and responded in an email that has since gotten him in hot water with angry students.
“Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,” Klein wrote back to the students.
“Do you know the names of the classmates that are black?” he asked them. “How can I identify them since we&#8217;ve been having online classes only?”
Klein went on to ask about students who “may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian?”
“What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?” he asked.
Klein also suggested &#8220;a white student from [Minneapolis] might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they&#8217;re racist even if they are not. My TA is from Minneapolis, so if you don&#8217;t know, I can probably ask her.”
Klein ended his email with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. about not evaluating people based on the color of their skin.
Klein also sent a second email to all students saying he understood that some students may have experienced hardship from “the coronavirus health issue of a loved one to emotional stress of recent social tragedies.”
He shared the story of his own daughter who struggled at UCLA, but suggested students be more like his daughter and persevere.
Another UCLA professor, political science lecturer W. Ajax Peris, is receiving calls for his resignation because he read aloud MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which included the n-word. As The Federalist <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/09/ucla-students-demand-two-professors-be-fired-for-doing-their-job/">reported</a>, students “hearing a white lecturer read the n-word from a letter written by a jailed civil rights leader and watching lynching imagery made them feel so ‘uncomfortable,’ they asked Peris to stop.” He apologized for causing “discomfort,” but continued teaching. UCLA’s Political Science Department condemned Peris for failing to “meet the students’ needs” and referred him for a discrimination investigation.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Sunset over Royce Hall

UCLA Students Want Two Professors Fired Because They Didn’t Accommodate Student Feelings

Los Angeles (UCLA)

A wrongly accused male student just received a reprieve from the Court of Appeal of the State of California, which ruled the University of Southern California must vacate the student’s suspension after he was put through a biased and “unfair” adjudication process.
It was January 21, 2017, when USC kicker Matt Boermeester and his girlfriend Zoe Katz, also a USC student, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/08/24/couple-says-horse-play-university-suspends-male-assault-wont-release-surveillance-video/">returned to Kat’s apartment</a> complex after a trip to McDonalds. The two, according to their own statements, began horsing around in the parking lot and alley outside Katz’s apartment, including throwing fries at each other and laughing loudly. Their rough housing woke up another USC student who lived in the complex and later claimed he heard screaming and saw Bowermeester pinning Katz against a wall by her neck. Another neighbor claimed the couple was arguing.
When the couple entered Katz’s apartment, the first witness called Katz into his room and, along with his roommate, said they were worried about her safety. Katz told them she was fine and showed no signs of distress. The next day, however, the roommate’s father, the USC Men’s tennis coach, reported the incident to USC’s Title IX office, which handles claims of sexual misconduct. As I originally reported at The Federalist, “this allegation of violence came not from the alleged victim (who denies this ever happened), but the roommate of a third-party non-witness, and was reported to the administration by yet another person.”
Katz was called into the Title IX office and told the coordinators that she had not been attacked and that what was reported was wrong. She later claimed the Title IX coordinators told her: “I’m sorry that you feel that way.” Katz said she was treated as though she were a victim with battered wife syndrome and wouldn’t accept her claims that nothing nefarious had happened. She would later tweet that the stories being printed about her and Boermeester were “false.” Her attorney, Kerry Steigerwalt later said Katz was threatened by the school and told: “You’re jeopardizing and interfering with an ongoing investigation. You do that again, there could be consequences for you. Don’t ever tweet anything like that again.”
Months later, Katz released a formal statement saying she was “afraid of USC’s Title IX office” and hoped it wouldn’t “further retaliate against me in any way.” She also made clear in the statement that Boermeester never abused her, yet he was suspended anyway.
After Boermeester retained attorney Mark Hathaway, he and Katz began demanding USC release security footage from the night in question, which the couple says corroborates that no attack occurred.
An appeals court judge has now sided with Boermeester, ruling that USC did not provide the student a fair hearing by denying him cross-examination and slanting the process against him from the beginning. Author and professor K.C. Johnson <a href="https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/boermeester-v-usc-appellate-decision.pdf">published</a> the ruling along with a tweet thread about its highlights.
“We conclude USC’s disciplinary procedures at the time were unfair because they denied Boermeester a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine critical witnesses at an in-person hearing,” the judge ruled, though it denied Boermeester’s claim that he deserved a hearing before an interim punishment had been given.
“A university must balance its desire to protect victims of sexual misconduct with an accused’s need to adequately defend himself or herself,” the ruling said.
“In a case such as this one, where a student faces a severe sanction in a disciplinary proceeding and the university’s decision depends on witness credibility, the accused student must be afforded an in-person hearing in which he may cross-examine critical witnesses to ensure the adjudicator has the ability to observe the witnesses’ demeanor and properly decide credibility,” the ruling added.
The court demanded USC vacate the ruling against Boermeester and that if it brings disciplinary charges against him again, it must afford him the ability to cross-examine witnesses at an “in-person” hearing, which doesn’t necessarily mean being in their physical presence.
“We are very pleased that the Court of Appeal has again recognized that accused students under Title IX must have a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine critical witnesses at an in-person hearing,”  said Mark Hathaway, Matt Boermeester’s attorney, in a statement to The Daily Wire.  “The security video shows Matt and Zoe clowning around in the ally and celebrating, but the USC Title IX office misrepresented the video and relied on a statement from a witness who changed his testimony by voice mail.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Couple feet

She Said She Wasn’t A Victim But The School Suspended Her Boyfriend For Assault. A Court Ruled The Adjudication Was ‘Unfair.’

false accusations

Sexual Abuse

University of Southern California

University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) professor of dentistry Kang Eric Ting testified against a dean in a sexual harassment case back in 2018. After that, Ting alleges, the dean tried to get his accuser to file a false harassment claim against the professor. When the woman refused, the dean filed the false claim on her behalf.
The College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/ucla-official-filed-false-title-ix-complaint-on-behalf-of-student-who-refused-to-accuse-professor-lawsuit/">reported</a> that Ting “put a target on his back” when he testified against Senior Associate Dean Sotirios Tetradis. The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, reviewed documents related to the case and <a href="https://dailybruin.com/2020/05/27/dentistry-professor-sues-uc-for-alleged-retaliation-following-title-ix-testimony/">reported</a> on the lawsuit that Ting has since filed against the university.
Ting filed his lawsuit this week, alleging he was the victim of retaliatory abuse after testifying against Tetradis. The first retaliation came when Ting was removed as the chair of the Section of Orthodontics, the Bruin reported. Ting said in his lawsuit that he was already in the crosshairs of department leaders after he requested a leave of absence in 2017 to travel back to Taiwan to care for his sick father.
Ting isn’t the only one who has filed a lawsuit against the school over this incident. Justine Tanjaya, the woman who filed the complaint against dean Tetradis, also filed a lawsuit against the dean and the university. In her lawsuit, Tanjaya claimed dean Tetradis tried to get her to file a false Title IX complaint against Ting. She refused. She said Tetradis made the false claim anyway – on her behalf. Ting was Tanjaya’s mentor, since she was a doctoral student in the UCLA School of Dentistry.
It is unclear what Tanjaya alleged Tetradis had done to sexually harass her.
Ting alleged this false allegation from Tetradis delayed his leave of absence by six weeks.
Ting, in his lawsuit, also named UCLA School of Dentistry Dean Paul Krebsbach and four other professors who served as interim replacements for the professor. Ting alleged that he suffered mentally and physically from the retaliation by Tetradis and Krebsbach, developing “insomnia, anxiety, depression, a stomach ulcer and gastrointestinal issues, the last of which required a gastrointestinal tract procedure,” the Bruin reported. Ting claimed UCLA questioned his medical leave requests. Ting would eventually file a Title IX discrimination complaint alleging the university was ignoring his health issues. He filed other grievances as well, which were all denied by UCLA’s Academic Senate.
Ting then filed complaints with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which granted him a right to sue in December 2019. Ting filed his first DFEH complaint in August 2018 and a second in late 2019. Tanjaya filed her sexual harassment complaint against Tetradis in June 2018 and her lawsuit against him and the university in April 2019. Ting began filing grievances with UCLA in 2018.
UCLA did not respond to a comment request by the Bruin.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

UCLA

UCLA Professor Testified Against Dean In Sexual Harassment Case. The Dean Filed A False Title IX Complaint On Behalf Of HIS Accuser To Frame Professor.

Sexual Harassment

A recently released poll from <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/05/26/coronavirus-schools-teachers-poll-ipsos-parents-fall-online/5254729002/">USA Today/Ipsos</a> shows that as many as 18% of teachers in the United States might not be ready to return to school in the fall should they reopen.
The survey of 505 kindergarten through high school teachers was taken May 18-21, and has a credibility interval of 5 points.
The survey asked: “If your school was to reopen and implement social distancing guidelines, how likely are the following?”
18% of teachers said “I would not return to teaching.”
Broken down further, a full 6% of teachers surveyed said they “very likely” wouldn’t return, and 13% were slightly less certain, saying that it is “somewhat likely” they would not return.
A supermajority of teachers, 69%, indicated that they would likely return to schools in the fall if social distancing guidelines were implemented. 26% of respondents said it’s “not very likely” that they wouldn’t return, and 43% said it’s “not at all likely” that they wouldn’t return.
12% “don’t know.”
The survey also asked about a series of “measures” pertaining to schools reopening, and how teachers feel about those measures: “Would you support or oppose the following measures if schools in your area implemented them this fall?”
The most popular option with 69% support was “returning to school 2-3 days a week, with distance learning on the other days.” 20% “strongly support” this idea while 10% “strongly oppose.” 49% “somewhat support” and 17% “somewhat oppose.”
In second place with 65% support would be “high-risk” teachers “continuing to teach online while low-risk teachers teach in person.” 20% “strongly support” this measure while 8% “strongly oppose.” 44% “somewhat support” and 18% “somewhat oppose.”
In third with 57% was simply a return to school “five days a week.” 24% “strongly support” that idea while 11% “strongly oppose.” 33% “somewhat support” and 24% “somewhat oppose.”
49% of those surveyed said that they support the idea of “students and teachers returning to school before there is a coronavirus vaccine.” 13% “strongly support” the idea while 14% “strongly oppose.” 36% “somewhat support” and 26% “somewhat oppose.”
Only 34% agreed with adjusting the school year timeline to begin earlier and end later.
USA Today/Ipsos also <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/05/26/coronavirus-schools-teachers-poll-ipsos-parents-fall-online/5254729002/">surveyed parents</a>.
As numerous states begin their reopening phases, and all eyes look toward the fall and the reopening of schools, there are differing ideas regarding how to move ahead. As a vaccine timeline remains unclear, personal mitigation and sanitation appear to be some of the only options that could allow Americans to begin again in earnest.
Clearly, as shown in the USA Today/Ipsos survey, teachers are just as unsure as it pertains to reopening, as well as the best ways to do so safely.
COVID-19 has infected over 5.9 million people worldwide, and led to more than 357,900 deaths, <a href="https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6">according to data</a> from the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) Global Cases map. Over 2.3 million people have recovered.
In the United States, there have been more than 1.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and over 101,000 deaths. As of publication, 391,508 individuals have recovered from the virus.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Teacher

POLL: 18% Of Teachers ‘Would Not Return’ If Schools Open In The Fall With Social Distancing

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Teachers

Black politicians, civil rights leaders and their white liberal advocates have little or no interest in doing anything effective to deal with what&#8217;s no less than an education crisis among black students. In city after city with large black populations, such as Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., less than 10% of students test proficient in reading and math. For example, in 2016, in 13 Baltimore high schools, not a single student tested proficient in math. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Citywide, only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state&#8217;s English test. Despite these academic deficiencies, about 70% of the students graduate and are conferred a high school diploma.
Ballou High School is in Washington, D.C. Five percent of its students test proficient in reading and 1% test proficient in math. In 2017, all 189 students in Ballou High School&#8217;s senior class applied to college. All 189 members of the graduating class of 2017 were accepted to universities. In November 2017, an investigation showed that half of Ballou&#8217;s 2017 graduates had more than three months of unexcused absences. One in five of the graduating class was absent more than present, therefore missing more than 90 days of school.
Examples of academic underachievement can be seen at predominantly black public schools across the nation, but that&#8217;s only part of the story. The strangest part of this is that poor academic performance is accepted and tolerated by black politicians, civil rights organizations and white liberals. Poor performance is often blamed on finances; however, the poorest performing schools have the highest per pupil spending. New York, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore rank among the nation&#8217;s highest in per pupil educational spending.
The underachievement story is compounded by the gross dishonesty of colleges that admit many of these students. I cannot imagine that students who are not proficient in reading and math can do real college work. In a futile attempt to make up for 12 years of rotten education, colleges put these students in remedial courses. They also design courses with little or no true academic content. Colleges have their own agendas. They want the money that comes from admitting these students. Also, they want to make their diversity and multiculturalism administrators happy.
Poor black education is not preordained. Dr. Thomas Sowell has examined schools in New York City and student performance on the NY State English Language Arts Test in 2016-17. Thirty percent of Brooklyn&#8217;s William Floyd elementary school third graders scored well below proficient in English and language arts, but at Success Academy charter school in the same building, only one did. At William Floyd, 36% were below proficient, with 24% being proficient and none testing above proficient. By contrast, at Success Academy, only 17% of third graders were below proficient, with 70% being proficient and 11% being above proficient. Among Success Academy&#8217;s fourth graders, 51% and 43%, respectively, scored proficient and above proficient, while their William Floyd counterparts scored 23% and 6%, respectively. Similar high performance can be found in some other Manhattan charter schools such as KIPP Infinity Middle School.
Liberals tell us that racial integration is a necessary condition for black academic excellence. Public charter schools such as those mentioned above belie that vision. Sowell points out that only 39% of students in all New York state schools who were recently tested scored at the &#8220;proficient&#8221; level in math, but 100% of the students at the Crown Heights Success Academy tested proficient where blacks and Hispanics constitute 90% of the student body.
There&#8217;s little question that many charter schools provide superior educational opportunities for black youngsters. The New York Times wrote, &#8220;Over 100,000 students in hundreds of the city&#8217;s charter schools are doing well on state tests, and tens of thousands of children are on waiting lists for spots.&#8221; But here&#8217;s New York Mayor Bill de Blasio&#8217;s take on charter schools, expressing the interests of the education establishment: &#8220;Get away from high-stakes testing, get away from charter schools. No federal funding for charter schools.&#8221;
Black people cannot afford to buy into any attack on education alternatives. Charter schools across the nation offer a way out of the educational abyss.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

Kid raising hand

WILLIAMS: Rotten Education Isn’t Preordained

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has continued her reign as one of the most hypocritical alleged feminists in all of politics.
During a recent interview with radio host Evan Dawson, Gillibrand was asked about the differences between the allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and those against de facto Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Gillibrand offered an answer full of misrepresentations about the allegations against Kavanaugh.
“There were multiple allegations against Brett Kavanaugh in various circumstances. Not only Dr. Blasey Ford’s allegations but several from his college days. Um, there was a similarity in the multiple allegations against him,” she told Dawson, who hosts a program called “Connections.” “Um, and he had a terrible record on supporting women and I opposed him based on his actual record and I did not believe his statements and so I think they’re very different. Also, Brett Kavanaugh was a Supreme Court Justice nominee for a lifetime appointment and my responsibility was to vote up or down and I voted against him on the merits of him not being qualified for that job.”
That’s a lot to unpack. There were multiple allegations against Kavanaugh, but they were all dubious. Some were flat out false. Ford couldn’t even remember the year the alleged sexual assault happened. She said she was in high school at the time, so it should have been easy to narrow down the year, yet she never could, alternating between the mid 80s to the early 80s. The people she named as being witnesses either couldn’t recall the event or denied it ever happened. Her own best friend said she couldn’t remember ever meeting Kavanaugh. Ford and her legal team then set the media on the old friend, accusing her of mental problems.
And there were not “several” allegations from Kavanaugh’s college days. There was one, which was also dubious. The woman didn’t even come to believe Kavanaugh was the one who exposed his penis to her at a dorm-room party until after she talked to Democrat lawyers. Another allegation from Kavanaugh’s college days came not from someone claiming to be a victim, but someone who claimed to have seen someone else push Kavanaugh’s penis toward a woman. That woman said she didn’t recall any such event.
There was also no similarity in the allegations. Gillibrand is an attorney, she should know what it takes for allegations to be considered similar. One allegation alleged Kavanaugh pushed a woman on a bed and groped her. Another said he dropped his pants and exposed his penis to a woman. Another said his penis was put into another woman’s hand by a third party. One of the false accusations said he organized teenage gang-rape parties. Another false accusation said he raped someone in a van.
Gillibrand’s claim about Kavanaugh not supporting women is purely political. He doesn’t support women the way she thinks he should, but her statement also makes it seem like it’s okay to sexually assault women so long as you adequately “support” them in their career. This applies to her endorsement of Biden. He may have been accused, but he’s passed policies that Gillibrand likes, so he can’t possibly be guilty. Never mind the fact there’s actual evidence that Biden met his accuser while there is exactly zero evidence Kavanaugh ever met Ford.
Gillibrand then claimed she actually voted against Kavanaugh because she didn’t think he was qualified for the job, but here’s what she said during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing:
“Do we value women in this country? Do we listen to women when they tell us about sexual trauma? Do we listen to their stories about how their lives have been forever scarred? Do we take their claims seriously? Or do we just disbelieve them as a matter of course?”
Of course, Gillibrand only meant those words as they applied to Kavanaugh, as Lara Trump – wife of President Donald Trump’s son Eric – <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/5-top-dem-women-slammed-kavanaugh-back-biden-lara-trump.amp?__twitter_impression=true">noted</a>, the New York senator now thinks differently.
“She has come forward, she has spoken, and they have done an investigation in several outlets. Those investigations, Vice President Biden has called for himself,” Gillibrand said. “Vice President Biden has vehemently denied these allegations and I support Vice President Biden.”
Gillibrand was next asked about policies from the Department of Education that would provide college students with basic due process protections in cases of alleged sexual misconduct.
Naturally, Gillibrand trashed the policies, instantly going back to favoring allegations over evidence.
“Well, I think Betsy DeVos has been a disastrous Secretary of Education and she has intended since the minute she had that position to roll back protections for students on campus and to roll back Title IX protections. She has undermined the ability for anyone to get fair justice or a fair review on any college campus and I think it’s a big mistake. Um, so I look forward to when Betsy DeVos is no longer our Ed. Secretary,” Gillibrand said.
More to unpack.
First, DeVos didn’t enter the position wanting to “roll back protections.” She learned of the due process problems after she was confirmed and was so moved by the issue that she decided to act. She listened to accusers and accused students and determined the current policies on campus are inadequate. Gillibrand and her ilk claim that these policies “roll back protections” but they don’t. They add constitutional protections for accused students that were missing in the ”believe women” movement adopted by college campuses. Giving accused students the ability to see the evidence against them and cross-examine their accuser and witnesses – basic tenants of the American justice system – does not “roll back protections” for accusers.
It is Gillibrand who “undermined the ability for anyone to get fair justice or a fair review” in these cases. She nurtured a culture where women were told to believe that non-criminal activity amounted to sexual assault and to see themselves as victims. She made sure colleges ignored due process and evidence of innocence out of fear they would receive an onslaught of negative publicity if they didn’t throw out an accused student. Look at the case of “Mattress Girl” Emma Sulkowitz, who had no evidence to support her claims of rape and actually had evidence to the contrary – that the sex was consensual – yet became a national heroine to the media for claiming her “rapist” wasn’t removed from campus.
Accused students couldn’t get “fair justice or a fair review” when colleges actively dismissed exculpatory evidence and allowed accusers to avoid having to produce evidence of their claims. In the end, findings of responsibility ended up not being believed – something that harmed accusers as well.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Kirsten Gillibrand

Kirsten Gillibrand Asked About Biden Allegations, Trashes Education Department And Due Process

For years, accused students have been at a disadvantage due to the hiding of materials used to train Title IX adjudicators. During lawsuits, accused students are rarely able to obtain the training materials that would show supposedly neutral investigators were actually trained to believe accusers and not the accused.
When those materials were obtained, they showed that Title IX investigators tasked with looking into claims of student-on-student sexual assault were trained to believe that women rarely, if ever, lie about sexual assault. Training materials include the misleading and biased statistic that just 2% of sexual assault allegations are false, which would naturally give investigators the idea that they would be wise to believe the accusation no matter what the evidence suggests, because more than nine times out of 10, they would be right.
As I have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lies-damned-lies-and-campus-sexual-assault-ashe-schow">reported</a> numerous times, the statistic that very few sexual assault allegations are false is simply incorrect. The truth is that we don’t know how many are really false. The 2% to 10% figure only refers to allegations that were proven false and classified by police as such. Using this same logic, one could say just 2% to 3% are true, since that’s how many allegations lead to an arrest, trial, and guilty verdict.
Further, the statistic applies to police reports. College campuses have a much lower bar and a far higher incentive to find for the accuser no matter the evidence, meaning false accusations are likely to be he higher, since they can be used to get a man kicked off campus quite easily.
Title IX training materials that have been released also show schools using the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/junk-science-behind-trauma-informed-investigations-ashe-schow">scientifically unsound</a> “trauma-informed” technique, which teaches adjudicators that classic signs of lying are actually signs of trauma and the truth. For example, trauma-informed training says that women who change their stories about their allegations, or who continue to send friendly and loving messages to their alleged attacker are actually traumatized and trying to process what happened to them.
The training materials and policies developed for the University of Texas System, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/victim-centered-sex-assault-investigations-designed-to-railroad-accused">for example</a>, told investigators to “anticipate” and “counter” defense strategies, rather than simply investigate the facts of the case. School police officers were instructed not to write down detailed reports from multiple interviews with accusers and witnesses, so that the defending student can’t point to inconsistencies in the claims.
When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos introduced new Title IX rules for schools that required them to provide much needed due process to students, the Association of Title IX Administrators (ATIXA), which produces most of the training materials used by colleges (for a hefty price) instructed schools not to post those materials, citing copyright laws.
DeVos has now published the official Title IX guidance, and has altered the section about training materials:
<ul>
<li>All materials used to train Title IX personnel:
<ul>
<li>Must not rely on sex stereotypes,</li>
<li>Must promote impartial investigations and adjudications of formal complaints of sexual harassment,</li>
<li>Must be maintained by the school for at least 7 years,</li>
<li>Must be publicly available on the school’s website; if the school does not maintain a website the school must make the training materials available upon request for inspection by members of the public.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
Schools must post their training materials. Not doing so would run afoul of the federal government (though many schools will likely flout the new regulations anyway without any political consequences due to media support and the #MeToo movement). Schools will no longer be able to use copyrighted training materials if they can’t post them on their website.
Accused students still have a long road ahead of them before schools and the culture accepts that just because someone is accused doesn’t mean they’re guilty. We’re now taught that accusations are fact (unless you accuse a Democrat) and that if schools don’t punish the accused, even if evidence suggests he is innocent, bad publicity will surely follow.
DeVos’ rules, however, take a big step toward correcting this injustice.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

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Education

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Colleges To Increase Tuition While Cutting Amenities And In-Person Teaching

Virginia College Reconsidering Wasp Mascot – A Literal Insect – Because Of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Acronym

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University Rescinds Job Offer From Incoming Journalism Dean For Calling Some Cops ‘Good’ And Alleged ‘Microaggressions’

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